On this Remembrance Day, let us pray for the souls of soldiers who fought with integrity for principles we have abandoned without integrity, and also for those who weren't sure what they were fighting for (2 Macc. 12). And whatever Canadian authorities in Canada presume to permit or forbid, let us direct our prayers precisely to the LORD God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How peculiar, and how unacceptable, that a military deprived by the government of physical equipment should seek to deprive its soldiers of spiritual equipment as well.
Great essay. At least in the US, the government and the wider culture seem focused on what remains of our Christian culture with particular focus on the family.
BTW...The Thanatos Syndrome is a great book and Percy was a prophet but my heart belongs to the Moviegoer.
You have absolutely nailed all the issues we are facing in this world today, succinctly and precisely. Personally, I am always reminded of 2 Timothy 4:3-4 these days: "For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths."
As one who moved from Montreal to New Orleans I have come to regard Douglas Farrow and Walker Percy as two of the most profound authors of this troubled age. Thank you
"Most dictatorial regimes combine a discourse of victimhood with a need for revenge in order to place themselves outside the law and present their appetite for conquest as a concern to protect the vulnerable. By invoking the persecuted of yesterday, they justify new persecutions that are built under the auspices of freedom and justice. This is particularly evident in the case of radical Islam, which wraps its global and totalitarian ambitions in the language of oppression—Hamas, like ISIS, gave us the human abattoir sanctioned by God... For the oppressed, there is no such thing as human evil, there are only evil circumstances. In the ideology of absolution, an act is nothing more than a symptom and it melts into the surrounding determinism like sugar in tea. Thus, many hurry to excuse Hamas’s barbarism with reference to extenuating context."
Last word to AJH: Worlds apart, you say. There is indeed an enormous difference between those who think that Palestinian grievances justify Palestinian atrocities and those who don't. That is the one point that matters here. Not your or my interpretation of the past, present, or future of Middle East politics, or of Zionism and anti-Zionism in its various forms, to which I have not spoken. You may appeal to your politics. I will appeal to my principles. I don't believe in doing evil that good may come, just as I don't believe in calling evil good or a lie truth. But now this must suffice, since we are merely repeating ourselves.
Really? I read this last night and couldn't make sense of it. And I look forward to what you write.
It makes me wonder if my thinking is lost, that I don't want to massacre Palestinians, that I struggle to find compassion for the Jews - frankly, now, worldwide - that tolerate this poison. That the US is every bit a Nazi nation like Ukraine, like Israel. I wonder if my thinking is broken that I'm not willing to give the Israelis - and Jews too - unswerving support. To send them my money and resources so they can slaughter. Where did I fall off the wagon, what's wrong with me?
Was it Arlo Guthrie? Did he have it right, sitting on the 4w bench getting everyone else to chant "I want to kill". Myabe I'm messing that up with someone else.
IDF snipers shooting children. Really? Out of all the people /in the hospitals/ they shoot at, they target the children?
I was looking forward to your thoughts on "something big". Because there /is/ something bigger going on, but humanity melting down isn't specific enough for my understanding. And yes, it is related to utilitarianism and the general loss of faith as an underpinning for action.
There is something big going on. And it is inside each of us.
I said nothing about "unswerving support". I have said something about uncritical reception of the "Jews massacring Palestinians" narrative, particularly when used as a way of avoiding the obvious facts of 7 October. I stand by it.
I thought you wouldn't presume to come to any conclusions about what transpired with the Israel government or maybe even Hamas-Mossad complicity on the way to 7 Oct. even though this topic has been front and centre since day one. Israelis generally know about out but Christian Zionists don't want to know, apparently
I'm not sure what problem that solves. For the record, I am anything but an admirer of Netanyahu. Neither am I an apologist for, or much of a judge of, Israeli policies and actions in Gaza before or after Oct. 7. I am suspicious of those who confidently opine on such things without first-hand knowledge. I do, however, completely reject the charge of genocide (cf. andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-genocide-canard-against-israel-c66). And I do believe that Hamas must be destroyed, so far as that is possible within the application of just war principles. But much of this is beside my point. Has my point been grasped?
The problem is Douglas that even in what today may be (with emphasis on 'may be') just wars, there are still heartless leaders willing to sacrifice human beings to achieve certain ends. That is another form of the demonic if I've grasped your point.
