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.

Will AI Be the End of Us?

As of a couple of years ago, I was not worried about AI. But the fact that Elon Musk is worried makes me worried. Let’s try to think this through.

My fundamental reason not to be worried was, put simply, if some AI system gets out of control, you can always pull the plug. Not necessarily literally, but it seems simple and obvious to build in a kill switch, so that you can cut power if it goes rogue. As AI gets more completely integrated into our lives, this might become more disruptive; but it is still surely fairly straightforward to craft systems that can be shut down incrementally with a minimum of disruption. Built-in redundancy is a standard engineering principle.

Simple-minded of me? What about more subtle matters, like job loss? What about the possibility that humans are made obsolete by AI?

I’ve had that discussion since the advent of desktop computers in the early 1980s. And it has really been going on since the days of Ned Ludd—since the days of Plato. At every new technological advance, people express this same worry. At the advent of the machine age in the 19th century, everyone feared there would be mass unemployment; and wealth would concentrate at the top. It did not happen. People invested the improved productivity in owning more stuff. General wealth expanded, and greater equality of wealth.

This happened again with the advent of computers. And with the advent of the World Wide Web.

So why not with AI?

There is an argument that AI is different: AI replaces the last human bit, the brain overseeing the operation of the machine. When self-driving cars have fewer accidents than mortal drivers, isn’t that the omega point? The machines can run themselves.

What they do still need is any purpose. They need a human to tell them the destination. Without humans, there is no place to go.

This argues that the greatest need in future will be for philosophers, theologians, creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. AI will take over STEM and the professions. But it seems to me a computer cannot address purpose or meaning, any more than science and technology can.

Scott Adams thinks that AI has an absolute limit, and will always need human supervision, because it “hallucinates.” In other words, by its nature, artificial “intelligence” cannot make judgements about reality. Only humans can; human consciousness is a sort of divine spark.

How many jobs will there be for philosophers, creatives, and entrepreneurs? Quite likely, a lot. When the AI and the machines can so easily turn ideas into products, when every individual already owns a printing press, a broadcast network, an AI accountant, an AI lawyer, a 3-D printer, we may again simply move to more employment, greater wealth, and greater equality.

Thanksgiving

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. It is a time to thank God for our many blessings.

The most obvious thing to be thankful for today is the release, after two grueling years, of the last twenty surviving Israeli hostages. We can hope as well for an end to the war in Gaza. Not for justice over the initial terrorist assault, perhaps; not in this life. But an end to their suffering, and an end one hopes the suffering of the people of Gaza.

I, for one, and I am not alone, am thankful for President Trump. I was originally skeptical; I thought his nomination in 2016 was a disaster. But he seems to have worked miracles for the US, and set an example for the world, perhaps pulling civilization itself back from the brink.

I am thankful for Pope Leo XIV. No; to be honest, I do not know yet how Leo’s pontificate will turn out. I am really grateful for the end of the pontificate of Pope Francis. I feel immense relief at Francis’s passing. Not to prejudge his fate in the next world, he was terrible as pope. Leo seems at least a conciliatory figure. And I feel it is a good thing to have a pope from the USA.

I am thankful for the general apparent collapse of the “woke” culture; the culture war seems to be over and won. We are in the mopping up phase. The importance of this is beyond calculation. Culture is everything.

Connected to this, I am thankful for what appears to be a renaissance of interest in Catholicism and serious Christianity in the US and in Europe. Celebrities are publicly converting; Christianity and theism have won the intellectual battle over the “New Atheists” and scientism. This will move through the culture over the coming years.

I am grateful for the death of modernism in architecture. We lived recently through an awful era of public ugliness. We seem now to be in recovery. Everybody now acknowledges modernism is drear.

I am thankful for the improvements that technology has brought into our lives. We so readily forget how much has changed in the computer age. Many things were more difficult and expensive before smartphones, before desktop computers, before the Internet, before AI. Entertainment of all kinds is now at our fingertips, and much of it free. Information of all kinds is now at our fingertips, and without filter, to the alarm of established powers, much of it free. Anyone can in effect own a printing press and a broadcast studio; all voices can be heard. We can speak to and even see people anywhere in the world, in real time, at will.

Just think back a few generations ago: party line telephones, long distance was too expensive except for special occasions. Airplane flights were too expensive for most. Entertainment was a black and white TV, radio, and visits to the local cinema. For information, you had the newspaper, two or three news shows for one half hour a night, newsmagazines, and your local library. My grandparents had no indoor plumbing.

For all this—let’s be honest—we owe gratitude to “capitalists,” at least to a certain sort of “capitalist,” the entrepreneurs, who are men of vision. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Walton, and Steven Jobs. They ought to be celebrated culture heroes.

I am thankful for all the food we now have available to us in all seasons. Not just the fresh and frozen produce, where earlier generations had to weather the winter on canned fruits and vegetables, pickles and preserves. Also the discovery of and access to a variety of cuisines earlier generations knew not: Indian food, Korean dishes, Thai dishes, Middle Eastern dishes, Mexican cuisine. Conversely, these countries are now familiar with hamburgers and poutine. In my youth, my Canadian hometown did not even have a pizzeria. Food is a central part of life; improvement here is a significant life improvement.

We are not as aware as we should be of the general decline of starvation and poverty worldwide. The whole world is developing. When I was young, even Southern Europe was desperately poor. China was starving, India was starving, Africa was starving. We do not hear any longer of mass starvations. The typical modern “Third World” problem is traffic: too many people can suddenly afford cars, and the infrastructure is not ready for it.

As a Canadian, I am profoundly grateful to have the USA next door. In this, we could not be luckier—other than being Americans ourselves. The US shares our culture and is the richest and most influential nation in the world. It is easy for us to emigrate, as most people around the world would love to. And we benefit from being next door, just as an individual would benefit from living next to the richest man in town; and perhaps running a convenience store. In many ways, it gives us a free ride.

We can be grateful that, as Stephen Pinker has shown, war and violence has declined over the years. There are conflicts and tensions today, but at a lower level than even in my youth, when we had Viet Nam and fears of imminent nuclear holocaust. The horrors of the early twentieth century begin to look like a historical anomaly; general war may indeed have become unthinkable. Nuclear weapons may have made it impossible. And any future war, should it occur, may be fought entirely remotely, with drones and robot vehicles.

