Stephen Roney's Blog, page 113
October 19, 2022
Hang Me, Oh Hang Me
I recently ran across two longish documentaries on YouTube about the American Folk Revival of the early 1960s, in Greenwich Village. Great nostalgia for me.
I love that stuff. That was always my music. I loved it back in the 60s, when everybody else did. In the 1980s, I used to haunt used record stores picking up discarded folk LPs from that era. Everyone else was throwing them out. I have fantasies that one day, they will be valued again, just like Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music back in the 1950s. It is in the nature of folk music that it ebbs and flows. We’re due for another revival. So much of what we listen to now is junk.
For some, folk music is a political thing. Back at Athabasca U, there was an active folk culture, but it was all the sociology and poli sci types; and they were all socialists. In fact, the 1940s and 50s folk revival was directly connected to the socialists and communists. This was supposedly, after all, the music of the working class.
This is not what speaks to me. It never did. My politics then as now were liberal; that is, libertarian. I could get behind the civil rights movement; I thought the war in Vietnam was ill-advised, but not immoral. I wanted nothing to do with Marxism. And the real music of the working class is rock and roll, in the city, and country and western, in the small towns. Partly, I suspect, because these middle class socialists went and politicized folk.
A big part of what did appeal to me is the emphasis on the lyrics, certainly. The folk boom segued in on the receding waves of the beatnik poetry era; and took over the same coffee houses.
Someone has described the movie Inside Llewyn Davis as a portrait of depression. That may be the real key. Folk music is almost always sad. Not just the songs composed during the 60s folk boom. Go back to the Child Ballads. Go back to the blues. When there is a rare exception, that is the folk music I do not like. Can’t abide Melanie; can’t abide John Denver. I was always rubbed the wrong way by Pete Seeger’s chipmunk cheerfulness and “sing along with me” shtick.
Many can’t abide my very favourite singer-songwriter of them all, Leonard Cohen, because he is supposedly too gloomy.
But it works for me. As Aristotle pointed out so many years ago: art purges the excess of some emotion. If you have an excess of fear and pity, tragedy soothes you. If you have an excess of sorrow, if you are oppressed, folk music is the cure. If you have an excess of energy, try rock and roll. And so forth. You are what you listen to. Folk music is a treatment for depression.
This comes, of course, from it being originally the music of the downtrodden. Downtrodden in a way the modern working class is not.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 18, 2022
Jive Talking
One of my students, attending University of Indiana as an international student, has been assigned an article by James Baldwin titled “If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?”
English, French, German, and Spanish are languages. “Black English” is a dialect.
Baldwin’s first contention: “People evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances, or in order not to be submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate.”
Rather, people evolve a language in order to communicate. To suppose you can control your circumstances (or “reality”) by the language you use is the premise behind George Orwell’s sinister Newspeak. It is a delusion of the power-mad.
While insisting that “Black English” is a separate language, somewhat paradoxically, Baldwin insists that standard American English owes much to it. I grant him the term “jazz.” He could have cited many more. But he cites, falsely, “beat generation” as coming from the black expression “beat to his socks.” The term was coined by Jack Kerouac, who ought to know, and he said it was a reference to the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. Even if it weren’t, “beat” has perfectly reasonable and applicable senses in English that do not rely on any reference to that idiom. One can be beat without being beat to one’s socks.
Baldwin describes “black English” as “a language, that the white man could not possibly understand, and that, indeed, he cannot understand.” Of course white Americans can understand most of what is said in “black English.” Few white people learn it, or use it, because it has no utility for them. Its only value is as a mark of ethnic identity, a cant or jargon; they are not going to convince anyone they are black in any case.
But look at how that premise harms black people. If “white” people are unable to learn black English, you have to entertain the parallel argument that black people may be unable to ever learn to speak standard English very well. You have no defense, now, against that claim. Perhaps they are also unable to learn algebra, then, or medicine, or science, or law…not a road you should want to go down.
“If this absolutely unprecedented journey does not indicate that black English is a language, I am curious to know what definition of language is to be trusted.”
