Consider the fact that infants don’t seem to grasp the concept of “object permanence” (over time), which is why peek-a-boo is a fun for game for them, since they see objects vanishing and reappearing every time. There seem to be mental procedures for compiling disconnected sensory impressions into cohesive objects. Blind people who gain or regain their vision are often unable to cope with the visual impressions they experience; objects appear to be actually shrinking as they move further away, rather than being perceived as more distant; faces are unrecognizable fleshy landscapes that talk and blink, and objects need to be consciously interpreted to be recognized (“OK… it’s about the length of my hand. It’s … shiny grey… I guess that’s metal. Four little things stick out from them, and they’re thin, parallel and seem to be pointed. … is it a fork?”). It’s mentally demanding.

We see the process reflected very closely in art. In children’s art, but equally in all art before the development of naturalistic perspective, drawings are reproductions not of sights-as-seen, but of objects-as-experienced. Houses are drawn symbolically, with impossible perspectives showing their relevant parts: the back door as well as the front door, the chimney and the apple tree in the back yard, all seen as from an imaginary angle. The intentional, object-oriented angle. The same applies to human figures, whether in children’s drawings or in pictograms. Learning how to draw realistically requires — in addition to obvious technical skills, hand-eye coordination, etc. – the ability to properly conduct epoché; to record the actual visual impression on your retina, as you see it in a non-conceptualizing way, and record that. Drawing what you see, not what you think. It’s incredibly difficult. I can’t, which is why it takes a skilled artist to realistically draw perspective, but it is certainly possible.
*Or rather: “Oh, a place for me to sit”

Let me cite the Standard Dictionary of Philosophy:

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions.

It’s fascinating, and weird stuff, and tends to be written either in dense German prose, effervescent French philosophese or in even worse English translations marred from the need to break up German compounds into long, right-branching noun chains themselves connected ever-so loosely by multiple iterations of the word “of”, which renders a perfectly reasonable word like Subjektphilosophie  as “the Philosophy of the Subject”, etc.I thankfully have a passing knowledge of German, but more importantly, I can read wonderful Danish translations that tend to be much closer to the German original, since our languages are so close. Anyway, the topic of this entry was not supposed to be the translation of philosophical prose, but phenomenology itself.

Phenemonology deals, as far as I’ve understood it, in the first-person experience of being-in-the-world. It might be something as simple as how we look at a pen, which is an example I’ve seen repeated several places. Depending on the specific mode of intentionality under analysis, a phenomenological examination of looking-at-pens might describe how the various sensory impressions of the pen (crucially, the fact that we cannot see the pen from more than a single angle, because objects in space have orientations and subjects) present themselves to our minds as a single, coherent object. It’s equally crucial that we are not oriented toward the sensory impressions themselves, which aren’t salient, but toward the pen itself, which is then “given to us” as a transcendental object (i.e. an object that transcends sensory detection and is, in principle, knowable and observable to other subjects).

So there are objects (pens), subjects (pen-gazers) and intentionalities (gazing), and phenomenological analysis (/phenomenologically informed analyses in other sciences). Another mode of intentionality might be “remembrance”, “longing for” or “hatred”, but equally “imagination” and “conception”. We can equally intend fictional objects, which seems strange, but is the reason we can paint pictures of unicorns and goblins as easily as horses and chimps.

My interest in phenomenology goes ‘all the way’ back to my Bachelor essay, in which I contrasted various modes of interacting with (/intending) the same class of objects. I think it’s interesting how interactionally dead objects in our daily lives really are, in the sense that their proper use, purpose and meaning aren’t inscribed into them physically, but intersubjectively, so objects change their use and purpose according to context, and a cultural practice can exchange almost all of its constituents and somehow still remain recognizable.

My essay was about “special beers” in the Danish market, which refer to both local microbrewery beers and imported craft beers (e.g. Belgian ones). The interesting thing is that the beers themselves aren’t the most important part of the craft beer movement, since the beers change from place to place and time to time. Nor is it important who does the drinking; the most important factor seemed to be the mode of consumption, whereby beer is consumed, described and interacted in a new way. We starting drinking new beers, but the real import object wasn’t beer but the idea that beer didn’t have to be a low-class, cheap, industrial product, but could be enjoyed, savored, in the same way as wine. So the intentionalities change and pre-existing, shared intentionalities (‘savoring’, as opposed to ‘guzzling’) are retasked in a social process.

