Political Justice

by Alexander J Illingworth

  It makes sense, from a comprehensive reading of European history, to conclude that Europe itself owes its values of liberty and democracy to the spirit of Christianity which served as the uniting force of European nations for much of the past millennium. We should not say, of course that Christianity has not also been used as a justification for wars both within and without Christendom; that would be false, but it stands to reason that every nation regardless of religion, race or culture has fought wars with its neighbours or with itself throughout the course of its history. The mere fact that Christianity existed in one group of nations, Islam in another and Animism in some others bears no relation to the historical human tendency to fight one another. Christianity, however, differs from many other religions in its exultation of free will, and use of God as a leveller among men. The nature of that God who is seen as the ultimate judge, who does not discriminate in that judgement based on wealth, race or any other socio-economic factor, is the same nature which permits every free-born citizen the right to equality before the law, the right to a fair trial and the right to never be a slave to another man. In the dissemination of free will, we are all given liberty; we all have the freedom to do whatsoever we please, though we are reminded that in choosing the path of harmful sin we must expect to be punished. The Church has had its shameful episodes, and its treatment of scientists and philosophers who questioned its extra-Biblical teachings are testament to this. But for all this, the Church has survived, and Catholicism in particular remains the world’s largest religious denomination with over one billion practising adherents. The Church’s ability to retain a grasp on the legitimacy of its fundamental teachings despite the many changes in social and political thought over its history is a testament to its survival, and despite any suspicion of Enlightenment-era change that it may have had, the values that embody the spirit of Western democracy today are defended by the Christian Church in almost every country where it is present.

  What makes Christianity perhaps the most special religion in the course of shaping Western culture is the monopoly it holds on Jesus of Nazareth. No other religion can lay claim to such a man. Whether we consider Jesus to be divine or not, whether his miracles were manifested in physical medicine, illusion, divine intervention or were merely literary contrivances does not detract from the strength of his moral teachings. Since there is a consensus that a historical Jesus existed, faith in his moral teaching can do nothing save reinforce our reasoned argument that moral self-improvement and the virtuous path in life can only be obtained by a vision of the world that is greater than the self, a vision which extends beyond the self-gratification which individualism openly encourages, and projects worldly value upon the individual’s duty towards his fellow man. It is this compassionate and altruistic attitude, which in Western nations has been rationalised independently of the Church in the categorical imperative of Kant and intuitionism of Hume. Therefore, we may conclude that a predominantly Christian outlook upon the world has been the philosophical father of Western progress and intellectual advancement, whether the Church itself has been the nurturer of that outlook or not.

  What this theory means is that we may approach the existence of alternative religions in society with a different perspective. When we examine alternative religious traditions, we can see where the deviation between rational religion and dogmatic religion come to blows. The Christian Church has never endorsed sins such as adultery, but as much as it may discourage it, Jesus demonstrated the Christian attitude towards such acts when he confronted the adulteress in John Chapter 8:

  He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. … When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.30

  A Christian society instructs wrongdoers to sin no more, sometimes through the form of a judicial punishment as penance, but it is not intolerant of sin to the point of cruelty, for the ultimate judge of life and death can only be Nature, or God himself. In Islamic countries, where an orthodox form of Islamic law, known as Sharia, interpreted from the works of various clerics holds sway, sin is not tolerated, and the cruellest punishments are exacted. In Pakistan, elder councils order retaliatory rape as a form of justice, and women raped by men may be executed by stoning for ‘fornication’ despite being forced into sexual acts by other men.31 To merely open the Qur’an is to see instructions from the prophet Mohammed exhorting his followers to the murder of non-Muslims.32 There is a context to these passages, of course, one which arguably no longer applies, yet unlike the Christian Bible, the Quran does not have a saviour in the form of a New Testament to fulfil its prophecies and call an end to the violence encouraged in the Old Testament and replace it with a merciful and rational sense of justice. The instructions to the faithful to be violent, it can be argued, still stand. Meanwhile, the recent atrocities in Paris, Nice, Munich and London have proven that many Muslim immigrants to Europe, whether or not they have any direct association with terrorist organisation in the Middle East, are quite willing and ready to take up arms against the countries which they claim to have made a new home in for the sake of these anti-rationalist, anti-peace values.

