John C. Wright's Blog, page 83
January 31, 2014
Restless Heart of Darkness — Part Three
I am engaged in the difficult task of explaining an insight it required my dull brain several decades of experience and one moment of epiphany to see.
Again, in all fairness, this is something which I assume nearly everyone but me has seen for years: but to me it was an intellectual adventure, as shocking as opening a hidden door and coming across the Minotaur in the center of his bone-littered maze. Many others no doubt have trod here before, but still I feel the excitement of discovery, for I have found the heart of the labyrinth.
I have been puzzled for years how it is that so many otherwise wise and educated people can be Leftists; why so many otherwise compassionate people simply overlook the bloodthirsty enormities routinely perpetrated, applauded, excused, and rationalized by the Left, from prenatal infanticide to lauding Che and Castro and other butchers of men; why otherwise honest men approve of the Orwellian lies of Political Correctness, which corrupts both speech and thought; why so many otherwise good and faithful Christians routinely ignore Christian teaching and cling to the shibboleths of Political Correctness on any point where the two worldviews differ; why so many good people so routinely support, applaud, and encourage so blatantly vile an evil.
It is too obvious for the blindness to be anything but willful, and yet it does not seem to be willful, for who can will the destruction of themselves and all they hold dear? How is it possible for so many children of the most blessed, most powerful, most successful, most wealthy, most free, and most benevolent nation history has ever known to hate it? Why are the heirs of Western Civilization the enemies of Western Civilization?
The epiphany visited me in the space of a single hour, along the course of three conversations with honest men I happen to respect, despite our deep differences of opinion.
It was as if I suddenly could see clinging to the countenances of these otherwise honest and able men, the Facehugger from ALIEN which had been invisible up until that point, whose long proboscis entered their skulls though mouth and palate and shot poison into their brains. I wondered why they did not tear the Facehugger away, and breathe free.
Not to spoil the surprise ending, but the reason the exploded into my awareness like a bolt was this: they have nothing else. They leave the alien thing lodged in their brain, eating away their happiness, ruining their lives, spoiling friendships and darkening the light of heaven for the simple, tragic reason that without the alien thing, they would be lonely.
I mentioned the first discussion and one of many, many nondiscussions which clicked the first two tumblers into place in the process of unlocking this moment of insight. Here is the next.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Restless Heart of Darkness — Part Three
I am engaged in the difficult task of explaining an insight it required my dull brain several decades of experience and one moment of epiphany to see.
Again, in all fairness, this is something which I assume nearly everyone but me has seen for years: but to me it was an intellectual adventure, as shocking as opening a hidden door and coming across the Minotaur in the center of his bone-littered maze. Many others no doubt have trod here before, but still I feel the excitement of discovery, for I have found the heart of the labyrinth.
I have been puzzled for years how it is that so many otherwise wise and educated people can be Leftists; why so many otherwise compassionate people simply overlook the bloodthirsty butchery routinely perpetrated, applauded, excused, and rationalized by the Left, from prenatal infanticide to lauding Che and Castro and other butchers of men; why so many otherwise good and faithful Christians routinely ignore Christian teaching and cling to the shibboleths of Political Correctness on any point where the two worldviews differ; why so many good people so routinely support, applaud, and encourage so blatantly vile an evil. It is too obvious for the blindness to be anything but willful, and yet it does not seem to be willful. How is it possible for so many children of the most blessed, most powerful, most successful, most wealthy, most free, and most benevolent nation history has ever known to hate it? Why are the heirs of Western Civilization the enemies of Western Civilization?
The epiphany visited me in the space of a single hour, along the course of three conversations with honest men I happen to respect, despite our deep differences of opinion.
It was as if I suddenly could see the Facehugger from ALIEN which had been invisible up until that point, whose long proboscis entered their skulls and shot poison into their brains. I wondered why they did not tear the Facehugger away, and breathe free.
Not to spoil the surprise ending, but the reason the exploded into my awareness like a bolt was this: they have nothing else. They leave the alien thing lodged in their brain, eating away their happiness, ruining their lives, spoiling friendships and darkening the light of heaven for the simple, tragic reason that without the alien thing, they would be lonely.
I mentioned the first discussion and one of many, many nondiscussions which clicked the first two tumblers into place in the process of unlocking this moment of insight. Here is the next.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 29, 2014
Restless Heart of Darkness — Part Two
This is the second part of an essay in which I try to explain, in a few zillion words or so, an insight that took me less than a second. As I said before, it is no doubt something which many people have noticed erenow, but to me it allowed many disconnected facts to leap into place.
I said before that the insight was based on three discussions I recently encountered, but, to be precise, one non-discussion must be added. This is one of the sets of facts that fitted itself suddenly into place with a click like a tumbler falling.
The one non-discussion must serve in the place of an endless number of non-discussions. A non-discussion is that particular act of craven intellectual treachery whereby a man flees from confronting any honest inquiry into his arguments by decreeing imperiously that no discussion is profitable or possible: the matter was settled long ago, and to dissent is a sign of mental incapacity and moral depravity and treason and blasphemy and worse.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
If you aren’t offended by it, you aren’t paying attention.
