Face Facts: listen to Kipling

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

1919

Rudyard Kipling

---

AS I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire—

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Kipling; suffer not the Old King

The Old Issue

by Rudyard Kipling
October 9th, 1899


“Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets,
“Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
“It is the King—the King we schooled aforetime !”
(Trumpets in the marshes—in the eyot at Runnymede!)

“Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger,” peal the Trumpets,
“Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall.
“It is the King!”—inexorable Trumpets—
(Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)
. . . . .

“He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre,” warn the Trumpets,
“He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will.
“Hard die the Kings—ah hard—dooms hard!” declare the Trumpets,
Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill!

Ancient and Unteachable, abide—abide the Trumpets!
Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings
Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets—
Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings!

All we have of freedom, all we use or know—
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.

Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw—
Leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the Law.

Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing
Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King.

Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years,
How our King is one with us, first among his peers.

So they bought us freedom—not at little cost
Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost,

Over all things certain, this is sure indeed,
Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed.

Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure.
Whining “He is weak and far”; crying “Time shall cure.”,

(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins,
Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people's loins.)

Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace.
Suffer not the old King here or overseas.

They that beg us barter—wait his yielding mood—
Pledge the years we hold in trust—pawn our brother's blood—

Howso' great their clamour, whatsoe'er their claim,
Suffer not the old King under any name!

Here is naught unproven—here is naught to learn.
It is written what shall fall if the King return.

He shall mark our goings, question whence we came,
Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name.

He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware;
He shall change our gold for arms—arms we may not bear.

He shall break his judges if they cross his word;
He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord.

He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring
Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King—

Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies;
Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.

Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay,
These shall deal our Justice: sell—deny—delay.

We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse
For the Land we look to—for the Tongue we use.

We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet,
While his hired captains jeer us in the street.

Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun,
Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run.

Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled,
Laying on a new land evil of the old—

Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain—
All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again.

Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue—
Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew.

Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid:
Step for step and word for word—so the old Kings did!

Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read.
Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed—

All the right they promise—all the wrong they bring.
Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!

Animal Rights kills one more innocent

This poor girl ought to make SHAC, ALF and their ilk think twice. What do you think happens when we sell our children nihilistic propaganda, and refuse to tell them how our lives are not criminal but part of the greatest civilisation in human history? Look at the enormous teen suicide rate and tell me I lie.

Jack Straw tells it how it is

Bravo for Jack. I can't say I've ever cared for the man; he always seemed too weak for truth. Now he stirs up a national debate on full-face veils. When a little gerbil like Straw speaks out on this we should take note. A few interesting points. It has been suggested he is doing it to road-test a tougher government line. This cannot be right as the Cabinet have courageously failed to join him on the barricades. It has more plausibly been suggested that this is his first salvo in a campaign for deputy leader, having noticed how well John Reid is playing in the country. Well, maybe some truth in this. Still, he has long been requesting women in his constituency surgery to remove their veils. This is a persisting, sincere concern of Jack's. That, combined with the time it has taken to speak publicly in the matter, tells us volumes. Jack is worried by this not as a national figure, but in his capacity as MP of a northern constituency: he feels alienated from the area he represents. At the same time, he has not spoken out about his worries because he knows that he needed the Muslim vote to get elected and he feared the reaction to raising the issue. He may feel the prospective leadership race and a shift of national mood has given him a chance to speak, but the two key truths here are a local MP disturbed by his own constituency, and unable to speak out for fear of his job and the extreme, potentially violent response.

John Howard tells it how it is

What a speech. Now why can't Cameron do that?

Truth about DDT: ban killed 50 million

This quote, from Andrew Kenny's article in The Spectator last year records the reaction of an environmentalist when told that banning DDT in Africa would kill millions:

I have heard not one word of pity or regret from any green organisation about the vast loss of human life caused by the ban on DDT. On the contrary, they seem to regard it as a glorious triumph. The likely reason was spelled out with chilling clarity by Charles Wurster of the Environmental Defence Fund in the USA in 1971 when it was pointed out to him that DDT saved the lives of poor people in poor countries. Hc said: 'So what? People are the main cause of our problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as anything.'

