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Why I'm launching the Dangerous Party for Adults
by Marc Sidwell
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
by Marc Sidwell
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - A bonfire celebration in York, the
home town of Guy Fawkes, has been banned on health
and safety grounds, the local council said Tuesday.
home town of Guy Fawkes, has been banned on health
and safety grounds, the local council said Tuesday.
I’ve had enough. Health & Safety; 5-a-day; feel this for lumps; don’t feel
those or you’ll get lumps. Day after directive they glide forth, dressed up in
fancy new threads and wearing rubber bangles that say ‘Human Rights’ and
‘Don’t Gut Puppies’, but still chanting to that same, dreadful old drumbeat:
you are weak; you are stupid; the State is strong and clever; we have your
best interests at heart; if you don’t do what we say, we may have to help
you—for your own sake.
It won’t work any more. I’m taking a bet that I’m not the only man who likes
setting fire to stuff on a cold November night, and then sharing my baked
potato with a brunette I’ve never met before. If you want to wag your finger
in my face first, you’ve got a fight on your hands, and I think the numbers
are on my side.
Who but the risk-takers achieve anything in this world? The voice that yells,
“More life! More life! Another round of tequila!” already owns the future,
hangover and all. This fashion for sweater-wearing, impact-minimising,
carbon-neutral dwelling-down seems terribly modern to bien-pensant
London, but they are wrong. “Stay in your place, don’t aim to change, follow
the seasons,” has always been the mentality of the peasant.
Somehow the country that invented the modern world has given away its
best self—its daring, its eccentricity, its bloodyminded defence of personal
liberty—for a life of judicious admonition and risk-analysis forms. It is the
politics of a slaughterhouse: keep in line; stay healthy, eat well; don’t live
too long. It repulses me, these sanctimonious women in grey overalls,
alternately cooing banalities and waving for the electric cattle prod.
What have we had these past few weeks? Bozza Johnson wondering how to
take down a chunk of the world’s population for its own good; Nick Clegg
promising he believes the Liberal Democrats are the alternative to an
overweening state—and that alcohol should be a classified drug; Farmer
Brown prodding pregnant mothers and other middle class thugs to keep off
the sauce or it’ll be BZZZ-ZAP to keep them in step with national interests.
It doesn’t have to be this way. What politics lacks in this country is a vision
of Man, an anthropology of human dignity rooted in the freedom to make
choices—and end up in the clap clinic. In short, freedom’s not freedom
without the right to be wrong. Sartre got that—and he was French, for God’
s sake.
That’s just the French explanation. Let me translate into plain English. We
need politicians who know voters are adults, capable of messing up their
lives for themselves. We need politicians who understand that danger gives
life its edge and drives civilisation forward with every roll of the die. Better
setting off rockets than drafting precautionary fire regulations.
History reveals few things more disastrous for a nation than honest and
dedicated autocrats. Charles V and Philip II of Spain were two of the hardest
working kings ever. For eighty years they rose early, governed their Empire
with diligence and helped ride Spain into an economic funk that it has only
just begun to shake off. The French kings at the time were playboys by
comparison; corrupt France did a whole lot better.
People say it’s marvellous that Britain lacks corruption in its public officials.
Well it’s not such a damn fine thing now Jobsworth has been given rules an
inch thick to beat us with. There’s no satisfaction in knowing everyone is
being in bullied the same way, and that you can’t even buy your way out.
The professionals will tell you it’s impossible. ‘It’s impossible,’ one said to
me, breezily, composing a new housing strategy for Manchester on his
cocktail napkin. ‘Think of the unemployment among Regional Diversity in
Waste Management Comptrollers. You’ve got to consider the comptroller
vote these days. It’s all about the numbers. Are you getting us some olives,
then?’
I don’t think it’s about totting up voters like the columns of a sum; I think it’
s about leaving individual people to their folly. So I didn’t buy him any olives.
Not while my fellow-citizens are out there with bangers and nowhere to bang
them.
Instead I’m starting my own party. It’s for people who like a good party,
and you’re more than welcome. The DPfA is for all those sick of being
treated like a recalcitrant breed of cattle. We choose to live as grown-ups:
our members are mature enough to play like twisted, sottish children, and
then pay for their own Anadin.
Sure, we won’t win any elections. We probably won’t even fight them. But
that’s because we don’t want power over other people’s lives. We just want
a beer, a bacon sandwich and stuff going bang in the sky, while the effigies
of Tessa Jowell and Zac Goldsmith scorch and flare. Plus maybe a baked
potato for later.
