Conspiracies

 

The flagpole at my local school.

A friend who originally emigrated from Pakistan laments that, over the past few years, his eyes have been opened: at the higher levels, Canada is no better than Pakistan. Our leadership is corrupt. His Canadian dream was only an illusion. 

His companion, Canadian-born, says the sudden appearance of “gay-pride/transgender” flags on public buildings everywhere looks to him like the swastikas appearing in Germany with the rise of the Nazis. They announce the power of an authoritarian political ideology. You will obey.

Did I mention that these two guys are gay?

They think we are doomed; that there is no way back. The best we can do is try to survive.

Who would have thought, a few years ago, that the following conspiracy theories would look plausible:

That the 2020 US election was rigged.

That the past two Canadian elections were rigged.

That the Canadian prime minister and the US president are in the pay of China.

That the Canadian government would try to control the media.

That “Canadian health care” would become a euphemism for murder.

That “Eyes Wide Shut” was a documentary? That there are pedophile rings involving the participation of the rich and famous? When a film came out about the fight against pedophile rings, there would be an effort to suppress it?

That “drag queen story hours” for children would not just be permitted, but made mandatory?

That the CIA shot JFK. Maybe RFK? Maybe MLK? How about John Lennon? One former CIA operative has confessed to killing Bob Marley. Has the US effectively been run by a dark cabal since the 1960s?

That we were all forced to inject ourselves with an experimental vaccine that had not been properly tested.

That the pharmaceutical companies are prepared to suppress effective medicines for the sake of profit.

That some conspiracy can have enemies suicided at will, even within a high-level prison, and then can prevent an investigation.

That UFOs have been real all along; but the government has been suppressing this fact. 

That the FBI is engaged in such activities as suppressing news for partisan political purposes.

That there is a conspiracy between government, the media, and big tech to impose censorship and control the news.

And on it goes.

Given that last one, that news is being suppressed, all conspiracy theories now become plausible. We  know there are conspiracies. We know we are not being told the truth. Which conspiracies are real is anyone’s guess. There can no longer be any public trust in our institutions.

My own thoughts are still optimistic. I think we are seeing the thrashing about of a beast in its death throes. Social media makes conspiracies harder now to conceal, and we are beginning to see behind the curtain. At the same time, a depraved ideology that traces roots back to the 19th century, variously known as postmodernism, relativism, critical theory, existentialism, fascism, or the New Left, is reaching the point of reductio ad absurdum, slipperly slopes being real and really slippery, and the common people are beginning to see how mad it is. 

And the convoys are coming.

I still believe there is a way back, and the future will be better than the past.

Pandemonium

 

Canute explains global warming to his courtiers.

It is exhausting dealing with other Canadians; because most Canadians are insane. They believe in delusions. We noted the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental illness last post. It is nonsensical at best, yet over 85% of Canadians buy it.

Other examples abound. The average Canadian accepts as true that there has been a huge conspiracy in all cultures throughout history to oppress women. But they scorn "conspiracy theories" out of hand.  They believe that homosexuality is inborn, although this violates the Theory of Evolution, which they also believe. Any gene for homosexuality would be bred out within two generations. They believe that American Indians lived in peace and comfort until the evil Europeans arrived with their agriculture, technology, and law enforcement: the “noble savage” myth. They believe that building schools for the Indians was oppressive, demanding apology and reparations. They believe that a man can decide to be a woman; or be a woman because they believe so. But even though it is all in the mind, and biology doesn’t matter, it is still essential to give hormone blockers and cut off their genitals to suit. They believe, as King Canute never did, that the government of Canada can order the tides not to rise, or the equivalent: "global warming." Canada can apparently fix global warming with a carbon tax, though industry can simply move to China. They believe that by raising the price of carbon, the tax will cause everyone to use less of it. But a minimum wage, by raising the price of labour, will not cause anyone to use less of it. 

They believe, and will say in so many words, that there is no objective reality. 

This is the definition of insanity. It means no rational conversation is possible. How does one respond when talking to a madman? Just nod your head and back away? The main concern is that they may become violent.

Not a pleasant intellectual climate.

I think Jung had it right that the human mind is easily drawn by “archetypes” away from reality.

I may be too optimistic, but I feel not everyone is as crazy as Canadians are. I lived in the Philippines for years, and with a Filipina longer, and I do not think Filipinos are nearly as crazy.

I think the clue is in Chesterton’s observation that “those who stop believing in God will believe in anything.” We need meaning, and if we reject God, we will deify almost anything: science, nature, sex, Adolf Hitler, you name it. Call them archetypes, idols, pagan gods; it is the same thing. The Filipinos avoid this because they still, most of them, believe in God. Those who don’t are still kept relatively sane by those who do.

Most of the rest of us are spinning out of control. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

The Empire Gets Struck Back

 

I attended an exhibition yesterday at the Art Gallery of Ontario: “Faith and Fortune: Art across the Global Spanish Empire.” Faith was a draw for me; and my wife is from the Philippines. I have a thing for Hispanic concepts of beauty. So I had to have a look.

They had paintings by Goya, and El Greco, and Velasquez. Not great paintings by Goya, El Greco, or Velasquez, and none of them are much to my taste. Nevertheless, the artistry was magnificent. The religious statuary was exceptional. This is a Spanish and Portuguese specialty, in my experience. I would have liked to see more examples of cultural mixing, especially from South America. This felt oddly lacking; perhaps because it would be “cultural appropriation.” Perhaps because it would suggest that the Spanish and the various native peoples were not in constant conflict and struggle for power. They had a room full of early daguerrotypes of the Philippines. I was not impressed; daguerrotypes are designed to be looked at in print, not in an exhibit hall, and are more accessible online, without bending and squinting. The audio guide explained that they were taken by Spaniards, and so there was a need for Filipinos to “decolonize” and take possession of them. 

