Posts
A fascinating bit of science that seems to bear out what the church has always taught: what distinguishes humans from the rest of creation is their moral sense, their free will to choose to do good or evil:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/051026_chimpfrm.htm
I see this in my dog. Dogs know what you want them to do or don't want them to do; but this is not ethics. It is obedience. If you wanted them to rip out your neighbour's throat and eat him, it would probably be all the same to them.
With thanks to Eugene Craig Campbell for the link.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Fourscore Years and a Hundred
I heard exactly this claim a few years ago from a friend who works in the field. Now here's a current article fleshing out the idea. It's the sort of thing scientists say in private, I gather, but do not like to say in public, because it does not pay in academics to stick your neck out:
"... in the next 10 or 20 years science will have advanced sufficiently to allow people to live for, say, 150 or 200 years. And then by the time those people turn 200, science will have figured out how to allow them to live to 500."
http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i10/10a01401.htm
Who knows? It's bound to happen sooner or later.
"... in the next 10 or 20 years science will have advanced sufficiently to allow people to live for, say, 150 or 200 years. And then by the time those people turn 200, science will have figured out how to allow them to live to 500."
http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i10/10a01401.htm
Who knows? It's bound to happen sooner or later.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
A Call for Freedom of Movement
The Economist recently argues that it would be of tremendous benefit to all if the developed world let in huge numbers of “guest workers.”
This is an issue that has been eating at me for some time. It does seem a fundamental violation of human rights to restrict freedom of movement across borders the way we do.
Many are afraid of being buried in a wave of new immigrants. But this program would prevent that: they would be _guests_, obliged to return to their homes once their work stints are over.
Others might worry that they will take jobs away from locals. Perhaps they would; but why not? All men are brothers; giving a job to one person and not another on the basis of nationality or national origin is not commendable. And a Canadian thrown onto welfare still lives far better than a Filipino or a Sri Lankan does now.
And what’s the alternative? We know we are facing a crisis of depopulation, all over the developed world. Without some form of massive migration, there will be no way to support and care for the aged as they retire.
The advantage of this programme over immigration per se is that the people coming will be coming specifically to work, and will not add to the burden of the system in their own retirement. They will be obliged to retire back to their country of origin, or to a third country.
Is this unfair? If so, it’s still better than the present system. Half a loaf is better than none.
In fact, in my experience, most immigrants want to retire back home anyway, if they can. And why not? It is a solace for most to end where you started, and a hardship to die in alien corn. Invariably, they can have a more comfortable life in retirement back home than they could manage in Canada or America or Western Europe, with their higher living expenses. Giving them Canadian citizenship may seem vaguely noble; but is probably entirely excess to their own requirements. It may even be--may I say it?--a bit chauvinistic. We are saying, if they want to stay and work, they have to change allegiances. That is not necessarily a welcome demand. It made more sense in an earlier day, when most migrants could not hope ever to afford the long journey back home.
Meantime, by making them citizens, we are doing a disservice to the Third World. We are stripping them of their best and most enterprising, and of the capital they could produce. With a guest worker programme, they invest their earnings back home, boosting the home economy. The Economist estimates that letting just 3% of the developed world’s labour be performed by guest workers would give the developing world $200 billion per year.
We in Canada currently favour those with the best educational credentials for immigration. These are the people least in need of our assistance. These are the people most needed by their home countries. And, if immigration does throw locals out of work, locals are losing the best and highest-paying jobs to new immigrants. Better to open the doors to everyone; if we really do lose jobs, at least the loss is more fairly distributed. More likely, though, an overall boost in economic activity, and a more competitive work force, based on merit rather than place of birth, will mean more jobs for all.
It’s time we tried this. It seems to work pretty well in the UAE--with a system of preferences for locals to compensate for possible job loss.
This is an issue that has been eating at me for some time. It does seem a fundamental violation of human rights to restrict freedom of movement across borders the way we do.
Many are afraid of being buried in a wave of new immigrants. But this program would prevent that: they would be _guests_, obliged to return to their homes once their work stints are over.
Others might worry that they will take jobs away from locals. Perhaps they would; but why not? All men are brothers; giving a job to one person and not another on the basis of nationality or national origin is not commendable. And a Canadian thrown onto welfare still lives far better than a Filipino or a Sri Lankan does now.
And what’s the alternative? We know we are facing a crisis of depopulation, all over the developed world. Without some form of massive migration, there will be no way to support and care for the aged as they retire.
The advantage of this programme over immigration per se is that the people coming will be coming specifically to work, and will not add to the burden of the system in their own retirement. They will be obliged to retire back to their country of origin, or to a third country.
Is this unfair? If so, it’s still better than the present system. Half a loaf is better than none.
In fact, in my experience, most immigrants want to retire back home anyway, if they can. And why not? It is a solace for most to end where you started, and a hardship to die in alien corn. Invariably, they can have a more comfortable life in retirement back home than they could manage in Canada or America or Western Europe, with their higher living expenses. Giving them Canadian citizenship may seem vaguely noble; but is probably entirely excess to their own requirements. It may even be--may I say it?--a bit chauvinistic. We are saying, if they want to stay and work, they have to change allegiances. That is not necessarily a welcome demand. It made more sense in an earlier day, when most migrants could not hope ever to afford the long journey back home.
Meantime, by making them citizens, we are doing a disservice to the Third World. We are stripping them of their best and most enterprising, and of the capital they could produce. With a guest worker programme, they invest their earnings back home, boosting the home economy. The Economist estimates that letting just 3% of the developed world’s labour be performed by guest workers would give the developing world $200 billion per year.
We in Canada currently favour those with the best educational credentials for immigration. These are the people least in need of our assistance. These are the people most needed by their home countries. And, if immigration does throw locals out of work, locals are losing the best and highest-paying jobs to new immigrants. Better to open the doors to everyone; if we really do lose jobs, at least the loss is more fairly distributed. More likely, though, an overall boost in economic activity, and a more competitive work force, based on merit rather than place of birth, will mean more jobs for all.
It’s time we tried this. It seems to work pretty well in the UAE--with a system of preferences for locals to compensate for possible job loss.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Free Speech in Canada
I had not heard of Neil French before today, but his story illustrates how little free speech there is now in Canada. A top adman, he was asked at a public forum in Toronto why there were not more women employed as creative directors in advertising. He apparently answered that they did not work hard enough. They were always dropping out to have children.
Never mind that women themselves--women lawyers, for example--have been demanding shorter hours for years now, because of their supposed family responsibilities. Never mind that employers are obliged by law to give women maternity leaves. This obvious truth cannot be spoken these days, at least in North America. But what employer in his right mind is going to prefer a woman in a crucial job, given that she is so much less committed?
French has apparently had to resign.
http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2005/10/20/french_resigns_wpp_takes/index.php
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001348797
Never mind that women themselves--women lawyers, for example--have been demanding shorter hours for years now, because of their supposed family responsibilities. Never mind that employers are obliged by law to give women maternity leaves. This obvious truth cannot be spoken these days, at least in North America. But what employer in his right mind is going to prefer a woman in a crucial job, given that she is so much less committed?
