John C. Wright's Blog, page 173
November 5, 2010
Superman and Dehumanity Part III — On Morlocks
Continued from previous.
What is Dehumanism?
Dehumanism is a term I have coined to describe that soft-edged cloud of modern thinking beloved of the Progressive elite. There is no rigorous definition of dehumanism for the same reason there is no Magisterium for the Wicca, and no Supreme Ruling Council of Anarchists. We are talking about a loose and incoherent alliance of incoherent thinkers. The central principle of Dehumanism is that it lacks principle. It is a disjointed admixture of Machiavelli, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Nihilism.
Its Machiavellian view of morals says that the ends justify the means, and says that noblest ends, such as world Utopia, justify the basest means, such as genocide; Its Darwinian view of history says that races and bloodlines are locked in remorseless and eternal war to extinction, that men should be bred like a dogs, and the weak and unwanted be exterminated; Its Marxist view of economics is that the free market is a Darwinian war between economic classes which must regard each other as implacable foes; Its Freudian view of ethics says that to repress the natural and selfish impulses in a child leads to neurosis, therefore ethics is unnatural, whereas pride and lust and greed and ire and perversion are not only natural, but healthy. Its Nietzschean theology says that God is dead and therefore Power is God. Its Nihilist philosophy says that nothing means anything, therefore no philosophy has meaning and no reasoning is reasonable.
Let me hasten to add that no one person holds all these beliefs, or to the same degree. The beliefs contradict each other and contain lunatic paradoxes, so of course no one can embrace all Dehumanist ideals simultaneously or with equal fervor.
Superman and Dehumanity Part II — On Drama
Continued from Previous.
Can a Dehumanist concoct, without betraying his principles, a satisfying dramatic story? The short answer is no. The long answer requires we discover the nature of dehumanism and of drama.
What is Drama?
The muse of philosophy who broods on Mount Helicon must forgive me if I describe what is a sprawling mansion of many chambers with the briefest of blueprints. Again I warn the reader that we are speaking in the most rough-hewn generalities, and that the presences of many exceptions and qualifications (of which, dear reader, I doubt not you are as well aware as I) does not unmake nor invalidate the general result.
To be a satisfying drama, certain basic elements must be present, either in large or in small:
A protagonist with a goal or dream or need or mission, who is facing…An obstacle (it can be a person, as an evil villain, or a situation, as life in an evil village) presenting a real challenge, perhaps an overwhelming challenge, blocking the protagonist’s achievement of this goal. Facing this challenge initiates…Rising action, perhaps with unexpected yet logical plot-turns to astonish the reader’s expectations, leading to…A climax, a crescendo or catharsis, which in turn brings about…A resolution that not only…Makes intellectual sense, with no plot threads forgotten and no plot holes showing but also…Makes moral and emotional sense, it shows the cosmos the way it is or the way it should be, but also…Makes thematic sense, such that it can be used as an example, or a model, or a reflection of life or some aspect of life.Superman and Dehumanity Part I
Let me address a question which, if answered, would answer several questions at once. Why are crass popular comic book superhero movies better than mainstream Hollywood movies? Why are they better and more honest, more sound, and more true than a modern comedy or tragedy or melodrama, or what passes for it? Why are they better drama?
There are some deep questions unexpectedly connected to this shallow question. Let us see into what oxbows of digression the river of conversation leads. A prudence of space may require the discussion to be drawn over several entries.
November 2, 2010
News on All Saint's Day
By mere coincidence, my eye fell upon two news stories yesterday, on All Saint’s Day.
First, a Syriac Church was attacked by Jihadists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/baghdad-church-siege-survivors-speak
Fifty-eight people, most of them worshippers from the Chaldean Catholic community, are confirmed to have been killed in the massacre, which was carried out by al-Qaida [...] Ghassan Salah, 17, had just arrived for the Sunday night service with his mother, Nadine, and brother, Ghaswan, when the gunmen burst through the cathedral’s huge wooden doors. “All of you are infidels,” they screamed at the congregation. [...]
