Stephen Roney's Blog, page 221

Canadian Government Remains Standing

 The NDP has just made a pact with the Liberal government to support the throne speech in return for more handouts.

Not a surprise. The reality is that the NDP cannot afford an election.

Past history, however, suggests that the Dippers will pay for this next election. 

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

Vanity Fair Goes to War

Perhaps the US is already in a kind of civil war. What else can you say when a major publication like Vanity Fair runs a piece under an entirely fictitious claim that Trump has "vowed to stay in power no matter what"? Large segments of the establishment seem to be calling for open conflict.

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

Mob Justice for Jacob

My sister sends me a video pointing out that Jacob Blake, the man shot in the back seven times by police in Kenosha, was a serial rapist being arrested in the middle of a crime. Who was resisting arrest and seemed to be lunging for a weapon. 

It is indeed weird how so many―the mobs―seem to ignore the facts of case after case in order to scapegoat police. And will not tolerate due process if it does not instantly deliver the verdict they want. These are eerily like the lynch mobs that used to terrorize and murder blacks; except now they want to string up police.

To be fair, some folks have pointed out that if you look at the videos, most of the rioters seem to be white. You cannot lay this at the doorstep of “black people.”

Then is it because we resist accepting that some people, like Jacob Blake, simply choose to do bad things?

No, because then we would not blame the police either.

Then is it a case of black privilege?

No, because nobody gives a sweet d**n about Blake's victim, who is also black.

I think it is because the people rioting do not see blacks as human, as moral agents, responsible for their actions. They cannot be blamed for their choices, and so do not deserve punishment. They are only following instinct. They are animals.

The outrage at the police looks a lot like the outrage over the killing of Harambe at the Cincinnatti Zoo. The outrage over the American dentist who shot an African lion who had been given a name. The outrage if a crew of game wardens killed an animal in trying to sedate it.

I notice with a wince that commentators invariably note when speaking of any prominent black figure that they are “smart” or “really smart.” They never seem to make the comment about a prominent white person—that would be patronizing. It sounds like Fredo Corleone talking about himself. The tacit assumption is that a smart African is newsworthy, like a man biting a dog; or it is a knowing wink to the audience.

This is actually the form that anti-black discrimination has always taken: the idea that blacks are not moral agents capable of thinking for themselves. This is how slavery was justified. This is now how the welfare culture is justified, and a cycle of dependency that keeps black people on the bottom while one immigrant group after another rises past them.

Maybe the average black is not as smart as the average non-black; IQ results suggest this is so. This of course means nothing in the case of individuals. And this does not matter to their human dignity. They have the right to run their own lives, and not to be treated like children or wards of the state. You do not need to be smart to know right from wrong. And you actually do not need to be smart to succeed. You need to be responsible; you need to see yourself as a moral agent, and act accordingly.

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

Ten Rules for Life

It is essential to have an objective moral code. Our conscience is the best guide; but it is too easy to rationalize. It needs an “education.”

At the same time, the meaning of the Ten Commandments is itself often ambiguous. They are worth looking at more closely.

1. You shall have no other gods before Me

As numbered by Catholics, Jews, and Lutherans, this first commandment includes a prohibition specifically against worshipping “graven images.”

You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me.

Based on this, many Protestants and Jews consider the statues and paintings in a Catholic or Orthodox Church illicit.

I have dealt elsewhere with why this literal interpretation is not tenable: briefly, the commandments themselves were engraved on tablets, and referred to in Exodus itself as “graven images.”

The prohibition is not against making such images, but bowing down and serving them.

“Graven images” can be broadly understood as all the works of man. All the works of the human mind are graven images in the metaphoric sense. We think with images, mental representations, not with the things themselves. We must not worship the works of man.

We must also not worship anything in the sky, on the earth, or in the waters. In other words, we must not worship nature.

This is not a prohibition against worshipping Zeus, or Thor. That is a trivial issue; the temptation is not present. It prohibits putting too much value on Nature, or Science, or Evolution, or Reason. Which probably most people do.

Breaking this commandment expressly causes harm to the third and fourth generation of your descendants, according to the passage. This is a fundamental misorientation of values. It is a matter of world-view. It is hard for a child to break free from the world-view of their parents. If that world view is fundamentally wrong, it blights their life. As Jesus says elsewhere, it would be better for that parent to be thrown into the ocean with a millstone around their neck. This sort of fundamental misorientation is a social disorder, the kind of thing that, in the Old Testament, leads to direct divine retribution, for the sake of future generations. Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaanites.

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

People think this is a prohibition against using “bad language.” Even short Anglo-Saxon terms for organs and bodily functions. Which is childish and silly and a dodge to avoid having to follow the real commandment. It is a prohibition against breaking promises. When you say you are going to do something, and do not do it, you do the other party real harm.

