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WHY TRUMP WON
Not even Cassandra, cursed to prophesise but never be believed, could have predicted the tumultuous change that occurred in 2016. In June, just over half of the British public (51.89%) voted to leave the European Union. Then, in November, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the President of the United States.
And not only did Trump defeat Clinton, winning thirty of America’s fifty states (though Clinton did win the popular vote), the Republican Party utterly decimated the Democrats. Trump won thirty of America’s fifty states (Clinton, admittedly, did win the popular vote). The Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, have a majority in the Senate, hold thirty-three state governorships, and control thirty-two state legislatures.
Brexit’s victory and Trump’s triumph comes off the back of a deeper cultural movement. It is a movement that rejects the doctrines of political correctness, identity politics, diversity, and equality in favour of greater intellectual rigour and personal freedom. Trump’s gift to this movement has been to expand the Overton Window. As an indirect consequence of his uncouthness, the boundaries of public discourse have been expanded exponentially.
Throughout his campaign, the media treated Trump as a joke. He hasn’t got a hope in Hades, they claimed. In the end, however, they were proven wrong. Trump won through a mixture of hard-line policies on immigration and a rejection of political correctness and far-left politics. And he won through his astounding ability to market himself to the American people.
The first thing to note is that Trump thrives on scandal. Much of this ability emanates from his already tarnished reputation as a rude, uncouth, bully and womaniser. Trump has never denied these facets of his personality (in some cases he has even emphasised them). What this means is that those who voted for Trump did so despite the significant faults in his character. Consequentially, accusations involving sex or money (the two things people truly care about) has little effect on him.
Then there is his skill as an emotional manipulator. Trump appeals directly to the emotional sensibilities of the people by using fear-mongering rhetoric to circumvent the mind’s critical faculties. Rather than emphasising the importance of maintaining the integrity of immigration law, Trump chooses to emphasise the crimes – rapes, murders, drug offences – committed by some illegal immigrants. After this, Trump promotes anger by setting up an out-group as the enemy. As a result, Trump implies not only that he is the best man to solve these issues, but that anyone who opposes him is somehow anti-American.
Finally, there is Trump’s use of simplicity and repetition as persuasive tools. Nuanced and boring statements can be taken out of context. By contrast, simple and heavily repetitive statements are harder to take out of context. But, more importantly, such statements are also more likely to be believed.
Much of Trump’s use of simplicity has its basis in his relationship with language. Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level and averages one syllable per word. While it would be easy to dismiss this as unsophisticated or low brow, it is important to remember that small words have a stronger and more immediate emotional impact, are more accessible to a wider audience, and are considered more believable. Cognitive fluency bias means that that the easier it is to understand something, the more likely it is to be believed. As a consequence, Trump’s use of small, simple words means he is more likely to be understood and, therefore, is more likely to be believed.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Trump’s magnetism is his ability to bypass the traditional mediums of communication and appeal directly to the American people. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who relied upon celebrity support and the mainstream media, Trump and his supporters used social media to appeal directly to voters. The lesson is clear: voters like for politicians to speak to them as equals, not preach to them from on high.
Language Matters
“What’s in a word?”, asks Michael J. Knowles (1990 – ), host of the Michael Knowles Show, in a Prager University YouTube video entitled “Control the Words, Control the Culture.”
Knowles asks the viewer to consider the difference between an illegal immigrant and an undocumented immigrant, or the difference between a Christmas tree and a holiday tree. The answer, he tells us, lies in semantics. It is not the objects in themselves that are different, but the words used to define and describe them.
The manner in which we define and describe different things has a powerful effect on the way we view them. Our thoughts are processed and articulated through words. And it is through this articulation that our worldview is formed.
Language, therefore, is a vital cornerstone of civilisation. When it is used properly, it leads people towards truth and reason. But when it is abused, it leads people towards lies and irrationality.
The Judeo-Christian tradition is based upon written and verbal articulation. God’s first act of creation is the verbal commandment “let there be light.” Moses is commanded to write down the Ten Commandments. And Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is described as “the word of God made flesh.”
The left has come to realise that they can use language to manipulate the way people think. Through their domination of academia, culture, and media has ensured that it is their definitions and descriptors are the ones accepted within the larger culture.
The left controls language by using euphemisms to distort and obscure facts. These euphemisms make it easier for lies to be accepted by the larger populace.
Through their perversion of language, the left has all-ready been able to engineer significant social change. Would society have accepted gay marriage had it not been deviated from its original definition of the union of husband – man – and wife – woman? And would society have been so ready to accept abortion if those being killed were referred to as unborn babies and not as foetuses?
And the left continues to use language as a means to engineer social change. They refer to policies that favour groups based upon arbitrary factors such as race, gender, or sexuality as “social justice.” But to be just means to have “the quality of being fair and reasonable.” In reality, there is nothing just about the policies that comprise “social justice.”
Likewise, policies that unfairly favour non-white, non-male, and non-heterosexual individuals in academia and the workforce is referred to as, alternatively, positive discrimination and affirmative action. In reality, such practices are discrimination.
