Monthly Blog Archives - Page 4 of 17

MONTHLY BLOG 133, A YEAR OF GEORGIAN CELEBRATIONS – 1

11 January 2022/in History, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

To celebrate the imminent publication of my book on The Georgians ¹, my next set of BLOGs commemorates significant Georgian milestone dates: one for every month of the year.² No problem for January. It must be Burns Night: Tuesday January 25^th.

The hero is Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns, the evocative Scottish poet and song-writer (1759-96).³ He fully deserves celebration. Not least for writing the world’s most sung song, Auld Lang Syne, which hymns the poignancy of partings and of affectionate remembrance.⁴
Rituals at Burns Night suppers include the ceremonious arrival of a special dish of haggis. It contains meat offal (heart, liver, lungs), minced and cooked in a special bag with fillings of oatmeal, onions, suet, and seasoning.⁵ The degree of ceremony adopted remains a matter of choice. But the grandest ritual sees a Scottish piper in full regalia, playing in a procession, in which the dish of haggis is proudly paraded. It’s then eaten, washed down with Scottish whisky. (These days, too, vegetarian and non-alcoholic alternatives are available).

Annual meetings in Burns’ honour began among his friends, from 1801 onwards – only five years after his death. Other convivial groups began to do the same. Within ten years, a critic denounced the spread of the custom. In 1811, he detected a positive ‘Burnomania’.⁶ What term would he have to invent in 2022, when there are at least 200+ Burns Clubs globally? In 1885, these were organised into the Robert Burns World Federation (RBWF): its motto ‘Educate – Celebrate – Promote’.⁷

Clearly, the ‘mania’ has become settled and institutionalised. And it shows no sign of flagging. All the organised Societies host their own Burns Night suppers. But there are, in addition, many gatherings, which are spontaneous and ad hoc local initiatives. Thus the estimated figure of some 2,500 Burns suppers world-wide in January 2021 was probably too low. Meanwhile, an amiable venture from Glasgow University’s Centre for Burns Studies encourages revellers everywhere to share their memories, via an interactive Map.⁸

What is Burns’ special gift that generates such enthusiasm and loyalty? One component is undoubtedly Scottish national pride in his achievements. The strength of that cultural link should not be underestimated.⁹ And the Scottish diaspora over the centuries has taken Burns admirers world-wide. Yet it is completely wrong to assume that people from other nations don’t appreciate his work, even if they may need coaching in some of his less easily understood dialect usages. Indeed, the fact that many of his poems are known firstly as songs makes them easily memorable – the heartfelt musical meaning overriding any obscure terms.

Burns is thus a poet and song-writer for all times and peoples. His special gift consists in conveying richly complex thoughts in language of piercing clarity. He is simple but not trite. Loving but not soppy. When he is wryly melancholic, he is not bitter.

Who can resist raising a glass each year to the author of sentiments like ‘My love is like a red, red rose’; ‘A man’s a man, for a’ that!’ ‘O would some power the giftie gie us,/ To see ourselves as others see us’; ‘Man’s inhumanity to man/ Makes countless thousands mourn!’; and yet ‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet/ For the sake of Auld Lang Syne’.

All that, and the tribute taps into a tradition that now dates over 200 years. Burns was a Georgian radical who thought that people should be judged on their merits, not by their birth or titles. And his own merit is as radiant today as ever.

ENDNOTES:

¹ P.J. Corfield. The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Yale UP., London, 2022), pp. 470: publication date 22 January 2022.

² Ibid., pp. 389-91.

³ The first biography was published soon after his death by R.H. Heron, A Memoir of the Life of the Late Robert Burns (Edinburgh, 1797); a relatively recent one is by R. Crawford, The Bard: Robert Burns, a Biography (2011).

⁴ [M.J. Grant], Auld Lang Syne: A Song and its Culture (Cambridge, Open Book publication, 2021).

⁵ Affectionate references to this quintessentially Scottish dish go back to Burns’ poetic address To a Haggis (1786), in T. Burke (ed.), The Collected Poems of Robert Burns (Ware, Herts, 2008), pp. 133-4, setting a trend for familiar commemorations, with successors like W. Foolie, The Scots Haggis [in verse] (Edinburgh, 1821); and D. Webster, The Scotch Haggis: Consisting of Anecdotes and Jests, Curious and Rare Articles of Literature … (Edinburgh, 1822).

⁶ W. Peebles, Burnomania: The Celebrity of Robert Burns Considered … (Edinburgh, 1811).

⁷ Consult website http://www.rbwf.org.uk (accessed 10 Jan. 2022).

⁸ Report in https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2021/january/headline_769448_en.html (accessed 1o January 2022). The map will eventually be featured on https://www.scotland.org/burns.

⁹ C.A. Whatley, Immortal Memory: Burns and the Scottish People (Edinburgh, 2016); C.E. Andrews, The Genius of Scotland: The Cultural Production of Robert Burns, 1785-1734 (Leiden, 2015).

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MONTHLY BLOG 132, IS TEACHING SEXY?

1 December 2021/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

Fig.1 Symbol for Infinity,
referencing the infinite unknown …
Image from Wikimedia Commons (2021)

It’s the author and playwright Alan Bennett who says that teaching is sexy. And, before the massed ranks of educationalists protest instead that their work is exhausting and under-paid, let’s clarify Bennett’s precise formulation. In The History Boys (2004), one of his fictional school-teachers states firmly that: ‘The transmission of knowledge is in itself an erotic act’.¹

Of course, there are immediate qualifications to be made. Not all words voiced on stage can be taken as representing the playwright’s deep beliefs. Just as well, for otherwise it would be impossible to write a play about conflicting ideas and contested ideologies.

Nonetheless, The History Boys is infused with tenderness for adolescent boys on the verge of manhood. And the play is conspicuously sympathetic to close teacher engagement with the charms of youth.

So Bennett’s proposition stands, if not as his ultimate personal credo, then as a viewpoint worthy of serious consideration. And, by way of context, it may be noted that, in the early 1960s, the young Alan Bennett was himself briefly an apprentice History don at Magdalen College, Oxford.

First-hand testimony from friends, who had the benefit of his tuition,² confirms that Bennett was an excellent tutor. He was not only knowledgeable and sagacious, but also very good at inducting baffled student beginners into the required skills for self-directed study. Some came from schools where they relied for information upon ‘teachers’ notes’. Such students were astounded to be given a booklist of 20+ massive tomes and told cheerfully to return in a week with an original essay. Bennett was good at demystification, without being patronising. And, if he was gaining erotic satisfaction from these pedagogic exchanges, he gave no outward intimation of any such state of affairs.

Yet it is still worth asking: is the transmission of knowledge an erotic act? Here this discussion rejects entirely all sexual exploitation of students by teachers. At any and every stage in the educational system, such behaviour is illegal and immoral – and almost invariably damaging to the exploited young. It may be noted, too, that, in The History Boys, the school-master Hector’s explanation of his fondling of young boys’ genitalia as part of the eros of transmitting knowledge, as in the Renaissance, is robustly rebuked by the head-master: ‘Fuck the Renaissance’.

But is there a deeper point to explore about the pleasures of educational exchanges? Something that is not directly sexual. Nor even particularly sensual.

Yes, there is. Indeed, there are genuine intellectual pleasures to be gained from the life of the mind, as well as of the body. The best moments of transmitting and debating ideas with others are exhilarating. It’s exciting to push collectively at the boundaries of knowledge, which reach to infinity. It engenders a genuine electric buzz of the mind. Such excitements are particularly associated with advanced level teaching; but they can occur in any context of intellectual breakthrough. Out of uncertainty into the light: wow!

