Dear David,
Not all a problem about the brevity.
I have read all the correspondence ... part of what I am suggesting is the danger of the repeated citations from the letters out of context. I think there is also an issue about, as it were, Conrad the man and Conrad as the effect of his fictions. Thus, I am not suggesting that Conrad the man was sympathetic to anarchists - but it is striking that his closest intellectual friendship is with the socialist CG - close enough for him to attend a political meeting at which CG was speaking. Nostromo does respond to CG, but I don't think it simply rejects his views: it doesn't take the position that CG would have taken (particularly, I would guess in relation to the anarchist societies at the end - or the sense of non-improvement through the political changes), but is Conrad's sense of the role of vested interests (national and International) in South America a more accurate 'prophecy' than CG's view might have been?
Conrad claimed to have run guns for the Carlists as a youth, but the dates make this unlikely. He might have run guns to South American right-wingers instead. But I think his politics were dramatically changed by his experience in the Congo. He says that he was 'an animal' before the Congo, and clearly saw that experience as a watershed. I am not sure that he was a romantic royalist: I don't think the gun-running was out of a sense of political commitment - I think it was a teenager's idea of adventure.
I agree that conservativism doesn't necessarily preclude a critique of international capitalism,
Best
Robert
Professor Robert Hampson FEA, FRSA
Professor of Modern Literature,
English Department,
Royal Holloway, University of London,
Egham, Surrey TW20 OEX
From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
Sent: 23 August 2011 07:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Conrad and conservativism
I hope my last wan't brief to the point being abrupt, Robert, but I was struggling with a mobile keypad while keeping an eye out for an appointment call that went 40 minutes late and being regaled by an lcd screen that invited patients to leave positive feedback in a 'Happy Box'.
I don't have a biography of Conrad anymore, I used to have the Penguin one, but any biography of length should include sufficient extracts from his letters that leave no doubt of his political views, which of very marked conservative tenor: he did not believe common people were capable of self-government and abhorred socialism (as well as anarchists!) to the extent that the election of the first, tentative Labour Government was a disaster in his eyes.
He had a very extensive dialogue with Cunningham-Grahame, imaginatively as well as in fact, 'Nostromo' is in part a result of that, and rejected his views. Conrad remained in some senses a romantic royalist (he had helped run guns for Carlists in his youth had he not?) although there wasn't any particular monarch of admiration. His conservatism did not preclude a critique of international capitalism, as in rather more than a few other cases.
Best
David
On 22 August 2011 19:50, <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Robert, am writing on my mobile from the doctors waiting room so briefly, Conrad's political views are very well-documented, particularly from his own letters. His friendship with RB Cunningham-Graham is moot, he said that if people like him could 'reform a street' he'd believe them.
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media
________________________________
From: "Hampson, R" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Sender: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:13:11 +0000
To: <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
ReplyTo: British & Irish poets <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Conrad and conservativism
I wouldn't have thought The Secret Agent was conservative: the account it gives of the Greenwich bombing - in terms of police spies and agent provocateurs was the line taken by the anarchists. 'Under Western Eyes' only works on the assumption that Razumov feels guilty for 'betraying' Haldin - if you assume that it is one's duty to report terrorists to the authorities, then there is no novel. Nostromo critiques US imperialism - and shows how international capitalism operates...
I am not sure who you are quoting - or why we /I should believe them. What does it mean to say that 'Conrad in his private life was predominantly conservative'? Does this mean that he was married and had a family - or something else?
Equally, I would want to know the sources (and context) for the two quotations. Nostromo, with its analysis of the operation of capital (and capitalists) in the creation and construction of the new state of Costaguana might justify a scepticism about the operation of 'democratic politics'. Is the US a good avert for democracy - or the Coalition here?
Conrad was certainly very sceptical about 'human nature', but does this make him a conservative?
Conrad was also certainly very critical of socialism, as a result, but what do you make of his long and close friendship with the socialist Cunninghame Graham - one of those arrested during the 'Bloody Sunday' riots?