The spirit of that tells you all you need to know about the green movement's priorities. He must be delighted to think that fifty million people have died from the DDT ban. We made our own countries safe first, then banned it before the poor of Africa and Asia could benefit. How's that for social justice. Read Kenny's full article here.

But for those who really believed it was dangerous on the basis of Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' and a truthy feeling in the pit of their stomachs when they heard about dying sea-birds-- I hope you feel ashamed to read this. Even the UN can't ignore the truth that DDT is safe, effective and a life-saver on a grand scale any longer. And their press release admitting it is here. The precautionary principle can kill.

Types of truth

When we give up on truth, what do we replace it with? Well, one possibility is 'truthiness', which seems to be ahead of the pack right now. That is to say, what must the case is determined by what ought to be the case, with that'ought' determined by reference to one's feelings at any particular moment. This is simply to retreat from rationality, logic, careful observation and the rules of evidence in favour of gut intuition and Romantic authenticity. It cannot carry us far, because it will run into the brute facts of the world sooner rather than later. 'That two and two make four/ And never five nor three/ The heart of man has long been sore/ And long is like to be.' The problem is that its self-satisfied inwardness may take a very long time to appreciate the difference between the world as it is and the world as it must be, by which time it may be dangerously late.

But there are other forms of 'truth-substitute' as well. One is the post-modern notion that there is no truth at all. This goes down well in the universities and Michael Frayn's new book seems to pick up on a similar worldview. Yet make no mistake: this relativism is actually nihilism. If nothing is true, there is ultimately no right or wrong, no natural law and no scientific law either. Yet professors always seem happy to travel on the aeroplanes built by the western-hegemonic-mindset-exclusionary-of-other-forms-of-knowing to the conferences where they denounce its achievements as delusions. You don't want to choose this option: it requires a very sophisticated double-thinker to carry it off.

Some people think there is a middle position between truth and outright nihilism, which might be called 'taste imperialism', in which the traditional remit of taste makes considerable incursions in to the realm usually ascribed to judgement. That is to say, we used to imagine that Homer and Michelangelo and Shakespeare could be considered as objectively great. The truth of their aesthetic superiority was evident, could be demonstrated through rational argument and was therefore a matter of judgement not of taste-- true and false, not strawberry or chocolate ice cream. And taste imperialism also reaches out into areas of sexual conduct, personal behaviour and social norms: what is classed under 'lifestyle' these days. There are two immediate problems here. One is that it is not clear how you stop the slide to nihilism. If we are saying that there are truths, but, conveniently, just not where our judgement has always placed them, to what can we refer? If our judgement is suspect here, where is it not? Some fall back on science, and say, "you must prove scientifically that this makes a difference". Fine. That argument worked twenty years ago, but not now. The evidence is in, especially on the importance of marriage for bringing up a child. People just rely on ignoring the evidence in favour of the truthy version they are wedded to. So they skip from the decline to nihilism by declining into truthiness. The second problem is the vision of man behind taste imperialism. This holds that our nature is truly plural, open to many forms of fulfilment and there could never be one true human answer. Again, the science on this is pretty conclusive now, and it finds that this is not true. We are more alike than not. In any case, it is not clear that just because two options can in some sense both be 'made to work', there is therefore no difference between them. One can still be better than the other. When there is a spectrum of success, those who are interested in the truth are interested in what works best.

But this leads neatly to by far the most popular truth-theory today. This is truth by accretion, or multi-faceted truth. It might also be called polytheism, or paganism, for at its heart is the idea that we get closer to truth (or 'the whole truth') by seeing it from many different angles or by compiling many different approaches to it, and this seems to bear a very close relation to pagan ideas of the gods. It is because people want to believe this truth-theory that they believe that all lifestyles must work. If there are many ways to truth, some can't be better than others. Again the trouble is that it just ain't so. What does it mean to say there are many ways of looking at the truth when the truth is E=MCC? This is the most popular, and also the least convincing alternative to truth on the market. Why would people accept what makes no sense? Well, I suspect because they do not trust themselves. If there is real truth, if the traditional zones of judgement in art and life do apply and there are 'best' ways or even sole-valid ways to act, what will stop them from imposing them on everyone? The answer is of course freedom. Freedom, which from the deepest roots of the Judaeo-Christian tradition has meant the right to be wrong (and to bear the consequences). But those who run from truth run from this religious tradition also and find that they have run from the very rule they need. The right to be wrong. Today we prefer to say 'everybody is right', which is a lie, and leads either to the despair and cynical passivity of nihilism or the deluded condition of truthiness in which we drift ever further from a clear vision of how things are. I agree with their fear: truth is fearsome. But truth is wedded to liberty and together they give birth to our civilisation.

