Bed of Procrustes

Cosmos or Chaos? Which will it be? You get to choose, you know. You can make a conscious choice or unwittingly choose one but we all have one whether we like to admit it or not. We all get to choose. I’m talking about your worldview. You know, that set or web of beliefs that you use to interpret your experiences in this world. What does your view of the world embrace? What do you use to make sense of the world? Is it an orderly worldview or a jumble of disconnected notions taken from the buffet of beliefs? Is it a life sustaining worldview or one that ultimately embraces death? Is it cosmos, a complete and orderly system or chaos, one that results in confusion and disorder? You get to choose. Have you chosen wisely? Which one is yours?

The bed of Procrustes is a blog about worldviews, destructive worldviews, and how they go about the business of dismantling Western culture. Some may be offended by the views expressed in the blog. Sorry, but there is no right to not be offended.

To that comfortless bed where you’d have them all bound,
As the travellers luckless who fell in the way
Of the old Attic highwayman THESEUS did slay.
Though your voice may sound loud and your thews look immense,
You may fall to the THESEUS of Free Common Sense!

This webblog takes its name from the poem, “The Modern ‘Bed of Procrustes’” published in the 19 September 1891 edition of the British magazine, Punch. The Bed of Procrustes refers to the Greek mythological character, Procrustes, or “one who stretches,” found in the myth of Theseus. Procrustes of Attica was a highwayman who preyed upon travelers on the road to Athens. He lured his victims with promises of hospitality on his special bed which automatically fit any guest. What Procrustes failed to mention was he stretched his guests or hacked off their limbs to accomplish this feat of hospitality. When Theseus encountered the stretcher he cut off his head to fit him to the same bed in which many travelers had perished.

Many modern day Procrustes attempt to reduce all to one standard, one way of thinking and acting by forcing us to lie on the Procrustean bed of Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Moral Relativism or Post-Modernism to name just a few. These new “stretchers” relentlessly apply their predetermined patterns to shape and control people, arguments and the market place of ideas. They do this through redefining words and concepts, deconstructing Christianity and Western culture, revising history, denying the existence of evil, separating faith and reason, eroding the rule of law, and exalting extreme individualism over duty to others and commitment to Western values.

The spirit of Procrustes abounds in mainstream media reporting, in the education establishment, among politicians of the left and the right, in labor unions, in our judiciary, in Hollywood and the arts, and in the so-called “War on Terror.” This corrosive force has done much harm and has to be contained and dealt with before it plunges us into a dark age devoid of rationality. This weblog seeks to emulate Theseus of Greek mythology. However, instead of an axe this Theseus will wield “Free Common Sense” to oppose the “loud voice” and “immense thews” of modern day Procrustes