Category Archives: Art and Ideas

Lord Acton on the Rule of the Unfit

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The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
Lord Acton, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1881

Comment:

And of all classes, “the ruling classes” are usually the least fit. Now, who are the ruling classes today?

Some would say capitalists and corporate leaders.

Here at The Mind Body Politic, where we claim to look more deeply than others into the innards of the political organism, we demur. Our capitalists (that is, the few that remain so among the many more who’ve turned into technocrats) are ruled themselves.

Only look around. Open The Wall Street Journal – Vox Capitis – and check for yourself. Out tumble words and phrases that might as well have come from the Soviet Politburo…. and all of them as soiled, over-handled and badly-fitting as spandex tights in a thrift store: the public good……. democracy… women’s rights…. the national interest….

Now, when have any of these meant anything other than whatever it is any speaker chooses them to mean? (Note: we don’t object to any of these things.  We just object to the way these terms are roped into the pursuit of just about any political or economic goal – including those diametrically opposite of the terms themselves”. Remember that “women’s rights’ were a reason we bombed Iraq and Iraqi women and children; we censor political speech for “the public good,” and we want to remake the world “in the national interest.” )

And who, may we ask, shines up these second-hand souvenirs to foist on the average uncritical citizen?

Is it leaders of business….or leaders of opinion ?

My bet is the latter. Over-exposed academics, under-educated journalists, and the whole tribe of professionals experts, prolix pundits and cacophonous commentators who eat up band-width around the planet…..

These are the leaders…as well as the followers…of public opinion.

And it’s public opinion,  that great uncouth, whiskered, whisky-soused, splay-footed, smelly-arm-pitted tramp who leads us all around by the nose. High-browed or low-browed, we’re brow-beaten.. one and all… by the chatter of the chattering classes.

Barack Wooster and the Revenge of Jeremiah Jeeves…

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“The usual Jeeves story is as follows: Bertie gets in hot water, goes bleating to Jeeves, who brings to bear his infinite sagacity to rescue his master. While doing so, he also extracts a victory of sorts — making Bertie give up something — now a jacket, now a tie, another time his moustache! The story ends with a restored Bertie Wooster calling for a restorative brandy and soda, only to find the effects already at his elbow. Jeeves is perfect.

Unsuitable romantic dalliances are one thing, calling for no more than minor strictures as above, but a permanent change in the status-quo is a different matter altogether. In such instances, Jeeves can be ruthless, as when Wooster contemplates having his sister and her three daughters move in with him (“it will be nice to hear the pitter-patter of little feet about the place, Jeeves“, or words to that effect). Jeeves realizes that immediate and salutary measures are called for. In an unforgettable episode (the only one written in Jeeves’ hand rather than Wooster’s), he puts Bertie before an audience of schoolgirls, from which Wooster emerges a chastened man, cured of his illusions about how charming the young ladies are.

Something similar occurred last month, when Sen. Bertie Wooster (D-IL) was asked about a ripe idea (assumed, naturally, to have emanated from Jeeves). Instead of paying tribute to the great man (“from the collar upward, he stands alone” would have been mot juste), he instead chose to take the tack of I was reluctantly compelled to hand the misguided blighter the mitten……”

Read the rest at Niranjan Ramakrishna’s blogogram.

My Comment (posted at blogogram):

Hey Niranjan –

Good piece. Barack as Bertie, I’ll let fly. But Jeremiah is not Jeeves. He’s some one much more tyrannical and pompous. I’d say, Sir Roderick Spode.

For those who don’t know Wodehouse, here’s a profile of Spode from wiki:

“Spode….. marches his followers around London and the countryside, preaching loudly to the public on the dissoluteness of modern society until a heckler hits him in the eye with a potato….”

And how does Jeeves deflate Spode?

“Before Spode inherited the title of Earl of Sidcup from his uncle, he made a living as the “founder and proprietor of the emporium in Bond Street known as Eulalie Soeurs”, a famed designer of ladies’ lingerie.[1] Out of embarrassment, Spode had long attempted to keep his ownership of the business a secret, though Jeeves discovered the fact in the Junior Ganymede Club’s official Book, where one of Spode’s former valets had inscribed it. In The Code of the Woosters, this discovery allowed Bertie to threaten Spode with public embarrassment and prevent being coshed: as Bertie says, “You can’t be a successful Dictator and design women’s underclothing. One or the other. Not both.” Indeed, whenever Bertie mentions the name “Eulalie” throughout the book, Spode instantly becomes meek and acquiescing….”