The evil empire Reagan spoke of, the Communist Bloc, which once looked so sinister, evaporated like a mirage 35 years ago, freeing Eastern Europe. Vietnam has largely abandoned communism; China has opened up, at least economically. Cuba looks like it is in its last throes as a Communist system. Twenty percent of the population, mostly the top professionals, have emigrated recently.

We no longer need to fear the diseases that were once scourges, the greatest fears we faced. And no so long ago: tuberculosis, scarlet fever, polio, smallpox. Even AIDS; we all so recently feared dying of AIDS. Now we only speak of being “HIV-positive.” Perhaps slower than might be the case, medical science is reducing pain and extending life.

I feel uneasy expressing gratitude to God for personal things, for it seems to lack empathy for those who are not so lucky. But for all these things, I think all Canadians can be thankful.

Politics and the English Language

Friend Xerxes in his latest column argues, quoting another writer, that “violence is what happens when we don’t know what else to do with our suffering.”

This is wrong, in a variety of ways. This condones violence.

If it were true, we would expect the survivors of the Nazi death camps, once released, to have been particularly violent. In fact, we found the opposite: they were notably unlikely to be arrested for any violent crimes. We would expect the depressed to be particularly violent. In fact, they are much less likely to commit violence than the general population. We would obviously never punish a child for misbehaviour: it would make them more violent. And prisons would make crime worse. 

Yet this is apparently the common opinion on the left. This is why they imagine that defunding the police would reduce crime.

The ancient and universal wisdom is that suffering teaches us not to inflict suffering on others. It teaches empathy. In the words of the I Ching, “through suffering we learn to lessen rancor.” This is indeed the reason suffering exists; why a good God would create a world in which suffering is possible.

So, too, coddling or spoiling a child creates a bully.

The claim that violence comes from suffering is well calculated to increase the general level of violence and suffering. It justifies violence, rewards violence, and encourages us to shun the suffering. They are, after all, violent—so we tell ourselves.

Xerxes then points out that “Violence is not limited to inflicting physical harm.”

It is, in fact, physical harm by definition.

Violence (Merriam-Webster): “the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy.”

(American Heritage): “Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury: the violence of the rioters.”

This leads us in very dark directions: to justifying violence in response to speech. To the end of all civil discourse, or democracy, or human rights.

But even more disturbing, when I point out to Xerxes the dictionary definition, his response is “You shouldn’t let yourself be straitjacketed by dictionary definitions.” And he simply reiterates that “verbal abuse is a form of violence, directed against another. … As is emotional blackmail: ‘If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to leave you.’ Shutting down social security networks, so that people starve, is a form of violence.”

This makes a fairly explicit claim to a right to use violence against your political opponents: against those who would “shut down social security networks.”

I also find it sinister that his example of emotional blackmail is “If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to leave you.” This is actually seen from the point of view of the abuser. The abused inevitably wants to get away; the abuser wants the victim to stay. And the abuser will accuse the abused of abuse. Perhaps this says everything.

But neither of these considerations are as central as Xerxes’s, and the left’s, claimed right to overrule the dictionary and take command of language itself. Both language and all human society collapses at the point people demand the right to change the meaning of words: if any word can mean anything, no word means anything. And this is just what the left is doing now, systematically. 

Aside from “violence,” consider how they have subverted the English pronouns; the word “phobia”; “genocide”; “exceptional”; “indigenous”; “aboriginal”; “woke”; “progressive”; “liberal”; “Fascist”; “Nazi”; “racism”; the list grows daily.

George Orwell pointed out that the most pernicious and dangerous form of totalitarianism is an attempt to control the language itself. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Sin vs. Guilt

 

Let me rant.

I suspected trouble when the handout for the session said that Jesus’s crucifixion justified us, and “justified” meant “just as if I’d never sinned.”

Typical of the day; perhaps of the human condition. Everyone is looking for a “get out of jail free” card.

So I can sin all I want, because I’m a Christian? What is purgatory all about? Why does the priest assign a penance after confession?

This was clearly the common modern “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. Self-centred materialism cloaking itself in the mantle of Christianity. As seems to have taken over all the churches. 

To this form of “feel good” religion, the problem is not sin. No, it is feeling guilty. 

It follows that we must not condemn sin in another. That might damage their self-esteem.

Someone asked, “what if I still feel unresolved anger towards someone?” And the response was not spiritual advice; it was to see a therapist. 

Therapy exists as a replacement for religion. Therapy refuses to recognize sin or morality.

Defining “sin,” the group leader cited Iron Man and Captain America as his text. Iron Man was about satisfying his desires. Captain America was about duty. And the proper path was to reconcile the two, and achieve both.

So you sin if you do your duty, and forget your own desires. You do what is right so long as it is in accord with what you want to do.

The issue of sex outside of marriage inevitably came up. It was important, no doubt, to raise it in order to dispel any sense of false guilt. One participant noted that it was unselfish, as it harmed no one.

General assent.

Another participant chimed in that marriage existed to protect women, it was a civil contrast, really. And adultery was considered perfectly okay until Christianity stepped in.

The chilling thing is that neither of these assertions take the slightest thought for the welfare of children. By the nature of the sex act, they are liable to be involved. Modern man clearly has contempt for children.

Not that casual sex has no other victims. It reduces the partner to a means, not an end. The essence of immorality, as Kant pointed out.

It is also worth noting, as I did at the meeting, that adultery was punishable by death in many non-Christian societies.

The group leader explained that sin was simply “missing the mark,” like an arrow missing its target.

I have heard this as a Muslim concept of sin. But it is not the Christian concept. The Catholic concept of grave (mortal) sin requires a willful turning away from what we know we should do. We must be conscious of the gravity of the matter, fully in control  of our actions, and do it anyway.

CCC para 1857 “For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: ‘Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.’"

It is not missing the mark. It is firing in the opposite direction.

And it certainly beggars the conscience to maintain that Hitler or Mengele were perfectly decent, well-intentioned fellows, but just made an oopsie.

This is an effort to excuse sin.

