“It depends what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” President Clinton (1998), referring to whether he had an ongoing sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Since the relationship had ended conveniently in his mind, he believed there “was” (past tense of is) no relationship anymore. An obvious dodge to the question everyone knew he was being asked.
The American Political Situation
As soon a Kamala Harris gained the Democrat Party’s nomination for president, she launched the campaign strategy of labeling her opponents, former President Donald Trump and Senator J.D. Vance, as being “weird.”
This is after the “Russia, Russia” fraud, two impeachment hoaxes, a full-on, relentless lawfare attack over many years, a summer of 2020 where the DP Left supported demonstrations and riots across the country causing billions of dollars of damage (damage to some historical property being beyond value), a 2020 Election laced with undeniable voter fraud across the country that made a difference in important cases, a January 6 in D.C. blown out of proportion with citizens incarcerated without due process, an easily renominated current President Biden having proven incapable now of running (due to an obvious physical condition and a supporting party that didn’t support him anymore and had known it for months to years), and an extremely suspicious and unexplainably successful assassination attempt on his predecessor.
How weird/disturbing has the American political situation gotten? It’s gone over the top and now is very dangerous. At a minimum, any voting citizen can see what he or she wants to see in the unusual nature of American politics today.
I would agree with Vice President Harris in one sense. Most Americans I know believe our two leading presidential candidates are the strangest two in our lifetimes; not since, let’s say, the Election of 2020 and the Election of 2016 before that.
Regardless, we all know that people in glass houses should not throw stones. The campaign strategy has now backfired into a point – counterpoint stalemate. The beat goes on. (BTW, Hillbilly Elegy is a terrific book and best seller.)
As mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal article (8/6/24) by Lance Morrow entitled “J.D. Vance Is ‘Weird’? Have You Seen the Other Guys?”, such antics take us down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland. (The article’s worth reading. Morrow’s reference there to the strangeness of the human ear probably germinates from Whitaker Chamber’s Witness, the famous scene where the former Communist atheist unmistakably sees God in the design of his baby daughter’s ear. Ultimate reality crashes into life. His scales rest scattered all over the kitchen floor.)
Such political performance art leaves us more in touch with the weird feeling everyone has about the election as a whole and then wondering what exactly “is” the meaning of weird.
In my opinion, America itself has gotten weird, and we Americans have no one to blame but ourselves. We are the People, and all our politicians report to us. The buck stops with the citizen-voter, particularly in 2024. For the good of our children and grandchildren, the weirdness that accelerated in 2020 has got to stop. We are no longer conducting our affairs as mature, honest adults.
Weirdness Versus Normal
So what is weird? Two definitions are (1) “of strange or extraordinary character: odd, fantastic,” or (2) “of, or relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural: magical.” Clearly, we are talking about a human feeling arising from facts or developing situations presented to us. Without the application of human consciousness, can anything in the natural world be weird? Can reality be weird? Perhaps only if statistically uncommon or low in number, perhaps relative to other related or similar natural phenomena.
Weird seems to contrast with normal, ordinary, regular, a closeness to the middle of a bell curve, or even traditional. I would say that the 2024 Paris Olympics portraying the Last Supper with Dionysus in the middle and drag queens as disciples is certainly weird. (It’s nearly impossible to find an unbiased presentation of this incident, so I’m offering the one linked at “weird,” where the discussion starts at 2:52.). No doubt whatsoever, however, this observation certainly depends on one’s worldview, religion or philosophy.
I was taught that we should respect the sacred places and images of good religions everywhere (and that we can know the difference); as a Christian, I certainly would not treat Judaism or Islam that way. To me, the Olympic’s Last Supper is just another misplaced “P-ss Chr-st” attempt at sensationalist art with very mean and political motives. The mocker only belittles him- or herself.
But then again, I’m a rather middle of the bell curve white male Boomer who believes all Americans are fortunate to be citizens, as applicable, in a country shaped by Classical Judeo-Christian values. We had flawed but world class Founders who defeated the most powerful military in the world and got us going with terrific Founding statements of mission and law in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. Somehow, we grew and held together through many wars, battles, riots, crises, and depressions by the grace of God long enough to save Europe, the West, and, in many ways, the world, from itself in the first half of the 20th century. In the 20th century’s second half, we also defeated Soviet Communism.
I believe in equality under the law and equal opportunity without discrimination based on race or sex, where success is ideally based on character and merit demonstrated in serving others. To me, the primary institution in America isn’t either federal, state, or local government, but the family. All civilizations are based on a successful model of family, where duty, love, and charity are maximized. Family is the only commune that has ever and will ever work. This is natural law. The family as we know it in America took thousands of years to develop: monogamy. We are finding it does not work well as we destroy it today, inch-by-inch, with radical individualism. It’s actually Mom and Dad who are the communists, not Marx.
