On the Rise of the Useful Idiot

 Adapted from the poster for I Am Greta

(a documentary film dir. Nathan Grossman, 2020)

 

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han says that the idiot has all but vanished from our society. But Han is not using the term idiot in its familiar modern sense (i.e., to refer to a stupid person). 

 

Rather, he's returning to the ancient Greek term from which it derives - ἰδιώτης - which refers to a private individual who prefers to think their own thoughts rather than simply subscribe to common sense or conform to popular opinion (even at the risk of appearing ignorant or foolish). 

 

For Han, the idiot is thus a type of outsider or heretic; not so much uninformed as unaligned with any party or cause; someone who values freedom and opposes the violence of consensus [1]. The idiot, in brief, is the kind of person attracted to philosophy, a practice born - like psychology - of idleness and characterised - like art - by its uselessness [2].   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, however, there's more than one type of idiot in this world.

 

And if the type of useless philosophical idiot privileged by Byung-Chul Han has all but vanished from contemporary society, the political idiot who prides themselves on their allegiance to a cause, party, or ideology and happily makes themselves useful to such is, it seems, proliferating in number ...

 

Some commentators may clutch their pearls - or even reach for the smelling salts - when they hear the term useful idiot [3], but it's a widely accepted term within political discourse [4] to refer to someone who believes they are fighting for a just cause and have history on their side, without fully appreciating the consequences of their actions or the extent to which they are being cynically manipulated by nefarious forces.  

 

Many supporters of Extinction Rebellion, or Black Lives Matter, or those we currently see larping for Palestine on streets and campuses across the Western world, are probably well-intentioned idealists; i.e., perfectly sincere in their views, but they are politically naive to the point that idiocy hardly even covers it; closing their eyes to reality and shutting their ears to reason, they unwittingly assist in the destruction of their own culture, history, and society.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, trans. Erik Butler, (Verso, 2017). And see also the post 'On Heresy and Philosophical Idiotism' (20 Nov 2021): click here. 

 

[2] Nietzsche famously asserts in Twilight of the Idols (1889) that idleness is the beginning of psychology (and is therefore the result of vice). 

      Oscar Wilde, meanwhile, writing in a Preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) claimed: "All art is quite useless." He later explained in a letter what he meant by this: "Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way." Similarly, philosophy is simply intended to open up a space for thinking - nothing else. Wilde's letter can be read in full here. 

 

[3] For those gentle souls who prefer a slightly less harsh-sounding term, it might be noted that some commentators speak of useful innocents, whilst those within the intelligence community apparently refer to unwitting agents.

 

[4] Frequently used during the Cold War to describe those susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation, the phrase useful idiot was (ironically but mistakenly) attributed to Lenin by the Russian human rights activist and Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Lenin may have liked to use it, but he certainly didn't coin it, and nor is it found in any of his writings.

 

 

Reflections on 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I. 

 

The American author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is perhaps best remembered today for a (semi-autobiographical) short story written after she suffered a severe bout of postpartum psychosis and first published in 1892: The Yellow Wallpaper ... [1]

 

 

 

II. 

 

The (possibly unhinged and certainly unreliable) narrator is a married woman who keeps a journal. Her husband, John, is a doctor and "practical in the extreme". 

 

By this she means: 

 

"He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures."

 

Rightly or wrongly, she resents the fact that he will not believe she's physically unwell and blames him for thereby retarding her recovery. And, to be fair, I can see how this might be troubling. 

 

For it's bad enough when one's useless GP insists there's really nothing wrong. But when one's own spouse - who just happens to also be a physician of high standing - "assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression", that must be really maddening. 

 

And when one's own brother - also a highly respected doctor - concurs that one is simply exhibiting signs of a slight hysterical tendency ... Well, it would be enough to make anyone want to scream and tear at the wallpaper (whatever the colour or pattern). 

 

It's an unfortunate fact that doctors and others working in the healthcare professions, are often not what one might expect or hope for. And experience over recent years has taught me to be wary of accepting their diagnoses and prescribed treatments. 

 

And so I'm sympathetic to the narrator of Gilman's story; even if, as I say, she may be unreliable on occasion and a little too romantic and overly sensitive to queer vibrations for my tastes (sometimes, a draught is just a draught and you really do just need to close the window).  

 

And I do see that John is a patronising and paternalistic prick; I wouldn't want to be married to him, that's for sure.     

 

As for the wallpaper:

 

"I never saw a worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin. [...] The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others."

 

I know a lot of people dislike wallpaper: and I know a lot of people hate the colour yellow - although I'm not among their number and have, in fact, just painted my kitchen in a lemon zesty colour full of enough sunshine to make Van Gogh proud [2].  

 

Still, she has a point: one should be happy - or, at the very least, not unhappy - in one's domestic surroundings. 

 

And it's wrong of her husband to laugh at her about the wallpaper. Just as it's wrong not to appreciate that Wilde was perfectly serious when, lying in his wretchedly furnished Paris hotel room, he declared that he and his wallpaper were fighting a duel to the death: One or the other of us has to go.

