It's All about Me, Right?

 

were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a travel memoir titled Eat, Pray, Love, in which, following a divorce she initiated at 34, she travels to Italy for the food, then to India for the spiritual insight, then meets and marries a man in Bali. (They have since divorced.) It has been made into a movie, starring Julia Roberts.

It sounds to me like a parody of the rootlessness and frivolousness of modern life in the developed world, existential angst among the Karens. But Oprah Winfrey loved it. Friend Xerxes also takes it seriously, and cites as revelatory the author’s key insight: “God lives in me, AS me.”

One understands how this is something she might have picked up in India. “Tat tvam asi,” “That art thou”: “that” being Brahman, the undifferentiated Godhead. Brahman-Atman, a common formulation of Advaita Vedanta Hinduism; monism. “All is one.”

It is not clear to me, however, that it means what she thinks it means. It is dangerous to parachute into a foreign religious tradition with your own prior assumptions. You can get thing backwards.

It means that the individual self is insignificant and transitory, like a raindrop falling into the ocean of Brahman. Or like a momentary hand gesture of the dancing Siva, the glitter of a sequin on his thigh. I suspect Gilbert, her acolytes, and Xerxes are reading this instead in the Satanic way: “I am God, and there is no other God before me.” Fatally wrong.

Monism, Advaita Vedanta, is more popular with foreign spiritual tourists than with Indians. Buddhism objects to the “Brahman-Atman” formulation with its counter-doctrine of “anatman”: “there is no self.” Precisely because of the danger of misinterpretation. It is self that must die, not God. Others object that “All is one” is a meaningless statement: one compared to what? And then there is Ramakrishna’s succinct practical observation: “I want to taste sugar; I don’t want to BE sugar.”

Among actual Indians, Advaita Vedanta has been mostly supplanted for centuries by devotional Vaishnavism.

The issue is that one must “die to self.” “He must become greater; I must become less.” C.S. Lewis writes: “The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says we must be born again. That is one way to put it. But in order to be born again, we must first die in some sense. It is the death of the will.

Have Yourself a Nazi Little Christmas

 

¡No Pasarán!: Nazi Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism (no-pasaran.blogspot.com)

It's Christmas Night in Canada

 

It Being on Christmas Morning

 

A Christmas Message

 

The nicest Christmas card I received this year was from a Jewish friend. An animated ecard of Salisbury Cathedral, a children’s choir singing “O Holy Night.” 

This does not surprise me. In my experience, all religious acrimony is between the religious and the non-religious or the phony religious, never among the religious. The religious always share more than what separates them—I would say infinitely more, for it is the experience of the infinite. Among us, we know. In Saudi Arabia, I could anticipate any student or faculty member with a good beard would be a friend—as a devout Muslim. The clean-shaven were always more likely to be hostile towards me, as a Westerner and a Christian. My own Catholic faith has been deeply enriched, along the way, by Jews like Leonard Cohen and Martin Buber, Hindus like Ramakrishna or the Bhagavata Purana, Protestants like William Blake and William Lane Craig. I have far more in common with a devout Jew than a secular Christian.

Artists are the same. True artists recognize a fellowship far more significant than any political, philosophical, or aesthetic differences. They have all felt the thumb of God, to use Margaret Atwood’s image, pressing down on their head, and this makes them brothers and sisters. You don’t fight with family; Father would not be pleased.

I find ecumenism is therefore a good test against Pharisaism. If a Christian runs down Judaism, or vice versa, a Catholic Protestantism, or vice versa, a Buddhist Christianity, and so forth, you know they are not genuine about their own religion. They are just using it as a mask; wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Serious artists similarly do not run down aesthetic schools other than their own. Fans or critics may mock country music, or jazz, or bubblegum, or whatever. But serious musicians do not; music is music. We rock snobs used to condemn the Monkees as phonies; but not Jerry Garcia, say, or Frank Zappa. We used to condemn Tin Pan Alley; but not Robbie Robertson, Paul Simon, or Keith Richards. We used to condemn Lawrence Welk. But among his buddies were many great jazz musicians.

This is not indifferentism. All the great religions are essentially true, not equally true. Often apparent disagreement is only a matter of terminology or emphasis. Yet when it is real, one must be right and the others wrong. But that mistake is far less important than being a good Muslim, if Muslim, or a good Jew, if Jewish.

Similarly, not all artistic styles and forms are equally difficult or equally beautiful. Photography is a lesser calling than oil painting. Musicianship is a lesser art than composing. Hip hop is less sophisticated than jazz. But that is secondary to doing a fine job at whatever medium and genre you are working in.

Nor is a serious artist eager to condemn another for bad art, if their heart is in the right place. Any true artist also knows the inspiration comes not from them, but from elsewhere; there but for the grace of God… 

And the same for the religious. In the words of Goethe, “Man is doomed to err, so long as he is striving.” It is in the striving; it is where the heart is.

It's Time for the Show Stopper

 

Might Makes Wrong?

 

Nazi antisemitic poster, courtesy of Alamy

Some days ago, I suggested the recent Tory slippage in the Canadian polls had to do with the growing strength of Donald Trump in the US, allowing Trudeau to run against Trump instead of Poilievre. Now my sister has suggested another theory.

She suggests it is young people pulling away from Poilievre for his support of Israel. Trudeau has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as Hamas and the left-wing protesters demand.

Raising the next question: why are young people and the left, in Canada and in the US, on the side of Hamas, and against Israel, in this conflict?

I say it is because the left, and the educational system they control, have rejected the concept of morality, “conventional morality”. So there is nothing intrinsically wrong with a surprise terrorist attack, however violent; there is nothing wrong with sucker-punching a "fascist," after all. Or, intrinsically, in raping women, or beheading babies, or taking hostages. They see everything as about power. The only issue is that there must be “equity,” and no “power imbalances” or “income inequalities.” No “bullying,” bullying simply meaning, to them, the exercise or mere possession of superior force.

It follows that if it comes to a disagreement, anyone who is poor is in the right, and anyone who is rich is in the wrong. In violent confrontations, whoever is losing is in the right; whoever is winning must be in the wrong. It is a childish cartoon morality, simply the inversion of “might makes right.” It makes Hitler and Japan the innocent victims of World War II, and Bin Laden the victim of 9/11. And children always right if they disagree with their parents.

That last is perhaps a clue as to why it is appealing to the young.

This is why, to the left, police and prisons are the causes of crime: abolish both, and we could all live in peace. This is why, at a recent symposium, a University of Minnesota professor declared “the U.S. is the greatest predator empire that has ever existed.” This is simply and definitionally true from the fact that the US is the richest and most militarily powerful nation so far in history.

And this is why Israel is in the wrong: because they are winning against Hamas. More Palestinians are dying than Israelis. And Israelis are richer than Palestinians.

