Sea Power, Land Power and the Fall of Empires

 

The British First and Second Empires combined.

I heard recently an interesting analysis of why the sun did set on the British Empire. It all came down to the First World War. Britain’s great strength was always been being an island. This meant it need not fear a land war. It did not need to support a standing army, or to rebuild from the devastation of wars. It could pour its resources into having a strong navy, focus on industry, and choose its fights.

It then made the fatal mistake in the First World War of deciding to fight a huge land war—throwing away its natural advantage. While it won, it broke the bank. It lost leadership at that point to the USA.

What might have happened had Britain restricted its land participation in the First World War? At worst, it would merely have lost its leadership to Germany instead of to the USA. 

But quite possibly, its naval blockade could still have been decisive against Germany. 

I think it likely Germany’s Schlieffen Plan would still not have worked. During those first few weeks, the British presence in France was nominal in any case. From that point on, with trench warfare favouring the defense, it was hard for either side to advance. It was stalemate on the ground while the British blockade slowly strangled of German production. The eventual entry of the US was caused by events at sea, and so should have happened anyway, giving France that final punch against an exhausted Germany.

Meanwhile, Britain might have had more resources available to intervene in the Russian Revolution and keep Russia in the war—or at least, following the war, ensure that the Whites won. That could have made quite a difference in subsequent history.

During World War II, the UK was compelled by circumstances to follow a more logical policy—France fell swiftly.  But they might have been in much better shape had they not sent a large land force to France, which then had to be evacuated without its equipment at Dunkirk. The Channel remained Britain’s protection, and they were able to rebuild. Had Russia not been attacked, Britain would have slowly starved Hitler out anyway—that’s why he had to attack. The British Navy cut him off from oil.

Again Britain won—but at such a cost that they could not sustain any longer the cost of their great navy, and so their empire.

Imperial Japan made the same mistake. They had the same advantage as the UK, of being an island. Their natural course was to be a sea power. Instead, they got themselves bogged down in a vast land campaign in China. 

Germany, rising quickly towards the turn of the 20th century, made the same mistake in the opposite direction. A land power, needing always to defend their borders, they diverted resources into trying to become a sea power; turning the UK from a natural ally to a deadly enemy. They became too ambitious and overextended.

The USA, like the UK, is a natural sea power. Protected by oceans, it does not need a large standing army defending its borders. It can build up and support a large land army if necessary for short periods. But it must avoid becoming involved in land wars. Trump’s idea of withdrawing from Europe and letting the Europeans pay for their own defense is wise. In Asia, the best idea is to maintain an island perimeter. Vietnam was a mistake for this reason: America must avoid land wars in densely-populated Asia.

In other words, if it keeps its powder dry, China has no reason to fear the USA. Its invincible defense is its huge population, as Russia’s invincible defense is its vast land area. Time and again, this defeats possible invaders, and allows it, or Russia, to develop into a great regional power.

But not global powers—a land power almost by definition cannot extend its reach overseas, as a sea power can.

China now wants, like Germany towards the close of the 19th century, to become as well a great sea power. It wants to seize the island of Taiwan, control the trade route through the South China Sea, and project its power globally.

There is a reason why China has never been a sea power. Geography. This is a fatal mistake.

China must always maintain its large standing army. Russia, to the north, is also a great land power. India, to the south, is also a great land power. Like Germany having to worry about Russia, Austria, and France, there is always the danger of a two-front war.

So it must maintain parity on land with Russia and India combined, while also, if it wants to challenge at sea, developing and sustaining parity as well with the USA and Japan combined, two natural great sea powers.

Not to mention significant peripheral players like Vietnam and Korea.

The lessons of history suggest this is too tall an order for any nation. China does not have the natural advantages to make this possible. It may, like Germany or Japan, make a lunge, but unless the other power make a series of catastrophic errors, China is going down. Even when the UK made fatal errors, Germany still lost two wars.

There's Something about Mary

 

Many traditionalists are angered by the recent document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Mater Populi Fidelis.” They call it insulting to Mary, because it discourages use of the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix of all Graces.”

On this issue, I am entirely in agreement with the Dicastery and the Vatican. It feels good to say that.

I have always been disturbed by those very titles. “Co-Redemptrix” sounds blasphemous to me. Jesus is uniquely our redeemer. It sounds like a feminist attempt to subvert this truth. “Mediatrix of all Graces”? So the saints must petition her, and have no direct line to God? Did she mediate the graces she herself received? We are to go to her of necessity instead of Christ?

No; this is paganism.

Mary is the paradigm of the perfect disciple soul. Elevating her to some more active role violates her immaculate nature. Subservience is her essence, and it is this she models for us. “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.”

Thank you for the clarification, Pope Leo.

The White Poppy

Tuesday is Remembrance Day. Inevitably, I have received an invitation from a leftist friend to buy and wear a white poppy instead of the traditional red poppy. The idea is that the red poppy glorifies war; a white poppy protests war, calling instead for peace.

Today I attended the annual prayer service at the cathedral for Remembrance Day. I missed any reference to war being a good thing. The closest they came was a passage from Ecclesiates: “a time for war, and a time for peace.” Which of course is true. The atmosphere was solemn, not celebratory; like a funeral. The theme, as the name of the day implies, was remembering the dead. “At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them.” The climax of the ceremony was a lone bugler playing the Last Post, as is traditional at a military funeral.

Remembrance Day endorses war in about the same way attending a funeral endorses death. If the deceased died of cancer, does honouring him mean you are endorsing cancer, and wishing more people die of it soon?

It is true that Remembrance Day does not claim their deaths, or their lives, were meaningless. It points out that these young men, some only teenagers, died in a good cause, and honours their courage and self-sacrifice.

Suppose this is wrong? Suppose those who volunteered were just fools, or psychopaths, and those who were conscripted were just cannot fodder. It would still be disrespectful to say this at their funeral. Right or wrong, they gave their lives.

Wearing the white poppy is equivalent to this. In my mind, it is like the Westboro Baptist picketing the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq, or the victims of Sandy Hook. It is offensive to make a funeral political.

I wear the red poppy, and I stand and applaud the surviving veterans who attended the ceremony. I feel contempt for those who wear the white poppy.

What Rough Beast?

I think it is probable that we are witnessing the collapse of Islam. 

Islam as an ideology is particularly vulnerable to the increased communication produced by the Internet. The apparent recent radicalizing of Islam, more women wearing hijabs and more Islamist political movements, compared to only a generation or two ago, looks like a defensive move, a circling of the wagons. Another example of the ostrich’s philosophy of sticking his head in the sand; or the child’s of sticking his fingers in his ears. The upsurge  of “Islamic terrorism” is a further symptom. You resort to violence when you irretrievably lose the argument. It is fair to say that Islam always sanctioned violence in a way other religions do not. Nevertheless, there has clearly been a recent upsurge. Islam abided in relative peace with the rest of the world for several centuries before this.