3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.

This is commonly understood as a commandment to go to church, but the commandment was given before the first church was built. The implicit significance is that you must regularly stop what you are doing and reflect on matters. Are you on the right path? Do things make sense? If you simply motor along without undertaking your own spiritual quest, you are liable to be going nowhere.

I think of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who spent her life busily—yet her net contribution to the world seems harmful.

Elsewhere, the Bible observes, “the wicked cannot rest”; often misquoted as “no rest for the wicked.” They cannot rest from ceaseless doing, because a moment’s real reflection would allow the still small voice of conscience to convict them.

4. Honour your father and your mother.

This is commonly understood as a command for children to obey their parents. This is obviously wrong: children do not need such advice, because their parents can enforce obedience, and children, below the age of reason, in principle cannot sin. None of the commandments are for them.

The original Hebrew here translated “honour” means something more like “repay.” St. Paul notes that this is the only commandment that comes with a quid pro quo: “that your days be long in the land.”

It means you owe a debt to your parents for taking care of you in childhood, when you could not take care of yourself; and so you must look after them if they need such assistance in their old age.

5. You shall not kill.

This commandment cannot be taken to mean “kill” literally, since the Old Testament requires the death penalty for some crimes. It cannot justify pacifism, for Yahweh also directed Moses himself to go to war. And it obviously does not include animals, which we use for food. It is often rendered as “You shall not murder,” but this is not satisfactory either. Murder is a legal term, defined by the state. Merriam-Webster: “the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought.” Oxford: “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” “Unlawful” is part of both definitions.

Trusting morality to the state implies trusting Nazi Germany to always do the right thing.

The original Hebrew word translated here as “murder” literally means “to tear apart, destroy.” That makes more sense. Of course we must not murder people, but that is a fairly remote concern on most days. More pressing is a Satanic urge in all of us, when we see something good or beautiful, especially if it is not ours, just to break it. We see it in the mobs currently pulling down statues. The word “Devil” comes from “dia-bol,” literally, tear apart.

6. You shall not commit adultery.

Strictly speaking, adultery is sex when one or another of the partners is married, and not to one another. It does not include fornication--sex when neither party is married.

But that needs to take into account that according to Hebrew tradition, and tradition everywhere in Europe until relatively recently, the act of fornication automatically made you married. This idea endures in the concept of “common-law marriage.”

So it means sex with only one person, for life. We have strayed far from this.

7. You shall not steal.

This too is controversial. It requires assuming that God recognizes property rights. The authors of the Declaration of Independence changed the three prime inalienable rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” replacing John Locke’s original “life, liberty, and property,” to avoid making this assertion. And, of course, the right to own property is not recognized by socialism.

The interesting question is, if property is from God and not from man, government and the law, what determines that a thing is my property and not yours?

Locke makes the comprehensive argument that it is one’s labour. To the extent that one alters an object in nature, that makes it your property. It being your property, you also have the natural right to sell it to another, or give it to them, and so forth.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

This is generally interpreted as “you must not lie,” but it allows “white lies.” The commandment is against saying something untrue about someone else, or that will harm someone else. It is against calumny, slander, and malicious gossip.

9. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.

10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s goods.

These two commandment are combined in the Protestant numbering. They do seem to be the same: a prohibition against envy.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

Why give it as two commandments? Because it corresponds to two other commandments, also given separately: “you shall not steal,” and “you shall not commit adultery.” To combine the two into one would suggest that envy is a lesser sin than theft or adultery. The Catholic or Lutheran numbering prevents that.

Discounting the seriousness of the sin of envy seems to be a common problem. We do tend to think it is far less serious to envy someone his home or marriage than to steal his home or have sex with his wife.

But envy is more dangerous than we think. The great danger of envy is that it always by its nature operates in secret. It plunges its knife in the victim’s back.

And then feigns innocence.

Taken together, this is a powerful life mandate. Looked at carefully, it is striking how far our society is today from following it.



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

The Geriatric Party

Diane Feinstein in younger days.

 The Democrats, I hear, worry about whether Diane Feinstein, ranking Democratic member of the Senate Justice Committee, still has the mental acuity to handle the approval hearings for Trump’s pending Supreme Court nominee. Feinstein is 87. 

Why do senior Democrats all seem so old? Joe Biden, 77, is showing signs of senility. Ruth Bader Ginsberg hung on to her post until a few days ago at 87. Nancy Pelosi is 80; Bernie Sanders, 79. Michael Bloomberg, the other guy who looked possible for the nomination, 78.  Jerry Nadler, the Dem Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a youthful 73, seemed to pass out at a recent press conference.

