The Cost of Free Love

It is common for young American women to delusionally believe they are “10’s.” A popular topic for videos is some woman of average attractiveness or less insisting to an interviewer that she could have any man she wants. Surveys show the average woman wants a man in the top 10% in terms of wealth and height.

Which leaves a lot of women unmarried in their forties and wondering why no man would “step up” and produce the ring. Are modern men so afraid of responsibility? What happened to all the good men?

Little girls have always been raised with too much self-esteem: assured they are adorable. Feminism, teaching contempt for men, has not helped.

But the biggest causal factor is the modern acceptance and encouragement, since “the pill,” of casual sex. It has given women this false perception of their desirability.

After all, they have all the evidence they need that they are highly desirable. Evolutionary instincts tell men to have sex with as many women as they can. So any young woman of average attractiveness will find she has no trouble attracting attention from men who are “10’s.” Giving her the clear impression that this is her league. She will distain average men. 

And she will keep waiting for that proposal that will not come.

Subtract the casual sex, and this would not happen. Not expecting sex without marriage, young men would no longer swarm women of only average looks. They would largely only pay attention to women they hoped to marry, and women would have a much better idea of their true market value and who their true suitors were. There would be less sex, and more love.

We would have more marriages, more children, a lot fewer bitter older women feeling cheated by men, and a lot fewer young men bitter towards women.

We messed up with the sexual revolution. 

What Just Happened Overnight?

I woke up to one of those surreal moments when all at once the world does not seem real. What—the US just invaded Venezuela, captured the president, and he has now been arraigned in court in New York? And all of this happened overnight? I slept through an entire war?

Hard to take that in. 

Besides sounding impossible, isn’t this a grave violation of international law? First, invading another country with whom you are at peace, and second, targeting the leader personally to take them out. 

Back when Bush Sr. invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, that was my position. 

But international law is not really codified; it evolves, like the common law. And I think it is evolving. 

It began with the massacre in Rwanda. Popular opinion condemned the French in particular for not stepping in and preventing it, when they had the ability. They, and the UN forces, were constrained by this doctrine in international law that one must not interfere with the internal affairs of another country. This left a deep trauma. Surely that cannot have been right.

In reaction, when things got nasty in Serbia over Kosovo, NATO collectively decided they had the right to intervene—although Kosovo was long an integral part of Serbia, with no history of independence.

The idea had evolved to a right and perhaps a duty to intervene to protect human rights in another country, when the violations are egregious. After all, all men are brothers. Do we want another Holocaust, and another? Had Hitler not invaded Poland, would we merely accept his extermination of the Jews as an internal affair?

Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Watch accuse Maduro of multiple violations of Venezuelans’ human rights. On that basis, given this new doctrine of international law, Trump had a right to intervene. Not acting solely on his own opinion, but on that of recognized international bodies. He acted alone, not with a coalition of other nations—but that was necessary to make the action swift and relatively bloodless.

Does this give other regimes the right to do likewise? After all, this was more or less Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine: to defend the human rights of Russian-speakers in the Donbas against a “fascist” Ukrainian government.

That is no doubt a concern. But it is about what aggressors could always do under the old rules: fake some false flag operation, and claim they were defending themselves. This is what Hitler did to justify his invasion of Poland. In either case, we have to rely on the general opinion of nations. Are the claims plausible?

For Trump and America, there is also the issue of the drug scourge. It is a crisis in North America. Is it reasonable to see them, as Trump does, as a weapon intended to weaken the US? Wasn’t that what Britain did to China with opium centuries ago? Hasn’t China openly claimed they are pursuing war by unconventional means, “wolf warriors”? There are claims, too, that Venezuela has been subverting elections elsewhere, including the US.

Must the US just sit there and accept this? With changing technology, the weapons of war have changed. Perhaps we must begin to act accordingly.

And if you are justified in going  to war, Trump did so in the quickest and most bloodless way.

