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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 3, 2017 17:48:14 GMT
This topic surely deserves a thread.
I wanted to kick off by describing my own experience and changing attitudes towards the Irish language. I grew up in an English-speaking household with a mother who spoke some Irish (though I don't remember ever hearing her speak it), and a father who has no Irish at all. Both of them, however, were strong partisans of the language, and indeed helped to set up an Irish language primary school in Ballymun. Naturally enough, I attended this school, and then went on to an Irish language secondary school in Glasnevin.
My schooling and my family life turned me against the language. First off, I was never very good at it (and I'm still not). English was BY FAR my strongest subject, and I resented that English was stigmatised (as I saw it) in Irish language schools. Most of my older siblings were pro-Irish language and rather nationalistic and, in the manner of a boy seeking his own identity, I became anti-nationalist and anti-Irish language. (It's more complicated than that-- I had strong nationalist phases, but on the whole I became anti-nationalist and anti-Irish language.)
That all sounds rather petulant, and I guess it was. But I think there were some less petty motives at play, too. I was already vaguely conservative, in an inchoate way, and it bothered me that most Irish language partisans were so self-consciously anti-romantic and anti-nostalgic. "Get away from Peig Sayers" seemed to be their commanding idea. They wanted a progressive, forward-looking, liberal Ireland that would just happen to Irish-speaking, or at least bilingual. They wanted their favourite tradition, the Irish language, to be revived, but tradition in general to be jettisoned. That made no sense to me. I couldn't have articulated this, but I felt it in a dim way. In my occasional nationalistic interludes, it was full-blown romantic conservative nationalism that I wanted, not some half-hearted milk-and-water liberal nationalism.
The Troubles also came into it. Sinn Féin were pro-Irish language and I was anti-Sinn Féin.
More recently, however, I have found my attitude towards the Irish language completely changing. Partly this was due to an afternoon spent in Holyhead in Wales, about ten years ago-- the only time I've ever been in Wales. I was waiting for the ferry and I walked around the town. I was amazed to hear ordinary people speaking Welsh-- not everybody, but maybe half. In a very visceral and immediate way, it made me feel deep shame that the Irish don't speak Irish. And that experience, far from wearing off, has slowly (very slowly!) increased its effect on me.
Another influence is that my American wife is hugely interested in the Irish language, and indeed got me to teach her prayers in Irish.
Aside from that, the contradiction in my own thoughts became too pronounced after a while. How could I be a traditionalist and neglect the most obvious and important of Ireland's traditions?
Well, now I am very strongly in favour of the revival of Irish, although my Irish is still very poor. I read as much as I can in Irish now, and speak it when I can-- though I don't get many opportunities.
Thank you if you read all that! I'd be interested in other peoples' experiences and views of the language. This post is written in English because I can't write so much as a sentence in correct Irish.
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Post by rogerbuck on Jun 4, 2017 9:40:46 GMT
Very interesting indeed. Not knowing Irish, alas, I can't comment much.
But I'd like to raise a question. I once heard an intellectual (who shall remain nameless) SNEER about the Irish language calling it something like: "a language in which abstract thinking is impossible."
That has always set me thinking, because for many years, friends from the Continent tell me that they find English remarkably unpoetic and prosaic and maybe yes ABSTRACT.
I will also add a very strange thought from the Austrian Rudolf Steiner (whose vociferously anti-Catholic perspectives I obviously do not support). Steiner claimed that the English language favoured purely quantitative and logical thought and that it fostered a quantitative "pure pounds and pence" Capitalism. Whatever one thinks of that strange notion, it cannot be easily denied that Capitalism is an English speaking success story above all. The British Empire folowed by our current American Empire are Capitalism's greatest success stories.
By contrast, the French, the Spanish, the Italians, Polish etc etc just don't seem as "good" at it, at least to my mind ...
And the modern world in my view is suffering far too much abstraction, leading us all in direction that seems to me ever more gnostic, disembodied, deracinated, unreal ...
So I wonder about that sneering comment. Perhaps Irish really does hinder abstract thinking a little, giving way for a more poetic way of thought that is qualitative rather than quantitative. All of which might be an incredibly good thing in our ever more quantitative, materialistic society.
Any thoughts from anyone on this, most welcome!
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 4, 2017 10:18:58 GMT
Thanks for that, Roger. And your opinion on this subject is as valuable as anyone else's-- indeed, your "outsider perspective" is especially valuable.
