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The Problem with Actors and Actresses
Like many people, I was cynically amused to learn that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were “leaving” the Royal Family. According to an agreement they reached with the Palace on January 18th, they would be free to pursue business opportunities around the world and would “no longer be working members” of the British royal family, though they would lose the right to be referred to as His or Her Majesty.
It’s hardly surprising. Acting, like many art forms, has always attracted the insecure, sociopathic, and the just plain crazy. And Meghan Markle is an actress. One psychological study found that actors showed significantly higher rates of disordered personality traits than non-actors. The study, which compared 214 professional actors to a cohort of North American non-actors, also found that there was a high prevalence of anti-social personality, borderline, narcissistic, schizotypal, and obsessive-compulsive traits among actors than there was among the general population.
People become actors because they like being the centre of attention. They crave the spotlight because it makes them feel validated. The Royal Family, by contrast, performs public service by diverting attention away from themselves and onto the British nation and people. (A fact greatly contradicted by a news media who treat them as news stories in and of themselves). Poor Meghan Markle has found herself in a situation where she is not the centre of attention, and she doesn’t like it.
So, what does someone like Meghan Markle do when the spotlight is not on her? Well, the answer in Meghan’s case seems to be: leave the royal family. I will not at all be surprised in Meghan announces some kind of return to acting over the coming year. You cannot turn an actress into a princess anymore than you can make a leopard change its spots.
The Presumption of Innocence is Worth Protecting No Matter What the Cost
Jemma Beale was sentenced to ten years imprisonment after it was found she had made repeated false rape allegations.
In February 2013, Vassar College student, Xialou “Peter” Yu was accused of sexual assault by fellow student, Mary Claire Walker. The accusation stemmed from an incident occurring twelve months previously in which Walker had accompanied Yu back to his dorm room after a party and initiated consensual sex. Walker herself broke off the coitus early. She had decided that it was too soon after ending her relationship with her boyfriend to embark on a sexual relationship with another man. She even expressed remorse for having “lead Yu on” and insisted that he had done nothing wrong.
Nevertheless, at some point, Walker decided that she had been sexually assaulted and Yu was mandated to stand before a college tribunal. At this tribunal, Yu was refused legal representation, had his attempts at cross-examining his accuser repeatedly stymied, and potential eyewitness testimonies from both Yu and Walker’s roommates were suppressed by the campus gender equality compliance officer. Supposedly because they had “nothing useful to offer.” In what can only be described as a gross miscarriage of justice, Yu was found guilty and summarily expelled.
Unfortunately, the kind of show trials that condemned Yu is not entirely uncommon in American colleges and universities (and, like many social diseases, are starting to infect Australian campuses, as well). They are the result of years of unchallenged feminist influence on upper education. These institutions have swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, the feminist lie that every single woman who claims to be sexually assaulted must be telling the truth.
The problem begins with those who make public policy. The US Department of Education has been seduced by the ludicrous idea that modern, western societies are a “rape culture.” They have brought into the lie that one-in-five women are sexually assaulted on college campuses, despite the fact that this statistic (which conveniently seems to come up with exactly the same ratio no matter where it’s used) comes from an easily disproven web-based survey.
This survey, which was conducted at two universities in 2006, took only fifteen minutes to complete and had a response rate of just 5466 undergraduate women aged between eighteen and twenty-five. Furthermore, it was poorly formulated with researchers asking women about their experiences and then deciding how many of them had been victims of sexual misconduct.
Regardless, the lack of credibility that this survey possessed did not stop the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights from laying out guidelines for handling reports of sexual misconduct. Among these recommendations was that reports of sexual misconduct should be evaluated on the “preponderance of evidence” rather than the more traditional “clear and convincing evidence.” This radical shift in standards of proof means that accuser only has to prove that there is a reasonable chance that a sexual assault occurred rather than having to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
It would be an understatement to say the college and university rape tribunals – and the policies that inform them – violate every legal principle and tradition of western law. American colleges and universities have created an environment in which male students can be stigmatised as sexual deviants with little to no evidence aside from an accusation. These tribunals not only violate standards of proof but the presumption of innocence, as well.
That these tribunals have decided to do away with the presumption of innocence should hardly come as a surprise. After all, the mere idea of the presumption of innocence is antithetical to human nature. It is natural for human-beings to presume that someone is guilty just because they have been accused of something. As the Roman jurist, Ulpian pointed out: the presumption of innocence flies in the face of that seductive belief that a person’s actions always result in fair and fit consequences. People like to believe that someone who has been accused of a crime must have done something to deserve it.
The presumption of innocence is the greatest legal protection the individual has against the state. It means that the state cannot convict anyone unless they can prove their guilt beyond any reasonable doubt. We should be willing to pay any price to preserve it. And we certainly shouldn’t allow extra-legal tribunals to do away with it just to satisfy their ideological proclivities.
A Man For All Seasons
It is a rare occurrence to see a film that is so memorable that it implants itself on the human psyche. A film that contains such a captivating story, compelling characters, and profound themes occurs so rarely it becomes etched into our collective unconscious. A Man for All Seasons is one of those films.
Set in Tudor England during the reign of King Henry VIII (1491 – 1547), A Man for All Seasons tells the story of Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1485 – 1536), the birth of the Church of England, and the man who stood opposed to it.
During the 1530s, King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, passed the Act of Succession (which declared Princess Mary (1516 – 1558), the King’s daughter with Catherine, illegitimate) and the Act of Supremacy (which gave Henry supreme command over the Church in England), and made himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
In A Man for All Seasons, Henry asks Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535) to disregard his own principles and express his approval of the King’s desire to divorce his wife and establish an English Church separate from Rome. Henry believes that More’s support will legitimise his actions because More is a man known for his moral integrity. Initially, Henry uses friendship and dodgy logic to convince his friend. It fails, and the so-called “defender of the faith” tries using religious arguments to justify his adultery. When this fails, he merely resorts to threats. Again, More refuses to endorse Henry’s actions.
A Man for All Seasons is really about the relationship between the law (representing the majesty of the state) and individual consciousness. In the film, Sir Thomas More is depicted as a man with an almost religious reverence for the law because he sees it as the only barrier between an ordered society and anarchy. In one scene, when William Roper the Younger (1496 – 1578) tells him he would gladly lay waste to every law in order to get at the devil, More replies that he would “give the devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.”
