1
" The theological perspective of participation actually saves the appearances by exceeding them. It recognizes that materialism and spiritualism are false alternatives, since if there is only finite matter there is not even that, and that for phenomena really to be there they must be more than there. Hence, by appealing to an eternal source for bodies, their art, language, sexual and political union, one is not ethereally taking leave of their density. On the contrary, one is insisting that behind this density resides an even greater density – beyond all contrasts of density and lightness (as beyond all contrasts of definition and limitlessness). This is to say that all there is only is because it is more than it is. (...)
This perspective should in many ways be seen as undercutting some of the contrasts between theological liberals and conservatives. The former tend to validate what they see as the modern embrace of our finitude – as language, and as erotic and aesthetically delighting bodies, and so forth. Conservatives, however, seem still to embrace a sort of nominal ethereal distancing from these realities and a disdain for them. Radical orthodoxy, by contrast, sees the historic root of the celebration of these things in participatory philosophy and incarnational theology, even if it can acknowledge that premodern tradition never took this celebration far enough. The modern apparent embrace of the finite it regards as, on inspection, illusory, since in order to stop the finite vanishing modernity must construe it as a spatial edifice bound by clear laws, rules and lattices. If, on the other hand, following the postmodern options, it embraces the flux of things, this is an empty flux both concealing and revealing an ultimate void. Hence, modernity has oscillated between puritanism (sexual or otherwise) and an entirely perverse eroticism, which is in love with death and therefore wills the death also of the erotic, and does not preserve the erotic as far as an eternal consummation. In a bizarre way, it seems that modernity does not really want what it thinks it wants; but on the other hand, in order to have what it thinks it wants, it would have to recover the theological. Thereby, of course, it would discover also that that which it desires is quite other than it has supposed "
― John Milbank , Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology
2
" A government must rule by the Grace of God or by the will of the people, it must believe in authority or in the Revolution; on these issues compromise is possible only in semblance, and only for a time. The Revolution, like the disbelief which has always accompanied it, cannot be stopped halfway; it is a force that, once awakened, will not rest until it ends in a totalitarian Kingdom of this world. The history of the last two centuries has proved nothing if not this. To appease the Revolution and offer it concessions, as Liberals have always done, thereby showing that they have no truth with which to oppose it, is perhaps to postpone, but not to prevent, the attainment of its end. And to oppose the radical Revolution with a Revolution of one's own, whether it be " conservative," " non-violent," or " spiritual," is not merely to reveal ignorance of the full scope and nature of the Revolution of our time, but to concede as well the first principle of that Revolution: that the old truth is no longer true, and a new truth must take its place. "
12
" New Rule: Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything. We've all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the " birthers" --the far-right goofballs who claim Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii, and therefore the job of the president goes to the runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean. And there's nothing you can do to convince these people--you could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate, with the placenta, and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background...and they still wouldn't believe it. Hey, birthers, wanna hear my theory? My theory is Obama was born in America, and your were born with the umbilical cord around your neck. I don't know what his mother was doing when she was pregnant, but I'm pretty sure yours was drinking.Oh, I kid the birthers, and actually, there is one thing that makes me think they could be right: We're Americans; of course we're gonna hire an illegal alien to clean up. I'm joking, of course, and laughing it off has also been the reaction from Democratic leaders so far, proving that Democrats never learn: In America, if you don't immediately kill arrant bullshit, no matter how ridiculous, it can grow and thrive and eventually take over, like crabgrass or Cirque du Soleil. This might be a deluded, time-wasting right-wing obsession, but so was Whitewater, and look where that ended up. Liberals said, " Oh, what're they gonna do, keep expanding the case until they impeach the president over a blow job?" I'm telling you, in America, there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on. For example, have you ever met a Mormon? More recently, we had the Swift Boat allegations against John Kerry, making him, a genuine war hero, into a coward in a race against a guy who never left Texas--this was so stupid that Kerry refused to even discuss it. And we all know how well that worked out.You may ask, how does something as inane as Whitewater or Swift Board or the " birther" phenomenon gain traction? I'll tell you how: the same way the story about Elton John almost dying from ingesting too much of Rod Stewart's sperm gained traction in my high school: dummies talking to other dummies. It's just easier now because of the Internet and because our mainstream media does such a lousy job of speaking the truth to stupid.Lou Dobbs said recently, " People are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate." Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night, and where to put the stamp on their e-mail. And, Lou, you're their new king. That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the " reality-based," attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. It's not a case of Democrats vs. Republicans. It's sentient beings vs. the Lizard People, and it is to them I offer this deal: I'll show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma. "
14
" [T]he enduring problem for liberals, as for everyone else, is not whether history will judge them wise or foolish regarding the war on terrorism; it is, rather, the way that the past decade has splintered them away from other Americans. This fracture comes with a steep price: in today's toxic atmosphere, liberals are no less cynical, shortsighted, and parochial than anyone else, and they understand their fellow-Americans just as badly as they themselves are understood. When liberals look at red-state voters, they see either a mob of pious know-nothings or the insensible victims of militarism and class warfare. Yet.... [such people] defy fixed categories, which means that they have to be figured out the hard way--on their own terms. "
― George Packer
19
" Nineteenth-century liberalism had assumed that man was a rational being who operated naturally according to his own best interests, so that in the end, what was reasonable would prevail. On this principle liberals defended extension of the suffrage toward the goal of one man, one vote. But a rise in literacy and in the right to vote, as the event proved, did nothing to increase common sense in politics. The mob that is moved by waving the bloody shirt, that decides elections in response to slogans—Free Silver, Hang the Kaiser, Two Cars in Every Garage—is not exhibiting any greater political sense than Marie Antoinette, who said, “Let them eat cake,” or Caligula, who made his horse a consul. The common man proved no wiser than the decadent aristocrat. He has not shown in public affairs the innate wisdom which democracy presumed he possessed. "
― Barbara W. Tuchman , Practicing History: Selected Essays
