Timing

     Because I write frequently on matters of faith and the spirit, I occasionally get questions about – drum roll, please – how to lead others to Christ. Such questions make me want to run and hide. I’m no master evangelist. I’m just a thinker and writer. But the questions arrive anyway.

     The greatest Christian apologist of the Twentieth Century, Clive Staples Lewis, once wrote that “God does all things for each.” I sense that to be true. Yes, each of us was given free will, but that doesn’t mean we’ll never need a little help. We cannot predict the timing, nor the form, of that help. That makes it important to stay alert, attentive… and humble.

     I wrote the following in 2005. It first appeared at the late, lamented Eternity Road site. I’ve amended it slightly, to make it conform to events since then. If you’re a Christian of any denomination who hopes to become more effective at spreading the Faith, perhaps it will speak to you.

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     Timing, they say, is everything. And while we all have our little disagreements with "they," I think on this matter they're more right than wrong. This being Sunday, my focus is, as usual, on matters of faith and the spirit.

     In recent years there's been a resurgence of interest in Christianity, a great part of which has gone to the Catholic Church and its Deposit of Faith. Many "cradle Catholics" who fell away when they became teenagers or young adults, as I did, have returned to the communion, oftentimes with wild expressions of astonishment and joy. I can only delight in this trend, not only because I love the Church and think it to have the best grip on eternal truth of all human institutions, but also because the great falling-away of the Baby Boom generation coincided with the rising of many social pathologies. The relation was more than a coincidence.

     But what does it mean? Are the returnees and recent converts flocking through the Church's ancient doors because they've had a spiritual awakening? Because they seek to change their lives? Because an hour a week with a psychiatrist has become prohibitive? For many persons have involved themselves with a church for reasons quite distinct from a true attachment to its mission and teachings.

     The Church, particularly the Church in America, has changed greatly. Fifty years ago, its presence on this continent was marked by an unpleasant degree of authoritarianism. Its priests and nuns seemed to want to declare everything either compulsory or forbidden, on God's Authority. They gave little or no explanation for their dicta; the subtext was always "It's this way or Hell." And one lesson we who attended parochial schools learned early and deeply, often from the business end of a Bolo paddle, was that you don't argue with a nun or a priest.

     The past half-century has seen a softening of the clerical attitudes that evoked the greatest resistance. Characteristic of the contemporary approach are these passages from What It Means To Be Catholic, by Father Joseph M. Champlin:

     The Church attempts to say something about [a wide range of contemporary issues with moral overtones.] Nevertheless, while it can clearly state the commandments, and almost as strongly teach certain general principles based upon the commandments, the further away the Church moves from the commandments and the more specific the issue at hand, the less authoritative the Church becomes. The Church on such points proposes its teachings more as tentative probings and studied insights designed to help Catholics resolve these delicate conscience questions....

     Catholics believe that an individual's conscience is the ultimate determinant of what is wrong or right for that individual. Moreover, God will judge us according to the fidelity with which we have followed our conscience. Nevertheless, this conscience needs to be formed by objective standards of moral conduct. The Church provides us with just that -- moral norms based on Jesus's teachings, the inspired scriptures, centuries of tradition and the laws of nature.

     In taking this position, the Church demonstrates not only its commitment to its Founder and the Deposit of Faith He left us, but also a quality to which all of us are advised to recur, especially at times when we're unsure of our ground and might well be spouting personal preference rather than sound reasoning based in eternal verities: humility. It's no less important in a two-thousand-year-old institution than in an individual man.

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     All religious questions ultimately reduce to two:

1. What is eternally true?
2. What does God want from me?

     Historically, children who've undergone early religious indoctrination were seldom confronted with those questions in their fundamental form. Instead, they were drilled to repeat certain approved answers to certain questions, to do this and not that, and above all not to quibble with the hierarchy. Despite the obvious, long-established superiority of religiously based education to secular forms, especially to State-run schools, this is a significant error. Fundamentals should come first; no one of any age should ever be told of a compulsion or a prohibition without being given a clear explanation for it. To do otherwise is authoritarianism, especially if the person wielding the authority is not only unwilling but also unable to justify his dictates.

     Many young Catholics of my generation distanced themselves from the Church for precisely that reason. Their experiences conveyed bad lessons to others who might have become communicants. Contemporary priests and Catholic teachers are slowly coming to realize how great, and how greatly negative, the impact has been.

     In a comment to this essay, Father Ethan McCarthy of Easton, Massachusetts circled the matter in a particularly poignant way:

     As a priest, it is very hard to preach to my generation (I am 31) because they are not at church (I'm not that charismatic). Nevertheless, I try to go out around town and meet some of them. I think your insights are very interesting and similar to what I have seen.

     In the area I work, the cost and standard of living is very high. I could not believe my eyes and ears, but there is a standard to which everyone tries to live, often above their means. It was a very different lifestyle than I have ever experienced growing up and a lifestyle I would never want.

     To get to the crux of my comment, women in my generation want a career, good looks, and a good man. Men want a good job, money, a good car, and a good woman. Neither really wants to get married or have children, but they will if they think they can benefit from a marriage. And they are not getting married in the Church, but on a nice beach or resort.

     I usually come into the picture after their second child is born. For whatever reason, having a second baby is a crisis, I think, because they realize that they have no supernatural wisdom to hand down to their children. I "bless" their marriage and baptize their children. Sometimes they will come to see me when one of them (usually the man) has lost a job. I try to tell them to receive the sacraments (confession & Mass) and build up their domestic church by reading the Bible, praying together, staying away from sin, etc. Internet porn is a huge problem among married men. Past abortion(s) is a problem among women. But, I can never keep them around long enough for them to change their lives. As soon as they find a job, grandma moves away, a new ski house in NH, they are back to just dropping off their kids at CCD.

     I think the biggest problem is the lack of God in their lives. They never stop and think that everything I have will one day be dust. I will be dead and all of these things will not be with me on the other side. It will all be over someday. What they need to do is ask, "What does God want me to do?"

     Father McCarthy is himself young, and so cannot be held responsible for the defaults and missteps of those who instructed, or ought to have instructed, his sort-of-parishioners when they were younger. But the question he wants his parishioners to ask themselves is critical. If they truly believe in God, and in a Divine Plan that embraces all who live, why haven't they asked it?

     Perhaps because it's not time yet.

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     No one on Earth knows the Divine Plan. God has not granted any man the power to read His mind. He speaks to individuals concerning His missions for them, but He has not deigned to sketch out the whole of His grand scheme for anyone. What He has done, and quite elegantly (if I may say so), is to write the laws of nature, particularly human nature, in a form legible to human eyes. What He has done is to send His Son into the world to reinforce those laws with the authoritative Word, and to suffer and die horribly as an ultimate testimony to their truth. What He has done is to promise that no man shall be tempted beyond his strength.

     That is all, but it is infinitely more than enough.

     Still, one must look in order to see. Many decline to look, or deliberately look away. Why?

     It's not because the Word is burdensome. Indeed, the great contrast between the simplicity of Christ's teachings, their negation of the complex and onerous Levitical Covenant, and the lightness of the yoke He asked His followers to accept is why the Pharisees and priestly caste of classical Judea regarded Him as a supreme enemy. Simplicity and clarity are the things arbitrary authority has always hated most. Ask any bureaucrat -- and judge not by the specifics of his answer, but by whether you can understand it.

     It happens that the central thrust of the Gospel passage for today, Matthew 25:1-13, is that we should be ready at all times to meet our fates, for "you know not the day nor the hour:"

     Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
     And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
     They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
     While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
     And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
     Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
     And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
     Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
     But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
     Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

     All true, but He knows -- and dare we say that the information is of no use, to Him if not to us?

     The resurgence of faith in our day could well be a matter of timing. Father McCarthy, quoted above, might burn with urgency over getting God and faith into his parishioners' lives, but his efforts, however anxious, must defer to the Divine Plan for each individual he approaches. Perhaps Smith, whom the good father has earnestly but vainly entreated, isn't ready yet because God doesn't yet want him to be ready. Perhaps Smith, like an alcoholic still mired in his addiction, must "bottom out" in some indefinable way before he can will himself to look, and so truly see. Or perhaps he, like your humble servant, was brutalized by a hyper-authoritarian indoctrination as a boy, and needs more time for the bruises to heal. The desires and efforts of men, even the holiest and most ardent of men, must be subservient to the will of God -- a will whose barest outlines are only dimly visible, except as He has already sketched them in the laws that govern the universe.

