On modern manners, p.1
On Modern Manners, page 1
Arktos
London 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Arktos Media Ltd.
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ISBN
978-1-912975-17-4 (Softcover)
978-1-912975-18-1 (Ebook)
Editing
Martin Locker
cover and layout
John Bruce Leonard
To B, H and R
Where the light is
On Modern Manners
Like you, I live in a world that I cannot control. There are things going on around me that I do not like, and I wish that they would stop. But I cannot stop them and nor can you. Indeed, I am not even sure it would be a good thing if I were able to change the world to suit my prejudices. Why should my particular views prevail over everyone else’s? What is so special about me? Of course, I think I’m right, but then I’m hardly unique in that, and so that doesn’t seem to give me sufficient justification to impose my view on everyone else.
I can take this view because, like you, I am able to hold my views without anyone trying to force me out of them. Some might complain that they are being silenced and that political correctness is strangling both free speech and traditional values. But they are still complaining, and some are doing it very loudly. Like me, you may feel you are in a minority and that things are getting worse, but, no matter how small a minority you are, you can still think whatever you want.
So, what I now accept, although you might not, is that I cannot change what everybody else thinks. I wish that they would agree with me — it would be good for them — but they don’t, and they won’t. What matters most to me, and call me selfish, is that I remain able to think and act as I do. I can do this by a form of withdrawal, of moving outside of the stream and, instead of rowing along with it, I choose to sit on the side and watch it. I haven’t rejected the world as such. That would be impossible as well as irresponsible of me. What I am doing is more of a strategic, and very selective, withdrawal. To change the metaphor, I now look at the world through a closed window. Undoubtedly I can see less, and few people can see or hear me, but I stay warm and safe.
I admit that this is likely to appear to some as neither an attractive or an effective strategy; my impotence, so to speak, is assured. But I want to suggest that the only technique we have is what might be called mutually assured impotence, where we agree to sit out and leave each other to our own devices.
But I purposely said I was looking out of a closed window. Yes, I am sealed away from the world and perhaps I might even be accused of hiding. But I am still looking out. I am observing at least something that is going on outside and therefore I can still comment. Indeed, this is, if I really have no right to impose, all that I can and should do. You may still not agree, but you too can disagree from the safety of your cosy enclosed space.
So, I am observing the world around me, how I see it, think of it and how I imagine it to be. But I have no great purpose in doing so. I am not trying to put forward any great argument or make a grand political statement. Of course, I have targets — look at the title of the book — but I am not trying to preach. To use yet another metaphor, I am sowing seeds, some of which might find fertile soil and others might inadvertently provide sustenance to some other of God’s creatures. But after throwing them out there, I now leave the seeds to flourish or wither as they will.
Part I
Sayings against Madness
Forewarned
These are sayings against madness. They are attempts to pull free; to convince (but to convince whom?) that we can be free and that we need not be pushed down. These are efforts to say that we can still laugh. Not the cackle of the maniac or the desperate. Rather this is the quiet chuckle that means contentment and an easy night. These are sayings easing away from loss and to assert a wit even if we cannot manage wisdom. These are attempts to show that we are not afraid; that we are not alone; and if we are wrong — if we are afraid and are alone — then it does not really matter.
There is no harm in contradiction if what we want are feelings and not facts; if what we want is merely the briefest sense of a narrative, a story told in hints, where what matters is what we have left out for others to find. We are not trying to achieve anything… other than to retain some semblance of sanity. And even here we sense, we feel, we might fail, and that what we do not know, and cannot know, will consume us.
I do not wish to be taken seriously. That would certainly lead to madness. I want to be read, simply read. And this is no rictus grin. It is no painted smile to hide the pain. There is nothing forced here. There is nothing to fight for; we are resigned, and this does not make us unhappy.
These are sound bites from an empty room. You walk past and see no one. But you hear a voice, a small but confident and knowing voice. It does not summon you, and it does not repel. You do not feel the need to stop beyond that momentary pause in your step. You feign indifference, but something catches your ear. You think it makes sense, but then it is gone, and you struggle to remember what you thought you heard. And all without more than a quick glance, not wishing to give away your interest in what you find strange, perhaps illicit, and what may not be meant for you.
But I am hardly being honest. All I have wanted to do, when I started this, was to amuse, and only myself. But the damned thing became its own purpose. It took on a face — a round smiling face — and a character. It became a particular thing. And it could no longer be avoided.
