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Martin Luther blew the whistle on corruption and exploitation in the Church. He found sanctuary under Frederick the Wise in Saxony. Frederick wasn’t especially interested in Luther’s grievances, but he did have a desire to take the Holy Roman empire down a few notches.
Edward Snowden blew the whistle on corruption and exploitation in the intelligence agencies. He found sanctuary under Vladimir the Krab. Vladimir isn’t especially interested in Snowden’s grievances, but he does have a desire to take the Woke American empire down a few notches.
Donald Trump isn’t a Luther, a Melanchthon, or a Swingli. When it mattered–even on things entirely within his control like the potential pardons of Assange, Snowden, and Manning–he sided with the Establishment. At most he’s an Erasmian figure. There are things he doesn’t like about the way the Establishment works and he hasn’t hesitated to praise its folly, but he is ultimately on the side of the clerisy.
The reformer we need won’t come into power in the global seat of the empire. The hundreds of thousands of deplorables who converged on the imperial capital a couple of weeks ago are learning that the hard way as the Establishment marshals all its resources to destroy them for their impudence. He or she will come in the form of a governor or group of governors who refuse to comply with imperial commands.
They will be men when push comes to shove. And they will all be white men with not inconceivably traces of other races. But not enough to be identified with another race. Like the Soviet Union in its last years, America will implode into red and blue States with counties’ and cities’ going the opposite way. The red areas will increasingly not recognise the legitimacy of the present Government in Washington DC. The blue areas will push the globo homo State even beyond Washington D C. The Federal Government will also implode into red and blue domains. It will become impossible to enforce law and order in blue areas, and impossible to enforce Federal decrees in red areas. The officials will have to be LGBTs in blue, authentic Americans in red. One could idealistically suggest, working days in blue to earn income and security, holidays in red to enjoy the sights of Sodom. The State Department and military will themselves split. There will be an extra element in there, the headquarters of State Zionist, and lower officials blue. The military will be split. The meriticious military will be red, the affirimative action will be blue. That is my take.
I meant of course working days in red, holidays in blue. As a non American, I instinctively think of blue as conservative and red as radical. But now the lefties are the establishment and the angry radicals are the old conservatives. Red necks still do have the connotation of angry whites.
https://youtu.be/PwiKrs12aBY?t=164m40sReplies: @dfordoom
https://youtu.be/PwiKrs12aBY?t=164m40s
No. Martin Luther was a heretic who polluted faith, destroyed Tradition and Scripture, weakened Christendom, and set Europe on a path for 150 years of warfare.
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and “freedom of expression”—the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I’ve accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything’s going to hell.
Peace.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
Yes, but that process also got it out of the way and allowed Europe to move past all that nonsense that began with the importation of middle Eastern religious fanaticism 1000 prior. The Protestant Reformation, and the wars that it triggered, taught a lot of people the painful lesson that this crap isn't worth fighting wars over. Without the Protestant Reformation the process of secularization after 1700 would have been significantly more violent.
"The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead."
I voted for Trump (2016, not 2020) because I wanted America's immigration laws to be enforced. That was it. The people who really love the man's personality are just men who grew up without fathers for whom he is their surrogate alpha male daddy. Whether he actually builds the wall, protects us against internet censorship, ultimately makes no difference.
"This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and “freedom of expression”—the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him."
It's more like he acts low-class and they don't like low-class people in high places.
"If I’ve accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything’s going to hell."
Who is the true king in this situation? If you are two years after the revolution, you can call it a restoration because the King is still there, maybe in chains, maybe exiled, as are a substantial number of the old, experienced ruling elite that people remember owing loyalty to. If you're two hundred years after the revolution, you need to make the case to the people: "I know you've shown loyalty to this present elite all your lives, but you need to transfer that loyalty to another group of people who have no experience ruling." That's a revolution, no matter what you want to call it.
To be less abstract about it, the Catholic Church was not destroyed by Martin Luther. It still exists today. It presses for the abolition of Europe's borders. Is this what you want to "restore?" Or, like the Reddit communist, will you fall back on "b-b-but that's not true reaction?" What the right needs to do is to Win. That's it. What it doesn't need is adherence to any of these Capital Letters. States' Rights. Private Company. Free Market. Equality. Tradition. Consitutional Law. Jesus. The Left runs roughsod over all of these but doesn't hesitate to appeal to them when they see an advantage in doing so. They want to Win. We should too.
