Reactionary Entertainment: Black Death: A Review (SPOILER ALERT!)

With thanks to Proph, I watched this 2010 movie the other night. If you can stomach the violence, you might try this one if you’re looking for some lazy weekend entertainment that nonetheless touches on redeeming reactionary principles.

(I say again: SPOILER ALERT! Please do NOT read this review if you think you might watch the movie!)

The movie is variously billed as “horror”, “adventure”, “drama”; I would call it “pseudo-historical drama” with some adventure and horror mixed in. It’s set in 14th-century Europe (it doesn’t get more geographically specific than that) at the time of the Black Death. A group of Christian mercenaries, along with a monk, is enlisted to investigate witchcraft in a remote village. So what makes the film worthwhile? To begin with, as Proph says, the cinematography alone is worth it. As one reviewer puts it:

A savvy, stylish horror-actioner that’s more than the sum of its genre parts, Black Death manages to deliver enough suspense and bloodletting to appease gore fans… Use of grainy stock and a preference for special effects rather than visual or CGI effects gives it a pleasingly retro feel, as does its willingness to explore uncomfortable moral ambiguities. Tech credits create a strong, fetid atmosphere on what looks like a low budget. German locations in Saxony look appropriately beautiful, sinister and ancient all at the same time

Completely agreed. I didn’t realize until I read this review that the movie used no CGI (which I loathe in almost all its forms – why do filmmakers not realize that even today, in 2012, CGI still looks fake?). The reliance on old-fashioned special effects – and there are few enough of those – rather than CGI feels very refreshing and really enhances the medieval atmosphere. The characters and scenery appear gritty and grim; everything looks realistic without going overboard in portraying everyone as hopelessly dirty and lacking in any standard of hygiene (a misconception that Lawrence Auster complained about here).

If you’re an adventurer like me who thrills at the idea of exploring a vast, primeval forest or a mysterious old village, you’ll be captivated by the visuals.

(By the way, Auster’s argument reminds me of something that crossed my mind while watching this film: why is that humans are so versatile? I don’t think we really appreciate how versatile we are. Seven hundred years ago folks were perfectly content living in tiny hamlets, while today – 30? or so generations later – people thrive in vast megacities of millions without losing their sanity. Is this likely if we evolved to dwell in a certain ecological niche?

In fact, I think there’s scientific evidence that we *do* suffer psychologically when deprived of nature. Even so, I think this line of thinking could be developed into an argument that humans have been created with innate potential to be able to fill a wide variety of “niches”. This is the best way to explain how you can take someone, stick him in a remote 14th-century village or a 21st-century metropolis, and he’ll adapt equally well.)

Anyhow, onward:

If you were to predict the message of Black Death based only on the trailer, you would come away convinced that it is an angry and vicious atheist attack of Christianity for the manner in which faith has been historically used as a bloody and vicious bludgeon on those it opposes. As with Osmund, you would be only half right. Turns out screenwriter Dario Poloni and director Christopher Smith (who comes from a horror background and suffuses the film with buckets of blood and hacked limbs) have little love for fundamentalism of any stripe.

I agree with the first half of this assessment, but not the second half, and this is where it gets interesting for a reactionary. I did indeed expect this movie to be a typical, tiresome Hollywood screed; I thought the Christian characters were going to be sundry hypocrites, dullards, and cruel barbarians. But they aren’t. I’m not really an avid movie-watcher, but I must say that I have never seen Christians portrayed so sympathetically on-screen. For the most part, the mercenaries are shown to be men with genuine faith in God. They are not cynics who use the Church for selfish ends, nor are they self-righteous (except by the leftist interpretation that subscribing to any moral code is “self-righteous”). They are not hypocrites, on which more later. Better than any film I have ever seen, except for explicitly “Christian” films, this one takes the realistic and sympathetic perspective of genuinely exploring the characters’ faith struggles – the struggles we all have as believers. Instead of simply mocking faith as “stupid”, instead of smuggling in the none-too-subtle suggestion that all Christians are secret sinners who “don’t really believe in our own religion”, we see a moving depiction of a genuine believer struggling with his sin, even bringing his questions before God. It’s very life-like.