French has apparently had to resign.
http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/2005/10/20/french_resigns_wpp_takes/index.php
http://www.adweek.com/aw/national/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001348797
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
The Rich Get Richer
Linda McQuaig notes in the Toronto Star that “Canada is becoming a much more unequal society”: the top one percent doubled their share of income from 1980 to 2000. (“When all taxes are factored in Canadians all pay the same relative amount,” Star, October 16, 2005).
This same week, The Economist laments that Britain is becoming less socially mobile: fewer people are able to move up the ladder (“Land of Hope and Glory,” Economist, October 8, 2005, p. 42). People born after 1970 are significantly less likely to have “escaped their class origins” than those born twelve years earlier.
Why?
Note that both nations have, at least for the last twelve years or so, been governed from the left. It is left-wing policies that are producing this result.
No surprise. A free market allows fortunes to both rise and fall. Greater government regulation protects vested interests and makes it harder for newcomers to break in.
But there’s more. This should freeze people at their income levels, but not give the richest such a big boost. Note that Canadian stat: double their share of income.
That, I submit, is probably the effect of feminism. A generation ago, working class women already worked outside the home, because they had to. Wealthy women did not. Today, upper class women also work outside the home, effectively doubling incomes at the top level.
This in itself would not be so bad; one woman’s wealth does not detract from the next person’s. But there is that matter of class mobility. When we double the number of upper-class people flooding in the workforce, there are a lot fewer crumbs to spill down to the unwashed. It becomes less likely for anyone to move up off the loading dock.
Affirmative action: welfare for the very wealthy.
McQuaig goes on to point out that, when all taxes are included, rich and poor currently pay about the same percentage of their income in tax. While income tax is progressive, property taxes and sales taxes are regressive. It ends up roughly a wash.
She thinks this is an argument for higher taxes on the rich.
But for the rich, taxes are always more or less voluntary. The rich are mobile. Tax them too heavily, close their loopholes, and they, or their taxable assets, are on the next westbound train. You cannot soak the rich without getting everyone else very wet.
To the contrary; if McQuaig is correct that rich and poor both pay the same proportion of their income in taxes, raising the tax burden harms everyone, and reducing the tax burden helps everyone.
The rich, indeed, probably still prefer big government, as they always have. Unlike the poor, the money they pay in taxes is excess to basic requirements. It is worth it to protect their social position and their assets; never mind the argument that government spends more on the priorities of the rich than those of the poor.
Everyone who works for government will, of course, also want bigger government.
And this is the coalition that rules us. This is the Liberal Party: the wealthy, and government employees.
This same week, The Economist laments that Britain is becoming less socially mobile: fewer people are able to move up the ladder (“Land of Hope and Glory,” Economist, October 8, 2005, p. 42). People born after 1970 are significantly less likely to have “escaped their class origins” than those born twelve years earlier.
Why?
Note that both nations have, at least for the last twelve years or so, been governed from the left. It is left-wing policies that are producing this result.
No surprise. A free market allows fortunes to both rise and fall. Greater government regulation protects vested interests and makes it harder for newcomers to break in.
But there’s more. This should freeze people at their income levels, but not give the richest such a big boost. Note that Canadian stat: double their share of income.
That, I submit, is probably the effect of feminism. A generation ago, working class women already worked outside the home, because they had to. Wealthy women did not. Today, upper class women also work outside the home, effectively doubling incomes at the top level.
This in itself would not be so bad; one woman’s wealth does not detract from the next person’s. But there is that matter of class mobility. When we double the number of upper-class people flooding in the workforce, there are a lot fewer crumbs to spill down to the unwashed. It becomes less likely for anyone to move up off the loading dock.
Affirmative action: welfare for the very wealthy.
McQuaig goes on to point out that, when all taxes are included, rich and poor currently pay about the same percentage of their income in tax. While income tax is progressive, property taxes and sales taxes are regressive. It ends up roughly a wash.
She thinks this is an argument for higher taxes on the rich.
But for the rich, taxes are always more or less voluntary. The rich are mobile. Tax them too heavily, close their loopholes, and they, or their taxable assets, are on the next westbound train. You cannot soak the rich without getting everyone else very wet.
To the contrary; if McQuaig is correct that rich and poor both pay the same proportion of their income in taxes, raising the tax burden harms everyone, and reducing the tax burden helps everyone.
The rich, indeed, probably still prefer big government, as they always have. Unlike the poor, the money they pay in taxes is excess to basic requirements. It is worth it to protect their social position and their assets; never mind the argument that government spends more on the priorities of the rich than those of the poor.
Everyone who works for government will, of course, also want bigger government.
And this is the coalition that rules us. This is the Liberal Party: the wealthy, and government employees.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Support Global Warming
I found a beautiful new screen saver on-line:
http://www.primeminister.ca/images/nasa_earth_winter_2004.jpg
It is a composite photograph taken from space, showing Earth in the depths of winter. Here in exile, it reminds me of home. There is Canada, literally a big white mass. The great white north. Snow and ice stops almost exactly at its southern border.
Mon pays, c’est l’hiver.
But one other thought strikes me.
Global warming, if it is happening, is a good thing. Man has an effect on the environment? It is about time. Why shouldn’t we improve the environment, just as we have improved on nature in other ways?
Science fiction authors talk about “terraforming” other planets. But in fact, the Earth is far from ideal for man now. If we got seriously into tinkering with the climate of Earth, we could probably support many times the population we have, in far greater comfort.
Those big white areas, north and south, can be dealt with by global warming. So far, so good. Some of it becomes habitable, when it was not. Some becomes pleasant to live in, when it was not. Some can support two crops a year, instead of one. All to the good. Not to mention opening new shipping passages and so forth.
Nor does this mean the tropics become unusable. The hottest places on earth, the tropics, are the most fertile. Global warming, they say, will mostly affect the poles, not the tropics; but change here would presumably not reduce yields anyway.
Yes, there are vast deserts at the edges of the tropics: most of Africa is pale, sandy brown; all but a small fringe of Australia; a big swath through Central Asia.
Here we come to another advantage of global warming: they say that, with the polar ice caps melting, more water will be released into the ecosystem.
Well, darn it all. Now we have what we need to make the deserts fertile as well. At worst, all that is left is a problem with transport. Somebody one of these days is going to develop a really cheap method of desalinization, or cloud-forming, and we’re off to the races.
But, they say, water levels will rise in the oceans. Maybe so—I suspect we can use all the water in the deserts, but there may be some residue.
So what? It is high time we started colonizing the sea anyway. In the southern hemisphere, most of the temperate belt, the most pleasant climate to live in, is under water, under the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. How terrible would it be if everyone had their own island in the South Pacific?
Floating islands, I’m presuming. With desalinization to supply water, and fish farming for food. At present, we only hunt and gather the oceans; imagine if we were still hunting and gathering on land.
At present, looking at that satellite photo, we are really using only in small strips of that satellite image: two thirds of the earth is ocean. Of the remaining third, perhaps one third is ice, and one third is desert. We are left with one ninth of Earth to live on. If that much can support six billion, we should be supporting fifty-four billion.