The Dangerous Party for Adults – we’re old enough to be left alone with
a box of matches.
those or you’ll get lumps. Day after directive they glide forth, dressed up in
fancy new threads and wearing rubber bangles that say ‘Human Rights’ and
‘Don’t Gut Puppies’, but still chanting to that same, dreadful old drumbeat:
you are weak; you are stupid; the State is strong and clever; we have your
best interests at heart; if you don’t do what we say, we may have to help
you—for your own sake.
It won’t work any more. I’m taking a bet that I’m not the only man who likes
setting fire to stuff on a cold November night, and then sharing my baked
potato with a brunette I’ve never met before. If you want to wag your finger
in my face first, you’ve got a fight on your hands, and I think the numbers
are on my side.
Who but the risk-takers achieve anything in this world? The voice that yells,
“More life! More life! Another round of tequila!” already owns the future,
hangover and all. This fashion for sweater-wearing, impact-minimising,
carbon-neutral dwelling-down seems terribly modern to bien-pensant
London, but they are wrong. “Stay in your place, don’t aim to change, follow
the seasons,” has always been the mentality of the peasant.
Somehow the country that invented the modern world has given away its
best self—its daring, its eccentricity, its bloodyminded defence of personal
liberty—for a life of judicious admonition and risk-analysis forms. It is the
politics of a slaughterhouse: keep in line; stay healthy, eat well; don’t live
too long. It repulses me, these sanctimonious women in grey overalls,
alternately cooing banalities and waving for the electric cattle prod.
What have we had these past few weeks? Bozza Johnson wondering how to
take down a chunk of the world’s population for its own good; Nick Clegg
promising he believes the Liberal Democrats are the alternative to an
overweening state—and that alcohol should be a classified drug; Farmer
Brown prodding pregnant mothers and other middle class thugs to keep off
the sauce or it’ll be BZZZ-ZAP to keep them in step with national interests.
It doesn’t have to be this way. What politics lacks in this country is a vision
of Man, an anthropology of human dignity rooted in the freedom to make
choices—and end up in the clap clinic. In short, freedom’s not freedom
without the right to be wrong. Sartre got that—and he was French, for God’
s sake.
That’s just the French explanation. Let me translate into plain English. We
need politicians who know voters are adults, capable of messing up their
lives for themselves. We need politicians who understand that danger gives
life its edge and drives civilisation forward with every roll of the die. Better
setting off rockets than drafting precautionary fire regulations.
History reveals few things more disastrous for a nation than honest and
dedicated autocrats. Charles V and Philip II of Spain were two of the hardest
working kings ever. For eighty years they rose early, governed their Empire
with diligence and helped ride Spain into an economic funk that it has only
just begun to shake off. The French kings at the time were playboys by
comparison; corrupt France did a whole lot better.
People say it’s marvellous that Britain lacks corruption in its public officials.
Well it’s not such a damn fine thing now Jobsworth has been given rules an
inch thick to beat us with. There’s no satisfaction in knowing everyone is
being in bullied the same way, and that you can’t even buy your way out.
The professionals will tell you it’s impossible. ‘It’s impossible,’ one said to
me, breezily, composing a new housing strategy for Manchester on his
cocktail napkin. ‘Think of the unemployment among Regional Diversity in
Waste Management Comptrollers. You’ve got to consider the comptroller
vote these days. It’s all about the numbers. Are you getting us some olives,
then?’
I don’t think it’s about totting up voters like the columns of a sum; I think it’
s about leaving individual people to their folly. So I didn’t buy him any olives.
Not while my fellow-citizens are out there with bangers and nowhere to bang
them.
Instead I’m starting my own party. It’s for people who like a good party,
and you’re more than welcome. The DPfA is for all those sick of being
treated like a recalcitrant breed of cattle. We choose to live as grown-ups:
our members are mature enough to play like twisted, sottish children, and
then pay for their own Anadin.
Sure, we won’t win any elections. We probably won’t even fight them. But
that’s because we don’t want power over other people’s lives. We just want
a beer, a bacon sandwich and stuff going bang in the sky, while the effigies
of Tessa Jowell and Zac Goldsmith scorch and flare. Plus maybe a baked
potato for later.
The Dangerous Party for Adults – we’re old enough to be left alone with
a box of matches.
I’ve got a risky vision of the future: let’s set it on fire.
© lizardmagazine.com, 2007
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