Love of the Modern World

As a conservative I'm always complaining about the modern world, particularly the things it lacks: tradition, ceremony, community, enchantment, etc. etc. I love everything that's old-fashioned and nostalgic and long-lasting and ancestral.

But every now again--- and I've written about this before-- I feel a positive love of the modern world.

(Almost) everything about it. Budget hotels, Coca-Cola, televised sports, newspaper cartoons, shop windows that are lit up all night long, logos, train timetables, fan clubs, iconic album covers, petrol stations, bags of peanuts, showers, apartment blocks, adolescence, old age, subcultures, fads, the myriad of different occupations and ways of life available to most people...and so on, and so on.

I've often suspected that, if any one of us was dragged back in time to the High Middle Ages or the Victorian era or Gaelic Ireland...we would be massively nostalgic and feel a sentimental longing for all these things. I'm not just talking about sanitation, safety, indoor heating, or all the conveniences that everybody accepts as desirable. I'm specifically talking about all the fripperies and pageantry of contemporary life.

It's not that I want to get rid of all those things, though I certainly think that some occasional austerity and puritantism would do us a world of good. My conservatism lies more in the fact that I want to combine them with the things we've lost.

My "Keeping Things Interesting" Blog Post Trilogy.

Ten years ago, I wrote a trio of blog posts on the importance (as I see it) of keeping society interesting. They can be read, should you wish to do so, here, here, and here.

I'm not saying they're great or anything. What I will say is that I keep coming back to these ideas again and again.

Sometimes, when I'm arguing with liberals (or progressives, or leftists, or whatever you want to call them) I resort to saying: "But imagine if you get exactly what you want. Fifty years down the line, do you think society is going to be better for it, or do you think people might actually miss all the things you want to abolish?" (For instance: gender roles, hierarchy, national boundaries, stereotypes, irrational taboos, everyday aggravations and inconveniences, etc. etc.)

Of course, I don't say it as articulately as that. (People always paint themselves as winning arguments. It's one of my bugbears.)

Like every other argument, this could be reduced to a reductio ab absurdum. Total war would be interesting, wouldn't it? But that's not the sort of thing I mean. I'm not making an argument like that of Friedrich Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, who said that the suffering of life could only be justified as a spectacle for the gods-- but that this does justify it, and the more of a spectacle we provide the better! (Nietzsche, being an atheist, was obviously speaking figuratively.)

I'm taking for granted that people's basic needs take priority: food, shelter, safety, etc. But I think that people's non-material yearnings kick in a lot sooner than is generally supposed.

The quotation that I always use to illustrate this idea is one from George Orwell, and on which I'll finish:

By far the best known modern Utopias are those of H. G. Wells. Wells's vision of the future is most fully expressed in two books written in the early Twenties, The Dream and Men Like Gods. Here you have a picture of the world as Wells would like to see it or thinks he would like to see it. It is a world whose keynotes are enlightened hedonism and scientific curiosity. All the evils and miseries we now suffer from have vanished. Ignorance, war, poverty, dirt, disease, frustration, hunger, fear, overwork, superstition all vanished. So expressed, it is impossible to deny that that is the kind of world we all hope for. We all want to abolish the things Wells wants to abolish. But is there anyone who actually wants to live in a Wellsian Utopia? On the contrary, not to live in a world like that, not to wake up in a hygienic garden suburb infested by naked schoolmarms, has actually become a conscious political motive. A book like Brave New World is an expression of the actual fear that modern man feels of the rationalised hedonistic society which it is within his power to create. 

Something That's Always Bothered Me About "Moral Panics"

Sometimes I think I have good instincts. For my entire life, I've been suspicious of the term "moral panic". A "moral panic" is (supposedly) something that occurs when there's public alarm about some trend or phenomenon, real or imagined.

Here is Wikipedia's list of moral panics.

The most obvious fact about "moral panics" is that the term only ever seems to be applied to either conservative anxieties (such as McCarthyism) or those which are politically neutral (like Y2K, or the wave of clown sightings in 2016). Left-wing scares are never called moral panics. You won't hear the term "moral panic" applied to liberal fretting about home-schooling, the rise of the supposed "far right" (via "online radicalisation"), or "disinformation".

But that's low-hanging fruit. That's true of everything. (In the same way, right-wing reactions against social trends are always called "backlashes", while left-wing reactions are "resistance." In the same way, political satire for my entire lifetime has been overwhelmingly aimed at conservatives-- or perceived conservatives, such as Margaret Thatcher.)

