The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

What A Morose Outlook

Posted on | April 28, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty (via Ann Althouse)

Sendak, one wonders as to your eternal hope:

“When I kick the bucket,” he begins – about to describe why he’s glad his stuff has ended up at the Rosenbach, where it will be seen, not archived – then goes parenthetical: “Which can’t be too long from now. I think I’m getting out just in time. Watching the news, everything seems to be in disorder. Everybody seems to be unhappy. We’ve lost the knack of living in the world with the sensation of safety.”

The man who imagined escapes as romps that ended with warm suppers says, “I wonder why people still have children. I mean, why put kids in the world when the world is so insecure? This is how old people rationalize their death. You get a little crotchety with the world.

“That’s the one thing that I think makes the mural worth having. It represents a time on a personal level when I was secure and young and happy. And I didn’t think about dying . . . about my friends dying.”

In the first place, I doubt that the increased sense of disorder and unhappiness is more than a subjective thing. The Tower of Siloam just seems to topple at higher frequency due to things like tornadoes. But is tragedy, scaled for population, increasing as a function of time? Each individual death is a tragedy, and I don’t mean to lessen that, but I really doubt that our current woes exceed, say, bubonic plague:

It is generally held that the most infamous and devastating outbreak of bubonic plague was the Black Death, which killed a third of the population of Europe in the 14th century.

This threat now has been reduced to a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It really is all about perspective. As someone currently praying for the continued good health of the wife and that of the World’s Youngest Blogger, there is no question that being fruitful is the Right Thing To Do. Admittedly, dying old and bitter might be the Left Thing To Do. However, succumbing to the Overpopulation Myth is about as soul-crushing stupid as succumbing to the Global Warming Myth, the Social Justice Myth, or the Feminist Anti-womanhood Myth (moron that next week). If you notice a pattern of idiocy piling up on one side of the political divide, you may be perceptive.
Sure, there is legitimate concern about the government nationalizing every bit of the meager IRA and 401k wealth that the wife and I have squirreled away. The fog of peace that is an unavoidable side-effect of government has given way to systematic dishonesty. The spirit of Colonel Jessup’s “You can’t handle the truth!” pervades legislation and the avoidance behavior about the fiscal situation.
On the other hand, allowing legitimate concern to become paralysis is tacitly saying the Almighty has given up on Creation. In a word, foolishness. And are we having that? Why no: no, we are not.

Category: Ann Althouse

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