Latest news with #G.K.Chesterton
Epoch Times
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
John Robson: Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program Amounts to Slave Labour
Commentary Politics famously make for strange bedfellows. But what's with the federal government and the temporary foreign worker program? How are these committed progressives working hand-in-glove with big business to exploit foreigners? And why aren't we upset? Arguably I don't get out much. But lately when I do travel, short distances or long, I notice that nearly everyone I deal with in hotels, restaurants, etc., and half at the supermarket checkout, are here as slave labour. How's that woke? Or tolerable? I'm not against people aspiring to a better life, including immigrating to Canada, working hard, and making good. My forebears did. But temporary foreign workers aren't in that category, through no fault of their own. They're here, toiling, and maybe even saving despite the grisly state of our economy. But they can't stay. The whole plan is to sweat them harder than locals for less money, then kick them out. Is it just me, or does that arrangement sound exploitative? To some extent, by design, ineptitude, or designed ineptitude, it might be a back-door way to raise immigration still further by people who despise our traditions. Who really believed Canada could absorb a million people a year, 2.5 percent of our population, year after year, many bringing old-country hatreds? Related Stories 5/19/2025 5/12/2025 Well, the federal government, apparently. Not voters, but they weren't asked. And while giant corporations may not be Hamasniks, they're in it for the money. But what about left-wing politicians? Doesn't it sound like exactly the kind of thing they'd hate? Part of the deal is that they can foul up productivity, tax policy, inflation, etc., without a big-business revolt because the latter stay afloat with cheap labour. It also sticks a finger in the eye of tradition. And it juices GDP numbers because of flaws in that alleged measure of prosperity, which helps them at the polls, a bit. There's also the problem of 'regulatory capture,' a boring name for an alarming process. G.K. Chesterton, who I greatly admire despite his economics, did have a point about Real economists aren't puzzled that a small number of, say, Quebec dairy farmers work far harder to extract tens of thousands of dollars each from the treasury than ordinary people work not to wince at the high price of mediocre butter in the supermarket. Or that it's sold to us by a temporary foreign worker because likewise, a relatively small number of huge companies deploy the best lobbyists and campaign contributions money can buy to lower their salary costs massively. Also, most Canadians don't seem to be very directly affected, or entirely negatively, since grocery and fast-food prices rise more slowly. But Maybe some without kids, grandkids, or compassion don't care. They want their lukewarm sandwich cheap and they want it now, and figure they'll contrive to expire before social cohesion disintegrates sufficiently to impair their 'quality of life.' But I assume most of my readers already care, or are starting to make the connection and care. Even when I was young, pre-internet, summer-job hunting stank. Those government job centres radiated futility. But somehow I found work. Kids today? Not so much. As Hopper observes, summer job listings are down nearly a quarter just since last year, when the unemployment rate for 15–24s was already double the national average. And the adult number is deceptive, driven by feckless, deeply unsustainable public service expansion while the private sector atrophies. Also, Hopper confirms that I'm not imagining things at the coffee counter. 'Between 2016 and 2023, the rate of TFWs working in restaurants increased by 634 per cent' and 456 in retail. So it's unfair to them and hurts us, especially youth. Including in the housing market. The government does its usual job of messing up the supply side, but that flood of cheap-labour foreigners must live somewhere until we boot them out for fresh meat, so demand has gone crazy, and even if young people somehow find work, they can't afford a house. I wonder if they'll become disillusioned, even radicalized? With hard times upon us and our governments, what to do? What to do? Call me crazy, but I suggest we abolish ill-disguised slavery and build community instead. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Epoch Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Epoch Times
Don't Take the Black Pill
Commentary What kinds of attitudes do you bring to the prospect of political and social change? The answer matters more than we think. Those with hope and passion for improvement tend to win the day, especially if the other side merely wallows in grievance and despair. This is true for writers and intellectuals too. We are all trying to find our way through in a thicket of confusion in what are truly treacherous times. In the backdrop stands a complex emotional template that can profoundly affect how we see the world and its future. G.K. Chesterton once wrote that he rejects both optimism and pessimism, preferring to look at reality itself, even in the darkest of times, with hope and not despair. It is equally important to look at the brightest times with trepidation that something might, alas, be broken underneath the surface and therefore they won't last. Those words have stuck with me. A naive optimism is as pointless as the fatalism of a perpetually downcast pessimism that sees every sign of improvement as a delusion. The times call on all of us to adopt a more Chestertonian attitude toward the world around us, our expectations for the future, and our own role in it. The bias of eschatological certainty can blind in both directions, either by chaining us to dread of a doomed future or by luring us into complacency with visions of an eminently dawning utopia. Related Stories 5/16/2025 5/15/2025 Many people are traumatized from the last five years. We've discovered that many of the conspiracy