Other critical American institutions like the church come way, way before government. The government is there to protect them, too. The church supports the family and government, rightly conceived and operated. Government works for the People and families in America.
While individuals are equal and protected against government under the law, human beings are not the same in nature and should be treated as individuals, and our given sex is absolutely foundational to how we should live our lives. If one is fortunate enough to be married, for most (we are talking about the bell curve, now), who one agrees to marry is life’s most important and fulfilling decision. Parenthood is an immense blessing and childbirth a pinnacle and celebration of life. Parents become human creators, and it starts there. It is a great duty and joy. None of life’s most meaningful and fulfilling achievements come easily.
America must have strong, if not world class, military and police forces (and other domestic services) for protection and our general welfare. The real “public sector” would be the private sector, because, again, that’s what government serves, and not vice versa. The government does not own our wealth or our children; this would be bad-to-evil; the People who can produce surplus (often corporate leaders, managers, or entrepreneurs) must be free to do so for the good of their families and the rest who depend on them through charity, taxes, and other means. They are paid to meet good human needs. The Welfare State has eliminated stark poverty while devastating those persons and families who are dependent on it. Crime is rampant, and cities are corrupt and approaching ruin in pockets nearly everywhere. People are dying and being murdered every day across the country as almost never before due to incompetent governance.
In modern times, it’s always disastrous when governments plan and run economies rather than independent citizens; the law must be moral in nature. It always is, one way or the other. A society run by citizens without virtue, strong borders, and rules of civilization (enforcing the law that protects freedom and republican-democracy) will not last long. We are seeing the results of a different approach before our eyes. America exists due to the rule of law in a world of power mongers. They are growing now, and Western civilization is not, due to our lack of confidence and increasing corruption and weakness.
Political Labels Do Not Matter Anymore
In fact, things have, in truth, gotten so weird in moving away from the “American Dream” that the very ideas of “progressive” versus “conservative” or “left” versus “right” have become completely nonsensical. Those who believe in an ever-growing central government, deficit, and federal debt level somehow believe they have a monopoly on how the “arc of history” moves. They believe they have a monopoly on narrative and terminology. What a farce.
Today, this is a ridiculous claim. Talk about weird.
Elon Musk got it right when he sketched the famous outline of political trends during his own life. Of course, we are incapable of being purely objective about our own lives, and it’s hard to claim a “god’s eye view,” but I believe I started out the year I first voted in 1973 (at age 18) standing pretty much on the center point portrayed in 2008 in Musk’s diagram. The American line representing our political spectrum in the diagram was even smaller then. The GOP and DP did not like each other much on the Capitol’s floor then either, but they could at least talk across the aisle. All from the Greatest Generation tended to love America. Whether we should strive to be great was not an issue. It was a moral problem not to try and succeed.
I also think I’ve stayed in approximately the same position ever since (at the center), relative to Mr. Musk. It’s not that I haven’t examined worldviews carefully. (That’s what we do at Praxis Circle through our own Christian worldview lens.) Yes, my views have certainly shifted over time. But what I’ve also found is the worldview I was given was extremely well constructed over the course of up to 4,000 years. Worldviews that shape civilization don’t change suddenly; instead, only over dozens-to-hundreds of years. As stated before here in prior posts, the truth does not change.
In America today we have two fundamental worldviews in competition referred to in these pages as the Creator God Narrative and the Man God Narrative. The first believes in the supernatural (weird! but true), and the second does not. In the West, the Creator God Narrative is based on Judaism and Christianity, as informed by Classical thinking (which continues to have a significant influence). One narrative sees truth, reality, and moral law as God-given, and the other sees it as unknowable and relative, at best pragmatic.
The problem with the latter—usually associated with materialism—is that it always, via extension of human logic and nature, ends in meaningless and extremely deadly power games. Well, welcome to the world America is wrestling against today.
What Matters Is Truth, Reality, and Honesty
Talk about a weird and funny video for worldview and philosophy lovers! See the Monty Python classic at the very top that pits “Modern” German philosophers against Ancient Greek philosophers in an Olympic soccer match. (Of course, to Europeans, the world’s most popular game is football.)
To get the game started, Confucius, the head referee, walks onto the field alongside two others, Augustine and Aquinas, and Marx sits on the German team’s bench. When the game starts the play continues only in the minds of the players, who do nothing and are lost in solipsism, until Marx is substituted in; no doubt, the German coach seeks not only to interpret the game, but to win.
Then, instantly, Marx the soccer player fails.
