31 December 2009

DESPERATE HOURS



Words of wisdom from Mary Daly, reigning barbarian princess of radical theological feminism:


If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth.
I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.

Watch out men, or else she will eviscerate you with her giant axe.

Read about this poor creature here and here.

UPDATE: TH2 has just learned that Daly died yesterday (January 3, 2010), some 3 days after this original posting. LINK
Prayers for her soul are in order.

SIDEBAR: This updated information was provided by organist/angelic vocalist extraordinarius Mary at St. Paul Athens Saturday Schola
. TH2 strongly advises readers to visit this excellent blog.


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30 December 2009

JUSTICE UNJUSTIFIED






If there is no fixed concept of justice, how shall men know it is violated ?

Fulton Sheen, Communism and the Conscious of the West







[MODE: RANT / START]
I. Nowadays special interest groups and lobbyists of all sorts continually make demands for some kind of "justice". Justice for harm done to animals, the environment and even the climate. Justice for racial prejudice and sexual harassment. Justice for economic plight and for wrongs committed in the distant past. Justice for a public insult or a dirty look. Justice for this and justice for that and, holy smokes, would you look at that hat. The list is unlimited and, frankly, the general screech for justice which currently pollutes the public square gives TH2 a stomach ache.

II. Now let TH2 swallow a couple of antacid tablets and pose this question: Why is it that these demanders for justice are never specific on the type of justice they want? TH2 is not referring to those persons who have truly suffered injustice. Nor is he denying the recompense that is their due. Rather, TH2 is speaking of those who make the demand for justice into a career. Say, like the professional "social justice" activist, the leader of a teacher’s union, or any one of the Fabianists at the CBC. They talk alot about justice for "the people" and "the workers", though it seems they are unwilling to confront the centrality of the issue. Why? Because the justice they maintain is a vacuous abstraction and into this vacuum do petty grievances flow.

III. But this is the trick. So long as justice has no objective connotation, one can complain about a lack of justice about whatever issue one wants and for as long as one wants. This is why more and more justice is demanded after an original justice has been exercised. A new injustice of no interest to the general public (except for a small group of neurotic liberals with some great need to overassert themselves) must be invented, publicized and exaggerated to be more widespread that it is. If not, the Vulgar Left would have nothing to complain about and therefore be out of a job. Without the achievements, successes and status of others, they would have nothing to feed their envy. To celebrate the accomplishments of others is, to them, a great sin.

IV. This is also explains why the language employed is consistently ambiguous. For example, take the term "social justice". What the hell does this phrase mean? TH2 hears it all the time from bellowing Vulgar Leftists, but never is it accurately defined. Adjoining the word "social" to the word "justice" obviously works to place justice in a subjective context, making a situation more complicated and broader than it is in actuality. “Social justice” does not gravitate around justice per se. The vague "social" aspect is more so emphasized. The "social" deals with a spacious array of things and conditions, indeed, an infinite number of them. Therefore "social justice" is merely abstract justice.

V. The reason why justice is made into an abstraction is simple. It allows for everything to be justifiable. It makes exceptions to the rules into rules. More precisely, it is yet another manifestation of the relativism in modern times. Regardless of the perversity of whatever action or a transgression against a whatever law and they can only be considered perversions and transgressions when a comparison is made to that which is just or normal, they can be justified to the n'th degree so long as it is presumed that justice is devoid of objectivity.

VI. Now if every kind of action or state in life can be justified, then it necessarily follows that attitudes and behaviours of the majority of people must be changed or “educated”. But this can only be effected by coercion and propaganda. Today it is called Political Correctness. Those who search for abstract justice overlook the fact that human nature is not easily altered. Nevertheless, since they have this insatiable need to control other people’s lives (as they clearly have no control of their own), they assail those norms and traditional values that foster and promote aspects of normal human nature. As exceptions are made into rules, so is the unnatural made "natural", and thus the previously unjust made justifiable. Those who do not submit to their dictates are either vilified into oblivion or penalized by a judiciary increasingly predisposed to listen to the ramblings of radical feminists, wealthy socialists, anarchists and other such vulgarians.

VII. So what we discover is that our professional demanders of justice are not working for those who have suffered injustice. Instead, they are quenching their own egos and instilling within themselves a feigned sense of virtue. They exaggerate injustices associated with poverty and “homophobia” because it gives them a public platform to rebuke others and make themselves look and feel good. They do not want justice, for if justice did arise they would have nothing to complain about. Moreover, it is an excellent form of employment, a quick way to celebrity, and an easy way to promote the most obtuse of agendas, at the taxpayer’s expense of course. Government is so much duped by these rascals that it unthinkingly showers them with grants to write reports with such titles as: “A NonJudgmental Critique of the Social Injustices Associated with Patriarchic Corporate Structures and how Ecofeminist Social Engineers can make the Office a Happy Place”. The title is invented. The verbosity is not.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------[END RANT]


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25 December 2009

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2009



This day a Holy Child is in Bethlehem.
This day the Lord of History is born to a Holy Virgin.
This day the Redeemer of Humanity is wrapped in swaddling clothes.
This day the King of Kings rests in a manger.
This day the universe is silent.
For it must remain silent.

Holy Child, you permitted St. Anthony to hold you in his arms.
How I envy St. Anthony.
Why not I ?
That is not fair, Lord.
You belong to me. You are my property.
Forgive me, Lord, my selfishness.

Most Holy Child Jesus, have mercy upon us.
Most Blessed Virgin Mary, look with tenderness upon us.
Humble St. Joseph, protect us from evil.