No special terms comes to mind to acknowledge this joyous and far from everyday experience. Something that is not directly ‘sexy’ or ‘erotic’. But, as they say, something else.

Greek terms offer some range. It is understood that Eros, the god of love, comes in many forms. His/her manifestations are protean. So the lofty Greek agapé means a god-like, universal, and unconditional love. And there is another term, which falls between agapé and eros. It refers to deep, nurturing, supportive and non-sexualised friendship, known as philia. That’s a very pleasant thing to give and to receive.

However, good friendship is not really the same as the intense stimulus of shared intellectual endeavour. Dictionaries of synonyms offer variants such as ‘mental stimulation’ or ‘food for thought’.

All of those are nice. Yet those terms are a bit tame. So let’s simply say that there is a positive intellectual buzz to be derived from the shared transmission of knowledge.

Is the experience erotic? No. Does it happen in every teaching context? No. Does it happen often enough to add zest to the educational process? Yes. Is the intellectual buzz intensely joyous? Yes. It’s generating real intellectual electricity, with its own power and light.

ENDNOTES:

¹ A. Bennett, The History Boys (2004), p. 53.

² Those friends include my life partner, Tony Belton, who studied History at Magdalen College between 1961-64.

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MONTHLY BLOG 131, REMEMBERING ADRIAN AGAIN

1 November 2021/in Monthly Blog, Personal/by Penelope J. Corfield

Adrian Corfield,
on the South Coast seafront,
not long before his death from lymphoma at the age of forty-four.

Thinking about ‘Being Penelope’ (BLOG/130 October 2021) got me remembering – again – my next brother Adrian (1946-90). We were the oldest two of a close-knit tribe of six siblings. I’ve web-posted my obituary of him already.¹ So I am not planning to repeat myself. Instead I am just distilling my thoughts on how bereavement feels, thirty-one years later.

Thoughts of Adrian are woven into my life. They don’t need to come at special moments. He was a happy person, one might say happy-go-lucky. So my memories are usually joyous ones. His smiling face is like a benison.

One fun thing, when we were kids, was our laughing game. It was an enjoyable way of passing the time, if we were confined to home by bad weather (say) on a dank November afternoon. One sibling would be selected to start laughing. The rest were enjoined to keep their faces straight. The test was to see how long the non-laughers could resist. Adrian was especially good at giving a contagious chuckle and making funny faces. Soon we would all be laughing uncontrollably. And if a parent popped in to ask: ‘What’s the joke, kids?’ our glee was redoubled. It was not a game which we played all the time. But it was a great reserve for raising everyone’s spirits on a gloomy afternoon. And shared laughter is very bonding.

Remembering an emotionally close sibling also reminds me of the almost instinctive bonds between children brought up together from the earliest age. There are many people in life to whom I feel warm links. Yet those are all, to a greater or lesser extent, chosen and cultivated during my lifetime. My bond with Adrian was not something that I chose. It just happened, because we were very close in age within an emotionally tightly-knit household. I would not say that I understood all of Adrian’s thoughts, especially as we got older and our daily lives diverged. Yet, when young, I effortlessly understood his emotions, moods and reactions, just as he understood mine. Quite probably twins who are close and are brought up together feel this form of identification even more strongly.

Consequently, when Adrian died, I felt that an entire branch of my specialist knowledge was nullified. It was a bit like losing an arm or a leg. It’s a shock that always remains a shock. Plenty of other people know me tolerably well, as I know them tolerably well. But no-one now understands my reactions in the instinctive way that Adrian did. It’s not a matter that I go round bewailing. In some ways, it’s quite nice to maintain my adult mystery. Yet it’s still a startling experience, to lose someone who was so close. (And talking with others who have lost siblings, I know that shocked feeling is quite common).

Lastly, as life continues, I am increasingly conscious of one big issue which concerned Adrian greatly. He was a biologist; and, in the 1980s, was already lecturing his friends and family on the importance of maintaining global biodiversity. How right he was; and is!

Today, he would be beside himself with anxiety about climate change. As the urgency of the issue escalates, he would be one of the very many calling for immediate action to halt the process or at least to coordinate global attempts at alleviation. Adrian was not a political joiner. So he never became a member of the Greens, though that was the logic of his position. Today, I am sure that he would be marching with the recent crowds of protestors in London (as in many other international capitals) against the role of the big banks in funding fossil fuel extractions.

Would the failure of the world’s political leaders to undertake serious action during the last thirty years alarm him? Greatly. Would it dent his chronic optimism? Perhaps somewhat, though he would doubtless rally to say that the global emergency will finally force everyone, not least political leaders, to take urgent action. `

And what else? He would echo the brilliantly succinct warning from Greta Thunberg: ‘There is no planet-B’.

ENDNOTES:

¹ PJC, ‘Remembering Adrian Corfield (1946-90)’, in https://www.penelopejcorfield.com/PDFs/7.4.3-Corfield-Adrian-Memories.pdf. With my siblings, we organise an annual walk in his honour on the majestic outcrop of Beachy Head, near Eastbourne: views are magnificent and larks sing high above.

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MONTHLY BLOG 130, MEANINGS OF BEING PENELOPE

1 October 2021/in Monthly Blog, Personal/by Penelope J. Corfield

Fig.1 A swatch of weaving,
illustrating the metaphor for History as ‘Penelope’s Web’
being constantly woven and unwoven by Penelope in Greek myth.

It’s a great name, Penelope. English. Greek. And very international. Recognised everywhere. Can be used in long majestic form. Or abbreviated into Penny, Pen, or P. It’s not too commonly used. Yet it’s very far from unknown, either.

In Greek myth, the foundational Penelope is the wife of the travelling Odysseus (Ulysses). She remains at home, weaving and waiting. And rejecting the many suitors for her hand. So the name has connotations of a woman of sexy desirability, who has great patience and perseverance while sticking at her own work, allied to a good knowledge of her own mind, and a degree of cunning in eventually getting what she wants. For me, a most attractive mix.

Perhaps British wives, waiting at home for their husbands to return from the Second World War, had visions of themselves as Penelope? Certainly a considerable number of baby daughters were then given that name. For instance, in 1940 the celebrated actor Penelope Keith was born in Sutton, to the wife of a serving army officer; and in 1946 her fellow actor, the admirable Penelope Wilton, was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Whereas the name has become comparatively less common since then. The much-lauded Spanish film actor Penelope Cruz (b.1974) is a notable exception. And, of course, there are others, especially in Greece. Nonetheless, when I meet fellow Penelopes these days, there is a strong chance that we will all be post-WW2 baby boomers.

Interestingly, in Britain after the First World War, numerous baby girls were named ‘Irene’ – meaning peace. My mother (b.1919) was one of them. So it obviously seemed natural to her, after yet another grinding war, to reach for an expressive Greek name. During the fighting, she worked on the home front, deciphering captured letters for Military Intelligence, and dodging incendiary bombs on London. But her memories were chiefly of the anxiety of waiting for my father to return from active service in North Africa and Italy. So Penelope!

As a youngster, I was invariably known as Penny – and was happy enough to be teased about turning up like a ‘bad penny’; or, when I was naughty, being called ‘penny dreadful’. Such usages are broadly affectionate. And, with a long name in reserve, I never felt purely defined by the diminutive form.

Moreover, as I began to teach and then to publish, I realised the great advantage of having a public persona, which I can use alongside my private identity. These days I use Penelope daily – and some people address me only by that name. I positively enjoy it, though I would not have done when younger.