Here is my views on that; I don't think any language is any better or worse than any other, any more poetic or less poetic than any other, any more abstract or less abstract than any other. All language is abstract by definition-- "me Tarzan, you Jane" is abstract conceptual thought. Some languages appeal to some people more than others, but I think that's purely subjective. I've always found Russian and German more appealing than the romance languages, which most other people seem to favour.
I want to revive Irish for only one reason-- it's MY language! In the sense that it was the language spoken by my ancestors. Also because it is an endangered language and reviving it adds to the diversity of the world. To be true, I do find a warmth and a softness which appeals to me in it, but I don't know how much of that is my imagination. English appeals to me at least as much as Irish and probably more.
As for abstraction and its dangers. We should be careful of this, I think. Edward Feser gave an excellent talk entitled "What We Owe to the New Atheists", in which he welcomed the New Atheist's challenging of Christianity on rational grounds because Christianity had so long ceased to defend itself on rational grounds, especially since the Nouvelle Theologie had rejected scholastic philosophy (that is, the highly dry and rationalistic philosophy practiced by St. Thomas Aquinas and his tradition). Anyone can find the article with an internet search, but here is a relevant quotation:
BEGIN QUOTATION
Scholasticism. It’s a word that will raise hackles on the backs of some Catholic necks, and not only liberal ones. Some years ago, at an initially friendly dinner after an academic conference, I sat next to a fellow Catholic academic, to whom I mildly expressed the opinion that it had been a mistake for Catholic theologians to move away from the arguments of natural theology that had been so vigorously championed by Neo-Scholastic writers. He responded in something like a paroxysm of fury, sputtering bromides of the sort familiar from personalist and nouvelle theologie criticisms of Neo-Scholasticism. Taken aback by this sudden change in the tone of our conversation, I tried to reassure him that I was not denying that the approaches he preferred had their place, and reminded him that belief in the philosophical demonstrability of God’s existence was, after all, just part of Catholic doctrine. But it was no use. Nothing I said in response could mollify him. It was like he’d seen a ghost he thought had been exorcised long ago, and couldn’t pull out of the subsequent panic attack. Now he was not, it should be emphasized, theologically or politically liberal. Far from it. Nor is his response, though extreme, as unusual as you might think. There is something about Thomism, Scholasticism more generally, and “rationalistic” or philosophical approaches to religion and morality even more generally that a certain kind of religious sensibility, even a certain kind of conservative religious sensibility, simply finds off-putting. I think this owes in part to a kind of fideism which is offended by the very idea that there is theological or moral knowledge to be had apart from grace and apart from divine revelation — and perhaps especially offended by the very idea that a pagan like Aristotle or Plotinus might know something important about these topics that the ordinary simple Christian with his Bible or rosary does not know. I think it owes also in part to a worry that philosophical arguments are too cerebral, too cold and bloodless, to be relevant to concrete religious or moral life.
END QUOTATION
Admittedly, I am talking about religion here, rather than society or culture, but I think the same thing applies. Thought is incurably abstract. I think the cure for bad abstract thought is good abstract thought.
As for capitalism being an Anglo-Saxon success story, I wonder how much of this is simply an historical accident? Wikipedia lists the top countries in terms of GDP as:
The USA China Japan Germany The UK France India Italy Brazil Canada.
Perhaps GDP isn't a good measure of success at capitalism, but how otherwise might we measure it?