  It is out of place to say that Western nations have a right to dictate to Islamic countries how they should legislate for their own citizens: that is not our concern, but in our own nations where the customs of these alien peoples have become criminalised, are identified as harmful and restrictive, and have no place in our own culture, it is also out of place to say that we are obliged to welcome such ideas. Whilst it is important to remember that Islam, like any religion, can be interpreted positively, and that the liberal mantra of ‘not all Muslims’ which so often follows any terrorist incident is blatantly obvious, the fact remains that the customs of Arabia and the Hindu Kush are not the customs of Aquitaine and Suffolk. Freedom of religion may be necessary in a completely libertarian society, but only for the citizens of that society. It is the obligation of government, as we have asserted before, to defend the borders of the nation. As part of that defence, the vetting of individuals who adhere to criminal opinions and destructive customs is also necessary. It may be perfectly possible for a Muslim to come to a Christian nation and put aside the incompatible tenets of his native culture, to adopt his new nation’s custom, laws, and to interpret these new customs through the medium of his own God; cultural groups, however, as the spirit of human self-preservation dictates, are naturally resistant to change. In general, a particular culture is determined as much by its religion as by its race and history. To deny Western nations the heritage of their historical religion, to deflect criticism of alternative religions away from public discourse by terming such criticism ‘racist’ or an opposition to ‘freedom of religion’ is a falsehood in itself. In the protection of a free society, we must also be free to defend that which has nurtured our freedom. Once again, we may turn to Benjamin Franklin for one of the most concise summaries of the legacy of Christianity in the formation of Western moral and political traditions:

  I think the System of Morals and [Jesus of Nazareth’s] Religion, as He left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have … some Doubts as to His divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon.33

  Chapter XVIII

  Loyalties

  When we speak of loyalty we speak of attachment to concepts and bodies, both institutional and physical. Loyalty is necessary in any society, on familial, local and national levels, if a truly organic society which recognises the importance of morality is to flourish in a safe environment. Loyalty entails a commitment, an undying commitment which provides strength and stability, and its recognition as such by any society allows for the strengthening of the human and national bond. Attempts to weaken loyalties in recent years have also weakened the social co
hesion of nations themselves, and if allowed to continue will surely lead to one of the most faceless societies that it is possible to imagine.

  On a familial level, the obvious state-sanctioned loyalty is marriage. Marriage legally recognises couples and places obligations on each partner towards the other, though it has been on the decline in recent years. In America today, for instance, it is estimated34 that 55% of adult Americans are married, whereas 70 years ago approximately 96% of Americans were bound together in matrimony. This drastic decline in marriage is mostly out of a change in social attitude: all those 70 years ago it was expected that couples who loved one another would marry in order to start a family. According to certain liberal media outlets, the decline in marriage is down to several factors:35

  1. The radical act of refusing to marry. Since marriage was previously expected of couples, to refuse to marry is seen as a liberating personal choice.

  2. To marry is to be seen to give up one’s independence — it forces the individual to settle down and designates any further relationships as adulterous and therefore immoral. Marriage is seen as identitarian and prescriptive.

  3. Marriage is seen to enforce unequal gender roles.

  4. Since many women now have careers, fewer are willing to give up those careers in order to become a housewife.

  5. Sexual intercourse and reproduction outside of marriage is no longer taboo, thanks to the sexual revolution.

  6. To be married is to surrender freedom.

  The truth is that many of these factors are actually falsehoods spread by the New Left, through media such as the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s, which were in fact the results of critical theory, deliberately designed to destroy marriage and the family unit itself. Godwin too criticises marriage in as early as 1793, accusing it of debasing womanhood to mere property, a criticism emulated by the left today, though renamed and rebranded as critique of ‘stereotypical gender roles’. Marriage however, is not a contract of servitude, and no matter what obligations of ‘obedience’ were placed on the female partner in these relationships in the past, the fundamental spirit of what marriage is or should be has not changed since its first institution. Marriage, it goes without saying, is fundamentally to do with love, but it is much more than expression of romantic love. As we saw above, one of the major modern qualms about marriage is the fear of surrendering oneself to one other person, of denying oneself sexual gratification from any other human being. Since intercourse itself has become a perfectly acceptable aspect of premarital relationships, it has added an extra dynamic to relationships which would not have been the same had the individuals involved been celibate. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but in a world which increasingly places self-satisfaction as the only viable human goal, the fear of loss of romantic love has become a key opponent to the sanctity of marriage.

  Marriage today has effectively become a shadow of what it once represented: it is now seen as an agreement between individuals to have sex with one another a little more exclusively than they would otherwise, and to receive a healthy tax break — all of which, when viewed objectively, reveals that it is no wonder 20% of modern marriages end after only five years, given such a shadow and naïve reading of what marriage truly is. The German poet Goethe, after publishing his infamous novel about the suicide of an infatuated man, The Sorrows of Young Werther, later derided his own work, describing it as ‘everything that is sick’. Goethe himself saw that an obsession with romantic love, and the hope that it would continue forever is unreasonable and impossible. If married couples expected the first flames of their relationship to burn for eternity, they would be swiftly disappointed and driven to misery and despair. In his correspondences with his friends in the Weimar school of literature, Goethe termed the latter stages of marriage ‘Klassik’ — ‘Classicism’; he meant the rational and realistic long-term planning that every serious marriage must face.

