Bruce Charlton's Notions

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It is vital to understand that political correctness is immune to evidence - and I do not mean relatively-immune, such that PC requires an overwhelming weight of evidence to be convinced, but I mean utterly and completely immune to evidence such that unanimity of incontrovertible evidence against PC is still insufficient to induce significant change.

This is important to realize; since it makes clear that time, energy and personal resources expended on trying to convince PC with evidence is that much time energy and down-the-drain and lost - precious resources that could potentially have been expended constructively elsewhere.

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The reason that PC is absolutely evidence-proof is that it operates at an abstract level.

But the reason that it superficially appears that PC might potentially be open to evidential refutation is that, although abstract, PC is concerned exclusively with material proxy-measures of its abstractions.

That is the distinctive move which set-apart PC from any preceding ideology.

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No amount of evidence could ever convince PC that the United Nations or the European Union are harmful  organizations that should be wound-up, nor that race and sex preferences and quotas are a bad thing that should be abolished, nor that African 'aid' causes immeasurably more human misery than it alleviates, nor that governmental control of carbon dioxide production is a ludicrous and deadly policy.

My point is not that these are obviously bad things (although they are) but that they are not open to evidence.

The reason is that the United Nations, EU, affirmative action, African aid and Cap and Trade are the kind of thing which potentially can be adapted into abstract systems for altruistic allocation - whereas the alternatives (involving multitudes of more or less free small scale choices) cannot be so adapted.

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Political correctness operates on the assumption that an abstract system of allocation is intrinsically superior to the lack of such a system; and the details can be worked-out in the fullness of time.

That United Nations 'peacekeepers' have been involved - not once but several times - in systematic rape and enslavement is no doubt embarrassing, but is regarded as in no way reflecting upon the validity of the organization - nor of the desirability that ideally the UN should be in charge of the worlds military force.

Because the UN is the kind of thing that could potentially be made into a system of abstract allocation, while having a large number of 'sovereign' nations each with its own military is not susceptible of this kind of systematization.

This is the reason why politically correct people believe in objective moral progress.It is not so much that PC individuals are themselves morally superior to everbody who ever existed in past human generations ('tho there is a bit of that); but that past generations lacked abstract mechanisms for altruistic allocation of goods.

For the sincerely PC, a world containing the UN, EU and AA is intrinsically superior to any and all previous human societies which lacked such things.

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My point is not that abstract systematic altruism is a means to some kind of end, but an end in itself.

This is why its effectiveness is of no interest.

African aid might continue to create endemic starvation at a level unknown in previous human history, and societies of such brutality as to beggar belief; but none of this matters, since the system of international aid is precisely the kind of impersonal and systematic resource allocation that PC regards as potentially the highest form of human moral activity.

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Political correctness is utterly indifferent to what happens to human beings - and I do not mean relatively insensitive to the consequences of its policies, but utterly indifferent.

This is why evidence has no effect whatsoever.

PC policies are always introduced in the teeth of common sense and without any evidence that they would lead to good outcomes - why then should evidence accumulated after their implementation in any way affect their continuation?

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Think of 'hate crime' legislation. The way that this works is revealing of the nature of PC.

Clearly the altruistic goal of hate crime legislation is the allocation of status and power between social groups defined in terms of being either deserving or undeserving.

The way that hate crime legislation is operationalized makes clear that it is utterly abstract and impersonal in its conceptualization.

For there to be a hate crime does not require that anybody is actually motivated by hatred, nor does it require any specific victim of hatred who feels threatened.

Instead the 'crime' is operationally-defined in terms of the use of prohibited 'hate words' or themes or facts.

Hate crime occurs therefore (roughly) when a member of an undeserving group uses prohibited 'hate' language which has defined reference to a deserving group.

There needs to be an individual or an institution guilty of the hate crime, but there does not need to be an actual victim, since the crime is utterly abstract.

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This resembles the crime of blasphemy, in some ways; yet the contrast is more striking and significant than the similarity; because the religious obviously believe in the reality of the god who knows-about and has-been-insulted-by the 'hate' language used against him - whereas the politically correct hate crime can occur without the awareness of anyone in the deserving group.

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My point is that political correctness has now reached such a level of abstraction that no evidence could ever challenge it. Reform is impossible, on principle.

This means that those who oppose political correctness should not waste time and energy on rational argument with people who are truly PC.

There is no way into the system of sincere PC, no possibility of modifying or moderating it - merely of delaying it.

Of course, political correctness will destroy itself, but in doing so it will inflict damage upon its host societies - the scale of which damage increases with every passing year. 

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So, if the intention is to minimize damage by destroying PC before it destroys itself; then the implication is that this is a achievable only by (preferably 'velvet') 'revolution' and not by 'reform'; in the sense that the interconnected systems of political correctness with all their PC subverted organizations and institutions must be disbanded, and all the people who sincerely believe in PC must (I hope kindly) be removed from positions of power and influence and replaced with individuals who have not fallen to this virulent form of contagious intellectual insanity.

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Properly, pastiche is a method of training and not a legitimate mode of culture.

Pastiche is when the primary goal of creativity is to copy another: when a musician plays in the style of another, or when a writer writes in the style of another.

This is why impressionists are never first rate: they are not even trying to do their best, instead they are trying to be someone else.

Because if you are not even trying to do your best, there is zero change of being first rate in any way, shape or form.

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But contemporary pastiche is even worse than this.

Pure pastiche is one step removed from attempting excellence, contemporary pastiche is two steps away because it tries to disguise its pastiche nature.

So we get the performer or creator first trying to emulate some other, then making some kind of changes in order that their impression will not be detected. Covering their traces. Muddying the waters.

So you might get a singer who is doing a pastiche of Elvis: at one remove this is an Elvis impressionist - who may be pleasant but cannot, of course, be first rate; but at two removes, we get the innumerable supposedly unique/ themselves singers who make changes such that their copying of Elvis cannot easily be detected.

This is even further from the first rate than a straight impressionist!

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As a topical example Amy Winehouse is pure pastiche in a popular genre. It is hard to say exactly which American blues singer she has copied and changed - but clearly she is essentially a gifted impressionist masquerading as an original talent.

This kind of thing is absolutely rife in the high arts: as well as musical performance and composition it can be found in poetry, in novels, in movies... everywhere. Contemporary art is essentially a giant scam by gifted impressionist/ tricksters.

And it is undetected, because people just use creative art as lifestyle and mood simulators - so the real thing is no more necessary than it is necessary to have a real Monet on your wall instead of a poster.

Pastiche art merely serves to remind you of the real things - and for many people that is enough.

(Which is just as well, because nothing better is available, in most cases. The world of professional and collectable fine art, for example, is nothing but pastiche - or worse.)

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Indeed pastiche extends far beyond art - since it could equally well be argued that we have almost exclusively pastiche science, technology, politics, policing, law and spirituality. Old stuff copied, tweaked and re-combined to appear original.

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By contrast, when gifted people are really trying to do their best work, using whatever genre and technique they have learned and inherited, you can get first rate work in the most hackneyed of forms.

An example was Scott Joplin, whose straining at the boundaries of his inherited tradition of commercial tin pan alley pop, led to some of the most perfect and delightful miniatures of post-romantic classical pianism: utterly sincere, and with no trace of pastiche.

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[Message for those of you who have been following my recent ruminations on political correctness:  

this posting represents the first time where I feel I may have reached to the bottom of the mystery of PC 

(perhaps an exclamation mark is warranted here!):

this is the first time I feel that I understand the deep unity which lies behind the surface insanity that is political correctness.

I will try and explicate this (apparent) insight further over the next few days. ] 

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The argument in brief:

Political correctness is a logical extension of a this-worldly (secular) and materialist (not spiritual) perspective of pure abstract altruism - untainted by personal feelings.

