Essays in Idleness

There is something called Christianity, and there is something called Civilization. The two go naturally together, but as the deeper sort of thinkers realize — especially those who know some history — they are not the same thing. Christianity was “invented” — if one can describe something founded by Christ in the old sense of the word “invention.” It came to save all the people. Civilization is only meant to save the world. Of course, we should try to save glorious things, and to dress properly for the symphony, but in the deep view, we had better allow ourselves to be saved.

I have been following events in France, and Milan, in my debilitated way, with the help of weblogs. It appears that Civilization is going down for the count, yet again. It frequently gives this appearance, especially in France, even without North African immigration. For the French, at times, do Civilization well, but also do the opposite. (They have even done Christian Civilization, a few times in the distant past.)

The Italians, like the Romans before them, are slightly more practical, and seem to have the better idea on these matters, and to understand that preserving a Civilization requires a certain amount of rough trade. The frontiers do not require any action by the naïve; but instead some action by the violent — well organized, ideally. The fact that uncivilized peoples are destroying one’s nation from within, does call for a response. That they need to be physically removed, by one method or another, is at least partially understood by the Italian prime ministrix, Mrs Meloni. Good luck to her. (Mr Macron of France represents the opposite tendency: that of morbid stupidity.)

From the High Doganate, however, we can only observe, though with interest. I observe that peace, including real civil peace in which people get into the habit of trusting each other, may, once it is thoroughly disturbed, only be re-established by physical means. (That’s why we have laws, and enforcement, deportations and prisons; traditionally, even a few hangings.)

The spiritual peace, however — the peace of souls — can only be achieved through sanctity and prayer. There is no earthly formula for it.

Socialism has always made its deep appeal to the shallow — to malice and envy, and to the pigeon-brained, assembling to leave their malodorous droppings on the city streets. That Socialism has not practically succeeded, ever — even once — out of many thousand attempts, might be seen as “a failure of Democracy.” For election results depend upon the voting of the general public, and these masses are, as one should probably have guessed by now, quite incredibly stupid. They exhibit retardation in both its moral and intellectual forms. That is why they swing Left-socialist, or perhaps less fortunately Right-socialist sometimes, and we are warned that they will do so at the congressional midterms, next month in the United States.

Blaming politicians is like blaming crime on the criminals. It is idle. What can one expect from them?

I, however, will not bother with this, any more than I am vexed by the question of intelligent life on Mars. For I am as confident that no intelligent life is to be found in an electorate.

Though perhaps I should allow that a small minority of voters — perhaps one in fifty — know enough about public affairs and political principles to be trusted with the franchise.

Where are our memories stored? There are mechanical means for keeping records artificially, each of which, once destroyed, will not come back, but how do living beings store their memories?

Where do these memories go, and how can we retrieve them? Particularly, how can we access them, after the beings become, for instance, dead? No amount of physiological research can locate organic memory in physical space, or ever be found once we have lost it. Yet it will return to the living of its own accord. This incidental fact may be acknowledged, but to no good end.

How can living things be, or if they are, how can they be recorded? “Materialism” must insist upon its own incompatibility with existence. Some “a-materialism” must also be. Reality must include both matter and spirit.

Even flies nibble pieces of it. Therefore even flies become a feature of the a-material world, as well as of the material, while extending out of reach of, say, my swatter.

Every attempt to locate the processing centres for memories are also doomed to failure. — Mehr licht! — Brains are too dark, much though parts like the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem may be shown in a diagram, or pointed to by an adequately trained neurological surgeon. Yet even they have given up on phrenology.

So where are the actual memories located? How can we even try to fetch them? For we can only look in the world’s physical, material places.

They are not in the skull, nor are they elsewhere. The spirit, or soul of a person, cannot be found outside, any more than it can be found inside. The mind, however, though bounded in a nutshell, occupies infinite space, and all the time before and after. So Shakespeare proposes, but no one gives a plausible account of travels in these realms, where evil as well as good must be found.

What exists in the spirit thus exists beyond our reach. It is also beyond the reach of machine, or “artificial,” intelligence, which can’t imagine without lying, or originate anything at all. It only vomits machine answers.

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POSTSCRIPTUM, the earlier version of this Idlepost was vexed with unnecessary information.

Canada has travelled considerably downhill during the last century or two. Did you know, for instance, that in 1893 we were already making electric cars? I first learnt this as a stamp collector, for the electric van of the Still Motor Co is depicted on a pretty lithographic postage stamp — one of a set with dozens of other early national voitures, though not all of them électrique. Made here in Toronto at the Dixon Carriage Works (“a nice little two-seater open runabout”), and first commissioned by the prominent lawyer, Frederick Bernard Fetherstonhaugh (pron. “FAN-shaw”).

“Still,” too, is a delightful name to stick upon a car manufacturer. William Still was the Musk-ic engineer who got it rolling.

As an old-fashioned person, often accused of Ludditism, I especially favour electric autocars, and the patient recharging of batteries off the railway system. They last and last; Fetherstonhaugh kept his model well into the last century. With pneumatic tires, mud flaps, and a civilized maximum speed of fifteen miles per hour, it was exceedingly comfortable and polite.

Electric engines are quiet and smooth, not noisy and smelly like one of these combustion things.

St Francis of Assisi had the good fortune of birth, a few centuries before he was discovered to be a communist. His patronage of “the environment,” of “ecology,” and of cute animals, was part of his “progress” away from being a Catholic saint; only posthumously did he become a fraud. The world is uncomfortably arranged, so to make the recovery of his mediaeval reputation difficult. But if one is determined, it can still be done.

In the Fifth Crusade he notoriously “crossed the line” at Damietta, Egypt, in order to preach the Gospel to Sultan Malik, as well to anyone else who happened to be listening in the Islamic camp (as we should do today). They were utterly impressed and thus finally let him through, without extravagant beatings. This happens sometimes in response to acts of humility and courage.

St Francis — and Brother Illuminatus of Arce, who should also be mentioned — had walked right in. The friars survived the initial physical beatings of the traditional Islamic “hello!” — because they were saying something unpredictable. They did not come with the message that bloodshed is wrong, or even with the bureaucratic terms of a peace treaty. Their dislike of violence could be taken for granted: no one (sane) enjoys being thrashed, and arguing the contrary is just gibberish against physical pain and death. Even dogs can make that position known by yelp and howling; and Muslims can be quite eloquent.

Instead, the Christians proposed to discuss Faith; and did this for several days before being dismissed: sent home with provisions and nice things.

I suppose one could call this “a dialogue.” But when truth is discussed in war, it is something more than a dialogue. For then truth is given a real background. We read a conversation of that sort in the Bhagavad Gita, between Arjuna and Krishna, which one might also consult. For generally there is presence of God, wherever angelic men and manly angels rise above complaint. Truth is higher, even than diplomacy.