John C. Wright's Journal

I heard this short essay being discussed recently. Written in 1990, it is remarkable in its prescience. I need not say to what topic, preoccupying the headlines of all newspapers, this pertains.

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The controversy about Dr. Peterson’s reflections on whether truth must prove itself in action, I hope has been exhausted, and will die down.

I think the matter is too plain to admit of further debate. My own patience is exhausted, and my temper is short, so best if I withdraw from the discussion.

Here is one comment that seems to me to be exceeding wise on the topic, so allow me to quote it and step aside. This is from a reader with the exclusively egress-like name of Exit Only:

“When Peterson says you just a truth by its effect on life and healthy and happiness, critics jump on him. But when Christ says you will know true prophets and teacher from false by the fruits of their doctrines, that is, by the practical results when ideas are put in action, that is saluted as divine wisdom.”

I think the element of time, or better yet the word eternity, puts the definition of truth past beyond mere practical moral utility for this mortal life spent on earth. To be true is to have character, in and out of season, even when no one is watching, even at the cost of one’s time, convenience, or standing within a community.

Now why would anyone care to practice such truth, if no good deed, as Mark Twain once quipped, never goes unpunished? Unless we instinctively know we are preparing to go to a place to where character counts more earthly accomplishments?
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Here is Nicolo Machiavelli, of whom a more cynical and skeptical observer of human nature no one but Thomas Hobbes can rival.

From his DISCOURSES ON LIVY

“CHAPTER LVI.—THE OCCURRENCE OF IMPORTANT EVENTS IN ANY CITY OR COUNTRY IS GENERALLY PRECEDED BY SIGNS AND PORTENTS OR BY MEN WHO PREDICT THEM

“Whence it comes I know not, but both ancient and modern instances prove that no great events ever occur in any city or country that have not been predicted by soothsayers, revelations, or by portents and other celestial signs.

“And not to go from home in proof of this, everybody knows how the descent into Italy of Charles VIII., king of France, was predicted by Brother Girolamo Savonarola; and how, besides this, it was said throughout Italy that at Arezzo there had been seen and heard in the air armed men fighting together.

“Moreover, everybody remembers how, before the death of Lorenzo de Medici the elder, the highest pinnacle of the dome of Florence was struck by a bolt from heaven doing great damage to that building.

“It is also well known how, before Pietro Soderini, who had been made Gonfaloniere for life, was expelled and deprived of his rank by the people of Florence, the palace itself was struck by lightning.

“Many more examples might be adduced, which I leave, however, lest I should become tedious. I will relate merely what according to Titus Livius happened before the coming of the Gauls to Rome: One Marcius Caedicius, a plebeian, reported to the Senate that passing through the Via Nuova at midnight, he had heard a voice louder than that of any man which commanded him to notify the Senate that the Gauls were coming to Rome.

“To explain these things, a man should have knowledge of things natural and supernatural, which I have not. It may be, however, as certain philosophers maintain, that the air is peopled with spirits, who by their superior intelligence foresee future events, and out of pity for mankind warn them by such signs, so that they may prepare against the coming evils.

“Be this as it may, however, the truth of the fact exists, that these portents are invariably followed by the most remarkable events.”

A remark in my comments box, from Joseph Moore. I want to applaud and emphasize the words:

I want to believe this, and it may be true, but: one of the greatest, if not the greatest victory of the Left is their control of the schools. I’m not even talking about Fabian curricula and textbooks and SJW teachers – those only work when the school’s *structure* allows it.

That was the victory: against all American tradition, the schools our betters designed and inflicted on us are *structured* to create, in the words of William Torry Harris, “mindless automata” who do as they’re told. He was pleased with how well it was working – back in 1906!

Unlike any other schools in history before around 1810, our schools occupy absurd amounts of our kid’s lives. Unlike the one-room schools – a truly American answer to the desire to educate children – kids are separated from from family, neighbors and friends and grouped by age – again, something new and contrary to reason and historical practice, where, if kids were grouped at all, it was by what they needed to learn.

Violating all natural relationships and ignoring what the kids currently know and need to learn, 35 strangers are grouped by age and spoon fed predigested pieces of ‘education’ and judged by how well they can regurgitate them on demand.

12 to 16 years of this, where the ‘best’ students are those who put up the least fuss, waste the most time meeting arbitrary measures, and the ‘adults’ thus created are sent out into the world to vote and govern. Read the remainder of this entry »

The next installment of the most important column on the topic you are likely to read this year is up:

http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/02/01/defending-wood-perilous-part-two-descent-darkness/

“In the story, particularly, as in fabulous fictions of the same kind, there are two considerations most useful to notice. The first is that they show that evildoers, even if they seem to escape a thousand times, always get their punishment; the second, that they show many innocents placed in great danger often saved against all hope.”

Part one is here: http://www.superversivesf.com/2018/01/25/defending-wood-perilous-part-one-live-fairytale/

Brought to my attention by our own Daniel Koolbeck: