I am merely a self-taught designer (Fine Arts background), not an architect and I am married to an absolutely wonderful woman who is Catholic (Either I or my Episcopal Church has fallen), but I am not Catholic, so I cannot adequately address the two issues of Catholicism or architecture with much force. What struck me as an appalling parallel though was a piece referenced in the above Massengale piece by Nikos A. Salingaros that speaks to the fight between traditional and modern architects by quoting Andres Duany.
"The problem with countering the avant-gardists (they are not modernists, and we cannot grant them that position) with Reason is that they have set up a field ofI have come to respect all of the people referenced here and I hope I do not cause them consternation by using their work in an improper way, but if you replace Traditional Architecture with Republican/Conservative and replace avant-gardists with Democrat/Liberal, you have the same argument with the same problems.
combat that explicitly devalues the light of reason and privileges the raw force
of unreason. In other words, they are set to fight by rolling us into the gutter
in the night. By proposing to counter them with reason we are proposing to
counter them with 18th Century gentlemen's dueling rules. They will continue to
trounce us. Reason is but one weapon to be used in the appropriate
circumstances. Power is another -- and the only one they play by.
Check out the details of the coup! Classic! Perfect! Can anybody not now see what utter sons-of-bitches we are up against? Have I not been saying that we need to learn to attack, like them? What are we prepared to do now? Well ... how about some more moral superiority discussions?...”
Modernist Liberals/Progressives speak in non-sensical circles stating that their new “reality-based” reason is actually more reasonable than reason itself because theirs is the only reason.
This “reality-based community” has gained much power by debasing not only reason, but the language of reason. Today, a patriarchal relationship is not a tradition or a choice, but is an evil. Our Global War on Terrorism is lost, not based on reason or military wisdom, but it is lost based on polls.
Our future is not to be built on the strength of reason, but on an innovation idea of what they think our future should look like.
“…they spend their time learning how to design and build sensitive and adaptive
buildings. By contrast, the "other side" spends all of its time in mastering the
arts of war and propaganda. Their main (phony) argument is that they are being
innovative; never mind that they are religiously following cult dogma.”
In many cases, architecture is a reflection of the moral health of a society. To Liberal/Progressives, the architecture of the Soviet built slums is their architecture. So to is the “modernistic” architecture of communist China, of Castro’s Socialist paradise and the ruined plans of Hitler’s Germania.
Theirs is not a future in which I would like to live. Hell, the here and now requires rejuvination to counter their shallowness and constant (non)moralizing.
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