Christmas: the three kings

 This mid-19th century window, in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Shrewsbury, is a copy of a painting by the Spanish artist Murillo, depicting the adoration of the Kings.

 

St. Matthew, who tells the story, only mentions "wise nen from the East", and it is only the fact that that they give three gifts suggests that they were three in number. But over the centuries various traditions grew up: that they were Kings, then they were given names, and then that one was a European, one was a Syrian and one was an African, to symbolise the three continents bowing down before the baby Jesus. Note that the African King, on the right, is dressed every bit of gorgeously as the others! And none of this has any basis in the Bible!

Photocartoon

 Margaret Dumont: "I believe Donald Trump was sent by God."

Groucho Marx: "Why? Had he run out of locusts?"

Musings: Further thoughts on Terrorism

 (Some thoughts evoked by recent events in Irael and Gaza)

 Terrorism/ terrorist is a “hiss-word”: intended less to convey information than to provoke an audience reaction. A terrorist is, by definition, a bad guy. Conversely, no good guy can be a terrorist, even though his actions might be considered to be similar.

What is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom-fighter? The cynical answer is that “it depends where you’re standing”: one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter. Nevertheless, it should be possible to draw some distinction.

Terrorism always has some underlying political motive. Thus, ordinary gangland killings and bombings are not considered terroristic, but could be if there was some underlying ethnic or religious conflict

One might have thought that there is always a natural right to defend your home against a foreign invader, but in military law this is not the case. It is a longstanding principle of war that, whereas enemy uniformed soldiers are entitled to be treated justly, partisans, guerrilla fighters and civilians in arms can simply be killed out of hand. They are, in fact, always treated as terrorists.

It is straightforward to designate certain actions as terrorism (for instance, “9-11” in New York in 2001), but more difficult to define terrorism as such. Are all political assassinations necessarily terroristic? Most of us would agree that the killing of the Nazi leader Heydrich in Prague in 1942 was justifiable and not terroristic: but should it be viewed differently if numbers of civilian bystanders were killed in the operation?

Can governments be guilty of terrorism. such as the mass bombing of cities? Possible examples might be Dresden or Hiroshima in 1945, or indeed Gaza? 

What should be the best response by a government whose citizens have suffered a terrorist attack? Might it only serve to make things worse? In the instances of 9-11 and October’s events in Israel, the governments concerned understandably felt they had to do SOMETHING: hence the Afghan war and current events in Gaza. The  campaigns in Afghanistan and then Iraq were militarily successful in the short term, but not at all useful in the eventual results. By contrast, Mrs Thatcher’s government did NOT react violently to the I.R.A.’s Brighton bomb in 1984, which almost succeeded in killing the entire Cabinet. Why did she behave with such caution? Was that in fact the best response, leading eventually to the Northern Ireland peace process?

The most spectacular example of an understandable reaction going horribly wrong is, of course, the response of the Austrian government to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian-backed terrorists (freedom fighters?) at Sarajevo in 1914!

Postscript: “Situationism”is a term stemming from events in France and elsewhere around 1968. This involves taking actions so violent that the state responds with extreme violence of its own, which falls mostly upon the local population rather than the perpetrators. This has the effect of discrediting the moderates, forcing everyone to take sides, and turning opinion against the government. Should the Hamas gunmen of October be regarded as situationists?  

My novel

 

My online historical novel has finally been finished, after 37 weekly chapters! It can be read in its entirety at 

pgvshil.blogspot.com

or by following the link on the right, through "View my complete profile" to "The Memoirs of Charles Huntingdon"

 Any comments would be welcome!

England: The Russell-Cotes museum; Bournemouth

Merton Russell-Cotes (1835-1921) was a rich and successful hotelier. In 1876 he and his wife Annie moved to Bournemouth, the seaside resort on the Dorset coast, and developed the Royal Bath Hotel as the most luxurious hotel in the town. As well as their business work and their charitable and political activities (he served as Mayor of Bournemouth in 1894-5, and was knighted in 1909), the couple were indefaticable travellers, voyaging all over the world, collecting wherever they went; being particularly keen on Oriental and Islamic art and artifacts. 

   In 1896 Russell-Cotes commissioned a local architect, John Frederick Fogarty, to design them a new house, to be named East Cliff Hall, in a position high above the beach with a garden in front and large windows and balconies opening to a beautiful view westwards to Poole Bay. Special fireplaces, stained glass and light fittings were ordered, but the house was also to have the most up-to-date electricity, plumbing and central heating, plus a telephone. The house was completed in 1901, but in 1916-19 new galleries were added to house the family's burgeoning art collection.

  They had always intended to open their house to public view, and after their deaths it was established in 1922 as the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum. 

   This is the house and its view today.

This can hardly be bettered, but the contents of the house, while undoubtedly splendidly opulent, verge on the surreal, for they embody everything that the next generation of artists and designers were in revolt against. Walls are heavily panelled, every surface and niche is full of objects or pictures,

and what is one to make of the pictures, such as this enormous late-Victorian potrayal of nudes entirely devoid of any erotic appeal, 

or of religious scenes, such as this one by Edwin Longsden Lang of the Holy Family arriving in Egypt (approximately 18 feet by 6, in a style that, fifty years later and in another country, would be termed "Socialist realism"?

