Stephen Roney's Blog, page 262

Damn Yankees

This compilation from Buzzfeed makes a good case that Meghan Markle has indeed been unfairly treated by the British press.

It also shows how “straight” new stories can be deeply slanted fake news.

This does nothing to demonstrate, however, as so many want to have it, that the unfair treatment is based on MM’s race.

It looks to me more like anti-Americanism.

Everyone loves to be anti-American, after all. Everyone resents the top dog. Racism is far less socially acceptable.

But in the UK in particular, and in the context of the Royal Family…

To begin with, the monarchy operates on the metaphor of the nation as one big family. All Britons are symbolically the Queen’s children.

Looked at another way, in principle, all Britons are somewhere in the line of succession, by dint of being British.

So there is, I think, a natural resistance to some non-royal foreigner joining at a top level. Foreign royals come with their own credentials; British commoners seem all right in principle. But a foreign non-royal? Who the **** does she think she is? She’s jumping the queue.

This locks in naturally enough to a general impression among the Brits of Americans as, at base, an ill-bred rabble, a nation of materialistic parvenus who never did know their place. Intensified in recent years by the humiliation of seeing these scruffy ignoramuses supplant the mother country in international importance. They have, as a nation, no breeding, and no class.

The criticisms of Meghan Markle seem to reflect this: they seem to be built around the premise that she does not know how to behave, she does not understand proper royal traditions, she is acting above her station, she is money-grubbing, arriviste, and she had better bloody well not see herself as some kind of model.

The royal couple’s desire to spend more time in North America suggests some awareness on their part that this is the problem.


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The Devil and Bishop Barron

I think Bishop Barron goes off the rails a bit in this consideration of the Devil. Unsurprisingly—as he explains, the Devil was not even considered real in his seminary formation. The modern church has lost touch with its own teachings here. As a result, he is more or less forced to wing it, and draw his own conclusions. The gap can too easily be filled by pop culture beliefs floating in through the Overton window.
The Bishop notes that the old Hebrew term “satanas,” Satan, means “the accuser.” He concludes that we are doing the Devil’s work when we accuse anyone of sin.
The Holy Spirit, he explains, is always affirming. Negative feelings about ourselves or others must come from the Devil.
 If so, Jesus himself regularly did the Devil’s work, as he regularly accused the scribes, Pharisees and others of sin. John the Baptist was an agent of the Devil, when he accused Herod Antipas of adultery and incest. And, of course, the Catholic Church is an agent of the Devil for making an unholy fuss over abortion.
It is obviously wrong as an interpretation; but it conforms to our “non-judgmental” postmodern ethos.My own formal religious education understood this title, “the accuser,” or “the adversary,” as a survival of an older Jewish conception of Satan as a kind of prosecuting attorney, declaring our sins before the throne of God. His conduct in the Book of Job is supposedly an example.
Satan in the Book of Job: Blake.
But this too is not quite right. God would have no need of such a functionary being; He is omniscient. This usual mythological explanation thus requires us to believe that the original conception of the Hebrew God was either polytheistic, gnostic, or badly thought out—“primitive.”
And it does not actually fit the Book of Job. In Job, Satan is not pointing out Job’s sins; Job has not sinned. Satan claims Job reveres God only because he has been rewarded, and, if he faces suffering, will turn away from Him. This is an accusation, but it is a false accusation—for it is accusing Job of a sin he has not committed.
This is an important distinction. That is a different matter from merely judging others. That is, in a word, “prejudice”—pre-judging others. Significantly, judging others is not condemned in the Ten Commandments; “bearing false witness against your neighbour” is.
This is what Satan apparently does.
Bishop Barron misses it, remarkably, even though he immediately then notes that the Devil is called “the Father of Lies.” And this is just how lying is defined in the Ten Commandments.
Another part of Bishop Barron’s treatment also does not quite ring true.
John’s Gospel calls the Devil “a murderer since the beginning.” The Bishop takes this as meaning only that the Devil is behind a broad “culture of death.” He cites as confirming evidence the mass murders of the Twentieth Century, suggesting they can only be explained by the existence of an independent spirit that seeks murder.
But this doesn’t really work. In principle, the difference between one murder and a million is only one of scale, not of kind. So the difference in itself does not seem to require us to postulate the action of an independent spiritual being. And this reading does not explain why murder is singled out as coming from the Devil, and not the other sins--other than lying, which is also repeatedly singled out.And there remains that phrase “since the beginning.” Why is it there?
The mass killings of the Twentieth Century are in no sense primordial, at the beginning of something. There seems to be something else here, that Bishop Barron is not addressing.
Let’s look at the phrase in context:

Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, "If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How do you say, 'You will be made free?'" 

Jesus answered them, "Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. A bondservant doesn't live in the house forever. A son remains forever. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's seed, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father." 

They answered him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham didn't do this. You do the works of your father." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.” 

"Therefore Jesus said to them, "If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of myself, but he sent me. Why don't you understand my speech? Because you can't hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn't stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don't hear, because you are not of God."

