Lusty wisdom
31st August 2004
I appreciated John Lloyd's essay (August) on the media's contempt for politics, not least because of his expression "beauty farts and wisdom lusts." I can't find it in Shakespeare, the Bible or Pepys. Is it original?
Ken Nielsen
Sydney, Australia
Slur on Prince Charles
29th August 2004
As someone who nominated Prince Charles as the "bonus ball" public intellectual in your poll, I am perturbed that the description of his views as "Buddhism, mysticism, and inner soul-searching" should be called a slur (Letters, September). If his views were described as, say, "a medley of Marxism, Darwinism and scientism," would that constitute praise? Or is your correspondent trying to convince us that any idealist view of life which goes against Prospect's veneration of St Richard Dawkins is contemptible?
Michael Kowalewski
Melbury Osmond, Dorset
Incomparable BBC
29th August 2004
If the BBC did not exist, we would all be diminished. It is the chief conduit for civilisation into our homes. At any hour of the day or night, one can listen to radio programmes that entertain, inform or educate, or all three at once. Without the resources underwritten by the licence fee, such an output would be impossible. Can commercialisation advocates such as Barry Cox (August) point to another service comparable in quality? Commercial stations provide good programmes because they have the BBC as a rival. Without that challenge, there would be rapid desertification.
David Pollard
Salisbury
Greene or Weil?
31st August 2004
Graham Greene is quoted by Julian Evans (September) as saying that: "The writer should be always ready to change sides at the drop of a hat. He speaks up for the victims and the victims change." These are fine sentiments but Greene is surely paraphrasing Simone Weil, who, in her journals published in 1947 under the title Gravity and Grace, wrote: "If we know in what way society is unbalanced, we must do what we can to add weight to the lighter scale. We must always be ready to change sides, like justice, the eternal fugitive from the camp of the victors."
Ken Worpole
London N4
Political theatre
29th August 2004
Michael Coveney's idea of political theatre (September) sounds a bit like the Church of England at play, a ritual in which the audience add blissful amens to whatever revered if not quite reverend establishment figures like David Hare and Alan Bennett have to say. But surely political theatre ought to be a bit of a challenge to existing assumptions? How can someone like Hare, larded with the accolades of establishment success, represent the undermining of that same establishment? Does it really reflect the power and vitality of Coveney's "political theatre" today for Joan Littlewood's idiosyncratic, fake-cockney iconoclasm to be replaced with "fully licensed civilised anguish"? Surely theatre must have something to do with the lord of misrule?
Tom Sutcliffe
London SW16
Europe and America 1
2nd September 2004
Ulrike Guérot (September) writes that Europeans "do not believe in America's enforcement of democracy (at least not through regime change) or in the desire to fashion other countries in its image." Such a blanket statement from a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany leaves one speechless. Does she think the US should never have engaged in such activities, or simply that it should have stopped in 1945?
Gideon Rose
New York
Europe and America 2
18th August 2004
David Marquand (August) says that, "When the postwar Labour government came into office, it hoped to follow a middle way between American capitalism and Soviet communism. It abandoned the attempt only because it was so deeply in hock to the US that it had no real freedom of action."
Surely there was another reason, which was the revelation of the Soviet desire to take over western Europe, shown by the Soviet blockade of Berlin for almost a year in 1948.
Peter Blaker
Haywards Heath, Sussex
Europe and America 3
5th August 2004
I usually agree with David Marquand. But in bidding farewell to the west he has utterly lost the plot. If anything is "hopelessly unhistorical," it is his bizarre view that US and European interests converged only temporarily during a cold war era that is now over. Yet as he admits, the US was founded by Europeans. Its constitution promoted our Enlightenment principles better than was yet possible in old Europe, and has (mostly) done so ever since.
Indeed, the post-cold war era is different. New uncertainties and challenges force all of us to think hard about our core values, and who our true friends are. But surely the answer is clear. Liberty, democracy, the rule of law, free speech, market economy: these hard-won gains are what we stand for, on both sides of the Atlantic. There is nothing exclusive about this. It is in all our interests not just to defend our system, but to see it spread across the planet to bring better governance and peace. The west today is not a geographical entity but a global movement, embracing Australasia, much of Latin America, and growing swathes of Asia despite diverse civilisational origins.
Certainly, new powers are emerging. Yet the point is not which civilisation begat which, or who writes the better poetry, but a sober appraisal of long-term interests and values.
