Mel-Adjusted

 
 

From our "Six Degress of Trepidation" file, Joseph Pearce - writing at the St. Austin Review - tells of Mel Gibson's recent recommendation that politicians "read Hilaire Belloc".

A capital idea, but with a whole laundry list of caveats. For starters, one hopes that Mr. Gibson's endorsement will frighten fewer people away from Belloc than they will attract... but Pearce reckons that some British pols may actually be giving Belloc's ideas an ear, which is a little scary in itself. He uses a term I had (thankfully) not heard before - "neo-Distributism" - to describe some of the results of this new found interest. One can imagine all sorts of ghastly ideas being wrapped in a term like "neo-Distributism", just as the word "conservative" has lately been hammered into the most bizarre and fanciful shapes;

By jove, gentlemen, the economic ideas of this Belloc fellow might be something we can make into the Next Big Thing... provided we can polish him up a bit... bring his concepts up to date and make them, shall we say, friendlier to big business and to more modern and advanced forms of statecraft...

*shudder*

I don't know that I care very much whether or not politicians read Belloc. I'd rather see him being read by more, you know... people. That might make the politicians nervous, which is how I like my politicians. Nervous and maybe even a little jumpy.

Incidentally, I once had the pleasure of spending a few minutes with Mr. Pearce at the 2008 Chesterton Conference. His enthusiasm for, well... everything, is just infectious.

Comments

[Der Wolfanwalt]

I find myself wondering why, precisely, people find the need to name their movements after relatively unrelated movements, appending to prefix "neo-" to them to highlight the non-relationship relationship.

It almost makes me want to start a neo-Sodomite movement dedicated to universal chastity and herb-gardening. It would make as much bloody sense.

[JoeyG]

Tim, it is a bit long but well worth checking out: this is a link to a lecture by one of those Brits whom Pearce has in mind. I attended this talk at Villanova and was astonished that these ideas were actually receiving a hearing in our day and age! Belloc and Chesterton would be proud, I think...

http://arthuringlewood.blogspot.com/2010/03/welcome-british-invasion.html

[M. B.]

Speaking of Pearce and Belloc, I've just been rereading Pearce's biography of Belloc, 'Old Thunder', over the past couple of days. This passage caught my eye for some odd reason:

"In 1911 Belloc and MacDonald debated publicly over the ramifications of Lloyd George's National Insurance Bill. This Bill, so instrumental to the establishment of the welfare state, was welcomed by most socialists but was seen by Belloc as signifying the erosion of individual liberties. For Ramsay MacDonald the welfare state was a step towards the socialist state; for Belloc it was merely a euphemism for the servile state in which everyone was being forced to surrender their freedom to the power of politicians in return for 'insurance' against poverty."

[Patrick]

@ T. Jones: "I don't know that I care very much whether or not politicians read Belloc. I'd rather see him being read by more, you know... people."

Indeed. This goes nicely with the point that "distributism" has to be more or less "from the ground up" to have it's intended effect: if it's imposed by the State, I can't see why that is any less servile than socialism. People have to value their freedom first, I guess.

"For starters, one hopes that Mr. Gibson's endorsement will frighten fewer people away from Belloc than they will attract."

Sadly, as any celeb knows, all publicity is good publicity. I doubt anyone who was considering reading Hilaire Belloc would, because of Gibson's endorsement, be turned off. People who won't read a book because Mel Gibson mentioned it are out, but that can't be a large number. So you're left with the vast majority who don't care, and, sadly(?), a handful of people who might pick up Belloc just because "they heard it was good somewhere" and the name is now slightly more familiar.

I know that sounds odd, but for the same reason, "name recognition" matters a great deal in politics, regardless of the actual merits of the "name" or what it stands for. Very "cult of personality-ish" in a Luther/Calvin sort of way, but hey- this is America.

ALSO:

This is unrelated, but is the phrase "Roman Church" a slur? I've got a well-educated non-Catholic friend who uses the phrase "Roman Church", and who doesn't seem to mean anything insulting by it. I'm not insulted by it because I think he uses the phrase absent-mindedly. However, I've never heard this phrase outside the context of a slur ('Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion"), and I sort of wonder if it's an "acceptable" name for the Church.

Not a big deal, of course: I was just curious if anyone else had thoughts on the phrase "Roman Church".

[Tim J.]

"This is unrelated, but is the phrase "Roman Church" a slur?"

That's one of those "smile when you say that" situations. It all depends on who's saying it, and how, and why...

There are a lot of people who use it as some kind of pejorative, with an implied sniff of disdain.

Kind of like white dudes using the N word...