DUFF & NONSENSE!

Kountering Kamm!

I referred below to a spirited defence of the Iraq operation by Oliver Kamm, an ardent supporter, in which he admits that mistakes have been made, but still maintains that it was not just worthwhile but a necessity to carry it out.  Oliver Kamm does not allow comments on his site (a pity, I think) but here comments are always welcome.  A regular visitor here is 'Dearieme', normally a mild and good natured fellow, but Oliver's (I hope he will forgive the familiarity) essay has reduced him to carpet-chewing ferocity in a comment to the post below and, my non-geek skills permitting, I intend to paste it under here to start the conversation off.

I have read his essay carefully, as I urge you to do, but I am still slightly confused by his justification for the war.  It seems to stem from three separate roots.  The first is a graft of idealism on to ideology.  In effect Oliver says that Saddam was an undemocratic dictator of demonic wickedness, a description with which no-one, except possibly the dis-honourable member for Bethnell Green & Bow, would disagree.  It would be wrong to suggest that Oliver considers this alone a sufficient reason to invade Iraq but from all that he has written on his blog, in this and other posts, it is obviously an enormously important part of his whole actively interventionist stance.  Of course, if you are an idealist and a fervent advocate of Western liberal democracy, as Oliver is, then it is reasonable to support a foreign policy of hostility, short of war, against those regimes which are antithetical to the political system that you espouse - assuming, of course, that you can afford it!  After all, whilst one is entitled to look askance at the regime in Saudi Arabia, alas, we need the oil.  Similarly, if in peril, we are surely right to ally ourselves with any country that is an enemy of our enemy, as we did, whilst holding our noses, with the USSR in WWII.  Oliver is not such a starry-eyed idealist that he will ignore hard realities but each and every instance in which this country fails to conduct a hostile policy against a country whose governance stands as an insult to democratic values rather lessens the strength of such an argument in support of our intervention in Iraq.  It tarnishes the idealism more than somewhat if the policy can be summed up as: we will because, in this case, we can!

There is yet another important consideration inherent in Oliver's desire to intervene on the grounds of idealistic ideology.  As I indicated in my use of the term "hostility, short of war", there is a world of difference between the two conditions, hostility and war.  The first is always provisional, the latter is irrevocable!  For that very reason the first requires less in the way of buttressing arguments because it can always be changed, where-as the second demands that the justification for war be tested to extremes before a final decision is taken.  I would say that Oliver's idealism is totally insufficient on its own as a justification (as he would probably agree), but further, in view of the number of instances when we failed to apply it, it is so weak as to be virtually useless even as a supporting argument for invading Iraq.

There is one other consideration when deciding on the efficacy of his idealism as a justification for going to war in order to combat the forces of undemocratic evil, and surprisingly it is not really dealt with in detail by Oliver and other pro-war supporters.  Given that their policy is based on a moral imperative, the question is whether or not it is moral to go to war to change a regime.  As I have repeated probably too many times, people like me do not allow the butcher's bill to weigh too heavily in the balance, but idealists like Oliver surely must.  He, and his ilk, point constantly to the pro-active action by liberal democracies against the horrors of Nazi Germany, and their principled stand against Soviet ambitions in the cold war.  Pointing to the monstrosities of these regimes, they say, in effect, if it was right then, it was also right for us to take a similar hard line against Saddam and his murderous sons.  This surely is a travesty of history.  Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviets constituted a direct and tangible threat to this country, by which I mean that it was very much in the realm of possibility, some would say, probability, that German or Soviet boots would trample across English soil.  We did not go to war with Germany for the sake of Poland, any more than we did to save the Jews.  We took the irrevocable step, at the very last minute, in order to counter a very real strategic threat. It had nothing to do with the inherent evil of their regimes because, of course, we actually allied ourselves to one of these monsters in order to deal with the other!

