Catholic Apologists and the New Atheists

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Even though I was raised as a Novus Ordo Catholic, I tended to put the protestant sects (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc.) as well as Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy all in the same category. Ever since my teenage years, the general impression I had of religious people was that they believed in fairy tales and needed to be told what to think and do.

Fast-forward a few years to when I moved to Québec in my late twenties and observed the rather strong hostility toward the Catholic Church. I didn’t think too much about it and spent my first few years concerned with my own integration. Later on, I had met a group of traditional Catholics with whom I became friends. When I discussed this with other people, I was told, with an eye roll, that they were crazy far right extremists. Usually Americanized leftist and atheistic SJW crowd were the ones who labeled them as the most hateful, closed minded and stupid group of people, next to the supposed “skinheads.”

Nonsense.

I got to thinking about the Catholic basis for the belief in God and what I heard from the more atheistic oriented folks – from the seemingly level-headed “New Atheist” crowd, to the most dingbatty and inconsistent of SJWs. I wanted to analyze the Catholic point of view for God’s existence in order to see if the slanderous labels that so many of the “New Atheists” and their cohorts slap on traditionalists, nationalists and Catholics make any sense.  

Plenty of the Catholics I have met are well read and articulate people. One of the questions they get asked is how they can still believe in God when they’ve been to university, read Nietzsche, Sartre, etc… The response is something along the lines of this: when you tear down God, you are only left with the laws of logic and reason. But those quickly crumble when you abandon absolute truth and rely on relative truth, disintegrating into solipsism and narcissism. 

I think Nietzsche was correct in pointing out in his more aphoristic analyses that when you get rid of God, you tend to get these atheist apologists like the anglophone New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchins). Nietzsche actually says that these types are worse than the Christians and even makes fun of such pale faced atheists because they just have repackaged the belief in absolute truth. Now they must convert everyone to this truth, saying basically the following (from “Beyond Good and Evil” and “Ecce homo”): “Looky here, on your own grounds or world view, there is no absolute truth. So you’re really just a more cartoonish version of the Christian preacher.”

Nietzsche often put things in a Master and Slave framework. The elites were among the masters and when he regarded Christianity, he thought it especially appealed to the most weak minded of society – a slave morality. It is bad to impose a morality on someone else and anyone who accepts an outside morality is feeble minded. However, if I accept this idea of being a strong übermensche and not a weak Christian, isn’t Nietzsche imposing this idea of morality on me? In his mind, there is no universal truth. In other words, Nietzsche just falls back onto pragmatism (doing whatever works in the short term). If only week minds accept imposed moralities, then it follows that I should reject the Master-Slave worldview of Nietzsche.

Nietzsche also influenced Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism with the idea that anyone who has a morality imposed upon them is a slave. Again, if I accept Sartre’s existentialism, then I have let a person argue and impose a position upon me. How am I not still a slave according to this worldview? Much of this is an appeal to the ego, the pride of man to think he is going to be better than everyone else. You might be better at a lot of people at certain things, but you’re still finite and human. You are not the übermensche or a god man.

Do these views present much substance? To whom does Nietzsche, Sartre or the New Atheists appeal? They are often the 18-22 year old college kids, sort of like a phase you go through as a young adult. But do these quasi-adolescent phases provide any kind of meaningful worldview? From what I can see, part of the power of Catholic/Orthodox theology is that it does provide a worldview and thus a foundation for understanding the three branches of philosophy.   

Epistemology (how we know things about the world)

Metaphysics (what’s real and what’s not real; what exists what doesn’t)

Ethics (what’s right and what’s wrong; virtue vs. vice)

A Catholic would look at the so-called New Atheists (who seem to be the new Nietzsches/Sartres of our day) and see what their worldview offers. Can it give a coherent account for the three philosophic branches? Normally the atheist/materialist crowd ridicules the Catholics without considering their own assumptions. However, we must question our assumptions, as we interpret the world through these paradigms. Until we question them, we always read the so-called “facts” or “evidences” in our favor. Sometimes people can even construct a vast edifice that might effectively and empirically communicate some truths (like critiques of feminism, gender theory or multiculturalism), even though they are built upon faulty paradigms or presuppositions.

In argument and debate, one assumes the common laws of logic, rationality and consistency, which guide the debate. Both theists and atheists acquiesce to the existence of real logical laws and principles. If they don’t believe in logic, laws and consistency, then they cannot debate their position of atheism over theism.

Just merely throwing “facts” back and forth gets you nowhere, because “facts” are not seen as brute. There is no such thing as a fact that does not come as part of some context of interpretation. The idea of “brute facts” is an Enlightenment idea and an aspect of Scientism. That being said, if there are no brute facts, how can we debate? Some learned Catholics use a reductio ad absurdum argument – an argument from the impossibility of the contrary – as well as a transcendental argument. Those in the debate compare these worldviews and see which one is coherent and sensible and which one is contradictory.

