It Was Beauty Killed the Beast

"It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."  

 

 

I. 

 

One of the greatest movies ever made opened in New York City ninety years ago, on 2 March 1933. 

 

Directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, it starred Fay Wray as out-of-work actress Ann Darrow on the lookout for love and excitement; Robert Armstrong as wildlife filmmaker Carl Denham; and Bruce Cabot as rugged first mate on board the SS Venture Jack Driscoll. 

 

The film also featured astonishing special effects by the stop-motion animation pioneer Obie O'Brien. 

 

I'm referring, of course, to King Kong ...

 

 

II.

There are many, many reasons to fondly recall this film, in which a giant ape - captured on Skull Island and brought back in chains to America, so as to be exhibited on stage as the Eighth Wonder of the World - runs rampage in New York, climbing the iconic Empire State Building whilst carrying a lovely young woman in his huge paw.

 

But the reason I'm reminded of it now is because I have just returned from a 6/20 meeting at the London home of Christian Michel [1], in which a guest speaker presented her thoughts on the subject of beauty, seemingly oblivious to (or unconcerned with) what we might term the politics of the subject - even though, as the French philosopher Jacques Rancière puts it, aesthetics is that which ties together art, thought, and issues to do with how we choose to live together as a culture and a people. 

 

I'm not criticising the fact that Miss Hasan [2] chose to mount a conservative defence of beauty (informed by the work of Roger Scruton) against what she regards as the disenchanted utility of our modern world. But I do think she might, in future, consider how beauty itself can turn very ugly - and even murderous - when, for example, it is written with a capital 'B' and conflated with other ideal notions of Goodness and Truth.

 

Plato famously made this mistake. And failed artist Adolf Hitler also acted not in the name of hate, but in the name of Love informed by Classical ideals of what constitutes Beauty; harmony, wholeness, purity, etc. 

 

Indeed, one is almost tempted to say that just as it wasn't the airplanes that killed Kong - It was beauty killed the beast - neither was it the military-industrial complex of the Third Reich that resulted in genocide; it was, rather, the Nazi aesthetic and their totalitarian desire to eradicate all they deemed ugly, monstrous, degenerate, alien (i.e., all forms of otherness) [3].           

       

Notes

 

[1] Christian Michel is a French polymath who has graciously hosted the twice-monthly 6/20 Club at his west London home for almost twenty years, during which time an impressive assortment of speakers have presented papers on a huge number of topics.

 

[2] Born on the southern coast of Pakistan, Mariam Hasan is a London-based writer who runs discussion groups in pubs and parks. Her academic background is multidisciplinary, stretching from Frankfurt-style critical theory to explorations of collective memory. 

 

[3] As the Swedish film director Peter Cohen says: 

      "Defining Nazism in traditional political terms is difficult. Mainly because its dynamic was fuelled by something quite different from what we usually call politics. This driving force was aesthetic. Its ambition was to beautify the world through violence." 

      Quoted by Matthew Gault in the online artcle 'The Nazis Obsessed Over Beauty', on medium.com: click here. 

      Readers who are interested in this might like to watch Cohen's 1989 documentary The Architecture of Doom (originally released in Swedish as Undergångens arkitektur). The film explores Hitler's obsession with his own neo-Classical (and yet paradoxically Romantic) vision of what was and was not aesthetically acceptable. The Nazis didn't just eliminate enemies of the State, they killed anyone whose very existence conflicted with their ideal of what they deemed Good, True, and Beautiful.

 

 

For those who can bear to watch, click here for the final tragic scene from King Kong (1933). 

 

 

England, Our England: Notes on D. H. Lawrence's Oikophobia

D. H. Lawrence by Fabrizio Cassetta (2015)

fineartamerica.com

It begins, writes Lawrence, the moment you set foot back in England: "The heart suddenly, yet vaguely sinks."

He would, I suspect, dismiss talk of oikophobia. For Lawrence explicitly says that what he experiences when arriving home is not fear, but, rather, a form of dismay; not least at the inoffensive nature of everyone and everything and the "almost deathly sense of dulness" that overwhelms even the gayest of spirits.  