     A great and underappreciated aspect of faith is the willingness to trust that, at the proper time and in the proper proportions, God will provide. Granted, beyond a certain point it's up to us as individuals to embrace our opportunities and move forward on our own, but it should never be a matter of anguish to a Christian, or a Christian cleric, that there are others who have not yet seen.

     God will do all things for each of us, at the time of His choosing. To wait serenely for that time is part of faith.

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     "What should I have told him?"

     Father Schliemann grinned ruefully. "Do you seriously think I'd have done better than you did?"

     Tony winced. "I'd hope so. All I had in me was a platitude."

     The older priest's eyes were kind. "Sometimes that's all you're going to have, Tony. Don't flog yourself over it. Counseling Louis is likely to be difficult no matter what the occasion."

     Tony had expected the pastor to disapprove of what he'd said, to have an elaborate alternative ready for use that Tony would feel an idiot for not seeing. Louis's visit and sudden departure had left him off balance. Schliemann's attempt to soothe him detached him part way from reality.

     The rectory kitchen seemed to have filled with a faint haze. It glittered at the edge of perception in the light from the overhead fixture. Tony balled his hands on the table before him and tried to compose himself.

     "I can see some of the reasons, I guess. But I wasn't ready for it, and I thought I ought to have been. Does it get easier as you...gain experience, Father?"

     Schliemann grinned again. "You meant 'as you get older,' didn't you? In some ways, it does. In others, quite the reverse." The pastor of Onteora parish reached across the table, gently pried the younger man's hands apart, and folded them between his own.

     "We are the vicars of Christ, Tony. Not Christ Himself. We struggle with the lightest of our duties, because He who defined them for us set a far higher standard than mere mortals could ever meet. But mere mortals are all we have. The Church must make do until the Second Coming."

     A sheen formed on the eyes of the man who had defined the priesthood for Tony Baldaserra.

     "Louis is unlike other men. You should know that, you've known him almost as long as I have. When his sister died, he was only fourteen years old, and he was already the brightest, most mature individual I knew. Today...Tony, he's challenged every notion I ever had about human limitations. I don't know what purpose God has in mind for someone so potent, but I do know that, whatever it is, it's something I could never fulfill. If you had to be more intelligent and more responsible than he is to advise him, who in the world could do it?

     "We who do God's work can't afford to compare ourselves to our brothers in Christ. Our ability to help them doesn't depend on our being brighter than they are, or more worldly wise, or even more moral. It depends on remaining humble, on holding fast to the eternal truths we've made the core of our lives, and reminding them of those truths when they lose their way. We have nothing else to offer, except love."

     The old priest squeezed the young one's hands. "And that you have in full measure, Tony. I've known it since you were a boy. Believe me, Louis knows it too. No matter what you said to him, if it had your love in it, it had to be alright."

     Tony bowed his head.

     [From Chosen One.]

     The most effective preacher does not preach; he ministers. He lives his religion where others can see it in action. He stands true to his convictions against all opposition and despite all inducements to betray them. He is, in other words, an exemplar.

     Leonard E. Reed, who founded the Foundation for Economic Education in Westchester, NY, was gifted at conveying the power of the exemplar to others. His basic demonstration was to light a candle in a well-lit room, to stand a little apart from it talking of other things, and to have a confederate slowly dim the lights. When the room lights had been extinguished, he would note that his audience's eyes had all been drawn to the candle's light, as they had not been while there was other illumination. It was his way of encouraging his students to "be a light in the darkness" to those who lacked conviction or guidance.

     A Christian of any denomination, lay or clerical, who wants to see Christianity spread would do well to follow Dr. Reed's advice. Ours is a code of love, hope, and joy. Therefore, love well, live hopefully, and be joyous, and when asked, be ready to explain how and why. You know not the day nor the hour! There's no need to collar "sinners" in the street and drag them to church; anyway, what good would it do? Their eyes will be drawn to your light, or your Christian brother's light, at the proper time. At God's chosen time.

     May God bless and keep you all.

A Cold House

     On this, the 21st day of June in the Year of Our Lord 2026, the first day of summer here in the Northern Hemisphere, I read something that chilled my heart:

     Why don’t Christians welcome new church attendees?
     I’m a baby Christian. Other Christians on here always tell me if I went to church, it would help me. But the one time I walked a very long walk to the only church close by, I had a very unpleasant experience.
     They were like a clique, looking at me as if I was a weirdo when I said hello. No one approached me or welcomed me. And when I tried to be friendly to them, I was ostracised.
     The sermon was great and the music was okay. But the people were not what I was told they would be at all. It broke my heart.
     Is this how Christians usually act towards new people in church?
     Everyone told me to call churches. The vast majority of churches don’t take calls and don’t return messages. Those that have called back asked why I think anyone would want to pick up a complete stranger to bring them to church. I guess that’s a valid point. We live in a dangerous world with a lot of scammers.
     I have been attending my best friend’s online church (in St Louis) since Christmas Eve. I always said hello and spoke in the chat but was ignored. Those in the chat all seem to know each other so it’s not at all welcoming. I love the music and the pastor so I’ve continued to attend.
     2 weeks ago, a woman in chat asked if I usually went in person and if she’d met me. I told her no and who my friend was. My friend has taught kids on Sundays for decades and her husband is involved in putting the sermons online. So my friend is *very* well known. Now, that woman in chat said hello again to me last Sunday.
     But it took 6 months. Wouldn’t it be better to make all new people feel welcome? Maybe someone else is like me, brand new.
     I don’t find most Christians to be anything like Christ at all, to be honest. I’m sure He would have welcomed me with open arms. Shouldn’t we aspire to be more like Him? What am I missing?
     I read in the Bible that Jesus commanded “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” He also said: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
     I guess He didn’t specify that Christians should welcome new people to a church but I thought it’s kind of implied in His words. Am I wrong?
     Please help me with this. I’m a bit lost.

     That broke my heart as well. It shouldn’t happen to anyone. That it happened to a new follower of Christ is especially tragic. Yet it’s become the rule in churches nationwide.

     A long time ago, I wrote:

     The physical light may stream from a bank of incandescent bulbs. The physical warmth may flow from a furnace. But these are the least part of the thing. Any Christian will tell you.
     Try it out. You don't have to wait for an invitation; you can engrave this one on card stock and sign my name to it, if you like. Visit the church down the block, some Sunday soon. Don't be shy. Shake a few hands; make the acquaintance of the pastor. Everyone there is as flawed as you, but they'll accept you anyway, if you'll grant them the favor of reciprocation. If you're the least bit open to it, I guarantee that you'll feel it as I do.
     Whether made of wood, stone, or grass and mud, a Christian church filled with its congregants is a warm, well lighted place.

     Remembering those words adds to the pain from reading Samsara’s tweet above.

* * *

     Christian brotherhood – true, unfeigned acceptance of the newcomer – is required of us. Christ said it Himself:

     And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

     [Matthew 28:18-20]

     Yet “baby Christians” such as Samsara are frequently met with indifference or suspicion. That’s especially the case when the newcomer looks a bit “alternative:”

     Why? Why not greet the newcomer as a brother, a sheep welcome in the fold, even if he’s covered with tattoos or wearing his hair in some bizarre style? A lot of long-time parishioners treat anyone unfamiliar as someone to be wary of. It makes no sense!

     While there are occasional exceptions, a visitor to a Christian church is there to learn, to worship, or both. Isn’t that cause for celebration, rejoicing? Why show the cold shoulder to such a person?

     I don’t know Samsara. I plan to engage her, if she’s willing to talk to me. I want to know more about the church she visited that treated her that way. I want to see what I can do to help. A congregation that frosty plainly needs some help.

     I could go on, but I’ve made a resolution to cease flogging dead horses. Yeah, yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts, but all the same.

     May God bless and keep you all…including the guy in the back row who’s dressed like an escapee from an insane asylum, and the woman with the spiky hairdo and the forest of tattoos, and the man, woman, or child who enters the nave of the church alone, looking lost and desperate for a hand of welcome. C’mon, fellow believers! It’s the least you could do.

