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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Niall Ferguson, Strangely Blind about Race and Islam

I have always found the much-acclaimed "conservative" Niall Ferguson to be an unreliable alternative "voice" amongst the stream of liberal news that we are daily bombarded with.

The folks at the Council of European Canadians seem to agree wth me.

I have posted on Ferguson's lurid personal life here. But more important, at least politically so, he is married to Ayan Hrisi Ali who has never publicly denounced her Muslim background although she writes copiously about how she is an "atheist." More precisely, she believes that Islam can be reformed and the logical extrapolation from that "belief" is that she would readly return to Islam but if it were "reformed."

- Ferguson and Ali's affair and their illegitimate son after he abndoned his wife
- Ali on her new-born son's choice of "his" religion when he is an adult
- Ali's ambivalence and therefore "unspoken" support of Islam, the kind she calls a "reformed" Islam
- Ali's disdain for Christianity
- Ferguson in America: And His "Wry Belief in the Fall of American Power"

But even more significantly, as she denounced Islam so she puts Christianity in the same basket of Islam, and has been a fervent advocate - relgiously so - of "secular" Europe and Amerca.

Western European, and consequently American, civilizations, were founded on Christian roots. To advocate the destruction of this fundamental premise is to throw out everything else.

Either Ali is ignorant and unscholarly (and researched her work badly) or she is simply anti-Christian. I blelieve she is the latter.

So what is Ferguson doing wth someone like her? It only means that he, like her, despite his stream of articles and books on western civilization, believes that Christianity is harmful to the west and should be removed as part of the "future" indentity of the west.

This crack lets in Islam. That is how Muslims successfully conquered various middle eastern and African countries. And that what they're doing in Europe. And now in North Amerca also.

Niall Ferguson, Strangely Blind about Race
Sometimes smart people are blind to obvious facts, especially if these aren't politically correct. Here's a doozie from Harvard professor Niall Ferguson, one of Britain's most renowned historians.
by Frank Hilliard


I was reading Ferguson's work on Europe called Civilization: The West and the Rest with a great deal of interest. Why was the West better than the rest, why had it triumphed in the competition between the civilizations around the world? He has a number of answers: the geography of Europe, "Judeo-Christian" concepts of free will, property ownership.

All true of course, but I sensed something was missing. Humm, what could it be?

It took a while, but I found the answer on page 176 of the hardcover edition. After noting all the European scientists who had found cures or causes of a wide range of African diseases, he had this warning:
Lurking within the real science was a pseudo-science, which asserted that mankind was not a single more or less homogeneous species but was subdivided and ranked from an Aryan 'master race' down to a black race unworthy of the designation homo sapiens.
Pseudo-science? The races are all the same? I wondered if that were so, why hadn't Africans discovered the causes of the diseases which were plaguing the continent? Why hadn't African missionaries and explorers headed off into the wilds of Europe? Why hadn't African countries established trading ports in Europe as European countries had in Africa, India and China?

It was a puzzlement. But I continued on to page 177 and read what he had to say about Charles Darwin's half-cousin Francis Galton, who began thinking of how science might improve humans, a concept he called 'eugenics;' the use of selective breeding to improve the gene pool. This was hardly a huge stretch as exactly the same concept is used in improving the breed of horses, cattle, pigs, wheat, fruit trees and pumpkins. Still it comes as a shock to Niall.
The crucial point to note is that a hundred years ago work like Galton's was at the cutting edge of science. Racism was not some backward-looking reactionary ideology; the scientifically uneducated embraced it as enthusiastically as people today accept the theory of man-made global warming. It was only the second half of the 20th Century that eugenics and the related concept of 'racial hygiene' were finally discredited with the realization that genetic differences between the races are relatively small, and the variations within races quite large.
What a mouthful! What a concept! Niall is suggesting first that the differences between races is minor and secondly that you can't average them and compare the averages. And yet, he's just done so! He's admitted Africa is a "dark continent" that has so little electricity, you can see how backward it is from space. He's told us European science was key to eradicating African diseases, and yet he suggests that "differences between the races are relatively small" in a book about why Europeans succeeded where other big, rich civilizations — like the Chinese — did not.


