The Phony Book

I recently had the displeasure to read what is possibly the most overrated book of all time, namely the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

This is that 'shocking' book that became the most controversial piece of literature in America and is considered one of the great modern classics, nearly always by baby boomers with an obsession with the 60s

To be honest, I knew relatively little about it, 'Catcher' is relatively popular as a set text in schools, but my school were very much anti-American literature, and I have never gone out of my way to read American since, so all I know is based on the views of others - I knew that it was a 'coming of age' tale for example, and I also knew it was considered shocking for a considerable amount of profanity in the 50s, but that it is largely inoffensive to a modern audience

That was about it, so I read it, seeing as it's always on those '100 books to read before you die' lists and everybody has an opinion on it

I knew from the first page that I was going to hate it, the book is from the perspective of a 16 year old, Holden Caulfield and is seemingly the definition of a stream of consciousness novel, from the outset he is speaking in this incredibly roundabout, pointless fashion that drove me near insane. It really did. People who constantly repeat the same goddam point really knock me out. They really do.

That's essentially the gist of it - and that dear reader, is the sort of language you will endure for nearly 200 pages, whole paragraphs devoted to him repeating and reaffirming the same goddam point, and as you may have guessed, saying 'goddam' rather a lot

I eventually worked out, after finding nothing offensive for the bulk of the book, that 'goddam' was in fact the controversial profanity - this is probably a result of my being English, where damn has never particularly been considered to be a 'swear', I was expecting at least a s h one t here and there, but nothing, the thing is ridiculously mild by modern standards, particularly if you aren't American (where the controversy has always been, in fairness)

I laboured on, learning the language after a few pages (i.e. skipping lines which I knew would only be him saying 'I hate X. I really do. That really knocks me out.') appreciating that many old classics are often written in strange ways due to their subject and/or period, assuming that there would be some great metaphorical point to a fascinating plot here

Alas, no, the 'plot' is that Holden is kicked out of his posh boarding school for the umpteenth time and goes on a bit of a bender as he heads to his home in New York, while calling everyone phonies and fantasising, a lot

The plot itself is not really the point, it's more his thoughts that the various scenarios bring up that are the key elements of the novel - like how near everyone is a 'phony' and how he hates essentially everything about modern life (movies, school, adults in general), he is both a nihilist and a hypocrite, as while Holden may be making a valid point about the falseness of society, he repeatedly shows us how much of a phony he is - constantly lying and going on about drinking and women for example - maybe that's the point, but I found it very hard to sympathise with the general point when he was so weak and childish and I kept bouncing between who was worse - the individuals who he was so disdainful of, or him

His other main focus of thought is his dead younger brother, who he hero-worships as a genius and his little sister, who seems to be the sole living person that he is positive about

That's about it, he's a confused nihilist who is defensive/hostile towards pretty much everything except that which is dead, or a child

....And now do you see why angst-riddled teenagers love it?

The boy is angry at the world and the whole wanting to stop children falling off a cliff (he's a catcher in the field of rye...) is an obvious allusion to the pain of growing from a child into an adult, the metaphor is laid out on a plate for you

Any other metaphor taken from this is just wishful thinking I think, he is a boy who is probably suffering from some sort of grief related disorder and possibly having a nervous breakdown, but I can see how his nihilism and complete disregard for anything, even himself, chimes with teenagers, while his actions may be rather extreme, I can sort of see a resemblance to my own thoughts in my nearly-forgotten teenage years

Maybe I would have liked it more back then, I certainly wasn't as bad as him, his thoughts are ridiculously erratic for one, but then very few teenagers would go that far, they might share the general sentiment of hopelessness, however, so I can see why a fair chunk of American teenagers thought it was so radical

Look at me, I seem to have started defending it and finding meaning in it, well actually I was never going to call it complete garbage, it's not a trashy romance novel and there is a clear allusion to teenage angst, but that's about it

What I wouldn't do is call it a 'classic', while there is a point to it, it is a very simple one that is made in absolutely mind-numbing language and dressed up in a load of seemingly pointless and excessive description

As I've just shown, there is a discussion to be had on it's meaning, but you could say that about all but the trashiest novels and what I really want to point out is that while I have been thinking it over since I finished it, I absolutely hated reading it - the whole point of a good book is that you enjoy it, or it is has an incredibly profound point to make, I am principally debating the meaning of this book now because I have been conditioned to expect one from it, and it's a lot more enjoyable going back over it in my mind than in the actual book -and the points I have found to think about are very few in number, I seem to have forgiven it by trying to find some meaning and I really shouldn't just forget how irritating it was solely to discuss some fairly inane points about growing up

I simply don't think it adds up to being a classic, Salinger has described an angry teenager quite well and maybe appealed to a fair few angst-ridden teens but that's about it, the thing is a chore to read and, crucially I believe, has not aged well - you look at it's biggest fans (brilliantly, almost certainly 'phonies') and they are primarily those baby-boomers who were teenagers in the 50s and 60s, they think it's a classic because it spoke to them when they were kids, and of course they, the most powerful present generation, still love the damn thing, but a modern reader has little to take from it - a classic must be timeless, it must be at least an enjoyable read or impart some wisdom or philosophical point, this just describes a moody teenager in the 50s (ok, 40s if you want to be technical)

Certainly this book is important, I have seen praise for its description of post-war New York and its impact on a generation is clear, but that makes it of historical interest - it means we look at it from the perspective of 'why was this book popular' rather than 'why is this book so good', it's akin to the current fascination around the Twilight books, it's quite simply an overrated teen novel