Best
Robert
From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
Sent: 22 August 2011 18:48
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: The King Blues
A bit off-topic, but what did you have in mind with your reference to Joseph Conrad?
Robert
Conrad's conservativism, I would have thought. Even without looking at his biography it's rather hard not to notice, vide 'The Secret Agent', 'Under Western Eyes' or 'Nostromo', which espouse a political pessimism about 'human nature' that look towards a conservative stance as thereby vindicated. It was a kind of original sin without the religion.
"Conrad in his private life was predominantly conservative. He maintained a deep abhorrence for socialism ("infernal doctrines born in the continental backslums") and democracy ("I have no taste for democracy"), and held a patronising attitude toward the common folk."
On 22 August 2011 17:09, Hampson, R <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
A bit off-topic, but what did you have in mind with your reference to Joseph Conrad?
Robert
From: British & Irish poets [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
Sent: 21 August 2011 23:17
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: The King Blues
Yes, I grew up next door to an English football club.
I always remember once, after a local derby, across town, sitting upstairs in a traffic-stalled bus watching as about 50 supporters of one side beat and kicked a writhing, grounded, solitary supporter of the others to an inch of his life. In a park and facing a fine Jacobean hall and about a quarter of a mile from where the English Football League was formed. It was like animated Goya.
I could have been that guy on the ground. And I could have been one of his attackers.
One of the troubles the left has had in dealing with how people are is the prevalence of mythologies of predisposition to evil in the literature of the right wing, whether it be St Augustine or Joseph Conrad. The political nature of theories of original sin is indubitable, but so is the problem the politics exploits. The truth is we are just as capable of gratuitous violence as we are of disinterested altruism.
Which does not mean, here in Britain, we should ignore the real issue of the riots, which is that Cameron & Co. are set on exploiting the events for their own agenda, the main target is starting to look like our subscription to the European Bill of Human Rights: on the tv this morning the founder of the Big Issue (!) was speaking for its rescinding, while Cameron too has taken pot-shots at 'health and safety legislation', not to mention the further increase in volume on attacks on Welfare and Housing rights.
That's where the real politics is, not in conflating looters with a protest movement.
I think I've ended up talking to the air.
On 21 August 2011 21:42, Jim Andrews <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
It's very interesting to me to read the discussion you are having of the riots. It makes me think about the Vancouver riot in a different light.
On the one hand, riots happen in Canada after big hockey games, often, like I suppose it happens concerning big football matches in various countries. Political? Well, yes and no. When it happened here, it certainly highlighted the politics of hockey. In the sense that here was a situation where there were a hundred thousand or more people downtown for a celebration--it's hard to drum up that sort of interest for anything, but there they were for the hockey game--hockey is hugely popular here. And the values of hockey, as promulgated by the NHL, are in many ways quite congruent with criminal violence. And there were many rioters wearing Vancouver Canucks jerseys. The many images of young people wearing Canucks jerseys participating in the riot, of little street-version Vancouver Canucks doing violence, were unescapably symbolic. And the Canucks's organizational response was very disappointing. "Those aren't Vancouver Canucks fans!" they proclaimed. Disavowing all responsibility for the riot. And saying nothing they do or stand for encourages this sort of thing.
The Canucks' profit soared this season to $45 million dollars. They are the most popular entertainment in town. They are so much more popular than art that it's ridiculous. And, say what they will, they do stand for criminal violence. Thuggery, in a word.
And that was very clear to more or less everybody, I imagine, after the riot. After the Canucks lost game 7 in a blowout and the riot ensued, the subject of the Canucks themselves simply disappeared. People talked about the riot, but the excitement about the Canucks themselves went to absolute zero.
I played a lot of hockey as a kid and I've been a hockey fan all my life, but seeing the riot up close has changed my attitude. The Canucks do good things for kids' hospitals and similar causes, but the culture they're all about is revolting.
ja
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.bircumshaw
twitter: http://twitter.com/bucketshave
blog: http://groggydays.blogspot.com/
