David Brooks: Ideal Leaders "full of passionate intensity"

William Butler Yeats

(Image from The National Library of Ireland)

William Butler Yeats is one of my favorite poets, and in my Berkeley years, way back in the 1980s, I read him religiously, which is perhaps how he wrote to be read, so I'm always gratified to catch some allusion to his poetry, especially one encountered in the writing of a columnist and public intellectual like David Brooks.

In his recent NYT column on Congressional gridlock, "Sin and Taxes" (November 22, 2010), Brooks notes that current-day American politicians are different from those of even as recent as the 1990s, and he reasons why:

For centuries, American politicians did not run up huge peacetime debts. It wasn't because they were unpartisan or smarter or more virtuous. It was because they were constrained by a mentality inherited from the founders. According to this mentality, a big successful nation exists in a state of equilibrium between its many factions. This equilibrium is fragile because we are flawed and fallen creatures and can't quite trust ourselves. So all of us, but especially members of the leadership class, should practice self-restraint. Moral anxiety restrained hubris (don't think your side possesses the whole truth) and self-indulgence (debt corrupts character).

This ethos has dissolved, on left and right. The new mentality sees the country not as an equilibrium, but as a battlefield in which the people, who are pure and virtuous, do battle against the interests or the elites, who stand in the way of the people's happiness.

The ideal leader in this mental system is free from moral anxiety but full of passionate intensity. This leader pushes his troops in lock step before the voracious foe. Each party has its own version of whom the evil elites are, but both feel they've more to fear from their enemies than from their own sinfulness.

Compromise is thus impossible. Money matters should be negotiable, but how can one compromise with opponents who are the source of all corruption?

A bit of Calvinist-inspired Protestant self-doubt, it seems, is good for the state of the soul, but with politicians too sure of their own election, the consequence is an all-out, no-holds-barred culture war in which the self-righteousness scorn their opponents as totally depraved.

But enough moralizing. You surely caught the allusion to the poem "The Second Coming" in this line by Brooks: "The ideal leader in this mental system is free from moral anxiety but full of passionate intensity." Here's the entire poem by Yeats:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I won't attempt any lengthy explication, or try to apply this 1919 post-Great War poem to our time. That would be tempting, but this isn't the place for it, though the line "the centre cannot hold" is surely apt, and perhaps also subtly intended by Brooks in referring to our current 'ideal' leaders, so "full of passionate intensity," the type whom Yeats identifies as "the worst," a characterization with which Brooks apparently agrees.

But rather than further pursue that line of thought on these leaders so full of sound and fury, I'll just enjoy the lines of the poem . . . pausing to appreciate the literary allusion.

Literary Criticism: "play[ing] tennis with the net down"

Hoar Frost

The muse is a fickle mistress . . .

and criticism an ill-tempered husband.

(Image from Wikipedia)

I recently posted an old 'poem' of mine from my days living an absurd, freewheeling life as a wastrel in romantic Tubingen before I began paying my debt to society after meeting Sun-Ae. Here's that poem again:

Free Verse!

Free it from ironic cages,
Interwoven webs of language,
Patterns binding through the ages,
Meter, accent, feet, and beat. Wedge

A way. Scheme rhyme's end. And break all
Mind-deformed maniacals like
Those who'd have the udder gall
To bilk a bitter tense-peed bike

As though it took of bovine ilk!
So stand a stanza on its head,
Cup a couplet on the ear, milk
All metaphoricals! 'Nuff said.

Obviously nonsensical . . . and hardly 'free' verse despite its freewheeling style. My online friend Malcolm 'Malcontent' Pollack decided to express himself humorously about the poem's putative message:

"Tennis with the net down."

To which I retorted:

That's a frosty remark.

Thereby prompting Malcolm's quick quip:

Ah! Whose words these are, I think you know.

Thus inviting this response from me (the date just happening to be June 21st):

Though one might think it rather queer,
Indeed I do -- the words appear;
with clarity, I see your fake,
this brightest evening of the year.

Inspiring Malcolm to compose a reply in kind:

A lot of fun, this game has been,
Indeed, your latest made me grin.
But perhaps it's worn a little thin,
And so I think I'll pack it in.

But I wasn't quite finished yet:

Oh pack it in, then pack it out.
That's what this game is all about.
Let's call a tie -- there's been no rout.
We've proved we neither one's a lout.

And neither was Malcolm:

And so the ball went to and fro,
As it did 'twixt Borg and McEnroe.
With every serve, we scored an ace,
And we did it with the net in place!

I tried my hand one more time:

Time now to choose at forking path,
Where ways diverge in wood or grove,
Past apple-picking time, one hath
sun's golden apples for the rove.

And closed "[w]ith apologies to Borges, Frost, and Yeats" for that last endeavor.

I've heard nothing since from Malcolm, but perhaps that wandering aengus is off plucking, till time and times are done, some silver apples of the moon for golden apples of the sun.

But feel free to pick up the ball...

Expat Living: "Eyes, I's and lustful desires"

My Expat Seoul's New Dawn?

(Image from Wikipedia)

Today's Korea Herald has my column in its Expat Living pages, along with the columns of such better known figures as Robert Koehler, aka The Marmot, who -- as he tells his readers -- "is the administrator of The Marmot's Hole blog," a source of enough wonder, information, and bitchiness to keep the one's idle curiosity idling for hours.

Or you can also let yourself be more briefly distracted by my article in the Expat Living, but since the Korea Herald maintains the unusual practice of preventing netizens from linking directly to online articles, I can link only to the newspaper itself, but if you follow the link and let your eyes and cursor scroll briefly down the left margin, you'll find the link to Expat Living, where the section's most recent columns will appear . . . for a few days, perhaps.

The man organizing this new section, Matthew Lamers, has encouraged those of us with blogs or similar online sites to publicize our collective efforts and even to re-post our own columns after they appear in the Korea Herald, so I'm posting mine today, for the online site published it yesterday evening and the paper's hard copy has already been delivered this morning.

What you'll read here is my original copy, but if you want to read the edited version, which differs a bit, then take a look at the Korea Herald's Expat Living section . . . if it hasn't been pushed out of sight by the time you read this.

Originally, I wanted to call my column "Expatiate" and today's headline "Eyesore," but the editors had other ideas, and that's their call, so they're calling the column "Jeffery Hodges on Language" and today's headline "Eyes, I's and lustful desires," which is not bad, actually, and might get more attention than my original punning title.

Anyway, here is my original copy:

Expatiate: "Eyesore"

If language really is a virus from outer space, as William S. Burroughs claims, then my words could prove contagious. Despite that risk, I write the Language column for Expat Living.

I interpret this to mean that I can write about anything I please so long as I use language. That sounds straightforward enough, but there is one restriction. I am told to avoid overusing the word "eye."

Apparently, well-written journalism shuns this word, which is news to me. Whatever happened to eyewitness reports? I do not mean to imply that eyewitnesses are entirely dependable, for the eyes often fool us. Think of a magician's sleight-of-hand trick in making things disappear before our very eyes!

That happens even when our eyes are striving to perceive the truth. More disturbing, if religious thinkers are right, our eyes actively deceive and mislead us. The Bible's First Letter of John warns against "the lust of the eyes," for their lustful desires turn us toward worldly things.

Saint Augustine, commenting on this very letter, cites that same scriptural expression to disparage ocular curiosity, which distracts one from proper, spiritual pursuits and focuses one’s attention upon worldly affairs. In his infamous Confessions, he even provides an example of curiosity gone disturbingly wrong, describing how it draws his fascinated gaze to the sight of a spider entangling flies that have rushed into its web.

Lest one imagine distrust of the eyes to be a purely religious concern, the historian Martin Jay has shown in Downcast Eyes that even many secular thinkers denigrate vision. The atheist existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, coined the expression "the gaze" in Being and Nothingness to describe how the observing eyes of strangers transform us into mere objects in their field of sight.

So great a cloud of witnesses would darken anyone's view of vision. Perhaps Expat Living's censure of the word "eye" has merit: "eye" as eyesore!

Yet, the word has also a venerable history and is beloved by poets. Consider W.B. Yeats' eyeable poem A Drinking Song:

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

Lovely poem. And yet . . . is it true? Has not Yeats perhaps attributed too much significance to the eye? Arguably, he has. If so, has he thereby overused the word? Arguably, he has. Ought I therefore misquote the poem? Arguably, I should:

Booze comes in at the mouth
And lust comes in at the ear;
We'll not know north from south
If we grow too old on beer.
I lift the glass to my mouth;
I look at you, and I leer.

Just look how this radical eye surgery has marred Yeats' formerly lovely poem! All that now remains is a none-eyed leer! Though the rhyme scheme works rather better. After all, "truth" does not truly rhyme with "mouth," does it? I have therefore excised that eye-rhyme, which ought to make the Expat Living authorities happy.

Speaking of whom, those same individuals will doubtless also be very pleased to hear that further columns of Expatiate will avoid overusing the forbidden word "eye."

