0 comment Friday, October 24, 2014 | admin
Over at the Forum, Glenn W. asks some very good questions, and in hopes of getting some responses from blog readers, I asked Glenn's permission to post this here. There are some very good issues raised and I hope by posting it here to share with you all, it might generate some thoughtful responses:
I have been told that the seeds of the American revolution were sown in the many taverns scattered throughout the thirteen colonies. Men would meet in these taverns and discuss politics and over time began to formulate ideas as to how we could break away from England. I have been encouraged by what I have seen on the internet because I believe that the blogosphere has become the tavern of the 21st century. For the first time in my lifetime men (and woman) can actually meet and discuss important issues of the day without it being filtered by large news organizations. The potential impact is huge.
I can see many issues being discussed as to how to protect our freedoms and our posterity from the very real dangers we are facing in this day and age. Meeting in the "VA tavern" to discuss these issues is the start of finding a solution. So, here we are and the modern version of parliament (aka the imperial congress) just tried to pass the modern version of the Stamp Act (the illegal immigrant amnesty bill). Since those jokers aren't as bright as there press releases would like us to believe, they will keep trying to pass that abomination. This caused alarms to go off for a lot of people who usually don't follow politics and possibly galvanized a real resistance to the insanity.
This is the time to decide on a strategy as to how we should react when the next abomination occurs. Or, maybe there does not need to be only one strategy. I identify with people such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry who would now be branded as "bomb throwers." I am sure there were many patriots who were more measured in their approach but as strong in their resolve as Adams and Henry. I do believe that attacks from many directions could be very effective. What should those approaches be? What do I need to do to hold up my end of the bargain? I believe that the political situation will get worse before it gets better. I have never been active in political campaigning but I am willing to hand out tracts and make calls for candidates I believe in but is that enough? If the situation deteriorates to the point where I won't take any more, what should my actions be? Would I be willing to push matters to the point that the founders did with the Boston tea party? What should our Boston tea party be?
This is a bit of a tangent but I will throw it in as well. Going forward we will need a set of common principles that we can agree on. I have seen some of the attempts to come up with a conservative manifesto where there are broad principles that we can all agree to. I am afraid that we have become too fractured and may not be able to come to a consensus. What if we once again used the founders as our inspiration and agreed to restoring a government where we could all live in freedom while having moderately different world views, something like:
1) Once again set boundaries on the federal government so they fulfill their obligations of defending the U.S. from invasion and regulating interstate commerce.
2) Restore the states to being the watchdog over the federal government.
3) Restore the liberties inherent in our constitutional republic where certain rights cannot be violated by any government body. This guards against a tyranny of the majority which the founders feared.
Under this concept of states rights (I may not be using this term precisely but I hope you get my point) I can live in a state where rugged individualism is honored and you can choose to live in a state with a more paternalistic approach to government. You stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours.
I am sure that most of you are way ahead of me on this one and I am interested in what your thoughts are. Can we come up with an approach that we can all live with, and fight for, that avoids some of the stumbling blocks we seem to keep running into?
The time is coming soon where the crisis will be here. How are we going to react to and exploit the next crisis? Will we be willing to sneak out in the middle of the night to dump a ship load of tea into Boston harbor? I hope so.
I have been told that the seeds of the American revolution were sown in the many taverns scattered throughout the thirteen colonies. Men would meet in these taverns and discuss politics and over time began to formulate ideas as to how we could break away from England. I have been encouraged by what I have seen on the internet because I believe that the blogosphere has become the tavern of the 21st century. For the first time in my lifetime men (and woman) can actually meet and discuss important issues of the day without it being filtered by large news organizations. The potential impact is huge.
I can see many issues being discussed as to how to protect our freedoms and our posterity from the very real dangers we are facing in this day and age. Meeting in the "VA tavern" to discuss these issues is the start of finding a solution. So, here we are and the modern version of parliament (aka the imperial congress) just tried to pass the modern version of the Stamp Act (the illegal immigrant amnesty bill). Since those jokers aren't as bright as there press releases would like us to believe, they will keep trying to pass that abomination. This caused alarms to go off for a lot of people who usually don't follow politics and possibly galvanized a real resistance to the insanity.
This is the time to decide on a strategy as to how we should react when the next abomination occurs. Or, maybe there does not need to be only one strategy. I identify with people such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry who would now be branded as "bomb throwers." I am sure there were many patriots who were more measured in their approach but as strong in their resolve as Adams and Henry. I do believe that attacks from many directions could be very effective. What should those approaches be? What do I need to do to hold up my end of the bargain? I believe that the political situation will get worse before it gets better. I have never been active in political campaigning but I am willing to hand out tracts and make calls for candidates I believe in but is that enough? If the situation deteriorates to the point where I won't take any more, what should my actions be? Would I be willing to push matters to the point that the founders did with the Boston tea party? What should our Boston tea party be?
This is a bit of a tangent but I will throw it in as well. Going forward we will need a set of common principles that we can agree on. I have seen some of the attempts to come up with a conservative manifesto where there are broad principles that we can all agree to. I am afraid that we have become too fractured and may not be able to come to a consensus. What if we once again used the founders as our inspiration and agreed to restoring a government where we could all live in freedom while having moderately different world views, something like:
1) Once again set boundaries on the federal government so they fulfill their obligations of defending the U.S. from invasion and regulating interstate commerce.
2) Restore the states to being the watchdog over the federal government.
3) Restore the liberties inherent in our constitutional republic where certain rights cannot be violated by any government body. This guards against a tyranny of the majority which the founders feared.
Under this concept of states rights (I may not be using this term precisely but I hope you get my point) I can live in a state where rugged individualism is honored and you can choose to live in a state with a more paternalistic approach to government. You stay out of my business and I'll stay out of yours.
I am sure that most of you are way ahead of me on this one and I am interested in what your thoughts are. Can we come up with an approach that we can all live with, and fight for, that avoids some of the stumbling blocks we seem to keep running into?
The time is coming soon where the crisis will be here. How are we going to react to and exploit the next crisis? Will we be willing to sneak out in the middle of the night to dump a ship load of tea into Boston harbor? I hope so.
Labels: American Society, Conservatism, Conservative Principles, Government, Patriotism, StateS Rights
0 comment Sunday, August 17, 2014 | admin
England, Your England
From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 1941
George Orwell, it is true, was a leftist; but the leftists of his day were apparently not the same breed as the nihilistic, life-hating leftists of today -- or it may simply be that he was a much more clear-thinking and honest man than his fellow leftists.
But whichever is the case, it is true, without a doubt, that the England of his time bears scant resemblance to the England or the United Kingdom of our day.
In the above-linked essay, England, Your England, written during World War II, he discusses the English character. Now today, the epithet 'English' is rarely used, as it is considered too exclusive, too restricted. It makes all those diverse residents of today's UK feel left out, offended, and persecuted, so the adjective 'English' is used far less than it was in Orwell's day.
But Orwell makes some very interesting observations about the English character, and patriotism, and discussing, as we have been, the present sad state of the UK, it is instructive to look at what he says. As we read his words, we might ponder whether the character of the country still persists, or whether that mysterious force called patriotism can be summoned up to revive Orwell's country.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler's June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe.