   If you are ever in Bournemouth, you must go and see it!

Musings: Shakespeare

 In these violent times, my thoughts have turned to a scene in Shakespeare's early play, "Henry VI, part 3", set in the blodstained turmoil of the Wars of the Roses. The teenage son of the Duke of York has been captured by Lord Clifford: the boy pleads for his life, but Clifford is implacable. "Thy father killed mine, therefore die!" he tells him. 

I find these words truly terrifying. An endless cycle of revenge can so easily continue for generation after generation, and differences of religion, ideology or race count for little by comparison. 

   

American Gangsters Footnotes: Al Capone's Welsh henchman

 Bryan Humphreys and his wife Ann Wigley left the village of Carno, near Newtown in Powyss, to seek a new life in America, eventually settling in Chicago. But they did not find properity, for Bryan was a feckless character, too fond of drink and gambling, and the family was reduced to poverty when in 1906 he lost his job through drunkenness. Their son, born in 1899 and christened Llewellyn Morris Humphreys, had to leave school to work as a newsboy. The youth, like many others in his position, became involved in petty crime, and was arrested on many occasions for theft, but was spared any long prison sentence. 

   With the coming of Prohibition after the First World War, unbounded new horizons opened up for criminals in the smuggling of bootleg alcohol. In 1922 Humphreys, who by this time had given himself the name of Murray, attempted to muscle in on the racket by hijacking a liquor truck belonging to Al Capone. He was soon caught and brought before the great man himself, but Capone was impressed by his impudent courage, and instead of shooting Humphreys, recruited him for his organisation!

  Murray Humphreys was soon reognised as one of the superior brains of the gang, and his rise up the hierarchy was rapid. He may have had a hand in organising the famous St Valentine's Day massacre of 1929, but he never acquired the reputation of being a man of violence: instead his role was mostly financial. No major gang could hope to survive without paying a substantial proportion of its takings to local police, politicians and officials, and Humphreys seems to played had a key part in this chain of corruption. He became a specialist in the laundering of "dirty money", working with a fellow-Welshman; an accountant called Fred Evans. He also gained the unusual nickname of  "The Camel", presumably through the obvious link of "Murray the Hump".

   After Capone was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment in Alcatraz, his organisation continued more or less intact. Humphreys himself was officially branded as "Public Enemy No. 1" after his boss's fall, but all that happened to him was that he was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment in 1933 after pleading guilty to income tax evasion, and was released after just 13 months. It was the longest term of imprisonment he would ever suffer. Instead he continued his activities of bribery and corruption, infiltrating trades unions and laundering the profits of crime.

  New possibilities opened in California, where the gangsters found they could extort money from Hollywood by infiltrating the Scenery Erectors' Union and paralyse the movie industry by threatening to call strikes. Humphreys was involved in this, and also in the bribery of state officials in Nevada to permit the building of the first casinos in Las Vegas. It has been suggested that the character of Tom Hagen in the "Godfather" films is based on Humphreys. 

   Like many other senior gangsters, Humphreys experienced difficulties when summoned to testify before the Kefauver Committee on organised crime in the early 1950s. Many of the gangsters, advised by their clever lawyers, attempted to "plead the Fifth Amendment", to avoid answering questions, on the grounds that, in the immortal words of Capone's old business manager, the splendidly-nicknamed Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, "I might discriminate myself". Nevertheless, they were all made to look extremely uncomfortable before the nation's television cameras.

Humphreys now faced further investigation of his tax affairs but avoided arrest by dying of a heart attack in 1965 while vacuuming his apartment. He was one of the last survivors of the riotous days of the criminal 1920s. This was perhaps the only way the career of a gangster could be held to have ended successfully: to perish of natural causes, never having served a lengthy term in prison. 

                                                           (Humphreys in 1965)

   

Political philosophy: Visions of a just society

 The most famous vision of a just society is that of Plato in "The Republic". Here Socrates proposes a clear divison into classes (not necessarily hereditary of Guardians (who rule), Auxiliaries (who assist them) and everyone else, who undertake all the economic tasks. To secure this, all children,male and female, are to be taken away from their parents at an early age and carefully educated to fulfil their allotted roles. All cultural activity is to be rigidly controlled to preserve them from any dangerous influences. Such a society would need to have only a minimum of contact with the outside world, and of course could never progress; but Plato had no concept of progress

Plato's vision has haunted political theorists ever since; and it has been to some extent implemented in Nazi and Communist states, and even in the 19th century British public school system. Jonathon Swift attempted to portray a Platonic society in the fourth section of "Gulliver's Travels", where Gulliver visits the land of the H.....; the intelligent horses. Here conformity has become so general that there is no longer any need for a police force: the horses all think and behave in exactly the same way, and have apparently done so for countless generations. Gulliver appears to admire it, but it is for us today a depressingly sterile picture. 