England is the easiest country in the world to live in and full of the nicest people:

"But this very easiness and this very niceness becomes at last a nightmare. It is as if the whole air were impregnated with chloroform or some other pervasive anaesthetic, that [...] takes the edge off everything ..."

Ultimately, England is simply too cosy for Lawrence's liking; mildly warm and reassuring like a bedtime drink.

It's important to note, however, that Lawrence doesn't say this in order to jeer or look down on his fellow countrymen. In fact, it pains him to admit how England makes him feel: for "to feel like this about one's native land is terrible" - particularly when the bit of England that depresses him most is his hometown.

Eastwood, he says, fills him with "devouring nostalgia and an infinite repulsion". Which is pretty much how I feel too, when walking around Harold Hill; on the one hand, I want it to be exactly as it was when I was a child and on the other I want it to be razed to the ground.

In other words, oikophobia is an ambiguous condition that can give rise to violently conflicting feelings within the same breast; something that those who, like Roger Scruton, politicise the term and use it as a concept by which to attack those whom they regard as insufficiently patriotic fail to appreciate.

Thus it is that oikophobes like Lawrence, who set off on savage pilgrimages around the world in order to escape the familiar confines of home and experience otherness in far away lands amongst alien peoples, often end by concluding:

"I do think [...] we make a mistake forsaking England and moving out into the periphery of life. After all, Taormina, Ceylon, Africa, America - as far as we go, they are only the negation of what we ourselves stand for and are: and we are rather like Jonahs running away from the place we belong."


See:

D. H. Lawrence, 'Why I don't Like Living in London' and [Return to Bestwood] in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22 and 13-24. 

D. H. Lawrence, letter to Robert Pratt Barlow, 30 March 1922, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elizabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press, 1987), letter 2480, pp.218-19.  

Readers interested in a related post on oikophobia and Roger Scruton's political redefining of the term, should click here. 

Oikophobia

Home is made for comin' from, for dreams of going to

Which with any luck will never come true.

I. Confessions of an Oikophobe

Oikophobia - from the Greek, oikos, which refers to the three distinct but related concepts of home, household, and family, and phobia, meaning fear and loathing - is a term used within psychiatry, literary studies, and political philosophy.    

In the first of these fields, psychiatry, it identifies a deep-seated aversion to the vita domestica as it unfolds within a physical space, including the everyday objects and household appliances that are commonly found in the home: including, for example, cookers, carpets, and curtains.

Whether such a phobia is irrational, is debatable; to my mind it seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think disliking the saccharine stupidity and bourgeois vulgarity of home, sweet home is symptomatic of mental illness - it's surely a sign rather of cultural nobility (that is to say, artistic and intellectual superiority).

Thus it is that many poets have a romantic and nomadic desire to wander in far away lands and escape the ever so 'umble confines of home; including married life, regular employment, and onerous social duties (such as putting the rubbish in the correct recycling bins). To long to flee along the open road or roam outside the gate, is so closely tied to the creative impulse, that one is almost tempted to describe modern art and literature as inherently oikophobic.   

II. On the Politics of Oikophobia

Thanks to conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, however, the term oikophobia has recently taken on a new and negative meaning within reactionary political circles; now oikophobes are regarded as self-hating, left-leaning liberals who despise or feel ashamed of their own culture, history, and society.

Scruton argues:   

"This repudiation of the national idea is the result of a peculiar frame of mind that has arisen throughout the Western world since the Second World War, and which is particularly prevalent among the intellectual and political elites. No adequate word exists for this attitude, though its symptoms are instantly recognized: namely, the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours'. I call the attitude oikophobia - the aversion to home - by way of emphasizing its deep relation to xenophobia, of which it is the mirror image. Oikophobia is a stage through which the adolescent mind normally passes. But it is a stage in which intellectuals tend to become arrested."*

Scruton's weaponised and anti-intellectual political usage has been taken up by other commentators with an alt-right axe to grind. They argue, for example, that oikophobia is particularly prevalent on university campuses and is a chronic symptom of political correctness, informed by the work of such thinkers as Foucault and Derrida, who express contempt for ideals of love, loyalty and longing for Ithaca, preferring instead, say their critics, to affirm a kind of rootless nihilism.        

