Over the Rainbow

“Don’t believe the worst that you hear about South Africa,” reads a tagline to an article at Comment is Free. [1] Truly, so as not to let anything spoil your belief in a happier land, it is better to close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears, or, better still, to wrap yourself in the swaddling-opinions of the western media.

[1] John Carlin, “Respect has replaced hatred in the country Mandela built”, Comment is Free (The Guardian’s weblog), 31st January 2010.

Fewtril no.274

There has been raised a horde of men, if so honorific a title may still be retained for them, who cry out “sky-fairy!” whenever they hear the word “God”, rather as Ivan Pavlov’s dogs salivated whenever they heard bells and whistles, albeit with a crucial difference: the dogs could not be inculcated to fancy that in their mindless reflexes they were on the side of reason.

Fewtril no.273

Some liberals say that, in order to defend the West, we must defend “western values”, by which they mean “liberal values”, by which I understand those newly-invented values which have done more than any other to dissolve the West. It is like taking health-tips from disease-germs.

Vapour

“[W]e are pitted against an enemy swathed in religious and political certitude and we have only the ghost of a notion to sustain us: the notion of freedom of speech and freedom of thought.” [1]

I find it almost incredible that anyone could believe not only that the idea of freedom of speech and thought sustains us, which is a weird belief all by itself, but that it is the only thing that does so. I accept that liberalism estranges a man from reason and reality, but could it really set him so far asunder? Surely it is possible, but I doubt it in this case: it is far more likely that here is just another instance of flippantly-hyperbolic and ill-considered status-posturing to magnanimity which is typical of liberals  when they are taking  the safe opportunity to demonstrate their adherence to a creed which consists of little else but flippantly-hyperbolic and ill-considered status-posturing to magnanimity. [2] Still, if they expect their airy nihilism to be of any force against “an enemy swathed in religious and political certitude”, then they may be disappointed. Then again, perhaps the vapour of liberalism really does have the power to corrupt and corrode everything that comes into contact with it. [3] That is a possibility which cannot be discounted, but it is one too awful to contemplate.

[1] Rod Liddle, “We must defend the right to be stupid, vile and obnoxious”, The Sunday Times, 17th January 2010. (There is no such right, no corresponding duty to defend it, and therefore no right for liberals to impose that duty. Thereon see also a post at one of the other places, or better still, see David S. Oderberg, “Is There a Right to be Wrong?”, Philosophy, 75 (2000), pp.517-537.) Mr Liddle does have his good side: he heartily offends those further to the left of him, for which we may be thankful.
[2] One may be curious to know whether a careless mind feels like a great soul, but one would have to become a liberal misquoting a philosophe to find out.
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche once kindly noted: “The honourable term for mediocre is, of course, the word ‘liberal’.” (The Will to Power, tr. W. Kaufmann & R.J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p.462: §864.)

Hanswürste

“The political buffoons who want to rule us cannot even revolt properly.”

[“Nicht einmal mehr richtig putschen können die politischen Hanswürste, die uns regieren wollen.”]

Mcp, “Im Westen nichts Neues”, Mit Elektrischer Feder (weblog), 12. Januar 2010.

Fewtril no.272

It is funny when ministers and parliamentarians make a promise of treating the voting public like grown-ups and responsible adults; it is just the kind of language to use when one wishes to flatter children and adolescents.