When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning � all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?
But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.
And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.
Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.''
If only Orwell could have known just how much England would change, and in how short a time. What would he have thought? Of course he foresaw the totalitarian trends which would develop in the years ahead; he was quite prescient in that regard. But I wonder if, as a leftist, he would have envisioned multiculturalism and the 'war against the people' by the Western elites?
Still, if we re-read the passages above, we see that Orwell clearly believed that there was an intrinsic national character, and that it persisted in spite of profound societal changes. He alludes to the changes between 1840 and 1940, and declares, that in spite of those changes, the people are still the same.
He clearly says that the whole nation has 'a single, identifiable character' and he seems to mean that the nation, through time, maintains that character.
He also says something quite important: that the divisions between nations are founded on real differences of outlook; the divisions from one nation to another reflect the innate differences. They are not simply a matter of geopolitical boundaries, or lines arbitrarily drawn on a map. Of course there have been and are 'nations' which are merely artificially-drawn nations, with no unifying genetic or cultural bonds. Iraq comes to mind, and increasingly, our own country -- and the UK. There are unfortunate consequences that follow in creating these unnatural 'nations' which are no nations. We are seeing those consequences playing out in the UK, in our country, and throughout the West.
To return to Orwell's description of the English character:
Here are a couple of generalizations about England that would be accepted by almost all observers. One is that the English are not gifted artistically. They are not as musical as the Germans or Italians, painting and sculpture have never flourished in England as they have in France. Another is that, as Europeans go, the English are not intellectual. They have a horror of abstract thought, they feel no need for any philosophy or systematic 'world-view�. Nor is this because they are 'practical�, as they are so fond of claiming for themselves. [...]
But they have a certain power of acting without taking thought. Their world-famed hypocrisy � their double-faced attitude towards the Empire, for instance � is bound up with this. Also, in moments of supreme crisis the whole nation can suddenly draw together and act upon a species of instinct, really a code of conduct which is understood by almost everyone, though never formulated. The phrase that Hitler coined for the Germans, 'a sleep-walking people�, would have been better applied to the English. Not that there is anything to be proud of in being called a sleep-walker.
But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official � the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea�. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, 'co-ordinated�. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence.'' [Emphasis mine]
First, I am struck by the extent to which much of what Orwell says about the English character can also be applied to Americans, most importantly the part about the belief in the liberty of the individual. Too often we here in America like to claim that we invented this love of liberty, or that it sprang full-grown here among our colonists, like Athena from the head of Zeus. No; it is part of our British heritage. And the more weakened our ties to our old colonial heritage, the more we lose that natural aptitude for freedom. I believe the 'melting pot' philosophy watered down our essential strengths and gifts, and the more 'diverse' our country becomes, the greater the distance between us and our founding ancestors. This is no less true in the UK as they dilute their indigenous heritage via mass immigration.
But here, we come to the part in which Orwell notes the essential gentleness of the English, and their natural aversion to martial pursuits:
One can learn a good deal about the spirit of England from the comic coloured postcards that you see in the windows of cheap stationers� shops. These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.
The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as 'decadence� or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class.
[...]
In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military 'glory�, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them.''
As we saw in the O'Sullivan article which I blogged on, the gentleness of British society is their vulnerability, with the presence of so many hostile and violent outsiders, who have at best a sullen indifference toward the native British people and at worst, a burning hostility to them. We here in this country are probably made vulnerable by the same traits, although they may be less marked in America, because of our mixed heritage. We, too, are by nature more polite, more hospitable, and too welcoming and trusting for our own good. This is true to some extent of all Western European peoples, but especially so of the English and Anglo-derived peoples in the West. It is said that J.R.R. Tolkien modeled the Hobbits after the English; they were essentially a gentle, stay-at-home, family-and-hearth people.
Here again, Orwell describes the English regard for the law, and the idea of the Rule of Law, which we too have traditionally valued very highly in America:
And yet the gentleness of English civilization is mixed up with barbarities and anachronisms. Our criminal law is as out-of-date as the muskets in the Tower. Over against the Nazi Storm Trooper you have got to set that typically English figure, the hanging judge, some gouty old bully with his mind rooted in the nineteenth century, handing out savage sentences. In England people are still hanged by the neck and flogged with the cat o� nine tails. Both of these punishments are obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them (and Dartmoor, and Borstal) almost as they accept the weather. They are part of 'the law�, which is assumed to be unalterable.
[Note - Orwell apparently didn't foresee that the British would abolish capital punishment, thanks to leftism, and become very lenient, too lenient, in their treatment of criminals.]
Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law� as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong�, or 'They can't do that; it's against the law�, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else.
[...]
Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
[...]
In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions.''
I wonder to what extent that last is still true in Britain? Leftism and post-modernism, as taught by the left-controlled media and government, have seemingly weakened such beliefs. And here in America, the same is true, although I think we are a few steps behind the British on that path. We would do well to reverse our course before we reach the point where our British cousins seem to be.
Orwell talks about the sense of national unity, which seems to be very precarious in the UK at this time, with so many nationalities and races, each with their own 'communities' and allegiances, and with the indigenous British people so weakened in their national identity due to leftism and its anti-nationalistic jihad.
Up to a point, the sense of national unity is a substitute for a 'world-view�. Just because patriotism is all but universal and not even the rich are uninfluenced by it, there can be moments when the whole nation suddenly swings together and does the same thing, like a herd of cattle facing a wolf. There was such a moment, unmistakably, at the time of the disaster in France. After eight months of vaguely wondering what the war was about, the people suddenly knew what they had got to do: first, to get the army away from Dunkirk, and secondly to prevent invasion. It was like the awakening of a giant. Quick! Danger! The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And then the swift unanimous action � and, then, alas, the prompt relapse into sleep. In a divided nation that would have been exactly the moment for a big peace movement to arise. But does this mean that the instinct of the English will always tell them to do the right thing? Not at all, merely that it will tell them to do the same thing. In the 1931 General Election, for instance, we all did the wrong thing in perfect unison. We were as single-minded as the Gadarene swine. But I honestly doubt whether we can say that we were shoved down the slope against our will.''
The sense of unity, the oneness in spirit and in national character, is what enabled Britain during the War to pull together and to survive. Without that sense of national unity, survival is doubtful.
One more little trivial note: Orwell, in that last passage, makes a couple of Biblical allusions: the reference to the Philistines and Samson, and the reference to the Gadarene swine. Do any leftists of today recognize such allusions, and would any leftist dare to refer to the Bible today, other than those leftists wearing backwards collars? I doubt it. And even among the general population, how many British people would recognize those Biblical references or names, or know the symbolism inherent therein? Precious few, and I am afraid that even in a more 'religious' country like America, not many are Biblically literate enough to get the allusions. My point is not just to lament that we in America are not the Biblically-conversant country we once were, or that Britain has lost its religion (though both are cause for lament) but also that we no longer have a common grounding in Western culture; we no longer have these common reference points and cultural bonds which enabled us to speak in shorthand amongst ourselves. We can no longer make such an allusion, whether Biblical or from the old classics, or from Shakespeare, and trust that our readers or hearers will understand. To that extent, we are weaker and less connected. Such is the fruit of multiculturalism. It eats away at the cultural connections and bonds.