Now, I’ve moved on to considering everyday life in more detail. In particular, I’m interesting what one might call the phenomenology of possession. That is, how we experience ownership, property, possession and perhaps even attachment or co-belonging with objects. It’s often said that we consume and take into possession for reasons of identity and self-expression. How does that really work? Why is it that we would assume that other people knew how [insert quality] we are when we buy or own [insert object]? It isn’t just an external thing either; I am quite convinced that we genuinely do alter ourselvesthrough our object-interactions.*

But tons of other authors have studied consumption, often critically, and spatial belonging, etc. I haven’t read that much about our attachment to objects. Why is it, e.g., that theft angers us? Why are some forms of taking – above all visible ones, like the re-possession of a house – more distressing to us than more discrete ways of taking, such as taxation? Why is it natural to refer to things we’ve borrowed as “ours” (as in, “Whose book is this? / It’s mine, well, uhm, Bob’s, but…”), or even just things we’ve been given that we would never describe as “owning”, at least  not in the formal/legal sense: the food on “your” plate at a dinner party, “your” children, one of those children’s rooms (“No grown ups allowed”). I know for a fact that the squatters in Copenhagen I blogged about a couple of years ago felt a profound sense of ownership over ‘their’ house, even thought it had been lent to them and the courts ultimately found that they didn’t have a claim to it.

Behind these different senses of ownership – some momentary, some long-standing - there seems to be a common denominator, a concurrent way of thinking about  and interacting with these things, people and places, which isn’t really ownership, or actual possession, or desire, but … something like attachment, or “property” in some very literal sense of an object having been appropriated to a subject, or an etymological sense:

[early 13c., "adapted to some purpose, fit, apt," from O.Fr. propre (11c.), from L. proprius "one's own, particular to itself," from pro privo "for the individual."

Possession and belonging are not the same as legal property; legal property is an attempt at formalization and codification of [pre-existing]property [relations], e.g. in the case of issuing deeds to prior owners and residents, claiming ownership over land or titles held since time immemorial (for such a long time that no other claimants can reasonably be expected to turn up).

Property rights and courts are, I guess, tools for 1) deciding cases of overlapping feelings of possession/belonging/attachment to something and 2) allowing for the dis-possession of objects in order for them to be sold, transferred, etc., which – cf. Marcel Mauss – seems to have been impossible for some forms of property / “objects possessed”. Property rights equally tie down property by connecting them to a particular person or entity, and free it up for transfer, trade, lending and leasing, which is important. Property rights also lessen the need to guard one’s property jealously, since there is a record and a legal framework to rely on. But, of course, personal, lived ownership isn’t the same as having a formal claim to property; everyone owns things without having a legal document to prove it, and we take possession of and own things socially without ever looking to formal laws and obligations. We take take possesion of a particular part of the beach when sub-bathing or a particular spot in the woods for camping, which we don’t own, but do feel some sense of ownership toward.

There be a link between territoriality and possession; they might even be the same thing. Anyway, I need to think some more about it, and I think I might have to read some Locke. Inalienable, non-transferable property (legally:  property held in fee tail) might have been the original mode of ownership for some classes of objects, which I guess makes sense in a context when trusteeship, feudal title and collective agricultural practices prevail, and needs to be examined as well.

I see some potential for interesting descriptions of various conflicts, maybe a way to link identity and object use, and the potential for insights into questions like nationality/territoriality, and a social-phenomenological description of private property rights that is less programmatic, less declaratory, and more descriptive. There isn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that all people experience senses of ownership, so the question isn’t whether they do but how, why, and what the implications are. Conflicting senses of ownership are an almost inevitable source of social conflict, and it goes beyond the legal sphere; I think developing a terminology and analysis of the phenomenon of possession itself might be useful.

It might also explain some cross-cultural differences: Do you, e.g., “own” your spot in a line at a store? What does that mean? Cutting in line is condemned in some countries(gloriously described in Watching the English, quoted here), while it’s acceptable to pile around in others. In Denmark, you’d probably be silently condemned if you cut in line at a counter or in an office, criticized in a bar (usually indirectly by some third party ["Excuse me, I think these people next to me were first..."]), but we’d never stand in line at bus stops, which I’ve heard the English do. Presumably, both Englishmen and Danes are miffed when people break into their houses and take their stuff, but why do Danes only take ownership of their spots in some kinds of lines and not others?

Sine I’m interested in food and public spaces, I’d like to look at food sharing and seating arrangements as well. Hmm.

Konservative grunde til at sænke skatten:

• Skatterne finansierer et monstrum af en stat, der blander sig i stadigt flere anliggender, der burde tilfalde familien, virksomheder, foreninger, individer, kirker og andre civilsamfundsinstitutioner at afgøre. Skatten muliggør formynderiet og alle anliggenders politisering.

  Dvs., Skatterne betaler for kulturkampen mod alt, der er godt og sundt og velforankret, i den sociale rationalismes navn.
  