Russia and China, above all, are each undergoing momentous transitions. But Yukos and Chechnya, Tiananmen and Tibet, remind us that these processes are far from complete. It is clearly in our interests to encourage both these great nations to more fully embrace our norms. But is there no further risk that one or the other might again become an actively hegemonic power? And if this happens, would Europe be wise to side with them, rather than a US where, for all its faults, the same values as ours are hard-wired into the social fabric?
The most urgent task, of course, is to bring Islam into this fold, so undermining al Qaeda. Instead, Bush and Blair's war on Iraq makes a Huntingtonian clash of civilisations a real and rising risk. But can Marquand explain how Europe might "come to terms" with Osama? Like Hitler, Bin Laden leaves us no choice. As then, and as in the cold war, Europe and the US are on the same side.
Aidan Foster-Carter
Leeds University
Europe and America 4
11th July 2004
Timothy Garton Ash (July) complains about "the grotesque finale of France campaigning for votes against the US in the UN security council, on an issue that the US considered vital to its national security." Is that all he can find to say about the failure of the Blair-Straw effort to get a security council resolution legitimising the Iraq war? Far from "grotesque," that episode may well be recorded in future decades as a crucial stage in the evolution of a "rule of law" international order.
The UN charter is a hodge-podge of contradictory compromises. But the more enlightened of the people who drafted it hoped for an evolution over time in the central compromise—that between power and legality embodied in the security council vetos. The balance, they hoped, would shift. As "international public opinion" strengthened, the use of votes in the council would come to depend less on national self-interest and the power to promote it, and more on the principles governing the use of armed force set out in the charter.
Look at the famous failed resolution in that light. The lobbying on both sides was intense. Every stop was pulled. But should America's failure to mobilise nine votes simply be attributed to France's greater success in deploying threats and bribes? It seems unlikely. It is surely more probable that votes were determined not merely by calculations of national self-interest, but also by judgements of a) the plausibility of the US-UK factual assertions about Saddam's behaviour and intentions, and b) the moral acceptability of the motives of those who wanted war—in other words: what was the balance in those motives between self-interest and professed concern for the future of mankind?
Ron Dore
Veggio, Italy
Beach partying
4th September 2004
Does Charles Leadbeater (August) not realise that London already has a beach—and one that perfectly expresses his vision of a liberated civic space?
The foreshore outside the Royal Festival Pier has been a sandy beach since the Festival of Britain, but few recognise its existence. Technically the beach, which is exposed twice a day for about six hours, is owned by the Port of London Authority, which inherited it from the City Corporation, which took it (along with most of London's foreshore) from George IV as payment for his gambling debts. But in reality, it is all of ours—an unownable public space, outside the legal constraints that have eviscerated many of our commons.
For three years Reclaim the Beach has been holding free public events on London's beach, ranging from family seaside fun to late night parties. Unlike Bob Geldof's events, these are non-commercial and egalitarian. In Leadbeater's words, the parties are "civil, playful, active, open" celebrations of a unique space. Like others who bewail the absence of a Parisian beach experience in London, Leadbeater should get out more.
Toby Lloyd
Reclaim the Beach
Public intellectuals
11th July 2004
Happily, David Herman (August) did not try to justify the nonsense of "electing" Britain's top 100 public intellectuals. Nevertheless, like all human endeavour, this had its validity and will have given pleasure to some. Herman suggested that the list showed we have moved on from philosophers and politicians to scientists and historians. I think there is something deeper at play than a switch of disciplines. We are moving away from "persuader leaders" to "explainer leaders." This is to be welcomed, for it shows the follower community is more confident than in the past. No longer do we accept uncritically anything that comes out of the mouth or pen of anyone identified as famous or important.
Gerry Toner
Brighton
The case for europe
4th July 2004
Sunder Katwala's plea (July) for Britain in Europe is fine as far as it goes. But it ignores the most important argument of all, which applies in the 2000s even more forcefully than it did in the 1970s. It has always been a priority of British foreign policy to prevent any one power dominating the European continent. In the 20th century we fought two world wars for that purpose. It cannot be doubted today, whether we approve of it or not, that the continent of Europe is dominated by the EU. There can be no question of contesting this, so the old adage, "If you can't beat them, join them" applies. Being an ally of the US is not a substitute.
Geoffrey Hosking
London NW1
