The Prosperity Gospel

Pray and Get Rich.

To please a friend, I once attended a video showing promoting the “prosperity gospel.” It was like a corporate motivational speech.

The basic message I got is “God has chosen you for leadership.” So he’s going to grant you prosperity, presumably so you have the means to lead.

Is this a legitimate premise?

It seems to defy the Gospel of Luke, which actually seems to see the possession of significant wealth as itself sinful. Witness the story of the rich man and Lazarus: the rich man goes to Hell purely for not sharing his wealth.

And it defies the nature of God.

If giving away one’s wealth to the needy is a good deed, then anyone who has significant wealth is lacking in at least one good deed. Why then are they the leader? Why are they chosen by God above their moral betters?

The prosperity gospel therefore seems to require the Calvinist assumption of predestination: some of us are chosen before birth for salvation, and are given all good things. Nothing to do with our own merits.

I do not see how this can be reconciled with a morally good God: this is a God who plays favourites. This is as bad as we are if we discriminate against some, say, simply for the colour of their skin.

A Lutheran might counter that the distinguishing feature is faith: God rewards those who put their faith in him.

But no honest man can simply choose to believe. An honest man seeks truth. And a moral God does not reward dishonesty.

And surely, as a practical matter, all of us know people of deep religious faith, who are poor.

Actually, Jesus does not pay as well as Moses.

God does clearly choose some to lead. Moses is the perfect example; the prophets in general. The saints.

How many of the prophets were prosperous?

Moses died before reaching the promised land of milk and honey.

John the Baptist wore animal skins and ate locusts. He died in prison.

Isaiah risked starvation, had he not been fed by angels in a cave, a price on his head.

They apparently did not need personal wealth in order to lead. They experienced extreme poverty instead.

This is not a universal rule: David and Solomon achieved kingship, and there are a few crowned saints. Wealth is not proof of sinfulness. Yet both David and Solomon, good men as they began, fell into grave sin as a direct result of the temptations of wealth and secular power.

Jesus defines Christian leadership: “You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever desires to be first among you shall be your bondservant, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

This surely defies the prosperity gospel.

Material wealth, the New Testament makes clear in many passages, is always at least a distraction from the divine. “One cannot serve both God and Mammon.”

Moreover, if doing good brought obvious material rewards, there would be no morality left in doing good. The worst of us would do good out of self-interest.

Accordingly, a just God must have ordered the universe so that morality will cost us wealth, not acquire it.

This also requires the existence of some kind of happy afterlife: a just God must ultimately favour the good. Yet for the good to be good, the favour must be shown in such a way that the rewards for goodness are not visible and obvious to all.

And so the reward must come in some invisible later state.

Jesus explains it: in this present field, God sows the evil with the good. He must allow the weeds to thrive amidst the wheat. All is separated at the harvest, on the final threshing floor.

For Advent

The Mean Streets

I grow weary of the atmosphere of hate that has descended on Toronto and Canada.

Now magazine’s current issue looks back on the decade.

On Rob Ford: “blundering incompetent.” “A pretty awful person.” “Whiny, occasionally racist.”

Ford, of course, was elected mayor of Toronto. A majority of Torontonians must have basically agreed with his approach on the issues. Yet no attempt is made to argue these claims: they are just asserted. No civil dialogue is contemplated.

It then baldly asserts Jian Ghomeshi’s guilt, even though the charges against him were dismissed in court. His acquittal made sexual assault victims, Now explains, “realize that they can’t count on the courts to make their abusers accountable.”

Again, no explanation of why the court was supposedly so wrong—his guilt is merely asserted. We are all to hate Jian Ghomeshi.

Maxime Bernier and the PPC are referred to as “wacko,” again without explanation. Bernier is, of course, a former Foreign Minister, and came within a whisker of being the leader of Canada’s official opposition. No explanation; we are to hate Bernier and all those who support him.

A demonstration held to protest Motion 103 is declared, without evidence, to really be an expression of “anti-Muslim” sentiments. The “Proud Boys” are described as “anti-Muslim”; never mind that their web page prominently welcomes “All Races. All Religions.” “Never Again Canada,” is accused of holding protests “under the guise of” opposing immigration. This seems odd, since there is nothing on their web page opposing immigration. There is, on the other hand, a long statement denouncing anti-Muslim sentiments, and calling for “the concern and participation of all Canadians, regardless of ethnicity, religion, and politics.”

Their stated purpose is to combat antisemitism. Their real intent, of which the author apparent has some secret knowledge, is apparently something deeply nefarious. Perhaps they plan to poison the wells.

You can see how this stirring up of contempt for some identifiable group could lead to violence—against, for example, Jews, or members of “Never Again Canada.”

The magazine detects another sinister conspiracy on campuses: “hate has spread to university campuses under the guise of free speech.” No evidence is presented that those calling for free speech really want “hate.”

Faith Goldy is declared “dangerous” and also accused of “propagating hate.” Again, no evidence is offered. She probably is, as the paper asserts, a “white nationalist.” But so what? They have no problem with “black nationalists” like “Black Lives Matter,” who get to write their own account of the decade as part of the article. To object only to whites being nationalists is, surely, to promote hatred towards whites.

In that “Black Lives Matter” insertion, Toronto police are accused of “police brutality” against blacks, and of a “long and sordid history of discrimination and harassment.” The local schools are accused of “anti-Black racism.” Toronto in general is accused of “the violence of anti-Black racism.” The Toronto Pride movement is accused of “anti-Blackness.” Mass culture is accused of “anti-Black racism.” “White folks” are declared to be “privileged.”

Now magazine then celebrates an anticipated future “not full of plays by dead white males.”

Toronto is declared a “hotbed” of “Islamophobia.” The temporary shutdown of Soufi’s restaurant is ascribed to “racism and xenophobia”--no reference to the fact that a member of the family was seen on video berating a little old lady as a racist and blocking her from attending a candidates' meeting. Seems to me that might have had something to do with it

Incels—involuntarily celibate men—are offered no sympathy. They are accused of a “sense of entitlement.”

That might be so, but then why not the same charge against the gay community, or the trans community, who also consider themselves entitled to have sex? Yet incels are openly despised.

It is a meaner, uglier Toronto than it used to be.

The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy

Trump Strikes the Right Note

Hong Kong Is Not Tiananmen

I have seen exactly one media report that the protests in Hong Kong have now spread to Guangdong Province.

I have waited a few days for someone else to confirm this, but no one has.

It is probably not true. There are often sporadic protests in China; what this reporter saw or heard may only have been business as usual.

