Judgment for Philistines

Philistines, whose presence in the arts is almost universal, permitting them to dispense the epithet “philistine” to anyone who dares challenge their dominance, are often quite explicit in the admission of the means by which they judge art and by which one might judge them to be philistines. Colin Furrow, for instance, in The London Review of Books, opines that:

[Anthony] Burgess . . . is politically unsituated, or politically confused, in ways that can cloud literary judgments [of his work] and perhaps even disturb them.

Colin Burrow, “Not Quite Nasty” (Book Review of The Real Life of Anthony Burgess by Andrew Biswell), London Review of Books, Vol. 28:3, 9th February 2006.

Well, quite! Without a clear understanding of its political utility, how could a philistine begin to judge a literary work?

Fewtril #63

It describes a conceptual greed when the socialist-progressive maintains that we are all determined entirely by our circumstances, such that the behaviour of the less fortunate in society, for instance, can be excused as the product solely of their less fortunate circumstances, but that nevertheless we ought to have a moral responsibility to improve the circumstances of the less fortunate. For if, as he says, we are all determined entirely by our circumstances, then the “moral responsibility” to which he exhorts us must be a product entirely of our circumstances, and it is therefore a matter of fortune and not of choice whether we possess it, for whose possession or otherwise we cannot thus be held morally responsible, as is also the case with the impulse to make the antithetical exhortation to moral responsibility itself. Perhaps then he was fortunate enough to be dropped on his head as a child.

Fewtril #62

When the public intellectual talks of his moral compass, he is most likely using an inappropriate metaphor which fails to convey the true nature of his moral sense. Almost certainly a more apt metaphor would be that of a moral weather-vane, being that he is more concerned to see which way the wind is blowing.

Avert Thine Eyes!

“Printing cartoons of Muhammad creates fear and insecurity in Muslims across Europe”.

Sarah Joseph, “The freedom that hurts us” The Guardian, 3rd February 2006.

A Quaint Old Muslim Saying

Less than a month ago, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed surprise at the reaction of Danish Muslims to the carton-caricatures published in September 2005 in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

I am astonished that these people, to whom we have given the right to stay in Denmark, where they freely wished to be, are now touring Arab countries and inciting antipathy against Denmark and the Danish people.

[Jeg er forbløffet over, at disse mennesker, som vi har givet ret til ophold i Danmark, hvor de frivilligt ønsker at være, nu rejser rundt i arabiske lande og oppisker en stemning mod Danmark og danskere.]

(Anders Fogh Rasmussen, quoted by Ulla Nørby, “Fogh forbløffet over muslimers rundrejse” Jyllands-Posten, 10th January 2006. H/T: The Pedant-General, and Hjörtur Godmundsson, “Danish Prime Minister Shocked at Lies” The Brussels Journal, 11th January 2005.)

But then Mr Rasmussen had forgotten the quaint old Muslim saying that goes: “When in Rome, show contempt for what the Romans do, flout their laws and customs, and seek their total destruction, the vile infidel pigs!”

Not for Prophet

If the cartoon-caricatures of the prophet Muhammad were meant to propagate a dim view of the character of Islam, they do not do so as nearly as well as do the reactions to them in the Muslim world. But it is interesting to note the reactions here to the reactions there, though it is with a wonted suspicion that we might witness in Europe the pathetic scramble of cowards to be the first to fix their off-white underpants to sticks in order to signal surrender. Nevertheless, there have been encouraging signs that the newspapers that have published the cartoons (none of the British newspapers has done so) will not back down, with one egregious exception.

Raymond Lakah (and in keeping with the flavour of the times, I feel it appropriate to add: may he suffer a thousand torments in the camel-dung-heaps of Hell), the owner of the newspaper France Soir, has sacked its editor Jacques Lefranc, because the latter republished those caricatures. Monsieur Lakah (may his genitals wither in the arid desert of his own pusillanimity) believes the sacking of Monsieur Lefranc operates “as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual” [1], except, of course, for those individuals such as Jacques Lefranc whose conviction that “we have the right to caricature God” [2] is deemed worthy of no respect at all. A powerful sign indeed.

[1] Quoted by Luke Harding and Kim Willsher, “Anger as papers reprint cartoons of Muhammad” The Guardian, 2nd February 2006.

[2] The headline of 1st February’s France Soir, quoted ibid.

Fewtril #61

For so long have the politically-minded made the assumption that the answer is rational government, that the question of good government has been largely forgotten, and into its place has crept the question of how society might be best controlled for the optimum benefit of a large and centralised state, to which question the politically-minded are fortunate in having a ready answer in rational government.