Peace, or freedom?

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin

And they will get neither. The cancellation of Idomeneo in Berlin because of a scene featuring Mohammed's severed head is a sign of the times. Mohammed's head is displayed alongside that of Jesus and Buddha, but no one's about to kill nuns and torch cities over that. Self-censorship in the performance of one of the three greatest composers in human history, and in his anniversary year.

Not that anyone should be surprised. Last year in London, Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine was censored over the scene in which the Koran is burned. And the Pope is still being lectured over quoting a derisive statement on the nature of Islam.

When people say the Pope shouldn't have given his lecture in Regensburg, they are making a choice. They want peace instead of freedom. This is the stance (understandable enough) of anything for a quiet life. Most people, after all, want only the peace to get on with their own life. Quietists have to ask themselves first, is there anything worth fighting for? To make peace your priority is to decide on a policy of pre-emptive surrender before any threat.

For those who value western philosophy, art and literature, the need for peace means sacrificing works by central figures. As well as Mozart and Marlowe, Dante puts Mohammed in the eighth circle of his Inferno, so the Divine Comedy must go. Along with it will go illustrations by William Blake, Gustave Dore, Sandro Botticelli, Rodin and Dali. If you doubt it, consider that a cartoon referencing the infernal scene without even depicting it was censored this year and even the supposedly fanatical Opus Dei wouldn't defend the artist.

Or how about philosophy. Here is David Hume, in 'Of The Standard of Taste', one of his most important essays.

"The admirers and followers of the ALCORAN [Koran] insist on the excellent moral precepts interspersed throughout that wild and absurd performance. But it is to be supposed, that the ARABIC words, which correspond to the ENGLISH, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity, were such as, from the constant use of that tongue, must always be taken in good sense: and it would have argued the greatest ignorance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with any epithets, besides those of applause and approbation. But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals, let us attend to his narration, and we shall soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficiaal or hurtful to the true believers."

That's certainly not going to last long in future collections. And the croissant will be tossed out after it, having been created to celebrate the lifting of the Siege of Vienna in 1683 and being a deliberate insult to Islam's holy symbol, the crescent.

People imply in their arguments that this is a sensitive time and we should respect that, as if things were likely to change and we could all go back to eating pork and drinking beer whenever we liked. But why should they? Why should they when this is acknowledged as a generational struggle and when Islam is on the increase in Europe? Why should those who stir up violence give up on it when they see the success such violence -- or even the threat of it in the producer's mind -- will achieve? We will go on living with our compromises and telling ourselves we have avoided trouble and try to forget the things we are no longer allowed to want.

We have to face the awkward truth that Islam and Christendom were enemies for centuries and that the Christian heritage, which is to say western civilisation, contains plenty of reminders of that fact. It also has ideas at its heart like freedom of expression and religion. But these days, you cannot keep the treasures of your civilisation, or your liberty without a fight. People need to think very carefully before they choose. Or they will be buried in this cemetery.

True or truthy?

Cherie Blair, did she or didn't she? Lie about accusing Gordon Brown of being a liar, that is.

Well, given Tony's joke at her expense in his speech the next day, it seems reasonable to think she did.

We surely know even without her inside knowledge that Gordon was lying when he said it had been a privilege to work with Tony Blair. Never has a private grudge been so publicly displayed as in the working relationship of these two men.

But read this account in the Times and it seems clear that not only did she lie about Gordon's lying, but the whole party spin machine went into action to kill the story with lies. Like an episode of 'The Thick Of It', they tried one unconvincing lie--'oh, no: she just said 'I have to get by'--before getting her minders to lie for her--'we never heard our boss say nuffink'--before wheeling her out to lie for herself.