Tied to this, the group leader of course stressed the need to forgive; representing this as Christ’s way. 

He, and the group, deliberately ignored Jesus’s requirement that the guilty party admit guilt. So that the imperative was, in fact, to endorse sin.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Jesus did not even accept an apology and admission of guilt, if he felt it was not sincere: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

The cruelty here is unspeakable: telling someone who has been grievously wronged that they are in the wrong for not forgiving, rather than commiserating with them. It traps them in a cycle of abuse. Picture someone punching you in the face repeatedly, each time demanding you forgive him, then punching you again.

It is perfect pharisaism. Every religion will be infested with pharisaism, a desperate attempt to invert its message, by evildoers.

Jesus Reveals the True Meaning of Faith

 

 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith."

The Lord replied, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here immediately and take your place at table'? Would he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished'? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded?

So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'"

This was the gospel reading at last Sunday’s mass.

Jesus’s initial statement is striking: if anyone has the slightest faith, they can order trees to uproot and grow on the surface of the ocean.

It would seem to follow that nobody has even the slightest faith. Because nobody can do that. Doesn’t that mean all is lost?

No, wait—I can do that. I can make a mulberry tree uproot itself and float upright on the ocean. I can do it in my imagination, in my mind’s eye. Anyone who has a decent imagination can do it. And we can draw it, too, or put it in a story.

So what Jesus is actually telling us is that faith = imagination. Or rather, faith is the willing suspension of disbelief, the ability to accept that the world of the imagination, and not the material world, is the real world. Our imagination is the kingdom of heaven, or our window into it.

But although the kingdom of heaven is in this sense within, we are also not in the kingdom of heaven now. We are living in a material world, where we must tend to our ploughs and our flocks, earning our daily upkeep by the sweat of our brow. This is what Jesus goes on to point out: we are servants spending most of our time just maintaining ourselves. And when we have free time—we ought to be taking the products of the fields, and using them to feed God. “You may eat and drink when I am finished.”

The kingdom of heaven is our reward, once we have done this—presumably, in the next life.

And this stands to reason. There must be some need for the material world; otherwise, why did God create it? Why not have us born into heaven?

The need is not simply to prove our worthiness for the world to come, although this might be reason enough. We are here to accomplish something God needs us to accomplish: to feed him.

That is, to take the produce of the fields, of the material world, and fashion something from it that will satisfy him.

Which seems to me to describe the process of creating art. In making art, we are co-creators with God; we are completing his plan for creation.

The Democrats Dance in their Hats

The sombrero memes furor makes me think the old saying needs to be amended: “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems to work on the downslope as well: “First they win, then you become an object of fun, then they can safely ignore you.” We seem to be at the object of fun stage now at which the MAGA right has won the culture wars. Th pretensions of the left begin to look absurd.

Part of the power of the sombrero meme is that Hakim Jeffries, Chuck Shumer, and the elected left generally is always so grim and so angry. It is hard to picture them smiling, or many other prominent leftist politicians. In the case of Shumer, I visualize a smirk, which is not the same thing. That makes them especially mockable—their apparent sense of superiority and self-importance.

The measure of the meme’s effectiveness is the criticisms leveled by the left. I have heard it called “insane,” “filth,” “disgusting,” and, of course, “racist.”

Is the sombrero and the mariachi music racist? It is certainly stereotyped, but there is nothing offensive about the stereotype. Part of the delight of the meme is that it expresses liberation from the humourless leftist prohibition on ethnic jokes. Why wouldn’t a Mexican be proud of mariachi music and a distinctive ethnic hat?

I try to imagine the Irish equivalent; as that is my own primary ethnicity. An image of Trump, or RFK Jr., or Nicole Shanahan, with white clay pipes in their mouths and stepdancers throwing up gold pieces? Nope, I still think it is funny and somehow liberating.

The sombrero meme does play on the idea of Mexicans as “the other.” This could be worrying. But in this case, they genuinely are the other, and that is the whole point: extending taxpayer-funded health care to non-citizens. So it has to be fair comment.

And I like mariachi music.

There Will Come Soft Rains

Going through Ray Bradbury’s marvellous short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” with a student the other day, it came to me that it demonstrated how far appreciation for poetry has fallen in the culture. The story was first published in 1950, but imagined American life in 2026. A fully automated house; we’re not there yet. But Bradbury assumed that the automated house would be programmed to read a requested poem to each occupant each evening. And the integrated audio clock announced each hour with a little rhyme.

In 1950, this was popular culture. Poetry was as central as, say, pop music is now.

Bradbury’s prose is also notably poetic. Rather than automatically going for the shortest and most common word, as the modernist style commands, he pays close attention to cadence.

In Defense of Monarchy

 

All nations operate on shared delusions. I see this perhaps more clearly than most because I have lived in several different cultures.

One dangerous delusion Americans share is that there is something fundamentally wrong with monarchies. I heard it just recently from a panelist in a US news show: “no matter what the problems with our democracy, surely it is better than living under a dictatorship or a monarchy.”

Is it?

For that matter, are monarchies and democracies different systems? A democracy is not the same thing as a republic.

This prejudice has caused America much grief. When they left Iraq, for example, they could have saved many lives and much treasure by handing the keys over to a monarch and going home. Instead, they stayed and tried, absurdly, to impose a democratic republic. A contradiction in terms: to impose democracy.

A monarchy is a valuable asset to a stable democracy. Most of the world’s strongest democracies are monarchies: the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium. There are reasons for this. Democracies require unity and trust: you have to know your political opponents will deal fairly with you out of power. A monarch is a useful point of unity; a shared loyalty and a referee for the transition of power. The monarch has more often than not been a backstop preserving democracy under threat. The flag never falls into the street to be seized by the strongest arm. Compare the great republics of France and the United States; compare republican Spain or Weimar to royalist Spain or Germany. The republics do seem more prone to dissolve into revolution or civil war, or be taken over by some dictator.

A monarch gives the nation a human face; a royal family makes the state feel more like one big family. Everybody is brother and sister. This is humanizing. This preserves civil peace. People naturally care about people, not pieces of paper. And more about people than ideology.

Without a royal family as the focus for a nation, the obvious alternative is ethnicity. This is bad news for any ethnic minorities. At best, they must feel left out, never at home. At worst, you have Nazi Germany.

