It is hard to tell what the current revolutionary violence in our major cities is all about.
So far, hundreds of police have been injured, dozens of people have been killed, and we have seen billions of dollars in property and collateral damage. Ostensibly, many of the summer demonstrations were in protest over the gruesome detention and death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.
Yet three months later, few of those trying to burn down a Portland police precinct — with police barricaded inside — or looting the high-end boutiques of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, or indiscriminately beating up innocent pedestrians, appear to be driven by Floyd’s death.
Apologists argue that the perfect-storm furor of June, July, and August was the dividend of a collective six-month fear over the COVID-19 pandemic that has, as of this writing, killed nearly 180,000 Americans. The unprecedented national quarantine and the sudden, self-generated recession of a once-booming economy certainly added to the tensions.
Millions of youths were sequestered in their apartments and basements, unemployed, without school, and worried over their career prospects. Many simply wanted to vent their rage at the world and almost everything in it.
Sociologist Daniel Bell has drawn a picture of Western society that is so telling and true that it bears reprinting in full. Whilst this was written in 1976, it is even more true and faithful a representation of the Western man in our day. In other words, what Bell describes has proved so accurate that 40 years later it is even more true.
Without wanting to reduce or distort Bell's description, as you read keep in the back of your mind the current fascination with gender diversity, gender change, and the sociology of identity (as the tip of the iceberg). Bell's commentary will thus appear profoundly prophetic.
Metiria Turei's sense of entitlement is infuriating and nauseating. "You owe me, bigtime" seems to underlie much of her political persona. Yet she, courtesy of the taxpayer's dime, is one of the most highly paid people in the country.
She cheated the taxpayer. She broke the law. But only because she thought she was entitled to do so. "I deserved to be treated better. The cruel system was at fault. More taxpayer's money should have been distributed to me." It turns out that Turei's lawbreaking was not a "thing of the moment" so much as a deliberate, repeated policy. As the Herald editorial writer put it:
Spread over three years however, Turei's lie of omission starts to look less like a one-off act of dishonesty and more like a systematic attempt to rort the system. Letter writers and talkback callers have voiced their anger over what they see as her sense of entitlement to public money - not helped by the fact that taxpayers are providing her with a huge salary today. [NZ Herald]
The deep sense of grievance and entitlement now risks her being hoist on her own petard, since she is now one of the rich and wealthy--courtesy of the taxpayer.
"White Privilege" is a construct--a concept to support a particular race-based ideology. But is it just an imaginary construct to buttress a particular cause? Is is just a cover, a pretext which allows the same-old, same-old Marxist and neo-Marxist narrative to be re-run on an endless loop?
The gentleman in the clip below asks a relevant question. Don't all the "White Privilege" warriors speak up at once.
Ah, the politics of Guilt and Pity. What an inexhaustible reservoir it has proved to be. It has never failed to quicken the proletariat into a mindless, reflexive response. Never. And it has never failed to make the zealots feel so self-righteous whilst being manipulated.
As for the interlocutor in the clip--he is just a privileged oreo--coloured on the outside, white on the inside. Traitor. Neo-revisionist. White Russian. We could go on, but you know the drill.
John Minto is a Scrooge-like character who has spoken out forever against any education which is not state controlled, state funded, and state prescribed. We remember attending a public meeting on charter schools, when they were first being considered in New Zealand, which Minto also attended, He was adamant that charter schools were bad.
It's not that Minto had the view that charter schools could do no good. Rather, any pedagogical achievement they may make could and would be achieved by regular state schools, provided the government showered more money upon them. Thus, if public schools were properly financed, charter schools would be superfluous. There very existence and success would "prove" that the regular state system was underfunded.
Thus, envy runs in Minto's heart like the river Styx.
Malcontent And Envy Inimical to Democratic Liberties
With the rise of Donald Trump and the prospect that a conman could become the Republican candidate for the President of the United States, a familiar quotation has once again begun circulating in the United States.
The quotation has been unreliably attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee FRSE (15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) who was a Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian who served as Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh. The quotation runs:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilisations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Tytler may have written the above, or not. But in any event, the observation is worth considering.
Firstly, the contention that democracies cannot and do not survive.
Most of our readers would likely hold the view that the established media are full of guile and shameless. The profession of "reporter" or working in the media is pretty close to the barrel bottom scraping lows of politicians in the common mind. Not that you would notice in some quarters. The cult of celebrity has been steadily nurtured by the media and by politicians. The two slimy eels entwined symbiotically at the bottom of a greasy barrel is an apt metaphor for the two professions.