Holy Family, wonderful Holy Family...
How can one not love the Holy Family ?

Amen. Amen.

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20 December 2009

BROTHER ANDRÉ ON THE WAY TO SAINTHOOD











I am nothing... only a tool in the hands of Providence, a lowly instrument at the service of Saint Joseph
Bl. Brother André (Alfred Bessette)








Probably to be overshadowed by the recent news of Pope XII being declared Venerable, a press release from Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount-Royal (Quebec, Canada) has been just been issued regarding the cause of Brother André.

TH2, a cold-blooded Canadian, is very glad to hear that: "Benedict XVI confirms a miraculous healing due to the intercession of Brother André"...
Montréal, December 19, 2009 - In Rome this morning, the Holy Father, Benedict XVI held a private audience with Mgr. Angelo Amato, SDB, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During the audience, the Holy Father authorized the Congregation to issue a decree concerning a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Brother André, CSC, founder of Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal. Born on August 9, 1845 at Saint-Grégoire d'Iberville in the diocese of Saint-Hyacinthe, just south of Montréal, Brother André died on January 6, 1937 in Montréal. He was declared Venerable on June 12, 1978 by Pope Paul VI and was beatified on May 23, 1982 by Pope John Paul II in Rome.

With joy filled hearts, the administration and the personnel of Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal has learned that his Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI has just acknowledged as scientifically inexplicable, a healing due to the intercession of Blessed Brother André. Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, Archbishop of Montréal, was elated by the news. “Brother André takes pride of place among the builders of our diocesan Church.”

The vice postulator for the cause of the canonization of Brother André, Father Mario Lachapelle, CSC, indicated, “The road to the canonization of Brother André is now open! The moment finally seems to have come. Today, one of the most significant pages in our collective history has been written.” In Rome, the Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Hugh Cleary, CSC, said, “What a grace for our religious family, to count among its ranks such a model of the Christian life offered to the world, a true inspiration for a welcoming, compassionate presence. Such good news!”

The Rector of Saint Joseph's Oratory, Father Claude Grou, CSC, commented on the good news, “During these days leading up to the majestic celebration of Christmas, we have another reason to exult as we have learned that the Holy Father has officially recognized the miraculous cure which was obtained by the intercession of Blessed Brother André. This important step has revitalized our expectations to see Brother André among the saints of the Catholic Church.”

As for the Superior of the Canadian Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Father Jean-Pierre Aumont, CSC declared, “Brother André is renowned throughout the family of Holy Cross as a man whose prayer reached the heart of God. The miracle which has just been recognized demonstrates just how much he still attends to human suffering and inspires the life and mission of the religious of Holy Cross.”

This announcement followed upon a meeting of the Ordinary Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops. The 15 members of this group gave their favorable consent for the foregoing of the Cause. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints was thus able to present all the currently available recommendations to the Holy Father.

This good news has given impetus to a great gladness on part of pilgrims, visitors, and friends of Saint Joseph's Oratory. We invite everyone to blend their voices in a prayer of thanksgiving. Details of the events leading up to the last stages of the process of canonization will be published at the beginning of the New Year, 2010.
Prayer for the Canonization of Brother André: Lord, you have chosen Blessed Brother André to spread devotion to Saint Joseph and to dedicate himself to all those who are afflicted. Grant through his intercession the favour that we now request… We also pray that the Church may canonize him as soon as possible. Grant us the grace to imitate his piety and charity so that, with him, we may share the reward promised to all who care for their neighbours out of love for You. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

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13 December 2009

GUNNY: THE FOSSILIZING "SOCIAL JUSTICE" BUREAUCRAT

Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to get paid for doing nothing. "Hey", he thought, "I could get involved with the 'social justice' movement and use a watered down version of Catholicism, invent crises, and misrepresent economic issues so as to advance a socialist utopia."

Accordingly, it is time to dissect and analyze a recent article in the Edmontonbased Western Catholic Reporter (October 19, 2009) by Joe Gunn, who is a "Ottawabased executive director of Citizens for Public Justice... an ecumenical social advocacy organization". You get the picture (if not, check out the website). The article, from Gunn's "Journey to Justice" column, is a film review entitled: "Capitalism A Love Story pulls no punches". LINK

[TH2 analysis in bolded square brackets]
Recently I was invited to the pre–screening of a film that is now hitting big screens across Canada [so you must be special, TH2 was not invited]. Produced and directed by a man the Toronto Star [hyper left wing newspaper] refers to as "a liberal, gadfly documentarian," Michael Moore's Capitalism – A Love Story presents a mixed bag of sarcasm and anger [and stand–by Marxist bromides].One year after the demise of financial services giant Lehman Brothers and the devastating economic collapse felt around the planet [notice: here Gunny is hinting that, because of recent economic troubles, the free market as such is a fallacy], Academy Award winner [now there's a qualifier] Moore calls capitalism "organized greed," resulting in "the richest one per cent of Americans having more wealth than the bottom 95 per cent combined, and one in eight Americans either in delinquency or facing foreclosure on their homes (with one foreclosure filing every seven and a half seconds.") [What's the statistical data source? The Huffington Post? The Comintern website? Arsenio Hall? Spare TH2 the subjectivist claims and provide hard facts and sources]

WE MUST SHARE [...the wealth, like those suckers who donate to your website]

Readers may be surprised to discover that Moore was raised Catholic in Flint, Mich. [Big deal, Luther and Hitler were raised Catholic. Look at the damage they did. Since when is being raised Catholic qualify that everything said and promoted is good and true. One can be raised Catholic, but if that Catholicism is rejected in whatever way, what the person advocates is, in this context, a non sequitir] He holds in high regard the nuns who taught him [well isn't that delightful], as they convinced their young charge that possession of wealth comes with a non–negotiable responsibility to share [Notice how Gunny is already, and subtly, working to build–up and justify this Marxist blowhard because Gunny knows, in the back of his Fabianist mind, that most people think – rightly so – that Moore's hockey stick isn't touching the ice. Nonetheless, let's have some fun and play along, letting the "Moore as Martyr" routine continue...]