Ferguson with his wife Ayaan Hirsi Ali

What he has overlooked is that the European race was far more successful than the Chinese, African, Asian or South American peoples. Why is this? I would argue that Europeans had exactly the right genetic combination of intelligence and aggression to master races without it. Africans had a surplus of aggression and the Chinese of intelligence, but neither were successful imperialists, and neither could withstand the advance of Western Civilization once it really caught fire.

If the difference in genetics was so small, as Ferguson would have us believe, why was the difference in outcomes so large? Indeed, since eugenics is nothing more than breeding in other mammals, a scientific process which has been proven over millennia, how can he dismiss it and still be scientific.

Well, of course, he can't.

This is what you get when modern historians steeped in political correctness set themselves to analyze cultural differences without observing the racial differences that caused them in the first place.

Have another look at the photo at the top of the post. Yes, those are Africans trying to escape the squalor of Africa by moving to Europe. They won't though. You can't escape yourself, no matter how far you travel, or how dangerous the journey. When you get there, you're still who you were in the first place.

In this case, you're still back in Africa.

One can only hope a new crop of historians will take a truly scientific look at why Europe succeeded; one that is unafraid of putting science ahead of politics.



Sunday, November 27, 2016

Reclaiming Beauty

I'm in the process of finding information about me (!) on the internet. No, it isn't some narcissistic activity. There is a purpose to this...

Here is what I found from the erudite, calmly informative (I could learn from that!) Tiberge at Gallia Watch, who kindly introduced my new blog when I started it back in 2013.

I have met Tiberge three times since, where we spent time together in lovely Philadelphia, chatting about blogs, Larry Auster, Laura Wood, beauty, France, and any other topic that took our fancy.

If you are responsive to aesthetics, to beauty, beauty of everything - art, music, architecture, human faces, human shapes, fashion, flowers, manners, voices, and if you feel that today's vulgar and narcissistic counter-culture has arrogantly abandoned the individuality, the inner questioning that are essential for beauty, in favor of insolent, indolent conformity, a conformity that tries to pass itself off as "original" or "creative" or "personal", when in fact it is parasitic, imitative, and repellent - worse, it is deliberately repellent, then you experience, as I do, a vague feeling of nausea in this repellent age we're living in. When a young man, who might have been good-looking in another era, makes your sandwich while you watch in disgust, his arms covered with tattoos, rhinestone earrings clamped on his ears, baggy pants slipping down almost to his thighs; when your waitress, who could be pretty if she valued prettiness, arrives squeezed into a mini skirt, her ears studded with nails, not to mention her nose, and her head shaven to boot, to take your order (as if one could eat after being served by such a creature), then you know you are living in the Age of Repellence. When you are forced to listen to the sounds of someone else's pygmy culture, diligently and diabolically piped through the loud speakers of every store, every coffee shop, every restaurant, every waiting room, everywhere, with no recourse to complain, no power to oppose the shrieking pygmies that rule over us and destroy our peace, then you just stay home.

Remember when a coffee shop conjured up visions of a comfortable chat with friends or a chance to read a good book over a good cup of espresso? Not any more. Starbuck's is torture. Every shop is torture. The sights and sounds are vomitous, repellent, deliberately repellent.

Of course I am speaking of an urban area that is run by "minorities" and elitist leftists. You may see a better side of things where you are.

Kidist Paulos Asrat is the administrator of Reclaiming Beauty, where she analyzes and criticizes the anti-beauty agenda of today's young, (mostly) white women. Of course she denounces the obvious outrages of the type I described above, but she also compares the influential styles of the past with those of today. In a recent post she compared Vogue magazine of the 50's with recent issues. And even more recently she discussed the unfortunate changes made to certain great French perfumes, such as Guerlain's La Petite Robe Noire (The Little Black Dress).

Her insights and opinions won the approval of the late Lawrence Auster who often posted her comments. Recently, Toronto-based Kidist made a trip to New York, with a detour to Springfield, Pennsylvania to visit Lawrence's grave site, where she took several photos. Those of you who followed his blog and his painful last weeks, may find this post of interest.

