Home » Posts tagged 'values'
Tag Archives: values
JURIES ARE WORTH KEEPING
The Jury System is a cornerstone of justice and liberty. However, they are also controversial. On the one hand, there are those who see the jury system as an integral part of a free and impartial justice system. On the other hand, there are those who doubt the jury’s ability to deliver fair and honest verdicts.
Let’s start with the obvious fact that juries are far from perfect. They are imperfect because the people who make them up are imperfect. Ignorance is one major problem. Opponents of the jury system argue, with some justification, that it is too dangerous to place the fate of another human being in the hands of people incapable of understanding the complexities of the cases they are judging. Often those tasked with deciding the outcome of cases lack the technical or legal knowledge to adequately interpret the evidence and testimony being presented to them. It has been suggested that in these cases individual jurors will often resort to pre-conceived beliefs or allow themselves to be influenced by jurors with more knowledge – whether real or perceived – than they have.
Ignorance, however, is an easily solved problem. Why not select jury members based on their familiarity with the subject matters under discussion? Someone who works in the finance industry – bankers, financial advisors, accountants, and so forth – would be more equipped to judge financial-based crimes than the layperson.
Then there’s the question of who can sit on a jury. In the United Kingdom an individual needs to be aged between eighteen and seventy, have been a resident of the UK for at least five years since the age of thirteen, and must be mentally stable to serve on a jury. It would more than reasonable to suggest that qualifications for jury duty ought to be more stringent than they are. It is more than reasonable to suggest that the age limit ought to be raised from eighteen to perhaps twenty-five (if not older) and that jurors under the age of forty ought to have certain intellectual qualifications. This would ensure that those tasked with determining guilt or innocence would have the wisdom and/or intelligence to comprehend the grave nature of the responsibility they have been burdened with.
Those who criticise juries also argue that they are prone to bias and prejudice. In one shocking case, Kasim Davey was jailed for contempt when he boasted: “I wasn’t expecting to be in a jury deciding a paedophile’s fate. I’ve always wanted to fuck up a paedophile and now I’m within the law.” (Seemingly it never occurred to Mr. Davey that the man he was judging may have been innocent). Likewise, it is well known that many African American defendants were condemned by all-white juries in the Jim Crow South.
However, much of this is a red-herring. Professor Cheryl Thomas, the director of the Jury Program at University College of London, spent ten years analysing every jury verdict in England and Wales taking into account the race and gender of both defendants and jurors. Professor Thomas concluded that:
“There’s no evidence of systematic bias, for instance, against members of ethnic minorities, or that men are treated differently than women, that if you live in a particular part of the country or you have a certain background that you’re more likely to be convicted than others.”
Besides, those who criticise the jury system forget that juries reflect the values and principles of their society. If juries repeatedly deliver unjust verdicts it is because there is a sickness in that society. The fact that all-white juries tended to convict African American defendants merely because they were black is a reflection on the virulently racist nature of that society, not of the jury system itself. Today, the legal system is careful to disqualify those jurors who may harbour prejudices that will inhibit their ability to judge the facts impartially. Courts are very quick to disqualify jurors who may know the defendant or alleged victim, those with emotional links to the case (i.e. a victim of rape sitting on the jury of a rape trial), and so forth.
Lord Devlin, the second-youngest man to be appointed to the English High Court in the 20th century, once described the jury system as “the lamp which shows where freedom lives.” The principle behind juries is that the individual ought to be judged by his peers based on community standards, not by the politically elite. Without juries, our legal system would be dominated by judges and lawyers. What lies at the centre of the debate over juries is the question of whether the whole of society or just the elite should be involved in the dispensation of justice.
TRANSGENDERISM IS NO BASIS FOR PUBLIC POLICY
It has been over fourteen-year since David Reimer, the victim of an insane and evil scientific experiment, committed suicide. After his penis had been burnt off in a botched circumcision, David’s parents had turned to the infamous sexologist and social constructionist, Dr. John Money for help. Following Dr. Money’s advice, David’s parents agreed to allow a sex change operation to be performed on their young son and raised him as a girl.