But what was most revealing about Moore's movie was the filming of no less than four Catholic priests, including two American bishops, [OK, now Gunny injects the bishops/priests into the mix so as to demonstrate (falsely) that Moore's Marxism is really condoned by, or at least in line with, Catholic social teaching. Brilliant tactic, when you think about it, but TH2 already knows where Gunny is headed] who have no difficulty at all in denouncing the evils of modern capitalism. When did you last hear a sermon on that topic? [Answer: Every time I open up the pages of Canadian "Catholic" periodicals, like the Western Catholic Reporter; every time he watches the news and current affairs programs on television; most every book he has read by whatever academic or "public intellectual" published over the last four decades]

The point is not that Christians must all run out to see this particular movie. But it does occur to me [it does?, you must be a genius] that if the followers of Jesus knew and accepted the social thought of their traditions, the churches would be in the forefront of movements for political and economic change to the currently unfettered market system. [Here Gunny is omitting the leftist–socialistic stance of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops since the 1960s; nor does he admit that all this spirit–of–the–world "social justice" crap has constituted "the spirit" of Vatican II from the get–go, and has been the dominant voice for the last 40 years]

The Church was not always a critic of capitalism, of course [here we go...] In the 1830s, Pope Gregory XVI called Catholics to "unchanging submission to the princes," which, he wrote, "flows from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion." [...and so the careful selection of quotations taken out of context so as to justify socialism begins]

Contemporary Catholic social teaching is often marked by the publication in 1891 of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum. This encyclical ushered in a new era [note the utopian twang in "new era"]: defending the European working class, sanctioning the formation of unions and proposing the right to a living wage. [But Pope Leo XIII, unlike Gunny, did not endorse a disguised socialism, i.e. Fabianism. Rerum novarum also states: "the socialists... are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State ... for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State... private ownership is in accordance with the law of nature" (paras. 4, 9). Forgot to highlight that, didn't ya Gunny?]

In 1931, in the throes of the Great Depression, Pope Pius XI railed against "the international imperialism of money" which had brought untold suffering to millions [Bet you really like that quote, Gunny. Interesting how you ignore the millions slaughtered by the socialism of Stalin, Hitler, Mao et allia. Oops, forgot to mention that suffering]. Nonetheless, the pope opined that, "Capitalism as such is not to be condemned." ["opined"!? See how Gunny is using a word that diminishes the statement of the voice of the Vicar of Christ to an opinion as regards capitalism. According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, an encyclical, in addition to identifying errors and threats to the Faith, is issued to "prescribe remedies for evils foreseen or already existent."] He felt no such compunction to avoid a condemnation of socialism, however, which "cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church." [He was absolutely correct. TH2 says: Three cheers for Pius XI].

In Canada in those Dirty Thirties, the Catholic bishops warned the faithful to beware "provoking the class struggle" and to avoid an "exclusively materialistic conception of the social order." Two cardinals in Quebec (where the CCF [Cooperative Commonwealth Foundation, a socialist political party founded in western Canada in 1932] was not well understood) condemned this new party by name. [To the contrary, the CCF is very well understood. Who are you, Gunny, to say that it was "not well understood"? The origins of the party have been thoroughly studied and documented. Your "not well understood" statement is a disguised opposition to the facts–based view held by most. That is, the CCF was founded by radicalized–socialist, Marxist–inspired university intellectuals, labour unions and farmers. The party platform, expressed in its Regina Manifesto, called for the "principal means of production and distribution" to be "owned, controlled and operated by the people". Geez, that's not Communist]

By 1943, however, the Canadian bishops freed the people "to support any political party upholding the basic Christian traditions of Canada, and favouring the needed reforms in the social and economic order which are demanded with such an urgency in pontifical documents." The next year, the CCF took power in Saskatchewan (earning an estimated 50 per cent of Catholic support there.) [What Gunny fails to mention that, in 1956, the CCF toned down its Communist sentiments by adopting a more Fabianist approach with the issuance of its "Winnipeg Declaration". See EOS-2/Note 2 for a description of Fabianism]

With the Synod of Bishops on "Justice in the World" [1971] and the encyclicals of Pope Paul VI in the early 1970s, democratic socialist critiques of capitalism became officially acceptable. [By who? TH2 will tell you who: liberation theologians, habitless nuns, ex–priest heretics like Gregory Baum, radicalized Jesuits... all those secularized utopians (including and especially many bishops) who joyfully made Vatican II into rupture and breakaway from nearly 2000 years of tradition]

Latin American bishops opined that their people did not suffer from "underdevelopment" but from an economic system of "exploitation" and "institutionalized violence against the poor." As in the biblical story of Exodus, liberation became their goal. [Here Gunny, unsurprisingly, does not mention Marxist–inspired Liberation Theology and the violence, murders and mayhem it has incited in South America since the early 1970s]

