Letter to the Editor, Bell Curve Reverberations

Posted on August 15, 2021 by leslie

Letter to the Editor, Bell Curve Reverberations

Sir,

I write in response to the review of Charles Murray’s Two Truths about Race, published in the TLS on August 6. The reviewer, Patricia J Williams, is a lawyer and a supporter of Critical Race Theory. She is the author of Giving A Damn: Racism, Romance, and Gone with the Wind. Eminently qualified, then, to address the history of eugenics, social Darwinism and race differences in IQ!

According to Professor Williams, Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man is “the most well-known refutation” of Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. But how can a book, to wit, The Mismeasure of Man, first published in 1981, be a refutation of a book, The Bell Curve, that was only published in 1994?*

When is IQ evidence acceptable, when not? Williams celebrates the “Flynn effect”, which is supposedly reducing racial gaps in IQ. But she also contends that IQ tests are “culturally specific”, i.e. when they inconveniently reveal ongoing race differences in cognitive ability.

As an exponent of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Professor Williams considers the US a bastion of white supremacy and “a majority white nation in which most crimes are committed by whites”. Your indomitable columnist Ilana Mercer is correct. CRT equals anti-white racism.

Ritortus

*Editorial note; in ‘Curveball’, New Yorker, November 1994, Gould retrospectively reviewed The Bell Curve. 

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The Epistle to the Romans, Part IV

Posted on August 13, 2021 by leslie

Saint Paul, Rembrandt van Rijn, credit Wikipedia

The Epistle to the Romans, Part IV

by Darrell Sutton

Literacy in the ancient Greco-Roman Republic was more widespread than in some other civilizations. Oxyrhynchus papyri-texts are extant and confirm that assertion. Depending on the writings one studied, the culture of Rome seemed refined. It was deemed by themselves to be superior to the values in other nations. Rome’s readers were aware of the sciences and philosophies in surrounding territories. A well-read people, they learned old myths, memorized legends and travelogues written by wanderers to faraway lands. Agricultural details also frequently appear in Latin through various forms of literature. And comments about Roman gods and goddesses in antiquity show up regularly in Latin poems and in prose texts. Cicero and other educated Romans could express themselves proficiently in both Latin and Greek.

Paul was an urbane and sagacious scholar. Mastery of his letter to the Christians in Rome is vital for apprehending the intricate systems of his thought and for grasping those principal doctrines pioneered by him and declared throughout the Aegean and Mediterranean provinces. In Late Antiquity, differences of opinion regarding ‘grace’ often incited disagreement. The East-West Schism of 1054 is well known. Afterwards, and during the [Counter] “Reformation” centuries, sometimes violent confrontations occurred in the battle to control how basic beliefs about this letter were to be understood within Protestant and Catholic factions. Continue reading →

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Financial Terrorism and Social Excommunication, part one

Posted on August 8, 2021 by leslie

Trump and DeSantis, credit Wikipedia

Financial Terrorism and Social Excommunication, part one 

Ilana Mercer, on Big Tech tyranny

Republican solutions to Big Tech tyranny do not begin to address financial de-platforming, the cancellation of citizen dissidents en masse, including the infringement of the right to partake in the public square and make a living. In their weak case against Deep Tech (“Deep” to denote enmeshment with The State), Republicans are still defending only some speech on the “merits,” rather than all speech, no matter how meritless.

In a sense, the statist anti-trust bills, targeting especially Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google and currently being pushed by lawmakers are worse than useless. The anti-trust impetus is misguided as it conflates corporate size with anti-competitive practices: the larger, the more monopolistic. However, reducing the size of an entity–a corporation–doesn’t necessarily alter its nature.When a malignant cell divides, it doesn’t grow less potent. To the contrary, it innervates and enervates more spheres. Likewise breaking up Big Tech. Smaller malignancies metastasize and kill just as well.

The habitual failure of the representatives sent by “Deplorables” to D.C. to prevent cancellation en masse–the Orwellian nightmare–cannot be understated. On the line is dissidents’ ability to speak, publish, partake in society; sell our cultural products, and transact financially over the country’s major online economic and social arteries. Continue reading →

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All the Fun of the Fair

Posted on August 2, 2021 by leslie

Appleby Horse Fair, credit Wikipedia

All the Fun of the Fair

by Bill Hartley

‘Joint Working’ is a concept that is prevalent throughout government and the civil service. The idea is that where responsibilities lie in close proximity, an inter departmental committee might better manage these. This can work but it requires strong leadership and those assigned to the committee need to be sufficiently senior, otherwise their role may extend no further than voicing enthusiasm and a promise to report back.

