{Wretched Russia}[2nd December 1970]

[Redbook1:190][19701202.0000]{Wretched Russia}[2nd December 1970]

Wed. 2nd December 1970 [continued].

            The appalling thing about Russia is that a country of such enormous resources and with such a diversity of people should lead such a miserable existence.

[PostedBlogger3105for01062013]

{Duty and Responsibility}[2nd December 1970]

[Redbook1:189-190][19701202.0000]{Duty and Responsibility}[2nd December 1970]

Wed. 2nd December 1970.

            I may have said before that I believe that people should not be held to account for the actions of their governments -- even in democracies.

            I think this is a terribly important point.  Two things seem to follow from it.

            First, war is wrong on this count as well: nearly always it is the government that makes the war and the people that cops it.

            Secondly, it might seem that this excuses citizens from feeling a duty to influence their governments in some direction.  Of course it doesn't, by this analogy: if I am walking down the street and I see a father attacking his child with obviously murderous intent, I do not walk on – even though they are not of my family and in that sense it has nothing to do with me.  I shall try to save the child through some deeply-felt obligation to humanity in general.  Had I not done so I should have felt in part responsible for the child’s suffering.  The fact that the father is no relation of mine is irrelevant: I happened to be there.  The fact that I am not accountable for the actions of my government is irrelevant: I live here, and they are my government, so I may consider myself to have a duty to try and influence them.  No one else may hold me to blame for the government's actions.

            This is not to be confused with resistance to one’s own government in time of national defence, which is a degree of development away from nature (?) that we cannot yet afford.  Treachery towards one's own race or species must always seem among the greater crimes.

[PostedBlogger31052013]

{The Arms Race}[26th November 1970]

[Redbook1:188-189][19701126.0000]{The Arms Race}[26th November 1970]

Wednesday 26th November 1970

            ‘This whole situation is upside-down -- cracked – mad!  Here we are spending money on arms which could be used on education and raising the standard of living.  And why?  Because in another part of the world there are people wasting money in exactly the same way!  And why?  Because here we are, spending money on arms....’

            ‘Alright: so what are you going to do about it?’

            ‘Nothing.  There isn't anything I can do.  Do you think I can decrease our arms reserve and let them walk right in, all over the world?’

            ‘But don't you see?  That way we’ll never stop.  All of this communist-scare business is obsolete and unjustified, anyway.  It's about time we all grew up!’

            ‘Quite so.  But look: in your street you have a neighbour whom you don't much like.  He doesn't much like you either.  Your gardens adjoin.  One day the common fence blows down and [he] goes off on holiday.  What are you going to do?  Aren't you going to put the fence back up a little further over his way, and take in a bit of his garden so he won't notice?’

            ‘No, of course not.  I wouldn't dream of it.  It'd be a most improper thing to do.’

            ‘Right.  That's easy.  Now, he doesn't like you, and you distrust him.  One day the fence blows down just as you're due to go off on holiday.  You can see him eyeing it, thoughtfully.  He watches you getting ready to go.  Do you leave that fence down, knowing that if he moves it when you're away you won't know any better?  Or do you put it back up before you go, even at the risk of delaying a holiday?’

            ‘That’s a damn stupid analogy.  I’d have tried to make it up with him long ago.’

            ‘It wouldn't have done any good.  Supposing he’d tricked you -- pretended to be a friendly, suggested joining up your gardens, then taken over?’

            ‘Then I’d have gone to Court.’

            ‘There isn't any.  That's the crunch: there's nothing you can do afterwards.  It's always got to be prevention, and deterrence.  Punishment, actual use of punishment, is an admission of failure.’

[PostedBlogger29for30052013]

{Education for Change}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:187][19701117e]{Education for Change}[17th November 1970]

Wed 17/11/70 [continued]

            We are approaching this the wrong way.  The world -- our world, I mean -- is composed of individuals, and the way to change the life of the world is through the individuals: through education and communication in particular.  Political manoeuvring is clumsy, though we have so arranged things that for most of us it is all we can hope to do; politics is a clumsy science.  But communication and education can change the inside of a man with more accuracy, in the right hands, and with more effect than ever politics could.