theories are true. There were memes passed around over these years that the wackiest theories last month seem to come true this month. Elon Musk even confirmed it. When he took over Twitter and got a first-hand look at what was being censored and why, he told interviewers that every conspiracy theory is true and then some. His comment underscores the feeling of betrayal sensed by everyone in public and private life today. When you go through times like this, the oldest spiritual battles confront all of us. We can join in the rot while throwing away all standards of decency and honesty. The presumption here is that the system is corrupt so we might as well join in, like rioters when the fires start to burn. Another response is to throw yourself into being part of the solution in some way at some level. This could be in your own household or it could be in national politics, plus everything in between. What increasingly concerns me is a different breed that has come to populate the dissident movement, especially these days and in light of all we've been through. These are people who have done vast reading and discovered that the problems around us are extremely deep, tracing to classified worlds of darkness and occult influences. They extend this analysis far back in time, even tracing this to the ancient world. There is nothing wrong with that outlook as such except that it does feed into a conviction that there is no escape under any conditions. Rather than join in or fly into a hopeful opposition with constructive efforts to change, they construct an ideology of despair. This says that there is nothing to be done because the bad guys rule all things. There is no chance for progress, says this view, and anything that looks hopeful is nothing but a sham. All seeming good news or admissions of wrongdoing are nothing but 'limited hangouts,' probably pushed by 'controlled opposition,' making concessions to distract us from the dark truths of our entrenched and depraved destiny. In popular parlance, and tracing to the model presented in the movie 'The Matrix,' these are people who take the Black Pill. This is different from the Blue Pill, which is what you take to go along to get along, or the Red Pill, which is what you take to be part of the reality-based solution. The Black Pill is what you take to wallow in despair and drag everyone around down with you. I suspect you know someone who has taken the Black Pill. I have variously encountered them for years. Frustrated with such people, the pen name Midwestern Doctor recently The Black Pill is seductive because it 'It gives you a way to feel in control of your environment (by declaring it's hopeless to do anything) and superior to others (by knowing a secret truth they don't know).' Yes, it is easily rendered as a form of Gnosticism, a theory that only a few know the fullness of the esoteric truth while all exoteric knowledge is mere veneer. The Black Pill is closely related to the problem of purity seeking. No change in social policy, law, or legislation will ever be enough, of course. For that reason, every hint of progress, even vast progress, is easily presented as a trick designed to hide more fundamental corruption. Nothing is ever good enough, and any attempt to make something better is itself part of the problem because it deceives people into thinking there will ever be a way out of the morass. It's inevitable that Black-Pilled purists will be meanest to those they are the closest to. This is because those are the people who will listen to them, and the social set among which they can make a difference. For this reason, they can be toxic to any attempt at community organizing, social cohesion, or basic demands of collegiality. When people figure out the game and block them or stop inviting them, they always have a ready excuse: the leadership of the group is clearly compromised and part of the enemy. This only scratches the surface of the problems of Black-Pilled purists. Because they rule out the possibility of making a difference for good, they target those who try and put down every effort to improve the world. De facto, they always end up saying that the existing status quo, however bad it is, is actually better than the reformed world given to us by people who are compromised and playing ball with the elites. Perversely, then, the purists in every movement eventually become useful servants of the very elites they claim to oppose. If you follow what I've written above, you can understand why some small minority of people that who worked to bring the Trump administration to power, or at least contributed to raising grave doubts about alternatives, are now putting down every effort at reform, even tangible victories. The MAGA and MAHA movement has Black-Pilled purists in its ranks who will never be satisfied until condition X is met. Condition X could be an end to all hormones in livestock, a ban on all GMOs, an end to all foreign aid, a withdrawal and ban of mRNA shots or all vaccines, stopping all trade with China, or whatever other condition you name, which they always deem the top priority. Nothing less will do. When that condition is met, there will always be more, because the point is not actually betterment but perpetual alienation from the idea of betterment itself. As you can see, such people do not work and play well with others, make difficult colleagues, and end up as destructive forces within any attempted community of activists or intellectuals. Such people thrive on factionalism in every smaller unit of interest, all with the hope of being the leader of a community of their own creation, even if it is a community of one. Such people invariably drive people off from any community, displacing productive and hopeful people with more followers of their dark worldview. Sadly, they are rarely blocked before they cause damage because they specialize in playing off the tolerance of others and the fear of leadership in being called censors or hidden assets of the bad guys. The biggest problem with the Black Pill is spiritual. It is not possible to wallow constantly in despair and keep it from invading every nook and cranny of the brain, heart, and soul. It becomes an addiction to the point that such people will never be satisfied without the dopamine rush that comes with trashing everything and everybody no matter what. Don't take the Black Pill. Again, the attitude of Chesterton is the right one: Even in the darkest of times, hope is better than despair. A naive optimism is as unproductive as a perpetually downcast and paralyzing pessimism that sees every sign of improvement as a delusion. Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Scoop
