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20 – 1 CONSERVATIVES JOURNALISTS
In today’s world of twenty-four-hour news cycles, infinite information, and endless news sources, knowing who to trust has become a virtually impossible task. To make this endeavour easier, I have compiled a list of the twenty conservative journalists, thinkers, and speakers I rely upon.
20. DAVE RUBIN
David Joshua Rubin (born 1976 in Brooklyn, New York) is a television personality, talk show host, and comedian. With a degree in political science from Birmingham University, Rubin was originally a host on The Young Turks before becoming the host of the popular, crowd-funded Youtube talk show, The Rubin Report.
The show, which has over half-a-million subscribers, features guests from both the political left and the political right and has been praised for its honest and politically incorrect approach to complex issues. Rubin, who considers himself a classical liberal, encourages discussion on all topics, no matter how controversial they might be.
Rubin is passionate about illustrating the difference between liberals and progressives and is responsible for popularising the expression “regressive left.” He has commented on issues like political correctness, free speech, mass media, religion, and more.
19. ANDREW BOLT
Andrew Bolt (born 1959 in Adelaide, Australia) is a journalist, editor, columnist, radio host, and television host. Armed with an arts degree from Adelaide University, Bolt began his career with a cadetship with The Age. Later he would move to The Herald where he worked as the paper’s Asian correspondent: fist in Hong Kong and then in Bangkok.
Bolt is known for his socially and politically conservative views. He has been at the forefront of many social and political debates and has talked about environmentalism, Islam, and many other topics. Radio host, Alan Jones referred to Bolt as a man who “sticks his head up (…) writing with clarity and conviction.” His columns and articles are published in The Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Advertiser, Northern Territory News, and The Courier News. He can be seen weeknights on The Bolt Report on Sky News.
18. MIRANDA DEVINE
Miranda Devine (born in the 1960s as the daughter of the legendary newspaperman, Frank Devine) is an Australian conservative columnist. With a degree in journalism from Chicago’s North-West University and a bachelor of science from Macquarie University, Devine began her career working for the Boston Herald as a feature writer and reporter. She returned to Sydney in 1989 and took up a position at the Daily Telegraph. Whilst Devine primarily works for The Daily Telegraphs, her columns are also published in The Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Herald Sun, and the Sunday Times. Devine also formerly hosted the Miranda Devine Show on 2GB radio until it was cancelled in 2015.
17. KATIE HOPKINS
Katie Olivia Hopkins (born 1975 in Devon, England) is a television personality, radio presenter, and columnist. Bursting onto the scene in The Apprentice, Hopkins has made a name for herself as a professional provocateur, writing for The Sun since 2013, and The Daily Mail from 2015 t 2017.
Holding no punches, Hopkins has tackled topics ranging from ginger-haired babies and social class to obesity and Islamic terrorism. She has been involved in numerous media stunts. In 2015, Hopkins gained and then lost a significant amount of weight to prove that obesity was caused by lifestyle and not genetics.
16. GLENN BECK
Glenn Lee Beck (born 1964 in Washington) is a talk show host, producer, entrepreneur, and political commentator. He is a defender of the US Constitution and is a supporter of free markets and individual liberties. Beck is the founder of The Blaze, a conservative news site in 2011 and owns Mercury Ink, a publishing imprint, in a partnership with Simon and Schuster. Beck’s radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is nationally syndicated and is one of the most popular radio programs in America. He is married with four children.
15. MICHELLE MALKIN
Michelle Malkin (born Michelle Maglalang in 1970 in Philadelphia) is a television personality, blogger, syndicated columnist, and the author of six books, including: Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores (2002), In Defence of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War Two and the War on Terror (2004), Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (2005), Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (2009), Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs (2015), and Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels are Screwing America’s Best and Brightest Workers (2015).
Malkin started her career at the Los Angeles Daily News in 1992. In 1996, she moved to the Seattle Times. Since then she has founded Twitchy and Hot Air, has had her popular newspaper columns nationally syndicated through Creators Syndicate, has been a frequent contributor on Fox News, and has been a guest on MSNBC, C-Span, and numerous radio programs. She is married with two children.
14. GAVIN MCINNES
Gavin Miles McInnes (born 1970 in Hitchin, UK) is a writer, actor, commentator, columnist, comedian, and entrepreneur. McInnes grew up in Canada and graduated from Concordia University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts. He co-founded Vice Media in 1994 with Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith. Since then, he has written for Takimag, Truth Revolt, and The Federalist, has been a contributor and content-producer for Fox Digital and has been a frequent guest on The Blaze.
McInnes is the host of the Gavin McInnes Show on Compound Media. He considers himself a God-fearing, pro-life Catholic and is a member of the Knights of Columbus. McInnes has described feminism as a movement that “trivialised motherhood”, forces women to “pretend to be men”, and makes women “miserable.” He is the founder of the Proud Boys movement and has described himself as a “western chauvinist.” He is married with three children.
13. BILL WHITTLE
William Alfred Whittle (born 1959 in New York City) is a blogger, political commentator, film director, screenwriter, film editor, pilot, and author. Describing himself as “the voice of the common-sense resistance”, Whittle is a former writer for National Review Online, and is known for appearing in numerous PJ Media Youtube videos and short films.
Whittle is a frequent guest-speaker at Republican, Tea Party, High School, and University events. He has frequently appeared as a guest on radio and television, appearing on Fox News, The Dennis Miller Show, and Sun TV. He is the current host of PJ Media’s Afterburner, is the host of Firewall, and is the co-host of Right Angle with Stephen Green and Scott Ott.
12. STEPHEN CROWDER
Stephen Blake Crowder (born 1987 in Michigan, USA) is an actor, comedian, podcast host, and political commentator. He is a former Fox News contributor and is a frequent guest on The Blaze, The Glenn Beck Show, and The Dana Show.
