The Only Sane People in the World

 

I have lived in a number of countries around the world. One thing I have learned from that—the main thing—is that everyone is insane.

This should not be surprising. Every religion tells us so. Truth, enlightenment, is revealed only to a few. It might come as a surprise only if you buy into modern “scientific” psychology. Lacking any standard for truth or reality, it merely defines “sane” as “having the majority opinion.” That obviously does not work. It is a recognized logical fallacy: ad populum.

We all live on delusions. Francis Bacon classified the common sources centuries ago, and founded empirical science as a way to break through. It has not worked. Churchill once said something like, “Most people, if they stumble upon the truth, will just pick themselves up and dust themselves off.” Bertrand Russel once said, “Most of us would sooner die than know the truth. And most of us do.”

One of the standard sources of delusion, as Bacon shrewdly classifies them, is “idols of the tribe.” These are delusions shared by a social group, the members of which can easily mutually reinforce each other in the delusion. It is hard in isolation to persist in a delusion.  When everyone around you is agreeing with you, it is far easier. These delusions of the tribe are actually encouraged by psychology. Shared delusions tend to define a nation.

Living in another country, especially one with a significantly different culture, reveals these delusions. If unreflective, an expat will after a few months come to the conclusion that they are all mad here. If he is more thoughtful, and more self-reflective, he may conclude instead that he is mad. If more reflective still, he will realize that both are—or at least, he too had been, on this or that matter, before now. 

All that is a lead-in to this: not all nationalities are equally mad. In my still limited experience, North Americans, at least in these times, are profoundly mad. Madder than hatters. Thank me for sharing. The Chinese can always be counted on to be mad. The French are certainly mad. We all know about the Germans and their fits of madness. The Japanese are mad, Koreans are mad. These are beautiful cultures, perhaps the most impressive cultures, cultures in which education is highly valued. And one would expect education to be a cure for madness. Yet it can as easily be the reverse: it can be an education into the shared delusions. And great art can be the individual’s desperate attempt to break through the matrix of thyeir culture. Like the sand in the oyster’s shell that forms the pearl of great price.

 Italians are far less prone to be mad. Greeks are less prone to group madness. This despite their impressive cultures. But perhaps too, it explains why they are not as creative as they once were.

I probably can’t be objective about the Irish, but I think they are uncommonly sane.

But the sanest group of people I have ever had to deal with—and I have dealt with them quite a bit, largely for this reason—are the Filipinos. They are on the whole profoundly sensible, always with their two flat feet on the ground. Among other things, this makes them, contrary to what seems the stereotype, quite unromantic. They are, on the other hand, religious, and take seriously the other world. Being practical and non-delusional means you do take account of the spiritual world. 

Materialism is the greatest of our North American delusions.

No Irish Need Apply

 

The racial discrimination in Canada—and the US and Britain too—has become more egregious now than it ever was in the days of the Civil Rights marches. Today I note this line in a communication from the League of Canadian Poets about an upcoming contest:

“Each submission much be accompanied by an entry fee of $20. Discounted entry fees ($5) are available to Black, Indigenous, racialized, and LGBTQI2S+ poets.”

Such statements are  common now. They are blatant violations of both the US Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Which shows the sad truth that such charters in the end only protect already-favoured groups. What is needed is a change in hearts. They are in open violation of the principles of Martin Luther King Jr., that we must judge one another not by the colour of our skins, but by the content of our character—the same moral Jesus gives us in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  They are open violations of the principle on which the US, and modern liberal democracy, was founded, that “all men are created equal,” and have the right to equal protection under the law. But that is another example of how such high-sounding principles end up protecting only already-favoured groups. Somehow the US, demanding equality for themselves vis a vis England’s ruling classes, saw no immediate need to free their slaves. 

We thought we had gotten beyond all this in the 1960s; it has all come raging back. It leads to the conclusion from such bitter experience that all people are inherently racist and xenophobic. This is a tendency we must all consciously fight against, as we must always fight against aspects of our animal nature. We are herd animals. Small children will often show a bad reaction to an unfamiliar skin colour; as a dog will. It is a survival instinct to be suspicious of the outsider, the stranger. Couple to that the universal need for scapegoats.

If we forget it, or, yet more stupidly, start claiming that only one particular racial group is subject to racist feelings, we end up doing horrible things to one another. We end up in Holocausts.

On the Fly

 

Events are moving so fast now that I suspect nobody has tome to read commentary instead of watch the news unfold; and I do not have time to write commentary.

At the moment, it looks as though Biden is going to step down in favour of Kamala Harris. The Conservatives are going to suffer a historic loss in Britain tomorrow, and Reform will outpoll them. LePen will fall just short ofr a majority in France. Justin Trudeau will shuffle Freeland out of the Finance Ministry, bring in Carney, and stick it out for now.

But that’s just the latest rumours I’m reading, like everybody else.

Just about anything can happen.

Desiderata

 

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

We are going through hourly political chaos, but the happy truth is that we are managing, it seems, to make the necessary changes, to dissipate all the public rage, in a reasonably orderly fashion, without the system breaking down. 

The issue is summarized well by Reform’s deputy leader, Ben Habib: it is bureaucratic government against popular, democratic government. The bureaucrats are now losing everywhere.

The British disaffected have Nigel Farage, an effective figure to really around. The bureaucratic state has been using dirty tricks against him, but it does not look as though they will be able to pull it off. He’s not going to win the election coming in a couple of days, but he will change and quite likely control the political conversation over the next few years. He may crush the Conservative Party and emerge as the obvious alternative next time.

The Tories are arguing at the doorstep that if Labour gets the huge majority projected, they will be in power for a generation. The opposite is as likely. When parties get huge majorities, they are heavy with disaffected backbenchers who cannot all be given posts. They almost always fracture into infighting. See how quickly the Tories have fallen from their big majority four years ago. 

In Canada, Trudeau should be smoothly replaced by Poilievre’s Conservatives, channelling the anger in a mainstream party. Canada is, as usual, more orderly than anyone in this revolution.

The likelihood, of course, is that Poilievre’s Conservatives, if they get the projected big majority, will also fracture. But in the meantime, some steam will be let off.

France just voted strongly for the Ralliement National in the first round of legislative polling; the rest of Europe is quickly going anti-woke.

And the US, of course, has Trump. He now seems a shoo-in to win the presidency back. The lawfare against him got severely set back by the new Supreme Court decision that came down today. And the Supreme Court has also struck a blow directly against the bureaucratic state with their recent decision to overturn Chevron.

Everything seems to be going in the right direction. And it is hard not to see God’s hand in it. The future seems clear.