On Standing Up to Bullies

 

I am what is referred to these days by many as a “war pig.” That is, I endorse military aid to Ukraine. I endorse Israel’s pacification of Gaza.

I believe those who object, saying it is “none of our business,” and we should not be sending money overseas when there are serious problems at home, are being cowardly and selfish. 

Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan: we find Ukraine or Israel set upon by robbers and left lying in a ditch. It is our responsibility to help.

Remember Edmund Burke’s caution: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Moreover, collective security requires that acts of aggression against anyone not be allowed to succeed. Ensuring that aggression does not succeed is the surest way to ensure peace internationally, just as having a police force is the surest way to ensure peace domestically. We cannot honourably duck our responsibility and hope someone else does it.

I think it likely that the current turmoil in Ukraine has much to do with the disorderly American pullout from Afghanistan, which seemed to signal a lack of resolve.

Suggesting we should not send money abroad when there are needs at home is the fallacy of the false alternative. The one does not necessarily preclude the other.

If those who endorse unilateral pacifism really thought they had an argument, they would not resort to namecalling and would not try to dismiss pro-intervention positions out of hand.

We don’t want war; that’s why we must fight.

The End to War All Wars

 

I am left uneasy by a poetry reading I attended last week. There was no planned theme, but perhaps unsurprisingly, given events in Gaza, poems tended to focus on the horrors of war. My own contribution too, actually. What troubled me was how the moderator, summing up, suggested we were all, by saying war was bad, speaking out boldly to end war and change the world.

That, it seemed to me, was offensive. I cannot go so far as to say everyone agrees war is bad; the Fascists liked it. But it is the opposite of controversial to say so. By saying so, the poet is accomplishing absolutely nothing for anyone but himself, by washing his hands of the affair. Such a stance ought to be condemned, not praised. It is the stance of Pontius Pilate.

It further annoys me that people put such emphasis on killing civilians—as though it is perfectly okay that any number of soldiers die. The average soldier has no more control over war and peace than the average woman or child; killing him is just as wrong. Unless men’s lives don’t matter.

The necessary task is to propose how we might end this war, or war in general. Simply lamenting war is doing more harm than good: it gives succor to the aggressor.

In my defense, my own contribution proposed, in poetic terms, that all life is war until and unless we turn to God.

And that was a problem for those assembled: it violated “the separation of church and state,” one participant observed.

Not that “separation of church and state” is in the Canadian Constitution or Charter of Rights, or for that matter the US Constitution. And certainly not in Britain’s, which recognizes an established church. Not that that is a basic liberal principle that would have been propounded or recognized by John Locke. But all references to God or morality are now excluded from public discussion. Or rather, they are excluded unless you are Muslim.

Which is fatal to social and individual peace, because they are the solution to literally everything. And I mean literal in the literal sense.

The Future of War

 

Our first surprise in the current Russo-Ukraine War was that Russia was a paper tiger. Its vaunted military could not make progress after the initial surprise attack was stalled.

Our second surprise is that everyone is a paper tiger. Now Ukraine too, with NATO doctrine and all its NATO weapons, is struggling to make progress.

It turns out it is not that the Russians were so incompetent. It is that the current state of weaponry gives an advantage to defense. We did not see this coming, because the offense has been dominant since the Second World War, and as recently as the Second Gulf War. 

This balance between offence and defense has swung back and forth many times over history; although in the days of set battles it mattered less. Mounted knights gave advantage to the offense; a charge could mow down a static line. Then the longbow gave advantage to the defense. Muskets gave advantage to the offense: their accurate range was short, and cavalry could break through infantry with a charge. The machine gun decisively killed the cavalry charge, and we had the static tranches of WWI. Then the tank broke things open again, unexpectedly, aided by air power, and we had the shock of blitzkrieg. 

Now the era of the tank is over.

What has changed since the Gulf Wars? 

Drones and portable missiles like HIMARS. 

These are cheap weapons. Cheap and simple enough to be mass produced by countries like Iran and Turkey, not famous for efficiency and high-tech.