The Canadian bishops' 1982 New Year's statement was best known for its contention that economic decline and high unemployment was related to the larger structural crisis of international capitalism. The bishops pulled no punches: the economic crisis displayed a "moral disorder." [The Canadian Bishops! You gotta be kidding? A "moral disorder"! Those same Canadian bishops who issued the "Winnipeg Statement" that rejected the morality in Humane vitae and, who, to this day refuse to retract it? It is an open secret that the Canadian Bishops have been in de facto schism from Rome for the last four decades. Any pronouncement they make, especially on moral matters, must be must be superseded by the standard as set by the Holy See]

Pope John Paul II, speaking in Latvia in 1993, noted that "While the Church has vigorously condemned socialism, it has also, from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum on, distanced itself again and again from the capitalist ideology, holding it responsible for grave social injustices. . . . I have not hesitated myself to raise serious doubts regarding the validity of capitalism." [Admittedly, Pope John Paul II was no fan of the free market, but it is again interesting how Gunny does not balance his commentary, failing to mention the grave injustices due to socialism. He is completely silent on this matter]

Pope Benedict's most recent encyclical also noted the "grave deviations and failures" of the currently under–regulated international economy [Again, being very selective in his quotations, Gunny does not balance this abstraction from Caritas in veritate with this statement therein (para. 24): "Today... which sees the State's public authorities directly involved in correcting errors and malfunctions, it seems more realistic to re–evaluate their role and their powers, which need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled". Oops again]

SPEAK OUT [TH2 would rather you not and get a real job]

Michael Moore seems to have grasped this in his most recent film: that while the purveyors of the Christian message have often preferred to console the suffering victims of capitalist excess, the critique of unjust economic systems is also our duty.[Gunny, TH2 sees that your nose is brown. How far did you stick it up Moore's ass? Were you able to breathe whence doing do?]

As the Canadian bishops reminded us in 1976, "Unfortunately, those who are committed to this Christian way of life are presently a minority in the life of the Catholic community. Yet this minority is significant because it is challenging the whole Church." [blah blah blah]

Do you ever notice that "social justice" bureaucrats talk and talk, but actually say nothing and do nothing except talk? TH2 does. One wonders if Gunny and his ilk do anything much except to scribble socialist tracts. Hence you will find that the "social justice" bureaucrat loves to convene committees and "gatherings"; he is very proficient in writing his little handbooks for humanity; he is masterful at the art of organizing protest rallies; his literary output is voluminous and amazingly fashionable; his gift for policy making is spectacular; he is an eloquent public speaker, and journalists are always desiring to interview him.

Yet
and this is the dissimulation when it comes down to working with the poor and underprivileged people he claims to represent, this Fabianist fellow has disappeared from sight. Serving meals to homeless people everyday; regularly spending a few hours in an old age home with a lonely widow; routinely buying groceries for the person confined to the wheelchair all of this is too much strain for him. Yet it is here, in these little and tedious things, where real social change begins. With humility, a minimalistic smile to acknowledge and empathize with a person’s plight, a sense of humour (of which "social justice" activists are devoid) to subtly convey that life is worth living and that suffering is part of human existence, irrespective of who you are. By dealing with reality headon as a responsible individual, without the fanfare, the exciting intellectual discussions, the exhilarating noise of community "gatherings", and the television cameras. For it is in these things which the "social justice" bureaucrat altogether avoids. He has vanished. He will, however, be at the next protest rally and his latest diatribe, the generic Essay contra RunningDogImperialistCapitalistCEO, will soon be on the bookstands. As G.K. Chesterton remarked: "They love ordinary people from afar and talk about them often. But proximity to the people and their beliefs frightens them and confuses them."

The portrayal of the "social justice" activist as Patron Saint of the People is one of the grandest deceptions in modern times. It is the guilty secret of those, like Gunny, who perniciously use religious faith as a means to advance a secular "this world" utopianism which, in the final analysis, is the antithesis to the Catholic worldview.

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02 December 2009

EPH–4 / VULGAR RADICALS






The placid nihilism of our generation is the deadliest land mine laid by the departing modernists.

Fr. George Rutler, Beyond Modernity










I. BACKGROUNDER. Modern Western society is in an obvious downslide to allout nihilism. Not so much a violent nihilism, as in the Nietzschean atop the alpine mountain summit, defiantly standing against that always unnamable oppressor represented by an omnipresent leaden sky. Rather, it is a quiescent type of nihilism, suave and selfcomplacent in a way, as if a battle has been fought and won, and that now is the time to rest and revel. Without question, this casual denial of values and morality in the twentyfirst century is most immediately traceable to the 1960s Counterculture Revolution. It is evidential of the victory of a loud rebellion whose exponents, now beyond middle age and established, wield positions of no minimal influence in modern society. From the media and the entertainment industry to education and politics there is an unvoiced acceptation that says all values are relative, that truth is an anachronism, and that morality to any minimal degree is a barrier to personal liberty.

II. HISTORICAL REVISIONISM. Like all revolutions that wish create a new society founded on relativist precepts, firstly must the ideas of the past be condemned and debunked absolutely. Thus was concocted the mythology of the 1950s. Leftists today claim that the Sixties was a decade of emancipation from the socalled repression of the Fifties. That was an age of fanatical right wing paranoia of Communism and ICBMs, of puritan ethics and emotional emptiness, void of cultural advancement and intellectual freedom. It is rather amusing that television shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver are taken as actualities of family life and social mannerism during the Fifties. The stern and stoical father, the compliant and prim mother, the gollygee mentality of the siblings these are presumed to be normative of the times. Normative in the sense that, these characteristics are not taken as fordable Hollywood expressions of security and civility, but of serious, truetolife reflections of the times.