[PostedBlogger29052013]

{Speakers}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:186-187][19701117d]{Speakers}[17th November 1970]

Wed 17/11/70 [continued]

            The right-wing speakers were generally worse speakers but more honest.  Robert Honick’s speech was remarkable, ingenious -- no criticism implied -- and extremely well-argued.  They all started off uncertainly and got better.

            Jim Powell's was remarkable, possibly the best speech of the evening.  Although he suggested abstention, his speech was largely responsible for my voting the way I did.

            The left-wing were all more confident but characterised by slightly dishonest methods of speaking -- even the Bishop of Stepney.  Cheap laughs, false analogies, and other political speakers’ tricks rather spoilt the effects of their speeches for me; what surprised me was that no one else saw through them.

            It is perhaps surprising, in view of this, that I voted against supplying arms to South Africa.  I haven't in fact made up my mind, but on that night Jim Powell convinced me, for a time at least, that it would be politically wrong to supply arms to South Africa.  The other thing was something the Bishop of Stepney said about the real question being why we are supplying arms at all.  For once I agree with what he said, though possibly not with what he meant.

[PostedBlogger28052013]

{Russian Colonialism}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:186][19701117c]{Russian Colonialism}[17th November 1970]

Wed 17/11/70 [continued]

            The second thing is that there was, inevitably, much comparison with the Russians.  One interesting, though probably irrelevant point occurred to me: if the Russians arrived in South Africa they would almost certainly create a situation of equality by removing the votes from West Europeans and the latter from their privileged positions which they would fill with Russians.  At last we would have solved the problem in South Africa: Black, Boer and English would be united in a common hatred of Russian: but would they have a dog's chance of doing anything about it?

            No.

           

[PostedBlogger27052013]

{Arms Exports}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:184][19701117b]{Arms Exports}[17th November 1970]

Wed 17/11/70 [continued]

            Two things in particular occurred to me during last night's debate.*

            Our chief concern should be not with the politics of mass response, but with individuals as the components of the masses.  These individuals suffer less, physically, under a stable regime than in an unstable situation.  Democracy is perhaps the most stable system we know, if the people will have it so; tyranny is not so stable; but anarchy is by very definition most unstable.  Should we not therefore sell arms to South Africa, arms to be used for internal repression, so as to contribute to the stability of the situation?

            I think it was the Bishop of Stepney who said at that debate that Britain -- we -- should feel bitterly ashamed of causing hundreds of thousands of children to die, by sending arms to Nigeria.  I think this showed a strange lack of perception.  Apart from the obvious (though maybe irrelevant) fact that I didn't elect the Labour Government, there is this to consider: if the Nigerian and British governments had seen the Biafran troubles coming sooner and had stocked up arms earlier, they might well have been able to prevent it happening at all -- hence less loss of life, less suffering (one hopes; maybe).  There is also the point that most of the children who died, died not of violence but of starvation and disease; and I do not know, of those who did die violently, how many died by the knife and the spear rather than the gun.

            I noticed that despite what Stepney said Denis Healey (a member of the previous Labour government] made no reply -- but of course Stepney was stepping out of line, since the debate was on arms to South Africa.  I did feel that Healey’s hope that Stepney would soon have a chance to criticise a Labour government again should have been followed by the words ‘and I hope we have as little need to pay attention to what he says as we did last time’.

*[probably at the Cambridge Union]

[PostedBlogger26052013]

{Union Power}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:184][19701117a]{Union Power}[17th November 1970]

Wed 17/11/70 [continued]

            It is fairly obvious that the Unions have proved the use of fiscal and monetary policy as a squeeze mechanism impossible.  Therefore we must find some other way of removing money from the economy, since even Heath’s Bill will not, I think, control the Unions in this sense.  What else is there to do?

[PostedBlogger26for25052013]

{Ways of thought}[17th November 1970]

[Redbook1:184][19701117]{Ways of thought}[17th November 1970]

Tue 17/11/70

            The variety of people is not so much in their intelligence as in their differing ways of thought.

