The Obligation to Forgive

Read it on SubStack.

The Pagan Gods Are Real

 

And you need to pay attention to what they are doing. Check it out on SubStack.

Hopeful News for Canadian Consumers

Interviewed just now during his visit to Ireland, Trump seems to make the Canadian “supply management” restriction on imports of dairy, chicken, and eggs the critical sticking point holding up a trade deal. This seems plausible. And hopeful. Carney perhaps did not want to drop supply management, so popular in Quebec, just before critical byelections and a critical provincial election in Quebec. He is a canny politician.

Trump also seems sanguine on the matter, expressing confidence that Canada will come to a deal soon. Perhaps Trump has been signalled that, once the elections are over, the Canadians will cut that deal. Kevin O’Leary has recently said the same. O’Leary has argued that a deal is inevitable, as neither side can afford the current high tariffs for long. It has to be all play acting for politics.

If they are both in on it, I expect a new deal sometime between October 5, the date of the Quebec election, and November 3, the date of the American midterms—giving the Republicans a bit of good news just before voting day.

I am hoping for cheaper cheese and eggs soon. And peace and amity with our American neighbours.

If I Were King of the Forest

 

Here are a few examples of how those in charge in the world today are screwing up:

1. Most importantly, just as so many in our culture are yearning for tradition and religious conviction, just as there is a general collapse in meaning leading to skyrocketing suicide, drug addiction, and mental illness, the powers that be in the Catholic Church are aggressively rejecting tradition, abandoning the field. We should be in a renaissance of faith, and the Vatican and the hierarchy seem to be doing whatever they can to prevent it. It makes no sense that mass is licit in any language except Latin, and in any number of liturgical forms is permitted—except the traditional form of the Latin mass. The Vatican has become the sworn enemy of tradition, when tradition is its raison d’etre and what the world now most especially needs and craves.

2. There is no coherent reason for Canada to be fighting a trade war with the US. There is no coherent reason Canada needs to be a political jurisdiction distinct from the United States. If the US wants us, we should be happy to join. If the US has demands in order to trade, we should turn the other cheek. The last thing we can afford to do is pick fights with the US, ten times our size and considerably more than ten times wealthier. This is suicidal.

3. The pursuit of mass immigration by Western governments is also suicidal. It is not just that the immigrants in such large numbers are likely to terminally change the cultures. It is not just that they cause the collapse of social cohesion and make life difficult for everyone. The initial premise for mass migration itself is folly. The claim is that an influx of new workers is needed to fund the retirements of older workers. At best, this only delays the problem and makes it larger—it is a Ponzi scheme. These new workers will retire in turn, and the taps will have to be opened wider until it all collapses horribly. Yet robotics seem likely soon to replace much human labour. The imported labour is likely itself to soon be unemployed and a burden on the state—if it is not, on balance, already.

4. Carbon taxes, subsidies for alternative energy, and such green measures make no sense, because the atmosphere knows no borders. All such measures in one jurisdiction simply drive industry to another, impoverishing us and worsening the environment due to greater transportation needs and worse environmental regulation. The solution, if there is one, is to allow market forces and engineering advances to develop “clean” energy sources that are cheaper than oil and gas. Only when the alternative sources are intrinsically cheaper can we expect world-wide compliance.

Catcher in the Rye

 

I have the privilege currently of teaching the novel Catcher in the Rye. A friend from college never recovered from reading it. He identified completely with Holden Caulfield. I can see how easy that is to do; many have.

For me, more the opposite; I was appalled by Caulfield. I would have cuffed him upside the head.

He shows no guilt for letting down his parents, his history teacher, his fencing teammates. He is perfectly amoral.

He does not credit Pency Prep with having good intentions, or his history teacher with good intentions, only with salving his own conscience. He shows no gratitude to his older brother who is looking after him, only seeing him as a sellout for writing for the movies.

He lies to his history teacher.

And all this in just the first four chapters.

Caulfield is right, of course, to see everyone else as a phony. But he fails to take the next step, of seeing that he is a phony too.

And we need to ask the next question: if all of this is phony, compared to what? What is real?

For Holden, it seems to be his own impulses. Therefore he is justified in not studying ancient Egypt; it does not interest him. Therefore he suddenly puts his roommate in a headlock while he is shaving. He simply felt like it. On impulse, he buys a hunting cap.

This is the worship of self: the path we have wandered down. We must “be our true selves,” not be “repressed,” “do our own thing.”

This is infantilism; this is narcissism.

Holden Caulfield needed to find religion.

I do not know, but I think Salinger, author, did. I like his later stories, which do involve religious themes. I wonder if the fact that so many took Holden Caulfield as a model horrified Salinger. Might it have been why he stopped publishing?

Or perhaps he stopped because he did not find religion; and therefore fell into a permanent depression like Holden Caulfield has.

 

Gloria Steinem Is Dead

I have not commented much on feminism. It is too dangerous. But there are two problems with modern North American women, influenced by feminism:

1. They see themselves as in competition with men, not in partnership.

2. In any competition with men, they must be allowed to win, otherwise they are being oppressed.

This makes any healthy male-female relationship impossible; and this collapse of the family makes a healthy society impossible.

Feminism, through abortion, has also now killed more people than all human wars combined; more than all former genocides combined. Feminism is causing global depopulation, and the collapse and disappearance of ancient nations. The crimes of feminism are directly comparable to the crimes for which Canaan and Carthage were destroyed.

New Hope for the Stupid

 The average person of only average intelligence. And half of us are below it.

This is an abiding problem. Stupidity causes great suffering, many ruined lives, many deaths. The folly of the world has always troubled me, and in my old age I have grown reconciled to the reality that this will never change. Stupid people are not smart enough to recognize wisdom when they hear it. Like the Duning-Kruger effect, if you are not intelligent, you lack the very mental equipment to recognize intelligence.

To get a sense of how much it matters, compare life in Japan, where average IQ is slightly higher than the world average, with life in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is lower. Japan: 106.4. Somalia: 67.7. You can see the result in GDP, in general social order, in quality of life.

Or compare how Jewish Americans have fared since the Holocaust, with how African Americans have fared since the Civil Rights Act, not to mention since slavery. The Jews came from a lower base line, attempted genocide, and rose quickly to a position of great wealth and social prominence. African-Americans are still in deficit. People avoid saying so, but the most probable reason is IQ.

Even without formal democracy, unfortunately, everything devolves towards the mean. This world is built for average people: there are so many of them.

It occurs to me that we may actually be about to break through this barrier, thanks to AI. Experts predict that within a few years, machine intelligence will greatly outpace human intelligence. Surely even stupid people are smart enough to take advantage of such advice? Even if they don’t understand it. They might resist listening to smarter people, out of envy and pride—the perennial cause of anti-semitism. But if the average person is getting the advice from their smartphone, this may not apply.  

At least there is hope. The world might quickly become better, and everyone’s life more livable.