Love And Consensus

     Among the most dangerous of things, politically, economically, and socially, the false consensus must rank high. Half of Mankind is dominated by consensus thinking. Women find it extremely difficult to depart from the current “women’s consensus.” Thus, they can be misdirected by a false consensus, with results that are sometimes catastrophic.

     Men are not immune to consensus, but we have somewhat more ability to resist them, especially those of us who perceive clearly and accurately. Moreover, men’s innate proclivity for doing things by and for ourselves can also countervail a seeming consensus. All the same, there is danger in a pseudo-consensus for men as well as for women.

     (Nota Bene: I just tried to look up the plural form of consensus, and found nothing. As it’s derived from the Latin verb consentire, “to agree,” there is no etymologically correct plural for it. English speakers tend to avoid trying to pluralize it. Clearly, there is no consensus about the plural of consensus. Just so you know.)

     The deceivers among us strive to create seeming consensus that will direct us into their preferred channels. It’s especially significant in politics, from which we get the terms grass-roots and astroturf movements. Brilliant individuals have been badly misled by their impressions of “what everybody else is thinking.”

     Now we come to the title of this piece.

     My Gentle Readers don’t need to be told about the malaise that afflicts male-female relations. It’s bruited about sufficiently in the media, to say nothing of all the “self-help” books on the subject. And it’s kept men and women apart to a tragic extent. But if I may judge from experience, the reasons for that estrangement lie in exaggeration and anecdotes.

     Few men are really self-absorbed scalp-hunters and bedpost-notchers. Few women are really man-hating termagants incapable of satisfaction. Just because you married one such means almost nothing, socially. But as seems to be the rule, tales of such persons get much wider circulation than stories of happily mated couples. Ironically, it’s the good men and good women who are principally guilty of spreading them.

     The general belief in those false notions is keeping love-starved Americans apart. The frequent, heavily promoted diatribes about fortune-hunting women and “men going their own way” are the cause. The reality is considerably more benign. It just gets less air time and fewer column-inches.

     In concert with those false consensus, we have the problem of elevated expectations. Men seek magazine-cover dream girls. Women seek six-foot-three Adonises on horseback. A great deal of popular literature urges us to think they’re out there waiting for us. It ain’t so, and when we’re in our right minds we know it perfectly well.

     There’s a lot of money to be made from spreading tales of “romance predators:” men who use women for their bodies; women who only want to be supported like royalty. Romance novels often feature a male predator as an antagonist. Prenuptial agreements exist because well-to-do men fear women who have it in mind to “divorce rich.” And there are some of each roaming about. But though the general consensus suggests that they’re the majority, in truth they’re exceptions, and not even popular among their fellows.

     Singles who can bring their dreams back to Earth can find compatible mates. They can get the love, companionship, loyalty, and support they seek, if they’re willing to give them as well. All things have their prices, and the price of marital happiness is that you must provide it if you wish to receive it. Relationships in which those things are reciprocated are the kind that endure.

     Time was, that was more widely understood. But there’s that nasty consensus ringing in the backs of our heads. Surely it’s based on something. Dare a young, unmated American act as if it’s all twaddle?

     I have nothing supremely wise to say on this subject. It’s mainly a suggestion to look beneath and beyond the consensus. But if you’d like to see a delightful movie about such things and how they could work out for those who are realistic and candid, try The Ugly Truth. Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl will get you laughing so hard you’ll hurt yourself. Trust me.

Does Size Matter?

     The arguments over political systems, what makes them possible, what undermines them, and so forth are doomed to go on until Man is no more. Some of the most basic ones – the fundamental questions beneath all political discourse – arise from considerations of size: How large or small should a political unit be to attain stability?

     The arguments over whether to tolerate “globalization,” and to what extent, are part of this. Commercial currents that flow above political units confound many people’s notions. Businesses that operate internationally seem to flout some of our political aspirations. Or perhaps it’s that they flout the aspirations of politicians; that’s equally likely.

