Crossing a line

Mr. Johnson is not exactly Dan Brown's greatest fan. Nor am I. To make money spreading falsehood and promoting bigotry, if not outright hate, is a sad pathetic existence. But I'll publicly declare that I don't believe even Mr. Brown capable of this. Click here for background. I'm interested in your thoughts.

It's that time again...

"It's Clobberin' time!"

The quote is, of course, attributed to the Thing. And while the line from Marvel comics isn't scintillating, at least his prose doesn't fall into some of the pitfalls of other, more prominent American writers.


Speaking of which:



Here is one of the best threads I've ever seen covering various errors in Dan Brown's works. No, wait! It's just the errors he made in his new-to-be-made-in-a-movie-starring-Tom-Hanks-and -Tom's-Bad-Haircut! Angels and Demons!

Seriously. And don't stop at the blogger's words; read some of the additions by his commenters. Hilarious. I'm actually glad that Rob Howard is making a second one. It gives me an excuse to continue with the ranting!

Enjoy.

desiderantes meliorem patriam … “they desire a better homeland…”

In looking over the blog, I've begun to wonder if we've come across as negative. One of my students wrote in on the com boxes that when I initially presented Chesterton to him, he was turned off, because he saw him as arrogant. Once he realized that Chesterton was anything but arrogant, he was open to what he had to say. My concern is that in trashing those things that rightly deserve to be trashed, Mr. Johnson and myself come off as arrogant as well. Arrogance, or even its appearance, can turn people off from the truth.

Like Chesterton, nothing could be further from the truth with us. I know just enough to know how little I know. More importantly, I know enough to know how much more I could be doing in the world. I'm aware enough to see that there are still giants out there, even in our age, strong, uncompromising, yet handling themselves and those around them with charity and grace.

Some of those giants make their living in downtown Edmonton, at a place called the Marian Centre. They live in the middle of the worst part of Edmonton, having taken promises of obedience, chastity and poverty that they take very seriously. They spend their days praying and helping the poor. They make meals for the poor daily, and live off the same things they give out donations. They are part of a larger group called the Madonna Apostolate. Most of them are not Priests or religious, but just regular folks who have chosen to live a different way.

They, like many of us, were shocked to hear that the famous abortionist Dr. Henry Morgantaler was recently given the Order of Canada for his work in spreading abortion clinics across the country. Unlike me, they did something about it.

Go here to read about it, make sure to scroll down to read their powerful letter to the Governor General.

What I'm not watching this summer....

Here's one for you. What's similar between these four world event:

a. In Darfur, tribes of mostly Christians are being tortured, killed, raped and exiled from their homes. There is no secret to this atrocity,; it is fairly outlined. Expert after expert declares that what is needed is "boots on the ground." In other words guys with guns to stop the insanity.

b. In Tibet, a formerly autonomous country, the people are under foreign control and not allowed the practice their own faith. What's worse, they are being forcibly moved to other regions while non-Tibetans are being settled in their area so that they will soon be a minority in their own country. Cultural genocide. Media are not allowed into the region the report to the world what happens there. Tibetans are fighting, almost exclusively through non-violent means, to gain their freedom.

c. In Zimbabwe, the "President" has just won an election. He did so by outlawing his opponent (who fled into hiding) and forcing the people to the polls at gunpoint. His aide has said that those in the West who oppose this can "go hang a thousand times." Many nations would like see free and fair elections, or at least a suspension of the arms trade to Zimbabwe; arms that are currently being employed against her own citizens.

d. Burma has been taken over by a small group of dictators (who renamed the country Myanmar, a name I don't use because it gives the dictators credence), who refused even food and medical supplies into the country for the citizens who lives were destroyed by natural disasters. The Buddhist monks who led protests against the government have been put behind bars, and it is illegal to disagree with the government. Many countries would like to see strict sanctions against this regime.

Guessed yet? Spoiler alert! Scroll down for the answer.







All three of these things are allowed to go on because of the influence of the Chinese government. Through its influence in regions and its veto at the United Nations security council, these activities are allowed to continue. Certainly there are other countries who block and stall action as well (i.e Russia), but they would likely fall to the wayside without the ringleader, China.

