Nobody Is Saying It, But ...

The current Israeli attack on Irian is showing spectacular penetration by agents of Mossad. They have been able to precisely target important military figures for assassination, for example. They are firing drones from places inside Iran.

Nobody is saying it, but it should be obvious that these “Mossad agents” are not Israeli Jews.

They have to be Iranians—and they are not doing this out of love for Israel. Israel has made a deal with the Iranian opposition. Their intent and end game is not going to be simply to get Iran to stop building nuclear weapons. The deal will involve an attempt to overthrow the Iranian regime. And no doubt the Iranian opposition has, with the help of Mossad, prepared the necessary next steps.

This is always the great weakness of an authoritarian regime. That Ayatollah fella is going down.

The name of the Israeli operation, "Rising Lion" actually already said so. The lion is the symbol of the Iranian monarchy. 

Carney the Dime Store Pychiatrist

 

Canadian PM Mark Carney has decided, it seems, that the way to handle Donald Trump is to praise him lavishly in public.

This is presumably based on the sophomoric assumption that Trump is a narcissist. Narcissists are notoriously susceptible to flattery.

Trump is not. Both Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott tried this in the VP stakes. Not only did they not get picked— but a few brief weeks for Ramaswamy, neither even made it into the administration.

Trump is just as immune from flattery as he is from insult. Showing, if it were not already obvious, that he is not a narcissist.

The last thing a narcissist would do is surround himself with subordinates who might steal the limelight. Instead, Trump picked a strong cabinet including charismatic people with their own followings: RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rudio, Christie Noem, Tom Homan, Kash Patel. He is happy to give VP Vance prominence and camera time, for example in the public negotiations with Zelensky.

Narcissists are never creative thinkers; they fear the spontaneity that creativity requires. It means a loss of control. Trump is creative in government, full of new policy ideas, and able to speak for hours entertainingly without notes.

Narcissists also lack stamina. As soon as something seems hard, and they get a whiff of failure, they will quit. Trump is just the reverse of that, seemingly not even slowed down by political attacks, personal insults, legal attacks, deplatforming, attempted assassination, and electoral defeat.

Trump is the anti-narcissist. He seems to have absolutely no ego.

And Carney is showing himself to be painfully stupid.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

Things that seem epochal seem to be happening all at once, as I type, as though we are witnessing the hand of Providence. I may be speaking too soon, but rumours are growing of an economic collapse and a change in power in China. And to a more “pro-Western” regime.

What seems especially uncanny, and implausible, are reports of a sudden demographic collapse, of empty villages in the countryside, and of strangely empty streets in major cities. How can millions of people just disappear suddenly?

Possibly much work and purchasing has gone online, as it has, after all, in North America. Possibly an economic collapse means people do not have money to go out and spend, or work to get to. Possibly the government is harassing those who venture out, fearing any concentration of people might become an anti-government demonstration or a riot.

But counter to this last hypothesis, reports are that the extensive Chinese network of security cameras has been cut off. Surely not what they want to do if they fear unrest. A power shortage?

Whatever the case, it seems that something big is happening in China. And any thing big happening in China is big for the whole world.

Meantime, there is the apocalypse in Iran. Israel is suddenly, in lightning strikes,  wiping out much of Iran’s military capabilities and creating chaos in the regime. Rumours are that many top leaders have flown out to Russia or Pakistan. 

If true, this is what happens when a regime is about to collapse. The Iranian regime has for many years not had any popular support. The military was vital to hold the people down through fear. Now the military is in disarray, and shown to be weak. Iranians  may seize the opportunity to rise up. Iranian friends in Canada are cheering on the Israeli attacks. There is an organized opposition abroad; as there was when the Shah fell. Then, they successfully flew in to take charge and restore order. It may happen again now. Losing a war or some reckless military adventure is a common trigger for autocratic governments to fall. 

That’s two of the three strongest anti-Western regimes.

And then there is the third leg of the triple alliance, Russia.

Russia and Putin have also just gotten a big shock, with the Ukrainian drone attacks deep into Russia. It was actually eerily similar to the Israeli attack on Iran, happening almost simultaneously, as though the same mastermind was behind both. If not God, perhaps the USA? 

It took out a significant part of Russia’s strategic abilities; and it brought the war to the common people back in Moscow. Not good for popular support, I imagine. 

Online commentators also say Russia, having now lost a million casualties, is finding it hard to replace lost manpower. They may be losing this war of attrition.

