Essays in Idleness

It is good, so long as one is trapped in Canada, to allow one’s mind to turn away from “current events,” and towards the things that are really here. This means trying to ignore our politics, and business arrangements for a bonus, and instead noticing our poetry and art. We have more and better than we have deserved, and may still produce it under some cosmic free trade agreement that we do not have to negotiate with Mexico or Trump.

The Canadian landscape required a new response, for we were further north than the others. It had, as it were, to be brought in from the cold. A century has passed since the “Group of Seven” began marking up the wilderness, leaving their Toronto commercial art jobs to explore the space between the bush and the muskeg. First and last among them was A. Y. Jackson, who came not only “a foreigner from Quebec,” but tramped the world and wandered towards Great Bear Lake and the Arctic coasts and tundra.

His accomplishment was to convey that the Canadian landscape was an enemy, to be not exactly loved, but with whom the artist must fight. He would show it as it was, with every unwhite of dirty snow, not even trying to be pretty and European; and in its persistently unearthly glory. He would bestow his relentlessly austere gaiety upon it. In contrast with our comatose official being, he would show things that were really there, and with unreal things like the people entirely omitted.

They were the painters of French Canada who depicted the life of villages and hamlets, and brought instruments to tame them. They provided the opposite extreme, even to Jackson’s Laurentian uplands. Both they and the Torontonians, marching into Algonquin Park, could be prey to sentimentality; but Jackson was instinctively pure. From near to his beginnings, he knew what he was doing, and never paused, painting in studio or field; and now, at the age of 142, he stands in my eyes as the true native Canadian.

There are many causes of an unhappy childhood; by-and-large, I tend to blame the child. In exceptional cases, I might blame the parent (or parents), but I’ve met exceptional children who can overcome them. A greater tyranny is a childhood without play, and free wandering, or not in the open air. This generally ends in feminism, and bad marriages, but again, only if the child lacks good will. Architectural influences, for the worse, exist in every modern city, and on balance unhappiness is distributed more in urban than in rural environments, but the urbanity could itself be overcome where the urban young are not encouraged to be lazy, and insolent.

I don’t think such factors are adequately considered in our political sociology. A third of a century ago, when the Ontario socialist party suddenly won after a campaign of only six weeks, I stipulated this point. “It takes more than six weeks to make a socialist,” I wrote in a newspaper. “It takes a whole unhappy childhood.”

To my surprise, several of the socialists I knew openly agreed with me, and others established an “encounter group” to discuss their respective miserable infancies. This suggests that there are more effective ways to undermine the Left, than by excruciating economic measures. Irrational happiness is the leading instrument, and humour should be tried — shamelessly until it becomes contagious.

Well, nothing that is inanimate can save us, in the conventional account; but in a fair analysis of physical nature, a book will sometimes be in motion. Not always, but sometimes; and it depends upon what should be universally acknowledged as its animate “organ,” the reader, who will be wriggling about in extension of it.

I’ve been trying, quite unsuccessfully, to weed out of my library those books (or, beuks) which I do not intend to consult again, if I live to one hundred and fifty (as Elon Musk has discovered many American pensioners do). The books themselves conspire against me, and while I plot to eliminate as many as possible, they remind me of books formerly owned, that I should never have parted from. Also, I start reading just those books which I was certain to dispose of, and they live to trouble me another day.

This, perhaps, is the secret of bibliolatrical animation. Books move through one’s consciousness the more swiftly and dramatically, because they can hold still. And they change, through time — to that animate reader — in ways that the quick-moving newspaper or video cannot. For such things were never meant to be seen in alternate dimensions; whereas a book may be a “classic,” which will insist upon a tour of your mind, and may cause disruption in your soul.

Modern “media,” and perhaps the ancient equivalent, too, is designed chiefly to make you angry. With commercial luck, it will make you very profitably angry, but hardly will it ever suggest a way for you to get even. The more you read what is “in the news,” the more you see that you can do nothing about it.

I was trying to get rid of at least one copy of The Death of Virgil, by Hermann Broch. I have owned several copies, in both German and English. My hope was that I could reduce my current holdings of that book, but my emotional attachment to old copies gets in the way. Fortunately, one of them has an introduction by Hannah Arendt, which adds four unnecessary pages, so you may now find it in the Parkdale Salvation Army.

I have resigned as your commentator on political affairs in the Great White North, to which I had been foolishly tempted by living here. The smugness of my countrymen! … who have done nothing of which I could be proud, since they beat the USSR in the eighth game of the 1972 hockey series. But by reversing the repulsive nationalist slogan that is used to sell inferior Canadian goods (“the world needs more Canada”) I am once again in danger of being confused with Donald Trump. It does not follow that because I want less Canada, I want more of the United States. Also, electric cars and rocket ships to Mars: less is more.