Then the killing began. [...] Thar Abdallah, the priest who married al-Wafi was first to be killed – shot dead where he stood. Gunmen then sprayed the church with bullets as another priest ushered up to 60 people to a small room in the back. [...] Mona Abdullah Hadad, 62, was in church with her family when the gunmen started shooting. “They said, ‘We will go to paradise if we kill you and you will go to hell’,” she said. “We stood beside the wall and they started shooting at the young people. I asked them to kill me and let my grandson live, but they shot him dead and they shot me in the back.” [...] “I saw at least 30 bodies,” said Madeline Hannah, 33, who was seriously wounded by gunshots. Many appeared to have been blown apart…
November 1, 2010
Election Day Tomorrow!
As a public service to my brothers and sisters in Christ, let me here list the Five Non-Negotiable points that must guide all Catholic voters and which should guide all Protestant and Orthodox, Nestorian, Coptic, and Monophysite Christians.
The basic rule is that you cannot call yourself a Catholic and vote for a politician who calls himself Catholic, if that politician supports, votes for, or fails to oppose aborticide, euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, or homosexual so-called marriage, without committing a grave moral error and disobeying the teachings of the Holy Mother Church. So, no more voting for Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, Kennedy, Leahy, Kucinich, and so on.
The servants of Moloch and the supporters of prenatal infanticide should not and cannot be received into the communion of Christians without repenting and doing penance; and you cannot support them with your vote or your voice without joining them. This is not my opinion, loyal Sons and Daughters of the Church: Rome has spoken. The case is settled.
My fellow Christians who have broken with Rome have not broken with Christ–and we should all realize that abortion could be abolished from this nation in one election cycle, if only we Christians were serious about the issue, even without the help of other men of good will.
A firmly anti-abortion Congress could remove jurisdiction of the federal courts over this matter, return it to the states, and strike down any federals laws and regulations supporting or funding this hateful, inhuman, and abominable practice.
But other men of good will shall help us: human feeling is not dead in the hearts of Jews and Muslims, and human life is held sacred in the souls of votaries of Oriental faiths, Buddhist, Hindu, Shinto.
The Democrat party has become a hideous tower of Babel, a stronghold erected to defy and mock both the will of the common man here below and the wrath over heaven here above. Look at what that party has become: they are no longer the friends of Catholic social teaching. They are no longer the friends of the poor, or the blue collar worker, or any union that is not a political or quasi-political union.
Vote your conscience, and obey the iron voice of your conscience. Do not vote your feelings, your fears, or your family’s habits or old practice of voting. Do not listen to the soft, squishy, hot-tempered voice of your feelings. Listen to the cold and exact voice of your conscience within you, the voice that never makes you feel comfortable. As a Jedi might never say: Your feelings cannot be trusted; use your eyes.
October 27, 2010
Wright's Writing Corner: Guest Blog -- Misty Massey on Magical Words
Guest blog by Misty Massey on the origin of the excellent writing website, Magical Words:
Suckitude that Distorts Time and Space
During the second term of the Bush presidency people just got fed up with Republicans. They were idiots, they were no good at the whole fiscal conservatism thing (which is sort of the whole point of them), we had these wars that seemed to be going nowhere, and the economy was beginning to fail. They sucked, and people were sick and tired of them.
Thus people turned to the Democrats. And Obama.
Let’s just say they also sucked.
AMERICANS: “So, the economy is pretty bad and there’s high employment. You think you can do something about that?”
DEMOCRATS AND OBAMA: “We can spend a trillion dollars we don’t have on pork and stuff.”
AMERICANS: “No … that’s not what we want. We’d really like you not to do that.”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re stupid. We’re doing it anyway.”
AMERICANS: “That’s not going to help us get jobs!”
DEMOCRATS: “Sure it will; millions of them … though they may be invisible. You’ll have to trust us they exist. And guess what else we’ll do: We’ll create a giant new government program to take over health care.”
AMERICANS: “That has nothing to do with jobs!”
DEMOCRATS: “We don’t care about that anymore. We really want a giant new health care program. We’re sure you’ll love it.”
