Keats reconsidered

I suppose the Romantics are the least congenial group of writers for me when it comes to English literature. O, that artificial diction and saccharine sentiment... Etc. Those exclamations, loose, undisciplined language. But now at least with Keats (and why not then with others) it seems that my very early judgment was wrong again. I think it was based on Endymion and Hyperion where he certainly is not my cup of syrup. Should have gone for the better stuff, I guess. His letters certainly give a marvellous image of a frighteningly perceptive and still amazingly humane and likeable great artist (seems to be a very rare combination). In fact the tone reminds me of Charles Sorley and does then give an idea of his potential; even more cruelly early end for his career - Keats at least had time to show his mature scope. It seems that the Romantics were exceptionally uneven in their output - they seem to have been really good when they were good, but much of the time they didn't perform near their peak, and when they were bad... On the whole, there is in me a certain preference for more classical, more controlled and distanced emotional approach in art. I tend to distrust overt artistic emotion especially when it seems to control the form and twist it unshapely, unpolished.

Sense and unsentimentality

I have lately been delighting in the New Pelican Guide to English Literature on my work trips. The series originates from the 1950's, my revised edition being from 1982. This probably explains why the marvelously quirky and individual writers treat literature if it were a universally important and serious moral concern. Postmodernity has certainly gotten rid of that attitude and the literature departments around the world are for the most part happily free of anything universally important and serious. Or of any love of literature. Anyway, I'm now in the middle of part 5, From Blake to Byron and two exceptionally challenging and perceptive essays, one by Lionel Trilling on Mansfield Park and the other by Malcolm Bradbury on Emma, made me think again my lukewarm attitude to Jane Austen.

I have never been too fond of that steely tory glitter behind the graceful prose. But it might be that the provinciality is on my side mostly after all: there perhaps is certain universality that can be glimpsed through that absolute integrity and serious moral concern however constricted they appear to an unsympathetic and hasty reader. I recently happened to reread Pride and Prejudice (I suppose after 25 years) and the experience was admittedly very remarkable: the text was so deceptively effortless and elegant that one might really mistake the story itself to be the fundamental concern, actually pretty much as modern Hollywood seems to "read" Austen. But afterwards, what was left was a feeling of something having been very severely and unsentimentally weighed. That serious severe weighing is the essence of Austen - and it should be our own attitude in this decadent and emotionally overindulgent era. Not to mention intellectually confused.

Nurmo municipality in memoriam

The sorry spectacle of the current local government "reform" has now reached my home town of Nurmo which will be amalgamated with the provincial capital by midnight. An efficient service provider with better performance in every key statistic will join with a much bigger, less efficient and more bureaucratic unit. On the national level this so called reform will certainly achieve bigger service organizations - though in quite random and ragtag fashion - without touching the very heavy structures of the services itself. Some haphazard savings will probably be made but the fundamental issues will be left untouched. This is the democratic political process at its sorriest: every main party was driven by its special interests towards a different overall solution with the end result being even worse than any of the proposed individual schemes.

The process in Nurmo was especially repulsive: a strong and active citizen opinion (almost two thirds in a well attended municipal referendum opposed the solution) was overruled by the morally - one hopes only that - corrupt local council which ended up agreeing with the proposal by one vote majority. The amazingly ugly strong arm tactics led by the leading provincial daily ended up successful. The Burkean in me simply detests abstract, arbitrary principles being chosen over actual historical experience, a deeply rooted local identity. But I suppose our Scandinavian governmental system is one of the least Burkean in existance. From that angle it is inconceivable that local identities would be important as such, that the coats of arms, lines and names on maps, shared historical experiences would be just as important to people as the municipalities' role as social service providers. Any more Burkean reform would have respected and kept these valuable symbolic forms while reforming the substance carefully and effectively. Now we ended up with the worst of both worlds: losing the local rooted identity and keeping essentially in place the top heavy service delivery structures. Oh well, the way of the world...