Despite Dr. Money’s boasting that his experiment had been a success, however, David Reimer did not settle comfortably into his female identity. David tore up his dresses at three, asked if he could have his head shaved like his father, and engaged in all manner of boyish behaviour. David was bullied at school and, upon hitting puberty, decided that he was a homosexual (in reality, of course, he was heterosexual).
Finally, when he was fourteen David’s parents revealed the truth about his gender identity. David reverted to his masculine identity, broke off contact with Dr. Money whom he described as an abusive brainwasher, and received a non-functioning penis through phalloplasty. Unable to handle the immense psychological damage that had been inflicted upon him, David Reimer blew his brains out with a shotgun at the age of thirty-eight.
For all of human history, boy has meant boy and girl has meant girl. Traditionally, sex was used to refer to the biological markers of gender. If you were born with a penis and an XY chromosome, you were a man. If you were born with a vagina and an XX chromosome, you were a woman. One’s gender expression was thought to compliment one’s biological sex. A biological man would have masculine personality traits and a biological female would have feminine personality traits. These complimentary characteristics, among them body shape, dress, mannerisms, and personality, were thought to be produced by a mixture of natural and environmental forces.
Recently, however, gender theorists have begun to question the relationship between biological sex and gender identity. They argue that gender, which they see as distinctive from sex, is a social construct. Since gender refers to the expression of masculinity and femininity, gender is something that a person acquires. (Needless to say, this movement is driven by a pernicious post-modern, Neo-Marxist worldview). Under this philosophy, gender expression is the manner in which a person expresses their gender identity. Gender identity is expressed through dress, behaviour, speech, and nothing else besides.
Neuroplasticity provides the gender theorist with perhaps his greatest argument. If underlying brain processes are theoretically strengthened through repetitive use, it follows that gender identity comes from a narrowing down of potential gender categories through the repetitive use of certain brain processes. However, it also reveals a fatal flaw in the gender theorist’s (and social constructionist’s) philosophy. If the human brain is so malleable that an individual’s gender identity is constructed, then why can’t the brain of a transgender person be adapted out of its transgenderism?
The primary problem with gender theory is that it just plain wrong. The idea that gender is distinct from sex has absolutely no basis in science whatsoever. As Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychology/philosopher, has stated: “the idea that gender identity is independent of biological sex is insane. It’s wrong. The scientific data is clear beyond dispute. It’s as bad as claiming that the world is flat.” Men and women differ both at the cellular and the temperamental level. Unlike men, for example, women menstruate, they can have babies, and they show a slew of personality characteristics that mark them as different from men. David C. Page, the Director of the Whitehead Institution at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has even claimed that genetic differences exist at the cellular level asserting that “throughout human bodies, the cells of males and females are biochemically different.” These differences even affect how men and women contract and fight diseases.
The philosopher Alain de Benoist has also strongly criticised gender theory. De Benoist argued against the scientific errors and philosophical absurdities in his work Non à la théorie de genre (No to Gender Theory).
First, De Benoist points out that the gender theorists have used the fact that some gender characteristics are socially constructed to argue that all characteristics are socially constructed.
Second, De Benoist argued that the “hormonal impregnation of the foetus” (as De Benoist puts it) causes the brain to become genderised because it has a “direct effect on the organisation of neural circuits, creating a masculine brain and a feminine brain, which can be distinguished by a variety of anatomical, physiological, and biochemical markers.”
Third, De Benoist argued that biological sex has a profound effect on the way people think, act, and feel. In order to support their theory, gender theorists are forced to deny the natural differences between men and women. De Benoist wrote:
“From the first days of life, boys look primarily at mechanized objects or objects in movement while girls most often search for visual contact with human faces. Only a few hours after birth, a girl responds to the cries of other infants while a boy shows no interest. The tendency to show empathy is stronger in girls than in boys long before any external influence (or “social expectations”) have been able to assert themselves. At all ages and stages of development, girls are more sensitive to their emotional states and to those of others than boys … From a young age, boys resort to physical strategies where girls turn to verbal ones … From the age of two, boys are more aggressive and take more risks than girls.”
