Everything is not about economics. I know we’re taught to believe that everything has something to do with economics. Things don’t matter unless they have something to do with economics. Everything must pass through the economic lens. We view everything through the economic lens. We’re taught to view everything through the economic lens. We’re reared, we’re bred to view things through the economic lens. But not all things are economic. And Russell Kirk, one of the few conservatives in the last century that understood this – I think Ronald Reagan at some level understood this, too. And Kirk wrote this:
“Men read and write only because they are convinced that certain great subjects are worth reading and writing about. Four great themes, it seems to me, have been the inspiration of most important imaginative literature from the dawn of Greek civilization down to our age. The first of these is religion: the description of the relation between divine nature and human nature, as in Hesiod and Dante and Milton. The second is heroism: the nobility of strong and earnest men, as in Homer or Virgil or Mallory. The third is love: the devotion beyond mere appetite, as in classical legend or medieval romance. The fourth is the intricacy of character and class, ranging all the way from Chaucer to Conrad.
“Now, a society which has lost its religious convictions and its society denies itself the first theme. A society which denies the right to greatness and to distinctions among men deprives itself of the second theme.” We’re two for two so far, folks. “A society which takes love for no more than the carnal appetite cannot attach real significance even to the novel of adultery.” Three for three now. And finally, “A society which looks upon men as mere production and consumption units of interchangeable value cannot understand the subtle shadings of personality and rank of a different sort of age.” That’s four for four. “The springs of the imagination thus are dried up. For a time, satire can exist by pointing out the decay of faith and heroism and love and variety; but when even the memory of these themes fade, then satire, too, comes to an end. Then boredom triumphs in life and art.”
Spot on. That is just spot on. Could not be more spot on. And the interesting thing here is, what do you do about it? I mean, the interesting question is what do you do about it? How are you going to fix that? You have teachers that don’t even know who Dante is. Who in the hell reads Dante? Here, here’s a good question for the average reader out there. And I don’t mean to vilify; I don’t mean to impugn. Simply demonstrating – and maybe I’m selling you guys short because you guys are smart......
Finish the title of the work: “Dante’s blank.” And how many stages were there? Can you answer that question, well can you???
We got “Inferno.” But I’m not sure of the stages.....Right???
Hmm. Hmm. I’m not even sure that I’ve read some of it. The point is we don’t read these classics anymore. We’re immune. Why, we read John Grisham and Stephen King now. They're our heroes. And they all deal in adulterated rubbish. It’s all rubbish. We’re obsessed with the decay of great men, like Johnny Cash. We don’t want to hear about how good Johnny Cash was. We want to hear about him popping pills. We don’t want to hear about how great any artist was or any man was. We want to know the dirty underbelly. We want to know who he was screwing on the side. We want to know about his adulterous, illicit affairs. We’re not allowed to have heroes anymore, is the point. A hero is an adulterer who admits it. That’s a hero.
Maybe this is why many people turn and see men like Navy Seals as modern-day heroes.
Like Ilana Mercer was saying the other day, if you’re a big, manly kind of man, and you have all those virtues that once made men great, but there’s no market for those things anymore, you know, we ostracize manly men in society.
There’s not a man on television that knows how to screw in a light bulb these days. We have to have women do it. You watch a television show, the biggest, most badass cops on that Chicago police show, what is the name of that, the one with...
Yeah, yeah, “Chicago Code.” Yeah, Jennifer Beals is the hero.
Do you guys love that show??? Of course you guys do...
Well, sure, you got a chick hero. Watch “CSI,” the women are heroes. They're running the damn show. We’re not allowed to have male heroes. We’ve so feminized our society, Gal Qaeda has brainwashed everyone. Everyone’s equal. We don’t need women in the – women have expanded beyond doing this and that and the other. And women don’t – man, you’ve just taken one of the most beautiful things in human existence, which is the female form, and the feminine spirit, the mothering, maternal instinct, you’ve just taken it, you’ve just pooped on it. You want women to go out there and kill people? Really? Oh, God. Seriously? Where’s the goodness? Where’s the goodness. Where is the good nurturing, the motherly part? Where does that come in? “We don’t need that. We have government programs, you idiot.”
Do you not see the point? In this incessant suicidal drive to make everyone numerically equal, everyone equal in all things, you destroy the beauty that made them different. People don’t – you know what, there are not enough men and women on TV and radio and in print that say things like I just said and I was inspired to say by reading Birzer’s essay, posted at the Imaginative Conservative website. Not enough. Doesn’t happen enough.
You know one of the things that really pisses me off, ladies and gentlemen? And ladies, don’t take this wrong. It pisses me off, it angers me for what I think are all the right reasons. When I hear politicians and talking heads, dunderheads, droning on about our brave men and women in uniform. Pardon me, call me old-fashioned, I don’t care, I don’t want brave women in uniform. I don’t think that there are – I happen to believe that there are certain things I don’t want for my daughters, and picking up a rifle and having them go fight a war is one of them. Being enlisted and wearing a uniform is one other. Now, some of you are, “Chris, Chris, they have every....” Well, look, there is a role. But it’s not being the brave man or woman. It’s being the brave woman because men don`t count anymore.....
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