Essays in Idleness

A few years ago, at the Idler magazine, I wasted my breath declaring that we would never accept subsidies, and would be the unique and unusual Canadian magazine that could not be bought by the government, or by any political faction. My belief was that the cause of idleness was too holy and precious to be casually prostituted.

But I soon found that everyone who would put up money, for anything other than subscriptions, wanted something unscrupulous in return. It was usually political, for we were getting readers, but a generous new proprietor noticed that we were nevertheless losing money, and demanded that we go begging to the “Canada Council.”

I will end this story here, for already it has become unedifying. No one but a Saint will ever give his money away, without getting something in exchange; and, as a general rule, saints don’t have much money.

As Adam Smith wrote, “endowments,” such as they bank at Harvard and Yale and Oxford, are an unabating evil. They undermine the efficiency of any virtuous endeavour, often dramatically, and quickly turn it into a money-laundering scheme. They promote the wrong kind of idleness, and indeed, I recommend The Wealth of Nations for its pointed exposition of subsidized institutions, and especially for Book V, the second article, “Of the Expence of the Institutions for the Education of Youth.” Smith, who worked himself as a perfesser in Scotland, was painfully familiar with higher education, and with its generation of a class of lazy, indulgent, blowhard snobs.

This had been the mediaeval experience, too, when the universities were unfortunately invented and began their secular rise. They replaced the old cathedral schools, which had the merit that they trained people for actual, necessary jobs — in priestcraft. Adam Smith captures the permanent relation between work and learning. The universities cancelled that, and now we have the dissipation of “art for art’s sake.”

God’s blessings upon Trump, as he sets about destroying the academic life in America.

It merely became possible for “cities” to grow and grow, along highways; not just the significant cities — Alexandria, Rome, Chang’an — but immense parking lots for mediocrity. In the last century, though once a city, New York became the first urban agglomeration to reach a population of ten million, and since, many have exceeded that total. Impressive people can be found in them, for simple statistical reasons; you can’t have so many people without some being at least slightly interesting. But all are victims of misrule. Given democracy, and sometimes worse, all large cities fall quickly under radical Left dictatorships. Twenty out of the twenty largest American cities, for instance, belong to corrupt Democrat machines, for which no intelligent person ever voted, and inner conurbations like Toronto can actually be ruled by a person like Olivia Chow: too stupid to be seriously evil. Socialists and Muslims, and often both, become mayors in these circumstances, and there is nothing a person who is neither a moron nor depraved can do, except remove himself to the countryside, and hide. He can buy himself a large property, and fill it with lovely furniture and works of art, behind a carefully concealed entrance, until the revenue department arrives.

In other words, there are no cities, any more, and no “States,” in any sense that Aristotle could understand. There is no room for responsible civic action, even resistance to crime; and no one needs to waste his time professing pride in his citizenship. The only sort of pride we allow, that is not sexual perversity, is “nationalism,” because it is so easy to exploit. The mediaeval conception of a nation being a coterminous racial and linguistic group, there are no nations, either. For as a nationality grows in population, we get multicultural “nation builders.” Scoundrels, invariably!

All of this being the case, we should not underestimate what it will take to restore civilization. We might begin by requesting divine assistance.

Sixty years ago, more or less precisely, Canada came to an end. The only person to write an obituary was George Grant, and his book, Lament for a Nation, though eloquent, was not taken seriously in these parts. It was, in effect, a better eulogy than the corpse deserved, and it was reviewed in the same smug, glib, newspapery way that Prof. Grant had anticipated, and would regret. Now, of course, with the patina of age, it is a received “Canadian classic,” and I imagine this is not the only mention of the anniversary passing.

It was Grant’s genius to make his book a defence of John Diefenbaker, the despised and abused prime minister. The defence was eccentric. Diefenbaker was an embodiment of true patriot love, for what Canada was and not wasn’t; for its actual history and its actual purpose through extended time.

“Suburban matrons and professors knew that there was an open season on Diefenbaker, and that jokes against him at cocktail parties would guarantee the medal of sophistication.” Progressive intellectuals were a closed front against him, and, “Only the rural and small-town people voted for Diefenbaker, en masse, … but such people are members of neither the ruling nor the opinion-forming classes.”

Canada was indeed a nation, and had been, a mari usque ad mare, since Sir John A. Macdonald. French Canada, for instance, “did not want to be swallowed up by that sea which Henri Bourassa had called l’américanisme saxonisant.” It was, and had been from the start, a different and particular conception of America. For Diefenbaker, it was not an immigrant melting pot like the United States, but curiously, “deux nations” in one, and thus, improbably, within each other.