• Skatten bruges som et våben mod velstand, som et tungt redskab til at udjævne og nivellere samfundet. Skatterne sætter lighedsstræberi over reel omsorg for fattige. Skatteudjævning institutionaliserer misundelse og klassekamp (frem for social harmoni), og er et anslag mod menneskers egen evne til at disponere over deres egen penge, herunder hvordan man aflønner sine ansatte.
  
  Dvs., Skattepolitikken fører en jacobinsk krig mod konservative idealer om opsaring, opbygning af et familieværk, den sociale stratifikations naturlighed.

• Familiernes mulighed for at råde over deres eget forringes, jo flere af deres ressourcer forvaltes af staten
  
  Dvs., Valg flyttes fra civilsamfund til konsulenter i strid med konservativ tiltro til beslutninger baseret på traditioner, værdier, fælles forståelser og tavs viden. Abstrakt, rationalistisk planlægning sættes over det nære og konkrete.

• Den progressive beskatning af indkomst besværliggør arbejdsdeling ml. ægtefæller og tilpasning af arbejdsmængden til livssituationen, fordi man straffes for at arbejde mere i nogen perioder og mindre i andre
  
  Dvs.,: Det gøres sværere at have et helhedsperspektiv på sit familie- og arbejdsliv over en livstid.

•  Afgifter på alkohol, chokolade og andet ‘usundt’ er formynderiske – de anerkender ikke menneskets ret til at disponere over deres liv, til at sammensætte deres egen kost ud fra tradition, personlig præference og andre ikke-politiske motiver.

  Dvs., Borgeren repræsenteres ikke, men forvaltes. Sund fornuft, diskretion og respekt for privatlivets fred sættes over styr.

• Skattepolitikken besværliggør pensionsopsparing, og fører til, at mennesker vælger pensionsplaner ikke ud fra det økonomisk mest forsvarlige, men det skattemæssigt mest gunstige.

  Dvs., Konservative idealer om selvforsørgelse, ansvar for egen opsparing og sin families ve og vel, tilsidesættes eller gøres umulige at leve efter. Der hersker usikkerhed og tvivl om økonomien, og man tvinges ud i afhængighed af staten, frem for selvstændighed.

Last summer in far-away Denmark, the Prime Minister’s Office spent approximately 1 million dollars (in a nation of 5.4 million) on a campaign endorsing a constitutional amendment. The issue—whether to abolish male-preference primogeniture in the royal family—might seem minor, but it was indicative of a style of heavy-handed politics that should be of major concern.

The campaign largely consisted of a TV-spot that satirized opponents of the amendment. The backlash that followed focused whether public monies should be spent telling the citizens how to vote, and was quite unexpected, since the amendment itself was essentially non-controversial. However, it failed to trigger a larger debate, which is shocking, since the government spends millions every year promoting all sorts of causes — so many and so often, in fact, that it took a nation-wide campaign telling the citizens how to vote in an upcoming referendum for the line to be crossed.

Publically funded canvassing is a key tool in the extensive Danish welfare system, and usually comes in the form of anti-smoking, anti-drinking or anti-obesity campaigns. While Denmark took little part in the world wars, its state information campaigns are reminiscent of the information campaigns used in wartime recruitment drives, and share a common origin in the mass education, vaccination and sanitation attempts of the time. Nowadays, they come in all shapes and sizes (but not persuasions, mind you) — in one memorable case, the Ministry of Taxation paid for dramatic posters of the run-down schools and closed hospitals Denmark would have if people failed to pay their taxes (which currently amount to about 50% of GDP).

Private actors help to legitimize this information policy, such as when newspapers order polls and immediately call for officials to launch campaigns, when the public fails to live up to the standards of liberal propriety. Progressives, always more comfortable with state-driven modernization, seize the day, and sympathetic members of the general public will ask politicians to run an anti-smoking campaign – for its own sake. Thus, these campaigns have become regular features of public policy.

Participants in the public debate — citizens — discuss what the citizens think, ought to think and how they could be made to think what they ought. Real politics are sidelined by meta-politics, the politics of politic. One wonders, in the words of Bertolt Brecht, if it “wouldn’t be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?” Or preferably: if democracy does not imply that public opinion should guide policy, and the not the other way around?

Conservatives and libertarians should question whether the state ought to be the prime motor in shaping public opinion. While it is true that all governments try to influence public opinion –it is an unavoidable aspect of statecraft – it is equally true that that can also undermine faith in democracy: If the citizens can’t be trusted to have the right opinions, how can they be trusted to vote?

