Stephen Roney's Blog, page 28

Drawing the Line

 

I believe that postmodernism is genuinely satanic. So is transgenderism; so is New Age. So is Pope Francis, who seems always to make things less clear.

They are all relativists: all insist there is no solid truth, and no clear distinctions should be made. 

God, by contrast, is the ultimate, the absolute. Relativism is his opposite and his negation.

Relativists want distinctions to be vague. God and monotheism require firm hard lines, judgements: between good and evil, truth and falsehood, self and other, God and creature, male and female, I and Thou. 

Relativists want everything to remain murky. Jesus wants clarity. He says that he is the light; that we must seek the light; that we must let our light shine.

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

News from Hell

 

I do not trust Father Chad Ripperger. Just an instinct; I feel what he says does not cohere. Rather like Jordan Peterson: everything must be taken on his personal authority.

But I am interested to hear him claim that exorcisms take less time recently. In the Sixties, he says, a typical exorcism took a couple of days. Five years ago, a typical exorcism took years. Now the times are declining rapidly: currently about a month or so.

This sounds right to me. We are entering a period of general disillusionment.

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

MSNBC or Not to Be?

 

Much buzz now about Elon Musk buying MSNBC. I hope he doesn’t.

I think Fox is highly vulnerable to a competitor on the right side of the spectrum. I think they have too much power, and the US and US right would be well served to have someone else in that space—so that Fox could not suddenly dump extremely popular presenters, or inordinately influence Republican candidate selection. 

However, or Musk’s sake, I think it would be a bad investment. Cable news is on its way out; it cannot compete with vloggers, who have no restrictions on their speech and much lower overheads. There are big names dumped by Fox whom Musk could scoop up and put on his revamped MSNBC: Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, and on and on . But if they have an audience, they are now well-established on podcast. Would they want to go back to the restrictions of being an employee?

And I think it is time to be concerned about concentration of ownership by Musk. It is troubling for one man to be in control of so much of the media landscape, and indeed the economy.

If, however, someone were to buy MSNBC and turn it into a competitor to Fox… they could so some nice things with it. There is a general tiresome sameness about both Fox and MSNBC now: all just talking heads making the same political points on every issue. What is the point of watching Hannity, then Ingraham, then Pirro all say the same thing?

I’d like to see a show like the old Hannity and Combs, or Point-Counterpoint. Have competent spokespeople for left and right sound off on the issues of the day. This is the way to know both sides of the issue, and we are losing that. We do get panels with a single embattled spokesperson for the other side, but that is still not balanced. 

I’d also like to see a formal debate program, on the lines of Oxford Union, addressing wider and deeper questions. 

I’d like to see something on the upstream culture, beyond mere politics, featuring those right-wing artists and creators who have been blacklisted for so many years. This could be a late-night talk show like the old Carson Tonight Show; but featuring the counter-culture. Huckabee has been doing something like this. 

Do a soft interview show, like Rogan, Larry King. One guest, one hour. We could have two shows like this, one for more political figures, one for cultural figures.

Do a regular town hall show, with different guests answering questions from a live audience—to hear the real concerns of the people. The intention would be to break through the screen of a professional journalism class setting the agenda.

I’d like to see a “Libs of TikTok,” showcasing the most absurd expressions of the woke. This or a separate show could also do Matt Walsh, Steven Crowder, or Candid Camera-style intrusions into woke spaces.

And how about a program on the DOGE theme, just investigating examples of supposed government waste, and arguments for and against the expenditure?

These are among the TV shows I would still be interested in watching.

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

Disillusionment

 At mass a couple of Sundays ago, the sermon lamented a general sense of “disillusionment” in society. All the drug use; the rising rate of suicide; of mental illness; of cynicism; crime. He might have mentioned bad art.

But if people are generally disillusioned, the next question is: what was the illusion? And the question after that: Is it better to live in an illusion, or to be disillusioned and see things as they are? Surely disillusionment, if painful, is better than illusionment, and is a step toward the light.

