When the Labour Party was again in opposition through the 1980s, he emerged as a prominent figure on its left wing and the term “Bennite” came into currency as someone associated with radical left-wing politics.
Benn’s mother, Margaret Wedgwood Benn (née Holmes, 1897–1991), was a theologian, feminist and the founder President of the Congregational Federation. She was a member of the League of the Church Militant, which was the predecessor of the Movement for the Ordination of Women; in 1925, she was rebuked by Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for advocating the ordination of women. His mother’s theology had a profound influence on Benn, as she taught him that the stories in the Bible were based around the struggle between the prophets and the kings and that he ought in his life to support the prophets over the kings, who had power, as the prophets taught righteousness.
This. Is. Perfect.
I mean, perfect as an example. It is not even about what the actual political ideas or issues are: it is simply that prophets should defeat kings and rule over them, because prophets are righteous and kings are not. Leftism/liberalism in a nutshell. It is not about ideas. It is about one side, the righteous one, ruling over the other.
And I must say I really don’t know where I am with Christianity. I have always been an atheist, but I grew fond of Christianity, getting close to becoming something like a “cultural Catholic” for two reasons, partially the Aristotle-Aquinas-Chesterton lineage is IMHO really wise and partially because the what James C. Russel wrote in The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity, “comitatus values”. It seemed to me Christianity is a profoundly conservative force and its Gnostic-Puritan subversions are rare abominations. I am not that sure anymore. How many Popes were Tony Benns? Why didn’t the Catholic Herald condemn him?
Look, if abortion is the only thing modern Catholics didn’t agree with Tony Benn about, and I certainly think that while I don’t want it here, promoting abortion in the Third World would be an excellent thing for the First World (less immigration pressure and all that), in what sense are we on the same side? Either the author is not conservative or I am not.
And yet it pains me because I know Christianity has been the soul of the West. Without it, what do we have, a collapsed Rome and Viking-like Pagans, certainly awesomely manly but not having much of a civilization? We need to salvage the “Germanized Aristoteleanism” that characterised its best parts.
I must admit I got really confused about this. I used to think Christianity is useful for conservative purposes because if people put their hopes into box called “other world, Heaven” because by engaging in wishful thinking about that, they can be more realistic about this world, and not engage in wishful thinking about it, so not desire stuff like socialism.
But now it looks like Christianity far too often works against conservatism, because it can easily degrade into this “let’s be righteous prophets, defeat the kings” kind of thing.
Perhaps the “nice” guys on the Left who just honestly wish for a utopian hope because they find this Earth unbearable, should rather become Christians so that they have their virtual utopia in the sky. But I think those on the Left who are driven from an intense internalized, moralistic moral virtue, purity, puritanism, righteousness angle, essentially internalized status-seeking, or maybe real power and status seeking: it seems they are often being fueled by a Christian background.
But if Christianity cannot save us from he Leftist Holy Joes, what can? Suppose for the sake of argument that we found a proudly atheistic conservative-reactionary country on Moon. What will we have? What will keep it so? Libertarian capitalism reduces to status through wealth and while a society is rich enough, wealth stops having a high status. You gotta signal something else. Masculinity? Not in a rich society. Education? Part of the story. Holiness? Most certainly. So what else will save us from those who fight for status and power by pretending to be – sophisticatedly educated – prophets of political righteousness fighting the kings? Paganism? Don’t be ridiculous.
