Ask Nathan Anything: Quarantine Edition

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

My inclusion of the phrase "intelligence operations" in the case of Japan was at least partly motivated by this tiny blurb:

Ishibashi stated that the government should endeavor to set up diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and his policy was popular among the people. Unfortunately he became sick and gave up his office only two months later.

For class last year we had a reading on Japan's relationship with the US (in trade terms) during the post-war era. Ishibashi had apparently also discussed looking to the Soviet Union as a potential partner, and Ishibashi's sudden illness in this context seemed rather suspicious. Whether real or imagined, I was surprised to find no mention was made in his Wikipedia article of potential CIA involvement in his illness. My (China-born) political economy prof implied as much, but said society was pretty closed then, so such might have just been kept quiet. Can you comment?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My inclusion of the phrase "intelligence operations" in the case of Japan was at least partly motivated by this tiny blurb:

Ishibashi stated that the government should endeavor to set up diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and his policy was popular among the people. Unfortunately he became sick and gave up his office only two months later.

For class last year we had a reading on Japan's relationship with the US (in trade terms) during the post-war era. Ishibashi had apparently also discussed looking to the Soviet Union as a potential partner, and Ishibashi's sudden illness in this context seemed rather suspicious. Whether real or imagined, I was surprised to find no mention was made in his Wikipedia article of potential CIA involvement in his illness. My (China-born) political economy prof implied as much, but said society was pretty closed then, so such might have just been kept quiet. Can you comment?

I'm not super familiar with Ishibashi, but my impression is that CIA involvement is one possibility there among others, such as being forced out by Japan's own deep state, nudged out the door by other elements within the LDP, genuinely being sick, etc. Mainly why I'm saying US intelligence involvement in Japan is relatively unlikely (or at least unproven) is that, again, the plain old US Army and US Navy were right there and, at that point, still could have done more or less whatever they felt like in/to Japan if Ishibashi had stayed on.

Personally, my favorite conspiracy theory of this nature to do with Japan is that the relatively-liberal Emperor Taishō's mental and physical decrepitude, culminating in his death before the age of fifty, was caused by poisoning from elements of the IJA and IJN who wanted Hirohito on the throne as a puppet of the military brass. I don't fully subscribe to it, but I think it has more explanatory power than a lot of other hypotheses for what Taishō's problem was.

If you had to move to a Dixie state, which would it be? What city would you envision living in. Gonna rule right now that you can't choose Asheville.

Defining Dixie as the South as a whole, I'd move to Dallas/Fort Worth--not because I think it seems like a nice place (I don't) but because, as they used to say, I have people there. Defining Dixie as the arc of states from North Carolina down to Louisiana and Arkansas, I'd move to Charleston; the Ben Tillmans and Lindsey Grahams of the world aside, the South Carolinians I've known personally have been uniformly wonderful people, which I can't say for people I've known from certain other Southern states.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

In light of your various takes around this topic and especially the one in response to my first post in this thread, I very much would like to know your answer to this:

How would you have voted at the 1981 abortion referendum in Italy (the restrictive proposal)?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In light of your various takes around this topic and especially the one in response to my first post in this thread, I very much would like to know your answer to this:

How would you have voted at the 1981 abortion referendum in Italy (the restrictive proposal)?

I don't know. I think it would depend on whether I was a Red Catholic DC voter or a cattocomunista PCI voter, which in turn might depend on something as contingent as what part of Italy I lived in. So Umbrian Nathan and Neapolitan Nathan definitely both vote against the Radical proposal, but might very well diverge on the Catholic proposal.

2020 Massachusetts Nathan transported back in time and given Italian citizenship somehow probably votes No on all the 1981 referenda except maybe the life imprisonment one.

[All Along The Watchtower]

opinion of Sufism?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Also, opinion of me using Enrico Berlinguer as my Atlasia persona?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

opinion of Sufism?

Fascinating movement. If not read, read The Conference of the Birds; it's a wonderful work.

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Toss-up/Tilt Moro, although I view both men favorably. It's not inconceivable that Moro gets canonized as a martyr some day, which would certainly be interesting to see.