Which leads to one last observation: we’ve got to start having more children.
http://www.primeminister.ca/images/nasa_earth_winter_2004.jpg
It is a composite photograph taken from space, showing Earth in the depths of winter. Here in exile, it reminds me of home. There is Canada, literally a big white mass. The great white north. Snow and ice stops almost exactly at its southern border.
Mon pays, c’est l’hiver.
But one other thought strikes me.
Global warming, if it is happening, is a good thing. Man has an effect on the environment? It is about time. Why shouldn’t we improve the environment, just as we have improved on nature in other ways?
Science fiction authors talk about “terraforming” other planets. But in fact, the Earth is far from ideal for man now. If we got seriously into tinkering with the climate of Earth, we could probably support many times the population we have, in far greater comfort.
Those big white areas, north and south, can be dealt with by global warming. So far, so good. Some of it becomes habitable, when it was not. Some becomes pleasant to live in, when it was not. Some can support two crops a year, instead of one. All to the good. Not to mention opening new shipping passages and so forth.
Nor does this mean the tropics become unusable. The hottest places on earth, the tropics, are the most fertile. Global warming, they say, will mostly affect the poles, not the tropics; but change here would presumably not reduce yields anyway.
Yes, there are vast deserts at the edges of the tropics: most of Africa is pale, sandy brown; all but a small fringe of Australia; a big swath through Central Asia.
Here we come to another advantage of global warming: they say that, with the polar ice caps melting, more water will be released into the ecosystem.
Well, darn it all. Now we have what we need to make the deserts fertile as well. At worst, all that is left is a problem with transport. Somebody one of these days is going to develop a really cheap method of desalinization, or cloud-forming, and we’re off to the races.
But, they say, water levels will rise in the oceans. Maybe so—I suspect we can use all the water in the deserts, but there may be some residue.
So what? It is high time we started colonizing the sea anyway. In the southern hemisphere, most of the temperate belt, the most pleasant climate to live in, is under water, under the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific. How terrible would it be if everyone had their own island in the South Pacific?
Floating islands, I’m presuming. With desalinization to supply water, and fish farming for food. At present, we only hunt and gather the oceans; imagine if we were still hunting and gathering on land.
At present, looking at that satellite photo, we are really using only in small strips of that satellite image: two thirds of the earth is ocean. Of the remaining third, perhaps one third is ice, and one third is desert. We are left with one ninth of Earth to live on. If that much can support six billion, we should be supporting fifty-four billion.
Which leads to one last observation: we’ve got to start having more children.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Why Catholicism is the Truth
Recently on an email list to which I subscribe, two Protestant Christians considering conversion asked why those of us who are Catholic believe Catholicism is the truth.
It is unfashionable in some circles, of course, to say anything at all is true. This position, however, is ridiculous. The statement "there is no truth" is self-contradictory. Among the various doctrines held by mankind, one must be truer than the rest.
Catholicism has been tested and proven over time; its teachings have survived two thousand years of general scrutiny intact. Buddhism, by contrast, seems to lose vitality after about five hundred years, and has disappeared from nations where it once was prevalent. Islam, Christianity, and Marxism have all been able to cut through Buddhism like butter.
Individual Protestant denominations seem to lose the spark in a generation or two; I did grad studies in the “burnt-over district,” in Syracuse New York. There wasn’t a trace of the ferment that had been there just a century or so ago. Compare Lourdes, or Monte Cassino.
Hinduism is older than Catholicism, but current Hinduism bears little relation in doctrine or ritual to what was called Hinduism two thousand years ago. Even the gods are different.
Islam has not undergone the same testing as Catholicism, if only because it is younger. It also prohibits apostasy on pain of death, which adds factors other than intellectual conviction into the mix.
Only Judaism seems comparable to Catholicism in terms of historical durability.
In a similar vein, Catholicism has been tested and approved by some of the greatest minds of all time. Choose your field: Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, Erasmus, Thomas More, Copernicus, Mendel, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes. Not everyone you might cite as the best minds of all time; but more than any other doctrine known to man. Many names often cited as dissident, actually became convinced Catholics in the end, presumably as they grew older and wiser: Oscar Wilde, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, Voltaire, Carl Jung, Hermann Hesse.
Purely as an intellectual doctrine, Catholicism seems to have the strongest claim to truth of anything we know.
It is unfashionable in some circles, of course, to say anything at all is true. This position, however, is ridiculous. The statement "there is no truth" is self-contradictory. Among the various doctrines held by mankind, one must be truer than the rest.
Catholicism has been tested and proven over time; its teachings have survived two thousand years of general scrutiny intact. Buddhism, by contrast, seems to lose vitality after about five hundred years, and has disappeared from nations where it once was prevalent. Islam, Christianity, and Marxism have all been able to cut through Buddhism like butter.
Individual Protestant denominations seem to lose the spark in a generation or two; I did grad studies in the “burnt-over district,” in Syracuse New York. There wasn’t a trace of the ferment that had been there just a century or so ago. Compare Lourdes, or Monte Cassino.
Hinduism is older than Catholicism, but current Hinduism bears little relation in doctrine or ritual to what was called Hinduism two thousand years ago. Even the gods are different.
Islam has not undergone the same testing as Catholicism, if only because it is younger. It also prohibits apostasy on pain of death, which adds factors other than intellectual conviction into the mix.
Only Judaism seems comparable to Catholicism in terms of historical durability.
In a similar vein, Catholicism has been tested and approved by some of the greatest minds of all time. Choose your field: Thomas Aquinas, Rene Descartes, Erasmus, Thomas More, Copernicus, Mendel, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes. Not everyone you might cite as the best minds of all time; but more than any other doctrine known to man. Many names often cited as dissident, actually became convinced Catholics in the end, presumably as they grew older and wiser: Oscar Wilde, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams, Voltaire, Carl Jung, Hermann Hesse.
Purely as an intellectual doctrine, Catholicism seems to have the strongest claim to truth of anything we know.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Those Who Control the Present...
The things popular opinion gets wrong about history are legion. A quick scan of a copy of History Magazine prompts the following random collection:
- Britain is commonly accused of rapaciousness in trading opium to China. Not fair. Opium was a common medicine; nobody considered it harmful. Britain was the first country to ban it, in 1878.
- The Catholic Church is commonly painted as intolerant for the Albigensian Crusade, the crusade against the Cathars. It is worth remembering that the Cathars, not the Catholics, were the aggressors. The Cathars seized control of Toulouse and murdered the Papal Legate.
- The West is commonly portrayed as a band of racist bandits in the sack of Constantinople in 1204, who could not tell the difference between Muslims and Eastern Christians. The truth is more complex. The throne of Constantinople was held by a usurper. The Western crusaders had been invited in by the rightful heir. They returned him to power, and withdrew. He was then deposed and murdered by the usurper’s faction, which refused to pay the debts he had incurred to the crusaders. They sacked Constantinople to get their pay.
- Magna Carta, the foundation of all the liberties of modern liberal democracy, is usually described strictly as a rebellion by the barons of England. But the primary instigator, and the true author of our liberties, was the Catholic Church. The dispute was caused by John’s demand to name the Archbishop of Canterbury. And just check out what the Magna Carta actually says: Article 1 guarantees the freedom of the church.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/magna-carta.html
- Note another thing, in relation to the common claim that women were accorded a lesser status than men throughout history. Several of the articles of Magna Carta grant special rights to women (article 7, 8, 11). There seem to be no special rights granted to men.