The author has not considered any definitions of language. Here’s the one that is tenable in linguistics: a language, as distinct from a dialect, has a standardized written form and a literature. All Englishmen, regardless of their local dialect, can read the London newspapers. They can read Agatha Christie’s novels. All Chinese can read the Chinese classics, even though they often cannot understand one another when they speak. Conversely, Hindi and Urdu, although mutually comprehensible, are considered different languages: they are written in different scripts. The same for Croatian and Bosnian.
Black English is a dialect, not a language, because books, magazines, newspapers, and epic poems are not printed and read in black English. Perhaps in some future they may be; but it is unlikely. An author does not want to limit his audience, and all speakers of black English can also read standard English—along with about a billion others.
Tellingly, Baldwin himself chooses to write this article in standard, not in black, English. He should not demand otherwise from black youth. He is crippling them.
Language is communication. The best language is the language that can communicate with the most people.
Black English is a millstone around the neck.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Anti-Catholic Hate Crimes
October 17, 2022
Ukrainian Refugees Coming to Canada
I read in my parish bulletin, confirmed by the Archdiocese of Toronto website, that there are currently 80,000 Ukrainian refugees in country, with another 500,000 expected “in the coming months.”
Those are big numbers. This swamps Canada’s usual refugee uptake. It even swamps Canada’s usual immigration intake.
I think it is a good thing.
Canada was populated by refugees: the Irish fleeing the potato famine and English oppression; the Scots driven off their land in the Highland Clearances. “Displaced persons” after the Second World War. Eastern European Jews. This is the service Canada can render the world. With conventional immigration, we are skimming off people who might be needed in their home countries: humans being the prime resource. When we accept refugees, we are solving problems for them, and for the lands from which they come.
Refugees make the best Canadians. Having nothing to go back to, they are more likely to make a commitment to in the new country, to integrate and contribute to Canada. Canada’s current immigration policy does the opposite. It favours the rich, connected and well educated. Comfortable where they are, they come only for economic benefits. Their attitude will be, “Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.” After all, they abandoned their home country on this principle. They are only here to get what they can get. If the getting is not good, they can easily go home, or move on. Refugees cannot.
The reason the Third World is poor is because of a corrupt upper class. When we bring in economic immigrants on points, we are importing this class. They will not be the best; and they will bring with them a culture of corruption. Canada would do better with a random selection, as with refugees.
Ukrainians ought to integrate well for cultural reasons. Most importantly, they are Christians. They share our core cultural values. This is a vital and completely unappreciated issue.
They are Europeans; their culture is similar. There are already a lar4ge number of Ukrainians in Canada, and they have been a part of Canadian culture for a long time. So integration should be relatively seamless.
Moreover, as Eastern Europeans, they have recently experienced communism. They are highly favourably disposed to Western values and the values of liberal democracy, having known their lack. They will not come, as so many immigrants do, with a chip on their shoulder, hostile to the country and the culture.
And they are familiar with winter. They will know how to cope with the Canadian weather.
One possible concern is that they may not stay. At some point, the war in Ukraine will be over, and they may want to return. Perhaps they should return, for the sake of their homeland. The more so since there will be few young men in the group. Men of military age have not been allowed to leave Ukraine. So we are often not going to get intact families.
On the other hand, if many single women choose to stay, and the issue is Canadian underpopulation, women are more valuable as immigrants than men. Women have babies. And inspire men to become fathers.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 16, 2022
The Problem of Overpopulation in Hell
Hitler's smirkMy daughter asks the obvious question.
“Since we all know Hitler was such a terrible person, why did the Germans vote for him?”
We usually dishonestly conceal the problem with the absurd claim that Hitler was mad. It was all one guy. Everyone else is innocent.
But people do not accept orders from a madman. Ask King George III.
And Hitler is not the worst example. Mao did not start a word war, but he killed perhaps 30 million Chinese with his policies. And Mao is still revered. His face is on the Chinese banknotes. While in China in the early nineties, I saw an altar to him at a Buddhist temple, and a woman kowtowing to him.
Hitler’s great fault was only that he failed. That is what he cannot be forgiven for.
Such is the way of the world. Most people do not resist evil; they are not troubled by it. Most people will embrace it, so long as they think they can get away with it and there is something in it for them.
