Catcher in the Rye

 

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

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

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

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

He lies to his history teacher.

And all this in just the first four chapters.

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

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

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

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

This is infantilism; this is narcissism.

Holden Caulfield needed to find religion.

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

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

 

Gloria Steinem Is Dead

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

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

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

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

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

New Hope for the Stupid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Canadian Guilt

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that Canadians are misguided in feeling any guilt over slavery or the Indian residential schools.

Slavery was never recognized in Canada. In the lower 13 colonies, laws had to be passed permitting the institution. Common law does not recognize the right to own another person. In Canada, as in the UK, there were no such laws. This means slavery was, by default, always illegal. There was no reason or need to pass any specific law prohibiting it. Although Upper Canada, aka Ontario, did so in 1793.

All a supposed slave needed to do in Canada, was to run away. The government and the authorities would not support the slaveowner in any attempt to recover his property. If he went to court, the court would declare the enslaved man free. 

There was slavery, granted, everywhere else in the world. But not here, except among the “First Nations” beyond the reach of the law.

I also believe Canadians have nothing to apologize for regarding the Indian residential schools. There has even been an attempt to make that statement illegal and punishable by up to two years in prison. There would be no need were it not a true statement. I have read the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Despite it being their mandate to dig up all the possible dirt on the residential schools, they found nothing. And there were no mass graves.

No doubt there were some predatory individuals in the schools, as there are in any school. But the structure of the residential schools was designed to reduce this risk to a minimum. No doubt some children died in their care. Children often died young a century ago. No doubt some schools were short of funds, and cut corners. As happens with bureaucracies everywhere. The bottom line remains: the intention to educate was a noble and a charitable intention, and one called for by treaty and by the First Nation themselves. If getting educated is an attack on one’s culture, what does that say about your culture?

You may argue that the schools suppressed the native languages. After all, they forced everyone to speak English or French.

Just like any language school today. Immersion is the best way to learn a language.

What is the purpose of language? To communicate. On average, an aboriginal language in Canada has about one thousand speakers—and, having no written form, no literature. One thousand people with whom you can communicate. Compared to English the practical value of knowing that language is infinitesimal. Why spend class time on it, especially since, arriving at the age of six or above, the student is already fluent in it, more fluent than the teacher.

These schools took in students from a variety of tribes or “nations.” The students themselves could not communicate to one another in any language other than English or French.

Were the schools designed to suppress Indian culture and force assimilation to the mainstream? Perhaps they should have been, but they were not. Just the opposite. Were assimilation the intent, there would have been no Indian schools—the children would have been sent to the regular provincial schools with everyone else. Residential schools preserved some sort of Indian separateness, cultural distinctness. They trained for skills thought useful for a life on the reserve, not for success in the broader society.

Canadians will need to look harder for something to feel bad about. Might I suggest in this regard, for more suitable contemplation, our chronic anti-Americanism? Our turning away from religion? Our unrestricted abortion, and now euthanasia? Our arrogance on the world stage?

The Broad and Level Synodal Way

 

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"Mars Attacks" Is True

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Is Lindsay Clancy Guilty?

There is major controversy online over the case of Lindsay Clancy, the mother who murdered her three children. Feminists are insisting on her innocence, due to post partum psychosis. Men’s rights types are insisting that acquitting her would be a travesty, a blank cheque to any woman who wants to off her kids.

I think the concern in either case is misplaced. If she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will not walk. She will avoid the death penalty, but will be committed to an institution for the criminally insane. Whether that will mean better treatment or a shorter incarceration is not obvious. It strips her of her human dignity. Either way, little incentive for other women to try the same.

My general assumption is that the insanity defense is not legitimate. It is equivalent to the old claim that “the devil made me do it.” The devil has no such power; the voices in your head have no such power. If we intentionally harm others, we remain responsible for our acts. In the present case, were Lindsay Clancy genuinely feeling desperate, she could have put the children into temporary foster care, she could have turned to her husband and family for help, she could have checked herself in to a mental hospital. 

That said, I suspect the psychiatrists and the pharmaceuticals bear some responsibility here. She turned to them for help, and they did not help. So what else was she to do? Indeed, they fed her drugs that might have made it harder for her to control her impulses, as SSRIs are inclined to do.

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Say Cheese

 

The argument I hear in favour of defending Canada’s “supply management” cartel for dairy, chicken, and eggs, against American demands for a trade deal, is that American farm products are subsidized. So it is unfair of the Americans to object. Our government set up this cartel instead of a subsidy, saving us tax money. 

Wait a minute. If the Americans are prepared to subsidize the chicken, cheese, and eggs we buy from them, why would we object? Great!

Bad for Canadian farmers? Good for consumers, especially the poor. There are a lot more Canadian consumers than Canadian farmers. The greatest good to the greatest number.

The loss of a strategic industry? I am not concerned, so long as the loss is to the US. We are not going to war with the USA. We are bound to the US strategically; what’s good for them is good for us. Nor is there any possibility of some hostile power cutting our supply lines—we share the world’s longest land border.

It is not even clear to me that the cartel is to the benefit of Canadian agribusiness. By preventing competition, it prevents innovation and excellence. Canada used to be a major supplier of cheese to Europe. There used to be dairies near every small town in Quebec or Ontario. Supply management seems to have killed all that. We need artisanal dairies developing unique local cheeses that might command premium prices; like Oka cheese from Quebec. We need innovation; competition forces innovation.

