Blair after Chilcot - Power Corrupts

One forgets. Time passes, a succession of new demands and preoccupations gradually blur our memory of things we once knew so well: faces, characteristic expressions, tones of voice. So it was with a sudden strong rush of recognition that I caught snatches of Tony Blair's marathon press conference on the day the Chilcot report was released. There it all was again - the throb in the voice - the pauses for emphasis in strange places - the sensation of watching an actor, and rather a stagy one. But an actor needs the consent of the audience for his art to take effect, whereas here was the singular spectacle of an actor carrying on despite the fact that almost no one agreed with or believed any more in what he was saying or how he said it: like someone suffering from the delusion that they are the Pope continuing to insist that they are and behaving as if they are while everyone they address knows that they aren't; the consent of his audience had long since drained away. The exaggerated sincerity of Blair's delivery has the result of seeming precisely insincere. It made me think of the French saying "On connaît la chanson" which means "That old one !" or "I've heard it all before." Because we have heard it all before. This is not 2005, 2001, 1997 or even 1995. That last is more than 20 years ago.

Here is an example of his style in the press conference. Instead of a simple apology - "I was wrong, I'm sorry" - Blair produced a florid and contorted soundbite:

"For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe."

It sounds impressive in a hollow sort of way, but is remarkably vague. No matter how many times I read or hear it, I'm still not sure what it means. It's exact import is slippery. This is the press conference in miniature: both the matter and the manner of its delivery are unsatisfactory.

It's puzzling who this performance was aimed at, or who Blair thought it would convince. He made me think of one of those kings in Hades from Greek myth who had offended the gods, like Tantalus or Sisyphus, condemned to a perpetual task: in his case, trying to fit the shards of his reputation back together, holding it up imploringly each time he has finished only to have it always rejected.

Here is Sir John Chilcot introducing his report:

Here is Tony Blair's press conference:

Both repay a full viewing.

One motive Blair has I think to try and justify himself is the great contrast he must feel between how he is almost universally reviled in the UK now and his former popularity. Recall that Blair won a General Election for a third time in 2005, 2 years after the invasion of Iraq. But at that time the scope of the disaster the occupation was going to become was not yet clear, and the economy was still good. Anthony Eden's reputation was destroyed nearly immediately by the Suez Crisis, whereas Blair's was in slow motion, yet in the end no less entirely.

Sometimes a Prime Minister or a senior leader has what is, despite the complexities, an essentially simple choice to make: yes or no, in or out. For instance, Gordon Brown kept the UK out of the Euro: Blair was broadly pro entry but not strongly enough to overrule him. Even more pertinently, Harold Wilson resisted all pressure from Lyndon Johnson to send British forces to the Vietnam War, despite the fact that the Australian and New Zealand Governments had both joined in. The US Government did not need the forces of those countries in a military sense, it wanted them for a political reason, to show solidarity and support for its policy. Similarly, Blair's conception of our alliance with the US was that we had to join the invasion of Iraq to show our absolute commitment to it, especially so soon after 9/11. This was not the only reason for his decision but it was an important one.

Here is a striking comparison. Who do you think is speaking here ?

"The newspapers have already pronounced their verdict, but I remind those armchair historians sitting comfortably at home in their slippers that it was not I who decreed the historical circumstances. I only had the unenviable task of choosing the lesser of two evils. Whatever my decision, the results would have been negative. Mine were difficult decisions. No one has the right to dismiss me lightly as a murderer. I am a patriot."

What follows provides the clue:

"I saved Poland from great danger. In December 1981 the Soviets were about to trample all over us. Even Gorbachev said so many times over."

It's General Jaruzelski, interviewed in 2001 by Riccardo Orizio in his Speak of the Devil.

Here is what Blair himself has to say about what he calls "trust, as a political concept" in his autobiography A Journey. These reflections come from a section where he is outlining some general principles derived from his experience of the Northern Ireland peace process, unquestionably one of his great achievements, and not from the sections about the Iraq invasion or its aftermath. Two things I would note before the quotation itself: first, as I read this, I can absolutely hear Blair speaking it, I wonder if he dictated the book, the style is so typical and evocative of him, at once chatty but giving one an uneasy sense of something dubious as the words keep tumbling out; second, I'm always reminded when he speaks or writes that, like so many politicians over the centuries in this country, he was originally a barrister, which is to say to those readers unfamiliar with the English legal system that he is a highly trained lawyer.

