[lbo-talk] [Pen-l] Muscular Christianity, Eugenics, War, Football, and Imperialism

[Chuck Grimes]

> This is an extract from a book that Vincent Portillo and I are writing, 
> The
> Matrix: An Exploration of the Interactions between the Economy, War, and
> Economic Theory.
>
> In the late nineteenth century, a fear about the softness of American
> society raised doubts about the capacity of the United States to carry out
> its imperial destiny.
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Sounds great. Also look into the Boy Scouts of America as another of those 
institutions for a muscular Christianity. The establishment of outdoor 
physical activity, cold showers, and rigorous hiking was an international 
phenomenon particularly in Germany during the period of the early 20thC. So 
there were the Wandervogel movements. Jews were excluded of course, so they 
started their own under the early Zionists. Strauss was a Jewish Boy Scout 
in the Bleuweiss in high school... And the football connection has a 
parallel in early German soccer leagues where one of the teams was the 
Bleu-Weiss--not Jewish to be sure. They were a strong a nationalist team by 
the 1930s and were disband when the Allies occupied Germany.

The other interesting parallel for a more muscular Christianity comes from 
the Catholics and the 1917 Code of Canon Law that mandated Aquinas be the 
center of study in Catholic colleges and universities. It was a reaction to 
the soft liberalism creeping into to orthodoxy via Descartes, Kant, and 
Hegel. Getting tough on doctrine meant back to Aristotle!

CG