If you read View from the Right you will know that Lawrence Auster has suffered poor health in recent times.
Kristor is organising an intercessory prayer vigil for him tomorrow, Sunday 13th January, from 5.00 to 6.00pm. For further details and to note your support please visit here.
Lawrence Auster has performed invaluable work at View from the Right. It has been the flagship of the traditionalist movement for the past decade; I for one feel an immense gratitude for his labours and will be praying for his health tomorrow.
(I have temporarily activated comment moderation, those who read the comments thread yesterday will know why.)
"Sunday 13th January, from 5.00 to 6.00pm" regardless of when that actually is, due to your time zone makes practical sense.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Lawrence Auster would think any prayers from me vain if not offensive. That is orthodox Christianity.
I'm sure any kind words I might say for him would not be reciprocated. His quarrels are well known.
I still strongly disapprove of his rushing to the support of Roman Polanski.
But...
I wish him well.
He's done a lot. He's tried hard. He has used his life and talent for worthy causes that needed help, when I think he had the ability as a writer to do well for himself by just looking after number one.
He has been a steadfast Christian; I respect that.
He has been pro-white, forthrightly so. I appreciate that.
In my opinion he has favored Christian, Jewish and white interests - which took a lot of moral courage, in a time where whites have been demonized by the ruling cultural elite - till he saw a clash between them, and then he would favor the Jewish side, just or not.
Anyone born into the most powerful ethnocentric tradition in world history is going to have a bias. Expecting him not to have a bias is like expecting heterosexual males to be oblivious to good-looking women; it's an unreasonable, inhuman demand.
There is a difference between someone who says he is your friend but really means to undermine you, and someone who says he is your friend and generally is, but who also has a sometimes conflicting interest that he refuses to admit to.
Most people with a similar conflict resolve it by redefining white interests and / or defining away the idea of whites having specific interests - basically by betraying whites, in a time when we need all the sincere help we can get. I don't think Lawrence Auster has done that. I see Lawrence Auster's glass as half full - next to a lot of empty glasses.
And nobody with much self-awareness thinks that strict and severe justice is in all our best interests.
I would not wish that on Lawrence Auster in this world or another. I'd rather hear that he has gotten better - and hope that he might be happy after this life as well.
I'm in.
Daybreaker,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I wouldn't summarise Lawrence Auster's contributions thus far along the lines you do, though. I remember in the time before the internet became widely available feeling utterly isolated. I even wondered one day if it was possible that I was the last non-liberal on the planet. And then when the internet era began I remember finding VFR, at which there were not only people I recognised as fellow traditionalists, such as Auster, Kalb and Matt, but a level of intelligent discussion and a finding of a way toward important truths.
But we were still just a handful of individuals.
Lawrence Auster then dedicated a great deal of time and thought to VFR, often making five or six posts a day, with there often being a nugget of real insight embedded into at least one of these posts.
He has deservedly built up a considerable readership and gained a wider notice for the traditionalist movement.
I do feel both admiration and gratitude and I'm going to pray that he is able to continue his valuable work.
Ah. I only noticed him when I was directed to him by people who were quarreling with him - and who were pointing out (in their own defense) that other people also quarreled with him. That's not an ideal way to get a favorable or fair opinion of anyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I missed his role as a founder. I just saw him as a writer.
He's good at that. I hope he lives to write a lot more.
You know, in our age, anyone has to have unusual moral courage to say things like: I don't only care that Black males are winding up in prison in disproportionate numbers, I care about the innocent people they are attacking, specifically including the whites who are being driven from their neighborhoods.
"Respectable conservatives" who write for good money don't say things like that. Their compassion is only for people they are not afraid they'll be attacked for caring about.
One Lawrence Auster, biases and all, is worth millions of them.
Mr. Auster has been a stern, but kind intellectual father-figure to me. He is, I think, what professors of old strove to be, and justly so. You don't go to Mr. Auster with petty, childish nonsense. He has neither the patience nor the inclination to hear it. You don't waste his time with sentiment or mere emotion. You bring to him your very best, much like the sort of paper you endeavored to write for a professor you hold in high regard.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you do, you aren't disappointed. He takes the good you produce and unites it with something larger. He takes your own thoughts, though perhaps good nonetheless isolated and rootless, and carefully and masterfully fits them into a larger, grander edifice. He is a master builder of ideas, a carpenter in the intellectual tradition of our Lord. His blog and his mind, really, are truly beautiful to behold.
We have Kids' Church tonight. I will be asking the pastor if I might have the kids pray for him. God willing, I will join the intercessory prayer hour tomorrow evening as well.