Alexander Hellene's Blog, page 8

Smash Their Idols

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The hysterical reactions to these legendary young men prove that, in today’s upside-down world, knocking down a meaningless chunk of metal while erecting a cross and proclaiming “Christ is King!” is the most transgressive and subversive thing anyone can do these days. This is the modern-day equivalent of putting elephant dung on a picture of the Virgin Mary and calling it “art.”

If these young men replaced the dumb monolith with a sculpture of a giant cock, or a lump of turd, a giant middle-finger, or an effigy of Donald Trump being brutally murdered, they’d be hailed by the mainstream press organs as stunning and brave. But put up a cross and watch the vampires recoil.

It’s quite telling.

“Artists” throughout history–particularly the post-Enlightenment world–have “pushed the envelope” by shocking the “bourgeoisie” by being as offensive as possible towards traditional morality and attitudes. But a funny thing happened when the counterculture won: it became just as rigid and Puritanical as those it sought to displace. And the new bourgeoisie is even more protective of its morality and easy to offend as the old one supposedly was.

It was never about “freedom of speech” or “artistic freedom” anyway. Everything is about imposing a moral vision upon society. The question, as always, is “Whose morality?”

Yesterday’s transgressions have become today’s religion. We have unwritten blasphemy laws protecting these pieties from any form of mockery, ridicule, or even questioning. Ever wonder how sodomy and baby murder became the sine qua non of any so-called civilized liberal Western democracy? Because “love is love, man” and all of these various “freedoms of expression” were just a ruse to lower the defenses of the old guard–whom history has proven to be far more open-minded and empathetic than the current guard–so they could be displaced and the new morality shoved right in.

What was once shocking and offensive has become the prevailing dogma. Therefore, expressions of traditional Christianity are, quite literally, the most verboten and transgressive thing one can do. 

Like usual, American conservatives get this all wrong. “Conservative is the new counterculture!” they say. “Conservative is punk!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

American conservatives are leftists. They’re just leftists who believe in Mammon instead of Moloch. We’ll get to the exact same place under conservatives because what was once radical progressivism ten years ago is a part of today’s conservative platform.

You don’t argue against a morality by bleating about corporate tax cuts and the stock market. Economics is powerless in the face of morality.

You counter a morality with a better morality.

That’s what these young legends did. Good for them.

Sci-fi with Christian protagonists that might offend the vampires without even trying.

Book Review: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn: Part Two: “Perpetual Motion,” Chapter One, “The Ships of the Archipelago”

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In part two of The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn begins to describe the archipelago itself. Consistent with his likening the Soviet system of prison camps to a series of islands, Solzhenitsyn extends the metaphor by calling the trains that carry prisoners to the gulga the “ships of the archipelago,” with the holding prisons the “ports.” This chapter is devoted to what it was like traveling on these trains, from the way prisoners were hidden between carts at the station and made to sit on the ground with their heads down while everyday citizens carried on with their lives clueless as to the human misery so close to them, to the cramped train cars themselves where prisoners were at the mercy of the blatnye (thieves) who would swipe any valuables the unlucky souls thought they’d be able to bring to the camps with them.

Of course, being as methodical as he is, Solzhenitsyn starts with the train cars themselves–zak cars, or prisoner cars. There is another, more official name, of course: These are Stolypin cars, named for Pyotr Stolypin, Russia’s Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911. Stolypin’s agrarian reforms gave Russian peasants no-interest loans and huge plots of land in exchange for agreeing to settle Siberia. These new train carts were created to transport these settlers, but the enterprising Soviets realized they’d also make a great way to transport prisoners to the camps.

[image error]A Stolypin car

So much for the big, bad, evil pre-revolutionary Russia being the absolute worst.

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The Stolypin car is an ordinary passenger car divided into compartments, except that five of the nine compartments are allotted to the prisoners (here, as everywhere in the Archipelago, half of everything goes to the auxiliary personnel, the guards), and compartments are separated from the corridor not by a solid barrier but by a grating which leaves them open for inspection. This grating consists of intersecting diagonal bars, like the kind one sees in station parks. It rises the full height of the car, and because of it there are not the usual baggage racks projecting from the compartments over the corridor. The windows on the corridor sides are ordinary windows, but they have the same diagonal gratings on the outside. There are no windows in the prisoners’ compartments–only tiny, barred blinds on the level of the second sleeping shelves. That’s why the car has no exterior windows and looks like a baggage car. The door into each compartment is a sliding door: an iron frame with bars.

Solzhenitsyn likens the prisoners crammed into the carts to animals in a menagerie, with one important difference: “[I]n menageries they never crowd the wild animals in so tightly.” In Solzhenitsyn’s estimation, some twenty-two prisoners are shoved into each car, with some reports saying that up to thirty-six people had been known to be shoved into a single car. Furthering the prisoners’ misery is that voyages could be long . . . and guards didn’t care who missed their assigned stop or not. It wasn’t as though prisoners really knew where they were going anyway . . .

