The Metaphysics of Marriage

What in the world causes marriage? It is a most unlikely institution, considering what human beings are. To be bound for life to a sinful, fallen, corrupt being like oneself ― what could provoke such a thing? Single people think of it in terms of the good things. There is, of course, sex. But that phase comes and goes very quickly. There is warmth and caring and affection; but those things are sparse among smothering, nagging, abrasive behavior and words. There is more common sense in divorce than there is in marriage, it seems.

So why do human beings still get married? Why is it something worth pursuing for so many billions of people throughout history? Why are so many homosexuals willing to forget the liberated life for sake of monogamy? What is it in the human soul that still inclines us toward such a thing ― and what does it mean when we don't?

David Goldman (formerly "Spengler") has a wonderful piece on The Square about the inner meaning of marriage. It is, of course, a principle that people always understood, until quite recently: marriage and family were the same thing as salvation. For the ancients, they were precisely the same thing: the longing for wholeness with another feels like something eternal; and, of course, leaving behind others like oneself in children is like living on as oneself. Sex is not perfectly eternal, nor are children really oneself. But it is the closest we come to salvation short of soul-saving.

But Goldman offers a different way to think about it. It isn't that marriage is a reflection of eternity; it is instead because of our view of eternal things that we do it. This is especially clear in our times.

When we cease to hope in eternal life, we no longer marry and no longer have children. That is the terrible lesson that the triumph of secularism has taught us. In industrial countries where atheism triumphed in the form of communism, fertility rates have fallen to levels barely half of replacement. The fertility of Eastern Europe in 2005 was only 1.25 children per woman, according to the United Nations Population Prospects. Japan stood at 1.3. In secular Western Europe it was 1.6. In industrial countries where most people profess some form of religious faith, however, fertility remains at replacement levels or above. America's fertility in 2005 stood at 2.1, and Israel's at 2.9.

2 percent is, of course, the bottom line. There must be at least two kids per parent, or else a nation simply folds in half, and then half of that in another generation, and quickly breeds itself out of existence.

There is, of course, a perfect parallel for this, albeit one that moves in reverse. A baby comes into existence out of nothing. It is the best expression of love, in its greatest sense, as something creative ― not so much human love, since babies can be made without an ounce of love involved. It is, of course, God's love ― His creation ex nihilo that makes a new thing. It falls to the parents to love it the rest of the way (or not).

But the thing to see is this: just as we come into being out of nothing by God's love, so too do we sink back into nothing by refusing Him.

These observations suggest that when we talk about nature and marriage, it is a peculiarly human nature that is at work. It is not the nature of some of the other mammals to breed in captivity; it is not the nature of homo sapiens to breed in the absence of the hope of eternal life.

This sort of despair is not necessarily the same thing as sorrow. People in these industrialized countries are, no doubt, plenty jovial; life is good, and rich, and abundant in comforts and amusements. Those in Europe or Japan where the populations are taking such a dive live in tremendous abundance. Yet it is the abundance stored up from previous decades of human capital. Those benefits are sure to decline when the last generation is whittled down, as the hands that would care for it in its old age are denied existence.

It's easy to see, though, how the truth appears in our private lives. This is perhaps the single greatest mark of the modern individual: his destiny is his own, her body is her own, their union with each other is but a contract, where both parties join for the sake of what can be gotten out of it. "What's in it for me?" It is a condition that caters to the smallness of soul, the absolute self-obsessed, practically self-worshiping tendency that we see everywhere. It never occurs to us, though, that our denial of the gift of self of marriage is a symptom of our denial of salvation. Goldman writes:

The first principle of Augustine's anthropology, that we are made for God and restless until we come to him, coheres well with what we observe in societies that abandon God. Our restlessness in that terminal case can reach levels that tear us to pieces.

We fool ourselves if we think that "resting in Him" is something easy, at least in terms of getting there. The sort of salvation that Augustine meant ― and most Christians, until very recently ― was not a free pass. Forgiveness of sins was not the final word, nor was it the complete condition of salvation. It was only the beginning of being "ordered to an end": we must be in a certain condition to come near to the One ― a condition that we are certainly not in simply as we are.

