The Empire Strikes Back: Dhalla Disqualified

 

Ruby Dhalla has been disqualified from the Liberal leadership race. We are not being shown the details, but this looks illegitimate. Only $22k is questioned; a trifling amount in the scheme of things. According to Dhalla, this is just a case of six couples who shared credit cards, so that both husband and wife made contributions—legitimately. According to the party brass, there is something about a foreign national being involved. It might be hard for a campaign to screen for such things.

It smells bad to me that the party declared ten “very serious” breaches of campaign rules. That sounds like the lady protesting too much, without details.

It is also suspicious that this disqualification came three days before the scheduled leadership debate. It looks like the backroom feared having Mark Carney face Dhalla before the cameras.

She was not likely to overtake Carney, but she was likely to tarnish his image, and embarrass him and the party establishment with her level of support.

It seems obvious that Carney has been chosen by the invisible power brokers, and the public vote is just for show.

Indeed, Carney must be much weaker than we have so far seen, for the party to take this step. It looks like a public relations disaster. As Dhalla has been quick to point out, they are excluding a minority woman. Worse, it is the second candidate of South Asian background that they have disqualified. And this after scandals involving other minority women being supposedly mistreated: Jody Wilson Raybould, Celina Caesar-Chavannes. And the party is risking alienating and infuriating Dhalla supporters; she is charismatic and has been getting a lot of interest. Hearts will be broken.

They must have been desperate to take this risk. They must have felt the public relations disaster would be worse were Dhalla allowed to debate Carney, and her support were revealed. Even if the Dhalla campaign had genuinely been cheating at this level, it would have been wiser otherwise to overlook it.

Should we be surprised or alarmed? The Conservative race that selected Erin O’Toole was also a sham, intended ironically to coronate Peter MacKay, with O’Toole running as controlled “True Blue” opposition. Jim Karahalios was disqualified, despite showing much early support. MacKay was given privileged access to party information. A series of strong candidates all dropped out within a week or two of one another: Pierre Poilievre, Jean Charest, Rhona Ambrose. The word was out and the fix was in.

It went awry when O’Toole ended up winning; but not too far awry. He was a good soldier, and implemented the establishment platform, in defiance of his own voting base.

The last three Democratic Party presidential races were also obviously manipulated, to force the nominations of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris respectively. With deals cut, caucus counts cooked, sudden withdrawals, and Bernie Sanders being in the end obedient controlled opposition.

This is all undemocratic; but nothing new. Candidates always used to be chosen primarily in the backrooms, with a few primaries in the US system, and nobody really thought there should be a general vote. In the Canadian parliamentary system, party leaders were chosen by vote of the caucus in the House, not the general party membership. Democracy came later. If you did not like the candidate offered, you voted for the other party.

The problem comes, of course, if there are only two viable parties, and both parties are controlled by the same small cabal. As seems generally to be the case.

In the US, the idea of opening it all up to a general vote came mostly after the campaign of 1968, when Humphrey was chosen by the Democrats without running in any primaries. There was violence in the streets, and of course the Democrats lost the subsequent election. So the Democrats overhauled and democratized their process, and other parties in other countries have followed suit.

The party establishments have been challenged often by insurgent candidates since. This tends to mess things up from the point of view of the career politicians. They have a brand to protect. In Dhalla’s case, she did not speak French; this could hurt their historic Quebec base. With her more centrist views, she might attract many new members to the party who would, in the end, not vote Liberal anyway. Conversely, they fear a radical candidate like Sanders, or McGovern in 1972, could attract majority support within the party, but alienate the majority of voters in a general election.

So of course the politicos have rigged the process. 

Trump slipped through the net. In Britain, Jeremy Corbin slipped through the net. Liz Truss slipped through the net, but they responded quickly.

And candidates really can cheat, and then the party must have recourse and referees. Patrick Brown took the Ontario Conservative leadership under suspicious circumstances, without real popular support, and looked as though he has using the same tactics in the 2022 federal leadership race. There has been foreign interference in nomination meetings.

I cannot therefore get too upset over Ruby Dhalla being disqualified. Perhaps it would be best just to keep it honest by having the caucus choose the leader, as originally envisioned. Or, in the US, having each state send unpledged delegates to brokered conventions. All systems are imperfect; politics is always about making the best of it.

A Book List

 

The first step to rescue our civilization is to fix the education system. And, as Lord of the Flies suggests, the essence of civilization is literature. After or along with the basic skills, reading, writing, and arithmetic, our schools need to teach the classics. This is the furniture of the mind.