[image error]“Life is Everywhere,” Nikolai Yaroshenko (1888)

Of course, in conditions like this, even going to the bathroom was an adventure–one trip per day, one at a time! And rations? Yes, prisoners were supposed to have an allotted amount of food and drink. But water could make the prisoners have to use the toilet more, and it was a pain in the neck to give each prisoner (who didn’t have a mug of their own) a drink from the ladle one-by-one, so out went the rationed water. Nevermind that salted herring or Caspian carp was on the menu. The prisoners would have to deal. After all, this wasn’t done to torture the prisoners. It was done for the sake of convenience. Surely they understood the plight of the poor guards.

And bread. But sometimes the guards got a little extra hungry, so down went your rations and up went theirs. Being a guard on a prisoner train was hard work, don’t you know.

Prisoners were lumped together, the political prisoner and the common prisoner alike, regardless of their destinations. And these regular criminals, these blatari, did not care if you were some Communist party so-and-so who believed in the revolution of the proletariat. No, they just wanted your stuff. But this wasn’t done to torture prisoners. Of course not:

After all, was it becaue Pontius Pilate wanted to humiliate him that Christ was crucified between two thieves? It just happened to be crucifixion day that day–and there was only one Golgotha, and time was short. And so he was numbered with the transgressors.

These thieves had free reign of whatever cart they were stuck in. They were given the relative kid gloves treatment by the system, and by the guards. No Article 58 for common criminals! This gives rise to a common phenomenon we still see at work today:

. . . Stalin was always partial to the thieves–after all, who robbed the banks for him? Back in 1901 his comrades in the Party and in prison accused him of using common criminals against his political enemies. From the twenties on, the obliging term “social ally” came to be widely used. That was Makarenko’s contention too: these could be reformed. According to Makarenko, the origin of crime lay solely in the “counterrevolutionary underground.” (Those were the ones who couldn’t be reformed–engineers, priests, SRs, Mensheviks).

And why shouldn’t they steal, if there was no one to put a stop to it? Three or four brazen thieves working hand in glove could lord it over several dozen frightened and cowed pseudo politicals. 

With the approval of the administration. On the basis of the Progressive Doctrine.

Sound familiar? 

[image error]Anton Makarenko, Soviet educator, social worker, and writer

Naturally, the thieves shared or traded with the guards, who didn’t really care what went on in the Stolypin cars. Like they’d ever intervene! “[A]fter many years of favoring thieves, the convoy has itself become a thief.”

So the best advice became: don’t be a sucker. Don’t bring valuables. Your old life was over the second you were arrested, interrogated, tossed in a prison somewhere in Russia, and then led to one of these trains, these ships of the archipelago, and sent off to a work camp. If you were a political prisoner, you were an enemy of the state and you deserved no mercy. 

Terror had a place in the Soviet toolbox, no matter how petty the situation seemed to be.

Takeaways:

The powerful have always used common thugs as their muscle, and they always will.


You can’t count on law enforcement to stick up for you.


If the state decides you’re an enemy to them, absent any constraints with teeth there is no end to the depredations you will be subjected to.


Classism isn’t just about economics or social standing. It also has to do with common interests, usefulness, and allegiance to the state.

All the Magic Is Not Gone from the World

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Yes, Advent technically began on Sunday, a fact that I was today years old when I learned, but for all intents and purposes, if you have kids with Advent calendars, Advent begins today, December 1 (the Nativity fast, however, began on November 15, i.e., 40 days out from Christmas).

It’s a special time of year, with or without kids, as we prepare to commemorate the coming of the Lord. But with kids, I’ve found that my appreciation for Christmas beyond the purely religious and theological aspect has deepend. There’s nothing more fun than seeing little ones’ faces light up with wonder at the decorations and lights, the fireplace, the food, and the promise of fun gifts to give and to receive.

It’s equally interesting with an eight-year-old who was smart enough to suss out earlier this year that the Tooth Fairy is not real. He’s already made comments that, perhaps, Santa Clause isn’t real, and has a sneaking suspicion that my wife and I are the ones who move the Elf on the Shelf–another thing that starts on the first of December–around.

But here’s the thing: I think he knows, but he enjoys it too much to fully tell my wife and I that he’s in on it. It’s a fun magic that gets lost when you grow from being a little kid to a big kid. Christmas feels a bit different afterwards, still fun but less magical. Maybe that’s one of the negative aspects about the whole “Santa Claus and his magic reindeer come down everyone’s chimneys and deliver presents to all the children around the world” myth: If that was a lie, what else is a lie?