Jesus is making a distinction here between one’s physical parent and one’s spiritual parent. His listeners are Abraham’s “seed,” but Abraham is not their true father. Everyone is the child of only two fathers: God or the Devil.
And he is making a distinction between those who sin—who are thereby bondservants to the Devil—and those who consciously throw in their spiritual lot with the Devil, becoming his children.
The Devil shown in a 15th century manuscript.
And when he comes to calling the Devil a murderer, again we see the issue of false accusation: “When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin?”
This is apparently how, according to John’s passage, the Devil murders: he murders with false accusations.
False accusations “from the beginning.”
Which most naturally implies, from the victim’s earliest childhood. Hence too perhaps the reference to parentage, fatherhood. This seems to conform with his role in Job: a young child, below the age of reason, is incapable of sin. So any such accusations in early childhood must be false.
This seems to mesh in turn with something else Jesus says in the Gospels, about the gravity of misleading children:

“but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him that a huge millstone should be hung around his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6) 

“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:2)

The word translated “stumble” here is open to interpretation; it suggests either sin or error, being misled.
Technically, however, once again, it cannot refer to sin, because a young child is incapable of stumbling in this sense.
It would seem to fit the case of a child wrongly told they had sinned when they had not; misled about their sinfulness.
And this might be said to murder their soul.
At least, to complete the Christian message, were it not for Jesus, who sets such bondservants of the Devil free, even raising them from the dead.


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Saint Gerry

This blog has a new patron!

Every year at this time, I use the online
Last year, it was Saint Margaret. This struck me as eerily appropriate, since I was writing a book on how to fight dragons—as she famously did.

This year, the exercise produced Blessed Gerard of Lunel. Also sometimes known as “Saint Gery.”

My brother Gerry—Gerard, in French—died unexpectedly in November.

Gerard died unexpectedly, too, at a young age.

But more than this, Blessed Gerard walked away from a large land holding to live alone in a cave. So, more or less, did my brother. Although he had a good bit of money, and owned a house in the city, he chose to live alone on a remote island without running water.

Indulge me in believing this is a message that my brother is doing well in his new life.


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How I Did on My Predictions for 2019

I predicted a hard Brexit. Looks like a relatively soft one, and it has not happened yet.

I predicted the Liberals would win the Canadian election. They did.

I predicted the Conservative would win in Alberta. They did.

Other predictions were more vague; I would have expected Apple, Patreon, Twitter, and Facebook to be in more visible financial trouble by now than they are.

I think I batted about .500


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Perception and the Fall of Empires

The Frogs were living as happy as could be in a marshy swamp that just suited them; they went splashing about caring for nobody and nobody troubling with them. But some of them thought that this was not right, that they should have a king and a proper constitution, so they determined to send up a petition to Jove to give them what they wanted. 

"Mighty Jove," they cried, "send unto us a king that will rule over us and keep us in order." Jove laughed at their croaking, and threw down into the swamp a huge Log, which came down - kerplash! - into the swamp. 

The Frogs were frightened out of their lives by the commotion made in their midst, and all rushed to the bank to look at the horrible monster; but after a time, seeing that it did not move, one or two of the boldest of them ventured out towards the Log, and even dared to touch it; still it did not move.  

Then the greatest hero of the Frogs jumped upon the Log and commenced dancing up and down upon it, thereupon all the Frogs came and did the same; and for some time the Frogs went about their business every day without taking the slightest notice of their new King Log lying in their midst. But this did not suit them, so they sent another petition to Jove, and said to him, 

"We want a real king; one that will really rule over us." 

Now this made Jove angry, so he sent among them a big Stork that soon set to work gobbling them all up.

--Aesop 

Iranian protests continue.

It all makes me recall the sad fate of the Shah of Iran. His regime fell under far less difficult circumstances. Iran had been developing rapidly, was about as rich as Spain at the time, was dominant in the region, and was the fifth-largest military power in the world. The Shah was an autocrat, but a moderate one, who was generally inclined to commute death sentences and declare amnesties. His worst vice seemed to be personal extravagance.

That, and his moderation on matters of religion, which alienated the mullahs.

Governments fall not because they are evil or repressive, but because they appear incompetent.

The Shah, depressed as a result of cancer and the drugs used to treat it, had become indecisive.

Or witness Louis XVI. He lost his crown and the head that held it up not because he was repressive, but because he was bankrupt, and kept changing his mind.

Yet the worst of governments can continue, seemingly indefinitely. Witness the survival of the Kim dynasty in North Korea, despite appalling famines. Witness the ability of Assad to hang on in Syria.

Nor is it just that people fear a repressive government too much. It is not terror that holds them in thrall. That cannot explain the continuing popularity of Mao in China. Stalin in Russia too still has his supporters. These men were, objectively, as bad as Hitler. The difference is not in the extent of their crimes, but that Hitler lost his war, and they didn’t.