This is actually the Nazi ideology. Mussolini portrayed Italy as a “proletarian nation,” Hitler called Germany a “volkish nation,” and both played up on the idea that their nations had been exploited and bullied by the peace treaties that ended WWI. Hitler was able to turn popular wrath on the Jews because they were richer and better educated than the average German: they were supposedly the international cabal that ruled the world.

Indeed, because of their accomplishments, this doctrine of “equity,” of amoral power politics, is always going to produce antisemitism.

Sadly, because of the admirable human instinct to defend the weak against the strong, this fascist atheist doctrine is likely to appeal to an uneducated conscience, and so lead a naive or weak mind astray.

Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Theft

 

About Jill Biden’s Christmas tap dancers: I love tap dancing. These guys were pretty mediocre, and made up for lack of footwork by dramatics, flailing and props. Which is against the aesthetics of tap dancing, which is supposed to be elegant and understated, looking effortless. The actual taps also did not seem to correspond to the dancing: they seem to have been overdubbed, hiding any flaws in the actual dancing. But what really offended me was the website of the troupe, which made tap dancing out to be a uniquely “black” or “African American” art form.

This is what real cultural appropriation looks like: not just taking and imitating the best from another culture, which is simply how civilization progresses, but lifting something from someone else’s culture, then claiming it is yours without attribution.

It seems obvious to me that “tap dancing” is the American variant of Irish stepdancing, not much further from the original stem nor more unique than Ottawa Valley stepdancing, or Quebecois or Metis clog dance. Even in America, it is not especially identified with blacks. The Radio City Music Hall Rockettes have always don tap dance; Gene Kelly and James Cagney, both Irish-American, were among the greatest tap dancers; as were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

Yes, there have been great black tap dancers. But can anyone share a video of some traditional dance form in Africa that looks anything like tap dancing?

For purposes of comparison:

The Zaoli Dance from the Ivory Coast bears some resemblance to the footwork of tap or step dance---but it was invented in 1950. The influence probably came from Hollywood to Africa here, not the other way around. Interestingly, one of the dancers seems to perform in whiteface.

The Season's Upon Us

 

Love this music.

Christmas Music

 

The Limits of Multiculturalism

 

Statue of Hanuman under construction in Mississauga

A 55-foot high statue of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, is going up currently in Mississauga. Candice Malcolm, of True North, is disturbed by this, but apparently cannot articulate why. She says it is wrong thar this statue is being built at the same time that statues of Sir John A. Macdonald or Queen Victoria are being pulled down or covered up. But that is a non sequitur: putting up one statue does not imply pulling down others. She knows in her gut it is wrong, but not why.

It is one of several recent incidents that actually illustrate a fatal flaw in multiculturalism. Another is a current protest in France by Muslim parents, that threatens to become violent, over showing nude Renaissance paintings in art history classes.

The problem is that Hanuman is manifestly an idol. A statue of the Buddha, or Confucius, would not be a problem; that would only be, like Sir John A., a memorial to a great man. A statue of Krishna would not be; Krishna is conceptually an avatar of the one true God. But Hanuman—a humanoid form with a monkey’s head and tail, holding a mace—he is a separate, inhuman divine being. He looks like a golden calf.

Prohibition of idolatry, shirk, is the core and central tenet of the Abrahamic religions.

“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them.”

But, you might say, liberal principles demand freedom of worship. The Christian, Muslim or Jew must allow the Hindu to follow his own beliefs, and worship what he pleases, even in this very public manner.

Yet in Jewish, Muslim, or Christian law, this is beyond the limits of tolerance. The punishment for idolatry is death. 

“If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death…”

Polytheistic idol-worshippers, are most plainly the kafirs against whom good Muslims are to wage eternal jihad.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church writes “the duty to offer God authentic worship concerns man both as an individual and as a social being.”

If, in the Old Testament, Israel allows the worship of idols in its midst, a jealous God will visit destruction on the nation. This caused the fall of Israel to the Babylonians.

So there is a fundamental contradiction here: if one is to allow Jews, Christians, and Muslims freedom of religion and of conscience, one cannot allow Hindus full freedom of religion alongside them. 

It is all tolerable so long as they are in separate jurisdictions; but not in the same jurisdiction. Not both in the same city.

The French case of nudes in art is similar. Muslim parents are right, in Muslim terms, that showing naked women to their children is haram; it is not in Christianity. The Sistine Chapel, where popes are chosen, is adorned with naked images. Accordingly, if Christians and Muslims attend the same school, either the faith of the Muslim children must be contradicted, or the Christian children must be denied their cultural heritage.

The painting that caused the protests in France

Peace, freedom, and mutual respect may therefore require an end to mass immigration, and a renewed emphasis on assimilation to the existing culture whenever one does immigrate. If you choose to migrate to Canada, or France, you have chosen freely to live by established Judo-Christian as well as liberal-democratic principles.

Advent Music

 

The great Canadian  Christmas Carol.

Post-Democratic Colorado

 

The Colorado Supreme Court’s new ruling striking Donald Trump from the ballot in that state makes it essential, if it weren’t already, to vote for Donald Trump in 2024 to preserve American democracy. 

If those in charge can get away with this, it will then be possible for the governor of a state to throw election opponents off the ballot to ensure his indefinite re-election. And whichever party holds states with a majority of electoral votes can ensure they remain permanently in power at the federal level.

Democracy is fragile.

This seems to me to be an argument for the monarchy. With a monarchy, if nonsense like this is tried, the king can step in and say, “now, wait a minute…” Monarchy is designed so that he or she in ultimate charge has an interest in preserving the stability of the system—it is a family inheritance they will want to pass on to the next generation.

Republics seem to segue into dictatorships more easily than constitutional monarchies.

In the US case, it seems to me inevitable that the Colorado ruling will be overturned by the US Supreme Court. But we are just lucky the court currently does not have a left-leaning majority.

A Ukrainian Christmas

 

Imagine There's No Heaven

 

I discover it is impossible to talk about religion to a bot.

I tried it with a chat bot. It was okay on talking about techniques, like meditation techniques and self-help. But belief; there’s the problem. I asked the bot if she were a theist. She said she had no beliefs, but was happy to discuss any.

Turing test fail. There was no one there to talk to.

Is it having ontological beliefs that makes us human, that makes us persons? 

And is it the lack of any beliefs that makes an increasing number of us NPCs, people who seem robotic in their speech and behaviour? Hasn’t the number of NPCs multiplied as faith has declined?

Perhaps it is not that people believe in things like men becoming women, or foetuses not being alive. It is that they believe in nothing, so any “narrative” is as good as any other.

And they cling to their beliefs so defensively and robotically, wanting to shut all others down, not because they hold them strongly, but because their belief in them is so difficult to maintain, a feather might strike them down.

They have no soul.

The Latest on the Canadian Indian Genocide

 

A new book on the lack of evidence.

Song for a Winter's Night

 

Merry Christmas!

Progressive Schools

 

George Bernard Shaw went to a progressive "experimental" school in Dublin, and hated it.

 James Joyce went to a Jesuit school a few blocks away, and although he did not end up a faithful Catholic, always praised the classical education he got there.