Martha and Mary

In the real world, of course, most Filipinos have some Spanish or European ancestry.

The audio guide was jammed with Critical Theory. The Spanish Empire was unambiguously an evil exploitation and corruption of indigenous cultures. This ignores the basic principle that any government, and an empire more widely than others, keeps the peace. The Roman Empire ushered in a millennium of “Pax Romana,” sorely missed when it fell. The British Empire produced a century or so of “Pax Britannica.” Even if you accept the Edenic myth that the happy natives were not, on the whole, enslaving one another, starving in large numbers, committing genocide, fighting endless wars, and so forth—something the exhibit expressly dismisses as Imperial propaganda--the Spanish imposition of peace and commerce over such a large area was probably to most people’s benefit.

I note also that, rather than similarly condemning the Muslim conquest of Spain, ended only in the year Columbus discovered America, the audio guide simply notes that “Muslims arrived in the peninsula in 711.” This particular empire, the Muslim Caliphate, supposedly brought peace and happiness in which all lived together in peace and harmony. 

Only Christian empires are bad, apparently.

Christianity is referred to as a “Western” doctrine, supposedly imposed on Spain’s new subjects. No awareness, it seems, that Christianity itself comes from Asia, and, from the Spanish perspective, the distant East. 

While there were, inevitably, religious statues and images of all sorts in the exhibition, the signage and the audio never spoke of faith. It was all about power. Saints were identified, towards the bottom of the signage, but in a cursory way. “Saint Michael represents good fighting evil.” “Saint X was martyred during a time when Christianity was illegal.” 

In one display box, four statues were identified as the four possibilities after death: heaven, purgatory, hell, and a skeleton to represent “the death of the body.” This was to my mind the most striking piece, and the one used for the Exhibit’s promotional materials.

The four fates of the soul.

But one of these four is not like the other ones. And Christianity does not ultimately believe in the death of the body, for those who go to heaven, hell, or purgatory. Rather, as the curators of the exhibition were presumably too theologically illiterate to know, the skeleton probably represents those who die unbaptized but without personal sin—the animal death.

The audio guide features a local artist of Filipino extraction and unconventional sexual preferences—all the voices heard were from non-Spanish ethnic minorities, and several of them identified themselves as gay or queer or the like. He (or she, or whatever) was celebrating the fact that Santo Nino, the patron saint of the southern Philippines, is sexually androgynous. This is counter to fact: Santo Nino is the baby Jesus. There is no room for sexual ambiguity in the very name: “Santo Nino” is masculine. The feminine would be “Santa Nina.”

Leaving, I had to thread my way through walls of gay pornography. “Blurred Boundaries: Queer Visions in Canadian Art.” 

Great idea—take your kids to the gallery and develop an appreciation for art?

No longer. Grooming.

Our established institutions have become illiterate and immoral, and we can no longer trust them to tell the truth.

Send Out the Clowns

 

Graffito, Paris, 1968

Although she claimed on the stand that all she wanted was to put it all behind her, and she wished Johnny could do the same, Amber Heard refuses to put it all behind her. She continues to dog Johnny Depp on social media, claiming her defeat in court was a grave injustice to herself and for all women. Important elements of the legacy media, including the New York Times, seem to be taking the same stand. Ignoring the judgement of nine jurors who heard the evidence, and indeed of the vast majority of those who watched the trial online, they still insist that Heard was abused by Depp.

The problem is that, to the narcissist, the only definition of good and evil is that “good” is whatever is good for me, and “evil” is whatever is not. Accordingly, it is good to maintain that something untrue is true, if the lie is good for me. If it is best for women that we should believe all women, any evidence to the contrary must be declared evil and shouted down. And it does not matter what happens to any male as a result.

The issue is obvious to me because I grew up with narcissistic parents. I recall as late as my late twenties still trying to reconstruct, in light of my childhood, what “good” really meant, and what “real” meant. Any child of a narcissistic parent is bound to be confused on this, because what they have been taught is both wrong and, to anyone other than the narcissist, incoherent. What is good is whatever is good for my parent? What is real is whatever my parent says is real? Despite my senses, despite reason?

Living in the latter half of the 20th century, or the 21st, does not help. There is a narcissistic philosophy permeating society and its institutions, postmodernism or critical theory, sometimes called cultural Marxism. I can trace it back at least as far as the Frankfurt School. I think the Frankfurt School was a continuation in turn of a philosophy found in Nazism. A bit of graffiti seen during the Paris uprisings in 1968 read “Beware! Even the ears have walls!” The rebellion was against any concept of reality itself. Freedom meant freedom to invent and have “your own truth.”

Graffito, Paris, 1968

“Reality is a function of belief.” I remember that as a watchword back then; I thought it came from Kierkegaard, but perhaps not. Or Blake: “a firm persuasion that a thing is so, makes it so.”

It was seductive, and I was myself at least half seduced in grad school.

But thinking this is insanity, straight up; and sanity is being aware of the good and the true. 

We live today in a world gone mad.

The Joy of Learning

 

Further remarks from the Beaches-East York All-Candidates Meeting on May 12:

I have spent my life in and around education. You’d think by now I would have learned something.

More than that, I’m a father. Education matters to me deeply. 

Simply spending more money on schools is not much help.

As of 2022, Ontario spends $14,821 per pupil. That’s in line with other provinces, more than the US, more than Finland or Korea or Singapore, all of which do better on the OECD’s measures of student success. 

Yet the schools are in crisis.

Why do the rich send their children to private schools? Why do private schools consistently get better results with less money? Why do homeschoolers get better results?

The most urgent matter is to get Critical Theory out of the schools, and keep it out. 

New Blue has been the leader in alerting us to this issue. Every other party endorsed Bill 67 on second reading, and Bill 67 would actually mandate Critical Theory in our schools and colleges at every level.