The problem with being against things, is that you are presumed to be in favour of their opposites. This is not the case with me. I can oppose both junk food, and health food. My apparent support for America’s Republicans is a tactical position. I want them to destroy as much of their bureaucratic state as should be possible, although I would not wish them to close their military shops until they have closed China’s.

Socialism is invariably a great evil, but nationalism is potentially worse. If we all agreed to go about our business, and tend our own gardens like Voltaire, we would not have the time for either.

We see that a general election in Greenland has occurred, and that the Democraatit Party, which secured 30 percent of the vote, has nominally prevailed by means of proportional representation. They are the “little-endians,” who promise to seek independence from Denmark more slowly, compared to the relatively hot-headed Naleraq Party; but, as it were, both are just throwing snowballs. Proportional representation guarantees that governments will change very rarely, so that bureaucratic arrangements won’t be disturbed. A coalition of the most experienced and corrupt will almost always win. Should this not happen, the election will be cancelled and the winning party banned (as recently occurred in Romania). This is the European idea of “democracy.”

It is fortunate, however, that — as might develop in a first-past-the-post election — a majority can never emerge, for the winning party might be dominated by lunatics. At least, this is the theory currently espoused in America, where government on the European model of irremovable bureaucrats is currently being challenged. Trump, Musk, Vance, &c, do not understand that this is unthinkable, and the progressive class now proposes violence as a means to remove them.

Violence is a more solid, historical method for changing governments, as for adding one country territorially to another. In my view, historical example should not be discounted, although I, personally, recommend against it. Still, if the United States should decide to conquer Greenland, I would give the Greenlanders even less chance than the Ukrainians against the Russians. The purpose of treaty organizations such as NATO, or the Danish Realm, is to discourage the big without allies. I imagine Mother Denmark and the Faroe Islands making a poignant stand, the morning after Trump makes his demands.

Greenland, we are informed, by those journalists who have discovered the Wicked Paedia, is legal home to fifty-seven thousand souls, about as many as the founding provinces of Canada. Perhaps it is so small now, in comparison, that even we ought to be able to conquer it. But we do not have a military that could invade any country in the arctic, or anywhere else for that matter, and anyway the Americans asked first.

We used to call them “communists,” owing to our difficulty in pronouncing the word “economist.” This was at the Thursday table, back in Idler Pub days: so far as I recall, the last instance of civilization in the northern wastes. I see that we thus have an official communist now as our Canadian prime minister, or “garbage person” as Instapundit will call him, who rather than being presented with a claim to a pension should have been dropped in the garbage disposal.

Indeed, Mr Carney may be worse than the Trudeau child, because his empty qualifications will confuse people, and Canadians are easily confused. He will be an ideal victim for Donald Trump, who fights rough sometimes, but is genuinely smart.

Since there aren’t obvious things to do, besides make an effort to stop our export and re-export of fentanyl and other lethal drugs, and perhaps lower our 300 percent tariffs on butter and such things, thus perhaps making Trump withdraw his proposed more modest tariffs, we should start preparing for the surrender of our economy. That incredible jack-ass, the Honourable Doug Ford, has a ludicrous scheme to cut off the occasional export of electricity from Ontario. There are at least six reasons to Sunday why he cannot do this.

But I have a simpler, more practical plan. It is to undecimalize our “looney” (formerly “dollar,” dólar, or peso, of eight reales), by letting it be chopped once again into eight pieces. The new pie-shaped bits would thus be worth one half of an old “quarter,” or we could also break old quarters in two. This would enable us to put all our depreciated dimes and nickels in the landfill where we previously abandoned our cents, thus making all the zinc, semi-nickel, and copper-plated relics more convenient for homeless persons to collect.

Then, at their leisure, our politicians could successively withdraw the constituent bits and the giant looney wheels, which must be expensive to mint, even when they are made from the cheapest metals.

Having made myself sufficiently unpopular within my (tiny) circle of Canadian readers, let me get back to the subject of Ukrainians and Russians. I see a possibility for becoming unpopular with both, which should not be neglected.

I am against nations butchering each other, generally, but more particularly against this when two Christian nations are fighting as if to the last man. This defeats the demographic interests of Christendom.

Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin continues to be immovable as Russian president, despite his armies making a hash of his invasion of Ukraine; and Mr Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky continues to be immovable as Ukrainian president, because his armies have achieved a stalemate over the last three years. Zelensky is a hero in Western Europe, which has been starving for such characters, but has worn out his welcome with the American public, sick of financing him. Putin is actually becoming more popular, over here.

