Comments on: Subsidizing Localism?

By: Tory Anarchist » A Weekend With Douglass Adair

Tory Anarchist » A Weekend With Douglass Adair — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:59:42 +0000

[...] pluralism have any defense? Patrick Deneen has been willing to contemplate “subsidizing localism.” But this calls to mind a warning from Nisbet in his 1978 essay “The Dilemma of [...]

By: Protestant Pontifications » Implicit in the project

Protestant Pontifications » Implicit in the project — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:08:56 +0000

[...] a complaint from Taki folks over the implicit (or explicit) statism of some FPR folks, specifically Patrick Deneen’s recent shot across the bow and John Medaille’s thrashing of Austrian economics. I think Hales’ complaint is best [...]

By: Gauntlets | Front Porch Republic

Gauntlets | Front Porch Republic — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:18:42 +0000

[...] great many comments have been posted in response to my posting, “Subsidizing Localism.” I think the question I sought to pose – and for which I do not have a very good [...]

By: Bob Cheeks

Bob Cheeks — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:49:28 +0000

Patrick, congrats on this essay, a stunning success! I, for one, would like to see our other ‘contributors’ explore similar questions based in large measure on the ‘comments.’ So, please, consider this a request.
Among those I’m urging to blog on this or related themes is: John Willson, Mark Mitchell, James Wilson, Caleb, Pat, DW, and Mark Shiffman specifically because of their past contributions, comments, and expertise. But I would be pleased to read any essays on these themes by any of our gifted contributors!
I’m enthused by certain remarks by Willson re: his ‘defense’ of Southern culture which indicates an inquisitive and impartial (open) intellect, Caleb’s comments on Brolingbroke (sp) and any philosophical perspective suitable to the localist/particularist theme, DW’s vociferous and pointed renunciations of the central regime, with a close examination of the Obama Administration’s ministrations, Pat’s continuing explorations of the economic/social problems related to a restoration/re-creation of our human communities, Mark Shiffman and James Wilson’s illuminating probes into the nature of being and the erudite understanding that the great problem of modernity is the obliteration of the transcendent. And, in mentioning these folks in particular I am NOT diminishing the erudite contributions of the others.

Our world is collapsing. In our lifetimes we have seen the ennui, alienation, and boredom of the individual expand into sundry social disorders predicated on the received wisdom of our age, e.g. that the gods have died. And, here Hegel’s remark, “The Sabbath of the world has disappeared, and life has become a common, unholy workday,” speaks a truth good men and women do not wish to here.
So for me, and I open myself up to your criticism, this project is in fact a spiritual quest in an age that is defined by its pneumopathologies. We must recover/discover what it means to be human, how to live as a human being, and the love of God in freedom and in the Logos.
There is no greater challenge and thank you for your wisdom!

By: Freedom, Ethics, and the Temptation of Localism | Drunken Koudou

Freedom, Ethics, and the Temptation of Localism | Drunken Koudou — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:08:13 +0000

[...] to the ephemerally appealing cosmopolitanism, is the lodestar of the course set by Mitchell and similar others at Front Porch Republic. In brief, it is the ideology of the small town, the farm, the homestead: [...]

By: Kevin J Jones

Kevin J Jones — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:35:06 +0000

I return late Re: crime and tech

For some reason I thought the conversation was rooted in American history. Obviously Somali pirates and Colombians have only a tangential relationship to the place of technology and crime in our history.

“Number of police officers, i.e. the strength of the state, is always far more important.

There’s just no reason to think that technology has anything to do with this.”

Police officers, especially large numbers of them, can’t coordinate efficiently without technology. Without the telegraph’s capacity to speedily wire on word of bandits to the next towns in all directions, the West would have remained wild for some time.

So many have written eloquently on the way technology — cheap oil for power, television, the internet — breaks down communities and lays the foundations for for further centralization.

Yet somehow we are not to think these same factors would break up the criminal element?

Perhaps I was confused by the equivocation in the terms “the state” and “centralization of power.” Local trouble spots are almost always local law enforcement’s responsibility. They count as “the State” in politico talk, but not in common parlance.

