Dies the Swan

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.

Tennyson, "Tithonous"


Reading fiction – good fiction - often brings up subjects that have topical reference to one’s day to day life. I was in the middle of reading Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man when the riots began in Minneapolis four days ago. I came across the following passage, which has considerable relevance to the present situation.  

A Single Man centers on a day in the life – a Friday - of George Falconer in December 1962. George resembles Isherwood in too many ways for it to be unintentional: he is an Englishman in his late 50s who has lived in California since the war. He teaches English at a small state university. And he is gay, though, unlike Isherwood, he does what he can to conceal it from his neighbours and colleagues.  

George wakes and eventually makes his way down the freeway to the college. He arrives at a classroom where his students are to be quizzed on the subject of Aldous Huxley’s novel After Many a Summer. After a general discussion, George gets to the question, “What is the novel about?” 

And  now  comes  a  question  George  has  been  expecting.  It  is  asked,  of  course,  by  Myron Hirsch,  that  indefatigable  heckler  of  the  goyim.  "Sir,  here  on  page  seventy-nine,  Mr. Propter  says  the  stupidest  text  in  the  Bible  is  'they  hated  me  without  a  cause.'  Does  he mean  by  that  the  Nazis  were  right  to  hate  the  Jews?  Is  Huxley  anti-Semitic?"  

George  draws  a  long  breath.  "No,"  he  answers  mildly. And  then,  after  a  pause  of  expectant  silence—the  class  is  rather  thrilled  by  Myron's bluntness—he  repeats,  loudly  and  severely,  "No—Mr.  Huxley  is  not  anti-Semitic.  The Nazis  were  not  right  to  hate  the  Jews.  But  their  hating  the  Jews  was  not  without  a  cause. No  one  ever  hates  without  a  cause....  

"Look—let's  leave  the  Jews  out  of  this,  shall  we?  Whatever  attitude  you  take,  it's impossible  to  discuss  Jews  objectively  nowadays.  It  probably  won't  be  possible  for  the next  twenty  years.  So  let's  think  about  this  in  terms  of  some  other  minority,  any  one  you like,  but  a  small  one—one  that  isn't  organized  and  doesn't  have  any  committees  to  defend it..  .  ."  

George  looks  at  Wally  Bryant  with  a  deep  shining  look  that  says,  I  am  with  you,  little minority-sister.  Wally  is  plump  and  sallow-faced,  and  the  care  he  takes  to  comb  his  wavy hair  and  keep  his  nails  filed  and  polished  and  his  eyebrows  discreetly  plucked  only  makes him  that  much  less  appetizing.  Obviously  he  has  understood  George's  look.  He  is embarrassed.  Never  mind!  George  is  going  to  teach  him  a  lesson  now  that  he'll  never forget.  Is  going  to  turn  Wally's  eyes  into  his  timid  soul.  Is  going  to  give  him  courage  to throw  away  his  nail  file  and  face  the  truth  of  his  life....
 
"Now,  for  example,  people  with  freckles  aren't  thought  of  as  a  minority  by  the  nonfreckled.  They  aren't  a  minority  in  the  sense  we're  talking  about.  And  why  aren't  they? Because  a  minority  is  only  thought  of  as  a  minority  when  it  constitutes  some  kind  of  a threat  to  the  majority,  real  or  imaginary.  And  no  threat  is  ever  quite  imaginary.  Anyone here  disagree  with  that?  If  you  do,  just  ask  yourself,  What  would  this  particular  minority do  if  it  suddenly  became  the  majority  overnight?  You  see  what  I  mean?  Well,  if  you don't—think  it  over! 
 
"All  right.  Now  along  come  the  liberals—including  everybody  in  this  room,  I  trust—and they  say,  'Minorities  are  just  people,  like  us.'  Sure,  minorities  are  people—people,  not angels.  Sure,  they're  like  us—but  not  exactly  like  us;  that's  the  all-too-familiar  state  of liberal  hysteria  in  which  you  begin  to  kid  yourself  you  honestly  cannot  see  any  difference between  a  Negro  and  a  Swede.  .  .  ."  (Why,  oh  why  daren't  George  say  "between  Estelle Oxford  and  Buddy  Sorensen"?  Maybe,  if  he  did  dare,  there  would  be  a  great  atomic  blast of  laughter,  and  everybody  would  embrace,  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  would  begin, right  here  in  classroom.  But  then  again,  maybe  it  wouldn't.) 
 
"So,  let's  face  it,  minorities  are  people  who  probably  look  and  act  and  think  differently from  us  and  have  faults  we  don't  have.  We  may  dislike  the  way  they  look  and  act,  and  we may hate  their  faults.  And  it's  better  if  we  admit  to  disliking  and  hating  them  than  if  we try  to  smear  our  feelings  over  with  pseudo-liberal  sentimentality.  If  we're  frank  about  our feelings,  we  have  a  safety  valve;  and  if  we  have  a  safety  valve,  we're  actually  less  likely to  start  persecuting.  I  know  that  theory  is  unfashionable  nowadays.  We  all  keep  trying  to believe  that  if  we  ignore  something  long  enough  it'll  just  vanish.... 
 
"Where  was  I?  Oh  yes.  Well,  now,  suppose  this  minority  does  get  persecuted,  never mind  why—political,  economic,  psychological  reasons.  There  always  is  a  reason,  no matter  how  wrong  it  is—that's  my  point.  And,  of  course,  persecution  itself  is  always wrong;  I'm  sure  we  all  agree  there.  But  the  worst  of  it  is,  we  now  run  into  another  liberal heresy.  Because  the  persecuting  majority  is  vile,  says  the  liberal,  therefore  the  persecuted minority  must  be  stainlessly  pure.  Can't  you  see  what  nonsense  that  is?  What's  to  prevent the  bad  from  being  persecuted  by  the  worse?  Did  all  the  Christian  victims  in  the  arena have  to  be  saints? 
 
"And  I'll  tell  you  something  else.  A  minority  has  its  own  kind  of  aggression.  It  absolutely dares  the  majority  to  attack  it.  It  hates  the  majority—not  without  a  cause,  I  grant  you.  It even  hates  the  other  minorities,  because  all  minorities  are  in  competition:  each  one proclaims  that  its  sufferings  are  the  worst  and  its  wrongs  are  the  blackest.  And  the  more they  all  hate,  and  the  more  they're  all  persecuted,  the  nastier  they  become!  Do  you  think  it makes  people  nasty  to  be  loved?  You  know  it  doesn't!  Then  why  should  it  make  them nice  to  be  loathed?  While  you're  being  persecuted,  you  hate  what's  happening  to  You, you  hate  the  people  who  are  making  it  happen;  you're  in  a  world  of  hate.  Why,  you wouldn't  recognize  love  if  you  met  it!  You'd  suspect  love!  You'd  think  there  was something  behind  it—some  motive—some  trick…"