Intellectual conformity is enforced in the name of “diversity”, opposing points of views are censored in the name of “tolerance”, and voices of dissent are silenced because they are dismissed as “hate speech.”
When you control the words, you control the culture. And when you control the culture, you control the future of a civilisation.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: COMPARING TWO SHAKESPEARE FILMS
The 1993 and 2012 adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing reveal what can be gained and what can be lost when Shakespeare’s plays are adapted to the silver screen. Namely, the 1993 adaptation maintains the integrity of Shakespeare’s literary genius, whilst the 2012 adaptation violates it.
Joss Whedon’s 2012 adaptation attempts to modernise Shakespeare’s works while maintaining its eloquent language. The setting – time and location – of the film do not suit the dialogue spoken. It may be preferable to retain Shakespeare’s original dialogue, but that dialogue can only work if the audience can be made to believe that the characters in that situation would actually talk that way. Otherwise, it distracts from the film’s plot. It would have been advisable to retain Shakespeare’s story but to utilise modern parlance. Joss Whedon’s 2012 adaption of Much Ado About Nothing comes across as a high school media production, and a poorly made one at that. It is precisely what happens when the plays of William Shakespeare are poorly adapted to the screen.
By contrast, Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 adaptation is grand and lavish, being like a breath of fresh air to Shakespeare’s play. Its setting – periodic, though the exact period is hard to confirm, and expansive location (though it takes place in one village, it feels much larger) – means that the audience is more willing to accept the decision to retain the play’s original dialogue. The audience can and does, believe that the characters in the film would actually speak the way they are depicted as speaking. Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing is precisely what happens when Shakespeare’s plays are adapted properly to the screen.
SORRY PRO-CHOICERS, ABORTION IS OBVIOUSLY WRONG
In March of 2015, a Coloradan woman, Michelle Wilkins, was lured to a meet-up arranged on Craigslist and brutally attacked. During the attack, Wilkins, who was seven months pregnant, had her unborn child cut from her body. Wilkins survived the attack but, sadly, her child did not. And, as if to add insult to injury, Wilkin’s unborn child was not recognised as human under Coloradan law.
Legal abortion – which I will define as the state approved murder of an innocent life – is a barbarity no civilised society should tolerate. As the Canadian clinical psychologist and YouTube sensation, Jordan Peterson (1962 – ) commented, “abortion is clearly wrong. You wouldn’t recommend someone you love have one.”
However, this is not to say that abortion isn’t a deeply complex and emotive issue. On the one hand, it is a procedure often used by desperate or easily persuaded women who feel that aborting their unborn child is the only option open to them (which it very rarely is). On the other hand, it is a form of murder cynically exploited by feminist extremists for political purposes.
Pro-choice proponents have several arguments in favour of total and free access to abortion.
The first argument, and the one that carries the greatest degree of credibility, concerns the health of the mother and her ability to safely carry a child to term. The Washington Post, for example, reported a story about an Indian girl who had been repeatedly raped and eventually impregnated by her uncle. An abortion was performed when it was decided she was too young to carry her child to term.
In all honesty, this is a sentiment which I have a great deal of sympathy for. It is very difficult for a woman to be a mother if she is dead, and it would be as wrong to sacrifice the life of the mother for the child as it would be to sacrifice the life of the child for the sake of the mother.
But the argument that abortion is necessary when the health of the mother is in jeopardy does not necessarily translate into the full, absolute, and unquestionable right to abortion. It is merely an argument for the preservation of the life of the mother.
The second argument concerns the health of vitality of the child itself. Often, however, this kind of argument is often used as a disguise for a desire to engage in eugenics. Claiming that a child with down syndrome should be aborted, for example, is the same as saying that people afflicted with certain maladies should not be afforded the same right to life as everybody else.
The third argument concerns instances where pregnancy has been instigated through an act of rape or incest. Whether or not rape should be sufficient grounds for an abortion is a tricky one to grapple with. On the one hand, the mother did not choose to be placed in the situation she has found herself in. And, by extension, birthing, and most probably raising, a child borne of rape may prove to be an insurmountable emotional turmoil for the mother. On the other hand, however, the child did not choose to be conceived through rape, and it is immoral to punish an innocent person for the crimes of another.
In reality, however, the rape justification for abortion is merely a red herring. It is a backdoor method for justifying the total, absolute, and unquestionable access to abortion.
The fourth argument concerns the idea that a woman has the right to abort her unborn child because she has the absolute right to bodily autonomy. In Texas last year, Judge Earl Leroy Yeakel III (1945 – ) overturned Senate Bill Eight which prevented doctors from performing evacuation and dilation abortions by mandating that a child’s heart must stop beating before the procedure can be performed. Yeakel claimed that the decision to abort a child outside the womb is “solely and exclusively the woman’s decision.”
This is the easiest argument to refute. An abortion does not only affect a woman’s body, it also destroys the life of a separate, innocent human being. Furthermore, the right to choose when to have a family is one shared by all people up to a point. A man has the right to wear a condom, he can have a vasectomy, and so forth. Likewise, a woman has every right to use contraceptive birth control, a diaphragm, a female condom, a cervical cap, an intrauterine device, and more. Couples can even refrain from having sex. But the right to family planning ends the moment a child has been conceived.