"By the way, trust, as a political concept, is multilayered. At one level no one trusts politicians, and politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand it be done. Of course, where the line is drawn is crucial, and is not in any way an exact science. (And don't get too affronted by it; we all make these decisions every day in our business and personal lives.) Without operating with some subtlety at this level, the job would be well-nigh impossible.

But the public are quite discerning, and discriminate between politicians they don't trust at a superficial level, i.e. pretty much all of them, and those they don't trust at a more profound level. This level of trust is about whether the public believe that the political leader is trying to do his or her best for them, with whatever mistakes or compromises, Machiavellian or otherwise, are made. This is the level that really matters."

- Tony Blair, A Journey, p.186-7

Overleaf, on page 188, Blair writes the following about a particular point in negotiations between Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley during Christmas 2006:

"I took horrendous chances in what I was telling each the other had agreed to - stretching the truth, I fear, on occasions past breaking point -"

He can admit this in a context where the outcome is generally agreed to be a success.

Finally, to the second part of my title - Power Corrupts - which is a reference to Lord Acton's famous dictum "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" which is usually remembered as Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe from observation that the awareness, however deeply buried and however strongly denied, of having had great power and used it for bad purposes leaves a mark or shadow on the face of the person who misused it: their face looks corrupt.

Tony Blair

Alastair Campbell

John Prescott

Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and John Prescott all have just such corrupt faces. I'm struck by it whenever they reappear on television.



Bibliography:

Tony Blair    A Journey   Paperback edition with a new introduction, Arrow Books, 2011
                                         ISBN 9780099525097

Riccardo Orizio       Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators  trans. Avril Bardoni
                                                                                                                     Vintage, 2004
                                                                                                                      ISBN 9780099440673

Click on the labels below to see previous Bulletins related to the subjects covered above.

An Encounter with Denis Healey

Denis Healey  30.8.1917 - 3.10.2015

Tributes are quite rightly being paid today to Denis Healey, who has died at the age of 98. Everyone agrees he was a Giant of post-war UK politics, which objectively he was. He was famous among other things for his caustic & ready wit; for instance when he described an attack on him by Geoffrey Howe in 1978 as "like being savaged by a dead sheep". You can hear that here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8185000/8185778.stm

As my own small tribute, I want to record an encounter I had with him when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer - that's the finance minister in the UK - & I was a 9-year-old schoolboy.

It was in 1979 during the General Election campaign, so it must have been in April, & in York, where I live, then & now. The crucial detail to bear in mind here is that I went to a prep school at the time, & we had a ludicrous uniform - it was fantasy Edwardian - which consisted of grey shorts, grey socks with red stripes at the top, a red cap and a bright red blazer. Denis Healey was campaigning at the factory gate at Rowntrees Chocolate factory. My family lived five minutes round the corner at the time - what is now a cycle lane was then a railway line on which cocoa beans were delivered to the factory: I used to hear the trains rocking & grinding in the early mornings, it was an oddly comforting sound - & I suppose I & my friend Robin must have been walking to my house, seen the crowd & gone to see what it was all about. Denis Healey was addressing the crowd, & for some reason - arrogance probably - I started heckling him. When I was done, he just turned around & said -

"Well, at least your jacket's the right colour"

at which the crowd collapsed in laughter, & I was absolutely mortified, crushed. Robin & I must have slunk away, because there was no recovering from that. 

I remember this encounter vividly & with affection for Mr Healey: I remember it  as a brief, real interaction with a great man, & the sharpness, readiness & effectiveness of his wit, excercised on a cocky little oick as I was then who had no understanding yet at all of who Denis Healey really was. May he rest in peace.

Encountering an Image: Delaunay's 'Endless Rhythm'



 

 

 

"1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: & he led the flock to the backside of the desert, & came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

 

2. & the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: & he looked, &, behold, the bush burned with fire, & the bush was not consumed.

 

3. & Moses said, I will now turn aside, & see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

 

4. & when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, & said, Moses, Moses. & he said, Here am I. 

 

5. & he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

 

6. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, & the God of Jacob. & Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God."

 

 

- Exodus, Ch.3

 

Endless Rhythm by Robert Delaunay, 1934

 

 

Recently, my uncle & aunt sent me this image on a birthday card. It completely knocked me out. It was new to me: Delaunay had been nothing more than a name. I realised that I responded powerfully to the image because it seemed to me to refer to other images which hold great significance for me. I want to tell you what those images are, go into some aspects of what they mean, & show how this illuminates this painting.

 

This painting is on display in Tate Modern. You can find out more about it on the Tate website here: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/delaunay-endless-rhythm-t01233

 

 

A phrase which I thought of to describe this painting is - a circuit of continous flow.

