The Nightingale

 

I have been teaching Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Nightingale,” and as usual, the interpretations of the fable in the common texts, are preposterous. They want to claim the story is meant to show that natural beauty is superior to artificial beauty.

Right. Compare the natural with the artificial nightingale as objects. The nightingale is axiomatically drab, unremarkable in appearance, indeed invisible in the night. Andersen stresses this. “’I never imagined it would be a little, plain, simple thing like that.’” By contrast, the mechanical bird is beautiful: ”’This is very beautiful,’ exclaimed all who saw it.” “It was so much prettier to look at.” 

If Andersen meant to contrast artificial beauty with natural beauty, and find the artificial wanting, he has done a very poor job of it. One would think the opposite.

Nor is the song of the natural bird more beautiful than that of the artifice. Anderson stresses this more than once: less varied, but not less beautiful. It “was as successful as the real bird.” The music master, the resident expert, declared it more beautiful.

In the story, the only problem is that the mechanical bird over time stopped singing.

But that is not a valid contrast with a natural bird. A natural bird would actually die well before the mechanical bird wore out.

Read the story again, understanding that the “natural” nightingale is the Holy Spirit. Everything falls into place. The contrast is not between man and nature, but man and God.

Of course, the school commentaries cannot say this; they must suppress all reference to Christian belief. They must ignore his sins gathering around the Emperor’s bed, or the figure of Death leaving for a churchyard, or the bird’s talk of holiness.

It is the key to all Western literature, to all Western culture, and to life itself, and it is being suppressed in our schools.

Speak of the Devil

 

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Last evening, I attended a Christian discussion group. Nominally, it was a group for those thinking about becoming Christian; but in reality, all but one were practicing Catholics.

The topic for the day, based on a video we had all just watched, was “how to resist evil.”

Striking to me, nobody seemed to have much concept of evil. They seemingly had not thought about it, and did not want to think about it. How is this healthy Christianity?

Challenged at one point with the question “what is evil?” there was general silence. Eventually one participant looked up the dictionary definition on her smart phone. 

When someone brought up demonic possession, the facilitator visibly balked. I pressed in with Biblical references; otherwise I think he was about to scoff at the idea. As if demons were anything more than an antiquated superstition!

This is the “happy happy joy joy” motivational speaker Christianity. It is lame, and goes in circles, because it lacks one leg. You cannot believe in God, and not the Devil. Otherwise you are lying to yourself.

Refusing to see evil does not make it go away. It ensures that evil thrives. 

“All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.”

“The Devil’s greatest trick is convincing people that he does not exist.” The Devil loves the darkness.

Deny his existence, and you not only stop resisting evil around you, and in you. You begin to believe in all kinds of scapegoating and mad conspiracy theories involving the “other.”

Why the Jews?

He said it.

It seems clear that the right has won the bitterly fought war for the culture, at least in the US, which probably means everywhere in time. There are and still will be struggles, assaults, riots, government overreaches, and assassinations, but the outcome is no longer in doubt. 

But now the right in turn seem to be increasingly delusional. I think of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, as examples.

This may be an overreaction to the atmosphere of thought policing, of cancel culture and deplatforming, being lifted. We saw something like this in the Sixties, when the McCarthy era ended, and the various media morality codes were lifted. In fitful exuberance, almost any idea was vented, and considered. Anything seemed acceptable. Why don’t we do it in the road? Why not put a hole in your head, to open your third eye? Why not drop out and live on a commune in Goa?

Ben Shapiro is currently being pilloried for saying something perfectly reasonable: that, if young Americans are lacking opportunities where they live, they should move. Others on the right are outraged. As Americans, we have the right to whatever we want, wherever we are. What sinister force seeks to steal this from us?

Shapiro is obviously right. Moving for better opportunity is the essence of the American story. It is a nation built by immigrants, and by settlers forever moving west. America is, as Margaret Atwood pointed out, with reference to its literature, the frontier. 

But like the Hippie Sixties, the resurgent right will suddenly not accept the bounds of reason or common sense: “we want the world, and we want it now.”

And part of why there is such blowback to Shapiro is that he is Jewish. For the question hangs suspended: if, the left defeated, we still do not have everything we want, what sinister force seeks to withhold this from us? 

This, sadly, naturally segues into antisemitism. If I deserve whatever I want, and some Jew seems to have more than I do, then they must be the guys. They must be keeping it from me.

The more so since the Jews always represent the Law: the idea of living with restrictions on one’s behaviour. 

To resurrect a famous phrase from the Sixties, we have met the enemy, and they is us.

 

A Sensible Immigration Policy

Immigrants arriving at Ellis Island

Many problems are solved if we accept one basic truth: culture is not race; race is not cultu. Culture is not genetic. To suppose cultural behaviour is hard-wired is the essence of racism. Yet that seems to be the common notionu on the left.

Second premise: cultures can be judged, and determined to be better or worse. “Cultural relativism,” popular on the left, the idea that cultures are free to determine truth itself, is the core idea of fascism, if not Nazism,

A culture is a set of tools for living. Like any set of tools, one culture can be better than another—or better at one thing, and worse at another.

A better life, in material and in spiritual terms, shows a better culture. And of course, we should all want a better culture, for a better life.

The cultures we currently call “indigenous” or “aboriginal” are essentially failed cultures. They provide at best a meagre material existence. They have produced little in terms of artifacts or technology or social cohesion or art. While they might retain elements out of sentimentality, given the choice, no moderns purportedly of these cultures actually prefer to live in their traditional way.

An immigrant nation, like Canada, the US, Australia, or Singapore, has the golden opportunity to select immigrants for the quality of their culture, in order to add it to their own. 

This is the secret of the relative success of these immigrant nations: cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is how cultures advance.

However, such nations should select immigrants on the basis of the potential added value of their original culture. What skills can they bring, and what can they teach us?

Most obviously, we want all the Jews we can get. Twenty-five percent of all Nobel Prize holders are Jewish, despite their being only 0.2% of the world’s population. Even a small proportion of Jews vastly enriched any culture. Better yet, they are often persecuted, and so might want to emigrate. Any sane nation ought to open their doors wide, and actively oppose antisemitism.

Any European culture is, in world terms, a good bargain. Europe brought us science, human rights, democracy, and most of the best of the arts. Barely a century ago, Europe ruled the world. The downside is that we already have the best of Europe, and Europe is doing so well that fewer might want to emigrate. Luckily for us, the Jews in Europe are now feeling increasingly insecure. And we have a golden opportunity to take in more Ukrainians.