- Europeans are commonly blamed for introducing all sorts of diseases to the Native Americans—as if this were something intentional on their part. But it is probable that syphilis went the other way. It quickly infected about 13% of the European population in the years just after Columbus’s voyage; and was, in those days, as fatal as AIDS today..
- Canadians are commonly under the delusion that they scorched the White House in the War of 1812. It was the British Navy.
- The Catholic Church is commonly blamed for insisting for many years that the sun revolved around the earth. In fact, Copernicus was a Catholic clergyman, and the church raised no objection to his work. The religious objection to the heliocentric thesis was raised by Martin Luther; and the Protestant John Donne puts Copernicus in hell as a lieutenant of the Devil himself in Ignatius His Conclave. The Catholic reaction to the new theory was altogether much milder; Catholics had never believed in a literal interpretation of scripture.
- Britain is commonly accused of rapaciousness in trading opium to China. Not fair. Opium was a common medicine; nobody considered it harmful. Britain was the first country to ban it, in 1878.
- The Catholic Church is commonly painted as intolerant for the Albigensian Crusade, the crusade against the Cathars. It is worth remembering that the Cathars, not the Catholics, were the aggressors. The Cathars seized control of Toulouse and murdered the Papal Legate.
- The West is commonly portrayed as a band of racist bandits in the sack of Constantinople in 1204, who could not tell the difference between Muslims and Eastern Christians. The truth is more complex. The throne of Constantinople was held by a usurper. The Western crusaders had been invited in by the rightful heir. They returned him to power, and withdrew. He was then deposed and murdered by the usurper’s faction, which refused to pay the debts he had incurred to the crusaders. They sacked Constantinople to get their pay.
- Magna Carta, the foundation of all the liberties of modern liberal democracy, is usually described strictly as a rebellion by the barons of England. But the primary instigator, and the true author of our liberties, was the Catholic Church. The dispute was caused by John’s demand to name the Archbishop of Canterbury. And just check out what the Magna Carta actually says: Article 1 guarantees the freedom of the church.
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/magna-carta.html
- Note another thing, in relation to the common claim that women were accorded a lesser status than men throughout history. Several of the articles of Magna Carta grant special rights to women (article 7, 8, 11). There seem to be no special rights granted to men.
- Europeans are commonly blamed for introducing all sorts of diseases to the Native Americans—as if this were something intentional on their part. But it is probable that syphilis went the other way. It quickly infected about 13% of the European population in the years just after Columbus’s voyage; and was, in those days, as fatal as AIDS today..
- Canadians are commonly under the delusion that they scorched the White House in the War of 1812. It was the British Navy.
- The Catholic Church is commonly blamed for insisting for many years that the sun revolved around the earth. In fact, Copernicus was a Catholic clergyman, and the church raised no objection to his work. The religious objection to the heliocentric thesis was raised by Martin Luther; and the Protestant John Donne puts Copernicus in hell as a lieutenant of the Devil himself in Ignatius His Conclave. The Catholic reaction to the new theory was altogether much milder; Catholics had never believed in a literal interpretation of scripture.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Why I Don't Live in Canada
This week, by mischance, I was reminded once again why I do not live in Canada. A colleague had acquired a video jointly produced by the CBC and NFB. The subject was “Stupidity.”
For some reason, the CBC-NFB believed this subject was best illustrated by showing a lot of naked bottoms and penises. I would have thought the CBC logo was enough.
They also interviewed, of course, the CBC’s usual favourites: Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher, Rick Mercer. These, mind, were supposed to be experts on stupidity, not examples of it.
From this, you can probably guess the climax: their ultimate examples of stupidity in the world today. The first, of course, was religion, which was supposedly a matter of adopting “rigid beliefs” instead of thinking. This was illustrated visually by scenes from “A Passion Play Written by Pope John Paul II,” as a subtitle helpfully pointed out to us. “Religions can be very stupid,” the voice over explained.
And the second, equally inevitably, was George W. Bush. “Could the leader of the Free World be the lowest common denominator?” the narrator asked. Rhetorically, it seems. For Bush was then described as “the stupidest president ever--with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan.”
Good solid objective journalism; no political axes to grind here. And, whether I choose to watch it or not, I must pay for it.
Finally, the documentary complained about the media giving a free ride to George W. “The media raises no questions [about what he says]” the narrator concluded.
The unintended ironies here are beyond counting. One of the greatest ironies of the left, indeed, is that the left believes it has a sense of irony.
But what also struck me is how obvious it has become that the factors behind Bush-bashing in Canada are the same that fuel it in the Third World. It comes from a lack of free speech.
If, after all, a Canadian journalist wants to treat of stupidity in politics, why not a Canadian example? Is Jean Chretien’s magnificent intellect truly beyond all question?
No; the CBC knows, and to a lesser extent, all Canadian journalists know, that what they can and cannot say is tightly proscribed. The federal Liberals can and do exact vengeance against those in the media who seriously challenge them; ask Conrad Black. Speech codes, never mind libel laws, can put you in prison pretty fast if you say the wrong thing.
So, if you want to give the sham appearance of being more than a political lapdog on a short leash, the only possibility is to slam Americans hard. It looks good, but they, unlike your own government, cannot touch you.
So social consensus is preserved by scapegoating the other, the foreigner. Hitler knew this well; so does Al Qaeda. So does the Canadian left.
And so I do not live in Canada. In Canada, I must always be careful what I say or write. Even things apparent to all cannot be said. This produces an intellectual atmosphere more oppressive than any I have encountered anywhere else I have been, short of the People’s Republic of China. And that back in the early nineties, not today.
For some reason, the CBC-NFB believed this subject was best illustrated by showing a lot of naked bottoms and penises. I would have thought the CBC logo was enough.
They also interviewed, of course, the CBC’s usual favourites: Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Bill Maher, Rick Mercer. These, mind, were supposed to be experts on stupidity, not examples of it.
From this, you can probably guess the climax: their ultimate examples of stupidity in the world today. The first, of course, was religion, which was supposedly a matter of adopting “rigid beliefs” instead of thinking. This was illustrated visually by scenes from “A Passion Play Written by Pope John Paul II,” as a subtitle helpfully pointed out to us. “Religions can be very stupid,” the voice over explained.
And the second, equally inevitably, was George W. Bush. “Could the leader of the Free World be the lowest common denominator?” the narrator asked. Rhetorically, it seems. For Bush was then described as “the stupidest president ever--with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan.”
Good solid objective journalism; no political axes to grind here. And, whether I choose to watch it or not, I must pay for it.
Finally, the documentary complained about the media giving a free ride to George W. “The media raises no questions [about what he says]” the narrator concluded.
The unintended ironies here are beyond counting. One of the greatest ironies of the left, indeed, is that the left believes it has a sense of irony.
But what also struck me is how obvious it has become that the factors behind Bush-bashing in Canada are the same that fuel it in the Third World. It comes from a lack of free speech.
