Over at Modern Age—that venerable rag founded by the great Russell Kirk—my old friend Tim Stanley has just published a (very kind, very thoughtful) review of my book The Reactionary Mind. He begins by identifying my book with recent tomes by Rod Dreher and Sohrab Ahmari decrying the weakness of the American Right, a comparison that does me honor. Dr. Stanley concludes:
There is a lot of wisdom here; the author has a touch of Chesterton’s genius. This was the “turn back the clock” book with which I found the most fault but also most enjoyed because it captures the spirit of the movement better than anyone else has, proving that far from being sterile or self-absorbed, the reactionary life is sensual and eccentric. And enormously amusing.
For that, he has my sincere thanks. But you’re probably wondering, What kind of fault does he find? Well, for starters, “Davis’s definition of reaction is subjective,” says Dr. Stanley:
Reaction in the United States is rugged; in England, it is effeminate. In Japan is ritualized, violent, and erotic; in parts of the Islamic world, it is abstemious and chauvinist. (Davis thinks women entering the workforce was a big mistake—well, Al-Hakim, ruler of 11th century Egypt, agreed so strongly that he banned the manufacture of women’s shoes to prevent them from leaving the house.) When I wrote my own recent book Whatever Happened to Tradition? I made the decision to explore the benefits of living traditionally, but my peers instead chose to defend one tradition in particular—namely the European and Christian—which is absolutely fine, but the idiosyncrasies of Davis’s book demonstrate the risks. What is considered “traditional” varies enormously from one society to another. In the West, we bury or cremate our dead. In a corner of Indonesia, they keep corpses propped up in the house for months at a time, entertaining them with food and gossip.
And while we’re at it,
Davis is right to castigate moderns for suggesting everything today is better than yesterday, but I struggle with the claim that most of yesterday was better than today. And if you peel back his fustiness, what the author is really arguing for is a greater commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ, which in their own day were regarded as revolutionary. Were he a Roman in the 1st century, would Davis, like a good traditionalist, light his garden path with burning apostles? Or would he, as I suspect, embrace the newfangled ideas of the bearded Judean, i.e., that women have rights and slaves are equal to their master?
I’m pleased Dr. Stanley thinks I’d have the gall to throw in my lot with that subversive Jew. I’m not so sure. I think of William F. Buckley admitting (in a pained, roundabout way) that he probably would have been a loyalist during the American Revolution. “If King George had captured George Washington, he would have had a right to hang him,” WFB confessed to Huey Newton.
Yet here’s the thing: I really had no interest in the Middle Ages until I realized just how Christian it was. Medieval Europe is, in my view, the nearest we’re ever likely to come to a society organized on Gospel principles.
I can hear some correspondent from the Fishwrap clutching his pearls and crying, “So you think the Black Death and the Spanish Inquisition are Gospel principles?!”
Well, no. But, then, the medievals didn’t choose to die of the Plague. I’ve never understood why we blame these poor folks for succumbing to a highly contagious (and highly fatal) disease. We act as if it were a nasty habit they picked up, like smoking. They knew the risks, and yet feudal serfs just couldn’t resist covering themselves in painful sores, throwing up blood, and dying of organ failure en masse.
As for the Inquisition, you’re a little nearer the mark. There is something quintessentially medieval about prosecuting spiritual crimes in a spiritual court, as if the good of the soul was worth more than the good of the body.
Still, it would be a mistake, trying to distill the whole Middle Ages into a single personality. Yes, Thomas of Torquemada is quintessentially medieval. But so is Francis of Assisi. So is Thomas Aquinas—but, then, so is Hildegard of Bingen.
Christ says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” This is one of the hallmarks of the Middle Ages: its remarkable diversity. As Henry Adams wrote,
A Church which embraced, with equal sympathy, and within a hundred years, the Virgin, Saint Bernard, William of Champeaux and the School of Saint-Victor, Peter the Venerable, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Dominic, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Bonaventure, was more liberal than any modern State can afford to be. Radical contradictions the State may perhaps tolerate, though hardly, but never embrace or profess. Such elasticity long ago vanished from human thought.
Every one of those saints—and billions of men and women besides—illuminates a different aspect of the Christian life. There’s a mansion for every soul, and a soul for every mansion.
Here’s where I disagree with Dr. Stanley—or, if not quite disagree, then at least push back a little. I don’t like the medievals because they’re traditional. How could I? They’re not traditional. They’re historical.