 

The fact that Wilde died shortly afterwards proves that home furnishings can have a malevolent - even fatal - influence on our lives and that aesthetics deserves to be taken very seriously as a branch of philosophy. 

III.

 

Like the narrator, I also used to lie awake as a child and extract a mixture of terror and entertainment out of the objects of my little bedroom. She remembers how kindly the knobs of a big old bureau were, whilst I remember the scary faces and figures made of leaves that appeared in the curtains - and that returns us to the yellow wallpaper:  

"This wallpaper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then. But in the places where it isn’t faded, and where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design." 

 

Despite this, the woman grows very fond of her room; in spite of the wallpaper, or perhaps - somewhat perversely - because of the wallpaper: "It dwells in my mind so!" She spends many hours trying to follow the pointless pattern:

 

"There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit." 

 

She particularly dislikes it at night, when the moonlight shines on the undulating wallpaper and gives her the creeps: 

 

"The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move [...]" 

 

Her husband tells her to go back to sleep and not be silly. But she doesn't. Instead, she lies there in the darkness "trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately". 

 

If the colour of the paper is bad enough, it's the pattern - with its purely random design that seems to change depending on the light and time of day - that really tortures her mind:

 

"You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you." 

 

In the end, she decides the female figure she sees behind the pattern is a prisoner; trapped and desperate to escape. And she determines to learn her secret, even if she still can't stomach the yellowness of the wallpaper which makes her think "of all the yellow things I ever saw; not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things". 

 

Oh, and did I mention the paper's unique smell: 

 

"I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here. It creeps all over the house. I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs. It gets into my hair." 

 

"Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like. It is not bad - at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met. In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me. It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house - to reach the smell. But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper! A yellow smell." 

 

 

IV.

 

And so, we approach the end of Gilman's remarkable tale ... and the narrator's further descent into madness. 

 

She decides, for example, that the pattern of the wallpaper really is moving; that the trapped woman is making it move as she crawls around and shakes the bars of her prison, desperate to break out. Unfortunately, "nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so".   

 

But, having said that: 

 

"I think that woman gets out in the daytime! [...] I’ve seen her! I can see her out of every one of my windows! It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight. [...] I see her [...] creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines. I don't blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!" 

 

Finally, there's only one thing for it - she has to strip the paper off the walls: 

 

"As soon as it was moonlight, and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her. I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper." 

 

The next day, when alone in the house, she attempts to finish the job, keeping a rope close by just in case the woman gets out and requires restraining. But peeling off the paper isn't easy and she grows increasingly angry and frustrated. She also now totally identifies with the woman and believes that she too has emerged out of the wallpaper:   

 

"I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard! It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please! I don’t want to go outside. [...] For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way."

 

At this point, her husband John comes home and discovers her creeping around the room:

 

"'What is the matter?' he cried. 'For God's sake, what are you doing!' I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder. 'I’ve got out at last,' said I [...] And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!'" 

 

In horror and despair, her husband collapses: 

 

"Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!" 

 

Is that final line a triumphant assertion of female agency and independence - or the confession of a lunatic? 

 

Maybe both: I don't know. 

 

But I do know Gilman's work fully deserves the multiple readings from many different perspectives that it has had over the last 130 years. H. P. Lovecraft was not wrong to recognise it as a classic tale which powerfully (and cleverly) delineates the madness which can overtake any one of us (whatever the colour of our wallpaper) [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I am reading (and quoting) from Gilman's tale as published in eBook form by Project Gutenberg in 1999. Click here to read free online.  

 

[2] See the post 'How Beautiful Yellow Is' (1 May 2024): click here. 

 

[3] See H. P. Lovecraft, 'Supernatural Horror in Literature', a 28,000 word essay published in The Recluse (1927): click here to read on the H. P. Lovecraft Archive. 

 

Thanks to Síomón Solomon for suggesting this post.

 

Hail, Emperor Grayling

Philosopher A. C. Grayling - 

give this man a toga and a crown 

(Photo: Simone Padovani)

 

 

I don't much like long-haired British philosopher A. C. Grayling, but a recent remark concerning the interesting etymology of his given name, Anthony - spelled with an H, but pronounced 'Antony' - caught my attention:

 

"The name comes from Antonines in Rome - one of the most famous was Marcus Aurelius. Some idiot in the Renaissance thought that maybe the name Antony comes from 'anthos' in Greek, which means flower. So if you are an Anthony with an H, you're a flower, rather than a Roman emperor. I'd much rather be a Roman emperor." [1]

 

Firstly, of course, this struck me as a very un-Wildean thing to say, the Irish poet and dramatist famously declaring that in the next life he would like to be a flower; beautiful, but with no soul. 

 

Secondly, however, it reveals that Grayling subscribes to a rather common male fantasy; i.e., one of holding supreme power - particularly if one gets to dress up in a toga and wear a laurel leaf crown. 

Indeed, so widespread is this nostalgia for ancient imperialism amongst men that there was even a viral trend on TikTok last year, with women asking the men in their lives how often they think (and dream) about the Roman Empire. The answer, it seems, is very often - with some men confessing they do so multiple times per week (or even per day) [2].