What I hear from foreigners in Guangdong is that the mainland Chinese strongly support the government against the Hong Kong protesters, whom they see as a foreign element. Despite the blood ties, and the longtime insistence on “one nation.”

This makes matters grim for Hong Kong.

Tiananmen was a serious risk to the CCP, because of the danger that their troops might refuse to fire on their own countrymen. This is how revolutions start; when the military turns. But so long as the typical mainland Chinese sees Hong Kong Chinese as other, Hong Kong can be crushed at any moment by troops sent in. Word is that this is already happening: the Hong Kong police have stealthily been replaced by People’s Army regulars wearing the same uniforms.

If the spirit of resistance in Hong Kong really were to spread into Guangdong, the consequences would be dire for the Party. Guangdong is China’s economic hub; it is crowded with migrants who have streamed in from every part of China for better prospects. If the government were to brutally suppress a rebellion there, everyone else in China would likely see their own relatives in that crowd. Moreover, if the authorities successfully crushed a rebellion in Guangdong, they would likely disperse all these migrants back to their original homes—spreading the fires of rebellion far and wide.

And, of course, Guangdong being China’s economic hub, the financial consequences of disruption there would be critical.

Which brings us back to Hong Kong.

It seems likely the only reason the Chinese government is hesitating to crush Hong Kong is the fear of the economic fallout. China’s economy is already looking vulnerable. If Hong Kong was toppled from its roost as a world banking and trading centre, and sanctions and bad PR in reaction to a brutal suppression caused other businesses to pull investments throughout China, the danger to the regime might be greater than the danger from these continuing protests.

Put these things together, and the Chinese government itself must feel itself very vulnerable. It is caught on a knife edge, and struggling to keep its balance.

For Advent

Inevitable Democratic Nominee Drops Out

Kamala Harris

So Kamala Harris is out of the race to become the Democratic US presidential candidate.

Honesty obliges me to note that I had picked her as most likely to win.

To be fair, I did also note that she was inexperienced and untested, and so might implode.

She imploded.

So now, who do I think will win?

The matter is clouded—clouded enough to have prompted some late entries to the race. Everybody seems to see the race as up for grabs.

But right now, I’d put my money on Bernie Sanders.

Granted, the media star of the moment is Pete Buttigieg. But these sudden surges to the top of the field are not to be taken too seriously. Each candidate seems to get their turn in the spotlight, and then fall back. If Buttigieg is surging now, it is probably too soon to serve him well by the time the Iowa caucuses come around. Instead, he may be killed now by raised expectations not being met.

Buttigieg is also unappealing to black voters; they may not matter much in Iowa or New Hampshire, but that will kill him in the later primaries. I don’t think this is something that can be fixed by outreach. Pete is too preppy.

And fundamentally, it is just nuts to nominate the mayor of a small Midwestern city, sans anything epoch-making in his platform. For comparison, Lloyd Henderson, former mayor of Portage-la-Prairie, a comparably-sized Canadian city, ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 1968. Anyone else remember? He received no votes.

In the end, it would be a profound embarrassment to the Party to nominate Mayor Pete. Is this really the best they can do?

His relative inexperience as a politician also makes him vulnerable, like Harris but more so, to either a fatal gaffe or some previously undiscovered closet cadaver.

Yet a reasonably strong Buttigieg candidacy tends to split Biden’s vote. If he can run first or second in Iowa and New Hampshire, it guarantees that Biden cannot take those contests.

At present, Sanders is in second place in both early states. He stands to benefit if Buttigieg falls short, and he stands to benefit even if Buttigieg takes them, then fails in later contests: he has staked his ground as the alternative, the non-Buttigieg and champion of the radical wing. Meanwhile, the moderate delegates will be split between Buttigieg and whatever candidate inherits the more moderate vote in later primaries.

Biden is still leading in the national polls. But national polls matter less than Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden is not close in Iowa and New Hampshire. Even if Buttigieg stumbles before those states vote, they like to do something surprising and transgressive. Voting for Biden does not fit that profile, since he is the nominal front-runner and the most familiar of the candidates. Voting for Biden would be boring. More probable would be a surprise surge by Yang, or Gabbard, or Steyer.

So Biden’s strategy, of necessity, is to take losses in both states, then start winning in South Carolina and the South.

That strategy has never worked before. The negative media resulting from the two losses, plus the buzz around the winner, tends to kill all momentum. Biden’s strategy is Rudy Giuliani’s strategy in 2008. Giuliani led the national polls too. And Biden is actually running not second, but third, in both states. He is not even establishing himself as the natural alternative.

For a while, the centre lane in the race was uncrowded, while candidates were all shuffling left. In particular, Elizabeth Warren’s strong candidacy was splitting Sanders’s natural constituency. That made Biden look strong. Now that situation seems reversed. Warren has fallen dramatically in the polls. Having had two campaign revivals, I do not think she is likely to rise again. Her insincerity has finally sunken in with Democratic voters. Sincerity is more important than it used to be. Perceived lack of sincerity sunk Kamala Harris, and it looks like it is sinking Warren now almost as decisively.

In the meantime, new candidates have been poaching Biden’s following. Buttigieg has moved to sound more moderate; Steyer, Bloomberg, and Patrick have entered the space. Steyer and Bloomberg seem to be posting significant numbers. Those are numbers largely bled from Biden.

So Sanders and Buttigieg come out of Iowa and New Hampshire as the two leading candidates. Most likely with Sanders on top, Buttigieg underperforming based on prior expectations. Then Buttigieg fails in later primaries, because he cannot appeal to the black vote; and because he is no longer so fresh. Moderate vote splits between Biden and Bloomberg and Buttigieg, at a minimum. Bloomberg can stay in the race as long as he wants, being self-financing. Quite likely Steyer as well. But the radical vote quickly coalesces around Bernie.

I think a sudden surge by some dark horse, a stealth win or near-win in Iowa, may yet overturn the race. But that is more or less unpredictable. Based on what is predictable, I see Sanders as the most likely nominee.

For Advent

Forwarded Gag

From a friend, author unknown. As a vegetarian, I must add that I am offended. Not sure how, but I am offended.

It snowed last night...

8:00 am: I made a snowman.

8:10 - A feminist passed by and     asked me why I didn't make a   snow woman.

8:15 - So, I made a snow woman.

8:17 - My feminist neighbor   complained about the snow   woman's voluptuous chest   saying it objectified snow   women  everywhere.

8:20 - The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snow men instead.

8:22 - The transgender man..women...person asked why I didn't just make one snow person with detachable parts.

8:25 - The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and not to decorate snow figures with.

8:28 - I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white.

8:31 - The middle eastern gent across the road demanded the snow woman be covered up .

8:40 - The Police arrived saying someone had been offended.