But in Trump I saw the Gracchi more than anyone, at least Trump in his candidacy and first couple of years. He came as a reformer and populist who sought to bring prosperity to the peasants that saw their land and mode of living taken from them by the rich. Someone who was assassinated by the conservatives in the Senate much like Caesar, but didn't amass so much power like Caesar that his "death" would leave a vacuum. The vacuum is pretty much relegated to the GOP and the conservatives will snuff out any populist instinct. Of course we now know that Trump was a Crassus at best, going into politics for attention and prestige. For Trump's sake he better hope he doesn't share the same fate as Crassus; maybe he can convince the Parthians that it's his donors who deserve silver poured down their throats, as Trump probably doesn't have billions and certainly won't after the system is done assassinating himReplies: @nebulafox
But I have a tough time believing that if only there was no such thing as the Reformation, Catholicism would be any healthier -- the US would probably just be more like France in that case. The US is where the Reformation reached its natural conclusion, without a state-sponsored church to enforce uniformity. And for all its messiness, the US model has still preserved faith and church attendance among the people for longer than the European one.Replies: @Audacious Epigone
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
My son and I were listening to the audio version of Neil Postman’s “Technopoly” and he mentions that Gutenberg, a devout Catholic, would have been horrified at what his invention helped to birth, but that Luther was not the necessary cornerstone of the Reformation – as is ascertained by others that existed like Calvin and Bullinger and others. Rather, once the printing press was created, this phenomenon was inevitable, Luther or not. Technology has a tendency to break out of the barn and do as it pleases. Postman mentions that some of the earliest adopters of mechanical clocks were monks to keep track of daily prayer schedules…they had no clue that this invention would become integral to the establishment of modern day capitalism and the ability to coordinate the labor of groups of men on schedule, measure efficiency, production output, etc. “Time is money” is really only imagined with the mechanical clock just as the Reformation is only imagined with a Bible on every man’s coffee table.
Peace.
Peace.Replies: @Intelligent Dasein
Spengler (the original Oswald, not the Asia Times David Goldman) agreeas with you here:
By the way, I really like Neil Postman. I read almost his entire oeuvre when I was a teenager in those heady, millennarian days during the buildup to Y2K, and he was a welcome tonic for my sanity.
For others interested in the pre-Luther stirrings of Reformation and earlier wars of religion, the Hussite Wars (named after the executed priest, Jan Hus, who sparked them) may be of interest (Wycliffe is given a quick mention too):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZQwkX3euFg
Peace.
Postman is great. I was shocked when I asked my 13 year old if he’d rather listen to something else, but he was quite interested in the book from the beginning and wanted to continue listening (I had to define words for him on occasion like “lexicographer” or “plebiscite”) – Postman’s writing style helps.
For others interested in the pre-Luther stirrings of Reformation and earlier wars of religion, the Hussite Wars (named after the executed priest, Jan Hus, who sparked them) may be of interest (Wycliffe is given a quick mention too):
Peace.
He or she will come in the form of a governor or group of governors who refuse to comply with imperial commands.
Stand right there in the doorway so the troops will know where to find you.
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
I agree that the Reformation utterly destroyed Christendom. The Reformation was the most momentous event in the history of the West. It created the modern West, for good or ill. Everything we see in the modern world is a direct result of the Reformation. Liberalism is just one of the fruits of the Reformation.
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.
>But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
I think printing was necessary, but not sufficient. Someone less tenacious-some would say pig-headed-than Martin Luther wouldn't have successfully set off that spark. I'm not comparing Luther to Hitler, obviously, but I think you could say the same about 1930s Germany. The contours of the next conflict had already been deeply embedded by that point, but without Hitler's own irreplaceable idiosyncracies, history would be unrecognizably different.
There were also tons of contingent factors after Luther, as well as before him. What if Catherine of Aragon's son Henry survived, or Mary Tudor was a boy, for example? England probably would have remained Catholic, with close ties to Spain and the HRE.Replies: @dfordoom
Ruffians who wouldn't put up with the "divine right" nonsense and consequent abuses foisted on them by Catholic monarchs (and even nominally Protestant ones like Charles I Stuart), and wanted a slice of the pie.
If it wasn't for ruffians, you Americans would all be speaking French over there. Or Spanish.
You have to remember that Clinton won in 1992 and then the Democrats lost seats in Congress in 1994 and Obama won in 2008 and then the Democrats lost seats in Congress in 2010. People have an unrealistic view now of what the government can accomplish. In order to get elected to the presidency, politicians have to make promises they can’t keep. When they don’t deliver, their disappointed followers turn against them and the enemies they make while in office mobilize against them. The same thing is likely to happen this time around too.
