Richard Barnes

The Power of the Powerless I

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 Richard Barnes

In 1978, Václav Havel (1936-2011) wrote an essay, The Power of the Powerless, from which I take the title for this and later posts.

Havel was born into a wealthy family, and that made him an outcast when the Communists took over 12 years later. He eventually became president of Czechoslovakia (her last), and, after the country’s dissolution, was elected president of the new Czech Republic (her first). But he is best known, not as a politician, but as an essayist and thinker who alerts his readers and hearers as to the dangers of totalitarianism, whether in its Fascist, Communist, Tin Pot, “Post-Totalitarian”, or democratic manifestations. And, most importantly, he eloquently demonstrates that the way for a people to defeat the brutal despotism of unjust domination by political and military elites — be they “soft” or “hard”, “democratically elected” or “installed by force” — is to “live by the truth.”

Truth is universal, and “historical experience teaches us that any meaningful point of departure in an individual’s life usually has an element of universality about it. In other words, it is not something partial, accessible only to a restricted community, and not transferable to any other. On the contrary, it must be potentially accessible to everyone.” By “everyone” he includes those doing the oppressing. His essay does not seek to proselytize religiously, but by “universality” he gives Christianity as an example. An example I wholly embrace.

The essay was written “hurriedly” (his word) but upon careful reading one marvels at his insights, clearly developed from a lifetime of social, economic, political, and religious oppression and upheaval. He is one of those rare intellectuals who not only earned the appellation but did not besmirch it with despicable, self-absorbed behavior and utter disregard for his neighbor.

Paul Johnson’s great book, The Intellectuals, details the lives of intellectuals who have had outsized, deleterious influence on the course of history, especially the 20th and 21st centuries. Men like Karl Marx and Jean-Paul Sartre, Cyril Connolly and Kenneth Tynan, and many others are examined and when one puts the book down, one wonders how people fell for these sordid characters whose fruit in their own lives surely portended evil for the rest of us. I wish Mr. Johnson had written a companion book on intellectuals who did lead admirable lives. Men like Václav Havel.

Open totalitarian regimes — Castro’s Cuba, Mao’s China, Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, Hitler’s Germany, and many others — “post-totalitarian” regimes — Eastern Europe in 1978 — democratic regimes — Western Europe and the Americas — and points between all have a “hard” tendency to concentrate power and exercise it over their peoples.

“This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of formation is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance.”

“Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to posses an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.”

“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as if they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”

I invite you to re-read the foregoing three paragraphs and marvel with me that it was written in 1978 when Americans were offended at Alexander Solzhenitsyn for having pointed out similar thoughts at his Harvard address and was booed by the intellectuals there. The then First Lady sniffed, “He doesn’t understand Americans.” Even many “conservatives” were put off.

I was not one of them, although, I confess, I saw the issues he addressed as portending future evils. It was years later, upon re-reading the speech that I realized he saw them — correctly — as present evils. And today, their manifestation is such that only the most obtuse can honestly deny them.

That’s For Somebody Else To Do (or, That’s Not My Job)

October 9, 2021October 9, 2021 Richard Barnes

Professionals are taught never to use such phrases. At least I was trained thusly in my halcyon Arthur Andersen years when an oft-used expression was, “You can take the man out of Arthur Andersen but you cannot take Arthur Andersen out of the man.” As one progressed in the firm, one took on tasks easily characterized as “not my job” but one did not think in those terms. One tackled the assignment as best he or she could. And we learned along the way.

The late Elmer Kelton’s The Good Old Boys (1978), utters that phrase in a humble context which resonates with many of us. The novel is set in West Texas at the turn of the 20th century, 1906 to be precise. On the surface, it is a novel about a cowboy, Hewey Calloway, who appreciates people and places more than new contraptions and who struggles to understand the, to him, monomaniac interest of younger people in things like automobiles and big cities. Hewey is facing a rapidly dimming way of life and unwilling to step onto the newer way of doing things that was breaking on the horizon. Below the surface, the novel tells us that there is a Hewey in many of us.

Along the way, Kelton uses his novel to reflect upon some things that ought to never change. The phrase shows up in one of those scenes:

Cotton incredulously demanded, “Uncle Hewey, you mean all he asked you to do was to go over and ride on another street?”

“He didn’t ask me to. He told me I had to. There’s a difference.”

“If he’d asked you to, would you have done it?”

“Sure, I always try to get along with people.”

Cotton shook his head. “I don’t understand that at all.”

Hewey wasn’t sure how to explain it; it seemed so natural that no explanation ought to be necessary. “I’m a free-born American. I even been to war. I’d be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on. I’ve got a right to ride down any street anywhere in this country that anybody else can. Somebody tells me I got to get off, and I do it, pretty soon I won’t have that right anymore.”