More’s reverence goes far beyond mere man-made law, however. He also shows a deep reverence for the laws of God, as well. After being sentenced to death, More finally breaks his silence and refers to the Act of Succession, which required people to recognise Henry’s supremacy in the Church and his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, as “directly repugnant to the law of God and His Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which no temporal person may be any law presume to take upon him.” More argues that the authority to enforce the law of God was granted to Saint Peter by Christ himself and remained the prerogative of the Bishop of Rome.
Furthermore, More argues that the Catholic Church had been guaranteed immunity from interference in both the King’s coronation oath and in Magna Carta. In his coronation oath, Henry had promised to “preserve to God and Holy Church, and to the people and clergy, entire peace and concord before God.” Similarly, the Magna Carta stated that the English people had “granted to God, and by this present charter confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.”
The central problem of the film is that the legal and political system in England is incapable of allowing More to hold a contradictory, private opinion. Even before he is appointed Chancellor, More expresses no desire to get involved with the debate surrounding the King’s marriage. He will not, however, swear an oath accepting the King’s marriage or his position as the head of the Church of England. More believes that it is the Pope who is the head of the Church, not the King, and he is perfectly willing to sacrifice his wealth, family, position, freedom, and, ultimately, his life to retain his integrity.
The relationship between the law and an individual’s conscience is an important one. What A Man for All Seasons illustrates is just how important this relationship is, and what happens when this relationship is violated. Modern proponents of social justice, identity politics, and political correctness would do well to watch A Man for All Seasons.
OUR OBSESSION OVER FOOD IS RIDICULOUS
Sometimes a civilisation can become so sophisticated that it believes it can overcome truth. We have become one of those civilisations. As a consequence of our arrogance, we have come to believe that we can circumvent some of the most fundamental truths about reality. We blame inequality on the social structure even though most social animals live in hierarchies. We believe that primitive people are noble even though mankind in its primitive state is more violent than at any other stage. And we believe that we can change the way human beings eat despite the fact that it is making us unhappy.
It is our modern obsession over diet and exercise that I would like to focus on. This obsession has arisen from a society that is too safe, too free, and too prosperous for its own good. This is not to say that safety, freedom, and prosperity are bad things. Indeed, we should get down on our knees and thank God every day that we live in a country that has these things. However, it is also true that too much safety, freedom, and prosperity breeds passivity and complacency. The hardships our ancestors faced – war, poverty, disease – are no longer problems for us. Therefore, we lack the meaning that these hardships bring to our life. As a result, we have come to invent problems. Among these has been a tendency to render the consumption of certain food as something unhealthy, unethical, or both.
Our modern obsession with food is causing significant personal problems. On the one hand, the ease in which food, especially that which is laden with sugar, is causing a rise in cases of obesity. (Note: I am using the word ‘obesity’ as a blanket term for people who are overweight). It is a uniquely modern problem. Our ancestors never battled weight gain because they were only able to find or afford enough food to keep them and their families from starving. Now the quantity, cheapness, and, in many cases, poor quality of food means that the fattest amongst are also often the poorest. But obesity is less a problem that arises out of food and more of a problem arising from laziness and gluttony. (Naturally, I am excluding health problems and genetic disorders from this conclusion).
On the other hand, however, our obsession over being skinny or muscle-bound is also causing problems. I have seen plenty of people who are clearly overweight. In rare cases, I have even seen people who are so morbidly obese that it can only be described as breathtaking. However, I have also seen women (and it primarily women, by the way) who can only be described as unnaturally thin. It is as though our society, having realised that being overweight is healthy, has decided that its opposite must be good. It isn’t. Just right is just right.
And it’s not just individuals who are subjecting themselves to this kind of self-imposed torture. And it’s not limited to people in the here and now, either. In 1998, The Independent reported that many doctors in the United Kingdom were concerned that well-meaning parents were unintentionally starving their children to death by feeding them low fat, low sugar diets. These children were said to be suffering from the effects of “muesli-belt nutrition.” They had become malnourished because either they or their parents had maintained had become obsessed with maintaining a low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt diet. The article reported: “Malnutrition, once associated with slums, is said to have become an increasing problem for middle-class families in the past fifteen years. The victim of so-called ‘muesli-belt nutrition’ are at risk of stunted growth, anaemia, learning difficulties, heart disease and diabetes.”
Our obsession over diet is really a sign of how well-off our society is. Our ancestors had neither the time nor the resources to adhere to the kind of crazy-strict diets that modern people, in their infinite stupidity, decide to subject themselves to. It is high time we stopped obsessing over food and got a grip.
DEMAND-SIDE ECONOMICS VERSUS SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS
On May 9th, 2018, the YouTube Channel, Juice Media uploaded a video entitled “Honest Government Ad: Trickle Down Economics.” In the video, the rather obnoxious and condescending female presenter tells the audience that the reason Australia has “one of the fastest growing inequality rates in the world” is trickle-down economics, which she defines as “when we [the government] piss on you and tell you it’s raining.”
According to the video, tax cuts for investors, entrepreneurs, and business are directly correlated with poverty and the lack of wage growth in Australia. The presenter argues that the government cuts taxes on the rich while simultaneously claiming that they don’t have enough money for healthcare (which would be a lot more effective if people took responsibility for their own health), renewable energy (which is really an excuse to take control of the energy market), and the ABC (which doesn’t deserve a cent of anyone’s money).
The primary problem with the video is that the premise of its argument does not actually exist. There is not a single economic theory that can be identified as trickle-down economics (also known as trickle-down theory). No reputable economist has ever used the term, nor have they ever presented an argument that could be said to conform to the idea of what it is supposed to be. As Thomas Sowell (1930 – ) wrote in his book, Basic Economics:
“There have been many economic theories over the centuries accompanies by controversies among different schools and economists, but one of the most politically prominent economic theories today is one that has never existed among economists: the trickle-down theory. People who are politically committed to policies of redistributing income and who tend to emphasise the conflicts between business and labour rather than their mutual interdependence often accuse those opposed to them of believing that benefits must be given wealthy in general, or to business in particular that these benefits will eventually trickle down to the masses of ordinary people. But no recognised economist of any school of thought has ever had any such theory or made any such proposal.”
