On Unity, Diversity and Unity in Diversity

"Our ability to achieve perfect unity in diversity 

will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation." [1]

 

  

I. 

 

Whilst I wouldn't quite define myself as a cockney cowboy, nevertheless, like Jimmy Pursey, I grew up in a time and place in which solidarity was a value the working class prided themselves on and the idea of strength through unity was an unquestionable truth on both the left and right of the political spectrum [2]. 

 

If the kids - or the workers of the world, or the German people - were only united, then they'd never be divided and all would come good; unity not only making strong, but happy in a state of harmony and wholeness. 

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, such idealism is highly suspect; a dangerous utopian (and authoritarian) fantasy. From an early age, I was always more excited by conflict and controversy rather than seeking consensus; difference and diversity, not uniformity. That's why the McLarenesque model of anarchy promoted by the Sex Pistols appealed more than the progressive politics of punk social workers, the Clash.

 

However, these days I roll my eyes to heaven whenever I hear the word diversity; particularly when it's tied to equity and inclusion and falls from the mouth of someone who ultimately desires unity in diversity - i.e., a form of dialectical synthesis in which diverse characteristics are finally unified (and utilised) in some higher goal or purpose.  

 

Like many other terms that were once part of a radical vocabulary - otherness, queerness, and even the prefix trans - diversity has been co-opted by woke humanists espousing multiculturalism and waving rainbow flags, whilst all the time working to create a global citizenship, who belong to One World (and One World Order). 

 

In other words, its the same old moral monomania or idée fixe: humanity united in Peace and Love. 

 

Personally, I'd rather witness a "vivid recoil into separateness" [3] and singular being; for I hate the attempt to deny the starry uniqueness of the individual in the name of false diversity.    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Quote attributed to the holy fool and hypocrite Mahatma Gandhi.

 

[2] This idea - beloved of fascists and communists alike - originally derived from an ancient Greek motto attributed to Homer: ισχύς εν τη ενώσει (power lies in unity).  

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Future States', The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 526. For Lawrence, this recoil will mark the end of universalism and cosmopolitanism.

 

 

Readers interested in what Nietzsche has to say on the topic of diversity should see the post of 21 July 2018: click here. 

Is Anything Really Worth Fighting For?

"I know that for me, the war is wrong. 

I know that, if the [Russians] wanted my little house, 

I would rather give it them than fight for it: 

because my little house is not important enough to me." [1]

 

I. 

 

I said in a recent post with reference to the current situation in Ukraine, that it might have been a wiser diplomatic move on Zelenskyy's part to have attempted to appease Putin - making whatever concessions were needed in order to avoid war - rather than have flirted with the West and indicated his desire to not only join the EU, but NATO.  

Still, it's a bit late for such a policy now that Russia has invaded and major Ukranian cities, including the captal, are being bombarded even as I write. And I'm aware also that appeasement is a dirty word in the political lexicon these days - not least here in the UK, following our experiences in the 1930s with Hitler (give him an inch ...)

 

However, there's really no need for the Ukranians to martyr themselves and I would advise that they capitulate and seek terms with Russia as soon as possible. For there's no shame in surrendering to a massively superior force and, again as I said in the post prior to this one, discretion is the greater part of valour.

 

I don't think this makes me a coward; for it often takes much greater courage to live and refuse to die. 

 

And neither does it make me a pacifist in the conventional sense: I don't have a moral objection to war and certainly don't subscribe to an ideal of peace, love, and the brotherhood of man. I am simply of the view that, in this case, non-violent resistance and civil disobedience makes better strategic sense than armed conflict and self-sacrifice.  

 

 

II. 

 

My thinking in this matter has not, then, been shaped by the likes of white worms such as Bertrand Russell and Mahatma Gandhi. 

 

Rather, it's been influenced by D. H. Lawrence, who, whilst writing in favour of combat in the old sense - "fierce, unrelenting, honorable contest" [2] - abhors the thought of war in the modern machine age; "a ghastly and blasphemous translation of ideas into engines, and men into cannon fodder" [3]. 

It's a beautiful thing, says Lawrence, for a man to die "in a flame of passionate conflict [...] for death is to him a passional consummation" [4] and his soul can rest in peace. But to be blown to smithereens while you are eating a kanapki is something obscene and monstrous. 