To make salvation on earth has long been the aim of human social projects, and it certainly still is today. The State, as we know it in modern times, is based entirely on the assumption that human beings live once, and then die ― and that it is a complete delusion to think that there is anything beyond this world.

It is entirely possible to devise other means of perpetuating the species than marriage, for example, the collective raising of children as in Plato's dystopia and the various attempts to realize some of its features. But none of them has taken, not even for short periods of time. They have no interest for human beings. It is not only that people want to raise their own children, rather than the state's children: Without the expectation of eternal life within a faith community, mating couples do not evince interest in reproducing at replacement levels.

That has always been the lesson of totalitarian regimes: the human soul always looks beyond the here and now. The more we try to make ourselves whole in this world ― a task that always involves tremendous weight and pressure and diligent suppression of the human soul ― the more miserable we become.

And yet that same impulses proceeds, even when there is no totalitarian state to make it happen. It is doubtful that we will see such monsters like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union ever again. Yet the same impulse is in us: we must become perfectly at home in this world; we must try and try, no matter how unhappy we become. We have to convince ourselves that questions like "are you happier?" are meaningless ― or that our emphatic "yes!" can be based on the amount of radical freedom we have, however aimless it makes us feel. All of this, though, boils down to our inner attitude toward marriage, and what it means.

This may be the first time in Western history in which the sacred foundation of society, whose irreducible fundamental unit is the family, faces explicit opposition. If militant secularism succeeds in banishing the sacred from social life, we will lose heart and perish, as the tragic victims of communism are perishing. There is nothing to be done for the infertile, aging peoples of the former Soviet empire. The best thing one can do for them is not to be like them. Secular Western Europe already has one foot in the demographic grave. If we lose the sacred in the United States, we will follow them into Sheol. We might as well make a stand now over the sacred character of marriage, because there is nowhere to fall back from here.

That is the question that is never asked: suppose we get everything we want ― then what? What is achieved through, say, a no-fault divorce, or a no-guilt act of adultery, or any other form of no-consequence behavior? Where does all the progress end? There is only one possible answer: when we have successfully destroyed ourselves. Worldly salvation is to make ourselves nothing.

D-Day

Thoughtful soldiers in the American Civil War shared the sentiments of Henry "The Youth" Flemming, of Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage:

From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own country with distrust. It must be some sort of play affair. He had long despaired of witnessing Greeklike struggle. Such would be no more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else firm finance held in check the passions. (46)

The modern world was in full swing by the mid-nineteenth century, and nothing made men think of this more intensely than war ― especially a civil war. Across the water, in Europe, Fredrick Nietzsche was beginning to piece together his assessment: the world had become too domesticated, too closed off to the wonders of chance. There realm of human possibilities would narrow with each new generation, as men became accustomed to administration instead of politics, therapy instead of conflict, and, of course, "niceness" in place of virtue. He wrote:

The over-all degeneration of man down to what today appears to the socialist dolts and flatheads as their "man of the future" ― as their ideal ― this degeneration and diminution of man into the perfect herd animal... this animalization of man into the dwarf animal of equal rights and claims, is possible, there is no doubt of it. (Section 203)

And, like many Europeans, Nietzsche was certain that the United States led the way in that degradation, in exploiting that possibility to the most radical extent. It was, after all, the future of the world; its democracy would soon be the world's democracy. It would soon spread mass-mediocrity all over civilization ― and, in doing so, destroy all there is in man that knows how to honor, seek nobility, and love greatness.

Hence, the Germans assigned to holding the beaches in Normandy 65 years ago were certain that the Americans about to land there were wild and bumbling gangsters and cowboys and swing-dancers.