The New Atheists have gotten pretty popular on the internet, which I think is partially because these ideas are spread through slogans and emotional rhetoric. These ways are much more effective at influencing the masses toward reductionist materialism and mystical evolution than rigorous methodical analysis. The first thing is to look at the atheist’s position and see what it offers in regards to epistemology (knowledge), metaphysics (what exists and what doesn’t) and ethics (claims about what is right and wrong).

Epistemology –

We can only trust what we know from our five senses. Empirical sense data is the most reliable way to interpret and understand the world in some probabilistic and statistical sense. There is no absolute certainty and no universal claims are possible. We can only have approximations (something Bertrand Russell states several times in “The Scientific Outlook”).

Metaphysics –

There is no such thing as metaphysics. However, it is usually claimed that reality is just matter that is in constant and perpetual evolutionary flux (which is a metaphysical claim, by the way…).

Ethics –

Here, the atheist looks to some form of secular humanism, maybe the Humanist Manifesto as a source for new ways to come up with some form of ethics, based on what is socially agreed upon, for example.

In short, this is what the materialistic atheist’s worldview has to offer.

Catholic apologists often use a transcendental argument, which is a real logical form, first given by Aristotle. When the Sophists asked Aristotle how he knew that the laws of logic were true, he refutes them by showing that the subject matter under discussion, the laws of logic themselves (which are not empirical) cannot be refuted empirically (via the five senses). Aristotle gives a transcendental argument (Book 4 of his Metaphysics) where he says that the Sophist argument is false. In the process of denying and saying that logical laws do not exist, the Sophist enters the debate already assuming the existence of public, common, universal immaterial invariant laws of logic and uses them in the very act of rejecting them. Therefore logic and logical laws exist.

The Orthodox Church fathers like Saint John of Damascus later picked up this idea. Kant tries to use versions of this argument for other things. Modern linguists also made use of it, such as Karl-Otto Apel, who provided some interesting transcendental arguments concerning language.

***

Getting back to the New Atheists and their materialist worldview, let’s see if their position can provide the possibility for knowledge AT ALL?

Epistemology – Knowledge is empirical, we can only know what we know through the five senses. However, the claim itself that “we can only know what we know through sense data” is not something you can learn through sense data. No amount of sense data can tell you that universal proposition that we only know things through sense data.

Furthermore, if the naïve empirical proposition is true, then the self who is making these empirical arguments has no empirical view of itself. You can’t verify the self’s existence, nor verify empirically that you are the same you from ten years ago. You may believe that you are the same you, but what is your empirical proof for that? While it is indeed rational to believe that the self exists and enters into meaningful conversation using language (immaterial linguistic properties), this takes for granted that there is a self to convey this meaning.

There are plenty of things that people believe that cannot be verified empirically, but are rational because of the impossibility of the contrary. If I doubt the existence of the self and deny the self, then I am basically in some kind of solipsism. If you believe that, they you’ve lost the debate, because you no longer believe in a common realm of logical argumentation. Argument assumes common laws of logic. Empirical sense data cannot prove a law of logic, nor can it verify reason, nor prove mathematical entities or objects.

Metaphysics – The Atheists view is that there is no metaphysics because that was stupid medieval superstition. The world has since seen the likes of Locke, Newton, Galileo and Darwin and has lived through the scientific revolution. Everything is perpetual flux in evolution.

First of all, the above statement is a universal (metaphysical) claim it itself. How can you demonstrate a universal claim empirically? David Hume said that universal claims assume universals, which brings us back to metaphysics—which the materialist rejects. Empiricism cannot provide any universal claims, because one would have to know all things.

Since you believe that everything is in evolutionary flux, then the position that you came to in your mind was merely the result of a determined chemical process. It was not an actual self’s consciousness freely reflecting between positions and coming to truth and falsehood through rationality. It was chaotic, meaningless and random process. So, you believe that the totality of reality is meaningless; it’s just perpetual chaos and flux.

That means that your life is perpetual chaos and flux, so determined chemical reaction is therefore meaningless. That means that your arguments are merely determined chemical reaction and are therefore meaningless. That means that the sentences coming out of your mouth as you try to refute Christianity are, by your own admission, only a determined chemical reaction and are therefore meaningless.

Ethics – In this position, ethics is impossible.

To say something is good or bad requires some sort of universal benchmark by which you can make that judgment. In the atheist/materialist position, however, there are no universal standards, everything is under the process of evolution and that would include immaterial realities, invariant principles, laws and moral claims – these are all evolutionary. How do you know that anything is bad? You can’t know. You might not like something, but you have to understand that there is a difference between the claim of not liking something and the claim that something is morally wrong. One of them is a universal value judgment and the other is merely a matter of taste.

