Be Always Learning

Once a day, especially in the early years of life and study, call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge; and let no day, if possible, pass away without some intellectual gain: such a course, well pursued, must certainly advance us in useful knowledge.

Isaac Watts, The Improvement of the Mind: A Supplement to Logic, pg.11

The Horrors of Islam

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Winston Churchill, The River War

Manhood, Marriage, and Fatherhood

The woman is not only the stabilizing force of male sexuality; she is the authorizing factor in fatherhood. If a particular man desires to be involved in the life of his child, it is the child’s mother, and she alone, who determines whether and how he may do this. His paternity is established by her fiat. She typically desires to make this relationship public by making the father of the child her husband. Anthropologists have called this the legitimization of the child.

Consider the etymology of two key words: matrimony and husband. The first comes from the Latin, matrimonium, meaning literally “obligation to the mother.” Since it is virtually impossible for a mother and her child to thrive by themselves, marriage arose in nearly every civilization throughout time as a way to have the impregnating male take responsibility for his child and the mother. The surrounding community expects the male to fulfill his obligation so it doesn’t have to. It is why marriage is a deeply public act and no society has found a way to function without it.

Thus, the good man steps up, and in doing so, becomes a husband. This stems from the Old Norse, meaning literally house dweller: hús (“house”) bóndi (“dweller” and “bonded serf” or “slave”). The husband settles down and confines himself to a particular household, serving and providing resources for its inhabitants. He becomes a whole other kind of man, taking full responsible for his sexuality and his part in the coming generation.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

Male vs. Female Sexuality

[T]he most elemental destabilizing force in every culture is not merely unrefined male energy, but his unchecked sexual energy. Full stop. In its fundamental essence, it is deeply anti-social. It has no civilizing, pro-social nature in itself. To become so, it must be acted upon by other forces. By contrast, female sexual energy tends to be inherently pro-social. Female sexuality has the power to create human civilization by moderating the behavior of men, but it can only do this when there is social appreciation for these differences in male and female sexuality, coupled with the strong social mores they require.

Of course, the dark side of unmoderated male energy goes beyond sexuality. A female's naturally domesticating influence on overall male energy and behavior is easily demonstrated. Who pays substantially lower auto, health, and life insurance premiums, married men or their single peers? Service to the god of equality requires there be no difference here. But we all know better. The wedding-ring-clad man enjoys the financial benefit, and not because insurance companies have a sentimental heart for weddings. Every insurance company knows married men direct their male wanderlust and energy toward safety and responsibility. Single men, not so much. . . . 

Without the essential tempering influence of female sexuality, male sexuality is a whole other animal, and not a pretty one.

This is a problem, because sex makes babies. Every society must give greater attention to this fact than it does to the need for food, shelter, and protection from outside attack. These and all other vital needs are either enhanced or crippled by what a community expects of the relationship between a man, the children he sires, and the woman he does so with. If it doesn’t get this right, few other good things the community needs are likely.

Of course, the male’s attitude and approach toward his procreative act is drastically different from hers. His necessary participation in the act is solely orgasmic, lasting seconds, and is all pleasure. He is not naturally connected to the potential of that act. The mother’s connection, however, is profound, starting shortly after conception and intensifying daily. It costs her dearly in energy, sleep, and overall comfort, starting long before the pain of childbirth. She is inescapably invested. He is not.

In Gilder’s words, “The crucial process of civilization is the subordination of male sexual impulses and biology to the long-term horizons of female sexuality . . . It is male behavior that must be changed to create a civilized order.” The crucial process of civilization. No society can develop or endure without succeeding at this.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

Manhood Is Not Natural

As George Gilder explains pointedly in Men and Marriage, “Unlike a woman, a man has no civilized role or agenda inscribed in his body.” The boy has no onboard GPS directing him toward his future. His transition into manhood can only come into being with significant, intentional work by other men. As a behavior, manhood must be learned, proven, and earned. As an identity, manhood must be bestowed by a boy’s father and the community’s larger fraternity of men. His mother can only affirm it. She cannot bequeath it.