In past centuries, a well-ordered society was often compared with a human body, where all the different organs had their own particular part to play: the eyes saw, the brain thought, the stomach digested food, and so forth. The body would only function if each part fulfilled its proper role: it was no use the feet hoping to be eyes! The analogy was plain: the different social classes should "know their place" and not aspire to partcipate in government! In fact, society in pre-industrial England did give all classes appropriate roles: the landowners were Justices of the Peace, the farmers and craftsmen took their turns as parish constable or surveyor of highways, and the very poor were called out to labour on the roads. Service was more or less compulsory and unpaid. In emergencies all might be called upon to serve in the militia, as officers or rank-and-file. The system worked passably in the villages, but broke down entirely in the new urban areas.   

The conservative vision of an ideal society therefore consisted of kind masters and loyal, faithful servants. It is well portrayed by Dickens in the relationship between Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller. It is said that King George V got on well with Ramsay MacDonald, the first British Labour Prime Minister, because the King saw MacDonald essentially as a faithful Highland ghillie and MacDonald was happy to play that role.

Marx and Engels pointed out that feudalism was natural and inevitable in a society where, because of low agricultural productivity, anything up to 90% of the population were, of necessity, peasant farmers, whereas Liberalism emerged as a philosophy with the growth of capitalism form the end of the Middle Ages.  

Liberalism, in the writings of Locke, Jefferson and others, stresses individual freedom and independence, with minimal state interference. It works best in a society without extremes of wealth and poverty; a society of small farmers, craftsmen and shopkeepers without undue social snobbery, inherited authority or deference; and where the belief was that anyone could succeed through honest hard work and determination. Such a society did indeed exist in the small towns of the northern states of the USA in the latter 19th century: the society of Tom Sawyer and "Little Women", though it never really applied for Blacks and Native Americans. Young people might find the atmosphere stifling, and those who would not conform to the prevailing social norms could find themselves ostracised. 

In the vast industrial cities, peopled by mass immigration, these ideals had no relevance, and Socialism and Communism emerged in the first half of the 19th century in response to these new pressures. They were always urban-based ideologies and never attempted to have much appeal to the countryside. Marx denounced liberal individualism as a fraud as far as the mass of the working class were concerned, and looked towards a new form of society after the revolution, though he never attempted to describe it in any detail. It was clear that socialism, even without a violent revolution, would involve massive redistribution of property away from individual ownership, and although Marx famously predicted that the state would "wither away", what in fact emerged was a vastly expanded state, with more economic and organisational power than ever before. A future Socialist society is often portrayed by opponents as a vast beehive or anthill, where individuality has been abolished. There seems no doubt that for a socialist society to work we would all have to be less dominated by the desire to benefit ourselves and our families; more driven by commitment to the wellbeing of the entire community, and indeed of the whole world. 

Fascism is entirely different from liberalism and socialism in that it denies human equality as a fundamental principle. Humans, in this ideology, are not equal, and it is only right that the superior elite should rule: some have the necessary "will to power", and the majority do not. Democracy is not only wrong but, by giving power to the mediocre majority, is also inefficient. Hitler asked why we never see democratically-run armies or companies. He maintained that the most effective governmental structure is a military one: the officers do the planning and give commands, the sergeants enforce discipline and the rank and file do as they are told. He made the valid point that this was essentially how the Communist Party ran the Soviet Union.

John Rawls in his "A Theory of Justice" (1971) stressed the need to be governed by the concept of  "fairness". Robert Nozick in his "Anarchy, State and Utopia" (1974) argued the need to respect the absolute rights of the individual, which should not be overridden even by the democratic majority.

In the 1930s, as country after country in Europe succumbed to dictatorship, the notion that a "managerial society" was more efficient than a democratic one. In the optimistic 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "end of history" and the final triumph of western liberal capitalism  was proclaimed. The issue appears now to be in doubt.    

   

Cricket: Women's Hundred

My fantasy team from the women's 100 tournament, based on this summer's performances (English players only):-

Beaumont

Wyatt

Bouchier

Dunkley

Sciver-Brunt (capt)

Adams

Jones (wk)

Ecclestone

Cross

Glenn

Bell

Politics/Philosophy: The state and the nation

What do we undestand by the word "state"? It probably involves such notions as: supreme authority within recognised frontiers; a claim on our obedience superior to any other claims (e.g. religion, family loyalty); a bureaucratic structure overseeing such things as defence, international trade, laws and judiciary, and from this does things to control our lives. 

All this is quite a modern concept. It did not exist in mediaeval Europe, where real power was in the hands of the local nobility, and any control by central government depended the personality and competence of the King, without which things soon degenerated into anarchy. The modern concept of the state was developed in the Renaissance by writers such as Machiavelli, based on what they had read of Ancient Rome; and at the same time the development of a central bureacracy and a reduction of the power of the Church and of the feudal nobility made the growth of the modern state possible. 

Even then, until the late 19th century the western European state, particularly in Britain, did not do much by today's standards. It did not build roads or railways, provide healthcare or schools, or regulate international trade. Few new laws were passed, and taxation was very low. Marx provided no vision whatsoever of what a state would actually do after the revolution: indeed, in one famous phrase, he predicted that it would "wither away"!

What is a "nation"? It is more of a concept than a plain reality; a self-consciousness, based on such things as a common culture, language, tradition and history; even belief in a single race. It helps if the area in question has obvious frontiers on most sides and a central government: e.g. England or France. National self-consciouness first developes towards the end of the Middle Ages, among educated people and intellectuals (e.g. Shakespeare) and only gradually spreads to the mass of the peasant population. It is doubtful whether most people in France were aware of being "French" in any meaningful way until the 19th century, and Russian peasants probably had no "national" feeling unil even later.

