Writing and Fighting (and Reading)

An update from the culture war trenches

Great Books of the Western World by Robert Hutchens and Mortimer Adler

By

James Pew

The last time I wrote a similar “update from the culture war trenches” post was November. This was one month before the publishing of the best-selling book, in which I contributed a chapter, Grave Error: How the Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools).

Since then, I have published in these pages two new long-form essays on Israel (each one is well over ten thousand words), the first one is entitled The Case For Israel, and the second, Israel, A Promised Land, and  re-posted a couple oldies but goodies from the Woke Watch Canada archive.

The reasons why will be addressed below, but the next installments of my Israel essay series will be delayed. However, at some point they will be published here on The Turn. Like most things I do, it’s taking longer than I originally thought. All I can say is thank you for your patience, and ask that you don’t lose faith in me or my Israel series. I feel compelled to write on a variety of topics that deal with the culture wars from a variety of angles, and I have convinced myself that someday all of the writing will be neatly and thematically bound together through the coherence of my arguments and the quality of my positions. Admittedly, it's a little foggy on exactly how this will be achieved. Hence, at least in part, why things take so long.

The post below is divided into sections found under bolded headlines. Some readers may already know everything about Grave Error and the Quesnel Debacle, so may choose to skip that section. As well, for the convenience of new readers who may not be as familiar with what I do, I have copied and pasted the first two paragraphs from my November update mentioned above, after that, we dive into the new stuff. 

Partly out of laziness, but mostly because the opening of my fall update is the exact sentiment I wish to communicate for the opening of today's update. From Searching for Coherence - A Fall Update:

“It looks like I’m returning yet again after far too long of an absence. And again, I apologize to the infinitely patient readers of The Turn. As well, I welcome the many new subscribers that have joined us since my last update. And a special thanks to those who have taken out paid subscriptions, or who continue with their monthly plan despite my lack of publishing here. You are all very much appreciated.

“Before I get started, it should go without mentioning that the bulk of my writing is published on Woke Watch Canada (please do subscribe there if you haven’t yet). Every week I publish multiple articles and essays to Woke Watch Canada - written by myself and others. I’m assuming that the patience extended to me from the stellar group of readers here, is at least partially due to the consistent editorial output over at Woke Watch Canada. Indeed, most of the subscribers here are also signed up over there.”

Gave Error and the Quesnel Debacle

Since my esteemed colleagues, C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, took the initiative to solicit and publish a collection of essays, called Grave Error, from the members of our informal email-based research group, and a few others, on the topic of Indian Residential Schools and the related claims of clandestine unmarked graves “discovered” on the grounds where residential schools were formerly located, the book has remained an Amazon bestseller. 

Except for a couple of opinion pieces in the National Post, there was no legacy media coverage of the book until the Quesnel debacle. The first piece I wrote was on March 22nd - Outrage over Grave Error. In that piece, I commented on the Quesnel City council’s decision to denounce Grave Error - something the CBC reported on the previous day:

“Quesnel's city council voted unanimously to denounce a book the Lhtako Dene Nation says downplays the harms of residential schools, after the First Nation and councillors raised concerns the mayor's wife was distributing it to residents in the city about 630 kilometres north of Vancouver.”

You read that right. The debacle was over the mayor’s wife, because she liked our book and decided to give away a few copies and solicit opinions. The mayor’s wife is not part of the city council, and does not work for the city in any way. However, the calls to cancel the mayor were vociferous. This was simply because his wife likes our book, and that hurts the feelings of some indigenous people and activists. My opening thoughts on the debacle:

“Canadians need to ‘do the work.’ We need to start having those hard conversations about ‘indigenous privilege.’ In a breath-taking act of Orwellian censorship, the gross privilege so sickeningly draped over indigenous Canadians by mostly progressively minded non-indigenous Canadians, reached a new paragon of gag-inducing genuflection.”

A few days later, on March 25th, an official press release, was published. It responded to the Quesnel debacle, and defended the book. From the press release:

“On March 19, 2024, the Lhtako Dene Nation wrote a letter to the Mayor and Council of the City of Quesnel saying that ‘It has come to our attention that a person related to a member of the City’s elected [council] has been distributing a book entitled Grave Error.’ The indigenous group complained that the book was ‘basically questioning the existence of Indian Residential Schools’.

“Despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing in Grave Error that questions the existence of Indian residential schools, Council members voted unanimously to denounce the book.”

On March 27th, Hymie Rubenstein, the editor of the REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, and I co-authored and published our response in the Dorchester Review, and a shorter summary in the Western Standard the following day, called In Quesnel, They Can’t Handle The Truth.

On March 28th I published, in Woke Watch Canada, Crisis in Quesnel: Grave Error and the Truth, written by regular contributor Michelle Stirling. The following day I posted three open letters addressed to the Quesnel City council, the first was by  former Manitoba attorney general James McCrae, the second by Bill Wyn, and the third by Shannon Lee Manion (board member of the IRSRG).

At the next council meeting in early April, Grave Error co-contributor Frances Widdowson drove 10 hours to attend. What ensued during the meeting, especially when both Frances and the Mayor’s wife, Pat Morton, addressed the council, can be best described as a clown show. My take can be found in the Woke Watch Canada piece from April 5th, called Empathy or Totalitarianism: Frances Widdowson and the Quesnel Mob. From that commentary:

“The Quesnel council meeting was held yesterday. It was an embarrassing and shocking clown show…it is clear from the video of the meeting that toxic levels of woke empathy and broken thinking have saturated public institutions across the country, and taken on a totalitarian character. Quesnel’s city council is the epitome of this.”

Then, on April 8th, retired Canadian publisher Robert Roth penned an open letter to the Quesnel City councillors, which I published on Woke Watch Canada. The letter resonated with readers, especially those who watched the video of the Quesnel City “clown show” council meeting. In Roth’s view, “The bias of the chair and council was astounding.” From Robert Roth’s open letter to the Quesnel City council:

“When an unruly, intimidating gang can selectively shut down certain speakers and eliminate rational dialogue at a council meeting, democracy has officially succumbed to tyranny.”

Things have continued to get worse in Quesnel. The city councillors are crazy. I wrote and published to Woke Watch Canada more Quesnel debacle commentary in a piece entitled, Canada is finding out what Reconciliation really means: In Quesnel City, where the "Wackos" Roam Free - which was republished a couple days later on May 7th by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. 

I didn’t realize the Frontier Center was going to republish my article so quickly. It is not a problem at all, and I am honoured they did. However, after I posted my original article to Woke Watch Canada, my colleague, Hymie Rubenstein, asked if he could re-work it and add some of his own commentary. I told him to go ahead. What he came up with amazed me. I thought it was one of the strongest pieces yet. 

Hymie and I had our article, which we called Canada sees the true face of reconciliation, and it isn’t pretty published on True North (who is also the publisher of Grave Error), on May 7th - the same day my other article was reposted by the Frontier Center. It was less than ideal that both pieces were published on the same date, but beyond my control. 

A profile feature by Geoffrey Clarfield

It was an honour last month to have a conversation with anthropologist, Geoffrey Clarfield, who is interested in Canadian indigenous issues, Woke Watch Canada, my writings on Israel,  and countless other topics. Geoffrey wrote an excellent profile piece that tells some of my background story - my career in finance, then the music business, then the home renovation business, then the research/writing/publishing business. His article also discusses Grave Error and the woke environment in Canada that led to the unmarked graves and Indian Residential School moral panic. And of course, we discuss Israel and the phenomenon of antisemitism.

It was first published in The Times Of Israel under the title A Conversation With James Pew-Canadian Friend of Israel | Geoffrey Clarfield, but also later reworked and published in the New English Review . 

More on Geoffrey below.

And, more of my story can be found in these pages in a piece I published in September of 2021, called Before I Realized How Messed Up Everything Is. 

Published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute - The Gender Ideology file

Another recent big deal (at least for me) was having an essay published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for the first time. MLI is an awesome think tank, full of great research and writing on Canadian issues. It is truly an honour to have my work featured in their pages.

I wrote a 3000-word essay on Canada’s acceptance of trans-affirming care for minors, which included a brief analysis of the federally funded trans-affirming toolkit (a resource designed to instruct teachers in the practice of trans-affirming care for minors).

My article, Canada’s dangerous commitment to trans-affirming care for minors: James Pew | Macdonald-Laurier Institute (macdonaldlaurier.ca),  appeared on the MLI website on May 8th. 