Raising the subject of a "very real strategic threat" brings us out of the airy realms of idealism and ideology to the deadly nuts and bolts of WMD.  Oliver's second reason in support of the Iraq operation, as I understand it, was the threat of WMD.  In his essay he is not entirely specific but I think we can take it as a given that he, along with Blair and Bush (and me!) believed in the likelihood that Saddam had WMD, or, if the Western hostility towards Iraq was eased by the combination of pathetic public opinion and lack of support from the so-called international community (ie, France and Russia), it would only be a matter of time before Saddam reconstituted his teams of chemists, scientists and engineers into a new programme.  In other words, if, as seemed more than possible in the late '90s, the sanctions and the no-fly zones were lifted, Saddam would be back to his WMD quick as a flash.  In a comment on the post below, Hank kindly linked to an International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) report which fairly summed up the state of knowledge prior to the war and the penultimate paragraph reads as follows: "Today, after four years without inspections, there can be no certainty about the extent of Iraq’s current capacities. A reasonable net assessment is that Iraq has no nuclear weapons but could build one quickly if it acquired sufficient fissile material. It has extensive biological weapons capabilities and a smaller chemical weapons stockpile. It has a small force of ballistic missiles with a range of 650km, that are capable of delivering CBW warheads, and has prepared other delivery methods for CBW, including manned aircraft and UAVs. Sooner or later, it seems likely that the current Iraqi regime will eventually achieve its objectives."  The final paragraph contains this sentence which encapsulates the difficulty facing policy makers at the time, "Wait and the threat will grow; strike and the threat may be used."

Frankly, it was a judgement call and it seems to me that honourable and thoughtful men could come to different conclusions based on the knowledge to hand at the time.  If it is true that Oliver allowed his passionate idealism to sway his judgement one way, it is also equally true that a great many anti-war people allowed their passionate anti-Americanism to sway theirs in an opposite direction.  Still, let us leave motivation to the psychologists and test Oliver's argument that war was the only, or the best, way to deal with the problem of Saddam's WMD capability - or potential capability.  He maintains that it was, and I agree with him.  A policy of containing and curbing Saddam's ambitions had been in place with the full legal backing of UN resolutions since the end of the first Iraq war.  However, by the turn of the century, they were visibly wilting and failing not least because of the pernicious influence of the French and the Russians who were owed huge amounts of money by the Iraqi regime.  (There-in, of course, lies a lesson that will continue to be ignored by policy makers, that allowing your foreign policy to be dictated by a collection of gangsters and mass-murderers at the UN is foolishness bordering on insanity!)  The fact is that by 2000, the US/UK were being pushed back from their policy of containment and there were only two options; simply give up the sanctions and the aerial surveillance, beat a retreat and hope for the best whilst a resurgent and enriched Saddam bolstered his power and nursed his grievances, or, go to war.  I realise that my opinion could be described as light-weight but even so, for what it's worth, I agree with Clausewitz that war is an essentially unstable and unpredictable activity that should only be undertaken for profound reasons of state.  I believe that Saddam was a huge risk and had proved it by his past conduct in waging war against his neighbours.  The possibility of him deploying toxic chemicals, via third parties, in the heart of our cities was too great a risk and that, going further than Oliver's stance, I believe was not only a necessary argument, it was a sufficient one to justify war.

The third argument Oliver puts forward in defence of his pro-war policy might be described as post hoc!  In it, he suggests that one huge benefit is the removal from the world scene of one of the three WMD threats emanating from states whose regimes depend on whipping up hatred of the USA and, by implication, the UK.  They have now been reduced to two - Iran and N. Korea.  No-one should undervalue that achievement.