[PostedBlogger24052013]

{Morality and Excellence}[11th November 1970]

[Redbook1:184][19701111.0000]{Morality and Excellence}[11th November 1970]

Wed 11/11/70.

            Part of the trouble with us is, and is shown in, the two meanings of all the words meaning the same as ‘better’: this might be characterised as ‘technically better does not imply/should not imply morally better’.  ‘I am better than you’ (technically); ‘No you're not’ (morally).  This works from individual to nation-state (a nation-state being but a collection of individuals).

[PostedBlogger23052013]

{‘Gifted’}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:183][19701108.2045f]{‘Gifted’}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            It was a real surprise to me to discover recently that I'm classified as 'gifted' -- or was when young.  Mind you, I always thought so myself but I had no idea anyone else had realised.  I now follow discussions on 'gifted' children in the Sunday Times etc with especial interest as having some bearing on my own imagined peculiarities.

[PostedBlogger22052013]

{Method}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:183][19701108.2045e]{Method}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            Please remember that I very rarely look through what I have written, after writing it; and when I look back over the work of a week before and see an ambiguity, I dare not change it.

            This also explains numerous spelling mistakes -- though I do change them when I see them, which is not very often.  I don't really spell ‘write’ ‘right’, it's just that when I'm writing what I'm thinking I let the words look after themselves on paper -- which they do (I must assume) according to their sound in the mind’s ear.

[PostedBlogger21052013]

{The Seamless Web}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:183][19701108.2045d]{The Seamless Web}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            Society is so complicated; it is a great amalgam, an intricate web of tiny details and petty pressures.  There is a great need of some people with a capacity to understand something of all these forces.  No science is well-defined at its borders, but the social sciences simply have no limits: they merge, one into the other, in a fascinating and terrifying way.  Men set up artificial boundaries to aid their own understanding, but let it be clearly understood that such boundaries are merely a scholar's device.  Man relies on them at his peril.

[PostedBlogger20052013]

{Personal Standpoint}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:182][19701108.2045c]{Personal Standpoint}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            Perhaps I should define my attitudes as being socially left-wing and economically right-wing -- with my politics coming somewhere between the two: falling between and, perhaps, failing between.  I should treat all men, personally, as individuals equally worthy of respect, recognising nevertheless that the economic system which makes progress to greater content possible demands that certain inequalities and scarcities be recognised.

[PostedBlogger19052013]

{Anarchy Island}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:182][19701108.2045b]{Anarchy Island}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            How about an island reserved for people who can't stand being governed?  If it worked, we could send them all there and we might learn something; if it didn't, we should at least become depressingly certain that government is a necessary evil.

[PostedBlogger18052013]

{Internal War}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:182][19701108.2045a]{Internal War}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm [continued]

            On the other hand, as Lindsay said, internal strife may replace it -- cheaper, effective, and it works off frustrations.

[PostedBlogger17052013]

{Trade and Peace}[8th November 1970]

[Redbook1:182][19701108.2045]{Trade and Peace}[8th November 1970]

Sun 8/11/70. 8.45pm

            If we bind the world in a web of trade, so we may push war out of business.

[PostedBlogger16052013]

{Emotional Cycles?}[4th November 1970]

[Redbook1:182][19701104.0000]{Emotional Cycles?}[4th November 1970]

Wed 4/11/70

            The record starts here: am I cyclical?              Depressed.

[PostedBlogger15052013]

{Demo}[1st November 1970]

[Redbook1:181][19701101.0000]{Demo}[1st November 1970]

Sun. 1.11.70.

            Varsity [the Cambridge student newspaper] this week says that there were nine hundred people at the picket outside the Senate House last Monday.  I think one of the speakers there gave a similar figure fairly early on in the meeting.

            I was there.  My own calculations at the time were as follows: at the beginning there were about three hundred people there; by early lunchtime this had shrunk to about one hundred and fifty, which the speaker estimated as three hundred.