Finally, at least one small token gesture of respect for our Constitution. A Congressman actually had the guts and the sense of honor needed to walk out of Obama’s State of the Union address, where the President announced, in effect, that he was scorning the separation of powers in the government, and arrogating an absolute monarchy to himself.
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night that he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”
“I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers,” Stockman said in a press release shortly after Obama’s speech ended. “Needless to say, I am deeply disappointed in the tone and content of tonight’s address.”
Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”
“This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense,” the Texas congressman said.
Stockman also criticized Obama for refusing to admit “his policies have failed,” and for advancing a plan for more taxes and spending that is a “blueprint for perpetual poverty.”
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 28, 2014
Time to Call
Thought I should pass this along.
The House will vote today on H.R. 7.
This critically important legislation is called the “No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act.”
I need you to make a quick call right now. Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Tell your Representative to vote Yes on H.R. 7!
This legislation would do the following:
1. Write into permanent law the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of nearly all abortions.
2. Rid Obamacare of its massive expansion of public funding for abortion in insurance plans.
3. Ensure that customers like you and me are fully informed about abortion coverage and surcharges in health care plans sold on the exchanges.
This legislation has been updated to deal with the horrible expansion of abortion that began with the implementation of Obamacare.
The House is ready to lead. If they pass this bill, the pressure will be on Senate Democrats up for election this year in red states like Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.
Time to make a call: (202) 224-3121.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
Progress Report
In my youth, I used to wonder why authors could not write books as fast as I read them. After all (so I thought at age ten) it surely does not take that long to make things up?
I write one day on the weekend and two nights during the work week, since I have a day job. This gives me, on a good week, up to sixteen hours of writing time, which is far short of the fifty hours a week a full-time writer would enjoy. (By way of comparison, Mr Charles Stross, whom I believe entered the field at roughly the same time I did, and writes in the same subgenres, has published 25 or so books to my 10 or so.)
Yesterday was the feast of St. Angela Merici of the Third Order of St. Francis (the day the muggles call 28 of January). I stared at a blank computer screen from about 1900 hours (the hour the civilians call 7:00 in the evening) until eight bells of the first watch (the hour landsmen call midnight).
I was working on my manuscript tentatively titled THE VINDICATION OF MAN, the next book in my six-book trilogy, Count to the Eschaton. In all that time, I changed one date in my notes on my make-believe calendar, so that certain events which I had noted as happening in one year will now happen in another.
So, on the one hand, I did not accomplish much for my faithful readers yesternight. On the other hand, the calendar year of the events in Chapter One is now A.D. 71200, which is the Seventieth Millennium, the second Millennium of the Vindication of Man.
By way of comparison, Robert Heinlein’s famed Future History timeline only goes up to 2100; the most future event in the Jerry Pournelle CoDominium future history is AD 3047 (‘The Gripping Hand’); so I am more futureward than they.
On the other hand, the most future event in Larry Nivens’ Known Space future history is AD 120,000 Loeffler’s ship comes close enough to Hooker’s ship to destroy its life system (“The Ethics of Madness”); this is after the arrival in Known Space of the wavefront of the galactic core explosion which sent the Puppeteers fleeing in the fleet of worlds in AD 22500; and the Time Traveler of HG Wells landed in 802701; Ptath is reincarnated in Two Hundred Million A.D. in a book of the same name. So by that scale, I still have far to go.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 25, 2014
The Restless Heart of Darkness – Part One
I had an insight recently, one of those Archimedes-sloshes-the-bath moments where a great mass of otherwise disorganized observations and rules-of-thumb suddenly fell into a pattern as neat as a periodic table. It is no doubt something many thinkers have seen and discussed erenow, but this was the first time I saw it, and to me it was a new as a young man’s first infatuation, as new as spring.
The insight occurred during a three discussions with fellow writers for whom I have enormous respect, but whose ideas I condemn as misleading, deceptive, even poisonous. (If you wonder one can respect a man whose ideas you loathe, imagine being a mother whose child grows up to be a drug addict, or a sexual pervert, or demon-possessed. The greater her love for the child, the deeper her hatred of the addiction, perversion, or possession enslaving him.)
At the risk of giving away the surprise ending (which, honestly, I suppose is not a surprise to anyone but me) I realized why it is that the current mainstream modern thought, despite its illogical and pointless nature, is so persistent, nay, so desperate.
I realized why they never admit they are wrong no matter how obvious the error, nor can they compromise, nor hold a rational discussion, nor a polite one, nor can they restrain themselves. They can neither win nor surrender.
I realized why their hearts were so restless. It is obvious once one sees it.
No doubt I should explain first why this was such a puzzle to me.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 22, 2014
March for Life
Our prayers go out to those who brave the cold and the scorn of the Prince of This World to defy the endlessly open mouth of Moloch. Today is the annual march for life, when countless thousands of young women and men march and sing and celebrate their affirmation of life and their condemnation of prenatal infanticide.
