The self-defence of liberalism

The title is a semi-ironic reference to Urho Kekkonen and to the not so ironic tale at all of the successful counter-attack of Finnish liberal democractic forces in the 1930's. Even though I'm not a famous clairvoyant at all but nevertheless I do think I did recognice a meaningful theme a decade ago in this modern feebleness of liberal sentiment. Just something technocratic we happened to have at hand to maximize consumption - and not so far the pretty much only historically effective barrier against the dark human thirst for unending unreason and bloodshed, no, just some accidental opium for the masses and, no, not freedom and reason so dearly bought.

So, what we now so much need is liberal passion, liberal ruthlessness. Yes, the freedom we have is meagre and impossibly full of imperfection, but truly, is it really worse than Orban, Putin, Trump, Xi? That radical nationalism would have better tools, really, better thinking, more profound values, really, honestly? Liberalism is not about production, not about the market, not about consumerism, no, it's about freedom from unreason, it's about universal human rights, about universal human worth, about love and understanding, about tolerance and gentleness. Somehow, I think, I hope, the battle has not been joined in earnest at all.

Mythago wood

There are archetypes to our lives: places, people, situations that repeatedly come back in varyingly incoherent dreams and in half waking thoughts and in ever repeating patterns. And waking we are left with pretty much the only option of ignoring all that rich pattern and going on with our everyday lives regardless. So, two lifes, two realities, and most people don't seem to think this state of affairs as anything particularly odd at all.

Odes to joy

I wonder if we can help it, if being serious, being Western: all that cruel domination, of Athens enslaving and slaughtering to George W. Bush electing to have a spurious entertainment war killing hundreds of thousands. But then again all the secret harmonies, of Bach, of Shakespeare, of Joyce. The majesty of humanity, of liberty and art. The other side of silence, of this perpetually poised civilization. And so, even with all the slaughter, all the trampling on innocence, I would still side with this attempt of ending all the injustice so ingrained in our human species.

To go back - if only

Time does fly, now does it not? And it also cheats, falsifies, transforms, betrays ever so easily. Even so I can still hear the laughter oh so distinctly, all those voices echoing in the rose garden, I can still see those people so effortlessly clear, so effortlessly dear then. And now having grown colder, shallower, less intense, I would naturally go back in an instant, of course I would, hoping for better judgement, for warmer, wiser heart.

In one another's arms

It is almost or to a high degree a purely defensive reflex to reach for art, for poetry, for the long views when encountering the grand magic of youth: the freshness, the innocence, that invincible seeming, invincible feeling energy. Though not so, surely not in the final analysis, truly not, and, no, not really envy here or not much envy, but finally rather pity. For so much shall be wasted on these trivial structures of this appalling civilization, so much will be lost, so much will be defeated and subdued. And so it goes, so it will go on. Here in this world, in this cycle, ever on.

The Rhein gives its gold to the sea

In these later years, with these darkening horizons, I have been struck by the shortness of historical memory. It seems to work for about 50-60 years even in our supposedly rational civilization, supposedly ever learning from its mistakes. And now we think that the 1930's are so deliciously retro, so worth imitating. And liberalism, this bland, technocratic, rather accidentally liberal-democratic modern order back again in its sorry role as the guardian of the blind, shortsighted, ever destructive capital. And any fighting social-liberalism steadfastly forgotten, any convictions forsaken, forgotten. And democratic socialism a shadow of its old self, even if that. So, the worst are back to their passionate intensity and the best have little idea of anything. Interesting to live in these interesting times.

Null on meie kvoot

In this crisis of liberalism the question is really not of pragmatic negotiations of maximum possible number of lifes, which would be fundamentally tolerable, but of an attack against the unnegotiable value of universal human worth. Yes, at this moment in time, and at any realistically imaginable moments in time, past, present and future, we can't have perfection but we can aim for it, we can aim for humanity, for kindness and justice. There is no excuse for failing that. Not in this this civilization.

