Speculation (Short Story)

Posted on August 29, 2020 by JC

This is another story I entered into a competition that I didn’t win and am now posting here. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide what merit (if any) it has. I am quite conscious of the fact that early attempts at writing fiction will more than likely be terrible so it is better I get better here without forcing anyone to read it. 

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Thinking and Submitting

Posted on August 22, 2020 by JC

One of the most impressive coups the elites have pulled over the last few decades is making people think they’re intelligent simply for submitting to authority. This can be seen in the realms of politics and society but more notably (especially recently), in the realm of science.

The formula itself is quite simple though the methods are much more sophisticated. On any issue, you choose the most extreme position that stands in opposition to what you want and always bring this up in debate or when compelled to mention opposition. In logic, this is quite similar to the “straw man” which is exaggerating your opponents position. So the set-up in basically that you either agree with your reasonable position or you are on the same side as all those crazy guys.

Following this, you ignore all moderate or reasonable people holding a similar position; or failing that, shamelessly lump them in the extreme position without allowing any right of reply. In doing this, enough of the general public believes that by opposing this extreme position that they are being, sensible and intelligent and as a result are also inclined to dismiss the more reasonable voices as well. Many people in opposition are also disinclined to offer more than a lukewarm dissent on the matter.

With media limited to very few powerful corporations and organisations, this has been the practice for a long time though the Internet had started to put an end to this until relatively recently. This was until the same organisations began clamping down and deliberately limiting information available to others as I have documented before.

What follows are multiple examples of this in practice.

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Visit to Marian Valley

Posted on August 16, 2020 by JC

I recently visited the Marian Valley in Queensland, Australia. It is within the Archdiocese of Brisbane and run by the Monastic Order of St. Paul the First Hermit. This was my first visit and it is a wonderful place for pilgrimages and retreats. Even if you aren’t Catholic, it is a beautiful place to visit and can be done in a day if you live within a few hours drive. I took many photographs which have been posted below.

There are a great many shrines and sites I did not photograph so this is far from an exhaustive catalogue of the area. I have not put any commentary below but I will add here that I was really moved by the work and love that has gone into each and every shrine. I hope I’m able to one day make some sort of contribution. I hope you enjoy the photographs!

Statue at the entrance of Marian Valley

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A Misleading Title

Posted on August 8, 2020 by JC

tsaongafThe Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
HarperOne, September 13th, 2016

I have an assumption that any books prominently displayed in airport bookstores are not worth reading; let alone buying. The main reason for this is that books like this have to have wide appeal and books I read tend to be older and if not, present ideas or a narrative that is very unlikely to be promoted by the major publishing industry. I’ll admit there is some literary snobbery in this way of thinking but I don’t believe this is unreasonable.

The subject of this review probably ended up in airport displays because of the title but the contents don’t contain anything particularly dangerous or controversial. It is written by Mark Manson who is a very successful blogger and now very successful author too. I did not buy this but was lent it by a sibling who highly recommended it. My prejudices towards these books outlined above almost had me politely decline, but as he has taken my recommendations before, I felt the least I could do was reciprocate.

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Hyborian Thoughts

Posted on August 5, 2020 by JC

I have been fascinated by the character Conan since I was a child and it is funny that all this fascination never led me to going to the source as I have done recently. Just this week I finished reading the last of the completed stories by Robert E. Howard. The collection I found had all of them but four which I had to track down online. The images I have included were taken from this collection published by Prion in 2010.

As I read, I was following John C. Wright’s commentary on the stories which he has written over the last few years on his own blog. As of writing, he has only a few more stories to cover before his commentary is complete. Once it is finished, it will make a worthy companion to the series.

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So QAnon is real then.

Posted on July 28, 2020 by JC

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1285726277719199746?s=20

I’ve followed the QAnon on and off but never obsessively. I occasionally check the extensive coverage on Neon Revolt but I would never say I was on board with it as a whole. Similar with many current goings-on, there are commentators I respect who take it seriously and those who think it is an extremely elaborate LARP. Call me a coward but I am not confident to come to an opinion either way. There just isn’t enough information for me to commit.

Then Twitter went and posted a series tweets starting with the one quoted above.

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Fisking Fletcher on the Latin Mass

Posted on July 18, 2020 by JC

I love reading a good fisking but I’ve seldom done one on the blog with only this one coming up in a search. The following article about the Latin Mass appeared in the National Catholic Register in November last year and I can not believe it was published. It is a series of assertions, anecdotes and hearsay with almost no substance to back any of it up. It is worth going through the article as a whole because it really is something else. Sections of the article will be quoted in italics and the rest will be my own.

The full article can be found here.

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The Bridge of Dreams

Posted on July 12, 2020 by JC

A few months ago I finished reading The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikubu. At over a thousand dense pages with plenty of footnotes, it was no small undertaking but absolutely worth the effort. This post will be something of a review along with my thoughts and observations. It won’t be academic but it will be quite long. The included images are all taken from this Tuttle edition of The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon which was contemporary to the novel (and just as well known), which I hope the publisher won’t mind me reproducing here.

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Your silence isn’t enough.

Posted on July 4, 2020 by JC

More: The maxim of the law is: ‘Silence Gives Consent’. If therefore, you wish to construe what my silence ‘betokened’, you must construe that I consented, not that I denied.

Cromwell: Is that what the world in fact construes from it? Do you pretend that is what you wish the world to construe from it?

More: The world must construe according to its wits. This Court must construe according to the law.

Cromwell: I put it to the Court that the prisoner is perverting the law — making smoky what should be a clear light to discover to the Court his own wrongdoing!

More: The law is not a ‘light’ for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely.

This is a selection from a scene in A Man for All Seasons in which Saint Thomas More is being tried. He had refused to take the oath of supremacy, recognising the Pope as the head of the Church. He had kept carefully silent on his own views but Cromwell was determined to condemn him anyway. Silence didn’t save him. Silence wasn’t enough.

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Nobles and Peasants

Posted on June 27, 2020 by JC

I used to occasionally see an opinion article appear in the newspaper lamenting the democratic process because of the kind of people that were allowed to have a say. This was usually written by a some leftist who’d just seen another election not go quite his way, but there was the odd right-winger who wrote the same thing from time to time too. I used to be quite disgusted at this sort of talk even though I am rarely in agreement with the general public. It wasn’t about whether the public was right or wrong that bothered me, it was that this person thought they knew better than everyone else.

Though his is not a sentiment that I would say I have abandoned, I have begun wondering whether or not the hierarchical systems were better suited to humanity despite their flaws. What follows will be a collection of thoughts why.

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