Christopher Norris
Now you've this bunch of gangster-types
Who sound, from what you say, like they're nearly as bad
As some of those swine we had
To cope with back then even if the leopard's stripes
Have somewhat changed since even fascism has to adjust
Its strategies to changed circumstance and must,
For a while, make sure it pipes
Tunes of the well-known and popular sort it can trust
The Fox News viewers to go along with until
Its power-base is strong and the brainwashed majority glad
To blink at any evil in the name of the popular will.
'Well, that was a tough one while it lasted,
But don't rest on your laurels yet, you men.
Although we all stood up and stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bore him is in heat again.'[2]
That's from 'The Resistible Rise
Of Arturo Ui', the parable-play – OK, the didactic Lehrstuck – I wrote
About Hitler in the guise of a cut-throat
Two-bit Chicago gangster whose violent rule and eventual demise
Are shown as having come about solely through
The too-long failure to do
Anything decisive about it by a whole bunch of victims wise
After the event but so convinced they'd screw
Up any effort to get shot of him along with his fellow thugs
And their protection racket that they failed to organize
Any collective resistance and were taken for mugs.
In some ways you've got the worst
Of bad situations: not just a strutting fascist moron
Whose ranting you can shut the door on
Temporarily but, in this man Trump, perhaps the first
In a whole new breed
Of mass-mediatized demagogues claiming to lead
And speak for whatever grievances are nursed
By large sections of a populace guaranteed
To revile everything that reminds them of an old,
Decrepit 'liberal' order that they've declared war on,
And to cheer those scheming bastards by whom they're thought-controlled.
​
The philosophers might just come
In handy here even if Marx famously said that they’d
Only interpreted the world and not made,
So far at least, any effort to change it or add to the sum
Of human benefits. Fair
Enough, you may think, since that lot have done their share
(Think Frankfurt School) to keep the intellectuals stumm
On any issue beyond the reach of armchair
Dialectics. Still there’s something to be learned
From those who finally called a spade a spade
Even if the lesson comes late and is clearly hard-earned.
Think of Aristotle, he who went in
For all that metaphysical stuff and thought that having slaves
Was part of the natural order but who finally saves
Himself from mortal sin,
So far as we’re concerned, by having logic find room
Not just for whatever statements he could groom
Into purebred syllogistic form but for their worldly kin,
The ‘practical syllogism’, where the upshot, pace Hume,
Of two or more propositions about (say) Donald Trump
Plus others about how any decent human being behaves
Would yield the conclusion: he’s for the high jump.
So that's my feeling, everything taken
Into account: that if you don't soon do something about
This Trump guy then I've no doubt
That he and his mates will make sure to save their own bacon
By packing the Supreme Court, filling all major posts
With corrupt place-men, and gagging talk-show hosts
By press-laws banning anything that might awaken
Civic conscience and so once again raise toasts
To the spirit of resistance among folk
Who never really believed all the lies and imbecile stuff he'd spout
But opted, like many in the '30s, to take it all as a joke.
​
The philosophers might just come
In handy here even if Marx famously said that they’d
Only interpreted the world and not made,
So far at least, any effort to change it or add to the sum
Of human benefits. Fair
Enough, you may think, since that lot have done their share
(Think Frankfurt School) to keep the intellectuals stumm
On any issue beyond the reach of armchair
Dialectics. Still there’s something to be learned
From those who finally called a spade a spade
Even if the lesson comes late and is clearly hard-earned.
Think of Aristotle, he who went in
For all that metaphysical stuff and thought that having slaves
Was part of the natural order but who finally saves
Himself from mortal sin,
So far as we’re concerned, by having logic find room
Not just for whatever statements he could groom
Into purebred syllogistic form but for their worldly kin,
The ‘practical syllogism’, where the upshot, pace Hume,
Of two or more propositions about (say) Donald Trump
Plus others about how any decent human being behaves
Would yield the conclusion: he’s for the high jump.
So that's my feeling, everything taken
Into account: that if you don't soon do something about
This Trump guy then I've no doubt
That he and his mates will make sure to save their own bacon
By packing the Supreme Court, filling all major posts
With corrupt place-men, and gagging talk-show hosts
By press-laws banning anything that might awaken
Civic conscience and so once again raise toasts
To the spirit of resistance among folk
Who never really believed all the lies and imbecile stuff he'd spout
But opted, like many in the '30s, to take it all as a joke.
​
Best way to remove him: impeach,
Nail a really big lie, get those FBI spooks on his case
(Don't mock this about-face
From a past victim!), or bring to light some major breach
Of law constitutional or criminal – surely plenty of scope
To put the legal boot in. But if there's no hope
Of that, then think what history has to teach
Those poised once again above the slippery slope
To disaster. This gang of thieves got lucky, like Arturo
And the House-Painter, by ways and means so base
That maybe it’s for you now to put right and not some Federal Bureau.
________________________________________
Notes
[1] ‘The House-Painter’: Brecht’s nickname for Hitler, who for a short period during his youth worked in Munich as a house painter (decorator) and, as some have conjectured, later found the memory all the more galling on account of his failed ambitions as an artist.