Oh you got blue eyes, oh you got green eyes

It is a conscious effort to stay aware, not young, though youth does have a direct access to awareness, even if a very temporary one, cruelly temporary even - just go ahead and ask Yeats. But the business is not to get numb, not to get used to, not to go through the motions till one dies. To be as intelligent, as aware as one can humanly be, to be as awake as one can be, that surely is the business,.

But I'm younger than that now

After last fall's unpleasant flashbacks it is quite an irony to find myself back at the university for the coming study year. Having steadied and emerged chastened and quite a bit wiser, it now feels rather a privilege to walk back to the rose garden - quick, quick, said the bird... Though then it was of course no Eden for me, hence the useless regrets, but now, so fully realizing all the long progress since, it feels rather liberating to, well, be liberated - to be largely one with oneself, as I so was not then.

Reflections on the latest disturbances

If one has absorbed christian-humanist values one is unavoidably at permanent war with history and humanity. But, with those values, one can't ever renounce the humankind either: a particularly trying circumstance, should anyone ask. So one observes and tries to stay rational and kind, and what one observes is unending hysteria, stupidity and cruelty.

Chained to a dying animal

Yeats is sneaky. One might think he's all horoscopes and fates of civilization and silliness - and then there emerges human profoundities rather effortlessly. No, one is not one's body, never was, even if at the best moments there was a close correlation. And once out of nature we might gain ourselves by being able to reach beyond ourselves, as empirically impossible as it is in this world that we thus cannot accept. No, I'm not sure if this makes sense, if he does, but one is certainly inclined towards that direction.

Bad moon rising

It is interesting to be somewhat well read in history and then live to at least mature middle age: one appreciates recurring themes. A violent illiberal wave preceded my generation and confronted my parent's generation when they were children. But it was convincingly beaten back in the West and by the West. And so I lived in a halcyon era of peace and prosperity leading up to "end of history". I guess basically everyone sensed already back then that there would be no end, as much as it was needed, to grasping, greedy, blind history, to this mad dance. There just are no permanent safety nets. So, illiberal winds are again gathering strength, some gusps are already scarily strong and one does sense a bad moon rising. Maybe here we go again?

One of freedom''s wars (revisited)

A laughing boy exploded into unidentifiable gobs of flesh - I believe Pat Barker has said about the WW1 more essential things than any historian ever has or ever will. Obviously she hadn't said everything or even every important thing but far more than mere historians can. Just as obviously - and most often for all I know - a work of fiction can say far less than a solid work of historiography. But the exceptions do blow the competition away.

A concern with the study of history has always remained with me and I still find it odd how little this subject has been seriously analyzed. I would presume that the best explorations would be works of fiction, not of philosophy.

What liberalism is not?

Well, it is not something selfevident like the air we breath and don't notice and take for granted. It is actually a very specific and very contentious ideology whose present positions are unimaginably dearly bought and which have at times been ever so desperately, even irrationally defended.

The post-WW2 broad social liberal consensus reinforced by the collapse of the Soviet bloc might have deluded us of these facts - and accordingly this lukewarm official ideology of the Western world has become less social and more materialistic, more hollow, increasingly benefiting capital instead of labour, no longer based on once very specific selfawareness and loyalty.

And now it then not so totally remarkably happens that this liberal understanding of the modern world is under a very broad and very intense attack both within and without with scarily few passionate defenders indeed. These structures won't hold without support - where is this desperately needed collective effort to be seen or to be sensed (at least) at this ever darkening hour?

A note to self

I came rather innocently across a book of academic criticism by Geoffrey Hill and have now hard time remembering when was the last time a text has aggravated me so much. Apparently he is not even a catholic. I find a certain style of conservative-traditionalist (or whatever you would call it in his case) approach to literature truly abhorrent: passive-aggressive stuffing in between the lines, ever so, well, catty. From now on one is once burned and that should be well enough.