The Bishop and the Wordmonger

The Bishop of Rochester is a “vicious bulldog” who has used “unholy tactics”, the effect of which has been “to suffuse toxic fear through the land” — or so says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, foreigner to understatement and perennial foe of moderate language. “Whatever his psychological flaws”, says she, “his latest rant in a right-wing newspaper cannot and should not be forgiven.” [1] His great offence: — to speak of no-go areas “where adherence to [Islamic] ideology has become a mark of acceptability” and where “[t]hose of a different faith or race may find it difficult to live or work” [2], a state of affairs to which Ms Alibhai-Brown herself as much as admits: “There are indeed some localities where Wahabi Islam has taken a hold and imposed cultural separatism between those believers and the rest”. [3] Perhaps then the offence is that the bishop took to speaking of this matter without the leave or consultation of mediators such as Ms Alibhai-Brown, professionals who might always be trusted to find the right words.

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[1] Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, “No-go areas that are all in the bishop's mind”, The Independent, 7th January 2007.

[2] Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester, “Extremism flourished as UK lost Christianity”, The Telegraph, 7th January 2008.

[3] Alibhai-Brown, op. cit.

The Epoch of the Ant-Hill

A society that is subjected to the glare of sociology comes to be regarded, for the sake of understanding, as an example of an abstract system of relations and forces, rather than as an instance of the affairs of actually existing persons. In its scheme, men as persons no longer exist; there are only men as perfected type-individuals. Outside the dreams of sociologists, bureaucrats and other miscreants, such a society does not exist — as Margaret Thatcher notoriously and rightly indicated — but the great threat of its approximation looms whenever sociology finds its way into the minds of the powerful, wherewith — no longer merely descriptive but prescriptive — it tends to make a society in its image.

.....It is of great importance, therefore, to note the turn of thinking that has come with the monstrous presumption that society — that is to say, all those persons and associations conceptualised as a unity under the jurisdiction of the powerful — is something that can be run, not guided, not ruled, but run as if it were a machine-system; and yet, as it happens, it can be run, but only to the degree of the dissolution of the persons that are its actual constituents.

The age of great men is going; the epoch of the ant-hill, of life in multiplicity, is beginning. The century of individualism, if abstract equality triumphs, runs a great risk of seeing no more true individuals. . . . [S]ociety will become everything and man nothing. [1]

It is atomised individuals — stripped of character and personhood, place and belonging, and therein made equal to one another — who make the most perfect mass-men. Yet, imbued with a set of causes and crusades, and with a political moralism that strives for universality, they can become whole again — but not whole persons.

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[1] Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 6th September 1851, Amiel’s Journal, tr. M.A. Ward (London: Dodo Press, 2006), p.52.

Fewtril #221

It is perverse that the leaders of a modern nation feel they must honour the memory of the great men to whom that nation owes what it possesses in high culture and civility, and yet, were those great men alive today, they would be reviled for holding opinions that those leaders profess to find uncultured and uncivilised and unfit for the standing of a modern nation.

Fewtril #220

Fair consideration of impolitic or outmoded views requires an effort that can be more profitably spent in seeking favour with the times, whereby it is more efficient simply to hate them.

Fewtril #219

Through a strength of confidence hitherto unknown, the frivolous have learnt to take themselves and their works seriously — precisely those things for which their frivolity is apt.

Fewtril #218

With principles that leave the dirty work to others, one can enjoy a spotless conscience by which to condemn those others.

Amidst All This Bustle

“There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every thing were uncertain; and these disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every thing was certain. Amidst all this bustle ’tis not reason, which carries the prize, but eloquence; and no man needs ever despair of gaining proselytes to the most extravagent hypothesis, who has art enough to represent it in any favourable colours.”

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David Hume, Introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature (New York: Dover Publications, 2003), p.ix.

SCFAI

“The security-council of the Feminist Association of Iceland has accused the directors and management of Valitor (Visa Iceland) of working for and taking part in the distribution of pornography.” [1] I must admit that I am taken aback — the Feminist Association of Iceland has a security-council! I cannot deny that I should be most delighted if it transpires that they also have an underground base with a monorail and a central control-room with a large screen showing a world-map. Suffice to say, a couple of sour-faced old trouts sitting around in the study-room of some dreary building at the University of Reykjavik plotting ways to sound more important doesn’t excite my romantic sensibilities quite so much.

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[1] [“Öryggisráð Femínistafélags Íslands kærði forstjóra og stjórn Valitor - Visa Ísland, fyrir að stuðla að og taka þátt í dreifingu kláms.”] Auði Alfífu Ketilsdóttur, “Femínistafélagið kærir Vísa-klám”, Mbl.is (Morgunblaðið), 11th December 2007.