Destroying Hamas makes it sound like an ideology is being destroyed. That's what should happen. Instead, it is currently a destruction of human life. Killing in self defense is what might have happened during the initial attack on Israel. At the moment, it's beyond that. And the human lives being destroyed had mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, children, friends etc. Those people will now be consumed with hate and fueled by a desire for revenge. That's not even considering those who couldn't care less about Palestinians but will use current events as an excuse to attack Israel.
That the world is populated by sinners, that some sinners sin more gravely than others, that all sin has consequences beyond our control, that violence begets violence, that to make excuses in sins is to speak words that are evil not good—all this should be affirmed.
That nations great and small fight unjust wars, or fight just wars unjustly, is true. That the innocent thus suffer injustice is certain. That there are righteous and unrighteous in every nation is also true. That wicked and deceitful men, to say nothing of foolish men, are often to be found in power is true.
But Hamas is not merely an ideology. It is an organization, in a nexus of organizations, comprising people who have adopted genocidal policies and who do their best to carry them out—atrocities against Israelis and atrocious consequences for their own neighbours be damned. Such people must be fought, not merely their ideology, and they must be fought with lethal force. Here see 2 Maccabees 12, for example, though many questions arise from that text that are not easily answered, and Israel today is arguably even more compromised by idolatry than the Israel of that time.
Just war is not just about self-defence. It is also about judgment and punishment, with a view to reestablishing some approximation of a just peace. That is a very high standard to meet, to be sure, and it is seldom met properly. Certainly it wasn't met properly in the Great War(s) of the last century, whose fallen we are presently remembering, which is a major reason for the mess we are in today. But as I said in "Beware the Beast," following Solovyov, the fight against evil cannot be shirked. Where the nations are concerned, it cannot be conducted (as the French version of our anthem says) without knowing how to bear both the cross and the sword. Where the Church itself is concerned, it is the cross and not the sword, though even Jesus overturned the tables in the temple and drove out the Mammon worshipers with a whip.
In sum, fighting evil means fighting people as well as ideas and policies. When and how to fight people with physical force are vital questions that just war theory poses and tries to answer. My own view is that the 'when' question is satisfactorily answered in the present case with a 'now'; the 'how' is another matter.
I don't think you grasped my point, Professor. You certainly didn't address it. Hamas was set up by the Israel government to exploit religious sectarianism in order to lead the stateless Palestinians away from the more secular PLO approach. Even now Hamas was exploited by Netanyahu to set up the pretext for the IDF massacre of Amalek. The record of that complicity in the lead up to Oct. 7 is now too weighty for you to simply put your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
The Israeli defence Minister calling Palestinians a bunch of "human animals" seems pretty Talmudic to me. Do you grasp my point?
See the link below to Kevin Barrett's way of looking at it. An American Muslim living in Morocco, Kevin's perspective is much different than yours.
I would say that the weakness of your "point" is that you haven't reflected enough on the perspectives of diverse viewers around the world. You come across, Professor, as rather parochial. In applying "just war principles," would you conduct trials before "destroying" Hamas? When have we seen just war principles being applied to Israeli officials after the IDF's periodic "mowing of the grass" in Gaza?
Do Palestinians have any right of self-defence on their ancestral lands and families, after many of them were violently rendered stateless in 1948? That should be the core topic when it comes to the current discourse about self-defence?
Who are the occupied and who is the occupier? Could Palestinians be on the jury for the trial of Hamas. Or would you just shoot at all Palestinians because you can't say for sure who is inside or outside Hamas?
If you'll forgive me, you didn't really make a point. You didn't respond to my argument, or make an argument of your own. You only pointed me (fair enough) to something you had written, and that in a completely different context. If, for my part, I wished to respond to what you wrote there, I could do so, and that indeed is where I would do so unless I were writing something new to which it was germane. As for what you now say (immediately above), I respond by saying that it looks very like the apology for evil that I always reject, no matter which side is using it.
On this Remembrance Day, let us pray for the souls of soldiers who fought with integrity for principles we have abandoned without integrity, and also for those who weren't sure what they were fighting for (2 Macc. 12). And whatever Canadian authorities in Canada presume to permit or forbid, let us direct our prayers precisely to the LORD God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How peculiar, and how unacceptable, that a military deprived by the government of physical equipment should seek to deprive its soldiers of spiritual equipment as well.
