Fragments from an Open Letter to an Anonymous Demon

Illustration by Fareha Islam in

The Stuyvesant Spectator (2026) [1]

  

 

Opening Remarks 

 

A recently published post on the maxim (and showtune) 'It's Not Where You Start' (18 Aug 2026) now comes with a pointy-tailed pair of comments attached by an anonymous critic, which I thought it might be fun to address at some length here in the form of fragments from an open letter.     

 

This is not because I wish to pick a fight or stage some kind of performative confrontation - nor is it an attempt to butter parsnips, as my anonymous critic puts it [2]. 

 

The suggestion that these are merely empty words assembled for the sake of a post misses the functional reality: the comments section has an inconvenient word limit. Also, by publishing the material here it hopefully becomes accessible to a wider number of readers.      

 

Finally, two more things to note: firstly, all quotations in the text are from the comments written by the above (italicised terms are also ones used by them). 

 

Secondly, whilst I will endeavour to address my anonymous demon critic in a courteous manner, as requested, this is nevertheless a critical rebuttal of their arguments which I think naive and moralistic; the sort of uplifting twaddle I would expect from an enthusiastic sixth-form teacher inspired by the disastrous example of John Keating [3]. 

 

 

I. 

 

Dear Anonymous, 

 

You find it bizarre that I should refer to beings sired by the Devil and ask if I can "helpfully point toward one or two of them knocking around the planet", before then making a rather cheap and unfunny joke referencing two cinematic examples of such. 

 

Perhaps you are forgetting that in a previous comment added to an earlier post [4], you explicitly described yourself as demonic spawn. But even if you haven't forgotten this - and are simply engaging in a form of revisionism - to take an obviously metaphorical phrase and treat it as a literal, biological claim is a ridiculous rhetorical failure. 

 

Pointing out that The Omen (1976) and Rosemary's Baby (1968) are "just films", is to treat an everyday figure of speech with the pedantic literalism of a young child - or a deliberately obtuse internet troll. Most readers will recognise that the phrase 'spawned by the Devil' is a humorous narrative trope. To imply that I am referencing actual demons is to set up a straw man just so you can then feel clever in mocking it. 

 

As for your parenthetical remark - "Unless we're missing something" - I read this as a passive-aggressive attempt to establish yourself as the voice of reason and make me seem like the one obsessed with the supernatural. 

 

In other words, you are pretending to be an objective and slightly puzzled reader looking for literal movie monsters, while fully knowing that you are the person the phrase demonic spawn refers to. It's an ironic turning of the tables, but hardly very courteous and betrays the fact you come to the comments section not to discuss ideas, but perform and compete.    

 

I'm fine with that: but don't complain when I decide to play the same game and join you on the stage. One cannot adopt a demonic persona one week and then feign confusion when that exact persona is referenced the next. That's not being protean, just a bit of a prick.

 

II. 

 

Moving on, we come to your defence of "bloody hard work" and "bringing out the best (or possibly worst) of what one has in oneself". 

 

This, you insist, "isn't a cliché or trite formula", but a "life-affirming idea", thereby positioning yourself as a moral vitalist (someone who views both good and evil as active forces of agency), as well as one who likes to roll their sleeves up and graft (whether this corresponds with the reality of your own life is something I'd be interested to know).   

 

I don't oppose the values of "resilience, persistence, and perseverance" - ironically, the 2,780 posts published on Torpedo the Ark over the last fourteen years demonstrate my adherence to (or embodiment of) precisely these qualities. I'll return to this point later when addressing your accusation of laziness. 

 

However, I do challenge the above as foundational ideals within Christianity that were weaponised by modern bourgeois society [5] - as does Nietzsche, in both his sane and crazy periods. 

 

As he notes in Daybreak (§ 173), for example, the relentless praise of hard work is part of a strategy to keep individuals productive and predictable members of the herd. By draining the individual of their energy through constant economic activity, society successfully prevents the dangerous, disruptive emergence of genuine creative endeavour [6].

 

Thus, when you champion hard work over idleness you are not being a radical vitalist, but, rather, acting as an anti-Nietzschean shill for the capitalist machine. 

 

And if you care to re-read the section in The Gay Science that you quote from (§ 290), you'll note that Nietzsche doesn't in fact use any of the three terms you defend. Giving style to one's character requires rigorous artistic discipline, not submissiveness to God or economic compliance with the world of work. 

 

Thus, I'm sorry to say that you have misunderstood his philosophy in relation to this question, falling back as you do into a moral liberal framework. 

 

 

III. 

 

Still on Nietzsche ... You state that his concept of slave morality "isn't a stupid attack on underdogs [...] wanting to succeed" and that's true - but only because the English term was not part of 19th-century German vocabulary (although it is now a loanword I believe).

 

But even if you love underdogs, I doubt Nietzsche would have had much time for them: what is the letzte Mensch if not the ultimate underdog; hardworking, happy, self-preserving - and he's gonna finish on top once all the top dogs holding positions of power and authority have been neutered. 

 

This certainly sounds like a canine version of the Sklavenaufstand in der Moral and you'd have to be barking to deny it.   

 

 

IV.

 

Abandoning philosophical argument entirely, you then shift to a (cod-psychological) diagnosis of my character:

 

"In his statement that 'starting positions such as wealth, access to education, and social connections heavily determine the direction and final outcome of life' and that people 'lucky enough to have a good start will invariably finish ahead of the game', we learn the truth of Stephen Alexander's own ressentiment, bitterness, and fundamental laziness."

 

So much for your earlier plea for courtesy! 

 

And it rather surprises me that a demon spawned by the Father of Lies and concealed in anonymity should be so concerned with learning the truth.  

  

More importantly, your character diagnosis fails on a purely empirical level: you provide no evidence of my ressentiment or bitterness and the 2,780 published posts on Torpedo the Ark over the last fourteen years render your accusation of fundamental laziness absurd. 

 

As a writer, my job is to write. And the millions of words written on TTA demonstrate a significant degree of intellectual discipline and creative endurance. To accuse me of "fundamental laziness" is, therefore, an odd thing to say - a kind denial not just of evidence, but reality.     

 

Actual laziness is more likely revealed by vague promises of "one day creating something self-astonishing", just as the safety of anonymity allows one to critique the labour of others without ever exposing one's own work to scrutiny.   

 

 

V. 

 

Ultimately, your text reads less like a diabolically clever critique and more as a conventional strategy typical of those who dismiss systemic realities in favour of individual exceptionalism. When the structural unfairness of an economic system is exposed, the immediate reflex of its beneficiaries is to pathologise the critic - rebranding political awareness of inequality as mere resentment or envy. 

