Lauren Southern on the Canadian "Mass Graves"

 

Advice on Writing

 

“There is no other way: read more and write more, and you naturally write well. Nobody who writes little, who is too lazy to read, and who expects to be good at everything he writes, can write anything good.”

-- Ouyang Xiu, Song Dynasty.

Written from the Unceded Traditional Territories of the Bourbons

 

Attended a Zoom seminar today in which each speaker began by “acknowledging that they were on the unceded traditional territories of the X.” Fill in the blank with the fashionable modern term for this or that Indian cultural group.

I presume they all meant well, none of them being themselves visibly aboriginal, but this is a dangerous precedent.

First of all, in most parts of Canada, in Ontario and the Prairies, the “First Nations” have in fact ceded all claim to the land. Where it has not been ceded by treaty, a series of different tribal groups must always be mentioned—because all of them lived in the general vicinity, within perhaps a few hundred kilometers or so, and none of them had uncontested ownership. Almost every area native groups passed through was a “no-man’s-land,” in permanent territorial dispute. And the list of tribes who hunted through the area is necessarily incomplete. We only know who has been passing through since the first European settlement.

Which almost necessarily means that no such group can establish a claim to possession prior to that of the first Europeans.

The concept of native land ownership violates, in any case, the concept of property rights. God made the land; accordingly, it belongs to no one person more than any other. It is there for al las needed, like the air or the water. An individual properly owns only the effort, the labour, he or she has put into the land. If it is inseparable from the land itself, this establishes a claim on the land. This is why we have “squatter’s rights”: if you do not use it, someone else has the right to.

This doctrine then applies to all the land in Canada, beyond those smaller parcels near villages where Indians might have practiced agriculture—roughly what are now their reserves. By common law, they never had ownership. “Aboriginal rights” have been invented as a convenient legal fiction to draw Indians into the social contract—to ensure their acceptance of Canadian sovereignty.

The silliest was someone in Montreal saying they were on the unceded territory of the Mohawks. The Mohawks who live near Montreal today came from Upstate New York to learn of Christianity from the French. They never even claimed the territory around Montreal. The French are actually historically more indigenous than any other existing group to the lands stretching from the Saguenay down to Windsor—where the majority of the Canadian population resides. The Iroquois wiped out all the other groups within recorded history. So why are the French not mentioned as having local “traditional territories”? Why not the Spanish, who claimed these lands under the Treaty of Tordesillas? Unlike the various Indian groups, Spain has never renounced this claim. The Treaty of Tordesillas has never been abrogated, and it has been cited in the 20th century by Chile, Indonesia, and Argentina to justify their own land claims.

But the real problem with all this is that it implies that there are at least two distinct classes of Canadians, with different rights. This is incompatible with the doctrine of human equality and human rights on which Canada is predicated. If special rights to aboriginals, why not to, say, those of French or English ancestry, or of European ancestry? The logic is the same: their ancestors were here first. In fact, this notion of prior creation or prior residence is exactly the doctrine on which ruling classes have been established in other nations in the past.

The concept of aboriginal land rights is the concept of a landed aristocracy. It is what most of our ancestors came to Canada to escape.

Who Follows America?

 

It is my impression that America is going down the tubes. She may have more vitality in her, but she is looking increasingly decadent. Abortion and the death of the family look like civilization-killers. Who might replace her as civilization’s vanguard?

Not Europe; Western Europe is further down the road to decay than America is. Perhaps Central and Eastern Europe; but they are fastened to a dying animal.

East Asia without China seems to lack the heft. Japan seems to have lost its energy. And I expect China, given its present regime, to collapse before the US does.

India looks like a candidate. But I wonder if Hinduism can offer sufficient moral direction and backbone. It seems a bit of a morass. 

I have hopes for CANZUK; but at this point, it would require a cultural U-turn of the four countries; some kind of cultural renaissance. I would not realistically expect it anywhere else; I should not expect it here, simply because I want it to happen. Seems like wishful thinking. Also, in population terms, CANZUK is still a lightweight.

Here’s another thought. 

Historically, when an empire declines and falls, the new power seems to emerge from just outside its zone of influence—from the barbarian fringe. Here it is able to develop independent systems, immune to the collapse, while soaking up what was best from the former power. So America replaced England. So Macedonia replaced the Greek city states, so Rome replaced Macedonia, so Manchuria conquered China, so the Arabs took Persia, and the Turks Byzantium.

On that principle, perhaps we should expect great things from Latin America. It seems the one part of the world that most closely fits that historical bill: just outside America’s zone of control. In principle, it shares the US’s commitment to liberal democracy and human equality. It shares America’s and Europe’s Judeo-Christian moral traditions. So taking over the reins would not be a cultural stretch. It has the necessary demographic strength. It has been held back until now by corruption and bad governments, but that seems to be improving. Such corruption and misgovernment cannot be inevitably embedded in the culture, since parent Spain has gotten past it. As has Romance and Catholic France. And both Spain and France have previously shown the strength to dominate the world.

Look! Up in the Sky!

 

Jupiter

He took a little child, and set him in the midst of them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever receives one such little child in my name, receives me, and whoever receives me, doesn't receive me, but him who sent me." ( -- Mark 9: 36-7) 

Friend Xerxes has mocked the proponents of Intelligent Design for believing in “an invisible God up in the sky.” 

Only atheists believe in this God.

The Christian God is not in the sky, but in the Kingdom of Heaven. Where is the Kingdom of Heaven? “Within you,” or “Among you.” At the end of time, it will appear as a city, New Jerusalem. He is not invisible; he is incarnate as Jesus. Even in the Old Testament, he appeared as a burning bush, a pillar of smoke, a pillar of fire, a hand. Moses was not permitted to see his face. In the New Testament, he appears as a dove. Jesus says in the gospel reading, he appears to us at all times: as children, as the poor and those in need. As the shekhinah, he is apparent in all things.

Hearing Voices and Casting out Demons

 

John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone who doesn't follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him, because he doesn't follow us." 39 But Jesus said, "Don't forbid him, for there is no one who will do a mighty work in my name, and be able quickly to speak evil of me. 40 For whoever is not against us is on our side.

 Mark 9: 38-40

This first part of today’s mass reading suggests that anyone is capable of casting out demons and qualified to exorcise—even a non-Christian—so long as it is done in the name of Christ.

This does not seem to be the common understanding in the Catholic Church. A formal Catholic exorcism requires special permission from a bishop, is done only by a designated exorcist in each diocese, and often requires a lengthy bureaucratic process designed to find some reason not to do it. By canon law, the Church will not sanction an exorcism until and unless something uncanny happens, that seems to rule out any physical cause.

This is not logical. Demons are intelligent beings. Why would a demon make their presence obvious in order to get exorcised?

One suspects the Church is primarily concerned here with bad publicity—about being accused of being “unscientific.”

Yet from the point of view of someone hearing demonic voices, it makes much sense to try being exorcised. At worst, it will not work; but, unlike the various psychiatric treatments, exorcism is entirely non-invasive and has no side-effects. And it does not require avoiding any other treatment.

The good news is that we need not rely on the Church for exorcism. The Bible itself says that anyone can exorcise. All that is strictly necessary is to call upon the name of Jesus Christ. 

Origen writes:

For it is not by incantations that Christians seem to prevail (over evil spirits), but by the name of Jesus, accompanied by the announcement of the narratives which relate to him; for the repetition of these has frequently been the means of driving demons out of men, especially when those who repeated them did so in a sound and genuinely believing spirit. Such power, indeed, does the name of Jesus possess over evil spirits, that there have been instances where it was effectual, when it was pronounced even by bad men…

Mensa Poetry Prize

 

Delighted to announce that my poem "On the Night We Held the Moon for Ransom" has been unanimously selected as the winner of this year's Mensa International Poetry Competition.

Kovrig and Spavor Leave a Chinese Box

 

Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been released from Chinese imprisonment, and are home.

Something is happening with China.

