Ten Years of Thought Crimes
May 2, 2019
London Flower Girl, Albert Goodwin; 1892
Note: I have been unusually busy fixing up our house, which was built in 1953 and has all the problems that houses built quickly in that era have. Due to the mess, we have had no internet or phone connection for almost two weeks. I hope to resume regular blogging shortly, as soon as this exhausting and rewarding effort is over.
In the meantime, a reader whom many of you know from this site was kind enough to notice that this month is the tenth anniversary of this blog.
Alan writes:
This month marks the tenth anniversary of The Thinking Housewife.
It was at Lawrence Auster’s blog View from the Right that I first read the name Laura Wood. Much of what Mr. Auster wrote seemed eminently reasonable to me. He was out-of-step with the contemporary zeitgeist fully as much as I was. Reading many of Laura Wood’s comments at VFR and then discovering The Thinking Housewife made it clear to me that she, too, had strayed far from Right-Think and Right-Speak (which is to say: Left-Think and Left-Speak).
Moral courage is what I saw in the writings of both: The courage to think for oneself and to see what is there, not what “experts” and “authorities” tell us is there.
To get through the ordeal of daily life in a time and culture as decadent as ours is today requires seeing through lies and misrepresentations brilliantly packaged and repeated endlessly by fools, knaves, and parrots.
I have been at odds with the modernist zeitgeist since 1966, when Laura Wood and her best friend were dreaming up schemes to get more cupcakes [“I Remember”, The Thinking Housewife, Jan. 20, 2011 ] I knew that feeling very well indeed, for when I was growing up in the 1950s, I too faced the agonizing problem of how to get more Hostess cream-filled cupcakes. (Great minds think alike.)
It is not important that traditionalist-minded Americans agree on all matters. What is important is their moral courage and frame of mind; their ability to stand apart from the mob, to weigh and consider claims that most people accept as unthinkingly as they breathe. They have proven that they have the courage to see, to think, and to judge. Such courage is extremely rare.
In one of her essays, Ayn Rand advised her readers: Don’t let it go—meaning: When you see error, stupidity, or lies, don’t remain silent. Say so—in a concise and civil manner. Although doing so may not yield any dramatic practical effects, you will have shown that you will not be a party to those things, that you will not assent to evil or error, and that you will not accept membership in what Ibsen called the “compact, liberal majority”. Saying NO to such things is half the battle.
I do not agree with everything Laura Wood has written, and she does not agree with everything I have written. But she has been kind enough to share many of my essays with her readers. For that and for proving that she has an active mind, I am extremely grateful to her.
May I extend a great big “Thank You” to Laura Wood for ten years’ worth of moral courage.
Laura writes:
Thank you for the appreciation! And thank you for your contributions over the years. You have added tremendously to this site with your superb writings and poignant observations about the decline of St. Louis.
It seems like just yesterday that I began this wonderful and daunting adventure. Ten years of annoying as many people as possible with what they often believe are outrageous observations, but what I believe is common sense — well, that’s a long time. Maybe it’s courage to say what you’re not supposed to say, to think what you’re not supposed to think, or maybe it is naiveté, a sort of trust in humanity that it won’t mind being pricked and stung, that it will even enjoy the stimulation.
But it does mind. It minds very much.
What kind of society have we become when saying the things I have said is an act of courage?
I am grateful to the amazing technology — God’s gift to us little people — that makes this site possible. Maybe ten years from now, I will say, “You know, the first ten years, I was just warming up and exposing my weaknesses. But the second decade, wow, I finally got it right.”
Thank you again. As for not agreeing sometimes, you’re so right: I absolutely abhor Hostess cupcakes. However, I assume the best on your part, as I strive to do with all who disagree with me. If you had had Tastykakes at your disposal when you were a child, you would have given up your bad habits.
This blog started on May 9, 2009. I was going through some old posts and noticed that the permanent page in the sidebar that was my first welcome message has somehow been made private, so I’d better restore it. When I was hacked last fall, lots of things got messed up and maybe that was a casualty.
Anyway, here it is. I first wrote it on November 13, 2008. Another blogger once presented this post as evidence of how out of touch I am. I mention the kitchen broom; she said no one sweeps anymore. I honestly didn’t know that. I’ve breathed in a lot of dust in the last few weeks. And I can assure you again of something I said here: dust is profound. Perhaps I am more fully a housewife than ever — now that I’ve inhaled my house!
Dear Reader,
Thank you for visiting, and welcome to this website.
As you may have guessed, I am an American housewife. “Don’t say that!,” someone once told me. She thought it was embarrassing. But, if I were a bookie, I would tell you I was a bookie. If I were president, I would also let you know. I am a housewife, and that’s the truth. To be quite honest, the riches and honors that lie beyond my domestic universe generally leave me cold. A judicious servitude is the greatest of all goods.
Domesticity is an ongoing state of war. I know it doesn’t sound dangerous, but it is. Home is a jungle. It’s a hurricane at sea. It’s a beast in chains.
Prove it, you say. I can only point to the ultra-ordinary. Think of the dust that blows in from distant deserts and galaxies, settling on tables, floors, walls and papers. There’s something reminiscent about each particle. Think of the broken pipes and the leaking roof. They crack their whips. Think of the wolf at the door. He huffs and he puffs. Think of the ambulance at the curb and the sympathy card in the mailbox. Home is the best place to die.
Think of future generations. They sing their favorite tunes even now. Think of the minds of children. They’ll discover new continents within four walls. “History has tongues,” said Stephen Spender. The same might be said of the smallest child, in communion with past and future even when incapable of speech.
Cleaning and cooking, dusting and weeding – this may seem very ordinary and un-dangerous to someone like you. To me, it’s filled with philosophical depths, and all the perils of the human soul. The kitchen broom and the garden hoe are ancient tools of enlightenment. The scientist in his lab may have the illusion of progress. The sweeper knows this: Nature only changes so much. Out of the very ephemera of home, the idea of eternity arises.
The universe doesn’t knock at the front door; it enters the very cracks in the walls. We are hungry and there is a world of food. We think and there is a world of ideas. Dust is metaphysical. Truth is everywhere.
It’s true that thoughts themselves sometimes destroy thinking. The best cure is more thoughts, only the right kind.
Sincerely,
Laura Wood
