Stephen Roney's Blog, page 208

The Devil and Ravi Zacharias

Scandal has engulfed the memory of Ravi Zacharias, the popular Christian apologist who died last May. He has been accused of several ethical lapses: of having falsified qualifications, of having an affair with a married woman, of having made sexual advances to employees at two massage parlours he owned. More may emerge. His own organization, after an interim report from an independent review, says they find the charges credible.

Fellow Christians are generally understanding. Most see him as a good man who fell to temptation. Who hasn’t? Did he really hurt more people than he helped? And the temptations must have been great.

This overlooks an essential point: Zacharias never admitted to any of it, and never showed any remorse.

This is what separates the sheep from the goats, and makes Zacharias a goat. It is the essential element of what we call “narcissism,” and what used to be more accurately called vice.

One sympathetic therapist suggested poor Zacharias perhaps suffered from “sex addiction.” Probably right: this is what vice is. It is an addiction to sin. This does not excuse it. This means one has thrown in one’s lot with sin. One has chosen the path downward.

Looking at Zacharias and his career give us a portrait of the narcissist. Of course he presented himself as a holy man. The narcissist always will: he will claim to be flawless. It is especially useful to contrast Zacharias’s behavior with that of Donald Trump, since so many falsely accuse Trump of narcissism.

Trump never claimed to be holy. But the biggest contrast between the two is that everyone seems to want to minimize what Zacharias did, and few seem to bear him ill will. The reaction is more sorrow than anger. By contrast, Trump provokes deep hatred, as well as strong affection. 

This is narcissism. The narcissist is concerned above all else with how he or she appears to the world. They do not, as often charged, have “delusions of grandeur.” They just want to appear better than they are; they will falsify credentials. They will hide any imperfection, and do whatever they think will please whoever is present. This is the opposite of Trump, who seems to delight in mixing it up. They are skilled manipulators. They are charming; the devil is a gentleman. This subverts just about everyone around them into enablers and flying monkeys. So the narcissist, unlike Trump, rarely has enemies. 

This illustrates the wisdom of Confucius’s observation: if a person has no friends, it is necessary to make enquiries. If a person has no enemies, it is necessary to make enquiries.

Trump, obviously, is the opposite of this. His friends are fiercely for him, and his enemies fiercely against him.

This is the mark of an honest man.

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

2021 Predictions

 

I seem to have missed making my usual annual predictions last year. Just as well; they would all have been wrong. My predictions, like everyone’s, are always wrong, and this past year was utterly implausible. 

It was as though the world was one big roulette wheel given a reckless spin, and the ball is still bouncing.

I might as well go nuts with my wildest predictions. Now anything is as likely as anything else.

I predict COVID will fade from consciousness in Canada, the US, and Europe by about April. If the vaccinations are done intelligently and efficiently, starting with the most vulnerable, the actual death rate but that time will have dropped enough that the coronavirus will no longer feel frightening. I also hope that rapid testing and therapeutics will be making a significant difference by then: ivormectin, monoclonal antibodies, sniffing dogs. And spring will bring a natural reduction as well.

I predict that Operation Warp Speed and the novel vaccine techniques it encouraged will soon bring unexpected benefits in treating other disease. Perhaps the common cold, perhaps cancer.

I predict that Trump will remain in office for the next four years. I know this is crazy, that the odds against this look astronomical. I am going with a gut instinct. I am convinced from what I have heard that the election really was stolen; and that Biden has been bought by China. So far, people in authority have been going along with the fixed election results for fear of civil unrest and upsetting apple carts; if the risk of unrest becomes greater with Biden than with Trump, their support may flip suddenly. I sense movement in that direction.

Not only may Trump retain power: the Democratic Party as it now exists may be generally discredited. It may then be taken over by the “progressive” left, by AOC and her fans.