Aside from destroying civil society, Critical Theory makes education itself meaningless. If you believe there is no objective truth, there is nothing to teach, and nothing to learn. Everyone just makes up whatever they want to believe, and tries to impose it on others. 

Or their students.

This is the emergency. But over the longer term, the way to improve education is to introduce competition.

New Blue wants tax credits to allow more parents to choose their children’s education. 

Since at least the early 20th century, our public schools have not been designed to produce excellence. They have been designed to produce workers for industry. The rich can sent their kids to private schools that teach leadership, and this perpetuates class divisions.

Most of the work of my own online academy is teaching students the skills the public schools will not teach.

We need to level this playing field. 

Could we not fix the public system? To some extent, no doubt; but this will take more time, tears, and sweat. The forces against this are entrenched and powerful. In the meantime, too many young minds will be wasted. 

And even if we can, school choice is needed in a pluralistic society. 

Our founders and our constitution understood this. Diversity is our strength. So we have the separate school system, originally one system for Catholics, and another for Protestants. 

But two systems are hardly adequate any longer. They are laughably inadequate. We need to extend equal rights to other faiths and life philosophies. Values are the core of education, and parents must be able to pass their values on to the next generation. This is what parenting is about.

Let’s bring the joy of true learning to the schools.

Why I Run

 

Last evening, at an all-candidates meeting, someone asked for the transcript of my opening speech. And so I reproduce it here. Not exactly as I spoke it, but as I meant to speak it; I had to abbreviate for time.

Unaccustomed as I am to speaking to live people these days instead of on Zoom…

I watched the leaders’ debate from North Bay a couple of evenings ago.

Why did it remind me of professional wrestling?

Did anyone else see that? Was it just me?

Was any of that real?

Down to business.

Why is New Blue for you?

I expect some of you have never heard of it. 

New Blue is a broad coalition of conservatives and liberals; or libertarians, as they are sometimes called these days; but really, liberals.

Blue for conservatives, like the old Quebec Parti Bleu, 

Gold for liberals, like the Liberal Democrats in the UK.

We believe in equality and human rights. We believe in parliamentary democracy.

I hope at least some of you will be surprised. 

Don’t we all support that? 

Don’t all parties support that?

New Blue grew because a bunch of us think they no longer do. 

We think the PC party is no longer conservative. 

The Liberal party is no longer liberal. 

The NDP no longer cares about the working class. 

They have abandoned it all for a new idol, sometimes called Critical Theory, or postmodernism, or cultural Marxism. It is all the same, or each is a tentacle of the same thing.

It is what is behind all you hear these days about pulling down statues, renaming universities, calling Canada racist, and trying to silence open discussion and dissent.

Critical Theory makes three claims: 

that race is essential to a person’s identity;

that there is no objective truth; 

and that all social relations are about power.

Believing that race is the core of one’s identity is racism. 

Believing there is no objective truth is insanity.

Believing that all social interactions are about power ends in a war of all against all to the last person standing—who will be the most ruthless and most powerful. 

If there is no truth, the only way to deal with someone who disagrees with you is to silence them.

I did not especially want to run for public office. I’m busy as a college instructor, editor, and writer, now managing my own online academy. I’m a husband and a father. I wish I could spend time with my family. But these are not ordinary times. These are the times that try men’s souls, and in such times one has a civic duty.

 I run because no one else was running for New Blue here in Beaches-East York. If I did not run, there was no one to vote for.

I have lived in Toronto on and off since 1982, but also in other countries: the Philippines, South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia---and in Wuhan China back in 1992. 

I swear I had nothing to do with the coronavirus. 

This has given me some perspective on what we have here in Ontario, and what we could lose. 

I am a past president of the Editors’ Association of Canada, a past director of the Book and Periodical Council of Canada, and advised on the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing.

More importantly, I have two kids, Francis and Maryanne. They and their mother are currently trapped in the Philippines by the pandemic and the mandates. They have been trapped there for three years. I am missing their adolescence, and they are missing their studies.

I run for them and for their future. And for all our children.

Getting an Education at OCAD

 

OCAD's appropriately postmodern architecture.

Noticed recently: a job ad for OCAD University’s English Department. It is jarring to see the courses for which they want instructors. English lit is no longer about what you think it is.

COURSE TITLE: ENGL-2003 POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course looks at national and transnational literatures in a comparative perspective, focusing particularly on constructs of nation, gender, colonialism, and difference. Its aim is to imagine multiple literary times and spaces grounded in different parts of the world and in their different histories. That is, rather than creating a snapshot or conducting a literary tour of the world, this course seeks to refuse an easy commodification of Literature as a global product. All texts will be studied in their original English or in English translation.

To look at “postcolonial” writing from non-Western cultures is to severely limit one’s exposure to foreign culture and foreign ideas. These are necessarily drawn only from the postwar period, and are in the Western idiom, written by authors educated in the West.

Students should be exposed instead to Rumi, Li Bai, Basho, the Ramayana, and the like. That would give them a non-Western perspective. That’s the last thing they’ll get here.

And the focus is to be on “nation, gender, colonialism, and difference.” Only contemporary concerns of the political left. No new ideas or new cultural perspectives to be risked here. 

COURSE TITLE: ENGL-2011 LITERATURE AND SOCIAL CHANGE

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course takes a close look at the relationship between literature and concerns for equity, sustainability and social justice, focusing on the ways writers, artists and intellectuals work as agents for social change. The course discusses representations of topics such as dis/ability; gender, sexual and racial equity; labour activism; demands for Indigenous sovereignty; critiques of settler colonialism; postcolonial struggles against empire; and calls for environmental preservation. Texts are disciplinarily diverse and may be performative as well as written. Forms include comics, nonfiction, fiction, poetry and more.

All politics, no literature. “Texts may be performative.” 