The first image I was reminded of is the Yin/Yang sign:

 

When you look at the 3 circles in Endless Rhythm with the opposition black/white, the similarity is obvious. The yin/yang sign is a description of the fundamental energies in the universe, & how they are in dynamic tension. Yin (black) is considered to be female energy & yang (white) is male energy. You will notice that there is a spot of yin inside the yang, & a corresponding spot of yang inside the yin. The significance of this is that while one side - let us say for the sake of example yin - waxes & waxes to its maximum, there is still a spot of yang remaining which will be the root of the reaction, the point from which in turn yang will wax & wax, until it reaches its maximum, whereupon the remaining spot of yin within the yang comes into play: and so on indefinitely, or at least until the end of the universe, if there is such an event.

A mundane illustration of this idea is if you think of political history in the UK from 1979 to 2000 or so. The Conservatives came to power in 1979, & from a very weak & uncertain beginning became gradually more & more powerful, until they reached a maximum - let's say the Poll Tax riots in the spring of 1990 - after which the became gradually weaker & more decadent, until their terrible defeat in 1997. That was one half of the yin/yang sign. Meanwhile, the other half was also in operation. The Labour Party waned as the Conservatives waxed; Labour dwindled & dwindled until they reached their minimum & then began to recover; although Kinnock lost the 1992 election, the movement to make Labour more centrist was already in train for Tony Blair to accelerate massively after he became leader in 1994. Then Labour's landslide election victory. So by 1997 the UK has seen one full cycle of yin & yang, starting from 1979. The cycle did not start in 1979 of course, there had been many, many such cycles in - in this instance - our history. Nor did it end in 1997. After that, Labour waxed & waxed while the Conservatives correspondingly waned. Note that the symmetry between yin & yang at any given point in the cycle is approximate, not exact. Reality is messy.


Here are three other mundane illustrations of this idea. First, laundry. When you are laundering a set of dirty clothes, after which they will be clean, the clothes you have on are the foundation of the next set of dirty clothes. Second, eating. When you have had enough to eat, when you are satiated, you will eventually become hungry again: it is inevitable. Your hunger will increase gradually from the moment of satiety until hopefully you will be able to satisfy it again. Third, washing. Even if you become as clean as it is physically possible to be - by taking a Turkish bath, say, or a sauna - you will start to become dirty again immediately that cleaning session is over.

Since I am reading & researching Montaigne's Essais at the moment, I was interested to see the yin/yang idea expressed quite independently & in another context, in Terence Cave's How To Read Montaigne. At the end of ch.7, Cave writes:

"Such is the 'self-portrait' of the Essais, a portrait engendered by time & chance & always open to new shifts of perspective. Secondly, this tension between a centrifugal surface & a solid, centripetal core exactly matches the opposition we have already encountered between a restlessly questing mind, able to think otherwise, & the cautious, even conservative mindset that at key moments emerges to hold heterodox thought in check. Indeed, 'opposition' is no doubt the wrong word here. The two poles of the apparent antithesis are in fact interdependent, viscerally connected [my emphasis]. It is as if the sense of having deep roots, a stable point to hold on to, licensed the imaginary journeys that Montaigne's 'fantasy' is only too willing to embark on."

- p.94



So the yin/yang symbol is about opposites in dynamic tension. One can also see the symbol of the cross as representing these as well:

It doesn't matter whether you asign yang to the horizontal bar & yin to the vertical, or vice versa; the point is in the cross we have opposites in dynamic tension just as with the yin/yang symbol. If we for the sake of argument assign yin to the horizontal bar, then we can rotate the cross 1 time & the yin is now the vetical bar. Rotate it 1 time again & yin is again the horizontal.  Rotate it 1 time again (3 times from the start) & yin is again the vertical. & so on.

Imagine the cross clicking around like the barrier in a toll-gate:

"13. Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, & broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, & many there be which go in thereat:

14. Because strait is the gate, & narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, & few there be that find it."