 

This includes very rich and powerful men, such as Mark Zuckerberg, who has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Augustus - and, so it appears, philosophers such as Grayling. 

 

Perhaps this helps to explain the latter's zealous committment to the European Union, founded in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome, which he describes as "the greatest project for peace and cooperation, progress and security, high common values and standards" [3]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Asked ten random questions by Sian Cain, including one about how he likes to be addressed, this was his answer. The full piece, in The Guardian (5 Oct 2024), can be accessed by clicking here.   

[2] The trend is so popular that the hashtag #RomanEmpire on TikTok has surpassed 1.2 billion views. Asked about this, the historian Mary Beard commented: "In some ways, ancient Rome is a kind of safe place for macho fantasies. It's where men can pretend to be macho men." 

      See Olivia B. Waxman, 'The Most Famous Historian of Rome on Why Men Are Obsessed', Time (26 Sept 2023): click here.  

 

[3] I'm quoting from Grayling's website: click here.  

      Obviously, the implication is that the pax Europaea is comparable to the pax Romana, a 200 year period of Roman history seen as a golden age of peace, prosperity, regional expansion and increased power. It is usually dated as commencing with the accession of Augustus, in 27 BC, and concluding in AD 180 with the death of Marcus Aurelius. 

      I'm aware, however, that to view the EU as an attempt to recreate the Roman Empire is somewhat absurd, although not entirely fanciful, as both institutions engender the emergence of a market economy characterised by free movement of goods and people, a single currency, universal laws, etc.    

Here We Are Nowhere (Bienvenue à l'Hôtel Non-Lieu)

The Overlook Hotel (The Shining, 1980) 

 

 

For a long time, I have dreamed of one day living in a hotel. Not staying for a short break or even a prolonged period, but living there full-time (and, indeed, dying beyond my means in a hotel just like Oscar Wilde) [1].

 

It isn't the amenities or services that attract per se, so much as the notion of anonymity and the fact that it provides an escape from domesticity and all the horrors of home, sweet home. The idea of not actually owning property also appeals. 

 

Since this is essentially a fantasy, concerns about the cost or feasibility - I know that many hotels have rules governing maximum duration of stay - haven't really entered my thinking. 

 

Nor have I worried about the fact that hotels can provide only a transient and somewhat artificial sense of community. In fact, that's part of the attraction; not belonging anywhere or having to establish long-lasting relationships with neighbours seems a plus to me and I imagine it would be far more fun interacting with a rotating cast of staff members, ghosts, and fellow guests. 

 

However, recently, I've begun to have my doubts and I'm not so sure that life in what the French anthropologist Marc Augé termed a non-place [2] is really such a great idea ... 

 

It's not that I fear being unable to sustain my identity, or that I might feel alienated and alone. Rather, my concern is that, ultimately, living in a hotel - no matter how fabulous - might begin to feel as if one were in limbo, neither here nor there, and once you tire of nowhere there is, of course, nowhere left to go [3] ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Oscar Wilde died on 30 November 1900 at L'Hôtel, 13 Rue des Beaux Arts, 75006 Paris, France, where, famously, he disliked the wallpaper. Readers interested in staying in what is now termed the Oscar Wilde Suite will find all they need to know by clicking here.    

 

[2] See Marc Augé, Non-Lieux: Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité (Éditions du Seuil, 1992); recently republished as Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity, trans. John Howe, (Verso, 2023). 

      Augé coined the phrase non-place to refer to those spaces where traditional notions of history, identity, and human relations, are, if not erased exactly, then suspended. Examples of a non-place include a hotel room, an airport lounge, or a shopping mall. When you enter, you might immediately feel a sense of familiarity and yet they incite no sense of belonging. 

      Readers who would like to read the Introduction to the second edition of Non-Places can find it on the Verso blog page: click here.   

[3] I'm recalling here the line from the Stiff Little Fingers song 'Here We Are Nowhere', written by guitarist Henry Cluney, which can be found on their debut album Inflammable Material (Rough Trade, 1979) and listened to on YouTube by clicking here - 59 seconds of punk genius. 

Black Sun Flower

Black Sun Flower (SA/2023)

 

 

Is it just me, or is there not a suggestion in the flower on the left of the sun-wheel symbol [1] that Nazi occultists had such a fondness for? 

 

I think there is: and it makes one wonder whether it serves to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art [2]; or, alternatively, proves that even a flower can be fascist?  

 

Either way, I think we can all agree that at the core of every flower burns something obscene and evil, like a tiny black sun, and that this is something that many poets, philosophers, and gardeners remain deeply uncomfortable with. 

 

In fact, Bataille is one of the few writers who dares to stare into the heart of vegetal darkness, affirming the inexpressible reality of the flower and rejecting the sexless and sunless descriptions traditionally offered [3].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The schwarze Sonne symbol originated in Nazi Germany and is now employed by neo-Nazis and other far-right individuals and groups. 

      The symbol consists of twelve radial sig runes and was used as a design element in Heinrich Himmler's SS castle at Wewelsburg. It is uncertain whether it held any particular significance for Himmler, but the black sun later became linked with neo-Nazi occultism and used as a substitute for (or variant of) the classic swastika design. 

