"Written Far Too Late at Night on Not Enough Sleep" Edition

Hail,

Obligatory shilling. This week I wrote an article about the BLM demonstrations, coronavirus, and the riots for the Spectator USA, and a follow-up piece for The Critic where I argued that conservatives should not take it for granted that left-wing radicalism will be good for them. I also wrote about Matt Yglesias and the inversion of the “reality-based community” meme for paid subscribers to this platform. If that interests you – subscribe!

Against conservative doomerism. Charlie Peters makes the case against despair, with a respectful response to the great Ed West.

The suicide of expertise. Sam Ashworth-Haynes rightly scorns the public health experts who have endorsed lockdowns right up until a fashionable cause spills out onto the streets.

Woke capital watch. Ed West reflects on how much support within elite institutions the protests have enjoyed. God knows, I try not to become a foaming, seething reactionary stereotype, but I cannot help observing how corporations from Amazon to the Bank of America are noisily backing demonstrations that have drawn eyes from the economic disaster they are profiting from.

Taking a stand. Hoods off to any lads and lasses who have been defending British monuments against the people who would deface them. Being a calm and well-presented figure of resistance at this time has more symbolic power than cleaning off graffiti, as valuable as that is as well.

The left,,,can meme. You have to admit that throwing the slave owner's statue into the river has tremendous mimetic value. For all the essays that have been superimposed onto artless cartoons by the tragic inhabitants of the Chapo subreddit, “the left can't meme” has always struck me as right-wing cope. The theory is that they have somehow dominated high culture, pop culture and the academia without being able to spread their ideas through subtle comic and artistic forms. What the hell?

Home front. It was the most miserably wet spring I have experienced in Poland, with rain falling with such tedious regularity that it made England look like the Sahara Desert. Summer has arrived, and what has happened? More rain, interspersed with brief, tantalising moments of sun, which tempt you out into the light like a devious marksman. I should have guessed as much! Whenever I have heard Poles predict a long and gruelling winter it has barely snowed. This year my friends predicted droughts.

I love 2020. A friend of mine showed me a video from ancient history, otherwise known as 2018, in which James Corden and Eric Idle were trying to sing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” but kept being interrupted by their phones buzzing with miserable news alerts. It was a funny idea, so it was a shame that it was implemented by James Corden. Still, there was something quaint about the fact that in 2018 people thought they were facing an unusually bad year. Who among us would not take the conditions of 2018 now? It seems like a golden age. A year of innocence. But don't even think about saying that 2020 is an unusually bad year. I'm not saying it isn't true, I’m saying that is the moment at which fate will start plotting war, floods, droughts and the Singularity for 2021.

Corona, the poem. Prodded by the irrepressible Derek, I wrote a poem in honour of coronavirus:

To understand COVID-19 is really very simple:

It's everywhere, you see, but it’s not all that transmissible.

It started in a pangolin which escaped from a lab.

We'll got to wait six weeks or twenty years for a jab.

We know that kids can carry it and yet are not infected.

We know that smoking makes it worse and is also protective.

You do not need to wear a mask, and yet you also should;

It is very dangerous and yet it's --- also good.

Everyone should stay at home to help the NHS,

Unless of course there happen to be BLM protests.

One thing I will say, in all seriousness, is that I am not simply mocking experts. Who would have thought smoking wouldn’t make coronavirus worse? I would never have guessed it. The masks thing seems pretty indefensible, and the protest backers are morally shameless, but all the other contradictions are proof not of the lunacy of academics but the complexity of the world. How much we trust people who try to map out that complexity is to some extent on us.

Q&A. I thought next week I could do some answers to questions if anybody has one and would like to email it to me or sent it via Twitter. I know, who do I think I am? Arn Anderson? But if you think I’m just trying to get free content out of my readers then you have crossed a line. Do you really think an OPINION COLUMNIST, of all people, would cut corners?

Have a great week,

Ben