The four loves: home and county.

One of the four loves that Lewis talked about — the others are friendship (philia), romantic love (eros), and the self-sacrificing love that puts others first (agape) is that of your county.

I said county, not country.

A county is the area you were born in, raised in: its folkways and byways. For me, it is South Auckland, an area that has disappeared: most of the country roads I trained on as a young man are now part of an ever-expanding Auckland.

What Bonald is talking about here is in part being Catholic. His love for Catholicism is a bit like my love of the Book of Order: some of it is emotional, some is the familiar, some of it is a love of what is old, firm, unchanging, traditional, and relates to that which should be conserved.

And, usually, things progressivists hate.

Nowadays, “tribalism” is a term of abuse. Loyalty is seen as an emotional defect that interferes with justice. Our ideal would be man who would judge a case between his father and an enemy of the family with complete impartiality, a man who would weigh criticism from an enemy exactly the same as if it had come from a proven friend and ally, a man who esteems his people and other peoples according to an impartial standard of merit. Such a man is indeed admirable in a way, but who would want him for a friend, a brother, or a son?

I am that thing that nobody wants to admit being–a tribal Christian. That is, I have a sense of loyalty to my groups of people–Catholics, Christians, Westerners–and not just to God and doctrines about Him. I feel most intensely protective toward Catholic Christendom of course, but I also feel a strong connection to the Protestants and even the pagan Romans, for the edges of my civilization are hazily drawn.

A want to talk about my loyalty now, rather than my faith. The truth of the Catholic faith is, of course, a claim of objective epistemic superiority. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t love my people for being right. I just love them. I wasn’t reasoned into it, and can’t be reasoned out. I’m sure that if I got into a debate with a Jew over the proposition that my people are nothing but criminals, I’d lose badly. So much the worse for his moral system; my loyalty to my people is not something I’m willing to reconsider.

Love shines forth more clearly when claims of objective superiority aren’t even made. When I think of Western civilization, I don’t think about any particular grand principle, scientific theory, technology, artistic masterpiece, or organizational form we’ve given the world. To the extent these really have objective merit, they don’t really belong to us, but to all peoples. When I think of Western civilization, I’m thinking of the charming quirks of our cultural landscape: brides in white dresses, haunted cemeteries, golden-haired princesses in need of rescue, that sort of thing. There’s nothing better about our dress, our folklore, or the beauty of our women that others should copy; that’s what makes these things ours.

Yes, there is one thing. It is ours. I am, for better or worse, a New Zealander. The colour of our teams is not blue, or red, or white, but black. I resonate to the native trees of New Zealand, to the Kauri, not the Oak. My soul sings with the antiphon of evensong, to the music of Elgar (and the Pogues) and my family has a heritage of faith that is Anglican on one side and Presbyterian on the other. I was raised Presbyterian, and stay there for the superiority of their approach to theology — and because the Anglicans have turned from the two great achievements of the Elizabethans before Cromwell: the King James Version and the Book of Common Prayer. When the Presbyterians turn from the great achievement of the Cromwellian revolution — the Westminster confession of faith and book of order — I will find a faithful congregation, but praise God that is not yet.

This love of the county combines into peoples, Volk (the German word is better than Folk because it includes high culture) and the Orthodox are smart enough to allow for people to love their nation and traditions while being grafted deeply into their theology. Scott reflects Bonald here, from the other side of the Aegean.

As America goes, so will all the institutions that arose within her belly. How can they not? As she turns her back on everything that made her what she is, how can she bring herself to care enough to project her values into the future via subsequent generations?

I thank God my father gave me the Byzantine rite before I was even verbal. He may not have known it then, but he gave me the life line–the connection I would need to preserve my family, and the ancient faith it would need to survive through a most tumultuous future that is looking pretty grim.

It is the same reason I believe the trend of increasing size for the traditionalist Catholic groups (like SSPX, etc) will continue while other churches, lost in a sea of endless subjectivism and “re-inventing” themselves will continue to decline. The Roman Catholic church continues to lose members while traditionalist groups are growing.

The Slava celebration we had in our home yesterday is 1300 years old. My children will grow up with it, and will never know anything different. (My wife pointed out to me how comforting that is at the end of the day yesterday). They will remember the smell of the Slava bread being baked the night before. They will remember the story of how important St George is to our family. It will connect them to deeply religious Christian, ethnically Serbian ancestors and future generations.

We lose the love of county, of traditions, at our peril. We need the connection to previous generations: the past is indeed another country, and reflecting on what happened then may inform us of our errors. Or, (using two clichés in paragraph) we will be ignorant of history and repeat it.

Whatever cultural capital those artistic forefathers had—in the form of education, training, familiarity with the traditions and methods of their given craft—is going to atrophy away. There are examples of this generational decay wherever artists begin to emphasize the propagation of the message over the perfection of the medium. Guernica might not be your cup of tea, but it’s leagues better than the kind of “abstract art” you find hanging in coffee shops today. By the same token, I don’t think Frida Kahlo quite the genius she’s billed as, but she’s still several rungs higher than used menstrual pads on the grand hierarchy of feminist art. Most any MFA program in the country will evidence this decay. Since modern artists began conceiving of themselves primarily as social commentators, they ceased to become artists. Because ultimately it doesn’t take a lot of aesthetic sophistication to make that sort of commentary. Take it from me. I’m producing this social commentary right now in cargo shorts and sneakers.

Locally, the elite are trying to replace our flag. Either with the silver fern — which has been used as a symbol in NZ since the Treaty, and is the Antipodean equivalent of the Maple Leaf, or with something horrible.

Despite polls showing (if you can trust the polls: they have been inaccurate in the last few elections) that the majority of Kiwis are happy with the flag. But that which connects us to our traditions must be lost. So we can become new progressive men.

And as if the Soviets did not try that, and fail. The Russians are now rediscovering what it is to be Russian: and here the Orthodox church held the much of the cultural capital for them.

In a better ge, one can look to artists and poets: for they had faith and they reflected not just the time and place they were in, but tried to make things for the glory of God. Now, the elite have trashed these things. So hold to that which our forefathers had, and mourn the heights our society has left.

For we have fallen.