But Orwell, later in the essay, concludes that
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control � that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.''
I've often used the family as the analogy for our American nation; at first, we were truly a kin group, a nation in the original sense, and later our family circle expanded to welcome in those who became ours by adoption. Now, the family analogy is being stretched to the breaking point. If the family's would-be new members are simply there to exploit and to plunder, and have no wish to join the family circle and conform to the family and its ways, then there is no more family; it's everybody for himself.
And I have no doubt that to use Orwell's analogy, the British family, or what still remains of it, has the wrong members in control -- as do we in America.
Will Britain recover this natural character of which Orwell writes, or will the corrosive influences, in John O'Sullivan's parlance, have destroyed the essential character and the strengths of the British family?
We will see, because it appears that Britain is being tested by very difficult circumstances, just as we are.
And as cousins, we and the British should try to restore the lost connections between us, so as to offer help and support, if only moral support, to each other -- as 'the Philistines are upon us' both.
From The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, 1941
George Orwell, it is true, was a leftist; but the leftists of his day were apparently not the same breed as the nihilistic, life-hating leftists of today -- or it may simply be that he was a much more clear-thinking and honest man than his fellow leftists.
But whichever is the case, it is true, without a doubt, that the England of his time bears scant resemblance to the England or the United Kingdom of our day.
In the above-linked essay, England, Your England, written during World War II, he discusses the English character. Now today, the epithet 'English' is rarely used, as it is considered too exclusive, too restricted. It makes all those diverse residents of today's UK feel left out, offended, and persecuted, so the adjective 'English' is used far less than it was in Orwell's day.
But Orwell makes some very interesting observations about the English character, and patriotism, and discussing, as we have been, the present sad state of the UK, it is instructive to look at what he says. As we read his words, we might ponder whether the character of the country still persists, or whether that mysterious force called patriotism can be summoned up to revive Orwell's country.
One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Also, one must admit that the divisions between nation and nation are founded on real differences of outlook. Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another. Hitler's June purge, for instance, could not have happened in England. And, as western peoples go, the English are very highly differentiated. There is a sort of back-handed admission of this in the dislike which nearly all foreigners feel for our national way of life. Few Europeans can endure living in England, and even Americans often feel more at home in Europe.
When you come back to England from any foreign country, you have immediately the sensation of breathing a different air. Even in the first few minutes dozens of small things conspire to give you this feeling. The beer is bitterer, the coins are heavier, the grass is greener, the advertisements are more blatant. The crowds in the big towns, with their mild knobby faces, their bad teeth and gentle manners, are different from a European crowd. Then the vastness of England swallows you up, and you lose for a while your feeling that the whole nation has a single identifiable character. Are there really such things as nations? Are we not forty-six million individuals, all different? And the diversity of it, the chaos! The clatter of clogs in the Lancashire mill towns, the to-and-fro of the lorries on the Great North Road, the queues outside the Labour Exchanges, the rattle of pin-tables in the Soho pubs, the old maids hiking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn morning � all these are not only fragments, but characteristic fragments, of the English scene. How can one make a pattern out of this muddle?
But talk to foreigners, read foreign books or newspapers, and you are brought back to the same thought. Yes, there is something distinctive and recognizable in English civilization. It is a culture as individual as that of Spain. It is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy Sundays, smoky towns and winding roads, green fields and red pillar-boxes. It has a flavour of its own. Moreover it is continuous, it stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists, as in a living creature. What can the England of 1940 have in common with the England of 1840? But then, what have you in common with the child of five whose photograph your mother keeps on the mantelpiece? Nothing, except that you happen to be the same person.
And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time. The suet puddings and the red pillar-boxes have entered into your soul. Good or evil, it is yours, you belong to it, and this side the grave you will never get away from the marks that it has given you.
Meanwhile England, together with the rest of the world, is changing. And like everything else it can change only in certain directions, which up to a point can be foreseen. That is not to say that the future is fixed, merely that certain alternatives are possible and others not. A seed may grow or not grow, but at any rate a turnip seed never grows into a parsnip. It is therefore of the deepest importance to try and determine what England is, before guessing what part England can play in the huge events that are happening.''
If only Orwell could have known just how much England would change, and in how short a time. What would he have thought? Of course he foresaw the totalitarian trends which would develop in the years ahead; he was quite prescient in that regard. But I wonder if, as a leftist, he would have envisioned multiculturalism and the 'war against the people' by the Western elites?
Still, if we re-read the passages above, we see that Orwell clearly believed that there was an intrinsic national character, and that it persisted in spite of profound societal changes. He alludes to the changes between 1840 and 1940, and declares, that in spite of those changes, the people are still the same.
He clearly says that the whole nation has 'a single, identifiable character' and he seems to mean that the nation, through time, maintains that character.
He also says something quite important: that the divisions between nations are founded on real differences of outlook; the divisions from one nation to another reflect the innate differences. They are not simply a matter of geopolitical boundaries, or lines arbitrarily drawn on a map. Of course there have been and are 'nations' which are merely artificially-drawn nations, with no unifying genetic or cultural bonds. Iraq comes to mind, and increasingly, our own country -- and the UK. There are unfortunate consequences that follow in creating these unnatural 'nations' which are no nations. We are seeing those consequences playing out in the UK, in our country, and throughout the West.
To return to Orwell's description of the English character:
Here are a couple of generalizations about England that would be accepted by almost all observers. One is that the English are not gifted artistically. They are not as musical as the Germans or Italians, painting and sculpture have never flourished in England as they have in France. Another is that, as Europeans go, the English are not intellectual. They have a horror of abstract thought, they feel no need for any philosophy or systematic 'world-view�. Nor is this because they are 'practical�, as they are so fond of claiming for themselves. [...]
But they have a certain power of acting without taking thought. Their world-famed hypocrisy � their double-faced attitude towards the Empire, for instance � is bound up with this. Also, in moments of supreme crisis the whole nation can suddenly draw together and act upon a species of instinct, really a code of conduct which is understood by almost everyone, though never formulated. The phrase that Hitler coined for the Germans, 'a sleep-walking people�, would have been better applied to the English. Not that there is anything to be proud of in being called a sleep-walker.
But here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official � the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the 'nice cup of tea�. The liberty of the individual is still believed in, almost as in the nineteenth century. But this has nothing to do with economic liberty, the right to exploit others for profit. It is the liberty to have a home of your own, to do what you like in your spare time, to choose your own amusements instead of having them chosen for you from above. The most hateful of all names in an English ear is Nosey Parker. It is obvious, of course, that even this purely private liberty is a lost cause. Like all other modern people, the English are in process of being numbered, labelled, conscripted, 'co-ordinated�. But the pull of their impulses is in the other direction, and the kind of regimentation that can be imposed on them will be modified in consequence.'' [Emphasis mine]
First, I am struck by the extent to which much of what Orwell says about the English character can also be applied to Americans, most importantly the part about the belief in the liberty of the individual. Too often we here in America like to claim that we invented this love of liberty, or that it sprang full-grown here among our colonists, like Athena from the head of Zeus. No; it is part of our British heritage. And the more weakened our ties to our old colonial heritage, the more we lose that natural aptitude for freedom. I believe the 'melting pot' philosophy watered down our essential strengths and gifts, and the more 'diverse' our country becomes, the greater the distance between us and our founding ancestors. This is no less true in the UK as they dilute their indigenous heritage via mass immigration.