In other words, PC aims at the attainment of altruism in this world.

And the altruism aimed at is abstract - not the altruism of individuals. 

PC aims at the submission of the (inevitably selfish) individual to abstract systems of pure altruism.

Submission, ideally, even unto the destruction and death of everything that is valued. The test of ultimate sincerity. 

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Altruism is to be attained via abstract systems (usually bureaucratic systems) which are concerned with the allocation of resources or 'goods': things like money, wealth, land, jobs, educational positions, any perceived status symbols.

Altruism is therefore concerned with allocation of goods. It is therefore a matter of altruistic outcomes, and the virtuous result depends on the attainment of altruistic outcomes.

Altruism is intrinsically outcome-orientated. 

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Since PC is primarily focused on altruistic outcomes, it is therefore relatively unconcerned by how these outcomes are attained: systematic lying, force, bribery, subsidy, intimidation all are (in principle) acceptable means to this ultimate end.

(This accounts for the sustained and intrinsic dishonesty of PC.)

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Because for PC the 'original sin' is selfishness, and all individual acts of altruism are vulnerable to corruption by selfishness - ideally the individual should be altruistically indifferent to his own condition, including his own feelings.

Selfishness is original sin, and all individuals are selfish - the explanation given for inevitable human selfishness is various, but one candidate cause is natural selection. 

Therefore, in order to avoid selfishness, policy must not originate from individuals nor must it depend on the decision of individuals - instead altruism should be person-proof: should be a product of objective and abstract procedures.

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Other features of PC are related to the necessity to generate operational definitions of altruism and the constraints of power politics.

To make an altruism-generating abstract system entails that a 'good' be operationally-defined (eg in terms of income, or wealth, or desirable jobs or other positions).

These goods must be this-worldly and material so that they may be measured, monitored and manipulated.

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And further, the operational realities of power politics entail that these abstract procedures be applied to groups not individuals - the individual being defined in terms of their group membership.

Group orientation is necessary in practice, albeit not in theory, because power results from group alliances: from 'interest groups' such as classes, sexes, ethnicities, job categories (unions) etc. 

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To clarify further: 

Political correctness is a secular ideology based on moral principle. 

From a secular perspective, the highest virtue, and perhaps the only virtue, is altruism: helping others at costs to oneself.

Other forms of human cooperation are disvalued -  altruistic cooperation is regarded as the primary virtue.

This is contrasted with the opposite vice of selfishness.

But, ideally, altruism must be pure - which means untainted by selfishness, which means untainted by any degree of personal advantage (untainted even by pleasure).  

Morality is seen as altruism; the highest morality as disinterested altruism.


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From an other-worldly religious perspective altruism is a subordinate virtue - there are other more important things than helping others in a material sense - but from a secular perspective altruism frames almost the whole of moral discourse.

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Most or all forms of naturally-occurring examples of altruism are, in fact, merely indirect forms of self-interest. For example: altruism towards genetic relatives; towards allies; or altruism as an accidental side effect of other forms of selfishness - such as when pets substitute for children.

Some instances of altruism are merely long-termism, while others are genetic self interest coming into conflict with the interests of a specific organism (when an individual risks their life to make more likely the survival of their extended family.).

Even the altruism of Christianity is conceptualized as being corrupted by the desire for other-worldly happiness: so (from a PC perspective) Christians are 'merely' sacrificing themselves to others in order to gain more happiness in the long-term.

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This marks an important cleavage point between leftist PC and right wing conservatism and reaction. For the secular right, the reality that altruism is tainted with selfishness is accepted - indeed it is embraced as a means to the end of greater functional effectiveness.

For the secular right, selfishness in not exactly good, but (as noted by Adam Smith) is regarded as potentially leading to good under a competitive system of natural selection such as market economics.

This strikes the PC as unacceptably cynical. 

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On the whole, the secular right has no conception of 'original sin' and accepts that human beings are intrinsically selfish, and evolved from selfish ancestors.

The secular right accepts that kin selection means that humans tend to favour their families; that people with common interests will make alliances for their own benefit; that individuals will be prone to corruption by selfishness and short-termism - and it simply tolerates these problems so long as things, on the whole, are working well - or if eradicating the problems cause more problems than they solve.

And this unprincipled, and perhaps self-serving, pragmatism on the political right - the tendency to accept and work with human sin - is why absolutist liberals feel morally-superior to conservatives. 

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This is why the idealistically politically correct feel so virtuous, feels indeed superior to all previous forms of human morality: because the ideal is to be aiming at the good of others without any personal reward whatsoever.   

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Naturally the PC fail to attain this ideal, naturally individuals always

But this merely emphasises that individual selfishness is original sin for the PC - and the implication is that as an ideal individuals ought to be, and need to be, subordinated to impersonal mechanisms for implementing altruism at the social level - regardless of the consequences.

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In fact, PC is a logical response to the ultimate problem of altruism; the psychological paradox: that if being altruistic makes you happy, then you are being rewarded, therefore you are not really being altruistic but merely self-indulgent.

(In PC) If you enjoy helping others then your altruism is not pure. The others ought to be treated altruistically whatever your feelings on the matter may be.

To be 'pure', altruism therefore should not make you happy, should leave you unmoved at least, and preferably make you miserable.

Only if altruism makes you suffer can you be sure that you are not merely doing it for your selfish motives. 

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But even then, perhaps you might 'enjoy suffering in a good cause' and this enjoyment would in turn contaminate your altruism.

The answer is that - as an individual - you should be made to be altruistic, and made miserable by your altruism, and that this is abstractly good because your own motivations have nothing to do with your behaviour.

Your job, in PC, is therefore to resign yourself to your suffering - not to enjoy it, but not to complain about it, simply to submit to it.

Submission is the key concept.

For the PC individual the ultimate ethical act is to submit to being forced to be altruistic - not because you enjoy it, but because you believe that submission to altruism is the highest value in an ultimate and abstract sense.

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(The best possible job for a PC individual is therefore to work for a bureaucracy that does altruistic good - and to hate your job - and to do it anyway.)

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Pure altruism, as such, is a logical consequence of the moral primacy of pure altruism: it is insane, and lacks any test in reality, because it is an abstraction: a human-created abstraction

What is more, PC is the creation of that minority of humans capable of abstract thought, and imposed on the other humans; what is more PC is possible only in a fundamentally secular and materialist society. 

Therefore PC stands or falls by the fact of an intellectual ruling elite, and can be imposed widely by this elite only by the technologies of modern mass media communication.

And PC is only possible in a fully materialist and secular society: where this worldly 'goods' and their just (i.e. altruistic) allocation can assume ultimate importance, ideally over-riding all other considerations. 

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Hence it is this idealistic quest for pure abstract altruism, in a secular context, which has caused the suicidal insanity of PC.

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[Note: I think my idea of pure abstract altruism is probably a more specific version of Thomas Sowell's concept of Cosmic Justice - which I read about several years ago.]

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I was walking up Northumberland Street a couple of days ago, and heard a chap singing Elvis karaoke - very pleasantly. It made me reflect on the minimal necessary attributes for solo singing (attributes which this man possessed).

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Firstly you must have a pleasing voice - otherwise there isn't any point in being a solo singer. This is a quality which many professional singers lack.

Secondly intonation: you need to be able to sing in tune (or close enough - many decent solo singers have imperfect intonation, but this cannot go too far.

(In my opinion Maria Callas went too far in the direction of being out of tune; but then she did not have a pleasing voice either.)

Thirdly phrasing. There are plenty of singers who sound nice and sing in tune but who cannot phrase musically - they are pretty worthless, really.