III. FALSE LIBERATION. In reality, the 1950s was a time of general happiness and common sense, charged by economic prosperity and an optimism still overflowing from victory in the Second World War. But, alas, the 1960s arrived. Tom Hayden, Malcom X, Gloria Steinem, Timothy Leary and a host of others inducted the new age of liberation. Loudly is it propounded that the “Summer of 69” signified true freedom at last. But what principles and presumptions was this liberation based upon? What has been its legacy? From what was the decade liberated as the 1970s came to pass?

IV. INFILTRATION. Mainly, it was a continuation and intensification of the revolt against the Christian worldview as inaugurated by Marx and Engels, but taking on variegated and disguised forms. The growing prominence of Marxist thought, explicit and subtle, had decisively emplaced itself in academia and, eventually, into the public square. It won respectability with the intelligentsia, and inevitably filtered its way through to policy making, the churches, the media and other levels of social discourse. The structuralist anthropology of Claude LéviStrauss (19082009), for example, attempted to discredit the notion that Western Civilization is superior to the panoply of pagan cultures[1]. Another Frenchman, Jacques Derrida (19302004) launched deconstructionism, which proclaimed that language was a meaningless game.[2] The Canadian Marshall McLuhan (19111980) introduced an extremely bizarre form of technological determinism that won worldwide acclaim[3]. Greatly celebrated in the 1960s were the studies of sexual behavior by Alfred Kinsey (18941956). Based mainly on the perverted propensities of criminals, he opened the floodgates to a kaleidoscope of sexual conduct without recourse to personal responsibility and total submission to sensation.[4] Rachel Ward's Silent Spring (1962) and, later, Paul Erlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), heralded the era of apocalyptic environmentalism, whose scare tactics had effectuated more damage than good. Both books were scientifically bogus. The decisive role of the ecology lobby in spurring the OPEC oil crisis and the resulting hyperinflation of the 1970s is a case in point.[5] The late1950s fiction of the “Beat Generation” Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs debased literature to an unprecedented level of anarchic vulgarianism [6], creating the ridiculous "beatnik" as the antisocial rebel, who latterly transmogrified into the even more ridiculous "hippie" of the 1960s. But most perniciously, the works of neoMarxist "critical theory" issuing from the Frankfurt School, [7] enlivened a latent radicalism and gave birth to the “New Left”, using Trojan Horse tactics that eventually in the Marxist sense proletarianized a significant proportion of the middle class baby boomer population. This whole movement, at once misologic and antinomian, came as a shockwave. Considering the trend of postwar optimism, it was in many respects unexpected.

V. PERCEIVED TRANSITIONS. Overall, that sense of liberation from the socalled bourgeois repression of the Fifties to the Sixties, like the transition from the swinging twenties to the economic depression of the 1930s, has Marxist eschatology written all over it. Historians and commentators of the Left stealthily equate the highflying and opulent 1920s with bourgeois capitalism come to its climactic end, and infer that the Great Depression of 1929 marked the beginning of the proletarian revolution. Similarly, the economic affluence and general conservatism of the Fifties are equated with the bourgeois value system at its most decadent and hypocritical. Such ideas are given justification by making reference to trendy economists like John Kenneth Galbraith (19082006), another Canadian. The thesis of his popular book The Affluent Society, first published in 1958, was that the days of shortage are no more as Western economies had developed efficient means of production. It was a time of plenty. Economic problems no longer existed. The next step, he said, was distribution, which was, in the hands of social activists, contorted into confiscation, so long as the goods and property to be confiscated did not belong to them.

VI. ANTINOMIANISM. The most prominent aspect of the 1960s Counterculture Revolution was antinomianism. The rejection of traditional or socially established morality led to the glorification of youth unguided by conventional wisdom and contemptuous of authority. Manifestations of this ranged from the comical to the disturbing: the ridiculous looking hippy with his long hair and gaudy clothes; the sonorous and selfabsorbed political protester; reckless narcotic experimentation; the use of violence to promote whatever agenda; nonchalant hedonism; aberrant sexual activity. Whatever one’s position rock music (while not condemning it absolutely), it must be acknowledged that the triad of “sex, drugs and rock & roll” unleashed an irrational barbarity unaffected by limitations set by reason, wholly driven by feelings and biologic urge. The “New Music”, whose influence cannot be underestimated, was and currently is used as a propaganda tool by dilettantes to slander everything from chastity to geopolitical protocol. The net effect of this antinomianism was to tamper with familial relations, soon after to sever that tenuous connection between personal and public life, which is the prerequisite of civility. Unmitigated freedom of want, which is selfdirecting and thus antisocial, overthrew the principle of the freedom of ought, which allows for interaction with, and responsibility to, the public. Indeed, civility itself was seen as oppressive. Politeness, prudence, reasonable restraint and virtue were deemed elitist snobbery, or “anal retentive” as the catchphrase goes. Nonchalant profanity, obviousness and vulgarity were the new modes of expression and mannerism.

