Somehow I found time to read David Lebedoff's "The Same Man" this weekend, and boy oh boy, did I ever enjoy it. Lebedoff credits George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh with having a strikingly similar vision about the modern world's debasement -- this, even though they could hardly have been more dissimilar in their temperaments and politics. I thoroughly enjoyed the biographical sketches of Orwell and Waugh. I suspect I'll be blogging on parts of this book throughout the week -- I dogeared many pages for future reference -- but I thought I'd start with something reminiscent of recent threads here.
I war reminded in this book of how inconceivable the English class (caste) system is for Americans. Obviously much has changed in the UK since Orwell's and Waugh's generation (both were born in 1903), but reading about their experiences brought home how very little I, or most Americans, understand about the English psyche regarding class consciousness. Orwell, born Eric Blair, was profoundly influenced by his experience being viciously bullied at St. Cyprian's, a prep school from which he was launched into Eton, England's most prestigious public school. He got into St. Cyprian's based on his intelligence, and was constantly and cruelly reminded by fellow students and the headmaster that he was not good enough, in terms of his birth, to be there.
It absolutely shaped the man he became -- not only his socialism, but more deeply his hatred of bullies. Evelyn Waugh, by contrast, was a bully. He was not highborn either, but he desperately aspired to be part of the upper class, and used his considerable wit and intelligence to insinuate himself into those circles. His experience as a bully absolutely shaped the man he became.
Which brings us to this passage from Lebedoff:
Their relationship at school recalls an observation by author Tom Wolfe, on why some people become liberals and others conservatives. Wolfe said that the bullies in school grew up to be conservatives and the kids they picked on became liberals. Whether or not this rule is universal, it seems to have been the case with Orwell and Waugh.
So, why did my being bullied at school result in my becoming a conservative?
Because the only thing that would have protected me and the other kids who were bullied from our bullies was the established order. That is, there was a moral order in place, and adults who were supposed to be its guardians, that said bullying was wrong. It failed in my case, but that's only an indictment of the adults who were responsible for upholding it. Without a strong sense of right and wrong -- a firm moral order -- upholding the rights of everyone in the school, no matter what one's background, there was nothing against which to judge or control the bullies.
My conservatism, then, came out of a deep sense of justice, and of the need for justice. Moreover, I came to believe that a conservative moral order is the surest guarantor that excellence of any intellectual or artistic sort will be defended against the crowd's instincts.
Now, I'm not saying that liberalism guarantees bullying, nor am I saying that conservatism prevents it. Obviously both claims would be easily falsifiable. I do think, though, that from my own experience, the bullies got away with it because they were supported by a conservative social order -- they were from the closest thing our school had to an upper class -- whose prerogatives violated a conservative moral order. The traditional moral order, had it held, would have put those upper-class bullies in their place.
In Lebedoff's book, we observe Orwell coming to see through his Spanish Civil War experience that the ideology of the Left, and its language of liberation and justice-seeking, could be appropriated by thugs and bullies to crush their enemies, of whom they were a mirror image. We also see Waugh, through the experience of his first wife leaving him, coming to reassess the meaning -- or rather, the meaninglessness -- of the morally vacant way of life of the upper class swells with whom he lived. More on which soon...
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Q: What's the difference between a run-of-the-mill bully and an aristocrat?
A: Parents with money and/or connections.
In my childhood, we had examples of both types. The former were obstacles to enjoying life, overcomeable (nothing is easy). The latter were our lords and masters, doling out largesse and pain as the deemed.
There's your social order, Rod. Morality does not enter the picture.
BTW, Rod, you've convinced me to check out "The Same Man."
This is a fascinating discussion by one and all. Perceptive comments about social class "in groups" and so forth, but personally, I would locate the source of most bullying in the family.
I think that lifelong vulnerability to bullying comes from having had the experience of being bullied by siblings or parents. For instance, my father had several brothers - 3 older and 2 younger, but only the one who was a year older bullied him.
My mother had 3 sisters and one brother, but only her sister who was a year older than she bullied her. Clearly, close sibling rivalry can give a person lifelong "issues" and vulnerabilities. My mother's mother was also something of a bully.
I'm not denying that bullying takes place in school, but I think bullies tend to seek out people who they perceive as being vulnerable to bullying, with a sort of built-in radar. As an adult, I've had those vulnerabilities myself, and have had to guard against getting involved in abusive relationships.
In terms of social class snobbery, that seems to me to be a rather superficial form of snobbery, though I'm sure bullying based on class takes place to a certain extent. But, I think bullies come in all classes, races, ethnicities, genders, etc.
BTW, I saw "Brideshead Revisited," and thought it was a decent enough film - good enough to get me to buy the book. Mostly, I think the movie was too short to do the story justice. Emma Thompson was superb but I wanted to see more of her character. She was certainly playing a kind of bully, but I think the film really underplayed that aspect of the story.
There has certainly been plenty of bullying done in the name of religion and of God, and I don't think it is in any way anti-religious or anti-Catholic to include that as an aspect of a work of fiction.
Anonymous at 7:15 a.m., your comment is excellent. We are indeed all wounded in some way, at whatever points on a political spectrum we describe ourselves. Our response to that does demonstrate our character.
Such a fascinating post. Rod, your experience was so similar to mine and yet our responses were so different. I saw that "bullyism" was enshrined in the social order, backed up by whatever discernable moral order there was. For example, in my relatively small high school of about 200 students or so, the some of biggest bullies were the sons of teachers working there. They could be violent, brutal, and get away with anything. Their fathers and mothers acted proud of their children's position at the top of the school's social order, and those that got bullied were seen by them as weak, different, "not OUR kind of people" and deserving of the abuse we received. And these parents/teachers were upstanding members of their churches, Lions and Rotary Clubs, etc. As such it seemed that the moral order was in fact based on the right of bullies to bully, and that the various institutions like the church approved of it.
My response was to lurch left, feeling that we had to rip it all down. And being precocious the way I was, I became a Marxist in the 6th grade. But you may have a point, that a just social order requires enforcement of the actual moral order, not on the one created to support social order as it is. Not sure yet, but you've given me food for thought.
But secularism ("liberalism") has been the status quo now for about 44 years. So in that sense, being "liberal" is actually now the new "conservatism."
I was always bullied in American grade school (German background ['60's America still churned out scores of Germans = Nazis films], divorced parents [makes for precocious seriousness], good @ spelling and reading, but always batting or punting "outs" on team games during gym), and yet I am conservative (culturally and morally) and libertarian (politically, tho I've been told that my anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and anti-drugs stance disqualifies me, since according to the interlocutor, those 3 were THE litmus test issues for true libertarianism).
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