In the weeks before I began work on the MLI piece, I had started writing a new series on the topic of gender ideology in education, queer pedagogy, and critical pedagogy for Woke Watch Canada. The first piece is called The Radical Canadians who made Education "Critical"  and the second one is called The Rise of Queer Marxism in Canada. 

Both articles have videos embedded of additional analysis by Melanie Bennet. This was a cool way to write (for me). I first watched Melanie’s analysis. Then I did a little of my own research. And finally, I wrote my own commentary often quoting from Melanie’s videos, and from other relevant academic sources. 

I am always overwhelmed with topics I want to write about. I make lists of things I must comment on. But then I end up writing about other things instead. I tell myself I’ll go back to the list, while at the same time I make new lists. The lists pile up. They torment me a little. Sometimes a lot. However, mercifully, I often indulge in spontaneous exercises that do not involve self-imposed restraints or lists. When I first saw one of Melanie’s videos I was inspired to write commentary and take the subject matter in a slightly different direction. So with no planning or preparation, I wrote that commentary, for two different Bennett videos, then published them to Woke Watch Canada. Just like that! And, I enjoyed doing so very much. Since then, Melanie has produced and posted lots more insightful analysis that I have put on my list of things I should write about. So…yes, most likely soon, there will be more of this video-to-article, call and response, kind of thing, between Melanie and I. And, Melanie has sent me some of her notes and writings that we are to collaborate on and co-write some new articles. Stay tuned.

Books and the Art of Reading

It may seem, from the amount of articles I linked to above, that the bulk of my time has been spent writing stuff. However, if I were to compare the amount I have written in the last 4 months to other periods, I think we would find that I have actually produced a little less than normal. Recently, I have felt compelled to spend more time reading than writing. This brings to mind what a friend said one day a few years ago: “writing is reading.” They are kind of one and the same. You really can’t have the writing, unless a whole lot of reading goes with it. Now, I am very lucky, because I share both a love of writing and reading. I believe that, at least for me, writing is reading! 

Returning to Geoffrey Clarfield - the first anthropologist mentioned above. When Geoffrey and I first began corresponding it was concerning my essay series on Israel.  Geoffrey was invaluable at recommending great books on different aspects of the history and politics of Israel. I soon discovered that, like me, Geoffrey has a deep love of books and learning. I found that Geoffrey could reference at least one, if not several, mind-blowing books or thinkers or ideas or schools of thought on practically any topic we discussed. 

He shared with me a draft of an unpublished article he wrote about his personal home library. Essentially, about books, some of which are not well known, that he found to be important or informative for one reason or another. I loved the article, and asked if I could publish it on Woke Watch Canada. Geoffrey is still doing final edits and finishing touches but has promised me a version for Woke Watch Canada readers soon. Stay tuned!

Recently Geoffrey put me on to a great thinker who wrote a number of great books, and who co-edited a volume of books that are perhaps the most important books ever written. The thinker, is the philosopher, educator, and author, Mortimer Adler. His books include such titles as Aristotle for Everybody - Difficult Thought Made Easy, and How to Think About God, and Six Great Ideas. 

However, the first two books by Adler that Geoffrey recommended were THE PAIDEIA PROPOSAL: An Education Manifesto. This book was written in 1982 in response to what Adler and others felt were drastically declining standards in the quality of education in America. His recommendations for how to approach the education of children (and adults for that matter) are brilliant, sensible and practical. Why all children are not being educated like this is infuriating. This book is very short. It’s less than 100 pages and can be read in a few hours. The Paideia method is how I am now approaching educating my own children during the hours we spend doing homework together. In our experience, either my children’s school assigns no homework, or not very much homework, which leaves us to fend for ourselves. Enter Paideia.

