People mistake the result of civilization for the contract of civilization.
The contract of civilization is that you will defend it. Said defense involves being obligated to attack those who break the contract of civilization, with whatever it takes to preserve it.
The result of consistently applying this principle is that eventually you don’t have to anymore, and you get peace. (At least locally.) But this is not because you pre-commit to peace at all costs; it is because you pre-commit to defending the peace, and by doing so, often don’t have to.
The SJWs are barbarians. They lack the civilized virtues, they lack respect for their civilization, they have opted out of the contract of civilization, they hate civilization.
Those who refuse to honor their contract to defend are perhaps not barbarians… but neither are they civilized. They are some third category that our language lacks a word for since we haven’t had this kind of wealth in the past before to get this far along the post-civilization track. (“Cuckservative” is a flavor of this, perhaps, but not the totality of the concept.)
It is not a higher morality to insist on not using effective defense against the barbarians. It is a lower morality. I could make a case for it being a lower morality than even the barbarians have, though that is debateable. But that is the moral debate that it raises, not “which is a higher morality, those who effectively defend civilization or those who consider only their own moral character?” but “which is preferable, the barbarian or the one who does nothing to stop the barbarian?”
Braying about one’s refusal to honor their civilizational obligations is not a point of pride; it is a badge of shame.
My comment: brilliant. Bravo.
A reader with the euphonious name of Ecreegan hold forth an opinion on the courtesy owed to transvestites, transgendered, and transrationals.
Sometimes there’s no polite option. Tell me, what pronoun do I use for a pre-operative male-to-female transexual? “She” is a lie. “He” is considered highly offensive, and “it” is considered beyond the pale. (I try to use names. The new name is not a lie, even if it doesn’t make any sense.)
I very strongly disagree, so much so that I cannot tell if you are making a joke.
When you say the words “considered highly offensive” I cannot imagine anyone having any right to be offended at such a thing, nor any honest man taking such offense seriously.
Highly? Really?
To the contrary, it is highly offensive even to assert that an honest man should lie like a dog, a lie no one believes and no one can believe, merely to please the arbitrary whims of some petty tyrant trying to demean your soul and rob you of dignity.
The rule in English is that males and male objects are “he”, and persons whose sex is unknown or undetermined is also “he.” One says “he or she” only in a legal document where that degree of precision overwhelms the need for good grammar. Otherwise is it an error. “They” used in a singular merits horsehwipping.
A man who cuts off his penis and has false breasts implanted is not changing his sex, that is, his biological reality, but is attempting to change his social role: he is a man who wants to be treated with the honors and titles of a wife and mother. He also suffers from profound mental illness, so much so that he cuts off parts of his body.
But since the pronoun deals with the sex and not with social roles, he has no right to be offended if he is a “he”.
It is like being offended that A is A or being offended that twice two is four. If twice two were four, then there would be four lights. There are five lights!
More to the point, it is like being offended if a prole says Oceania was allied with Eastasia last year. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia!
Saying a he is a “he” is not what offends.
The political correction officer is playing a social dominance game with you.
He is making himself to be offended with you so that you will obey him.
He uses your desire to avoid offending him as a tool to establish social roles. You are supposed to assume the role as the inferior, the lower order, the ignorant, the follower, the benighted. He assumes the role as the superior, the higher order, the wiseman, the leader, the enlightened.
Of course he is offended and most deeply so!
He is offended at your insubordination. You are an uppity niggra. If the lower orders shoot off their mouths and starting thinking for themselves, why, there will be rebellion among the proles and slaves. So shut up.
He is not offended at your lack of courtesy. That is risible.
No politically correct person has ever displayed the courtesy of a swine since the beginning of the world: they neither doff their caps to ladies, nor ask if you need any comfort, nor listen to your point of view, nor salute you will courteous greetings, nor say “sir” and “ma’am” and “miss” and “missus” like anyone not raised in a barn would do.
Indeed, they go out of their way to cheat these forms of address, and will call God by the pronoun “She” and call the year “CE” just to see how often they can offend and insult Christians without being slapped in the mouth.
I have never known one not to use four letter crudities or to encouraging others to do so. Even their most grave politicians in public swear in a fashion former generations, who had a right view of the dignity of man, would never have had allowed.
No doubt the politically correct lunatics you’ve met really act vexed and hostile if you call Bruce Jenner “he” as logic, love of truth, common sense, common decency and good grammar demand, but you are utterly insane if you consider their insanity to be legitimate.
