Ghost of a flea: A transvaluation of all values

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December 01, 2008

A transvaluation of all values

Theodore Dalrymple: For England, the past is another country.

André Maurois, the great French Anglophile, for example, wrote a classic text about British character, Les silences du Colonel Bramble. Maurois was a translator and liaison officer between the French and British armies during World War I and lived closely for many months with British officers and their men. Les silences was the fruit of his observations. Maurois found the British combination of social self-confidence and existential modesty attractive. It was then a common French opinion that the British were less intelligent than the French; and in the book, Maurois’ fictional alter ego, Aurelle, discusses the matter with one of the British officers. “ ‘Don’t you yourself find,≈ said Major Parker, Ωthat intelligence is valued by you at more than its worth? We are like the young Persians of whom Herodotus speaks, and who, until the age of twenty, learnt only three things: how to ride, archery and not to lie.’ ”

Aurelle spots the paradox: “You despise the academic,” he replies, “and you quote Herodotus. Even better, I caught you the other day in flagrante, reading Xenophon. . . . Very few French, I assure you . . .”

Parker quickly disavows any intellectual virtue in his choice of citations or reading matter. “That’s very different,” he says. “The Greeks and Romans interest us, not as an object of enquiry, but as our ancestors and as sportsmen. I like Xenophon—he is the perfect example of a British gentleman.”

Today, not so much. To my mind, Dalrymple's most important point in this piece: "It is a more important goal of government to uphold civilization than to find a general principle that will iron out all the apparent inconsistencies of the current dispensation."

As always, read the whole thing for context and, as you do so, please consider what we can do to reclaim that England (and that Canada and that America...).

One hopeful moment I have been meaning to pass on: My recent excursion to the annual book sale at Trinity College was an encounter with the same line ups, the same elbows and knees and - this year - the unpleasant discovery of just how many bibliophiles need to consider adding deodorant to their vocabularies. The Poetry section was picked over as never before and the Astrology/Occult section was, as usual, a bust. But I cleaned up in Classics and Military History, scoring a first edition of The Generalship of Alexander by J.F.C. Fuller and a gorgeous 1904 printing of Langhorne and Langhorne's Lives by Plutarch.

As much as I was pleased by my finds I was more pleased to learn the men competing with me for the classics were in Canadian armed forces uniforms. It may be that most of our people are no longer taught - and no longer care to learn - our most profound history. But it may be the most important of our people have not forgotten and are eager to educate themselves. I met a woman in the stacks who was organizing a drive to send reading materials to Canada's forces in Afghanistan. A number of us searched out some improving material to send along with the (also important) diversions.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at December 1, 2008 03:23 AM