It also occurs to me that “disillusionment” might be the better formulation for what we call “depression.” The depressed generally have a better grip on reality than the rest of us.

Most people most of the time live their delusions. They believe what seems most pleasing to them, and ignore the real situation.

The broad general illusion of our time, I would say, is materialism. I don’t mean the pursuit of wealth: I mean the philosophical position that only the physical is real. And with this as a cosmology and religion comes scientism, the notion that science explains the universe, and anything labelled “the science” must be true.

Eyes are opening, and further revelations may come.

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

The Lost Promised Land

 

I saw him once in a subway station.

There was a wonderful flowering of Canadian culture in Montreal when I was young. It was a magic time. There was Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, Mordecai Richler, A.M. Klein, F.R. Scott, Hugh MacLennan. There was Aislin. There was the NFB.

And that flowering wilted and died. 

I believe it was killed, first, by Quebec separatism, which made life difficult for Anglophones, and caused many of the best and brightest to head for Ontario. So the centre in Montreal was broken up.

But why couldn’t it have simply re-formed in Toronto? Toronto has never been able to match Montreal’s creative ferment of the forties to sixties.

I believe this is due to the dogma of multiculturalism, which suppresses the development of Canadian culture. Toronto is the centre of the multicult. The multicult will not publish Canadians; only writers celebrating their alienation from Canadian culture.

But there seems to be another factor. See how many of those Montreal names are Jewish. Montreal in those years had the largest concentration of Jews in Canada. Toronto, it is true, now has more, but as part of a much larger population—not as concentrated.

And some of the brightest lights of Toronto culture are also Jewish: Wayne and Schuster; Sharon, Lois and Bram; Lorne Michaels.

For Jews really are a light unto the nations, a leaven commissioned by God to spread culture wherever they go.

Any nation that wants a rich culture should encourage Jews to immigrate and to stay.

As immigrants, Canada should give absolute priority to Jews. This would vastly enrich Canada, and at the same time, reduce tensions in the Middle East, where Jews are apparently not welcome. The more fools they. It’s a win-win situation.

Of course, many resent the success of Jews. This is the sin of envy, and should be condemned whenever encountered. It is obviously to the benefit of all that the best rise to the top.

If the Jewish population of Canada were large enough, it would be that much harder for other ethnic groups to oppress them. It would be a protection for them.

I think even now, they would be safer in Canada than in Israel.

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

It Comes in a Bottle

 

I keep getting blasted on Facebook by an inane ad for “Jublia,” apparently a medicine for foot fungus. It’s a song, with dancers and the lyrics “Jublia. It comes in a bottle. Jublia. Not a person, it’s a medication. Jublia. Your doctor has more information. Saying what it does-- that would be too much!”

This seems at first glance a ridiculous waste of money. I have no foot fungus; I can’t imagine I have done any searches that might make it seem as though I have. They have targeted their customer universe terribly, then. What are the odds that a random person watching YouTube would have any use for this medicine? And yet they’re pounding it into the ground. I seem to see this ad more often than anything else.

And how can it sell the product without saying what it does? Advertising is to give the potential customer information. Further, an ad should concentrate not on the product, but on the benefit to the customer. So what is the point of an ad that deliberately withholds how the product might benefit the consumer? And instead boasts that it comes in a bottle?!?

I can think of a few reasons why this ad campaign might make sense.

First, it piques the curiosity. How, after all, do I know that it is for foot fungus? Already at a computer, I just had to google and find out. I imagine others would too. So, in this day and age, advertising online, there is really no need to say it. Better yet, Jublia has doubled its advertising dollar or better, getting the viewer to encounter it twice and in greater detail than a quick ad could manage. It has at the same time certainly caught my attention. It made the product interesting; this is not just one more spam ad that passes by the eyes and is not remembered. Not incidentally, by prompting a Google search, it has made the viewer listen carefully for the product name, and type it out. Perfect for memorization.

This still does not explain why it is worth broadcasting this particular product to random viewers, instead of targeting those most likely to have foot fungus.

