Sunday, December 22, 2019
A Christmas Poem
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost---how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
This world is wild as an old wife's tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Monday, December 16, 2019
The Noble Horace
The stars seemed to move across the sky. Horace was sure they were murmuring to him. But he was not a curious creature, and so explanations had never mattered to him. He was content to simply enjoy the spectacle.
Several years ago a large probe, about the size of a ten storey building, had landed on Horace’s planet. It had remained untouched until one day, in one of his long solitary walks, Horace stumbled upon it. The screen on the probe lit up and began to ask what even Horace realised were questions. Each question used a simple pictogram format, and Horace had little problem answering most of them.
But when it came to one question he was particularly confused. Having taken a camera survey of Horace, the probe displayed a pictorial representation of Horace’s species. A very small slider then appeared at the bottom of the screen -- too small for Horace to handle with any delicacy -- which enabled him to increase the number of Horaces on the screen. The intention behind the question was to determine a planet’s population size. The empire that sent the probe had never encountered planets with more than a few thousand sentient lives, and so they believed a planet’s entire population could be represented on a big enough screen.
But Horace did not know what it meant. He guessed it might refer to age. He was not quite sure of his age; it was one of the few things that had puzzled him. Indeed, he could not remember not existing. So he pulled the slider to the maximum possible setting.
The 'stars' that now lit up the sky were in fact spaceships -- a planetary invasion initiated in response to Horace’s answer to the probe. They believed they would be colonising the most populous planet ever discovered. It was to be a source of great imperial pride.
But as the ships entered the planet’s atmosphere they saw no evidence of cities or indeed any signs of civilisation. In fact, they saw little evidence of any life at all.
It was only as they approached the surface that they began to see a figure waving at them. He was easily as tall as a skyscraper and had a ridiculous, innocent smile.
It was Horace.
Once they had landed Horace was thrilled to welcome his little guests. He took care not to tread on them and spoke to them in a soft, caressing voice, but which nevertheless felt to the aliens like a very strong wind.
The invading force tried tried to anaesthetise Horace, shooting him with thousands of needles. But this only served to send Horace into a fit of giggles. Having failed to conquer by force, the commander of the fleet, Lupegoggicol the Goiteneidarous, tried what is the last resort for any empire: diplomacy. First, he spoke through some means of amplification; when that failed he tried projecting a holographic image of himself, but his gestures were meaningless to Horace, who ended up imitating the commander as if he were being taught some form of dance.
After spending several days touring the planet, the aliens concluded that Horace was the only sentient inhabitant. As far as Horace could remember he had always been the only inhabitant. There were many fish and a few species of insects which Horace would play with (and occasionally eat), and which were at least twice the size of the aliens. But there was only one Horace. Indeed, Horace was fascinated to see other intelligent creatures like himself, even if they were less than one-eightieth of his size.
The aliens soon left. They realised it would be impossible to bring civilisation to a planet of one person. And so Horace again stood there, with his happy, ridiculous smile, waving the aliens goodbye.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
The Decline of Manners
Like most people, I don't pay much attention to studies unless they conform to what I already believe. I'm not sure they are particularly useful except as a rhetorical device. For modern man, a sentence beginning with 'Studies say that...' or 'They say that...' is used in the same authoritative way that classical quotations once were. There is an endless desire to back up one's argument with 'facts', however arbitrary, and preferably of the pseudo-scientific kind. I blame it on (most) university education, to which half of the population is now subjected, and in which one is marked not on logic or strength of argument, nor especially on clarity of thought or ingenuity, but on footnotes and bibliographies. Everything has to reference something else. And so people give studies and other nonsenses almost biblical authority.
There is a new study which says that traditional manners are considered 'outdated' by the young. The results are not interesting, but the subject is. I'm afraid that far too many people, though they can see for themselves the ever-increasing vulgarity of manners, refuse to believe it, often saying that they need to see some sort of study or evidence. Such a study doesn't exist of course, because no one admits the results of a study against which they are already prejudiced. One sees the same phenomenon with immigration, where people refuse to believe its negative effects and demand to be shown some sort of study. And when you do present such evidence, they refuse to countenance it. There are always hostile questions about who conducted the study, their 'biases', picking at possible flaws in the methodology; many simply ignore the study and instead offer a counter-study -- about which they are far less critical.