Furthermore, gender theory cheapens what it means to be a man or a woman. And, by extension, it denigrates the contributions that each gender has to make to civil society. Gender values give people ideals to strive for and helps them determine the rules that govern human interactions. The idea that men and women ought to be treated the same is ludicrous beyond belief. No parent would like to see their son treat a woman the same way they treat their male friends. Men have been taught to be gentlemen and women have been taught to be ladies for a reason.
All of this is not to say, however, that those pushing transgender rights do not have a case. They are right when they claim that the transgender peoples of the world face discrimination, prejudice, and violence. Some countries treat transgenderism as a crime, and it is certainly true that transgender people are more likely to be victims of violence, including murder. A reasonable transgender rights argument would be that transgender people cannot help their affliction and that society ought to treat them with kindness, tolerance, and compassion.
Unfortunately, that is not the argument that gender activists like to make. Rather than focusing on promoting tolerance, gender activists have instead sought to do away with gender distinctions altogether (which is, more likely than not, their actual aim). Using a very tiny minority of the population as their moral basis, the gender activists are attempting to force society to sacrifice its traditional classifications of male and female.
Transgenderism is clearly a mental health disorder. In the past, it was referred to as “gender dysphoria”, considered a mental illness, and treated as such. To assert the fact that transgenderism is a mental health disorder is not a denial of an individual’s integral worth as a human being. It is merely the acknowledgement of the existence of an objective reality in which gender is both binary and distinct. Unfortunately, this is not the attitude of those who influence public opinion. Consequently, programs for LGBTQ youth have seen an increase in youth who identify as transgender. The transgender journalist, Libby Down Under, has blamed instances of rapid-onset gender dysphoria on the normalisation of transgenderism in the culture. With a slew of celebrities coming out as transgender (former Olympian Bruce Jenner being a primary example), and with transgender characters being featured on numerous television shows, many teens and tweens have suddenly decided that they are transgender despite having no prior history of gender confusion.
Transgender youth increasingly feel that it is their right to express themselves however they please. And they feel that it is their right to silence all who dare to criticise or disagree with that expression. Cross-living, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery are seen as part of this self-expression. Alarmingly, the mainstream response of psychotherapists to these children and adolescents is the “immediate affirmation of [their] self-diagnosis, which often leads to support for social and even medical transition.”
It is a classic case of political posturing overshadowing the pursuit of truth. Most youth suffering from gender dysphoria grow out of their predilection. Dr. James Cantor of the University of Toronto has cited three large-scale studies, along with other smaller studies, to show that transgender children eventually grow out of their gender dysphoria. The Diagnostic and Statistics Manual 5th Edition claims that desistance rates for gender dysphoria is seventy to ninety percent in “natal males” and fifty to eighty-eight percent in “natal females.” Similarly, the American Psychological Association’s Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology concludes that the vast majority of gender dysphoria-afflicted children learn to accept their gender by the time they have reached adolescence or adulthood.
It is not a secret that transgenderism lends itself to other mental health problems. Forty-one percent of transgender people have either self-harmed or experienced suicidal ideation (this percentage, of course, does not reveal at what stage of transition suicidal ideation or attempts occur). The postmodern, neo-Marxist answer to this problem is that transgender people are an oppressed minority and that they are driven to mental illness as a result of transphobia, social exclusion, bullying, and discrimination.
It is typical of the left to presume that society is to blame for an individual’s suffering. And to a certain extent, they are right. Transgender people are the victims of discrimination, prejudice, and violence. But it is more than likely that these abuses exacerbate their problems rather than causing them. One in eight transgender people, for example, rely on sex and drug work to survive. Is that the fault of society or the fault of the individual? The National Center for Transgender Equality claims that it is common for transgender people to have their privacy violated, to experience harassment, physical and sexuality violence, and to face discrimination when it comes to employment. They claim that a quarter of all transgender people have lost their jobs and three-quarters have faced workplace discrimination because of their transgender status.