One last point, I've been thinking about why teachers inflict this novel on teenagers:

Number 1 is obvious - because they are baby-boomers and liked it when they were school-age

Number 2 is more fun - that teachers want to do some amateur psychology on their students and see how many can identify with it and how many think it's tosh

All thoughts welcome...unless they involve phonies, 'goddam', horsing around or knocking people out

Well, one out of two isn't bad

For once I actually agree with (Archbishop) Cranmer (see Sept 19th)

He posts in response to this story in the Sun over a regional Tesco (Bangor) ejecting a Jedi for wearing a hood

‘Threat to safety’ etc etc no doubt - but the hoods are not the issue, the issue is that other people are allowed in wrapped head to toe in black cloth, revealing nothing but eyes

These are of course Muslim women in burkhas - I know they are allowed in because, aside from it being common knowledge, I have been many a time besieged by these trolley-menaces (for some reason they seem to have little spatial awareness...)

Now there is respecting religion and there is this - why is a person in a crash helmet, or a hoodie/Jedi knight outfit, obliged to show their face, but a woman in full Burkha not?

Religious reasons of course, it is 'disrespectful' to ask them to take it off - bollocks is it, we're just cowards

The fact is, it's a legitimate safety concern, if a shop (or an airport!) requires you to not hide your face then you can't bloody hide your face in there - either you accept that or you don't go there

But no no, we must be able to do what we want where we want because it's a religious thing - we will ignore the fact that it isn't a religious requirement at all, and question the logic here

We can debate academically about religious freedom all we like, but the cold hard reality is that some aspects of Islam (for I do not wish to slander all followers) are tolerated in spite of the law for no logical reason - there is no legal definition of a religion - and to secularists like me, we see all religions as equally silly nonsense

Many may ridicule Jedi knights, but to people like me, they are as valid as Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews etc - they may well be a bit of a joke, and we know it, but they are based on pretty much the same thing - fiction, in a thousand years it may be that Jedi is a proper respected religion based on the ancient tales of Skywalker, as told by Luc-as in the holy trinity (the prequels got lost in time)

'Real' religions have no logical grounds on which to be seen as superior - except they are older and have more followers, Scientology is a legally recognised religion in some states

So the fact is, you allow adherents of one religion to cover people's faces, but no others may do this - the law is for all, religion must bow to the rules - there is a reason Christianity is so tame nowadays - because it was controlled by modern Anglo-centric liberalism, we (as in, every western nation) developed our own codes of what is acceptable, you don't get to usurp that with an alien culture and then cry foul when we deny you the right to behave how you would in another part of the world

In this case it simply refers to an article of clothing, but we are happy to condemn honour killings and female genital mutilation, another part of certain people's religious convictions - why do we have to tolerate this when it's clearly also against our laws

I will put it in simple metaphor - let us say a religion states that all members must be naked at all times - acceptable?

Yeah right, that religion would be forced to practice these acts (which are against public decency laws) in private, and they would have to conform, but considering the 'tolerance' shown to Muslims this should be permissible, just as it is their duty to cover their whole body, despite public interest, it is their duty not to cover any part of their skin, despite public interest

This is nothing against Islam - I simply believe that the law should apply fairly to all, and it should be respected by all

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The second I refer to is Peter Hitchens, who, in a tirade against the Unions briefly mentioned the film 'Good', a story about a German academic drawn into Nazism through his support for euthanasia

Hitchens smugly declares this as

"about a nice, civilised academic who is slowly seduced...by ambition, flattery and his own anti-Christian moral liberalism.
Fashionable Leftists wouldn’t want to be reminded that the National Socialists shared quite a few of their views."

Liberalism takes us nearer to fascism than we might think...

It is a strange, twisted view, and is rather unfair to the film, and any 'liberal' (although I've no firm idea what he actually means by liberal), to condemn the main character's viewpoint as specifically being linked to Nazism

The point of the film was that any 'good' person can be quite easily corrupted by evil, I think the best way to destroy Hitchens' selective reasoning is to point out that abortion (another liberal pet-peeve of his) was of course, outlawed by the Nazis, whereas it was legalised in Weimar Germany (no doubt this is just as guilty for the converse - bringing down Weimar by destabilising the family structure..)

Hitchens points to the current support for euthanasia (somewhat different to the 1920s version I might add) and shows how evil leftie things such as this are not that far from the Nazis - but surely his own (and many conservatives') opposition to abortion is just as in line with Nazi ideology as to be pro-euthanasia was, after all they played to conservative, traditional thought far more than they ever did to liberalism, but no, support for a liberal idea that the nazis used in a horrific way is far more dangerous than any of the bulk of conservatism (family, nationalism, anti-obscenity etc) that made up Nazi ideology

In short, I found it a rather vile comment that is insulting to both the makers of the film and any 'liberal' who he smears with this contorted view, I don't expect a huge amount from him, but he's usually a decent person

But one conservative out of two isn't bad for me

Back to School again

There is a little bit of defence going on in the magazine over Media Studies

Apparently Chemistry is easier

Is it? - I downloaded the pdf they provide and would question this, apparently if I question the intelligence of the students taking it instead I will face a problem with Maths, which has an even lower pass mark...