Yet this summer we are called to celebrate China in the Olympic Games. China will be the showcase of the world. Not for me. I believe that both spectators and athletes should boycott the Olympics.

But the Olympics are all about sport you say? A trans political gathering of goodwill, that has nothing to do with politics. Nonsense. If that was the case China would never have wanted the Olympics. The reason they are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the Olympics is for the attention it will give their country, and the legitimacy it will give their dictatorial regime.

I'm a sports fan. I enjoy watching the Olympics, but some things are more important.

Regarding Certain Cutting Remarks

Ok, they weren't cutting, not at all; but I couldn't resist the pun. A reader commented on our local "educational" show, Body Worlds, and asked why our local bishops have been against it. On the other side of it, I was actually surprised that they didn't speak more strongly. So, a few things:

First: the charge that the Church was against autopsies for medical purposes during the Middle Ages. That bit of pop-history is false (as is the idea that medieval people believed the Earth was flat. They actually had a good idea of its circumference.) Medieval men were not stupid, not any more stupid than their modern counterparts at any rate (and often less so.) For more on that you'd have to study, but here's a reasonable article by peer-reviewed academics. It gives a fair representation of how the period is understood by those who study it for a living (the whole piece is good, but check the part regarding the Dark Ages.) The article is here. But if this is common knowledge for academics, why would there be such a disconnect between academia and common history? My notions on that aren't at all kind, so never mind. (Oh fine, here it is: I think it suits most people to think poorly of their ancestors. If the people of yesterday were stupid neanderthals, we can forge bravely ahead into madness, right? It's more convenient to discount the past than to actually engage it.)

As for the Bishops of Edmonton (Latin and Ukrainian rite) and their document. If you actually read it, you find that the Bishops aren't against science at all; they are simply for humanity. So let's take stock for a moment. Here we have an exhibit of human bodies in various poses with all sorts of folks paying to come and take a look. They (the human beings, the people on display) gave their bodies to science, presumably for medical research, the training of doctors, etc. But that isn't what's going on. Instead we get something that really harkens back to a day when insensitivity reigned and people really were a bit nastier than today. What we have, ladies an gentlemen, children of all ages, is an honest to goodness Freakshow, complete with admission payments and snacks and giggling children.

Now, if there were something you could accomplish with plastinated corpses that you couldn't do as well with plastic models, I'd agree with the whole thing. But is this medically necessary? Is there any research going on? These were people once, with families, with dreams, and they died. A measure of a people is how we honour our dead and this is a contemptible treatment of humanity without any of the necessity of research or medical training, or organ donation for that matter. These aren't Med students filing through, gawking at the flayed corpses; it's regular folk come for a glimpse. It isn't a matter of rushing a heart to a transplant recipient. If I ever give my organs to some anonymous person, I hope he doesn't inflate my bladder and use it like a ball to amuse his children.

That would be medieval.

Punchlines and Angry German Philosophers

So, how was Nietzsche the father of the Nazi movement and not Christianity? I'll be adding to this post (it's exam season) but let me start you with an article by a man I admire, Peter Kreeft (any Kreeft book on the philosophers or the Church is worth reading.)

So, I'm cheating. But it's Kreeft. Enjoy.

Finally, an addition.

So Nietzsche is a bit hard to pin down, but here are a few things you can highlight. As Kreeft says, these come from simply taking Nietzsche at his word. And if this does not satisfy as a mode of analysis (and often it will not do) then we must remind ourselves that the Nazis certainly seemed to take him at his word. Sort of a Nietzschean Fundamentalism (though I think any attempt to live Nietzsche's philosophy is mad.)

