On Kindness

 

Friend Xerxes the sinister-listing columnist expresses his faith in human nature in a recent column:

“ I am convinced that all of us – allowing for occasional exceptions – would like to be kind to each other. Almost everyone, confronted face to face with another’s suffering, wants to help.”

I must disagree. We were reminded this is not true in recent enough history: the Holocaust. Yes, a few people helped Jews. But don’t kid yourself—a very few. Most did not, including our own Mackenzie King government at the time, which refused Jewish refugees. Virtually everyone refused Jewish refugees, sealing their fate. Can’t just blame the Germans.

Nor was the crowd eager to help Jesus when he stood before Pilate. Even though they knew he was innocent of the charges.

Consider the parable of the Good Samaritan. The anonymous traveller is encountered by four people, or groups of people: first the robbers who beat him and leave him for dead in a ditch. Then the priest and the Levite, who walk by without helping. Then the good Samaritan. 

That’s a pretty good guide: about one in four people is genuinely kind. Most of us are just looking out for ourselves. “They came for the Jews, but I did nothing, for I was not a Jew …” About one in four is an active predator, getting a rush out of making others suffer.

The Bible also tells us of the scapegoat phenomenon. This is what happened to the Jews. People are herd animals. The mass of the herd will welcome the opportunity to deflect their bad feelings onto some designated scapegoat, so long as they think they have permission. They will have no qualms as long as some authority endorses it, or everybody else seems to be doing it.

Kindness comes naturally for small children and small animals—the maternal or paternal instinct kicks in to protect them. And only so long as they are right in front of you—otherwise most people are happy to abort or to eat a chicken or lamb.

Aside from this, it takes religion to convince some to be kind.

On Defunding the Police

 

Yesterday I attended an event called a ”free store” held at a local Anglican Church. Pretty much says what it is: people donate items they no longer need, and other people come and take what they want or need.

Not sure this is a better concept than the self-sustaining Salvation Army Stores, though. The Sally Ann stores are sustainable because they are win-win. The donors get rid of things just taking up space; the buyers get a bargain; the proceeds can pay some salary to the workers, and the profits go to help the poor. The free store takes more volunteer effort. And it’s inevitably pretty hectic and disorganized. Grabbing wins the day; not need.

But I sure can’t complain personally.  It worked out well for me; I think I saved about $100 on items I needed for this big old house.

One thing I picked up was a 22-page pamphlet titled “A World without Police.” I have not read it all. It is calling to defund the police, on the grounds that they exist only to protect the property of the rich from the poor. They sustain the evil capitalist system.

This is so obviously wrong I suspect nobody believes it. Laws exist to protect the weak from the powerful. This is the stated premise of the best-preserved ancient legal system known to man, the Code of Hammurabi: government forms “to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak.”

The powerful do not need the police; they do not need laws or morality. They would rather be free to do as they like. 

Do rich people like Elon Musk or Donald Trump or George Soros need the police to protect their property? No; they can afford private security. Indeed, they could afford private armies. Without the police, they could run roughshod. If imperfect, the police protect us from this.

But then again, it was not the poor handing out the “Defund the Police” pamphlets. It was young “white” Anglican men. Some wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs. Probably university educated. Probably from well-off families. Anglicans are, after all, generally more prosperous than any other Christian denomination. 

It is the rich who crave this. Even a revolution would actually increase their power. They could be in complete and perpetual command as the “vanguard of the proletariat.” 

Meantime, they vote for corporate bankers like Mark Carney or wealthy lawyers like Jagmeet Singh, and scorn someone who has worked his way up from orphanhood and adoption like Pierre Poilievre as 'unqualified."

The great question in my mind is, do they realize they are being duplicitous?

How to Win a War Without Firing a Shot

 

Would you buy a used revolution from this face?

A Chinese student and I were discussing this past IELTS essay topic: “How much should government spend on the arts?” And he quoted what he claimed was a common Chinese saying: “If you want to destroy a country, first destroy its culture.”

This is a common Chinese saying? For they as actually tried to systematically destroy their culture themselves in the Cultural Revolution.

Perhaps this saying emerged from that experience.

Certainly now we ourselves in Canada, America, and Europe seem to be trying to destroy our culture. Pulling down statues, burning down churches, teaching our young that our culture is evil, and “patriarchy” or “white supremacy.” Reversing the meaning of the fairy tales. Rejecting "conventional morality." Abandoning beauty in art. Encouraging and funding any culture but our own: “multiculturalism.” 

It is all suspiciously like the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China.

China descended into this madness without any foreign interference. So I guess we too are fully capable of destroying ourselves without help.

But this is a warning that it is a really bad idea.

And is it possible too, if this is the common Chinese view now, that the Chinese government, as part of their asymmetrical “wolf-warrior diplomacy,” is doing what they can to encourage this? Funding things behind the scenes. Wheeling in Trojan Horses—like Tiktok?

Either way, if this continues, the CCP can look forward to supplanting us as the dominant culture, and toward owning us.

What's Eating Women?

 

How badly does a fish really need a bicycle?

Rachel Wilson’s Substack “Rachel’s Newsletter,” recently collated some statistics on the effects of feminism on the wellbeing of women and children.

It is not good news.

Only 0.7 per 1,000 children living in a home with two married biological parents are sexually abused. The figure is 12.1 per 1,000 for those with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

1.8 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is emotionally abused. It is 15 per 1,000 with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

6.5 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is neglected. It is 47.4 per 1,000 with a single parent and an unmarried partner. It is 68.2 for “emotional neglect.”

2.8 children per 1,000 living with both married biological parents is actually physically harmed. It is 9.5 per 1,000 on average in any other family situation. And the physical injury is likely to be worse.