Zelensky and Putin both, however, are corrupt psychopaths, as should be clear to the armchair generals by now. Putin has been consistently the less trustworthy, but that is the prerogative of the bigger power: to be, unchallengeably, the bigger liar.

Neither Putin nor Zelensky thinks that he can personally benefit from peace, although the people in both countries would gain by it. For one thing, the men, and a selection of the women and children, would cease to be maimed and killed — always an advantage, at least to them.

Nationalism has been blamed by most disinterested observers, but I think unfairly. The problem is that the nations (“sovereignties”) are too big. The Crimea, and also the Donbas region, should never have been added to Ukraine; both are naturally independent, and mostly Russian-speaking. And as for Russia itself, it should be forthwith dissolved into at least eight dozen independent micro-states, who could fight among themselves if they insisted.

For to paraphrase Churchill (who was speaking of Germany), “We love Russias so much, we would like to have as many of them as possible.”

An American reader asks: “Is Trump trying to get Trudeau re-elected?” …

Or perhaps he has intentions focussed on Mark Carney, the proposed replacement, who has been, if possible, more irritating as the eco-socialist bank governor of both Canada and the United Kingdom. For Carney would be a good candidate for the most disastrous prime minister Canada has ever had, a position that Trudeau currently enjoys.

A suddenly revived Liberal government, thanks to Trump’s (easily justified) tariffs on us — itself a retaliation for decades of Canadian abuse of free trade arrangements, and naughty exports such as fentanyl — might be in the devil’s cards.

I don’t think that promoting Liberals is Trump’s central intention, however. …

But Canadian near-monopoly media have suppressed knowledge of why Trump might be doing what he is doing; & we have an incurious population, that has been trained in stupid for more than half a century.

The great Bishop of Mynyw, son of Non, the famed Dewi Sant, is now one thousand years old at least and — depending which Welsh annals you are reading — perhaps 1,563. He lived to the age of one hundred thirty-nine, by my simple calculation, or less, according to most scholars. (I am innocent of Welsh and mediaeval Latin.) He is venerated in both the Western and Eastern Church, though modern scholars, television hosts, and radio broadcasters, throw out any of the hagiographic facts that have come down with him. For the accounts were written after the events to which they refer, when, coincidentally, all memoirs tend to be written. The best the scholars can say is that reports of Dewi’s birth in the village of Henfynyw, are “not improbable.”

This is my Saint David, whose date is the First of March. I cannot claim to be Welsh, however. The stone church in that locality in Cardiganshire still stands, and has been standing continuously, since before Dewi Sant was conceived, and most of the people who still live there still speak Welsh. The shrine to this Patron Saint of Wales also stands, where he founded the monastery that became the Cathedral of Saint David in Pembrokeshire. It was in that surrounding vale that the Synod of Brefi was held, at which he preached against Pelagianism, and the white dove alighted on his shoulder.

Saint David founded chapels and monasteries throughout Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, and continues to be remembered in each, while it lasts. That nothing lasts forever must also be conceded to the scholars, among whom doves no longer alight.

March first was the precise date of David’s elevation to heaven, in a “monastery that was filled with angels as Christ received his soul.” And these were his last words, spoken here below:

“Lords, brothers and sisters, be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do ye the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us.”

Now, as in the past, I take sides on public issues according to which side I hate more. There are no sides to love; unless they are Christ, beauty, goodness, truth; but these are not the “sides” that are available in the restaurant of public affairs. These are indicated instead by cheerleaders. Indeed, the very idea of taking “sides” tends to tickle my vomit reflex. But there are better sides and worse, in the main, and one must oppose the worst.

Americans and others should know this. The mass market’s growing revulsion with the Democrat party brand gave Donald Trump his remarkable win, last November. This does not mean they, or any large number of them, had learnt anything about the issues involved. All they had to know was that the Democrats were detestable, and indeed, worse even than the Republicans. Since that election, it turns out they were dead right, and we now know what a vast “shithole” America had become, but now they have called in new “plumbing managers.”

Canada is, I suspect, only a different case for the moment. Everything I know about politics in this country assures me that the NDP-Liberals are actually worse than the Democrats, and that we are proportionately more deeply enmired in corruption. If Poilievre does what Trump and Musk are doing, to eliminate counter-productive spending and thus cut debt and taxes — up here in the frozen north — we wouldn’t have to embarrass ourselves with “Orange Man Bad” demonstrations. We would instead simply resume getting rich (which shouldn’t be our absolute, either). But give it a year or ten to work out, and Canada will once again be chasing the U.S. example.

