The National: 'Terrorism and fanaticism: Were the early Calvinists Scotland's Daesh?'

Terrorism and fanaticism: 

Were the early Calvinists Scotland's Daesh?

by Chris Bambery

(The National 8 Dec 2015)

Read original article here

Letter to Editor in response to above -

"A caliphate...for Calvinists?" must surely rank as the National's most irresponsible anti-Christian polemic yet. Ironically reminiscent of the offensive anti-Yes distortions we have so long endured from British tabloids. How, I wonder, shall we ever close the 50% gap if swathes of our community are so gratuitously demonised? Please allow a brief attempt at rebalance -

The patent truth is that Scottish Christians have made an illustrious contribution to human democracy. Berwickshire founder of the Scottish tradition of philosophy John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) influenced Gleghornie-born John Mair (1467-1550), who in turn became a highly influential professor at the University of Paris. Mair's lectures were heard by an unlikely mix including John Knox, Jean Calvin, George Buchanan, Ignatious Loyola, Francisco Vitoria, and François Rabelais. Mair sought to curb the autocratic power of the Pope within the Catholic Church. His 'Conciliar Movement' principles influenced the Protestant Reformation of the 16th C, and also the struggle of constitutional government against absolute monarchies in Europe of the 17th C.

The treatise 'Art and Science of Government among the Scots' by Calvinist-humanist George Buchanan (1506-1582) had a huge influence on political thought in Britain and America. John Milton in his 'Defence of the People of England' wrote concerning just government: "For Scotland I refer you to Buchanan". 

Presbyterian minister and St Andrews Professor, Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661) in his 'Lex, Rex' systematized Calvinistic political theories and laid the foundation for the libertarian ideas of the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Indeed, the American War for Independence was referred to by the British as a "Presbyterian Rebellion"! John Locke ('Father of Classical Liberalism') echoed 'Lex, Rex'.

Nearer our own day, the late Dutch Christian philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977) has written profoundly and extensively on the nature of the "just state". The jurist and humanist G.E. Langemeyer called him "the most original philosopher Holland has produced, even Spinoza not excepted".

So Calvinism at its best has defended freedom of conscience. Calvin himself (unsuccessfully) fought for the complete separation of Church and State in Geneva. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genevan and no friend to Christianity, exclaimed: "So long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct amongst us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence." (Du contrat social 1762).

Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh

Máire Ní Annracháin - Seimineáir Litriochta Ghaeilge

  

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Herman Dooyeweerd: Meaning in the fall of humankind

Jan Davidsz. de Heem, "Triopall le Blàthan is Measan"

Meaning in the fall of humankind

Herman Dooyeweerd

There remains, however, another central problem of extreme importance: As regards his human nature, Christ is the root of reborn creation, and as such the fulness of meaning, the creaturely Ground of the meaning of all temporal reality. But our temporal world in its apostate religious root lies under God's curse, under the curse of sin. Thus there is a radical antithesis in the subject-side of the root of the earthly cosmos. It may be that this antithesis has been reconciled by the Redemption in Jesus Christ, but in temporal reality the unrelenting struggle between the kingdom of God and that of darkness will go on until the end of the world. The falling away from God has affected our cosmos in its root and its temporal refraction of meaning. Is not this a final and decisive reason to distinguish meaning from reality? Does not the radical antithesis between the kingdom of God and that of darkness, which our transcendental Idea itself also recognizes as fundamental for philosophic thought, compel us to accept an ultimate dualism between meaning and reality?

Is sinful reality still meaning? Is it not meaningless, or rather the adversary of meaning, since meaning can only exist in the religious dependence on its Origin?

Here we indeed touch the deepest problem of Christian philosophy. The latter cannot hope to solve it without the illumination of Divine Revelation if it wants to be guaranteed from falling back into the attitude of immanence-philosophy.

I for one do not venture to try and know anything concerning the problem that has been raised except what God has vouchsafed to reveal to us in His Word. I do not know what the full effect of unrestrained sin on reality would be like. Thanks to God this unhampered influence does not exist in our earthly cosmos. One thing we know, viz. that sin in its full effect does not mean the cutting through of the relation of dependence between Creator and depraved creation, but that the fulness of being of Divine justice will express itself in reprobate creation in a tremendous way, and that in this process depraved reality cannot but reveal its creaturely mode of being as meaning.

It will be meaning in the absolute subjective apostasy under the curse of God's wrath, but in this very condition it will not be a meaningless reality.

Sin causes spiritual death through the falling away from the Divine source of life, but sin is not merely privatio, not something merely negative, but a positive, guilty apostasy insofar as it reveals its power, derived from creation itself. Sinful reality remains apostate meaning under the law and under the curse of God's wrath. In our temporal cosmos God's Common Grace reveals itself, as KUYPER brought to light so emphatically, in the preservation of the cosmic world-order. Owing to this preserving grace the framework of the temporal refraction of meaning remains intact.

The Christian as a stranger in this world.
Although the fallen earthly cosmos is only a sad shadow of God's original creation, and although Christians can only consider themselves as strangers and pilgrims in this world, yet they cannot recognize the true creaturely ground of meaning [as if it resided] in the apostate root of this cosmos, but only in the new root, Christ. Any other view would inevitably result in elevating sin to the rank of an independent counter-power opposed to the creative power of God (1). And this would result in avoidance of the world, an unbiblical flight from the world. We have nothing to avoid in the world but sin. The war that the Christian wages in God's power in this temporal life against the Kingdom of darkness, is a joyful struggle, not only for our own salvation, but for God's creation as a whole, which we do not hate, but love for Christ's sake. We must not hate anything in the world but sin.

