GREENIES AS NATURE-WORSHIPPERS

The enormous irrationality of many Greens has always been something of a puzzle and is certainly reminiscent of much in religion. It has just occurred to me that Nature-worship IS a religion. ALL of us were nature-worshippers not so long ago and most of Asia and Africa still is in various ways. So Greenies are really a reversion to a primitive instinct in us. No wonder they are so passionate. It is faith and instinct we are dealing with here, not reason.

It all begins to fit in now: The decline of Christianity has led to a revival of natural religion.

****************

MUSLIM & SOVIET �FRIENDS� OF THE GAYS

Tim Blair has up a most amusing report about how the Sydney gay organizations were all anti-American and pro-Arab until they went to a meetinfg addressed by Muslim Arab speakers and discovered that the Muslims really wanted to stone them all to death! It sort of blunted their enthusiasm for Muslims for some strange reason!

It reminds me of a talk I went to in the School of Sociology at the University of New South Wales in the 70s which was addressed by a speaker from an official Soviet women�s organization. She was saying how much equality there was for women under Communism. You can imagine how the sociologists (at least one of whom was gay) were lapping it up. THEN someone asked the speaker: �And how do you treat homosexuals in the Soviet Union?� The speaker replied: �We don�t have them under Communism�. Did I laugh!

********************

LEFTIST AUTHORITARIANISM = ARAB AUTHORITARIANISM

One of my correspondents has picked up the link between Leftist love of controlling everything and the way Arab leaders control everything:

If one thinks hard enough one can almost make out why the Left is jerking towards support for Arafat's crew of killers (i.e. 99% of the Palestianian population). The reason is that when you look hard enough what you see in Arafat is a Leftist. Look at the way he runs the PLO in terms of governance, rule of law (lack of), capricious decsion making. This guy is a Leftist and the Left sees this. The same goes for the Ba'ath party in Iraq ( also a socialist party). Take this and add the old line the enemy of my enemy (The US ) is my friend ( PLO, Iraq) and it becomes clear why those low lifes are marching around.

*******************

EVALUATING GOVERNMENTS

Jason Soon at Gene expression has a delicious link (Tuesday 3rd) to some research work by a group of economists. Excerpt:

�We find that countries that are poor, close to the equator, ethnolinguistically heterogeneous, use French or socialist laws, or have high proportions of Catholics or Muslims exhibit inferior government performance.�

***********************

MEDIOCRE BRITAIN

See here for an update on Britain -- soaring crime, ever-declining educational standards, a distrust of excellence generally and a Conservative party with nothing to say -- and hopeless at cricket, of course (despite the England team no longer being an English team).

But the British computer industry is doing well -- probably because it is largely outside the grip of the government.

*********************


NISBET: CONSERVATIVE SOCIOLOGIST

Conservative sociologists are as rare as hen's teeth. I ought to know -- being one of them. Robert Nisbet is probably the best known example of one. Like all conservatives, he was appalled by the gradual growth of State power over the last century and pointed out how the State had supplanted and destroyed local community-based organizations and ways of doing things. And I agree that a lot of that did happen.

But I think it is sheer romanticism to say that it could all have been avoided. I think the whole trend of history is towards de-localization of almost everything. Globalization of world trade is the clearest case in point. Division and specialization of labour has become more and more pronounced as time goes by and is part of the essence of modernity. And division of labour means ever larger and more complex organizations (businesses and factories) to make that specialization work. And, after that, large and complex networks of people to distribute the fruits of that specialized labour are needed. Doing everything locally is as obsolete as the spinning wheel. So big, complex organizations have inevitably replaced small, local organizations. So the State was just one of the things that destroyed localism and community.

I cannot see that we will ever get the same sort of community back under any circumstances but we are also forming new communities all the time. We may no longer live in villages but, for many people, those they work with are an important community and most of us are part of various communities connected with our leisure activities. So I think we will always have about as much community as we want.

Large, complex organizations do not have to be part of the State, however. And the State is in fact very bad at running large, complex organizations. So modernity may have destroyed the old communities and replaced them with new ones but the role of the State in that process was certainly unnecessary and will hopefully yet be at least in part ridiculed out of existence.

*******************

UNEMPLOYMENT?

Australia is supposed to have around 6% unemployment at the moment. So how come both I and others I know find it costs the earth to get anyone to come in and do basic housework -- IF you can get anyone at all? Cleaning is not exactly high-tech. I guess the government handouts for NOT working are too attractive. It is a pity that "work for the dole" schemes are only embryonic here.

**************************

MULTICULTURALISM UPDATE

One of my correspondents has pointed out that multiculturalism came to Australia mainly at the hands of our short-lived but very Leftist Whiltlam Labor government in the early 70s. The succeeding conservative government under Malcolm Fraser was just about equally enthusiastic about the idea, however. Neither government, however, made it a significant feature of their election campaigns so nobody has ever really had any chance to vote on it.

*************************

Comments? Email me: jonjayray@hotmail.com.
If there are no recent posts here, check my HomePage for a new blog address.

***********************