John C. Wright's Blog, page 160

The Narrative

Bill Whittle on ‘The Narrative’ and the lingering damage, now that the ideology that spawned it is (for all practical purposes) dead, caused by Critical Theory.

I post this here in reference to several conversations appearing in this space in recent times, most notably discussions of the doctrines of materialism (which is a doctrine of ontology) of hedonism (of ethics) and nihilism (of metaphysics).

The historical discussion begins after the third minute mark.

The features I note are similar between Critical Theory and materialism, hedonism, and nihilism are twofold:

First, there is only an attack mode, no defense mode. These are theories with no defensive features, that is, only the prosecution attacking their unidentified opponent philosophies are ever given voice.

No partisan of the position offers a defense, or, at least not so far, aside from merely restating what they hope to prove. No evidence is presented or proof given to show what materialism, hedonism or nihilism is the case: the only argument given, at least so far, is meant to show that arguments against materialism, hedonism, and nihilism contain assumptions the partisan is unwilling to grant. The whole argument consists of assuming the burden of proof is not on them.

Second, what they attack is never identified by name, and the attacks seem to have no connection with each other, albeit, obviously, that same arguments and the same people switch without hesitation from one to the other, with the hedonist uttering the agnostic epistemology of the nihilist, and the materialist implying (whether he knows it or not) a nihilist metaphysic that the universe is without meaning. And all agree that fornication is acceptable and licit because no one knows or has authority to say what is right and what is wrong; but all agree that saying women should get married and do housework is wrong in all circumstances whatsoever.

The peculiar unity of what seems three unrelated philosophy from thee unrelated barristers representing them is also seen in Critical Theory. The enemy they all seek to undermine is never explicitly identified: it is Christianity.

Hedonists and nihilists do not intend to build up anything once with ethical and metaphysical roots of civilization are uprooted, and materialists cannot build anything even if they intended.

None of these doctrines imposes additional or difficult ethical imperatives on man, or produces a simpler or useful model of the universe, or explains anything other models do not explain more clearly and without paradox; all of them wither, relax or abolish the classical virtues of moderation, fortitude, justice and prudence, or blaspheme the Christian virtues of faith, hope and charity, and replace it with the formless void that you all know as the leitmotif of our post-Christian post-philosophical civilization.

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Gene Wolfe on JRR Tolkien: The Best Introduction to the Mountains

Here below is the beginning of my favorite essay on JRR Tolkien. It is by the author Gene Wolfe, who is the finest writer in any genre currently gracing our planet, and he happens to have selected, and expanded, the genre called science fiction to work his arts. I was fascinated by his insight into Tolkien, not to mention into our Lower Earth of which Middle Earth is an elevated reflection.

Because this essay disappeared from the reaches of the Internet for a time, I wish to reprint the opening here, and post to link to where the balance still might be found.

The full essay is here. http://www.thenightland.co.uk/MYWEB/wolfemountains.html

The Best Introduction to the Mountains

by Gene Wolfe

 

There is one very real sense in which the Dark Ages were the brightest of times, and it is this: that they were times of defined and definite duties and freedoms. The king might rule badly, but everyone agreed as to what good rule was. Not only every earl and baron but every carl and churl knew what an ideal king would say and do. The peasant might behave badly; but the peasant did not expect praise for it, even his own praise. These assertions can be quibbled over endlessly, of course; there are always exceptional persons and exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless they represent a broad truth about Christianized barbarian society as a whole, and arguments that focus on exceptions provide a picture that is fundamentally false, even when the instances on which they are based are real and honestly presented. At a time when few others knew this, and very few others understood its implications, J. R. R. Tolkien both knew and understood, and was able to express that understanding in art, and in time in great art.

That, I believe, was what drew me to him so strongly when I first encountered The Lord of the Rings. As a child I had been taught a code of conduct: I was to be courteous and considerate, and most courteous and most considerate of those less strong than I — of girls and women, and of old people especially. Less educated men might hold inferior positions, but that did not mean that they themselves were inferior; they might be (and often would be) wiser, braver, and more honest than I was. They were entitled to respect, and were to be thanked when they befriended me, even in minor matters. Legitimate authority was to be obeyed without shirking and without question. Mere strength (the corrupt coercion Washington calls power and Chicago clout) was to be defied. It might be better to be a slave than to die, but it was better to die than to be a slave who acquiesced in his own slavery. Above all, I was to be honest with everyone. Debts were to be paid, and my word was to be as good as I could make it.