I middelalderen, hvor samfundet var præget af hård standsopdeling og hierarki, var der samtidigt en fascination af det makabre og morbide, som kom til sit kraftigste udtryk i dødedansen, hvor konger, kejsere og bisper dansede sammen med simple bønder og Døden med sin le.  I døden var alle lige. Formålet var at opildne fyrster og potentater til pligttro og ydmyghed; det var bitter medicin mod arrogance og magtfuldkommenhed.

I vort samfund, der er så præget af socialliberalisme og egalitarisme, er vi alle lige, og ganske som i middelalderen er der brug for et korrektiv.

Lystige hyrdelandskaber, som den stakkels Marie Antoinette engang yndede, kammer over i pastiche uden en knokkelmand til at skære gennem sødmen og minde om døden. I en dansk tradition er Kingos barokke salmer blandt af de bedste formaninger om altings forgængelighed:

Dejligste roser har stindeste torne,
skønneste blomster sin tærende gift,
under en rosenkind hjertet kan forne,
for dog at skæbnen er sælsom og skift!
I våde-vand
flyder vort land,
Himlen har ene lyksaligheds stand!

(Thomas Kingo, ”Sorrig og glæde de vandre til hobe”, 1681)

I en tid, hvor Rousseau kunne føle sig hjemme, bør man læse de Maistre. Er der tendens til at ville konsensus og dialog, bør man læse Carl Schmitt og om valg. Er Al Gore populær, bør man læse, hvad Lord Monckton skriver. Og således videre. Konservatismen er aldrig at give sig helt hen til tidsånden, men betragte den med skepsis, som Oscar Wilde beskrev det: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” (Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892).

For tiden læser jeg Kuehnelt-Leddihn, hvis fornemme, aristokratiske og individualistiske tænking som monarkiet i et demokrati giver nationen ”fasthed og styrke og højhed”.  Det kan varmt anbefales. Hans værker er ædruelig læsning, der skarpt og udfordrende gør op med masseideologi, kollektivisme og egalitarisme.

Det er præcis, hvad vor tids søde frisind trænger til: At forædles til en mere voksen smag, ganske som børn med tiden vænnes fra sød, karakterløs mælkechokolade til en mere krævende, bittersød Valrhona. Karakterløshed præger desværre megen offentlig debat her i det skønne Nord, og aldrig mere end i kritik fremført af gamle otteogtressere om den tiltagende individualisering, zapperkulturen og hvad det ellers hedder, der viser en så upræget mangel på selvkritik, at det bliver kvalmt.

Snart er der ikke det nedgangstegn, der ikke kan (bort)forklares under henvisning til ungdommens stadigt tiltagende korruption. Det er bizart. Generationer, som implementerede frie valg på områder, man aldrig havde set før og gjorde alt, hvad de kulturradikale havde drømt om, står nu med tømmermænd.

Det er blevet klart at normløshedspolitikken havde langt alvorligere virkninger. Man ville højne respekten for mennesket ved at respektere dets ret til at træffe egne valg, hvad der er ædelt, men også enøjet, hvis det bliver frihed uden ansvar. Alt dette må man gøre op med.

De negative virkninger ser man måske først og fremmest på børn, som jo ikke nyder godt af voksnes mulighed for at træffe frie valg, men kun mærker deres konsekvenser. Bedre hjerner end undertegnede har skrevet den stadigt tiltagende fædreløshedens institutionalisering, som er belejlig både for drengerøve og moderne, selvstændige kvinder, men også autoritetens bortvisning i overgangen fra den sorte til røde skole. Konsekvenserne er mangeartede, men ophavet tilskrives ofte egoisme, individualisme og liberalisme, hvormed der menes den klassiske (foruden at man ikke bør stemme på de borgerlige partier).

Aviserne er fyldt med det. Øget vold mod tjenestemand? Individualiseringen. Ensomhed? Individualisering. Finansforbundet skrev 6. januar i år, på sin hjemmeside:

Grunden til stigningen i vold og trusler på arbejdspladsen kan skyldes en holdningsændring i befolkningen. ”Der sker en individualisering i samfundet. Folk har mindre respekt for autoriteterne. Så når de får et nej, vil de ikke acceptere det”

Det er naturligvis vås. Det, de faktisk taler om, er egalitarisme, liberalisme i den moderne amerikanske form, som nivellerer og sidestiller alle i sølet, og nedbryder de regler og strukturer, der overhovedet gør det muligt at tale om et kollektiv. Der er forskel på den udjævnede masse, som er socialismens ideal, hvor man kan opleve en forgængelig fælles eufori og på forpligtende fællesskab, som bygger på respekt, autoritet og kærlighed, og som er konservatismens sociale omdrejningspunkt. Socialliberalismen hylder massemennesket, fritstillet og i ordets tekniske forstand absolut.