I think about this a lot. But the funny thing is, when you have children of your own, Christmas becomes magical again. For example, Santa Claus is real. Nicholas is a real saint. Did you know that the real St. Nicholas punched the heretic Arius at the Council of Nicaea (the very first Ecumenical Council) in 325? Did you also know the origin of St. Nicholas as a secret gift-giver? It’s realy cool:

Greek Orthodox tradition tells of Saint Nicholas being born around AD 280, the only child of a wealthy, elderly couple who lived in Patara, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).

When his parents died in a plague, Nicholas inherited their wealth.

Nicholas generously gave to the poor, but he did so anonymously, as he wanted the glory to go to God.

About this time, in the 3rd century, the pietist-monastic movement spread, where sincere converts to Christianity would give away all their money and possessions, then withdraw from the world to live in a cave as a hermit or join a monastery.

One notable incident that occurred during this time in Nicholas’ life was when a merchant in his town had gone bankrupt.

The creditors threatened to take not only his house and property, but also his children.

The merchant had three daughters.

He knew if they were taken it would probably condemn them to tragic lives of forced marriages, sex-trafficking, or prostitution.

The merchant had the idea of quickly marrying his daughters off so the creditors could not take them.

Unfortunately, he did not have money for a dowry, which was needed in that area of the world for a legally recognized wedding.

Nicholas heard of the merchant’s dilemma and, late one night, threw a bag of money in the window for the oldest daughter’s dowry.

Supposedly the bag of money landed in a shoe or a stocking that was drying by the fireplace.

It was the talk of the town when the first daughter was able to get married.

Nicholas then threw a bag of money in the window for the second daughter, and she was able to get married.

Expecting money for his third daughter, the merchant waited up.

When Nicholas threw the money in, the father ran outside and caught him.

Nicholas made the father promise not to tell where the money came from, as he wanted the credit to go to God alone.

This was the origin of secret, midnight gift-giving and hanging stockings by the fireplace on the anniversary of Saint Nicholas’ death, which was December 6, 343 AD.

The three bags of money which Nicholas threw into the house are remembered by the three gold balls hung outside of pawnbroker shops — as they present themselves as rescuing families in their time of financial need.

As a result, Nicholas became considered the “patron saint” of pawnbrokers.

I went from finding Christmas to be just all right in my twenties to absolutely loving it in my thirties (and very soon–my forties). It’s so much fun reliving the magic through my kids. It’s a healthy kind of vicarious living. Instead of using our children as a proxy for fulfilling all of the dreams and desires we were unable to in our own youths, we can relive our own childhood innocence and wonder as we watch our children experience the joy of Christmas. We get to share it with them. 

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That, truly, is a blessing. It’s like getting to live again, a second crack at childhood. One can only imagine how grandparents and great-grandparents feel about this.

It’s cliche, but it’s good to remember the reason for the season. St. Nicholas got so fired up about the Arian heresy, and apocryphally about saving the merchant’s daughters from a horrible fate, because of Jesus Christ and the love He showed the world.

I don’t want to get preachy so I’ll stop here. I’ll leave it that I hope all of you have a blessed and most holy Christsmas season, no matter your religion (if any). Enjoy the holiday, and even if you feel like you’re just going through the motions, maybe some of the magic will rub off on you. 

Dreamers & Misfits would make an excellent Christmas gift for the Rush fan in your life.

Movie Review: Clash of the Titans (1981)

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Greek mythology has always had a special place in my heart, and not just because, being Greek, they’re a part of my culture. If one is a Westerner, then these myths are also a part of your culture.

I remember my grandmother telling these stories to my brother and sister and me when we were younger, the way she used to tell them to my father and uncle. They captured my imagination with their tales of gods and heroes and monsters. I still have this old copy of the tale of Perseus called The Gorgon’s Head from 1961 as written by Ian Serraillier. It was my father’s, and then mine, and now I’ve given it to my son, who also loves these myths.

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On a whim, I decided a few days ago that we should watch Clash of the Titans. I am referring to the original 1981 version, of course. My brother and I would watch this with my dad when it was on TV back in the day. We loved it! Clash of the Titans was special-effects monster legend Ray Harryhausen’s final film, and boy did he have a blast with it. Between the two-headed dog, the giant scorpions, Calibos, the Kraken, and of course Medusa, his stop-motion style is perfect for the dreamlike quality of the Greek myths.

[image error]Ray Harryhausen and friend

Clash of the Titans is a streamlined retelling of the Perseus myth. Perseus was the son of Zeus, who impregnated his mother Danae by appearing as a golden rain. The film opens with Danae’s father, King Acresius of Argos, casting Danae and the baby Peseus into the sea for bringing dishonor onto his home. They are saved via Poseidon, at Zeus’s bidding, and end up on the island of Serifos, where Perseus grows up strong and fair and noble. Zeus then has Poseidon summon the Kraken to destroy Argos.

