Lolita

My copy of Lolita has on its cover a blonde girl, reclining in a park, her eyes seductively pointing at the reader. That image of Lolita has persisted down the years- seductive, available, think Britney Spears playing the schoolgirl in her first pop video. That image of Lolita is completely and utterly wrong- it puts the reader into the position of Humphrey Humbert- makes us see him as the tragedy and her as the tempting siren. That image is entirely wrong- this is a book about Lolita, but Lolita as mediated by the gaze of Humphrey Humbert- this is a book about a girl written by a pedophile. Humbert confesses several times throughout the novel that he does not feel sexual excitement about women- that of Lolita's friends, the more physically mature are for him the less sexually attractive- it is the snub nosed, unmade up, chestnut haired, dirty Lolita that he loves and that he eventually rapes (as she says). The novel's artistry is that it presents this picture through Humbert's voice- if you do not read it carefully you can be seduced into being Humbert- and if you do that, you will fall victim to two massive mistakes.

The first of those mistakes concerns Humbert himself. Humbert thinks that he is an artist, he groups himself with Dante, Petrarch and Edgar Allen Poe. He thinks that paedophilia is the prerogative of the poet- the marker of a true distinction of taste. He says that the subtle beauty of what he calls nymphets- girls between the ages of 9 and 14- are available only to those who see the true artistic beauty of the universe. Of course in this he is a satire, a brutal satire and culmination of that romantic tendency to see the existence of art as the construction of an excuse. For Humbert cannot achieve and has not achieved anything- his wealth is a matter of happenstance, an accident of inheritance- he has alternated between the positions of a drone and a madman, running betwixt asylum and attic- and producing nothing in either. He has no books of original ideas out- a couple of translations- poor return for someone who considers himself a poet- only in small town America would he be taken as a cultured individual, with his overt use of French tags and his feckless past, present and future.

The second concerns Lolita. Nabokov allows us to hear once in a while Lolita's own voice- at one point she writes a letter to Humbert and her Mother- and addresses it, as any twelve year old might, to 'Hummy and Mummy'. She is a kid. She is aware of her sexuality- but as a teenager might be- she has kissed another girl, had an experience with a boy and sat on a man's lap and felt excited. But she cannot be a woman- and Humbert wants her to be a woman- he wants her to be a wife. The reason that Humbert is so blind about Lolita is that he completely ignores her. He ignores what she wants, ignores what she is interested in, despises her desires- for films and celebrity magazines- this is not a solid basis for a relationship. Humbert even speculates on the prospect of eventually marrying Lolita, his step daughter, impregnating her and then ten years later molesting his new daughter! Indeed it adds to the idea that whatever emotion Humbert has for Lolita, it cannot be called love- obsession, fascination maybe- but not love for he does not care for Lolita, only for her nymphet (or childish) form. The novel is explicit from Humbert's view- but this is not an erotic novel- rather it is a warning, a fearsome warning.

It is a warning against self absorption. Humbert is phenomenally self absorbed- he desires Lolita because he can control her. Because he can twist her into being the girl he lost when he was thirteen- one of the interesting things about the novel is that Humbert represents all elder women as being not merely unattractive but threatening- their talk threatens his autonomy, his self sovereignty. They threaten with equality! As others have said it is also a formidable warning against tyranny. The tyrant here is the paedophile- forcing the girl to have sex with him for little treats. The tyrant though also writes a history in order to prove that he was what the girl needed- that she was asking for it. It is a worrying sign of the times that we do not read Lolita for what it is- a ferocious counter attack on the tyranny of personal relations and powerful states- but for an account of how Lolita is the guilty party. That pouting girl on the front cover of my volume symbolises the way that we have got this story wrong- the way that we have misunderstood the fact that this dark and brilliant novel is filled with irony, that Humbert here is the great villain and Lolita is the harmless victim. A harmless victim that Nabokov implies can survive- but survives damaged and ultimately of course survives barely longer than her tormentor.

Read this novel, but read it not to be erotically excited, read it to explore the dark sides of the human mind- the ways that paedophilia represents an analogy for the evils of tyranny that Nabokov fled to escape in the West- read it as a terrible warning of how humanity is perverted by power and how our innermost desires can turn into a warped message of self assertion and obsession.

"The Rhythm that was different": a thought on the English Enlightenment

Edward Gibbon is amongst the greatest historians to have ever written in English- his magisterial history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has influenced and inspired historians in the two hundred years since Gibbon took up his pen and published his first volume. Gibbon's importance cannot be underrated- a friend of Adam Smith, a colleague of David Hume, a competitor to Samuel Johnson- he was an MP who served Lord North in the Parliaments of the late 1780s and more importantly a key intellectual thinker in what we might term the English Enlightenment. The Decline and Fall was greeted with horror by contemporary Christians- alarmed by Gibbon's account of their faith in Chapters 15 and 16 where he tackled the early Church- the rest of his account argued with some of the main postulates of Enlightenment thinking. John Pocock has just over the last few years published a survey of Gibbon's place in the world- and his survey enables us to turn to a vexed and important question- where did England stand in the Enlightenment? Franco Venturi told us that in England the rhythm was different, that in England the rules of the Enlightenment did not apply. Pocock argues that Venturi was right and wrong- that instead of looking to a hegemonical enlightenment based in France and spreading outwards- we need to look to an enlightenment of Calvinist and Protestant dimensions- and he uses Gibbon as a case study for the argument.

England in the 18th Century faced a key issue which defined most of its politics up until the French Revolution. Lurking in the back of the 18th Century mind, whether it faced Jacobitism in Scotland or Revolution in America, was the events of the seventeenth century. During the previous bloody century, England had gone through an awful civil war (more dead as a proportion of the population than in the First World War) and had been threatened by the spectre of further civil war in 1681, 1688 and so on. The political situation of England was a nervous one- Jacobitism, the belief that the excluded House of Stuart should resume the throne, played a large part in English politics- Gibbon's own father was a Jacobite for example and until 1715 the question of the Jacobite faction played large in politics until it was sublimated with the Hanoverian succession (though not so successfully as that it could not pose a military threat both in 1715 and in 1745). Alongside that there was another terror- the rise of enthusiasm. The troops of Cromwell's army who had pissed in the fonts of Cathedrals and paraded their radicalism through the streets of London were not forgotten- and the spectre of enthusiasm, religious license and the destruction of the national Anglican Church remained a feature of English life right up until 1828.

Positioning an English Enlightenment in this political context might seem odd- but it does make sense. The English Enlightenment was two things- it was a social movement and a religious one. Shaftesbury, the great son of the greater politician, argued in the early 18th Century that England needed to develop a series of political languages that could expel the enthusiast.The purpose of the early Spectator, edited by the Whig partisan Richard Addison, was precisely to develop this argument. The reason that historians often miss the English enlightenment was that for many in England, including Gibbon, the idea of a group of philosophe discussing politics in the arbours of the French academy was dangerous. They preferred that philosophy, that enlightenment was an amateur pursuit- something that united gentlemen in their opposition to the twin evils of enthusiasm and superstition. Evils that David Hume identified in his History of England as those that had swept the nation to civil war in the previous century and to Popish tyranny in the years before. The argument was simple: rather than developing a caste of philosophers, Gibbon beleived that philosophy was dangerous if not combined with the pursuits of a gentleman. When he said that the experience of the militia commander of Hampshire had not proved useless to the historian of the camps of Rome, in part he meant that historians could derive from their experience lessons to apply to the past, but in part he also meant that historians and philosophers should not become a caste apart- but should pursue their studies from the position and pose of leisured gentlemen. Rather than an academy as in France, it was the Club (founded by Joshua Reynolds and of which Gibbon was a member) which dominated the idea of enlightened conversation in England.

When Gibbon arrived in France in the 1760s, it was the separation between the gentleman and the scholar and the contempt for the amateur that enraged him and provoked his first literary excursion. In his essay on the study of literature, Gibbon sought to rebuke the Encyclopediast, D'Alembert, who had argued that philosophy was sovereign over the other subjects and reason over the other faculties. For Gibbon this was too narrow. You had to understand that philosophy was a servant, not a sovereign and that it might share the role of intellectual leader with other great faculties- amongst which the young historian put history. For Gibbon in France it was the Society of Antiquities in particular that he was interested in- and not the philosophe, not the Encyclopediasts. He esteemed Montesquieu because of his vast learning. He also became a citizen of the salons- and in particular attempted to cultivate the notion of a gentleman scholar. From France, with which Gibbon was always intellectually engaged, he learnt to respect the English society that he had left- he learnt the virtue of the polite argument made by Addison and Shaftesbury that rejected the philosophical enthusiasm- the Calvinist feeling- of the intolerant philosophe and atheist.