            In addition to this, the figures were inflated by a number of things.  First, at the beginning at least (and possibly later) there was a fairly noisy right-wing contingent of about twenty in one group.  How many right-wingers or uncommitted people were there, like myself, to see what happened, I don't know; it could have been as high as twenty per cent.  It was fairly high because the Senate was meeting in the Law Schools and a lot of lawyers on the way in or out stayed to find out what was happening.

            Perhaps the most startling thing about it for me was that after a few hours I began to feel that I wanted something violent to happen -- otherwise I should have been cheated.

[PostedBlogger14052013]

{Artistic Expression}[28th October 1970]

[Redbook1:180][19701028.2350b]{Artistic Expression}[28th October 1970]

Wed 11.50pm 28.10.70. [continued]

            For some time now I have wished that I could paint, and compose music.  I could probably learn to draw mechanically, and I could probably develop a talent for catchy tunes; but would either be what I really wanted?

[PostedBlogger13052013]

{Love and Fear}[28th October 1970]

[Redbook1:180][19701028.2350a]{Love and Fear}[28th October 1970]

Wed 11.50pm 28.10.70. [continued]

            How can one keep going the philosophy of love save by the politics of fear?

[PostedBlogger12052013]

{Practical politics}[28th October 1970]

[Redbook1:180][19701028.2350]{Practical politics}[28th October 1970]

Wed 11.50pm 28.10.70.

            Practical politics is not a matter of polarisation, or of opposites or extremes; it is a business of degree.

[PostedBlogger11052013]

{A Sense of Humour}[26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:180][19701026.0000]{A Sense of Humour}[26th October 1970]

Mon 26/10/70 [continued]

            The Pope said of his 40 British Martyrs: They died with serenity and joy, simplicity and ‘not without that precious gift of humour which is typical of their people’.

            I still think that the name “Great” Britain is deserved for the humour with which, on the whole, the British have accepted and even facilitated their own loss of a more obvious greatness.

           

[PostedBlogger10052013]

{South Africa}[26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:179-180][19701026.0000]{South Africa}[26th October 1970]

Mon 26/10/70

            “What do you think about arms to South Africa?  Don't you agree that it is immoral?”

            “Well, look: if you were Mr Heath [the UK Prime Minister], and you believed -- as we must presume he does --  that there is a growing Soviet threat in the Indian Ocean, threatening the Cape Route, would you have any alternative but to attempt to counter that threat at any price?”

            “But there is no such threat!  Haven't you heard...?

            “Now wait a minute.  You may be as qualified as Mr Heath to pronounce on the ethics and morals of backing a system of apartheid in any way, but one thing you most certainly do not know as much about as Mr Heath is the nature of politics in the Indian Ocean.  Nor does Mr Kaunda [the President of Zambia] or anyone else in Africa; nor, quite possibly, do the C.I.A., since the Ocean and the Cape are of far less vital importance to them.  Probably the only people who know as much about it as Mr Heath and his men are the Russians, and they aren't telling.  Mr Heath may be wrong about the danger there, but if he is it is on a mountain of knowledge that you can never hope to rival.

            “Of course you may be right about the immorality of countenancing apartheid whatever the circumstances; but if you are right, and [if] Mr Heath is right, we may end up replacing white dictatorship in the south of the continent by Russian-backed dictatorship over the whole of it -- which would get us nowhere.”

[PostedBlogger09052013]

{Filming}[26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:179a][19701026.0000]{Filming}[26th October 1970]

Mon 26/10/70

            I should like to go to Russia, or China, but especially Russia, and make films there.

[PostedBlogger08052013]

{My Friend Toad}[c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179C][197010c.]{My Friend Toad}[c. October 1970]

            “My friend Toad lives under a stone too; but he and his Stone stay put and watch the world go past.  It's a quiet life and a happy one, and as Toad watches us he thanks God for insects and his Stone.  He laughs at the petty bustle of our frantic days; he rejoices in his own changeless meditation.  Poor Toad!  He feels so smug, so detached; he doesn't realise that one day the police will come to him too, and he'll be Toad away.”

