Stephen Roney's Blog, page 108

Canticle of the Turning

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

All I Want for Christmas...

 

Here's an example of a modern secular Christmas song not written, as Xerxes, complains they all are, by a Jew.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Al Purdy's Racism

 

In a piece he titled “Norma, Eunice, and Judy,” Al Purdy lamented, as I do, the general disrespect in Canada for Canadian culture. He regrets, in his own day, Canadian children growing up thinking they live in “a nation without culture, art, or literature.” It is, he says, “a country where the native literature is added to English Literature or American Literature like an afterthought. Where it is said to be not worth teaching.”

It is the colonial mentality. And, if anything, it is getting worse, with our own prime minister (eternal shame be upon him) claiming there is no Canadian culture, with government cultural funding going as a priority to “multiculturalism.” In other words, any culture but Canadian culture.

Purdy then tells the tale of Jim Foley, an unusually well-educated Ontario high school teacher who “realized that Canada must be the only country in the world where high school kids aren’t taught their own literature.” He began his own database of Canadian literature, confident that in a few years “Margaret Laurence, Atwood, Layton, Garner, and all the others who talk about the place we live in, their voices will be heard and taught in our schools.”

These words were spoken in 1974. It is now the butt end of 2022, and it still has not happened. Instead, the reverse. Kids now read American pop novels in school, watch Hollywood movies, and read and discuss anything written by anyone claiming to be aboriginal. Or failing that, they will be assigned a book by an immigrant with views hostile to the country and the culture. 

Precisely the attitude of a colonizer.

And Purdy and Foley would now be declared “racist” for wanting to promote Canadian literature.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

If Worst Comes to Worst

It does look as though the Trudeau government is taking all the necessary steps to impose a Fascist or even Nazi dictatorship; some of them stealthily, which looks all the more suspicious. It seems possible we will not get another chance to vote the rascals out of office and reverse this slide into totalitarian nightmare. And they are reducing the danger of an armed insurrection by seizing even hunting rifles.

So, is our Canada goose cooked? 

I think not, because of several factors.

Our first defense is Canada’s federal structure. If the feds get overly sassy, provincial governments can sass back, and have a natural incentive to do so. Ontario under Ford looks prepared, even eager, to go along. The Maritimes are, like the press, wholly-owned federal subsidiaries due to transfer payments. But Alberta and Saskatchewan are already resisting to a historic degree. BC, Manitoba, Newfoundland, and Quebec are also capable of such resistance, depending who’s in power, and have shown signs of it in the past. And the aboriginal groups.

Once strains look bad enough, I would expect the feds to pull back. They don’t want to be blamed for the breakup of the country. 

Otherwise, I turn to our second defense: the USA.

We are almost all within an hour’s drive of the border. Assuming the US does not go Fascist at the same time, any one of us can get in the car and get out. If the government shuts down communication, we can all get reception from the US. If the federal government decides to go to war with Alberta or Saskatchewan to prevent separation, Alberta and Saskatchewan can appeal to the US for help. And why wouldn’t the US respond eagerly, in the name of manifest destiny and to acquire two or more grateful, freedom-loving new states?

The US had plans to pile in if Quebec separatism ever came to blows. They’d have more motive this time.

But well before it came to that, if the Canadian government went too authoritarian, wouldn’t American popular opinion press for intervention? If Canadians are flooding the border with horror stories, wouldn’t the public demand it? Do they want a Cuba of the North? 

Even now, American news sources and YouTubers, not to mention Indian sources, UK sources, Australian sources, and so forth, are speaking with alarm of things happening in Canada. Through them, word will still get out to the world, and to the average Canadian, no matter what the Canadian government tries to do to shut down the internet. At worst, VPNs are not that hard to set up, and hard to prevent. It is hard to block broadcast signals at the border—one of the world’s longest borders.

So why does the Trudeau government seem to be trying to do this, if it is pretty likely to fail?

Because they are not that smart; and because they are panicked.

They know something we don’t know, and it must be very bad for them.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Time to Get Out of Toronto?

 

Every time I take the subway, thee train seems to stop between stations for a "Security incident."

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Philomela's Metamorphosis

 

King Pandion of Athens had two lovely daughters. King Tereus of Thebes asked for the hand of the elder daughter, Procne, and after suitable celebrations, brought her home to his kingdom.

After some time, and the birth of their first son, Itys, Procne grew homesick. She begged her husband to invite her sister Philomela for a visit. So Tereus travelled to Athens and asked King Pandion if Philomela could return with him for a short visit. Pandion was concerned about his unmarried daughter travelling abroad. Especially since she was so lovely. He made Tereus swear he would watch over her as if she were his own daughter, and bring her back soon.

So Tereus gave his oath, and Pandion agreed. But his lust had already been awakened. He had other plans for Philomela.

Once he got the lovely girl back to Thebes, he did not go directly to his castle. Instead he led her deep into the woods, to an abandoned cabin. There he violently raped her. When she protested loudly and warned him she would not be silent about this, he bound her, cut out her tongue, and raped her again. Then he abandoned her in the cabin, posting guards so she could not escape.