And a sure sign of the decline of our civilization is that the canon is not taught any more, often  suppressed.

Here is my own essential reading list for saving civilization. Nothing just for entertainment, nothing that is just excellent writing, nothing extra, nothing unnecessarily verbose. These are the books that convey the great ideas, that form a healthy world view and summarize the civilizational discourse. Listed roughly by appropriate age, young to old.

Fables (Aesop)

Cinderella (Perrault)

Snow White (Grimm)

Sleeping Beauty (Perrault)

Rapunzel (Grimm)

The Princess and the Pea (Andersen)

The Emperor’s New Clothes (Andersen)

The Ugly Duckling (Andersen)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)

Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)

The Odyssey (Homer; in modern translation)

Genesis

Exodus

The Gospel according to Matthew

The Gospel according to Luke

The Nicene Creed

Anne of Green Gables (for Canadian students); Little House on the Prairie (for the USA)

“In the Country of the Blind” (H.G. Wells)

The Declaration of Independence

Animal Farm (Orwell)

Metamorphosis (Kafka)

Lord of the Flies (Golding)

1984 (Orwell)

Heart of Darkness (Conrad)

MacBeth (Shakespeare)

King Lear (Shakespeare)

The Tempest (Shakespeare)

Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)

Meditations (Descartes)

Plato’s Cave

At least, this is the advice of an old guy who has read a lot. Consider this list if you are homeschooling.

Lead Us Not into Temptation

 

I hear Pope Francis has changed the words to the Lord’s Prayer in the Italian mass. “Lead us not into temptation” is now, in English translation, “do not abandon us to temptation.”

Francis has spoken of this before. I recall him saying years ago that “lead us not into temptation” is a bad translation. God, after all, would never lead us into temptation.

But it is not a bad translation. The words in the original coine Greek, and in the Latin of the Vulgate, do translate to English as “lead us not,” and cannot be made to mean “do not abandon us.”

And this wording is given us by Jesus himself. Francis is presuming to correct Jesus. If that is permissible, what is forbidden? Is self-will  and our own judgement sovereign in the universe?

I also think Francis is theologically wrong. Although it is a mystery, some of us clearly are led into temptation, in a way others are not. This has to be God’s will, since God is all-powerful. God tempts us. 

He tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He need not have created that particular tree, of forbidden fruits. He need not have given them free will. He need not have allowed the serpent. It was a setup.

Some of us are patently tempted to have homosexual sex; some are not. Some are tempted by alcohol, or gambling; others are not. Say this is from the Devil, and not God; nevertheless, the Book of Job tells us, God gives permission. If he does not tempt us himself, he leads us into temptation. As with Job, he is testing us.

When I was a kid in Catholic school, I understood the prayer well enough. I feared martyrdom, the temptation to renounce the faith in the face of torture and death. Some are put to that test. I did not want that temptation. 

And that, of course, is the temptation Jesus himself faced. 

Please make it easy for me if you can, Lord. Take this cup from my lips, if it is acceptable to your will.

And consider this. If the meaning is “do not abandon us to temptation,” this asserts that, at the moment of temptation, God abandons us. 

This thought is nightmarish. And it implies that, if tempted, one cannot, need not, resist.

Lord of the Flies

 

Back when I was going through high school, Lord of the Flies was a staple of the curriculum. It seems it still is, at least where it has not been replaced by the latest indigenous author. But I think the book is widely misunderstood.

It is commonly contrasted with Catcher in the Rye. The premise is that Catcher sees mankind as intrinsically good, but corrupted by adult society; the view of Rousseau and Marxism. Lord of the Flies sees man as intrinsically evil, but civilized by adult society. Supposedly the traditional “conservative” view.

One can see why educational authorities would therefore like the book, and this interpretation of it. It validates their authority. Even if they are Marxists, they are going to see themselves as the “vanguard of the proletariat.”

Yet neither view is coherent. If man is intrinsically good, how could they become evil when in groups? Where does evil get in? How can individuals not be greedy, yet corporations and governments are? 

Conversely, if man is intrinsically evil, how can people become good simply by joining in groups? Or by getting older, growing up? And as this obviously makes no sense, how does he ever become good?

Lord of the Flies expressly denies that society or government civilizes. There is a nuclear war going on; that is the context for the book. The strife among the abandoned boys only echoes what is happening in the adult world of governments. Ralph’s parents are divorced. Piggy’s mother is unaccounted for. 

