JUNE 17, 2013
Welcome to the Mental Ward
Chesterton once wrote that the madman is not the fellow who has lost his
reason, but the fellow who has lost everything but his reason. Such a person,
seized by a single monomaniacal idea, loses his balance, as if under the weight
of a mental hypertrophy on one side. Because a man may add five and six,
and a cash register may add five and six, he discovers that a man is no more
than a cash register. He begins to dream dreams of cash registers, male
and female he dreams them, coming together to make change. If he is Mr.
Richard Dawkins, he dreams of other worlds wherein cash registers, or card
catalogues, spring up naturally among the lilies of the field.
But what kind of madness is it when one
is simultaneously beset with that single idea, and yet one cannot remember what
one has just said? That
would seem a monstrous impossibility, a stupidity far beyond the scope of
normal perverseness and study. And yet that is what we witness now, a
sort of intellectual slapstick. It would be like Mrs. Carry Nation
raffling off baskets of cheer to fund Prohibition.
Perhaps it is sex
that has driven us mad. I think rather it must be boredom. We are
so bored, we not only cannot be bothered to remember what our opponents
say. We cannot be bothered to remember what we ourselves say.
So then, on Monday, the harridans of the
National Organization for Women announce the great discovery, that it is a bad
thing for men to beat women black and blue. We wonder what took them so
long to discover it. APPLES
FALL TO THE GROUND, runs the
headline, with the helpful addition,Effects on Agriculture
Undetermined. So
terrible a thing it is for women to be beaten, they must promote a national
law, the Violence Against Women Act, to ensure the safety of women against the
fist of a brawling boyfriend.
Then on Tuesday,
the same harridans announce the great discovery, that it is a good thing for
women to join the infantry, to confront not boyfriends, but enemy men who will
be at the peak of their physical prowess, armed to the teeth, and filled with
the rage of killing and plunder and rape. The chivalry or plain common
decency that once protected a woman against brawling—or war—is derided as a
masculine plot to keep women in subjection. Women must be free to be
conscripted. Women have long missed the joys of trench life, where table
and bed and latrine are all the same mud. They have missed the airy
delight of seeing a brother blown sky high, or the wonderful tingle of an arm
or leg suddenly missing or hanging by a thread. They should then enjoy
those experiences, and add to them the salt that makes it all worthwhile, the
futility of loss, the unspoken knowledge that it has all been for nothing, and
that your brothers and your country would have been better off without you.
On Wednesday, the
keepers of our national morality inveigh against a priest or a coach who
entices a teenage boy into sodomy. On Thursday, the same keepers inveigh
against the Boy Scouts, for shying away from scoutmasters who might do the
same. The unnatural experience of sodomy is so crushing to the heart of a
normal boy—who simply wants to grow up like all the other boys, falling in love
with a girl, getting married, and having children just as his father did—that
he cannot get over it, not ten, not twenty years later, but breaks down in
public, in mingled rage and shame. But within a single day, one might
even say a single sentence, the same pundits will celebrate the same perversion
as just an ordinary human variation, such as being left-handed or having a
taste for kumquats.
On Friday, the
feminists in an alphabet-soup alliance of people with various sexual
proclivities will protest against pornography, the technical term for smutty
pictures. Their grounds are that it turns women into objects of sexual
consumption. The same people, on Saturday, boldly proclaim the right of
both women and men to fornicate, coldly, aloofly if that is possible, with
people whom they do not love; it is recreation. Apparently, it is an
object if it is a picture and distant, but not an object if it is alive and underneath;
a dagger of the mind is more dangerous than a dagger of steel; fantasizing
about doing a wicked thing is worse than actually doing it.
They do not notice, either, that the GB
contingent of the alphabet are notorious producers and consumers of smutty pictures,
of men, naturally. It is not clear why this is not equally offensive,
rather than something proud to celebrate. The feminist harridans of
Monday, meanwhile, make common cause with the G’s on Sunday, and neither
notices that the positions are mutually contradictory. The feminist says,
“There are no differences between men and women, other than minor details of
plumbing.” We gape in amazement at so foolish a claim, and wonder whether
she has dropped down from some unknown planet, where bipeds have neither eyes
nor ears, and where common necessaries such as food, clean drinking water,
stone and ore for building and industry, houses to dwell in, and roads and
ships and trucks and bridges simply materialize at a thought, without the
bending or breaking of a single back. But let us grant her point.
The gay man standing right beside her not only insists on a difference; that
difference is so vast, and so determinative, that he cannot possibly imagine
learning to love a woman after the ordinary pattern of nature. Almost in
the same sentence he and his feminist ally claim that he must have A, and cannot possibly settle
for A. He must have the man and no other, because
he is attracted to that creature that is just like the woman, with no important
differences. He must have the masculine and not the
feminine; and there is no
difference between the masculine and the feminine.