With that preparation I entered the Mills of Mordor, where courtesy is weakness, honesty is foolishness, and cruelty is entertainment.

I was living in a club for men, a place much like a YMCA. I was thoroughly wretched in half a dozen ways (much more so than I had ever been in college or the Army), but for the first time in my life I had enough money to subscribe to magazines and even buy books in hardcover. Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Weird Tales, and Famous Fantastic Mysteries — pulps I had read as a boy while hiding behind the candy counter in the Richmond Pharmacy — were gone; but Astounding Stories lingered as a digest-size magazine a bit less costly than most paperback books. There was also The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, put out by the same company that had published Curtains for the Copper and other Mercury Mysteries that my mother and I had devoured. I subscribed to both, and to any other magazines dealing with science fiction or fantasy that could locate.

Here I must do someone (quite likely the late Anthony Boucher) a grave injustice. I no longer recall who wrote the review I read in Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was a glowing review, and I would quote at length from it if I could. It convinced me then and there that I must read The Lord of the Rings. In those days (the middle 1950s, if you can conceive of a period so remote) the magazine offered books for sale — one might write enclosing a cheque, and receive the book one had ordered by mail. Accustomed as you are to ordering from Amazon.com, you will deride so primitive a system; but you have never been a friendless young man in a strange city far from home. Now that you have enjoyed yourself, please keep in mind that the big-box stores we are accustomed to did not exist. There was no cavernous Barnes & Noble stocking a thousand titles under Science Fiction and Fantasy, no two-tiered Borders rejoicing in a friendly coffee shop and a dozen helpful clerks. There were (if the city was large and one was lucky) one or two old-line book shops downtown; they carried bestsellers, classics like Anna Karenina, cookbooks, and books of local interest, with a smattering of other things, mostly humour and books about dogs. The city in which I was living also boasted a glorious used-book store, five floors and a cellar, in which one might find the most amazing things; but these things did not include science fiction or much fantasy — the few who were fortunate enough to own those books kept them. There may have been speciality shops already in New York; there very probably were. But if there were, they could not have specialized in fantasy or science fiction. Or in horror, for that matter. It was a surprise, a distinct departure from the usual publishing practices, whenever any such book appeared.

An example may make the reason clear. In 1939, August Derleth and Donald Wandrei had published twelve hundred copies of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others, at their own expense. Fanzines had publicized their effort widely and with enthusiasm; but selling those twelve hundred books, which cost three dollars and fifty cents before publication and five dollars after, took four years.

The copy of The Fellowship of the Ring that I received from Fantasy & Science Fiction lies on my desk as I write. It is, I suppose, the first American edition; it was issued in 1956 (the year in which I bought it) by the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston. It is gold-stamped, and is bound in cloth the colour of slightly faded denim. Its elegant dust jacket vanished long ago, though I still recall it. Its back board holds a much-folded map of Middle-earth, sixteen inches on a side, showing among other places the Shire, the Lost Realm of Arnor, Mirkwood, the Brown Lands, Rohan, and Gondor. On its half-title there is now a quotation from Thoreau that I inscribed in blue ink many years ago. I give it because its presence on that slightly yellowed page should convey to you more of what this book meant to me in those days than anything that I might write in my little essay possibly could.

Our fabled shores none ever reach,
No mariner has found our beach,
Scarcely our mirage is seen,
And Neighbouring waves of floating green,
Yet still the oldest charts contain
Some dotted outline of our main.

You are not likely to believe me when I say that I still remember vividly, almost 50 years later, how strictly I disciplined myself with that book, forcing myself to read no more than a single chapter each evening. The catch, my out, the stratagem by which I escaped the bonds of my own law, was that I could read that chapter as many times as I wished; and that I could also return to the chapter I had read the night before, if I chose. There were evenings on which I reread the entire book up the point — The Council of Elrond, let us say — at which I had forced myself to stop.