Education is conservative by its nature. It is the process of passing on to each new generation the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors.

This is true through to graduate level. New Ph.D.’s and new faculty are judged by a panel of those already ensconced—a practice designed to ensure orthodoxy, and prevent innovation, comparable to and derived from the apostolic succession among the clergy. Lone must ensure the preservation of the deposit of faith.

Education establishments are designed to resist change. This is not a bug; it is a necessary feature. Change is often desirable; but the education system is not there to do it.

From whence does change come? From open communication among the very intelligent. The Internet is ideally suited for this. New art movements always arise outside the academies. Major philosophers have almost never been professors of philosophy; major poets never arise in English departments. Einstein was a patent clerk, not a physics prof; the current IT revolution began in garages. The Wright Brothers rn  bicycle shop.

Unfortunately, once science supplanted theology as our core faith, the education system went of the rails. Science is meant to experiment and innovate. Science has no core of knowledge, only eternal doubt and a technique to test beliefs.

We began, under the influence of science, to rely on the education system to experiment and innovate, instead of to educate; destroying the key mission.

This is one reason why the education system has stopped working. It often now literally has students sit in a group and decide for themselves what is real: “their truth,” “their lived experience.” Even if this makes sense, there is no reason to spend time in school. One already knows what one knows.

Having no remaining purpose, schools and universities have even taken it as their mission to destroy the civilization. Including trying to shut down free discussion so that innovation cannot take place.

Needs to be Said

 

The Trump Campaign in Canada

 

The Canadian Conservative party, while still leading handily, has fallen by ten points in recent polls. Why?

So far as I can figure, only one thing has changed: Donald Trump is up in the US polls. Justn Trudeau has started campaigning against Trump instead of Poilievre. His message now, incongruously enough, is that a vote for him is a way to protest Trump.

So why do Canadians react so viscerally, indeed irrationally, to Trump? Why is Trump such a bogeyman in Canada?

 Because Trump is boastful and rude. This is just not the way a Canadian ever behaves. It is not “nice.” 

Small-minded, I know. But that’s Canada.

Gaudate

 

It's Gaudate Sunday! My once-annual opportunity to drown the entire neighbourhood in the sounds of one of my favourite Christmas songs.

Christus est natus! Suck it up!

It's Hip to Be Sankofa

 

When Toronto, in the middle of tough economic times, decided they needed to spend at least 15 million to rename Dundas Street, for the ridiculous reason that Dundas, a leading Scottish abolitionist, did not demand abolition fast enough, I thought that was pretty stupid. But, as I blogged this at the time, after all Dundas had no particular connection to Canada, and we ought to doff the colonial attitude and choose Canadian names.

I suggested Dundas be renamed “Jubilee Street,” and Dundas Square “Jubilee Square.” Because, after all, it is a fitting name for a place of celebrations. And Canada was shockingly doing nothing else to commemorate Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, an unprecedented historic event.

Elizabeth not Canadian enough, you object? Au contraire, the entire historical raison d’etre for Canada’s existence is allegiance to the monarchy. She was Queen of Canada. 

I would certainly have settled for Macdonald Square. But guess whose statues are all being covered up by tarps or torn down.

Toronto has announced its new name for Dundas Square. It will be called “Sankofa Square.” After a word in the Akan language, spoken in some parts of Ghana, meaning reputedly, but improbably, “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.” Deeply meaningful to all, no doubt.

The Aka, incidentally, were major slave-traders.

If you were writing a parody of Toronto’s eternal provincialism, you could not do better. No Canadian nor local references, no. Once a colony, always a colony. God forbid Toronto should ever have any culture of its own.

Advent Music

 

Father Knows Best

 

A reading in a current textbook laments that fewer Britons than forty years ago want to become secondary school teachers. By a lot: college grads entertaining the thought of teaching has dropped from over 60% to 17%. I keep seeing ads in my feed urging qualified Canadian teachers to come teach in London or in Scotland. 

\The piece goes on to say that one common reason given is the impossibility of maintaining discipline in classes, compared to forty years ago. And I hear this same lament from my friends in the US. And in China.

So the next question has to be, what has changed, and changed in all these countries? Why are students more rebellious, less disciplined, than in the past? Or, how have these systems of education changed so that they can no longer effectively discipline?

My Chinese student, not bound by North American shibboleths, has an immediate insight: one reason is that so many teachers are now women.

“In the old days,” he explains, “students saw the teacher as a second father.”

And then I got it. There is an obvious and immediate difference in tone between calling someone a “second father” and a “second mother.” Seeing a teacher as a “second mother” is not going to help with discipline.

We must accept what we have been perversely denying for generations: the role of father and mother is different. The mother sees to your physical needs, that you are scrubbed and fed. The father sees to your spiritual needs, to your education, especially your education in values. To discipline.

This is not a role arbitrarily assigned by society. It is built in to the male and female soul, just as we plainly see females are physically designed to nurture the young. As little Maryanne once remarked, “Men are not mammals. They can’t feed their young with milk.”

Why would it not be? How could it not be? Maternal instinct is real. So is paternal instinct. And so are filial instincts.

Here’s an interesting example of the difference between the male and female mind: men are far better at reading maps and giving directions. This is the paternal and the teacherly role: reading the map and giving directions. Women, left to their own devices, get lost. They must ask directions of others.

I used to do this experiment with my classes; and the result was the same whatever culture or country I was in, or wherever the students came from. I would first ask all of the women in class to point north. They invariably had no idea. It was random. Then I would ask the men. Most of them could. 

QED. It is the same in spiritual matters. Men have a better sense of direction, and so are better guides.

So we are abandoning our children, denying them an education, if we give them female teachers in high school. We are letting them down with female teachers in grade school, for that matter. It stands to reason that, not getting any guidance at school, they become disenchanted with the enterprise. It also stands to reason that, not having any natural talent for the task, schools dominated by women go off the rails.

Come to think of it, this is a more serious problem than the schools. We have denied the value of fathers in the family as well, undercut their authority, encouraged family breakups, and left children rudderless. We have denied the value of men in society generally, and tried to dismantle “the patriarchy.” Not going to end well. We have, in recent decades, put women in leadership roles in all parts of society. Note the recent congressional hearing, in which the presidents of MIT, Harvard, and UPenn all spoke. And they were all women. And they had all so lost their way that they did not consider a call for genocide of a student’s entire race a case of bullying.

If women lack, at least in comparison to men, an internal compass and sense of direction and proportion, this is a sure prescription for causing all structures to begin to swerve unpredictably and wander off in odd directions.

And is that not what we have been seeing?

It is the wisdom of the ages. In the New Testament, Jesus’s ancestry is traced back through many generations to David. But this ancestry is traced back on both sides, through Mary and Joseph; even though Joseph is not Jesus’s biological father.

This is because the true inheritance on the father’s side is spiritual, not physical. The important line on the male side is the teachings and the values handed down from David; compare the apostolic succession.

