By Vincent Gorre

While on a trip recently, I was reading an online magazine during my flight and came across a news article about a Reader’s Digest poll of “100 Most Trusted People in America.”¹ I was shocked to learn that among the top ten, seven were movie actors and actresses! The article further says that those who made it to the list were chosen for their “integrity, character, exceptional talent, drive to personal excellence, internal moral compass, message, honesty and leadership.”

So what is shocking about all this? I immediately pulled out my copy of Return To Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got There and Where We Need to Go by John Horvat II, because I think I just found one more proof of the validity of one of the author’s assertions. As part of the solution to our impending crisis, Mr. Horvat talks of the need for “representative characters,” in our society “who would take upon themselves the arduous task of seeking the common good.”² Who are these “representative characters?” In reality, these are the people whom we should trust. Mr. Horvat defines a representative character as “a person who perceives the ideals, principles, and qualities that are desired and admired by a community or nation, and translates them into concrete programs of life and culture.”³

The question is this: Do Americans believe that these movie stars are trustworthy because they embody their ideals and principles and that in reality (i.e., in their real lives, and not the acting roles they play) they live those ideals and principles? Mr. Horvat adds that “modern culture discourages the idea of representative characters and proposes false and unrepresentative characters that correspond to our mass society.”⁴ I think this is precisely what is happening here. The transformation of American society into masses of people is promoted by the mass media, which explains why a poll of the most trusted people in America would most likely result in movie stars and media celebrities occupying the top 10 in the list.

Who then should we find in a list of America’s most trusted people? In times of crisis, we must trust those natural leaders in all levels of our society who are not only virtuous in their private lives but also willing to sacrifice for the good of all.

______________________

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Some people wonder why it is so hard to do business in America.

One reason is the massive wave of regulation that has engulfed many industries over the last few years. One prime example is the 848-page Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of July 2010 (also called the Dodd-Frank Act). It is estimated that provisions of the act will eventually generated some 30,000 pages of regulations. The act required its regulators to create new 243 rules, conduct 67 studies and issue some 22 periodic reports.

There is also Obamacare which itself will generate some 20,000 pages of regulations, many of which American employers will have apply to an increasingly overburdened workplace.

The post Death by Regulation appeared first on Return to Order.

The concept of organic Christian society is now being found in a most unlikely place – the frenzied centers of business and industry. Young volunteers of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) are out on the streets of Chicago and New York. Their efforts are part of the outreach to spread the ideas of the book, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go by John Horvat II.

The June street campaigns feature flyers offering the book to passersby, bagpipe music and the TFP standard all of which garnered the attention of pedestrians on the busy city streets. It is yet one more way the news of the book, Return to Order, is being spread far and wide as Americans look at the new solutions based on timeless principles that the book proposes.

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Written by Norman Fulkerson*

In an ever changing world one thing seems to always remain the same, a meal at Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. It is perhaps that universal sameness, both in food and décor, which always leaves me a bit disappointed. While the artifacts that hang on the walls are authentic they have nothing to do with the owner, nor those serving the food.

This fabricated ambiance made up of assorted farm tools, metal signs, family photographs, cast-iron cookware and old-fashioned toys might have an initial appeal, but it falls short of satisfying a deeper desire for something authentically down-home. It lacks individuality we so appreciate and merely delivers an ambiance that is mass produced in cookie cutter fashion coast to coast.

Click here to read the full article.

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Big government does not just happen. In fact, big government should not happen. After all, most modern States are protected by constitutions which are supposed to restrain the powers and growth of government. But everywhere we look, we see that these limits have not been respected and ballooning bureaucracies thrive.

Obviously there are other factors at work that make big government possible. And if we are to resolve the problem of unrestrained big government, we must look for and address these causes.

The well-known conservative writer Russell Kirk makes a very interesting observation that gives us a clue as to what these causes are and how we might return to limited government.

He says that “beneath any formal constitution—even beneath our Constitution,…—lies an unwritten constitution much more difficult to define, but really more powerful:” This unwritten constitution consists of “the body of institutions, customs, manners, conventions, and voluntary associations which may not even be mentioned in the formal constitution, but which nevertheless form the fabric of social reality and sustain the formal constitution.”¹

That is to say, we as a people have lost that vital link with the customs, manners, conventions and virtues that serve as a foundation for our Constitution. We have severed ourselves from our Christian roots, the natural institutions of family and community and the common law tradition that normally and naturally serve to temper and limit government.

It is this destruction of moral values, institutions and customs that makes big government possible. Without this “unwritten constitution,” a void is left, which allows big government to come charging in. We start losing our freedoms.

It used to be, for example, that families took care of their own. However, when the institution of the family was devastated by the sexual revolution of the sixties, it created a real problem of broken families…and prepared the way for a false solution in the form of big government that came charging into the void and assuming responsibilities that did not belong to it.

It used to be that members of a community helped one another when problems arose. There was a sense of honor that prevailed in the community where families took pride in being honest and self-reliant. But with the decline of communities and the anonymity of the giant cities, people find no disgrace in asking big government to be the nanny of last resort and take care of their basic needs.