So, what do we do when our sayings against madness begin to obsess us and to dominate and take us over for their own cracked purpose? We can only give in and try — because this is all we can do — to make a joke of it. We can only make light of our obsession as we go round and round in our empty room, hoping that no one stays too long to listen at the door.
Absurdity
Absurdity is often the best form of defence. Confusion in one’s audience offers one cover for the lack of any serious argument.
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Being understood only becomes difficult when you leave it to other people. Hence one should try and talk only to oneself.
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I would love a world where fogeyness was considered next to Godliness, where misanthropy was canonised: a world where one would not laugh at grumpiness, but act upon it. And the perfect act? Why, the snub, of course.
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It is not patriotism that is the last resort of the scoundrel but cliché.
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Most of us want regime change… but only for ourselves. Accordingly, we are too busy to worry much about governments. This is the ideal recipe for political stability, English style. What this tells us is that the nearest thing to misanthropy is complacency. Thus, to be sour is not to be unhappy.
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The only fault with scepticism is the way people react to it: they never believe it.
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Is it our self-image or reality that lets us down? And what would be the consequences of knowing? Would it be to despoil the bliss of our ignorance?
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Is there an antidote to belief? Yes, it’s called excess.
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One should, in an ideal world, aim always for obscurity and leave misanthropy only for special occasions. One should not have to fight for one’s beliefs, but be left alone to stew in them.
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Sympathy is better given in absentia. Only then can one guarantee a sense of proportion. It is in the absence of tears that we can guarantee true sympathy.
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To question why we exist is surely the sign of an under-occupied mind. Is it not silly to use up our existence on the quest to prove or disprove that we exist? But, of course, this question presupposes the denial of scepticism and thus itself forms an argument for existence.
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The most effective solution to any problem is to say we do not know. At least this does not limit our options.
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In hindsight, most things can be made to appear respectable no matter how outrageous they appeared at the time. In fact, might this not be the very purpose of looking backwards? Respectability is something best served cold. It is this on which conservatives depend for their appeal and socialists only learn after many failures.
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Is misanthropy the only safeguard against excess? If we have a low opinion of those around us does this not mean we will not expect much from them and consequently limit our disappointments? Where others exceed our expectations we can be pleasantly surprised, but without seeing it as forming any pattern for the future. Problems begin when we try to improve others and ourselves — attempts at human perfectibility almost inevitably lead to atrocity. We tend to forget the full effect of this by dwelling only on the atrocities of others rather than on our own.
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How much better the conservative who views humanity as fallible and fallen and thus sees each person for what they are and not for what they ought to be in the best of all possible worlds. We are, and always have been, in the only possible world.
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The main problem with cynicism is that one cannot believe in it fully oneself. And worse, it makes it impossible to believe in oneself.
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Elegance depends u
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The brain only wants its oxygen indirect, not straight from the air.
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Is it really being honest to pick and choose what one is sceptical about? For instance, how many sceptics doubt their scepticism?
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Is it possible to think properly when our soul is restless? Often we are too busy to think, even if we are doing things with our brains rather than our hands. Emil Cioran might be right when he said that we cannot think when we are vertical. It is certainly the case that we cannot think when we are running.
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With all my aches, pains and inefficiencies, if I were any other species I would be deemed nonviable. This is true of most humans above a certain age. This, I suppose, is progress of sorts.
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Agitation and inertia are in reality close to each other. The one causes the other, and sometimes the flow is reversed. But never with much effect.
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Morality comes best from the armchair. As does criticism of it.
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I am often made to defend myself from appearing too certain and strident in my opinions. To express an opinion in a certain sort of way seems to matter more than what is said: the censorship of the normally reticent.
Yet, being now too reticent and defensive myself, I am considered moody and misanthropic. It makes one want to laugh, but this would only meet with misunderstanding… or worse, with indifference.
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The most enlightening and uplifting literary collection would be of suicide notes… all written by the one person. What could be more encouraging than such persistence, such optimism in the face of continued failure?
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Great improbabilities: Lenin having the patience for cricket; Heidegger playing pinball; Nietzsche with a kitten (which one would be safe?).
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Can you question the meaning of life without meaning the question? Should one insist on a sincere answer?
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If there is one thing worse than nostalgia, it is an ignorance of the past.
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We spend our time studying social policy knowing it will not make any difference… neither the study nor the policy.
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If reality did not exist, sceptics would have had to invent it.
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Adults are those who are no longer naïve enough always to think their best years are ahead of them.