By: John Willson

John Willson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:29:04 +0000

John, I don’t mean to be uncharitable. I think your distributism is crucially important to all our discussions. I just don’t think it helps very much for us to go back over and over distinctions without a difference. Let me give an example from the real world. My wife labored for almost a decade (the details are not important) and actually got the old downtown stripped of plastic and eggshell fronts, and started a movement that returned a business district into a…business district! All without subsidies from any level of government. Then a “city manager” form of government–they are trained to apply for grants–bought the planning package from our benevolent state and federal programs. Guess what? As for nomads, why are we nomads? If there is an importance to place (and there is, I would submit, no distributism without place)
then the “world as it is” is pretty bleak. Let’s know what nomadism is. But even to talk civilly about such things we have to get past going back constantly to such utter misrepresentations of Catholic traditions of liberty and silly notions of self-conscious “Foundings.” Sorry if I sound impatient. As I said, I got into the discussion too late; but to return to Patrick Deneen’s original question I say about subsidized localism not only no, but hell no.

By: John Médaille

John Médaille — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:14:29 +0000

John, I think when the gov’t is so involved in everything, then you have to demand it enter the lists “against itself” as it were. Obviously, this is not ideal, but it is not a good idea to make the perfect the enemy of the good. We always deal with prudential questions, which don’t have a clear or immediate solution.

I think Ryan has made good contributions. Many of us are nomads, even if we recognize the importance of place; we must live in the world as it is.

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:54:06 +0000

On topic, I empathize with those who would make a (true) case for the legitimate, positive roles of government in today’s day and age, where the government has grown to such vile proportions that any suggestion of what the government should do more is immediately ensconced in flames of righteous suspicion.

By: John Willson

John Willson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:50:21 +0000

I really don’t like to enter such a rich discussion so late–I’m afraid too late. I don’t think most Porchers fit on either side of Patrick Deneen’s fence that started this whole thing, but I know I don’t. We proclaim on the masthead, “Place. Limits. Liberty.” Localism subsidized by centralism? Of course it’s happening all the time (look at your local TIFA projects if you have a locality) and it results in…MORE CENTRALIZATION. Anyone, and I mean anyone who has labored at the level of place knows that “subsidized localism” might be the mother of all oxymorons. Make any list you want to make of what is “subsidized” by the Feds, and pick one you like, and you probably shouldn’t be wasting your time hanging around FPR. Having established that position, I wonder what prompts Ryan Davidson to be so interested in this discussion? He admits to having no sense of place, thinks we might accept the whole liberal notion, thinks we are a nation consciously “Founded,” writes off rather flippantly the entire southern heritage (I’m an unapologetic Yankee, by the way), and has a rather curious idea of what constitutes the Catholic tradition on liberty. One wonders what interests him about strange sites like FPR.

By: Albert

Albert — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:41:28 +0000

Ryan, you’re right. What constitutes slavery is off-topic. May we find agreement in more important things.

By: Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:11:16 +0000

OKay. Thank you Ryan. I’ll keep trying.

By: Ryan Davidson

Ryan Davidson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:35:59 +0000

Bruce Smith, yeah, that’s not the most glowing review I’ve read.

Mirowski isn’t really relevant to this conversation per se, but he spends a lot of time talking about neoliberalism. Most economics, and it seems the author of that review, don’t care for him much. This is probably because he doesn’t care much for them. But he’s deeply invested in the study of neoliberalism, and as your interests seem to lie there, I’d recommend him.

By: Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:39:45 +0000

Ryan. I have looked up Philip Mirowski on Wikipedia and got this review of what would appear to be one of his key books “Machine Dreams: Economics Becomes a Cyborg Science”:-

http://www.southernliterarymessenger.com/0103/reviewmachinedreams.htm

The review I’m afraid is witheringly dismissive and basically does not recommend the book for its lucidity. Not wishing to miss new ideas perhaps you would precis the relevance of Mirowski’s ideas for us.

By: Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:03:20 +0000

Ryan. I’m not sure why you are getting off the point by trying to drag Marx into the argument. If you prefer capitalism run by elites just tell us and have done with it.

By: Ryan Davidson

Ryan Davidson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:06:55 +0000

There’s a snarky comment to be made about fixating on minor points to avoid dealing with the main argument, but I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader.