In my latest (publishable) dream I was standing on the quayside waiting for my ship to come in. I had been waiting for this ship for a very long time. As I caught a glimpse of it on the horizon, I received news that the ship had been infiltrated by treacherous rebels, and that we’d need to prepare for her coming in with extra training.
The new on-signing crew and I then went to a nearby warehouse for training in self defence. The instructor spent a lot of time teaching us how to fight hand to hand, while halfway up a ladder, and at the top of the mast. I could feel the elbows being thrown into me in the dream so vividly they woke me up. I didn’t feel like I was falling, but it felt intense.
I took from this dream not just that Red Sea piracy has resurfaced as a very real threat (although preventable) in recent weeks. More to mean that as I am now ‘levelling up’, I need to learn to fight at multiple levels simultaneously, in ways that I haven’t before.
The kids are getting older, the wife is growing bolder, and the business is getting busier. It’s actually in danger of becoming a real company. And, as we progress so happily, life brings new challenges.
Like the covid time, the Israel-Hamas war and US politics remind us continually that we are beset on all sides by enemies, traitors, and threats. Everything we hold dear is threatened with annihilation, and our bairns are seen as appetising morsels for the predators among us.
But then, what’s new?
Where I differ from the conspiracy exposers or the anti-globalist journalists (whom I admire and respect, but do not pin my happiness on), is that I recognise that there is not just a shadowy cabal of Luciferian baby-munchers ruining the world with fractional reserve banking, fiat currencies and Enhanced Shortage Generating policies (ESG policies.) [Microsoft Word prompts you to capitalise Lucifer, isn’t that interesting]. No, there are also legions of normal people, also working feverishly to bring about our demise.
People who re-twit or share Facebook memes comparing Israel to National Socialist Germany for example. Or those who say that organised religion is the root of all evil, even while giving body to Saint Nicholas as they put gifts at the bottom of their Christmas tree. The ones who demand more deficit spending and money printing to pay for social welfare because inflation is out of control.
My friend who had a heart transplant in the summer just heard back from the pathologist. They have completed analysis of his old heart. No known genetic factors. No heart attack. No explanation. Just total organ failure.
‘It must have been a virus’, said the pathologist, filling the blank rather unhelpfully.
My friend has discovered the fatal flaw with the Science. It is a human endeavour, and therefore not as exempt from the world as it’s cult following would like to portray it as being.
Scientists, being human, like to fill in the blanks with a story, just like the rest of us. Viruses have become that story. In another context it may be carbon, or climate, or yea, verily, the anger of The Economy.
I was told by atheist philosophers that if you cannot measure, weigh or physically detect something, then it is equivalent to non-existent and should be disregarded both in theory and in practice. That compelling argument is the cornerstone of objectivism as espoused by Ayn Rand, and popularised among my generation by Stephan Molyneux.
The reason that approach has limited value is not because the theory is unsound. It’s because we are human beings.
Science is a human art. No human being can ever be unbiased or objective. The scientific method can never be applied in a completely objective manner. Nothing straight can ever be carved from the irregular wood of humanity.
Objectivity, like the invisible undetected, unobserved and un-measured virus particles that must be there, is just a story. A useful story, but a story nevertheless.
I’ve had two people in the past three months say to me, (one on a long drive in Germany, another across England), “I believe in Science”.
Uh-huh.
That’s a bit like the Pope, who last week said that he doesn’t believe in Dogma anymore. Or King Charles III rejecting traditional monarchy.
‘Science’ isn’t supposed to require belief. It also isn’t supposed to be ‘owned’ by the UN or the WHO.
The objectification of invisibile things like science as copyright has gotten out of control We are now at the point where corporations (invisible non-object entities) believe that they can own your DNA profile if they sequence it, describe it or modify it in any way. The occultist logic is clear in this thought process.
It is equally clear in the Luciferian arrogance of the Yuval Noah Harrari’s of the world who believe they have the right to impose new stories ‘top-down’, and modify people and societies like parts of a machine.
Rebelliousness, totalitarianism, and uniformity. The ingredients of this strange new world order.
The radical conspiracy theorists on the (nominal) right wing, and the radical activists of the (nominal) left wing believe in the same basic conspiratorial worldview. A shadowy elite (for left = billionaire capitalists, for the right = Satan worshipping central bankers and socialists) are in total control of our government, culture, corporations, and international bodies (they are), with the sole motivational aim and intent to keep us down – disunited – subservient.
Both are correct in a way. Both are incorrect in many ways. But the critical question to ask of either camp is – so what?
The reason I don’t have to circumnavigate the globe and visit ‘the ice wall’ to know that flat-earthers are wrong is because the model of the earth as an oblate spheroid works wherever I am. When I’m navigating using rhumb lines, that works on a flat earth model for a range of up to six hundred miles. Beyond that, I need to start using great circle lines, or spherical trigonometry to navigate. That is to say, you can get away with using a bad model local, for a short time, but after a while, you’ll be adrift.
I know that leadership is different from management, in that you need to get people to voluntarily go along with you. Cultural changes cannot be forced upon us top-down if we our own little chambers are already full with our own culture. The ship with greatest number of watertight compartments is the ship most able to sustain damage. That is the purpose of freedom.
Unity that comes with the cost of uniformity is structurally vulernable. Like Dblight spreading through a monocultured crop, or a forest fire ripping through a plantation with no breaks. Societal monoculture will founder and flood at the moment of even the slightest ingress of the waters of chaos.
We don’t need unity, if that means uniformity. That isn’t love.
In the remnants of what is called the West, openness has become the only virtue left. When they want ‘diversity’ of race, sexuality, gender, etc., that necessitates a need for a uniformity of opinion. The demand for diveristy actually demands monoculture. It cannot be sustainable.
What many online commentators portray as red-pilling, white-pilling, or black-pilling, is often just paradox-pilling. The ‘pilling’ story, adapted from the 1999 film The Matrix, goes that we are in a resistance movement, exploring rabbit holes and bringing truth and light to bear on the dark evil manipulators of this world (Red Pill), so that we can expose the baddies and make democracy work again (white pill), OR, so that we can prepare for the end times accordingly (Black Pill).
The actual wording of the choice given in the movie was “you take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
The implication is that total moral or narrative relativism (blue pill) is a valid strategy. Also, that the gatekeeper (pill-issuer Morpheus) is in fact an objective navigator of truth.
This literally the second oldest story in the world. Eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or continue to live in paradisical infancy as a kept innocent. We live in a world where that choice has already been made. Now, with the internet, I fear many who claim to be exploring rabbit holes are indeed in a hole, and proceeding to excavate even further. As the famous naval officer’s performance review said, ‘Just when I thought this officer had hit rock bottom, he proceeded to drill’.
Morpheous is in fact the serpent, of course. As are many online pundits who want you to entirely abandon the idea of truth, unity out of diveristy, and hierarchy.
There were three trees in the garden of Eden. The tree of life. The tree of knowledge of good and evil, and, the fig tree.
The world of online punditry and activist requires that we not only take a bite of unearned wisdom from the forbidden fruit before we are ready, but that we continue to do so. Over, and over, and over again.
The paradox pill espoused online is that there is total control being imposed on our culture top-down by enemies both internal and external. That we have already failed. That we can trust no-one. That nations fell years ago, and totalitarianism has won its slow march through the institutions, and there is nothing left to do but pack our bags and wait for the eschaton.
The paradox being, if our fate is so sealed, then why not just take the blue pill? What is the point of the red pill, if all you’re going to do is go online and describe your own demise?
The funny difference between left and right wing conspiracies at the moment is that – apart from both being decidedly antisemitic, either explicitly (rainbow coalition) or implicitly (hate bankers and legacy media) – is that the left believes that norms do not exist, whereas the right insists that the problem is that there are too many normies.
That is the same in-group/out-group worldview promoted by fundamentalist Islam. There is only the house of peace, and the house of war.
Personally, I think it’s time to reach for fig leaves and garments of skin. The New Jerusalem is clearly a technical vision to strive for. That implies that some building work is required on our part.
I’ve also felt a strong draw towards understanding Saint Andrew, of late. Andrew the brave. The first apostle.
As the patron saint of Scotland (and the Russian Navy), I have an intuition that he may have some guidance during the trials ahead. With ancient Celtic churches founded by saints now being sold off by the Church of Scotland – mostly to suffer iconoclasms in conversion to mosques – open borders and empty brains prevailing, and the imminent collapse into zombie-economy neo-marxist global communism, I have to think that only the early church fathers had any reckoning of how to face down the level materialist eco-paganism that is now encircling our society. (I’ll capitalise Lucifer and Satan today, Bill Gates, but not bloody marxism! How do I disable auto-correct?!)
Andrew was of course a fisherman. A perilous and poverty-prone profession before the advent of steel hulled boats and other modern gadgetry, even on an inland sea.
As a junior seafarer, you often need to call the Master before making any decision that affects safety. As you progress through the ranks, or gain experience, there are fewer and fewer occasions when you need the guidance of the Master. Especially if trust has been gained in that time. Until one day, the training wheels are off. When you become the Master, there is no-one above you to call.
One of my primary roles ashore now, is to be the one who says, ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘further risk assessment is required’. I can make a living doing that because so many people are totally unwilling to stand behind their own word, whatever the consequences.
Decisiveness is the skill that is no longer taught in the nerf-land safetyist culture we’ve created, that abrogates all personal responsibility up an imaginary chain of grownups, to the scientists, technocrats and bureaucrats of our Bugsy Malone style nation. This feeds not only the narcissism of the wielders of un-earned power, but also allows the blue-pilled to revel in un-earned moral virtue, when they get an approving pat on the head for believing or supporting the current thing.
Andrew was a seafarer. He knew how to lead, because, he knew how to follow. He recognised a Master when he saw one. He didn’t start a blog speculating that Jesus of Nazareth was controlled opposition, really in the service of the Roman Empire, because he wanted us to be too busy feeding the poor to recognise how oppressed we all were. He got to work in the service of providing people their daily bread, healing, and driving out demons.
Apostolic work was real work, in the real world. Not for cowards, professional opinion-havers, and fence-sitters.
Religion, etymologically speaking, is a very modern word in the way that we understand it today. In most cultures, and for most of our own history, religion was not a separate thing from other aspects of your identity. If you were Scottish, you were Christian. It was not a separete component, like an iphone case, or a extra cheese on your burger. It was who you were, in relation to your society, your family, your forebears, and the world. All traditional cultures still think that way.
Religion means continuously re-binding. The practice of coming together in communion with others, sharing meals, uniting under a common appreciation for the creator God of Gods, and the king of kings, was what created freedom.
I have experienced this re-binding twice recently. Once when I took my youngest daughter to the nursery school Christmas party, and all the women and children spontaneously burst into song, in unison. A second time, when I took my family to a Christingle and Christmas Carol service at our local church on Christmas Eve.
Participation is the thing. Being together. Even with the ugliness.
I have been reading on and off about the Scottish Enlightenment trying to find the origins of the materialistic nihilism that has sawn off the branch upon which we sat comfortably for centuries, as a culture. But recently, I realised that materialism is the default state of the human mind. Excessive materialism is a curse in Paganism, Protestantism, Catholicism, (I’m not sure about Orthodoxy yet), Judaism and Islam. As far as I can tell that is, with all the usual caveats, exceptions, varying degrees and flavours.
When the Messiah came, the Hebrew people who were excessively materialistic rejected Him. They were expecting their saviour to be a worldly prince who would appear upon the earth in instantaneous material glory, with an Army that would crush Rome in battle, and restore the powerful House of David as the dominant nation of politics in the then known world.
Material nationalism.
They could not accept a kingdom not of this earth that lasted forever because they could not measure it, dissect it, or hold it in their hands.
Andrew was a sailor. He knew that you cannot measure mortal danger, let alone immortal danger. If you are drifting into the rocks, it doesn’t matter what you believe, or provide a rational proof for, you had better act. It is most likely your assumptions that have led you into danger in the first place. Being decisive means being able to discard everything you have previously assumed, and then acting on what you know to be true in your heart, whether it can be measured and explained, or not.
Holding the right opinion is not the critical thing. Acting correctly is.
Don’t get me wrong. Opinions are not nothing. I wouldn’t be writing if that were the case. But what purpose do they serve? What purpose do we serve?
The questions I will be asking myself in 2024 are not: “Which candidate should I support in the US elections? Will Trump continue to expand the Lawfare started by the Dems when he was in office? How will China exploit this…” Blah, blah, blah.
Any good we do in this world will echo through eternity. If a tree falls in the woods with no creature around to hear it, it made vibrations in the air. That is not a ‘sound’ in the way that we understand a ‘sound’. The opposite is true for humans. Every scrap of virtue we can scrape together does make a difference, even if we are the only ones who observe it, or notice it.
The total failure of moral relativism does not mean that we need to become total objectivists. Rand was a powerful thinker, but I don’t know what solution she might suggest when dealing with radical Islamist fundamentalists who want to kill every man, rape every woman and enslave every child who does not submit to their will. I’m all for voluntaryism and anarchy, defined as the antonym for monarchy, but I don’t think we’re technically there yet.
What we need to do is recognise that we cannot exist outside of the frame of what it means to be human. We must serve a Master. We must live inside a story. One that is both relative, and objective, to the degree that we can hope to achieve such a mysteriously full and elusive truth.
To me, that involves resurrecting the greatest story ever told, and leading myself and my family towards it. It means giving charity to friend and foe alike, even if the welfare state ‘should’ (whatever that’s supposed to mean) be taking care of them. That involves refusing to placate the demons of Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and the legacy media, by feeding them my sacred attention. That means trying to serve the highest thing, not the lowest. That means interacting with people around me, and relieving their suffering, without bemoaning the contents of their soul.
My aim is such that when people look at me and my family, they will no longer be able to utter the shibboleths of our time, like : “What does it matter? It’s all the same. It’s so unfair. You can’t win. We’ll all be dead by then. Carbon related noises. The powers that be a ruining x,y,z, etc.”.
I will try to live more and more in a way that when people see it, they will say that ‘it was good’.
If we don’t speak before then, happy new year to you all, and I hope you had a lovely Christmas.
Start writing today. Use the button below to create your Substack and connect your publication with Captain Yankee Jock