The good folks at NRO have asked me to try out an Ask Me Anything-style series in the Corner this week. We put up the original invitation yesterday. I’ll be thematically grouping the questions and answering them throughout the week. Here are my answers to the first group of questions, focused on personal or trivial matters. I’ll have more on Ukraine and Ireland coming up. I’ll try to get to as many as I can.
Nardvark asks:
If you had no family constraints, where would you move and raise your family?
Such a great question. With family constraints and a larger budget, I would stay where we are — we love our parish, we love the school we have, and we love being in proximity to many of my in-laws, but we would spend summers in Ireland so that my kids could get more of their granddad, their aunt and uncle (my half-siblings), and all their cousins and more distant relations who are scattered mostly around Dublin.
Without family constraints and with a healthy budget? Wherever it is slightly cloudy, threatening to rain, and 57 degrees most often. Just kidding. I would spend most of the year in a desert. Maybe Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’m drawn there intensely. I think the sun would be good for me. But I’d spend summers on the Maine coast or in Ireland.
aroundthetrack asks:
How pessimistic are you about our future? That is, do you see the left prevailing? Do you see a nuclear catastrophe?
I’m pretty pessimistic. I think decline is hard to reverse. And I think mediocrity and corruption are enabling a kind of Left to prevail.
The biggest thing I’m worried about is that a low-fertility society is fundamentally anti-conservative. The big conclusion of my book is that it’s by investing in the future that we maintain, revivify, and restore what’s worthy from our traditions. Our kids connect us, almost literally, to our grandparents and their ancestors. Cutting ourselves off from the future means cutting ties with the past — it means being marooned in the present, which becomes nothing. What worries me is that the technology of reliable birth control “hacks” human nature. It empowers one instinct — that of planning — against another, our sexual libido, the desire for more in life. What if human sociality doesn’t work well without the expansiveness our libido urges in us?
I’m worried that we’ll try to solve this problem with other technological hacks of humanity. Instead of using technology to make the world adapt to our flourishing, we will adapt ourselves to dysfunction. Because economic growth is so tied to population growth, I’m worried about a sudden crash in standards of living and about how difficult that may be for the generation that experiences it.
As for nuclear catastrophes, I hope we keep up the streak of not using these weapons. I wouldn’t bet on it though. I could see tactical nukes becoming an “accepted” battlefield practice.
Not Your Average Bear asks:
Are you contented, happy, satisfied with your life? I’m deeply dissatisfied with our government and our culture, but except when I think of it (which is pretty much only when I read NRO), I’m contented. My blessings are many.
I think you have a beautiful family that you love with all your heart. You have a deep faith, too!! Is most of your time contented, happy, grateful?
I don’t brood over politics when I’m off the clock, except for the low-fertility-society problems, which I mentioned above.
Even with a slightly melancholy temper, I have a lot of joy in life. I credit my faith and the liturgy and a better-than-average education in poetry. It helps me see the world differently and I sometimes share these “visions” in my writing or in the podcast. I extract a lot out of small moments when that flash of transfiguration happens in my mind — when I think I get a glimpse of the world the way the angels and saints see it. Recently, on The Editors, I mentioned my father-in-law, whose body is slightly hobbled by decades of hard work in a chemical factory, work that provided his children and wife with a stable, happy home, even if a frugal one at times. Now, all his children are grown and establishing their own households with loving spouses, and each one has given him at least one grandchild. To the world, he’s just a pleasant guy, a BS-er, who has silly interests polka music, absolutely wild sausages from Eastern European delis, and ribald jokes. But, if you could see him the way he would be painted in a religious icon, or stained-glass window, you would see him robed in the glory that his virtues and grace brought into his life — even as he’d protest about how limited those virtues were.
On a day-to-day basis, one thing would make me happier, and I’m working on it — better organization and good habits. It’s hard to fit everything I want to do in a day: Write all my Corner posts, read books (and take notes) at a swift pace, practice my two barely there foreign languages, improve our landscaping/gardening, spend time on the guitar, exercise, and cook more. I’m deluded that if I just got much more organized and eliminated every other duty (doing the dishes, cleaning up, laundry), I could keep it all up in the hours that I have.