If, after all, a Canadian journalist wants to treat of stupidity in politics, why not a Canadian example? Is Jean Chretien’s magnificent intellect truly beyond all question?
No; the CBC knows, and to a lesser extent, all Canadian journalists know, that what they can and cannot say is tightly proscribed. The federal Liberals can and do exact vengeance against those in the media who seriously challenge them; ask Conrad Black. Speech codes, never mind libel laws, can put you in prison pretty fast if you say the wrong thing.
So, if you want to give the sham appearance of being more than a political lapdog on a short leash, the only possibility is to slam Americans hard. It looks good, but they, unlike your own government, cannot touch you.
So social consensus is preserved by scapegoating the other, the foreigner. Hitler knew this well; so does Al Qaeda. So does the Canadian left.
And so I do not live in Canada. In Canada, I must always be careful what I say or write. Even things apparent to all cannot be said. This produces an intellectual atmosphere more oppressive than any I have encountered anywhere else I have been, short of the People’s Republic of China. And that back in the early nineties, not today.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Global Warming: Canada's Great White Hope
According to this NYT article, global warming could be a real bonanza for Canada. For one thing, the Arctic probably holds one third of the world's oil reserves:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html?th&emc=th
You may need to register to see this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html?th&emc=th
You may need to register to see this.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Contemporary Feminism in a Nutshell
The following sentence, a miracle of concision, actually appeared (in Swedish) in the Swedish journal Folkvett. It manages to capture in just a few words the essence of current feminist ideology:
"The argument that there exists a difference between the sexes is a typical male view."
"The argument that there exists a difference between the sexes is a typical male view."
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Intelligent Design in the Schools
A colleague is urging fellow Canadian editors to sign a petition demanding that Ohio prevent the teaching of Intelligent Design in science classes.
She argues that teaching intelligent design in science classrooms would be equivalent to having English teachers teach "ain't."
She calls instead for teaching science as we teach English, "in its pure form."
I’m not sure that’s the exact analogy. While every high school teacher may know it’s wrong, such prominent scientists as Bacon, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking themselves believe in some sort of “intelligent design” to the universe. So perhaps the devotion to Darwin alone is more like one of “Miss Thistlebottom’s hobgoblins”: like beginning a sentence with “and” or “but,” or ending one with a preposition. Something everyone believes, except, apparently, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, and Hemingway.
Now you may say that not everything a scientist believes is science; that intelligent design still belongs in philosophy class, not science class. (Though Einstein apparently did not think so: “God does not throw dice,” he said to dismiss quantum mechanics.)
However, it seems to me that the same argument, to the same extent, could be said to exclude Darwinism from the science class as well: defined as the “doctrine of evolution by natural selection of random mutations.” The concepts “natural” and “random” are surely just as philosophical and difficult to prove or disprove by the scientific method as that of “design.” But remove them, and there is no distinction between Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
In any case, the notion that science has a “purity” that must be maintained by avoiding reference to other subjects in science class is debatable. We do not, after all, avoid mathematics in science classes, although math is a different subject. We do not avoid historical context when reading Shakespeare in English class. We do not avoid issues of semantics and language in philosophy. We do not ignore physics in shop.
In the case of science in particular, the subject is hopelessly intertwined with philosophy. It really makes no sense without awareness of certain philosophical assumptions. Remember, what we now call science would, two hundred years ago, have been called “natural philosophy.” Scientists still aspire to the Ph.D. degree.
I would argue rather that it is a serious weakness in our educational system that we do not teach the philosophy of science in science classes. As one result, we tend to promote “scientism”: a popular notion that the current majority views of science are certain received truth, and sufficient to explain the universe. A sort of substitute religion. Bad science; almost the opposite of the scientific method.
As to the idea that science should not be tampered with by politics: I agree. Yet urging a group composed mostly of English majors to sign a petition demanding government legislate that certain things not be taught in science classrooms seems not quite in the right spirit.
She argues that teaching intelligent design in science classrooms would be equivalent to having English teachers teach "ain't."
She calls instead for teaching science as we teach English, "in its pure form."
I’m not sure that’s the exact analogy. While every high school teacher may know it’s wrong, such prominent scientists as Bacon, Newton, Einstein, and Hawking themselves believe in some sort of “intelligent design” to the universe. So perhaps the devotion to Darwin alone is more like one of “Miss Thistlebottom’s hobgoblins”: like beginning a sentence with “and” or “but,” or ending one with a preposition. Something everyone believes, except, apparently, Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, and Hemingway.
Now you may say that not everything a scientist believes is science; that intelligent design still belongs in philosophy class, not science class. (Though Einstein apparently did not think so: “God does not throw dice,” he said to dismiss quantum mechanics.)
However, it seems to me that the same argument, to the same extent, could be said to exclude Darwinism from the science class as well: defined as the “doctrine of evolution by natural selection of random mutations.” The concepts “natural” and “random” are surely just as philosophical and difficult to prove or disprove by the scientific method as that of “design.” But remove them, and there is no distinction between Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
In any case, the notion that science has a “purity” that must be maintained by avoiding reference to other subjects in science class is debatable. We do not, after all, avoid mathematics in science classes, although math is a different subject. We do not avoid historical context when reading Shakespeare in English class. We do not avoid issues of semantics and language in philosophy. We do not ignore physics in shop.
In the case of science in particular, the subject is hopelessly intertwined with philosophy. It really makes no sense without awareness of certain philosophical assumptions. Remember, what we now call science would, two hundred years ago, have been called “natural philosophy.” Scientists still aspire to the Ph.D. degree.
I would argue rather that it is a serious weakness in our educational system that we do not teach the philosophy of science in science classes. As one result, we tend to promote “scientism”: a popular notion that the current majority views of science are certain received truth, and sufficient to explain the universe. A sort of substitute religion. Bad science; almost the opposite of the scientific method.
As to the idea that science should not be tampered with by politics: I agree. Yet urging a group composed mostly of English majors to sign a petition demanding government legislate that certain things not be taught in science classrooms seems not quite in the right spirit.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Times Debunks Religion
TheTimes of London is showcasing a new study suggesting that religion has no good social effects:
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
"The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
In the same vein, a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star once made me laugh. It was a psychiatrist arguing that religion caused mental illness. His evidence was that the mentally ill were uncommonly likely to be religious. He proposed that religion should be suppressed as a preventative measure.
But the same evidence equally proves that psychiatry causes mental illness. The mentally ill are also uncommonly likely to be seeing a psychiatrist.
This latest study seems to me to work the same way. If I were living in a place with high rates of homicide, STD, and early adult mortality, it would probably inspire me to be more religious too. But it hardly follows that the people who are out killing each other or getting STDs are the religious.
So these findings are consistent with the thesis that religion causes social problems in about the same sense that aspirin causes headaches.
There are a lot of other problems with the study in detail: for example, the author correlates “being religious” with a literal interpretation of the Bible and with opposition to the theory of evolution. These have nothing to do with religiosity for anyone outside a fairly narrow range of Protestantism, and definitely are not meaningful for, say, a Buddhist in Japan. (Yet Japan is included in his study, accordingly, as a “secular” nation.)