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 4, 2017 10:23:15 GMT
As soon as I wrote that, I found myself musing on the split between continental and analytic philosophy-- the latter associated much more with English-speaking countries. It's true that analytic philosophy is highly abstract and concerned with matters of pure reason. But who will read Derrida or Heidegger or Foucault and say there is any lack of abstraction there? Perhaps the content could be said to be less abstract and more rooted in experience.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jun 4, 2017 10:36:01 GMT
Thanks for that, Roger. And your opinion on this subject is as valuable as anyone else's-- indeed, your "outsider perspective" is especially valuable. Here is my views on that; I don't think any language is any better or worse than any other, any more poetic or less poetic than any other, any more abstract or less abstract than any other. All language is abstract by definition-- "me Tarzan, you Jane" is abstract conceptual thought. Some languages appeal to some people more than others, but I think that's purely subjective. I've always found Russian and German more appealing than the romance languages, which most other people seem to favour. I want to revive Irish for only one reason-- it's MY language! In the sense that it was the language spoken by my ancestors. Also because it is an endangered language and reviving it adds to the diversity of the world. To be true, I do find a warmth and a softness which appeals to me in it, but I don't know how much of that is my imagination. English appeals to me at least as much as Irish and probably more. As for abstraction and its dangers. We should be careful of this, I think. Edward Feser gave an excellent talk entitled "What We Owe to the New Atheists", in which he welcomed the New Atheist's challenging of Christianity on rational grounds because Christianity had so long ceased to defend itself on rational grounds, especially since the Nouvelle Theologie had rejected scholastic philosophy (that is, the highly dry and rationalistic philosophy practiced by St. Thomas Aquinas and his tradition). Anyone can find the article with an internet search, but here is a relevant quotation: BEGIN QUOTATION Scholasticism. It’s a word that will raise hackles on the backs of some Catholic necks, and not only liberal ones. Some years ago, at an initially friendly dinner after an academic conference, I sat next to a fellow Catholic academic, to whom I mildly expressed the opinion that it had been a mistake for Catholic theologians to move away from the arguments of natural theology that had been so vigorously championed by Neo-Scholastic writers. He responded in something like a paroxysm of fury, sputtering bromides of the sort familiar from personalist and nouvelle theologie criticisms of Neo-Scholasticism. Taken aback by this sudden change in the tone of our conversation, I tried to reassure him that I was not denying that the approaches he preferred had their place, and reminded him that belief in the philosophical demonstrability of God’s existence was, after all, just part of Catholic doctrine. But it was no use. Nothing I said in response could mollify him. It was like he’d seen a ghost he thought had been exorcised long ago, and couldn’t pull out of the subsequent panic attack. Now he was not, it should be emphasized, theologically or politically liberal. Far from it. Nor is his response, though extreme, as unusual as you might think. There is something about Thomism, Scholasticism more generally, and “rationalistic” or philosophical approaches to religion and morality even more generally that a certain kind of religious sensibility, even a certain kind of conservative religious sensibility, simply finds off-putting. I think this owes in part to a kind of fideism which is offended by the very idea that there is theological or moral knowledge to be had apart from grace and apart from divine revelation — and perhaps especially offended by the very idea that a pagan like Aristotle or Plotinus might know something important about these topics that the ordinary simple Christian with his Bible or rosary does not know. I think it owes also in part to a worry that philosophical arguments are too cerebral, too cold and bloodless, to be relevant to concrete religious or moral life. END QUOTATION Admittedly, I am talking about religion here, rather than society or culture, but I think the same thing applies. Thought is incurably abstract. I think the cure for bad abstract thought is good abstract thought. As for capitalism being an Anglo-Saxon success story, I wonder how much of this is simply an historical accident? Wikipedia lists the top countries in terms of GDP as: The USA China Japan Germany The UK France India Italy Brazil Canada. Perhaps GDP isn't a good measure of success at capitalism, but how otherwise might we measure it? That's interesting, Maolscheachlann. If you look at GDP per capita, there is only one Anglosphere nation in the top 5: Ireland! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita
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Post by rogerbuck on Jun 5, 2017 8:27:17 GMT
As soon as I wrote that, I found myself musing on the split between continental and analytic philosophy-- the latter associated much more with English-speaking countries. It's true that analytic philosophy is highly abstract and concerned with matters of pure reason. But who will read Derrida or Heidegger or Foucault and say there is any lack of abstraction there? Perhaps the content could be said to be less abstract and more rooted in experience. A very good point there about continental vs analytic, Maolsheachlann, and I would point out that the continental tradition includes a lot more than simply those twentieth century figures you invoke. Certainly, many have been deeply struck by your main point, including a very dear German friend of mine, inspired as he is by figures like Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Husserl, Berdyaev etc and repelled as he is by English analytic philosophy. Talking about all this is notoriously subjective, of course. But after years of pondering this matter, I (obviously) think the differences between languages that I am pointing to is much more more than purely subjective. In saying this, I realise how much my own life has been shaped by continental multilingual