The key to understanding why political players disparage pro-capitalist and pro-free market economic policies as trickle-down economics is understanding how economics is used to deceive and manipulate. Political players understand that simple and emotionally-charged arguments tend to be more effective because very few people understand actual economics. Anti-capitalists and anti-free marketeers, therefore, use the term trickle-down economics to disparage economic policy that disproportionately benefits the wealthy in the short term, and increases the standards of living for all peoples in the long-term
The economic theory championed by liberals (read: leftists) is demand-side economics. Classical economics rejected demand-side economic theory for two reasons. First, manipulating demands is futile because demand is the result of product, not its cause. Second, it is (supposedly) impossible to over-produce something. The French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say (1767 – 1832) demonstrated the irrelevance of demand-side economics by pointing out that demand is derived from the supply of goods and services to the market. As a consequence of the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, the British economist, David Ricardo (1772 – 1823), and other classical economists, demand-side economic theory lay dormant for more than a century.
One classical economist, however, was prepared to challenge the classical economic view of demand-side economics. The English economist, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 – 1834) challenged the anti-demand view of classical economics by arguing that the recession Great Britain experienced in the aftermath Napoleonic Wars (1803 – 1815) was caused by a failure of demand. In other words, purchasing power fell below the number of goods and services in the market. Malthus wrote:
“A nation must certainly have the power of purchasing all that it produces, but I can easily conceive it not to have the will… You have never I think taken sufficiently into consideration the wants and tastes of mankind. It is not merely the proportion of commodities to each other but their proportion to the wants and tastes of mankind that determines prices.”
Using this as his basis, Malthus argued that goods and services on the market could outstrip demand if consumers choose not to spend their money. Malthus believed that while production could increase demand, it was powerless to create the will to consume among individuals.
Demand-side economics works on the theory that economic growth can be stimulated by increasing the demand for goods and services. The American economist, J.D. Foster, the Norman B. Ture Fellow in the Economics of Fiscal Policy at the Heritage Foundation, argued that demand-side works on the theory that the economy is underperforming because the total demand is low, and, as a consequence, the supply needed to meet this demand is likewise low.
The American economist, Paul Krugman (1953 – ), and other economists believe that recessions and depressions are the results of a decrease in demand and that the most effective method of revivifying the economy is to stimulate that demand. The way to do this is to engage in large-scale infrastructure projects such as the building of bridges, railways, and highways. These projects create a greater demand for things like steel, asphalt, and so forth. And, furthermore, it provides people with a wage which they can spend on things like food, housing, clothing, entertainment, so on and so forth.
Policies based on demand-side economics aims to change the aggregate demand in the economy. Aggregate demand is consumer spending + investment + net import/export. Demand-side economics policies are either expansive or contractive. Expansive demand-side policies aim at stimulating spending during a recession. By contrast, contractive demand-side policies aim at reducing expenditure during an inflationary economy.
Demand-side policy can be split into fiscal policy and monetary policy. The purpose of fiscal policy in this regard is to increase aggregate demand. Demand-side based fiscal policy can help close the deflationary gap but is often not sustainable over the long-term and can have the effect of increasing the national debt. When such policies aim at cutting spending and increasing taxes, they tend to be politically unpopular. But when such policies that involve lowering taxes and increasing spending, they tend to be politically popular and therefore easy to execute (of course they never bother to explain where they plan to get the money from).
In terms of monetary policy, expansive demand-side economic aims at increasing aggregate demand while contractive monetary policy in demand-side economics aims at decreasing it. Monetary expansive policies are less efficient because it is less predictable and efficient than contractive policies.
Needless to say, demand-side economics has plenty of critics. According to D.W. McKenzie of the Mises Institute, demand-side economics works on the idea that “there are times when total spending in the economy will not be enough to provide employment to all want to and should be working.” McKenzie argued that the “notion that economics as a whole, sometimes lacks sufficient drive derives from a faulty set of economic doctrines that focus on the demand side of the aggregate economy.” Likewise, Thomas Sowell argued in Supply-Side Politics that there is too much emphasis placed on demand-side economics to the detriment of supply-side economics. He wrote in an article for Forbes:
“If Keynesian economics stressed the supposed benefit of having government manipulate aggregate demand, supply-side economics stressed what the marketplace could accomplish, one it was freed from government control and taxes.”
John Maynard Keynes
The man who greatly popularised demand-side economics was the British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946). Keynes, along with many other economists, analysed the arguments of the classical economists against the realities of the Great Depression. Their analysis led many economists to question the arguments of the classical economists. They noted that classical economics failed to answer how financial disasters like the Great Depression could happen.
Keynesian economics challenged the views of the classical economists. In his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (one of the foundational texts on the subject of modern macroeconomics) Keynes revivified demand-side economics. According to Keynes, output is determined by the level of aggregate demand. Keynes argued that resources are not scarce in many cases, but that they are underutilised due to a lack of demand. Therefore, an increase in production requires an increase in demand. Keynes’ concluded that when this occurs it is the duty of the government to raise output and total employment by stimulating aggregate demand through fiscal and monetary policy.
The Great Depression is often seen as a failure of capitalism. It popularised Keynesian economics and monetary central planning which, together, “eroded and eventually destroyed the great policy barrier – that is, the old-time religion of balanced budgets – that had kept America relatively peaceful Republic until 1914.”
David Stockman of the Mises Institute argues that the Great Depression was the result of the delayed consequences of the Great War (1914 – 1918) and financial deformations created by modern central banking. However, the view that the Great Depression was a failure of capitalism is not one shared by every economist. The American economist, Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006), for example, argued that the Great Depression was a failure of monetary policy. Friedman pointed out that the total quantity of money in the United States – currency, bank deposits, and so forth – between 1929 and 1933 declined by one-third. He argued that the Federal Reserve had failed to prevent the decline of the quantity of money despite having the power and obligation to do so. According to Friedman, had the Federal Reserve acted to prevent the decline in the quantity of money, the United States (and subsequently, the world) would only have suffered a “garden variety recession” rather than a prolonged economic depression.
It is not possible to determine the exact dimensions of the Great Depression using quantitative data. What is known, however, is that it caused a great deal of misery and despair among the peoples of the world. Failed macroeconomic policies combined with negative shocks caused the economic output of several countries to fall between twenty-five and thirty-percent between 1929 and 1932/33. In America between 1929 and 1933, production in mines, factories, and utilities fell by more than fifty-percent, stock prices collapsed to 1/10th of what they had been prior to the Wall Street crash, real disposable income fell by twenty-eight percent, and unemployment rose from 1.6 to 12.8 million.