They were the products of all that had degraded modern man, the Germans told themselves. For all the training and drilling, all the daring amphibious and paratrooper assaults, all the advanced weaponry, they were still products of democracy, and for that reason, deserved no fear, and probably no small amount of contempt. They did not know honor; only equality, the Germans told themselves. The Americans, after all, were fighting for the very poison that had almost killed Europe; it was cured just in time by the Fuhrer's teachings, which they had been indoctrinated in since youth ― a solution that was not found in any recovery of a "human" sense of greatness or nobility, but in a racial sense. That poison, they believed, was something far deadlier than any democratic trend in Europe: It was the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, and that their are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that government exists to protect those rights.

But the Americans did take Omaha Beach. They did liberate Paris and Belgium, and finally take Berlin.

Courage is an awesome thing. One can be brave or bold or daring, or take great risks for the noblest intentions. But only the soldier, in the gritty horrors and chaos of war, can truly know what courage is. To attribute courage to anyone else in the same sense is to commit the height of dishonor.

What is it about a democratic society's view of courage? Courage is often scorned, mocked, and ridiculed; it is the delusion of young men who run off to war seeking glory and applause, precisely so they can be slaughtered "for the corporations," "for that president," "for nationalism." And yet, when their freedom is truly threatened, all of that vanishes, and they display courage and valor that is unmatched by any other army.

It doesn't make them angelic, of course. Democratic armies are prone to all the usual vices of war-time. It brings out the worst in men who are already bad, and it can ruin the decency of the nobler ones. In the process of war, all men can turn into cogs in the terrifying and deadly machine.

But if we contemplate what courage is, it becomes clear that we cannot expect it to show its brilliance on the surface. The surface is ugly ― and, in many ways, it is pure evil and insanity. There is no courage if we do not account the paralyzing fear that comes with these circumstances. But at the same time, we are not seeing courage if we look at it without the end it seeks. Aristotle put it this way:

[I]t is for enduring painful things... that people are called courageous. Hence, courage is painful, and it is justly praised, since it is more difficult to endure painful things than to refrain from pleasant ones. Nevertheless, it would seem that the end that goes with courage is pleasant, but is blocked from sight by the things that incircle it. (1117a30)

The end is pleasant ― and the greatness of that pleasure can only be realized in victory. But victory is only pleasurable when it is for the sake of a just end. The Germans in France believed their end was just: it was the right of people who shared their racial identity to rule over others. And, of course, the Americans believed their end was just ― that equality was good for all of mankind.

The way to think through these, it seems, is to ask which one has the greater pleasure to it ― which is more joyful, more life-affirming, and more attuned to divine laughter.

The Nazi regime, of course, went out of its way to say that about itself: the songs, the propaganda, and the assurance that the goal is indeed something they could achieve historically. The social transformation through totalitarianism; the invasion of Europe; the killing and destruction of Jews and other people ― it was all for the sake of a perfect end.

The Americans, on the other hand, could promise no such thing. When the Germans were defeated, there would only be more of the same. An ideal of equality was in view, of course; but it was something they knew would never be realized in a fallen world. It should remind us that any attempt at making men into angels, or making the world perfect through human efforts, will always end in a greater disaster than we started with. It is another one of those things that should make us glad to be human, and listen to Plato's words:

[I]t's not possible for evils to be done away with... since it's necessary that there always be something contrary to what's good, but they make the rounds of the mortal nature and of this place here. (Theatetus, 176a)

Can the modern world still accept the value of this statement ― that the highest good will always be transcendent, and that the world will always be fallen, in which case, there will always be wars to fight? Or should we submit to absolute power of therapy and administration and social engineering to make it perfect, no matter what the human cost?

Two Kinds of Justice

Judge Sonia Sotomayor doesn't appear to be as liberal as most mainstream Republicans make her out to be. The point of public discourse about her views, as well as the final moment of Senate confirmation hearings, ought to be a learning experience more than a political spat. In fact, that's what politics itself really ought to be: a dialogue, in the noblest sense, where conflicting parties work together to find a common end.