Musical phrasing is extremely important - and I believe it is something innate that cannot be taught (although of course people who lack adequate technical attributes cannot phrase due to their incompetence).  

(There are plenty of famous professional singers, musical instrument players, and conductors who cannot phrase. Among conductors - for whom phrasing is pretty much their raison d'etre - notable non-phrasers include Roger Norrington and Trevor Pinnock.)

Attributes which are good to have, but not essential to be a solo singer per se (although necessary to be a classical singer)  are vocal range, breath control, nimbleness and volume.

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For actors, it is vital that they can remember lines with sufficient accuracy and in sufficient volume (i.e. not be compulsive paraphrase-ers - this diminishes the script and prevents other actors from acting).

They must be able to make themselves heard clearly.

And they must be able to act - which is the equivalent of phrasing. 

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There are plenty of professional actors who are unable to act - indeed, probably most professional actors cannot act. They get away with it (and may have successful careers) usually by possessing one of two other attributes: an impressive-sounding voice and/ or good looks. But strictly, these attributes - which vastly assist in a career as an actor - have nothing to do with acting.
   

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Scrunches are dissonances in diatonic music, caused - usually - by having different musical lines move close-together: either in counterpoint, or progressions of harmony when the parts have some autonomy.

Generally they are transitions - in which what will eventually be a consonant note comes a bit early, or where a peculiar transitional note is used, or when a note is suspended from a previous harmony; at any rate scrunches are en route to resolution and relaxation on a major chord.

I love them.

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They usually come in Renaissance and Baroque music.

Like this Crucifixus by Antonio Caldara (c1670 – 1736):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6vx6NC98NM

Tell me, please, anybody - why this sublime piece of music is not world famous?

There isn't anything better than this. Different in genre and equally good, yes, but this is perfection of its kind.

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As is O Nata Lux by Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aVnt3jj7ko

The scrunches near the end are an exquisite agony. 

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Note: wrt Caladara Crucifixus: This version is slower and it is easier to hear what is going-on in the counterpoint - tho' overall I find it less musical, somehow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WPkfGd1q-s . This version is an amateur camcorder recording, but extremely good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK-bPccxLME


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I have said that the modern secular intellectual elite are only kept going - in the face of their nihilism - by continual distraction.

And that, due to habituation (the biological process by which repeated identical stimuli lose their effect), these distractions must be continually novel, and/or continually increasing in strength.

This means that the PC secular elite are continually in danger of existential collapse due to a failure of distraction leading to them being confronted by their own nihilism.

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What happens then?

The best thing would be to repent and turn to Christianity; but it seems to be a huge step.

Such a huge step that not many people seem to make it.

Another thing that might happen is a reversion to the default state: paganism.

There are numerous paganisms in the world today: Hinduism probably being the biggest, followed by Buddhism (non-Zen variety) and innumerable others.

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What are the pros and cons of paganism?

One advantage is that it restores normal common sense human nature, as applied to worldly things.

It restores depth and seriousness to life: The soul is acknowledged, so is a super-natural world.

And, looking further ahead, pagans are readily converted to Christianity (as history demonstrates).

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The reason that pagans were so readily converted to Christianity relates to the bleakness of the pagan world view, on reflection.

Once the feasting and festivals are over; the thoughtful pagan recognizes life as (at its best) merely 'a sparrow's flight' through a brightly lit mead hall: coming from darkness then after a moment plunging back into darkness.

Pagan life does not really have any meaning.

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Pagans find implanted within them a natural law, and the best pagans will follow that law; they will be brave and loyal, will support and protect their family and clan, will love and create beauty, will be truthful - but they do not really know why they do so, nor do they expect this to make any difference to themselves or the world in the long term.

The world is headed either for annihilation (Ragnarok) or equally meaningless cycles of repetition (Hinduism).

So paganism is meaningless in the big picture, and purposeless.

And this is why pagans are so readily converted to Christianity: as Pascal saw so clearly, Christianity is much preferable to paganism, we would much prefer it to be true; and since (for pagans) there is very good evidence of the truth of Christianity - many or most pagans will become Christian - given the chance.

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The main problem with paganism is that it does not share the Christian conception of pride as the worst sin - therefore paganism (like materialist secularism) tends to encourage pride.

Pagan religious experience therefore tends to cause a lot more harm than good: to be a source of reinforcing pride rather than virtue. 

The great virtue of paganism is not humility but stoicism, or uncomplaining suffering.

The 'good pagan' practices proper behaviour without cause or reason or hope: and, while noble, is therefore a dry, sad and futile figure:

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Still, on the whole, resurgent paganism might be a 'step in the right direction' for secular modernity. And paganism may indeed be a necessary step - a transitional stage on the road to truth.

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I agree with C.S. Lewis that paganism is the default spiritual state for thoughtful humans.

Reason plus human nature = paganism

But clearly modern Western man is not pagan. Why?

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The answer (very briefly) is that intellectuals are deficient in human nature.

Probably for evolutionary reasons - to do with the rapid evolution of higher general intelligence in high latitude large scale agricultural societies -

the most intelligent people...

(especially - perhaps - the most intelligent women -
http://medicalhypotheses.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-are-women-so-intelligent.html )

...had the greatest reproductive success in these societies.

Ref: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/a_farewell_to_alms.html

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This created an intellectual elite which is deficient in 'common sense' and with an over-strong tendency to favour abstraction.

For intellectuals 'human nature' is much weaker; and there is a strong tendency towards denial of the soul, denial of transcendental goods; towards materialism, this-worldism, agnosticism and atheism. 

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When this intellectual class became the ruling class ('meritocracy'), they progressively imposed their atheism on the rest of the population via the mass media - initially via newspapers, magazines, books and lectures and later by the modern mass media.

That is why we are not pagans.

Remove the mass media, or remove the intellectual ruling class - and we revert to paganism.

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At least for a while - but (all else being equal), monotheism will sooner or later overcome paganism (by its potentially superior social organization, perhaps; by its higher chosen fertility more certainly).

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The answer is yes - PC is self-destroying, after all - but that isn't necessarily good news.

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Clearly, the politically correct ruling elite - based mainly in politics, public administration, the media and education - are decadent.

They hate their own views, hate their jobs, hate themselves, are weary of responsibility.

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They don't really like anyone - as evidence by the fact that they avoid-in-droves the people whom they supposedly support. 

Exempli gratia: the intellectual elite fail utterly to emigrate to 'Palestine' - which is (according to them) the most admirable and important place in the world for PC elites to support. Or to Cuba, or Venezuela.


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The only thing holding-together the PC elite is hatred and fear of domestic conservatives and liberals.

This hatred and fear is indeed rational - as far as it goes - since the PC elites (being aware of their own ineffectiveness and uncreativity, their own corruption, their parasitism) fear a wholesale anti-intellectual back-lash which would consign the current intellectual elite to servile status.

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At an existential level, the intellectual elite fear the loss of those lifestyle freedoms - especially sexual freedoms - which serve the PC elite as a substitute for religious hope.

For a PC intellectual to be deprived of his day-dreams is almost literal death.

The nihilist keeps going only by distraction, and distraction only remains effective with a wide range of changing choices;  since everyone has their own favoured distractions - what works for them - upon which they depend.

To threaten removal of these distractions (the ever-changing and expanding range of symbolic objects, virtual realities, dreams of holidays, escapes to the country, seductions, ecstasies, adulation, or simply peaceful self-delighted bliss - or of all of these) is to threaten existential death.

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At present the PC elite hate and fear domestic conservatives and reactionaries even more than they hate themselves.

So it is fear that keeps things together. 

And fear keeps things going - but only on a day by day basis. Only very precariously.