He returned to his castle and told Procne that her sister Philomela had died.

In her enforced silence and isolation, unable to tell anyone what had happened, Philomela took to weaving, like the Lady of Shallot. She began a beautiful tapestry. Into it, she wove images of everything that had happened. When it was done, she bound it up and somehow managed to convey to a guard that this was meant as a gift for the Queen.

Procne unwrapped the tapestry, not knowing who had sent it. She immediately understood. She found out where this girl was living.

Then in the evening, she dressed in leaves to perform the rites of Dionysus. The female devotees of Dionysus, the maenads, would dance in the woods in a frenzy, supposedly possessed by the god or feigning possession. So this gave her cover. Feigning a temporary madness inspired by the god, she danced and stumbled her way to the isolated cabin in the woods. She broke down the door as if manic, and found her sister. She dressed Philomela as another maenad, carefully concealing her face with vegetation, and together they danced and stumbled their way back to the castle and slipped inside.

Little Itys ran to greet his mother. In a fit of rage at her husband, Procne suddenly started hacking her son to death. He reminded her too much now of her husband. As she was stabbing wildly, Philomela slit his throat. Perhaps as an act of mercy. Then they cooked him in a stew.

While Philomela remained hidden, Procne called her husband to supper.

Once he had finished, he asked for his son. Procne told him he had just eaten the boy. At that moment, Philomela emerged from the curtains and threw Itys’s head onto his lap.

Tereus grabbed an axe and came after the two sisters.  But just as he was about to catch them, the gods transformed Procne into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.

And so, when you hear the nightingale singing in the night, a song famous for its sad beauty, that is Philomela, mourning her fate.

Later writers have regularly understood Philomela and the nightingale as images of the artist. The story explains where art and the artistic temperament comes from.

It comes from a child or young person who has been cruelly treated by someone with authority over them--a parent or perhaps someone in the place of a parent. When Hemingway was asked how to become a writer, he answered, “Have an unhappy childhood.” As often as not, this cruelty has to do with the adult fulfilling some illicit sexual desire. Freud saw this, but got it upside down. This being the usual motive, the dysfunctional childhood is most likely to happen to an especially attractive or impressive child—someone highly sexually desirable, or else someone who appears to the adult to be a potential sexual rival. Because the parent or guardian is in authority over them, and they are a minor, or perhaps in early adolescence, they are unable to say anything; they are wholly dependent on the adult. If they do say anything, they are not listened to. It is as though their tongue had been cut out.

Like Philomela’s tapestry, art is the sublimation of this urgent need to speak. As Emily Dickenson wrote, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. Success in circuit lies.” Art is the representation by other means of whatever needs to be screamed to the heavens, yet cannot be said outright. It exists in a folded state to get past the posted guards, and to the ears that can and need to hear it.

As Jesus said of his parables, “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.”

If Philomela the nightingale represents art and the artist, what does her sister Procne the swallow represent? A second strategy employed by an abused child: madness, or feigned madness. Madness or the mask of folly is another way to say what needs to be said, or do what needs to be done, without destruction; at the cost of being ignored. Strategic madness perhaps accounts for everything we call “mental illness.”

The prime symbolism of the swallow is of a frequent flier, a constant traveller, on long migrations. This is the fate, a “wandering mind,” or perhaps the prescription, for Procne, the mad sibling: for God’s sake, get away from the family.

What about Itys? Why is that part of the formula? 

The murder of Itys is especially morally disturbing. Tereus is the villain; Itys is an innocent victim just like Philomela and Procne.

Nevertheless, this is just how dysfunctional families work. Instead of confronting the adult authority figure responsible, even when the rest of the family really know who is responsible, children, spouses, siblings, generally turn on each other instead. This may be out of fear of the power of the true villain—he or she has done what he did because he was powerful enough to get away with it. Therefore it is risky to attack him or her directly. It is easier to take out your anger at someone else—a family scapegoat.

In the epilogue, Tereus, the selfish king, the narcissist, is transformed into a hoopoe, a notoriously preening bird with a crown on its head.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

As the World Sees Us

 

Trudeau and the Liberals have certainly changed the world's image of Canada.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

 

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

It's the Jews. It's Always the Jews

 

My leftist friend Xerxes surprises me by devoting his latest column to how “the Jews” have 

“re-invented” Christmas. This they have done, according to him, by dominating the music industry and writing Christmas songs on purely secular themes.

This is where we are. It is not a good place.

Xerxes is wrong, to begin with, to suggest that non-religious Christmas songs are any new thing. Christmas has always been a celebration of winter and the solstice as well as of the birth of Christ. It has always had its secular side of general merriment and misrule.

Here is a brief selection of old and purely secular Christmas tunes:

Deck the Halls

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

The Wren

Jingle Bells

Here We Come a Wassailing

O Tannenbaum

He is wrong too to say that all modern secular Christmas songs are written by “the Jews.” Here are a few secularist songs and songwriters I am pretty sure are not Jewish.

