TO DEMONSTRATE OR NOT TO DEMONSTRATE

I have a very simple-minded view of demonstrations. From the singing of Boola-Boola in my youthful Yale days to the Mexican Wave, from marches for this or that right to the theatricals of PETA or the thuggery of anti-G7, 8 or whatever, I don't join in. For the good and simple reason that what I feel about the given pros or cons, in sport or elsewhere, of a particular cause, I cannot feel sure that the idiot next to me, behind me or in front of me, raising his fist and chanting back the slogans fed into his tiny mind by the organizer with his megaphone,for one instant shares my feeling, be it of outrage (at politicians) or adoration (of Chelsea F.C.). I am and always shall remain, a rump of One.

Demonstrations are to me exactly like the group of European ministers, all grinning at the good lunches they have enjoyed, lined up outside somewhere for the photographers: tailor's dummies all, but none so grinning or fatuous as Mr. Gordon Brown or Mme. Hillary Clinton. On my telly, these figures of fun and flatulence are always accompanied by an Imp, name of Sarkozy, who looks like the dwarf in Twin Peaks. There are many ills in today's world about which I have strong feelings -- Bernie Madoff and Exxon, Baucus and Bush, Cheney and the Modern Languages Association-- but my desire to tear them limb from limb is strictly my own affair. I don't join, and like Groucho Marx, I expect they are glad that I don't.

Of course, I like to think that my approach to the abuses of the day are more nuanced that the imbecile in front of me who rises at Fenway to block my view of a contest for seeing which I have paid good money, but it probably isn't. Chances are that I am not by nature a Joiner of anything. There probably is a reason why I am unable to join a Herd. But I think it is for those who enjoy being a part of the Herd to explain to me why they should choose to go out on a cold, rainy night in Copenhagen to protest about Climate Change. Did they not drive in and park their cars, or fly in from the outposts of Lower Dissent? Do they all eschew fast foods and go barefoot? Why aren't they, for instance, sampling the joys of Anglo-Saxon poetry or loooking after their kids, or learning how to make a souffle, or, in fact, doing something useful? Does their water run while they brush their teeth (if they do)? Can they stop the icebergs melting?

The Mob is an awful thing. Michelet, who got this straight from his uncle, who had dealings with the tricoteuses of the French Revolution, found it and them repulsive. The money wasted on policing such demonstrations of 'democratic', but subterraneously organized, protest would be better spent on. On what? On almost anything. Ridding the opera of debauched directors. Abolishing capital punishment. Private charity. Making a bonfire of collective vanities. Scanning the brains of those who buy Prada. Providing an architecture in which people can live and breathe. Buying fresh and refusing frozen. You name it: almost any cause is worth pursuing privately, starting with the reformation of the Self.