The problem, though, is the way American parties and interests have largely accepted that their goal is achieved historically ― that the divide between today's liberals and conservatives can work itself out toward some end in the future. At that point, it is assumed, politics will cease, and we will transition into a purer, more tranquil, more consensus-driven world of "policy-making."

But that will never be the case, because human nature will not let it. Political consensus only comes in brief moments ― when one side accepts the candidate he did not vote for, or, on a deeper level, when one set of opinions sees something valuable in another set ― perhaps its own missing piece, which brings both closer to the truth. To think politics means anything else, no matter how dreamy the goal, will call for some kind of coercive tactic to ensure that all find themselves in agreement.

Charles Krauthammer has a great piece on what we're missing in the upcoming Senate confirmation hearing for the next Justice on the Supreme Court.

What should a principled conservative do? Use the upcoming hearings not to deny her the seat, but to illuminate her views. No magazine gossip from anonymous court clerks. No "temperament" insinuations. Nothing ad hominem. The argument should be elevated, respectful and entirely about judicial philosophy.

It is, of course, a judicial philosophy that seems to subscribe to the former view of politics described above ― which, we should see, is not political at all. On the race-based preferences question, Judge Sotomayor subscribes to a view of evolutionary justice. It is not a matter of setting things right, according to some universal standard of right; it is instead a matter of compensating for past wrongs according to the changing spirit of the times.

This view of justice depends entirely on the "preferred class" approach, and makes affirmative action policies essential. The Supreme Court never supported it on that basis, of course. It always maintained the "diversity" standard, and often deferred to the expertise of universities and companies who insisted that such diversity was essential in reaching its goals.

But according to Justice Thurgood Marshall, there was no ignoring the "legacy of unequal treatment." Such a troubling history required the Court to

permit the institutions of this society to give consideration to race in making decisions about who will hold the positions of influence, affluence, and prestige in America... I do not believe that anyone can truly look into America's past and still find that a remedy for the effects of that past is impermissible.

Marshall might have been quite right about this. Though we might have a "colorblind Constitution," maybe we can't get there until we look clearly and directly at the lingering problems of race, and correct them accordingly. And, in practice, this means race-based preferences and quotas in our major institutions ― the only way we could ever compensate for past wrongs. Only then could begin to discuss justice meaningfully.

Just how long or to what degree public institutions should favor one group over another, however, has never been certain. Justice Sandra O'Connor recognized in 2003 that

race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time. This requirement reflects that racial classifications, however compelling their goals, are potentially so dangerous that they may be employed no more broadly than the interest demands. Enshrining a permanent justification for racial preferences would offend this fundamental equal protection principle. We see no reason to exempt race-conscious admissions programs from the requirement that all governmental use of race must have a logical end point.

Justice O'Connor gave us her coin-toss description of that end-point: Since the policies had been around for about 25 years, she said, then it might take another 25 for them to reach their goal. But stay tuned.

Indeed, if the Court is going to lay down this rule, there is only one conceivable institution that can declare when we have arrived at a condition of equality, how long it will take, and how bluntly discriminatory the policies should be. That institution is the Court itself.

It is the classic problem of progressivism: how do we know where progress is going, and when we've arrived? More importantly, who will decide, and on what basis? For Judge Sotomayor, it will be based on one thing:

on her statements about the inherent differences between groups, and the superior wisdom she believes her Latina physiology, culture and background grant her over a white male judge. They perfectly reflect the Democrats' enthrallment with identity politics, which assigns free citizens to ethnic and racial groups possessing a hierarchy of wisdom and entitled to a hierarchy of claims upon society.

That is the essential thing about judicial empathy: it is not so much a judge's ability to connect with people, their struggles, their hopes their fears, etc. It is instead that person's sensitivity to where the movement of history is going, and what sorts of public policies will get us there ― no matter what the human cost. This inevitably means having tremendous empathy for the interest group one chooses to have empathy for.

Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life ― through charity, respect and lovingkindness ― and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets built for the poor and disadvantaged.

But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.