According to an article for the Foundation for Economic Education, What Caused the Great Depression, the Great Depression occurred in three phases. First, the rise of “easy money policies” caused an economic boom followed by a subsequent crash. Second, following the crash, President Herbert Hoover (1874 – 1964) attempted to suppress the self-adjusting aspect of the market by engaging in interventionist policies. This caused a prolonged recession and prevented recovery. Hourly rates dropped by fifty-percent, millions lost their jobs (a reality made worse by the absence of unemployment insurance), prices on agricultural products dropped to their lowest point since the Civil War (1861 – 1865), more than thirty-thousand businesses failed, and hundreds of banks failed. Third, in 1933, the lowest point of the Depression, the newly-elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) combatted the economic crisis by using “new deal” economic policies to expand interventionist measures into almost every facet of the American economy.
Let’s talk about the New Deal a little bit more. The New Deal was the name for the Keynesian-based economic policies that President Roosevelt used to try and end the Great Depression. It included forty-seven Congress-approved programs that abandoned laissez-faire capitalism and enacted the kind of social and economic reforms that Europe had enjoyed for more than a generation. Ultimately, the New Deal aimed to create jobs, provide relief for farmers, boost manufacturing by building partnerships between the private and public sectors, and stabilise the US financial system.
The New Deal was largely inspired by the events of the Great War. During the War, the US Government had managed to increase economic activity by establishing planning boards to set wages and prices. President Roosevelt took this as proof positive that it was government guidance, not private business, that helped grow the economy. However, Roosevelt failed to realise that the increase in economic activity during the Great War came as the result of inflated war demands, not as the achievement of government planning. Roosevelt believed, falsely, that it was better to have government control the economy in times of crisis rather than relying on the market to correct itself.
The New Deal came in three waves. During his first hundred days in office, President Roosevelt approved the Emergency Banking Act, Government Economy Act, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act, Agricultural Adjustment Act, Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, the Security Act, Abrogation of Gold Payment Clause, the Home Owners Refinancing Act, the Glass-Steagall Banking Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act, and the Civil Works Administration.
In 1934, President Roosevelt bolstered his initial efforts by pushing through the Gold Reserve Act, the National Housing Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Federal Communications Act.
In 1935, the Supreme Court rejected the National Industrial Act. President Roosevelt, concerned that other New Deal programs could also be in jeopardy, embarked on a litany of programs that would help the poor, the unemployed, and farmers. Second-wave New Deal programs included Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act, Emergency Relief Appropriation, the Rural Electrification Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Resettlement Act, and the Social Securities Act.
In 1937, Roosevelt unleashed the third wave of the New Deal by aiming to combat budget deficits. It included the United States Housing Act (Wagner-Steagall), the Bonneville Power Administration, the Farm Tenancy Act, the Farm Security Administration, the Federal National Mortgage, the New Agriculture Adjustment Act, and the Labor Standards Act.
According to the historical consensus, the New Deal proved effective in boosting the American economy. Economic growth increased by 1.8% in 1935, 12.9% in 1936, and 3.3% in 1937. It built schools, roads, hospitals, and more, prevented the collapse of the banking system, reemployed millions, and restored confidence among the American people.
Some even claim that the New Deal didn’t go far enough. Adam Cohen, the author of Nothing to Fear: FDR’s Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America, claims that the longevity of the Depression (the American economy didn’t return to pre-depression prosperity until the 1950s) is evidence that more New Deal spending was needed. Cohen commented that the New Deal had the effect of steadily increasing GDP (gross domestic product) and reducing unemployment. And, which is more, it reimagined the US Federal government as a welfare provider, a stock-market regulator, and a helper of people in financial difficulty.
However, the historical consensus is not to say that the New Deal is without its critics. The New Deal was criticised by many conservative businessmen for being too socialist. Others, such as Huey Long (1893 – 1935), criticised it for failing to do enough for the poor. Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1891 – 1967), the Secretary of the Treasury, confessed before Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee on May 9th, 1939 that the New Deal had failed as public policy. According to Morgenthau, it failed to produce an economic recovery and did not erase historic unemployment. Instead, it created a recession – the Roosevelt Recession – in 1937, failed to adequately combat unemployment because it created jobs that were only temporary, became the costliest government program in US history, and wasted money.
Conservatives offer supply-side economics as an alternative to demand-side economics. Supply-side economics aims at increasing aggregate supply. According to supply-side economics, the best way to stimulate economic growth or recovery is to lower taxes and thus increase the supply of goods and services. This increase leads, in turn, to lower prices and higher standards of living.
The lower-taxes policy has proved quite popular with politicians. The American businessman and industrialist, Andrew Mellon (1855 – 1937) argued for lower taxes in the 1920s, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963) argued for lower taxes in the 1960s, and both President Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) and President George Walker Bush (1946 – ) lowered taxes in the 1980s and 2000s, respectively.
Supply-side economics works on the principle that producers will create new and better products if they are allowed to keep their money. Put simply, supply-side economics (supply merely refers to the production of goods and services) works on the theory that cutting taxes on entrepreneurs, investors, and business-people incentives them to invest more in their endeavours. This money can be invested in capital – industrial machinery, factories, software, office buildings, and so forth.
The idea that lower taxes lead to greater economic prosperity is one of the central tenants of supply-side economics. Supporters of supply-side economics believe that providing financial benefits for investors (cutting capital gains tax, for example) stimulates economic growth. By contrast, high taxes, especially those metered out on businesses, discourage investment and encourages stagnation.
Tax rates and tax revenue are not the same thing, they can move in opposite directions depending on economic factors. The revenue collected from income tax for each year of the Reagan Presidency was higher than the revenues collected during any year of any previous Presidency. It can be argued that people change their economic behaviour according to the way they are taxed. The problem with increasing taxes on the rich is that the rich will use legal, and sometimes illegal, strategies for avoiding paying it. A businessman who is forced to pay forty-percent of his business’ profits on taxation is less likely to increase his productivity. As a consequence, high tax rates on businesses leads to economic stagnation.
Supply-side supporters use Arthur Laffer’s (1940 – ) – an advisor to President Ronald Regan – Laffer Curve to argue that lower taxes lead to higher tax revenue. The Laffer curve showed the dichotomy between tax revenue and the amount of tax that is collected. Laffer’s idea that the more taxation increased, the more tax revenue is collected. However, if taxes are increased beyond a certain point, less revenue is collected because people are no longer willing to make an economic contribution.