 

The nation-state is often seen as the only valid form of political organisation, as distict from (say) an empire, but it is a fairly recent idea historically. Furthermore, the two words carry different connotations: a little thought will suggest that the term "King of Scotland" is not quite the same as "King of Scots": the former implies rule over a define territory with frontiers, which may well contain people who do not consider themselves Scots: the latter implies a Scottish nation or race. 

Problems of state versus nation began to emerge in Europe the 19th century. Italy had clear natural frontiers and a famous history, but there had been no single Italian state since Roman times. It was only unified in the 19th century. At the same time, German intellectuals developed a strong sense of "Germanness", but until unification in 1871 Germany had been just a patchwork of tiny inependent states with no effective central government. By contrast, the Empires of Austria, Russia and Turkey contained a great many different national groups, some of which had a proud historical past as independent states (Greece, Hungary, Poland), and others which did not. In the 19th century, scholars became interested in many of the latter: in their folklore, myths and peasant costumes, and for some of them wrote down their languages for the first time, using inappropriate or Roman or Russian aphabets (e.g. Finnish). This helped to form the first stirrings of national consciousness. 

In central and eastern Europe there are few natural frontiers, and national dividing lines were therefore impossible to draw. German intellectuals were well aware that their concept of "Germanness" overlapped with territories inhabited by Czechs, Poles and others. Their answer was to decide that these cultures were "inferior" and need not be taken into account! 

19th century Europe thus contained some states which were also nations (e.g. France), but others which were not. In the Ist World War the old Austrian and Turkish empires collapsed, and President Wilson decreed that frontiers should be redrawn in accordance with "self-determination": that is, nation-states. But this proved very difficult to apply, because, particularly when new states were established on the ruins of the old Austrian Empire, the new frontiers never coincided exactly with ethnic groupings, leading to much resentment and hostility. The newly-established nation state of Turkey expelled or killed large numbers of the Greek and Armenian minorities, but there remained a large Kurdish minority in the south-east. 

Meanwhile, Lenin and Stalin managed to hold onto most of the old Tsarist Empire in the form of the avowedly multinational Soviet Union; but when this broke up in the 1990s, many new states were created, some of which had no tradition of statehood. The present war in Ukraine derives from the fact that Russia maintains that Ukraine has no national identity separate from Russia (the Ukrainian language being seen as no more than a reasant dialect).

The disintegration of Yugoslavia led to violence because it contained ethnic groups with a long tradition of mutual hostility (e.g. Serbs and Croats), but which now found themselves states with large ethnic minorities.       

As the British, French and other Empires came to and end, vast numbers of new states were created, some of which had a history of existence, but others which were entirely new. In Africa, the new states maintained the frontiers established by the colonial powers in the 19th century, though often these bore no relationship to any ethnic groupings! 

A quite opposite argument of state frontiers is contained in the notion of "sacred soil": that, for historical reasons, a state has the right to claim a nearby territory, even if the inhabitants of that territory wish otherwise. Examples: Spain and Gibraltar; Argentina and the Falkland Islands; China and Taiwan; to some extent, Russia and Unkraine.

Questions:- What about minorities within a supposed nation state? Is there a difference between indigenous minorities (most notably, Palestinians in Israel), and immigrant ones? What if the immgrants form a majority (e.g. USA or Australia)? Is there a duty to preserve indigenous culture? (which supportersof apartheid in South Africa claimed they were doing, whilst denying that black people could ever be part of the South African nation)

Is there such a thing as a British nation, as distinct from the state? Why has Irish nationalism been so much stronger than Scottish or Welsh? Ulster Protestants do not consider themselves to be part of the irisg nation, so are demands for Irish union just another "sacred soil" argument? 

         

   

England: Lady Anne Clifford and her castles

 Lady Anne Clifford was born in 1590, the only surviving child of George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland; the scion of a family powerful in the north-west of England since the thirteenth century, and as a young girl she was presented at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. She was twice married; first to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, by whom she had two daughters, and later to Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. She does not appeared to have had any great joy in either marriage, and despite living in the great age of the Elizabethan and early Stuart Renaissance, her heart was always in the north of England and her outlook resolutely mediaeval.

(This triptych shows, in the centre, Sir George Clifford and his family, with, on the left, Lady Anne as a child and, on the right, as a mature lady in her fifties) 

 

 Much to Lady Anne's disgust, her father, when he died in 1605, left his lands and property not to her but to his brother Francis, who became fourth Earl of Cumberland, and it was only when his son, Henry, the fifth Earl, died childless in 1643 that she was able to inherit what she had always seen as her rightful possessions. But at this stage the Civil War intervened, and it was only when the fighting had ceased that she was able to begin the restoration of her castles, where she was to live for the rest of her life. Her contemporaries knew her as a "proud northern lady".

Lady Anne Clifford's castles today:-

Brougham castle, on the river Eamont, near Penrith

Appleby castle: the only one still in private hands

Brough castle: situated on the A66 road several miles south-east from Penrith

The Countess's Pillar: a short distance from Brougham on the road to Appleby. She erected it in memory of her mother, and arranged for charity to distributed from this site every April to the poor of the parish.