The place for empathy is, of course, in a system of representation ― and it operates best in the institution with the word "Representatives" stamped right on it ― the House, where all officials are elected by the people precisely because of their empathy, however narrow that empathy might be. Personally, I do not doubt for a moment Sotomayor's claim, that a

wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

More importantly, though, I think James Madison would have understood it just as well. But he would have seen the value of the Latina experience in light of an important fact, which I do not believe the Obama Adminstration or Judge Sotomayor have given the slightest attention. It is the fact that all people, regardless of race or class, are by nature narrow-minded, and primarily aware of their own interests and the needs and concerns of those closest to them, or most like themselves. The purpose of government is not to bank on the ability of people to become so broad-minded that their hearts could be their only guides; it was instead the realization that the political process itself, at its very best, could pry their minds open ― to "enlarge the public views," as he put it.

The craft of law, though, at least in the classic sense, is supposed to do much the same thing for a judge. Lawyers still have empathy, but they learn to see how justice is something much broader than their emotional inclinations and personal experiences, no matter how big-hearted a judge might be. It was the realization that morality and the public good are indeed dependent on reason, not emotion; that even the noblest and purest emotions of pity and compassion could be terribly misguided. According to Alexander Hamilton, this came from

making the proper deductions for the ordinary depravity of human nature, the number must be still smaller of those who unite the requisite integrity with the requisite knowledge.

The assumption today is that there really are some people who do not suffer from the "depravity of human nature." Holding the correct theories and political positions, we tend to think, makes someone inherently good ― meaning every opinion and every whim that person might have is good as well. Justice, accordingly, is not rooted in any universally understood precepts of fairness, but in whatever the enlightened one happens to believe.

I do not expect Sotomayor to be a very radial justice on the Supreme Court, certainly no more than Justice Souter was. But I do expect the social attitudes and political trends to get worse until we make them better.

Amoebas and Values Voters

I am not convinced that anything changed for the American "values voter" since 2004. The term comes, of course, from the exit polls in a race that went decisively to George W. Bush: those voters claimed that of all their interests and concerns, "moral values" stood at the top. But we should remember how morally vacuous the Democratic Party was at the time. John Kerry held the old shtick that his Catholic faith and his personal morality was precisely that: personal, and safely locked up inside his head. That was exactly what so turned off values voters. They wanted to see a connection between one's faith and public policy; they wanted to see some kind of transcendent blessing placed on the very earthy and real issues of national life, rather than a bland, cold, fact-based approach that Kerry thought he had. And if that meant adopting Bush's interpretation of the relationship between Heaven and Earth, then that was their choice.

As I've said elsewhere, seeing that parties are so central to getting things done also explains why the Christian Right has aligned itself so closely with the Republicans. This is not only true of religious people per se, but of "values voters" in general: the Democrats' populism, like all mass-democratic movements, turned to elitism in order to uphold its principles. Hence, the venom of Senate confirmation hearings of federal judges (in the Bush years), and the role of doctors intertwined with ideas about freedom in reproductive decisions. The dictates of these elites was not only "secular," but openly hostile toward anything that smacked of tradition or morality. Those who retained a sense of the need for strong values, both shaping and being shaped by public policy, were easily alienated.

E.J. Dionne has a great piece in the Washington Post today on the the fate of the values voter.

The moral values voters went 80 percent for George W. Bush, and conservative commentators scolded the dreaded liberal media for missing the central dynamic of the election... Matthew Spalding, the Heritage Foundation's normally careful scholar on religious questions, was also caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment. The election, he said, showed that "cultural liberalism is increasingly unattractive to a significant and growing segment of the American electorate."

Spalding and others predicted that the values voter was now the essential force behind all election, and that the Democratic Party, dominated as it is by the liberal establishment, would have to recognize such mainstream values if it ever wanted to win again, or even survive.

Perhaps this was all a bunch of short-sighted silliness. But I don't think that's the case. I seem to remember thinking in 2004 just how flawed the "values voter" judgment really was ― not because of the ways the tide might shift, or the economy might plummet and make everyone vote their pocketbooks, but because of the word "value" itself.