AMERICANS: “Don’t pass that bill. You hear me? Absolutely do not pass that bill.”
DEMOCRATS: “Believe me; you’ll love it. It has … well, I don’t know what exactly is in the bill, but we’re sure it’s great.”
AMERICANS: “Listen to me: DO. NOT. PASS. THAT. BILL.”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re not the boss of me! We’re doing it anyway!”
AMERICANS: “Look what you did! Now the economy is way worse, we’re even deeper in debt, and we have a bunch of new laws we don’t want!”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re racist.”
AMERICANS: “Wha … How is that racist?”
DEMOCRATS: “Now you’re getting violent! Stop being violent and racist, you ignorant hillbillies! And remember to vote Democrat in November.”
So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analogue in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.
My comment: If only England had remained sane, we Whigs could have simply apologized, admitted the democratic experiment had failed, and agreed once more to swear fealty to the King. But England is in straits more dire than ours. Perhaps we can appeal to the Emperor in Rome to repeal the Rescript of Honorius, and ask the legions posted to Britain to protect the British colonies, including ours, beneath the fierce Eagles of Rome. Of course, the Imperium is rather a bit of a corrupt failure itself, so maybe we can swear fealty to Cato of Utica, and he will overthrow Caesar and his family, and restore power to the Senate, Republic and People of Rome. Except, come to think of it, that form of government encouraged widespread luxury and corruption among the Senatorial and Patrician families. Hmm. What about recalling Tarquin the Proud, and restoring the older monarchy? Well, no, that whole rape of Lucretia thing pretty much showed what the problem is with unchecked power in the hands of the monarch. Hmm. Perhaps an older generation of monarchs would serve us: we could call back Romulus and Remus, who were kindly and wise leaders, except for that whole embarrassing brother-killing-brother thing, and throwing the corpse into a plowed furrow. We could instead restore Aeneas, or perhaps Priam of Troy, or Saturn who ruled in a Golden Age. Saturn ate his infant children, and so he was in favor of a Titan’s Right to Choose. He’d fit right in to the modern political scheme!
So, no the Experiment in Self-Government and Limited Government, despite what false prophets cry, is not an experiment that fails or that can ever fail, merely because it is the only system of government that has a built in corrective mechanism. The other theories of government that have been tried have failed, because they contain all the same flaws as this one, plus they cannot be overthrown except by arms. Even in failure, democratic republics are peaceful. No other revolution is needed except for the revolution that takes place every election cycle in the ballot box. Man is fallen, and no government by fallen man and for fallen man will ever be anything to admire: but it can always be improved, usually by a return to first principles, usually by taking seriously the ideals on which the Experiment in Self-Government and Limited Government is based.
So get out and vote. We have a black hole of suckitude to undo.
The Argument from Honest Argumentation
In the comment following this article “Virtuous Pagans and Honest Atheists”, several readers have pointed out a flaw in the paragraph “Any philosopher contemplating whether there are universal moral laws soon realizes that he, in order to think about this or any other topic, is under a moral obligation to think honestly, since to think dishonestly is futile. Hence, all humans live in an inescapable web of moral duties, of which the skeptical philosopher is convinced of at least one: a duty to be honest, to think with integrity.”
The flaw allegedly spotted is the naturalist fallacy, attempting to derive an “ought” from an “is.” My argument is sound, albeit I confess the phrasing is unclear.
The word causing confusion is the word “futile.” Many read that sentence to mean that I am saying reasoning without integrity is inefficient. That is not what I mean. I am saying reasoning without reason is unreasonable, that is, not logically possible. I am using the word “futile” in its strongest sense here.
I am not saying it is “futile” (inefficient) to try to clean your car windshield with a toothbrush; I am saying it is “futile” (impossible) to add a cubit to your stature merely by taking thought.
October 26, 2010
Space Opera, Spiral Energy, and the Dark Side of Darwinism
This article will start as an anime review for Gurren Lagann (known in Japan as Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, “Heaven-piercing” Gurren Lagann) and end somewhere very far from the fields we know, perhaps as a philosophical musing, perhaps as a sermon. It is filled with spoilers, and pretty annoying spoilers at that, so do not read further unless you want to find out that “Rosebud” is the name of Luke Skywalker’s true father.