Cotton wasn’t satisfied. Hewey didn’t know how to satisfy him.

Wes Wheeler saw Hewey’s chagrin. He looked at Cotton. “Son, I’m a peace officer. It’s my job to enforce the law. I’m not allowed to make the law; that’s for somebody else to do. If I go to makin’ it, I can make it anything I want it to be. First thing you know I’ll use it to help me and my friends. I’ll use it to hurt people I don’t like. If that ever happens, I’m dangerous. That marshall up yonder, he was goin’ beyond his rightful authority. That makes him dangerous. You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

I last visited Venezuela in 2005. Upon arrival I was informed that my paperwork was such that I would not be permitted to leave the country. Incredulously, I spoke to a fiery US embassy official who confirmed to me that another midnight decree had been recently issued by El Comandante and that I had been entangled by such. However, she was adamant that she would move heaven and earth to get me out. The details are for another day, but the point is that living under decrees or mandates is dangerous and tyrannical.

I have not been back to the country of my birth since, but it is not for a lack of desire.

And now, for over 20 months, has anyone noticed that we Americans have also been living under decrees and mandates? Are we not allowed to say so? I have written a major airline asking them why their employees keep telling us we must submit to “federal law” when no such law has been enacted, having been passed by both houses of congress and signed by the president. That would make it a “law”. What we have now, is a mandate. Or an order. Call it what you will, but it is not law.

Wes Wheeler’s comments are worth remembering as we ponder our situation: “It’s my job to enforce the law. I’m not allowed to make the law; that’s for somebody else to do. If I go to makin’ it, I can make it anything I want it to be. First thing you know I’ll use it to help me and my friends. I’ll use it to hurt people I don’t like. If that ever happens, I’m dangerous. … You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

Mandates and liberty are not compatible.

Whether in Venezuela or here.

The above quote has been attributed to others besides Twain, including Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is appropriate to today’s post: promulgating mandates and decrees, whether by mayors, governors, presidents, or comandantes, smacks of man playing God. And, as per Kelton, “You let people like that get away with it, pretty soon they’ll take you over.”

Snippets III

September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 Richard Barnes

Virus:

First of all, I want to address my lack of posts the past 3 weeks.

Shortly after my last post, my wife and I came down with the virus.

Four of our children are in Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. In late August, two of them caught the virus. Given their ages, they were considered low risk and after a few bad days they recovered and are now back at work and in class. My daughter, who had it pretty bad, is now playing soccer along with her twin sister who did not catch it even though they were all in the same room and, later, in the same apartment with utmost proximity. My other son did not catch it either.

Shortly thereafter, I flew to Texas and met my wife there, where it became our turn to deal with it. In my and my wife’s cases we both felt pretty bad including nausea and fever. Our son, daughter, and granddaughter were in the same house with us but they had natural immunity, having recovered from the virus previously. Actually, my daughter has not officially confirmed that she has had it, but believes she did, given the symptoms she suffered over a year ago.

Our eldest son, his wife, and our other daughter in Texas caught it separately and have recovered.

My wife and I were blessed to be in touch with doctors who are willing to treat this virus, which treatment we underwent. In addition, another son made an appointment for us to get a monoclonal infusion (antibodies). For what it’s worth, there were four of us in the room for infusion. The two others had been vaccinated, yet also caught the virus and their doctors had recommended the infusion. Given their ages, I was glad they had doctors who were willing to treat their patients.

Lillie and I are recovering well. We have been working in the farm and although we are more easily fatigued than before, each day our strength, endurance, and focus improve. At this rate, we should be back at 100% in the next week or two.

We thank all those who have prayed for our recovery.

Conclusions (strictly layman observations!):

If young (under 45), you will most likely be fine, unless you have comorbidities. This observation is repeated in many publications and even the CDC morbidity data reflects it (although I trust the CDC about as far as I can throw it). However, there is over the counter treatment for you as well, which will help you in your recovery.

If older (over 45), you are blessed if you are in touch with doctors who will treat you. Many doctors have rejected the CDC and other bureaucrats’ directives and have treated their patients with effective protocols. Several have testified their consternation as to why the medical profession in general blindly follows the CDC or Mayo or Hopkins, who have not issued their own protocols for treatment. Instead, they will instruct sick folks to rest and hydrate and if breathing becomes belabored, to go to a hospital (where the majority of the virus-related deaths have occurred). No treatment.

I have since learned that I am not the only one who thinks this is crazy.

The CDC’s own data tell us that survival rates for 0-19 age group is 99.9973%. For ages 60-69 it is 99.41%. The fact that our media refuses to report this doesn’t make it any less true.

This virus is a challenge but treatment is available and we urge you not to ignore that, should you get sick. Especially if older you are.

