Smile or Die

"Mother told me to always smile."

You often hear the advice that you ought to have a positive attitude.

Advice to face the world with optimism is often, in small matters, no doubt good advice. We should meet anyone new with a smile, assuming their good intentions. To do otherwise is prejudice. But that is not the whole truth. Ronald Reagan used to say, “trust, but verify.” Former US Defense Secretary Mattis went further. “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody that you meet.”

This “positive attitude” business easily segues into the current postmodern idea that truth is subjective: talk of “narratives” and “my truth,” and the idea that you can create your own reality.
It goes further back than that, of course—“the power of positive thinking,” beloved by so many salesmen. “Think and grow rich.”

But being unrealistically optimistic is as harmful as being unrealistically pessimistic. The goal should not be optimism or pessimism, but realism.

An example from modern history: the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain was the determined optimist, and insisted on assuming good intentions.

Chamberlain’s approach was wildly popular, and Churchill’s was not. Churchill was dismissed as a warmonger.

This suggests that unrealistic optimism may be a more common human problem than unrealistic pessimism. People naturally WANT to be optimistic, and to believe good things will happen. Nobody WANTS to be pessimistic. And so this is the side on which we are more likely to err.

This is why we need to streetproof children, for example. The instinct is to be too trusting.

Other examples of unrealistic optimism leading to disaster can be easily found in history. The story of the Titanic is that same story. The story of Austria-Hungary starting the First World War by invading Serbia. The story of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. Both were obviously over-optimistic about their own abilities. So was Germany in invading the USSR in WWII. Or Napoleon in invading Russia the previous century. So was the US in going in to Vietnam, or Afghanistan, or Iraq. Probably every economic collapse ever has been caused by a preceding period of unreasonable investor optimism.

Canadian history? Laurier promised to solve the Manitoba Schools question with “sunny ways.” Everybody bought it at the time. The actual result: no more French or Catholic schools in Manitoba.

Unrealistic optimism is a recurring theme in the Old Testament: a prophet appears and warns of disaster to come, unless the government’s direction changes. And he is ignored as an annoying pessimist. And disaster comes. You’d think we’d been told this often enough to have learned the lesson.

The same theme is in the Greek: Cassandra and Laocoon in the Iliad. Nobody wants to hear anything upsetting.

Unrealistic optimism would seem to be the greater human danger, not unrealistic pessimism. But the real danger is unrealism. Realism is the proper goal.

The notion that we can critically affect by our own attitude whether good or bad befalls us, also has the awful side effect of ending up in blaming the sufferer or victim whenever someone does encounter trouble. It must be their own fault; they had the wrong attitude. If a woman is raped, she must by her attitude have deserved it. And the Jews must have provoked Hitler somehow.

Pushed a little, believing that we can control our own destinies with the right attitude also amounts to assuming godlike powers.

Which is close to Eve’s fatal error—“you will become as Gods.” Or Lucifer’s.

I say not “smile,” but “pay attention.” Look, listen, discern, and decide. This, use an often misused Buddhist term, is the true “mindfulness.”

Bad Times

The Seventies were a grim time. They were a decade of hangover from the Sixties. I gather the Fifties were awful too: soulless scientism and suburban sprawl. And a collapse of sexual morality. Everyone would surely say the same of the Dirty Thirties: mass unemployment and the rise of Fascism.

The twenty-teens seem to me to have emerged as similarly bad. 

The Fifties: artistically kind of sucky.

I wonder if we are in some regular twenty-year cycle?

The nineties may have been another depressed decade—the Clinton/Blair/Chretien years. I do not have a good fix on it; I mostly sat out the nineties in Asia. But that may be itself an indication: I needed to get out. It was too depressing in the West.

By “bad,” I mean depressed in the spiritual, not the economic, sense. These decades have been times in which North American and European society seemed to have lost their sense of purpose and direction. These were times adrift. Economic depression tends to come with this, but it is the sideshow, not the main event; and, I suspect, not cause but effect. Jimmy Carter sensed it, in the latter seventies, when he spoke of a social “malaise.” Kissinger expressed it when he spoke of himself as a modern Metternich, in the service of a declining empire.

The smiling face of the Seventies.

I suppose, being now in such a time, the useful thing to ponder is what in the past has pulled us out of such torpor. The mention of Jimmy Carter reminds us that, in the 80’s, it seems to have been new leadership. It was the strangely almost-simultaneous appearance of several strong leader figures, each in their way promising a new direction and a new beginning: Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, Gorbachev, Deng Xiao Ping.