Taxation only works when the price of engaging in productive behaviour is likewise reduced. Daniel Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation stated in an article entitled a “Supply-Side” Success Story, that tax cuts are not created equally. Mitchell wrote: “Tax cuts based on the Keynesian notion of putting money in people’s pockets in the form of rebates and credits do not work. Supply-side cuts, by contrast, do improve economic performance because they reduce tax rates on work, saving, and investment.” Mitchell used the differences between the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as evidence for his argument. Mitchell pointed out that tax collections fell after the 2001 tax cuts whereas they grew by six-percent annually after the 2003 cuts. Mitchell points out that job numbers declined after the 2001 cuts whereas net job creation averaged more than 150,000 after the 2003 cuts. Mitchell points out that economic growth averaged 1.9% after the 2001 tax cuts, compared to 4.4% after the 2003 cuts.
Proposals to cut taxes have always been characterised by its opponents as “tax cuts for the rich.” The left believes that tax cuts, especially cuts on the top rate of tax, does not spur economic growth for lower and middle-class people and only serves to widen income inequality. They argue that tax cuts benefit the wealthy because they invest their newfound money in enterprises that benefit themselves. Bernie Sanders (1941 – ), the Independent Senator from Vermont, has argued that “trickle-down economics” is pushed by lobbyists and corporations to expand the wealth of the rich. Whilst opponents of President Ronal Reagan’s tax cuts likewise referred to the policy as “trickle-down economics.”
In reality, the left-wing slander of tax cuts can best be described as “tax lies for the gullible.” The rich do not become wealthy by spending frivolously or by hiding their money under the mattress. The rich become rich because they are prepared to invest their money in new products and ventures that will generate greater wealth. In reality, it is far more prudent to give an investor, entrepreneur, or business owner a tax cut because they are more likely to use their newfound wealth more prudently.
According to Prateek Agarwal at Intelligent Economist, supply-side economics is useful for lowering the natural rate of unemployment. Thomas Sowell, a supporter of supply-side economics, claims that while tax cuts are applied primarily to the wealthy, it is the working and middle classes who are the first and primary beneficiaries. This occurs because the wealthy, in Sowell’s view, are more likely to invest more money in their businesses which will provide jobs for the working class.
The purpose of economic policy is to facilitate the economic independence of their citizens by encouraging economic prosperity. Demand-side economics and supply-side economics represent two different approaches to achieving this endeavour. Demand-side economics argues that economic prosperity can be achieved by having the government increase demand by taking control of the economy. By contrast, supply-side economics, which is falsely denounced as “trickle-down economics” by the likes of people like Juice Media, champions the idea that the best way to achieve economic prosperity is by withdrawing, as far as humanly possible, government interference from the private sector of the economy. Supply-side economics is the economic philosophy of freedom, demand-side economics is not.
CIVILISATION IN TERMINAL DECLINE
Our society appears to be suffering a terminal decline. At least that’s the conclusion traditionalists and devout Christian believers like myself have been forced to conclude. As the old-world withers and vanishes, a culture of selfishness, moral relativism, and general immorality has been allowed to grow in its place. The culture that produced Vivaldi, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Aristotle has been replaced with one that has as its major ambassadors the likes of Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber.
The first clue that a monumental change had taken place came in the guise of Princess Diana’s farce of a funeral in 1997. An event that was cynically exploited by politicians and celebrities and recorded for public consumption by round-the-clock news coverage (her funeral would be watched by two-and-a-half-billion people). As Gerry Penny of The Conversation noted, Diana’s death marked the beginning of the ‘mediated death.’ A death that is covered by the mass media in such a way that it attracts as much public attention, and therefore revenue, as possible.
Compared to Princess Diana, Winston Churchill’s funeral in 1965 was a spectacle of old world pomp and ceremony. After lying in state for three days, Churchill’s small coffin was carried by horse-drawn carriage along the historic streets of London to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. His procession was accompanied by Battle of Britain aircrews, royal marines, lifeguards, three chiefs of staff, Lord Mountbatten, and his own family. The silence that filled the air was broken only by a funerary march and the occasional honorary gunshot.
Much like Diana’s funeral, tens of thousands of people came to witness Churchill’s funeral. But unlike Diana’s mourners, who did everything they could to draw attention to themselves, Churchill’s mourners were silent and respectful. They realised, unlike Diana’s mourners, that the best way to commemorate a great man was to afford him the respect that his legacy deserved.
Cynics would dismiss Churchill’s funeral as nothing more than a ridiculous display of pomp and ceremony. However, these events serve an important cultural purpose by connecting the individual with his community, his culture, and his heritage. In doing so, they bring about order and harmony.
Winston Churchill was the great Briton of the 20th century. Like Horatio Lord Nelson in the early 19th century, it was Churchill’s leadership that saved Britain from Nazi invasion and it was his strength and resolve that gave ordinary Britons that courage to endure the worst periods of the War.
And understandably, many Britons felt something approximating a kind of personal gratitude towards him. A gratitude deep enough that when he died many felt it to be their duty to file reverently pass his body lying in state or stand in respectful silence as his funeral procession passed. What Churchill’s state funeral did was give the ordinary person the opportunity to pay their own respects and feel that they had played a part, if only in a minute way, in the celebration of his life.
Winston Churchill’s funeral and Princess Diana’s funeral represent eras that are as foreign to one another as Scotland is to Nepal. While Churchill’s funeral represented heritage and tradition, Princess Diana’s funeral symbolised mass nihilism and self-centredness.
But why has this happened? I believe the answer lies in the dual decline of Western culture and Christianity.
The French philosopher, Chantal Delsol described modern Western culture as being akin to Icarus had he survived the fall. (Icarus, of course, being the figure in Greek mythology whose wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun). Where once it had been strong, resolute, and proud, it has now become weak, dejected, disappointed, and disillusioned. We have lost confidence in our own traditions and ideals.
Of course, the decline of Western culture has a direct correlation with the more consequential decline of Christianity. It is faith that informs culture and creates civilisation, and the faith that has informed the West has been Christianity. It is the moral ideals rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition – that I love my neighbour, that my behaviour in this life will determine my fate in the next, that I should forgive my enemies – that form the axiomatic principles that undergird Western civilisation.
This faith has been replaced by an almost reverent belief in globalism, feminism, environmentalism, diversity, equality, and human rights. Our secularism has made us believe that those who came before us were ignorant, superstitious, and conformist. And what has the result of this loss of mass religiosity been? Mass nihilism and a decline in moral values.
But when faith falls so too does culture and civilisation. If we are to revive our civilisation, we must be prepared to acknowledge that tradition, heritage, and religion are not only integral, but vital.