One major problem is that the Quran makes self-contradictory claims. It states, and the average Muslim believes, that the Christian trinity is Allah, Jesus, and Mary. Easily disproved with contact. 

If the Quran is wrong about this, it cannot be the direct word of God, can it? What else might it be wrong about?

The Quran states that Jesus did not die on the cross; that Allah only made it appear so. Yet this means that Allah is a deceiver, prepared to deceive mankind, and must have known this particular deceit would lead to the development of the world’s largest religion. Christianity would be based on a fundamental error. This would be Allah’s fault. If Allah was prepared to deceive, how can we trust anything in the Quran, as the word of God? He might be deceiving again.

This is without even bringing up the celebrated issue of the “Satanic verses,” Muhammed’s own statement that some verses that he dictated as from God were actually, he later realized, from Satan. So what other Quranic passages might be?

The Quran claims that its truth is confirmed by comparing the prior scriptures, the Torah and the Gospel, which it affirms, and seeing they are all in conformity: it cites them as its evidence. Yet the Quran differs from the Torah and the Gospels in many of its historical claims; although the Torah and the Gospels agree with one another. It says Abraham sacrificed Ishmael instead of Isaac, for example. It says Mary’s father is Amram, not Zechariah, and Aaron is her brother--seeming to confuse Mary the mother of Jesus with Mary the sister of Moses.

So by its own standard, the Quran is disproven.

Militant Islam now looks as though it is spent. There have been fewer attacks in most recent years. The theocratic regime in Iran seems to have done much to discredit the idea of political Islam. Some surveys suggest widespread apostasy in Iran, and in other Muslims lands like Saudi Arabia. It is not visible, because apostasy is punishable by death. But that façade may soon be unsustainable.

The rise of militant Islam, as of 9/11, 2001, has had profound effects, however. It first gave birth to the “New Atheism.” Influenced by political correctness, these New Atheists could not see Islam specifically as the problem—that would be “Islamophobia.” So they put the blame on religion per se, and attacked Christianity instead. 

This both provoked and legitimized Islamic militancy, rather than countering it.

Leaving it to Christianity to emerge as the response and alternative to militant Islam, and as the defender of truth and good against what is, objectively, an evil and destructive mass hysteria—a group of people in a state of panic, of “cognitive dissonance.” The doctor is in.

The net result is likely to be a Muslim collapse and a Christian revival.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Power and the Single Girl

Lady MacBeth, by John Singer Sargent

Helen Andrews has suggested that allowing women to dominate in any field or industry is catastrophic, for they will turn any institution “woke.” My interpretation is that they will lose sight of the mission. Hence journalism no longer reliably reports the news, the schools no longer teach, advertisements no longer sell the product, Hollywood no longer entertains, and HR departments no longer hire for merit.

Arguing against this are some obvious historical examples women who have risen to political leadership. Their terms have often been considered by general opinion successful. Moreover, they are conspicuous not for losing their sense of direction, but for standing firm on their principles, sometimes when men around them wilted. One could cite Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni, Golda Meir, Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joan of Arc, Indira Gandhi. Maybe Angela Merkel.

However, note that those who stand out as successful have emerged in male-dominated movements and male-dominated times. Margaret Thatcher emerged in the Conservative Party, not Labour. Giorgia Meloni leads the right-wing “Brothers of Italy”—note the name. Golda Meir emerged in a country at war. 

Compare women who have risen mostly for being women. They have been less impressive: Kamala Harris, Kim Campbell, Alexa MacDonough, Julie Payette, others we have forgotten.

Those who rose in “patriarchal” contexts are marked by this as exceptional, not average, women. Exceptional men who emerge from non-traditional backgrounds are also often unusually successful, probably for the same reason: they have demonstrated initiative and a special drive. A Rene Levesque, Benjamin Disraeli, or Winston Churchill emerging from journalism, a Ralph Klein from radio, a Mike Harris from golf, a Ronald Reagan from acting, a Vladimir Zelenskyy from comedy; Donald Trump from real estate and TV. They have demonstrated character.

Moreover: a Chinese student argues that, even if women can be successful in leadership. the professions, or in business, it is still gravely wrong. In doing so, they are acting like men. Just as there is something discreditable about a man acting “gay,” acting in an extravagantly feminine way, there is something discreditable about a woman acting “butch.” It is reasonable, if regrettable, for a man to order his army off to war. It is deeply improper, a betrayal of her nature and rightful role if a woman does the same. Or fires someone, for that matter, or orders someone around.

I think of Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth:

“... Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief.”

If she does so, she scars her soul, deeply. Lady MacBeth goes mad, after all, and kills herself.

Pandora Opens the Box

 

Helen Andrews has written an article for Compact Magazine arguing that “cancel culture is simply what women do whenever there are enough of them in a given organization or field.”

“Everything you think of as ‘wokeness’ is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.” 

“Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.” 

“Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”

I would add an essential problem: women are mentally inclined to always see the trees, not the forest. As a result, they easily and soon stray from the mission. This explains why so many businesses recently seem to be straying from their core mission for the sake of wokeness: whether that mission is to sell beer, or movie tickets, or restaurant ambiance, or hold sporting events.

Once pointed out, this correlation seems obvious. Over the past few generations, women have come to dominate a number of fields and professions, and this has corresponded closely to these fields becoming “woke” and ceasing to perform their intended functions. 

Where do women dominate? HR departments. Public schools. Journalism and the media. Advertising. Now academia, especially the humanities and social sciences. And this corresponds perfectly with the centres of cancel culture and errant wokery.

Women have most recently begun to dominate the legal and medical professions. As these too lose their functionality and trustworthiness, civilization seems liable to collapse. “The rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female.”

Our ancestors warned us of this; no doubt it was tried before, in places and at times in the distant past. A warning was surely embedded in the legends of Pandora, of Eve, of Psyche, of Lemnos and the gnostic Sophia. The Buddha warned that allowing Buddhist nuns would halve the lifespan of the dharma.

Is there anything we can do, at this late stage, to pull back from this? Not to mention feminism’s role in our collapsing demographics?

Andrews proposes banning affirmative action, and allowing employers to hire once again on merit. 

I fear she is too optimistic. When women are already in control of the HR departments, can they be counted on to hire on merit? When any profession is dominated by women, the hiring process is no remedy.

We urgently need affirmative action—requiring the hiring and promotion of men.

The Need for Halloween

 

A recent YouTube panel had three women debating whether Christians should celebrate Hallowe’en.

The Protestant panelist of course saw it all as the work of the devil. The puritans used to think the same of Christmas. 

But even the Catholic and Orthodox panelists thought that paganism had taken over the holiday; that children should stop going around dressed as demons, and should instead dress as saints. We needed as Christians, they said, to “reclaim the holiday.”