Where is the outrage? Am I such a foolish old donkey that I miss why this story should be an amusing moment of light relief? Here, in plain light, we see the mechanics that our government is happy to use to mislead us in order to 'impression manage' the news. When no one cares much about the truth of what happened, or people simply accept that they will be retailed a transparent falsehood, civilisation totters. For an interest in truth is a rare thing in human history, really a purely western concern. Give it up and we give up one of the pillars of our success.

Spooks: sspookily untrue

I wonder just how much damage it does to the average bear watching something like Spooks. I accept it's done well: pretty actors, fancy editing, fast plots and so on. But it's just not true. I mean, a TV show about terrorism that presents the primary threat to Britain not as Islamofascist terrorists but as the enemy within: rich powerful white men who are just itching to run their own fascist dictatorship is just silly. It's wrong. And, being wrong, it misleads. Because people watch this paranoid, chippy class hatred and think it's seeing things under the hood they don't know about. The best of western art is like Holbein's clump of grass: it looks out at the world and shows it how it is. But we forget how to do that and we forget how to look from the world to a piece of art and criticise it as unreal. Iris Murdoch said that it is one of the most damning criticisms one can make of an artwork to say that it is not true. Spooks isn't true. And all the production values in the world don't stop it from being bad.

Muslim world in 'disproportionate' shocker

Anyone notice the strange silence around the disproportion in responding to a few carefully chosen words within a tightly-reasoned lecture with threats, firebombs and the murder of a nun? But that must be because they all took the weekend off. Now it's Monday, I look forward to hearing David Cameron opining on this one in a bulletproof vest -- or anyone else from the commentariat. Or is it just the Jews and Catholics who get blamed for their behaviour these days?

David Cameron losing his election?

Is David Cameron losing the election that seems his for the taking? His criticism of Israel today sets him at outright odds with his party. More to the point, it puts him in the wrong over one of the most important issues of the day. He relies on truthiness, tellingly, speaking of how the photos at Qana made it clear because of how one felt on viewing them. Well that's no guide, David. And even if it were, and sad feelings in your tummy are to become the basis of Conservative policy in the UK, many of those photos appear to have been faked. You would hope that someone as young and cool as Cameron claims to be would know about the blogosphere by now and at least have some junior intern watching out for its discoveries.

My point is, David Cameron used the 5th anniversary of 9/11 to criticise American foreign policy and is now following it up with an attack on Israel. Both of these will indeed play well, as I'm sure his poll-monkeys have told him. But they will lose him the party. More importantly, he is playing politics with the central issues of our time. This war is the calling of our generation, as President Bush said last Monday. You can't walk away, or score points by siding against it when it is unpopular. That's not leadership. Tony Blair, slave to focus groups on so much else, saw after 9/11 that he had to make a stand and convince the country of his case. It cost him a great deal. But that is leadership. The irony is that Gordon Brown is pretty sound on foreign policy and maybe not so reforming at home (in a socialist direction) as people once thought. So has Cameron started conceding defeat to Gordon by chasing anti-American, anti-semitic votes at the expense of his core supporters and his own good sense? If this is his clause 4, he can keep the rump party he has left. Who wants to provoke outrage and seem touchy-feely if you're on the wrong side at the end of it?

Death of a Fearless Voice

Oriana Fallaci is dead. She was a fearless journalist, who believed in speaking truth to power whatever the consequences. Perhaps it is more remarkable that she was killed by cancer rather than murdered for her views, for La Fallaci spoke out against Islam and its, as she saw it, invasion of the pusillanimous Europe of our post-secular, post-modern west.

She was threatened with several prosecutions for her views, but disregarded them all as readily as she did her own disease. Oriana Fallaci shows how a life ought to be lived: courageously, passionately, unafraid of death, unafraid of loneliness; standing up for the truth your reaason forces upon you. she could not see the world another way and would not shut up because others found it upsetting.

Oriana Fallaci saw herself as Cassandra: wailing into the wind; right but unheard. We will see if she was right. We are left to our fate, and no one else will speak on this in quite the manner she managed. Yet it is a tremendous irony that even as she died, Benedict XVI should be tangled up in Islam and under threat of death for his critical comments. Oriana Fallaci had a long interview with the pontiff before her death, and she had great hopes in him, although herself an atheist. Now he has confirmed for himself just how impossible a dialogue with Islam is, will he take on her mantle. He will, at least, one hopes, say a prayer for her soul. She wouldn't have thought it necessary, but would have appreciated the honour.