     I’ve long held that bigness in business requires bigness of governments. There may be exceptions, but they would be cases where truly huge amounts of capital and labor are required to pursue such enterprises. However, when power-wielders turn their voracious attentions to business, it’s the biggest players that they go after first. Also, really big businesses tend to need more competition than the marketplace will naturally provide them; Alfred Sloan recognized that when he arranged for the divisions within General Motors to compete against one another. All this suggests that bigness, even if it confers an advantage in certain fields, comes with compensating disadvantages that limit its value.

     Many of the dynamics that characterize businesses in competition also apply to political units – governments. But governments are loath to admit it. The European Union came into existence mainly because of politicians’ desires to rule a nation larger than their homelands, a nation that could compete politically and economically with the United States. American politicians, analysts, and influential commentators encouraged it for reasons of their own, some of which are unclear to me.

     Large or small? World-girdling or localized? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? The questions are pressed in many fora. But answers are slow to appear.

     The following first appeared here on May 14, 2020.

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     Wes Rhinier at NC Renegade has penned a short piece about what he foresees for America. His expectations are bleak. In particular, he’s troubled by the many plaintive calls for “a leader” for “the coming civil war.” Here’s the part that plucked at my fiddlestrings:

     We are all too divided. We all have our own ideas. It’s always been a problem in this liberty movement.

     I think a Balkanization is more likely to happen. Or maybe small confederations happen.

     For me, this called to mind the conclusion of Poul Anderson’s Hugo-winning novella “No Truce With Kings.” It concerns the efforts of an alien race to engineer a specific sociopolitical outcome for Man on Earth…by subterfuge and the use of alien technology to promote one faction in a distributed, multi-participant war over the others:

     “You wanted to re-establish the centralized state, didn’t you? Did you ever stop to think that maybe feudalism is what suits Man? Some one place to call our own, and belong to, and be part of; a community with traditions and honor; a chance for the individual to make decisions that count; a bulwark for liberty against the central overlords, who’ll always want more and more power; a thousand different ways to live. We’ve always built supercountries, here on Earth, and we’ve always knocked them apart again. I think maybe the whole idea is wrong. And maybe this time we’ll try something better. Why not a world of little states, too well rooted to dissolve in a nation, too small to do much harm—slowly rising above petty jealousies and spite, but keeping their identities—a thousand separate approaches to our problems. Maybe then we can solve a few of them…for ourselves!”

     The idea of federalism was an attempt to harmonize the large nation – by virtue of its size capable of standing against other, more rapacious nations – with the small community of independent identity. Federalism proposed a way of having many small, largely autonomous regions within a central structure with sharply limited powers that would defend all of them against invasion. But governments always suck power from smaller units toward larger ones, and from peripheral loci toward central ones. We might not have known about that dynamic two and a half centuries ago – we didn’t have that many examples of it to study back then – but we have no excuse for not knowing about it now.

     However, there’s more than one view about these things. Here’s another angle, from Tom Kratman’s very best novel:

     “Do you know why we band together into nations, girl?”
     The question seemed so totally out of the blue that Maricel didn’t really even comprehend it. She shook her head, a gesture that meant, in this case, I don’t understand.
     Aida took it wrongly, assuming the girl meant she didn’t know why. She answered the question herself. Pointing towards the flames, she said, “We band into nations for just that reason. In the real world, little tribes like TCS are destroyed. They can’t compete against determined bands of raiders. It takes more power than that to defend yourself against people like yourself, people with no law above themselves.”
     Ah, now Maricel understood the question. She wasn’t sure she understood the answer and, given that she was going to die, the answer didn’t really matter anyway.
     “It’s the flaw in some utopian schemes,” the woman continued. She looked at Maricel’s uncomprehending face and said, “You don’t understand that word, do you?”
     “No.” Sniffle. Just get on with it, will you?
     “Never mind; here’s the truth, a truth I’ve been trying to find for the last . . . well, for the last good long while. People band into nations, real nations—not travesties like TCS, gangs that fancy themselves nations—to defend themselves. It requires an emotional commitment. The limits of nations are not how far their borders can reach, but how far their hearts can. People with tiny hearts, people like TCS, can never reach very far, can never gather enough similar hearts together to defend themselves. Only real people, and real countries or causes, can do that. That’s why TCS is going to die tonight.”

