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Handful of Dust

~ Borrowed thoughts from a liberal educator.

Handful of Dust

Category Archives: Ideas

All the wisdom not on Google

06 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by Philosophy Dust in Current Affairs, History, Ideas, Politics

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books, brexit, internet, knowledge, libraries, patriotism, tradition

It is often suggested that we now have access to all the world’s knowledge through the internet.  This is said or implied so frequently that I find myself seeing Google not as a supplement to my once-favoured libraries, but as an alternative to them.  The information and wisdom that previously would have been found within books is now available at the click of a mouse.

A happy afternoon of serendipitous discoveries in the British Library reminded me why this view is wrong.  This huge institution receives a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom: about 184,000 each year.  The contents of these books largely do not exist on the internet.  A Google search will not reveal the full information they contain.  So if you think we can rely on finding everything we need online, then you will miss most of the conversations between author and reader that are happening every day.

The British Library, in London’s St. Pancras

You might argue that this does not matter, because the most important ideas will be brought out of those books and discussed elsewhere too: in newspapers, magazines, blogs, television and radio.  You could find evidence of all this on the internet, and therefore do not need to worry about missing the books themselves.  Surely this is enough for the lay person.

I disagree, because it is not just the current conversation that you would be missing.  The British Library’s total stock comprises more than 25 million books.  The further back in time a book was published, the less you are to find its contents on the web — even with the laudable efforts being made to digitise the most venerable of our ancient tomes.  These books, accessible in libraries but not via Google, let you see the world from long-forgotten perspectives.  They can lift you above the inward-looking concerns of the 21st century, and let you see our modern life again, as if from the outside.

This post is partly an excuse to share an example which I think neatly illustrates my point.  In today’s 180-character political arguments, we tend to regard patriotism as the hobby of jingoistic reactionaries who wish we could return to a fantasy past of red phone boxes, grammar schools and imperial measures.  But during my afternoon in the British Library I happened upon a speech that is more helpful.  It shows how we might channel patriotism and tradition to help us flourish in changing circumstances, without getting stuck in the ways of the past.  It is a view that we do not tend to hear in our daily peregrinations across digital and social media.  Nor is it a speech that you could have found online; at least I could not find it even by entering direct quotes into Google, or by searching with related terms or exact details.  Yet it is hugely relevant for us now, as we rethink how Britain should re-form itself as an independent nation after Brexit.

By typing the speech into this blog post, I am immortalising it for our internet age.  In future, a lucky browser could find these words.  But I also hope that this entry will inspire you to wonder what else might be found in those dusty old books beyond the internet.

Extract from a speech by Lord Rosebery to the Seaforth Highlanders, circa 1931*:

A great past is the inspiration of the present.  Memories are among man’s finest possessions.  A splendid achievement never dies.  It lives on in the memory of one generation after another, and it fructifies in the hearts of men, becoming the parent of other fine deeds.  

A boy goes to school and a man joins a regiment, and at once they are faced with the obligation to carry on the traditions.  To allow today to be unworthy of yesterday is shameful.  If their admiration is stirred by recalling what has been done, their ambition is also roused to be worthy to be counted among the giants of the past.  It is for them to hand along the record to the next comer unsullied, and maybe with added lustre.  

Tradition is the basis of patriotism.  Great Britain is no mere island on the west coast of Europe.  It is not only the place where we ourselves happen to live.  It was the birthplace of mighty heroes, great poets, splendid statesmen, who made England and the English famous in the world.  It is for us to maintain what our forefathers have won.  It is for us to be jealous for their and our country’s good name.

But traditions may be a hindrance as well as an inspiration.   It is the spirit that matters.  Rigid adherence to the letter means disaster.  Each generation must discover its own methods.  The lives of those who have gone before teach us that success depends on thoroughness, industry, enterprise, experiment.  

These all remain necessary.  But if we stand content with the out-of-date machinery of life, urging as a plea that it was ‘good enough for our fathers’, we are making failure certain and are prostituting their memory, because we are using tradition to cloak lack of courage, lack of initiative, lack of persistence!  When the next naval battle is fought, if it ever be fought, it will be splendid to recall the spirit of Nelson and Nelson’s men, but it would be absurd to fight it in Nelson’s ships.

* Quoted in Lewis C. Rudd, 1935: The Duke of York’s Royal Military School: Its History, Aims and Associations.  This Lord Rosebery was Harry Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery (lived 1882-1974) – son of Archibald Primrose, the 5th earl and Liberal Prime Minister from 1894-1895.  He served in WW1 as a Grenadier Guards officer, played as a professional cricketer, represented Edinburghshire as a Liberal MP, and served as Secretary of State for Scotland.

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Political parties are not all the same. This book will help you prove it.

07 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by Philosophy Dust in History, Ideas, Philosophy, Politics

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Burke, conservatism, Conservative Party, Edmund Burke, Jesse Norman, Tories

‘Edmund Burke: The First Conservative’ by Jesse Norman

Political parties: “They’re all the same!” runs the familiar refrain. I understand why you might say that. It’s hard to find out what our politicians are really thinking. We rely on the kind of superficial, agenda-driven media coverage you can digest with your cornflakes. Eventually we get hold of election manifestos, but they are a mere shadow of the real thing, the result of unseen compromise and populist calculation. We scrabble around in the dark, guessing at motives. Without further enlightenment the politicians all feel pretty similar.