Truthiness: a word whose time has come

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness

'Truthiness' hasn't come into use in the UK much but boy does it need to. Thing is, it was invented (or, actually, re-invented, as the word seems to have existed before) to critique a Republican government who seemed unconcerned with providing rational justifications for their actions. But anyone of the Left simply has to rely on it far more than Conservatives do. The facts of life turn out to be Tory. That's because Toryism is concerned with abiding truth. Socialism and so on lookss not to the reality of people and works with the grain of human nature, but says people ought to be thus and so and then squeezes us poor misshapen actual real people into the cookie cutter. Truthiness: because truth can only give you one answer. That's what's wrong with 'compassionate conservatism': Conservatism is all facts, no heart. That's its beauty. And it still leaves room (far more room) for real charity and compassion that big government and limited personal responsibility.

After the summer: truth hurts

While I have been off munching greener grass than normal, it seems the world is going to hell in a pair of fetching wicker panniers. Benedict XVI says Islam has a problem with its lack of interest in reason and its acceptance of violence as a legitimate means to its ends, then to prove him wrong (like the man said, trouble with reason as well) the Muslim world explodes into violence.

Ho-hum. No answer to that. But clearly no dialogue is possible with people - or a religion - that can't take criticism or use right reason. But bravo to Lord Carey, for a comment which has been buried in the excitement of the press at finding anti-Catholicism a useful get-out from having to condemn the Religion-o-Peace(TM). He's stood up on this one before. Would be nice to see some courage from the Anglicans who are actually in office, but there you go. Nothing like the threat of violence to close down debate.

The truth about how Iraq is getting better

Townhall.com :: Columns :: The good news by Jeff Emanuel - Jun 27, 2006

Oh, about those WMD...

"What has been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them, and sarin is dangerous. And it’s dangerous to our forces, and it’s a concern. So obviously, to the extent we can locate these and destroy them, it is important that we do so. And they are dangerous. Anyone — I’m sure General Casey or anyone else in that country would be concerned if they got in the wrong hands. They are weapons of mass destruction . They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found. And that had not been by Saddam Hussein, as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered."

Donald Rumsefeld's words, L + G.

Strange how the British media haven't reported this at all...

You know, there's a blindness in the anti-warriors' complaining. They say the neo-cons should apologize for the war. Well, neo-cons have certainly repeatedly admitted to the mistakes that have been made. In fact, to be a neo-con is to be someone willing to admit you made a mistake, since their origins lie in Trotskyites who realised the moral horror of communism and had the courage to switch sides, unlike most Western intellectuals. By contrast, the not-in-my-namers are ignoring the evidence that they were wrong because their position is all about emotional indulgence, not reasoned strategic choices. So grow up, girls and boys of the press. Turn the camera on yourselves, and say "sorry, we were wrong". At least have the courage to print the truth instead of ignoring it.

The Closing Fist

The Closing Fist

“Whoo!  Look at that firework display.  Amazing!”
— “My God, the whole sky’s on fire.  What do you think it is?”
“Never mind that, sweetheart, just enjoy the moment.  Everything’s for the best.”
— “It seems to be getting closer.”
“That’s crazy talk.  What sort of sense would that ma-”
BOOOOOOOOOM
Extract from Last Words of the Dinosaurs, ‘How Curious, Tyrannosaurus’

The Economist does it again.  ‘Britain’s “Stop the War” movement […] is a curious partnership between supporters of the international Muslim Brotherhood and largely non-believing socialists,’ editorialises the magazine for those who prefer their opinion dressed as self-evident fact.  Helpfully, real facts can then be banished to the status of ‘curiosities’, which pose no challenge to a theory built on respectably received ideas. (24/6/06, p. 29)

It is time to be clear.  Civilisation is under threat, not merely from Islamism, but from a coalition of enemies that elite thought lacks the categories to group together.  They are the five apparently separate digits of a rapidly closing fist.  We need to understand their separate menace and natural connections before their collective weight crashes down upon all our conventional pieties.