The apostate world cannot maintain any meaning as its own property in opposition to Christ. Common Grace.
Nothing in our apostate world can get lost in Christ. There is not any part of space, there is no temporal life, no temporal movement or temporal energy, no temporal power, wisdom, beauty, love, faith or justice, which sinful reality can maintain as a kind of property of its own apart from Christ.

Whoever relinquishes the 'world' taken in the sense of sin, of the 'flesh' in its Scriptural meaning, does not really lose anything of the creaturely meaning, but on the contrary gets a share in the fulness of meaning of Christ, in Whom God will give us everything. It is all due to God's common grace in Christ that there are still means left in the temporal world to resist the destructive force of the elements that have got loose; that there are still means to combat disease, to check psychic [sensory-emotional] maladies, to practise logical thinking, to save cultural development from going down into savage barbarism, to develop language, to preserve the possibility of social interaction, to withstand injustice, and so on. All these things are the fruits of Christ's work, even before His appearance on the earth. From the very beginning God has viewed His fallen creation in the light of the Redeemer.

We can only face the problem of the effect on temporal meaning that the partial working of the falling away from the fulness of meaning has in spite of common grace, when we have gained an insight into the modal structures of the law-spheres within the temporal coherence of meaning. But— and with this we definitively reject any separation of meaning from reality — meaning in apostasy remains real meaning in accordance with its creaturely mode of being. An illogical reasoning can occur only within the logical modality of meaning; illegality in its legal sense is only possible within the modality of meaning of the jural sphere; the non beautiful can only be found within the modal aspect of meaning of the aesthetic law-sphere, just as organic disease remains something within the modal aspect of meaning of the biotic law-sphere, and so on. Sin, as the root of all evil, has no meaning or existence independent of the religious fulness of the Divine Law. In this sense St PAUL'S word is to be understood, to the effect that but for the law sin is dead ("χωρὶς γὰρ νόμου ἁμαρτία νεκρά" Romans 7:8).

All along the line meaning remains the creaturely mode of being under the law which has been fulfilled by Christ. Even apostate meaning is related to Christ, though in a negative sense; it is nothing apart from Him.

As soon as thought tries to speculate on this religious basic truth, accessible to us only through faith in God's Revelation, it gets involved in insoluble antinomies. This is not due to any intrinsic contradiction between thought and faith, but rather to the mutinous attempt on the part of thought to exceed its temporal cosmic limits in its supposed self-sufficiency. But of this in the next section. For thought that submits to Divine Revelation and recognizes its own limits, the antithesis in the root of our cosmos is not one of antinomy; rather it is an opposition on the basis of the radical unity of Divine Law; just as in the temporal law-spheres justice and injustice, love and hatred are not internally antinomous, but only contrasts determined by the norms in the respective modalities of meaning.

The religious value of the modal criterion of meaning.
If created reality is to be conceived of as meaning, one cannot observe too strictly the limits of the temporal modal law-spheres in philosophic thought. These limits have been set by the cosmic order of time in the specific 'sovereignty of the modal aspects within their own spheres'.

Any attempt to obliterate these limits by a supposedly autonomous thought results in an attack upon the religious fulness of meaning of the temporal creation.

If the attempt is made to reduce the modal meaning of the jural or that of the economic law-sphere to the moral one of the temporal love of one's neighbour, or if the same effort is made to reduce the modal meaning of number or that of language to the meaning of logic, it must be distinctly understood that the abundance of meaning of creation is diminished by this subjective reduction. And perhaps without realizing what this procedure implies, one puts some temporal aspect of reality in the place of the religious fulness of meaning in Christ. The religious value of the criterion of meaning is that it saves philosophic thought from falling away from this fulness."
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(1) In his Kirchliche Dogmatik KARL BARTH has tried to escape this consequence by deriving the positive power of sin from the 'Divine No' placed over against His 'Yes' with respect to His creative act. But this dialectical solution of the problem results in a dualistic (at the same time positive and negative) conception of creation. The Divine 'No' cannot explain the power of sin, which as such is derived from creation itself, as we have stated in Vol. I. The idea of a negative creation is destructive to the Biblical conception of the integral Origin of Heaven and earth, because it implies that sin has a power outside creation in its positive sense. Creation itself implies the Divine 'No' with respect to sin in its negative sense as 'privatio'.

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(Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought Vol II, p 32-36)
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Brìgh ann an tuiteam mhic-an-duine
"Cha tèid càil san t-saoghal Dia-àicheil seo air chall ann an Crìosd. Chan eil pàirt sam bith de fhànas, chan eil beatha thìmeil sam bith, chan eil gluasad tìmeil no lùths tìmeil, chan eil cumhachd, gliocas, maise, gràdh, creideamh no ceartas sam bith as urrainn dhan t-saoghal pheacach a chùmail mar shealbh aige fhèin as aonais Chrìosd....Tha e gu tur taing do ghràs coitcheann Dhè ann an Crìosd gu bheil meadhanan sam bith air am fàgail san t-saoghal thìmeil a chur an aghaidh neart sgriosail nan eileamaidean a fhuair ma sgaoil; gu bheil meadhanan ann fhathast a bhith strì an aghaidh galair, gu bhith bacadh thinneasan-inntinn, gu bhith cur smaoineachaidh loidsigich an gnìomh, gu bhith sàbhaladh leasachaidh chultaraich bho dhol sìos ann am buirbe mi-chneasta, gu bhith ag altram cainnt, gu bhith gleidheadh comas a' chonaltraidh shòisealta, gu bhith seasamh an aghaidh mi-cheartais, agus mar sin air adhart. Tha na nithean uile seo mar thoradh air obair Chrìosd, fiù 's mas do nochd E air an talamh. Bhon toiseach sheall Dia air A chruitheachd leagte ann an solas an t-Slànaigheir." (Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol II p 34)
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Brí i dtitim an chine dhaonna.
Tá fós, áfach, fadhb lárnach eile atá ana-thábhachtach: Maidir le a nádúr daonna, is é Críost fréamh an chruthaithe athshaolaithe, agus mar seo is lánmhaireacht na brí é, bunús créatúrúil brí na réaltacht teamparálta uile. Ach tá ár saol teamparálta, ina fhréamh reiligiúnach dhiashéantach, faoi mhallacht Dé agus faoi mhallacht an pheacaí. Dá bhrí sin tá fritéis radacach ann i dtaobh-suibiachta fréamh an chosmais dhomhanda. D'fhéadfadh sé a bheith go ndearna an fhritéis seo a réiteach leis an Fhuascailt in Íosa Críost, ach i réaltacht teamparálta leanfaidh an choimhlint gan staonadh idir ríocht Dé agus ríocht an dorchadais go dtí deireadh an domhain...(Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought Vol II, p 32-36)

