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May 30, 2008
The perfect and its enemy
A reader writes to Jonah Goldberg on Tolkien and liberal fascism (via Five Feet of Fury).
In his books, the Enemy always starts with seemingly fair motives, even to himself; motives of ordering the world, crafting it into the ideal, mastering the convulsions that threaten to rip it apart. But, being as there are free creatures in the world (Elves, Dwarves, and Men), their willing subservience too is needed to achieve the overall goal. If assent is not achieved willingly, then it is attempted via deception, and at the last by force if nothing else will do. The ideal and its achievement, and thus the glory of the one or ones achieveing it, is placed above all else.
...
Religions, particularly Judeo-Christianity, teach us that the ideal world cannot be achieved by man, and that, in fact, he is the very reason it cannot be achieved. Fascism denies this wholesale.
...
Religions, particularly Judeo-Christianity, teach us that the ideal world cannot be achieved by man, and that, in fact, he is the very reason it cannot be achieved. Fascism denies this wholesale.
To put this another way, regardless of the ontological status of Christian truth-claims, we need Christianity - or something very like it - to protect us from the will to perfection. Our fallibility must be defended.
Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 30, 2008 05:41 AM