All this confirms the wisdom of fairy tales: the problem there usually comes from a step-parent. A “wicked stepmother.” Ten times the risk.

And note too that it is usually the mother, not the father, just as the fairy tales suggest. 68% of all maltreated children were maltreated by a female; 48% were maltreated by a male. This despite the fact that, due to current legal prejudices, almost always giving custody to the mother, the male in the house is vastly more likely to be the step-parent. When children are maltreated by a biological parent, 75% were maltreated by the mother, 48% by the father. This statistic does not seem to be affected by the amount of time either parent spends with the children—women do not abuse more often simply because they have more opportunity. 

Wait, there’s more:

90% of homeless children are escaping or ejected from fatherless homes.

85% of kids diagnosed with behavioural disorders are from fatherless homes.

70% of those in juvenile detention are from fatherless homes.

71% of those in treatment for substance abuse are from fatherless homes.

Dads matter.

Clearly, if we gave a damn for children, easy no-fault divorce, and then assigning custody to the mother, is very bad for children. Statistics further show the woman initiates the divorce 70 to 80% of the time. And no, this is not because of spousal abuse. Women abuse their spouses more often than men. The woman is the aggressor, apparently, in 70% of cases. The reasons usually given are “boredom, financial strain, lack of communication, or feeling held back in career or in life.” 

So what does all this self-fulfillment, free from obligations to either spouse or children, do for women?

Women are not doing well. The UK Mental Health Foundation says women are three times more likely to experience mental health problems than men. 

Was this ever so? No. As recently as 1993, they were only twice as likely. More than one quarter of all US women are now on psychiatric drugs. For men, it is 15%.

In underdeveloped, rural societies, women consistently report greater levels of happiness than men--in the unreformed “patriarchies.” As recently as the 1970s, American women still reported higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction than men. But in recent studies, they are less happy by their own report than men throughout the developed world.

Alcoholism among women doubled between 2002 and 2013—in just ten years. Fetal alcohol syndrome, destroying the next generation, rose 2.5 times between 1996 and 2018.

And all of these statistics are without touching on the issue of abortion, or the emotional toll divorce and alienation from the family is taking on men. Or the growing problem of depopulation in the developed world, following from the collapse of the family, and prompting governments to let in unprecedented waves of immigration.

Just thought you should know. For sources and for further information, follow Rachel’s Newsletter on SubStack.

The Crisis of Canadian Liberal Homelessness

 

The first Canadian Prime Minister I Remember

I am a liberal. What concerns me most is protecting our basic freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, democratic rights, and so on. The issues stated most famously in the American Declaration of Independence and the American Bill of Rights; but also the fundamental premise for all government in the liberal democracies. These are the sine qua non. Without them, we can achieve nothing else. And they are always under threat. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” 

It occurs to me that this underlying concern explains my vote in every Canadian election, and my preferences before that, since my earliest memories.

Diefenbaker-Pearson: Pearson was okay, but Diefenbaker was the liberal. He introduced the Bill of Rights. He fought apartheid in South Africa. His government was shambolic, but I had to love him.

Trudeau-Stanfield: Trudeau seemed initially the liberal standard bearer: “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.” Stanfield was a Red Tory, which really means an autocratic conservative. So I was with Trudeau and the Liberals. 

But Trudeau turned tyrant with his hate laws and his War Measures Act. The NDP was the only party that opposed it, and, even better, under David Lewis, fought corporate welfare. So I was an NDPer. 

Then Mulroney pushed for Free Trade with the US. Free Trade, the old Laurier reciprocity platform, was the classic liberal position. It assumes human equality and promotes freedom. And the Liberals and NDP opposed it. It was then I was fully convinced tht the Canadian Liberal party was not liberal in principle. So I had to go to the PCs. Even though Mulroney was a Red Tory otherwise.

But Mulroney gravely violated democratic rights with Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accord. He was going to change the constitution with no public consultation and then freeze it, beyond the reach of the popular will. Worse, all parties supported this--except Reform. So I had to go Reform, although it was mostly a Western rights party. 

During the later Chretien years, it was a problem that Canada had no effective opposition. And I thought Chretien was undemocratically trashing the Westminster system by giving himself, and other party leaders, the power to approve or veto all local candidates. This made Canada in effect an elected dictatorship.

Then Paul Martin tried to undemocratically push through the Kelowna Accords, again without public consultation, enshrining inequality of citizenship. The same sort of autocratic move as Mulroney with Meech Lake. So I had to go hard for Harper. 

The Liberal party has since become the international flagship of illiberalism. They have become systematic in their efforts to limit or end human rights; and the NDP has been in lock step. The frivolous declaration of the Emergencies Act, and freezing of people’s bank accounts, was unforgivable. The growing censorship and media control is unforgivable. 

Yet, frighteningly, the average Canadian does not even seem to care. 

Canada Calls an Election

 

Can he ride a white horse?

Canada is heading into an election. Polls show the Liberals are ahead, and on track to form a majority government. And this time it really matters. This could end Canada.

Trump has played his cards well; or he is lucky. Trump having put out the welcome mat, Alberta  is scuffing its boots on it. Danielle Smith has issued a series of demands of the federal government, to prevent “an unprecedented national unity crisis”: 

1. guaranteed access to east and West coasts for Alberta oil and gas.

2. dropping restrictions on new pipelines.

3. dropping restrictions on oil tankers off the West Coast.

4. dropping emissions caps on oil and gas.

5. scrapping clean energy legislation.

6. lifting restrictions on single-use plastics

7. no export tax on oil and gas

8. no federal industrial carbon tax

9. better management of national parks—i.e., judicious pruning out of deadwood.

Smith has also said Alberta must stop subsidizing large provinces through equalization payments. 