Crowder is well known for satirising the political left through videos produced by various conservative media outlets, including PJ Media and Big Hollywood. He is the host of the conservative podcast, Louder with Crowder (available on I-Tunes and streamed on Youtube) which covers news, politics, and popular culture.
11. ANDREW KLAVAN
Andrew Klavan (born 1954 in New York City) is a novelist, screenwriter, political, commentator, and podcaster. He is the author of True Crime (adapted into a film directed by Clint Eastwood) and Don’t Say a Word (adapted into a film starring Michael Douglas), and has won the Edgar Award Twice.
Klavan has written essays and opinion editorials on politics, religion, film, and literature for a variety of conservative news publications, including City Journal and PJ Media. He has starred in a series of Klavan on the Culture videos and is the host of The Andrew Klavan Show which airs Monday through Thursday. He is married with two children.
10. DENNIS PRAGER
Dennis Mark Prager (born 1948 in Brooklynn, New York) is a radio host, musical conductor, political commentator, television host, and the author of The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism (1976), Think a Second Time (1996), Happiness is a Serious Problem (1999), Still the Best Hope (2012), and The Ten Commandments (2015).
Prager has a double-major in history and anthropology from Brooklyn College and studied Arabic, comparative religion, and international history at the University of Leeds. In 2010, Prager launched the Prager University Youtube Channel which features short videos explaining the conservative view on particular subjects.
09. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.
William Francis Buckley, Jr. (1925 – 2008) was an editor, author, political commentator, and television personality who was described by the historian, George H. Nash (1945 – ) as “arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half-century. For an entire generation, he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure.”
Armed with a Bachelor of Arts with honours in political science, economics, and history, and buttressed with a transatlantic accent, wide vocabulary, and a sophisticated wit, Buckley was the founder of National Review, a publication for conservative intelligentsia, and the host of Firing Line, a public affair show that aired from 1966 to 1999. Over the course of his career, Buckley wrote over forty books, including several spy thrillers. His column, On the Right, was published in more than three-hundred newspapers.
Buckley was a devout Catholic who frequently attended Latin Mass. He married Patricia Taylor in 1950 and had a son, Christopher Taylor Buckley.
08. DINESH D’SOUZA
Dinesh Joseph D’Souza (born 1961 in Mumbai, India) is a conservative policy analyst, public speaker, writer, filmmaker, political commentator, and Christian apologist.
While studying at Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, D’Souza wrote for the Dartmouth Review, an independent newspaper financed by alumni of Dartmouth College. Following his graduation with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1983, he became the editor of the monthly journal, The Prospect – which was financed by Princeton University alumni. The journal would become controversial under D’Souza’s tutelage as it criticised, among other things, the University’s affirmative action policies.
Between 1985 and 1987, D’Souza worked as a contributing editor for Policy Review, a journal published by the Heritage Foundation. In an article entitled, The Bishops as Pawns, D’Souza opined that Catholic bishops were being used as pawns by the American left in an attempt to manipulate the public into opposing the use of American power abroad and the build-up of the US military.
D’Souza was made a national fellow at the Hoover Institute from 1998 to 2000 where had expertise in affirmative action, American cultural and principles, civil rights, education, political sociology, and American culture and values.
In 2010, D’Souza was made the President of The King’s College in New York. That same year he published The Roots of Obama’s Rage, it was later described as the best book of the year and formed the basis of the 2016 documentary, Obama’s America.
07. DAVID HOROWITZ
David Joel Horowitz (born 1939 in Queens, New York) is a conservative writer and intellectual. He graduated from Columbia University in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and subsequently earnt a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He is married with four children.
Horowitz is the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the founder of Students for Academic Freedom – an organisation dedicated to battling left-wing indoctrination and political correctness in higher education, the director of Discover the Networks – a website that keeps track of the connections between various left-wing groups and individuals, and the editor of FrontPage Magazine.
06. DOUGLAS MURRAY
Douglas Kear Murray (born 1979 in London, England) is a journalist, political commentator, and the author of five books, including: Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas (2000), Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (2005), Bloody Sunday: Truth, Lies, and the Saville Inquiry (2011), Islamophobia: A Very Metropolitan Malady (2013)), and The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017). Murray is the associate editor of The Spectator.
As a journalist, Murray has written form Standpoint, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian on a wide variety of topics, including UK and US foreign policy, the Middle East (specifically Iran and Israel), national security, national defence, multiculturalism, Northern Ireland, Islam, domestic radicalisation, and terrorism. He has appeared on the BBC, Al-Jazeera, Question Time, News Night, Fox News, and Sky News. He is also a frequent debater at both the Oxford Union and the Cambridge Union.
Murray is the founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion, and is the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society. He has described multiculturalism as “the idea that Governments should bend over backwards to accommodate migrants”, dismisses the term ‘Islamophobia’, and has warned of a “creed of Islamic fascism – a malignant fundamentalism, woken from the dark ages to assault us now.”
05. MARK STEYN
Mark Steyn (born 1959 in Toronto, Canada) is a journalist, political commentator, author, and human right’s campaigner who has been described by the Boston Phoenix as “the most toxic right-wing pundit you’ve ever heard.”
Steyn is the author of three books: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (2006), After America: Get Ready for Armageddon (2011), and Climate Change: The Facts (2015. As a journalist, Steyn publishes his ‘Steynposts’ – his commentary on current affairs – Monday through Friday. He has been published in The Daily Telegraph, National Post, The Australian, The Irish Times, The Jerusalem Post, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.
Steyn hosted The Mark Steyn Show for two months before it was cancelled. He has been a regular guest on the Rush Limbaugh Program, The Sean Hannity Show, The John Oakley Show, and is a frequent guest-host on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
As a human right’s campaigner, Steyn is committed the protection of free speech and has been instrumental in the repeal of Canada’s section thirteen hate speech laws. He has spoken to the Canadian parliament, Australian parliament (where he was introduced by Julia Bishop), and the Danish parliament. He is married with three children.