After denying the Kovrig and Spavor cases had anything to do with the Meng Wanzhou case, but were following Chinese due process, the CCP released them and put on a plane to Canada the very hour Meng was put on a plane back to China.

At her release, Meng Wangzhou admitted guilt and praised the Canadian justice system in a public statement at her release.

Both these facts are remarkable. They constitute a significant loss of face for China. China is admitting guilt, and praising Canada. Face is of paramount importance in China. 

In other, possibly related recent news:

Australia, the UK, and the US announced a new defense pact, including deadly new weaponry for Australia.

China started auctioning off its oil reserves. They announced this publicly.

Chinese real estate giant Evergrande is close to default.

Oil reserves are held in case of war. China has little domestic production, and its oil supply lines are highly vulnerable. If it is indeed selling off its oil reserves, it is telegraphing the fact that it has no intent to invade Taiwan, as it has been threatening. It might just be saying so, in order to lull everyone into lowering their defenses. But if so, this in itself is a reversal of China’s recent policy, which was to rattle every possible sabre.

The US may be winning the Cold War with China the same way it was won with the Soviet Union. China may have realized that they have now provoked an arms race; and the US has more resources, and is going to bankrupt them if they continue. Accordingly, they are swiftly pulling horns in. They may specifically fear Canada joining the AUKUS pact, as many Canadians have been lobbying for. 

But the key may also be the impending collapse of Evergrande. China may be in dire economic trouble. I think it was rattling sabres in the first place to distract its population from the economic problems they saw coming; and perhaps too, they hoped to keep things going by grabbing Hong Kong, then Taiwanese, assets. 

The CCP now calculates that they need to bail out Evergrande or face a likely general collapse of the Chinese economy. Leading to public unrest that could end in revolution. The Chinese have everything invested in real estate. And perhaps they really do not have the money or assets to do this.

As a result, they may actually need the money from the oil. At the same time, a flood of cheap oil may help the economy in the short term to counter collapse.

At the same time, they cannot afford to provoke any economic or investment boycotts by other countries. The sabres must be put away.

The suddenness of these events, along with recent domestic crackdowns like the banning of foreign tutoring, video gaming, and boy bands makes them look desperate.

And a Child Shall Lead Them

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, 

he began to ask them,

“What were you arguing about on the way?” 

But they remained silent.

They had been discussing among themselves on the way

who was the greatest. 

Then he sat down, called the Twelve, and said to them,

“If anyone wishes to be first,

he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” 

Taking a child, he placed it in their midst,

and putting his arms around it, he said to them,

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;

and whoever receives me,

receives not me but the One who sent me.”—Mark 9: 30-37

The gospel reading at last Sunday’s mass sounds like an endorsement of the Romantic notion that childhood is a state of blessedness to which we must aspire.

Matthew 18:1-5 is similar:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

Yet if the ideal is to be a little child, there is no reason for this life, with its sufferings, or for creation. God could have had us all born into heaven.

Everyone who has had children, or who has been one, knows that children are not moral paragons. They can lie; they can be greedy; they can be cruel to small animals.

But, as Father Flanagan, the founder of Boys’ Town, observed, "no boy ever wants to be bad.” Children can do bad things. However, no child has yet become vicious. They have not committed themselves to any vice; they are too young to have formed such a habit. To entertain and sustain a vice is, over time, to turn away from virtue in principle. That is how the sheep becomes a goat. That is when denial begins, and we turn away from truth itself.

Which is to say, we turn away from God.

We turn away from God, towards what? Towards self—that is, to satisfying our selfish urges. In this sense, we become big—our selves become big. To reverse this is to become again small, like children.

Off the Deep End

 

Despite some improper attempts to shout down Trudeau at campaign stops, and even a little gravel throwing, I was mildly pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of acrimony in the recent Canadian election, at least compared to recent elections in the US and UK.

But now Maclean’s has sullied its reputation by publishing a late hit piece on the People’s Party of Canada: “The PPC got more than 800,000 votes, and that should worry all of us.”

I’m not sure it should worry the people who voted for the People’s Party, should it? I guess, chillingly, the 800,000 fellow Canadians who voted PPC are now not part of “us.”

Author Pam Palmater refers to the PPC as a “threat to public safety.” This promotes hatred towards a group of fellow citizens.

It would be different if the PPC advocated violence, like Antifa or Black Lives Matter. But the PPC is a political party. As leader Maxime Bernier said when he was arrested in Manitoba, “my only weapons are my words.”

Palmater refers to the PPC as “far right” and “populist,” and is alarmed at how quickly it is growing. 

These concerns are contradictory. If it is indeed growing quickly, it is no longer “far right.” Being “extreme” does not make you wrong; that is the ad populum fallacy. Gandhi, Mandela, Einstein, Socrates, or Jesus were extreme in their milieu. But beyond that, there is no absolute standard of “right” and “left”: positions considered right wing in Canada would be left wing in the US. The standard is how distant a party or faction’s views are from the majority opinion. Since the PPC garnered a larger share of the popular vote than the Greens, you cannot call them far right unless you also refer to the Greens as far left. Nobody does.  It sounds foolish.

In fact, when polled on the issues, the average Canadian’s political views are usually closer to the PPC’s than the other political parties: on immigration, for example. Palmater admits this by calling them “populist.” You cannot be both populist and far right.

Every political party in a democracy of course claims to be populist, to be for the common people. By declaring the PPC populist, Palmater is saying she believes the rest are lying, and is, further, endorsing their right to lie to the public. Of course they do not have the public’s interests at heart. That’s for suckers.

Palmater goes on to lie about the PPC in detail. She says it “includes those who were rejected by the Conservative party,” and cites Derek Sloan—who is not a member of the PPC. She says it harbours those who have “gained some degree of notoriety from racist rhetoric,” and cites Bill Capes. Capes had put up some jokes on his Twitter feed a few years ago that, while they sound merely good-natured, could have offended. He has apologized. Demonstrably, he had gained no notoriety for the tweets―or they would have been turned up in the PPC’s vetting process. 

Palmater point out with concern that hate crimes grew in Canada last year. This is no doubt meant to imply that the PPC has something to do with this. Why is the PPC any more responsible than the Anti-Defamation League? It is the left that is fomenting race hatred in Canada.

Palmater claims that “Canada produces more far-right [sic] online content per web user than any other country.” If true, that shows the need for the PPC: it has a legitimate constituency in Canada, that is otherwise not being represented electorally. Besides having the right to be represented, it is dangerous to the public peace to suppress the views and voice of one’s fellow citizens. Yet that is exactly what Palmater demands.

Palmater cites examples of the PPC’s intolerable far right views: the PPC “promises to maximize freedom of expression …; cut funding to universities if they silence those espousing hateful [i.e. dissident] views; cut funding for CBC; cut funding for foreign aide [sic]; and lower the number of immigrants and stop the flow of refugees into Canada.”

In other words, Palmater is opposed to freedom of speech, wants government control of the media, and wants unrestricted immigration into Canada.

I can see legitimate reasons why many of her fellow citizens might disagree. There is a reason why freedom of speech is guaranteed in our constitution, and in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is a reason why nations have borders. And the PPC nowhere calls for an end to accepting refugees; Palmater only imagines this, or lies.

No doubt aware of how reasonable the PPC platform might sound, Palmater explains that “beneath the surface of these promises are deeply embedded racist views against non-white people.” In other words, she can read minds, and wants to root out and prosecute thought crimes.

She does cite “their plan to repeal multiculturalism laws and cut funding for multiculturalism with a view to forcing integration into Canadian society and culture.” This is “racist” only if you think culture is racially determined and those of other races cannot be expected ever to integrate. That is a profoundly racist claim, although an increasingly common one on the left. No doubt they must be kept in ghettos, and not allowed to vote.

She concludes by warning against “Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups.” This would be more compelling if the Proud Boys were white supremacists, and if they had anything to do with the PPC. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, Palmater and Maclean’s are dangerously insane. There’s a lot of that going around.