Moreover, I don’t think I have *ever* seen a movie where the Christians’ mission is portrayed as morally entirely in the right, as it is here. There is no secret agenda; the stated mission is not a cynical cover story for some kind of “power grab” by the Church or anyone else; rather, the mercenaries’ purpose is to protect society by bringing some evildoers to justice. It’s possible (likely!) that my own Christian assumptions are colouring my interpretation of the characters’ mission, but to me their mission is one hundred percent within the pale. And in this vein, the pagans, in turn, are not the innocent “noble savages” that we might expect from Hollywood. Without going into detail (in case you’ve read this far but still decide to watch the film), the pagans are every bit as nasty – dare I say, demon-possessed – as we Christians actually believe they can be.

By the time the movie was over, I had naively begun to wonder whether the producers were some kind of Christians, or Christian sympathizers. Proph says not:

The amazing thing about the movie is that providing a balanced depiction of medieval Christendom was far from the producers’ (Euroleftists all) intentions. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of the normal Hollywood fare, in which they try to create a realistic and likable character who instead falls flat; here, they were trying to make a caricatural one-dimension zealot in Ulrich and instead, entirely by accident, produced this fascinating Byronic hero, simultaneously attractively noble and revoltingly cruel.

And here I must agree with that last sentence: the Christians in this movie are not unbelievably heroic. But they are realistic, and that’s what makes the film so good. I don’t want a hagiography, where my heroes can do no wrong, because life isn’t like that. I do want characters that are three-dimensional, and that’s exactly what we get. I kept comparing them to the characters in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), characters whose “Christianity” is used as something to make the plot go, but never really taken seriously. By contrast, in Black Death we see:

-a monk, vowed to celibacy, who sincerely wants to follow God, but is torn between devotion to Him and a sin of the flesh. Just like real life.

-a knight motivated by genuine belief in God and fear of Him, who sometimes makes poor decisions – in particular, subscribing to “good ends justify cruel means”.

-a dumb, “tough guy” mercenary who nonetheless fears God enough to turn down a romp in the sack with a gorgeous lass (I thought for sure this guy was going to turn out to be a stock cardboard Hollywood “street tough” with no real moral fibre. Pleasantly surprising!).

The story’s climax comes when the mercenaries, along with their monk friend, are captured and threatened with death unless they renounce their faith. And I think this is where the film truly blew all my expectations out of the water. Have you ever seen men on-screen who really will not renounce their faith, even in the face of death and torture? I haven’t, though again I admit I am not an avid movie buff.

The climactic scene, Christians bound in chains:

Pagan village leader: “Who will renounce?”

Christians: … silence, glares of defiance …

It’s humbling to watch.

Then after a few minutes:

Pagan village leader: “Again, who will renounce?”

One of the Christians (the only one who has been portrayed throughout as being cynical and weak in his faith): “I will. I will renounce!”

Christian knight (wearing a look of sincerity mixed with fear): “No! You’ll burn in hell!”

As Proph suggested, I think it’s likely that the producers intended to portray the knight as a sneer-worthy “fundamentalist” so rigid in his cruel Christian beliefs that he actually thinks his friend will, you know, burn in hell for betraying Christ. (Can you believe it? Ha ha, this fundie actually thinks his friend is going to burn in hell!) But if so, they dropped the ball. The way it comes off in the film is very deeply moving: it’s clear that this noble man actually cares for his friend’s soul. No unfeeling legalism here, only sincere belief and concern for another’s welfare.

Again, I find it hard to believe that the producers were able to portray a Christian faith this real. Contrast it with the cynical priest in Kingdom of Heaven who, when threatened with imminent Muslim victory, advises his fellows to “convert now and repent later”. I wonder if the filmmakers’ European background wasn’t an influence here; I wonder if their sense of European history, and the reality of violent religious conflict, gives them a greater appreciation for the intensity that Christian faith can have. I don’t think you’d see this sort of stoic steadfastness in a film inspired by wishy-washy American Protestantism.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the post-climactic scene with the pagan atheist who obstinately denies God to the last. The way this was portrayed is maddening; you want to tear your hair out, asking, Why, oh why, are you so obnoxiously stubborn? The scene honestly feels like nothing so much as debating an internet atheist who *will not* see anyone else’s point of view.