Also, opinion of me using Enrico Berlinguer as my Atlasia persona?

Freedom use of Enrico Berlinguer as your Atlasia persona!

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Toss-up/Tilt Moro, although I view both men favorably. It's not inconceivable that Moro gets canonized as a martyr some day, which would certainly be interesting to see.

I'm all for Moro getting canonized as a martyr!

I even planned to use "Modern Martyr Aldo Moro" as my display name some day (yes, I plan display names in advance).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Choose: Moro or Berlinguer

Toss-up/Tilt Moro, although I view both men favorably. It's not inconceivable that Moro gets canonized as a martyr some day, which would certainly be interesting to see.

I'm all for Moro getting canonized as a martyr!

I even planned to use "Modern Martyr Aldo Moro" as my display name some day (yes, I plan display names in advance).

I like the alliteration. Very Anglo-Saxon, ironically.

PR, I forgot to suggest Rabia al-Basri as another Sufi or proto-Sufi figure to look into.

[Alcibiades]

Have you ever been to the UK? If so, where did you go and how did you find it, and if not, where you like to visit?

Also, sticking on the British theme, what are your thoughts on Evelyn Waugh (one of my favourite writers, not least because he was a comedic genius)?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Have you ever been to the UK? If so, where did you go and how did you find it, and if not, where you like to visit?

I was actually in the UK a year ago tomorrow! Unfortunately, it was just a three-hour layover at Heathrow. I used the interfaith prayer room they have there (it was me, a little old lady who screamed "C of E dead-ender", and a bunch of Muslim guys doing maghrib; how British!), had a light dinner at the Fortnum & Mason wine bar, and was charmed by the fact that a 50p coin I got back had Peter Rabbit on it. That's the extent of my UK experience so far, but I've been wanting to do a more substantial trip some day since I was a teenager, ideally focusing on the North of England landscapes one reads about in the Brontës, Herriot, and Susanna Clarke.

Also, sticking on the British theme, what are your thoughts on Evelyn Waugh (one of my favourite writers, not least because he was a comedic genius)?

Oh, I love Waugh. My favorite funny moments in his writing are actually the bits of comic relief in the "serious" postwar works like Brideshead and Sword of Honour, but I've read and enjoyed some of the early-period comedies too. I especially like how Scoop, probably intended to be straightforwardly racist when written, has aged into a crosses-the-line-twice parody of old-timey British attitudes towards the "dark continent".

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Conciliarism or ultramontanism?

Was the Council of Trent good or bad for the Catholic Church?

Thoughts on Quietism?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I know you're a big fan of Steven Jay Gould. Can you elaborate on your experience with him and what insights in particular you took from him?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Is The Name of the Rose actually overrated and all the other novels by Eco underrated, as he used to proclaim in his life?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Conciliarism or ultramontanism?

Ultramontanism is closer to the orthodox position that was eventually arrived at, but conciliarism appeals to my personal sensibilities more. Toss-up/tilt ultramontanism, but I'm very interested in the synthesis that Pope Francis seems to be attempting with his "synodality" focus.

Was the Council of Trent good or bad for the Catholic Church?

Awful. Unnecessary standardization is the perpetual bugbear of...just about every human institution, religion not least of all. Trent also inaugurated the modern system of seminary education, and I don't think anybody needs a lesson on why that was a bad thing.
 

Thoughts on Quietism?

Molinos as an individual was an HP, and a forerunner of more recent abusive "spiritual geniuses" like Sasaki Jōshū, Shlomo Carlebach, and Jean Vanier, but I've never quite understood what was so wrong with his ideas.

Is The Name of the Rose actually overrated and all the other novels by Eco underrated, as he used to proclaim in his life?

No to the first part of the question, yes to the second. Baudolino and Numero Zero in particular are underappreciated, even under-read.

Antonio, I'll get to your question in a bit.

[RFayette]

Which Catholic teachings do you find personally hardest to accept? 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Which Catholic teachings do you find personally hardest to accept? 

The blanket immorality of same-sex sexual contact, the impossibility of women's ordination, the dogma of divine impassibility, and the dogma that it's possible to arrive at a sure knowledge of the existence of God by natural reason alone.