 

In attempting to counter this by naming exceptional historical anomalies like Nelson Mandela and Edith Piaf, you rely entirely on what is known as survivor bias [7]. Unfortunately, simply pointing to a few extraordinary outliers does not disprove the statistical reality that baseline social structures trap the vast majority of people. 

 

You warn intelligent readers to be wary of anyone who uses phrases like in reality - and that is often good advice, as the phrase is frequently abused - but exercising a degree of rhetorical caution does not allow one to flatly deny that a reality exists. 

 

To suggest that simply because a phrase can be used to disguise doxa the underlying material conditions of human life disappear, is a bizarre leap of logic. It allows you to comfortably ignore the brutal, measurable statistics of poverty and structural disadvantage by treating them as mere linguistic disputes.

 

 

VI.

 

You end your commentary with an additional insult aimed my way, a reading of Aesop's story to do with the tortoise and the hare, and a couple more big names dropped - Samuel Beckett and Derek Walcott - just to add a final literary flourish. 

 

Ignoring Walcott if I may, let me first reply to the insult, then move on to the well-known Greek fable, and then, very briefly, say something about Beckett and his idea of failing better ... 

 

(i) 

 

Your assertion that because I do not turn my criticism into self-criticism - "the telos of all genuinely philosophical criticality" - I am therefore "unable or unwilling to acknowledge [my] own bullshit" is a tu quoque fallacy wrapped up in pseudo-Hegelian terminology. 

 

You invoke the word telos to give your argument a fancy intellectual veneer, but the argument itself is merely an attempt to deflect. By declaring that the ultimate goal of philosophy is self-criticism, you attempt to shift the focus away from your own logically flawed positions and put my character on trial once more.

 

But a critique of what Byung-Chul Han calls the burnout society does not require an author to issue a disclaimer admitting that they, too, participate in the market economy. Obviously, I'm implicated in the world I discuss. But to suggest that a writer must tack on a confession of their own personal flaws and failings to every structural analysis before that analysis can be validated is ridiculous. 

 

(ii) 

 

I'm afraid to say, having consulted the text, your reading of 'The Hare and the Tortoise' is a modern piece of revisionism. It's clever and imaginative, but far removed from the original story and to rewrite an ancient animal fable as a journey of self-actualisation is to strip it of textual and historical reality.  

 

You insist the tortoise emerges as the winner not because he beats his opponent per se, but because he remains "faithful to himself, non-stressed, and relentless" and ultimately "overcomes himself". 

 

In other words, the tortoise accepts his own nature, stays calm, and fights his own limits instead of fighting his long-eared rival. He symbolises what we would today call mindfulness and zen focus in a noisy and hectic world. 

 

But that is certainly not how the Ancient Greeks understood the story: they were far more pragmatically-minded and for them, the tortoise wins because he crosses the finish line ahead of an arrogant and complacent adversary; it's a political warning against the dangers of leporine hubris [8].

 

For the Greeks, wasting divinely-given talents and strengths was a severe moral failing that invited cosmic retribution. The tortoise won because the hare self-sabotaged, not because the slow-moving reptile was morally superior due to his resilience, persistence, and perseverance.

 

Ultimately, you admire the tortoise for the same reason you love the underdog: because you - like Aesop - support the slave revolt in morality [9]. 

 

The lesson of his fable for a lower-class Greek was this: if you are weak, you cannot beat the powerful through brute force or speed. You must quietly exploit their arrogance, keep your head down, stay humble, work hard, and keep moving forward while they destroy themselves.

 

(iii) 

 

This desire to turn art into uplifting motivational guff is further exposed by your misuse of Samuel Beckett. To borrow his 'fail again - fail better' idea from Worstward Ho! (1983) in order to celebrate "people who achieve things" is an outrageous move. 

 

Beckett was not auditing a business seminar or offering tips for personal reinvention and to enlist the high priest of mid-century nihilism into your campaign for personal productivity is a masterclass in bad faith. 

 

I refer you to my post of 11 June 2013 in which I write: 

 

"Beckett is absolutely not telling us that if at first we don't succeed, we should try, try again in the hope and expectation that such endurance is bound to pay off. Rather, he's saying that no matter how hard you try, no matter how many times you fail, you will never succeed: that success is not even an option. For we are destined to fail: such is the tragic character of our mortal being. The fact that Beckett affirms this and finds in it a source of darkly comic satisfaction, demonstrates that his is what Nietzsche would term a pessimism of strength." 

 

The post concludes: 

 

"The fact that his words are to be found on a wide variety of motivational posters, mugs, and fridge magnets is something that should cause laughter amongst Beckett enthusiasts. For observing people draw comfort and inspiration from lines they have naively misunderstood is, as one commentator notes, like watching someone innocently throw a stick for their dog, not realising that it is in fact a human shin bone they've just picked up in the park."  

That, dear demon, makes a good place also to end this letter. 

 

With kind regards,

 

SA 

   

 

Notes

 

[1] This image by Fareha Islam illustrated a piece by Michelle Huang titled 'A Letter from the Devil' in The Stuyvesant Spectator, Issue 14, Volume 112 (11 August, 2026). 

      The Stuyvesant Spectator is a bi-weekly newspaper produced by students at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. It was first published in 1915.

 

[2] Interesting that the anonymous critic - who may or may not be a demon (we'll come to this shortly) - should fall back once more on a proverbial saying in order to express themselves. For one of the issues I have with their criticism is precisely that they often substitute common folk wisdom for philosophical insight. 

      The fact that this particular English proverb from the 17th century betrays a suspicion of fine words (i.e., complex language which they believe lacks sincerity and is empty of meaning) is also very telling. They seem to imply that simple words invested with common sense are best - and that actions matter more than any form of speech, which is an unusual (self-loathing) position for a writer to adopt.   

 

[3] John Keating was the character played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society (dir. Peter Weir, 1989), whose unorthodox teaching methods and romantic idealism had tragic results. 

      Keating was the sort of teacher who inspired passion and encouraged free-thinking, but failed to warn his impressionable young students of the risks they were taking (and consequences that would follow) by acting in defiance of authority and convention. The sort of teacher who posed as a rebel having established a well-paid career for himself.   

 

[4] See the comment dated 14 August 2026 attached to the post 'On the Temptation of Christ' (07 Aug 2026). 

 

[5] Obviously, there are differences between early Christian culture and bourgeois society. The former, for example, directs these ideals - conceived as gifts of God's grace or fruits of the Holy Spirit rather than acts of human will or indicators of individual agency - toward spiritual salvation; while the latter ties resilience, persistence, and perseverance to material success, upward mobility, and personal achievement. 