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Herman Dooyeweerd: The remarkable 'nevertheless' of Christian faith

The remarkable 'nevertheless' 

of Christian faith

by Herman Dooyeweerd

"The Christian idea of cultural development cannot be guided by an optimistic faith in the steady progress of civilization. It cannot be sacrificed to relativistic Historicism either. It remains ruled by the religious basic motive of the struggle between the civitas Dei and the civitas terrena in the temporal course of history, though eschatologically it remains directed to the ultimate victory of the Kingdom of God in Christ, to Whom has been given the fullness of power in the religious fulfilment of history [...]

The Christian Idea of development, therefore, cannot be narrow-minded. It recognizes any relative meaning-disclosure of civilization, even though positivized by anti-Christian powers.

Every spiritual movement, having the power of historical formation has to fulfil its own task as an instrument in the hand of God. Our developmental Idea has broken with any speculative philosophical or theological construction of periods in cultural development. And above all, it continues to observe the inner tension between sinful reality and the full demand of the Divine law.

This demand is terrifying when we consider how much the temporal ordinances labour under the destructive power of the fall into sin. Terrifying also, when it puts before us our task as Christians in the struggle for the power of cultural formation.

For it makes a demand on us which as sinful human beings we cannot satisfy in any way. And it urges us, in the misery of our hearts, to seek refuge with Christ, from Whose fulness, nevertheless, a Christian can derive the confidence of faith to carry on the ceaseless struggle for the control of cultural development. This is the remarkable 'nevertheless' of Christian faith.

Christian philosophic thought has to fight shy of self-exaltation, because it is directed in its root to Christ. The whole struggle that positive Christianity has to carry on for the direction of the opening-process is not directed against our fellow men, in whose sin we partake and whose guilt is ours and whom we should love as our neighbours. That struggle is directed against the spirit of darkness who dragged us all down with him in the apostasy from God, and who can only be resisted in the power of Christ.

As Christians we shall hate that spirit because of the love of God's creation in Christ Jesus."

(Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 2 pp 364, 365)

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Dooyeweerd: Key of knowledge - Question of life and death

(Image developed from original Wiki key photo by Evan-Amos)

Key of knowledge - 

Question of life and death

by Herman Dooyeweerd

"Thus the central theme of the Holy Scriptures, namely, that of creation, fall into sin, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Spirit, has a radical unity of meaning, which is related to the central unity of our human existence. It effects the true knowledge of God and ourselves, if our heart is fully opened by the Holy Spirit so that it finds itself in the grip of God's Word and has become the captive of Jesus Christ. So long as this central meaning of the Word-revelation is at issue, we are beyond the scientific problems both of theology and philosophy. Its acceptance or rejection is a matter of life or death to us, and not a question of theoretical reflection. In this sense, the central motive of Holy Scripture is the common supra-scientific starting-point of a truly biblical theology and of a truly Christian philosophy. It is the key of knowledge of which Jesus spoke in his discussion with the Scribes and lawyers. It is the religious presupposition of any theoretical thought, which may rightly claim a biblical foundation. But, as such, it can never become the theoretical object of theology - no more than God and the human I can become such an object." (Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought, pp 86,87)

"From the foregoing it may appear that there must be a difference in principle between creation, fall and redemption in their central sense as the key to knowledge, and in their sense as articles of faith which may be made into the object of theological thought. Insofar as Reformed theology, too, was influenced by the scholastic basic motive of nature and grace, it also developed dogmatic views which must be considered unbiblical. The Jewish Scribes and lawyers had a perfect theological knowledge of the books of the Old Testament. They wished, doubtless, to hold to the creation, the fall, and the promise of the coming Messiah as articles of the orthodox Jewish faith which are also articles of the Christian faith. Nevertheless, Jesus said to them: "Woe unto you, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge!" (Luke 11:52). This key of knowledge in its radical and integral sense cannot be made into a theoretical problem. The theologian can only direct his theological thought to it with respect to its necessary supra-theoretical presupposition, if he is really in the grip of it and can bear witness to its radical meaning which transcends all theological concepts. But when he does so, he is not in any different position than the Christian philosopher who accounts for his biblical starting-point, or the ordinary believer who testifies to the radical sense of God's Word as the central motive power of his life in Jesus Christ. In other words, the true knowledge of God in Jesus Christ and true self-knowledge are neither of a dogmatic-theological, nor of a philosophical nature, but have an absolutely central religious significance. This knowledge is a question of spiritual life or death. Even orthodox theological dogmatics, however splendidly elaborated, cannot guarantee this central spiritual knowledge.” (Herman Dooyeweerd, In the Twilight of Western Thought, p100).