speakers. My own daughter is linguistically brilliant, being fluent in English, German, Spanish and not bad in French. Her mother speaks three languages. And my oldest friend from Findhorn does too. He is the aforementioned German friend and also author of a profound book on Berdyaev and Jung. (Put simply, it tries to "baptise" the latter via the former and just in case anyone is interested, it can be found at Amazon here: www.amazon.co.uk/C-G-Jung-Nikolai-Berdyaev-Individuation/dp/0415493161/) From these family and friends, I have received what seem to me remarkably sensitive observations as to the subtle, interior SHIFTS that can be experienced in moving from one language to another. So, personally, I am convinced to speak German or French one's whole life will lead to very significant differences to, say, speaking English. As to Capitalism and the Anglosphere, I think one must go deeper than current statistics, regarding China, Japan etc. One needs to look over a wide span of history - starting with the emergence of the British Empire centuries ago. And here I also feel indebted to another profound thinker multilingual thinker - Belloc. Belloc's French birth, French connections and French fluency, his grounding in Latin and Greek, and his constant life-long travel over the face of the continent, from France to Russia, yielded perspectives on the Anglosphere and Capitalism that seem to me deep, original and sustained. Many people have tried to write Belloc off as a crank, but I tend to think this is at least partly because his own experience prompted him to question and challenge the Anglosphere mind in highly uncomfortable ways. For my part, I have no hesitation in saying that Belloc's mind was extroardinarily fertile, brilliant and subtle - which is why Chesterton did not write him off as a crank, but very much respected what Belloc was saying about Capitalism and continental Europe versus England. Yes I have been thinking about all this many years and if anyone is interested I have a pretty major blog I did about Belloc, Capitalism and the Anglosphere here (which I realise you have seen and commented on Young Ireland). corjesusacratissimum.org/2014/02/monarchy-a-study-of-louis-xiv-by-hilaire-belloc-review/
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 5, 2017 10:54:37 GMT
Thanks for that, Roger. I've read the post to which you referred, and also Young Ireland's comment-- with which I actually agree.
I think I can best address the argument in a numbered list:
1) The whole idea of "Catholic cultures" bothers me. Yes, I'm nostalgic for Catholic Ireland, but that really has nothing to do with Irishness being somehow more innately Catholic-- I just think that ANY culture which is steeped in Catholicism is going to be elevated and deepened. The Catholic Church is the universal Church, and holding up Mediterranean cultures as somehow more Catholic (in my view) diminishes that universality. Similarly, making Catholicism dependent upon some social or economic system diminishes its universality in my view. Personally, I believe a great plurality of social and political and economic systems are compatible with Catholicism.
Similarly, the idea that some languages are more Catholic or more compatible with Catholic bothers me. Everything God created is good.
2) I'm not an economist or an expert in finance, but do you believe it is possible to run a modern economy without usury?
3) Belloc seems to be engaging in some sleight-of-hand when he insists that the Tudor dog was wagged by the nouveau riche tail. A very convenient way to avoid Young Ireland's critique! They were absolute monarchs; they were more absolute than any monarch before or after in British history.
Similarly, when you say De Gaulle was a democratically-elected monarch, it does lead me to ask: well, if you can have a democractically elected monarch in this sense, don't the categories collapse?
4) The whole idea of Belloc abandoning democracy because he was disappointed with his experience as an MP is all too typical of the "sour grapes" rejection of democracy by many anti-democrats. I don't understand the objection that plutocrats, the media, Jews, reptilians, or anybody else are "the real masters" of democracy. In the end, it comes down to a person alone in a voting booth and a list of names. You're not going to get any fairer than that, unless perhaps it's "direct democracy" in the manner of a Greek city state. Yes, perhaps that person in the polling booth has been bombarded by propaganda all his or her life, but it's still his or her decision. Does that mean you can't try to improve democracy, make it more truly democratic? Of course it doesn't.
But what I don't get is the idea that autocratic rule can somehow be more representative than democracy. That seems paradoxical. The experience of twentieth century autocratic rulers would suggest otherwise, to put it mildly.
5) I accept that banking and capitalism developed in London and Protestant Europe, and doubtless religious cultures played a part in this. But it had to start somewhere. The world was not going to fit in the contours of the ancien regime forever. The majority of people could not continue to be farmers. The fact that it has taken off so spectacularly in every other country just suggests to me that it was simply the next phase in economic history. It doesn't mean we can't try to humanize and control it.
6) My final point would be a question: accepting all this is true, what then? What are you proposing? A historical enquriy has a value of its own, I admit. And (as Young Ireland said in his comment) of course one should strive to be aware of the limits of one's own cultural viewpoint, and to expand one's appreciation of other cultural viewpoints. (Although I also sympathise with the opinion of D.P. Moran in The Philosophy of Irish Ireland, when he hoped there would never be perfect understanding between the Irish and the English, because if there was they would have ceased to be separate nations.) I'm just not sure how Belloc's historical theories are useful or relevant to our current and future world. We're not going to restore pre-Revolution France; we're certainly not going to turn the rest of the world into pre-Revolution France. Millions of people live in the English-speaking world; surely they have to find a spirituality and a Catholic culture of their own, rather than take a French or Spanish or Italian model?
