Hello,
Welcome to the Zone.
I'm really honoured if you're reading this. Don't take that for irony. I know how it is with newsletters. They hit your inboxes when you are waiting for acceptances, rejections, invitations, confirmations et cetera and it is like picking up your phone and hearing a cold caller. I have read some good ones, but I know they have a sufficiently bad reputation that if you have chosen to read this, you trust me not to waste your time. Thank you. I hope you are right.
With that said, let us move on to the important issues of the day.
In defence of Andrew Marr. The basin-eared English television presenter Andrew Marr has announced that he “has been doing some lockdown drawings” and would “like to sell them to raise cash for [the] NHS and care home charities.” It is fair to say that Marr is not the next J.M.W Turner. Still, I thought the avalanche of mockery that he received in response to his paintings was mean. There is nothing very funny about people who have an innocent pastime and are not, in your opinion, very good at it. There is something funny about people who believe themselves to be masters of their craft and are not very good at it. Amateurish enthusiasm? Good. Sweet. Nice. To be encouraged. Professional arrogance? Bad. Dangerous. To be mocked and scorned.
Does coronavirus mean the end of mass society? I have a lot of respect for Balaji S. Srinivasan for being among the first to predict that coronavirus would cause an international crisis. Still, I am sceptical when he says that it “may end...the century of mass society,” with concerts replaced by streaming, schools replaced by distance learning and restaurants replaced by deliveroo-style deliveries. I am sceptical not just because the idea FILLS ME WITH BOILING HATRED but because it sounds like someone who works in technology seeing a technological replacement for everything, or, in other words, a man with a hammer seeing nails. I hope we will learn to wear masks more often, and to clean our hands more often, and to increase institutional resilience. But avoiding each other like, well, the plague seems paranoid. What century did the Spanish Flu emerge from?
What drives the snitches? My friend Charlie Peters writes for the National Review about the outbreak of snitching that followed social distancing regulations. To be clear, snitching on people who hold parties is clearly fine, but many people have gone way beyond that and begun abusing people for going for a walk. Paranoia plays a role here, and spite, but I think people are also trying to prove themselves to be the best social distancers. When we do not go to work or go out with our friends, we have to hunt for social status wherever we can get it. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the farthest from them all?
Is Rishi Sunak “hot”? A debate has exploded in the British media over whether Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is “hot”. Who can we blame for this? Flora Gill, the daughter of the Conservative politician Amber Rudd and the late columnist AA Gill, who wrote an article about Sunak's place in “our collective wank bank”. Gill and her mother have formed a tag team in which the young journalist will make posturing sexual remarks and Rudd will comment with long-suffering disapproval. As gimmicks go, it's about “8” or “9” on the “makes you want to bite your fingers off” scale. But we can soon except Gill to perform the Schumer Shuffle. Having gained attention for being crass in public, she will transition to complaining about not being taken seriously. Set your watches.
Pentti Linkola, RIP. Pentti Linkola, the Finnish author and environmentalist, has died. One could call Linkola “Malthusian” except that he made Malthus look downright cheerful. Linkola’s was a dark and murderous imagination. In his book Can Life Prevail?, he denounced the idea that life is sacred. In fact, “among masses of billions...life is deprived of value.” “Extreme violence” was needed, with “the number of those already born violently reduced – by any means possible.”
Of course, Linkola preferred preaching to practicing violence but that is common among revolutionary thinkers. What I find interesting is that he has died as the world is bursting its blood vessels trying to save mostly old and ailing people from coronavirus. Folly! Linkola would have cried, even as he would have quietly welcomed the economic impact of the crisis. Prehistoric man left weak tribesmen to die! I absolutely disagree with Linkola that such a perspective, as natural as it was then, was preferable to ours. But it has been too easy for us to disagree with him because wealth, safety and longevity have coexisted. It might become a lot more difficult in the future.
Woke capitalism watch. When a cow – that gentle, noble beast – is butchered, most of its flesh is carved off to be turned into burgers and steaks. What is left is a mess of weird odds and ends. One company gathers these trimmings, packs them into lumps, freezes them and sells them as “Steak-umms”. Pretty disgusting. Yet this purveyor of animal cruelty and appalling food has employed a social media manager who posts pious threads about “misinformation...in times of cultural anxiety” in the style of a woke Vox columnist. Naturally, the media has rewarded Steak-umms with rapturous coverage. How quirky! How responsible! The combination of corporate cynicism and self-righteous posturing makes this one of the most “current year” things to have ever current year’d.
Got Beauchamp? Scott Beauchamp of Maine, the northeasternmost U.S. state, has written enough pieces this year that I wish I had written that it almost makes me want to retire and devote myself to reading Scott Beauchamp. You should read him on David Jones' In Parenthesis - one of my favourite books - as well as on abandoned malls and on “cursed images”. One thing I like about Scott's work is that he writes about things that interest him and writes so well about them that they end interesting you as well.
Advice section. I'm a married father of two, but I am considering breaching social distancing regulations to indulge my secret vice: wallowing in landfills like the pig I am. What do you recommend?
We all have to make sacrifices in these trying times. Have you considered a different and more sanitary hobby like opening a Twitter account?
Home front. The dog has a complex relationship with the lockdowns. On the one hand, she is delighted to have company all day, every day. On the other hand, her opportunities for sleeping are diminished. My work involves a lot of Skype conversations, and the dog is baffled and annoyed by the disturbances. Who the hell is Man even talking to? A box? Has he gone mad?
Obligatory shilling. Last week I wrote a response to Peter Hitchens on coronavirus and lockdowns for Arc Digital, and a piece about our love for hating celebrities for the Spectator USA. My first column for paid subscribers on this platform was about the late writer Gerry Reith and the effects of social media on subcultures. If that interests you, do consider subscribing.
Best wishes for a happy and fulfilling week,
Ben