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John C. Wright's Blog, page 55
August 23, 2014
Interview on CITY BEYOND TIME!
The Sci Phi show, a podcast of science fiction and philosophy, unwisely decided to interview me. Listen in horror as the interviewer asks me clear and precise questions to which I respond by unguided stream of consciousness ramblings in disconnected sentence fragments!
Future anthropologists will recover only this one file out of the entire auditory library of the pre-singularity human race, and a recording of the song Waltzing Matilda, and from those two clues deduce that we were a race of talking cars named Kitt who served an overlord named Optimus Prime. Future anthropologists will wonder, as I do, why I sound funny in recording.
http://sciphishow.com/time-travel-metachronopolis-and-john-c-wright-sps420/
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
August 22, 2014
Distributionism vs Plutoyperetonism
A reader asked me my opinion of Distributionism, which is GK Chesterton’s tentative venture into economic philosophy.
For better or worse, my take on Distributism is uniformly and unabashedly negative. You see, I had studied economics for many a year before I stumbled across the writings of Mr Chesterton, and I found him wise and witty and much to be admired in all other areas but this one. Once he starts writing about rich folk, he speaks frothing nonsense, and there is a touch of hatred, of true malice, in his tone I do not detect anywhere else.
Chesterton holds that the concentration of wealth into a few hands was bad for all concerned, and looked favorably on the idea of each man owning his own means of production, and their incomes being more equal.
By what means this was to be accomplished is left vague in his writings. Whether this was to be by a medieval guild system, or some form of government-run syndicate, or an all-volunteer affair, is never mentioned one way or the other. He states clearly that he opposes the Enclosure Laws, by which common greens, formerly owned and used communally, were made private property; but he does not state clearly how, or even if, he would reverse this.
His position differs from Socialism mainly by being nondoctrinaire by being unclear.
*
He makes all the popular errors that Marx capitalized upon (no pun intended) including such absurdities as claiming rich people make poor people poorer on purpose in order to force them into factory work, and sell them shoddy goods.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Review: 1602
I read a superb comic book, excuse me, graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert. First things first: Mr. Kubert is a true artist. The book is beautiful to look at.
The good news is that the script by Mr. Gaiman provoked both charm and terror in just the right places, and had both an original take and slightly macabre overtone that is Mr. Gaiman’s signature hallmark. The bad news is that the ending is weak, which is another signature hallmark of Mr. Gaiman.
The conceit is brilliant, and, like all brilliant conceits in storytelling, simple: the Marvel Superheroes are here shown as their 1602 counterparts. Nick Fury is the Walsingham of Queen Elizabeth’s court, the daring master of intrigue who keeps Her Majesty’s Catholic assassins at bay. Dr. Strange is her John Dee, the royal physician and mage. Charles Xavier runs a school for the ‘Witchbreed’. Magneto is Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. Von Doom is unchanged: a tyrannous Medieval Monarch of a Germanic kingdom, practiced in alchemy. And Captain America … well, the idea for who Captain America is, the idea is simply brilliant, and I will not spoil the surprise.
Here is what Gaiman does right: the mood of the times was authentic. Fury was a particularly well crafted character, who took seriously his loyalty to King James upon his ascention to the throne. The religious wars of the period were presented as serious, as they were to the men of the period, with no one uttering William-of-Orange type calls for moderation, which would have been anachronistic.
Ben Grimm as the salty sea captain was particularly well done. As for what goes wrong? Not much, but I want to complain.
SPOILER WARNINGS and bellyaching Below the cut!
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Science Fiction and a Sense of Wonder
Science Fiction writers and readers often speak of stories that contain a Sense of Wonder. What is a sense of wonder?
The years of the Industrial and Scientific Revolution ushered in a new view of the universe remarkably different from the universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy. The Earth was no longer the center.
In a dizzying swoop, Copernicus swept it to the side and placed the sun at the center. Then, with a jar, Kepler announced that the orbit was not an epicycle riding a circle, but an oval. Next, the division between the mundane world of change and decay and the superlunary world of everlasting and divine aether was shattered by Newton like the ceiling of a cathedral collapsing. The Blessed Father Nicolas Steno ushered in the era of modern geography, and the age of the world suddenly stretched backward to remote eons like the famous scene in Hitchcock’s VERTIGO where the grounds seems to swoop away from the dangling feet of Jimmy Stewart.
The first thing to notice about this, is that all these men were Churchmen in Catholic orders. So much for the war between Faith and Science.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
August 21, 2014
Message from CatholicVote.org
Found this in my inbox, and had to share the news:
Dear CV Friend,
The Consecrated Host is back in the hands of Archbishop Coakley and the Catholic Church.