LOWER THE VOTING AGE TO SIXTEEN? LET’S NOT
According to an article in the Sunday Mail entitled, “Vote #1 16 and Give Our Youth Their Say”, the South Australian Youth Affairs Council has responded to Business SA’s campaign to halt the disastrous mass exodus of youth from the state by pushing the State government to lower the voting age to sixteen.
The proposition has had a mixed response from the state’s major political parties. It has garnered support from the Australian Greens, and has had received an ambiguous nod of approval from the Labour Party, although Jay Weatherill has admitted that “Labour has no plans to take such a policy to this election.”
By contrast, the SA Liberal Party has reaffirmed its decision to leave the voting age where it is. Meanwhile, Nick Xenophon concurred but added that eighteen-year-olds need better education to be better voters.
Young people have often been used as pawns by the far left. They are perfectly prepared to “let children speak for adults” when the views they espouse align with their position. They are decidedly less willing when it doesn’t. Indeed, part of the motivation for giving sixteen-year-olds the vote is that they are far more likely to be fooled into voting for the kind of lunatic, far-left policies that most reasonable adults won’t.
Teenagers lack the cognitive development, life experience, and emotional maturity to make wise and informed decisions. For all their merits, young people can be reckless, impulsive, and self-centred. As a consequence, they often act without considering the long-term consequences their actions have on themselves or others.
In Britain, those who wish to lower the voting age typically talk about “seeding respect for the political process” and “increasing civic engagement.” However, lowering the voting age is not the way to do this. The true answer to “seeding respect for the political process” and “increasing civic engagement” is to educate youth on the political process, and foster a culture of responsibility and community engagement. As the conservative Youtube star, Roaming Millennial reminded her audiences, voting is a responsibility, not just a right.
THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC
This is our weekly theological article.
If there is any philosophical or moral principle that can be credited with the prosperity of the Western capitalist societies it would have to be the Protestant work ethic. This ethic asserts that a person’s success in this life is a visible sign of their salvation in the next. As a result, the Protestant work ethic encourages hard work, self-reliance, literacy, diligence, frugality, and the reinvestment profits.
Prior to the Reformation, not much spiritual stock was placed on labour. The Roman Catholic Church placed more value on monastic prayer than on manual labour. Much would change when the German monk, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546), nailed his ninety-five theses on the door of the All Saint’s Church in Wittenberg. Luther railed against the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences as a way of avoiding purgatorial punishment. Luther asserted faith over work believing that a person could be set right with God through faith alone. It was Luther’s opinion that an individual should remain in the vocation God had called them to and should work to earn an income, rather than the accumulation of wealth. This belief stood in stark contrast to the Catholic Church’s philosophy that relief from eternal torment came from Godly rewards for good works. By contrast, the second great Protestant, John Calvin (1509 – 1564), believed that faith and hard work were inextricably linked. Calvin’s theory came from his revolutionary idea of predestination, which asserted that only certain people were called into grace and salvation. It is from this that the Protestant work ethic is borne.
As a consequence, many Protestants worked hard to prove to themselves that they had been preselected for a seat in heaven. A result of this extreme predilection towards hard-work was an increase in economic prosperity.
The French sociologist, Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917), believed that capitalism was built on a system that encouraged a strong work ethic and delayed gratification. Similarly, the German sociologist, Max Weber (1864 – 1920), argued in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905) that America’s success boiled down to the Protestant work ethic. It was asserted as the key idea that would encourage individuals to move up the social ladder and achieve economic independence. Weber noted that Protestants – particularly Calvinists, were largely responsible for early twentieth-century business success.
The Protest work ethic is credited with the United States’ economic and political rise in the 19th and 20th centuries. As the political scientist, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 1859), wrote in Democracy in America (1835):
“I see the whole destiny of America contained in the first Puritan who landed on its shore. They will to their descendants the most appropriate habits, ideas, and mores to make a republic.”
A study in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology found that nations with a majority Protestant population enjoyed higher rates of employment. The economist, Horst Feldman, analysed data from eighty countries and found that countries with majority Protestant populations – America, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway – had employment rates six-percent higher than countries where other religious beliefs were practised. (Furthermore, the female employment rate in Protestant countries is eleven-percent higher). Feldman explained how the legacy of Protestantism led to increased prosperity:
“In the early days, Protestantism promoted the virtue of hard and diligent work among its adherents, who judged one another by conformity to this standard. Originally, an intense devotion to one’s work was meant to assure oneself that one was predestined for salvation. Although the belief in predestination did not last more than a generation or two after the Reformation, the ethic of work continued.”
The Protestant work ethic is one of those Christian ideas that have helped create Western capitalist democracies in all their glory. It is yet another example of the influence that Christianity has had on the modern world.
Free Speech Matters
There has been an alarming trend in modern culture: numerous political and social activist groups have been attempting to use the pernicious and false doctrines of political correctness, tolerance, and diversity to silence those they disagree with. Many of these groups have sought the passage of so-called “hate speech” laws designed to silence voices of dissent.
At public colleges and universities, places where free speech and open debate should be actively encouraged, measures – including protests, disruption, and, in some cases, outright violence – taken to suppress voices of dissent has become tantamount to Government censorship. This censorship prevents students from inviting the speakers they wish to hear and debate speech they disagree with. Eva Fourakis, the editor-in-chief of The Williams Record (the student newspaper of Williams College) wrote an editorial, later recanted, commenting that “some speech is too harmful to invite to campus.” The editorial went on to say: “students should not face restrictions in terms of the speakers they bring to campus, provided of course that these speakers do not participate in legally recognised forms of hate speech.”
The University of California, Berkeley, is famous for sparking the free speech movement of the 1960s. Today, however, it has become a haven for radical, anti-free speech Neo-Marxists and social justice warriors. Not only have many Republican students had their personal property destroyed, but numerous conservative speakers have had their talks disturbed, and, in some cases, halted altogether. In February, Antifa – so-called anti-fascists – set fires and vandalised building during a speech by the controversial journalist, Milo Yiannopoulos (1984 – ). In April, threats of violence aimed at members of the Young Americas Foundation forced political commentator, Ann Coulter (1961 – ), to cancel her speech. A speech by David Horowitz (1939 – ), founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, was cancelled after organisers discovered that the event would take place during normal class times (for safety, or so they claimed). Finally, the conservative journalist, Ben Shapiro (1984 – ), was forced to spend US$600,000 on security for his speech at UC Berkeley. These events show that those who wish to use disruption, vilification, threats, and outright violence to silence others can be, and often are, successful in doing so.