At first glance, this looks improbable. Surely Ukraine has a greater manpower problem, with a much smaller population. They’ve been fighting just as long. And a greater materiel problem: their economy is smaller, and their factories have been under attack far longer.

But the argument goes that, in order to gain ground, the Russians have been using human wave attacks, in a war which heavily favours the defense. The Ukrainians, by staying mostly on the defensive, have been able to take advantage of this. Perhaps the optics were bad, but it was the smart move. Let the other side run straight into the machine guns. 

As for materiel, Ukraine still has all of the EU, and beyond, to draw on.

Rumours online are that all this recent attack puts Putin on shaky ground; a palace coup seems possible. As with Iran, a failed military adventure is the most common trigger for the fall of an autocratic regime. 

Of course, this has all been said before, the imminent fall of Putin has been widely predicted, ever since the initial Russian invasion, supposed to take three days, was repulsed. He has shown great resilience. But even a cat has only nine lives. This recent mass drone attack, and the detonation under the Crimean bridge, does look like a possible tipping point. Like the Tet offensive was for the US in Vietnam—the frustration and sense of failure is that much greater once having started to feel victory was at last within view. It must be psychologically devastating.

With Israel’s attack on Iran, Putin has probably lost his main source of drones with which to respond to Ukraine. There are suddenly leaks that Russia and China no longer see one another as allies—consistent with the rumours that China is about to turn pro-Western. It makes sense; China has unresolved historical grievances and border disputes with Russia, and not with the USA or the West. 

So Putin too might soon and suddenly fall.

If any one of these three regimes goes, the other two are more vulnerable. We’re talking dominoes. And China, the biggest and most important of the three, seems to be a pretty sure thing.

What will the world look like if all three dominoes are down?

Hugely enhanced prestige for the US and the West. 

Surely lesser regimes like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea, who have been anti-Western, will also fall or convert. Partly for lost financial backing; partly for lost prestige; partly from spreading revolutionary fervour. 

More importantly, the anti-Western elites within the West will be relatively discredited: the multicult groups running Canada, France, the UK, Germany, Australia, and the EU broadly. Already in process, their fall may be turbocharged. The superiority of the Western way will have been emphatically illustrated.

Hugely enhanced prestige for Donald Trump. FWIW. Cue AI to carve a niche on Mount Rushmore. Maybe with an assist from Musk’s Boring Company.

This may be bad for peace in the Middle East. Hostility towards and fear of Iran has tended to drive Gulf States into cooperation with Israel and the US; this incentive will now be gone. 

However, a number of terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, will have lost their funding. The current forever wars will cease. Certainly, this should end the conflict in Gaza. Without this hot conflict between Israel and fellow Arabs, the other Arab states may feel better able to sign on to the Abraham Accords.

I see a day peace will come to the Middle East. It once seemed impossible for peace to come to Ireland, too. Then it did. 

With Putin gone, Russian matters are unpredictable. But on balance, it would seem that, with the relative loss of strategic capabilities, a more bellicose leadership would have nowhere to go from here—just carrying on just the same. So if you see a problem, why reinforce failure? The obvious possible change is to try for peace. Even to end Russia’s dreams of standing apart from and against the West. That gives you a chance to declare a kind of victory. After all, culturally, Russia is Europe. Division is artificial. Pure self-interest suggests integration. It is only a childish national pride that makes Russia want to fight and seek empire.

One happy consequence of the end of the regimes in Iran and China could be a revival of Christianity. The CCP has discredited atheism in China; the Ayatollahs have discredited Islamism in Iran. Rumours are of a large number of Christian conversions as it is; although such conversions are more or less illegal in both states. With the lid off, this may grow; this may blow. And the vitality of Christianity in these influential nations, in turn, may also hasten revival in the older Christian lands; a revival that already seems to be starting. When the Iron Curtain fell, Pope John Paul II and Polish Christianity brought a new enthusiasm to Catholicism.

And Christianity is the backbone and foundation of Western culture. Is a Renaissance about to begin?

Amazing Grace

 

A sentence catches my eye from Margaret Visser’s book The Geometry of Love. She is speaking of the unicursal labyrinths that grace Medieval churches; the kind that have no wrong turns, and only require patience to walk through. “The road symbolizes a human life with all its difficulties and failures, and the common feeling of being lost; the message is that mental agility is not the most important gift for the spiritual life.”

I believe being lost is indeed a common feeling. It is the true essence of what psychiatrists call “depression.” Not sorrow, not anxiety, but a sense of not knowing which way to turn, how to proceed. This is the worst of all feelings.

And I think this is an important message: “mental agility is not the most important gift for the spiritual life.” That is, for life itself. 

I long ago noticed, in my studies of legends and fairy tales, that this message is conveyed not only by unicursal labyrinths. Whenever a tale does involve a maze or labyrinth of the kind with wrong turns and dead ends, the hero does not escape by their own cleverness. Theseus escapes the Minoan labyrinth not through his own quick wit, as Oedipus escapes the Sphinx, but rather anticlimactically because Ariadne gives him a cheat sheet: the thread, and advice to always take the left (or was it right?) turn. In the Grimm tale, Hansel cleverly lays a path of white stones when his parents seem to abandon him and his sister in the forest. But his parents discover the trick, and try again, after preventing him from collecting stones a second time. So, still ingenious, he resorts to dropping breadcrumbs. And this does not work—the birds eat the breadcrumbs, and he and Gretel are truly lost. Having worked it all out brilliantly, it is still of no use. In the end, it is Gretel, not Hansel, who saves the day. 

And so forth, for every example I can find.

There is a consistent message being whispered in our ear. Ultimately, for our direction and our salvation, we must not rely on our own cleverness. We cannot pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. It must be faith, and love.

It must be so: some people are much smarter than others. Yet God made us all, and made us as we are. A good God would not give advantage to the most intelligent, and condemn others simply for stupidity.

As Aquinas said, all his subtle philosophy was, in the end, a sideshow. If we rely on our own intelligence, we are doomed.

The answers are written in our heart.

Trump's Game in Iran

 

The US is at pains to stress that Israel’s current strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is entirely Israel’s doing, and America is not involved.

I do not believe that for a moment. Methinks they doth protest too much.

Trump has been saying for years that Iran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Last winter he said that if the Gaza hostages were not released promptly, all hell would break loose.

Trump is a skilled negotiator. He has set this up as “good cop, bad cop,” to force Iran to the table with minimum risk or destruction. I think he intentionally spread the rumour a couple of months ago that he and Netanyahu were having a spat, simply in order to give this plausibility. The media bought it.

Now Iran may be led to appeal to US for protection from Israel. And Trump can name his terms. He has given them an escape ramp. In the meantime, other actors throughout the Muslim world have less cause or claim to attack US interests, minimizing risks. And protecting the US’s Arab and Muslim allies. All the risks are on Israel, but Israel was already entirely at risk and has nothing exposed and nothing to lose.

And Trump preserves his domestic reputation as a man of peace, the basis for much of his popular support.

It is even possible Trump is playing a similar game with Ukraine—faking his hostility to Zelensky, which really did look like something staged for the cameras, a bit from his old reality show. Thereby letting the Europeans take the lead, while feeding Ukraine the intelligence needed for them to pull off spectacular strikes recently within Russia. With official US sanction, their hands were tied, over fears of sparking a nuclear exchange and world war. But Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet and strategic submarines were very much in the US interest. Trump may still be feeding technology to Ukraine through European intermediaries. 

Again, this would let him pose as an honest broker to Putin, someone Putin could turn to without losing face to make a peace. And it lets him, again, stay the pacifist for his domestic audience. The Europeans would surely be delighted to go along, because it makes them look independent and tough and consequential. Good for their ego.

Meantime, Trump’s tariffs on China seem to have caused some sort of tipping point, and the Chinese leadership is collapsing.

Imagine if Trump’s negotiating skills actually manage to achieve, in short order, the collapse of the Iranian, Chinese, and Russian governments, all without American blood being spilled.

It would earn him a spot on Mount Rushmore.

Next question: was Trump’s spat with Elon Musk also faked, to protect Musk’s business interests from attacks, while also giving congresspeople, especially Democratic congresspeople, cover to support the DOGE cuts without looking subservient to Trump?

This doesn’t require imagining Trump is playing 4-D chess. It’s more like the good old American game of poker. Plus acting talent.

The End Is Not Near

 

Many evangelical Protestants are awaiting the End Times. They keep seeing signs of it in the news. Many Catholics are into this too, referring to the prophecies of St. Malachi, and proclaiming this the last pope.

Bad idea.

From the Bible:

“you do not know when your Lord is coming … the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” – Matthew

“you do not know when that time will come… the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." -- Mark 

“that day will sneak up on you like a trap. For it will come on those who are unsuspecting all over the earth.“ -- Luke

“the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”—Paul

Aren’t these passages telling us it is foolishness to look for signs? We will not be given signs. It will happen when we least suspect it. The need is to always act as though the next second may be our last. At any moment, we might die and come face to face with our maker.