I agree this thread has travelled a long way from the Irish language, but as moderator I am going to be extremely open to such digressions!
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 5, 2017 12:57:31 GMT
Regarding what I was writing about the "Catholicity" of particular languages, cultures, etc., here is something the great Edward Feser wrote in a light-hearted post about spirits (the alcoholic kind). Please note I firmly adhere to Feserian infallibility:
Hilaire Belloc, it seems, recommended confining one’s drinking to beer and wine, or in any event to alcoholic beverages developed before the Reformation. One can easily see Chesterton heartily agreeing. What this shows is that for all their insights, the Chesterbelloc were capable of saying eye-rollingly stupid things -- something you already know if you’re familiar with Belloc’s views on the French Revolution (now there’s modernism for you) or Chesterton’s on jazz (now there’s Puritanism for you). Where culture is concerned, the “more Catholic than thou” card ought seldom if ever to be played -- Catholicism is universal and embraces what is of value in all cultures, not just the medieval.
But if we are going to play that silly game, the friend of spirits has the better of the argument. The Incarnation, after all, is not a story of beery pub songs and forced bonhomie, after the fashion of the local Chesterbelloc Men’s Supper Club:
Come on now, fellows, let’s show the world we Catholics aren’t Jansenists! Um, but do stick to the script. Please put down the Martini and cigarettes! Pick up the burgundy. Light that pipe. Adjust that monocle. Now sing along, everyone: “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine etc.”
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Post by ClassicalRepublican on Jun 6, 2017 12:49:03 GMT
Daniel Hannan in his book How We Invented Freedom argues that common law was more salient in Anglo-American capitalism since primogeniture and the respect for wills meant that most sons were required to go out and make their fortune. So the civilisation was incentivised to orchestrate the conditions under which young men could go out and discharge the need for adventure that he common law set up.
Regarding the Irish language, I've read similar things about how different languages program different modes of cognition. English outcompeted Irish because it is the language of commerce, education, empire, law... whereas Irish is the language of parish gossip. The two languages foster different scales of cognition. When the O'Neill's left for the continent, they took in their retinue all of the most eloquent speakers of Irish; poets, bards, musicians, rhetoriticians. The people left behind were the Gaelic lower classes and peasantry, resetting the laguage to quite an unrefined state. I've never understood the pull to revive the 19th century Irish of Peig Sayers and so on rather than the refined Gaelic that obtained just before the flight of the Earls. That said, I personally believe all primary education should be compulsory in Irish, if we are serious about preserving the language.
The other thing I always invite people to keep in mind is that Modern English emerged concurrently in England AND Ireland. Moreover, our English preserves the rhotic English Chauser.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Jun 6, 2017 13:14:12 GMT
I suppose the language that has survived to some extent is more likely to be revived.
To me, when it comes to language revival, the question is one of diversity. You know, REAL diversity, not the mash-everything-together diversity of the left. The more languages in the world, the more diverse is the world. If Yola and Old Fingalian, dialects of English spoken in Wexford and Fingal, could be revived I would be eager to see them revived. I'm happy to hear that Manx and Cornish have been declared undead recently.
Admittedly, I'm not terribly drawn to Irish as I often hear it spoken, for instance by GAA commentators. It's nice to hear a modulated, urbane, musical use of the language.
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Post by seaininmacbradaigh on Jun 6, 2017 13:47:16 GMT
I was wondering when this post would inevitably rise up. I am immensely grateful for having been raised bi-lingually. I dont come from a Gaeltacht area (though my own piece of South Ulster retained traditional Irish speaking networks into the mid twentieth century) but nevertheless was blessed to have been inculturated with the Gaelic, as well as the Saxon cultural paradigms.