Like most the principles of classical liberalism, free speech developed through centuries of political, legal, and philosophical progress. And like many Western ideas, its development can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks. During his trial in Athens in 399BC, Socrates (470BC – 399BC) expressed the belief that the ability to speak was man’s most divine gift. “If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind”, Socrates stated, “I should say to you, ‘Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you.”
Sixteen hundred years later, in 1215, the Magna Carta became the founding document of English liberty. In 1516, Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536) wrote in the Education of a Christian Prince that “in a free state, tongues too should be free.” In 1633, the astronomist Galileo Galilei was put on trial by the Catholic Church for refusing to retract his claim of a heliocentric solar system. In 1644, the poet, John Milton (1608 – 1674), author of Paradise Lost, warned in Areopagictica that “he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.” Following the usurpation of King James II (1633 – 1701) by William III (1650 – 1702) and Mary II (1662 – 1694) in 1688, the English Parliament passed the English Bill of Rights which guaranteed free elections, regular parliaments, and freedom of speech in Parliament.
In 1789, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, an important document of the French revolution, provided for freedom of speech (needless to say, Robespierre and company were not very good at actually promoting this ideal). That same year, the philosopher Voltaire (1694 – 1778) famously wrote: “I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” Over in the United States, in 1791, the first amendment of the US Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right to assemble:
ARTICLE [I] (AMENDMENT 1 – FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGION)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
During the 19th century, the British philosopher, John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) argued for toleration and individuality in his 1859 essay, On Liberty. “If any opinion is compelled to silence”, Mill warned, “that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to presume our own infallibility.” Mill believed that all doctrines, no matter how immoral or offensive, ought to be given public exposure. He stated in On Liberty:
“If the argument of the present chapter are of any validity, there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.”
Elsewhere in On Liberty, Mill warned that the suppression of one voice was as immoral as the suppression of all voices:
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
Centuries later, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, accepted unilaterally by the United Nations, urged member states to promote civil, human, economic, social, and political rights – including freedom of expression and religion.
Supreme Court
Within the American Justice System, numerous Supreme Court cases have created judicial protections for freedom of speech. In the case of the Nationalist Socialist Party of America v. Village of Stoke (1977), the Supreme Court upheld the right of neo-Nazis to march through a village with a large Jewish population and wear Nazi insignia. The Justices found that the promotion of religious hatred was not a sufficient reason to restrict free speech.
In the city of St. Paul during the early 1990s, a white teenager was arrested under the “Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance” after he burnt a cross made of a broken chair (cross-burning is commonly used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate African Americans) in the front yard of an African American family. The Court ruled that the city’s Ordinance was unconstitutional. Justice Antonin Scalia (1936 – 2016), noted that the purpose of restricting fighting words was to prevent civil unrest, not to ban the content or message of the speaker’s words. Scalia wrote in the case of R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992):
“The ordinance applies only to ‘fighting words’ that insult, or provoke violence, ‘on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion or gender.’ Displays containing abusive invective, no matter how vicious or severe, are permissible unless they are addressed to one of the specified disfavored topics. Those who wish to use ‘fighting words’ in connection with other ideas—to express hostility, for example, on the basis of political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality—are not covered. The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects.”
In the Matal v. Tam case (2017), the Supreme Court found that a provision within the Lanham Act prohibiting the registration of trademarks that disparaged persons, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols violated the First Amendment. Justice Samuel Alito (1950 – ) opined:
“[The idea that the government may restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend … strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate’.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy (1936 – ) opined:
“A law found to discriminate based on viewpoint is an “egregious form of content discrimination,” which is “presumptively unconstitutional.” … A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.”
In recent years, numerous calls to ban speech have been justified on the basis that it is “hateful.” Much of this has come from the political left who (in what one may cynically regard as having more to do with silencing voices of dissent than with protecting vulnerable groups) argue that restrictions on hate speech must occur if minorities are to be given equal status with everyone else.
That certain types of speech can be offensive, and that some of that speech may be aimed at certain groups of people, is undeniable. Hate speech has even been criticised for undermining democracy! In an article, Alexander Tsesis, Professor of Law at Loyola University, wrote: “hate speech is a threatening form of communication that is contrary to democratic principles.” Some have even argued that hate speech violates the fourteenth amendment to the US Constitution which guarantees equal protection under the law:
Article XIV (AMENDMENT 14 – RIGHTS GUARANTEED: PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES OF CITIZENSHIP, DUE PROCESS, AND EQUAL PROTECTION)
1: All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
That there is a historical basis for restricting hate speech is undeniable. Slavery, Jim Crow, and the Holocaust, among other atrocities, were all proceeded by violent and hateful rhetoric. (Indeed, incitement to genocide is considered a serious war crime and a serious crime against humanity under international law.) Genocide is almost always preceded by hate speech. However, what proponents of hate speech laws fail to realise is that the countries that perpetrated these atrocities did not extend the freedom to speak to the groups that they were targeting. Joseph Goebbels (1897 – 1945), the Nazi minister for public enlightenment and propaganda, for example, had such an iron grip on Germany’s media that any voice contradicting the Nazi’s anti-Semitic propaganda had no opportunity to be heard.
But who, exactly, supports hate speech laws? Analysis of survey data taken from Pew Research Center and YouGov reveals that it is primarily non-white, millennial democrats. In terms of age, the Pew Research Centre found that forty-percent of millennials supported Government censorship of hate speech, compared to twenty-seven percent of gen x-ers, twenty-four percent of baby-boomers, and only twelve percent of the silent generation.
In terms of race, research by YouGov reveals that sixty-two percent of African Americans support Government censorship of hate speech, followed by fifty percent of Hispanics, and thirty-six percent of White Americans.
In terms of political affiliation, research from YouGov taken in 2015 found that fifty-one percent of Democrats supported restrictions on hate speech, compared to thirty-seven percent of Republicans, and only thirty-five percent of independents.
The primary issue with hate speech is that determining what it does and does not constitute is very difficult. (The cynic may argue, fairly, that hate speech begins when the speaker expresses a view or states a fact or expresses an opinion that another person does not want others to hear.) As Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) pointed out, the central problem with hate speech is that someone has to decide what it does and does not constitute.
The second issue with hate speech laws is that they can easily be used by one group to silence another. Often this kind of censorship is aimed at particular groups of individuals purely for ideological and/or political purposes, often with the justification that such actions increase the freedom and equality of the people the advocates claim to represent.