Such enlightened conversation embodied an attack on religious enthusiasm. And that is the second real issue in England in the 18th Century. From Samuel Gardiner in the sixteenth century onwards, Anglican intellectuals had sought the origins of the English church in the history of the early Church- they argued for what historians now call caesero-papism, the argument that the powers of Constantine had descended upon the civil sovereign of England- Henry VIII was as the act of succession proclaimed him, an emperor and his title was imperial. But what happened when as in 1688, the monarch fled and was replaced. Some Anglicans argued the issue was simple- divinity rested in the apostolic Church even under a false King. The King's flight changed nothing. But this doctrine came close to an argument that the Church was independent of the King, that it might exist without him and approached Catholic arguments that the Church had jure divino authority. Other Anglicans argued that the Church had no authority to do this: some like Conyers Reade at Oxford went further and argued that the Church was not a divine body. This tendency threatened to lapse into socinianism- the belief that Christ was not himself divine, for as soon as one suggested that the body of Christ, the Church, might not be divine what did that do to Christ himself. The threat was implicit: 1688 might turn the Church of England Catholic or force it to resign the Trinity. The problem, as Pocock understands, for the Englishman of the eighteenth century was the relationship between the Church and the King: ultimately their question was what kind of person was Christ and what kind of person was Leviathan? The key here for the young Gibbon was the doctrine of miracles. Conyers Reade had argued that no miracles were performed after the time of Christ himself and his apostles. Gibbon converted to Catholicism at Oxford because he sought to cut the Gordian knot of Anglican theological controversy- by acknowledging the authority of Rome, he could escape from the problem of the authority of the King by denying it, and from the problem of the authority of the Church by assuming it on the basis of the authority of Peter. The rock upon whom Christ built his Church was the same rock upon which Gibbon built his adolescent faith.

Catholicism was one exit from this dilemma. Others embraced other exits. John Locke and Isaac Newton argued for various versions of adjustments to the Trinity. Into the nineteenth century, John Henry Newman took the same steps as Gibbon- whereas Pusey danced the tightrope of High Anglican belief in the authority of the King and the unity of Church and King for evermore. The problems have not gone away either. But the events of 1688 made them visible in a way that they are not today- given the security of the current Governor on her throne and the way that she has become elevated beyond theological conflict. The events of 1688 pressed Englishment to a dilemma, was the church social or spiritual, was its role to create religious enthusiasm or to support the civil peace? Questions such as these dominated the English enlightenment- they were shared by thinkers on the continent. The radical Pierre Bayle was uncertain in religion but certain about the authority of the crown and advised French Huguenots to support the French crown no matter what: ultimately Paris as Henri Navarre said was worth a mass. Catholic thinkers faced a variety of the same problem when considering the role of the Jesuit. But it is worth bearing in mind this issue when one comes to analyse why the early Church was so crucial in the enlightenment debate- settling whether the Church was divine or not said something both about the divinity of Christ and the stability of the civil sovereign.

Where does this leave the English Enlightenment? I hope I've brought out here the way that the English enlightenment saw a different rhythm because of the different situation in the Kingdom- the problem of peace was the centre of British political thought, it had been since Hobbes, and it continued to be right up until the French Revolution and beyond. In many ways the English Enlightenment through the lens of Gibbon both shares and does not share aspects of the French and European Enlightenments. England was where the rhythm was different- but aspects of the English situation could be found in France and in the Protestant world of the Netherlands and of Lausanne- to where Gibbon himself retired to write the Decline and Fall.

I have taken Gibbon as my starting point in this thought because he is the subject of John Pocock's recent volume on Gibbon and his Enlightenments but I hope what I have demonstrated is that there are reasons why Gibbon, so long thought of as atypical, should be interesting to us all when we examine whatever the English enlightenment was or was not. The movements of eighteenth century Europe which Pocock describes in the same rich volume (and by the way it is worth reading, I have barely transcribed a mite of what is there and that I have almost certainly imperfectly understood) are not the subject of today's article, but the argument of his piece about England is interesting. It demonstrates a continuity with earlier preoccupations- going back to the civil war, to the Constantinian settlement of the Anglican Church and ultimately to the early Church of Christ which are an important backdrop to the English experience of the 18th Century. They are not all that was going on- but they are important and Pocock's vast erudition brings out themes that I had not considered- and that are important.

Tacitus and Idi Amin

Having just seen a film about Idi Amin- not the last king of Scotland but another that I shall review soon- and reading John Pocock's analysis of the way that Tacitus contributed to the history of Rome written by Gibbon, a thought struck me about the nature of tyranny. What Pocock highlights and what the film obliquely suggests is that at the door of the tyrant public rhetoric stops. That is true because politics is discussion- there is no point in having an ideology unless you have an argument. In Republics and Democracies, argument is key: it is the way that you convince others to support your cause. In a tyranny that is not how the political system works- rather than working out what your argument is, rather than adopting a rhetorical structure to embody the virtues of your position- you have the task of adapting to the tyrant's moods. Your political activity turns from a study of political argument into a study of a personality. Consequently the study of courts- from Tacitus to Castiglione- emphasized the way that a courtier had to behave in accordance with his master's wishes. Optimists like Castiglione beleived that the King could be twisted towards a rational argument, pessimists like Sir Thomas Wyatt thought that that was impossible and the court was just a struggle for preferment (Sir Thomas More's position in Utopia is curiously poised between the two). But the point is evident- in the quietness of the court, as opposed to the loud hubbub of the public fora, something happens to the way that political arguments are couched. They become less rhetorical, more personal and in the minds of the great republican theorists, less political. The words of the tyrant are the expression of the law- not the contribution of one individual to the forming of a collective mind- and in that system it is the personality of the tyrant that governs the nature of the argument, not the truth or the fallacy of the propositions advanced.

Wall-E

Wall-E is a brand name- that is important for the rest of the film- and its the name the robot who bears the brand has taken as his own. He is a small garbage compressor living on an earth deserted by human beings and other robots and left to him and a friendly cockroach to inhabit. The first half of this film follows the insect and the robot around. The second half develops from the moment Wall-E meets another robot, Eve, and the humans who have left earth- but the story from there on in is far too interesting, exciting and to tell more would ruin it. Suffice it to say that there are robots cooing, cockroaches tickling robots and a robot obsessed with old musicals, where men and women dance together, watching them in the loneliness of a paradise of rubbish.

But the film has a message as well as a story, and whilst I don't want to ruin the story, I do think I can ruin the message. The real question here is an old one- which is what is happiness and how is it achieved. At one point in the film a character says that he would prefer to live than to survive. In a sense those alternatives are the alternatives open in the film all the time- to risk and live, to enjoy and survive. We see the alternatives mapped out throughout the film. What the film suggests is that there is a clear hierarchy of pleasures. Take the beggining, Wall-E exists in some sense, he has his wants fulfilled in the world that he inhabits to begin with. Most of the humans in the story are at that stage in their development too- and the film implies that the market meets their needs well. They have milkshakes assigned by computer to them, they have advertising, they have TV and they have all the stimulation that you need: but they and Wall-E lack that which goes beyond survival, they lack life.

The alternative is more risky and less market driven because it is more individual- and that is that you live in order not to survive but to be happy. The point is that the profit motive does not very well describe what that kind of happiness might be- partly because it is so individual. The fil though does demonstrate what it might look like- love is a form of that happiness, so is interest. That happiness does not need glossy adverts nor the kind of superfluous waste that Wall-E collects on earth. Its a trite conclusion- but whilst watching this film I felt its force- in part because before it I had been forced to sit through a plethora of adverts. Half an hour of corporate swill rammed down my throat despite the fact that my ticket had cost me 12 pounds, half an hour of corporate swill most of which involved persuading people that love was about toned bodies, that sex was the ultimate good, that a new toy is the best way to look after your child and that what you really need in life is a mobile phone tarrif of under 30 pounds- that these are the things you ought to care about and spend your time worrying about.

You see the message of Wall-E is a big raspberry to all of this- so what if T-Mobile offers you a slightly lower tarrif, the idea that love is about toned bodies is laughable and immoral, the idea that a new toy is the best way to look after your kid is also immoral- the truth is that none of those things will get you any nearer to happiness. The point of Wall-E is trite- but its one that is so often forgotten that it enters the class of truisms that needs shouting from the rooftop- most of the good things in life are things that you cannot use mastercard for, and they are the things worth fighting, investing and sometimes dying for. Wall-E the brand is a pile of trash ultimately- dispensible and often harmful to our lives (if useful economically)- Wall-E the individual is to be valued and loved. Brands have their place in the life of society- but individuals should always be paramount.

Simon How or Howel

On 31st May 1688, Simon How or Howell (the Old Bailey records record both names) was sentenced to death. When we inquire why, we find this note in the records

Simon How , of the Parish of Stepney , in the County of Middlesex, was Indicted for Runing from his Colours, he being entertained as a Soldier in the Regiment of the Right Honourable the Lord Dartmouth; in which Regiment he continued for about the space of two Years and upward, and Received the Kingspay ; But in February last sented himself, and was taken in Rosemary Lane, The Prisoner did not deny his going away, said he was poor, and had Money oweing him f the Company, he being a Suttler, or Seller of drink to them. So upon the whole, the Evidence being plain against him that he Received the Kings pay, though not positive of his Receiving the Press Money he was found Guilty , &c.

How was sentenced to death for desertion. There are a couple of things of interest to note here. The first is the date- 1688. In 1688 James II was deposed by William III, he was deposed because of what his opponents saw as his Catholic tyranny. William was the stadtholder of Holland- and in November of 1688 mounted the last successful invasion of England. What is interesting about this note in the Old Bailey records is a simple thing- it is what it does not say rather than what it does say. We often presume that armies in the advance of war are made of ideological zealots and that desertion is an ideological action. That isn't true. How deserted because he was poor and the Company owed money to him that they would not pay, one presumes he thought that there were better markets for the drink he was selling- including markets who would redeem their debts. Ideology seems to have played no part- and James's courts were zealous in prosecuting people for political treason- this seems to have played no part in How's desertion and demonstrates that it is wrong to assume that desertion or indeed participation from and in an army are always ideological actions.