[KaiserDave]

Worst and Best Pope (if that can be answered)?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Worst and Best Pope (if that can be answered)?

It can't, so I'll do most overrated and most underrated.

Overrated: Pius IX, an evil son of a bitch who covertly supported the Confederacy and poisoned the well for the nascent Kingdom of Italy with his narcissistic and delusional refusal to accept its existence as a secular state. Somehow he ended up a beatus, but his canonization is probably DOA unless one of Francis's successors is a Young Pope-tier reactionary.
Underrated: Callixtus II, a High Medieval pontiff who negotiated an end to the Investiture Controversy, called a good-not-great ecumenical council (Lateran I), and, crucially, forbade pogroms, forced conversions of Jewish people, and disruption of Jewish religious and cultural rites on penalty of excommunication.

[KaiserDave]

Worst and Best Pope (if that can be answered)?

It can't, so I'll do most overrated and most underrated.

Overrated: Pius IX, an evil son of a bitch who covertly supported the Confederacy and poisoned the well for the nascent Kingdom of Italy with his narcissistic and delusional refusal to accept its existence as a secular state. Somehow he ended up a beatus, but his canonization is probably DOA unless one of Francis's successors is a Young Pope-tier reactionary.
Underrated: Callixtus II, a High Medieval pontiff who negotiated an end to the Investiture Controversy, called a good-not-great ecumenical council (Lateran I), and, crucially, forbade pogroms, forced conversions of Jewish people, and disruption of Jewish religious and cultural rites on penalty of excommunication.

Wow. Very good indeed. And a cool name to boot.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Worst and Best Pope (if that can be answered)?

It can't, so I'll do most overrated and most underrated.

Overrated: Pius IX, an evil son of a bitch who covertly supported the Confederacy and poisoned the well for the nascent Kingdom of Italy with his narcissistic and delusional refusal to accept its existence as a secular state. Somehow he ended up a beatus, but his canonization is probably DOA unless one of Francis's successors is a Young Pope-tier reactionary.
Underrated: Callixtus II, a High Medieval pontiff who negotiated an end to the Investiture Controversy, called a good-not-great ecumenical council (Lateran I), and, crucially, forbade pogroms, forced conversions of Jewish people, and disruption of Jewish religious and cultural rites on penalty of excommunication.

Wow. As always, you have the best opinions. It's really a bad case of cosmic irony that he also had the longest papal reign in history (after St. Peter?).

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I've been gone a long time.  How have you been, Nathan?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I know you're a big fan of Steven Jay Gould. Can you elaborate on your experience with him and what insights in particular you took from him?

The only Gould books I've read in full are his one on the Cambrian Explosion and The Mismeasure of Man (and, yes, I'm aware of the empirical controversies surrounding the latter), but I used to read a lot of his little articles in Natural History magazine when I was a kid (he died when I was nine) and I was on board with non-overlapping magisteria from a pretty early age. I admire that he was a scientist who wasn't afraid of the humanities--in undergrad he double majored in geology and philosophy, and in general he was always very careful to advance popular understanding of the natural sciences without indulging in the enlightened-by-my-own-intelligence anti-humanities posturing of a Dawkins or a Tyson. He had this in common with Carl Sagan, another figure I admire.

I've been gone a long time.  How have you been, Nathan?

Stressed! I'm a little ashamed to admit that 2020 actually went well for me personally, though; I have a full-time job now as an elementary school literacy specialist, and I'm contemplating either going for a Ph.D. (I got my master's in 2017) or looking for work overseas (probably East Asia, maybe Continental Europe). On a more personal or relational level, I was in a fairly intense relationship in 2015 and 2016 but have only tentatively dated since then; I've been focused on friends and family. I'm definitely more than a little jittery about the political situation; I don't think I've felt so unsettled in my understanding of my country at any other time since 9/11, and I was only eight years old then.

[RFayette]

Do you have a favorite Puritan theologian/work?

[All Along The Watchtower]

opinion of conservative Protestants who convert to Catholicism because of politics and intellectual respectability (will an evangelical be put on the Supreme Court? probably not anytime soon).