Canada votes
The triumph of Vulgarity and Ignorance — of the “mass man” as that learned Spaniard, José Ortega y Gasset, described him — or “progress,” as the vulgar and ignorant call it themselves, might also be considered, in conjunction, to be the pre-eminent sign of the times. Except, we must add Stupidity, by which force it has the power of confident interference. But within this revolutionary triangle of modernity — not liberté, égalité, fraternité, as it proclaims, but rather vulgarité, incapacité, stupidité — lies the structure of political life, our democracy. The people can’t be satisfied with anything they have. They cannot rest until they have made “the environment” — and everything in the world around it — over again in their own image.
It would be very easy to avoid wars of all kinds, and also to avoid every social problem, together, usually, with malnourishment and disease. But simple only if the great majority of persons would simply mind their own business, and not try to fix anything — especially by voting. Something approximating to a paradise on earth could soon be achieved, on the reactionary principle of letting things be, and not getting nonsense started. Of course we would still have death, and some unavoidable pain, but these become much easier to cope with when political distractions and systematic “cures” are not proposed.
Sometimes one may find trouble without having looked for it, I grant. For politics is not the only game that attracts violent, psychotic, disordered people. But elections are a sure way to encourage them, and summon their “peaceful” threats. Trouble then results from our own characteristic Stupiditas, when we engage though it was possible to ignore.
So, the paradox, that we need laws to protect the citizen against professional busybodies (i.e. “liberals”) who would homogenize them. As Ortega y Gasset explained, a human society must necessarily be aristocratic; what is not aristocratic is not an actual society. Equality is bullfeathers.
The true, and the most wicked, enemies of mankind, are the people who think they know what they are doing. Note that, the beginning of political wisdom is to know, with holy certainty, that you don’t know.