That’s why something like the Humanist Manifesto or the idea that “morals are social constructs” is nonsense. What if society declares that all atheists should be put to death? I imagine that you would say that is bad. But if your claim is just that morals are social constructs, you have no basis to say that is wrong. You might not like it, but your not liking it has nothing to do with right or wrong.

The New Atheists love to say that science is true whether one likes it or not. Well, guess what? Objective logical principles are true, whether they like them or not. In other words, they must be consistent. The things that they have tried to use to refute Christianity, epistemic claims of certainty, knowledge of laws of logic, of universal principles – these things cannot exist within their worldview and there is no way of knowing how they exist.

If they make demands upon the Christian to give an account for his views, then the atheist/materialist must do the same. He might not like what the Christian says, but it will at least be coherent.

***

The Christian/Catholic position however, is not merely intellectual. Approaching God is not just a matter of solving a bunch of equations. The only way to interpret the world correctly is through contrition. Getting our hearts right and living in accordance to divine law are the ways we know God. So, in other words, there is no syllogism or math problem that will prove God, until you turn from your egotism and worship of self.

The Catholics I know are wrongly labeled as far right extremists and promoters of hate speech. Their worldview is rational and coherent and their critique shows that, within the atheist position, knowledge itself is impossible, metaphysics is nonsense (while they assume metaphysical truths in the midst of denying metaphysical truths), and they cannot provide a coherent foundation for ethics. So why should anyone even listen to the New Atheists or the random, incoherent SJW at some counter demonstration on the street while they break windows and destroy public property?

A Tale of Two Cities

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Stereotypes are abound in Quebec City. Recently the mayoral candidate Jean-François Gosselin, elegantly stated that when he frequents restaurants or bars on the rue Maguire, it isn’t more trees he would like to see, but more parking lots. He likes trees as much as anyone else, though not the detriment of parking spaces. Also heavily promoting the “3rd link” project, meaning a third bridge or tunnel linking the north and south shores of the Saint-Lawrence in the Quebec City region, in addition to the two existing bridges, he has said that “all respectable cities have a big perimeter beltline highway. It’s time for us to have ours!” He is not a fan of the SRB (Service rapide par bus), proposed and then put on hold by the current Mayor Labeaume’s team, stating that SRB is too expensive (wouldn’t the 3rd link project be loads more expensive?). I myself am also not too crazy about the SRB. I would much rather have a métro or tramway, but I digress.

Jean-Marc Léger, Jacques Nantel and Pierre Duhamel explain in their book Le code Québec :

[People in Quebec City] are more involved in their community life, identify more with their city than with their province or country, and are interested in municipal politics. It's simple. They are civil servants who value the private sector. They are proud people who cherish individual freedoms, but who mobilize quickly for common causes. In short, they are rebellious conservatives who also demand change. From a Montréal perspective, these are contradictions difficult to understand. That is why many Montréalers often talk about the mystery of Quebec City.

A short time ago, I caught a new TV show called Les Simone, where the first episode presented a Quebec City woman who had spent some time in Montréal. When her boyfriend picked her up to drive back to Quebec City, all of the usual clichés were plentiful. He kept on complaining about how bad Montréal smells — too crowded and dirty with pot holes everywhere. Montréal just plain sucks. She wasn’t quite so critical and said that the city had its charms. The shows plot followed her leaving him after he told her that he was on the verge of buying a typical suburban house across the street from a cemetery. She then went back to Montréal and began a bit of partying, seemingly not yet wanting to “settle down” to a more conventional suburban life.

On one of my recent trips to Montréal, I stopped at the neighborhood restaurant, Les belles sœurs, and while at the counter I struck up a conversation with two servers and the cook. Upon hearing that I live in Quebec City, they presented me with the line about how racist Quebec City is (and how supposedly better and cosmopolitan Montréal is) and congratulated themselves on living in Montréal. But sometimes you have to bring some context and nuance. Montreal wasn’t in the past, nor is today a little hipster paradise where everyone gets along and tolerates anything and everything. For example, Mathieu Lapointe in “Nettoyer Montréal” explains:

The generation born during the Second World War or after lived through the long period when Mayor Jean Drapeau reigned supreme at the Montréal City Hall. For them, Drapeau had become the embodiment of a paternalistic and unshakable power, vaguely megalomaniac, insensitive to social issues and the perverse effects of a modern urban development centered on the automobile, as well as other “big projects” (Expo 67, Olympic Games, etc.).

Then there’s the famous radio poubelle (trash radio) of the Quebec City region. People hear many things about it, but I’ll try to be objective. The pejorative term radio poubelle refers to the talk radio style with little real content and puts more of an emphasis on trying to attract the largest number of listeners, often to the detriment of pertinent and “intelligent” content. The label started to stick in the 2000s, when several Québec media outlets and academics began referring to the style and content of some animators of stations like Blvd 102.1 or CHOI-FM (Radio X). Jean-François Fillion, André Arthur, Sylvain Bouchard, Jonathan Trudeau and Stéphane Dupont supposedly represent this trend in Quebec City. It is said that the hosts of these stations have nothing good to say about the Parti Québécois, the Bloc or Québec sovereignty in general and are strongly anti-union. Others even say that it’s right-wing radio (though I beg to differ, it’s more liberal in the classical use of the term).