Why Has Nobody Noticed How Disastrously Trudeau Has Handled Canadian Foreign Relations?

 

The Morning After

 

The results are in for the Canadian federal election, and nothing has changed. Nobody won. There is something profound and existential in that. Canada is the land where nothing changes, and nobody wins.

I hear speculation about this or that party leader losing their job. I doubt that. 

Justin Trudeau is not going to lose his job, because he is still prime minister, and he bought that party back from the dead in 2015, after a string of unsuccessful leaders. The Liberal Party is now “Team Trudeau”; they are entirely invested in him. 

Some say Erin O’Toole should lose his job, because he got a result no better than Andrew Scheer in 2019, and Scheer lost his job. But if changing the leader did not lead to a better result, why do it again? It makes more sense to try something new—like giving the guy a second chance, and Canadians time to get to know him. Last Tory leadership contest, nobody much seemed to want the job; most of the obvious candidates declined to run. So I doubt there is a lot of pressure from possible rivals to dump him.

Jagmeet Singh is not going to lose his job—the NDP is happiest when they are losing, and they tend to stick with leaders so long as they do not threaten, like Tom Mulcair, to win an election. That would be selling out.

Yves-Francois Blanchet surely does not deserve to lose his job. Like Trudeau, he pulled his party back from the brink a few years ago. It is now very much his party. And politicians with his talent are not easy to find.

Maxime Bernier is not going to lose his job, because he is better known and more popular than his party. Without him, it does not exist.

Annamie Paul will probably lose her job, but she was going to lose her job before the election was called. She has even suggested she does not want the job. 

So there is unlikely to be any political excitement as a result of this election either. The Green Party will choose a new leader, and at 3% and falling, nobody will care.

Canadian politics looks like it is in a deadlock. This has happened before. I’m an old fart; the last time I remember a mood like this was in 1963-67, when it seemed as though the Pearson Liberals and the Diefenbaker Conservatives could not get beyond exchanging minorities. That logjam was broken by the emergence from the wings of the exciting new figure of Trudeau.

But the Tories have already tried a leadership change, and the Liberals have already used up the “exciting new figure of Trudeau” gambit. This time, the one possible source of a reshuffle and new deal is Bernier and the PPC. They are offering something new. While they elected nobody, they expanded their support exponentially. 

Next time, with nothing changing elsewhere, and everyone that much more frustrated with the status quo, they may become the most important factor.

Vote Prediction for the Canadian Election

 

I have no idea who will win today's Canadian federal election, and I have no special insight. Just for fun, though, here is a seat projection--more or less what I think justice should produce as a result of the campaign. Now let's see how far it is from the reality.

NDP 40

Given that everybody likes Singh, and O'Toole does not look threatening to the left, and the Green vote will collapse, and a lot of people are fed up with Trudeau, I think the NDP's numbers should go up.

Bloc 40

Blanchet is good, and found a good issue. Again, I think people are annoyed with Trudeau. So the Bloc ought to pick up seats.

PPC 10

Okay, this is mostly wishful thinking. But the PPC is getting a lot of attention, and if people are really fed up, it is the ideal protest vote vehicle.

Greens 1

Elizabeth May holds her seat.

Liberals 120

Trudeau will probably do better than this based on the polls, but he really should not based on the campaign. He took the worst hit during the debates, Jody Wilson-Raybould's book came out, he called an unnecessary election, and there was nothing inspiring in his platform.

Conservatives 127

Also mostly wishful thinking--just enough to pip Trudeau. Basically calculated by giving them the remainder by default. This would be a gain of six from last time, which feels about right. O'Toole's campaign did a better job than Scheer. He came out of the starting gate well, and did not stumble in the debates. I do not see the PPC being much of a spoiler for him. The votes they get might have stayed home or gone to the Greens as the next best "plague on both your houses" option. If they cut his margin in some places, that works two ways: it may leave the Tory support more economically distributed, so they do not waste so much of it on unnecessarily high margins in Alberta. So the same rough voting percentage as last time could give them more seats.

Dumbest move in the election: O'Toole getting endorsed by Brian Mulroney. Mulroney is not remembered fondly even by Conservatives, and his term as leader ended in disaster for the party.

Voting Day

 Just returned from voting. Surprised by the lineup. When the polls opened there were at least two dozen people in line. When I exited, there were still twenty outside waiting to get in, not counting the lines inside the polling place. This is despite the fact that there seem to be no real lightning rod issues in the election, the platforms of the major parties are very similar, this riding is not competitive in an ordinary election, and the Conservative candidate was forced to withdraw before voting day.

Usually a heavy turnout is supposed to help the Liberals. But it might also betoken a “throw the rascals out” mood.

Late polls predict a Liberal, minority.

Confucius and Solomon on Whom to Vote for Tomorrow

 

Erin O'Toole

The first reading at mass this morning sounds like a comment on Erin O’Toole:

“The wicked say: 

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;

        he sets himself against our doings,

    reproaches us for transgressions of the law

        and charges us with violations of our training.

    Let us see whether his words be true;

        let us find out what will happen to him.

    For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him

        and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

    With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test

        that we may have proof of his gentleness

        and try his patience.

    Let us condemn him to a shameful death;

        for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”—Wisdom 2:12, 17-20

If someone pretends to be a friend to all, he is a friend to none; he is only acting in his own self-interest.

Anyone who is genuinely moral will stir up strenuous opposition: whether he calls them out or not, the evil will hate him.

Confucius made the same point. From memory: “If a man has no friends, it is necessary to make enquiries. If a man has no enemies, it is necessary to make enquiries.”

Just saying. I'd still be pleased if O'Toole removed Trudeau.

No Waltzing with France

 

American submarine

Baguette.

A strange thing is going on Down Under. The Australians have suddenly announced a new strategic partnership with the UK and USA to equip their navy with nuclear submarines. In response, France has called their ambassadors to the US and Australia home for consultations—a very serious diplomatic gesture. The new deal means the sudden abrogation of a huge contract with France for conventional submarines. In addition, it appears that a number of Australian companies involved in the French contract will be hit hard by this about-face.

So why did the Australians do this? You could call it a dumb move, as the French have; but apparently the Australian government did this in consultation with the main opposition party, Labour. Moreover, the governments of the US and UK must be assumed to be making the same mistake.

This surely speaks instead of a rapidly changing strategic situation. The risk of war with China is now serious enough that business considerations or current diplomatic relations with an ally must take a rear seat to national security. Australia apparently believes its survival may depend on having these superior nuclear submarines, and perhaps more importantly, on a closer alliance and military coordination with the US and UK. The fact that the Aussie government got the opposition on board reinforces this assumption. This looks like an all-hands-on-deck situation.

The actual manufacture of the subs will take years; the alliance with the UK and US may be more immediately important.

Norm Macdonald on Canadian Elections

 

Maxime Bernier: An Endorsement

 

Max Bernier

Everybody seems to be endorsing someone in the current Canadian federal election, over the last few days. Probably nobody cares; I’m just a guy; but it is time to again endorse Maxime Bernier.

Erin O’Toole has been warning against vote-splitting on the right. “If you want to get rid of Justin Trudeau, there’s only one choice.” This does not sound reasonable. O’Toole has run on a platform barely distinguishable from Trudeau’s; that makes the stakes trivial. Moreover, if the polls are right, we are going to get a minority government. If it is a Tory majority, they are going to need the cooperation of the NDP or Bloc to stay in power; this will pull them further left. 

So why waste your vote?

A vote for the PPC that is a vote for change. If we can get PPC representation in parliament, we can change the political discourse. We will start pulling the debate to the right, just as the NDP and the CCF before it have pulled it to the left for so long. Making the Liberals the Natural Governing Party.

I actually do not care much about Bernier’s signature issue this iteration, opposition to vaccine mandates. I do not think vaccine mandates are that sinister. They are an imposition on our freedom, but they seem reasonable; even Jason Kenney explains “we have run out of options.” As with the War Measures Act, when the emergency passes, such restrictions have always in the past been rescinded.