Throughout this post I have referred to the 'war', and I mean by that, the 3-week invasion and conquest of Iraq.  The 'occupation' is another matter altogether.  Here, I believe, Oliver allows his passionate idealism to overcome his common-sense.  He implies that amongst other things, more troops would have helped.  I would suggest that it wasn't the lack of troops that harmed us in the immediate aftermath, but our lack of ferocity!  We could have had all the troops we possessed inside Iraq but if you are going to ponce about with what the British army is pleased to call 'hearts and minds' campaigns, you are wasting your time.  It does not require a conquering army to be unleashed in bestiality onto the general population but it does require that they be utterly ruthless in catching and executing any resistance fighters or agitators.  Like Machiavelli's prince, it is better to be feared than loved.  However, we must face the fact that our governments are ultimately not rulers but ruled - by their electorate.  Today there is absolutely no chance that the American or British public would allow their soldiers the degree of ruthlessness required to hold down a rebellious people.  Given that fact, it is necessary to adapt your strategy and tactics.  If holding down a nation in order to give time for the seeds of democracy to grow is doomed to failure, then one should simply depend on the effects of the 'projection of power'.  The attack on Iraq was a prime example of the projection of power aimed at the ruling elite.  It was massively successful and if we had quickly withdrawn, perhaps holding a small area as a base, it would have had a salutary effect on neighbouring governments.  Now, because of what I call mischievously, the 'neo-Kamm' policy of trying to sow western democracy into a society that has no cultural or historical soil in which the seeds might grow, what might  be described accurately as a sort of political onanism, we have become mired in this ghastly muddle in which all our advantages have gone and indeed, we are now suffering severe damage.  Had we left immediately, no doubt Iraq would have imploded into civil war, but that need not have concerned us.  No doubt there would have been severe repurcussions as the Iranians attempted to take over the Shi'ite south (as they are trying to do now), and Turkey might have been tempted to intervene in the Kurdish north, but at least we would have achieved our limited aims of removing Saddam, our strength and ability to project our power would have been maintained and would have to be taken into careful consideration by all concerned in the region.  Now we face the worst of all possible worlds having made a complete muck of it, being forced out with our tail between our legs and our potential enemies confident that we will never return in their lifetime because our electorate would never stand for it.  The effect on our friends and allies in the region can only be imagined!

Oliver's world view is based on a Messianic vision that in another century might have been called muscular Christianity.  In the 21st century we are neither muscular nor Christian, and our liberal socialism at home is well on the way to sapping what strength of purpose we might have left.  We must brace ourselves for shocks to come and when they come they will be too close for comfort.  Perhaps then, like a hanging in the morning, it will concentrate our minds wonderfully!

(I hope to be able to cut and paste some comments from the post below to this post inorder to maintain the conversation)

Kamm Komes out Klobbering for a KO!

Busy, busy me - so busy that blogging has slowed, for which many apologies but one or two things are festering nastily and hopefully the boils will burst over the weekend!

In the meantime, Oliver Kamm  (Oct 26th) has written a massive defence and justification of the Iraq operation, partly as a response to the recent mea culpa from 'St. Norman of Geras'  (15th Oct) and I urge any serious student of this apparent catastrophe to read it. Oliver Kamm does not allow comments but I do and I am happy to host a discussion on the subject.

Geras, Kamm (and Duff) and the difficulty of admitting we were wrong.

I place my own name in parenthesis in the title to this post, not because I find it any easier to admit to my errors, but because a certain modesty is called for when placing my name along side those of two deservedly distinguished thinkers and writers.  There is absolutely no irony intended here.  I might disagree with both of them from time to time but both deserve respect for the intellectual (I use that word in its best sense) rigour with which they approach the entanglements of modern life and politics.

In a post below, I was somewhat cruel to Norman Geras for his mea culpa confession that had he known then what he knows now concerning Iraq, he would not have supported the war.  I do not withdraw my criticisms even if, in my irritation, I was unduly harsh, but his posts on the subject did make me think hard about the almost universal absence of such confessions of error in virtually every activity, not just politics, but science, the arts, business and so on.  We all cling to opinions and beliefs long after their 'sell by' date with a desperation that is in direct proportion to the fierceness with which we fought previous arguments on the subject concerned.  It is understandable in professional politicians, scientists, businessmen and the like because an admission of error could prove to be very damaging to their prospects, but in 'Blogdom', it really doesn't matter at all and yet most of us would rather take the mother-in-law to lunch than admit we were wrong.  So, I salute Norman Geras for his confession and I would add this paradox: because of it, I will now treat his views on future topics with even greater respect.