If I have a bit of paper I claim is the title deed to the Moon and I say by right you owe me money for getting light from my moon without paying me, my title deed has no legal force or effect, because, despite my claim, I have no legal right to moonlight. In reality, by international treaty, no man owns the moon and, by logic, no one can own the moonlight, since it is a free good.
Likewise here: if a man grows vexed and irate, and wets his pants and shrieks like a loon and rolls on the ground in a pool of his own spleenish vomit because you will not call a crazy person who cuts off his dick and dresses in girly clothing a “she”, his vexation is a sign of his witlessness, not a sign of his due righteous indignation. It is as phony as the alleged title deed to the moon. Even if I believe I own the moon with my whole heart, as strong as I can make myself believe what I want to believe, I am outside my rights, and my claim on you for money is invalid.
So here. A man has no right to demand you pretend him a woman, no matter how badly he wants it.
He has no right to be vexed if you do not give what he has no right to ask.
A man can act offended at anything he wishes, but if he has no right to be offended, he act is just an act. He should be chided, silenced, and, if he will not conform to the demands of polite society, be removed from it. If he grows violent, he should be confined, or killed. That is what you owe him.
He is the one being very offensive, not you.
A comedian utters the same truth as St. Augustine. What gives the human heart rest? Not gizmos, not gadgets, not things.
The lovely and talented Mrs. Wright has a column to which I should like to direct your attention:
http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2016/04/19/three-arguments-against-political-correctness/
In my recent discussions about political correctness, I ran into a number of people voicing some version of the following argument:
“When I am triggered, I react with anger. I shout and scream at people who I perceive as having said rude and hateful things.”
Now, am I wrong, or is the main argument against politically incorrect speech: it is rude and hurtful?
So…is rudeness acceptable?
Or is it not?
If rudeness is not acceptable in other people, shouldn’t we also not behave rudely ourselves?
If rudeness is acceptable in us, the triggered person—if it is okay for us to behave in an angry and emotional way toward the person who said the thing we perceived as offensive—then, must it not also be okay for other people to say offensive things?
For surely, we cannot have the standard: it is okay for me to be obnoxious, but not for you to be obnoxious.
That is hypocrisy.
A second argument I saw was: “People who complain about being attacked political correctness are just babies who should be more thick-skinned.”
This answer delights me.
I would love to see everyone be more thick-skinned.
But again, it has to be everyone or no one.
It is ridiculous to say: “Stop being a baby because you got attacked by five, or ten, or fifty, or two hundred people on the internet, who all screamed and shouted at you because they didn’t like something that you said that had not been considered offensive yesterday.
And yet say: “It is okay for a person to take offense at a comment that was not meant as a slur.”
Read the whole thing. http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2016/04/19/three-arguments-against-political-correctness/
A short story of mine appears in this daring anthology. It is the only science fiction anthology this year which will actually do to your imagination what science fiction is supposed to do. All the groupthink pablum you will read will be bland, safe, politically correct, and dull as dishwater. This challenges the Narrative. This will expand minds and opens hearts.
So in the upcoming DR STRANGE movie, the Ancient One is no longer an elderly Tibetan, but a bald Scottish girl, aaaannnnddd Baron Mordo is no longer an Eastern European aristocrat, but a young, impressive-looking Black man. With a sword.
Read the remainder of this entry »
Save for the flattery that overpraises an undeserving author, I must say this is very well said, concise, poignant, and shockingly clear and true. The words below are those of D. G. D. Davidson.
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2016/04/500-more-votes.html#c2368806063696487832
There are three points of view that it seems I cannot be tempted to join because, viewed from outside, they produce an obvious smallness of soul.
First, there is the “New” variety of atheist. The Bible has inspired great men for 2,000 years, and Western Civilization for all of its existence, but the New Atheist sneers that it is full of bad and boring stories.
Second, there is the materialist. When someone says that universals are real and also immaterial by definition, he sneers, and he reacts with shock as if this is a new and unconscionable idea unworthy of entertainment, though philosophers have discussed it for literally thousands of years.
Third, there is the SJW, who says John C. Wright, who has written some of the finest passages in current English literature, the guy who wrote Awake in the Night Land, is a bad author.
Each of these, and they are by no means mutually exclusive, appears to have killed something in himself, some capacity to behold truth or beauty, or to contemplate great ideas. It is no wonder that Postmodern man obsesses over sexual perversions and so-called identity politics; he has lost the ability to imagine anything greater.