Because at any time PC intellectuals might start to fear themselves, or fear their dependent clients, more than they fear domestic conservatives or reactionaries.

And at such a point there will be a rapid collapse of morale among the intellectual class, and the PC elite will become desperate to hand-over the reins of power - may indeed simply walk-away from power en masse.

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But the immediate outcome of a collapse of PC morale is not necessarily likely to be good, because it may be unexpected and what replaces it entirely depends on who would take-over power.

At a national level there may be no suitable group to take-over administration, and the nation state would then collapse down to anarchy in most places with mere centres of organization dotted around the landscape.

The outcome would be very different in different places in the West, and within the US - compare Los Angeles with Salt Lake City; compare a unified national military government with and alternative of hundreds of gangs: where would you rather be if the national government collapsed?

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When PC collapses, social order will become the priority (because without order nothing much can happen, and there is only personal-level power: Big men and their family-based gangs); and that which enables the largest and most complex social order over the longest period is likely to prevail.

This will differ locally. People tend always to think about the military as a focus of order.

But 'history tells us' that a society ruled purely by force will not be large or complex; and a society which is ruled by military and priests - a religious state - is therefore likely to prevail - in the long term.

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This is why I keep returning to the choice after PC, after modernity: it boils down to a choice between religions.

At present, in the West, that religion seems unlikely to be Christianity. 

This is why I cannot feel optimistic about any socio-political future that displaces PC unless it was preceded by a sincere Christian revival among those likely to become the next generation of rulers.

Because if the future rulers are not Christians, then they will be something else.

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[Note: I apologise that the above analysis is merely from a secular perspective, and indeed a hedonic evaluation of life;  ignoring the most important question of the truth of religions.]

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To continue the argument of the previous post -

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/11/nationalism-today-nationalism-of.html

- another way to state the matter is that previous nationalisms have been originated and led by the officer class.

But nowadays, since the officer class is politically correct, if a nationalism were to arise (which seems unlikely) it would need to originate from and be led by the Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) class: that is to say led by the Sergeants and Corporals; and not by the Majors and Captains.

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All else being equal, under normal circumstances, an army led by Officers will be much more effective than an army led by NCOs.

But these are not normal circumstances.

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The modern situation in the West resembles that of a city under siege.

The city is threatened by riots within and by the enemy without.

However, the officer class have become decadent.

The officers find uncouth, are bored-by, scared-of, and have come to loathe the NCOs and squaddies of their own city.

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Periodically, groups of indigents approach the besieged city gates.

Some are hopeless cases - displaced peasants from the surrounding area, some are shrewd merchants from here and there - keen to work hard and make some money, some are petty criminals - others not-so-petty criminals.

And some of the indigents at the gate are enemy fifth columnists - who intend at some point in the future to inflict violence and mayhem to aid the besiegers.

Whoever the indigents are and whatever their intention, the officers invariably feel sorry for them, and always let them all in; and direct the NCOs to make sure the new arrivals are well taken care of - by allocating them a generous share of the squaddies rations and living quarters.

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And within the cities own indigenous population are large mobs of sturdy vagrants who are either too feckless to be of any use, or simply refuse to help with the defense of the walls.


These beggars and barflys roam around robbing, having parties and staging riots.The NCOs are not forbidden to intervene but will be harshly punished if they transgress any of the very strict (and continually changing) rules of engagement.

On orders from the officer class, the sturdy vagrants receive a daily dole of bread and beer from the squaddies supplies.

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This is roughly (and in a purely materialist sense - which leaves-put the vital spiritual and religious dimension) the situation of the modern West.

Nationalism is (at minimum) an attempt to make effective the defense of the city - first to stop admitting then to expel fifth columnists and parasites, and to suppress internal disorder. 

But the officers will not do this.

So, if the city has not fallen first (and that is a big 'if') then at some point, perhaps, there may be an NCO mutiny - and the army will be taken-over and run by the senior sergeants.

Because a city will be better defended by an army led by loyal NCOs, than by an army led by traitorous officers. 

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If this kind of nationalism happens, it would surely, necessarily, be accompanied by a powerful anti-officer campaign - during which officers would be purged from all significant positions of leadership - and replaced by sergeants.

What would result would be a pretty shambolic form of army, of society. Yet it would not have to be well-organized; only better-organized than the forces which oppose it.

If nothing else happens first, at some point in the cultural decline that is political correctness the point will be passed at which a nationalist NCO-led army will be more effective than an army led by anti-nationalist officers.

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Yet before this happens, it may well be that the city will fall to the enemy; and instead of being run by an NCO army of the indigenous population, the city will instead be taken-over by an officer-led army of invaders.

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Leaving aside the question of whether or not it would be beneficial, is it likely that resurgent secular nationalism can unify the right and could reverse the cultural suicide of PC?

Because that seems to be an assumption among many of the US based conservative commentators, and an aspiration of rightist commentators from other countries.

But I will argue that a secular nationalism would nowadays have a strongly different character from most secular nationalisms of the past. 

A modern nationalism might perhaps save the nation (probably at the cost of fracturing it into smaller nations) - but it would not save the national culture.

*

When nationalism was an effective political force, it was a movement which was already there, it did not need much encouragement.

In most counties - perhaps all of them - nationalism originated with the ruling elites - often the lower ranks of the elites (i.e. the most numerous ranks): people like school teacher and lower administrators, also journalists and artists.

In other words, past successful nationalisms were led by a high-cultural elite: it was a nationalism of clerks. 

In other words, past effective nationalisms originated with exactly those groups which are nowadays the most politically correct, least nationalistic, most in favour of multi-culturalism.

Any modern nationalism would therefore need to be very different from past nationalisms.

*

The apparent exception of National Socialism is deceptive: German nationalism was a nineteenth century phenomenon, driven by the upper classes. At most the Nazis (who were lower class intellectuals, outside of the normal German elite of aristocrats and Professors) - hijacked this already-existing powerful nationalism: certainly they did not create it. And the Nazis did not so much promote German culture as destroy German High Culture - leaving behind only a much simplified and selective populist folk culture.

*

Of course new things can happen - and we are, after all, in an unprecedented situation: i.e. the new experience of deliberate, strategic, sustained, cultural and biological suicide by the intellectual elites, taking their nations and cultures with them.

Perhaps such a novel situation will inevitably lead to new and unforseen types of political response? - perhaps including a nationalism which is opposed by the exact groups which (in previous nationalisms) supported it?

*

In line with this, what does seem to be resurgent in the West (to some extent - maybe limited) is a lower class, populist nationalism.

What we are seeing is a nationalism led by the skilled working class rather than the teachers, lower civil servants and writers - we are seeing a nationalism of tradesman rather than clerks.

*

(And perhaps tradesman-led nationalism may be much bigger and more powerful than it seems, because it lacks a voice and the hostility of the communications personnel will naturally minimize and misrepresent it. Or maybe it is much smaller than it seems? - because the hatred and fear of the clerks towards the tradesmen leads to the clerks to perceive the threat of new nationalisms as bigger than it really is.)

*

To be successful, such a nationalism of the tradesmen would, surely, need to be be anti-intellectual and anti-upper class- would seek to replace the effete, irrelevant, decadent clerks with sensible skilled workers?

*

In such a society, warrior virtues would presumably predominate - courage, strength, loyalty, perhaps common-sense and concrete effectiveness; and there would consequently be few high status, ruling positions for intellectuals, high-artists and abstract thinkers.

In a tradesman-led nationalism, intellectuals would, rather, be allocated subordinate status as servants and functionaries.

(Recall that the bulk of intellectuals - clerks and teachers - in many past civilizations were often slaves, eunuchs and celibates.)