The fundamental problem with media and the personnel who work therein is disingenuousness. The self-image is one of professionalism--objective, neutral and unbiased--approaching the gravitas and disinterestedness of a judge. The reality is that the media are players in the ideological spectrum. They have axes to grind, and plenty of them.
These days the Commentariat and the chattering classes don't talk so much about poverty. They focus upon economic inequality. Rising inequality. (It's always rising.) This is a classic case of misdirection. It is also another indication of the intellectual dishonesty of many and legerdemain that passes for truth.
We see this kind of vacuous nonsense every day:
More than 300,000 Kiwi kids now in relative poverty
The number of Kiwi children in relative poverty has jumped over
300,000 for the first time since 2010 - but it's because of record
inequality, despite falling absolute hardship. The Ministry of Social Development's annual household incomes report
shows that the numbers below a European standard measure of absolute
hardship, based on measures such as not having a warm home or two pairs
of shoes, fell from 165,000 in 2013 to 145,000 (8 per cent of all
children) last year, the lowest number since 2007.
Children in
benefit-dependent families also dwindled from a recent peak of 235,000
(22 per cent) in 2011, and 202,000 (19 per cent) in 2013, to just
180,000 (17 per cent) last year - the lowest proportion of children
living on benefits since the late 1980s. But inequality worsened
because average incomes for working families increased much faster at
high and middle-income levels than for lower-paid workers.
The net result was that the number of children living in
households earning below 60 per cent of the median income after housing
costs jumped from a five-year low of 260,000 in 2013 to 305,000 last
year, the highest since a peak of 315,000 at the worst point of the
global financial crisis in 2010. [NZ Herald]
Consider a model society that consists of ten households. One household lives in squalor: it is dirty, and unkempt. Its occupants are usually sick. No-body works, except one who spends his days begging the other nine households for food. Another household lives in comparative luxury. The earnings and net worth of this household increased by two hundred percent in the last twelve months. The remaining eight households experienced no change over the same period. According to the egalitarians, this society has just got worse (more evil and unjust), because inequality has increased.
Most morally clear-sighted people would think it a good development if at least one household greatly increased their net worth. But the egalitarians regard it as an evil outcome, unless every other household increased commensurately.
There are two philosophical and religious axioms underlying the cult of economic equality.
As we argued recently, the Western world is characterised by a near universal belief in personal injury. Somebody owes me and that "somebody" eventually morphs into the State being obligated. The system, the government, or society are responsible to put things right in my life.
A corollary is that whatever is lacking or unacceptable in my existence is due to an external cause. The problem ultimaty lies with others, not me. If we only had different parents and families, gone to different schools, or been slightly more attractive life would have been so much better. And on it goes. It is not surprising, then, that we are seeing more signs of seething, angry discontent in Western society. It does not take much for hissing, booing, stone-throwing, and imprecatory curses to pour forth into, and take over, the public square. For, as C. S. Lewis had Screwtape observe, "the more claims on life, therefore, that your
patient can be induced to make, the more often he will feel injured and,
as a result, ill-tempered."
The seething discontent arising from the belief that others have defalcated in their duty and responsibility toward us ultimately sheets home to God Himself. One of the reasons that a modern Western man does not fear God, nor seek Him, is the bitterness which the Unbeliever is nurturing in his heart towards God. Every sin or failure is seen ultimately to be God's fault. God has not provided; God has not done what He ought to have done with respect to moi.
Some may observe at this point that such a view assumes that most people believe in the Living God, which the majority it the West clearly do not.
The leftist mindset is fixated over money. The origins of this addiction can be traced back to Marx's materialistic belief that capital (i.e. money/wealth) ruled the world. The oft-leaned upon excuse for leftist electoral failure is that "lesser-leftist" politicians have lots of money and they effectively steal elections by paying for the manipulation of the electorate, and, to compound the problem, the genuinely-leftist parties do not have sufficient money to spend and manipulate the electorate to keep pace. So the competition is unfair from the get-go.
The lack of money is the leftist's stock-in-trade excuse for electoral failure. Given the vaguest chance that someone might provide some money, the leftist politician will be like a rat up a drainpipe. When multi-millionaire German, Kim Dotcom arrived on the shores of New Zealand it became immediately obvious that he intended to use his millions "earned" through the Mega file sharing website to buy himself some influence.
Kim Dotcom during the press conference that followed his "Moment of Truth". Photo / NZ Herald
He played the part of an unscrupulous, venal, self-seeking capitalist with more realism and panache than a Hollywoood A-lister. He initially contributed to the campaign of right-winger, John Banks for the Auckland mayoralty. When Banks failed to support him in his skirmishes with the law, Dotcom turned on Banks like a vengeful Fury.