Naturally I had sent for The Two Towers as soon as I could. Eventually it came, bound and typeset as beautifully as The Fellowship of the Ring, with the same map (I confess that I had hoped for something new) in its back. Just as I inscribed that quotation from Thoreau in Fellowship, I put one from Conrad Aiken on the half-title page of Two Towers:

There was an island in the sea
That out of immortal chaos reared
Towers of topaz, trees of pearl
For maidens adored and warriors feared.

Long ago it sunk in the sea;
And now, a thousand fathoms deep,
Sea worms above it whirl their lamps,
Crabs on the pale mosaic creep.

By the time I received Two Towers, I had learned my lesson — I ordered The Return of the King at once. That, too, is on my desk. With one other thing, its back holds a delightfully detailed map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor. The quotation I inscribed on its half-title is from Robert E. Howard. You have my leave to quarrel with me, but I think it the finest of the three, indeed one of the finest things have ever read.

Into the west, unknown of man,
Ships have sailed since the world began.
Read, if you dare, what Skelos wrote,
With dead hands fumbling his silken coat;
And follow the ships through the wind-blown wrack–
Follow the ships that come not back.

If you remember the end of this last volume, how Frodo rides to the Grey Havens in the long Firth of Lune and boards the white ship, never to be seen again in Middle-earth, you will understand why I chose that particular quotation and why I treasure it (and the book which holds it) even today. But there is one thing more.

You see, ten years later I wrote J. R. R. Tolkien a fan letter.

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The full essay is here. http://www.thenightland.co.uk/MYWEB/wolfemountains.html

Remember Memorial Day

1. O beautiful for spacious skies,For amber waves of grain,For purple mountain majestiesAbove the fruited plain! America! America!God shed His grace on thee,And crown thy good with brotherhoodFrom sea to shining sea! 2. O beautiful for pilgrim feetWhose stern impassion’d stressA thoroughfare for freedom beatAcross the wilderness. America! America!God mend thine ev’ry flaw,Confirm thy soul in self-control,Thy liberty in law. 3. O beautiful for heroes prov’dIn liberating strife,Who more than self their country loved,And mercy more than life. America! America!May God thy gold refineTill all success be nobleness,And ev’ry gain divine. 4. O beautiful for patriot dreamThat sees beyond the yearsThine alabaster cities gleamUndimmed by human tears. America! America!God shed His grace on thee,And crown thy good with brotherhoodFrom sea to shining sea.

We sang this song at Mass on Sunday. I had never heard the whole thing sung aloud in public before. To my chagrin, I realize that I never knew the words the second, third, or fourth verses.

I never realized, for example, that this patriotic hymn held praise for self control in the second verse. It is not a virtue often mentioned in modern America.

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Dialogue with a Hedonist

Part of an ongoing conversation.

I have been accused recently in this space of exaggerating the claims I make about the mental, moral and philosophical condition of the modern world, or the extremity of the emptiness.

As if perfectly to show how no exaggeration was made, now appears in my comments boxes comments that so perfectly follow, without deviation, the orthodoxy of the nihilist that I fear I might be accused of inventing them for my own purposes.

But, not so: the comments given below are unsolicited and written by hands other than mine, and, it is assumed, sincerely made by those who submit them for their value as true statements.

Here is a snip of recent dialog with first commenter, who rejoices in the somewhat Cucurbitaceaen name of Watermelonyo

I wrote:

“… there are addictions and sins and humiliations which produce much false and transient pleasure without occluding the health, but which are nonetheless self evidently moral wrongs.”

He replies:

It is far from self-evident to me that any pleasurable activities that do not occlude the health are morally wrong. This is what you must demonstrate for your argument to carry any weight. Declaring it self-evident doesn’t help you.

Let me in this place write a reply. The other points the writer raises must be answered at another time: this one, by itself, is so outrageous, and yet so easy to disprove and dismiss, as to merit taking some length to answer.

