Reflections of a stick in the mud
Kenneth Clark, Civilisation and birthdays.
I recently enjoyed a birthday celebrating with my wife family and friends. Nowadays these can be spread. A day with my wife, a day with friends, a day with one daughter and then a little later a day with my other one. As families become more widespread this becomes the trend by and large especially if your birthday is not on a weekend.
I wrote last about the collapse of manners and the trend to incivility. I was re-watching the great series Civilisation and the last episode called “Heroic Materialism”.
At the end Clarks closing lines even in 1968 rang out to me. I have a good folio edition of his book which is effectively his script. (I also have the same for the ‘Ascent of Man’
He says to give context
Of course there has been a little flattening at the top. But one mustn't overrate the culture of what used to be called 'top people' before the wars.
They had charming manners, but they were as ignorant as swans. They did know something about literature, and a few had been to the opera. But they knew nothing about painting and less than nothing about philosophy (except for Balfour and Haldane). The members of a music group or an art group at a provincial university would be five times better informed and more alert. He then delivers these closing lines which I’ve italicised
Naturally, these bright-minded young people think poorly of existing institutions and want to abolish them. Well, one doesn't need to be young to dislike institutions. But the dreary fact remains that, even in the darkest ages, it was institutions that made society work, and if civilisation is to survive society must somehow be made to work.
At this point I reveal myself in my true colours, as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last two thousand years ; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history.
History is ourselves. I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.
This series has been filled with great works of genius, in architecture, sculpture and painting, in philosophy, poetry and music, in science and engineering. There they are; you can't dismiss them. And they are only a fraction of what western man has achieved in the last thousand years, often after setbacks and deviations at least as destructive as those of our own time.
Western civilisation has been a series of rebirths. Surely this should give us confidence in ourselves.
I said at the beginning that it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs.
Fifty years ago W. B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I have ever known, wrote a famous prophetic poem.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned ;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Well, that was certainly true between the wars, and it damn nearly destroyed us. Is it true today? Not quite, because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. The trouble is that there is still no centre.
The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism, and that isn't enough.
One may be optimistic, but one can't exactly be joyful at the prospect before us.
As I’ve reached the dizzy heights of age I look down from the mountain of experience and feel that I am like him a stick in the mud especially in these lines
“ I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology.
The problem with history and a study of it is you can see patterns repeated and the danger is that like Denethors use of the palantir in Return of the King- you can see a distorted view of history that people wish you to see. The return to a glorious past, the search for scapegoats, or as the French Revolutionaries found overturning all the old institutions including the calendar and the replacement of Chrsitianity created anarchy. In order to control the anarchy they unleashed through violence and in the ends were consumed by that very violence they had wrought
At the moment I am reading Tim Blannings book ‘ The Pursuit of Glory which is part of the Penguin history of Europe and covers the period from 1648 until 1815 (From the Peace of Westphalia until Waterloo)
I’m at present in Part 1 which covers Communication, Trade and Manufacturing and People.
Blanning describes how the war’s end brought both devastation and opportunity. Large parts of Europe, especially Germany, were left in ruins, with significant population loss, economic hardship, and social upheaval. Yet, the peace also allowed for reconstruction: cities and farmlands were rebuilt, and trade networks slowly revived. What sticks out to me is the advances that were made during that period. Although the book came out in 2007.
Reading it does bring parallels to the growth(?) we are seeing the potential for in the introduction of AI covers the ‘ Economics of Superintelligence. This will be something for further reading and I will come back to it in the context of Blanning’s work. but that will be a few weeks away.
One of the advantages for me of birthdays is new fuel for the mind
So I got Roger Scrutons- England an Elegy
Charles Handy’s last book The View from Ninety
Simon Schama’s DVD Series of History of Britain (I already have the books)
My friend also got me some new coffee instruments from Italy
A Bialetti Moka pot for 2 cups (Coffee doesn’t agree with Sandy) as well as an induction plate for resting the moka pot on but also for my Greek coffee briki. so I’m going to be absolutely stoked over the next few weeks.
To paraphrase Omar Khayyam
Some bread , Some cheese some coffee and and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