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
NZSQ Inaugurates Wellington Chamber Music's New Season
'The modern world seems to have no notion of preserving different things side by side, of allowing its proper and proportionate place to each, of saving the whole varied heritage of culture. It has no notion except that of simplifying something by destroying nearly everything.' - G.K. Chesterton, AlI I Survey. The freshly reconstituted New Zealand String Quartet inaugurated Wellington Chamber Music's 2025 season at St Andrew's On The Terrace with an intriguing programme that included rigorous renditions of John Psathas' KARTSIGAR, Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No.1 in C major, and Edvard Grieg's String Quartet in G minor. Established in 1987, the New Zealand String Quartet is Aotearoa's longest-serving professional string quartet and internationally renowned for its insightful interpretations and dynamic style. It has played a lead role in music education at Victoria University's School of Music since 1991, hosts the annual Adam Summer School for Chamber Music in Nelson, and mentors young musicians from across the motu. A proud cultural ambassador, it has not only commissioned over a hundred and fifty original works by Kiwis, but also actively championed Maori music. Last year, married couple Helene Pohl and Rolf Gjelsten (who had performed with the NZSQ for thirty years) were accused of 'serious and sensitive issues' apparently involving nepotism and conflicts of interest in their teaching roles. This led to their abrupt resignations from both the University and the NZSQ and the removal of their profiles and images from the their website, constituting an enormous loss to Wellington's music community as they are both supremely gifted musicians and widely regarded as dedicated and inspiring teachers. The NZSQ's two remaining members, Peter Clark and Gillian Ansell, subsequently recruited guest artists Anna van der Zee and Callum Hall. Following a period of extensive study and overseas performances with leading international string quartets, van der Zee is now a First Violin for the NZSO, while Hall has toured New Zealand with some of the country's leading orchestras. Although Pohl and Gjelsten will be sorely missed, the new members acquitted themselves admirably under these unfortunate circumstances, retaining not only the Quartet's customarily high degree of bravura versatility, but also its adventurous programming. The intriguing sequencing of these three 'difficult' pieces in reverse chronological order traced the organic roots of Psathas' post-modernism backwards, through Shostakovich's uncompromising modernism to Grieg's lyrical Nordic Romanticism, which heralded the future direction of much twentieth-century classical music. Despite often disparaging Grieg's abilities as a composer and pianist, the falling introductory motif inspired Claude Debussy's subsequent experiments in diverse sonorities - particularly (according to English musicologist Gerald Abraham) his own String Quartet, which was also comnposed in G minor. The son of Greek immigrant parents, Psathas grew up in Taumaruni and attended Napier Boys' High School, leaving early to study composition and piano at Victoria University. He supported himself as a student partly by playing up to nine gigs a week in a jazz trio. His musical style combines elements of jazz, classical, Eastern European and Middle Eastern, avant-garde, rock, and electronica. In 2018 he retired from his university tenure to become a full-time composer and was granted the position of Emeritus Professor at the New Zealand School of Music. Two years later, he was appointed Composer-in-Residence with Orchestra Wellington. A retrospective concert of his chamber music was part of the 2000 New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, culminating with the premiere of a specially commissioned Piano Quintet. In his programme notes to that concert, Psathas described his process of composing as follows - "When I write music, it's not a sense of inventing I experience, as much as it is a sense of finding something that exists at the remote periphery of what I know. It is like seeing things - that aren't really there - in the corner of one's eye, but not spinning around to view them, because then they would simply cease to be. It is a case of being aware of a thing in one's peripheral vision and, while staring straight ahead, trying to decipher, without looking at it, the true nature of what it is. What one is finding is exactly the right thing for any given moment in a musical work." KARTSIGAR was written in 2004 and consists of two movements (Unbridled, Manos Breathes the Voice of Life into Kartsigar and Vagelis Varies the Sazi Riff at the Paradiso), both of which are infused with a sonorously haunting and luminescent quality that evokes the Eastern Orthodox heritage of Byzantine music, whose earliest composers have been remembered by name since the fifth century. In his programme notes to KARTSIGAR, Psathas commented - 'Both movements of this work began as transcriptions of recorded performances by two of Greece's living master-musicians, clarino player Manos Achalinotopoulos and percussionist Vagelis Karypis. The transcriptions are based on two separate recordings of a traditional taximi entitled Kartsigar. Taximia form part of an oral tradition where improvisation played an important role. The taximi Kartsigar comprises two elements: an ostinato and the improvised melody. The melody forms the basis of the first movement of the quartet, and the ostinato forms the basis of the second.' 