     [Tom Kratman, Countdown: H Hour]

     Perhaps the question is multivariate, in which case the answers will be multivariate as well. At the very least, it’s not simply What do we seek for ourselves and how can we get it? but Are we able to do what it will take and endure what we must to remain that way? That all sociopolitical arrangements are inherently unstable doesn’t mean that all are equally desirable.

     Freedom is not the only good people seek from their political alignments and arrangements, as we should all know far too well. They also seek prosperity for themselves and their families, and security against threats, both actual and potential. And some – there will always be some – have a vision of “the good” that requires others to bend their knees and their necks:

     One female (most were men, but women made up for it in silliness) had a long list she wanted made permanent laws—about private matters. No more plural marriage of any sort. No divorces. No “fornication”—had to look that one up. No drinks stronger than 4% beer. Church services only on Saturdays and all else to stop that day. (Air and temperature and pressure engineering, lady? Phones and capsules?) A long list of drugs to be prohibited and a shorter list dispensed only by licensed physicians. (What is a “licensed physician”? Healer I go to has a sign reading “practical doctor”—makes book on side, which is why I go to him. Look, lady, aren’t any medical schools in Luna!) (Then, I mean.) She even wanted to make gambling illegal. If a Loonie couldn’t roll double or nothing, he would go to a shop that would, even if dice were loaded.
     Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws—always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: “Please pass this so that I won’t be able to do something I know I should stop.” Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them “for their own good”—not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

     [Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]

     Are Anderson’s mini-states impossible by Kratman’s logic? Or are Kratman’s larger nations doomed to deteriorate into tyrannies owing to the dynamic of power-seeking as Anderson has pinned it? And what about the people – “crazy as a Cyborg” or otherwise – who insist that the State compel others to bend to their preferences?

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     The questions are inclusive and eternal. The answers are idiosyncratic and fleeting. The arguments never cease.

     And some of us just want to be left alone.

     “Politics and business… I don’t pay them no mind.” (Jesse Colin Young, The Wine Song)

This Rant Is Untitleable

     There are days I want to close my eyes and pray that “it will just go away.” For “it,” choose any maddening thing of your preference. I have a bunch of them handy for immediate application.

* * *

1. “Equality.”

     The Left has used “equality” as a shillelagh against the Right for many years. It’s time we took it away from them, considering the massive inequalities in the societies their schemes produce. But it will be a hard job. They don’t have a lot of rhetorical tools with which to hawk their wares. With “racism” dropping off he charts, they’ll keep an iron grip on the ones they still have.

     I read quite recently that in academic year 2024-2025, 68% of the college and university degrees awarded in the United States went to women. That’s quite an imbalance. Nor is the impact of it greatly reduced by the awareness that a large percentage of those degrees were in fields such as “gender studies.”

     Once all the relevant variables have been controlled, it develops that American working women are slightly out-earning American men. Dollars are easy to measure, so at least on the commercial front, it would appear that American women have achieved “equality.”

     Yet young women appear to be less happy, and less satisfied with their life choices, than ever before in American history. I’m no expert on what makes women happy; ask my wife, if you can get close enough. Still, if the studies and surveys that tell us such things can be trusted, it would seem that something is amiss for young American women. Whether their life satisfactions improve over time, I do not know.

     They demanded “equality;” they got commercial equality, plus massive advantages in law, institutional preferences, and social customs. They apparently didn’t get what they wanted. It’s worth a few moments’ thought, especially in light of the plummeting American birthrate.

* * *

2. “Inequality.”

