The Lost Art of Stasis
20th September 2013
John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, speaks for us all.
We have reached a point of diminishing returns in our public life. Hardly anything actually needs doing. We may in fact be past that point; not only does nothing much need doing, but we’d benefit if much of what has been done were to be undone. What useful work can I do with Windows 8 that I couldn’t do with XP?
Politicians make a living—a very grand living indeed at the higher levels—by saying there are things wrong that need fixing. Are there, though?
Hint: Not as much as they would have you believe.
We are so short of real discontents nowadays, we have to make problems up. There aren’t any hungry children. There aren’t any people dying because they can’t afford an operation. There aren’t any Joad families on the road desperately seeking work and homes. There aren’t any workers being exploited by unscrupulous bosses or tenants being evicted by unscrupulous landlords. Nobody’s being lynched or denied due process or forced by poverty to give up a child for adoption. I wouldn’t say nobody’s poor anymore, but there is no longer what the Victorians called a “deserving poor.” To be in dire straits nowadays, you have to be really, really feckless.
I know a few of those. It is not a pretty sight.