The Liberals cannot agree to this. They would have to renounce their platform, turn on their environmentalist base, and alienate their Quebec base. It is Quebec that is blocking any pipeline east, and Quebec is the “large province” that benefits most from the equalization payments.

And if a Liberal government ignores her demands? Smith warns of an “unprecedented national unity crisis.” Unprecedented? That means something more serious than the Quebec separatist movements of the recent past.

The path is established by precedent: Smith can call a referendum on separation, as Quebec has. At least one poll showed 41% support for independence as of 2020. With the open offer to join the US on the table, the bite of tariffs, the explicit rejection of demands by Ottawa, official endorsement from the premier, and a charm offensive from the US, one can easily imagine that figure going over 50%. Alberta unbound.

Whether or not Alberta then joins the US, there goes Canada. Cut in half. No access to BC from Saskatchewan and East, and vice versa. Huge loss of government revenue. And everyone east of Saskatchewan loses their equalization payments.

If they do go on to join the US, Trump gets the oil and gas, and a relatively conservative voting base, for his new state. He may not even care about the rest of Canada and their troublesome liberal voters.

Without the equalization payments, without Alberta’s tax revenues, and without access to the rest of Canada, other provinces are likely sooner or later to come begging. And the Americans can pick and choose which it is in their interest to admit, and which to leave out in the cold.

Could the Conservatives save Canada? They can at least better afford to alienate Quebec by forcing through a pipeline; they do not much rely on Quebec as a base of support. 

Might Quebec then separate? Perhaps. But this is less likely. A pipeline across their turf is not so serious an issue. Quebec does not have Alberta’s easy fallback of joining the US: it would probably mean losing their distinct language and culture over time. And they would surely be poorer after separation, while Alberta would be richer. 

Conservatives would not be alienating their base by dropping environmental restrictions. That are all for deregulation in general, and killing he industrial carbon tax is a core part of their platform. Alberta’s insistence and Trump’s threats could be a useful excuse for what they want to do anyway.

If Trump wants to take Canada’s resources, Carney is his horse.

The Collective Unconscious Is Not a Thing

 

Lived Experience

People have trouble understanding me when I say my poems are not autobiographical. We have this unfortunate fixed idea that poems should be autobiographical. For some reason, we do not have this problem when discussing prose, or plays. 

So recently I was asked if the voices in my poems come from the collective unconscious. I dismissed the suggestion. Someone else suggested that I am “channelling.” 

Jung’s concept of a collective unconscious seems to me to describe a real thing—a very real thing—but to be a contradiction in terms as he frames it. He sees it as something of which we are by definition unconscious. This is nonsensical as an epistemological statement. How then can we discuss it? He further defines it as a part of our self that is not our self; that is, it exists apart from our awareness, experience, or will, just as a tree might exist in the next lot. How then is it part of us, and the tree is not? A collective unconscious defies the very definition of self.

And Jung so far as I can tell offers no rational mechanism for how such a thing as a collective memory can exist. How can you inherit someone else’s memories? 

Jung’s problem, I maintain, is that he is trying to give a materialist explanation for a spiritual reality. He is trying to reconcile actual human experience with a purely materialist, scientistic world view. In the end, he cannot.

The thing he calls “collective unconscious” is better framed by Plato as simply the real world. In the real world everything exists in its perfect, ideal form. Were this not so, were we not pre-programmed, we could never make any sense of our sense experiences. 

See Plato’s cave analogy.

Or his dialogue “Meno”:

“ … SOCRATES: What do you say of him, Meno? Were not all these answers given out of his own head?

MENO: Yes, they were all his own.

SOCRATES: And yet, as we were just now saying, he did not know?

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: But still he had in him those notions of his—had he not?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then he who does not know may still have true notions of that which he does not know?

MENO: He has.

SOCRATES: And at present these notions have just been stirred up in him, as in a dream; but if he were frequently asked the same questions, in different forms, he would know as well as any one at last?

MENO: I dare say.

SOCRATES: Without anyone teaching him he will recover his knowledge for himself, if he is only asked questions?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: And this spontaneous recovery of knowledge in him is recollection?

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And this knowledge which he now has must he not either have acquired or always possessed?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: But if he always possessed this knowledge he would always have known; or if he has acquired the knowledge he could not have acquired it in this life, unless he has been taught geometry; for he may be made to do the same with all geometry and every other branch of knowledge. Now, has any one ever taught him all this? You must know about him, if, as you say, he was born and bred in your house.

MENO: And I am certain that no one ever did teach him.

SOCRATES: And yet he has the knowledge?

MENO: The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.

SOCRATES: But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, then he must have had and learned it at some other time?

MENO: Clearly he must.

SOCRATES: Which must have been the time when he was not a man?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: And if there have been always true thoughts in him, both at the time when he was and was not a man, which only need to be awakened into knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have always possessed this knowledge, for he always either was or was not a man?

MENO: Obviously.

SOCRATES: And if the truth of all things always existed in the soul, then the soul is immortal. Wherefore be of good cheer, and try to recollect what you do not know, or rather what you do not remember….”

The truth of all things always existed in the soul. Or as Blake put it, “man is born as a garden fully planted.” This is where poetry comes from. Memories are not formed by our experiences any more than our experiences are formed by our memories.

This truth is pretty universally understood, except by the modern West, blinded by the limited world view of materialism.

The Buddhists refer to this as the “storehouse consciousness.” Coleridge referred to it as the “primary imagination.” It is the basic assumption of all Native North American spiritualities. Ironically, everyone thinks they were deeply connected to nature. In fact, they saw nature as an illusion, and only the spirit world as real.

In Christian terms, this is the Kingdom of Heaven. Or rather, this is the entire objectively existing spiritual world, heaven, hell, and purgatory.