Part of the programme might be to drop huge amounts of advertising in the media on something, anything, simply to ensure that the media, needing the revenue, doesn’t report critically on this pharmaceutical company, or the industry as a whole. Especially now, when “Big Pharma” is under siege in the media, and terrible things are coming out about the Covid vaccines. In the case of YouTube, to encourage the platform’s algorithms to censor such content.

In other words, it is a payoff, explicitly or implicitly to ensure favourable coverage.

Improbable? That’s exactly what the Kamala Harris campaign did: indirect payoffs to Oprah Winfrey, Al Sharpton, Call Her Daddy, and other news and affairs outlets for favourable coverage.

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

Trump's Plan for Peace

 

How is it that Trump believes he can keep the peace worldwide, at least without sacrificing US vital interests? After all, broadcasting in advance that you are against war would seem to only give aggressors free license. But he really did keep the peace for the four years he was president before. Was this just luck? And, in anticipation of his coming to office, I notice that Qatar has announced they are expelling Hamas from their country.

I think we can see Trump’s technique. It is the same technique that works in making a business deal. He makes a dramatic threat; if it is ignored he hits swiftly and hits hard. The other side backs down, or, of necessary, as with ISIS, quickly gets wiped out. 

Why was ISIS wiped out so quickly and relatively painlessly? Because he unleashed his generals. No restraints on them. 

Contrast this with the usual American way of war, as we witness it in Ukraine, or what they are requiring of the Israelis in Gaza, or saw in Vietnam, or Korea. You send in men and armament in dribs and drabs, worrying about “escalation.” Certain vitally strategic areas on the other side are out of bounds and mustn’t be touched. 

That looks a lot like a cover story. It is the way to prolong war: feed in just as many troops and just enough materiel to keep the war going at a good pace, without resolution.

And it is responsible for millions dying unnecessarily, not just soldiers but all those women and children they pretend to be concerned about in Gaza.

Why do American governments do this? Are they really so stupid? Still, so long after Vietnam? They can never learn the simple lesson?

Surely it is more sinister. 

Just as the cynics have long said; as Eisenhower said in his farewell address way back in 1960.War is hugely profitable for certain large corporations. Politicians they fund have a huge incentive to encourage war and make it drag on.

This even explains the chaos of the Afghan withdrawal. The abandonment of all that materiel through a hurried withdrawal may have been a feature, not a bug. It would all have to be replaced in the American arsenal. Lots of new defense contracts.

Trump seems to show this suspicion to be true, with his successes. This is probably one big reason they were determined to keep him from office, by fair means or foul. And why their first thought was to try the “Russia collusion” hoax. He doesn’t want war? He is helping our enemies!

The other half of the Trump formula, of course, is not to poke and provoke foreign leaders, as the war hawks do. Not to threaten their interests. Trump will respect and appeal to the interests of the other leader.

This explains why Trump is actually rather popular with the Chinese, with Putin and the Russians, with North Korea, with both the Arabs and the Israelis. They understand the rules of the game, and know that if they follow them, they can say out of trouble. Weakness makes the boundaries unclear; they can easily miscalculate, and face disaster.

For Trump’s system to work, he must of course preserve a credible threat of force; if necessary full-scale war, few holds barred. That is why he needs a hawk at Secretary of State: Marco Rubio, not Tulsi Gabbard. He needs someone who can spit bullets, for a good cop/bad cop negotiating routine. And he needs someone who will build up the readiness of the American Armed Forces.

In Gaza, I expect him to unleash the Israelis to go in and end it quickly. In Ukraine, I expect him to force a deal leaving Russia with Crimea, the Donbas, and a pledge that Ukraine stay out of NATO. 

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

Born with the Gift of Laughter, and a Conviction that the World Was Mad

 

There is a saying: “never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.” It is often useful to defuse one’s anger.

But is it true? 

It does seem to me that groups and nations pursue obviously bad policies, insist on obvious untruths, and seem impervious to explanations. One obvious example: the persistent insistence that there are mass graves of indigenous children murdered in the old residential schools. Another: that Trump claimed Nazis or white supremacists were “good people.”