I also wish we could spend more time in Ireland each year while my father is still with us, and while my kids’ Irish cousins are still young.
leonidas asks:
Would you rather walk around with salad for a head or broccoli for arms?
Salad for a head, because my children will refuse to be embraced by broccoli.
zmayo asks:
Your periodic updates about antiquarian hobbies and habits — like physical calendaring, mechanical watches, fountain pens, etc. — always amuse and interest me because I have similar predilections. One is tempted to draw a link between those tendencies and more traditionalist views (perhaps contra, say, Charlie Cook being a tech-enthusiast tinkerer with more libertarian social views).
Do you think there is a link there, or perhaps even a causal arrow? Do you actively look for “inefficient” hobbies to make a sort of Kirkian “cars are mechanical Jacobins” statement, or is it unconscious, or completely coincidental? Do you think the act of indulging those hobbies makes one more inclined toward tradition? Does the mere act of using the modern technologies pull people away from tradition?
Almost a decade ago, at the website HiLowBrow, Joshua Glenn tried to describe more-finely graded “generations” and described the 1978–82 cohort as the “Revivalists.” He nailed me:
To progressive older Americans, the Revivalists’ marked lack of ironic distance from received cultural forms is worrisome. Ironic OGXers and PCers mix and match fragments of received cultural forms, which sometimes results in works of great originality, and sometimes (e.g., Ben Stiller’s brand of comedy) simply means freshening up reheated entertainments with air quotes. But members of the 1974–82 cohort simply dig the past; think of how Andre 3000, Sisqo, Pink, and Jack White, among many other Revivalists, slip bygone cultural forms on and off like so many Halloween costumes. When it comes to venerable cultural forms and franchises, like vintage videogames, Revivalists want to reboot them.
That is, I don’t think that my interest in these things is rooted in a great principle. I don’t have a strong Luddite streak. One of the first things I did in my new house was set about creating a decent network with prosumer gear. I definitely think such hobbies, e.g., watches and watchmaking, can make one appreciate tradition more. Charles and I both like electric guitars. I think I’m just a middle-aged guy who likes middle-aged-guy toys and status symbols. Luckily I haven’t been convinced to extend this expensive taste into cars or wine.
michael_bingham asks:
I have heard you discuss the issue of gun ownership in the past (on podcasts). Are you a gun owner? Full disclosure: I’m pretty much an absolutist on the 2nd Amendment, and I am (legally) armed as I type this at my work desk.
I am. My views have evolved. I grew up in a home with a horror of guns. My mother didn’t even want me to have a Super Soaker. In high school, as part of JROTC, we did some shooting — even shooting in a classroom! Studying history and observing the war in Afghanistan forced me accept the truth of the Second Amendment, that an armed people are a fearsome impediment to any government’s plans.
But I still used to write disparagingly about America’s “sick gun culture” when trying to account for America’s exceptional level of violence. I now think that the best remedy for violence is “more gun culture.” That is, I trust most of the people I’ve met at gun ranges to take gun safety very seriously and even to take mental-health issues seriously. I believe young men ought to be socialized to weapons of such lethality. But I don’t know how to square that with the legal reality that if you’re qualified to purchase a gun, you can get one. No training or character test required. (Not that the government should require it.)
I’m settled on the small-r republican view expressed by Irish nationalist Patrick Pearse:
I do not know how nationhood is achieved except by armed men. Ireland unarmed will attain just as much freedom as is convenient for England to give her. Ireland armed will attain ultimately just as much freedom as she wants.
And:
A citizen without arms is like a priest without religion, like a woman without chastity, like a man without manhood. The very conception of an unarmed citizen is a purely modern one.
brandon_byrd asks:
What is your favorite breakfast cereal?
Cinnamon-flavored Cheerios is the only cereal I eat now. But if I’m eating it, it’s usually as a dessert.