Stephen Roney's Blog, page 111

Remembrance Day

 

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

Remembrance Day Reflections

 

For Remembrance Day, a friend of mine, who declares herself a pacifist, posted a photo of her father, who fought with distinction in WWII and returned with severe PTSD.

The post garnered a couple of comments worth comment:

“Unfortunately War is a direct result of Greed, without Greed there would be no Wars !”

“Yes, but maybe not just greed - maybe also simply a lust for power too, and a belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Sounds good; not so. Here is an example of the need to educate one’s conscience.

War is caused by greed? War is expensive. Most times nations lose money by going to war. No doubt war is good for the armaments industry, the “military-industrial complex”; but not for most businesses For most businesses, it will mean a shortage of labour and labour becoming more expensive as workers are drafted. It will mean being cut off from suppliers and markets; often it will mean a destruction of physical plant. More generally, businesses thrive on predictability, reliable profitability, and suffer from any instability. War is the ultimate disruptor of business.

“War is caused by greed” is Marxist delusion. The subtext there is, get rid of capitalism, and you get rid of wars. Seductive to anyone who does not consider themselves a rich capitalist: provides a convenient scapegoat. Better yet if the capitalists are Jews.

“A belief that your beliefs/God/way of living is THE right way and all other ways are evil and must be stomped out.”

Live and let live, right?

On that basis, should the northern states in the US have left the South to their preferred way of life? Of course, it involved the enslavement of others. Whose business was that? If Hitler had not attacked Poland, should the world have looked on in silence as he exterminated all of Germany’s Jews? When he did invade Poland, was Chamberlain right, and Churchill the guilty party, for not letting Hitler well enough alone, and instead starting a World War?

This pacifism is the same idea as that there would be general peace in society if we just abolished all laws and defunded the police. Why mess with Ted Bundy’s or Charles Manson’s recreational opportunities?

This is the atheist argument: get rid of religion, and there will be no more wars. This is seductive, because religion tells you there are things you want to do that you should not do. So there is always a lobby for getting rid of religion.

But one of the things—the main thing—that religion tells you not to do is to harm your neighbour. 

Wars are caused by the same thing that causes all interpersonal conflicts: someone has violated the categorical imperative, to treat others as you would be treated. Wars are caused by selfishness, usually on one side and not the other.

And pacifism is immoral; in a way, the worst immorality. None so guilty as the innocent bystander.

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

Depression Truths

 

Kurelek, "The Maze"

A middle school student I tutor has done a competent job of detailing the cause of depression as popularly understood. It is worth going through it to identify the major errors in the popular understanding of depression. This includes the understanding not just of most people but of most psychiatrists and psychologists, although the more honest ones will admit that they are just thrashing about in the dark, and “nobody knows.”

The essay:

“Depression is a mood disorder that can make people feel sadness, hopelessness and loss of interest. It can make you feel, think and behave differently and can lead to serious emotional and physical problems. It is basically a type of mental illness that can make people start not interacting with other people and feel hopelessness and become sensitive. … Depression comes from 3 major reasons, genetic vulnerability, severe life stressors, substances you may take (some medications, drugs and alcohol) and medical conditions. 

We need to be nice and friendly to people who have depression. They can get in bigger trouble if you say some sensitive words to them. Lasty, depression is an illness to take seriously. We need to find correct solutions to cure depression. We need to help people that have depression, instead of hurting them with words we say.”

Let’s take these points in turn.

“Depression is a mood disorder.” No, the mood, sadness, is a symptom. This is like saying cancer is a pain disorder. 

Why would we imagine there is no cause for the sadness? That is like supposing there is no cause for pain. Sadness is a warning that something is wrong. To only treat the mood is to leave the problem to fester and grow.

Depression is a loss of meaning, direction, and clear values. One cannot discern right from wrong, good from bad, and so does not know what to do. It is a loss of esprit, or, in Africa, “loss of soul.”

“that can make people feel sadness, hopelessness and loss of interest,”

Anxiety is at least as common as these, but ignored or treated as a separate problem.

“It is basically a type of mental illness that can make people start not interacting with other people.”

This is perhaps the most harmful misconception: that wanting to be alone is a part of the disease. It is the proper and instinctive cure. When one has lost one’s sense of values, of meaning, the urgent need is to retreat and meditate.  To seek company at such a time is no better than to seek alcohol or drugs.

Unfortunately, the treatment most commonly recommended is to get back into one’s social life as quickly as possible. Perpetuating the problem, probably making it worse.

“Depression comes from 3 major reasons, genetic vulnerability, severe life stressors, substances you may take (some medications, drugs and alcohol) and medical conditions.”

That’s four major reasons; but there is really only one.

Symptoms mimicking depression can be caused by drugs or physical illness; sure. The symptom is not the disease. 