No, my suspicion of the term "moral panic" goes deeper than that. And I just realized it today.

The thing about moral panics is that they presume some sort of public-spiritedness. Most "moral panics" aren't really about dangers faced by the individual. They have to do with social and cultural concerns-- concerns about the way society is going. Not so much the body politic, as the social fabric.

The left often resorts to this formula, when they're trying to push for something conservatives oppose: "If you don't want an X, don't get an X." That's a pretty atomistic way to view society, if you ask me.

("But...but...didn't you say you're becoming ever more libertarian?". Yes, I am! But a "moral panic" doesn't necessarily have to do with demanding government action. Social and cultural debate can also be about trying to warn, persuade, evangelize, denounce, etc. etc.)

I have a special interest in "moral panics" because I'm a horror movie fan. Horror movies (as critics and academics love to explain, and very often persuasively) often reflect moral or social anxieties of the day. For instance, threats to the nuclear family, or to childhood innocence. I suppose these could be construed as a personal danger, a personal threat-- but the impression I get is that they tend to be much broader and more public. I can't really argue that, except by saying that movies (and stories) have a universalizing tendency. They only seem to have emotional resonance if they apply beyond the individual.

A Meme

Sudden Clarity Clarence is one of my favourite memes. Here's my spin on it. Only Irish people will get this one (probably).

The Rider's Quest: A Reprise

A few weeks ago, I got possibly the nicest letter I've ever received. It was from a former Facebook friend. (He's only "former" because I left Facebook and X a few years ago. No, this hasn't changed my life, reduced my anxiety, or made my everyday existence deeper and more meaningful). Anyway, he told me he had been re-reading a folder of my poems he kept on his desktop (which astounded me) and hoped I hadn't given up on poetry. This delighted me beyond all measure.

I haven't actually written poetry for a bit, but I haven't given it up. Anyway, I'm going to reproduce one of my older poems now, because I found myself thinking of it today.

The poem is called The Rider's Quest. I think I wrote it about ten years ago. I wrote it quickly, and when I finished it, I thought I had written the greatest poem of all time. I've changed my mind on that score.

But I think it's OK. Yes, there's a lot of cod medievialism in it, but so what? The references to the unicorn might seem a bit twee, but at the time I was playing with the mock-serious idea of a "unicorn school" of poetry. (I'm like the child who has to invent imaginary playmates.) I've only realized just now that "unicorn" is a near-anagram of unironic.

The stanza that came to mind was this one. The titular rider has been warned by the host of the inn where he stops that he risks missing all the music of life in his frantic quest. He responds thus:

"Dear host, the things you say are true;
The world is broad, the world is wide,
And full of wonders, old and new.
And yet-- it pales unless I ride.
The merry festivals I see
Seem merrier, the more I speed--
And the untasted revelry,
While still I ride, is sweet indeed."

This is my own experience. I actually "smell the roses" best when I'm not even thinking about the roses-- when I'm thinking about something else. Life seems most full of incidental pleasures when I'm absorbed in some consuming activity. Food tastes better, jokes are funnier, I'm more receptive to the atmosphere around me than when I'm just woolgathering.

Conversely, when I'm consciously trying to "enter into the atmosphere" and do nothing else-- like when I'm in a park on a sunny day, and everybody around me is having fun-- it's usually a complete wash-out.

This is why I like little moments in movies such as this one in The American President, when two of the staffers are having a political discussion during a Christmas party:

ROBIN: Fellas, we haven't slept in three years. Can't we forget work for one night and take this moment to enjoy each other as friends? It's Christmas.

LEWIS (pause): It's Christmas?

KODAK: Yeah, you didn't get the memo?

(Actually, I've always found that Christmas-- and every other holiday and tradition-- is at its best when it's a background, an atmosphere. Which is not to say that it should only be a background. Personally I've always preferred the run-up to Christmas to Christmas itself, which is inevitably an anti-climax. Unless we take "Christmas" to mean the season.)

I'd be interested to know whether other people share this disposition, which seems to be the opposite of everything we're told. I might even call it anti-mindfulness.

Given everything I've written above, it's a fair bet that I'm a highly goal-oriented, purposeful, intentional, determined kind of fellow brimming over with work ethic, right? Ha, ha! Not a bit of it! I wish I was, though.

Since I'm praising my own poetry, I'm also quite proud of these lines:

"Rider, your words are strange, but fair.
The hall seems brighter while you stay.
You seem to carry some quaint air
From long ago, or far away."

