Stephen Roney's Blog, page 217
November 2, 2020
Prediction
The US election is tomorrow: the fate of civilization itself almost seems to hang in the balance.
The polls show Biden will win.
On the other hand, a couple of polls do show a Trump win. Either way, then, some polls are going to be wrong. So can we trust “the polls”?
There is, it seems, a late surge for Trump. All the polls pick this up. Even the polls that predict a Biden win show the race as close in key swing states, although he is winning the national popular vote. Even if the Bidenite polls are dead on, then, this late surge might unpredictably flip the result.
One might, of course, want to argue that a late surge matters little this time, because so many people have already voted. Yes; but those who have already voted will be those who had already firmly made up their minds. Those who were open to changing their minds will be disproportionately those who have not yet cast a ballot.
Then there is the possibility of “shy Tory” voters, people who intend to vote for Trump, but lie to pollsters. This sometimes seems to have been a factor in the past: in Brexit, in the last British general election, in Trump’s victory in 2016, or in the last Florida governor’s race. Pollsters claim they have allowed for this—but how can they, really? The inclination will vary election to election, and seems to me unpredictable by any definite metric. Given the hostility of the anti-Trumpers, it seems possible that this is a larger factor this time than it has ever been before.
Some are arguing that the way to circumvent this effect is to ask people how they think “their friends” will vote. This technique, they say, has been more reliable than the standard sort of polling in four recent elections in which it was tried. And this technique reputedly predicts a Trump win.
Scott Adams also raises the possibility that some Trump supporters may have deliberately lied to pollsters just for the satisfaction of watching a leftist meltdown on election day. Compilations of these, of women screaming into their smartphone cameras, or talking heads looking grim, have been popular ever since 2016 on YouTube. Perhaps a significant proportion of poll respondents really want more of that.
I have been disappointed before, and wrong before, but my gut says a Trump win.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
November 1, 2020
Another Great Trump Ad
Infowars Gatecrashes
Rudi Giuliani Lets Loose on Biden
https://twitter.com/i/status/1321961695665811458
Vietnamese Soul!
Trump Ad
The Trump campaign just does great ads.
Of Poetry, Written in Times of Peril
Does poetry mean anything? My friend Antiochus says no. The meaning is just what each reader takes from it. This is the postmodern view.
He writes “what about when one person reads the poem one way and is absolutist in his view about what it means, and another person reads the poem a second way and is absolutist in his view about what it means?”
That is when discussion, and learning, can begin. They each present their evidence and their arguments to arrive at the truth. One is right, and the other is wrong; or perhaps, they are both wrong, and the discussion will reveal this.
If, on the other hand, everyone is simply entitled to their own interpretation, there can be no discussion, no learning, no movement towards truth, and no agreement. No contact of souls. At worst, they struggle to the death for dominance; or they try to shout one another into silence. As with our current politics. Or else, more happily, they must simply ignore each other. You say the poem looks like a camel; I say it looks like a lobster. It cannot matter what you think. We have made no meaningful contact, we have learned nothing, and neither of us is closer to truth.
Let me back up and explain my absolute commitment to absolutism. I believe, agreeing with philosophers stretching back at least to Plato, and not only in the West, that the purpose and meaning of human life is to seek the Good, the True, and the Beautiful—the three great absolutes. This must be so, because we perceive these three things as of self-evident value.
Anything we do that is not directed towards achieving one of these three goals is wasted time and effort. So if poetry does not itself strive to express some truth, it is to that extent without value. If we, in turn, do not strive to find the truth of the poem, we are just rolling stones up a hill.
You might argue, I imagine, that poetry is just about Beauty, not Truth or Goodness. If so, it is of relatively less value than something that combines Beauty and Truth. But I agree with Keats: “Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth; that is all ye know, and all ye need to know.” Transcendental values cannot really be separated. Nothing is truly beautiful that is not also both true and good; nothing can be good that is not also true; and so forth. The beauty we perceive in a poem is an intuitive initial perception of truth and goodness.
Antiochus writes that, if someone misinterprets a poem, “that's on the poet's shoulders because the clarity wasn't there.” I disagree. Being easy to understand is not traditionally the task of the poet, or of poetry. TS Eliot actually criticizes Rudyard Kipling for being too easy to understand: “We expect to have to defend a poet against the charge of obscurity; we have to defend Kipling against the charge of excessive lucidity.”
No doubt a poet should strive to be no more obscure than necessary—Eliot is saying that, implicitly, too. Poets must be defended against that charge. But a good poem should be, will be, difficult to understand. Because it is speaking of some deep truth, and deep truths are intrinsically hard to grasp.
Heraclitus: “One would never discover the limits of psyche, should one traverse every road―so deep is its logos."
Show me an easy poem, and I’ll show you doggerel.
Antiochus argues that anyone’s “honest evaluation, with no underlying agenda, of what [a poem] means is legitimate.”
Does this mean that it is impossible to be honest, yet wrong? People once honestly believed the sun orbits the earth; I once honestly believed Santa put those presents in the stockings. Or does “legitimate” mean something other than true here? Is it possible for an opinion to be wrong, yet “legitimate”? If it only means “sincere,” Antiochus has said only that honest opinions are honest opinions.