We should also look to the European diaspora. Many South Africans of European ancestry might currently want to emigrate. 

Along with a rich cultural heritage, Japan in the last century or two has shown itself to be highly capable. And we do not have many Japanese Canadians or Americans, comparatively speaking. They should be welcomed in.

We do not want to import the Communist ideology, but immigration from the Chinese diaspora sounds promising: from Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau. Chinese or Confucian culture led the world several centuries ago, and seems recently to have regained its footing.

Muslim lands, leaving aside the occasional accident of oil, have been lacking in cultural accomplishments over the past few centuries. This is especially striking since they are the inheritors of some of the most productive cultures of the ancient world: Egypt, Lebanon, Persia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor. This suggests there is something in Islam that actively inhibits cultural development, and we should not want to import it.

And the problem is not hard to identify: Islam is a holistic ideology, setting down rules with divine sanction for all aspects of society and life. This stifles innovation. Yes, it had a golden era. The Muslim world did well for several centuries after the great Muslim conquests. But this can be explained by their first conquests being these rich ancient cultures. They fuelled continuing creativity for a time, until Islam gradually converted the populace and shut innovation down. To get a sense of what Islamic culture is in the absence of this influence, visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or the U.A.E. There is much there that is shiny and new, from oil money. But look past that, look for older traditions. A Muslim life is limited and tribal.

However, this still presents an opportunity. We should welcome members of non-Muslim minorities from Muslim lands: the Maronites, the Yazidis, the Zoroastrians, the Copts, the Indonesian Christians. These groups are likely to have much to contribute in a new milieu, just as they were able to fuel the Muslim Golden Age. And this would be, for us in Canada, largely a new contribution to our culture.

India has also, despite an ancient and rich culture, been in a stall for centuries. I suspect the caste system has curbed development, and is not something we should want to import. Granted that caste has been legally abolished in modern India; nevertheless, it is embedded in the culture, and has religious sanction. There are, again religious minorities that have proven themselves productive within this milieu: the Parsees, Jains, and the Christians of South India all outperform the Indian national averages in education and in income, rather like the Jews.

The worst possible sources for immigrants would be areas that are still highly tribal in nature, and at war among themselves: places like Somalia, Yemen, and most of sub-saharan Africa. This is asking for trouble, probably importing trouble.

It is all simple once we ditch the false lens of race.

Sea Power, Land Power and the Fall of Empires

 

The British First and Second Empires combined.

I heard recently an interesting analysis of why the sun did set on the British Empire. It all came down to the First World War. Britain’s great strength was always been being an island. This meant it need not fear a land war. It did not need to support a standing army, or to rebuild from the devastation of wars. It could pour its resources into having a strong navy, focus on industry, and choose its fights.

It then made the fatal mistake in the First World War of deciding to fight a huge land war—throwing away its natural advantage. While it won, it broke the bank. It lost leadership at that point to the USA.

What might have happened had Britain restricted its land participation in the First World War? At worst, it would merely have lost its leadership to Germany instead of to the USA. 

But quite possibly, its naval blockade could still have been decisive against Germany. 

I think it likely Germany’s Schlieffen Plan would still not have worked. During those first few weeks, the British presence in France was nominal in any case. From that point on, with trench warfare favouring the defense, it was hard for either side to advance. It was stalemate on the ground while the British blockade slowly strangled of German production. The eventual entry of the US was caused by events at sea, and so should have happened anyway, giving France that final punch against an exhausted Germany.

Meanwhile, Britain might have had more resources available to intervene in the Russian Revolution and keep Russia in the war—or at least, following the war, ensure that the Whites won. That could have made quite a difference in subsequent history.

During World War II, the UK was compelled by circumstances to follow a more logical policy—France fell swiftly.  But they might have been in much better shape had they not sent a large land force to France, which then had to be evacuated without its equipment at Dunkirk. The Channel remained Britain’s protection, and they were able to rebuild. Had Russia not been attacked, Britain would have slowly starved Hitler out anyway—that’s why he had to attack. The British Navy cut him off from oil.

Again Britain won—but at such a cost that they could not sustain any longer the cost of their great navy, and so their empire.

Imperial Japan made the same mistake. They had the same advantage as the UK, of being an island. Their natural course was to be a sea power. Instead, they got themselves bogged down in a vast land campaign in China. 

Germany, rising quickly towards the turn of the 20th century, made the same mistake in the opposite direction. A land power, needing always to defend their borders, they diverted resources into trying to become a sea power; turning the UK from a natural ally to a deadly enemy. They became too ambitious and overextended.

The USA, like the UK, is a natural sea power. Protected by oceans, it does not need a large standing army defending its borders. It can build up and support a large land army if necessary for short periods. But it must avoid becoming involved in land wars. Trump’s idea of withdrawing from Europe and letting the Europeans pay for their own defense is wise. In Asia, the best idea is to maintain an island perimeter. Vietnam was a mistake for this reason: America must avoid land wars in densely-populated Asia.

In other words, if it keeps its powder dry, China has no reason to fear the USA. Its invincible defense is its huge population, as Russia’s invincible defense is its vast land area. Time and again, this defeats possible invaders, and allows it, or Russia, to develop into a great regional power.

But not global powers—a land power almost by definition cannot extend its reach overseas, as a sea power can.

China now wants, like Germany towards the close of the 19th century, to become as well a great sea power. It wants to seize the island of Taiwan, control the trade route through the South China Sea, and project its power globally.

There is a reason why China has never been a sea power. Geography. This is a fatal mistake.

China must always maintain its large standing army. Russia, to the north, is also a great land power. India, to the south, is also a great land power. Like Germany having to worry about Russia, Austria, and France, there is always the danger of a two-front war.

So it must maintain parity on land with Russia and India combined, while also, if it wants to challenge at sea, developing and sustaining parity as well with the USA and Japan combined, two natural great sea powers.

Not to mention significant peripheral players like Vietnam and Korea.

The lessons of history suggest this is too tall an order for any nation. China does not have the natural advantages to make this possible. It may, like Germany or Japan, make a lunge, but unless the other power make a series of catastrophic errors, China is going down. Even when the UK made fatal errors, Germany still lost two wars.

There's Something about Mary

 

Many traditionalists are angered by the recent document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Mater Populi Fidelis.” They call it insulting to Mary, because it discourages use of the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of all Graces.”

On this issue, I am entirely in agreement with the Dicastery and the Vatican. It feels good to say that.