The idea that depression is genetic was fashionable back in the eighties or nineties. Back then, the structure of DNA had been relatively recently discovered, and the big rush was on to decode the human genome. Because it was the latest thing in science, genetics was thought of as miraculous. This is always the way with science: each new discovery is first thought of as the answer to everything. When electricity was discovered, it was supposed to be the essence of life. See the story of Frankenstein and his monster. When computers came in, “running it through the computer” was thought to be a sure proof of anything—a delusion that survives in climate science. So too with genetics: it was the cause of everything for a while, of criminality, of alcoholism, of homosexuality, of depression, of schizophrenia.

Further evidence that depression was genetic was that it tended to run in families.

Over the intervening years, however, as we have isolated the entire genome, and multiple genomes, we have found no gene for alcoholism, no gene for homosexuality, no gene for schizophrenia, and no gene for depression. Wrong tree, dog.

Something other than genes runs in families. Politics does too; religion, world view, culture, values, personal habits, and parenting styles.

Depression comes from bad parenting and miseducation. “Abusive” parenting, if you like; but that term as commonly used is misleading. The issue is not blows to the body, or sexual exploitation as such, but blows to the mind, soul, and conscience. Confusing children as to values, right and wrong, the rights of self and of others, the point of existence.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.” 

This is also what original sin is all about; it is these distorted values that are visited by the father to the son unto the fourth generation.

Severe life stressors can come into play once the distortion of values has been instilled. But only stressors of a specific kind: if issues of right and wrong again become ambiguous. Some people, and not others, are vulnerable to breakdown in such cases, because their moral roots are not as firmly planted.

“We need to be nice and friendly to people who have depression. They can get in bigger trouble if you say some sensitive words to them.”

Notwithstanding this vulnerability to life stressors, this idea that the depressed are more emotionally fragile than the rest of us seems to be the opposite of the truth. Aristotle pointed out that great war leaders and heroes are commonly depressive. Grant, Sherman, Lincoln, Churchill… Yet the prime requirement to be a great war leader is to keep your head under intense stress—to the extent that someone is trying to kill you.

Because the abused grow up under constant threat and stress, they generally learn to bear stress better than the rest of us. So long as right and wrong are clear, they tend to have great personal courage. A situation of open war can bring renewed energy: now the sides are clear. This, however, is more true of a military commander than of a soldier in the trenches; who lacks the strategic view and only sees the moral dilemma of being asked to kill people he sees no reason to kill.

At a minimum, the depressed are particularly able to bear any level of insult without flinching. This is just what they are used to, and, sadly, they can be drawn to a similar such abusive situation like moths to the flame.

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

The US Midterms

 

The midterm election results down in the US were quite a shock. Not that they strayed so far from the polls; people were discounting polls. More that the logic of a first midterm in a president’s term almost always means major gains by the opposition party, plus the disastrous economic news and the growing signs of Biden’s senility. And John Fetterman. And growing signs that the public is no longer embracing the woke agenda. Regardless of polls, people were expecting a “red tsunami.”

Why didn’t it happen?

It seems to me the only plausible reason is Donald Trump. As unhappy as folks might have been with Biden and the Democrats, they did not want Trump back. So they did not want to vote for his candidates.

The overwhelming public urge seems to be to get back to the time before either Trump or Biden, or to get beyond it.

You might have expected this to cause a low turnout, as voters were unhappy with either alternative. Instead, it caused a high one: half the country rushed out to vote for anybody but the Biden Dems, and the other half to vote for anybody but Trump.

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

Taylor Swift's "The Man"

 

The great advantage of art is that it is the one place one is permitted to speak truth. The disadvantage is that most people either misunderstand or misrepresent what you say; usually to mean the opposite. The classic example is the parables of Jesus.

But another example that has come to my attention recently is Taylor Swift’s music video “The Man,” which one of my grad students has been asked to comment on. Everyone reads it as a criticism of male gender roles and a complaint about the oppression of women by the patriarchy.

“It's a thinly-veiled attack on the disparity between how men and women in the same roles are viewed by society,” explains the BBC. The Washington Post calls it a "symbolism-packed takedown of the patriarchy."

I don’t discount the possibility that Taylor Swift herself believes so. That is not relevant, for it is the intentional fallacy. Artists are not necessarily aware of or in agreement with what they are saying. They are inspired; they are speaking, ideally, for a higher being. As Cohen writes in “Going Home”:

But he [Cohen; God is speaking] does say what I tell him

Even though it isn’t welcome

He just doesn't have the freedom

To refuse

The video indeed seems to be doing this. Superficially, Taylor Swift’s video is a feminist lament about the advantages of being a man. Examples of traditional complaints include “manspreading”; the sexual double standard that men are permitted to be promiscuous, while women are criticized for it; that men are the bosses in the work force; that men are more free to express anger, while women must always be “nice”; that old men get to marry younger women. Even that men get to pee standing up. Each familiar claim is portrayed in a brief tableau.