COURSE TITLE: ENGL-2012 TRANS AND QUEER LITERATURE

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, we explore the ways in which sexualities, gender identities and sexual politics are addressed in literature. Texts will be by transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, two-spirit, queer and asexual creators, and will reflect the complicated nature of queer life. Intersectionality will be a guiding principle, as we examine ways race, gender, language, culture and disability justice intersect within representations of queer life across a variety of literary forms, such as fiction, nonfiction and memoir, poetry, drama and comics.

The subject matter is of obvious interest to, at a maximum, three percent of the population, in aggregate. The texts are also limited to that same three percent. Realistically from only the last couple of decades as well, because before that there was no market for gay lit. Yet this course is apparently offered every semester. One suspects the primary objective is to give sexual adventurers of various types an opportunity to meet, identify their preferences, and hook up.

Then finally something that almost looks sensible. They want someone to teach a course in Children’s Literature. An important and neglected field.

But you have to know that critical theory has a special focus on Children’s Literature. For the obvious sinister reason: they want to indoctrinate, and they think the best approach is to get them as young as they can.

COURSE TITLE: ENGL-2010 CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course aims to answer the question: What is children's literature? The course will survey children's fiction, poetry, and picture-books to introduce students to a wide range of children's literature. We will examine different cultural and critical approaches to this field in relation to cultural interpretations of childhood and gender. As we discuss the social and political visions put forth in these texts, we will consider the effects of publishing and the media (for example, the Harry Potter films) on the field of contemporary children's literature. Our analysis of genre will include the study of the relationship between text and illustration. Course readings may include works by Carroll, The Brothers Grimm, Lewis, Rowling, Seuss, and others.

“As we discuss the social and political visions put forth in these texts.” The important thing about children’s literature is its political vision. Obviously, children and their own interests are of no concern here.

And OCAD is not unusual; I have seen similar course descriptions at Queen’s, for example.

The very least we can do is pull all taxpayer funding.

Orwell Just Got the Date Wrong

 

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

-- George Orwell, 1984

The Day My Mama Socked It to the Loudon County PTA

 

There was a dustup a day or so ago at a school board meeting in Loudon Country, Virginia—a large number of parents came out to protest critical race theory, and were shut down by the board. It seems that the general public was unaware of just what was going on in the schools—perhaps until the pandemic let them listen in on their children’s classes—and now that they know, there is a backlash. With luck, it will carry the day.

But critical race theory is just one tentacle of an academic octopus called critical theory. It has really been around for a long time, and has spread far beyond the public schools, in one form or another. It was around already when I was in grad school back in the 1970s, although it did not have the name “critical theory” yet. I think it has been around, in essence, at least since Nietzsche.

A recent journal article gives an overview of the state of the field. It is no doubt not unimpeachable, but it is at least from the Trojan horse’s mouth: a declared critical theorist.

Our author, a professor at the University of British Columbia, identifies three intellectual strands making up “critical teory”: postmodernism, Marxism, and postcolonialism. He does not include feminism. Feminism and critical theory used to be conjoined, but there has been a recent falling out. The goals of feminism clash with the goals of transgenderism, and transgenderism has won the intersectionality sweeps. Feminism requires the assumption that there are such things as women. Postmodernism will not allow the premise.

Postmodernism holds that nothing is real. We just make things up as convenient. In the words of the present author, “meanings are neither fixed nor singular, but rather multiple and ever-shifting.”

Marxism insists that everything is at the group or social level, and everything is about power. In the words of our author, Marxism “thinks in binary terms between the oppressor and the oppressed,” and everyone must be one or the other.

Traditionally, Marxism sees this in economic terms, with the bourgeoisie as the oppressors, and the proletariat as the oppressed. Postcolonialism switches this to race instead of class. If anything is less than desirable in the world, as determined by whomever wields the arbitrary power to determine it (for nothing, according to postmodernism, can ever be good or bad in itself)  it is the fault of “Whites” or “Europeans.” For they are uniquely “colonizers.”

Put together and examined in this way, it is the very same ideology as Nazism, with “Whites” replacing “Jews” as racial scapegoats.

It is, of course, aside from being malicious, malicious nonsense.  

Postmodernism is immediately self-contradictory. The present author, for example, ponders the question, “What does criticality really mean?”--without realizing the question is now nonsensical. There are no meanings, and is no “really,“ according to criticality.

Marxism, rather than being immediately self-contradictory, is merely disproven. Marx’s plan was to put the study and management of society on a “scientific” basis: Marxism was “scientific socialism.” 

The proof of any scientific contention is in its ability to predict: this is what experiment is about. But every prediction made by Marx about the subsequent course of human history has been false. He expected a growing proletariat, and a shrinking bourgeoisie. The opposite has happened. He postulated growing wealth inequality. The opposite has happened. He anticipated a worldwide revolution led by the proletariat, happening first in the most developed countries. Nowhere has this happened, including in Russia or China. By scientific standards, he was simply wrong.

Postcolonialism maintains that colonization and empire are a uniquely European creation. This is easily disproven by a study of history. Most parts of the world have been empires and colonies throughout recorded time. The peculiarly European innovation was the nation state—in a word, postcolonialism is what Europe brought to the world. Leaving “postcolonialism” arguing against itself.

Where has such obvious nonsense come from? 

I suggest it is from the secularization of our education system. Until perhaps a hundred years ago, or roughly until Darwinism became popular, the universities and the schools were founded on religious principles. This sense of cosmic direction is necessary for education to work: if you do not know where you are going, you cannot know how to get there. Theology was Queen of the sciences, and the most advanced academic degree was “doctor of philosophy.”

But somewhere about the turn of the 20th century, that place was taken by physical science. Physical science is inadequate to the task. It is simply a tool, and offers no goal or meaning or reasons. 