04. ANDREW BREITBART
Andrew Breitbart (1969 – 2012) was a writer, columnist, journalist, and publisher. He began his career working for The Huffington Post, and as an editor for Drudge Report.
Many commentators have credited Breitbart changing the way people wrote about politics. He founded Breitbart in 2005, followed by Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism.
Breitbart’s online campaigns made him a hero of the right. Breitbart was famous for using undercover videos to illustrate his point. He played a central role in the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy, was central to the firing of the Georgian State Director of Rural Development, Shirley Sherrod (1948 – ), and was instrumental in the downfall of the Democratic congressman, Anthony Weiner (1964 – ). He left behind four children.
03. PETER HITCHENS
Peter Jonathan Hitchens (born 1951 in Silema, Malta) is a journalist, political commentator, Christian apologist (in stark contrast to his brother, the atheist Christopher Hitchens), and the author of several books: The Abolition of Britain (1999), Monday Morning Blues (2000), A Brief History of Crime (2003), The Broken Compass (2009), The Rage of Against God (2010), The War We Never Fought (2012), and Short Breaks in Mordor (2014).
Hitchens served as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and Washington. He has worked as a reporter on education and industrial and labour affairs, then as a political reporter, and finally as deputy political editor for The Daily Express. He left the Daily Express in 2000 and currently writes for the Mail on Sunday. Hitchens was awarded the Orwell Prize in 2010.
Hitchens is a proud Christian and a social conservative who has described himself as an Anglican, social democrat, and Burkean Conservative. He has been critical of both the Labour Party and the Conservative party, is a supporter of traditional, Christian morals, and advocates a society ruled by personal conscience and the rule of law. He is married with three children.
02. MILO YIANNOPOULOS
Milo Yiannopoulos (born 1984 in Kent, England) is a journalist, author, political commentator, public speaker, and publisher. After failing to gain a degree from either the University of Manchester of Cambridge University, Yiannopoulos began his career in journalism when he gained a position at The Catholic Herald.
Yiannopoulos first came to prominence reporting on the Gamergate controversy. He fought against the politicisation of video games and described those who wished to politicise video game culture as “sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers.”
Yiannopoulos has been described as a cross between a pit-bull and Oscar Wilde. A vehement anti-feminist and critic of Islam, he holds no punches when it comes to attacking and ridiculing his opponents. All are targets for his ire and ridicule.
Yiannopoulos has been described by his enemies as a white supremacist and a member of the alt-right. Labels that he rejects. In reality, he is a contrarian, a fly in the ointment that has made name for itself as a professional troll and talented provocateur.
01. BEN SHAPIRO
Benjamin Aaron Shapiro (born 1984 in Los Angeles, California) is a political commentator, columnist, the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Truth Revolt, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, and a New York Times best-selling author. Among the books he has written have been: Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth (2004), Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism is Corrupting Our Future (2005), Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House (2008), Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV (2011), Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America (2013), The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration (2014), A Moral Universe Torn Apart (2014), What’s Fair and Other Short Stories (2015), and True Allegiance (2016).
Shapiro began his career writing for The Daily Bruin, the student paper of the University of California at Los Angeles. He was suspended from The Daily Bruin after he complained on radio talk shows that the paper had refused to publish an article he had written accusing Muslim student groups of supporting terrorism. By the time he was seventeen, Shapiro had become the youngest nationally syndicated journalist (he was so young, in fact, that his parents had to sign his contract on his behalf).
Ben “facts don’t care about your feelings” Shapiro has become one of the most prominent voices of the millennial conservative movement. Holding no punches, Shapiro possesses a remarkable ability to demolish left-wing arguments with a lawyer’s precision and debater’s skill. He is a pro-life, anti-Black Lives Matter, and supports reductions in taxes on the rich, the privatisation of social security, and the repeal of Obamacare.
Shapiro is a frequent speaker on US college campuses and is a regular commentator on television and radio, including The O’Reilly Factor, The Lars Larson Show, Fox and Friends, The Dennis Prager Show, and more. Shapiro’s daily podcast, The Ben Shapiro Show was named the second-most popular I-Tunes podcast in the US after Oprah Winfrey. It is available on I-Tunes.
Ben Shapiro holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California at Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from Harvard University. He is an Orthodox Jew and is married with two children.
IN DEFENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
In 2017, the online video subscription service, Hulu, embarked on the production of Margaret Atwood’s (1939 – ) 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The story is set in the fictional, totalitarian state of Gilead: a society run by fundamentalist Christians who overthrew the previous secular state and set up a theocracy in its wake. For years, influential thought leaders and other arbiters of popular opinion have espoused the opinion that broader society would greatly benefit from the abolition of Christianity. It is my belief that such an occurrence would have precisely the opposite effect.
No group has criticised Christianity more than the New Atheists. Frequently deriding it as nothing more than “science for stupid people”, prominent New Atheists have ridiculed Christianity and dismissed its positive effects. Atheists and anti-Christians turn Christianity into a straw man by reducing it down to his most basic elements (they are helped, unfortunately, by those fundamentalist Christians who still assert that the earth is literally six-thousand years old). They then use this straw man to discredit the idea of faith. The philosopher, Sam Harris (1967 – ) argued in his book, The End of Faith that religious belief constituted a mental illness. More alarmingly, the British Scientist, Richard Dawkins (1941 – ) took things one step further by claiming that religious instruction constituted a form of child abuse.
The basis for much of Christianity’s negative portrayal finds its roots in the philosophies of the political left. A central tenet of the left-wing worldview is an adherence to secularism, which appears set to replace Christianity as the prevailing cultural belief system. (This is not to be confused with atheism, which denies the existence of a creator). On the one hand, secularism promotes both religious liberty and the separation of church and state (both of which are good things). On the other hand, however, proponents of secularism reject the knowledge and wisdom religious institutions can impart on the world. In a secular society, God can be believed to exist, but not in any sort of a productive way. God is something to be confined the private home or the sanctuary of one’s local Church. God is something to be worshipped behind closed doors where no one can see you.