The International Journal of Boundless Idiocy

If, as some persons maintain, there is an infinity of universes, in the totality of which every possibility is an actuality, then we ought to think ourselves unfortunate that in our universe there is such a thing as the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, that world-wide bib for academic dribble. If we were to take this multiverse theory seriously, then we might believe that in at least one universe, this journal does not exist, and as such there is a person rather like me who enjoys a greater serenity, owing to his never having perused it. But all esoteric theories aside, here I am nevertheless in a state of having read therein the following words:

What I propose, in a nutshell, is that insofar as the quantum universe is “the more fundamental” and cartoons are fundamentally quantum in nature – providing singular exemplification that quantum mechanics operates everywhere – cartoons singularly exemplify and perform that “more fundamental” universe, the quantum universe – the universe “as such”. The nutty universe of animation is (isomorphic with) the nutty animation of the universe. [1]

Dr Cholodenko, the author of those words, may well wonder why physicists spend so much time fiddling around with complex mathematics, when an afternoon spent watching Bugs Bunny and friends can provide the “singular exemplification that quantum mechanics operates everywhere”. But Dr Cholodenko, Honorary Associate in the Department of Art History and Theory at The University of Sydney, is so confident in his understanding of quantum mechanics, an understanding that is no doubt deepened by watching Daffy Duck getting his bill blown round to the back of his head for the umpteenth time by Elmer Fudd’s shotgun, that he has seen fit to enlighten Professor Stephen Hawking on the true relevance of black holes:

I [have] proposed that [Prof. Hawking’s] formulation of the implosive effect of the black hole on Einstein’s general theory of relativity as it applies to the singularity of the Big Bang can be read in terms of Derridean deconstruction – the black hole deconstructs that theory – and in terms of Baudrillard’s notions of Seduction, Objective Irony, fatality – not only is the black hole fatal to itself and to the theory predicting it but the theory is itself fatal, fatal to what it describes, fatal to twentieth century physics, fatal even to itself, making the theory for me itself black hole, paradoxically, ironically, fulfilling itself in annihilating itself, and vice versa, suggesting that all theory is so – fatal theory – that not only seduces what it produces but seduces itself, such systematic desystematizing by systems of themselves a fatality for Baudrillard integral to all systems. These formulations and notions of Derrida and Baudrillard I posed in my letter to Hawking as key analogues of his, and his and [James] Hartle’s, formulations and notions. Alas, I got no letter back from Hawking; but I did get a nice note from his assistant. I guess Hawking regarded me as a “civilian”, which is itself telling in terms of my thesis. [2]

Anyone in the vicinity of Professor Hawking’s rooms in Cambridge on the day that letter arrived may have heard what sounded like a washing-machine on spin-cycle. That, however, was the sound of Professor Hawking laughing.

.....

[1] Alan Cholodenko, “The Nutty Universe of Animation, The “Discipline” of All “Disciplines”, And That’s Not All, Folks!” International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, Vol: 3:1, January 2006.

[2] Ibid.

Polly-minded Twaddle

“[W]hy is the gap between high and low pay so wide and why do we value essential work so poorly?” [1] asks the highly paid and unessential Polly Toynbee. It might well be asked: Why does Ms Toynbee not value her local street-cleaner with an annual donation of nine-tenths of her own large income? Why not?—Because Polly Toynbee is a demagogic blatherer, that’s why!

.....Boldly, however, Ms Toynbee is keen to insinuate hypocrisy on the part of Mr Rupert Murdoch when she tells us that he “can float his personal fortune of £3.9bn in Bermuda, avoiding taxes while his newspapers pontificate about welfare scroungers”, but thereby she evinces only the fundaments of Polly-mindedness: sophistry and wilful stupidity on behalf of the State. For it is evident that while a person such as Mr Murdoch is trying to save his own money from State-kleptomania, those persons on welfare-handouts are taking someone else’s—a different matter entirely.

.....Ms Toynbee can expect to get away with this sort of thing because she can safely assume that the State has crept into the heads of most of her readers, and trampled their minds to simple mush.