In this spirit I offer you the aforementioned study which tells us that manners are declining. As I have no wish to question the results of the study, I will gloss over the odd facts of the study's provenance (why, a sceptic might ask, was the study conducted by an insurance firm?) and I will gleefully ignore the limits of its methodology. The study tells us that young people consider 'please' and 'thank you' as outdated courtesies. Nor will most say 'bless you' when someone sneezes, or hold the door open for you.
Of course, I didn't need a study to tell me this. I sense that people don't like you being polite to them; they see you opening a door for them, pulling out a chair for them, or offering to take their coat as some kind of inconvenience -- perhaps even an insult to their selfist way of life. They want to keep to themselves, and they want you to keep to yourself.
I quite understand this. This attitude exists within me too, though unlike many I try to overcome it. Rudeness is often much easier than kindness, and indeed more immediately rewarding. Good manners are a way of making kindness and respect into a habit, because otherwise too many of us default to a sort of standoffishness.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
From Up on Poppy Hill
Miyazaki's vision is interesting because Japan not merely has an especially vicious imperial past, but moreover a vicious imperial past that ended in catastrophic defeat. One would think it would be hard for anyone to the left of Yukio Mishima to defend the past, yet Japan, even taking into account its astonishing modernisation and westernisation, seems less embarrassed of its history than most of the victorious end-of-history West.
Japan had the good sense after the war not to do away with millennia of tradition. Could the West learn from Japan? We have never had a more uneasy relationship with our past than we do in this century. I think the success of the Studio Ghibli films in the West -- which are truly great animated films unlike the wretched superficiality of modern Disney films -- shows an immutable longing for a world of mystery, tradition, continuity, wonder and goodness. These all can be readily found in British history, no less than in Japanese culture, and they can still be found in their most elemental form in the woods and forests of these islands, if only we would discover them.
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Some obscure (or at least neglected) books -- Part II
Even for an autobiography it can be a tedious read. There are long Protestant theological musings, and often when you think you are about to get a juicy bit of social history, such as when he suddenly mentions being present during a plague outbreak, you instead get more pages of amateur theology.
It is redeemed, however, by what seem to be (apart from theology) his two main interests in life: women and music. The former is more interesting to a general audience, and indeed his attitude to and interactions with women are very curious. He is constantly finding himself in the company of amorous widows, servants and other 'dyverz young women’. And he is often issuing warnings and repeating sayings regarding women:
'lẏk all women, but loov nọn of þem'
'þei be az slippery as ẏs, and will turn az þe wynd and weþerkok'
'in kraftynes, flattering, dissembling and lyeng þei do exsell men'
'women be layzy, & low be lowd. fair be sluttish, and fowll be prowd'
There is also an amusing passage, at least for modern British readers accustomed to being the targets of such stereotypes, where Whythorne recounts travelling to 'low Duchland' and complains about the prevalence of drunkenness. He makes similar complaints about Germany and Italy: 'And whẏll I was in þọz kuntreiz I being sumwhat moleste[d] & trobled with drunkars þạr, bekawz I wold not drink karows and all owt when þ[ey] wold hạv had mee az þay did.'
'Þe Germans and Alman,' he later writes, 'be but blunt and riud, and also geven to delẏt in þeir dayly drink to much.' He then adds that, nevertheless, they aren't as bad as the 'french, Ita[l]iens, and Spanyardz'.
Let us end with a song by Whythorne, 'Buy New Broom':
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Ben-Hur
Friday, November 1, 2019
Some obscure (or at least neglected) books
My family ... enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth; and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by his tailor.It is a pleasure (though of a dark sort) to read a conservative dystopian novel. David A. Cowan wrote, a few years back, an excellent article at The American Conservative about the novel:
Egalitarian doctrine is embodied in the Vril-ya. Their society enjoys absolute equality of class and between sexes. Theirs appears to be a utopia in which crime, disease, and conflict do not exist. Leftist writers have conceived of such places in science fiction for decades, with Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek being the most prominent example of recent times. This progressive spirit has been elevated to theological heights by the Vril-ya, who base their religion on the “conviction of a future state, more felicitous and more perfect than the present.” But the narrator soon discovers that this serene paradise is in fact one of the most civilized hellscapes to grace science fiction.