The fifth argument, and the one that is the most egregious, is the argument that an unborn child does not count as a human life. Much of this is the result of language. We use Latin words like “foetus” and “embryo” to fool ourselves into believing an unborn child is not a human being.
Therein lies the rub. People have always justified evil and immorality by altering the parameters of their morals to suit themselves. People have always justified murder by claiming that the person they are killing is not human. They may argue, for example, that murder is wrong, but that they are justified in aborting their unborn child because they do not see that child as human.
And the biological and physiological question of whether the unborn child is a human being is, without any shadow of a doubt, yes.
This is the case right down to the genetic level. Virtually every cell in our bodies contains thirty thousand or more different genes that are spread out on long strands of DNA known as chromosomes. Now DNA is very special. It is the chemical building block that makes us who we are. It determines whether or not we will go bald, what our eye and hair colour will be, how tall we will be, and much more besides.
If there is anything that DNA is good at it’s replicating itself. This can occur in two ways. At the most basic level, DNA replicates itself through cloning. At the most complex, one set of DNA merges with another set of DNA through sexual intercourse. And in doing so it creates an entirely unique individual.
But how can it do this safely? The answer lies in a process known as meiosis. When the human body makes sex gametes – sperm and ovum – it does so by making a copy of a previous cell. When it does this it keeps itself attached at one point and then condenses to make an ‘X’ shape. The four chromosomes then embrace and transfer some of their genetic material to each other. Finally, the cell split twice to create new sperm or ovum that carries a unique genetic package.
In other words, every sperm cell and every ovum carry a set of chromosomes that has never existed before and will never exist again.
Human beings have a grand total of forty-six chromosomes or twenty-three pairs. The moment a child has been conceived a full set of these chromosomes, known as a diploid, is established. It will receive twenty-three chromosomes from its father and twenty-three chromosomes from its mother.
The average pregnancy lasts between thirty-seven and forty-two weeks. During this time the child growing inside a woman’s body will go through all kinds of wonderful and miraculous changes. At three weeks, it’s brain, heart, gastrointestinal tract, and spinal cord have begun to form. By the fourth and fifth weeks, the heart is pumping rudimentary blood through the child’s veins with a steady rhythm. By the sixth week, the child’s fingers and toes have begun to form, and the child’s heartbeat can now be detected. By the end of the second month, all the child’s essential organs have begun to form.
And there’s still another seven months to go! By the fourteenth to sixteenth weeks, the child will begin to move around, its liver and pancreas will have begun to secrete fluid, and its fingerprints will begin to form. By the seventeenth to the twentieth week, the mother will be able to feel her child moving around inside her, it’s heartbeat will be detectable via a stethoscope, and its fingernails, toenails, eyebrows, and eyelashes will have started to grow.
By the twenty-fourth through to the twenty-sixth week, the child’s brain will be rapidly developing, the nervous system will be developed to a sufficient enough degree to give the child some control, albeit minutely, over its own movements, it will have developed a startle reflex, and its sleeping cycles will be perceptible to the mother. A child born at this stage can survive outside the womb with the assistance of modern medical technology. By the thirty-third to thirty-sixth week, the child will shift into the birthing position and will rapidly put on weight. Within weeks, a fully formed human being will be born.
Any discussion about abortion must begin with the scientific truth that an unborn child is a human life. Only after that truth has been acknowledged can factors like the health of the mother, the vitality of the child, cases of rape and incest, and bodily autonomy can be considered. The preservation of innocent life is the most important responsibility for every person living in a free society. The way we respond to this issue will define us for decades to come.
THE DECLINE OF VIRTUE
It is a great pity that the Latin language is now considered dead. Through its death, we have lost many of the Latin words, expressions, and maxims that provided us with great wisdom and poetry. Among these is the phrase, “Panem et circenses”, or, in English, “bread and circuses.”
Panem et circenses refers to a society that uses food and mindless entertainment to keep control of its people. Such a culture does not encourage deep thought, nor does it encourage any search for meaningful or consequential in life.
What an excellent way to describe modern society and the culture that it has produced. No longer does our culture celebrate those with intelligence, moral piety, or depth of character. Instead, society has chosen to celebrate exhibitionism and licentiousness as the height of moral fortitude.
And no other family has demonstrated this fact more than the Kardashian-Jenner family. And modern culture has seen fit to reward them handsomely for it! In 2016, Forbes Magazine listed the Kardashian-Jenner family as the highest earning reality TV Stars. As of 2017, Kendall Jenner had a net worth of approximately US$18 million, Kourtney Kardashian had an approximate net worth of US$35 million, Khloe Kardashian had a net worth of US$40 million, Kylie Jenner, only twenty-years-old, had a net worth of US$50 million, Kris Kenner had a net worth of US$60 million, and Kim Kardashian had a net worth of US$175 million (she made $45.5 million in 2016/2017 alone).