VII. SUBSTITUTING RELIGIOSITIES. Morality is intimately coupled with religion. But because morality was pronounced relative, traditional religion was immediately mocked. Adherence to moral imperatives which traditional religion necessarily demands is incompatible with the license to think and behave as one pleases. Two types of socalled religiosity could accommodate for this: Eastern Spirituality and Politicized Christianity. The rush of impressionable youths to the “wisdom of the East” was a spectacle that can only be described as pathetic. Pathetic because it was not an authentic search for new meaning, but a form of escape from (TH2 would say) the sometimes necessary dreariness associated with harsh realities of life, as in the use of drugs to produce hallucinations. In the main, it was just another way to justify Epicureanism and intellectual laziness. The spirituality that they sought was plainly gnostic, a hodgepodge of oriental obscurantisms expounded by a multitude of charlatans and flybynight holy men. The sight of the stoned “flower child” carelessly perambulating through purple meadows under psychedelic skies was pubescent romanticism, which presumed an imminent utopia. “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...”, and all the rest of it. However, if utopia was to be accomplished in the spiritual sense, political involvement was required. Here, then, we come across the phenomenon of affixing ideology to religion. If Marx could inform the politician and economist, he could also supplement the theologian. The chief expression of the marrying of politics to religion was "liberation theology". Promoted by radicalized Jesuits and expriests, it appealed to popreligionists in North America and encouraged violent revolution in South America.[8]

VIII. SELFCONTAINMENT. It is peculiar, but more so evidential of naiveté, that Sixties radicals traduced the JudaeoChristian outlook because of its socalled backwardness. It seemed irrelevant to them that Western Civilization had progressed upon such beliefs for millennia. Yes, there were differences in perspective, yet most agreed in moral absolutes as set down by a transcendent God, and that truth could not be subdivided into variegated opinions. They even denounced the philosophical and cultural inheritances of Greece and Rome. Yet the pseudospiritual worldviews that the radicals had newly adopted were strictly inwardlooking, subjectivist, effectively proclaiming that reality is not reality, but an emanation of the mind. TH2 can think of no other form of repression that contains the world within the self. This is also a contradiction because the axiom of moral selfcontainment violated their idea of social change through aggressive and sustained public protest, including their indefatigable claim that religion is a “private matter”, an idea entirely of Protestant origin.

IX. SOCIALISM RECONSTITUTED. If religion was selfcontained and private, political views were not. How could it be otherwise? If the old morality placed limitations on personal conduct, if this morality was presumed to constrain individual freedom, and if morality is connected to a religion considered political, then by implication everything was political. Hence there arose the power struggle of maturated authority versus immature youth. A new socialism emerged. It was not the class socialism of Marx, nor the race socialism of Hitler. It was generational socialism. It possessed affinities to the former two, mitigated as they were, in that it was divisive, it presupposed violence, it had globalistutopian intentions, and, of course, it despised the middle class. However, most of radicals came from middle class families. Here we have the old case of bourgeois guilt. One of the great mysteries of modern times is why there emerges from the middle class a powerful minority who go about to overthrow this class (themselves effectively), not realizing that a flourishing middle class is necessary for political freedom and economic prosperity.

X. THE BOURGEOIS BRIDGE. As TH2 has discussed in a previous post (EOS2, para. XVI), history instructs that the middle class act a bridge between the peasant and the aristocrat, between no power and absolute power. Dynamite this bridge and the peasant must submit absolutely to the aristocrat. Earlier this century subscribe to “the Party”, be a member of the “master race”, or else be consigned to the Gulag or a concentration camp. Today submit to the Newspeak of Political Correctness or do your time in a “sensitivity training” seminar. The dispersion of power that a thriving middle class fosters disallows such Orwellian nightmares because it provides a socioeconomic gateway to opportunity, providing one the liberty to rise or fall based on freely chosen decisions.

XI. HYPOCRISY. Nonetheless, this proletarianization of the bourgeois revealed itself in one principal form: infantile political posturing steeped in antiWestern rhetoric. Jane Fonda in Vietnam, Noam Chomsky on the media, charges of “imperialism”, “colonialism”, and all the rest of it. It is the guilty secret of the leftist intelligentsia that they consistently provoke antiWestern sentiment, glorify all aspects of collectivist societies of the East, yet do this from the comfort and safety of the free, democratic West. If things were so terrible here, why did they not join their comrades and spiritual gurus in the East? Jane, alias Barbarella, has not, so far as TH2 is aware, taken up residence in Hanoi. Her past marriage to the wealthy Ted Turner only substantiates the point. Paul McCartney is now Sir Paul McCartney and lives in an English castle. Whatever happened to his infatuation with that ridiculous Indian swami a few decades ago? Does anyone remember the Beatle’s song “Revolution”? This would only be humorous if it was not hypocritical.

XII. A DIFFERENT KIND OF ATTACK. What makes the Antinomian Revolution so much different from previous ones, say the French and Russian, was that it was not specifically a political or economic rebellion. It was chiefly moral. Politicoeconomic circumstances, for instance, are the products of human thought and action, not vice versa, otherwise we get determinism. The externalities of society are reflections of the inner condition of man. Virtuous men yield virtuous societies. Men of violence make mayhem. True, the Jacobins and Leninists could accomplish their abominable aims only by assuming moral relativism. Though their targets were mainly political frameworks and the situations were very much public affairs. With the ascent of antinomianism during the Sixties, however, the target is morality itself, at the very core of what makes us human and distinguishes us from the animal kingdom. An objective sense of right and wrong, good and evil, truth and falsehood, and so on. In the past, political and economic frameworks might be tampered with and cause societal disruptions. Yet the hope always existed that some person or era of virtue would arise as the moral heart of man was, so to speak, left untarnished. But an altogether new type of shift from past revolutions occurs during the Sixties from the spectacle of public rebellion to the unnoticed, internal struggles consociated with private life. Yes, the decade of the Sixties was clamorous and obtruded itself into the public eye. Though the real change happened some time later… gradually. Like all revolutions, their impacts are discovered and properly understood afterwards once the excitement diminishes and the daily routine resumes. But it is always too late, much too late. The process of societal declination had begun.