In the Sixties, it was more an artistic and cultural revival: the “counterculture” promised a new beginning, an Age of Aquarius. Rock/pop music, pop art, the Whole Earth Catalog, zines, and so on and on.

Suitable for colouring while on acid.

In the Forties, it was the unity and sense of purpose imposed by the need to take on the monstrous Nazis and their allies. Secondarily, this too led to the appearance of some inspiring leaders: Churchill, De Gaulle, Tito. Note that the major Fascist leaders emerged in the 20s and 30s. They were part of the malaise; they were not inspiring in the proper sense.

After the triangulation and fudgy “Third Way” if the nineties, the oughts restored clarity for a time with the need to respond to 9/11 and the rise of Islamist terror. The seeping of hi-tech into everyday life probably also generated some excitement about the future. That period of relative unity and optimism has now clearly dissipated.

What will pull things back into focus this time? Strong leaders with vision? Thatcher and Reagan, after all, were already visible in the wings in 1979; Churchill was long well-known in the 1930s.

Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, whatever else they represent, do not seem to offer any coherent and inspiring new vision. They are comic figures, only declaring the nonsensical nature of what is. I do not compare them with Hitler or Mussolini, as others do, but they still seem part of the malaise, not of the new morning.

Sanders and his like on the left? Perhaps I am unjustly prejudiced; I thought Reagan too was dangerously wrong with his “voodoo economics” before he rose to power. But apart from their pre-K understanding of economics, I do not think there is anything there, because there is no spiritual element or appeal. With successful revivals, there always is. For it is the spirit that must be moved.

I think Mad Max Bernier here in Canada is one figure who might have this inspirational dimension; but that is not yet clear. The “Mad” label is to his credit in this regard. The appeal would not be conventionally religious: rather to a cultural ideal. I think Tulsi Gabbard has potential in the current Democratic crop. Nobody notices, but her commitment to non-violence is obviously informed by her Hinduism. But such figures are for now on the fringes.

So what about religion as the source of our revival? What about the arts? It was the arts in the 60s. John Paul II may have been the one necessary ingredient to the Eighties revival, and just as possibly, John XXIII and his Vatican II was the critical factor that kicked off the 1960s.

Pope St. John XXIII

The Catholic Church, sadly, is currently in chaos. This is most troubling, because it is the single strongest religious voice in the world, let alone in the West. But Pope Francis gives no clear leadership.

Is there a figure in the Protestant tradition, or beyond? A Jonathan Edwards, a John Wesley, a Martin Luther King Jr.? Perhaps: I have one eye on William Lane Craig. To hear him tell it, something is percolating in Departments of Theology and Philosophy.

William Lane Craig

The arts, too, seem moribund. But there is probably something bubbling under the surface, struggling to break free. The arts are currently, as periodically happens, under the iron grip of “The Academy,” the art critics and academics, which do not understand the arts, and enforce conformity and mediocrity. But when this goes on long enough, there tends to be an eruption. An eruption seems overdue. I expected it in the 20-oughts. I expected it in the eighties.

The stuff in the galleries is obviously garbage. No sense of the beautiful, no sense of symbolism or vision or emotional connection, painfully clichéd and predictable. Decor. Generally making some obvious and tedious political statement.

Yet the stuff in the galleries is not representative of contemporary art. It is just the art that bureaucrats like; for bureaucrats control galleries. I follow a Facebook group of struggling visual artists. These folks in the artistic underground are inspiringly good. With the growth of social media, they are bound to break through soon.

So too with writing. I went last weekend to the Toronto Festival of Authors. It was not what it was when I left Toronto in the early nineties. Then, I could hope to see and hear someone I had actually read and enjoyed: Brian Moore, Ken Kesey, Timothy Findlay. There are no longer such figures. One reads new writing any more, it seems, out of a sense of obligation.

I attended the launch of The Best Canadian Poetry of 2019.  Decades ago, I was myself featured in the equivalent volume. It was about as much fun as a trip to the dentist. Several selected poets read their selected works. Each was less a poem than a gimmick: “conceptual art.” And even as gimmicks, painfully predictable. The first poem sounded like a dairy entry by an ordinary person on a perfectly ordinary day. Dull as daily life inevitably is; and that turned out to be the point. The final line was something like “just breathing in and out.” This is anti-art. This is just what art is meant to rescue us from.

