Letters

David Clark (March) is right to say that the 1960s saw a quite inexcusable iconisation of illiberal leftists. On a march against the Vietnam war, I recall chants of, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" It was only wiser marchers that added, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, how many kids have you done in?"

David C Speedie
New York

All greek to me
26th April 2007

Mark Cousins (May) scores many direct hits in his review of 300. But it is a shame that he seems to be under the illusion, like some Iranians, that Thermopylae was a defeat for the Persians. One of the few things the movie gets right is that Thermopylae was a Greek loss, however much they retrospectively turned it into a moral victory.

Paul Cartledge
University of Cambridge

All A-levels are not equal
27th April 2007

May's "In fact" is misleading in its claim that, "Only a quarter of state school pupils with an A and 2 Bs at A-level get to a top university, against 45 per cent of independent school pupils with the same qualifications." The grades may be the same, but the subjects taken differ widely. A far higher proportion of state school pupils take subjects such as media, film, business or sports studies—whereas modern languages, sciences, English, history and so on are still more commonly taken at independent schools.

Susan Hamlyn
London W5

Philosophy unbound
8th May 2007

In his latest oracular answer to "Grayling's Question," (May) AC Grayling gives a Whiggish account of the progress of philosophy as it crushes superstition and religion underfoot, and issues in the glories of modern science. This account was already discredited in the 19th century, to whose "rationalist" propaganda it belongs. Grayling says that, "Ever since its origin in antiquity, 'philosophy' has meant 'enquiry.'" Actually, a Greek "enquirer" is a "sceptic." A philosopher is, rather, a "friend of wisdom"; and by "wisdom," Plato and Aristotle, probably the first to use the word, meant the knowledge of truths which have since been called "metaphysical"—beyond the knowledge directly available through the senses.
Philosophy, moreover, did not "give birth to the natural sciences in the 16th and 17th centuries." A revival of Pythagorean-Platonic number mysticism was important, but in general the relation of early modern scientists to "philosophy" was a rejection of its leading, Aristotelian brand. All of these scientists, incidentally, were Christians whose faith was an important motive in their enquiries.

The tension between science and philosophy which began in the 16th century continues down to the present. The re-emergence of "scepticism" in the 18th century (Hume, Kant) has led to persistent philosophical doubts about the possibility of knowledge which is not subjectively conditioned—a position which conflicts with the interests of both scientists and religious people.

A favourite scientific reproach against philosophy is that, unlike science, it makes no progress. Here, the scientists are right—neither philosophy nor science has yet "answered" any of the fundamental questions which men were asking millennia before the pre-Socratics.

Robert Jackson
London WC2

Divine comedy 1
8th May 2007

In claiming that the Bible "does not contain a single joke," Julian Gough (May) appears not to have read it. He seems not to know the stories of Esther or Jonah, with their comic twists. And Jesus himself used comic imagery—which of us has not "strained out the gnat, but swallowed the camel"? Indeed, Jesus used comedy for the very purpose Gough would like it used—to deflate a hypocritical establishment.

More importantly, Gough misses the point of the crucifixion: the resurrection. The overall message of the Bible is one of optimism. Yet Gough is right to call comedy "the gods' view" of life. Christianity can support humour and optimism, as the Bible, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bunyan and others show. It is when man becomes the measure of all things that death becomes the natural horizon, and tragedy the inevitable vision.

Paul New
Newcastle upon Tyne

Divine comedy 2
14th May 2007

It's a shame Julian Gough feels the need to bolster his wonderful lament for the comic novel by pointing a finger at a conveniently amorphous bogey, "the modern universities." Yet he has to reach as far as California for evidence, awkwardly citing a website prospectus. He seems unaware that for 25 years in Britain, creative writing programmes have existed not "on high" but on the subversive fringe of most English departments; that until recently, the individuals behind these programmes have had to be maverick and clear-sighted to survive; that the vast majority have never attempted to "teach the novel," but have worked instead to carve out a space in which new writers can develop their passions and knowhow. We rarely begrudge music, drama or art students this kind of community and the dynamic education it offers, but for some reason, Gough and others cling to that grim, romantic cliché of the isolated writer.