I have always been disturbed by those very titles. “Co-Redemptrix” sounds blasphemous to me. Jesus is uniquely our redeemer. It sounds like a feminist attempt to subvert this truth. “Mediatrix of all Graces”? So the saints must petition her, and have no direct line to God? Did she mediate the graces she herself received? We are to go to her of necessity instead of Christ?

No; this is paganism.

Mary is the paradigm of the perfect disciple soul. Elevating her to some more active role violates her immaculate nature. Subservience is her essence, and it is this she models for us. “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.”

Thank you for the clarification, Pope Leo.

The White Poppy

Tuesday is Remembrance Day. Inevitably, I have received an invitation from a leftist friend to buy and wear a white poppy instead of the traditional red poppy. The idea is that the red poppy glorifies war; a white poppy protests war, calling instead for peace.

Today I attended the annual prayer service at the cathedral for Remembrance Day. I missed any reference to war being a good thing. The closest they came was a passage from Ecclesiates: “a time for war, and a time for peace.” Which of course is true. The atmosphere was solemn, not celebratory; like a funeral. The theme, as the name of the day implies, was remembering the dead. “At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them.” The climax of the ceremony was a lone bugler playing the Last Post, as is traditional at a military funeral.

Remembrance Day endorses war in about the same way attending a funeral endorses death. If the deceased died of cancer, does honouring him mean you are endorsing cancer, and wishing more people die of it soon?

It is true that Remembrance Day does not claim their deaths, or their lives, were meaningless. It points out that these young men, some only teenagers, died in a good cause, and honours their courage and self-sacrifice.

Suppose this is wrong? Suppose those who volunteered were just fools, or psychopaths, and those who were conscripted were just cannot fodder. It would still be disrespectful to say this at their funeral. Right or wrong, they gave their lives.

Wearing the white poppy is equivalent to this. In my mind, it is like the Westboro Baptist picketing the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq, or the victims of Sandy Hook. It is offensive to make a funeral political.

I wear the red poppy, and I stand and applaud the surviving veterans who attended the ceremony. I feel contempt for those who wear the white poppy.

What Rough Beast?

I think it is probable that we are witnessing the collapse of Islam. 

Islam as an ideology is particularly vulnerable to the increased communication produced by the Internet. The apparent recent radicalizing of Islam, more women wearing hijabs and more Islamist political movements, compared to only a generation or two ago, looks like a defensive move, a circling of the wagons. Another example of the ostrich’s philosophy of sticking his head in the sand; or the child’s of sticking his fingers in his ears. The upsurge  of “Islamic terrorism” is a further symptom. You resort to violence when you irretrievably lose the argument. It is fair to say that Islam always sanctioned violence in a way other religions do not. Nevertheless, there has clearly been a recent upsurge. Islam abided in relative peace with the rest of the world for several centuries before this.

One major problem is that the Quran makes self-contradictory claims. It states, and the average Muslim believes, that the Christian trinity is Allah, Jesus, and Mary. Easily disproved with contact. 

If the Quran is wrong about this, it cannot be the direct word of God, can it? What else might it be wrong about?

The Quran states that Jesus did not die on the cross; that Allah only made it appear so. Yet this means that Allah is a deceiver, prepared to deceive mankind, and must have known this particular deceit would lead to the development of the world’s largest religion. Christianity would be based on a fundamental error. This would be Allah’s fault. If Allah was prepared to deceive, how can we trust anything in the Quran, as the word of God? He might be deceiving again.

This is without even bringing up the celebrated issue of the “Satanic verses,” Muhammed’s own statement that some verses that he dictated as from God were actually, he later realized, from Satan. So what other Quranic passages might be?

The Quran claims that its truth is confirmed by comparing the prior scriptures, the Torah and the Gospel, which it affirms, and seeing they are all in conformity: it cites them as its evidence. Yet the Quran differs from the Torah and the Gospels in many of its historical claims; although the Torah and the Gospels agree with one another. It says Abraham sacrificed Ishmael instead of Isaac, for example. It says Mary’s father is Amram, not Zechariah, and Aaron is her brother--seeming to confuse Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Moses.

So by its own standard, the Quran is disproven.

Militant Islam now looks as though it is spent. There have been fewer attacks in most recent years. The theocratic regime in Iran seems to have done much to discredit the idea of political Islam. Some surveys suggest widespread apostasy in Iran, and in other Muslims lands like Saudi Arabia. It is not visible, because apostasy is punishable by death. But that façade may soon be unsustainable.

The rise of militant Islam, as of 9/11, 2001, has had profound effects, however. It first gave birth to the “New Atheism.” Influenced by political correctness, these New Atheists could not see Islam specifically as the problem—that would be “Islamophobia.” So they put the blame on religion per se, and attacked Christianity instead. 

This both provoked and legitimized Islamic militancy, rather than countering it.

Leaving it to Christianity to emerge as the response and alternative to militant Islam, and as the defender of truth and good against what is, objectively, an evil and destructive mass hysteria—a group of people in a state of panic, of “cognitive dissonance.” The doctor is in.

The net result is likely to be a Muslim collapse and a Christian revival.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Power and the Single Girl

Lady MacBeth, by John Singer Sargent

Helen Andrews has suggested that allowing women to dominate in any field or industry is catastrophic, for they will turn any institution “woke.” My interpretation is that they will lose sight of the mission. Hence journalism no longer reliably reports the news, the schools no longer teach, advertisements no longer sell the product, Hollywood no longer entertains, and HR departments no longer hire for merit.

Arguing against this are some obvious historical examples women who have risen to political leadership. Their terms have often been considered by general opinion successful. Moreover, they are conspicuous not for losing their sense of direction, but for standing firm on their principles, sometimes when men around them wilted. One could cite Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Golda Meir, Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joan of Arc, Indira Gandhi. Maybe Angela Merkel.

However, note that those who stand out as successful have emerged in male-dominated movements and male-dominated times. Margaret Thatcher emerged in the Conservative Party, not Labour. Giorgia Meloni leads the right-wing “Brothers of Italy”—note the name. Golda Meir emerged in a country at war. 

Compare women who have risen mostly for being women. They have been less impressive: Kamala Harris, Kim Campbell, Alexa MacDonough, Julie Payette, others we have forgotten.

Those who rose in “patriarchal” contexts are marked by this as exceptional, not average, women. Exceptional men who emerge from non-traditional backgrounds are also often unusually successful, probably for the same reason: they have demonstrated initiative and a special drive. A Rene Levesque, Benjamin Disraeli, or Winston Churchill emerging from journalism, a Ralph Klein from radio, a Mike Harris from golf, a Ronald Reagan from acting, a Vladimir Zelenskyy from comedy; Donald Trump from real estate and TV. They have demonstrated character.