The conservative establishment is saying we need another Reagan but that is unlikely to be the solution. In retrospect, the second Reagan term was a failure. You had the immigration amnesty act of 1986 which led to demographic changes, leading to it becoming harder for conservative Republicans to win elections, Volcker being replaced by Greenspan was the beginning of 32 years of uninterrupted bad Fed policies. The Republican party also abandoned any pretense to being the party of small government and balanced budgets as David Stockman has pointed out. Finally, the neocons took control of Republican foreign policy, eventually leading to us being dragged into Middle East wars.
Since Reaganism didn’t work, Bushism didn’t work and now Trumpism didn’t work we need to go back further to find something that did work. The U.S. was never perfect but for the first two hundred years of its existence it was successful at offering the average person opportunities for advancement. People from around the world wanted to come here to make a new life. We need to return to the principles we started with and have moved away from in recent years.
There won't be any returning to normal. Nobody would want it.
A possible Red State pushback would be on the Biden mask mandate. Although it applies to federal facilities, many states have occupational safety and health authorities that operate under delegations of authority from the federal OSHA. OSHA has requirements for occupational mask wearing (e.g., medical examinations if the mask wearing is to be long-term). How about some Red State OSHA declaring the Biden mask mandate illegal because it violates OSHA regulations? How will the Harris/Biden Administration react to allegations that it is endangering worker health by a decree that Biden himself has characterized as a patriotic duty?
In the old days, Conservatives, or at least Republicans, were the blue party on the political maps, but they ineptly let the Dems and media stick the colour red to them after the Conservatives believed, mistakenly, that Communism had been vanquished rather than simply changing their colour to green.
In the old days, Conservatives, or at least Republicans, were the blue party on the political maps, but they ineptly let the Dems and media stick the colour red to them after the Conservatives believed, mistakenly, that Communism had been vanquished rather than simply changing their colour to green.
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
The Roman Catholic church had grown rather corrupt and decadent by the time Luther came on the scene. While Reformation was hard on western Christendom, it may have extended the life of the Roman Catholic church by several hundred years by forcing it to reform to compete rather than simply wither. Its an interesting question what might have transpired if there had been no Reformation in that you can see a modern parallel in the political systems of the Western World.
The scientific and Industrial Revolutions would probably have happened but they would certainly have been different without the Reformation.
Without the Reformation there might have been no Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment there would have been no American and French Revolutions, or at least they would have taken very different forms. The United States would certainly not have been a republic. Had the American colonies broken away anyway they would have established monarchical government. George Washington would have King George I of America. The United States would never have become an ideological state.
Without the Reformation there would have no Puritans. The United States might have turned out to be a much saner society.
Without the Reformation the United States would not have developed that missionary zeal to impose its ideological program on the entire planet.
There would have been no English Civil War and no Glorious Revolution.
Without the Reformation the French would not have destroyed themselves in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.Replies: @Rosie
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
“No. Martin Luther … weakened Christendom, and set Europe on a path for 150 years of warfare.”
Yes, but that process also got it out of the way and allowed Europe to move past all that nonsense that began with the importation of middle Eastern religious fanaticism 1000 prior. The Protestant Reformation, and the wars that it triggered, taught a lot of people the painful lesson that this crap isn’t worth fighting wars over. Without the Protestant Reformation the process of secularization after 1700 would have been significantly more violent.
“The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead.”
I voted for Trump (2016, not 2020) because I wanted America’s immigration laws to be enforced. That was it. The people who really love the man’s personality are just men who grew up without fathers for whom he is their surrogate alpha male daddy. Whether he actually builds the wall, protects us against internet censorship, ultimately makes no difference.
“This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and “freedom of expression”—the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.”
It’s more like he acts low-class and they don’t like low-class people in high places.
“If I’ve accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything’s going to hell.”
Who is the true king in this situation? If you are two years after the revolution, you can call it a restoration because the King is still there, maybe in chains, maybe exiled, as are a substantial number of the old, experienced ruling elite that people remember owing loyalty to. If you’re two hundred years after the revolution, you need to make the case to the people: “I know you’ve shown loyalty to this present elite all your lives, but you need to transfer that loyalty to another group of people who have no experience ruling.” That’s a revolution, no matter what you want to call it.
To be less abstract about it, the Catholic Church was not destroyed by Martin Luther. It still exists today. It presses for the abolition of Europe’s borders. Is this what you want to “restore?” Or, like the Reddit communist, will you fall back on “b-b-but that’s not true reaction?” What the right needs to do is to Win. That’s it. What it doesn’t need is adherence to any of these Capital Letters. States’ Rights. Private Company. Free Market. Equality. Tradition. Consitutional Law. Jesus. The Left runs roughsod over all of these but doesn’t hesitate to appeal to them when they see an advantage in doing so. They want to Win. We should too.