A Fourth Kind Of Conviction

     [The following piece first appeared at the old Palace of Reason on May 4, 2004 – FWP]

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     Some years ago, PBS imported a series of made-for-television dramas from England, which were scripted from the magnificent murder mystery novels of Phyllis Dorothea James, Baroness of Holland Park, better known to the world as P. D. James. All those dramas starred the fine British actor Roy Marsden as detective Adam Dalgleish of New Scotland Yard, who is the central character of one of Baroness James's series of novels. For your Curmudgeon's tastes, the best of those dramatizations was that of A Taste For Death, which is also one of the very best of Baroness James's novels. Your Curmudgeon has purchased it on DVD, and has been enjoying it with the C.S.O. these past few nights.

     The production values aren't the best. The series having been made for television, the picture is rendered in NTSC 4:3 aspect ratio, and is below typical DVD standards. None of that matters. The story, the pacing, the setting and the acting are all as gripping as they were first time around. Marsden is superb as always, and Penny Downie, who plays his assistant, Inspector Kate Miskin, makes her nominally supporting part glow. The pleasure of this reacquaintance is even more remarkable when one includes that your Curmudgeon had read the novel first.

     Particularly striking is a sequence involving a minor character: Sarah Berowne, estranged daughter to the murdered man, Sir Paul Berowne, a Home Office subminister in a Conservative administration. As is usual in Baroness James's mysteries, she provides a wealth of possible suspects and motives for the crime. Sarah's plausibility is provided by two factors: she stands to inherit a substantial sum, though short of independent wealth, from her father's estate; and she's a doctrinaire Marxist who reviles everything about British society, most especially its government.

     When Commander Dalgleish interviews her in the aftermath of the murder, among the things he probes is the nature of Sarah's estrangement from Sir Paul. Sarah's comment on the matter is too revealing not to share:

     My father thought our political differences were something we could discuss politely around the dinner table. What he didn't understand was that my politics are a faith.

     Imagine the above words spoken in a tone that combines the passion of total commitment with the revulsion of utter contempt for anyone who dares to differ.

     Your Curmudgeon has written before about his tripartite classification of convictions:

• Mathematics: Theses that can be proved or disproved.
• Science: Theses that can be disproved, but not proved.
• Religion: Theses that can neither be proved nor disproved.

     After pondering Sarah Berowne's statement above, and comparing it to the utterances of other Marxists he's known, your Curmudgeon has come to believe that that scheme is incomplete. A fourth category is needed: convictions retained in the face of conclusive disproof.

     A one-word label for such convictions that doesn't imply lunacy on the part of the holder is proving difficult to find. For now, let's call them ideological cults, or ideo-cults and their adherents ideo-cultists.

     Politics is rife with ideological cults, according to your Curmudgeon's standards for evidence. This is not to say that all questions of politics and public policy can be settled one way or the other for all time. However, some theories about what the State must, may, or must not do have been so thoroughly riddled with holes by the fusillades of experience that to retain them even in the most tentative and conditional form should occasion questions about one's respect for objective reality.

     What's significant in this connection is the array of defenses erected around the failed theory, or more accurately, around the minds of those determined to remain loyal to it. Eric Hoffer spoke of the "fact-proof screen" that an ideological cult tries to impose between its communicants and the evidence that would undermine their faith. While there is no doubt that these exist and are important, there yet remain ideo-cults whose members have been made aware of facts fatal to their creed, but maintain their allegiance anyway. Explaining these is harder.

     Possibly, one can get no closer than to examine the reactions of someone whose religious faith is undermined by the assertion of a contrary fact. For example, what would happen to Christian belief if it were demonstrated to a high degree of confidence that the remains of Christ had been found? Since that would undermine the traditional account of the Resurrection, it would be a heavy blow to orthodox Christian creeds. But it is not necessarily the case that all Christians would accept the immediate implications of such a discovery:

• Some would reject the assertion's accuracy, claiming that the researchers who made it couldn't possibly be right;
• Some would impugn the motives of the researchers, claiming that the assertion was known to be untrue and had been made out of malice toward Christianity;
• Some would spin alternative theories that would cover both the Resurrection and the remains.

     A claim about the discovery of Christ's remains would move Christianity out of the category of religion and into the category of science. Those determined to retain the Christian creed in its traditional form would either have to react scientifically, by invalidating the evidence or its implications, or hyper-religiously, by closing their minds to the disproof offered.

     Political ideo-cultists tend toward the religious pole. In the usual case, they simply refuse to engage the implications of contrary evidence. Often, they attack the motives or character of him who presents it. Their resistance grows stiffer, not weaker, with each new bit of adverse evidence adduced.

     Outreach expert Marshall Fritz, founder of Advocates for Self-Government, has counseled freedom activists not to expend their energies trying to convert people who are "into world domination." Analogously, if Smith evinces case-hardened hostility toward evidence that his convictions might be wrong, Jones would do better to avoid the matter in Smith's presence. Offering facts and logic is one thing; deprogramming is quite another, and not terribly well paid at that.

“Duty Sex”

     I’m feeling a bit quirky this morning – yes, I have a lot of mornings like that; the evidence is copious and easily obtained – and I’ve been particularly fascinated, in a not-entirely-wholesome way, with the arguments flowing on X / Twitter about “duty sex.”

     The core of the thing is that there are a great many married men who “aren’t getting any.” This is a real problem, though most women (and a considerable number of men) would never confront it openly. Men have a greater need for sex than do women; this is empirically beyond dispute. And it’s not about the pleasures available from sex. I’ve written about this before.

     Some pro-man voices are exhorting mated women to “give it up” even if they’re personally uninterested. Some women have derided this as a kind of enslavement. I’m uninterested in the more vitriolic exchanges. My own stance is that spouses should want to accommodate each other. He’s rarin’ to go, but you’re disinclined? Indulge him! Unless you’re in serious pain or seriously fatigued, let him enjoy you. Maybe the next time you want him to take you shopping, or out to dinner, or to visit your (ulp) parents, he’ll remember it.

     But enough of that. For giggles, enjoy the following, which I’ve been assured isn’t authentic advice from the 19th Century. It’s funny all the same.

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INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE
FOR THE
YOUNG BRIDE
on the
Conduct and Procedure of the
Intimate and Personal Relationships
of the Marriage State
for the
Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this
Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God
by
Ruth Smythers
beloved wife of
The Reverend L.D. Smythers
Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist
Church of the Eastern Regional Conference
Published in the year
of our Lord 1894
Spiritual Guidance Press
New York City

     To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

     At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

     On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex it at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it. It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.

     Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

     Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

     Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

     By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

     Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.

     A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed durning the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

     Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

     When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

     If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

     If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.

     Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection.

     She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while his huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more.

     One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.

     Copyright © 1894 The Madison Institute

Men, Reading, And “Literature”

     The trends running through the world of fiction publishing are susceptible to many possible explanations. One keeps coming up in discussions on X and elsewhere: “Men have stopped reading! Have they really? Why?”

     If you’re the editor-in-chief of a publisher whose sales figures have been dropping, and your market surveys suggest that the great majority of your customers are female, those are questions that will occupy you heavily. You’d like to sell more books to men, albeit without losing your female customers. But to do so requires that you understand why men are buying your product.

     You raise the question at your quarterly editorial meeting. You do so gently, in the spirit of greater success for the company and for everyone at the table. You swing questioning eyes from associate to associate, from Sally to Jane to Marie to Hester to Rosemary to Elizabeth to Sue to Phyllis to Maureen and finally to Agatha. But none of them have the least idea.

     In sober truth, it can’t all be because publishing houses are overwhelmingly staffed by women. But the paucity of male editors doesn’t help. Women tend not to read the sort of material that men seek. Why, then, should we expect lady editors to be receptive to fiction that appeals to men?

     Yes, romance fiction is oriented toward female tastes. Publishers are sensible enough not to expect a lot of male readers for their romance offerings. But as romantic themes and motifs have seeped into other genres – most notably fantasy and science fiction – those genres have started to lose some of their traditional male readerships. That’s a part of the puzzle that deserves greater attention.

     One subject that might matter more than anyone has yet mentioned is the matter of “literary fiction.” I’m a writer and a reader. I do my best to stay aware of tastes and the patterns that run through them. And I can’t name even one recent work of “literature” that would attract a male reader.

