Mary-Mary: The Two Revolutionaries

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Sexual Revolution

I commend to your reading the New York Times critique of Charlotte Gordon’s new book Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley.Romantic Outlaws

Romantic Outlaws

Consider how the author of the new book, by the critics admission, gives unsatisfactory weight to the destruction of the feminist worldview – but notice how the critic goes on to “lighten” the impact of the consequences by stating that the same type of havoc occurs in traditional relationships. Does it really?

Ms. Nehring only touches on the brokenness and despair in the lives of these two women –  and the men in their lives. But Shelley’s monster speaks the unspeakable for her (and her mother). Where she could not utter the horror unleashed on her family via sexual revolution – Frankenstein did. Where Wollstonecraft is merely left standing in the blood of the French Revolution in this critique – in real life – she was drenched in it.

“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”

“Solitude was my only consolation – deep, dark, death like solitude.”

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”

“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”

“When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?”

― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Hail, Caesar! Much Ado About Nothing or Everything.

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Coen Brothers, Herbet Marcuse, Hollywood

Ok, so I confess, Hail, Caesar!, the Coen brothers’ just released comedy about old Hollywood, beckoned me come for one reason…True Grit.

I’m not one for the brothers’ dry-witted, odd-ball, unreal life depictions – but I hoped for something soul-feeding in the way that Arkansan Mattie Ross’ hell-bent journey to find justice for her Papa’s murder via Rooster Cogburn was – or at least some modicum of appreciation for a well told story with an interesting worldview. Caesar falls way short on the story-telling, but on worldview…well, let’s just say that it requires some thought – though not worth the expenditure.

Hearing that Caesar gave some sort of homage to the glory days of MGM, and, more importantly that the theatre had just been upgraded with new motor-reclining seats, the place was packed. We stood with popcorn in hand (or in my case, pretzels in purse) as the previous patrons exclaimed Caesar’s praises on exiting (Lord knows why) – the majority of which were baby-boomers and beyond (we tend to long for the Hollywood of It’s a Wonderful Life). True to Coen form, they wish to dash any wistful dreams we may have about the once and former “goodness” of movie makers…sort of.

Whether intended or not, I found the plotline to be mostly truthful about humanity and the worldviews in which we trade. The Coen’s reflect into the story the deification of the movie industry by the audience; a subtle point that Joel and Ethan appear to mock (because it is mock-worthy).

THE 50 WORST BOOKS OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Alfred Kinsey

How do I count the ways in which these 50 have influenced our educational system?

It is said that there are two things that can bring about real change in a person...the company they keep, and the books they read. Our school systems are birthed from these books…the teaching philosophies were founded by the men on this list and the textbooks are replete with their ideas. The antidote is not to NOT read these books – but to juxtapose them with the 50 best books of the 20th Century, and see for yourself what all the hub-bub is about.

Note: I would add to this list Howard Zinn’s A People’s History,  which BTW is already in your local high school history books and coming in full force through the new history standards of Common Core.

Click here to see the list Intercollegiate’s 50 Worst Books

Please Choose One or Your Doing it Wrong

Atlas shrugged – part ii

As one considers the philosophy of Ayn Rand’s objectivism (which one should) — a clear eye toward worldview must be engaged at all times. For while some of the greatest conservative thinkers in our day have been inspired by her work in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged — her overall philosophy, which stems from her first principle that there is no God — should and must be vigorously opposed (if not for the sake of truth – at least for the sake of humanity).

It’s not JUST the weight of the world that is his problem — it is that the ground beneath his feet is shifting.

Rand’s rail against collectivism juxtaposed with individualism is attractive to the tea party, libertarian, and Republican ideal. She has made many valid points for capitalism. Her narrative in Atlas Shrugged is engaging. However, I am concerned that her praise of capitalism is distorted and extreme to a dangerous degree if for no other reason than that it stands on a faulty foundation.

While it is true that socialism, communism (from which Rand came and to which she despised), Marxism and other collectivist sorts of “isms,” are based on false premises regarding the nature and character of man (and God); but so is Rand’s philosophy. The fact that she “borrows” from a Christian/biblical worldview

For it is not well for God to be alone

“FOR ME, THE TALIBAN IS INSIDE THE BUILDING” –
Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya during testimony (Hearings held by the House Oversight Committee, on the murder of the U.S. Ambassador and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi, Libya on the 9/11-2 attack)

DEATH BY THE NUMBERS

History tells us that all worldviews are in array against a biblical worldview. We all understand how and why the Communist Manifesto was and is an enemy to Christ and the gospel. Furthermore, we “get” that Nazism was certainly in hatred toward Judeo Christian values. We can go by the the numbers on both of these counts (see below).

Some may even understand the dangers of the Humanist Manifesto in that this philosophy too is in favor of the death of God. And when God dies – (at least in the philosophical sense) – humanity prefers

One Man Prevented the Destruction of Christendom in 732 AD

It was a macrohistorical event. That one man in 732 AD at the Battle of Tours was Charles “the Hammer” Martel. Without such a man we would all be reading the Koran.  It was under one of their ablest and most renowned commanders, with a veteran army, and with every apparent advantage of time, place, and circumstance, that the Arabs made their great effort at the conquest of Europe north of the Pyrenees.

—Edward Shepherd Creasy, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World

Creasy said “the great victory won by Charles Martel … gave a decisive check to the career of Arab conquest in Western Europe, rescued Christendom from Islam, [and] preserved the relics of ancient and the germs of modern civilization.” Gibbon’s belief that the fate of Christianity hinged on this battle is echoed by other historians including John B. Bury, and was very popular for most of modern historiography.

Most of the 18th and 19th century historians, like Gibbon, saw Poitiers (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe.– Victor Davis Hanson

Poitiers was the turning point of one of the most important epochs in the history of the world. — Leopold von Ranke

Outnumbered by at least 2 to 1 –

Chesterton on Revolutionists

Chesterton Understood Unbelieving Sociologist (read: Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Sanger)

“…But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything.

He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist.

And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.

Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself.