If you want Christian nationalism, focus on Christian localism
Notes on Manhood will be changing its name to Dominion & Discipleship, to better reflect our ongoing focus. Keep an eye out.
Two other factors reinforced the retreat occasioned by false eschatology. First, pietism saw life in essentially emotional and personal terms, and as a preparation for heaven. Work was seen as a chore, an aspect of the curse, not a way of dominion, and the goal of man was seen as an eternal vacation with the Lord. Pietism produced a shallow life, intellectually and vocationally. The test of faith was made an emotional experience, and, not surprisingly, women began to predominate in both Catholic and Protestant circles: religion became a woman’s affair, and the men in it were full of pietism and low on manhood. Pietism exalted the nothing people, pious poops who reduced the faith to pious gush and, for almost two centuries, have bedeviled the godly clergy with their sinful, sanctimonious ways. The nothing people avoid open acts of sin, not because they love and fear God, but because they are timid souls who love and fear people and dare not offend them. In their hands, virtue ceased to be associated with dominion and strength and came to be associated with weakness and fear. —R. J. Rushdoony and Martin G. Selbrede, God’s Plan For Victory: The Meaning of Postmillennialism
Rushdoony died in 2001, but the phenomenon of retreat that he condemned has continued apace. The days of Christendom are long behind us, and though we coasted on the fumes for quite a while, it has been at least a decade since we finally came to a halt; now we are rolling backward down the hill, into a weird techno-paganism, with some discernible acceleration.
The default state of the world is anti-Christian, because the default state of the human heart is anti-Christ. It takes continual effort—continual discipleship in holiness—to continue to exercise dominion on Christ’s behalf, and thus to maintain the structures of Christendom. When we abandon this holistic project, as the church has done for generations with few holdouts, society gradually reverts back to its natural state of creation-worship, as the guardrails that kept citizens on the path of righteousness rot or are removed.
Spiritual beings in the heavenly realms work tirelessly to facilitate this process, leading many away captive into whatever false practices appeal to their appetites, and from there these practices themselves catechize them into dogged religious beliefs—or better put, strongholds of religious intuition—that raise themselves up against the knowledge of God.
There are always some such people in any society, no matter how Christian; yet some societies nonetheless are discernibly Christian, and others are not. A Christian society is one in which enough individual members are pro-Christ, and live accordingly—choosing life by being willing to die to self and be resurrected—that the whole body is carried along, however imperfectly, in the way of God’s law. An anti-Christian society is one in which enough individual members are anti-Christ, and live accordingly—choosing death by clinging to the pleasures of this life—that the whole body is carried along in another law entirely.
The Western world, in varying degrees, was once a body politic carried along in God’s law—a culture of resurrection life. But our life departed some time ago, and now, while individual members cling to it, the body as a whole is a zombified culture of death.
This election clearly that the necrosis is irreversible. We see no way around a significant period of rampant degeneracy—and thus persecution of Christians—in the West. The body as a whole desires death, and it seems God allowed Roe to be overturned in order to emphasize this. When the head turned onto the way of life, the body did not follow. Instead, it clung to death, obstinately continuing in the same path it always had.
The head was never the true problem, because people get the leaders they deserve.
For all his inconsistencies and problems, Dreher is basically right in this recent article:
The Most Dangerous Post-Election Lie - The American Conservative
Our advice hasn’t changed, because this election doesn’t change anything. It only confirms the trend. We would say the the same we said two years ago:
Focus on finding and building a real community that is a winnable and worthwhile hill: a place that is small enough for you to gain influence, but great enough to have some cultural, economic, and/or political significance.
Look at your options, and ask yourself, “could this town/county become a city-state?”
If it could, put down roots. Get to know your neighbors. Share meals, build trust, and learn to enjoy each other. And then look for ways to improve your community in a way that builds a coalition around the common good.
Make yourself a central part of that work. In other words, be a community leader.
Purchase local whenever possible and reasonable. Open a business in your town. Buy and rehab old buildings on main street. Encourage others to do the same. Strengthen the local economy and make it attractive to likeminded men.
Run for any and all local offices, and encourage all likeminded community members to do the same. You want your neighbors (the ones you’ve grown tight with) to be the department of health officials, the sheriffs, the heads of polling, etc.
Belong to a church in your actual community. Be willing to compromise on some secondary issues if it means being in a more local congregation. If there isn’t a single good church, help one get started.
Work, play, and worship together.
Get deeply invested locally.
