Essays in Idleness

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the pundits,” as Dick the Butcher says, except, I think he may have said “lawyers.” No matter, they are all alike.

The whole scene is instructive (Henry VI, part two, act IV, scene the second), as Jack Cade and his psychotic henchmen anticipate the politics of our time. Shakespeare, whose reactionary views are on display throughout the Histories, knew what all revolutionaries must do, to win over the drooling masses. They will, invariably, promise to abrogate the least convenient physical laws, and then deliver stuff for nothing. This is how they inflamed the peasant hordes from the French Revolution, through the Venezuelan: lighting them up with the prospect of good stuff for free, once the wealthy and high-born had been denuded. It is the underlying principle of every progressive party; and any who oppose them — by e.g. suggesting that ninety-nine into one won’t go — are demonized.

All parties today are essentially progressive, as all the mass media — both Left and Right. In the Punch and Judy show just concluded, south of the border, we again received the inheritance through Jack Cade (from the Serpent in the Garden). The promises of “Judy” having apparently expired, we now have the redistributive offerings of “Punch.”

One feels sorry for the little demons prancing about the streets of Portland, &c, in response to the election result. Thanks to the brainwashings administered to them in media and academia, they truly believe the slogans they are spouting. Fortunately for the rest of us, few of these people can function once they exit the “virtual reality” in which they are mentally encased. They cannot even organize riots effectively. It will be hard for the media to keep them stirred, given the alternatives of pot and fornication.

The late Leonard Cohen had something useful to report, after decades of counselling from some Buddhist bonze. He said his Master taught him how to stop whining. If California Zen could achieve that much for others, I’d be prepared to recommend it.

But I also feel sorry for the Trumpistas, such as those who have been littering my virtual inbox with their potty-mouth’d abuse, because I don’t believe their new lord can deliver on his promises. I know they are hurting, even if I am not inclined to feel their pain. The world will not give them back their jobs voluntarily, nor will other obstacles agree to step aside. By slashing wages, and eliminating entitlements, America might well become competitive again. But “Punch” has been, like the Obamanation before him, promising everyone everything both ways; and the Law of Contradiction cannot be abrogated.

Those pundits could not even see that Trump might win the election. Given that blindness, what else could they get right? In the absence of hard core Christian religion, they are the authorities to which each nation turns for prophetic guidance. And now everyone wants to kill them, too.

So just what is this “incurable elitist” suggesting?

Live. Work. Act decently. Pray. Remain buoyantly aloof, and do your own thinking.