Furthermore, there is one metaphorical usage, which I do especially relish. The term ‘Penelope’s web’ refers originally to the shroud that the mythic Penelope weaves daily and unpicks secretly by night – thereby delaying a decision as to which of her suitors to choose. (They were not very bright and failed to see through her ruse, which she sustained for years). Penelope’s web can therefore simply refer to a major work which is always in progress and never done. (Ouch! Too many authors know that syndrome). Yet it is also used metaphorically for global history. That is a colossal work, which is always in progress, always being unpicked by critical historians, and then rewoven by others. As one of that tribe, I am proud to contribute to Penelope’s web.

By the way, I don’t feel any proprietorial interest over any other aspects of the mythology, though I admire both the academic deliberations¹ and the contemporary retellings.² Did Penelope secretly have sex with all 108 of the faithful suitors, giving birth to an illegitimate son Pan? (as some versions suggest). I don’t know and don’t mind one way or the other. Did Penelope look on with blood-thirsty glee when Odysseus/Ulysses returned and slaughtered all the importunate suitors and her twelve loyal handmaids as well?³ I never knew about such details as a child, so had no idea that there were moral complexities in the story (as in global history, of course). To me, Penelope was/is simply a name of serenity and potency.

But I did discover, with time, one complexity of my own. From childhood, I was trained to write my short name as ‘Pene’: literally one half of Penelope. I view ‘Penny’ as a close variant, but not actually referring to me. However, then I met some Spaniards. They were highly excited to meet a woman named ‘Penis’. For a while, I simply laughed. After all, plenty of men manage with the penile nick-names: ‘Dick’, ‘John Thomas, or ‘Johnson’, without exciting wild mirth. However, in my case the cross-gender dimension seemed to be too much. Soon I got bored with the kerfuffle, especially as my range of international contacts grew. Now I try to keep ‘Pene’ strictly for use between very old friends and family. I sign emails with the initial: P. And to the wider world, I’m very happily known as Penelope – a lovely Greek name with hidden depths.

ENDNOTES:

¹ See e.g. M.A. Katz, Penelope’s Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey (Princeton, NJ, 1991); M. Janda, Odysseus und Penelope: Mythos und Namen (Innsbruck, 2015).

² See esp. M. Atwood, The Penelopiad (2007).

³ Christopher Rush’s novel Penelope’s Web (Edinburgh, 2015) confronts the dramas and moral dilemmas both of her husband’s twenty-year absence and of his homecoming.

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MONTHLY BLOG 129, The Surprising Consequences of Learning to Float-and-Kick Simultaneously

1 September 2021/in Monthly Blog, Personal/by Penelope J. Corfield

Floating © Clipart 2021.

Having been an enthusiastic swimmer all my life, it was a shock to be told casually by a friendly swimming-pool attendant that I was squandering my efforts by swimming wrongly. That is, I was using my arms for propulsion and merely wiggling my feet as rudders to improve direction. I was sceptical. But I accepted the challenge to swim a length of the pool, holding onto a float, and using nothing but my legs.

It was mortifying. I could hardly move. In addition, I immediately realised that the small and apparently tranquil leisure-pool has quite strong currents. These are caused by the swirl of the waters that are constantly pumped in to keep the ambience clean and fresh. My kicking was so feeble that the float – or rather the currents – were taking charge.

Turning to my pool-side mentor, I wondered what to do. ‘Kick harder’, she replied. Stung, I followed her advice. But the outcome was still mortifying. I could just about surmount the currents in the pool’s centre but, once I got to the edges, where the tides scour with special force, I was stuck again. It was objectively funny to be very close to the finishing tape, kicking away lustily, but unable to get to the edge. But, subjectively, I was not amused.

Well, I went back to basics. In the next two months, I sorted out firstly how best to breathe steadily on the float, instead of alternatively kicking and breathing. I then reviewed my leg movements and decided upon a more piston-like action. It took some time to get it; but it began to work. I had to use the entire leg, rather than just wiggling my toes. I knew that something radical was happening when I got spasms in my lower back, as torpid muscles were suddenly kicked into action after literally decades of under-use.

Basically, it seems that, not only had I been swimming weakly but I was also walking with only half-leg power. I’d been sort-of-gliding, holding my torso still and using only my calf muscles. Upon reflection, I realised that this state of affairs could be traced back to a serious fall which I had at the age of seventeen. In fact, it began as a joyous jump on a moonlit summer evening in Italy. I leapt from a high seaside promenade down onto the sandy beach. But I’d seriously miscalculated. (I blame the moonlight). The fall was uncontrolled, ending with great force. Fortunately no bones were broken. I got up, after recovering my breath, and continued strolling under the stars, with a group of teenager friends, who responded with gentle indifference.

In fact, however, I’d dislodged my pelvis. There was nothing to see; and the harmful effects on my knees became apparent only years later. Various osteopaths gradually managed to improve matters. Yet it was only when I persevered for weeks at hearty kicking with both legs, while buoyed in water, that things finally righted themselves. It was a shock, but a most agreeable one.

And about time too! My kicking with the float is still improving. My ordinary swimming has become stronger, with the aid of proper leg power. And I now walk briskly, swinging my hips, lifting my feet, and singing lustily as I go. Leaping from a high promenade felt (briefly) like flying. Yet getting old bones back into their proper alignment feels infinitely more euphoric.

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MONTHLY BLOG 128, Appreciating Northumberland and seeking the best adjective to describe its scenic beauties.

1 August 2021/in Current Affairs, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

Fig. 128.1 Silhouette Hedgehog
© https://flyclipart.com (2021)

A wonderful short trip to Northumberland yielded five great pleasures, headed by a night-sighting of a live hedgehog. Something that I personally have not witnessed for very many decades. Reassuringly, the hedgehog looked exactly as I expected it to look. It did not like our probing torch-light, so we kept the sighting brief. But it was enough to show me that my childhood memories were entirely accurate. A hedgehog is a hedgehog is a hedgehog. So it should be. But good to have personal confirmation. All admirers of the elusive, charming, and now habitat-threatened animal should join the British Hedgehog Protection Society (https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk)!

The second great pleasure in Northumberland was to breathe clean, fresh air. As a Londoner, I enjoy living on a small hill, because the hill-top air is at least fresher than the fumes of the low-lying Thames basin. Yet a few lung-fulls of air in Northumberland made me realise that I’d been relatively kidding myself. Everywhere in London is polluted. Come on, politicians: get to grips with this issue. We know that clean air is needed for health, both mental and physical – especially of growing children. Come on, voters, pressurise the politicians to take action. And let’s send all those who oppose the clean-up (and their children) to breathe some real air in Northumberland, in order to experience the difference and to learn that there’s a better way.

Thirdly, then, the coast-line of Northumberland is something special. We spent some time in seeking the perfect adjective to describe its qualities. It’s visually very attractive. Yet ‘pretty’ does not do justice to its grandeur. Nor, on the other hand, is the over-used adjective ‘awesome’ really right. Even though there is much to strike awe into viewers, much of the coast-line is too low and secretive to provide the sort of shock and awe associated with huge mountains and towering cliffs. Certainly, the Northumberland coast is striking. But many things are that. Eventually, I settled for ‘grandly beautiful’ or perhaps ‘beautifully grand’. Some combination of ‘stunning’; ‘wild’; ‘magnificent’ would do as well. The kittiwakes nesting on the basalt rocks provided a squawking chorus of approval. And the castles, some ruined, added majesty and grand views.

By the way, when walking out on one low headland, we bumped unexpectedly into two old friends from Battersea – so other Londoners have already got the message. The lengthy coastal walk is rightly popular; and we plan to come back another time to talk some more.