All true - however, take a look at the pdf, and you would think a statistics nut such as Michael Blastland, who is normally very good, would spot something

Let's take a look:

Media Studies had roughly 68,000 students, pass rate of 65.6% - Chemistry 92,000 pass rate: 93.9%

So, wow, Chemistry is obviously statistically easier according to this data - they are certainly comparable in size

Except for one thing, which a pure look at statistics would never notice (perhaps the whole point of this exercise) - Chemistry is not 'Chemistry' - you need to look at the human factors here, the Chemistry that the vast majority of us study is in fact what is now called 'science' with an uptake of 493,000 and 'additional science' with 397,000 (that's the old double award - which sadly only had 15,000 entrants and a pass rate of over 80%)

And so the pass rate is actually:
Media 65.6%
Additional Science: 62% (approx)
Science: 60% (approx)

Ah...so that's nearly 900 thousand students with a lower pass rate than Media

Now, no prizes for guessing why the single subjects - all studied by roughly 100,000 students, were at the very top?

Yes that's right, individual sciences are only taken by the best students and the best schools (mine didn't even offer it, but then it didn't offer Media either)
So let us add those extra 95,000 or so students (I will assume they all did three, which is why the figures are so close) who didn't do 'pleb science' as I once heard it called

Average students = 94,000
Average pass rate = 93% roughly
Meaning 87,500 students passed, give or take

Meanwhile 896,000 took the other versions of science, with an average pass rate of 61%

That's 546,500 passes

Add 87,500 = 634,000 passes out of 990,000

= 64.04% with even the best and brightest included...

That's below PE and just above Business Studies

It is of course, virtually impossible to identify if Media is a doss subject just from the figures - the pass rate does not indicate that it is particularly easy, but it says nothing about the way it is taught, who takes it, and of what use it is - my only experience of it was at A-level where my school mates (none top students) all treated it as a doss (and it looked one) but they then all failed the exam...so I don't know, having never studied it, but regardless I felt it misleading to claim that Chemistry was somehow comparable without factoring in the general science qualifications

But that said, what we can see is that Maths and Science generally have a lower pass rate, as does English (but not Eng.Lit) - which most likely shows that the compulsory subjects are dragged down by the dimwits forced to do them

Instead, to compare Media we must look at it in relation to other optional subjects, and subjects with a similar take-up - such as Music, which has a pass rate of about 77% - from that we can assume that Media is far harder (a much fairer argument than Chemistry, although just as flawed)

But of course, we can prove nothing because we don't know why Media gets such a low pass rate - whether it's hard or easy and the students are just thick - we just can't tell without the variables

I have however found the stats I needed for my earlier post on History!! - History second only to DT and beating it's nearest rivals (Geography) by 20,000 students

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I also meant to comment on this feature on ties a little while ago but never got round to it

For one, the ideas of 'Superfat' and 'Bonsai' ties was around nearly 2 decades ago, when I was at primary school, even though I have never encountered these particular labels before, so it's not news

A bit like the idiot woman who blamed Chris Moyles (on air for a whole five years) for inventing the use of the word 'gay' as a pejorative (it's somewhere in the archives)

Truth is, kids need to rebel and you'll never get them to all do up the silly things properly, except perhaps at the very poshest private schools

And why shouldn't they rebel? - I took the line that there was no sensible reason to wear one, and I still take it now - there isn't, the concept of 'smart' never appealed to me as a child and it still doesn't - it's a social construct from the 19th century

I do of course, conform for job interviews and the like - because let's face it, 1) I'm a hypocrite and 2) there's also economic benefits to conforming in that instance - there is none in the school environment - you are forced to conform to an arbitrary dress code in a place where you have to go (often against your childish will) - it is fascism incarnate

I don't say that as an anarchist or anything, I'm not saying it's wrong (or right) but I think school is very comparable to the authoritarian state - the whole concept encourages rebellion, not respect (which probably is what makes teachers jobs so horrible, but that's another argument)

So in short, you won't solve the tie problem because they'll rebel in some other way, unless you give them a reason to wear something (such as a lab coat or hard hat) they won't respect it - that's a fairly basic bit of human nature

And let's examine the point of a tie - what is the point of a tie?

from wikipedia:

The necktie traces back to the time of Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) when Croatian mercenaries from the Military Frontier in French service, wearing their traditional small, knotted neckerchiefs, aroused the interest of the Parisians. Due to the slight difference between the Croatian word for Croats, Hrvati, and the French word, Croates, the garment gained the name "Cravat". The new article of clothing started a fashion craze in Europe where both men and women wore pieces of fabric around their necks. In the late seventeenth century, the men wore lace cravats that took a large amount of time and effort to arrange. These cravats were often tied in place by cravat strings, arranged neatly and tied in a bow.

So basically they are a fashion article from the 17th century French - adopted by the vain Georgians like pantaloons and the idiotic powdered wigs

Meanwhile, fairly obviously it evolved as the lower classes mimicked their betters during the 19th century - the idea of being 'smart' comes from looking as though you aren't working in a mine:

The industrial revolution created a need for neckwear that was easy to put on, comfortable and would last an entire workday. The modern necktie, as is still worn by millions of men today, was born. It was long, thin and easy to knot and it didn’t come undone.

So why do we still wear these pointless things? It's just an archaic piece of fashion that really should have gone out a century ago - all fashion is pointless to me, so I guess I'm more interested in why we think children 'should' wear them

Because it's traditional no doubt...

...in that case fetch me my pantaloons!