The next poem was done as a flow chart. Vaguely interesting the first time I saw it done--back at Expo 67.

The next poem was a reflection on how incongruous it is to be thinking of Virgil in modern Toronto. The only point seemed to be to promote the poet as someone so sophisticated as to have read Virgil.

The poetry was so unpoetical that at one point, when this poet was reading an introduction to his poem, I thought it was the poem.

And the last poem was something intentionally incoherent in which every fifth word or so was replaced by the word “unknown”; sometimes in the plural. This, the poet explained beforehand, was a protest against torture and waterboarding. The target was apparently Donald Rumsfield, and his famous phrase about “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns.”

Leaving aside the fact that the poet completely missed Rumsfield’s point, which could have been an interesting one to consider, the poem was as obviously stale as a newspaper hot off the presses seventeen years ago.

But then, in despair for the state of poetry, I picked up a copy of the West Coast lit mag Geist, available free at the entrance. And it was solid. Subscribe and read.

It is not that the arts are dead; it is that they are suppressed. Something is liable soon to burst free.

And our sight may again be 2020.

Public Service Announcement

Foreword to "Playing the Indian Card"

Knights of the Air

Remembrance Day has always been special for me. It is the one holiday most likely to inspire my sense of my own Canadianness.

I think this book has a lot to do with it. It may have been my favourite non-fiction read as a boy. The stories of Billy Bishop, Bill Barker, Raymond Collishaw, Roy Brown, and the like--real Canadian heroes.

If you happen to know any boys, it would make a great gift this Remembrance Day.

Sticking with Scheer

Some argue he just looks too much like a chipmunk to ever be prime minister.

Everyone is now out to get Andrew Scheer. Odd, since he was the most successful of the three big party leaders in the last election. Trudeau lost votes and seats. Singh lost votes and seats. Scheer gained both.

This, however, follows old and honoured Tory tradition. Since at least the dying days of Diefenbaker, they have ever been quick to form a circular firing squad at the hint of adversity.

It did the NDP no good to dump Mulcair after one election loss. It did the Liberals no good to dump Dion after one election loss. It may as well do the Tories no good again; unless perhaps they have some clear idea that a distinctly different sort of leader and leadership is required. A Churchill, say, instead of a Chamberlain. A Trump instead of a Romney or a Jeb Bush.

But I see no trace of this in the public reasons given for Scheer to go. They seem completely wrong, and harmful as advice. Scheer was a smiling face, and certainly tried to come across as a moderate. Yet according to all the pundits, he failed to do better because of his personal social conservative views, and because he was not enough like the Liberals on fighting climate change.

According to the rolling polls, this is wrong. What hurt Scheer most was simply the public prediction that he might win a majority government. That scared many on the left into the Liberal camp as a strategic move.

As to the Conservatives’ relatively weak showing in Ontario, I hear that their “vaunted ground game” did not materialize this time. As a local deputy returning officer on the day, I found it notable that they managed no candidate’s representative at my polling station for the count.

This strongly suggests that the problem was a lack of enthusiasm. The same thing that killed Romney. It was not that the Conservative platform differed too markedly from that of the NDP or Liberals. It was that it did not differ enough, giving ideologically-driven volunteers and voters little reason to come out.

It is often said by Liberals that they lose whenever they run to the right. We saw the same for the NDP in 2015: they veered towards the centre, the Liberals swung over to their left. The Dippers dropped to third, the third-place Liberals surged improbably to power.

People in general value sincerity and principle more than any specific ideology. This is ever more so in these days of democratized information, or, to use the journalistic cliché, “social media.” Witness the witless rise below the undefended border of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez.

But even going with ideological voting, and a cynical approach based on reading the polls, it makes the best sense for Conservatives to pull right and not left on social issues and climate change. One does not need a majority of the vote to get a majority government in Canada; one needs something approaching 40%. Four parties, the Liberals, NDP, Greens, and BQ, are splitting the vote that supports unregulated abortion, carbon taxes, special rights for transsexuals, laws against “hate speech,” stiffer gun bans, and so forth. Yet polls suggest that roughly half or even more of the electorate do not hold these positions. If any of these became the decisive issue in an election, and the Tories were the only party to vote for if you were on that side, it would actually mean a crushing Tory majority.

