State of the Bear - again

[chickenfeet]

I've been in an odd place mentally over the holiday. Not a bad place but not an especially festive one either. The combination of The Golden Compass (book and flick, former vastly superior) and going to church on Christmas Eve may have a fair bit to do with it. It's no secret that I don't buy into the whole God thing, still less organised religion in its more commonly manifested forms but I am drawn to certain aspects of Christianity and to some Christians. It's a place many English socialists have been many times (not to exclude anybody else but what follows is culturally/historically specific). The history of radicalism in England is inextricably tied to religion from the Lollards through the Reformation and, particularly the sects of the 17th century. Toss in Blake, the Christian Socialist movement and a number of other influences and the result is a history quite different from the left in France or Italy or the United States. The result is a form of humanism that is rooted in equality but transcends economics. It can encompass Marxian analysis and the Sermon on the Mount, however 'unscientific' the Politburo and its spritual descendants may think that. Complex, maybe even contradictory, but rich and human and challenging. It's really who I am and once more I'm trying to come to terms with it in a world where 'Socialism' has rejected equality and 'Christianity' seems more concerned with Crusading than Christ.

Thanks to the usual suspects for helping me clarify my thoughts and to Tony Blair, whose final betrayal of the tradition he hijacked also helped.

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

This is a great post and makes total sense.

We are unsurprised that TB did not convert to Catholicism when the Pope was speaking out against the war in Iraq (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2654109.stm). But then again, he's not noted for his humility in matters of faith (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article494563.ece).

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

he's not noted for his humility in matters of faith.

Or indeed anything else.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Point.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

I am so on your boat this Christmas. With significantly more Bible verses and a lot less history, but the same boat nonetheless. I am so glad you shared.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I was an atheist for most of my life, but recently I've turned agnostic - which, I explain to my believer friends, is really most of the work done. I recognise that English Socialism in this respect has almost the opposite history from the French tradition (libres penseurs they were at home, not quite in the écrasons l'infâme mode, more prone to smiling at the MRP's mômeries; I read Jean Barois (http://www.rabac.com/demo/ELLIT/Dossiers/duGard.htm) at 13 and cried at the end.)

However, how is Tone betraying Socialism by converting to Catholicism? (won't comment on anything else he did except to say he seemed more preoccupied with foxes than with la classe ouvrière...)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

how is Tone betraying Socialism by converting to Catholicism?

I wasn't suggesting he was betraying socialism per se but in embracing Rome he is rejecting a core component of English radicalism, i.e. its distaste for religious authoritarianism. It's no surprise of course. I've said before that Blair has no grasp of history and like many megalomaniacs appears to believe he stands outside it.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

It's amazing the difference a few dozen miles can make in matters of radicalism - my socialism has always been rooted (in so much as it has been in any religion) in roman Catholicism. A historical accident, I suppose, in that the oppressed poor in the West of Scotland tended to be Irish migrants, and that the middle-class resisting their influx tended to be Protestant.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you quite a lot when I wrote the original post. I used 'English' rather than 'British' quite deliberately. I don't know much about Scottish radicalism before the 20th century but I do know the modern version had its roots in the Catholic communities and that the links to Irish nationalism were strong. I'm curious now to explore earlier instances of radicalism and maybe even proto socialism in Scotland. My gut feel is that the religious radicalism that was, to a great extent, a bottom up phenomenon in England was much more elite driven in Scotland. The Covenant could include Montrose and Argyll among its leaders but it's hard to see them as Levellers!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I'm mostly ignorant of those radical roots before the 20th C. If anything, I tend to see it in a combination of the humanists of the Scottish Enlightenment (politically conservative and intellectually radical), and in figures like John Muir (a son of Calvinists, and one-time divinity student) and Joseph Hume, neither of whom where of the deserving or the devil's poor. Oh, and English troublemakers like Muir's chum, Tom Paine.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

...and if you do want to explore, I'd suggest that Muir's a good place to start. His influence, or at least his name, is still alive in Glasgow today. I was a member of the Muir Society at University.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... but long trad of resistance to elitism, poor crofters' sons going to university in Edinburgh with sack of oatmeal, etc. Think (but this is prob from v selective reading, mostly around Mitchison) that Scottish Nationalism has a lot of different and contradictory strands within it. Also, local civic tradition of a rather different nature to that in England.

Calvinism however does v much incorporate idea of We Are the Elite, i.e. the Saved.

I.e. IAMC, does not necessarily map to English or even Anglo-Welsh radical tradition, role of chapel, etc.

*Wanders off whistling Blake's Jerusalem*

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Scottish Nationalism, as you say, is multi-stranded, but I've never thought of it (or at least of the SNP) as socialist. The jibe of "Tories in kilts" was common in the 70's, when I'd say they were at their most radical. And of course, the SNP helped bring down Labour and usher in the Thatcher junta...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Though the socialist wing of Scottish nationalism has probably been around as long as any other kind of modern nationalism. Hugh MacDiarmaid comes to mind.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's a strong strand - Alisdair Gray is another. When I was becoming politically aware, though, socialists were being purged from the SNP with the same zeal which Labour were applying to Militant.

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

Yes, this was very interesting to read from an American POV, esp. an American whose vast majority of British experience is located right about where you live now.

My mom's and dad's families are working class Catholics, of non-Anglo descent (except probably some Scotch-Irish Planters back in there somewhere, but noone talks about them OR their pecan plantation in Arkansas!). Being a Mick or Polack was *not* the same, privledged white ethnicity speaking-wise, as being WASP until my parents generation. Even then being Polish wasn't as good as Irish.

With the whole Everybody Loves The Irish thing, we lose sight of that aspect of immigrant experience.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Same pattern in the Ottawa valley. Scotch Presbyterians looked down on French Catholics who looked down on Irish Catholics who looked down on Polish Catholics. Each succeeding group were dirty, superstitious and disease ridden and a threat to civilization as we know it. Now it's the Muslims...

plus ca change

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I realise something else was bugging me about the case of the tone. Historically there are three kinds of Catholics in England; descendants of recusants, predominantly gentry but with pockets of proletarians in places like Durham and central Lancashire; immigrants and their descendants, mostly Irish but increasingly other groups such as Poles nd, much the smallest group, converts. These last are overwhelmingly Establishment and High Tory . Tony follows in the footsteps of such notable socialists as Evelyn Waugh!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

...and I realise what bothers me about Tony's Catholicism bothering you - you have a wider context on Catholicism in the UK. Mine is almost totally defined by the proletarian experience, and not by those high Tory converts. So it seems if not admirable then at least acceptable that a socialist would become a Catholic.

Although I'm glad to remain ignorant of Blair's brand of Catholicism, and his road to Rome, perhaps it could be seen more in his wife's Liverpool roots than in an Establishment background?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

perhaps it could be seen more in his wife's Liverpool roots than in an Establishment background?

Perhaps, but his earlier attempts at putting the Archbishop of Westminster right on the finer points of theology don't suggest the average scouse left footer!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* point. As I say, I'm blissfully ignorant of his path - was he a form of Anglican initially?

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

very much so