On Things Best Had In Small Portions
Not only the bad but also the good
Once, I saw a video where a good Samaritan left a basketload of food items—cereals, bread, etc— on the pedestrian sidewalk. He attached a note to it telling the homeless people to take what they needed. Some of these homeless people came and took only what they needed —a loaf of bread, a can of beef, a pack of cereal— just as they needed. Other Samaritans and pedestrians observing this strange show of kindness contributed their efforts and added items to the basket. A good thing was in motion...until the hero came.
As the show of goodness continued, a tall gentleman entered the scene. Observing the kindness in motion, he proceeded to empty the basket primarily; and secondarily, even if but for a moment, the compassion welling in my and other viewers’ hearts.
As harsh cynicism began to fill the place compassion occupied a few moments earlier, a few thoughts came to me. The first being that this man, our hero, was only one person compared to the scores of good strangers who provided for the needs of other strangers and the honest strangers who took only what they needed. An overwhelming percentage of the people in that video were honest men. So why should this one person ruin my compassion? And the second thought, like the first, considered how this one person threatened, even if it was for a moment, to destroy what others have built. To this second thought came the caution that some things are so ruinous that they are best had in small portions.
So it is that like our hero —let's call him Smartin Looter— he must exist amidst us in small portions. We must not allow people like him to grow past a threshold else society will collapse. Our society can afford to host a capped number of Smartin Looter, but not more. Perhaps we can survive a hundred of them, maybe a thousand, just before we become a low-trust society which has everyone scheming in their every little decision in the name of being street-smart. Nonetheless, it is not only bad, heinous crimes that our society needs in small portions. Even good things too.
Like the philosophers from time past who have insisted that the contemplative life —that is, the life of the philosopher— is the peak of human living. They claim that we find our most human moments in those not engaged in serious business. One that is spent thinking about the ultimate questions; those questions which are as refreshing as they are exhausting. And as such they begin to dream of a world where everyone is a philosopher.
And it seems right: if something is good for a few, certainly we should try to make the good into a commonwealth for all to partake in. Yet, this does not always follow.
The philosopher imagines that more leisure is good, by default. But experience has shown that more leisure might not be in fact "leisure." For one aspect of leisure is "free time," and the other dimension is "contemplative time." With all our time-saving devices and promises of time-saving devices, free time has not translated into leisure, into contemplative time. The egalitarian envy which abolishes all scent of an aristocracy; which eschews ornamented goods in the name of saving labour, has not succeeded in producing the same craft or genius that decorated the aristocracy. The Catholic church may have “wasted” the coffers on commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But ever since then, we haven’t produced more Michelangelos. Dmitriy Molla writes, “Beautiful pipes were the result of an inequitable society where the poor wasted time making beautiful things for the wealthy. Now the working class is able to redeem the previously wasted time by watching Netflix and scrolling through TikTok.” The irony: we no longer make beautiful pipes, nor do we seem to have an appetite for them; we are drinking bad art from rusty media pipes instead, cue Netflix and TikTok. At a time, owing to the inequity of leisure, Adolf Loos said ornamentation was crime. Now all we have is crime and no ornamentation. More leisure has not produced genius.
The philosophers imagined that by democratising free time, they spread the token of a contemplative life. But this is not so; perhaps it is not to be. Seneca said something along the lines of “leisure without literature is death.” Which is what abundant free time has supplied—leisure without literature, which has produced moral and emotional death in the populace. Yet I remain grateful for free time; I do not wish for it to be in small portions. However, I caution against the optimism of the philosophers. For as it is the case that free time sponsors procrastination and boredom, and less free time bolsters productivity, so it is true that when you make leisure “equitable,” you do not get the results you once did when it was not evenly distributed. What we got instead, is more Philistinism.
Of literature and leisure, critics are best had in small portions as well. Maybe this time for everyone’s safety. Although everyone is a snob in his own way, critics manage to make their snobbery into a profession. From the guy that refuses to smile at P.T. Barnum’s show, to the one who truthfully enjoys something and still says it is bad, critics are essential. However, they should be quarantined—we mustn’t allow their kind to metastasize. Critics are needful—they are a type of pretasters. They take the first bite of what is supplied for public consumption and let us know if it is healthy for consumption. However, they must be pedantic; they cannot be critics without it. They must dwell on fine lines and subtle movements that frothing plebeians like us cannot spot. But it is this pedantry that is their disease.