I'm not saying there's no truth in this - only that it's often spoken by the kind of ugly, flag-flying individuals that I'm never going to feel at home with. 

* Roger Scruton, speaking in Antwerp, on 23 June 2006: the text of this speech appears in The Brussels Journal (24 June 2006) and can be read by clicking here.  

For a related post on D. H. Lawrence's experience of oikophobia in terms of devouring nostalgia and infinite repulsion for his hometown of Eastwood and for England in general, click here. 

The Wisdom of Solomon 2: On the Grain of the Voice and Further Remarks on Lunacy

Simon Solomon (aka Dr Simon Thomas)

simonsolomon.ink 

Dublin-based poet, critic and translator, Simon Solomon, has been kind enough to leave several lengthy comments on recent posts and I would like here to respond to some of his points, hopefully demonstrating the same intelligence, humour, and breadth of reading as this rather shadowy figure ...

I: On the Grain of the Voice [See: Bootylicious]

As a matter of fact - and I'm not entirely convinced I said anything in the Bootylicious post that implied otherwise - I'm not affirming "the beauty of male Welsh choirs for their proximity to the coal pits and the dust of Mother Earth". Barthes may love what he terms the grain of the voice, but I don't want to hear the blackness of the lungs, or the phlegm in the back of the throat, thank you very much.

In short, I don't like earthiness: but nor do I like those big, booming voices which tremble with powerful emotion and technical brilliance, or have what people like to think of as soul. If people absolutely must break into song, I prefer they do so quietly in a non-expressive, non-showoffy, slightly hesitant, slightly shy manner (perhaps not always hitting the right notes).

I don't care whether someone has a talent for singing because, ultimately, like Larry David, I can't stand the sound of the human voice; a trick of the larynx that, as you rightly point out Simon, is no longer so impressive in a predominantly visual culture.  

II: Further Remarks on Lunacy [See: On Lunacy]

I'm perfectly happy for you to number yourself amongst the lunatic fringe, Simon. And it's clear from some of your - shall we say more poetic - comments made in response to my post on the Moon and it's supposed effect upon human biology and behaviour, this is where you belong ...

So whilst, obviously, I'd rather be beneath the stars with Sylvia Plath than Roger Scruton, I'm not sure I'd want to attend a dinner party made up of "myth-making mavericks". Nor would I choose to consult with the latter if I wanted to learn something factual about the Moon (i.e., about the real body orbiting the Earth and not the spooky object that some think is made of cheese).

Can you not at least concede the possibility that one might discover something more amazing about the Moon from astronomers and physicists, than from artists and poets? Or do you really believe that even William McGonagall has more to offer us than, for example, Brian Cox?

Actually, despite the two studies you cite, there really is scant evidence for any significant lunar effect on either surgical or criminal activity and the thirty-three-year old article by C. P. Thakur and Dilip Sharma is - I would have thought - clearly nonsense. See Eric Chuder, Bad Moon Rising: The Myth of the Full Moon (2014), which explains why this is so.

As I indicated in the post, there are many people - including politicians, doctors, and police officers - who believe in the lunar effect; just as there are many otherwise perfectly respectable and perfectly reasonable individuals advocating alternative therapies, including homeopathy.

Your argument from intuition that because the Moon's gravity "can move something as vast as an ocean" it must be able to affect "our small and frangible human bodies", is the exact opposite of how things actually work - a kind of pataphysical denial of reality or, at the very least, a misconception regarding the laws of physics in relation to scale.

(Just so you know, the gravitational pull of the moon on a human body is less than that exercised by a mosquito on your arm; measurable, but bordering on the infinitesimal. Or, to put it another way, when a mother holds her new born baby in her arms, she exerts approximately twelve millions times more tidal force on the infant than the moon overhead.)  