This sounds perfectly delusional to me. It illustrates how easy it is for people to go mad in groups. It is as Scott Adams, or Goebbels, says: if enough people say the same thing often enough, it becomes generally accepted as truth.

The idea that the feast and its traditions is pagan has become so ingrained that people stop seeing the evidence of their eyes.

Do children currently go around dressed as demons? I did a mental inventory of the demons who showed up at my door last Friday. There was Captain America. The Three Little Pigs. A dog. A cat. A clown with a scythe. Venom, a villain from Marvel. A skeleton. A girl wearing a pink suit and tie. Stitch from Lilo and Stitch.

Where were the demons? I saw no demons.

Actually, what would a demon even look like? I guess a red suit, horns and a tail.

I checked an online store selling Halloween costumes. “halloweencostumes.ca” Halloween Costumes for Adults and Kids | HalloweenCostumes.ca

First row of images: Alice in Wonderland. Superheroes. Transformers.

Second row: Star Wars. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1940s-era suits and ties. A skeleton for “décor.”

If this is supposed to be about demons, a lot of people are missing the plot.

But it is supposed to be about demons. That is the Christian message. But there is nothing pagan about that, and it has nothing to do with demon worship. Any more than you go to a horror movie to root for the ghoul.

Halloween is supposed to remind you of death and the dangers of hell. Because, I suppose, actual thoughts of hell and death are too scary, that has morphed it into “something scary”; movie monsters and fairy tale witches were substituted. And when even that seemed too scary, it has morphed into just dressing up in a costume.

Dressing up as saints would be the final betrayal of the true meaning of Halloween. 

This euphemistic objection that Halloween is “pagan” is another case of the ostrich philosophy; of “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. It is based on a desire to deny that death, hell, and demons exist. If I deny sin, then God will not punish me. If I do not think of death, I will never die.

This is in a sense the original sin. Eating the fruit was inevitable. We were meant to have free will, and to know good and evil. The Fall became irreversible when Adam and Eve hid in the bushes.

Let us be clear here: you cannot be a Christian, and you cannot be saved, if you only believe that God exists, and not the Devil.

Hallowe'en and Samhain

I spent last Sunday afternoon in a cemetery. I was not alone.

We band of Catholics said a rosary for our departed relatives. The bishop presided.

And this concluded the Hallowe’en Tridium.

There is a popular misconception that Hallowe’en is a pagan festival: specifically, the Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. This is often stated as simple fact. It shows a profound ignorance of religion, mixed in with some surviving puritan anti-Catholic propaganda.

Does it not occur to these people that the non-Celtic Mexicans celebrate their mysteriously similar “Dia de los Muertos” on the same date?

In the Philippines, families spend that same evening in the cemetery. They commonly bring the favourite foods of departed ancestors to hold a picnic at their graves.

Hallowe’en is the eve of All Saints’ Day—“All Hallows Evening.” This three-day memorial for the dead is part of the culture of any Catholic country. It is a time to pray for the souls of those in purgatory, and to remember the truth that death will come for us as well: a “memento mori.” 

Ghosts are the souls of those in Purgatory. 

Demonic figures coming around to “trick or treat” remind us of the dangers of Hell.

All can be explained perfectly in proper Catholic terms.

Samhain is more related to the North American feast of Thanksgiving.

The Greatest Novels

 

What are the greatest novels? This is not my area of expertise; I am a poetry guy. It is entirely likely that I have not read some of the greatest novels. But from my own experience, these are the novels that did not merely entertain, but took up residence in my mind, and changed how I looked at the world. 

At least, they changed me.

Crime and Punishment 
Don Quixote
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
1984
Lord of the Flies
Heart of Darkness
Metamorphosis

Should Women Vote?

 

The pendulum is swinging with remarkable speed. Now I see some talk of repealing the 19th amendment in the US—that is, the constitutional amendment requiring that states give women the right to vote.

Of course, there are reasons for doing this. The basic principle, so often forgotten, is that our ancestors were not idiots. They had reasons for what they did, and so must have had reasons for restricting the right to vote to men for a hundred years or so. Do we understand their reasons? If not, Chesterton’s rule should have applied: never pull down a fence because you do not know why it is there. You must know why it is there before you pull it down.

Begin with the recent Internet discovery, by informal census, that men on average think of the Romen Empire every day; and this astonishes women, who never do. This shows plainly a basic difference between the male and female mind. Men think in more abstract terms, being concerned for people and things not immediately present—about society as a whole, mankind as  whole, about the distant past and distant future, not just what is immediate to their own lives. For women, in contrast, to cite the proud feminist slogan, “the personal is political.” They are by and large concerned with their own lives and their circle of family and acquaintances. Why would they ever think of the Roman Empire?

In other words, men are more concerned with the health of the community and the greatest good for the greatest number. Women are more likely to distort public priorities to serve special interests. On balance, this is bad for everyone.

It is also in everyone’s interest to accentuate different sex roles. This encourages pairing off, and so is a way to approach the current crisis of depopulation. 

Voting has often been tied to serving in war: by sacrificing their youth and risking their lives for the country, many a group have established their right to participate in government. Most recently, during the Vietnam War, this was the argument for lowering the voting age to 18: if old enough to serve, old enough to vote.

But on this basis, women have not established a right to vote. Nor would we want to ask this of them—women are too valuable to a society as childbearers. It is suicidal to throw them into the front lines. Men fight for the women back home.

All this might not have mattered when women tended to vote the same way as men. However, in recent years, voting tendencies between the sexes have increasingly diverged, raising concern.

Of course, it is probably practically impossible now to pull back the franchise from women—they would have to consent to allow it to happen. We can only hope we have not made a civilization-ending mistake.

2BR02B

 

Recently looked at the Vonnegut short story “2BR02B” with a student. First published in 1962, it is a record of our great concern with “overpopulation” back then, in the middle of the Baby Boom. The premise is that the population of the USA had been fixed at 40 million. Since medicine had progressed to virtually allowing immortality, it was necessary, in order to preserve the population at this level, to abort every new baby--unless someone chose suicide in the government “gas chambers.” That would allow a designated new child to be born.

Vonnegut obviously saw this as an undesirable future. He notes in passing that the women who ran the gas chambers mysteriously always grew moustaches. Like Hitler.

I remember well the overpopulation hysteria. It was not that long ago. In my last year of high school, circa 1970, our biology teacher made us all buy and read The Population Bomb, warning that there would be mass starvation and shortages of clean drinking water by the 1980s. My friend in first-year university was planning his future so that he could move to New Zealand. He calculated that, when the world descended into total war over food and water, that would be the safest place. In the 1980s, I became a vegetarian largely on the argument in the book Diet for a Small Planet, that not eating meat saved scarce resources for others.