As to the question at issue, whether religion has desirable social effects, I doubt it is possible to amass enough evidence to make a compelling case either way. Humans are too complex; it is not possible to eliminate other variables. But, if it were not intuitively obvious that religion does promote social cohesion and well-being, there are suggestive examples from history. How did heretofore insignificant Arab culture suddenly emerge in the sixth century to conquer half the world? How did despised Christianity rapidly conquer the Roman Empire? How have the Jews survived without a country for two thousand years?
And, as a rough and ready measure of the results of atheism and materialism versus religious faith, how do the stats on suicide, mortality, abortion, STDs, and so forth measure up between Western and Eastern Europe, the latter having been until recently officially atheist?
You tell me.
The Heritage Foundation claims:
- Churchgoers are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single, and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in marriage.
- Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital stability and happiness.
- The regular practice of religion helps poor persons move out of poverty.
- Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime, and divorce.
- The regular practice of religion also encourages such beneficial effects on mental health as less depression (a modern epidemic), more self-esteem, and greater family and marital happiness.
- In repairing damage caused by alcoholism, drug addiction, and marital breakdown, religious belief and practice are a major source of strength and recovery.
- Regular practice of religion is good for personal physical health: It increases longevity, improves one's chances of recovery from illness, and lessens the incidence of many killer diseases.
Footnoted at:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Religion/BG1064.cfm
"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.
"The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html
In the same vein, a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star once made me laugh. It was a psychiatrist arguing that religion caused mental illness. His evidence was that the mentally ill were uncommonly likely to be religious. He proposed that religion should be suppressed as a preventative measure.
But the same evidence equally proves that psychiatry causes mental illness. The mentally ill are also uncommonly likely to be seeing a psychiatrist.
This latest study seems to me to work the same way. If I were living in a place with high rates of homicide, STD, and early adult mortality, it would probably inspire me to be more religious too. But it hardly follows that the people who are out killing each other or getting STDs are the religious.
So these findings are consistent with the thesis that religion causes social problems in about the same sense that aspirin causes headaches.
There are a lot of other problems with the study in detail: for example, the author correlates “being religious” with a literal interpretation of the Bible and with opposition to the theory of evolution. These have nothing to do with religiosity for anyone outside a fairly narrow range of Protestantism, and definitely are not meaningful for, say, a Buddhist in Japan. (Yet Japan is included in his study, accordingly, as a “secular” nation.)
As to the question at issue, whether religion has desirable social effects, I doubt it is possible to amass enough evidence to make a compelling case either way. Humans are too complex; it is not possible to eliminate other variables. But, if it were not intuitively obvious that religion does promote social cohesion and well-being, there are suggestive examples from history. How did heretofore insignificant Arab culture suddenly emerge in the sixth century to conquer half the world? How did despised Christianity rapidly conquer the Roman Empire? How have the Jews survived without a country for two thousand years?
And, as a rough and ready measure of the results of atheism and materialism versus religious faith, how do the stats on suicide, mortality, abortion, STDs, and so forth measure up between Western and Eastern Europe, the latter having been until recently officially atheist?
You tell me.
The Heritage Foundation claims:
- Churchgoers are more likely to be married, less likely to be divorced or single, and more likely to manifest high levels of satisfaction in marriage.
- Church attendance is the most important predictor of marital stability and happiness.
- The regular practice of religion helps poor persons move out of poverty.
- Regular religious practice generally inoculates individuals against a host of social problems, including suicide, drug abuse, out-of-wedlock births, crime, and divorce.
- The regular practice of religion also encourages such beneficial effects on mental health as less depression (a modern epidemic), more self-esteem, and greater family and marital happiness.
- In repairing damage caused by alcoholism, drug addiction, and marital breakdown, religious belief and practice are a major source of strength and recovery.
- Regular practice of religion is good for personal physical health: It increases longevity, improves one's chances of recovery from illness, and lessens the incidence of many killer diseases.
Footnoted at:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Religion/BG1064.cfm
Tories Storm Back
According to the latest Decima poll--and, reputedly, Tory internal polls-- Conservative fortunes have picked up sharply since the summer.
Why?
Obvious. The CBC is on strike.
Why?
Obvious. The CBC is on strike.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Canada As a Model for Emerging Democracies. Not.
An interesting parable from Rick Anderson:
" Suppose some person from Tajikistan came up with a plan and said: 'OK, we're going to elect a prime minister by an indirect process -- through an internal political party vote by a few thousand people.'
"That party had come to power by a first-past-the-post voting system whereby MPs from that party win a majority of the seats in parliament, usually with less than 40% of the popular vote.
" 'And then,' exclaims the excited Tajikistani, 'we're going to give that prime minister the right to appoint ALL of the members of the Supreme Court, we're going to have a second legislative body and we'll let the Prime Minister appoint ALL the members of that.
" 'We're also going to let the Prime Minister appoint the head of the army, the head of the national police force, the heads of all the government departments and Crown corporations and key government agencies and we're going to let the Prime Minister also appoint the official head of state -- the only person who can fire him. All subject only to another election, held at the whim of the Prime Minister.' "
Sound democratic?
Not very.
But it is, of course, the Canadian system.
The complete article, courtesy of Licia Corbella and the Calgary Sun, is at:
http://tinyurl.com/cuao2
" Suppose some person from Tajikistan came up with a plan and said: 'OK, we're going to elect a prime minister by an indirect process -- through an internal political party vote by a few thousand people.'
"That party had come to power by a first-past-the-post voting system whereby MPs from that party win a majority of the seats in parliament, usually with less than 40% of the popular vote.
" 'And then,' exclaims the excited Tajikistani, 'we're going to give that prime minister the right to appoint ALL of the members of the Supreme Court, we're going to have a second legislative body and we'll let the Prime Minister appoint ALL the members of that.
" 'We're also going to let the Prime Minister appoint the head of the army, the head of the national police force, the heads of all the government departments and Crown corporations and key government agencies and we're going to let the Prime Minister also appoint the official head of state -- the only person who can fire him. All subject only to another election, held at the whim of the Prime Minister.' "
Sound democratic?
Not very.
But it is, of course, the Canadian system.
The complete article, courtesy of Licia Corbella and the Calgary Sun, is at:
http://tinyurl.com/cuao2
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Sexual Orientations 'R' Us
The Canadian Supreme Court has now “read into” the Canadian constitution a prohibition against discrimination on grounds of “sexual orientation.”
But do they really understand what “sexual orientation” means?
The DSM, the “bible” of psychiatry, lists the following as “sexual orientations”:
Homosexuality; bisexuality; pedophilia; transgenderism; transsexuality; transvestitism; transvestic fetishism; autogynephilia; voyeurism; exhibitionism; fetishism or sexual fetishism; zoophilia; sexual sadism; sexual masochism; necrophilia; klismaphilia; telephone scatalogia; urophilia; apotemnophilia; coprophilia; coprophagia; toucherism; partialism; frotteurism; and frattemism.
I’m not sure what some of these are. But they are now constitutionally protected from discrimination. And, under the Hate Laws, you must not criticize them, or you go to prison for two years. Perhaps we’d all better look them up, to be safe.