School daze

According to the Mail, History is 'in danger' with only 30% taking it at GCSE, while 30% don't teach history as a stand-alone subject at key stage three (years 7-9), and one in three primary school children thought Churchill was the first man on the moon

Amazingly even the Independent have taken a negative view, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown writes:

History may soon become extinct in our secondary schools, go the way of domestic science and handwriting classes, only less missed and less lamented than either. A major new study by the Historical Association and teacher training experts found that three out of 10 comprehensives no longer bother to teach the subject, which isn't part of the core curriculum after the age of 13. Only 30 per cent do GCSE history.

Right, so only 30% take history, pretty bad eh?

Well actually considering it's totally optional that's not a bad figure is it? 30%...

Let's have a look at the top 10 GCSEs (2008), sorry I couldn't find percentages:

1. Maths
2. English
3. English Lit
4. Science
5. Additional Science (that replaced 'double science' we oldies did)
6. DT
7. History
8. Art
9. Geography
10. French

So it's seventh - and five of those above it are compulsory...

So basically it's the second most popular optional subject - hardly dying is it? It's beating French, which became completely optional more recently than history, and even Geography (and gasp...media studies!)

So where exactly is the problem here? I can understand the argument that more people should appreciate their history, but the fact that 30% of kids are choosing to take it is not a bad thing taken in context - it's actually doing very well at GCSE, if the argument is that all kids should do it then take that to the government and the people who made the curriculum - because right now all you're saying is that every optional subject (bar perhaps D.T) is 'dying'...

If it's a shame that so few are taking it then lobby the government to make it compulsory because you believe it is more important than geography and art, but don't try and present a 30% take-up as a failure simply because you believe everyone should study it

Speaking as someone with a GCSE, A-level and even a bachelor's degree in the subject I am a tad biased, I admit - but somewhat oddly you might think, I would not want all kids to do the subject - history, while I may love it, is not as vital as Maths, English and the sciences to our skills or understanding of the world, it's close, but you simply won't get all kids to 'do' history as a proper subject if they aren't into dates, wars and dead people - I'm pretty sure we had under 50% of my year doing when I did it ten years ago, and of that there were probably only a handful of us who really were interested - 100% of kids doing history would just relegate it to the forced battle we already have in English and maths classes, things which we actually need to try and teach the blighters, it's not as important so it wouldn't be worth the bother, frankly

Yes, a basic knowledge of history is a good thing, but you don't need to force kids to learn something they don't see as ever needing (and possibly won't) and you can teach history in far more ways than as a formal subject - we can see history in the sciences - I remember learning about Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Curie, Einstein, Boyle et all and how they discovered things, and likewise English literature basically is history - we all learn bloody Shakespeare! The man was a historian, just put him and Dickens into a bit of context and you're pretty much there, and you can use religion just as easily with the reformation, 'Bloody Mary' and other various religious wars, even geography uses historical case studies (e.g. migration in the industrial revolution, general world trends etc...) - history is all around us!

As for one in three primary schoolchildren kids thought Churchill went to the moon - here is the old story about it

It was a survey of 4-10 year olds (I think - I can't find the actual survey there) and 30% got Churchill wrong - now forgive me but within that age range 30% would approximately represent 2 years - I would hazard a guess that more 4-6 year olds got it wrong than 8-10 year olds - would I expect my 6-year-old nephew to know about Churchill? He might, but I don't expect him to - I would hope he'll know soon, but six is still pretty young, he's still learning writing and numbers...hardly reciting 'we will fight them on the beaches...'

Indeed if I remember the early 90s correctly I'm pretty sure year 6 was very heavy on World War 2 and I can't remember doing it before then - Romans in year 3 or 4, dinosaurs before that, the reformation and Henry VIII was in year 5...

So if they would like this figure to have any real weight how about they just test kids leaving primary school at ages 10-11, rather than asking 4-year olds about Winston Churchill

Jesus wept...

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In other related news, there's been some backlash from 'the right' with regard to a survey that

'found three-quarters of teachers believed it was their duty to warn pupils about the danger of patriotism ' (Mail)

Intriguing, here you can read the lovely Melanie Philips' take on it, and it's even doing the rounds in the blogosphere, here's Cranmer's take (see: Sat 12 Sept 09)

Bad lefties ruining our national pride, that sort of stuff

But why exactly should we promote 'patriotism' - or love of one's country? Why in particular, should a science/maths/art teacher be interested in promoting a patriotic view - 'here we have Newton's first law, he was English you know, BE PROUD OF BRITAIN!'

Wouldn't simply allowing children to know Newton was English suffice? There are plenty of reasons to be proud of our country - why do teachers need to tell us to be proud? And does that mean we should view Newton and Darwin as 'better' than Einstein or the Curies? It doesn't seem to fit in the remit of a teacher to me

Certainly the most obvious area for this would be in history - now history to my mind is all about analysis, debate and critical thinking - saying 'the British Empire was excellent' like they did in 1950s O-levels is opinionated rubbish and barely anything to do with understanding history - force-feeding sentiment about our past is not a good thing for historical studies

It is of course, great for the Right in this country, because it's what they want to hear - in reality people should be given the facts and make up their own minds on whether they are proud of their country or not - brainwashing kids into saying 'Britain's great' is not particularly worthwhile - kids get enough nationalism through the press as it is, and younger ones aren't capable of understanding why it's great except that's what they're told - it's like religion, even I came out of school pretty nationalistic and ignorant about this country

And can you blame teachers for avoiding patriotism when they have the fun of teaching the two world wars? - Both were fuelled by blind patriotism and nationalism - and to those who say there's a major difference, I say poppy-cock - both encourage blind loyalty to a nation, nationalism is just the political principle that has been marred by its association with modern far-right groups - in its very essence it simply believes in the nation as a sovereign political entity, patriotism is the love of that nation (in our case anyway) - they're interlinked, how can a child who is told that their country is worth loving more than others not view other countries as lesser and end up with some degree of nationalism?