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Interview with Herman Dooyeweerd 1973 (video)

If English subtitles don't appear, please hover over base of video frame and click on the letters 'CC'. Alternatively, please go to following Youtube page and, if necessary, click on 'CC':
https://youtu.be/pV2NseGmi6o
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Francis Schaeffer: Démission de la Raison

 EBOOK PDF (38 pages)

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Ailig Salmond: Mairidh an Dòchas - 100 Latha a dh’atharraich Alba gu Bràth

Mairidh an Dòchas

100 Latha a dh’atharraich Alba gu Bràth

le Ailig Salmond

(Collins Paperback £12.99)

Bhon chòmhdach: 

Tha Ailig Salmond air a bhith gu mòr airson neo-eisimeileachd na h-Alba fad a bheatha. San t-Sultain 2014 thàinig e glè fhaisg air sin a thoirt gu buil.

Ann an leabhar-latha inntinneach, air a sgrìobhadh na dhòigh eirmseach fhèin, tha Salmond gar toirt a-steach gu cridhe na h-iomairt BU CHÒIR, a' sealltainn dè chaidh a ràdh agus a chaidh a dhèanamh air cùlaibh gnothaich fhad 's a bha an iomairt a' ruighinn àird na teasaich.

Tha e a' sealltainn mar a thug iomairt BU CHÒIR ath-bheothachadh do dh'Alba air fad agus mar a rinn e ath-sgrìobhadh air na riaghailtean airson iomairt phoilitigeach am measg an t-sluaigh, chan ann a-mhàin san RA ach air feadh an t-saoghail.

Tha e cuideachd a' coimhead air adhart ris "a' cheist nàiseanta" chudromaich ann am poileataigs ann am Breatann, a' dèanamh gu math soilleir nach b' e deireadh na cùis a bha san reifreann ach am fìor thoiseach. Tha an dòchas airson neo-eisimeileachd na h-Alba cho fallainn 's a bha e a-riamh.

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LONDON CALLING: How the BBC stole the Referendum (Youtube)

Note from G.A. Ponsonby: 

I am currently discussing the possibility of turning my book ‘London Calling: How the BBC stole the Referendum’ into an hour-long documentary. The project is at an early stage and outlines are currently sketchy, but if and when it turns into reality then the filmmaker will launch a crowd-funding appeal. If the editor allows, I’ll announce it on Newsnet.scot. In the meantime, please watch the short video above for a flavour of how the introduction to such a documentary might look.

Purchase Book 

HERE

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The Fall and Rise of Tory England and the Crisis of Labour

The Fall and Rise of Tory England 

and the Crisis of Labour

by Donald Adamson (11 Sept 2015)

As Ralph Miliband wrote: “There is a Tory way of carrying out Tory policies, and there is a Labour way of carrying out Tory policies.” Today we explore the scale and roots of the Labour crisis ahead of examining the new leaders victory over the weekend. 

“The Conservative Party has dominated British politics to such an extent during the twentieth century that it is likely to become known as the ‘Conservative century’. Either standing alone or as the most powerful element in a coalition, the party will have held power for seventy of the hundred years since 1895.”– Anthony Seldon and Stuart Ball, 1994 (1)

The main story of the 2015 UK general election was, undoubtedly, the remarkable victory of the SNP ending, as it did, Labour’s near 60-year dominance of UK general elections in Scotland. As significant as these developments in Scotland are, there is another (related) story to tell about the 2015 general election: the re-emergence of the Tories to electoral dominance in England in the twenty-first century after a brief period of being out of power. The other side of this story is the structural weakness of Labour in England, as this suggests, Labour’s weakness pre-dates 2015. But it is these two issues, together with the sea-change that has occurred in Scotland, which will shape the landscape of British politics for some time. More importantly, as the consequences of these developments are played out they will, in all likelihood, determine both the timing and the outcome of a second independence referendum. To make sense of these developments in England, though, it is helpful to start in the 1990s. There are two related issues here: first, the crisis of the Conservative Party after its victory in the 1992 general election, and second, the exceptionalism, in electoral terms, of New Labour.

Read full article

HERE

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Jonathan Chaplin: What Makes a Nation Christian? (YouTube)

Wheaton College (March 21 2011)

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Herman Dooyeweerd:

Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society

Jonathan Chaplin (2011)

Notre Dame Press 

"The twentieth-century Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd (1894–1977) left behind an impressive canon of philosophical works and has continued to influence a scholarly community in Europe and North America, which has extended, critiqued, and applied his thought in many academic fields. Jonathan Chaplin introduces Dooyeweerd for the first time to many English readers by critically expounding Dooyeweerd’s social and political thought and by exhibiting its pertinence to contemporary civil society debates.

Chaplin begins by contextualizing Dooyeweerd’s thought, first in relation to present-day debates and then in relation to the work of the Dutch philosopher Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920). Chaplin outlines the distinctive theory of historical and cultural development that serves as an essential backdrop to Dooyeweerd’s substantive social philosophy; examines Dooyeweerd’s notion of societal structural principles; and sets forth his complex classification of particular types of social structure and their various interrelationships. Chaplin provides a detailed examination of Dooyeweerd’s theory of the state, its definitive nature, and its proper role vis-à-vis other elements of society. Dooyeweerd’s contributions, Chaplin concludes, assist us in mapping the ways in which state and civil society should be related to achieve justice and the public good."

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SPIKED!: 'The First Amendment is not enough'

In the run up to our First Amendment conference in Washington, DC, attorney and author David French talks to Tom Slater about how Americans’ freedom of faith is under attack.

SPIKED!