I think China, even before the virus, was close to hitting an economic wall. It is in effect a Nazi regime, a Ponzi economy, and probably unsustainable over the long term. Before the virus, they probably seized Hong Kong because they needed to loot it to stay afloat. The virus and its aftereffects, and the strange weather, may be a larger strain than the system can bear. I imagine the Chinese leadership trying to recoup and rally the population with some military adventure; and they may be driven as well by the need to plunder.

This suggests a coming war; most probably an attempt on Taiwan. I expect the other side to win, probably with muscular US involvement. China can count on no allies. The government of China will fall as a result.

In the meantime, the war with China may unite the US, which otherwise looked headed towards civil war. The mad left will not be pleased with Trump staying in office. On the other hand, the riots are not going to get going until the weather is warmer. By that time, they may be preempted by the war. If they do start, the war will rob them of popular support and give cause to suppress them.

When the Chinese government falls, I foresee a period of chaos. China has a tendency to fall apart, and the CCP has deliberately suppressed any possible alternative social organizations who might be able to step in and preserve order. Ordinary Chinese will flock to the Christian churches and to Falun Gong; one or the other or both will become the kernel of a new order, but it will take time. And perhaps a civil war or two.

In the meantime, to escape this, Hong Kong will attempt to shear away and to restore ties with the UK. This, together with the UK’s departure from the EU, will give an added impetus to a preliminary CANZUK agreement: a loose military, free trade, and free movement association among Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and now also Hong Kong. Singapore may well express interest in joining as well, fearing to be eclipsed as a banking and trading centre by Hong Kong. 



Everyone expects a Canadian election this year, once the pandemic abates. I do not. The Liberals would be foolhardy to call one so soon into their term, and the NDP would probably suffer if they provoked an election without some good reason. If it comes, I expect the NDP to suffer badly, because they have been propping up the Liberals despite scandal, and because they have not distinguished themselves from the Liberals in policy terms.

I would venture that the Conservatives would win that election. If China attacks Taiwan, or is otherwise in the news, the close ties and friendship of the Liberals to the CCP may become the main issue, and sink them. If they want to run on how well they handled the pandemic, much depends on how well the inoculations go. It does not look promising so far. Canada lags the US and the UK, and that is how Canadians will evaluate the matter.

I expect there will have to be a rash of retail bankruptcies in Canada, the US, and everywhere else as a result of the pandemic, hastening a move to online shopping that was already underway. Similarly, a lot of universities and colleges in the US are going to start declaring bankruptcy. This may be the beginning of a general shift to learning online, now that everybody is familiar with the tools. The economics are hard to beat.

We should see a definite demographic movement now away from the big cities. There is no longer any reason to live in a big city for shopping; many of us have learned to work remotely, so it is less important to be there for work. Rental and real estate prices have become unsupportable. With the internet, there is far less reason to be there for either entertainment or education. The riots have demonstrated that they are dangerous due to crime, and the virus has demonstrated that they are dangerous because of disease. The flight from the cities should be a major theme in the new year.

Legacy media have been kept alive on ventilators by anti-Trump rhetoric and the systematic censorship and deplatforming of alternative sources online. But the systematic censorship, at worst, is self-limiting. It forces the creation of new competing platforms to serve the demand. I expect the rise of new social media platforms in the upcoming year, and the decline of established players like Facebook, YouTube, Patreon, PayPal, AirBnB, and Twitter, who have become politically partisan, against their business interests. We are already beginning to see this.

I do not expect Muslim terrorism to be much in the news. Remember Muslim terrorism? With the collapse in the price of oil, their revenue sources in the Middle East have dried up. Just as when the IRA lost its funding from the Soviet Union, and then from Libya, peace is breaking out all over, and this will spread. As with China, the virus’s effects are likely, on top of the decline in oil prices, to topple the Iranian regime. When it falls, a large proportion of the Iranian population will publicly apostasize, in reaction to the regime having so closely identified itself with Islam. This will produce a ripple effect throughout the Muslim world: it may become less fashionable to be aggressively Muslim.