But even leave aside all partisan considerations, and consider the health of the Canadian democracy. How good a situation is it when a large portion of the electorate, perhaps even a majority, has no vote—that is, no party to vote for that represents their views? Not great for peace, order, or good government.

That this is so commonly now the case is why we see everywhere else the rise of “populist” parties. We are overdue in Canada—held back, I suspect, because in a way we were the first out of that gate, with Preston Manning’s Reform Party. That led to an unreasonable fear of “splitting the vote on the right.” So we have lapsed right back into the untenable situation that then forced Reform to form: the way, under Mulroney, there was nothing to choose between Tories and Grits, and no one to vote for if you were not keen on Charlottetown or Meech Lake and a new, unamendable, constitution.

If there is a problem with Scheer, it is that he is not forceful enough, fiery enough, in his public persona, to make a populist case. He radiates business as usual. The problem with his view on abortion in the TVA debate was not that he was opposed to abortion, but that he tried to fudge it and be on both sides of the issue. Same with climate change.

But suppose Scheer is jettisoned, who replaces him as Tory leader? Where’s our white knight? Maxime Bernier would have been best last time; but it is too late to turn to Bernier now. He has declared the entire Tory party corrupt. Were he to run, he would automatically lose the principled image that makes him appealing.

Peter MacKay? As a so-called “Red Tory,” a classic conservative, he would if anything further reduce the distance between the Liberal and Conservative platforms, exactly the wrong move by my estimation. MacKay notoriously has no charisma. And he is a model of the unprincipled politician: he captured the PC leadership by a backroom guarantee to David Orchard that he would never unite the PCs with the Alliance. Then he immediately moved to unite the PCs with the Alliance. Political dishonesty could not get much more butt naked than that.

Jason Kenney? He’s just been elected as premier of Alberta. It is way too soon for him to make the jump; it would look too opportunistic. Doug Ford? Same problem, plus his current unpopularity in any case. Brad Wall? Has the problem of not being bilingual. Lisa Raitt? Just lost her seat.

There are certainly possible stars in the caucus and beyond. Candice Bergen; Rona Ambrose; Erin O’Toole; Pierre Poilevre. But nobody seems an obviously better option than Scheer, or suggests a strikingly different style or approach.

Zacchaeus Out of His Tree

Zacchaeus called down from the Sycamore tree.

He entered and was passing through Jericho. There was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, and couldn't because of the crowd, because he was short. He ran on ahead, and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way.

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."

He hurried, came down, and received him joyfully.

When they saw it, they all murmured, saying, "He has gone in to lodge with a man who is a sinner."

Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much."

Jesus said to him, "Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

--Luke 19:1-10

Zacchaeus is not a real person. The story of Zacchaeus is a parable. The image of little Zacchaeus climbing a tree is too obviously comic for real life.

Zacchaeus means “pure.” It is not really a name. His small stature makes him seem childlike. He climbs trees, as a child would. And as a self-conscious wealthy man would not. For it is publicly undignified, and likely to expose him to general scorn.

So this is a parable of innocence.

Zacchaeus is egotistic in an innocent way, just as a child is. His initial avarice is innocent, unreflective. Who does not spontaneously want to own nice things? Nice things are nice.

Jesus singles him out from the crowd. Just as Jesus elsewhere says, one must become like a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” Innocence is the key.

But only the key. Jesus opens the door, when he tells Zacchaeus to come down from the tree.

This act of immediate obedience is the test. It equates to repentance. “Get off your high horse.”

Because Zacchaeus does this, wholeheartedly, Jesus comes and dwells with him.

It is surely significant that all this is said to have happened in Jericho: the city that was the entrance to the Promised Land. With such repentance, the walls come tumbling down.

The good man, in sum, is not the man who does not sin. The good man is the man who repents when sin is pointed out. The bad man resists and denies. The difference is the difference between sin and settled vice.

Compare today’s first reading, from the Book of Wisdom: “Yet you are merciful to all, because you are almighty, you overlook people's sins, so that they can repent.” God’s own forgiveness is absolute, but conditional on repentance.

We all sin. We all have avaricious urges. A fundamentally good person, faced with their own wrongdoing, repents and seeks to make amends. A bad person demands “forgiveness” without repentance. That is the difference.

The critical moment in the Garden of Eden was not when Adam and Eve ate the apple. It was when they hid in the bushes, and tried to shift blame.