     When I survey the political battlefield of our time, there does appear to be an imbalance that favors the Right. Consider this article from Britain’s Telegraph:

     Not so long ago, the stock image of someone from the far-Right was easily summoned: they’d be male, obviously, and very probably bald, with steel-toe boots and questionable tattoos. Times, however, have moved on: this week, it was reported that the Government had banned seven “far-Right agitators” from entering the country to attend a Tommy Robinson rally on Saturday. Three are strikingly telegenic young women.
     Among the verboten ones is Ada Lluch, an impeccably coiffed 26-year-old Catalan activist who has defended the Franco regime and had told the most recent “Unite the Kingdom” rally last September that western democracies have been “completely invaded”. Valentina Gomez, an influencer from the US, has also been barred, having told last year’s rally that “rapist Muslims” were “taking over” the country (she’s said she’ll still try to come on Saturday, though – via small boat). And Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch political activist and commentator, has been forbidden too, having lamented “the rape, replacement and murder of our people” in London last autumn.
     The face of the far-Right, it seems, is changing – and it’s becoming a good deal prettier. Part of the shift is due to a growing number of young people flooding into politics – many of whom are profoundly disaffected with mainstream parties – and bringing with them a native understanding of the importance of a good Instagram filter. At the same time, there seems to be a rising awareness across the movement that improving its “look” is vital to broadening its appeal, which in recent years has come to rely heavily on a network of highly prominent social media influencers.
     Of course, it suits the far-Right very well to have beautiful young women zhuzhing its image. Their looks, as much as their messaging, promise to draw in more men and open up new audiences altogether in the form of young women who, while once more wary of indulging in politics of this nature, are now turning towards it amid widespread disillusionment with modern life.
     But for many of the individuals involved, there are also considerable rewards to be reaped: fame, the wealth that can flow from success online, perceived “clout” within the community and the satisfaction that can come from speaking out about a subject they care about.

     Of course, given the Telegraph’s editorial proclivities, it must be “the far-Right,” that perpetually under-defined menace, that’s benefiting from the activities of “strikingly telegenic young women.” What, does the Left have no beauties of its own? What about all the Hollywood actresses that regularly express Leftist sentiments and contribute to Leftist causes? I could name quite a number of them. Is it the relative youth of the Right’s lovelies that pains “Leaf Arbuthnot?”

     As a rule, for a First World society, where the beautiful young women are headed is where the society is headed. The reasons “should” be “obvious.” P. J. O’Rourke made note of this in Parliament of Whores. That does bode poorly for the Left. But worse still is the habit unsightly, obese Leftist women have of taking selfies holding placards that say things such as “I WILL NEVER DATE A MAGA MAN.” Someone should talk to them about that.

* * *

3. Bad Judgment.

     Some prominent people have been shooting off their mouths – and their feet – in public recently. They’re drawing the wrong kind of attention. That’s not a function of intellect but of judgment. No matter how passionately one holds to a particular conviction, there are times to keep it to oneself. There are also good and bad ways to go about expressing it.

     Not long ago, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson went on a tirade in which he said that imprisoning criminals is “racist.” (See the first segment of this screed for commentary on that rhetorical weapon.) Now, this man is no Einstein, but a public figure should be aware of the implications of his statements. If the public were to become convinced that confining convicted felons is unacceptable, what would the response be?

     I’ve been predicting the return of the vigilance committee for some time. Brandon Johnson appears to favor that outcome as well. If he doesn’t, it would be damned hard to tell from his public utterances.

     On the other side of the fence we have Ben Shapiro. I’ve never had a high opinion of Shapiro as a representative for conservatism, but I was willing to allow that he’s reasonably bright. I don’t think I’ll make that assumption any longer:

Yes. If you are mentally and physically healthy, taxpayers should not pay you to retire at 65. When Social Security was created, life expectancy was 64. Today, it's 78.

Also, people require purpose. If you can retire and find purpose, go for it. For many, that's a bad idea. https://t.co/MrgtO0dEGT

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 12, 2024

     How old is Shapiro? He can’t have yet entered into the stage of life where weariness is a man’s constant companion. He can’t yet be hagridden with the sense that his life is drawing to a close. Yet he decries retirement. This is definitely a candidate for this year’s “What Were You Thinking?” sweepstakes.

     The American Dream includes several goals. One of them is surely a comfortable retirement in which to rest from one’s labors. Shapiro may have a problem with Social Security – I do, myself – but attacking retirement rather than the injustice of the Social Security system is the wrong way to express it. A genuinely bright person would have known better.