What does alarm me is the tendency to scapegoat the unvaccinated. A recent correspondent wrote “They're not listening to the bells in any temple except their own. They cling to their ‘rights’ without any corresponding sense of ‘responsibility’ to the wider community. And yet, they're the ones currently clogging our hospital systems.”

Logically, if the vaccines work, there is no reason to worry about anyone else being vaccinated, so long as you are. If the vaccines do not work, there is no reason to get vaccinated. 

So the issue is only the secondary one of “crowding the ICUs.” Others might miss treatments. Politicians like Trudeau are lying and stirring up hate by suggesting it is more than this. The appeal is “fifteen days to slow the spread.” Oops, sorry, make that eighteen months and counting.

But it is ambitious to expect many more than 72.9%--the current figure--to agree to vaccination. For some people—kids, for example, or people with allergies—the risk of vaccination is greater than the risk from the virus. Others will have phobias about vaccinations; phobia is not trivial. Others, especially racial minorities, do not trust the health system or the government. Do we want to target racial minorities for general condemnation?

The bottom line is, we are probably near the limit of what we can accomplish without coercive measures. Coercive measures are not warranted, and must be anathema. So insisting on vaccination rates higher than this may only be postponing our return to normalcy indefinitely.

But we are also near the limit we were told would lead to at least partial herd immunity; the more so when you realize that some of the unvaccinated will have already had COVID. Presumably, at 72.9%, almost everyone at high risk has been vaccinated. The wisest course might be to drop all restrictions and let the virus itself give us herd immunity quickly. The UK government seems to have decided on this course. 

Whether we do this or not, that it is a reasonable option means it is a misdirection to blame the continued lockdowns or the persistence of the virus on the unvaccinated.

The idea is being pushed aggressively by politicians and health officials, I suspect, because they have a tiger by the tail. If they lift restrictions, cases will spike for a time, and they will be blamed. Jason Kenney is living through this nightmare now in Alberta. If they continue the restrictions, people will blame them as they lose their savings, lose their jobs, lose their businesses, lose their homes, inflation gets worse and food becomes a problem too. Those in charge need a scapegoat, to deflect blame from themselves, and to avoid having to make a tough decision. “The unvaccinated” serves their purpose.

We ought not to fall for it. For one thing, if we do, innocents will suffer. For another, so long as we do, lockdowns will probably continue, as no politician has the nerve to end them.

Bernier says he will end them.

And his other policies are even better.

The Interpretation of Dreams

 

Freud, apparently homosexual without knowing it, fingers somebody's penis.

It is unwise to listen to the psychologists about dreams. Most of what we think we know from psychology is from Freud. Freudianism has no scientific basis. He just made stuff up. 

Are his notions right? All we can do, since we have no evidence for them, is, first, to decide whether they make sense; whether they are at least internally consistent. Second, we can ask whether they conform to previous beliefs about dreams, which, while we equally may not know what evidence or reasoning they are based on, at least reflect the wisdom of the ages.  

On both counts, the answer has to be no. Freud is nonsense.

To begin with, Freud’s concept of a “subconscious” of repressed memories or urges has been debunked. Troubling memories are not repressed; if troubling or alarming, they are far more likely to be conscious. We have known this at least since Aristotle. Everybody remembers where they were on 9/11, for example, precisely because the experience was traumatic. Repression of urges, in turn, is not subconscious. It requires a conscious effort to fight urges. We have known this at least since Moses. That’s why we have the Ten Commandments.

One common idea about dreams is that all the characters in a dream are aspects of oneself. That is from Jung more than Freud, but Jung too has no scientific basis. When it is not based on Freud, Jung’s ideas come from old gnostic texts, which he apparently misunderstood. Even if he did not, there is a reason why Gnosticism is not a living school of thought—it did not survive the test of time.

You could say the same of the characters in Shakespeare—that they are all aspects of Shakespeare’s own mind. True, but only trivially true; Shakespeare is not trying to explain or understand himself, but the world. It makes more sense to see dreams as the working out in symbolic and narrative form of the problems we face during the day. Some of our problems may be with our selves; but some with other people, or God, or nature, or fate, or the post office. Think of the seven conflicts: man vs. man, man vs, self, etc. Dreams are stories, and all stories are based on these seven conflicts.

Perhaps the craziest idea about dream interpretation that we inherit from Freud is that things in dreams mean the opposite of what they say. This notion, absurd on its face, has become “common knowledge.” Freud seems to have invented the principle so that he could make anything mean anything he wished. For example, there is no trace of Freud’s “Oedipus complex” in the actual legend of Oedipus. Oedipus has no desire to kill his father or have sex with his mother. His father, on the other hand, wants to kill him, and his mother wants to have sex with him. Yet Freud cites this as his main literary evidence for the “Oedipus complex.” A cigar can be a cigar, if Freud wants it to be a cigar; or if he prefers, it can mean anything else.

Unfortunately, Freud has poisoned pretty much everything we think of as psychology, even if real psychology has mostly disavowed him, or thinks it has.

Best to assume that whatever you have heard from “psychology” is wrong.

Posted as a Public Service

 

Longtime Liberal ooperative Warren Kinsella says "don't vote for Justin Trudeau."

Much Ado About Nothing

 

The recall of Gavin Newsom as California governor failed. This is disappointing but not surprising; it would have been revolutionary had he been removed, and Larry Elder made governor. But this does mean that a huge amount of money was spent, and the business of government interrupted, for no result.

Now the same thing is likely to happen in Canada. The probable outcome of the current federal election is a Liberal minority government, just as existed before the unnecessary election. A great deal of money spent, and the business of government suspended, to produce no change.

Even if the Canadian government is replaced by the Conservatives, it will not matter much; the Liberals and Conservatives are running on similar platforms, supporting the same things, differing only in detail.

One can expend a great deal of effort on democratic politics, and achieve nothing. It is useful for preventing the government from ignoring the interests of the people, and it is useful for managing the orderly succession in power, and giving the government legitimacy, but not for much else; not, despite our illusions, for making major changes in public policy. Politicians are almost always chiefly in the business of gaining and holding office. So they look at the opinion polls, and craft policies to attract majority support. So long as they do this, it makes little difference whether Party A or Party B is in power. Both main parties will run on more or less the same platform. Erin O’Toole’s current campaign is a case in point. 

Smaller parties, who have no chance of government, will instead stake out a distinct minority position, to appeal to some portion of the electorate that has strong feelings. This will be enough to get a few candidates elected; but not to get anything done, because they will never form a government. If they get close to taking power, they shift to seeking the majority position. We saw this when the NDP challenged for power in 2015: Mulcair actually moved to the right of the liberals.

All of this means that except for the occasional fluke, little gets done by electoral politics. It only reflects the culture.

The place where policies are forged is in the media. 

Norm Macdonald

 

Until yesterday, when I heard he had died, I had never heard of Norm Macdonald. I also learn, from several sources, that he is the funniest man who ever lived. And he was Canadian. I have become that out of touch by living abroad for some years.

Then again, Macdonald may not have been all that famous. Other comedians idolized him, but his jokes did not, I hear in YouTube clips, often get loud hoots of laughter from the audience. He was not there to entertain. He was not there to please the audience.

So, if he was not an entertainer, what was he?

Reviewing clips on YouTube now, I think he was not just funny. He was not even just an artist, who did it for the craft, for beauty—although that is already immensely honourable. He was a saint. In Old Testament terms, he was a prophet.

He shows a relentless, courageous commitment to the truth, regardless of what those around him say or think. He shows a relentless sense of and concern for right and wrong. He will not be silent about OJ Simpson’s murders, or Bill Clinton’s, or Michael Jackson’s pedophilia.