XIII. "PASSIVE REVOLUTION". Today the revolution is only more politic, it unobtrusively operates within our institutions, run by former hippies and revolutionaries in threepiece suits. It is TH2s personal theory (mentioned previously in EOS2, para. XXV) that this process of quiet interpenetration is analogous to the notion of a “passive revolution” introduced by the Sardinian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (18911937). He argued that social transformation would come not by revolutionary showdown, not by an immediate and violent overthrow of existing norms and authority. Alternatively, it would arrive via the unhurried emplacement of disruptive and divisive notions into an already established socialpolitical framework. As he said in his Prison Notebooks, it would “be preceded by long ideological and political preparation, organically devised in advance to reawaken popular passions and enable them to be concentrated and brought simultaneously to detonation point.”[9] Anarchic principles would quietly trickle their way into institutions of education, public policy, the judiciary, and so forth. Unbrazenly, radicals should firstly confederate with organizations that work for a wide latitude of causes so as to gain acceptance and trust. Gradually, revolutionary ideas would be introduced until their adversaries, now aware of the manipulation (some would say conspiracy), are unable to counteract a process of subversion that has already torn apart a significant part of the social and moral fabric. The devaluation of values, if you will, has gone mostly unnoticed from the Sixties to the present. And the only way in which these “popular passions” (i.e. emotions and action unrestrained by reason and principles) could be justified would be to usurp the moral with the political.

XIV. PUBLIC / PRIVATE. Confusion of the political with the moral therefore must lead to a confusion of public and private life. For example, issues related to the reproductive process, a crucial aspect of private life, including the family, have been fully politicized where beforehand they were considered religious/moral matters. The intrusion of the State in the education of children, as in sex education, is a prime example. But here we find another contradiction on the part of the radical Left. They claim that everything is political, including morality, although they insist that an individual’s public and private life are disconnected from each other, that one does not have influence on the other. How can this be when personal conduct is guided by a politicized morality? And how often have we heard the media contend that the polymorphic sex life of Bill Clinton that epitome of Sixties radicalism had no effect on his job as President? For it is not only a contradiction. It is subversive trickery. This is because the principle of the separation of public from personal life permits an individual to act autonomously without regard for the repercussions to civil society. The philosophy bequeathed by the Sixties to the next generation was that the purpose of life is pleasure unlimited by way of selfactualization. Happiness was unrelated to any aspect of the transcendent. It had everything to do with “Me” and the material. This philosophy was advocated by elevating too far individual rights, which are selfdirected, over personal responsibility, which is publicly directed. Today, political lobbyists, west coast liberals and professional social activists from the arts to welfare reform regularly speak of “rights”. There are "human rights", "women’s rights", "gay rights", "animal rights", rights of “the workers”, rights of “the people”, rights of “free speech”, and so forth. Rarely does anyone speak of responsibility to “the other”, be it your neighbour or society in general. Notice further that never are family rights mentioned.

XV. REJECTION OF STANDARDS. Now two factors during and after the Sixties have been at work to eschew responsibility and disengage private from public life. The first says that there are no ideals or standards to which comparisons can be made. Postmodernism laughs at Matthew Arnold’s notion of the “best and highest”.[10] All matters of human concern and accomplishment have been levelled out. There are no great saints that can act as models of rectitude. No eminent philosopher can inform us of the real nature of the signs of the times. Great writing such as Burke on France or Tocqueville on America is considered surface analysis commentary such as is found in the weekly news magazine. Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment is set on par with the John Grisham bestseller. The science of Newton is made comparable to the abstruse ruminations of the Buddhist monk. Disease mitigating pharmaceuticals are made equivalent to the potions of the African witch doctor. Everything is the same, which really means that nothing is important and true. Additionally, the reason why the Left repudiate ideals and omit standards is because it gives them a false sense of superiority. If there no ideals and standards to which comparisons can be made, one can feel comfortable with oneself as there is no need for personal improvement, or mediocrity can be justified and given undue merit. It must be a great amount of envy that sustains such attitudes.

XVI. DETERMINISTICS. The second factor relates to variously expounded determinisms which state that most behaviours and inclinations are outside of individual control. In recent decades, a wide array of cultural, environmental and biological determinisms have entered the forefront with a claimed yet unverified scientific status. They are nevertheless taken as objective facts of the human condition. In the hands of the popularizer, or if implicit to political ideology, they become weapons which weaken the principle of freewill. In Canada, for example, there is the determinism of the environmentalist David Suzuki (sociogenetic), of Marshall McLuhan (technological), of the New Democratic Party (the State). These and others maintain, mostly by euphemistic or ambiguous language for they must since specificity in view and personal responsibility are correlative, that certain behaviors, once considered immoral or unlawful or controllable, are “natural”. Or that one is “predisposed” to do this or that, that extraneous regulating economic “structures” are involved. The danger here is obvious. If all human action is effectively determined, which means that all responsibility is left elsewhere in some abstract state of suspended animation, some organized force will eventually rise, take control, and do the determining for all. Time tells. History attests. The English historian Paul Johnson observed: “As in all totalitarian systems, a false vernacular [must] be created to conceal the concrete horrors of moral relativism”.[11]

XVII. ANTAGONISMS. As indicated above, the generational socialism of the Sixties was divisive. By this is meant that the supposed antagonism of youth versus adult is like the Marxist maxim of the proletariat contra the bourgeois. It is simply the Marxist “class struggle” argument in transposition. Similarly, since the Sixties this notion of division has blossomed into other areas, such as struggles between men and women (feminism) or heterosexual and homosexual (“sexual orientation”) or “whites” and “persons of color”. Basically, life is contrived to be a straightforward battle between oppressors and victims, where the former acts as focal point for the common hatred of the latter. The greatest incarnation of this divisiveness is seen in what has become known as multiculturalism.

