Alright, we're back after a one week hiatus, my apologies for that last week, but sometimes life gets you ahead a lot. It's really uncanny I'm finding with how many things converge at the same time, so you might go two weeks without a whole lot going on and then boom, you have four things jammed into two days, it's just, I keep getting ahead of everyone how that happens repeatedly, but oh well, it's just the way that I suppose. So this week we're talking about Erica Voguelin. I argue to do my favorite thinker of all time, I'd probably put Chesterton at number one, he says more fun and clever, and I think came and a lot of the insights, but I'll be in a much different format.
I was too thick and very compatible, but I'm getting ahead of myself there. This week, I'm starting off with basically the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, where this thing started in about 962 or 800, depending which is torn in your ass, continued until 1806 when Napoleon dissolved it, so about a thousand years continued, and then it actually continued, but it was called the Austrian Empire and then emerged in with Hungary to form the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in 1867, and after loss of World War I, the Western Empire, the Western forces, Wilson comes all the rest at Versailles, they just hated the Empire, especially Wilson, from understanding, I think he's kind of an anti-Catholic bigot, and the Holy Roman Empire was Catholic, and not everyone who lived there was Catholic by any stretch of it, but I think it was huge, had a bunch of different religions in there, but even some Muslims, but anyway, yeah, dissolved it to World War I, and the Wilson wouldn't let a Catholic thing like that continue to, too much not modern for Wilson's taste, so it was dissolved for good. At that point, but my point in going into that is that late Holy Roman Empire was all about Vienna, and in Vienna, in Austria was the focal point of the late Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian Empire, it was the seat of Europe's most formidable family, the Hasperbes, the last fumes of Empire lingered in Vienna, it was a source of pride to the Viennese and a source of hatred to the rest of the world, especially Wilson, and it made Vienna unique as almost like 1200 years of European history were squeezed into its city limits, and that history was over. This market beaten the snot out of the Austrian Empire in 1866, ending Habsburg's hegemony in Central Europe, in 1873, a disastrous stock market crash brought economic devastation, the Viennese were taking their minds off it with a new fangled dance, the Waltz, which one observer called, quote, lust let loose.
I S-H-I-T-U-Not, the Waltz was considered lost, lust let loose, and the embodiment of late empire decadence, as all of Vienna. Cafes lined Vienna's streets, its educated classes were known for spending their days in the cafés, leisurely drinking coffee or wine at reading newspapers, while the working class labored seven days a week, 70 hours a week. Vienna's leading families saw themselves as emulators of the Habsburgs, they revered that the Patrick Familia, and furnished their apartments lavishly, like their little castles. Even if the wealth didn't prove me loud, there's been money on these lavish things, just to keep up the appearance of little Habsburgs, meanwhile those poor citizens were cramped and terribly, terribly living quarters due to a severe housing shortage.
Catholicism dominated, and eroticism was rampant, so it's kind of a city of paradox. The U.S. side was also rampant, the city of dreams, as one playwright called it, became for many people as city of nightmares. It briefly came under Nazi control, its native son Hitler, personally entered the city in 1938 and signaling the start of a severe Jewish repression.
Austria ceased to exist as a separate country, and Vienna was no longer the capital of anything. It then briefly came under the Soviet control, and was then divided after World War II and the Five Zones, Soviet, U.S. British, French, and neutral. In 1955, the Soviets left, but with assurances from NATO that Austria would remain neutral.
So out of this paradoxical mishmash of empire, fascism, Catholicism, tradition, modernity, eroticism, whatever stepped a big dose of genius. These were meant to become giants of their fields ranging from music to economics to psychoanalysis, many of whom fled fascism to settle in Western Europe or the United States. The following is such a partial list, it's probably five times long unless you really want to do a detailed list, but Karl Menger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Karnop, Sigmund Freud, Martin Boober, Karl Popper, Victor Frankel, Arnold Schoenberg, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, and Eric Mogulen.
Now, Vogelen is probably the least known but possibly the greatest among them. I know, I praise indeed to that's my position. He was poor at self-promotion, his prose was difficult, and his ideas were nearly impossible to appreciate. To compound the problem, he refused to quote unquote write down to make his prose more accessible, insisting the reader make the required effort to understand the problem that was modernity, and then he compounded the problem even more by using neiligisms or new words that no one understood, because he kind of made them up or adapted them from ancient usage.
Vogelen biography spent a lot of time defining words, some of them even include a separate glossary at the end. But I expect the real reason Vogel never really caught on, like, say, Freud or Vadmises, he simply didn't resonate. Luther wouldn't have resonated in the 11th century, Nietzsche would have lived with the wolves in the 8th century. Vogelen, with the analytic precision of a mathematician, tried to explain how transcendence plays into earthly politics.