Since then, we have seen the emergence of a series of “scientific” pseudo-religions to fill the vacuum: Freudian psychology, fascism-Nazism, Marxism, and so forth. Each has, after a few decades, failed in turn. Critical theory is basically the current synthesis. Marxism, disproven by science, has been put on life support by asserting, through postmodernism, that science itself is of no value. Postmodernism is nonsense, but postmodernism refuses to acknowledge sense. Postcolonialism allows all standards failed by either postmodern theory or Marxist theory to be dismissed as a racist white cultural imposition.

It actually smells very much like desperation. I would be surprised not to see it all collapse within the next few years.

Unpacking Postmodern Morality

 

An analysis of a longer passage by my friend Xerxes, elaborating on his claim that “No one does something knowing that it’s wrong.” It is important, because it sums up postmodern morality, and postmodern morality seems to be taking over even mainstream Christianity.

First, his position:

“You assume that the perp will recognize that something is wrong, because the rest of us think it's wrong. Conscience has nothing to do with it. The Mafia will murder because that's the way they settle things. For them, it's right. The Ponzi scheme organizer doesn't believe he's doing wrong -- his job is to make money, and the effect on others is immaterial. You yourself refer to the narcissist killing because other people are happy; if it makes him feel better, he will think it's right. You shouldn't assume that because YOU know it's wrong, someone else will also hold that belief.”

It is a little unclear to me whether he is advocating the full-on postmodernist view that there is no right and wrong, but truth is negotiated into being, “constructed,” by groups and society; or that groups can indeed be morally right or wrong, there is such a thing as objective morality, but individuals can never know what it is—their thinking is entirely conditioned by their social group.

The problem with the latter position is, of course, that he must be equally unable to know right from wrong.

But let’s look at each of his sentences in turn, and try to puzzle it out.

“Conscience has nothing to do with it.” “It” seems to mean “our actions.” So he does seem to be denying there is such a thing as conscience, no innate knowledge of right and wrong.  Notions of right and wrong seem to come from doing what those around you do—the Mafia example. But then, not necessarily. The lone individual also has the right to declare whatever “makes him feel better” an absolute moral good.

As to morality being “constructed” by the group, I refer to the Bible:

 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Non-Christians are free to reject the Bible, but if you accept its authority, so long as we are just doing what we see others do, we are on the road to destruction. We must make moral judgements for ourselves, not just follow the crowd, or we are objectively immoral. And I think in the end the truth of this is evident to pure reason. If you just do what others do, you are actually avoiding any moral choices.

“The Mafia will murder because that’s the way they settle things. For them, it’s right.”

Mafia types have no awareness that it is wrong to murder? That kills the premise of Godfather 3, in which Michael Corleone seeks redemption for his evil life. It also makes the Nuremberg trials illegitimate. The Nazis were just doing what they thought was right, and what was approved by their society. Indeed, as soon as you accept the phrase “for them, it’s right,” different rights for different people, there is no basis for judging any act more moral than any other. Morality is just whatever is imposed by those in power. There is no option but to bully or be bullied.

You could pull back and say: “No, morality is objective. Nevertheless, the Mafia sincerely if erroneously believed that murder, extortion, and theft were moral. So they cannot be blamed.” But if you accept even this weaker claim, now how can you know that it is them who are wrong, and you who are right? Perhaps you have it backwards.

“The Ponzi scheme organizer doesn’t believe he’s doing wrong—his job is to make money, and the effect on others is immaterial”

Surely this argues it is moral to pursue your own self-interest, and not care about others. Yet this is immoral by definition. The Golden Rule is found almost word for word in every moral tradition: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or frame it as Augustine did: “Love, and do what you will.” Kant demonstrated that the basis of morality is self-evidently true, a categorical imperative: we must treat others as an end, not a means; we must act only in ways we could wish all others to act. If you are looking out for your own self-interest and not caring what this does to others, you cannot pretend to be acting morally.

“You yourself refer to the narcissist killing because other people are happy; if it makes him feel better, he will think it's right.”

This seems to say that whatever makes you feel good is right. If you enjoy murdering strangers or raping women, what right has anyone else to judge? 

To the contrary, one is only acting morally when acting against your own self-interest or what makes you feel good.  Otherwise, as Jesus says, “you already have your reward.” There would never be a conflict, and there would be no possibility of sin in the world.

Eve looked at the apple, saw that it was good to eat, and desirable for bestowing wisdom. How could anyone suggest she did wrong?

Abel had provoked Cain by being happy. How could anyone blame Cain?

St. Paul understands life differently:

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” – Romans 7: 18-9.

Morality is a struggle between animal desires and raw selfishness, on the one hand, and the duty to love others.

“You shouldn't assume that because YOU know it's wrong, someone else will also hold that belief.”

This seems to assume that anything anyone believes to be true must be true. “True for them,” in the hackneyed postmodernist phrase.

If, then, someone does not believe in gravity, gravity does not apply to them. I would not try that at home.

For a thing to be sinful, the perpetrator must know it is wrong. Not to realize this is a legitimate possibility: a small child, for example, is not responsible for their actions.

But if, as noted, the core of morality is so simple as “do unto others,” there is very little scope for sincerely and with good intentions not grasping the concept. Even severely mentally retarded folks can grasp this. 

We are also morally obliged to educate ourselves and reason over our acts to avoid sin; for the same reason that “criminal negligence” is a crime, and “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” To not continually make the effort is immoral in itself.

The Alarming Danger of a Return to Saniity

 

Many people are alarmed about Critical Race Theory in the schools; as in the “1619 Project,” which teaches that America was founded on the institution of slavery. But perhaps you do not realize that Critical Race Theory is just one tentacle of a kraken named Critical Theory that has suckered in far more than the public schools.

I have found a useful overview and summary, written by two declared Critical Theorists, in Critical Inquiry in Language Studies. 