In Canada, Bill C-16 has sought to outlaw “hate propaganda” aimed at members of the community distinguishable by their gender identity or expression. The Bill originated with a policy paper by the Ontario Human Rights Commission which sought to determine what constituted discrimination against gender identity and expression. This included “refusing to refer to a person by their self-identified name and proper personal pronoun.” Supporters of Bill C-16 see it as an important step towards the creation of legal protections for historically marginalised groups. Detractors, however, have expressed concern that the Bill creates a precedence for Government mandated speech.
The Canadian clinical psychologist and cultural critic, Professor Jordan Peterson (1962 – ), first came to public attention when he posted a series of YouTube videos warning of the dangers of political correctness and criticising Bill C-16. In his videos, Professor Peterson warned that the law could be used to police speech and compel individuals to use ‘transgender pronouns’ (these are terms like ‘ze’ and ‘zer’, among others). For his trouble, Peterson has been accused of violence by a fellow panellist on the Agenda with Steve Palkin, received two warning letters from the University of Toronto in 2016, and was denied a social research grant from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
A Nazi torch-light rally.
Europe has been experiencing similar attempts to silence speech. A law passed in the Bundestag this year will force social media companies operating in Germany to delete racist or slanderous comments and posts within twenty-four hours or face a fine of up to €50 million if they fail to do so. Additionally, numerous public figures have found themselves charged with hate speech crimes for merely pointing out the relationship between the large influx of non-European migrants and high crime rates, particularly in terms of rape and terrorism. One politician in Sweden was prosecuted for daring to post immigrant crime statistics on Facebook.
In Great Britain, British Freedom of Information documents reveal that around twenty-thousand adults and two-thousand children had been investigated by the police for comments that made online. In politics, British MP, Paul Weston (1965 – ), found himself arrested after he quoted a passage on Islam written by Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965). In Scotland, a man was charged under the 2003 Communication’s Act with the improper use of electronic communications after he filmed his dog making a Hitler salute.
In Australia, Herald Sun columnist, Andrew Bolt (1959 – ), was found to have contravened section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act after he published articles accusing fair-skinned Aborigines of using their racial status for personal advantages. The law firm, Holding Redlich, speaking for a group of Aboriginal persons, demanded that the Herald Sun retract two Andrew Bolt articles, written in April and August of 2009, and restrain Bolt from writing similar articles in the future. Joel Zyngier, who acted for the group pro-bono, told Melbourne’s The Age:
“We see it as clarifying the issue of identity—who gets to say who is and who is not Aboriginal. Essentially, the articles by Bolt have challenged people’s identity. He’s basically arguing that the people he identified are white people pretending they’re black so they can access public benefits.”
Judge Morcedai Bromberg (1959 – ) found that the people targeted by Bolt’s articles were reasonably likely to have been “offended, insulted, humiliated, or intimidated.”
We need speech to be as free as possible because it is that which allows us to exchange and critique information. It through free speech that we are able to keep our politicians and public officials in check, that we are able to critique public policy, and that we are able to disseminate information. As the Canadian cognitive psychologist, Stephen Pinker (1954 – ), observed: “free speech is the only way to acquire knowledge about the world.” Measures taken to restrict free speech, whether it be the criminalization of hate speech or any other, is a complete contradiction of the principles that free Western democracies are founded upon.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946)
This week for our weekly cultural article we will be examining the David Lean’s (1908 – 1991) 1946 film Great Expectations, considered to be one of the greatest British films ever made. When it was released in 1946, it was met with glowing reviews. Today, seventy years later, it has been described by Criterion as “one of the greatest translations of literature into film.”
David Lean’s Great Expectations captures the essence of Charles Dicken’s (1812 – 1870) literary genius by juxtaposing his memorable characters with the artful film direction of David Lean. Leans use of black and white to add to the foreboding and melancholy atmosphere of the film. Then there are the numerous dark, creepy, rundown, and ultimately human locations that burn themselves into the memory: the creepy graveyard where a young Pip first meets escaped convict Abel Magwitch, the Kentish marshes, Miss Havisham’s dilapidated and macabre home whose clocks are stopped at the exact time Miss Havisham learnt of her fiance’s betrayal, 19th century London, Mr. Jagger’s offices whose walls are decorated with the death masks of defendants lost to the gallows, the prison where Magwitch dies, and so forth.
Then there are the wealth of memorable characters the film presents to us. The most notable of these is Pip through whom we see all of the tragedy and injustice of early 19th century England. Pip acts as more of an observer to the world around him than an actual protagonist. We first meet Pip (Anthony Wager, 1932 – 1990) as a young orphan being raised by his overbearing older sister (Freda Jackson, 1907 – 1990) and her kindly blacksmith husband (Bernard Miles, 1907 – 1991). It is during this time that Pip first encounters Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie, 1878 – 1960), a kind yet ultimately decent escaped convict, in the cemetery, and when his heart is broken by the coquettish Estella (Jean Simmons, 1929 – 2010) and the dishevelled and deranged Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt, 1900 – 1969).
As the film progresses, we see Pip grow into a young man, played by John Mills (1908 – 2005), who, it could be argued, was perhaps a little too old to play Pip in his early twenties. This Pip has been bequeathed a large allowance by an unknown benefactor and travels to London with the view of becoming a gentleman. There he forms a friendship with the Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness, 1914 – 2000) who helps him refine his manners. The adult Pip finds himself corrupted by the ponce and ceremony of the English upper-class and is ashamed to admit that he would have paid money to keep Joe Gargery, dressed in his cheap suit and awkward manner, away. Pip is forced to reexamine his views after discovering that his benefactor is none other than the escaped convict Magwitch, who was so struck by Pip’s childhood compassion that he was inspired to make something of himself and become his benefactor. Magwitch’s kindness and gratitude cause Pip to regain his lost humanity.
Great expectations represents a type of film that no longer exists: one that deals entirely with the human condition. These films are no longer made because they often do not involve exciting elements, but rather present characters that are flawed and suffering and places these characters in stories that are essentially tragic in nature. These films are no longer made because they do not fit into the blockbuster formula. Rather than the larger-than-life heroes of the blockbuster, films on the human condition feature characters that are ultimately flawed and suffering. These characters are placed in stories that are ultimately tragic in their nature. A far cry from the often over-the-top plots of the modern blockbuster. There is something deeply satisfying about films like Great Expectations which shows normal people to be capable of leading a dignified existence regardless of the tragedy and suffering they are forced to face.
