I read Kevin Williamson because he is a really good writer. I only agree with him about forty percent of the time but, because he is such a good writer, he sometimes manages to pin down something really important in just a few words and, by doing so, really clarifies the issues.
A good example is this comment.
I wonder sometimes whether there isn't something deeply anti-liberal about Catholicism. In his response, Dougherty suggests that Williams thinks the difference between them is just a matter of style,
And so I ask my question in a slightly different form, "Does Catholicism tend to produce a tendency in adherents to trust institutions and to distrust individuals?" Or, to put it another way, "Does Catholicism tend to promote Toryism?"
I've been thinking about this on off ever since High Hefner died. In the week after his death two podcasts came up in my feed and I was struck by how similar they were. One was a Catholic podcast and the second was a feminist one. Both condemned the man for the same reasons. Then I went looking for others. And it struck me that we need crass vulgarians like Hefner and Trump precisely because they are crass vulgarians. They are willing to think and say the sort of things the rest of us instinctively censor. That doesn't make either of them heroic but it does make them useful. Having people like that come along and disrupt things every once in a while is a good thing.
A good example is this comment.
Michael and other likeminded anti-liberals take a relatively optimistic view of the state and what it might reasonably be expected to accomplish, and a relatively pessimistic view of the people and what they might get up to left to their own devices. I take the opposite view: I believe that the modern democratic state is inclined to be slightly more savage and backward than the demos that constitutes it.Williamson doesn't mention Catholics specifically, just anti-liberals but the Michael he is talking about is Michael Brendan Dougherty who is both Catholic and anti-liberal. Williamson is also Catholics. Is he a liberal though?
I wonder sometimes whether there isn't something deeply anti-liberal about Catholicism. In his response, Dougherty suggests that Williams thinks the difference between them is just a matter of style,
The ongoing disagreement to which Kevin Williamson refers is, I think, deeper than mere attitudes toward the state or the people. On some questions, it seems to me, Williamson prefers elite consensus and liberal restraint and I prefer the majority opinion. On others we are reversed.From what I've read of Williamson, that is more or less a correct characterization. Williams does prefer elite consensus and that has produced an anti-Trumpism in him that is every bit as toxic as David French's.
And so I ask my question in a slightly different form, "Does Catholicism tend to produce a tendency in adherents to trust institutions and to distrust individuals?" Or, to put it another way, "Does Catholicism tend to promote Toryism?"
I've been thinking about this on off ever since High Hefner died. In the week after his death two podcasts came up in my feed and I was struck by how similar they were. One was a Catholic podcast and the second was a feminist one. Both condemned the man for the same reasons. Then I went looking for others. And it struck me that we need crass vulgarians like Hefner and Trump precisely because they are crass vulgarians. They are willing to think and say the sort of things the rest of us instinctively censor. That doesn't make either of them heroic but it does make them useful. Having people like that come along and disrupt things every once in a while is a good thing.
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