Haiku of Autumn

The apartment block like a shotgun propped against the charcoal sky.
A solitary slate-grey pigeon turns his back to the wind.

-- Stephen K. Roney 

Medusa's Many Daughters

Visited the Art Gallery of Ontario and, during the tour, heard a brief talk on Ruben’s painting of the head of Medusa. The gallery guide gave a brief account of the legend, explained that the painting was commissioned to shock, suggested improbably that it might have been a barbed reference to Protestantism, and, painfully, explained that Medusa was a “strong woman.”

She added a question for the audience: “What always happened to strong women in Victorian novels?” And she answered it: “they get killed.”

I am not up on Victorian novels. Perhaps this is true. Perhaps it is somehow relevant to Greek myth. But this was eagerly picked up by one of the listeners. She declared that she would use Medusa as a model for her daughters, because she wanted them to grow up to be proper feminists.

Another striking example of how our society is mad. Taking the story as told by Ovid, in what way was Medusa a “strong woman”? In what way was she a model for anyone? 

Athena

To recap the tale, she was “violated” as a young woman by Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. As revenge for this desecration, Athena turned her hair into serpents, so that her very gaze turned any living thing into stone. She spent her life in lonely semi-darkness at the edge of the world, alone, no one daring, obviously, to approach. Until Perseus came and beheaded her. The world’s poisonous snakes were generated from her blood as it dripped.

She is a monster in the legend, not a heroine. It is like advocating Frankenstein’s monster as a role model for your sons.

And a “strong woman”? Her gaze killed things; but in all of this, she appears to have been powerless, the victim of Athena. She cannot have desired this; it made her life hell. Her one voluntary act seems to have been to have sex with Poseidon. In Ovid, it might have been a rape; but this does not account for Athena’s punishment, as Athena tends to be a figure of strict justice. Other accounts, such as Hesiod’s or that of Apollodorus, make the sex voluntary on her part. So that, and only that, was her “strength.”

If you want a model of a strong woman for your daughters, why Medusa and not Athena? 

Lilith

But this seems consistent: feminists likewise venerate Lilith, a similar figure in Jewish legend. Lilith is the mother of all demons; she kills infants in the cradle. So that makes her a “strong woman.” Why not Esther, if you want a Biblical figure? Why not Joan of Arc? Why not Catherine of Siena? Why not Boadicea? Yet such genuinely strong women get no following among feminists. They want Lilith and Medusa.

It seems plain that “strength” is not the real issue. This is a euphemism. What feminists really admire is being boldly immoral, violating moral norms. Medusa or Lilith are attractive because they are killers. And no virgins need apply. This, indeed, was the original meaning of the term “liberated woman”—for “liberated,” read “licentious.”

“Feminism” is just a cover for vice.

The Amazonian Synod without Amazonians

Pachamama Museum, Argentina

The people who are calling for syncretism with Amazonian aboriginal religions in the recent Vatican synod are not themselves aboriginals, and probably have little familiarity with aboriginal religions. The Amazon basin is actually 80% urban; and the local bishops are usually not even Brazilian, let alone aboriginal. Do they ever travel out into the jungle, to the isolated tribes? They are inserted from Europe, and probably because of their romantic attraction to the Noble Savage myth.

Hence the emphasis at the synod on ecological concerns.

The population of the Amazon basin is generally flocking to the Pentecostal denominations, not to any aboriginal religious tradition.

The most reasonable conclusion is that they are going Pentecostal because the local Catholic church lacks spirit, lacks conviction, not because they have too few female deacons or carvings of native idols in the churches. This is all something outsiders are trying to impose on them from above, nothing for which they are clamouring.

Solidarity Forever

The elementary teachers of Ontario have voted to go on strike.

If this were a real bargaining process, the government would have a simple solution. If they will not come in to work, fire them and hire replacements. A recent Ed School grad told me it takes seven years for newly-qualified teachers in Ontario to find a steady teaching job. There is an obvious oversupply; the teachers have no bargaining power in the normal sense.

Fire and rehire, and the government saves a lot of money immediately: the new hires will be at the bottom of the seniority pay scale. Will the new teachers be worse at the job? Probably not—teachers are promoted on sheer seniority, not on competence.

On top of that, the evidence is strong that even having a B. Ed. does not produce any better results with students. Actually, worse results. This stands to reason: anyone who has competed high school has had a twelve year apprenticeship in what works and does not work in the classroom. Are they likely to learn anything new of any value in a year at Teacher’s College?

