Literature and politics

There was an excellent piece by Ferdinand Mount in yesterday's Guardian newspaper. He discusses how literature and politics can work together. Running through a list of the usual suspects, from Henry James, HG Wells, Bertolt Brecht and Edith Wharton to Alice Munro, Jane Smiley, Anne Tyler and Annie Proulx, he makes the point that in literature 'politics works when it is lost in art'.

I agree with Mount, but would add that political debates are poorer if they are limited to Politics with a capital P. In other words, politicians tend to be more humane and more efficient when they engage in the world outside of the so-called corridors of power, when they engage in the minutiae of the lives of their constituents. This is one reason why after a long time in power many politicians lose touch with the needs of the people. And that's no good for anyone, a point emphasised by Catherine (in Terence Rattigan's Winslow Boy, just revived in a powerful, timely production starring Timothy West and directed by Stephen Unwin). It deals with fact-based case of a teenager, Ronnie Winslow, wrongly accused of stealing a postal order: 'If ever the time comes that the House of Commons has so much on its mind that it can't find time to discuss a Ronnie Winslow and his bally postal order, this country will be a far poorer place than it is now.'

The reverse is also true. There is no such thing as a divide between the political and the non political. Everything has a political dimension, art is not better merely because it tries to bang on about a political point, but any form of art shifts the feelings of the reader, viewer or listener and affects, sometimes in a minute way (the bad band heard at the local club) and sometimes in a huge way (Picassso's Guernica, Ibsen's Doll's House), her or his interaction with the world.

Why a window? 3

When people are angry and afraid, the window on the world is cracked, oblique, distorted. Instead of taking out their anger on the principal guilty parties, people attack the weak, the unfamiliar. This reaction has benefited the far right minority-bashing parties throughout much of Europe and in the UK. Few people voting for the BNP or its like ever stop to wonder how these dishonest, often criminal, egomaniac, rat brains would solve today's issues. The BNP voter's view on the world is cracked. (Thus the cracked window picture for today's blog).

The supporter of fascist, authoritarian rule attempts to retreat from the multi-coloured cacophony of life by biting into the fantasy of total strength, absolute right and nostalgia for an illusory sweet-tasting, pure past. It is about ways of seeing. For this reason, I'm always suspicious of anyone who is too sure of her or his authority or organisation, particularly anyone who wants to directly or indirectly exclude others. Are they being seduced by the same siren song as the fascist?

I prefer John Locke's more humanistic approach (Treatise on Government), although it is true to say that one's approach to life, government and everything else will often vary depending on time and events:

People are in 'a state . . . of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection'.

We are all entitled to the same rights. We all respond in our own ways to experiences and we are all capable of offering something unique and perhaps invaluable, as Locke wrote (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding):

'I pretend not to teach, but to inquire; and therefore cannot but confess here again, that external and internal sensation are the only passages I can find of knowledge to the understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this DARK ROOM.'

It is impossible to imagine the BNP's Nick Griffin or the Dutch Freedom Party's Geert Wilders having this sort of view of humanity. What about Gordon Brown or Barack Obama?

Why a window? 2

From ban-the-bomb marches on Trafalgar Square through to well-behaved and sedate meetings in university seminar rooms, I always feel that behind any organisation someone is building an empire. That doesn't mean I do not see the need for organisations, from political parties that want to improve the world (at least in part to prevent Duffy's or Orwell's nightmares), to universities, orchestras, publishers and film companies that help us understand our world and make it seem better. There is truth in Thomas Hobbes' view of a world without a strong state (Leviathan):

'No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'

But your views on how to exercise this strength will depend on where you stand. Are you in or out? There's the dilemma: if you join the organisation, you risk being homogenised into a non-descript functionary and, worse still, you risk lending your weight to a battering ram of the human soul; if you stay on the outside your risk being ignored and, worse still, you leave the way clear for malevolence.

It is a beautifully horrific dilemma. Crowds, groups, the mass can be dangerous, unpredictable, seductive. And blind organisation can lead one to ignore the most obvious truth, as Orwell emphasises in A Hanging, describing a man about to be executed:

'His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned - reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, feeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world less.'

When today every pillar of society appears to be crumbling, from paedophile Catholic priests (and in case you are interested, I'm a non-believer) to dodgy politicians and greedy bankers, it's easy to see why people grab for the nearest strong hand, but often the wrong people are unlucky enough to feel the full power of this tough stance.

Why a window? 1

In some way or other we are all outside the window looking in. If we are honest, we all have periods when we feel ignored, like bystanders, looking through a window into a room where the real actors are getting on with the day's work. For some, this is fine, but for others, particularly at the moment, when the world appears to be falling apart and people feel afraid, being outside can be dangerous, as Carol Ann Duffy (Education for Leisure, from the 1980s) made clear:

'Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God.'

Don't misunderstand, it's not a question of being apathetic. I'm passionate enough about life to get involved in politics, music, literature. Being outside one can often see things that would be ignored from inside the group. Crowds or organised activities so often steamroller the individual. When anyone talks of organising other people there's always a sickening smell of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four warning about obsessive, central organisation gone mad:

'If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face.' Okay, today the picture becomes a reality TV show and the boot becomes a Jimmy Choo shoe, but the point remains the same.