She is also a great admirer of the New York Public Library, a structure that leaves one breathless, a testimony to the intelligence, taste and vision that prevailed in more civilized times in the United States. And of The Cloisters, in upper Manhattan, a place of rare beauty, another stunning testimony to the American drive for excellence and to the generosity and erudition of men, such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., often despised for their wealth, yet they poured their money and knowledge into the reconstruction of an extraordinary medieval-style complex of buildings housing priceless treasures, including the Unicorn Tapestries. They did this out of love for art and a desire to educate and elevate the public's understanding. The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Read more about her Ethiopian origins here, where she provides several links to Lawrence Auster's VFR. I should add that she is fluent in French having studied French in England. (Click her resumé at the top right of her homepage.)

Kidist and I met once, at Lawrence Auster's December dinner in 2011, but we did not really have a chance to speak. I'm very sorry I missed her when she came to Springfield a couple of weeks ago, but she was here and gone so quickly, before I even knew. So hopefully next time…

Top, the "blue hour" in Paris, between day and night. Borrowed from her website.

Below, from the Unicorn Tapestries at The Cloisters.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thanksgiving Wishes to my American Friends

From a Reclaiming Beauty Post in 2014:


Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
Freedom From Want
1943


Happy Thanksgiving!

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Here are Thanksgiving wishes from my two favorite American posters:

From Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife:

Unity, Not Division


Fruit in a Basket, James Peale

THANKSGIVING is a day for unity, not division. What are the things that unite us, whatever our political persuasions? The conditions of existence unite us. Here are three:
1. We were born; created, not self-begotten.

2. We will die.

3. Our souls will live forever.
None of us differ in any of these conditions. The innate longing for unity is fulfilled. We are on the same boat. We are in the same vessel. We sail on the sea of time. We will sail on the sea of eternity.

The immortality of the soul can be established with the use of simple logic. You don’t have to get a degree in philosophy to see it. The soul is immaterial. It is not physical. It does not partake of physical death.

Put away political thoughts. They will be there when you wake up tomorrow. Put away political knives. Cut the turkey instead. We are alike more than we are different. Gratitude is a universal need.

We have such a beautiful country, which none of us deserve. We can be united in gratitude that we are so much united. We can be united as the collective recipients of undeserved gifts.

Let the mountains receive peace for the people: and the hills justice. (Psalm 72:3)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The editorial board and maintenance staff of The Thinking Housewife extends her wish for many blessings to you, whatever your beliefs.



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From Gallia Watch:

Thanksgiving 2016



Thanks to zazie for the beautiful card. It's a long holiday week-end in America, my favorite holiday, and posting will be a bit slow. While we have much to be thankful for this year, the suddenness with which the situation changed leaves me breathless, wondering "What next?" Events that seemed not only unlikely but frankly out of the question are happening both in America and France. Amazing how the two countries are influenced by each other. Now I wonder who will be ambassador to France.

Below, a short passage from The Heritage Foundation, on the proclamation of Thanksgiving day:

Following a resolution of Congress, President George Washington proclaimed Thursday the 26th of November 1789 a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” Reflecting American religious practice, Presidents and Congresses from the beginning of the republic have from time to time designated days of fasting and thanksgiving (the Thanksgiving holiday we continue to celebrate in November was established by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and made into law by Congress in 1941).

In setting aside a day for Thanksgiving, Washington established a non-sectarian tone for these devotions and stressed political, moral, and intellectual blessings that make self-government possible, in addition to personal and national repentance. Although the First Amendment prevents Congress from establishing a religion or prohibiting its free exercise, Presidents, as well as Congress, have always recognized the American regard for sacred practices and beliefs. Thus, throughout American history, Presidents have offered non-sectarian prayers for the victory of the military and in the wake of catastrophes. Transcending passionate quarrels over the proper role of religion in politics, the Thanksgiving Proclamation reminds us how natural their relationship has been. While church and state are separate, religion and politics, in their American refinement, prop each other up.

The full text of George Washington's October 3, 1789 proclamation is on the same web page (link above).




Sunday, November 20, 2016

Psalm 145:17

The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.