John C. Wright's Blog, page 77
April 1, 2014
Deluge as Earthday
Aronofsky’s NOAH would be a fine movie for Earthday, or as a source for ideas for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
Aside from this, the movie was bad, and bad, and bad.
First, it was bad in my eyes for reasons which are simply a matter of my expectations and tastes, which I would not necessarily expect anyone else to share.
On that basis, I can only warn away men who share my particular tastes and quirks, which may be no one. I thought the look of the movie was colorless, unappealing, unmemorable. It was drab.
Second, it was bad as story, bad for reasons which even judges who like the movie for other reasons will agree are bad as story telling: bad on technical grounds.
On that basis, I can warn away anyone who likes a well-crafted story, or even a poorly-crafted story trying to tell a story. The story-telling sank during the second half of the film, and the plot snarled into a knot of nonsense. It was bad.
Third, it was bad as a Bible story, bad for reasons which only Christians, or Conservatives or both would consider bad, but which tree-hugging misanthropic miscreants on the Left would like.
On that basis, I can warn away anyone who is Christian as a well as any non-Christians who do not bow the knee in pious reverence at the ugly Leftist altars of man-hating Gaea-worship. Vegetarians yearning for the destruction of mankind might like this movie; and also vehement anti-Christians and anti-Semites who want to see Bible stories mocked and deconstructed. The movie was a sneer against God and Man and everything good in life. I rarely find movies morally offensive; this movie was. It was evil.
Let us give the devil his due: I would not hate this movie so much if it had been entirely bad, bad through and through, bad like STARSHIP TROOPERS or PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE. There were some good things in the first half of the film.
No, I will say that more strongly: there were some great, some wonderful moments in the first half of the film, things that made me want to doff my hat and salute the film maker.
But these good things, some of which were brilliant, were entirely undermined by the second half.
So some of you who read these words might like the film. For you, the good might outweigh the bad. I cannot condemn the film wholly.
But I can condemn it halfly, if that is a word: If you go, please walk out of the theater once it starts raining.
Because the Deluge that follows is a flood of bad writing. Better yet, stuff popcorn in your ears, and ignore the dialog, once they get on the Ark, but pull the popcorn out to hear the retelling of the Creation story by Noah to his kids.
(This is right before he announces that he intends to have them all die, wiping out mankind to the last man, including himself. This is the version of Noah where Noah plans not to save any life on Earth.)
Let us start, as all fair-minded reviews should start, with the good, and move on to the drab, the bad, and the evil.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
March 30, 2014
An Example of Progressive Morality in Action
I received many nice comments on my article on the Unified Field Theory of Liberal Madness recently published in this space.
Most of the compliments, of course, should be passed along to Evan Sayet (KinderGarden of Eden), who came up with the theory, with a little help from Allan Bloom (Closing of the American Mind), CS Lewis (The Abolition of Man) and GK Chesterton (Orthodoxy).
Of the criticisms, only two had any weight. One was that I did not provide any examples to show that the Left acting with less than average moral stature; the other was that I did not define my terms.
There is no lack of examples of the moral stature of the Left even from today’s headlines. I will select but one, and it must stand for all others. This one is clear enough and trenchant enough to give honest men pause for thought, or pause for vomiting. Dishonest men will not listen to their own thoughts whether they pause or not.
Allow me to have Mr Bill Whittle speak up on my behalf.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Reviewer Praise for AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND
Mr Andy Robertson, who is the editor that first published my Night Lands stories written in homage to William Hope Hodgson, writes a memoir of his effort, fueled by his personal loss, to bring Hodgson’s flawed masterworks back into the public’s attention.
http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightANL.html
All of my short stories and novellas set in the Night Land background are soon to be published in a volume soon to be released by the small but fierce Castalia House titled AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND. Each tale had been previously published by Andy Robertson, so he knows them.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Mere Christians Audio Book
I contributed to a tribute to C. S. Lewis, called Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis (Baker, 2009). It is now available as an audio book.
It is available through Amazon.com, Christianbooks.com, OasisAudio.com or wherever audio books and media are sold. John F. Schuurman and Jaynn Tobias-Johnson, voice actors, provided the male and female testimonials respectively.
C.S. Lewis continues to hold remarkable appeal to people from all walks of life, with books by and about Lewis remaining perennially popular. Arguably, no author of the twentieth century has had a greater spiritual impact on more people than C.S. Lewis.
Mere Christians explores this influence through personal accounts from 55 Christians whose spiritual lives have been dramatically altered by reading Lewis’s books. The contributors include ordinary laypeople as well as well-known leaders and writers including Charles Colson, Anne Rice, Jill Briscoe, George Gallup Jr., Philip Yancy, and many more. This unique collection shines new light on the impact of Lewis’s work and will be of wide interest to his many fans.
So if you want to hear John Schuurman reading something while pretending to be me, purchase the audio book today!
