Human sacrifice

Spencer Klavan reviews a documentary about Lily Phillips, the woman who had sex with 100 men in one day for OnlyFans. I will not be watching the documentary, much less OnlyFans – sometimes curiosity can be an ugly thing, and sometimes dangerous to the soul. I'll take Klavan's observations of the documentary as accurate, and avoid the other for obvious reasons.

No one described the situation more clearly, or more fearsomely, than the anonymous viewer who wrote, “So weird, it's like watching someone commit suicide but they are still alive.”

I gather from what Klavan wrote that Lily's words in the interview were of empowerment—the ideology of antinomian liberation—while her manner spoke of torment. The ideology/religion of limitless emancipation demands some examples: prove you mean what you say about limitless pleasure. Even when your nature rebels against the lies your mind affirms.

In 2024 we are all extremely comfortable talking about “systems” of injustice and oppression, disembodied mechanisms and algorithms with the power to influence and entrap us. What distinguishes these forces from those that older authors called “powers of the air?” Less and less, it would seem. The medievals probably attributed consciousness and intention to these powers in a way we do not. Are we more justified than they were?

His description sounds like a human sacrifice.

Banality

Douglas Murray has at Hannah Arendt and her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, citing research that shows she was (at best) duped. He also argues that her cute slogan has contributed to our widespread inability to call evil evil.

I wonder if she read The Screwtape Letters' 1961 preface, "I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin.” The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."

Those quiet men sometimes harbor the wildest evils in their hearts and in their minutes.

You can't unsee it

Naomi Wolf says the old gods have returned. It has been accelerating lately, but I've seen signs of this for more than the three years she thinks--Moloch has been feeding since '73, for example. But there is a greater power than the old gods.

Dickens might have a word to say

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

I don't think the ghosts that will haunt us will be nearly as benign as Scrooge's

Statutes that were not good

because they had not complied with My ordinances, but had rejected My statutes and had profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers. I also gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they could not live

That's one of those tough sections. The best I come up with is that God gives us all logic, and if you follow the logic of your sins to their conclusions, it leads to stupidities: new rules that don't just double-down on evil but extend it in new directions.

Individuals who double-down on sins do tend to shift into greater sin, but the "statutes" aspect seems to apply more clearly to cultures than to individuals, since "rules" develop from groups. The picture I get is of a land where some are faithful and sensible, but the majority cling to syncretism and and from it learn the practices and logic of pagan sacrifices and rituals--in the Ezekiel case including human sacrifice.

We easily see the effects in our society of elevating particular principles to the status of a unique value--the result is Chesterton's virtues gone mad, and when gone mad, gone evil.

With that in mind, it isn't hard to look back at the last century or so and begin to see how Romans 1 isn't as arbitrary as it seems--we've had the misfortune to see it in action.

It still isn't quite enough of a key to unlock all of Ezekiel 16:49-50,52 for me. I still don't quite follow what restoration Sodom and her daughters are supposed to have (Moab and Ammon?), but if the original characteristic sin was arrogance and indifference to the poor, maybe that could have developed into the vileness displayed in Genesis. Perhaps that was their penalty--to embrace what they should have known was wrong.

Dimble: "Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse" The knowledge that his own assumptions led to Frost's position combined with what he saw in Frost's face and what he had experienced in this very cell, effected a complete conversion. All the philosophers and evangelists in the world might not have done the job so neatly.

A British reporter in the South during the Civil War

From My Diary North and South

We visited an old negro, called "Boatswain," who lives with his old wife in a wooden hut close by the margin of the Mississippi. His business is to go to Donaldsonville for letters, or meat, or ice for the house--a tough row for the withered old man. He is an African born, and he just remembers being carried on board ship and taken to some big city before he came upon the plantation.

"Do you remember nothing of the country you came from, Boatswain?" "Yes, sir. Jist remember trees and sweet things my mother gave me, and much hot sand I put my feet in, and big leaves that we play with -- all us little children -- plenty to eat, and big birds and shells." "Would you like to go back, Boatswain?" "What for, sir? no one know old Boatswain there. My old missus Sally inside." "Are you quite happy, Boatswain?" "I'm getting very old, massa. Massa Burnside very good to Boatswain, but who care for such a dam old nigger? Golla Mighty gave me fourteen children, but he took them all away again from Sally and me. No budy care much for dam old nigger like me."

Evil songs

A comment in AVI's repost got me wondering about evil songs.

I don't mean songs that have been used for evil purposes, or which have evil connotations now. Dixie's lyrics aren't exactly wicked. Nor, curiously enough, are Deutschlandlied's.

And I think for the moment I'll classify those that go out of their way to praise evil as "explicitly evil." I'd lump the "I'm so bad" rap songs in here too.

I'm wondering now about the "seductively evil;" songs that seem innocent but aren't.

"Imagine" is pretty obviously a wicked song, cloaked in apparent kindness. Another that jumps to mind is "Gentle on my Mind:" abandoning the lady and expecting her to wait for you is made to seem so natural. "Different drum" has always seemed to corrode the possibility of any relationships--not just romantic.

My impression is that there are a lot of songs designed to aid in seduction; playing up the urgency of the moment and playing down conscience. And I hear of (but don't make a habit of listening to) a number of nihilist songs, many of which seem to be not-so-seductive cries of pain.

I'm not sure searching out and ranking "seductively evil" songs would be good for the soul. But maybe recognizing them is a good way to resist them. What you immerse yourself in effects you.

Life and death

Suppose a patient explained firmly to Dutch doctors that he was not interested in euthanasia and wanted to live his life come what may, but contracted dementia and begged to be killed. We all know what they would do--it happens--in the name of compassion, they would say that now he understood the situation and kill him. On the other hand, someone who, when of clear mind, said she wanted to be euthanized but "that she wanted to determine the right time", when she resists, may be legally held down and poisoned.

Only one choice seems to be respected, and it has nothing to do with your state of mind.

Remind me not to get sick in the Netherlands.

Crab bucket

"Deaf singer Mandy Harvey made headlines around the world after being put straight through to the finals of America's Got Talent. But when she first took to the stage, she received death threats from within the deaf community for promoting a "hearing" activity."

I've heard unpleasant things about Gallaudet University too. There's something very nasty about denying reality for the sake of your pride. They pay a weird homage to the very thing they ought to fight--the notion that someone with fewer skills is inferior. Instead of denying that lie, they implicitly accept it and claim that their skills and culture are equal.

"You are not your disability!" I've preached that, though I try not to be explicit about it. People get tired of hearing the same things. But it sure beats "I am my disability, and you are too, and you'd better get with my program."

Slander

In Romans 1:29-32 the list of sins deserving death includes slander. It might seem disproportionate at first, but go read these stories about how Tim Hunt was forced to resign because of lies by Connie St. Louis, Deborah Blum, and Ivan Oransky, about a Florida man who incited attacks on strangers from his parent's basement and how Pakistan's rent-a-mobs let you deniably kill your enemy for a few bucks with just an accusation.

Maybe slander isn't so supportable after all. A penalty proportional to the injury, perhaps?