The second thing that is interesting here is How's job. We all often assume that armies are made up of people who are provided for by the state- the British army in Iraq are provided with everything they need (sometimes to a lower degree than they or we might wish!) by the state. Private contractors contract with the MoD to provide them with other services. The world of the pre-modern army was completely different. Firstly this army did not exist for a long time- James's army had been built up over the previous couple of years- it was not the permanent organisation that modern armies are and so didn't have the permanent logistical aparatus or contractual provision that modern armies have. Secondly this army was more like a marching market- behind it came a great deal of people who provided services from sex to drink. Some soldiers like How got involved in the trades and sold on to other men. Whenever we think of pre-modern armies, we are wrong to assume that they look like and behave like modern armies- despite having the same name, they were completely different organisms.

The case of Simon How therefore provides us with a lot of evidence to challenge what we think today about armies. His case suggests that we should not assume that armies are ideologically disposed to fight for their cause- and his case was not uncommon (my favourite is a soldier who in the English civil war fought for the Irish Catholic Rebels, the royal army in Ireland, the Scottish Presbyterians, the royal army in England and finally the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell). There is a last thing that it reminds us of- that pre-modern justice was a blunt and yet very cruel instrument. How fled the army because there was a reasonable chance that noone would find him- once he was found though, death was his reward for being unable to sustain himself as a soldier.

Hard Candy

Hard Candy is a film about paedopilia- the first image we see of the film is a computer screen on which a fourteen year old girl and a thirty two year old man are chatting, we just see the text and we know that this relationship should not exist. The fourteen year old girl and the man agree to meet at a cafe- they flirt- they joke about chocolate cakes- the man buys the girl a T shirt, the girl flashes her bra at him- she compliments his car- he compliments her on how mature she is- he charms, she yields or that's how the story grimly runs- only not in this film, not in this film. For in this film something else happens. They go back to his house. The man pours a glass for the girl, she turns it down saying you should never drink a drink someone else pours. She pours him a drink and the screen goes dark... and then we find out that Hayley is a girl on a mission, she is crazy, insane but the headline waiting to happen isn't the headline about paedophile abuse, its a headline about something else- about revenge for everyone that he has ever tormented. She has his measure- "you were speaking to me so selflessly, you don't want me to castrate you for my own benefit". There are uncomfortable lines here- "I am not fucking livestock./You keep telling yourself that, stud."

In some ways this plays as a better, darker version of Interview. Whereas Interview played idly with the conflict between two individuals- one of whom was bessotted with the other- this film goes further, goes darker. There is no question that during the scenes of torture, and almost none of them involve any actual violence or blood- everything here is imagined, that the paedophile is going through incredible suffering. He is literally panting and animalistically grunting and screaming. Hayley on the other hand is cruel- she is coldly vindictive- she uses every witty put down in the book. She smashes into his arrogance- the arrogance of a handsome man- throwing back his sins into his face. This is a battle of manipulators- the clever Paedophile, so expert at getting fourteen year olds into bed- comes up against this fourteen year old and faces intellectual as well as physical anihilation. "Why don't you just kill me?" he asks, we know the answer- because that would not be enough. Capitol Punishment is too easy for a paedophile- far better set up a camera and force him to watch his own mutilation.

This raises hard questions- some of them involving the sheer nastiness of the film's subject matter. But more what it raises are questions about this scenario- not only is this a young girl taking her revenge on a paedophile but there are potentially disturbing subtexts here, some of which are explored by Roger Ebert here and the Flick Filosopher here. At one point, she says 'I wonder why they don't teach this [castration] at girl's scout camp...this would be really useful'. Its a darkly ominous comment. Does he deserve it though? Does he deserve this pain, does he deserve being directed to eunuch'squestion.com and to have a young girl talk about literally bouncing his testicles around? This film is really really cruel- Hayley takes a delight in humiliating and torturing the man. She enjoys every minute- again can we be pleased to see that kind of enjoyment? We should remember though that our sympathies are with him and not Hayley in part because we see him as a victim- but not his victims as victims. We don't hear their screams. We hear his.

But still that doesn't answer why we feel sympathy with him? I do not think its entirely about the torture- I feel no sympathy for Tarentino characters. I think though this character obtains our sympathy less because of the torture he undergoes than because of the mental torture he undergoes. His life is thrown back at him, his words turn like dogs upon their master. He is prosecuted in a court where he faces a lawyer who is more powerful than him and more adept and what is more, the verdict is presumed guilty. There is a justice in the film but it is a brute justice- you harm the perpetrator and there is no holding back. Hayley basically tells us that this man deserves not merely death but torture- he deserves not merely punishment but recrimination beyond the point of punishment to the point where it becomes not judicious but vindictive. This is vindictiveness- once he has entered into this process- in a Kafkaesque way it matters little if he is guilty, it matters that he is merely there. He is guilty of course- but still tied in that Kafkaesque world- he is no innocent, he is definitely a paedophile but the question this asks, just like the earlier and greater film on the same topic M asks, is whether a paedophile deserves a 'normal' punishment or whether any sin deserves a 'normal' punishment.

That works because of the work done by the actors- both Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson deserve praise here. Page's work is truly astounding- she not merely acts everyone else off the stage- she draws easy comparisons with Natalie Portman and then surpasses them. This announces her as a future presence in cinema- and hopefully she will not like Portman has, take the route to decay, Starwars and the Other Boleyn Girl. Wilson as the man has an equally difficult job, portraying a Paedophile as a person. Like Peter Lorre in M, he attempts to make us see the whole figure of this ghastly human being and he succeeds- you cannot see this man as a caricature, an evil monster- you see him as a man, a terrible horrible man, a sleazy slimeball but a man nonetheless. That acheivement is important- both of these actors have to be on their best form to make this film work in anyway and thankfully they both are.

Where the film fails is that in my view, it occasionally goes over the top. In truth the last twenty minutes should have been compressed- by the time we have him facing the dilemma of death or publicity, we have everything we really need- and then the director and writer should have sought to bring it to a close. This film would have been more powerful at 80 and not 104 minutes- but even so at its best it is powerful and interesting. The torture goes over the top, especially towards the end, but especially in the conversational segments in the beggining and middle of the film, this film captures something. Better than Interview, at its best it has the same format- a conversation. Poorer than M, at its best it aspires to the same themes- about punishment, politics and power. If it matches Interview it must be good, it doesn't match M it still is worth watching, for the power of the performances, if not for the restraint of the director.

Enter the Memory Palace

I have just begun reading Jonathan Spence's account of Matteo Ricci's life. Spence begins by outlining the medieval method of mnemonics- the science of memory. Ricci was interested in this and attempted to teach it in China. But I think it is interesting in its own right- as a means of considering the way that the medieval mind (if there was such a thing) approached the world. The idea was that instead of memorising a fact, you memorised an image associated with that fact. You created your own symbol for the thought and arranged that symbol in a pattern, an architectural pattern- a palace or street. Ricci said that you were better not to arrange your memories within a busy space but within a quiet one. There you could take a tour of your previous thoughts and recover your ideas. Take for example the student of history who faces a test about who were the Early Roman Emperors- asked the question who were the first four emperors of Rome, our student mentally enters her palace and turns to the room of Roman history. Immediatly as she enters she sees a frozen tortoise hanging in the basket of a fishing rod, and she can answer Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula. Why? Because she has remembered that image- and thus has the initial letters of all the Roman Emperors- A Tortoise Caught Cold.

This system was patronised by many of the writers about rhetoric in the ancient world- Quintilian wrote about it. The medievals even thought that the greatest ancient speaker of them all Marcus Cicero had used the same method. The idea of memorising images, as a more powerful device than a word, was common within medieval culture. One Italian handbook for religious women told them to imagine the scenes of the bible, one by one, with the faces of their friends on top of those of the apostles and Christ. Ignatius Loyola was also a stern advocate of this kind of memory training- Loyola wanted his missionaries to keep in their minds the brutal image of the suffering Christ so that they too could endure the torments of life as a missionary, as a potential martyr to the faith. Images for Loyola would be so much more effective than words at reminding the missionary of his calling. Memory skills were much prized in the middle ages- indeed one of the marks of the new science was to, as Cornelius Agrippa or Francis Bacon did, despise the tricks of mnemonic masters as just that tricks, without reason. (Remember if you have read it my last article and Hobbes's suggestion that prudence was inferior to wisdom.)

Memory was a resevoir for bringing forwards images to the mind- for nourishing spiritual resources in the great battle between Satan and Christ that dominated the medieval mind. Such nourishment of course could be dangerous- peasants were prosecuted in Italy and France for remembering too well- such a perfect memory could only be devilish. And of course, others wondered about the radical potential of memory- to divert one's gaze away from scripture to the mystical rapture of one's own mental creations. But memory was still central- especially this kind of visible memory- and central in particular to the way that the Catholic Church envisioned religion. When we look at the grotesque carvings of hell in the works of Bosche and others, it is worth remembering that we are seeing what the Medieval Catholic Church wanted all humans to carry in their heads all the time- the image of the darkness that would inevitably welcome us all but for the grace of Christ and the defiance of his Church.