      For a Lawrentian take on this concept of the black sun, see the post entitled 'Excessive Brightness Drove the Poet into Darkness' (3 Oct 2021): click here. 

 

[2] See Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', Intentions (1891). An earlier version of the essay was published in the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century, in January 1889.

[3] I'm paraphrasing here form an earlier post entitled 'Fleurs du Mal' (25 April 2015): click here. 

 

 

Readers might like to see a related post to this one on how Jamie Reid's Cambridge Rapist motif haunts the natural world: click here.

Wilde About the Beautiful Game

T-shirt by philosophyfootball.com

Sporting outfitters of intellectaul distinction

 

 

Apparently, the FIFA Women's World Cup begins this week and we're all supposed to get excited by the opportunity to experience a tournament Beyond Greatness - whatever that means ...

Unfortunately, I don't share this excitement. 

 

In fact, when watching women running about kicking a football, all I can think of is an oft-quoted remark made by Oscar Wilde: that whilst it's all very well for rough girls, it's entirely unsuitable for delicate boys.

 

 

Why Bambi is Forever Being Killed in My Imagination Thanks to the Sex Pistols

My photo of a local fawn and a poster for the Sex Pistols'

film soundtrack The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979)

 

Some readers may recall a post from last year in which I attempted to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art, with reference to a moth's wing which appeared to incorporate the Cambridge Rapist motif used by Jamie Reid in his work for the Sex Pistols [1]. 

 

But as someone pointed out at the time, seeing a human face - even, as in this instance, a masked human face - in an object of any variety (be it natural or artificial, animate or inanimate) is a common psychological phenomenon [2], which tells us something interesting about how the brain works, but doesn't really lend support to Wilde's theory. 

 

And that's fair enough, I suppose. 

 

Thus, maybe what the above post primarily indicates is that my personal obsession with the Sex Pistols is such that I often view the world through a punk prism. Take, for example, what happened the other day when walking past the deer herd who have colonised what was once a local playing field ...

 

Seeing the little deer pictured above, immediately triggered thoughts of the shocking image of a dead fawn used to promote the Sex Pistols' film (and film soundtrack) The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle [3]. This, in turn, made me start to sing the chorus from the curious track by Eddie Tenpole: 'Who Killed Bambi?' [4]. 

 

I can't remember who said it, but it seems to be true; the songs we loved at sixteen, we'll remember and continue to love for the rest of our lives (even those that have become almost unlistenable).

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post dated 13 July 2022 and entitled 'Punk Moth (Or How the Cambridge Rapist Motif Haunts the Natural World)': click here.

 

[2] Once considered a symptom of psychosis, pareidolia, as it's known, is now understood to be hardwired into every brain by evolution; we all attempt to impose a meaningful interpretation on the world and to recognise ourselves in things and patterns of light and shade. See the post dated 4 June 2015 and entitled 'Pareidolia and Prosopagnosia': click here.

 

[3] Readers who share my obsession with the Sex Pistols will be aware that Who Killed Bambi? was originally the title of a film featuring the band, due to be released in 1978, directed by Russ Meyer from a script by Roger Ebert and Malcolm McLaren. After this project was abandoned, McLaren eventually made The Great Rock and Roll Swindle with director Julien Temple, the trailer for which included the title shot of a deer being killed, a scene that was not included in the finished film. A song, however, with the title 'Who Killed Bambi?' did feature in the movie, sung by Eddie Tenpole (see note 4 below). Additional footage from Who Killed Bambi? was also used in Temple's documentary on the Sex Pistols, The Filth and the Fury (2000). 

[4] Click here for the album version of the song and here to see Tenpole (or Tadpole, as Irene Handl amusingly calls him) performing the track in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle film. I have written about 'Who Killed Bambi?' previously on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

In Memory of Sarah Bernhardt (1844 - 1923)

Sarah Bernhardt (aged 21) 

Photo by Félix Nadar (1865)

 

"Mon vrai pays est le plein air et ma vocation est l'art sans contraintes."

 

 

I. 

 

It's strange, but there are some figures who, in theory, should hold a special interest to me, but about whom I know embarrassingly very little. And the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who died on this day 100 years ago, is one such figure ...

Famously described by Oscar Wilde as divine, a 63-year-old Bernhardt even managed to capture the heart of a young D. H. Lawrence in 1908, when appearing on the English stage as part of a twenty day, sixteen city tour of Great Britain and Ireland:

 

"Sarah Bernhardt was wonderful and terrible. [...] Oh, to see her, and to hear her, a wild creature, a gazelle with a beautiful panther's fascination and fury, laughing in musical French, screaming with true panther cry, sobbing and sighing like a deer sobs, wounded to death, and all the time with the sheen of silk, the glitter of diamonds, the moving of men's handsomely groomed figures about her! She is not pretty - her voice is not sweet - but there she is, the incarnation of wild emotion which we share with all live things, but which is gathered in us in all complexity and inscrutable fury. She represents the primeval passions of woman, and she is fascinating to an extraordinary degree. I could love such a woman myself, love her to madness; all for the pure, wild passion of it." [1]

 

 

II. 

