Social-justice shrinks

When asked at a 2004 Foreign Affairs symposium to identify the most dangerous of all contemporary ideas, Francis Fukuyama — no doubt to the editor’s surprise — did not cite the heretical view, held by many of his critics, that the end of history is not yet, nor indeed is anywhere in sight. Instead, he chose the concept called transhumanism for that honorable nomination. Whether or not transhumanism is the most dangerous of all current mental constructions, it is certainly among the silliest, demonstrating the degree of intellectual insanity to which the fear of mortality is capable of driving educated people who ought to know better.

As I write this, London is so cold that I’m wearing a large, heavy, World War Two Russian army jacket, a wool hat, two pairs of thermal socks, long johns, a scarf and fingerless gloves that allow me to type — the kind Fagin wore in the film Oliver! — and I’m still freezing. But I won’t turn on the central heating because it costs too much. But then, everything these days costs too much, so I’m making radical cuts in my expenditure. How radical? I now make one cup of tea, instead of a pot of tea with three bags. I’ve had to cut back on expensive organic foods — but I’ve kept the expensive organic sex lubricants. I think they call this genteel poverty — or is this gentile poverty?