Thanks to Catholic Insight for the info.
But do they really understand what “sexual orientation” means?
The DSM, the “bible” of psychiatry, lists the following as “sexual orientations”:
Homosexuality; bisexuality; pedophilia; transgenderism; transsexuality; transvestitism; transvestic fetishism; autogynephilia; voyeurism; exhibitionism; fetishism or sexual fetishism; zoophilia; sexual sadism; sexual masochism; necrophilia; klismaphilia; telephone scatalogia; urophilia; apotemnophilia; coprophilia; coprophagia; toucherism; partialism; frotteurism; and frattemism.
I’m not sure what some of these are. But they are now constitutionally protected from discrimination. And, under the Hate Laws, you must not criticize them, or you go to prison for two years. Perhaps we’d all better look them up, to be safe.
Thanks to Catholic Insight for the info.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Sharia and a Woman's Right to Choose
I am not at all happy at the new plan to ban all religious arbitration in Ontario, in order to prevent the use of sharia law. Bad move; bigoted move.
It endorses and promotes prejudice against Islam. One reads outrageous claims like this:
“But fundamentalist Islam, in particular, can be harsh, [Homa Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant] said.
‘Divorces are happening behind closed doors and the woman is banned from having custody of her children,’ Ms. Arjomand said. ‘She is being sent back to her home country to live with her relatives.’” (Globe & Mail)
That might be happening, but not under sharia. According to sharia, the mother gets custody of younger children, the father gets older children. Much fairer than the Canadian system, in which the mother almost always gets full custody. The mother may choose to live with relatives, but she gets alimony or a lump sum settlement. Unless she is judged to be at fault in the divorce; but that is as it should be.
June Callwood raised the ridiculous canard that a woman might be stoned to death as part of a divorce settlement.
It also looks terrible that a system that has been used by other religious groups for fourteen years without trouble suddenly becomes intolerable when used by Muslims. What else is that but anti-Muslim discrimination? What else is that but intolerance of Islam?
Allowed for settling marital disputes outside the courts had several great advantages. First, the courts cannot or will not keep up with their caseload; and justice delayed is justice denied. Second, courts are terribly expensive for all concerned. Allowing independent arbitrators saved a huge amount of taxpayer money, and a huge amount of money for those seeking a divorce. Third the courts are set up to be adversarial. Religious arbitration is not. In particular, any sharia court works hard to keep the marriage together.
Accordingly, using religious arbitration kept families together. If the marriage broke up, it was far likelier to end on amicable terms. Both parties were more likely to end up with a settlement they were happy with. And both parties were better off for keeping their money instead of spending it on lawyers.
All benefits for the parties concerned, and all beneficial to society as a whole. A win-win-win situation. All lost due to prejudice.
Feminists argued that sharia law would be unfair to women. This claim is itself unfair to women. For application of sharia law was voluntary.
Literally, here feminists are denying women the right to choose, to make their own decisions, to control their own lives. They must not be permitted the right to choose to be Muslims.
The feminists argue that Muslim women would be unduly influenced to agree to sharia law. Even though decisions of a sharia court could be appealed.
But if women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, if they are so vulnerable to being “influenced,” what does this say about their ability to hold responsible positions, or indeed to enter into other contracts?
It would seem that, in the eyes of feminism, women should not be “persons” in law. They cannot be expected to behave responsibly.
It endorses and promotes prejudice against Islam. One reads outrageous claims like this:
“But fundamentalist Islam, in particular, can be harsh, [Homa Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant] said.
‘Divorces are happening behind closed doors and the woman is banned from having custody of her children,’ Ms. Arjomand said. ‘She is being sent back to her home country to live with her relatives.’” (Globe & Mail)
That might be happening, but not under sharia. According to sharia, the mother gets custody of younger children, the father gets older children. Much fairer than the Canadian system, in which the mother almost always gets full custody. The mother may choose to live with relatives, but she gets alimony or a lump sum settlement. Unless she is judged to be at fault in the divorce; but that is as it should be.
June Callwood raised the ridiculous canard that a woman might be stoned to death as part of a divorce settlement.
It also looks terrible that a system that has been used by other religious groups for fourteen years without trouble suddenly becomes intolerable when used by Muslims. What else is that but anti-Muslim discrimination? What else is that but intolerance of Islam?
Allowed for settling marital disputes outside the courts had several great advantages. First, the courts cannot or will not keep up with their caseload; and justice delayed is justice denied. Second, courts are terribly expensive for all concerned. Allowing independent arbitrators saved a huge amount of taxpayer money, and a huge amount of money for those seeking a divorce. Third the courts are set up to be adversarial. Religious arbitration is not. In particular, any sharia court works hard to keep the marriage together.
Accordingly, using religious arbitration kept families together. If the marriage broke up, it was far likelier to end on amicable terms. Both parties were more likely to end up with a settlement they were happy with. And both parties were better off for keeping their money instead of spending it on lawyers.
All benefits for the parties concerned, and all beneficial to society as a whole. A win-win-win situation. All lost due to prejudice.
Feminists argued that sharia law would be unfair to women. This claim is itself unfair to women. For application of sharia law was voluntary.
Literally, here feminists are denying women the right to choose, to make their own decisions, to control their own lives. They must not be permitted the right to choose to be Muslims.
The feminists argue that Muslim women would be unduly influenced to agree to sharia law. Even though decisions of a sharia court could be appealed.
But if women cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, if they are so vulnerable to being “influenced,” what does this say about their ability to hold responsible positions, or indeed to enter into other contracts?
It would seem that, in the eyes of feminism, women should not be “persons” in law. They cannot be expected to behave responsibly.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Found Aphorisms
Shiny gems of insight found in recent received emails:
Only the devil wishes everyone to be his friend.
Living near Sedona, Arizona (an "enlightened" place) I get sick of not being able to converse with anyone because you can't say anything anymore. Conversation is strangled a by a billion politically correct restraints. I'd rather just offend you now and pray for you later.
I have a friend who complains all the time about "the rich" until I brought it to her attention that she was in the top 10% of income earners.
Only the devil wishes everyone to be his friend.
Living near Sedona, Arizona (an "enlightened" place) I get sick of not being able to converse with anyone because you can't say anything anymore. Conversation is strangled a by a billion politically correct restraints. I'd rather just offend you now and pray for you later.
I have a friend who complains all the time about "the rich" until I brought it to her attention that she was in the top 10% of income earners.
Friday, September 23, 2005
The Oppressed Ruling Class
A correspondent on my favourite professional email list laments that the intelligentsia rarely or never hold power.
Indeed, the modern left, while mostly professionals with advanced degrees, have convinced themselves that they somehow represent the disenfranchised poor and working class. How’d that happen?
In the broad sweep of history, the intelligentsia have almost always at least had an important role in government. They may not always have been the nominal rulers—that has sometimes been the military class, or aristocracy—but they have largely been the de facto governors, those who have their hands on the levers of power day to day.
In hunter-gatherer societies, the intelligentsia, the learned class, would be the medicine men, the witch doctors, the shamans. They held a power at least rivaling, perhaps exceeding that of the chiefs.