      Over time, however, a fanatic religious work ethic fed directly into middle-class capitalist culture, as famously argued by Max Weber in his classic study of 1905, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. For Weber, Calvinism in particular created the unique mindset necessary for modern capitalism to thrive; the pursuit of wealth was repackaged as a moral calling, transforming hard work into a moral duty (and idleness into a sin).  

 

[6] See Nietzsche, Daybreak, ed. Maudemarie Clark and Brian Leiter, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 105. Nietzsche explicitly calls the blessing of work a covert strategy to suppress the individual. 

      It is worth remembering also that he insists on idleness as the crucial condition from which philosophy is born and sees perseverance as an Asiatic - specifically Chinese - mode of life suitable for "industrious ants". See Daybreak, § 206 (p. 127 in the above edition).   

 

[7] Survivor bias is a form of cognitive and logical error. It occurs when an analysis focuses exclusively on the winners or survivors of a particular process while completely ignoring the vast, nameless cohort of those who failed or perished. D. H. Lawrence became acutely aware of this dynamic when observing the mechanics of American society:

      "It is not till you live in America, and go a little under the surface, that you begin to see how terrible and brutal is the mass of failure that nourishes the roots of the gigantic tree of dollars." See 'Introduction to Bottom Dogs, by Edward Dahlberg', in Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 119.

      Ultimately, survivor bias is not merely an intellectual oversight; it is an ideological deception weaponised by the powerful to convince the powerless that systemic barriers can be overcome by sheer force of will and a lot of hard work. The organisers of the National Lottery rely on precisely the same psychological trick: they spotlight a microscopic handful of winners and declare "It could be you", deliberately obscuring the mathematical reality that, for the overwhelming majority of ticket holders, it never will be. 

 

[8] The Greeks also viewed the fable's underlying concept as a logical paradox; how could a slow-moving creature defeat a fast one - was it possible that motion itself was merely an illusion, as the philosopher Zeno argued?  

 

[9] According to early writers like the ancient historian Herodotus, Aesop was an enslaved person on the Greek island of Samos who later gained his freedom.  

 

Echoes of the Punk Age - by Jimmy Jazz (In the Manner of F. Scott Fitzgerald)

 Echoes of the Punk Age (SA/2026)

 

It was an age of anarchy; it was an age of art. 

It was an age of gobbing, and it was an age of safety pins.

 

 

Editorial Note

 

The release in October 1976 of 'New Rose' by the Damned was the first signal of the coming youth revolution [1]. Caroline Coon gave the British movement a name: Punk Rock [2]. 

 

In this post, Jimmy Jazz, who remembers the time and observed the subcultural changes of the era first-hand, shares some thoughts in what is essentially a pastiche of a well-known essay written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in Scribner's Magazine in November 1931 [3].   

 

Endnotes have been added to provide context and clarification of terms or references that may be unfamiliar to some readers.      

 

 

*************************************** 

 

I. 

 

It is now almost impossible to write about the Punk Age with genuine enthusiasm without being suspected of senile dementia. 

 

Many punk scholars still succumb to excited nostalgia when they happen upon any of its characteristic terms or images - even though these terms and images have long become familiar forms emptied of any meaning, magic, or menace and ultimately serve the Spectacle. 

 

Having passed over into the world of pure simulation where it exists posthumously as a marketable visual code that is fixed and forever circulating in media and fashion networks, the Punk Age is as undead as any other era in which complex history is replaced by a comforting myth.  

 

And yet, despite everything, the present writer still looks back to the mid-late 1970s with a certain fondness: for in a very real sense it shaped who he is today (for better or for worse).  

 

That brief six-year period, which began when SEX first opened its doors on King's Road in the autumn of 1974, ended when - as if reluctant to grow old or witness its own recuperation - punk signalled its own spectacular demise with The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and the closure of Seditionaries in the autumn of 1980.            

 

 

II.

 

When a pair of burly policemen took Alan Jones into custody for wearing a Cowboys T-shirt and charged him with displaying an obscene print in a public space - and when SEX was subsequently raided by the porn squad, arresting Malcolm and Vivienne on indecency charges - it was the sort of measure bound to alienate the more intelligent and sexually liberated young people. 

 

We didn't know much about the history of free speech in the UK, but we did know that such fascist tyranny and harassment had to be opposed - even if, after the failure of the hippies, we were scornful of the effectiveness of passive resistance and non-violent protest. 

 

For the so-called Summer of Love left those old enough to remember cynical and disappointed rather than optimistic and it was characteristic of the Punk Age that it had no interest in Peace and Love, maaan. Theirs was the politics of boredom and the aim was to exit the twentieth century via a revolt into style; a sartorial attempt to flee the totalising logic of capital through a belief in the ruins.        

 

 

III.

 

It was an age of anarchy, it was an age of art, it was an age of gobbing, and it was an age of safety pins [4]. A cold and distant Queen sat upon the throne of the United Kingdom; her regime making morons of us all. 

 

Nevertheless, we were filled with destructive potential and, thanks to McLaren and Westwood, style belonged to us. Where once we had looked to Carnaby Street, now we assembled at 430 King's Road as the power to determine the look of music and the sound of fashion passed from one generation to another.  

 

The Bromley Contingent were by-far the best-dressed group of people in the world: who could tell them what was stylish and what was fun? They created their own look and their own pastimes. 

 

The punk revolution - even before it was called such - "created a sensation out of all proportion to its novelty" [5]. As far back as 1975, the Bowie-inspired youth of London's suburbs had discovered that to dress up so as to mess up was a form of empowerment and that, ironically, bondage straps can set free. In other words, by weaponising fetish gear, they transformed restrictive rubberwear into a sign of negative freedom.  

 

At first, punk was confined to a small underground scene, mostly consisting of the Sex Pistols and their friends and followers. Among other young people the old standards and old tastes prevailed. Long-haired hippies in their flared jeans were still regularly encountered on the high street. Only during the Summer of Hate did the Punk Age fully blossom, consigning Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to the dustbin of history.  

 

Scarcely had the normally staid citizens of the UK calmed down after the Bill Grundy Incident and the media storm that followed, before the wildest of all generations - the generation which had been too busy playing with their dolls to know about the Summer of Love - brusquely shouldered anyone over twenty-five out of the way and pogoed into the limelight. 

 

This was the generation who dramatised themselves as anarchists, the generation that wanted to fuck the rich up the arse and eventually self-destructed less through a lack of ability and intelligence than through a lack of caring about long-term success. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Arguably, the Sex Pistols topping the charts with 'God Save the Queen' in June 1977 and playing on a boat on the Thames outside the Houses of Parliament was the highpoint of the Punk Age. 