Phillip Pettit's Hobbes

Phillip Pettit, the Professor of Political Philosophy at Princeton, is one of the most formidable political thinkers around today. Pettit's latest book explores an innovative line of interpretation which suggests a real connection between Hobbes's thinking about science and the mind and his thinking about politics. What Pettit argues is that Hobbes did something truly innovative- that he changed the face of political philosophy in a much more fundamental way. He suggests that Hobbes's thinking came out of the collapse of the medieval picture of the world, a world ordered by divinity to its own purposes. After the scientific revolutions of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, that divinely ordered world seemed implausible- Descartes and his followers believed in a more mechanistic universe. Descartes however argued that the world was dualistic- mind and matter both existed in the world and were different substances. Hobbes disagreed- he thought that mind was matter and that there was no distinction between the two. How then did he come to explain the unique faculties of the human mind? Descartes couldn't without inventing a separate substance from matter- mind- Hobbes had a different view.

Hobbes argued that human minds were similar to the minds of animals. Both were mechanical, responding to motion in the outside world. Both minds reacted to things that stimulated them with desire and to those that did not with aversion. Minds learnt- Hobbes called this prudence from experience. So animals tended to adopt certain trails or hideouts to catch their prey- and human beings extended that faculty into the construction of histories and proverbs. Prudence Hobbes suggested was a part of knowledge- imperfect but useful- and it was shared by both human beings and animals. But human beings did something different- they had located a technology- Hobbes does not provide an account of how but he does provide an account of why this technology was so significant- that technology being words.

Words enabled human beings to do a number of things. Firstly it enabled them to construct universals- to pick out characteristics common to their observation and suggest that these things constituted identities. Human beings made the identity of objects. Furthermore they constructed abstractions from those identities- so seeing shapes in the world meant that humans devised perfect shapes, that did not exist, and labelled them square, triangle, circle and gave them definitions. Secondly language constructed personhood- it gave human beings the ability to impersonate and represent each other to each other. It gave them the ability to argue from their own perspective. Thirdly it gave them the ability to incorporate- to create corporations or groups of individuals- Hobbes uses the example of a mercantile company or indeed a state to suggest to us how this might happen. But words created a problem or rather two problems: they created competition between humans- what Rousseau called amour-propre, a self love based upon the destruction of others- and furthermore they created a concept of the future in people's minds, a future which might and probably, given natural animal equality, would be insecure- such insecurity would lead humans to take measures to protect themselves- measures that would lead to life for everyone being 'nasty, brutish and short'.

So what did Hobbes believe would get you out of such a difficult situation. Hobbes argued that there was no single person in a state of nature (a place without a state) who could end this situation- no one could force everyone else into a state nor will people in a state of nature be able to accept a state of equality, after all they would have no guarantee that others would accept the state of equality. The only method to get out of the state of nature would be the appointment by contract of a sovereign who was completely absolute. Any other authority would be unable to guarantee the security of people- because another authority- be it legal or parliamentary would not be a safeguard for the people but a competing authority that would create conflict, argument and strife. Hobbes suggested that such a sovereign would be limited rather by the fact that its authority was limited by the condition of the contract- i.e. that he managed to perpetuate a peaceful society. The sovereign's main activity though was to extend and deliver legislation: that took two basic forms. One was a constitutive form- the sovereign would define the meaning of property- create rights from persons over the world which could not be competed with because they would be backed by sovereign power. Furthermore the sovereign would enable people to trust each others' words, and form corporations themselves, because he would guarantee that free riders would be prosecuted and dealt with.

The last key question Pettit introduces is Hobbes's concept of liberty. Most theorists of his time would have argued that Hobbes's sovereign would have seriously impinged upon his subject's liberty. They saw liberty as the opposite of slavery: and would have argued that the subject in Hobbes's state was unable to make any decision because he would always live in fear of what the sovereign might do to him. Hobbes argued that this was a false view of liberty- as he defined liberty, redefined liberty, as the ability to do something- and argued that whatever views might influence you in doing something were irrelevant. So for example Hobbes argued that the fact that the sovereign could decide to execute you for having done something, still meant you were free to do it. Therefore Hobbes argues that the sovereign that he has constructed does not impinge at all on your liberty but guarantees your security.

Pettit's argument about the construction of Hobbes's sovereign is fairly traditional and fits well with most other understandings on the subject. However his understanding of Hobbes's philosophy of language is very innovative and very interesting. Hobbes definitely spends a lot of time in most of his philosophical tracts- particularly his last one Leviathan- in discussing language. In Behemoth, his argument about the civil war's origins in England, he suggested that the English civil war owed much of its origins to the careless use of language by university professors. It is definitely a strand of thinking within Hobbes's thought- and though I have not investigated Pettit's work on the texts I find his theory plausible.

Where I do worry though is that Pettit treats Hobbes's philosophy as a monolithic enterprise. Hobbes wrote three books- the Elements of Law, De Cive, Leviathan- and a number of more minor treatises like the Dialogue between the Philosopher and the Common Lawyer and Behemoth. Pettit quotes mainly from the major works- but he does treat them as though they all had the same argument- which I'm not so sure is entirely accurate. He refers to Professor Skinner's argument that Hobbes's view on liberty changed but does not refute the argument that Professor Skinner makes. I do not mean to suggest that Professor Skinner is entirely right: but Hobbes made different choices in the set up of his works, published several works about the same subject over a decade (and then nothing afterwards apart from translations of previously published works- the Latin Leviathan!) and that suggests to me that his argument evolved rather than stayed exactly the same. However I have not investigated it and cannot prove that. Furthermore Pettit, like most of the rest of the literature about Hobbes, concentrates on the non-religious elements of Hobbes's thought- Hobbes though spent plenty of time examining and rejecting the claims of particular churches in politics and it would have been interesting to hear more about the strategies with which he undermined their use of the Bible.

However despite those minor caveats, this is a really interesting piece of work. Its a fine introduction to Hobbes which has a provocative theme and deserves to be read widely. It deserves to be read both because Pettit's interpretation and his argument are interesting, but more because of Hobbes's continuing relevance to the world in which we live. Hobbes is one of the thinkers who best articulated some of the problems of modernity- this new understanding of Hobbes through his anthropology of language merely supports that fundamental insight. Reexamining Hobbes has provided generations of political thinkers from Rousseau onwards with nourishment and his thinking, especially about liberty, underlies much of what people think about today. (A little recognised irony is that the begetter of the libertarian idea of liberty was himself a pronounced absolutist.) Hobbes may be wrong, but he is wrong in provocative and interesting way- and Pettit's take on Hobbes is one of the most fascinating around. In short this is an exciting argument about one of the indispensable philosophers- and it deserves a wide audience.

Why are there homosexuals?

Homosexuality should not exist. That is not a political or moral statement- but a statement derived from evolutionary theory. Evolution rewards reproduction. Most human traits contribute to reproductive success ultimately or are neutral to it. But homosexuality does not contribute to reproduction because a pair of men or a pair of women cannot have children independently of scientific aid. We know that homosexuality is an ancient part of human beings- we know that it goes on in the animal kingdom. We also know that it is partly genetic. Why therefore has this behaviour, which should have died out in a generation, survived all the way to the present day?

There was an interesting article in Psychology Today about just this issue. The author Robert Kunzig presents a kalaidescope of factors. The most interesting is what Kunzig suggests about two particular traits which happen before the birth of a male homosexual. The first is genetic. This is really interesting, what I was arguing above was based around the survival of a particular individual's genes- but of course that is a failure to understand evolution, what I should have been talking about was the survival of genes down the generation. Take that angle and suddenly the homosexuality question becomes easier. An Italian study reveals that the mothers and aunts of homosexual boys have more children than the base population, they have more sexual encounters and more partners. Essentially the same genetic factor that makes homosexuals in men, makes women more fecund and hence reproduce themselves more- sometimes they produce an evolutionary dead end- a homosexual boy- but to offset that they produce more children.

Another factor though is present in the research- which is equally interesting and that has to do with the womb. As a non-scientist I often think you get your clump of genetic material- and you get your baby at the other end and there is no change between the two. The only factors which decide a child's character are its genes and the way that its nurture in the world shapes the genetic impact. That misses a step. One of the interesting things about homosexuality is what happens in the womb. Kunzig suggests based on research that the number of elder biological brothers (whether they are present in childhood or not) influences whether he is homosexual by up to a third. It isn't the presence of brothers in childhood- non-biological brothers from a different womb don't matter but biologic brothers who are not around in childhood do- but that they come out of the same womb. The Biologists believe that this is because of the way that a woman's womb reacts to a male child- she produces antibodies and an immune response which affects the foetus's brain and feminises it. That immune response is stronger with every male child born. The argument is interesting- and implies another cost benefit association for the woman because women with more powerful immune systems end up with more homosexual sons- her health is offset against producing a son who will not reproduce.

These are not the answers- and it is important to realise that for the majority of human history, many homosexuals have reproduced. It is only very recently that homosexuals have been able to live as homosexuals instead of unhappily existing in a heterosexual relationship or living in the closet. The fact that my original model is wrong- that homosexuals do sometimes produce children is something else to throw into the mix. Basically it substantiates the idea that there is something advantageous for his parents in having a homosexual son- particularly as we have seen for his mother. These aren't the full answers- but they are interesting as they explain in part what to me has always been a problem- why does evolution produce an individual who does not wish to reproduce? The answer seems to lie in the fact that the rest of his family reproduce more, and that his mother is healthier and is reacting to his older brothers. This does not explain all homosexuality- but it explains some and further research will illuminate the topic even more.

