Archive for February, 2013

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The Theodicy of the Fall

Posted February 27, 2013 By John C Wright

The same reader who asked me to justify the ways of God to man on the question of Hell now returns to ask about the justice of the Fall of Man.

The conversation was prompted by this parable

Galadriel the Elfin queen was born in the Uttermost West, and gazed in her youth upon the white strand strewn with pearls leading to Mount Everwhite, where the unstained and angelic powers dwell, and the light from the gold trees and the silver in the First Age mingled. For the sake of ambition, and to found her own kingdom, she fled from the perfection of those blessed shores of Aman, and came to Middle Earth, which suffers under the tyranny of Melkor the Enemy, and death and disease and all unhallowed things thrive and multiply. A child of hers is born in Lothlorien, in Middle Earth, and has never seen the Blessed Lands, and the Angelic Powers of those lands has placed a barrier of fogs and enchantment and impassible seas between the Uttermost West and the sad shores of the moral world.

But, in their compassion, the Powers have allowed that any ship departing the Gray Havens may indeed find the one straight path back to the homeland of the elder race, and have their tears sponged away. The only requirement is that any crimes or misdeed performed by the elfs while tarrying in Middle Earth be confessed and forgiven, for it so happens, by some mystery the elves do not understand, some greater power from beyond even the Uttermost West, a son of Eru, the One, has been granted power to forgive.

Now, imagine this child of Galadriel, call him Gallandus, should reason thus with himself: “I do not know for certain if the tales told by my sire and dame be true of a mountain that is ever white, where the gods in peace and splendor reign, or a farther shore where no sorrow and no warfare ever comes. But for two ages of man, I have marched in battle against the orcs and unclean things of the Dark Lord, and seen sorrows unnumbered, and shed tears, and never again shall bloom for me the glorious trees of my youth I once knew, nor can I find the entwives, whom my ancestors taught the powers of speech.

“Suppose the tale is false, what then? Shall I endure the clouded oceans mazed with spells and haunted by monsters to reach no shore? What if only endless wastes, or an hemisphere without solid land, is all the prow of the Last White Ship shall find?

“If the Powers were just, they would not have imposed the sentence of my mother’s exile on me: for I was not born when she removed from that long lost world of perfection and came to this middle earth of sorrows. To punish me for my mother’s crimes when I am as innocent as new-fallen snow is gross injustice! And if the Powers are not just, I have no desire to dwell in their happy fields. Indeed, the idea of a power both angelic and unjust is a paradox: I cannot believe that they exist at all, or their homeland of which I have heard tell.”

Is there anything wrong with the reasoning of Gallandus son of Galadriel? Can you detect any flaw in his logic?

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The Fourth of the Big Three

Posted February 23, 2013 By John C Wright

During the Golden Age of Science Fiction, the Big Three Names were the three authors with the greatest prestige in the John W Campbell Jr stable of authors: Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and one now is unfairly unrecognized, A.E. van Vogt. His obscurity may be due in part to a malign attempt by Damon Knight to undermine his career.

These days, the term ‘The Big Three’ is still sometimes used, but the third name is given as Ray Bradbury or Arthur C Clarke. Why this should be is also unclear, since no one linked the names at the time, but, again, it may be due to Damon Knight, who for all I know is also responsible for the hole in the ozone layer.

Arthur C Clarke is a fairly convincing stand-in for a Campbell-style writer, and indeed sold his first story to Campbell (“Loophole”, in 1946 Astounding), so this may be why he is often photo-shopped into the position A.E. van Vogt was airbrushed out of. But I would argue that there was a theme, or even a philosophy, to Campbellian fiction, and that Clarke represents and older, and perhaps more literate, style of science fiction harkening back to H.G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon.

I submit to your candid judgment that Arthur C Clarke has a particular sense of a broader vision, and yet it is a darker vision, of man and his ultimate fate in the universe which is keeping with H.G. Wells and alien to Campbell.

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Wright’s Writing Corner: Aristrocracy

Posted February 22, 2013 By John C Wright

The beautiful and talented Mrs Wright continues her alphabetical explanation of the Great Ideas of Western Literature:

In Today’s Post, I have finally returned to the subject of writing about the great ideas. Today’s idea: Aristocracy.