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Sequel of Gor

I am ashamed to admit, and also amused at my own expense, that I read John Norman’s Gor books when I was young.

To be truthful, I actually thought the first six books or so were perfectly fine Burroughs-style sword and planet  romance when I read them as a youth. At the moment when Ballentine dropped him and Daw picked him up, I assume the author got obsessed with his message and stopped trying to spin a yarn. But I was too young, or too undiscriminating, or too perverted in my early teen geekhood to notice what was really going on in those books, or perhaps I did know but I did not have the mental or moral vocabulary needed to disapprove of them, or the character.

After the seventh book or so, the quality diminished sharply, the writing became ever more mechanistic, and the action and adventure took a backseat to the sex fantasy, and then was dropped entirely. The same stubborn and misguided loyalty that made me read each and every sequel and prequel to Sherri S Tippers TRUE GAME  trilogy that came out, or each and every trilogy or subseries in the tales of the Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion did not serve me well in this case. Yes, I sought out and read every single stinking wretched hollow-eyed and soulless sequel to what once had promised to be a perfectly serviceable Sword and Planet yarn. Woe is me. I would not wish this upon my foes. I read all the way from the HUNTERS OF GOR to WITNESS OF GOR, and I cannot tell you what pain it causes me to realize that I have spend some of my limited supply of brain cells to memorize the names of those books.

Would I actually recommend the first three to six book? Reluctantly, I would. Let us give credit where credit is due. As Sword and Planet Romances go, John Norman’s conceit is as good or better than, not to pick on anyone, Michael Moorcock’s Burrough’s pastiche WARRIORS OF MARS and BLADES OF MARS. Norman could write an exciting fight scene, and knew how to keep the action moving.

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The Vinegar Decision!

Well, I have given serious thought to the question of how forceful, aggressive, sarcastic and rude to be in my writings here on my journal. After pondering the matter soberly with my brain, I came to the conclusion that I was not only right in every nuance and aspect of the question, I was the greatest thing on Earth since sliced bread, so there was no need to change a thing.

Being somewhat suspicious of that result, I decided to check my results scientifically, bent the knee, said a prayer, and communed with the Higher Powers.

The Higher Powers said, “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Hm. That was a little unexpected.

Maybe the Higher Powers had made a mistake, or confused my case with a similar case, perhaps mistaking me for science fiction writer John Scalzi? So I bent the knee again, and told Heaven that I was the author of THE GOLDEN AGE, not OLD MAN’S WAR. Two entirely different people. “Your last message may have been garbled, Lord: I am the guy who is the greatest thing since sliced bread, remember? My brain told me so. You are supposed to confirm my feel-goodness about how great I am, right?”

I was on hold for about twenty minutes, and got an answer back: “A soft answer turneth away wrath; But a grievous word stirreth up anger.”

Now, at this point, I was beginning to get nervous. All my atheist friends assure me that religion is nothing but self-delusion and wish-fulfillment. Well, I did not seem to be getting my wishes fulfilled.

After all, my brain could not be wrong, could it? I spend so much time tinkering with it and polishing it, so it hums like a top in overdrive. I am very proud of my brain.

So obviously I was approaching this the wrong way. After all, I was not a Protestant, so I did not have to talk to the Highmost of the High Powers. Maybe if I got the intercession of a saint, things would go more my way, eh?

First, Justin Martyr, patron saint of philosophers, my hero and my namesake:

“We pray for you and all other men who hate us, so that you may repent along with us and not blaspheme the One who by his works, by the mighty deeds done through his name, by the words he taught, by the prophecies announced concerning him, is the blameless and irreproachable-in-all-things Christ Jesus. We pray that, believing on him, you may be saved in his second glorious coming and may not be condemned to fire by him.” (Dialogue with Trypho 35)

Hm. That did not sound much like him saying it was OK for me to condemn people. But he is a philosopher, so perhaps he was speaking in some obscure and technical language. I tried again with Saint Ignatius of Antioch:

“Let us, then, be imitators of the Lord in meekness…” (Letter to the Ephesians 8. )

Looks like the saints were not coming out exactly on my side either with this.