Brandreth on Politics

Entertaining and great fun- I just found these Brandreth rules of politics- its well worth listening too- Brandreth was an MP and he tells stories about how people become MPs and how they fall down the ladder of politics as well. It involves people from all parties and his advice is 'schmooze em on the way up, you'll need them on the way down'- its funny and a real insight.

Savage Grace

'Each man kills the thing he loves' said Oscar Wilde, 'they fuck you up, your mum and dad' said Phillip Larkin, Savage Grace combines the two lessons into one very powerful point. It is a film about the impact of parents on children, sexuality on life and wealth on everything. It takes as its focus the family of Anthony Baekeland and narrates the story of his mother and father and Anthony himself. Often we are told the story through the voice of Anthony, but the central focus is on the family unit- closenit and terrifying in its intense relationships. When Larkin said that they fuck you up, he possibly didn't mean it as literally as we see it here. We see a father steal his son's girlfriend. A mother seduce her own son. A mother and her homosexual lover, Sam, have a threesome with her son. This is hardly the model of an all American family- indeed what might normally pass as sexual excess- dominating anal heterosexual sex- seems here to be the epitome of normality. But do not be convinced that the sex is the headline about this film- in reality the sex is mundane and boring: you get the sense of being at Caligula's court, as everything is permitted and available, it is all boring.

No the centre of this film is the way that these characters- Anthony, his mother Barbara and his father Brooks come together in a fatal fashion- culminating in a famous murder (at the time in 1972- yes this is a true story). The characters are irredeemably boring- I cannot convey how boring they are save by inviting you to read this article from one of the participants in the story, Sam Green (the supposed inhabitor of Barbara and Tony's bed). The article is filled with the kind of self obsessive name dropping that characterises the world of these characters- of all the paraphenalia of the dull shininess of celebrity. The article is amazing in the way that it deepens the unattractiveness of the character you are reading about- a vapid social butterfly- but that is indeed the nature of the characters in the film, they are all vapid social butterflies. People who love to tell you how they call Greta Garbo Mrs G, or to dine with princes. Without the ability or knowledge to do anything- Brooks Baekeland is an adventurer who seems to do nothing- Barbara is a painter who doesn't paint- and Tony merely picks up his guitar when he grows up in a lugubrious way. At one point, the younger Tony asks Barbara what his parents do- she says that they are lucky and can afford to do nothing- their vapidness is a consequence of their idleness and a standing advert for employment if ever I saw one (getting up at seven the next morning didn't seem so bad having seen this film).

Idleness and celebrity chatter apart what strikes you immediatly about this film is the vicious nastiness of the characters. We open with the two Baekelands gathering to go to a party- Brooks hates it, Barbara loves it- their exchanges are barbed. You might think that that is as barbed as it gets but oh no! At the party Brooks confesses to Barbara that for ten million he would go home with the first person he met in a club, promptly she gets into the first car she sees on the street and sleeps with the young man inside it. This viciousness is combined with the sense of a smothering environment- the young man isn't even safe in the bath from his mother's entrances! Young Tony is homosexual or has those tendencies- he does at one point date a girl, who his father promptly steals- but he is homosexual. For both his parents this proves an opportunity to unleash their viciousness- not here the viciousness of the barbed comment, but the viciousness of stupid incomprehension. Both of them try to cure the young boy- and as they do he slowly drifts into angry silence. An angry silence made only worse as his parents' marriage splits- and his mother begins losing her mental cohesion. A terrible crime follows.

The skill of this director does not rest in making a nice film or one that is easy to watch. In places this film is good because its boring- because it demonstrates that this life is incredibly boring- shorn of all the things which make life worth living, love, successful striving towards a genuine goal, interests, real friendship. One character says to another at one point that Brooks thinks everything is shit- how right she is, reduced to a world of silver and gold- even those things feel like shit and the director gets that across. Despite the sex, this is not an erotic film. Despite the wealth, this is not a film that makes you envy luxury. Despite the celebrity this is an antidote to X Factor. Julianne Moore does a great job as Barbara, Stephen Dillane is condescendingly and arrogantly perfect as Brooks- but a special mention must go to Eddie Redmayne playing Tony who does brilliantly at portraying him, he gets him from the irritating to the pathetic in a wonderful character arc. It would have been interesting to see more of Elena Anaya's Blanca (Brooks's and then Tony's girlfriend) because she seems one of the few 'normal' characters on view who actually cares about the family- understanding her might have led to understanding what attractions these despicable people had.

The end of this film is truly shocking. The director and his actors have done a good job- but I did not enjoy watching this. There were no glimmers of light- these lives were depressing, boring and horrible- and watching them unravel is the same. Dark films are at their best when they make you care about their characters- this was like watching the demons suffer in the last circles of hell.

The Quiet American: Don't believe the unreliable narrator

Graham Greene's novel about the French war in Vietnam is often seen as a great anti-Western, anti-American, anti-Colonialist tract aiming straight, and presciently, at the disaster of US policy in Indo-China twenty years after the book is set. Such an interpretation is an error. The novel is narrated by a British journalist dispatched by his paper to IndoChina. The journalist is a character by the name of Fowler. He spends most of his time with two other characters- and the novel is an intricate game- political and sexual- between these three characters. One is an American attache at the embassy- secretly the inspirer of political movements in Vietnam- Pyle. The third is the woman that both Pyle and Fowler, in their own ways, love- Phuong- a Vietnamese who depends totally on the two Western men for her livelihood and who appears throughout as passive rather than active.

The impression that Fowler wants to create is of two stereotypes. He is the old, cautious European- bred in cynicism and self contempt. He knows the follies of the world, understands no theories work and is tolerant of the East and its differences from the West. Pyle on the other hand is an ignorant American blunderer. Quick out of university, straight from his ivy league classes to real world politics, Pyle blunders around so fixed on his current books that he can't see what is front of his eyes. Pyle is a classic theorist in a world of human beings- where nothing fits into his boxes but his own aspirations. Pyle ruins Vietnam in Fowler's view because he fits it into his American anger with the suffering of the non-democratic masses. Fowler is dispassionate- he is not as he says 'engage'.

But that mask does slip and Greene lets us see that Fowler's world is not entirely accurate. For a start Fowler does not describe himself well- he is engage- he is involved deeply with Vietnam and his dispassionate stance conceals a real passion, fear and love for the people of the land. Furthermore his stance of dispassionate inquiry leads him to exagerrate the distinctions between Europe and the East. We see this most vividly in his treatment of Phuong. Whereas Pyle's ambition of taking her to America- an ambition by the way that is sketched out most by Fowler and not by Pyle- is unrealistic- Fowler's view that she should become his concubine with little security when he next falls in love (as he has a habit of doing) is more disrespectful. He uses his difference from her to create the illusion that it doesn't matter that he has made her a discardable mistress. He exaggerates the degree to which she is purely passive and he objectifies her as an embodiment of her nation- rather than as a person. Chinua Achebe's wonderful line that Conrad sought to make Africa the drama of a white man's soul is applicable to Fowler's attitude to the East.

As soon as we see that we should reevaluate Fowler, we also begin to reevaluate Pyle. There is truth in Fowler's view of Pyle- there is truth in Fowler's assertion that Pyle is a nice man with no empathy or understanding of the world he lives in. And yet Pyle is willing to offer that world a respect that Fowler will not offer it- precisely because Pyle beleives that the Vietnamese are Americans struggling to be free (even though they aren't) he accords them the respect of thinking them capable of freedom- a freedom that Fowler sees as Western. This contrast is a contrast between different forms of orientalism. The one which sees the East as just 'us' but waiting to be freed by 'us' and the other which sees it as so different that slavery is a natural condition. Both perspectives are possibly natural within the arena that Pyle and Fowler live in- an expatriate community of diplomats and journalists that have little contact with the outside world especially the indigenous world, save for its prostitutes and its politicians.

Greene's novel therefore far from being an exploration of the differences between Europe and America is really an exploration of the way that two common western attitudes to the East fail to understand the reality of a country like Indo China or Vietnam. Greene wants us to see that both Fowler and Pyle share an orientalism that makes the East part of a western argument about how different it is, just as they make Phuong an emblem in their strife with each other. Orientalism ties into sexism in a lethal combination that reminds one that whenever you read a book, it is vital not to trust the author.

Jumping Karra

One of my favourite bloggers on the internet is Ashok Karra- his website has just moved from blogger to here- I cannot recommend what he writes enough, its detailed, thoughtful and interesting- even when you disagree with it, you have to take it into account.

The Plot against Pepys

Between 1679 and 1681 the diarist Samuel Pepys, serving as a member of Charles II's naval administration, was threatened with execution for transmitting secret plans to France. The reasons for Pepys's narrow brush with death lie in the tangles of Charles II's court and its relationship to Parliament. A recent book by James and Ben Long has attempted to tell the story of Pepys's moment of danger. They tell the tale well- its a pretty simple one. Pepys was arrested and taken from the House of Commons down the Thames to the Tower after a Whig inspired prosecution: he survived the experience by discrediting his accuser a Colonel John Scott using information from Scott's disreputable past in the Netherlands and in New England. Pepys was saved because of his own abilities and contacts within the world of restoration Europe. The Longs manage as far as I can tell to tell a straightforward story well- but I think there are points which we can bring out of their narrative and which are more interesting than the bare bones of what they say.

