IN THE 1930s, David Low's cartoon reactionary, "Colonel Blimp', insisted that the middle classes backbone of the country and attributed all national woes to me bone-lale worker, the Ho Shevik telectual anarchist conspirator with a bomb in his pocket.
The message of the modern Blimp is there are new targets: the almighty trade union boss, the woman TETTOES. the Marxist lecturer. the welfare punk artist with a subsidy, the football hooligan, and many more swell the insidious conspiracy undermining all that is best in Britain.
BUL ine real change is not a multiplication of the supposed enemies OT SOCCEV always a motley and numerous crew -but a multiplication of Instead of simply a Colonel on the retired list we now have Prince Blimp. the Queen's husband; Bernard Blimp, the Times columnist; Woodrow Blimp, the millionaire ex-Labour MP; Mary Blimp, the censor of public morals; Reginaid Blimo. another MP. who has now joined the Tories; and Paul Blimp, the former editor of the New Statesman.
What sense or substance is there in this new right-wing trend among the arbiters of public opinion? As in the past they seek to reaffirm traditional truths and to confound all heretical movements of social criticism and revolt. But these days the task is a more difficult one.
-In the past, British conservatism had sucn connaence in Ine institutions that it scarcely saw the need to mustifv them. Conservatism exalted tradition, reverence for precedent, the CHILLEC custom, the market as the basis of all Socialist Challenge 26 October 1978 page 8 condemn were ne be losing their magic. haired needs reformulation confronts some though today opponents.
Polytechnic scrounger, the shift in cultural sensibilities, ecological competing Marxism.
AMBITIOUS Blimps.
ground of social theory CA-LaDOul cran namoon or cachon Johnson's Enemies of society.
examining its quality.
cartoon justified?
established nose WRO and accusation.
But now the market itself seems to industry, and institutions like the House of Lords and judiciary seem to A pervasive sense of social paralysis and national crisis destroys the old passive self-respect. Conservatism also because and puzzling In the last decade the established order felt threatened as never before by popunst trauc umon wancy, a acep diffusion of the untamiliar doctrines associated with women's liberation, the and the schools of continental Paul Johnson, who is probably the most ambitious of the new pundits, has tried to meet these antagonists head-on and to restate conservatism on the high Ten years ago, as editor of the New Statesman, he was celebrating the May revolt in France as the dawn of a new age. In 1978, he has established himselt as the most prolific and acclaimed widely praised book, summed up the neo-Conservative world view and is thus a convenient reference point for Johnson has pretensions to be more inan Just a reactionary: are they The principle themes of Enemies of Society run as follows. Since the days of annouity une middie class nas been tne vital custodian of civilised values "bourgeois" should feel proud of the But it is not enough simply to Traces from ровно 377S proclaim that bourgeois is beautiful western ovusaton is now uncalcuc by a noxious combination of enemies, some Teners accducce bourgeois society, others eager to write out its urdul wallant.
Among these 'enemies of society' are the unscientific cults. associated with Marx and Freud, the demagogy of social critics like Ivan R.D. Laing and Marcuse; the mystagogy of Marshail McLuhan and Teilhard de Chardin, the mass expectations aroused by the wellare stare and neynesian cconomics. the irrational fears played upon by the and, last but not least, the dangerous egalitarianism of those who feel oppressed or discriminated against by bourgeois society Johnson insists that such threats to Western values must be stamped out by a stern restoration of law and order in the intellectual sphere.
He calls for a reaffirmation racinona Tengion. nor on une eround. that it is valid, but because the old priests are better than the new witch doctors. Without any apparent sense of contradiction he also calls for a new commitment to Truth and Science.
FREEDOM Finally, the supreme good is the freedom (often confused with privileges) of the cultivated individual. Everything suggests that the individual predominantly white, male and middle class.
In England, as elsewhere, the social movements of the Sixties and Seventies were better at identifying particular wrongs and injustices than in proposing adequate and solutions.