Cheap drones and HIMARS can too easily take out a fantastically expensive modern tank or jet fighter.

I wouldn’t want to risk an aircraft carrier in a war situation these days, either.

This is good news for world peace. So long as defense has the advantage over offense, aggressors are much less likely to start a war. War becomes too costly in general.

The Cause of War Unwound

 

A reasonable compromise, and war is averted.

The novel Unwind, omnipresent in the schools, is faithful to the woke “narrative” at every point. Men are always acting impulsively, the beasts, and some woman has to take them in hand and set them straight. But women are not just more rational than men. If any character shows compassion for the less fortunate, it will be a woman. If a black character is featured—sorry, “sienna,” because the word “black” is apparently pejorative--he must have an IQ of 155 and a strict moral code never to steal. 

Predictably, it cleaves to the familiar line on the issue of war. War is always and under all circumstances wrong on both sides.

“You see, a conflict always begins with an issue—a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn’t matter anymore, because now it’s about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.”

Wars, the book implies, are caused by some misunderstanding. The war starts because both sides lose their temper, apparently at the same time. And the good guys are the ones trying to broker a compromise.

This theory of war requires us to believe that governments, groups of people generally chosen from their peers for their good sense and level headedness, are prone to suddenly lose their temper for no good reason and send thousands or millions of their fellow citizens to their death. Possible, but not a likely explanation.

In the real world, among individuals or among nations, so long as both sides feel they have a legitimate argument for their position, they will keep arguing. Only when one side loses the argument do they stop negotiating. Then the loser must back down, or resort to force. That is when and why a war starts. As Clausewitz says, "war is a continuation of policy by other means." It is entered into not in a fit of temper, but to achieve some political purpose, in cold blood.

And one side is almost certainly right, and the other side is almost certainly wrong.

Accordingly, those who want to negotiate a compromise are not the good guys. They are doing the Devil’s bidding. It is as though the police, called to a crime, tried to negotiate a compromise between the thief who took the wallet and his victim. Or refused to intervene, as both parties must be at fault for the misunderstanding.

The sure result will be more injustice, and more wars.

And that is what our kids are being taught to think.

Remembrance Day Reflections

 

For Remembrance Day, a friend of mine, who declares herself a pacifist, posted a photo of her father, who fought with distinction in WWII and returned with severe PTSD.

The post garnered a couple of comments worth comment:

“Unfortunately War is a direct result of Greed, without Greed there would be no Wars !”

“Yes, but maybe not just greed - maybe also simply a lust for power too, and a belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Sounds good; not so. Here is an example of the need to educate one’s conscience.

War is caused by greed? War is expensive. Most times nations lose money by going to war. No doubt war is good for the armaments industry, the “military-industrial complex”; but not for most businesses For most businesses, it will mean a shortage of labour and labour becoming more expensive as workers are drafted. It will mean being cut off from suppliers and markets; often it will mean a destruction of physical plant. More generally, businesses thrive on predictability, reliable profitability, and suffer from any instability. War is the ultimate disruptor of business.

“War is caused by greed” is Marxist delusion. The subtext there is, get rid of capitalism, and you get rid of wars. Seductive to anyone who does not consider themselves a rich capitalist: provides a convenient scapegoat. Better yet if the capitalists are Jews.

“A belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Live and let live, right?

On that basis, should the northern states in the US have left the South to their preferred way of life? Of course, it involved the enslavement of others. Whose business was that? If Hitler had not attacked Poland, should the world have looked on in silence as he exterminated all of Germany’s Jews? When he did invade Poland, was Chamberlain right, and Churchill the guilty party, for not letting Hitler well enough alone, and instead starting a World War?

This pacifism is the same idea as that there would be general peace in society if we just abolished all laws and defunded the police. Why mess with Ted Bundy’s or Charles Manson’s recreational opportunities?