If we were intelligent, improbably enough, we would be proportionately well ahead of the United States, rather than well behind. Alas, so long as we are voting for the latest “progressives” to send to Ottawa, we will be going down the drain hole faster.

Many kinds of lie are told, and not all are confined to politics; but there are two kinds frequently encountered in this trade. The more popular is the plausible lie, in which the politician presents information as true, although it is, at best, misleading, and usually, very misleading, and “based” upon a flat lie (although the incurious may not be aware of this). Yet it is meant to be believed, which is why it is made to sound plausible.

Usually, statistical estimates are involved, which could not be accurate, even if the intention were honest — because you cannot count the hairs on your head, until you go bald. Indeed, estimates are presented of all things because the modern man, who is deeply sceptical about the existence of  God, can only be convinced by “the numbers.” (See the Bible, passim, for what God thinks of statistics.)

The intent to deceive is what makes this kind of lie malicious. Too, one should look for other acts of malice within this “rhetorical figure,” for an unambiguous evil will generally point to another. Indeed, we might call it “scientific lying,” and note, fraudulent research (for instance, “climate science”) invariably depends upon statistics.

Contrast, the outrageous lie. The most typical form of this is in satire. To be truly outrageous, you must tell a lie that no one can believe (always excepting the fatally stupid). Two recent examples from the news: one, Ukraine invaded Russia; and two, Russia wanted peace. The person who supposedly told these actually said something more subtle, as is often the case with satirists. The outrageous lie — and I am thinking of Trump here — is meant to “misdirect” the audience towards a paradoxical truth.

Previously (perhaps not in this space), I have argued that only satirists are honest. To which I might add that, only satirists are entertaining and funny.

The idea that human affairs should be governed by just relationships, at every level from small to where God takes over — rather than by democratic voting by the mentally and morally infirm — was one I felt bound to defend during my years as a sleazy journalist.

There are degrees to sleaze, however, and I generally preferred “responsible” or accountable government, in defiance of progressive, “liberal” sham and deceit, which has been usually in the ascendant throughout my adult life. In the extreme we had (and still have) “people’s republics,” which carry progressivism and liberalism into the theatre of the absurd.

Whereas, Lady Justice does not consider, and generally despises, the latest fashionable thing, when it is admitted to her judgement; promoted as it will invariably be by government officers, “dressed in a little authority.” (The phrase shows Shakespeare’s absolute contempt for bureaucrats.)  “Equality,” another word for democracy, is opposed to freedom; Her Ladyship is not, and will accommodate honest disagreement.

But even within a “democracy,” we must be on guard against cheating. For justice does not cheat. Mr Trump’s proposal to the American governors, that they must restore paper ballots and same-day elections, did not have to be made to the governor of Canada, because the true-north-strong-and-free has always used paper ballots. Apart from making fraud easy to demonstrate and prove (by consulting watermarks, &c), this reduces the cost of an election to a small fraction of what it will be when expensive machinery and elaborate rules are introduced to manufacture a result.

The American Democrats have flourished by such cheating, but also, like Canada’s NDP-Liberals, they have benefitted from shameless misrepresentation of the facts of life to low-intelligence electorates. The “Conservatives” and “Republicans” do this reciprocally, too, but in support of progressive views, one must become a pathological liar.

Sixty years ago, today, Canada received her new flag, the so-called “Pearson Pennant”; and I do not remember it because my family were settled in Asia at the time. Of course, being Canuckistanis, my father and I had produced several proposed draft versions in various hues and patterns, not all of which included the brand identifier: a Norway maple leaf, in Pantone matching colour 032. Norway maples grow only in a few parts of the country; but so does any tree, for we have much surplus geography. My preference would have been for a beaver, the original Canadian lumberjack.

I missed the premiere, in which the winning entry was displayed: a superior example of monochromatic graphic art from the Liberal Party’s advertising agency. Several greeted it by singing the “Internationale.” (Was Pearson a Communist?) But I read about this controversial event only later, on the front page of the Montreal Star, when it arrived by sea.

The best part was when the Liberal minions tried to hoist their new banner in the Senate Chamber, over the objection of partisans of our traditional Ensign, with Union Jack next the flagpole in the canton. Some members of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition had come prepared for a rumble. It was a fine brawl, such as we seldom get to enjoy except during hockey games. But it was the last scrap of British North America, torn from its mast, and a preview of the fifty-first state.

It is also the sixtieth anniversary of Lament for a Nation, by the metaphysical Tory, George Grant.