As to channeling: there are beings speaking to us from this spiritual world. Angels, saints, fairies, demons—literally and necessarily anything we can imagine. 

The problem is, some of them are demons. Channeling without caution tends to attract demons.

Truth and beauty are the test of the spirits. Are the words, is the image, beautiful? Not in a superficial sense, but does it evoke the aesthetic experience of awe? Is it, are they, true?

Bingo. Poetry.

The Most Unkindest Cut

 

Immortal dead white man

News is that the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust is planning to “de-colonize” Stratford. Apparently “the idea of Shakespeare's 'universal' genius 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy'.” The Trust must “stop saying Shakespeare was the 'greatest' but part of a community of 'equal and different' writers globally.” Some exhibits will, for example, celebrate Rabindranath Tagore.

Questioned on how Shakespeare promoted “white European supremacy,” one authority issued this challenge: everyone around the world knows Shakespeare. But how many African writers could you name?

There you are. To suggest that Shakespeare is some unique genius promotes white supremacy. Obviously there must have been equally great writers in Africa.

By this logic, however, surely celebrating Shakespeare promotes Stratford supremacy as well. In fairness, they should celebrate as of equal merit some writer from every shire in England.

And let’s explore this rabbit hole further. How many Irish writers can you name? Several, I’ll warrant. Ireland, current population 6 million, has won four Nobel Prizes for Literature. And Joyce didn’t get one. Yet Ireland has been colonized by England far longer than any place in Africa. Britain held Kenya for 60 years. Britain held Ireland for 700 years. And with a deliberate attempt to wipe out Irish education and throw the Irish off the land. 

Demonstrably, if Shakespeare outshines all African writers, it is not because of colonialism. And it is not because Shakespeare has been artificially promoted for nationalistic or propagandistic reasons. These Irish writers certainly weren’t. 

Shakespeare indeed objectively suggests the superiority of English culture; at least when it comes to authoring plays. At least when it comes to crafting language.

Different cultures indeed have different specialties. You can’t beat Russians in the novel. You can’t beat Italy for cuisine. You can’t beat France for painting. You can’t beat America for sports.

Different cultures are better and worse at different things; and, given that a culture is a system for living the best possible life, it is also reasonable to argue that one culture is overall superior to another.

After all, whether it was right or wrong to do, what made it possible for a relatively small island off the coast of Europe to, at one point, control one quarter of the world’s population and one quarter of the world’s resources? 

Malice? 

The claim is ridiculous.

The ideal, of course, is to take the best from each culture, and combine them to create the best possible culture. This is what immigrant nations like the US, Canada, Australia, or Singapore have been able to do: the melting pot. To a lesser extent, this is what trading nations like England, the Netherlands, or ancient Greece, have been able to do. And these have generally become the most successful cultures as a result.

This is what we must return to.  This involves, in the first place, celebrating merit. 

Kindness and Honesty

 

A poet of Iranian ancestry writes:

“Instead of searching for the truth,
be kind to others.
There’s no truth beyond that.”

This seems to me to reflect a difference I have noticed between East and West. In America, Canada, or England, if you want to say someone is a good man, you say “he is honest.” But in China, if you want to identify someone as good, you say “he is kind.”

I think this is a telling difference in values. The West values truth above social harmony; the Far East values social harmony, keeping everyone happy, “kindness.” Perhaps Iran is more like the Far East.

I find another example in a Confucian story. It is meant to illustrate the essence of good morals. The righteous emperor heard an ox chosen for the annual sacrifice bellowing with fear on the way to slaughter. So he intervened and insisted that this ox be replaced by another. This demonstrated his impeccable morals. 

But to me as a Westerner, it looks only like sentimentality. After all, the next ox would still be slaughtered, and would quite likely be just as afraid. The emperor just didn’t have to hear about it. 

As a Westerner, I would almost reverse those lines: 

“Instead of trying to make others happy,
Seek and speak the truth.
There’s no kindness without that.”

I wonder if this comes specifically from Christianity.

On Poetry as Self-Expression

 

Nobody

Why is poetry less popular than it used to be? Until the 1960s, poetry outsold prose in Canadian Literature. Newspapers used to feature a daily poem. Prose was hardly considered worth publishing until about the early 18th century.

There are no doubt several reasons. One is our devaluation of memory and memorization. One is that poets no longer seem to understand poetry’s musical character. They have abandoned rhythm, rhyme, assonance; and somehow think this is clever. One is that, since television and now the internet, we are more visually and less aurally oriented than we were. So we do not appreciate the sounds of words so much.

But one is surely the influence of Freud.

Almost everyone has gotten the idea that a poem is a matter of self-expression. That it must be confessional, autobiographical, and in the first person.

I once submitted a poem to a competition that had complex rhyme, including internal rhyme, and rhythm--and a story line. 

And it was actually rejected outright, not allowed in the contest, “because it was a story, not a poem.”

Imagine how little interest there would be in prose, or in film, or in YouTube videos, if they were all about self-expression.

If it is self-expression, there is no particular reason why it should be of interest to an audience. Unless perhaps your personal experience is somehow sensational, or gruesome, or rarely expressed. It is then just therapy for the poet.

And that is what has happened. Nobody comes to a poetry reading any longer to listen to poetry. There is always an open mic. They come to read their own poems. They have to listen to others as well, out of politeness.

In fact, true poetry is the exact opposite of self-expression. John Keats wrote that the “chameleon poet” is “the most unpoetical thing in existence.” Through “negative capability” he takes on whatever comes to him. There is no self left.

Leonard Cohen described himself as simply an antenna for poetry. Irving Layton referred to his poems as “my dead selves.” WB Yeats said, “you can either live the life of a poet, or write poetry. You cannot do both.” 