.....In his day, Søren Kierkegaard too was much vexed by the envy-stoking and self-regarding demagogy of journalists, and he had this to say on the matter:

[I]f there is any suggestion of shooting people down, then let it be the journalists for the way in which they have used and profited by the simple classes. God knows I am not bloodthirsty . . . but nevertheless, I should be ready to take the responsibility upon me, in God’s name, of giving the order to fire if I could first of all make absolutely and conscientiously sure that there was not a single man standing in front of the rifles, not a single creature, who was not—a journalist. That is said of the class as a whole. [2]

I think this thorough-going measure a little too harsh, however; a couple of salient examples from The Guardian should suffice.

[1] Polly Toynbee, “You are now the pay tsar: speak out and embarrass cowardly politicians” (An Open Letter to Paul Myners), The Guardian, 27th January 2006

[2] Søren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard, Tr. & Ed. A. Dru, (London: Fontana Books, 1958), journal for 1849, pp.163-4.

Fewtril #60

Insane optimism leads us blindly into those problems for which it then might present itself as the solution. It is in the mess and decrepitude of modern life that the insane optimist finds his conviction in progress strengthened, for such a life induces in him a greater dependency upon optimism—the worse things become, the more he depends upon it, until the future is as rosy as carbon monoxide poisoning.

Fewtril #59

If it were shown that the most effective and just solution to a pressing modern problem were an old-fashioned and “outmoded” idea, then one would most likely see our progressives standing fixed in principle against its adoption—and thus against progress; for one can see that progress for them is not so much a concern for betterment than a slogan for the adoption of their own ideas and an idée fixe for their future dominance.

Fewtril #58

In the great moral-political struggle against gross and offensive generalisations, it should become a matter of consistent principle to insist that not all bachelors are unmarried men, and that to believe all are so demonstrates a deplorable ignorance and a vile prejudice against those bachelors who are neither single nor male.

Morris Words

On Radio Four’s PM programme last night (19th January 2006), Estelle Morris declared that “the independence of a school can make it impossible for another school to improve”, from which declaration I must infer that either one or both of the words “independence” and “impossible” mean something wholly different in the language of ministers.

Fewtril #57

The wrongness of many an idea is easily shown, and can be summed up in a sentence or two, which is why its adherents might point to the many volumes of complex and impenetrable prose wherein its proof and justification are rumoured to lie.

Democratic Ethics

In the democratically numbed mind, it is enough that it is known that most people want to see a policy enforced for it to be considered right that it be enforced. The old fallacy of “might is right” – or “in the multitude there is rectitude” – has not disappeared; on the contrary, it forms an essential component without which democracy could not function. It is felt to be enough to say, for instance, that, “most people want an end to privatisation, higher tax for the rich and a British withdrawal from Iraq” [1] for it to be felt that these matters ought to be enforced. It bears witness to the power of democracy that so evident a fallacy, and so bold an inconsideration of the rectitude of such matters, can pass through the minds of most as a legitimate argument.

.....This political stratagem has the advantage that it appeals solely to the power of the people, and not to their better natures. If, then, one is not to be persuaded by virtue or by a reasonable understanding of the present facts of the matter, might one at least be persuaded by the many examples of history that show that rectitude does not stand coterminous with multitude? I maintain that one should of course be persuaded of this view, but the tragedy is that in a democratic society one is likely to be in a minority in the holding of this view, precisely because the multitude is driven—by the promise of power and by the words of those who seek it—to the selectively ignorant view that the multitude is the legitimate principle by which rectitude is ultimately decided!

.....

[1] Seumas Milne, “The battle over this phoney centre excludes the majority”, The Guardian, 19th January 2006.

A Hairy Evil

When one learns that it is a man’s intention to emphasise “the potential of facial hair both to uphold and more interestingly to subvert patriarchy,” [1] one may well begin to wonder anew at the world—to wonder how the world should ever have come to contain so feckless a witling with so great a capacity for wasting time and ink in the explication of his facile designs.

.....Surely anyone with the faintest spark of curiosity must wonder at how it ever came to be written that “[t]here is an undeniability about facial hair which makes the world seem real again”; and one might feel a great resolve to understand to the fullest of one’s ability the history of thought that led to the claim that “[i]n reading facial hair within the semiotic system as put forward by Roland Barthes we find that it is a cover for the various myths of masculinity, and the myths of a civilisation based upon patriarchal values”.

.....It comes to something when an academician feels bold enough to claim that the myths of a civilisation can lie hidden behind a beard. Some might call it progress.

[1] Michael John Pinfold, “I’m sick of shaving every morning”: or, The Cultural Implications of “Male” Facial Presentation”, Journal of Mundane Behavior, Vol. 1:1, February 2000.

http://www.mundanebehavior.org/index2.htm