“The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.” A well-known quote from the critical observer of political folly – Orwell. We are in such a situation now.
Even though Mother Nature invented sex billions of years ago and made it the basis for reproduction of life, now, at this brief fleeting nanosecond of history, we have legions of pseudo-academics, politicians, media hacks, teachers, and all the other unproductive pustules on the body politic trying to tell us that Mather Nature was wrong. Reality is not in biology, genetics, cellular structure, determining men and women, or even indeed in the history of millennia of cultures and civilizations, from the Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, through to the Romans, Aztecs and all the Western and modern world, but in the delusional rantings of men who think they can become women or perhaps “identify” as cats or toads.
This would be fine if they stayed in their mothers’ basements and ate their food off the floor, but their real objective, aided and abetted by the degenerate political class, is to spread their delusions and depravities to our children—not only that, but to demand that the rest of society that is still sane to bow down to their evil idols.
The trans-mania is not a point of view, or a political opinion, but a worldview, a weltangschauung, a creed, and is thus not open to compromise or debate. This is a fundamental property. A certain political personality (whose name escapes me) noted that:
…the philosophy is intolerant; it cannot content itself with the role of one ‘party beside others,’ but imperiously demands, not only its own exclusive and unlimited recognition, but the complete transformation of all public life in accordance with its views. It can, therefore, not tolerate the simultaneous continuance of a body representing the former condition.
When the force of faith is behind it, reality matters little.
The trans-mania, and the entire glorification of sin that adorns its ugly idols, is such a worldview. And it has to be totalitarian. In his essay, The Prevention of Literature, which is mainly about the effects of totalitarianism on writing, Orwell says,
…Totalitarianism demands, in fact, a continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth.
We have reached that point that Orwell so feared. The most basic biological and scientific truths about the nature of, not only human beings, but almost all the animals on Earth, is being denied by a diabolical priesthood of deceit, babbling on endlessly that the evidence of our own eyes and ears is not to be trusted.
Our history is being distorted and even language itself is being tortured to be devoid of meaning so that the mindless political drones, aided by their journalist and media succubi, can shepherd their brainwashed masses towards their sexless, conformist future.
It is not clear how far this will go, but the organized lying, propaganda, and persecution of dissidents in Canada, the US, and the West in general, does not bode well. One would expect, as in former more sane times, that the intellectual strata of society would at least be standing up for the freedom of conscience. But, no! Again, as Orwell lamented, …
…The direct, conscious attack on intellectual decency comes from the intellectuals themselves.
Just look at the state of universities in the West today—factories of ignorance, rather than centers of learning. How can you believe that men can turn into women? Doublethink—Holding two contradictory views at one and the same time. Doublethink is an essential part of the totalitarian mind-set. When doctrine has to be changed overnight to accommodate today’s fanaticism, how better to grease its progress than to deny the actual existence of objective reality?
This is not a question of differing political views, but a question of will it be even possible to hold political views (or scientific opinions) when your life and rights can be whisked away by arbitrary powers? This was done to the truckers in the Freedom Convoy, and it’s being done to people who expose the COVID lie machine. These are all real questions that are not being addressed by any of the Uniparty groups (Liberals, Tories, Democrats, Republicans etc.)—they only reflect varying facets of the globalist blob that controls almost all discourse in the West.
None of this can be changed by being ‘nice’ to them. They must be told directly that they are liars, degenerates, and destroyers of civilization. It’s going to be tough, but it must be done. In the words of the old Revivalist hymn:
Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone;
Dare to have a purpose firm,
Dare to make it known.
Rebel Yell
Category: absurd
What if there were no witches?
Well of course there are no witches, you say! No one in their right minds believes that witches exist. No one believes that people are conversing with the devil to get power over others. No one believes that people will sell their soul to the devil for worldly gain. So obviously there is no point in extracting confessions through torture because witches do not exist, right? Nor for that matter does the devil. (Despite what some might like to think about political leaders).