Of course, anti-Christian rhetoric has been a facet of popular culture since the 1960s. Today, finding a positively-portrayed devout Christian family is about as likely as finding a virgin in the maternity ward. Christians are routinely depicted as stupid, backwards, hateful, and extreme. By contrast, atheists are routinely depicted as witty, intelligent, and tolerant. In short, Atheism is deemed as good and Christianity is deemed as bad. And, of course, this attitude has filled some with a kind of arrogant grandiosity. During an interview in 1966, John Lennon (1940 – 1980) opined: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity.”
The mainstream media rarely discusses the persecution of Christians. Indeed, prejudice and discrimination against Christianity is treated with a type of permissiveness that prejudice and discrimination against other religions, Islam being a primary example, is not.
Christians are estimated to be the victims of four out of five discriminatory acts around the world, and face persecutions in one-hundred-and-thirty-nine countries. Churches have been firebombed in Nigeria. North Koreans caught with Bibles are summarily shot. In Egypt, Coptic Christians have faced mob violence, forced removals, and, in the wake of the Arab spring, the abduction of their females who are forced to marry Muslim men.
In China, Christian villagers were instructed to remove pictures of Christ, the Crucifix, and Gospel passages by Communist Party officials who wished to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party.” According to the South China Morning Post, the purpose behind the drive was the alleviation of poverty. The Chinese Communist Party believed that it was religious faith that was responsible for poverty in the region and wanted the villagers to look to their political leaders for help, rather than a saviour. (Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Chinese Communist Party looked at their own evil and ineffective political ideology as the true cause of poverty in their country rather than blaming it on religion?). As a result, around six-hundred people in China’s Yugan county – where about ten percent of the population is Christian – removed Christian symbology from their living rooms.
Popular culture and thought in the West has attempted, with a great deal of success, to paint Christianity as stupid, backwards, dogmatic, and immoral. It is the presence religion that is to blame for holding the human race back. It is religion that is to blame for racism, sexism, and all manner of social injustices. It is religion that is the cause of all wars. So, on and so forth.
I strongly disagree with this argument. Indeed, it is my belief that the abolishment of Christianity from public life would have the effect of increasing intolerance and immorality. Christianity’s abolishment will have precisely this effect because it will abolish those metaphysical doctrines – divine judgement, universal and absolute morality, and the divinity of the human soul – that has made those things possible.
Christianity and Western Civilisation are inextricably linked. In the field of philosophy, virtually all Western thinkers have grappled with the concepts of God, faith, morality, and more. As the writer, Dinesh D’Souza (1961 – ) wrote in his book, What’s So Great About Christianity:
“Christianity is responsible for the way our society is organised and for the way we currently live. So extensive is Christian contribution to our laws, our economics, our politics, our art, our calendar, our holidays, and our moral and cultural priorities that J.M. Robers writes in Triumph of the West: ‘We could none one of us today be what we are if a handful of Jews nearly two thousand years ago had not believed that they had known a great teacher, seen him crucified, died, and buried, and then rise again’.”
The primary contribution of Christianity to Western civilisation has been to act as a stabilising force, providing society with an overarching metaphysical structure as well as rules and guidelines that act as a moral foundation. This shared metaphysical structure and moral foundation, combined with traditions and cultural customs, has the effect of bringing a country, a township, even a school or parish, together.
When Christianity lost its supremacy in society it was replaced by smaller, less transcendent and more ideological, belief systems. Where people had once been unified by a common belief, they have now become more divided along ideological lines. Religious belief has not been replaced by rationalism or logic, as the New Atheists supposed. Rather, people have found outlets for their need to believe in other places: social activism, political ideologies, and so forth.
The most prevalent contribution that Christianity has made to the Western world comes under the guise of human rights. Stories like The Parable of the Good Samaritan have had a remarkable influence on its conception. Human rights stem, in part, from the belief that human beings were created in the image of God and hold a divine place in the cosmos. Christianity has played a positive role in ending numerous brutal and archaic practices, including slavery, human sacrifice, polygamy, and infanticide. Furthermore, it has condemned incest, abortion, adultery, and divorce. (Remarkably, there are some secularists who wish to bring back some of these antiquated practices).
Christianity placed an intrinsic value on human life that had not been present in pre-Christian society. As the American Pastor, Tim Keller (1950 – ) wrote in Reasons for God: “It was extremely common in the Greco-Roman world to throw out new female infants to die from exposure, because of the low status of women in society.” Roman culture was well known for its brutality and callousness. Practices of regicide, gladiatorial combat, infanticide, and crucifixion were all common. Seneca (4BC – AD65), Nero’s (AD37 – AD68) chief advisor, once stated that it was Roman practice to “drown children who, at birth, are weakly and abnormal.”
Christian morality has had a notable effect on our views on human sexuality and has helped to provide women with far greater rights and protections than its pagan predecessors. Christianity helped to end the hypocritical pagan practice of allowing men to have extra-marital affairs and keep mistresses. It formulated rules against the cohabitation of couples prior to marriage, adultery, and divorce. Unlike the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Romans, Christians do not force widows to remarry, and even allowed widows to keep their husband’s estates.
The Christian faith has been instrumental in the enactment and promotion of public works. The instigator of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) championed the idea of compulsory education and state-funded schools. Similarly, the Lutheran layman, Johann Sturm (1507 – 1589) pioneered graded education. Christianity has been the source of numerous social services including health-care, schooling, charity, and so forth. Christianity’s positive belief in charity and compassion has lead to many orphanages, old-age homes, and groups like the Sisters of Charity and Missionaries of the Poor, the YMCA and YWCA, Teen Challenge, the Red Cross, and numerous hospitals and mental health institutions being founded by the faithful.