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
Trump was attacked (or praised) as a Caesar figure from the very beginning because he was seen as a strong populist and a threat to the “Senatorial” power of modern America. I never thought he had the stature of a Caesar and chalked this up to punditry and fearmongering. I also saw historians compare him more to Sulla, someone who would seize control of the system to reverse reforms (to a liberal or leftist, this meant rolling back social policies and giving more breaks for the wealthy.
But in Trump I saw the Gracchi more than anyone, at least Trump in his candidacy and first couple of years. He came as a reformer and populist who sought to bring prosperity to the peasants that saw their land and mode of living taken from them by the rich. Someone who was assassinated by the conservatives in the Senate much like Caesar, but didn’t amass so much power like Caesar that his “death” would leave a vacuum. The vacuum is pretty much relegated to the GOP and the conservatives will snuff out any populist instinct. Of course we now know that Trump was a Crassus at best, going into politics for attention and prestige. For Trump’s sake he better hope he doesn’t share the same fate as Crassus; maybe he can convince the Parthians that it’s his donors who deserve silver poured down their throats, as Trump probably doesn’t have billions and certainly won’t after the system is done assassinating him
The conservative establishment is saying we need another Reagan but that is unlikely to be the solution. In retrospect, the second Reagan term was a failure. You had the immigration amnesty act of 1986 which led to demographic changes, leading to it becoming harder for conservative Republicans to win elections, Volcker being replaced by Greenspan was the beginning of 32 years of uninterrupted bad Fed policies. The Republican party also abandoned any pretense to being the party of small government and balanced budgets as David Stockman has pointed out. Finally, the neocons took control of Republican foreign policy, eventually leading to us being dragged into Middle East wars.
Since Reaganism didn't work, Bushism didn't work and now Trumpism didn't work we need to go back further to find something that did work. The U.S. was never perfect but for the first two hundred years of its existence it was successful at offering the average person opportunities for advancement. People from around the world wanted to come here to make a new life. We need to return to the principles we started with and have moved away from in recent years.Replies: @Brian Reilly
Mark, The first couple hundred years were at least nodding the head to a government much smaller in scope. Also much smaller was the ability of the government to monitor the people. Also much smaller was the peoples willingness to put up with, even encourage that increase in monitoring. And it is an entirely different group of people. An entirely different situation, with entirely different demands for and willingness to pay for various services that did not exist before, and more coming every day. All seem to be more and more important as they get more and more nebulous and relativistic.
There won’t be any returning to normal. Nobody would want it.
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
Yes.
You’re damn straight it did.
Absolutely true.
Not quite. It doomed the Western iteration of Christianity, but Christianity is more than the West. Christianity is not of this world; it is a pneuma that comes from God, it is indefectible in its essence, and it cannot be destroyed. What’s being destroyed is the Western institutional Church and all its compromises with “this world,” which are subject to the universal laws of history including degeneration and collapse. Christianity existed for a thousand years before there even was a “West,” and it will still exist once the West is dead and gone. One of my chief concerns is providing a space for this Christianity and understanding the forms it will take.
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
I think the truly fascinating thing about the Reformation is it shows that human culture can shift dramatically within a surprisingly short time. Normally, culture shifts very glacially, but every so often in history, you get these sparks of dramatic, intense change, and the Reformation was one of them.
>But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
I think printing was necessary, but not sufficient. Someone less tenacious-some would say pig-headed-than Martin Luther wouldn’t have successfully set off that spark. I’m not comparing Luther to Hitler, obviously, but I think you could say the same about 1930s Germany. The contours of the next conflict had already been deeply embedded by that point, but without Hitler’s own irreplaceable idiosyncracies, history would be unrecognizably different.
There were also tons of contingent factors after Luther, as well as before him. What if Catherine of Aragon’s son Henry survived, or Mary Tudor was a boy, for example? England probably would have remained Catholic, with close ties to Spain and the HRE.
On the other hand without religion being a poisoning factor Ireland might have remained an English possession.
Had England remained Catholic England might have been Spain's ally against the rising power of France.
And the American colonies would have been overwhelmingly Catholic. With, in all probability, a very strong determination to prevent Protestant immigration. George Washington would have been His Most Catholic Majesty King George I.
Of course without the Reformation there would have been no French Revolution and probably no Louisiana Purchase. French America would have colonised the eastern parts of what is now the US and French America might have become the superpower.Replies: @nebulafox
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
So wie das Geld im Kasten klingt; die Seele aus dem Fegfeuer springt.
https://youtu.be/PwiKrs12aBY?t=164m40sReplies: @dfordoom
One of the very few things that Conservatives have been right about is their belief that Communism has been vanquished.