So, some highlights:

1) Nietzsche's assumption is that there is no God, the Universe has no ontological (meaning built-in) meaning.
2) Nietzsche believed that there is strength and weakness (much akin to Hemingway's expression of existentialism, actually. But Hemingway drank instead of trying to take over Europe. He was a freedom fighter, not a monster.) This belief in only strength and weakness led Nietzschea few places.
3) Since there is no good, no God, there is only the force of human will. Will and strength are one.
4) There are moral systems that praise strength and moral systems that praise weakness. Master Morality vs Slave Morality. And slave morality, which glorifies weakness and gives it names like "mercy" saps the strength out of men. In Nietzsche's mind, these systems (including Judaism and Christianity alike) are abominations.
5) A Master Morality is necessary to foster strength and usher in the age of the Superman (can you say ubermensch?)

Now, the Nazis ate this stuff up and tried to put it into practise as well as they could. That is why certain terms show up in Nazi lingo: Ubermensch (Supermen), Master Race, Slave Race. That's why eradicating the Jews was more than just a scapegoat thing; the Nazis thought the world would be better off without them. And that is also why, among the saints and martyrs, there are those Catholics (and other Christians of course) who died at the hands of the Nazis specifically because they were Christians.

Nietzsche, Jesus, and Hitler walk into a bar...

Or: Dawkins, Christianity, and the Nazis. Who belongs to whom?

So, in his efforts to show how religion is really a nasty business (particularly Christianity) Dawkins points out that Hitler was born Roman Catholic, and claims that Nazism is really just a natural offshoot of Christianity. He isn't alone in doing this; uber-atheist Christopher Hitchens does the same.

Why?

Christians get unhappy with being accused of atrocities and having all the world's ills blamed on the their religion (though it isn't the first time they've been accused of being enemies of humanity, the irony of which is hopefully not lost on my readers.) Some Christians point out that we get to see two fairly important atheist regimes at work in the twentieth century, the Nazis and Soviets. Between the two millions were killed, and while this hardly goes to prove that atheists are nasty monsters (the opposite is usually true) it does show that atheists are capable of terrible things.

And that does not satisfy the militant atheist. He is not satisfied with an arguable human equality; he wants his system to be morally superor to his religious counterpart. So, it becomes important to make the counter-claim, palying hot-potato with those nasty Nazis and asserted that they are (keep a straight face) Christian.

The accusation would be laughable if it weren't so terrible. Here these atheists are claiming that Christianity is responsible for the Nazis and the Holocaust when the historical record is that Christians were suffering alongside the Jews, albeit in fewer numbers. No historian in any serious, accredited University, is ever going to claim this. Yet Dawkins and Hitchens do.

So, let's take a look. And bear in mind, it's getting close to final exams so I'm going to lean on other sources a bit. But some of them are pretty fascinating:

Here are pdf reproductions of Nuremburg documents covering the Nazi attack on Christianity and the attempt to replace it with a nationalist, Aryan religion.

Here is an interview with a Vatican official (a Jesuit priest) working on the committee for the canonization of Pope Pius XII. It represents historically demonstrable truth. Of particular interest was the very unusual decision to write an encyclical in German and smuggle it into Germany to be read in Catholic churches across the country.

In the New York Times' editorial of December 25, 1941 we read:

"The voice of Plus Xll is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas... he is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all... the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism... he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace."

And, because too many think the Church just went along with Hitler, and that the Pope was in his pocket, consider this.

I find it frustrating in the extreme (and by that I mean I get over run by rage) when I think of what history shows, and how history is then hijacked by people with their own philosophical agendas, all the while ignoring the immense pain that people in Europe were suffering back then. No one blamed the Church then, the Jews themselves declared Pope Pius XII a righteous man in his day. Who the hell are these people who think they can blame these monstrous acts on those who in some measure shared in a victimhood that is appalling? Certainly no one suffered as the Jews did, but Hitler was ruthless to anyone who opposed him.

So, whatever Nazism was, it didn't come from Christianity. So, where did it come from? That comes tomorrow, with the punchline...

"Progressives" and the Lot of the Common Man

I plan on writing several posts about this idea: that the left, in its own way, is as bent on the repression of the common man as the right is. This is, surprise, surprise, a central idea that comes up when reading Chesterton. (Who is he? Check here. There's a solid introduction to him as well as a lot of his work.)