But here, we come to the part in which Orwell notes the essential gentleness of the English, and their natural aversion to martial pursuits:
One can learn a good deal about the spirit of England from the comic coloured postcards that you see in the windows of cheap stationers� shops. These things are a sort of diary upon which the English people have unconsciously recorded themselves. Their old-fashioned outlook, their graded snobberies, their mixture of bawdiness and hypocrisy, their extreme gentleness, their deeply moral attitude to life, are all mirrored there.
The gentleness of the English civilization is perhaps its most marked characteristic. You notice it the instant you set foot on English soil. It is a land where the bus conductors are good-tempered and the policemen carry no revolvers. In no country inhabited by white men is it easier to shove people off the pavement. And with this goes something that is always written off by European observers as 'decadence� or hypocrisy, the English hatred of war and militarism. It is rooted deep in history, and it is strong in the lower-middle class as well as the working class.
[...]
In peace time, even when there are two million unemployed, it is difficult to fill the ranks of the tiny standing army, which is officered by the country gentry and a specialized stratum of the middle class, and manned by farm labourers and slum proletarians. The mass of the people are without military knowledge or tradition, and their attitude towards war is invariably defensive. No politician could rise to power by promising them conquests or military 'glory�, no Hymn of Hate has ever made any appeal to them.''
As we saw in the O'Sullivan article which I blogged on, the gentleness of British society is their vulnerability, with the presence of so many hostile and violent outsiders, who have at best a sullen indifference toward the native British people and at worst, a burning hostility to them. We here in this country are probably made vulnerable by the same traits, although they may be less marked in America, because of our mixed heritage. We, too, are by nature more polite, more hospitable, and too welcoming and trusting for our own good. This is true to some extent of all Western European peoples, but especially so of the English and Anglo-derived peoples in the West. It is said that J.R.R. Tolkien modeled the Hobbits after the English; they were essentially a gentle, stay-at-home, family-and-hearth people.
Here again, Orwell describes the English regard for the law, and the idea of the Rule of Law, which we too have traditionally valued very highly in America:
And yet the gentleness of English civilization is mixed up with barbarities and anachronisms. Our criminal law is as out-of-date as the muskets in the Tower. Over against the Nazi Storm Trooper you have got to set that typically English figure, the hanging judge, some gouty old bully with his mind rooted in the nineteenth century, handing out savage sentences. In England people are still hanged by the neck and flogged with the cat o� nine tails. Both of these punishments are obscene as well as cruel, but there has never been any genuinely popular outcry against them. People accept them (and Dartmoor, and Borstal) almost as they accept the weather. They are part of 'the law�, which is assumed to be unalterable.
[Note - Orwell apparently didn't foresee that the British would abolish capital punishment, thanks to leftism, and become very lenient, too lenient, in their treatment of criminals.]
Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law� as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like 'They can't run me in; I haven't done anything wrong�, or 'They can't do that; it's against the law�, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else.
[...]
Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
[...]
In England such concepts as justice, liberty and objective truth are still believed in. They may be illusions, but they are very powerful illusions.''
I wonder to what extent that last is still true in Britain? Leftism and post-modernism, as taught by the left-controlled media and government, have seemingly weakened such beliefs. And here in America, the same is true, although I think we are a few steps behind the British on that path. We would do well to reverse our course before we reach the point where our British cousins seem to be.
Orwell talks about the sense of national unity, which seems to be very precarious in the UK at this time, with so many nationalities and races, each with their own 'communities' and allegiances, and with the indigenous British people so weakened in their national identity due to leftism and its anti-nationalistic jihad.
Up to a point, the sense of national unity is a substitute for a 'world-view�. Just because patriotism is all but universal and not even the rich are uninfluenced by it, there can be moments when the whole nation suddenly swings together and does the same thing, like a herd of cattle facing a wolf. There was such a moment, unmistakably, at the time of the disaster in France. After eight months of vaguely wondering what the war was about, the people suddenly knew what they had got to do: first, to get the army away from Dunkirk, and secondly to prevent invasion. It was like the awakening of a giant. Quick! Danger! The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! And then the swift unanimous action � and, then, alas, the prompt relapse into sleep. In a divided nation that would have been exactly the moment for a big peace movement to arise. But does this mean that the instinct of the English will always tell them to do the right thing? Not at all, merely that it will tell them to do the same thing. In the 1931 General Election, for instance, we all did the wrong thing in perfect unison. We were as single-minded as the Gadarene swine. But I honestly doubt whether we can say that we were shoved down the slope against our will.''
The sense of unity, the oneness in spirit and in national character, is what enabled Britain during the War to pull together and to survive. Without that sense of national unity, survival is doubtful.
One more little trivial note: Orwell, in that last passage, makes a couple of Biblical allusions: the reference to the Philistines and Samson, and the reference to the Gadarene swine. Do any leftists of today recognize such allusions, and would any leftist dare to refer to the Bible today, other than those leftists wearing backwards collars? I doubt it. And even among the general population, how many British people would recognize those Biblical references or names, or know the symbolism inherent therein? Precious few, and I am afraid that even in a more 'religious' country like America, not many are Biblically literate enough to get the allusions. My point is not just to lament that we in America are not the Biblically-conversant country we once were, or that Britain has lost its religion (though both are cause for lament) but also that we no longer have a common grounding in Western culture; we no longer have these common reference points and cultural bonds which enabled us to speak in shorthand amongst ourselves. We can no longer make such an allusion, whether Biblical or from the old classics, or from Shakespeare, and trust that our readers or hearers will understand. To that extent, we are weaker and less connected. Such is the fruit of multiculturalism. It eats away at the cultural connections and bonds.
But Orwell, later in the essay, concludes that
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control � that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.''
I've often used the family as the analogy for our American nation; at first, we were truly a kin group, a nation in the original sense, and later our family circle expanded to welcome in those who became ours by adoption. Now, the family analogy is being stretched to the breaking point. If the family's would-be new members are simply there to exploit and to plunder, and have no wish to join the family circle and conform to the family and its ways, then there is no more family; it's everybody for himself.
And I have no doubt that to use Orwell's analogy, the British family, or what still remains of it, has the wrong members in control -- as do we in America.
Will Britain recover this natural character of which Orwell writes, or will the corrosive influences, in John O'Sullivan's parlance, have destroyed the essential character and the strengths of the British family?
We will see, because it appears that Britain is being tested by very difficult circumstances, just as we are.
And as cousins, we and the British should try to restore the lost connections between us, so as to offer help and support, if only moral support, to each other -- as 'the Philistines are upon us' both.
Labels: American Identity, British Culture, Nationalism, Nationality, Patriotism, United Kingdom
0 comment Friday, June 20, 2014 | admin
A few lines from old movies can speak volumes. I find a lot of inspiration in the vanished America of the classic movies, especially in these times in which it is so easy to become disillusioned with my fellow man.
I recently saw the Frank Capra movie, 'Meet John Doe.' I've seen it many times; it's a favorite, as are many of Capra's films. Some of the dialogue particularly seemed to resonate in view of what is befalling our country lately.
