Friday, March 28, 2008

Two Cheers for Bloomsbury!

First of all, I will shout out two cheers for our Bloomsbury essays this week: one, for their ability to remain light and amusing in spots in an era of fascist dreariness, and two, for their poetic nature. No dry polemics for Forster and the Woolfs! The prevailing tone of the three treatises is one of courage, balance, and reason in that they avoid the pitfalls of the "hard-line" right and left and embody what at the time must have seemed as the last defense of liberal democracy.

Leonard Woolf's "Fear and Politics: A Debate at the Zoo" parallels Swift and Wilde, remaining incisive yet hilarious. He seems to take an extremely different view of "civilization" from Forster's view of civilized "decadence" as our only hope against force; instead, L. Woolf presents it as confinement and an insidious force unto itself. Leonard posits no "third way" alternative to the Darwinian "jungle" of force and the spirit-sapping "zoo cage" of civilization, implying that the human species must merely compromise and negotiate between the two. He lampoons Victorian/early Modern debates about science and religion, as the animals swiftly progress from monotheism (all zookeepers are truly one Secretary) to materialism (humans are animals too). Of course, the fact that the zoo members reach these conclusions at a quicker pace than ourselves reflects upon the human species poorly. I predicted correctly L. Woolf's criticism of his contemporary Conservatives, as paleolithic hippopotami obsessed with their bloodline, or as "ostriches" who choose to remain in ignorance of modern events and care mainly for their own food (140). However, his treatment of extreme Bolshevism, given his own Socialistic persuasion, came as a surprise: his monkey stand-in remarks that "true wisdom is found only amongst the commoners" (144) with equivalent haughtiness, while of course drawing attention to his own inherited pedigree and emphasizing his choice in throwing in with lower classes. Leonard here underscores the similarity between both systems of domination, whether it is a tyranny of an old aristocracy or a new proletariat.

Virginia's own "Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid," while written in a much later date, dwells on complementary themes while adding a more gendered perspective. Indeed, one of her more intriguing criticisms of war (at least until very recently in human history) is its exclusion and virtual rape of women. Woolf points out that women cannot defend themselves and "must lie weaponless" and in wait of whatever may happen: their relationship with war is one of victimhood alone. Though I doubt she would change her pacifist stance with women's inclusion in the military, I still wonder what her reaction to this change might have been. Furthermore, V. Woolf presented the "love of the gun" and of "medals" as an innate trait in men, not as a socially-encouraged or conditioned one, and in fact a characteristic that must be compensated (by what? sports?) in a peaceable society. However, if "human nature" indeed "changed in 1910" as she most famously noted, could male (and female) nature not change to adapt to a more stable, female-inclusive civilization? Virginia herself seems to offer a window into such a transformed society by her inclusion of Blake's infamous phrase, "I will not cease from mental fight." This reference is particularly poignant given its hope for a "New Jerusalem" in England itself, rising above "Satanic" (ammunition in this case) "mills." The notion of "mental fight" may justify a literati's pacifism in the context of genuine defense against tyranny. However, if this New Jerusalem is fought for through the spirit alone, perhaps it will exist only in a spiritual or mental space.

Though Forster's political essay would in no way be considered (in contrast to the Woolfs') controversial (except for its "betrayal" quote) by most anyone in our own time, its apologia-style tone demonstrates just how under fire the democratic system, which we now take for granted as the de facto superior political structure, was during this time. We can see his message of valuing personal connections over Big Ideas or Nationalism in Howard's End, though such connections are problematized when they are channelled through ideology (Helen's treatment of Leonard) rather than value in the relationship itself. He supports elements of the democratic system that were, and still often are, condemned, from its "decadence" to its disorganized "chatter," the slow-moving talk that does not solve issues rapidly but allows for freedom and dissent.

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