Postscript in Finnish:

Ilkka-lehden toiminta tässä surkuhupaisassa prosessissa hakee vertaistaan. On toki totuttu melkoisen ruokottomaan menoon sen suhteen, mutta tässä silmittömässä kampanjassa kyllä välillä jätettiin väliin ne alkeellisimmatkin ammattimaisen journalismin periaatteet. Toimituksen johdossa on aktiivisia toimijoita ja vaikuttajia Seinäjoen kunnallispolitiikassa ja journalistiset toimintatavat näköjään alistettiin näiden vaikuttajien henkilökohtaisille poliittisille intresseille. Tätä ei mitenkään lehden kommentti-artikkeleissa edes vaivauduttu peittelemään. Uutisointi oli äärimmäisen värittynyttä ja manipuloitua ja prosessista annettu kuva ilmeisesti aivan tarkoituksellisen vääristynyt. Karua on meno Hokkas-slovakiassa. Nurmon valtuuston toiminta on sitten saaga erikseen - toivoa sopii, että romahdus oli sentään vain älyn ja poliittisen ymmärryksen tasolla. Epäilemättä joka tapauksessa tämän räikeän epädemokraattisen enemmistön kirstuun poikii jatkossa myös maallista hyvää erinäisten postien ja arvonimien suhteen. On ilmeisesti poikinutkin jo: hyvä taito osata nöyrästi kumartaa oikealle ja pyllistää oikealle taholle vaikka sitten tämä jälkimmäinen olisikin se jota vaaleilla valittuna olisi pitänyt edustaa.

Keynesian times

A link to an excellent introduction to Keynes in the context of the present crisis by Skidelsky. Certainly a right person for the task: his brilliant biography of Keynes was my first real introduction to this crazily talented, fascinating 20th century figure. Of course Keynes' economics and his quite crucial role in turning back the left and right radical totalitarian tide are of enormous importance, but I do feel that his relevance extends beyond this. 

For me it was hugely significant that he was much concerned (as Skidelsky points out in the article) with probability, causality and uncertainty as the context of all social and historical action. In an immeasurably more modest fashion those were the very same themes that I was engaged with when coming to a settled understanding of the study of history, its nature, role and scope. I felt that what Keynes said about economic action was universally true of all sectors of human activity. Our historical stage is a very Keynesian stage. So, for me, it is only in this narrow sense of re-encountering a possibly very terrifying collapse of trust in the economic structures that it could be said that Keynes has again become relevant - he never stopped being relevant.

Like swimmers into cleanness leaping

I only too rarely read Finnish literature. I had my fill of the classics very early on and have barely kept abreast of the contemporary scene. Though those books that have made an impression have made a strong one. I’m now in the middle of Sofi Oksanen’s “Puhdistus”. Grim, grim text – the immediate context being the introduction of Stalinism into a civil society, the violence against women, the horrible scars that history leaves. Amazingly well written, such economical, beautiful language. While reading the first pages I was struck by the universal theme of loss of innocence that also began to emerge from the story.

This is of course something that concerns all of us: we all are hardened, at least to a degree, we all get cynical, at least to a degree, we all get callous, at least to a degree. But beyond this ordinary coarsening in this fundamentally harsh world there are whole categories of experience that we modern Westerners have largely escaped, that we scarcely believe possible. This does not mean that we would be immune to them, or that we, or our descendants would have a guarantee of never encountering them. We have been lucky in the blind accident of our historical moment. That is all.

Well, nuncle, this plainly won't do

We would urgently need a coherent theoretical framework to replace the crude market faith that is currently becoming more and more obsolete. Well, actually intellectually it has always been obsolete, it was born obsolete, but immense concentrations of power will support and create belief structures around them. We can see this reflex in the immense cohorts of semi- or partially educated market enthusiasts on the Web. (Not to talk about the hate filled American right wing talk radio whose main role in the world is I guess to keep corporate interests safe, never mind the unborn fetuses or Darwin in the last analysis.) However wrong, power speaks loudly - and in the context of market economy, it is not even completely wrong. Strictly regulated markets do work (and are not too unstable to create overwhelming social backlashes). So, what is needed is a subtle, intellectually flexible approach - a sane middle way. Now should I hold my breath?