But it wasn't a song that played well in the exuberant and optimistic days of proposed World War II America, which cared for such things about as much as Stalin cared about the Pope's legions. That's a famous thing to say, and let's talk about the Catholic Church of Physicians, some of those sounds like, wouldn't care, how many armies does he have? But anyway, on top of that, I believe Vogel set himself an impossible task. The Tao can't be explained in mathematical terms.
But he was also correct, the Tao can't be ignored, whether currently or in historical explanations. Alright, let's do a brief bio on this man. So Vogel, he wasn't very charismatic, he didn't go to parties, they call him a quote unquote gentleman thinker. His recreation was the occasional cigar and reading the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, he didn't like small talk and valued his time.
His personality didn't attract a cult like following, he didn't establish a school movement, but he's important. So even though I'm not sure the details of his life lend a lot of insight to what I'm going to be talking about here on this podcast and the existence strikes back project in general. And by the way, if you didn't know what the existence strikes back project is at sub-stack. My sub-stack has nothing but existence strikes back stuff.
The Daily Demon kind of has a loop of everything. As does the medium page, but anyway, the existence strikes back project is exclusively or at its exclusive province of my sub-stack page. Anyway, brief biographical sketch of Eric Vogel. 1901 born in Cologne, Germany, 1910, moved to Vienna.
1922 received doctorate in political science for the University of Vienna. While there, he attended seminars by Von Mises and developed a lasting friendship with Hayek. In 1920, studied at the University of Berlin, Heidelberg, Oxford, Columbia, Harvard, and Wisconsin. Also spent some time at the Sorbonne.
1928 published his first book on the form of the American mind. 1930's published Race and State, the history of the race idea, and the authoritarian state. These made him a target of the Nazis who withdrew the latitude from circulation. History of the race idea was vigorously deplatformed with copies burned.
1938 came to Anschloss, where Austria was taken over by Nazi Germany. He was fired from the University of Vienna and he fled to America. In 1939, he published the political religions. 1939 to 1942, he bounced around Harvard, but it's in college and the University of Alabama.
And then he had some stability finally. 1942, 1958, he was a professor at Louisiana State University. In that time, in 1952, he published a new science of politics, which made him famous for a short spell, thanks to a time magazine feature story about the book. 1956 and 1957, he published the first three volumes of his magnum opus, Order and History.
The three volumes are called Israel and Revelation, The World of the Polis, and Plato and Aristotle. The next two lines, by the way, would be published much later, I think like in the 70s, is the Ecumenic Age is volume 4 and volume 5 is, I think it's the Search for Order. It's a real thin book. Anyway, 1958, he went back and became a professor at Munich.
1968 published Science Politics and Narcissism, which is his most accessible book. If you want to read a book, but you're like, hey, I don't want to read, read 30 volumes. This is a very thin book. It's pretty readable as far as local goes.
So, aside, it's a politics and narcissism. 1969, he becomes a professor at Stanford, 1985, died and buried, pursuant to the Lutheran Rights of Burel. I plan on exploring his religion a little bit. He wasn't really religious guy, even though his thought was all about religion.
I think he's probably one of those unfortunate few who I believe wasn't given the gift of faith. That dude out of Baylor, Rodney Stark, has said the same thing. He wants to believe, but he just can't. Anything's Catholicism, Christianity and general Catholicism, and specifically have been great developments in the world, and he's spent a lot of time developing it.
This was Rodney Stark, but last I knew he just didn't have to give to faith. Although I think I read he did convert to some Christian sect. But, if Oakland ever did, he called himself a pre-reformation Christian, or I got nice-seen Christian. He had other cute terms, but it was not Catholic, like he was raised, and apparently left instructions to be buried, pursuant to a Lutheran Rights of Buryl.
Oh, it's odd. I can never confirm it was carried out. I know he left instructions to be buried, according to Lutheran Rights, but I'm not sure it's carried out, no matter. Now, probably the most important thing is after his death, and trust in his work, boomed.
I'm just going to read to you this passage, excuse me, from the vogland view. Probably the most accessible pop website, and I don't say pop is pretty fixed up, but it's good. But vogland view is all one word. Here's how they describe this cottage industry of vogland as a master's death.
Secondary literature on vogland has virtually become an industry. Among the indications of the engagement with vogland's work are the 305-page Eric vogland international bibliography 1921-2000. Vogland research centers have been founded in universities in the United States and Europe. His works have been translated into languages ranging from Portuguese to Japanese, and a Chinese edition of Ordered History has recently been published.