Moreover: a Chinese student argues that, even if women can be successful in leadership. the professions, or in business, it is still gravely wrong. In doing so, they are acting like men. Just as there is something discreditable about a man acting “gay,” acting in an extravagantly feminine way, there is something discreditable about a woman acting “butch.” It is reasonable, if regrettable, for a man to order his army off to war. It is deeply improper, a betrayal of her nature and rightful role if a woman does the same. Or fires someone, for that matter, or orders someone around.

I think of Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth:

“... Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief.”

If she does so, she scars her soul, deeply. Lady MacBeth goes mad, after all, and kills herself.

Pandora Opens the Box

 

Helen Andrews has written an article for Compact Magazine arguing that “cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.”

“Everything you think of as ‘wokeness’ is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.” 

“Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.” 

“Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”

I would add an essential problem: women are mentally inclined to always see the trees, not the forest. As a result, they easily and soon stray from the mission. This explains why so many businesses recently seem to be straying from their core mission for the sake of wokeness: whether that mission is to sell beer, or movie tickets, or restaurant ambiance, or hold sporting events.

Once pointed out, this correlation seems obvious. Over the past few generations, women have come to dominate a number of fields and professions, and this has corresponded closely to these fields becoming “woke” and ceasing to perform their intended functions. 

Where do women dominate? HR departments. Public schools. Journalism and the media. Advertising. Now academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. And this corresponds perfectly with the centres of cancel culture and errant wokery.

Women have most recently begun to dominate the legal and medical professions. As these too lose their functionality and trustworthiness, civilization seems liable to collapse. “The rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female.”

Our ancestors warned us of this; no doubt it was tried before, in places and at times in the distant past. A warning was surely embedded in the legends of Pandora, of Eve, of Psyche, of Lemnos and the gnostic Sophia. The Buddha warned that allowing Buddhist nuns would halve the lifespan of the dharma.

Is there anything we can do, at this late stage, to pull back from this? Not to mention feminism’s role in our collapsing demographics?

Andrews proposes banning affirmative action, and allowing employers to hire once again on merit. 

I fear she is too optimistic. When women are already in control of the HR departments, can they be counted on to hire on merit? When any profession is dominated by women, the hiring process is no remedy.

We urgently need affirmative action—requiring the hiring and promotion of men.

The Need for Halloween

 

A recent YouTube panel had three women debating whether Christians should celebrate Hallowe’en.

The Protestant panelist of course saw it all as the work of the devil. The puritans used to think the same of Christmas. 

But even the Catholic and Orthodox panelists thought that paganism had taken over the holiday; that children should stop going around dressed as demons, and should instead dress as saints. We needed as Christians, they said, to “reclaim the holiday.”

This sounds perfectly delusional to me. It illustrates how easy it is for people to go mad in groups. It is as Scott Adams, or Goebbels, says: if enough people say the same thing often enough, it becomes generally accepted as truth.

The idea that the feast and its traditions is pagan has become so ingrained that people stop seeing the evidence of their eyes.

Do children currently go around dressed as demons? I did a mental inventory of the demons who showed up at my door last Friday. There was Captain America. The Three Little Pigs. A dog. A cat. A clown with a scythe. Venom, a villain from Marvel. A skeleton. A girl wearing a pink suit and tie. Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.

Where were the demons? I saw no demons.

Actually, what would a demon even look like? I guess a red suit, horns and a tail.

I checked an online store selling Halloween costumes. “halloweencostumes.ca” Halloween Costumes for Adults and Kids | HalloweenCostumes.ca

First row of images: Alice in Wonderland. Superheroes. Transformers.

Second row: Star Wars. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1940s-era suits and ties. A skeleton for “décor.”

If this is supposed to be about demons, a lot of people are missing the plot.

But it is supposed to be about demons. That is the Christian message. But there is nothing pagan about that, and it has nothing to do with demon worship. Any more than you go to a horror movie to root for the ghoul.

Halloween is supposed to remind you of death and the dangers of hell. Because, I suppose, actual thoughts of hell and death are too scary, that has morphed it into “something scary”; movie monsters and fairy tale witches were substituted. And when even that seemed too scary, it has morphed into just dressing up in a costume.

Dressing up as saints would be the final betrayal of the true meaning of Halloween. 

This euphemistic objection that Halloween is “pagan” is another case of the ostrich philosophy; of “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. It is based on a desire to deny that death, hell, and demons exist. If I deny sin, then God will not punish me. If I do not think of death, I will never die.

This is in a sense the original sin. Eating the fruit was inevitable. We were meant to have free will, and to know good and evil. The Fall became irreversible when Adam and Eve hid in the bushes.

Let us be clear here: you cannot be a Christian, and you cannot be saved, if you only believe that God exists, and not the Devil.

Hallowe'en and Samhain

I spent last Sunday afternoon in a cemetery. I was not alone.

We band of Catholics said a rosary for our departed relatives. The bishop presided.

And this concluded the Hallowe’en Tridium.

There is a popular misconception that Hallowe’en is a pagan festival: specifically, the Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. This is often stated as simple fact. It shows a profound ignorance of religion, mixed in with some surviving puritan anti-Catholic propaganda.

Does it not occur to these people that the non-Celtic Mexicans celebrate their mysteriously similar “Dia de los Muertos” on the same date?

In the Philippines, families spend that same evening in the cemetery. They commonly bring the favourite foods of departed ancestors to hold a picnic at their graves.

Hallowe’en is the eve of All Saints’ Day—“All Hallows Evening.” This three-day memorial for the dead is part of the culture of any Catholic country. It is a time to pray for the souls of those in purgatory, and to remember the truth that death will come for us as well: a “memento mori.” 

Ghosts are the souls of those in Purgatory. 

Demonic figures coming around to “trick or treat” remind us of the dangers of Hell.

All can be explained perfectly in proper Catholic terms.

Samhain is more related to the North American feast of Thanksgiving.

The Greatest Novels

 

What are the greatest novels? This is not my area of expertise; I am a poetry guy. It is entirely likely that I have not read some of the greatest novels. But from my own experience, these are the novels that did not merely entertain, but took up residence in my mind, and changed how I looked at the world. 

At least, they changed me.

Crime and Punishment 
Don Quixote
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
1984
Lord of the Flies
Heart of Darkness
Metamorphosis

Should Women Vote?