In Australia, there has been a move to allow transgender children access to hormone-blocking drugs and sex-change surgeries. Australian gender activists – surprise, surprise – support the idea of as a way to reduce the rates of suicide among transgender people. The Medical Journal of Australia has approved the use of hormone therapy on thirteen-year-olds despite the fact that the scientific community remains, as of 2018, undecided on whether or not puberty-blocking drugs are either safe or reversible.
In the United States, a great deal of debate has occurred over transgender rights. In particular, there have been debates over what bathroom they should be allowed to use, how they should be recognised on official documents, and whether they should be allowed to serve in the military. In 2016, former President Barack Obama ordered state schools to allow transgender students to use whatever bathroom they desire. Similar ordinances have been passed in hundreds of cities and counties across the United States. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia are subject to ‘non-discrimination’ laws which include gender identity and gender expression. These include restrooms, locker rooms, and change rooms.
In March of 2016, North Carolina passed a law which required people in government buildings to use the bathroom appropriate to their biological gender. The US Federal Government decried the decision as bigotry and accused the government of North Carolina of violating the Civil Rights Act. The Federal Government threatened to withhold over US$4 billion in education funding. The government of North Carolina responded by filing suit against the government of the United States. The US government responded by filing suit against North Carolina. North Carolina received support from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas whilst Washington received support from most of the northern states.
Pro-transgender bathroom policies are not limited to government, however. Many businesses in the United States have similar bathroom policies. Many large corporations, among them Target, allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice. And they are perfectly prepared to enforce these policies, as well. A Macy’s employee in Texas was fired after he refused to allow a man dressed as a woman to use the female change rooms. Similarly, Planet Fitness revoked the membership of a woman who complained that a transgender man was in the female change rooms.
The most alarming trend of the gender theory movement is the attempt to indoctrinate children through changes to the education system. In 2013, France unleashed the ABCD de l’égalité (the ABCs of Equality) on six hundred elementary schools. In their own words, the program was designed to teach students that gender was a social construct:
“Gender is a sociological concept that is based on the fact that relations between men and women are socially and culturally constructed. The theory of gender holds that there is a socially constructed sex based on differentiated social roles and stereotypes in addition to anatomical, biological sex, which is innate.”
The creators of the program are smart enough to include the disclaimer: “biological differences should not be denied, of course, but those differences should not be fate.”
Fortunately, it would seem that many people are not taken in by this race to fantasyland. They are not taken in by the idea that the program merely exists to combat gender stereotypes and teach respect, and have protested. The French Minister of Education dismissed the protestors by saying that they “have allowed themselves to be fooled by a completely false rumour… at school we are teaching little boys to become little girls. That is absolutely false, and it needs to stop.” In America, The Boston Globe dismissed the protests against the program as being motivated by fear. Judith Butler event went as far as to say that France’s financial instability was the true cause of the protests.
And such a profound misuse of the education system isn’t limited to France, either. In Scotland, teachers are given guidance by LGBT Youth Scotland, children are expected to demonstrate “understanding of diversity in sexuality and gender identity”, and children are allowed to identify as either a girl or boy, or neither. The government of the United Kingdom has mandated that transgender issues be taught as part of the sex and relationships curriculum in primary and secondary school. Justine Greening, the education secretary, said: “it is unacceptable that relationships and sex education guidance has not been updated for almost twenty years especially given the online risks, such as sexting and cyberbullying, our children and young people face.”
It is in Australia, however, that there is the most shocking case of gender theory indoctrination. A great deal of controversy has been generated over the Safe Schools program. The program, which was established by the Victorian government in 2010, is supposedly designed to provide a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment for LGBTI students. It states that schools have the responsibility to challenge “all forms of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, intersexism to prevent discrimination and bullying.”
The Safe Schools program promotes itself as an anti-bullying resource supporting “sexual diversity, intersex and gender diversity in schools.” It requires Victorian schools to eliminate discrimination based on gender identity, intersex, and sexual orientation, including in terms of an inclusive school environment.