Finally, yes, of course, the human body is an open system; otherwise, as you rightly say, we'd "all be living like autists, psychotics and sad, solitary sacks" (in fact we'd not be living at all, as we obviously need to eat, breathe, and excrete waste materials to sustain our existence and these activities require openness and exchange).

But it's quite a leap to then say there are "no such things as individual bodies" and humanity is "one collective cosmic contagion"... This may be true at a philosophical-libidinal-psychic level, but it's certainly not the only truth. For there's also the truth of singular being; that I am I, you are you, and I am not you, you are not me, and that the Universal Oneness of Humanity is a lie (and a dangerous one).

Every man and every woman is a star, wrote Aleister Crowley. Which means, according to Lawrentian protagonist Rupert Birkin:

"'At the very last, one is alone, beyond the influence of love. There is a real impersonal me, that is beyond love, beyond any emotional relationship. So it is with you. But we want to delude ourselves that love is the root. It isn't. It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that does not meet and mingle, and never can.'"

- D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love

In other words, if you want to live a cosmic life, burning like a tiny sun or as cold and mysterious as the Moon, then you must become starkly inhuman; beyond speech and feeling, beyond responsibility and obligation, beyond understanding ...

We don't need to open ourselves up to others, Simon, or serenade them by the light of the silvery moon; we need, rather, to come into a strange conjunction or equilibrium with them as singular beings. Or something like that ...

Note: readers interested in part one of this post - On Sincerity, Authenticity, Black Sheep and Scapegoats - should click here.

On the Malign/ed Art of Faking It (Part II) - A Guest Post by Thomas Tritchler

A rare but recent photo of Thomas Tritchler

taken in Salzburg, Austria

The dreary utilitarianism of the English intellectual tradition is of course a historical given. But recently this Orwellian weakness for plain speaking has been reasserted by Elliot Murphy in his otherwise valuable study of anarchism and British literature.

In Unmaking Merlin (Zero Books, 2014), Murphy devotes an embarrassingly reactionary chapter to mocking obscurantist French poststructuralism - the decadent representatives of which he is clearly far too real and rational to care to understand. Against those sceptical writers who value irony and regard critical thinking as an indispensable inheritance of that hermeneutic tradition inaugurated by the great masters of suspicion (Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud), Murphy oddly joins hands with pantomime moralist Roger Scruton, for whom Foucault's The Order of Things  is to be dismissed as: 

"An artful book, composed with a satanic mendacity ... [whose] goal is subversion, not truth [that perpetrates] the old nominalist sleight of hand that was surely invented by the Father of Lies - that 'truth' requires inverted comas, that it changes from epoch to epoch, and is tied to the form of consciousness, the episteme, imposed by the class which profits from its propagation ..."

 

Since I would gladly affirm Scruton's scornful review as a ringing endorsement, we at least both know where we stand; he in his Anglican pulpit haranguing the heretics and frauds of aesthetic thought; I, presumably, whispering to demons with a forked tongue in a Parisian graveyard. At any rate, it feels good to know that as well as wearing Prada and having all the best tunes, the Devil is also a chic-y postmodernist!

In an instructive essay on British anti-intellectualism, Ed Rooksby has traced such inverted snobbery to the father of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, who, in his repudiation of the romantic idealism of the French Revolution, subsumed the horror of free thinking beneath the twin lenses of natural prejudice and common sense. The inductive methodologies of Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton would now underpin an ontological realism whose homespun incarnation assumed an irremediably naive strain.

Not for nothing did Oscar Wilde lament England as the 'home of lost ideas'. At the very least, in a culturally and financially bankrupt nation in which Stephen Fry offers the closest approximation of a public intellectual, it can be safely assumed one is unlikely to be breathing the rarefied air of grand thoughts.

    

Thomas Tritchler is a poet and critical theorist based in Calw, Germany. He has written and researched extensively on a wide range of authors, including Hölderlin, Nietzsche, Ted Hughes and Jean Baudrillard, and on topics including Romanticism, the Holocaust, and the politics of evil. He has recently worked with the Berlin-based art cooperative Testklang.   

Thomas Tritchler appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for his kind submission of a lengthy text written especially for this blog, edited into three separate posts for the sake of convenience.