Come by and share your thoughts on your favorite nobleman…hero or villain.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/278742.html

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Recommended Athiest Reading

Posted February 20, 2013 By John C Wright

I am breaking my Friday-Only writing rule to answer what I think is an excellent question by a Mr Ruiz:

Who do you consider to be the most articulate and firmly-grounded spokesmen for atheism? Who did you read and admire prior to your conversion?

In not quite Chronological Order:

1. Lucretius (albeit technically a type of polytheistic deist)

2.The anonymous author of the TREATISE OF THE THREE IMPOSTORS (admittedly, this one I recommend more for its interest as a historical curio than for the rigor of its logic)

3. Thomas Paine  Age of Reason (again, technically a Deist rather than an atheist, but close enough).

4. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll— Nearly anything by this author is worth reading for the committed and serious atheist.

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Twinterview with the Missus

Posted February 20, 2013 By John C Wright

My beautiful and talented wife has an announcement:

I am being interviewed tonight on Twitter at 9pm EST with hashtag #sffwrtcht.

Come by and read about how I came to be the author of the PROSPERO’S DAUGHTER series. Ask questions. Say hi. Or just lurk and chuckle as we discover the answer to the question: will Twitter, which I have almost never used before, get the better of me?

Thanks!

L. Jagi Lamplighter (Wright)

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Illustrations of the Tao

Posted February 19, 2013 By John C Wright

To forestall the inevitable tedium of repeating what should be a well known idea among all literate men, allow me to quote some examples of what philosopher’s call Natural Law, or Objective Morality.

The examples here are not being used to prove the maxims given. It is not being argued, for example, that merely because all literate races of man extol generosity and excoriate adultery that generosity is good and adultery is bad.

The examples are merely offered to establish the phenomenon to be explained, namely, that men of every culture and age agree on the moral principles, even if they disagree on how those principles are to be applied.

If morality were manmade, as positive law is, or as writing systems are, then they were differ as positive law codes differ, or differ as much as cuneiform differs from runes or hieroglyphs or ideographs or alphabets. But what we have here is a collection of statements, some originally written in runes or alphabets or hieroglyphs or ideograms, which all express the same few moral imperatives in different words. That indicates that this part of the moral law of man is not manmade but natural. Hence it is called Natural Law.

Myself, I would argue that the moral laws exists in the human heart due to the intention of the supernatural creator of man, who also has the authority to command obedience to them, and the power to disseminate these laws instantaneously at creation into every rational spirit. However, other theories can be argued as well. What cannot be argued is that there is no phenomenon to be explained by any theory, no agreement on the natural moral code.

The words below are those of CS Lewis.

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Mike the Martian and the Attack of the Argumentroid

Posted February 18, 2013 By John C Wright

One of the argumentroids of Robert Heinlein has annoyed me for years.

I was irked not the least because this particular argumentroid suckered me in my innocent youth, back when I was so proud of being a nonconformist, as were we all in my generation, and so proud of believing exactly what all the other nonconformists believed.

But let me first explain what my silly made-up word is supposed to mean.

I have always held that Science Fiction was never actually fiction stories about science. Instead, it is stories about fictional science.

Writers routinely commended for the “hardness” of their hard SF, that is to say, commended for their realism, such as Larry Niven or Isaac Asimov or Arthur C Clarke, will introduce teleportation or psycho-history or faster than light drives or telepathy, none of which has any more scientific realism than flying carpets that run on happy thoughts and fairy dust.

And Robert Heinlein, the Dean of Science Fiction, was like them a past master of the art of making their unscientific baloney seem scientific.

The writer’s chore is to lull the dragons of skepticism which guard the castle of the mind so that the waking dream of the tale can slip into the gates. The reader places himself into a half-hypnotic half-awake state known as “suspension of disbelief” where, for the sake of the story, the reader is willing to swallow the baloney if only his imagination is given enough excuse. In other words, it is not scientific accuracy that science fiction seeks or delivers, but scientific verisimilitude.

It is not supposed to be scientific, but scientifroid, if I may coin an awkward term for some hulking shape that looks vaguely like science in a dim light, but is not.