This is what true sainthood is; not some nominal commitment to Jesus Christ, or believing this or that particular thing, or saying you do, or going regularly to a particular church, or synagogue, or mosque, or temple. That is Pharisaism, and Jesus himself condemned it above all things. True commitment to Christ is commitment to truth and good and beauty, wherever it leads.

Macdonald got away with speaking the truth publicly through the time-honoured tactic of pretending to be stupid or mad—his relentless grin, his belittling of himself, his remarkably well-feigned lack of awareness of how others might react. Much or all “insanity” may be such a mask; Shakespeare suggests so. The court fools of earlier times certainly employed the ruse.

Macdonald’s theology is very basic; or he pretends it is. He just claims “intuition” and arbitrary “belief.” But his jokes nail some of society’s acts of denial. Notably, the idea that alcoholism is a “disease” rather than a vice. Or that casual sex is perfectly okay. Or that any comment about blacks other than unambiguous praise is “racist.”

Macdonald had leukemia for nine years before he died; and nobody knew. He did not even tell his family. This sounds like heroic virtue. He did not want them to worry or suffer.

Why did he die so young? Because he had done his best, fought the good fight, won the race, and had earned his reward.

PPC Policy on Gender Issues

 

The weird thing is that this common sense position is currently considered "far right."

Near-Death Experiences

 

If real, nothing could be more interesting or important than Near Death Experiences.

They say we cannot know what comes after death. For from that bourn, no traveller returns. 

And yet, perhaps some do. We call these “near death experiences” as a matter of definition: if you return, logically, you must not have been dead.

Frustratingly, of course, all accounts are second-hand. This makes them, in principle, as credible as sailors’ tales. If one step more credible, at least, than psychiatric case studies.

People are also naturally going to have some agenda. If your NDE shows you going to hell, are you going to tell everyone? If you’re a believing Christian, aren’t you going to want to claim you met Jesus, whether you did or not? It you are a scoundrel, aren’t you going to want to claim you got a message of “unconditional love”?

What seems common is a sense of leaving your body, of floating about it and looking down at it. People can give details of what was happening around them at this time, although they were supposed to be unconscious and even flatlining. There is a lot of corroborating evidence for this, if not quite proof in scientific terms.

Everyone says that at this point, all pain and discomfort of any kind stops. One has a great feeling of peace.

Then they turn, and see a bright light in front of them. This is featured in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. They go toward the light, and the light grows brighter and engulfs them. Some say they merge with the light.

Then they often find themselves in some natural landscape. They meet a relative or friend who has already died. This person may welcome them, or tell them they have to go back.

Someone then “looks into their soul,” many report. This sounds like a moment of judgement. But not a weighing of sin by sin, many say. Rather, it is a discerning of one’s fundamental attitude: loving or unloving. Are you a sheep or a goat? One respondent says he was asked whether he believed in God. He said no.

Many revive before this point. Few seem to get beyond this point. A few report an experience that sounds like hell, or purgatory. More report a place of perfect bliss. But beyond this point I think reports are going to be unreliable. 

A Dog's Leg in the Polls

 

It seems to me that things have been breaking the Conservative way in the last few days of the Canadian election campaign. I thought Trudeau was the loser in the debates; everyone was criticizing him, he took a few zingers, and he looked too hot for that cool medium. Jody Wilson-Raybould just released her book, and wrote an op-ed, reminding everyone of the Lavalin scandal. Former Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes announced on TV that she was going to vote Tory. Quebec Premier Legault urged Quebeckers to vote for O’Toole.  Could things have gone any better?

Yet two recent post-debate polls show the Tories dropping, and the Liberals retaking the lead.

One possibility is that they are outliers. Polling, we all know, has grown unreliable in recent years. If so, these deceptively low numbers may also be to the advantage of the Tories. They give permission to voters who prefer the NDP, but fear the Conservatives, to go ahead and vote for Singh.

Here is another possibility. The polled vote for the PPC seems to have risen at the same time, and to roughly the same extent, as the Tory decline.

The debates may have helped Bernier most of all. O’Toole’s tactic of storming the centre may have been wrong after all. People are angry, not just at Trudeau, but the ruling class. We have seen this clearly enough recently in Britain, the US, or France. This may well be a “change” election, a “send them a message” election.

In this case, hugging the middle and sounding unthreatening may not work well. If you’re really upset, why vote O’Toole? He is promising nothing will change. O’Toole benefitted earlier from being the obvious alternative to Trudeau, just as Biden, even if an empty suit, won for not being Trump in a referendum election. But over time, as voters listen, his pale persona may be wearing thin—since there is an alternative to vote for in Bernier.

By being excluded from the debate, Bernier was clearly identified as the best place to cast a protest vote.

The likely effect will be to pull enough votes from O’Toole to throw the election to Trudeau. 

Hell's Bells and Preaching to the Choir

 

Friend Xerxes laments, in a recent column, that churches are “echo chambers.”

“In most churches, you hear what you expect to hear. It’s easy, even expected, to talk about God as unconditional love.”

“But I wonder,” he continues. “how much unconditional love the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the floods resulting from Hurricane Ida, are feeling.”

Xerxes is making the same point I have made here before: the superficiality and insensitivity of the “Hallelujah chorus” sort of Christianity, that pervades mainstream Protestantism and much of current Catholicism. This is a fallen world. If we are happy in it, there is something wrong.

Xerxes uses the analogy of a temple bell, played only inside the temple. 

The local topography allowing, Buddhist temples are built on hills—so that the sound of the bell is heard from far away. The idea is the opposite of an echo chamber: the idea is to draw you out of your day-to-day way of thinking, to something beyond. And note the core concept of Buddhism is “enlightenment”: that whatever you now think is wrong. You are living in darkness. You must see everything from a new perspective.

The same is true for temples of all sorts. The Greeks built their temples on the acropolis, the “higher city,“ overlooking the agora far below. You leave the marketplace, to find a new perspective.

A high point, if available, is preferred as well for Christian churches. Mount Athos; Monta Cassino; Mont St. Michel. The church in which I was baptized is on a cliff overlooking the harbor; so is St. Brendan’s in nearby Rockport. Regardless of location, the bells are in the high steeple, so that they can be heard from the greatest distance. They would be unpleasantly loud in the nave, and serve no purpose. 

As with Buddhism, the New Testament insistently tells us we must take a new perspective, not go on with our lives. One must enter by the narrow gate. Many are called, but few are chosen. The wisdom of the world is folly in Christ. “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

Religion is meant to be the utter opposite of an echo chamber. It is to draw us away from the echoes and the groupthink, the mass delusions and the madness of crowds. If it has become a matter of merely affirming the world as it is, and the congregation in what they already suppose, it is no longer a religion. It is an anti-religion, marching participants down the primrose path to hell.

This is the criticism often levelled against “mainstream Protestantism.” Pierre Berton wrote on the theme in “The Comfortable Pew.” Much of Catholicism has the disease; I’d say most. This is why, periodically, we have religious revivals.

I’d say we’re overdue for another.

Reasons for Optimism

 

Great plagues follow the sound of the trumpet.

As civilization itself seems to crash and burn all around us, I look for hopeful signs.

1. As recently as thirty years ago, things looked much better. The Soviet Bloc dissolved; the personal computer had begun its revolution, starting in garages. This was sudden and unforeseen; especially after the dispirited Seventies. People spoke of “the end of history”; the bad guys had lost. Perhaps something like this could happen again, and in any given year.

2. The early or eventual dominance of the Chinese Communists seems to me far from inevitable. Their very actions suggest they feel themselves extremely vulnerable. It seems likely their economy is largely a Potemkin village.

3. With the fall of Afghanistan, there is naturally concern that Islamist terror will return with a vengeance. I think much of that Islamist terror was funded by oil revenues. With the decline in oil revenues in the Middle East, I suspect that may not be the case.

4. Energy from oil is becoming cheaper. We may also be on the cusp of producing cheap and clean power from nuclear fusion. Should that happen, it could be a boost to the world economy comparable to the computer revolution. No more worrying about climate change, no more worrying about running out of oil, energy almost free.