The Only Way to Control Greedy Capitalists

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“I agree with the sentiment that society’s problems can only be solved by a select group of individuals. However, I don’t believe this select group of people is composed of well-meaning politicians, but rather greedy capitalists. Both are self-serving, but while the politician cares only about your vote, the capitalist cares about your actual needs and wants. Furthermore, a politician only has to care towards the end of the election cycle, whereas a capitalist has to care at every moment a business transaction takes place. Ask yourself this question: in a world of greedy self-serving individuals, is society better off with more politicians or are we better off with more competing capitalists?

A free market’s fruits in a particular sector of the economy produce the optimal situation where product innovation increases dramatically, wages increase proportionally, and prices lower substantially. After time, the price, product and wages in a particular sector will plateau and entrepreneurs will look elsewhere for unexploited vistas where the cycle of better products, lower prices, and higher wages begin anew.

So yes, a capitalist only cares about himself, but by extension he must care for the customer – lots of them, or someone else will. Part of that customer care is hiring the right people, and to attract them, he must care about their needs too or some other employer will.

If you want the capitalist to care about the people, if you want the capitalist to pay his employees higher wages, I have one piece of advice – compete with him…..”

More at Lew Rockwell by Todd Steinberg.

Bruni & Sarkozy Take Their Show on the Road…

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And, a moment of comic relief, in the middle of all the financial trouble. On the public (and, apparently, well-hydrogenated) display of affection by the exhibitionistic French president, Carla Bruni, and her escort, Nicholas what’s-his-name, the last word came from a British columnist:

QUOTE:

“However, ultimately, it wasn’t her nudity in the past that was the issue, it was the Sarkozys’ naked ambition in the present, which was seemingly to be crowned as the hot new couple on the international political stage, the couple who make all other political couples look dusty, passionless and redundant. And correspondingly their politics, too, even their countries.

Indeed, was it inadvertent or was there a bizarre whiff of quasi-sexual competitiveness from the Sarkozys towards the Browns, a preening display of potency?

Whether Carla was sashaying into Sarah’s charity lunch or Sarkozy was ‘playing football’ with Brown at Arsenal’s stadium (both men coming across like two girls desperate not to get their petticoats dirty), it seemed palpable; the none too subtle one-upmanship from the French camp. The whole event had the air of a quiet, serious country couple making the mistake of inviting a glamorous, intimidating couple over for a hellish weekend of nonstop patronising, the story of the town mouse and the country mouse as reinterpreted for the international political stage.

However, for some of us, if the idea was to make the Browns, and by association Britain and its politics, look a bit passionless and lacking, it backfired. No offence meant, but the last thing I ever want to see is the Browns playing tonsil tennis on a boat on the Thames. Or anywhere. To me, this doesn’t say ‘virile and go-getting’, it says ‘midlife crisis alert, get him away from the button’.

Admittedly, it was all very diverting and it was sweet to see how gallantly British men rushed to welcome Madame Sarkozy and her interesting views on monogamy. Ultimately though, the whole try-hard thing with the Sarkozys left one with a huge appreciation for the Browns. In fact, I’d like to use this column to make an apology: I interviewed Gordon once and left whingeing that he was serious and dull. I’d like to change my mind. Like surgeons and airline pilots, you don’t want your world leaders to be too exciting or, God forbid, surprising – it’s reassuring that they’re serious and dull.

Indeed, although one feels this country was too easily seduced by the Carla-Nicolas roadshow, and should maybe have felt affronted by the way they made British politics look passionless by comparison, perhaps in the end, we should just feel relieved….”

More from Barbara Ellen in The Observer.

Amazon Blog: Government of PR flacks, by PR flacks, for PR flacks

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Where you get your words from doesn’t matter. That was the verdict of pundits and newsmen last week on the charges of plagiarism flung back and forth between the candidates.

Maybe.

But. in a time when words are increasingly going astray, a man or woman who makes his living with them can’t afford to fool around. He’d better stick with the ones he picks. And they’d better be his.

Four years ago, the country went to war for words later proved false. Word provided by politicians, pundits and newsmen… who should have known better. Who had a duty to their words – to keep them honest, unadulterated, and organic.

Because we swallow what they tell us.
We live or die by their words.

When words don’t anchor themselves in reality, then they’re only slogans…memes. The stuff of PR. We are dying by PR in this country.

It’s a major theme of Mobs, Messiahs and Markets.
The slogans that drive the mob crazy and pollute the conversation in our country.

If the point of words is to get what you want, then you can pitch them anyway you want. That’s the bottom -line.

But bottom-line thinking isn’t really what a conversation among citizens is about.
That’s what corporations do.

If our country is a business – even a not-for-profit business – run to achieve a social goal, however noble, or meet a production quota, however magnificent, then it doesn’t really matter whether anyone plagiarizes. It doesn’t matter how words are treated. It only matters that they do what we want them to do and take us where we want to go.