The conch, symbol of authority on the island, is also the source of all the troubles. It is almost like the apple in Eden. If disorder and “fun” is deadly, social order in turn, seems inevitably bound in with the quest for power over others. Neither Ralph nor Piggy are immune from this; they both crave superiority and power over others, just as Jack and Roger do. The best organized and disciplined group on the island, the choir, becomes the most troublesome. The boy chosen by adult society for leadership turns out to be the most power-hungry and irresponsible.

And the role of the choir seems also to discount organized religion as a possible source of morality. These are the boys who would have been most thoroughly grounded in the faith.

The one truly good, altruistic character is Simon. Simon is “batty.” Simon sees visions. Simon likes to go off on his own and meditate. Simon can apparently read minds, and has intimations of the future. 

Morality and truth must come to us, then, deus ex machina. Which is to say, from revelation, from grace. Some few among us are prophets, in contact with a spirit world. They occasionally come down from the mountaintop, emerge from the wilderness, to deliver important truths from beyond.

They are likely to be ignored or considered mad.

Where do we find such characters in our present world? 

We know of the prophets in the Bible; and no doubt the Bible is a civilizational source of guidance and morality. 

But also in the works of solitary artists. In books like Lord of the Flies.

This is what civilizes us; this is what brings us what goodness or truth we find in this fallen world. It is literature and culture that dulls the power of the carrion impulses, the Lord of the Flies.

Where Bad Poetry Comes From

 

Wordsworth

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I attended a poetry group. Each meeting, we decided on a theme for the next meeting. 

This one week, someone suggested “memories.”

And met with immediate objections.

I would not expect that. Poetry itself, after all, is all about memory. Memory is the medium of poetry, as text is for prose, or the human voice for drama. “It takes its origin,” Wordsworth said, “from emotion recollected in tranquility.”

But the immediate objection was that memories were “triggering.” They could cause “trauma.”

Another participant chimed in that he had no memories, and so could not participate. He had, he said, a form of amnesia called “anaphasia.” This was due, he explained, to a terrible childhood.

Another participant said that she could not discuss Dylan’s lyrics as poetry, because her abusive former husband used to play Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” when threatening to leave her.

This does not add up. The essential concept of psychotherapy has always been that reliving memories of trauma is healing. “Memory” is the essence of the Buddhist practice commonly referred to in English as “mindfulness.” It heals the soul. Poetry is the medicine that heals old wounds. 

I took the trouble to look up “anaphasia,” and find there is no such form of amnesia. I find the term online only in “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” meaning “the fear that your society is breaking apart into factions that have nothing left in common with each other.” He might have misspoken, and meant aphasia, the nearest medical term. But this is “a comprehension and communication (reading, speaking, or writing) disorder resulting from damage or injury to the specific area in the brain.” Nothing to do with memory.

And the Dylan story doesn’t make too much sense either. An abusive partner is not someone threatening to leave. An abusive partner wants control of the other, wants to nail the door shut, to ensure they do not leave. If an abusive partner leaves, the victim should rejoice—especially in memory.

Nor is there anything abusive in the tone of the song: “I ain’t saying you treated me unkind. You could have done better, but I don’t mind.” A rather gentle way to say goodbye to a lover, on the whole.

The next oddment is that anyone afraid of their own memories would take to writing poetry as a hobby in the first place. Poetry is intrinsically involved with memory, as Wordsworth says. And in the case of these poets, their own poems are most often talking about their personal past—memories. 

How does this make sense?

I imagine that recalling memories, although cathartic and healing, may be scary in prospect. 

But methinks these reactions are beyond the reasonable. Methinks they do protest too much. 

Who is most likely to be afraid of their memories?

Not be the abused, but the abuser. In the typical dysfunctional family, everyone else but the abuser is proverbially “walking on eggshells,” avoiding any mention of “the elephant in the room.” Memory is dangerous when one has a bad conscience.

That seems just what we see here. Obviously, these poets are not afraid of what memories they might stir in their poems. They are in full control of that. They are afraid of what others might say. 

They are in desperate need to control their memories, to ensure that the “narrative” does not drift to something they are actually writing to repress. So they write poems as a fabricated narrative of their past.

They are fleeing a guilty conscience.

Good poetry is written to reveal truth, especially hidden truth. Bad poetry is written to conceal it.

What Is Success?

 

A friend in Japan is depressed because he never became a success.

What is success? I remember asking my Chinese students long ago, and none came up with what I considered a good answer.

Making more money than those around you? That hardly seems worth a life. As Steve Jobs put it, “I’m not interested in just dying the richest man in the cemetery.”

Worse than that, studies show that having more money than those whose company you enjoy leads to unhappiness. And this makes obvious sense: they may envy you. Conversely, they may only be flattering you in hopes of largesse. You can never know, and can never feel secure in their company.

