June 13

1996

Do not go to the bottom of the page to find out who wrote this, until after you have read it, as it will adversely influence the way you read it. The article appeared in the Sunday Telegraph (a major English newspaper, for those non-English people reading this, of a strongly Conservative stance), on June 13th 1996:
 "The intriguing thing about Pilate is the degree to which he tried to do the good thing rather than the bad. He commands our moral attention not because he was a bad man, but because he was so nearly a good one. One can imagine him agonising, seeing that Jesus had done nothing wrong, and wishing to release him. Just as easily, however, one can envisage Pilate's advisers telling him of the risks, warning him not to cause a rift or inflame Jewish opinion. It is a timeless parable of political life.
"It is possible to view Pilate as the archetypal politician, caught on the horns of an age-old political dilemma. We know he did wrong, yet his is the struggle between what is right and what is expedient that has occurred throughout history. The Munich Agreement of 1938 was a classic example of this, as were the debates surrounding the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Corn Laws. And it is not always clear, even in retrospect, what is, in truth, right. Should we do what appears principled or what is politically expedient? Do you apply a utilitarian test or what is morally absolute?
"Christianity is optimistic about the human condition, but not naive. It can identify what is good, but knows the capacity to do evil. I believe that the endless striving to do the one and avoid the other is the purpose of human existence. Through that comes progress."

And now let me reveal that the author was Tony Blair, the leader of the Labour Party, and the date just a year ahead of his landslide victory that would remove the Conservatives from power after eighteen years. I cannot help but wonder if Blair re-read this piece, when George Bush called him and asked him to bring Britain into the Gulf War, and whether or not all that money that Blair has made since includes thirty pieces of silver from the mint of Pontius Pilate.




Amber pages


Frances "Fanny" Burney born, today in 1752. Fanny who? Never heard of her. Of course not, she was an intellectual woman - why would such a creature be remembered, even if she did write one of the great diaries, not to mention several plays and some wonderfully satirical novels? Hugely influential on other writers too, male and female. This paragraph, for example, from her 1782 novel "Cecilia":
“The whole of this unfortunate business,” said Dr Lyster, “has been the result of pride and prejudice … If to pride and prejudice you owe your miseries, so wonderfully is good and evil balanced, that to pride and prejudice you will also owe their termination.”
Did somebody once use that as a book title?

Very much a member of the Dr Johnson, Edmund Burke, David Garrick circle, I am interested by the fact that she published under her given name, and never felt the necessity of adopting a male camouflage.


William Butler Yeats, Irish poet-dramatist, born today in 1865


Pioneer 10 became the first human-made object to leave the solar system, today in 1983 (and probably left much of itself behind, as debris)
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