     One further current of interest: Crime fiction and police procedurals, historically a male-favored genre, has trended toward female authorship and has lost male readers in the process. The “hard-boiled” detective story is shedding representation in the crime / mystery genre. Yet the stories are quite similar to those once told primarily by male writers.

     It’s far from simple, especially considering that the “indie” sector is gaining male readership, and has been for some time. Yet indie writers are about equally split between men and women. The distribution of genre production is about the same as in conventional publishing. What accounts for the difference?

     No, it’s not simple at all. We could discuss characters. We could discuss action. We could discuss the prevalence of male writers and male protagonists – but wait: there is no such prevalence! This chestnut will take more than a simple explanation to crack.

     My inclination is toward sensibility:

     Yes, writers have very different styles. Some are austere and distant, formalists of classical discipline who regard a dangling preposition as something up with which one should never put. Others strive for a Hemingwayesque simplicity, They write short, single-clause sentences. Those sentences contain nothing but nouns and verbs. They leave all else to the reader's imagination. Still others are Faulknerian in the luxuriance of their prose, every sentence a labyrinthine maze of baroque elaboration decorated with as many descriptive and evocative elements as one can digest before running out of breath. But this is packaging for a story and, beneath the story, supporting it with relevance and timeliness, its theme.

     A writer's sensibility is composed of the sorts of themes he likes to explore, and the angle from which he approaches them. It partakes greatly of his moral vision. Indeed, it cannot be separated from his grasp on the moral order of the universe...whether or not he believes there is one.

     Gentle Reader, have you ever encountered a writer whose command of the language is superb and precise, but whose stories proclaim ideas that you simply can't abide? Have you ever encountered a writer whose works, despite serious shortcomings of style, throb so powerfully with truth that you can't imagine ever forgoing them? If so, you're peering down the barrel of auctorial sensibility. You're staring the bullet of theme right in the face. It's the ultimate weapon in the battle for the reader's time, money, and attention.

     Everything matters, yet theme is frequently overlooked. The writer’s sense for what ultimately matters – what Tom Kratman calls “eternal verities” – is seldom discussed in this matter of female-skewed readership.

     Courage.
     Justice.
     Duty.
     Loyalty.
     Freedom!

     I sense that stories that revolve around these things are what attract the male reader most powerfully. They’ve been somewhat muted in conventionally published fiction. But they remain strong in the “indie” world.

     Food for thought.

The Great Men Of Our Time Have Their Own Fears

     Consider this one:

Something Actually Newsworthy

     Perhaps you remember this story:

     A couple of days ago, something unusual happened Across the Water: A Briton dared to defend another Briton against the threat of rape by an immigrant.
     If you aren’t familiar with the details of the event, the defender was a 14-year-old Scottish girl named Mayah Sommers. The intended victim was her 12-year-old sister. The would-be rapist was from... somewhere else, probably the Middle East or Africa. Mayah protected her sister by brandishing a large knife and a hatchet at the immigrant. Apparently that was enough to daunt him, and thank God for that.

     The U.K. being the totalitarian state it is, Mayah Sommers was immediately arrested for her courage. Britons aren’t allowed armament, regardless of the circumstances. (You can’t have a Second Amendment to the Constitution when there’s no Constitution to amend.) There was an outcry, but it proved insufficient to liberate young Mayah.

     But time marches on. (No, it’s not relevant; it’s just beautiful.) And just a couple of days ago, Mayah Sommers was vindicated:

     A man has been found guilty of making sexual remarks to a group of girls aged between 12 and 14 in Dundee before grabbing and pushing one of them to the ground.
     Ilia Belov, 22, claimed he confronted the girls after receiving abusive remarks and said he saw one of the girls with a knife in her waistband before the assault.
     His sister Nadjedzha Belova, 20, previously admitted assaulting a 13-year-old girl by seizing and pulling her hair, dragging her to the ground, and striking her on the head to her injury during the incident.
     The pair will be sentenced at Dundee Sheriff Court on 5 August.

     Very nearly a full year passed before this emerged. While it would be Pollyannaish to expect Britain’s powers that be to apologize to Mayah, or to imagine that Britons’ rights to protect themselves will receive greater respect henceforward, nevertheless this “should” clear Mayah’s name and expunge the arrest from her record.

     Yes, those are sneer quotes around “should.” Regular Gentle Readers of this dive will already know how I feel about “should.” The police who arrested Mayah Sommers are as unlikely to acknowledge their fault as Keir Starmer. To admit to an error, however slight, would undermine the Authority of the Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnibenevolent State and is therefore “right out.”

     I could go on in this vein, but there’s little point to it. (Yes, I know that hasn’t stopped me in the past.) Britain has been conquered; its people have been subjugated; the flood of migrants lord it over them as a triumphant army, with the open connivance of the government. Native Britons, once among the proudest peoples of the world, are less than serfs: they’re mere sources of revenue for the State.

     What Americans and other freedom lovers can do is to publicize this development:

• To make clear that those two immigrants did pose a threat to those Scottish girls;
• To proclaim that a courageous young woman has been vindicated;
• To make plain the British State’s attitude toward its people.

     Will it overturn that criminal State? I doubt it. But one must start somewhere.

Education Or Jobs?

     The never-ending contentions over American education have several parts. One of them, “higher education,” is particularly significant for this reason:

Conservatives often criticize universities for failing to prepare students for jobs.

But that's like criticizing a library for failing to function as a gym.

The purpose of a university was never vocational training. It was always the pursuit and transmission of knowledge.

— Liza Libes (@pensandpoison) June 13, 2026

     That dichotomy is the secret shame of the American educational system. But it’s also a consequence, rather than a primary that can be addressed in isolation.

* * *

     The history of compulsory education in America is worthy of more attention than it gets from the typical adult. Time was – and I’m not talking about the Pleistocene Era here, but the mid-19th Century – a “grammar school” education was all that was required by law. Moreover, a student didn’t need to traverse eight grades to escape the school’s clutches. What he needed was his teacher’s endorsement of his ability to function as an adult. As the greater part of the population was engaged in agriculture or other manual labor, that didn’t demand much.

     But as John Gall told us in his classic Systemantics, every system embeds a growth dynamic. Grow or stagnate and die is the rule. “Education” proved to be no exception. Once teaching became a recognized occupation, schools ceased to be regarded as a local convenience for imparting literacy and numeracy. They fell into the hands of careerists eager to see their domain enlarge.

     That process was contemporaneous with the rise of industrial America: the transformation of our previous, family-centered agriculture-heavy economy into an urban one heavy with employers and employees. Over time, parents surrendered their part in the education of their children to the schools, while the schools came ever more completely under political authority. “High schools” were born, as were teachers’ colleges. Teaching specialties took a bit longer to emerge, but shortly after the turn of the 20th Century we no longer spoke of “teachers” as an undifferentiated mass.

     But as the system expanded, it also moved away from its previous mandate: i.e., to teach the basic skills required of an adult citizen and leave all else to the home environment. Systems do that sort of thing. Among other diversions of educational effort, we began to see “practical” courses and the “vocational” school: things previously neither required nor requested by the parents of minor children. Prior to the Civil War, the idea of classes in “Home Economics” or “Shop” never occurred to an American parent. That was what Mom and Dad were for.

     With the rise of large enterprises and the need for management came a need for “white collar” employees: persons removed from manual labor who commanded informational skills. (The occupational designation “white collar” apparently originated with writer Upton Sinclair in 1911.) By then, the fundamental skills taught by the “grammar school” had been expanded by the “high school” to include more extensive education in literature, mathematics beyond arithmetic, history and geography, and rudimentary knowledge of the sciences.

     For a while, those two segments of schooling maintained themselves and their putative duties stably and successfully. But change was coming. World wars, conscription, industrialism, unionism, state encroachments on previously local prerogatives and, eventually, federal encroachments on state prerogatives were soon to come upon the United States. All of those trends promoted giantism, the disease that anonymizes decision makers and insulates them against the choices and opinions of the common man. In unionism, teachers found a route toward increased respect and prosperity. State governments were slowly compelled to mandate union membership for teachers employed in government-run schools.