(The restricted word is not "eye," but "I." - Editor)

Ah . . . I see. Er, this columnist sees. That being so, today's column has apparently wrong-footed everybody. My most sincere apologies offered to all who were misled through my egregious misunderstanding. Uh . . . will my column for Expat Living be allowed to continue?

Regular readers will note that I've cannibalized Gypsy Scholar to write this column. I promise to continue masticating bites of my blog to be incorporated within future language columns for Expat Living, so you might as well get used to this.

Finally, a practical role for my impractical blog...

Improving on W.B. Yeats

Maud Gonne, Beloved by Yeats

"love comes in at the eye"

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've long been troubled by poems that pretend to rhyme. I really dislike eye-rhymes, for they conflict with my ear for the verse (though I might enjoy them if used ironically).

I therefore must object to this otherwise charming little poem published in Responsibilities and Other Poems (1916) by the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats:

A Drinking Song

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

Look -- or, rather, listen -- does "truth" really rhyme with "mouth"? Do the Irish pronounce "mouth" to rhyme with "vermouth"? Even if they do, does that make it right? I think not. Therefore, I have revised this little poem by Yeats, fixing its rhyme scheme, correcting its punctuation, and adjusting its content ever so slightly to fit today's altered cultural circumstances:

A Boozing Song

Booze comes in at the mouth,
And lust comes in at the ear;
We'll not know north from south
If we grow old on beer.
I lift the glass to my mouth;
I look at you, and I leer.

Definitely improved. And the collection of poems by Yeats can now be re-titled as well: Irresponsibilities and Other Poems. That's also obviously better. Perhaps Gypsy Scholar should initiate a new series: "Improved Poems." Imagine . . . an opportunity to revise all those terrible lines in 'great' poems that you'd really like to love but can't . . . quite . . . yet.

Now, you can, for the Gypsy is open to suggestions.

The Pope Sails to Byzantium

William Butler Yeats

"That is no country for old men."

(Image from Wikipedia)

John Berwick, in "Sailing to Byzantium" (International Herald Tribune, September 29, 2006) has suggested yet another reason that the Pope quoted the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus:

Manuel II Paleologus (1350-1425) was one of the last Christian rulers of Byzantium. He was the father of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, who is revered by Greek Orthodox Christians as a saint. During Manuel II's reign, the Turks had conquered most of the Byzantine provinces, devastated and pillaged Greek cities, and enslaved thousands of Christian women and children. In 1394, the sultan laid siege to Constantinople, inflicting hunger and suffering on the Christian residents of the city for eight years. Naturally, the emperor had a rather jaundiced view of Islam. So why did the pope quote Manuel II as an authority on jihad?

...

Benedict has an ambitious agenda. He wants to reclaim Europe for Christianity. That project may seem unrealistic, but a first step would be to reunite divided Christians. In the pope's view, theological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are so great that little progress can be expected on that front. But Eastern Orthodoxy, the second largest Christian communion in the world after the Roman Catholic Church, is a different matter.

There are no major theological differences separating the two communions. Some form of reunion is not only feasible; from Benedict's point of view, it is highly desirable.

...

The pope is 79 and in poor health. He knows that he won't live to see his dream of a re-evangelized Europe come true. But the first step in that agenda -- unity with the Eastern Orthodox communion -- appears within his grasp. His reference to the beleaguered Byzantine emperor Manuel II will have been understood by the world's 240 million Eastern Orthodox Christians as a dramatic gesture of solidarity.

I believe it was a calculated risk. In November the pope will meet Patriarch Bartholomew I, and no doubt he will receive a warm welcome.

This is certainly a different perspective on the issue, and one that I hadn't considered. Berwick's argument has a certain plausibility to it since it would clarify why the Pope chose precisely this 'brusque' quote by the Byzantine emperor.

But if this should turn out to have been the Pope's intention, then he happened to choose a statement from the emperor that could backfire by reminding Orthodox Christians of the Latin West's earlier attacks on Byzantium and its final abandonment of Greek Orthodoxy in its moment of direst danger. Recall the words from Marie-Hélène Congourdeau:

At the time of Manuel, when Byzantines objected to the idea of a holy war, they have as a line of sight, in the same time, Muslim Jihad and western crusade ... [especially] the trauma of 4th Crusade and all the expeditions when they saw Christian soldiers with a cross ... handling a sword ... [in] the name of Christ.

The Orthodox Church partly blames the Western Church for its fall, and with some justification, so if Pope Benedict XVI's intention is to draw the Orthodox closer to union with the Catholic Church, then those dark clouds looming on the horizen might roll in to rain on his parade.

Unstable weather ahead for this Byzantine voyage...