8:42 - The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role.

8:43 - The council equality officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.

8:45 - TV news crew from CBC showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied "Snowballs" and am now called a sexist.

9:00 - I was on the News as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.

9:10 - I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.

9:29 - Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding for me to be arrested.

By noon it all melted

Moral:
There is no moral to this story. It is what we have become, all because of snowflakes.

White Christmas

It's Advent. Time to start the Christmas music.

Female Physician

Went to my doctor today. She works out of a local clinic. Outside the clinic is, as always, a big sandwich board announcing “FEMALE PHYSICIAN WITHIN.” It was there before she joined the clinic. It is even visible in Google Maps. When the previous doctor left, they apparently made a point of finding another woman. It seems to be a part of their business model.

This brings up several issues. To begin with, this signboard should be illegal under anti-discrimination legislation. How would it be if the sign read, instead, “MALE PHYSICIAN,” or “WHITE PHYSICIAN”?

Secondly, the clinic and the doctor obviously put out the sign because they think “female” is a selling point. This pretty much proves that there is no systemic discrimination against women in our society; the discrimination is against men.

Putting these two together illustrates that anti-discrimination laws never help those who are really discriminated against. Should they protect any genuinely systemically oppressed group, they are not enforced. They are only enforced when they work in favour of some already favoured group. Accordingly, they only serve to increase the general level of discrimination.

You cannot fight discrimination through the law.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

An ad hoc organization of psychiatrists and psychologists has apparently been formed to call for Donald Trump to be impeached on psychiatric grounds.

They claim that their examination of transcripts from the Mueller report “showed that the president lacked the ability to make rational decisions."

He has shown that his sense of worth is entirely dependent on the admiration from others, such as at the rallies of Trump’s base. Without this external affirmation, Trump has revealed that he feels, deep down, like a loser, a failure, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, “crooked”. We know this because this self-denigrating pictures of himself, Trump projects onto others, whom he transforms into enemies, and compensates consciously by creating a grandiose image of himself as unique, a stable genius, entitled to special treatment, and better at everything than everyone else. 

What makes Trump so dangerous is the brittleness of his sense of worth. Any slight or criticism is experienced as a humiliation and degradation. To cope with the resultant hollow and empty feeling, he reacts with what is referred to as narcissistic rage. He is unable to take responsibility for any error, mistake or failing. His default in that situation is to blame others and to attack the perceived source of his humiliation. These attacks of narcissistic rage can be brutal and destructive. A striking but not unusual example of his lack of caring and empathy is his policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern border. Additionally, he has made the reckless decision to allow an attack of our Kurdish allies, against all advice, shortly after announcement of the impeachment inquiry. These events are closely related and betray his extreme inability to tolerate any challenges against him.

This initiative is instructive in two ways. First, it shows how irresponsible and politicized our professional elites have become. And second, it shows how dangerous psychiatry can easily be to democracy and human rights.

Any competent psychiatrist must be aware that psychiatric diagnoses are pretty arbitrary and unreliable. If you must make a decision, you must, if somebody seems about to commit suicide or the like, but it is dishonest to claim you are authoritative. A recent study showed that half of a random selection of patients formerly diagnosed as schizophrenic were not, but instead suffered from anxiety. We actually have no way of knowing whether it was the first or the second of these diagnoses that was wrong, but either way, 50% were wrong. This is significant because these two diagnoses call for radically different treatments, and both the treatments used have dangerous side effects.

Imagine now applying such standards to making critical decisions of national importance, like impeaching a president.

And it is not just that psychiatrists often get the diagnoses wrong. We also do not know what the diagnoses mean. Psychiatric diagnoses are just lists of symptoms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Lists change with each edition. Whether there is any one underlying psychiatric “condition” conforming to any one list is pure speculation. If so, whether that condition is an “illness” is also demonstrably dubious. Homosexuality used to be in there. Obviously, any sort of political dissent or non-conformity could be in there—and probably has been. Republicanism, for example, could simply be declared a mental illness.

And there is more. The basic standard on which modern psychiatry and psychology is based is “normalcy.” Any deviation from the “normal,” which is to say the average, is classed as “illness.”

Now it is self-evident that anyone who rises to become president of the US is not mentally normal. Anyone who does an unusually good job at anything is by this fact demonstrably abnormal. Accordingly, “psychohistorians” have been able, by applying the same techniques used here on Trump, to demonstrate that Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, for example, or Moses, or Muhammed, or Plato, or Michelangelo, or just about any prominent historical figure, were mentally ill. Of course they were; it goes with our definition.

Our leaders are therefore always going to be mentally ill, by present definition, and the charge of “mental illness” can therefore always be used against any political leader, or any person of prominence, that you do not like. Any intervention in politics by psychiatrists or psychologists is therefore harmful to the general welfare. If they do not know this, they are dangerously incompetent. If they do know this, they are dangerously corrupt.

Of course, a prominent leader can indeed go genuinely mad in the proper sense, of being delusional, hallucinating, of seeing things that are not there. If so, this is going to be readily apparent to those around him or her. Nobody needs a psychiatrist to know as much. And every system of government makes provision for this.

But the diagnosis given in the present case is not even superficially plausible. For example, this cabal writes that Trump’s “sense of worth is entirely dependent on the admiration from others.” That is true of politicians generally—always seeking to please the crowds. It is exactly how Trump differs from other politicians. He will confront and disagree with people directly, in public. He seems constitutionally not to need the approval of others to form and keep to his own opinions.

They write:

Trump has revealed that he feels, deep down, like a loser, a failure, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, "crooked". We know this because this self-denigrating pictures of himself, Trump projects onto others.

This is schoolyard stuff: it is that old taunt “I know you are, but what am I?” Projection is a real thing—Jesus warns of it in the New Testament—but in order to level the charge, you must have evidence; otherwise it is you who are projecting. You must show that the people Trump calls losers, failures, weak, dumb, fat, ugly, fake, or crooked are not; and then that Trump is.

The fact that his taunts seem to resonate with the public is already evidence that Trump is not projecting. Yes, Pete Buttigieg really does look like Alfred E. Neuman. Yes, Marco Rubio really is short. If he were projecting, these cruel little japes would not be effective.

What? Me President?

You really would want a psychiatrist to understand how projection works.

They then claim that Trump cannot bear any humiliation, and reacts with “narcissistic rage.” Yet, as above, he actually seems impervious to being humiliated; nothing shames him. Narcissistic rage? If Trump ever loses his temper, it has never been caught on camera. His sharp responses are always delivered calmly and in a matter-of-fact way; as though he were speaking for everyone. He is also notably quick to reconcile, never holding grudges. Witness his treatment of Ted Cruz, or Kim Jong Un, or China’s president Xi. This seems to suggest that his sharp responses are purely a negotiating tactic, calculated, and not expressions of emotion at all. Rather than being emotionally out of control, as the psychiatrists and psychologists suggest, Trump seems to have a remarkable control over his own emotions.