Are you thinking what we're thinking?

No wonder Michael Howard failed so dismally with his 2005 election campaign: ‘Are you thinking what we’re thinking?’

There is a solution. Modern political parties are philosophical groupings. They gather people who hold similar values; people who tend to agree on the kinds of policy that are best for society. If you can understand what brought them together, then at last you have proper insight into what their politicians might be thinking. You’ll see gut politics, before calculation and compromise take their toll. Political parties don’t all look the same once you understand their diverging philosophies.

Edmund Burke book front

‘Edmund Burke: The First Conservative’ by Jesse Norman

This book will help you understand the Conservative Party. The author drops you straight into the commotion of 18th Century life, and shows you Edmund Burke: “the greatest and the most underrated political thinker in the last 300 years.” Burke’s energetic writings and magisterial rhetoric championed an intellectually robust conservatism before the movement was properly born. Forget about the lazily false accusation that conservatives are nasty supporters of the rich at the expense of those in need. For Burke, the nation is a “partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” He believed in “personal liberty but not individual licence,” bounded by social order. He believed in careful political reform that makes progress without jeopardising what we have already achieved. And he believed in a strong society of balanced institutions, within which everybody has the safety to flourish. It’s the antithesis of today’s liberal individualism.

We discover that Burke is a deeply caring man, but one who was led by considerations of practicality and consequence before token political posturing. “Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption.”

But of course the long-dead Burke cannot tell you everything you need to know about conservatives nowadays, no matter how well the author colours him back to life. History moved on, and philosophy matured through Burke’s intellectual legacy. Even liberal individualism pops up in the modern Conservative Party. Today’s Conservatives are a patchwork coalition with three overlapping philosophical strands: free market ‘Thatcherite’ conservatism, one nation conservatism, and traditionalist conservatism. This May’s election manifesto will reflect at least some thought from all of them. Better get reading then…

See ‘Edmund Burke: The First Conservative’ on Goodreads

Like what you hear? For a modern treatise that owes much to Burke’s ideas, enjoy Roger Scruton’s A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism.

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The strength of quiet people: Susan Cain’s advice for introverts

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Philosophy Dust in Ideas

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emotional intelligence, introvert, leadership, personality, quiet

‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking’ by Susan Cain

For a long time I resisted buying this book. I have spent years refusing to admit to a deeply introverted temperament, considering it a personal weakness. And it turns out there are millions more people in the same quiet position. Yet Susan Cain argues that introversion need not be a weakness. Deployed well, qualities common among introverts (perception, analysis, persistence, concentration and sensitivity) can be of great benefit in life, leadership and work. On a practical level, Cain offers guidance: on maintaining the necessary bursts of extroverted behaviour, on managing the resultant social fatigue and craving for ‘downtime’, and on playing to our strengths wherever possible. What a relief!

Rating: *****

See ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking’ on Goodreads.

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C.S. Lewis’s witty insight into religious morality

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Philosophy Dust in Ideas, Philosophy, Religion

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apologetics, c.s. lewis, Christianity, screwtape letters, theology

‘The Screwtape Letters’ by C.S. Lewis

I often argue that religious morality has a deep advantage over secular morality. Both look similar from the outside, but religion continuously spurs a person to self-examine inner motivations and honestly assess their own character in a way that the secular stimulus of societal censure cannot manage alone.

C.S. Lewis examines this ‘inner life’ through the imaginary medium of two disgustingly-named devils strategically conspiring to win a soul for Hell. It works well. He lays bare the little tricks that we use every day to disguise our true motivations even from ourselves. We are proud, for example, of our ‘unselfishness’ – which is really the exact opposite of the selfless love that should be the only reason for acting.

It is a witty book too, which is perhaps what saves it from a descent into bland sermonising.

Rating: *****

See ‘The Screwtape Letters’ on Goodreads

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We still need the sacred in a mechanistic world

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Philosophy Dust in Ideas, Philosophy, Religion

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aesthetics, book review, Roger Scruton, sacred

‘The Soul of the World’ by Roger Scruton

We may have lost God, argues philosopher of aesthetics Roger Scruton, but we still need a sense of ‘the sacred’. Don’t be so quick to dismiss such a concept as vague nonsense. Like much of Roger Scruton’s thought, it is impeccably nuanced and rewards close examination. He argues that the sacred is of fundamental relevance to a life well-lived, and then plunges into a definition and defence of it that weaves together human experience of other people, civilisation, society, law, architecture, art, music and religion. Mechanistic explanations of the world have served us well, he says, but fall far short of a full human understanding of it. Important features emerge from the mechanics, but are not reducible to them. A full understanding of music cannot be reached by describing a sequence of pitched sounds. A painting is more than an arrangement of pixels. Consciousness is more than the firing of neurons. There is something missing — something that is crucial to the way we humans interact with the world. Much valuable insight ensues, even if you worry that Scruton has opened up a chasm which he cannot quite fill.

Rating: ****

See ‘The Soul of the World’ on Goodreads

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