tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post7591661625572182123..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: What Would You Take?: a perfect exhibitionDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-68103465659145955452019-04-26T12:15:48.237+01:002019-04-26T12:15:48.237+01:00Certainly. Just leave your email address in a resp...Certainly. Just leave your email address in a response, which I won't print - I'll then pass it on to Jeremy O'Sullivan to send you an official invitation.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-70299988246277972942019-04-26T11:54:37.645+01:002019-04-26T11:54:37.645+01:00Yes, David, I would love to come to the Europe Day...Yes, David, I would love to come to the Europe Day concert, with my wife if that is possible. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11100467965599639859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-10491818635061085502019-04-26T10:33:23.998+01:002019-04-26T10:33:23.998+01:00Honoured that you responded here, Mr. Lewis (and I...Honoured that you responded here, Mr. Lewis (and I hope you've received an invitation to the Europe Day Concert in St John's Smith Square on 9 May. Let me know if you haven't and would like one). Over to Mr. Damant, who is bound to have something to say if he sees this.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-84940927463193680192019-04-26T10:13:40.332+01:002019-04-26T10:13:40.332+01:00I have read this discussion with interest, and now...I have read this discussion with interest, and now may be the right moment for me to make my own comment on it. David Damant sets up a false antithesis between writing that is “elegant”and writing that is useful and relevant and “achieves” something. The first requirement of an essay, I would have thought, is to achieve clarity in a confused situation, not at the expense of truth, but in the service of it. David Nice is correct. Mr. Damant criticises my essay for what it is not and was not intended to be. We were not asked to write about our beliefs or give our opinions, nor can I see what personal opinion or belief would “achieve” in the present situation. We were asked to write about the question of “Europe without Frontiers”, a subject on which I was detached, clear, and – on the subject of external frontiers – decisive. Elegance need not be – and should not be - at the expense of truth, but neither should an essay peddle opinion as truth, however strongly that opinion may be held. I aimed for objectivity, honesty, and clarity. What would Mr. Damant rather have instead? <br />Nigel Lewis<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11100467965599639859noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-20102314207786899062018-12-23T19:03:37.743+00:002018-12-23T19:03:37.743+00:00A human being is not a number, dear sir. As one of...A human being is not a number, dear sir. As one of the world's richest countries - for now - we can afford to take in more refugees. If there's still too little focus on the UK's own terrible problems with poverty, that's more to do with the present government's skewed priorities. They can still find £2 billion for a scare campaign.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-87143573539204065952018-12-23T17:26:43.528+00:002018-12-23T17:26:43.528+00:00Macmillan famously explained how things evolve by ...Macmillan famously explained how things evolve by the phrase " Events, dear boy, events". I use the phrase " Numbers, dear boy, numbers"David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-60552073393751378342018-12-23T11:23:38.298+00:002018-12-23T11:23:38.298+00:00I'll never not publish you, though I well know...I'll never not publish you, though I well know what you're saying here. I would, however, rather revert to the smaller picture of the incredible enrichment so many refugees bring to the countries which give them asylum. Which is what the exhibition is all about. Very timely. And I would refer you to Part Three especially of Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ, where the Holy Family is rejected by two households in Egyptian Sais with cries of 'Vile Hebrews, get out!' until an enlightened Ishmaelite welcomes them with food, music-making and sleep.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-78245063933406615332018-12-23T09:49:20.692+00:002018-12-23T09:49:20.692+00:00The contribution by refugees has been very positiv...The contribution by refugees has been very positive in so many cases, I agree. And on a practical point Germany has quite a few underpopulated regions/towns as Germans have left the former East Germany. But there are officially 68 million refugees in the world and tens of millions of these are near to Europe. Many are not fleeing from terrible situations but are desperately fleeing from real poverty or from relative poverty. Many want to come to rich countries. Many are culturally different, and it takes a degree of education ( broadly defined) to accept the changes to one's human environment that such refugees impose. Thus, many people feel unsettled if the cultural unity of their small town is broken up. The present developments in Sweden point to other difficulties.<br /> I appreciate that I often go off at a tangent but if a point is raised which is optimistic ( etc etc) I am anxious to make a comment. You can always not publish me! David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-35528297381731156312018-12-22T19:05:17.970+00:002018-12-22T19:05:17.970+00:00This is not really the place for that broader disc...This is not really the place for that broader discussion (again), but while I see the problem I also emphatically reject the bald statement that 'the civilisations of Europe would be overwhelmed and destroyed'. Many more refugees could and should be accepted by the eastern European countries who have little if any experience of them - I saw only a couple of Moroccans, for instance, in Brno. The real problem is how people's perception of refugees - very often founded in ignorance - encourages the rise of the right, which is the chief bad outcome. But Germany has for the most part integrated its refugees. <br /><br />But I see no celebration from you of what we're celebrating here - emigres and refugees who enrich our culture.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-5109538411100259952018-12-22T16:58:11.626+00:002018-12-22T16:58:11.626+00:00The difficulty with Susan's position on immigr...The difficulty with Susan's position on immigration is that there are now many millions of refugees ( including many desperate economic refugees ) and if they were all allowed into Europe the civilisations of Europe would be overwhelmed and destroyed. Susan's point that we should pour assistance into the countries from which the refugees are fleeing is the best and in a sense the only solution, appropriate in the cases of countries simply poor and unstructured. But where there is violence there is little we can until the fighting is stopped, except to assist in stopping the fighting where we can. Mrs Merkel made a terrible error - not in letting in more refugees but in saying so. This encouraged the right wing AfD, raised doubts in the minds of many of her more faithful electorate, and led her colleagues perhaps for the first time to doubt her judgement. In politics the best results ( and the most moral of aims) are often obtained by pointing in one direction and moving in the otherDavid Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-60207999029125477772018-12-21T10:02:43.544+00:002018-12-21T10:02:43.544+00:00The wonderful thing about Butler was that he prove...The wonderful thing about Butler was that he proved equally eloquent on international issues and local ones, seeing no contradiction in cultivating both fields to try and make both the world and one's home town a better place. <br /><br />Thank you so much for the Kagan quotation. The rocks are upturned again. But the imagery also reminds me of 'stranded monsters gaping lie' in Auden's A Summer Night, my favourite poem, reminding us that resurrection is possible as well as disintegration. Though we now stand on the brink of losing it all.