The first and perhaps most important point to take from the paper is that the critical theorists themselves are running scared. One recent CT essay abstract ends with dire word of “a new imperative for survival in what are for many volatile and risky political and media community and civic environments.” The present piece’s abstract concludes: “it is necessary to confront neoliberalism as a new kind of domination.”

Neoliberalism means free market economics and human rights. Its heyday is commonly thought to be the Reagan/Thatcher years. There has been a lot of water under the Potomac bridges since then, and it is not clear that water has been rising. The Democrats just took two houses and the presidency; Trudeau’s Liberals are hunkered down in Canada. The Tories have been crushing it in the UK. In terms of visible politics, a mixed bag.

So how to account for this sense of embattlement? Rather than the votes, I suspect that the Critical Theorists feel they are losing the argument. Neoliberalism is not rising so much as that CT is collapsing, in a logical more than a political sense.

For later in the essay, the authors lament that CT has not accomplished anything.

“Has the increased recognition of critical language studies led to any concrete social change?

The answer is probably no.”

The article diagnoses that Critical Theory has been failing to make proper outreach to educate others. Yet this is an odd claim considering that it monopolizes the schools and universities. Most critical theorists spend most of their day educating undergraduates in their views. The explanation has to be, not that the arguments are not being made, but that they are not convincing. Too few students are genuinely buying the joy juice. Semi-aware that their essential premises are not salvageable, they turn to shouting them louder and more often as the only alternative. Along with suppressing any other voices.

Critical theory is doomed: take it from the horse’s mouth.

Critical Theory in Fairyland

 

The Wicked Queen and her magic mirror

Critical theory is the hottest thing in academia and in education. As “critical race theory,” it has drawn fire in the US, condemned by Trump.

The name suggests it is about teaching critical thinking. It is not; although the name seems to have been chosen to encourage that misunderstanding. It is about being critical of all established culture and social structures. Why? Because they foster oppression. The underlying premise that all human interactions are power relationships, and so culture and social structures are inevitably designed to oppress.

This means there is no conceivable social structure that is not oppressive; for it is ruled out of court that this might be true of any existing structure. Either we must go back to the law of the jungle, or else the only issue is who gets to dominate whom. Which amounts to the same thing.

Put another way, the terminal point to critical theory is to justify any conceivable action by whomever is currently in power. It is the lifting of all restraints on the powerful.

The doctrine has now filtered down to the kindergarten level. One of my Korean grad students today brought in an article on teaching fairy tales in Korea; it is part of the prescribed Korean national curriculum for three- to five-year-olds. It is overtly based on critical theory. Last year, I was obliged to teach a critical theory interpretation of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” because it was part of the prescribed US curriculum.

Actual fairy tales are not taught, except for context. The premise is that they are already known by the children. Instead, the plan is to attack “stereotypes” and “concepts” in them “that have been taken for granted.” This is done by reading and teaching “parodies,” in which the premises of the original tale are inverted.

In the US case, the wolf turned out to be a vegetarian.

There seem to be several dubious ideas here. To begin with, a three-to-five-year-old takes precious little for granted. They have had little time to develop stereotypes about anything. If the original tales seem old and formulaic to the teacher, they will be much fresher to the students. 

Secondly, by their nature, fairy tales are unlikely to produce stereotypes or encourage taking anything for granted. It is the essential premise of fairyland that it is where magic happens, and nothing can be assumed. 

It also seems dubious that the children really do know the original fairy tale that well. They probably know the Disney version, not the classic version of the tale from Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. Even few adults have read the latter. Why not read them, rather than these parodies?

Given this, what are the stereotypes that critical theory finds oppressive?

One cited “parody,” “Tomboy Snow White and Stylish Prince,” addresses gender roles; which, apparently, the original story of Snow White reinforced.

Yet there is little interaction described in Grimms’ story between Snow White and the prince. Here is their entire history together:

And before long she opened her eyes, lifted up the lid of the coffin, sat up, and was once more alive. 

“Oh, heavens, where am I?” she cried. 

The King’s son, full of joy, said, “You are with me,” and told her what had happened, and said, “I love you more than everything in the world; come with me to my father’s palace, you shall be my wife.”

And Snow White was willing, and went with him, and their wedding was held with great show and splendour.

Is the problem that Snow White stays home and keeps house for the dwarfs? In the original story, she is seven years old. Should she be down the mines?

Snow White’s stepmother, the Wicked Queen, is shown in command of the realm—a husband, the King, is not mentioned. She commands the huntsman, and he must obey.

Usually, fairy tales have female protagonists. They are told from the female point of view.

The paper that my student brought in asserts that the problem is “stereotypes of wolves and stepmothers.” “Absolutism of the good and bad characters.” “A dichotomous way of thinking.”

Stereotypes of wolves and stepmothers? Using a talking animal as villain actually avoids stereotyping anyone. It is not prejudice against wolves to see them as carnivores. Nor is prejudice against dwarfs, giants, witches, or trolls a clear and present danger—these are, as they appear in the tales, imaginary literary creations to personify the character traits being condemned. Can you stereotype a stereotype? Is it prejudice against Cookie Monster to say he is a glutton?

Absolutism of good and bad characters? The original stories never present their hero or heroine as absolutely moral. Goldilocks is a fable warning against theft and trespassing. Red Riding Hood is a fable warning against dallying and talking to strangers. Cinderella stays too late at the ball and loses her shoe.

Conversely, characters that appear to be bad often turn out, in fairy tales, to be good or sympathetic: Beast, in Beauty and the Beast. The huntsman or the dwarfs, in Snow White. The giant’s wife, in Jack and the Beanstalk. 

A dichotomous way of thinking? Making distinctions, as Aristotle showed, is the essence of thinking itself. A thing is either A or not-A. 

Rather, there seems to be one particular dichotomy that is under attack: not the premise that any character can be absolutely good or all bad, but the idea of an absolute difference between good and bad.