I think they are all saying the same thing. In poetry the self must disappear.

And most modern would-be poets are doing the opposite.

Superstitions

Friend Xerxes, in his latest column, conflates, or at least does not clearly distinguish, superstition, ritual, and placebo. Superstition = ritual = placebo = sympathetic magic.

Not so. These are all different issues.

Rituals are not superstitions. A wedding, for example, or the coronation of a king, is not superstition. Rituals have a practical purpose that is often easy to understand. One does not normally get married out of superstition.

A placebo is not superstition. Doctors do not prescribe placebos because they are superstitious, and the patient does not need to be superstitious in order for it to work. Placebos serve a known practical purpose. And, if some superstition has a placebo effect, it is not superstition.

And as for what superstition actually is—I guess that is already implicit. We call actions that serve no known or understood practical purpose “superstitions.” Perhaps we say “good luck” or “bad luck”; but isn’t that just saying, “unspecified or unknown benefits”?

Of course, the conflation of ritual with superstition is intrinsically anti-Catholic. In his column, Xerxes expressly cites the Catholic sacramental of holy water, and the sacrament of communion, as superstitions.

They obviously are not for Catholics. Catholics understand them as producing specific benefits. They are not done for “good luck.” To call them superstitions is to say that you do not believe in Catholicism.

Once when a fellow instructor was scoffing at the Korean tradition of pung su chi ri—feng shui—as superstition, I asked her to define what she meant by the term “superstition.” She said “beliefs not supported by science.” Xerxes suggests something similar with his concluding statement: “Even in a supposedly scientific age, we remain creatures of myth and wonder.”

But this is not an adequate definition. Well before empirical science, philosophers condemned superstition; as do the Buddhist scriptures. One example: it was a superstitious Irish practice to avoid biting on the host; one had to let it dissolve in the mouth. Biting was wounding Jesus.

This was superstition, like stepping on a crack to break your mother’s back: it innocently violated correct Catholic theology.

In other words, “superstition” is whatever violates your accepted world view. If your religion is “scientism,” then things that cannot be explained scientifically are superstitious. If it is Buddhism, then things that do not fit the Buddhist dharma are superstitious.

Just in passing, having studied pung si chi ri, it makes good sense to me. It is “unscientific” because it attends to our emotional nature in planning our surroundings, and science is incapable of taking emotion into account. But the true value of feng shui or pung su is immediately apparent on entering a Korean coffee shop, a Japanese garden, or a Chinese restaurant.

In sum, “superstition” is a term we use to describe some practice for which we cannot see the justification, based on our world view, our religion.

This being so, it is judicious to honour superstitions, all else being equal.

I will not pass under a ladder if I can avoid it. I also will not write anybody’s name in red ink, a practice I learned in Korea. I will not stick my chopsticks upright. I will knock on wood.

It is arrogant to assume any given “superstition” is wrong. I am reminded of Chesterton’s advice. One must never take down a fence merely because you do not know why it is there. To be justified in taking down a fence, you had better first know exactly why it is there.

Friend Xerxes, in his latest column, conflates, or at least does not clearly distinguish, superstition, ritual, and placebo. Superstition = ritual = placebo = sympathetic magic.

Not so. These are all different issues.

Rituals are not superstitions. A wedding, for example, or the coronation of a king, is not superstition. Rituals have a practical purpose that is often easy to understand. One does not normally get married out of superstition.

A placebo is not superstition. Doctors do not prescribe placebos because they are superstitious, and the patient does not need to be superstitious in order for it to work. Placebos serve a known practical purpose. And, if some superstition has a placebo effect, it is not superstition.

And as for what superstition actually is—I guess that is already implicit. We call actions that serve no known or understood practical purpose “superstitions.” Perhaps we say “good luck” or “bad luck”; but isn’t that just saying, “unspecified or unknown benefits”?

Of course, the conflation of ritual with superstition is intrinsically anti-Catholic. In his column, Xerxes expressly cites the Catholic sacramental of holy water, and the sacrament of communion, as superstitions.

They obviously are not for Catholics. Catholics understand them as producing specific benefits. They are not done for “good luck.” To call them superstitions is to say that you do not believe in Catholicism.

Once when a fellow instructor was scoffing at the Korean tradition of pung su chi ri—feng shui—as superstition, I asked her to define what she meant by the term “superstition.” She said “beliefs not supported by science.” Xerxes suggests something similar with his concluding statement: “Even in a supposedly scientific age, we remain creatures of myth and wonder.”

But this is not an adequate definition. Well before empirical science, philosophers condemned superstition; as do the Buddhist scriptures. One example: it was a superstitious Irish practice to avoid biting on the host; one had to let it dissolve in the mouth. Biting was wounding Jesus.

This was superstition, like stepping on a crack to break your mother’s back: it innocently violated correct Catholic theology.

In other words, “superstition” is whatever violates your accepted world view. If your religion is “scientism,” then things that cannot be explained scientifically are superstitious. If it is Buddhism, then things that do not fit the Buddhist dharma are superstitious.

Just in passing, having studied pung si chi ri, it makes good sense to me. It is “unscientific” because it attends to our emotional nature in planning our surroundings, and science is incapable of taking emotion into account. But the true value of feng shui or pung su is immediately apparent on entering a Korean coffee shop, a Japanese garden, or a Chinese restaurant.

In sum, “superstition” is a term we use to describe some practice for which we cannot see the justification, based on our world view, our religion.

This being so, it is judicious to honour superstitions, all else being equal.

I will not pass under a ladder if I can avoid it. I also will not write anybody’s name in red ink, a practice I learned in Korea. I will not stick my chopsticks upright. I will knock on wood.