The coat of arms of Sir George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland: Lady Anne Clifford's father

Lady Anne Clifford died at Brougham in 1676. In 1714 her son-in-law, John Tufton, Earl of Thanet, sold Brougham and Brough castles, which were then stripped of everything valuable and allowed to fall into ruin. They are now both under the administration of English Heritage. 

Musings: Boris Johnson and Fascism

 Enemies of Boris Johnson routinely used social media to accuse him of being a "fascist": a word nowadays employed so loosely as to be practically devoid of any meaning except dislike. Nevertheless, I consider that there are interesting parallels between him and Mussolini, the leader of the Fascist Party in Italy and the inspiration for copycat movements throught the interwar period.

    Mussolini, like Johnson, was by instinct a tabloid journalist, and his principal aim was to dominate the next day's headlines. As a rising politician, he produced no specific policies, and was never really in control of the dark forces of street violence that he had unleased and encouraged. He delivered speeches full of rousing phrases but devoid of any ideological content. His really solid achivements were few: he was a lazy administrator and allowed vast levels of corruption to flourish under his government. When the great recession came after 1929, he had no more clue of how to deal with the economic problems facing his country than did any other western European leaders. 

   Boris Johnson as Prime Minister was noted for his rousing speeches and for his publicity stunts: dressing up as a soldier, a doctor or whatever, for the benefit of the T.V. cameras. He too was lazy and famously could never be bothered to master the details of policies.

   In the 1920s Mussolini was accepted as a serious statesman by the other leaders of Europe, and his Fascism was widely imitated, not least by Hitler in Germany. When the two dictators first met, Mussolini was profoundly unimpressed, and commented that Hitler was "wrong in the head". But Germany is a far stronger power than Italy, and in the end Mussolini could not bear Hitler grabbing all the headlines and felt he would have to lash out internationally himself, with disastrous consequences for Italy and for himself. The only parallel here, though not a very exact one, is with Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Postscript: Boris Johnson has reverted to his old job and is now writing articles for the "Daily Mail

It is a sobering thought that he can earn far more for churning out this kind of rubbish than he did as Prime Minister; but personally I do not begrudge him a single penny. I would far rather he was harmlessly enployed producing what Orwell called "prolefeed" than pretending to run the country.

Political Philosophy: Justice

   Early in Plato's book, "The Republic",  Socrates asks the question "What is justice?". Thrasymachus answers scornfully that justice is merely the will of the strongest imposed on everyone else, and all other talk is nonsense. Socrates rejects this, though he does not really refute it, and also rejects a later suggestion that justice is determined by a consensus agreement. Instead, Socrates defines justice as "everything in the right place". Later, Aristotle defined justice as "Treating equals equally". It can be seen that both these require further investigation!

   The mediaeval writers, particularly Thomas Aquinas, depicted an underlying code of right and wrong which we all know in our hearts, and which to some extent can be discovered by reason alone. There is no moral obligation to obey the laws enacted by government ("Positive law") which go against natural law: abstract justice should always have priority over human laws. (The concept of natural law was revived at the Nuremberg trials).

   Hobbes rejected any concept of natural law and reached a Thrasymachus position: the state's positive law defines what is just and unjust, and therefore no law can be unjust. (However, because there is no effective international sovereignty, there can be no right or wrong in dealings between states).

Locke revived the concept of natural law under the category of natural rights (to life, liberty, property) and any state which infringes these is acting unjustly and may legitimately be resisted.

From the 17th century, rationalist philosophers attempted to construct codes of absolute justice based on reason rather than divine command. The bottom line of these usually a concept of equality and fairness; and laws which discriminate or are applied in an inequitable fashion may be condemned as unjust. 

Supporters of absolute standards of justice, whether derived from religious doctrine or from reason, would argue that unjust laws should be resisted; implying that individual conscipriority over any obligation to obey positive law. Hobbes argued that giving priority to individual conscience is effecively allowing anyone to do whatever they want. A counter-argument would be that individual happiness, or even the happiness of society as a whole, is not the same as "goodness", and that we always have a duty to promote the latter, regardless of all other considerations. How far therefore should my individual conscience take precedence over the "general good" (e.g. conscientious objection in wartime)? Should my individual judgement of right and wrong be guided by a superior authority (the church or the government)?  

Positive law.  To be just, it should be widely known and accepted, easy to understand, promote a clear and obvious social good, and not discriminate unfairly for or against any groups in society. The administration of justice should be unbiased and open to all. Punishments should be proportionate and should ideally be aimed at reforming the offender. These are all utilitarian arguments. But what if some law or regulation appears irrational or cruel, but is nonetheless accepted by the mass of society: e.g. the monarchy (Edmund Burke's argument)?

Political justice. Nowadays it is believed that "one person, one vote" is the only just form of political structure. But why? Is it because this is the form most likely to achieve the general good (utilitarianism)? and if so, has that always been the case, or is it only applicable to modern society? Surely it is only a means to an end (better government), not a universal entitlement? What about minority groups and the danger of "tyranny of the majority" (Mill). What rights do I have to oppose a policy supported by the majority but which I believe to be disastrous?