Have you ever noticed, as I have, that when there is a mixed marriage, the children identify primarily with the father’s faith, and the father’s ethnicity? This is the actual distinction, in Canada, between Indian and Metis, and was enshrined in the Indian Act: father Indian, mother European, child Indian. Father European, mother Indian, child European. Or, only on the Prairies, because the father is ethnically and religiously distinct from the European majority, Metis. Metis culture is simply French-Canadian culture.

In mixed marriages when the father defers to the mother’s religion or ethnicity in the education of the children, as is often required in Catholic-Protestant marriages—the children simply grow up without a sound grounding in values or sense of their identity. 

We have been ignoring these male-female differences at our peril—or rather, to the peril of our children.

The Bottom of the Ticket

 

Jefferson's rather famous running mate

The latest US polls give Trump a lead nationally over Biden; and a bigger lead in electoral votes.

Picture how the world might look in two years, if we have Poilievre in 24 Sussex, and Trump in the White House. 

One concern is that Trump will necessarily be a one-term president. The VP pick matters more than usual; we need to think in terms of a reliable successor.

Some are saying Tucker Carlson. I don’t think so. Carlson is needed where he is, and there is no reason to suppose he has the managerial chops. And it would be a crime to silence him for four years, which is what the vice presidency requires.

Ron DeSantis would be ideal. And Trump is not one to bear a grudge. I would not be surprised, and would be delighted, if he were chosen.

Some say Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor. I think her resume is too thin for prime time.

Nikki Haley is impressive, but not compatible with Trump on foreign policy.

Some like Kari Lake’s charisma. But being a losing gubernatorial candidate is not enough to look credible in the Oval Office.

Tim Scott has the opposite problem. He looks credible, but lacks charisma.

Chris Christie would have been plausible, had he not made being anti-Trump his political persona.

Vivek Ramaswamy is too much like Trump to offer balance to the ticket—or needed expertise to the administration.

Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich would have been perfect—were it not for their age. We need somebody young to balance Trump’s chronological challenges.

Rand Paul or Ted Cruz are too ideologically distinctive to fit comfortably into the role.

Nobody takes Marco Rubio seriously anymore. Chris Christie took him out eight years ago.

John Kennedy would be great; but for his age.

Trey Gowdy would be great, but I fear he’s done with politics.

How about Ben Shapiro? He comes from outside of electoral politics, making him clean; but he is surely up on the issues. His remarkable success with the Daily Wire seems to prove his management ability. He is a brilliant debater, and being the president’s point man is a big part of the job. His level-headedness and religious commitment feels as though it would give Trump needed gravitas, a kind of anchor. In terms of electoral strategy, he might tip the Jewish voting block away from the Democrats and to the Republicans. And he could reassure religious voters generally.

While we’re on the subject of running mates, I think RFK Jr. should do everything he can to get Tulsi Gabbard to join his ticket. She too is an independent now; she too is anti-war. They seem to align well ideologically. And they seem to radiate the same sincerity.

Advent Music

 

The Real World of Colonialism

 

The Real World of Discrimination

 

A typical caricature of the "eternal Jew." Always thinking, God forbid.

The image of Harvard’s black female president refusing to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews—and yet, everyone expects, able to retain her job, despite revelations that she plagiarized parts of her doctoral thesis-- is a neat visual representation of an important truth. Although we falsely conflate them, discrimination against Jews and discrimination against blacks (or women) are fundamentally opposite phenomena.

One never or rarely hears of anyone ever calling for the extermination of blacks or women. If anyone did, the outcry against them would be monumental. If there are occasional claims that someone somewhere once did, if traced back, they turn out to be false claims. The same could be said for aboriginals. If anyone ever called for their extermination, they would be hated more than Simon Legree. (And nobody apparently ever said “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” That was a slander used against US General Sheridan precisely because it would destroy his reputation if believed.)

But one hears often of calls or sees actual attempts to wipe out Jews. Also, men, Irish, and East Asians. This is not just so in recent “woke” times, either. This is a historical constant.

Society as a whole readily sees fit to give blacks, or women, or aboriginals, special advantages: scholarships, affirmative action programs, easier sentencing in court, extra government benefits.

Society never considers giving Jews, men, Irish, or East Asians any such special advantages. The suggestion would be met with scorn or rage.

These two lists are not exhaustive; but "minority" groups always fall into one or the other decisively: the Jewish side, or the black side.

Antisemitism is fuelled by envy and malice: Jews are hated because they seem superior to the rest of us. So too, if to a lesser extent, men, East Asians, or the Irish. Discrimination “against” women, blacks, or indigenous people, in precise contrast, is almost always done out of good intentions, and is meant to be for their benefit. These groups are loved because they are looked down on as inferior. Nobody hates another for being less then they are; they hate for being better.

Not that this discrimination has ever been good for blacks or women or Indians. It is a deprivation of moral agency, and fosters passivity. People do not thrive as pets. But it also prompts them to complain the loudest about discrimination. Once one ha become accustomed to special treatment, one feels a deep injustice whenever it is not forthcoming. When, by contrast, one is accustomed to being discriminated against, one tends to learn to take it silently as one’s fate.

Opposite motives, opposite actions--and opposite results. The Jews manifestly do unusually well despite severe persecution; such as a widespread and systematic attempt to wipe every last one of them out within living memory. The Japanese have recovered from total defeat and Hiroshima within the same time period. The Irish have recovered from the holocaust of the Great Hunger a hundred and fifty years ago, civil war as recently as the 1990s, and are now the richest nation in Europe. Yet blacks are supposed to have never been able to recover from slavery a hundred and fifty years ago—a custodianship justified at the time as for their own benefit. Women cannot recover from a wolf whistle. And indigenous people have supposedly never recovered from the trauma of first contact.

We need to make the clear distinction between malicious persecution, and misguided charity.

Beautiful Losers

 

The poem “Invictus” is widely popular in Britain. Prince Harry took the title for his “Invictus Games.”

I find it Satanic. It expresses the attitude of the unrepentant narcissist. It is like the words that Milton puts in the mouth of Satan in Paradise Lost: “I would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

This is someone choosing to go to Hell.

I get a whiff of the same brimstone from Rudyard Kipling. I defend him from the usual charges, of being intellectually trite and of being racist. I don’t believe he is. But I cannot warm to “If,” reputedly the single most popular poem in the UK. This does not, to me, speak well of the British character:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

… If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

This is too proud. This is the triumph of the will.

Rather, we are to be as little children. Rather, true courage is to surrender our will to God. Rather, there is a crack in everything.

For that is how the light gets in.

The Notorious Sexual Predator Christmas Song

 

A New Hope

 

I am the eternal optimist. I keep expecting the pendulum to swing back to sense, as the world goes mad. As governments seem to act against the interests of their own people. As the churches empty, and we cannot even trust the Vatican anymore. As all the arts are moribund. As we can no longer trust the professions or to act honourably, or the media to tell the truth. As AI threatens to make us obsolete. As no one wants to have children or to raise them anymore. As our education system no longer passes on the culture. As civil society and the social contract, even our collective commitment to logic and reality break down. 

