John C. Wright's Blog, page 88

Stoics and Romance

This essay was among the first I published when I began keeping an Internet Journal back in 2003. I thought it curious to see what had changed and what was the same. I was particularly interested to note that, while I was a diehard Atheist, I was not enamored of that meretricious and disgusting libertinism which is the leitmotif of our era. This is a position to which I was slowly and reluctantly forced by the logic of Stoic doctrine, very much against my own inclinations, and decidedly against my upbringing, which was modern.

It is a commonplace of the Leftists that the only motive for men to be chaste and decent in sexual matters is either the superstitions of religion or the suppressed hypocrisy of neurosis. Here below is at least one example to show that facile rhetoric to be a lie.

Stoics and Romance

Posted on May 14, 2003 by John C Wright

Stoicism, as far as I have read, is mute on the issue of the morality of romance, except for certain brief and severe injunctions to avoid indecorous conduct. Perhaps the stern old Roman writers thought the matter was too obvious for more exposition.

It is impossible to believe the Stoics could have approved of the libertine doctrines of the libertarians, or thought the sexual revolution was anything but the overthrow of the monarch Reason by a mob of rebel appetites. If moderation and temperance are virtues, than mere pleasure is not a sufficient excuse for anything.

If good fortune or bad should keep the moderate man away from his wine-glass or his wife’s kisses for a time, he does not grieve: but the drunkard kept from his wine is tormented. The adulterer would not seek to embrace another man’s wife unless either his passion were so violent and uncontrolled that his fidelity means nothing in contrast; or he is so light-hearted and false to being with, that he never meant his marriage vows even when he took them.

It is seem incredible to any modern reader that our fathers once took sex so seriously that they would not permit it to anyone but him who had vowed eternal love to one perfect woman, his mate, and the vow was meant in all seriousness to restrict the wild lusts into a creative and reproductive use, so that love would produce only more love, and not, as it does today, hatred, indifference, broken hearts, fatherless children. The modern view of sex is dull and unromantic because it is so pathetically immoderate.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

El último informe de la Unidad de Twenty-Two

If any of my readers are curious about a foreign language review of one of my short stories ‘Last Report on Unit Twenty Two’ appearing in the anthology SO IT BEGINS (Mike McPhail, ed.), here it is:

“El último informe de la Unidad de Twenty-Two”, de John C. Wright es el segundo relato de la antología. Wright es el marido de otro autor fantástico, L. Jagi Lamplighter (Wright). Tanto escribir obras impresionantes de la fantasía y MilSF que recomiendo encarecidamente. Unidad de Twenty-Two es un robot sensible cuyo trabajo consiste en extraer mineral de los asteroides. Él tiene un cerebro que es muy similar a la humana, y aunque ha habido extracción de mineral diligentemente durante años, se lo mete en la cabeza por recoger las transmisiones de publicidad que hay más en la vida de la minería. Unidad de Twenty-Two quiere viajar de alguna manera a la Tierra y pasar el resto de sus días, él no-hacer, que sería como el cielo. ¿Cómo llega allí y qué pasa con él cuando se hace una gran adición a esta antología.

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

What other Terms are there?

Let me recommend Mike Flynn’s journal to you:

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html

I came across this interview with David Berlinski and in interviewer who, back when I was a newspaper editor, if I saw this degree of unprofessional opinionated argument with an interviewee, I would have fired him.

.. Why do you think the debate about Darwin’s theory of evolution has taken on such a nasty turn?

David Berlinski: Nasty, eh? If so, the nastiness is not entirely ecumenical. As far as I can tell, only one side is now occupying the gutter, even though the gutter is, as gutters generally are, more than spacious enough for two. But you raise a good question. Why are Darwinian biologists so outraged? Like the San Andreas fault, the indignation conspicuous at blogs such as The Panda’s Thumb or Talk Reason is now visible from outer space.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Vote for Cuccinnelli

This is an guest post from Mark Levin, who, along with Chthulhu and Jackie Gleason is known as ‘The Great One’. I thought it worth reprinting in full, in the hopes that any of my readers, seeing this on election day, would trouble himself to go vote. This race will be very close indeed, and the outcome disastrous if the Obama Machine conquers the fair and free Commonwealth of Virginia, and reduces it to the Mordor of Maryland.

The RINOs want a Terry McAuliffe victory in Virginia.

November 4, 2013 at 5:30am

The RINOs want a Terry McAuliffe victory in Virginia.

Many in the GOP establishment, from major fundraisers and consultants, to GOP officeholders such as the GOP Lt. Gov and mayor of Virginia Beach, have either trashed Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli or endorsed McAuliffe outright. The GOP national machine has done next to nothing for Cuccinnelli. And GOP bag man, Karl Rove, is all over Fox without a word of support for Cuccinnelli, while he schemes and whispers behind the scenes against conservatives nationwide.

Having tried to sabotage Cuccinnelli’s candidacy from the start, these GOP actors are hoping for a Cuccinnelli loss and a big Chris Christie win (built on a Huey Long style of politics) to make the case that only big government Republicans can win and limited government, constitutional conservatives, such as Tea Party activists, are too extreme to prevail. They’ve already written the script.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

The End of Days and the Rule of Gray

I had an interesting, and admittedly disturbing experience, which made me reflect upon the end of the world.

I was listening to a radio debate between a Leftist and a Conservative concerning whether or not the Administration lied by making repeated, emphasized, and unambiguous assertions that the (ironically named) Affordable Health Care Act would not outlaw any plan, any policy or any doctor you yourself wanted to keep, if you were satisfied with it.