A most interesting conversation has gripped the Wright household this past week, and I am pleased that my lovely wife, unfortunately raised by ultrafarleftwing Reagan-haters, has finally managed to shake herself free of some of the deeper impressions left over from her upbringing.
Yes, Virginia, there are Communists, and they mean to do exactly what they say they mean to do, starting with lies and propaganda and ending with death camps and genocide, all the while promising free health care.
Their purpose is to make you afraid of anticommunists, like McCarthy, while dismissing all fears of communists, like Mao, as paranod absurdity. Except that every single soul accused by McCarthy, Soviet records released to the West now show, was in fact a paid Soviet spy, and McCarthy killed no one, harmed no one, robbed no one. On the other hand Mao killed more people than live in the United Kingdom plus live in Portugal (circa 79 million). The cash value of how much property and labor was extorted by force from the Chinese people under Mao’s reign no historian has calculated.
And … the Left are afraid of McCarthy and people like him, but not afraid of Mao and people like him.
Hmm. Another miracle of modern state-mandated education, I suppose.
(In health ed class do they teach that AIDS is good for you, and chaste sex between a couple both virgins until the wedding night is evil, sick and wrong? In chemistry, do they teach that gunpowder cannot explode but butter often does?)
The degree of fantasy land thinking involved in denying the overwhelming testimony of the facts of the Twentieth Century is something I continue to find astonishing. It is not as if the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions and their surrounding atrocities happened in a cave.
In any case, my wife has suffered a recent epiphany concerning these and related matters, and write an article most illuminating on the topic:
http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2016/04/12/6231/
In high school, one of the most chilling things I learned about was the Red Scare in Hollywood. I had a mental picture of Communists sympathizers as sweet helpful souls who wanted to help the less fortunate. I figured artists and actors are often taken in by such things, and thought that the blacklisting of Communists in Hollywood was one of the most terrifying things I had heard of…because I saw myself likely to be part of the blacklisted group.
Because I thought that the actors were just innocent dupes, I figured the other people targeted by the Senate UnAmerican Activities Committee were probably equally innocent or unimportant.
After all, it did not say otherwise in anything I read in school.
Later, I heard that when the KGB opened their documents, the people called before the Senate UnAmerican Activities Committee were actually Communist Party members, many in the pay of the Soviets—actually working for the downfall of America.
I guess, at some level, I had not actually believed it. Or I had pictured them as ineffective intellectuals with glasses sitting around a table somewhere discussing politics and accomplishing nothing.
When I thought of the Communist Party, I pictured, basically, the Libertarian Party. A small party of idealistic intellectuals, devoted to a cause on principle and tirelessly working toward it despite very little success.
I could not have been more wrong.
Bella Dodd was an Italian-born American (she was an American accidentally born in Italy, who grew up there until she was about six,) who went on to become a teacher. Influenced by the young free thinking teacher at her college (who later committed suicide, so empty was her life), Bella became interested in labor rights and was targeted by the Communists.
To my utter astonishment, at that time, the Communists were a huge, well-organized group with fingers in every single pie.
Because they had many of their members stay secret, not reveal that they were actually Communists, they could be members of every group. They formed Fragments, as I think they called them, in every political party, every labor union. Because if this they knew what all the different parties and groups were up to, and could organized coordinated attacks to get their policies across.
In the various teachers unions, their main goal was getting schools to 1) accept federal aid and 2) emphasize separation of church and state.
They had as an avowed goal: designing public schools so as to break up the family and make the children idea future Communists.
The Communists attacked the Church, demonized it, and tried to separate workers from their priests at every turn. Bella saw this over and over and gave some examples. She also admitted to helping over 1,100 communists get into the Roman Catholic Church, with plans to alter and destroy it from within.
They also attacked race harmony in America. Word came from the Soviet Union that America’s racial peace and its morality were its strength, so these things had to be destroyed.
All these things, these things we all complain about but think is just ‘part of life’, this highly-organized, secret group were deliberately attempting to orchestrate.
And they were really clever at it. Whenever anyone came up with a logical argument to make the bad thing sound like the moral high ground, they quickly shared it. Suddenly, that argument was the accepted view.
Read the whole thing: http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2016/04/12/6231/
DR STRANGE is the first comic I ever read, and it is the title that got me hooked on comics, and the reason why I prefer Marvel to DC.