I won’t tell you what happens from there or who wins, but I suspect the assistant refs had a favorite team. Clearly, they enthused the winners with the Holy Soccer Spirit of “shake and bake,” who then together spank the winning goal into the back of the net to end the short but dramatic game. Worldview helps us think about reality, and applied pragmatism (with teamwork) helps us shape civilization, culture, politics, and life to our glorious, Olympic-sized benefit.
We have written extensively about truth and will be publishing an eBook on it this fall. Truth is a judgment we make on reality. Such judgment is unavoidable. Everyone “does it.”
How often do you use the word “is” and in how many different ways? Alice “is” a young woman, or the Queen of Hearts “is” mean. This man or that woman “is” weird. “Is” means “to be” (a circular definition, for sure), but in question form (Is he weird?), is requires a yes, no, or maybe answer; in other words, every answer applies a yes, no, or maybe judgment on reality in inductive and deductive ways. Human beings are the only animals we are certain of who contemplate the nature of being (“ontology”) itself, particularly the nature of their own being.
Please see the quote at top. President Clinton was right. Definitions are important. If you use the word “is” at all like he did, you believe in deductive and inductive logic, and, therefore, a reality outside your own consciousness. Sir Roger Scruton, one of the most accomplished philosophers of our time (like those in the Monty Python video), describes truth in a short and classic PC video here at top.
WEIRD is an acronym attributed to Joseph Heinrich that stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. How can America get this weird? Because the American Dream has worked so well for almost 250 years that we can entertain ourselves with outrageous nonsense and fantasy without consequences in our daily lives. We are decadent like the Romans with their bread and circus.
We allow debt to skyrocket, eliminate the protection of borders, law, and citizens, pretend sex is a social construct, believe we can command the weather, turn over control of our lives to the government, destroy our military and police forces, destroy the monogamous family of the middle and lower classes, violate the sacred with great amusement, and sexualize children and murder babies, all the while believing we are clever, modern, funny, progressive. Forward!! . . . believing we wretched and limited beings can do it on our own.
All of this involves an utter disconnect from reality. That’s what’s truly weird—not unprecedented at all in history going back to the earliest of ancient times—but extremely dangerous and always ending in catastrophe and collapse in the fullness of time.
And time is growing short.
November’s Election
Hard to believe, but polls for the November Election open up next month in many states.
In sum, the presidential race so far is truly being managed like a reality show; we are witnessing a real life Confederacy of Dunces; and we are just as much the players. It gets weirder every day. (See Victor Davis Hanson on the weirdness via the link to the left.)
American politics is now a stage production, and that is the obvious strategy of at least one of the two major parties. The media is trying to force a result down our throats. One side wants to drill deeply into the issues, performance, and future, the other wants to stay away from all of that.
But both parties are producing “politics in a studio.” This is where a society without morals featuring a concept of negative freedom supporting wherever an individual’s “passion” takes her or him leads: into a decadent, rabbit-holed fantasy. Regrettably, campaigns are not serious endeavors anymore and are weird. We do not know what will happen, but, in this weird country today, we do know that future debates will at least be entertaining, if you like The Jerry Springer Show or Oprah. We need to get back to real statesmen and serious governance in America as quickly as possible, which the last debate proved we’ve lacked for at least four years.
Clearly, the November Election will have very real consequences; it must be handled with integrity for us to continue. We are probably headed into a whirlwind either way. We’ll take steps together, yet again, as citizens after the Election with better direction. The Constitution and our heritage will force us to do that.
All of us here at Praxis Circle hope each of you will do your duty as American citizens and vote, and also convince as many other citizens as possible to vote. Certainly, the majority of voters in America would prefer other, more traditional candidates than the two leading ones we have for president, but, again, “here we are.” Both have unusual personalities, to say the least.
I contend your vote will not matter unless you vote for one of the two leading candidates. The world depends on a good decision from us.
Importantly, voting will not be an expression of “who you are as a person.” In other words, your own personality will not be reflected in the personality of the candidate you vote for. Politics are not that personal today. Perhaps that ship sailed with George Washington, John F. Kennedy, or George H. W. Bush. I recently read that a vote is not a confession of love for the candidate, but a chess move for the world you want to live in.
Finally, I hope you will vote for the policies the winner would most likely implement with success, in contrast to what he or she says during the campaign.
And when the election is over, let’s pray the winner does a better job of engaging with reality than those philosophers in the Monty Python soccer thriller. As another famous comic said in the video below involving a different, weird, and fun fantasy, “I’ve been in the real world, and they expect results.”
Even though we seem trapped in a rabbit hole, it’s wonderful still to live in country where every citizen can feel a personal connection to leaders in the highest offices, have a real stake in the daily news and in the political game, and have a real and serious influence on the outcome of elections and on world events.
Let’s get back to reality.