This time must certainly be better, because we have better leaders and technocrats, we have MMT, and our leaders have even better technology and weaponry.
Communism wasn’t vanquished, it just transformed itself into a watermelon … Green on the outside, Red on the inside. The USSR may have collapsed, but not before they had infiltrated all the multi-generational training channels of the youth of today, most of whom are clamoring for freedom from responsibility through the wise guidance of the Technocracy and their Dear Leaders, while they toil away all day on their iToys and video games echoing the Truth (правда) broadcast to them by the MSM and other approved organs.
This time must certainly be better, because we have better leaders and technocrats, we have MMT, and our leaders have even better technology and weaponry.
The conventional wisdom is that the era of modern nation states was ushered in by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Without the Reformation there would have been no Thirty Years’ War, so no Treaty of Westphalia and possibly no modern nation states.
The scientific and Industrial Revolutions would probably have happened but they would certainly have been different without the Reformation.
Without the Reformation there might have been no Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment there would have been no American and French Revolutions, or at least they would have taken very different forms. The United States would certainly not have been a republic. Had the American colonies broken away anyway they would have established monarchical government. George Washington would have King George I of America. The United States would never have become an ideological state.
Without the Reformation there would have no Puritans. The United States might have turned out to be a much saner society.
Without the Reformation the United States would not have developed that missionary zeal to impose its ideological program on the entire planet.
There would have been no English Civil War and no Glorious Revolution.
Without the Reformation the French would not have destroyed themselves in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
and the development of firearms combined with pike blocks made sure even the most elite armoured aristocrat couldn’t do much about it, apart from muster up their own herds of resentful ruffians armed likewise.
Ruffians who wouldn’t put up with the “divine right” nonsense and consequent abuses foisted on them by Catholic monarchs (and even nominally Protestant ones like Charles I Stuart), and wanted a slice of the pie.
If it wasn’t for ruffians, you Americans would all be speaking French over there. Or Spanish.
The legitimate federal government can just start droning the illegitimate state governments.
>But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
I think printing was necessary, but not sufficient. Someone less tenacious-some would say pig-headed-than Martin Luther wouldn't have successfully set off that spark. I'm not comparing Luther to Hitler, obviously, but I think you could say the same about 1930s Germany. The contours of the next conflict had already been deeply embedded by that point, but without Hitler's own irreplaceable idiosyncracies, history would be unrecognizably different.
There were also tons of contingent factors after Luther, as well as before him. What if Catherine of Aragon's son Henry survived, or Mary Tudor was a boy, for example? England probably would have remained Catholic, with close ties to Spain and the HRE.Replies: @dfordoom
In that scenario it’s also quite likely that the union of the English and Scottish crowns would never have happened. So Scotland might be an independent nation today.
On the other hand without religion being a poisoning factor Ireland might have remained an English possession.
Had England remained Catholic England might have been Spain’s ally against the rising power of France.
And the American colonies would have been overwhelmingly Catholic. With, in all probability, a very strong determination to prevent Protestant immigration. George Washington would have been His Most Catholic Majesty King George I.
Of course without the Reformation there would have been no French Revolution and probably no Louisiana Purchase. French America would have colonised the eastern parts of what is now the US and French America might have become the superpower.
The scientific and Industrial Revolutions would probably have happened but they would certainly have been different without the Reformation.
Without the Reformation there might have been no Enlightenment. Without the Enlightenment there would have been no American and French Revolutions, or at least they would have taken very different forms. The United States would certainly not have been a republic. Had the American colonies broken away anyway they would have established monarchical government. George Washington would have King George I of America. The United States would never have become an ideological state.
Without the Reformation there would have no Puritans. The United States might have turned out to be a much saner society.
Without the Reformation the United States would not have developed that missionary zeal to impose its ideological program on the entire planet.
There would have been no English Civil War and no Glorious Revolution.
Without the Reformation the French would not have destroyed themselves in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.Replies: @Rosie
That’s quite a list of horrors. I suppose one benefit of being the loser in history is that you get to blame any subsequent catastrophes on somebody else, while any horrors you might have occasioned remain entirely speculative counterfactual.
This is the fundamental problem with the reactionary search for historical wrong turns.
Speculating about might-have-beens is fun. The real problem with reactionaries is that they convince themselves it really is possible to halt history at a particularly favourable moment.
Are you British by any chance?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement
On the other hand without religion being a poisoning factor Ireland might have remained an English possession.
Had England remained Catholic England might have been Spain's ally against the rising power of France.
And the American colonies would have been overwhelmingly Catholic. With, in all probability, a very strong determination to prevent Protestant immigration. George Washington would have been His Most Catholic Majesty King George I.