The narrator soon discovers that this serene paradise is in fact one of the most civilized hellscapes to grace science fiction. The society produced by absolute equality of outcome is ultimately sterile and monotonous, as it has traded away individuality for the common good. There is no state coercion of any kind; instead, convention and custom govern the lives of the Vril-ya thanks to their ability to self-discipline their behavior through the aid of Vril. All the Vril-ya put the common good before all other considerations, thus producing an authoritarian order in which a single magistrate rules, albeit with no formal coercive power, and citizens abide by the motto "No happiness without order, no order without authority, no authority without unity." Language such as this calls to mind the totalitarian dystopias of George Orwell’s 1984 or Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta. Individuality and the unequal distinctions that arise from it are actively repudiated by the Vril-ya, rooted in the belief that greed for status, privilege, and fame could only lead to conflict and poverty.
Having once admired utilitarian social reformers in the 1830s, Bulwer-Lytton was aware of the many utopian arguments that claimed the state could change people’s habits, and thus their character, through measures such as public education or teetotalism. The Vril-ya represent this approach in excelsis. With Vril supplying all needs, no one indulges in alcoholic intoxication, adulterous love, devouring meat, hunting animals, or rude language. The Vril-ya’s rational morality is utterly divorced from human emotion or animal instincts—at the cost of all artistic endeavor and spiritual expression. Blandness and mediocrity define their way of life. Without competition, there is no opportunity for greatness to emerge. Bulwer-Lytton’s narrator even goes so far as to say that if you took the finest human beings from Western civilization and placed them among the Vril-ya, “in less than a year they would either die of ennui, or attempt some revolution.” Egalitarianism is portrayed as a doctrine that can only destroy all the particularities, idiosyncrasies, and joyfulness of human existence.
Monday, October 28, 2019
The old trains were bad; the new trains are even worse
Friday, October 25, 2019
Inevitablism
Actually, Brexit is more like modern education at a second-rate university. Britain is rather like the student in said university who never writes an essay on time; the EU is like the administration which has no qualms granting endless extensions.
Remainers, I'm afraid, are the most inevitablist of the factions, and certainly the dangerous. They think delays will lead to a reversion of Brexit. Quite amazingly, they are so inevitablist they believe if they hold a second referendum, they will undoubtedly win. I'm not sure most of them have ever countenanced -- or will ever countenance -- another leave victory. It is sufficient, for them, merely to 'get the ball rolling'. They believe they have history on their side, and they cannot believe -- if presented with the 'facts' -- that the majority could possibly disagree with them.
Thursday, October 10, 2019
'Challenging' Art
The Defoe novel that offers the most unambiguous 'challenge' to our age is Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe's discovery of the value of solitude, and the novel's very Christian introversion, presents a true alternative to the modern lifestyle. But Robinson Crusoe is so often relegated to the status of children's book, with all the best theological bits excised. It is neutered, sterilised, made inoffensive to modern readers. If they read the original novel they would discover an actual challenge to their beliefs, a world that no longer exists, a world they have prejudicially rejected as 'backwards'.
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Questioning the Supreme Court's Judgement
I've read the judgement. (Read it here.) I cannot find any positive evidence in the document for their decision. I see not-especially-relevant cases cited to justify this encroachment into politics. And I see a lot of speculation and deduction, better suited to detective fiction than legal judgements.
They argue that they can find no 'reasonable justification' for the prorogation. They decide this by way of process of elimination: it can't have been x, y or z, therefore it must be this. As there is no direct evidence to support the government's reason for prorogation, they write that
'It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason - let alone a good reason - to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament.' (paragraph 61)
By my reading, this is as if to say the government is guilty until proven innocent. Moreover, as there is no direct evidence, in other words no written document or statute -- which is the nature of constitutional conventions -- then how can this possibly be the business of the Supreme Court? It is a political matter. The Court surely does not, or rather should not, have the power to make convention into law.
One justification they give for their encroachment into politics is that
'the courts have the responsibility of upholding the values and principles of our constitution and making them effective' (paragraph 39).
Actually, 'values and principles' are not things about which the courts should rule, unless these value and principles have been written explicitly into law.
In paragraph 49 they write,
'a prerogative power is therefore limited by statute and the common law, including, in the present context, the constitutional principles with which it would otherwise conflict.'
On what grounds do they believe they have the authority to judge something as abstract as 'the constitutional principles [my emphasis] with which it [the prerogative power] would otherwise conflict'?
It sounds to me like the ridiculous idea of living constitutionalism popular in America. Indeed, the most important effect of this decision does not have to do with parliament but with the Supreme Court. It is a rebalancing of the constitution in the Court's favour. It will surely, therefore, become more like the US Supreme Court, which I for one certainly don't want.
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Is Conservatism Useless?