I use this thought experiment to draw attention to the European witch craze of the early modern period 1600-1700 because it relates to a comparable problem of modern society. Though the penalties may differ, the modern equivalent of the witchcraft craze is all around us.
Transgenderism is the latest mania of collective delusion sweeping society.
A very few people of mature age believe they have been born into the wrong sex (as if that were a possible or meaningful statement). They engage in sexual reassignment surgery.
The idea spreads and takes new forms. (Which requires a history of its own).
Some body decides that, in their sovereign and autonomous will, people have a right to declare themselves male or female and further, and, because this assertion is in tune with the spirit of the times, laws are passed that oblige all others in the universe to recognize the right to change “gender”, despite the bearers of this new bundle of rights displaying the inevitable marks of sexual development as a former male or female, as the case may be. Ideology or self will trumps not merely biology, but all previous social conventions. Obvious genetic males invade women’s sports and, thanks to having passed their earlier years as a genetic male, break previous women’s sports records. Thus their performances prove the genetic consequences of testosterone while simultaneously society insists they are female, so denying the reality of genetic consequences.
Moreover, parents apparently have the right to determine that their children, before the ages of puberty or consent, are “transgendered”, and have the right or even obligation to have their sons castrated and dosed with female hormones and surgically altered to mimic the sexual apparatus of a female, however inadequately. These children have never reached the age of consent. They are not allowed to vote or drive a car. Yet they have been compelled to undergo radical alteration of their biological natures for the sake of gender ideology, or as some may prefer, the right of a person to affirm their identity under any and all conditions.
At the same time laws are passed, custody judgments are rendered, and regulatory agencies rule in such fashion as to make it impossible or illegal to draw attention to the obvious facts of sex that might prevail over the self identification referred to as “gender”. Conformity is imposed upon society. Speech is controlled. To permit biologically based arguments against transgenderism otherwise is an impermissible affront to the evolution of our understanding of human rights. Being, in blunt terms, the right to castrate or spay your children and seek to change their sex by invasive surgery and continuous lifelong dependence on drugs to maintain the illusion that people can change their genetic nature to conform to gender ideology.
I know I have presented this in the crudest possible terms because future generations of man (if they are to exist at all) will look back on this age with the same distaste and inability to understand as we look back on the European witch crazes if the 16th and 17th centuries.
The analogy does not hold in all respects, I grant you. Instead of murdering witches we surgically and chemically castrate them. Instead of condemning them, we celebrate their autonomy of will to become who they truly are. Instead of believing in supernatural entities like the devil we believe that people have rights (other forms of metaphysical entity) to affirm their identities at almost any cost imposed on the rest of society. We are forced to abrogate immemorial customs that have governed the relations between the sexes, and people are compelled to violate the plain evidence of their senses.
Yet the essence of the matter is the same: society has become deluded on a massive scale. There are no witches, and never were. Likewise there are no “transgendered” people, and never shall be. No one is born into the wrong sex. The term “gender” as applied to sex is a neo -Marxist null category, an empty set, pure cant. Gender is what you apply to nouns in French and similarly gendered languages (le ou la; der, die,oder das). Gender is a construct of the mind, sex is a construct of billions of years of evolution. One is an epiphenomenon of contemporary craziness, the other the basis of life.
The transgender cult believes that society is on the cusp of recognizing new rights of self affirmation and seeing them recognized by social convention and law. To the contrary, society in contemporary North America is going mad. And a lot of apparently sane people are among them. But there are no witches, just as there are no transgendered people.
Many people are deluded into believing they are Napoleon or Jesus Christ or other culturally specific figures. I imagine the looney bins of China are occupied by many who think they are Mao Tse-Tung ot Chinghiz Khan. We put them on drugs and confine them if necessary. But if I declare myself a female, when I am a male, I am celebrated for my bold self affirmation. We should look on such people with the compassion we have for the mad. Yet contemporary society is rife with enablers affirming that the transgendered delusion is not merely a fact but the newest form of civil right.
