John C. Wright's Journal

A guest column from Nancy A. Tefft, BA, LGA Homeschool Mom whose wisdom, has been, or so I suspect honed by motherhood, the hardest and most rewarding job in the world. Hear her: 

Every fall two camps emerge to debate the issue of Halloween.  There is an Evangelical camp that condemns Halloween as Satanic and evil.  There is a Roman Catholic camp that offers a rebuttal.  This is not that debate.  They are both correct.

Halloween, short for All Hallows (Holy) Eve, is and has always been a Roman Catholic feast celebrating All Saints Day much the same as Christmas Eve celebrates Christmas.  Halloween has been hijacked by those who mock Christianity, and in some cases should be celebrated with Fall Festivals to shelter children from the mockery that can ensue.

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Brilliant aesthetic philosopher and conservative thinker Roger Scruton is no longer with us. I first came across his work in a BBC documentary, Why Beauty Matters, which is well worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHw4MMEnmpc

To honor his memory, I reprint in this space one of his more celebrated essays:

CONSERVATISM AND THE CONSERVATORY

by
Roger Scruton

The observation is often made that political conservatives do not have anything much to say about the arts, either believing, with the libertarians, that in this matter people should be free to do as they please, or else fearing, like the traditionalists, that a policy for the arts will always be captured by the Left and turned into an assault on our inherited values. Of course, there is truth in both those responses; but they are not the whole truth, and in my view one reason for the precarious state of the arts in our public culture today is that conservatives — who often come out near the top in fair elections — have failed to develop a clear cultural policy and to understand why, philosophically, such a policy matters.

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I found this gem in my comments box, and thought it merited emphasis.

A reader with the onomatopoetic name of ThPlonk remarks:

A post or two ago someone raised the issue of whether we should do anything to stop the atheistic progressives from pursuing self-destructive policies – after all if our enemies destroy themselves our work is done isn’t it?

Reading this post, I realized something: Satan knows he is beaten. He isn’t trying to win – he’s trying to maximize harm. He therefore commands his troops in a way that will destroy as many of his own people as possible. The Radical Left’s marching orders become chillingly clear:

Babies are to be killed, preferably before they can cry for help. If they survive, they should have their sexuality mutilated both chemically and surgically as young as possible. Men are to be emasculated, silenced, and shamed. The women should be sent out to fight instead, preferably alone because this makes them stronger. Their fight should take the shape of mob lynchings and kangaroo courts – if we cannot find any elderly bakers or 15-year-old schoolchildren to prosecute they should turn on themselves and purge their own ranks.

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Today’s must-read Superversive SF article is from my lovely and talented wife, Mrs Wright, who writes under the name L Jagi Lamplighter

http://www.superversivesf.com/2019/05/13/message-is-the-new-comedy/

Recently, there was a quote going around about how late night shows no longer contained comedy, because comedians can’t get away with mocking anything anymore. Instead, they make political comments that agree with their audience’s bias and then pause for their audience’s reaction.

But instead of laughter, they get applause.

I was thinking about that while I was watching a new (to me) show. Friends had recommended it. The premise looked amusing. The show was funny. Lots of real comedy.

But occasionally, there would be some bit of Liberal doctrine tossed to the audience in exactly the way a story normally might use comedy.

In other words: It wasn’t part of the plot. It wasn’t part of the story. It wasn’t character development. It didn’t matter or affect the outcome.  It was merely standing all by itself as if it were waiting for a high five in exactly the way that comedy gets a laugh.

Watching this, I thought: and that is what we mean when we say we don’t like message fiction.

Please read the whole thing. 

From the Pen of Matthew Bowman

The Seven Sacraments of the Religious Left

• Taxes: The First Sacrament. (Envy.)
  Instituted a hundred years ago, this sacrament teaches that the rich are evil. The rich may absolve themselves of this sin by devoting their lives (at least publicly) to the Church of Leftism.