If not ethnicity, you have a nation unified by ideology or religion. The United States managed this. So did the Soviet Union, or Maoist China. So did the several Muslim caliphates. But there are only so many ideologies or religions powerful enough to preserve consensus among a large group of people. And you necessarily risk limiting freedom of thought. The situation becomes difficult for minority religions.

Accordingly, monarchy is best at allowing diversity, and at preserving peace and equality in any diverse state.

It also introduces an element of glamour and magic to everyone’s lives. Monarchies are romantic. Lacking one, America has obviously compensated with their “stars” and “idols.” But this system seems terribly damaging to those caught up in it. Unlike monarchies, these celebrities are not groomed for the role, and their fame almost inevitably fades. The psychic strain must be incalculable. Many crash and burn.

A monarchy also seems to inoculate a nation against nepotism in politics. There is some instinctive craving, that in republics throws up political “dynasties,” like the Kennedys, Bushes, or Clintons in the US, the Gandhis in India, the LePens in France, the Marcoses and the Aquinos in the Philippines. Compare Britain. With a monarchy, this seems much less common. The need is met, and does not interfere with meritocracy in government.

For democracy to function requires a high-trust society, with established traditions of gentlemanly debate. If a society has not developed the necessary traditions, monarchy is again the best alternative, and the one most likely to peacefully and naturally segue into democracy when conditions allow. Either a dictator or a democratically elected leader is there because of a burning interest in acquiring power over others. This is just the sort of personality we do not want in charge. A monarchy will throw into power random personalities. The average person is not very interested, if at all, in power over others. A dictator, or even an elected leader facing defeat, has every incentive to loot the treasury before he leaves, is ousted, or dies. But a monarchy passes on to the son; it is natural instinct to preserve the inheritance for the next generation.

All systems are imperfect, as families are imperfect, but monarchy has natural safeguards.

Compare the various monarchies in the Middle East, where there is no democracy, to the republics; notice who is doing well, not persecuting minorities, and who weathered the “Arab Spring” without chaos or civil war. Compare Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco; with Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza. See the difference?

Surely the monarchic system proves its worth. It is time-tested, and our ancestors were not fools.

Dives and Lazarus and the Resurrection

 

Jesus said to the Pharisees: 

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. 

When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ 

Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ 

He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ 

But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ 

He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 

Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'”

Luke 16:19-31.

This passage, the gospel reading at last Sunday’s mass, is rich with significance. Because Lazarus is named, it does not appear to be a parable. From it we understand that either hell or heaven are eternal fates: one cannot move between them. 

It strongly suggests that suffering in this life will be rewarded in heaven. Nothing here indicates that Lazarus led a particularly moral life, full of good deeds. No, he is given heaven as a reward expressly in recompense for his suffering. “Now he is comforted here.”

This speaks against the self-satisfied “happy happy joy joy” form of Christianity that I so dislike. To be contented in a world of want is an indictment.

It also seems to me to endorse Judaism. Jesus was not sent for the Jews. There is no need for Jews to convert. So long as they listen to Moses and the prophets, they are good. If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, Jesus’s coming will make no difference to them.

This also affirms my own dislike of the argument that the resurrection is proof of the Christian faith. The passage itself says it is not sufficient proof, and not necessary proof. One believes in Christianity because one listens to the words of Jesus, or listens to the words of Moses and the prophets, and knows one is hearing the voice of God. One knows in one’s heart. And of course one knows, because God created us to hear and respond to his word. “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.”

This also seems  to be the point of the tale of doubting Thomas: “blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe.”

Whose Free Speech?

So famous he still needs a name tag?

Many on the left have said that ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel was or would be a violation of his freedom of speech.

I think we need to make some distinctions. If you say ABC cannot cancel Kimmel no matter what he says, you are ignoring ABC’s free speech rights. That would be compelled speech. ABC is a publisher; it has a right to publish whom they choose, because Kimmel represents them to the public. Imagine if a corporation hired an advertising firm, and then was legally required to run their ads no matter what they sent in.

The issue is different for online platforms like YouTube or Facebook or X. They are considered to merely be providing a service, like the phone company or an ISP. This gives them special legal protections. They are the “public square.” Nobody simply speaking on YouTube represents YouTube. So if they silence anyone, they are indeed violating their freedom of speech.

And the issue is different for “blacklisting”—that is, cancelling or silencing someone not for what they are saying, but for something they said at some other time or on some other platform. That does seem a violation of freedom of speech. It has a chilling effect on public discourse.

If government steps in and requires ABC to cancel Kimmel, openly or behind the scenes, on pain of retribution, this is a violation of freedom of speech—of ABC’s freedom of speech as well as Kimmel’s.

But even the government has the right to block slanderous speech, libel, incitement to violence, or pornography. Slander, libel, or incitement to violence are not just speech, but also deed; they are performative, and can materially harm others. Pornography is not necessarily performative, but may be socially undesirable. Similarly, the government has the right to arrest someone for walking about naked or masturbating in front of children. And no inalienable rights are violated in censoring it. Freedom of speech protects opinions, information and artistic expression, for the sake of public discourse and conscience, and not personal fetishes. 

I hope this clarifies matters. 

Should Kimmel be fired? I urge ABC to do so.

On Being Spiritually Bullied

Friend Xerxes, the formerly left-wing columnist, who has now mostly eschewed politics, wrote recently objecting to the evangelical Protestant “born-again” concept of sudden conversion. He considers this “bullying,” and says it is not in the Bible.

Pressed on how this is bullying, he emphasizes the demand to repent past sins. That is the bullying; and that is what is not in the Bible.

As a Catholic, I really have no dog in this fight. Instant conversions are not the expected norm in Catholicism. Catholicism is dubious about recognizing sudden conversions, because they may not be sincere. The usual advice is to sit on it for six months to a year, and spend that time walking the walk and studying the faith, before going public. 

But surely there is much Biblical warrant and saintly testimony for sudden conversion. Even outside Christianity: consider the case of the Buddha. Or the legend of Newton under the apple tree. Or Archimedes’s famous “Eureka!” Everyone has had such experiences in minor matters.