For instance, take these lines from John Doe's speech:
''They've started a lot of talk about free people going soft�that we can't take it. That's a lot of hooey! . . . A free people can beat the world at anything, from war to tiddle-de-winks, if we all pull in the same direction!
I know a lot of you are saying "What can I do? I'm just a little punk. I don't count." Well, you're dead wrong! The little punks have always counted because in the long run the character of a country is the sum total of the character of its little punks."
Connell: Yessir, I'm a sucker for this country.
I'm a sucker for the Star-Spangled Banner - and I'm a sucker for this country.
I like what we got here! I like it!
A guy can say what he wants -- and do what he wants - without having a bayonet shoved through his belly.
Now, that's all right, isn't it?
John Doe: You betcha.
Connell: All right. And we don't want anybody coming around and changing it, do we?
John: No, sir.
Connell: No, sir. And when they do, I get mad! I get b-boiling mad! And right now, John, I'm sizzling!
I get mad for a lot of other guys besides myself -- I get mad for a guy named Washington! And a guy
named Jefferson -- and Lincoln! Lighthouses, John! Lighthouses, in a foggy world! You know what I mean?
John: Yeah, you bet!
And in a later scene: at 'evil capitalist' D.B. Norton's home:
Norton: These are daring times, Mr. Barrington. We're coming to a New Order of things.
And in the last scene - the final line of dialogue is spoken by newspaperman Connell. His words:
There you are, Norton! The people! Try and lick that. Come on, Colonel.'
And recently I also happened to catch part of a 1943 movie titled The Human Comedy, based on the William Saroyan work of the same name. The Human Comedy, like many of the movies of that era, reflected an idyllic, small-town America: it was a slower-paced America, an America of neighborliness and decency, an America which was still patriotic and unapologetic about it. That America was also Christian and unashamed of it.
I'm amazed at how few people have seen the classic old movies like this one; lots of people have seen 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Casablanca' but not the more obscure films. In our age, with so much emphasis on style rather than on content, people prefer the newer movies which are technically superior, flashier, louder, cruder, more over-the-top. There's not much of an audience, it seems, for the old movies which were gentler, subtler, slower-paced.
I've seen 'The Human Comedy' before; I've been an old-movie fan since my childhood, when I first saw many of the real classics on TV. During my growing-up years, we read some Saroyan in 9th-grade English class, and I enjoyed his writing. Some English teachers criticized his writing style for its artificiality, for its kind of artificial demotic quality, as of an 'artist' trying to write like an ordinary Joe. His dialogue seems now to be a little unnatural, not like the real speech of real people. But be that as it may, I am always touched by this movie.
Another rather quirky movie based on Saroyan's work is The Time of Your Life, from 1948. Like 'The Human Comedy, rather than being a traditionally structured movie, it is a series of vignettes, in which the characters are the story, and the stylized dialogue makes the movies more enjoyable and memorable, to me. I recommend them to anyone who likes old movies, or is open-minded and patient enough to try them.
When we see these movies, based on Saroyan's works, today, they seem to embody something distinctively American, and in an increasingly deracinated and cosmopolitan world, this makes these movies seem quaint. Obviously some of the commenters at IMDB.com found the movies 'corny', sentimental, cloying, excessively patriotic, judging by the discussion there. I confess I didn't read all the comments; reading those kinds of complaints from the usual crowd of jaundice-eyed leftists and cynical, jaded youngsters who grew up in another America is a depressing way to spend time. So I chose not to read all of it; I got the general idea from a scan of the comments.
Saroyan himself was apparently a leftist, and later in his life, in 1961,he wrote:
I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inside all and careless of all."
So Saroyan, if he had lived to see this day, might have more in common with those leftists who sneer at the 'sentimentality' and 'propaganda' in his 1940s films. But if he was estranged and bitter when he wrote those earlier works, it did not show. The movies reflect a love for America and a faith in the American spirit and in the American people. That is what I find so moving in this day when even many 'conservatives' are 'estranged' from all those corny old values.
One little vignette in The Human Comedy which strikes me now is the scene in which Van Johnson, as 'Marcus McCaulay' is on a train with his fellow soldiers, as they begin the first leg of their long journey to the European front, presumably. A fellow soldier asks him to lead them all in an 'old church song, like the ones we all sang when we were kids'. Someone calls out for 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.' As the camera pans across the faces of many of the young soldiers, singing this hymn, it's very moving. It may be that you have to be a Christian, and familiar with this hymn, for it to be evocative. But I would think that anyone could be touched by that scene. Would any such scene be included in any modern movie? No; it might offend a stray atheist or agnostic or Moslem or Zoroastrian. Even if no one saw fit to get offended, it would be thought too 'corny.' And these days, probably fewer people, especially among the younger generation, know a song like 'Leaning'. But in 1943 most Americans were familiar with it, at least, those of a Christian background, which meant most people. And even Catholics, who did not sing these hymns in Church then, were familiar with them, or had heard them. But now we no longer have such commonalities, and a basic culture, assumed among all Americans, that brings us together. We are now 'diverse' and that comes at the cost of unity.
There are no more movies of this kind being made; any attempt at wholesome, pro-American movies of this kind seems fake and insincere in the cynical era we live in. Every so often someone will recommend a movie to me which supposedly celebrates the 'old values' and I find it to be empty and soulless. The spirit that animated the old movies of this type no longer exists, not in Hollywood, at any rate.
Another movie from the same era which I recently saw was Frank Capra's 'Meet John Doe', from 1941. Like the Saroyan stories, Capra's movies are nowadays accused of being over-sentimental, corny, and propagandistic, (although the leftists object less to Capra's populist messages, which are seen as anti-capitalist). But Capra, like Saroyan, seems to have truly loved America and the common American people. The leftists, many of whom apparently like 'John Doe' because of its anti-'fascist', anti-capitalist message, are no longer the champions of the Little Guy, who was always the hero of Capra's movies. Liberals and Democrats may talk the populist talk, but they are as much the creatures of moneyed special interests and big corporations who fund their leftist crusades as are the GOP. So the 'little guy', the common man who was still valued in the days when Capra and Saroyan were doing their best work, has no champion in this era of celebrities and globalist billionaires and aggressive 'victims'. The common man is persona non grata in Hollywood movies now just as in the Beltway.
The common man is abandoned.
The patriotism of the Depression and WWII eras was based on loyalty to the American past as well as love for and faith in one's fellow Americans. Now, what passes as 'patriotism' for many, especially Republicans, is mere loyalty to the President or to the GOP, and supporting the 'War on Terror' unconditionally. Americans in general tend to identify more with a political party or other group and less with the American people in general. There is much more distrust among Americans than there was when I was a child, and certainly more than in the 1930s and 1940s, when Capra was making most of his movies.
As I'm fond of saying here, the past is another country, and each generation seems to be further and further removed from the America of the 1940s, or even the America I grew up in. As long as we continue to trade our commonality and our shared past and heritage for 'diversity', America will increasingly be a place filled with people who are estranged from their past and their country, just as William Saroyan said he was, ironically. And maybe it's ironic -- or maybe not -- that Saroyan was something of an early proponent of 'diversity' and multiculturalism, being a hyphenated 'Armenian-American.' It is said that his remains were divided between Armenia and America. Even in death, he was not fully devoted to America. Maybe such divided loyalties were the reason for his eventual complete estrangement and bitterness.