In China or Korea, the mandarinate were more powerful than the aristocracy, than anyone save the emperor himself, and could even depose him if they felt it necessary.
In India, the Brahmins were the top caste, those who had studied the Vedas, “as they had the most to do with intellect.” Above the Ksatriyas, the aristocracy, let alone the Vaisya bourgeoisie and Shudra proletariat.
In ancient Palestine, as the New Testament reports, the scribes and Pharisees held the real power, subject to appeal to Rome (and to the equivalent Roman class): these were, in modern terms, teachers, clergy, accountants, and lawyers. The educated elite.
So too in Medieval and early modern Europe: the educated or intellectual class was the clergy, and they made most of the daily decisions of law and government, holding all bureaucratic positions up to and including the chancellorship. They ran all schools and universities. They ran the hospitals. They kept the government records.
We all know about the Third Estate, and the Fourth Estate. But who was the First Estate? The educated class, the clergy: above the aristocracy, let alone the bourgeoisie. In England, they were considered part of the aristocracy: the House of Lords is formally divided into “Lords Spiritual” and “Lords Temporal” the former holding civil power due to their ecclesiastical office. In Germany and of course in Italy, bishops were often also the civil rulers of their diocese.
Many of the major intellectuals of history have indeed also held official state power: Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Thomas More, Yi Yulgok, Machiavelli, Disraeli, Andre Malraux, Havel, Pol Pot, Lenin, Mao. I suppose Mussolini also counts as a serious political thinker.
Traditional Marxist doctrine holds that, with the French revolution and its kin, power passed from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. Oddly skipping the intellectual class—Marx’s own class.
But a strong argument could be made that, instead, with the modern era, the highest power passed more completely from the Second to the First Estate. The bourgeoisie still wait for their day in the sun; let alone the proletariat or peasantry.
For who is really in charge of our law and government today? The lawyers. Some may be elected by the people as a whole—saving the courts, which wield independent power—but almost everyone elected is a lawyer. A holder of an advanced degree, a member of the intelligentsia.
Who is really in charge of our commerce? Not capitalists—not many of those, mostly just folks with pensions. It is the pension managers, and the MBAs who become corporate executives, all the way up to CEO. Again, holders of advanced degrees: the learned class; the intelligentsia. The bourgeoisie remain about what they always were, small shopkeepers making a middling living in their small shops.
Elsewhere in society, independent spheres of power are carved out by teachers and academics, medical doctors, social workers, journalists, scientists, and so forth. All have special privileges and powers. But all are members of the same professional or learned class.
So it is not that the intelligentsia is never in power; they continue in power now as they have always been, while other classes wax and wane around them. The old check from an aristocracy has been replaced, in some countries, by a similar check from democracy. In others, there is no longer any check—China, say; Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam, Laos.
Not that the best and the brightest of the intelligentsia are the ones with the most power. The brightest seem less attracted to power. As someone once said, “I have thought too much to stoop to action.” Research is more interesting.
Marxism, and especially Marxism-Leninism, is mostly a justification for the seizure of absolute power by the educated class (aka “the vanguard of the proletariat’).
This explains why it remains so popular in the universities, even when it has been thoroughly discredited in practice.
So, indeed, was Fascism.
The Pharisees we shall have always with us. Good people, too, most of them. But bad news when they lunge for total power.
Indeed, the modern left, while mostly professionals with advanced degrees, have convinced themselves that they somehow represent the disenfranchised poor and working class. How’d that happen?
In the broad sweep of history, the intelligentsia have almost always at least had an important role in government. They may not always have been the nominal rulers—that has sometimes been the military class, or aristocracy—but they have largely been the de facto governors, those who have their hands on the levers of power day to day.
In hunter-gatherer societies, the intelligentsia, the learned class, would be the medicine men, the witch doctors, the shamans. They held a power at least rivaling, perhaps exceeding that of the chiefs.
In China or Korea, the mandarinate were more powerful than the aristocracy, than anyone save the emperor himself, and could even depose him if they felt it necessary.
In India, the Brahmins were the top caste, those who had studied the Vedas, “as they had the most to do with intellect.” Above the Ksatriyas, the aristocracy, let alone the Vaisya bourgeoisie and Shudra proletariat.
In ancient Palestine, as the New Testament reports, the scribes and Pharisees held the real power, subject to appeal to Rome (and to the equivalent Roman class): these were, in modern terms, teachers, clergy, accountants, and lawyers. The educated elite.
So too in Medieval and early modern Europe: the educated or intellectual class was the clergy, and they made most of the daily decisions of law and government, holding all bureaucratic positions up to and including the chancellorship. They ran all schools and universities. They ran the hospitals. They kept the government records.
We all know about the Third Estate, and the Fourth Estate. But who was the First Estate? The educated class, the clergy: above the aristocracy, let alone the bourgeoisie. In England, they were considered part of the aristocracy: the House of Lords is formally divided into “Lords Spiritual” and “Lords Temporal” the former holding civil power due to their ecclesiastical office. In Germany and of course in Italy, bishops were often also the civil rulers of their diocese.
Many of the major intellectuals of history have indeed also held official state power: Marcus Aurelius, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Thomas More, Yi Yulgok, Machiavelli, Disraeli, Andre Malraux, Havel, Pol Pot, Lenin, Mao. I suppose Mussolini also counts as a serious political thinker.
Traditional Marxist doctrine holds that, with the French revolution and its kin, power passed from the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie. Oddly skipping the intellectual class—Marx’s own class.
But a strong argument could be made that, instead, with the modern era, the highest power passed more completely from the Second to the First Estate. The bourgeoisie still wait for their day in the sun; let alone the proletariat or peasantry.
For who is really in charge of our law and government today? The lawyers. Some may be elected by the people as a whole—saving the courts, which wield independent power—but almost everyone elected is a lawyer. A holder of an advanced degree, a member of the intelligentsia.
Who is really in charge of our commerce? Not capitalists—not many of those, mostly just folks with pensions. It is the pension managers, and the MBAs who become corporate executives, all the way up to CEO. Again, holders of advanced degrees: the learned class; the intelligentsia. The bourgeoisie remain about what they always were, small shopkeepers making a middling living in their small shops.
Elsewhere in society, independent spheres of power are carved out by teachers and academics, medical doctors, social workers, journalists, scientists, and so forth. All have special privileges and powers. But all are members of the same professional or learned class.
So it is not that the intelligentsia is never in power; they continue in power now as they have always been, while other classes wax and wane around them. The old check from an aristocracy has been replaced, in some countries, by a similar check from democracy. In others, there is no longer any check—China, say; Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam, Laos.
Not that the best and the brightest of the intelligentsia are the ones with the most power. The brightest seem less attracted to power. As someone once said, “I have thought too much to stoop to action.” Research is more interesting.
Marxism, and especially Marxism-Leninism, is mostly a justification for the seizure of absolute power by the educated class (aka “the vanguard of the proletariat’).
This explains why it remains so popular in the universities, even when it has been thoroughly discredited in practice.
So, indeed, was Fascism.
The Pharisees we shall have always with us. Good people, too, most of them. But bad news when they lunge for total power.
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