Men heldigvis findes der konservative tænkere, som i mangt og meget [og med vidt forskellige grader af succes] gør op med egalitarisme. For den demokratisk sindede, for lighedsfortaleren, kvindesagsforkæmperen og sekularisten er det besk og bitter læsning, men det er præcis dem, der nærer den slags tænker, der bør læse ting, der gør op med vores tid.

Europa blev ikke bygget på lighed, og konservative bør gøre en dyd ud af at holde en ironisk distance til vores tids normer.  Strider imod strømmen og tage stilling til fordel for det agtværdige. Det betyder eksempelvis ikke, at man ikke kan være individualist – i en så kollektivt sindet tid som vores – kan man ikke være andet, men man skal vide, hvad der ligger i det. Lighed og individualisme er uforenelige størrelser, hvis lighed betyder, at man ikke skelner mellem det gode og det dårlige og den duelige og uduelige. Uden forskelle, gør det ingen forskel, hvem man er.

* Naturligvis ikke ligeværdighed, men den lighed, alle anklagede nyder hos en upartisk dommer; jeg mindes Erik v. Kühnelt-Leddihn, der i øvrigt var en stor beundrer af middelaldermennesket, som måske meget godt opsummerer sindelaget som følger:

It is most amazing that one encounters fairly well-educated Christians who believe that “we are all equal before God.” If Judas Iskariot were equal to John the Baptist or John the Evangelist, Christianity would have to close shop. Dominican R.L. Bruckburger said rightly that the New Testament is a message of human inequality. (Could one imagine that, at the Day of Judgment, all sentences could be equal? That God would not “discriminate” between saints and sinners?) (I: Monarchy & War, som fås her hos Mises-Instituttet:  )

I love this Bertolt Brecht-quote, and it’s no surprise that it’s been resurfacing  considering what the people have been up to. First the Irish (a fringe group, not to be trusted) mistakenly voted no to the Lisbon-treaty, undoubtedly inspired by the ever malcontent French and Dutch. In the classroom of global politics, all you need is a single troublemaker and he’ll inspire all the other pupils. Luckily, such insolence can be dealt with forthwith by detention and having to write “I will politely accept European treaties” over and over again until they get it right.  On ballots, not blackboards, that is.

Another group of delinquents, known for their cheese, kitschy clocks and money laundering schemes, approved an initiative banning the construction of further minarets.

One was not amused.

The disparity between the liberal mainstream and the populations has been written extensively about even in major media, but the topic never ceases to impress me. Popular discontent is fueling the rise of a number of political parties in Europe that have opposed further European political integration, extra-Western immigration and multiculturalism — with considerable electoral appeal. It’s an expression of popular political atavism that years of state-sanctioned information campaigns, liberal education, folders and happenings haven’t been able to expunge from dark crevices of Europe. I doubt it will. Racism isn’t a particularly appealing sentiment, but I think there’s little doubting that the opinions of the political elite haven’t diffused to nation at large.

The death penalty, for instance, was abolished shortly after the Second World War (after being reinstated retroactively in order to apply it to wartime collaborators) and it’s ubiquitously opposed and decried by all mainstream institutions. People in favor of it can rightly be called “fringe”. But a survey mentioned in Politiken (Forgive me for mentioning i t without the margin of error, sample size, etc.) showed that a sizable minority, 46 percent, of the Danish People’s Party’s voters supported the death penalty alongside a fifth of the general electorate. This is a fascinating case — long after a particular opinion has been made irredeemably obsolete and entirely unfashionable by Progress, it still lingers in the populace, like an exotic disease considered long-eradicated by vaccination and sanitation, resurfacing in a village in the mountains.

The masses seem in desperate need of vaccination, to be upgraded and sanitized, to meet the standards of decency, modernity and progressivism to which the avantgarde have been accustomed.  Public information campaigns decrying this and that are the vital tool, as the other preferred tool — maintaining an aptly named cordon sanitaire from inappropriate sentiments — has failed to provide the desired effect.

But I’m not to worried about the nobly savage people being ‘brainwashed by the liberal media’. It occurs to me that people, and The People, are quite resilient to any form of influence — positive or otherwise. Prejudices and opinions exist outside of the mainstream for years and then resurge when conditions are suitable. Science hasn’t eradicated superstition, and despite the utter silliness of the idea, people still refer to browning things in a pan as “sealing the pores to keep the juices in”, think you can catch a cold from low temperatures, and distrust politicians who tell them that Christmas is offensive to minorities.