But it’s hardly fair to criticise them. They have merely capitalised on the desire many people have to live a life of glamour and luxury. The Kardashians have been able to make tens-of-millions-of-dollars through their various reality TV shows, various business ventures, modelling, product endorsements, clothing lines, and more.
Of course, all this is not to say that the Kardashian-Jenner family is blameless. Years ago, a family as egotistical, petty, and immoral (what is Kim Kardashian, after all, other than a glorified porn star?) as the Kardashian family would have been treated with absolute disdain.
Not today, though. Today, the Kardashians have been able to build their empire, and it is an empire, upon shameless exploitation, self-aggrandisement, and self-promotion. They are able to reach nearly a billion people through social media and have been frequent guests on television talk shows.
What the Kardashian-Jenner phenomenon reveals is just how shallow our society has become. People have come to treat supermodels, reality TV stars, and sport’s stars as though they are royalty. The problem with this is that it encourages people to do whatever they like for a little bit of attention.
What all this boils down to is a loss of virtue. We have replaced the old heroes, the ones who encouraged courage and chivalry, with new Gods that encourage self-centredness and licentiousness. Self-expression is no longer to be expressed through the sweat of one’s brow, the depth of his character, or the faculties of his reason. Instead, it can be gained, quite easily, by posting a selfie on Instagram or Facebook.
St. Augustine defined virtue as ‘ordo amoris’ (yet another beautiful Latin maxim), or ‘order of love.’ It was his belief that every object and entity was accorded the level of love and affection that was appropriate for it to receive.
What we have today is a society that has gotten that order wrong. When people no longer honour Kings, they worship movie stars, musicians, models, reality TV stars, prostitutes, scoundrels, and gangsters instead. As C.S. Lewis wrote: “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
THE INVASION OF EUROPE
In January of 2017, Emillem Khodagholli, a refugee on probation for a raft of offences that included death threats and assault, Maisam Afshar, another refugee well-known to Swedish authorities, and a third unidentified man made their way to Upsala where they broke into a young woman’s apartment. Streaming their despicable crime on Facebook, the three men tore off the young woman’s clothing and raped her for three hours at gunpoint. Afterwards, Khodagholli taunted his barely conscious victim as she tried to call for help. “You got raped”, he gloated. “There, we have the answers. You’ve been raped.”
Modern Europe’s migration crisis represents the most significant existential problem the continent has ever faced. The migration of millions of non-Europeans represents the largest mass movement of people into Europe since the Second World War. According to the International Organization for Migration, around a million migrants migrated to Europe in 2015. These migrants primarily came from Syria (268,795), Afghanistan (127,830), Iraq (97,125), Eritrea (19,100), Pakistan (15,525), and Nigeria (12,910).
For the most part, journalists, politicians, advocacy groups, and private organisations have attempted to paint Europe’s migration crises as a human right’s problem mired in social justice and global inequality. They would have Europeans believe that the people migrating into their countries are doctors, engineers, and other learned professionals fleeing from persecution.
In reality, these migrants come from a host of Sub-Saharan African countries and are travelling to Europe for a myriad of different reasons, of which fleeing persecuting is only one. As the Netherland’s European Union commissioner, Frans Timmermans (1961 – ) pointed out: over half (sixty percent) of the people moving into Europe are not refugees, but economic migrants.
While the European Union remains committed to a pro-migration and open-borders policy, there remains the odd voice of dissent among their ranks. The President of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers (1955 – ) commented that while Europe was powerless (in his opinion) to stop migration, they could hope to manage the flow of people into their continent:
“We can’t stop this process, but we have not learnt how to manage it, and Europe was about ten years’ late to make decisions on illegal immigration and to help the countries where the migrants come from. In each country and in Europe as a whole, we have to think about how to manage the process and how to really decrease the expectations of people.”
Similarly, the Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico (1962 – ) implored the European Union to put an end to the inflow of migrants. Fico described the Union’s distribution policy as an utter “fiasco” and warned they were committing ‘ritual suicide’ through their immigration policy.
The most notorious effect of ethnic crime in Europe has been the increase in sex crimes committed since millions of North African and Middle Eastern migrants poured into Europe. This begins with the sexual slavery of their own women. According to the PBS, as of September 2016 around eighty-percent of Nigerian women who made it to Italy have been forced into prostitution.
On January 9th, 2016, a forty-eight-year-old woman was raped by three Muslim men. On January 10th, 2016, a twenty-one-year-old West African man was arrested for raping a fifteen-year-old girl at a train station in Wuppertal. On January 15th, 2016, a public swimming pool in Borheim was forced to ban all male migrants following reports that they had been sexually assaulting the female patrons. On January 25th, 2016, a thirty-year-old Afghan man exposed himself to a nineteen-year-old woman on a public bus.
In Kiel, Germany, in 2016, three teenage girls, aged fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen, were stalked by two Afghani asylum seekers, aged nineteen and twenty-six, who filmed them on their mobile phones. A restaurant owner at the mall commented: “The moment they [male migrants] see a young woman wearing a skirt or any type of loose clothing, they believe they have a free pass.”
