In Western Standard I present a review for the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy of Stephen Bown’s gripping Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada, from colourful characters to poisonous whiskey to the crucial role of dynamite in building this nation and the West generally in the 19th century.
“Just as I learned I was pregnant with my first son, I saw the film 1917, a brutal World War I drama. I was struck by a final scene: not the one where the protagonist sprints across a trench, but one showing hundreds of men having their limbs amputated. I must confess I watched 1917 a half dozen times before delivering my son. As morbid as it sounds, I needed to see suffering more extreme than what I would endure so when the time came for my own bravery, I’d remember it was once far, far worse. But... Left and right can’t seem to agree on anything these days, but on the subject of suffering there is near consensus: eradicating it in full is the common goal of government, technology, medicine, and science.... Technology, meanwhile, has waged its own war on suffering, striving to eradicate even the mildest forms of it. Whether by rewriting the rules of ‘harmful’ speech or erasing internet clowns, a handful of companies became the ultimate arbiters of what is deemed safe in our virtual world.... In a culture that has no reverence or tolerance for suffering of any kind, even the smallest forms of it can seem like oppression.... But eradicating suffering in this country—or at least striving to reach that utopian goal—has come with some unforeseen consequences. Among them: a loss for what to replace suffering with. And the results of the multi-decade war on suffering haven’t been all that impressive. Recent headlines show no one’s coping very well these days, with growing depression and hopelessness among teenage girls and the ‘crisis of men,’ who lag behind women in education and the workplace. Though we may not realize it, nearly all of our modern cultural debates and ailments stem from the contemporary belief that suffering is not a natural or essential part of the human condition. The war on suffering has not only robbed us of resilience; it has sold us a mirage that is making us miserable. It is not a coincidence that the modern campaign to eradicate suffering commenced just as religiosity in general and Christianity in particular began to decline at a rapid pace in America. There is no religion that doesn’t embrace suffering as integral to its teaching. Christianity deified it, with adherents wearing a symbol of torture as a symbol of their belief…. With so much focus on comfort and safety, why aren’t we. . . happier?... And resilience in our people, our institutions, and even the physical infrastructure of our cities is increasingly deemed the missing ingredient in all aspects of American life.... We have long been fully invested in eradicating the suffering we deem unconscionable, but more important are the simple questions that define a serious life: For whom will you sacrifice? What will you defend? For what will you choose to suffer?”
Katherine Boyle “Get Serious” on The Free Press March 4, 2023 [https://www.thefp.com/p/get-serious-about-suffering]
In my latest National Post column I lament widespread vicious persecution of Christians abroad, and the puzzling indifference to it here in Canada.
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the mercifully now reversed decision by Moncton city council to ditch their traditional Hanukkah acknowledgement (and a nativity scene) reflects a dangerously mistaken understanding of the place of religion in a free society.
“Tradition is only experience surviving death.”
G.K. Chesterton “The Leisure State” reprinted in Gilbert The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the recent riots in Ireland are a warning sign about what happens when normal people feel that their core concerns are deliberately excluded from the political process.
“GKC: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I say that to take away a poor man’s pot of beer is to take away a poor man’s personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the usual or almost universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, by saying that a man’s liberty consists of such and such things, but that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do say is something like this. ‘After all, what is liberty? Man must live as a member of a society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc.’ In other words, they collapse into a complete confession that they are attacking all liberty and any liberty; that they do deny the very existence or the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against them. In trying to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the larger one. This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that a neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful fashion and says, ‘After all, what is property? Why should material objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?’ We shall merely realize that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he killed another neighbour in self-defence, that the quiet gentleman next door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from it, and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to say softly and pensively, ‘After all, what is human life? Why should we cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but a disease from which, etc., etc.’ We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the questions of ‘What is property?’ and ‘What is life?’ is produced by the question of ‘What is liberty?’ It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying ‘After all, what is liberty? Man is a member of, etc., etc.’”
“News With Views” compiled by Mark Pilon in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022) p. 37 [with the comment afterward “Justin Trudeau is rumored to be taking notes”].
In my latest Epoch Times column I say we’re in a heap of trouble now that Justin Trudeau has promised that his fall fiscal update will give us more of the fiscal restraint he thinks he’s delivered all along.