     The “educational system” expanded enormously. Property taxes intended to pay for the government-run schools swelled to such an extent that only a small minority of families could afford a private or religious school for their children. Alternatives to the government-run school system dwindled. With the dwindling of competition and the overweening authority of “departments of education” came the consequence one must always expect from a government monopoly: sharp declines in educational quality and in responsiveness to the parents of school-age children.

     There was one path left to follow.

* * *

     For parents and children who wanted a better and fuller education than was available from the government-run schools, the sole recourse was to “higher education.” That, until relatively recently, remained outside government control. And indeed, a student admitted to a college or university did still have opportunities to learn much to which he hadn’t yet been exposed. But after World War II, the returning GIs were mainly concerned with making a living. Most had had their twelve years of government schooling. They looked upon the American economy, now dominated by corporations, and sought the kind of education that would ready them for corporate employment.

     Government loan and grant programs offered the GI the possibility of free college education. They took it in large numbers. Colleges and universities sprang up like toadstools in response. And to an increasing degree, the education they provided leaned toward readiness for employment. The older goal of a college education, acquainting the student with “the best that has been thought and said,” slowly receded from the priorities of everyone involved.

     Now that governments provide by far the greater portion of funding for “higher education,” those institutions prioritize what governments want. There are still “liberal and humane arts” colleges, but in comparison to the larger number, they’re fewer than ever before. Above all, governments want money. Therefore, they want the “educational system” to produce workers, ready to earn taxable incomes. With the quality of “primary” and “secondary” education having fallen so far that even Ivy League colleges offer remedial reading and high-school mathematics courses, preparation for employment, especially in “white collar” positions, has become the province of “higher education.”

     Most of the above has come upon us so gradually as to be invisible. That’s how social and institutional transformations occur. And this one has conquered education in the United States so completely that any possibility of undoing it – returning early schooling to its original mission and “higher education” to the mission of enrichment it once pursued – is beyond my power of imagination.

Money Fights

     If you’re around my age, and have had a lifelong addiction to the printed word, you might remember the halcyon days of the “advice columnists.” Mostly, if memory serves, they advised individuals with individual concerns. The quality of the advice was irregular, but in the Fifties and Sixties the subjects on which people sought their counsel were a concentrated few. (No: they didn’t advise their correspondents on which toothpaste would renew their love lives. They left that to the Madison Avenue crowd.)

     One of the most popular subjects was how married couples should manage their money. Occasionally, amid the scattered practical recommendations, some helpful columnist would recommend a regularly scheduled “money fight.” It was intended to be a good-humored, largely facetious exchange between him and her over their respective spending habits. Perhaps it worked, for some. But it had risks that could emerge unexpectedly, with consequent destruction. One of the worst was a segue from spending to earning.

     Remember, Gentle Reader: those were the days of the single-income household. In such a household, only one member earned; therefore only one member could be attacked for not earning enough. Need I detail just how much marital carnage could result?

     Well, for better or worse (and for richer or poorer), those days are behind us. Most families are two-income households today. But fighting over who earns how much and what he could do to increase it is still massively destructive. I’ve seen the consequences up close. It should be avoided for the sake of… well, a lot of things.

     And from that we turn to money fights in the news!

     The big one, of course, which could touch every White American alive today, is the fight over “reparations.” Let me be absolutely candid here:

Not one Negro in these United States,
No matter the identities of his forebears,
Deserves one cent from anyone
Because of “slavery” or on any other grounds.

     The black grifters screeching for “reparations” are morally no better than pickpockets. They deserve to be ridiculed, then ignored. The same treatment should be awarded to any White man who claims they have a case.

     I could go into detail here, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary is some thought about what those black grifters hope to accomplish. I’m fairly sure it isn’t a huge cash windfall from the federal treasury.

     They’re getting a lot of publicity from the legacy media. Publicity can be converted into cash, in specific cases. But that cash is far more likely to come from a distributed set of private pockets. Beyond immediate bundles of cash, there are opportunities, with the help of compliant media, to become very well known, and thus to obtain entry to circles that might otherwise not have them. Such circles are themselves entry points to gainful things. And of course, political prospects often flow from notoriety. The machinations deserve to be watched.

     Of less immediate but greater ultimate impact is the outpouring of resentment and disparagement aimed at Elon Musk. Yes, in purely paper terms, Musk has attained trillionaire status. Those who think he can open a checkbook or a bank’s website and gaze upon a cash balance of $1,000,000,000,000 are of course deluded. Given the way the equities markets work, it wouldn’t be possible for him to convert his stock and other paper possessions into that amount of cash no matter how hard he might try.

     That having been said, Elon Musk controls a lot of capital. He can put that capital to many uses, just as he’s done to date. What will matter to the rest of us non-trillionaires is what uses he chooses to address. And the Left, which hates private wealth, is determined to take Musk’s choices, and his capital, away from him. Recent emissions from the detestable Elizabeth Warren and the odious Bernie Sanders are clear indicators.

     Don’t think it can’t happen. There’s a huge wave of envy-powered politics in motion. The “blue” states’ governments, ever hungry for more revenue, are hatching schemes that would catch Musk in their jaws. I wrote about one such scheme just yesterday. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that some future federal administration with a solid backing in Congress won’t take aim at Musk’s fortune, on the grounds of “equity” and “fairness.”

     Remain alert to the patterns. Government always grows until it’s destroyed by a revolution or an internal collapse. As it grows, it consumes ever more of our substance. Leftist “intellectuals” will provide the rationales for advancing taxation and confiscation. Here’s one that should not be forgotten. It got respectable attention from a significant number of Congressvermin.

     Envy is among the strongest political motivators. Expect the screws on private accumulations of wealth to be tightened as the years pass. The defenders of property rights have been lax for quite a while. It’s time to awaken and remobilize them – and ourselves.

Tax Shackles

     I strained to come up with a clever neologism for what I’m about to address, but I failed. “Taxicles?” No, sounds too much like “popsicles.” “Shtaxles?” No, that’s too ethnic; someone would probably suggest that it be served with wiener schnitzel. Anyway, the subject is one of some gravity, so the above title will just have to do.

     If you have twenty minutes, the following video is worth your time and attention:

     Five populous states are trying to fetter their residents – give them a tax disincentive to move out. Those “exit tax” provisions won’t retard all emigration, of course, but they will cause a significant fractions of Californians, New Yorkers, et cetera to cast about for ways of averting the planned amputations of their net worth. There might be some dodges. There’s also the possibility that the federal courts will strike those exit taxes as unConstitutional on the ex post facto provision of Article I, Section 10. But for the moment, it’s a trend in motion, and likely to spread.

     It sets up an interesting tension. You want to move your income away from California’s high-income tax? Well, then the Golden State will get you on the way out. If you insist on not paying the exit tax, then California gets to keep taxing you for years more… possibly including your net worth, which the Giermeisters in Sacramento have already fixed their sights on. But which of those decisions would be favored by the California legislature? The exit tax would yield large prompt revenue, but the income tax and (contemplated) net-worth taxes would yield more over a protracted interval. And once a resident has fled, he’s gone for good.

     The voracity of governments always grows over time. That’s been demonstrated so many times that it no longer requires substantiation. However, I will remind my Gentle Readers of the debates over the proposed Sixteenth Amendment:

     When the Sixteenth Amendment was being debated on the floor of the Senate, one of its opponents rose to ask the body what it could say to reassure the American public that this tax would not rise to seize some unconscionable fraction of their earnings -- perhaps as much as ten percent! A pro-income-tax senator rose and replied that the country need never fear such a development: "The people would never allow it!"

     The American Revolution was a tax revolt, as much as an assertion of independence and the right to self-governance. Americans have been subjected to a mind-boggling array of tax measures since then, most of them falling at the state and federal levels. (If you live in an incorporated municipality, keep a hand on your wallet.) There appears to be no event free of taxation… not even death. And now, the greediest of America’s state governments, aware that their tax policies are causing their states to lose their most taxable residents to lower-tax states, are determined to chain us down so they can mulct us in perpetuity.

     Food for thought – if it’s not fuel for an actual revolution.

“Communities”

     BREAKING NEWS! It has come to my attention, which, yes, has been slipping a bit, that a large percentage of the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch are stressed. It’s perfectly understandable, what with conditions these days. High prices, racial and ethnic strife, government surveillance, Gerrit Cole’s uneven mound performances… I must admit that I’ve been feeling a touch stressed myself.