The First Two Fingers

The “Stop the War” movement has shown us the first two fingers: the old Socialist Left and the new Islamism.  Mohammed and Marx are a very modern odd couple – unnatural bedfellows, one might say – but only blinkers can hide what both share: progressive ideals.  Islamism is a progressive ideology.  Who can doubt it?  Only those for whom it is an article of faith that all religion is retrograde.  Qutb is explicit: the world is disgustingly corrupt; we need to tear it down and erect an Islamic utopia disinfected from history and precedent.  Socialism may have been atheist in the USSR, but it ended up creating its own state religion of Marxist-Leninism.  Socialists are happy to climb between the sheets with a faith, just not with history.  As for Marx’s dictum about religion and opium, I heard an opinion-former on the radio last week explaining how if we saw this in the medical context of the time, Marx was just saying that religion was a modest painkiller, a sort of Ibruprofen for the poor.  Socialists will steadily accept that five prayers a day are no more threatening than Granny’s daily aspirin for her heart, certainly no threat to the health of a progressive political movement.  Far from it: as others have observed, since the Communists had to invent their own religion without the advantage of God the result was never convincing.  Working with Islamism, Socialists have the chance to co-opt a ready-made, aggressively proselytising force with millions of members who are convinced by the binding reality of Allah’s proscriptions and commands.

Those who recognise the threat of Islamism have been happy to throw the boo-word Islamofascist at its followers.  This catches the totalitarian mentality of the movement, but misses its anti-national, supra-racial nature.  A far truer insult, but one that unfortunately fails to convey as much odium or euphony, is Islamo-collectivist.  The Islamist state will take a fixed portion of your income and distribute it for you and call it ‘charity’.  The goodness of one will be held to depend upon the behaviour of many and freedom will be curtailed not by public norms but fearful laws with bloody punishments.  At the same time, universal human dignity will be replaced by hierarchies of value: man and woman; Muslim and Dhimmi.  The nomenklatura and the secret police will have returned in flowing new robes.

Islamism gains from Socialism a means to explain its goals in terms that appeal to those outside the faith.  Socialism gains from Islamism a transfusion that can save it from final collapse.  Worn down over a century by the indignity of evidence, Socialism only clung to life because our intellectuals were too often accessory to its crimes to dig over the bones, as they have with Fascism.  Having made it into the new millennium, and tasted new blood, it is clicking its heels together again.  As it does so, Islamism cracks its knuckles and prepares for government.  When Islamist bombs in Madrid put a Socialist government into power, or when Islamists and Socialists shout “Not in my name!” from the same platform it is not a curiosity; it is a natural convergence of political sympathies.


Two More Fingers

The two fingers of progressive dogma are crossed, neither quite believing what the other says, yet stronger together and happy to point in the same direction.  They are aided by two separate doctrines, one progressive, one reactionary, that are working to reject the foundations of the world we have, its wealth and human happiness.  These two movements may be characterised as Anti-Humanists (progressive) and Anti-Economists (reactionary).  Anti-Humanism is the banner of the animal rights and eco-rights groups, who are willing to commit terrorist acts on behalf of Mother Gaia and small fluffy creatures everywhere.  Anti-Economists choose to disbelieve that capitalism and free markets really work or that globalisation will actually help relieve the desperate poverty blighting Africa and elsewhere.

Anti-Humanism is terribly well-meaning.  It presents itself as extending the circle of concern from humans to, as its followers would put it, ‘non-human animals’ and the environment which we and Brother Rat ought to share fairly.  In the words of a PETA spokesperson, “a rat is a dog is a pig is a boy”.  Four legs good, two legs equal.  Yet for those who cannot see the arrant inhumanity behind their relentless logic, the argument should be spelt out.  Anti-Humanism rests on the rejection of peculiar human value.  It works not by adding guinea pigs into our scheme of things but rejecting the traditional scheme altogether.  First they come for the ugly babies with club feet and hare lips.  Then they dig up your gran for the sake of the guinea pigs.