Which is obviously true.

Jesus actually said “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” (Matthew) “Truly I tell you that there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1). “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27). That was 2000 years ago.

So we are always in the End Times. We enter the End Times at physical death, death to the world; because we do not die then, we enter eternity. We must always be ready for that hour, because we might die at any time. The end of the world at large is largely irrelevant.

The belief that the Second Coming is imminent and about to begin a reign of peace and justice on earth, “millennialism,” has been with us for more than the past two thousand years; it was also the essence of the traditional Jewish belief in the coming of the Messiah. It had a great recent resurgence in the US the 19th century. Specific dates were proposed: 1844 was a big one. New denominations were formed on this belief. But it keeps not happening. Encyclopedia Britannica writes “For all the costly failures, … the appeal of millennialism remains, and generation after generation of devotees have sought the chimerical kingdom.” 

It is worth noting that the belief in the imminent dawning of a New Age has sometimes brought more than mere disappointment. It led to the destruction of the ancient state of Judea and the diaspora of the Jews, after the failed Bar Kochba revolt. In China, it led to twenty million deaths in the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century.

Marxism and Fascism are examples of secular, non-religious millennial movements. They have been responsible for the holocaust of many millions.

The Catholic Church properly considers all millennial movements manifestations of the Antichrist. This has been so since Saint Augustine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reads:

“The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the ‘intrinsically perverse’ political form of a secular messianism.”

Jesus himself came to disprove millenarianism—that is, the Jewish expectation of a messiah who would rule the world.

I think it is true that we are living through a time of epochal change, due to the effects of the new technology. Just as there was a great general change at the Renaissance, arguably due to the invention of printing. Or as a result of the Industrial Revolution in Britain. But the sky is not falling.

The Case for Segregation by Sex in Schools

 

I once worked for a Canadian college contracted to open a branch in Qatar. The one thing they insisted on, before signing the contract, was that men and women would be taught in the same integrated classes. This was a violation of local norms and customs, but was reluctantly agreed to. 

But this is a bad idea. The best studies we have show consistently that both boys and girls, men and women, do best when classes are segregated by sex. We used to know this—expensive private schools were once always segregates by sex, since we knew this gave their students an advantage.

Any teacher is surely aware, as I am, that boys and girls think differently, have different interests, and learn in different ways. If you have both sexes on the same class, at best, each of them is getting only 50% of the learning time. More often, one sex’s interests are sacrificed entirely to those of the other. Currently, it is boys who are suffering—the more so because most teachers are women. And the zeitgeist demands that girls be favoured over boys. We are losing generations of men as a result.

Leaving alone that, in a mixed sex classroom, attention wanders from the lesson to the opposite sex. After a certain age, it is an extreme distraction. And it is in the best interest of everyone that the young not be tempted or encouraged to engage in such activities earlier than necessary, and before they have full command of their passions and are in a position to raise children. The integrated classroom seems perfectly designed to set young people up for disaster.

So why did we start such a mad practice? Economics. In small rural communities: even students in different grades would need to share a classroom. But that is rarely the case now, in our urban culture. It certainly was not the case in Qatar.

There, and more generally, it is the influence of the civil rights movement in the US. Classes and schools were once, in the US South, segregated by race. And this was determined by the Supreme Court to be discriminatory: there was no such thing as “Separate but equal.” 

So the same logic was applied to the sexes, with disastrous results. 

The initial premise was false. There is such a thing as separate but equal: an example is the public and Catholic separate schools in Ontario. No Catholics feel discriminated against for having their own schools. Nol Anglophones in Quebec feel discriminated against for having their own schools. The problem in the US was disparate treatment, not segregation: the black schools were not as well funded.

The proof is that we are now at the point that US blacks themselves are demanding segregation wherever possible. As are “First Nations” in Canada. Black parents want their own schools; black students want their own lunch rooms, their own graduation ceremonies.

In the case of race, this seems relatively harmless, one way or the other. But in the case of sex, it seems obviously preferable.

Being Nice Is Uncharitable

 

Bishop Barron makes a vital point. Being "nice" is moral cowardice.

Is the Bible History?

 

Nebuchadnezzar, Blake

I have argued that science cannot be used to test the Bible; the Bible is intrinsically more reliable than science.

Does this mean that the story of Noah’s flood is history?

No.