It used to be that we confided in God’s Divine Providence to provide for our necessities – to give us this day our daily bread. But with the secularization of society, many no longer know how to ask, and look to government entitlement programs as a new kind of providence—hardly divine.

Part of the blame for the destruction of these institutions and customs can be traced to our culture of instant gratification. In my recent book, Return to Order: From Frenzied Economy to Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here and Where We Need to Go, I use the term “frenetic intemperance” to describe a reckless and restless spirit of unrestraint that has long plagued modern economy and undermined social institutions.

Frenzied markets lead people to resent the very idea of restraint and scorn the spiritual, religious, moral and cultural values that are part of Russell Kirk’s “unwritten constitution” that normally serve to order and temper our life together in society…and prevent big government.

What we need is a return to a framework of order that reconnects us with our Christian roots and our tradition of limited government. Much more than government programs, this order is what truly makes up the heart and soul of economy. We need to rid ourselves of the now-dominant frenetic intemperance in the economy that is constantly throwing markets out of balance and replace it with a corresponding temperance.

This cannot be done by legislation, regulation or rigid planning. It is something that must be addressed personally by changing our frenzied and rushed lifestyles where instant gratification is the order of the day. It is a challenging shift in values that will put back in place the natural immunity systems of family, community and Church that will assure us of a society that is stable, healthy and prosperous once again.

Until then, big government will only get bigger.

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I make frequently use of the local library when working on the book, Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here and Where We Need to Go.

During the course of my research, I had to find books that had long been unpublished. These books were usually not items that can be found in a small local library. At times, they even overtaxed the local county system. However, using interlibrary loan, the valiant librarians would locate these books halfway across the country.

I remember one particular rare book that I had a hard time finding. Online, the book costs over one thousand dollars. When I submitted the title to the Spring Grove Gladfelter Library, they located a copy much to my relief.

At one point some ten years ago, the librarian asked me: “These books are completely out of the ordinary. What is this project that you are working on?”

“It’s a book,” I replied. “When it finally gets published, I will donate a copy to the library.”

Now that the book is published, I suddenly remembered my promise. With great gratitude to those faithful librarians, I was pleased to repay my debt and officially present a copy of the book to the library.

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A room with cleverly calculated proportions: wide enough and with a high enough ceiling to simultaneously convey the harmonious yet contrary impressions of warmth and relief. It easily accommodates the furniture, paintings, chandelier, and people with enough space for them to move about naturally, without bumping into something or someone. The furnishings are not luxurious. They are solid, decent, comfortable, pleasant to look at, and also lend themselves handily to human use. There is a good, spacious table to sit a large family and accommodate without disorder all the modest but healthy delicacies served during a birthday lunch of a family from the small or middle bourgeoisie. The chairs are well designed in mild shapes and are strong enough to last indefinitely. There is a large, simple, commercial-grade carpet which gives the room some warmth. Their clothes are fully consistent with the environment. They are made of good fabric, comfortable, and with a cut not lacking a certain bourgeois distinction. The maid, though with a more modest presentation, is dressed with decency and comfort. Through the window, protected by a curtain, enters a mild light largely sufficient for the whole room but gauged so as not to hurt people’s eyes and to maintain a calm and temperate clarity in the ambience.
* * *

Calm, temperance, pleasantness: behold the dominant notes of this painting. The highly modest costumes give an aspect of purity to this family life, which in turn explains why their conviviality is so pleasant. In a family invaded by the gnawing worm of impurity, souls do not have the wholesomeness or freshness to delight in chaste affections such as those of home. Everyone feels happy and relaxed in this environment, knowing they are esteemed, supported and given the consideration they deserve.

* * *

We intentionally spoke of consideration. Note the position of the old couple. The family’s greatest affection is turned to them. The two daughters flank their mother, full of respectful affection. The girl feels happy and honored to present her grandfather a drink, under the watchful and friendly gaze of that mature old man.

* * *

To the children’s delight, they also have a place at this meeting. The two boys chat happily as another child is lovingly tended to by his mother. A little farther, another child, with a tranquil temperament, enjoys her peace and quiet. Meanwhile, the little birthday girl, happy and serious like a queen under her flowery arch, has just tasted a delicacy and her gaze wanders around the room, at the same time carefree and attentive. But if the children play a large role in this picture, they are not its dominant note.

* * *

This comfortable, healthy, placid and chaste ambience could even be compared to that of Buissonnets in Lisieux, the home of St. Therese the Little Flower, if only the room also had some statue or supernatural note that transcended, illuminated and elevated even further this domestic ambience so rich in the traditional values of an authentic Christian civilization. In short, it is an ambience that favors the health of mind and body and admirably prepares people’s spirits to practice solid, balanced and stable virtue.