If you look in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary you will indeed find 'conservative', but the definition (there is only one) is probably not what you expect, though I rather like it:
'Having the power of opposing diminution or injury.'
Samuel Johnson was a great conservative, yet he clearly can't have been a conservative, for no such word existed to describe political thought. This is one of conservatism's great problems. Nearly all the great conservatives were pre-conservative. One reason for this, I would suggest, is because conservatism has very little political force. The term seems most effective when used to describe a political side which has lost, or is about to lose. To call oneself a conservative is almost to the sign a death warrant for those things one wishes to conserve.
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Last Night of the Proms
Sunday, September 8, 2019
Chasing Airy Good
Brexit is not quite the same, but the same tendency is undoubtedly there. 'We must have a clean break with the EU,' we are told. 'We must follow the democratic mandate.' 'We must follow the will of the people.' As usually happens with democracy, a direct vote (i.e. the referendum) has empowered the most radical on the winning side. Indeed, it has turned people who once were infuriatingly moderate on or uninterested in the EU question into aspiring tyrants demanding complete political surrender to their 'clean' or 'true' version of Brexit. How fickle people are.
It is much preferable to letting this country further ruin itself in yet another movement of ideological fervour. A society has possibly never changed so much as Britain has in the last half century. We should be increasingly careful in what policies we pursue; yet successive governments have shown the entirely opposite temperament. The foundations beneath us have been eroded, vandalised, surreptitiously replaced with money-saving short-life material; and with each stupid policy, with each economic and political catastrophe, we are nearing that final collapse, that Vesuvian disaster, when much of what we thought would always be is no longer.
Monday, August 26, 2019
A small victory for decency
Thursday, August 22, 2019
All the Latest Synthetic Religion
This great 12th century Cathedral, where I once sat in quiet ecstasy listening to Monteverdi and Bach, has now installed in its nave a lurid helter skelter:
from the façade of the new Abbey the giant letters invitingly glared. 'LONDON'S FINEST SCENT AND COLOUR ORGAN. ALL THE LATEST SYNTHETIC MUSIC.'The Bishop of Lynn, the Rt Revd Jonathan Meyrick, delivering his sermon from the ride, told his congregation that 'God is a tourist attraction'. I'd like to know what he means by that astonishing statement. It stinks of crowd-pleasing right-on sentiment. It is certainly true that cathedrals are now little more than tourist attractions, more important historically than culturally, let alone religiously. To install a helter skelter in one only emphasises their cultural and religious unimportance.
Even the most hardened atheists like Richard Dawkins, A.C. Grayling and the late Christopher Hitchens, being men with a sense of goodness and beauty, would surely disapprove of what Norwich Cathedral has done. One gets the impression, correct or not, that the clergy dislike their church and want to see it debased even more than Dawkins et al.
The Reverend Canon Andy Bryant, from Norwich Cathedral, said he could see why people would be surprised to see the helter-skelter.
But in addition to showcasing the roof, he said it was "part of the cathedral's mission to share the story of the Bible" and was a "creative and innovative way to do that".'Creative' and 'innovative' are surely two of the most abused words in 21st century English. They are always used to justify cheap pleasure, sensationalism, self-indulgence, ugliness, prurience, novelty of the worst sort -- pretending that these are profound and penetrating qualities. We live in a society where merely to deviate from tradition is a virtue -- and the more one deviates the better. It does not have to have any greater purpose than to 'challenge' (whatever that means). Such 'deviance' should be considered at best conceited and pretentious.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Growing a Beard
Of course, they (the ominscient they) say that most men's beards never stop growing, and that many do not get full 'coverage' until well into their middle age. Not that I necessarily want such a beard.
Naturally, I have done extensive research to see the possible results if I were to let my beard grow out. All these roughly share my 'growth pattern' (oh, to be able to unlearn all this beard jargon):
Dostoevsky |
Shaw |
Shakespeare |
Thoreau |
The Shakepeare is of course the most agreeable and shapely beard, but I am rather partial to the wilder Dostoevsky and Shaw. I think one looks more interesting and important the longer one's beard. Particularly if the beard shows no obvious signs of grooming. The Trollopian beard exemplifies this:
Or perhaps Tolstoy:
Monday, August 5, 2019
Darkly Watching
Dexter is most like Don Fabrizio in that he is someone whose life is a something of mirage, who feels his real self, as it were, exists in another life hidden to nearly everyone. Except Dexter's other life does not involve activities as mild as astronomy, shooting game or even (for the most part) copulating with mistresses. Dexter is a serial killer. Like Miss Havisham, a single traumatic event infected him with a 'darkness' (his term), and he has since then lived his life in the unending shadow of that moment.