Surprised by joy

A striking and pleasant sight on this morning's rush hour train: two high school boys, not more than 16 years old, very obviously more than friends. Nothing particular really one might say and surely even today they were braving something (though certainly not with an air of proving any point, just engaging in private happiness quite unselfconsciously). But I was suddenly struck by the thought of how much more they would have been braving mere 20 years ago (actually the whole scene would have been pretty much unimaginable) - there truly is a strong, forceful wave of tolerance and reason spreading through the younger generations all over the industrialized world. And in that moment I felt - perhaps a non sequitur - that there still is vitality and selfconfidence in the old enlightenment West. The tide of emancipation still is advancing, still alive.

Happy days are here again?

Even two months ago I would not have thought it really crucial which candidate would be elected to be the president of the USA. Two months can be a very long time. I guess it has not been truly realized how tremendous these Wall Street tremors have been. With a less imaginitive and interventionist Federal Reserve we might already been a long way into a global depression. These are very dangerous times, almost comparable to the times of Roosevelt and Churchill - whose election to power was the proof of the vitality and self-confidence of the liberal West. Maybe this decision is a similar sign. So perhaps we would then get the USA back to the serious business of leading the Western alliance - the moment of hyperpowerdom and unilateralist hubris passed quickly but so much damage was made in that short time. Such a disastrous abandonment of wisdom and moderation by the American nationalist right with their aggressive America firstism: no real understanding, no long views. I have now CCR on, the voice of America - such a good feeling to feel the optimism and hope radiating once again from across the Atlantic. One only wonders how long it takes before the freezing cold winds of history will wipe this optimism away. Well, just perhaps not this time.

Long eight years

By the year 2000 I had become very distanced from party politics and ideology that once were unreally important and meaningful for me. I had ended up - after all the emotional upheavals and dramatic shifts - liberal, vaguely centre left, ironically quite in bearing with my personal background and the positions that I had originally begun with. But I was very certainly not much interested in concrete centre left politics and parties. I believed that all that was relatively irrelevant and distasteful. I simply - comfortably - assumed that though unpleasant things constantly occurred and unpleasant parties and politicians kept winning offices that social progress would nevertheless continue, not steadily, not overtly but all the while. I also believed that party politics were largely irrelevant to that progress, that the political process would eventually mirror this grassroots advance, maybe not satisfactorily or gratifyingly but nevertheless things would get better, even if gradually, even if messily.

It took the administration of George W. Bush to persuade me otherwise. Suddenly I was re-politized, at times even mesmerized by the spectacular shipwreck of the American (and to a large degree, Western) political process. I’m no anti-American – I have been a steady liberal cold warrior (having doubts only now) and have seen the American leadership and power as essential for our Western civilization and its liberal and humanistic values. I had just not realized how far the corruption had gone, how quickly the enlightenment values of the American revolution were dissipating and the society and politics getting more plutocratic, the citizens more distanced from elite politics and irrational fundamentalism and anti-empirism growing stronger. These eight years have certainly been an education to all of us. Perhaps today will finally mark the turn of the tide. Much is resting on a single, politically enigmatic, relatively inexperienced person faced with powerful structural counterforces and a national moral – and financial – bankruptcy. A task not to be envied.

Ayn Rand is not good for you

We have now the spectacle of even Alan Greenspan going for more regulation of the market. O tempora o mores, I suppose. Perhaps this strange sight signals - whatever the level of destruction of this possibly very deep and exceptional downturn - that a return to some degree of sanity has finally begun. It is not that these collapses would not have been foreseen and forecast - they were, by many anxious and worried observers. It is just that reason went overboard with the long bull market, as it inevitably will in connection with any complex large scale human activity, and especially when it comes to the market place. It is self-evidently a feature, not a bug. 