     But this is America, where there’s a supply for every demand. Yes, friends, here you can find relief for… well, for some of your troubles, at least. For the rest, there’s always alcohol. Anyway, if you feel that your ability to cope is slipping, take a minute to watch this video, and enjoy an admittedly ephemeral moment of relaxation:

     There, wasn’t that pleasant? Now, on to the topic of the day.

---

     We hear about various communities rather frequently these days. The black community. The homosexual community. The transgender community. The community of brain-damaged Russo-Turkic welders. Communities, it seems, are everywhere.

     Why don’t I see them? Many voices prattle about these communities, yet all I can see are individuals. The media harp on them, especially after some distressing event. You know, like the senseless murder of a White teenager by a black thug, or a transgender somebody shooting up a tavern.

     With the conviction and sentencing of Karmelo Anthony, we got a lot of pontificating about the “reaction of the black community.” Tell us, oh omniscient media pundits, where is The Black Community headquartered? Did you go there and interview a spokesblack? Or did the organization issue a formal press release to be aired on the six o’clock news?

     Nope. Just individuals. Some are horrified that “one of ours” did such a heinous thing and got caught, while others jump up and down screaming that a black kid who killed a White boy shouldn’t have to do time for it. (A lot of time, I hope, but that’s a subject for another tirade.)

     When a pedophile rapes a child of the same sex, the media immediately leap to proclaim that the “gay community” – they’re homosexuals, but that word has some negative implications, so they’ve adopted “gay” as a synonym in hope of averting mention of those implications – is utterly opposed to such practices and shouldn’t be tarred with them. Once again, I’m unable to find The Gay Community in the Yellow Pages. Nor does Directory Assistance have a number at which they can be reached. Puzzling.

     Once again, just individuals. Some homosexuals live quietly and keep their business to themselves; others parade around in all manner of dress (and undress), wailing about how “invisible” they are. We hear a lot about their “community,” but when I raise my gaze to the passing scene, all I see are individuals.

     What are these communities of which the press so confidently speaks? Are they occupational groupings? Social associations? Voting blocs? Are there subjects on which these communities have official positions? Do they all support the same charities, or the same volleyball teams? Answer comes there none.

     Media promotion of such communities is intended to make them seem larger and more unified than they really are. When some pundit proclaims that the Z Community is outraged over some unpleasant event, it’s an attempt to efface the divergences and divisions among Zs. This is especially important when an issue routinely associated with Zs is in the news, and an election is looming. It’s the ink-on-newsprint version of whipping the vote.

     Bless their shriveled little hearts! As insubstantial as they are, such communities are staples for promulgation and prognostication. The statements of a vocal few are presented to us as the voice of their community. We accept it without question… unless we’re members of the relevant group and know better. Then we’re told to sit down and shut up. For the greater good of the community, of course.

     It’s amusing and tiring, but it never seems to end.

     For myself, I have no community. Not even the neighborhood in which I’ve lived for 46 years. No one speaks for me but me. I’d venture to guess that other software engineers, writers of fiction and nonfiction, Americans of Irish and Italian descent, and persons who share my Zip code would say the same. But when some “issue” that involves one of those groups rises to public attention, I won’t be surprised when the regional media proclaim what my position must be, on the grounds of affiliation.

     Do you belong to any notional communities, Gentle Reader? Make sure you know how to cancel your membership. It might prove to be important. Especially if you’re behind on your dues.

Did It Happen That Way?

     The jury has returned its verdict in the case of Austin Metcalf and Karmelo Anthony: Anthony has been pronounced guilty of first-degree murder. The crowd of black protesters outside the courtroom, who have been stridently vocal that Anthony is “innocent,” was upset.

     I stopped myself from prefacing the previous sentence with “Needless to say.” Yet it was predictable that people protesting on the defendant’s behalf, would be unhappy that he’s likely to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. A few of them had some “interesting” things to say: e.g., that Anthony should have killed Metcalf’s twin brother as well.

     Austin Metcalf’s family must be wary henceforward. Threats have come at them from several directions. This is the way of things in these United States in the Twenty-First Century. Even peripheral contact with a case of interracial violence makes your future uncertain.

     Yet the entire incident was video-recorded, from several angles. There’s no dispute that Anthony pulled a knife and killed Metcalf. Even several of the witnesses for the defense testified that Metcalf had not attacked Anthony – that Anthony was not defending himself from a credible threat to life or limb. Those demanding that Anthony be freed cannot argue away the facts of the case.

     Their beef, of course, is that Metcalf was White and Anthony is black.

     There were no blacks on the jury that convicted Anthony. Those who were called to the voir dire all admitted freely that they would have trouble “putting a brother in jail.” The prosecution challenged them off for sufficient cause. As the resulting jury was all-White, the blacks incensed about the verdict are screaming “racism.”

     It’s unnecessary for me to comment on that aspect of the case. We’ve seen it before. But it is necessary to ponder something commentator Matt Walsh observed:

     Now go back and consider every supposed racist atrocity from decades or centuries ago. Every “innocent” minority wrongfully persecuted by racist whites. I’m not saying that all of those stories aren’t true. I’m saying that you can’t assume that they are true. If they can lie about the stuff we all witnessed with our own eyes, imagine what they can do with the things none of us witnessed.

     Enough such incidents were reported by a single source to make them disputable. The sources themselves were sometimes of dubious credibility.

     The justice of a verdict is often disputed. In these days of ubiquitous security cameras and cellphones that can video-record, the facts of a case are less disputable than ever before. But those conditions have only obtained for about three decades. Everything before that is a matter of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence.

     And recent interracial incidents, many of them meticulously filmed, have undermined the credibility of the record.

     When we speak of things that happened long ago, credibility is less important than credulity. People are inclined to believe accounts that accord with their beliefs and convictions. Written records are often disputed on the grounds that the writer “had an agenda.” The most thoroughly reported and recorded event in all of history, the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, is frequently waved aside on that basis, even though the chroniclers were almost all put to death for maintaining it.

     Today, credulity is less important than an activist agenda. The activists vocal about the Anthony verdict have such an agenda. What they’ll do, now that that agenda has been thwarted, remains to be seen. Apparently there was some violence immediately outside the courtroom when the verdict was announced.

     Now, with a number of thoughtful people openly inquiring whether we can trust the historical records of “minority persecution,” the matter will be further inflamed. Yet there is justification for re-examining those accounts, to the extent possible. The record is almost purely one of White persecution of blacks. But the purity of the record itself provides grounds for dispute. Was it really that way in every case? Is there no possibility that in some cases the “victim” was objectively guilty of a heinous crime? Or were the recorders themselves pushing a particular viewpoint on the rest of us?

     Unpleasant, distasteful food for thought. In our current climate, it will be spoken of more openly than ever before. I fear to imagine the consequences.

“Settling”

     Consider the following observation:

Sexual double standards make it so that the woman in a marriage is more often settling for a man less attractive than those she dated and wondering if she could have done better.

This actually hurts men, but they never stop to think of the harm they cause themselves.

— Jessica Pin (@jess_ann_pin) June 8, 2026

     “Settling.” A word with ragged edges, no? Don’t we “settle” about something, every day of our lives? When lunchtime rolls around, I “settle” for whatever’s in the house, rather than demanding Lobster Newburgh. When I buy this, that, or the other thing, I “settle” for what my means will support, rather than insisting on the best-of-breed. And when I chose a wife, I, a relatively ordinary man, “settled” for a relatively ordinary woman – don’t look at me like that; the C.S.O. would agree – rather than holding out for Reese Witherspoon or Christina Hendricks.

     Settling is simply what we do when our opportunities are limited and don’t include our fantasy aspirations. That applies to the great majority of our decisions, regardless of the subject matter. It certainly applies to our mating decisions.

     Settling is not, in and of itself, any kind of issue. No, my lunch will not be Lobster Newburgh. No, my next car will not be a Mercedes Maybach or a Bentley Continental GT. No, the C.S.O. is not Reese Witherspoon or Christina Hendricks. But I chose freely from among the possibilities that were open specifically to me. No one forced any of my choices upon me. Therefore I will settle, accept the consequences, and learn to be happy with them.