5. We may also be on the cusp of a revolution in medicine. Accelerated by the COVID crisis, we may soon have vaccines for viral diseases of all kinds—including HIV, the common cold, and cancer. With the recent breakthroughs in genetic sequencing, we may be close to a cure for genetic diseases, and even for old age. This could reverse our fears of demographic decline.

6. The incompetence and aggression we see in the clerisy just now may mean the opposite of what it appears to. It may be a result of that computer revolution. It has removed their justification and revealed their relative incompetence and mendacity, like Toto pulling the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. So they are acting out of desperation, even out of hysteria. The long-term trend may therefore be the opposite of the short-term trend: towards greater democracy and individual autonomy. This seems the inevitable logic of any greater and less restricted flow of information, and this is what the new ICT provides. Just as the invention of printing led to challenges and the ultimate decline of “priestcraft” and hereditary ruling classes in its day.

7. Christianity is vital and spreading in Africa. There are signs that, if and when the government lid comes off, it could spread rapidly in China. We could be looking at a world Christian revival. If America and Europe have lost vitality, China and Africa may be ready to take over—not as barbarian powers, like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia, but as new centres of world civilization as we have known it.

8. Islamism may burn itself out, if it has not already. Leave aside the issue of funding from oil. Islamism looks a lot like a nativist movement formed in reaction to culture shock from growing global interaction. I note that the actual bombers are almost always Westernized, middle class, and Western-educated. We saw a similar phenomenon in Nazi Germany, reacting against foreigners, foreign elements, and “cosmopolitanism.” Perhaps too in China under Mao, or Russia under Stalin. If so, history suggests this lasts for a generation or so, then subsides as the new influences become assimilated and the alienated culture joins the emerging world culture.

9. The US is obviously in dire need of a religious revival, a recommitment to its cultural underpinnings. But it has historically gone through such periodic revivals. If this is some built-in feature of American culture, we are overdue for another one. That might blow America back onto an even keel. 

10. Multiple considerations seem to be converging on the creation of a CANZUK trade area and alliance. While the actual cultures of the CANZUK nations are in the chaos of postmodernism and self-doubt, this reconstituted Commonwealth at least brings one thing back to where it rationally ought to be, and where it was before Europe began to decline in the nineteen-teens.  Britain used to be a bastion of common sense, against the rationalist excesses of the Continent and the mass enthusiasms of America. The new union might restore the self-confidence needed to draw apart from the European and, currently, American cultural suicide. There can be new life in old empires. The ancient Hellenic world yielded to Rome, then revived as the Byzantine Empire, and carried the torch of civilization for another thousand years.

11. The papacy has failed us; but the pope is old, and has been ill. People worry that, since he has been able to choose the electors, the next papacy is likely to be as bad. But by that logic, how did we get Francis? John Paul II and Benedict must have chosen all the electors, yet Francis’s approach is very unlike theirs. Received wisdom has it that the cardinals choose the next pope in reaction to perceived flaws in the previous papacy. That argues that the net pope may be different from Francis.

12. It is at least possible that, in rapid succession over the next few weeks, Gavin Newsom will be replaced by Larry Elder, and Trudeau by Erin O’Toole. We may be talking soon of a gathering right-wing tide. Once a tide turns, it continues to rise.

And hey, if the world really is coming to an end, that's good news for the good guys, isn't it? There are worse things than the New Jerusalem, and heaven on earth.

Is Quebec Racist?

 

Yves-Francois Blanchet has shrewdly exploited his wedge issue from the recent English-language debate: the charge that Quebec is discriminatory because of its support for Bill 21. 

To be clear, Blanchet is right, and the charge of discrimination is itself reckless and prejudiced. I find myself cheering him on, because there is a wider issue here: the growing misuse of the term “racism” to describe anything you disagree with. 

Also to be clear, the moderator did not use the term “racist.” She said “discriminatory.” I think the term “racist” came from Annamie Paul; but it is the term now being used to refer to the exchange.

Quebec’s Bill 21 prohibits public servants, including teachers, police officers, and judges, from wearing any visible religious symbols while on duty.

It is obviously not racist. It addresses religion, not race. What one thinks—one’s religion—is not decided by one’s race. To suggest so is deeply racist. 

Nor is it discriminatory towards any one religion. The law applies equally to all.

Presumably the argument is that it is discriminatory based on “disparate impact”: Sikhs or Muslims wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs; Christians do not. So it excludes Sikhs, and not Christians, from the public service.

This argument is historically ignorant. The idea of laicization, of no religious symbols in the public service, dates back to the 19th century in France. Before then, Christians did wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs. Franciscan friars would go about in sandals and brown robes; cardinals would wear red robes; Jesuits wore black. And these members of religious fraternities were the core of the “clerisy,” the class that ran the civil service. Christians were then compelled to stop advertising their religion when acting on behalf of the state, to emphasize the separation between the two. Christians have adjusted. Like many Catholics, I wear a scapular hidden under my collar. It is meant to represent a monk’s robes. To be discrete, it has been reduced to a small square of rough cloth that nobody can see.

Jews have similarly adapted. Required to cover their heads, they wear ordinary hats, like Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan do; or tiny yarmulkes in their hair colour. Or just drop the practice.

The law is only requiring the same of other religions.

One might argue that the law is discriminatory towards religion in general. I sympathize with that argument. To banish religion from the public square is to discriminate against the religious. Blanchet’s own comments betray a prejudice against religion. He said “religion has never advanced human equality,” or something to that effect.

By all means, let’s have that discussion.

Was Trudeau's Fate Sealed Last Night?

 

Last night five of the Canadian federal party leaders held their only English-language debate. 

My scorecard:

Best zinger—Annamie Paul telling Trudeau he is no feminist.

Best overall performance—Yves-Francois Blanchet. 

Winner- Erin O’Toole

Loser- Justin Trudeau

Mr. Congeniality- Jagmeet Singh

Possibly also a winner – Maxime Bernier

The clip from the debate that is being most shown now is Annamie Paul telling Trudeau he is no feminist, and naming Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould. This cleverly reminded everyone of the Lavalin scandal, and strongly suggested that those who want to show support for Philpott and Wilson-Raybould should do so by voting Green. Trudeau made it worse with his comeback: “I’ll take no advice from you on caucus management.” By responding sharply, he tended to reinforce exactly what Paul was saying, that he was no feminist and would not listen to women. People are as likely to sympathize with Paul over her caucus problems as to blame her for them. And women outrank men socially. It never looks good when a man speaks harshly to a woman in public. Most people are instinctively uncomfortable at this. Trudeau looked ungentlemanly, and Canada is a polite society. 

Trudeau was then cut off by the moderator, so he was unable to make any further response. It left the charge by Paul standing. Torpedo taken below the water line.

Although she got in the best line, I do not think Annamie Paul profited from the debate, other than by being featured on the same platform as the major party leaders. And that may have been a problem instead of an advantage: the Greens exist as a protest vote, and it was hard to see how they were any different on the climate policy questions than the NDP, Liberals, or Conservatives. She too often made everything about herself, not policies, and kept pulling rank as a woman and a “person of colour.” Most egregiously, she offered to “educate” Blanchet about racism, and criticized him for failing to submit to this demand. One begins to sense what makes her own caucus and party dislike her. She is too openly all about Annamie Paul, and contemptuous of others.

By contrast, I really would like to vote for Blanchet, were it not for everything he stands for. He came across as though he was speaking for the rest of us against these lying politicians. It was an engaging performance. He was helped, no doubt, by the fact that the other leaders ignored him as irrelevant to the English-language debate. So he took little incoming fire. But then, when Paul tried to criticize and talk down to him, it was a terrible look for her. Perhaps, given his engaging style, it would have been a bad look for any of the other party leaders.

The debate will probably not help Blanchet much; he is indeed irrelevant to the English-language audience, since he is running candidates only in French Canada. Perhaps he will have burnished his credentials with his constituency by standing up for Quebeckers against charges of racism—that very exchange with Annamie Paul. She may have helped him and hurt herself; the implication was that Quebeckers in general needed to be “educated” by her about racism.

Erin O’Toole’s performance was, I think, ideal for his purposes, and he is the one candidate most helped by the debate. His tactic was to come across as moderate and unthreatening, not a scary right-winger who might stampede the NDP vote over to the Liberals. He did that: always smiling, always speaking in an even tone, sounding sensible. I think he also got in one good zinger against Trudeau: “you’ve never met a target.”

None of the other party leaders but Trudeau went after him, so he did not have to spend much time on the defensive. For Trudeau, he is only one of three dangerous adversaries. The BQ is their rival in Quebec, and it is as important for the Liberals to win votes on the left from the NDP as to win votes on the right from the Conservatives. So the Liberal fire was scattered. By the same token, it made sense for the NDP and the BQ to concentrate fire on Trudeau rather than O’Toole. 

O’Toole had been boosted the day before by Premier Legault of Quebec coming close endorsing him publicly. Legault is popular in Quebec. The Conservatives may not win many Quebec seats as a consequence, but this gives voters in Ontario license to vote for him. O’Toole had momentum; he had to lose the debate to break it. He did better than not lose. Nobody got a shot at him, and he looked prime ministerial.

I understand why Trudeau took the aggressive approach he did. He is on a downward trend in the polls; he needed to score some fast punches, or lose the decision. But his aggressiveness helped O’Toole, by making the latter look calm and reasonable by contrast. The moderator often stepped in and told him to be quiet, that he was speaking out of turn. This was not good optics; it made him look like a disobedient child instead of a leader.

Everyone else on the podium also came after him, forcing him onto the defensive. Good zingers do not come out of a defensive stance. 

Jagmeet Singh came across as likeable, as he has in previous debates. It may not help him much, because he was already likeable. More significant, perhaps, is that he sounded as though he were likably agreeing with the Conservatives at several points, and disagreeing with Trudeau. This makes sense for the NDP; for them, the Liberals are the main competition, not the Conservatives. And the main issue of the election seems to have become the Liberals’ calling of an unnecessary election. Singh may have helped the NDP. But in helping the NDP, Singh was also helping the Conservatives.

Maxime Bernier was excluded from the debates. I believe his followers were protesting outside the building. This was a boon for Erin O’Toole, as he escaped any sniping from the right. It may also have helped Bernier. It solidifies the impression that a vote for the PPC is the true protest vote. If you want to send a message to Ottawa and the Laurentian elite, Bernier now looks like the vehicle. Apparently, pollsters are finding a movement of Green voters to the PPC on the West Coast. Paul looked too welcome and at home on that stage. 

Some recent polls are showing PPC support as high as 10 or 11 percent, well ahead of the Greens, and in striking distance of the NDP. Other polls show it much lower. But I suspect the “shy Tory” syndrome. The higher figure is more likely to be accurate. Something may be happening. We may be faced with another minority government, leaving the big news of election night the unexpected strength of the PPC.

Jordan Peterson: Lost in a World He Never Made

 

I find Jordan Peterson’s thinking hard to follow. Should I make the effort to figure out what he is trying to say? Is it liable to be anything of substance, or will I be wasting a great deal of time?

The odds are I will be wasting my time. Being able to think clearly and being able to express yourself clearly are almost the same thing.

But I took the time to try to untangle his thinking in this brief interview with Andrew Klavan. Klavan is trying to pin Peterson down on whether he believes in God.

In the talk, I do not think Peterson is trying to be deliberately obscure. Many academics are; enough double-talk and people do not realize you are talking nonsense. Peterson is not like this. Utter sincerity seems to be his dominant trait. It is what is so attractive about him. It is why, I think, he has become so popular and famous; nobody is used to hearing an academic speak so honestly. 

His problem is that, as a social scientist, he does not have the mental tools to handle metaphysical questions, like the existence and nature of God. He almost seems to understand this himself.

“Does God exist? How would I know? I can’t know, and neither can anyone else.”

In fact, the existence of God is knowable in a dozen ways. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says 

“Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of ‘converging and convincing arguments,’ which allow us to attain certainty about the truth.”

That is, there are various philosophical proofs for the existence of God. Peterson’s problem is that there are no, and can be no, scientific proofs for the existence of God—and the only thing he understands is science. There can be no scientific proofs of the existence of God, because science deals only with physical objects, and God is not a physical object.

As though to explain the impossibility, almost as if he understand the problem, Peterson goes on to speak of the objective and the subjective. 

“I don’t understand the relationship between the objective and the subjective. I don’t understand consciousness. From the objective perspective, it’s nothing.”

Because he speaks from a scientific perspective, Peterson is confusing “objective,” “physical,” and “real”; he is assuming they all mean the same thing. Science cannot tell them apart.

The objective is that which exists independently of our experience of it. It abides when we are not witnessing it. For example, the physical world does not cease to exist when we close our eyes.

The physical is what we perceive with our senses: smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing.

The real is not “what exists,” although it seems to mean that. Everything conceivable necessarily exists--as a concept, as a perception. We say something is “real” when it exists in the same category of existence we think it does. If we think it exists as a physical object, but it exists only as a concept, it is “unreal.” But on the other hand, we do not call happiness “unreal” because it does not exist as a physical object.

Peterson: 

“Religious experience is subjective, but it is a human universal. It is transpersonal, but it is subjective. We don’t have a category for the transpersonal subjective.”

It is science that does not have a category for the “transpersonal subjective.” But Peterson is wrong on his terminology. God is not subjective—he is objective. He exists when we are not thinking of him. “Transpersonal” means “objective.” By “subjective,” Peterson really means “non-physical.” 

God exists in the non-physical, i.e., spiritual, objective realm. As does heaven, hell, and the angels and saints. As does love, sin, morality, other consciousnesses, and most of what is important in life.

And Peterson, as a social scientist, cannot account for any of it. He is trapped in the world of inanimate things.

So, by extension, is psychology, and social sciences, in general.

The Conservatives and the PPC

 

Not scary.

The latest poll shows the Canadian Conservatives increasing their lead. At the same time, the People’s Party of Canada is getting more attention, with the anti-Trudeau protests, and some polls show its support growing. 

This violates conventional wisdom. The fear on the right has long been that splitting the conservative vote gives the government to the Liberals forever. The Reform Party in the 1990s and 2000s split the vote with the Progressive Conservatives. While they did, the Liberals looked invulnerable. The Wildrose Party in Alberta split the vote and allowed the NDP into power.

I think this conventional wisdom may be wrong. 

The vote on the left has been split for generations, since the 1930s, currently between the Liberals and the NDP; yet the Liberals win power more often than not.

I think it matters HOW the vote is split.

The NDP actually helps the Liberals, by pulling the public debate to the left. Canadians, always wanting harmony and compromise, accordingly vote Liberal as the safe and centre, to keep the Dippers happy. For the same reason, that they always want compromise, they are eternally suspicious of the Conservatives. Aside from offending the NDPers, the Tories probably, unlike the middle-hugging Liberals, harbour some radical members with radical ideas—the frightening “hidden agenda.”

Why did the Reform Party not do the same on the left? Because the Reform Party was not ideological. The Reform Party/Alliance was not a ginger group pulling the conversation further right. It was more an expression of Western alienation. Preston Manning insisted the party was neither left not right; it was competing for the centre, nationally under the name “Alliance.” So it lacked the intent or ability to move the needle to the right. Instead, it simply split the conservative vote.

The Wildrose Party in Alberta was also not really ideologically distinct from the PCs. Rather, it existed as a right-wing alternative for those who thought the PCs were too long in power and had become arrogant and unresponsive, but could not imagine voting left-wing to oppose them. Wildrose existed to “send them a message.” It was competing for the same ideological constituency.