All of which brings me to the estimable Oliver Kamm - again!  One motif, in a minor key, which runs through his writings is his belief that the BBC is not biased.  In this quote he writes in general terms but previously he has often defended the BBC in particular: "... I don't believe that broadcasting networks are guilty of systematic political bias, and critics who claim to see it have a responsibility to argue their case ..."  In today's Daily Mail there is a report of a meeting chaired by Michael Grade and including all the grand Panjandrums of the BBC to discuss the truth of the constant criticism that they were biased.  The "Shock-Horror" conclusion is that they are, and even worse, that it will be almost impossible to eradicate it.  I must emphasise that this is the BBC talking about itself!  Turning back again to Oliver Kamm, I can only tell him that whilst sackcloth, ashes and self-flagellation are not required, a humble mea culpa is, and he should take 'St. Norman of Geras' as his example!

And now to me!  In the comments concerning Iraq and the controversy over WMD, 'Ratty' (aka: The Flying Rodent) takes me to task for having believed that Iraq was arming itself with WMD prior to the war.  It is important to make clear that at the time no-one knew for certain, particularly not ordinary members of the public who would have to choose which of various sources to trust.  Even so, I chose wrong and 'Ratty' and his ilk chose right.  In very slight mitigation, my doubts began before the first shot was fired in anger because the Iraqis failed to use them against the huge concentration of troops packed into Kuwait just prior to the invasion.  At the time, I thought perhaps his generals, knowing the game was up and conscious of American retribution, disobeyed Saddam's order.  Having confessed my error in that respect, however, I still think the war was right in the sense of being capable of producing strategic benefits; and that the subsequent 'occupation' has been an unmitigated disaster which has not just nullified those benefits but actually done us damage.

Anyway, I'm off to sip thin gruel instead of my usual slap-up Sunday lunch as penance for my errors!

The things you find in the country ...

Today has been really rather extraordinary and magical.  I live in a small village on the Dorset/Somerset border and I can hear you metropolitan sophisticates yawning from here!  However, just to give you a taste of life in the shires, this morning I left the house at 11.00  and wandered a few hundred yards down the road to, of all things, an organ museum containing a magnificent collection of these stately instruments.  Today, the main room had been converted into a recital room and I sat down with others to hear the St. Petersburg String Quartet play, amongst other things, some Mozart and then the incomparable Shostakovich No: 8.  Simply superb!  And then I strolled the few hundred yards back to home and lunch.

It cost me £6.  Eat your hearts out, you metro smarties!

You can't make a Hamlet without breaking some egos!

Sorry about the title to which the only response is the old Python chorus, "Ho, ho, ho, very witty, Wilde!"  Still, Hamlet is looming large in my life as my auditions take place a week next Monday.  In amateur theatre directors do not enjoy the luxury of hundreds of 'resting' actors from whom to choose a cast.  There will be plenty of young men up for the role of the eponymous prince, and several of them are very good actors indeed, but will they accept Horatio or Laertes as second best if they don't get the main part?  And if they do, will they work their socks off in these support roles?   In fact, will all the support actors raise their game?  There is always a danger in the Shakespeare plays dominated by a famous central character that the support actors will feel neglected and unloved and will simply go through the motions.  Well, that's my problem and I must ensure they get rather more of my attention than they either expected or, once experienced, they want!

One difficulty with this play, as with so many others that Shakespeare wrote, is confusing the philosophical elements that are apparent in the study and the rather more mundane story-telling that must take place on the stage.  Some time ago I saw a rather poor production of Hamlet and realising in the first 15 minutes that I was unlikely to be moved by it, I simply closed my eyes and listened to it.  It was something of a revelation because I had forgotten what a cracking, good yarn it is - not so much a 'who dunnit' as a 'will he do it'.  So it will be important for me to ensure that the story is told clearly and quickly so that we earn the right to enjoy the slower passages when our hero falls to his frequent musings.

There is another point that I think is important.  It is essential, I believe, that an audience must like and warm to Hamlet.  If he is played as too nervy, too neurotic, too psychotically incapable of action, there is a danger of alienating the audience who, instead of feeling a welling-up of pity for his wretched fate, might be tempted (as I have been on occasions) to shout out, "Give him one for me!" in the final death scene.