During New Year’s 2015/2016, thousands of women in Stuttgart, Cologne, and Hamburg were sexually assaulted. Remarkably, these crimes were ignored by the German authorities until eyewitness reports surfacing on social media forced them to take the problem seriously.
In Vienna, an Iraqi refugee who raped a ten-year-old boy at a public swimming pool had his conviction overturned by Austria’s Supreme Court despite watershed evidence proving his guilt. The court deemed that the refugee, who had excused his despicable crime by claiming it was a “sexual emergency”, could not have known that the act was non-consensual. Thankfully, the refugee was sentenced to seven years imprisonment at his retrial.
In England, the Pakistani comprised Rotherham child sex ring abducted, tortured, raped, and forced into prostitution at least fourteen-hundred young girls over a period of sixteen years. According to Jihad Watch, those posed to do something about the ring expressed “nervousness about identifying the ethnic origin of perpetrators for fearing of being thought of as racism.” Others were instructed by their managers not to disclose the ethnic origin of the perpetrators.
The Swedes boast one of the largest incidences of rape in the world. According to a 2015 article published by the Gatestone Institute, in the forty years since Sweden decided to become a multi-cultural society violent crime has increased by three-hundred percent and rape has increased by fourteen-hundred-and-seventy-two percent. In 1975, only four-hundred-and-twenty-one rapes were reported to Swedish police. In 2014, it was six-thousand-six-hundred-and-twenty. This increase in the number of reported rapes can partially be explained by the increase in the number of sexual activities that can be classified as rape, and partially by an increase in the number of women who may otherwise have been uncomfortable in reporting their rapes.
According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, twenty-thousand-three-hundred sexual assaults were reported. This included six-thousand-seven-hundred-and-twenty rapes. Statistics provided by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reveals that rape victims are most likely to be young women aged between sixteen and twenty-four. In fifty-percent of cases, rape is likely to occur in a public place, as opposed to a residence (19%), the workplace or school (18%), or elsewhere (12%).
The migrant sex crime is essentially caused by three problems. First, cultural differences in attitudes towards women between migrants and native Europeans, the educational and economic gap experienced by migrants, and a refusal to acknowledge the root causes of the problem.
The majority of migrants pouring into Europe come from a culture and civilisation that treat women as second-class citizens. There appears to be a belief among young Muslim men that an uncovered woman is an adulterer or a prostitute, and that she is, therefore, ‘fair game.’ It is an attitude that professes that all uncovered and non-Muslim women can be used for a Muslim man’s sexual gratification. Doctor Abd Al-Aziz Fawzan, a teacher of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, opined: “if a woman gets raped walking in public alone, then she, herself, is at fault. She is only seducing men by her presence. She should have stayed home like a Muslim woman.”
The problem is further exacerbated by the educational and economic gap experienced by migrants. As a result of their low skills and education, coupled with their inability to speak to speak the local language, many migrants are rendered virtually unemployable. Many of the migrants arriving in Europe will move further northward and find employment within illegal gangs that are often comprised of members of their own ethnic group.
Finally, the migrant sex crime is also borne out of an insipid refusal to acknowledge the root cause of the problem. “Every police officer knows he has to meet a particular political standard”, Rainer Wendt (1956 – ), the head of the German Police Union, stated. “It is better to keep quiet [about migrant crime] because you cannot go wrong.”
Europe is acting as the metaphorical canary in the coal mine. Europe’s decision to pursue relaxed immigration laws and open border policies has led to the mass influx of non-European migrants into their country. An unfortunate by-product of these decisions has been an increase in the number of sex crimes committed by migrants against native Europeans and a total refusal from the authorities to acknowledge the root cause of the problem. Europe acts as a stark reminder of what happens to a continent and country that refuses to police its borders correctly.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
This week for our cultural article we will be examining William Wordsworth’s (1770 – 1850) 1815 poem, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
Biography
William Wordsworth was born on April 7th, 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland to John Wordsworth (1740 – 1783), a legal agent to the Earl of Lowther (1736 – 1802), and Ann Wordsworth (1747 – 1778). Wordsworth came as the second of John and Ann’s five children. Richard Wordsworth (1768 – 1816) came before him and was followed by Dorothy (1771 – 1855) (who would aid him throughout his career), Christopher (1774 – 1846), and John, Jr.
Wordsworth attended grammar school near Cockermouth Church as well as Ann Birkett’s school in Penrith. His love of the natural world began early stemming from his childhood living in a terraced garden house along the Derwent River.
Wordsworth experienced personal tragedy early in his life. In March of 1778, Ann Wordsworth died while visiting a friend in London. By June, Wordsworth’s beloved sister, Dorothy, had been sent to live with her mother’s cousin, Elizabeth Threlkheld (1745 – 1837), in Halifax. The pair would not be reunited until 1787. As if that wasn’t bad enough, John Wordsworth, Sr. would die in December of 1783 after being forced to spend a night out in the cold. Following the death of his father, Wordsworth and his brothers were sent to live at the house of Ann Tyson and attended school at Hawkshead. It was here that Wordsworth first began composing prose, an enterprise that was greatly encouraged by his headmaster, William Taylor.