[2] My own very loose translation of the lines from Brecht’s play Arturo Ui, based on versions by John Willett, Ralph Mannheim and others. See Bertholt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, ed. and trans. Willett and Mannheim (London: Methuen, 1976).
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Bertolt Brecht Offers Advice to Those
Living in the Age of Donald Trump
Events cast long shadows before.
One such event would be a war.
But how are shadows to be seen
When total darkness fills the screen?
Bertolt Brecht, ‘Alphabet’, from ‘Five Children's Songs’ (1934),
trans. John Willett
All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.
Brecht, ‘Solidarity Song’, trans. Willett
OK, you asked for it so here's
The best advice I have on how to see them through,
These worst of times that you
Tell me you’re facing now after just seventy years
When things went quiet, at least for those
Who lived a good way from the trouble-spots and chose
To block their otherwise ultra-sensitive ears
To what was going on, or close
Their minds to any bit of news that might,
If mindfully attended to,
Disturb their liberal consciences or cause a sleepless night.
From what you've said the case strikes me
As very like ours in the early to mid-
'Thirties when (let's not kid
Ourselves) we German leftists didn't exactly see
Eye to eye and fought such a lot
Of internal feuds that we lost the larger plot,
Put tactics ahead of everything that we
Were meant to stand for, and (here's what
You chiefly need to know) afforded just the chance
Those bastards needed to get rid
Of the few last obstacles to Hitler's advance.
​
Not that we can afford to ignore
Questions of tactics on the left, God knows,
But what 'all history shows'
(If you’ll allow me to take the role of sermonizing bore
Just for once) is how incredibly fast things went
Downhill from the time we spent
On endless internecine squabbles and bouts of score-
Settling to that pure stage-event,
The Reichstag Fire, expertly planned for max effect
As if to signal the echt-Wagnerian close
Of tottering Weimar and herald a new age of savagery unchecked.
My point is, you're now stuck with this
Monster in the White House along with his gang of crooks
After an electoral fix that looks
To me like the same sort of political abyss
We were peering into back then,
In the dog-days of Kristallnacht and the big Nazi rallies when
We were in shock or denial, so that those hit-or-miss
Efforts by a few brave, isolated women and men
To end the agony all failed for lack
Of coordination and went down in the history-books
As having, if anything, set the resistance back.
That's my main message to you now
In this age of resurgent barbarism aiming to turn
Progress on its head: just learn
From what went wrong, and more than anything how
To manage love and hate
So that with lovers, comrades, and those close to us we create
Bonds strong as any pledge of amity or wedding-vow,
While toward enemies maintaining always a state
Of readiness to take
Actions that an ethic of rational self-concern
Would rule out but for the huge difference they could make.
​
Still let me not wax too pious on
That point about behaving as kindly or lovingly as we can
Toward those in our own family or clan,
Or those – lovers especially – with some foregone
Claim on our affection. Truth is, I
Messed up in that respect and certainly won't try
To act the part of one who shone
As an example that good socialists can hold high
With pride. I treated not a few
Of my own best comrades, women included, worse than
I'd care to admit here in front of you.
Then there's the other side, the way
I so often misjudged things in the political-strategic line.
Just ask those old comrades of mine
Who'll confirm this auto-critique by having lots to say
About my many and well-known faults
Of didacticism, lack of empathy, and constant assaults
On those who'd sit through a Brecht play
And find nothing that exalts
The human spirit or yields, as Aristotle taught
Ancient Greek and modern bourgeois audiences, the fine
Idea of tragic catharsis that kills critical thought.
So – my point in all this – I'm no
Role-model or source of 100% reliable advice,
Whether it's a matter of being nice
Enough to other people or getting stagecraft to go
Along with dialectics, yet managing to grip
Your audience without having the whole thing tip
Over into bourgeois pathos. Still I’ve some wisdom to show
For the portions of my life that weren't just an ego-trip
But spent fighting fascism in the two, very different forms
It took during my lifetime, making me twice-
Over the right weather-man for these latest political storms.
First Nazi Germany, then the US post-war
With McCarthyism rampant, witch-hunts everywhere,
And talk of the red scare
Thrown at us artists and thinkers who dared to explore
The resemblances – though of course the differences too –
Between what we experienced in our new
Place of domicile and what we remembered from before
Our going into exile, as the Nazi menace grew
And the hate-word 'communist' took its place,
Along with 'gypsy', 'trade-unionist', and – most lethal – ‘Jew',
In the House-Painter's plan to get his Volk more living-space.[1]
Chris Norris is a philosopher at Cardiff University and lives in Swansea. He has published many books about philosophy, literary theory, and music along with several collections of poetry including For the Tempus-Fugitives (Sussex Academic Press) and The Winnowing Fan (Bloomsbury), both in 2017, and The Trouble With Monsters (Culture Matters).
thistles stretch their prickly arms afar
Militant Thistles