Peter Singer, high priest of this movement, recently laid out his position with shameless clarity.  Writing in Foreign Policy magazine of his hopes for the future, Singer was frank: ‘By 2040, it may be that only a rump of hard-core, know-nothing religious fundamentalists will defend the view that every human life, from conception to death, is sacrosanct’(Sept/Oct 2005, p. 40).  Anti-Humanism rejects the inalienable value of a human life that we call ‘sanctity of life’ and replaces it with ‘quality of life,’ irrespective of whose life that is.  At the back of this revolution in our ethical code is a chilly utilitarian calculus.  Once quality trumps sanctity, quantity rules over all.  Five happy pigs are worth more than the misery of one Socrates.  Better water Gaia with a little blood than see her magnificence stripped bare.  It is a natural step from believing in ‘the quality of life’ to waging a violent terrorist campaign: if a human life has no special value, and many lives are worth more than one, why not fire-bomb a few executives to liberate a shedful of chickens?

I should be clear, Peter Singer does not support the militants of the movement.  He argues that a respectable philosopher cannot be held responsible for the violent fringe of his movement.  I tend to think that his sincerity is irrelevant.  His reduction of human value to a number in a utilitarian equation makes it easy for people to start doing sums whose answers he might not like, but which are a consequence of the arithmetic he introduced.

These are not, in any case, fringe groups.  The Socialist government of Spain elected by Al Qaeda are going to give human rights to chimps.  The FBI admits that animal rights and eco-rights groups present the number one domestic terror threat in the US today.  They managed to disrupt the New York Stock Exchange where even Islamist terror had so far failed.  In the UK they are waging pitiless campaigns, and humans are suffering and dying for the delays in research they cause.  After the Buncefield explosions, I was talking to a (non-militant) eco-enthusiast.  He casually observed that even if it wasn’t a terror attack, he knew plenty of Earth-Firsters who would have considered it an appropriate action to take.  It will only be a matter of time before the arson and intimidation spread into terror spectaculars.  Once you have concluded that humans are nothing special, it is axiomatic that you must aim for the ruin of their pride.

Anti-Economists are more familiar: we see them in demonstrations whenever the WTO meets.  Yet familiarity should not blind us to their danger.  These are people who see the problem and want to move in exactly the wrong direction to solve it.  Listening to world music and wearing hand-knitted jackets from Nepal, they imagine that they can preserve their access to amusing native folkways by hampering international trade.  Rather, they succeed in keeping their fellow human beings poor to preserve their own sense of moral superiority.  Turning the Global South into a theme park for the display of their broad minds and bleeding hearts, they never notice that the people there might prefer to be treated as people rather than the equivalent of actors in Mickey and Goofy suits.

Anti-Economists make matters worse even as they draw attention to the problem, undermining the moral standing of the West and then blaming us for our faults.  Worse still, in turning from rational debate, they lead a growing rejection of scientific advance, the glory of Western civilisation.  They are also gaining influence, especially among the Christian churches.  If the Church of England used to be the Tory Party at prayer, it now goes on its knees before the Anti-Economists.

Progressive Anti-Humanists and reactionary Anti-Economists seem unrelated.  Yet the progression of Anti-Humanism leads toward a world in which not only do we not experiment on animals, but we do not eat or interact with them in any way.  No steaks, no hunting, no pets, no leather.  Beans and soy milk all round.  It is a call to advance by retreating into primitivism.  At the same time, its prioritisation of a mythical ‘balance of nature’ over a world tailored to our wishes tends to reject capitalist economic activity in favour of torpor.  At these points, it intersects with the Anti-Economists, who worship poor, primitive lifestyles (blaming their civilisation for the poverty of such lives, they nevertheless insist that the poverty be left as it is) and reject the fruits of capitalism.  Anti-Economists love to visit with the mud-hutters.  They hope to spread such ‘wise simplicity’ as far as they can, both by ending the creation of wealth and talking up asceticism.  Both movements seek to impoverish our lives.  They are beating a path back to ninth century servitude while talking up any economic ideology that rejects capitalism.


The Thumb of the Fist

Lying across the other threats is the intellectual sickness weakening the West almost to death: Relativism.  This doctrine is neither progressive nor reactionary, but simply catatonic.  All cultures are equally valid.  There are no real virtues, only systems of values and (yawn) if you want (yawn) you can choose what you like (zzz).