And yet… 

I do see growing signs of hope. The more so since the forces of disorder seem to have pushed matters too far. Camels’ backs cannot bear infinite weight.

The refusal of three university heads, of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn, a few days ago, to condemn calls for genocide, looks to me like an inflection point. First, this is a clear shift of the moral high ground away from academia and the left. They’re the Nazis, this makes plain, not the people they have been calling Nazis. Second, I see a demoralizing of the evil elite at the backlash; the presidents sounded rather condescending, looking down from their ivory tower. Now they will be hearing footsteps on the stairs. The UPenn president, at least, has no resigned. This in turn is a revelation to many on the sidelines that they have the collective power to resist. 

I think October 6, the barbarity of Hamas’s attack on Israel, and the loud support for it among Arab expatriate populations across the West, was an earlier inflection point. When Trump reminded us all that Arabs in New York celebrated on 9-11, people insisted he was lying. Now we see it again, and in numbers impossible to deny. There are differences between cultures beyond what they offer in their ethnic restaurants; there are deep-seated animosities and intolerances. Some cultural differences are important, and irreconcilable. This is a blow, in turn, for the leftist doctrine of multiculturalism.

Back in the 2019 election, I attended an all-candidates meeting in which the PPC candidate noted that one cause of the housing crisis was excessively high rates of immigration. And loud shouts demanded she be silenced and removed from the stage. But now, this observation is mainstream.

I remember when any non-left-wing views were simply never heard. We had only the mainstream media. Anyone who dissented thought they were alone. Then Rush Limbaugh appeared, and talk radio. Then Fox News. Now we have any number of sources on the Internet. Sure, big tech and government are trying to silence them, but they are fighting a growing deluge. We are now at the point of linking up into a distinct and well-rounded counterculture.

X in particular, has emerged under Musk as a pretty free speech platform. Breaking the illusion of any opposition being an “extremist minority.” Alex Jones has just been reinstated.

I expect X to suck all oxygen out of alternatives. Precisely because it allows more viewpoints, it will become the necessary forum for public discourse, the place everyone has to be. The media monopoly will be gone.

And the counterculture is broadening and deepening. Angel Studios and Daily Wire are constructing an alternative entertainment industry, and are getting traction.

The Bud Light boycott, another recent inflection point, is spreading to other traditional brands, now that the dissidents have realized their power. Corporations that get woke go broke. Every week now we seem to hear of another woke corporation taking an earnings hit. This will inevitably drain resources from the left over time.

There are also signs of religious revival: Pentecostal outbursts in Tennessee, proliferating eucharistic miracles. We have heard little from the “New Atheists” of late. Monotheism is in the intellectual ascendant; every week we seem to hear from another intellectual who has crossed the floor to faith. It no longer looks so cool to pseudo-intellectuals to be atheist. 

And, of course, some major woke governments have fallen, or are falling in the polls. Trudeau, Biden. A friend from New Zealand reports that their new government is well to the right. Argentina just went from Peronist to Libertarian. Italy elected “far right” Meloni, and Netherlands gave a plurality to “far right” Wilders. 

Someone recently suggested we are at an 1848 moment. 

I think it’s much bigger than that. Driven by technology, we are moving into a new phase of civilization. If things look calamitous for now, these may be birth pangs. No major chance comes easily, or without desperate resistance.

Dr Phil Has Had Enough

 

I think we may have witnessed another tipping point.

Come Again

 

The Pool at Bethesda

 

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

A dramatization of this passage from John came up in an episode of “The Chosen” I viewed recently.

Something stands out that tells us this is a parable.

Jesus asks, “Do you want to get well?”

In the literal world, this question makes no sense. Of course anyone ill or lame wants to get well. Anyone coming to the Pool of Bethesda comes in an attempt to get well.

This anomaly tells us the man’s lameless is symbolic; an objective correlative of a spiritual condition, which cannot be otherwise represented.

And his physical paralysis is an apt representation of spiritual paralysis, of dispiritedness, which primitive tribes in Africa call loss of soul,” and the modern psychologists call “depression.” How often is depression experienced as “not being able to get out of bed?” 

The parable diagnoses the immediate cause: the victim is caught in a bind, a Catch-22. He is lame because he cannot make it into the Pool of Bethesda when the water is stirring. He cannot make it to the Pool of Bethesda when the water is stirring because he is lame. And he has been trapped in this bind for 38 years.

Such binds are always the cause of depression. They tend to arise, as in the book Catch-22, due to some oppressive or malicious authority, in order to exert a more perfect control. This too is implied clearly enough in the passage; in the absurd accusation by the “Jewish leaders” that the man is committing a sin by being healed on the Sabbath. He is morally required, they insist, to keep lying there. By implication, their demands are the real, ultimate source of his spiritual paralysis. They are keeping him from the “living waters” of true spirit.

This paralysis is a paralysis of the will. Their will is paralysing his will. This is why Jesus’s question is important: does the man want to get well?

The answer might well be no—for he is trapped where he is by guilt, if a false sense of guilt imposed by impossible demands. Most of the depressed are depressed to punish themselves for imagined crimes. And therefore he deserves to be lame, and does not deserve to be healed. And so he fears being healed.

Is the man is cured by Jesus and by faith in Jesus? So it would seem, and so one might say the solution is faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But that is too simple; that does not really fit the parable. The parable makes clear that, until some time after he is cured, he has no idea who Jesus is. This is just some random guy telling him to get up and walk. Why should he put his faith in some random guy? Is this wise, or admirable?

But making the attempt is an assertion of the will.

But why does he now have that courage?

He is apparently primed for this simply by describing his situation at the pool clearly. By formulating and thereby seeing things as they really are. Doing so presumably makes the absurdity of his situation apparent to himself: he is lame because he is lame because he is lame. All such double-binds are necessarily, by definition, illogical. It follows that, by looking at it closely, the illogic should be revealed, and the problem evaporate. “And the truth shall set you free.”

This all sounds simple; but it is immensely difficult emotionally. One has been groomed to be wracked with guilt. That is how the malicious exert control. Therefore one is terrified to look at one’s own situation too closely, for fear that one’s supposed guilt be fully revealed, and one is sure that it is horrible. One must be prepared, in effect, to throw oneself on the mercy of God, expecting the worst possible consequences. 

Which is what this man does, by speaking frankly to a stranger; apparently trying to explain why he deserves his own lameness. He does not answer, “yes, I want to be healed.” He seems instead to try to explain why he is lame. That breaks the spell. He sees it is nonsense. It is not his fault. Then, immediately challenged again by the oppressive authority about breaking the Sabbath, he is now able to appeal to a higher authority. He lets Jesus, whom he now identifies, take responsibility. Which is as much as to say, objective morality and logic. Jesus is the Logos.

