Tennysonian Thoughts

[poliphilo]

The Sussex Downs are a range of low chalk hills running parallel to the English Channel. I went to school at Lancing College- a nineteenth century foundation that nestles in a fold of them. Depending on your politics and aesthetic sense, it's either a neo-gothic gem or a carbuncle.

It educated mid-level functionaries and soldiers for service in the British Empire- and lots and lots of priests. Also Evelyn Waugh and- so recently that I remember him as a nervy, god-like prefect- the leftist playwright David Hare.

The Downs above Lancing are a great place for thinking big thoughts. The wind blows hard. On a clear day you can see beyond Brighton to the Seven Sisters- the great white cliffs that defied Napoleon. And the sea is simply huge.

Over there, among the trees, the Romans had a temple. Some 19th century landowner planted the trees. He planted them in a clump or "ring" because he thought it looked "druidic". In the mid-twentieth century a coven of witches used to hold their meetings there.

Like I said- a great place for thinking Big Thoughts.

Teen-age thoughts.

And one of mine was that we needed a World Government. No more disputes among nations, no more war but, in stirring Tennysonese, "the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World."

O lucky me- forty years on my wish has come true. We have our World Government. It's called the Government of the United States of America.

What happens today in the Presidential election is of far greater importance to me- and the rest of us islanders and, indeed, the bulk of the world's population- than anything that might transpire in our cute and quaint little national elections.

And dammit, I don't have a vote.

I'm not wingeing. Not really. I can see the advantages of the present arrangement as well as the drawbacks. Maybe this is a first step on the way to a World Government- something I still believe in (I think).

We'll get there, we'll get there. It's a steep old path.

You know what an optimist I am.

Meanwhile, O citizens of the New Rome, enjoy your privilege and use it wisely.

Good morning, America- and have a nice day!

Comments

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

"What do YOU think?"

Yes... The question all children should be asked at regular intervals, not only to teach them to trust themselves, but also to teach them that they ought to have opinions. Being opinionated is not the most appealing of qualities, but somehow I relate to that sort of people far more easily than to opinion-less people.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

And now my mother is forced to listen to my opinions! Well, serves her right!

Too bad she's not so easily convinced...

(I am very tense today. I'm worried about our nation, and I'm worried about the world, too. This feels like a world-history-making day. I hope for the best.)

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

We all seem to be mixed up in this... Hmm... -And this internerd-thing is not making it any easier to detach from it!

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I was just talking (online) with a friend who says she is looking forward to a voting party tonight because she is "so tense."

This is a common feeling here today. It's hard to define--what is that German word for atmosphere--zeithgeist?

It's in the air. We're all feeling something is moving. Scary.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

And even scarier the thought that things might not move at all; the realisation that, regardless of the outcome, things will be more or less the same tomorrow and the day after that. But then; the hope... The hope that someday somethings might be just slightly different.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

My worst fear is that we will become a police state.

I see signs of it: the War is becoming a blank check for the administration to suppress free speech.

I've never thought of myself as paranoid, or as politically minded, but the world, as Galadriel said at the beginning of LOTR, "has changed."

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Had written great comment, drawing parallels between Bush's rhetorics, LOTR and Lyotard's "end of the Great Stories", but my internet connection timed out, and posterity will not be able to marvel at my temporary brilliance... Ah, well; back to being mediocre, then! (Anyway; if Bush ever catches Bin Laden he's going to be on the look-out for a new enemy, and intuitively one might feel that his greatest enemy would be European (especially francophone) intellectuals... Better not be one of them, then!)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... Had written great comment, drawing parallels between Bush's rhetorics, LOTR and Lyotard's "end of the Great Stories", but my internet connection timed out, and posterity will not be able to marvel at my temporary brilliance... Ah, well; back to being mediocre, then!

A groan of commiseration coming your way! How I can relate to this!

Know what I have learned to do? Just before I hit the "Post" button, I grab everything by copying it...

LJ has been slow to dead at posting all day.

As for your comments: I was reading in The Onion (from January 2003) the funny but unsettling farce article "Bush on North Korea: 'We Must Invade Iraq'" -- it's true: there will always be another place to conquer, and a pretext to do it.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I tend to write comments in my LJ client and the copy-paste them, but sometimes I'm too lazy if I won't be using the html functions anyway...

But yes; Bush has cast himself as a 'flat' character - pure white, of course - and so he needs an oponent in order to seem in any way credible within the plot. He needs a Darth Wader to his Skywalker, so to speak. Of course, some of us do not buy the very premises of this plot, and so it is wasted on us, but it does seem to work on others. God; I'm such a cliché of a student of literature at times! Anyhow...

(And yes; Bush and geography, well... We've been laughing at it for years, but it really is rather sad.)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

But yes; Bush has cast himself as a 'flat' character - pure white, of course - and so he needs an oponent in order to seem in any way credible within the plot. He needs a Darth Wader to his Skywalker, so to speak. Of course, some of us do not buy the very premises of this plot, and so it is wasted on us, but it does seem to work on others. God; I'm such a cliché of a student of literature at times! Anyhow...

I appreciate your clever thinking!

Whether some of us buy the plot's premises is, I think, irrelevant, once the archetypes are activated...

(God: I'm such a cliche of a student of Jung at times...)

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

I confess to a lack of knowledge about psycho-analysis... But I do think it is interesting to look at the sort of narrative that has been created or use psychological terms to express our perception of it; why leave all this stuff to the sociologists and historians?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

But I do think it is interesting to look at the sort of narrative that has been created or use psychological terms to express our perception of it; why leave all this stuff to the sociologists and historians?

When it's all put together--history, psychology, sociology, and the art, music, and stories of an era--surely we have a picture that is more complete.

My sister, who has a Master's in history, tells me that history books can be very biased and often factually incorrect, something that never occurred to me, since history bored me.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Of course they're biased; they're representations based on the selection of a human being, and try as we might, we can never quite avoid having our own agenda hidden somewhere... Objectivity is not necessarily a bad goal, but you'll never quite get there, and so a documentary by Michael Moore can be said to be more honest than a history book on 17th century Poland, as Moore expresses his subjectivity in far clearer terms... Moore holds out "Fahrenheit 9-11" to us and says "look; this is MY representation of the events", whereas someone dealing with older history might not themselves be aware that they will inevitably have some sort of biased or predetermined conclusion in their research and representation.