 

Clearly, then, Bernhardt - the illegitimate daughter of a Jewish courtesan who had numerous lovers amongst the wealthy Parisian elite - was one of those wonder-women who seem to seduce, bewitch, or scandalise everyone they encounter. 

 

And, the more I read about her - or the more I look at beautiful old photos of Miss Bernhardt, particularly those taken when she was still very young and with a mass of curly black hair  - the more I start to understand and appreciate why that would be. 

 

I love the fact, for example, that as a child being educated at a convent, she outraged the nuns by performing a Christian burial, with full procession and ceremony, for her pet lizard. And I love the fact also that a century before the world had ever heard of Toyah Willcox, Miss Bernhardt chose to sometimes sleep in a satin-lined coffin.   

 

Arguably, Bernhardt even has something free spirited about her that Nietzsche (who was born in the same month and year) would admire, as this quotation demonstrates:

 

'I passionately love this life of adventures. I detest knowing in advance what they are going to serve at dinner, and I detest a hundred thousand times more knowing what will happen to me, for better or worse. I adore the unexpected.' [2]

 

That's pretty much the philosophy of amor fati and living dangerously in a nutshell, is it not? 

 

She also had that most Nietzschean of virtues: endurance ... For here was an actress who didn't just break a leg, she actually lost a leg due to gangrene in 1915 (when aged 70), but still returned to the stage at the first opportunity and performed for French soldiers fighting on the Western Front.

 

Right until the very end, she also continued to entertain guests at home, - including Colette, who described being served coffee by a living legend:

 

"'The delicate and withered hand offering the brimming cup, the flowery azure of the eyes, so young still in their network of fine lines, the questioning and mocking coquetry of the tilted head, and that indescribable desire to charm, to charm still, to charm right up to the gates of death itself.'" [3]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Blanche Jennings (25 June 1908), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 59. 

      It is interesting to note that Lawrence was forty-years younger than Sarah Bernhardt when he wrote this letter. Later, he issues a warning to his new friend Miss Jennings: 

      "Take care about going to see Bernhardt. Unless you are very sound, do not go. When I think of her now I can still feel the weight hanging in my chest as it hung there for days after I saw her. Her winsome, sweet, playful ways; her sad, plaintive little murmurs; her terrible panther cries; and then the awful, inarticulate sounds, the little sobs that fairly sear one, and the despair of death; it is too much in one evening." 

      It is also interesting to note that a 28-year-old Sigmund Freud was also smitten by Sarah. After seeing her perform the title role in Victorien Sardou's melodrama Théodora (1884), he sent his long-suffering fiancée, Martha Bernays, a scene-by-scene account of Bernhardt's performance, concluding that she was a remarkable creature: "Her caressing and pleading, the postures she assumes, the way she wraps herself around a man, the way she acts with every limb, every joint - it's incredible!" 

      See the Letters of Sigmund Freud 1873-1939, ed. Ernst L. Freud, trans. Tania and James Stern, (Hogarth Press, 1961), pp. 178-82.  

      But of course, Bernhardt also had her critics, including Shaw, Turgenev, and Chekov - but I'm writing here to praise Sarah, not to bury her. 

[2] Quoted in Hélène Tierchant, Sarah Bernhardt: Madame 'quand même', (Éditions Télémaque, 2009), pp. 210-211. Unknown translator.

 

[3] Quoted by Cornelia Otis Skinner in Madame Sarah, (Houghton, 1967), p. 330. 

 

 

Special (from beyond the grave) bonus - Sarah Bernhardt reciting a poem by Victor Hugo (Paris, 1903): click here. 

 

For a follow up post to this one on the art and necessity of coffin sleeping, click here.

 

Merci à Sophie pour la suggestion de cet article.

Sing Hello

 

 

I.

 

I've mentioned before on this blog how the word hello has long held a privileged place in my personal vocabulary: click here.  

 

It's disappointing, therefore, that the majority of songs that have the word hello in their title or lyrics make one wish to stop up one's ears like Odysseus, so as to never hear them again. And this includes some really well-known songs by much loved artists. 

 

For example: 

 

'Hello, Dolly!', by Louis Armstrong (1964) ...

 

'Hello, Goodbye', by The Beatles (1967) ...

'Hello, I Love You', by The Doors (1968) ...

 

'Hello', by Lionel Richie (1984) ... 

 

'Hello', by Adele (2015) ... 

 

In fact, the more I come to think about it, there is really only one great song containing the word hello - and that is Gary Glitter's smash hit single 'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again' [1]. 

 

 

II.

 

1973 was a golden year for British pop music - particularly for the genre known as glam rock - and whilst I loved Sweet, Slade, and Suzi Quatro, Gary Glitter was my beautiful obsession at this time [2]. 

 

'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again' - written by Glitter and genius record producer Mike Leander - was much loved not only by teeny-boppers, but by football supporters up and down the country. O what fun we had singing along to this ridiculously catchy song!    

