Feeling green
Many Conservatives bemoan the Lib Dem Chris Huhne being such a green Environment Secretary, but there any reason to think a “tory” alternative under David Cameron would be any better? Consider the fanaticism past Conservative holders of this office like John Gummer labour under. For Lord Deben accepts without reservation (£) the fallacious assumption that there is a “scientific consensus” on global warming. That’s, bluntly, just the view of some people, some of them scientists, some of them not scientists, who have a vested interest in promoting this theory. Real climate scientists know it is nonsense. The world’s leading climate scientist, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, has said in print that it is nonsense. The “climate scientists” have no evidence on their side, only their desires. A few facts: of the estimated 186 billion tons of carbon dioxide which enter our atmosphere each year from all sources, only 3.3% comes from human activity. Global temperatures have been going both up and down since records have been kept. In the 4th Century AD, temperatures were warmer than they are today. Afterwards, there was a period of cold, lasting 500 years, during the Dark Ages, followed by a warm period during the early Middle Ages. Global temperatures in the Middle Ages are known to have been higher than they are today. Starting from the 16th Century, however, another cold period began, lasting until the middle of the 19th Century. Since then, temperatures have been warmer, but between 1940 and 1970 the temperatures fell so drastically, that in the early 1970s, several scientists wrote to President Nixon worrying about climate change. They weren’t worried about the temperature going up; they were worried about it going down. These fears turned out to be groundless, as temperatures warmed during the 1970s, and went up during the rest of the century, peaking in the mid-1990s. Since the year 2000, global temperatures have been falling. The point of the “global warming” theory is very simple. It’s an excuse for poor countries to grab money from the rich nations for so-called “carbon emissions”. Tories should learn something from the fact that it’s men like John Gummer who promote it here.
Empty sensations
How far can plays go in order to shock people? To be able to discuss the problem intelligently, it’s necessary to agree what the theatre is meant to be. Once upon a time we were taught that a novel is “a story”, and that a play is the “enactment of a story on the stage”. To have artistic merit, therefore, a play must have a plot and interesting characters. Above all, it should entertain. I’d suggest that the problem today is that most plays that are put on do not have either a plot or interesting characters. They usually consist of actors contemplating their navels, and/or spouting lines, which they think will shock people, and so secure their attention, and, the attention of gullible critics. Such “dramas” need to shock because they have no real content. But take King Lear which of course has one violent scene, yet it’s essential to the plot. That does not excuse the flood of present-day productions, which have no other point than to be shocking. The idea that this filth is, as the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer would have us believe, a sign of ‘a new honesty and seriousness’ in our theatre is absurd. Some people say that they enjoy sex and nudity on the stage. There is nothing wrong with that, and that has been around since time immemorial, but it has nothing to do with serious theatre. In the theatre today, some say that they long for someone to take their clothes off. That’s because so many, so often state-subsidised plays are so boring.
The late Sarah Kane’s Blasted, which portrayed cannibalism, rape, defecation and eyeball-gouging in a Leeds hotel is the quintessence of this artistic movement. Although it was universally criticised at the time, many critics now assert that, after she committed suicide, it seems less like sensationalism, and more like a depressive young woman’s deeply troubled response to the world. Whether this is true, it’s of no interest to anybody. Her task was surely to put something on the stage that deals with human nature and entertains people, not to flaunt her own emotions. Should, pace Spencer, contemporary drama merely reflect ‘the way we live now’? So what does it tell us that The Way We Live Now is now set 150 years ago, but all Trollope’s characters in it could still exist today? Human nature does not change, and that is what plays should be about. Contemporary settings and clothes are useless and a distraction.
In 1642 in Paris, the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, a favourite of the King, was arrested by Cardinal Richelieu, and condemned to death for plotting against him. The execution was done by a substitute executioner, because the Chief Executioner was not available. The substitute botched it, and Cinq-Mars’ head failed to separate from his body, whereupon the executioner grabbed him by the hair, and sawed off his head. Twenty-five years previously in Paris, Concino Concini, the principal adviser to the Queen Mother, was ordered to be arrested by the 16 year old Louis XIII. Showing signs of resistance, Concini was shot on the spot. His friends later buried him after dark, but the mob unearthed the body, and began parading him through the streets of Paris, eating his flesh along the way. Eventually, they roasted his heart over charcoal, and ate it. I do not think that even Miss Kane could have done any worse. But the great playwrights of France, Corneille, Racine and Moliere, did not put such incidents in their plays, nor did they even refer to them. Their plays were great, and they still live today. I suspect the future will not likewise be so kind to Miss Kane.
Monstrous regiments
How extraordinary are the assumptions thundered at us. Take Mariella Frostrup (£) – when this noted strategic thinker turned her mind towards geopolitics recently, she considered Afghanistan. As a result we learnt that if other countries don’t agree with her political views, they must be made to do so by force. This is a new and astonishing view in the history of the world. Since time immemorial, there have only been two kinds of wars: wars of aggression, where countries have tried to gain territory, and, wealth and wars of self-defence, where nations have been resisting aggression. It is only recently that the West has actually gone to war simply in order to impose its views, without having the slightest connection with the dispute. This happened, for example, in Bosnia and Kosovo. As they were small countries, and easily defeated, there was very little objection. Mariella Frostrup, however, now suggests we continue to fight in Afghanistan, a country which has already somewhat troubled in the past such negligible military powers as imperial Britain, Soviet Russia and the superpowered United States. And why should we continue to pour away our blood and treasure in this pointless place? In order to impose Western, 1st world feminist views on a country that others might think has larger, more pressing problems
No doubt Mariella Frostrup has the best intentions as regards Afghan women, but does she really think she knows exactly what goes on in that country? She states that 87% of Afghan women have undergone forced marriage, but makes no statement as to what percentage of Afghan men have undergone a forced marriage. Does she think that Afghan men choose their wives? It is parents who choose the wives. I wonder if she has grasped that what she is saying is that our soldiers should fight and die in Afghanistan, in order to make that country conform to her views. An odd thing for our men to kill for and an even odder one for them to die for.
An American lawyer who is now in the financial world, Demetri Marchessini lives in London.