<br /><br />The question of what one would take has exercised us. And oddly, I can't think of a single thing (if I had a dog, obviously I'd take him or her). No family heirlooms to speak of, nothing that can be detached from the whole - and since music can be resurrected just about anywhere, that's not really an option. A friend said it showed a healthy detachment from material things; I'd like that to be true.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-38434240643354815532018-12-21T02:22:22.116+00:002018-12-21T02:22:22.116+00:00A brilliant conception for an exhibit, and I’m sor...A brilliant conception for an exhibit, and I’m sorry I can’t be there to see it. Thank you, too, for reminding me of Lewis’s essay, which I have now read twice more. it was poignant to read of Lewis's visit to Norcia, especially since we visited so recently ourselves. Visiting Norcia was striking, not only for the extent of damage, but also for the robust-appearing recovery underway. I am certain this would not have been possible without the significant financial support of the EU. <br /><br />It is of desperate importance that we rise, and help others rise, in vision beyond our parochial interests--important though those local interests may seem. Thinking on the "one item" challenge presented by the 12 Star exhibit, it's critical to recognize that most who flee their countries do not wish to do so (I think of Zweig and so many other Jews in WWII, but the same is true for those fleeing Central America for the US, for those fleeing Syria, and so many more). It's essential that we widen our vision not only to offer open embrace of those who make the grave decision that they must flee their countries (Merkel was exactly right to do as she did), but also aid, substantially, the countries from which people flee so that flight is no longer necessary. <br /><br />Robert Kagan wrote what I thought was an excellent opinion piece not long ago, called "Welcome to the Jungle," that, from a US perspective, contemplated similar terrain as that on which Lewis meditates so thoughtfully. Here's part of what Kagan wrote:<br /><br />'World order is one of those things people don’t think about until it is gone. That’s what Americans learned in the 1930s, as what had remained of the old European order collapsed and the United States refused to step in either to prop it up or to replace it. That’s when Americans discovered that there are always dangerous people out there, lacking only the power and opportunity to achieve their destiny. They can be suppressed by a reasonably stable international order, whether of a Rome, a united Christendom, a European concert of powers or whatever might pass for “civilization” at a given time and place.<br /><br />'During such times, they live under the rocks, but they are never gone. When the prevailing order breaks down, when the rocks are overturned, the things living beneath them, the darkest elements of the human spirit, crawl out. That was what happened in the first half of the 20th century. The circumstances in which Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini rose to power — a world in which no nation was willing or able to sustain any kind of international order — gave them ample opportunity to show what they were capable of. Had there been an order in place to blunt those ambitions, we might never have come to know them as tyrants, aggressors and mass killers."<br /><br />I hope, with you, that there will be a future for the 12 Star and all that it represents.Susan Scheidhttps://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-23918358115097478542018-12-20T13:19:40.882+00:002018-12-20T13:19:40.882+00:00Bah humbug. Can't agree. Of course I do rememb...Bah humbug. Can't agree. Of course I do remember some of the other entries....Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-34510140723895602102018-12-20T13:07:25.436+00:002018-12-20T13:07:25.436+00:00I am disappointed in the judges. The essay title w...I am disappointed in the judges. The essay title was about frontiers. The problems now existing for frontiers ( which mainly concern the EU but it is wider) are not discussed in the winning essay - a very elegant piece but what does it achieve? Most of it is descriptive of matters we know alreadyDavid Damanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18409591480349323761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-70578271412243936052018-12-20T08:57:54.097+00:002018-12-20T08:57:54.097+00:00You fall into the trap of criticising what it isn&...You fall into the trap of criticising what it isn't. The brief was not, after all, to write an essay about the general state of the EU. Within its boundaries, I suggest it is much more successful than you suggest. Clearly, given some excellent competition, the judges thought so.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-77857540743402305822018-12-20T05:02:26.696+00:002018-12-20T05:02:26.696+00:00I have already read it. It mentions the question o...I have already read it. It mentions the question of immigration briefly, but does not attack the matter in any detail, nor is the the Euro discussed ( a crucial financial frontier), nor in any depth the reason why several EU countries show a significant degree of anti European sentiment - are these tides to do with Europe as such, or more general? ). On the more positive side, how far have the relationships between countries improved simply because that was likely to happen anyway, in the aftermath of WW2 and the rise of the USSR? These are the questions about " frontiers" which need to be addressed. I should add that in itself this is an elegant essay, but it is nearly all descriptive, not an analysis. David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-12056886470427283972018-12-19T19:27:44.118+00:002018-12-19T19:27:44.118+00:00I suggest you read the essay online, and then resp...I suggest you read the essay online, and then respond.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-91130040395040753312018-12-19T19:00:16.706+00:002018-12-19T19:00:16.706+00:00David, you write that the winning Butler essay &qu...David, you write that the winning Butler essay " was ambivalent about the competing ideas about Europe". But surely that is the only interesting question to address? And not only interesting, but urgentDavid Damantnoreply@blogger.com