Perhaps this itself should be disturbing; but it is the opposite of what disturbs them.

They are also ignorant, it seems, of current events. They write: “A striking but not unusual example of his lack of caring and empathy is his policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern border.”

They are apparently unaware that this policy was also followed by previous administrations. It is required by present legislation: you cannot legally confine a child because their parent did something wrong. Trump’s emotions do not enter into it.

Now consider this: we put such people in charge of deciding whether any of us is sane or capable of arranging our own affairs. In charge of deciding on and perhaps revoking our right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The likelihood of frequent abuse, on this evidence, is overwhelming.

No wonder, then, that public trust in the professional elites is on the decline.

Cultural Appropriation - podcast episode

Cultural Appropriation

Cultural Appropriation

Regime-Change Wars

A 19th Century British political cartoon.

I like the sincerity of Tulsi Gabbard. I believe she would be the strongest candidate for the Democrats against Donald Trump. And I think she is being treated dishonestly by a corrupt Democratic Party establishment and media. 

But what about the merits of her central issue, ending American involvement in “regime-change wars”?

She has a point in international law, or what international law said until Kosovo. Until then, intervening in another country’s internal politics, no matter what, was considered unprovoked aggression.

But then there was the Rwandan holocaust, and opinion shifted to holding France morally responsible for not intervening.

I at first resisted this new principle, that there was an obligation upon other nations to intervene in defense of human rights. I was, on reflection, wrong.

This, after all, is the same moral principle as our obligation to intervene if we see someone being raped or stabbed or beaten up. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.”

So it follows that America, because it has the capability, has the moral obligation to intervene against any regime that is flagrantly violating the human rights of either its own or some other people. It is not okay to gas Jews. It is not okay to stand aside and let it happen. Sorry, Tulsi.

I believe Gabbard sincerely sees it differently, for the simple reason that she is a Hindu.

Hinduism or Buddhism can endlessly tolerate injustice without a moral obligation to intervene because of the doctrine of karma. If someone is being raped or stabbed or otherwise viciously mistreated, if some group is being systematically wiped doubt, it is no doubt just reward for some terrible thing they have done in a past life. No injustice is possible; no cause for us to get involved.

I leave the reader to decide how they feel about this stance; but from it follows the conclusion, for example, that having a criminal justice system is illegitimate.

Gabbard and her supporters would no doubt go on to argue that recent “regime change” wars have not just been costly, but have not worked. They will cite Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have actually had several recent case studies, since this new doctrine has become accepted: Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

In the first case, the Western allies stayed on to establish stability, and, after some years, Kosovo has emerged as a functioning multi-party democracy. In Kosovo, it seems that the “regime change” war did work. One might also mention the postwar experience with Germany, Japan, or Italy, although WWII was not just a “regime change” war.

In the second case, Iraq, some stability did seem to have been achieved, after some years of struggle, then lost by what looks like a premature US departure. After some limited re-engagement, Iraq looks more stable. In Afghanistan, relatively low-level conflict continues. In these two cases, long-term results cannot really be determined.

Appalled by the cost of these two interventions, however, when things then turned nasty internally in Libya, the West tried a different tack: go in, take out the regime, and leave. This is, to be honest, what I too thought would be the better policy. You can lead a nation to democracy, but you cannot force them to be democrats. It’s a contradiction in terms.

But this approach seems to have turned out worse: Libya remains in chaos, and human rights abuses remain common.

Disappointed again, when Syria then went south, the West reverted to the old, pre-Rwanda approach: do nothing.

And this has worked out worst of all: an ongoing holocaust of historic proportions, a refugee crisis flooding the borders of Europe, and the intervention of other foreign powers less friendly to human rights: Russia, Iran. As none have the strength to force a resolution, conflict looks to continue indefinitely.

So we’ve tried all the possible approaches, and in terms of defending human rights, the option of intervention, however costly, is visibly the best.

Americans, of course, are historically tempted to ignore the rest of the world’s problems, protected they are by oceans vast and deep. That may or may not be wise—but it is not the moral way.

Those alert to history may realize that Britain, in the nineteenth century, faced the same choice. Protecting the human rights of foreigners was actually the sentiment upon which was built much of the British Empire. Britain spent a lot of "blood and treasure," as the modern clichéd usage goes, ending the slave trade, thuggery, piracy, suttee, the caste system, banditry, endless local conflicts, and the like.

Honesty compels us to admit that, no so uncommonly, colonialism is actually a good idea.

The Devil Is a Gentleman

Our age views Adolf Hitler as the embodiment of human evil.

That is wrong, and dangerously misleading. Hitler was a very bad man; but there are worse men.

It is not just that Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot were guilty of Holocausts as awful. We damn Hitler in large part because it is safe to do so, because he lost the war and has no living followers. This does not make him a worse man; only an easier target.

But Hitler also lacks some possible vices, and had at least one virtue. There must be others who actually have all the vices, and none of the virtues.

Even among his coterie, compare Goering. Goering endorsed all that Hitler did. But Goering was more avaricious. Goering indulged the vice of gluttony: Hitler was a teetotaler and more or less a vegetarian. Nor was Hitler visibly lustful. Stalin’s henchman Beria was far worse on this score, or Hitler’s henchmen Ernst Rohm or Reinhard Heydrich.

And Hitler possessed, in more than usual measure, the virtue of courage or fortitude. Throughout his career, he dared to take risks and do dangerous things.

A worse person would be too timid to go around killing everyone. Their gluttony and sloth would produce addiction and inaction, not the energetic destruction of Hitler. They would actually be capable of less harm. And a worse man would do all his evil by stealth.

The worst person living or the worst person who ever lived could easily be among us now, in our neighbourhood, unsuspected, living an outwardly unexceptional life.

Guilty of Hate Speech?

This is interesting.

I posted my poem "An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home" here recently, and also on my book's Facebook feed.

The Facebook post has now been removed by Zuckerberg and Company, and my account has been flagged for "hate speech."

I repost it below--see what you think.

I guess it could be declared "hate speech" against non-aboriginals. If there really is such a thing as "hate speech." But the same poem won an award as one of the best Canadian poems of 1991.

Times have changed. And not for the better.

Anyone can now be guilty of a thought crime at any time.


An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home

The white man is lazy,
He dreams with his head
Except when he's asleep.
He lives all his life
In one place
And watches his penis make love. 