 

The pendulum is swinging with remarkable speed. Now I see some talk of repealing the 19th amendment in the US—that is, the constitutional amendment requiring that states give women the right to vote.

Of course, there are reasons for doing this. The basic principle, so often forgotten, is that our ancestors were not idiots. They had reasons for what they did, and so must have had reasons for restricting the right to vote to men for a hundred years or so. Do we understand their reasons? If not, Chesterton’s rule should have applied: never pull down a fence because you do not know why it is there. You must know why it is there before you pull it down.

Begin with the recent Internet discovery, by informal census, that men on average think of the Romen Empire every day; and this astonishes women, who never do. This shows plainly a basic difference between the male and female mind. Men think in more abstract terms, being concerned for people and things not immediately present—about society as a whole, mankind as  whole, about the distant past and distant future, not just what is immediate to their own lives. For women, in contrast, to cite the proud feminist slogan, “the personal is political.” They are by and large concerned with their own lives and their circle of family and acquaintances. Why would they ever think of the Roman Empire?

In other words, men are more concerned with the health of the community and the greatest good for the greatest number. Women are more likely to distort public priorities to serve special interests. On balance, this is bad for everyone.

It is also in everyone’s interest to accentuate different sex roles. This encourages pairing off, and so is a way to approach the current crisis of depopulation. 

Voting has often been tied to serving in war: by sacrificing their youth and risking their lives for the country, many a group have established their right to participate in government. Most recently, during the Vietnam War, this was the argument for lowering the voting age to 18: if old enough to serve, old enough to vote.

But on this basis, women have not established a right to vote. Nor would we want to ask this of them—women are too valuable to a society as childbearers. It is suicidal to throw them into the front lines. Men fight for the women back home.

All this might not have mattered when women tended to vote the same way as men. However, in recent years, voting tendencies between the sexes have increasingly diverged, raising concern.

Of course, it is probably practically impossible now to pull back the franchise from women—they would have to consent to allow it to happen. We can only hope we have not made a civilization-ending mistake.

2BR02B

 

Recently looked at the Vonnegut short story “2BR02B” with a student. First published in 1962, it is a record of our great concern with “overpopulation” back then, in the middle of the Baby Boom. The premise is that the population of the USA had been fixed at 40 million. Since medicine had progressed to virtually allowing immortality, it was necessary, in order to preserve the population at this level, to abort every new baby--unless someone chose suicide in the government “gas chambers.” That would allow a designated new child to be born.

Vonnegut obviously saw this as an undesirable future. He notes in passing that the women who ran the gas chambers mysteriously always grew moustaches. Like Hitler.

I remember well the overpopulation hysteria. It was not that long ago. In my last year of high school, circa 1970, our biology teacher made us all buy and read The Population Bomb, warning that there would be mass starvation and shortages of clean drinking water by the 1980s. My friend in first-year university was planning his future so that he could move to New Zealand. He calculated that, when the world descended into total war over food and water, that would be the safest place. In the 1980s, I became a vegetarian largely on the argument in the book Diet for a Small Planet, that not eating meat saved scarce resources for others.

Weirdly, although Vonnegut saw this all as draconian, measures we might resort to due to an emergency of overpopulation, he seems to be fairly accurately describing the Canada we live in today. We have not found a cure for aging, but we have unrestricted abortion, and “Medical Assistance in Dying” anyway. As well as feminism demanding that women give up having and raising children.

This leaves me with the thought that current government policies, and our current crisis of declining population, are caused by a mass hysteria. It was always wrong, and now surely everybody knows it was wrong, but we are still suffering from the consequences. We are still pursuing the worst possible policies for our current situation.

This should be a valuable moral lesson. “Climate change” is a more recent mass hysteria; some say it is in decline, and even Bill Gates has admitted it was largely a mirage. But governments have been pushing truly draconian measures in its name.

“Transgenderism” is another mass hysteria. So is “ecology” or “environmentalism.” So is the current mania for “indigenous people,” this being a nonsense concept. So is feminism.

I suspect the threat of depopulation and the supposed need to bring in masses of new immigrants is also mass hysteria. Some are predicting, almost in the same breath, that many jobs will soon be relaced by robotics, and a large population will be a liability.

As Nietzsche said, “Madness in individuals is rare. In groups, it is common.”

Let Me Say It Clearly While It Is Still Legal

 There was no "genocide" in Canadian Indian Residential Schools.

If this NDP member has her way, that sentence would make be liable for two years in prison.

The price of truth.

Canadian Fertility Collapse

 

From the Epoch Times.

2.1 is replacement level.

Cruel and Unusual

Apparently, the Canadian Supreme Court has just ruled it unconstitutional for Parliament to impose an automatic one year minimum sentence on those possessing "child sexual abuse material," which I resume means child pornography.

Whether a year is too much seems to be a judgement call, and just the sort of thing parliament is supposed to decide, not the courts.

Cruel and unusual? The average sentence in the US for possession of child pornography is 6.5 years for a first offense. UK statutory penalty is 5-10 years. 

For the sake of Canadian democracy, the Supreme Court must be reined in. I fear this is virtually impossible under the current constitution. The only escape may be provinces separating individually.

Mental Illness Is a Nonsense Concept

 

An Asian demon.

My Chinese student immediately sees the absurdity of the term “mental illness.” Like a physical illness?

“Mental illness” is a euphemism. We have sadly come to take it literally, and have even come to treating the thing with pills. Given this approach, the problem is incurable.

Older terms are more accurate. The various experiences we call mental illness are experienced subjectively as oppression, obsession, or possession by some will which either inhibits, distracts, or completely suppresses our own. Often, people actually “hear voices” in their head. You could say “out of your mind” or “beside yourself” or “driven to distraction.” But that is only half the equation. If you are out of your mind, who is in it? Who or what is distracting you? The best, most lucid description of the experienced reality we euphemistically call “mental illness” is demonic possession, or demonic affliction.

We refuse to use the terms only because we arbitrarily refuse to accept the existence of demons. Despite the overwhelming evidence—the evidence of “mental illness” itself. People are experiencing demonic wills interfering with their own, and fairly commonly.

Understand this simple truth, understand the problem in these terms, and the cure becomes obvious. You need spiritual assistance. The shamanic approach is to negotiate peace terms with the demon, the “voice in your head.” It does nothing to simply ignore it and pretend it does not exist. The Judeo-Christian approach, more effective, is to cast the demon out, supplanting it with the imminent presence of the one true God.

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

Therefore, it is necessary to occupy the spirit with a “strong man.” 