This is done in science fiction by mimicking some of the tropes of science. For example, Larry Niven posits in his ‘Known Space’ yarns that the law of conservation of momentum applies to teleportation booths, so that it is more expensive to teleport from the North Pole to the Equator than to the South Pole, because of the difference in angular momentum between a body at rest at either Pole versus a body being carried along at the speed of the rotation of the Earth. Teleportation is still hooey, but it seems more scientific if it suffers a reasonable scientific (or, rather scientifroid) limitation.

Now, it has been known since the ancient Greeks erected their first shrine to the Muses that poets and playwrights and novelists who have the craft of working this half-hypnotic trick of making the unlikely seem likely have a dangerous or divine power.

The novelist has the most powerful rhetorical tool of all at his command. He has an audience that willingly is attempting to suspend their disbelief for the sake of the story. This means, unfortunately, that a certain amount of mental litter, opinions, editorializing, propaganda and “spin” also can make it past the dragons of skepticism while they slumber.

And therein lies a certain danger, because the editorializing is not written like an editorial, where the readers knows the editor is opining an opinion; it is written like a tale. We judge editorials on their rhetorical skill and soundness of argument, their power to appeal to the passions and the reason. We judge tales on their entertainment value, their power to amuse and divert.

And, of course, the amusement value of any editorial hidden in a tale has nothing to do with the soundness of the argument given. Unless the reader already has a definite opinion opposing the writer’s, or if the reader has hair-triggered skepticism in general, will he be unlikely even to notice he is being played for a sap.

Because an editorial put across in a story will not actually put forth an argument, except on very rare occasions indeed. It put forth an argumentoid, a hulking shape that looks like an argument in a dim light.

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On Writing Adventures

Posted February 14, 2013 By John C Wright

Wright’s writing corner has a guest writer, Vonnie Winslow Crist, this week!

Excerpt:

JRR Tolkien wrote: “Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.” And thank goodness it’s true! For carrying on the story is my mission as a writer, and I believe the goal of most writers.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/277517.html

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Poetry Corner – The Kraken

Posted February 11, 2013 By John C Wright

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

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G.I. Jane Speaks

Posted February 11, 2013 By John C Wright

Only posting a link, or, rather, a letter from a female vet who goes by the handle ‘Sentry.’ Hat tip to Jazz Shaw at Hot Air for this letter:

I’m a female veteran. I deployed to Anbar Province, Iraq. When I was active duty, I was 5’6, 130 pounds, and scored nearly perfect on my PFTs. I naturally have a lot more upper body strength than the average woman: not only can I do pull-ups, I can meet the male standard. I would love to have been in the infantry. And I still think it will be an unmitigated disaster to incorporate women into combat roles. I am not interested in risking men’s lives so I can live my selfish dream.

We’re not just talking about watering down the standards to include the politically correct number of women into the unit. This isn’t an issue of “if a woman can meet the male standard, she should be able to go into combat.” The number of women that can meet the male standard will be miniscule–I’d have a decent shot according to my PFTs, but dragging a 190-pound man in full gear for 100 yards would DESTROY me–and that miniscule number that can physically make the grade AND has the desire to go into combat will be facing an impossible situation that will ruin the combat effectiveness of the unit.

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Future War

Posted February 9, 2013 By John C Wright

Why is the preferred weapon of the Galactic Empire the sword? It is to answer that question and perhaps one or two other questions of deeper import that this essay attempts.

Science fiction is now old enough that a perspective of its changes over time is possible, to contrast the dreams of past futures with the present futures.

A particularly telling survey should look at future war stories. Of all the institutions of man, war is the one that is the closest mortal men ever reach to hell. In war, good men do bad things, law and order breaks down, but also becomes tyrannical as military exigencies force civilian rights to one side, and continual fear, danger, desperation, and stench of death renders life brutal and miserable and hopeless. There is one small ray of heaven in this hell, tiny as a thread of sunlight that steals through the lock of a prison door, which is that the emergency can from time to time bring out acts of selfless and unselfregarding fortitude, patriotism, honor, sacrifice, and heroism.