Much of the Bible is history; but it is a compendium. History in itself is of no special value, except inasmuch as it reveals the divine will or serves as warning or illustration. The Bible features many literary genres: proverbs, psalms, poems, lists, codes of law, descriptive passages, philosophical essays, analogies and allegories, even humour. It is a modern prejudice, dating only from about the beginning of the Twentieth Century, that the Bible must be read “literally.” This is part of the scientistic heresy. Jesus obviously did not share this prejudice. He spoke in parables.

A correspondent sent me a video claiming archeological and textual “proof” that the Book of Daniel was history, written in the 6th century BC, and accurately predicting world events up to the 2nd century BC. And this prophecy was then advanced as proof of the divine inspiration of the Bible. Praise God!

But anyone familiar with literary genres should recognize immediately that the Book of Daniel is a hero legend. It shows all the features of that genre; like a modern superhero comic. It was not considered history by the ancient rabbis who compiled the Talmud.

A hero legend will include much accurate historical detail; like a modern urban legend, it is supposed to be almost but not quite believable. This is not meant to deceive, but to make it more vivid and compelling. So the Paul Bunyan legend cites specific geographical features: his footprints made the Great Lakes, and so forth. It is no surprise that many things spoken of in the book fit the archeological record. The one thing that will not be historical is the superhuman deeds of the hero—that is, Daniel and his prophecies. They are meant to convey a spiritual message. Nebuchadnezzar is a parable of pride.

The idea that prophets predict the future is a misunderstanding; they are really always speaking of the potentials of the present. “If you do this, this is likely to happen.” We are not meant to know the future, although God does; it subverts our free will, which is the whole point of our being here. And trying to do so implies a lack of trust in God.

The arbitrary focus on history is part of the essential error of scientism: materialism. Scientism assumes that only the physical is real. This is obvious nonsense: love is real, as are the other emotions, yet they are not experienced through the five senses. Ideas and concepts are real, but cannot be seen, touched, or bitten into. The past and the future are real too, but only the present is visible. Indeed, we never know whether the mental images we form from the information of our senses correspond to anything real outside themselves. See Bishop Berkeley.

The Bible is talking about the whole of human experience, not just the stuff visible on the ground.

The story of the flood may have been inspired in part by an actual flood; but the waters are the waters of change that wash all things away. The ark is the ark of memory, in which fertile impressions of each experience endure. In wicked times, the righteous man turns from the world outside, and keeps to God’s council alone.

On Science and the Bible

 

Copernicus

A friend sends me a video of Frank Turek debating the story of Noah and the great flood. Can the Bible really be true when it talks of a universal flood?

I have trouble with the basic idea that the Bible must be shown to conform with current science to show that the Biblical account is true. If this is how you think, that science is the ultimate test of truth, then scientism is your religion, not Christianity. Science actually by its nature cannot establish truth, and does not claim to. Its conclusions are always provisional; a plausible explanation of what is observed, until refuted. Scientific “truth” has changed a lot just since I was in high school.

If science seems to contradict the Biblical account, the more reasonable assumption is that science is missing something.

The way to test the Bible is by deduction from first principles, not induction. 

Point 1: the existence of God is a logical necessity. This can be proven a dozen ways.

Point 2: God by his nature can do any thing he likes. He is God.

Point 3: God’s nature is necessarily essentially and infinitely good. A perfect being must be perfectly good.

Point 4: A good God would want to reveal himself to us fully; and his plan for us.

Point 5: One must expect him to appear in human form. This is the best way for us to comprehend him. As William Blake rightly observes, the highest thing a human can imagine is a perfected human. A perfect circle or equilateral triangle or cloud does not approach this.

Point 6: Jesus’s resurrection, although inductive evidence, is our warrant that Jesus is the specific form in which he came to us.

Point 7: Jesus certifies the Church and the Bible. He cites scripture as authoritative, and commissions the apostles. God would not leave us without continuing guidance.

Therefore, the Bible is a more reliable authority than science, which may change tomorrow.

Unforced Busing

 

One day last week, my city made all transit free in honour of “Clean air day.” The buses were packed.

Which made me think. The city is spending an enormous amount putting in new bicycle lanes, in hopes of decreasing our carbon footprints. Cyclists I know are not impressed. They say it is suicidal to ride a bike on them. I hear being a bicycle-based delivery person in a large city is one of the most dangerous jobs on record.

Add to that the fact that our city is under ice and snow for four to five months of the year, making cycling difficult.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper, simpler, and quicker to just make public transit free, to get people to leave the car at home? Pay for it out of general taxation, like the streetlights, or medicare, or the roads themselves? After all, transportation is almost a basic human need.