All in all, the movie mixes historical drama with some very relevant philosophical questions. Here I quote one final review:

But the questions it raises are not interesting enough for me to feel it justifies watching such Dark Ages torturous material.

Then you are a fool. These are some of the most important questions of life.

Martyrs to Modernity

Those of you in Britain (if I have any British readers!) are so fortunate to dwell in a land awash in history. When I traveled through England, it seemed like I could not walk more than three steps without tripping over some relic that dated from before my country was even discovered. And I don’t mean trivial things; I mean like the time I “just happened” to visit Canterbury Cathedral (because I was waiting for the ride to Stonehenge and had nothing else to do at the moment) and they “just happened” to have a copy of the actual Magna Carta.

Something else I remember almost literally just stumbling across in Canterbury was a martyrs’ monument. I hadn’t planned to visit it; didn’t know it was there until I was walking by and saw that here, at this very place, people were actually burnt at the stake for their faith in Christ. Hard to believe.

Somewhere recently, I saw it suggested that the left has gotten smart about not creating martyrs. The Soviet Union had its martyrs; its satellite states had their martyrs; and much public opinion was turned against those communist regimes because of the martyrs. Today, by contrast, the Cathedral takes care not to literally martyr people in the sense of killing them. Otherwise there would be public outrage. Nevertheless, it has become clear to anyone who follows these issues that the Cathedral’s dictates have become oppressive indeed. Dozens – not one, not two or three – but *dozens* of Christians and other traditionalists have been persecuted for refusing to bow to the secular Baal. Not killed, but often losing their jobs, sometimes their kids.

I haven’t seen a comprehensive list of them, though – the sort of list that makes a person sober up and say, “Wow, there is really something going on here.” Consequently, I’m spearheading an initiative to create a “Roll of Martyrs” to modernity. There have been several dozen over the last few years: people who have lost jobs, been sued, been threatened, and had other bad things happen to them for refusing to compromise their principles. If you want to help out, all you need to do is submit someone in the comments, along with a brief summary of the circumstances of the individual’s persecution.

The Founding Fathers: Overrated

As a salute to the orthosphere, with which I’ve allied myself, I want to assert that the American Founding Fathers were not as ingenious, or as deserving of respect, as popularly believed.

First – and this is a very brief throwaway argument – I want to argue against the tenet of American Civil Religion which deems that America has been so successful largely as a consequence of her “brilliant” Constitution or secular system of governance. Really, would America have become any less formidable had she broken from the Crown more gradually, becoming a British-style parliamentary democracy? Would an alternate-reality North America that somehow became an independent Christian monarchy – a new Byzantium – have failed to thrive? I think not. America owes her power largely to her demographic inheritance and to her abundance of natural resources. As Hitler said (perhaps apocryphally) of Canada: How could any country blessed with such a rich abundance of raw material fail to become great?

In any event, that argument needs more fleshing out than I have time for. So what’s my gripe with the Founding Fathers?

There’s a maxim in business circles – it’s likely, though I am not sure, that I first read it in a Dilbert comic – which says that “your system is optimally designed to get the results you’re getting.” We radical traditionalists – indeed, even mainstream conservatives – complain that “society has gone off the rails” in all sorts of ways, but it seems to me that the current Western socio-political climate is exactly what the American system of government is set up to produce.

Conservatives often protest this. “No, really the Founders *were* brilliant and noble lovers of freedom; the Consitution *is* a work of genius; and the reason things have gone off the rails is that revolutions (social, technological) have occurred that the Founders could not *possibly* have foreseen. It’s not their fault; they did things as well as anyone possibly could have.”

But is this true? It seems to me that a lot of the stuff we see today should really have been quite predictable. For instance, men as learned as the Founding Fathers really should have been able to see that a limited franchise eventually becomes a universal franchise. Perhaps more crucially, they should have grasped that a “secular” state eventually becomes an anti-clerical state, because there is no such thing as “neutral”. We see this clearly today, and we know that the modern ACLU’s conception of “separation of church and state” was not the intent behind the First Amendment, but there is no reason men as intelligent as the Founders should not have foreseen this as well. They had plenty of history and philosophy to draw on, too.