* * *

Anonymity, hurry, worry, rat race. While some quickly swallow their share of fast food, others wait for their turn. No one smiles. One or the other person says something, but there is no conversation. Everyone thinks about the work they have done or will do. Many men wear a hat, as in a train or bus station. Note, however, how these characters are dressed: they all come from the average or small bourgeoisie: Precisely the level of the family in the painting above. This is the interior of a fast-food restaurant in a large modern city. And this is how millions of people eat their lunch (and many also their dinner) almost every day of the year.

How could it be otherwise? Large agglomerations bring about a concentration of business and a fast-paced life made even more hectic by the vertiginous ease with which radio, the telegraph and telephone allow the circulation of money; and all this finally helps to give modern man, frenetic and strenuous conditions of life.

*   *   *

Yes, but at what cost to your health, nerves, balance, virtue, and family life? Doesn’t all this reflect a dangerous mechanization of life, against which the Holy Father has warned the world?

The post Natural and Organic Life v. Artificial & Mechanical Existence appeared first on Return to Order.

“Return to Order 

Congressman Lou Barletta,
U.S. House of Representatives, serving Pennsylvania’s 11th District.

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In 1903, Bertrand Russell gave the following bleak expression to his unintelligible vision of the universe that was so common at the time:

That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built (“A Free Man’s Worship,” in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays [London: George Allen and Unwin, 1959], 47-48).

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There is an impatient restlessness inside our globalized economy that is constantly tearing down and building anew. This particular aspect of the economy is like an unstoppable machine that runs over all obstacles. To resist is considered futile.

Such views are often expressed in major liberal newspapers where economic dogmas are affirmed (and discarded) almost with an air of infallibility. One such dogma is pronounced in the title of a bestselling book by The New York Times’ columnist Thomas Friedman: The World is Flat. His central thesis is that all trade barriers must be flattened, all processes maximized for efficiency, and whatever can be outsourced should be.

In Friedman’s flattened world we should celebrate each unstoppable impulse of the markets and every fiber optic cable that binds us together. It is a world of Thomas Hobbes’ “war of everyone against everyone.” Everyone competes with everyone—the assembly line workers in China, the software experts in India, engineers in Russia or Americans in general are all part of single global market. Anyone can displace another anytime and anywhere.

Friedman gives the example of a Peruvian village that for centuries has made distinctive ceramic plates. He is ecstatic over the fact the Indians there have now outsourced the plates to China who ship it directly to the U.S. and other markets so that the Indians never have to touch another plate. These Indians may sell a lot of plates, but something human, something very personal has been taken out of their economy.

Perhaps that is the main problem with this concept of a flattened world; it takes something of the soul out of economy. In the process of flattening barriers it destroys those cultural and social supports that protect society from coming apart. Even Friedman himself is forced to admit the disruptive challenges that threaten the “particular cultures, values, national identities, democratic traditions, and bonds of restraint that have historically provided some protection and cushioning for workers and communities.”¹

All of this is sacrificed in the name of free trade and competition. However, the problem with this flat-earth vision is that the only thing that is not flat is the playing field. Free trade and competition only really work and thrive when similar standards and fairness prevail everywhere.

But in a flattened world, frenzied production trumps everything. The prevailing doctrine is: If something can be produced cheaply somewhere, let it be done. As a result, many producers ignore the same standards of production that exist in the West and that make production more expensive. That is why, for example, the rivers of China have been turned into sewers and its air made toxic. That is why the substandard structures of textile factories in Bangladesh have come tumbling down with the loss of hundreds of lives. That is why so many businessmen tragically overlook basic human rights violations, political prisoner (slave) and child labor, unethical labor, manufacturing and trade practices, and regimes that persecute the Church. They have this disregard because they worship at the altar of this flat-earth doctrine. The playing field is far from level; it is downright lopsided.

Of course, not everyone subscribes to this flat-earth doctrine. In fact, a good portion of industry follows fair practices that allow modern economy to supply demand with great abundance. However, the sector that does follow this doctrine has a disproportionably great influence in the economy as a whole.

In my book, Return to Order: From Frenzied Economy to Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go, I describe what I call frenetic intemperance. Frenetic intemperance is a reckless and restless spirit inside certain sectors of modern economy that leads us to throw off legitimate restraints, and gratify all desires. This moral defect creates an economy that is frenzied and out of balance. It creates a flat world.

This frenzied economy and a corresponding way of life ends up attacking economy’s natural immunity systems of family, community and Church that help defend society against intemperance and keep economy in balance.

That is why it is so important that we keep the economy within the framework of society in general. We should adopt a “round” approach that naturally restrains, while ensuring that markets and the economy and truly free. It also creates enormous variety and diversity inside markets and prevents mass standardization from turning consumers into the “masses.” It is this human touch that makes cultures and their corresponding economies so different, interesting and refreshing.

A round world is much more suited to our human nature, which is constantly calling for new products that satisfy individual needs and preferences beyond mass markets. No matter how hard we might try to flatten them out, they always seem to pop right back up.

Like our planet Earth, the world is not flat but round. We should celebrate its roundness.

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