Are they simply ignorant of the facts, only repeating what they have heard? No; if told the facts, they do not counter them; they just ignore or suppress them. They react in anger. Can it be that they don’t understand what is being said?

Let’s assume that people are this stupid. They just can’t make logical connections. Wouldn’t the obvious solution, then, be to select out those with the highest IQ’s, and have them run things? 

This is more or less what Plato proposed in the Republic. 

So should we turn things over to the “Experts,” presumably weeded and fostered based on their intelligence and knowledge by the universities?

No; these academics seem more prone to believe obvious nonsense than the general public. This has long been ovserved: the “ivory tower” syndrome. Academics is an echo chamber in which delusions can be mutually reinforced indefinitely without ever being tainted by reality.

How about selecting for raw IQ? 

And this is the premise on which Mensa, the high-IQ society, was founded.

And it did not work, does not work, either. On any given issue, you will never get a consensus among Mensans. They are about as likely to believe the latest obvious untruth as the general public. And hold to it with the same energy. A meeting of Mensans is like herding cats.

(Of course, I face my own logical problem here. How can I be sure it is the other guy who is clinging to an untruth despite evidence? Am I smarter than the Mensans? 

I recall this little poem by Albert Einstein: "A thought that often makes me hazy:/Is it them, or am I crazy?"

But all I can do is look at the evidence and arguments, and use my own judgement. I think it is conclusive if the other side does not counter. Although it might also be that they find the matter so obvious that arguing it is tiresome.)

It seems to me it cannot be incompetence, in most cases. It is deliberate self-delusion. Most people simply believe or try to believe what they want to believe. They believe whatever they find most comfortable or most in their interests to believe, and ignore both the truth and the general good.

I daresay women are more prone to do this than men… They will cover an ugly situation with a pretty word, and it will all be okay.

A case in point I noticed recently: a YouTube psychiatrist advising that you should cut all contact with any relative or spouse who voted for Trump, telling them “How could you vote against my livelihood?” (Sic: surely she meant interests). 

This presupposes that everyone should vote only for their own self-interest. (Given that it is also in one’s self-interest not to alienate one’s relative or spouse.)

And so, I arrive at an important truth about the world: most people are delusional, and people are morally responsible for their delusions.

Which explains why we do instinctively think insanity is not a disease, but a moral failing.

The Bible knows this. This is why, for example, it makes acceptance of the dominion of God the first commandment. Not to see this, to be atheist or agnostic or polytheist, is a deliberate delusion. 

And this, according to the Bible, is the litmus test for heaven: are you seeking truth, or not?

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

The Archaic Smile

 

The archaic smile: a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.

Had a discussion with the chief of catechesis for my diocese. He reported that Pope Francis is reorganizing the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to focus as one of its priorities on helping the poor. Apparently it was previously deficient in this regard, and said function is not sufficiently covered by the rest of the church and Catholic Charities. 

More broadly, he stressed Pope Francis’s belief that the key message of the church to Christians is joy.

Happy happy joy joy. Bobby McFadden stuff.

This is of a piece with the directive for those catechising children: that the sole message should be “God loves you.”

I have been brooding about this ever since. This is off the rails. We must have better from the church.

Helping the poor is of course good. This is uncontroversial, everyone agrees, and no reason to have a church, let alone a charismatic prayer group. Many secular authorities are on that case. 

“Feeding the hungry” is indeed one of the corporeal works of mercy. However, it does not seem to me to be within the charism of the Charismatic Renewal, which stresses the spiritual, not the corporeal. For them, it looks like a rod shoved in their spokes, a demand for them to turn to the material and away from the spiritual. Their proper concern is the spiritual works of mercy: comfort to the afflicted, forgiveness, prayer.

Ending poverty is not the business of the church, not possible, and not desirable. “Ending poverty” is an idolatry. “The poor will be with you always.” Are we to take pity on and send money to the Franciscans and Poor Clares, who have taken vows of poverty? “Blessed are the poor.” Being poor is, literally, a blessing. 