He looks with his eyes, he cannot hear;
He only listens with his ears, he cannot see. With his nose, he cannot remember.
His hands only touch solid things,
And he holds them in his grasp, not his palms.
Instead of making children
He makes stones move
Then rules them with fingers Instead of song. 

He does no more than he wants,
And what he wants, he does.
He dances only when drugged,
And only says things once.
He does not talk to the birds or lizards
 And he eats them without their permission.  

To understand, he cuts things apart;
Yet never opens the skin.
He finds death simpler than life,
And separation easier than choirsong.
When he dies, he goes straight to heaven,
Forgetting his children's campfires.
Dead, he leaves his body
Faster than he clung to it alive.

It would be good
To be white and do nothing but work all day long;
I grow young, and I weary of play.
It would be good to wake up one morning,
And not be surprised.
It would be good no more to hear this constant din
Of angels in my ears

We report. You decide.

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure  -- the podcast.

Narcissism: Its Cause and Its Cure

More at the web page.

Happy News

I hear that, in its second week of existence, Don Cherry's Grapevine is already the number 1 podcast on Apple iTunes.

It's soothing to think of all the revenue his ex-employers are losing.

I spend last weekend with a clan of suburbanites. These were not right-wingers. They were unanimous, for example, in despising Trump. Yet they were also unanimous in saying Cherry was unjustly fired.

An Aborigine Thinks of Leaving Home

The white man is lazy,
He dreams with his head
Except when he's asleep.
He lives all his life
In one place
And watches his penis make love.

He looks with his eyes, he cannot hear;
He only listens with his ears, he cannot see.
With his nose, he cannot remember.
His hands only touch solid things,
And he holds them in his grasp, not his palms.
Instead of making children
He makes stones move
Then rules them with fingers
Instead of song.

He does no more than he wants,
And what he wants, he does.
He dances only when drugged,
And only says things once.
He does not talk to the birds or lizards
And he eats them without their permission. 

To understand, he cuts things apart;
Yet never opens the skin.
He finds death simpler than life,
And separation easier than choirsong.
When he dies, he goes straight to heaven,
Forgetting his children's campfires.
Dead, he leaves his body
Faster than he clung to it alive.

It would be good
To be white and do nothing but work all day long;
I grow young, and I weary of play.
It would be good no longer to sleep
No longer to dream.
It would be good to wake up one morning,
And not be surprised.
It would be good no more to hear this constant din
Of angels in my ears.

-- Stephen K. Roney

Mrs. Warren's Impression

Elizabeth Warren’s support down in the Estados Unidos is visibly collapsing, and it seems to be because she rolled out the details of her health plan.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders’s support is steady and now stronger, with a more radical and expensive plan.

The problem seems to be that Warren’s plan now looks like a fudge. She’s delaying the costly part of it three years to mask the real expense. And, of course, she has resisted even saying that taxes would have to go up to pay for it.

This illustrates Andrew Scheer’s problem here in Canada. It is not that his rather mainstream views are too radical. It is that he seems to be fudging. He looks dishonest. Not a good look.

I’m tempted to say the electorate has become too smart for that. But really, they are not that smart. Elizabeth Warren’s dishonesty has been obvious to all at least since her DNA test results. Biden’s has been obvious since the 1980s. It usually takes a while.

This is a big reason for the Tories not to turn now to Peter MacKay. No politician has shown more blatant dishonesty than he, in his pact with David Orchard long ago to take the PC leadership. Electing him would be like grabbing at a grenade with the pin missing.

The Kinsella Tapes

CBC has apparently gotten hold of tapes of Warren Kinsella discussing his work on a backdoor social media campaign to smear Maxime Bernier,

Aside from any moral issues, this strikes me as evidence of gross political malpractice by Scheer's team.

First question: where do you suppose the CBC got the tapes?

Almost necessarily, from someone at Kinsella's firm, hoping to discredit the Conservatives.

It is as though the Scheer team handed a loaded revolver to a known enemy, and painted a target on their t-shirt. What did they expect?

Even apart from this, it makes dubious political sense to try to character assassinate the smaller party over to their right. Granted, the PPC might cause some vote splitting. At the same time, their presence forces the debate rightward, presenting the argument for policies near Scheer's on the spectrum, and making his own look more moderate. Slandering their views as "racist" risks tarring the Conservatives as well, by association. Just in case the adversary missed with that loaded pistol, Scheer's men had a loaded shotgun ready, pointed at their foot.

After all, Bernier a couple of years ago came within a few votes of becoming the Tory leader.

It's all so dumb it almost seems easier to believe Scheer is secretly a Liberal himself.

All Fears of the Forest Are Gone

Favourite song of the CeeGees, my brother's musical duet in the last few years before he died.

It suddenly seems so appropriate.

By the composer, Phil Ochs.

\

True Christianity

RIP

At my brother’s recent funeral (and PBOH, as the Muslims say), somebody spoke with a bit of a sneer of his “spirituality” --said as if in scare quotes -- presumably because he was not a Christian, and might have described himself as an atheist.

Here’s how that rolls out.

First Premise: the job of being human is the job of wholeheartedly seeking the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

This is necessarily so because these three qualities are of intrinsic value. Their value does not derive from elsewhere.

This is also necessarily so because a good and honourable God would ensure that the proper purpose of life would be apparent to all mankind, at all times. It cannot be concealed only in this or that book or community.

The value of truth, moral good, and beauty is, moreover, as a visible fact, recognized worldwide regardless of religions. All of mankind indeed understands these value as self-evident. We may disagree about what is true, or good, but not about the desirability of the truth, or good.

Perhaps, it is true, this is less clear for beauty than for the other two. Just as lower animals cannot appreciate moral issues, some humans seem incapable of appreciating beauty. It requires a more refined soul. However, just as the fact that pigs have no morality does not disprove morality, the fact that some humans cannot appreciate beauty does not discount its value—so long as it is felt by all those who do appreciate it.

Second premise: one is not saved by saying one is Christian and going to church. One is not saved by mouthing the name “Jesus” in prayer. One is saved by accepting the cosmic essence of Jesus, the Logos, which Jesus identifies: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In other words, the moral path, the truth, and inspiration. The good, the true, the beautiful.

One can easily do this as a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Jew, or an atheist.

Jesus said “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice.” At the time, in context, he was no doubt speaking of non-Jews; but literally, he was speaking in general of people who had not yet heard of him. Until and unless all the world is nominally Christian, Jesus has sheep outside the nominally Christian fold.

If you claim to be a Christian, but do not sincerely believe Christian teachings, as in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, you are simply a Pharisee, a hypocrite. You are simply dishonest.