Great essay. At least in the US, the government and the wider culture seem focused on what remains of our Christian culture with particular focus on the family.
BTW...The Thanatos Syndrome is a great book and Percy was a prophet but my heart belongs to the Moviegoer.
You have absolutely nailed all the issues we are facing in this world today, succinctly and precisely. Personally, I am always reminded of 2 Timothy 4:3-4 these days: "For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths."
As one who moved from Montreal to New Orleans I have come to regard Douglas Farrow and Walker Percy as two of the most profound authors of this troubled age. Thank you
Worth reading: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/simonson-gaza-and-israel-and-peace
Also worth reading, by Pascal Bruckner, though here it is necessary to warn of disturbing content: https://quillette.com/2023/12/12/the-genocidal-imagination/
"Most dictatorial regimes combine a discourse of victimhood with a need for revenge in order to place themselves outside the law and present their appetite for conquest as a concern to protect the vulnerable. By invoking the persecuted of yesterday, they justify new persecutions that are built under the auspices of freedom and justice. This is particularly evident in the case of radical Islam, which wraps its global and totalitarian ambitions in the language of oppression—Hamas, like ISIS, gave us the human abattoir sanctioned by God... For the oppressed, there is no such thing as human evil, there are only evil circumstances. In the ideology of absolution, an act is nothing more than a symptom and it melts into the surrounding determinism like sugar in tea. Thus, many hurry to excuse Hamas’s barbarism with reference to extenuating context."
Last word to AJH: Worlds apart, you say. There is indeed an enormous difference between those who think that Palestinian grievances justify Palestinian atrocities and those who don't. That is the one point that matters here. Not your or my interpretation of the past, present, or future of Middle East politics, or of Zionism and anti-Zionism in its various forms, to which I have not spoken. You may appeal to your politics. I will appeal to my principles. I don't believe in doing evil that good may come, just as I don't believe in calling evil good or a lie truth. But now this must suffice, since we are merely repeating ourselves.
Thank you! This is a great read!
Really? I read this last night and couldn't make sense of it. And I look forward to what you write.
It makes me wonder if my thinking is lost, that I don't want to massacre Palestinians, that I struggle to find compassion for the Jews - frankly, now, worldwide - that tolerate this poison. That the US is every bit a Nazi nation like Ukraine, like Israel. I wonder if my thinking is broken that I'm not willing to give the Israelis - and Jews too - unswerving support. To send them my money and resources so they can slaughter. Where did I fall off the wagon, what's wrong with me?
Was it Arlo Guthrie? Did he have it right, sitting on the 4w bench getting everyone else to chant "I want to kill". Myabe I'm messing that up with someone else.
IDF snipers shooting children. Really? Out of all the people /in the hospitals/ they shoot at, they target the children?
I was looking forward to your thoughts on "something big". Because there /is/ something bigger going on, but humanity melting down isn't specific enough for my understanding. And yes, it is related to utilitarianism and the general loss of faith as an underpinning for action.
There is something big going on. And it is inside each of us.
Enjoy this dance: https://t.me/espiritutemplario/66747
r
I said nothing about "unswerving support". I have said something about uncritical reception of the "Jews massacring Palestinians" narrative, particularly when used as a way of avoiding the obvious facts of 7 October. I stand by it.
https://thecritic.co.uk/proving-evil/
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/trudeau-liberals-not-taking-the-threat-of-islamofascism-seriously
I thought you wouldn't presume to come to any conclusions about what transpired with the Israel government or maybe even Hamas-Mossad complicity on the way to 7 Oct. even though this topic has been front and centre since day one. Israelis generally know about out but Christian Zionists don't want to know, apparently
https://www.bitchute.com/video/b9FTIxlTl5wb/
Much to think about here, thanks.
Rather than thinking of the current struggle in terms of Jews and Nazis, how about framing it as Zionists and Palestinians? Here's how I see it.
https://anthonyjhall.substack.com/p/launching-danielle-smiths-premiership
I'm not sure what problem that solves. For the record, I am anything but an admirer of Netanyahu. Neither am I an apologist for, or much of a judge of, Israeli policies and actions in Gaza before or after Oct. 7. I am suspicious of those who confidently opine on such things without first-hand knowledge. I do, however, completely reject the charge of genocide (cf. andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-genocide-canard-against-israel-c66). And I do believe that Hamas must be destroyed, so far as that is possible within the application of just war principles. But much of this is beside my point. Has my point been grasped?
