Essays in Idleness

Yes, yes, gentle reader, I am trying to be irrelevant, but it’s hard, hard to cut against the grain. I do not mean my own grain, of course — for I think that I am naturally irrelevant — but that of the society around me, and which has been around all my adult life. A society that is “evolving,” as they say. And while many other people are irrelevant, too — have opinions on little beyond the weather, and those uncontroversial by intention — they get pulled into our civic “debates.”

Example: Which monuments to once-admired historical figures should we blow up today? Or would melting them down be better? How to conceal those we’re not yet sure of, till we reach a decision? And should the pedestals also be removed, or re-used to mount new monuments to e.g. Britney Spears? This is a pressing matter on which we’re all called to judgement, if not action.

Moreover, there are subsidiary issues. Has President Trump sufficiently condemned those with antiquated tastes in sculpture? Was he quick enough to do so? Is he bigoted, or prejudiced, or just a racist? Why hasn’t he ordered the destruction of monuments himself? There are many around Washington, DC.

Or consider another angle. Should everyone with the name “Robert Lee” be silenced? Starting with sports broadcasters of Oriental appearance? Or is it sufficient to take them off the air? Should they be imprisoned, or enslaved perhaps, by way of historical restitution? Capital punishment is unacceptable, but might they be euthanized instead? What about people with other names, such as “Jefferson” or “Davis” or “White” or “Tom”? Are there ways to unperson them that can provide us with “teachable moments”?

For you know, gentle reader, on this topic of public statuary alone, where I seldom previously had opinions, and those I had quite mild, I suddenly find myself enflamed. (They are going for Catholic saints now, incidentally.) Yet I hesitate to share my views, for fear of inconvenience. For it is inconvenient to be prosecuted for the incorrect use of free speech (including pronouns, now regulated by our Canadian criminal code); and I am a notorious incommodophobe. (Or is it sinistrophobia, “fear of the Left,” or, gaderophobia, “fear of swine inhabited by devils,” or, chiroptostercornuceophobia, “fear of the shrieking batshit insane”?) … So maybe stick to the weather.

Alas, no relief there. One might easily put a foot wrong, by observing that it is cooler today, thus exposing oneself as a global warming denier. Or alternatively, get right that it is warmer, yet casually propose a trip to the beach. This implies that the beach is still there, that sea levels are not rising. Why have I not raised my voice against it?

Verily, I look through the media, and find all kinds of issues that, as recently as a few years ago, or a few months or a few minutes, no one thought important. How they rue their complacency now!

I doubt it actually started then, but I recall from my childhood in the ’sixties the drumroll building for “relevance.” Those with incorrect (i.e. non-Left) views were deemed irrelevant, and sometimes shouted down. But most were just ignored.

“I may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!” That is what the liberals in those days declared, before history buried them.

How irrelevant they were. How extinct they are now.