Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Mystery solved

I no longer follow Deacon Greydanus.  For the same reason I no longer bother with Mark Shea and many other of their ilk.  But on my own page, different posts will sometimes show up on a particular section from people I have followed to people I don't even know.  Well, this came by the other day:


Yep.  The Rocca Maggiore fortress is in Italy, in Assisi.  As in St. Francis of.  Meaning they're in Italy.  Why is this a thing?  Because I've long maintained that ever since John Lennon beckoned us to imagine no possessions from within his sprawling multi-million dollar English estate, the idea of Proxy Martyrdom has become a capstone of modern activism.

That is, words speak louder than actions.  And as long as it's other schmucks who take one for my righteousness, it's the price I'm willing to pay.  Why should I give up for the cause?  So as I watched the rise of the BLM/DEI driven group identity based treatment of people, it puzzled me why so many white Americans were happy with movements that basically say the only good white person is  a crushed in the mud white person.

Until I noticed a trend.  That is, on the street level this is often championed by younger white liberals who have been born and raised in this godless, pointless, meaningless society we've bequeathed them.  It's their way of finding purpose and meaning.  But they're not the only ones.  On the other end, I see a whole lot of ancient, gray haired hippies with their own vocations and professions happily in the rearview mirror and likely not impacted by the cheers of fewer white people and white men getting anywhere in society.

But it isn't always those two groups.  There are your average family types, like the good deacon.  Which puzzled me.  Until I also noticed something.  I came to realize that if you show me a working age family man or woman who is white and embraces this madness, I'll show you someone who is a globetrotter who sends his kids to private schools and universities.  That is, someone who has the money to make sure his kids have as many chances as possible not to be the ones whose opportunities are compromised due to skin color and other group identities.

Now I know virtually nothing about Greydanus.  I know he is a nationally known film critic.  I know that he is an ordained deacon with formal theological training who teaches at a Catholic school.  He reminded his readers of that a lot.  I also know his wife is in the medical field, but I don't know in what capacity.  And I know they homeschooled their own kids, and also sent them to private colleges.  But now I know they also take vacations to Italy.  

Meaning that they can't guarantee their own kids won't get it in the neck by the very demographic driven activism that he now supports in his full backing of the Left.  But they at least have the means to give them a chance others with less means can in no way ensure.  

Remember, Jesus didn't say if someone takes your cloak, then get someone else to give their tunic as well. Yet so many modern causes of righteousness seem founded on not having to give a brass farthing of personal investment or sacrifice for the cause while simultaneously claiming the moral high ground for embracing the same cause.  Like saying I'm anti-racist.  Big deal.  That cost me what?  Eleven keystrokes.  But doesn't it make me feel righteous!  Holy. Saintly.  The World says so, it must be true.  

But that's not how we should determine our priorities and causes.  Not that everything I agree with should force me to storm the beaches and take a bullet for the team.  But when virtually nothing I do costs me anything, but often costs my neighbor everything, it's time to rethink such offers of assurance for my moral superiority and righteousness.  Since by now, we should see what happens to a society where people can ascend the mountain of moral superiority through nothing other than posturing and words.  It doesn't take them long to find other causes to feed that sense of superiority, especially if everyone else has to pay the piper.  

4 comments:

  1. I would be interested to know if this is a regular or semi-regular trip for them, because I think it's forgivable if this is something like a big anniversary trip they take once every 10 years. However, I agree with the rest of the observation. It's tough because the middle-class still sees a college degree as a social status symbol and are trying to give their kids an economic/social leg up on life, so they tend to embrace the "socially acceptable" viewpoints that would take them to be accepted at the next social level. I think this is far more pronounced on the coasts. Greydanuses live on the east coast, Keating on the west coast. (Referencing your last link). And for a long time, there was a social acceptability to being a certain kind of conservative...one okay with being the perpetual underdog. I hate to say it, then, but enter Trump...and the social acceptability goal-post got moved. So, if that was important to you, then it's no surprise which way you start trending in the way you think.

    As a side note I, too, have been slightly disappointed by Keating in recent years and haven't been sure why. I just kind of chalk it up to we all sort of eventually fall into our early life patterns. If you are know-it-all lawyer turned know-it-all Catholic, you just have to keep proving that you are smarter than everyone else. Whereas it used to be just to your friends and neighbors, now it's online for everyone to admire.

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    1. To be honest, even if it's a big anniversary trip, going to Europe still puts them in a top minority of people finance wise. Sure, one can be of middle class and scrimp and save, but over the years I got the impression - including his proud declaration of sending their kids to private colleges as well as his wife's work in the medical field - that they weren't hurting. Which is a trend. Of course this doesn't address the wealthy white liberals of Hollywood who are always far worse. And you're right about why things have so radically changed. The thing about Greydanus is that he wasn't this way decades ago. Even if he clearly wasn't some right wing radical, his approach to things was far more charitable and honest than it has become. For which he acknowledges the changes but blames Trump. I don't know why Keating has changed, but your guess is likely not far from the mark.

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    2. That's a good point. I will also hazard a guess that it was Greydanus' wife who went leftward first. She was probably the first one who couldn't stand Trump and well, if you want to live in peace with your wife...off you go. I say this because I've seen several right-leaning and even conservative men go crazy lefty over Trump to the point they start posting online like liberal white women. But if you drill down, you'll find they all have highly educated, socially conscious (as in, they know the price to be in "polite" society) wives with good paying jobs.

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    3. She is definitely far to the Left. And, like the good Deacon, often handles pushback by simply deleting or banning. I had never commented on her FB page more than once or twice ever, and I seldom saw it. But in FB ways, one day a post came by where she posted something about how idiot conservatives didn't care if the National Weather Service was abolished since they still have the weather on their smartphone. Idiots. Where do they think the smartphones get the weather!? Much to the thumbs up and laughter of her followers. So I just asked if she had any examples of anyone actually saying that. She initially responded that she didn't and then some gibberish that didn't make any sense. But I went back a day or so later to see if something, like actual proof or evidence or examples, had been given. And I discovered I was banned. Deacon Greydanus admits his behavior has changed and not for the better, and blames it on Trump. I have my own suspicions about the reasons. But there is little to suggest his wife would be a mitigating factor in his downward spiral.

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