If anyone would assert that truth is a matter of exerting the will to believe, let him be anathema. He is not following God; he is declaring himself God.

It follows that, if you sincerely believe there is no God, and say and act so, you are a good Christian in the true sense of the word.

Similarly, if you claim to be a Christian, but do not practice the good as you see it--or do what Christianity teaches even though you do not believe it is good--you are simply a Pharisee, a hypocrite.

James 2: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?”

And if you claim to be a Christian, are capable of appreciating beauty, and do not seek to nurture and sustain it, you are also a Pharisee and a hypocrite. This applies to both natural beauty and the beauty of art. It is the true basis of our ecological duties, for example.

The obligation to be Christian and to pray the name “Jesus Christ” simply follows from the fact that Christianity is true and a reliable moral guide. At the same time, if one is sincerely not personally convinced of that, to pretend otherwise would be deeply sinful.

It follows that my brother was, in fact, a very good Christian, and a far better Christian than one who would sneer at him and his values at his own funeral.

My brother lived his life seeking truth, and to be good, and, perhaps most of all, beauty.

A comment almost always heard from friends is about the utter sincerity of his smile and of his laugh. He was never deceitful, calculating, pretentious, or manipulative. He always lived the truth as he saw it.

Next, they always say what a gift he had for friendship. There are many stories of how much he would do for a friend. Throughout his life as I knew him, he never showed malice to anyone.

And last, he lived his life for beauty, both natural and artistic. His two great loves were music—he was a brilliant guitarist, and fostered other musicians far and wide—and the natural beauty of Canada’s Thousand Islands district, where he chose to live alone in the woods.

I believe my brother Gerry is a saint in heaven.

Criticism of Andrew Scheer from the Right

This new criticism of Andrew Scheer is at least on the mark. The problem was not that he held "social conservative" positions, but that he prevaricated and would not defend them.

Put another way he failed to show a capacity for leadership.

Why This Modern Idolatry?

Saturn eating his children.

It strikes me that much of the temptation to idolatry is from a desire to avoid moral obligations.

If you worship “nature,” you are implicitly reserving to yourself the right to do whatever is “natural,” that is, to follow your desires without moral scruple.

If you worship “peace,” you are denying your moral obligation to combat evil. And denying the right of anyone else to resist your own chosen evil.

If you worship “democracy,” you are claiming exemption from moral choice. Going along with the crowd is easier. It protects you from having to do anything that might cost you social position. Or cost you much of anything. You needn’t be any better than the next guy; and it is now in everyone’s interest to be no more moral than is strictly necessary. Raise the bar, and you are a bad person.

If you worship “science,” you are implicitly avoiding questions of value, in the name of scientific “objectivity.” Which is to say, you are avoiding morality. Moral concerns are incompatible with science.

Worshipping “diversity,” too, may be a matter of avoiding tough moral choices—it is implicitly an assertion of cultural relativism. If your neighbor claims his culture allows him to beat his child to death, you now have no moral obligation to intervene. You are yourself exempt from moral judgement so long as you are doing things others in your culture commonly do. Implicitly, further, so long as you are doing anything conceivably permissible in any other culture, you are not really doing anything morally wrong. At best, morality is merely social convention. Like washing your hands before you eat your firstborn.

Kind of all fits in, doesn’t it? Kind of looks like a common thread.

The same motive seems to me to be behind the great god “atheism.” “Atheists” do not, so far as I have ever seen, actually deny the existence of God. That may be impossible in rational terms. They just call it “science” or “nature.” Science and nature as they describe them, as idols, have all the attributes of God except personhood and morality.

An impersonal God will not care about morality. 

The New Polytheism

The Great God Nature.

“Peace” and “diversity” are becoming dangerous idolatries. Not that they are the only ones; they join many other false gods in the modern polytheistic pantheon, like “democracy,” “nature,” and “science.”

Both are, of course, conditionally good, both peace and diversity—that is, good depending on context. Diversity is good; lack of diversity is bad. But unity is also good, surely to an at least equal extent. And diversity is close to being the opposite of unity. Accordingly, there can be too much diversity without unity, and too much unity without diversity. This is lost once “diversity” becomes the idol. The US motto is good in this regard: “e pluribus unum”; roughly, “out of diversity, unity.” The Christian doctrine of the Trinity also seems to strike this balance.

So too with peace. Peace is always preferable to conflict, if these are the only two factors in the equation, and not even for moral reasons. It’s easier and more profitable for everyone. But these are never the only two factors. If they were, the issue would never come up. Everyone wants peace.

In truth, whenever there is a conflict, it is usually, in the normal course of things, because one party is in the right, and the other in the wrong. An honest person must assume this. Cases where it is all due to a “misunderstanding” are quite naturally in the minority; this is an intrinsically less probable reason for any disagreement to occur, let alone to come to blows. To pretend otherwise is both cowardly and dishonest. Because, after all, it is not true, and it is the easier path.

In cases in which morality is on one side in a conflict, most cases, demanding peace unconditionally is always acting in support of the aggressor or the party perpetrating injustice. One is then fully guilty as well of that injustice or aggression. None so guilty, someone said, as the “innocent bystander.” Especially if they are going to condemn the victim on grounds of false morality for resisting being knifed. This is then both participating in the knifing, adding a further assault, and debasing the moral currency generally.

Or, as Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Uber Uber Alles

Riot on Nevsky Prospect, Petrograd, 1917.

Richard Fernandez writes, for PJ Media, that the MSM are missing the big story while they fixate on Trump’s impeachment. The world is on fire: rioting in the streets of Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Spain, France, Iraq, Sudan, Russia, Uganda, Peru, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and Iran. Something is going on.

Fernandez does not say what it is, other than the people being fed up with the establishment. What I say is going on is the democratization of information flow thanks to the Internet. The ability of folks to organize through social media, and to access information online, makes the traditional establishment largely redundant. We have gone, for example, from the rigid organization of the traditional taxi company to the free form flow of Uber.

Structures are now more often than not getting in the way. Accordingly, people are less inclined to listen to their authority, to defer to them, and to pay for them.

The initial reaction of the establishment has been to try to batten down the hatches, and expand the role of government in order to squelch this perceived disorder. This, I think, is suicide.

The future is for less government. Whatever jurisdictions first realize this shall inherit the earth.

Don Cherry's Podcast

Happy news: Don Cherry is back, with his own podcast on Spotify. First episode is up, and has some great reminiscences of Rocket Richard.

I hope everyone will make a point of subscribing. Even if you don't actually listen, subscribe. Give it a listenership higher than the guys who fired him! Fight the cancel culture and save democracy.