The reaction will probably be to want to Westernize and to secularize, as this was the tone under the Shah.

We will see, in a year, how close I am to seeing the shape of things to come.

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

There Is a War

 

Ethical monkeys.

Truth is a thing of infinite value. It is also very rare. Our social lives are precariously suspended on a web of lies.

As an example of the usual social morality, consider the Rotary "Four Way Test":

Is it the TRUTH?

Is it FAIR to all concerned?

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

While that sounds honourable, note that the truth is to be limited to what will preserve general goodwill and social relationships. One should tell the truth, but not the whole truth.

Lines from Emily Dickenson have long troubled my imagination:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

The truth of which she speaks is something frightening—like lightning to a child.

Why are so many afraid of truth?

Possibly relevant: Jesus said he was the truth, and the truth would set us free. Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” and crucified him.

These are perhaps the two warring sides defined.

Every now and again, someone arises who speaks the truth publicly, and it is electrifying—at least to me, but I think to others as well. This is what prophecy is, and prophets keep arising. 

“Prophets, in the modern sense of the word, have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a Prophet; he utters his opinion both of private & public matters.” – William Blake

When I first read Milton Friedman, I got that sense: the shock of truth. The simple logic of what he said contrasted so clearly with the improbable convolutions of Keynesianism. Truth is straight, simple, and drawn in clear lines; lies are serpentine, nuanced, sophisticated, vague. John the Baptist arose to “make the paths straight.”

I got that shock of truth again from Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae. The world, including most Christian denominations, had surrendered to the idea of free sex and even abortion. Everyone expected the prevaricator, Paul, to add his seal of approval. Instead he stood up and said what no one wanted to hear, those who wanted the reassuring rationalization that children did not matter, the marriage bond did not matter, and the foetus was not a human life.

I got the same shock of truth from reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as sanctioned by John Paul II and primarily composed by Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI.

Sadly, I get the opposite from their successor, Francis. Everything he says seems deliberately vague and ambiguous.

For a time, I trusted The Economist to speak truth; that is, while of course not infallible, to represent a consistently principled liberal view; to speak truth as they perceived it. I miss that illusion. I stopped reading  when they referred to Jean-Marie LePen, previously always “that thug,” as “that wily ex-paratrooper.” He had qualified for the run-off; he stood a real chance of being elected French president. It was time to prevaricate. The Economist was playing politics and spinning narratives like everyone else. Truth was to be honoured only as it served self-interest.

Of course, this illness has long infected the rest of the press. In the old days, when journalists only graduated from high school, they were there because they were prophets, determined to find the truth.

The secret to the fierce loyalty to Donald Trump among his supporters is that he, unlike practiced politicians, speaks the blunt truth. He tweets whatever he thinks. 

He is, perversely, most often accused by his opponents of lying: the very opposite of the truth. Trump, like John the Baptist, is blunt and undiplomatic. This, if perhaps not always desirable, is the reverse of lying.

And whom do the anti-Trumpers rally behind as a result? Joe Biden. Not just any politician, but probably the most consistently untruthful active politician in America. The perfect stereotype of the gladhanding glib talker who will say anything to get elected. That obviously puts the lie to their lie; the ultimate lie, but the automatic, spontaneous one used by habitual liars, is to declare truth itself a lie.

Who else, in our times, is a voice for the truth?

The two people I have known personally who seemed most honest, most sincere, were Larry F. and Kathy M. Larry F soon after I met him committed suicide. Kathy M. was schizophrenic.

Someone had convinced them that truth itself was a lie. So where were they to go?

Emily Dickenson, for her part, was obviously mentally ill, by the standards of her time or ours—“melancholic.” She lived most of her life in her bedroom, pursuing truth.

So was Leonard Cohen, of whom those who knew him well will say he was the most honest person they had ever met. 

This seems to be a common theme with many artists. They seem trusting and naïve, unable to play social politics, and deeply sincere.