One of those personalities, Jean-François Fillion (going by the name of “Jeff” Fillion, which I can only imagine is because he is of that ilk in Québec who think everything in English is better) has been the target of much controversy. In 2007, he and Patrick Demers (owner of CHOI-FM) were ordered to pay $593,000 to the ADISQ and a few others, after apparently questioning the ADISQ’s credibility, calling them a music industry mafia, while personally insulting certain individuals, calling them things like “cow” and “cunt.”

Regarding language and nationalism, the stations seem pretty federalist and anglophile, though they broadcast in French to a francophone audience. That being said, wouldn’t it be in their interest to at least promote the French language instead of always having a chip on their shoulder about it? What would their careers be without French? Something tells me that Mr. Fillion thinks that everything the Anglophones do is better. Whether or not that’s true, he’s still putting that idea out there and people believe it. They think Québec is awful and that everything would be better with more English. I also read was that Demers considered the host Gilles Parent of not being a true radio X-er (which is apparently what they call listeners and staff at CHOI-FM) because of his insufficient interest in rock music (I imagine this means US pop-rock). Shows where their values are.

Recently, I heard Jonathan Trudeau say that “if the French language is in decline, the fault lies with francophones themselves, so quit complaining about anglophones and allophones.” While there may be some truth to this, it is not that simple. Look at the kind of comments their listeners leave on social media. They say that something is pathétique or that they want to supporte something. The average person cannot be bothered to look up a word in a dictionary to make sure they are using it correctly. Calling something pathétique in French means that you are moved emotionally. Saying you supporte someone means that you can barley tolerate them, not that you want to offer your support, in the English sense of the term. The right word is soutenir in French. The public murders their own language though the constant exposure to English and that, coupled with bad attitudes from anglophiles like Jonathan Trudeau, the radio personalities and public are incapable of seeing that constantly being surrounding by English has a detrimental effect on our French language. Is Fillion’s and Trudeau’s way of thinking preventing them from seeing this flagrant reality?

In numerous ways, many of these radio hosts do nothing but work the base desires of their listeners. Turn things into a spectacle, into comedy, make fun of people, attack the person, not their ideas, etc. This kind of tactic is as old as time. Offer them bread and circuses, dumb down everything so that everyone can understand and make it funny so that they keep listening. Not all the radio poubelle folks are this way, but many are and this is why they have their reputation (and their audience).

Is the so-called radio poubelle of Quebec City really such an important factor? When I listen to it, I hear both good and bad content. I like it when they grill politicians and don’t seem to be afraid of calling a spade a spade. Much of the media in Québec tiptoes around sensitive topics instead of addressing them full out. The radio poubelle has a style that sounds like your average Joe complaining over a few drinks, which can be quite funny. The negative side is how much they like English (to the detriment of French), how they so often talk about the superiority of cars and highways and their aversion to public transport, with snide remarks, claiming that “nobody wants it.” What we need are more highways, because everyone apparently has a car and cars are freedom. However, they were almost unanimously for the amphithéâtre (Centre Vidéotron), which was a pretty expensive project for a flimsy idea of one day attracting a hockey team in Quebec City. Does this touch on the so-called Québec-Montréal rivalry, explaining why Quebec City wants a hockey team so much, as a way of saying: “we exist too!” I’m sure there are plenty of people attached to their cars in Montréal, and I am not anti-automobile. But I would also like things within the city to be reasonably accessible with public transport. Why should people NEED a car to get to work, go to the park or go grocery shopping?

Returning to Le code Québec, pages 152-153:

On October 19, 2015, the Conservative Party won 10 of the 12 ridings in the Quebec City area and 10 of the 12 ridings during the federal election. It was the most recent manifestation of what some commentators, researchers and politicians call the "mystery of Quebec City," a phenomenon so named by Montrealers to show their incomprehension at the propensity of the citizens of the old capital to behave differently from those of the rest of Quebec on many aspects. For Quebec City, it’s rather the Montréalers who distinguish themselves from the rest of Quebecers. The city counts 87% of the 974,900 foreign-born people during the 2011 census, representing 23% of the total population of the city. 

Moreover, the vast majority of Quebec's English-speaking population lives on the Island of Montréal. This gives the metropolitan region a distinct characteristic distinct from other regions of Quebec, which are more homogeneous both demographically and culturally. The population of Québec as a whole recognizes three great advantages for the Québec City region: the beauty of the city, the proximity to nature and the fact that this city is predominantly francophone. Conversely, Montreal is recognized for its transportation system, cultural activities and access to all services. The relationship with Quebec City is more emotional, whereas that with Montréal is more rational.