Generally the idea is this. Once upon a time people owned things. They owned land, their own businesses, their own houses. That time has passed, and with it a lot of the autonomy that people used to enjoy. Chesterton blames this on big industry and big government, and you shouldn't be surprised to read more about that later.

What I'd like to focus on is a certain feel on the Left that's hard to pin down, as if the common man isn't to be respected. Think of the very term "common man." It used to be something you could refer to in stirring tones, as if it were the common man holding things together (which was and is often the case.) Or consider the ideas of common wisdom, common law, common sense. They all used to have a certain weight to them. No longer. And why?

There are probably a few answers to that question. One is certainly the slow failing of Tradition in the West (along with its prophets, the elderly, who here like no place else are mocked and marginalized.)

Another big one is the marginalization of the common man himself (and -ahem- herself.) To say common implies things in common, meaning normalcy. And normalcy itself has become a taboo word to the Politically Correct crowd. The Progressive stands for progress, which means Change, which means that simply doing with people has always done has to go, whether it was good or not. And the fruits are heavy: relativism, transhumanism, some would say the impending demographic crisis in the West (more than impending if you're Russian.)

These are the days, I believe, in which the West either falls are somehow redefines and reinvigorates itself (and it has done so in the past.) The upcoming posts on the Common Man will outline why I think the normal, everyday people we pass on the streets will have more to do with that than any dubious cultural elite.

Utilitarianism and the Christian ethos

More words.

We've talked a little about Utilitarianism and some of the problems that go with it. It's a subject that makes me want to rant a little, foam at the mouth and all that. After all, it's so fuzzy! But then, maybe that's why some people slip into it. Add a dash of relativism and the "good" you're seeking can be anything, especially in a Western mindset that has twisted freedom and personal autonomy into licence and narcissism.

Take the Wiccan commandment, for example: "An (if) it harm none, do as thou wilt." Now, I like commandments (especially commandments written in Elizabethan English!) but "harm" is a very fuzzy concept, and solidly consequentialist in its basis (another sign, by the way, of Wicca's newness on the world stage, all those carefully placed "thous" and "wilts" notwithstanding.) All of this leads to a case by case approach to morality that applies extremely vague ideas like Good and Harm, with a measuring stick of Consequence that we can never fully measure. You would need to be omniscient to fully know the consequences of any act.

Then there is the opposite of the Consequentialist approach, which is really just the principled approach. You begin with a set of principles like "All life is sacred" or "All men are created equal" and then simply apply them (okay, the application can be complicated and demanding.) People dislike doing this because it requires too much thinking, or maybe because operating from principles invites dangerous conversation, like where those principles comes from. Much easier to go with the fuzzy "do less harm than good" even if you can't properly define harm or good, much less quantify them.

Some people asked, after the post on Aristotle, how that really disproved or countered Utilitarianism. The answer is also a Christian answer, that good or ill lies in the nature of the thing itself and not merely in thinking it (though Catholic thought has room for the intent as well, as in accidentally killing for example.) The Christian thic comes from the Christian Faith, namely that there is a God who created the world out of love. He came down among us and died for our sins (more on that later) and has commanded us to live in love for our good and happiness. That seems easy, but look how it plays out and see how you might just be a Utilitarianism: If I kill one to save many, I am still a murderer. Don't ask how many; there is no sudden tipping point where 9 isn't enough but 10 means I can shoot the guy. It's always wrong (unless it's defensive, but let's assume an innocent victim for this discussion.)

That's Catholic. The individual life is sacred. More than that, so is your soul. Last time I talked about the Aristotelian idea that our actions slowly change our essence. Imagine that the essence we're talking about is not simply your psychology but your soul. Imagine for a moment that you have one (hopefully no struggle.) The Christian ideal is focussed on both this world and the next, neither at the cost of the other. Hence the Scripture: "What does it profit a man to gain the world if he lose his soul?" Hence also the Jewish proverb: "He who saves a single life saves the world entire." The single soul, every single soul is as important as anything. Every one.

