Essays in Idleness

Happy memories recur, from my spotty teaching career (I had and have no qualifications whatever) — as I hear from e.g. Polish seminarians and Maharastrian art students, upon resuming  my column in the Catholic Thing. I recommend this “back to school” piece on education through art, in the Thing today — which mentions several other unqualified philosophical types, including Plato and Friedrich Schiller.

One never knows what one may acquire in a school (from learning to social diseases), or by carefully avoiding contact with them, or even by teaching as I did, in a spotty way. My father and several ancestors before him also did this, including a marvellous lady from Ontario, out in the one-room Alberta sticks, and most, so far as I am able to discern, felt that art was superior to torture as a means of communicating truth (although both have their moments). Indeed, for starters, we must understand that “education through art” has nothing to do with its opposite, “art-based education,” which is what happens when the AI louts run it through their machines.

In England, once upon a time, there were fairly lively institutions called “free schools.” They tended to attract controversy with policies like, “don’t teach them how to read, write, or count until they beg you.” I noticed that they attracted the most interesting pupils, and least interesting parents. I imagined that, if the children of the children of these Summerhill-billies persisted, they would become wise, and then would be cancelled in every generation as they aged.

For several years I have not written a single cat-blog, notwithstanding that is what one does in media to please sentimental readers. My failure to engage in cat-blogging may perhaps be blamed for my declining fortune. But I don’t own a cat to inspire me, for fear it might “eat me out of house and home.” Cats, I have noticed, are among the most eager carnivores.

Thanks to the BBC, however, I can now consult the zoo in Aalborg, Denmark, which houses and homes plenty of cats, including lions, tigers, leopards, and lynx. But it, too, has the problem of voracious appetites, compounded in the case of these cats by their low-carbohydrate diets. Moreover, they are in competition for donations against many other worthy causes. The zoo is currently appealing to the public for help.

Donations of family pets are now invited. They already mention receiving live chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, &c — though I would guess there is more meat on a pampered house-cat. Horse contributions earn a tax credit. All are put in the service of nature (red in tooth and claw!), which has integral plans for disposing of such incidentals as feathers and fur. The only unnatural thing the zoological authorities do is to medically euthanize these pets, before tossing them into the feeding cages. For they are sentimental, too.

The Canadian prime minister — currently Mr Mark Carney — has a job which, like that of most politicians, requires low intelligence and moral vacuousness. At his cleverest he may exhibit a species of rat cunning. His views on Israel and the Middle East are quite uninteresting, for no rat cunning is required. He simply observes that an anti-Semitic policy is necessary, now that Muslim immigration exceeds the Jewish vote.

Not one good thing has come out of the Liberal Party since Louis St-Laurent was defeated in 1957. He, at least, achieved mediocrity. But what can we do? Canada’s population is one with the Liberals.

What happened on October 7th, 2023 — the slaughter of huge numbers of unarmed Jews when Palestinians got outside the Gaza perimeter — was not entirely unexpected. It would happen again and again, were that boundary left open. It will happen as long as Palestinians are, from childhood, taught or brainwashed throughout their education and social systems to murder Jews. I also protest against the “disproportionate” Israeli response. I think the Israelis have been much too restrained.

My model for “Palestine” would be Germany, or Japan. These formerly vicious nations became harmlessly bourgeois after they unconditionally surrendered to the United States and allies.  It is ludicrous to think we should have offered them a peace deal, instead.

Hamas, too, has behaved viciously, with the overwhelming support of the “Palestinians” in Gaza (and elsewhere), as e.g. Hitler once enjoyed overwhelming support in Germany. What the Nazis did to Europe, or the Japanese to the Chinese and Americans, you must know to have the right to an opinion. Similarly, you must know what the “Palestinians” have done, and have been doing for decades, to have the right to an opinion on e.g. Hamas.

Our duty is not to force another peace treaty on Israel. It is to help the Israelis exterminate Hamas.

Perhaps I am not alone in thinking that what we now call artificial intelligence has been with us for a long time. My son pointed out that something that I’d flagged in “U-boob” was entirely “artificial” in this sense, and when I suggested in frustration that 95 percent of U-boobish content is unreal, he replied that soon it will be 95 percent of the Internet. I should mention that this son is well-versed in computer electronics, and not entirely naïve.

Very well: but how does this differ from pure “information”? There are people who would quantify this, as in “77.8 percent of statistical estimates are entirely made up,” but that’s what governments are for. They can report this with a straight face, and pass laws against the “disinformation’ and “misinformation” that denies it.

This perhaps is a new feature, begun slightly before the expansion of statistical agencies made it possible, for that majority of people who do not think, or who think that it is safer to obey as they did through the Wuhan Batflu. It is best, when the liberal authorities have come to a temporary conclusion, to keep one’s head down. I know that I, with the help of a stroke and hallucinogenic medication a few years ago, simply shut up.

