John C. Wright's Journal

Here is Nicolo Machiavelli, of whom a more cynical and skeptical observer of human nature no one but Thomas Hobbes can rival.

From his DISCOURSES ON LIVY

“CHAPTER LVI.—THE OCCURRENCE OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN ANY CITY OR COUNTRY IS GENERALLY PRECEDED BY SIGNS AND PORTENTS OR BY MEN WHO PREDICT THEM

“Whence it comes I know not, but both ancient and modern instances prove that no great events ever occur in any city or country that have not been predicted by soothsayers, revelations, or by portents and other celestial signs.

“And not to go from home in proof of this, everybody knows how the descent into Italy of Charles VIII., king of France, was predicted by Brother Girolamo Savonarola; and how, besides this, it was said throughout Italy that at Arezzo there had been seen and heard in the air armed men fighting together.

“Moreover, everybody remembers how, before the death of Lorenzo de Medici the elder, the highest pinnacle of the dome of Florence was struck by a bolt from heaven doing great damage to that building.

“It is also well known how, before Pietro Soderini, who had been made Gonfaloniere for life, was expelled and deprived of his rank by the people of Florence, the palace itself was struck by lightning.

“Many more examples might be adduced, which I leave, however, lest I should become tedious. I will relate merely what according to Titus Livius happened before the coming of the Gauls to Rome: One Marcius Caedicius, a plebeian, reported to the Senate that passing through the Via Nuova at midnight, he had heard a voice louder than that of any man which commanded him to notify the Senate that the Gauls were coming to Rome.

“To explain these things, a man should have knowledge of things natural and supernatural, which I have not. It may be, however, as certain philosophers maintain, that the air is peopled with spirits, who by their superior intelligence foresee future events, and out of pity for mankind warn them by such signs, so that they may prepare against the coming evils.

“Be this as it may, however, the truth of the fact exists, that these portents are invariably followed by the most remarkable events.”

A remark in my comments box, from Joseph Moore. I want to applaud and emphasize the words:

I want to believe this, and it may be true, but: one of the greatest, if not the greatest victory of the Left is their control of the schools. I’m not even talking about Fabian curricula and textbooks and SJW teachers – those only work when the school’s *structure* allows it.

That was the victory: against all American tradition, the schools our betters designed and inflicted on us are *structured* to create, in the words of William Torry Harris, “mindless automata” who do as they’re told. He was pleased with how well it was working – back in 1906!

Unlike any other schools in history before around 1810, our schools occupy absurd amounts of our kid’s lives. Unlike the one-room schools – a truly American answer to the desire to educate children – kids are separated from from family, neighbors and friends and grouped by age – again, something new and contrary to reason and historical practice, where, if kids were grouped at all, it was by what they needed to learn.

Violating all natural relationships and ignoring what the kids currently know and need to learn, 35 strangers are grouped by age and spoon fed predigested pieces of ‘education’ and judged by how well they can regurgitate them on demand.

12 to 16 years of this, where the ‘best’ students are those who put up the least fuss, waste the most time meeting arbitrary measures, and the ‘adults’ thus created are sent out into the world to vote and govern. Read the remainder of this entry »

The next installment of the most important column on the topic you are likely to read this year is up:

Defending the Wood Perilous — Part Two: Descent into Darkness

“In the story, particularly, as in fabulous fictions of the same kind, there are two considerations most useful to notice. The first is that they show that evildoers, even if they seem to escape a thousand times, always get their punishment; the second, that they show many innocents placed in great danger often saved against all hope.”

Part one is here: http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/01/25/defending-wood-perilous-part-one-live-fairytale/

Brought to my attention by our own Daniel Koolbeck:

The beautiful and talented Mrs. Wright pens her musings on Harry Potter, and spoiler-free thoughts on the recent release of JK Rowling’s latest.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , by the bye, is not a book, nor did Rowling write it: it is the script of a play based on a treatment she wrote. Some emptor who were insufficiently caveat , if I may coin the expression, apparently bought it, poor fools, without knowing that crucial tidbit of information about what they were buying.

http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2016/08/01/a-little-touch-of-harry-in-the-night/

Saturday night, standing between the trolley witch’s cart and the wand maker, surrounded on all sides by charm and wonder that was the world of Harry Potter, I couldn’t help recall how I had come to be there.

The first time I ever heard of Harry Potter was nearly two decades ago. John had been reading an article that mentioned complaints about some “overly-masculine” book from England, where children characters still punched each other.

Some months later, I walked into Barnes and Nobles, and they had a display showing a rather charming book cover. The title of the book had the boy’s name in it. It reminded me of Encyclopedia Brown, Tom Swift, and other books John had loved as a boy. I called him over and showed it to him. His face lit up. “That’s the book I told you about!”

The title was: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Doesn’t the cover even look like one of those old boys adventure books?

The title made me smile, because it reminded me of the Philosopher’s Stone (Little did I guess that it actually was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, only they’d dumbed it down for Americans.)

“Let’s get it.”

We read it to each other on our Christmas trip to John’s mom’s. We LOVED it.

It was entirely enthralling. It had the cheer and the wonder of a fairy tale, but the concreteness of the modern—or at least semi-modern day. There was a lonely orphan boy and a talking snake. A friendly giant who told the lonely boy that he was a wizard. (Even today, that scene brings tears to my eyes, every time I reread it.) There was a magical boarding school with moving staircases, cruel professors–though no more cruel that the real professors at the boarding school C. S. Lewis attended, and a Forbidden Forest.

What more could the child-like heart of a fantasy fan desire?

Read the whole thing. The column, and, if you like, the script of the play.

My lovely and talented wife has a new column over at Arhyelon:

From the pen of Michael Crichton:

“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

“In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you