Relativism is the fifth column in the war for civilisation: the bookworm eating the library from within.  Those who follow the way of non-judgement cannot stand up for anything except not standing up for anything.  Appalled at such anarchic principles and the moral chaos that is its natural consequence, people will reach for alternative ideologies.  Take John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban.  Raised as an ultra-liberal relativist, he found his spiritual home trying to kill his countrymen in Afghanistan.  The refusal to indoctrinate produces intellectual orphans, denied their identity and driven to find certainty elsewhere.  The four fingers of the closing fist are waiting to grab them.  First they doubt.  Then they question.  Then they convert.  Those who resist the temptation are too weak to fight back.


The Closing Fist

The fist is closing.  Anti-Humanists and Anti-Economists are burning off the best of the West: its ability to enrich its members and its sense of their inalienable individual value.  As these riches go up in smoke, our civilisation does indeed begin to seem bankrupt.  Neither cause can do more than destroy, but the hybrid ideology coalescing from Socialist nostalgia and resurgent Islamism is ready to restore order and solve everything via collective enslavement.  Meanwhile the cult of Relativism primes more and more souls for the call of these dangerous faiths, while weakening our capacity to repel their charges.

Five separate challenges are curling together to make a fist.  They will deliver a blow that shakes the foundations of liberty.  They are linked by a rejection of key Western values: individuality; reason; truth.  They offer instead moral titillation as an ethical strategy.  Followers of each of these challenges are suffused by a warm and righteous glow.  They believe they must be doing right because it makes them feel good.  Unfortunately, such sub-Randian rationalisation is just a sophisticated form of selfishness.  I give that beggar some money and feel just swell.  He spends it on drugs and dies of an overdose, but who cares?  I’ve already moved on.  Real virtue involves sacrifice and hard choices, not exercises from the handbook of self-esteem.  Calling all choices equally valid sounds fine right up until the moment when your lifestyle kills you, as it did Foucault.  Or someone else, as with Sidique Khan and his mates.

What can the West do?  Recognising the problem would be an excellent beginning.  Relativism has been king of the castle for decades.  Now Anti-Humanism is creeping into the general conversation.  Most attempts to discuss animal rights terror begin with a grovelling acceptance of the terrorists’ arguments before trying to refute the conclusion of violence.  A general disgust of Man and his depredations is a common theme in art and dinner party conversation.  Similarly, sending money from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries is Gordon Brown’s idea of how to make himself seem more cuddly.  The super-rich campaign against the systems that made them so.  Meanwhile Communism is looked back on not with revulsion, but a grudging sense that those Russkis had their hearts in the right place, and Islamism positions itself as the last bastion of moral integrity: a hands-off policing strategy, plus all the Jew-baiting you can stomach.  Seeing the collection of ideologies that are gathering against us not as a curiosity but a fact worth investigating is to reconnect the debate to reality.  Asserting the peculiar value of every human life, the existence of truth and the power of reason will do for the second round.  Ultimately, we must be prepared to champion freedom against collectivising answers that will seem so plausible and inevitable when citizens who have been taught the wickedness of self-reliance can no longer control their own actions.  Wordsworth wrote,

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
that Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In everything we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

We need to rediscover such confidence, and reject the calls to slavery now clamouring over our heads.  The fist is closing, and the blow will fall.

America begins to wake to animal terror

The latest National Review has an article, "In the name of the animals" that notices just how serious the animal and ecoterror threat is in the US: the number one domestic terror threat, by some considerable distance. It acknowledges that SHAC overcame the New York Stock Exchange, preventing the floating of HJS in the US, where Al Qaeda failed. There is a suggestion that the problem is coming from the UK. That is certainly true for SHAC, but the arrival of PETA in the UK was a defining moment in the UK too. In the words of one of their spokeswomen, "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy". The dissolving of the value of human life threatens us all, and the cross-fertilisation of ideas, from the US to the UK and back again, does not mean the danger at home is less, but is instead growing as the momentum of this poisonous movement grows. Wake up: you cannot compromise with people who will set a rat's life above your own.

Twain on the politician's maxim re: truth

Mark Twain: "Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it."