Perhaps not completely free; then people might use the buses for unnecessary trips. But keep fares quite low, perhaps $1 per ride; and free for seniors and students.

Two birds would thereby meet their maker: you would be cutting down on carbon, and you would be helping out the very poor. And, for that matter, giving a boost to local business.

Why not?

Just a Marker So I can Later Say I Told You So

 

It is becoming more obvious that the Chinese regime is collapsing. Having turned first to the iron fist, the CCP has predictably failed. Reportedly, systems are breaking down in China: internet blackouts, security cameras gone dead; explosions, fires, probably caused by sabotage; deflation, mass unemployment, business defaults, deserted shopping areas. The mandate of heaven is passing. 

Now the party is turning in desperation to the tactic they most feared: the Gorbachev turn. Rumour has it that the leadership is to be handed to Wang and Hu, two relatively reformist figures. Trying to open up and restructure (glasnost, perestroika) without knocking down the whole house did not work for the Soviet Union. In China, it previously dead-ended in Tienanmen. That’s why they’ve been resisting it.

It might have still worked in 2012. I doubt it can work now; Xi’s hardline methods have burned through the residual popular legitimacy this needs. I expect the whole thing to blow within a year.

Putin too is suddenly in grave difficulty, thanks to the recent Ukrainian drone strikes. If he goes, China is more likely to go. If China goes, he is more likely to go. Not that these regimes are dependant on each other, or ideologically aligned; but a revolutionary spirit is contagious across borders. 

Indeed, we already live in revolutionary times, and most established regimes look unsteady. Trump is staging a peaceful revolution in the US, as Milei is in Argentina, and Meloni in Italy. The regimes in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK all face hurricane-force populist headwinds. Klaus Shwab has stepped down. No telling who’s next.

The Essential Truth of the Residential Schools

 

Greg Piasetzki writes today in the National Post: “in 1946, decades after the first residential schools were built, the Globe and Mail reported that, ‘Of the 128,000 Indians in this country, only 16,000 last year received formal schooling. Of this number, few stayed more than a year and only 71 … reached Grade 9.’”

This simple fact explodes the myth of the residential schools. Attendance was not compulsory--even though school attendance was compulsory for non-native children. Had mistreatment occurred, or “cultural genocide” been on the table, parents could simply withdraw their children. The government, and the churches, were offering a service: education in useful trades, plus, in the case of the residential schools, free room and board.

Eventually, the truth will come out. But we will never be able to recover all the historic churches burned down, the statues pulled down, the heritage lost.

Sowell and Intelligence

 

Thomas Sowell argues against the idea that intelligence can vary by race, pointing out that different populations have risen over history, while others have fallen back. China was more culturally advanced than Europe from the Dark Ages to about 1500. Then Europe sped ahead. Southern Europe, Greece and Rome, was more advanced that Northern Europe until the Renaissance; but by the Enlightenment the South had slipped into relative backwardness. 

The fortunes of nations change, and intellectual leadership seems available to any group at random.

The first point to make about this argument is that it acknowledges, contrary to current “anti-racist” ideology, that cultures can indeed be superior or inferior: Chinese culture was more advanced than European until 1500, and so forth. This makes nonsense of the claim that the “Western” education of Canadian First Nations children, for example, was “cultural genocide.”  Or the insistence that an English curriculum must feature an equal number of African or aboriginal authors, or it is racist.

The second point is that the principle of human equality is not an assertion that all people are equal in intelligence. That claim is obviously false. It is that all people are equal in human dignity, in moral worth. They are equal in the eyes of God, and all made in the divine image. This understanding has been perverted as we have lost our religious principles. We forget that liberal democracy is built on Christianity.

Individuals differ in innate intelligence, according to casual observation and IQ testing. It is therefore reasonable to assume—and demonstrable with IQ testing--that families and bloodlines also differ in innate intelligence. They share, after all, much of their genetics. Then, as it is reasonable to assume that intelligence, if innate, can run in families, it is reasonable to assume that intelligence runs in nationalities or “races,” as they too share some of their genetics.

We can observe that different ethnic groups vary in their athletic abilities. Black Africans dominate running sports at the Olympics; black Americans dominate basketball, boxing, and football. Canadian and American native people have always been prominent in sports: Tom Longboat, Jim Thorpe. As this is visibly true, it stands to reason that genetic groups can also vary in their intellectual abilities. 

And we see this in different breeds of domestic animals: they can and have been bred for intelligence, in order to perform given tasks. A border collie is usually much smarter than an afghan hound. Intelligence is therefore innate, and can be bred.