 

Thus, the Ukranians should refuse to die in such a manner and refuse to fight an abstract invisible enemy whom they will never meet face-to-face on the battlefield. If the Russians are that desperate to occupy territories in the East of Ukraine, then let them ...   

 

Ultimately, it might be the case that the only thing really worth fighting for, tooth and nail, is not your spouse, your children, your country, your fellow citizens, your money, your property, or even your life, but that bit of inward peace, that allows you to reflect with a certain insouciance ... [5] 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Catherine Carswell (9 July 1916), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp.625-628. Lines quoted are on p. 626. 

      I have slightly modified what Lawrence writes, replacing the word 'Germans' with 'Russians'. In this crucial statement of Lawrence's views on what is and is not worth fighting for, he continues:

 

"If another man must fight for his house, the more's the pity. But it is his affair. To fight for possessions, goods, is what my soul will not do. Therefore it will not fight for the neighbour who fights for his own goods.

      All this war, this talk of nationality, to me is false. I feel no nationality, not fundamentally. I feel no passion for my own land, nor my own house, nor my own furniture, nor my own money. Therefore I won't pretend any. Neither will I take part in the scrimmage, to help my neighbour. It is his affair to go in or stay out, as he wishes." [626]

 

      See note 5 below for a reference to a later poem in which Lawrence returns to this theme. 

      And cf. with what Birkin says in chapter two of Women in Love when asked whether he would fight for his hat should someone wish to steal it off his head; "'it is open to me to decide, which is a greater loss to me, my hat, or my liberty as a free and indifferent man'". See the Cambridge edition (1987), ed. David Farmer, Lindeth Vasey and John Worthen, p. 29.         

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'Education of the People', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 158-59. 

 

[3] Ibid., p. 159.

 

[4] Ibid.

 

[5] I am paraphrasing here from Lawrence's verse 'What would you fight for?' in The Poems, Vol. I, ed. Christopher Pollnitz, (Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 431.

On Homeopathy

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843): founder of homeopathy 

a practice based on the magical idea that like cures like 

(similia similibus curentur)

One of the more amusing definitions of homeopathy and the often crackpot conditions it is thought to magically cure, is given by Rod Liddle: Homeopathy, he writes, is the practice of treating a non-existent ailment with a non-existent remedy. 

This is a bit harsh inasmuch as some of the ailments are sometimes real enough, but it's spot on about homeopathy as a non-remedy (i.e., not even an honest sham cure, like snake oil); something - to again quote Liddle - of no fucking palliative use at all.

Prince Charles, Gandhi, and newly elected leader of the Labour Party, the sainted Jeremy Corbyn, may believe in the miraculous power of homeopathy and advocate its availability on the NHS - and they may have many supporters who share their faith in complementary medicines and natural alternatives to the drugs provided by the pharmaceutical industry on the back of years of scientific research and extensive clinical trials - but I would hope and trust that readers of this blog do not. 

I wouldn't want to argue that belief in homeopathy is a moral failing, as the political journalist Ian Dunt insists - stupidity isn't a sin and irrationalism doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, even if it does often lead you to make bad choices and say foolish things - but I agree that this is a serious issue and that the rebellion against Western reason, of which it's a symptom, needs to be met face on.          

Torpedo the ark means having done with judgement; but it certainly doesn't demand a sacrifice of intellect, or call for a leap into faith and superstition.   

Notes: 

Rod Liddle, Selfish, Whining Monkeys (Fourth Estate, 2015), pp. 196 and 199. 

Those interested in reading Ian Dunt's post arguing that belief in homeopathy is a moral test should click here.  

Why the Dalai Lama is Just Another Holy Fool

 

I wouldn't say I hate the Dalai Lama with the same degree of intensity as, for example, I hate Mother Teresa or Gandhi, but there's certainly something about him that I dislike and mistrust: the ghastly monastic robes; the perpetually smiling face (memorably described by James Snell as that of a dozy kitten); the fact that he likes to endorse the spiritual pretensions of Hollywood celebrities and hold the hands of royalty; the cynical manner in which he mixes Bambi-morality with calls for a return to a brutal theocratic feudalism under his own semi-divine leadership, etc.