Now that's pretty radical, you say. And it is. Christianity is only easy and self-satisfied if it isn't attempted but only glossed over. It was Chesterton who said that "the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

The Christian philosophy rejects measuring consequences as a means of founding morality for so many reasons. Consequences can't be measured. Humanity cannot invent any "Good" on its own and agree on it. Consequences, when they can be measured, allow the few to suffer so the many can be happy: that's tyranny. The Christian response to this is revolutionary, counter-cultural, exactly the sort of rebellion that so many young people are looking for. It is only a matter of stepping into it, adopting a different worldview, and exercising your human will. Hopefully some of you do.

Utilitarianism: The Economy of Deeds

Utilitarianism seems easy to define. At its basis it's simply a matter of trying to achieve the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number. And who can argue with that? It seems like arguing about the merits of motherhood (though today that happens) or apple pie (which in my mind is unassailable.)

But like most things, you just have to dig below the surface a bit. What, after all, is happiness? Can we agree on a definition? And is happiness the highest good? What do we mean by "the highest good" anyway? As you'll see, the way in which utilitarians answer these questions and how they seek happiness for the "greatest number" can pose a problem.

The generally ackowledged fathers of utilitarianism are Mill and Bentham (though Sidgwick and others have had their influence.) They suggested a system of morality that is based on consequence rather than focusing on the nature of the act or the intent of the person. They seek the greatest possible happiness (or the greatest possible fulfillment of people's desires, Sidgwick's refinement of the system.) For that reason they are often called consequentialists.

There are a couple of problems with that consequentialism that I'd like to address here. I won't suggest an alternate system (that comes later); I'll just throw a few rocks at this one.

One problem with consequentialism as a moral system is its lack of morality. By that I mean that it boils too much down to numbers. Consequentialists (those happy utilitarian bean-counters) go through a lot of effort to quantify the greater good and how much bad you can inflict before it becomes - well- bad. It's like using a slide-rule to figure out whether something is good or bad: I've inflicted 15 units of suffering and gained 100 units of happiness. A net gain! But if the right thing is based entirely on some numerical quantity then the individual is lost. For example:

Groups often identitify themselves along cultural or ethnic lines. And who's to judge that this is wrong, so long as they're happy? But what if you have a small minority within a community. Should they suffer if the larger group wills it? What if the larger group is afraid or suffering and don't know where to turn. What if seeing a common enemy unites them and gives them a sense of comfort, a greater sense of solidarity that allows them to pull through difficult times? The modern utilitarian will balk at that, worried that you're about to invoke Nazis and Jews. But he can only resist by appealing to the relative intensity of the Jewish suffering and the mildness (and questionable veractiy) of the comfort or economic gain of those people forcing them to work slave-labour in the ghettoes. His complaint is still quantifiable and not moral. At some point, in the Utilitarian mind, few enough people are suffering that the scale tips and atrocity becomes allowable.

The classic objection to Utilitarianism is the reference to a group of people who are all going to die if they don't get their own unique organ transplants. With the utilitarian slide rule it becomes allowable to kill the one healthy man outright in order tosave the many, whether he volunteers or not. The greater happiness of the greater number rules. Numbers rule. The good of the many, yada yada... But wait - if the good of the many outweigh the good of the few, the many rule the few.

So, utilitarianism is simply rule by numbers, a moral twist on the old "might is right." (Admittedly, Democracy itself is a twist of "might is right" by weight of numbers. That's why democracy is a politcal system and not a moral one.)

The second objection is simply this: Utilitarianism destroys any sane philosophy the West has presented. More on that in another post.

And what the heck: a third objection. One reason that utilitarianism isn't sane is that anything goes. If the harm isn't there, or if it's outweighed by the benefit, anything goes. But while the "anything goes" part is straightforward the rest of it is all so impractical. How do you measure happiness anyway? How do you compare the intensity of suffering in one person and the level of happiness in another? What IS happiness? Is it simply a bio-chemical state of the person, or something else? Utilitarianism doesn't even try to answer these things.

All in all the system is a mess. It assumes a lot about certain questions, primarily the spiritual ones. And if I were to throw two systems at Utilitarianism they would be Aristotelianism and the entire Judeo-Christian ethic. (to be continued...)