Thucydides Missed the Real Trap

Thucydides

“Thucydides’ Trap” is not real. This is the thesis that an established power will generally go to war with a rising power that is on course to overtake it. History does not bear this out.

What history does bear out is that a power or government in decline will lash out as a last resort, a roll of the dice. For what then do they have to lose? It was declining and fracturing Austria-Hungary who forced the world into the First World War. It was a once-whipped Germany that started the Second, as the Nazi economic miracle was about to collapse. It was a Ponzi scheme, and Hitler told his generals that unless they could plunder Poland, they were going to face economic ruin. Similarly, Imperial Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in desperation, cut off from oil and about to see their forces in China collapse. Juntas in Argentina and Greece risked reckless foreign invasions, of the Falklands and of Cyprus, to forestall their collapse.

Islam has been troublesome in recent decades for the same reason: it faced collapse in the face of Christian success and the spread of secularism through improved communications.

Unfortunately, we are in such a situation. Putin in Russia looks desperate. China faces grave demographic decline. They are liable to calculate that they must use whatever power they have now, bad as that gamble might be, or lose it forever.

We are at a moment of great danger.

Dispatches from the War Front

 Mark Carney has idiotically actually declared war against the USA, claiming Canada has been “attacked.” The sense of privilege this implies is staggering: so the US is obliged to trade with Canada, and on terms Canada finds acceptable? And every prominent federal Canadian politician, and most at the provincial level, have echoed his call for war.

Trump has in response threatened to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.” The best part of the gag is that so many Canadians are getting irate about it. If he actually did that, who would it harm? Nor could he—it would surely still remain “Lake Ontario” to Canadians. Just a great troll, exposing Canadian idiocy.

One accusation—the actual terms of the rejected deal are being withheld from Canadians by our government, which is sinister-- is that the Americans wanted to end the requirement for bilingual packaging on all imports to Canada. This might be politically impossible for a Carney government to agree to, but it is a legitimate concern for American producers. They must repackage everything for the Canadian market. In practice, it amounts to protectionism—and forces up prices for all Canadians. It would be fairer for everyone if it were left to the consumer whether they were prepared to buy an item not labelled in French. 

Another rumour is that the Americans were demanding control over any trade deals Canada made with other countries. This has been called an unacceptable violation of Canadian sovereignty. 

But this is logically necessary for any free trade zone. The countries of the EU have had to agree to the same deal to make that free trade zone possible. Without it, Canadian firms can cheat by bringing in cheap foreign products and reselling them into the US, avoiding US tariffs by the back door.

Another accusation is that the US is demanding priority access to Canadian strategic minerals. How outrageous is that?

But they should, in their self-interest, and Canada should be eager to agree. America defends Canada; American security is Canadian security. We should be as concerned as they are that they have full and first access to our strategic minerals. Not long ago, the UK had similar priority access to Canadian strategic minerals as a matter of course. And for the same reason: they defended Canada if necessary.

Then, of course, there is dairy. The Canadian government is prepared to let the country die on that hill. But agreeing to American demands to allow in more dairy products would be of immediate benefit to the poorest Canadians. The free market is the best distribution mechanism.

No Deal Is a Bad Deal

If I am a prophet, the trade war our government has committed to with the US spells disaster for Canada.

A nation can decline quickly. In 1950, the Philippines were the richest country in Asia. Detroit was the richest city in America. Argentina was part of the First World.

Bad government can destroy. Any country is vulnerable.

Canada has had recklessly bad government since 2015.

I think Carney walked away from the trade deal his government had negotiated, because he was starting to get negative feedback. A lot of Canadians were irate at the harsh terms. The bad trade deal is largely if not entirely due to his “elbows up” tactics. 

Carney saw the Canadian public were going to blame him, notably in Quebec, and he was unlikely as a result to stay in office.

Walking away and having no deal is worse for Canada, but better for Carney. Now he can blame Trump instead of taking the blame, and stir up anti-Americanism.

Like Castro, or Maduro, or the mullahs in Iran. This never bodes well for the general public. 

God help Canada.

Why Your Priest Never Mentions Sin

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Of War and Remembrance

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Non-Jews Are Dogs

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AI: Threat or Menace

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Ned Ludd

Who Killed Jason Arday?

 

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How Religion Causes Wars

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Alberta Should Separate

 

No consent!

Were I an Albertan, I would definitely vote for separation. If they do vote for it I will move to Alberta in hopes of getting citizenship.

The rest of Canada has this contemptible attitude: they think of Alberta as a colony, and a colony of inferiors. Meanwhile, Alberta’s oil wealth is subsidizing the rest of the country through federally mandated “transfer payments.” And at the same time, the feds are even doing what they can to hobble the Alberta energy sector, the very hand that feeds them. It is as if the prime objective is to show contempt towards Alberta. Uppity peasants.

But woe unto the rest of Canada if Alberta does pull out. We will be much worse off without its oil and the money and leverage with the US it brings. I would expect Saskatchewan and Quebec to follow—Saskatchewan because it faces the same issues, and Quebec because it stays in largely for access to Alberta money. With these three gone, it is hard to see an isolated BC or isolated Atlantic provinces staying around. BC needs its hinterland. Atlantic Canada needs its markets and someone to provide financial support. With Alberta gone, that would probably mean the US.

I keep hearing that polls only show 20-30% support for independence in Alberta, though. So probably not going to happen.