Sadly, maybe he was more symbolic of the 'new America' , the America that was yet to come when he wrote his stories, than he realized. His America of the common man, and Capra's America in which 'the little punks always counted', are seemingly gone, except perhaps in a few isolated places where the larger, more chaotic world has not yet forced its way in.
In a world which is increasinly foggy and in which the dark seems to be gathering, we need those 'lighthouses', the great men and ideals of our past, more than ever, and we also need the 'little punks' to do their part. 'John Doe' spoke the truth when he said that 'the character of a country is the sum total of the character of its little punks.' We still have the potential, in the character of the best of our people, to recover much of what was lost, if we only know where to look for it.
I recently saw the Frank Capra movie, 'Meet John Doe.' I've seen it many times; it's a favorite, as are many of Capra's films. Some of the dialogue particularly seemed to resonate in view of what is befalling our country lately.
For instance, take these lines from John Doe's speech:
''They've started a lot of talk about free people going soft�that we can't take it. That's a lot of hooey! . . . A free people can beat the world at anything, from war to tiddle-de-winks, if we all pull in the same direction!
I know a lot of you are saying "What can I do? I'm just a little punk. I don't count." Well, you're dead wrong! The little punks have always counted because in the long run the character of a country is the sum total of the character of its little punks."
Connell: Yessir, I'm a sucker for this country.
I'm a sucker for the Star-Spangled Banner - and I'm a sucker for this country.
I like what we got here! I like it!
A guy can say what he wants -- and do what he wants - without having a bayonet shoved through his belly.
Now, that's all right, isn't it?
John Doe: You betcha.
Connell: All right. And we don't want anybody coming around and changing it, do we?
John: No, sir.
Connell: No, sir. And when they do, I get mad! I get b-boiling mad! And right now, John, I'm sizzling!
I get mad for a lot of other guys besides myself -- I get mad for a guy named Washington! And a guy
named Jefferson -- and Lincoln! Lighthouses, John! Lighthouses, in a foggy world! You know what I mean?
John: Yeah, you bet!
And in a later scene: at 'evil capitalist' D.B. Norton's home:
Norton: These are daring times, Mr. Barrington. We're coming to a New Order of things.
And in the last scene - the final line of dialogue is spoken by newspaperman Connell. His words:
There you are, Norton! The people! Try and lick that. Come on, Colonel.'
And recently I also happened to catch part of a 1943 movie titled The Human Comedy, based on the William Saroyan work of the same name. The Human Comedy, like many of the movies of that era, reflected an idyllic, small-town America: it was a slower-paced America, an America of neighborliness and decency, an America which was still patriotic and unapologetic about it. That America was also Christian and unashamed of it.
I'm amazed at how few people have seen the classic old movies like this one; lots of people have seen 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Casablanca' but not the more obscure films. In our age, with so much emphasis on style rather than on content, people prefer the newer movies which are technically superior, flashier, louder, cruder, more over-the-top. There's not much of an audience, it seems, for the old movies which were gentler, subtler, slower-paced.
I've seen 'The Human Comedy' before; I've been an old-movie fan since my childhood, when I first saw many of the real classics on TV. During my growing-up years, we read some Saroyan in 9th-grade English class, and I enjoyed his writing. Some English teachers criticized his writing style for its artificiality, for its kind of artificial demotic quality, as of an 'artist' trying to write like an ordinary Joe. His dialogue seems now to be a little unnatural, not like the real speech of real people. But be that as it may, I am always touched by this movie.
Another rather quirky movie based on Saroyan's work is The Time of Your Life, from 1948. Like 'The Human Comedy, rather than being a traditionally structured movie, it is a series of vignettes, in which the characters are the story, and the stylized dialogue makes the movies more enjoyable and memorable, to me. I recommend them to anyone who likes old movies, or is open-minded and patient enough to try them.
When we see these movies, based on Saroyan's works, today, they seem to embody something distinctively American, and in an increasingly deracinated and cosmopolitan world, this makes these movies seem quaint. Obviously some of the commenters at IMDB.com found the movies 'corny', sentimental, cloying, excessively patriotic, judging by the discussion there. I confess I didn't read all the comments; reading those kinds of complaints from the usual crowd of jaundice-eyed leftists and cynical, jaded youngsters who grew up in another America is a depressing way to spend time. So I chose not to read all of it; I got the general idea from a scan of the comments.
Saroyan himself was apparently a leftist, and later in his life, in 1961,he wrote:
I am an estranged man, said the liar: estranged from myself, from my family, my fellow man, my country, my world, my time, and my culture. I am not estranged from God, although I am a disbeliever in everything about God excepting God indefinable, inside all and careless of all."
So Saroyan, if he had lived to see this day, might have more in common with those leftists who sneer at the 'sentimentality' and 'propaganda' in his 1940s films. But if he was estranged and bitter when he wrote those earlier works, it did not show. The movies reflect a love for America and a faith in the American spirit and in the American people. That is what I find so moving in this day when even many 'conservatives' are 'estranged' from all those corny old values.
One little vignette in The Human Comedy which strikes me now is the scene in which Van Johnson, as 'Marcus McCaulay' is on a train with his fellow soldiers, as they begin the first leg of their long journey to the European front, presumably. A fellow soldier asks him to lead them all in an 'old church song, like the ones we all sang when we were kids'. Someone calls out for 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.' As the camera pans across the faces of many of the young soldiers, singing this hymn, it's very moving. It may be that you have to be a Christian, and familiar with this hymn, for it to be evocative. But I would think that anyone could be touched by that scene. Would any such scene be included in any modern movie? No; it might offend a stray atheist or agnostic or Moslem or Zoroastrian. Even if no one saw fit to get offended, it would be thought too 'corny.' And these days, probably fewer people, especially among the younger generation, know a song like 'Leaning'. But in 1943 most Americans were familiar with it, at least, those of a Christian background, which meant most people. And even Catholics, who did not sing these hymns in Church then, were familiar with them, or had heard them. But now we no longer have such commonalities, and a basic culture, assumed among all Americans, that brings us together. We are now 'diverse' and that comes at the cost of unity.
There are no more movies of this kind being made; any attempt at wholesome, pro-American movies of this kind seems fake and insincere in the cynical era we live in. Every so often someone will recommend a movie to me which supposedly celebrates the 'old values' and I find it to be empty and soulless. The spirit that animated the old movies of this type no longer exists, not in Hollywood, at any rate.
Another movie from the same era which I recently saw was Frank Capra's 'Meet John Doe', from 1941. Like the Saroyan stories, Capra's movies are nowadays accused of being over-sentimental, corny, and propagandistic, (although the leftists object less to Capra's populist messages, which are seen as anti-capitalist). But Capra, like Saroyan, seems to have truly loved America and the common American people. The leftists, many of whom apparently like 'John Doe' because of its anti-'fascist', anti-capitalist message, are no longer the champions of the Little Guy, who was always the hero of Capra's movies. Liberals and Democrats may talk the populist talk, but they are as much the creatures of moneyed special interests and big corporations who fund their leftist crusades as are the GOP. So the 'little guy', the common man who was still valued in the days when Capra and Saroyan were doing their best work, has no champion in this era of celebrities and globalist billionaires and aggressive 'victims'. The common man is persona non grata in Hollywood movies now just as in the Beltway.