*
 
In sum, I do not think it likely that nationalism will again become powerful in modern societies, because the traditionally nationalist clerks are now anti-nationalist; the only possibility is a nationalism of the tradesmen.

But if I am wrong, and nationalism does again become powerful, it would have to be a new kind of nationalism. A new nationalism of the skilled working class: a nationalism of the tradesmen.

And (to mobilize support and maintain cohesion) any effective nationalism of the tradesmen would surely be openly and explicitly anti-intellectual and anti-upper class - which means that it would be 'anti-culture'.

*

More exactly, under a nationalism of the upper working class/ lower middle class, the complex upper middle class 'high culture' would be radically simplified and selected-from to generate (or regenerate) a popular folk culture which is suitable for the tradesman class  - that is, a class who are only secondarily concerned with culture, who do not regard high culture as a primary matter bound up with their personal identity, status and livelihood.

Rather, the lower class leaders are likely to regard high culture with hostility, based on the suspicion (often accurate) that it is a tool for forcing the tradesmen class into subordinate status and for elevating the status of the clerks.

*


(Note: I have been talking here of secular nationalisms. There are other social possibilities for religious societies that I have not mentioned above.)

*

Most secular conservatives and libertarians agree with liberals that nations should be ruled by an intellectual elite - this is simply taken for granted.

Intellect is seen as the primary qualification for leadership. 


Yet, looking across history, it is clear that it is seldom that intellectuals - as such - have been rulers; most usually it has been warriors and/ or priests: and the ruling priests were not necessarily intellectuals.

Of course it is best if leaders can be intellectuals as well as possessing other qualities - and the very greatest leaders usually were intellectuals in addition to much else.

For example, King Alfred the Great was a great intellectual, as well as a great military leader and an exceptionally devout Christian.

Winston Churchill had a tremendous intellect - or at least he was a tremendous writer - as well as orator; as well as having clarity of purpose, integrity and courage.

But it is easy to find examples of bad leaders who were exceptionally intelligent - Henry XIII for example. Not to mention Lenin, Mao and Hitler.

The point is that we should not make intellect a necessary attribute of leaders, because the quality of leadership is so rare that if we do insist on intellectuals, we will find ourselves led by people who are intellectuals but lack other basic necessary qualities, lack other more important qualities.

Intellectuals that want intellectuals to run things are self-serving in a short termist sense - but need to think harder about what has happened when they get what they want. 

*

*

The evolution of political correctness was an exponential process going back a thousand years and more, but (as with all exponential processes) the early stages are hard to detect because the size of the phenomenon was so small.

But (like all exponential processes) once the phenomenon had became visible for sure (late 1960s), it grew very fast.

(Also the doubling-time shortened as the process advanced - so in fact it is not really exponential at all! Just figuratively.)

In this context, I think perhaps the first really evident jump into PC was the abolition movement which originated among English Quakers and spread to evangelicals, then to mass support in England.


*

Of course, everybody regards slavery as an evil nowadays. At least they do in a theoretical sense - although nothing is done(not even cheap and easy steps) to abolish resurgent slavery abroad; and even within the West (where slavery is tacitly tolerated by the authorities when it happens in some ethnic groups - presumably on 'multi-cultural' grounds).

Nonetheless, if you look at the abolitionist movement, it clearly has many of the characteristics of modern political correctness in embryo.

Furthermore the abolition movement was ruthless in its self-confidence, its desire to impose its reality globally: slavery was abolished everywhere in the world (except for some tiny, shrinking pockets in sub-Saharan Africa) in a long and dynamic (not to say ruthless) campaign stretching over many decades, and mostly by military coercion when the British Empire was at its height.

The passing of the acts of parliament to abolish the slave trade, then to abolish slavery in the Empire were merely the beginning of the process. The actual abolition of slavery everywhere had to be imposed by unrelenting, long-term political and military pressure, and backed-up by the guns of the Royal Navy which had a long reach. 

*

In this respect the abolition movement was the antithesis of the feeble submissiveness of modern political correctness. Nonetheless, abolition shared the presumption of PC that ethics were susceptible of discovery and advancement - not by divine revelation, but by human social consensus.

*

Abolition showed that there might be an avant garde of elite opinion, and that the mass of the public might be brought around to views that they found initially incomprehesible, abhorrent or dangerous.

In particular, abolition was built on the 'discovery' (initially by Nonconformist Protestants and Anglican evangelicals) that slavery was utterly unacceptable and must be stopped at any cost was a realization that entailed overthrowing 1800 years of Christian morality.

*

The 'discovery' that Christianity ruled-out slavery entailed the assumption of moral progress, that modern abolitionists were more morally advanced than the ancient Greeks and Romans, than the Apostles, Saints and Holy Fathers and the greatest theologians of all previous eras.

Until the abolition movement, all societies in history had accepted slavery as a fact. Slavery was universal wherever it could be afforded.

It was only in England, among a small group of protestants in the late 1700s, that the discovery was made that slavery was intolerable, was indeed the worst of sins, and must be eradicated at any cost.

Abolition can thus be seen as an early example of progressivism - despite the contrast with PC that abolition was being advocated and implemented by muscular and militaristic Christians.

*

What was different about abolitionism was a fanaticism based on abstractness and universality of ethics.

Abolition was not primarily self-interested but was genuinely altruistic - in enforcing abolition upon the world the British Empire gave up a considerable amount of profitable enterprise, expended vast amounts of treasure in military action and in compensation of slave owners, expended prime manpower (and suffered heavy casualties) in the slave wars.

For instance the British military station in Sierra Leone, specifically for enforcing abolition, suffered a mortality rate of 50 percent per year due to tropical disease - a stunningly high number, such that to be stationed there was almost a death sentence - justifying its nickname of 'the white man's grave'. 

And  the costs were immense for many slaves, who were killed during these military actions, were slain by slavers and thrown overboard from ships to avoid incrimination, and who in many instances suffered death and extreme hardship following liberation .

*

So abolition has this dual face. In some ways it was the greatest altruistic moral achievement ever (in so far as costly altruism is supposedly the ultimate virtue for secular liberal morality).

In other ways abolition was the beginning of reality-proof morality, the morality of designated 'good acts' (regardless of ensuing consequences) and of the modern style prideful, hate-filled, self--gratifying justification-by-motivations - and therefore a precursor to political correctness.

*

*

The only safe people in a system of political correctness are members of indulged victim groups. They can do what they like, and it is up to the PC masters to make excuses for them, and find the support to enable them to continue. 

But the news is not all good - because as an indulged victim you lack moral responsibility, which means you are in effect treated as a child or an imbecile.

Kindly-treated, no doubt - nonetheless, to be regarded as a species of incompetent can sometimes be a source of... friction?

*

Exactly because you are not to blame for what you think or do, you are a victim of circumstances - and therefore you are not and never can be a moral exemplar.

You are tolerated - with affection or with irritation - but you are not admired.

Because by merely existing you are regarded as special - therefore anything that you might think or do is automatically invalidated, rendered invisible. 

Your thoughts and behaviours are bracketed, encapsulated - set apart from that progressive moral actuality which is the preserve of the PC intellectual elite.

*

To be a member of an indulged group is to be a perpetual moral infant - not responsible for ones actions, un-free, a product of uncontrollable impulse and overwhelming environment, an acted-upon object not a determining subject.


You may be flattered by praise - as teachers praise the efforts of a young child: "Whose a clever boy, then!" - but you are not and never can be one of the 'teachers'.

*

But how can PC intellectuals square this with the demands of the victim groups, and with their own guilty consciences?


By converting ever-more of life into supervised games.

In a contrived context of make-believe (but only in that context) it is possible both to be an indulged victim and at the same time one of the teachers.