If it happens, I’m hoping that the USA will flex its muscle and intervene if the Canadian federal government threatens violence.

The quoted disgruntled Albertan is wrong on one point. He insists that there is no such thing as race, and the only issue is culture. We want to believe this is true, and we are obliged to say it is true or be called racist, but it is not  true. IQ testing shows there is a significant difference in IQ between Africans and Europeans, much less between Asians and Europeans. IQ testing is pretty reliable. 

It makes no sense to imagine skin colour is the only difference. Of course it isn’t. Africans, Europeans, and Asians have mostly developed in isolation from one another, under different environmental and social conditions. It just makes biological sense that, like Darwin’s finches, like  the different dog breeds, like the famous moths of Northern England industrial towns, they would have evolved different abilities and temperaments in order to succeed and breed. Race is not a social construct.

We deny this because of a fatal atheist misunderstanding of the doctrine that “All men are created equal.” This does not mean equal in their abilities or their appearance or their character. This means equal in their moral worth in the eyes of God.

The quoted Albertan is also wrong to complain that heretofore, integration has been considered “completely optional” by the Canadian government.  It has been actively discouraged, with government-funded “multiculturalism” actively suppressing any shared culture. Integration is “white supremacy,” after all. It is colonialism. And for whites mutual assimilation is “cultural appropriation.” “Multiculturalism” is actually enshrined in the Canadian constitution: “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” And the Canadian constitution is harder to amend than the US constitution—probably for all practical purposes impossible to amend.

Given this, the breakup of Canada, or revolution, or a US takeover, actually seem like the only viable ways to prevent a downward spiral into Third World status. As has happened, after all, often enough to other nations in the past.

What Exactly Is the "Synodal Way"?

 Spoiler alert: It's postmodernism.

A Continentalist Manifesto

I have recently been teaching my students W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe. The novel reads like a long love letter to American culture, ideal for foreign students hoping to enter university in the US. 

But it is written by a Canadian.

At the same time, I see a reference to The Band as the originators back in the 1970s of a new musical genre, “Americana.” Their albums are a celebration of everything American: “Up on Cripple Creek.” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Yet four of the five, including their two chief songwriters, are from London, Ontario.

It is not just The Band or W.P. Kinsella, either. Neil Young, from Toronto via Winnipeg, is also deep Americana. Leonard Cohen has a love affair with American country music. The most hyper-patriotic American Youtubers and political commentators seem to be Canadian refugees: Gad Saad, Steven Crowder, Mark Steyn, Gavin MacInnis, David Freiberg (“Viva Frei”), David Frum, “Clyde Do Something,” Jordan Peterson. Joe Schuster created Superman, who fights for “truth, justice, and the American way.” Schuster was Canadian.

Which leads me to the obvious conclusion: within every Canadian, there is an American screaming to get out.

Most Canadians, to be sure, define their Canadianness by not being American. But that makes the point. It is a textbook case of denial. The only thing that makes us not American is the mere assertion that we are not. By any objective measure, we are the same people, the same culture, the same nation, founded on the same principles: the same language, leaving aside French Canada; a shared geography, a shared home; a shared history; a shared legal system, the English common law; a shared form of government, liberal representative democracy and federalism; a shared patrimony in the UK; exposure to virtually all the same influences in our childhoods, Dr. Seuss and Disney, Sesame Street and Pixar; a shared religion, Christianity, with more or less the same mix of Protestant denominations and Catholicism. We play and have always played the same sports, often across our shared border: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse. All have deep roots in both countries--sports often unfamiliar in the rest of the world. Even our standard accents, let alone our language, are indistinguishable to outsiders and usually to ourselves. It is rare to find a Canadian, if not a recent immigrant, without known relatives in the US.

For Canadians, therefore, to criticize America or American culture amounts to self-hate. It is a poison that enfeebles us. Without our Americanness, we have no culture; for we are Americans.

For those brave few who embrace our Americanness, like Kinsella or The Bend, it is visibly exciting, dizzying. You can witness the enthusiasm. It is at last meeting our true selves, discovering our heritage, spreading our wings, and breathing free.

The best thing for Canadians is probably joining the US. Even without the economic benefits—we pay a premium in higher prices and lost opportunities by keeping our independence. Even without the security benefits—with the rise of China, it is reckless not to join forces. And Canada is too vast and underpopulated to defend itself.

For political reasons, the US would not want a full union. That would skew their electoral map leftward; Republicans would never agree.

Kevin O’Leary has the solution. Keep our pretty passports. Canadians do not vote in the US, and the Americans do not vote here. So the Americans can keep their electoral balance, and we can keep our Medicare. But full freedom of movement over the border, like going state to state or province to province. No tariffs, and the right to live and work in either country. Our militaries should be fully integrated, and so should tariffs on anything coming from abroad. We should have the same currency. 

We would be richer, our quality of life would be better, and we would be happier.

 

Solving the Insoluble Problems of the Day

A problem solver

The world seems faced right now with several insoluble problems.

I do not believe in complaining about insoluble problems. So instead, I propose to offer solutions.

The first problem is fairly local: Canada is in alarming shape. While France, the UK, the US, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and the like seem to have insurgent movements poised to take power and perhaps pull them out of their current death spiral, Canada does not. The Liberal party remains in power, after a dozen years, and worse, remains strong in the polls. Pierre Poilievre is not that distinct an alternative, and is not getting traction in any case. Although he is a brilliant rhetorician,  he does not evoke in the electorate a feeling of confidence in his competence or his ability to turn things around. 