     The issue is realism.

     Economists – real economists, not Marxists or meliorists – are relentless about the concept of scarcity. There’s a small supply of Lobster Newburgh. There’s a small supply of Mercedes Maybachs and Bentley Continental GTs. There’s definitely a small supply of supremely beautiful women – and it’s even smaller if you insist on a woman with a sweet and affectionate character. That will never change; therefore, the prices of those things will never descend to the level of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the used Ford Pinto, or the woman an ordinary man is likely to marry.

     The tragedy is not in the settling. The tragedy is in the recrimination and the failure to adjust.

     Consider Jessica Pin’s tweet above. Do you imagine that there are many women who never fantasize about the Adonis who had no time for her? Do you imagine that there are many men who never dream of the prom queen they yearned for but who wouldn’t spare them a glance? Most of us “revisit” our past choices and the domain in which we made them, at least on occasion. Where some of us fail is in the acceptance of our circumstances.

     Time was, it was deemed a matter of course that you would learn to love your spouse. Of course, in that era, many marriages were arranged by the parents of the spouses-to-be. Families and the reputations of families were a much greater part of matchmaking. Parents were conscious of their responsibility for guiding their children into a mature understanding of reality, its constraints, and our individual limitations.

     Perhaps mature realism has become rare, now that such arrangements are no longer the rule.

     At any rate, if we must fantasize about “how it could have been,” keeping those fantasies in the box labeled as such is paramount. Alternatively, we could purchase and read absurd romance novels that will temporarily transport us to an alternate universe where each of us can have his dream lover despite being a relatively ordinary person. But that’s a subject for another time. For now, have a little music:

The Food Chain

     [I don’t remember when I first posted this piece. It first appeared at Eternity Road, beloved in memory. It’s more appropriate for Corpus Christi Sunday than anything else I could say.
     All glory to the God who feeds His people! – FWP]

---

     We who believe often speak of the need to "grow in faith." I've never been certain exactly what that means. But as time has passed, my own faith has become ever more important to me: not as a comfort against the certainty of bodily death, and not as some sort of confirmation of my own superiority, but rather as a unifying set of premises that allow the universe, and human life within it, to make sense.

     This is critical for one overriding reason: the incoherence of every other religion Man has ever practiced with the observable laws of Nature in action around us.

     Today being Corpus Christi Sunday -- a holy day celebrated much more enthusiastically and demonstrably in Latin countries than in us of the AngloSphere -- allow me to reprise an old favorite.

* * *

     The most fundamental of all relations among living things is the food relation. For any two species, which one can eat the other, either in theory or in practice, determines just about everything else about their interactions.

     This might seem a little fuzzy in certain cases. Beyond question, a dog can kill and eat a man. The same is true for the Portuguese Man O' War. But how often does it happen? Yet there are millions of people in various parts of the world for whom dog or jellyfish is a regular part of their diets. (You can stop shuddering now.) In the usual case, Man is considered the eater and these other species the eaten.

     Thus, a brief exploration of the food chain.

     Man has been an eater for a lot longer than he's been a builder of civilizations. His career as a hunter has established him as the world champion at that contest. His development of systematic agriculture demonstrated that his hegemony extends equally well to the plant kingdom. By all measures, he's at the pinnacle of the food chain. He eats whatever he wishes, and only in the rarest of cases does any other species eat him.

     The centrality of food relations to Earth's biosystem is so obvious that we're all but unaware of it. Two of the more significant but less frequently pondered manifestations of the thing can be found in our nightmares and our rites of worship and propitiation.

     Almost as soon as men began to compose tales for one another's entertainment, they invented creatures with power to hunt, kill, and eat human beings. Vampires, ghouls, and werewolves are items of fantasy, traditional terrors that have been invoked in horror tales for many centuries. Yet what is it that makes them so terrifying? Not that they can kill men, for far lesser creatures can do that, if they get the breaks. No, their ability to frighten comes from their greater-than-human hunting ability, and their view of men as food.

     There's nothing that terrifies like the prospect of being eaten. Men have gone into battle against other men under conditions that virtually guaranteed their deaths, yet they've often gone willingly, sometimes even eagerly. They still do. But no man can face the prospect of becoming an entree for a greater creature without quaking in fear.

     Mess with a man's assumptions about the food chain and you upend his whole concept of himself as a man.

     On the other side, there are human practices with relation to their concepts of divinity. Divinities -- gods -- are by definition superior to men. Yet their participation in the life of Man is not categorically predatory, even in those creeds which place evil gods on an equal par with good ones, and see the history of the world as a struggle between equally matched forces of light and darkness in which humans are less than pawns. In our attempts to win the favor of the gods, and on occasion to avert their wrath, men have traditionally offered sacrifices to them. Those sacrifices have almost always been food.

     Contemplate the nature of ritual sacrifice for a moment. What's offered to the god being propitiated is something valuable to men: creatures men had to hunt or cultivate, whose substance could nourish and sustain human life. Yet it is deliberately removed from the human economy, usually by burning, in the attempt to convey to the god the sense that we acknowledge his superiority to us. By denying themselves the consumption of the offered food and instead offering it to the god, the sacrificers make plain that they submit themselves to him. Metaphorically, the sacrificed items are substitutes for human bodies: pleadings that the shamans and their congregants not be eaten.

     The Biblical story of God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Abraham's readiness to obey, is terrifying and exalting for that reason. On the one hand, the God of the Old Testament was not perceived even by His Chosen People, of whom Abraham was the progenitor, as being so intrinsically kindly disposed toward Man that He would never, ever demand such a sacrifice. Moreover, His power was such that there was no question that He could enforce His will in such a matter, and much worse besides. On the other hand, God intervened at the last instant to prevent the sacrifice, having established to His satisfaction that Abraham submitted entirely to His will. Thus, the pact between God and the children of Abraham -- the Jewish people -- was sealed as one of guidance and beneficence from above in exchange for worship and obedience from below. God did not intend to eat His people.

***

     Clearly, the food relation is a superiority / inferiority relation. He who eats is the stronger, who can have his will in all things. He who is eaten is the weaker, who must prostrate himself before the other in the hope of benevolence or mercy.

     Men, the highest of the creatures of this world, do not eat one another, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. Those micro-societies that have practiced cannibalism have extinguished themselves thereby -- there are some very nasty diseases, with fatality rates approaching 100%, that arise from cannibalism -- or have been humbled and re-educated by more civilized, more insightful peoples. We have attained enough insight into moral matters, and most particularly into the fundamental equality of rights all men should enjoy, to regard cannibalism with appropriate horror.

     But we still tell, and shudder over, stories of powerful, inhuman creatures that hunger for human flesh and blood. Vampire legends make up a healthy fraction of our fantastic literature. When we figure in the werewolf, the ghoul, and the occasional extraterrestrial who regards us as haute cuisine, we've covered the overwhelming majority of our scare stories. That's how fundamental the food relation is to our view of our place in the natural world.

     There aren't many religious sects in the modern world that still practice the old form of ritual sacrifice, in which a food item -- usually an animal -- is offered up to a god in hopes of winning his favor or pardon. The devotees of Santeria do it, now and then, as do the practitioners of voudoun. But these are meager survivals of old, animistic-pagan creeds. Their adherents are few and will probably never be many.

     However, a form of sacrifice still characterizes the most important religious rite in the world. Its devotees number in the billions. They partake of this sacrifice at every opportunity; to them, it is the highest a living man can rise in communion with God. And most curiously of all, it is a bidirectional sacrifice, the only such ever celebrated in all the eons of Man.

     I speak, of course, of the Miracle of Transubstantiation in the Christian Eucharist.

     In the days of Christ, the ritual sacrifice of food animals at the Temple in Jerusalem was still the preeminent religious rite in the classical world. The Hebrews regarded those sacrifices as God's due for extending His protection over them as His Chosen People. Indeed, according to the Book of Exodus, such sacrifices were ordained by God Himself, as He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. The Jews of that time considered them the only truly complete act of religious devotion.

     Christ upended their world by inverting the food chain. No more would they give up their sustenance in propitiation of the divine will. Henceforward, it would be the other way around: the Son of God would be the Sacrifice, and His people would partake.