War is fundamental. A man’s views on war tell you the basic axioms of his view on life. Because of this, a popular war story will tell you in an abbreviated form much about the storyteller’s most fundamental ideals and fears, and that of his audience.

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Wright’s Writing Corner. On Animals.

Posted February 9, 2013 By John C Wright

The lovely and talented wife continues her post on Mortimer Adler’s list of the 101 ‘Great Ideas’. We continue with ‘Animals.’ This is a repost of her previous article.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/276571.html

Excerpt:

Nowadays, the shelves of the children’s and young adult sections of the book store are filled with books on vampires and magic schools. It was not like that when I was young. There were very few books about magic. Mainly, if you liked enchantment, you were limited to fairy tales and books of myth.

But there were many, many, many books on animals.

Every weekend from age 8 to 17, I volunteered at a local Nature Museum. It was not a formal arrangement. My parents would drop us off there and go jogging. One day, I approached the staff while they were building a display and offered to help. They gave me the task of sticking dried grass into corrugated cardboard, to form the effect of a grassy field.

I was hooked. I loved the people who worked there. I loved helping. I showed up and found tasks to do regularly for the next nine years, sweeping, cleaning, painting lines from Tolkien on the walls, helping carrying things during the nature programs the staff gave. You name it.

 

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Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!

Posted February 8, 2013 By John C Wright

I miss the days when I was a card-carrying Libertarian. We may have been semi-anarchist pro-porn selfish nuts, but at least there were none among us who could be accused of favoring totalitarian tyranny over Constitutional government.

As a conservative, I am not so lucky. Why is there even a single one of our ranks who favors the monstrosity of secret assassination of American citizens?

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2013/02/05/drone-killing-without-due-process-and-obama-and-ayers/

I’m staggered to see Harold Ford not only say he supports the killing of American citizens without evidence, solid intelligence or due process, but also to suggest that politicians and ideologues who were relentless in claiming that “enhanced interrogation” shamed America might find themselves in sympathy for the Bush position, for the current sake of Obama. Suddenly, the idea that we had standards that should not be abandoned, even in times of war, should be set aside.

My question for my fellow Tea Party conservatives is this: you are willing to march on Washington for a sake of constitutional limitations on government, and a halt to the insane levels of spending and borrowing that has put the next two generations into hock. Why are you willing to stomach this without protest, civil disobedience, obstruction, tumult,  riot? Was all that talk about the Constitution just talk?

Did you believe the Left, that we were torturing and murdering Muslims, flushing their Korans down the toilet, and thought this was necessary to the war effort? Did you believe that law, order, decency, and honor becomes optional at wartime? Then you are no true conservative.

My question for any honest members of the opposition, if there are any, is this: you are will to dress up in Guy Fawkes masks and march on Wall Street and maintain a public nuisance and crap on police cars to express your dissatisfaction with living in a free market economy and being the most pampered generation of the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. Why are you willing to stomach this?

Even if you trust President Obama as a Lightworker who will never abuse this unchecked, untrammeled, and unobserved power, why do you trust that we, whom you dismiss as racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic exophobic buck-toothed hillbillies will not vote in a President Nixon, President Palin, President Buchanan, President Bushitler or President Nehemiah Scudder?   If you are so afraid of the Jewish Interests ruling Wall Street and their power over the political process, why do you allow the political process the power to assassinate American citizens abroad without a warrant, without a hearing, and without any records being kept?

 

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Call the Boys Scouts

Posted February 6, 2013 By John C Wright

Today is the day when the National Boy Scout council decides whether or not to follow the US Military into the anti-boy abyss.  Take a moment to call or write!