Most of the versions of Dr. Strange are admittedly mediocre, under the pens of writers who don’t know what to do with the Master of Black Magic, but the exceptions are shining exceptions, with storylines as good, wondrous and mindblowing as anything penned by A.E. van Vogt, Philip K Dick, or E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith.
If you want to read the good issues, find the original Steve Ditko / Stan Lee run: Strange Tales #110-#146 (1963).
The Steve Englehart / Frank Brunner run on MARVEL PREMIER, where Strange faces Robert E Howard style elder gods: Marvel Premiere #9-14 (1972) (But I would start with #3, just to get the whole story).
They continued on through the Silverdagger arc, the death of Dr. Strange, the attack of the Creators, and the destruction and recreation of the cosmos: Doctor Strange #1-28 (1974).
My one letter I sent as a child into Dr. Strange comics, complaining about an unsatisfying ending to the Dweller in Darkness story arc (#35-#38), appears in #39, for those of you collecting John C. Wright trivia.
Once or twice, a live action or cartoon version of the good doctor has appeared, usually as a guest star on Spiderman or the Hulk, and then again on his own direct to DVD cartoon. They are unexceptional and forgettable. In one, Dr. Strange and all magicians are portrayed as Martial Artists.
In a live action pilot in 1978, they changed the Ancient One into Merlin, changed Baron Mordo into Morgan le Fay, and changed Clea from a silver haired sorceress in the Dark Dimension to a college student.
Some of the scenes had a real Steve Ditko vibe to them, and I rather liked the background music by Paul Chihara. Here is it is! Read the remainder of this entry »
Just saw this in the news:
Acclaimed Science Fiction Author Dr. Jerry Pournelle Wins the National Space Society Robert A. Heinlein Award
The National Space Society takes great pleasure in announcing that its 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award has been won by acclaimed science fiction author Dr. Jerry Pournelle. This prestigious award selected by an international vote of NSS members will be presented to Dr. Jerry Pournelle at the 2016 International Space Development Conference (ISDC). The public is welcome to attend the conference and see the award presentation at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ISDC will run from May 18-22, 2016.
About Dr. Jerry Pournelle
This award recognizes Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s many years of support for space science, exploration, development and settlement and his close association with Robert Heinlein. He was active in the NSS predecessor, the L5 Society, during its early years. Jerry served as co-chair of the very first ISDC, NSS secretary, and as a Board member.
Jerry was also Chair of the Citizen’s Advisory Council on National Space Policy. This group was active during the 1980s and was one of the most effective groups promoting specific space related policy positions at that time. Robert Heinlein was also an active member of that group. The group’s early support of missile defense eventually led to the perceived need for an inexpensive launcher. The briefing that he and two others gave to then Vice President Quayle was instrumental in getting the approval of the DC-X program, overcoming government skepticism about the project. Jerry was present at White Sands on September 11, 1993 when the first large rocket, the DC-X vehicle, was reused.
Jerry has consistently supported the vision of self-sustaining human settlements in space and on planetary surfaces, and as part of a free, spacefaring civilization, which is at the very heart of the space movement. Jerry’s work as a science fiction author, focusing on science fiction with realistic physics, has contributed to a better understanding of the limitations and the abilities of human space operations. Few have made such a rich contribution to these fields.
About the Robert A. Heinlein Award
This award is presented once every two years for lifetime achievement in promoting the goal of a free, spacefaring civilization. The winner is decided by the vote of the entire NSS membership, not by the awards committee. The award consists of a miniature signal cannon, on a mahogany base with a black granite inlay and a brass plaque as shown. The award concept came from Robert Heinlein’s classic book TheMoon is a Harsh Mistress. Some of the early award winners include Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Neil Armstrong and Elon Musk. More information about this award and the past winners is at: www.nss.org/awards/heinlein_award.html.
My comment: if we ever get off this rock, it will be due to the tireless efforts of men like Heinlein and Pournelle.
Those of you who read MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS, or know something about the Siege of Fort Morris or the Battle of the Gonzales, will recognize why a cannon is the most apt sign for a Heinlein award.
Chapter 38 is really good. I’m just saying.
A Pius Geek reviews my humble work and judges it favorably:
http://apiusman.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-john-c-wrights-iron-chamber-of.html
F. Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep had impressed me growing up because it was a novel that had started out as Dracula and ended with Lord of the Rings.