We wish the very best of health to you and yours.

Yuri Bezmenov

It is time to repost a 6-minute excerpt of an interview with Yuri Bezmenov (1939 – 1993), a KGB defector who after years of work with the Communist regime in the Soviet Union during which he grew to love the liberty of the West, defected in 1970, disguising himself as a hippie. His comments address the strategy of our enemies to demoralize us by creating chaos in our thinking and questioning our moral foundations.

The interview took place in 1984 and speaks to us today.

For those who are interested, I have also posted, further below, the full interview, which is well worth the time.

Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)

The next and final link is an interview of Aldous Huxley by Mike Wallace in 1958. Although I do not at all agree with Mr. Huxley’s fear of “overpopulation”, this disagreement does not blind me to his other observations, which are very prescient, as any reader of Brave New World will attest.

Major takeaway: Bureaucracy, state and/or corporate, will propagandize people to voluntarily give up their liberties.

Huxley believed that the “brave new world” that he wrote about can and will “come to these shores.” Even in 1958, considering the technological advances of that era, he is asked by a seemingly incredulous Wallace, “Why is it that you think that the wrong people” will use these instruments for evil ends? Although an atheist, Huxley’s reply comes close to the Calvinist understanding.

There is much more in the interview and it is healthy to challenge yourself to listen to a man and go through the exercise of refuting his errors while agreeing with some of his insights. Somewhat like the Apostle Paul when he quoted a pagan poet in Acts 17.

It is also bracing to hear Mike Wallace speak of the Soviet Union in 1958 as a “successful society” despite its lack of freedom. There was plenty of alternative reporting back then which, had Wallace been a bit more curious, would have disabused him of the deception of Soviet “success”.

In his letter to George Orwell in 1949 congratulating him for his book, 1984, Huxley wrote:

“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that … conditioning [is] more efficient … than prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.”

Otto Scott and Charles Williams on Eternal Reality

September 7, 2021September 7, 2021 Richard Barnes

“I do not regard the past as dead. On the contrary, I regard the past and the present and even the future as part of an eternal reality. Ours are the same tests and crises that our fathers and forefathers encountered: all I do is remind my contemporaries that Eternity watches us forever.” — Otto Scott

The context of Mr. Scott’s quote was obviously history, and he was a wonderfully lucid writer on the subject. I highly recommend his books on King James I (The King as Fool), Robespierre, and John Brown (The Secret Six). For a sample of his writing, see here.

A novel that deals with the topic of an eternal present with great originality is Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams, one of the “Inklings” (J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and others, including Williams). This is not an easy book to read; it will require effort on the part of the reader but it is most rewarding. In it, one is drawn into a world where to be truly joyful you must learn to carry one another’s burdens. In the case of the protagonist, Pauline, she is very much afraid — terrified — of her other self, her doppelgänger whom she sees sometimes when she goes out. The fear is so great that she dreads to leave the house. Williams handles this very effectively; the reader practically shares in the fear.

A famous playwright, Paul Stanhope, over several pages, finally, gently convinces her to let him “carry your fear for you.” And the effect is electric. Along the way the reader is introduced to other characters, all very believable and, in some cases frightening. One character is a 17th century martyr who is Pauline’s ancestor, who sang in praise to God as the flames enveloped him. Pauline sees him one night, as he struggles in fear. She asks him to let her carry his fear, which he does, thereby enabling him to face his martyrdom with joy.

Williams believed strongly that all people are connected. And he did not limit that relationship to just the present. He believed that love by which the world would know the disciples of Christ was one that lived throughout the ages and that, somehow, your love today has impact to someone who lived before you and will have impact on another who lives after you.

When one pauses to consider that God describes Himself as the “I Am”; He Who lives in an eternal present, one can see that Williams was on to something. We cannot think of life other than chronologically because we live in time and space. However, God, as the Creator of time and space, is certainly not limited by any chronology; in other words, He is outside our world, transcendent while also immanent.

I have not given Williams much more thought than what I’ve noted above, but he came to mind as I was reminded recently of some events from my childhood in El Pao. Some of the people, who were my parents’ friends, were very kind to me and also instructive in their rebukes. They are gone now, and I won’t see them until the Resurrection. Yet, how very real they are to me still! I also thought of two other individuals whom I never met, as they had passed away before my birth. However, I very much sense and am grateful for their influence on my life. This does not begin to touch the full scope of what Williams was getting at, but it does hint at how we affect one another, past, present, and future.

Otto Scott wrote about an “eternal reality” in the context of the writing of history. I suspect he would have appreciated Charles Williams, assuming he had not read him.