*

So education, public administration, the legal system - all become supervised games; run by PC adults who allocate 'important jobs' to the kids: they make the kids prefects, milk monitors, team captains - and the 'adults' hope that none of the 'kids' will ever notice that don't get to be head master.

*

Originally, the PC elite covertly recognized that since these supervised games are merely make-believe, the real business of life must go on elsewhere.

The economy,science and technology, serious politics and mainstream major media remained under PC control - at most the victim groups would be used as window dressing, puppets or mouthpieces.

But since the PC elite do not believe in reality, they do not believe in truth, so they lie all the time: lie to themselves, and to each other, as well as to outsiders - and of course they have by now lost sight of what they originally knew: that the system can only carry on if make-believe supervised games are not allowed to interfere with the serious stuff - the vital, frontline social functions: the police, the military, the economy, and science and technology.

*

The PC elite have entered the realms of psychosis, indeed of dementia - they just assume that the important stuff will happen automatically and without attention, indeed will not just happen but grow despite the imposition of PC priorities as more important than the primary function.

Excuses are no longer tolerated for PC failures: the military might be excused losing wars, the police might fail to control riots, terrorist may slay at will, unemployment and inflation might rise, science and technological breakthroughs might dry-up - and none of this matters so long as all social institutions become ever-more 'diverse' by favouring ever-more victim groups and pursue ever-more more-environmentally-friendly policies.

*

Science and technology will, it is assumed, continue to provide breakthroughs forever; the economy will continue to expand; the police will maintain public order or (since people will have better attitudes) there will be less need for police; the military will keep us safe or (since we will be such better people) we will not have so many enemies.

The necessary stuff just happens.

But the important stuff is done to us, done for us, by the PC supervisors.


*

*

There is no safety for the ruling elite in a system of Political Correctness; anyone at all is susceptible to denunciation for any reason or no reason at any time.

This applies to the ultra-PC just as much to the openly reactionary.

Indeed, the PC elite seem more vulnerable - since it is hard to keep-up with the pace of change. One is only a single gaffe away from disaster.

(A gaffe is when an elite PC intellectual accidentally forgets to lie.)

Since PC is a wave of moral 'progress' which leaves-behind all previous moral standards and behaviours - there can be no accumulation of moral capital.

*

You are only as good as today's match between your motivations and the ever-changing societal symbols of virtue.

PC assumes that (as an elite intellectual) your motivations are bad unless proven good - and motivations cannot be proven.

You cannot ever prove conclusively, against hostile skepticism, that you are deep-down and overall a decent person - not least because it is very unlikely that you are a decent person - after all, who is?.

This means that social diktat (from whatever cause - such as elite competition, the need for a scapegoat, or the whim of the media) can arbitrarily decide at any time to stop giving you the benefit of the intrinsic doubt, and you will be helpless, isolated - potentially stripped of all moral status. 

*

For the intellectual elite there is no security.

The only security is to be a member, a representative member, of an indulged group. A victim group - a group which is a targeted beneficiary of PC.

*

As an indulged group member your actions and motivations are tolerated almost without limit - it is a test of PC that this be so.

The degree of PC moral status in the elite correlates closely with the degree of tolerance that you accord to victim groups - when this becomes suicidal license we have entered the realms of PC sainthood.

PC saints are those well-meaning people martyred in pursuit of PC approved activities - idealistic aid workers who choose to devote their lives specifically to assisting societies that are devoted to training anti-Western terrorists, and who (being Westerners) are taken  hostages by these anti-Western terrorists, and continue to support the anti-Western terrorists even unto death - and so on.

To be truly PC is to die for one's delusions; next best is to survive but (sorrowfully) to sacrifice one's family and social group. 

*

*

Since modernity broke apart the moral universes of action and motivation (of faith and works)...

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/11/faith-and-works-in-secular-modernity.html

...it cannot put Humpty together again.

Political Correctness (PC) therefore can find no satisfactory basis for moral action.

*

The moral universe of PC subsists on two distinct realities - good causes and good intentions, but never the twain can stay stuck-together.

A collection PC socially-approved acts confronts the individual; and it is up to him to manufacture his own subjective motivations for these acts (and pass them off to himself and others as convincingly as possible).

Or else he starts with his motivations - his sympathies and desires - and manufactures more-or-less plausible symbolic acts by which these motivations are (supposedly) implemented; and it is up to the intellectual elite to manufacture some more-or-less plausible evidence that these acts flow from these motivations and are (or have potential to be) effective in the real world.

*

Somehow, motivations and acts never add-up to a morally cohesive world.

The sympathetic motivation to (for instance) relieve the suffering poor in Africa and the social-status-earning acts of raising and spending aid money 'for' Africa never add-up to virtue: the suffering of the Africans is exacerbated and made permanent, the sympathy is swamped by guilt.

Wishful-thinking 'love' for abstract Africans is swamped by hatred of nearby ideological opponents among the elite who challenge the genuineness of PC motivations and the effectiveness of PC actions.

*

The spontaneous up-welling of self-disgust at self-pride seeks its opposite not in humility but in guilt-ridden submission.

The guilt-ridden and submissive state of numbed paralysis is utterly demotivating and destructive of the capacity to act.

And therefore natural vitality up-wells to save the individual from despair.

So, wretched submissiveness oscillates with arrogant moral grandstanding.

*

The peculiarity of Political Correctness comes from its nihilism, its denial of the reality of the real - therefore the continual conflict between the subjectivity of individual motivation and the subjectivity of group-sanctioned rules; between the changeable inner self, and the changeable external sanctions.

Neither inner nor outer subjectivity arise from depths, and any connections between the inner and the outer are abstract, arbitrary, willed - and evanescent.

Act stands as a symbol, and the symbolic meaning is subject to continual change.

(PC is intrinsically self-transcending - each new wave continually superseding and leaving-behind the previous rule and sanction system.)

Even as act is intended to be an objectification of subjective motivation, it remains objective only for as long as the social consensus holds; and the social consensus does not hold, but instead 'progresses'.

*

Since progress is defined in terms of leaving-behind, the good is that which has left-behind the wicked; the wicked is that which has been left-behind by the movement of progress.

If being left-behind is due to ignorance or incompetence, then that is okay - tolerated, even indulged and made the object of missionary work ('consciousness raising') - which is itself (somewhat) morally gratifying (being both socially approved and in-line with motivations); albeit missionary work (in a world where nothing is real or permanent or lastingly superior) is also disgustingly arrogant, self-superior and guilt-inducing.

But if being left-behind is wilful, if being left-behind is a matter of refusing and resisting the next step in the march of moral progress - then this is plain wicked and hatred-justifying.

Which is pleasant for PC - because hatred for the informed and wilful reactionary is its main under-pinning motivation - hatred is what gets it out-of-bed on cold winter mornings. 

*

Under a system of PC, here and now in the West, the individual must adjust, again and again, to the widening wave of socially-defined progress, of moral denial, extrapolation and inversion.

Such repeated and unending adjustment is the individual's non-negotiable moral duty as a responsible adult member of the ruling elite.

So, the essence of PC morality is to keep-up with moral progress - to match one's inner motivation with the changing nature of socially-approved action (i.e. socially-approved by the ruling elite).

*

And the moral exemplar, the hero of PC ethics, is he whose convincingly-stated motivations are slightly ahead of the current state of socially-sanctioned actions, perceptibly 'advanced': further along in the direction that social progress is trending.

Nice work if you can get it. 

*

*

There is a real problem about goodness in secular modernity - a division between being good and doing good: between motivations and actions.

*

What people seek is to perform actions which are self-justifying, which are good in themselves - the justification is (hoped or asserted to be) in the form of the activity, the type of thing it is.