“British North America” applied to both, in companionship. The Monarchy was the seat of our freedom and identity; it had saved our respective loyalists from the American Revolution. It preserved us from the squalour of opinion polls, and represented something permanent and unchangeable, in parallel to the American republic’s constitution and flag.

But the Liberals (one uses this term with disgust) destroyed this through the Quiet (-ly noisy) Revolution in Quebec, aided by the failure of the Progressive Conservatives to found a force that could fight it, culturally.

Canada’s death was, as Grant concluded, inevitable, for our modern, liberal civilization “makes all local culture anachronistic.” And it has subsequently made civilization itself into an irretrievable anachronism.

Let me direct the reader to the excellent blog of Maureen Mullarkey, Studio Matters. It is as informative on religion as on art, and often on both in juxtaposition. She wrote, recently, a marvellous piece in defence of capital punishment; specifically the executions ordered by the popes. We live in a time not only very evil, but intensely softhearted and sentimental, such that the prevailing attitude to murderers, terrorists, pirates, &c, is to negotiate, and thus to let them off. The instinct of the intelligent is, however, to be strict rather than accommodating.

By all means, like the popes when they were ruling the papal states, we should pray quite sincerely for the souls of those we are about to hang, decapitate, or draw and quarter. Legal executions are not murder, and never were. And our mercy should apply to all persons, not only to the criminals but also to their victims. Again, all persons of common sense will understand this. (It is unfortunate that Pope John Paul II succumbed to sentimentality on this score.)

Consider, as we must at the moment, Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, &c. I do not agree with New York’s radical mayoral candidate, Zohran Madmani, that “the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim” — I think he exaggerates. But what to do when, for instance, fanatical Muslims are coming to kill you? Most, even without consulting Jesus, will realize that the practical answer is to kill them back — before and not after. I do not think Christ told Christians to make themselves defenceless.

But the gallows, once the criminals are captured, disarmed, charged and convicted, is a merciful thing. It removes the chance of recidivism. It argues that justice transcends biological life. And as David Frum once told me, it is a way to show that the state takes the individual seriously.

However, it need not come to that. A vigorous defence will normally make that unnecessary. It is why we must carry guns through certain neighbourhoods, and why the most merciful thing to do with a pirate or abductor is to blow his brains out, post-haste. This is even more merciful to his victims than to the assailant himself.

In my poignant search for uncontaminated news, I see that the Springer scientific publishing group (in Germany, across Europe, America, and everywhere) made 2,923 retractions last year. Perhaps they will exceed that number this year — it is a big company — but does that mean the retractions are significant? That depends which retraction we are discussing, or which of innumerable other items were censored or amended to placate or mollify the political authorities in Red China, or all the other countries in which Springer publications circulate. This does not amount to a modest degree of lying.

My own outrage is aimed more generally at the North American press and media, and is not restricted to their science stories. But everywhere that I have practised journalism, in the last half-century or so, I have noticed that “inaccuracies” are increasing. In the present century I have come to distrust every fact that is cited, in all the current literatures, and to expect instead ideological bias, or “bullshit” in the vernacular.  This, too, is accumulating, everywhere, and becomes more odorous as “leftishness” prevails, apparently universally; for even the many various dimensions of this lying are increasing.

It is often unintentional, because the springs are corrupted. Nor is it almost ever innocent. Yet it is easily understood, at least in English, by those who have heard Samuel Johnson. He memorably observed, in answer to the question asked even in his day, that, “The first Whig was the devil.” He was referring to the subscribers of the left party, then called the Whigs, and the other chic and fashionable forces, that wish to disrupt the peace of the world.

We cannot legislate against them. Indeed, by trying to legislate we invariably make the problem worse. For it is not a physical problem, except in its ramifications. It can only be remedied piecemeal, by bold and unambiguously moral acts, which will be frequently punished. Only the man (or hysterical woman, occasionally) who is willing to be punished can make a stand against this. It is the way of the world. Down here the truth is persecuted.

From Argentina we learn that my controversial views on Rent Control — that we should retire it, “with extreme prejudice,” and snuff it along with everything like it — is actually being tried by the government of the “dangerous” Javier Milei. Even people who consider themselves to be rightwing nutjobs find nice words to say about Rent Control, which they assume is why they can afford to live in big cities.