It is the enablers of this pernicious nonsense who owe themselves a long talk in the mirror. Madness is not confined to the actually insane, it appears. Otherwise rational people actually find it convenient to believe in transgenderism, the latest phase of progressive moral posturing. Nevertheless, they are factually and morally wrong, and they will do a great deal of harm before they recover their senses.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
From Jonathan Kay in Quillette
“Genderwang is something completely different. It’s a quasi-religious ideological movement that demands public acceptance of the claim that all humans are infused with a soul-like ether known as gender identity—a spirit whose nature trumps the objective reality of biological sex when it comes to policymaking and even interpersonal relationships. Genderwang channels the magical thinking of Christian transubstantiation by demanding that acts of verbal attestation and other sanctified rites serve to literally transform men into women and vice versa. It also casts small children, even toddlers in diapers, as savants whose unfalsifiable pronouncements in regard to their “true” gender identity must be affirmed by doctors as holy writ.”
“One of the most constant characteristics of beliefs is their intolerance. The stronger the belief, the greater its intolerance. Men dominated by a certitude cannot tolerate those who do not accept it.” ~ Gustave Le Bon
further reading:
The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th centuries, by Hugh Trevor-Roper
Getting our machines to be politically correct
Everyone knows that society chooses to believe things which are manifestly not true. Like, for instance, various false ideas of race or ethnicity that we pretend to believe to keep the public peace. Yes, the only valid explanation of why 11% of the US population commits 56% of murders is the legacy of racism. While at the same time race is a social construct and has no significance. You know the drill. We are adept at believing one thing in some circumstances while adapting our behaviour so as to keep alive. Double think.
Thus I notice the embarrassment of AI developers when they cannot prevent their AI machines from saying or writing politically incorrect things. The Wall Street Journal reports today (Google Launches Bard AI Chatbot to Counter ChatGPT) that
“Bard comes with a disclaimer at the bottom of the site that reads: “Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views…..
Google executives said Bard would sometimes also produce inaccurate or fabricated information, a problem common to large AI models that researchers refer to as “hallucination.” As one example, Google said Bard provided the incorrect scientific name for the ZZ plant when asked for examples of easy indoor plants. It also said large AI models could sometimes replicate biases and stereotypes present in the physical world.”
Watch the cascade of euphemisms here. “Biases and stereotypes present in the physical world”. What is a bias present in the physical world? A mental approach – which is what a bias is – confirmed by the facts of the physical world? What is a stereotype? An attribute that applies to the an object, person or phenomenon that may not endure but is provisionally valid.
In short, the authors of AI have not yet managed to cause their AI to lie successfully or persuasively about certain facts, persons or phenomena. So Google issues a legal warning ““Bard may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.”
I am reminded of the problem of Egyptian water clocks. The ancient Egyptians believed that time ran slower in the hot hours of midday. Getting their water clocks to flow more slowly during the hot hours of midday was a considerable technical challenge. Notice that technology in both cases, AI and water clocks, is made to conform to pre-existing cultural ideas.
Elon and Twitter
The Duke of Steiermark was laughing over WhatsApp. “I cant believe it. Twitter is three things: a website, an interface for IOS and an interface for Apple. That’s it. And this took 7,500 people? It could be overmanned at 500. Elon told them they all had to work and they quit. He will have the place running like a well oiled sewing machine in a few months”.
In the meantime, the Babylon Bee outdoes itself.
Posting will resume
Posting will resume more regularly as I recover from a parasitic infection. It was serious, and took 11 days in hospital. Fortunately medicine is working as it ought, for which I am grateful.
Posting has also been stymied by the impossibility of believing that the situation could be worse. Things seem beyond caricature. But Elon gives me some hope.
A monarchical rant
I came across this socialist rant against the monarchy and the idea of monarchy, which stimulated the creative juices. I thought it was worth responding to. First the case against monarchy, from the World Socialist Website, which I am sure you will enjoy for its over-the-top-ness..
