Essays in Idleness

We continue to be well-as-can-be-expected, up here in the High Doganate, though stir-crazy, and over-informed about the Batflu (also known as the Kung Flu, or Peking Pox). The housefinches on our balconata persist in their social distancing, and at street level, the dogs continue to walk their masters. The brave, without a dog, may go out, without a mask, if they can stand up to the Virtue Signallers (or as I prefer to call them, the Smugly Foocklings). But that is in the respectable parts of town, at least three miles away, where designer masks are now de rigueur. There are plenty of trolleys, but they travel mostly empty. This is because the transit authorities are “committed to keeping customers and staff safe.” Knowing that most of the public health measures are fraudulent, and/or counter-productive, is not helpful to one’s peace of mind.

These measures would include the vast public doles which our guvmints have been generating, electronically. It could be taken as pay, for those who’d otherwise riot. Eventually, the guvmints hope to electronically rake it back, both from those who were paid and those who were not, in the form of much extended taxes. To understand the Batflu response, is to understand the welcome it gave to bureaucrats and their patrons, wherever the Left won the last election. They do not surrender such powers lightly.

Most of the people I hang out with are their particular targets — from freelance giguers to flea marketeers to those with religious vocations. Such people naturally resist the Kafkaesque arrangements our progressives relish and demand. The Batflu “crisis” put as many as possible of these statistically inconvenient people out of work. (Many are compulsive tax-evaders, after all!) These “little people,” especially those trying to support uncool, old-fashioned, frankly heterosexual families, are the ones for whom I most pray, as they and their children face the “green” future, which will exclude them in the name of “diversity.”

But also I think of the vast slave armies, in the “service economy,” with their idiotizing jobs, from flipping hamburgers to humping boxes in the Amazon warehouse — pinned to their minimum wages until their functions can be mechanized. (When they unionize, this happens faster.)

The “professional classes,” who can work from home, because they do nothing of value, needn’t go months without revenue, while their debts are piling up. They sneer at those who oppose a lockdown, that is perfectly comfortable for the professional classes, who at worst save money by dining in, or must order what they want through Amazon.

It is, as some Dundonian economist was recently explaining, our new, essentially Red Chinese economy: socialism for the rich, and capitalism for the poor. It is high-finance socialism with bailouts for the rich; and competitive, free-market capitalism for the poor they are transiently employing. This keeps operating costs down. Those who work for a living are the suckers in this system; they live in “flyover country” where the work is being done. (Though much flyover country hides downtown, just out of sight.)

Can gentle reader imagine all the gross things that happen on a farm? Let alone in a meat-packing factory. City by-laws can’t keep these things far enough away. For the real work is dirty; these are vulgar people. (Vulgar, and let me add, happy and glorious in their honesty.)

Occasionally, the unwashed catch on to this, and vote for representatives like Trump, who promise to “drain the swamp” of their regulators. But they have no idea how large that swamp is, or the scale of effort that would be required to make it productive.

So what is the solution?

To the Church, all must turn; or to Christ, to make this instruction more specific, at a time when bishops are frequently among the Christian’s worst enemies. (This homily expresses my own view, succinctly.) The ruler of this world is coming, as Christ told his Apostles; and by this He did not mean God the Father. For “the ruler of this world” is on the other side.

“You have to serve somebody.” In the time yet available, let us serve Him.