It is arrogant to assume any given “superstition” is wrong. I am reminded of Chesterton’s advice. One must never take down a fence merely because you do not know why it is there. To be justified in taking down a fence, you had better first know exactly why it is there.

Friend Xerxes, in his latest column, conflates, or at least does not clearly distinguish, superstition, ritual, and placebo. Superstition = ritual = placebo = sympathetic magic.

Not so. These are all different issues.

Rituals are not superstitions. A wedding, for example, or the coronation of a king, is not superstition. Rituals have a practical purpose that is often easy to understand. One does not normally get married out of superstition.

A placebo is not superstition. Doctors do not prescribe placebos because they are superstitious, and the patient does not need to be superstitious in order for it to work. Placebos serve a known practical purpose. And, if some superstition has a placebo effect, it is not superstition.

And as for what superstition actually is—I guess that is already implicit. We call actions that serve no known or understood practical purpose “superstitions.” Perhaps we say “good luck” or “bad luck”; but isn’t that just saying, “unspecified or unknown benefits”?

Of course, the conflation of ritual with superstition is intrinsically anti-Catholic. In his column, Xerxes expressly cites the Catholic sacramental of holy water, and the sacrament of communion, as superstitions. 

They obviously are not for Catholics. Catholics understand them as producing specific benefits. They are not done for “good luck.” To call them superstitions is to say that you do not believe in Catholicism. 

Once when a fellow instructor was scoffing at the Korean tradition of pung su chi ri—feng shui—as superstition, I asked her to define what she meant by the term “superstition.” She said “beliefs not supported by science.” Xerxes suggests something similar with his concluding statement: “Even in a supposedly scientific age, we remain creatures of myth and wonder.”

But this is not an adequate definition. Well before empirical science, philosophers condemned superstition; as do the Buddhist scriptures. One example: it was a superstitious Irish practice to avoid biting on the host; one had to let it dissolve in the mouth. Biting was wounding Jesus. 

This was superstition, like stepping on a crack to break your mother’s back: it innocently violated correct Catholic theology.

In other words, “superstition” is whatever violates your accepted world view. If your religion is “scientism,” then things that cannot be explained scientifically are superstitious. If it is Buddhism, then things that do not fit the Buddhist dharma are superstitious.

Just in passing, having studied pung si chi ri, it makes good sense to me. It is “unscientific” because it attends to our emotional nature in planning our surroundings, and science is incapable of taking emotion into account. But the true value of feng shui or pung su is immediately apparent on entering a Korean coffee shop, a Japanese garden, or a Chinese restaurant.

In sum, “superstition” is a term we use to describe some practice for which we cannot see the justification, based on our world view, our religion.

This being so, it is judicious to honour superstitions, all else being equal. 

I will not pass under a ladder if I can avoid it. I also will not write anybody’s name in red ink, a practice I learned in Korea. I will not stick my chopsticks upright. I will knock on wood.

It is arrogant to assume any given “superstition” is wrong. I am reminded of Chesterton’s advice. One must never take down a fence merely because you do not know why it is there. To be justified in taking down a fence, you had better first know exactly why it is there.

The Subconscious

 

Freud shows us his imaginary phallus

I have lost two of my best friends to psychiatry. 

The first, whom I had known since first year university, through think and thin, unfriended me emphatically in insult and anger when I questioned psychotherapy. To be clear, these were the words which he apparently found unforgivable:

“You believe you have been helped by psychotherapy. I admit that this is possible. Some people were helped by joining Jim Jones’s People’s Temple, too. But overall… not such a good idea. This may be an extreme example, but it makes the point. And I am not sure it is extreme, actually.”

My being concerned with his welfare was not held in my favour.

Another friend, whom I had cherished and admired for a good thirty years, unfriended me and declared me immoral for scoffing at Maslow and existentialist psychiatry. My argument was that they claimed depression was caused by a sense of meaninglessness, and then affirmed that there was indeed no meaning in life. So going to an existentialist therapist could not be helpful.

I cannot imagine any religious person having a similar reaction over a similar criticism of religion. Certainly not cutting off such longstanding friendships. Among the religious, it is the reverse: they are eager to discuss the issue. They will even knock on the doors of strangers in hopes of doing so.

So I must conclude that the average person who believes in psychiatry holds to his faith more fervently than if it were a religion.

This does not speak well of psychiatry, given that it claims to be scientific. It is obviously something else. Not religion; more like a cult.

As a general principle, if one believes one has the better argument, one enjoys an argument. If one suspects one’s beliefs are untenable, one will refuse to discuss them. Especially if there is something personal at stake.

I think this “true believer” phenomenon is a symptom of the incoherence of materialism. It is our dominant world view: we believe in “science.” But scientific materialism fails to account for the larger portion of human experience. If one is not a total zombie, one discovers this. And then what? Then depression or mental illness occurs: one is out of step with what “everyone knows” is true. At best, one is alienated. At worst, one concludes one is incurably insane. One is experiencing impossible things, things that do not exist.

Psychiatry rushes in as the attempt to reconcile one’s experience with materialism. And partly as Inquisition, rooting out heresies by declaring insanity. 

People then cling in desperation to their chosen psychology, because from their perspective, if they doubt the therapist, they go mad. 

In objective terms, however, it is the psychiatry that is making and keeping them mad.

My first friend accepted that Freud, the founder of psychiatry, was mostly wrong. Of course; he has, after all, been disproven in detail in scientific terms. However, Freud must still be honoured as the man who discovered the subconscious. The subconscious explains everything.

But the subconscious, or Jung’s similar “unconscious,” is actually nonsensical. It is a self that is not ourself, a will that is our will yet not our will, a consciousness of which we are not conscious. 