     Hm. Maybe it is intellect, after all.

* * *

     I think that’s all for this bright clear Tuesday in May, Gentle Reader. Enjoy the rest of your day. Stop by tomorrow for more effluvia from an overactive writer. And remember always:

• Gentlemen: The stripper isn’t really attracted to you. Faking it is just how she earns her living.
• Ladies: Those dollar bills in your G-string won’t go nearly as far as you’d like. Neither, sadly, will you.

Hard Lines

     I’ve been seeing a lot of propaganda such as the following:

We see this situation every day. It's actually VERY common.
Should a person in this situation be deported? 🤔 pic.twitter.com/G5X57mTtgx

— Gary M (@gman5180) May 17, 2026

     It’s a tug at the heartstrings. The poor child had no idea what was going on when her mother decided to wetback the border. She’s lived 18 years in the comfort and security of the United States, with all its riches and opportunities. In all justice, can we deport her for what her mother did?

     The empathetic response is to say “No, we’ll find another way.” Which is what the propagandist wants you to say. But that has implications. Back the child’s age off a wee bit. What if she’s 14? Or 10? Or 6? Or still in the cradle? The inclination of the empathetic is still not to penalize the child for the sin of her parents. That naturalizes her parents right along with her. You wouldn’t want the poor tyke to be shorn of her parents, would you?

     For that matter, what if Mom didn’t get knocked up until after she’d illegally entered the U.S.? Once again, her daughter is a helpless bystander in the matter. Birthright citizenship makes her a citizen from the instant she emerges from the womb. Add the humanitarian position that a child should not be unnecessarily parted from her parents, and that hauls her parents into legality right along with her.

     The law is supposed to be definite as many human propositions are not. It’s supposed to have a hard line around it, such that any person of ordinary intelligence can always know on which side of that line he stands. That isn’t always the case, of course. Contemporary “law” is filled with ambiguities. They’re often put there by lawmakers deliberately, to expand the powers of the State. Immigration and naturalization law is only one such case.

     The debates about illegal migration may bring about a change in how citizenship and legal residency are determined. But this aspect of the matter will continue to bedevil us. Children are especially vulnerable to the misdeeds of their parents. Americans are second to none in their inclinations to protect children. If we write new immigration and naturalization laws that do have hard lines around them, but preserve the tradition that one born within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States is a citizen from birth, then in cases such as the above, we’ll be compelled to separate children from their parents. Some of those children will become wards of the State.

     I cannot find a compromise position that would deal “fairly” with all cases. But as a departed friend liked to say, “fair” is just a sound that humans make now and then. It has no fixed meaning. Ask any minor child prone to shrieking that “It’s not fair!” Don’t expect an answer you can rely on in all cases.

Othering And Anothering

     Time was, I thought I was a pretty smart guy. I believed that I saw things clearly and reasoned accurately. Lately, I’ve become unsure.

     The human mind seeks categories. It looks for ways to classify people, things, and events into discrete boxes that partition experience into neat clusters with hard edges. That’s not a bad thing, in most cases. But it can run away from you, especially if you forget:

1. That we all reason from premises;
2. That the source of our premises ought to be questioned.

     We don’t acquire our premises by a logical process. A lot of us get them from indoctrination. Some of us are bludgeoned mercilessly for many years, until finally we conclude that the only way to stop the pain is to accept what we’re being told.

     When the pain stops and we’re free to think again, we must be ready to revisit those doctrines and deal with them as rational men.

* * *

     The above is very abstract: as abstract as I could make it. That’s so that it will be maximally useful to any Gentle Reader who thinks he understands it. Among our premises are some that have signs hung about them that scream “DANGER: Do Not Inspect Too Closely” in large block letters. If you recoil from addressing any of your premises, it’s likely that the memory of pain is what repels you. Indoctrination is intended to have that result.

     Robert A. Heinlein wrote a huge novel in which he used a “man from Mars” as his vehicle for examining certain common premises. It’s his most popular, most widely read book, in part because it seems to grant the reader permission to violate certain norms that are near-universal to the First World. Yet anyone who looks closely at the author’s life is struck by how far from the seeming exhortations of Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein’s own conduct lay.