Just the reverse; in order to have something to teach, the Ed Schools more or less must inculcate their acolytes with new techniques and ideas nobody has used in a classroom they have learned in. And there almost has to be a good reason why nobody will have used a technique before.

Hiring anyone with any Bachelor’s degree ought to work better.

Collective bargaining between two groups of civil servants is, in sum, all a pantomime. Nobody has their own money at risk. Both sides benefit by caving in to all union demands.

But for oversight from politicians.

Why doesn’t the government just do what Reagan did in the Eighties when the US air traffic controllers went out? He fired them all—ending an era of constant strikes by civil servants.

The government will not do it because there are too many teachers, and they are too well organized. Politicos fear their electoral power, and their ability to generate bad PR through their class allies in the media. That, and class solidarity. Broadly, teachers belong to the same professional class as do politicians.

It might be worth doing for a Tory government. After all, the teachers’ unions are all in for the NDP in any case.

AOC Detects Zuckerberg's White Supremacist Bias

This grilling of Mark Zuckerberg by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez illustrates my contention that the mavens and magnates of Silicon Gulley are not really interested in censorship or controlling our politics. They want to invent things and make money. The problem is that the left will not let them. Being located where they are, in the SF Bay area, it is only the far left from whom they generally hear. They hear a constant public outcry, and, not wanting to get involved in politics, they feel the need to do something in response, so as not to alienate their customer base. Not being political, they have little idea there is another side of the issue.

Ocasio-Cortez, for example, berates Zuckerberg for not censoring more aggressively, and accuses him of having dinner parties with “far right figures.” So what is his necessary move, in order to disentangle himself from politics? He is then forced to be political, to try to figure out who counts as “far right,” and shun them. Ensuring he does not hear their views on this issue…

There is no way out.

Ocasio-Cortez actually refers to calling white privilege a hoax as a “conspiracy theory.” That is a perfect inversion: it is the notion of white privilege that is a conspiracy theory. It is like saying that denying the accuracy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a “conspiracy theory.” But this logic is too convoluted for an innocent to handle. Zuckerberg is out of his field; precisely because he is not a political animal, he is easily buffaloed by this sort of bullying.

This is the current problem not just among techies, but artists. They are not engrossed in politics; they want to create. The left will not let them do so; the left will politicize everything, to the point that, in order to pursue their own interests, they must be seen to conform to every new demand for political correctness.

Ocasio-Cortez gives a helpful primer here in how the technique works. She refers to The Daily Caller as a “publication with well-documented ties to white supremacist organizations.” This guilt by association could be as easily used against any individual or organization. The six degrees of separation rule makes this inevitable. All of us have ties to “white supremacist organizations,” or organized crime, or convicted mass murderers. But now she forges on with the notion planted that the Daily Caller is itself white supremacist. The Daily Caller was founded by Tucker Carlson, and features writing from such figures as Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, and Alan Keyes. It is about as white supremacist as the New York Times.

She then extends this guilt by association by one further degree: Facebook and Zuckerberg are now also white supremacists, it seems, because they rely on a fact checker who also works for The Daily Caller.

It now follows that anyone who uses Facebook has documented ties with white supremacist organizations. And so it goes.

Joe McCarthy would never have been so bold or so reckless in his accusations.

The coup de grace: AOC then tries to force Zuckerberg to denounce the Daily Caller’s fact checking, on the grounds that it has “ties to white supremacist organizations.” If he will not do this, presumably this confirms that he is indeed a communist. Sorry, flashback; I mean a white supremacist.

Ocasio-Cortez here is denying the existence of facts. She is implying, and demanding that all accept, that left-wing and right-wing facts are different. She must believe that “the facts” are simply whatever she or anyone thinks will advance their political goals.

It is impossible to have a rational dialogue on such a basis. The modern left is a cancer on the body politic. And on the culture.

The Unjust Magistrate

He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray and not give up, saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God and didn’t respect man. A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’ He wouldn’t for a while; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’ ” 

The Lord said, “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says. Won’t God avenge his chosen ones who are crying out to him day and night, and yet he exercises patience with them? I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

This is what a parable looks like: no names, and shocking. God is blasphemously compared to an unjust judge. The parable implies that He can be worn out, get tired; nonsensical for a perfect being.

As usual, the story is actually saying the opposite of what it seems to say on superficial reading. It is all in the last line.

It seems to say God will answer prayer. It is really explaining why God does not answer prayer.

Unlike the unjust judge, God does not disdain mankind and want to be rid of us. Instead, he loves us. The parable illustrates that, if he easily gives us what we want, we will probably go away and forget about him. The last thing he wants us to do is go away and forget about him.

So he will present us with problems and fail to give us what we ask, for the sake of deepening the relationship. To progress, we must learn to be grateful, and to continue the conversation, even when he fulfills our wishes.

Narcissism Is Good for You. Not.

Narcissus showing his emotional flexibility.

A new study announces that narcissism can be the key to happiness.

This is not an entirely new claim. Alice Miller asserts the same.

It is nonsense.

Look at the original story of Narcissus; it gives the full diagnosis and prognosis. So does much of the rest of the literary tradition. Narcissus dies of grief, then suffers eternally in the underworld.

The legend of Tantalus is also an analysis of narcissism. His fate is proverbially bad.

Tantalus in the underworld.

So is every Greek tragedy; what the classical Greeks called hubris, we call narcissism.

The new study says that narcissism makes one resilient and able to overcome challenges. This is the opposite what is shown in literature: Narcissus is unable to overcome the simplest emotional blow. He cannot even turn his head away from his reflection, stand up, and go and get something to eat. He dies rather than suffer it.

Where is this false claim of happy narcissism coming from?

It is easy to see how any researcher who wanted to could come up with such results. Simply ask the narcissist.

“Are you emotionally resilient?”

Of course; the narcissist will insist that they are perfect. Of course they are emotionally resilient, if this is a good thing.

“Are you unhappy?”

This sounds like a bad thing. So no, of course, they are not unhappy. They will, if pressed, quickly admit to being abused and cruelly mistreated by any or all their intimates, or by the world itself, but if you frame it in such a way that it seems to reflect on them, no, they are not unhappy. Their life is wonderful.

You can get a narcissist to say anything, so long as they think it reflects well on them; and deny anything, so long as they think it makes them look bad.

More broadly, this survey illustrates a fatal problem with the social sciences. They are no more than a cargo cult based on the prestige of physical science. Among extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds, they are about the craziest mass delusion ever; and they have persisted for over a hundred years. Because human beings are so complex—as complex as any human observer—they cannot be reliably objectively observed. It is therefore always possible to produce studies coming to any given conclusion.

Just recently, I had to cut a chapter out of a book. I had come across a number of studies showing that a vegetarian and fish-based diet, without red meat, reduced the risk of depression. Looked definitive.

Right then, a new study came out showing that eating red meat was important in preventing depression.

Because the social sciences do not work, what happens is that everyone manipulates studies to make whatever point they want to make. It becomes entirely politics, and dangerously misleading. I expect the “red meat prevents depression” study had a lot to do with politics. But then, perhaps the original vegetarian claims did too.

The most interesting study in the social sciences is this one, which has been repeated at least three times: fifty percent of all study results in the social sciences cannot be repeated.

That means any claim you read in the social sciences is about as useful for decision-making as flipping a coin.

Among narcissists, there is, of course, an inevitable desire to make narcissism appear to be a good thing. And so we are unable, through the social sciences, to ever get a good fix on narcissism.

The researcher for the current study makes his political agenda plain enough:

"This work promotes diversity and inclusiveness of people and ideas by advocating that dark traits, such as narcissism, should not be seen as either good or bad, but as products of evolution and expressions of human nature that may be beneficial or harmful depending on the context.” 

"This move forward may help to reduce the marginalisation of individuals that score higher than average on the dark traits.”

Fortunately, we have the literary corpus. 

Read it.

Small Dead Animals

Kate McMillan over at Small Dead Animals has kindly featured Playing the Indian Card on her blog.

The least I can do is to link back...

Exit Wexit

Canadian election results by riding.

I think the current upwelling of talk of “Wexit” in Alberta and Saskatchewan is undignified and does nothing to impress Central Canada.

After all, in the normal course of things, there is likely to be a new election in two years, the Conservatives are likely to win, and at least some of the policies that are so damaging to the energy sector are likely to be reversed.

So it makes sense to break up the country, with all the emotional and economic dislocation that would cause, instead of just waiting for two years?