The program addresses the issues of sleeping and bathroom arrangements and dress code. In terms of dress code, the program states:
“An inflexible dress code policy that requires a person to wear a uniform (or assume characteristics) of the sex that they do not identify with is likely to be in breach of anti-discrimination legislation including under the Equal Opportunity Act (1984) SA”
Likewise, the program states on the issue of bathrooms and change rooms that “transgender and diverse students should have the choice of accessing a toilet/changeroom that matches their gender identity.” In addition, the program states:
“Schools may also have unisex/gender neutral facilities. While this is a helpful strategy for creating an inclusive school environment for gender diverse students broadly, it is not appropriate to insist that any student, including a transgender student, use this toilet if they are not comfortable doing so.”
The idea that a transgender boy or girl should be allowed to sleep, shower, and defecate in the same place as a group of boys or girls ought to ring alarm bells for everyone. It increases the risk of sexual activity, sexual assault, pregnancy, and the transmission of sexually-transmitted-diseases. There is a reason why schools segregate changerooms, toilets, and dormitories.
The tragedy of David Reimer reveals just how dangerous it is to ignore the truth in favour of a false and malevolent social philosophy. It is one thing to seek tolerance and compassion for those in the community who may be struggling with their identity. It is something else entirely to use the plight of transgender peoples as a means of cording society to change the way it categorises gender. And it is completely insane to allow a false philosophy like gender theory to be used as the basis of public policy. If we don’t want more tragedies like David Reimer’s, we should put gender theory out in the trash where it belongs.
Television and Culture
“She’s television generation, she learnt life from Bugs Bunny” muses William Holden in Network, as he confesses his affair with a younger woman to his long-suffering wife. Love it or hate it, television has shaped the way we see the world. And it has been used for years to engineer social change.
It is because of their values that the left has come to dominate the culture. While conservatives value objective facts, those on the left value narrative. This is an important distinction. People develop their worldview based on the stories they are told, not the facts that are presented to them. And while conservatives choose to focus on facts, the left is creating the narrative references that define the world we live in.
As a consequence, left-wing assumptions have come to dominate film and television. And, by extension, it is these assumptions that create the parameters for public discourse. It was through the positive depiction of gay characters in shows like Will and Grace that homosexual relationships came to be more widely accepted. It would be difficult to argue that such depictions played no role in the public’s acceptance of gay marriage. Today shows like Orange is the New Black presents sympathetic transgender characters in an attempt to engineer public acceptance of transgenderism. The left produces television shows and movies that are anti-capitalism, anti-Christian, and anti-West. Unfortunately, the right fails to produce television shows and movies in their defence.
The left embeds its messages through seemingly innocuous narratives and likeable characters. Otherwise morally reprehensible and disagreeable characters are presented in a sympathetic light. By doing this, the creators of these characters are able to coax us into accepting things we otherwise would not. Max Black, one of the protagonists of Two Broke Girls, is a rude, unmotivated, and immoral drug and alcohol user, but she is presented to the audience as a positive role model for women.
Television’s primary power lies in the fact that it allows individuals and organisations to manipulate images, facts, and stories to suit their own purposes. It is through the distortion of facts, impelling narratives, and the creation of morally reprehensible yet sympathetic characters that those who control television have been able to manipulate the public. Whether or not this trend will continue with the advent of the internet is yet to be seen.
The Loss of Civility
Society has a problem with politically-motivated violence. At a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, a man with Nazi sympathies drove his car into a crowd of protestors, killing one and injuring many others.
Likewise, the so-called anti-fascists, Antifa (they are, of course, nothing of the sort) has resorted to using violent and intimidatory tactics at numerous protests and rallies.
Needless to say, such occurrences raise serious questions about the consequences of political polarisation and the lack of community sentiment and incivility that it brings.
One of the features of the 2010s has been the increase in political polarisation. As people become more willing to identify themselves by their political ideology, the tendency to view one’s political opponents as extremists have, likewise, increased. Consequentially, it has become easier and easier for people to demonise others because they don’t hold the same political views that they do.