Weirdly, although Vonnegut saw this all as draconian, measures we might resort to due to an emergency of overpopulation, he seems to be fairly accurately describing the Canada we live in today. We have not found a cure for aging, but we have unrestricted abortion, and “Medical Assistance in Dying” anyway. As well as feminism demanding that women give up having and raising children.

This leaves me with the thought that current government policies, and our current crisis of declining population, are caused by a mass hysteria. It was always wrong, and now surely everybody knows it was wrong, but we are still suffering from the consequences. We are still pursuing the worst possible policies for our current situation.

This should be a valuable moral lesson. “Climate change” is a more recent mass hysteria; some say it is in decline, and even Bill Gates has admitted it was largely a mirage. But governments have been pushing truly draconian measures in its name.

“Transgenderism” is another mass hysteria. So is “ecology” or “environmentalism.” So is the current mania for “indigenous people,” this being a nonsense concept. So is feminism.

I suspect the threat of depopulation and the supposed need to bring in masses of new immigrants is also mass hysteria. Some are predicting, almost in the same breath, that many jobs will soon be relaced by robotics, and a large population will be a liability.

As Nietzsche said, “Madness in individuals is rare. In groups, it is common.”

Let Me Say It Clearly While It Is Still Legal

 There was no "genocide" in Canadian Indian Residential Schools.

If this NDP member has her way, that sentence would make be liable for two years in prison.

The price of truth.

Canadian Fertility Collapse

 

From the Epoch Times.

2.1 is replacement level.

Cruel and Unusual

Apparently, the Canadian Supreme Court has just ruled it unconstitutional for Parliament to impose an automatic one year minimum sentence on those possessing "child sexual abuse material," which I resume means child pornography.

Whether a year is too much seems to be a judgement call, and just the sort of thing parliament is supposed to decide, not the courts.

Cruel and unusual? The average sentence in the US for possession of child pornography is 6.5 years for a first offense. UK statutory penalty is 5-10 years. 

For the sake of Canadian democracy, the Supreme Court must be reined in. I fear this is virtually impossible under the current constitution. The only escape may be provinces separating individually.

Mental Illness Is a Nonsense Concept

 

An Asian demon.

My Chinese student immediately sees the absurdity of the term “mental illness.” Like a physical illness?

“Mental illness” is a euphemism. We have sadly come to take it literally, and have even come to treating the thing with pills. Given this approach, the problem is incurable.

Older terms are more accurate. The various experiences we call mental illness are experienced subjectively as oppression, obsession, or possession by some will which either inhibits, distracts, or completely suppresses our own. Often, people actually “hear voices” in their head. You could say “out of your mind” or “beside yourself” or “driven to distraction.” But that is only half the equation. If you are out of your mind, who is in it? Who or what is distracting you? The best, most lucid description of the experienced reality we euphemistically call “mental illness” is demonic possession, or demonic affliction.

We refuse to use the terms only because we arbitrarily refuse to accept the existence of demons. Despite the overwhelming evidence—the evidence of “mental illness” itself. People are experiencing demonic wills interfering with their own, and fairly commonly.

Understand this simple truth, understand the problem in these terms, and the cure becomes obvious. You need spiritual assistance. The shamanic approach is to negotiate peace terms with the demon, the “voice in your head.” It does nothing to simply ignore it and pretend it does not exist. The Judeo-Christian approach, more effective, is to cast the demon out, supplanting it with the imminent presence of the one true God.

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

Therefore, it is necessary to occupy the spirit with a “strong man.” 

“if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.”

In other words, with a faith in the one true God.

And this approach, unlike that of modern psychiatry, actually works. It is scientifically proven to work.

On Pride

 

Thomas Merton wrote, “Pride makes us artificial. Humility makes us genuine.” 

A sort of robotic artificiality indeed seems characteristic of narcissists. Their smile is mechanical, as if pasted on; or it is a smirk, a sort of half-smile. Scott Adams says there is something about the eyes not smiling with the mouth that gives away insincerity.

They cannot be spontaneous, because they do not dare lose control. For this reason, they cannot have a sense of humour. Humour requires letting go. They do not understand it, and so will laugh inappropriately. They are just mimicking what they see and hear others do, without feeling it. The one thing they might find funny is watching other people in pain, mental or physical. Someone slipping on a banana peel.

Can narcissism be cured? Psychiatry says no. I have always been loath to believe this: can anyone be beyond redemption? I compared it with alcoholism: breaking an addiction is hard, but not impossible. People do. Surely one can also break an addiction to pride?

But there is indeed a point at which one is, in Christian teaching, beyond redemption: Hell is forever. If you die in mortal sin, and descend, there is no possibility of redemption beyond that point. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Like it or not, that is the clear Biblical teaching.

Doesn’t this match our experiences with narcissism? At a certain point, to wit, the point of confirmed narcissism, it would not matter if one had an infinite stretch of time, one is never going to pull out of this. Like Lucifer’s choice of self over God: Satan is not one day going to be redeemed.

An addiction to self is after all far more encompassing than an addiction to some single pleasure or vice. To invest your very identity in your vice means breaking the addiction looks impossible. There is no one there, outside of the vice itself, to break it. You have no other identity. Your soul has been devoured.

That is why the narcissist seems zombie-like, an NPC.

It may be going too far, however, to say ambulatory narcissism is yet incurable. Why would God allow the narcissist to stay alive, and doing harm to others, past this point? It makes more sense to assume that the point at which the narcissism is absolutely incurable is the moment God will step in and send to Hell. So long as there is the slightest chance for the narc to turn, God will give them that chance. 

But well before this point, the change might require a miracle. It may be beyond human agency, and so of course the psychiatrists cannot do it. Neither can any well-meaning relative.

Pride and Humility

 

Lucifer in Hell; as conceived by Dante and Dore.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

This parable, the gospel reading at last Sunday’s mass, identifies pride as the one unforgivable sin. 

And it is. It is the source of all sin. Pride is the sin of Lucifer, and of Eve (“you shall be as gods”). It is the sin the Greeks called hubris; what modern psychology calls “narcissism.” 

As the parable says, all sins are forgiven so long as you are humble. And so long as you are proud, no virtues count. Pride or humility is the entire ball game. What could be clearer?

This is surely the sense in which Jesus says we must be like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Little children are not moral; they do not always behave well. But they think of themselves as little, incapable, needing guidance and help. This is the attitude we need to have towards God.

People speak of “Catholic guilt,” as if guilt were a bad thing. But that is the whole point of Christian morality. “I want you to be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.” None of us can achieve that. All of us will sin.

That is the point. The point is to stay humble.

This is one more reason why I deeply dislike “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. The minute we decide we are in the clear, we are lost. Blessed are those who mourn. 