The Left screamed "dirty politics". But, true to form and type, they then began to form their own line-up outside the door of Dotcom's mansion. Every one of them had their caps out.
I said recently
that envy is the great invisible driver in our modern political
conflicts. On what basis can I say this, and is this not a case of
trying to read hearts?
First, we see the simple statements of Scripture as treating envy as
public, visible, identifiable. But first, hold your horses. A bit
further down, I will conclude by reconciling my point that envy is
“visible,” and yet is the “great invisible driver.”
So then, where does Scripture describe envy as a public kind of sin?
Pilate knew why Jesus was on trial before him, and it had nothing to do
with the actual charges.
“For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy” (Mark 15:10).
Stephen, narrating the story of Joseph and his brothers, interpreted
their hostility toward Joseph as driven by envy, even though the Genesis
account doesn’t mention the envy by name (Gen. 37:4).
The writer of Genesis says that the brothers saw that Jacob loved
Joseph more, and they hated him — which is an instance of envy.
“And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him” (Acts 7:9).
Luke records the fact of mobs forming, but he is also able to tell (at a glance) why they were forming.
In a
sinful and fallen world, any blessing can be abused. The temptation to
lord it over others is a constant one, and the human heart will use
whatever materials are ready to hand — intelligence, looks, education,
money, age, strength, and so on.
This means that inequity in the distribution of wealth does present
temptations — most certainly, and welcome to earth. But Scripture
teaches us to deal with sin where the sin is, which is under our own
sternum. The cause of our faults is not to be located elsewhere. Lust is
not caused by beautiful women, covetousness is not caused by other
people owning things, and dishonoring parents is not caused by them
asking you to do something.
If a man has five million dollars and I have five, then he will no
doubt be tempted to believe he is better than I am. This is often and
easily noted. What is almost never noted is my temptation to believe I
am better than he is. If we both succumb to the temptation, we both
commit the same sin . . . but at least he has a better argument. I am
constantly reminded of Ambrose Bierce’s definition of a Christian — “one
who believes the New Testament is a divinely inspired book, admirably
suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.”
I
recently raised a question in a Facebook thread that I wanted to expand
on here. It has to do with the increasingly common idea that “inequality
of income” is inherently a moral problem.
So here’s the question:
If you had a magic button in front of you which, if you pressed it,
would result in all the poor people in the world being 5X better off
than they are now, in real terms, but the price would be that the top 1%
would be 100X times better off, would you press the button? Pressing
the button would increase the inequality, but it would decrease
everyone’s day-to-day income problems. Is the mere fact of the
inequality a moral problem? Is the size of the gulf between rich and
poor a moral problem?
The attempt to comprehensively regulate and legislate human commerce has been with us ever since Adam. It has always ended in signal failure. That alone should teach us something.
Medieval sumptuary laws are an example. It was widely thought that a craftsman who plied his trade, selling goods or services to support his family was engaged in a holy and righteous calling. But a merchant who bought and sold goods for a profit without adding any value to them was a greedy exploiter. Go figure. Consider R. H. Tawney's description:
". . . But the man who buys [a thing] in order that he may gain by selling it again unchanged and as he bought it, that man is of the buyers and sellers who are cast forth from God's temple." By very definition a man who "buys in order that he may sell dearer," the trader is moved by an inhuman concentration on his own pecuniary interest, unsoftened by any tincture of public spirit or private charity. He turns what should be a means into an end, and his occupation, therefore, "is justly condemned, since, regarded in itself, is serves the lust of gain." [R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: An Historical Study (London: John Murray, 1923), p. 34f.]
Laying aside the matter of intentions, motives, and goals in such ways of thinking, just focus on the application of such ideas.
Left
wing ideologues tend to hate people with money. More accurately they
hate other people with money, particularly if the selfsame other people
have more moolah than they. The ratiocination to arrive at this rather
sophisticated position is complex and turgid. It runs like this: rich
people can only become rich by exploiting the weak and the
dispossessed. Therefore, their wealth is evidence of immoral usury.
Moreover, it proves their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Sophisticated reasoning.
Now
of course when left wing folk manage to garner some money of their own,
their money is righteous (by definition). Their money has been earned
whilst they have been standing up for the poor and downtrodden, so their
money is clean, laundered money. Everybody else's is corrupt and
evil--presumably because it was earned in trade, rather than from
taxpayer funded salaries paid out to politicians. A classic example was
provided by the last Labour administration in New Zealand.
