John C. Wright's Journal

The future did not arrive…. I was thinking of the opening line to COUNT TO A TRILLION yesterday when they flew the last Space Shuttle flight, piggyback on a 747, into Dulles airport, which is only ten minutes from my house. I did not get a chance to see it and say farewell. It is [...]

 A written version of the remarks given by John C Wright at the Franciscan University of Steubenville April 12th to the Science Fiction class of Dr Craig, at his invitation. — Being a lifelong fan of science fiction, and recent convert from the hardest of hardcore atheist to the hardest core of the Christian faith, [...]

Related to our previous post, and to clear up certain technical matters, here is  a reprint of a post from 2011, explaining the famous Space Princess equation. —————————————————- A reader whom I will, for the sake of anonymity, refer to merely as ‘Curmudgeon’ (albeit his real name is Homer Snodgrass of 12 Manitowish Avenue, Mammoth [...]

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/japanese-quakes-epicenter-located-near-marian-apparition-site/ Niigata, Japan, Mar 12, 2011 / 07:17 am (CNA).- The epicenter of the earthquake that caused a deadly March 11 tsunami is located near the site of an apparition in which Mary warned about a worldwide disaster that could afflict humanity. Japanese church officials have confirmed that the Diocese of Sendai, in the north [...]

Just a short thought today, instead of my normal four and five page essays: Let me ask whether there is an inherent and innate weakness of democracy: namely, that free enterprise encourages as if by natural selection, the creation of a large number of consumer-minded short-sighted and unthrifty individuals. It encourages selfishness. In times of [...]

I was recently reading the following passage from THE CITY OF THE CHASCH by Jack Vance. In this scene, Adam Reith pursues an abducted space princess Ylin Ylan the Flower of Cath, who has been taken for sacrifice by the Priestesses of the Female Mystery: The Seminary of the Female Mystery occupied an irregular flat [...]

In reference to our ongoing conservation about the nature and conventions of femininity, Nate Winchester writes: On chicks digging jerks… look at what women are voting for with their dollars. http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/03/14/mommy-porn-novel-explores-submission-titillates-women/ If you haven’t heard about “50 Shades of Grey” yet, you likely will soon. The independently published erotic novel is plunging into the mainstream [...]

A very dear and lifelong friend of mine writes in with her own comment about the femininity of the prior generation. The words below are hers: My parents met at college in the late 40s/early 50s. My father, not born rich, was in a fraternity, recommended by his childhood friend whose father was a very [...]

ADDENDUM to the previous essay: I had originally intended, but thought it unnecessary, to provide other examples of other types of femininity aside from anthropomorph schoolgirl-puppies and kawaii all-schoolgirl singing groups. But more than one readers’ comment to that essay caution me that some readers will always interpret the statement “X is feminine” to mean [...]

In recent comments in this space, we were discussing the difference between masculine and feminine with a reader who, having been raised on the politically correct dogma of unisexualism, had never before encountered the idea that men and women are different, except in trivial or arbitrary ways, and certainly had never encountered the idea that [...]

How was the new JOHN CARTER movie? The short answer: if you have not read, or do not particularly adore, the source material, the movie is a fine, if unexceptional, entry into the Space Princess genre of space opera. There is action, humor, spectacle, swordfights, gunfights, flying machines, mystery, romance, monsters, and everything a Space [...]

My objection to political correctness, as a Christian, is that it is diabolic; as a conservative, that it is Marxist; as a philosopher,  that it is not merely untruthful but openly nihilistic and irrational; as a practical man, that it makes rational conversation about any controversial topic all but impossible; as a gentleman that is [...]

This letter was in the comments thread. I thought it worth emphasis: Unlike Mr Wright, who is at home in the world of abstract thought, I am so constituted that I must rely on examples. And his article reveals an example that rivals “The Picture of Dorian Grey” for imaginative horror. There are two women. [...]

Hat tip to All Girls Allowed via the lovely and talented Mrs Wright at Dreams of Arhyelon. The following article is from the China Post: China to ban ‘nasty’ family planning slogans SHANGHAI — China is ordering local officials to stop using threatening slogans to enforce its strict “one-child” policy, state media has reported. The [...]

In the book AN EVIL GUEST Gene Wolfe sardonically predicts a culture where ‘post-natal abortions’ that is, killing the baby after he is born, would be commonplace. As it turns out this science fiction writer, attempting to imagine the lower deep of depravity to which future civilization might fall was merely a year or two [...]

In the climax of MOBY DICK, Captain Ahab utters these dying words: “To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” Grimly enough, Ahab’s harpoon with which he hoped to spear the great sea beast tangles its line with his [...]

Pierce O writes: I’m afraid your skepticism of Hollywood’s ability to do a proper John Carter film has been confirmed: http://latino-review.com/2012/02/16/readers-review-john-carter/. It looks like they’ve managed to destroy everything about the characters that made them great:  John Carter isn’t a selfless, clean limbed, fighting man; Red Martians attempt to broker peace through an arranged marriage; [...]

In honor of Leap Day, I thought I should write a post in honor of the most famous long-leaper of all, the clean-limbed fighting man of Virginia, John Carter, Warlord of Mars. I have recently been rereading the ‘Barsoom’ novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs to my boys, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that [...]

Science Fiction is a particularly adroit tool for examining human nature, more adroit than, say, the allegedly realistic modern novel, because it allows the author to introduce the changes society is likely to suffer as various technologies, speculative or fantastic to us now, make their advent on Earth. Only the least thoughtful of science fiction [...]

Mark Shea over at Catholic and Enjoying It quotes the great Macauley There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is [...]

Happy Ash Wednesday, if that is the proper greeting for the advent of the season of repentance in ashes and mourning for our sins. On the radio this morning, I heard what I thought was a Twilight Zone episode about a parallel universe in which the human race had never heard any Bible stories, fairytales, [...]

One small advantage of being a Christian is that I no longer need to be as scrupulous about my honor and pride.  Indeed, part of my task is to beat down my pride, which, as a candid reader can see in the words that follow, I have not yet done. I young (I presume) man [...]

From  https://www.stophhs.com/stop_hhs_mandate/breaking-every-single-bishop-has-condemned-the-obamahhs-mandate/ Every single Roman Catholic bishop in the United States has condemned in public the Obamacare HHS mandate — all 180 bishops who lead dioceses in the U.S. have spoken. My comment: I am astounded. I have never known all the Bishops in America to agree on anything. Nothing other than the most brazen [...]

In an earlier essay in this space, I offer a fourfold classification to categorize philosophy: I used the terms Stoic, Hedonist, Idolatrous, and Nihilist. The division is based on the writings of the Russian Orthodox monk Seraphim Rose. A reader has asked me to justify the classification. The terms chosen were a balance between precision [...]

In a recent article in this space The Theist Widow Cannot Regain Her Atheist Virginity I said the following: In order to be logically consistent with the conclusion that the answers to any or all of the ultimate questions of the meaning of man’s life in the cosmos is forever beyond human reason one must [...]