     Heinlein’s novel has value in that it questions premises and implies that the reader should do likewise. That is not the same as refuting them by an impeccably logical process. Moreover, to the extent that we of the late 20th Century set those premises aside, we only reaffirmed their importance. The consequences have all but shattered our societies. They have spoken in a voice of thunder.

     I could go on about this. On occasions I’ve done so. But I’ve lost the strength for it. More, I don’t think it’s necessary any longer.

* * *

     By now you’re probably wondering about what gave rise to this. As it’s an ugly subject, I’ll try to be brief.

     Tom Kratman, whom I esteem highly, has posted a set of assessments and predictions for the future of the West. His observations, premises, and expectations are much like mine, at least when I’ve had enough wine to be candid within myself. A brief, thematic taste:

     I think, in the first place, that those future saviors have probably added a capital crime, Civilizational Treason, to the books, that looks a lot like our definition of treason, but with an expansive view of "making war upon" and "giving aid and comfort."

     The implications of a crime of “civilizational treason” are endless. The core of the concept of treason is opposition to that to which one’s loyalty was premised. But Tom’s term requires that we ask what it means to be loyal to a civilization… and that compels us to ask what sort of foundation lies beneath the civilizations of the West.

     That’s a study to which men have given whole careers. It cannot be fruitfully approached entirely in the abstract. It requires a great deal of knowledge about the history of Western Civilization. It also requires the courage to be honest about the currents that threaten to sweep them away.

     The threats to any civilization are those ideas that cross-cut its premises, no matter how those premises were arrived at. But ideas don’t hang in the void, Victor Hugo’s notions notwithstanding. They require carriers dedicated to them and willing to invest their lives in propagating them.

     If our civilization is founded on certain premises, it behooves those of us who value it to know what those premises are, and to be prepared to defend them with our lives if necessary. The shortfall of persons who meet those criteria is why the enemies of Western Civilization are currently in the ascendant. Worse, a great many young Americans and Europeans have been trained like circus animals to deride those premises. That puts them in league with our enemies.

     As Thomas Sowell has said, the barbarians are inside the gates. As Marcus Tullius Cicero has told us, there is no greater danger to what we hold dear than the traitor.

* * *

     The key to victory in any conflict is knowledge. Sun Tzu said it first:

     If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

     But knowledge doesn’t hang disembodied in the void, either. It requires acceptance: your acceptance. If you reject the knowledge required to win, you’ll lose. Apologies for being so blunt about it.

     The critical knowledge comes from plain answers to these questions:

• Who is my enemy?
• What makes him my enemy?

     Those are precisely the questions we of the West have been most forcibly discouraged from asking.

     It is common among Americans generally that we are reluctant to name our enemies and to take up arms against them. Not our overt military enemies; we’re usually pretty good at identifying those. The enemies of Western Civilization: they who are actively working to smash the pillars of the Western temple. But to identify our enemies demands that we identify the pillars themselves. We’ve been irrationally reluctant to name and defend those.

* * *

     The above requires that we re-examine certain doctrines that have been beaten into us for many decades. Foremost among them is this one: that the greatest of all crimes is making others uncomfortable. To cleave to that commandment, we have restrained ourselves from defending the fundamental canons of the West, even as the Civilizational Traitors now among us have chipped away at them.

     If the West is to survive, we must overcome that doctrine. We must perform an othering. We must say, in a great and terrible voice:

     “You are the enemies of individual rights and responsibilities, of human freedom, and of the imperishable teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ. On these things our civilization is founded. Therefore you are our enemies. Therefore we will remove you, by whatever means may prove effective. No quarter will be given.”

     I submit that it’s time.