A caveat: anti-Christian bullies will use this against Christians, demanding they humble themselves and submit to the bully—and to the general consensus. William Blake said, “humble before God; not before men.” Humbling yourself to the mighty in this world is not moral. It is just cowardice and cunning. John the Baptist did not humble himself before Herod. The Old Testament prophets did not humble themselves before the kings and queens of Judea and Israel. Jesus did not act humbly at the temple, nor speak humbly of himself at the synagogue. Saint Dymphna did not submit humbly to her father the King; nor Saint Francis to his father the rich merchant.

We must serve the Truth, and not either ourselves or he powers and principalities of this dark world. We must “work out our salvation in fear and trembling.”

Atheists in Their Own Words

 

Mother Nature: Traditional Indian conception

Honest atheists often understand that, rather than believing in no god, they worship “Mother Nature,” aka Gaia. They personify nature, imagine it is imbued with a will, and is all-powerful. Ergo, God. But what is the difference between this and the Judeo-Christian God? 

A recent correspondent gives us some idea. He neatly if unintentionally refutes the typical atheist argument that the belief in an afterlife is wish fulfillment. He writes that as an atheist, “You don’t have to think about your death, because there is no hell, just like there is no heaven… I don’t think I will fear death as religious people do.” Atheism is wish fulfillment. If there is no God, as Nietzsche pointed out, you can do whatever you want, and need not fear punishment. 

The essence of nature is amorality. Animals operate on instinct. The essence of morality is to sometimes resist our natural urges. 

But this “atheism” is whistling past the graveyard, the logic of the ostrich with his head in the sand. “If I don’t believe in God, he won’t hurt me.” That’s like saying “gravity doesn’t apply to me if I refuse to believe in it.” And jumping off a cliff.

One form of this “nature-worship” atheism is adulation of an imaginary aboriginal religion of nature worship. Christianity came in and ruined this peaceable kingdom, in which the lion lay down with the lamb. “I believe that the First Nations were correct. They saw the holiness of life in all things - -spirit (Great Spirit) existed in the bear, the wolf, the bison, the tree etc.  They didn’t attempt to conquer or manipulate the spirit but worked to live in harmony with the Spirit.”

Of course, this is a fundamentally Christian idea: that of original innocence in the Garden of Eden. It has nothing to do with the actual life of actual Indians. They saw the spirit world as mostly hostile to mankind. And they had no concept of conservation or ecology. It is the Judeo-Christian tradition that sees nature, the physical world, as holy, because God speaks to us through his creation. To most other cultures, including the native Indian, the physical world is ephemeral, only secondarily real. It is not that the spirit exists in the bear; it is that the bear really only exists in the spirit. The physical bear is just food.

Another recent atheist acquaintance avers that it is wrong to “categorize and label.” And this too I have heard before; it is a common sentiment among unbelievers.

An odd sentiment, on its face. There is another word for categorizing and labelling: thinking. Thinking goes beyond this, but it must start with this, with defining terms. Refusing to think is not a good idea. 

Consider the analogy of the eye. This is like saying it is wrong to put on your glasses and see things in focus. Best to leave it all fuzzy and vague.

Why and when would this be best? When there is something you are trying hard not to think about. Remember the wisdom of the ostrich. 

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”

Another common atheist trope is to see God as some form of impersonal “energy.” “Mysterious, nameless, pure love ‘energy’ inside me and everywhere.” 

This, as William Blake pointed out, is an inadequate concept of God. The human mind can conceive of nothing greater than a perfected human being. “Consider a cloud as holy; you cannot love it. But picture a holy man inside the cloud, and love springs up.” 

Imagine a source of energy—say a fire, or a battery—next to a human being. Which do you see as more important, more worthy of your interest and attention? 

Suppose you had to throw the person into the fire to keep it from going out. Would you do so?

Conceiving God as “energy” running through you is conceiving of him as less than you.

You are thinking of yourself as God.

This is always the bottom line. Welcome to the garden, Eve.

Trump the Dictator?

 Friend Xerxes has declared Donald Trump a dictator. And he has listed eight proofs. It I a disorienting insight into the left-wing mind.

To begin with, we need to make a distinction between “dictators,” “strong leaders,” and “demagogues.” Xerxes does not. They are all “dictators.” These are three different things. For example, dictators usually come to power by military force (see the definition by Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, “a political leader who has complete power over a country, especially one who has gained it using military force.”) And coming to power by military force is more or less incompatible with being a demagogue, whose path to power will be by popular appeal. 

I also think there are examples of demagogic politicians—that is, politicians who rely on emotional appeals and anti-establishment rhetoric—who do not become dictators, nor aspire to becoming one. John Diefenbaker; I’d say Harry Truman. You might add Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama, Rene Levesque, or Martin Luther King Jr.

Moving on, having a “strongman” leader is not necessarily a bad thing. A tough guy may be desirable, given an emergency situation or a risk of chaos. Churchill being called in at the start of WWII is one obvious example. DeGaulle is another. Lincoln during the Civil War, FDR during the Depression, Jefferson in the early years of the American Republic, Pierre Trudeau during the national unity crisis, were all strong personalities ready to play fast and loose with established norms. That this is sometimes needed is recognized in common law: a mayor may “read the riot act,” a democracy may declare martial law. In the constitution of the Roman Republic: a “dictator” might be appointed for a six-month term. Armies are not run by popular vote.

Now, the list of characteristics Xerxes cites for “dictators”: 

1. Dictators demonize a minority. 

The left in the US has been demonizing men, “straight white men,” “the far right,” the unvaccinated, and especially working class, Southern, straight white men. These are all minorities in the US. In Canada, Justin Trudeau condemned the unvaccinated as an “unacceptable fringe” who should perhaps not be permitted to “take up space.” 

What minority group has Trump demonized? “The Deep State”? “Illegal immigrants”? But these are people guilty of crimes, and cited only on that basis. It is not demonizing a person to point out their crimes. The police are not demon hunters.

2. Dictators politicize formerly independent institutions.

This is the standard complaint from the right: that the left has, in its “long march through the institutions,” systematically subverted and politicized the media, the schools, the academy, the FBI, the IRS, and the justice system. 

This is what the right calls “Cultural Marxism.” Obama and Biden used the IRS and FBI against their political opponents. There were many dubious prosecutions of Trump, Trump associates and advisors, even Trump’s lawyers. There was the excessive treatment, the persecution, of the January 6th protesters. There was the targeting of “tea party” groups by Obama’s IRS. People have been “debanked.” There were the forged claims of Russia collusion, publicly endorsed by the CIA and the security apparatus; the bugging of Trump’s campaign headquarters; the spurious impeachments. The government pressured social media to block views the administration did not like and promote those they did—now publicly admitted by Mark Zuckerberg.