These are all contradictions in terms.

The obvious truth is that these strange messages or intimations or urges or images are not coming from us. Indeed, they are not by definition. There is a spiritual world. And it is no more a part of us than is the physical world.

Maple DOGE

 

Actual unretouched photograph courtesy of Craiyon

I think Trump’s DOGE is a powerful idea that would make a great campaign issue for Pierre Poilievre if he has the nerve to grab it. Of course, the Liberals would respond by pointing out that Poilievre is “taking a page from the Trump playbook.” And Trump is far from a popular figure in Canada.Poilievre would have to be ready to wear this.

I think he must. He is going to have to wear this anyway. No matter what he does or says, because he is ideologically aligned with Trump, the Liberals will say this. The smart thing to do is to walk right into it. Be a leader, not a follower; attack, don’t defend. Explain why this idea of Trump’s is a good idea, and should be done here.

The Liberals cannot co-opt this issue, as they have done with the carbon tax, because the bureaucracy is their base. It also works well against Carney, because Carney is the ultimate bureaucrat. Suddenly his supposed expertise, which looks good for confronting Trump, works against him. He is a swamp creature. And for the common taxpayer, it has to be a winner. Week by week, new revelations about ridiculous spending. And with them the hope of lower taxes, without a reduction in services.

Introducing an attention-grabbing proposal like this could take the focus off the Trump tariffs, which are a losing issue for the Conservatives. And it could remedy the problem of looking dull and squishy in light of Trump’s dramatic actions next door.

Kevin O’Leary seems to me the best outsider to enlist to manage the inquisition; he seems ready and eager for some such role. He has a talent for publicity, a public reputation for financial probity, and experience as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Below him, he should have the smarts to hire some guys who previously worked with Musk on DOGE. If this sounds too flashy for Canadian tastes, Stephen Harper might be up for the role. He is at least a trained economist, and the finances looked much more sound under his tenure.

Sunny Ways

 

Pierre Poilievre is caught in the Erin O’Toole trap. He has taken roughly the same position on the Trump tariffs as the Liberal government. If this remains the dominant issue in an election, he has given the Canadian public no reason to vote for him. If the agenda is going to be hostility and retaliation, the Liberals are more convincing; since Poilievre is ideologically aligned with Trump. He loses. At the same time, by agreeing with the government, he begins to look squishy, like controlled opposition; not decisive like Trump. Poilievre’s Conservatives and Farage’s Reform in Britain risk seeming unexciting by comparison.

It is bold and would take iron nerve, but what Poilievre should have done, and perhaps could still do, is to show leadership: explain the real situation to the Canadian people. We cannot win a trade war with the US. Whether we like the tariffs or not, an angry reaction is suicidal.  And to be honest, Trump has a point. We have been imposing quotas and high tariffs, on, for example, eggs and dairy products. We need to announce our readiness to put these on the table. Poilievre needs to point out that the result will be beneficial for Canadians as well as our American cousins.

And he can go further: far from objecting to the offer of statehood—a rejection which is an egregious insult to the USA, when none need have been taken by Canada from the offer—we will helpfully hold a Canada-wide referendum on the issue. Trump is welcome to make his case directly to the people, and we will freely choose. Why would any patriotic Canadian not want this?

It is the Canadian tradition to be polite and to compromise; to seek friendship with all. It is a perversion of the Canadian spirit to be rude and dismissive of our closest friend and ally.

Sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways.

The Conservatives might take an immediate hit, in the current atmosphere of hysteria. But very soon, I expect the Canadian public to sober up and realize that retaliation is a disastrous tactic. Doug Ford’s debacle with his electricity surcharge shows the way.

East Is East, and West Is West

 

I was recently referred to, without malice, as “white.” Nevertheless, I resent the term.

It is dehumanizing to think of people in terms of race, as if we were animals. And nothing could be more cartoonishly superficial than to classify people by skin colour. 

We must also ditch our meaningless purely geographical term “Asian,” which absurdly lumps Koreans with Dravidians with Arabs.

Whenever I go to a Catholic mass, around me are people of all the skin colours you can imagine. And this is my true community, my home. These are the people I have most in common with, and feel most comfortable with; not some random person I meet on the street who has skin the same hue as my own. Let alone some pale face in Turkey or Xinjiang. It is absurd to identify me as “European,” as well. I was not born and have not lived in Europe. I am not “white,” or “European.” I am “Canadian” and “Catholic.”

It is as if, in our scientistic frenzy, we are determined to deny the influence of religion or the existence of culture.

Rather than identifying people by skin colour, which is meaningless, or race, which is dehumanizing, we should classify people by culture. Culture is real.

There are four great cultural zones on this planet: Christendom, Dar al Islam, Hindu India, and the Confucian East. No doubt there are others, less significant, and quickly being assimilated, in Sub-Saharan Africa. And there are smaller anomalous groups like the Jews, the Parsees, the Roma, and the like. These zones are coming together and becoming more similar, with improved communications; but they still real.

They have to do with the basic premises on which the society is built, on which people interact, and on which life decisions are made. With judgements of value and of what is right and wrong.

One can further subdivide: Catholic culture is distinct from Protestant culture, and Orthodox culture is distinct from either. Sunni Islamic culture is distinct from Shia Islamic culture.

We need to be more aware of them, because there can be problems when they mix. Planes can fly into buildings. When they interact, there are no understood ground rules.

This has nothing to do with racism. This has to do with comparative religion.

Collateral Damage in the Trump Wars

 

Why are things suddenly going badly for the Poilievre Conservatives in Canada, and Farage’s Reform in the UK? The polls are dropping in Canada; in the UK, there is much dissent in the ranks.