But a question remains whether artificial intelligence is more destructive of general intelligence now than in the past. I was considering this while reading An History of the Earth & Animated Nature, by Oliver Goldsmith, one of my favourite books of reference.

From this I leant that in Lapland, the squirrels migrate from one location to another, unimpeded by broad rivers and lakes. When they encounter these, they retreat into the neighbouring forest, each for a piece of bark to waft them over. Thus they boldly commit, fanning the air with their tails. But while the banks are mostly tranquil, the broads may be more turbulent, and there is danger that the little squirrel navy may sink from a gust of wind.

This is good luck for the Laplanders, however, who eat squirrel flesh when it is washed ashore, and sell their skins for a shilling the dozen.

Tom Lehrer, who checked out of earthly life on the weekend, at age ninety-seven, chose the most suitable time to be pushing off. Above ninety-seven, one is likely to spend one’s extra time whining about geriatric conditions, and of course, if you turn one hundred you may attract unwelcome publicity. Best to be getting along to the next life, before your embarrassments in this one cloud a happy future.

Lehrer, a brilliant mathematician, and atom bombist at Los Alamos, who studied under Irwin Kaplansky at Harvard from age fifteen, was like this master an amateur musician and composer of show tunes. Unlike most show tunes they were satirical, and unlike most satires they were genuinely funny; enough so that he gave up writing them and kept his dayjob. I personally admired Lehrer immensely when I was young and adolescent because his humour was “dark,” “black,” or “sick.” My adolescent contemporaries appreciated it, too.

It was perhaps his wisdom that most appealed to me, for I was a connoisseur of the dark qualities. I could appreciate them even from the Left, where Lehrer seemed to be coming from the age of Eisenhower, as it exploded into the ‘sixties.

“One, two, three, what are we fighting for? / Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam. / Five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates! / Ain’t no time for wondering why, / Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!”

His “Vatican Rag” was also quite informative. He gave a most succinct account of the attempted destruction of the Catholic Church under Vatican II; the more impressive as he was a Jew. (Consult, “Hanukkah in Santa Monica.”)

But better still, he understood humour, and the use of sarcasm. He liked an audience that could belly-laugh. However, his leftwing college audiences would instead applaud, very loudly — for they were humourless scolds.

It is just the same on college campuses today.

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POSTSCRIPTUM. — A priest gently advises that the “Fixin’-to-Die Rag” remembered above was not by Lehrer, but by Country Joe & the Fish.

“You will be free if you do as we say”; this has been the immortal leftwing claim, since the Left manned the guillotines in Revolutionary France; and since then the Left has been in power, potentially when not actually. Of course, you will not be made free if you do as they say, nor will you be consulted. The Left is selling a programme of “progress” that will never be realized, for it is determined by “experts” who are consistently wrong. Moreover, it was never intended to be realized. It is their essential sales pitch, however, by which a significant portion of any population can be “played.” It is all about power, which is what leftwing people live for.

Yet the powerful are not free, either. They cannot move without tripping over themselves. They get caught in their own spider-web bureaucracies, the poor darlings.

While having nothing to do with principle, in reality, this has been the consistent plan of every leftwing party; it is planning itself. Some of it is merely arbitrary, but under the surface, it is satanic. A “Liberal” party, or “Democrats,” or “Labour,” will certainly tell you what to do. They will have a plan. And you are to obey them, on the promise that you will be rewarded. However, they have no comprehension of what works, and what doesn’t, on God’s green earth. Their promises are, invariably, lies; although “bullshit” is the more accurate term, for the power-hungry may not consciously lie, unless it is to their advantage; they simply do not care what is true. In return, for all the sacrifices one makes, to obey their rules and regulations and pay for their extravagant schemes, you will get nothing.

Veritably, it has been said, that if you establish socialism in the Sahara, there will soon be a shortage of sand.

All leftwing parties, without exception, limit freedom. They impose, by their nature. Often this is done by simply taxing more than half of one’s income, plus deficit spending, on things of no value. (“Climate change” is the ultimate leftwing fraud.) Alas, so do many rightwing parties “tax and spend,” shamelessly, for it is necessary to finance corruption, and besides, they find themselves competing for the moronic vote, which is a strong majority in urban constituencies.

General intelligence dips precipitously in urban areas. Crowding is the leftist’s companion, because it guarantees a public that will be increasingly distracted, and stupid. It also provides the excuse for endless, mindless bureaucracy. “Crowd control” must be everywhere in cities, and wherever we look we see a forest of “traffic signs,” and omnipresent police.

Worse, however, is that all of us — not only the stupid ones — must live in a commonwealth of lies, by lies, and for lies. This is inconvenient.

Our Chief Texas Correspondent used to upbraid me for reducing the number of my foodie Idleposts. The fact he has not been doing this lately is an indication that he was exaggerating their number in the past, or, perhaps, that he doesn’t read me anymore. (He was always difficult.) So I call out to him, as I used to telephone my mother, whenever I had eaten a substantial salad. For it is a sign of great virtue.