 

For though the era continued even after the band split up in January 1978 [6], it became less and less an affair of rebellious youth and was now renamed (and repackaged) as the New Wave by the elders of the music business looking to regain control over punk's disruptive chaos and make money by promoting big-selling acts acceptable to the US market. 

 

New Wave was like an orgy staged by the impotent at the Cambridge Rapist Hotel tired of missing out on the action and ready to feast on young flesh. As MAMIE record boss Ed Bird informed Steve Jones: 

 

"The Sex Pistols are finished, over! We don't take risks in this business anymore - we don't need to. Anarchy has dropped out of the Top 20 - punk is dead! Rock 'n' Roll can mean anything we want it to mean - peace, love, bringing people together. It can get rid of politics - it can be art, big money, the normal promotion of records. And it's fun!" [7]

 

By 1980, New Wave itself was old hat - say hello to the post-punk world of New Romanticism! Even McLaren and Westwood decided that pirates excited more than rockers and that having gold dust in one's hair was preferable to gel.   

 

The hardcore punks who, in their black leather jackets with 'Punk's Not Dead' defiantly written on the back, refused to quietly fade away or accept that the world had moved on - who rightly pointed out that all the same forces of reaction and stupidity remained in place - soon became as boring as the old hippies that they used to sneer at (and perhaps even more pathetic). 

 

The fact is, once the hacks of Fleet Street made punk headline news the game was nearly over and when the glossy magazines started to celebrate it punk had long ceased to even be news. The songs and the fashions of the Punk Age had changed everything whilst at the same time changing nothing.    

 

 

V.

 

The cooler, more creative, more experimental members of the Punk Age - those who had been to art school and liked wearing makeup - divided into a wide variety of new post-punk subcultures. The more aspirational started wearing expensive suits and were assimilated into the corporate machine where they carved out well-paid professional careers in the media (some of these cunts are still on our TV screens today). 

 

Others, however, just settled back into the normal world; got a job, got married, bought a house, had kids, took up hobbies, and one day looked in the mirror and found they were fat and bald and would no longer dare say bip-bam-boogie and a booga rooga to a policeman [8]. Many of these people now go to punk nostalgia fests and retro events in the vain attempt to relive their younger days, or satisfy their longing for a past they never actually experienced first hand [9]. 

 

 

VI.

 

But what about poor Sid? 

 

That is often the refrain I hear from concerned liberals today. Poor Sid, allowed (and encouraged) to disappear into the dark maw of drug-addled violence. Charged with murdering Nancy (12 October 1978), Vicious found himself in jail on Rikers Island and then, released on bail and awaiting trial, fatally overdosing on heroin supplied by his own mother: too fast to live, but not, it turned out, too young to die (2 February 1979).  

 

Malcolm once said if the Punk Age had continued it would have become much more brutal and destructive and many don't approve of his (rather fanciful) terrorist posturing [10]. But I don't care for their retrospective moralising. 

 

It was fantastic to be young, pretty and vacant in such a nihilistic time: when the apple cart was up-ended just for the pleasure of seeing which way the apples would roll; to not give a shit about anything said by parents and teachers and to think criminals and other notorious figures were more inspiring than second-rate pop stars and boring politicians.  

 

To those who look back in horror on the follies of youth and the excesses of the Punk Age - I give two fingers: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" ... and it seemed only a matter of time before the Grundy generation would step aside "and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were" [11]. 

 

Of course the Punk Age seems "rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more" [12].     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] 'New Rose' was released on 22 October 1976 on Stiff Records, and is acknowledged to be the first UK punk single. The debut single from the Sex Pistols - 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - was released by EMI the following month (26 November). 

      Whilst it's impossible not to love Brian James's punk-pop ditty, the latter track, written by Cook, Jones, Matlock and Rotten, is in a different league: a genuine call to action rather than simply a song belonging to an exciting (but in many ways conventional) music genre. Click here for the astonishing live performance of 'Anarchy' on So It Goes (broadcast 4 Sept 1976).  

 

[2] Caroline Coon is widely credited with helping popularize the term 'punk rock' via her pioneering music journalism (although she didn't coin it). After attending early performances by the Sex Pistols in 1976, Coon recognised a revolutionary shift in youth culture was taking place. Coon is also credited with coming up with the name 'Bromley Contingent' for the stylish early followers of the Sex Pistols (which included Siouxsie Sioux and Billy Idol). 

 

[3] A reference to Fitzgerald's essay 'Echoes of the Jazz Age', which analysed the socio-cultural conditions that gave rise to a fascinating form of hedonistic youth culture in the 1920s. Tap on the link provided to read the essay online as a Project Gutenberg Canada ebook (2014).   

 

[4] This is a reworking of the famous opening line of Fitzgerald's essay: "It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, it was an age of satire."   

 

[5] A direct quote from Fitzgerald's 'Echoes of the Jazz Age' (1931). 

 

[6] The Sex Pistols played their final show on 14 January 1978 at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco. 

 

[7] Dialogue from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). The scene set at the (fictional) Cambridge Rapist Hotel is highly provocative to say the least, exposing how the music business exploits young flesh. The MAMIE record boss is played by actor Johnny Shannon.  

 

[8] This echoes the line in Fitzgerald's essay that reads "one day in 1926 we looked down and found we had flabby arms and a fat pot and couldn't say boop-boop-a-doop to a Sicilian". Obviously, the line suggests that he and his contemporaries had suddenly grown old and culturally irrelevant. 

      'Boop-boop-a-doop' was the playful baby-talk catchphrase of Helen Kane, the 1920s singer who inspired cartoon character Betty Boop. It symbolises the carefree, frivolous, and bubbly pop-culture slang used by the flappers of the Jazz Age. As for the phrase 'to a Sicilian', this refers to a tough, hard-working and down to earth breed of people - i.e., just the kind of people who were scorned by the Bright Young Things. 

      The phrase has been updated in the post by incorporating a line from the Bow Wow Wow song 'C30 C60 C90 - Go!' (EMI 1980) and replacing the Sicilian with an authority figure; the policeman who is shrugged off and ignored in the song by the teenage punk pirate.    

 

[9] In 2012, the writer John Koenig coined a neologism for this pseudo-nostalgia for a cultural era or historical period one didn't actually live through: anemoia. While it's not a clinically recognised psychological state, it refers to a genuine feeling experienced by a growing number of individuals - thus the growing interest in older music, vintage clothing, classic films, etc.