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Bella Interview with Paul Mason (Post Capitalism)

Mike Small (Bella Caledonia) interviewed Paul Mason the day he came to the Edinburgh Book Festival about his book Post Capitalism: a Guide to Your Future and his observations about European politics, Greggs, technology, the indyref and meltdown and opportunities…

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Douglas Henshall on Media, Film, TV and Independence

Douglas Henshall discusses his early career, key Scottish film influences, and reflects on the challenges facing film and television production in Scotland as well as personal views on independence. (Bella Caledonia)
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Prof John Robertson: Scots Independence Podcast

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Download pdf (full 170 pages) of 

Prof John Robertson's book:

Scotland’s Propaganda War: 

The Media and the 2014 

Independence Referendum

HERE

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ALSO
A pdf (30 pages) of Prof Robertson's report:
Propaganda or Professionalism on Pacific Quay?
How political issues were covered by 
BBC Reporting Scotland and STV News 
in the four months before the UK General Election 2015
HERE
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Michael Greenwell's 

HOMESITE

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Thomas Muir Event: Lecture by Professor Sir Tom Devine (video)

Lecture by Professor Sir Tom Devine at the Thomas Muir Anniversary Event. Recorded on 25 August 2015 in the First Division courtroom, Parliament House, Edinburgh.
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‘Bullying’ – BBC Political Editor’s Bizarre Term For The Public Resisting The Establishment

‘Bullying’ – BBC Political Editor’s Bizarre Term For The Public Resisting The Establishment

The BBC's Nick Robinson has made a career out of telling the public what leading politicians say and do; sometimes even what they 'think'. This stenography plays a key role in 'the mainstream media', given that a vital part of statecraft is to keep the public suitably cowed and fearful of threats from which governments must protect us. The 'free press' requires compliant journalists willing to disseminate elite-friendly messages about global 'peace', 'security' and 'prosperity', uphold Western ideology that 'we are the good guys', and not question power deeply, if at all.

But when a senior journalist complains of 'intimidation and bullying' by the public, making comparison's to 'Vladimir Putin's Russia', the mind really boggles at the distortion of reality. Those were claims made by Robinson, the BBC's outgoing political editor, using an appearance at the Edinburgh international book festival to settle a few scores.

READ FULL ARTICLE

HERE

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Scotland’s Propaganda War: The Media and the 2014 Independence Referendum

Scotland’s Propaganda War: 

The Media and the 2014 

Independence Referendum

How biased were the Scottish and UK Media?

Why they were biased?

Why did it matter in 2014?

Why will it matter less next time?

Professor John Robertson, of University of the West of Scotland, provides a detailed account of the role the Scottish and UK media played in the Scottish Referendum Campaign. The book is based on his own research, which triggered a heated dispute with BBC Scotland, a summons to the Scottish Parliament and a storm of debate in social media. It also presents research by other academics and gives explanations for the findings from prominent theorists such as Noam Chomsky.

Originally contracted to Welsh Academic Press in September 2014, the book is now released into the public domain after several infuriating delays and barriers of an inexplicable nature.

This account of media bias in the coverage of the Scottish Referendum campaign goes beyond more journalistic impressions, from practitioners within the industry, to explain why it was so. It does this by revealing the true nature of influences on our media which are the result of unequal access to education and the interlocking of the resultant elites in finance, in ownership, in commercial directorships, in media directorships, in senior post-holders in journalism, in university leadership including professors, and, uniquely in Scotland, in the elites leading the Scottish and UK Labour parties.

With love for Scotland and all its people and places 
- John Robertson, 24th August 2015.

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Contents:

• Introduction: The Scottish Independence Referendum and the Media 5
• Evidence of Bias in the Scottish and UK Broadcast Coverage 15
• Evidence of Bias in the Scottish and UK Press Coverage 69
• Social Media in Scotland and the Yes/No Campaigns 80
• Covering the Scottish Referendum: ‘What the Public Wanted’ or Propaganda? 93
• Media Effects: How Much Were the Voters Influenced? 131
• Scottish Politics and Media after September 2014, Creating a more Democratic Scotland? 149

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FREE 170-PAGE PDF DOWNLOAD OF ENTIRE BOOK 

HERE

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L’enfant, propriété de l’État républicain (Vimeo)

Réal Gaudreault:
No4 : L’enfant, propriété de l’État républicain :
La Bible Parle 
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Some Robo-Metafizix Revisited...

1.

Below is a comment posted to the online article:

Robocop Takes on Philosophy of Mind by Matthew E. Johnson (June 03, 2014)

Your analysis of Robocop is of great interest. I would suggest Dooyeweed's thought has a bearing in at least three main ways. The first two are, I imagine, fairly safe and self-evident. The last may find less consensus.

Firstly, movies such as Robocop, Space Odyssey 2001, Bladerunner, Terminator, Matrix etc surely confirm Dooyeweerd's insight regarding a humanistic dichotomy between mechanistic law and personal freedom. In this light, can we perhaps see the Robocop remake as a modest attempt to find a point of equilibrium between these polarities and so heal the rift?

Secondly, in response to questions of artificial intelligence, do Christians perhaps not too readily identify "rationality" with "soul", inadvertantly espousing the Scholastic "nature/ grace" split in an attempt to resolve the humanistic "nature/ freedom" split? Dooyeweerd of course views "rationality" as no less temporal than "body".

Thirdly, if we subscribe to Dooyeweerd's summary of the Biblical ground-motive as "Creation, Fall, Redemption through Jesus Christ in Communion with the Holy Spirit", are we not thus identifying humanity as corporately fallen in Adam and corporately redeemed in Christ as "True Man" and as "New Root"? And are we not thereby recognizing that as "image of God" we are (in Christ) stewards of the very cosmos ("For all things are yours, the world, life, death..."), and also tacitly acknowledging that as "image of God" we are in our deepest selfhood (in our "heart", to use Dooyeweerd's rich but much misunderstood term) above time here and now. Thus even the most sophisticated "artificial intelligence" would remain but "an image of an image", a temporal reflection of the true human who, as supratemporal, is a reflection of God.