On the issue of "Catholic Cultures" whilst I completely understand Maolsheachlann's dislike of one culture being described as "more Catholic" than another, I heartily disagree with it. Any study of culture will point to certain traits that are emphasised by history, tradition but above all by language. A brilliant example of this is in our sister nation. The cultural difference between the Gaelic Highlands and the anglicised Lowlands is striking. Historically this is as a result of the greater Presbyterian influence on the lowland culture, whilst the Highlands remained, for the most part, Catholic, until the 19th Century. However, what is more striking is an examination of the traits of Highland Gaelic Presbyterians and Lowland Anglicised Presbyterians. Amongst Highland Presbyterians, including those from areas that adopted the Reformation early, there is a tendency towards "Catholic" practices such as veneration of Saints, the use of Sacramentals, and an emphasis on the Sacramental aspects of the Kirk such as the Lord's Supper etc. while their lowland co-religionists are purer in their religious practice as Presbyterians.
Religiously they are the same, culturally, they come from similar backgrounds but linguistically they are different. Gaelic as a language, is saturated with Catholicism. Famously, one cannot Greet someone or say the days of the week without invoking Our Lord, Our Lady, the Saints or the Catholic faith. This applies to the natural world, to feelings, to thoughts and to expressions of emotion. To be frank, Gaelic is Catholic.
There is no doubt that English culture was once Catholic, but in a very different way. The sacred and the secular inhabited very separate existences. There is a reason why Gaeldom was unique in Northern Europe that, despite the best efforts, over several centuries, of several monarchs, the ruling elite and the entire public sphere the Reformation failed here, whilst it took Catholic England about thirty years to expire. That reason is cultural. The general consensus is that Protestantism did not take hold here because the protestant clergy failed to preach in Gaelic (Nonsense), because Protestantism was associated with conquest and foreign powers (the failure of the Reformation to make headway with the Gaelicised Anglo Irish is enough of a rebuttal to that) and the failure of the ruling native aristocracy to adopt the new religion (two of the four Princely families adopted Protestantism) simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny and thus one is forced to look for an alternative explanation. To my mind, the decline of Gaelic in the Highlands in the nineteenth century, followed by increasing Protestantisation is explanation enough.
Some cultures and languages do emphasise the poetic, the creative and the spiritual, others emphasize logic and order. A look at how linguistic differences have affected the development of governance and spirituality between the Greek and Latin churches is evidence enough of that.
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Post by MourningIreland on Jun 6, 2017 14:14:09 GMT
....Religiously they are the same, culturally, they come from similar backgrounds but linguistically they are different. Gaelic as a language, is saturated with Catholicism. Famously, one cannot Greet someone or say the days of the week without invoking Our Lord, Our Lady, the Saints or the Catholic faith. This applies to the natural world, to feelings, to thoughts and to expressions of emotion. To be frank, Gaelic is Catholic. There is no doubt that English culture was once Catholic, but in a very different way. The sacred and the secular inhabited very separate existences. There is a reason why Gaeldom was unique in Northern Europe that, despite the best efforts, over several centuries, of several monarchs, the ruling elite and the entire public sphere the Reformation failed here, whilst it took Catholic England about thirty years to expire. That reason is cultural. The general consensus is that Protestantism did not take hold here because the protestant clergy failed to preach in Gaelic (Nonsense), because Protestantism was associated with conquest and foreign powers (the failure of the Reformation to make headway with the Gaelicised Anglo Irish is enough of a rebuttal to that) and the failure of the ruling native aristocracy to adopt the new religion (two of the four Princely families adopted Protestantism) simply doesn't hold up under scrutiny and thus one is forced to look for an alternative explanation. To my mind, the decline of Gaelic in the Highlands in the nineteenth century, followed by increasing Protestantisation is explanation enough. Some cultures and languages do emphasise the poetic, the creative and the spiritual, others emphasize logic and order..... Fascinating subject. If I understand your main point, you reject the following three arguments normally advanced for Ireland's rejection of the Reformation: 1. Protestant reformers failed to preach in Irish 2. Protestantism was associated with conquest 3. Irish aristocracy failed to adopt Protestantism and the natives followed their lead Your thesis is that the Irish rejection of Protestantism is rooted in the Irish language itself, which emphasizes the creative and spiritual over logic and order. Is this correct? This argument raises several questions, among them: 1. If Irish Catholicism, rooted in the Irish language, is more creative and spiritual in character and Reformation Protestantism more logic and ordered, what was the theological character of Irish Catholicism during the Reformation? Was it informed by Scholasticism? 2. If the language spoken overwhelmingly shapes the spiritual outlook of a people, how do you account for the overwhelming piety so many Irish immigrants, many (most?) of whom who were raised for the immigrant ship as exclusively English-speakers, brought to the New World? Perhaps this merits a separate discussion thread.