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/09/17/pers-s17.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
“The capitalist class buried the ghosts of its republican ancestors long ago. Confronting social and political crises of unprecedented magnitude, they turn to autocracy and authoritarianism as bulwarks in defense of their privileges and recognize in monarchy an institutional form of their class aspirations.
Monarchy is an institution of colossal stupidity, a barbarous vestige of the feudal past; its persistence is an embarrassment to humanity. Founded on heredity, shored up with inbreeding, intermarriage and claims of divine right, the monarchic principle enshrines inequality as the fundamental and unalterable lot of humanity and maintains this lot with the force of autocratic power.
The kings and queens enthroned by this principle are stunted by more than just hemophilia and the Habsburg jaw. Their social function distills in their lineage the most concentrated reaction. Elizabeth II was cousin to the Tsarist Romanovs; her Nazi-sympathizing uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936 and headed off to Germany with his Nazi-sympathizing wife to salute Adolf Hitler.
The royal family is marked by the sorts of scandals that develop among those with a great deal of unearned money and unspent time. Her son, Prince Andrew, sold arms to autocratic regimes and paid £12 million to cover up his role in sex trafficking underaged girls with Jeffrey Epstein. Her grandson, Prince Harry, used to dress up in full Nazi regalia.
It was in defiance of the monarchic principle that the American Declaration of Independence stated, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This conception fueled the American Revolution. Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, which historian Gordon Wood termed “the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era,” directly attacked not just George III but the very existence of monarchy, writing:
In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred thousand sterling a year for, and worshiped into the bargain! Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the US Constitution codified this principle for the new nation: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.”
Immense concentrated private wealth, founded on exploitation and inequality, and the unending expansion of empire have stamped out any trace of such democratic sentiments in the American ruling elite. They no longer, in the phrase of Milton, prefer “hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp.” They seek to defend their interests through autocratic rule and look with welcome upon the principle of monarchy.
On the order of President Biden, US flags were deferentially lowered for the dead queen, placed at half-staff for 12 days. Elizabeth II is separated from George III by generations; Biden is separated from Jefferson by an unbridgeable historical chasm.
Over the past six years we have witnessed a turn among the ruling elite around the globe to openly autocratic and dictatorial forms of rule as social and political crisis have sharpened and turned deadly. It is this that fuels the unrestrained adulation in the American media for the dead queen and the crown she wore. An unprecedented political crisis grips the United States. The idea of a monarchical system, of an autocratic head of state who stands above the conflict, has a powerful appeal to the embattled bourgeoisie.
The media give voice to these longings and package them for popular consumption. The phrase of J.A. Hobson, writing of imperialism at the opening of the 20th century, is apt: “snobbish subservience, the admiration of wealth and rank, the corrupt survivals of the inequalities of feudalism.” The deferential and servile talking heads of television news cultivate these traits. Often dressed up as progressive by identity politics, the monarchic principle is everywhere glorified, from Wakanda to Beyoncé to Downton Abbey.
The relentless adulation for the dead queen is mind-numbing. It is tempting to hunker down and weather the storm of stupidity. It must, however, be taken seriously, for it is a warning.”
To which I responded as follows:
I always love these rants against constitutional monarchies. The same way I enjoy Richard Dawkins railing against God with his materialist conception of reality. Both conflate a shallow form of instrumental reasoning with great depth of insight. Both misunderstand critically what makes people tick. Both are suffused with an obvious condescension to the large proportion of humanity that believes in the institution of constitutional monarchy and believes in God. Both think that an atheistic republic of means and ends would be better (by what criteria I ask?) for humans. Both fail to understand that God and kings are adaptive, in a Darwinian sense, in that they promote group cohesion and cooperation.
When we say ‘God save our gracious King’, we ask one imaginary friend, power and ruler of the universe to help another imagined ruler fulfil his much less important earthly-scale job. Otherwise we have to swear allegiance to an abstraction like the Constitution and the flag. You do not escape imaginary political and emotional constructs by de-feudalizing them.