Such polarisation, of course, has been fuelled by a biased and segregated news media system. The online video and podcast revolution, combined with a mainstream media that heavily slants towards the left, has meant that people are often only exposed to those views that match their own. As such, the right has been manipulated into believing that all on the left are social justice warriors, protestors, and radical feminists, whilst those on the left have been manipulated into seeing all on the right as Nazis, race baiters, white supremacists, and alt-righters.
To a large degree, political polarisation has come as a consequence of the loss of a sense of community. People no longer associate with their neighbours, and, as a result, they have come to see each other as potential enemies rather than potential friends. And, under such conditions, it becomes very easy to see another person as evil when their political views do not compliment your own.
The loss of community has occurred for three major reasons. First, the advent of social media, online shopping, video subscription services, and smartphones has meant that people are no longer required to venture out into society and interact with others. It is no longer necessary for a consumer to interact with shop staff, for instance, because they can shop in the solitude of their own living room. Modern technology, for all its benefits, has provided us with a faux sense of sociability. A kind of sociability that allows us to communicate with others but does not require genuine human interaction.
Second, past-times that were once considered neutral have been co-opted to spread politically-charged messages. People can no longer go to a football game, watch a movie, or listen to music without having political ideology preached to them. As a consequence, society lacks the entities that once allowed people to bond with one another despite differences in their political beliefs.
Third, engagement with the community has declined. People are no longer engaged with the community in the same way that their grandparents were. In the past, social clubs, community groups, sports clubs, and religious institutions provided a space where people of diverse beliefs, values, and opinions could come together. As a consequence, such entities promoted a degree of social unity and social cohesion. Today, however, people are becoming more and more willing to self-segregate. They isolate themselves, choosing only to socialise with friends and family.
What all this has amounted to is a loss of civility. It is very easy to justify all manner of bad behaviour when one sees their opponent as a threat to their very existence. Our modern society shuns manners and dismisses common courtesy and is surprised to find self-centredness and vulgarity in its wake.
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.
Legal Fling App Represents All That Is Wrong With Modern Sexual Politics
According to Business Insider, an app announced last Wednesday will allow users to use blockchain technology to give explicit and formal consent to sex.
The ‘Legal Fling’ app is the brainchild of Legal Things, a Dutch start-up that boasts over thirty-thousand users. According to the Legal Fling website, the app, which was created in response to the #MeToo movement”, is based on the philosophy that:
“Sex should be fun and safe, but nowadays a lot of things can go wrong. Think of unwanted videos, withholding about STDs and offensive porn re-enactment. While you’re protected by law, litigating any offences through court is nearly impossible in reality. Legal Fling creates a legally binding agreement, which means any offense is a breach of contract. By using Live Contracts protocol, your private agreement is verifiable using the blockchain and enforceable with a single click.”
The Legal Fling app uses a user-friendly interface to allow couples to enter into legally binding ‘live contracts’ that will “make the do’s and don’ts clear to both parties.” The app then uses blockchain technology (originally used to track Bitcoin transactions and the movement of goods within corporate supply chains) to create a permanent record that is saved in multiple places
An application like Legal Fling is indicative of all that is wrong with modern sexual politics.
What the Legal Fling app represents is a culture that desperately wants to have its cake and eat it, too. By creating a moral standard that proclaims all sex permissible as long as it is consensual, modern hook-up culture has created a confusing and treacherous environment for intimate relationships.
The answer to modern sexual woes is not the creation of an app, but a return to traditional, family-based values. Sexual conduct must be governed by strong moral standards, not an app.
IT’S TIME FOR A RETURN TO TRADITION
Modernity is in trouble. From the menace of migrant crime in Europe to the sexual transgressions rife in modern-day Hollywood, the moral argument for modernity is quickly waning. How did things go so wrong? And how do we fix it? Perhaps a return to traditional values and ideals are in order.