- Matthew, Ch.7


Now we can consider a list of opposites which can constitute yin on the one hand & yang on the other, & vice versa. Note that the terms in each particular pair of polarities are not neatly equivalent with all the others: it is not the case that the term on the left always equals yin or the term on the right always equals yang. No preference is expressed here for either term in each polarity. Each individual pair of polarities could be written the other way round: & in fact they will reverse as described above if you move round the cross 1 place or 3 places. The polarities here mentioned are some of the almost infinite cycles of which the Universe is composed. The list is intended to be illustrative not exhaustive: feel free to add your own.


good/evil                                          night/day                                      past/future
known/unknown                              morning/evening                          hot/cold
open/hidden                                     winter/summer                             fast/slow
attractive/repulsive                          spring/autumn                              in/out
white/black                                      easy/hard                                      start/end
red/green                                          empty/full                                    earth/sky
asleep/awake                                   dirty/clean                                    youth/age
dream/reality                                   low/high                                       mad/sane
intuition/reason                               down/up                                       light/dark
thick/thin                                         left/right                                       cat/dog
fresh/rotten                                      unconscious/conscious                wisdom/folly
top/bottom                                       sun/moon                              breathe out/breathe in
female/male                                     heaven/hell                                  eat/shit
have/lack                                         past/present                                  right/wrong
here/there                                        present/future                               right/left
potent/impotent                               lost/found                                     free/captive
well/ill                                             good/bad                                      short/long
love/hate                                         God/Devil                                     big/small
Love/Strife                                      0/1                                                grail/lance
absence/presence                            expansion/contraction                  diastole/systole
fat/thin                                            favourable/adverse                       positive/negative
wet/dry                                           permitted/forbidden                      hard/soft
clear/obscure                                  valuable/worthless                        certain/doubtful
tall/short                                         rich/poor                                        potential/actual
heavy/light                                     concrete/abstract                            truths/lies
blunt/sharp                                     hope/despair                                   apposite/irrelevant
alive/dead                                      concentrated/diffuse                       is/is not
yes/no



The second image Endless Rhythm reminds me of is the caduceus. This is a very ancient symbol of which, like many such, the ultimate origin is unknown. The word caduceus is Latin derived from the Greek karykeion, meaning a herald's staff (from the Greek keryx = a herald.) Hermes held a caduceus because he was the messenger of the gods; therefore in Roman mythology, so did Mercury. I am not concerned here with the representation or meaning of the caduceus in classical antiquity: rather with how this symbol came to be used in alchemy, especially in the early modern period. Here is a modern rendition of a caduceus:

 

 

 

You can see it consists of two intertwining snakes around a staff which is surmounted by a set of wings. The pattern of the intertwining snakes echo the three cirles of Endless Rhythm: this is also another case in which we have opposites in dynamic tension,as in the yin/yang sign & the cross.

 

Mercury was tremendously important to the Alchemists, in fact it was a sine qua non: not the chemical element mercury as we know it today, but philosophical mercury. As Lyndy Abraham explains in A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery [exact details of works referred to will be found in the bibliography at the end of this piece]:

 

"Mercurius is present everywhere & at all times during the opus. From the dark chthonic beginnings of the opus to the divine, triumphant completion, Mercurius is not only the prima materia (the 'mother' of metals) which is sought at the beginning of the work, but also the ultima materia (the philospher's stone), the goal of his own transformation. Mercurius is not only the matter of the work but stands also for all the processes to which this materia is subjected. He is simultaneously the matter of the work, the process of the work, & the agent by which all this is effected."

 

- p.125

 

 Let us now look at some depictions of the caduceus in alchemical texts:

 

Emblema X from Atalanta Fugiens (1618) by Michael Maier. It is captioned:
"Da ignem igni Mercurium Mercurio & sufficit tibi. Give fire to fire, Mercury to Mercury, and it suffices thee."

 

 

 

 

Illustration to The Twelve Keys by Basil Valentine from Michael Maier's Tripus Aureus (1618). Klossowski de Rola's [see Bibliography] gloss on this image is as follows: "The contenders (Fixed and Volatile) are seperated and reconciled in the person of Philosophick Mercury or Twofold Mercury - so called to differentiate it from the first Dissolvent which is obtained in the First Work. The youthful god's nudity indicates the absence of impurities and the crown his nobility. The double Caduceus coupled with the Sun and the Moon on either side shows his twofold power. The wings in the foreground designate the goal of the operation: the Volatization of the pure portions of the Fixed. The Snake on the sword indicates the Dissolvent, and the Eagle on the other the means to be used."

This is captioned De cavernis metallorum occultus est, qui Lapis est venerabilis. HERMES.   From Le Triomphe Hermetique (1689) by Alexandre Toussaint de Limojon de Saint-Didier. Klossowski de Rola comments "'In the cavern of metals is hidden that Stone which is venerable. (HERMES)'. The Stone of the Philosophers, the metallic Earth, when identified, is extracted from the mine, purified & dissolved. The first Mercury is obtained, then the second or Philosophick Mercury symbolized by the entwined Snakes; next in order comes Sulphur, which is then elaborated into the Perfection of the Phoenix and crowned by the Triple Crown."

