Modernism vs. Tradition

Brett Stevens discusses the fundamental differences of outlook dividing America.

Two different groups inhabit Western society, politically, and each wants a different civilization than the other. One desires a bureaucratic egalitarian society, and the other, a hierarchical organic one.

As explained by a historian, these divisions became apparent during the Civil War and persist to this day. …

… the actual division is more fundamental: those who follow an organic way of life versus those who want a life designed around human, and not natural or metaphysical, values. The former group likes independence, the latter group wants enforced equality.

When you live in a cosmopolitan cities in which factories are the primary source of income, egalitarianism becomes addictive. None of you have any culture; you have no role other than your jobs. Thus, you make jobs your primary form of identity, and replace culture with a novelty-based stream of entertainment and distractions.

To live in the South, you had to appreciate nature, and see the wisdom of God in the bends of the trees and the flight of the bees. You had to believe that each person was born to a unique role which fit their abilities, and that working together unequally, you could raise a civilization which was greater than the sum of its parts.

In the North, bourgeois sentiment reigned. You had to believe that each person was accountable to nothing except himself, that his work would give his life meaning, and that the mechanical schedule of the city could replace customs, culture, calendar, and heritage. You lived only for yourself, as one equal part of a vast machine.

The term “progress” originally meant the slow swallowing-up of the villages and heartlands of Europe and America by the mechanized city and its need for humans as a fungible quantity, all equal and motivated only by money, so that industry could depend on them to act in predictable ways.

The South took one look at the North said said “no way.” They wanted a life based more in enjoyment of the beauties of life than in converting life into a product, and the cultivation of a vast audience of cultureless people to purchase these products.

In this way, the South represented the ten percent in The Dad Theory. If you recall, The Dad Theory was an idea advanced by my father which states that ninety percent of humanity are narcissistic animals concerned only with self-gratification, where ten percent are aware of something more and inclined to work toward goodness and beauty.

This ten percent are the natural leaders of humankind. When they are in power, society advances and the workers, who really have no idea what to do with themselves when not working, are placed in a subservient role where their lack of impulse control cannot be a problem.

Organic people of this nature distinguish themselves by having a sense of purpose in life. They mature, look around, and find some way to make things better, not just in the sense of efficiency or productivity, but quality. They make life more graceful, elegant, joyful, balanced, harmonious, beautiful, and wise.

The crowd — those who cluster in the cities around factories and government offices — lack an ability to have purpose and can only react. When they need money, they go to a job; when they see something they like, they buy it or steal it. They are driven solely by appetites, which is why former societies called them serfs or plebs.

Their elites, driven to support the population in which they find themselves, adapted a philosophy to defend this way of life known as “egalitarianism,” or the notion that everyone is equal in worth and therefore deserves a seat at the table. This contrasts the organic notion of hierarchy, or moving the best people above the rest of the herd.

RTWT