Still, I would be a medievalist even if there were no such thing as the Middle Ages. I would be a feudalist even if there had been no such thing as feudalism. I’d be a Franciscan even if there had been no Francis. I’d be a Thomist even if there had been no Thomas. I’d be an Augustinian even if there had been no Augustine.
At least, I hope I would—just as I hope I’d follow that bearded Judean in 33 A.D.
That’s why I call myself a reactionary. It would be the height of ingratitude if I didn’t credit Francis and Thomas and Augustine. If I didn’t say, “These dead celibates had more wisdom in their little toes than our entire generation,” I’d be lying—if only by omission.
Having said all that, I understand where Dr. Stanley is coming from. The same thoughts started running through my head while I was putting the finishing touches on my book. I started to have reservations about using the R-word. They went something like this:
If I’m taking a stand for the “permanent things”—and I hope I am!—does that actually make me reactionary? Wouldn’t a truly “permanent thing” belong as much to the present as the past, and to the future as to the present ? Am I not merely watering down Christian truths so they become palatable to the Left/Right spectrum? Shouldn’t I try to remain aloof from worldly categories—to remain “unspotted from the world?”
In other words, Why be a reactionary when I could simply be a Christian?
I thought about this for a good long while. And, in the end, I came to this conclusion: Dr. Stanley is right. I really don’t care if my views are “conservative” or “traditional” or “reactionary” . . . or not. I care if they’re Christian. If and when the teachings of Jesus contradict the teachings of Edmund Burke, Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre, Russell Kirk, or Roger Scruton—well, then, I side with Jesus.
That’s not to say I think we should chuck Burke, Bonald, etc. I don’t. Not by any means. But I constantly found myself thinking, “What would Maistre do? What would Scruton do?”—not, “What would Jesus do?” (Sorry.)
You may argue that, in the modern world, a Christian is necessarily a reactionary. And you may be right. But it seems to me that a true reactionary would refuse to let himself be defined by the temporal fetishes of modern man.
If anyone would call Christianity “reactionary,” then I am a reactionary. Conversely, there are some folks on the alt-right claim that paganism is more reactionary than Christianity. They insist that the Church made the West weak by importing an oriental Jewish slave morality. They argue that, if we take a bird’s-eye view of history, Christianity is quite a radical ideology. In that case, I am a proud radical.
I’m just tired of locating myself within these categories. I don’t put any stock in the Political Compass. I love the justice of Torquemada and the mercy of Francis. I love the logic of Aquinas and the passion of Bonaventure. I love the righteousness of Charlamagne and the meekness of Edward. I love Hubert, who stalked for the hart; I love Anselm, who wept for the hare.
I don’t mind being pigeonholed by other people. Honestly, I don’t. If anyone calls me a radical, I wouldn’t mind pointing them to my defense of absolute monarchy, or my embrace of Creation science, or my support for the Inquisition.
Believe me, I have no interest in the school of thought that says Christianity is actually a kind of milquetoast centrism. I just don’t want to pigeonhole myself. I don’t want to worry about always taking the most reactionary/conservative/right-wing view on this or that issue.
The cause of my life is Jesus Christ. If anything I ever said or did or wrote should put up a barrier between my readers and Jesus, I would burn that barrier like a witch.
For the record, I don’t repudiate anything I wrote in The Reactionary Mind. (Well, almost anything. I may have been a little too harsh on Jane Austen.) My point is only this: reaction is not enough. It’s not enough to define yourself against the modern world. That would mean giving credence to modernity, if only by negating modernity. That, as Cardinal Newman says, is “but the religion of devils, who believe and tremble.”
I do not have enough faith in modernity to contradict modernity. I won’t dignity the dogma of progress with a response. Not anymore.
By the by, my next book—The Times Are Wretched—will incorporate all of these insights. It’s partially about how the ongoing collapse of Western civilization makes the Left/Right spectrum irrelevant. The words “conservative” and “progressive” are now basically meaningless, because there’s no foundation left to conserve, and therefore no starting-point from which to progress.
From there, I borrow from the wisdom of the Christian tradition (particularly the Apostles and St. Augustine) to recommend how Christians can not only survive the coming Dark Age, but flourish in it—just like last time.
I’m pretty excited about The Times Are Wretched. I think it could do some good. I’d be grateful if you could keep me in your prayers as I write it, and be assured that you’re always in mine.
Peace and the Good!