Strange to say, I actually enjoy what the Catholic Church prescribes for Fridays, and do not suffer as a good Protestant might. Fish, for instance; indeed, all kinds of seafarers that are not usually described as fish, such as octopus, squid, and the variety of marine mollusca. It is at this front that I am in agreement with our “auld allies,” the Portuguese.

My mama was from Cape Breton, and was raised on white fishes, especially haddock, cod, and halibut. Not only white people eat these fishes, however, but also non-white — the Chinese, for example, and other coloured people. Verily, fishmongers themselves come in all sorts and hues.

One of my most useful purchases was an Asiatic bamboo steamer, of the kind that is balanced atop a pan of boiling water. Indeed, since becoming the equivalent of a bachelor again, it has starred in culinary conquests. With the help of a dishcloth, one may steam basmati rice, even sticky rice, or short-grain arborio, should that be your propensity. Things like veggies can be gratuitously tossed in, and in a few minutes, lunch is ready.

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” This saying of Christ’s is brought home to me every Friday. Even the cleaning up afterwards is undemanding.

Notwithstanding — an important Canadian constitutional term — I do not advocate most forms of violence, even regicide. I have long been against revolutionary acts. We should leave brutality and barbarity almost entirely to the Left, who specialize in methods that are base and foul. Along with the thoughts of various religious “extremists” and nutjobs, their views are reducibly materialist, and the idea that it is better to suffer an injustice than to inflict one is incomprehensible to them.

“Let them live,” should be a motto for the pro-life forces. (Of course I exempt capital punishment under the law.) If God, in His wisdom, should decide to cast them with the Devil into the eternal fire, or even merely into the flames that extinguish, that is not our call. We cannot judge for eternity, and we should not aspire to what we really cannot do.

This is also true of “peace,” which I have frequently distinguished from the fraudulent “peace, peace” that is satirized in Scripture. It is not in our power to create peace, among others or ourselves, and we may only observe when it is God’s creation. It is enough for us to fulfill our modest promises. To die may bring peace profoundly; but suicide is profoundly fretful. It is better to be murdered, against our will.

Even from the little I say above, war and peace, including civil war and domestic peace, are not manageable things. Doing nothing to advance either should be indicated; in politics we should let things be.

Our monarch’s recent, or latest, betrayals of the Christian religion he was empowered to defend, and the royal family dawdling in his train, have left the faithful (in the broadest sense) free to ignore him. King Charles persistently calls himself, “Defender of the Faiths” — an evasion of the title a pope once conferred upon his ancestor. Defender of sophistry?

King Henry VIII turned apostate, a more consequential act even than his misrule and murders. But his successors did not quit the presentation of this title; until now, when their very claim to be Christian has been abandoned. The king’s performance at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies made this, against the background Islamization of British society, undeniable.

Will there always be an England? Perhaps, in the geographical sense, but Christ has been removed from it. It has become a wretched, inauthentic state — a “shithole” country in colloquial speech — and far from being its extension, the peoples of the Crown Dominions have been orphaned, in this cosmic Statute of Westminster. And Canada, that was under a king, has now evolved into a worthless “multiculture,” having no dignity at all.

We are told by our reigning king that Islam and Christianity hold most things in common. However, even a person who is marginally educated should know that our most fundamental beliefs are not held in common; that Mussulman and Christian have been, through fourteen centuries, opposed. In England, one may now be arrested for stating this obvious fact.

The “juice of the pample mouse,” as it is called in Canada, or “grape-fruit juice” as it is called in the United States (where they are commonly juiced in Florida), together with the pample mice in their raw state, were, until my admission to an Ontario socialized hospital a few years ago, among my favourite culinary entertainments. Imagine how unsurprised I was, when it appeared on a dietary list for items I must now avoid. When I demanded an explanation, I was told of some mysterious pharmaceutical conflict. For modern medicine is a Puritan activity: anything you enjoy must be stopped.

After a memorable fight with the general practitioner to whose “roster” I was assigned, I was “rostered.” This is a custom we have in Ontario, where a patient can be cut off all medical services or attention if his immigrant doctor decides that he is Jewish. (Incorrectly, in my case.) I had lost count of the number of expensive pills he had prescribed, tests and procedures he had assigned. How wonderful to be cut off.

This happened a couple of years ago. My condition immediately improved. (Perhaps I should be thanking Hamas.) Neither must I wear masks, or follow the other witchcraftly practices he specified.

But out of neurotic habit, I had stayed away from the pample mice, until yesterday, when I was enflamed with desire. Visiting a supermarket, I realized that I could openly buy these delightful round creatures, or obtain a whole plastic jug into which they had been squeezed. It was a “Tropicana” jug containing 1.36 litres, of the squeezed pample mice, that had been filled in the free state of Florida.

It is one of the new high-tech jugs, which promise to keep contents fresh for an indefinite period, but cannot in any circumstance be opened. I am now in my second day of trying to unscrew the top. It is the capitalist’s answer to Canadian socialism.

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.