Essays in Idleness

Generally speaking, I am against rioting, though I would not want to make this a cumbersome rule. I would not say, as a Christian, that violence is never permitted. For instance, there was the example of Our Saviour (beating on the blasphemous money-changers). But for “secular,” political purposes, rioting never works, and the kind of violence that does is practised almost exclusively by the Left.

On the other hand, I don’t think “democracy” can deliver political change, in the form of any practical improvements; or that, in principle, political change should be encouraged any more than rioting. All appropriations of power should be opposed, and all attempts to perpetuate power should be resisted. This, especially for the “smelly little orthodoxies,” that stink as awfully as the “influencers” who advance them. But this is the world. You may be honest yourself, and behave graciously; you ought to be generous slightly beyond your means; but if you expect such kindness from others you will be frequently disappointed.

Our ambition, I declare, is to be Useless Men — as Christ was, in every sense, Useless. This has been a theme of my secret conversations, recently.

In my one encounter with an O.V.S. (“Official Vatican Saint”), I noticed that she was a tireless worker for useless things. (This was Mother Teresa of Calcutta.) For instance, food and medicine for the impecunious, and attention to the dying; her unceasing prayer. How do you build an economy on that? The G.N.P. will be almost unaffected.

Going to Heaven is not, in any worldly terms, a useful procedure, for as we recall: “My Kingdom is Not of This World.” Getting there is, in the highest sense, escapism.

The Chinese instruction on being raped, I am told, is to “lie back and enjoy it.” But how do they enjoy being murdered? Myself, I would find it painful and inconvenient, but much worse things happen in this world, and there are advantages to being out of it.