Remembering Rex

It's been two years since Rex Murphy left us; the op-ed pages haven't been the same.

With all that’s going on in the world (and there’s always a lot going on in the world, isn’t there?) the void left by the departure of Rex Murphy two years ago feels larger than ever.

That’s in no way a dig at the deep roster of other talented commentators out there. But there was only one Rex Murphy, only one man who could so artfully join quotes from the classics to gut-busting comedy in the process of delivering cutting expositions on issues of the day. One imagines, for instance, him employing Shakespeare’s “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” to capture the current whiplash-inducing goings-on in the Middle East.

Today is the anniversary of the day Rex “shuffled off this mortal coil” in favour of the hereafter—that “undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns” (Hamlet). I thought it fitting to republish the tribute I then wrote in honour of the great man.

We miss you, Rex, wherever you are.

Rex Murphy’s Law

May 10, 2024

Most of us are acquainted with Murphy’s Law, which holds that anything that can go wrong, absolutely will go wrong.

Something went very wrong yesterday with the demise of Rex Murphy, Canada’s intellectually gifted master of wit-saturated political commentary.

Most of us knew something was up; for months he’d all but disappeared from the opinion pages of The National Post from whence he had entertained and provoked readers for the past fourteen years, following long stints at the CBC and The Globe and Mail (before they were captured by the far left and utterly lost their balance).

Like many others, I suspected Rex was unwell. Yet when he reappeared in The Post on April 25 with “Hatred of Israel is the great moral disorder of our time”, and then just three days ago with “Trudeau faced an essential moral test after October 7. He failed it”, one dared to hope that the man was back, that he’d beaten back whatever challenge it was that he was facing.

Alas, ‘twas not so. Those columns, vintage Rex with their piercing insights and acerbic eloquence, were but the last gasps from a commentator the likes of which we shan’t see again.

The man was a blast furnace of passion, intelligence, and discernment; it’s no surprise that he would burn until the very end, that he would stand up for what is right and true until his dying breath, that even in his final hours he was moved to deplore the abomination of Jew-hatred that has swept across the world like a virus.

Rex was fearless. He didn’t care one whit if he ruffled the feathers of those who disagreed with him. And he was an enthusiastic champion of others who, like him, dared to challenge orthodoxy — men like Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson.

Rex could scarcely contain his glee when Peterson’s “cancellation” for refusing to use invented pronouns instead catapulted the man to white-hot fame.

After Peterson’s viral 2018 interview with Britain’s Channel Four (up to 48 million views on YouTube), in which he calmly and methodically skewered interlocutor Cathy Newman, Rex (as was his wont) borrowed from Shakespeare to declare:

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

Like attracts to like; and in Peterson’s astonishing display of dignity, honesty, composure, and erudition, Rex surely recognized himself.

“Everything written,” he once remarked, “if it has anything in it, will offend someone; and if the mere taking of offence was to amount to a licence to kill the offender, well the world would be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers, and the writers of editorials.”

I’ll take the liberty of encapsulating his philosophy in a few short sentences — call it Rex Murphy’s Law:

“Stand up for yourself.

Don’t compromise your principles.

Don’t be afraid to speak up, even when — especially when — it’s unpopular, and to heck with the consequences.

And if possible, use humour: it’s humanity’s greatest lubricant.”

Rex’s commentaries garnered much applause, but also loads of condemnation. It’s worth noting the words of Victor Hugo:

“You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.”

Rex shone like the sun at midday. Criticism simply meant that he mattered; and he mattered a great deal.

In his hilarious description of Peterson’s encounter with Cathy Newman, Rex wrote:

“The calm professor whittled away at her every presupposition and false ascription, till by interview’s end, the host was a lost voice in a forest of tiny splinters on the studio floor.”

It’s Rex’s voice that now is lost, silenced by the ravages of cancer. But it’s not truly silenced: his words and commentaries shall live on, as beacons of common sense and clarity, as clarion calls to strength and courage.

It’s fitting to close this tribute to Rex with a bit of Hamlet:

To be or not to be, that is the question,

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them.

Rex Murphy chose to be. And despite the many slings and arrows that came his way, he fearlessly used his voice to counter seas of trouble; and he opposed them until his very end.

His passing leaves a yawning chasm. And “unpopulated” by his presence, the world is a sadder place.

Rest in peace, Rex.