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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
March 11, 2012
The happy warrior
The demise of Andrew Breitbart, right-wing crazyman and web innovator, gonzo journalist and wild charger for the nearly libertarian wing of the U.S. Republican Party - raised in the sin of Brentwood, on the Hollywood side of Los Angeles - has gone, until now, unremarked by me.+This was not because I had nothing to say. Rather, I was overtaken by many hundred news reports, quick obituaries, memoirs, eulogies, flashbacks, slanders, video clips, etc. I seem to have been among the tiny minority of right-wing North Americans who never met the guy and, as a consequence, I learned more about his life and times in the 15 minutes of his post-mortal fame than I had known in his (sadly docked) lifetime. Learned, indeed, enough to realize that I should have been paying more attention to him. For the purposes of moral instruction, I am taking him today as an example of the "happy warrior." While his ill-humoured opponents don't get this, he was an honest man, a genuine and impassioned believer in the causes he served and, in the balance, almost outrageously good-humoured. Breitbart used the devices of tabloid exposé journalism to nail several serious malefactors, and was accused of taking at least one assault too far. But this is morally crucial: so far as I can discern, he never knowingly pushed beyond reasonable inference and, in several instances, refused to use damning material on his targets because he couldn't entirely trust his sources. As the received practice at present in "progressive" journalism is to run with any smear, subtly labelled "allegation," then relent without correction or apology when it proves unfounded, Breitbart had comparatively high standards. And were I not myself convinced, I would not insist upon this. I would not, for instance, defend the late, highly entertaining Christopher Hitchens, on the grounds of honesty. Time and again I found him, in that regard, fast, loose, and indifferent to the inconvenient fact. But whining about lax attitudes toward factual veracity is not the purpose of today's sermon. It is instead to celebrate this "happy warrior" quality. Hitchens was also, to his credit, a happy warrior, and a "crazyman," too, on the point of courage. The two qualities overlap so broadly that from many angles they appear to be one and the same thing. Yet there are some angles from which they may be seen to part, and I have met very courageous people who are not happy warriors, but rather prim, grim, and bordering on psychotic. The nastiest bullies and tyrants are, sometimes, inhumanly cool under fire. Jack Layton was a Canadian example of the happy warrior. I had a low opinion of his opinions, and even of his tactics in debate, and therefore, when he died last summer, I availed myself of "a wonderful opportunity to shut up." Call me superstitious, but I mostly agree with Chilon of Sparta that one should not badmouth the dead. ("De mortuis nil nisi bonum," in the more elegant translation of Saint Ambrose Traversari.) Leave it till after the recognized period of mourning. Layton was a formidable enemy, and a force for ruinous public policy, in my humble but infallible opinion. Yet he was also a happy warrior, for which quality he deserved to be admired. There was a spirit of generosity about him, such that one might almost feel one was sharing a joke with him, while arguing from a position diametrically opposed. Of politicians, it could be said, that they divide into two categories, without regard to Left or Right: happy warriors, with whom one may tangle merrily and constructively. And, sad ones, who need to be removed from public life, no matter what their other virtues. Joy, in debate, should be non-negotiable, and laughter is the correct response to any assertion that is over-the-top. Racism at any level, misogyny and misandry, homophobia and heterophobia, along with aspersions on religious affiliation and ideological creed - should all be casually allowed in debate, on one important condition. The remarks should be amusing, but more, they should be affectionate. Tone is more important than content in maintaining civility. And tone is the irreducible determinant of legitimate parliamentary exchange. The House of Commons (or equivalent legislature) is a gentleman's club (though it now admits ladies), in which certain gentlemanly rules prevail. In the preamble to the great unwritten code we find that, regardless of personal standing, no member is entitled to take himself seriously. The politician who cannot laugh at his own foibles, when his worst opponent has exposed them, is additionally exposed as a dangerous and potentially vindictive operator. The topics of public debate may be perfectly serious - or may not. Laughter is itself a mechanism for identifying nonsense. I am by no means suggesting that topics as serious as life and death should be treated risibly. And the gravest respect should be shown not only for fact, but for truth, good, beauty and every thing that lies beyond personal and party interest. But we are lost if we forget that we are all clowns, and that our purchase on great truths is always slippery. Let us therefore be happy clowns, and curl our stiff upper lips ironically. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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