Okay, then. 

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Meanwhile on Olympus, Zeus has transformed Calibos, the king of Joppa, into a twisted creature who is thereby banished to the swamps. Calibos, son of the goddess Thetis, abused his power by, among other things, hunting Zeus’s winged horses almost to extinction save for the legendary Pegasus. In retaliation for now being unable to marry the beautiful Andromeda, princess of Joppa, Calibos captures her spirit every night via a giant vulture, brings her to the swamp, and gives her a riddle. When Andromeda’s spirit returns and she awakens, any suitor must answer her riddle. Failure results in being burned alive.

Needless to say, Andromeda is still single and is not happy with this turn of affairs.

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Thetis begs Zeus to forgive Calibos and Zeus refuses. Thetis rightly surmises that, if Calibos had ben Zeus’s own son, he’d forgive him. So she decided to get revenge on Zeus by terrorizing Perseus and . . . teleporting him to Joppa?

This part of Thetis’s revenge plot is kind of strange. Perseus awakens in an amphitheater in Joppa and befriends Ammon the playwright. He’s then, at Zeus’s behest, given magical artifacts from three goddesses: A magical shield from Athena, a magical sword that can cut through anything from Hera, and a magical helmet that can turn him invisible from Aphrodite. Perseus then goes to Joppa, vows to break Andromeda’s curse, and free the city of Joppa. This is where our adventure begins in earnest.

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It’s still a really fun adventure movie, but it’s striking to think about how different movies are now, and how different they were then. You see, Clash of the Titans came out the same year as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and while Clash of the Titans did really well at the box office, reviews at the time state that it felt like a film from a bygone era. This was seven years after the original Jaws and five years after the original Star Wars. The summer blockbuster as we know it had already been released upon the world, complete with new flashy special effects, quicker editing, and a frenetic, almost hyper pacing. Clash of the Titans, by contrast, feels quaint . . . and not just because of Harryhausen’s effects, which hold up really well.

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The plot pacing of Clash of the Titans is actually brisk; we’re into Perseus’s quest before the first fifteen minutes are up. But the actual movie is more deliberate. It’s a different rhythm than we’re used to. Scenes and settings (and boy is the cinematography in this movie gorgeous) breathe and take their time to set up the locations. Battles are easy to follow and rely on clarity rather than hyper-kinetic editing and shaky cam. And even scenes that today would be fast-paced action fest special-effects extravaganzas like Perseus’s battle with Medusa in an ancient temple are drawn out and very tense.

It’s refreshing and a nice change of pace nearly forty years later in a movie landscape saturated with seizure-inducing superhero fare and CGI-spectacles that rarely let up let the squirrel-like attention of the audience be diverted by their phones. But what came first? The spastic movies or the fleeting attention spans?

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Clash of the Titans isn’t a perfect movie. Yes, it’s a bit cheesy, the acting is wooden, some of the effects didn’t age well (the talking statues, in particular), and it’s melodramatic as all get out. But that in no way detracts from the enjoyment. Clash of the Titans was Harryhausen’s last movie before retiring, and it feels like a final send off to classic pulpy sword-and-sandal adventure movies. They don’t make ’em like this anymore, and they never will. It’s a genre movie and proud of it. Highly recommended.

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I’d be remiss without discussing the casting and sets. Clash of the Titans is mostly British, and it shows. I mean, Laurence Olivier plays Zeus and Maggie Smith is Thetis. And those are just the two most well-known Brits. They’re all great, and the fetching Ursula Andress has a minor role as Aphrodite. And the lovely Judi Bowker plays Andromeda.

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On the American side, heartthrob and later L.A. Law star Harry Hamlin does a great job as the mostly shirtless hero Perseus, and Burgess Meredith is excellent as Ammon, Perseus’s mentor. 

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Another underappreciated aspect of this movie is the old-school sets and costumes. You feel like you’re in the bustling Joppa, crossroads of east and west. Ancient temples, mountain vistas . . . it all looks so good. So do the wilderness areas. The sense of place in Clash of the Titans teleports you as much as Harryhausen’s creatures. Watching it as a 39-year-old gave me the same feeling I got watching it and similar movies like Jason and the Argonauts and the Sinbad movies when I was my son’s age. Simply beautiful.

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Oh, and there’s also a mechanical owl.

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The Last Ancestor is pulpy genre goodness, and available for 99¢ with a bevy of other great books for one week only!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Don’t let the losers and the haters and the culture-destroyers deter you from enjoying the hell out of your family and the delicious food.

You’ll all be fine. Stay safe and God bless!

Dreamers & Misfits Paperback Now Available

After some waiting, the paperback edition of Dreamers & Misfits is now live on Amazon!

I was waiting on an update version of the files, and then my author’s proof, which looks great.

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It’s up now, so purchase it here, unless you’re a backer, in which case I will he sending you a signed copy.