At the welcome recommendation of several people, I sought out Gurren Lagann. Those people, to whom I am grateful, correctly judged that is was the same kind of over-the-top Space Opera that I both read and try to write.
Let us pause to deal with the ever-burning question of what differentiates Space Opera from Military SF or any of the related genres. My answer is simple: when you are done reading E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s SKYLARK OF SPACE or GALACTIC PATROL and their sequels, or done watching STAR WARS and you are still in the mood for a yarn of the same kind, the type of story you seek is what we now call a Space Opera. When you are done reading STARSHIP TROOPERS by Heinlein or FOREVER WAR by Haldeman, and you are in the mood for the same kind of tale, you seek Military SF.
The defining characteristic of Space Opera is gigantism, larger-than-life characters storming across larger-than-life stages blowing up worlds. Any story where the term “The Battle-Dyson-Sphere opened an aiming aperture wider than the rings of Saturn and ignited all suns in its internal triple star system to Nova-level output” could be inserted without confounding the story, or where the term “Space Pirate” can be used with a straight face, is likely to be a Space Opera. Space Opera usually does not deal with an infantryman’s-eye-view of the war: you are reading about the doings of the Gray Lensman, not with the barroom brawls, letters from home, and stoic loneliness of Juan Rico or William Mandella. The short answer is that Space Opera deals with the Achilles and Ulysses of the future, heroes invulnerable or able to outwit the gods themselves, whereas Military SF deals with G.I.’s.
One trick that E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith perfected was the geometrical increase of scope. In SKYLARK OF SPACE, the duel was between Superscientist Richard Seaton and Evil Superscientist Marc Q. “Blackie” DuQuesne, and both were igniting atomic explosions on planetary surfaces with abandon: but by the fourth book SKYLARK DUQESNE, the climax included a scene where countless millions of stars were teleported from one galaxy into the exact location of home suns of evil star systems in a second galaxy, triggering so many supernovae that the entire second galaxy was one smear of spiral supernova-level radiation while the first galaxy was dimmed, and meanwhile all the good planets of that galaxy were teleported to freedom in carefully selected orbits at the correct distance each one around the star in yet a third galaxy. Space Opera often involves this type of one-upsmanship: the whole planet is at stake, the whole solar system, the whole galaxy, the whole cluster, and so on.
Gurren Lagann has this Skylarkian formula perfected. It starts out gigantic and grows larger from there.
SPOILERS AHEAD! A PLETHORA OF SPOILING SPOILERS!
October 22, 2010
Virtuous Pagans and Honest Atheists
The angelically named Michael writes this formidable argument:
“Suppose that an atheist is not a moral relativist. Then he believes that there is a universal immaterial reality outside of himself, moral truth, that his character ought to conform to. Then, as a reasonable person, he must ask the question, “What is the source of this universal immaterial moral reality which I ought to conform to?” There are two possible sources: natural or supernatural agents. Supernatural agents are ruled out for an atheist, so we consider a natural origin. I claim that something cannot be created out of nothing, and I think you would agree. So we must consider the natural agent, be it human, animal, protoplasm or alien creating the universal moral reality from its own being and experience. But it is impossible for a completely natural being to have universal moral qualities without being united with a universal moral agent. On a completely natural plane, there is no human being, no animal, plant, protoplasm, etc. that is universal in genetics, and behavior, and reasoning by which to derive such a universal truth for all other beings (the atheist considers only natural causes in the agent as the source of a universal moral reality in question). Thus, by contradiction, that moral reality in question is nothing but a relative reality to the natural agent that originated it. Therefore, an atheist must be a moral relativist.”
Speaking as one who once was an atheist who is not a moral relativist, allow me with fear and trembling to pick up the hurled gauntlet on behalf of all atheist moral absolutists. I submit that an atheist absolutist is a logically permissible position, if not logically inevitable.
Read more
John C. Wright's Blog
- John C. Wright's profile
- 449 followers