 

Of course, that was then and this is now ... And Glitter's songs are today no longer played on the radio or sung on the terraces and his performances on Top of the Pops no longer shown - we all know why ... [3]

 

Without getting into the whole can we separate art from the artist debate [4], I think that's a shame. And ultimately mistaken. I suppose, push comes to shove, I remain of the Wildean view that there is no such thing as a moral or immoral pop record.     

    

 

Notes

 

[1] Gary Glitter, 'Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again', single release from the album Touch Me (Bell Records, 1973): click here to play. 

      Having said that this is the only great song with hello in the title and/or lyrics, I must obviously also mention Soft Cell's 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' (Some Bizzare, 1982): click here. And I have to give a nod to 'Public Image' (Virgin, 1978), the debut single by Public Image Ltd., which opens with Rotten repeating the word hello six times: click here.

 

[2] See the post 'Notes on a Glam-Punk Childhood' (24 July 2018): click here. 

 

[3] Glitter's career ended after he was imprisoned for downloading child pornography in 1999, and was subsequently convicted of child sexual abuse and attempted rape, in 2006 and 2015, respectively. The fact remains, however, that he is one of the UK's most successful performers, selling over 20 million records, including numerous hit singles (three of which reached number one in the charts). To deny him his place in the pantheon of pop is simply to whitewash our own cultural history. 

 

[4] It's not that this debate isn't philosophically interesting - involving as it does questions concerning ethics and aesthetics - it's just too big and wide-ranging to address here. What I would say is that whilst it's clear that bad people can make good art, it's less certain whether the morally virtuous can produce anything other than mediocre work (at best).      

 

  

Punk Moth (Or How the Cambridge Rapist Motif Haunts the Natural World)

Fig. 1: Pretty little moth in my front garden / Fig. 2: A colour enhanced detail from the wing

Fig. 3: Jamie Reid God Save the Cambridge Rapist (poster design for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, 1980)

There are, apparently, around 2,500 species of moth in the UK and I'm no lepidopterist, so don't expect me to identify the very pretty little moth in the photo above which seems to like living in (or on) my front garden privet. 

 

Perhaps its most striking feature, to me at least, is the marking on the wing which reminds me of the Cambridge Rapist [1] mask that so fascinated Malcolm McLaren and which he and Vivienne Westwood incorporated as an image on shirt designs sold at 430 Kings Road [2]; an image which Jamie Reid later used in one of his God Save ... series of posters produced for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980) [3]. 

 

Does this serve to illustrate Oscar Wilde's anti-mimetic contention that life imitates art? [4] Or does it prove that even an insect can be a sex pistol? 

 

 

Notes

[1] Peter Samuel Cook - known in the press as the Cambridge Rapist - attacked several women in their homes between October 1974 and April 1975. He quickly entered the public imagination due to the distinctive leather mask with the word rapist painted in white letters across the forehead that he liked to wear whilst carrying out his crimes. 

      The 46-year old delivery driver was arrested following one of Britain's largest police manhunts. He was convicted at his trial in 1976 of six counts of rape, as well as assault and gross indecency. Cook was given two life sentences with the recommendation made that he never be released. He died, in jail, in January 2004 (aed 75).   

 

[2] A long-sleeved muslin shirt by McLaren and Westwood with the Cambridge Rapist motif is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum: click here.  

 

[3] A version of this work (produced in 1978) by Jamie Reid can also be found at the V&A: click here.

 

[4] See Wilde's essay 'The Decay of Lying', Intentions (1891). Note that an earlier version of the essay was published in the literary magazine The Nineteenth Century, in January 1889. 

 

For a related post on cultural entomology entitled 'Insectopunk', click here.    

On Masculinity, Matriarchy, and the Mark Steyn Show

Mark Steyn presenting the Mark Steyn Show 

GB News (30 June 2022)

 

 

I. 

 

The other evening, on the always excellent Mark Steyn Show (Mon-Thurs at 8pm on GB News), the eponymous host was decrying the state of contemporary manhood in conversation with the lovely Leilani Dowding [1]. 

 

What ever happened to men? he asked. Have they all been killed off by Wuflu ginger growlers? 

 

Steyn quoted statistics showing that women now dominate - in terms of numbers at least - university places and many professions, whilst men retreat to sad, pitiful so-called man caves in the basement, to watch sports, drink beer, and masturbate to online pornography.   

 

What's needed, Steyn suggested, is a little more confidence in the face of risk amongst modern men; a definition of manliness proposed by the American political philosopher Harvey Mansfield, rooted in the Greek notion of thumos [θυμός], which I have written about here and here.  

Rather like Jordan Peterson, Steyn seems to long for men who still bristle at those things which they find strange, threatening, or inimical (i.e. Other); men with vigour and vim, who are still in touch with their primitive instincts; the kind of men, perhaps, whom Madeline Kahn wishes for in the film At Long Last Love, (1975) [2].     

Of course, as any sociologist or reader of cultural studies will tell you, this concern about a supposed crisis of masculinity, is nothing new. During the late-Victorian period, for example, masculinity was increasingly problematized and strange new models of manhood were springing up as traditional forms of male identity became untenable; their power and authority severely eroded and compromised by modernity itself. 