3. Dictators spread disinformation.

See the Russia collusion hoax, the “fine people on both sides” hoax, the “drink bleach” hoax, the “kids in cages” hoax, the many lies spread by the Biden (and Trudeau) regime about Covid, Covid preventative measures, the Covid vaccines. The lies by the Obama White House about what caused the attack on the American Embassy in Benghazi. Lies about being able to keep your insurance under Obamacare. Lies about Biden’s state of physical and mental health. These are grave and gravely harmful lies.

Trump exaggerates, but harmlessly, without intent to deceive.

4. Dictators seize executive power, weakening checks and balances.

This is poorly stated. The US president holds executive power; nobody who has been elected president of the US has seized executive power. 

A president can try to bully or ignore the other two branches of government. FDR, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Biden have been accused of this. I’d need to see examples of Trump doing the same. It seems unlikely, since his party controls all three branches of government. Why would he need to?

5. Dictators squash criticism and dissent.

This has been cited as one of the pillars of MAGA: to end the censorship, suppression of dissent, “deplatforming,” and “cancel culture” of the left; to revive free speech and open discussion. No more malicious prosecutions of peaceful protesters.  No more controlled media. No more shouting down speakers, or assaulting them, or doxxing them, or assassinating them. This is why Musk bought Twitter; this is why Trump started Truth Social.

6. Dictators scapegoat already vulnerable communities.

The scapegoating of minorities by the left has already been mentioned. Indeed, the left formulaically always scapegoats the “rich capitalists,” the “greedy corporations,” the “billionaires,” “the rich.” The left eagerly accuses “whites,” or “cis males,” or “patriarchy” or “Christian nationalists” of all manner of heinous things, of all evil—scapegoating. They have recently shown a growing tendency to antisemitism—the classic victims of scapegoating.

You will argue that these groups are not vulnerable? History shows they are. Consider the Jews in Nazi Germany; the kulaks in the Soviet Union; the whites in South Africa; Christians in revolutionary France, or Spain, or Mexico, or Nigeria today.

And no, Trump has never scapegoated any identifiable group. Not Mexicans nor Chinese nor Muslims nor blacks nor women nor gays. He has never accused any, as a group, of anything discreditable, so far as I can tell. He seems to have taken great care not to.

7. Dictators corrupt the election process.

By pushing for casually distributed mail-in ballots, voting machines, and no ID at the polls, the Democrats were obviously trying to corrupt the voting process, whether or not they succeeded. But the latter must be assumed—the more so since they sought to criminalize any suggestion that they had. Even the Democratic Party’s process of selecting their presidential nominee looks questionable.

This is what the mob was protesting on January 6th. 

8. Dictators encourage violence against a loosely labelled opposition.

Some leftists and Democrats openly call for violence against their opponents. “Punch a fascist” being a common slogan. Schumer warned that Supreme Court justices would be punished for overturning Roe v. Wade. Obama spoke of “bringing a gun to a knife fight.” Jay Jones, Virginia candidate for Attorney-General, tweets “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”  And he has not been shunned for it by his own party. The left’s rhetoric is violent, and has apparently led to recent assassination attempts and actual assassination.

Based on Xerxes’s quoted list, Trump has rescued the US from a developing dictatorship of the left.

Whether he might in turn become a dictator remains to be seen. However, Xerxes asserts that “strong men” tend to be Cluster B personalities (the “Dark Triad”). “Dark personalities tend to strive for positions of power.” All politicians strive for positions of power. Never mind Trump; it stands to reason that we are always largely ruled by ruthless men and women.

This is a strong argument for limiting the scope and power of government. As Republicans advocate; as Trump is trying to do. 

Try to find a dictator working to shrink government.  The concept is incoherent.

“Ben-Ghiat defines the tactics of authoritarian rulers as self-proclaimed saviors of a nation”

Again, all politicians make more or less this claim.

“They typically use masculinity as a symbol of strength and as a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority.”

Here’s a good example of scapegoating men. This equates “masculinity” with “taking what you want, and getting away with it.”

It changes nothing to falsely claim it is Trump saying this, not you. He never said this, and no one on the right would. This is entirely from the left.

Xerxes declares Trump’s economic performance “dismal.” Grok calls it “mixed.” Trump’s idea of using tariffs to improve the economy is inevitably going to cause an initial hit, even if Trump’s concept is correct; but in order to improve things in the longer term: “short term pain for long term gain.” It is obviously too soon to tell if it works. But early indications are surprisingly good: second quarter annualized growth in the US was 3.8%. Compare China at an estimated (probably inflated) 3.95%; Japan 0.9%; Canada 1%; France 0.9%; Germany 0.7%; UK 1.4%. It is hard to see this as a dismal performance.

Psychology and Religion

I am disturbed by a recent casual conversation with two guys who are both certified clinical psychologists. Between them, they seemed to believe every mass delusion and “conspiracy theory” currently on the market. I may not know much, but as a writer and a student of world mythologies, I can generally spot an urban legend when I hear one. They seemed to have no such ability. They believe whatever they hear on YouTube, generated by algorithms designed to feed them what they want to hear. I thought of the phrase, “the blind leading the blind.”

How are these people qualified to give advice to others on life, on what is real, on values? When they are so suggestible and easily misled themselves? Why do we think they have any such qualifications? 

To advise others on what is real, or good, or advantageous, we need a firm grip on some objective standard. We need to know what is real, or good, or advantageous; we cannot teach what we do not know. Psychology does not know.

This is the task of religion, or religion and philosophy. 

Whether any one religion is true or false, if any life advice is to be found, this is the only place it is to be found. By definition. “Worship” means “worth-ship,” determining the value and reality of things. “What is real?” is a religious question. “What is good?” is a religious question. “What is the good life?” is a religious question.

The great universal faiths agree on most things; psychology is an outlier. One could do better relying on any one of them.

Intolerance as a Virtue

Matt Walsh argues that intolerance is a virtue.

I’d say he is directionally right, if overstated. His statement should not be shocking. Sometimes tolerance is the right thing; sometimes intolerance is the right thing. It is sinister that we are all taught that only tolerance is a virtue.

It is good to be merciful, magnanimous, tolerant, in victory. It is gravely evil to be tolerant of evil when you could do something to end it. “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.”

Would it be good to tolerate Hitler’s attempted extermination of the Jews? To tolerate child rape and infanticide? To tolerate Kitty Genovese being raped in your stairwell? To tolerate salmonella in the market goods?

This idolatry of tolerance is bundled with the false claim that Jesus models tolerance in the Bible. He does not. He is the divine judge. He was systematically intolerant of the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees. He was intolerant of the money-changers in the temple. He was strict with the wealthy young man, demanding he give up all he owns, and demanding of his followers, saying they must despise their father and their mother, their wife and children, and take up their cross. He was stricter that Moses with his Ten Commandments: don’t even look at another woman with lust in your heard. Don’t even insult your brother. “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

This further neatly parallels the false claim that “diversity is our strength.” Diversity at best must be balanced with unity, or it is purely destructive. Purity is a virtue; diversity is not.