Who else is there on the radar who might be our Trump, LePen, or Farage? Maxime Bernier is the man who has claimed that mantle, and he has good credentials, but he lacks the necessary charisma. 

The other guy who comes to mind is Kevin O’Leary. Full of charisma, likeable, and a highly successful businessman. His problem is that he does not speak French, so he is a non-starter in Quebec.

Here’s a solution: form a joint leadership of the People’s Party, Bernier and O’Leary. Who, if elected, would be joint prime ministers. 

There is Canadian precedent for this. The Green Party has had joint leaders. Quebec solidaire has had joint leaders. Canada has historically had joint premiers in Macdonald-Cartier, Baldwin-LaFontaine, and other governments of the United Provinces period.

The second insoluble problem is population. The governments of the developed world have been caught between a rock and a hard place: population collapse will make government finances unsustainable. To prevent this, governments have been opening the doors to a flood of immigrants. But this mass immigration has instead actually further taxed government services, while disrupting social harmony. And after all, can you really save Italy by replacing all the Italians and the Italian culture? What have you saved?

But just take your busy fingers off the panic button. This crisis, I think, will solve itself, if we can convince governments to stop tinkering.

Shut the doors to more immigrants. Technology will in the near future increase healthy lifespan so that people will no longer need to retire at 60 or 65. AI and robotics can replace many human hands; less population will be needed to generate the same level of wealth. The robots will pay for our retirements.

The third insoluble problem is the war in Iran. Trump needed to go in; Iran could not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. But they have turned out to be immune to Trump’s tactics. He hoped to frighten them to a deal; but they are a suicide cult, and so will not surrender no matter how bad he makes their situation. Which is, of course, the very reason they could not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. Destroying the world wouldn’t bother them.

Nor can Trump consider a land invasion. The Iranian landscape and its large population makes that too costly. 

The solution is to get weapons to the Iranian people themselves, to allow them to overthrow the regime. What is needed is a large-scale smuggling operation. 

There; problems solved.

Spiritual, But Not Religious

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Nature and the Great God Pan

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Here's looking at you.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A True Story

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Yesterday--A Belated Review of the Film

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Why the Excommunication of the SSPX Is Invalid

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Cardinal Fernandez

Those God Does Not Love

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The Folly of Excommunicating the SSPX

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Religious Funny Business

 Heaven? It is to laugh!

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Citizen Vigilante

I was able last night to watch “Civilian Vigilante,” the film that is causing a stir on the Internet—thanks, Elon!

I found it alarming.

The film is not anti-immigrant. Some of the malefactors in the film are immigrants; some are not. Surely we have a right to point out that there is a growing problem of immigrant crime. 

Nor is this the first vigilante movie. We have many films in which the audience is expected to cheer on a vigilante. Batman is a vigilante.

That is actually a bit of the problem: the audience is pre-conditioned to be sympathetic to a vigilante figure.

And he has a cool composure reminiscent of James Bond. We want to cheer him on.

However, there is a huge difference.

This vigilante does not just fight criminals. He also fights the government. In the film, he probably kills more figures of authority than criminals.

And not some historic or fictional government. This is not Sherwood Forest under King John. This is some unspecified government in Europe today. With references to the US and Canada included.

And the film allows the vigilante to make his case, forcefully, that our governments have betrayed us.

The protagonist, played by Armie Hammer, also plays fast and loose with morality. He doesn’t just bypass the law; he lies to his victims to suit his ends. He is shown having sex with a hooker.

It is, in the end, a call to revolution. And not just a call to revolution against the government, but also against conventional morality.

This is fundamentally a Nazi position. That is where this is going.

The film, and the stir it is causing, shows the bond of consent between government and governed is badly frayed. Where do we go from here?

Revolutions rarely end well. Anarchy is the worst possible form of government. Nazism is the next worse.

There is a heavy onus on those in charge to restore trust, before matters get much worse. 

True Believers

Ew, Canada!

I recently recorded a radio show for Canada Day, on historic patriotic poems. One participant said he would have to bow out unless we allowed him to read poems critical of Canada. Pressed, he was not prepared to say that Canada itself was a good thing; he was content to live here because there was no war.

It seems to me that we have come to a dangerous point when we cannot all agree on the essential idea of Canada. What then do we have in common? How can we function as a society?

Islam and the woke, neoMarxist left pose a grave and increasing danger to our democracies; and it is really in both cases the same problem. These two organized groups have substituted politics for religion. They have made their politics their religion, or vice versa.

Religion is at its core the assertion of supposed ultimate truth. Seeking truth is admirable; it is what we are here for. In response to these perceived truths, you bind yourself to a set of rules. They govern your actions. But the common sense of the matter, in liberal democracies, is that you do not impose these rules on others: religion must be entirely voluntary.

When politics is your religion, or your religion is political, that no longer holds. Politics is the exercise of power over others. So this means imposing your religion on others.

Can this actually ever be avoided? Since religion is definitionally the assertion of a perceived ultimate truth, mustn’t what is ultimately true automatically be the basis of all decisions, including all political decisions? Our current concept of religious liberty and the separation of church and state may be an illusion: it has been apparently possible because our true religion, over the past few centuries, has become liberal democracy rather than Christianity.