Deo Gratias!
Additionally, the Satanists have agreed to sign a statement saying that they will not use a Consecrated Host in a black mass – if it happens.
Talk about a great victory!
I work in politics. There are many important battles on Capitol Hill, in our federal courts, and at the ballot box.
But I’ll be totally honest: This victory is perhaps the most important one of them all!
The Satanists thought they had us against the ropes. It’s a public forum and we couldn’t stop them from performing their “ceremony.” They even went so far as to brag about having a Consecrated Host!
But that’s where they crossed the line.
Our friend, attorney Michael Caspino, sprung into action. Lifted by the prayers of Catholics all across the country – and with the support of Archbishop Coakley — Caspino fought back against the Satanists in court.
And we won. We won for Jesus.
The Satanists might still hold a black mass, but promised that they won’t do so with a Consecrated Host. So let’s continue praying to Saint Michael, in thanksgiving for his powerful intercession.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Prayer as a Deadly Weapon
I am mentioned in a rather flattering connection by the first ever podcast of the 1P5 podcast. But the rest of the meditation by Mr Steve Skojec is so well worth hearing, that I will overcome my natural modesty to link to his podcast. It is well worth hearing.
https://soundcloud.com/onepeterfive/1p5-podcast-e01#t=26:55
or here it is from the onset
We cannot beat the fallen seraphim of hell without God.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
A Thought-Experiment in Criticism
Read the following and tell me if there is anything flawed or odd or uncouth about the approach or attitude it portrays?
Tomorrow I will be attending GenCon, the biggest table-top gaming convention in the United States. Held in Indianapolis, Indiana, it is four fun-filled days in celebration of the art and hobby of role-playing. There is something for everyone there: games, films, seminars, workshops, dancing, music, and parties. It’s an annual event where people from all over the world come to let their hair down and their inner geek out. As a lifelong gamer, I am excited to go to GenCon.
As an Goy, I am apprehensive about going to GenCon.
For all that GenCon offers, it lacks in Non-Jewish gamers. Last year was my first GenCon, and as I explored the convention, I saw almost no one who looked like me. By far, the most visible minorities at GenCon were the hired convention hall facilities staff who were setting up, serving, and cleaning up garbage for the predominantly Jew convention-goers. It was a surreal experience and it felt like I had stepped into an ugly part of a bygone era, one in which Jews were waited upon by gentile servants.
Gaming has a race problem. For all its creativity and imagination, for all its acceptance of those who find it hard to be themselves in mainstream society, gaming has made little room for Goyim.
“The problem is that Jew people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that…
Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a Jew person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on.”
–Scott Woods, author and poet.
I am the first in my family to be born in the United States. The child of immigrants, I struggled between cultures. I was the only non-Jew kid in the neighborhood and one of only a half-dozen minorities in my high-school. I was an outsider.
I found refuge in Dungeons & Dragons in my freshman year. I could escape who I was in those heroic characters and epic stories. I could be someone I was not. I could be strong. I could be fierce.
I could be Jew.
As an awkward teen, like other awkward teens, I wanted to be accepted. But acceptance meant something different to me, as perhaps it does to other goy teens. Acceptance meant being Jew.
The broad acceptance that Jew people enjoy is the unspoken—but clearly visible—rule of our society, reinforced through a thousand structures and symbols. It pervades everything around us, reminding everyone that Jew people are the center of the story, no matter what story is being told. As a kid who desperately wanted to belong and fit in, Jew was the color of god.
Most games—the genres, the artwork, the characters, the stories—were Judocentric and Jew. It was easy, perhaps even expected, to be Jew when playing a character.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
The International Lord of Hate v Smugwhiner von Sneer
Larry Correia, man among men, take the time to dismantle the filthy lies and maggoty madness of a subterranean dwarf, or Nibelung, named A. A. George, who, on behalf of my publisher Tor, and in the name of Tor, accuses all gamers in general and GenCon in particular of being racists.
Mr Correia in hiphigh boots wades through the dung-choked mire of race-baiting smugwhiningness so you don’t have to. Read and admire:
http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/08/19/no-tor-com-gencon-isnt-racist-a-fisking
The money quote is this. Mr George (I assume him male, because women tend not to be this aggressively stupid) is in italics, and the bold Mr Correia is in bold.
These are symbols, important symbols. If the color of all the leadership, of all the roles of power and recognition, the entire structure is white, and if this same leadership is tolerant of hate-speech, it gives a clear unspoken signal to the non-white community: You can join us here, but only if you leave your history, your people, and your emotions at the door.
Speaking of symbols, get off your cross. There is no “clear unspoken signal” to be extrapolated out of all that straw. Nobody other than your fevered imagination told you to abandon your history, your people, or your emotions, George.