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
March 29, 2014
PC MUST DIE
This is a quote from an article by James Hudnall, found here. My comments below
PC is designed by German Marxists of the Frankfurt School to destroy Western culture.
It should come as no surprise the the destruction of the family is one of its goals. And as it gained in prominence, its goals have been realized. The polarization of racial groups, and even of the sexes is another.
That’s plenty of reason to see it die a horrible death. Marxists have murdered many times more people than the Nazis. They have destroyed the livelihoods of people the world over and imprisoned many millions in gulags and work camps. The last thing we want to do is let them win here or anywhere else.
While it may seem communism is dead, communism, socialism, fascism are all part of a many headed hydra called statism. These are political systems which are all about empowering the state as much as possible. They name they go under now is “progressive.”
Many progressives on the ground think they are fighting for equal rights and social justice. The progressive elites know better. They want power and control over people’s lives. Political correctness is a tool to accomplish these goals.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
V FOR VOMITOUS
While I was recovering from surgery, I had a chance to see V FOR VENDETTA, starring Hugo Weaving’s voice and Natalie Portman’s bald head. I must say that rarely have I hated a movie so much.
Usually when I say I “hate” a movie, it is in the half-serious half-pompous and utterly frivolous way that, for example, a fan of Green Lantern “hates” Kyle Ryner (who is not the real Green Lantern) or the way that fans of Spiderman “hated” the black costume (until it became a supervillain in its own right). In other words, geeky fans are just having fun by disliking something they know, deep down, is not very serious. Fanboys “hate” things because they are things that insult our intelligence, or they are pious-PC dreck, or they treat our beloved schoolboy comic characters with contempt.
But I was appalled by this movie in a most serious way, appalled with a revulsion I can hardly explain. It did not offend my aesthetic sense, but my moral sense.
I am not saying the movie offended the principles of story-telling, such as by being ugly or boring (it was, of course). I thought the movie offended humanity itself, by acting as an apologist for evil, by glorifying terrorism, by upholding as noble the doctrine of nothingness which forms the empty core of nihilism.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
March 26, 2014
The Unified Field Theory of Madness
Do not be deceived: Leftism is an enigma. We need a theorem that explains not one or two aspects of Leftism, but all their traits.
The theory must explain, first, the honest decency of the modern liberals combined with their astonishing indifference, nay, hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence; second, it must explain their self-regard or, to be blunt, their pathological narcissism combined not with an utter lack of accomplishment, but with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch; third, it must explain their sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration; fourth, their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness; fifth, it must explain both their violence and their pacifism; sixth, the theory must explain why they hate the very things they should love most; seventh, the theory must explain why they are incapable of comprehending an honest disagreement or any honorable foe.
There is such an explanation. I make no claim to have discovered this theory. It was discovered by Alan Bloom, back in the 1980′s, in his book THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND, which he wrote to explain why the generation of the 1970′s was suddenly stupider than the previous generations of his students. The theory was popularized by Evan Sayet in his book KINDER-GARDEN OF EDEN. Roots of this theory go back further yet: you will find an early articulation by C.S. Lewis in his seminal THE ABOLITION OF MAN, written a generation prior. And no doubt he learned his ideas from G.K. Chesterton in his ORTHODOXY, who wrote a generation prior again, and first diagnosed the error involved in Freethinkers (as they were called then) doubting one’s own ability to think.
Let us examine each one in order.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Paleophobia and Futurophilia
I came across this quote by Robert Heinlein, the Dean of Science Fiction.
“The future is better than the past. Despite the crepehangers, romanticists, and anti-intellectuals, the world steadily grows better because the human mind, applying itself to environment, makes it better. With hands…with tools…with horse sense and science and engineering.”
―Robert A. Heinlein, DOOR INTO SUMMER (1956)
The Heinlein quote is pure hooey, of course. Even he would not say that Communist Russia was better than Czarist Russia just because it came later, or life in Dark Ages Britain of the Sixth Century was better than Roman Britain in the Fourth. I doubt he would say that living after the Space Age, in an era of failure, was better than living during the Space Age, an era of triumph.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Mrs Hoyt and Miss Mugwump
The luminous Sarah Hoyt has an entertaining and insightful diatribe here on the phenomena which we might call “My Elves Are Different” — wherein Hoyt hears with disgust the moral preening of some lady novelist pretending to be daring and original just where the writing is most trite and predictable. http://accordingtohoyt.com/2014/03/21/were-the-pinnacle-of-civilization-just-like-everyone-else/
Here is the main contention of her article:
It struck me for the first time a few years ago on that Tor symposium on Heinlein that humans – perhaps all humans – have a necessity to view history as a ladder and themselves – or their generation, their kind, their club, their kin – at its pinnacle [….] What I’ve seen is that when material civilization and objective markers of achievement have marched backwards, we tend to compensate with moral preening.