      Readers who are interested might like to see The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig (Simon & Schuster, 2021), or visit his official website of this name: click here.   

 

[10] In a piece by Michael Watts in Melody Maker (June 1979), McLaren said this when asked how things would have developed if the Sex Pistols had stayed together: "They'd have created serious mayhem. They'd have been an awful lot more brutal and evil. In the end it wouldn't have been puking at airports - it would've been much more to do with burning down buildings." 

      Commenting on this, Simon Reynolds says it is fanciful: "Punks were far more likely to be the victims of violence than its perpetrators. They were merely pretending to be monsters and psychopaths as part of their campaign of symbolic warfare." 

      Reynolds continues: "But the parallels with terrorism are there: escalating shock tactics, goading the authorities into repressive measures. The typical punk move was to commit some kind of outrage, through clothes, language or imagery, and then scorn the revulsion they had sought and achieved." 

      See his review of Paul Gorman's The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), titled Serious Mayhem in - London Review of Books, Vol. 44, No. 5 (10 March 2022).

 

[11] The first phrase lifts from the famous opening of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859). The closing sentiment reworks a line from Fitzgerald's 'Echoes of the Jazz Age' (1931). 

 

[12] This is the final, poignant sentence of Fitzgerald's essay, presented almost exactly as written. It serves as the ultimate admission that the magic of any youth subculture is fatally tied to the transient intensity of youth itself.

 

 

Why I Hate the Maxim (But Not the Showtune): It's Not Where You Start

Tommy Tune and ensemble performing in 

the Broadway musical Seesaw (dir. Michael Bennett, 1973)

 

Your final return will not diminish / And you can be the cream of the crop -

It's not where you start, it's where you finish / And you're gonna finish on top! [1]

 

 

I. 

 

Commenting on my temptation of Christ post (7 August 2026), an anonymous demon makes some fascinating points and encourages readers to investigate certain non-canonical texts classified as biblical apocrypha. 

 

But they also write this: "It's not where writers begin but where they end that generally tells the final truth of their legacy ..."  

 

In other words, they take a disappointing turn into tired cliché by dressing up a maxim that is repeatedly used by sports psychologists, motivational speakers, self-help authors, and sparkly showbiz types rather than those who are genuinely spawned by the Devil and delight in speaking falsehoods rather than mere platitudes.  

 

 

II. 

 

Just to be clear: I'm not denying the phrase it's not where you start, it's where you finish may have some truth content - and it certainly expresses a comforting, universally understood sentiment, which is precisely why it remains popular among those who have experienced failure or feel themselves to be slow starters in life.

 

But I hate it and regard it as a belonging to an underdog narrative: You too can overcome base origins or personal misfortune and achieve the greatness you deserve! In this way, it reinforces what Nietzsche termed the slave revolt in morals [2].   

 

Philosophically, it's suspect too in promoting the idea of agency - i.e., that your individual choices and effort matter more than your initial circumstances or fate: The future, my friends, is unwritten - so climb up that ladder and go for it!  

 

In reality, of course, starting positions - such as wealth, access to education, and social connections - heavily determine the direction and final outcome of your life. Those who are lucky enough to have a good start will invariably finish ahead of the game. 

 

Song lyrics asserting if you start at the top, you're certain to drop and that nobody starts a winner [3] are - to not put too fine a point on it - a load of old cobblers, no matter how enthusiastically they're performed.  

 

Ultimately, this uplifting maxim is a banal piece of pseudo-wisdom that ignores systemic inequalities, while encouraging all and sundry to believe that they might be rewarded by the bitch-goddess Success.   

 

It's one thing for some all-too-human commentator like Alex Guillien [4] to buy into the myth of it's not where you start, it's where you finish, but I expect so much more in the way of satanic insight from my more demonic readers ... 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] From the song 'It's Not Where You Start', which featured in the American musical Seesaw (1973); music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields. The Broadway show was based on William Gibson's play Two for the Seesaw (1958). Click on the link provided to listen to the original Broadway cast recording, provided to YouTube by DRG Records. 

      Alternatively, if you wish to see multi-talented Tommy Tune and Co. perform the song - which was the big showstopper - then click here. Funnily enough, although I hate the maxim, I love the song and this performance - choreographed by Michael Bennett - is fabulous; it quite literally has it all (including confetti and balloons). 

 

[2] The original German expression used by Nietzsche is der Sklavenaufstand in der Moral and it appears in the First Essay of Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887). 

 

[3] See note [1] above. 

 

[4] Alex Guillien, It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish, Medium (14 June 2016). 

      While researching this post, I was obliged to read some really piss-poor pieces by authors concerned with wellness, fitness, and inspiration, but I think that this one by Guillien best encapsulates all that I find so objectionable about the endlessly upbeat optimism of those who believe that "opportunities are ever-present", that success is "the progressive realization of a worthy goal" and that the aim in life is to become the "best version of YOU!"   

 

 

Wild, Wild, Wild Youth: A Hundred Years of Anarchy

  

Philip Gibbs: Young Anarchy (Hutchinson and Co., 1926)  

Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K. (EMI, 1976)

 

'I have no tolerance with the spirit of anarchy which is threatening to destroy 

this country of ours; none with the open immorality of youth 

who are dancing their way to the Devil.' [1]

 

I.

 

As ageing punks across the land will know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - the debut single by the Sex Pistols; a four-piece rock group styled and (mis)managed by Malcolm McLaren, consisting of Steve Jones on guitar, Paul Cook on drums, Glen Matlock on bass, and frontman Johnny Rotten on vocals. 

 

Originally issued in a plain black sleeve [2], the single reached number 38 on the official UK Singles Chart despite EMI withdrawing the record and firing the band following the Bill Grundy Incident [3].

 

It remains one of the great pop songs: a clarion call to an entire generation of youth - or, more precisely, to that tiny minority of angry, alienated teens who aligned themselves with those described by Peter York as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [4]. 

 

In other words, teens like me [5] who, even now, five decades later, still think it sounds fantastic: play here. 

 

(And some of you still naively imagine that The Clash are the only band that matters ...!)  

 

 

II.  

 

What ageing punks across the land will probably not know, however, is that this year also marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Young Anarchy - a newsreel novel [6] by the largely-forgotten English journalist and author Philip Gibbs [7].   

 

Published soon after the General Strike (3-9 May, 1926) [8], the book explores generational divides and political tensions in post-War Britain, offering a fast-paced commentary on contemporary events. 

 

The punks of their day - so-called Jazz Age youth - are portrayed by Gibbs as rebels who reject old ideals of obedience and duty. Their rebellion - whether expressed through acts of cultural hedonism or radical left-wing politics - is framed as a desperate response to the horrors of the Great War.  