Here is the contact information: myscouting@scouting.org

Or call the National Help Desk at 877-272-1910, or the BSA National Council operator at 972-580-2000.  http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/BSAFoundation/ContactInformation.aspx

Make the phones ring off the walls, friends. Here are some numbers to try:

Select BSA Board Members:

  •  David L. Beck: (801) 240-1000
  •  R. Thomas Buffenbarger: (310) 967-4500
  •  Keith A. Clark: (717) 763-1121
  •  William F. “Rick” Cronk: (925) 283-7229
  •  John C. Cushman III: (904) 393-9020
  •  R. Michael Daniel: (412) 297-4989
  •  Jack D. Furst: (972) 982-8250
  •  T. Michael Goodrich: (205) 328-9445 ext. 200
  •  Earl G. Graves: (212) 242-8000
  •  Aubrey B. Harwell Jr.: (615) 244-1713
  •  Stephen Hemsley: (800) 328-5979
  •  Larry W. Kellner: (713) 468-4050
  •  Robert J. LaFortune: (918) 582-2981
  •  Joseph P. Landy: (212) 878-0600
  •  Francis R. McAllister: (406) 373-8700
  •  Scott D. Oki: (425) 454-2800
  •  Arthur F. Oppenheimer: (208) 343-4883
  •  Tico A. Perez: (407) 849-1235
  •  Robert H. Reynolds: (317) 231-7227
  •  Matthew K. Rose: (909) 386-4140
  •  Nathan O. Rosenberg: (949) 494-4553
  •  Roger M. Schrimp: (209) 526-3500
  •  Marshall M. Sloane: (781) 395-3000
  •  Rex W. Tillerson: (972) 444-1000
  •  David M. Weekley: (713) 659-8111
  •  Togo D. West, Jr.: (202) 775-1775

No matter what, the Boy Scouts of America could be counted upon to do the right thing and not yield to any social pressure. The BSA should not jeopardize the safety and moral integrity of Scouting in the interest of political correctness.

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Tell the Boy Scout Leadership to show some Leadership

Posted February 4, 2013 By John C Wright

From Catholic and Enjoying It.

… Sadly it seems that National [Boy Scout Leadership] is considering trying to punt the matter to the unit level, with the chartering organization deciding on whether to admit homosexuals or not.  Would be hard to run a National Jamboree with some troops keeping the traditional understanding of Morally Straight, and other troops indulging in “Gay Pride” displays.  Proposed policy is at http://www.scouting.org/MembershipPolicy.aspxWe need to join together as Scouts and Adult leaders to stop the Membership Policy change.  It would lead to situations similar to the Episcopal and Anglican Churches.  To tell National to keep the current rules, contact info is here myscouting@scouting.org , the National Help Desk at 877-272-1910, or the BSA National Council operator at 972-580-2000.  http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/BSAFoundation/ContactInformation.aspx

Make the phones ring off the walls, friends. Here are some numbers to try:

Select BSA Board Members:

* David L. Beck: (801) 240-1000

* R. Thomas Buffenbarger: (310) 967-4500

* Keith A. Clark: (717) 763-1121

* William F. “Rick” Cronk: (925) 283-7229

* John C. Cushman III: (904) 393-9020

* R. Michael Daniel: (412) 297-4989

* Jack D. Furst: (972) 982-8250

* T. Michael Goodrich: (205) 328-9445 ext. 200

* Earl G. Graves: (212) 242-8000

* Aubrey B. Harwell Jr.: (615) 244-1713

* Stephen Hemsley: (800) 328-5979

* Larry W. Kellner: (713) 468-4050

* Robert J. LaFortune: (918) 582-2981

* Joseph P. Landy: (212) 878-0600

* Francis R. McAllister: (406) 373-8700

* Scott D. Oki: (425) 454-2800

* Arthur F. Oppenheimer: (208) 343-4883

* Tico A. Perez: (407) 849-1235

* Robert H. Reynolds: (317) 231-7227

* Matthew K. Rose: (909) 386-4140

* Nathan O. Rosenberg: (949) 494-4553

* Roger M. Schrimp: (209) 526-3500

* Marshall M. Sloane: (781) 395-3000

* Rex W. Tillerson: (972) 444-1000

* David M. Weekley: (713) 659-8111

* Togo D. West, Jr.: (202) 775-1775

The important point to make is that the Boy Scouts is one of the few institutions left in America which tries to get boys to develop character and integrity, to have standards and to live up to them. No matter what, the Boy Scouts of America could be counted upon to do the right thing and not yield to any social pressure, and has thus far stood strong.
The BSA should not jeopardize the safety and moral integrity of Scouting in the interest of social activism.

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