On Loving Your Own

And where "monkey no fine but ein mama like am" came from

The fable goes from Aesop that Jupiter offered a prize to the one who, in his judgment, produced the most beautiful offspring. As you would expect, every animal brought its young —the rabbits, cute puppies, eye-watering piglets, and the shiny mares. Then suddenly, a strange sight:

Among the rest came the Monkey, carrying a baby monkey in her arms, a hairless, flat-nosed little fright. When they saw it, the gods all burst into peal on peal of laughter; but the Monkey hugged her little one to her, and said, “ Jupiter may give the prize to whomsoever he likes: but I shall always think my baby the most beautiful of them all.”

The monkey did not win. But the mother insisted that her child was beautiful. And it was from there that we Nigerians culled the saying "monkey no fine but ein mama like am."

And this —story of the loving mother monkey— is simply the story of all great heroes. And great peoples. And great civilizations. That they loved their own. That they achieved what they achieved because they love their own. Every attempt at self-preservation, the animating spirit of the conservative temperament is a demonstration of love for your own.

Those without this instinct are rare. I would have said that clinically insane people sometimes lose it. But I have seen a stark, raving, buck-naked madman run for his dear life. I have seen a madwoman whose residence is the roadside care for her child. Even among the insane, you smell the smouldering wick of the once-flaming instinct of loving your own. An instinct so strong that it powers through even when a person has lost his own mind.

To love one's own is to love it because it is your own. Speaking objectively, I would love a rabbit over a monkey. It is cuter and good for meat; it is both beautiful and sweet. But when the monkey's mother clings to her child and insists on its beauty, we may call her maternal or delusional. And we will be right: you need a few good sips of delusion to be maternal or paternal.

I have seen parents tell everyone their child is so beautiful. I look at the child and disagree—I disagree within myself. But something always happens and it happens with a fierce consistency that kicks me out of bed in the morning. With time, that child starts looking beautiful. And I choose to believe that this is an objective "starting to look beautiful." Or else, I might be participating in the delusion myself. But if the child does start to look beautiful, it means that it is love that has made them beautiful. Just like Rome who was great because they had loved her.

I love my house. Not because it is better than my neighbour’s. But because it is mine. I love my car. Not for the sake of its engine roaring better than my neighbour’s. But because it is mine. I love my town. Not because it is objectively the most comely town in the entire world. But because it is mine. And it is because it is mine that I strive to improve it. Such that I even love it more.

But there are those who do not love their own. Who are willing to hate their own to please a nosy stranger. They are willing to hate their house, car, wife, child, culture, and religion to appease someone who could care less what your culture means to you. The scolds who berate you for loving your son more than you love theirs. Who are angry that you give your child what advantage you can afford. But loving your own necessarily involves a measure of intolerance. And sometimes inequality. You must allow this intolerance. For some things come to desecrate the face of "your own" so that by the time they are done, it no longer is yours or it is something else entirely. 

If we then have in us a need to love our own, it should spell true that anything that stunts our ability to love our own is bad for us. And these stunting objects often take the shape of ideas. Those ideas, for instance, which speak of endless homogenisation; where everything becomes everything; where distinguishing lines are erased; where man can and must become woman—that hideous androgyny; where all children are grown in a Central Hatchery and Conditioning Centreaway from their parents and distributed by government allocation. Those ideas which bludgeon patriots to support endless immigration and assimilation; which sacrifice virtuous cultures on the altar of afrolatry—where people acquiesce to disgusting behaviours just because the person doing them is black or from a minority group. Those ideas of "you will own nothing and you will be happy." No, you will not be happy. You will simply be witless.

I love being a man. Not because I am not a woman. But because I am a man. I love what I am; it is my own.

There are still those who do not love their own. But only pretend to, when it is time to fight an other—an “us” versus “them”. Like men who support men only when they fight against women or vice versa. Or nationalists whose patriotism is stirred up when there is a them to war against. Whose love of the tribe only springs up when they smell a chance for conflict. It needs be said: any love of the tribe stirred up in conflict but is not maintained in peacetime is a dubious love. A destructive love. A curse. A love that channels all aggression into fighting but none into building is no love at all.

But love for one's own also means that you will fight. Yet it is better to fight to defend what you love instead of fighting for mere blood rush and want of activity. Like Jonathan Wick said, “To be a lover you have to be a fighter.” Mr. Chesterton said, "The happiest of human fates is to find something to love; but the second happiest fate is certainly to find something to fight." Fortunately for lovers, loving your own is an invitation to fight and fight we must.

Therefore we must fight. And enjoy fighting even if it looks like you are losing. Per Chesterton, "The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle — and not lose it.”

Have a splendid week.

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