Myself, in addition to “rent commissioners,” I am opposed to Bed Bugs.

And now I read (in John Loeber) what the terrible consequences of Milei’s reckless act has been. “Rent has dropped by 40 percent in real terms, and the supply of rental properties in Buenos Aires has increased by over 300 percent.”

The Argentine economy is meanwhile growing at around 8 percent. America’s will grow at 4 per cent, once Trumpery is fully engaged. Our Canadian economy is, of course, contracting.

It is true, I adore Trump, but only half as much as I love Javier Milei. If we are going to utterly crush “The Left,” we need, in the colloquial expression, to “grow some balls.” Do not compromise, and do not pause: our job is to smash, smash, and smash. Take a fire axe to every well-meaning bureaucracy — or a chainsaw, if there is somewhere to plug it in.

I don’t know anything about cars, or some other topics, and most of what I do know about gets me into trouble with the humourless scolds. My attitude to automobiles is like my attitude to apartment blocks; I’d rather be in one, than looking at it from the outside. In that sense, we might say I am an “insider,” on vehicles and flats, like other people who grow opinions about “the environment.”

Should cars all go electric?

My anarchist sensibility says, it doesn’t matter. It is like the question, Should people have cars at all? Or, Should I own one? I do know the answer to this last is, No. And not because I do not have a licence, for as I explained to Kate McMillan, licences are for cissies. I first piloted my papa’s Volkswagen bug, around a disused airfield, entirely without licence, at age nine.

It’s like needing a licence to own a gun. If you are carrying one, people don’t ask.

It is a similar question, should one practice poetry, or painting, or journalism? Yes, if you want to do it, and No, if you don’t. You may eventually learn whether or not you know how. (I didn’t found my Comet Express until I was ten.)

Should one make electrical vehicles, like Elon Musk? No, in that case definitely, because you are not Elon Musk, and were precluded by birth, as Lia Thomas was precluded from being a woman. As well, perhaps, one does not have the facilities, for like poetry, painting, and journalism, everything requires equipment. Do you own a brush, or guitar? (Well, some use an imaginary guitar, and you might consider an imaginary manufacturing plant, as an economy.)

The idea that some government, especially the lunatic one that runs this country, should have an opinion about who should make what; let alone pass laws on the matter; or decide if it should be electrical, or must not use petrol; touches very near to the obscenity of liberalism and democracy. All democracy is tyranny, as we have known for a very long time.

National pride, or more specifically pride in one’s nation, can be, but often isn’t, an innocent affair. Canada gives an example of this pride at its worst, and most debilitating. At least in the spaces east of Wawa, Ontario, and many of the spaces West, it takes a negative and evil form. It is almost purely anti-American. By no coincidence, this is a country which absolutely depends on the United States, for its defence and prosperity. Our national cultures and “multicultures,” including the French Canadian element, are copied and adapted from American models, and we have nothing that is original (except the vestiges of Crown-in-Parliament). Our “dignity” consists of a landscape that is extraordinarily beautiful and inspiring; but we do proportionally more to destroy it than the U.S. and most other countries.

However, it’s not all bad. I was asking myself last Tuesday, which was Dominion Day (before the Liberal government of the demonic Pierre Trudeau stripped it away), what was the last time I felt real pride in a Canadian achievement? Unmistakably, it was the Canadian truckers’ convoy in early 2022, when our highways were lined with the fearlessly truthful. Canadians, for the first time in a long while, stood up against a vicious government, and set an example which was celebrated in Bolivia and most of the other countries in the world. I cannot describe the government of Mr Trudeau’s “cutest” child without using vocabulary I try to avoid. But the suppression of this exhilarating “strike” on Justin’s watch was the counter-example of stinking corruption.

We found that while there were still examples of the “old” Canadian virtues in the rural retreats, where real and necessary work is done, in urban life “our” Canada is, morally, a dead loss. I became filled with shame, at these depraved “gliberals” — the flip side of the pride I had been feeling.

The revival experiment, now being attempted next country over under Donald J. Trump, is a mixed bag. Much that he is trying is vulgar, or worse. But that it is working, economically, overall, and has contributed to many admirable things, is undeniable. Most important, he is reducing the tyranny of government and its bureaucracies. Rather than indulge our envious hatreds, we should resolve to copy whatever is good from the Americans, and try not to be played again by the Liberal Party, exploiting our incredibly low intelligence.