Hitler promised the Germans prosperity: better pensions, free vacations, higher education for all, the riches of the Jews, and the booty of conquered lands. Mao promised the mass of average folks the booty of the rich; as do socialists in general, justifying invariably bloody means. So did Idi Amin. And most of the people backed each of them enthusiastically; at least so long as they thought they would benefit.
Similarly, the current Canadian or American regime of unrestricted and free abortion promises sexual pleasure at will. So the average person is perfectly happy to kill any number of children.
At the Banff Publishing Workshops, challenged to come up with book ideas, I was warned: nothing will sell that asks the reader to make any sort of personal sacrifice. If a problem is to be addressed, others must always be scapegoated.
We must not ignore the guilt of the average person.
The average person is immoral. Morality is exceptional. This is also why, with remarkable consistency, the general and accepted position on any contentious issue is a lie.
All evil needs is a suitable bribe, sand a promise of impunity, and it's off to the races.
It is a fallen world.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 13, 2022
How to Make Canada Better
Taking the Confucian civil service examI find myself growing impatient that the governments of Iran, Russia, and China have not yet fallen. But this is naïve. Even if they do, in all likelihood, we are not going to get much better government soon. There is an inevitable limiting factor.
It is that the average person is average. The social world, all government, is built by and for average people.
In a democracy, the government is not going to be any smarter, on average of the population. Nor has anyone come up with a better system. As Churchill observed, democracy is the worst possible form of government—until you consider all the others.
It is not just that no other system has reliably produced leaders smarter than the average. We are not democracies because we believe the average person is always right. We are democracies because each individual is sovereign, and has the right and duty to decide, as much as possible, for himself. Human dignity demands that he have some input.
China for millennia did rather well on something like the Platonic system: government was in the hands of those who could pass a comprehensive examination. It was in the hands, in theory, of the intelligentsia. That ought to lead to government by the more intelligent, and for many centuries it did seem to. But that began to falter about five hundred years ago. This system could not compete with the Europeans, either in terms of organization, economic prosperity, or military power.
We are seeing the same collapse in the modern Western academy. The system is producing dumber and dumber results. It depends, after all, on those already there setting the tests and choosing who joins the cabal. There is nothing to ensure that those already there know what they are doing.
When Europe pulled ahead of China, it was snot because of democracy. Europe was not yet democratic. It was aristocratic. The old European upper class was based on the idea that people could be educated from birth for government. That worked well for a time, driven, I would argue, by a strong and consistent Christian ideology of service, the chivalric ideal. But this system too could not successfully compete with democracy. Rulers would still be of only average intelligence, and with a failure of faith, class interest could easily come to supersede the general good.
Modern dictatorships are worst of all: those who rise to the top are those most driven by an urge for power and prepared to be most ruthless.
One solution that could be better than democracy, in producing good government, might be to appoint to office based on IQ. Unlike the old Confucian tests, IQ tests are objective and have the benefit of the scientific method of data collection. Contrary to much uninformed and envious opinion, IQ is the most reliable data point we have in all of the social sciences. It correlates well up to a fairly high level, well above average, with such other checks as academic and business success.
But could a subset of the highly intelligent be relied on to govern in the general interest, instead of for their own interests as a group? Perhaps not. And we still have the issue of human dignity, the right and duty of the individual to choose for himself.
Perhaps the best solution of all is available to a country like Canada, because of our high levels of immigration. Retain democracy, but accept immigrants based on IQ.
Currently, Canada chooses based on income and education. This means Canada is skimming off the upper classes of the Third World. But the Third World is poor because it has a corrupt upper class. The best do not rise to the top, and those who do will probably be corrupt.
IQ would be better, fairer, and would, over time, ensure that Canada is more prosperous, better governed, and a centre for world culture.
Nobody has the never to suggest this, even though it would be in everyone’s best interest.
Why? I credit envy of the more intelligent. Everyone resents anyone smarter than themself.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Not Trump in 2024
I think it is a great shame he did not get his second term. But now the calculation has changed.
The Trump years were tumultuous. Many people voted again
st Trump, not for Biden, simply because they were exhausted and craved a return to normalcy.