The common man is abandoned.
The patriotism of the Depression and WWII eras was based on loyalty to the American past as well as love for and faith in one's fellow Americans. Now, what passes as 'patriotism' for many, especially Republicans, is mere loyalty to the President or to the GOP, and supporting the 'War on Terror' unconditionally. Americans in general tend to identify more with a political party or other group and less with the American people in general. There is much more distrust among Americans than there was when I was a child, and certainly more than in the 1930s and 1940s, when Capra was making most of his movies.
As I'm fond of saying here, the past is another country, and each generation seems to be further and further removed from the America of the 1940s, or even the America I grew up in. As long as we continue to trade our commonality and our shared past and heritage for 'diversity', America will increasingly be a place filled with people who are estranged from their past and their country, just as William Saroyan said he was, ironically. And maybe it's ironic -- or maybe not -- that Saroyan was something of an early proponent of 'diversity' and multiculturalism, being a hyphenated 'Armenian-American.' It is said that his remains were divided between Armenia and America. Even in death, he was not fully devoted to America. Maybe such divided loyalties were the reason for his eventual complete estrangement and bitterness.
Sadly, maybe he was more symbolic of the 'new America' , the America that was yet to come when he wrote his stories, than he realized. His America of the common man, and Capra's America in which 'the little punks always counted', are seemingly gone, except perhaps in a few isolated places where the larger, more chaotic world has not yet forced its way in.
In a world which is increasinly foggy and in which the dark seems to be gathering, we need those 'lighthouses', the great men and ideals of our past, more than ever, and we also need the 'little punks' to do their part. 'John Doe' spoke the truth when he said that 'the character of a country is the sum total of the character of its little punks.' We still have the potential, in the character of the best of our people, to recover much of what was lost, if we only know where to look for it.
Labels: American Culture, American History, Classic Movies, Patriotism
0 comment Friday, May 23, 2014 | admin
Joe Sobran, who recently passed away, wrote a piece on nationalism and patriotism. It was written not long after the 9/11 attacks, and it is written in the spirit of warning against the dangers of the blind patriotism that seemed, for a while, to be sweeping this country.
The subject of patriotism vs. nationalism is one that I have returned to periodically on this blog. It is a distinction that is hard to explain, and hard to discuss with others, because different people seem to have differing perceptions of what each of those terms means.
To me, the term 'patriotism' is what Sobran, in the linked essay, calls 'nationalism', in the jingoistic sense.
''This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital.
G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a "lack of patriotism." He explained: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."
In the same way, many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be "the greatest country on earth" in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the 2nd-greatest, or the 19th-greatest, or, heaven forbid, "a 3rd-rate power," it would be virtually worthless.
This is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being "the greatest family on earth" (whatever that might mean) or for being "better" than other families. You don�t feel threatened when other people love their families the same way. On the contrary, you respect their love, and you take comfort in knowing they respect yours. You don�t feel your family is enhanced by feuding with other families.
While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it�s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.
The patriot differs from the nationalist in this respect too: he can laugh at his country, the way members of a family can laugh at each other�s foibles. Affection takes for granted the imperfection of those it loves; the patriotic Irishman thinks Ireland is hilarious, whereas the Irish nationalist sees nothing to laugh about.
The nationalist has to prove his country is always right. He reduces his country to an idea, a perfect abstraction, rather than a mere home.''
My impression is that most Americans, especially those on the paleo-conservative end, as well as libertarians and leftists, associate patriotism with the blind jingoism and militarism. Witness how the slur ''patriotard'' is directed at those who tended to be pro-Iraq War and Islamo-skeptical. Most Republicans consider themselves patriotic, and their detractors on right and left call them ''patriotards''.
Likewise, the term nationalist is viewed with suspicion by most of the average American type; the media have assigned a derogatory meaning to ''nationalist'' as being associated with ''supremacists'' or Nazis or right-wing xenophobes (so-called.)
I don't know how we might untangle the contradictory and confused meanings and connotations of those two terms. Sobran makes a pretty effective case for his definitions, and for a humble kind of patriotism that does not go in for interventionism and militarism for its own sake.
''When it comes to war, the patriot realizes that the rest of the world can�t be turned into America, because his America is something specific and particular � the memories and traditions that can no more be transplanted than the mountains and the prairies. He seeks only contentment at home, and he is quick to compromise with an enemy. He wants his country to be just strong enough to defend itself.''
By Sobran's definitions, I would have to consider myself a patriot, but a patriot towards my people, not towards a regime or an ideology or a set of principles.
But this can get sticky in our ''post-American America.'' The ruling ideology in this country is insistent that everybody and anybody who takes up residence on American soil is one of my people, just by virtue of being here. Likewise everybody who is born here, even though they may be part an ethnic enclave and speak little English, is one of my people, an American. So we have to distinguish between loyalty based on geographic location and political boundaries, and loyalty based on blood kinship plus common culture and history.
I am reminded of this piece from 1996 to which I linked in a past blog entry.
And, of course, the American media are becoming less American, as Britons and others infiltrate their ranks. CNN epitomizes an emerging electronic life-form that is slowly becoming the eyes and ears of the world community. Members of the media, particularly foreign correspondents, are becoming what Mitchell Cohen, an editor at Dissent, calls "rooted cosmopolitans" -- people with several loyalties, standing "in many circles, but with common ground" in the form of a home base. Cohen's description evokes the turn-of-the-century essayist Randolph Bourne's idea of a transnational America -- of multiple-passport holders and dual citizens.
A new Manifest Destiny, in other words: We strip the world of its human ingenuity, attracting the most talented Asians, Africans, and so on to the United States. We anglicize them. Although they are not loyal to the degree that former immigrants were, they accept America as their base. We become the place where all the world's major cultures and economies meet, conquering the world as it conquers us. Blood-and-soil nationalism recedes.
Given that American politics has often been a series of peaceful evolutions, we may be in the midst of a transition so gradual that it cannot fit within the confines of the news. It will be apparent only after it happens. Tom Nairn, a social scientist, writes that nationalism is "an inwardly-determined social necessity, a 'growth-stage,' located somewhere in between . . . 'feudal societies' and a future where the factors of nationality will become less prominent." America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.''
We are entering a new phase in which we will see which side prevails: the idea of ''transnational America'', which, to me, is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, or the traditional nation, (which word, after all, denotes 'birth'). Human nature inclines us to kin loyalty; it does not incline us to the article writer's abomination of America as a congeries of ''rooted cosmopolitans'' of all races and creeds.
The two ideas are on a collision course, and we can only hope that human nature and tradition win out against social engineering and utopian ideology.
The subject of patriotism vs. nationalism is one that I have returned to periodically on this blog. It is a distinction that is hard to explain, and hard to discuss with others, because different people seem to have differing perceptions of what each of those terms means.
To me, the term 'patriotism' is what Sobran, in the linked essay, calls 'nationalism', in the jingoistic sense.
