There is no way God could have created free beings – i.e., beings per se – so that they could not err and stray from his optimal Way, and in so doing enact evil, and then suffer.
Aphorisms
God Weighs In re Virtue Signalling
The virtue of virtue is humility; for, all the virtues derive from a prior proper recollection of the true order of things, in which God is foremost of all. Overweening pride then – such as we indulge whenever we worry about our selves, or their reputations, or form our acts first in respect thereto – is the vice of vice.
As to the ostention of virtue, then:
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:1-4
Humility is social chastity. Humility lies not in a recusal from the assertion of the truth as one sees it, but rather in a refusal to preen.
Also this: alms that cost you nothing are not alms in the first place.
The Floggings Will Continue Until Moral(ity) Improves
Since the current Woke System of the World does not work, catastrophes will continue. They are inevitable.
Mankind must be pummeled until it rejects wokeness. It will evidently take a lot of pummeling to bring healing.
It is true that mankind often took a fearsome pummeling in the pre-woke age. But there’s just one thing. Under Wokeness, mankind pummels itself with entirely avoidable floggings: crush your religion, shackle your police, persecute and / or hamstring your best people, deliberately destroy knowledge. Etc. Mankind will continue to inflict easily-avoided self-pummelings until the morality improves.
Wokeness is about morality, but morality proceeds from metaphysics. Metaphysics refers to one’s understanding of the basic nature of reality. Bad metaphysics, bad morality. Bad morality, many self-inflicted catastrophes.
That is why the floggings will continue until morality improves. Q.E.D.
On the Intention of the Poet
Does he want to injure, or heal? Is he base, or noble? Would he transgress and so ruin his patrimony, or elaborate and so glorify it?
It is in practice pretty easy to tell, no? It is not after all so hard to parse this, or therefore to decide which side deserves your lot. Go then; decide. Which poet shall you heed?
There is in the final analysis nothing else that is in your power. Everything else, from the morning coffee to the changing of the diaper to the valor of the battlefield is a faint echo – a mighty, magnificent, immensely important echo – of this basic decision.
Is it about you, you worm? Or is it about something more? If it is about something more, then: is it about the Ultimate, or is it about something damnably less?
Let’s on with it then, brothers. Into the fray. Deus vult!
Faculty Assembly Meets
Arnold Bertonneau on Patriotism & the Franchise
Arnold Bertonneau (1832 -1912); Photograph from the mid-1860s
My great-grand uncle Arnold Bertonneau (1832 – 1912) traveled from New Orleans to Boston and Washington D.C. in April, 1864, to present his Creole Petition to Congress, which ultimately rejected it. On 12 April Bertonneau responded to an invitation by the Massachusetts Republicans to speak on the merits of his proposal. After an introduction by Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew, Bertonneau delivered the following words:
BEFORE THE OUTBREAK of the rebellion, Louisiana contained about forty thousand free colored people, and three hundred twelve thousand persons held in slavery. In the city of New Orleans, there were upwards of twenty thousand free persons of color. Nearly all the free persons of color read and write. The free people have always been on the side of
law and good order, always peaceful and self-sustaining, always loyal. Taxed on an assessment of more than fifteen million dollars — among many other things, for the support of public-school education — debarred from the right of sending their children to the common schools which they have been and are compelled to aid in supporting, taxed on their property, and compelled to contribute toward the general expense of sustaining the state, they have always been and now are prohibited from exercising the elective franchise.
When the first fratricidal shot was fired at Sumter, and Louisiana had joined her fortunes with the other seceding states, surrounded by enemies educated in the belief that “Africans and their descendants had no rights that white men were bound to respect,” without arms and ammunition, or any means of self-defense, the condition and position of our people were extremely perilous. When summoned to volunteer in the defense of the state and city against Northern invasion, situated as we were, could we do otherwise than heed the warning and volunteer in the defense of New Orleans? Could we have adopted a better policy? In the city of New Orleans, under the Confederate government, we raised one regiment of a thousand men, the line officers of which were colored.
An Aphorism
Right now, Derek Chauvin looks like he may become the Gavrilo Princip of our age. Let us pray that this time, history turns out differently.
(I make no reference to Chauvin’s intent, which is currently unknown. I refer to his impact.)
The Orthosphere 