On the next
Monday—for the lunacy outlasts the phases of the moon—we are told that a
pregnant woman is, emotionally, a tender flower, who must be protected against
people praying for her and her child as she enters the abortuary. On
Tuesday, we are derided for being impossibly old-fashioned if we suggest that
it might not be a good thing for women who are possibly pregnant to be crawling
on their bellies on a battlefield, where men will be shouting things much more
terrifying than the Hail Mary. On Wednesday we are told that a church’s
failure to provide free contraceptives to its employees is a terrible sin
against the common good. On Friday, we are told that the notion of the
“common good” is trumped by the individual’s supposed right to be antisocial in
matters of sex.
On Saturday, we
are told that no man is an island. On Sunday, we are told that every
woman is an island. On Monday, a bad man is sued to support a child
conceived out of wedlock. On Tuesday, a good man is told to shut up when
he sues to support his child conceived within wedlock, rather than have it
aborted. On Wednesday, we complain that there are no good men to marry.
On Thursday, we make sure to destroy the last institution that made for good
men.
On Friday, we
complain about “government in the bedroom,” by which is meant no Bureau of
Bedrooms, but the least social or legal restraint against sexual vice. On
Saturday, we vote for increases in funds for government in the classroom,
government in the board room, government in the laboratory, government in the
doctor’s office, government in the hospital, government in the warehouse,
government in the stockyard, government in the shipyard, government on
television, government on radio, government on the highways, government over
the churches, government over the government, government in the cradle,
government at the tomb.
A comic nightmare
comes to mind. I see a man jiggered and wired to a hundred machines, each
jolting him at irregular intervals. His cheek twitches, his head jerks,
his fingers drum, his knee wobbles, his feet tap, his breath is interrupted
with coughs, his blood runs hot and cold. I invite him to leave that
contraption, and take a walk with me over to a chapel nearby, and say a quiet
prayer.
“You can’t make
me!” he cries. “I’m free to choose!”
Editor’s note: The image above depicts
Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Anthony Esolen
Professor
Esolen teaches Renaissance English Literature and the Development of Western
Civilization at Providence College. A senior editor for Touchstone: A
Journal of Mere Christianity, he writes regularly for Touchstone, First
Things, Catholic World Report, Magnificat, This Rock, and Latin Mass. His
most recent books are The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western
Civilization (Regnery Press, 2008); Ironies of Faith (ISI Press,
2007); and Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child (ISI
Press, 2010). Professor Esolen is the translator of Dante.
Yup – all as was explained would be happening in the Old and New
Testament – and the Book of Mormon – Prophets have forever warned us of what
was to be the ‘way of men/women’ and their ‘insane’ wisdom. Sadly most haven’t
read their teachings – and most fail to understand that most are taught about
5% from the Scriptures mixed with 95% from Greek Philosophy (literally
interposed with rhetoric and of course logismoi). Revisions of what the
Prophets have taught were being done even while the Prophets were alive – and
what men/women have done since then staggers the imagination. While the
writings of Paul (of which only a very small portion are found in the Bible)
are ignored all together.
The mental ward of our nation and much of the world is magnified
by the music, movies, tv, and in the noise of confusion and contention. There
is no peace to be found within the world – it has to be found from within – and
that comes in one’s own belief system of who Jesus Christ is and was. Within
twenty years from the time of the Resurrection apostates from the Church of
Jesus Christ (as it was formally known) were already denying that it took place
– while many have not accepted this in our more modern religions and or
pamphlets, textbooks, various handouts, and other printed matter in the form of
the various Creeds of men and women.
Chaos has always been the goal of the adversary – and as the
Chinese have indicated in their book, “Unrestricted Warfare” – anything is
acceptable to be used against and for keeping anyone from fully accepting the
teachings of truth – even to asking the inane question, “What is truth?”
Thus Professor Esolen as one of many has hit the head of the nail – but even
here he gives no remedy – only the diagnosis of the illness without either the
cause or the solution.
Any thinking person who desires to do the right thing for the
right reason – understands and can see clearly what he’s written without even
the reading – as many before have written similar pieces – but it is always
good to see it in a different format – and therefore well worth the read.
Sadly, like most informative pieces – those who really need to read it never
will and ignore in the form of justifications there doing so.
Well there is a Prophet on the Earth today and there has been
one since 1830 (slightly before) – and is called by Heavenly Father and our
Lord and Savior his Son Jesus Christ – as has been throughout all the history
of men/women. Most either refuse to believe this – and many just don’t care –
others seek his life and that of those who serve with him throughout the world.
Each person has to be make their own choices and can have their own beliefs –
most will live a good and moral life. It is those who don’t who pollute this
world and the places where we live. Sadly they get most of the attention.
My two cents – smile - c
“My Two
Cents Worth”
cji
6/19/13
Gritting
one’s teeth in contractions
wondering
whether to cry or laugh
knowing
the future is here amid us
which
was forecast by the Prophets;
Thus
hardly any wonder about today
those
who’ve ignored what is taught
finding
it now too late for the many
having
not paid heed to the Prophets;
Rather
to seek to read the stars/moon
palms
and using wired drugs random
worshiping
the actors and the fools
stoning
new and the old Prophets;
One
might better enlist their two cents
unafraid
of offending some and all
catering
to the Scriptures in their truth
and
heeding the word of the Prophets!
Copyright © 2013 – cji
here 
Posts