Some might argue that a change in government is not enough; that these problems are endemic. They keep returning. But the problems that cannot be reversed by a change in federal government largely won’t be reversed because they are beyond the control of the federal government—opposition to pipelines from Quebec, or the US, or BC, or aboriginal groups. Separating from Canada will only make these problems worse; the red tape grows exponentially, and Alberta’s electoral leverage is gone.

Time is on Alberta’s side: western Canada is growing in population faster than the east. Over time, Alberta’s, Saskatchewan’s, and oil-bearing BC’s financial and electoral voices will get louder. Why would you quit just before you get promoted to the executive suite?

So it really all looks, from this corner of Central Canada, like a tantrum. I say that as a sometime Alberta resident. For the record, I support pipelines in all directions.

Nations split because of major cultural differences; most Albertans are first or second generation migrants from further east. If the situation really were intolerable for them, they have the easy option of moving back.

Or nations split because of some grave moral principle, like slavery. Does waiting a few years for a new pipeline really fit the bill? Realistically, oil or gas not sold today is not lost; it remains in the ground to be sold tomorrow. Possibly at a higher price.

Forget “Wexit.” That is a quitter’s game. It’s time to storm the battlements instead.

The Rich Man and Lazarus

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’

Jesus’s story of the rich man and poor Lazarus is interesting for several reasons.

For one thing, it looks superficially like a parable, yet is not a parable. A parable is a made-up story given as an illustration of some philosophical point. People never have names in parables, to make the point that they are not actual people. Places and times are also not given. Lazarus in this story is named, and so apparently is a real person.

Parables also always contain some shocking or improbable element. There seems to be no such reversal in the tale of the rich man and Lazarus. 

So it is to be read literally.

And this is very interesting, because it is a description of the afterlife, and of hell.

So, no, if you are going to accept the Bible as authority, you cannot fudge this one. Afterlife and hell are not metaphors or symbolic or figurative language. They are real places, and, contrary to Bishop Barron and von Balthazar, there are real people there. And there is real suffering.

Gustav Dore

 

And, according to the story, once you are in hell, there is no way out.

Also interesting—this story says that Judaism remains valid into the New Covenant; there is no point in a Jew converting to Christianity. If you will not follow the law and the prophets, you will not follow Jesus any better.

The other interesting thing in the story is that Lazarus does not go to heaven because of his good deeds. One can say that the rich man goes to hell for immorality; not obvious or aggressive immorality, not bad deeds, but for a lack of concern for a poor man at his door. A frightening warning for the rich. But there is no act of Lazarus’s, on the other hand, that establishes his own concern for others. For all we know, if he possessed riches, he would act just like the rich man in the tale. 

Abraham actually says plainly that Lazarus goes to heaven not because of his merit but because of his suffering: “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.’”

Suffering, then, is redemptive. 

Memento Mori

Some classy Hallowe'en decor: Day of the Dead pillows.

Let Them Eat Cake

To be fair, she never said it. It stuck because it was assumed to reflect the cluelessness of the nobility generally.

A few years ago, with Brexit, the election of Trump, and the various populist movements in Europe, we saw the general population revolt against the elites.

Now we see the elites revolt against the general population.

That seems to me to be the point of the Pachamama display at the Vatican. In reaction to the recent scandals about clerical abuses, the hierarchy are asserting their presumed right to do as they bloody well please. The peons are to be put in their place.

We see the same instinct, I think, in the current US House of Representatives push to impeach Trump. It seems otherwise nonsensical. There is no clear sign of any actual high crime or misdemeanor. If they impeach, a majority Republican Senate won’t convict. If it convicts, that leaves them with Mike Pence.

There is an presidential election in a year from now; if they impeach, the impeachment will come only months before the election. An election in which, if Trump is guilty of some blatant abuse of office, the voters can be expected to react accordingly. Just as the system is supposed to work in normal circumstances.

So why on earth a drive to impeach right now? The only explanation, surely, is to thumb their nose at the electorate. It is a deliberate vote of no confidence in the general population. It seems to serve no purpose but this symbolic insult.

Something similar is going on in Britain over Brexit. The House of Commons is aggressively and openly trying to thwart the popular will as expressed in the Brexit referendum, at the same time refusing an election.

It is all just like a small child throwing a tantrum.

It is a revolutionary moment in history. I hope it is not a bloody revolution.

The Western Standard Is Back

This is cool. Following in the footsteps of Catholic Insight, The Western Standard is back as an online publication.

Neither, perhaps, was ever really dead. This is just the transition from the old media model to the new media.