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My nightmares are all of me being normal — how subversive of my self-respect. But the older I get these nightmares become more real. Soon I can envisage my nightmares will be reality and what I took for waking, my nightmares. Is my problem merely that I have been slow on the uptake and rather naïve in where I’ve placed my scepticism?
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The sea teaches children the nature of implacability. They soon learn that there are things they cannot control or prevent. The sea would make a good — if cruel — parent.
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Submersion in water halts the passage of time. We appear to exist free of time, which, in barely any time at all, would be fatal.
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I recently sat across the aisle from a young woman of about twenty-five on the train. She had rather fine, even subtle, features, yet she spoke coarsely. Indeed, she did little else but speak into her mobile phone. With her were two young children (boys of two and four at a guess) whom she almost completely ignored as she talked away to her friends about turbulent relationships, illness, excessive drinking and drug taking. The only time she talked to the boys was to admonish them as they whimpered and fidgeted in their boredom. Eventually to keep them quiet she said to them, ‘We can go to McDonalds’. It wasn’t clear to me whether this was meant as a treat or merely another threat to keep them in line.
What will become of her and her children? And why is it so hard not to make an instant judgement? Is this based on how I would treat my children in these circumstances, so that my main concern would be to entertain them during the journey at whatever cost to my own time? But how did I learn this and how did my social education differ from that of the young mother? No one sat me down and said this is how you look after children. Rather I thought I knew what I should do when I had to. Is the difference, and what an assumption this is, that I chose to have children when I did and she did not? Is the real fear that these boys will pay for the loss of freedom and sense of entrapment their mother feels?
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There is an assumption that the more learning one has the more certain one is. But this is the very opposite of the truth. The more one knows the more one finds one does not know. Certainty is a sign of a poor education, which is why ideologues are often so easy to outwit. However, they seldom ever realise it when it has occurred.
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At school, we worshipped and sought to emulate those talented at sports or some other physical activity. Accordingly, we disdained academic success and a talent for non-athletic pursuits. We laughed at the nerds and swots who hid behind their books, their flesh pale from never being exposed to the sun. Now, well into our fifties, it is the swots and nerds who run the country and the sporty cannot even run because of their dodgy knees.
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The reason that problems never get solved is that we are too busy planning ahead to remember what we have left behind.
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Relief consists of the certainty of arrival. Hence, we crave both for maps and for home.
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Many academics prefer to work alone and this is one of the main reasons for choosing this sort of life. Unfortunately, it is seldom possible to achieve it fully. Ultimately, we come to rely on someone else or have some responsibility or accountability attached to us. The belief is that this will make us more effective. Often though it merely makes us unhappy and incapable of working properly at all.
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One restricts oneself to aphorisms to prevent commitment to anything other than oneself. Almost before one knows it the aphorism is over and then on to the next bite size chunk of wisdom, leaving behind the half empty cartons of take-away wit we found less appetising than we had hoped. Perhaps we think we will come back and finish them off later. But we seldom do, they soon get cold and lose their allure. Still we might order them from the menu again some other time. That is the benefit of a limited commitment: we have not ruled anything out, nor ruled anything in.
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The fear of doing well saves us from doing too much harm. Modesty and charity should go together in every sense.
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Dilettantes can only be happy for a short while before their limitations become all too apparent to them again.
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Difference matters only when so much is in danger of being the same.
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Never trust those who wish a better life for others. They frequently mean they wish to use someone else’s money for their experiments on others who have no clue why they should be doing what they are told is good for them and who would rather be left alone.
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We should make a clear differentiation between egotism and moral fervour. The former is curable, the latter seldom is.
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The wonderful thing about the aphorism is that one can contradict oneself with impunity, as long as one maintains a certain consistency of style.
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The proper response to anyone suggesting a prescription is to ask, ‘who is it for?’ This matters an awful lot. We might even say that the question, ‘for whom?’ is the most important in politics. If they say ‘just for me’ only then can they pass go, if only because then they leave the rest of us alone.
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The most dangerous people are those who think they can change the world. The most oppressed are those who have to live with the consequences of this sense of certainty.
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Is evenness possible without falling into mediocrity? Or is the inability to rise above the trivial swings of mood a sign of mediocrity in itself?
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Most people are just looking for reasons to sustain what they already believe. One does not argue to learn, but to persuade or convince. One does not change one’s mind in company, but in the quiet of study and reflection, only by arguing with oneself.