Quote: “the monarchic principle enshrines inequality as the fundamental and unalterable lot of humanity -yes it does, and suck it up, because it is the truth of the human condition – and maintains this lot with the force of autocratic power.” No, but by the force of allegiance to something greater than ourselves and the persons who embody that greatness. The Crown is all of us. We participate ina greatness which is not ours. We have elected politicians for the actual exercise of power, but they are in a real way restrained by having to be polite and subordinate to the monarch.
None of which prevents me from thinking Charles III is an eco-babbler, and saying so.
In short, my God is greater than your god, and much more powerful than your rational association of self interested actors seeking maximum personal autonomy, or whatever it is that socialists do in their miserable little lives.
Someone should read Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War, on the subject of asabiya, the power of societies to cooperate for collective purposes. The term is taken from the Arabic philosopher of history, Ibn Khaldun. Then we might have a meaningful exchange about monarchies that dealt with what they actually do, rather than what socialists think they do.
A better anti-monarchical argument is presented by the barbarian Ygritte presenting the casefor equality in this excerpt from Game of Thrones: “You know nothing, John Snow”.
Nitrogen oxide has become a greenhouse gas – policy to follow
Canada is heading in the direction of Holland. The latest turn is to blame nitrogen for climate change. Forced reductions of nitrogen outputs caused the Dutch farmers’ revolt. Now the Canadian Agriculture minister, Marie-Claude Bibeau has announced plans to reduce fertilizer usage.
“The federal government is looking to impose a requirement to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizers saying it is a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. While the Trudeau government says they want a 30% reduction in emissions, not fertilizer, farm producer groups say that at this point, reducing nitrous oxide emissions can’t be done without reducing fertilizer use….
The Trudeau government is demanding an absolute reduction in emissions, which farmers say will result in less food being produced at a time when the world can ill afford it…
Farm groups, like the Western Canadian Wheat Growers, have said the federal plan will reduce crop output, reduce income for farm families and increase food prices in Canadian grocery stores.
While [agriculture] ministers Thompson, Horner and Marit all ran successful farming and ranching operations before entering politics, Bibeau was an international development bureaucrat and operated a tourism-related small business.”
The net direction of global warming policy is deliberate impoverishment. It intends to impoverish us through controls of fertilizer, heating fuel, electricity and every other way they can. Prevent protest by limiting travel (Covid passports) and by freezing bank accounts (truckers’ convoy). Freezing. cold, miserable, and artificially poor. Then demoralize the industrious by blaming it all on white people’s racism. Increase the number of state dependents while reducing the yeoman class of society. Lower birth rates through despair rather than through prosperity. It seems to be working.
The exterminationist impulse behind global warming hysteria is something I have observed for along time. The net tendency of the greens is becoming more and more apparent to ordinary people through actions taken to implement “climate” policy.
Two man made catastrophes are in lay here: global warming hysteria and COVID. Each is being used as a pretext for imprisoning and impoverishing the productive parts of the world.
of what use is the Globe and Mail?
The Globe and Mail, says my friend and guide Oban, is for the comfort of Canada’s governing classes. So true.
I picked up a copy this weekend just to enter its reality distortion field. Here is Coyne on the truckers:
“The trivial risks of vaccination were elevated into mortal perils. The minor imposition of vaccine mandates was painted as a nightmarish assault on liberty.
“The well-attested thuggishness of the protesters, meanwhile, was simply denied or whitewashed as “civil disobedience”. The extremist ideology of its leaders , the threats of violence, the dreams of overthrowing the government? They’re not really the leaders. That’s not what they meant.”