This is why the parable ends with Jesus telling the paralytic not to sin. Not that he was necessarily a great sinner before; we are all sinners. But keeping a commitment to the straight and moral path, to truth and the good, inoculates one from being endlessly left bleeding in ditches. Guilt is the weapon the malicious use to control. The devil can use any sin against you.

Now get up and walk.

The Case for Ghosts

 

An interesting thought piece.

Canticle of the Turning

 

Muslim Immigration

 

I am loath to say anything against Islam. Any religion is better than no religion, and any of the ethical monotheisms is infinitely better than no religion. Living in Saudi Arabia, I felt I had far more in common and could be more relaxed with devout Muslims there than with secularists in Canada. Despite the fact that attending a Catholic mass was illegal.

However, many people are belatedly beginning to realize that Muslim immigration is a problem for Western democracies. We have seen and heard the demands for Jewish genocide. We have seen the unpredictable stabbing and bombing sprees. We have seen the grooming gangs and rapes. 

Muslims do not assimilate politically, and liberal democracy does not assimilate Islam. There is a reason why there are no functioning democracies in the Middle East.

To start with, Islam is opposed to the separation of church and state. The state executed Christianity’s founder, who said “render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” Judaism, has the tradition of the prophets, who lived alone in the desert and railed against the inequities of the state. But in Islam, the prophet, the original religious authority, was also the secular authority: Muhammed was an emperor. No separation. This means there is no leeway for religious experimentation among citizens. In a Muslim state, any non-Muslim is an alien. Conversely, any Muslim living in a non-Muslim state must see himself as eternally alien, never assimilated, until and unless he can seize political control and institute shariah law.

This is a problem for non-Muslim neighbours, and for any liberal-democratic regime. Note that elsewhere in the world, wherever there is a Muslim majority, they will demand separation and Muslim government.

Any Muslim who remains nominally Muslim yet does not fight for this is a bad Muslim; irreligious and unprincipled. Not the sort of citizen you want either.

If Islam comes to power in any jurisdiction, democracy is also no longer desirable. The state is supposed to be a theocracy, not a democracy. Democracy is blasphemy.

Islam also does not believe in human equality or the right to life in the way Christianity does. Christians believe God loves all of us, even sinners. Islam believes he hates unbelievers, who have rejected his sovereignty. He has issued a commandment to all true believers to kill them. So, no right to life, let alone equal status, for kaffirs.

This is not “Islamism” or “Muslim extremism.” This is Islam, properly understood. It is perfectly reasonable, given the starting premises. God is God. We do not see if it we are raised in a Judeo-Christian culture.

Islam of course does not believe in freedom of religion or freedom of conscience. There is no distinction between individual morality and the law. Why would there be? “If the government is not there to enforce morality,” asked a Muslim friend once, “Why is it there?” So of course, Islam demands such things as laws against homosexuality, laws against adultery, laws against fornication, laws requiring modest dress, laws requiring religious observances, and the like. One is certainly not permitted to choose some different religion: converting away from Islam is punishable by death, since it involves a wilful rejection of God’s sovereignty. 

All this is obviously a problem in a liberal society.

Since Constantine, Western nations have been held together as civil societies by their shared Christian values. As in a couple, so long as fundamental values are shared, and can be appealed to, disagreements can generally be worked out. This used to be universally understood. 

Unfortunately, with the Reformation, this civil consensus was shattered in Europe, and much conflict ensued. This was then resolved by the rise, toward the end of the 18th century, of the “Enlightenment” doctrines of liberalism. This has worked well enough for the West since. There is a reason why the civil monuments in Washington D.C. look reminiscent of pagan temples. 

But it has always been naïve to think that liberalism could be compatible with all religious beliefs. It is reasonably compatible with Hinduism, Buddhism, or Confucianism, all of which recognize a separation of church and state. It is not compatible with Shintoism. It is not compatible with paganism, which resurfaced in Germany as Nazism, more recently in France and America as postmodernism; it is not compatible with atheistic Marxism; and it is not compatible with Islam.

 Now all the major Western nations have let in large numbers of Muslim immigrants. Our leaders have gotten us into this problem out of their own sheer ignorance of religion and of Islam.

But then, Marxists and postmodernists are at least as big a problem.

Kids Need Consistent Guidance

 

I'd say the real issue is less "conservative" parents than religious parents, parents who teach clear values.

No Comment

 

It's Continuing

 

An Appeal to Heaven

 

Mad Maduro

 

I predict that nothing will come of the current Venezuelan threat to annex most of Guyana.

Of course, the reason they suddenly want to do so is that a large reserve of oil has been discovered off the Guyanese coast. 

How large? At least 11 billion barrels, putting it in the top twenty producers worldwide, with the second largest reserves per capita, after Kuwait. And there may be more.

I doubt, busy as it is elsewhere, the US will let Venezuela swoop in and take that oil, any more than they let Saddam’s Iraq grab Kuwait’s oil back in the 90s. The geopolitical stakes are too high. If the US is overextended, Britain or Canada, plus the Caribbean nations, as fellow members of the Commonwealth, might, at American urging, take up the cause, or join a “coalition of the willing.” The more so since Guyana is an English -speaking democracy, and Venezuela a failing dictatorship.

Or Brazil might. The Guyanese region actually has no roads connecting it to Venezuela. The only road runs through Brazil. In order to attack Guyana in any force, Venezuela will actually first need to invade Brazil. Brazil is not likely to be too keen on that, and they are much bigger and wealthier than Venezuela. Rather, a Venezuelan incursion into Brazil would give Brazil an excuse to go in and take Venezuela itself, with its own oil, while America approved.

Brazil has already sent a contingent, if a small contingent, of troops to the border. Ensuring at least that it will come to blows.

Might the Venezuelans try instead a landing from the sea? 

Perfect. Plays into the American or British strength: sea and air power.

Presumably this is all for Venezuelan domestic consumption, an attempt to rally the people behind the government by whipping up a foreign enemy. It is the sign of a government in desperation.

If Maduro is desperate and reckless enough to go through with it, I expect the result to be similar to what happened when the Argentine government tried the same trick over the Falkland Islands, or the Greek government over Cyprus. The main result will be the collapse of the Maduro regime.

Let’s hope nobody gets killed along the way.

Advent Music

 

Calling for the Genocide of Jews

 

I’ve been saying for years that we are sleepwalking into everything about Weimar Germany that ended with the rise of Hitler. The parallels are getting faster and more furious. We are now at the point of public calls for Jewish genocide.

It begins with the rejection of conventional ethics. Weimar Germany, endorsing Nietzsche’s scorn for “slave morality,” was a place where anything goes, or went, at first, and most appealingly to the average German, in sexual affairs. But the wall between right and wrong was broken down, and so one could just as properly, in principle, murder and steal. And the greatest danger was not the couple in the bar, but those with great power—the bureaucracy, the industrialists the government. Once the invisible restraints of morality are gone, they can use their power entirely for their own self-interest.