 

True to Gibbs's own political liberalism, the book's narrator acts as a well-meaning, moderate observer; one who expresses sympathy for workers fighting for fair wages, but at the same time strongly opposes militants who use industrial action to threaten national stability and young people seemingly out of control and happy to drink and dance their lives away. 

 

This, said of a group of what Gibbs terms Glad Young Things in 1926, might also have been written by some old fart observing the staff and customers of SEX in 1976: "Born into the beginning of a new epoch, with a new mentality [...] We of the older generation cannot catch them up or hold them back. They have escaped from us." [9] 

 

 

III. 

 

Ultimately, both the novel Young Anarchy and the single 'Anarchy in the U.K.' serve as vital, time-capsule dispatches from eras when British society felt precariously close to the edge. 

 

Whether processing the lingering trauma of the Great War through a mixture of decadence and hedonism in 1926, or venting the frustrations of economic collapse and cultural stagnation by gobbing and pogoing in 1976, both generations of youth terrified the establishment by refusing to inherit an untenable status quo. 

 

Gibbs's forgotten book reminds us that the instinct to tear it up and start again did not begin with safety pins and ripped t-shirts - it is, rather, a recurring British tradition born whenever the promises of the old order ring hollow. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This is the reactionary Bishop of Burpham speaking - a character in the novel who does not approve of the younger generation openly jeering at religion and expressing revolutionary ideas. He finds them perplexing, distressing and terrifying: "They seem to me lawless, anarchical, and utterly lacking in any sense of duty and discipline." This includes his own son, Jocelyn, studying at Oxford where he encounters socialism, and his daughter, Nancy, who has published a successful (if somewhat racy) novel. Whilst he disowns them both, his sister, Elizabeth, is far more positive about her nephew and niece and the young generally in whom she sees great future potential.  

      The lines quoted are on p. 7 of the US edition of Philip Gibbs's Young Anarchy (published by George H. Doran, 1926) and available free online thanks to the New York Public Library.  

 

[2] There were only a couple of thousand copies of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' issued in the black sleeve; after that, it was sold in the standard EMI sleeve with a hole in the middle so the label information could easily be read. See the post on TTA titled 'But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It ...' (24 March 2024). 

 

[3] For those readers who aren't familiar with the details of the Bill Grundy incident, let me briefly summarise: After Queen cancelled their appearance on the live television show Today at the last minute, the Sex Pistols were offered the spot in order to promote their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.', and explain what the new subcultural phenomenon called punk was all about. 

      Things started badly and quickly got worse when it was clear that Grundy was hostile and dismissive of the band and that the latter - particularly guitarist Steve Jones - was not prepared to take his bullshit, nor listen to his creepy sexual innuendo when speaking to a female member of their entourage called Siouxsie Sioux. Suggesting to her that they might 'meet afterwards' triggered Jones into calling him a "dirty sod" and a "dirty old man". 

      Stupidly, Grundy then challenged Jones to "say something outrageous" - which he did; calling Grundy a "dirty bastard" and a "dirty fucker". Grundy responded, "What a clever boy!" to which Jones hilariously replied, "What a fucking rotter!" 

      Predictably, the phone lines to the Thames switchboard lit up and the national press had a field day. Grundy was suspended by Thames and his career effectively ended. The Sex Pistols were fired shortly afterwards by their record label EMI (keeping their £40,000 advance) and branded by the media as public enemies. The interview - click here - has become one of the most requested TV clips of all time.

 

[4] Peter York, 'Them', Harpers & Queen (October, 1976). Quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

 

[5] I was thirteen when 'Anarchy in the U. K.' was released, but I didn't fully commit to the punk cause until the summer of 1977 around the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, when it became clear that one was either for the Crown or the Sex Pistols.    

 

[6] Newsreel fiction refers to a literary technique in which a writer splices actual news headlines, advertising slogans, and historical documents directly into the text with the aim of capturing the chaotic public consciousness of an era increasingly shaped by the media. The style is famously used by American author John Dos Passos in his U.S.A. trilogy (1930-36). 

 

[7] Philip Gibbs (1877-1962) served as one of five official British war correspondents during the First World War and was determined to be a writer just like his father and four of his siblings, producing an astounding number of books in his lifetime. 

      One extremely knowledgeable blogger writes: "In many ways Philip Gibbs is the archetypal male middlebrow writer of the inter-war period. Immensely prolific, he appealed strongly to the thoughtful decent middle class, worried about the way the world was going and wary of extremes." See the post Philip Gibbs and 'Heirs Apparent' (3 June 2013) on George Simmers' blog Great War Fiction Plus. 

      On a later post  - The Novels of Philip Gibbs - a checklist (17 Dec 2017) - Simmers writes that whilst today many of Gibbs's novels are largely forgotten and remain "of more interest to the historian than to the connoisseur of literature", he is, nevertheless, a very readable and interesting writer. 

 

[8] Called by the TUC in solidarity with the miners, around 1.7 million transport, printing, dock, and heavy industry workers walked out, bringing much of Britain to a standstill. It is worth noting that in Gibbs's novel the General Strike is something of a turning point; suddenly, the Glad Young Things rally round for king and country and do their scabby bit by driving buses and working at the docks. Gibb's writes: "That youth of ours [...] so careless of criticism, such rebels against authority, so reckless of convention [...] played the game according to the rules, and in the spirit of the old tradition." [Young Anarchy, US edition, 1926, p. 309.]

      Similarly, many punks proved to be right-thinking people when push came to shove - even Johnny Rotten is now seen as a national treasure, who loved his mother, loved his wife, and didn't really mean those nasty things he said about Her Majesty, describing anarchy as a bourgeois fantasy only ever subscribed to by people like McLaren. Young Anarchy suggests that the essentially peaceful and liberal spirit of England will always win out against more extreme, revolutionary ideologies and perhaps that is in fact the case. 

      See George Simmers's review of Young Anarchy (20 Oct 2025) published on Reading 1900-1950 - a Sheffield Hallam University blog site concerned with readerships and literary cultures in this period. And see also an earlier review by Simmers of Gibbs's novel published on his own blog (29 June 2008) - click here - upon which the later piece is largely based.   

 

[9] Philip Gibbs, Young Anarchy (George H. Doran, 1926), p. 134. 

      This marks the novel's thematic resolution; the narrator finally accepts that society has shifted permanently into a new era, leaving his generation behind. 