George Orwell was another obviously depressive artist. He wrote:

“Intellectual honesty is a crime in any totalitarian country; but even in England it is not exactly profitable to speak and write the truth.”

Just as it has recently become unprofitable and a career risk to speak or write the truth in Canada or the USA.

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

But telling people anything they do not want to hear is now a criminal offense, a “hate crime.”

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

So the open hatred for Trump; this explains “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The entire culture is now in deep denial, and the deeper they go into denial, and the closer anyone comes to speaking the truth, the more violently they are liable to react; up to the point of crucifixion.

Orwell believed that his one true talent was the ability to face the truth when all others were in such denial.

The same might be said of Churchill, who credited his own ability to see the gathering storm of Nazism in the 1930s to his depression. Depression sees truth that most deny; “depressive realism” is even recognized by the psychologists; it has been measured. Far from being deluded, the depressed are generally in closer contact with reality than the rest of us. It is the rest of us who are insane. 

Churchill is credited with the remark

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

One might posit that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who hunger and thirst after truth, and people in open rebellion against it. These are the sheep and the goats.

Those in denial, those who flee from truth, and who hate those who speak it, do so because they are conscious of having sinned—and are unrepentant.

John 3: 19-21:

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

… To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

Although it sets them free, those who have sinned fear truth. They will call anyone who speaks truth a liar, or insane. If they fear exposure, they can grow violent. They can behead or crucify.

Dickenson’s solution is to tell the truth “slant.” It is a tactic used by Jesus too. It is, he explains, why he speaks in parables. One does not cast pearls before swine: they will turn on you and tear you apart. This is the charter of the artist.

The problem with this approach is that parables and slanted tellings are easily misinterpreted and misunderstood. They can actually be used to reinforce the current lies.

Perhaps the best response for the truth tellers is to tell the truth loudly, as the prophets do: to let their light shine. 

There are no easy options here. But we are at war, a war of good and evil. If you are in the trenches, you will draw fire.

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

Canada's History with China

 

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

A Colonizer's Forthright Manifesto

 

If Dante were writing today, I have to imagine he’d reserve a special place in hell for the ingratitude of people like Suketi Mehta. They step off the plane in comfort into a society in which they instantly qualify for all sorts of social benefits neither they nor their ancestors earned. Compare their experience with the experience of the ancestors of the “whites” who built Canada: the Scots and the Irish, primarily, who were driven off their lands and driven out of their home countries, died in droves of cholera and of typhus on the coffin ships coming over, often endured indentured servitude, term-limited slavery, for years before being dumped in the wilderness to survive or die. Knowing they could never see their homeland again.

We will rue the day we decided to allow mass immigration of corrupt foreign ruling classes.

 

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

Happy New Year

 

The true auld tune:

The modern American version:

And the traditional Canadian version:

It brings a tear.

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

Catholic Quiz

 

The questions asked in the "Catholic Face Offf" posted below seem to me not to be especially good. Some of them are only tangentially to do with being Catholic--Pele being named a national treasure in Brazil? Mel Gibson? So I've put together my own set of questions. NBothing that I think should be obscure to anyone who was genuinely raised Catholic: but also things I suspect non-Catholics would get wrong. 

Answers to come in my own good time. I don't want to lead you into the temptation of cheating...

Whose conception is celebrated in the Feast of the Immaculate Conception?

What are the three theological virtues?

What are the seven sacraments?

Where can you see actual relics of Santa Claus?

Who was the saint who met the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France?

Who is the patroness of North and South America?

What is the correct response to “Dominus vobiscum”?

What is the last word of the Lord’s Prayer?

What does the bishop do to you at Confirmation?

What colour are the priest’s vestments for a mass in ordinary time?

What does a light burning hear the altar signify?

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

Canada's China Lobby

 

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

Catholic Face Off

 

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

The Future of Farming

 

https://www.intelligentliving.co/vertical-farm-out-produces-flat-farm/

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