Fourthly, the small market and seaside towns in Northumberland are attractive and joyous places. They are not immune to today’s common urban pressures. There are some closed shops and some struggling pubs. There are also some trafficked streets in the centres which could be pedestrianised with benefit. Yet their scale makes them highly attractive places to live and to visit. And the prevailing mellow sandstone stonework adds a distinctive visual charm.

Alnwick is one leading example. It has obvious and important places to see – like the imposing Castle, with an impressive art display and beautiful grounds. It has a collective ensemble of town-centre buildings, including the central market place, the Town Hall, a couple of medieval town gates, and a slightly over-sized nineteenth-century Assembly Rooms, all of which deserve a pottering visit. And there are unexpected venues. Like the nineteenth-century railway station converted into the gorgeous Barter Books emporium, which serves a great breakfast and, more importantly, has a truly astonishing array of fiction and non-fiction on its groaning shelves – enough to fill a huge Victorian engine shed, which gives an idea of its scale. And there are little secrets to spot across town: the fountains, known in Northumbrian dialect as ‘pants’ (a usage dating back at least to 1661 but whose origin remains unexplained); the town seats, all devised in different designs; and, round a quiet corner, brandishing a sword manfully, a 14-foot high bronze statue to Henry Percy, better known as Harry Hotspur (c.1364-1403). This tribute, unveiled in 2010, salutes the fighting spirit of the celebrated hero – and also the links between Alnwick and the Percy family, who continue to reside in Alnwick Castle.

So what was the fifth Northumbrian thing of note? The huge skies – which can, of course, be seen elsewhere – and, especially, their utter darkness at night. Unfortunately, during our short visit, the weather was continually cloudy and overcast. Our plan to visit Kielder Park was put on hold for another time. Nonetheless, Northumberland remains known for the peerless quality of its dark skies – and those at Kielder are internationally renowned (see https://www.visitkielder.com). Its dark skies zone covers almost 580 square miles; and in 2013 was awarded Gold Tier Dark Sky Park status by the International Dark-Sky Association (https://www.darksky.org). That accolade ranks Northumberland with only a few competitors, world-wide. It deserves applause from all who seek to combat the disorientating effects (on humans and wildlife alike) of excess light pollution.

Kielder should become the destination of choice for all the millions of Brits who have never really experienced the deep wonder of a truly dark sky. Humans first used the stars to learn to navigate and to count the passing of time. Let everyone enjoy that seminal experience, which is genuinely awe-inspiring. So it follows too: let’s control technology; curb light pollution; and protect life properly in all its forms.

In the meantime, visit Northumberland for real wildlife; grandly beautiful coast; fresh air; intriguing towns; and huge dark skies, where starlight quietly puts Planet Earth into its cosmic context.

(*) This BLOG is dedicated to the great hospitality and unshakeable good cheer of our Northumberland hosts.

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MONTHLY BLOG 127, World citizens in the twenty-first century are generating an ‘international sphere’ of public opinion, outside and beyond the control of national governments.

1 July 2021/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

Fig.1 Globe in Speech Bubble by Moilleadóir (2009):
from WikiMedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WiktLogo-Bubble-WikiGlobe-red-1-.svg

There is today a growing international sphere of public opinion. It stretches well outside and beyond the control of national governments. It is purely informal; often fragmented; and lacking direct power. Nonetheless it is an identifiable liberal trend in world history – which is causing particular anxieties for repressive states. As a result, there are also hostile forces, working against the emergent international sphere. Yet the global advance of mass literacy since c.1800 is laying the foundation (in 2015. 86% of adults across the world were able to read and write);¹ the diffusion of print continues to fan the fire; and the advent of personal computing, plus especially the invention of the world-wide-web in 1989, has thrown (metaphorically) petrol on the blaze.

Not all, but many citizens are now sharing and debating ideas world-wide. The numbers participating are likely to grow. And, in time, the strength of global public opinion, when united, will increasingly influence governments. To take one example, there may well be international people-power calling for faster action to cope with climate change. Of course, global public opinion will not always agree – any more than does public opinion within any nation-state. But debates are part and parcel of all civic life. In other words, it’s better to have people arguing and voting rather than fighting and killing.

This collective arena has recently been identified as a ‘global civil order’.² And others detect the operation of an ‘international sphere’.³ That latter terminology is a verbal adaptation from an earlier usage, popularised by the German social philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.⁴ Writing of western Europe in the eighteenth century, he identified the advent of a new ‘public sphere’ or civic arena, which he contrasted with the ‘private sphere’ of the domestic household. Details of his interpretation are disputed. The two spheres were not as separate and self-contained as Habermas assumed. And his dichotomy between the supposedly ‘male’ and ‘bourgeois’ civic sphere and the supposedly ‘female’ household was not nearly as clear cut either.⁵

Nonetheless, an adapted version of overlapping, rather than separate, spheres is a helpful one, In the course of the eighteenth century, an increasingly literate population across Britain joined in debating ideas and ideologies in books, newspapers, homes, schools, theatres, market-places, coffee-houses, and debating chambers – all the way from private societies to national legislatures.⁶ And today the debates are taking places not only in household, local and national spheres but also internationally. There is no need to choose between one civic forum or another: they interconnect and overlap. Individuals can thus share interests not only locally but also with others across Planet Earth.

One criticism of this emergent trend was voiced in Britain in 2016 by the then Conservative premier Theresa May. Those individuals who view themselves as ‘citizens of the world’ are really, she claimed, ‘citizens of nowhere’. She further implied that the would-be internationalists were talking just to other international elites, and were betraying their fellow citizens ‘who live down the road’.⁷ Some cheered. But many, including some of her fellow Conservatives, rebuked her myopia. People should be praised, not blamed, for taking seriously their responsibilities to the global community that lives on Planet Earth. Today, that point is being underlined, more emphatically than ever, by the Covid pandemic and by galloping climate change.

At this point, it’s worth stressing that the emergent international sphere is not in itself hostile to the world’s governments in general (even if specific governments may be strongly opposed). On the contrary, the global exchange of ideas and opinions depends upon a degree of international order. Chronic armed conflict between rival nations clearly does not promote reasoned discourse.

So the achievements of national governments, from the early twentieth century onwards, have been vital, in establishing an institutional framework for international cooperation.⁸ It doesn’t always work. Crucially, however, this framework does exist. Key bodies include: the League of Nations (founded 1920), followed by the United Nations (1945); plus Interpol (1923); the World Bank (1944), the World Health Organisation (1948); the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT: 1948), followed by the World Trade Organisation (1995),⁹ the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare (1949); the International Telecommunications Union (1965), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996) and, not least, the International Criminal Court (1998). Support for such initiatives came from national populations who backed governments in thinking internationally; and these changes in turn encouraged further international thinking among ordinary citizens.

All the ensuing non-governmental global conversations are thoroughly diverse. Some are initiated by individual activists. The role of Greta Thunberg, the youthful Swedish environmentalist, is one remarkable case in point, as she tours the world to highlight the need for urgent action on climate change.¹⁰

At the same time, many non-governmental links are sustained by an immense number of global organisations.¹¹ Sporting associations had practical reasons for collating their rules. Leading the way in 1881 was the International Gymnastics Federation. Another leader was the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA; founded 1904). Other groups which think globally include the churches; trade unions; professions; academics; librarians; scientists; doctors; and many specialist occupational groups, such as investment bankers. All these, and many others, run international organisations. One venerable and still thriving body is Apimondia, founded by the world’s bee-keepers in 1897.¹²

There are also numerous international aid or development agencies (some with government funding; many without). These bodies indicate that the charitable impulse, found within most countries, is now being energetically applied world-wide.¹³ Significantly, too, global lobbying on contentious global issues has grown ever more vigorous. In 2007, Avaaz, an American non-profit web-based organization, rallies international support to advance a liberal-left (non-ideological) agenda, opposing climate change, corruption, poverty, and conflict – and supporting human rights and animal rights.¹⁴ By contrast, some international networks deliberately operate on the dark side: those of criminals. money-launderers and people-traffickers, being prime cases.¹⁵ Unsurprisingly, these people do not contribute to the global discourse, but are instead the subject of earnest international debate, in the difficult quest to curb them.