Maleness just happens, but manhood does not. The first is a biological event, while the second is a developed character quality. When manhood is not formed and cultivated, males fail to mature, resulting in the “perpetual adolescence” or “failure to launch” that plagues our culture. When so many men play beer pong into their forties, live in their parents’ basements, play videogames twelve hours a day, and encounter women only in the form of pixels on a porn site, it seems clear that we have a manhood problem.

The human male nature doesn’t naturally go in the direction civilization requires; it requires the direction of other men. . . . 

Manhood must be crafted and refined in order to orient males in pro-social, communitarian directions. In fact, this is the first work of every civilization. Anthropologists tell us that the original and most fundamental social problem of any culture is the unattached male. Left to his own, he is not inclined to play well with others. He is not disposed to make himself, or anyone around him, a better person. He is not likely to become other-focused. Either fiercely competitive or indolent, he is more likely to become a social contagion. He will either seek to define himself in the community by power, false confidence, and selfish conquest, or shrink away toward inactivity and reticence. . . .

[A]cross virtually all cultures, manhood has largely consisted of three essential qualities: procreation, provision, and protection. If the boy doesn’t learn these things, then he is not likely to become a good, selfless, serving man. Shame and derision from the community will become his lot. As Mead explains, “this behavior, being learned, is fragile and can disappear rather easily under social conditions that no longer teach it effectively.” Such domestic education can disappear within a generation. Tragically, manhood is becoming extinct because we are not teaching it.

Glenn Stanton, Manhood Is Not Natural

Truth or Helping Yourself?

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth.  When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

Thomas Sowell

How Tyrants Take Over

One of the ordinary models by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance is by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1840)

What SHOULD Hold Americans Together

What has traditionally held Americans together is the idea that each of us is made in the image of our Creator and endowed with certain unalienable rights. But not only that idea. We are also held together by the culture that emanates from the intermingling of dynamic peoples and unchanging principles. To combat identity politics, we must emphasize an American nationalism based on both a commitment to the ideals of the American Founding and a shared love of our national history and culture—a history and culture of individual freedom and religious pluralism, resistant to centralized authority and ever expanding into new frontiers and new possibilities.

The American people are united by our creed of freedom and equality, and also by our habits, our manners, our national language, our territorial integrity, our national symbols—such as the National Anthem, the Flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance—our civic traditions, and our national story. We should tell that story forthrightly and proudly; we should continue our traditions of local government and patriotic displays; we should guard the symbols of our heritage against attack; and we should recognize that the needs of our citizens take priority.

Matthew Continetti, The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

The Fascist Acts of Democrats and Liberals

Consider that over the course of the past few years, Democrats and liberals have: booed the inclusion of God in their platform at the 2012 convention . . . endorsed a regulation that would allow transgendered students to use the bathroom and locker room corresponding to their identity; attempted to force small businesses to cover drugs they believe induce abortions; attempted to force nuns to provide contraceptive coverage; forced Brendan Eich to step down as chief executive officer of Mozilla due to his opposition to marriage equality; fined a small Christian bakery over $140,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding; vigorously opposed a law in Indiana that would provide protections against similar regulations—despite having overwhelmingly supported similar laws when they protected Native American religious rights—and then scoured the Indiana countryside trying to find a business that would be affected by the law before settling upon a small pizza place in the middle of nowhere and harassing the owners.

Sean Trende, cited by Matthew Continetti, The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

The Making of an American

[From] Jean de Crèvecoeur’s 1782 Letters from an American Farmer:

He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . . . Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.