It is the Trump effect. Trump is sucking up all the oxygen on the right. The local heroes, Farage and Poilievre, no longer seem exciting and radical by comparison. Inevitably, not being in power, Poilievre and Farage are all talk and no action. Unless they can propose policies significantly more radical-sounding than what Trump is actually doing, they begin to look like weak tea.

This is how and why revolutions devour their children. Once the movement begins, it is hard to stay in front of it. It is easy to start to look like yesterday’s man.

Onward to the Marxist Paradise

 

Seen in the wild:

“Object is to make True Marxism - Not Russian Collectivism - Nor Chinese and North Korean Communism.”

So what is this “true Marxism,” that is not anything we have yet seen?

I assume it is the Marxist utopia: everyone does what they like and gets what they want.

That is a worthy goal. 

Moreover, we seem to be moving toward it. 

It is broadly the result of improving technology: we get more for less work. 

There is less hard manual labour than there ever was, work hours are shorter, and increasingly,  we have less boring, repetitive office labour.

The question is, how to hasten this process?

By eliminating “Marxism” as a political movement.

The free market and financial incentives are best at fostering improved technology.

The Friendly Giant

 

I recently saw a tribute online to Bob Homme. He for many years appeared on Canadian TV as “The Friendly Giant.” It had a long run, and is apparently generally beloved. I never liked the show as a child. To me, it was like chalk squeaking on a blackboard.

It was the basic premise. The hagiography to Homme explained: Homme figured he had his winning formula by making a friendly giant. Because giants in the fairy tales are always the bad guy.

Somehow, this perversion of fairy tale conventions was considered clever, or creative, or child-friendly, or something.

As anyone should realize, there is a reason why giants in fairy tales are always bad guys. There is a reason for everything in fairy tales. That is why they are so conventional. Fairy tales have strict morality and strict rules. Making a giant friendly is as subversive as making Judas or Satan the good guy in the Bible.

That’s how sinister this is.

I can even cite a Biblical reference here: the Nephilim. Giants bad. They are why God sent the flood.

In fairy tales, giants always eat children.

The Friendly Giant was also always treacly sweet, and that was yet more sinister. “Here, little girl, would you like some candy?”

He was grooming children for sexual predation; and abuse by authority of any kind. “The Friendly Giant” was not a subversive concept. The fairy tale giants that were a subversive concept, teaching caution when dealing with figures holding power over you.

The standard trend ever since has been to subvert the fairy tales. 

Ogres are misunderstood, witches are feminist heroines, dragons are merely lovelorn and make fun pets. It is lazy and uncreative, and it also seems positively designed to subvert youth and make them vulnerable to abuse of all kinds.

This may be why “Western civilization” has recently gone so awry and seems to have lost its way: we have subverted the life lessons traditionally passed on to our young. That is what civilization is: the wisdom we pass down to the young. Subverting and reversing the fairly tales is the fastest way to destroy any civilization.

Explaining Trump's "Erratic" Tariffs on Canada

 

Of course the Trump tariffs are not about fentanyl. Trump needed to declare an emergency to give himself the power to impose tariffs. Fentanyl and terrorists crossing the border are perhaps a real concern, but they are not the main issue. They are rather the legal justification.

It is also not about forcibly annexing Canada. This is what the Canadian left wants you to believe; this is a straw man argument. Trump has publicly ruled this out. He is issuing an invitation to join the US, which is quite a different matter. Is a man proposing to a woman forcibly annexing her?

An interesting piece from the New York Times, posted on Facebook by Warren Kinsella, claims that in his phone calls with Trudeau, “President Trump laid out a long list of grievances he had with the trade relationship between the two countries, including Canada’s protected dairy sector, the difficulty American banks face in doing business in Canada and Canadian consumption taxes that Mr. Trump deems unfair because they make American goods more expensive.”

So the problems are Canada’s supply-side management over dairy, chicken, and eggs; our restrictive banking regulations; and the GST. Probably also the carbon tax. All things we, as Canadians, should want to abolish. Eliminating them would make our lives better—especially for the poor.

Ordinary Canadians should support Trump against our own government on these issues. This looks like a case of patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel.

To be fair, the piece goes on to suggest Trump wants to tear up the 1908 boundary treaty. But this makes no sense; that treaty did not change the boundary, but dealt with how to survey and mark it more clearly. Nor would it be worth Trump’s while to upset the applecart for some island in Passamaquoddy Bay, or Port Roberts. If he is suggesting border treaties can be renegotiated, this looks like just another pressure tactic.

Trump wants fair trade.

Love and Politics

 

The rich man and Lazarus

 “Love is political,” asserts friend Xerxes.

This is a typical thing you hear on the left. On the left, everything is political; for politics is their religion.

Politics is just what love is not, and love is just what politics is not. 

Politics: “The art or science of government or governing.” (Webster’s New World)

For better or for worse, governing means controlling people. Telling them what to do.

So, love is the art of telling people what to do?

Try that in a marriage.

In terms of dealing with the poor, the insane, the most vulnerable, on your doorstep, politics and leaving it to government is too often an alibi to avoid helping. “Are there not poorhouses?” You argue that those richer than you should be made to give them something. Always someone richer than you. There is no love in that. There is contempt for both those poorer and those richer.

We cannot leave charity, caritas, to government, for government is as incapable of love as a flywheel. It is a system in which no one bears personal responsibility. We have surely learned we need be wary of such institutions as old folks’ homes, mental hospitals, orphanages, and residential schools. Some bureaucrat who does not know us, working to the clock, will probably not love us, and will not care.

Indeed, it is generally the lack of love, not of money, that leads people to poverty, or addiction, or mental illness, or orphanhood, or a lonely old age.

We need to stop doing politics and start loving one another.