Although Quebec City has also voted bleu in the past, why do people generally vote more on the so-called right (except in the city center riding of Taschereau)? I don’t think the blame can be placed on the radio poubelle, at least not as much as many say it does. Why is there a supposed hostility to public transport, but an openness to individual cars (and consequently the highways necessary)? Why do they seem to admire English and run around talking about how things like the loi 101 are preventing economic growth or that a greater anglophone population in general is no problem, as the francophones are at fault if French declines? The radio in Quebec City often provide a fast-food version of history, while other media outlets tend to provide a fragmented version, making it next-to-impossible to connect the dots and get a clear picture of what’s going on in our society.

So what could be going on? I did a bit of sleuthing and, while nothing I found explains the differences, I did find some food for thought. I read about the Educational reform form the 1960s, usually shortened to the Commission Parent, which was an investigation on the educational situation of Québec in the 1960s, with the Rapport Parent, responsible for things like the creation of the Ministère de l’éducation du Québec, mandatory schooling until 16 years of age and the creation of CÉGEPs to replace the classical and Catholic education institutions.

The context of the Rapport Parent concerned a debate on the historical cause of the economic inferiority of French Canadians. The Commision d’enquête Laurendeau-Dunton on bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada showed statistically that French Canadians were the poorest ethnic group in the country, followed only by recent Italian immigrants and Amerindians. From this point, two schools of thought contested the reasons to explain this phenomenon—the École de Montréal (School of Montréal) and the École de Québec (School of Quebec City).

For the TL;DR crowd, here’s a quick graph illustrating the main differences between the two schools of thought.

From the book L’histoire nationale à l’école québécoise, page 338, the École de Québec from Université Laval, under the direction of Marcel Trudel, Jean Hamelin and Fernand Ouellet proposed the thesis that the economic lag among French Canadians was largely due to the superiority of the “Protestant Work Ethic” regarding capitalism, which was inspired from German sociologist Max Weber. This school of thought viewed the British conquest as having many beneficial effects, especially economically speaking. They had the idea that it was better to have good relations with the rest of Canada (ROC) and not rock the boat. In short, the École de Québec is usually thought of as bonne-ententiste. The solution to French Canadian economic inferiority is that Quebec should abandon classical and Catholic pedagogy in favor of an Anglo-American teaching style, seen as more pragmatic and scientific for economic competition—in the spirit of the “struggle for life” idea. Generally, Quebec City is liberal (in the classical sense) and thinks we should make an effort to get along with the ROC because, after all, they are not so bad, are nice to us and are better at making money.

So, from the École de Québec point of view, we should be more like the British and Protestants, but still be Catholic and Francophone? Am I missing something? Does this help explain the favorable attitude of cars and highways in order to be more like the Americans? 

By contrast, the École de Montréal, established at the Université de Montréal, under the direction of the historians Michel Brunet, Guy Frégault and Maurice Séguin, was inspired by Lionel Groulx and insisted that the underlying cause of the French Canadian economic inferiority was due to the 1760 British conquest and the negative effects thereafter. Differing from the École de Québec, which perceived that the economic lag was due to Catholicism and that the arrival of the British was beneficial on just about all levels, the École de Montréal’s vision of history is much more nationalist and presents the Conquête as a fundamental military defeat that had tarnished everything that came afterward in Québec’s history.

The École de Montréal asserts that only the independence of Québec could remedy this situation in any real and meaningful way, as long as such a thing remains possible (given the mass immigration policies we have today). The founding of the Parti Québécois in 1968 and the rise of the Québec independence movement in the following decades are directly linked to the École de Montréal.

And then there’s Rémi Guertin, who wrote a doctoral thesis on the structure of Quebec City in which he devoted a full chapter on the mystery of Quebec City. Mr. Guertin believes that Quebec City originated from the regions and purchases symbols of urbanity (such as the Centre Vidéotron, the Le Phare real estate project, a new airport, a congress center) in an effort to forget its regional situation and to prove that it is not just a city of civil servants. The frustration of always trailing behind Montréal and the reality of being a “provincial city” despite its status as the Capitale-Nationale would explain the mystery of Quebec City.

Another line from Le code Québec, page 155, went something like this: “the people of Quebec City are proud. They demand respect for their difference. They are the Capitale-Nationale, the center of Québec, the heart of the nation.”

Generally, I found Le code Québec to be a feel-good book, with a pat-on-the-back writing style. For me, while I like living in Quebec City, people here, and more precisely those in its suburbs, seem to be disenchanted with their language, culture, history and French-speaking identity. They are unwilling to assume the role that the capital of Québec must play. They are indifferent to the fact that the French language in Montréal is diminishing and consequently deny that this affects them because this isn’t so much the case in Quebec City (yet).

