Recent Commonplace Entries

February

“Klavan’s argument  . . . is that ‘the world is not made of material objects. It is made of the meeting between mind and matter.’ Quantum mathematics, he insists, has revealed an ancient truth that the prophets of the mechanical universe tried but failed to discredit, which is that the mind and its perceptions are just as real as the physical world, and indeed that the physical world is only comprehensible with reference to the mind.” (John Daniel Davidson, in review of Spencer A. Klavan’s Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith, in The Spectator World, February)

“Despite such seemingly deistic moments in his writings, Darwin took a great interest in the capacity of animals to be their own creators, transforming themselves, one another, and their environment, and so influencing the course of evolution. An example is his idea of “use and disuse”: animals strengthen and enhance their body parts by using them, or weaken them by declining to use them, then pass these changes on to their offspring.” (Jessica Riskin, in review of Robert M. Sapolsky’s Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, in NYRB, February 13)

“One might also ask whether it is such a simple thing to maintain one’s inner freedom in a totalitarian state. If the state determines the contents of everyone’s education, does that not have an effect on the inner lives of a populace? What about dissenters forced to torture one another in political prison as part of their “reeducation”? If secret police break down the bonds of trust between even the closest of family members by manipulating people to inform on their loved ones, as both Romania’s Securitate and Albania’s Sigurimi did, is their dignity not necessarily affected? Is it possible, in other words, to have a concept of freedom separate from the ideals of justice or proportionality? It is all well and good to claim that “we never lose our inner freedom: the freedom to do what is right,” but when dissidents know their families will be targeted in retribution, the consequences of standing up for one’s ideals can be unbearable.” (Irina Dumitrescu, in review of Lea Ypi’s Free; Coming of Age at the End of History, in NYRB, February 27)

“I have to say, too, that I find it difficult to commend an Oxford Regius professor for beautiful writing if she doesn’t know the meaning of ‘crescendo’, ‘ironically’ or ‘enormity’.” (Philip Hensher, in review of Lyndal Roper’s Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War, in the Spectator, February 8)

“To say that cereal-farming was responsible for the rise of such states is a little like saying that the development of calculus in medieval Persia is responsible for the invention of the atom bomb.” (Jonathan Kennedy, quoting Jared Diamond [?], in Pathogenesis, p 40)

“While the tone of much of the book is quite cool and aloof, there is an enthusiastic chapter called ‘The Art of Spying’. ‘I have been fascinated by espionage from a very young age,’ it begins. For readers who might worry he is about to reveal a grudging respect for MI6 or the CIA, the example he gives is reassuring: ‘The first Soviet spies were not technicians or trained killers. In the 1920s, spies were above all political people, chosen for their ability to grasp, analyse and connect events that appeared to be unconnected. Above all, Soviet spies in those days of hope saw themselves as foot soldiers of the world revolution.’  Effective secret agents also know how to collect gossip and distribute it to their advantage; have unusually capacious memories, and a capacity to hold grudges; show a keen awareness of political and bureaucratic hierarchies; and possess a certain mischief and charm. In this book’s best sections, Ali shows all these qualities.” (Andy Beckett, in review of Tariq Ali’s You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024, in LRB, February 20)

 “In his books, he is precise about placenames and more content dealing with a parish or a townland or a single part of a city than a sweeping moment in history. ‘For my emigrant mother and my father, the departed Irish places remained the guiding star of who they were and what they became, for it seems true that our sense of place becomes most active when we are “out” of place. To the emigrant, who is by definition always out of place and denied home, this sense is always keen, and is often passed on to the second generation.’ But he is also conscious that he may himself embody a sweeping moment in history. He draws on Eric Hobsbawm, who recognised that this change – ‘the death of the peasantry’ – is ‘perhaps the most fundamental one the contemporary modern world has seen’. Joyce thinks of himself as a historian of his own life: ‘I have seen this world we have lost, and been part of its ending. The Joyces and the Bowes – both sides of my family – were part of this silently epochal transformation. In my family history I am the link between old and new, the first-born of the new, and yet a carrier of the old.’” (Colm Tóibín, in review of Patrick Joyce’s Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World, in LRB, February 20)

“Although historians are notionally interested in establishing the truth, the past isn’t something that can easily be tested. Our evidence simply doesn’t provide us with the impersonal facts that might allow that. Rather than being a window into a past reality, documents – our main source of evidence – are components of that reality. It doesn’t matter what sort of text we are dealing with: a chronicle, a political pamphlet, or a shopping list. They are all an attempt to structure, shape or supplement the world from which they sprang, even if they purport just to describe it.”

“If we are to understand any document, we need to understand how it functioned as part of a whole and in worked in relation to other documents. To do this, we need some methodology, some criteria for evaluating our evidence.”  (Alexander Lee, in History Today, February)

“I asked him [Dick Brooman-White, of SIS] how things were in the way of intelligence, and he said, in his characteristically dry way, that very good intelligence was coming from places where it was easy to get and none at all from places where it was difficult to get.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, in diary entry for July 18, 1948, from Like It Was)

“In the draft of Churchill’s Memoirs which was given to the Daily Telegraph. He put in a sentence to the effect that the Russians always observed their agreements. When it was pointed out to him that this was entirely and dangerously misleading, he struck out the sentence. What is extraordinary, is that he had been concerned in making a number of the many agreements which the Russians have broken, and therefore ought, presumably, to be in a better position than most people to know that these agreements have been broken.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, in diary entry for July 26, 1948, from Like It Was)

“Peggy Williamson and Tony [Powell] came to supper. Peggy had formerly worked in the MI6 office in Algiers and is still with the SIS. I was amused to learn that all the worst dead-beats were still firmly entrenched. Said afterwards to Tony, naming four of them, that it would be difficult to find any organization, private or public, directed by four so essentially incompetent people. In view of the nature of the organization in question, this is particularly grotesque.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, in diary entry for August 26, 1948, from Like It Was)

“John [Muggeridge, son] said à propos an offer by Frenchman to found a new Oxford college, that it should be called Dead Souls, and we’d all become Fellows.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, in diary entry for September 13, 1948, from Like It Was)

“Dick White came to lunch. He is now more or less head of MI5. We talked about the Daily Worker and how it is financed. He said that his impression was that most of its funds came from rich men. We agreed that rich men thus paying conscience money to an organization which seeks to destroy them presents a fascinating psychological problem.” (Malcolm Muggeridge, in diary entry for January 28, 1949, from Like It Was)

“To visit Glasgow after Edinburgh is rather like meeting a red-faced Lord Mayor after a session with a desiccated and long-lineaged Scottish peer. They are both magnificent in their ways, but so different that there is no comparison.” (John Betjeman, in Betjeman’s Britain, p 297)