If I might add a pertinent quotation from the 'New Critique' -

'The inner restlessness of meaning, as the mode of being of created reality, reveals itself in the whole temporal world. To seek a fixed point in the latter is to seek it in a "fata morgana", a mirage, a supposed thing-reality, lacking meaning as the mode of being which ever points beyond and above itself. There is indeed nothing in temporal reality in which our heart can rest, because this reality does not rest in itself...The question: "Who is man?" is unanswerable from the immanence-standpoint. But at the same time it is a problem which will again and again urge itself on apostate thought with relentless insistence, as a symptom of the internal unrest of an uprooted existence which no longer understands itself.' (Vol III: 109, 784)

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2.

Leughar shìos freagairt dhan aiste air loidhne:

Fèin-aithne, daonnachd no cumhachd? le Tim Armstrong
(An t-Samhain 14, 2014)

A-thaobh ceist bun-chuspair “Bhladerunner”, tha thu ag ràdh gur annsa leatsa an cuideam a chur air “cumhachd” seach “fèin-aithne” (no: “dè tha e a’ ciallachadh a bhith daonna?”). Ach saoil nach ann caran coltach ri snaidhm Ceilteach a tha seo uile – air cho lìonmhor na lùban tha gach nì co-cheangailte gu bunaiteach, agus tillidh thu air a’ cheann thall dhan aon àite? :)

Ged a shònraicheas tu “cumhachd” (is e sin, gu bhith “fo smachd cuideigin eile”) mar chnag na cùise, siod thu sa bhad ag ainmeachadh contrarrachd an t-seòrsa “cumhachd” a tha seo, is e sin “saorsa”. Oir canaidh tu: “Chithear nach do rinn aon duine taghadh saor anns a’ fiolm”. Agus: “a bheil duine againn ga-rìribh saor anns an an t-saoghal nuadh?” Mar sin, nach eil e soilleir gum biodh e a’ cheart cho fìor a ràdh gur e do bheachdsa gur e prìomh chuspair “Bhladerunner” an spàirn (no daicòtoimi) eadar “cumhachd gar tràilleachadh” agus “saorsa”?

Aig 7:50 sa bhideo tha Nerdwriter cuideachd a-mach air bun-sgoltadh: “Is ann dà-thaobhach a tha beatha an là ‘n diugh”. Bruidhnidh e an-uairsin mu iomsgaradh a chìthear sa fiolm eadar “taobh ìochdarach dorch” a’ Bhaile Mhòir, agus (rud nas sona na bheachdsa) “sòisealtas cho neo-chrìochnach ri ailtireachd aibheiseach a’ bhaile seo”. Saoil a bheil sgaradh seo Nerdwriter (eadar geato dorch sòisealta agus fàire urbanach fhosgailte) na mhìneachadh eile air “tràilleachd” agus “saorsa”?

Co-dhiù no co-dheth, tha thu fhèin a’ faighneachd: “dè a’ bhuaidh aig teicneòlas air a’ chùis?”. Agus (mar snaidhm Ceilteach) tha e coltach gum bi buaidh a-choireigin aig freagairt na ceiste seo air a’ chiad cheist ud: “dè tha e a’ ciallachadh a bhith daonna?”.

Agus càit as mò a bhios ceist buaidh teicneòlais a’ togail ceann ach nuair a bhios robotan/ androidean/ reipliceantan an làthair? Nach e tha inntinneach na h-uibhir de fhiolmaichean sài-fài a bhios a’ meòrachadh air seo, mar eisimpleir: Space Odyssey 2001, Matrix, Terminator, I Robot, Robocop, Battlestar Galactica – agus gun a bhith diochuimhneachadh Metropolis fhèin.

San dol seachad, rinn mi oidhirp (o chionn bhliadhnachan) òraid bheag Rutger Hauer eadar-theangachadh. Tha mi air an teacsa a chall a-nis (nì cuideigin eile nas fheàrr co-dhiù!), ach na blòighean a leanas:

“Chunnaic mi nithean… nithean nach creideadh troichean mar sib’ fhèin… Longan-ionnsaigh fànais nan teine bhàrr gualainn an t-Sealgair Mhòir… Cho deàrrsach ri maignèisiam…”

PS: Mo nàire! Luaidh mi a’ chiad phàirt dhen t-seantans bhunaiteach seo agad ri leanas, ach rinn mi dearmad mì-chùramach air an leth mu dheireadh (bho “ach” air adhart) a tha fìor chudromach dhan bheachdachadh: “Chithear nach do rinn aon duine taghadh saor anns a’ fiolm, ach an Replicant, Roy Batty, aig an deireadh nuair nach do mhuirt e am Bladerunner, Rick Deckard.”

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3.

The following Andrew Basden Youtube is also of related interest:

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Interview with Herman Dooyeweerd 1973 (video)

If English subtitles don't appear, please hover over base of video frame and click on the letters 'CC'. Alternatively,  please go to following Youtube page and, if necessary, click on 'CC':
https://youtu.be/pV2NseGmi6o
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Herman Dooyweerd: The Life and Work of a Christian Philosopher

Newly published (2015) English translation 

of original Dutch (1989) esteemed intellectual biography 

by Marcel E. Verburg

£10 Hardback

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Brief intro to Dooyeweerd: Aspects & Ground-motives

Dear P_,

Dooyeweerd all the time champions actuality over theory. Actuality is anchored in Christ. That is because Christ is not theoretically the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of reality but is actually the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of reality. All meaning in existence therefore depends on Christ. All things are upheld by His word of power. There is NO neutrality. The single paramount antithesis in human life is between an acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ, and the lack of such acknowledgement. Dooyeweerd stresses that this antithesis is present in each and every heart, including Christians.