Granted that this is so, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism have found themselves capable of continuing within this liberal framework. They are at their core, perhaps for different reasons, “mystical” faiths. They do not expect to achieve a paradise in this world, and so they are generally content to leave this world to its own devices.

Political matters can therefore be discussed politely, in liberal terms. 

But Islam and woke neoMarxism, because they involve a specific political agenda, are not reconcilable with liberal principles.

This happens whenever a creed emerges that believes that heaven, a state of perfection, can be achieved by specific human political action here on earth; what might be called “millenial” movements. It then becomes a matter of ultimate importance to impose those specific political measures as soon as possible, a whatever possible cost.

Nazism is an obvious example: it believed it was creating a new species, the “superman.”

Marxism similarly believes that by following its precepts, we can achieve an Edenic state where there is no restriction on our natural desires, and we can all do whatever we want.

Islamism believes that we have an obligation to bring the entire world under the laws of Islam, which come from God himself.

Wokery, apart from Marx, is influenced by the postmodern idea that we create our own reality. Therefore the task of life is to force everyone else to accept our own reality.

I similarly fear Christian movements that focus on the “end times” and the apocalypse; at least as something dependent on any political action.

How to deal with such groups is an existential problem for a liberal democracy: for they reject the principles on which a liberal democracy functions. 

Such movements can be tolerated so long as there is no chance of them coming into power and ending liberal democracy. But I fear we are past that point, and the danger is clear and present.

Immigration Causes and Effects

The tide is swiftly and surely turning in the developed world against mass immigration. That pendulum is swinging hard.

This puts Western governments in a pickle. 

In Canada, the government has so far only taken modest measures to reduce the flow of immigrants. And the population of Canada has already actually declined over the first quarter of this year. Enumerating for the census, I find many of the apartments I have been assigned unoccupied—despite our supposed housing shortage.

Without mass immigration, the population of the developed countries is going to shrink. We knew that—it was one of the arguments for mass immigration all along.

What might that mean? It had governments panicked. No new workers to cover pension obligations; labour shortages; a shrinking economy unable to cover massive government debts. Government borrowing has been a Ponzi scheme that may soon hit the wall.

Despite that, I am delighted to see popular opinion turn against mass immigration. If rioting in Belfast is needed to stop it, I say the rioting is justified. It was never an acceptable solution. You cannot preserve the Canadian nation, the British nation, or any other nation, by flooding in foreigners. A nation is more than a government. A nation is the people and their culture. A new population with a different culture or cultures is no longer the same nation.

Moreover, I do not believe the depopulation panic is justified. Governments tend to panic. We got into the crisis of depopulation through relentless government warnings of overpopulation—at its extreme, the Chinese “one child policy.” Our leaders are blind, and become leaders in large part because they crave power. They will always overreact and want to intervene in the course of events. 

Elon Musk and others with their fingers on the pulse of technology are predicting that medicine is on the cusp of conquering many diseases, and significantly lengthening the human lifespan. If so, no pension funding problem, no labour shortage, perhaps no population decline. No longer any upside to large-scale immigration.

We also have the rapid development of AI and robotics. Less need for human labour, and an exponential increase in productivity. Musk, Yang, et al warn we may have nothing for most people to do. Any population increase will only be a burden on the public purse.

All things considered, the worst choice bet on the future governments could make right now is to let in many new immigrants from very different cultures. 

Which is, of course, exactly what they have been doing.

What Liberalism Means

 

A Locke unpicked.

It is a scandal that most people today, and certainly most young people have no idea what liberalism is all about. Despite the fact that it is the philosophy on which the U.S.A. is founded. I think it is fair to say that it is also the philosophy on which the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand is founded. It is what unites us. Whereas most nations are united by ethnicity, we are historically united instead by our shared embrace of this philosophy. Accordingly, it is disastrous, almost traitorous, not to make it the core of our educational system.

Here is a quick primer for the uninformed. 

First, a list of some of its key figures, with a bit of a Canadian bias: John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Baldwin, Lord Acton, Wilfred Laurier, William Wilberforce, William Gladstone, Daniel O'Connell, John Stuart Mill, Martin Luther King Jr.. With a hat tip to such older thinkers as Thomas Aquinas, Ibn Khaldun, and the New Testament.

The most famous and succinct statement is in the American Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

This is Jefferson’s take on Locke; I think Locke’s formulation is better. I paraphrase:

“We hold these truths to be sacred and inviolable, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the possession of Property.”

Human equality and human rights are not self-evident—that is false in philosophical terms. Locke derives this from the Bible. It is an article of the Judeo-Christian faith. Forgetting this has had disastrous consequences, and may lead to worse in future. Nevertheless, it is God’s truth. Given that God loves us all as his children, we are all equal in moral worth, and due respect. Other religions and philosophies do not necessarily agree. Hinduism has the different castes emerging from different parts of Purusha’s body—the manual labourers from his feet. Shintoism has the emperor a direct descendant of the sun; an entirely different class of being from mere mortals. Roman Emperors were worshipped as gods. I’ve seen Mao Zedong worshipped as a god in temples in China.

And Jefferson wrongly swapped out “property” for the meaningless “pursuit of happiness.” Pursuit of happiness is included in the right to liberty; and it is a vain pursuit. “Property” means we have a moral right to the products of our labour. That is a critical right, often currently dishonoured.

Another crucial document is John Stuart Mill’s explanation of freedom of speech, in “On Liberty.” 