Cited by Matthew Continetti, The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

The Multicultural Revolution

Under the new leftist dispensation, the study of English became the application of critical and literary theory to disparate texts so as to uncover the hidden power relations they concealed. The study of history became the study of social history or “people’s history,” the record of Western Civilization’s oppression of various groups. And popping up everywhere were new departments of “studies”: African-American Studies, Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, Chicano Studies, Gender Studies, and so on. “What these radicals blandly call multiculturalism,” wrote Irving Kristol,

“is as much a “war against the West” as Nazism and Stalinism ever were. Under the guise of multiculturalism, their ideas—whose radical substance often goes beyond the bounds of the political into sheer fantasy—are infiltrating our educational system at all levels.”

This revolution in American universities was accomplished swiftly and largely outside the public eye. What little resistance the radicals met was vanquished with accusations of racism.

Matthew Continetti, The Problem of Identity Politics and Its Solution

Keep Sex Where It Belongs -- In Marriage

Your life is a house, and your marriage is the fireplace. Put sex anywhere in the house other than the fireplace, and you will burn it down.

Cited by Curt Anderson,  Thank Separating Sex From Morality For The Great American Sexual Meltdown

A Man's Face

If crime showed in a man's face, there wouldn't be any mirrors.

"Albert" to "Isabelle", We're No Angels

Is it Logical?

How logical is it to expose our eyes and ears to violence and profanity and wickedness in the form of “entertainment” or “games” and justify it as such, yet expect our sense of justice, purity and righteousness to be outraged when we see something similar in real life?

Gail J. Storkel, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, Study Guide, pg.79

Vengeance is the Lord’s

All men of revenge have their souls often uneasy; uneasy souls are a plague to themselves; now, to be one’s own plague is folly to the extreme: therefore all men of revenge are extreme fools.

Isaac Watts, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, pg.293

Observations and Experience

In matters of human prudence, we shall find the greatest advantage by making wise observations on our own conduct, and the conduct of others, and a survey of the events attending such conduct.  Experience in this case is equal to a natural sagacity, or rather superior.  A treasure of observations and experiences, collected by wise men, is of admirable service here.  And perhaps there is nothing in the world of this kind equal to the sacred book of Proverbs, even it we look on it as a mere human writing.

Isaac Watts, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, pg.236-237

Attaining an Extensive Treasure of Ideas

The way of attaining such an extensive treasure of ideas is, with diligence to apply yourself to read the best books, converse with the most knowing and wisest of men, and endeavor to improve by every person in whose company you are; suffer no hour to pass away in a lazy idleness, and impertinent chattering, or useless trifles; visit other cities and countries, when you have seen your own, under the care of one who can teach you to profit by traveling, and to make wise observations; indulge a little curiosity in seeing the wonders of art and nature; search into things yourselves, as well as learn them from others; be acquainted with men as well as books; learn all things as much as you can at first hand; and let as many of your ideas as possible be the representation of things, and not merely the representations of other men’s ideas; thus your soul, like some noble building, shall be richly furnished with original paintings, and not with mere copies.

Isaac Watts, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, pg.71

Educate Yourself!

Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of ideas; acquaint yourselves with things ancient and modern; things natural, civil, and religious; things domestic and national; things of your native land, and of foreign countries; things present, past, and future; and above all, be well acquainted with God and yourselves; learn animal nature, and the workings of your own spirits.  Such general acquaintance with things will be of very great advantage.

The first benefit of it is this: it will assist the use of reason in all its following operations; it will teach you to judge of things aright; to argue justly, and methodise your thoughts with accuracy. When you shall find several things akin to each other, and several different from each other, agreeing in some part of their idea, and disagreeing in other parts, you will arrange your ideas in better order, you will be more easily led into a distich knowledge of things, and will obtain a rich store of proper thoughts and arguments upon all occasions.  …

Another benefit is this:  Such a large and general acquaintance with things will secure you from perpetual admirations and surprises, and guard you against that weakness of ignorant persons, who have never seen any thing beyond the confines of their own dwelling, and therefore they wonder at almost ever thing they see; every thing beyond the smoke of their own chimney, and reach of their own windows, is new and strange to them.