Of course without the Reformation there would have been no French Revolution and probably no Louisiana Purchase. French America would have colonised the eastern parts of what is now the US and French America might have become the superpower.Replies: @nebulafox
I’d go further: I’m wondering if there would have been an America at all, TBH.
Even if there was one, Protestantism’s global power would have been severely curtailed if England remained Catholic. It would have been hemmed into Northern Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and Scandinavia. Except for the second, none had global empires like England.
Without the Reformation the whole of America, North as well as South, might have been divided between Spain and Portugal, with Catholic England getting a few scraps.
Certainly the history of European colonialism would have been very different.
Australia might have been a wholly Catholic country, rather than the most secular society on Earth.
AE, are you trying to bait Twinkie into posting with this one?
Both Catherine of Aragon and Erasmus-to give a couple of concrete examples of what your mainstream educated European might have thought-were under absolutely no illusions about the problems within the Roman Catholic Church of their era, but they both concluded that the wise course was reform from within instead of breaking away.
So, I think that would have remained the mainstream intellectual position without Martin Luther. It took Luther-or somebody like him-to kick off the Reformation as we know it. You can’t just replace him with someone else, in my opinion.
But in Trump I saw the Gracchi more than anyone, at least Trump in his candidacy and first couple of years. He came as a reformer and populist who sought to bring prosperity to the peasants that saw their land and mode of living taken from them by the rich. Someone who was assassinated by the conservatives in the Senate much like Caesar, but didn't amass so much power like Caesar that his "death" would leave a vacuum. The vacuum is pretty much relegated to the GOP and the conservatives will snuff out any populist instinct. Of course we now know that Trump was a Crassus at best, going into politics for attention and prestige. For Trump's sake he better hope he doesn't share the same fate as Crassus; maybe he can convince the Parthians that it's his donors who deserve silver poured down their throats, as Trump probably doesn't have billions and certainly won't after the system is done assassinating himReplies: @nebulafox
Let’s pop bubbles from the left and right simultaneously…
Whatever else you can say about Sulla-and you can say a lot-he was a very formidable, serious person underneath the personal loucheness in a way Trump just wasn’t. Sulla won battles. Trump was a reality TV star. Similarly, the analogy to the Gracchi fails utterly, even if we pretend Trump ever had genuine populist sympathies, because the Gracchi actually took their ideas *seriously* and were willing to sacrifice everything for them.
I think the analogy is Berlusconi with goofier hair. That’s been my position since 2016, and it’ll remain so. You could do worse than that-I think we’re about to find out how much worse. But you can do way, way better, too.
A military in which the combat troops are not largely law-abiding white guys is greatly to be feared. However, it may never come to pass. If the DOD can replace its troops with robots and drones, we won’t have an army of brown soldiers.
Sorry this discussion got derailed by the Inquisitors. What sorts of commands do you envision refusal to that will lead to reform?
But how do you reform something that thinks it’s infallible?
The Reformation doomed not just Christendom. It doomed Christianity.
Whether all that was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your perspective.
But I agree with Talha that the invention of printing was the spark that set off the explosion., rather than a single individual like Luther.
The Reformation was so momentous that it is impossible even to imagine what the history of the West would have been without it.Replies: @The Alarmist, @Intelligent Dasein, @nebulafox, @Expletive Deleted, @Talha
Just to clarify; Postman (and I would agree with him) didn’t consider the printing press to be the spark per se. There were already reformation attempts and dissident voices challenging Church authority prior to it – see my examples and even the Cathars/Albigensians centuries before. The point seems to be that earlier dissident voices could be contained and even crushed before the invention, afterwards it was able to disperse ideas way too widely…there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
So, in short; it didn’t start the fire, but it made damn sure no subsequently lit fires could easily be put out.
Peace.
If England had remained Catholic it would probably have allied Spain. The Anglo-Spanish fleet would have ruled the waves and there would have no Dutch seaborne empire.
Without the Reformation the whole of America, North as well as South, might have been divided between Spain and Portugal, with Catholic England getting a few scraps.
Certainly the history of European colonialism would have been very different.
Australia might have been a wholly Catholic country, rather than the most secular society on Earth.
I thought the Papacy was only infallible on matters of doctrine. Cleaning up corruption or making adjustments to Church governance would have been possible.
Yes, that makes sense.
Yes, a great deal of housecleaning could be accomplished, but orthopraxy follows orthodoxy. The single biggest issue of corruption was the sale of indulgences, which followed logically from the idea of purgatory and the whole justification-by-merit concept that the Catholic Church maintains to this day.
So no, satisfactory reformation from within was not possible.
“The bible is universally known as his masterwork, but while that was in the works, there was cash to be made, producing schoolbooks, calendars, and especially in the lucrative business of printing indulgences. These had been around for centuries, an opportunity for the faithful to atone and have their sins remitted by, say, good works, making a pilgrimage, fasting, going on Crusade...or money. The document itself is just a form, boilerplate we’d say today, with spaces for the name, date and seller. Take that to your confessor, in a state of grace, and you’ve gotten yourself out of Purgatory. This was big business for everybody involved, for the printers but mainly for the church; print runs ran into the thousands. In one case at least 190,000 were printed.
...
Some 60 years later, though, a German priest got fed up with the latest abuses of the indulgence system, now made so easy by the new technology. This time it was to raise money for the building of St. Peter’s. Fed up enough to make his points, all 95 of them, to his bishop. Those theses, we think intended for private discussion, went viral. They quickly got printed, though we don’t know how or by whom.“
https://ischool.uw.edu/podcasts/dtctw/gutenberg-indulgence
So...inventor creates a tool to help the Church more efficiently carry out a task. That highly-efficient method leads to increased criticism of the very task. This leads to a certain man’s criticisms (of the same institution) being spread efficiently by the very tool...you see where this is heading.
Peace.Replies: @Rosie
Just go ahead and say it:
Letting the peons learn to read was the biggest mistake since Eve took the bite out of the apple.
Yeah. It’s easy to overlook the fact that if history had taken a different turn things might have ended up turning out better, or even worse. Or more likely, better in some ways and worse in some ways.
Speculating about might-have-beens is fun. The real problem with reactionaries is that they convince themselves it really is possible to halt history at a particularly favourable moment.
These sort of Whig-historical analogies are always extremely inapposite but particularly so now when what really need is a Restoration not a revolt.
The appeal of Trump was that he was a proto-Caesar, and the appeal of Caesar has to do with the fact that something of the grandeur of old monarchy hangs about him. The Caesar brings things full-circle; he is the echo of Hector and Priam and the heroes of the Mycenaean primitive age. In him men glimpse a ray of hope, that maybe the old verities are real and not quite dead. This is why the Optimates (i.e. the party of Big Money and Big Intellect and "freedom of expression"---the real heirs of Martin Luther and Protestantism) mass against him and plot to overthrow him.
If I've accomplished nothing else with all my commenting here, at least let me be remembered for this: The whole Whig narrative and its basic theme of the big, evil institution versus the plucky little freedom fighter, is the exact opposite of the truth. The Revolution has succeeded, the rebels are in control, the true king is in chains, and this is why everything's going to hell.Replies: @Talha, @dfordoom, @Anon, @Pop Warner, @anon, @Wency
As soon as AE posted that, I knew there would be an objection. But I think it’s still possible to see Martin Luther as a whistleblower type who called out legitimate grievances, while condemning him as a schismatic who used those grievances to do evil. My theology/church history teacher at Catholic high school, a very literate and devout man, believed as much. He argued that the RCC goes through a natural cycle of corruption followed by reform, and that the 16th century was a period of maximal corruption that would have naturally given way to reform, but then Protestants instead used the opportunity to wreck the whole thing.
But I have a tough time believing that if only there was no such thing as the Reformation, Catholicism would be any healthier — the US would probably just be more like France in that case. The US is where the Reformation reached its natural conclusion, without a state-sponsored church to enforce uniformity. And for all its messiness, the US model has still preserved faith and church attendance among the people for longer than the European one.
Again; technology, early adopters, unintended consequences…
“The bible is universally known as his masterwork, but while that was in the works, there was cash to be made, producing schoolbooks, calendars, and especially in the lucrative business of printing indulgences. These had been around for centuries, an opportunity for the faithful to atone and have their sins remitted by, say, good works, making a pilgrimage, fasting, going on Crusade…or money. The document itself is just a form, boilerplate we’d say today, with spaces for the name, date and seller. Take that to your confessor, in a state of grace, and you’ve gotten yourself out of Purgatory. This was big business for everybody involved, for the printers but mainly for the church; print runs ran into the thousands. In one case at least 190,000 were printed.
…
Some 60 years later, though, a German priest got fed up with the latest abuses of the indulgence system, now made so easy by the new technology. This time it was to raise money for the building of St. Peter’s. Fed up enough to make his points, all 95 of them, to his bishop. Those theses, we think intended for private discussion, went viral. They quickly got printed, though we don’t know how or by whom.“
https://ischool.uw.edu/podcasts/dtctw/gutenberg-indulgence
So…inventor creates a tool to help the Church more efficiently carry out a task. That highly-efficient method leads to increased criticism of the very task. This leads to a certain man’s criticisms (of the same institution) being spread efficiently by the very tool…you see where this is heading.