“Little St. Nick” – Brian Wilson

“(Simply Having) A Wonderful Christmas Time”—Paul McCartney

“Happy Christmas (War is Over)” – John Lennon

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” – Mariah Carey

When I was a kid, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” was a popular novelty song. The author also wrote hymns—not Jewish.

Not that Xerxes is complaining all that loudly. Almost the last thing he cares about is anything going secular. He ends the column saying that St. Paul condemned holidays anyway.

But that leaves the whole point of the column being to blame the Jews for something, anything.

Without demanding punishment, Xerxes includes all the elements of anti-semitism. First, the idea that Jews act as a unit; that they have an agenda. Second, that they are powerful, and more or less secretly powerful. They are controlling things behind the curtain. Third, that their agenda goes against the interests and desires of the majority.

Very sinister. And Bob’s your uncle, you have the International Jewish Conspiracy. You have the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

This was always the predictable end of “intersectionality.” The inevitable trajectory was to target the smallest distinct group with the greatest available concentration of wealth to pillage. So the scapegoat class who owed reparations perhaps started out as “whites,” but then “white males,” then “cis white males,” or non-disabled cis white males; while the supposedly oppressed class expanded from blacks to blacks and women, blacks, women, and people of any skin tone other than white, but then also Muslims, then also sexual nonconformists of any description. The inevitable end-point was everybody versus the Jews, the smallest identifiable minority with the greatest wealth. Modern leftists see this just as Hitler saw it. 

I expect Kanye West’s recent outbursts have a lot to do with other people feeling freer to go here—although everyone was going here already.

One aspect of West’s argument was “Why can’t I complain about the Jews? I can complain about everybody else, but not the Jews.”

But that is not true. Black people have licence to complain publicly about everybody else, except the Jews. The only people white people can complain about are cis white males. And apart from complaining--the fact seems suppressed, but Jews are, in proportion, the one group most targeted by hate crimes. 

The modern left is not just Fascist. It is becoming Nazi.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Purdy on Cohen

 

Al Purdy has disappointed me. It does not pay to read what one of your idols thinks of another of your idols. It does not pay to have Al Purdy review the poetry of Leonard Cohen. 

Purdy complains that Cohen is “Absolutely conventional in metre and form.” “They [Cohen’s poems] gained distinction through other people’s poems.” “Most avant-garde work south of the border seemed to have escaped his attention.”

The problem is, it seems to me, that Purdy is objecting to Cohen for not being Purdy. 

Perhaps Cohen would do the same if asked to critique Purdy. But Cohen notably refuses to pass judgment on the poetry of his peers; he cannot be drawn out, for example, on comparing his songwriting to Bob Dylan.

To be fair to Purdy, perhaps he did it for money. I think Purdy knows as well as anyone that poetry is ineffable, that there is no sense talking about this or that technique. It comes if it comes, and it works if it works. But people want him to say something, so he comes up with something to say.

Ironically, in complaining that Cohen is too conventional, Purdy is repeating the conventional criticism of Cohen: Louis Dudek said the same. It was this criticism, according to Cohen’s biographer Sylvie Simmons, that made him decide to move on from poetry to songwriting. Only there could his love of versifying be allowed. Joni Mitchell was similarly driven out of her first love, the visual arts, because the art schools scorned representational painting.

But why does poetry have to be unconventional? Why does it have to be experimental? 

In fact, many literary forms rely on convention: that is what genre is about. In genre literature, points are gained by following the conventions, perhaps playfully, but not by failing to follow them: sonnets, fairy tales, cowboy stories, tragedies, the blues.

In fact, poetry relies on convention more than most other forms. The medium of prose is the printed page. The medium of drama is the spoken word. The medium of poetry is memory.

Memory loves and relies on conventions.

As a result, almost the moment poetry violates instead of following convention, it destroys itself.

Al Purdy’s own best work relies on and refers to memory: 

But it has been a long time since

And we must enquire the way of strangers.

If you want one reason why poetry is no longer a popular art form, look here: the idea since Eliot (who was frying altogether other fish) that it needs to be experimental.

The idea of experimental art is a flowover from scientism, the ruling idolatry of our time: the pagan notion that science is the measure of all things. Science does indeed proceed by experiment, and the old is forever superseded by the new. Art does not. Homer or Shakespeare are not superseded by Toni Morrison or Charles Bukowski, as Ptolemy is superseded by Copernicus, or Paracelsus by Pasteur. An achievement in the arts is more or less immortal, eternal. Beauty remains beauty forever.

In an effort to achieve novelty, current poets have thrown over all the elements of good poetry. No wonder if the poetry no longer works as well. 

It is true that novelty, freshness, is sometimes desirable as an aesthetic quality. It is valuable in humorous verse, for example. It can also be overdone, be recherche.

As to sounding like other poets, Purdy needs to explain what is wrong with that. Shakespeare made a rather decent career out of sounding like other people in his verse. Someone—was it Blake?--said, “a bad poet seems to steal from others. A good poet really does.” Writing a poem “in the style of” Catullus or Virgil used to be and ought to be a prime accomplishment—given that it is good.

I would have expected Purdy to be too wise to fall for such foolish scientism. My estimation is lowered a notch.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.