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Conservative-X

Here is an article I read with much interest from Mark Shea.  I reprint the opening few paragraphs below. Read the whole thing here.

* * *

[Joe Carter] has been one of the few voices in the conservative movement to speak out of actual conservative values and not out of the Consequentialism that dominates the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism. So I was interested in his description of “X-Cons“, the rising generation of conservatives (so-called) who have been coming of age in the past decade. I think his description is accurate, rather depressing, and a further proof that Chesterton is right when he says that each revolutionary movement is a reaction to the last revolution–and that it typically knows what is wrong but not what is right. I appreciate Carter’s clear-eyed analysis and suspect that he, like me, is not altogether thrilled that this is the desperate pass in which the Thing that Used to be Conservatism now finds itself. To wit:

• X-Cons do not have a broad grasp of history. If we have an interest in history, we are likely to have a read a few books which we hold in high esteem and consider authoritative (Paul Johnson’s Modern Times is among our favorites). At best, we may have done in-depth study on a particular historical era (the American founding, the Civil War, World War II) but we lack a deep understanding of general history. We have almost no comprehension of the intellectual history of conservatism.

• Talk radio has had a profound influence in shaping our political sensibilities. Just as William F. Buckley, Jr. provided the cast for conservatism in the 1950s, Rush Limbaugh shaped the conservatism of X-Cons in the 1980s and 1990s. Limbaugh provided not only the content but the style in which we conservatives would engage in political discourse: assured, confrontational, snarky. Talk radio taught us X-Cons to appreciate confirmation of our political views. Arguments needn’t be persuasive when you are certain not only that we are right and our opponents are wrong, but also that we are right and they are wrong-headed.

Think about these two paragraphs together. X-Cons know little about history and their deepest influence is disk jockeys, who “taught us X-Cons to appreciate confirmation of our political views.” The perfectly reasonable thing to ask in light of this crushing diagnosis is, “What, precisely, is being conserved by such a ‘conservatism’?” A conservatism that knows nothing of engagement with ideas outside the Talk Radio Noise Machine (including engagement with ideas from its own intellectual history) and which has learned, as it’s primary lesson, “to appreciate confirmation of our political views” is a conservatism that is intellectually barren and open to manipulation by demagogues who flatter its adherents and teach them to remain safe in the echo chamber.

• With confirmation came a sense of (virtual) community and a realization that a Ph.D in Political Science wasn’t required in order to express a valid opinion on politics. Imbued with a sense of confidence from a young age, we X-Cons grew comfortable expressing ourselves in a conversational style that imitated our talk radio mentors. Blogging was (and remains) a natural outlet for our mode of expression.

While it is true that one does not need a Ph.D. in Poli Sci to participate in the political process (a very Chestertonian sentiment), the notion that that the Buzz Lightyear Principle (“I’m Buzz Lightyear! I’m *always* sure!”) is a foundational conservative principle is dubious and founded, not on conservative thought (which is typically circumspect about Youthful Confidence vs. Seasoned Wisdom), but on contemporary therapeutic culture where the Highest Good is that we Feel Comfortable About Ourselves, not that we know what we are talking about. That this, again, traces its roots back to the fact that somebody like Glenn Beck has the gift of the gab and teaches our kids to be Just Like Him, does not inspire confidence that anything like what Burke or Kirk or Buckley called “conservative” is informing this phenomenon since, again, what is being conserved is not even mentioned.

• Having grown-up either in a broken home or surrounded by friends who did, we X-Cons recognize the value of traditional family structures. We may not always be successful in building permanent relationships ourselves, but we value the bonds of family more than the previous generation.

• Our pro-life convictions stem from knowing that we could have been legally killed in womb—and recognizing that we are missing brothers, sisters, and cousins because of abortion.