And the Bible gives several examples, aside from the famous one of Saul on the road to Damascus.

See Matthew 4:

“18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 20 At once they left their nets and followed him.

21 Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, 22 and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.”

“At once.” “Immediately.” James and John even left their father Zebedee sitting in the boat. The gospel seems to actually be emphasizing how sudden this conversion was. And this, the calling of the first apostles, is presumably the intended template for Christian conversion.

See again Luke 19:8:

“But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’”

Again the suddenness seems to be significant. The tax collector converts “here and now.”

See too the mass conversion at Pentecost, very much like a modern revival meeting. Acts 2:38-41.

“Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

Saul’s conversion is most obvious because it represents a 180 degree turn. But compare the conversion of the good thief; or the centurions who, after crucifying Jesus, conclude, “this surely was the son of God.”

Consider too St. Augustine’s account of his conversion, after hearing a child’s voice say “take and read.” 

“For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

So too with Old Testament prophets: most famously, Moses surprised by the burning bush on Sinai.

Xerxes objects that these conversions do not involve the element of repentance. So they are not bullying, and the born-agains are still bullies.

He is right that Simon, Andrew, James and John were not asked to repent their sins when they were called to follow Jesus. 

Does this mean that the modern Protestant model is flawed? That repentance is not necessary?

Surely Zaccheus was called to repent—or at least he did repent, instantly, and make reparations. For him, conversion and repentance seems to have been the same act. As, surely, it was in the case of Saul/Paul. After his vision, Paul refused food and drink for three days—surely an act of penance. And the Roman centurions must have repented of crucifying the son of God—kind of goes without saying. In the case of the Good Thief, his admission of guilt is explicit: “And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes.”

Augustine also repents, before conversion: “I was sick and tormented, reproaching myself more bitterly than ever, rolling and writhing in my chain till it should be utterly broken.”

The need for repentance does seem to be clearly present in the New Testament taken as a whole. This is the commission of John the Baptist. “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

And people from the whole region responded. “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.”

Quite plausibly, Simon, Andrew, James and John were among those who had gone to the Jordan to be baptized. That would mean they had already repented of their sins. As a matter of fact, the Gospel of John cites Andrew and John as disciples of the Baptist. So that seems to explain it.

So it certainly seems Biblical that true conversion requires the admission of sins—that one is a sinner.

So where is Xerxes’s bullying?

Religion, in the sense of belief or faith, by its nature simply cannot be imposed on another. It cannot be compelled. So bullying is not possible.

Religion in the sense of certain rules of conduct, like fasting or public prayer or going to church, can be imposed by government or family: but in Canada or the US, religions are always voluntary associations.

Now consider this from the point of view of the missionary. If he or she is indeed a Christian believer, he is not bullying in calling on you to repent and give your life to Jesus. He is offering you eternal salvation and saving you from eternal damnation. To paint him as a bully, you must not just deny the truth of Christianity, but deny that anyone could believe it. It is like accusing the nurse of bullying for bringing a dying patient food and adjusting her pillow instead of leaving her to die alone—only infinitely worse. It is like blaming a fireman for rescuing someone from a burning building.

This example touches me personally. I had a great-uncle who converted and received extreme unction on his deathbed. The thought of it gives me great solace. It is never too late for salvation, this side of the grave.

Xerxes objects that there are religious cults, and they at least do bully: “They smother potential members with pseudo love and care. They never left the newbie alone. Until their victim succumbed – and felt huge relief that it was over.”

There was a great deal of concern about this back in the Seventies and Eighties. Hare Krishna, People’s Temple, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, the Moonies, the Children of God, and the like. Parents hired “deprogrammers” to recover their children from such groups.

But such groups cannot kidnap anyone; they cannot hold anyone anywhere against their will. If someone wanted to leave, and were prevented, all they needed to do was approach the nearest cop. Or contact their family. They were necessarily there of their own free will. Who has the right to overrule their own judgement and freedom of religion and conscience?

I have known several ex-Moonies, one ex-Scientologist, and one ex-Children of God. They had migrated to other faiths, and had no reason to defend their former denomination. But they insisted this claim of brainwashing or constraint was bosh. They had never felt any kind of compulsion. And nobody tried to prevent them from leaving.

The objection to young people joining “cults” echoes the common experience of Catholic saints. St. Thomas of Aquinas’s family kidnapped him and confined him to prevent him entering the monastery. St. Francis of Assisi was kidnapped, confined, and tortured by his father when he sought to become a mendicant friar: his father “laid hands on him very shamelessly and disgracefully, and carried him off to his own house. And so, without any mercy, he shut him up for several days in a dark place, and thinking to bend his son’s spirit to his own will, urged him at first by words, and then by stripes and chains.”

The two groups that can get away with holding people against their will are the government, and the family. To most who entered the supposed “cults” of the seventies and eighties, I suspect this was their escape from bullying at home. An escape that has been shut down, by the persecution of the “cults” and their leaders. The bullies are now more firmly in control.

It is of course entirely possible, and likely, that some cults are sinister. Al Qaeda is a cult. People’s Temple was a cult. The Manson family was a cult. At the same time, these cults were not really religious. They were primarily political in their aims and interests, and this is how they claimed the right to bully and control.

As to bullying someone by asking them to admit that they are a sinner, it stands to reason that any Christian conversion must involve repentance. Nor is it unreasonable to point this out to one who wants to convert. Jesus says “call no one good but your Father who is in heaven.” The acknowledgement of God involves the acknowledgement that we are not ourselves God, that we are imperfect by comparison. We are all sinners.

Someone who will claim they have never sinned, is clearly not telling the truth, and is not prepared to stand before God, who sees all things.

In sum, there is nothing wrong or unreasonable or unbiblical with the evangelical Protestant concept of sudden conversion. And it is certainly not a form of “bullying.”

Kimmel Refuses to Apologize or Correct the Record

 

Jimmy Kimmel’s “apology” show, after his brief suspension, was not an apology. He did not admit he had said anything wrong. He lied about the initial lie. And he maintained that Christians must forgive him anyway.

This cannot stand. This makes it an imperative matter of principle to condemn his behaviour as severely as possible.