Peace.
“The bible is universally known as his masterwork, but while that was in the works, there was cash to be made, producing schoolbooks, calendars, and especially in the lucrative business of printing indulgences. These had been around for centuries, an opportunity for the faithful to atone and have their sins remitted by, say, good works, making a pilgrimage, fasting, going on Crusade...or money. The document itself is just a form, boilerplate we’d say today, with spaces for the name, date and seller. Take that to your confessor, in a state of grace, and you’ve gotten yourself out of Purgatory. This was big business for everybody involved, for the printers but mainly for the church; print runs ran into the thousands. In one case at least 190,000 were printed.
...
Some 60 years later, though, a German priest got fed up with the latest abuses of the indulgence system, now made so easy by the new technology. This time it was to raise money for the building of St. Peter’s. Fed up enough to make his points, all 95 of them, to his bishop. Those theses, we think intended for private discussion, went viral. They quickly got printed, though we don’t know how or by whom.“
https://ischool.uw.edu/podcasts/dtctw/gutenberg-indulgence
So...inventor creates a tool to help the Church more efficiently carry out a task. That highly-efficient method leads to increased criticism of the very task. This leads to a certain man’s criticisms (of the same institution) being spread efficiently by the very tool...you see where this is heading.
Peace.Replies: @Rosie
To be fair to the Church, it must be said that the building of St. Peter’s was a worthy cause. I have often wondered about the role of the arts in fostering belief. I personally am not sure that I would be a believer today but for the magnificent art God has inspired. I can’t look at something like St. Peter’s and believe the humans that created it emerged by chance from the primordial goo.
That said, I wonder if there was a sliding scale for indulgences. Did a prince and a pauper pay the same for a get-out-of-purgatory-but-its-not-free card? If so, that just adds insult to injury (Luke: 21). The whole affair was an outrage to the Gospel, and the Church cannot acknowledge it to this day.
God promised that the Holy Spirit would always be present with and guide the Church (John 14: 26), but that doesn’t mean sinful humans will have ears to hear the truth. FWIW, I have many Catholics who are dear to me and they absolutely do not believe that Christ demands a pound of flesh in purgatory. “It is finished.” (John 19: 30)
The Catholic Church teaches justification by nothing other than the blood of Christ. And there is absolutely nothing incorrect about the Church offering indulgences in exchange for voluntary contributions of much needed funds.
Peace.
I think it is quite significant; from architecture, to poetry, to reliefs or paintings, etc. – people see an inspirational piece of work and naturally wonder at what inspired it.
No idea…it’s possible (it makes sense to me that you would charge a poor person less, but I’m no expert in this). We have the concept of kaffarah (or expiations/atonements) for various sins, but it always involves something like feeding or clothing the poor directly or freeing a slave, etc. 🤷♂️
Peace.
Yes, which is why I specified during his candidacy and beginning of his presidency. It was a similarity, not a complete parallel. Do try and read the whole comment next time, ok?
I think this is where people get into arguments about what exactly falls under the category of “much needed funds”.
Peace.
Soon, grasshopper, very soon. Just hold on for a few more centuries.
Interesting reading comprehension test, AE. Your conclusion is strongly supported by European and American history:
But somehow that forest is invisible to all those busy arguing about treebark. Reading comprehension failures.
Unspoken is the possibility that the US has passed beyond being reformable; Capitol City is so far above all the Districts[1] as to be floating in the clouds, untouchable and unreachable. None of us care to think of that scenario, because of the sheer ugliness implied.
[1] The Woke are deeply tied to Harry Potter fantasies, especially Millennials. This plays out in their world view and of course their politics. For entertainment purposes only one way to jar them a bit out of their emotional ruts is a dash of Hunger Games imagery. They don’t much care for the idea that they are on the side of Coriolanus Snow and thus not The Resistance at all…in fact, exactly the opposite.
Covid mandates are one way it could’ve played out. Instead of Trump it had been Hillary Clinton and she had gone the Cuomo/Newsome route on a nationwide scale, how would Florida and South Dakota responded?
But I have a tough time believing that if only there was no such thing as the Reformation, Catholicism would be any healthier -- the US would probably just be more like France in that case. The US is where the Reformation reached its natural conclusion, without a state-sponsored church to enforce uniformity. And for all its messiness, the US model has still preserved faith and church attendance among the people for longer than the European one.Replies: @Audacious Epigone
The Church had dueling papacies two centuries before. There were legitimate grievances.