This may be the way of the future. Trump did something similar in Iran, the recent “twelve day war.” Which may now be bearing its final fruits in regime collapse. Go in, strike decisively, take out your opponent, and leave. He did something similar with Isis in Syria and Iraq. He seems to have understood something about how war has changed.

Bush Jr. could have done the same in Afghanistan or Iraq. The initial victories were quick and easy. He made the mistake of hanging around and trying to colonize.

It looks like Putin tried to imitate Trump’s approach in Ukriane—go in with a surgical strike, take out the opposing government, and it’s over. But Putin botched it. Russia does not have the technical capability and organization. They had to try it with brute force.

And Ukraine suggests that conventional war, in which armies line up on the field and shoot at each other, is obsolete; and of course, nuclear war works for nobody. Might it actually be the way of the future, and more just and humane, to fight by surgical strikes with superior coordination and technology?

The taking of Maduro seems, in any case, a brilliant strategic victory for the US. It should have an immediate effect in Iran, just when such a signal is needed. Trump has as much as said it is a warning to them. If they obviously violate Iranians’ human rights during the current protests, the US is will similarly step in. They are “locked and loaded.” “We know where you live.” 

A dealmaker, Trump is a brilliant psychologist.

This makes it much more likely the Iranian government, already on a knife edge, will fall.

Now imagine if Venezuela becomes, under a new government, an American ally, which is naturally likely to occur. Imagine if Iran soon also, under a new government, becomes a close American ally. Lots of oil previously used as a geopolitical weapon against the US and its allies now comes under their control. A huge geopolitical win.

Especially since it is oil sales that are propping up Putin and financing his aggression in Ukraine. He too may now see the writing on the wall. Three birds with one stone?

Or four birds... It should also have a dramatic effect in Cuba, already in desperate economic conditions, hanging on by a thin stream of oil extending across the Caribbean from Venezuela. Their source of electricity, and financial support until recently, is gone. 

It would surely be a great morale boost to America, and a boost to its prestige, if this thorn in its side were soon removed. Gulf of America indeed.

And, of course, the action is well calculated to frighten other hemispheric regimes into shutting down the drug trade and avoiding antagonizing America.

2026 is starting with a bang. Happy 250th birthday, America.

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Iran Rocked

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi

I am following events in Iran. Things seem to be developing quickly. I hear that police are in some cases joining the protesters, that IRGC stations are being found abandoned, and that the security forces deployed are Arabs, not locals. These are strong indications that the regime’s grip is failing. Usually the tipping point in a revolution is when the security forces melt away or join the crowds—when the regime cannot command its enforcers.

There is also a credible shadow government in the wings, under the Crown Prince; and the crowds know it. Israeli agents are surely on the ground, helping things along. The good old International Jewish Conspiracy, you might say.

What will the world look like if the Iranian regime collapses?

It will do damage to Russia, surely. Russia is close enough to the brink itself, with its hands full in Ukraine, and it has been relying on Iran for drones, perhaps other aid. This could tip that balance. Not only that—revolutions are contagious. An Iranian collapse may give courage to Russians sick of the war and the sanctions and the repression to try the same. 

It would be another huge accomplishment for Trump, to start the new year. Pretty lucky, with the midterms coming up. And it would be a cautionary tale to other American opponents not to poke the hegemon too far. The American sanctions and the American bombings surely contributed to this event, and certainly look like they did, which may be more important.

The contemporary Axis of Evil has been Russia, China, and Iran. Now that one is knocked out, the other two look weaker and more vulnerable. If one tiger was paper, are the others as well?

And who knows where else the contagion of revolution might spread? China? Venezuela? Cuba? Belarus? Georgia? All have looked restive recently. Each domino endangers the others.

Presumably this is very good news for Isael and Middle East peace. The Iranians have been funding conflicts in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen. Now that funding will be gone. The Irish Troubles ended when funding stopped flowing from Libya. So something similar might happen here.

This may also tend to discredit the ideology of political Islam. Iran was the leading example of this in practice, and it will have ignominiously failed. That fit of xenophobic reaction may have had its day. Time to wake up and join the world.