Charles Williams - one of the Inklings and profoundly ... — Charles Williams (1886 – 1945)

Otto Scott (Author of The Great Christian Revolution) — Otto Scott (1918 – 2006)

Humboldt on Cannibalism II

September 4, 2021September 4, 2021 Richard Barnes

To get the context of this post, the reader might want to see Humboldt on Cannibalism. Today’s post, in effect, concludes that one.

In his writings on the Americas, Alexander von Humboldt, whom I admire and respect for his great learning and energy (not to overlook the wonderful clarity of his writings), like all secular humanists before him and since, cannot resist the temptation to posit moral equivalencies between the “savage practices” he witnessed and the “like practices” of advanced civilizations in history. He does a sleight of hand here in that by “civilized” he usually means — and his readers usually assume — Christian lands, but his examples are not always of such lands.

As one reads him, one readily sees that all those moral equivalence assertions have the purpose of minimizing if not denigrating Christianity; in effect, arguing that the historic faith has no great positive impact on civilization, and indeed might be a negative force.

He tries but fails. I say this as an admirer of Humboldt.

In the prior post on Cannibalism, we saw that Humboldt goes on at some length to compare the practices of some of the Indian tribes in Venezuela to those of Egypt in the 13th century. But, of course, the former was a daily routine, whereas the latter was a rare occurrence. He also goes on to deny that cannibalism ever existed in Africa. He does this by questioning the observations of “some travelers” while citing a single source which denies the allegations. However, research then and since documents the history of the practice there (see for example, A History of Cannibalism: From ancient cultures to survival stories and modern psychopaths, N. Constantin; Cannibalism: The last taboo, B. Marinner; Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, and more).

Nevertheless, Humboldt did document evidence of cannibalism among those who accompanied him:

“We inquired of this young man, so calm and so affectionate in the little services which he rendered us, whether he still felt sometimes a desire to eat of a Cheruvichahena. He answered, without discomposure, that, living in the mission, he would only eat what he saw was eaten by the Padres. Reproaches addressed to the natives on the abominable practice which we here discuss, produce no effect; it is as if a Brahmin, traveling in Europe, were to reproach us with the habit of feeding on the flesh of animals.

But then the great explorer goes on to affirm moral equivalency, citing Abd al-latif al-Baghdadi’s account of cannibalism in Egypt in the 13th century:

“And why should we be so much astonished at this inconstancy in the tribes of the Orinoco, when we are reminded, by terrible and well-ascertained examples, of what has passed among civilized nations in times of great scarcity? In Egypt, in the thirteenth century, the habit [sic!] of eating human flesh pervaded all classes of society; extraordinary snares were spread for physicians in particular. They were called to attend persons who pretended to be sick, but who were only hungry; and it was not in order to be consulted, but devoured.

“‘It then no longer caused any surprise; the horror it had at first inspired vanished; and it was mentioned as an indifferent and ordinary thing. This mania of devouring one another became so common among the poor, that the greater part perished in this manner.

“‘These wretches employed all sorts of artifices, to seize men by surprise, or decoy them into their houses under false pretenses. This happened to three physicians among those who visited me; and a bookseller who sold me books, an old and very corpulent man, fell into their snares, and escaped with great difficulty. All the facts which we relate as eye-witnesses fell under our observation accidentally, for we generally avoided witnessing spectacles which inspired us with so much horror.’ (Account of Egypt by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad, translated into French by De Sacy pages 360 to 374.)”

However, the events which Abd al-latif al-Baghdadi (1162-1231) describes so vividly occurred during a terrible famine in Egypt; it was not a usual occurrence, but did have far-reaching and widespread impact across that land. His writings on Egypt did not at all imply this was a common (“habit”) practice there; he focused on that famine and its horrible deleterious effects on the entire country.

More notably, Humboldt cannot cite a single source documenting widespread cannibalism in Christian lands. On the contrary, he approvingly, and fairly, cites the efforts of missionaries to banish the practice. He even cites the horrified reactions of Christians when confronted with the practice. Indeed, it was that horror which eventually led Hernán Cortés to destroy the ancient city of Mexico as it was a center for human sacrifice and cannibalism which the Aztecs continued to revert to until the city was destroyed.

That leads us to the “why” human sacrifice and its usual attendant, cannibalism, have by and large disappeared as open practices around the world. A hint can be easily discerned in the Christian revulsion to such practices. And that revulsion can be traced to the Ultimate Sacrifice: that of the Son of God nailed to the cross for the sins of His people. No other human could satisfy such a claim. That explains why human sacrifice was considered such an abomination in the Old Testament Scriptures, which point to that Ultimate Sacrifice. No human can satisfy for his own sins, let alone the sins of others. Only the God-Man, Jesus Christ has that power and that authority.

That might explain Humboldt’s dissimulations, diversions, and distractions. As he himself notes, “civilized” people have not delivered us from cannibalism, but rather Jesus the Christ.