One of the frequent criticisms levelled at the Christian faith, particularly the Catholic Church, has been that it has stymied scientific and technological development. In truth, Western science and technology have been able to flourish because of the influence of Christianity, not in spite of it. This is because the Christian belief that God created everything lends itself to the idea that everything is worth contemplating. It is certainly true that the Catholic Church has been hostile to those discoveries that do not conform to its doctrine. Galileo, for example, was forced to retract his claim of heliocentrism because it challenged the Church’s doctrine that the earth acted as the centre of the solar system. For the most part, however, Christianity has been largely supportive of scientific endeavour. Christian scientists have included Gregor Mendel (1822 – 1884), Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543), Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630), Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), Arthur Eddington (1882 – 1944), Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), Andre Ampere (1775 – 1836), James Joule (1818 – 1889), Lord Kelvin (1824 – 1907), Robert Boyle (1627 – 1691), George Washington Carver (1860s – 1943), Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895), Joseph Lister (1827 – 1912), Francis Collins (1950 – ), William Phillips (1914 – 1975), and Sir John Houghton (1931 – ), and more.
The forces behind the stratospheric success of Western civilisation has not been its art or music or architecture, but the ideas it has built itself upon. It is notions like the rule of law, property rights, free markets, a preference for reason and logic, and Christian theology that are responsible for making Western society the freest and most prosperous civilisation that has ever existed. It cannot survive with one of its central tenents removed.
The War On Christmas
In 2015, the then-Presidential candidate, Donald Trump (1946 – ) called for a boycott of Starbucks after the famous coffee shop chain failed to include the words “Merry Christmas” on their annual Christmas cups. “Did you read about Starbucks?”, Trump asked a rally in Springfield, Illinois. “No more ‘Merry Christmas’ on Starbucks. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks.”
Two years later, Donald Trump, now President of the United States, doubled down on his pro-Christmas message. Speaking at a Christian Public Policy conference, the President stated:
“We’re getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore. They don’t use the word ‘Christmas’ because it’s not politically correct.”
Trump continued:
“You got to department stores and they’ll say, ‘Happy New Year’, or they’ll say other things and it’ll be red, they’ll have it painted. But they don’t say it. Well, guess what? We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
The sentiment that there is a War on Christmas designed to push the religious holiday out of public consciousness carries a great deal of validity. Since 2000, the Becket Institute has listed the biggest Christmas scrooges in American public life, giving the worst offenders an ‘Ebenezer award.’
In 2000, city manager of Eugene, Oregon, Jim Johnson was given the Ebenezer Award after he issued a five-page memo banning Christmas trees from any “public space” in the city.
In 2011, the Ebenezer Award was given to the United States Post Office after they enforced a policy preventing people from singing Christmas carols on Government property. This decision stands in direct contradiction to Benjamin Franklin’s (1706 – 1790) (their founder) commandment to “always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.”
In 2014, the City of Sioux Falls was given the Ebenezer Award after they threatened to repaint and censor snowploughs that featured artwork celebrating the religious nature of Christmas.
In 2015, the Ebenezer Award was given to the Department of Veteran Affairs after they banned their employees at their Salem, Virginia facility from saying ‘Merry Christmas.’
The problem is not unique to the United States, either. During an interview with 2GB Radio, Peter Dutton (1970 – ), Australia’s minister for immigration and border protection, became incensed after a caller informed him that there had not been any Christmas carols in a performance at his grandchild’s school. The caller informed Dutton that the school in question, Kerdon State High School, had replaced the lyric “we wish you a Merry Christmas” with “we wish you a happy holiday.” Dutton replied: “You make my blood boil with these stories. It is political correctness gone mad and I think people have just had enough of it.”
I believe that the drive to remove the more traditional and religious aspects from holidays like Christmas and Easter is indicative of a larger attempt to abolish the influence of Christianity on society and culture.
The problem with this, needless to say, is that it is akin to chopping down a tree and still wishing to enjoy its fruits. It is not possible to enjoy the fruits of Western culture and civilisation when its ideological origins and overarching philosophical-cum-theological structures have been removed. Christianity and Western civilisation are inextricably linked. The poet, T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) wrote in Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1943) that “to our Christian heritage we owe many things besides religious faith. Through it we trace the evolution of our arts, through it we have a conception of Roman Law which has done so much to shape the Western world, through it we have our conception of private and public morality.”
The War on Christmas is an attack on the very fabric of Western Civilisation. Christmas symbolises the central axiom our culture was built on: that the Universe was constructed to have a natural and moral order. The War on Christmas is not merely an attack of Judeo-Christian belief, nor is it merely an attack on Western culture, it is an attack upon truth itself. And the truth cannot prosper while those who believe it are unwilling to defend it.
Society Neglects the Importance of the Dream World
Since the Industrial Revolution, scientific and technological development has progressed at an unfathomable rate. In a little over a quarter-of-a-millennium, the Western world has gone from a superstitious, agrarian society to a scientifically and technologically sophisticated one. The price of this remarkable achievement has been our alienation from the ‘dream world.’ We have lost our sense of wonder, our sense that there is something more substantial to existence than just mere crude matter.
The lack of spirituality among modern man is largely the result of an overreliance on materialism. For the philosophically challenged, ‘materialism’ is not a reference to consumerism, but to the philosophical position that regards physical matter as the fundamental substance of nature. Philosophical materialism posits that everything, including human thought and the course of history, comes as the result of physical forces. This is a philosophy which has no room for the soul, for divinity, or for God.
