[Vision2020] On R.L. Dabney

[Andreas Schou]

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Lawyer <mike_l@moscow.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 10:20 am
Subject: [Vision2020] RE: R.L. Dabney, yeah he's our man.

> Dear Rose,
> 
> 
> 
> I'm happy that women can distinguish, but that must be a general 
> statementsince you are again showing us that you seem unable to do it.
> 
> 
> 
> Of course your rhetorical questions deserve 'no' for answers. On 
> the other
> hand when I took a course on public speaking in college part of the
> curriculum was to listen to several of Hitler's speeches. 
> Apparently, though
> he was a terrible dictator, he was also a great speech maker. Back 
> in the
> dark ages when I went to college, people could distinguish between 
> things (I
> also drove a VW bug for over 20 years).
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think listening to or enjoying the strengths of those 
> speeches meant
> the students were Nazis. If they didn't have the ability to 
> distinguishthings they may have become Nazis (if they could have 
> understood the
> German). And that is precisely what often happens to college 
> students. They
> think the professor knows what he is talking about and they suck up
> everything she says. 

The problem is that we are not, nor have we ever been, discussing R.L. Dabney the theologian. His theological beliefs -- othern than his explanation of the story of Ham, Japheth, and Shem -- are largely opaque, but seem largely to consist of several paraphrases of Calvin, several works on psalmody, and some unconventional (which is to say, heretical) views on the baptism of infants and the frequencyof communion. I have no particular opinion on Dabney's theology -- but he is not, by any means, held in high repute in the Presbyterian community. 

(For those of you that're interested, look up the "Auburn Avenue controversy" for information on Doug's own ... shall we say ... difficulties with other Presbyterians over Dabney's theology, particularly concerning the /capital crime/ of manstealing.)

It is, and has always been, Dabney the historian whom we are discussing. The conference is the Credenda/Agenda /history/ conference, not the Credenda/Agenda /theology/ conference -- though even the latter would likely draw a few well-informed protesters, given Dabney's staunch opposition to women's suffrage.

Dabney the theologian may be a complex character, but Dabney the historian is a racist and nothing but. He has nothing to offer to historical inquiry but white supremicist bile and sheer mendacity. Quinlan and Ramsey are correct when they say that Southern Slavery: As It Was is simply a repetition of Civil War-era defenses of slavery: they are that because SS: AIW is the Cliff Notes version of R.L. Dabney's _A Defense of Virginia, and through it, the South_.

I don't give a damn if Doug repudiates Dabney's aberrant theology: the sectarian squabbles of a group of five right-wing Presbyterian churches doesn't concern me a bit. Nor am I seeking (or, for that matter, will I be satisfied with) rote repudiations of Dabney's racist bullshit. Wilson's made it clear that he's opposed to everything I stand for. He makes himself out to be the antidote to the last five hundred years of social progress.

Well, fine: I'm taking him at his word, and I'm often looking like an idiot when I do it. But the only way he can make his point is lying about history. So he charges an unreasonable amount of money to lie to people about history, which is not unusual, as there is a great deal of money in the comforting lie industry. Every year for the past God-knows-how long, he's mendaciously come up with some bullshit excuse for some Calvinist failure, whether it be the theocratic dystopia of Calvin's Geneva or the Salem Witch Trials or (in this case) slavery.

I don't plan to take an assault on the truth (1) sitting down. I plan to tolerate it -- because that's what good liberals do; tolerate those who disagree with them -- but I absolutely plan to argue. If that argument takes the form of waving placards and shouting slogans -- well, it's distasteful, and it's impolite, and I'd prefer not to do it, but it takes a hell of a lot of shouting for someone to hear you way up in that pulpit.

See you at the C/A HC.

-- ACS

(1) That's right, Mike. I said truth. Neither you nor Christ Church can wriggle out of this one by claiming cultural relativism; by hemming and hawing and stroking your beards and saying, "Well, there are several interpretations --" You are disallowed from believing that from other of your beliefs.