But the whole thing seems subverted at the end of the video by the big reveal: that the man being portrayed is not a man at all, but Taylor Swift in masquerade.

What is the point of this, if not to suggest that the image of the male life being portrayed is not real, but a woman’s fantasy of what it might be like? As if demanding of us that we question its accuracy. The more so since the final scene knocks down the fourth wall and demonstrates this was all a video as well, all “made up.”

Also subverting the superficial interpretation are hints throughout the video that woman are actually in control “behind the scenes.” Most obviously, at the end, Taylor Swift is revealed as the director, giving orders to the man and criticizing his performance, while he humbly defers and promises to do better. When the credits run, everything was done, they say, by Taylor Swift, and “no men were harmed in the making of this video.” Suggesting a status for men equivalent to that of a trained animal, or a pet.

In an earlier scene, of a man competing in a tennis match, on the rear wall we see the legend “Womens’ Charity.” That id, all the effort being put out by the man is for the benefit of women. A shot on a subway displays, on the rear wall, a fake movie poster titled “Man versus Master.” Which surely implies that the man is not the master. Another scene features a poster that reads ““Missing. If found, return to Taylor Swift.” 

In light of these background references, we have a right to assume irony. Now go back and look at the visual examples of male privilege. Are they not actually mocking these claims? Beginning with their chilche’d nature. The man manspreading on the subway has his legs spread absurdly wide. He is wearing a business suit and smoking a cigar—not the sort of person you would see in a subway, and not something you could get away with in the real world. Images of men throwing bills in the air; stepping over women lounging in bikinis on a private yacht. 

More irony: the imaginary man is seen throwing a tantrum on the tennis court, on the ground and banging his fists. Is this meant to illustrate a male right to express anger? But it seems most obviously to refer to a recent such outburst by Serena Williams. A female line judge rolls her eyes in a brief reaction shot: men are not allowed to get away with such behavior.

A gentleman of obviously advanced years is shown marrying a younger woman. If this is meant to suggest male privilege, her big smile as she flashes a huge diamond ring to the camera is not the best way to do so. It implies instead that she is getting just what she wants here.

A woman has to work twice as hard as a man to get ahead? The video shows the very opposite: immediately after criticizing her male lead, Taylor Swift as director heaps praise on a female actor for doing no more than rolling her eyes at the camera. The scene is too obvious to be without meaning.

The reality Taylor Swift is portraying is that feminism is all wrong. Men do not get the better end of the social bargain, and never did. Women are always in control; for the simple reason that men do everything they do in hopes of pleasing women in the mating dance. A pretty young women gets whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. She simply says, “try to be sexier—try to be more likeable”; as Swift does to her male alter ego at the end of the movie; and any man will react like a cowed but devoted dog. 

Men are whatever they are because that is what women tell them to be.

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

Excess Deaths

 

Canada did not do well in managing the pandemic.

Sweden did best.

Moral: lockdowns and mandates caused more deaths.

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

A Path for DeSantis

 

 I see a path for Ron DeSantis to the Republican nomination. 

Donald Trump has begun attacking him. A day or two ago, in a speech, Trump referred to DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious.”

Trump is being roundly criticized for this by conservative commentators. First, because he was attacking a fellow Republican and conservative on the eve of an election. Second, because it was a lame insult. Not up to Trump’s standard.

I smell blood in the water.

The commentariat is implying that Trump is past it. They are implying also that he is disloyal. These are deadly criticisms if they stick.

The same people who like Trump like DeSantis. The same people who like DeSantis like Trump. I think this means that, whoever atttacks first, loses. They immediately become the bad guy.

Trump has already started firing.

Maybe all DeSantis needs to do is keep his powder dry, keep smiling, and refuse to attack Trump in kind, and he wins. He is showing respect for the old duffer; while implying he is no longer really relevant. In fact, the base for the two is so similar that, if DeSantis can hold his tongue for just a short time, Trump’s support may crumble and move over en masse.

People want to support Trump because they feel he got a raw deal in having only one term, and one term crippled by the “Russia hoax.” His advantage over DeSantis is this call on his followers’ sympathies and sense of loyalty. Without it, DeSantis looks like the better candidate. He is younger, and so contrasts better with the doddering Biden. Even if Biden does not run again, people will fear electing another dodderer. He lacks a lot of Trump’s baggage. After the turmoil of the Biden presidency, people will crave a sense of normalcy; not a return to the prior turmoil of the Trump presidency. It will not help to be reminded of Trump’s chippiness.

By going after DeSantis without being fired upon, Trump surrenders his moral claim to sympathy and loyalty. He is being unsympathetic and disloyal himself.

There will probably be other candidates for the nomination. They will probably do enough to keep Trump’s feet to the fire. 