John C Wright has managed and even greater trick with his latest novel, Iron Chamber of Memory. In this case, what started out as a romantic comedy, Nora Roberts style, and then, Deaver-like, ended in an epic battle on the scale of Mary Stewart and her books of King Arthur and Merlin. Let’s call it a fantasy romance, of sorts. Where’s the soundtrack for Excalibur! I need O Fortuna to accompany the knights charging out of the mists!
Trust me, when I say it was epic, I mean EPIC.
And
… the first 25% is a romantic farce. Like Bringing Up Baby, only funny. Then the next 25% is an epic romance. The third quarter …. transitions nicely into the last 25%, in which … we are in for one hell of a ride.
So we have some of your epic fantasy, we have some
Wright is obviously in a level all of his own, wherein he brings together so many myths and legends, there were moments I paused and went “How did I not see this?” His dissertation director at Oxford is a Dr. Vodonoy. If you don’t see it, don’t worry, I didn’t either. You will be amused by a Mister Drake in this novel. He doesn’t actually have any lines of dialogue, but trust me, when Wright reveals the joke, you’ll enjoy it.
And in all of those elements of epicness and mythology clashing, good against evil, we have a bit like this.
“I am the son of The Grail Knight. My father showed me the cup when I was a boy, still with heaven’s innocence in me, so that the shining rays were visible to me: and in the Blood of the Grail he anointed me.”
“And after…”
“We moved to New York, and he opened a used bookstore.”
The unexpectedness of that line was … well, I was glad I didn’t wake the neighbors.
Or:
“Are you suffering from cutlery dysfunction?”It’s times like those where I’m wondering if I’m in Mary Stewart or in a Peter David novel. Either way, it works.
This is what, in my family, is called a “Novel novel.” There is more in common with Victor Hugo than James Patterson. It’s a book where I spent a lot of time admiring the crafting of story, and the crafting of words and phrasing. And I’m usually not the sort of person to note that sort of thing.
So, you want your humor? Check. Want your fantasy, triple checked. Want romance? Double checked in two different meanings of the world. Also, if you want a plot twist that makes Jeffery Deaver look like amateur hour? Quadruple checked (yes, really, four, I counted. Maybe 6.)
A telling bit of film (hat tip to The Other McCain):
Read the remainder of this entry »
An article by Nicholas Senz well worth reading is called ‘Happiness and Hell in the Twilight Zone’. I quote the opening:
In “A Nice Place to Visit,” we meet a burglar, Henry Francis “Rocky” Valentine, at the end of his life, cut down in a shootout with the police. He awakens … a smiling man in white… announces he is Rocky’s guide, instructed to give him whatever he desires. Rocky … concludes he’s now in heaven.
…
After a month of wining, dining, and winning, though, Rocky becomes bored. He … laments, “If this is Heaven, I’d almost rather be in the other place,” to which Pip replies, “My dear Mr. Valentine, whoever said this is Heaven? This is the other place!” A chilling twist to suspenseful story!
Yet it leaves us with questions. Why isn’t Rocky happy when he gets everything he wants? How could Hell be depicted in such a way…?
It might surprise us to find that the themes and ideas touched upon in this episode were treated in detail 700 years beforehand. …
The first question of the prima secundae of the Summa Theologiae asks whether man has a last end. Is there something that all human beings have in common as their final purpose, their reason for being?
Yes, St. Thomas says, generally, all men have as their last end the “fulfillment of their perfection”—that is, the fulfillment of their nature, of what it is to be human.
But, he is quick to point out, not all men understand that end to be the same thing. Some men think that pleasure or money is their greatest end, and so they seek the maximum of pleasure or wealth.
…Thus, as St. Thomas says: “to every taste the sweet is pleasant but to some, the sweetness of wine is most pleasant, to others, the sweetness of honey, or of something similar. Yet that sweet is absolutely the best of all pleasant things, in which he who has the best taste takes most pleasure. In like manner that good is most complete which the man with well disposed affections desires for his last end.” (ST I-II, q. 1, a. 7, c.)
So, Rocky likes the things he likes—booze, beauties, big wins at the casino—and he seeks the maximum of each, thinking this will satisfy his desires. But yet they do not. Why?…
The second question asks whether man’s happiness might consist in any of a variety of created things: Power? Honor? Glory? Wealth? Pleasure? The answer to all of these is no…
Read the whole thing: http://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/happiness-and-hell-in-the-twilight-zone