     From the Gospel According To John:

     "I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
     The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever." [John 6:48-58]

     The rite of the Eucharist, in commemoration of the Last Supper, offers bread and wine to God and prays that they might be found acceptable. In response to this humble offering, and in fulfillment of Christ's promise, through the celebrant-priest He works the Transubstantiation, which allows the form of the bread and wine to remain as they are, but converts their substance into the body and blood of Christ. At each Mass, a traditional sacrifice of food to God is met with a renewal of the offering of Christ's body and blood to the world, for the remission of sin and as a perpetual grant of His grace to all who will accept it.

     No other creed has anything to compare with the Eucharist. Nor could any conceivable rite, however elaborately crusted with mystery or symbolism, approach the stunning power of God Himself, in the Person of His Son, offering Himself as food to lowly Man.

     He could eat us all. Instead He offers Himself as food, that we may remember His Sacrifice for us, and draw as close to Him as mortal creatures can get while still in this world.

     Today is the Sunday ordained for the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Sacrifice beyond all others, that no offering by mortal men could ever equal. The proof that the food chain is not God's manacle about our hands. The unanswerable refutation of those who insist that a malevolent power bestrides the universe. The ironclad guarantee that we are not to be eaten, but to be fed.

* * *

     And may God bless and keep you all.

An Intellectual's Duty

     [This piece first appeared at Eternity Road on March 12, 2008. -- FWP]

---

     There aren't many persons who, if asked whether significantly above-average intelligence could ever be a liability rather than an asset, would answer in the affirmative. That's because there aren't many persons with significantly above-average intelligence.

     Yes, you read that right. You have to be pretty smart to understand why smarts aren't a good fit for every context and every occupation. One of Jack L. Chalker's Flux and Anchor books presents a penetrating example. In it, a woman who has earned a large boon from a powerful wizard asks him to use his power to make her permanently happy and carefree. The wizard plies a spell that strips her of her memory, halves her intelligence, and turns her into an uncritical, limitlessly willing sexual plaything -- the simplest conceivable satisfaction of her request.

     True, most of us wouldn't aspire to that position. But some would, and dare anyone say (from a purely secular perspective) that to choose such a life would be wrong? Happiness and peace of mind are fleeting things; all but a few truly fortunate persons possess them only in snatches. Aldous Huxley is reported to have been greatly troubled by the number of persons who viewed his Brave New World, in which the overwhelmingly greater part of the population of the world was engineered for subnormal intelligence and high susceptibility to a happiness-inducing drug, as a depiction of a true Utopia.

     Still, there's that "Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied" business. Most persons of high intelligence wouldn't sacrifice it for anything, not even a greatly prolonged, blissfully happy life. In part, it's because high intelligence enables the owner to imagine and pursue fulfillments inaccessible to the less gifted. In even larger part, it's because the esteem generally attached to intellectual power greatly stokes one's self-regard.

     High intelligence is a tool that can work many wonders. We owe much of our comfort and security to the insights of a few dozen geniuses. But that doesn't make a genius suitable for a position only a dullard can fit.

---

     Just this morning, your Curmudgeon stumbled upon the following at co-conspirator Travis Corcoran's site:

NZC: Didn’t Spitzer want to be president someday? So, that’s totally in the toilet.

     TJIC: One American disqualified for the office…only 299,999,999 more to go!

     NZC: And you’re allowed to say that, because you’re leading from the front - you’ve totally disqualified yourself a dozen times over.

     TJIC: Yeah, that whole “dig up the corpse of FDR, and then !@#% in his skull” blogging topic would totally come back to bite me in the primaries.

     NZC: Indeed!

     TJIC: …unless I ran as a Libertarian…

     It was good for a chuckle, but your Curmudgeon sincerely hopes that Travis is aware that his high intelligence disqualifies him from any and all public offices.

     What's that you say? You want very intelligent people in government? You, sir, are a hazard to the body politic. What on Earth are you doing at Eternity Road? Don't you know what sort of mischief smart people get up to when entrusted with power? Didn't we get enough of a demonstration from the Clintons? Do you really want a reprise of that disaster?

     No. No smart people in office. Please! Smart people are too good at reinterpreting their marching orders and rationalizing their way around moral or Constitutional constraints on their authority. If any of the Founding Fathers was a genius, Thomas Jefferson was -- yet he, most libertarian of them all, violated the Constitution's constraints on federal power several times in his first term of office. He rationalized his transgressions as "necessary" and "practical." So highly did Congress, and the people generally, think of him that he always carried the day.

     High intelligence is almost always accompanied by a high opinion of oneself. He who thinks that well of himself is all too easily led to see himself as above the rules that bind others. If you were looking for a capsule summary of Eliot Spitzer's downfall, you have it now.

     What Americans should seek in their public officials is men who can understand the duties and limitations of their offices, and will cleave to them unswervingly. This demands a routinier, an "organization man," a dullard. It's not the right billet for a genius. Very bright people chafe at taking orders, even from brighter, more knowledgeable people; they're always looking for an angle, a way to finesse their way out of doing what they've been told.

     The duties of an elected official are spelled out in either the Constitution of the United States, or some similar charter subordinate to it. The powers that attach to whatever government his office pertains to are spelled out in a similar fashion, albeit not always with the degree of specificity a libertarian-conservative would like. If those rules and constraints are seriously meant, then we don't want our officeholders looking for ways to chisel around the edges. We want good, solid dullards, schooled from the Bible and the handle of a broom, who'll do as they're told, without the slightest trace of creativity.

     We don't often get such men, these days.

---

     The word "intellectual" has acquired an unsavory connotation these past few decades. It deserves that connotation rather more than not. Intellectuals in the corridors of power, rich in self-regard and flushed with ambition to leave their footprints upon history, have wreaked great harm upon American liberty and our Constitutional order. But we were foolish enough to admit them, so the blame lies at least as much on us.

     Restoring the original Constitutional compact has proved dauntingly difficult. Once government opens niches for men of intellect, those niches prove damnably difficult to close. There's always an argument for genius in the power seat, usually that it's necessary if we're ever to undo the damage wrought by prior geniuses. Even when it's tragically wrong, it can be too seductive to resist.

     But an intellectual's duty is to resist. If the word "duty" has an objective meaning, a man of genius should feel a duty to move toward those fields where his gifts will bring good to the world, rather than to a post where others will have to pay for his mistakes. For even geniuses make mistakes. Indeed, they make more of them, and more rapidly, than persons of average attainments.

     Sadly, in our current milieu, wherein the achievements of an Edison or a Tesla are reckoned as grubby commerce while "high office" earns the highest of plaudits, too many bright fellows are drawn toward the profession of politics. But power doesn't merely corrupt; it attracts the already corrupt and corruptible. Thus, it's in the nature of political power that those with the weakest morals will be the most successful.

     This is not the time or place for the exploration of so perverse a situation; among other things, your Curmudgeon hasn't yet had enough to drink. Suffice it to say that we've created incentives that divert high intelligence away from its proper applications -- science, commerce, and philosophy -- and into the quest for power over others. Those incentives are self-reinforcing; they can only be unmade by the creation of even stronger counter-incentives, at whose nature we cannot yet guess. For the present, due to the excessive adulation of the hoi polloi for the conspicuously gifted, we're doomed to be ruled by persons of low morality protected by high intellect. It's the worst situation we could have contrived for ourselves.

     To young Americans seeking a suitable course in life:

• If you're smart, go into business.
• If you're very smart, go into the sciences.
• If you're not smart, but were properly raised and can follow clear, simple directions, there may be a spot for you in government.
• If you're a Certified Galactic Intellect...how about a nice game of chess?

---

     [Having reread and reflected on the above -- hey, what do you do at 4:00 AM when the dogs won't let you sleep? -- it occurs to me that a review of our recent, supposedly smart chief executives is in order:

• Woodrow Wilson: World War I, huge expansion of the federal government, the income tax, the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Amendments.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt: The "Brain Trust," a thirteen-year economic contraction, World War II, the destruction of the Constitution's restraints on the federal government.
• John F. Kennedy: The Bay of Pigs, hot and cold running prostitutes, and the elevation of the detestable, wholly amoral Kennedy family to a kind of American aristocracy.
• Bill Clinton: Semen-stained dresses and bombed-out aspirin factories in Sudan.
• Barack Hussein Obama: Please!

     Any questions?]