Wish me luck!

"The Euston train has divided and now stands at platform 1 and platform 9"

In a post dated 17 October, Oliver Kamm links to a post by his friend and fellow 'Eustonite', Norman Geras, who has now admitted that the war in Iraq has proved to be an immense failure.  I have read carefully what Norman Geras has written and there is much in it that is a testimony to his worth as a human being.  It is also intensely exasperating!  I have written below, and before, on the folly of mixing up private feelings of humane decency with the iron will required to conduct a policy of real-politik.  Such a policy may (or may not) have idealistic aims but in the real world it is necessary to be exceedingly ruthless in the means by which they are pursued and achieved.  If you lack that sort of determination then it is better to admit it from the beginning and avoid the action. 

To use the current argot, the 'tipping point' for Norman Geras is the mounting casualty figures.  Simply put, he can no longer stomach the stench of blood.  Fair enough, but is he now arguing for withdrawal?  Apparently not!  Is he offering some new means to be deployed by our troops to stem the blood-letting?  Apparently not - just more of the 'same old, same old' whilst he mopes and wrings his hands in, I cannot stress enough, genuine despair. As an indication of his helplessness, he tells us that had he known then what he knows now, he would have withheld his support for the war but would not have opposed it!  I have never met Norman Geras but I like the man who comes across through his writings but I have to tell him, cruelly, that only a professor of political philosophy could come across with something as convoluted and pathetic as that piece of risible sophistry.

In essence, however, Oliver Kamm and Norman Geras are united in the belief that we must soldier on, their only difference is that the former can still see the bright, shining beacon even if he is unable to tell us what new route we should take to reach it; and the latter can no longer see anything for the blood spatters on his spectacles but still thinks we should carry on regardless.  I say it again, "beware intelligent men when they get it wrong"!

Beware intelligent men when they get it wrong!

If I may say so, with some trepidation because he is ferociously intelligent, Oliver Kamm is just such a man.  On October 15th he posted on the subject of our troops in Iraq (and Afghanistan).  He is, in my view, completely wrong but, of course, whilst it is somewhat easier to persuade (or ignore) a fool who is wrong, it is a very much stiffer job to take on some-one as well-informed, erudite and literate as Oliver Kamm.

He sets three necessary conditions before we can withdraw.  First, the restoration of Iraqi civil government and economy; second, the proper conclusion of Saddam's trial; thirdly, that the legal government of Iraq has the monopoly on "the means of violence".  To which, I can only respond with a favourite saying of my mother's, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride".   Let us set aside for the moment the 'why' and instead concentrate on the 'how'.  We, meaning the US/UK, already have a fairly hefty military force in theatre and they are failing miserably to halt the violence.  This is no surprise because they are bound by Human Rights laws which tie their hands.  I'm not saying this is right or wrong morally (that is a different argument), only that it exists and because of it we will never be able to apply the sort of draconian force required to halt the fighters.  I suspect that a very large part of the population would be happy, for a while, if we did because it would provide the security they no doubt yearn for in their private lives.  But only for a while because no-one anywhere likes governments and their agencies, particularly security agencies, but we put up with them so long as they are our fellow countrymen.  History teaches that for foreigners to rule a country successfully, in the sense of being accepted, it is necessary for them to stay for several generations and to be prepared to be utterly ruthless in the beginning.  There is no chance of that happening, or even being attempted, in Iraq and so the ordinary people there will try and stick to the group they are either naturally allied to through religion or social ties; or to the group they judge will win in the long run.  They know the Yanks and the Brits are never going to stay - so why risk everything showing your loyalty to them?  If you doubt this conjecture, then consider France in WWII.  Up until about 1943, a sensible man would have reckoned the Germans were there to stay for the foreseeable future and thus, collaboration was rife, much more so than the French care to admit.  They have nothing to be ashamed of, it was a natural decision taken by hundreds of thousands (millions?) of French citizens when faced with an occupying force that was utterly ruthless, and in the knowledge that liberation was a pipe-dream.