Another admirable set of organisations are devoted to literary and cultural matters. One congenial case is the Robert Burns World Federation, founded in 1885. Run by enthusiasts, it is a charity that promotes and celebrates Scotland’s most famous poet and song-writer. And it provides organisational links for a world-wide network of Burns Clubs (numbering over 250 in 2013).¹⁶ The fact that this Federation has now flourished for well over a century is impressive.

Robert Burns has also proved to be a song-writer for the world. In 1788, he wrote Auld Lang Syne, celebrating friendship and remembrance. Set to a traditional Scottish tune, the song has now been translated into at least 41 languages. Not only is it sung at private parties, but it is regularly performed in many countries at graduations, passing-out army parades, and festivities at the turn of the Old Year/New Year.¹⁷ It has thus become the world’s most frequently sung song, giving the international sphere an unofficial anthem. (‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness then/ For the sake of auld lang syne’). Once on a visit in Japan, I gave an ad hoc rendering, only to be asked by my audience, with pleased surprise, how I knew this traditional Japanese song so well.¹⁸

These internationalist thoughts have been triggered by my participation in the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies/ Société internationale d’étude du dix-huitième siècle, of which I am currently President.¹⁹ This body, founded in 1963, is now nearing its 60^th anniversary. It is run on a shoe-string, without any institutional backing, and has 35 affiliated national and regional societies (some more active than others). Together, its membership may be viewed as an update of the eighteenth-century scholars’ ecumenical Republic of Letters.²⁰ And today the Society proudly contributes to the international sphere.

ENDNOTES:

¹ See variously D. Vincent, The Rise of Mass Literacy: Reading and Writing in Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2020); M. Roser and E. Otriz-Ospina, Literacy (2013) in website: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy.

² See D. Laqua, W. Van Acker and C. Verbruggen (eds), International Associations and Global Civil Society: Histories of the Union of International Associations (2019).

³ See two recent book titles: B. Winter and L. Sorbera, Contending Legitimacy in World Politics: The State, Civil Society and the International Sphere in Twenty-First Century Politics (2018); and C.R. Alexander, Frontiers of Public Diplomacy: Hegemony, Morality and Power in the International Sphere (2021).

⁴ See J. Habermas, Strukturwandel der Bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit (1963), in 4th edn. (Neuwied, 1969), transl. as The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1989). p. 40.

⁵ For one pertinent critique among many, see J.A. Downie, ‘The Myth of the Bourgeois Public Sphere’, in C. Wall (ed.), A Concise Companion to the Restoration and Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2004), pp. 58-79.

⁶ See e.g. H. Barker, Newspapers, Politics and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford, 1998); H. Kerr, D. Lemmings and R. Phiddian, Passions, Sympathy and Print Culture: Public Opinion and Emotional Authenticity in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Basingstoke, 2015); and M. Ellis (ed.), Eighteenth-Century Coffee-House Culture, Vols. 1-4 (2017).

⁷ For the full text of Theresa May’s speech to Conservative Party Conference on 5 October 2016, see The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-text-theresa-may-s-conference-speech.

⁸ See e.g. I. Trauschweizer, Temple of Peace: International Cooperation and Stability since 1945 (Athens, Ohio, 2021); and meditations on future prospects by D.R. Kelley, Understanding a Changing World: The Alternative Futures of the International System (Lanham, Md, 2021).

⁹ B. Spiesshofer, Responsible Enterprise: The Emergence of a Global Economic Order (Munich and Oxford, 2018).

¹⁰ See A. Chapman, Greta Thunberg and the Climate Crisis (2020), and a detailed summary, covering her achievements, her school-fellow colleagues, and her critics, in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg.

¹¹ Listed in Laqua, Van Acker and Verbruggen (eds), International Associations. as cited above n.1.

¹² See https://www.apimondia.com/en/the-federation/history.

¹³ See S. Harland, D. Griffiths, and L. Walker (eds), The International Development Directory (2001); and Directory of International Development and Relief Agencies (2021), in https://www.guidestar.org/NonprofitDirectory.aspx?cat=6&subcat=32&p=8.

¹⁴ For details, see https://secure.avaaz.org.

¹⁵ See e.g. D.R. Liddick, The Global Underworld: Transnational Crime and the United States (2004); and M. Glenny, McMafia: A Journey through the Global Criminal Underworld (Toronto, 2009).

¹⁶ For further information, see http://www.rbwf.org.uk.

¹⁷ See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne.

¹⁸ Translated as 蛍の光 / Hotaru no Hikari.

¹⁹ See the ISECS/SIEDS website, hosted by the University of Trois Rivières, Canada: https://oraprdnt.uqtr.uquebec.ca/pls/public/gscw031?owa_no_site=304&owa_no_fiche=11.

²⁰ Among a large literature, see D. Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (1994); A. Goldgar, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 (1995); G. Ostrander, Republic of Letters: The American Intellectual Community, 1776–1865 (Madison, Wis., 1999); J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford, 2001); S. Dalton, Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres in Eighteenth-Century Europe (2003); and A. Lilti, The World of the Salons: Sociability and Worldliness in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Oxford 2015).

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MONTHLY BLOG 126, Does classifying people in terms of their ‘Identity’ have parallels with racist thought? Answer: No; Yes; and ultimately, No.

1 June 2021/in Civics, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

Specimen HC1
© Michael Mapes (2013)

It’s impossible to think without employing some elements of generalisation. (Is it? Yes: pure mental pointillisme, cogitating in fragmentary details, would not work. Thoughts have to be organised). And summary statements about fellow human beings always entail some element of classification. (Do they? Yes, individuals are more than the sum of their bits of flesh and bones. Each one is a person, with a personality, a consciousness, a name, perhaps a national identity number – all different ways of summarising a living being). Generalisations are therefore invaluable, whilst always open to challenge.

Yet are all forms of classification the same? Is aggregative thought not only inevitable but similarly patterned, whatever the chosen criteria? Or, to take a more precise example from interpersonal relationships, does classifying a person by their own chosen ethnic identity entail the same thought processes as classifying them in terms of oppressive racial hierarchies?

Immediately the answer to the core question (are all forms of classification the same?) is No. If individuals chose to embrace an ethnic identity, that process can be strong and empowering. Instead of being labelled by others, perhaps with pejorative connotations, then people can reject an old-style racial hierarchy that places (say) one skin-colour at the top of the social heap, and another at the foot. They can simply say: ‘Yes: that is who I am; and I exult in the fact. My life – and the life of all others like me – matters.’ It is a great antidote to years of racial hatred and oppressions.

At the same time, however, there are risks in that approach. One is the obvious one, which is often noted. White supremacists can use the same formula, claiming their group superiority. And they can then campaign aggressively against all who look ‘different’ and are deemed (by them) be in ‘inferior’. In other words, oppressors can use the same appeal to the validity of group affiliation as can their victims.

There are other difficulties too. So reverting to the core question (how similar are systems of classification?) it can be argued that: yes, assessing people by ethnic identity often turns out, in practice, to be based upon superficial judgments, founded not upon people’s actual ethnic history (often very complex) but upon their looks and, especially, their skin colours. External looks are taken as shorthand for much more. As a result, assumptions about identities can be as over-simplified as those that allocate people into separate ‘races’. Moreover, reliance upon looks can lead to hurtful situations. Sometimes individuals who believe themselves to have one particular ethnic affinity can be disconcerted by finding that others decline to accept them into one particular ‘tribe’, purely because their looks don’t approximate to required visual stereotype. For example, some who self-identify as ‘black’ are rejected as ‘not black enough’.