 

Social Justice.  The rights and wrongs underlying the social order. Discussion often turns on the conflict between commutative and distributive justice:-

Commutative justice = "Merit should be rewarded" (e.g. skill, hard work, academic attainment: more difficult to assess if "value to society is a criterion); not to do so would be unjust.

Distributive justice = "Rewards should be distributed according to needs" (e.g. number of children to be supported). This may involve compulsory redistribution of property; presumably by the state.

Commutative justice is preferred by economic liberals and by conservatives on the grounds of ecomonic efficiency, and flat-rate equality ("levelling") attacked as in itself unjust. On the other hand, religious teaching often seems to favour distributive justice.  

Some modern arguments:

The utilitarian tradition: "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" is still the most common approach to evaluating justice. But utilitarianism has nothing to say about abolute standards of right and wrong (Bentham and Mill were both rationalists and non-believers). Also, why should I, as an individual, care about the wellbeing of society as a whole?

John Rawls ("A Theory of Justice"): There is always an individual claim to justice in the pursuit of  "social primary goods" (liberty, wealth, opportunities, self-respect, etc); and fairness dictates that all should be distributed equally unless there is a valid reason why not (e.g. some people may work harder or more usefully, and therefore deserve greater wealth). Slavery for a minority might be of advantage to the majority of the population, but is surely unjust?

Robert Nozick ("Anarchy, State, and Utopia"): Revives claims to natural rights, especially against an obtrusive state. In utilitarian theory, individual rights must be sacrificed to a higher goal of "the general good". A democratically elected government has no more right to seize your property than does a dictator! 

Marxists argue that the interests of the different classes are so contrary that no "general good" is possible: every action must benefit one class and disadvantage another. Utilitarianism is therefore fraudulent until the communist revolution: up to that point; good = what furthers the revolution: bad = what hinders it. 

Marx's famous summary of justice in a communist society was, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". But in Stalin's Russia this was changed to "to each according to his work": a change from distributive to commutative justice!

England: Oteley gardens

Oteley gardens, Ellesmere, open to the public for one day earlier this month under the National Gardens Scheme: rhododendrons, ancient trees and a fine view over the mere.

Cinderella: an attempt at a pantomime script

 Cast in order of appearance:

Lord Chamberlain

Cinderella

Baron Hardup

Gertrude (first ugly sister)

Marguerita (second ugly sister)

Page

……………………………………………………………………….

(Sound of bell ringing. Door opening)

Lord Chamberlain: Is your master in, child?

Cinderella: Yes, sir: I’ll fetch him (she exits)

Chamb: (aside) If she’d wash the dirt off her face, she’d be quite a pretty little thing

(Footsteps)

Cind: Here’s a visitor, father. (she exits)

Baron Hardup: What can I do for you, my man? You haven’t come with a bill, have you? Because I’ve explained: I will pay everything in full; it’s just that right now …..

Chamb: Do you have any daughters living in the house, Baron? It’s them I need to see.

Bar: They haven’t been ordering more dresses and jewellery, have they? It really is too bad! I’ve told them again and again that I won’t be responsible for their debts, and they simply take no notice! Can’t you tell them? They might listen to you!

Chamb: Baron, I am not a debt collector. I am Lord Chamberlain to His Majesty the King. What I have to say to your daughters could be greatly to their advantage, and yours. Just call them, please.

Bar: Oh, your grace! However could I have made such a stupid mistake! (Claps hands) Gertrude! Marguerita! You’ve got a very important visitor!

Chamb: (aside) Idiot!

Gertrude and Marguerita (enter, chattering): What’s happening? Who’s this?

Chamb: (aside) Good grief, what a hideous pair! Still, orders are orders. (aloud) Young ladies, I come on a mission of the highest importance. At the ball last night, His Royal Highness Prince Charming danced with a mysterious young princess, who then unaccountably vanished, leaving only a single slipper. His Royal Highness was so taken with the beauty of the said princess that he has vowed to wed her as soon as she may be found. To this end, I am commanded to ask every young lady in the city to try on the aforementioned slipper until the true wearer can be identified. Let us therefore proceed. Page: the slipper!

Page: Here, sir.

Gert. and Marg. (together): Me first! Stop pushing! Out of the way! Ow!

Gert: Give it here, you moron! (Grunts and groans as she tries on slipper)

Chamb: It’s clearly far too small for you. (aside) That’s a relief!

Gert: It’s my feet! I danced so much last night they’ve swollen! It would fit normally.

Marg: My turn now! (Grunts and groans)                                                  

Chamb: It doesn’t fit you either

Marg: I think I’ve developed a bunion

Chamb: (aside) I can’t imagine the Prince would be disappointed to hear that. (aloud) Well, Baron, I’m afraid these two don’t qualify. Are there any more young ladies in your household? What about the girl who answered the door?

Gert: Oh, she’s nobody

Marg: Just a servant. Besides, she wasn’t at the ball: she was here, working in the kitchen.

Chamb: But, Baron, didn’t I hear her addressing you as father?

Bar: Well, yes, there is another daughter. Her name’s Cinderella. But she doesn’t get out much. Too shy, you know.

Gert: You’d be wasting your time.