Also, four or five aging gray and wrinkled hippies, like harpies in human shape, will shamble forth from their nests lined with tiny bones of slain babies to voice a counter protest, and on them and them alone will the cameras of the news media be pointed, and on them alone the spotlight of public attention.
Here is the idol of our masters, the social Left. Here is your tax dollars at work.
The Mouth of Aborticide
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 20, 2014
The Green Hornet
It was listening to a radio play series that convinced me that Marvel Comics is science fiction and DC is fantasy.
It also convinced me to become a great fan of the Green Hornet, a relatively minor character as far as the pantheon of popular superheroes go, to whom I previously never paid much heed.
Erenow, I knew only three things about the Green Hornet. The first was that the Green Hornet was that famed martial arts star Bruce Lee was introduced to American audiences in the role of Kato, the ju-jitsu using chauffeur of the masked vigilante — and that he was absurdly overqualified for the role.
The second thing I knew was that the same producer who made the 1966 – 68 BATMAN television show such a popular success, William Dozier, was put in charge of the GREEN HORNET television show, and it was a great failure as much as BATMAN was a great success. I have heard many people speculating about why the first was a success and the second was a failure over the years. Indeed, I remember it being mentioned once as a bit of realistic background detail in a novel I read in my youth, whose title and author I have since forgotten, concerning a comic book artist haunted by his memories of the Hitlerian War. But I can state that I have found an answer that satisfies me, at least. The answer was the radio play was really quite good, and suited the kind of story the Green Hornet character was created to fit. More on this below.
The third and final thing I knew about the 2011 Green Hornet was that the movie starring Seth Rogan was an abomination. More on this below as well.
So this review has three points to cover: to describe the radio play and the origins of the character; to explain the failure of the modern television version; to condemn the postmodern ultra-failure of the movie version.
And, incidentally, to explain why, by and large, Marvel Comics characters like Spider-Man are actually Science Fiction, whereas DC characters like Superman are Fantasy.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
January 19, 2014
The Reviewer talks as if that is a BAD thing.
Kirkus has the following review of JUDGE OF AGES, which comes out next month:
KIRKUS REVIEWThird part of Wright’s series (The Hermetic Millennia, 2012, etc.) in which, thanks to alien technology, Texas gunslinger Menelaus Montrose transformed himself into a supergenius—and so did his rival, Ximen “Blackie” del Azarchel.
The alien slavers who provided the technology, the Domination of Hyades, will arrive in 400 years to take ownership of the Earth. All this time, Blackie has been attempting to force the development of a suitably advanced yet compliantly slave-worthy population. The two post-humans are also rivals for Rania, Menelaus’ wife, presently heading at near light speed for a remote globular star cluster in order to confront the Hyades’ bosses’ bosses. She will, of course, arrive back at Earth thousands of years too late to prevent the Hyades’ occupation, so somehow Menelaus, waking periodically from cryogenic suspension, must thwart Blackie and prevent the slavers from exterminating humanity until she arrives. Now, Menelaus discovers that the tombs where he and his allies were preserved have been ripped open and plundered by Blackie’s Blue Men minions—a situation that precipitates a battle that lasts the best part of 200 pages, and a further 100 of post-battle analysis and wrangling, leading to yet another (indecisive) showdown between Menelaus and Blackie. With nonstop if pedestrian action, villains who chortle and strut, and Menelaus’ indestructible self-confidence, it’s a sequence worthy of A. E. van Vogt’s spirit, though, alas, lacking van Vogt’s deftness or economy of style. Weird post-humans build themselves into recognizable characters. The plot devolves into a series of revelations that make sense only to the characters or, possibly, a few readers, should any still be hanging heroically on.
Dazzling, highly impressive but readable only with enormous effort.
There is a rule one should not argue with reviewers, especially if the review, as it is here, attempts to be fair and fair-minded. I mean no disrespect to the hard-working reviewer, who, perhaps, read the book because he was assigned to do so, not because he enjoys space opera.
For all we know, he does not recall (or did not read) the first two books, which contain the clues and red herrings and foreshadowing of the several mysteries involved at the end, which the reviewer for some odd reason mistakes for post-battle analysis. Since another reviewer scoffed at my posthumans as being too flat and stereotypical to care about, it is a relief to have this reviewer scoff at the same posthumans as being too three-dimensional, complex and nuanced to care about the resolution of their turmoils.
But I will permit myself one well-meant if slightly supercilious comment:
A fight scene that goes on for 200 pages of non-stop action starring a hero with indestructible self-confidence. And he talks like this is a bad thing?
I want you to imagine me chortling and strutting while I say this. So if you want to see how an author pulls off being dazzling yet pedestrian, highly impressive yet lacking in deftness, by all means, pick up a copy.
Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.
John C. Wright's Blog
- John C. Wright's profile
- 449 followers