 

Fear surrounding queerness and monstrosity was widespread and conservative thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Nordau, and, later, Oswald Spengler, promoted ideas of social and cultural degeneration tied to questions of race, gender and sexuality. 

 

We also see this obsession with decadence in the art and literature of the period; in works such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), for example. Homosexuals, drug addicts, vampires ... they all presented a threat to traditional manhood. As did emancipated women, or feminists.        

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, we also find D. H. Lawrence expressing concern about the state of modern manhood in his work (in fact, this is one of the major themes of both his fictional and non-fictional writings). 

 

In the 1928 article entitled 'Matriarchy', for example, Lawrence argues that - whether they know it or not - "the men of today are a little afraid of the women of today; and especially the younger men" [3]. Fast forward almost a hundred years, and I think we can say they are now more than a little afraid - and this fear, sadly, gives rise to resentment and misogyny, poisoning their own masculinity. 

 

Just as Steyn points to the fact that there are now more female graduates than male, Lawrence writes:

 

"They [modern men] not only see themselves in the minority, overwhelmed by numbers, but they feel themselves swamped by the strange unloosed energy of the silk-legged hordes. Women, women, everywhere, and all of them on the war-path! The poor young male keeps up a jaunty front, but his masculine soul quakes. [...] They [modern women] settle like silky locusts on all the jobs, they occupy the offices and the playing fields like immensely active ants, they buzz round the coloured lights of pleasure in amazing bare-armed swarms, and the rather dazed male is, naturally, a bit scared." [4]   

 

Obviously, this is intended to be humorous, but underneath one senses Lawrence is expressing a real concern and a real dislike of female emancipation. However, he seems to accept the fact that this has happened; that Woman has emerged "and you can't put her back again" [5]. Nor has she any wish to return to the home and to her previous roles of wife and mother. 

 

Thus, whether modern men like it or not, we are in, says Lawrence, for some form of matriarchal society. But then Lawrence asks himself if that would really be so terrible; for if you examine those societies where women run things and do most of the work, the men seem to have gained a certain carefree form of freedom (which Lawrence likes to term insouciance).

So, let the women have the jobs and own the property; let them govern the country and have full rights over the children. The men can then devote themselves to collective activity of their own, be it art, war, or philosophy. Real men, says Lawrence, should not care about earning a wage, pushing a pram round the park, or polishing their possessions.  

 

Perhaps matriarchy isn't so bad after all. It might allow a man to find himself once more and "satisfy his deeper social instincts" [6]. For when a man no longer feels king of his own castle, then he looks for something beyond the domestic space and, indeed, beyond Woman. 

 

However, we might keep in mind that this can result in all kinds of curious formations; from all-male clubs and secret societies, to criminal gangs and even fascism. All of these homosocial phenomena are, in part at least, a reaction to female emancipation and the increased visibility of women in the public sphere.

 

 

Notes

[1] I'm referring to the show broadcast on 30 June, 2022, which can be watched in full on YouTube by clicking here. 

[2] At Long Last Love is a musical comedy directed by Peter Bogdanovich (1975). Madeline Kahn plays Kitty O'Kelly and performs a Cole Porter song from 1929 called 'Find Me a Primitive Man': click here. Mark Steyn plays a clip from this song on the June 30 show I'm discussing. 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Matriarchy', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 103. 

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., p. 104.

[6] Ibid., p. 106.

May Day with D. H. Lawrence (1921 - 1929)

Claude Flight and Edith Lawrence Maypole Dance (1936)
goldmarkart.com 

 

 

1 May 1921 

 

Lawrence is back in Germany - staying at a country inn just outside Baden. 

 

He informs his American literary agent Robert Mountsier that it's lovely, although in a lettter written two days earlier, also to Mountsier, he confesses he doesn't really like Germany - even though things are cheap (always an important consideration for Lawrence). 

 

He expands upon this in a letter written the following day - May 2nd - to Mary Cannan, the actress wife of the British writer Gilbert Cannan: 

 

"The country is beautiful, Baden a lovely little town, and there are some exquisite things in the shops. Everybody is very nice with us: and we live for about 5/- a day the pair of us. Food is very good: wonderful asparagus." [1] 

 

And yet: "Germany is rather depressed and empty feeling [...] The men are very silent and dim." [2] 

 

To be fair, they had just lost a war and Germany had not fully recovered from the shock caused by the overthrow of the old way of life and the ongoing economic misery caused by the Treaty of Versailles's demand for punitive war reparations. 

 

Soon, however, the Nazis would be along, promising to address these issues ...

 

 

1 May 1923 

 

Two years later, and Lawrence is in Chapala, Mexico - which he describes in a telegram to Frieda as paradise (whether this is meant ironically or not, I don't know). 

 

She duly arrives from Mexico City the following day by train and they move into a little house of their own (near but not overlooking Lake Chapala): "It is hot and sunny and nice: lots of room." [3] 

 

They even have bananas growing in their garden - so much more exotic than the apples growing in mine! 

 

 

1 May 1925 

 

Many of Lawrence's short letters written from Del Monte Ranch, New Mexico, are full of relatively dull domestic details and conventional remarks about the weather and his state of health. 

