Astrid Johanne Hog

 

In late January of this year, Dennis Prager invited a young, good conservative Danish journalist (Astrid Johanne Hog) to be his guest on his Fireside Chat. I watched the hour-long dialogue, and there were some interesting comments that I wish to comment on. My paraphrases are very rough and in my own words, but it is enough for what I am trying to convey. I only mentions those snippets of conversation that interest me,  and the rest I do not comment on or mention.

 

 

Astrid mentioned that one way that she is a conservative is that she believes in the viability and value of hierarchy (roughly representing God’s higher order and purpose), and that is to be treasured and supported, and that hierarchy represents the moral order of the universe. Dennis Prager agreed with her remarks wholeheartedly. He felt that respect for hierarchies begins with the Commandment to Honor Thy Father and Mother.

 

I hasten to intervene here. Among conservatives, the near total confusion about, the lack of clarity on the subject of, and the near universal inability to define and make distinct the difference between a good hierarchy (a small, limited hierarchy in a constitutional republic whose functionaries, bosses and customers are anarchist-indiviuator supercitizens, and a bad hierarchy (one run by Nazis, Soviet Communists, or the medieval Papacy). Good hierarchies make this world better. Bad hierarchies increase Satan’s power on earth.

 

It could be the noble hierarchies praised by Astrid and Dennis are those benign, uplifting social structures and levels of heaven in the world of spirits that promote love and peace, a hierarchy is the Great Chain of Being, or one’s service to the Good Spirits or through them to serve the Divine Couple or whatever benevolent deity one worships, there is an obvious hierarchy here.

 

There are also bad hierarchies, institutional ones, such as exist in any totalitarian bureaucracy or institution like big government, big business, big campus, big public education, big military, big church

 

Hierarchy needs to be limited, with few levels and those on every level of it  being individuators of great personal power, that are kind and respectful to those below and those above while enjoying maximum feasible liberty in doing their own thing, running their own affairs and pursuing their own happiness—all while serving their role in their hierarchy,  and these moral, efficient, honesty, competent bosses will keep the hierarchy fairly competent and not corrupt as Jordan Peterson advises.. These aims may seem to conflict or be mutually exclusive, but they can be balanced and made to complement not compete with each other.

 

I also want to repeat that as the undeveloped individuator sees himself as Level A at 20, and then maverizes to Level X at the age of 60, this is a noble hierarchy of the individual’s own making, not socially crippling all and centralizing power and wealth needlessly.

 

The wise conservative does not want to mis-identify the well-functioning and just existing institution as so rotten that it must be blown up immediately. The conservative counsels patient reform not whole revolution as long as the existing institutions that are roughly beneficial and functioning. We are not to go nihilist and bloodthirsty, not overthrow the status quo and wipe them out all its leaders and structures, but to tweak and build upon them, and that could be what Astrid and Dennis mean by respecting existing hierarchies. That caution seems plausible.

 

Dennis points out that Judeo-Christian values are logical and rational and that scientific, mechanistic, and secular explanations may seem more rational, and scientific but actually or just ideological, popular, or based on sentiment. Dennis wants his Judaism to be rationally more than emotionally based and he is correct. God thinks more than feels and the Devil feels more than thinks, so we want to be reasonable, moderate individualist and temperate mot unreasonable, enthusiastic, extreme collectivist, totalistic and out of control.

 

Dennis asked Astrid why she though Christianity was dead or dying in Europe. She did not seem to have an answer, but his answers were plausible. He said World War I pitted patriotic and Christian Germans against the same from England, France and Russia and the horrible, meaningless butchery and millions of deaths made it all seem a meaningless farce. And the Europeans never got over their loss of faith in their cultural values.

It got even worse in World War II and they never recover their faith in country or religion, so secularism has left them without faith, meaning or belief in anything.