This is not to say that Brendan Carr and the FTC should step in and pull licenses, or threaten to. Although there is an argument for this, since the airwaves are a public trust. This would not be, moreover, a matter of cancelling someone for their opinions. There is a critical difference between an opinion and an objective fact. It can be demonstrated objectively, as in a court of law, that Kimmel told a lie, and with the intent to slander his political opponents. That is not fair game. Nevertheless, it is unwise to set this precedent.

On the other hand, it is also not enough just to boycott, to resolve not to watch Kimmel anymore. Who watches him now anyway?

It is not enough to boycott ABC. Who watches it now anyway?

It is not enough to boycott Disney, the parent company. Most on the right are already boycotting. Most are not very interested in watching anything from Disney now anyway.

If lack of viewership were enough to get Kimmel cancelled, he should have been cancelled by now.

He has been propped up this long because the left have claimed for themselves the moral high ground.

What we need is a moral appeal, an appeal to conscience, an “appeal to heaven.” Every decent person who has voice must publicly condemn his behaviour. Those who do not have any public platform can at least write in to their local ABC affiliate, if in the US, write to his advertisers, and express their ire. Those watching online can put comments on videos. Express clearly that his apology is not acceptable.

This is not, and need not be, a call for cancellation. If Kimmel were even now to admit wrongdoing, apologize, correct his initial statement, and pledge to avoid such partisanship in the future, we could and should forgive. I would certainly be ready to. But he has now publicly refused to do so.

Just as souls choose Hell rather than admit their sins, Kimmel has chosen his fate.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Was a Mistake

"The most dire predictions of what it would mean for Canada, the wholesale transfer of legislative authority from elected politicians to unelected judges, have become almost fully realized."

 Carson Jerema explains in today's National Post.

 

On the Morality of Murder

 

Chatting with a relativist the other day, he asked, “Do you think the killer of Charlie Kirk believed he was doing something wrong?” 

His intended point, of course, was that the killer no doubt thought he was doing a good thing. 

I have heard this argument from relativists before. A religion professor back in grad school actually wrote a piece for the student newspaper arguing that morality was nonsense. After all, if we thought something was wrong, we would not do it in the first place, would we? The fact that anyone did anything proves it was not wrong. They were simply following their own moral lights.

Another relativist friend, himself ethnically Jewish, held that Hitler no doubt thought he was doing the right thing.

Of course the Kirk killer knew he was doing something wrong. Of course Hitler did. Everyone has a conscience, an internal moral compass, and although we can rationalize, we know the moral truth. Those who do wrong will be plagued by their conscience, by the Erinyes, by their instinct for justice.

This is why, for example, serial killers always lay clues, growing more and more reckless until they are caught; and show relief when they are caught. Law enforcement sources say they usually sleep like a baby that first night in detention. Their conscience is no longer plaguing them—at least at the same level. Dostoyevsky understood this well, and had Raskolnikov’s own conscience lead him to Siberia. Edgar Allen Poe understood this in “The Tell-Tale Heart.”

This is why villainous people, like Stalin, like Hitler, or like those on Death Row, descend into paranoia. While they may have objective reason to fear retribution, it is also their conscience being projected on the world. This is why bad people commonly hate those they have harmed.

To suppose we always do what we believe is right is to suppose there are no impulses tempting us to do wrong. That there is no such thing as self-interest, cupidity, intemperance, or ego. Or rather, I suspect, in most such cases, that there is no force nor consideration the theorist will answer to but cupidity, self-interest, intemperance, and ego.

Erika Kirk Is Wrong

 

Erika Kirk’s speech publicly forgiving the murderer of her husband turned my stomach. It was the height of pharisaism. If she meant it, will she be asking that all charges be dropped? The words cost her nothing; they were virtue signalling. “Look how holy I am.” A Pharisee praying loudly in the temple. To me, whispering the words “that young man,” she reeked of insincerity.

Worse, she is being congratulated for it all over the right-wing blogosphere. This discredits Christianity and encourages more murders. We are learning who the phonies are, the poseurs. There are a lot of them.

To his immortal credit, Trump alone was not going along with this. This is why we need him: he always calls out the B.S. He called Kirk out in the gentlest, most self-deprecating way. He stated he could not forgive his enemies; “so I guess Charlie hates me.” He was not about to make a show of fake piety. And it is ironic, because Trump has a long public record of forgiving those who had previously been his enemies. Notably, at this very event, Elon Musk. He personifies the true Christian virtue. He forgives instantly.

Christians are to forgive others their trespasses only if they repent and seek forgiveness. Otherwise, you are endorsing sin. It is not noble to say it was okay to kill your husband; it is a betrayal of him. It is also a betrayal of God, for it is a denial of God’s law. And it is as bad as cursing the sinner to hell.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Jesus does not condemn the woman taken in adultery: but only once she has stood there ready to accept her punishment, and only with the admonition, “go and sin no more.” Forgiveness is the proper response to repentance, not to sin.

Mrs. Kirk cited Jesus’s words on the cross: “forgive them, father, for they know not what they do.”

Note the qualification: they are forgiven because they do not know what they are doing. Otherwise they are not forgiven. Does anyone want to argue that the killer of Charlie Kirk did not know what he was doing?

The reference is to the Roman soldiers crucifying him, and casting lots for his clothes. They are just doing their job; they cannot know they are crucifying an innocent man, let alone God himself.

If Mrs. Kirk were a true and sincere Christian, she should have read and pondered her Bible better than this. Or failing that, she should, as a sincere person, have listened to the voice of her conscience, and known in her heart that what she said was not right.

It is sad that even at this moment of apparent revival, Satan was already present, and speaking from the podium.

Global Depopulation

 In case anyone was not aware, these two maps give some idea of the rate at which birth rates are collapsing everywhere.

A Public Justification for Kirk's Murder

 

The venerable Guardian has weighed in on Charlie Kirk’s murder, under the odd headline:

The students who debated with Charlie Kirk: ‘His goal was to verbally defeat us’ | Charlie Kirk shooting | The Guardian

Apparently, the fact that Kirk debated with people was at least partial justification for his murder. The left now openly objects to debate itself.