[...] the people who object to “male dominated science fiction” – these people are not in fact comparing themselves to any science fiction that exists or existed.
[...] And yet, today, women can without a trace of irony make the following statements, (I’ve heard them, in panels) – my novel is totally different. It has a strong female main character. (No, really? Astound us. Is there a strong male character that’s not legacy still being published? In recent years?) and “I’m not like all those old pulp science fiction novels. I care about ideas and what they mean to people.” (You mean, like whether an ant-like civilization would be preferable to human; or what happens when a supercomputer runs the world; or what happens when a cloud becomes intelligent; or the complexities of rebuilding a civilization built on the Catholic church after a nuclear holocaust; or whether our dreams exist in another dimension; or – Those pulp non-ideas?)
[...] Do they really believe this? Are they so devoid of knowledge of the field that they believe that all that lies behind there is cartoon-like sci fi, not even rising to the level of Star Trek?
[...] Will studying the masters fix the problem? Probably not.
My comment: Brava! Well said!
I would not dream of disagreeing with anything Sarah Hoyt says here, but I would venture to suggest, albeit with hesitant deference, that she does not go far enough. She does not dig deep enough to identify the roots of this particular weed. It is not innocent human folly on the part of her lady space-fiction novelist quoted, nor a mere lapse of judgment.
Let us take as granted at the outset that Mrs Hoyt is correct that studying the masters will not correct the outrageous nature of the falsehood believed here by the lady space-fiction novelist (whom, for the sake of convenience, we will refer hereafter by the invented name of Miss Floriferous Quoin Mugwump of Asperity, Oregon).
I agree wholeheartedly with Mrs Hoyt. But I go beyond her by saying no study of any form of fact whatever will have any influence on the worldview of Miss Mugwump whatsoever: hers is a worldview is designed not to react to facts.
Is there any doubt whatsoever what is the worldview of Sarah Hoyt’s lady space-fiction novelist? Miss Mugwump is a Politically Correct modern Liberal.
Miss Mugwump believes that all prior novelists were too craven to pen a strong female character, and that the early magazine writers were barren of ideas significant to people for one reason only: Political Correctness encourages, nay, it requires a false-to-facts belief, founded on nothing but illusion and wishful thinking, which promotes self-flattery, and allows for self-congratulation and moral preening.
Mugwump would be too shy to say that she is prettier than Helen of Troy, nor that her books are better written than Shakespeare; but she is oddly not too shy to say that she serves the cause of feminine equality as no woman ever before, or the cause of bringing the enlightenment of significant ideas to the benighted.
In reality, boasting oneself to be prettier than Helen or wittier than Shakespeare is no less absurd than boasting oneself to be a more female sci-fi writer than Leigh Brackett or Ursula K Le Guin, or penning female characters stronger than C.L.Moore’s Jirel of Joiry or Asimov’s Bayta Darell, or more pointedly, Jael Reasoner from Joanna Russ.
(For those of you keeping track, Jael is from the 70′s, over forty years past; Beyta is from 50′s, over sixty years past, Jirel is from 30′s, over seventy. I do not want to tell you what year Britomart or Camilla, Penelope or Deborah hail from. Strong female main characters did not begin with Miss Mugwump, unless she is older than Spencer, Virgil, Homer and Moses.)
But here, in the madness in the mind of Miss Mugwump, she is willing to say the third boast, about her moral superiority, but not the first two, a physical or mental superiority. Why is that?
Allow me to propose that there is one overarching theory, let us call it the Universal Field Theory of Madness, to explain the Politically Correct mind-set of the Modern Liberal.
I suggest that there is a certain philosophy (or antiphilosophy) called Political Correctness, technically called Nihilism, which has crept like some vast amoeboid slime from the torture hells of Lenin to the ivory towers of Academia, from thence sloshing into the poppy field of literature and the swamp of popular entertainment and now runs along main street of our common conversation like an open sewer.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
March 25, 2014
Pray on March 25th
A message from CatholicVote.org, which I pass along:
At this moment in Washington D.C., nine Supreme Court justices are listening to oral arguments in two cases by for-profit
corporations challenging the HHS mandate.
Our case – Autocam v. Sebelius – is being held by the Court pending the outcome of these two cases (Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Co.)
Please pray with us. Go to: http://catholicvote.org/prayonmarch25
Pray for the attorneys responsible for presenting the arguments in these cases. Pray for the Justices. Pray that God in His infinite wisdom, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, will grant our prayers and protect the religious freedom of every American.
But today we are asking you to join us in the most powerful
weapon of all — prayer.
All of these historic fights for the freedom to practice our faith are both temporal and spiritual battles. The media will miss the spiritual battle altogether. Yet that battle is the fight that matters most.
Please pray with us right now.
St. Thomas More, patron of religious liberty,
Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas,
pray for us and for the United States of America.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
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