 

On Two High-Maintenance Individuals and the Man Who Paid the Price of Befriending Them

Ludwig Wittgenstein, D. H. Lawrence, and Bertrand Russell 

photographed in 1929

 

 

I. 

 

In the early 20th century, the phrase high-maintenance was one confined to the world of technical engineering and referred to sensitive machines that demanded constant monitoring and often frequent servicing or repair with specialised parts to ensure smooth running.

  

But by the late 1980s, it was being used by those hip to the latest slang to describe romantic partners and emotionally draining personality types, as well as racing cars and fighter jets. The phrase only gained wide circulation, however, thanks to the hugely popular and influential rom-com When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner, 1989) [1].    

 

 

II. 

 

I'm not here to discuss the Harry Burns & Sally Albright relationship, however, and whether the latter was or was not difficult to date due to her being very particular about the manner in which her food was served. 

 

I'm here, rather, to discuss an English writer and an Austrian-born thinker, both of whom I'm sure Bertie Russell would agree were extremely exacting, hyper-sensitive, and emotionally volatile men of genius: D. H. Lawrence and Ludwig Wittgenstein. 

 

While Lawrence was a passionate, prophetic novelist who used poetic language to describe being and Wittgenstein an analytic philosopher who used rigorous logic to define the limits of language, they had similar temperaments and shared an intensity that many people found exhausting.   

 

 

III. 

 

Born in an East Midlands mining community in 1885, Lawrence was a visionary who - by his own admission - preferred his own subjective model of the truth and waged a relentless crusade against many - perhaps most - aspects of the modern industrial world and the moral-rational idealism rooted in Plato that gave rise to Christianity. 

 

Sensitive to criticism, social convention and all forms of authority - and happy to tramp around the world on what he termed a savage pilgrimage, picking fights with friends and enemies along the way - Lawrence was someone who seemed to actively court controversy and thrive on conflict. 

 

His books were censored and sometimes banned. And if he can legitimately be thought of as carrying forward Nietzsche's project of a revaluation of all values, Lawrence can also be viewed as a forerunner of the countercultural revolution of the 1960s. 

 

 

IV. 

 

Born just outside Vienna in 1889 into an extremely wealthy family, Wittgenstein was unsparing in his demand for absolute conceptual clarity and perfection from himself and everyone around him. Whether spending years obsessing over a single architectural detail, pushing students to breaking point with his teaching methods, or waving pokers in the faces of visiting professors [2], he tolerated no sloppy thinking (as might be expected of someone who originally wished to study aeronautical engineering).  

 

His close companion and friend - the brilliant Cambridge mathematician David Pinsent - noted that Wittgenstein was always on edge and easily upset by the smallest thing or any imagined insult. If someone made a casual remark or used a cliché, Wittgenstein would react with genuine horror and fury, viewing it as a moral failing rather than innocent small talk. 

 

Like Lawrence, his personal life was marked by a series of fierce arguments, abrupt ruptures and intense reconciliations. He swung between deep self-loathing and absolute certainty in his own rightness in matters of philosophical logic. Prone to severe bouts of depression, he would sometimes have suicidal thoughts and seek out total isolation. 

 

In brief: both Lawrence and Wittgenstein were highly-strung as well as high-maintenance individuals. 

 

 

V.

 

Just to be clear: Lawrence and Wittgenstein never met. 

 

When Lawrence visited the University of Cambridge in March 1915, at the invitation of Bertrand Russell, he was introduced to several prominent figures, including the economist John Maynard Keynes, but Wittgenstein was then serving on the Eastern front as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army. 

 

Probably it's just as well that they didn't meet. 

 

For Lawrence was less than comfortable in the hallowed halls of Cambridge and came away detesting the Apostles, describing his visit as a major crisis that revealed to him the rotten nature of English intellectual life [3]. 

 

His visceral response was in part triggered by the rational cynicism of those he encountered and in part by his homophobia. For several members of the Cambridge Apostles and the affiliated Bloomsbury Group were either homosexual or had bisexual leanings and Keynes once rather amusingly declared that "practically everyone at Cambridge [...] is an open and avowed sodomite" [4] - this included Wittgenstein, of course.      

 

 

VI. 

 

Although they never met, there was one man - already twice mentioned in this post - who knew them both and was exasperated first by Wittgenstein (in the period 1911-1913) and then by Lawrence (1915-1916): Bertrand Russell ...

 

Born in 1872 - so a generation older than Lawrence and Wittgenstein - Russell would become one of England's most celebrated thinkers, social reformers, and outspoken opponents of the First World War (even spending six months in Brixton prison in 1918 for his pacifist writings and activism).  

 

Having won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1890, he graduated in 1893 with a degree in mathematics. Two years later, he won a prize fellowship in philosophy and was eventually given a teaching post in 1899. Aligning himself with figures such as G. E. Moore and Alfred North Whitehead, Russell was part of the revolt against idealism and one of the founding figures in analytic philosophy.  

 

 

VII.

 

Russell first met Wittgenstein in October 1911, when the latter suddenly appeared one tea time, unannounced and unexpected. Wittgenstein introduced himself as an engineering student from Austria who wanted to study mathematical logic. 

 

Intrigued, Russell welcomed the earnest young fellow and quickly recognised he was an extraordinary individual - so much so, that he came to think of Wittgenstein not merely as his student and research collaborator, but his protégé. Between their first meeting and the summer of 1913, the two men developed an intense intellectual bond and worked tirelessly to solve some of the fundamental problems in mathematical logic. 

 

However, Russell soon discovered that Wittgenstein could be difficult, to put it mildly - not least of all when insisting on the impossibility of proving there were no rhinos in the room - and in May 1913 their relationship suffered a significant strain when Wittgenstein criticised Russell's work on the Theory of Judgment with such savagery that it shattered Russell's confidence in his own writings. 

 

Shortly afterwards, Wittgenstein decided to leave Cambridge and retreat to a secluded wooden hut in Norway, before eventually volunteering to fight in the Great War. Afterwards, the relationship between the two men was never the same again. 

Nevertheless, Russell helped Wittgenstein publish his groundbreaking Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (in German in 1921 and in English translation the following year) - he even generously wrote an introduction, despite the fact that Wittgenstein made clear his view that Russell fundamentally misunderstood the work.  

 

Russell also facilitated Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929, by agreeing to accept the Tractatus as a doctoral thesis (and act alongside Moore as the examiner). But Wittgenstein wasn't particularly grateful and he increasingly grew to dislike Russell's popular writings and changing philosophical direction. 

 

 

VIII.