While I still cannot explain the origin of the differences between the two cities, I think the Rapport Parent had some interesting things to say about the differences, while not explaining them. It seems perfectly obvious to me that without independence, we’ll just disappear. The basic question that Quebec City folks need to ask themselves is this: do you prefer a small provincial capital (resembling a suburb outside of the riding of Taschereau) or the capital of a country and all that this would bring? This would be real control of our resources and economy, dozens of embassies and all the tra-la-la. Maybe we could keep our chars and also have better public transport!

The SJW's Bible - Rules for Radicals

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I’m well aware of the growing presence of a certain portion of people who identify themselves with the political left and are pejoratively called Social Justice Warriors (SJW). Even my little blog is putting me in direct contact with these folks who, thinking themselves rather righteous, believe that there is a huge slew of “injustices,” whether seen or unseen. Not being content with the idea of equality, they are seeking special treatment and privileges for whatever group they deemed oppressed.

You might have already heard of activist Saul Alinsky, who was an American community organizer and is generally considered the founder of modern community organizing. The kind of SJW behavior currently surfacing in online environments isn’t all that new and much of it comes straight from the Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals.  In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky compiled some lessons learned throughout his community organizing experiences and wanted to apply them to the current, new generation of radicals.

Those who are now called SJWs are people who often bring up topics related to social justice. Upon closer inspection, they are mostly concerned with their own reputations, rather than effecting any real change. Wanting to be seen as virtuous and pure, they then toss around cherry-picked historical data in the form in slogans and catch phrases to fit a certain narrative. This opinion piece is a good example of this, providing an erroneous and, at times, outright false portrayal of the history of slavery in Québec.

One of the biggest traits among SJW types is their verbal abuse and bullying. While they are abusing others and calling names, they also play victim and are adept at using crocodile tears. Their favorite words tend to be one of the following: offensive, intolerant, sexist, racist, homophobic, antisemite or islamophobic. They are usually encountered on the internet, as it’s easier to post comments on social media than to actually go out and do something in real life.

Getting back to the book Rules for Radicals, Alinsky promoted the idea of finding an external antagonist and turning it into the community’s “common enemy,” usually a local politician or organisation having some connection with community affairs. Once the enemy is targeted, the masses who make up the community are called to unite in opposition to it. With the external antagonist established, the community's goal is to triumph over their adversary. This is usually done through slander and character assassination. It doesn’t matter whether the accusations are true or not, what counts is that the slanderous portrayal of the enemy sticks in the minds of the masses.

Rules for Radicals encourages exaggerated public demonstrations and protest. Alinsky put forth that his strategies allowed his organization to achieve its goals much more quickly than in regular bureaucratic methods. Perhaps this kind of weltanschauungs wouldn’t be so dangerous if individuals holding such worldviews were at least somewhat tolerant of their fellow community members with whom they disagreed. But today’s radical “far left” has turned social justice into a totalitarian ideology. You’re either with them, or you’re with the racist, murderous and oppressive skinheads.

Here are just a few of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals:

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. There is no defense. It's irrational. And it's infuriating.

Good tactics are ones your people enjoy. This means that your activist minions will keep doing the tactic without needing encouragement or incentive to continue. They're doing their thing and will even suggest better tactics because it’s a fun game. A good example of this would be ganging up on someone through online social media in order to ruin their reputation (professional or otherwise), as in the R v Elliott Twitter case.

If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. This means that something like violence, usually condemned, can win over the public’s sympathy because the public tends to empathize with the underdog. Recently, someone calling themselves a snowflake on Facebook told me that he would be in favor of the death penalty if it meant getting rid of certain “racist groups”. Nevermind that the left has always been against the death penalty. However, some of them are now encouraging it to eliminate their enemies. They are now eating themselves from within.

Never go outside the expertise of your people. Feeling secure makes anyone more courageous. This is why SJW types, culture jammers and whatever else they are called only talk about the immediate here and now. They never analyze the history of ideas or the logical foundation of their worldview, because such research is outside their expertise and they might end up looking foolish.

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the enemy from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. Remember when the Richard Lafferty compared Lucien Bouchard and Jacques Parizeau to Hitler? Or how Québec solidaire still viciously smears the Parti Québécois regarding the now defunct values charter, as if it were an ongoing project? Some of the more radical QS members quite often make caricatures out of old projects in order to personalize and demonize any PQ member (yet they rarely, if ever, have any criticism for the federal government).

Decent people cannot use Alinsky's “rules” because they are too polite, law abiding and honest. They find it difficult to lower themselves to the depravity necessary to effectively contest the rising menace of the fanatical SJW. They bully people into submission and censor the free speech of others. They get people fired from their jobs, thus preventing people from feeding their children or having a sense of independent livelihood. They engage in violence and property damage and think this is OK. Their self-delusion is probably the worst thing. They honestly believe themselves to be tolerant, open-minded and advancing their cause for the benefit of society as a whole. 