The problem is Douglas that even in what today may be (with emphasis on 'may be') just wars, there are still heartless leaders willing to sacrifice human beings to achieve certain ends. That is another form of the demonic if I've grasped your point.
Destroying Hamas makes it sound like an ideology is being destroyed. That's what should happen. Instead, it is currently a destruction of human life. Killing in self defense is what might have happened during the initial attack on Israel. At the moment, it's beyond that. And the human lives being destroyed had mothers, fathers, sisters, wives, children, friends etc. Those people will now be consumed with hate and fueled by a desire for revenge. That's not even considering those who couldn't care less about Palestinians but will use current events as an excuse to attack Israel.
That the world is populated by sinners, that some sinners sin more gravely than others, that all sin has consequences beyond our control, that violence begets violence, that to make excuses in sins is to speak words that are evil not good—all this should be affirmed.
That nations great and small fight unjust wars, or fight just wars unjustly, is true. That the innocent thus suffer injustice is certain. That there are righteous and unrighteous in every nation is also true. That wicked and deceitful men, to say nothing of foolish men, are often to be found in power is true.
But Hamas is not merely an ideology. It is an organization, in a nexus of organizations, comprising people who have adopted genocidal policies and who do their best to carry them out—atrocities against Israelis and atrocious consequences for their own neighbours be damned. Such people must be fought, not merely their ideology, and they must be fought with lethal force. Here see 2 Maccabees 12, for example, though many questions arise from that text that are not easily answered, and Israel today is arguably even more compromised by idolatry than the Israel of that time.
Just war is not just about self-defence. It is also about judgment and punishment, with a view to reestablishing some approximation of a just peace. That is a very high standard to meet, to be sure, and it is seldom met properly. Certainly it wasn't met properly in the Great War(s) of the last century, whose fallen we are presently remembering, which is a major reason for the mess we are in today. But as I said in "Beware the Beast," following Solovyov, the fight against evil cannot be shirked. Where the nations are concerned, it cannot be conducted (as the French version of our anthem says) without knowing how to bear both the cross and the sword. Where the Church itself is concerned, it is the cross and not the sword, though even Jesus overturned the tables in the temple and drove out the Mammon worshipers with a whip.
In sum, fighting evil means fighting people as well as ideas and policies. When and how to fight people with physical force are vital questions that just war theory poses and tries to answer. My own view is that the 'when' question is satisfactorily answered in the present case with a 'now'; the 'how' is another matter.
I don't think you grasped my point, Professor. You certainly didn't address it. Hamas was set up by the Israel government to exploit religious sectarianism in order to lead the stateless Palestinians away from the more secular PLO approach. Even now Hamas was exploited by Netanyahu to set up the pretext for the IDF massacre of Amalek. The record of that complicity in the lead up to Oct. 7 is now too weighty for you to simply put your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist.
The Israeli defence Minister calling Palestinians a bunch of "human animals" seems pretty Talmudic to me. Do you grasp my point?
See the link below to Kevin Barrett's way of looking at it. An American Muslim living in Morocco, Kevin's perspective is much different than yours.
https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/israel-will-lose-heres-why/
I would say that the weakness of your "point" is that you haven't reflected enough on the perspectives of diverse viewers around the world. You come across, Professor, as rather parochial. In applying "just war principles," would you conduct trials before "destroying" Hamas? When have we seen just war principles being applied to Israeli officials after the IDF's periodic "mowing of the grass" in Gaza?
Do Palestinians have any right of self-defence on their ancestral lands and families, after many of them were violently rendered stateless in 1948? That should be the core topic when it comes to the current discourse about self-defence?
Who are the occupied and who is the occupier? Could Palestinians be on the jury for the trial of Hamas. Or would you just shoot at all Palestinians because you can't say for sure who is inside or outside Hamas?
If you'll forgive me, you didn't really make a point. You didn't respond to my argument, or make an argument of your own. You only pointed me (fair enough) to something you had written, and that in a completely different context. If, for my part, I wished to respond to what you wrote there, I could do so, and that indeed is where I would do so unless I were writing something new to which it was germane. As for what you now say (immediately above), I respond by saying that it looks very like the apology for evil that I always reject, no matter which side is using it.
Here is Hedges on the subject of our discussion here.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-horror-the-horror