Well, in any case, I just broke a rule of mine by referring to scientific and political progress together. The two share very little.

(* Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni // Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands // In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen // Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk // Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe // Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit // Zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da // Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung // Löste das Volk auf und // Wählte ein anderes?)

Do we really need this? Are we adults?

Information campaigns are just about any politician’s favorite tool. Our country is obsessed with public opinion (or a civilization?), so it’s only natural that journalists obsess with surveys and politicians call for information campaigns, but it’s also rather strange in that it reflects a very lmost convoluted concept of our res publica*, where participants in the public debate — citizens — discuss what citizens think and ought to think, while pretending to be outside of the system itself.

Punditry & Self-Awareness
While social sciences have, to some degree, abandoned the idea of a neutral vantage point, some sort of ideological perch from which the disaffected researcher could gaze  upon the body politic, this stance is affected by pundits and commentators every week, if not every night, as they explain, contextualize and pontificate on the political process. In turn, politicians exist in their own sphere of existence where they attempt to communicate their stances in a mock-oblivious (“Oh I never the read the polls…” / “Well, [X commentator]‘s opinions are really his own..), yet intensely self-aware way. It’s sort of like trying to speak clearly and coherently while hearing your own echo with a delay. It’s a constant flow of feedback, which makes for circumspect politics. It’s strange to watch. I’m sure it isn’t new, but with 24 hour news flow, focus groups and the eternal need to present a certain persona, it’s striking.

The Public Opinion of Public Opinion
This divide between Public Opinion, or The Public, and politicians, news media and the state, can be puzzling. Calls for public opinion on some issue to change, for instance. Since we have an intensely self-aware public debate, always introspective, we sometimes come across cases where politicians, elected by the people, are called by publically funded opinion-shapers to change the public opinion he’s supposed to reflect. A newspaper orders a poll on some issue, the public fails to live up to the standards of liberal propriety expected of it, and politicians spring into action calling for public opinion — even the majority opinion — to change. Or members of the general public will ask politicians to run an anti-smoking campaign for their own sake … (or not actually for their own sake; people who call for Action To Be Taken usually don’t mean themselves, “the common good” or “to protect Mrs. Jensen”,  disregarding the fact that their voice is one of the million voices of the general public pouring into YouTube-comments, letters to the editor, surveys ). It’s as if we’ve become so circumspect that we’re staring into our own backs, criticizing people who don’t look you in the eye, calling for a campaign.

I’d love some simpler politics. Where the State isn’t the prime motor in shaping public opinion, but where public opinion, exercised in referenda and through the election of politicians with actual policy proposals, shapes the actions of the state. In a democratic monarchy such as our own, public bodies shouldn’t spend the public’s money to convince people what opinions to have.

This summer, the Prime Minister’s Office  spent 5 mill. DKK (=671 000 EUR/ 1 mill. USD) on a campaign (based on this British sketch) promoting a constitutional amendment to abolish male-preference primogeniture in the royal family. It was a shameless propaganda campaign, and I’m surprised there’s been any backlash to it, since the government spends millions promoting gender equality and all sorts of other things with impunity — but a national campaign from the ministry telling the citizens how to vote in an upcoming referundum was crossing the line, I guess.

At least there is a line.

Today’s state propaganda is out of hand. If you can’t trust the citizen’s to have the right opinions, how can you allow them to vote?

To be honest, I’m divided on the matter. I have trouble imagining or even wanting a totally value-neutral state, and I can recognize that there is a case for public health information, or maybe for security-issues. But public information campaigns tend to reflect a kind of patronizing Nanny Statism that I think we’re better off without, even if it means sacrificing a 5% reduction in smoking.

[*By which I mean the various media fora in which various public actors interact through action and commentary, deciding, criticizing and evaluating policy and the state of affairs.]

—

Maria Feodorovna (26 November 1847 – 13 October 1928), born Princess Dagmar of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and later Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was Empress consort of Russia as spouse of Emperor Alexander III. She was the second daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Among her children was the last Russian monarch, Emperor Nicholas II, whom she outlived by ten years. - Wikipedia

Conservatism & Monarchism

The White Idea –as monarchism is known in the Russian tradition – plays a central role in national conservative thinking as it is found in the Young Conservatives. Our monarchism, our blind faith in the importance of the monarchy and insistence on the political potential inherent in this once so powerful institution can seem detached from reality, even quaint to an outsider, but we are quite serious.