So I say again to Oliver Kamm and all the other Eustonites, your aims may (or may not!) be worthy but explain to us all something more about the means!  If our current force levels are inadequate, then how many more and for how long?  To say nothing of, how much? And under what doctrine should they conduct themselves whilst they are there?  Until some-one comes up with a convincing means, then I suggest we should arm up any secular groups we can find to take on the Islamist fundamentalists, and get out.  However, we should make quite clear we'll be back if whatever government wins the civil war takes a hostile line against us.

All of this brings me round to an old (some might say, tedious) view of mine that idealism is a very shaky platform for action in international affairs.  Apart from anything else, it is an unfortunate fact that hardly anyone can agree on what are the best ideals, or even in what order of precedence ideals should be placed.  In western societies, we have certain ideals, although in my lifetime I have seen previous ones dropped, and even spat upon, whilst new ones come into fashion.  Almost none of them correspond to what an Iraqi might consider his or her ideals.  Thus, I say again, that whilst it is never an exact science, and indeed, it is possible for men of goodwill to disagree, nevertheless, it is much easier to define national interest and because of that fact, it seems to me a much better basis for our foreign policy.

¡DUFF Y ABSURDO!

I am obliged to John Brissenden, who manages to find time in his overworked days (well, he reckons he's overworked because he's always threatening industrial action but how anyone would notice if he did, I have no idea) by translating blog titles into Spanish.  My own witty, self-deprecatingly modest but brilliant title comes out as "¡DUFF Y ABSURDO!"  I couldn't have put it better myself.  Dago irony - remember you read it here first - er, well, second, actually, but who's counting?  Well done, Brisso!

SUICIDE-BOMBER GENERAL EXPLODES: CASUALTIES IN DOWNING STREET!

I applaud Sir Richard Dannatt's strategy but I'm not at all sure about his tactics.  By and large, I am against civil servants and generals speaking, or leaking, to the press.  The 'anti-war' mob, of course, will applaud Sir Richard's manoeuvre but would fall into a mass hissy-fit if another officer came out and suggested that the reason we're not getting anywhere in Iraq is because we're not tough enough and we should forget all this human rights tosh, release Saddam from jail and put him back in charge but on a very short leash to work for us.  My point is that Generals should confine their views on policy to the ministers elected by us to run the country.  The only honourable way for an official who is in fundamental disagreement with his political masters is to resign, and then speak.

However, he has now spoken and it is quite clear that he has blown the gaffe on the whole post-war debacle that has taken place in Iraq.  It was always what I call, a 'neo-Kamm' chimera to suppose that following the overthrow of Saddam the Iraqis would suddenly produce their very own Thomas Jefferson who would lead them into the bright and shining uplands of democracy.  I wrote at the time that anything was possible and that such an outcome would indeed be cream on the cake but that I wasn't holding my breath.  I hasten to add, that it is not that ordinary Iraqis fail to understand or appreciate democracy,  it is just the fact that a very sizable minority, armed to the teeth with both weapons and the ruthless ferocity to use them, are likely to make the process all but impossible.  The very act of imposing democracy in the useless, 'hearts and minds' campaign so beloved of the wetter sort of Army officer and new Labour apparatchiks, is doomed to failure because no-one likes foreigners telling them how to run their country.  The only exception to this is either when it is clear that the intruder is there to stay and will not brook any recalcitrance (eg, the British in India), or when they have just suffered a catastrophic defeat and invasion (eg, Germany and Japan in the 1940s).

Still, even if one deplores the public nature of it, it is a relief to know that the professional head of the British army is prepared to put his boot into those spotty 'youfs' in Downing Street when they seek to find "the bubble reputation" on the backs of our soldiers.   I'd like to send one or two of them out for a six-month tour right up the sharp end - that might inject a little reality into them along with some shrapnel, perhaps!