Anthropozoology

Just as “there are no human races, just the one species: [H]omo sapiens”, [1] so there are no equine breeds, just the one species: Equus caballus; for, since intra-specific categories are subsumed by definition under just the one species, those categories are somehow obviated.

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[1] Simon Underdown, “Race against time”, Comment is Free (The Guardian’s weblog), 12th December 2007. (Italics and capitalisation added.)

Folk-Husbandry

It is said that this country could sustain twice the population. Very well, but why would anyone want it to do so? There are, I suppose, many motives: some feel it would be better to be part of something bigger, not considering that in all likelihood their part would become correspondingly smaller; some think in abstract terms of economics: to them, if population growth means economic growth, then they can think of little or no objection, for it is their habit of mind to think everything of the economy, and to bear no “silly talk” of culture or harmony; some are susceptible to the idea of our land becoming an even more “vibrant” and “exciting” place, a land full of enlightened and exotic immigrants bringing an end to the reign of the benighted pale-skins with their boring food and oppressive practices; but, though there may be many motives, some naïve, some pragmatic, some nefarious, I cannot help shake the overall impression that the man who says he wishes to be part of a maximally sustainable population sounds a bit like a battery-hen speaking the farmer’s words.

Terryvision

Terry Eagleton notes approvingly that “[William] Blake . . . viewed the political as inseparable from art, ethics, sexuality and the imagination.” [1] Aye, such a thought is enough to warm the cockles and capillaries of any old totalitarian’s cardiovascular system.

Terry Eagleton, “The original political vision: sex, art and transformation”, The Guardian, 28th November 2007.

The Upper Hand of Mediocrity

“It is now time to address, once and for all, the archaic and socially exclusive policy of academic selection.” [1] Why don’t these blighters just cut to the chase and have us all mucking out pig-sties in our fair and democratic turn? And whilst we’re in the grip of the mania for abolishing archaic and socially exclusive things, — of the mania for abolishing anything that might stand in the way of the one society of mass-uniformity —, why not go to the crux of the matter and abolish thinking for oneself? After all, some people are better at it than others — surely that’s unfair? And thinking for oneself is in truth socially exclusive, and it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to find it archaic and outmoded as well: it is certainly unbefitting of the era of the mass.

Let the open secret be once expressed and the moon-calf be brought to light, strange as it may appear therein; narrow-mindedness and stupidity always and everywhere, in all situations and circumstances, detest nothing in the world so heartily and thoroughly as understanding, intellect, and talent. Here mediocrity remains true to itself, as is shown in all the spheres and affairs that relate to life, for it endeavours everywhere to suppress, indeed to eradicate and exterminate, superior qualities in order to exist alone. [2]

Now mediocrity has the upper hand, and resentment against excellence and advantage grows apace. Resentful mediocrity is at the very heart of the power of the modern state, in the service of which uniformity simplifies the problem of control.

[1] Mike Ion, “Select gatherings”, Comment is Free (The Guardian’s weblog), 28th November 2007.

[2] Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Philosophy at the Universities”, Pererga and Paralipomena, Vol.1, tr. by E.F.J. Payne, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.164, original emphasis.

A Service to the Country

The gall and utter shamelessness of some of our politicians surpasses my cynicism. I find it barely credible that they should use evidence of their own corruption in matters of funding as reason to call for the extortion of money from the public purse to pay for their rotten political clubs. That said, if tomorrow, by some miracle, the meaning of honour and shame were suddenly to dawn on them, I should gladly dip into my own purse to buy for each of them a pistol and a little room where they might spend a few moments alone, there for the first time to act in true and beneficial service to their country.

Noble Enmity

“I always strove throughout the war to view my opponent without hatred, and to reckon him a man in accordance with his courage. In battle I endeavoured to seek him out and kill him, and expected from him nothing different; but I never thought low of him.”

[“Ich war im Kriege immer bestrebt, den Gegner ohne Haß zu betrachten und ihn als Mann seinem Mute entsprechend zu schätzen. Ich bemühte mich, ihn im Kampf aufzusuchen, um ihn zu töten, und erwartete auch von ihm nichts anderes. Niemals aber habe ich niedrig von ihm gedacht.”]

Ernst Jünger, In Stahlgewittern (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1978), p.65.

Fewtril #217

“Emotionally literate” — an ugly phrase used approvingly to denote the ability to out-wet a lettuce.

Fewtril #216

Mediocrity tends to a tolerance of everything but excellence.