''This is a season of patriotism, but also of something that is easily mistaken for patriotism; namely, nationalism. The difference is vital.
G.K. Chesterton once observed that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of British imperialism, suffered from a "lack of patriotism." He explained: "He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English."
In the same way, many Americans admire America for being strong, not for being American. For them America has to be "the greatest country on earth" in order to be worthy of their devotion. If it were only the 2nd-greatest, or the 19th-greatest, or, heaven forbid, "a 3rd-rate power," it would be virtually worthless.
This is nationalism, not patriotism. Patriotism is like family love. You love your family just for being your family, not for being "the greatest family on earth" (whatever that might mean) or for being "better" than other families. You don�t feel threatened when other people love their families the same way. On the contrary, you respect their love, and you take comfort in knowing they respect yours. You don�t feel your family is enhanced by feuding with other families.
While patriotism is a form of affection, nationalism, it has often been said, is grounded in resentment and rivalry; it�s often defined by its enemies and traitors, real or supposed. It is militant by nature, and its typical style is belligerent. Patriotism, by contrast, is peaceful until forced to fight.
The patriot differs from the nationalist in this respect too: he can laugh at his country, the way members of a family can laugh at each other�s foibles. Affection takes for granted the imperfection of those it loves; the patriotic Irishman thinks Ireland is hilarious, whereas the Irish nationalist sees nothing to laugh about.
The nationalist has to prove his country is always right. He reduces his country to an idea, a perfect abstraction, rather than a mere home.''
My impression is that most Americans, especially those on the paleo-conservative end, as well as libertarians and leftists, associate patriotism with the blind jingoism and militarism. Witness how the slur ''patriotard'' is directed at those who tended to be pro-Iraq War and Islamo-skeptical. Most Republicans consider themselves patriotic, and their detractors on right and left call them ''patriotards''.
Likewise, the term nationalist is viewed with suspicion by most of the average American type; the media have assigned a derogatory meaning to ''nationalist'' as being associated with ''supremacists'' or Nazis or right-wing xenophobes (so-called.)
I don't know how we might untangle the contradictory and confused meanings and connotations of those two terms. Sobran makes a pretty effective case for his definitions, and for a humble kind of patriotism that does not go in for interventionism and militarism for its own sake.
''When it comes to war, the patriot realizes that the rest of the world can�t be turned into America, because his America is something specific and particular � the memories and traditions that can no more be transplanted than the mountains and the prairies. He seeks only contentment at home, and he is quick to compromise with an enemy. He wants his country to be just strong enough to defend itself.''
By Sobran's definitions, I would have to consider myself a patriot, but a patriot towards my people, not towards a regime or an ideology or a set of principles.
But this can get sticky in our ''post-American America.'' The ruling ideology in this country is insistent that everybody and anybody who takes up residence on American soil is one of my people, just by virtue of being here. Likewise everybody who is born here, even though they may be part an ethnic enclave and speak little English, is one of my people, an American. So we have to distinguish between loyalty based on geographic location and political boundaries, and loyalty based on blood kinship plus common culture and history.
I am reminded of this piece from 1996 to which I linked in a past blog entry.
And, of course, the American media are becoming less American, as Britons and others infiltrate their ranks. CNN epitomizes an emerging electronic life-form that is slowly becoming the eyes and ears of the world community. Members of the media, particularly foreign correspondents, are becoming what Mitchell Cohen, an editor at Dissent, calls "rooted cosmopolitans" -- people with several loyalties, standing "in many circles, but with common ground" in the form of a home base. Cohen's description evokes the turn-of-the-century essayist Randolph Bourne's idea of a transnational America -- of multiple-passport holders and dual citizens.
A new Manifest Destiny, in other words: We strip the world of its human ingenuity, attracting the most talented Asians, Africans, and so on to the United States. We anglicize them. Although they are not loyal to the degree that former immigrants were, they accept America as their base. We become the place where all the world's major cultures and economies meet, conquering the world as it conquers us. Blood-and-soil nationalism recedes.
Given that American politics has often been a series of peaceful evolutions, we may be in the midst of a transition so gradual that it cannot fit within the confines of the news. It will be apparent only after it happens. Tom Nairn, a social scientist, writes that nationalism is "an inwardly-determined social necessity, a 'growth-stage,' located somewhere in between . . . 'feudal societies' and a future where the factors of nationality will become less prominent." America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.''
We are entering a new phase in which we will see which side prevails: the idea of ''transnational America'', which, to me, is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, or the traditional nation, (which word, after all, denotes 'birth'). Human nature inclines us to kin loyalty; it does not incline us to the article writer's abomination of America as a congeries of ''rooted cosmopolitans'' of all races and creeds.
The two ideas are on a collision course, and we can only hope that human nature and tradition win out against social engineering and utopian ideology.
Labels: Cosmopolitanism, Creedal Patriotism, Ethnopatriotism, Nationalism, Nationality, Patriotism
0 comment Sunday, May 11, 2014 | admin
Ilana Mercer, in an interview with David Yeagley at FreeMarket News, gives her thoughts on the meaning of patriotism:
I've lived in Israel, South-Africa, Canada, and even Europe for a short while, yet I've never felt patriotism in any of those countries. Granted, nowhere else have I felt as desperate about the dismal state of political discourse as I do in America. But that's because I care about America. So what is patriotism? Here's what it's not: it's not an allegiance to the government of the day, or to its invariably wicked, un-American policies. It�s an affinity for your community; it's an understanding of the great principles upon which this country was founded -- which have been excised by successive governments, Republican and Democratic alike. And it's a commitment to restoring the republic of private-property rights, individual freedoms, and radical decentralization.''
And further, on the concept of nationhood, Mercer says
We libertarians are often guilty of simplistic and vulgar individualism, in the words of Murray Rothbard. This includes an inability to distinguish the nation from the state. The former encompasses ''the land, the culture, the terrain, the people''; the latter ''the coercive apparatus of bureaucrats and politicians.'' '
While I don't often agree with libertarians on these issues, I can find little fault with anything Ilana Mercer has to say in this interview.
And as usual, David Yeagley offers his own unique perspective.
I've lived in Israel, South-Africa, Canada, and even Europe for a short while, yet I've never felt patriotism in any of those countries. Granted, nowhere else have I felt as desperate about the dismal state of political discourse as I do in America. But that's because I care about America. So what is patriotism? Here's what it's not: it's not an allegiance to the government of the day, or to its invariably wicked, un-American policies. It�s an affinity for your community; it's an understanding of the great principles upon which this country was founded -- which have been excised by successive governments, Republican and Democratic alike. And it's a commitment to restoring the republic of private-property rights, individual freedoms, and radical decentralization.''
And further, on the concept of nationhood, Mercer says
We libertarians are often guilty of simplistic and vulgar individualism, in the words of Murray Rothbard. This includes an inability to distinguish the nation from the state. The former encompasses ''the land, the culture, the terrain, the people''; the latter ''the coercive apparatus of bureaucrats and politicians.'' '
While I don't often agree with libertarians on these issues, I can find little fault with anything Ilana Mercer has to say in this interview.
And as usual, David Yeagley offers his own unique perspective.
Labels: Ilana Mercer, Patriotism