There have been rumours of secret mass conversions to Christianity within Iran, inspired by the oppression of the Islamist government, yet hidden for fear of punishments. It may be, with the lid off, that there will be a rush of public conversions to Christianity and Zoroastrianism soon.

Which will encourage Christian revival elsewhere.

Before the Islamist Revolution, Iran was an important regional power, with a GDP on a par with Spain. Newly allied with the West, it might again develop rapidly and be again a bulwark of American foreign policy in the region. And a powerful ally of Israel as well. 

I suspect post-revolution, Iranians will be as pro-Western as the various populations of the old East Bloc turned out to be after the Berlin Wall fell.

I have several Iranian friends who have been wanting this badly. I hope it happens this time for them.

Happy New Year

 https://youtu.be/wPnhaGWBnys?si=oWpWA1CVqni9S8Sm

On Dichotomous Thinking

 

The present, postmodern spirit is that one must not be “judgmental.” The term I hear from a psychologist friend is that one must avoid “dichotomous thinking.”

However, all thought is dichotomous. Aristotle’s Law of Non-Contradiction: “either A or not A” is the basis of all logic. And the truth of this is reconfirmed by every computer program. Thought is binary. Yes or no, either/or.

Therefore, avoiding dichotomous thinking, avoiding judgements, is avoiding thinking. Is this a good thing?

It is at least arguable that it is not. “Ignorance is bliss.” “Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

However, if you accept Plato’s contention, and Christianity’s contention, that all value comes from the three transcendentals, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, refusing to think is evil. Seeking truth is why we are here, along with seeking justice and beauty. God himself is the perfection of these transcendentals: the perfectly real, the perfect good, and perfect beauty. Not to think is to turn away from God. Making postmodernism or modern psychology soul-destroying.

Why do we suppose truth matters? To Plato, the value of truth is self-evident, inherent, and incontrovertible: nobody genuinely believes falsehood or illusion is more valuable than truth or reality. 

Moreover, if you do, you are insane.

It seems obvious that anything and everything we class as “mental illness” is definitionally a failure to engage in “dichotomous thinking,” a failure to make clear judgements. Psychosis is an inability to distinguish what is real from what is not real. Depression or “neurosis”: is a sense of lack of direction—a lack of certainty about what has value, what is real, what is good, what is right or wrong. This is also the source of chronic anxiety. Clear direction, clarity of thought, heals all that.

Religion is the obvious antidote, and psychology is therefore harmful to mental health. Firstly in serving as a distraction. Consider if someone has cancer, and goes to a homeopath or a snake-oil salesman instead of a certified doctor. Wouldn’t you say that homeopathy or snake-oil here is causing harm by not working?

But worse: in condemning “dichotomous thinking” or “judgementalism,” psychology is actively causing and promoting mental illness. 

See too psychology’s concept of “mindfulness”: which to psychology means “being present in the moment.” You should empty your mind and concentrate only on immediate sensations.

Mindfulness is originally a Buddhist concept. But psychology, in appropriating the term, got it upside down. The original Pali term is actually cognate to “memory.” So it is very much not about being in the present moment. That would be the absence of mind, mindlessness. Surely it is odd, if the idea is to be alert to what is around you, that you should shut your eyes to meditate. This inversion of te practice is what psychology promotes. almost necessarily, because it denies the psyche.

To be fair, not thinking about things can indeed bring temporary relief to people with mental conflicts. But this is like getting good and drunk to forget your troubles. Not a cure, and sure to make matters worse over the longer term.

Happy Family Day!

 

Last Sunday was family day—the Feast of the Holy Family. A fear of the international Church that actually began in Canada, in Quebec. The readings for the day are of special interest: they give the Biblical case for family values, a topic on which I am skeptical.

The first reading is from the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)—not in the Protestant Bibles. 