There are many such lists of approved behaviours - different between social groups.

But we also recognize, in our hearts, that 'works' are not justifying, that works are not good in themselves. That supposedly 'good works, can be done with bad motivations.

And that good works may have bad outcomes - or at least mixed outcomes with - apparently - bad predominating.

*

Motivations are important,and there is another current of modern thought which is all about intentions, being well-meaning, convincing oneself and others that we want good things.

And indeed insisting (trying to insist) that we are judged by our motivations not outcomes.

Yet we also recognise that this is - of itself - merely a form of self-gratification, of hedonism - feelings - feeling virtuous, feeling more virtuous than others, feeling virtuous despite doing nothing or doing things which are harmful.

Invulnerable self-righteousness...

*

Reality is not divided into motivations and actions, faith and works - reality is unified, to divide it is an act of violence, and there is loss - reality is not halved, but each fragment remaining is less than half - something having been destroyed by ripping them apart.

*

Instead of pride and hatred the motivation must be humility and love - but not submission to those who hate us, nor love as a species of wishful thinking.

*

In order to energize ourselves to do good actions, do good works, we use evil motivations - pride and hatred notably: we stoke-up our own pride, we allow ourselves to hate, indeed whip ourselves into hatred - and we justify this to ourselves by the idea that we will use this energy in a good cause.

This is mainstream.

We invite evil (and we know it to be evil) into our hearts and societies - with the excuse that we will harness the demonic forces for good: like hiring orcs as mercenaries and paying them with human flesh...

*

*

I first read Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories about 1975, and liked it a lot - except for the Epilogue, which made no sense to me. It still made no sense to me when I re-read the essay about three years ago.

But I can understand it now, having become a Christian in the meantime.

Indeed, I can now perceive that this is one of the most important things that Tolkien ever wrote - because it was apparently the point when he justified to himself his own longstanding desire to write Fantasy.

*

Epilogue to On Fairy Stories, by JRR Tolkien - excerpts with my notes in [square brackets]. 

*

"Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

"If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality.

"The peculiar quality of the “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.

"It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?”

"The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist).

"But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world." (...)

*

[Tolkien is saying that successful fantasy is that which generates the peculiar emotion of joy, from a 'turn' in the story that he terms the eucatastrophe (the 'good catastrophe'). He is saying that this joy comes from recognition of a truth, and that this truth is ultimately a human version of the good news of the Christian story.

[In other words, while successful Fantasy does indeed offer legitimate satisfactions such as 'recovery, escape, consolation' there is even more to Fantasy than this.

[Tolkien is stating that the reason for Fantasy's power to delight and inspire, is that it is a 'far-off gleam or echo' of Christian story - and therefore that this power comes ultimately from God - and not from the artist. It is divinely inspired - and not a product of craft or artistry.]

*

(Epilogue continued)

"I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature.

[Tolkien means that the Fantasy writer, he is talking of himself, has had the impulsion to write Fairy Stories implanted by God - or rather than God has used the desire (which is probably in origin a corrupt and prideful desire) for his own purposes.]

"The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe.

"But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation.

[This is the key sentence. The 'desire and aspiration of sub-creation' which Tolkien himself experiences 'has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation' - in other words, Tolkien's deep longing to write Fairy Stories can contribute - in however small a scale - to God's plan for the world. Tolkien goes on to spell this out:]

*

"The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” (...)

"But in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on.

"The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.”

"The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.

"So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation.

[This is, of course, precisely what the character Niggle does in the story Leaf by Niggle which - in most editions - accompanies the essay On Fairy Stories. Niggle's detailed picture of a many-leaved tree and its surrounding environment (or rather, his imagined ideal for such a picture) becomes real in heaven; is indeed added-to heaven, and assists in the salvation of human souls.]

*

"All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know."

*

*

When you look at how many new plays get written and performed every year, it is remarkable how little drama is lasting - how little of it is really any good.

I don't know how many good, lasting novels there are in English literature, from previous generations - hundreds or thousands of them.

Books that people still buy and read; books that are are worth re-reading.

But hardly any plays.

*

In drama there are so few lasting works that you can be a famous playwright for doing just one of them: Oliver Goldsmith for She Stoops to Conquer or Oscar Wilde for The Importance of Being Earnest.

In the whole 18th century there are indeed only three standard classic plays - She Stoops and two others by Sheridan: The Rivals and School for Scandal.

There were periods of many decades when not a single lasting play was written. I know there are several so-called 'Restoration Comedies' - but really...?

*

In fact, if you subtracted Shakespeare and Shaw (who were both prolific of classic plays) - drama would pretty much disappear from the literary canon.

If it wasn't for Shakespeare, who would (except from curiosity) want to sit through anything by Christopher Marlowe or Ben Jonson? Or Webster, or Beaumont and Fletcher? Not I.

If it wasn't for Shaw, who would bother with Pinero, or Galsworthy?

*

Plays which seemed overwhelmingly good on first viewing (for me this would include Tom Stoppard's Jumpers and Travesties, and Harold Pinter's The Caretaker) after a while seem unlikely to survive.

Indeed, in most respects, it seems that theatre is even more ephemeral than movies.

Assuming the medium itself survives, there were a lot more classic movies in the twentieth century than there were classic plays - does anyone really want to see an Arthur Miller play nowadays?

*

I would guess that there never have been, and presumably never will be, many really good plays. 

Indeed, leave-out Shakespeare and Shaw and it would be a reasonable approximation to say that there are no really good plays at all, and theatre is merely a diversion.

*

*

I have often seen references to Charles Williams (1996-1945) as if he were uneducated, which is not true.

Indeed, it is based on a misunderstanding of the English educational system - which seems worth clearing-up here.

Charles Williams was, however, while being as an adult a member of the upper middle class (although at the bottom level of this class - as are most members of it) of a lower rank within the upper middle class than most of the other Inklings.

This was because C.W. had begun life as the son of a lower middle class tradesman (a clockmaker).

*

In the old English class system, the main cleavage was between the lower middle class - who were skilled tradesmen and craftsmen - and the upper middle class, who were non-manual workers, privately educated (at a fee paying school, or else at home by a governess/ tutor).

The upper middle class were 'gentlemen' and the lower middle class were not - even though many or most of the top rungs of the lower middle class might be much wealthier than the bottom rungs of the upper middle class which consisted of the likes of clerks, school masters and junior civil servants.

*

As son of a skilled craftsman, Charles Williams began life at the top of the lower middle class; but since he was privately educated at the school now called St Alban's Grammar School, he became a member of the upper middle class - albeit at the very bottom.

The fact that C.W. went through St Alban's school is also evidence that he could not remotely be described as un-educated.

Americans often do not realize the selectivity and advanced education which went on at schools like St Albans - the leaver reached an academic level pretty much equivalent to that of a college graduate in the USA.

Take a look at the alumni of St Albans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Albans_School_%28Hertfordshire%29

There are few schools (some, but not many) who could boast such a roster of famous ex-pupils: including the most famous living scientist: Stephen Hawking.

To be have completed one's education at a major English grammar school like St Alban's was to be among the intellectual elite.

*

From St Alban's, C.W. went to University College, London - which has always been highly ranked among English universities - in the rank below Oxford and Cambridge.

Williams left UCL after two years (due to financial problems) without taking a degree - but to complete two-thirds of a degree at an English university in the early twentieth century was, again, to reach a very advanced level of education - just a few percent of the population would ever get that far.

And the level would be considerably beyond that of a US college graduate - perhaps about equivalent to a US Masters degree of that era?

*

So it is nonsense to imply that Charles Williams had an inadequate or deficient education.