Enjoy, everyone! Makes a perfect Christmas gift for the Rush fan in your life.

Axiometry, Part VII: Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism

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We’re long overdue to start looking at some commonly used expressions to see if they are heavily laden with meaning, or are ultimately meaningless. I call the procedure of putting these sayings under the microscope axiometry, a term I invented a few years back:

Axiom: “A rule or principle that many people accept as true.”-metry: “Art, process, or science of measuring.”

For Part VII, I’d like to look at a phrase and an idea that has been a part of the American lexicon for a long time . . . for as long as there’s been an America, some might say, and that is Thomas Jefferson’s famous statement that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

Except our third President is never confirmed to have said this. Although it is the kind of thing Thomas Jefferson could plausibly have said, and is a statement he likely would have believed, we need to recognize that accuracy matters. The first known usage of this phrase was in a 1961 publication called The Use of Force in International Affairs:

If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?

Howard Zinn also gets credited for this saying, but screw that guy.

In any event, this statement has become a rallying cry to Americans of all types who oppose what their government does. Let’s see if the idea behind this statement 1) makes sense and 2) is actually any good.

There isn’t much need to over-explain this particular saying, so ingrained is it in the American psyche. So without further ado, on with the axiometry!

THE PROSECUTION:

Patriots love their country. Patriots do what is good for their country, and what their country asks them to. Before figuring out if dissent really is the highest form of patriotism, we need to understand what “patriotism” is. Merriam-Webster defines patriotism as “love for or devotion to one’s country.” It is true that tough love is a form of love, and that dissent could be thought of as tough love, is that really the highest form of patriotism? Wouldn’t doing what your country wants be the highest form of patriotism? 

Obviously, we don’t want citizens to be mind-numbed robots blindly doing what they’re told. But if your country is in a crisis and needs you to help out or sacrifice or even refuse to badmouth it to foreigners, you do it. That’s the “highest form of patriotism,” not opposing what your country is doing. 

Don’t support a war your country is involved in? Patriots don’t undermine the war effort. Patriots don’t refuse to fight when called upon. Dislike the current President? The highest form of patriotism is to deal with it until the next election. Patriots don’t riot in the street or physically attack those who do support the current President. Patriots love their country and their fellow countrymen no matter what. 

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And if you do oppose what your country is doing, guess what? There are ways to register your displeasure that don’t involve standing in direct opposition and working towards thwarting what your nation is doing. After all, elected representatives put into place via a democratic process received more votes than your preferred candidate–what right do you have to stop what a majority of your countrymen want? Who’s to say what you think should be done is better than what is being done, anyway? Nobody said that this is the United States of You. Stop being so arrogant. Don’t like the direction your country is going? Get more people to vote the way you think it should go and follow the processes. That’s more patriotic than dissent.

Anyway, these days the definition changes depending on who the current occupant of the Oval Office is. How hypocritical!

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When the chips are down, your homeland is all you’ve got. Love it. Defend it. Cherish it. Nurture it. And don’t conflate opposing it with loving it.

THE DEFENSE:

“My country, right or wrong” is how nations such as the United States get into horrible, unwinnable quagmires like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Blind devotion is not the highest form of patriotism, because that would mean body bags full of needlessly dead soldiers and trillions of wasted dollars equate to a higher degree of devotion to one’s country than stopping the bad thing from happening in the first place.

Every society needs people who will stand up and say “No” when bad things are happening. These bad things are bad for THE COUNTRY. Dissidents don’t get a charge out of their dissent for the mere sake of being different. A contrarian sometimes has a point, after all. Very often, that point is that if someone truly loved their country, i.e., was a PATRIOT, they’d want to STOP it from going down a bad road. You’d do the same for a family member or friend about to embark on a destructive path, right? Why wouldn’t you do the same thing for your country?

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And whether a majority of your country thinks this destructive path is the right one is beside the point. Just because a thing is popular doesn’t make it good or right. The question posed by the originator of this phrase is whether dissent is the highest form of patriotism when your country is doing something practically and morally wrong. In light of this context, dissent would be the most patriotic action of all.

THE VERDICT:

Dissent is contextually the highest form of patriotism. It isn’t the de facto highest form of patriotism. If I may indulge in some lawyer-speak, the validity of this particular axiom is one of those “It depends . . .” issues.

And no, that doesn’t mean it depends on whether the people in charge are your party or not.

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I’m old enough–and observant enough–to remember that all the hardcore dissidents from the years 2000 to 2008 suddenly wanted Americans to respect the dignity of the office of the president no matter who it was, pull together, and be good patriots who do what the government says once January 21, 2009 rolled around. What changed?

I’m also old enough to remember when the same people literally rioting in the streets from 2016 to 2020 suddenly decided they wanted all Americans to come together right around November 4 or so.

