Beware: I’m furious. I’m about to launch a “rant.” It might turn ugly. All the same, I’m not going to hold anything back. Consider yourselves forewarned, Gentle Readers.
Large-scale conflicts all have the same genesis: the politicization of some idea or practice. I’ve said this. So has my beloved colleague Linda Fox. We gave the subject our best, but too few of you have taken it to heart. A saddening percentage of you have adopted politicization tactics, not understanding that it will make you indistinguishable from the Left.
As I’ve made it a working assumption that the politicization of an issue will bring conflict, I’ve been trying to stay clear of such things. Another working assumption is that he who politicizes knows what he’s doing; therefore he seeks the conflict it will bring. And we have no more room for conflict in this conflict-ridden age.
So I’m distancing myself from politics and political advocacy.
What? That distresses you? Come on! Surely you don’t read my interminable tirades just to get your glands in a lather. Who needs the agita? I’d rather believe that I’ve made you feel better. I intend to set my fingers to these BLEEP!ing keys with only that in mind henceforward.
Feel better, Gentle Reader. Feel at ease, at peace. “Peace on Earth and good will toward men,” as the angels sang to the shepherds at Bethlehem. To get that precious feeling, you must back away from anything and everything that’s been politicized. Make all things private, as they were before that noxious nonsense that’s called The State started throwing its weight around.
Even if you can only do so for yourself, think and act as if no such lunacy as some people ordering others around (and jailing or killing them for disobedience) had ever arisen among us.
Ten years ago, I wrote:
Virtually every op-ed writer currently blathering has chosen to align himself with some political ideology. Virtually all such persons routinely cheerlead for one or the other of the two major political parties. They might well be sincere in their convictions. They might well be benevolently inclined toward the rest of us: they might sincerely believe that the political agendas they promote and support would be for the best, and that once they’re in place, we would all be as happy as kings.
It doesn’t matter. They’re pushing politics – the pursuit of power over others – as the cure for everything that ails us. Even those who argue solely for the repeal of this or that oppressive law are pushing politics.
I was echoing another brilliant thinker and writer:
This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing."
True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone. I do not look upon people as Vancauson looked upon his automaton. Rather, just as the physiologist accepts the human body as it is, so do I accept people as they are. I desire only to study and admire.
“Great men.” Have you reflected on the inanity of that phrase lately? What qualifies a man as “great?” Is it personal achievement, or is it the ascent to political power? Time was, we honored the first sort; we endured the second, as men have done since States first emerged to bedevil us. Today it’s rather the reverse.
George Herron had something to say about that:
The possession of power over others is inherently destructive both to the possessor of power and to those over whom it is exercised. And the great man of the future, in distinction from the great man of the past, is he who will seek to create power in people, and not gain power over them. The great man of the future is he who will refuse to be great at all, in the historic sense; he is the man who will literally lose himself, who will altogether diffuse himself in the life of humanity.
That is greatness. That is humility: the great and underappreciated Christian virtue. It’s required that a man be humble, if he is to submit himself to the will of God. And damned near no one for whom the trumpets sound their fanfares exemplifies or exercises it.
I shan’t claim to be an exemplar of humility. I know better. My tendency to think myself superior to others has caused me most of the grief I’ve known. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate its importance; rather the reverse. It’s one of the hardest-learned of all my lessons.
Paradoxically, for Smith to tell Jones to “be humble” usually has the opposite effect. It produces anger, even fury. Imagine telling any of today’s “great men” that they should be humble. What sort of response would you expect? “Guards! Throw this person down the steps. Make it hurt.”
Time was, it was actually a crime to tell a “great man” to be humble. It was called lèse-majesté. It could get the offender summarily beheaded. Don’t take my word for it; look it up. Look into the history of monarchy; you’ll find it.
Tells you something about the relationship of humility to “greatness,” doesn’t it?
Draw the BLEEP!ing moral.
I’ve known a genuinely great man. He was my friend, for a time. He’s passed away, one of the most painful losses of my life... and indeed, one of the greatest recent losses of this world, though the world be unaware of it. Yet his greatness went unrecognized by nearly everyone. That’s as he would have wanted it, too.
He didn’t care what others were doing. He didn’t care what others said or thought. He simply lived, loved, worked, and created. He made a specialty out of the employment of “obsolete” technologies to build useful, even innovative things. He joked that his mantra should be “There has to be a harder way to do this.” Really, I attach more importance to something else he said once:
“I have my wife and my mountain. What else does anyone need?”
As far as I know, he had no political involvements, beyond talking to me – and I’ve often regretted the time we wasted on political subjects. He wanted nothing but to create, to build, and to be left alone with the woman he loved and the few men he held as friends. By dint of great intellect, great imagination, and great labors, he got his wish.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you. I’d originally had a specific example in mind of how the politicization of some phenomenon – i.e., turning it into an “issue” that requires mass approval or disapproval – destroys our peace, but I’m worn out. I suppose I’m sparing myself, too.
I wish you peace. It’s rare and precious today, like freedom. But they’re complementary assets; each, once achieved, brings the other. Their common prerequisite is the abjuration of all political involvement, however well-intended. The implications are for you to draw.
Happy Hallowe’en. Feel free to leave the candy corn for me. I like it.
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