"It don't mean a thing if ain't got that swing"

As I write, I am plodding through my working script for Hamlet, line by line, marking up the emphasis syllables.  I am doing this because I know, with a sinking heart, that several of the younger members of the cast for my forthcoming production, being recent 'graduates' of what is laughingly known as our education service, will not know an iambic pentameter from a doughnut.  Some of those who do know the difference will wish to follow the advice offered by contemporary teachers and directors and ignore the writer altogether and deliver verse as prose.  (This, incidentally, will lead to screaming thespian tantrums, blood on the walls of the rehearsal room and my early demise by heart attack!)  So you will see that, by coincidence, poetic metre is looming large in my mind.

All this brings me to my subject, modern 'poetry'.  I place inverted commas round the word because, as I shall attempt to show, the word poetry is not just a misnomer but a lie.  The 'bloke-whose-blog-cannot-be-named' calls it "free verse" which he further defines as a "poetic construct" and he indulges himself with it because "as an artist I do not like to be bound by rules".  I shall not dwell on the obvious linguistic confusion that arises from the belief that a "construct" of any sort can be produced without rules.  You might say that Tristan Tzara, the Dada-ist 'poet' produced strings of words by drawing them randomly one by one out of a hat.  He might call that a 'poem', I would call him a loony and/or a liar. It is interesting that Dada-ist 'poetry' died an early death, mainly, I suspect, because it was all too obvious that there was absolutely no place for the 'poet' in the end result because he was entirely replace-able, a monkey could do the job.  Today in many of the arts, the artist himself must be seen to be at the very centre of his creation - well, their PR companies insist on it and their agents depend on it!

Today, we are told that a likely winner of a formerly distinguished art prize has assembled various pieces of detritus from her studio floor and with that in mind you can now see why the artist must be central because no-one would know what on earth it was about unless she was there to attach elliptical, mystical, ambiguous meanings to it.  Thus it is that a modern 'poet' can produce a string of words, the lengths of whose lines are arbitrarily decided by the writer, the meanings of which and their connections to each other are totally abstruse, and call the end result a 'poem'.

Well, obviously, we need to go 'back to basics' to decide what is a poem, what exactly are the necessary rules and ingredients that make a collection of words poetry?  I would suggest the following: metre, meaning, hard work and genius!  The 'bloke-whose-blog-cannot-be-named' quotes James Fenton, himself quoting, to the effect "that 20th c. poetry has escaped the straight jacket of traditional metrics" (although a careful reading of the quote provided shows that Fenton does not seem convinced that it is a total blessing.)  Of course, today all rules and conventions are seen as a restriction on liberty and their utility is discounted when it is not derided and ignored.  However, consider the happy choice, from my point of view, of the metaphor - a straight jacket!  A man who could write a poem whilst bound in a straight jacket would instantly be worthy of much praise and admiration, even if the poem was dross, because of the sheer difficulty of the enterprise.  Metrical rules do make life enormously hard for a poet but they draw from him all the skill he can summon, all his love and knowledge of language and, finally, such genius as an implacable God, or chance, might have graced him with.

For the reader, it is these very difficulties, of which he is dimly aware, that adds that frisson of excitement and delight to his pleasure when he reads a poem and sees, or rather, feels the seemingly effortless way in which the poet has overcome and set himself and his reader free.  Without a cage, you will never know what freedom is!

As I write, I have before me the Chatto & Windus edition of "The Collected Works of Wilfred Owen" and I have opened it to perhaps his best loved poem of all:

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
    Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
    Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
    Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
    And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
    Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
    The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent maids,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

In the notes, it is pointed out that the British Museum has four drafts and a further three are in the possession of the family.  Here is one of the Museum drafts:

Anthem for Dead Youth

What passing-bells for you who die in herds?

- Only the monstrous anger of the guns!

- Only the stuttering rifles' rattled words

Can patter out your hasty orisons.

No chants for you, nor balms, nor wreaths, nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning, save the choirs,

{And long-drawn sighs of wailing shells;

{The shrill demented choirs [these words crossed through]

And bugles calling for you from sad shires.

What candles may we hold to speed you all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine (the) holy lights of our good byes.