Firstly they convey well the insecurity of 17th Century political life. They get what is central to the reign of Charles II, which is that his father Charles I mounted the scaffold and was executed in 1649. The ghost of that scaffold lay behind the King at every point through his long reign- it haunted his successors as well and to some extent attitudes to the civil war lay at the heart of politics right into the 18th Century and beyond. As part of that civil war, Pepys a servant of the crown would know, that other servants of the crown had met a grisly end- Strafford and Laud executed by Parliament. In the late seventies that danger constantly present became uniquely severe- a fantasist Titus Oates accused several prominent men in the English government of being Catholics and sympathisers with a Popish plot that aimed to place Charles's Catholic brother James, Duke of York on the throne. James had to leave England. As an associate of James Pepys was vulnerable and he knew about the trials of other prominent Catholics and allies of York which ended in slaughter and death. Politics was an insecure and dangerous game- where treason was always ready as a charge against opponents.

The Popish plot was stoked up by the second of the great forces that we see present in this set of occurances and that is that this late seventeenth century period was the first great age of party. The Tory party stood for anglicanism and the crown, the Whigs for the low church and Parliament. That is a gross simplification- but it will have to do for the moment. Its worth remembering that Tory originally meant Irish Catholic rebel and Whig meant Presbyterian rebel. The point I want to capture here though is less the ideologies of the parties- which are incredibly complicated to both understand and locate- but the violence of the passion between them. Between about 1679 and 1715 the parties held office successively and frequently made use of the London mob. Shaftesbury called it into action during the Popish plot, the Tories used it to great effect in the Sachravell case of the 1710s. The roots of this emotion were religious- religion more than politics fuelled the rage of the parties. When someone like Pepys was under attack, they were under attack as someone helping to fuel the rise of modern Babylon.

The third thing I think that is worth understanding from this story is that both Pepys and his accuser attest to the incredible mobility of seventeenth century society. Their careers are completely at odds with the impression that the past is an age in which people did not move. Scott was a bright man from America- who almost conned his way into becoming a senior figure in Massachussets and Long Island politics. After that he attempted various schemes on the margins of French and Dutch politics- always an opportunist, he comes out of the Long's account as a man with incredible charm and a man who believed his own lies. His career collapsed when early in the 1670s the Duke of York's agents managed to connect the dots. Pepys also managed to connect the dots- through his own network of geographically wide contacts. Pepys through the admiralty was connected to Netherlands, to France and to America. But furthermore Pepys too had risen from a fairly humble background. That is not to say that seventeenth century society was incredibly mobile- of course it wasn't- but there was mobility and to say that a society is not as mobile as today's is not to imply that it was completely static.

Those three points are not historical points of genius- but they are crucial to any understanding of this period. The Longs do manage to get to them but there isn't much more than that and their story- they could have got more out of their material- particularly about Scott who in my view is an even more interesting character in some ways than Pepys. But that apart, its worth recalling these points because without understanding the ferocity of party anger and its religious nature, the insecurity of politics and the curious mixture of a static and dynamic society that the seventeenth century was, it is very difficult to get to what the century was about and why people thought they thought and hence did what they did. In order to get deeper, you need to get deeper into the minds of those who lived through the period and the conditions in which they lived but these three insights carry the Longs and ourselves quite a long way.

Leila

Leila is an Iranian film about a human dilemma: how to live with infertility? Leila and her husband cannot have a child as Leila is infertile. The story concerns their battle with Leila's condition and their love. It concerns the way that these two young people relate to each other and their nobility in doing that is astonishing. Both of them seek to become a sacrafice for the other: Leila tries to get her husband to remarry, her husband tells her that he will not have children unless those children are hers. In short left to themselves these two strongly in love would live happily childless: but that is not the situation, that alternative is not open to them because of family and social pressures around them.

The film opens and closes with the same scene: a table laid with Iranian pudding and a large crowd of both sexes gathered around it. That pressure bears down on the pair throughout the film: they never have a moment's privacy and their feelings are ambushed by the self righteous relatives who surround them. In particular there is his mother. She constantly pressures Leila into forcing her husband to find a wife who can supply a child. She constantly reminds Leila that the virtue of women is in having sons to follow them. It is not a healthy perspective on life: and it is one created by the fact that through her son, she obtains the status that she cannot obtain any other way. This talented woman therefore drives her son's marriage to destruction through intimidating his bride because this is the way that she can maintain her role in society, her status.

Its a sad slight movie: there are some wonderful shots within it. But the major impression I left with was the tragedy of social pressure and the way that it forced Leila to leave her husband. At the end of the film Leila takes refuge in muteness: she retreats into the stronghold of herself, driven there by a society that values women by their wombs and relies on family pressure to suffocate the individual.

The Virgin Spring

You saw it
God you saw it
The death of an innocent child and my vengeance
You allowed it to happen
I don't understand you
I don't understand you
And yet still I ask you for forgiveness

These words lie at the heart of the Virgin Spring and constitute its theme. The events of the film are horrific- they begin with rape and end with the murder of several men and a child. There are acts of petty maliciousness and great crimes- but at the centre of the film lies the question of where guilt for those crimes, for that maliciousness lies. Is it more guilty to will or to commit a crime? Is it more guilty to love too much or love not at all? Those questions dominate this modern retelling of Job: and they are set against a vision of Sweden in transition between the pagan and the Christian, between Odin and Christ.

This paragraph contains some spoilers- for which I apologise. Karin, a young pretty girl, is adored by her parents and she is incredibly wealthy. Her foster sister however is not so fortunate and lives in a world of resentment. Her parents are torn apart by their attitude to her- by whether they spoil her or are jealous of her secretly. The entire household is Christian save for the foster sister- Karin and the other girl then go out to deliver candles to the church across the forest. On the way they are divided from each other. Karin is kidnapped by wandering herdsmen raped and murdered. Those herdsmen then come to take shelter with her father- and give her mother Karin's clothes as a thanks giving present- and vengeance is taken.

By telling you the story, I have not told you anything. Bergman's filming gives this a depth that the mere tale does not have. Ang Lee, whose film career started by being inspired from the Virgin Spring, says that the crucial thing about the film is its silences, its serenity. I would agree. It is the serenity of Karin's attitude as she rides through the forest to her doom that makes her doom so shatteringly shocking. Her parents are serene in their faith. The sense that this is a retelling of Job is compounded by this fact: for of course in the biblical account Job too was serene and the Devil tested him by vanquishing that serenity. So too here, you could describe the events of this film in terms of serenity being challenged by illfortune-God testing faith by exposing it to all the hardness of the world. Karin is all her mother has- and she is murdered- can her mother be faithful still?

Can any of us be faithful after that? Can any of us find faith in the century in which Auschwitz, Belsen and Dachau have happened? I once heard Rowan Williams asked by John Humphries how people prayed in Auschwitz- what they expected and whether their faith was diminished by the fact that no aid came. God saw it- God watched it- and God let it happen. Should we let something of that sort happen- we would be guilty of it- that is definitely Karin's foster sister's attitude, she lets the rape happen, she doesn't fling a stone in her hand at the rapists and hence she is guilty of it. Is God any less guilty? That question proceeds out of anguish of course- but anguish and our sentiments towards anguish are the root of all morality psychologically. We suffer in sympathy with Karin's parents who suffer in sympathy with their defiled daughter, does God and if so why does he not intervene? If Karin's foster sister 'saw it and willed it to happen' then so did the almighty who might have stopped it and knew it must happen.

The tragedy is not something that is repairable. Running through this film is the sense of the fragility of human life. At one point one of the villains hands the mother her daughter's cloak and says 'skilfull hands like yours will know how to make it whole again' but of course nothing can make Karin whole again. Nothing can make her a virgin again. Nothing can make her alive again. Her foster sister envies that perfection- the sexual perfection in particular (she is pregnant with an anonymous man's child)- and points out early on that one infraction would lose that perfection. Virginity like life is easily lost and can never be recovered and in a society like medieval Sweden that is important. But what is the key to this is not the nature of the loss but that all human losses are really small deaths- we cannot do anything to repair them. We work and labour hard to make things work but they are destroyed, swept away in an instant and never return.

Religion should comfort us in this situation reminding us that there are eternal things. But again does it? Religion should supply us with an answer, with a fortitude to help us through these things. But as soon as his daughter is dead, the father's behaviour becomes pagan- in his rage he is a Beserker not a saint and kills rather than forgives. Furthermore the consolation does not arrive- for both mother and father the consolation is not what religion brings- their daughter's death is painful, it cuts to the quick and will never be assuaged. Rather it provides- and we come back to the quotation at the beggining of the passage a language to describe their feelings- a language to describe their guilt for what has happened. God is a device for them to appeal to a principle of kindness in the harsh northern skies and frosty winters- God is a device to find some kindness in a bleak and barren world. But when the world becomes bleak and barren itself, all there is is to beleive without hope of God's existance or his kindness- all there is is fealty without the knowledge of any aid arriving- like a squadron on the outer reaches of an empire, overrun and almost to die, these characters stand imploring hope from the capital, dying without it but with the word of Rome upon their lips.