Search on Spotify for "Don Cherry's Grapevine."

Podcast Now on iTunes

The new "Truth about Dragons" podcast is now featured on iTunes, so you can easily download episodes for your iPhone or iPod.

https://podcasts.apple.com/qa/podcast/the-truth-about-dragons/id1488233987

Now the challenge for me will be to keep three podcasts supplied with new episodes. Wish me luck.

No More Clowning Around

Unsurprisingly, my left-leaning friend Xerxes enthusiastically supports the firing of Don Cherry. “About time,” he writes.

I think Cherry was fired for doing his job.

Can anyone think Cherry was there just as a hockey commentator? Such a popular figure, voted one of the greatest Canadians, making so much money for his employers and sponsors, because of the quality of his hockey insights? People with the expertise for sports commentary are thick on the ground. There is really rarely much to say in that regard. It ain’t rocket science. Most after-game shows are deadly boring.

Don Cherry is an entertainer. People watched for his flamboyant act, his outrageousness. His recent comments about immigrants were entirely within this character and role. Just what he was there to do.

Don Cherry is a clown. He even wears motley, for goodness sake. He even has a straight man.

Humor requires the reversal of expectations—always. That’s what makes things funny. Accordingly, the job of a clown or comedian is always to say or do things that are superficially outrageous.

To fire a clown for clowning is unreasonable and unjust.

You might respond, “Don Cherry’s not funny.” Matter of taste. He does not make people laugh out loud. But he obviously entertained. His viewership numbers prove it. He made folks smile.

It is worse than bad form, bad manners, to be unable to take a joke. Joking also serves important social functions. For one, jokes and laughter allow us to let off steam, which otherwise will be expressed in more disruptive ways. Every clown also at least in part serves the traditional role of the court jester: gently and unthreateningly speaking truth to power. We always need this so as not to slip off the rails and be lost in our own delusions. There is not much authentic humour in a totalitarian state.

Firing Don Cherry is a strong indication that this is the way we are headed.

And any aggression here, any ‘bullying,’ is not by Don Cherry, but by the wider society. He has always said things like this; he has not changed. The rules have, without fair warning.

And there was nothing objectively wrong with what he said this time, for anyone, let alone a clown.

Xerxes cites the legal adage, “your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose.” This helpfully demonstrates why all ‘hate speech,’ let alone anything Cherry said, should be constitutionally protected. It is in the US. The Canadian Constitution matches the American in guaranteeing free speech; but in the US, this matter has come to the Supreme Court, and they have ruled so.

For words, after all, never come in contact with anyone’s nose.

Except in certain specific circumstances, words cause no material harm. The specific circumstances are well-defined in common law: libel, slander, fraud, incitement to violence. One can see the common thread: material harm. Upsetting someone does not count. Any such imagined harm is ultimately self-inflicted: nobody is obliged to watch Don Cherry.

Abandon this principle, and there is no free speech whatsoever. The term then means nothing.

But even were this not the case, Cherry’s recent remark was not “hate speech,” illegitimate as that term is.

It is one thing to criticize people as groups based on race, creed, or colour. That is, at best, morally wrong, even if it must not be illegal. The problem is that these are things over which no one has any control. (Religion fits here because, if one believes, one’s conscience puts the matter beyond free choice.) But “immigrants,” or rather, to use Cherry’s words, “you people that come here,” are defined only by a shared action, done freely, that of moving to Canada. It is perfectly reasonable to suggest that actions have or should have consequences, implying certain responsibilities. If it is discriminatory to make general unfavourable comments about such a group, defined only by a voluntary action, then it must, to be just, be considered equally discriminatory, and a firing offense, to make any criticism of lawyers, or politicians, or used car salesmen, or the rich, or the Toronto Maple Leafs, or Torontonians, and so forth. Theoretically, it would seem wrong even to say anything against, say, criminals.

Which may, I suspect, be the real reason behind the growing social intolerance. A lot of people have a guilty conscience, and so are invested in objecting to anyone pointing out anything wrong about anyone. This seems of a piece with the US Congress trying to impeach Donald Trump for asking for investigation of a possible crime by Hunter Biden, rather than investigating Hunter Biden. Or the US media suppressing the story of Jeffrey Epstein, and attacking in full outrage the supposed ‘whistle-blower’ who revealed that the story was suppressed. The crime now has become pointing out the crime.

Surely it is obvious that it will be impossible to run a democracy on that basis. Let alone tell jokes.

Another little bit in Xerxes’s column perhaps shows why clowns are needed.

He reports approvingly that “the United Church of Canada has policies that will not permit an unmarried minister to fall in love with a member of the congregation.”

Now, that statement is surely false. To begin with, falling in love is not something any authority can prevent from happening, or even know has happened. Moreover, it is an entirely good thing, and certainly not harmful to its object. See St. Paul on the nature of love. Surely any denomination should want its ministers to fall in love with all their congregants; it is the core of the Christian message.

What he or the United Church actually mean, surely, is that their ministers are prohibited from having sex with members of the congregation. They do not want to say this because it sounds unsettling. It requires the tacit admission that their ministers are otherwise free to have sex outside of marriage.

This is the sort of politically correct falsehood, meant to mislead, that we need clowns to call us on. Like John the Baptist in his day, they “make the paths straight for the Lord.”

Which is to say, aside from gravely harming our democracy, and social peace, the firing of Don Cherry does not speak well for our shared morality either.

What Is Depression? Podcast Version...

What Is Depression?

Depression Video

So What Is Mental Illness?

Bodhidharma.

To begin with, it is not illness.

People generally seem not to realize that calling these things “illnesses” is a metaphor or an analogy. It depends on seeing our souls as equivalent to our bodies.

Yet they are fundamentally different. Our bodies can be seen like a machine that we operate.

But our minds are ourselves. We do not use the mind. We are the mind.

Because we use the body like a machine, it is easy to understand its functions. Each part has proper operations we can recognize. Illness is when some part is not performing its function.

But do we know what the proper function is of a soul? Of a mind? Of a self?

If we do, that is a religious question, not one psychiatry can answer.

Freud proposed that the proper function of a human being is to work and have sex. This reduces the human person itself to a machine. Is that really all there is? If it is, who wouldn’t be depressed?

If this is true, moreover, why listen to a psychiatrist? They are doing whatever they do only to get paid and get laid. This does not involve, notably, either telling the truth or doing anyone else any good. Should you trust them with your soul?

This sounds harsh, but this is what the logic boils down to.