Other helpful quotes: 

Lord Acton: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

MLK: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The modern Marxist left seems to work against all of these principles. And it is the modern Marxist left that has seized control of our educational system.

The abolition of slavery, for example, was the great liberal project of the nineteenth century. The modern left ultimately endorses slavery, at least in principle, for they expand compulsion whenever possible. Historically, more completely articulated Marxism has led to the reimposition of slavery in states like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Kampuchea, or China today. 

The modern left also opposes human equality, giving special rights to one group over another. This has become mass genocide when pushed to its logical conclusion in places like Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, China, or Kampuchea. 

The modern left opposes freedom of speech, freedom of association, and even the right to life.

To be clear, if we lose our shared commitment to liberal values, the US collapses into civil war; as does Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. We are seeing this happen.

Controlled Opposition and the Left

 The general rule is, the further left you go, the more you are supporting the agenda of the ruling class: that is, the clerisy, the bureaucrats. Supposedly subversive movements like BLM, Idle No More, Me Too, No Kings, Occupy Wall Street, are really controlled opposition, often astroturfed by the clerisy itself, and always demanding more power for the state. They are not suppressed by the bureaucracy, but pretty openly supported by it, promoted in the press and allowed to run riot—and the rioters themselves are often public servants. 

Unions are another bit of illusory opposition to the status quo. Unions in the private sector are mostly hype and window dressing. They cannot do much. Push up the cost of labour, and the company just goes bankrupt because they can no longer compete. Unionize the entire industry, and the industry just moves abroad, to China or Vietnam or Mexico. And the ordinary labourer is screwed. It only works for the clerisy. Seventy-six percent of public sector workers are unionized in Canada. Only thirteen percent in the private sector are unionized. The clerisy, with their unions, make a show of negotiating with themselves for better conditions, more power, and higher wages at the expense of the general public. Because they run a monopoly, they can get pretty much whatever they want.

The left pretends to be for the little guy, but shows open contempt for those who work with their hands, the working poor. They call them “rednecks,” “hillbillies,” “clinging to their guns and religion,” “deplorables,” “an unacceptable fringe.” They mock them in characters like Archie Bunker.

And they work against their interests. Mass immigration is the program of the left. This is obviously against the interests of the working poor. More competition for jobs, driving wages down. Minimum wage laws are also directly against the interest of the poor, forcing them into welfare by denying them the right to work, and into permanent dependency on the clerisy.

The clerisy, the “experts,” the bureaucrats, are the scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees Jesus unambiguously condemns in the Bible.

The Real Ruling Class May Not be Whom You Think

Con artist, or just dumb?

Marx misidentified the ruling class. He claimed the bourgeois were in control, and before them the landed gentry. Neither were ever in charge. They were just the wealthy class. The ruling class, the class that governed, and had the highest social authority, was always the educated class—the clerisy. The aristocrats and the bourgeois were subject to the law; even the king, since Magna Carta. And while kings might sometimes issue edicts, for the most part, who made the laws and stood in judgement? The clerisy—that is, the lawyers and the judges and the bureaucrats. Even the aristocrats were under their control. The bureaucrats always run the government—any government. If anyone else has power, either in an aristocracy or a democracy or a monarchy, they act only as a partial check on the clerisy, who manage most things day by day.

In pre-revolutionary France, when Louis XVI was required to summon the Estates General—required by the law, which he too had to obey-- who was the First Estate? Who was acknowledged as the top of the social scale? Marx’s bourgeoisie was jumbled in with the peasants in the Third Estate. The landed aristocracy was the Second Estate. The First Estate was the clerics, the clerisy, the educated class. 

Do not assume this meant just priests in the modern sense. Anyone who graduated university, in those days, was ordained. Cleric = clergy, but also clerk. Most of them spent little of their time in church. They held all the desk jobs; they were the civil service. They were the ones who knew how to read and write, how to keep accounts, how the system worked. Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal Wolseley, Thomas More, Cardinal Cromwell, and so on down.

In India, with its rigid caste system, who was the highest caste? Same as in France. Not the bourgeoisie; they were Vaishyas, third rank, above the Sudras, who were the manual labourers. Not the aristocracy, the Kshatriyas. As in Europe, they were second class. Highest caste was the Brahmins, the priestly, the educated class. They ran everything, and had to be deferred to by everyone else.

In pre-revolutionary China, the aristocracy was barely a thing. They were usually looked down on as uneducated boors. It was the Mandarins who ran the show.

This educated clerisy is the same group that form the backbone of the “progressive” movement in North America, which emerged in the early 20th century—the core “progressive” idea was rule by “experts.” The clerisy formed the backbone of the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe—it was the universities and the civil service, promoting state power: meaning power to the bureaucracy. In Russia the clerisy formed the Bolsheviks, as a supposed “vanguard of the proletariat”: like Marx, mostly well-educated pencil pushers. 

The continuing program of the clerisy in modern times is to consolidate power, to suppress any rival authority. For power is their coinage; telling others what to do, controlling them, governing them. By contrast, the capitalists are mostly only interested in making money. 

Why the Media is Left-wing

Rich Capitalist

 A left-wing friend asked me recently how it was that the media could have a left-wing when they are owned by rich capitalists.