It turned out that Biden was not normalcy at all. Things have gotten more tumultuous--not in the White House, but in American and the world. The thirst for normalcy and a return to sanity is greater than ever, and Trump is not the obvious standard-bearer for normalcy and sanity.
Add to that, the obvious problems with Biden’s age. Trump is almost as old. There will be a thirst for youth and vigour.
The Republican Party has to be careful. Any alternative to Trump must not look like an anti-Trump move, or the party loses its new base. What is needed is a new advocate for the Trump populism. That excludes Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, or Rand Paul, otherwise impressive candidates.
The best option for now looks like Ron DeSantis. Things can go awry quickly for a sitting governor; and running against Trump may tarnish him.
Here’s a dream ticket: Ron DeSantis and Tulsi Gabbard. That could appeal beyond the Trump base, without rejecting it, looks youthful, and would look like a return to sanity.
More likely: Trump gets nominated. VP will be someone relatively obscure.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 12, 2022
Fetterman in Pennsylvania
A lot of pundits on the right are saying Democrat candidate Fetterman should drop out of the race for the Senate in Pennsylvania. That he is not fit for office because of a stroke five months ago.
I disagree. So far as we can see, the stroke has impaired his ability to hear and comprehend what he hears, and his ability to speak. When he speaks, he sometimes misses words.
So would you ban a blind man or a deaf man from office?
Talk of his “health” is an unworthy distraction. Talk of his platform and his character.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 11, 2022
Tulsi Gabbard Comes Out
Tulsi Gabbard has publicly left the Democratic Party. She condemned it, for, among other things, anti-white racism.
I think there is a growing awareness of this; I think also of how a British monarchy expert recently kicked back at Don Lemon calling for British reparations for slavery; and Kanye West and Candice Owens appearing with “White Lives Matter” t-shirts.
A correspondent recently wrote to Xerxes “There is no way that the white Christian race will ever honestly and sincerely be able to apologize (and really mean it) for all it has inflicted on other races -- and continues to do so today. With ‘Killer Kapitalism’ rampaging. the chances of justice and equality are turning into mirages.”
If you replace “white Christian race” with “Jewish race” in the above, you have a perfect statement of Nazi doctrine. Including the hostility to capitalism and blaming it on one race.
We are at the point when it is not possible to be a good. moral person, and be on the political left. The right used to think of the left simply was soft-headed, "low information." That's not believable any longer. You pretty much have to be consciously evil.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 10, 2022
The Reality of Colonialism
European empires as of 1945This essay, originally published in the Journal of Third World Studies, has been the cause of much controversy. Half the editorial board of the journal resigned over its having published it, and the article was ultimately yanked after protest. The author has gotten death threats
It has also become an issue in the current Ontario municipal elections, because one candidate for the Hamilton School Board linked to it. This has been seized upon by one of her opponents to attack her.
If there is a demand that something be suppressed, it is not because it is untrue. There is no call to suppress Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, or Gavin Menzies’s 1492: The Year the Chinese Discovered America. There is no call to suppress the discredited works of Sigmund Freud, or Margaret Meade.
A demand that something be suppressed can only mean that 1. It is true, so that opponents cannot hope to convincingly argue against it, and 2. It threatens some established power.
This article’s thesis threatens many Third World regimes and elites, as well as a huge academic “anti-colonialism” establishment.
Some quotes:
“A sobering World Bank report of 1996 noted: ‘Almost every African country has witnessed a systematic regression of capacity in the last thirty years; the majority had better capacity at independence than they now possess.’”
“The rapid spread and persistence of Western colonialism with very little force relative to the populations and geographies concerned is prima facie evidence of its acceptance by subject populations compared to the feasible alternatives.”
“Despite cries of ‘exploitation,’ colonialism was probably a money loser for imperial powers. … European powers embarked on ruinously costly and ultimately money-losing colonialism for largely non-economic reasons. That is why they gave up their colonies so easily.”
So much for claims of oppression; so much for claims of exploitation and plunder.
Certainly some colonial regimes were deeply oppressive; but not colonialism as such. No more than when a business calls in an outside management consultancy to right an unsteady enterprise.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