The pallor of girls brows must be your pall.

Your flowers, the tenderness of comrades' minds,

And each slow dusk, a drawing down of blinds.

Compare these, perhaps starting, for example, with the two titles in which he replaces the slightly pedestrian word "dead" with the more evocative "doomed", and you can see a real poet, a skilled poet, crafting and grafting away at his trade, driven by genius but harnessed all the time to the wonderful invention of iambic pentameters.  That is poetry!

"It is not poetry but prose run mad" (*)

I confess immediately that I am no expert on the works of Thomas Macaulay but I do recall that some of his fellow historians have sometimes taken against him.  On the other hand, one must remember constantly that if you put two academics in a room for an hour they will come out with three definite opinions!  However, the old boy did come out with this observation in the Edinburgh Review, 1825:

"As civilisation advances, poetry necessarily declines".

Now, there can hardly be any argument for the observable fact that poetry today has not so much declined as disappeared.  The argument as to whether or not civilisation has advanced must, alas, be set aside for the present because I wish to dwell on poesy and the contemporary poseurs who indulge in the practise.

[I have received a private e-mail request from a slightly surprising quarter asking me to take down this post.  I am happy to oblige, in the main, but I have left the introduction because I would like to develop, a bit later today, my thoughts on modern poetry in a general sense.  Similarly, I have changed the title.]

Additional: I have decided to start a new post on the subject of poetry up above and those visitors of a disturbed nature who were so prominent in my comments box below on the subject of dear Leah might welcome its soothing, narcoleptic properties which, given my ability to Bore for Britain at the Olympics (as if they weren't boring enough) will wing them off to the Land of Nod in no time at all.

(*) Alexander Pope

Is 'Dave' Cameron a lying liar, or am I just too optimistic?

I ask the question because, despite my huffin' and puffin' braggadocio, I am frequently wrong on political matters (what do you mean, you've noticed!)  I remember when the Blessed Margaret first hove-to over the political horizon and I thought that nothing on God's earth would make me vote for that twin-set and pearls harridan with her Lady of the Manor voice.  But then I started to listen to what she actually said - well, to be honest, you couldn't blot her out - and I realised she was talking great sense.  Then I watched and listened to the re-action, not only from the 'Trot-lot' creche, but also the 'Great and the Good'.  When 365 economists wrote to the Times telling us that financial ruin was at hand, I knew she was right!

So, returning to 'Dave', let me tell you that I've met his type before.  I have told you all of my distinguished (not) career in the 'not-so-Honourable Company of Second-hand Car Dealers'.  I used to meet blokes (or should I say 'chaps') like 'Dave' in some of the smarter showrooms in the West End, usually flogging 'Rollers' or Bentleys.  Ex-public school with that irritating self-confidence (irritating because one wished desperately for half of it for one's self), smooth as silk, they could undo your braces and remove your trousers whilst still shaking your hand.  And you would find yourself saying 'thank you' and only just managing not to knuckle your forehead.

So, I am assuming that 'Dave' is another lying liar and that his message today (there, there, children, I'm not going to do anything very much different from that nice chap Tony you used to know and love and I will be ever so much nicer than that grumpy, Jock oat bag who makes Alex Ferguson look  and sound like Father Christmas) is all a great flim-flam routine.  I certainly hope so.  I only bothered with part of his speech today but when he assured us all that the NHS (the envy of the world - except no-one else copies it!) was going to remain exactly the same under his stewardship, I could only groan and hope that my dire warning to 'Son of Duff' that I fully intended to be a burden would indeed come true but only as long as my private medical insurance lasted.

Anyway, apart from the absolute certainty that 'Dave' Cameron is a 'dead dodgy geezer', the only question to be settled is where, in the morass of touchy-feely generalisations, are the biggest 'porkies' to be found?

Additional: I'm obliged to Stephen Pollard for pointing me in the direction of Anatole Kaletsky's article in The Times in which he observes that if Michael Foot's manifesto of 1983 was "the longest suicide note in history" then 'Dave's' speech yesterday was the "longest shopping list in history".