The problem for these soldiers is that ultimately they are not sure whether it is their fault that their daughter has died. It might possibly be- they have been selfish in their love for her, neglecting others- or is it the fault of the murderers and the rapists who did the deed or of the foster sister who willed the deed. Bergman leaves us in no doubt that all of these people are culpable, but provides us with reasons to understand why all of them (the parents, one of the rapists a small boy and the foster sister) are in a certain sense to be understood and pitied. Amongst the rapists, two are mere villains- evil men who are totally to blame- but one a boy cannot be held accountable for the actions of the other two particularly as they violently threaten him- and tries furthermore to bury Karin. The problem is dual- the two rapists are undeniably expressions of pure evil (in one exchange with Karin their language mirrors that of the wolf to red riding hood) but how should we cope with that in our world- what resources do we have to understand and deal with evil- can we forgive and if not, are we thrown back to the Old Testament where an eye meets an eye and a life a life?

The promise of the New Testament was an emancipatory one- it excuses us from revenge and calls us to forgiveness- even of pure evil, we must so Christ says turn the other cheek. But how should we? And how guilty are we when we do not? How far do we perpetuate a realm of violence when we do not? Furthermore the demands of religion are just as exacting under the Gospel- how should we love God more than man? Are we called upon to rejoice in Karin's death as part of the unfolding providence that governs the world? Are her parents being told by the omnipotent that they cared too much for their daughter and need to cleave to him instead of spoiling her? Is a jealous God, a good God? Job answered all these questions- this film reopens them. How far are we guilty of a crime just by thinking of it- in Mark to be guilty of adultery is to look upon a woman with lust in your eyes- so is the foster sister guilty of rape? She feels herself so to be. The film does not offer answers at all- and perhaps some of those questions are not capable of answering- but they are dark questions which go to the heart of the human condition.

Bergman stands with Bresson as one of the great directors about religion in the 20th Century and perhaps this film more than the Seventh Seal or than his faith trilogy is his triumph in that sense. It portrays religion as an answer to anguish, a comfort in the dark. But it also questions how far religion can be a comforter. In dedicating their future lives to the construction of a church how far are the two parents diminished by their daughter's death, the foster child arguably is the only one who comes out of the film more whole as she is purged of her jealousy- they are purged of their love and reminded that all human things die- they are forced to take Augustine's advice to never love humans too much as humans fail at the end and fall. Is this the message of a loving God- that only he deserves our love? Bergman captures all of this because his camera is so deeply sympathetic- we see this tragedy and dilemma unfold before our eyes- he points his camera at people's backs, allowing the characters privacy, he gives us silence to think and feel.

Religion emerges from this film as a mode of being and coping- the questions it answers dive to the deepest anxieties of humanity, both philosophical and emotional- but ultimately religion is a way for people to cope. At the end of the tale the father resolves to build a church on the spot that Karin was raped and murdered, and songs of harmony ripple through as Karin's body, its smile seraphic is washed- but nothing can quite expunge from my mind the agony of the rape and murder or the anguish of the parents.

What happened in 1399?

In 1399 Henry Boilingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, landed in England to reclaim his lands, confiscated by the crown on the death of his father John of Gaunt, the previous Duke, and to re-establish the rights of the peerage against the crown. Henry landed with very few followers- but amongst them was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Arundel the former Chancellor of England- and he had notable supporters in the nobility of the north of England. Both the Neville Earl of Westmorland and the Percies rallied to his standard. The regent of England, the King's uncle Edmund Langley Duke of York surrendered, the King himself, Richard II was in Ireland and brought his army back to Wales. Attempting to march them north to his own palitinate of Cheshire, Richard lost most of his forces to desertion and in the end was easily captured. Henry was crowned King of England- and Richard was sent to Pontefract Castle, the bloody retirement home of English royalty, where his grandfather Edward II had been murdered and Richard too died a year later in mysterious circumstances. Henry IV was King of England and the Lancastrian dynasty had begun. The story seems simple enough- and yet it reflects wider historical realities both within its own time and about the English crown's position in English history.

Why did Richard II fall? English history is punctuated by the fall of Kings- 1215, 1258, 1327, 1399, 1461, 1485, 1649, 1688 and 1776 are dates that punctuate English history (and yes in 1776 the American revolution was a phenomenon created within the English crown). We will pass on to why the English crown was so unstable. But the reasons for 1399 lie in the situation of the 14th Century: just because a crown has historically been unstable or a regime has does not explain why it is now unstable. Indeed England proves this: after 1688 with the exceptions of the Jacobite rebellion and hte American civil war, the English state has been remarkably stable. To the extent that patriotic English men have boasted of its stability- something that seems in the early modern and medieval era quite laughable. 1399 arose therefore out of the peculiar circumstances of Richard II's reign. I have outlined below Richard's view of the English monarchy- it is worth turning for a moment to the view of those that opposed Richard, to Henry of Lancaster, the Percies and Nevilles.

Henry knew when he came to England in 1399 about two characters- both called Thomas. One was his predecessor as Duke of Lancaster- the other was his uncle Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. Henry's aim when he returned to England was to restore the nobility to its rights. Lancaster and Gloucester too had aimed for this purpose. The rights of the English nobility were the rights to counsel Kings, the rights to participate in law making, the rights to their land before the law and the right to non-arbitrary government. The content of that prescription was vague- but the idea of it existed and was important. Henry's rebellion fits into a pattern of medieval rebellion that spread through continental Europe and the British Isles- rebellion became a way of protecting local jurisdiction and protesting. This ran from what E.P. Thompson called the moral economy- ie riots say to reduce the price of bread in Preston in 1791 all the way to the Pilgrimage of Grace to protest against the Change of religion in the 1530s. Richard had faced down two such protests before- the Peasants Revolt of 1381 and the baronial revolt of 1386-7.

If we are to understand why Lancaster was forced to depose Richard, we need to understand what happened to that second revolt. In the late 1380s, Richard was criticised for promoting favourites, governing poorly, neglecting the nobility and neglecting legal rights. He was forced to execute his leading advisors, appoint nobles to his council and bring in policies they agreed to. One of the leaders in this movement was the King's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester. And the King's uncles, Gloucester, John of Gaunt and York became the governing council assisted by Arundel. By the late 1390s, the King decided to take revenge, despite giving at the time commitments that he never would, upon Gloucester and those that had followed him. Gloucester was murdered in private in Calais, as were his associates where they resided. Richard asserted his own power and destroyed that of those who resisted- part of that was his decision to exile Boilingbroke in 1398 and deprive him of his inheritance when Gaunt died in 1399. The point was that Richard had made it impossible for anyone to trust his word, and that he governed arbitrarily thus making rebellion neccessary. As soon as rebellion became neccessary, Richard needed curbing because the participants would otherwise suffer. In 1399 the lord who rebelled came swiftly to the conclusion that the only curb that could promise security was abdication and hence Richard fell and Henry took the crown. The Lancastrian constitutional revolution boiled down to the notion that the King had left the Kingdom and thus that Parliament awarded that crown and kingdom to the next in line- in a sense it was a similar situation to that which arose in 1688.

But that still throws up the question, why did this happen and keep happening? Richard's untrustworthiness arose out of his personality- like Charles I, Richard beleived that an oath that restricted his monarchical power was not an oath that could bind him. But why ultimately did that matter so much? The reason it mattered was that the English crown held vast powers. Richard was one of the wealthiest Kings ever to rule- in absolute terms adjusted for inflation, the wealthiest monarch in England by a long way. Furthermore he had control over an incredibly extensive and powerful machinery of law and justice- he could use that machinery to create real problems for those that he disliked. With Parliament at his back, the King had an emmense ability to control and adjudicate over the realm. Parliament was used by the Lords- the merciless Parliament condemned many of Richard's favourites to death in the late 80s- but it could also be used by Richard as a court to back his royal authority. Gloucester and the rest were attainted by Parliament under its speaker Sir John Bushy, the King in Parliament as John Selden later said was incredibly powerful and could authorise anything.

Richard's power meant that no lord could survive his anger for long. Henry knew that. He knew that his uncle had been destroyed by Richard's anger, slowly simmering over the years. The lesson was not lost on later rebellious commanders either- Oliver Cromwell knew it and very like Boilingbroke came to the conclusion that the King must die in order that he could survive his own revolution. In 1688 the appeal to William was born out of fear of James- to put chains around a king and stop him doing what he wished was impossible. Hence there could be no division between person and policy- though Sir Thomas More intended in 1526 to create one through the immunity for those debating in Parliament- a queen like Elizabeth and master tactician (the reason why Elizabeth survived was that she knew how and when to give in) used her power to constrain MPs who spoke against her. Kings of England survived when they turned this massive state outwards- like Henry V in France- an example that Henry VIII was keen to emulate. The central fact about the English crown was that its power made its bearer a vulnerable agent- restricting supremacy was not easy- and so the way to rebellion led straight to regicide.

Richard's doom was his inability to roll as Elizabeth did with the punches administered by the gentry and nobility. Ultimately the fact that he used his power to destroy those who had opposed him, nursed his grudges and seemed untrustworthy meant that opposition was not a realistic option. As soon as you doubted, you were in danger, if you went as far as to rebel, your head was forfeit- even if you won, should the crown recover, you would die. And so you have the situation where there is no answer save to seize the crown for yourself. This is one reason that England has had few local rebellions- as Patrick Wormald commented the last rebellion to seek to split England was in 1065 by Earl Tostig of Northumbria- the point is that the power of the English crown and the universal application of law, mean that there were no local privileges or powerbases to hide behind. Continental observors marvelled at the rebelliousness of the English, Richard II knew it well too- but the real lesson of 1399 was that that rebelliousness was a consequence of the power of the crown. Opposition was so dangerous that the only way to save one's head could be to commit regicide.