Not surprisingly, Christopher Hitchens brilliantly outlines the case against him. But an equally interesting critique is by Pascal Bruckner, in which he contrasts Mr Tenzin Gyatso's astonishing success as a master of public relations and self-promotion, with his relative failure politically: 

"Coming out of exile like an Asian Moses descending from his Himalayas to reveal the essential truths ... he has transformed himself into a worldly guru ... a sort of peddler specializing in ... amiable twaddle precisely calibrated to the taste of European  and American audiences." 

He came to champion the cause of his people suffering under Chinese occupation and to impart the wisdom of the East, but, whilst the Dalai Lama succeeded in making a meek and mild version of Buddhism fashionable, he emptied the former of any real urgency or history.

Being generous, one might conclude not that he sold out or betrayed the Tibetan people, but that he was, as Bruckner suggests, overly keen to be a performer in our own image.

  
 
See: Pascal Bruckner, Perpetual Euphoria, trans. Steven Rendall, (Princeton University Press, 2010), pp. 59-61.

 

Gandhi: Holy Fool and Hypocrite

It has been officially announced by government ministers on a visit to India that a statue of Gandhi is to be erected in Parliament Square. 

Obviously this shameful gesture is being made because Britain is keen to develop stronger commercial ties with one of the world's largest and fastest growing economies. But, according to the Chancellor, George Osborne, it's high-time Gandhi took his place in front of the Mother of Parliaments; his monument serving as an inspiration to people around the world and as a permanent reminder of the friendship between our two countries (this coming the day after a new £250m arms deal was signed). 

Gandhi might be thought of today as a peace-loving civil rights activist (thanks in no small part to Richard Attenborough's deceitful and sentimental 1982 film) - a saintly figure in a loincloth who courageously resisted violent imperialism - but this is a ludicrous caricature and his legacy is, arguably, a highly dubious one.      

Certainly it's worth remembering a few things about this shrewd but rather sinister and often cynical figure; a religious fanatic who wanted India to reject modernity and revert to a primitive 'spiritual' society; a holy fool who held bizarre views on sex, diet, and sleeping arrangements that were as much rooted in the puritanism of the late Victorian era as they were in ancient Hindu teachings.

           

For a start, Gandhi was initially a great supporter of the British Empire and an admirer of its power; he only changed his mind and called for Indian independence once he sensed the weakness of the latter and thus his own chance to succeed with a campaign of civil disobedience. During the First World War, for example, he joined a government campaign that encouraged Indians to enlist in the British Army. 

Similarly, when living in South Africa between the years 1893 and 1915, he supported the regime and its policy of racial segregation, merely petitioning for the increased rights of civilized Indian gentlemen like himself within the system. He certainly didn't advocate racial equality and did nothing for the black majority whom he referred to in his writings as kaffirs. 

Gandhi continued to express his attraction to (and flirtation with) powerful regimes during the Second World War, sending his dear friend Adolf Hitler a letter in which he expressed his conviction that the Führer was not the monster described by his enemies, but a brave and devoted nationalist obliged to commit unbecoming deeds. He openly called upon the British to Quit India in 1942, when they were critically and almost fatally weakened by their struggle with the fascist forces. In effect, therefore, Gandhi the pacifist allowed soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army to do his fighting for him whilst he sat smiling at his spinning wheel.

Interestingly, as Christopher Hitchens notes, there was already in India at this time - and had been for decades - a strong alliance of secular leftists who had laid out the case and won the argument for Indian independence. Thus there was "never any need for an obscurantist religious figure to impose his ego on the process and both retard and distort it".

In a killer line, Hitchens concludes: "Just at the moment when what India most needed was a modern secular leader, it got a fakir and guru instead".

This is certainly regrettable, but, thanks to an assassin's bullet, at least Gandhi did not live to implement his Year Zero agenda which would surely have resulted in mass starvation and misery for tens of millions of people.   

     

That a British government - and a Conservative led government at that - should plan to erect a statue of this little weasel is deeply depressing.     

See: Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great, (Atlantic Books, 2008), pp. 184 and 183.