King Canute (Part 1)
In a time when teaching history was simply telling children stories about the exploits of famous British people of the past; and many years ago when I was at junior school, one of the time-worn stories which was told to us, along with those of King Alfred burning the cakes; and King Robert the Bruce of Scotland hiding in a hollow tree, was the tale of King Canute, king of East Anglia, who being flatered by his courtiers either into a belief that he could do anything, or else because finding tiresome their insistent toadying to him; so he took his throne to the eastern seaboard of England and stood it on the sands and commanded the tide to ‘go back’ and not to encroach on his seat.
Of course the sea did not listen, but true to its nature it came in and encroached. But Canute, probably tired of constant flattery, had made his point to his courtiers.
The story is a very good and useful metaphor which is able to shed light on this human and now global adventure we have been on since the days when Voltaire and Descartes and Diderot, and Rousseau first attuned our minds towards ithe world’s present course of activity
The ascendancy of reason over faith, (this is putting that sea change which these men ushered in for our outlooks in a very reductive and populist manner) began with these men, and by their works they set into motion what they considered to be a rationalisation of human thinking and so, as it turned out, of human society.
Descartes being the ultimate doubter, was one who could begin his thinking only from a basic point which affirmed his own existence as an individual, and he was an important denier of magic, witchcraft, sorcery, miracles, anything supernatural and even merely fanciful; so much so that I believe it was a compatriot of his of the following century who said of him that his work had “cut the throat of poetry”. Certainly, given the joint contributions of the four Frenchmen I have named above, the scope for imaginative art and literature once their life-businesses had become established in the thought of mainstream of European society, became severely constricted to more workaday themes; topics like social satire and social morals; and later to appreciations of pastoral and natural beauty and the serene effects of scenery on us.
It is to these four Frenchmen we owe so much of our present day outlooks in Europe and becoming ever more and more so across the world. It is a part of what we call globalisation The success of their ideas and ideals, in their turn have allowed for the successive successes of our technology and of our science, successes which have arisen out of their philosophically-led rationalisations of our lives and ideas. And so these successes are in a direct line from those rationalisations, so as to have given to us all of those labour-saving devices, those factored medicines and cures, therapies and techniques, goods and services, transportation, roads, railways, airplanes, cars, hotels, resorts, cruises, restaurants, shops, supermarkets, imports, exports, wealth and wellbeings which generally are enjoyed now by so many; more than ever before in all human history.
Pretty upbeat stuff,eh?
Those of us who have or have enjoyed the benefits of our science and of our technologies; we should be thankful and we should be thankful in such a way that we are impelled inwardly to wish to and so act to share these boons and benefits around; most particulalry in the places wherein they have not yet brought ease, comfort, long life and good health for nearly all.
Sadly anyone with a commensurate understanding of the actuality of the situation will admit to themselves firstly that – they themselves have not done nearly enough in their lives to share out our boons and benefits in these ways– I include myself here – and secondly we should have to admit alas also that too many of us are unconcerned about sharing out these boons and benefits, and even are hostile to such an idea too often. Certainly here in the UK, a major and large economy in the world, we cannot even get a bypass or a wind farm built without high tempers and raised voices shouting about the damage to the environment and to local ambiences they will cause. There is little hope for any sacrifices of moment to themselves arising presently from such a people.
But, yes, humankind has pushed back the boundaries of knowledge and has made an utter practical use of those works and techniques which have been discovered by their scientific endeavours – so much so that in the past two or three centuries that the world in which people live has become unrecognisable, unimaginably so, by any ancestor of ours who might by any magic be recalled to life and so become able to view it. In many ways those studies of magic and sorcery and witchcraft to which The Enlightenment by its rationalisations put an end, might be said to have re-materialised in the shape of the astonishing range and depth gadgetry and achievements which humankind has now mastered. Certainly even to Rousseau and Diderot, to Voltaire and Descartes it would seem so could they view them.
This phrase I used just now ‘pushed back the boundaries’, is pregnant with meanings given our situation now and on earth. We have “pushed back the boundaries” of science and technology – for some of us – only for those who by accident of birth or luck or by just sheer persistence at great risk have been able to live in what is termed by us ‘a developed nation’.
Sixty years ago when I was a child in junior school we were aware of ‘undeveloped nations’ overseas whereabouts people lived – even in those post war austere days of rationing of foods and clothing etc, for me and my family – people overseas were then living in what was clear to me as a child to be dreadfully appalling circumstances. Sixty years later, every evening our TV is sure to carry perhaps a half-dozen charitable advertisements each from a discrete organisation – Medicines sans Frontiers; Oxfam; Water Aid, Children in Need, The Red Cross, amongst hundreds – and typically these advertisements ask for a single texted phone donation of £3 or else if more ambitious a regular gift of £3 per month from their viewers.
The difference between the current shots of ailing families and young children the TV ads use to push home the need for charity, and those shots of families and children in need of sixty years ago which I also saw on TV – is that the old days had black and white pictures, whereas today’s are in colour.
And so a lifetime has been spent – by me – by my contemporaries – to no avail for these people presently crying out for food, shelter, a well, a school, electricity and services, toilets, waste disposals, and a complete range of household facilities which we ourselves like to decorate and renovate and refurbish in our own homes every few years and to the latest fashionable styles.
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