The piece quotes Trent Webb, a professor of writing studies and rhetoric and director of the speech and debate team at Hofstra University, to say “In a good faith debate, the final goal is to reach consensus. If that doesn’t happen, then a lot of academics would consider it to be an exercise in futility.”

The intention of a good faith debate is not to reach consensus. It is to reach truth. Consensus is the opposite of debate. “Consent” is the opposite of “dissent.” “Consensus” generally means that all present are required to agree with whoever is in charge. No dissent is allowed.

Which perhaps indeed describes the typical current university or high school classroom.

“Dr Charles Woods, a professor of rhetoric and composition at East Texas A&M University, and the host of The Big Rhetorical Podcast, said Kirk distilled nuanced topics into stifling, good v bad arguments.”

“Charlie turned myriad opportunities for meaningful dialogic transactions rooted in civility and turned them into confrontational interactions by amplifying binaries in his argumentative structure,” Woods wrote in an email. “What we know is that there is a spectrum of ideologies and worldviews, not just two: Charlie’s and whoever is on the other side of the microphone.”

In other words, Kirk committed the crime of disagreeing with those who stepped up to the microphone. Who, of course, stepped up to the microphone because they disagreed with Kirk. Why is it he, and not they, who are being reductive, binary, and adversarial?

Debate is by it nature adversarial and binary. A proposition is advanced; one side argues pro, the other con. If either side simply agrees with the other, they are not debating. This is an important concept to grasp. Our parliamentary system is founded on it. Bills are debated in parliament.

As someone who teaches rhetoric, it is shocking to me that our educational system has deteriorated to the point that professors of rhetoric are opposed to debate. But then, professors of history are opposed to teaching history, professors of literature are opposed to the concept of literature, and ministers of religion are opposed to the Christian religion, so it is of a piece. 

However, if one side in the debate is refusing to accept the basic rules and premises of debate, they are a danger to civil society. As Kirk’s murder clearly demonstrates.

How to Be Happy

A recent student exercise was on a study of happiness: what makes you happy? It is presumably central to human existence, since it is one of the three inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence: “the pursuit of happiness.” The Alpha course introductory session I recently attended started with the same question. It seems the thing everyone is asking.

The academic study cites a “wide variety of factors.” “Income, job satisfaction, and possessions”; “wealth, jobs and relationships.” It notes that these are the factors used in the World Happiness Report.

Which is not really helpful, since it is tautological. It begins with the unproven assumption that these are the factors that lead to happiness. 

I think the factors cited are somewhat off the mark. It is pretty well established that wealth or possessions do not lead to happiness. Relationships do, but then relationships can also be the source of deep unhappiness as well.

The answer is so simple; yet the misdirected focus on the material is why so many people are unhappy currently. This is why the rates of depression are soaring year by year.

Three things bring happiness: art, religion, and relationship. 

Art: we feel happiness listening to some music we like, or watching an engrossing movie. Even if it is just “entertainment,” we are transported to some other, better place. There is a world we connect with then, and that is where joy comes from. It is the spiritual world, the world of the imagination.

Religion: one could substitute the more generic, “meaning.” If you have a sense of meaning or purpose in your life, happiness ensues. Materialism strips the world of meaning. 

Relationships: a materialist perspective will hear this as “sex.” Substituting sex for relationship is devastating to happiness. All that is left is constant betrayal—relationships become a source of unhappiness. 

Happiness is from the spirit. Unhappiness is being dispirited.

On Not Being a Poet

"A poet is the most unpoetical thing in existence"--John Keats

I recently attended a public reading by a quite well-established Canadian poet.

It made me depressed. Which is not the effect one gets from art.

To my mind, there was nothing there. I heard only prose, and pedestrian reflections on one man’s daily life. No sound qualities, no vivid images, no deep thought.

It showed the derelict, debilitated state of poetry now. It was not poetry at all, and the somewhat celebrated poet was not a poet.

Reminds me of something Yeats said: “You can either live the life of a poet, or be a poet. You can’t do both.”

Like most contemporary poets, this man was a self-promoter, a marketer, not a poet. Good at dropping names. And that seems pretty much what “poetry” has become. The marketers have driven out the poets.

Don’t misunderstand me. He seemed to be a nice personable guy, enjoyable to be around. Fun to have a beer with, no doubt helpful and encouraging to others. Like any good salesman. It is a legitimate skill, and admirable in its own way. But it is incompatible with poetry.

People are driven to poetry because they have, in some way, been silenced. Because they cannot otherwise say what they need to say. The thing that must be said then develops force and power, like steam in a boiler, and comes out as verse. 

Anyone who is garrulous and talkative is already habitually saying whatever is on their minds. There is no force left over for poetry. What they present as poetry is just more of their usual pedestrian thoughts, without art.

And it is all about them. The focus is on being a poet, not the poem. Which is killing the craft.

You reveal yourself as a poet because you speak little. Poets live with silence, and every poem is ripped out screaming.

A poet must also always tell the truth, painful as it may be, to themselves or others. Without truth there is no beauty. A poet is a prophet. A good salesman, by contrast, says whatever they think the audience wants to hear. 

The two approaches are incompatible from the womb.

What we commonly call poetry now is essentially the opposite of poetry.

In the end, what makes me most depressed about the evening is the thought that this man has wasted his life. He has invested his identity entirely in being a poet. And he was never a poet, and could never be a poet. What could be sadder than seeing someone who has lived his whole life as a lie? And, not having any sense of poetry, he probably has no idea.

On Calling an Indian an Indian

 

Can you spot the racial slur?

A correspondent asserts that the term “Indian” is derogatory. This is indeed a common view; but I hold it is arbitrary and nonsensical.

If, after all, the term is derogatory, it should be offensive to use it to refer to the natives of the Indian subcontinent. Which nobody holds it to be.  If you consider the same term offensive when used on or by one group, but not offensive when used on or by another group, the problem is not with the term. It is with you: you are treating people differently on the basis of race. You are a racist.

The original concern with the term is that it is supposedly inaccurate—Columbus supposedly mistakenly thought he had reached India, and declared the land the “West Indies.” This does not make it derogatory, any more than mistakenly calling an Australian an Austrian would cause offense.