Somehow I would like it if we attempted, each time we start a conversation, to clarify our words and concepts. But this is painstaking and exhausting. We would do or accomplish nothing: we would spend four hours trying to get the meaning of “we,” the meaning of “would,” the meaning of “spend,” the meaning of “four,” the meaning of “hours,” and so on before we get to the agenda of the day. Oh, it is nightfall now; we go again tomorrow.
Imagine that fellow who knows all the nuance in the world, spending time expositing every possible nuance and “context” there is. And imagine that we were all him. No, we would rather have one of those guys per hundred thousand people. That’s enough nuance for the population to enjoy; one T.E Lawrence is enough trouble for an Officer’s mess in Cairo.
Another thing best had in small portions is atheists. And this one is particularly funny; especially every time I find the militant ones who assume that a society rid of all concepts of gods is possible paradise. It is funny because they cannot see that their position is exciting because they are the minority. That with their clunky, "this Shakespeare book of Sonnets just appeared" morality, they stand and move firmly on the other many whose conscience is still bound firmly by a conception of a god. When they (the atheists) say, "You don't need God, only your conscience and reason," they speak from a shielded position which hasn't revealed the weak spine of conscience and reason in grounding morality. When a certain horseman of new atheism was braying everywhere for the death of Christianity, he had a vision in mind. But that vision has been driven far back by a more insane vision and he now wishes for a bite of sanity. Once we thought that pure and god-less rationalism was how we would build a healthy society. We slept and woke up, and pregnant men were a thing.
Socialism may work for a nuclear family setup. But it better be kept there. Don't be unwise to think everyone owning the means of production in your family means this is what the state ought to do.
And the meme is true: communists thrive best under systems that are not communist. A capitalist nation can survive a few communists. A communist nation, well, has never truly been tried. If only they understood something about small portions.
Of those anxious to receive phone calls; who require a text announcing “I am going to call you now,” we do not need so many of them. As I have said of my type of people, I do not wish to live in a city planned by the socially anxious —that is how we all drift apart. You should not wish to live in a state that acts like a helicopter parent, constantly worried about your next move—that is not how a healthy society works. We can be kind to the socially anxious but they must not make our rules of engagement. They cannot dictate to us what counts as courtesy; which often they invent on a whim, following the waves and tides of their anxiety or discomfort. What is tyranny other than living at the behest of the arbitrary whims of a fellow man?
And finally, celibate monks. This one. Someone said, “Celibacy consecrated to God is the highest vocation to which one can dedicate one’s body in light of eternity.” If we grant this true, especially the part where it is the highest vocation, then we ought to grant that it is a good thing to, especially if we wish to tackle the “culture as radically sexualized and carnal as ours” as said by the same writer, advise and steer more people into this highest vocation. I suppose so. But the implication is clear: you get fewer marriages and children. This is merely anti-natalism in a cassock. But then, nothing supports the claim that celibacy consecrated to the Lord is the highest vocation. What we get instead, is for every man to remain the same as God has called him—married or celibate. And while celibacy might be good in its own way —as dedicated to the Lord, it cannot sustain a deeply Christian society lest they commit civilisational suicide. Even the so-called “highest vocation” would in a few years be short-staffed. Alas, the highest vocation needs sex and its institution for staffing. Once more, we see a good that is best had in small portions.
Of artists and parasites, Rousseau and Diogenes, of Socrates and Gyrovagues; for all the admiration their lives and works produced, they must not be allowed to spread and catch on. Keeping people like them small and umetastasised is key to our common health. Rousseau could afford to abandon his children because others were not as irresponsible as he was. Diogenes’ lifestyle as a dog was boisterous because only he lived that way; should everyone live like a dog, his absurdities would cease to be fascinating. Socrates, being the most renowned pedant of all time, would have been tired to find another copy of himself. And the Gyrovagues lived as they did, moving from one place to another, because others who sustained them with alms lived stable lives. Such is the wisdom of small portions.
A meme to boot:
Bravo, brilliant piece. Hilarious also
Goodread.