Granted, there is a prominent clique of younger leaders: Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez and her “squad,” Pete Buttigieg. But they are quite junior in terms of their elected positions and electoral career: their very prominence suggests a lack of leadership above them. A mayor of South Bend? A first-term congresswoman? A recently failed senatorial candidate? A recently failed gubernatorial candidate?

Is it because the Democratic Party is dying?

This does not sound right. After all, they control one of two houses of Congress, and the split is close in the Senate. They just elected a two-term president, and when they have lost the presidency, it has been cardiac-arrest close.

Perhaps their problem is identity politics. Jonathan Kay just wrote a piece about how that is causing problems for Canada’s NDP. The Democrats, like Canada’s leftist New Democrats, choose candidates not for leadership ability, but for “intersectionality.” Because of this, while candidates may continue to be elected at more or less all levels, few leaders emerge. You get time-servers in safe seats. Leaders need to be exceptional, people of rare talents; more or less by definition.

In the recent Democratic presidential sweeps, there were candidates holding higher elected positions than the squad and “Mayor Pete,” who were still below retirement age. Amy Klobuchar, Deval Patrick, Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Steve Bullock, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper. Most of them barely caused a ripple. They were simply not personally impressive; just suits. Most occupied safe seats. Andrew Cuomo: more or less inherited his job from his father. Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris: in California, where Democrats usually win in runoffs against some other Democrat. And Newsom just replaced 82-year-old Jerry Brown.

The same disease of terminal mediocrity in the middle seems to have infected academics, for the same reason. When you do not hire and promote for merit, it stands to reason that the entire enterprise soon begins to suffer.

The same disease is now spreading to all fields. Is it going to destroy our civilization?

God help us.



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

Down the Up Staircase

 

My sister, who is a qualified teacher, but who has never taught, and who is retired, recently received a letter from the Ontario College of Teachers. They are apparently scouring their rolls for lapsed members—she has not paid her dues for 13 years—who might be coaxed back into the classroom.

Last summer, I was working alongside three recent Ed School grads. They were lamenting the fact that it took on average seven years from graduation before you landed your first teaching job.

It looks as though a lot of teachers are simply refusing to return to class in the face of COVID-19. I wonder if they are legally able to take a sabbatical and retain their jobs and seniority, or if they are taking early retirement?

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

New Great Books Program

John Henry, not Alfred E.


There is good news out there. Newman Theological College in Edmonton has begun offering a Bachelor of Arts in Catholic Studies on the Great Books and Socratic model, similar to that of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in Eastern Canada.
For most practical purposes, "Great Books" means "real Humanities."



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

The Scholar's Life

When I was a young grad student, I read Confucius; and did not think much of him. He was only water when I wanted wine. But his sayings and his thought have grown on me. The greatest teacher who ever lived, one who taught half the world, is not to be ignored.

English translations are widely divergent; the meaning in the original Chinese is always obscure. I read three translations, and try from that to puzzle out the meaning for myself.

Analects 1:1:

The Master said: To study and then to practice what one has studied, is this not a pleasure? When learned friends arrive from distant places, is this not a joy? To remain without bitterness when one’s talents are not recognized, is this not the superior man?

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

The Supreme Thing

America is caught in an ethical debate. Do the Republican Senate majority have the moral right to approve a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg so close to an election—something they refused to do for Obama in 2016?

If they do it, Democrats are charging hypocrisy.

Is the situation now different from 2016? It is, in several ways. First, in 2016, Obama was in his final term. No matter what happened, there was going to be a new president. This time, there is only a 50% chance. Second, in 2016 the Senate and White House were held by different parties. If the Senate has the right to refuse to appoint, does it follow that they have a duty not to appoint? They have a right to pass a law against jaywalking; not an obligation to pass a law against jaywalking.

Are these differences significant?

Suppose they aren’t. Even so, it looks like a wash: then the Republicans are doing the opposite of what they did in 2016, but the Democrats are demanding the opposite of what they demanded in 2016. Everybody’s equally a hypocrite, then.

Two wrongs, you might respond, never make a right. If Democrats are hypocrites, that does not give the Republicans the right to be hypocrites too.

Yet there are cases in which two wrongs do make a right. You pick my pocket, then I pick yours in turn, and get my wallet back. If the Holy Roman Empire invades, France has not only a right, but a duty, to defend. Even though war is a wrong, and killing people is a wrong. If the French win the war, right is restored. Sending a criminal to jail is another example of two wrongs making a right: it is, in itself, a wrong to restrict someone’s liberty.

In this case too, one side may be in the wrong, and the other side merely playing defense.

