I had a colleague once who was a member of a far left party. In those days his section of the far left was embracing the IRA, or the INLA in their attempts to set up a united communist Ireland, and so this bloke was full of merriment whenever the IRA or the INLA or whoever murdered a few folk, seeing that as the beginning of the revolution.
I noticed the difference between him, the activist, whose life was political engagement and those like me, the liberal passivists, who grudgingly write a letter to an MP or donate to Amnesty International.
The activist and the passivist, the politico and the observer, the one who notices and says “how unjust, a symptom of our whole rotten system,” the other who notices and says, "how interesting, how strange,” the one who wants power and the one who fears the power hungry, whether ruling or attempting to rule.
The power hungry are always with us, and they are not necessarily hungry for themselves – though that’s common enough – but for their class, their nation, their religion.
But here’s W H Auden on the part fear and part admiration of the artist and/or observer when confronting the activist while the activist regards the passivist with extreme disdain.
From Vespers – the whole poem is over here:-
And it is now that our two paths cross.
Both simultaneously recognise his Anti-type: that I am an Arcadian, that he is a Utopian.
He notes, with contempt, my Aquarian belly: I note, with alarm, his Scorpion's mouth.
He would like to see me cleaning latrines: I would like to see him removed to some other planet.
Neither speaks. What experience could we possibly share?
Glancing at a lampshade in a store window, I observe it is too hideous for anyone in their senses to buy: He observes it is too expensive for a peasant to buy.
Passing a slum child with rickets, I look the other way: He looks the other way if he passes a chubby one.
I hope our senators will behave like saints, provided they don't reform me: He hopes they will behave like baritone cattivi, and, when lights bum late in the Citadel, I (who have never seen the inside of a police station) am shocked and think: 'Were the city as free as they say, after sundown all her bureaus would be huge black stones':
He (who has been beaten up several times) is not shocked at all but thinks: 'One fine night our boys will be working up there.'
You can see, then, why, between my Eden and his New Jerusalem, no treaty is negotiable.
In my Eden a person who dislikes Bellini has the good manners not to get born: In his New Jerusalem a person who dislikes work will be very sorry he was born.
In my Eden we have a few beam-engines, saddle-tank locomotives, overshot waterwheels and other beautiful pieces of obsolete machinery to play with: In his New Jerusalem even chefs will be cucumber-cool machine minders.
In my Eden our only source of political news is gossip: In his New Jerusalem there will be a special daily in simplified spelling for non-verbal types.
In my Eden each observes his compulsive rituals and superstitious tabus but we have no morals: In his New Jerusalem the temples will be empty but all will practise the rational virtues.
One reason for his contempt is that I have only to close my eyes, cross the iron footbridge to the tow-path, take the barge through the short brick tunnel and there I stand in Eden again, welcomed back by the krumhorns, doppions, sordumes of jolly miners and a bob major from the Cathedral (romanesque) of St Sophie (Die Kalte):
One reason for my alarm is that, when he closes his eyes, he arrives, not in New Jerusalem, but on some august day of outrage when hellikins cavort through ruined drawing-rooms and fish-wives intervene in the Chamber or
some autumn night of deletions and noyades when the unrepentant thieves (including me) are sequestered and those he hates shall hate themselves instead.
So with a passing glance we take the other's posture; already, our steps recede, heading, incorrigible each, towards his kind of meal and evening.
Was it (as it must look to any god of cross-roads) simply a fortuitous intersection of life-paths, loyal to different fibs
or also a rendezvous between accomplices who, in spite of themselves, cannot resist meeting
to remind the other (do both, at bottom, desire truth?) of that half of their secret which he would most like to forget
forcing us both, for a fraction of a second, to remember our victim (but for him I could forget the blood, but for me he could forget the innocence)
on whose immolation (call him Abel, Remus, whom you will, it is one Sin Offering) arcadias, utopias, our dear old bag of a democracy, are alike founded:
For without a cement of blood (it must be human, it must be innocent) no secular wall will safely stand.
Do both at bottom, desire truth? No politicos desire power, not truth. And passivists don’t much care for truth either – it reminds them of their inactivity.
Auden was a notable and vocal anti-fascist of his time, the thirties, when the political situation in Europe was desperate. But on January 19 1939 he left Britain for the USA with his friend Christopher Isherwood, the novelist. Isherwood noted in his diary:-
One morning on deck, it seems to me, I turned to Auden and said: “You know, I just don’t believe in any of it any more – the united front, the party line, the anti-fascist struggle. I suppose they’re okay, but something’s wrong with me. I simply can’t swallow another mouthful.” And Auden answered: “No, neither can I.” In a few sentences, with exquisite relief, we confessed our mutual disgust at the parts we had been playing and resolved to abandon them, then and there. We had forgotten our real vocation. We would be artists again, with our own values, our own integrity and not amateur socialist agitators, parlour reds.
Later Auden got a lot of stick for having talked the talk against fascism, then leaving the country which was then, finally, walking the walk against fascism as embodied in the Axis powers. Those that took up arms included artists like Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh, who put their work on hold. They, conservative chaps, kicked against Auden for the rest of their lives.