Essays in Idleness

Never hold a job you’re not willing to lose. Give it up now, should you find it has so corrupted you. Keep it only if it has not, and you remain willing to stake it, whenever necessary, on one turn of pitch-and-toss.

Let no enemy surmise, that you will beg or bargain.

This is an attitude I learnt from my father, who showed real genius in the art of losing jobs; as well as in an associated field of moral enterprise: that of not getting paid. Yet a happy soldier, he never complained. He would have qualified my remark by advising: “Don’t go out of your way to lose it. It can be done quite naturally.” And, “It makes tactical sense not to take on the whole world at the same time.” And, “Never entirely forget that you must support a family.” For he was a moderate, reasonable man.

Notwithstanding, my electronic dossiers are filling with examples of people being driven out of their livelihoods, for their refusal to lie, to flatter, to participate in evils, to obey petty tyrants, or salute their howling mobs. Politics plays an increasing part in this, as should be obvious to anyone who ever reads some news. I think, for instance, of Catholics teaching in once-Catholic universities such as Georgetown, Providence, Fordham, Notre Dame, or St Michael’s here in Toronto. They are asked to sign on to things which, if gentle reader will tolerate understatement, aren’t Catholic; starting currently with “diversity,” as maliciously redefined. I don’t want to get into specific cases, no two of which are exactly the same, nor discuss personalities, in this post. Today I’m in a mood for vague generalization.

“Do not accept intimidation.” Ever. This, I realize, is more easily said than done; especially at a time when our public institutions are descending into the bottomless moral darkness of “secular humanism.” The “Saul Alinsky” rules — self-described as the devil’s own — are everywhere at work in the culture, carrying factional politics into realms where they will never belong.

While I do not agree with almost any of his policies (being no nationalist, no populist, no worshipper of material success), I note that Trump won in the USA by defying the forces of political correction, rather than by appeasing them.

In that I find some worldly encouragement; and more in the results of two by-elections this week in the Province of Ontario, that make this lesson clear. The Conservative opposition took one of them, in which they ran a nineteen-year-old kid who made no concessions to the prevailing Culture of Death. He won in Niagara with a margin significantly better than that of the former party leader whose riding it had been — an abject appeaser. Meanwhile, in Ottawa, the party ran instead a mediocrity — a rubber-duckling progressive wimp. Who lost badly. This happens when your own supporters find nothing to support. They think: why choose this gasbag over the other?

It is no coincidence that the backbenchers of almost every rightwing party in the West are more radical than the talking heads in front. These footsoldiers are an embarassment to every party establishment, whose leaders live in terror that the media will expose them as uncool. Those same media which are utterly distrusted by most of their customers, as we discover in poll after poll. (Trump won by riding his cart over them.)

Make a stand, and at worst, one may lose the election, though too, one might win. Appease, and lose one’s soul, … in addition to the election. For moral cowardice is never rewarded — not by Heaven, nor even by the Earthlings.

On matters of mortal importance — such as the “life issues,” every one — it is well to recall who has sent us into battle. They cannot be answerable to any party boss, who know that they are answerable to God.

Similarly, in all other circumstances. Once the progressive dogs smell fear, they are on you. They have a view only to your destruction; they thrive on your fear, your wish to cut and run. They will leap on your backside, the moment you turn. Your task is to turn the tables on them. It is to show that they have picked the wrong target; that you grasp the game is for keeps; that you will die, before you will surrender your children to these hyenas. And that far from granting them little concessions, for the sake of some momentary peace and quiet, you will take great pleasure in destroying them.

In the end we will take back the public institutions, one squalid mudfight at a time. Or, we will not, in which case they will crumble, and we must build anew, starting from the roots, underground. Either way; it doesn’t matter. For in the end Christ wins.

“Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil; and my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!”

Or, in the more bashful and circumspect Protestant version: “My cup runneth over.”

This is an aspect of Christianity that has been progressively overlooked: the throwing rocks at the denizens of Hell part, that Hilaire Belloc (and Thomas Aquinas) so well understood. Justice must prevail, and by golly, will be seen to prevail.

We have so much to look forward to!