Apparently Labour revenue guru, David Clark was just making things up as he went along when he pronounced that a Labour government would ban the country from using Facebook, unless it paid more tax in New Zealand. It took only twenty-four hours for the Labour leader to put out that particular fire. Labour and Cunliffe (who did not rule it out for twenty-four hours) and Clark now have more scorched earth on their collective face than burns from a P-lab explosion.
Banning Facebook was an extreme suggestion from
Labour Party MP David Clark - and it took party leader David Cunliffe
just 24 hours to shut it down. Mr Cunliffe has now ruled it out completely, but ridicule from the Government still came hard and fast.
But here is the point. Banning Facebook was not an extreme suggestion, at least not to the statist mindset of the New Zealand's left. Impractical and impossible to implement to be sure. Covered with envious bile, naturally. But the lust to control the lives of citizens is as natural and reasonable to the statist mindset as breathing the fecund air of their back room cabals.
Here is another example of the genre--this time from David Parker, Labour's shadow finance minister, via Hansard:
Envy is a besetting sin of our age. It is also the sin few people talk about, which may just be a clue as to how pervasive and enslaving it has become. Envy is covetousness on steroids--its most egregious expression.
Of the seven deadly sins, envy may not be the
wickedest, but it is the most embarrassing. To be possessed by envy is
to admit a humiliating personal inadequacy: We do not envy others those
attainments that we think we too might achieve, but those we despair of
ever possessing. Wrath, greed, pride, lust — all assume a certain
self-possession. Sloth and gluttony are practically standard issue in
times of plenty such as these. Wrath and pride are the sins of great
(but not good) men. Envy is the affliction of the insignificant. It is
the small man’s sin.
But when does covetousness elide into envy, its most extreme manifestation?
Marie Antoinette's infamous, "Let them eat cake" has entered the popular lexicon as a byword for sociopathic disdain for the poor. There is some serious doubt as to whether poor old Marie ever uttered the phrase. It was attributed to her by one Jean Jacques Rousseau who never let the facts get in the way of a ripping slander.
Rousseau's Confessions (in which the slander appears) was written in 1768--two years before Marie Antoinette moved to France. The line also appears in Rousseau's journal notes "years before Antoinette was born." Ouch. But it proved a useful pretext and propaganda tool to stir up envy and anger, inciting the odd riot or two. [Jonah Goldberg, The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in
the War of Ideas (New York: Sentinel/Penguin, 2012), p.172.]
The picture of an uncaring, wealthy aristocracy who hate the poor abides. It appeals to our baser instincts. It certainly appealed to Rousseau who, himself, was an acute despiser of the poor and a "suck-up-to-nobility-kind-of-chap". If Rousseau could not join the aristocracy, he hated them; when he was welcomed and celebrated in their circles, he fawned over them. He was a pathetic fellow in so many ways.
But his bitter word, falsely attributed to Marie Antoinette, lives on. Ironically, it is amongst modern democrats and socialists that the sentiment conveyed by Rousseau has the most traction. Uber-wealth and gaudy displays are the hallmark of the modern celebrity culture, along with a fashionable assuaging commitment to socialism. The latter serves to salve the conscience for all that wealth so ostentatiously on display. Marie Antoinette had nothing on our modern aristo-plutocrats.
A number of people in my generation are coming to an age when
issues of inheritance are becoming more and more . . . relevant. Our
parents are being gathered to their fathers, and we are left to sort out
the stuff. The fact that we do not do well in this is not a new
phenomenon. We should recall that the grudge that the older brother had
toward the prodigal was all tangled up with inheritance issues.
And then there is this.
“And one of the company said unto him,
Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. And
he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? And
he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:13-15).
The last of the Ten Commandments tells us not to covet stuff we have
no claim to whatever — and it is still a most necessary reminder. No
commandment trips us up like this one does.
Culture and Politics - Sex and Culture Written by Douglas Wilson
Friday, 29 March 2013
Allow me to start with my conclusion so that when I wind up there at
the end, there will be no surprises. The same sex marriage crusade has
nothing whatever to do with what people can do sexually in private, and
it has everything to do with what you will be allowed to say about it in
public. We are not talking about whether private homosexual behavior
will be penalized, but whether public opposition to homosexual behavior
will be penalized. Further, there is only one effective response to
this, which is the cross of Jesus Christ.
When I have made this point before, the comeback is always something
like, "No, no, you Christians will still have the guaranteed right of
free speech . . . honest." And if you believe that, I have this Cypriot
bank account I would like to open up for you . . . it's insured.