But if your country is not a corporation but an association of individuals, then words have to mean something more than slogans to move your listeners this way or that. They have to be more than tools to get your way.
You have to treat them with respect, like the people who speak them With care.

Like fine cutlery at a dinner. You don’t bend them or break them and you don’t pinch them, even from friends.

Real words are an exploration of the changing truths of the heart. They express what we are. They take us to places we did not know existed and let us become what we never dreamed to be.

They make up a conversation between individuals.
Not a script crafted by PR flacks.

The Leader of the Band….

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As I was blogging at Amazon about words and the difference between PR rhetoric and real words, here are a few that appeal to me.

A tribute to his father, from singer Dan Fogelberg who died on December 17, 2007 at the age of 56:

An only child
Alone and wild
A cabinet maker’s son
His hands were meant
For different work
And his heart was known
To none —
He left his home
And went his lone
And solitary way
And he gave to me
A gift I know I never
Can repay

A quiet man of music
Denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once

But his music wouldn’t wait

He earned his love
Through discipline
A thundering, velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls
Took me years to understand.

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through
My instrument
And his song is in my soul —
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy
To the leader of the band.

My brothers lives were
Different
For they heard another call
One went to Chicago
And the other to St. Paul
And I’m in Colorado
When I’m not in some hotel
Living out this life Ive chose
And come to know so well.

I thank you for the music
And your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom
When it came my time to go —
I thank you for the kindness
And the times when you got tough
And, pap, I don’t think I

Said I love you near enough —

The leader of the band is tired
And his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through
My instrument
And his song is in my soul —
My life has been a poor attempt
To imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy
To the leader of the band
I am the living legacy
To the leader of the band.

Amazon re-viewed….

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What gets into people when they get in front of a computer keyboard? Talk about power corrupting. …And nothing is more powerful than a review.

In the old days you at least had to show some mastery of the field to make comments on the work of other people. These days you don’t have to show any command – of your field….of the language….even of yourself….you just need to hit a button and there, you’ve trashed a year or two of sweat by some poor sod silly enough to want to display his talents to the public.

By all means destroy a book….with another book. Savage your opponent…. with a sardonic lyric. But press a button?

Amazon “trash” reviews – especially by anonymous posters — are the dirty bombs of criticism.

And no – I am not crying over myself. Political writers are used to becoming the target of cyberfury….especially in an election year.

No, my wrath is on behalf of Cyprien Katsaris (one of the living legends of classical piano, if you’ve had the extreme misfortune never to have heard of him). His monumental performance of the Liszt transcription of the Beethoven symphonies is rated only 4 stars by some Amazon customers.

Four stars, dear reader? What were those reviewers withholding that one star for, I wonder?

That’s mass man for you. Never able to look up to anyone or anything. Always leveling. Never able to see anything bigger than his own miserable limits.

Short of raising the dead and making the blind see, Katsaris’s performance is as close to the divine as clods of clay will ever get. The physical stamina demanded alone is mind-boggling, let alone what’s needed technically, intellectually and emotionally.

I assume these critics actually play some instrument besides a kazoo? Having spent many years at the keyboard let me say that the Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies are some of the most excruciatingly difficult piano pieces there are. Hitting seventy-five percent of the notes would qualify you as a very competent pianist. Hitting every one of them with a level of precision, power, beauty, imagination and depth that would make the archangels stop dead in their tracks and take notes is a feat of which few…very few….maybe no more than a score of mortals…. have ever been capable in the life of this sorry planet. Katsaris is one of them.

Amazon does not have enough stars to rate that performance. The proper response to it is not button- pushing but chastened silence.

If you can find words, they had better be the best you can summon up.

Thus, my first Amazon review:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the finest recordings I have ever heard, February 15, 2008

By Lila Rajiva “Lila” (US) – See all my reviews

Katsaris is simply incredible. He has virtuosity and power to spare – that goes without saying. He plays this extraordinarily difficult score as though he were born doing it; as though he had an orchestra in his ten fingers. I can’t think of many other pianists who could pull out every voice so individually from this complex arrangement and bring to each one such a range of color.

Add to this a majestic singing line, commanding intellectual presence, a tone quality that is sumptuous, relentless rhythmic power, and technical panache that never detracts from the musical depths that open from under his fingers. The slow movements spin out into galactic space, the filigree passages are iridescent, the fast movements are volcanic dithyrambs driven by centaurs.

What a genius. And what a genius Liszt was to make you almost think the unthinkable – that these transcriptions of Beethoven improve on the originals. Music written by one titan, recreated by another, and brought to life by a third.

Encountering this recording was one of the musical high points of my life. I cannot imagine piano playing any better than this. At least not on earth.