“if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

In other words, with a faith in the one true God.

And this approach, unlike that of modern psychiatry, actually works. It is scientifically proven to work.

On Pride

 

Thomas Merton wrote, “Pride makes us artificial. Humility makes us genuine.” 

A sort of robotic artificiality indeed seems characteristic of narcissists. Their smile is mechanical, as if pasted on; or it is a smirk, a sort of half-smile. Scott Adams says there is something about the eyes not smiling with the mouth that gives away insincerity.

They cannot be spontaneous, because they do not dare lose control. For this reason, they cannot have a sense of humour. Humour requires letting go. They do not understand it, and so will laugh inappropriately. They are just mimicking what they see and hear others do, without feeling it. The one thing they might find funny is watching other people in pain, mental or physical. Someone slipping on a banana peel.

Can narcissism be cured? Psychiatry says no. I have always been loath to believe this: can anyone be beyond redemption? I compared it with alcoholism: breaking an addiction is hard, but not impossible. People do. Surely one can also break an addiction to pride?

But there is indeed a point at which one is, in Christian teaching, beyond redemption: Hell is forever. If you die in mortal sin, and descend, there is no possibility of redemption beyond that point. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Like it or not, that is the clear Biblical teaching.

Doesn’t this match our experiences with narcissism? At a certain point, to wit, the point of confirmed narcissism, it would not matter if one had an infinite stretch of time, one is never going to pull out of this. Like Lucifer’s choice of self over God: Satan is not one day going to be redeemed.

An addiction to self is after all far more encompassing than an addiction to some single pleasure or vice. To invest your very identity in your vice means breaking the addiction looks impossible. There is no one there, outside of the vice itself, to break it. You have no other identity. Your soul has been devoured.

That is why the narcissist seems zombie-like, an NPC.

It may be going too far, however, to say ambulatory narcissism is yet incurable. Why would God allow the narcissist to stay alive, and doing harm to others, past this point? It makes more sense to assume that the point at which the narcissism is absolutely incurable is the moment God will step in and send to Hell. So long as there is the slightest chance for the narc to turn, God will give them that chance. 

But well before this point, the change might require a miracle. It may be beyond human agency, and so of course the psychiatrists cannot do it. Neither can any well-meaning relative.

Pride and Humility

 

Lucifer in Hell; as conceived by Dante and Dore.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

This parable, the gospel reading at last Sunday’s mass, identifies pride as the one unforgivable sin. 

And it is. It is the source of all sin. Pride is the sin of Lucifer, and of Eve (“you shall be as gods”). It is the sin the Greeks called hubris; what modern psychology calls “narcissism.” 

As the parable says, all sins are forgiven so long as you are humble. And so long as you are proud, no virtues count. Pride or humility is the entire ball game. What could be clearer?

This is surely the sense in which Jesus says we must be like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Little children are not moral; they do not always behave well. But they think of themselves as little, incapable, needing guidance and help. This is the attitude we need to have towards God.

People speak of “Catholic guilt,” as if guilt were a bad thing. But that is the whole point of Christian morality. “I want you to be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.” None of us can achieve that. All of us will sin.

That is the point. The point is to stay humble.

This is one more reason why I deeply dislike “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. The minute we decide we are in the clear, we are lost. Blessed are those who mourn. 

A caveat: anti-Christian bullies will use this against Christians, demanding they humble themselves and submit to the bully—and to the general consensus. William Blake said, “humble before God; not before men.” Humbling yourself to the mighty in this world is not moral. It is just cowardice and cunning. John the Baptist did not humble himself before Herod. The Old Testament prophets did not humble themselves before the kings and queens of Judea and Israel. Jesus did not act humbly at the temple, nor speak humbly of himself at the synagogue. Saint Dymphna did not submit humbly to her father the King; nor Saint Francis to his father the rich merchant.

We must serve the Truth, and not either ourselves or he powers and principalities of this dark world. We must “work out our salvation in fear and trembling.”

Atheists in Their Own Words

 

Mother Nature: Traditional Indian conception

Honest atheists often understand that, rather than believing in no god, they worship “Mother Nature,” aka Gaia. They personify nature, imagine it is imbued with a will, and is all-powerful. Ergo, God. But what is the difference between this and the Judeo-Christian God? 

A recent correspondent gives us some idea. He neatly if unintentionally refutes the typical atheist argument that the belief in an afterlife is wish fulfillment. He writes that as an atheist, “You don’t have to think about your death, because there is no hell, just like there is no heaven… I don’t think I will fear death as religious people do.” Atheism is wish fulfillment. If there is no God, as Nietzsche pointed out, you can do whatever you want, and need not fear punishment. 

The essence of nature is amorality. Animals operate on instinct. The essence of morality is to sometimes resist our natural urges. 

But this “atheism” is whistling past the graveyard, the logic of the ostrich with his head in the sand. “If I don’t believe in God, he won’t hurt me.” That’s like saying “gravity doesn’t apply to me if I refuse to believe in it.” And jumping off a cliff.

One form of this “nature-worship” atheism is adulation of an imaginary aboriginal religion of nature worship. Christianity came in and ruined this peaceable kingdom, in which the lion lay down with the lamb. “I believe that the First Nations were correct. They saw the holiness of life in all things - -spirit (Great Spirit) existed in the bear, the wolf, the bison, the tree etc.  They didn’t attempt to conquer or manipulate the spirit but worked to live in harmony with the Spirit.”

Of course, this is a fundamentally Christian idea: that of original innocence in the Garden of Eden. It has nothing to do with the actual life of actual Indians. They saw the spirit world as mostly hostile to mankind. And they had no concept of conservation or ecology. It is the Judeo-Christian tradition that sees nature, the physical world, as holy, because God speaks to us through his creation. To most other cultures, including the native Indian, the physical world is ephemeral, only secondarily real. It is not that the spirit exists in the bear; it is that the bear really only exists in the spirit. The physical bear is just food.

Another recent atheist acquaintance avers that it is wrong to “categorize and label.” And this too I have heard before; it is a common sentiment among unbelievers.

An odd sentiment, on its face. There is another word for categorizing and labelling: thinking. Thinking goes beyond this, but it must start with this, with defining terms. Refusing to think is not a good idea. 

Consider the analogy of the eye. This is like saying it is wrong to put on your glasses and see things in focus. Best to leave it all fuzzy and vague.

Why and when would this be best? When there is something you are trying hard not to think about. Remember the wisdom of the ostrich. 