'The first movement grows from my transcription of Manos (whose surname translates to 'he who cannot be bridled') performing his own astonishing realisation of Kartsigar on the CD Klarino … The traditional ostinato has been removed from this movement and replaced by a pedal note (F#), which creates a very different set of tensions and resolutions for the improvised melody. The ostinato in Kartsigar is heard unaccompanied in the first two measures of the second movement, and then continues throughout. Through transcription of his live performance, I discovered that Vagelis had produced some eighty separate variations of the ostinato almost without repetition. This sequence of variations became the basis for the second movement of the quartet.' Composed in six weeks after the second birthday of his daughter during the summer of 1938, Shostakovich's String Quartet No.1 in C major lasts less than fifteen minutes and looks back to the comfort and balanced elegance of the eighteenth century for its inspiration. Shostakovich said he had "visualised childhood scenes, somewhat naïve and bright moods associated with spring … The whole year after completing Symphony No. 5 I did nothing. I merely wrote the Quartet, consisting of four small sections. No special idea or emotions had stimulated me to write it, and I thought the effort would fail. I wrote the first page as a kind of exercise in the quartet form, and I never thought I would complete it.' As Julian Barnes described in his masterful meditation on the relationship between art and political power The Noise of Time, the previous years were marked by Stalin's campaign against artistic 'formalism' in general and repeated denunciations of Shostakovich in Pravda in particular, which caused his monthly earnings from both commissions and performances of his music to decline markedly. 1936 marked the beginning of the Great Terror, in which many of his friends and relatives were either imprisoned or killed. Convinced he was about to be arrested, Shostakovich managed to secure an appointment with the Chairman of the State Committee on Culture, who reported back to Stalin that he had instructed the composer to "reject formalist errors and in his art attain something that could be understood by the broad masses.' Given this dangerously repressive context, it's hardly surprising that Shostakovich confined himself to relatively accessible compositions immediately afterwards. His String Quartet No.1 in C major begins softly with almost childlike innocence, its language uncharacteristically tonal and often serene. The shocking dissonances and tense harmonic undulations of his symphonies are largely absent, providing a sense of emotional respite after the tumult of his more complex compositions. The first movement is in sonata-allegro form in C major, starting with an exposition of flowing chords under an opening theme, which then moves to a contrasting second theme. After a brief development section and recapitulation, the movement comes to a close. The slow second movement, in A minor, consists of eight variations on a folk-like melody first played on solo viola and ends with a delicious pizzicato A minor chord. The third movement is set in the remote key of C minor, opening with a rapid theme in 3/4 time, before moving on to the trio in F major which is slightly more relaxed in tempo. The scherzo is then repeated again, with the coda briefly recalling the trio theme, while the final movement returns to the home key of C major. Edvard Grieg began composing his infrequently performed String Quartet in G minor in 1877, writing to a friend that it was not designed to 'peddle occasional flashes of brilliance,' but instead 'aims towards breadth, soaring flight, and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written.' Van der Zee's playing on Greg Squires' marvellous Milano 1760 Landolfi violin possessed a lush and verdurous quality that was certainly solemn in parts, but also joyous in its conclusion. All four performers clearly revelled in the opportunity to display their prowess with some simultaneous fortissimo double-stopping in multiple instruments that produced a richness of texture that suggested a far larger ensemble and had the audience wanting to hear much more. In conclusion, Anthony Grigg's insightful programme notes are worth quoting - 'The density of sound in this quartet was unusual for its time … [Grieg] creates different timbres by use of a more subtle counterpoint, seamless voice-leading across all four instruments, and reference to folk and dance music. In combination, these create a work of considerable diversity and texture. Liszt, a friend and supporter of Grieg, admired this work and welcomed its addition to the repertoire, where it remains as one of the most original and influential quartets of the late nineteenth century.' 'The quartet uses the melody of Grieg's own Ibsen-inspired song Spillemaend ('Minstrel') as the principal motif throughout all four movements. Its opening descending intervals … serve to bind together the whole work and provide it with thematic and melodic unity. [It] is first heard in the slow introduction to the first movement Un poco andante - Allegro molto ed agitato, then interrupts the tranquil waltz rhythm of the Romanze: Andantino with an agitated second section and reappears as the opening theme in the Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato before its quieter central section - Più vivo e scherzando. The last movement begins with a slow introduction in which the motif returns before the music launches into a Finale: Lento - Presto al saltarello, with its folk-like melody and leaping dance rhythms based on a fast triple meter and ending optimistically in G major.' Wellington Chamber Music's 2025 season continues on Sunday 25 May with the Amici Ensemble piano quartet performing Jean Françaix' String Trio in C major, Op.2, Gustave Fauré's Piano Quartet No.2 in G minor, Op.45, Johannes Brahms' Piano Quartet No.3 in C minor Op.60.