DeSantis’s best play is to stay above the fray and look presidential. It even looks then like an easy win.

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

Racial Prejudice in Canada

Racism is a relatively modern problem, since the concept of race has only emerged in the last few centuries. But fear and suspicion of strangers, xenophobia, is instinctive; we are herd animals. It should therefore be no surprise to encounter it anywhere, including Canada.

I have certainly witnessed discrimination in Canada against East Asians; and against Jews. And I have experienced it myself—prejudice against “whites” is particularly common.

But I have also experienced prejudice on the basis of ethnicity in most other countries in which I have lived. Prejudice and discrimination against non-Chinese is quite overt, for example, in China. In the Middle East, there is a rigid racial hierarchy: Arabs at the top, Europeans (“whites”) below, but above Filipinos, who are above South Asians.

 On the whole, Canada has to be one of the least prejudiced countries in the world. The multi-ethnicity you encounter on a typical city street or in the subway suggests this. Most countries are ethnically based, and if you do not have the requisite physical characteristics and pedigree, you are forever an outsider. Not so Canada.

Friend Xerxes persists in asserting that “only the person experiencing prejudice knows it.” This is exactly wrong. Prejudice is an attitude in the mind. Unless motive is stated, only the prejudiced person can know for certain they are prejudiced. For anyone else it requires mind-reading. 

Granted that people can often not know, or not accept, that they are prejudiced. I had a discussion just yesterday with a man who insisted he was not anti-Semitic; it is just that Jews really are all like that. He had a good argument, too; he claimed that the principles of dishonest business dealing were Jewish values. I might have had to buy it, had I not read the Old Testament and much of the Talmud.

Given this uncertainty, the only sensible way to detect and root out prejudice is in laws, statutes, contracts and government policies. And, that, of course, is also the place it really matters. Rudeness you shall have always with you. 

And the statutes and laws in Canada, when they are not, as they should be, race neutral, actually always favour designated “non-white” ethnicities over “whites.”

As for social prejudice, the concept of “white privilege” is a fine example. It is impossible for anyone to know, by looking at the colour of someone’s skin, whether they have experienced a privileged or underprivileged life to that point. It is impossible to know either whether their ancestors have. The concept of “white privilege,” or any actions taken based on this assumption, is or are a classic example of prejudice. One must, as Martin Luther King said, judge not by the colour of someone’s skin, but the content of their character.

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

There Are More Things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

A Japanese ghost
 

“Those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age

and to the resurrection of the dead

neither marry nor are given in marriage.

They can no longer die,

for they are like angels;

and they are the children of God

because they are the ones who will rise.

That the dead will rise

even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,

when he called out 'Lord, '

the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;

and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,

for to him all are alive."

- Today’s Mass reading. Luke 20:30-38

Xerxes, my muse, observed in his latest column that it is a bit absurd that we continue to celebrate Hallowe’en, because no one any longer believes we commune with the dead, that the dead participate in our lives.

I called him on that. No one? 

All Catholics are supposed to believe it. That is what the communion of the saints is about. I think of Chesterton’s definition of tradition as true democracy, because it includes a vote for the dead. Chinese folk religion also believes the dead remain in contact—the famed “ancestor worship.” All shamanic systems believe so—that is who the shamans talk to. 

We are getting up to a large chunk of the world’s population by this point—quite possibly a majority.

I begin to suspect Xerxes does not get out much. Perhaps he speaks only with mainstream Protestants and atheists.

But I want to go further. One of the biggest lies of modern life is that only the physical world is “real,” that spiritual beings do not exist. I remember in first year philosophy, a visiting professor dismissing some branch of philosophy with the comment that it would allow that unicorns exist. In other words, the non-existence of unicorns was insisted on a priori. No arguments allowed.

That bugged the heck out of me at the time, and has bugged me ever since. That is not philosophy. That is blind faith.

But a grossly materialist blind faith.

In the real world of philosophy, Berkeley has demonstrated that the very existence of the material world is an arbitrary hypothesis, and one that violates the principle of Occam’s Razor, which we take as given in science. Plato posited and argued, I think convincingly, that the material world is just a reflection of an “ideal” world, a world of ideas. Were this not so, mere sense perceptions could never spontaneously form themselves into ideas.

It seems to me that unicorns exist. They exist as a coherent image, which we can discuss. Everyone knows what I mean when I say “unicorn.” They exist as an idea; and a transpersonal idea, an idea that exists objectively.

So too with other spiritual beings: the classical gods, fairies, djinn, and the souls of the dead.

To be seen is not to exist. To exist is not to be seen. Otherwise love too does not exist. Neither does justice, or happiness, or freedom, or any other of the important things of life.

So suck it up, unicorn-deniers.

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

Touche

 

Pierre Poilievre is a master.

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