The Assault On Aesthetic Sensibility

     [I’ve had a supremely trying week, and find that I’m “tapped out” of fresh blather. Accordingly, please enjoy – if that’s the right word – the following piece, which first appeared here on December 30, 2016 – FWP]

* * *

     I’m a former – i.e., retired – engineer. These days, engineers come in a multitude of varieties, but there are nevertheless commonalities among us. One of those commonalities, perhaps the most important of them all, is this one:

Form Follows Function

     Aesthetic considerations cannot be permitted to eclipse functional considerations. If the device won’t perform according to its assigned function and specifications, it’s useless no matter how pretty it is. That much, at least, is easy to grasp.

     What’s harder to grasp is this: That which is functionally effective and efficient will also be aesthetically pleasing. Behind the human eye stands the human mind. It qualifies what the eye sees according to its comprehension of what lies within surface form. Thus many an object one would dismiss on purely aesthetic grounds becomes attractive, even beautiful, when one comes to grips with what it’s intended to do.

     An example: Just yesterday, the C.S.O. commented that in every science fiction movie we’ve seen that features a deep-space vessel, the ships have all possessed certain visible characteristic. She couldn’t imagine why that would be so. So I gave her the short course in interstellar vessel design – “Colony Starships 101,” with prerequisites in nuclear fusion and special relativity – proceeding from the absolute requirements of the undertaking:

• Must gather its fuel from space;
• Capable of attaining near-lightspeed velocity;
• Supports living spaces and functions that must not impede one another;
• Must endure continuous bombardment by tiny particles impacting at near-lightspeed.

     I did so as concisely as possible. The C.S.O. being bright, she grasped the requirements and what they mandated at once...and began to see the design of the starship in Passengers as inherently beautiful.

     The late, much lamented Steven Den Beste once wrote of how, once he penetrated to the functional requirements and design of even the most mundane device, it would appear beautiful to him. I submit that this is inherent in the mind’s aesthetic judgments – that an object with an assigned function will impress aesthetically in proportion to its efficacy and efficiency at that function. Inversely, an object without any function must stand on its form alone.

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     Much of what we call “pop culture” offends me. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Nor ought we to wave the matter aside with a grunt, mutter “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and pass on. Ugliness that pervades a society, displacing what men have cherished for ages as beautiful, isn’t a transient thing but a destructive force: an invasion of our minds and sensibilities.

     So when I happen upon a display such as this, my commentator’s side rears up on its hind legs with the need to emit a denunciation. Were those...persons really clothed? Not by any standard for clothing that I can imagine. For what, after all, are the possible functions of clothing?

• It can keep the wearer warm, or acceptably within the “blue laws;”
• It can conceal his sex characteristics;
• Alternately, it can emphasize those characteristics;
• It can enhance physical attractiveness;
• It can convey an allegiance, an intention, or a desire.

     (Note that I omit consideration of costumes, whose function is to evoke a story or story-setting, and of armor, whose function is to prevent or mitigate wounds. Those are quite separate categories and must not be judged according to the requirements of clothing.)

     Do the “garments” in the pictures at the linked site fulfill any of the possible functions for clothing? If your answer is no, then what are they intended to do?

     Take a few moments over it.

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     I’m a curmudgeon, which is a subspecies of crank. Accordingly, it’s commonplace for me to compare current events and trends that offend me with ones from my experiences that I find more acceptable. That’s also an aspect of the conservative disposition: to prefer that to which one has become accustomed to that which is shriekingly new. When I write about aesthetic matters I try to quell my natural crankiness in favor of objectivity. Sometimes I even succeed.

     This time around, I consider the obligation to run in the opposite direction. For what you saw in the piece linked above illustrates something I’ve grown to regard as insidiously dangerous: the cumulative assault on what Camille Paglia calls “the Western Eye:” the aesthetic sensibility that has accompanied and perfused Western thinking for two centuries at least, and which is inseparable from our convictions about individual worth and dignity. The apostles of our hideously vulgar pop culture hate that sensibility and are engaged in a wide-spectrum effort to destroy it: with ugly, pointless “clothing,” “music,” “art,” “sculpture,” “fiction,” “movies,” and trends in locution.