Philosophical materialism likely harkens back to the pre-Socratic philosophers. Epicurus, for example, believed the universe consisted of invisible and indivisible free-falling atoms that randomly collide with the world. For all intents and purposes, however, it is the Ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus (c. 460BC – c. 370BC) who is credited with the invention of philosophical materialism within the Western tradition. Democritus formulated the theory that the world was composed of ‘atoms’ – invisible chunks of matter – existing in empty space. He theorised that these microscopically small atoms would interact with one another by impacting or hooking up. Change occurs when the configuration of these atoms is altered.
In modern philosophy, materialism is referred to as a category of metaphysical theories. The French philosopher, Baron d’Holbach’s (1723 – 1789) book, Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral (1770) (The System of Nature, or the Laws or the Moral and Physical World) argued that everything that occurs, down to human thought and moral action, comes as the result of a causal chain that has its roots in atomic motion. The book was condemned by King Louis XVI (1754 – 1793), meaning that it was the job of the hangman to locate every copy and cut it to pieces on the beheading block.
The modern world likes to see itself as fundamentally materialistic. Being seen as “practical”, “realistic”, or “down to earth” is considered by many to be a great compliment. However, this view is largely mistaken. In reality, it is ideas, referring to the ability to think and feel and imagine, and the ability to implement them that has truly made the human race what it is. In a letter to Guillaume Gibieuf (1538 – 1650), the French philosopher, René Descartes (1596 – 1650) wrote: “I am certain I have no knowledge of what is outside me except by means of the ideas I have within me.”
It would be a great mistake, then, to suppose that human beings are naturally rational or civilised creatures. In reality, people are far more irrational, crazy, and destructive than we like to think. Modern science is really only a few hundred years old, having its roots with Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), Rene Descartes, and Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727). Therefore, the basis for modern society is not, as often supposed, science, but religion. This is evidenced by two facts. First, the existence over thousands of years of civilisations that have their basis in religion, not science. These societies and their corresponding religions include the Japanese and Shintoism, the Chinese and Buddhism, the Middle East and Islam, and the West and Christianity. And second, by the numerous anti-science movements (most notable in today’s world are the social constructionists) that have come to the public’s attention in recent years. We are able to live in an orderly and rational manner because we live in a society that has moral rules and legal boundaries, not because it is something that comes naturally to us
The relationship between the mental and physical worlds was of great interest to the Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung (1875 – 1961). Influenced by the German Idealist School, Jung believed that “metaphysical assertions… are statements of the psyche.” He would comment: “it is the soul which, by the divine creative power inherent in it, makes the metaphysical assertion; it posits the distinction between metaphysical entities. Not only is it the condition of all metaphysical reality, it is that reality.” The central idea behind Jung’s metaphysical system was that:
“The premise that all psychological processes are necessarily conditioned on innate universal structures of subjectivity that allow for human experiences to transpire, and that these processes participate of a greater cosmic organising principle that transcends all levels of particularity or individuality.”
– Jon Mills, Jung’s Metaphysics
In his function as a psychotherapist, Carl Jung observed that western men and women often suffered from debilitating feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness, and insignificance. He believed that this was caused by a kind of spiritual problem that, even today, threatens the stability and liberty of our society. The result is that we limit ourselves only to what is socially and economically attainable. As Carl Jung wrote:
“Man feels isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightning his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree makes a man’s life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom and no mountain still harbours a great demon. Neither do things speak to him nor can he speak to things, like stones, springs, plants and animals.”
– Carl Jung, The Earth Has a Soul
Jung noted that this problem, and the consequences associated with it, correlated with the declining influence of Christianity in the Western world and the rise of mass urbanisation that came as a result of the Industrial Revolution. As the individual surrounded himself with more and more people, his feelings of insignificance increased. The result is individuals who are highly insecure, unstable, and highly suggestible. Furthermore, the rational and scientific mindset that rose to prominence during the Enlightenment has also fooled many politicians and social reformers into believing that the same measures can be used to address social and political problems. The existence of the totalitarian systems such as fascism and communism, genocides, and mass murders that characterised the Twentieth Century stand as testaments to this reality.
The problems the West faced during the twentieth century are almost entirely spiritual by nature. The communists killed tens of millions of people in an attempt to achieve a worker’s paradise, the Cold War was as much a battle between opposing worldviews as it was one of political and economic differences, and one would have to be blind not to notice the religious overtones present in Nazism. Even today, the conflict between Western civilisation and fundamental Islam can be seen as having profound religious overtones.
Jung believed that the unconscious mind could be split into two distinct categories: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The contents of the personal unconscious is comprised of both instincts (Triebe) and archetypal or primordial images. It merely refers to the memories, emotions, and knowledge that have generally been conscious but have become repressed over time. By contrast, the collective unconscious, one of Jung’s most misunderstood concepts, is distinguishable from the personal unconscious in that it is manifested separately and is therefore not a personal acquisition. It symbolises universal culture: the anthropological images, practices, edicts, traditions, mores, social norms, values, and beliefs that embodies a culture or mythos. The collective unconscious, therefore, symbolises the space that human-beings exist in.
Dreams are considered to have great psychological significance. They use mythological narratives to allow us to naturally express our unconscious fears and desires. The average person dreams between three to six times per night with each dream lasting between five and twenty minutes. Jeffrey Sumber, a clinical psychologist, has spent years studying dream mythology at Harvard University and Jungian dream interpretation at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. Sumber argues that dreams bridge the unconscious mind with the conscious mind. “Dreaming is non-essential when it comes to survival as a body”, Sumber concluded, “but is essential with regards to our development and evolution as metaphysical beings.”
Active imagination exists to give a voice to the anima, animus, shadow, and other areas of the personality that do not typically hold our attention. When the individual engages his active imagination, let’s say through painting or writing, there is a transformation of consciousness. As Carl Jung wrote in The Conjunction:
“Although, to a certain extent, he looks on from outside, partially, he is also an acting and suffering figure in the drama of the psyche. This recognition is absolutely necessary and marks an important advance. So long as he simply looks at the pictures he is like the foolish Parsifal, who forgot the ask the vital question because he was not aware of his own participation in the action. But if you recognise your own involvement you yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions, just as if you were one of the fantasy figures, or rather, as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real.”