That's good, isnt it? Isn't it? I think so.

Anyway, here's the rest:

The Rider's Quest: A Unicorn Poem

"Oh rider tell me why you ride
So endlessly, so urgently?
They ask throughout the countryside
Or if you hunt, or if you flee.
Now linger here a little while
And whisper it into my ear
The thing that drives you many a mile--
Or is it far, or is it near?"




"My gentle host, I cannot say--
I have not seen it with my eyes
Or by the common light of day
Or under any earthly guise.
I seek it, yet it seeks me too.
I seek it, yet I somehow flee.
Good host, I cannot give to you
The answer to this mystery."

"Poor rider, linger yet a while;
And warm yourself beside the fire.
We cannot live without a smile,
Enraptured by some one desire.
You miss the music of the day
You miss the poetry of night.
You must not yearn your life away--
Poor rider, what a sorry sight!"

"Dear host, the things you say are true;
The world is broad, the world is wide,
And full of wonders, old and new.
And yet-- it pales unless I ride.
The merry festivals I see
Seem merrier, the more I speed--
And the untasted revelry,
While still I ride, is sweet indeed."




"Rider, your words are strange, but fair.
The hall seems brighter while you stay.
You seem to carry some quaint air
From long ago, or far away.
Stay yet a while. And tell me true--
Is your lone quest to silence sworn?
I think I know what you pursue--
I think you chase the unicorn."

"The unicorn? Perhaps I do.
I cannot say, my gentle host.
Sometimes I fear, to tell you true,
I chase the phantom of a ghost.
I am not sworn to silence stern,
Nor do I riddle you for sport.
The thing for which I hunt and yearn
Is something of the strangest sort."

"Still stranger than the unicorn?
Oh rider, do you mock at me?
Is this a costume to be worn,
An outward show of mystery?
Perhaps you merely seek a name?
And yet-- I cannot think it so.
Oh pardon me!-- I see with shame
Your heart is purer than the snow."



"Good host, my pardon will I grant
Most readily. Your words are fair.
But mockery and teasing chant
Follow behind me everywhere.
"The man is mad", the children sing,
"He plays some trick", their mothers say.
I hardly hear their chattering.
I smile on them and go my way."

"Good rider, tell me why you stare
So keenly at that candle's flame?
I've marked you often looking there--
All candle-light is much the same.
A candle is a common thing,
A thing unnoticed by the world.
What magic has its flickering
For one on such a mission hurled?"

"Of all the things the world contains
This flame is closest to my prize.
This flicker that the world disdains
Is a kind beacon to my eyes.
Of every worldly thing the most
Unworldly is its gentle gleam.
Here is my secret, worthy host:
I seek the light seen in a dream."

If you've made it to the end of the poem, here's one of my favourite quotations, and one that fits with the theme of the poem. It's from Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising: "Two things have constantly pulled at cross-purposes in me: one, a deep homing instinct, a desire beyond words to be at home always, with the same beloved faces, the same familiar shapes and sounds about me; the other, an impulse to seek hard things to do, to go on far quests and fight for lost causes."

Falling Into a Flag

Recently, I saw a group of protestors who were standing under a flag, and I thought: "That flag means nothing to them. It's just a token, a statement that they are on one side of a controversy and not another."

And then I thought: "Well, isn't that true of every flag? Isn't every flag just a statement of some kind?

This thought, although it was my own, somewhat surprised me. The truth is that all my life I've thought of flags as more than symbols. I've thought of them as abstract worlds, like a Mondrian painting. As though you could fall into a flag endlessly.

As though a flag represented not only a piece of land or a political cause, but a whole reality of its own. Not just a State, but a state.

This applies not only to flags, but all political and religious symbols.

This impression is subtle but incredibly strong. I've always felt that whenever anyone explicitly aligns themselves with some kind of cause or way of life, they've drawn on an infinite power source.

Some years ago, in Ireland, there was some kind of public awareness campaign that revolved around a number. I forget what it was for, or even which number it was. But one ad showed a famous sports star raising his hand, with the number written on his open palm. He wasn't smiling or looking at the camera. It was such a potent image that it seemed to divide my mind into two warring halves-- one knew it was just a silly ad, the other thought it must have some deeper and even infinite meaning.

(No, I don't follow Jonathan Pageau. I probably should.)

This is so Creepy

It's been catching my eyes for weeks now (maybe months) at a bus-stop.

It could be from a horror movie!