In 1787, Wordsworth went to Cambridge University to attend St. John’s College as a sizar (an undergraduate student receiving financial assistance from the university). That same year, he published his first poem in The European Magazine. Although his academic career was unremarkable, Wordsworth managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in 1791.
During his last term, Wordsworth and his friend, Robert Jones (1769 – 1835), embarked on a walking tour of Europe. The tour would prove to be a great influence on Wordsworth poetry which started in earnest while he was travelling through France and Switzerland. During his travels, Wordsworth was also exposed to the ravages of the French Revolution, an experience which his inspired his lifelong sympathy for the common man.
Between 1795 and 1800, Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, would move three times. In 1795, the pair used a legacy obtained from a close relative to move to Dorset. Two years later, they would move to Somerset where Wordsworth would become neighbours and close friends with the poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834). Finally, in 1799, the pair would settle at Dove Cottage in Grasmere following a trip to Germany with Coleridge.
In 1802, Wordsworth returned to France with his sister to meet his illegitimate daughter, Caroline (1792 – 1862), whom he had conceived illegitimately while living in France. Upon his return, he married his childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson (1770 – 1859). Together, the couple sired five children: Reverend John Wordsworth (1803 – 1875), Dora Wordsworth (1804 – 1847), Thomas Wordsworth (1806 – 1812), Catherine Wordsworth (1809 – 1812), and William Wordsworth, Jr. (1810 – 1883).
In 1813, Wordsworth made the Distributor of Stamps for Westmoreland. Years later, following the death of Robert Southey (1774 – 1843), Wordsworth was made Poet Laureate. He died on April 23rd, 1850, in Rydal.
Poem
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the shew to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Analysis
William Wordsworth is credited with ushering the English romantic movement. Accordingly, Wordsworth is remembered as an intensely spiritual and epistemological writer whose poetry moved away from the grand, moralising themes of the past towards that which explored the purity and beauty of nature.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud was first published in Poems in Two Volumes in 1807. (The version analysed here is the 1815 revised version). The poem was inspired by a long walk Wordsworth took with his sister, Dorothy, around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater. During their walk, the pair came across a “long belt” of daffodils. Wordsworth became inspired to write the poem after reading his sister’s diary description of the walk:
“When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up – But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway – We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the Sea.”
— Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal Thursday, 15 April 1802.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud consists of four stanzas with six lines each and featured an “ababcc” rhyming sequence. The poem has a peaceful and tranquil feel to it which is expressed through simplistic language, figurative vocabulary, and subtle rhymes. The first three stanzas of the poem describe the narrator’s experiences. Its first line, “I wandered lonely as a cloud” serves to personalise the poem. Likewise, the reference to “a crowd, a host of golden daffodils” describes an ideal place, a form of euphoric paradise which the narrator experiences for the briefest period of time. The second stanza gives the impression that the daffodils were majestic, even other-worldly in their beauty. The narrator even compares them to the stars of the milky way. The poem’s last stanza details the poet’s recollection of his experiences. He describes how his recollection causes his heart to fill the pleasure and “dance with the daffodils.” In the end, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud reminds us that beauty can only be found when we are willing to slow down and take notice of the world around us.
THE RAVEN
The writings of Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) evokes images of murderers, madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. Our common image of him is of a mysterious, somewhat melancholy figure who frequents cemeteries and other creepy places. However, his influence extends far beyond the gothic and the macabre, he is credited with the invention of the modern detective story and with innovating the science fiction genre. Over the course of his lifetime, Poe wrote hundreds of essays, books on scientific theory, short stories, poems, book reviews, and novels. His classics, like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher, have thrilled readers for nigh-on two centuries. For this week’s cultural article, we will be examining his poem, The Raven.
BIOGRAPHY
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Both his father, David Poe, Jr. (1784 – 1811), and mother, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe (1787 – 1811), were travelling actors who died by the time Poe was three-years-old. While his siblings, William Henry Leonard Poe (1807 – 1831) and Rosalie Poe (1810 – 1874), were sent to live with other families, Poe was adopted by the wealthy tobacco merchant, John Allan (1779 – 1834), and his wife, Frances Valentine Allan (1784 – 1829), in Richmond, Virginia.
In 1826, Poe left home to study ancient and modern languages at the University of Virginia. Unfortunately, John Allan had provided Poe with only a third of the funds he would need to support himself at the university. Although Poe excelled in his classes, he managed to accumulate a considerable amount of debt. By the end of his first term, Poe’s financial situation had become so dire that he was forced to burn his furniture to keep warm.
Poe left the university after just a year and returned home. Back in Richmond, Poe discovered that his fiancée, Elmira Royster (1810 – 1888), had become engaged to Alexander Shelton (1807 – 1844). He lived in John Allan’s home, but animosity between the two caused him to leave after only a few months.