Chamb: Nevertheless, Baron, His Royal Highness has commanded me to try the slipper with every young girl in the city. So would you be good enough to call Cinderella in here? (aside) It’s no more than a very long shot, but I’m going to do it anyway, if only to annoy these two revolting hussies and their ridiculous father!

Bar: Cinderella! (claps hands)

(Cinderella enters)

Bar: Cinderella, the gentleman here wants you to try on a slipper

Cind: Yes, father

Gert: Look who’ll be getting a swelled head!

Marg: She’ll be insufferable after this!

(Short pause)

Page: Oh look sir! The slipper fits her perfectly!

Gert and Marg: Oh!

Chamb: So it does! Well, well! Cinderella, you must answer me truthfully: were you at the ball last night?

Cind: Yes I was, sir, and I danced with the Prince; but at midnight I had to run away, and I was in such a hurry that this slipper came off my foot and I didn’t have time to pick it up.

Gert. and Marg: (together) But she can’t have been! It’s not possible!

Chamb: (aside) Hmm. With a decent hairdresser and dressmaker she could be made to look quite presentable. The Prince could do a lot worse. The next step must be to get her away from her appalling family. (aloud) Now, Cinderella, your whole life is about to change. You must come with me to the palace. No need to pick anything up; we’re leaving immediately!

Bar: Just a moment, your grace. If you’re taking my beloved little girl to meet the Prince, I don’t suppose you could find your way to lend her poor old father the odd fiver, could you?

England: A day in Liverpool: Beatles and others

I hadn't visited Liverpool for a great many years. I found the tourist trail still very Beatles-themed, despite it now being more than fifty years since the group split up. I don't know whether Paul and Ringo ever revisit, but they would find their home city transformed by massive injections of money. The whole dockland area has been cleaned up, and surrounded by a cluster of glittering new glass-and-steel apatment and office blocks and towers. 

  This is looking north across the Albert Dock, with the Tate Modern art galley on the left. At the end, the low white building is the new Museum of Liverpool, with next to it the dome of the Port of Liverpool building, and in the distance a glimpse of the Royal Liver building, with the famous "Liver birds" on top.

I walked inland half a mile to Matthew Street, a scruffy little alleyway that was once the site of the famous Cavern Club, where the Beatles and other famous groups performed at the start of their careers. The street was full of tourists taking pictures of the statue of John Lennon and other commemorative Beatles material.

 

                       

The real Cavern Club was demolished many years ago, but had been "reconstructed" in the "Beatles Story" museum at the Albert Dock. It must have been a tiny, cramped and airless place. Once sgain, it remains popular with tourists.

The young Beatles must have been aware of the magnificent 19th century municipal buildings of Liverpool, such as St George's Hall

and close by, the famous Walker Art Gallery

but one particularly splendid and unusual building, not then completed, is the Roman Catholic Cathedral, otherwise known as the "Mersey Funnel" or "Paddy's Wigwam"

The interior is awe-inspiring

As John Lennon said, for once understating it, "There is a lot to see in Liverpool!" 

Elijah Fenton

 

My first teaching job, many years, was at Newcastle-under-Lyme school in Staffordshire. There hung above the door in the Memorial Hall a portrait of the 18^th century poet Elijah Fenton, which hangs above the door of the Memorial Hall, and on many occasions I wondered who Fenton was and why he appeared there. It was only recently that sought enlightenment from “The Lives of the English Poets”, by the great Doctor Samuel Johnson, who was himself a Lichfield man and proud of his Staffordshire origins.

  Elijah Fenton was born at Shelton in 1683, the eleventh child of a local landowner, and attended Cambridge University. He published a collection of poems and a verse drama, “Mariamne”, which was staged successfully. He also attracted the support of Alexander Pope, England’s greatest poet of the time, and assisted in the latter’s translation of Homer’s “Odyssey”, so he must have been a reputable scholar. But Johnson, though devoting six pages of his book to Fenton, only quotes two lines of his poetry, and even these he admits are not very good.

   Fenton was a Jacobite, which means that he did not accept George of Hanover, who became King George I in 1714, to be the legitimate King of England: instead he gave his support to the exiled James Edward Stuart (“the Old Pretender”) and his son Charles (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) who led the great risings of 1715 and 1745. Because of this, Fenton could never aspire to any official position, for that would involve an oath of loyalty to the Crown, and any patronage could only come his way from fellow Jacobites. Jacobitism was very strong in Staffordshire: Johnson himself never made any attempt to conceal his own Jacobite sympathies.

   Fenton left Staffordshire early in his career and moved south. He became a schoolmaster and tutor, and was briefly secretary to the Earl of Orrery, but Johnson admitted he found it impossible to trace Fenton’s career exactly. He was described as being amiable and well-liked, but also physically very lazy, lying in bed until late in the morning and seldom taking any exercise, which resulted in him being very corpulent. This possibly hastened his early death in 1730: Pope indeed said that he “died of indolence”!

   One difficulty remains. Investigating portraits of Fenton via Google, I found that none of them looked anything like the picture in the school Memorial Hall. I wondered who identified the portrait. And since Fenton died more than a century before the school was founded, precisely why his portrait should be hanging there, I had no more idea than when I started!