Of course, they hype it up to say that these teachers are lefties bent on communism and strengthening the EU, when in reality they are probably just being mindful of the fact that telling impressionable young children to be proud of their country just breeds trouble - I am proud of my country, hate the EU and yet would want my children to be wary of unquestioning patriotism - so am I a Marxist?

It's not that I mind British patriotism, I am proud of my country - but I can make up my own mind, and I don't think everything this country has done is great - surely telling children to be unquestioningly proud for reasons they can't question yet is just brainwashing, and I would be a hypocrite to suggest pushing my point of view on children when I oppose religion for doing the exact same thing

Give them the facts, this doesn't mean that you have to teach that Britain is bad - nor does that survey indicate anything of the sort, it just means letting them make up their own minds about our history

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I have read lots on this new ISA vetting agency - and let's face it, I agree with pretty much everyone in this country, and would only echo the press with my views on it, it's Orwellian and pretty sickening

But what I will ask is this: Is this a step towards needing a licence to have children?

You are being vetted based on pretty limited contact with kids, even to the point where other parents are being vetted for being near your kids - surely the next logical step is to vet all parents - probably one of the biggest risk areas for abuse?

Answers on a postcard...

I Love Anniversaries!

September 3rd 2009 - the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of war, on which day people who never even saw the war express their opinions on what we should have done...

The cynic in me sees manipulation by the media to sell papers in an otherwise dull season, but some are a good laugh - that man, Peter Hitchens, caught my eye again

In a rather long article in the Mail, he asks if we had stayed out of the war would we still have an empire?

Short answer, in his view, yes we would - had we allowed Europe to get on with it we wouldn't have been weakened by the war, wouldn't have lost Singapore and wouldn't have become America's bitches

A reasonable conclusion, most of Europe was after all, under the control of dictators anyway - allowing Hitler and Stalin to duke it out would probably make little difference to the conditions east of France, we had after all, left Europe alone for a century until the first world war

Regardless of the outcome of this war between the Reich and Stalin, we could have been building up our army without crippling ourselves in the process, and dealt with whatever emerged using our own Imperial force

Now this leads to the assumptions that we wouldn't lose our empire - no fall of Singapore means India remains a dominion thanks to Gandhi, there's no Pakistan split, north Africa is left alone, so no apartheid in South Africa, no Idi Amin or Mugabe (he glosses over the pre-existing chaos in other parts of Africa), while the Japanese can be dealt with by the British, Dutch and French who would still have a strong naval presence, and would probably just occupy China (and Korea?) and prevent Mao and Communism rising to power, oh and therefore no Israel and no Middle-east as we now know it

So we have a completely new world order based on the single fact that Chamberlain did not go to war in 1939 (because we decided not to defend Poland, or anyone else in Europe) - but I ask: at what price?

In Hitchens' world everything is perfect - Britain still has its empire! It mines its own coal, makes its own steel, and pretty much everything else, we are far stronger for not bothering to deal with Hitler and the US remains in its own continent

Only what exactly would happen? Does he think the Empire would have stood up? Presumably the 60s never happen, there's no free love, and all our colonies are happy to bow down to a minuscule island in the North Sea - does he not think, with the rise of communications technology, that our colonies would have become a little surer of themselves eventually? - Maybe the Empire would still be going today, but I find it hard to believe India, Africa, the Pacific and Australia would not have continual murmurings of discontent - the war certainly hastened the fall of the Empire - but the first had already done a lot of damage to Britain, and I struggle to find a conclusion that the far-flung peoples of the world would not come to assert their own identity

Presumably though, Hitchens accepts this and just feels that Britain would be stronger without being crippled by the war - a stronger country to trade and deal with the US, with more friendly relations to former (or current) colonies

In this view I can't help agree that from a purely British point of view, we could be better off, at least in financial and foreign affairs - socially and politically I am unsure how we and other subjects would fare compared to now, technologically we would also probably be less advanced as well, but that's by the by, and obviously an issue where we disagree - Hitchens is at least being true to himself by seeing the best possible scenario for the British Empire he loves so much

But there's an awful lot riding on assumptions here - what is exactly happening in Europe? Even if various dictators polish each other off, there is probably little hope of democracy without the occupying Allies to ram it down their throats, meaning we're leaving Germany, now a more powerful and freer country than we, an unstable power in whoever knows what form - I would guess Hitchens would bank on Europe being in the old 'balance of power' situation - the lack of one major player would mean we had no threat

But that seems a bit of a risk to me, had Germany been allowed to complete its expansionist policies to the east there is no guarantee the Russians could have down anything but kept a border, there was after all no 'second front' - from there what would have happened, would a large central nation rise up? Who knows, but if we take the risk in 1939 then it's pretty possible that we could have been facing another major hostile power a few decades later, Hitler was hardly the most trustworthy of leaders, and I doubt whatever nation he left would adopt a liberal democracy again - surely France would have been at risk again, and the low countries? Right there on the doorstep - as I said, you aren't exactly dealing with someone you can trust, and if Russia wasn't in the mood by then you would basically have the British Empire against another one