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”

Another common atheist trope is to see God as some form of impersonal “energy.” “Mysterious, nameless, pure love ‘energy’ inside me and everywhere.” 

This, as William Blake pointed out, is an inadequate concept of God. The human mind can conceive of nothing greater than a perfected human being. “Consider a cloud as holy; you cannot love it. But picture a holy man inside the cloud, and love springs up.” 

Imagine a source of energy—say a fire, or a battery—next to a human being. Which do you see as more important, more worthy of your interest and attention? 

Suppose you had to throw the person into the fire to keep it from going out. Would you do so?

Conceiving God as “energy” running through you is conceiving of him as less than you.

You are thinking of yourself as God.

This is always the bottom line. Welcome to the garden, Eve.

Trump the Dictator?

 Friend Xerxes has declared Donald Trump a dictator. And he has listed eight proofs. It I a disorienting insight into the left-wing mind.

To begin with, we need to make a distinction between “dictators,” “strong leaders,” and “demagogues.” Xerxes does not. They are all “dictators.” These are three different things. For example, dictators usually come to power by military force (see the definition by Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, “a political leader who has complete power over a country, especially one who has gained it using military force.”) And coming to power by military force is more or less incompatible with being a demagogue, whose path to power will be by popular appeal. 

I also think there are examples of demagogic politicians—that is, politicians who rely on emotional appeals and anti-establishment rhetoric—who do not become dictators, nor aspire to becoming one. John Diefenbaker; I’d say Harry Truman. You might add Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Rene Levesque, or Martin Luther King Jr.

Moving on, having a “strongman” leader is not necessarily a bad thing. A tough guy may be desirable, given an emergency situation or a risk of chaos. Churchill being called in at the start of WWII is one obvious example. DeGaulle is another. Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR during the Depression, Jefferson in the early years of the American Republic, Pierre Trudeau during the national unity crisis, were all strong personalities ready to play fast and loose with established norms. That this is sometimes needed is recognized in common law: a mayor may “read the riot act,” a democracy may declare martial law. In the constitution of the Roman Republic: a “dictator” might be appointed for a six-month term. Armies are not run by popular vote.

Now, the list of characteristics Xerxes cites for “dictators”: 

1. Dictators demonize a minority. 

The left in the US has been demonizing men, “straight white men,” “the far right,” the unvaccinated, and especially working class, Southern, straight white men. These are all minorities in the US. In Canada, Justin Trudeau condemned the unvaccinated as an “unacceptable fringe” who should perhaps not be permitted to “take up space.” 

What minority group has Trump demonized? “The Deep State”? “Illegal immigrants”? But these are people guilty of crimes, and cited only on that basis. It is not demonizing a person to point out their crimes. The police are not demon hunters.

2. Dictators politicize formerly independent institutions.

This is the standard complaint from the right: that the left has, in its “long march through the institutions,” systematically subverted and politicized the media, the schools, the academy, the FBI, the IRS, and the justice system. 

This is what the right calls “Cultural Marxism.” Obama and Biden used the IRS and FBI against their political opponents. There were many dubious prosecutions of Trump, Trump associates and advisors, even Trump’s lawyers. There was the excessive treatment, the persecution, of the January 6th protesters. There was the targeting of “tea party” groups by Obama’s IRS. People have been “debanked.” There were the forged claims of Russia collusion, publicly endorsed by the CIA and the security apparatus; the bugging of Trump’s campaign headquarters; the spurious impeachments. The government pressured social media to block views the administration did not like and promote those they did—now publicly admitted by Mark Zuckerberg.

3. Dictators spread disinformation.

See the Russia collusion hoax, the “fine people on both sides” hoax, the “drink bleach” hoax, the “kids in cages” hoax, the many lies spread by the Biden (and Trudeau) regime about Covid, Covid preventative measures, the Covid vaccines. The lies by the Obama White House about what caused the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi. Lies about being able to keep your insurance under Obamacare. Lies about Biden’s state of physical and mental health. These are grave and gravely harmful lies.

Trump exaggerates, but harmlessly, without intent to deceive.

4. Dictators seize executive power, weakening checks and balances.

This is poorly stated. The US president holds executive power; nobody who has been elected president of the US has seized executive power. 

A president can try to bully or ignore the other two branches of government. FDR, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Biden have been accused of this. I’d need to see examples of Trump doing the same. It seems unlikely, since his party controls all three branches of government. Why would he need to?

5. Dictators squash criticism and dissent.

This has been cited as one of the pillars of MAGA: to end the censorship, suppression of dissent, “deplatforming,” and “cancel culture” of the left; to revive free speech and open discussion. No more malicious prosecutions of peaceful protesters.  No more controlled media. No more shouting down speakers, or assaulting them, or doxxing them, or assassinating them. This is why Musk bought Twitter; this is why Trump started Truth Social.

6. Dictators scapegoat already vulnerable communities.

The scapegoating of minorities by the left has already been mentioned. Indeed, the left formulaically always scapegoats the “rich capitalists,” the “greedy corporations,” the “billionaires,” “the rich.” The left eagerly accuses “whites,” or “cis males,” or “patriarchy” or “Christian nationalists” of all manner of heinous things, of all evil—scapegoating. They have recently shown a growing tendency to antisemitism—the classic victims of scapegoating.

You will argue that these groups are not vulnerable? History shows they are. Consider the Jews in Nazi Germany; the kulaks in the Soviet Union; the whites in South Africa; Christians in revolutionary France, or Spain, or Mexico, or Nigeria today.

And no, Trump has never scapegoated any identifiable group. Not Mexicans nor Chinese nor Muslims nor blacks nor women nor gays. He has never accused any, as a group, of anything discreditable, so far as I can tell. He seems to have taken great care not to.

7. Dictators corrupt the election process.

By pushing for casually distributed mail-in ballots, voting machines, and no ID at the polls, the Democrats were obviously trying to corrupt the voting process, whether or not they succeeded. But the latter must be assumed—the more so since they sought to criminalize any suggestion that they had. Even the Democratic Party’s process of selecting their presidential nominee looks questionable.

This is what the mob was protesting on January 6th. 

8. Dictators encourage violence against a loosely labelled opposition.

Some leftists and Democrats openly call for violence against their opponents. “Punch a fascist” being a common slogan. Schumer warned that Supreme Court justices would be punished for overturning Roe v. Wade. Obama spoke of “bringing a gun to a knife fight.” Jay Jones, Virginia candidate for Attorney-General, tweets “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”  And he has not been shunned for it by his own party. The left’s rhetoric is violent, and has apparently led to recent assassination attempts and actual assassination.

