Essays in Idleness

As I try to explain to my critics, at least one of whom insists on reminding me that I am a member of the political “far right,” I am actually right about everything, and opposed to everything wrong. He is the opposite, as I think he should agree: Left, and wrong, in all of his judgements. He is, however, opposed to all “labels” when they are applied to himself, except for those he happens to find flattering, and thinks those he refuses to use correctly cannot possibly apply to him. But to far right people, instead, his allegations will somehow always stick, and he wanders gratuitously from one insulting term to another, and tells me to “shut up” in response to each of my refutations. Except for nominal, accidentally truthful remarks, his every statement of fact is a bare-faced lie.

This is inevitable, I would conclude, when one is in the service of Satan, the Father of Lies — as everyone on the Left has been (or Whig, as they were called in Doctor Johnson’s day). But it is boring to repeat this observation constantly. I do not like to be dull, which is why I only say it sometimes; and try not to resort to the legion of synonyms. … (Well, I’ve tried to be charitable to the man, but the most I can honestly concede is that he’s a ghastly foetid mound of stinking diarrhoeatic goatshit.)

It is said that one should look for stupidity, rather than for evil, in an opponent, even when writing new Dunciads. Plato is sometimes mentioned as author of this “fine point,” although in my experience neither Socrates, nor Plato, nor even Xenophon, was so naïve. They realized that absolute stupidity — corresponding to “absolute zero” on our temperature scale — is also the benchmark for evil. You can’t get the one without getting the other.

Thanks to high technology, we are finally able to achieve absolute zero.