Finally, however, again reverting to the core question: No. Identity politics are not as socially pernicious and scientifically wrong-headed as are racial politics.¹ ‘Identities’ are fluid and can be multiple. They are organised around many varied criteria: religion, politics, culture, gender, sexuality, nationality, sporting loyalties, and so forth. People have a choice as to whether they associate with any particular affinity group – and, having chosen, they can also regulate the strength of their loyalties. These things are not set in stone. Again, taking an example from biological inheritance, people with dark skins do not have to self-identify as ‘black’. They may have some other, overriding loyalty, such as to a given religion or nationality, which takes precedence in their consciousness.

But there is a more fundamental point, as well. Identities are not ideologically organised into the equivalent of racial hierarchies, whereby one group is taken as perennially ‘superior’ to another. Some individuals may believe that they and their fellows are the ‘top dogs’. And group identities can encourage tribal rivalries. But such tensions are not the same as an inflexible racial hierarchy. Instead, diverse and self-chosen ‘identities’ are a step towards rejecting old-style racism. They move society away from in-built hierarchies towards a plurality of equal roles.

It is important to be clear, however, that there is a risk that classifications of people in terms of identity might become as schematic, superficial and, at times, hurtful as are classifications in terms of so-called ‘race’. Individuals may like to choose; but society makes assumptions too.

The general moral is that classifications are unavoidable. But they always need to be checked and rechecked for plausibility. Too many exceptions at the margins suggest that the core categories are too porous to be convincing. Moreover, classification systems are not made by individuals in isolation. Communication is a social art. Society therefore joins in human classification. Which means that the process of identifying others always requires vigilance, to ensure that, while old inequalities are removed, new ones aren’t accidentally generated instead. Building human siblinghood among Planet Earth’s 7.9 billion people (the estimated 2021 head-count) is a mighty challenge but a good – and essential – one.

ENDNOTES:

¹ For the huge literature on the intrinsic instability of racial classifications, see K.F. Dyer, The Biology of Racial Integration (Bristol, 1974); and A. Montagu, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (New York, 2001 edn). It is worth noting, however, that beliefs in separate races within the one human race are highly tenacious: see also A. Saini, Superior: The Return of Race Science (2019). For further PJC meditations on these themes, see also within PJC website: Global Themes/ 4,4,1 ‘It’s Time to Update the Language of “Race”’, BLOG/36 (Dec. 2013); and 4.4.4 ‘Why is the Language of “Race” holding on for so long, when it’s Based on a Pseudo-Science?’ BLOG/ 38 (Feb. 2014).

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MONTHLY BLOG 125, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A WHOLE PERSON? WHY WE SHOULD ALL BE ARTY-SMARTY.

1 May 2021/in Current Affairs, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

Having declared my wish to be appreciated as a whole person,¹ I got a mix of replies – some testy, some curious – asking what personal ‘wholeness’ actually means. It’s a fair question. Referring to a ‘whole person’ certainly sounds a bit ‘arty’ – or, for more severe critics, dangerously ‘arty-farty’. The terminology, sometimes dignified as ‘holistic’, commonly appears in handbooks to alternative medicine, which may range from sound sense to the wilder shores of snake-oil healthcare. So … is being a whole person somehow a concept which is abstruse or ‘fringe’ – or perhaps simply redundant?

My answer is emphatically: No. Being understood as a whole person is a positive need, which is the quintessence of humanity. It expresses how individuals should properly relate together, both individually and collectively.

On the way to that conclusion, however, it’s necessary to accept the parallel need for generalisations, abstract statistics and collective identifications. For certain purposes, overviews are essential. When talking about global population pressures, it would take far, far too long to itemise and salute the full personality of every one of the 7.8 billion living individuals who inhabit Planet Earth, according to the latest estimates for December 2020.²

To take but one example of collective analysis, many medical research programmes work by investigating generic patterns among thousands of case-histories. In that way, linkages between genetic heritage and specific maladies can be tested – and at times proven or (bearing in mind the role of trial and error) at other times refuted. Similarly, treatments and palliatives can be assessed by group trials. My own gluten allergy, known as coeliac disease (sometimes spelt as ‘celiac’), turns out to be partially, though not automatically, heritable.³ When I first got that information, years ago, I checked my family history and worked out, from corroborative evidence, that the weak link was being transmitted via my father’s mother’s branch. I then conveyed the news to every relevant relative, to much initial bemusement and some derision. Over the years, however, as many siblings and cousins have been diagnosed as coeliacs, they universally tell me that they are glad to be forewarned. It’s an excellent example of how aggregative analysis can help individual understanding.

There are also countless other instances. Targeted advertising works by identifying people with specific consumer profiles. So does political blitzing. In some cases, such as social class, the personal identifications are usually (though not invariably) made by others. But in other circumstances, individuals are invited to classify themselves. On bureaucratic forms, for example, there are often questions about age, gender; ethnic identification; religion; or any combination of those factors.

It’s true that responding truthfully can be tricky, if people don’t accept the options provided. Traditionally, British army recruits who self-defined as ‘atheists’ or ‘agnostics’ were entered as members of the established Anglican church, because there was then no space on the form for non-believers. But, for many purposes, the people, who are processing the data, want broad aggregates, not individual vagaries. They don’t mind a few exceptions and mistaken classifications. And often big, general groupings will suffice – though not for projects attempting to make fine-grained investigations into (say) people’s real religious beliefs, which furthermore may fluctuate during a lifetime.

The upshot is that, for some – even for many – purposes, individuals are statistics. However, just as it is often necessary to generalise, so at other times it’s crucial to go beyond generic categories and impersonal labels to encounter living humans, in all their often glorious and sometimes maddening diversity.

In medical treatment, for example (as opposed to aggregative medical research), there is now a simmering debate about the need for holistic medicine.⁴ That approach entails understanding the mix of mental and physical factors in human wellbeing. It moves beyond concentrating simply on the immediate cause of any malaise; and asks about the cause of the cause (or, in other words, the underlying root cause). In the case of undiagnosed coeliacs, they suffer from disturbed guts, aching bones, exhaustion and (often) depression. Yet they don’t need a soothing bromide. They need a biopsy or blood-test to get a full medical diagnosis and help in adopting a gluten-free diet.

Taking a holistic approach also means that clinicians should ensure that their own practices are humanised. In other words, the prevalent medical system should not make doctors unhappy, as they strive to heal their patients.⁵ Other areas where holistic approaches are actively proposed include many forms of therapy and social care.⁶ Help for people with mental health issues is also claimed to benefit from a whole-person approach⁷ – rather than just palliative medication. And similar hopes apply to assistance for individuals recovering from trauma.⁸ Indeed, ‘holistic’ interventions are credited with improvements in many diverse fields: from sports coaching;⁹ to sexual therapies;¹⁰ to business management;¹¹ right through to cyber-security.¹²

Needless to say, invoking the concept of ‘holism’ doesn’t guarantee its effective use. Nonetheless, these usages indicate an interest in considering issues ‘in the round’. Picking on just one symptom; one solution; one approach; is unhelpful when dealing with the greatest intricacies of life. Practical people will snort that it’s best, at least, to get on with one big remedy, without having to wait to figure out the whole. But single interventions so often have unintended consequences, unless the big picture has been properly configured and understood.