Based on Xerxes’s quoted list, Trump has rescued the US from a developing dictatorship of the left.

Whether he might in turn become a dictator remains to be seen. However, Xerxes asserts that “strong men” tend to be Cluster B personalities (the “Dark Triad”). “Dark personalities tend to strive for positions of power.” All politicians strive for positions of power. Never mind Trump; it stands to reason that we are always largely ruled by ruthless men and women.

This is a strong argument for limiting the scope and power of government. As Republicans advocate; as Trump is trying to do. 

Try to find a dictator working to shrink government.  The concept is incoherent.

“Ben-Ghiat defines the tactics of authoritarian rulers as self-proclaimed saviors of a nation”

Again, all politicians make more or less this claim.

“They typically use masculinity as a symbol of strength and as a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority.”

Here’s a good example of scapegoating men. This equates “masculinity” with “taking what you want, and getting away with it.”

It changes nothing to falsely claim it is Trump saying this, not you. He never said this, and no one on the right would. This is entirely from the left.

Xerxes declares Trump’s economic performance “dismal.” Grok calls it “mixed.” Trump’s idea of using tariffs to improve the economy is inevitably going to cause an initial hit, even if Trump’s concept is correct; but in order to improve things in the longer term: “short term pain for long term gain.” It is obviously too soon to tell if it works. But early indications are surprisingly good: second quarter annualized growth in the US was 3.8%. Compare China at an estimated (probably inflated) 3.95%; Japan 0.9%; Canada 1%; France 0.9%; Germany 0.7%; UK 1.4%. It is hard to see this as a dismal performance.

Psychology and Religion

I am disturbed by a recent casual conversation with two guys who are both certified clinical psychologists. Between them, they seemed to believe every mass delusion and “conspiracy theory” currently on the market. I may not know much, but as a writer and a student of world mythologies, I can generally spot an urban legend when I hear one. They seemed to have no such ability. They believe whatever they hear on YouTube, generated by algorithms designed to feed them what they want to hear. I thought of the phrase, “the blind leading the blind.”

How are these people qualified to give advice to others on life, on what is real, on values? When they are so suggestible and easily misled themselves? Why do we think they have any such qualifications? 

To advise others on what is real, or good, or advantageous, we need a firm grip on some objective standard. We need to know what is real, or good, or advantageous; we cannot teach what we do not know. Psychology does not know.

This is the task of religion, or religion and philosophy. 

Whether any one religion is true or false, if any life advice is to be found, this is the only place it is to be found. By definition. “Worship” means “worth-ship,” determining the value and reality of things. “What is real?” is a religious question. “What is good?” is a religious question. “What is the good life?” is a religious question.

The great universal faiths agree on most things; psychology is an outlier. One could do better relying on any one of them.

Intolerance as a Virtue

Matt Walsh argues that intolerance is a virtue.

I’d say he is directionally right, if overstated. His statement should not be shocking. Sometimes tolerance is the right thing; sometimes intolerance is the right thing. It is sinister that we are all taught that only tolerance is a virtue.

It is good to be merciful, magnanimous, tolerant, in victory. It is gravely evil to be tolerant of evil when you could do something to end it. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.”

Would it be good to tolerate Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jews? To tolerate child rape and infanticide? To tolerate Kitty Genovese being raped in your stairwell? To tolerate salmonella in the market goods?

This idolatry of tolerance is bundled with the false claim that Jesus models tolerance in the Bible. He does not. He is the divine judge. He was systematically intolerant of the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees. He was intolerant of the money-changers in the temple. He was strict with the wealthy young man, demanding he give up all he owns, and demanding of his followers, saying they must despise their father and their mother, their wife and children, and take up their cross. He was stricter that Moses with his Ten Commandments: don’t even look at another woman with lust in your heard. Don’t even insult your brother. “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

This further neatly parallels the false claim that “diversity is our strength.” Diversity at best must be balanced with unity, or it is purely destructive. Purity is a virtue; diversity is not.

It is the council of Satan to urge and demand tolerance and diversity. This is what the worst people want. It gives them free rein. Devils are by nature multiple; diversity is of their essence. “My name is Legion.” “Pandemonium.” “She had seven devils.”

Contrast “The Lord your God is One.”

Appeal to Heaven

So Doug Ford has taken $75 million of taxpayer money, and spent it to undermine trade talks with the US.

While Carney is chumming with China.

It is as though Canadians have a death wish. We are like ungrateful, spoiled children. 

We cannot blame our leaders. We recently voted Ford and Carney right back into office to do this, to fight America instead of make a deal.

This is well calculated to kill Ontario’s auto industry, and force Alberta to separate.

It seems of a piece with our placid acceptance of multiculturalism, of mass immigration, of a prime minister who claims there is no such thing as Canadian culture, and of outrageous land claims and claims of genocide by the native peoples.

Come back, Bond Head. All is forgiven. We are not capable of self-government.

The Pendulum in Full Swing

Things may look bad, but there is much reason for hope. The pendulum is in full swing. Let’s do a score card.

Transgenderism is dead. “Gender-affirming care” is dead.

Multiculturalism is dead. “Diversity” is dead. Mass immigration is dead.

Atheism is dead. Scientism is dead.

Feminism is dead. “Affirmative action” is dead. Men are being listened to. Women are no longer given free passes.

Censorship is dead. Political correctness is dead.

The legacy media is dead. The gatekeepers no longer have a gate.

Xi is reputedly in trouble in China; rumours persist and grow. Putin is reputedly in trouble in Russia; evidence grows that Ukraine is winning that war, incredibly, against mighty Russia. Lukashenko is reputedly in trouble in Belarus. Cuba and Venezuela are reportedly struggling to keep the lights on. Japan has just elected a Trumpian “far right” leader, joining Argentina, Italy, and the US. 

Left-wing or centrist parties in power are doing poorly in the polls. Macron is in trouble in France. Starmer in Britain has record low poll numbers. The government of the Netherlands has collapsed. The government of Germany is barely hanging on, in grand coalition, and unpopular. In each case, this is at the hands of some new “populist” party, not the traditional opposition.

Major figures are abandoning the left and moving right day by day and month by month: Joe Rogan, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, John Fetterman, Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, and on and on. Being on the new right is becoming the cool place to be.

The grand trend is clear. An old order is passing.

Bad as things have gotten, it is often necessary to hit bottom in order to see the need for change. The world is waking, like a recovering alcoholic, from its destructive delusions. Many things may soon be possible. We may see a period of great creative ferment.