Here is a relatively systematic answer, concentrating on the Canadian situation:

1. The media are not usually owned by rich capitalists. In Canada, they are generally owned by government (CBC) or large publicly-traded corporations: Bell, Rogers, Corus, Postmedia. Ownership is diverse—do you own any mutual funds? Are you a rich capitalist? Lots of shots are called by government bureaucrats, on the one hand, and by hedge fund managers, on the other. These folks are all from the same class: the managerial-professional class or clerisy. The managerial class or clerisy is strongly left-wing; it always wants more management, which is to say, more government. More government means more money, more status, and more power for them. It is the same class that became the “vanguard of the proletariat” and ran everything in the old Soviet Union. In Canada, it is the base of the Liberals and NDP.

2. Rich capitalists, even when they do own or control a media outlet, are no more likely to be right wing than left wing. Bill Gates is left wing. Mark Zuckerberg aggressively supported the left wing with Facebook and his other social media holdings. Jack Dorsey aggressively supported the left wing when he ran Twitter. George Soros is far left. And so on. Self-interest commonly drives rich capitalists to the left, because the left calls for more government regulation, and more government regulation reduces competition. Government regulation is almost necessarily written in collusion with big business, so big business is on the left. If you are on top, you want lots of hoops and restrictions any start-up must jump through, to keep you on top: the rich get richer, and the poor can’t move up.

3. Some rich people, generally entrepreneurs who built their own businesses, are constitutionally right wing and resent government interference and control. But even when media are owned by rich capitalists, and the rich capitalists are themselves right-wing, rich capitalists are generally most interested in making money. That’s why they became rich. They are not likely to spend their time closely managing the details of their business. They hire people to do that, and let them do as they like with the politics so long as the business generates good profits. So even in this case, the editorial tone of the medium is likely to be set by the clerisy, the managerial class, the guys who graduate from journalism school, not the people who own shares. You pretty much cannot graduate from journalism school without at least pretending to be left wing.

4. Media generally depend for most of their revenue on advertising. And the single biggest advertiser in media is .... government. Next to that, of course, is publicly-traded corporations. Therefore, the bottom line in media, if they want to stay in business, is that they have to keep government and the bureaucratic clerisy happy—meaning a left-wing, pro-big government bias. And on top of this, we have in Canada massive direct government subsidies to approved media. 

Where to Source Immigrants

 

An American

There is much backlash now against mass immigration to the various countries of the developed West. The argument is that these large numbers of outsiders are not assimilating, nor augmenting, the resident culture, but introducing incompatible cultural differences.

The solution seems simple. The developed West is built on Judeo-Christian values and assumptions. What we now call “Western civilization” is simply what was previously called “Christendom.”

If we arguably need immigrants to keep the social services solvent, and to keep us economically competitive, there are ample sources available for Jewish and Christian immigrants who would, by this logic, fit in easily and become contributing Canadians, or Americans, or Englishmen, or Germans.

Perhaps most obviously, the Philippines. Although Filipinos have already come to Canada in large numbers, there are no Filipino ghettos. Filipinos assimilate readily, attend the local churches, and keep the laws. So too with Korean Christian immigrants. So too with Lebanese Christians. You do not see street riots, or demands for special treatment, or the changing of laws.

And note, importantly, that these groups are racially diverse, not “white.” Skin colour or race is not the issue. 

Another large group available: Central and South Americans—historically Christian, and interested in emigration for economic reasons. The US is concerned, legitimately, about illegal immigration, but, that said, Hispanics or Latinos do seem to assimilate within a couple of generations.

Regrettably, Christian immigrants from the Caribbean or from Africa do not seem as readily assimilable. But it is not because of race per se. It is because they tend to have a chip on their shoulder against “white” people due to the popular narrative about slavery, colonialism, and the struggle for racial equality in the US and South Africa. Their self-identity is deeply involved with the “African” group identity and with being alienated from “whites.” They import racism. 

So, if we must have large-scale immigration, it should be from historically Christian lands, or of historically Christian or Jewish minorities elsewhere. “Historically,” because otherwise it would be easy for desiring economic migrants to convert nominally to Christianity to gain entry.

All Somalis?

The public conversation is clearly shifting. Recently I heard Trump condemn Somalis in America without bothering to add the formerly obligatory “not all Somalis.” I hear increasingly of “black fatigue,” meaning people getting tired of the constant demands and hostile attitude of blacks. A reporter and author laments that nobody trusts the word of Canadian “First Nations” any longer. That is striking, since until recently the governing principle of public discourse, absurd as it was, was that no Indian could ever tell a lie.

Not long ago, you used to have to say you supported feminism. Now I hear men complaining about Karens, modern women in general, and feminism all over the Internet.

Of course, you still hear also from the Karens, oblivious to all this. You still hear claims of white genocide against First Nations, and demands for reparations for slavery and colonialism and for simply being male or white. 

But what has happened, I think, is that the inevitable openness of the Internet, in which everyone has a printing press and a broadcast studio, has finally burst the bonds of censorship. This of course after an obvious and desperate rear-guard effort to shut down all unauthorized opinions. But it has now failed.

People are suddenly allowed to speak their minds again. Now we are suddenly hearing both sides.

This of course necessarily means hearing some opinions with which we will strongly disagree; ideas that may upset us. But this is necessary in order to hold an honest, open dialogue. This is necessary to know where truth lies, and where public opinion lies. Much argument is the antidote to much violence.

It’s about to get wild, and creative things are going to happen. Much like they did when the old media censorship regimes were lifted in the Sixties. It is hard to create great art when you cannot express yourself freely.