Bottom line, these ideologues recognize a worldview based only on their emotions and their subjective experience. Reality and people’s lives do not matter. Their ends justify any means.

What are Québec solidaire anglophones really like?

« Version française ici »

Our current conceptions of egalitarianism came out of philosophical presuppositions emerging from the Enlightenment. From medieval nominalism came the modern tradition putting forth that objects in the world do not actually possess “natures,” but rather are assigned metaphysical categories and “essences” by a human conceptual framework. Thus, human nature is a tabula rasa. A large part of modernity is built upon the false notion that the source of mankind’s ills are located in differences — race, religion, language, gender, etc.  If these can be obliterated through a revolutionary myth which places all blame on class warfare, hierarchy, gender warfare, etc., then the humanistic gospel can finally create some distant utopia.

Maybe some leftists are realizing that humans do look to leaders and don’t always operate as rational, atomic units. Average folks always clings despairingly to clichés. Take them away and people have to do their own research, their own thinking and deciding. On a deeper level, can one really expect this sort of elitist behavior from ordinary people? Having recently watched a video conference organized by Québec solidaire: “Defeating the Liberals, what role for the anglophone left,” I am left wondering what role indeed does the left have? Having briefly flirted with QS back in 2007-08, I sort of understand their world view. That flirt, however, didn’t last long. Now I tend to see the left digging their own graves for their eventual post-modernist death in nihilism. 

They begin by giving the usual line about how anglophones use words like “dépanneur” and “terrace,” so we shouldn’t worry if francophones speak franglais, meaning that anglophones using a few gallicisms here and there means that French is in no way threatened and we are living in a pluralistic and exciting “crossroad of culture” and other inane and empty catch-phrase type declarations.

Following the first speaker’s brief introduction, at around the 12:50 mark, the second speaker, Nora Loreto, proclaims that if one is “progressive,” then one of the fundamental starting points is recognizing a people’s right to self-determination (I can only guess she is specifically referring to Amerindian nations). According speaker #2, while most progressives recognize this, those same progressives do not support Québec self-determination and sovereignty.

She says that all peoples have the right to “govern themselves in a traditional way… ” Alright. But I wonder… what does traditional mean for the far left? Who are the nation groups that have Québec solidaire’s seal of approval to govern themselves in a traditional way? Would they condone a traditional Catholic Québec society? From what I have seen and heard, such Catholic groups usually get the label “far right” slapped on them and the public is led to believe that those groups are populated with radical and violent skinheads.

At around 13:30, she says that we want to make sure that primarily Québec women are in the work force. Why primarily women? Furthermore, in supporting the right for traditional societies to self-determine, I can’t help but wonder how they would react if such-and-such traditional society decided that women should not work and stay home to raise the family. Is the speaker here suggesting that we should support that group’s choice for women not being part of the workforce in the name of self-determination?

Around the 18:15 mark, it is stated that Québec solidaire so often ends up defending itself in a right-wing sovereignty framework. The lady doesn’t seem to know her history, for if she did, she would know that Québec sovereignty, as we know it today, has been a predominantly left-wing movement since the Quiet Revolution, following the death of Maurice Duplessis. Only very recently has the PLQ begun framing it as a supposed far-right world view — in the European political party style like the Front national or Sverigedemokraterna. They know that such neurolinguistic programming gets people to associate Québec self-determination and sovereignty with Nazism, xenophobia and mass murder, which works only to the detriment of the sovereignty movement as a whole (and keeps the Québec Liberals in power).

Of course she brought up the supposed rise of right-wing ethnic nationalists in Quebec as one of the most pressing crises that our society faces, dramatized with a few anecdotes regarding one of the supposed right-wing groups carrying banners with Nazi-era symbols in her Quebec City neighborhood. Did she take a picture of the supposed Nazi-era sign? Because after having asked around, I was told that this is a bare faced lie. Seriously, think about it. It would be way too cartoonish and stupid for these groups to display Nazi symbols on their banners. It would be social and political suicide. Does anyone really believe that these people have the luxury of doing something so socially frowned upon and then expect no harm brought to their professional reputations and their ability to earn a living? Don’t the people in these “far right” groups also have lives, families, mortgages and cars to pay for? I swear, it seems that certain “activists” start with a certain belief and then go about looking to confirm their bias instead of dealing with the facts as they are presented. Then when they don’t find anything supporting their bias, they either exaggerate or outright make things up, just to say: “See, I told you! Quebec City is run amok with skinheads.” What can I say to that?

She also curiously said that the aforementioned group were distributing pamphlets calling for a boycott against multinational corporations like Starbucks and to support our local businesses. Isn’t this a good thing? Is this why such people are now being called the “regressive left”? They are now defending multinational corporations to the detriment of mom and pop stores.