You want to know why real instances of racism are often overlooked? Because the public is the villagers and you SJWs are the boy who cried wolf. When every unconscious action or event is somehow racist, after a while we tune you out. Real racists disappear into the tall grass of micro-aggressions and invisible privilege.
I’ve been told time and again by gamers, “I don’t see race” as if they were doing me a kindness. This is not enlightenment or progressiveness. It is ignorance. If you do not see race, you do not see me. You do not see my identity, my ethnicity, my history, my people. What you are telling me, when you say “I do not see race,” is that you see everything as the normal default of society: white. In the absence of race and ethnicity, it is only the majority that remains. I am erased.
I may be guilty of uttering the words “I don’t see race” at some point but perhaps I could better rephrase it to say “I don’t give a flying fuck about your race, because I care far more about your individual actions, personality, beliefs, choices, philosophy, and culture, and in this particular case we share the same culture of Gamer. And race is an artificially limiting concept primary used by statist control freaks to keep everyone in easily managed stereotype boxes. When I notice your race it is probably the same way I’d notice if somebody was tall, short, fat, thin, bald, beautiful or ugly. Now shut the fuck up about micro aggressions because you are harshing my mellow and roll the fucking dice.”
How about that? Better?
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
August 20, 2014
Prayer as a Deadly Weapon
I am mentioned in a rather flattering connection by the first ever podcast of the 1P5 podcast. But the rest of the meditation by Mr Steve Skojec is so well worth hearing, that I will overcome my natural modesty to link to his podcast. It is well worth hearing.
or here it is from the onset
We cannot beat the fallen seraphim of hell without God.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
The Wright Perspective: Arguments for Everything and Nothing
My latest is up at Every Joe.
http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/08/20/politics/existence-of-god-rational-arguments/
So why do Progressives pretend there are no rational arguments for the existence of God?
The various arguments in favor of the existence of God and the truth of Christ do not find favor among secular, that is, antichristian philosophers of this generation. However, such arguments are not any more nor less sound and clear as arguments in favor of the existence of the law of cause and effect, the existence of an objective external universe, the existence of a universal standard of morality, the prudence and fairness of the death penalty, the gold standard or any other topic debated and settled by argument.
The fact that such arguments are rarely discussed is not a sign of the alleged enlightenment of this generation. It is not a sign that this generation is too savvy to waste time discussing abstract matters.
Rather, it is a sign that this generation suffers from severe educational retardation, and no longer regards the use of the faculty of reasoning as a proper method to distinguish true from false. Look on any modern talk show. Now they are shout shows.
The intellect of the intellectual class has diminished sharply within the last fifty years.
Next time you come across an argument for or against the existence of God, look and see what standard is being used. Before you pass judgment on the merits of the argument itself, look at the form of the argument, and see whether it is sound. Make sure you understand what the argument is trying to say before you decide whether you personally find it persuasive.
Is the Argument from First Cause, for example, any less reasonable than whatever argument you can provide to defend, for example, a belief in female suffrage, or a belief that quantum mechanics will one day be reconciled with relativity?
Whole books have been written about every nuance of these deep questions for centuries, but in the final analysis, there are four strong philosophical arguments for the existence of God.
Read more: http://www.everyjoe.com/2014/08/20/politics/existence-of-god-rational-arguments/
I am trying something rather subtle here, not to prove or disprove the case for or against, merely to argue that the case is not one unworthy of a hearing, that is, it is not to be dismissed out of hand, without pondering the arguments on both sides. I somehow doubt any readers of the Leftwing persuasion reading the piece will comprehend that point.
I notice with a supercilious arch of my eyebrow that no comments have been posted as yet on this column, which deals with a serious topic, whereas I got a zillion comments on a column which made the rather trite and tried observation the Political Correctness types care more about political correctness, that is, what will help their party, cult, movement and worldview, than about correct correctness, that is, matters of fact.
Immediately in the comments section of that column, the first Leftist insisted earnestly that it was an uproven assertion, nay, a slander, for my column to say that Leftists do not believe in objective truth; and the next comment by a Leftist equally loud in insisting earnestly insisted that it was an unproven assertion, nay, an absurdity, for my column to say that objective truth exists. Neither bothered to argue with the other, or explained how the logical conundrum was to be resolved.
I assume the arguments for and against the existence of a divine and necessary being are so well known to the well read, rational, and calm readers of the internet that the column provokes no controversy.
Or perhaps the subject was too deep, and hence of no interest to the readership. Either that, or I am off my game and it was boring.
Not to worry. I will write something in a lighter vein next week.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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