Above all, it’s in child-rearing and education where it’s particularly crucial to assist all individuals to develop as a whole and rounded people.¹³ No-one should be pre-categorised by prior labels. And especially not so, if the labels carry pejorative meanings. No children should be simply dismissed or excluded as ‘difficult’. Such terminology makes tricky situations worse.¹⁴ (And equally children can also be over-praised, giving them a false impression of the world and their own abilities).

Being typecast negatively is particularly damaging. For example, women often used to be dismissed as ‘feather-brained’ air-heads. As a result, many did not trouble to activate their talents, especially in public view. Worse too, some clever women used voluntarily to play the game of ‘Oh it’s only silly little me!’ Then later, when, they wanted to be taken seriously, they found that they were trapped in the role of ‘dumb bimbos’. Their subsequent struggles to break free often proved to be very destructive – breaking up family relationships, which were founded upon false identities.

Quite a few people do, in practice, manage either to avoid or to ignore being stereotyped. But no youngsters should have to face being typecast, whether by gender, sexual preferences, ethnic heritage, religion, accent, appearance, social class, bodily abilities/disabilities. or any other category that humans can invoke.

Instead, all should, from very young, have a chance to develop their personalities and talents to the full. They should be not only properly fed but also warmly loved, to give them inner confidence. They should be given reasonable framework rules, but also great encouragement to innovate. Every person should also have a chance, when young, to explore the entire range of special human skills: including not only literacy and numeracy but also art, chess, drama, handicrafts, music, riding, all forms of sport and swimming. (And please add any skills that I have temporarily overlooked). Not that everyone will become a superstar. That’s not the point. It is that all should have a chance to find and develop their talents to the full – to have a lifetime of nurtured learning to become rounded and fulfilled personalities.

Needless to say, such a humanist project is expensive in terms of human labour and money. Classes should be small; and individual attention paid to each learner.¹⁵ But, from another point of view, the costs can be justified on many grounds – not least by providing work for people whose jobs have been automated. Education for the ‘whole person’ should not be an optional extra. Instead, it’s a supreme economic as well as social, political and cultural good.

Planet Earth does not need ‘partial’ and undeveloped minds and bodies. It needs the fully-charged brain-power and person-power of 7.8 billion people. There are enough global problems, many of our own making, for us all to resolve.

To repeat, the aim is not to turn everyone into a prize-winner. But behind every summary statistic, there should be a human being who is supremely well in mind and body: in other words, a whole person. Effective knowledge entails both aggregation/generalisation and disaggregation/particularisation. One early reader of this BLOG sniffed that this line of argument is indeed ‘very arty-farty’. Yet enlightened scientists are today calling for a rounded education, adding balance and creativity from the Arts and Humanities to the necessary scientific specialisation and technical knowhow.¹⁶ To live well and to safeguard Planet Earth, humans need to be not arty-farty – but really arty-smarty.

ENDNOTES:

¹ See PJC, ‘Being Assessed as a Whole Person: A Critique of Identity Politics’, BLOG 121 (Jan. 2021) – pdf/58 in PJC website www.penelopejcorfield.com; also published in Academic Letters (Dec. 2020): see https://www.academia.edu.

² https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-projections/ [accessed 4 May 2021].

³ For the latest updates, see variously https://www.nature.com/subjects/coeliac-disease [accessed 4 May 2021] and reports from the American Celiac Disease Foundation in https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/future-therapies-for-celiac-disease/ [accessed 4 May 2021]. There are also numerous personal guidebooks, gluten-free cookery books, and clinical textbooks on the condition.

⁴ See e.g. A.C. Hastings, J. Fadiman, J.S. Gordon, Health for the Whole Person: The Complete Guide to Holistic Medicine (New York, 2018).

⁵ E.K. Ledermann, Medicine for the Whole Person: A Critique of Scientific Medicine (Shaftesbury, 1997); D.R. Kopacz, Re-Humanising Medicine: A Holistic Framework for Transforming Yourself, Your Practice and the Culture of Medicine (2014).

⁶ See e.g. A. Burnham (ed.), Together: A Vision of Whole Person Care for a Twenty-First Century Health and Care Service (2013).

⁷ C.L. Fracasso and others (eds), Holistic Treatment in Mental Health: A Handbook of Practitioners’ Perspectives (Jefferson, NC, 2020).

⁸ L.A. Prock (ed.), Holistic Perspectives on Trauma: Implications for Social Workers and Health Care Professionals (Toronto, 2015).

⁹ E.g. R. Light and others, Advances in Rugby Coaching: A Holistic Approach (2014).

¹⁰ J. Adams, Explore, Dream, Discover: Working with Holistic Models of Sexual Health and Sexuality, Self Esteem and Mental Health (Sheffield, 2004).

¹¹ C-H.C. Law, Managing Enterprise, Resource Planning … and Business Processes: A Holistic Approach (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2019).

¹² D. Chatterjee, Cybersecurity Readiness: A Holistic and High-Performance Approach (Los Angeles, 2021).

¹³ C. Mayes, Developing the Whole Student: Bew Horizons for Holistic Education (2020).

¹⁴ M. Jewell, Are Difficult Children Difficult or Just Different? What if We Can Change to Help Them? (2019).

¹⁵ See e.g. C. Mayes, Developing the Whole Student: New Horizons for Holistic Education (2020); J.P. Miller and others (eds), International Handbook of Holistic Education (2018); and D.W. Crowley (ed.), Educating the Whole Person: Towards a Total View of Lifelong Learning (Canberra, 1975).

¹⁶ J. Horgan, ‘Why STEM Students [i.e. studying Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] Need Humanities Courses’, Scientific American (16 August 2018): https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/why-stem-students-need-humanities-courses/ [accessed 7 May 2021].

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MONTHLY BLOG 124, BATTERSEA’S FEMALE PIONEERS

1 April 2021/in Current Affairs, Monthly Blog/by Penelope J. Corfield

In mid-February 2021, Battersea’s Labour MP Marsha de Cordova set a good challenge to me and to my friend and fellow historian of Battersea, Jeanne Rathbone.¹ We were asked to nominate 31 pioneering women with a connection to the area. No problem. And then to write Twitter-length summaries of their achievements, especially in the local context, Trickier, as many of these women had richly multi-faceted lives. Plus, trickiest of all, to find authenticated photos of them all.

One case was extreme. The philanthropist Mrs Theodore Russell Monroe followed the reticent Victorian custom of using in public not only her husband’s surname but his given name as well. A quick search on Google for ‘Russell Monroe’ provided lots of information about the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. But absolutely nothing about the laudable woman who in 1896 funded Battersea Hospital as a headquarters of the Anti-Vivisection movement.² As a result, we cite Mrs Theodore Russell Monroe in the Victorian style to which she was accustomed. And, without dates or photo, she remains a monument of self-effacement.

Having (largely) met the good challenge, the 31 names and short citations were published, day by day throughout March 2021, on Marsha de Cordova’s web platform.³ It constituted her salutation, on behalf of Battersea, to National Women’s History Month.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, very few of these women were actually born within the area itself. But Battersea, like the surrounding greater London, has always attracted incomers to share its jostling mix of wealth and poverty. One who not only made that move but wrote eloquently about it was the author Nell Dunn. In 1959 she moved from ‘posh’ Chelsea to ‘plebeian’ north Battersea; and her prize-winning Up the Junction (1963; filmed 1968) won applause for its mix of gritty realism with warm cross-class sympathy.