  The 17th century Anglican vows of marriage sum up the true nature of the institution rather well: ‘for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health … to love and to cherish ‘til death do us part’. Unless each person in a couple sees their partner as the physical manifestation of their soul — unless without their partner they feel incomplete as a human being, the true gravity of the vows of marriage has not been understood. But marriage goes beyond the spiritual relationship, it extends into the community itself.

  It goes without saying that a person born in a certain area feels a natural attachment to that place as their ‘home’ especially if their family has a hereditary history connected to that home. Any community, however, regardless of location, as we have previously explored in the second book of this work, is a fundamentally necessary nuance of civilised society. In societies which adhered to traditional conceptions of morality, the state often did not require as authoritarian a presence within communities, due to the self-policing that interpersonal bonds such as marriage provided for the community. One incident frequently cited by members of the feminist school of history which supposedly portrays marriage as a tool of patriarchal oppression is the case of a young wife in medieval England, recorded as Margaret Neffeld in the statute books of 1395, who took her husband to court for separation after he broke her arm during an argument. Margaret’s husband argued that his actions were reasonable and honest, and a fellow man of village supported Mr Neffeld’s claims, accusing Margaret of certain ‘errors’. The judge dismissed Margaret’s case.36

  Now, it is certainly not justifiable that the husband should be permitted to break his wife’s arm for any sort of transgression, but to say that the case was dismissed purely as means of oppression is not wholly true either. The exact nature of Margaret’s ‘errors’ is unknown but some have connected them to accusations of flirting with other men in the local community of York, something which would indeed be taken seriously. If such accusations were true, then Margaret would be seen by other members of the community as a nuisance to the lives of other families, and a potential threat to the integrity of the community as a whole. Margaret’s husband, should he become known as a cuckold, risked losing his own respect, his business, and friends. Thus, the community would view it as an obligation of the husband to keep his wife in line with the expectation of the community, which itself was rooted in biological stereotyping (which arose by the pure fact that biological traits were observed) and moral teaching.

  Margaret’s husband dealt with his wife too harshly to warrant justification, but he had a justification nonetheless that a justice of the peace from the time would have considered wholly reasonable. Far from many myths propagated today, despite the fact that arranged marriages were common, loving and stable marriages were also common in medieval England, and the communitarian, locally centred as opposed to state-centred enforcement of justice through interpersonal bonds grew out of those lovingly construed obligations. Marriage was, and ought to remain, a contract as much with the community at large as with the individual. It can only ever be a virtuous institution, if it is interpreted as the bedrock of selflessness, protection, love and death-bound familial obligation. Individuals within couples who genuinely love each other and take the commitment seriously will surely find that their marriage does not merely do good for themselves, but ultimately for their nation. To choose to marry is no easy decision for any couple, but it is an absolutely necessary one in the pursuit of true political and social justice.37

  ***

  The bond of marriage, however noble, is not the be-all and end-all of national loyalty. We turn to the question of oaths, both formal and informal, and patriotism. Patriotism is often considered distinct from nationalism, since nationalism extols the national superiority of the state over the individual communities of the nation, whilst patriotism encourages loyalty to the national community and cultural values of that community rather than the political government of a nation. We have discovered this for ourselves, since whilst it is our belief that a government must endeavour to reflect the na
tional spirit of a country’s culture, it is the communities and loyalties between individuals within those communities which are most essential for the cohesion and improvement of society. The state, rather than being separate from local communities and national spirit, is naturally bound up within these things, and whenever it tries to deviate from them, the destruction of national rights and freedoms can only follow. It is this risk that makes constitutional government so necessary, and the sacrosanctity of a constitution which ensures that it can only ever be added to and never have articles removed from it must stand if Burke’s ‘little platoons’ of civil society are ever to have a chance at success.

  We therefore face a problem when those who are elected to governmental positions forget their connection to their original communities. Under the British and American systems of plurality voting (where the candidate with the most votes wins), despite the criticism that it is not proportional, is founded in the concept of communitarian representation. Members of Parliament represent communities and the interests of communities rather than the proportional political opinions of the nation, which, being so divided, only serve to slow the already tardy democratic process yet further. The removal of political partisanship would aid the cause of communitarian government yet further by increasing the importance of community loyalties over party loyalties. Assuming that representatives, however, whether local or national, are representatives of communities, then they must owe a certain loyalty to that community. One way to ensure that representatives have an interest in their community is by only allowing residents of so many years in a particular community to be permitted to stand for election in that community. Another potential option is that of the oath.