Some time ago I read the excellent book Blot til pynt [Just for show] by Claus Bjørn, who makes a suggestion as to a conservative view of the monarchy, which I and I suspect many others recognize. He writes (paraphrasing Flemming Hvidbergs contribution to the book Til alle mænds tarv [For the common good], published by the Conservative People’s Party in 1956):

Precisely due to its contituinity, its sequestration from daily life and its special legal and social position, the Crown [kongemagten, “royal authority”] can express the lasting and that which exists above and beyond the daily squabbles of party politics and internecine fights over the distribution of resources. Thanks to its special position, the Crown is all that democracy can never be and thus exactly what democracy needs for it to live up to the concept of a nation.

In Hvidberg’s words, the monarchy “brings fortitude and strength and highness to the nation”. In this I can only agree. King Christian X’s behavior during the German occupation is almost the about the best example I can think of. And the same time, there is a longing for – we long for – a dignified, permanent and majestic counterweight to the simple and overly familiar vulgarity of the politicians. This is both a political and an aesthetic fact. The particular aesthetics of the Royal House – its protocol, its forms of address, its formalities – is treasured as equally as the political aspects, and the two have a very clear relationship; for instance, I find it incredibly inappropriate for government ministers and others to discuss what Crown Prince Frederik may and may not do*.

Etiquette holds that the ministers, like all other civil servants, serve at the pleasure of the Crown. When a minister takes office and meets the Sovereign in audience, he is simultaneously meeting the contemporary incarnation of the original rulers of the Realm: the heir to the absolute king and the prince whose predecessors have always ruled the Danes (and others). Will he accept it – inherited privilege, majesty and sovereignty [overhøjhed, “superiority”] – all this that created Denmark and that now, unapologetically, lies beyond the democratic ideal of equality – or will he reject authority and with it, Denmark? The conservative will not.

When we honor, respect and – ultimately – obey the Sovereign, we do so in part because of a sense of classical fealty felt by conservatives. On the other hand, it is also a of showing that there is still such a thing as honorability [ærværdighed, “honor-worthi-ness”]. Our veneration [ærbødighed, humbleness or “honor-offering”] is meant as a reminder of the continuing existence of venerability, even if the notion that there are differences in how much veneration is expected of each person can be how to accept for liberals. Which we do believe there to be. Thus the trappings of monarchy – our insistence on showing deference – are a way of maintaining the underlying principle of hierarchy and to the things that are given by the past, which is so central. Our respect for the monarchy also has to do with its position as “the other power” – the power that comes into play when the politicians (invariably) fail.

Here we are thinking of examples from abroad – King Juan Carlos of Spain, who averted a military coup; the governor-general of Austrialia, who resolved a constitutional crisis in the ‘70s, and many other cases. The monarchy is a plan B, and a plan B that we habitually dust off and consider; also to demonstrate our lack of childish belief in the virtues of democracy.

Such “democratism” has been described elsewhere, but monarchism is the necessary cure.

Long live the Queen!

*When I first wrote this article, there was an on-going debate going about the Crown Prince running for a seat in the International Olympic Committee, which was frank to the point of insolence.

“Venstreutopismen” er et forholdsvist veldokumenteret fænomen; det fremhæves endda positivt om venstrefløjspolitikere, at de “tør forestille sig en bedre verden”, “tænker uden for de givne rammer”, etc. [Jeg opfatter imidlertid den slags som det glade, Dædaliske vanvid, men det er vist ingen overraskelse]. Tobias Harding har i sin gæstekronik i Tradition och Fason skrevet om netop disse tanker, men også reaktionære og romantiske forestillinger om en ideel, førindustriel fortid [in casu: Herredet].

Det samme gør sig gældende for religiøs eskatologi og utopisme — som har udtryksformer fra Amish-folkets forsøg på at skabe et religiøst frirum til wahhabismens forsøg på at genskabe en renere Islam i politisk skikkelse. Også vanvittigt interessant: F.eks. hvordan medlemmerne af Heaven’s Gate følte sig nødsaget til kollektivt selvmord for at kunne undslippe jorden (jordelivet, den uperfekte verden) for at stige ombord deres flugtvej ud (til det overjordiske), kometen Haley-Bopp. Implikationen er klar — hvis man kan syne enden, betyder det nuværende pludseligt meget mindre. Man kender det måske fra feriedage, hvor de sidste udenlandske penge lige skal fyres af inden, man tager hjem, fordi man ved, at man ikke vil kunne bruge pengene ellers. Det er nu eller aldrig.

Netop følelsen af nu eller aldrig er det samme, der historisk set har drevet megen konservativ radikalisme / radikalkonservatisme, men relationen til dystopien er for mig at se for dårligt beskrevet. Hvis en bolsjevik kan drives til radikal, udenomsparlamentarisk handling ud fra ønsket om snarest muligt at indfri et ønske om utopi, så kan en konservativ drives til den grimmeste reaktion ud fra ønsket om for en hver pris at undgå dystopiens virkeliggørelse.