I gather appropriate math, reading, history, science and geography material for my kids to work on. But the approach explained in Paideia is what I have adopted. Here is the Paideia method explained in a three column figure found in the book:

The second book by Adler that Geoffrey recommended is How to Read a Book. After one takes in Paideia - even if you don’t have kids, I recommend you read it to get an understanding of Adler’s framework of education (which can be applied to your own life-long education) - How to Read a Book is an essential volume which prepares the reader for advanced learning through text. From making distinctions between different types of reading - reading for information, reading for understanding - and “elementary reading” to the more advanced “inspectional reading,” to note-taking and the “problem of comprehension.” This is not a book to pass over because you feel you already know how to read. Ask yourself, when was the last time you had a reading class, and at what age did those classes end. If your education was anything like the public education I received, classes designed to develop the skill of reading ended far too soon. Since this is the case, adults, especially adults who want to play a positive impactful role in their children's education, must improve their reading skill, and make up for an education system that generally taught us poorly. Read Paideia and imagine if your teachers and parents had been dedicated to such a program.

How to Read a Book is advanced; it's for adults, and smart adolescents. It is also imperative. Reading should not be thought of as simply glancing at words on a page. When we read in this fashion, we walk away leaving most of the words on the floor, instead of in our heads. Reading for understanding is about engaging with ideas, not letting them pass before our eyes as we scan rows of text in a rush to complete our task. Take your time. Take notes. Take a break here and there and think about the ideas contained in the text. Re-write those ideas in your own words. Close your eyes, and contemplate. There is no time limit, there are no deadlines. Reading is enriching. It is education. If pursued with sufficient energy and curiosity, it can make you wise. And some of that wisdom can pass on to your children. Learning to read the right way, is learning how to extract and internalize the wisdom of the ages, which is found in great books.

After you plow through Paideia and relearn How to Read a Book, the next step is to figure out what books to read. This is where Adler’s contribution to the teaching of the Western intellectual tradition is perhaps most influential. We begin with a three volume series by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchens, entitled The Great Ideas. The first volume in that series is called The Great Conversation. It is a discussion of the great books of the Western Canon. It places their authors in dialogue with one another. In this way, the Western intellectual tradition is presented as a “great conversation.”

Volume 2 and 3 of this series are called The Syntopicon Volume 1 and Volume 2. These serve as a sort of index of ideas. Which ideas? The great ideas, the ones found in the great books of the Western canon, which are discussed in volume 1, The Great Conversation.

This three volume series is essential reading foundational to the Western tradition of “great ideas,” and “great books” learning. 

An additional 51 volumes were added to the three-volume great idea series (The Great Conversation, and the Syntopicon Vol 1 & 2), and the entire thing was published by Encyclopaedia Britannica. With the first three volumes considered orienting material, the subsequent 51 volumes contain the content of the literature of the Western Canon itself - not to be taken as a light read by any means, the editors provide a 10 year reading plan in volume 1!

Mr. M and I have already identified this amazing series as being relevant for those wishing to oppose the woke orthodoxy. Because this orthodoxy is fundamentally opposed to the liberal democratic and Judeo-Christian traditions of the West, we must be able to defend those traditions and the ideas and principles on which they are based. There is no better way to contend with the Western intellectual tradition than through Adler and Hutchens’ Great Books of the Western World series.

Here is an unpublished excerpt of commentary concerning the great Western canon from Mr. M:

“If you are like me, you may be thinking ‘how could I possibly contend with the enormity of Western thought?’ Well, none to worry in that case because Hutchens, Adler, and their committee of advisors have us covered. The tradition of ‘Great Ideas’ and ‘Great Books’ learning (also known as ‘the Western Canon’) which Hutchens and Adler have contributed to with their massively influential book series on these topics was also an episode in the early-to-mid 20th century culture war on the University of Chicago campus: while modernist pedagogists wanted to dispense with traditional liberal arts learning in order to modernize education and repurpose it to the task of making highly specialized professionals geared to perform in a modern economy, Hutchens and Adler and educators of their sort sought to re-instantiate the Great Books, the learning of the Classics which had been valued by the humanists, had given form to the early humanities, to liberal education itself. Incidentally, the later influence ultimately won out at the University of Chicago — compared to other campuses, Chicago has been a bastion of scientific rigor and high standards in liberal arts learning. And why should Robert Hutchens have been influential at U. Chicago? Well, he was the president of the university from 1929 until 1945 and is widely held to have been among the most influential to hold that post - he hired Adler, who was his intellectual partner in much of it.”

Thank you Robert Hutchens and Mortimer Adler. And thank you Geoffrey Clarfield…don’t stop recommending books!

___

Thanks for reading.

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