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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
August 14, 2011
Locating pessimism
I stand accused, by myself if by no other, of harbouring views that are sometimes too dark, too pessimistic. Let us take for example my immediate response to the riots in England. I could see no upside there.Everyone, not a looter or arsonist himself, could see that the rioters were in the wrong, that there was no possible justice in their actions, and no excuse for it sufficiently plausible. Not even "Red Ken" Livingstone, the batty ex-mayor of London, sounded as if he believed himself when he blamed the behaviour of the "underclass" hoodies on cuts in government funding. Yet the flip side was the response to the rioters, and to the damage they had done, in many urban neighbourhoods. The spirit of the Blitz quickly revived - "Keep Calm and Carry On" - in places like Clapham where, using the same social media the hoodies had been using to direct their attacks, neighbours organized their "broomstick brigades." I almost wept to see the floorbrushes waving; and the serried ranks of moms and dads in their marigolds; and their little ones also in the act, with their toy-store brushes - sweeping the streets of debris, scouring away the charred gunk. Watching the videos, it struck me that these are the very sort of people I remember from my own life, just south of the Thames, back in the 1970s; the decent, hard-working, mostly liberal-minded types (in the generous sense), of all races and origins, united by their better angels. And yet, from their ages, many of these fine urban middle-class had not been born when I lived there. Clearly, I was going too far in suggesting the Little England of old had perished. God bless all those who carry on! At a more visibly heroic level we were treated to bold action by Turkish and Kurdish shopkeepers in their immigrant neighbourhood of Dalston. They didn't need police protection because they stood up to the hoodies directly. And they defiantly kept their shops and cafés open through the worst of it. Pakistani and other "immigrant communities" in Birmingham and elsewhere were likewise proactive. They made all England proud, by their spontaneous vigilantism, and one good effect of the riots was to remind all ethnic factions, native and foreign - Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Jew; believers and unbelievers - that they are all in this together. An attack on one is an attack on all, and so long as that is understood, the devils cannot triumph. One of the defining moments in the social evolution of the United States was the wild race riots of 1967 in Detroit, that brought "long hot summers" to a definitive urban boil. The middle of the city was burnt out, and remains largely a hole to this day. The phenomenon of "white flight" was observed in the upshot; in Detroit and elsewhere, inner cities were surrendered, and the safe suburbs sprawled. What would have happened if, in the morning after each night before, the good citizens had behaved like those of Clapham? Or like those of Dalston, in the heat of the night? I should think the middle of Detroit would be still there. For people are not powerless, not hopeless victims, any more than the "underclass" are hopeless victims of upbringing and circumstance. It is given to every human being to rise, from all adversity. It is the very mission of each human soul. And while the obstacles to rising are quite real - chiefly fatherless homes, welfare dependency, and the lapse of religious life - there are so many examples of people refusing to be defined by the squalor into which they were born. The preaching of "victimhood" is an unambiguous evil. The provision of any kind of excuse for wrong and dishonourable behaviour, is of a piece with the behaviour itself. Contrast the delight in a show of human courage, and where we find that decency remains, in the heart of human nature. I am conscious of the miracle, that things would be so much worse than they are, without this mysterious agency of "fightback." We retain some "instinctive" understanding of which way is up; and in the most horrible scenes of human depravity, there will always be heroism, sanctity, and inspiration. All history attests to this. My pessimism lies at another level. For the foreseeable future, it seems to me, most of Western society is mired in a glib, even asinine moral understanding. For shorthand it is called "moral relativism," but it is more destructive than that. We reject sound traditions that we cannot replace; we have turned all our natural skepticism outward. At some level, we actually share the attitudes of that rioting underclass: that the purpose of life is to own cellphones and widescreen TVs; to "get laid" and pursue other creature pleasures. We reject authority. We only lack the ebullience of the hoodies. In emergencies, we suddenly remember it all - duty; right and wrong; futurity. There is a beautiful moment of spiritual resuscitation. But what happens when the emergency has passed? David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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