Appointing a Supreme Court judge used to be a bipartisan affair, with the Senate assuming the president had a right to appoint his preference, and looking only at their legal qualifications. The Democrats ended that in 1987, in refusing to ratify Robert Bork because they thought he would vote against Roe v. Wade. In 2013, to get the candidates they preferred on the bench, the Democrats used their Senate majority to end the right to filibuster judicial appointments. That ended any need for bipartisanship, and made it a strictly partisan process.

Moreover, their basic premise in approving judicial appointments has long been to install justices who intend themselves to break the rules: justices who will not simply interpret the constitution, but who will impose a political agenda. Had they not done so, judicial appointments would not matter politically: to the point at which, now, the appointment of the right judges seems to have become the Senate’s main job.

In such a situation, it is just stupidity, or moral cowardice, for Republicans to refuse to defend their interests. It is like refusing to take up arms when invaded.

They must act swiftly on a new appointment; for the good of the country. The Democrats have been tinkering with the election rules as well. They have introduced large-scale mail-in voting for this election. The system is untried; it is likely that there will be legal challenges. Unless there is a decisive win, it is going to be a mess. Such challenges will go to the Supreme Court, as they did in 2000. With only eight justices, it is theoretically possible that the court could split 8 to 8, and be unable to resolve the matter.

The civil war that might result would not be pretty.

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

Trump the Divider

Antiochus argues that Trump has been divisive.

Trump is obviously a divisive figure—witness this discussion—but the times may call for this.

There are times when being divisive is the proper thing to do, and unity is wrong. Martin Luther King was profoundly divisive. Lech Walesa was divisive. Churchill was a famously divisive figure in the UK in the years leading up to the Second World War. It is “divisive” whenever a cop arrests a suspect, or a judge passes a sentence. I’d guess it’s a fifty-fifty proposition whether in any given situation divisiveness or unity is called for. The matter needs to be looked at case by case.

My strong sense is that there has been a growing divisiveness in North American and “Western” society for some time; for decades. Trump’s rise is a symptom and a result of that, not its cause. Since it pre-existed Trump, there is a decent chance he turns out to be the cure.

Actually, my conclusion from the discussion is that Antiochus, and others with TDS, despise Trump as a matter of taste; of aesthetics. Many people dislike tall tales too; and the reaction looks similar.

I remember when I was in China, and a shabby tent went up in a park nearby, with tatty cloth banners promising punters the sight of an exotic pig from Africa and a two-headed lady if you paid two yuan to go inside.

And my students solemnly cautioned me that it was a cheat. I had a hard time getting them to let me go in. I think they thought I was an idiot for paying the two yuan.

Of course I knew there was not a two-headed lady in the tent. Just as anyone should know, when they watch a movie, that those are not real people and real events. Same thing as with all art: an exercise of the imagination, a willing suspension of disbelief. No different for a tall tale.

So I was delighted to give them my two yuan—about 25 cents.

The pig from Africa was a guinea pig. Not quite right—Guinea is in Africa, but the critter is actually from South America, I believe. And the two-headed lady was a pickled snake. It may well have been a pickled female snake, for all I know.

After enjoying—yes, enjoying—a few more exhibits, I turned to leave.

And could not get out the door.

A huge crowd had come in behind me. I’m guessing to see an exotic new exhibit—me.

The barkers outside knew their trade.

I found it all great fun.

I find Trump fun to listen to in a similar way. So I gather do a lot of people. That’s why they come in such numbers to his rallies: great free entertainment.

I imagine some people would also find P.T. Barnum a bad sort for his art; or Walt Disney, or Shakespeare. It is not rare to find people hostile to artists in general. Plato thought all poets lied.

One can certainly accuse Trump of self-promotion. He made his money by selling the “Trump” name as a brand. It is his business to promote that brand. Faulting him for it seems like faulting an actor for making you think they are some character they are not. Or hating Jim Carrey because you think he is the Grinch.

This is at worst all about words, not what he has done. It looks like an aesthetic concern. I dislike jazz; I dislike realistic plays. Yet it seems wrong to get this worked up about it; so worked up you will ignore his actions in office.

Consider Antiochus’s original email:

"It's almost impossible to believe he exists. It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face."

--Anthony Citrano

The fact that it was a joke also does not mean it was uncontroversial.

Imagine the same joke with “Jews” the subject instead of Trump:

“It's almost impossible to believe they exist. It's as if we took everything that was bad about Europe, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in old sausage skins, and then taught them to make noises that sound like German with their face."

Perhaps it is not so bad when it is just about one person? At worst, assassination is not genocide.

But then again, if Trump is so awful, it tends to imply that anyone who supports him is also awful.

It is surely too extreme to suggest that this kind of talk might, again, end in mass murder and general war. But that is where it is trending.

By comparison, how can anyone accuse Trump of being divisive?

Why can’t there be peace and civil dialogue instead?

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