Yesterday I had a very long conversation with my son. It started with the idea of shunning. Going to Coventry. Not speaking to those who break the rules of society.

For the rules of society are not its laws. Consider prostitution. This is legal in NZ. But a woman who works in the sex trade cuts herself off from the general society. The average woman does not want anything to do with her, and disavows any sexual behaviour (such as going on dates for food) that is akin to this. She does not want brothels in her neighbourhood. Since she has been taught that it is not acceptable to damn (again, this is a local unwritten rule) she uses the acceptable means of shaming — she says this has to happen to protect the children. Again, if you make Porn you are likely to be sacked if you teach school. As a consequence, most sex workers honour the 11th commandment “Thou shalt not get caught”.

As part of this we considered the qualities required to have a functional society. We came up with three, and their converse quality. I guess you could say that these things are on a dialectical continuum if you have read too much Hegel, but I’m not that smart: I think of them as two sides of a coin.

We had a long discussion about the placement of Hatred. We decided that it was somewhere on this as a motivator to do positive things and shun the bad. As St Isiah the Solitary wrote in the Philokalia

There is among the passions an anger of the intellect, and this anger is in accordance with nature. Without anger a man cannot attain purity: he has to feel angry with all that is sown in him by the enemy. When Job felt this anger he reviled his enemies, calling them “dishonorable men of no repute, lacking everything good, whom I would not consider fit to live with the dogs that guard my flocks’ (cf Job 30:1, 4. LXX). He who wishes to acquire the anger that is in accordance with nature must uproot all self-will, until he establishes within himself
the state natural to the intellect.

If you find yourself hating your fellow men and resist this hatred, and you see that it grows weak and withdraws, do not rejoice in your heart; for this withdrawal is a trick of the evil spirits. They are preparing a second attack worse than the first; they have left their troops behind the city and ordered them to remain there. If you go out to attack them, they will flee before you in weakness. But if your heart is then elated because you have driven them away, and you leave the city, some of them will attack you from the rear while the rest will stand their ground in front of you; and your wretched soul will be caught between them with no means of
escape. The city is prayer. Resistance is rebuttal through Christ Jesus. The foundation is censive power.

Let us stand firm in the fear of God, rigorously practicing the virtues and not giving our conscience cause to stumble. In the fear of God let us keep our attention fixed within ourselves, until our conscience achieves its freedom. Then there will be a union between it and us, and thereafter it will be our guardian, showing us each thing that we must uproot.

But if we do not obey our conscience, it will abandon us and we shall fall into the hands of our enemies, who will never let us go. This is what our Lord taught us when He said: ‘Come to an agreement with your adversary quickly while you are with him in the road, lest he hand you over to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer and you are cast into prison (Matt. 5:25). The conscience is called an ‘adversary’ because it opposes us when we wish to carry out the desires of our flesh; and if we do not listen to our conscience, it delivers us into the hands of our enemies. 4. If God sees that the intellect has entirely submitted to Him and puts its hope in Him alone. He strengthens it, saying: ‘Have no fear Jacob my son, my little Israel” (Isa. 41:14. LXX), and: ‘Have no fear: for I have delivered you, I have called you by My name; you are Mine. If you pass through water, I shall be with you, and the rivers will not drown you. If you go through fire, you will not be burnt, and the names will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, who saves you’ (cf . Isa. 43:1-3. LXX).

It is worthwhile noting that St Isiah, like Paul, Augustine and James, argues from nature. They say that there is a natural, and functional way of doing things. My triad of Duty, Honour and Love is not new: the Romans talked about Dignitas (serious mindedness) and Virtuus (the disciplines required to do one’s duty). They mistrusted love, because that was a Greek perversion (they damned those who enjoyed it).

But we have rejected this. Aaron Clarey wrote how this happens yesterday, and I completely agree with what he is saying. People do not like shame, and therefore they want it to be legislated or regulated out of existence.

A lot of times people just don’t obey laws (criminals) and even when they do obey laws, they may not be moral. In other words laws prohibit bad behavior, but can not compel good or moral behavior. So while I may not murder somebody, law doesn’t prevent me from racking up more credit card debt than I can afford or standing somebody up for a date.

However, society did have a tool that picked up where laws left off – shame.

Though not codified or written down, society had their own set of unspoken rules or laws called “standards” and if you violated these social standards you would be shamed and scorned. This shame would compel you to behave appropriately and was a vital and necessary component of society in order for it to survive and succeed.

However, shame is very interesting in that it’s very much like “paying taxes” or “having to work for a living.” It’s a fact of life nobody likes. You step out of line you may not go to jail, but you will be shamed by society. Therefore, you don’t get to do whatever you want to do all willy nilly. However, also like paying taxes and having to work for a living, shame can be used as a political tool. Specifically, when it comes to a democracy, an amoral political party can ignore the importance shame plays in society, capitalize on childish-mentalities of the lesser members of the electorate, and promise a world with no shame.

You don’t want to work? Fine! We’ll tax other undeserving people to finance your life. You don’t want to pay taxes? Fine! We’ll make a villainized group pay them for you! You don’t want shame? Fine! We’ll launch an all out assault on traditional historical standards, the country’s historical culture, and institute moral relativism.

In short, promising the electorate the elimination of shame is nothing more than bribing them.

Accepting bribes, by the way, subverts duty, besmirches honour, and denies love. The idea of removing shame, guilt and fear has consequences. Consider this comment from Dalrock about why men are now grass-eaters. He argues that it is not in the economic interests of men to commit to a family. (This also answers one of my son’s other questions: why are we in a depression? Well, it’s not in my interests to increase my income, Nor is it for any men when families are now matriarchal).

The long term danger here is obvious. The more women delay, avoid, and abuse marriage the less men will be willing to generate the surplus economic output our economy depends on. Instead of being the economic powerhouse of the west, men disenfranchised from fatherhood will more and more decide to enjoy the decline. This reduction in economic output will coincide with the massive increases in social costs caused by fatherless children and comes at a time when governments are already running out of options. If we want to stem this vicious cycle we will ultimately have no choice but to return to a marriage based family structure. Right now this is politically unthinkable, as both the left and the right are deeply invested in the child support model of family organization. However, the more we experience the true costs of this model the more the folly of this path will become undeniable. True hardship has a way of making the right choice suddenly clear, so it is still possible that we will ultimately return to a marriage based family structure. In the meantime social scientists will remain baffled and hundreds of millions of children will continue to suffer.

I’d go a little further. Men need duty. They need tasks — even self directed ones, like working on fitness, blogging the lectionary daily, going to work. I spend a fair amount of my time discussing with social workers how to find means of occupation or vocation for people who are recovering from madness. Duty helps the sane.

And love requires that you choose to do your duty and live by your word, live with honour. Infatuation fades, regardless of how beautiful you are, causing many women to enjoy a good dose of schandenfreude when they read their weekly gossip magazine about the disastrous love lives of the beautiful. If you do not become real here, reality will get you. You cannot live with a false front forever.

In the end, we can say that society has changed. We can even legislate it. But as humans, we have not changed. The same issues that drove us in ancient times apply now. The dynamics that lead to a functional society have not changed.

And remember, the rich can afford to be stupid and decadent. The rest of us cannot. The rich generally live fairly conservative lives despite encouraging vice (the trust fund kids do not have access to their inheritance until they have grown up for a reason) and they also will live in safe bubbles, using force if necessary. The rest of us do not have those luxuries. And as this society doubles down in it’s insistence that we ignore nature and embrace queer ethics, I can only echo the advice of the Woodpile report: Avoid Crowds. For the honourable, dutiful and loving will not be in them.