As a further celebration of International Women’s Day on 8 March, Marsha de Cordova also hosted a well-attended (virtual) public meeting. It provided an excellent chance to take stock of what has changed – and to highlight what changes are still needed. It takes collective as well as individual action to improve the lot of women. And – needless to say – we cannot assume that all changes will automatically be progressive ones. History does reveal the existence of some world-wide and long-term trends (such as the spread of mass literacy). Yet, on the way, there are always fluctuations and sometimes outright backlashes and reversals. So women need continually to work together – and with men – to keep momentum for the right sort of changes.

By way of introducing the 8 March meeting, I organised presentations of five individual Battersea women’s lives.⁴ They were specifically chosen to show the range of fields open to female endeavour: politics and protest; aviation and technology; sports; literature; entertainment. Some of these areas were more traditional to women. Others, such as aviation and marathon-running, less so. The point for these women, all associated with Battersea, was either to open new doors – or to push further through doors that were already opened. It’s not career novelty per se which was required – but confidence and staying power.

So who were the five exemplary women, emerging in successive generations? One was the long-lived and remarkable Charlotte Despard (1844-1939).⁵ She was a leading socialist reformer, suffragette campaigner, pacifist, supporter of Irish independence, and (in her later years) advocate of Russian communism. Never elected to parliament, she began her public career funding and personally running welfare projects in the industrial slums of Battersea’s Nine Elms. Gradually, she became a notable public figure, unworried as to whether she was in or out of political fashion. Among other things, she became a powerful stump orator, regularly addressing large outdoor meetings in an era when it was still rare for women to make public speeches.⁶ Above all, Despard developed her own philosophy of non-violent protest. And she influenced the young Mahatma Gandhi, who met Despard on his first visit to London in summer 1914 and was highly impressed. ‘She is a wonderful woman’, he wrote.

In the following generation, Hilda Hewlett (1864-1943) took women into the skies.⁷ She became fascinated by flight. She rejected the view, held by many men, that ‘the fair sex;’ did not have ‘the right kind of nerve’ for aviation. Hewlett was the first British woman to get a pilot’s license; the first to open (with a partner) a flying school; and the first to open (with the same partner) a factory to manufacture aircraft. (Many were used in the First World War). This venture was initially located in north Battersea, where there was a large skilled industrial workforce on hand. Hewlett was not only a force for change in her own right, but she opened doors for others too. Thus she trained not only young men but also young women in the skills of aviation and engineering. She was clear that new technology should empower all.

Overcoming obstacles by direct action was also the modus operandi of Violet Piercy (1889-1972).⁸ She proved to be a natural athlete. Yet she was constrained by traditional taboos about women in competitive sport. So Piercy began to run unofficial marathons, in a very public style. In 1926, she ran from Windsor Castle to Battersea Town Hall, close to her home. Eventually, in 1936 she was allowed to run an official marathon route but not as part of the male racing pack. Her ‘record’ stood for decades, until women were allowed freely into all competitive sports. Piercy’s aim was simple: ‘I did it to prove that a woman’s stamina can be just as remarkable as a man’s’. And through the efforts of pioneers like her, the barriers to women in sport were one by one overthrown.

Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000)⁹ wrote lovely, lyrical, downbeat novels. She had an often hand-to-mouth downbeat life, far from what she might have initially expected from her affluent, well-educated family background. And her novels’ themes were often downbeat too. Her experiences showed that adversity could strike anyone. Her family, in straitened circumstances, moved frequently, living in cheap lodgings in Battersea and for a while on a houseboat, moored in the Thames. (It sank, twice). Her most famous novel Offshore (1979) offered a wry literary evocation of the riverside community. Yet Fitzgerald found in writing a means of escaping – or transcending – her own woes; and her ultimate message was that people must hold on firmly to life, whatever happens.

Another exceptional woman was Elsa Lanchester (1902-86), who became a star of stage, TV and film.¹⁰ She rose from an unusual Bohemian left-wing childhood in south London, including Battersea, to have an international career. And she died in Hollywood. However, while she was praised for her humour and her versatility, she never had a break-through to film greatness. Instead, she was best known for her marriage to an undeniable star actor, Charles Laughton. They were a ‘celebrity couple’, in the public eye. But Lanchester firmly refused to answer any intimate enquiries. Their private life remained private. Laughton’s experiences as a gay or bisexual man were part of the coming world of gender/sexual flexibility. Amidst the glitz and speculation, Lanchester was staunch and dignified. She was a working woman and made her own way.

If these Battersea pioneers were to translate their experiences into mottoes for the early twenty-first century, what would they say? The following suggestions are improvised from their lives and recorded words.

Charlotte Despard would urge: ‘Fight – peacefully – against life’s injustices – and just don’t stop!’ [Note the adverb: ‘peacefully’]. Hilda Hewlett would add practical encouragement: ‘Plan well before you start your projects – but, after that, the sky’s the limit’. Violet Piercy would agree. ‘Women: just get out there and show the world what we can do’. And she too would add: ‘Don’t ever give up! Keep right on to the end of the road’. Meanwhile, Penelope Fitzgerald might well think: ‘It’s not always that easy’. But if pressed, she’d state firmly: ‘Even in adversity, find courage!’ And Elsa Lanchester would advise women to find both a public face and an inner self-confidence: ‘Chin up! … Smile for the cameras … And be proud to be yourself’. Confident individuals and groups then make confident movements.

ENDNOTES:

¹ See J. Rathbone, Twenty Inspiring Battersea Women (in preparation 2021); with warm thanks to Jeanne for generously sharing her research.

² There is scope for a good history of the Battersea General Hospital (closed 1972) and a skilled researcher should be able to find more details about the Hospital’s first funder.

³ In a late reshuffle of which I was unaware, a change was made to the list to insert ‘Penny Corfield, historian’. I remain shell-shocked. Most names on the list are historical figures, since time allows scope for proper critical distance. However, I thank Marsha de Cordova and her team for the huge compliment.

⁴ These were: Charlotte Despard, presented by Penelope Corfield; Hilda Hewlett, presented by Jeanne Rathbone; Violet Piercy, presented by Sonya Davis; Penelope Fitzgerald, presented by Carole Maddern; and Elsa Lanchester, presented by Su Elliott.

⁵ For Charlotte Despard, née French (1844-1939), see M. Mulvihill, Charlotte Despard: A Biography (1989); and PJC, ‘Why is the Remarkable Charlotte Despard Not Better Known?’, BLOG/97 (Jan. 2019); also available in PJC website https://www.penelopejcorfield.com/global-themes/gender-history/4.3.5.

⁶ PJC, Women and Public Speaking: And Why It Has Taken So Long to Get There. Monthly BLOG/47 (Nov. 2014); also in PJC website, as above 4.3.2.

⁷ For Hilda Hewlett, née Herbert (1864-1943), see G. Hewlett, The Old Bird: The Irrepressible Mrs Hewlett (Leicester, 2010).

⁸ For Violet Piercy (1889-1972), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Piercy; and context in J. Hargreaves, Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women’s Sports (1993).

⁹ For Penelope Fitzgerald, née Knox (1916-2000), see H. Lee, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life (2013); and C.J. Knight, Penelope Fitzgerald and the Consolations of Fiction (2016).

¹⁰ Two indispensable sources are E. Lanchester, Charles Laughton and I (San Diego, 1938); and idem, Elsa Lanchester Herself (New York, 1984), while there remains scope for a thoughtful biography. See also C. Higham, Charles Laughton: An Intimate Biography (1976), with introduction by E. Lanchester.

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MONTHLY BLOG 133, A YEAR OF GEORGIAN CELEBRATIONS – 1

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MONTHLY BLOG 126, Does classifying people in terms of their ‘Identity’ have parallels with racist thought? Answer: No; Yes; and ultimately, No.

MONTHLY BLOG 124, BATTERSEA’S FEMALE PIONEERS

Penelope J. Corfield

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