The PPC is more like an NDP of the right. Its platform is distinct from that of the Conservatives, and its appeal is national. Rather than splitting the vote, its existence may tend to legitimize the Conservatives in the eyes of the majority who want government from the middle: it will soak up the ideologues, making the Conservatives look less scary. At the same time, it shows that a significant body of people are upset with the current situation. The mushy middle will want to assuage their concerns. Moving the entire discourse in a conservative direction.

Look at it this way: O’Toole, Bernier; good cop, bad cop.

On the Canadian Campaign Trail

 

The loud protests that now dog Justin Trudeau’s campaign stops are reprehensible. I suspect they are also likely to work.

Canadians crave consensus. Canada is historically run from the centre. The squeaking wheel can generally get whatever they want, to preserve consensus, so long as they are not given power. The indigenous people have recently been exploiting this tendency enthusiastically; Quebec did so for decades under the separatists. The feminists have done it over abortion. If even a small minority seems very strongly against something, everyone else will back away. I suspect a lot of people are going to back away from the Liberals as a result of this.

Unless, that is, anyone can trace it back to the Conservative Party. If they can, the Conservatives have no chance of being given power.

Conversely, although his platform is without principle, and he was caught recently shifting his position on gun control even in the middle of the campaign, Erin O’Toole may have the right formula to get elected in Canada. As Bill Davis used to say, “bland works.” Or, as F.R. Scott said of Mackenzie King, the Commonwealth’s longest serving prime minister, “never do by halves what can be done by quarters." Stephen Harper, the last Conservative prime minister, was pretty buttoned-down and low-key.

Canadians want peace and quiet. 

Trudeau may have made a mistake, accordingly, by being too visible during the COVID crisis. Canadians really do not want to see that much of their politicians.

American Cultural Hegemony

 

Folks on the left in many lands, including Canada, loudly lament about cultural imperialism and the “hegemony” of American culture.

This is nonsensical. 

They also lament about “cultural appropriation,” of course. Which is to say, if someone else assimilates American culture, Americans are doing something wrong. But if Americans assimilate another’s culture, Americans are doing something wrong. Only Americans seem to have free will.

What is culture? It is a collection of tools for living; systems for creating the best possible life for a group of people. 

If you went to the hardware store to buy a tool, what would be the most important consideration? Would it be whether it was made in your home town?

In principle, everyone on earth should have more or less the same culture, apart from what is dictated by varying local conditions: the best of everything. If they do not, it is only because of lack of communication, lack of initiative, and prejudice.

What is American culture? 

Because it is a nation of immigrants, the United States has been able to pick and choose the best tools from many parts of the world.

When you think of American culture, what do you think of? Aside from works of individual genius, you think of pop music, with its heavy rhythms, jazz music with its improvisational style; hot dogs, hamburgers, ketchup, pizza; cowboys and the romance of the West; and the democratic ideal.

The rhythms of pop and the improvisation of jazz are from Africa, mixing with Irish and other European traditions. Hot dogs and hamburgers are German; pizza is Italian; chili is Mexican; ketchup is from Indonesia. Cowboys are from Mexican/Spanish culture, with a mix of native Indian traits; the word “cowboy” is a translation from Spanish.

The same is true, to just about the same extent, for the same reason, of Canadian or Australian culture. It is also true of British culture—not due to immigration, but because England is a nation of traders, who went out into the four corners of the world and brought back whatever they found useful. Tea from China, curry from India, potatoes from the New World.

In the end, of course, not least because they share this openness to the world and to new things, the UK, Canada, the USA, and Australia are not really separate cultures. The differences are trivial, and are diminishing daily with improving communications. 

The three things we might claim to be the distinctive contribution of the Anglosphere, not imported from elsewhere, are the concept of liberal democracy, the mechanisms to produce it, and the doctrine of human rights, one the one hand, which have deep roots but owe a great debt to John Locke; the concept of the free market mechanism and free market liberalism, which again has earlier roots, but is largely from Adam Smith; and empirical science, which we owe to Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton.

I do not think there is anything wrong, frankly, with foisting human rights, democracy, free markets, or science, on anyone. These are simply the best tools available. Not being of English ancestry myself, I do not feel oppressed by them. Frankly, I would feel oppressed by not having them.

What we have here is not “American culture,” but an expanding world culture. Its lingua franca is English, but other elements can come from anywhere. 

A world culture must have a lingua franca. Language is a tool to communicate. The best language is self-evidently that which has the most speakers; and we should all desire and promote one world language.

As our communication improves, we are seeing our world culture enriched by more elements from more lands. Fifty years ago, it would not have included anime, or chicken tikka masala, or K-pop, or tacos. Now everyone knows them, from Saudi Arabia to Santiago.

To worry about the loss of other cultural elements is regressive. If a thing is abandoned, it is probably because it could not compete with something better; and because people freely chose against it. This is a little thing called progress. Adam Smith, John Locke, or Francis Bacon could explain.

The Price of Eggs in China

 

A longtime YouTuber on China reports an article highlighted in the official Chinese press. The Chinese government is cracking down on big corporations, big names in the entertainment industry, and Western cultural influences. They are calling for a second Cultural Revolution.

This sounds grim--not least, in economic terms. The first Cultural Revolution did not exactly lead to prosperity. Some were reduced to cannibalism. 

Andrew Klavan has suggested that the CCP has invented a new form of tyranny, tyranny with prosperity. I doubt that is what is happening here. This sounds to me like desperation. The Xi government is prepared, as Mao was in the 1960s, to sacrifice prosperity to secure and hold power. The CCP fears their hold on the country is tenuous. 

The problem with stars of the entertainment industry is that people look up to them, and what they say can have influence. The problem with big corporations is that they are organized, can get things done, and they can get beyond government control. 

The CCP fears an alternative government forming.

It's the Herd's Fault

 

There seems to me to be a certain illogic in the insistent demands, by, for example, Justin Trudeau, that everyone get vaccinated. What is the premise here? 

There is probably a legitimate concern that the unvaccinated, if they all get sick, could overload the ICUs and the health system. Fair point—fifteen days to slow the spread. But aren’t the fifteen days up yet?

Beyond that, if the vaccines work, those who are vaccinated need not care whether the next person is vaccinated. If the vaccines do not work, why get vaccinated? 

If the failure by many to get vaccinated causes a “fourth wave,” those falling sick are presumably those who have chosen not to get vaccinated. Their bodies, their choice.

This is an oversimplification; the common claim currently is that those who have been vaccinated do run some risk of catching COVID, probably in a mild form. Still, we do not take such extreme measures against the flu or the common cold. 

I do not object to vaccine passports. I do not fear they are a wedge to take away our freedoms. Temporary suspensions of basic rights have happened in the past; in war, for example. Our historical experience has been that these do not endure beyond the emergency. In any case, is a vaccine passport really a greater intrusion on one’s rights than a driver’s license?

But do we really need them?

Perhaps the idea is to achieve “herd immunity”: get there, and the virus should die out. Unfortunately, the consensus is apparently growing among top doctors that, with the more virulent strains we now face, herd immunity is no longer possible. If perhaps 70% vaccinated was necessary for the original strain, the Delta variant is perhaps a hundred times more contagious. That puts the herd immunity threshold beyond the realistically possible—and for all we know, a more contagious form is going to appear. Reports are that one has emerged in South Africa that is twice as transmissible as Delta. The very fact that a fourth wave is gathering despite the high levels of vaccination in Canada, the eUK, or Israel tends to demonstrate that “herd immunity” is no longer a viable goal.

My suspicion is that leading politicians are so insistent that everyone get vaccinated because they need a scapegoat for the continuing high number of cases. If they do not focus attention on this scapegoat, people are likely, fairly or unfairly, to start blaming them. I fear they have a tiger by the tail: they cannot leave the restrictions in place forever. Yet they cannot drop all the restrictions and let infection rates rise without people questioning why the restrictions were there in the first place. 

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

 

Joe Biden seeking Americans left in Afghanistan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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