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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
August 10, 2008
Against August
The fact that people in this part of the world take holidays in summer, I have brought to the attention of my readers before, though they may have been aware of this already, from other sources. August is, by contemporary tradition, the deadest month of the year, associated in southern Ontario, at least, with being at the cottage. July is the month of winding down; August is the month of being unwound; September is the month of frenetic rewinding.This is less true for those blest with children, whose energies tend to peak towards the later summer, when they feel farthest away from the regimentation of school. But very few people have children anymore, and besides, given the tax system, those who do can seldom afford a cottage. It might even be said that the “rights of childhood” -- I am trying to form this idea in contemporary terms -- have been transferred, by successive Acts of Parliament, from children to the childless. What are these rights? Chiefly, the right to play, often away from mature supervision; the right to breathe, away from traffic and similar threats; the right to live in a fantastical world of one’s own invention; the right to refuse responsibilities; the right to demand entitlements, and to receive the fruits of others’ sacrifices; the right to be taken care of, and empathized with, whenever something goes wrong. These were all, in previous generations, among the solemn rights of children, but today belong almost exclusively to a much older class with large disposable income, which is to say, “Dinks” (double income, no kids). To which we might add, “Shinkeroaks” (single high income, no kids, eschewing relationships of any kind). And I have noticed that the sound of a noisy child is extremely unwelcome in the environments they have created for themselves. While this last remark might be taken as carrying a political edge -- and it is true that the (mostly urban) childless provide the demographic backbone for all “liberal” and “progressive” parties today -- it should be said explicitly that the Left has no monopoly on dinkish and shinkeroaksome behaviour. It is available to anyone who wants to buy into what the late Pope called “the culture of death,” in which we live only for ourselves, and for the moment. Moreover, August is the month for “conservatives,” too. One notices this especially in the media. I have a friend of the conservative political persuasion, who boasts that he can get one “op-ed” piece into the New York Times per year. Invariably, it appears in August, when editors -- those not on holiday themselves -- are aware that no one is reading their paper anyway. When the cats are away, the mice will play, and I have further noticed that about this time of year, the whole of the mainstream media seem to be drifting to the Right. I suggest this can be explained by all the child-beleaguered people whom the cats have left on the job. They are safe to leave these junior hands in charge, for big news rarely breaks in August. What does is usually chance death, or natural disaster, for people in a position to create breaking news do not usually go to the trouble without the largest possible audience. (The same pattern may be seen in miniature, in the news cycle of every week: weekends tend to be news-free.) On the other hand, those with news they’d rather not have covered -- typically, governments committing evil and arbitrary acts (Russian invasions of small defenceless countries come to mind) -- do in fact prefer an August temporal venue, when the cries of their victims are unlikeliest to be heard. This is the way of the world, going somewhere beyond politics. Freedom requires constant vigilance, it is true, but it also requires sanity, and sanity in return requires the occasional holiday. I am generally of the view that there are times to stand and fight, and times to walk away and think about other matters. And, the view from a remote cottage porch makes a very suitable object of contemplation. Nor would I deny the value of a tall, cold beer in advancing a philosophical state of mind. With or without children, however, the danger in a holiday is “vegging out.” It is an attractive proposition especially for those who feel harassed at their work, and long for a space where they will not be harassed; where they may sleep, instead. This would be the formula for Pavlov’s dog, who under laboratory conditions gradually becomes the pure creature of pleasure and pain, reacting to stimuli like a machine whose controls lie entirely outside him. He may think he lives entirely for himself, but in fact he does not live at all, except within a scheme of “social engineering.” A normal “dog’s life” is something he can no longer even aspire to. Make children if you want to rise out of the Pavlovian. Or if you can’t make children, find a difficult hobby: for the worst fate imaginable is a life of ease.rn David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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