That is why we desperately will always need balancing forces, safety nets, income transfers, progressive taxation and so on - not only do they keep the society open for fair competition and high social mobility but they also guarantee a certain, basic and crucial level of stability that is inherently missing from raw capitalism. In the last analysis these factors are the fundamental foundation of any effectively functioning and flourishing market economy. It is the very success of social democracy that makes the market enthusiasts so blind to its salutary effects. History, our brutal human history, has a knack though of reminding us of the realities every now and then. Hopefully we will escape now with only a reminder - it seems quite possible that much worse things could be on offer. Interesting times certainly.

Don't let them crash

Periodically capitalism must be saved from itself - the invisible hand is very shaky when left unsupervised. And that's exactly what has been done in these last euphoric and hubristic decades that continued the party, hmm, the orgy that Reagan and Thatcher began. Well, it's hangover time now. Of course things would be fine and capitalism would work smoothly without supervision and regulation if only people would always behave rationally and longsightedly. So would have communism. But we are what we are and will always need checks and balances as long as we stay human. It would be natural in this crisis then to let these arrogant institutions and their once so all-knowing and self-righteous masters fail instead of making them protected state wards. But that would be a mistake - we should never forget that the welfare state and the social democratic compromize worked only because they provided a workable mechanism to harness capitalism for genuine overall good of the community. Without that engine, energy and dynamism it would not have been possible to create a more humane, a more equal society. We are only good in sharing abundance: scarcity will eventually lead to injustice and authoritarianism. So, under proper supervision capitalism can be made work and be made work well. Of course, no-one seems to know how bad things have now gone: it might be possible that even quite apocalyptic changes may happen. But hopefully the governments can once again save capitalism from itself and perhaps remember the lesson better and for much longer this time. This crisis was only too well foreseen and forecast - the hubris and folly was just too strong for reason to penetrate and disinflate.

On social liberalism

I mostly vote for the Social Democrats, occasionally also for the Greens - in the last election in Finland I seriously considered our (very) moderate Conservative Party (Kokoomus) and still remember fondly the Young Finns of the early and mid-nineties (as overly market enthusiastic as they were). But none of these parties correspond very exactly with my own social liberal preferences though you certainly can find bits and pieces in all of them. Social Democracy is of course the closest equivalent with its historical compromise with market economy and its very effective combination of social justice with dynamic economy (that is now under ever increasing threat).

 Still, the socialist ethos has never felt very close to me with those certain even quite crude anti-elitist tendencies and mindsets of the tradition (the Finnish term is much more descriptive – “herraviha”). Perhaps that also comes from my Southern Ostrobothnian background , the naturally egalitarian and self-confident Province certainly has never felt the need to envy anyone or to harbour bitter grudges over generations… For me equality is essentially the equality of opportunity. And it doesn’t mean that if one poor child out of a thousand that combines talent with luck succeeds that we would have achieved the equality of opportunity. As we well know, both talent and luck are equally distributed among both poor and wealthy children, so what we need is a fair chance for all children. And this then really needs certain strong social democratic structures to be established in the society: significant income redistribution, mixed economy, strong safety nets, progressive taxation, open high quality education and health care systems and so on. 

 But the goal cannot be the forced equality of outcome – we naturally do have different talents, different luck, even different natures and inclinations. A free and fair social competition will produce relative losers and winners – this is both inevitable and beneficial. We need to guard against the elites that will always have the human instinct for monopolies and shutting down of the competition but we also need to guard against too forceful and also in itself elitistic levelling of the society. So, liberty is the highest value for me, not equality (as crucial as it is), but a society cannot be free unless a great majority of its citizens have a level playing field and are free to pursuit success according to their own inclinations and capabilities.