Anyway . . .

Claiming that dissent is the highest form of patriotism no matter what is cloaking yourself with smug, unearned moral superiority in an attempt to justify your seditious position that you, personally, believe. But claiming that dissent is the highest form of patriotism when your country is doing something evil is actually pretty accurate. Of course, this opens up another whole host of questions one must seriously consider if “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” is elevated from a sanctimonious platitude to an actual valid principle, and that is defining good and evil.

If there is some sort of generally agreed-upon standard of what is good for a country versus what is not, what is right for a country and what is wrong, then we can get into a serious discussion of dissent being the highest form of patriotism when one’s country is embarking on the wrong or evil path. Otherwise, “dissent is the highest form of patriotism” is just the inverse of the equally brain-dead assertion of “my country, right or wrong.”

Of course, these days any agreed-upon standard of right or wrong is impossible to find. To get into an America-specific reason, that’s what happens when you are not a cohesive nation with a cohesive culture, but are instead a multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual, multi-faith conglomeration held together by the threat of force. Religious principles used to be the bedrock that held cultures and nations together, and with these religious principles came an immutable set of standards. Here in the West, what used to be called Christendom, Christian morals filled this role, and all laws were derived from these Chrsitian principles. If a king or other noble was acting counter to the teachings of Christ, the people could rise up and point to this fact and credibly claim that opposing their nation was actually patriotic because in opposing a nation that was acting counter to God’s law they would in fact be upholding God’s law, and there are fewer forms of patriotism greater than that.

Obviously, Islamic principles play this role for a billion or so people on Earth. I’d imagine that Hinduism does as well. 

In lieu of that, especially in America where we’re told that all religions are equally valid, except for Christianity, which is the worst, we have no standard save for what is legal. And what is legal doesn’t always mean right or good.

Legal can also be magically changed if fifty-percent-plus-one want it to change, or if five-out-of-nine unelected wizards in black robes mystically declare it to be. That’s how you get abortion on demand, endless wars, crime, rampant drug use, ubiquitous pornography, dubious authoritarian measures to combat a disease with a 99% survival rate, and govermnets that lie, cheat, and steal in order to enrich its members at the expense of everybody else they just pretend to like in order to give their reign a patina of legitimacy.

Whew, that’s a lot of rancor, isn’t it? But it’s true. 

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Final Recommendation: Only use this phrase in its original context, which is when one’s nation is doing something morally wrong. Dissent is the HIGHEST form of patriotism if you actually have a standard of right and wrong to compare it to. I suppose a lot of the conflict we see within the United States is over what this standard will be. 

That said, given how utterly horrible the ruling American political/media/industrial class is and what it’s trying to do to us, I wonder at the type of person who would actually be a patriot these days. 

(If you enjoyed this, check out Axiometry Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI)

I Can Relate

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Writer Alric Hart pens an interesting rumination on the propensity for characters in contemporary fiction to be made “relatable.” In Hart’s estimation, “relatable” is on the opposite end of the spectrum from “likable,” and typically means they are “vicious people whom nobody really likes” who are like “participants to a reality show, ready to be mocked and put down for their own shortcomings, their stories being humiliation rituals designed to provide vulgar satisfaction while saying ‘You are as bad as them'”

I think he’s onto something, but less so on the nuts-and-bolts of the likeable/relatable dichotomy (because I think a character can be BOTH), but on the oversaturation of this overdone trope. Way too many characters are these unlikable a-holes who are very difficult to root for. If you find yourself wondering “Who is the actual hero here?” then you’re watching a story steeped in this principle. 

I like Hart’s closing exhortation:

If you want people to relate to your characters, let them be positive. Let them have likeable personalities, a positive attitude, and a capacity for good. Maybe at the start losers and neckbeards will dunk on them, but you will witness the love they will get from normal, good people, the ones that, admit it, will give you more than the others.

Goodness is absolutely relatable. It is also aspirational. Only in a society that degrades both the human soul and the entire human person is wallowing in the gutter seen as a good thing.

Transgressive, sure, but not good. Yet the idea of transgressive has become bastardized like so many other things. Transgression is easy. It is, in fact, the simplest thing any artist can do: find something good, beautiful, and true created with love by a better person than you and then piss all over it.

Animals can be transgressive. They cannot create.

“Likeable” and “relatable” are not mutually exclusive. It’s that the modern conception of “relatable” has been created by awful, small-souled, self-loathing bugmen who think the rest of the world must be as miserable as they are because life is pain, we’re all just flesh-robots, and so on. These sad-sacks are seemingly incapable of self-improvement and would rather drag the rest of society down into the sludge with them so they don’t feel so bad about being miserable freaks. They not-so-secretly long for negation and the only joy they take is bringing the unwilling along for the ride.