Like I say, it's all speculation, but so is the original piece - in my view if you left Europe alone then it would just happen again - what we have now is incredibly successful nations in Germany and northern Europe (and Japan), virtually no threat to western Europe and the highest level of living in history - now, if we were to take the view that we should have avoided the war and left Europe unstable could you guarantee we had such a decent outcome? We went through six years of hell and got a reasonable outcome in the world

That is of course the difference, Hitchens hates the modern world, more on that later, but as I say we got a stable Europe, even if we also got a weakened Britain and a powerful US, does he think the Empire would stay the same, that Europe would not present another threat, as it did twice in the early twentieth century? We would almost certainly have to deal with that at some point, by then it may have been too late - we are after all, a small island with a small population, we only got away with the war in the first place because Hitler overreached and the yanks were simply too much - maybe we could have formed an alliance with the Americans and prepared for war better, then rammed democracy down Germany's throat - but we truly are now in 20/20 hindsight mode, this is becoming a game of risk, not the reality of the world - it is incredibly easy with hindsight to see what we should have done, and then assume it would work out better, but it's also unfair to blame Chamberlain and the British for aiming to protect parts of Europe when we know that they would fail

This is a perfect scenario, and it's a perfect scenario for Britain, not the people of the world - the Empire would have collapsed eventually, they all do, maybe we would've survived for longer, but then someone would just be going over the mistakes a hundred years later instead - and there almost certainly would have been more suffering under the dictatorships than the EU (despite what you may hear..) - humans are just flawed, very resourceful, animals and there would be as many wrongs in the world, if not more, if we took this route

Could you for example, prevent the rise of the US, which is pretty much the crux of Hitchens ideas - a nation so many times larger in both population and size, with more resources, more room to grow and better borders - I am not sourcing anything here but I take it for granted that the US was outstripping us by 1905 - it was inevitable it would move onto the world stage, maybe we wouldn't have been so weak, but I have to ask - would it really be worth it so we could try another route, just in case we did better?

If anything the mistake was to get involved in the First World War - I think there's a stronger case for picking over that ludicrous war, if there's ever any point picking over what might have happened - who knows, for all I know Britain could have become insanely arrogant (as it was by 1900) and been put eventually down by the US, and there'd still be right-wingers whinging that something was wrong nowadays

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A collection of doozies from the article:

Our Parliament is a bought and paid-for puppet chamber. Our culture and customs have been debauched and our younger generations corrupted, as subject populations are, with drink, drugs and promiscuity.

Modern life, eh? He really ought to look up the debauchery in 18th century Britain - you always get this with 'proper' conservatives - they have this view that Britain was in its very essence the late Victorian period through to the Edwardian period, and that it's slipped from a peak - maybe it has, but don't try to tell me it was some sort of happy constant, people were writing stuff like this two centuries ago...

We are compelled, like an occupied people, to use foreign measures to buy butter or meat, and our history is largely forgotten or deliberately distorted in the schools to suit anti-British dogma.

Ah the old 'metric is bad (and foreign)' line - interestingly, although metric is now technically being forced on us by the EU (since 2000) we actually adopted decimalisation and metric in 1965, and there was as much opposition to it then - but there was no EU to force anything until 1973, which we joined up knowing full well their directives on it...

The system had been championed in Britain for over a century before by some of our greatest scientific names (such as James Watt) and most big businesses - it quickly became used in science because it was far easier to use than our antiquated, 'national' system, and plenty of British people helped to influence it (see: Kelvin, and Farenheit was German anyway!) - it was only our politicians who refused to play, hating the French in the 19th century and refusing to pay up in the early twentieth

Meanwhile nations independent of Britain also adopted it in the 60s (such as Australia, India and New Zealand) and virtually every country was using a system that was recognisable all over the world by the 70s, regardless of the EU - get over it

As for British history in schools - I am sceptical about claims it is anti-British, these are just claims made in the tabloids as far as I can tell and are ridiculously opinionated - I learnt about the second world war no end - which is why I dislike it, I hate the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry is an expert on the war and I have little interest in thinking about such a busy area of history (except on days like these of course, and even then I am in speculative mode, not going into mind-numbing detail about El Alamein)

We had stayed out of the two great and decisive conflicts of the late 19th Century: the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, and come to no harm as a result.

That's just specious reasoning - neither bore us particular harm, but then why would they? One was a fairly minor fracas over a strip of land, only 'great' because the 19th century largely saw no major action, the other was a domestic issue in the US - Bismarck uniting Germany was not quite the same as Hitler's totalitarian regime occupying the whole of Europe, which I struggle to think wouldn't have happened had Britain and France not engaged him at that point - and as for a war between two rival democratic states largely revolving around slavery I don't see why we would need to get involved - at least Bismarck wasn't into democracy... Saying 'it worked then so why wouldn't it work 70 years later' seems a tad foolish

I think that'll do...lunch

This is truly brilliant

'Webcameron' have put up a video charting the great things the Conservatives have done for us in the last two hundred years

It is rather one-sided - considering the 20th century was dominated by them you would think we had a perfect century, even Eden gets a positive spin

But what I would take issue with is Peel - the founder of the Conservatives

'repealed the corn laws and faced down the landed interests...'