XVIII. TRIBALISM. Multiculturalism is not so much a celebration of the cultures that span the globe and of the peoples from these cultures that emigrate to North America. In Canada, ever since the Trudeau government introduced its multicultural policies in the early 1970s, it has been used a platform by the Left to discredit and malign the values and superincumbent achievements of Western civilization. In the hands of radicals, Multiculturalism is used as a tool to divide people from one another since, by its very ideology, it exacerbates differences of race and ethnicity, emphasizing contrarieties between citizens. How else are we to explain the recent turmoils in Canada, like the Quebec separation crisis or the aboriginal dilemma? Both are “culture wars”, to use the now famous phrase. “Diversity” and “distinct society” are doublespeak for division. A counterargument might be that multiculturalism reflects a modern pluralistic society. No doubt this is true. But then, how is pluralism to be defined? On this admission must be made that pluralism is more often than not fashioned to be synonymous with relativism. There are no absolutes, no truth, so it is said. There are only multiple truths, each belonging solely to a particular culture or individual, all of which are situated on an egalitarian plane. Things should remain “personal”, disconnected from public intercourse. In reality, this says that that no view matters, that what we think is irrelevant, which is an insult to intelligence and an effective denial of reason. But our views and opinions do affect others, perhaps as this essay is infuriating some readers right now. The observation is incontrovertible. Truth does not exist in isolation, neither does man. Man does not possess truth. Rather, truth possesses man, which means that truth is extraneous, and, yes, transcendent. Ah!, but this is the great sin of the Christian West, according to our ideologues of multiculturalism. They do, very interestingly, declare their position as if it was absolutely true.


XIX. EFFECTS. “The Sixties” was not a unanimous movement of youth against an unjust world. It was, to be blunt, a small faction of vulgar radicals whose attitudes and actions effectuated tremendous, ultimately disastrous, social change. They did not identify themselves with a country, a religion, a community or some sort of system of values that would foster unity and rapprochement. The identity was with “our generation”, still maintained in their older age, meaning that they live in the past and never grew up into adults. In short, they never “conformed” to the norms of middle class society, as they like to say in a derogatory sense. Today, however, one must conform to the mentality of the radical Left in most manner of discourse and action. What is disturbing is that they do not consider themselves as such, neither do they project themselves so, and they have been quite successful at disseminating their ideas into the mainstream. They consider themselves “tolerant” and “nonjudgmental”, which are insinuations that values and truth do not exist. But it is the lesson of history that any society that rejects a sense of truth and value will eventually collapse upon itself. As the American academic Allan Bloom (19301992) wrote: “It might well be that a society’s greatest madness seems normal to itself”.[12]


NOTES / REFERENCES

1. For example, given in L
éviStrauss' academically popular fourvolume Mythologiques series, published between 1964 to 1971. In his famous autobiography he is forthright on the influence of Marx on his thought. See Tristes Tropiques, trans J. Russell (New York: Criterion Books, 1961), pp. 6162. Roughly translated, Tristes Tropiques means "sad tropics". By "Western Civilization" is meant the inheritances from medieval Catholic Christendom, not of the myriad cultural and philosophical catastrophes inaugurated by Luther, as in the socalled "Enlightenment" and other Whig interpretations of history.

2. See Of Grammatology, trans. G.C. Spivak (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). First published in 1967. TH2 analyzes deconstructionism in EPH3.

3. See, for example, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: Signet Books, 1964). The neurotic film writer/director Woody Allen was a big fan of McLuhan.

4. Mainly from his book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, published in 1948. Evidence shows that Kinsey was a bisexual hedonist with a taste for masochism. See J.H. Jones, Alfred C. Kinsey: A Public/Private Life (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Incorporated, 1997).

5. On this, see the chapter "Ecological Panic" in P. Johnson, Enemies of Society (New York: Atheneum, 1977), pp. 85101.

6. Particularly On the Road (Jack Kerouac) and Naked Lunch (William Burroughs), respectively published in 1957 and 1959.

7. The term "Frankfurt School" refers to those Marxist fanatics from the Institute for Social Research, established in 1923 at the University of Frankfurt (Germany). After Hitler came to power in 1933, the Institute departed, eventually setting up shop at Columbia University in New York, from where its neoMarxism commenced infiltration throughout the United States. The main ideational criminals here were Herbert Marcuse (18981979), Max Horkheimer (18951973) and Theodor Adorno (19031969).

8. Liberation Theology was effectively founded by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez after the publication of his book A Theology of Liberation (1971).

9. See Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, trans. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), pp. 109110.

10. Culture and Anarchy (Cambridge at the University Press, 1932), p. 193. Originally published in 1869.

11. Modern Times: The World From the Twenties to the Eighties (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1983), p. 419.

12. The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Shuster Incorporated 1987), p. 75.

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