The thing about Dexter, though, is that one always feels ambiguous about him. He even feels ambiguous about himself. He describes a need to kill, a 'dark passenger'. But it matters to him that only kills the 'right' people. His father, who quickly became aware of his son's psychopathy, taught him a code: Dexter will only kill those who deserve it. That is, he only kills (other) serial killers. All the while he maintains an ostensibly normal life working as a forensic expert at Miami Metro. He has a sister, for whom he genuinely seems to have affection. He wonders whether his affection is selfish in origin -- but this is something many of us wonder ourselves, to what extent our love is selfless. He also marries; the marriage was initially a cover, a normal life to help conceal his murders, but soon both we and he start to wonder if it is more than that. Eventually he has a child, whom it is clear he unambiguously loves. Later on, after the death of his wife, he even finds a woman who really is, for good or ill, the perfect woman for him. Indeed, over the course of the eight series of the programme one becomes conflicted about this most prolific of serial killers. After all, the only people he kills thoroughly deserve it, right? And isn't he such a caring father, brother and spouse? Isn't he clearly trying to overcome his own 'darkness'?
The programme tests one's morality. There is no doubt in my mind, intellectually at least, that Dexter deserved to face a court of law and be sentenced to death. Yet were I acquainted with Dexter and aware of his activities I would have hesitated to turn him in. My unwillingness would not be out of fear; I would not be able to do it because I rather like him. And not merely do I like him but I even 'relate' to him. I suspect many honest, thoughtful viewers do too. We all have a darkness, hidden evils, which we sometimes desperately struggle with. I certainly struggle with a melancholy, which can turn into devastating weakness and apathy, which I'm sure, in certain circumstances, would have the power to drag other people down to hellish levels. We all adopt external lives that are in part merely to get along. And we introverts (as psychobabblers call us) know how much life can feel like an act, and how much we can exist in our head, feeling misunderstood. Dangerously we ask ourselves, are we really that different from Dexter?
What does it mean that we empathise with Dexter? He is a monster, yet at the same time he is so human, capable of such love, but whose good instincts seem to be all perverted towards the wrong end. (This I think explains the universally hated ending, which I won't spoil, in which Dexter tries to do the right thing, but does it in entirely the wrong way and with the worst possible outcome.) I fear that one reason why audiences are so taken with him is because the modern doctrine of 'embrace who you are' features so strongly in our morality. He can't help it, we say to ourselves -- or more radically, he is merely 'different' -- and so we empathise with him.
It is an immoral TV series. Some people watching it could easily believe that the morality of Dexter is true. The one moment when Dexter seems to change, when he has someone tied up ready to be killed, he realises that he does not need to kill and so leaves the victim for the police to arrest. The victim certainly, following Dexter's code, deserves death, but Dexter, it then appears, transcends the pseudo-morality of the code. He tries instead to do the right thing by turning him over to the police. But all goes wrong: the victim manages to escape and kills someone close to Dexter. Doing the right thing does not necessarily result in better outcomes than doing the wrong thing. This is the problem with utilitarianism -- it is also the problem with Dexter's code. Maybe, if added it up on a spreadsheet, the world would be a better place with a handful of Dexters in it, but spreadsheets, calculations and studies are not adequate methods for determining values of morality and justice.
I somewhat worry that a programme like this is watched by so many, and as entertainment -- a thrill, a dark fantasy. Ideas and stories are dangerous. The show makes you fond of murderers. It does so in an intelligent and I believe useful way. But the idea that fourteen year-olds are watching this, or even just people without the necessary philosophical or moral backbone is rather unnerving. In a society of such relativism, where we are able to turn genuinely sinister freaks into virtuous dissidents, I worry that Dexter, the 'misunderstood' sociopathic outcast, is an all-too sympathetic -- even admirable -- figure for many.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Reading Laurus
Gubaidulina must be one of the few great living composers. I think it's become clear that we're living either in a transitional period or an epoch of decline. Where are the great composers, novelist, poets, artists? Yes, there are some, and many good ones, but greatness seems to be an ever rarer quality. Some (I think mistaken) traditionalists believe it is because too few write tonal music. (The less intellectual critics complain about the lack of 'melodies' or more broadly 'tunes'.) I love Arvo Part and Morten Lauridsen too, but equally there are great composers like Gubaidulina and Messiaen and other (usually less known) composers who show that the modern idiom can produce great art.
