Essays in Idleness

Sometimes, the nicest thing you can do for a dear old friend, is to lay him out. Perhaps he was drinking, and made a terrible fool of himself. Ideology is like that. Those under its fatal influence are capable of behaving in the most appalling and undignified ways. But like the old cinema trope, the answer to a crisp smack across the face, should be, “Thanks, I needed that.” By now, the Iranians are ready to thank us. It doesn’t matter if they do, however. We must continue laying out their government.

I travelled, modestly, in Iran, last century, in the later days of the Shah. At the time I was very much impressed, both by the monuments of ancient Persian civilization, and by the nation’s success in mastering modernity. It was a free and prosperous place, ahead, it seemed, of all the alternatives in “third-world” Asia, and the Shah’s prediction that his country would soon catch up with Western Europe was quite plausible. My adventures I told elsewhere; I wasn’t nearly as aware of politics and history as I am now. (I was scandalously young.) Indeed, part of my coming of age was to experience how totally freedom could be lost, at the savage fanatical hand of a very proud, evil man: Khomeini. And how naïve, stupid, and useless, were his opponents.

Iran should have been sharply slapped in 1979. That was the time for invasion, forty-seven years ago, in response to the taking of the American hostages. Done properly (with the “martyrdom” of Khomeini), two generations of Persians could have avoided their appalling subsequent fate. Alas, America was then in the hands of Carter, a smug moron. This was because America no longer knew anything about politics, and less than nothing about “Democracy”; and did and still does not realize the advantages that Imperialism, Colonialism, and Monarchy, confer.

By boiling and draining then mashing together some russet potatoes, and cabbage, with lots of haddock fish (perhaps poached in buttermilk), and a few square yards of butter, then tossing in a prawn or two for something to discuss, together with whatever comes to hand in the pantry, … one can be reasonably sure of a good time. Lent is over, I know, but who cares? We may continue to make glorious fish receipts and merrily pig-out in just this way, without delaying the American and Israeli bombings in Iran (and Lebanon! never forget to shell Hezbollah!) — that were promised for no later than eight o’clock p.m.

But darn that Trump. He has negotiated a ceasefire again, when all I was worrying about was that he might be running low on missiles and explosives. We will need these if China invades Taiwan, and there will be so many targets to hit on the mainland. (Always pack a few extra!)

As Edward Feser, whom I occasionally read with respect, assured me, the president’s Internet posts are quite deranged, and the war with Iran does not follow Just War principles for either cause or conduct. Francisco Suárez might not approve. My enthusiasm for the physical destruction of Hamas, Houthis, and whatever in Persia starts with an H, was almost restrained. The idea that they share an ideology, and that this ideology could be erased, are two which I hold dear. One need only continue bombing and shooting them up, as we did with the Nazis. Make Persepolis into Dresden: we can always build it back when Iran’s oil money starts flowing again.

The trick is not to leave anything standing, as we neglected to do with the Communists. Always go for the unconditional surrender, or like bedbugs they will infest us again. Our failure to completely kill off Communism had terrible consequences.

Too much War only leads to Peace; too much Peace only leads to War. I thank my former Indian girlfriend, who taught me that.

Unlike Western politicians (all of the others, so far as I can see), Mr Trump understands this, and actually prefers peace, for some reason. He likes to use tactics, including some good ones, and knows how to scare people. (Especially his allies.) You don’t have to actually kill everyone to get your way; that would be too time-consuming. Even Germany was left with a few people still breathing, after World War Two.

These are words I am still trying to make sense of: “He is risen” goes so far beyond what is acceptable to common sense, as to put the very idea of common sense into scandal. Everything that you have seen or heard dying, stays then dead, for as long as you watch or listen. Or is revived, perhaps, by a medicine man or other miracle worker; but does not revive himself. If he did, it would be fair to say that the world has been transformed. This is what happened.

That He was and is God, I can accept, yet it is the least surprising of His theological aspects. What is more shocking is that this God, who evidently exists — one God, I should think, in no more than one universe — has deigned us worth the conversation. For that universe is large, and I think we can prove it is large; and we the tiniest speck in that immensity. Our size alone would make us worth ignoring. The very existence of life, on any scale, for instance this thin film around one isolated planet within this immensity, seems small, exceptional, and proportionally very close to nothing. To us, the comparative may seem quite extreme. But to God. …

We cannot know what remarkable things exist, and will be found, eventually, later. But we can know how astounding it is for us to be here. And too, how astounding the love that has touched us.

Christ, in His Crucifixion, calls us away from the simpering that is not prudence.

My friend notes that in his book, The Contemplative Hunger, Father Donald Haggerty mentions that Dorothy Day kept by her bedside a quotation from Dostoevsky — “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

Perhaps today we should begin to grasp this; that Love is never a fully “romantic story.” The world may think it is, but our world has had its mind formed by television and the Internet. This world cannot even remember why this Friday is called “Good.”