But even this objection to the term is actually wrong. The very term “West Indies” shows Columbus did not think he was in the subcontinent—that was the East. The people of the Philippines were also referred to in Columbus’s time as “Indians.” So were Malaysians, and Indonesians, the Arabs in the Middle East, and the people of sub-Saharan Africa. “Indian” meant roughly what we currently mean by “native.” If “Indian” is offensive, then so is “native,” or “aboriginal,” or “indigenous.” Or “First Nations.”

Another objection is that it presents the misleading impression that all Indian cultures were similar, when in fact they were widely diverse. One should instead say “Innu,” or “Dogrib,” and so on. But if this objection is valid, it applies equally to the terms “white,” “Caucasian,” “Asian,” “European,” or “African,” all of which are common and not considered derogatory.

Is it objectionable because it is a term from English, and not from a native Indian language? But this is the same for all other  groups, and all other languages. “Irish” is not the term in Irish for the Irish: “Greek” is not the term in Greek for the Greeks; “English” is not the term in Korean for the English; and so on. English, like any language, has its own terms for various groups.

So what are we to call this group of people?

As it happens, “Indian” is, in both the US and Canada, the proper legal term. Unlike any other term, it has a clear legal definition. It is therefore the correct and precise term; who or what counts as “First Nation,” or “aboriginal,” or the like, is ambiguous and open to dispute. “Indian” is also commonly and historically used by Indians themselves, as in the “American Indian Movement.”

So why does anyone object to the term “Indian”? It is only a bit of academic snobbery, of cant or jargon, showing you are a member of an in-group who “knows better” than to use the common and familiar term.

A good writer and a good editor should resist and discourage all such cant and jargon. Given that writing is communication, we should always prefer the common and the most accurate term.

How We Know Christianity Is Truth

I recently attended the introductory session of the Alpha course. The Alpha course is making waves in the Christian sphere; it is a course of videos and discussions for those sniffing around on the fringes of faith. Developed by an Anglican pastor, but non-denominational in tone, on the “mere Christianity” model of C.S. Lewis. And this session was so well attended, the organizers were trying to turn people away, suggesting they come instead for the next session, expected some time this winter.

Bad advice, I suspect. I suspect that one will be even better attended. The change has begun.

However, I was troubled by the tone of the introductory video. It kept citing scientists to establish the credibility of Christianity. “I’m an established scientist, and when I looked at the evidence…” “Look at all the well-known scientists who were Christians.”

This might make some kind of evangelical sense, talking to people where they are now--materialists. But to my mind it concedes the game before the start of play. If you are using scientists to establish the credibility of Christianity, your religion is scientism, the worship of science as the font of all truth, not Christianity. This is upside down. There is a reason science emerged in Christian Europe, not elsewhere.

Science, for all its usefulness, cannot establish truth. Every claim it makes is provisional. Because its method is inductive, even its strongest claims might be disproven tomorrow by some “black swan event.” And they commonly are. I am old enough to know that much of what I was taught in high school science classes is now held by science itself to be wrong. We were told the world faced an overpopulation crisis. We were told a new ice age was imminent. We were told the world was about to run out of oil, and water, and food. We were told there was no such thing as continents moving, as continental drift. It was mere coincidence that the coastline of Africa seemed to match the coastline of South America like jigsaw pieces. We were told that the human embryo in the womb looked just like a lizard, and this proved evolution. We were told eggs were bad for our health. We were told to get as much sun as we could, and many of us got skin cancer as a result. My grandmother was told to take up smoking for her health. 

If it was all wrong then, and all wrong fifty years earlier, and all wrong fifty years before that, how can we assume it is all right at this point?

Moreover, science relies on prior assumptions: that our sense perceptions correspond in some consistent way to real objects external to us. That everything, including our memories, did not come into existence five minutes ago. That we are humans who dreamt last night we were butterflies, not butterflies dreaming right now we are humans. That the simplest explanation is most likely to be true.

Moreover, as arbiters of truth, scientists, as illusionists from Houdini to the Amazing Randi have often demonstrated, are naturally gullible and easy to mislead by appearances—because that is what they go by.

Science also depends on strict adherence to ethical standards by scientists—not faking their data, not logrolling their friends, not injecting their own interests or preferences. Yet science itself eschews moral education; it scoffs at moral concerns. How can we trust scientists?

My faith therefore does not rely on any scientific approach to “the evidence.” This includes the evidence for the resurrection, which Alpha seems to emphasize as critical, as does William Lane Craig. 

If I remember it correctly, I believe the video misstates that either the resurrection or the life of Jesus is the single best-corroborated event in history. There are certainly many more recent events for which there is more evidence. We obviously have more evidence, for example, that John Kennedy was assassinated, or that an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It is, rather, the best-established event in ancient history. 

But that is still not enough on which to build a firm faith. That Is also, in principle, vulnerable to a “black swan” event. Suppose tomorrow someone excavated the corpse of Jesus? Such a faith is at best provisional.

My faith is based on the one hand on the dozen compelling logical arguments that God exists. Indeed, I would go further and assert that the existence of God is a self-evident truth. If many deny it, I hold that they are doing so on emotional, not rational, grounds. They are like Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes, imagining God could not find them there. People often do not WANT God to exist.

If one retreats from the world and meditates on this silently, the truth becomes obvious.

Given that God exists, by his nature, He would not hide himself from us. He would give us clear guidance. He would reveal himself to us in some way. Where?

Logically, in Christianity and in the Bible, on the grounds that that is the theological and cosmological system most directly available to the most people over the longest time. God would put the solution as much as possible in plain sight.

But in terms of my actual conversion to Catholicism, this was not the key. To be clear, I was raised Catholic. However, from about age 15 to 17, I considered myself an atheist. I was not prepared, nor should anyone in good conscience be, to simply accept something as truth without examination, because you were told so by your parents or your school or your culture or those around you.

What made me realize Christianity was truth was the Sermon on the Mount. I suddenly saw these words as both perfectly true, and not obvious, not mere truisms anyone could say. Indeed, they went directly against what I had been taught as “true.” Apart from any “evidence,” of this or that event or name, somebody said these words originally, and whoever did was unquestionably God incarnate, truth incarnate.

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10: 3-4)

I recognized the voice. And I suspect this is the way true conversion must happen.