It is the council of Satan to urge and demand tolerance and diversity. This is what the worst people want. It gives them free rein. Devils are by nature multiple; diversity is of their essence. “My name is Legion.” “Pandemonium.” “She had seven devils.”

Contrast “The Lord your God is One.”

Appeal to Heaven

So Doug Ford has taken $75 million of taxpayer money, and spent it to undermine trade talks with the US.

While Carney is chumming with China.

It is as though Canadians have a death wish. We are like ungrateful, spoiled children. 

We cannot blame our leaders. We recently voted Ford and Carney right back into office to do this, to fight America instead of make a deal.

This is well calculated to kill Ontario’s auto industry, and force Alberta to separate.

It seems of a piece with our placid acceptance of multiculturalism, of mass immigration, of a prime minister who claims there is no such thing as Canadian culture, and of outrageous land claims and claims of genocide by the native peoples.

Come back, Bond Head. All is forgiven. We are not capable of self-government.

The Pendulum in Full Swing

Things may look bad, but there is much reason for hope. The pendulum is in full swing. Let’s do a score card.

Transgenderism is dead. “Gender-affirming care” is dead.

Multiculturalism is dead. “Diversity” is dead. Mass immigration is dead.

Atheism is dead. Scientism is dead.

Feminism is dead. “Affirmative action” is dead. Men are being listened to. Women are no longer given free passes.

Censorship is dead. Political correctness is dead.

The legacy media is dead. The gatekeepers no longer have a gate.

Xi is reputedly in trouble in China; rumours persist and grow. Putin is reputedly in trouble in Russia; evidence grows that Ukraine is winning that war, incredibly, against mighty Russia. Lukashenko is reputedly in trouble in Belarus. Cuba and Venezuela are reportedly struggling to keep the lights on. Japan has just elected a Trumpian “far right” leader, joining Argentina, Italy, and the US. 

Left-wing or centrist parties in power are doing poorly in the polls. Macron is in trouble in France. Starmer in Britain has record low poll numbers. The government of the Netherlands has collapsed. The government of Germany is barely hanging on, in grand coalition, and unpopular. In each case, this is at the hands of some new “populist” party, not the traditional opposition.

Major figures are abandoning the left and moving right day by day and month by month: Joe Rogan, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, John Fetterman, Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, and on and on. Being on the new right is becoming the cool place to be.

The grand trend is clear. An old order is passing.

Bad as things have gotten, it is often necessary to hit bottom in order to see the need for change. The world is waking, like a recovering alcoholic, from its destructive delusions. Many things may soon be possible. We may see a period of great creative ferment.

Is Any Established Organization Corrupt?

Scoffing at the idea of a Chinese Community Party “anti-corruption campaign,” a Falun Gong commentator observes that all Chinese Communist Party leaders are corrupt. It’s like the Mafia, he explains. Anyone who is not corrupt is a threat to the others. He will not be allowed to take any position of power. He will always be an outsider. To rise in the party, you must have blood on your hands.

This is probably true of any well-established organization. Human nature demands it. What could prevent it?

It is apparently also true of the leadership of the USA. We see the curtain raised, at least partially, on “Hellfire Clubs” at Epstein Island and at P. Diddy’s “white parties.” Anybody who was anybody was there. To enter the elite, you had to do something compromising. This ensured you would never blow the whistle on others. You were then trusted by the others and given positions of prominence and leadership.

Only this explains the desperate opposition to Trump: he was not compromised, and so was a threat to the others. It seems also to explain the desperate opposition, within the Democratic Party, to RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, either of whom would have been ideal standard-bearers for the party in electoral terms. They were not trusted to do the wrong thing. Conversely, it explains how Bernie Sanders, or Pete Buttigieg, fell so meekly into line and folded what looked like winning hands in the primary process. They must have been compromised; the elite club had some hold on them.

Further, Trump’s record of accomplishment since being re-elected suggests how much corruption has held the nation captive. There were always special interests acting against the common good. 

It seems clear there is a similar dynamic in the Conservative Party of Canada; and in the Liberal Party of Canada.

And of course in the hierarchy of the Catholic church. This is necessary to explain the pontificate of Francis, which seemed to be fighting against the interests of the church. It is an open secret.

There is a similar dynamic in the universities and schools; one is not admitted to faculty, or to certification, unless one asserts certain approved and obviously false dogmas. If not necessarily oneself openly immoral, one must openly endorse immorality.

There seems to be a similar dynamic in the professions.

How can one break this sort of corruption?

Democracy is designed for this. There is nothing magical about the will of the people; the majority is not always right. But a periodic popular vote serves as a counterbalance against control by a corrupt clique. Without it, China is trapped. With it, albeit with great difficulty, the US seems to have begun a process of cleaning up the swamp.

The free market is designed for this. Given open competition, virtue will be rewarded with more customers. The problem with the professions and the academies is that they are cartels, where democracy and the free market cannot do their magic.

For the church, we have the Bible, and past ecumenical councils, as an objective check. And we have a free market: if any one denomination becomes too openly corrupt, any individual parishioner can walk out the door, and across the street to a different church.

For the academies, the internet may be bringing us a solution. YouTube allows for open public debate among prominent academics. There is coming to be an open market in virtual lectures. 

For the professions, AI and greater access to information with the internet may at least diminish their influence. Indeed, they may largely or entirely disappear.

Dating Advice for Women

The Dating Game

Women commonly claim that they do not want to attract men. That is their business. And so we have MGTOW. But if there are any women out there who like men, I offer a few tips on how to attract that hated and despised male gaze. Because it is easy if you want to try. There is so little competition.

You see a lot of women on YouTube giving dating advice to men on how to attract women. Interestingly, you never see advice from men on how to attract men. Presumably women don’t want to know. "How dare he?"

I do it out of love for women.

First point: most men are not looking for a beautiful woman. They don’t want a ten; too high maintenance. They want a six who adores them. Concentrate on being affectionate. Hug and kiss. In society, men rarely get fussed over. They crave it.

Studies show that the rush women get by hearing “I love you” is equivalent to men merely hearing “thank you.” So simple and easy; no commitment required; yet men rarely hear it. Be appreciative.

Be cheerful. Most women seem to be cross and angry at the world, and it is depressing to be around someone who is always depressed and complaining. People want to be around people who make them happy.

On the other hand, by all means ask a man to help you with something. Give him a quest; men love to serve women. This will bond him to you. But it has to be a problem with a clear and attainable resolution. And when he solves it, show appreciation. Many women currently make a point of belittling men’s efforts in their behalf.

Do not dress too well; do not wear fancy jewelry. The dress or earring looks nice, not you. The message the man gets is, “this woman has expensive tastes; she will probably expect me to pay for it.”