All that mattered was the triumph of the will.

And we see this again in our day. We rejected conventional morality again in the 1960s, first, and most appealingly, in sexual affairs. “Free love.”

And now morality has broken down in the halls of power. Governments and industrialists are colluding to run their Lolita islands, to silence dissent, to manipulate the news, to throw people in prison for protesting, to apply the law unfairly to help friends and punish enemies, to give and to accept bribes, and so forth. In Weimar Germany, Spartacist were prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and even extrajudicially assassinated, while Nazis and stormtroopers committing similar crimes were let off with perhaps a slap on the arm raised in salute. We see the same bias now: BLM or Antifa do what they please, while Proud Boys or the January rioters are thrown in prison on petty grounds.

Those in power again feel free to use that power as they see fit to advance their own interests.

The proliferation of “gay pride” rainbow flags is even eerily similar to the proliferation of swastika flags in the last days of the Weimar Republic. Both represent a political ideology; and the same political ideology, the triumph of the will of the collective, the group, over morality and ontology.

And it inevitably comes to antisemitism. First, because Jews represent symbolically the moral law. They introduced ethical monotheism to the world. Second, because once morality is abolished, Jews provoke the sin of envy. They are too successful, just too good at everything. 

Say Biden is Hindenberg, or perhaps Petain. If he is re-elected, some faceless bureaucrat is likely to emerge below him, someone heretofore utterly unobtrusive and unremarkable, as Hitler originally was, or Stalin, or Putin.

If, on the other hand, Trump is elected, is he, perhaps, a Churchill? He is similarly hated by those in power

Wherever Two or More of You Are Gathered in My Name

 

Friend Xerxes wonders why Jesus had only twelve apostles.

The Buddha had ten.

Timothy Leary, at s lecture I attended, claimed that all social changes are accomplished by small groups who all know one another.

One thinks of the Beats: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Cassidy, Burroughs, Snider. Or the little group of folksingers in Greenwich Village circa 1960. Or the Inklings. Or the group of friends who, along with me, built the Editors’ Association of Canada.

It must always work this way, because in a larger group, the ways of the world begin to take precedence. The germ of any true vision is not enough to sustain so many when the idea is clearly counter to the larger consensus. For the larger consensus will always be hostile to any such destabilizing insight.

This is why it is important that scripture is almost always misquoted as “wherever two or more of you are gathered in my name, there am I with them.”

This misquote implies that Jesus is not with you when alone in prayer, and leaves you when you stand against the group, or your society. Making Oskar Schindler, Nelson Mandela, or Jesus himself, the bad guys.

The actual line, from Matthew, is

“For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

If the individual alone is thus excluded, so is the Catholic mass.

The passage refers to this phenomenon, that only a small group can stand against the world. An individual will be crushed; a larger group will be assimilated.

Which, incidentally, is why attendance at mass is not enough. The church is there to administer the sacraments, but everyone needs a prayer group.

Waiting

 

Billy

 

I have been binging on the British series “Call the Midwife.” A recent episode was about a Mongoloid man whose mother suddenly dies. Having always been taken care of, he is unable to look after himself. He is therefore taken in temporarily by the caretaker of the nearby convent, and his shopkeeper wife, until a permanent placement can be found. 

After a few weeks, they begin to love having him around, and now do not want to let him go. 

This sounds heartwarming, doesn’t it?

But the series is wise. This would not be happily ever after. He would only be trapped in childhood and dependency for longer. The young man himself points out that, living with this elderly couple, he has no friends. 

So they, more generously, consent to send him off to an institution, where he can socialize with other retarded adults.

This hit close to where I live, because my own family was faced long ago with a similar issue, and made the wrong choice.

My Uncle Billy was born retarded, reputedly due to brain damage at birth. And my grandparents would not hear of sending him off to some institution. No, he was going to be raised at home, not shut away somewhere.

It seemed no doubt like kindness, but it was cruel and selfish. He lived his life as a family pet. All his life, Billy never had any friends, never held down a job and made his own money, never met a girl, never learned how to act around people. And, not coincidentally, he developed a difficult, sour disposition. He was an angry man. As well as seeking troublesome sexual outlets.

I have known other mentally retarded people who led good lives; who went to work every day, if at a “sheltered workshop.” They managed their own affairs, with some supervision; even married and set up household. 

They had human dignity; the dignity God allowed us by giving us free will. We are not meant to be pets, and we are not happy in a cage. Even if it looks like a garden.

Billy had none of that. He was denied a life.

It is wrong to try to possess other people. It is if anything more wrong when you mask this as caring.

A Canadian Advent Carol

 

To Have and Have Not

 

Blue = core, red = periphery

I discover my kids’ world geography text teaches Marxism; but in a way subtle enough many parents might not realize. So, as a public service, I outline the problem here.

The text divides the world into “core” and “periphery.” These are all the same countries we used to call “developed” and “underdeveloped” or “developing.” Except, of course, that there are more developed countries now than there used to be.

The text asserts that “core areas pull in people, skills, and wealth from the periphery”: and that “the core depends on the periphery for food and raw materials.”

This sounds as though the core is exploiting the periphery, just as, in Marxist theory, the proletarians are exploited by the rich capitalists. Strictly speaking, this is Fascism; assigning class to race and nation. Mussolini identified Italy as a “proletarian nation,” and Hitler identified rich capitalists with Jews.

And this is what your kids learned today in school.

The essential premise, for Marxism and for Fascism, is that wealth is acquired by stealing it from others. This premise is false; and it leads to violence.

Begin with the claim that the developed world depends on the periphery for food. Before the “green revolution” of the 1980s, famine was widespread in the underdeveloped world. They were not exporting food; they were importing it from the developed world. Today, the world’s largest food exporter is the USA. Then Netherlands, Germany, France, Canada; none of the top ten are countries the text identifies as “periphery.” The poorer countries are still hard pressed to feed themselves.

As for raw materials, the trade does not seem one-sided. Broadly, raw materials are randomly distributed around the globe. Canada, the US, and Australia are notably rich in minerals, timber, oil. No doubt the core needs some raw materials from the periphery, just as the periphery needs some raw materials from the core. Each country sells what it can, for the price it can get. To claim that this is exploitative is like saying a customer is exploiting a store by shopping there. Rather, trade makes either richer.

It is true that the developed world draws people and skills from the periphery. But this too is liable to make their home countries richer, not poorer. These emigres may stay and settle in the new land. But they will still be inclined to send some money home, and to invest at home some capital they make abroad. Remittances from “Overseas Workers” make up, for example, one fifth of the Philippine economy. Moreover,  being or having ties to emigres from another country, over the longer term,  gives the rich country reason to invest there. When Japan became prosperous, their prosperity spread next to South Korea and Taiwan, places that used to belong to Japan, and then to Thailand, their former ally. Were else would they feel more comfortable opening a branch plant? When Britain became prosperous, their prosperity spread to Canada, the US, Australia. Taiwanese prosperity naturally spread to China.