This is the atheist argument: get rid of religion, and there will be no more wars. This is seductive, because religion tells you there are things you want to do that you should not do. So there is always a lobby for getting rid of religion.

But one of the things—the main thing—that religion tells you not to do is to harm your neighbour. 

Wars are caused by the same thing that causes all interpersonal conflicts: someone has violated the categorical imperative, to treat others as you would be treated. Wars are caused by selfishness, usually on one side and not the other.

And pacifism is immoral; in a way, the worst immorality. None so guilty as the innocent bystander.

Options for NATO

 So now we have a big war.

American and NATO cannot afford to do too much. It is only too likely, if they get heavily committed in Ukraine, that China will seize the opportunity to take Taiwan. Indeed, I suspect this may be the plan, organized jointly by Russia and China.

But if NATO does too little, its reliability as an ally will be badly tarnished.

Sanctions have never worked to deter Russia before. Short of committing troops on the ground, can NATO do much else?

Perhaps something in the realm of cyberwar. I do not know how good Western capabilities are. The bad news is that Russia certainly has capabilities here too. 

Other thoughts:

1. Rush small arms to the Ukraine in huge numbers. Get guns, grenades, and ammunition in the hands of as many Ukrainians as possible. Set Russia up for a long guerilla war. Ukrainians have a history of doing this.

2. Offer immediate NATO membership to Moldova and rush in NATO troops. This will at least punish Russia for the invasion, and have symbolic value.

3. In strictly military terms, it would not be costly to blockade and even seize the Kaliningrad area of Russia, which is surrounded by NATO countries. NATO troops are already in the area. This could probably done fast enough to be a fait accompli before Russia could react. It could be held as a trade-off for Russia vacating Ukraine.

Of course, invading part of Russia risks world war. But Putin is risking world war already. We have a game of chicken here. If it is always Russia escalating, and the West de-escalating, Russia always wins.

4. Close the Dardanelles to Russian shipping. Because the strait is so narrow, it would take very little to do so. Turkey is a NATO member.

5. Close the Baltic to Russian shipping. Again, it would take little to do so from Denmark, another NATO member.

6. Close the Sea of Japan to Russian shipping. This would be harder, but there are pinch points at Pusan-Fukuoka and Hokkaido. The combined Japanese, South Korean, and US Navies might manage it while being close enough to swiftly redeploy to Taiwan if necessary.

7. Invade Syria and take out Russia’s Assad client regime. Tit for tat—they invade a Western ally, the West invades their ally. They pull out of Ukraine, the West pulls out of Syria. The West is pretty sick of Middle Eastern wars, but it would not need that much redeployment to take out Syria, from Turkey, Israel, and Iraq.

One serious complicating factor is European dependence on Russian oil. I don’t know how big a problem that would be. Maybe prohibitive.

War

 

Dennis Copeland's monument to the War of 1812.

I have recently once again encountered the inedible horse chestnut that “war never solved anything.” I have seen it attributed to Oriana Fallaci. The argument is that the underlying problems will remain and resurface, no matter the outcome.

It sounds good, and virtuous, and consoling, but it is wrong. It is equivalent to saying that policing, or self-defense, never solved anything. That could be true if there were no evil in the world. In most wars, there is a right and a wrong, and if the right does not war, the wrong triumphs.

The Second World War prevented Nazism from taking over Europe, then the world, and killing all the Jews. It may not have wiped out the ideas underlying fascism and Nazism—they seem to stay with us, now masquerading as “postmodernism,” “progressivism” and “antifascism.” But note that they have to masquerade. It certainly wiped out the credibility of fascism or Nazism openly so-called.

The US Civil War ended slavery in the US, and ended the option of states seceding from the union.

The US War of Independence achieved US independence; and perhaps brought the ideals of liberal democracy, of human equality and of fully democratic representative government, to the world stage.

Some wars, it is true, end ambiguously. Perhaps there is an argument here that the war accomplished nothing. Conversely, you might instead argue that the peace accomplished nothing; that it might have been better to keep on fighting to some definite conclusion. The First World War comes to mind.