Political Philosophy: Human Rights

 Rights are “advantages that may be legitimately claimed” (Mill). They can be considered under different headings.

 

 Human Rights; earlier known as "natural rights" were first postulated as “Life, liberty and the possession of property” (Locke) and “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson), and listed by the French Revolutionary leaders as “The imprescriptible rights of man”. They exist independently of positive law, and are common to all humanity: it is wrong for the state and any other power to deprive us of them without due process of law, and if they are infringed unjustly, we are, according to Locke and Jefferson, entitled to rebel. The concept is fundamental to liberal thought and the desire for a limited, non-interventionist state. 

    The concept of human rights was unknown to the ancient Greeks or the mediaeval writers. The idea of the “Rights of man” was denounced by the conservative thinker Edmund Burke, and dismissed by Bentham as “Nonsense on stilts”.

   A common argument is that even if “human rights” are an imaginary concept and cannot be proved to exist, most people think they ought to, and that the idea provides a good basis for moral conduct and a useful restraint on the power of the state, and that it is useful to treat them as if they had a real existence.

Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau agreed that under the Social Contract we rely on the power of the state to safeguard our rights. But what right do we have to oppose the state?   

Punishment, by definition, involves the removal of some natural rights. The question of how far the state is justified in infringing them (e.g. by conscription in wartime) has been endlessly debated!

 

Civil Rights are what we hold as citizens of a state, and are guaranteed (at least in theory!) by positive law. Examples would include the right to vote, to hold an official position, etc. Women did not hold such civil rights until they were given the vote. Children and lunatics do not have the same civil rights as sane adults, though their human rights may be the same. Criminals may forfeit civil rights. In some states (e.g. the USA) civil rights may be precisely stated in constitutional law. There is obviously an overlap between human and civil rights, but an example of the difference would be “the right to a fair trial” (which is surely a fundamental human right), and “the right to a jury trial” which is a civil right determined by law.

 Nowadays, “democratic rights” such as freedom of speech and writing, freedom to mount political campaigns and to criticise the government, are seen as essential aspects of a democratic society. Are these natural rights or civil rights?

 

All sorts of other rights have been postulated, which are more properly “Claims”; e.g. the right to education, a living wage, decent housing, medical care, etc. These are different from natural rights, in that they will probably involve intervention by the state to bring them about (unless the hope is that they can be provided by the workings of the free market), and therefore seem to be at odds with the old liberal ideal of a non-interventionist state. 

 

Some have argued for a “hierarchy of rights”, to establish that some are more important than others: for instance, if a starving man steals food to survive, how does his “right to life” weigh against someone else’s “right to property”? What about the competing rights (the right of the foetus to life as against the mother's right of control over her own body) in the debate over abortion? And what rights are there in suicide?

 

Recent discussion of rights has postulated a number of specific issues: gay rights, trans rights etc. What are these? What specifically might women’s rights be? (Animal rights are different again, and have been discussed in an earlier post)

 

The Marxists did not disagree with most of the above rights and claims, but argued that, as long as there were massive inequalities of property ownership, they were meaningless for the vast majority of the population. They also argued for giving priority to the fulfilment of the claims over absolute property rights, and also over the “democratic rights” claimed in the West.  

 

Privileges are benefits or advantages that may be claimed by particular individuals or groups, but are not available to everyone (e.g. British nobles having a seat in the House of Lords, or Privy Councillors having access to state secrets). They may be defined by law and be liable to be withdrawn. Should all legal rights perhaps be regarded as privileges?

 

Justice is often seen as being based on respect for the rights of others: unwarranted infringement of someone’s rights being by definition unjust.

Obligations would seem to result from rights: if I have a right to liberty, it would follow that other people (and the state) have an obligation to respect it.

When and how far, if at all, do we have any right to break the law of the state we live in? Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that we should not obey any human law that clearly goes against God's commands (e.g. to worship pagan idols), and Locke argues that we have the right to resist a law that threatens our natural rights. Hobbes strongly disagrees that we have any right to follow our consciences where they conflict with the state's laws, arguing that this effectively means that we can all disobey any law we choose. Of course, there is a major difference between a passive refusal to obey the law and open active revolt!   

Cricket: The Chinese Test Cricketer

A back-of the hand delivery by a left-arm spin bowler, which turns from off to leg for a right-handed batsman, used to be called a "chinaman". That term appears to have been discarded, presumably for its racist implications, though in fact it was coined for the man who first practised this kind of delivery: the only man of Chinese descent ever to pay test cricket.

Ellis Edgar Achong (1904-86) was born in Trinidad and played half-a-dozen test matches for the West Indies in the 1930s, including a tour of England in 1933. He then married and settled in Manchester, and over the next few years he took more than a thousand wickets whilst playing for various Lancashire League clubs. After the war he returned to Trinidad, where he coached cricket and stood as umpire in a test match in 1954.

The story goes that his stock delivery was given its name when in 1933 he dismissed the England player Walter Robins, who exclaimed in disgust, "Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman!", to which Learie Constantine of the West Indies replied, "Do you mean the man or the ball?"  

 The "chinaman" delivery was used successfully later in the 1930s by the Australian bowler Fleetwood-Smith, and more recently by Paul Adams of South Africa. They have also bowled the left-armer's googly, which turns from leg to off.