I have just learned that the brilliant essay on Lord of the Rings by Charles Mills did not go missing but was in his papers at his death and has now been published. I have just read, or rather reread, the essay and it is as wonderful as I remembered. Once I manage to get a link to the essay in its published form I will post it here.
So the world is not all bad
It is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sjp.12477
ReplyDeleteI can access it with a university account, but others without such access probably won't be able to read it in this form.
The article is free to read (without need of any account), but downloading or printing have been disabled.
DeleteThank you, Jordan
ReplyDeleteYes, I can't read it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, such a cock-up to title a post on this day 'Great News' and end the post with 'the world is not all bad'. Terrific timing, you Americans.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteAmericans are no more clairvoyant, e.g., regarding the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, than are the Brits, e.g., regarding the consequences of Brexit.
The royal family and their faux elitism makes one, or me at least, have a Marxist outlook
ReplyDelete"Faux elitism"? Hardly, Howie. Her family's elitism is, I suppose, at the pinnacle of elitism in Britain, though the marrying down of the new king's two sons may have jolted some dyed in the wool elitists of a more traditional sort. No, I think it's their faux populism--their penchant for the lower forms of TV entertainment, their walking of horrible little dogs, . . .--that has to be deplored as an instrument for gulling the masses. That's where I think a Marxist should focus: the role of the royal family in buttressing a system that is clearly increasingly incapable of providing the means of survival to its wage slaves. And as I've just tried to suggest, part of that family's function has been to try to get people to believe that "we're just like you," "we're all in this together," the sort of misrepresentation that some Americans also engage in.
ReplyDeletePS. there are some in the UK who are even wrse than the royal family: https://skwawkbox.org/2022/09/08/starmer-posts-picture-of-his-soul-after-death-of-monarch-he-wanted-to-abolish/
ReplyDeleteI recall watching the coronation of Elizabeth on TV with my mother: we had just bought our first TV. My mother, now deceased, loved ceremonies and rituals and in addition, was a fervent Anglophile post-World War 2.
ReplyDeleteSo Elizabeth's death saddens me.
I vote left, I donate money to the left, I argue for the left when faced with the right, but I reserve the right to feel and think non-left thoughts. A bit of thought crime from time to time is good for one's sanity.
Tracey Ullman had a great deal of fun with the Royals. If you can see this through your tears, perhaps it will bring a smile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKgGeq-lk98&ab_channel=traceyullmanvideos
ReplyDeleteJohn Rapko,
ReplyDeleteThanks...
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteI join you in experiencing a degree of sadness with the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. She played a role, however removed, in our lives, and her passing marks the demise of a substantial part of our lives, as well.
None of us chooses the circumstances into which we are born. She did not choose to be born into the British royal family, at a time when Britain was engulfed in its own defense against a formidable fascist aggressor. At the young age of 18, she was thrust into the public arena and eloquently addressed her country by radio, giving her people hope to face the future in a very uncertain time. She spoke with a maturity that few of her age could equal. Coronated as Queen at the age of 22, she dedicated herself to duty and service, always knowledgeably prepared to meet with the Prime Minister of the moment, and, respecting her role as a constitutional monarch, refraining from voicing her personal opinion regarding policies – with one exception, when she spoke critically to Margaret Thatcher of the adverse effect Thatcher’s policies were having on less fortunate members of British society. I cannot say that she had an easy life, despite the accoutrements of wealth. Being human, she made mistakes, particularly regarding her treatment of Princess Diana and her failure to recognize the effect that Diana had on the populace and how her death traumatized them. Still, based on what I have seen and read, she was always gracious. She treated Meghan Markle congenially, and did not display any of the racist discomfort that others in the royal family reportedly showed. Whether liberal or conservative, Marxist or capitalist, I believe she deserves our respect for her dedication to duty, for her unswerving devotion to the British people, and for her perpetually optimistic outlook.
At least that miserable excuse for a human being Morrissey will finally and for the first time in his life have something to be happy about: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKJm6smptn4
ReplyDeletes.w. et al.,
ReplyDeleteAs I happened to mention on another blog, there's a 1953 journal article by two sociologists called "The Meaning of the Coronation." The authors were Michael Young (British), author of the satirical The Rise of the Meritocracy among other works, and the American scholar Edward Shils. I found an open-access pdf, have downloaded but not yet read it. Link:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1953.tb00953.x
My previous remarks were directed at the role, not the person. As a person, she seemed to me quite admirable. I recall seeing her immediately after the War when she and her parents did a tour through my little village—I was sent out with my fellow pupils to wave a little flag (that no doubt was one of a multitude of activities which contributed to the phenomenon Shils and Young sought to explicate). I actually also recall quite vividly when her father died and not long after, Elizabeth’s coronation. So I’m quite aware of the place monarchs held in the lives of people even when they weren’t all that pro-monarchy. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what might be an American equivalent to the monarchy and the passing of a monarch. But I do know—or I should say I vaguely recall reading a study which concluded—that British children had a difficult time distinguishing between the queen and God. (For those who like to look back to ancient times, Augustus has perhaps a lot to answer for when he set himself up to be the emperor in Rome’s eastern Asiatic provinces.) I imagine there’s an American parallel to that too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, as I began, I can find the person quite admirable, and I can sympathise with the feelings of her immediate family, and I can even sympathise with all those who feel that they have lost some significant aspect of their social lives, but the role which she filled and which her son is now beginning to fill is a most socio-politically problematical one. And we should never forget that.
Let’s close with Tom Paine and Shelley’s address to the people on the death of princess Charlotte:
we pity the plumage but forget the dying bird.
I may be wrong, but from a distance, the institutional formalities of the Americans in dealing with their president looked much more clearly monachic to me than is the case in European monarchies today. At least before Trump. The whole "Roman imperial pomp" of the political ceremonies in Washington seems more alienating from a distance than the appearances of the completely disempowered royal houses of Europe, which strive for bourgeois averageness.
ReplyDeleteI see you've been resorting to a search engine to come up with a remark by a contemporary social scientist with a concern for identity. Where would we be without these intellectual aids? But I still think fair usage requires that the author's name be attached. In any case, Barker's rejoinder to Paine is no rejoinder at all since it ignores that Paine was making a significant in that moment political point vis-a-vis Burke's defence of the ancient French regime, vis-a-vis the dismay some felt respecting the assault on the monarchy and aristocracy, no matter the conditions being experienced in France by so many of the French people.
ReplyDeleteAs to American imperial pretensions, Achim, I still remember the shock and ridicule which attended Nixon's grandiose do when some foreign potentate was visiting the White House. I think a lot changed in the US once it became such a great post-War power. Even as late as Truman, didn't he get into his little car with his wife and drive home to Missouri? No pomp and circumstance for him.
Nixon's election brought forth all manner of evil beyond the grandiose trimmings. I believe Truman took the train as was the custom then. Imperial pretensions long predated imperial trappings. In 1890 Cleveland didn't have social media and the White House didn't have electricity.
ReplyDeleteI'm just an average person and I am able to reach the piece here (it varies slightly from the one posted previously)
ReplyDeletehttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/sjp.12477
Thank you, Philosophical Waiter.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know why this article was never published before now?