One for Sorrow ...

One for Sorrow (Or The Murder of Murgatroyd) 

Stephen Alexander (2023)

 

 

I. 

 

It's striking how the death of an individual creature can have far greater emotional resonance than news of an entire species dying out. 

 

Thus it is that when I came across the body of a dead magpie this morning it filled me with genuine sorrow, whilst discovering that the Chinese paddlefish was declared extinct in 2022 left me almost entirely indifferent. 

 

That's not because I value our feathered friends more than our aquatic ones, it's just due to the fact that death only becomes real (conceivable) when reduced in scale and given a face, as it were. 

 

This applies to people as well as animals; reports of atrocities involving multiple fatalities don't move as much as the image of a single dead child (a fact often exploited by those looking to influence or emotionally manipulate public opinion).   

 

 

II.

 

Magpies, of course, belong to the crow family - widely considered to be the most intelligent of birds - and are famous for their beautiful black-and-white colouration and (in the European imagination) the fact that they love to steal shiny objects, such as wedding rings and other valuables.      

 

They are also thought to have an ominous aspect; to be a portent of good or bad fortune. According to English folklore, one is for sorrow, two for mirth; three for a death and four for a birth. The popular nursery rhyme builds upon this ornithomantic idea, albeit with different lyrics:

 

One for sorrow, 

Two for joy, 

Three for a girl, 

Four for a boy, 

Five for silver, 

Six for gold, 

Seven for a secret never to be told. [1]

 

There are many variants of this, but the key fact remains - as any fisherman will tell you - that a solitary magpie is never a good sign ...

 

In Piero della Francesca's painting of the Nativity scene, for example, a lonely magpie can be spotted on the roof of a ruined stone stable presaging the pain and sorrow that lies ahead (aguably for all mankind, not just Mary and her son).     

  

 

Piero della Francesca The Nativity (1470-75)

Oil on wood (124 x 123 cm)
National Gallery (NG908) [2]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Like many of my generation, I know this version of the rhyme thanks to the children's TV show Magpie, (1968-80). Sadly, the popularity of this version - performed by The Spencer Davis Group as the programme's theme song [click here] - displaced many regional variations that had previously existed.

 

[2] Click here for more information on the work and its recent restoration. Keen-eyed birdspotters will doubtless also note the goldfinch - a symbol of redemption in devotional art - sitting in a bush on the left of the picture.

 

 

Nietzsche and the Question of Corruption

Corruption, writes Nietzsche, is merely a nasty word for the autumn of a people. 

That is to say, corruption is a term which, whilst often loaded with negative moral connotations, simply describes those periods in which the fruits of a society - sovereign individuals - ripen and fall from the tree. 

It is these extremely rare types who carry the seeds of the future and become founders of new states and communities, as well as new ways of thinking and feeling. Often, such singular men and women care only for the moment and for themselves; and yet, for Nietzsche, they justify all the stupidity and cruelty of the past and redeem the suffering of the many. They are what nature has been aiming at all along.

Nietzsche provides us with four signs to look out for, should we wish to determine the degree of corruption within a social body: 

(i) Superstition: understood by Nietzsche to be a symptom of enlightenment and spiritual progress. He writes: "Whoever is superstitious is always, compared with the religious human being, much more of a person; and a superstitious society is one in which there are many individuals and much delight in individuality."

(ii)  Exhaustion: although a society in which corruption is ripe is often accused of being exhausted, Nietzsche points out that actually all the energy previously expended in war by the state, is simply now sublimated into countless private passions. Indeed, there is probably a greater than ever exercise of power; the individual squandering resources in a manner which would have previously been unimaginable: thus is it precisely in times of corruption that "great love and great hatred are born, and that the flame of knowledge flares up in the sky".

(iii) Refinement: it is also mistakenly believed that times of corruption are more humane (i.e. softer, kinder, perhaps more feminine); that cruelty declines drastically, or is sharply curtailed. But again, Nietzsche says this is not so: "All I concede is that cruelty now becomes more refined and that its older forms henceforth offend the new taste; but the art of wounding and torturing others with words and looks reaches its supreme development ... it is only now that malice and the delight in malice are born."

(iv) Tyranny: corruption allows for the emergence of tyrants; "they are the precursors ... of individuals". It is invariably in the age of a Caesar that the individual will also ripen and culture achieve its highest and most fruitful stage; not on account of the tyrant himself, but because he provides the necessary external conditions - the peace and stability - that is needed. Whilst he makes life safer and secure, they set about making it more beautiful and profound.

So you see, we need our decadents and quasi-feminine types; our corrupt egoists. But not in the way or for the reason that the followers of Ayn Rand imagine. We value them not as wealth creators, but as culture creators and the founders of discursivity; they are free spirits - not merely free marketeers!     

   

Note: All quotes from Nietzsche are from The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), I. 23, pp. 96-8.