 

And this includes his May Day letter to the American modernist painter (and early exponent of Cubism) Andrew Dasburg: thanks for sending a new ribbon for the typewriter; we've got the workmen in laying pipes; the cold winds cause my chest to play up, etc. [4] 

 

There's really not much one can say about this. But it's reassuring to know that Lawrence wasn't raging or in genius mode all of the time. 

 

 

1 May 1926 

 

Although Lawrence mockingly portrayed Reggie Turner as little Algie Constable in Aaron's Rod (1922), I will forever hold him in high regard due to the fact that he was one of the few friends who remained loyal to Oscar Wilde when he was imprisoned and supported him after his release.

 

On May Day, 1926, Lawrence wrote to Reggie from the pensione where he was staying, in Florence, hoping to clear up a misunderstanding. Apparently, they had agreed to meet at a popular bar, but, due to some confusion over the day, they managed to miss one another. 

 

Surprisingly, rather than be angry about this and blame Reggie, Lawrence sincerely regrets the lost evening and confesses that he was involved in a similar mix-up in Mexico City "with the one man I really liked in that damnable town: he said Thursday, and I heard Friday ... But anyhow I'm awfully sorry, and a thousand apologies" [5]. 

 

This is maybe explained by the fact that, as well as needing spectacles, Lawrence was a little deaf.

 

 

1 May 1928 

 

Harry Crosby, the young American playboy, poet, and publisher, epitomized the Lost Generation and would, in December 1929, commit suicide, aged 30, having first shot his young mistress, Josephine Rotch, through the head as part of an apparent death pact.

 

Twenty months earlier, however, in the spring of 1928, Lawrence had offered to write an introduction to a collection of poetry by Crosby and he sent this off to him at the beginning of May [6]. 

 

In a letter of April 29, Lawrence writes: "I have done the introduction to Chariot of the Sun [...] You can cut this introduction, and do what you like with it, for your book. If there is any part you don't like, omit it." [7] 

 

That's very generous of Lawrence; as was his proposal to promote Crosby's book by trying to get the introduction published separately; "a magazine article would be a bit of an advertisement for you" [8].

 

Just before Lawrence had the chance to post this letter, however, he received some further poems from Crosby in the mail. Unfortunately, he didn't think much of them - and in a PS written on May 1st, he advised Crosby not to add them to Chariot of the Sun:

 

"They don't belong; they are another thing. Put them in another book. Leave Chariot as it is. I send my foreword [...] It's good - but it won't fit if you introduce these new, long, unwieldly, not very sensitive poems. Do print Chariot as it stands. The new ones aren't so good." [9] 

 

 

1 May 1929

 

This would be Lawrence's final May Day; he was to die the following year on March 2nd. 

 

And he spent it in Spain (Palma de Mallorca): "Brilliant sunny May Day here, but wind cool - everything sparkling." [10]

 

In fact, he liked Mallorca so much he thought about staying the whole month and then do a little tour around Spain: Burgos, Granada, Cordoba, Seville, Madrid ..."I don't expect to like it immensely [...] Yet it interests me." [11]  

 

In fact, Lawrence had already decided the Spanish were rancid and lifeless: 

 

"The people seem to me rather dead, and they are ugly, and they have these non-existent bodies that English people often have [...] Dead-bodied people with rather ugly faces and a certain staleness. [...] The Spaniards, I believe, have refused life so long that life now refuses them [...]" [12]

 

Despite this, Lawrence lingered on in Palma until June 18th, when he finally sailed for Marseille (and from there headed by train to Italy).    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 710. 

      The May Day letter to Robert Mountsier is also on p. 710. 

 

[2] Letters, III. 711. 

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, writing in a letter to Thomas Seltzer (2 May 1923), The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 436. 

      The short May Day telegram to Frieda is on p. 435 of this volume. 

 

[4] See the letter to Andrew Dasburg (1 May 1925), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. V, ed. James T. Boulton and Lindeth Vasey, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 248. 

 

[5] Letters, V. 445-46. 

 

[6] This introduction by Lawrence - entitled 'Chaos in Poetry' - can be found in Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 107-116. It is one of my favourite pieces of writing by Lawrence and, I think, one of the most important. It was first published in Echanges, in December 1929.  

 

[7-8] D. H. Lawrence, The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VI, ed. James T. Boulton and Margaret H. Boulton, with Gerald M. Lacy, (Cabridge University Press, 1991), p. 389.

[9] Letters VI. 390. 

[10] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Nancy Pearn (1 May 1929), in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VII, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton, (Cabridge University Press, 1993), p. 269.

 

[11] Letter to Maria and Aldous Huxley [9 May 1929], Letters, VII. 276. 

[12] Letters, VII 275-76. 

      Lawrence is still denigrating the Spanish - whom he compares disavourably to both the Italians and the French - in another letter to Aldous Huxley written on the 17th of May [VII. 283]. Just for the record: I love Spain and I love the Spanish.

 

 

To read the first part of this post - May Day with D. H. Lawrence (1911 - 1917) - click here.