Interestingly, this approach can be found at work far from central government. The county of Cumbria has a committee which rejoices in the grandiose title of Multi Agency Strategic Planning Group. Note the word ‘strategic’, a hostage to fortune if ever there was one. The group is so well known in the local press that there is no need for the full title. Everyone understands what MASPG stands for and the group has been hard at work on behalf of the citizens of a small town in the county. From an outsider’s perspective the main strategic challenge in Cumbria might be thought to be inconsiderate car parking in the Lake District. However, there is an annual event which has drawn the attention of this multi-agency group, even though some locals consider it largely a police matter.

Appleby lies just off the A66 and is famous for its annual horse fair. Each year, in June, some 10,000 members of the Gypsy and Traveller Community descend on the town to buy and sell horses and to socialise. Last year, due to COVID restrictions, the fair was cancelled. Some Gypsies and Travellers took exception to this and turned up anyway. The strategic planners in MASPG therefore had plenty of warning ahead of this year, when once again the fair had to be cancelled. Continue reading →

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America, Man Up!

Posted on July 31, 2021 by leslie

Adam Kinzinger, credit Wikipedia

America, Man Up!

by Ilana Mercer

Emasculated America has been on display in all her undignified inauthenticity, in the crybabies of Congress and in the loud and proud quitting at the 2020 Olympics. In Menstrual America, medals go to congressmen and cops who wail the loudest when recounting their professional failings on Jan. 6, 2021. And props are given not to athletes who “bring it”, despite the jitters; but to those who crumble and quit, and then crow about the authenticity of it all.

Feminised America’s rich and famous belong to a fraternity of foolish, showy killjoys. They take the knee anywhere and everywhere, to show the world how gynocentrically great they are. Speaker Pelosi, of course, is nothing like that; the woman is made of steel. For political effect, though, she lugs around all kinds of crybabies. One such Pelosi poodle is Adam Kinzinger. The Republican from Illinois is serving on the January 6th Select Committee, at the behest of the speaker.

On Day One of this Democratic happening, Kinzinger denounced Republicans’ attempts to compare the Jan. 6 melee to violence during last summer’s race riots: “I condemn those riots and the destruction of property that resulted,” Kinzinger whimpered. “But not once did I ever feel that the future of self-governance was threatened like I did on Jan. 6. There is a difference between breaking the law and rejecting the rule of law. Between a crime, even grave crimes, and a coup.” Continue reading →

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Society, Poisoned by Imageries

Posted on July 29, 2021 by leslie

The Dark Knight, credit Wikipedia

Society, Poisoned by Imageries

by Mark Wegierski

Late modern societies – especially America and Canada – have become increasingly subjected to dark and disorienting imageries, notably in the various subgenres of the fantastic. Among the most prominent and absorbing of these subgenres are fantasy role-playing games (RPG’s) such as Dungeons and Dragons, launched in 1974. D & D arose from a convergence of interest in historical board gaming, medieval miniatures gaming, and the huge popularity of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in the 1960s.

As Dungeons and Dragons became increasingly prominent in the 1980s, some concerns arose about the allegedly occult nature of the game, fuelled by a number of highly publicized cases of teenage suicides. Indeed, there was a made-for-television movie, Mazes and Monsters, which explored the most prominent of these suicides. However, in relation to what was to follow in the 1990s and later, the mostly Tolkienian role-playing background or world prevalent among gamers in the early 1980s, had been reserved indeed.

D & D, as it is probably most commonly experienced today, is far removed from the charming, graceful Tolkienian mythos, while also lacking the Nietzschean textures of, for example, Robert E. Howard’s Conan vision. It is often suggested that D & D often amounts to the personalized power-fantasies (tinged with sexual elements) of frustrated and often highly intelligent adolescent North American males. Moreover, D & D typically conforms to the vision of open-ended progress, amorphousness, florid lifestyles, and wish-fulfillment fantasies, which have increasingly come to characterize the late-modern world. Continue reading →

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Shimshock Redemption

Posted on July 26, 2021 by leslie

Shimshock Redemption

Ilana Mercer meets boy wonder

What are our conservative “kids” thinking? I went in search of one such elusive creature and found Rob Shimshock, DC-based editor. In May, he published his first book,“Nightmare Crescendo: Breaking the Chokehold of Woke Capital.” In the dialogue below, Rob patiently explains the idiom in which he expresses his ideas, political and social. Amazon understood enough Millennial Speak to censor his ad campaigns.

ILANA MERCER: “Blistering diatribe” is the correct way to describe your first book, Rob. For me, it is a much-needed glimpse into the mind of a young, thoughtful conservative, ruminating about the state of our country. Explain what is this cabal that “ensnares” us all?