One does not, by the way, need to believe in the theory of evolution to know that this is so. Breeding for specific traits can be observed in the wild, even though the actual emergence of new species cannot.

It is only politics that makes us resist the premise that different races or ethnicities differ in average intelligence. Noting, of course, that this is a question of averages, and individuals must be evaluated as individuals: not by the colour of heir skin, but the content of their character.

It seems reasonable to assume that, just as domestic animals are bred for desired characteristics, any culture will spontaneously breed for whatever characteristics it most values. Those who possess that particular characteristic will have more wealth and more opportunity for survival, be seen as more desirable marriage partners, and therefore will have a greater opportunity to marry and have more children. So a culture that values, admires, and rewards learning and intelligence will grow over time more intelligent. A culture that values music will become more musical. A culture that values beauty will grow more beautiful. And a culture that requires athletic skill and fast reflexes for survival and prosperity will favour and develop in this direction, rather than intellectually.

And indeed, differences in average IQ among racial groups are measurable by IQ test.

The common argument, of course, is that these tests are culturally biased. This is an obvious possibility. But if so, how explain why East Asians do better on European-designed IQ tests than Europeans do?

This difference in average intelligence does not yet explain how cultures can rise and fall, how the baton of intellectual progress can pass from one group to another, as Sowell notes. One explanation is that intelligence is not the only factor that leads to cultural success. Some groups can no doubt be held down by oppression or discrimination. Some environmental factor may give you the free time to think and to innovate: discovering a vein of silver in your territory; being the sole source of purple dye; striking oil. The challenges of the environment can also change, as they do for evolution in the animal world. Some outside threat may make different talents more valuable. Or some technological innovation: the development of agriculture, say, or writing. 

These, over time, will change the breeding pattern.

A challenging environment, causing difficulty in survival, marriage, and childrearing, will accentuate the particular virtues and values of a group. Conversely, an environment of too much ease and opportunity, where everyone can easily survive and raise children, should cause a regression to the mean. This too can explain why groups can rise and fall on the civilizational totem pole.

This all raises an obvious concern: couldn’t a government decide to control breeding to produce a superior race—the Nazi concept?

But even given all this, even if that were desirable, and not a violation of the basic human right to reproduce, that is a mad idea. To see the effects of better breeding takes multiple generations; governments, and government policies, never last that long. 

One quick way to produce the effect is through immigration. Immigrant societies have tended to benefit from this, at least in the days that immigration was difficult and challenging—so that the best and the brightest in their own societies naturally self-selected. The US, Singapore, Canada, Australia. One could, theoretically, screen immigrants by IQ test.

The other way to do it, and the way it has been most commonly done, is to change the cultural values. Which is to say, a new religion. Northern Europe was raised to the level of Southern Europe as it Christianized. China, I believe, benefitted from the strength of Confucianism. Religion is the setting and discernment of values: it is worship, “worth-ship.” 

On Christianity's Decline

 

Happy Mormons in harness

Friend Xerxes laments the collapse of Christian congregations in North America.

Like him, I lament the decline of various well-established Christian denominations, the loss of community, of social cohesion, and, not least, the loss of many beautiful and historic churches. A vital part of our heritage is being lost, and nothing is being done.

On the other hand, it is worth remembering that this is a local phenomenon. Christianity is growing worldwide.

The problem also varies by denomination. The United Church, Xerxes’s church and the largest protestant denomination in Canada, is cratering, true; as are the Anglicans and the Presbyterians. And apparently in the US the Baptists are beginning to decline, despite America’s strong religious culture. These are, broadly, the “mainline” Protestant denominations. 

However, the Catholic Church is holding its own in the US, while growing worldwide. Xerxes cites a decline in church attendance in Britain. But there is another story: in Britain, Catholicism has now overtaken Anglicanism in membership. Rather historic. Albeit probably fueled in large part by immigration.

 I hear reports that Eastern Orthodoxy, although small in America, seems to be holding its own, or better. 

And the Pentecostal and non-denominational evangelical churches are growing; including Assemblies of God, no small splinter group. I understand a lot of those who show up as “nones” in the stats are actually attending non-denominational churches. They may have no commitment to any specific denomination, yet be fervently Christian. The number of actual declared atheists or agnostics is actually only 4% and 5% in the US, respectively. And in the recent polls, that number is not growing.

So things are really not all that bad; I even smell a religious revival.

Xerxes suggests that the decline in numbers may be due to denominations splitting. Christian unity seems like a good thing, but I see no obvious reason why these two factors would be related. And Protestant denominations have been splintering for 500 years; this is not some recent phenomenon.