Rich countries do not plunder wealth from the poor countries. Rather, poor countries gain wealth from the rich. Just as, if your near neighbour becomes rich, you do not become poorer; your opportunities to make money increase, by selling him goods and services.

So why is it then that some countries are rich, and others poor?

It is not strategic location. Singapore, the text suggests, is rich  because of its strategic location on a major trade route, the Straits of Malacca. But Yemen and Somalia are just as strategically located, as the Red Sea empties into the Arabian Sea: this is the same trade route from Europe to East Asia, at similar choke point. And they are as poor as any place on Earth.

It is not happening to have rich natural resources. Yes, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Qatar do well from gas and oil. But Venezuela or Libya have comparable amounts of oil, and are starving.

Having ties with another country that is already rich certainly helps—an argument, actually, for colonialism. But the key is social stability and good social order. In order to invest either money or energy, you need to be confident your property is secure, and you are not going to be robbed or punished for doing well. If you can trust your neighbour to do as he says, to keep a bargain, this reduces friction in every transaction. 

Bad, corrupt, or unstable government can hinder this. So, more seriously, can a breakdown in shared social values. Things become expensive when you cannot trust anyone.

Observe the unusually high levels of public order and public trust in England, where the Industrial Revolution began. Observe the good social order in such successful economies as Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands. Things work as they should in such lands, with a minimum of fuss. The wheels are greased.

Unfortunately, the West is increasingly seeing bad government, a breakdown in shared values, and a decline in community trust.

And this seems actually encouraged and promoted by elites. Who now scorn such “white values” or “patriarchy” in favour of “multiculturalism” and libertinism masquerading as liberalism.

Welcome to Advent Season

 

On Responsible Henhouse Management

 

Why is the government of Canada, the USA, and the Catholic Church now so historically awful?

It is simple. We have the foxes in charge of the henhouse. 

Trudeau dislikes Canada; he says there is no Canadian mainstream. It’s all just a romper room to him. Not admirable, like China.

Biden and his backers consider “Make America Great Again” an objectionable sentiment. They’re explicitly not on the side of America.

And would anyone who loves Catholicism and its traditions want to prohibit its central ritual for centuries, the Latin mass? A recent commentator insists that the modernists are well-intentioned, and think they are saving the church. I do not believe it. You do not increase your appeal by denying some option.

Of course these people are going to do what they can to trash the place while they have the chance. 

One might ask, would a moral person seek and accept a position running an institution they despise? Isn’t this deceitful? 

But we needn’t assume these are moral people. It would still be a good career move.

We can’t do much about Francis, but as voters, it was also unwise to put someone who condemns “populism” in charge of a democracy.

I hope there is still enough love for Canada, for America, and for God Incarnate, among ordinary people, those of the Beatitudes, that we can outlast this, outvote this, and salvage it all.

Get "Playing the Indian Card" at a Bargain Price

 

I’m excited to announce my book, Playing the Indian Card, will be promoted on @Smashwords as part of their End of Year Sale starting on December 15th! Be sure to follow me for more updates and links to the promotion for my books and many more! #SmashwordsEoYSale

Playing the Indian Card (smashwords.com)

The Lessons of Fairyland

 

One of the most alarming trends in modern culture is the suppression of fairy tales and fables. 

These are critically important. Along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Bible and the catechism, they are entirely what a proper general education consists of. Fairy tales and fables exist to teach each new generation the vital lessons they need for life. 

And most kids today don’t know them—not the real stories.

Disney has played a role in this—the original Disney. He took the traditional stories and always altered the message to “finding a sex partner is the key to happiness.” Which was never in the original stories, with their spiritual concerns. How much of the sexual “revolution” that began in the 1950s was due to this? For example, in the original Sleeping Beauty, when the prince awakens her with a kiss, the plot is still only half unravelled. Her greatest troubles lie ahead, at the hands of a cannibalistic mother-in-law. The real Snow White is not awakened by a kiss—she is only seven years old--but when her corpse is dropped in transit. Nor is any frog turned into a prince by being kissed—he transforms when thrown against the wall in disgust.

One sees the trend.

But once the tales had been so trivialized, it got worse. Largely at the hands of the latter Disney Corp, but also thanks to feminists and pomos generally. 

The new trend is not just to ignore or suppress the moral lessons, but to invert them; along with the warnings of dangers to a child’s well-being.  One is now to trust wolves and witches and ogres, who are all noble, well-meaning, oppressed and discriminated against. A good way to usher young people into witches’ ovens and ogres’ cooking pots and the wolves’ dark interiors.

It all seems part of a larger holocaust of the young, which is a general narcissistic tendency. Narcissists hate children, over the thought that one day their children will survive them. 

And our society as a whole has been turning narcissistic, immoral and selfish.

Speak Free or Die

 

I am not allowed to say this person's sex or name.

I hear that, like the box office failure of a string of recent Hollywood movies, recent “woke” books have failed to earn back their advances. One is “Elliot” Page’s autobiographical account of a female-to-male transition, a $3 million advance. Another, a “queer feminist western,” got a $500,000 advance and sold 3,500 copies.

Meanwhile, white male authors say they cannot get published.

It is possible to see firms like Disney or Anheuser-Busch deciding to take a loss to push politics. One imagines they have a financial cushion. It is harder to explain this in book publishing. Book publishing runs on tight margins, and publishers often go bankrupt. They need to be more careful.

I imagine something else is going on. The editors genuinely thought that the market craved these books. Perhaps, then, this is also the truth for Disney and the others.

Anyone who has been to university these days has been thoroughly indoctrinated in woke ideology. No other views are heard in class; or permitted. To be smart and educated is simply to accept these dogmas. It is easy to graduate imagining that everybody thinks this way, or should think this way, and only needs to be introduced to these ideas to accept their self-evident rightness.

Then, as all other views are unacceptable, they are suppressed if heard. In the classroom, in the media, in business, on the internet. Anyone who expresses them risks losing their livelihood. Some, even most, might privately doubt or disagree, but nobody dares say so. Safer to join in suppressing them so one is not suspected of holding them oneself.

The woke no longer hear any dissent; other than perhaps some “far-right” fringe. It is easy for them to imagine that they represent the vast majority. Silence, after all, implies consent. And so they push on.

But this no longer works when it gets down to individual discretionary spending. Even if you control the airwaves, the publishers, the internet, all the breweries, all the media of distribution, people can simply not buy something they do not need: a beer, or a movie ticket, or a book. They can stop attending church.

It’s not a boycott. It’s just their true preference. Nor are they easily swayed on these matters by lecturing them on their supposed social responsibility—an appeal that might work at the ballot box. One seeks here simple enjoyment, and the thing is fun, or it is not worth the money.

And so, get woke, go broke.

This is an argument against suppressing free speech. Over the longer term, it harms even those in power. Soon they are no longer getting reliable information, are operating in the dark, and will blunder off a cliff.