The First World War is indeed often cited as a pointless war. It seems pointless to us because the casus belli seems unclear, so little ground was physically fought over, and another big war with the same combatants started only a couple of decades later. But it is wrong to say it had no significant results. It ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire. It established American world dominance. It triggered the Russian Revolution. It ended the era of European dominance, European empires, European cultural confidence, and the days of monarchies. It established the nation-state as the international norm. It changed the world utterly.

And there is probably a good argument that, had the Armistice actually been refused, and the Entente continued to occupy Germany, no second war need have been fought. The “stab in the back” legend could not have arisen.

 Americans might be seduced into the notion that war is pointless by their experience since the Second World War. Since then, largely because of the nuclear option, they have been unable to fight any wars to a definite victory. The Korean War, for example, ended about where it started. 

On the other hand, it is clearly wrong to say that the UN and South Korea accomplished nothing by fighting that war. Just compare conditions in North Korea to conditions in South Korea today.

Vietnam seems to have been pointless. It gained nothing for the Americans or the South Vietnamese. For the North Vietnamese, it was about independence, but it seems dubious that America or France would still be there had the war not been fought. The economic and political doctrines that came with it probably held Vietnamese development back for a generation or two.

The wars in Iraq may seem pointless to Americans, but only because ultimate victory was thrown away. It recovered the independence of Kuwait and took out the most open aggressor since Hitler, preserving international law and almost certainly preventing future wars.

Afghanistan seems to have been pointless for the Americans, since they leave with the status quo ante. Not for the Taliban, who were fighting to preserve their religious culture against foreign influences. Time will tell whether they succeed.

War is intrinsically awful and a malum in se; that is a separate argument, or rather, probably not even arguable. It is possible for a war to be pointless, but this is the exception, not the rule. More often, to refuse to fight when wrong meets right is simple moral cowardice.

If We Don't Mention It, Maybe It Will Go Away

 

Joe Biden seeking Americans left in Afghanistan.

Friend Xerxes blames the debacle in Afghanistan on our tendency to use war metaphors: “Whenever America, collectively, decides to act against a perceived threat, they call it a war. War on Poverty. War on Drugs. Even a Peace Corps.” Had the Americans not seen the Taliban as enemies in 2001, all this could have been avoided.

Perhaps he is right on that specific point, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. I thought at the time the situation did call for an American incursion, if only to restore American prestige after 9/11. But I would have gone in like the British went into Beijing in the Boxer Rebellion, or into Washington in the War of 1812. Go in there, unseat the government, apprehend and execute a few miscreants, burn down a few symbolic buildings, then withdraw from the rubble. A show of force. The Americans were too ambitious.

Would that have been a war? More like a police action.

I also agree that the War on Poverty was a debacle, and so was the War on Drugs. These are cases in which the metaphor was misapplied. It was punching at shadows.  There was no Other there. It was like Conrad’s image of French warships firing randomly at the African coast.

A War on Terror similarly makes no sense. But a War on Terrorists does.

The fact that a metaphor can be misapplied does not discredit the metaphor itself; the fact that a car can be driven into a tree does not demonstrate that cars have no value.

Xerxes here is making a point made popular by Lakoff and Johnson in their influential book Metaphors We Live By back in the 1980s. The same idea was popularized at about the same time as “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” (NLP). The idea is that, by changing the way we express ourselves, we can change our behaviours and change the world. 

NLP has been comprehensively debunked; it does not work. It is, after all, a kind of primitive, magical thinking: if we choose to call a red tricycle a pink convertible, we can all afford a pink convertible.

