Consolation

About five days ago I have finished reading the book of Job. The text on chapter 19: 25-27 is one of the most famous passages of the book. And rightly so, since it has a powerful poetic impact, and a suggestive reference to the last days of this world (although that issue is very controversial, since the original passage proved to be of very difficult interpretation). Whether it was intended or not, the passage makes us think of our end in this world, and about our present life in it.

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that as the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I will see for myself, and whom my own eyes will behold, and not another.”

The character’s story is well known to the educated public (maybe not, but I still live – in my mind – on a time in which educated people should at least have some knowledge of the Bible) and Job’s sufferings are indeed many. Out of his despair he says that amazing passage, full of a hopeless hope, trust beyond desperation.

It is clear to me that the present times are times of despair. The western world has long left the principles that made it great. It is now drenched in godlessness. More surprising, the godless people find that insulting the belief and the believers of the one true God is a fairly amusing pastime. Others make their entire careers based on the propagation of the non belief, which is a belief itself, but pregnant of folly, because it is a belief in nothing. Indeed the materialists, the fundamentalist atheists, the hedonists that see nothing beyond themselves are all of them mad, but claim to speak in the name of reason. Odd, but not surprising. This is a time of crisis, after all.

When faced with this situation, one can do like the person in the Psalm 11:3 and ask: “When the foundations are destroyed, what can the godly accomplish?” We lack foundation, as a civilization, yes, that’s evident, but only because we refuse to see it. In such times it is absolutely important that we put our faith in God, and say that even dead, even destroyed; we will see God stand upon the Earth to judge. We will see His glory nonetheless.

However, that is a constant yet distant hope. We must live and die for it, but sometimes we cannot be like Job and take comfort in it. Our suffering is indeed great if we truly care about those who are yet left to be saved; those who would see us vanished only because we tell them they’re sinners, just like us. They have even tried to destroy sin in order to sin without guilt.

They haven’t succeeded. We bear witness to their deeds as we know others will bear to ours. We hold on to the truth and stand by it, in spite of the rejection we feel, the sense we no longer belong in this world. All of this is a great cause for anguish. Once again one is led to the word of God, for Christ says: “In the world you have trouble and suffering, but take courage – I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33)

Therefore we must walk humble, ashamed of our sin and our condition (not better than anyone else’s), and proud of our savior, the one who conquered the world, who defeated death, who lives in glory and is coming for us. If we cannot believe that much, we are no Christians.

A bit about conservatism and democracy

It has been my pleasure, now that I have come to the United States of America (more specifically the city that gave origin to the longest running soap opera in history) to gain some small familiarity with the work of a very important intellectual, in the good sense of the word, which has been of capital importance to the conservative thought and also to conservative politics over the last decades. Of course I'm talking about Russell Kirk.

Dr. Kirk's "Conservative Mind" is the book in question, and I'm constantly surprised to see that the intellectual history of conservatism is filled with greatness, much more than I could have ever imagined, given my Brazilian education in the humanities (mostly a mix of godlessness and leftist propaganda). Not only that was surprising, but also the fact that many conservatives, as shown by Dr. Kirk, defended that democracy was not the only and best form of government thinkable, but also showed that in some ways democracy is a shortcut to tyranny.

The main idea is that the unchecked democracy is a sure road to a chaos of legislation regarding the most trivial matters, the necessity to consult the public opinion and to enforce it against good sense, all of those leading to disorder in society. The people (the sovereign people, if you wish) ends up looking for the first man or group clever enough to promise some sense of direction in exchange for obedience in every way.

This kind of anti-democratic thinking was something to be loathed when I was in college. Both law and philosophy professors (I'm a Law graduate who also studied philosophy whenever a chance appeared) abhorred the idea that anything else was possible, and rapidly reminded us of the three hundred or something terrorists arrested and killed during the military dictatorship in Brazil (of course I'm pretty sure that the terrorists that escaped to Cuba got to kill their share of people too, since that regime killed more than one hundred thousand people). That was so automatic that I never saw anything remotely different from democracy as less than murder.

One begins to wonder about such things when one gets in contact with the philosophers and try to make out their reasons for one or the other position (democratic or anti-democratic, that is) and the results of their work. Plato is one of the best examples of how one begins to question the validity of democracy. He was born during a time of social instability and soon he witnessed a political crisis in Athens, precisely the home and cradle of democracy. He saw as the democratic ideal had a propensity to the fostering of tyranny. His political ideas were the result of his disappointment with the rule of the majority and his perception that the people should be ruled by the best, not by the mob.

That kind of elitist thinking is rather odd to the modern ear, because of the argument for equality, which is so unquestionable nowadays. However, our experience shows that equality is a fallacy, or better, it only applies in the context of the Christian equality before god: "I am a debtor[the apostle Paul owes the gospel, that is] both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." (Rom. 1:14). An equality in every other respect seem more like a plan of the devil to pervert the equality willed by God. It is obvious that the idea that all can be equal in most respects, when there are so many differences as there are people, is madness.

When Plato rejects equality, he suggests that some people are fit for the government, other for the arts, other for commerce, and so on. One should know oneself before believing to be able to impart some of his or her wisdom to society on every possible matter proposed. This kind of order in society requires that people be honest with themselves and with others, in a way that is very hard to believe today. The modern man honestly believe (because of the equality lie) that he is entitled to every benefit and every exercise of power possible in a given society, and gets rather frustrated when reality tells him otherwise.

The conservative knows that life is not about having rights without obligations, that privilege comes with responsibility, that men are not equal and thy should not wish to be, for that would be tyrannical. It's realistic, it's human, it fits. It's not that democracy and conservatism are incompatible. As long as democracy can be checked by prejudice and the accumulated wisdom of experience, as well as a distaste for sudden changes, the two of them can live side by side. But only because the conservative will be alert to any kind of derailment of democratic power, any exercise of that power that tries to enforce itself too rapidly or to deeply into the body politic.

I mourn for Brazil as i think of such things, because most people are being fooled by demagogic democratic rhetoric, mainly because, it is flattering for the people to hear that it has power, even when it is only the power to install chaos.

Image:"Democracy .. a challenge." Illinois WPA Art Project. Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress).

Ana Vidovic

This, my friends, is Ana Vidovic. Some of you may have heard of her, some of you may not, but it is very likely we'll hear a lot about her in the years to come.

Why?, you may ask. Mostly because she is not only obviously beautiful, but also one of the most gifted guitar players I've had the pleasure to listen to. She has received a great number of awards at a surprisingly young age, she was invited to study guitar in the USA with the celebrated Manuel Barrueco (even because,by that time, she was already well known in Europe), her technique is quite impressive and she looks great on video, what more can I say?

At her website: - www.anavidovic.com - you can check her presentation at the Kennedy Center. She starts playing Bach, very competently, I should say. It's a very good recital for anyone interested in getting acquainted with the lady's guitar.

It is very refreshing to see someone like her on the scene. Not that I don't love to see Julian Bram's bald head going up and down as he leans over the lute, but there is something exciting about this young performer who can deliver great serious classical music in a sexy red dress (once again, look for her Kennedy Center performance). She doesn't seem vulgar, but elegant, even though I can't help thinking she could be one of those bond girls from eastern Europe. A actually hope someone decides to invite her to be a bond girl... Now, enough with the jokes. I mean only to compliment Miss Vidovic. She is an accomplished artist at a very young age, already recording and touring a lot; it is a pleasure to be able to use this space to recommend her art to all guitar lovers that happen to come by my blog. That would be all for now.