It is important to notice that what Jesus asks of us is not to give money or aid to “the poor” as such, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. The distinction is important. We do this not because they are poor, but because they need something we have far more than we do. Their survival is more important that our comfort.

We are equally obliged to visit those in prison, or in hospital or old age homes. To put sole emphasis on “the poor” smacks of Marxist materialism.

As for the key message of the church being joy—isn’t that callous, when you are also obviously aware there are people going hungry, without shelter, without clothes, sick, old, in prison? Is the essential Christian message “I’m all right, Jack!”?

Jesus said the reverse: “blessed are those who mourn.” Did he ever say “blessed are the joyful”? No, again, the reverse: “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”

In Athens, I visited museums full of ancient sculpture, and another museum of early Christian icons. The striking difference between the two: the older pagan sculptures showed blank eyes and grins—the creepy “archaic smile.” The images of Christian saints showed faces that seemed sorrowful, eyes like dark wells that seemed grief-stricken at the world.

As one ought to be, once one realizes what should be.

The message of Christianity is not joy, but truth. Truth is harrowing. It is the mysterium termendum et fascinans. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, poor banished children of Eve, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

Pope Francis is not Christian. He has not seen the world as it is.

Early Christian icon

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

The archaic smile: a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun....

 

The archaic smile: a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun.

Had a discussion with the chief of catechesis for my diocese. He reported that Pope Francis is reorganizing the Catholic Charismatic Renewal to focus as one of its priorities on helping the poor. Apparently it was previously deficient in this regard, and said function is not sufficiently covered by the rest of the church and Catholic Charities. 

More broadly, he stressed Pope Francis’s belief that the key message of the church to Christians is joy.

Happy happy joy joy. Bobby McFadden stuff.

This is of a piece with the directive for those catechising children: that the sole message should be “God loves you.”

I have been brooding about this ever since. This is off the rails. We must have better from the church.

Helping the poor is of course good. This is uncontroversial, everyone agrees, and no reason to have a church, let alone a charismatic prayer group. Many secular authorities are on that case. 

“Feeding the hungry” is indeed one of the corporeal works of mercy. However, it does not seem to me to be within the charism of the Charismatic Renewal, which stresses the spiritual, not the corporeal. For them, it looks like a rod shoved in their spokes, a demand for them to turn to the material and away from the spiritual. Their proper concern is the spiritual works of mercy: comfort to the afflicted, forgiveness, prayer.

Ending poverty is not the business of the church, not possible, and not desirable. “Ending poverty” is an idolatry. “The poor will be with you always.” Are we to take pity on and send money to the Franciscans and Poor Clares, who have taken vows of poverty? “Blessed are the poor.” Being poor is, literally, a blessing. 

It is important to notice that what Jesus asks of us is not to give money or aid to “the poor” as such, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. The distinction is important. We do this not because they are poor, but because they need something we have far more than we do. Their survival is more important that our comfort.

We are equally obliged to visit those in prison, or in hospital or old age homes. To put sole emphasis on “the poor” smacks of Marxist materialism.

As for the key message of the church being joy—isn’t that callous, when you are also obviously aware there are people going hungry, without shelter, without clothes, sick, old, in prison? Is the essential Christian message “I’m all right, Jack!”?

Jesus said the reverse: “blessed are those who mourn.” Did he ever say “blessed are the joyful”? No, again, the reverse: “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”

In Athens, I visited museums full of ancient sculpture, and another museum of early Christian icons. The striking difference between the two: the older pagan sculptures showed blank eyes and grins—the creepy “archaic smile.” The images of Christian saints showed faces that seemed sorrowful, eyes like dark wells that seemed grief-stricken at the world.

As one ought to be, once one realizes what should be.

The message of Christianity is not joy, but truth. Truth is harrowing. It is the mysterium termendum et fascinans. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, poor banished children of Eve, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.

Pope Francis is not Christian. He has not seen the world as it is.

Early Christian icon

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