Above all else, it should have been clear that a society organized to exalt “freedom” as the highest good inevitably becomes a society of selfish narcissists whose defining principle is “I want to do what I want, where I want, when I want, and how dare you tell me that I can’t.” In fact, some of the Founders did realize this:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

-John Adams

But they should have done something about it.

And for cripe’s sake, they should have phrased the Second Amendment properly.

So, in contrast to the great dogmas of the American Civil Religion, I think the Founding Fathers of America are overrated. I don’t think that modernity really represents the Constitution gone awry. The system was optimally designed to produce exactly the results that we see.

Clash of Worldviews

The culture war seems to be reaching a crescendo very quickly. There are anecdotes of encouragement here and there (I’ll get to that shortly), but it’s important for Christians to evaluate the evidence in a sober, measured fashion, and weigh it against scripture. If we do, it should not be possible, at this stage, for any of us to miss that ours is a society under terrible, Romans 1-style judgement.

Something occurs to me: we have earned this judgement, internally, through every sort of injustice. But what if, externally, there are actually people in other countries praying for our destruction? We are so accustomed to thinking of ourselves as the “good guys” that we can hardly even entertain such an idea. Yet, consider us from the point of view of someone for whom America is not the center of the world; someone for whom America is simply a foreign busybody, or worse, a foreign monster. I think it’s quite likely that people against whom the West has been waging war (literal, cultural, or economic) might be praying for an end to our power, so that they may be left alone. Sobering, to think that anyone might loathe us so much as to invoke God’s wrath upon us – but wouldn’t you, if you were them?

In any event, I want to tie together several things I’ve been reading in the orthosphere. At Bonald’s, The Man Who Was… offers a brief catalogue of reasons not to despair about the present blackness:


1. However much they have weakened the heterosexual nuclear family, they have utterly failed to install any other sexual arrangement as an ideal.
2. They have failed to convince anybody that unchaste women make just as good mates as anybody.
3. They have failed to convince anybody that modern art/architecture/music is just as beautiful as the truly classic stuff.
4. Though they have managed to slow it to a snail’s pace, they have failed to stop research into HBD.
5. They have failed to find a way to convince liberals to reproduce themselves.
6. They have been forced to conclude that markets are necessary.
7. They have been forced to enact harsher law enforcement to keep crime in check.
8. They have failed to eradicate the traditionally religious from modern societies.


Very worth reading. Leftism is not invincible. And, as Thursday says to a skeptic, if you don’t recognize some of these as leftist causes, that’s because you don’t realize that the left has tried them and actually lost already.


Much more aggressive attempts have been made in communist countries and utterly failed. The irreducibly traditional religious tend to bottom out at around 10% of the population. They’re not going anywhere.


Right. No doubt there are moves afoot to harass traditionalists in petty ways. But consider that the Soviet Union couldn’t eradicate Christian faith. You really think the government of the USA will? Do you truly know what the Soviet Union was, and how hard it tried to exterminate the faith?

And in light of that 10% statistic – which is not scientific but seems about accurate – consider what I said at Mark Shea’s:


In spite of their best efforts to paint it this way, opposition to homosexuality will not become like racism because it’s not like racism, and there is a sizeable cohort who will never agree with it.


The homosexual lobby is pushing too hard, too fast, convinced that their cause is as righteous as the black civil rights movement. They’re wrong, and they will never succeed at making traditional sexual ethics as unacceptable as “racism”. A significant minority of the population will not adopt the sexually nihilistic view.

But – here’s what is going to happen: Christians are going to have to change the way they engage the culture. Let’s look at what Proph has been writing:


What remains? One of the vague and nebulous and ever-shifting “human rights” that leftists make up every five minutes as they continue to work through the logical implications of their poisonous ideology? How can there be such a thing as a “human right” if there is no such thing as “human nature” (which, being positivists and nominalists, they reject)? How can a right to dynamism arise from a nature that is static? Does it arise from the equally vague concept of “human dignity”? Again, how can a person be dignified by nature if he has no nature? And if he does have a nature, why does dignity consist in rebellion against it? How can “human dignity” simultaneously arise from his nature and entail its destruction (and thus the “dignity” which arises from it)? If anything, shouldn’t “human dignity” require that man live according to his nature, with all the unfree obligations that such entails?