Now, hands up who knows what that did? Yes, that's right it tore the Tories in two and resulted in the Conservative party being in the wilderness for nearly thirty years, while the 'Peelites' split off and eventually became the Liberal party, you may as well be calling Gladstone a Tory

They actually take credit for Peel facing down the 'landed interests' - this is nonsensical, the Conservatives were the landed interests, they always had been (and still are) and Peel stood up against them and committed political suicide - the repeal of the Corn Laws should never be credited to the Conservatives (look it up, more Whigs and Radicals voted for it)

It's this that I take most issue with because it's ridiculous, if any person watching that went and looked up that period they'd realise the Tories were very much the bad guys - they even tried to keep up with protectionism until Disraeli dragged them away from it - now there's the true Conservative hero, and he hated Peel

They also do Disraeli a bit of a disservice by saying he granted working men the vote - true he did, but only because if he didn't during his short lived minority government, Gladstone would have a year later - they ignore Disraeli's political brilliance, which probably saved the party, for a vague assumption that he was 'progressive' - he was far better than that

I also take issue with several others, Burke, Pitt and Churchill in particular, but I don't want to go there now, and they're nowhere near as bad as the Tories venerating Peel, it's like Labour praising Thatcherism for saving them...

Intriguingly at the end, Heath took us into the common market, but Hague helped save the pound...oh and Howard created a disciplined fighting force for the 2005 election - I ask: so?

But the best is at the end - all about Cameron's brilliance

I'm glad it's still got less than 8,000 views - who do they make these things for? (except me)

Bagehot was smarter than me

I've always felt that Bagehot's advice in the English Constitution was a bit outdated, the whole needing the majesty of the monarchy and lords to deflect attention from the real politics of the Commons seemed like it belonged in a time where most people were uneducated and believed in the natural order of things

But recently I've been rethinking this position in light of the death of Ted Kennedy, who seems to have been revered for who he was rather than what he did

What does a Kennedy have to do with Bagehot's famous work? Not a lot really, but his death made me remember the bizarre nature of American politics and how regal a lot of it seems to be - the Kennedys are by far the best example of that - champion of healthcare reform 'Teddy' may have been but if you think he, and his siblings, got where they did on merit alone you're a loon - it was all down to their father's wealth and influence

This is a family of attractive people who are (or were) more worthy of celebrity than politics, the reverence shown to them in Massachusetts is extraordinary - they have held at least one of the Senate seats for the past 57 years and the last one was re-elected as he was dying and unlikely to see his term out, this is common practice - the most 'senior' senator, Robert Byrd, is on his last legs too

This is of course common in America - the senate basically is a club of white-haired old men with a bizarre concept of 'seniority' in place - these are the elder statesmen of America and their position is more usually down to parentage than democracy

We suffer the same problems of course - once people have a stranglehold on a political position they have a natural advantage to give to their children, this is just as rife in our House of Commons as it is their Congress

However there is a difference - we don't like politicians, not all yank ones are beloved of course, but no son of a famous family will come back from Parliament a hero, a celebrity, a 'lion' on an open-topped bus - Joanna Lumley might, but we don't show respect to those 'above' us

Except of course, we do - the difference is it is the royals that receive this odd reverence - a family who are famous and a big part of our constitution and yet are powerless, the Kennedys have been called 'virtual royalty' too many times to remember this week - and yet we don't give our 'actual' royalty a jot of real power

So whereas the American dynasties are an active part of their democratic process and have control over their politics, ours is a merely an image, a shiny trophy to distract us from the nasty world of politics - the irony of a system intended to better ours being more firmly entrenched should not be lost on us

This was the thrust of Bagehot's idea - that we need a family to focus on and revere, idiots who will go out and get drunk and intrigue us by who they last slept with, and that it is very useful to have the real politics happen behind all that - I used to think we had no need for this theatre any more, and that it would be quite insulting to 21st century people to say that we need this trickery

But it's all true! Look at the stories about royals, they are akin to celebrities in a national role - we humans seem to need our sportstars, celebrities and popular heroes for some reason and it would appear that managing to keep that aspect out of our legislative and executive apart from it is still a huge part of the British constitution

...Bagehot was aware of the human condition far more than I gave him credit for

There are no 'great' generations

Nicely put by Terence Blacker today

He points out the bizarreness with which society (or certain parts of it) venerate those who fought the First World War as the 'greatest generation' and look down on the rest of us born since the war (essentially all of us now)

It is of course, much to do with guilt, I remember great-grandparents going on about the period between the wars - it didn't help that the suffering wasn't just limited to the ten years of conflict, but to the Great Depression as well, it's not surprising the people of today, who have never been without electricity, water and food, feel a pang of guilt when looking at those who lived through decades of horror

But of course, that's all it is - were they 'greater' than us? Not really, no more than Victorians or Georgians were greater than them, or indeed, us - it's just militarism and nostalgia

They were just ordinary people, like pretty much all of us, in a situation they had no control over - the vast majority of those killed were under 25, a fact usually ignored by the media when they attack the youth (just as they forget it is always the youngest who die in battle, yet always the youth who are destroying society) - and primary documents show that they were no more angelic than any other generation, they were just regular young men, who had to be sacrificed before they were worth anything to the people who idolise them so

Which is what Harry Patch himself said - the reason why Harry Patch was so important, in my view, was that he couldn't be used by the right-wing zealots - he was the only one left with any authority on the issue, and the only one who could get away with taking a 'Blackadder goes forth' attitude to it without being labelled a coward (or Marxist)

He could not be ignored, and unlike the members of the younger generations who view the first world war as futile, he could not be shouted down by the vile right-wing press

It's a bit like you can only shut a feminist up by getting a woman to argue the point - were Harry Patch supporting all the usual bollocks that comes out of the Mail or Express it would be old hat - but here was a man helping to support the view held by many people who would be shouted down in the public arena with highly emotive sentiments

To some this is the pacifist 'narrative' - the narrative of course that is completely opposed by the biggest newspapers in the country...