I think the most obvious reason for the mainstream decline is complacency. In prolonged peacetime and prosperity, people forget God. The last great burst of religiosity was just after the Second World War, and under the nuclear threat of the Cold War. There are no atheists in foxholes.

This would explain why the fervour is great in the Third World, yet in decline in the industrialized West.

The next cause, I suspect, for religious disaffiliation is that there are just a lot more things to do with our leisure time than there were before the Internet. Back in the day, going to church was the dress-up highlight of the family week; followed by a special meal and a Sunday drive. Toronto newspapers used to cover the sermons, in advance and in review. In smaller communities, tent revivals were the event of the year. Note there is now a decline not only in church attendance, but a comparable one in voluntary associations of all kinds: the Masons, the Oddfellows, the Legion, the Rotary Club, bridge clubs, the community band or choir. All compete now with streaming services, vast selections of free media, and video games.

The next cause, I think, and the one something can actually be done about, is that the mainline denominations have complacently focused on retaining instead of seeking members. Those not busy growing are busy dying.

A religion is, literally, a “binding.” It requires commitment. Denominations that are succeeding are denominations that make demands. Denominations that are declining are denominations that cater to whatever they think those in the pews might want.

There is no reason to belong to such a denomination. You want direction in life: you do not want to be polled and simply echoed. You might as well join a book club, or go to the gym. At least then you might be bettering yourself. 

Consider the Mormons—the fastest growing Christian denomination, if you count them as Christian. No alcohol, no coffee or tea, no premarital sex, tithing, a two-year commitment of servitude, and so forth. And they are getting the lion’s share of the converts.

You might object that non-denominational evangelical churches are, by contrast, especially loosey-goosey. No commitment to any particular theology, after all. 

But they too promise and demand a complete change in your life. The commitment is not to a particular set of dogmas or rules, but they demand a total commitment to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You must repent in tears, you must give up your old sinful habits: promiscuity, drugs, alcohol. It amounts to the same thing.

When Methodism, now the United Church, made similar demands, it was similarly popular.

Within Catholicism, the growing branches on the vine are two: those that stress “traditionalism,” with fasting, rituals and prayers, daily novenas, sexual abstinence; and the charismatic movement, which mimics pentecostal forms of worship. 

In other words, in all cases, the congregations that grow are those that give new members a mission, a meaning, and a yoke to hoist on their shoulders. 

Growing congregations do not seek to conform to or appeal to or work with the world; they seek to depart from the world, or change the world individual by individual.

This is what people want, if they want religion at all. And whether or not most people want religion, all people need religion, and it is the duty of the religious to see that it is at least on offer.

A denomination must not be just a social club; and people have less need for social clubs than they once did.

The Death Wish

 

Memento Mori

I still recall vividly a discussion I had one evening in first year university with a guy from Alberta, blonde, bearded, with granny glasses. I said that everyone had both a life wish and a death wish. He scoffed—preposterous. Nobody wants to die. And I was shocked, because I thought it was obviously true.

If my claim sounds Freudian, I did not get it from Freud. At the time, I knew little of Freud.

I meant simply that everyone secretly wants to die. There is an instinct that makes us fear death—easily explained by evolution. But there is another instinct that comes from somewhere else. 

I say the evidence is everywhere.

Everyone craves a beach vacation, a cottage on the beach, with the vast ocean before them. Why? Because they can feel apart from the world, only steps from eternity. There is a deep calm to being near the ocean.

It is the same calm one feels when walking through a cemetery.

Why do others crave a vacation or a cabin in the mountains? So they can look down on the world from above, be above all that, away from it all. Life looks small and insignificant and far away.

Why do people, for that matter, want to read novels, or watch movies? To escape, at least for a few hours, from their lives and from themselves. To forget they are there and just watch life go by, as God does. As saints in heaven would.

And why do young men actually seek risk, and danger? Why do they often eagerly sign up for war? 

The secret thrill is that they might die.

Each of us has an intuition that there is a somewhere else, a more perfect world. Each of us has an intimation that daily life is not our home. We yearn. We feel a nostalgia without knowing what for.

This, not incidentally, is behind many modern diagnoses of depression. The good doctors will always assume a desire to kill oneself or die to self is pathological, a “mental illness.” They will consider a general disappointment with the world a "mental illness."

This because they want to deny the existence of the spiritual. They act as materialist inquisitors against the heresy of idealism.

But the heart knows what it knows. Those who lack a secret death wish lack a soul.