Every human heart seeks anchorage in the ultimate. If Christ is not acknowledged, then something else is necessarily accorded ultimacy. But there IS nothing else which is ultimate, because Christ is indeed Lord of All. So the apostate heart has no alternative but to make an ultimate of that which is in reality only relative - that which has in actuality no intrinsic "brute" meaning, and then to attempt to integrate all of existence around this gilded delusion. 

So the non-Christian (and often the Christian) intellectual will typically make an idol of Logic itself, and so try to reduce all of reality to "Logic". But "Logic" is an abstraction. Dooyeweerd suggests that Logic is only one of FIFTEEN aspects of reality, irreducible to each other ("sphere-sovereignty"), yet each reflected in all the others and unable to truly function without the others ("sphere universality"). In theoretical (ie abstract) thought, a single aspect is isolated and pondered, but this theorizing happens within a mental suspension of time ("epochē"). Something like considering a single colour of the spectrum refracted through a prism. Full-orbed functioning only takes place in time-embedded reality (ie in everyday holistic life) involving all aspects together (imagine reversing through the prism from the theoretically separated panoply of colours to the combined "white" or "clear" natural light of day). 

Biblical ground-motive
Dooyeweerd calls Christ-anchored reality the "Biblical ground-motive", which he elaborates as: "Creation, Fall, Redemption through Jesus Christ, in Communion with the Holy Spirit". Dooyeweerd's great insight into Western Thought is that insofar as the Biblical ground-motive does not prevail over our personal and communal thinking and action we are invariably succumbing to an apostate ground-motive. There is no alternative. 

Dichotomies
Apostate ground-motives, unlike the Biblical one, are internally dichotomous. They are dichotomous because when an attempt is made to reduce reality to an idol (ie to an absolutisation of that which is only relative) a counter-idol is automatically summoned up, as reality itself resists its own distortion and calls the human heart back to equilibrium (cf Augustine's "Our heart is restless till it finds its rest in Thee"). Some of humanity will coalesce around (become spellbound by) one absolutisation, Others will be captivated by the counter-absolutisation. Thus we have major political, social, and artistic divisions such as Neo-Classicism and Romanticism. The former championing eternal, geometric, rational, absolute, abstract laws. The latter championing transient, irrational, lawless, corporeal, emotive particulars. The former emphasises communal responsibility and solidarity. The latter emphasises individualistic heroism and genius.

Form/Matter
According to Dooyeweerd the main early ground-motive apparent in Western culture is the Hellenistic one involving the "Form/ Matter" dichotomy. His historic analysis of this is what you are currently reading in the early part of "Roots of Western Thought". Essentially Dooyeweerd says that the earliest Greek belief-system absolutised its perception of nature as being an endless flux of matter. He calls this the "Anangkē", ie "inescapability" (we cannot avoid being eventually pulled back into the formless flux from whence we arose). On the other hand, the Olympian religion of immortal, invisible form, measure, and rationality was a subsequent development which became the public cult of the Greek city-state (polis). Domestically, however, ordinary folk apparently continued to worship the older nameless and formless gods of nature (the time-cyclical backstory offering some consolation regarding death). Dooyeweerd shows why these two belief-systems (also occasionally characterised as "Apollus" versus "Dionysus") were ultimately incompatible, though mutually dependent.

The analysis of the Hellenistic Form/Matter ground-motive may seem a heavyish read at times as Dooyeweerd establishes his case, but I would encourage you to push on through it as its relevance will become apparent. I am of the view, for example, that the Form/Matter ground-motive is currently staring us in the face in Zombie and Superhero movies. The zombies are surely a manifestation of the "anangkē", arising out of the formless subterranean realm and dragging stricken humanity inexorably back down into material disintegration. In turn, Superman, Batman, Ironman, Spiderman etc are gods of an American-style Olympus, (more-or-less) immortal, ideally-formed, shining saviours from on high (with relational complications, of course). Dooyeweerd calls the dwellers of the Greek Olympus "deified cultural forces". That seems a fruitful way of making sense of the American counterparts too.

Nature/Grace
The Form/Matter ground-motive is relevant also because of the development of subsequent Western ground-motives, as identified by Dooyeweerd. The medieval world was dominated by the "Nature/Grace" (or "Nature/Supernature") ground-motive. This was essentially a synthesis (formulated by Thomas Aquinus) of the Hellenistic and Biblical ground-motives. The dichotomy here is between the "sacred" and the "profane". But also there arises a "body/soul" dichotomy, the soul being understood in Aristotelean terms of immortal rationality (escaping like a bird, at the time of physical death, from its corrupting material cage). Dooyeweerd sees the soul/heart very differently, as the deepest self, the integration point of all aspects of life and reality, the source of all of our acts, transcending time (or relating to the "fullness of time") in the here and now. Not just some kind of escape-pod of rationality-survival jettisoned at physical death. 

Although the Thomistic Nature/Grace ground-motive is more formally related to the Roman Catholic Church (though there is also an Augustinian heritage), it also remains highly conspicuous in much evangelical and so-called "reformed" Christianity, manifesting itself in a world-denying pietism and in the evangelical tendency to reduce political involvement to sporadic upsurges of moralistic petition-signing before returning to the bunker. Dooyeweerd reminds us that Christ is not just Lord of morality (only one aspect of fifteen), but of politics as such, of law as such, of street-plumbing and bridge-engineering as such.