A third benefit of such a universal acquaintance with things is this: it will keep you from being too positive and dogmatical, from an excess of credulity and unbelief, that is, a readiness to believe, or to deny, every thing at first hearing; when you shall have often seen, that strange and uncommon things, which often seemed incredible, are found to be true: and things very commonly received have been found false.

Isaac Watts, Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth, pg.69-71

Christianity is Basis for Freedom

Many today who disparage Christianity may not know or believe that, were it not for Christianity, they would not have the freedom that they presently enjoy. The very freedom of speech and expression that ironically permits them to castigate Christian values is largely a by-product of Christianity’s influences that have been incorporated into the social fabric of the Western world.

Alvin J. Schmidt, Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization, pg.13

Religion and Morality are Indispensable

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens.  The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity.

Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ?

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

George Washington, Farewell Address

The Sexual Revolution Scam

It has often been observed that the victims of scams have a remarkable ability to ignore the obvious fact that, hey, they have fallen for a confidence trick. To accept that one has been conned out of a sum of money and thereby cut one’s losses may be more difficult than to keep giving the con artist more, in the hope that somehow the scheme is not a fraud after all. So it is with the scam known as the sexual revolution. It has institutionalized irresponsibility to such an extent, and demonized its critics so effectively, that even as it falls apart under the weight of its own contradictions, we keep pouring cultural capital into the same old schemes, hoping that all will turn out well in the end.

Carl R. Trueman, Scam Artists and Sex Education

Sex Education Failure

Modern sex education keeps failing to deliver on its promises—indeed, it keeps plunging society into deeper and deeper problems—and it keeps proposing as the solution more and more of the same. Sexual assault is heinous, and even the clients of prostitutes want something more significant than an anonymous encounter. The notion that sex can be pursued as recreation, isolated from a larger relational and moral context, is an obvious scam. But we keep getting mugged by reality.

Carl R. Trueman, Scam Artists and Sex Education

The Controlling Power of Music

For whether you wish to comfort the sad, to terrify the happy, to encourage the despairing, to humble the proud, to calm the passionate, or to appease those full of hate—and who could number all these masters of the human heart, namely, the emotions, inclinations, and affections that impel men to evil or good?—what more effective means than music could you find?

Martin Luther.  Cited by John Makujina in Measuring the Music, pg. 228

Rock Music

Rock music is cacophony, clashes and discord.  It is perversion, not art.  True art has beauty: at its center is the idea of balance and of congruity.  There is no beauty apart from that.

Unknown

Thoughts on the Power of Music

By the power of music, I mean its power to affect the hearers, to raise various passions in the human mind.  Of this we have very surprising accounts in ancient history.  We are told, the ancient Greek musicians in particular were able to excite whatever passions they pleased: to inspire love or hate, joy or sorrow, hope or fear, courage, fury or despair; yea, to raise these one after another, and to vary the passion just according to the variation of the music.

John Wesley, Thoughts on the Power of Music, 1779, cited by John Makujina in, Measuring the Music, pg. 234

The Truth About Atheism

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning – the Christian meaning, they insisted – of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever. 

Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means

Comment: While this citation itself is not from a conservative viewpoint, I think it does indeed provoke thoughts about what atheism is all about.

Modesty

Modesty is humility in fabric format.

J.D. Hall, A Call for Christian Modesty

Minimum Wage Laws are Racist

The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 was the nation's first federally mandated minimum wage law. Its explicit intent was to discriminate against black construction workers. During the legislative debate on the Davis-Bacon Act, quite a few congressmen, along with union leaders, expressed their racist intentions. Rep. Miles Allgood, D-Ala., said: "Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. This is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country." American Federation of Labor President William Green said, "Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates.”

Walter E. Williams, Stalking Horses

A Problem with Some Taxes

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Thomas Jefferson, 1785, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

An Excellent View on Immigration

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 1907