Når jeg skriver dette, er det måske i et udtryk for ængstelse ved implikationerne af en dystopisk opfattelse af Vestens tilstand; jeg hørte i tirsdags Claus Thomas Nielsens tale til Tidehvervs sommermøde, hvor han opridsede Anders Fogh Rasmussens regeringstid. Kritikken var hård, udsigterne dystre — og over for det tilsyneladende håbløse er der kun to muligheder: resignation eller radikalisering. “Der må gøres noget” og “hvad kan det nytte“.

Men der må være et alternativ: Måske vil det at erkende det uundgåelige kun fremskynde det? Vestens undergang, eller Aftenlandets, er måske et eksistentielt vilkår for os i vor tid, for alle os efter katastrofeåret 1914. Den demokratiske konservatismes forsvar for vestlig civilisation må bygge på det bedste, vi kan mønstre. At hengive sig til radikalisme og reaktion er faneflugt, og idealet må at være som Asbjørn, som vi kender fra Sjørupstenen: Han flygtede ikke ved Uppsala; men kæmpede så længe han havde våben.

Det må være vores tålelige — måske nødvendige — idealisme, som også drev spartanerne til at holde stand ved Thermopolyæ imod en overvældende overmagt i den persiske hær. Spørgsmålet er ikke, om det nytter — spørgsmålet er, om det er den konservative i nutiden eller fremtidens historieskrivere, der skal afgøre det. Nok døde Asbjørn, men han flygtede ikke, og mindet om hans heltedåd (uanset, hvad den var) lever videre til inspiration for fremtidige slægtled

Følgende indlæg blev bragt 17. okt, 2008 i Kristeligt Dagblad. Indsendt under titlen: “Oldævl eller Alvor”

SPØRGSMÅLET, om oldsprogene skal være obligatoriske for teologistudiet, handler om mere end blot studieordninger. Spørgsmålet er, om teologien skal leve op til sin arv og bibeholde vores kulturs bånd til oldtiden eller lade dem kappe i poppens navn.

Teologien er som en af de ældste bestående videnstraditioner, vi har ikke blot her i landet, men i hele Europa. Med dens tusindårige rødder til de romerske, græske og jødiske kulturkredse udgør den også et af de få overlevende bånd, vi overhoved har, til oldtidens menneskehed. Den overlevering af kristendommen som en klassisk arv udgør i sig selv en af de bærende bjælker i europæisk civilisation. Ikke vag snak om demokrati og C02, men mennesker af kød og blod, der gennem mange års studier, arbejde, flid, indsats, har været i stand til at holde gang i et bål, der foreløbig har brændt i to tusinde år.

Den tradition har betydning. Alternativet er glemsel, rodløshed, fortabelse.

Men i disse moderne pædagogiske tider opfattes oldtidens menneskers sprog tilsyneladende som uvedkommende, som ”oldævl”, siden man ikke finder det nødvendigt for fremtidens teologer at lære dem. Den debat om teologistudiets indhold, der har verseret i de seneste uger, har navnlig omhandlet behovet for at tiltrække nye studerende (eller ikke skræmme dem bort), stillet over for behovet for at værne om den teologiske faglighed.

Kristendommens centrale betydning for vores kultur fremhæves ofte i politiske og værdimæssige debatter – ikke mindst i borgerlige og kristeligt funderede kredse. Eksempelvis anbefalede nærværende avis anbefalede for få år siden, at kristendommen blev skrevet ind i den europæiske forfatningstraktat. Synspunktet må vel også antages at deles af de teologer, der ikke bestrider præsteembeder. Nu har vi hørt folk tale om kristen civilisation – men er det ment alvorligt?

Som udefrakommende – jeg er hverken teolog eller menighedsrådsmedlem – må jeg også fremhæve, at teologerne er blandt de eneste, der fører faklen videre fra oldtiden i kraft af deres umiddelbare adgang til kilderne. Videreførelsen af vores kultur, som teologien som fag må have til formål, kan ikke lykkes, hvis man i håbet om at tiltrække flere studerende hælder barnet ud med badevandet.

Hvis det er ens alvor, at kristendommen og den kristne kulturarv faktisk har betydning for dansk og europæisk kultur – og, at teologien således er et fag med en bredere relevans end blot at uddanne servicemedarbejdere for de få overlevende kirkegængere – så må ævlet om at afskaffe sprogstudierne lægges på hylden, og man må i stedet hylde oldsprogene.

Links:

http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/artikel/301224:Debat–Oldsprogene–Et-levende-baand-til-den-antikke-verden

http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/teologistudiet