[PostedBlogger07052013]

{The Burden}[c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179C][197010c.]{The Burden}[c. October 1970]

                                    “I knew a man who bore a stone

                                    Around and round the world

                                    And as he passed I heard him groan

                                    And saw his backbone curled.

                                    ‘Why do you bare that stone’ I cried

                                    ‘For ever and a day?

                                    ‘Surely it bores you stiff!’  He sighed

                                    ‘It bares my soul, away.’

                                    Poor fool!  He died last May; his backbone snapped, and the stone rolled downhill and was broken up for building.  His soul is bare now, much good may it do him; whether it is borne, away or anew, I know not.”

[PostedBlogger06052013]

{The Answer}[c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179B][197010c.]{The Answer}[c. October 1970]

            “I looked at the world, and liked it not; I looked again at the world and then I crawled into my own hole in space, my own black nothingness, and thought, in isolation, alone.

            Long time I thought, and I knew the problem, and I found the answer.

            From my dark hole I crept back into the world with all my answer, and showed the world.

            But the world rejected it, for the world had changed.

            And anyway by that time I'd forgotten the number I first thought of.”

[PostedBlogger05052013]

{Where is Reason?}[c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179B][197010c.]{Where is Reason?}[c. October 1970]

            “Where is reason?  Reason sleeps not, nor is it dead; reason lived not ever; reason never was.  Emotion rules man; all is instinct, and blind sensation.  Shout!  Shout! – children, and yet you will not be heard; shout and the crowd shouts with you: think, and you think alone.  Man stands tall, and stretches to the Stars, and his feet crumble beneath him, and he sinks back into the mire.  Oh God!  Will there never be an end?  Oh God relieve us from our misery into the instantaneous oblivion of the nova Sun.”

[PostedBlogger04052013]

{Sanity}[c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179B][197010c.]{Sanity}[c. October 1970]

            "Sanity, sanity! saith the Lord; where is sanity?"

[PostedBlogger03052013]

[Right-wing Rambles, or, The Central Line][c. October 1970]

[Redbook1:179A][197010c.][Right-wing Rambles, or, The Central Line][c. October 1970]

Right-wing

Rambles,

or, the

Central

Line.

Dear Fanny,

            I'm afraid this is in rather a rush -- we've just got back from London where we had a delightful rally and demo around Trafalgar Square.  Everyone was there, of course.  We all had a super time airing our consciences until they stepped in and spoiled things as usual.  Funny how with a change in government they seem to change their allegiance so easily.  Still, Mark says it all helps in the long run so we were all as awkward as we could be.  Then they picked on Paul -- it wasn't that he was any worse than we were, they just picked on him.  Dirty.  As they dragged him into the police bus I tried to explain to him what Mark said but he didn't seem to understand.  Then back into the coach and home in time for tea and watch ourselves on the News.  I see what Mark means.  You can always rely on them to lend a helping hand if you're prepared to stand up for your rights.

            Must go now -- got to get ready for picketing the Senate House tomorrow.  I'll write and tell you about it.

            Love,

                        Sal.

[PostedBlogger02052013]

{Student Left Slogan}[25th-26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:179][19701025-26:0000]{Student Left Slogan}[25th-26th October 1970]

Sun-Mon (12 midnight) 25-26/10/70 [continued]

            “Suppose they held a war and nobody came” -- Suppose they held a demo and forgot to tell anybody what it was about?

[I think what got up my nose about the student left (given that my kind of family was among their targets) was their general lack of interest in discussing the issues rationally, or at all.... <920926>]

[PostedBlogger01052013]

{Revolutionary Tactics [continued]}[25th-26th October 1970]

[Redbook1:178][19701025-26:0000]{Revolutionary Tactics [continued]}[25th-26th October 1970]

Sun-Mon (12 midnight) 25-26/10/70

            ‘We had a demo today -- lots of beautiful people there -- everyone most agreeable and kind -- and so back to Cambridge in time for tea and watch ourselves on the News.’

[PostedBlogger0105for30042013]