It riles them to hear someone who is supposed to bemoan social decay and hark back to a greater time of Empire to spout this 'leftist' nonsense, he has much more respect and weight than them, and of course, he lived through it - his was a voice of common sense that had no romanticism attached to war

It's a shame that we have lost this great voice, but hopefully his views will help prevent too many people from falling for the militaristic 'narrative' too soon - or else we'll end up right back in 1914

Where are we headed?

I've been thinking lately, which in itself is never good, about old age and what will happen in the near future

I, and pretty much everyone alive right now, have all grown up with old people who went through the second world war, they may not have even served, but they witnessed it, grew up through terrible hardship... et cetera, et cetera

This has always produced an anchor of respect for the older generation, 'they fought off Hitler', or 'they lived through the blitz' - the onus has always been that the younger of us haven't done anything so meaningful

And by younger of us, I now mean anyone under the age of 70 - only those older than that will have any meaningful memories of the war, and to have served you need to be at the very least 82

I am not questioning what they went through, I am questioning what will happen when they're gone - in 10-20 years there will remain but a few centurions in wheelchairs, much like the last survivors of the first world war we have now

Even if there are still quite a few left by then, that broad connection that we all have with the war through our own relatives will be lost, grandparents will be like my own parents - Baby Boomers

No more will we have grandparents who witnessed D-Day, or even German air raids, as my own grandfather did, too young to actually serve, and yet he has already passed of old age

I've been wondering how this will affect generational communication, the loss of the living memory of one of the most significant events in world history is in itself important, but I've really been wondering how this will affect how the old will be viewed

You might think we just go back to how it was before - but there never was a 'before', our modern world has never had a generation who didn't go through one of the major world wars - we're talking about the end of the Victorian period here, not only was old age a relative rarity but technologically and politically it was eons ago, the world is immensely different now (we have the X factor now...)

So I see this as a real break - the first point in 'modern' (or post-modern if you want to be a pedant) history where the old will have no moral authority over the young, no massive issue of respect to beat the rest of us with

Think about it, the old aged will soon be the Baby Boomers - the generation which many of its own call 'the worst generation' - what tales of horror will they scare the grandkids with? The Cold War? The Summer of Love?

I don't particularly regard the Baby Boomers as any worse than the rest of us, they are usually seen as indicative of greed and excess, with a monopoly on power and placing a burden on the future generations, but that really doesn't matter - the point is that they aren't held in any higher esteem than the younger members of society

So when they become the old there'll be no nostalgic stories of where they served, or respect based on the fact that they shot down 17 Nazis, they'll just be people who lived through a time of relative security and increasing standards of living, granted there were negatives like the threat of Nuclear holocaust and the IRA attacks, but they don't compare to the nostalgia of 'fighting Gerry'

So how will it change? Will we as a society be more resentful of the large, privileged group who will now be a burden upon us? Will we continue to respect our elders and nothing will change? Will politics modernise substantially?

You could use the monarchy as a metaphor here - the Queen will, I'm sorry to say, eventually die, the much-loved sovereign who is held in high esteem and whose good grace has probably kept the monarchy alive in this country, will be replaced by her son - ridiculed by many, held in contempt by some, he will never attain the same level of respect as his mother, what little deference there is left for the monarchy will die with Liz, and that may well represent the symbolic death of that generation as well

In a wider sense, will we learn from the past? Many historians attribute, at least to some extent, the farcical first world war on the century of relative peace preceding it - the hardship of war was long forgotten and in many ways, romanticised

Somehow I doubt we'll be sending Imperial forces off expecting them home for Christmas, but will nations be less inclined to make peace the main priority? Maybe we'll become more selfish and protectionist, despite the impact of the UN and globalisation

We've already seen that people have largely forgotten the fear over totalitarian ideas that Nazi Germany provided us, I wonder how many adults from the 1950s would like the idea of ID cards being reintroduced - there has been an increasing trend of late for our selfish fears to circumscribe the basic freedoms that Churchill celebrated

No doubt we are a freer and more liberal country now, but it seems we are more and more willing to give up basic rights for our 'safety'

Likewise people seem to be prepared to resort to more extreme action, I could use voting for the BNP as one example, but there's a lot of other issues in that one

No doubt it will be an interesting few decades - in some ways it will be good to see what happens without a generation who can inspire huge levels of guilt in the rest of us, it really is quite amazing how a conflict which people had no choice over has been used as a stick to beat the rest of us with - many right-wingers talk about disrespect and how the young couldn't have fought the war (not that they did either) when in reality they had no choice in the matter and behaved as any human would have when confronted with that reality

I often wonder what the vast number of soldiers who never got out of their twenties would make of the use of their names now

But regardless, I just hope that we do in fact remember our history as it becomes less and less raw to those currently alive, and we don't, once again, forget our past