That's fascinating, but frankly, given Chinese. Maybe it's not being published in actually in China itself, anyway. The 34 volumes of the collective works of Eric vogland, as well as numerous secondary works by contemporary scholars, have been published by the University of Missouri Press, St. Augustine's Press, and the Eric vogland archive of the Ludwig Maximilian Universita.
I'm probably butchering that, but that's what it says. So why? A while is interesting, vogland. Well, I hope to explore that in future essays.
But if you've seen references in my essays to quote Ursat's religion, unquote, and narcissism, you've seen a preview of what I'll be explaining and why so many people are interested in the work of this man who has been described as and I'm not kidding. He was called a communist, a fascist, a national socialist, an old liberal, a new liberal, a Jew, a Catholic, a Protestant, a Plateness, a neo-Augustinian, a communist, a Hegelian, and a man out of the influence of Huey Long. Huey Long, like he do not. His work is so confusing, he is called all those things.
Now, this is the personal note about my interest in vogland. I came to him in 1990 while reading Russell Kirk's Enemies of the Permanent Things, which by the way is his second favorite book of Kirk's I've ever read. Kirk's chapter on vogland inspired me to jump into his five-volume order in history. Back then it was hard to find such a device that just set up books.
It was very expensive, especially for newly married man like I was, and very difficult to find. My brother's mother-in-law, she managed to book store, she was able to find it, took her a long time to find it, and then took over a month for it to arrive when she ordered it for me. And when it did, I was stoked. I still remember bringing it home.
I remember getting home from the office and I was waiting for me. I was really stoked and I started reading Israel Revelation, and I read it, and I read, and I read, and I didn't understand a thing, not a matter thing. I got frustrated and quite frankly kind of lost my temper. And I wasn't throwing stuff, wasn't like I was making a scene, but it was measured and nerdy type of anger.
And my anger to reason said, hey, Russell Kirk got you into this mess, and it wasn't mass. It was like a $150 investment back in the early 1990s when I didn't have much money to say the least. So I'm like, Kirk got you into this mess. Russell Kirk can get you out of it.
So I called information, 5551212, got his phone number in Macostin, Michigan, and called him. Just called his house. The great man came to the phone and spoke with me quite a while. I mean, I was a complete stranger.
It was a borderline crank call, but he tried explaining to me what Vogel was getting at, and I honestly don't even call what Dr. Kirk said. And I remember having a hard time understanding them, but I was struck by Dr. Kirk's willingness to come to the phone.
And now years later, I'd published an article about Russell Kirk and his widow and that had me up to the house of Macostin. And over breakfast, I told her about that incident. And she was totally not plus, totally not surprised. She said, that's Russell.
He talked with anyone who showed interest in such things. That's just a rough quote. In any event, that's my conversation with Dr. Kirk.
I plunged back and ordered history and got through it. I then read the core of Vogel and Corpus, science, politics, and Nazism, the new science of politics, from Enlightenment to Revolution, and Anisas, autobiographical essays, and a collection of essays called What is History. I also absorbed a handful of books about his thought. And here, there's five of them I've read, or four of them, rather.
And here's my order preference. My favorite is Michael Franz called Eric Vogel and the politics of spiritual revolt. And I also read Eugene Webb, Eric Vogel and philosopher history, Michael Federici, Eric Vogel and Elestandos, the Vogel Indian Revolution. All right, that concludes the introduction, Eric Vogel and next week we start the Eric Vogel and state of the existence strikes back project.
I really think you're gonna like it, although I'm gonna be 100% honest with you right now. I have set myself the goal of being the great Vogel and Vogerizer. I hope to make him accessible. I honestly stand in here October 9th, 2022.
I don't know if it's possible. I guess I'll be like Jim Harbaugh last year who said the goal was to be Ohio and they're gonna do it or die trying. And it's like, I'm gonna try to make Vogel and accessible. I'm gonna die trying, I suppose.
Anyway, bear with me. I love feedback. I mean, I welcome feedback from day one of this existence strikes back project in this series of podcasts. I would love input feedback, questions, anything that challenged me to make me sharper anything in this area.
Please email me. I'd love to hear from you. And by the way, as you know, a newsletter, as you might know, a newsletter has been started. It is not an existence strikes back newsletter.
It's not even a daily demon newsletter. It is called outside the modern limits, which I think if you even read these essays, you know, I have severe concerns about modernity. And I think we need to get outside the constraints of modernity. So we need to get outside the limits.
So the newsletter is called outside the modern limits. Please go the daily demon and subscribe. Anyway, as always, thanks for listening.