The collective unconscious manifests itself most greatly through mankind’s proclivity for telling stories. As the clinical psychologist and cultural critic, Jordan Peterson (1962 – ) explains, story-telling is an ancient and innate aspect of human nature:
“You know, we’ve been collecting stories as people we don’t know how long – hundred thousand years, maybe. There’s been creatures like us, indistinguishable from us, for a hundred thousand years. And we know that societies that appear more or less as archaic as those old societies tell stories, have rituals, have mythology. What do they mean? What are they good for? Well, imagine this: you tell a story to your husband or your wife about something interesting that you saw. Well, imagine that you could collect a thousand of the most interesting stories. And then imagine that you were some kind of literary genius like Shakespeare and you could take those thousand interesting stories and boil them down to a hundred really interesting stories. And then imagine that you had ten thousand years to gather up those most interesting stories and average them and you could come out with one perfect story: the best story, the most interesting story you could possibly tell. Well, that’s what a myth is. It’s the most interesting story you could possibly tell. Virtually every story you ever see has a mythological structure, that’s why it’s compelling to you. And when you meet someone who is charismatic or who holds your attention or who you’re interested in, the probability that they’re acting out a mythological fragment is very, very high. That’s why it is that your attention is captivated by them.”
Myths are really psychological in nature, even though they are typically misread as biographical or even historical. Myths, much like dreams, emanate from the unconscious thoughts and emotions and gives a voice to the innermost fears and desires that underlie most of our behaviour.
The purpose of mythology is to provide the individual with a mirror which he can use to assess himself and his relationship with the wider world. It exists to provide the individual with a sense of history and of his place within the cosmos. Whereas the world of fiction has to work in an alternative reality where the facts of that universe are considered irrefutable and correct, mythology works by taking the metaphorical or metaphysical-cum-spiritual truths of existence and gives them voice and meaning through the medium of a story. Therefore, it is not how factually true a mythological story may or may not be that is important, but the metaphorical truths it imparts on the reader.
There can be little doubt that the modern world has produced marvels. The price of these remarkable achievements has been a form of perverse arrogance in which modern man likes to believe he is somehow a different, more rational, creature than his ancestors. The price for our arrogance has been the loss of our sense of something more substantial and wonderous than ourselves. As a result, people limit themselves only to that which is socially and economically attainable. Seeing ourselves as eminently rational and pragmatic creatures we have managed to produce a world where the individual feels worthless and insignificant. What is required is a revitalisation of the dream world. A return to the knowledge that it is ideas, our ability to give a voice to those aspects of our personalities that lie dormant, and to venture out into the chaotic unknown and return triumphantly that makes human beings great.
The Hierarchy of the Catholic Church
Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, established His Church with a definitive structure. It is the duty of every Catholic to understand this hierarchy and how it helps Christ’s Church lead the faithful at both the local and overall level.
The most basic level of the Church is the local parish. This is where practising Catholics are baptised and confirmed, get married and have their funerals, attend weekly mass and receive the sacraments. Often the parish is named after Christ himself (Blessed Sacrament, Sacred Heart), the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Mercy, Our Lady of Good Counsel), or a Saint.
After the parish, there is the diocese: an amalgamation of parishes controlled by a local Bishop. The Bishop of the diocese is seen as an authentic successor to the apostles and is not just an ambassador to the Pope. Following from the diocese is the archdiocese controlled by an Archbishop, and finally, the Catholic Church headed by Saint Peter’s successor, the Pope.
The order of precedence for the Catholic Church can be found here.
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.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIBLICAL STORIES
This is our weekly theological article.
The Canadian clinical psychologist, philosopher, and academic, Jordan B. Peterson (1962 – ) has released a 12-part lecture series designed to evaluate the psychological and cultural significance of the Bible. As he explains on his website:
“The Bible is a series of books written, edited and assembled over thousands of years. It contains the most influential stories of mankind. Knowledge of those stories is essential to a deep understanding of Western culture, which is in turn vital to proper psychological health (as human beings are cultural animals) and societal stability. These stories are neither history, as we commonly conceive it, nor empirical science. Instead, they are investigations into the structure of Being itself and calls to action within that Being. They have deep psychological significance.”
Be warned, these are long lectures, ranging from two-hours-and-twenty-eight minutes to two-hours-and-forty-minutes. Furthermore, much of the subject matter is very deep and complex. However, it is a lecture series that boasts a wealth of practical wisdom and will greatly enlighten the viewer on the cultural and theological heritage of Western civilisation.
You can find the full lecture series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQD_IZs7y60I3lUrrFTzkpat
NAPOLEON SYNDROME
Shorter men who attempt to assert or defend themselves are frequently met with the harrowing accusation that they are suffering from ‘Napoleon complex’, otherwise known as ‘short man syndrome.’ While there is some evidence – based both on research and common experience – that this may be the case, the root causes of the issue reveal a problem that is more complex and entrenched than the general public would like to believe.
The term ‘Napoleon complex’ was first coined by Alfred Adler (1870 – 1937) in 1912. Remarkably, however, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821), the man for whom ‘Napoleon syndrome’ is named, was not actually short. Napoleon’s personal physician, Francesco Antommarchi (1780 – 1838), recorded the deposed Emperor’s height as being five pieds, two pouces, or five-feet, six-and-a-half inches. This was a half-inch taller than the average Englishman of the time, and a full two inches taller than the average Frenchman. The myth of Napoleon’s short stature comes from two places. First is the fact that Napoleon frequently surrounded himself with men taller than himself. Height requirements specified that the Grenadiers in the Elite Imperial Guard be 5’10 or over, whilst members of the Mounted Chasseurs had to be 5’7. To any casual observer, Napoleon would have looked noticeably smaller by comparison. And second, there is the anti-Napoleonic propaganda that frequently depicted the Emperor as small.