     Why? Because Western thought supports and is supported by Western aesthetics. Because the ongoing assault on Western precepts:

• the sanctity of human life;
• the rights and dignity of the individual;
• the appropriate constraints on public conduct;
• the suspicion and limitation of power and those who seek it;
• the foundation of all that is truly beautiful on Truth Itself;

     ...cannot succeed unless the Western aesthetic sensibility is destroyed in tandem.

     A dear friend once pointed out to me that among the barbarizations inflicted upon us by contemporary television is a habituation to seeing a human body defiled in some fashion. Perhaps the best example is the regular use of autopsy scenes by shows such as CSI. The reduction of what was once a living, breathing person with rights, ideas, emotions, and aspirations to a bag of battered organs and leaking fluids does harm to our sensibilities in ways we hardly even notice as it occurs. Yet the harm is real. It goes horribly deep.

     Look for the parallels in “music” that lacks melody and harmony but is replete with obscenities and calls for violence; with “art” that depicts nothing and requires no skill to produce; with “fashionable” clothing that’s often obviously torn and otherwise distorted; and with “fiction” that focuses on humiliation, degradation, pain, and the reduction of the human person to something even the lowest of the animals would disdain.

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     I’ve only scratched the surface here. There’s infinitely more to be said on the subject. However, I trust that my Gentle Readers, being Gentle Readers, will manage to carry the ideas forward for themselves.

     John Keats once wrote that “What seizes the imagination as beauty must be truth.” That statement has had a profound effect on my considerations of aesthetic matters. But its converse has been no less significant: What is true beyond disputation is inherently beautiful, as nothing that lies, distorts, or mocks the truth can possibly be.

     Just some food for thought for your Friday morning.

Book Review: "Mumbai Singularity"

     I’ve just finished one of the best and most daring novels I’ve read in many a year: Nym Coy’s Mumbai Singularity.

     This novel is extraordinary. It’s hugely daring; it speaks of beings and things well beyond the human plane. Writing gods and pseudo-gods into a novel is always tricky, even when they’re really just imitations, such as the “gods” in Roger Zelazny's “Lord of Light.” But “Mumbai Singularity" goes beyond Zelazny's conception, into places no reader would expect.

     Three planes of existence and activity are depicted in this novel:

• The strictly material plane: the grubby reality of 22nd Century Mumbai;
• The “augmented reality” plane of the Mesh, which connects the people of Mumbai, and to which two persons of power and wealth seek to “ascend;”
• The divine plane where dwell the gods of the Hindu pantheon.

     The interaction among those planes is intense. Each resident of the teeming city of Mumbai is equipped with a spinal antenna that connects him to the Mesh continuously. But when the Mesh is married to Hindu piety, prayer, and the “distributed processing” of the minds of millions of Hindus, something unexpected arises: consciousnesses abstracted from other material expressions. Some of those were once human; others never were.

     Wounded first-person protagonist Krishna Mehta is genuinely attractive and affecting. His mother’s love for him comes through without distortion. The irony of her repeatedly nudging him toward piety and to find a wife is capped perfectly by his situation at the book’s end.

     The novel's Supporting Cast is more substantial than is usual for a speculative tale. Rahul is especially sympathetic. Captain of industry Arjun Malhotra and fading actress Aishwarya Kapoor make for good antagonists. Dr. Iyer, whose determination to hold onto her dead daughter Aanya kicks off the action, deserves mention as well.

     The gods depicted are just ambiguous enough. Are they “real?” One of them takes umbrage at the suggestion that they aren’t. But is their reality human-contrived, sustained solely by the beliefs and prayers of worshippers? Unclear! And what of still higher gods? Without the prayers of millions of Hindu faithful, would they exist at all?

     The resolution will stun anyone, regardless of which theocosmogony he was reared in. Yet it is entirely appropriate.

     I can’t praise this book highly enough. It’s the best tale I’ve read in years. If it faces an obstacle for achieving a wide and admiring readership, it would only be the profusion of Hindi terms. An American reader who wants full value for the experience would be advised to read it at his computer, so that he can Google the unfamiliar terms as he encounters them.

     Yet this is the author's first novel! What on Earth -- or off it -- could she do in a second one?

     Highly and unreservedly recommended!