When Henry of Lancaster landed in 1399, we have no knowledge of whether he immediatly desired the crown, but it must have become evident quite quickly that in order to survive he had to get it.

Gordon Banks

Gordon Banks is always underrated when it comes to talking about the best British players- which is perhaps a good reason why in his position there seems to be a relative dearth at the moment. Banks was the goalkeeper in the 66 side that won the world cup: he was crucial as this save above makes clear to England's challenge in 1970 and had he not been injured in the quarter final against West Germany then England might have retained the Jules Rimet Trophy. I don't say this merely to redeem Banks's reputation- far greater scribes than I have attempted to in the past- nor to say anything about who were the best British players though the unassuming keeper from Stoke must stand beside such luminaries as Duncan Edwards, Bobby Charlton, Billy Meredith and the far earlier Scottish stars who brought passing to England or the later ones that were the core of the Liverpool teams who seemed to treat the European Cup as though it was their posession in the late seventies and early eighties. What I mean to do here is just briefly survey another article.

Up there with Banks, should be placed Peter Shilton. When I started watching football- the 1990 world cup- Shilton's career was ending. Shilton retired after the tournament from international football and though he played on for clubs, his glory days had faded. Shilton for sheer longevity- he was Banks's teammate in the sixties and played into the late nineties, was capped most times for England of any player- and for his success in Europe with Nottingham Forest and in the 1990 World Cup is amost equally eminent as Banks. Two things though instantly strike me about an article Shilton wrote about Banks for the Guardian and they remind me I think of how similar football and sport in general is to any other part of life.

Shilton joined Leicester as Banks was leaving- but he seems to have learnt from him incredibly. Watching Banks must have been crucial for the young keeper and Shilton leaves us in no doubt that it was. We often in football and in life come across the puzzle of centres of excellence- ie people coming out of a good area with good training- well Shilton gives us a simple answer- it is observation stupid! Observation creates a culture within a club- and it creates a means to better onesself. The second thing that instantly strikes me is not that Banks worked hard- but that he never beleived that the ball couldn't be saved- even if it was heading wide, he would try and save it. Shilton thinks that is why he pulled off so many great saves- because he did not believe that they were impossible. In a sense if admiring and hence learning from others is a humble characteristic- then this is a delusional one- but it is a neccessary delusion. When Banks saves from Pele above, he shouldn't, noone else could or had- but he did because he ignored the probabilities and made the effort. The distinction between Banks and the rest was the delusion- it is this which footballers mean when they talk about belief but it is not belief, it is delusion and delusion is key.

It is always interesting to read one great talk about another- but I think what is so interesting about what Shilton writes is that it isn't bland and is much more thoughtful than a standard think piece. He has provided us with reasons both for his own development and that of Banks- and whilst neither is sufficient, I judge that both reasons were neccessary to the two goalkeepers becoming greats.

Richard II and Edward the Confessor

In 1395 Richard II invaded Ireland. As he marched through Ireland, he marched under his own insignia but also under that of Edward the Confessor (r. 1042-65). Richard was obsessed by the Confessor- the last Saxon king of England to hold his realm together for a substantial period of time, Edward had acquired the reputation in the Middle Ages of a saintly celibate King. The title of the English kings after him depended upon him: William of Normandy had claimed that Edward's personal nomination had given him the English crown and Norman chroniclers from William of Jumierges onwards substantiated that claim in their histories. Edward thus was not merely seen as the last Saxon King, but more appropriately as the father of the Norman and hence Plantagenet Line which culminated with Richard himself. Edward's reputation in the Middle Ages though was not merely as the great saintly King, father of the nation, but also of the father of the nation's laws. As early as the reign of Henry I, the barons of England petitioned that the laws of King Edward be enforced- such intentions lay behind much of the agitation surrounding Magna Carta and as Corrine Westbrook and John Pocock have shown endured into the seventeenth century. The barons at Runnymede, the Diggers in Surrey made the same claim- that if only England could recall its original legal status under the Saxon monarch, all would be well. Of course neither of them knew the truth- for a start the whole idea of a national law depended on the legal reforms envisaged by William I at the oath of Salisbury and enacted by Henry II- neither did they agree- the baronial constitution and the Digger's millenary vision are about as far from each other as one could get: William Walwyn called Magna Carta a 'mess of potage', the average aristocrat of Walwyn's day thought the Leveller was a traitor, an anarchist and a heretic.

The image of Edward's laws was incredibly powerful- and is something that I want to return to in more detail at a later date. But the image of Edward and the model of Kingship that he provided was equally powerful and is perhaps less appreciated. Lets return to Richard II. Why did he raise that banner at that moment? Richard did not particularly care for law- he had an uneasy relationship with his Parliaments and disdained the advice of his magnates- many of whom, the appellant lords, Arundel, Warwick and Gloucester, became heroes of those that would restrict the rights of the crown. Rather Richard saw himself as the successor to Edward in his saintliness. For Richard- the two Edwards- the Confessor and the Martyr (an English king Edward had been assacinated in the 8th century by the Vikings and was canonized shortly afterwards) represented a vision of Kingship very much in accordance with his own. Richard saw himself as various documents attest as a direct representative of God on earth. The end of the 14th Century saw an upswing in millenarian agitation- there were rumours of an Anglo-French alliance to reunify the battered Christian body (split at this point between two Popes one in Avignon and one in Rome) and turn it against the Turks who were rampaging through Southern Europe. Major members of Richard's court believed in this: John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, toyed throughout his life with going on a crusade- one of his sons, Sir John Beaufort actually did and was defeated in 1395 at the battle of Nicopolis, another Henry IV (king after Richard) dreamt as much as Richard of taking on the Turk and reclaiming Jerusalem. Famously Henry was told that he would die in Jerusalem- but fell into eternal night in the chamber of the House of Commons and not in that of the holy sepulchre. Richard shared that sense of the religious nature of kingship. Look at the engravings and art made about him in his reign, if you look for instance at the Wilton Diptych- a piece of art that has bemused and confused historians for generations (and I cannot clarify that confusion at all)- but the clear emphasis is on catholicism and its relationship to the young king. Pamphleteers and chroniclers from Froissart in France to the most jaundyced of his opponents also bear testament to the King's determination to make himself into a saintly ruler. The image of King Edward returned. Richard wanted also to canonize others of his ancestors- he pressed the Pope that his great grandfather Edward II should be canonized and he paid attention to prophesies which told him for instance that an English king would conquer Ireland and then retake the Holy Land.

Richard's elevation of the Confessor into a saint- and a saint who would support his particular model of sacral Kingship should be seen in the context of the instability of the English crown. Of Richard's predecessors, only Richard I (r. 1189-99), Henry III (r. 1216-72) and Edward II (r. 1307-27) succeeded to the crown without having to battle or dispose of other claimants. Richard would remember that the reigns of Henry II, John, Henry III and Edward II had all seen civil war take place in England. For Frenchmen living at the time England was a nation of traitors- a nation where monarchy was unsuccessful. Furthermore Richard had to face his powerful uncles- Lancaster, Gloucester, York- who dominated the politics of his reign and many of whom had greater credentials for the role than Richard himself. Turning his eyes back to English history, meant recreating a monarchy for him that made sense- as a connection between God and the people, between the sacred and the secular. For Richard then it was natural to turn to the saint King Edward- who had afteral combined both devotion and rule in the same person. Furthermore Edward ressembled Richard in other ways- in his childlessness for example. By 1395, the widowed Richard had decided to marry a five year old Princess of France- children were not on the agenda!

It is pretty easy to see why Richard looked to Edward but it also reminds us of the way that 1066 was and was not a division within English history. The crown owed much of its powers to the way that William of Normandy, William I, had interpreted the act of conquest- he had essentially by the Oath of Salisbury bound all tenants in England to owe fealty to the crown and not their tenant in chief (as Dr. Garnett's research makes clear). But he had done something else- he had based his title on the nomination of his predecessor as king of England, Edward the Confessor. Doomsday Book contained two dates- the date on which King Edward was alive and dead and the date of the survey- and that fixed the Norman claim to be that England had passed, by nomination from the Confessor to the Conqueror. That point meant that the Normans were bound to Anglo Saxon England- and that as the royal title depended upon the events of 1066 so did arguments in favour and against the crown. In the seventeenth century, Sir Edward Coke argued that there had been no conquest, as did Sir Matthew Hale- Gerald Winstanley effectively suggested that William was not the heir of Edward. In the reign of Richard II, we see Richard go back to the beggining of his dynasty and fix his eye upon the sainted King and suggest that he was attempting to recreate that era. Norman fixation with Edward as the legitimator of their dynasty had turned into a Plantagenet quest for models of royalty to fortify the crown in an age of uncertainty.

The reasons that Richard looked back to Edward arise out of the pattern of English history- and the crucial place of 1066 within that history- and out of the particular circumstances of his time. By going back to Edward he sought to create a model of sacred Kingship that he hoped could strengthen the crown and provide the springboard to English armies doing God's work in the Holy Land.