A bit off topic, but Antiochus also wants to insist that you can say all the same things in prose that you can in poetry. Let me explain why I believe that is not so. Prose is the written word: it lives on the page. Poetry is often called the spoken word; but that is wrong. Poetry is the remembered word; it lives in memory, as a new bit of mental furniture, our programming. Accordingly, it can accomplish things that prose cannot. On an analogy with medicine, poetry does mental surgery, and permanently alters a soul. Prose too may heal, but like a pill, its direct effects do not last.
This is of course a generalization. Plots, characters, even verbatim passages of prose can linger in the mind. But poetry, properly assimilated, is remembered word for word.
Antiochus improperly then uses the example of bad poets to argue that poetry is not in fact a difficult form:
“I have known a lot of bad poets, beginning with the plethora of teenaged girls in high school and continuing through to creative writing classes and continuing further to published writers of whose work I could make neither head nor tail, and I could never see that the poet's intent was to write something he or she couldn't say in prose.”
This is like using the example of your kid sister’s caterwauling violin practice to show that it is easy to play the violin. It proves the opposite. There are far more good prose writers than poets, and there is far more good prose in the world than good poetry. It is easier to prescribe a pill than to do brain surgery.
Leonard Cohen refused on at least one occasion to call himself a poet, saying that poetry is a judgement, and nobody has the right to pass that judgement on themselves. Recall Coleridge’s definition of poetry, “the best words in the best order.” That is a high bar to clear. Most contemporary so-called “poetry” is nothing but self-absorbed prose without grammar or punctuation. It could easily be computer-generated—and has been.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 31, 2020
A Trump Endorsement
Time to say it straight out. This US election is a contest of good against evil.
Those inclined to pshaw will pshaw. We adults are not supposed to think in these terms, are we? Where’s our civil discourse, if we are going to demonize our opponents?
But the demonization is already well-advanced, by the side I would identify as the axis of evil. It is they who first declared this war. Never mind references to “deplorables.” Never mind cheap accusations of racism. The Biden camp has apparently now released a campaign video depicting Trump as a Nazi.
If the curtain were ripped away, we would see that this universe is always a war of good against evil. Not good men against evil men; not most times. We speak of spiritual forces, of powers and principalities, warring across as well as among human hearts.
But at this moment, the sides seem to have strangely parted and coalesced. The forces of destruction and giving in to animal urges are all to one side. Ranged behind Biden are voices supporting chaos in the streets. Voices threatening and trying to silence any voices with which they disagree. Voices supporting killing the unborn. Voices spreading slanderous falsehoods, “fake news.” Voices subverting the democratic system seemingly in any way they can: with voting that is obviously open to fraud, and likely to result in a contested result. Suppressing news. Threatening to stack the Supreme Court, undermining any public trust in it. Calling for defunding the police. Calling for statues to be torn down. Calling for the constitution to be abandoned. Calling to elect a man who is senile, as if they deliberately want a power vacuum and nobody in control—or to pass the seat of power to some unknown force. It all looks like an urge to destroy for the sake of destruction: a satanic urge.
The left now aggressively endorses all kinds of sexual promiscuity; now at last seeming to semi-openly include pedophilia. Surely we all knew this was coming; Jeffrey Epstein was their prophet. They are increasingly hostile to religion, targeting it as their enemy, trying to limit or end religious freedoms and freedom of conscience. They are now increasingly open about being antisemitic: the ultimate historical litmus test of evil.
Some will counter, of course, that Trump is personally immoral.
It is traditional too for his defenders to apologize for this and admit that he is an imperfect vessel. I will not; I do not care. Abraham was an imperfect vessel. King David was an imperfect vessel. Winston Churchill was an imperfect vessel. Moses was an imperfect vessel. Mother Teresa was an imperfect vessel. I am an imperfect vessel, and so are you. What matters is not our personal sin, but that, when the clarion calls, we form up on this side or on that in the cosmic battle.
I make no predictions as to the upcoming election; the Holocaust is ample evidence that God will let evil have free rein.
On the other hand. If he were to let Trump miraculously win decisively—it might be shocking enough to begin to turn the culture around.
Happy Hallowe'en.'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
October 30, 2020
Does the Dragon Wake?
My Chinese colleagues tell me there is currently a huge demand there for extracurricular education in public speaking and debate.
This strikes me as significant, because the current top-down regime allows relatively few opportunities for public speaking or debate. Things are decided, mostly, behind closed doors by inconspicuous bureaucrats.
It perhaps suggests that many Chinese parents expect this to change soon, and are preparing for a different future.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Guns Don't Kill People; Doctors Do
The following is absolutely not mine. It was forwearded by a friend. I do not know who is the author. But I love the playfulness of the logic.
Doctors:
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Ratio of accidental deaths per physician is 0.171
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.
Gun owners:
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188
Statistics courtesy of FBI
So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Not everyone has a gun, but almost everyone has at least one doctor.
This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor as by a gun owner.
Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand.
Out of concern for the public at large, we withheld the statistics on lawyers. The shock could cause people to panic and seek medical attention.
