John Derbyshire loses it
Feb. 7th, 2003 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI never promised I wouldn't get political, and this one has me annoyed. In today's National Review, the unofficial organ of Catholic Republican conservatism, Derbyshire's column is, well, here's a taste:
If you really want the rest, it's at The Last Days. It's really quite sad to see. When I was done reading it, I desperately needed a fix of Virginia Postrel optimism, which she's frequently good for.
In the paragraph before the one I excerpted, John relates overhearing a man at the checkout line in a convenience store telling his own sad story about someone stealing his daughter's car, and apparently John just lost it. Worrying about such petty, banal concerns when "they" (whoever "they" might be) are planning on sneaking suitcase nukes into our cities was more than John could bear.
Well, good. I'm much happier in a world where we actually have the freedom and wealth to be so banal, where our day-to-day cares are not taken up with whether or not raiders are going to come over the hills and steal our livestock, rape our children, and burn our villages. We cannot worry about what "they" might do twenty-four hours a day. Th human soul cannot stand that kind of constant worry. John's fears put us in the same place as the Poles or the Serbs circa 1965, when dark eyes darted here and there and everyone feared what his neighbor might be thinking. A nebulous "crisis" in which we are constantly at war with an unknowable "them" in the sort of thing fans of George Orwell understand.
Poor man, that his daughter's car got ripped off, when she worked for it, she earned it. Or, perhaps, her father did. Both of them paid their taxes, dammit, both of them deserve the comfort of knowing that those taxes are going to pay for their external safety and their internal security, John.
Thanks to the kind of banal worries that man has, we now successfully feed, house, supply clean water, medicine, and education, to more people worldwide, and more people per capita, than at any time in history. Yes, the world gets more dangerous as the power to kill thousands evolves into ever smaller packages portable by ever more desperate men. It is the professional's job to shepherd us through this time-- not yours, John, and not mine. Our job is to support them as best we know how-- be moral citizens, educate our children, pay our taxes, understand and participate is the process that is republican democracy.
Getting angry at human beings for being human is unworthy of anyone.
Look at the gross vulgar overflowing fat wealth we live amongst! Look at the great cars that 20-year-old kids drive 400 yards to the mall, to buy things they don't need, gadgets to pack into houses already overflowing with gadgets, clothes to cram into closets stuffed with clothes. Look at the work we do, sitting in humming cubicles scrolling through screens full of numbers, numbers that measure our wealth. Look at the bright, airy schools our kids attend, to be taught that their ancestors were moral criminals, their parents are liars, their culture is a sham.
If you really want the rest, it's at The Last Days. It's really quite sad to see. When I was done reading it, I desperately needed a fix of Virginia Postrel optimism, which she's frequently good for.
In the paragraph before the one I excerpted, John relates overhearing a man at the checkout line in a convenience store telling his own sad story about someone stealing his daughter's car, and apparently John just lost it. Worrying about such petty, banal concerns when "they" (whoever "they" might be) are planning on sneaking suitcase nukes into our cities was more than John could bear.
Well, good. I'm much happier in a world where we actually have the freedom and wealth to be so banal, where our day-to-day cares are not taken up with whether or not raiders are going to come over the hills and steal our livestock, rape our children, and burn our villages. We cannot worry about what "they" might do twenty-four hours a day. Th human soul cannot stand that kind of constant worry. John's fears put us in the same place as the Poles or the Serbs circa 1965, when dark eyes darted here and there and everyone feared what his neighbor might be thinking. A nebulous "crisis" in which we are constantly at war with an unknowable "them" in the sort of thing fans of George Orwell understand.
Poor man, that his daughter's car got ripped off, when she worked for it, she earned it. Or, perhaps, her father did. Both of them paid their taxes, dammit, both of them deserve the comfort of knowing that those taxes are going to pay for their external safety and their internal security, John.
Thanks to the kind of banal worries that man has, we now successfully feed, house, supply clean water, medicine, and education, to more people worldwide, and more people per capita, than at any time in history. Yes, the world gets more dangerous as the power to kill thousands evolves into ever smaller packages portable by ever more desperate men. It is the professional's job to shepherd us through this time-- not yours, John, and not mine. Our job is to support them as best we know how-- be moral citizens, educate our children, pay our taxes, understand and participate is the process that is republican democracy.
Getting angry at human beings for being human is unworthy of anyone.
