Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Secular Calvinism

I was surfing the manosphere yesterday, when over at Vox's place I noted this comment by "artie" in response to Vox's  post, "Democracy vs Aristocracy".
It will be interesting to see how long this farce will go on.

I also on the sceptical side. The EUcrats always have the righist hammer to throw down to the people. It has been the most effective political weapon in Europe since the end of WWII.

That's why I think the work of Kuenehlt-Leddihn is so important....and ignored.
Now, I've never heard of Kuenehlt-Leddihn before and I thought I would read up on him.
His Wikipedia entry is here.

What a find!

He appears to one of those freaky bastards* that the educational system of the old Hapsburg empire seemed to produce. The last of the great renaissance men and a man who also liked to thump some of themes pushed by this blog. Anyway, he wrote a rather influential book in the 40's, The Menace of the Herd. It's available, from the Mises Institute, as a pdf here.

I was having a browse through the book, when in the appendix I noticed this:  



All I can say is wow!

It seems that whilst Hitler was a bad Catholic, all those nice Protestants really liked him........ a lot. Much more than his fellow Catholics actually. No seriously, I mean, WTF?

The reason I bring this up is because of a comment thread over at Ferdinand's. Commentator Thursday, for whom I have very much respect, says:
It is time to get off this “liberalism is the result of Calvinism/Christianity/Nominalism/whatever” nonsense.
Now, this is not a dig at Thursday but rather a spectacular demonstration of the opposite. I'm sorry but religion matters. Big time.

Kuenehlt-Leddihn was no fan of Protestantism, but he did recognise that sound Protestantism would have probably prevented the rise of Hitler. It's the watered down version of it that is toxic.

And by the way, Kuenehlt-Leddihn correctly diagnosed Nazism as a leftist phenomenon.

8 comments:

Jason said...

If you like writers with a Central European temperament, you might enjoy the historian John Lukacs and his The Hitler of History or The Last European War, although I'm sure you would disagree with his anti-anti Communism. Lukacs is from Budapest and actually ended up teaching at Chestnut Hill College around Philadephia after World War II, so I'm sure he knew Kuenehlt-Leddihn and shared some of his ideas.

Anonymous said...

Didn't the Catholics vote mainly for the Catholic Centre Party?

And by the way, Kuenehlt-Leddihn correctly diagnosed Nazism as a leftist phenomenon.

Then the maps should have shown the combined vote of the NSDAP and the Communists. But the book was published during the war so that would have been impossible.

mdavid said...

European protestantism is merely the front door to atheism. Much like the Frenchman turning his back on God after the death of a loved one, who had a friend suggest he might go Prot instead of rejecting God said icily, "Sir, I have lost my faith, not my mind." European protestantism is not at all like the Americas version of protestantism, which is merely uneducated but more often than not a vibrant and powerful faith.

The Social Pathologist said...

@Jason

Thanks for the tip. I had a bit of read of his bio earlier on. You're also right, I do feel he did not really understand the menace of it. (Communism), the fascists did treat him quite badly and he got out of Hungary in 1947 so he did not get to spend much time in the Workers Paradise. I'll take a look at the books when I can.

Then the maps should have shown the combined vote of the NSDAP and the Communists.

I agree. I still think that there would be a significant correlation.

I'm not sure who the Catholics voted for but for the mass of them it wasn't the Nazi's

@mdavid.

Spot on. American Protestantism is different. Though, I think Episcopalianism, (Anglicism) comes pretty close to the European variant.

The Evengelicals, even in their hatred of Catholicism, express a simply purity of soul that you get amongst the refined variants of Protestantism. Most of them are good people who hate Catholicism for what it isn't rather than what it is. Being uneducated prevents them from embracing Protestantism's worst aspects.

They are men of simple faith. Which is a good thing.

The Social Pathologist said...

Oops.
express a simply purity of soul that you get amongst the refined variants of Protestantism

Should be

express a simply purity of soul that you don't get amongst the refined variants of Protestantism

David Foster said...

I don't understand the map. It *looks* like it is saying that there were *no* areas that had both a Catholic majority and a pro-Nazi vote??...surely that seems unlikely>>

The Social Pathologist said...

It *looks* like it is saying that there were *no* areas that had both a Catholic majority and a pro-Nazi vote??.

Correct, that's the point he was trying to bring across. The Nazi's gained their majority support from areas where Protestants were a majority.

Darren Demers said...

If you like writers with a Central European temperament, you might enjoy the historian John Lukacs and his The Hitler of History or The Last European War, although I'm sure you would disagree with his anti-anti Communism. Lukacs is from Budapest and actually ended up teaching at Chestnut Hill College around Philadephia after World War II, so I'm sure he knew Kuenehlt-Leddihn and shared some of his ideas. wholesale Pakistani shalwar kameez dealer , pakistani suits wholesale , stitched wholesale formal wear collections from Pakistan