The same is true of excessive makeup. Makeup is also a mask; if it is too obvious, the man gets the message that you are hiding something. Also that you have crass tastes; your concerns are superficial. You want to look nice, to show you want his attention, but still natural.

Do not show skin. That will get you sex, not care or commitment. The message the man gets is “this woman is open for business. I’m nothing special to her.”

Wear your hair long. This is profoundly seductive; hair is your greatest weapon. Simple principle: men are attracted to women, not men. The less like a man you make yourself look, the more attractive you will be.

For the same reason, wear skirts and dresses, not pants. Long skirts. Frills are better than cutaways.

Feeding a man creates a strong instinctive bond. It is too forward to invite him to your place for a meal; but bake something for him as a gift. If you are not a good cook, this is something to work on, if you want to attract and keep a man. 

Don’t worry too much about your weight. Women want other women to be skinnier than men prefer. The true standard of beauty is to look healthy. Your typical runway model looks tubercular or anorexic. That said, if your waist is broader than your hips, you also begin to look unhealthy.

If you want commitment, rather than sex, do not jump into bed with him. This seems so obvious it should not need further elaboration. If you are easy with him, you will be easy with other guys. Not wife material.

It is a common misconception among women that men do not like smart women. This is completely wrong. Natural instinct and evolutionary pressures dictate that you want the smartest possible mother for your children. Being "accomplished" has always been highly valued in a wife. Cultivate and show off whatever talents you have. If you wear glasses, all the better. Men love nerdy girls, and love the thought that only they will see you with your glasses off.

That said, exceptionally intelligent women will face the same problems as exceptionally intelligent men in finding a match. Everyone is intimidated around people much smarter than they are.

You may have noticed a huge trend of American and European men marrying Asian women. This is because Asian women generally tend to follow these rules: expressing appreciation, dressing and acting feminine, trying to stay cheerful, valuing and showing their skills and intelligence.

In the West, feminism has cajoled women into making themselves as unattractive to men as possible. If that’s the way you want to go, fine. But if you want a relationship with a good man, you are going to have to resist feminism.

The Duty to be Cheerful

A new study has found that depression is contagious. As of course it is; nobody needed a study to know that.

This being true, it is our moral duty to those around us, and especially our intimate partners and our children, to try to keep a stiff upper lip, even if we do not really feel it.

This is perhaps the gravest failing in a wife and mother: to be always complaining. This is the stereotype of the nagging wife, or of the “Jewish mother.” They become a terrible burden on those around them.

It is equally important for the husband and father to stay stoic and not be forever complaining. But men are raised to be stoic, and shunned in society if they whine. Women are indulged. The legend of the Princess and the Pea tells the story. 

Indeed, feminism has legitimized and institutionalized constant female complaining. 

Is Islam Dying?

One never knows what to believe. I keep seeing contradictory assertions on the net. Even assertions coming with solid data: data can be falsified or misrepresented. Scott Adams avers that “all data is false.” 

I hear one moment that Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion.

Then I hear that Islam is collapsing, and Muslims are apostacizing in droves.

All one can do is rely on faith and common sense.

I suspect the latter is more likely the case: that Islam is at least in danger of collapse.

The growth of Islam in recent decades, I gather, had to do with Muslims simply having more children on average than the Christian or secular West. And Muslim birth rates are now apparently collapsing as well. The temporary divergence perhaps had only to do with Muslim countries being less developed than Christian ones. Trends arrive there later.

My strongest evidence that Islam is dying is the worldwide trend to Islamic terrorism. Anger and violence is how people react when they have lost an important argument decisively. It is what you might do when you feel the rug has been pulled out from under you. You want to lash out at the person who destroyed your comfortable world view and self-image.

The reality may be somewhat hidden by the fact that Islam decrees death for apostasy. That being so, apostates are not going to be public about it. The number of actual Muslims might be a fraction of the nominal figures. The instant the threat of punishment is removed, there might be a huge visible exodus. So collapse cold be sudden.

I read that fewer books were translated into Arabic over the past 500 years than are translated into Spanish every year. If true, Islam may have kept deceptively strong by simply avoiding critical examination.

Now, inevitably, especially thanks to the internet, Muslim lands are opening up to the wider world. Islam may be unable to compete in the open theatre of ideas.

And I perceive that it is not losing to secularism, but to Christianity.

AI Predictions from a Non-Expert

 

How do you feel today?

I have seen a prediction that significant job loss due to AI will be evident by 2028.

This prediction is of course incompatible with the drive by various governments for mass levels of immigration. If the AI prediction is correct, we are only importing mass levels of unemployment. Wouldn’t it be wise to at least wait and see? Or, to be safe, to bring in only temporary guest workers?

Experts are usually wrong, of course. They are likely to be wrong about the need for mass immigration, and they are likely to be wrong about the AI impact on jobs. Making it a wash. Whenever government intervenes, the results are likely to make things worse.

This is not just a casual statement, nor an expression of cynicism. It is demonstrable. Experts are less likely to be correct in their predictions than either a coin toss or a man in the street interview. Studies show this, repeatedly. And there are good reasons for this. It is always in the interest of the experts to predict some dramatic change. This gets them attention and publication; and convinces the public that their expertise is needed. And there is no down side. Just as with fortune-tellers, nobody remembers predictions that turn out to be wrong. But should you get lucky, you become immortal.

However, while experts will always predict dramatic change, dramatic change is actually rare. In most cases, the best prediction is the boring one that things will continue on more or less as they are. And that gets you no attention. And gives governments no excuse to extend their power and influence.

Remember that next time you are warned about climate change.

If AI is going to start replacing jobs, I, being no expert, predict that the one profession that should be most concerned is medical doctors. Their expertise is diagnosis of illnesses, and writing matching prescriptions. The process is mechanical. It seems obvious that AI can diagnose and prescribe more reliably than a human. And because MDs earn so much, there is huge business case for replacing them. Suddenly health care costs are manageable again—a huge public and private expense. I suspect they would have been replaced already were it not for their political power as a lobby; but they must be living on borrowed time.

Clinical psychologists ought to go next. What they do is exactly what AI chatbots are already perfectly capable of: to agree with and echo back whatever the patient feels and thinks. An ersatz non-judgmental friend.

Is there any need for supervision of these chatbots? Not beyond that of the user. And, indeed, for the sake of privacy, a machine is preferable to a human. Moreover, you can make the chatbot exceptionally physically attractive, improving the experience and making the friendship seem more valuable; you can even let the patient select the physical features he feels most comfortable with. A human therapist is rather hit and miss. Nor will a chatbot take advantage of the patient, the way therapists are often discovered to do.

Nor can we tell all the unemployed therapists and doctors to learn to code. Actual coding is probably best done, again, by AI.