Of course Williams was at a lower level than CS Lewis (Oxford triple first class degree in Classics - both parts - and English) or Tolkien (first class degree in English, one of the youngest Oxford Professors of recent times).

But the main difference was in Williams's class origin - Tolkien's father was a bank manager and Lewis's was a solicitor - both upper (not lower) middle class, although at a lowish level within that class.

As lasting evidence of this origin on the 'wrong' side of the great class divide, Williams retained a South East English regional accent throughout his life (which some people refer to as 'cockney').

*

So Williams was someone who was highly-educated, but of a lower class origin - although having been to a great grammar school and studied at university, before becoming a clerk then editor in the immensely respectable firm of the Oxford University Press. 

By middle age, Williams was very firmly a member of the upper middle class; and part of the same social circle as the other Inklings.

Nonetheless, it was his relatively lowly class origins (and not his level of education) that account for the unmistakable tone of condescension observable when Lewis and others talked or wrote about Williams. 

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One special quality of modernity is the thinness of life.

The way in which questioning leads us down a path in which every answer is more precise but also more detached than the previous answer - until we find ourselves in a realm of pure disengaged abstraction.

Twas not always thus!

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Questions used to lead to myth - to mystery; not to dead academicism.

This is why - despite his being the greatest, most complete in achievement, of all philosophers - ultimately I would regard Thomas Aquinas as the first step in a disastrous direction.

My experience with Aquinas is typical of my experience with almost all Western higher thought since Aquinas - that as we pursue the path of reason we find ourselves ever further adrift and alienated. We may be bludgeoned into acceptance, or we may be repelled and leave the arena - but in neither instance are we really satisfied.

On the one hand, we want explanations to be concrete and clear, on the other hand to be of personal as well as universal significance - in other words, we want relevant myths, but also we want the myths to be true as well as relevant.

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It is extremely rare to come across anything which satisfies this craving. And our own corruption of spirit often sabotages us in the search - our own inability to think mythically, our inability to accept mystery rather than pull it apart until it dies, our inability to believe in any kind of reality (whether mythical or otherwise) - all these socially conditioned habits stand in the path, and block it.

Yet it is precisely this which I find in Orthodoxy as expounded by Fr. Seraphim Rose. Uniquely, he seemed able to be clear and exact without killing the mystery and myth; his expounding of the Orthodox understanding of the Soul After Death is an example.

The exposition of traditional doctrines (such as the 'toll houses', and the angels and demons that meet the newly-separated soul) is both very clear (to a child-like extent) and also very non-literal, both asserted as true and simultaneously as mythic.

Somehow the story element is not philosophized out of existence, nor yet is it regarded as metaphorical purely.

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It is a mark of our contemporary corruption (fragmentation and atomization of thought) that this style of unified intellectual thinking is so very, very rare now - and indeed has become all but impossible for the intellectual and/ or educated elite.

How fortunate, then, that we have at least (and perhaps it is enough) the work of Seraphim Rose - which although modern is accessible to those in broad sympathy, and although traditional yet addresses modern concerns and deficiencies.

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Why do non-modern-classical instruments and players sometimes sound much better than modern classical instruments and players?

Not always, but sometimes.

And this despite accepting - as I do - that great classical players, singers and instruments are supreme in their field.

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Why does a jazz clarinet player like Acker Bilk or Monty Sunshine make a nicer sound than any classical clarinet player?

For that matter, why do some early clarinets from the 18th-19th century, make a nicer sound (at their best) than modern ones?

Why do jazz and blues sax players (from Paul Desmond to King Curtis) sound so much better than classical sax players?

Why are trumpets used in modern classical orchestras when cornets sound better, and were generally used in the 19th century?

Why were keyed conical brass instruments (ophecleide etc) dropped from the classical orchestra during the late 19th century and replaced with valved cylindrical brass instruments (trombone, tuba etc)? 

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The answer is pretty straightforward - a compromise with other priorities.

In the end you get what (poet) Philip Larkin complained about in modern jazz compared with the old stuff - the old jazzers treated the instrument as a human voice; modern jazzers treat the human voice as an instrument.

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It is to do with the professionalization of music, especially of composition.

Non-classical players strive for tone, above all.

In pursuit of this they will transpose into the most favourable key, rewrite, and do whatever necessary to achieve their goal.

Classical musicians strive for even-ness of technique - for equal facility in all keys, dynamics and registers, for smoothness of transition between registers, for effortless facility across all types and styles.

Therefore their tone in any given register, key or dynamic is always somewhat sub-optimal.

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Early clarinets sounded great in certain keys and registers - but had uneven tone in other keys and registers. Cornets are beautiful in the low register but change quality as they get higher, have a smaller range than trumpets, and are rather breathy on high notes. Keyed brass instruments sound great on their best notes, but tend to change tone and volume on certain notes.

It is the same story as even/ equal temperament tuning for keyboards - equal temperament sound equally acceptable/ quite-good in all keys - but other tuning methods are better for their best keys. 

In other words, classical music has continually taken the path of even-ness. Better to be 85 % across all the keys and registers than 100 percent in some and 70 percent in others.

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The tenor voice provides a good example.

Up to the mid 19th century the classical tenor sang in (at least) two registers - a high baritone chest voice, and a falsetto flavoured head voice - and there was a break in between these registers.

A really great tenor would sound really great in both of these registers, but each register sounded quite different.

However, this style of singing limited the composers freedom to write musical phrases which crossed between registers - since it would sound peculiar to change register in the middle of a phrase.

So modern tenors evolved, who took the chest voice register right up to high C, which was also very loud and exciting - at the cost of considerable strain, reduced ability to sing a high tessitura, loss of some top notes, and in general a less beautiful tone.

All notes sound similar to the note next-door, but some of the notes are not as beautiful as they could be if even-ness was not a priority.

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Something similar happened in male altos - which (probably) were people with a bass chest voice, and therefore a low break in the voice where it would switch to falsetto; who sang most of the time in head voice, falsetto - but dropped into chest voice for the lowest notes.

This was fine for choral singing, but no good for solo work. 

Until Alfred Deller discovered how to stay in falsetto even for the lowest notes while still being audible. However, while acceptable - the lower notes were still quiet and sub-optimal.

Another innovation was the high tenor/ tenoraltino (Russel Oberlin, Rogers Covey Crump) who sang alto by extending the tenor range upwards into falsetto, learning how to blend the chest and head registers to disguise the break in the voice.

However, this is very difficult, very rare, and insufficiently nimble across the break for routine choral work.

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My point behind all this is to note the fatal error which classical music made in compromising with beauty.

Voices and instruments sacrificed beauty of tone in favour of other imperatives.

The composers did the same.

In the end (from Stravinsky and Schoenberg onwards) classical composers were composing music that was not beautiful at all - indeed it was not even trying to be beautiful.

Most recent classical music - far from being beautiful - is actively unpleasant; we are supposed to appreciate its other qualities, but not its beauty.

So we find ourselves in a situation where art - which originally broke away from morality in order to pursue beauty untrammeled by religious acceptability (art for art's sake; i.e. aesthetics indifferent to morality) - ended-up by being not-beautiful-at-all!

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In this we see an exact analogy for the situation in natural science - which broke away from theology (and then from philosophy) in order to pursue truth without regard for morality; and ended up being not-truthful-at-all - not even trying to be truthful.

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Note: To understand what I mean listen to the sax playing on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InQxghlWMWM

It is best to listen from the beginning, but if you can't bear to do so the sax solo comes in after 2.35 - and is the best I have ever heard, bar none.

Notice that the tone is incredibly "un-even" - no classical player could or would do this. The player is Wesley McGoogan - a virtual unknown except for this glorious few minutes of work.

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