The modern world developed over hundreds of years. The post-medieval period has seen the advent of tolerance as a social and political virtue, the rise of the nation-state, the increased role of science and technology in daily life, the development of representative democracy, the creation of property rights, urbanisation, mass literacy, print media, industrialisation, mercantilism, colonisation, the social sciences, modern psychology, emancipation, romanticism, naturalist approaches to art and culture, and the development of existential philosophy. From the computer to the mobile phone, the motor car to the aeroplane, the marvels of the modern world are all around us.
The modern world has replaced the Aristotelean and faith-based concept of human life that was popular in the Middle Ages with a worldview based on science and reason. Modern intellectualism, therefore, follows the example set forth by Cartesian and Kantian philosophy: mistrusting tradition and finding its roots in science and rationality.
Culturally and intellectually, the 21st century represents the postmodern era. Postmodernism can be difficult to define accurately because the various cultural and social movements that use it as their central philosophy define it for their own purposes. Jean-Franҫois Lyotard (1924 – 1998), who introduced the term in his 1979 book, The Postmodern Condition, defined postmodernism as “incredulity towards metanarratives.” Similarly, Encyclopedia Britannica defines it as a philosophical movement in opposition to the philosophical assumptions and values of modern Western philosophy.
Postmodernism came about as a reaction, indeed a rejection, to modernity. With its roots in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900), Martin Heidegger (1889 – 1976), Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939), and Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), the postmodernist rejects the philosophical theory of Foundationalism – the idea that knowledge is built upon a solid foundation – in favour of large-scale scepticism, subjectivism, and relativism.
The postmodernist likes to see himself as Beowulf fighting Grendel. That is, he likes to see himself as the mythical hero fighting the historical-critical monster. Inspired by doctrines of white privilege and toxic masculinity, and driven by an anti-capitalist (except when it comes to their I-phones), anti-racist (provided the person isn’t white), anti-imperialist (but only European imperialism), and anti-transphobic (because gender is a “social construct”) rhetoric, the post-modernist inspired neo-Marxists and social justice warriors have invaded the modern university and college campus.
Modernity and post-modernism have produced a swathe of existential and moral problems that the Western world has, as of yet, proved unable (or perhaps even unwilling) to solve. To begin, the modern world has abolished the central role that God, nature, and tradition has played in providing life with purpose. In spite of all its cruelty, the German sociologist, Max Weber (1864 – 1920) saw the Middle Ages as a highly humanistic period. Everything was considered to have a divine purpose. Even someone as lowly as a Medieval serf, for example, could feel that he had a role in God’s greater scheme. There was a sense of, as Martin Buber (1878 – 1965) puts it, “I-thou.” Modernity swapped “I-thou” for “I-it”. The human will replaced God as the ultimate arbiter of meaning.
This problem has been further exacerbated by the alienation of the human spirit to nature. Science, for all of its positive qualities, has had the effect of rendering nature meaningless. No longer is a thunderclap the voice of an angry God, nor does a cave contain a goblin or a mountain harbour a giant. Science may be an excellent means for understanding facts, but it is not a substitute for wisdom or tradition when it comes to determining human purpose. No longer does the natural world command the sense of reverential majesty that it once did.
The answer to the problems of the modern, and, by extension, post-modern, world is a revitalisation of the traditional beliefs, values, ideas, customs, and practices that have made the Western world great in the first place. We must reject the destructive ideas espoused by the postmodernists and work to revitalise our traditions. It is high time we started taking some pride in the traditions that have made our civilisation so great.
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 Qualities That Build Society
Everyone versed in culture and politics understands the truth in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792 – 1822) argument that creators of culture are the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Our view of the world is derived from our religious beliefs, the stories we read as children, the movies we watched, the cultural customs we become accustomed to, and so forth. It is not that culture constructs the physical edifices of civilisation per say, but that culture forms the values and philosophies upon which civilisation is founded.
In the west, the prevailing cultural narrative champions wholesome virtues: kindness, compassion, love, fair-play, and so forth, as being the only way to achieve prosperity and success. The individual must avoid combat with others, and be polite, civil, pleasant, and diplomatic to all. To be seen using aggression or wanting power leads to social isolation. This has certainly been the message in culture. In Shakespeare’s Richard III, the title character is a corrupt, twisted, and Machiavellian prince who schemes his way into power. By contrast, the future Henry VII is seen to be fair and humane. By the end of the play, Richard dies hated even by members of his own family, whereas Henry is celebrated as a noble hero.
