Month: December 2023

A safe, Hobbesian Christmas to all readers

The works of Thomas Hobbes have no examination of Christmas celebrations, but plenty of the world and the heart of man.

Inside there are celebrations of the season, Christian or secular. Outside our windows in the meantime the world turns and shows itself ever more Hobbesian in its workings. War of all against all seems distant from the cosy heath and the paper snowmen, but not from the burning house, and the frozen bodies elsewhere.

We taught ourselves to put faith in systems and words on paper, but paper is soon trampled underfoot. Paper did not prevent the war still grinding through the Ukrainian winter, nor across yet another year in Syria, nor the Yemen, nor Burma, nor in the Holy Land itself. Sermons may preach about folly, but it is a fond hope that brutal war is caused by folly, as if learning could stop it, when we have seen endless times that is not true. Germany in the early twentieth century was one of the most well educated of societies, but it began the most devastating wars and indescribable acts. It is not folly, but mankind in pursuit of motives long ago described, tipped into it by instability and the chance of a win.

The charm of choral anthems, and the silly carols spread about in their own ways the theme Christianity brought to the season, of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All Men. That seems distant in much of the world, but that love for peace and harmony is the only hope a bloody world has to break the chains of animal motives, and allow growth and prosperity and an end to suffering.

For ‘Hobbesian’ is used by detractors to describe the brutal world, but it is in reality an analysis of what makes the world what it is, not how we would want it to be. That analysis is needed now as much as ever to break the fancies of those who still hope in bullet-proof paper, and find a real way of peace.

A blessed and holy Christmas then to all readers, and may our prayers be for our ideas of the season to spread beyond our cosy homes.

See also

Books

Good Wit, Judgment etc resumed

In a good Poem, whether it be Epique, or Dramatique; as also in Sonnets, Epigrams, and other Pieces, both Judgement and Fancy are required: But the Fancy must be more eminent; because they please for the Extravagancy; but ought not to displease by Indiscretion.

In a good History, the Judgement must be eminent; because the goodnesse consisteth, in the Method, in the Truth, and in the Choyse of the actions that are most profitable to be known. Fancy has no place, but onely in adorning the stile.

In Orations of Prayse, and in Invectives, the Fancy is praedominant; because the designe is not truth, but to Honour or Dishonour; which is done by noble, or by vile comparisons. The Judgement does but suggest what circumstances make an action laudable, or culpable.

In Hortatives, and Pleadings, as Truth, or Disguise serveth best to the Designe in hand; so is the Judgement, or the Fancy most required.

In Demonstration, in Councell, and all rigourous search of Truth, Judgement does all; except sometimes the understanding have need to be opened by some apt similitude; and then there is so much use of Fancy. But for Metaphors, they are in this case utterly excluded. For seeing they openly professe deceipt; to admit them into Councell, or Reasoning, were manifest folly.

And in any Discourse whatsoever, if the defect of Discretion be apparent, how extravagant soever the Fancy be, the whole discourse will be taken for a signe of want of wit; and so will it never when the Discretion is manifest, though the Fancy be never so ordinary.

The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame; which verball discourse cannot do, farther than the Judgement shall approve of the Time, Place, and Persons. An Anatomist, or a Physitian may speak, or write his judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but profit: but for another man to write his extravagant, and pleasant fancies of the same, is as if a man, from being tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himselfe before good company. And ’tis the want of Discretion that makes the difference. Again, in profest remissnesse of mind, and familiar company, a man may play with the sounds, and aequivocal significations of words; and that many times with encounters of extraordinary Fancy: but in a Sermon, or in publique, or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no Gingling of words that will not be accounted folly: and the difference is onely in the want of Discretion. So that where Wit is wanting, it is not Fancy that is wanting, but Discretion. Judgement therefore without Fancy is Wit, but Fancy without Judgement not.

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Books

Disgraceful proceedings

It is a play, in the worst taste, running at Dorland House, which should never have been held. The COVID inquiry as it is being carried out puts the whole mechanism of government decision-making at risk, while failing to address the point of the inquiry. This is the Establishment obsessing about itself, instead of about the nation.

We have much to learn from the epidemic and the response, but not in this forum, and not in this way.

The Greek for ‘playactor’ is ὑποκριτής, hypokrites; literally ‘one who speaks from behind a mask’. That has rarely seems so appropriate, watching the proceedings.

The Cabinet Room is barred to the outside world and sworn to secrecy for two reasons. One is that matters are discussed there which, were they revealed before action is taken, could assist an enemy or be a tip-off to frustrate the action proposed, or allow a criminal to flee, or distort the market. The other is that ministers and advisers must be free to speak their minds.  There is much that, as Hobbes notes, in Deliberations that ought to be kept secret, (whereof there be many occasions in Publique Businesse,). That is the reason that Cabinet minutes are locked away from thirty years, and sometimes more: a minister must feel he or she can explore every angle in this teapotohedral business that is government, without looking over their shoulder.

The current proceedings drive a bulldozer through that understanding. Ministers and their advisers are now shown that every word spoken may be opened up and shaken before the world, shorn of tone and context, within the year.

Provocative questions are presented as sober proposals; a moment’s fly-by thought appears in cold text as an oration; the Devil’s advocate as an advocate. There is little truth in the search for truth that is contextless.

The conduct of inner government should be carried out calmly and in confidence. That was broken during the Covid time and the lockdown. Many unfamiliar advisers were brought into the counsels of state, unfamiliar, uncollegiate with the usual counsellors, and this seal of confidence was burst with leaks, smears of colleagues, allegations and ambition, played out in the press. It was a disgraceful sight. Now it is played out again with excuses and self-justification and revenge in a nominally respectable forum. Those revenges and foolishness on display makes it a low-grade gawping show.

The only one who has come out of this with dignity is Boris Johnson. He may not appear so on the news – he is damned by the pre-written narrative, but were he heard on his own, he would appear as a statesman, as no one else in the room can. He is an odd character, to be a comic, a jester, an uncontrolled loose wheel, and suddenly a sober elder. What is an act and what the reality is hard to say – I have never met the man. All politicians speak from behind a mask and act according to its character, so that the mask is the reality of action.  Mr Johnson displays that he has more raw intelligence than anyone else in the room, but he has always hidden it behind his masks.

The performance will go on, and the sober dignity of government will continue to be shown up as nothing more than fantasy. (Few are worthy to be entrusted with the responsibilities that come with political power – those who seek that power least of all. Expert advisers have to be appointed from those not bright enough to have gone into creating value in commerce.)

When it all ends, and in spite of the generous hourly rates earned by those paid to keep it going, it will end, we are left with a ruin. The dignity of governing is exposed as a sham, the wisdom of the wise is shown as foolishness. Worst of all, no one in the hitherto confidential corridors of responsibility will now be able to speak frankly, for any word may be carried to the floor of an undignified public inquiry. Originality and imagination are banished. We will all be poorer for this.

See also

Books