Like many physical characteristics, height can have a profound effect on a person’s self-perception. The shorter man’s poor self-perception begins in childhood when smaller children are often the targets of taunts and ridicule. As adults, shorter men are more likely to be overly-aggressive, domineering, and have an increased proclivity for resorting to extreme measures in order to prove themselves. Unfortunately, research shows that shorter men may, in extreme cases, resort to violence as a means of disguising their insecurities. The Journal of Injury Prevention found that men who struggled with their height and masculinity were three times more likely to commit violent assaults using a weapon. This study, which involved six-hundred American men aged between eighteen and fifty, asked participants to answer two sets of questions. The first asked about their self-image, drug use, and violent behaviour. The second set of questions asked the participants about their beliefs on gender roles, how they felt women and their friends perceived them, how they perceived their own masculinity, and how much they’d like to be a “macho man.”
Taller men are far more likely to succeed in positions of authority and power than shorter men. An early study of height and occupation reveals bishops to be taller than parish priests, sales managers to be taller than salesmen, and university presidents to be taller than the presidents of more modest higher-education facilities. In US Presidential elections, it is typically the taller of the two Presidential candidates that end up winning: John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) was six-feet tall compared to Richard Nixon (1913 – 1994) who was five-foot-eleven, Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) was six-foot-one compared to Jimmy Carter (1924 – ) who was five-foot-ten, and Barack Obama (1961 – ) was six-foot-one compared to John McCain’s (1936 – ) who was five-foot-nine.
And, as if that isn’t bad enough, merely finding employment can be a struggle for many shorter men. A 2001 study by Nicolo Persico, Andrew Postlewaite, and Dan Silverman of the University of Pennsylvania, found that shorter teenagers had a harder time finding employment than their taller counterparts. Persico, Postlewaite, and Silverman chalked this up to the attitudes and worldview of the shorter teenager. “Those who were relatively short when young”, they explained, “were less likely to participate in social activities associated with the accumulation of productive skills and attributes, and report lower self-esteem.”.
Things don’t get much better once they are employed, either. Shorter men are less likely to be afforded promotions and pay-rises than their taller peers. A study by Leland Deck of the University of Pittsburgh found that men who are 6’2 or taller earn 12.4% more than men who are below six feet.
Then there is the challenge of forming intimate relationships. Men are considered attractive when they are tall, broad-shouldered, and well-toned. An analysis of personal ads found that most women prefer dating men who are six-foot-tall and over, especially when it comes to casual sex. A study published in the March 2016 edition of Personality and Individual Differences journal found that while women did not particularly care about hair, weight, or penis size, they did care about a man’s height. It is believed that the primary reason for this preference is that height is a sign of high testosterone – and men with higher testosterone tend to be better protectors and lovers.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that height is a source of great insecurity for many men. The shorter man’s sense of insecurity and resentment is almost certainly borne out of poor experiences associated with their stature. Smaller children are more likely to be the victims of taunts and ridicule. As adults, shorter men find it more difficult to form intimate relationships, find employment, and achieve positions of authority and status. Perhaps people ought to remember that Napoleon Complex is more complicated and entrenched than they like to believe.
THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF MARRIAGE
The focus on rights and privileges has become a major characteristic of our modern culture. This focus has manifested itself in a variety of ways. One of these has been the focus upon the denial rights of the so-called underprivileged and oppressed – these namely being women (who, for some reason, are considered a minority), homosexuals, transgendered peoples, non-whites, non-Christians, and more. This focus on rights and privileges has perverted and corrupted all aspects of social and cultural life, including marriage.
For centuries, numerous political philosophers have seen the organisation of sex and reproduction as being vital to the health of a society. The most obvious form of this organisation could be found in marriage: an institution used by society to regulate family life, sex, and reproduction. The American political scientist, James Q. Wilson (1931 – 2012), said in his book, the Marriage Problem (2002): “Marriage is a socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people to stay together and care for children that the mere desire for children, and the sex that makes children possible, do not solve.”
Wilson observed in his book, the Moral Sense (1993):
“In virtually every society, the family is defined by marriage; that is, by a publicly announced contract that makes legitimate the sexual union of a man and a woman. Even in societies where men and women have relatively unrestricted sexual access to one another beginning at an early age, marriage is still the basis for family formation. It is desired by the partners and expected by society. Marriage, in short, is not simply a way of legitimizing sex, and so it cannot be dispensed with just because sexual activity need not be made legitimate. Marriage exists because people must take responsibilities for child care and assume economic obligations. Marriage, and thus the family that it defines, is a commitment.”
Christianity sees marriage as a covenant based on duty and commitment, not one based purely on feelings. Christian marriage is based on agape: the sacrificial love for another person. It is a love that is genuine, that endures through both good times and bad, that is not diminished by time or circumstance, that has a spiritual dimension, and is based on words and actions. This is a compassionate love, not a romantic one.
Marriages work when husbands and wives contribute equally to its health and vitality. Suffice to say, both husband and wife have duties and responsibilities in this regard. The first duty of the individual, then, is to psychologically separate themselves from their parents and siblings and form a new identity as husband or wife. (It is important to note here that this does not mean alienating or abandoning one’s birth family). After this, husbands and wives are duty-bound to love, honour, and trust each other. They should avoid any activity that may cause reasonable suspicion our jealousy so they may live in peace and harmony with each other. Finally, they ought to treat each other with reverence and respect: tolerating each other’s imperfections and being kind and charitable with one another.
The modern obsession with rights and privileges has created an imbalance. This imbalance can only be redressed by asserting the importance of individual responsibility. One of the central places this can occur is through the focus on the obligations and responsibilities of spouses within the confines of marriage.