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Post by ClassicalRepublican on Jun 6, 2017 15:34:25 GMT
The Book of Common Prayer was published in Latin in Ireland because it was illegal to publish in Gaelic. If you were to argue that this doesn't constitute a poor effort at reformation in Ireland by the authorities, all your work is uphill in my opinion.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jun 6, 2017 17:32:34 GMT
It may have been true initially that the Irish language insulated Ireland for a long time, but one big reason for the shift from Irish to English (and why the Church supported it) was that English was a valuable language for commerce and was useful for emigrants and that it gave the Church a pool of English-speaking Catholics that could evangelise the Empire. Also I believe that there was a fear that Irish-speaking people would become targets for Protestant proselytisers: www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QUEST/FileStore/Filetoupload,25794,en.pdf
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Post by rogerbuck on Jun 7, 2017 10:15:38 GMT
Maolsheachlann, just a note to say I am going to attempt some kind of response to your comments above to me - but it is daunting. Daunting mainly in terms of the personal TIME I can alot to this. I think a real response to all the complexity herein would take me half a day at least, probably the best part of a day, given my very slow typing. Also besides you and me and maybe Young Ireland I am not sure how interested anyone will be in these issues that relate so deeply to the entire Chesterbelloc trajectory. Now given that this trajectory is so crucially important to me - at the very core of my life - and given that I think it is important to you in some way, it seems worthy to make time for this. But I am just so limited in what I can do. Thus I will proceed in an odd way. Most of what I have to say will be said by voice. I will give a link to a voicemail ... This is because it is so hard for me to really find the time to write out everything that ought to be said. For that reason, I hardly ever get into online debates etc. And I want to say right from the start that my pesponding to your numerous complex points may well be BE A ONE-OFF EXPERIMENT. If, for example, you or Young Ireland or anyone else were to want to get into long debates about what I am going to try to say, I, alas, might just have to bow out of the discussion - just because I can't easily find the time for these very complex things. So before turning my attention to what you write here in your two comments, please bear with me whilst I re-stress I may well not continue to debate these things. Not because they aren't important - but just because of my own personal limitations. Anyway here are your two posts to which I begin to respond. Thanks for that, Roger. I've read the post to which you referred, and also Young Ireland's comment-- with which I actually agree. I think I can best address the argument in a numbered list: 1) The whole idea of "Catholic cultures" bothers me. Yes, I'm nostalgic for Catholic Ireland, but that really has nothing to do with Irishness being somehow more innately Catholic-- I just think that ANY culture which is steeped in Catholicism is going to be elevated and deepened. The Catholic Church is the universal Church, and holding up Mediterranean cultures as somehow more Catholic (in my view) diminishes that universality. Similarly, making Catholicism dependent upon some social or economic system diminishes its universality in my view. Personally, I believe a great plurality of social and political and economic systems are compatible with Catholicism. Similarly, the idea that some languages are more Catholic or more compatible with Catholic bothers me. Everything God created is good. 2) I'm not an economist or an expert in finance, but do you believe it is possible to run a modern economy without usury? 3) Belloc seems to be engaging in some sleight-of-hand when he insists that the Tudor dog was wagged by the nouveau riche tail. A very convenient way to avoid Young Ireland's critique! They were absolute monarchs; they were more absolute than any monarch before or after in British history. Similarly, when you say De Gaulle was a democratically-elected monarch, it does lead me to ask: well, if you can have a democractically elected monarch in this sense, don't the categories collapse? 4) The whole idea of Belloc abandoning democracy because he was disappointed with his experience as an MP is all too typical of the "sour grapes" rejection of democracy by many anti-democrats. I don't understand the objection that plutocrats, the media, Jews, reptilians, or anybody else are "the real masters" of democracy. In the end, it comes down to a person alone in a voting booth and a list of names. You're not going to get any fairer than that, unless perhaps it's "direct democracy" in the manner of a Greek city state. Yes, perhaps that person in the polling booth has been bombarded by propaganda all his or her life, but it's still his or her decision. Does that mean you can't try to improve democracy, make it more truly democratic? Of course it doesn't. But what I don't get is the idea that autocratic rule can somehow be more representative than democracy. That seems paradoxical. The experience of twentieth century autocratic rulers would suggest otherwise, to put it mildly. 