Your joy, your happiness, is an affront to the transgressor. They are twisted heirs to the old New England Puritans. These lumps of misery live with the constant fear and psychological pain of the fact that somewhere, someone is enjoying life.

Some of you reading this may think I’m overdoing the psychoanalysis. But when you actually read or watch the stories and music that is produced in mass quantities by the big entertainment companies, you’ll see a hell of a lot of this. 

Note well that this is different than a character flaw that, hopefully, gets overcome throughout the course of the story. A flaw is another overdone trope, but that is because it works and can lead to a very positive, uplifting story . . . or a tragedy if the flaw results in the character’s fall. And a flaw can make a character relatable–an alcoholic character, for example, would resonate with many an audience member, and their struggle and eventual triumph over their demons could provide inspiration.

Or we could wallow in various bodily fluids and horrible behavior.

The choice is yours. 

My writing is full of likable and relatable characters.

The Female of the Species

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Normally, it’s cathartic to observe horrible people getting publicly shamed for their reprehensible behavior. And at first blush, the public humiliation faced by Bob “Movie Bob” Chipman at the hands of Lindsay Ellis seems to fit the bill. But beyond the execrable Chipman’s comeuppance at the hands of Ellis, there is more to this story than what appears at first blush. 

Lidnsay Ellis is a YouTuber focusing on pop culture reviews and critiques and the like. She’s also published a sci-fi novel. Bob Chipman is in much the same YouTube/pop culture sphere. Both of them are huge left-wing SJWs who have said some pretty nasty things and wished some very harmful consequences on people they disagree with politically, though Chipman is far worse (and delusional–seriously, the guy has zero self-awareness). Look them up if you wish. Who they are isn’t as important as the fact that they’re both quite popular with large followings in their niche. What’s really important to keep in mind is that (a) Ellis is an attractive female and (b) Chipman is not only unattractive, but does not appear to possess any of those qualities which tend to attract females even more than physical attractiveness, or that can outweigh physical unattractiveness.* Neither does Chipman, whose online persona consists of eating, bitching about movies and wishing death upon white people, those without college educations, and those who live in states that primarily vote differently than he does, appear to have any interest in improving any aspect of his life, save perhaps the amount of food that he eats.

This is a lethal combination for a man. 

This website has a short rundown of all you need to know about this fued, so I won’t reproduce the entire thing save for a very brief primer:

1) Ellis and others were on Twitter joking about how merely knowing somebody or being photographed in the same place as them isn’t tantamount to being their best friend and agreeing with everything they say–people in their sphere know each other.

2) Chipman posted some old selfie he took with Ellis.

3) Ellis responded that this was creepy and Chipman needed to cut it out as he has a history of stalking her.

4) Chipman locked his Twitter account. 

[image error]This is brutal. And this is my point: People mock, ridicule, and respond to Chipman’s inflammatory, vicious, hateful, and quite frankly low IQ tweets with utter disdain and insults that would make most people cower. Not Chipman. He seems immune to this stuff; very thick-skinned, at least publicly. But a reasonably attractive female he clearly has feelings for to a creepy degree make one disparaging comment, and that sends Chipman over the edge.

I mean, he’s since unlocked his account, and I haven’t seen anything referencing this kerfuffle on it, but I didn’t search too hard because scrolling his feed could lead to cancer. 

Feminists think men run the world, and men do to a degree because physical force and the threat of it appear to be the primary influence, but behind this is the fact that men may “run the world,” but women run men. 

Men do unbelievably reckless, stupid, and counterproductive stuff for the approval of women. 

I have heard the theory that, because men are physically stronger and are predisposed to want the approval of women in order to reproduce with them, women evolutionarily developed non-violent tactics that help them manipulate** men into acting how women want them to. Mostly, this helps civilization but when there’s an imbalance, or when women get really mad and men aren’t equipped to handle it, the psychological damage done to men can be as great as physical damage a man may inflict on a woman.

I’m no evolutionary biologist, and when people anthropomorphize evolution I cringe, but there is some merit to this. When women fight, they tend to go for the balls first. I suppose they have to because female scorn and ridicule is their greatest weapon. A man insults your manhood? Whatever. A woman does? Oh boy.

Women start at the nuclear option, and escalate from there. And in the weird world of creepy online pop-culture obsessives, having a reasonably attractive female approve of you is huge social proof, so when said reasonably attractive female publicly disses you like this, especially when she has a point based on your own creepy behavior, it hurts worse than ten mean beating the hell out of you and calling you a fat, unintelligent eugenicist.*** 

I don’t think a lot of women realize this. I don’t think a lot of men realize this either. You know who did? Rudyard Kipling:

         The Female of the Species

    WHEN the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,

    He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.

    But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.

    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,

    He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.

    But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.

    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,

    They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.

    ‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.