There are two things to say:

1) As his debate with a leftist makes clear, leftist views only make sense if we all share leftist assumptions.
2) Sometimes leftism doesn’t make sense even according to its own assumptions. Therefore, it’s vulnerable.

Over the past several decades, as Christianity has become increasingly unpopular; unacceptable; “uncool”, Christians have shrunk from certain lines of argumentation. We no longer like to challenge leftism’s presuppositions; instead, we try to counter leftist arguments using the left’s own rules.

Abortion offers a fine example. To a great extent, pro-life forces have made headway because they appeal to the left’s assumptions by arguing that abortion “harms someone”, and of course “as long as it doesn’t harm anyone” is the cry of our age. Leftists will deny that abortion harms anyone, but the disagreement centers around whether or not a fetus is a “person”, not around basic presuppositions. Both sides accept as a premise that it’s wrong to “harm someone”, and that’s the only issue at stake. There is no challenge to the leftist worldview.

But what’s going to happen – soon, I think, given the pace of events – is that Christians will be forced to stop engaging the culture on its terms, and begin engaging it on God’s terms. To combat homosexuality, we will have to publicly declare that no, not all worldviews are equally valid; not all presuppositions are worth entertaining. We will be forced us to say not that same-sex relations are “wrong” for such-and-such a leftist reason, but because God has ordained a purpose and order for sexuality. We must denounce their whole worldview and assumptions. Homosexuality will force this in a way that abortion hasn’t, because it’s much, much harder to oppose homosexuality from within the framework of leftist assumptions.

And it will be interesting because Christians today are not really comfortable with this. There are debates – again, abortion – where we have become quite passionate and vocal – but within the cage of our culture’s presuppositions. Christians have lost the fire to stand not merely against a trend, but against prevailing, foundational assumptions. We lack the courage to make a statement like, “It’s wrong because there is an absolute standard of right and wrong, and it doesn’t matter whether you believe that or not – and by the way, your worldview is irrational.”

Well, we will have to find the courage. And I think this may be just what God wants, and it may be part of the outcome he hopes for as he judges us. After all:


Revelation 21.8:

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

Blogosphere impact?

Here is a question: how much impact is the blogosphere having on Western discourse? The staple answer is “not a lot, because only nerds read blogs”, but I want to revisit that a little. I remember the Fifth Horseman’s estimate that about 50,000 people are actively engaged in the blogosphere. This sounds like a paltry fraction of the population – but is it a significant portion of the intelligent population? I would bet that a lot of above average-IQ folks, and people in high places – the idea-makers of our society – are getting ideas from online.

Look, for instance, at this lefty’s blog: he garnered a real response from the actual Bruce Bartlett. I don’t know how much influence Bartlett has anymore, but you see my point: who else is silently reading?

So he never married

From John Piper’s This Momentary Marriage, which I recommend to anyone interested in the real meaning of being married:


Dietrich Bonhoeffer was engaged to be married to Maria von Wedemeyer when he was hanged at dawn on April 9, 1945, at the age of thirty-nine. As a young pastor in Germany, he had been opposed to Nazism and was finally arrested on April 5, 1943, for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

So he never married. He skipped the shadow on the way to the Reality. Some are called to one kind of display of the worth of Christ, some to another. Martyrdom, not marriage, was his calling.

Being married in the moment of death is both a sweet and bitter providence. Sweet because at the precipice of eternity the air is crystal-clear, and you see more plainly than ever the precious things that really matter about your imperfect lover. But being married at death is also bitter, because the suffering is doubled as one watches the other die, or even quadrupled if both are dying. And more if there is a child.

Jim

With credit to Hilaire Belloc:

Jim: Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo–
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.

You know–or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so–
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim’s especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!

He hadn’t gone a yard when–Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted “Hi!”

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
“Ponto!” he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion’s name),
“Ponto!” he cried, with angry Frown,
“Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!”
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper’s Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:–
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, “Well–it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!”
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James’s miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

Finest Hour

I haven’t been around much – I have been really, really busy in real life – but today I want to offer a brief tidbit.