Nature/Freedom
The prevailing modern Western ground-motive is the "Nature/ Freedom" (or for more clarity we might call it the "Mechanistic Natural Law versus Free Human Personality") dichotomy of humanism, which incorporated and secularised the previous three ground-motives. Humankind declares its absolute autonomy and undertakes the project of constructing reality anew from brute (ie un-God-referenced) scientific laws of cause and effect. But humankind gradually finds itself boxed-in (indeed turned into box-wood) because, from the point of view of this materialist reductionism, humans themselves can be no other than a random result of the exhaustively determinist laws of physics. In other words the personal freedom which humanity initially asserted is annihilated. So humanism must periodically (and irrationally) make a fresh assertion of absolute lawless personal freedom (hence Existentialism, Postmodernism etc). Thus the dichotomy is evident. To quote Dooyeweerd from his "New Critique":

"The deepest root of its dialectical character lies in the ambiguity of the Humanistic freedom-motive. The latter is the central driving force of the modern religion of human personality. And from its own depths it calls forth the motive to dominate nature, and thus leads to a religion of autonomous objective science in which there is no room for the free personality." (Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969, p 190)

This paradigmatic "Natural Law v Personal Freedom" ground-motive is highly visible in contemporary popular movie-culture. We glimpse it in Star Trek, for example, in those perennial "rationalist versus emotionalist" exchanges between Mr Spock and Captain Kirk. More panoramically we see it in the cyberpunk genre - in Bladerunner, the Terminator and Matrix films etc, where heroic humans struggle to survive dehumanising mechanisation. The polarisation is also evident in the objectivist Mechanical Law "meta-narrative" ("Big Story") we call "Darwinism" (in Attenborough documentaries, for example) versus the subjectivist interrogation of meta-narrative (in Tarantino, and in films such as Inception, Source Code etc). 

Normativity
The X-Men movies show humanism wrestling with the vexed conundrum of "normativity" in a universe within which the only real norm is random mutation. Regarding moral normativity, consider the following from Richard Dawkins in an interview with Justin Brierley on Premier Christian Radio (8 Nov 2008):

JB: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement. 

RD: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.  

JB: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution. 

RD: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural. 

JB: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six. 

RD: You could say that, yeah. 

http://www.bethinking.org/atheism/the-john-lennox-richard-dawkins-debate

Are "human rights" thus based on an arbitrary (therefore inherently provisional) consensus among beings who are themselves no more than an amalgam of random mutations in a purposeless universe? Is the only fixed law that there IS no fixed law (particularly in a multiverse)? Dooyeweerd helps us critique these issues with his view regarding the "positivization" of norms. If we take, for example, the aesthetic aspect, Dooyeweerd suggests that its "kernel" is "harmony", but this harmony can be and obviously has been positivized in different eras and cultures in a plethora of ways. There are always going to be some kind of limitations, however. This is more immediately obvious in the physical aspect -  we can decide to have plastic surgery, but can't just decide we are going to breathe under water (without additional apparatus). 

As regards the question of norms, Dooyeweerd's insight into "historicism" is particularly helpful. Absolute norms clearly cannot survive an absolutisation of the "historical" (ie "cultural formational") aspect, since such absolutisation dissolves everything in an acid of perpetual change. Heraclitus. All is flux. Postmodernism falls into this camp.

Fascism
It is noteworthy that in "Roots of Western Thought" Dooyeweerd sees fascism as a product of "historicism". Lacking any absolute norms above itself (other than a spurious conviction regarding its own historical "destiny"), the fascist State arbitrarily assumes to itself a monopoly over "normativity", refusing international arbitration. However, a germane question would be "How far and on what basis does any international court itself have a monopoly over normativity, and how does it avoid a fascism of its own?" 

Closing
Much more could be said, but this is already looking more like an essay than an email. You mentioned favourite symphonies. One which has profoundly impacted on me is Beethoven's 9th. Its structure seems to me cyclical and spiral, with Beethoven introducing motifs in the early stages which are returned to, elevated and expanded on later. It might be helpful to read Dooyeweerd with something like that in mind. What might seem piecemeal does hold together in the end. And leads us towards a glimpse (at the very least) of transcendence!

Best wishes,
Fearghas.

Cogadh Z agus na Sàr-laoich
(Cf Herman Dooyeweerd mun sgaradh “cruth is stuth” Heilleanach)

Teichibh! Tha na zombaidhean a’ tighinn!
Tha Sràid Bhothchanan a’ cur thairis leotha!
Chan ann slaodach bacach a tha iad nas motha
ach air chuthach ann an ionnsaigh-catha!

Nas cuthachaile buileach na Blàr Chùil Lodair.
No Bragàd Aotrom Gleann a’ Bhàis.
No clàbar ifrinneach Somme is Ypres.
Siod zombaidhean a’ lìonadh Ceàrn Sheòrais an-dràst!

Tha fradharc aca ged a bhios iad dall! 
Tha fadachd orra gus an ith iad ar feòil!
Às a’ Ghreug a thàinig iad o chionn linn nan con, 
slighe Ameireaga chugainn, tha am fathann a’ dol.

Ach fuirichibh mionaid! Dè tha sin os ar cionn! 
Siod Spiderman a’ leum bho stìopall an Tron!
Agus Batman agus Ironman agus Superman fhèin!
Diathan-Olumpais Ameireaga gus ar sàbhaladh bho chron!

An e corra-shùgain air balla a th’ anns ar cuid smuaine,
nar suidhe, a rèir Phleuto, cuibhrichte nar n-uaimh?
Ar cùlaibh ris an doras, fo gheasaibh ar mùbhaidh,
am bidh solais àrda gar dùsgadh aig deireadh na cùise?

le Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh (2015)

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