This is, as Chesterton pointed out, the underlying theme of all fairy tales: the need to discern between right and wrong. It explains why critical theory has singled them out for attack:

Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard’s wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world rush out at her. 

Such moral constraints protect the weak from the strong; codes of chivalry, noblesse oblige. To the powerful, they are of course troublesome.

The subtitles of “parodies” cited in the Korean study tell the tale: “The Story of Cinderella as Told by the Wicked Stepmother.” “The Story of Snow White as Told by the Dwarfs.” “The Story of Red Riding Hood as Told by the Wolf.” “The Story of Jack and the Beanstalk as Told by the Giant.” “The Story of Goldilocks as Told by the Baby Bear.”

Accusing the tales of supporting the powers that be is perverse. 

Where do these stories come from? All accounts, from earliest times, attest that they were collected originally from poor working class women. 

They express, in other words, the voices of the voiceless: women, the illiterate, children, the poor, the weakest members of society.

This is why the protagonist is usually female. This is why the protagonist is usually a child. This is why in them, Kings and Queens are usually bad sorts—the one social class regularly criticized. See “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “Puss in Boots,” “Hans the Hedgehog,” “Rumpelstiltskin.”

This is the voice critical theory wants to silence: the weak. This is who civilization and morality exists to protect.

Got to Get Us Back to the Garden...

Marcuse

What’s this madness we are now calling Critical Theory? I know something of it, since it attracted me too back in the 1970s. It is an attitude that has been with us throughout history, and no doubt before. 

Terence Corcoran’s recent article in the National Post mentions Herbert Marcuse. He was indeed a major voice for the tendency then, as was Norman O. Brown, and Aldous Huxley.

Marcuse’s thinking was encapsulated by a graffito said to have appeared during the Paris Uprising in 1968. “Beware—even the ears have walls.”

Cool. Very Sixties. We were born to bliss; but had all been trapped by mind-forged manacles. “If the doors of perception were cleansed,” as William Blake had put it, “everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

Aldous Huxley loved and used that quote, as he promoted the recreational use of LSD; it inspired the name of “The Doors.”

Norman O. Brown’s pitch was similar: we had somehow tricked ourselves into seeing only certain parts of our body as erogenous. We must recover the sexuality of it all, of all things, and live in a constant state of orgasm.

You can perhaps see the attraction. You can see how some people would get violent in the service of such a goal, and view anything that seemed to stand in the way of it as “fascism.”

What stands in the way of it, ultimately, is anything beyond the unknowing wonder of a newborn child. Civilization was a terrible blunder. Any assumptions about the nature of reality are oppressive. Thoughts of right and wrong, of morality, are only efforts to control. Logic itself is oppressive.

Hard to argue against that, because being illogical, nonsensical, or self-contradictory simply does not matter. In fact, the simple act of arguing against it is oppressive.

The image, in conventional terms, is of returning to the state of the Garden of Eden.

 

And the Judeo-Christian tradition has its response, for this is an eternal desire. The way back is barred; the goal, though it might seem infinitely desirable, is impossible. And it is impossible because of sin.

What sobered me up personally was the movie “A Man for All Seasons.” There is an exchange in it between St. Thomas More and the young hotblood, Will Roper:

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

 

We cannot go back, any more than we can crawl back into the womb. The only way is forward to something new, a city on a hill. 

And trying to knock down all the fences is, intentionally or not, doing the Devil’s work, and allowing him to range free.

Critical Theory

Rousseau, Mill, Hobbes

Terence Corcoran has written a piece on Critical Theory for the National Post.

I’m familiar enough with Critical Theory. Marcuse was a thing back in first year undergrad, and I watched it grow like fungus through grad school. I nearly smoked that mushroom myself. I’m currently working through it online with a doctoral student.

I say Corcoran doesn’t quite have a fix on it. He sees it as a rejection of the Enlightenment. That’s what Critical Theorists themselves say; but this is just the cover story.

Corcoran’s article illustrates “the Enlightenment” with pictures of Rousseau, Mill, and Hobbes. Rousseau believed civilization was on the whole a mistake; reason was a mistake. Mill was what we would today call a libertarian. Hobbes was a materialist who believed the only right the individual had against his government was to commit suicide.

Very different ideas. Some of which sound rather like Critical Theory. So what does it mean to “reject the Enlightenment,” or “reject Enlightenment ideals”?

The Enlightenment was not some unified movement, but just a time of questioning established ideas. All kinds of ideas emerged as a result. All of us have rejected some, and agree with some others.

Corcoran is right to see Marxism as a foundation of Critical Theory. But this explains nothing; it only raises questions. Marxism is not a virus: it cannot be caught by sitting in a class, it has to be chosen. Why does it command the schools, the universities, now the press and civil service, so many young minds, supposedly the best minds, and why is it still apparently growing?

Marxism ought to be thoroughly dead by now. All Marx’s predictions have turned out to be wrong. That was clear by 1917. Marxism should have been discredited again when Khrushchev publicly denounced Stalin. It should have been discredited when the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet bloc broke. Nazism has been utterly and forever discredited by the Holocaust: Marxism has produced larger holocausts, yet is not discredited?

It is also true, as Corcoran emphasizes, that Critical Theory condemns individualism, and promotes collectivism. Hence “race theory,” and the construction of an elaborate caste system under the term “intersectionality.” Hence too issues like cultural relativism and cultural appropriation.

But individualism is not a product of the Enlightenment. Individualism was always required by Christianity: the concept of free will requires it. The individual is the moral unit.

Merriam-Webster acknowledges this in defining the term. Individualism: “a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount.” “The conception that all values, rights, and duties originate in individuals.”

Individualism is not even a “western” thing. Buddhism and Taoism are radically individualistic. All true morality requires individualism. This is why the Devil is often understood as multiple: pandemonium; “My name is Legion.” The social power, in the New Testament, is in his control. 