ROB SHIMSHOCK: If I were a magician and you asked me this, my response would be the expected “pick a card, any card.” Academia, Hollywood, the media, Silicon Valley, the banks … no matter which modern institution you choose, the house wins. Except this house doesn’t accommodate a family; in fact, it is explicitly anti-family, anti-Western ideals, and anti-natural law. It is what I term the “Nightmare Crescendo,” or an amalgam of woke corporations and social decadence that’s as loud and merry as any rock concert. But the volume keeps rising, slowly but surely deafening us to a whole host of horrors. Continue reading →

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ENDNOTES, AUGUST 2021

Posted on July 26, 2021 by leslie

Anton Bruckner

ENDNOTES, August 2021

In this edition: Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony; Froberger’s Suites for Harpsichord; The King’s Alchemist, by Sally Beamish; Professor John Kersey defends the music of the West, reviewed by Stuart Millson

Where is the Bruckner of my youth? The 1980s saw a proliferation of Bruckner performances in London: a visionary Bernard Haitink in the Ninth with the Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Proms; Gunter Wand at the Royal Festival Hall and the Proms in the Fifth and Eighth; Giulini – again with No. 8 – and von Matacic and Sinopoli, all with the Philharmonia, in the Third. All different interpretations, even tempi, but common to all was a definite, “dark brown”, Teutonic sound: a heaviness – even a thickness of sound – ending in a ritual ascent to greatness.

Listening to a recent recording of Bruckner’s rarely-played Symphony No. 6, one is struck by how much the approach to this Austro-German composer has changed – and how clearly the tone of orchestras has altered. The new Bruckner 6 from the BBC Philharmonic and their inspiring Spanish conductor, Juanjo Mena, gives us a lighter touch to the autumnal intensity of this 1879-81 symphony. The composer was often revising and reworking material over several years. Instead of the usual heavy tread across the Brucknerian alps, the turf is suddenly springy – the symphony almost sounding as though in the hands of a smaller, softer orchestra. Continue reading →

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South Africa, United Against Criminality

Posted on July 20, 2021 by leslie

Ilana Mercer

South Africa, United against Criminality

by Ilana Mercer

Against the backdrop of conflagration in South Africa, I offer positive commentary about the country of my birth. Do I need to provide a disclaimer before saying positive things about South Africa mid-riots? Probably—given that I’m the author of a scathing, 2011–dare I say prescient?– indictment of the political dispensation forced upon South Africa by the “Anglo-American Axis of Evil.” That dispensation is the “one man, one vote, one time” arrangement, to quote “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa”: “Democracy is especially dangerous in ethnically and racially divided societies, where majorities and minorities are rigidly predetermined and politically permanent.” That’s what The West forced on South Africa.

For the last decade, I’ve seen South Africa as a sea of troubles—and a harbinger of things to come in America. When America becomes a majority-minority country, it will likely resemble South Africa. But, in their darkest days, the country and its people need upliftment—and have, surprisingly, earned it. I saw a ray—nay, rays—of hope amid the revelry of looting, robbing and arson that has engulfed the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Transvaal (my birthplace), following the conviction and jailing for contempt of court of former President Jacob Zuma.

Dozens have been killed in the two provinces mentioned, more than 200 shopping malls have been robbed then razed, and countless cattle have been stolen, which generally means sentient animals are being savagely hacked to death for food. Continue reading →

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Virgilian Legends and More

Posted on July 12, 2021 by leslie

Gustave Doré, Dante et Virgile dans le neuvième cercle de l’enfer, credit Wikimedia Commons

Virgilian Legends and More

Nicholas Horsfall, Fifty Years at the Sybyl’s Heels: Selected Papers on Virgil and Rome. Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. i-xv; 1-522, reviewed by Darrell Sutton

Technical studies of Virgil’s texts exist in abundance. Periodicals do not lack submissions on esoteric themes that are discoverable in his poems. Consequently hundreds of papers are issued annually. Literary specialists who write with verve often tell Virgil’s tales better than he did. Textual editors, too, apply their skills to his texts routinely. Virgil’s readership, ranging from antiquity through two thousand years, has been consistent and can be numbered in the millions. Scores of scholars currently study his more popular poems in Latin as well as the Appendix Vergiliana. In the same way, students by the thousands study his poems in translated forms around the world.

Despite the ongoing revival within the fields of Virgilian research, few commentators on the Aeneid in recent times have made advances that are comparable to those made by Nicholas Horsfall (NH).[i] Forty-two of his one hundred and forty-five published papers are included in this book. None of his reviews, though numbering over one hundred and thirty, is included. Unhappily, his epigraphic research is excluded too from this collection. Favor is extended to definitive research, literary pieces and to papers published in obscure journals or to articles he wrote in Italian, which appear here now translated. Papers are arranged chronologically. NH was polylingual and came from cosmopolitan stock. In his scholarship, at times he held rather inflexible views. He spoke his mind loudly and in print on numerous occasions. Able to explicate the finer shades of ancient Latin idiom, his universal knowledge of the Graeco-Roman contexts of Virgil’s poetry and of Greek legends that here and there formed their bases, are well known. Historical examinations conducted by him never made for dull reading. He solved many problems. The titles of the collected articles are appended at the conclusion of this review. Continue reading →

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