The fact that our euphemisms inevitably come to carry the same undesirable connotations as the original seems to prove the case as well. “Washroom” replaces “toilet” which replaces “privy”: all euphemisms, yet the meaning remains. People still know you are not in there powdering your nose or buying a dog. Trust me. “Person of colour” replaces “black” which replaces “negro,” which replaces “coloured person.” All originally polite; no doubt “darkie” was also properly respectful in its day. “First Nations” replaces “indigenous,” which replaces “aboriginal,” which replaces “native,” which replaces “Indian,” which replaces “redskin”: all originally attempts to be properly respectful. “Exceptional” replaces “challenged” replaces “slow learner” replaces “retarded” replaces “idiot”—all originally euphemisms for stupid. History shows nothing is ever gained by this game of linguistic tag. Wanting to change the term is actually an implied criticism of the person, not the word for it. Wanting to change the term reveals prejudice.

The notion that changing the words can change thinking is also, more ominously, the thesis of Ingsoc in Orwell’s 1984, and the reason they create Newspeak. Were this sort of thing possible, if it is possible, any unscrupulous government or anyone else iin power could practice mind control for their own benefit. We ought to be alarmed at, and energetically resist, any attempt to legislate or restrict vocabulary, even more than we resist efforts to restrict free speech: laws against “hate speech,” mandated pronouns, and the like. It ends as might makes right.

For there is a further philosophical problem faced by Lakoff, Johnson, Xerxes, and their colleagues. If our thinking is radically conditioned by the metaphors we use, how can they suppose their own thinking is not so conditioned? How can they presume that they see things clearly, and so can tell others what to think? There can be no justification, other than the exercise of arbitrary power.

Now as for the specific metaphor of war: it is actually quite useful. While war as such is an undesirable thing, we do need words for undesirable things. It is a sad truth of the fallen universe that it takes two sides to preserve a peace, but only one to start a war. So long as anyone entertains the option of going to war, we all must. Crime is also a bad thing. But if each of us simply decided it did not exist, and disbanded the police forces, would people stop stealing, defrauding, and committing murders? Death is a bad thing. Yet if we dismissed the possibility of death, and closed the morgues and the hospitals, would we have more death, or less?

Denying the usefulness of the concept of war would similarly lead to more war, not less.

The more so in the case of radical Islam, because the radical Islamists do believe they are at war: jihad. So the choice is not up to us; to suppose so is, in a way, the greatest arrogance. It denies human agency to the other. Since they think they are at war, the only way to prevent war is to mount a strong defense.

The same is true, incidentally, in dealing with Marxism. Marxism sees society as an ongoing war between classes, a class struggle. Opting out is not an option; only resistance or submission.

Christianity is perhaps less inclined to use the war metaphor than are many other philosophies and world views. Perhaps that is a strength; perhaps that is a weakness. The Salvation Army has done a great deal of good by applying the metaphor. The Bible does as well, and often; although it specifies that this is not against human opponents:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

War as war is bad; yet there are worse things than war. Injustice, and passivity in the face of injustice, is worse. For evil to triumph, as Edmund Burke observed, “all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing.” Pacifism is most often a cover for cowardice and selfishness. It would have been immoral not to have gone to war against Hitler, and left the Jews, Czechoslovakia, and Poland to their fate. It would have been immoral not to fight to end slavery in America. It was immoral not to call the police when Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in a stairwell. 

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” – Ephesians 6:13.

All We Are Saying ....

The Fall of the Rebel Angels: Peter Bruegel the Elder.

Hitler wants peace. His speeches and his interviews on this theme are constructed on an ancient formula: war is incapable of solving a single question, war threatens the extermination of the superior races, war brings the ruin of civilization in its wake. -- Leon Trotsky, 1933.

Xerxes, my regular correspondent, tells of a friend who has lost his faith in God because, “His community were pacifists. They didn’t believe that wars settled anything. But wars kept happening.”

Why did he think God was obliged to conform to his wishes? Did someone tell him God was a pacifist? The Lord God of Hosts?

There is perhaps no ideology more evil than pacifism. An evil man who aggressively does evil, and admits it, is at least brave; bravery is a virtue. Far worse is the person who does evil while pretending it is good. He or she attempts to subvert others to evil, and will condemn and discourage the good.

This describes pacifism.

To be a pacifist in the face of evil is, in legal terms, to aid and abet. The pacifist is as guilty as the perpetrator; he or she is just refusing to take responsibility for it.

Wars never settled anything? To say so is to endorse slavery in the US; it took a war to end it. It is to endorse Hitler’s extermination of the Jews; it took a war to end it. It took a war to achieve American or Irish independence.

Being a pacifist will prevent wars? That is like saying, if only there were more sheep, there would be fewer wolves.

It should go without saying that nobody wants war. Nobody wants to get shot at. Hitler did not want war, and was a vocal pacifist. He would have vastly preferred being able to annex neighbouring lands peacefully, as he had the Saarland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. He could have kept doing so happily forever.

Conversely, if there had been fewer pacifists in other lands, he might have been stopped with much less bloodshed, perhaps with none, when he invaded the Saarland, or Austria.

Pacifism kills. It kills with a knife in the back, and with a fatuous smile on its face.

On Solving the World's Problems

St. Michael the Archangel

Everyone ought to have a leftist friend—or, if you are yourself of the left, a rightist friend. Without one, how do you know what the other side really thinks? And, if you do not know what they think, how do you know whether you really disagree?

The trick is staying friendly. Sadly, most people these days don’t talk with those on the other side of the culture wars; that is what happens when it becomes a kind of war. I think abortion made it a war; it is now hard to be a leftist without being consciously immoral. And it is hard to be sanguine about the difference between right and wrong.

I am lucky enough, though, to have more than one friend who is on the left and who is still speaking to me. One of them recently presented me with what seems a, maybe the, fundamental argument for leftism generally.

Here it is, in point form:

1. We imagine heaven as a place without wars, without armies or weapons, of perfect equality, where nobody dominates anyone else.
2. If we can imagine this in heaven, we can imagine it on earth.
3. If it is imaginable, it is possible.
4. Therefore, we ought to work to make earth like this.

Sounds good, on the face of it. And this seems to me to raise some important and interesting points.

First, can we really imagine heaven as a place without wars?

St. James

I think not.

Those who have read the Bible will be aware that it indeed speaks of a “war in heaven.” St. Michael and all that. Revelation 12: 7-9, inter alia.

This is usually thought of as happening in the primordial past; but in fact, in Revelations, it is also reported as a future event, part of the end times. Jesus also speaks, cryptically, of “the violent taking heaven by storm” (Matthew 11:2) at the time of the New Testament.

And, at the end of the Book of Revelations, when the New Jerusalem, the ultimate image of the perfection of the created world, descends from the sky… it has walls. “It had a great, high wall with twelve gates” (Revelations 21:12). There is no point to a walled city if there is no threat of war.

St. John sees the New Jerusalem descend from heaven.

So the matter is clear. Not only has there been war in heaven, but war is an eternal feature of heaven. There was war in heaven before Adam and Eve, and there will be war in heaven at the end of time.

And there are armies in heaven. God is “Lord of Hosts,” “The Lord who commands armies” (Isaiah 6:5).

Is there free will in heaven? Of course; there has to be; it would not be heaven if we lost our free will in getting there. But so long as there is free will, there is the chance of choosing evil. Ask, not only Lucifer, but Adam and Eve, who chose evil in the very face of the beatific vision. Therefore, there can be and has been moral conflict in heaven. And, if there has ever been war in heaven, there is always war in heaven. That is the nature of things eternal.

Does the presence there of war make heaven less than heaven? No, just the reverse. Ask any decent storyteller. A story without conflict is dead. Would a heaven that is deadly boring be heaven? No.

Ergo, heaven without war is inconceivable. The difference with earth, I suspect, is that in heaven, as in a work of fiction, the participant, the reader or the fictional character, never really gets hurt.

Is war in itself evil? Certainly not, if it is a clear contest between good and evil. It is not evil to fight evil, for that would be a contradiction in terms. While we have a moral obligation to avoid unjust war, it is too often forgotten that we have, equally, a moral obligation to engage in just war. It is pacifism, not war, that is objectively immoral.