 

And then there was Lawrence ... Someone whom Russell found even more of a high-maintenance madman. At least Wittgenstein, for all his idiosyncrasies, was logical in his thinking and didn't subscribe to a libidinal philosophy based on an intuitive way of knowing described as blood-knowledge [5].  

 

Russell first met Lawrence in February 1915. They were introduced, I believe, by their mutual acquaintance Lady Ottoline Morrell, who, for some reason, imagined that both men would greatly benefit from the meeting. 

 

And, to be fair, at first they seemed to get along like a house on fire - united in their passionate opposition to the War, if nothing else. Russell initially found Lawrence an astounding figure: "He is like Ezekiel or some other Old Testament prophet [...] he sees everything and is always right" [6]. They even planned to co-author and deliver jointly a series of public lectures on social reconstruction. 

 

However, their brief working and personal relationship quickly deteriorated due to deep philosophical differences and by early 1916 Lawrence chose to cut all ties with Russell - though not before sending him a number of outrageously aggressive and insulting letters that, for a while, made Russell feel so wretched that he even considered killing himself. 

 

Take a butcher's at this one for example, written on 14 September 1915, which opens: "Dear Russell, I'm going to quarrel with you again. You simply do not speak the truth, you simply are not sincere" and which then goes on to say: 

 

"You are simply full of repressed desires [...] Your will is false and cruel. You are too full of devilish repressions to be anything but lustful and cruel. [...] The enemy of all mankind, you are, full of the lust of enmity. It is not the hatred of falsehood which inspires you. It is the hatred of people, of flesh and blood. It is a perverted mental blood-lust. Why don't you own it. Let us become strangers again, I think it is better." [7]    

  

Wittgenstein may have made Russell feel intellectually inferior - and he may have found Wittgenstein's moral perfectionism tiresome - but Lawrence left him feeling completely worthless as a human being - and who needs that?    

 

 

IX.

 

On reflection - and despite my not much caring for him - it's difficult not to afford Bertrand Russell a significant degree of sympathy. 

In D. H. Lawrence and Ludwig Wittgenstein, he was obliged to manage two of the most intensely high-maintenance individuals of the modern era - young men who were incredibly exhausting and demanding to be around. 

Biographers, friends, and peers have extensively documented how both Lawrence and Wittgenstein were routinely impossible - prickly, combative, tormented, and heavily burdened by an agonizing duty of genius. Both actively thrived on opposition, were prone to explosive rages, and would rather sit in hours of tense, excruciating silence than tolerate casual small talk.

 

What Russell encountered in both men was an insane refusal to compromise with the world as it was. Crucially, however, while Lawrence insisted on raw, emotional vitality at all times, Wittgenstein enforced a standard of absolute intellectual integrity and this fundamental divergence explains why Russell ultimately drew such a sharp line of distinction between the two. 

In his Autobiography, reflecting on his state of mind during the tumultuous period in which he was closely associated with both men, Russell summarised the difference: "Lawrence is just as ferocious a critic as Wittgenstein, but I thought Wittgenstein right and I think Lawrence wrong." [8]

 

In other words, Russell respected Wittgenstein's hostility because its strict conceptual honesty acted as a rigorous intellectual challenge, forcing him to abandon untenable logical theories. 

Lawrence's hostility, on the other hand, was purely personal and rooted in Lawrence's need to psycho-pathologise the people he met. Lawrence successfully drove Russell to the edge of despair, but his criticisms lacked any substantive philosophical basis, leaving Russell unconvinced by his arguments. 

Push comes to shove, then, Russell chooses the logical fanaticism of Wittgenstein over the destructive emotional chaos of Lawrence. For at least with the former, you can reason - which is not the case with a man who sings If it be not true to me / what care I how true it be [9] and talks an awful lot about his solar plexus. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] In a famous scene in the movie, Harry (played by Billy Crystal) informs Sally (Meg Ryan) that there are, in his view, two types of women: high and low maintenance. This permanently shifted the phrase from a niche piece of slang into a universal linguistic shorthand for a demanding partner - and for this we can thank the film's writer Nora Ephron. 

      It might be noted, however, that there are critics of the term - especially as it is often used by men as a sexist insult about women (particularly women who are simply more than they can handle or out of their league).

 

[2] See the post 'Did You Hear the One About the Philosopher and the Actress?' (30 Oct 2025) in which I discuss the infamous 1946 incident where Wittgenstein brandished a poker in Karl Popper's direction. 

 

[3] In a notorious letter [19 April 1915] to David Garnett, Lawrence wrote that the scene at Cambridge filled him with "misery and hostility and rage" and he compared Keynes and co. to "black-beetles" (perhaps of the very same species that Wittgenstein would later place in an imaginary box to make a point about the meaning of words for inner sensations coming from public use rather than private hidden objects; see Philosophical Investigations (1953), § 293). 

      See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. II, ed. George J. Zytaruk and James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 320-321.

 

[4] Keynes wrote this playful observation in a 1906 letter to his close friend and lover Duncan Grant, with reference to the tight-knit, intellectually progressive circles at the university. It is quoted by Simon Goldhill in Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History (Cambridge University Press, 2025). See Chapter 2: 'The Politics of Homosexuality', pp. 92-144.

      Lawrence, who struggled with his own homoerotic impulses, was disgusted by how casually and cynically the Cambridge crowd treated sexuality. He viewed their lifestyle not as a genuine form of love, but as a sterile, intellectualised perversion (they had their sex in the head, as he liked to say).

 

[5] In a famous letter (17 Jan 1913) to Ernst Collins, Lawrence writes: "My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true." See The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. I, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 502-504. Lines quoted are on p. 503.  

      When, a couple of years later, Lawrence tried to convince Russell of a non-mental, elemental form of consciousness, the latter was unimpressed and unpersuaded. And, rather unfairly and somewhat crassly, Russell would later write that Lawrence's mystical philosophy of blood was essentially fascist in character and led straight to the Nazi death-camps See Volume II (1914-1944) of his three-volume Autobiography (George Allen & Unwin, 1967-1969), p. 23. 

 

[6] Bertrand Russell, quoted by John Worthen in D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider (Allen Lane / Penguin Books, 2005), p. 158.

 

[7] D. H. Lawrence, Letters II. 392. As John Worthen notes, this letter went too far for Russell, who from this point on found Lawrence "increasingly absurd, incapable of real thinking and madly unrealistic". See D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider, p. 160.

 

[8] Bertrand Russell, Autobiography, Vol. II (1968), p. 54. Russell originally wrote these lines to Lady Ottoline Morrell in a letter of July 1915.

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, 'Introduction' to Fantasia of the Unconscious, ed. Bruce Steele (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 70. (My italics.)