These two paragraphs point to the highly Chestertonian and paradoxical roots of present day Youth Conservatism: namely, that it is profoundly a reaction to Death Cult Liberalism and its Moloch Worship. Refugees from the social devastation wrought by Generation Narcissus and its perpetual self-congratulatory destruction of the family recognize that social conservatism and, in particular, religious conservatism and its celebration of stable, healthy families are a much friendlier and more supportive culture for their own dreams of a family than is the “do whatever feels right” culture that Generation Narcissus did so much to create and promote. In short, there is an immense amount of pain and suffering at the roots of X-Conservatism caused by my generation’s profoundly destructive selfishness and a deep longing for a stable family life feeds X-Conservatism. Here, above all, is a place where X-conservatism has a real point of contact with the Catholic faith, which likewise prizes the family as a huge and important natural good–and which roots the family in the revelation of the Triune God as His image and likeness. Here is the real beating human heart of X-Conservatism and the thing every Catholic should love about it and try to encourage above all.

• Irony is one of the most pervasive traits in Gen X culture. Not surprisingly, this has affected the outlook of X-Cons. For example, we tend to be ambivalent about heroes. While we have an intuitive understanding of the need for virtue and heroism, we are too realistic, and perhaps cynical, to place complete trust in politicians or statesmen. We prefer to champion ideas and principles over reliance on very real, very fallible leaders.

This is one of the more tragic aspects of X-Conservatism, in that irony and sarcasm are forms of humor that are native to the wounded, powerless and those with waning or no hope.

You've Come a Long Way Down, Baby: The Dignity of Degradation

Part of an ongoing conversation:

Joe Cools writes and says he has a second-wave feminist friend who is open to the ideas of chastity. But he could not show her words like mine “The sacred view of sex is sane, for sanctity is sanity, which is to say, it reflects reality: any deviation from that is insane,” because to call her insane will halt the argument. He says I speak too forcefully (and rudely) to be persuasive.

He makes a good point. Let me mention a point on the other hand.

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Too Much Vinegar?

Joe Cool writes

As much fun as it is to read the fuming and thunder, I really can’t imagine these last couple of posts actually convincing anyone who doesn’t already agree with the premise. What was the tone of the argument that, as an atheist, convinced you of the merits of virtue and chastity? Was it the thundering denouncements of the evil of fornication? Or was it something a bit calmer and more heartfelt? I wonder, if you were stranded on a desert island with a cad or a harlot, and as such must put up with this person for the foreseeable future, how you would convince him of the merits of your position, without convincing him that you’re also a judgmental blow hard? (Not that I’m saying you are; merely that you might come off like that to someone not predisposed to agree with you.)

Yes, I have read your Apologia Pro Opere Sui, and would swear by it, were that not blasphemous. I just have a hard time recommending it to the unenlightened, because it’s so difficult to make it through the dense legalese.

So I wonder what the purpose of your last two posts has been. Is it just to let out some steam, and entertain us all with the rhetoric in the process? If so, mission accomplished.

My comment: Your comment is well said and well taken. It is hard for a man to judge his own words, so I cannot tell when I am coming across with too much vinegar and when not.

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Disloyalty to the Void

Here is an article, brought to my attention by Nate Winchester, entitled ‘The Sex Risks for Women that No One Likes to Talk About.’

http://www.hookingupsmart.com/2010/01/29/hookinguprealities/the-sex-risk-for-women-that-no-one-likes-to-talk-about/

The article, in brief, tells of a letter to the advice column of the Boston Globe, where a young lover, whom we shall call only “Conflicted” in typical modern fashion, is considering cohabitating with a female.

He describes the relationship “normal, healthy, and mutually respectful” that made them both “happy.”

He never once uses the word LOVE to describe the woman he says he could have easily seen himself marrying. However, he discovers that his lover had 35 or so paramours during her college days.

He has, needless to say, the typical reaction of a sane male, which is revulsion. However, typical of the modern mind, he has no words, and no moral vocabulary whereby to express his outrage at the betrayal. Like the subjects of Big Brother in Airstrip One, he cannot express in Newspeak the thought involved.

Instead of outrage, he is alarmed at his own reaction. He is weirded out, and regards her as ‘damage goods’ (a ghastly phrase). He’d like to go back to the way things were, and to feel for her the (unnamed) emotion once he felt. So he turns for advice to the Boston Globe.

The Globe, in its globular wisdom, writes the following. I dare not summarize this, for fear that some nuance of the moral insanity might be lost:

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