The tenor of this blog was awfully negative for a long while, and partly that was something I had to work myself through. I have a streak that tends towards the depressive, pessimistic and bleak; you might say it’s my personal thorn in the flesh to wrestle with. Furthermore, we know, or ought to know, that bad company corrupts good character, and I had been spending too much time on sites whose contributors held worldviews fundamentally antithetical to mine, whatever other merits their writings had. I thought myself able to handle this, much as Obi-Wan Kenobi thought he could “handle” Anakin Skywalker’s nascent power, but like Kenobi, I was wrong. I have adjusted my daily grazing patterns accordingly.

So, of late, I’ve been re-kindling a passion for God and an invariable component of that is a re-awakening of hope and purpose. I had forgotten how much joy and hope comes along with a sincere faith in God – it’s really quite remarkable.

Over the past few months I’ve been drawing some inspiration from music, like the this outstanding song from Battlelore:

There seems to be some debate about the meaning of the lyrics, but my best understanding is that it’s about Gandalf, who in the Tolkien mythology is an incarnate angel sent by the gods to be a light and a guide to the world. It’s kind of like us as Christians, really. Every time we are inclined to get discouraged, let’s remember that it’s not our job to fix this world or make it perfect, because we can’t do that – heaven is the next world. Our task is to act as role models, guiding others towards God as best we can.

I have been away for too long
BUT NOW I KNOW IT’S MY TIME
I shall bow to the greater light
LIKE ALL IMMORTALS I MAKE MY WAY
I have been hiding all the powers
I AM A SERVANT I WILL OBEY
This will be my finest hour
THIS WILL BE MY FINEST HOUR…

Christian brothers and sisters, fellow servants of God and his Christ, there’s battle raging, and now’s your time. Don’t hide your light. Let this be your finest hour!

New Band: Battlelore

Actually, they’ve been around for years, apparently. Anyhow, they’re Finnish, and awesome (those things often go together, I find), and the write heavy metal songs about the LotR universe.

Modern Sexuality: the Next Wave

Firstly, congratulations to Dr. Phi! A Ph.D in engineering is no mean trick.

From the Daily Caller (also on LifeSite):

If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013. Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia.

The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists. According to the conference brochure, the event will examine “ways in which minor-attracted persons [pedophiles] can be involved in the DSM 5 revision process” and how the popular perceptions of pedophiles can be reframed to encourage tolerance.

Of course, the expressed aim is to “encourage tolerance”. We know what that means. I note with an extremely minor sense of reassurance that the American Psychological Association is not explicitly endorsing the conference. But wait for it. Don’t forget that the APA was instrumental in the movement to legitimize homosexuality.

There are folks who denied that legitimizing other non-traditional forms of sexuality would lead to this; I have no further comment for them. There are still those who deny that this movement will ever amount to anything, arguing that this is completely different from previously prominent issues because “children can’t consent”. People making this argument have missed one of the roots of the issue, which is that Western society no longer has any shared basis for moral epistemology. Consequently, traditional ideas about “consent” will be redefined like traditional notions about sexuality and marriage have been. Just as it was said that “marriage is outdated; male headship is outdated; it’s time for divorce laws to catch up to the modern century; and it’s certainly outdated to believe that homosexuals can’t marry”, so too will they say, “well, look, our current view of “consent” is outdated and discriminates against people who have an adult-child sexual orientation. And who are you to say an 11-year-old can’t consent, anyway?”

I wonder, if this movement really picks up steam, whether it will actually trigger a subtle backlash against homosexuality. Of course there will continue to be intense social pressure not to link homosexuality and pedophilia. But when parents think their kids are threatened, they adopt a very protective mindset. My theory is that if pedophilia becomes even slightly mainstream, then privately, parents will begin to worry about their kids even if they aren’t willing to express that fear. Out-of-the-closet homos will be suspected of [i]also[/i] secretly being “child-attracted”.

I also feel, in very strange way, almost as if I have nothing to say about the above story. We knew this would happen. We *told* people this would happen. What can you say when you tell people, and tell people, and tell people, and they don’t listen, and then it happens just like you saw it was going to?