John Allan had raised his adopted son with the intention that he would become a businessman and gentleman. Poe, however, rejected his adoptive father’s aspirations and set out to emulate his hero, Lord Byron (1788 – 1824), by making himself a great writer and adventurer. He achieved the former with the publication of his first book, Tamerlane, at the age of eighteen. The latter he achieved by enlisting in the United States Army. Two years later, he was accepted into the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Following his expulsion from West Point after only eight months, Poe travelled to Baltimore, Maryland – the home of his biological father – to seek help from relatives. Although one of his relatives robbed him in the middle of the night, Poe was able to find refuge in the home of his aunt, Maria Clemm (1790 – 1871). It was there that Poe met and fell in love with his cousin, Virginia Eliza Clemm (1822 – 1847). Around the same time, Poe’s adoptive father, John Allan, died. Poe, who was living in poverty at the time, was left out of Allan’s estate.
Despite this, Poe’s writing career was progressing at a steady pace. He was already publishing his short stories and was able to gain an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. The combination of Poe’s scathing book reviews and his sensational stories made the Southern Literary Messenger the most popular magazine in the southern United States.
In 1835, the twenty-six-year-old Poe married the thirteen-year-old Virginia and brought her and her mother with him to Richmond. Later, dissatisfaction with his pay at the Southern Literary Messenger would cause Poe and his young wife to move to New York, and later Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he would write for numerous magazine publications.
Poe wrote his most famous poem, The Raven (1845), whilst living in New York. Its publication made him a household name and provided him with the funds and opportunities to buy the Broadway Journal, publish two books, and demand higher wages. However, rumours of an extra-marital affair, financial difficulties, and Virginia declining health forced Poe to leave the city in 1846. Poe moved to a country cottage where, in 1847, Virginia succumbed to tuberculosis.
Poe slipped into a deep depression and lost the ability to write for several months. Then, in the summer of 1849, he returned to Richmond and rekindled his relationship with his former fiancée, Elmira Royster Shelton. Elmira, like Poe, was a widow. The pair became engaged and planned to marry when Poe returned from a trip to Philadelphia and New York.
On his way to Philadelphia, Poe disappeared in Baltimore for five days. He was found in the bar room of a public house (which had been used as a polling station in a recent election) in a state of delirium. Poe was taken to Washington College Hospital. Edgar Allen Poe died there, aged forty, on October 7th, 1849.
POEM
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”
But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!
POEM ANALYSIS
The Raven is characterised by the nightmarish nature of its images and themes. There is talk of wild dreams, burning souls, and imaginary perfumes. The poem’s most vivid image, that of the stately raven, tortures the narrator with its continuous repetition of the word, “Nevermore” (whether or not this is just a figment of the narrator’s imagination is never established). Similarly, the poem mentions “quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore” as a reference to antiquated, and forgotten, books of antiquated traditions and knowledge (who knows? maybe the narrator was experimenting with pagan or occult practices). Elsewhere, the poem mentions “a bust of Pallas”, a reference to the Greek titan Pallas, and “Night’s Plutonian shore”, referring to the underworld of Roman mythology.
A CRITIQUE OF GLOBALISM
Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, has stated that disagreeing with globalism is like disagreeing with “the laws of gravity.” Similarly, new French President, Emmanuel Macron, another supporter of globalism, wishes to deregulate France’s ailing industry and boost freedom of movement and trade. Donald Trump’s election to the US Presidency, and the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, however, have challenged the presumed supremacy of globalism as a political force.
The roots of globalism can be traced back to the 2nd Century BC when the formation of the Silk Road facilitated the trade of silk, wool, silver, and gold between Europe and China. It wasn’t until the 20th century, however, that the idea gathered momentum. Following the Second World War, world power was to be split between America, representing the capitalist west, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, representing the communist east. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, America took it upon herself to create an undivided, democratic, and peaceful Europe.
Of course, the aim for an undivided Europe, indeed an undivided world, existed long before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1944. Allied delegates, met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to establish an economic system based on open markets and free trade. Their idea gathered momentum. Today, the Monetary Fund, World Bank, and, the World Trade Centre all exist to unite the various national economies of the world into a single, global economy.
In 1950, the French foreign minister, Robert Schuman, proposed pooling Western Europe’s coal and steel producing countries together. Originally, Schuman’s objective had been to unite France with the Federal Republic of Germany. In the end, however, the Treaty of Paris would unite Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in the European Coal and Steel Community. By 1957, the Treaty of Rome had been used to create the European Economic Community.
Globalism is an ideology which seeks to form a world where nations base their economic and foreign policies on global, rather than national, interests. It can be viewed as a blanket term for various phenomena: the pursuit of classical liberal and free market policies on the world stage, Western dominance over the political, cultural, and economic spheres, the proliferation of new technologies, and global integration.
John Lennon’s Imagine, speaking of ‘no countries’, ‘no religion’, and a ‘brotherhood of man’, acts as an almost perfect anthem for globalism. Your individual views on globalism, however, will depend largely on your personal definition of a nation. If you support globalism it is likely you believe a nation to be little more than a geographical location. If you are a nationalist, however, it is likely you believe a nation to be the accumulation of its history, culture, and traditions.