God sets a father in honor over his children;
    a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.
Whoever honors his father atones for sins,
    and preserves himself from them.
When he prays, he is heard;
    he stores up riches who reveres his mother.
Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children,
    and, when he prays, is heard.
Whoever reveres his father will live a long life;
    he who obeys his father brings comfort to his mother.
My son, take care of your father when he is old;
    grieve him not as long as he lives.
Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him;
    revile him not all the days of his life;
kindness to a father will not be forgotten,
    firmly planted against the debt of your sins
    —a house raised in justice to you.

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

Here is a more complete version of the passage, Sirach 3: 1-16, RSV:

Listen to me your father, O children;
    and act accordingly, that you may be kept in safety.
2 For the Lord honored the father above the children,
    and he confirmed the right of the mother over her sons.
3 Whoever honors his father atones for sins,
4     and whoever glorifies his mother is like one who lays up treasure.
5 Whoever honors his father will be gladdened by his own children,
    and when he prays he will be heard.
6 Whoever glorifies his father will have long life,
    and whoever obeys the Lord will refresh his mother;
7     he will serve his parents as his masters. 
8 Honor your father by word and deed,
    that a blessing from him may come upon you.
9 For a father’s blessing strengthens the houses of the children,
    but a mother’s curse uproots their foundations.
10 Do not glorify yourself by dishonoring your father,
    for your father’s dishonor is no glory to you.
11 For a man’s glory comes from honoring his father,
    and it is a disgrace for children not to respect their mother.
12 O son, help your father in his old age,
    and do not grieve him as long as he lives;
13 even if he is lacking in understanding, show forbearance;
    in all your strength do not despise him.
14 For kindness to a father will not be forgotten,
    and against your sins it will be credited to you;
15 in the day of your affliction it will be remembered in your favor;
    as frost in fair weather, your sins will melt away.
16 Whoever forsakes his father is like a blasphemer,
    and whoever angers his mother is cursed by the Lord.”

The primary sense in which one is to “honour” and “glorify” one’s parents seems to be to care for them with dignity in their old age.

This makes sense. It is simply the instinct of a small child to revere and obey their parents implicitly -- probably to excess, to the point of idolatry. The need for a commandment comes when what is right goes against what is instinctual. The commandment matters when the parent grows old and infirm, and begins to seem a burden to the adult child. And the grown child may find them demanding, childish and embarrassing.

This was a more important moral issue in the days before social security, of course. Nowadays aged parents are often perfectly independent, indeed better off than their adult progeny.

The second reading is from Colossians:

Brothers and sisters:
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving one another, 
if one has a grievance against another; 
as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
And over all these put on love, 
that is, the bond of perfection.
And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, 
the peace into which you were also called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, 
as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, 
singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs 
with gratitude in your hearts to God.
And whatever you do, in word or in deed, 
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
giving thanks to God the Father through him.  
Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, 
as is proper in the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives, 
and avoid any bitterness toward them.
Children, obey your parents in everything, 
for this is pleasing to the Lord.
Fathers, do not provoke your children, 
so they may not become discouraged.

Colossians 3:12-21.

The last few verses are the classic Bible passage to which feminists object. The Biblical vision of the family is currently “politically incorrect.”

Before we get to that, note that the call to love one another comes with an obligation to “teach and admonish.” This is also “politically incorrect” in our time. The Bible tells us we are supposed to call out others when they sin. Currently, this is considered intolerance. According to the Bible, pointing out another’s sin is not an attack on them, but a duty of love. Which of course it is.

Now to address the feminist objection. This is going over old ground, but here it is. There is a contract implied here, with duties on both sides: the wife is obliged to subordinate to the husband, and the husband is obliged to show love for his wife. That’s the deal. Presumably if the husband breaks the deal by treating his wife with bitterness, the wife has a right to no longer act subordinate; and vice versa. That is the wisdom of the American Declaration of Independence, based on earlier Christian precedent: if the government does not keep its end of the bargain, one need no longer be subordinate.

Sadly, feminism, and women, have broken this contract. Making the family, and marriage, currently unsupportable.

There is a similar contract here between parents and children: as the wife is to obey the husband, so children are to obey their parents; and parents in return are not to provoke their children. Again, if the parents do not live up to this deal, but provoke and discourage their children, that is, act with malice and cause their children not to know what is expected of them, the children are free not to obey; indeed, arguably, ought not to obey. Again, as per the Declaration of Independence.

