Chesterton on Religious Wars

"Oh, you kings, you kings!" cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. "How humane you are, how tender, how considerate! You will make war for a frontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for the precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the things that make life itself worthy or miserable—how humane you are! I say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars but the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the religious wars. For these men were fighting for something that claimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man. A Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man, king or tinker, that it could really capture."

~The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Facebook Miscellany 1/13 - 1/26

The most important news on the internet: J.J. Abrams to direct Star Wars VII. To me, this is wonderfully good news, as I have enjoyed all the Abrams films I've seen. According to IMDB, "'Argo' director Ben Affleck was also in contention [to direct]." (Insert huge gasp of relief here.)

I think the funniest response I've seen so far has been this one:

Star Wars Episode VII: Revenge of the Lens Flair

A note on why I like him: of the first three Mission Impossible movies, (the ones I've seen), #3 (directed by Abrams) was my favorite, while #2 (directed by John Woo) was an abomination that ought to be fed to the ravenous bug-bladder beast. What is interesting is that, in M:I2, the villain threatened to release a virus that would kill billions, and yet I could not motivate myself to care if the hero succeeded (I was hoping he wouldn't, so the heroine would be forced to throw herself off a cliff). In M:I3, we are never told what  plot the villain is attempting. There is no on-screen threat beyond the hero and his new bride. And yet I cared intensely.

And getting me to care about Tom Cruise is a feat in itself.

QFT

"If you're going to come here and get our food, bedding and clothing, have books and medical supplies for no charge, they need to give back. There's a lot of takers here and they feel entitled." [Emphasis added.]

--Lauren Digioia, member of the OWS Sanitation Comittee, on the vagrants in Zuccotti Park, quoted in the NY Daily News.

(H/T Mike Flynn)

Chesterton Quote of the Day/Week/Month

For you mothers.


Supposing it to be conceded that humanity has acted at least not unnaturally in dividing itself into two halves, respectively typifying the ideals of special talent and of general sanity (since they are genuinely difficult to combine completely in one mind), it is not difficult to see why the line of cleavage has followed the line of sex, or why the female became the emblem of the universal and the male of the special and superior. Two gigantic facts of nature fixed it thus: first, that the woman who frequently fulfilled her functions literally could not be specially prominent in experiment and adventure; and second, that the same natural operation surrounded her with very young children, who require to be taught not so much anything as everything. Babies need not to be taught a trade, but to be introduced to a world. To put the matter shortly, woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren't. It would be odd if she retained any of the narrowness of a specialist. Now if anyone says that this duty of general enlightenment (even when freed from modern rules and hours, and exercised more spontaneously by a more protected person) is in itself too exacting and oppressive, I can understand the view. I can only answer that our race has thought it worth while to cast this burden on women in order to keep common-sense in the world. But when people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.


--G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with he World, Part 3 "Feminism, or the Mistake about Woman", III "The Emancipation of Domesticity".

Quote of the Day/Week/Month.

While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.

On the question of the individual's freedom of choice there are easily available birth control methods and information which women may employ to prevent or postpone pregnancy. But once life has begun, no matter at what stage of growth, it is my belief that termination should not be decided merely by desire.

I share the confidence of those who feel that America is willing to care for its unwanted as well as wanted children, protecting particularly those who cannot protect themselves. I also share the opinions of those who do not accept abortion as a response to our society's problems -- an inadequate welfare system, unsatisfactory job training programs, and insufficient financial support for all its citizens.

When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.

Sincerely,

Edward M. Kennedy (ca. 1971)

How far he fell.

Quote of the Day/Week/Month.
Posted here because it's too long for twitter.

The second fight scene is so stupid and so lacking in motive and logic that not only was my suspension of disbelief unsuspended, it fell to the ground along with the aching jawbone of my incredulity, nay, it was driven below the bedrock as if by a piledriver, and ended up somewhere south of a coal mine shaft. The stupidometer — that most useful device which measures the suckitude of things that suck in sucky movies — not only hit the pin at ten, it pushed past the pin, wrote in the number eleven, pointed at that, quivered, uttered the rite of extreme unction, and burst into flame.

QFT, John C. Wright.

Quote of the Day/Week/Month.

From an e-mail I received....

"Here's the information related to the 2 products installed on one of our PC's user."

In Soviet Russia, PCs install software on you!