Psychiatry and psychology in general have to rely on the goal of “being normal”; which is to say, being average. Being like everyone else. Again, not an inspiring goal. If mental health means simply conformity, it is a sinister thing: sinister to human freedom, and to human progress. Jews are not normal. Gandhi was not normal. Mandela was not normal. Einstein was not normal. Steve Jobs was not normal. Shakespeare was not normal.

It should be no surprise to us that people who have accomplished any great thing usually show the same symptoms the DSM lists in its descriptions of mental illness. This has become a commonplace recently, but it was already well understood by Plato and Aristotle.

Aristotle’s Problem XXX:

Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly of a melancholic temperament, and some of them to such an extent as to be affected by diseases caused by black bile?

Psychiatry has no answer. Religion does. And I think it is possible here to speak for religions generally. What is the proper function of the human person? The proper function of the human soul is to seek truth and good. Many will add beauty.

On this definition, it is entirely possible that the symptoms psychiatry considers mental illness are actually signs of mental health.

Consider Buddhism.

Gautama reveals the Four Noble Truths in the deer park at Banares.

Buddhism’s first Noble Truth is that all existence is suffering, dukka, “ill-being.” That’s one symptom of depression: “depressed mood.”

Buddhism’s second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by attachment. The third Noble Truth is that one ends suffering by ending all cravings, all attachments. That’s a second symptom of depression, according to the DSM: “Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities.”

The fourth Noble Truth is the eightfold path, which involves, essentially, withdrawing from the world and sitting still, meditating, practicing mindfulness: “A slowing down of thought and a reduction of physical movement.” That’s a third symptom of depression.

Through such meditation, one comes to the critical insight of anatman, anatta: the self is an illusion, “no self.” That’s a fourth symptom of depression: “depersonalization.” “Feelings of worthlessness.”

The ultimate goal is “nirvana”: “cessation,” like the snuffing out of a candle. This sounds a lot like a fifth DSM symptom, “recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan.” More literally, in Buddhism, suicide is considered an honourable choice, more or less to be encouraged.

That’s five symptoms, meaning, according to the DSM, that any sincere Buddhist is suffering from depression.

Some will no doubt take this as evidence that the religious are insane. Some similarly argue that Muhammed was an epileptic, and the apostles in the upper room were hallucinating Jesus’s resurrection. Mad, all mad. But really, who are you going to believe, the acknowledged best minds of the world’s entire population over at least the past two millennia, or the relatively distinguished panel who came up with the DSM a few years ago?

It seems most reasonable on the evidence to posit that, suffering as they unquestionably are, the average “mentally ill” person is actually functioning better as a human being than the average person.

Religion does, it is true, recognize such a thing as spiritual or mental sickness. There are two forms: error, and sin. The first falls short of the truth; the second falls short of the good.

But religion is where these answers can be found.

So What Is Depression?

Edvard Munch, Melancholy

So what is depression?

It is not an illness, so far as we know. All we really have is a set of symptoms. See the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to make this clear. It is a bulleted checklist. Check off five or more, and that’s your diagnosis.

And it may be an arbitrary list. What we call depression may, like fever, or a skin rash, have a variety of different underlying causes. Or it may be that one cause is behind both the symptom list we call “depression,” and another currently unassociated symptom list: “anxiety disorder,” or “narcissistic personality disorder,” or “autism,” or something else. Or all of them.

In fact, I submit that this is certainly the case. Depression can have a variety of causes, and it shares the same causes with other currently unrelated “mental illnesses.”

I think we can, however, talk about an essence of depression. It is not “sorrow.” The current label is misleading.

If you scan the official list of symptoms, it is not hard to guess. “Depressed mood.” “Diminished interest in activities.” “Loss of energy.” “Lack of movement.” “Indecisiveness.”

Bingo. The essence of depression is a lack of direction or meaning. One has lost one’s sense of purpose. One just can’t get that motor in gear. Or, one is in a kind of maze of thoughts, and cannot find the exit.

That tends to cause low spirits; not vice versa.

Cheering you up is not the issue, and is not going to work. You have to find direction.

You can actually see this happening to entire cultures. Jung observed it in Africa, and called it “loss of soul.” Back in the 19th century, when first contact with isolated cultures was still often recent, Darwin puzzled over it. He observed in The Descent of Man that when isolated cultures first encountered Europeans, they tended to stop marrying and having children. They stop working, whatever their work had been, and become deeply involved with alcohol or drugs. Their tightly integrated word view had been shattered by this intrusion of something vastly alien. They no longer understood the point of anything.

I have seen a similar reaction on a smaller scale among expatriates, on integrating with an unfamiliar culture. They retreat to their rooms, or to expat bars and alcohol. Some even begin to have fully delusional thoughts.

So the various symptoms we clump together as depression come from a feeling that nothing makes sense. We no longer know what to think.

Losing one’s sense of meaning can, in turn, have a variety of causes. It may be that some dramatic life experience, like going to war, or the arrival of aliens in some great ship, has challenged all our previous certainties, and we have found them not to be true. You can even get the effect from some sudden new idea, either something you learn or something you figure out for yourself. For a while, it can be deeply disorienting. This is one reason why, as Aristotle observed, learning is painful.

We generally derive a huge amount of our sense of meaning and purpose from our relationships: from family and social group, community and nation. We live for our lover, for our children, for our parents. We are prepared to die for our country.

So one inevitable major cause of depressive symptoms, probably the most common, is having come from a family in which one was rejected, devalued, unloved.

Psychiatry and psychology have been vaguely aware of this; but they see the critical factor as childhood abuse, usually physical or sexual. This is not the key; it is the devaluation of the person, or, conversely, the devaluation of the family or community relationship, however this is expressed.

This can explain another symptom labelled as depression in the DSM: a low sense of self-worth. You get this, most obviously, from living with others who tell you you are worthless.

But the same sorts of families or communities also tend to systematically lack or overturn more generally any sense of values. Parents with their own values in good order do not reject or abuse their children. This lack of values growing up may still be the most damaging thing.

If this is right, the cure is obvious. Pills aren’t going to do it. Pills can’t give you meaning. Many early psychiatrists themselves saw it, and said it: Frankl, Maslow, Jung. The solution for depression is to somehow find new meaning and direction.

Some find their new meaning and direction in psychology and psychotherapy. When it works, this is why it works. And this is why people today, who have been psychologized, tend to cling to their particular school with a fervor you would expect for religion.

But psychology and psychiatry are not very strong vessels for this. They are not intended for it, are new and untested, and are critically limited in scope.

The classical place to find meaning is, of course, religion.

The decline in organized religion in North America and Europe, not surprisingly, tracks exactly to a rise in depression and other psychiatric diagnoses. At the same time, people have tended to stop marrying and having children, they have become more inclined to retreat to drug use.

This is not a coincidence.