It has been argued that the British Empire was doomed, as much as anything, by the loss of Singapore in the Second World War. It made them look incompetent. Their subject peoples around the world no longer looked up to them.

This is now the crisis faced by the Iranian government: they seem to have been revealed as all bluster, but incompetent.

And this is also the crisis faced by “the elites” worldwide—the clerisy, the professions. They are increasingly being shown up by the new, freer flow of information as not really knowing what they are doing.


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Unrest in Iran

Image from Iran's "Green Revolution," 2009.
I think it was Craine Brinton who proposed, through his historical analysis, that revolutions do not happen because a government is seen as evil. They happen when a government is seen as incompetent.

Their recent tangle with Trump may have revealed the Iranian government to their own people as incompetent.

The Iranians, being Middle Eastern Muslims, probably understood better than Western journalists the significance of Iran’s firing their missiles into the Iraqi dirt in response to America’s assassination of Soleimani. It was an admission of powerlessness. As I have noted previously, Islam is predisposed to assume that strength shows God’s sanction.

More critical was the downing of the Ukrainian airliner. Canadian reports stress how many Canadians were on board. But these were surely dual citizens, returning from a visit with relatives in Iran. The Iranian government shot down an airliner full of Iranians. One can understand why they were reluctant to admit it.

It is of course absurd to suggest that they did it on purpose. But it suggests panic and incompetence. It suggests a government not fit to govern.

The Iranian Islamic Republic was already subject to mass unrest. This could trigger their downfall.


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Meghan Markle and Narcissism

This video makes a good case that Meghan Markle is a narcissist.



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More on the Royal Renegades

The Duchess of Sussex. If you met her at a party, would it even occur to you to classify her as "black"?
Would this be somehow significant?
I make a point of not following the private lives of celebrities. That’s generally calumny. I do not follow closely the life of the royal family either. But the royal family is a special case. Their private life has public importance. They are a unifying symbol of the nation. So what happens in their private lives is not private.

One reason why Meghan Markle may have found the life too trying.

I have heard a variety of explanations for what turns out to have been a dramatic royal split.

One is racism.

I cannot discount that possibility. But false charges of racism are as socially and personally damaging as racism itself. In fact, false charges of racism ARE racism itself, in an especially pernicious form. Such charges should be avoided, when there are obvious alternative explanations.

When Harry’s engagement to Meghan was announced, my spontaneous reaction was that it was a bad idea, and that they were bound for trouble. Not because she has some genetic coding that originated in Africa—it is hard to believe that is significant to anyone. Because she is a divorced actress.

While common enough nowadays, marrying a divorcee was once enough to force Edward VIII to abdicate. Our ancestors were not total idiots; there was reason for this concern. It implies problems in forming a stable relationship, surely.

Worse was her being an actress. Anyone can see that actors and actresses have a particularly terrible track record in maintaining stable relationships.

And so it seems to have turned out.

It is not, as some suppose, that they have inflated egos and require attention. Just the opposite. Anyone with a large ego is not going to make it as an actor, because their whole job is to pretend to be someone else.

Had Meghan desired attention, nothing could have suited her better than becoming royalty. But that is not what actors actually want. They want to be someone else, and not to be noticed as themselves.

The problem is that actors live in their imaginations. Again, they have to, to be able to play a role. So they can have too-grand expectations of a relationship, and crash into depression when it turns out not to be as fairy-wonderful as supposed.

Worse, playing a role is very different from living a life. The wonderful thing about a role is that you can stop being yourself for a while, and nothing counts. But when you then cannot take off the role—ever—you are going to feel trapped.

Meghan Markle was going to feel trapped in any settled life; but a royal life is more confining than almost any other. Now EVERYTHING counts.

I have to feel very sorry for Meghan, very sorry for Harry, and very sorry for Queen Elizabeth. I hope they can sort this out.

Canada and some acting jobs for Meghan may well be the solution. Perhaps she gravitated to returning to Canada because that was where she last acted.



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Just Wild about Harry

Postmedia has already done a poll that shows most Canadians would welcome Prince Harry as Governor-General.

I wonder, however, how this may play out. I wonder about Meghan Markle.

Their announcement of "abdication" does seem rash. Why the need for such drama? Rumblings are that Meghan is finding it hard to adjust to the life of a royal.

But is it the celebrity, the constant attention in public? Does not figure: she was an actor on TV. She must be familiar with that, and she signed up for it.

It seems more likely she is rankled by the need to stay apolitical.

If so, making Harry GG could end up a disaster.




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Culture Studies

Hungary has wisely decided to refuse government funds to “women’s studies” at their universities.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of a trend. Covering not just “women’s studies,” but “X studies” of all kinds, in which X represents some special interest group. These departments are rarely of any academic value. They do nothing to advance human knowledge, but rather spread politically motivated misinformation—propaganda.

There is a real place for “culture studies.” In fact, it was always my own main academic interest. But frustratingly, you learn nothing about a culture by taking culture studies. You learn only about current Western politics.


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