It is, I believe, an inherently meaningless word. We point to tradition, to family structure, to revelation ― to all kinds of things that, in the end, are only true because we have in fact chosen them. We talk about values as if they are so meaningful, and so full of significance; but the the word itself is a mere emotional symbol, with absolutely no content behind it.

Hence, it was only a matter of time before its priorities shifted in public opinion. That is, of course, the definition of a great leader in a post-modern setting: he is able to impress meaning upon the public. Or, as Woodrow Wilson put it,

It is the power which dictates, dominates; the materials yield. Men are as clay in the hands of the consummate leader.

Wilson meant this in a very twentieth century sense: it was the spirit of social engineering through raw power, which could never do wrong if it simply reached all the way. Today, it is a far sweeter thing. The great leader does not experiment on society, but proceeds forward with the public ideology he has deemed correct. Rather than stamping out all dissent, though, he tries to schmooze it and smother it into submission. And if that means talking about "values," then that's what needs to happen.

There is really not much difference between values rooted in the past and values rooted in the future, i.e., in change. Both reject the possibility that anything is right or wrong an any fixed and permanent sense. It is not that the American values voters declined; they simply used their all-American pragmatism and changed the meaning of values. They accepted that such deeply held personal duties can indeed align themselves with certain sets of nation-wide policies ― that the State can be a tool for making values happen.

None of this should be surprising in light of the evolution of American conservatism. Conservatism does not make its case by saying, "Values are those things which we the traditionalists hold to be very important, and which everyone else should as well" ― because anyone might snatch up the same argument and say "values are those things which we progressives hold to be very important." Conservatism has lost its ability to find persuasive arguments. It is a matter of explaining why something is good for the whole. We cannot describe morality as a matter of sheer duty at all costs, which all ought to obey because of what the few understand. That is a system that is far too rigid, and is sure to break. It is more a matter of explaining how there is such a thing as human flourishing ― that we are all made for a certain end, and depriving ourselves of that end only leads to misery.

The Chestertonian Moment II

We easily forget that racism, as we think of it today, is actually a relatively new thing in human history. This is not to say that some people didn't hold crude judgements about others who looked different from themselves. But no one ever had the sort of bold rationalizations for racism that we find in the mid-nineteenth century. Slavery, of course, had been abolished in the United States as well as in the English empire in the name of natural rights; racism, though, developed because of the sophisticated opinions that rejected those rights in the name of progress. It did not seem to be the kind of thing that raised much ire in England, at least not among the educated classes. Darwinism, of course, had established a "survival of the fittest" outlook, which seemed like the perfect rationalization for some dominating others on the basis of race. Yet it was not this aspect of Darwinism itself that gave rise to modern racism. It was instead the thing that Darwinism rendered impossible: a view of things as fixed and unchanging.

John Dewey understood this well in his famous essay on Darwinism. The Western intellectual tradition was centered on the pursuit of the forms, as Plato first introduced them ― a view of each thing as it truly and eternally is.

The conception of eidos, species, a fixed form and final cause, was the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic of science. Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence. Genuinely to know is to grasp a permanent end that realizes itself through changes, holding them thereby within the metes and bounds of fixed truth. Completely to know is to relate all special forms to their one single end and good: pure contemplative intelligence.

But plainly Mr. Darwin changed all of that: species, he taught, are not timeless, fixed, and eternal. They are perpetually changing, and nothing about them is ever the same.

The Darwinian principle of natural selection cut straight under this philosophy. If all organic adaptations are due simply to constant variation and the elimination of those variations which are harmful in the struggle for existence that is brought about by excessive reproduction, there is no call for a prior intelligent causal force to plan and preordain them.

If there is no such cause, then the only thing to guide evolutionary force is power, and to understand that power in the context of racial characteristics. And we all know where it goes from there. Dewey's point, though, is how permanent this new way of thinking was in the modern mind.