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Chik Fil A Day for Orson Scott Card

That political lobby, who, while not being perverse in a sexual way themselves, seek to uphold, applaud and spread sexual perversion as the norm, and to deter, discourage, and shame whatever is decent and normal, declared a boycott of ENDER’S GAME, the latest sciffy movie to hit the theaters this weekend.

It is not a film to which I would otherwise go. My purse is empty and my calendar is full. But when the brazen trumpets of Mordor sound in the dark hills where the barbarians lurk, the Men of the West must raise the horn and sound the call.

I am asking everyone who reads these words to go to this film, to make its opening weekend a rousing success, and to create a lesson for the barbarians.

These poor, sorry souls have made themselves the enemies of Western Civilization and Christ. We must treat them as Christ treated His enemies, that is, with mercy and lovingkindness.

But we must not surrender to them.

Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

A Glimpse of Somewhither

Dear readers, the claustrophobia of time has not allowed me the leisure to write a All Saint’s Day Eve story as is my wont, so instead I proffer for your reading entertainment the opening chapter of SOMEWHITHER, which should have enough elements of the eerie to serve for this day. The novel is unsold, unpublished, part of a trilogy that is unfinished, so this is the only venue where there is any chance to see this work. Here is the first glimpse. Speculations as to what is really going on and who is really insane are welcomed. Enjoy.

 

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Fooled by Heinlein for 40 years (Golden Oldie)

Here below is a post from my second book review published in my journal. I thought any new readers might be curious about this Greatest Hit from ten years past. This was written when I was an atheist, by the bye.

So, readers who dislike me for being a Conservative Christian rest assured: you would have likewise disliked me when I was a Libertarian Atheist, simply because you dislike anyone who is honest and logical, and not a member of your lunatic death cult of doublethink.

Fooled by Heinlein for 40 years

Posted on March 12, 2003 by John C Wright.

Here is my Heinlein tale, which I pass along only to show that one’s most cherished beliefs can sometimes be revised by experience:

There is a scene in Robert Heinlein’s GLORY ROAD, where the hero, Oscar Gordon, is traveling among barbarians from some outer dimension. Their custom is to share their daughters’ love (or wives’) with traveling heroes for a night or two, in hopes of fathering good stock. Oscar the hero unwittingly offends the custom by refusing the copulate with the daughter of the local lord, his host. For this he is tongue-lashed by the heroine for being provincial, backward, rude and stupid; at some personal risk to himself, he returns to the mansion of the barbarian lord, apologizes manfully, commits orgy, fornicates with gusto, and goes on his way with the heroine on his arm, her eyes shining with admiration. This heroine is named Star; the names of the nice young ladies with whom he ruts are nowhere mentioned.

Even as a youth, I prided myself (and my pride was immoderate when I was young, I am afraid, and may not be moderate now) on being a careful and skeptical thinker. But it was not until I was 41, some three decades after first reading that scene, that I thought, for the first time, there was something wrong with the picture Mr. Heinlein paints.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Birthday of the World by Ursula K. LeGuin (Greatest Hit)

Here below is a post from my first book review published in my journal. I have had no free time to write my normal Friday article; I thought any new readers might be curious about this Greatest Hit from ten years past. This was written when I was an atheist, by the bye.

Book Review–Birthday of the World by Ursula K. LeGuin

Posted on March 13, 2003 by John C Wright

I am a fan of Ursula K. LeGuin; I read her Earthsea books back when they were the only books that had dragons on the covers. I also enjoyed her LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS immensely, and have always like the stories in her Hainish Ekumen background. Hence, I am disappointed when she uses her work as a platform for preaching against the institution of marriage.

In BIRTHDAY OF THE WORLD, the romantic and marital customs of the worlds of her Hainish Ekumen are explored in a series of short tales. On one planet, marriage is dismissed as a type of wicked magic; on another, marriage is always a foursome of two homosexual and two heterosexual relationships. On yet another planet, men and women hire loveless gigolos to stud them for reproduction, and seek love and romance only in lesbian unions. Far from being ecumenical, the customs of the Ekuman worlds have a monotonous provincialism to them: unromantic, unchaste, unfaithful, and, in a word, unrealistic.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I had a very nice birthday, thank you for asking. My youngest read Dr Seuss’ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, after which he very solemnly told me that he wished he could do for me what they do in Katroo.

I appreciate the sentiment, but if I calculate this correctly, in Katroo you end up with fifty hippo-heimers, baskets of orchids that smell of licorice, a pet that is tallest of allest, and a time telling fish large as a killer whale, requiring one to jump into the nearest large body of water rather than look at a small chronometer strapped to one’s wrist or affixed to a buttonhole by fine chain (which is as I have always done). Also, the illustration seems to promise a high fatality rate among the clippers and cloppers nipping and nopping at the blossoms, as they chop off the branches on which they stand.

So I am Fifty-Two today, and still in debt. If you, dear reader, which to bestow a birthday present, please do the following: go immediately to my beautiful and talented wife’s Amazon page here http://www.amazon.com/L.-Jagi-Lamplighter/e/B0028OGMLM and hit the LIKE button.

To my loyal fan ( you know who you are!) please do not fret that my beard is gray and my head is bald. In my heart, I am still full of zest and vim! No, that is false. In my heart, I have been a gray-souled and bitter cynic, crooked and hoary as Vainamoinen since I was thirteen. It is only as I grow old that my outward shape matches my inner age.

I calculate I have enough time left on Earth to write about another thirty books, that is assuming, of course, that I write a book a year, and live for another thirty years, and muse continues to visit me. This last factor is one over which I have no control.

The advantage of being a writer as opposed to a more physically demanding job (such as a professional daredevil who wrestles burning alligators while flung from an airplane in the stratosphere, or a professional robot-fighter) is that I should be able to continue at my preferred craft up until the moment when they bury me.

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.