This worldview bears little resemblance to reality:
“The manner in which we live, and that in which we ought to live, are things so wide asunder, that he who quits the one to betake himself with the other is more likely to destroy than to save himself; since anyone who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything, must be ruined among so many who are not good. It is essential for a prince who wishes to maintain his position, to have learned how to be other than good, and to use or not to use his goodness as necessity requires.” (Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532, Chapter 15, page 114)
Bubbling just below the surface are the real, amoral virtues which foster prosperity and success. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) puts forth the following proposition:
“Suppose nothing is given as ‘real’ except our world of desires and passions, and we could not get down, or up, to any other ‘reality’ besides the reality of our drives.” (Beyond Good and Evil, page 59).
Maybe we aren’t as driven by morality and Godliness as we like to think we are. Maybe we are driven by lust for power, material wealth, and sex. (This, of course, brings forth the possibility that the purpose of wholesomeness is to temper our real desires).
Even though we loathe having to admit it, all of us want power. Power gives us greater control and makes us feel more secure. But since it is socially unacceptable to be seen wanting power we are forced to rely on subtlety. We are forced to become honest on the one hand, and duplicitous on the other, congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious.
In chapter twenty-one of the Prince, Machiavelli (1469 – 1527) wrote: “Nothing makes a prince so well thought of as to undertake great enterprises and give striking proofs of his capacity.” Our civilisation was built through ambitious and power-hungry individuals. Not by the wholesome virtues presented to us.
MEMENTO MORI
This is our weekly theological article.
For most of my life I have had a great affinity for cemeteries and graveyards. A gentle stroll through the neat and peaceful rows of graves, pausing occasionally to read the inscription on the headstone of someone who lived and died long before I was born has been the source of great pleasure for me.
I believe cemeteries and graveyards are important for two reasons. First, they are incredibly artistic. One cannot help but notice the well-manicured lawns and beautiful gardens, the magnificent sculpting’s of the headstones, and the often-poetic rhetoric of the epitaphs. Second, I believe that cemeteries and graveyards provide people with a physical connection with their cultural heritage and allows them to tap into their ancestral past. As Doctor Celestina Sagazio, a historian working for Melbourne’s Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, observed, cemeteries and graveyards provide a clue into the daily lives of people throughout history.
Modern culture has little time for the contemplation of death. That would go against ‘positive thinking’ and the perpetual lie of ‘eternal youth.’ This, however, stands in stark contrast with the convictions of most of our forebears. From antiquity through to the early twentieth century, the consideration of death was considered a good motivator for leading a virtuous and meaningful life. Recent studies affirm this belief, finding that the contemplation of one’s own mortality acts as a motivator for assessing one’s values and goals and can greatly improve physical health.
The phrase, ‘Memento Mori’, is said to have originated with the Ancient Romans. Tradition in Ancient Rome dictated that a servant or slave should stand behind a triumphant General during his victory parade. This servant or slave would whisper in the General’s ear: “Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento Mori!” (“Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you will die!”).
Between the 14th and 17th centuries, the concept of ‘Memento Mori’ took on new motifs. The engraving, ‘The Triumph of Death’ (1539) by Georg Pencz (1500 – 1550) depicted a scythe-wielding skeleton commanding an oxen-driven chariot. Similarly, the dance of death – involving skeletal figures – lead everyone from the Pope to the humble ploughman in a final dance of death. During the 17th and 18th centuries, many New England graves were adorned with epitaphs like ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Hora Fugit’ (‘the hour flees’) and were emblazoned with images of skulls, bones, winged death’s heads, hourglasses, and other symbols of death and the passage of time.
The Roman stoic philosopher, Seneca (4BC – AD65) advised: “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day… The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” The careful contemplation of mortality and the deliberate awareness of death has a profoundly positive effect on the health and vitality of the soul.