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.’”

This is the key that unlocks Critical Theory: it is all and simply a dodge to escape ethical demands.

Marxism is useful because it denies the existence of any objective morality. And it endorses sloth and envy. Freudianism, a second pillar of Critical Theory, is similarly useful because it denies the existence of objective morality, and endorses lust. Hence the emphasis on sex, LGBTQ and “gender” issues.

Put simply, “Critical Theory” is simply evil. It is the eternal temptation to behave badly.

It cannot end well.

Sympathy for the Devil?

We were speaking of the demand to smash all images of Jesus. Now another clear sign of the true direction of the current winds: in the UK, a demand to delete the image on the Queen’s Medal of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. It shows St. Michael with his foot on the head of Satan. An image of the battle of good against evil.

According to the Guardian, the activists say the badge “resembles a depiction of a white angel standing on the neck of a chained black man.” Tracy Reeve, who has begun an online petition, says: “This is a highly offensive image, it is also reminiscent of the recent murder of George Floyd by the white policeman in the same manner presented here in this medal.”

Any resemblance to the killing of George Floyd is of course coincidental and in the imagination of the beholder. The award dates back to 1818. 

A modern Russian depiction of St. Michael

The image of course comes from the Bible:

“There was war in the sky. Michael and his angels made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war. They didn't prevail, neither was a place found for him any more in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

St. Michael’s foot on the Devil’s head is a reference to Genesis:

“Yahweh God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.’"

It is hard to imagine this was instead about race relations, back in Palestine in the 5th century BC. 

Italian depiction, 1708

Probably the majority of the current knights and commanders of the Order are themselves not “white”: former or present ministers from Africa, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Papua New Guinea.

Sir Simon Wolley insists “the figure … is clearly a black man,” because it “has no horns or tail.”

This claim is blatantly false. The figure does have two horns and a tail. It is a serpent below the shoulders, and has wings.

How accurate is this as an ethnic description of sub-Saharan Africans? Note that Satan’s facial features are, as usually portrayed, sharp, with thin lips and a longish, thin nose. Very European.

Bumi Thomas, a black activist, claims the St. Michael of the portrait is “a white, blue-eyed figure standing on his neck.” 

Another view of the medal.

His facial features are about as European as Satan’s, it is true. His eyes, in the image, are black; his foot is on Lucifer’s head, not his neck. And Michael too has wings. More likely, he is an angel.

The complaints, in sum, seem delusional. They seem paranoid.

It is true that the prone figure of Satan is dark-skinned, and Michael has pale skin. But, given that this is an image of good and evil, the obvious explanation is that darkness represents sin, understood as a stain, and light represents virtue. This is a standard metaphor in the Bible, and in every world culture. Mankind naturally fears darkness and favours the light.

At least, you do if you do not consider yourself on the side of sin. There is that critical passage in John:

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, for fear that his works would be reproved. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done with God."

There seems to be a Freudian inadvertent admission behind it all. Apparently the protestors spontaneously identify themselves with Satan and with evil. They do so even if they have to stretch the evidence beyond credulity to make the notion work.

They do so against the interests of blacks. What could be worse than to identify Africans with Satan and evil personified? They are doing this; not the artist.

If this claim sounds extreme, that the underlying issue here is to declare it wrong to discriminate against evil, this is not the only example. Not by a good measure. Never mind smashing statues of Jesus. “Critical theory,” the academic ideology behind much of the protest we see in the streets, does just this systematically. It loves to take traditional fables and fairy tales, and argue that it is oppressive to portray the villain as being in the wrong. This is “discriminatory.” We must instead take the side of the witches, giants, dragons, and ogres. 

This is significant, because there is no way they can be portrayed as representatives of an oppressed class. To the contrary, the witch, giant, dragon, or ogre is always immensely powerful, and has a cache somewhere of vast riches. Jack, by contrast, is a poor boy; Rapunzel is abandoned by her poor family; and so forth. It is the privileged whom critical theory wants to support.

More significant is that the purpose of the fairy tale or fable is explicitly to teach a moral lesson. Aesop’s fables and Perrault’s collected fairy tales always conclude with a moral. When Hans Christian Anderson chose to publish his own literary tales without an explicit moral, there was considerable popular outcry.

So the real intent of making the villain the hero is to subvert the moral lesson. The villain, the witch or giant, is not human, so that he or she can be a representation of pure evil or vice.

It is evil that must not be “discriminated against.”

Understanding that this is the real problem seems to explain everything. This is why the police are the special focus of anger: whatever their flaws, the essential nature of police is to maintain the right and oppose vice. This is why statues of heroes are a special focus of anger: whatever their flaws, the essential nature of a hero is that he or she displayed some conspicuous virtue or fought some conspicuous vice.

This is why, for decades, the focus of the fight against “discrimination” was gays, and is now transsexuals. Whether or not they have indeed been discriminated against—leaving that aside for a moment—it is odd that discrimination against them has been so central to the public and the cultural agenda for so long. They are, after all, an estimated 1.6% of the population. That figure should probably be halved, since in the real world lesbianism, as opposed to male homosexuality, was never an issue. And, of course, transsexuals would be a much smaller proportion of the population.

The issue cannot, in the end, have been discrimination against gays. It was discrimination against a behavior. Homosexual sex is a behavior. If one can establish the principle that one has an inherent right to do a thing simply because one has a spontaneous urge to do it, this makes any sin a right, and prohibits calling it sinful. Nobody sins except because they have a natural urge to do it; morality consists in resisting natural urges.

There is a reason why they are called “Gay Pride” parades: lust plus pride, two sins publicly celebrated.

We seem close now to the point of perfect inversion, where the very existence of sin is denied; or rather, the only sin is admitting that there is sin.

St. Michael, pray for us.