Plus ca change - Ouch!

From an essay by British author Angus Wilson in The Seven Deadly Sins by Angus Wilson, Edith Sitwell, Cyril Connolly, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Sykes and W.H. Auden, published by Quill from the original 1962 edition.

When you are 4% of the world's population and produce 25% of the world's wealth, there is a natural latent envy and animosity. Wilson was writing on the sin of Envy. At the end of his essay, he has this to say which, despite being nearly fifty years old, seems unpleasantly contemporary.

This can be seen in the most distressing, foolish Envy of our time - anti-Americanism in Western Europe. To me European anti-Americanism is plain silly because it is suicidal, but there are, after all, not only Communist but tolerably argued neutralist views about this, and at times American policy inclines one to sympathize with such views. There are grievances against America which deserve consideration from everyone. But anti-Americanism is quite another thing; it is an impotent Envy which does nothing but disgrace the speaker. Listen to any county Englishman or his wife who in dislike of the changed English social order seeks refuge in anti-American talk, hear the silly bray of their laugh, the frightened note that underlies their jokes about American brashness or crudity. Or, almost worse, hear a group of rich, beleaguered French or Italian or Spanish describing the necessity for a civilized Europe where American barbaraism cannot interefere. There are few more nauseating sounds in the modern world; nauseating because like all envious sounds they make one feel ashamed for the emotions that the speaker is betraying. And the same for for anti-Russianism where it is solely built on hopeless Envy.

This, of course, is why Envy is so unenviable a dominating emotion. All the seven deadly sins are self-destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least lust and gluttony, avarice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numberd with fear, yet never ceasing in its appetite; and it knows no gratification save endless self-torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat that has gnawed its own foot in its effort to escape.

Perspective on controversies

Thinking people always contest with one another as to whether they have all the facts, whether they are interpreting the facts correctly, or whether the facts are relevant to the decisions that need to be made. Unfortunately, we are often not well schooled in the mechanisms and cadences of effective dispute. Emotion becomes the energy behind a debate. Rationality, willingness to accept the incompleteness of our knowledge and humility give way to overconfidence and hubris. Sometimes it is science - what do we really know about global warming versus the wild claims from both sides? Sometimes is it economics - what are the appropriate actions to take in the wake of an asset bubble deflation? Almost always it is really just opinion and loud shouts.

It is refreshing sometimes to look back on past debates. Not how they were resolved, though that is of course interesting. Rather, what is interesting is what we have forgotten about how they began and what was thought to be known at the time with complete certainty.

Brian Switek has an interesting blog post, Ancient Armored Whales, on a long ago and long forgotten debate from the turn of the last century when paleontologists debated heatedly with one another as to whether ancient whales were armored. It makes us smile now, but these were not stupid people. Just overconfident in their facts or their interpretations. We can only smile if we are confident we have learned the lesson of humility about our facts and interpretations. Nothing I see suggests that we have.

A hopeful sentiment

Robert Ardrey, African Genesis

Our predatory animal origin represents for mankind its last best hope. Had we been born of a fallen angel, then the contemporary predicament would lie as far beyond solution as it would lie beyond explanation. Our wars and our atrocities, our crimes and our quarrels, our tyrannies and our injustices could be ascribed to nothing other than singular human achievement. And we should be left with a clear-cut portrait of man as a degenerate creature endowed at birth with virtue's treasury whose only notable talent has been his capacity to squander it.

But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.

Tintin Turns 80

Though just mentioned in the prior post, I think it worth drawing particular attention to this article in the December 18th, 2008 Economist, A Very European Hero. Tintin is a boy adventurer from Europe (Belgium actually) who might be characterized as a comic book version of a European Hardy Boys. However, there is much more to the success of the series and the development of Tintin as a cultural and literary icon of Europe than just being a well drawn cartoon with a hero having interesting adventures. The article is an interesting meditation on the role of culture and history and context in the shaping of a childhood favorite.

Socializing the creature

Just a coincidental juxtaposition of three articles that interestingly all deal in different aspects of how children are socialized and the possible role that books and reading play in that process. While I don't believe children can learn manners from books, they have to see it expected, practised, and reinforced around them, and I do believe books can make that process easier or more difficult by being consistent or not in demonstrating that manners matter.

The first article is from today's New York Times, January 13, 2009 by Dr. Perri Klass, Making Room for Miss Manners is a Parenting Basic.

The second article is from the December 18th, 2008 Economist, A Very European Hero about Herge's Tintin who turns 90 this year and who in part was originally created to reinforce certain admired personal behavioral attributes.

And finally an article by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal, lamenting the passing of an older generation's quintessential "Britishness" in an article, The Quivering Upper Lip.

Through each of these articles runs a quiet desire that we improve the means by which we inculcate in our children the positive behaviours that not only benefit them but also the community to which they belong. There is also the less than explicit message that books can play a role in reinforcing those desired behaviors.

TTMD Comunity Members forecast which 2007 books will endure

One of the things that fascinates all involved in the world of children's books is trying to figure out which books will endure (and why) and also to figure out why some well deserved books seem to fade from the scene. Through the Magic Door has had a shot at assessing the enduring popularity of past winners of major awards, (see Awards as Forecasts as well as Sic transit gloria mundi).

Through the Magic Door invites you to partake in a quick exercise in which you forecast which of the winners of recent awards will still be popular twenty-five and seventy-five years from now. You can vote on the titles that won major national awards in 2007 as well as log those books that you thought were great works published in 2007 but which may not have won a major award (or any award).

Use your own criteria for forecasting which ones will be around. I suspect your votes would be shaped by considerations of how universal is the message of the book, the nature of its emotional impact on a child, how much its current popularity is shaped by topical fads (e.g. vampires), how much is the language of the book colored by current styles, etc.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Sic transit gloria mundi

From Slightly Foxed Winter 2008. Umbrellas at Dawn by Richard Hughes.

'I don't think he'll be remembered at all.' The hugely successful novelist sat in his apartment at No. 90 Piccadilly confiding to his diary. 'His only fault', he continued, 'was his pomposity about himself and his works.' The year was 1937 and the man of letters, within weeks of being knighted for his services to literature, was musing on the passing away - prematurely at the age of 55 - of the poet and dramatist John Drinkwater.

From his desk overlooking Green Park, the richest novelist of his age was commenting on the foibles of a less successful colleague and competitor. At this moment he seemed master of all he surveyed - the purveyor of best-selling fiction with a literary gloss that placed him comfortably above the Howard Springs and Warwick Deepings of the world; recently returned from a profitable period in Hollywood writing screenplays for several directors, including George Cukor; a man whose vast wealth had allowed him to become a respected collector of books and paintings, and a well-known and generous patron and benefactor of the literary circle of the day. But four years later he too was to die prematurely, at 57, and, more shocking and difficult to credit, he was soon to be as forgotten as John Drinkwater. His name was Hugh Walpole.

It is hard today to appreciate the extent of Hugh Walpole's success. Not only did his novels - which had appeared annually since his first triumph, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traidill, in 1911 - consistently head the best-seller lists, but he was also a well-known public figure on both sides of the Atlantic. At the time of his death in 1941, he was giving a series of wartime propaganda broadcasts to the USA called 'Hugh Walpole Talking'. His views were sought, his opinions respected. Hugh Walpole was master of his game. Yet there has always been a problem about the reputation of this seemingly dominant figure.