 

 



 



 

The third & final image I think of when seeing Endless Rhythm is another ancient symbol adopted by the alchemists. This is the ouroboros (also transliterated 'uroboros'), the snake swallowing its own tail.

 

Ouroboros is Greek, literally 'tail-devouring', from oura a tail, & boraein to eat. In a brilliant marginal note in his The Alchemy Reader, Stanton J. Linden has this to say about the ouroboros:


"One of alchemy's most ancient symbols, the tail-biting serpent has many significations: e.g., the All, the unity of matter, eternity, rejuvenation, the circular nature of the alchemical process with the interconvertibility of the elements; and . . . Mercurius, the agent of transformation that both kills (or is killed) and restores."

- p.65

As Jung writes in Psychology & Alchemy :

"The dragon is probably the oldest pictorial symbol in alchemy of which we have documentary evidence.  It appears as the uroboros, the tail-eater, in the Codex Marcianus, which dates from the 11th c. or the 12th c., together with the legend: en to pan (the One, the All). Time & again the alchemists reiterate that the opus proceeds from the one & leads back to the one, that it is a sort of circle like a dragon biting its own tail."    - p.293, par.404

This is the ouroboros from the Codex Marcianus which Jung is referring to.

You can see the ouroboros in the centre of this page from Pandora (1582) by Hieronymus Reusner.

"The alchemists were fond of picturing their opus as a circulatory process, as a circular distillation or as the ouroboros, the snake biting its own tail, & they made innumerable pictures of this process."

- Jung, Aion, p.264, par.418



Emblema XIV from Atalanta Fugiens (1618) by Michael Maier. Captioned Hic est Draco caudam suam devorans.  Klossowski de Rola comments: "'Here is the Dragon that devours his own tail'. This Dragon, Ouroboros, is perhaps the oldest hermetick hieroglyph, symbolizing the Unity of Matter & the Subject of the Wise; or more precisely the Mercury of the Wise, in which, assert the Philosophers, everything is found: 'From the One to the One by the One.' Roob [see Bibliography] comments: "The ancients, Maier writes, saw the Ouroboros ring both as "the change & the return of the year" & as the beginning of the Work in which the poisonous, moist dragon's tail is consumed. When the dragon has completely sloughed its skin, like the snake, the supreme medicine has risen from its poison."

In Psychology & Alchemy , Jung writes:

". . . the double nature of Mercurius, which shows itself most clearly in the Uroboros, the dragon that devours, fertilises, begets, slays & brings itself to life again. Being hermaphroditic, it is compounded of opposites & is at the same time their uniting symbol [my emphasis]: at once deadly poison, basilisk, scorpion, panacea & saviour."

- p.371-2, par.460

From Abraxas en Apistopistus (1657) by Johannes Macarius. Roob comments: "Both the Ouroboros & the Scarab are an expression of the 'hen to pan', the eternal transformation of the Ever Unchanging.'"

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ISBNs are given as 10 digits, except where the book is recent enough to have a 13 digit ISBN.

Works consulted in the preparation of this piece

Abraham, Lyndy    A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery      CUP, 1998  ISBN 0521000009

Cave, Terence         How To Read Montaigne    Granta Books, 2007   9781862079441

Jung, Carl               Aion                                                         Routledge, 1991 
                                                                                                Collected Works vol.9 part II
                                                                                                             0415064767

,,        ,,                    Psychology & Alchemy                          Routledge, 2nd ed. 1968
                                                                                                                           vol. 12
                                                                                                                   0415034523

,,        ,,                    Alchemical Studies                                  PUP, 1967
                                                                                                                            vol.13
                                                                                                                         0691081499

,,       ,,                     Mysterium Coniunctionis                        PUP, 1963
                                                                                                                             vol.14
                                                                                                                       0691018162

Klossowski de Rola, Stanislaus     The Golden Game:
                                                        Alchemical Engravings of the 17th century
                                                                                            Thames & Hudson, 1988
                                                                                                                         0500279810

Linden, Stanton J.    The Alchemy Reader             CUP, 2003              0521796628

Roob, Alexander       Alchemy & Mysticism                    Taschen, 1997        382288653X


Further reading on the subject of Alchemy

Burckhardt, Titus        Alchemy                                     Fons Vitae, 1997     1887752110

Coudert, Allison          Alchemy                              Wildwood House, 1980     0704504138

Gilchrist, Cherry          The elements of Alchemy   Element, 1991              1852302054

Thompson, C.J.S.         Alchemy & Alchemists       Dover, 2002                  0486421104