Around 19:00, the second speaker closed with more questionable words: “[at Québec solidaire] we will come up with the best arguments and strategies to shut down the haters, [in any way that] we can”. I would like to know how she defines “haters” and “hate” as well as what “shutting down” actually entails. Sounds like shutting down, through slander and character assassination, anyone who doesn’t agree with you. What about defending freedom of speech? That means also defending speech that goes against your ideaology. Maybe they should come up with better arguments instead of “shutting down” people with other opinions.

The third speaker didn’t have much to say worth noting here, aside from stating, at 23:00, that he is a progressive, but not a separatist. So, does  speaker #2 still like him? After all, she did say that being progressive means supporting self-determination/sovereignty of a nation.

At around 31:30, the fourth speaker begins by declaring that “the issue” (I am assuming the anglo-franco divide) is not about language, but about “[social] class.” This leaves me scratching my head. With Montréal becoming more anglicized every day, with huge amounts of newcomers not knowing, needing to know, or wanting to know how to speak French, with the Liberal government doing almost nothing to protect and promote the French language, how is this possible? How can she just brush aside the very thing that speaker #1 said in the introduction regarding linguistic diversity that cited Montréal as “one of the cultural capitals of the world”? French is at the center of this debate, which is something QS has always been lukewarm about. This is a typical red-herring among anglophones, trying to take attention away from the very real problem of the anglicization of Montréal and splitting hairs on typical tired old Marxist class struggle gobbleygook. They would not be sitting there talking about any of this if Québec were just another anglophone province or US state.

At around 34:00, she spouts out the similar misinformation that speaker #2 said, that most of the sovereignty movement has been promoted by nationalist and racist right wing organizations. Again, anyone with an inkling of Québec history would know that the post-Quiet Revolution sovereignty movement has been primarily on the left. How can they keep on affirming such uninformed falsehoods? And what about Québec solidaire? Are they not part of the sovereignty movement? Is this to say that they are on the right?

This speaker also states that she thinks Québec solidaire has the most interesting program out there, but fails to give any examples of the superiority of their program. And she is left pondering why Québec solidaire does not get the immigrant and Amerindian vote. Well, that’s easy. Because people falling into those categories vote overwhelmingly Liberal. This is why QS needs a convergence with the PQ. There is no other way around it. The majority of immigrants and Amerindians do not live in Mile End or the Plateau. They don’t see things the same way QS does. Furthermore, at 35:30, she says that Québec solidaire is too pale, male and stale (and francophone). Apparently white, francophone (older?) men need not apply.

At 36:00, while vaguely addressing a possible PQ-QS convergence and further demonizing the Parti Québécois (which she called, in bad faith, the Parti Québecor), she asks: “why would we ally ourselves with a party that won’t question the economic or democratic political structure that is the very problem we have?” Again, she is talking about class struggle and thinks sovereignty isn’t a good enough base on which the PQ and QS can ally themselves. When are the folks at Québec solidaire going to realize that nothing can be done without sovereignty? None of their grandiose ideas can happen without the self-determination they claim to support. Even Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois (QS male spokesperson candidate) recognized that in his campaign launching speech.

While talking about Montréal’s “new anglophones,” she reduces Indians and Pakistanis to being poor wretches who are desperately trying to earn their living, implying that expecting French from them is somehow cruel and cold-hearted. Does she mean that these people have absolutely no social/linguistic responsibility to the society that welcomes them? She puts them in a non-aggressor position by comparing them to the historical wealthy and white anglophone oppressor in Westmount. I know that the left likes to see everything in binaries. Oppressor vs. Oppressed. Man vs. Woman. Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat. However, life is not a simple as the Oppressor/Oppressed dialectic. The (anglophone) South-Asians she mentioned may not be the historical anglophone that is rich and white, but they too are being used as pawns by the ideology behind multiculturalism. So, in this binary world view, while they are not direct oppressors, they are instruments of this oppression against the French language, because, heartfelt wishes aside, the end result is further anglicization of Montréal, more tension between various ethnic groups and further political divide between English and French.

At around 40:00, she also reiterates the old adage that “Italians were refused entry to French schools,” not seeming to be aware of the St-Léonard crisis that largely led to bill 101. I get that some Italians were, once upon a time, made to feel unwelcome in French-language schools, but how can anyone believe this cartoonish story about all the mean French nuns who were cruel to poor Italians, forcing them into the open arms of the kind English schools? What does she base this on? A few anecdotal stories? Anyway, I already addressed this in my text Allophones who are really anglophones.

One final incongruous thing she said was that the language someone speaks doesn’t define their political views. Has she ever seen an electoral map? The ridings where English is more commonly spoken are always, without exception, Liberal.

Toward the end, at around 45:00, Amir Khadir said that Québec solidaire’s militants have been lazy about not reaching anglophones—which is true. He expresses puzzlement over why their message — so inclusive, so just, so right — didn’t reach the masses they expected from their 2006 beginnings. Well, probably because Québec solidaire refuses to cooperate with other parties that should be their sovereignist allies.