Consider this too: how could a truly moral person be content sitting in heaven strumming a harp with the awareness that evil and suffering persisted in the created world below? Therefore, so long as there is ill-being on earth, there must also be conflict in heaven. Happiness would require continuing to fight in that war. Hence, of course, the Catholic doctrine of saints. And at the end of time? That is eternity, and eternity is not an absence nor an infinite extension of time; it is a point from which all times are equidistant. The war is still present.

So premise 1 in my friend’s argument is false.

But let’s not pass on without dealing as well with equality, since that is yet closer to the modern left’s bosom.

Here too, it is quite clear from the Bible that there is no equality in heaven. There is an elaborate hierarchy. There are ranks of angels, and levels of saints, with thrones, principalities, powers, some elders seated closer to the throne of God than others (Revelations 4:4), and so forth. When James and John ask for seats at Jesus’s left and right, he does not demand equality; he says that it is not for him to choose.

Really, equality in heaven is a strange idea. There is no equality with God, of course. Moreover, why would someone who was “no better than he should be” be equal in heaven to a Mother Teresa, an Oskar Schindler, or a John the Baptist, who demonstrate “heroic virtue”?

This is objectively unjust.

The idea that there should be equality in heaven, I gather, comes from a misunderstanding on the left of what political equality on earth means or ought to mean--a concept that itself comes from Christianity. It means everyone should get the same chances; not that everyone should get the same results. We understand and accept that when we put murderers in prison. Meritocracy is not opposed to true equality, but is its result. The absence of meritocracy is automatically inequality.

If heaven, or indeed social justice, is our aim, then, the left has it wrong. We should not be seeking a situation in which everyone gets the same salary, for example, but one in which everyone is rewarded according to their efforts. Just as in heaven. The whole concept of heaven and hell is of ultimate just rewards, not everyone ending up with the same result.

On to point 2 and 3: that what we can imagine in heaven, we can imagine on earth; and what is imaginable is possible. This is true in a sense, but trivial. The limits of what we can imagine are the limits of what we can imagine. And we cannot imagine anything that is logically or mathematically impossible. But we can imagine things that are impossible in practical terms, like flying pigs or the moon being made from green cheese.

Just so, anything we can imagine happening in a dream, we necessarily can imagine happening in waking life. But if I dream that I can fly, it is not necessarily a good idea to jump off a tall building the next morning.

In fact, recognizing this distinction is more or less definitive of sanity.

Practical circumstances in heaven and on earth might be somewhat different.

But let’s even allow points 1, 2, and 3. I think there is still a problem with point 4: that we ought to work to make earth more like heaven.

Actually, why? Couldn’t God manage it on his own? Isn’t he omnipotent and all? So why isn’t it perfect already?

In other words, it follows from God’s omnipotence that the world is as it is largely because it ought to be or must be so.

So should we change it? Are we sure?

It takes long and sober thought to understand what our proper role and purpose is here. To seek to remold the world to fulfill our desires is not obviously it; it might instead be an act of disobedience, of arrogance, and of selfishness. One thinks, first off, of the Tower of Babel. The builders sought to make something “whose top may reach unto heaven.” Bad idea. As bad as Eve’s similar plan “to be as God.”

Why are we here, then? Genesis suggests an answer: Genesis 2: 15. We were created to tend a garden. It is not our garden; we are just the gardeners.

And, at least at the creation, there was no need to work the garden for material sustenance; that came after the fall (Genesis 3:17-18). Though we have to do that now as well, that was not the purpose. It is not that kind of garden.

Now, if a gardener is not gardening for food, what is his purpose? What other kind of garden is there?

He is gardening for beauty. That is our mission: to change and adapt the natural world as and when this produces greater beauty. Pruning here, weeding there.

But not just beauty in the strictest sense. It is important to add, with Keats, that truth and moral good are both forms of beauty—the selfless good deed, the mathematical equation that elegantly solves the problem.

This may, but does not obviously or automatically, involve political action.