Repression, Expression and the End of Hockey?
A blessed Christmas Eve’s Eve to all our readers! The joy and longing are almost fulfilled – Domnius prope est, as the invitatory antiphon for these days has it, the Lord is near, and we must be prepared, lamps lit and loins girded, to meet Him.
Speaking of girded and ungirded loins, Carlo Lancelotti has a very thoughtful and intriguing analysis of the origins of the sexual revolution, not as a ‘lessening’ of morals, but as a quickening of a whole different set of morals, a contrary metaphysical universe, a veritable transvaluation of all values. (We will have more on Nietzsche and Trudeau in a post soon ). The anomian apostle this revolution, William Reich, was a weirdo, a libertine and likely addicted to sex in various perverted varieties (perusing his diary is not for the squeamish), who preached ‘orgonic energy’ – a hybrid of orgasm and organism – as the key to happiness. He built and sold ‘orgone machines’, which would ‘channel’ and focus sexual energy, for in the mind of Reich, the less sexual repression and the more sexual expression, the better and more fulfilled we’d be. And we’ve all seen how that’s turning out. Reich He died in 1957, but his thought gave birth to the sexual revolution a few years afterward, whose bitter fruit and poison fallout are now reaching their nadir, in the transvaluation of transgenderism and the abolition of sex itself, the beast devouring itself. Where, one wonders, do we go from there? Back to Humanae Vitae, perchance?
And while on repression, an anonymous religious Sister has penned a modern Summa article, in the style of the great Saint Thomas Aquinas, on why we shouldn’t be forced to wear masks. I have had my students write such articles on modern themes, and I think this should become an educational trend – there is nothing that so rigorously forms the mind as the scholastic method, and thinking through questions in step-by-step fashion. Someone mentioned to me last night a new argument against ubiquitous and constant masking: A ring of pimples and carbuncles around the edge of the face-covering, endearingly termed ‘maskne’, as in ‘ acne’ from the ‘mask’, as dirt, oil, bacteria, perhaps . one might think, even viruses, coagulate around and over the mask, as moisture accumulates, huffing and breathing all day long in the …Wait a minute….
Oh, dear. Maskne. If the thought of oppression does not motivate young people to throw off the yoke of perpetual masking, perhaps social ostracization, or not being thought attractive, will.
And while on socialization, what’s with hockey, a sport I don’t play – at least, not well, growing up in a different culture – but I never thought the national sport of my adopted country would be illegal. Yet there was the foul-mouthed female police officer throwing a tantrum, threatening to ‘taser’ a group of young men – ‘boys’ in the current parlance – playing shinny hockey, in God’s great, cold, windy outdoors. Whatever their threat of getting Covid, and their threat from Covid – evidence seems to indicate it would be minimal – should that not be balanced against other goods, and evils, such as having young men sit around in their basements playing video games – or worse – all winter? Or worse, spiraling into listlessness, hopelessness, depression and even contemplating suicide? The Dr. Tams of the world say people can have groping, faceless, anonymous sex – so long as they wear a mask! and you-know-what – but healthy boys cannot play hockey in the fresh air, bundled up in layers of clothing?
And even so, should we not be permitted…No, not permitted, for our rights do not come from the state, but from God. Rather, should we not just should determine for ourselves, like grown adults, our own risks and balances, and should not law itself be proportioned and balanced, instead of one size fits all? There is more to this scene than the altercation, I realize, and perhaps the lads were being recalcitrant. But, even so, does there not come a point when one must make some sort of stand, even symbolic? Would that many of us did the same, for far greater goods, like the Holy Mass and access to our churches. There’s more to this than just ‘playing hockey’. It has to do with the very relation of man to the body politic, to the state, to each other, and to God.
And I agree with Mark Steyn, that police officers – who carry lethal weapons they may use more or less with impunity – who ‘lose it’ like this one did, should be fired. One might sympathize that they are frustrated enforcing overbearing, ridiculous laws, like banning shinny hockey for the duration of an Albertan winter. But there’s an easy solution to their frustration. Don’t enforce the overbearing laws, like that sheriff in Texas. Stand up. Be counted. Follow your reason and conscience. Otherwise, totalitarianism quickly ensues, but it seems to have already arrived.
We’ve become unhinged, to this author’s mind. And, as many of us continue to live under these repressive and counter-productive lockdowns – the only solution the mediocrities who govern us can come up with, barring some more sinister motive – may a resistance trend to true oppression begin, not against the natural law, as did the sexual revolutionaries, but for it: For freedom, in the truth, and for the truth.
And keep your peace of heart, for the devil wants nothing more than for us to lose our trust in God, and in the goodness of His will. He is doing a great and wonderful thing, making all things new..
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