Category Archives: History

How I got suspicious

Posted on 08/08/2021 by Jon Garvey

All I really want to do here is link to an excellent explanation of where we all are, and where we’re all going, politically and socially. At least before it’s taken down from YouTube…

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Long Live the Great Victory of Complacency!!

Posted on 30/07/2021 by Jon Garvey

If all your friends and all my friends, most of the media and sober-minded people everywhere are to be believed, the COVID-19 crisis is an unfortunate natural bump in the road which looks likely to sort itself out fairly soon, giving us plenty of breathing space to sort out the longer-term bijou problemette that the world is dying from industrialisation and overpopulation. All will be well just so long as we decarbonise by 2030.

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Background anti-knowledge

Posted on 27/07/2021 by Jon Garvey

Regular readers will know how interested I’ve become over the years in the way that our society gets to adopt general assumptions that are plain wrong, and how these are inculcated by propaganda of one sort or another.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Science | 9 Comments

Lasting effects of debunked theories

Posted on 18/06/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve read a few articles in the mainstream press recently about the burgeoning culture of sexual harassment in schools in the UK.

Posted in History, Politics and sociology, Theology | Leave a comment

Evolutionary theology

Posted on 02/05/2021 by Jon Garvey

An essay of mine has just been published at Sapientia as part of a symposium in response to John Schneider’s Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil, overseen by Kevin Vanhoozer.

Posted in Creation, History, Philosophy, Science, Theology of nature | Leave a comment

Woke historical revisionism for beginners

Posted on 05/04/2021 by Jon Garvey

There was a rather unfortunate, though amusing, slip of the tongue on yesterday’s Antiques Roadshow. It was on the lips of the seasoned expert Paul Atterbury (also famed as the model for Andy Pandy in his infancy, his mother being the puppeteer), who was examining two sea-rescue medals.

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Following the evidence (to make sure it’s dead)

Posted on 01/04/2021 by Jon Garvey

Have you experienced an odd feeling over the last year? You get involved in some ordinary activity – family events, a work project or whatever – and life seems to be getting back to some kind of normality, until you suddenly realize with a start that what with COVID, the Social Justice Revolution, and international politics, the whole world is a lunatic asylum, and it’s the normality that is the illusion.

Posted in History, Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | 2 Comments

Destructive societal superstitions

Posted on 28/03/2021 by Jon Garvey

There is still a prevalent idea that witchcraft was predominantly a mediaeval thing, representing the remnants of pagan religion amongst the peasantry. In fact, the wave of superstitious belief in witches, pacts with the devil and so on was an early modern phenomenon beginning in the sixteenth century, and was at its height of “witchfinders general,” show trials and so on in the following century. Witchcraft was actually very rare in mediaeval times.

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Meeting public expectations

Posted on 19/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

I came across a little-known story about the London Blitz yesterday, best summarised in this article by Londoner Simon Webb, or if you’re impatient of more reading, in his YouTube video on the subject.

Posted in History, Medicine, Politics and sociology, Science | Leave a comment

A sense of place

Posted on 16/02/2021 by Jon Garvey

I’ve just read two books to lift the heart above the media’s COVID monomania, albeit it in a bittersweet way. The second was Meadowland: the Private Life of an English Field, by John Lewis-Strempel, a birthday gift from my daughter. It traces the year in the life of a hay-meadow in Herefordshire as observed by its owner, which resonates with me because I own a hay-meadow in Devon.

Posted in History, Philosophy, Politics and sociology, Science, Theology | Leave a comment