Facile slogans like 'Power to the People' implied that a worked-out programme, and harmonious social alliance, already existed and that all that was needed was to smash the old Even today the left is neither united enough nor practical enough to much more than an irritant to the body The gurus of radical revolt suffered an analogous weakness. could offer valuable INS CHILS particular defects prevailing institutions and ideologies, world views they had to offer were frequently naive and fantastic RESERVE Much can be learnt from R.D. Laing or even Illich so long as their overambitious cosmologies are treated with reserve. Likewise the ecological critique of contemporary industrialism points to many particular dangers, but it does COHSUILULC self-sufficient programme for the economy.
Paul Johnson does not seek seperate the wheat from the chaff in criticism contents himself with a blanket assault. Moreover he delights to (witting or unwitting) between his various enemies.
Confronted with any sign of social revolt or criticism, Johnson reaches for continually D uncerouss over-estimates the unity and coherence Abusive amalgamation is essential to Johnson's polemical style. the following representative example of his free association style of argument:
power movement. we may doubt that ll owed much to Lévi-Strauss or Laing. The indexer of this volume has been so befuddled by Johnson's amalgamation technique that the entry for Ivan Illich simply reads see Lenin'.
TRUTH A recurrent theme of Enemies of Herbert Society is the importance of truth, respect for language procedure, yet the author has a reckless and uncomprehending way with all three. Thus the repeated injunction to "trust science' (my the author's own distance from the critical scientific spirit.
Johnson's longing for certitude is as evident in his cultural digressions as his Johnsonian aesthetics is simply stated: Art is a source not only of pleasure but of reassurance; it is not a luxury of civilisation but undermines the common certitudes, it of lowers morale and makes assault more deadly (page 226).
Just as all the enemies of society are orchestrated bv some subversive hidder hand, so the positive values merge and mystical unity like that of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost.
The Truth, Religion, Science and Art is that they all help to reinforce the common - the certitudes That is why the truth is what Johnson calls 'Christian truth, and that is why science must promote trust, and art reassurance Johnson's crusading simplifications and prustnisn early barely concealed hatred of foreigners in Just as the essence of Truth is Christ's COnCECI truth, so the most precious component of Western English.
DOUBT Any historical evidence that might cast doubt on the beneficent English genius is rapidly passed over.
be Johnson is combining apologetics for capitalism with celebration of England ne can produce real gems of sophistry: *Those who criticise the industrialists They for exploiting child labour overlook the fact that the central problem of the age but the By far those or are outer mine ne far those of any other time history. It was not capitalism which produced these children. What it dic was to enable England to avoid an Irish solution emigration. (pp. 71-2.) of Hass It does _ohnson that bo England bear some responsibility in the matter of the Irish' solution, since it was the insisted that millions of Irish peasants must starve in order to allow the grain to market to find its own level He has no doubt that alien cultural but imports are to blame for much contemporary discover roundly declares: Frenchmen, as we are seeing, pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-scientific movements, and are active in assaulting the civilisation they helped so notably to create." (p.220). Or again he writes:
intellectual, but of a French pseudoConsider intelectual.
Such fine impressive if Johnson showed any and scientific emphasis) reveals INCACHCO La necessity. If art external most significant thing about basis of bourgeois civilisation is When clothe and employ starvation and apparently occur to Sane endorses the London government which Popper.
tirades.
malaise. odd blunders. play a notable part in exceedingly *Teilhard is a only or a pscude used by rendered scorn would be more Marcuse's ability to detect the pseudo-inte lectual or pseudo-scientific compone in British culture: instead he naive scientific claims Eysenck and the Hegel-scholarship Contidence in Johnson upholder of intellectual standards is n enhanced by the inaccuracy of his ow For someone who supposedly made a close study contemporary social thought he mak Since he disdains footnotes it is ofte difficult to check his quotations a criticisms. Thus he speaks knowledg ably of Marcuse, , but has he read him No work by Marcuse appears in th bibliography, though we are offere several quotations from him. Key term Marcuse are erroneous Johnson concept of "oppressi permissiveness' (page 239) when 1
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Gad. sir., Wagner is right. This' hot' music is just African propaganda to prevent the white BLIMP'S WESTERN CULTURE
shoulder to shoulder with Their backs to the wall