By lambasting "modern universities," Gough is also knocking some of our most exciting writers, who as tutors have offered a form of apprenticeship to nascent writers. This group has included Angela Carter, David Craig, Malcolm Bradbury, Michèle Roberts, Blake Morrison, Patricia Duncker, Jane Rogers, Lesley Glaister, Vicki Feaver, Jo Shapcott, Susanna Jones, Kathleen Jamie, Don Paterson, Richard Crane, Lavinia Greenlaw, John Burnside, AL Kennedy and other less known but equally inspiring individuals. Martin Amis himself is soon to pull up at Manchester University.

Alison MacLeod
Brighton

Why home doesn't matter
7th May 2007

Judith Rich Harris (May) suggests that the BBC series Child of Our Time—which I produced and wrote—overplays the power of parents and doesn't acknowledge that of peers. This is odd, since the series starts with several examples of peer power, such as young Parys declaring his intention to stop eating brown bread because his friends prefer white. At seven, our children, like their peers, want to fit in.

Peers are important in shaping personality, especially in the pre-teen and teenage years. Against this, most of us find—often to our horror—that as we get older we turn into our parents. Harris denies parents any influence over the personality of their children. But success in, for instance, education is levered first by the family and second by schools. Peers are less influential here, and children whose failure at school is put down to bad influences have, in fact, almost always chosen their friends because they fit.

Tessa Livingstone
BBC

The middle of nowhere 1
27th April 2007

Edward Luttwak's article (May) is wishful thinking. As demand exceeds global oil stocks, the middle east becomes a cold war battlefield by proxy. Iran has the latest Russian weapons, Hizbullah the most amazing Chinese anti-ship missiles, and no one knows who has the bomb. When Gaddafi surrendered his blueprints for the atom bomb, they were found to be written in Chinese. Russia and China intend to trade arms for access to Arab oil. Even illiterate countries can become dangerous with enough of the right weapons.

John Loftus
St Petersburg, Florida

The middle of nowhere 2
18th May 2007

Edward Luttwak's argument is bunk. While some of his points about the chronic Israel-Palestine problem ring horribly true, his wilful denial of the real significance of the wider region, and of Iran in particular, is astonishing.

Luttwak claims the middle east is irrelevant because it produces little but petroleum. Hasn't he heard that oil provides 95 per cent of all transport energy, and that spikes in the oil price have precipitated every major recession in the last 30 years? He also claims the region is irrelevant because it accounts for just 4 per cent of global GDP. By this logic, agriculture, which also accounts for 4 per cent of global GDP, must be equally trifling. But without it we'd all starve. Oil is just as fundamental to the modern economy.

Luttwak gets it wrong because his statistics are backward-looking. Middle east production may have fallen to 30 per cent of world supply, but this is unlikely to last. Non-Opec production will peak by 2010 or soon after, according to the International Energy Agency, the US department of energy, ExxonMobil and Shell. So if demand forecasts are to be satisfied, Opec will soon have to provide a much bigger proportion of global supply—almost 50 per cent by 2030—mostly from the middle east.

There are also justified fears that Opec output will peak within the next decade, thus dragging global oil production into terminal decline. Since Opec controls 75 per cent of known reserves—overwhelmingly concentrated in the middle east—the region will only become more critical, not less. This is particularly true if the issue of who gets to consume the remaining oil is decided by some mechanism other than financial markets.

David Strahan
Author, "The Last Oil Shock"

ICC in the dock
30th April 2007

Richard Dowden (May) poses some hard questions about whether the international criminal court (ICC) is doing more harm than good. But he spoils his case by tweaking the evidence and by exaggeration. In a world where developing countries often complain about double standards, surely a single standard is not a bad thing, particularly when it comes to the rule of law.

We have only just started to attempt to roll back the culture of impunity for gross breaches of humanitarian law. It is far too soon to be throwing in the towel. There has not yet been a single, clear instance where letting human rights abusers get away with their crimes has been the only way of securing peace. If and when that dilemma is posed, there is enough flexibility in the system to avoid being trapped. In any case, we can only judge the real value of the ICC after some years, when it may be possible to assess its effectiveness in deterring the abuses it was set up to punish.

David Hannay
Chair, UN Association of the UK