Supporters of John Lennon’s political ideology seem to suffer from a form of self-loathing. European heritage and culture are not seen as something worth celebrating, but as something to be dismissed. And it appears to be working: decades of anti-nationalist, anti-Western policies have stripped many European nations of their historical and cultural identities. In the UK, there have been calls to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes – an important, yet controversial figure. In other countries, certain areas are have become so rife with ethnic violence they are considered ‘no-go’ zones.
Perhaps, it is the result of “white man’s burden”, Rudyard Kipling’s prophetic 1899 poem about the West’s perceived obligation to improve the lot of non-westerners. Today, many white, middle-class elites echo Kipling’s sentiments by believing that it to be their duty to save the world. These people are told at charity events, at protests, at their universities, and by their media of their obligation to their ‘fellow man.’ When it comes to immigration, they believe it to be their responsibility to save the wretched peoples of the world by importing them, and their problems, to the West.
By contrast, nationalism champions the idea that nations, as defined by a common language, ethnicity, or culture, have the right to form communities based on a shared history and/or a common destiny. The phenomenon can be described as consisting of patriotic feelings, principles, or efforts, an extreme form or patriotism characterised by feelings of national superiority, or as the advocacy of political independence. It is primarily driven by two factors. First, feelings of nationhood among members of a nation-state, and, two, the actions of a state in trying to achieve or sustain self-determination. In simplest terms, nationalism constitutes a form of human identity.
One cannot become a citizen of a nation merely by living there. Citizenship arises from the sharing of a common culture, tradition, and history. As American writer Alan Wolfe observed: “behind every citizen lies a graveyard.” The sociologist Emile Durkheim believed people to be united by their families, their religion, and their culture. In Suicide: a Study in Sociology, Durkheim surmises:
“It is not true, then, that human activity can be released from all restraint. Nothing in the world can enjoy such a privilege. All existence being a part of the universe is relative to the remainder; its nature and method of manifestation accordingly depend not only on itself but on other beings, who consequently restrain and regulate it. Here there are only differences of degree and form between the mineral realm and the thinking person.’ Man’s characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels.” – Suicide: a Study in Sociology (pg. 277)
Globalism has primarily manifested itself through economic means. In the economic sense, globalism began in the late 19th, early 20th centuries with the invention of the locomotive, the motor-car, the steamship, and the telegraph. Prior to the industrial revolution, a great deal of economic output was restricted to certain countries. China and India combined produced an economic output of fifty-percent, whilst Western Europe produced an economic output of eighteen percent. It was the industrial revolution of the 19th century, and the dramatic growth of industrial productivity, which caused Western Europe’s economic output to double. Today, we experience the consequences of globalism every time we enter a McDonalds Restaurant, call someone on our mobile phones, or use the internet.
Philip Lower, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, told a group of businessmen and women at the Sydney Opera House that Australia was “committed to an open international order.” Similarly, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Amartya Sen, argued that globalisation had “enriched the world scientifically and culturally, and benefited many people economically as well.” It is certainly true that globalisation has facilitated the sharing of technological, cultural, and scientific advances between nations. However, as some economists, like Joseph Stiglitz and Ha-Joon Chang, have pointed out: globalisation can also have the effect of increasing rather than reducing inequality. In 2007, the International Monetary Fund admitted that investment in the foreign capital of developing countries and the introduction of new technologies has had the effect of increasing levels of inequality. Countries with larger populations, lower working and living standards, more advanced technology, or a combination of all three, are in a better position to compete than countries that lack these factors.
The underlying fact is that globalism has economic consequences. Under globalisation, there is little to no restrictions on the movement of goods, capital, services, people, technology, and information. Among the things championed by economic globalisation is the cross-border division of labour. Different countries become responsible different forms of labour.
The United Nations has unrealistically asserted globalism to be the key to ending poverty in the 21st Century. The Global Policy Forum, an organisation which acts as an independent policy watchdog of the United Nations, has suggested that imposition of global taxes as a means of achieving this reality. These include taxes on carbon emissions to slow climate change, taxes on currency trading to ‘dampen instability in the foreign exchange markets’, and taxes to support major initiatives like reducing poverty and hunger, increasing access to education, and fighting preventable diseases.
In one sense, the battle between globalism and nationalism can be seen as a battle between ideology and realism. Globalism appears committed to creating a ‘brotherhood of man.’ Nationalism, on the other hand, reminds us that culture and nationality form an integral part of human identity, and informs us they are sentiments worth protecting. The true value of globalism and nationalism come not from their opposition, but from how they can be made to work together. Globalism has the economic benefit of allowing countries to develop their economies through global trade. It is not beneficial, however, when it devolves into open-border policies, global taxes, or attacks on a nation’s culture or sovereignty. Nationalism, by the same token, has the benefit of providing people with a national and cultural identity, as well as the benefits and protections of citizenship. Nationalism fails when it becomes so fanatical it leads to xenophobia or war. The answer, therefore, is not to forsake one for the other, but to reconcile the two.
King Alfred Press 