Après moi - the government bailout

It has been once again proven in the cause of this present financial turmoil that the modern state cannot allow systemic economical failure. Moral hazard is a feature of the system, not an external bug. Profits will always be for privatization and losses, if big enough, will always be socialized. This empirically proven state of affairs will of course not prevent the adored corporate leaders to lecture about the negative effects of state intervention once the good times have returned. Business has very short and selective memory. So, in the last analysis our modern market economy is founded on the support of the modern social democratic state without which it could not thrive. It desperately needs strict regulation and oversight that guarantee a certain basic stability and predictability. It could not even be otherwise given our shortsighted and greedy human nature. Of course this also provides the assorted libertarians and other free market fundamentalists with a permanent escape clause: the free market will never be completely free, it simply cannot be so - there will never be uncontaminated laboratory conditions for capitalism, so the libertarians will always be able to say that without that contamination of public intervention, the system would have worked "perfectly". Oh dear, how much this intellectual nonsense reminds me of Marxism-Leninism - no falsifiability, pure intellectually immature circular logic supported by ideological fervour and nothing else.

Sub specie aeternitatis

Modern Western philosophy has always been a problematic but fascinating subject for me - there has basically been a kind of love-hate relationship. On one hand it is hard to imagine more serious, more worthwhile inquiry but on the other hand you get such a sense of unreality to see these artificial systems of language perform docile logical tricks. That is very strongly put and my capabilities are not nearly enough to see how justified this attitude really is.

It just seems self-evident that we are not - literally - humanly able to ground ourselves universally and timelessly - and this is what the great, original synthesists have tried from Descartes via Leibnitz and Spinoza on towards Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, the usual army of the unalterable law with mad Friedrich jeering on the sidelines and the analytic Anglo-Saxons seeing no point to the enterprise in the first place (having their own impossible agenda). A strange hubristic tradition. 

Art on the other hand has always seemed more, not less, universal to me, starting from a more particular, more fundamental point, and being then more essentially grounded if less logical, less house trained. So, I would change Plato's order, and see art as essential and philosophy, at least potentially, as distracting us from our serious inquiry...

Questions of style

It took a long time to get rid of the History Department snobbery concerning biography but in time I have come to realize that an individual person is one of the best angles available for getting an informative look on an era. This notwithstanding all those well known and legitimate enough reservations - you probably can never really capture an individual experience and so all text will inevitably be misleading and inaccurate thus often raising subjectivity to a second degree. So there is no straight line from an individual life to its cultural and temporal context, but then there is none available for any kind of historical study - which is not only a loss, but sometimes a significant gain.

I am currently in the middle of Antonia Fraser's life of Marie Antoinette, which is competent enough, I'm sure at places even a brilliant case for the defence though her approach has never been greatly to my taste. There is one player permanently out of the scene, namely the 99% of French society whose appearance would perhaps go a long distance in explaining the personal tragedy of this largely blameless but very foolish person. Of course, I have in any case very little sympathy for the aristocracy of the ancien regimé, those decadent painted dolls that, yes, were more a concequence than the cause of the universal awfulness and injustice of the time - but other contemporary tragedies were even worse and unimaginably more numerous.

Anyway, this book surely is the one Sophie Coppola read. When her film came out it didn't receive a very warm welcome from the critics. I suppose the general verdict was that it had some style but no substance and gravitas which it should have had given its famous and portentous historical context. Well, I thought it was brilliant. I have some difficulties in seeing film as a great art form, but it surely best achieves greatness when it gets the form right, never mind the content (as far as we can meaningfully make the distinction, which is mostly not very far). That is how my sense of esthetics works: form can be the substance, a frivolous approach can lead to a great virtuosity of skill and thus also to deep meaningfullness.

In the film this strange era is approached from a very eccentric, unreal angle (which is also how the study of history fundamentally works, even if the academia is never as free as art, odd how ashamed historians are of their craft's near relatives...) - and illuminated in a very understated way. It is a very stylish film and thus a very good film. The famous shot of the pair of Nike runners among Marie Antoinette's shoe collection was not frivolous postmodernism for me but a striking statement about our universal experience of being in time (not to mention some more obvious similarities between two epochs of decadence and over concumption). This is to overstate the case, but overstatement is surely a legitimate reading here. An excellent film indeed, unique almost in its capability to express with a sophisticated, light touch certain aspects of history that academic research would have great difficulties in expressing.