    For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,

    For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;

    But when hunter meets with husbands, each confirms the other’s tale—

    The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

    Man, a bear in most relations—worm and savage otherwise,—

    Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.

    Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact

    To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

    Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,

    To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.

    Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex

    Him in dealing with an issue—to the scandal of The Sex!

    But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame

    Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;

    And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,

    The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

    She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast

    May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.

    These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells—

    She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

    She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great

    As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.

    And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim

    Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

    She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;

    Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—

    He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,

    Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

    Unprovoked and awful charges—even so the she-bear fights,

    Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,

    Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw

    And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

    So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer

    With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her

    Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands

    To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

    And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him

    Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.

    And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,

    That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

Men and women aren’t enemies. But men and women are different. And that’s good. Women must be careful and wield their power for the good. Men need to stop being dopes and acting the way they’ve been told women want them to act by women who hate men, and start acting the way women who love men wish they would act:

Get in shape.
Cultivate virtue and honor.
Be chivalrous.
Take action and take responsibility for your actions.
If a woman is not interested in you, move on.
Practice self-control.
Learn a skill. Better yet, learn several.

In other words, don’t be like Movie Bob.

* You have to remember that generally a woman’s looks are the primary consideration for a man, or at least in the top two, while a man’s looks are generally not the most important thing a woman looks for in a potential love interest.

** I don’t necessarily mean this word in the negative sense.

*** Alleged eugenicist. The fat and unintelligent parts are factual. 

One of my many skills is writing, fiction and non-fiction alike. Check out some of my books:

A deep dive into Rush fandom:

Top-rated sci-fi:

Cool female-fronted urban fantasy:

Accuracy and Precision

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If you’re expecting clarity and accuracy in what people say, especially on the Internet, you’re in for a rude awakening. 

Words have meaning. Let’s take “Dictator,” for instance. A dictator is a ruler with absolute power. Think of the root word “dictate”: A dictator dictates what is to be done, and it gets done. For a more nuts-and-bolts description of the term, think of a dictator as having the power to promulgate AND enforce laws, AND have sole control over the military and any other civil authorities, AND have the power to arrest, try, imprison, and execute anyone who disobeys.

A dictator would never voluntarily step down from power either.

Lastly, a dictator is usually but not always evil. This is a controversial statement, but one with the status of “Dictator” is not by definition evil. We’re used to it being so because of relatively recent world events, but if you’re into accuracy and clarity, these are the kinds of things that you have to parse if you want to be as precise as possible. In any event, I would argue that lots of people, even in America, the “Land of the Free,” would be more than happy if “their guy” was a dictator who retained absolute power until they died before power passed to the dictator’s hand-picked successor. 

In light of this, whomever runs North Korea is a dictator in the technical sense. Based on what I know about Chinese politics, Xi Jinping is not a dictator in the absolute sense. Neither, from what I know about Russian politics, is Vladimir Putin. Neither, from what I know about Iranian politics, is Hassan Rouhani. 

Neither is Donald Trump. Neither was Barack Obama. Neither was George W. Bush. Neither was Bill Clinton. Neither was George H.W. Bush. Neither was Ronald Reagan. Neither was . . .

In fact, even the U.S. presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Linconln who assumed wide powers, imprisoned hundreds of thousands of American citizens and confiscated their property, and even suspended habeas corpus, weren’t dictators in the technical sense.

This is but one example of a word that has been twisted beyond any recognizable or coherent meaning to be a stand in for “Someone I personally don’t like who does things I personally don’t like.”

The point isn’t about the term dictator though. The point is about accuracy and clarity, of knowing when you’re right about something and should stubbornly dig in or when you’re wrong and you should accept the light of truth through your illusions of falsehood.

If it feels as frustrating as beating your head against the wall to be a self-aware individual in the 21st century, that’s because it is. Seeking truth is a quixotic endeavor even in the best of times. In an era of chaos like we find ourselves in now, it’s almost insanity to try and not be insane. 

We can’t even decide on what “Truth” is anymore, because truth depends on what one believes to be the fundamental nature of the universe and everything in it. The definitions of right and wrong, of good and evil, of beautiful and ugly, flow from this. But nowadays, ask 100 different people what is truth, and you’ll probably get 200 different answers. 

But it’s still worth it. For every person who is aware of their biases and blindspots and can admit when they’re wrong and work towards correcting themselves, there will be one more person able to guide others after the inevitable collapse. Somebody will have to rebuild, and it would be nice if it isn’t some evil dictator.

I mean, a benevolent dictator would be preferable to an evil dictator. And just so you know, “benevolent” means “marked by or disposed to doing good.” Here we, once again, see why definitions matter, because first we had to define “Dictator,” and then we have to define “benevolent,” and now we have to define “good” . . . you see why this stuff matters? 

My new book about Rush fandom, Dreamers & Misfits, is out now, and I’m VERY precise when writing about Rush.