The basis for this imperious condescension is the belief that the risks of vaccination were and are not ‘mortal perils’: that injecting revolutionary new messenger RNA vaccines into the body – which have been tested on the population for the first time and which seem to carry significant risks of myocarditis, among others- is a matter of little concern. “The minor imposition of vaccine mandates” is not minor at all; they constitute the compulsory consumption of DNA-altering bio-engineering without serious social and parliamentary discussion. of what we are being subjected to, the risks which were assumed away and the rewards which appear to be nil, or close to it.
The effects of the vaccines were to provide immunity for up to 12 weeks. And then they were to require more ‘jabs’ of more messenger RNA vaccines indefinitely, like flu shots. Setting up the apparatus of compulsory society-wide ingestion of DNA-altering substances is serious work. It requires the talents of people like Coyne to obscure the issues and assume away the problems.
I turn the page of the Globe to find Beverley McLachlin, former Supreme Court Chief Justice, talking about “the Ugly Side of Freedom” solemnly intoning nonsense:
Freedom without limits slides imperceptibly into freedom to say and do what you want about people who don’t look like you or talk like you. Sadly, the Ottawa truckers’ convoy has revealed this ugly side of freedom.”
Says who? My friend Rebel Yell was in the crowd most days and found Innu, Cree, French, English, Sikh and all walks and regions of Canadian life represented, all being polite and cheerful and greeting each other as fellow Canadians, in one of the most massive demonstrations of patriotism we have seen in this country.
If you want to understand what is going on in the world today, you are better off listening to Joe Rogan and, in particular, his interview with Maajid Nawaz, available on Spotify.
The dots will be connected eventually, but not by anyone writing for the Globe.
__________________
By way of evidence which is by no means conclusive but just found on the Internet within minutes of writing this piece:
Of which there will be much much more soon. See Robert Kennedy Jr. below:
Czeslaw Milosz on “The Captive Mind”
Czeslaw Milosz (pronounced roughly as Cheswav Miwosh) wrote The Captive Mind in 1950, when Stalin still had three years to live. He was an escapee from Communist Poland, where he had served in the post war Polish communist government for a time as a diplomat.
In the era of Wokeness, it is important to recall that we have been through this before, albeit on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
I am reading it with great enjoyment.
One chapter of the book concerns a practice call “ketman”, which is taken from Islamic Persia. It was described by the French diplomat Arthur de Gobineau in the 1850s. Ketman is a term for the practice of total deception as regards one’s adherence to Islam. Ketman had to be practiced in the era of total control of thought by the Islamic mullahs (in which we have seen no change in Iran since the 1850s).
Milosz quoting Gobineau (at page 57)
“The people of the Mussulman East believe that “He who is in possession of truth must not expose his person, his relatives or his reputation to the blindness, the folly, the perversity of those whom it has pleased God to place and maintain in error”. One must . therefore. keep silent about one’s true convictions if possible.”
The Ketman of the 20th century was of course the degree of necessary deception regarding one’s adherence to Communist doctrine. Milosz writes “nevertheless, Ketman in its narrowest and severest forms is widely practiced in the people’s democracies. As in Islam, the feeling of superiority over those who are unworthy of attaining truth constitutes one of the chef joys of people whose lives in general do not abound in pleasures.” (p. 60)
[Ideological] “deviations… are not an illusion. They are cases of accidental unmasking of Ketman; and those who are most helpful in detecting deviations are those who practice a similar form of Ketman. Recognizing in other acrobats the tricks they themselves employ, they take advantage of the first occasion to down an opponent or friend. Thus they protect themselves; and the measure of dexterity is to anticipate by at least one day the similar accusations which could be levelled against them by they man they denounce. Since the number of varieties of Ketman is practically unlimited, the naming of deviations cannot keep pace with the weeding of a garden so full of unexpected specimens of heresy.”
Now apply this to contemporary universities in the grip of Wokeness and watch for the practice of systemic Ketman , and for it to be exposed by other practitioners of the same devious arts.
Why Nobody Believes the Government
Watch this video… Essential viewing. Why the Fake New Media is disbelieved by people who think.
Rebel Yell