Tonal/highly dissonant music is not, therefore, an important divide. But there are some divides worth noting. There do seem to be more great religious composers than great secular composers. I think there is a lot of promise in Central and Eastern Europe while Western Europe and the Anglosphere seems to be faltering. And I think the best composers now -- or at least the composers I most like -- are the ones looking back to the Renaissance more than the 19th century. As it happens, Vodolazkin believes that we are in new Middle Ages. And like him, I believe this could be a good thing.
Saturday, July 27, 2019
Jacob Rees Mogg's Style Guide
Thursday, July 25, 2019
In Praise of Weather
Monday, July 22, 2019
Encountering Beauty
Thursday, July 11, 2019
No More TV Debates
Monday, July 8, 2019
Go to the source
Yet when one actually reads the articles the true scale of the boycott quickly becomes apparent. The headlines and rhetoric would lead one to believe a group of ardent Brexiteers are leading a campaign against the performance. But tucked away in the middle of the Guardian article one discovers:
A spokeswoman for the Three Choirs festival, which is held in Gloucester every three years, alternating with Hereford and Worcester, said that an email and a phone call had made the feelings of a small minority of local people very clear.One email and one phone call. Both may well have been by the same person -- the article refers to only one complainant. One wonders why a national Sunday newspaper thought the story deserving of an article. Were the Observer all too eager to take up a story that fitted so well their worldview? Were the festival organisers desperate for some publicity in light of disappointing ticket sales?
One of the Slipped Disc articles, written by the festival's chief executive, says they have sold one hundred more tickets since the story broke. She also admits that 'all I can say with certainty is that two people are not attending this event because of a perceived connection with Brexit politics'.
I despair at how gullible people are. One constantly finds stories like these, massive exaggerations based on scant evidence, designed to encourage the blindest and phoniest outrage. They are stories written for those who love to be appalled and indignant, which is almost the entirety of the human race, bar the occasional saint. We are always told that people don't trust the news anymore, but I'm afraid this is only true insofar that people do not trust the news from sources they regard as 'on the other side'. Most blindly trust news that comes from their 'side'.
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Green MEP Magid Magid claims he was asked to leave EU parliament...
Saturday, June 29, 2019
This Temple of Souvenirs and Trinkets is Dedicated to the Almighty Market
The BBC is spending £3 million on branded hoodies, mugs, umbrellas and promotional knick-knacks.
The freebies will be given to staff and viewers to promote programmes and “corporate identities”. The money, equal to nearly 20,000 TV licences, will also be spent on fleeces, fridge magnets and bags, according to a tender document circulated to potential suppliers.
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrewI truly worry that what has been good will be neglected, that we will live among great cultural ruins, if not physical ruins too. We are clearly in an epoch of rejection. We dislike the past, we mistrust its achievements, and instead we trust fully in 'Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind'.
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,Kipling wrote that astonishing, unforgettable poem after the devastation of the First World War -- devastation which we now know is permanent, and which we seem to have endorsed. The war was the beginning of the end for the old world, and we are clearly happy about it. Bulwarks against this change, like the BBC, are all surrendering if they have not already. The alarming thing about our descent back into barbarism is that so many people seem to be willing it -- they enjoy it. They think they are advancing things, pushing forward with the times. It's so heart-wrenching to see.
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Our Empire of Ugliness
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Oh, Fortuna, you degenerate wanton!
Monday, June 3, 2019
Charles Ives's Holidays Symphony
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Matthew Lewis -- The Monk
He may deny a villain every virtue or triumph, but he cannot endure to deny him a telling word; he will ruin a man, but he will not silence him. In truth, one of Scott’s most splendid traits is his difficulty, or rather incapacity, for despising any of his characters. He did not scorn the most revolting miscreant as the realist of today commonly scorns his own hero. Though his soul may be in rags, every man of Scott can speak like a king.
What I've read, listened to and watched while under house arrest
I am too lazy at the moment to write this post in paragraphs, so it will instead take the form of a list. This suits me well as I am a compu...
-
Those of us who bury ourselves in books are often unhappy creatures desperate to find consolation. We don't merely find it in fictional ...
-
I am constantly astonished by the self-harm modern societies keep inflicting on themselves. Those who rule us -- in most of politics and th...
-
I have seldom seen such uncritical glee as the reaction to the Supreme Court's decision. I too think the prorogation was deceitful and r...