Will this solve everything? No. We don’t have a silver bullet. But you’re ngmi if you don’t have a strong local community. History has taught us that. Remember, as goes the man, so goes the house, as goes the house, so goes the neighborhood, as goes the neighborhood, so goes the city, as goes the city, so goes the county, etc etc etc.
We want to return to Christian nations. Christian nationalism is the answer. As Doug Wilson recently said,
We’re a nation. We’re in this mess as a nation. And the only way out of this mess is Christ. You put all that together, and that’s Christian nationalism.
But bodies are made up of members. We have to work from the ground up, if for no other reason than because we don’t have the power to work from the top down. If you want Christian nationalism, focus on creating Christian localism.
You can’t guilt people into longterm commitment or consistency.
There is a place for strong rebuke but it’s usually nestled in-between invitation and inspiration.
I think of guilt as a pilot light.
It needs something to burn or the flame will stay small and eventually go out.
A member of our men’s group recently posted this helpful “conflict quadrant:”
When you are in a conflict, you can advance or retreat. And you can do that publicly or secretly. Quadrants!
You can retreat publicly. Surrender, flee, move to another state. You lose: all your connections. You gain: footing for the next battle and hopefully a community you can find support in.
You can retreat privately. This is known as “Ketman”. You pretend, and blend in. You gain: social standing. You lose: your soul.
You can advance privately. This is guerrilla war/insurgency. You find ways to taunt and sabotage and bring the system down upon itself. You gain: fun, great memes. You risk: exposure and ruin.
You can advance publicly. This is just straight up war. Matt Walsh, Chris Rufo. Few are equipped to do this effectively. You risk: loss. You stand to gain: victory.
This is modern fatherhood:
Notable: #
Occupational Sex Composition and Marriage: The Romantic Cost of Gender‐Atypical Jobs - McClintock - 2020 - Journal of Marriage and Family - Wiley Online Library “Men’s odds of marriage are decreased by working in predominately female occupations (75%–100% female) when compared with working in predominately male occupations (0%–25% female) or integrated (26%–74% female) occupations. Also, working in a predominately female occupation increases the odds that men have never married by ages 30 and 40. Women’s odds of marriage are unrelated to occupational sex composition.”
9(ish) post-election thoughts from @MallardReborn that are worth considering
A counter-point to the youth vote thesis advocated in the above: All The Single Ladies Voted Democrat | Ep. 1609 - YouTube
We continually get pushback from guys who doth protest too much about our claim that video games are fake dominion. OK, but then, explain this pls. Lawn Mowing Simulator
Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be a Factor. “When teens started turning up in doctors’ offices with sudden, severe physical tics, specialists suspected social media: The girls had been watching Tourette syndrome TikTok videos.”
The Reality War - by N.S. Lyons - The Upheaval. Basically, it’s gnosticism all the way down, just with secular wrapping now.
Rob Henderson has a fascinating piece on the male warrior hypothesis. Ignoring the just-so stories of evo-psych mythology, it describes some interesting research. This should come as no surprise, but it’s worth repeating:
The Male-Warrior Hypothesis - Rob Henderson’s Newsletter
It used to be accepted as a given that males were more aggressive toward one another than females. This is because researchers often used measures of overt aggression. For instance, researchers would observe kids at a playground and record the number of physical altercations that occurred and compare how they differed by sex. Unsurprisingly, boys push each other around and get into fights more than girls.
But when researchers expanded their definition of aggression to include verbal aggression and indirect aggression (rumor spreading, gossiping, ostracism, and friendship termination) they found that girls score higher on indirect aggression and no sex differences in verbal aggression…
A key finding from these studies is that compared to male athletes, female athletes were more likely to experience any form of aggression from their own teammates during a game.
In other words, when involved in a competition with another group, men—who are ordinarily at least as hostile as women when accounting for both overt and indirect aggression—suddenly become more cooperative. They redirect their aggressive energy toward the opposing team rather than toward one another.
Henderson also summarizes Handgrip strength and the Big Five personality factors in men and women - ScienceDirect:
Among men, handgrip strength is negatively correlated with Neuroticism and positively correlated with Extraversion. That is, physically stronger men tend to score relatively low on neuroticism and high on extraversion. There were no other personality correlates for male handgrip strength. Among women, handgrip strength was associated lower Agreeableness—stronger women tend to be relatively disagreeable.
Almost like the physical images the spiritual.
Source: Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life
Talk again next week,
Bnonn & Michael