Musk on Universities

McGill Campus

Elon Musk has recently spoken against the model of the university. He himself holds two bachelor’s degrees, but he points out the Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Larry Ellison are all dropouts.

Universities, Musk says, are geared to the average brain. Ever since the postwar years, it has been the stated ideal that everyone ought to have the opportunity to attend university. Governments promoted this idea: they were afraid of an unemployment crisis with all the soldiers returning from the war, and civil unrest as a result; for this had happened in the years after the First World War. So they passed the GI Bill—university for the masses. And the cachet of the college man was pushed relentlessly by popular culture through the 1950s.

This meant that ordinary folks without a great passion for scholarship started attending universities.

The universities could not fail more than a limited percentage of students. After all, they had paid their tuition. If most of your students fail, you go out of business. So the schools had to adjust the curriculum and the standards so that the average intellect could get through, without too much effort.

Among other things, this created teenagers starting in the 1950s. That is, a distinct culture of young people alienated from the mainstream culture. This was an inevitable result of holding them back from joining the adult world, starting a family, and assuming social responsibilities. They were all dressed up, with nowhere to go. By contrast, George Washington had a profession and was earning his living as a surveyor at age 16.

For the most intelligent, high school would already have been mind-numbingly boring: forced to do time-consuming yet meaningless dog work all day instead of reading great novels, designing software, or building a business. Now university had gone the same way, was just a continuation of high school, and they were kept in that same intellectual straightjacket for an additional four years or more.

Now that everyone was going to college, entry requirements for almost any job went up. After all, every job wanted to look like a “profession,” and therefore command higher wages.  Now you needed a four-year degree, with all the time and money that cost, to get a job as, say, a newspaper reporter or a graphic designer. Or two degrees to be a public school teacher or librarian.

This drove the very intelligent out of fields that might in the past have been their escape hatch. As a result of that, the objective quality of journalism, graphic design, teaching, and librarianship, went down.

Meantime, university tuition fees have been going up at exponential rates, especially in the US, as they spend more money on administration and less on teaching. This looks suicidal, as if they know in their hearts they are doomed, and want to soak up as much cash as they can before the gravy train ends.

The Internet and now AI should happily lance that bubble. As a practical matter, nobody needs to go to university anymore. All the information you need is on your smartphone, available when you need it. Were it not for international students, the North American colleges would already be dead. They remain relevant as a cultural experience for Asian students; now more or less a branch of the tourism industry.

I for one deeply mourn the passing of Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, McGill, Queen’s, Yonsei, the Sorbonne, and the like. They were once places of dreams—of my own dreams. But that dream really died a long time ago.

On Going Mad

 A useful how-to, available free on our SubStack feed.

Why We Shouldn't Defund the CBC

The CBC and APTN have been revealed to be trying to entrap and embarrass conservative voices for a supposed parody show. What alarms me is not the blatant partisanship in a public broadcaster so much as the revealed systematic attempt to destroy Canada. The program sought to discredit Sir John A. Macdonald, our founder. It falsely accused Canada of genocide. Perhaps worst of all, it mocked and derided the RCMP, a longstanding national symbol.

This shows actual hatred of Canada: it was hate speech targeting Canada and Canadians. Paid for by Canadian taxpayers without their consent. Nothing could be more precisely calculated to harm Canada and its foundational mission of “peace, order and good government” than to attack the RCMP. Nothing could be more calculated to make the life of the average Canadian less peaceful, less orderly, and less pleasant. Attack the founder? That is to attack his vision, his agenda, and that is Canada.

And falsely claiming a genocide against the indigenous people is fomenting extreme ethnic hatred and division, in a highly ethnically diverse nation.

It is not enough to defund the CBC. Given this malicious indoctrination for the last couple of generations, given a sparse, geographically dispersed population not naturally in close contact, given our rapidly increasing ethnic diversity and large number of unassimilated immigrants, we actually desperately need a national broadcaster: a national broadcaster that will foster and promote national identity and unity. Something the very reverse of the CBC.

How do we get there? 

Trump does seem to be turning the culture around in the USA. A lot has to do with sending a very clear message from the top. Fire those at the top, and most lower ranks will fall in line. They will go along to get along. Most likely, that is what they are doing now: it defies belief that the average CBC employee actually believes in and endorses the toxic narrative they are obliged to present. It is probably peer pressure below a certain level.

A new cabinet, a clear direction, and a few dramatic first moves should set the tone. Some things can be done almost at once, as Trump did in the US, to clearly send a message:

1. Order of Canada for Don Cherry.

2. Order of Canada for Ezra Levant.

3. Order of Canada for Chris Barber and Tamara Lich. 

4. Put these four on a board to oversee and vet content at the CBC.

5. Open a public inquiry into Chinese interference in Canadian elections, with full transparency and broad powers.

6. Pass a blanket “notwithstanding clause” applying to all future and previous federal legislation, to signal objection to judicial overreach—as Quebec did in 1982.

7. Place a moratorium on all immigration beyond net zero for the foreseeable future, to allow time for new arrivals to assimilate into Canadian culture.

8. Amend the Emergencies Act to insert penalties for any government that employs it illegitimately. 

9. Rescind approval for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

10. Repeal all “hate laws.” Reassert the Canadian right to freedom of expression, as in the US.

11. Declare DEI discrimination in hiring illegal, as it indeed is constitutionally.

12. End all government funding to special interest and political action groups.

That should help correct the course.