Becoming famous? Anyone famous tells you that’s a nightmare. You have no privacy, and other people stop seeing you as a human being. You can’t make friends. You can’t even take a stroll to the corner store.

Having lots of sex? That’s emotionally deadening.

This was the Gospel reading yesterday:

‘And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”’

To be clear, being rich is not a sin. Too many want to jump to that conclusion, out of envy. But it is a misfortunate. It is not something you should seek. It will make it more difficult for you to enter heaven. Like a camel passing through a needle’s eye.

This passage also means that we will be rewarded in heaven not just for good deeds, but also for any and all suffering we experience in this life. And our reward will be exponentially greater than the suffering.  God sends us suffering as a special grace; he has an important role for us in heaven.

So a success is someone who is poor, hungry, sad, and generally reviled.

I figure by that measure I’m a great success.

We’re not supposed to just sit around feeling sorry, though. Otherwise, what’s the point of being born? Jesus goes on, in the other version of the Beatitudes, in Matthew:

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

So true success, beyond avoiding sin and cultivating virtue, is letting your light shine. 

Not just doing good deeds. "Good works" cannot be read here in this way. Jesus goes on immediately to say, 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

But bringing light is bringing truth and beauty to those around you. To your wife, to your kids, to your friends, and beyond that to your community and the world, as your talents allow.

And artists know one monumental secret: beauty comes from suffering. 

God sends us suffering that we may transform it into beauty and truth. He has chosen us, as he chose the Jews.

The Ordo Amoris

 

There is a firestorm raging in the Catholic church on Trump’s policy of deporting illegal aliens. J.D. Vance cited the principle of ordo amoris: that one owes one’s greatest love to family, then community, then country, then mankind. This is indeed, as many conservative commentators have confirmed, traditional Catholic doctrine, supported by Augustine, Aquinas, several recent former popes, and even Pope Francis himself, in his past writings. Vance argued that modern leftism has turned this on its head, elevating the alien, demeaning the family, and condemning the USA. Pope Francis himself then chimed in, insisting Vance and Trump are wrong, that we must love all equally. An American bishop has proposed excommunicating any Catholic who follows Trump’s orders in deporting aliens.

I am personally torn here. Who is right? Before listening to J.D. Vance, I would have taken Francis’s view. However, I am disturbed by the fact that Francis is contradicting himself and prior popes. This suggests that for him, politics is trumping doctrine—and ethics.

We owe greatest love to family? But then, who is our family? See what Jesus says in the Gospel:

And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, that person is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46–50)

We owe greater love to those of our own community? But then the Good Samaritan, from a different community, is declared by Jesus to be the true neighbour, and not the Hebrew priest or scribe.

True love, caritas, is a love extended to all. Love restricted to family, or to nation, is too often only shared egotism. Once could cite Hitler’s Germany.

And yet, in defense of Trump and Vance’s position… anyone who has lived in or even visited a Third World country must realize that it is impossible to treat everyone equally. Give of your substance to all who are in need, and you would give away everything you have while doing almost no measurable good to anyone. Seven billion pennies. The poor you shall have always with you.

And, of course, your own children would starve. Does that sound right?

The principle must be this: you help whomever God sends to you, whomever you encounter on your life path, who is deserving, who does the will of God. The Samaritan is your neighbour, because he is good. “Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven.” This is also the lesson of Dives and Lazarus: Lazarus is a good man, and he is on the rich man’s doorstep, within his sight. 

This will usually mean a duty to help deserving members of your family, then your community, then your nation. But not because they are family members or physical neighbours. Because these are the ones God has presented to you for help. This also means you must support a deserving stranger before an immoral member of your family or your community.

How does this translate to government immigration policy? A government has their own population most immediately on their doorstep, literally already present. This means they must be favoured over foreigners, all else being equal. Moreover, the government owes a greater loyalty to the law abiding than to people of known bad moral character, i.e., those who enter the country illegally.

So whether or not he has the reasoning right, Vance is right on policy, and Francis is wrong. Illegal aliens are owed human dignity, but not entry.

It is harder to say how this applies to applicants for legal immigration. Those of good character should be preferred, but other than excluding known criminals, this is hard to establish. And a wealthy nation must restrict immigration in some way; otherwise you have the problem of giving away everything while benefitting no one. So the sensible thing is to choose immigrants for the most benefit brought to those already present. Which is how most nations operate. What skills are in short supply? Who is young and healthy and likely to add by their efforts to the general wealth?

Francis messed up. He is first and foremost a politician.