5) I accept that banking and capitalism developed in London and Protestant Europe, and doubtless religious cultures played a part in this. But it had to start somewhere. The world was not going to fit in the contours of the ancien regime forever. The majority of people could not continue to be farmers. The fact that it has taken off so spectacularly in every other country just suggests to me that it was simply the next phase in economic history. It doesn't mean we can't try to humanize and control it. 6) My final point would be a question: accepting all this is true, what then? What are you proposing? A historical enquriy has a value of its own, I admit. And (as Young Ireland said in his comment) of course one should strive to be aware of the limits of one's own cultural viewpoint, and to expand one's appreciation of other cultural viewpoints. (Although I also sympathise with the opinion of D.P. Moran in The Philosophy of Irish Ireland, when he hoped there would never be perfect understanding between the Irish and the English, because if there was they would have ceased to be separate nations.) I'm just not sure how Belloc's historical theories are useful or relevant to our current and future world. We're not going to restore pre-Revolution France; we're certainly not going to turn the rest of the world into pre-Revolution France. Millions of people live in the English-speaking world; surely they have to find a spirituality and a Catholic culture of their own, rather than take a French or Spanish or Italian model? I agree this thread has travelled a long way from the Irish language, but as moderator I am going to be extremely open to such digressions! Regarding what I was writing about the "Catholicity" of particular languages, cultures, etc., here is something the great Edward Feser wrote in a light-hearted post about spirits (the alcoholic kind). Please note I firmly adhere to Feserian infallibility: Hilaire Belloc, it seems, recommended confining one’s drinking to beer and wine, or in any event to alcoholic beverages developed before the Reformation. One can easily see Chesterton heartily agreeing. What this shows is that for all their insights, the Chesterbelloc were capable of saying eye-rollingly stupid things -- something you already know if you’re familiar with Belloc’s views on the French Revolution (now there’s modernism for you) or Chesterton’s on jazz (now there’s Puritanism for you). Where culture is concerned, the “more Catholic than thou” card ought seldom if ever to be played -- Catholicism is universal and embraces what is of value in all cultures, not just the medieval.
But if we are going to play that silly game, the friend of spirits has the better of the argument. The Incarnation, after all, is not a story of beery pub songs and forced bonhomie, after the fashion of the local Chesterbelloc Men’s Supper Club:
Come on now, fellows, let’s show the world we Catholics aren’t Jansenists! Um, but do stick to the script. Please put down the Martini and cigarettes! Pick up the burgundy. Light that pipe. Adjust that monocle. Now sing along, everyone: “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine etc.” First point to say is like I said to Young Ireland at my site, I think we might have our wires a bit crossed. This might be due to my own sloppy writing, sloppy communication. Or it might possibly be due to certain cultural obstacles or confusion around the issues I raised - e.g. around categories like usury or monarchy. All this leads to the potentially lengthy time consuming task of definitions. Eg we might have to define usury. Or as you yourself bring up categories such as what one means by monarchy: No, not if I understand your question correctly. In my blog I very much said I was getting at SOME kind of monarchy, not necessariy a traditional heritary one. I hope you see why I think this could take a LONG AMOUNT of time - time that I just don't have to clarify all this. But I am going to take a shot at it in an unusual way I mentioned - by voice. Before I get to that voice, let me say that key to everything I am saying here is my belief that we have our wires crossed here. For neither Belloc, nor I were arguing for an impossible return to pre-ancien regime structures. Belloc was also not very interested in monarchical bloodlines at all - which is an indication of why my De Gaulle comment is relevant. Oy - will you or anyone really care to follow what I will try to say here in all its potential for complexity? Can I really justify the time here? Very simply may I repeat that I may be a sloppy writer and may I shout in big caps THAT I DO NOT THINK I AM SAYING WHAT BOTH YOU AND YOUNG IRELAND THINK I MAY BE SAYING. For example, certainly I very much agree when you write: OK I am going to voice now, but will make one last point, I support an ESSENCE that Belloc was getting at in this book. That does not mean that I agree with or support all the particular RAMIFICATIONS or INFERENCES that Belloc drew from that essence. I'll call those inferences "particulars" - and then there there is the further problem of you, Young Ireland or others further inferring things that neither I nor Belloc - mean. Maybe just a comment to this too - Although I agree with some that you say very much, not all and, as I see it, I think we just have the whole "wires crossed" problem, OY! ARGH - daunted I am but will now record by voice - with NO expectation that anyone will care enough to listen, though I hope you might, Maolsheachlann. SO ... just to be clear a voice post, strange as that is, will be posted here shortly.
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