This last line also gives in the briefest possible form a clear diagnosis of the cause for depression. Depression is the experience of being “discouraged,” or “dispirited,” not knowing which way to turn. And it is caused by a parent “provoking” the child in childhood—acting with malice or failing to give clear direction.

The Old Order Changes

 I think that now the roof is really falling in on the political elites, the government bureaucracy, on the clerisy in general. The revelation of the corruption in Minnesota feels like not just a tipping point, but a collapse. 

Along with this, we are getting the many Epstein photos coming out. And we just got solid evidence that the 2020 US presidential election was deeply fishy in Georgia. It’s a perfect storm.

This feels like the end of the old order.

Leonard Cohen predicted it in the 1990s. Things will never be the same after this. 

Democracy is coming to the USA.

Christmas Music

 For the Fifth Day of Christmas--in lieu of golden rings.

Christmas Is Still On

 So you're gonna have to hear another of my favourite carols.

For some reason, almost brings me to tears.

Why Psychology Is a Bad Idea

 

Psychology emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century as an attempt to apply the principles of empirical science to the study of the psyche-- that is, the soul. Say “mind” if you prefer, but “psyche” translates literally as “soul.”

It was, therefore, a replacement for religion, which is the traditional practice of care of souls, and the body of knowledge about the soul. 

The question is, therefore, has psychology done a better job than religion at the care and nurturing of the human soul?

Conceptually, unfortunately, an empirical study of the soul or mind is nonsense. The methods of empirical science cannot be applied to the soul, because the soul is not a material object. It cannot be directly observed, cannot be seen, touched, tasted or touched. Science is learning by observation, and the soul cannot be observed. 

All of the “clinical evidence” from psychology is hearsay, and would not be acceptable in a court of law.  Nor would it be acceptable to real science—it is all anecdotal and second or third hand. 

As for experiment—psychology faces an insurmountable observer paradox. As Labov pointed out, in this case, the act of observation alters the object observed—or opinion expressed. As a result, psychology has no valid findings, and the currently fashionable theories simply change every twenty years or so, with no progress. Mathematician Stanislaw Ulam issued the challenge, “Name me one proposition in all of the social sciences which is both true and non-trivial." The only response so far has been the economic theory of comparative advantage. Perhaps.

It is worth noting as well that all psychological experiments, such as they are, are unethical. They violate Kant’s categorical imperative, that our fellow men must be treated as ends, never as means.

A friend of mine wrote a book about his grandfather. His grandfather was a prominent psychiatrist, once chief medical officer of the Queen Street Asylum in Toronto. Confined to a bed on suicide watch, said grandfather laboriously severed an artery in his leg with a butter knife.  My friend gave a presentation to the assembled staff of the Clarke Institute, Toronto’s second asylum, hoping for answers. Silence. At the end, one came up and said to him, “you realize, none of us has any idea what we are doing.”

Before “scientific” psychology took over in the mid-nineteenth century, cure rates reported for serious mental illnesses were quite high—often 80 or 90 percent. And mental illness was rare—perhaps a hundred patients in the Bedlam Asylum, the only one in the UK, in pre-modern Britain. As the culture has gradually turned from religion and towards psychological explanations and treatments, the incidence of what we call mental illness has grown year over year—one might almost say exploded. And all major forms of “mental illness,” once commonly cured, are now considered incurable. 

This is not a record of success. 

A world-wide WHO study in the seventies found that reported cure rates for serious mental illness are still far higher in the Third World than in the developed world. Which certainly seems to suggest that less psychology leads to better mental health.

Why does psychology persist? Too many wealthy vested interests with political power, often with the coercive power of the state behind them. And an irrational veneration of anything called “science” among the general public. 

But things are reaching a crisis point: not just with mental illness, but also drug addiction, mass shootings, suicide, self-harm, and general social dysfunction. 

It is urgent that we turn back to God.