Doubtless the greatest dissolvent in contemporary thought of old questions, the greatest precipitant of new methods, new intentions, new problems, is the one effected by the scientific revolution that found its climax in the " Origin of Species."

G.K. Chesterton, though, knew precisely what was really going on ― particularly when many called the "Nordic race" the new and true religion. Many proposed this, not only because the Nordic race was rising, but also because religion was declining; given the spiritual needs of human societies, it was best, in their minds, for modern sophisticates to follow Auguste Comte's proposition that they should all worship themselves ― and that meant worshiping the race. (It was, of course, the Nazis who would take this to the final extreme in later decades.) The absurdity was glaring, of course, and Chesterton fulfilled his usual duty by pointing it out.

Crusaders believe that Jerusalem was not only the Holy City, but the centere of the whole world. Moslems bow their heads toward Mecca and Roman Catholics are notorious for being in secret communication with Rome. I presume that the Holy Place for the Nordic religion must be the North Pole. (220)

He reminded us of who the "Nordic" peoples really were in the early histories. They were the societies who the Greeks and Romans regarded as barbarians, in the extreme sense of the word. Those who looked to the supremacy of Nordics in Chesterton's time had, of course, completely forgotten this ― not to mention the long-term consequences of blond-haired, blue-eyed people ruling, as they did in Europe.

If the Dark Ages were a nightmare, it was very largely because the Nordic nonsense made them an exceedingly Nordic nightmare. It was the period of the barbarian invasions; when piracy was on the high seas and civilization was in the monasteries. You may not like monasteries, or the sort of civilization that is preserved by monasteries; but it is quite certain that it was the only sort of civilization there was. (222)

Chesterton wrote this, of course, in light of the open hostility that the advocates of Nordic racism had for Roman Catholicism. It was a grand and confusing superstition, as far as they were concerned, and it still very much in the way of the sort of progress they hoped to see. Protestantism did not ― in fact, it stepped right out of the way of such vast social undertakings as Nordic self-worship by limiting the relevance of faith to only the individual believer. But this, Chesterton wrote, did no favors for the faith, much less society ― certainly not when compared to the contribution of the monasteries.

As this history of ideas shows, modern truths are always exclusive. The earliest ones, from the Enlightenment Era, were certainly put forward in hopes that all would come to see them; but that, of course, depended on the ability of "all" to bring themselves to the level of the Enlightened ones. As time passed, it became clear that truth was scientific truth ― that even the most fundamental truths of society depended on those who were in the know, and all of the little people would depend on their pronouncements.

The progressivism that grew out of Darwinism represents the end of the line when it came to this sort of exclusivity. It is not a matter of what the few know; it is a matter of who they are ― and in Chesterton's time, those few were the Nordics.

Such men get into a small social circle, very modern and very narrow, whether it is called the Nordic race of the Rationalist Association. They have a number of ideas... The point is that those ideas, whether true or untrue, are the very reverse of universal. They are not the sort of ideas that any large mass of mankind, in any age or country, may be assumed to have. (223)

This, as we know, is precisely how the very same progressives view the Catholic Church: the few in the know, and the many who are clueless dolts ― the knowing of the former more a matter of how to control and manipulate the latter. But this is not the case at all, if we consider the modern attitude toward truth.

Public opinion, taken as a whole, is much more contemptuous of specialists and seekers after truth than the Church ever was. (Ibid.)

The Church, with its monasteries in particular, has always been the last holdout for reason. (Though the Hebrews did much the same thing, in their own way.) There was far more than Christian Revelation alone, tucked away in the safety of its corridors. There was instead a beautiful, rich, and life-affirming philosophy that looked to nature rather than convention ― to "species" rather than "change," as Dewey would put it. The Christian intellectual tradition was open to all, so long as each individual soul humbled itself enough to study it carefully, to know its logical methods, and to desire more than anything else the glory of its end. The carefully reasoned arguments for the natural equality of all people, despite race or class or gender, was ― can we believe it? ― just one of many of its blessings.