Death of the necktie?
Dear NJS and RWS, I claim no prescience as to tectonic shifts in civilizations, though clearly the long hegemony of the western great powers is being diluted by the rise of others, including Brazil. But the sartorial heydey of Scholte and Wales coincided with the near collapse of the British economy between and after the wars, and at the height of empire Jack the Ripper was only the most publicized of London's knife-men and footpads. Mayhew's survey of the London poor paints a pretty bleak picture, and while Erasmus Darwin and Boulton and Watt and Wedgwood and Priestley and Joseph Wright were igniting the intellectual and economic foundations of modern scientific and industrialized culture and its prosperity, Hogarth was engraving Gin Lane and Blake was writing of his dark satanic mills. I rehearse this not so much to defend current governments or policies (especially those of my own country) but to reflect that nostalgia for the best of the past can turn the worst of the past into "the best pies in London" and lead us to think that today is somehow different. We may well be going to hell in a handbasket, but we always have been. At least we'll be well dressed.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, eh couch?
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storeynicholas
Dear Couch, the poem by Richard Monckton Milnes "The Men Of Old" sums up my thoughts on this subject. It is too long to set out in full here and readily available. I strongly recommend it. Of course, I accept that "The Good Old Days" had points which needed future improvement; however, I am not so sure that recent changes have resulted in any improvement at all. Change for its own sake seems to be the watchword of the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries and, as long as a gerry builder (whether of houses or modern morals) is making a profit, true progress can go hang. I am not entirely sure what is going to replace the recent prevalence of western influence - the use of the words 'great western democracy' to 'justify' the extermination of a few tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis does not seem to me a great improvement on the massacre at Amritsar; especially when the recent extermination was for the sake of 'bringing to justice' a 'dictator' and a mass murderer on a much smaller scale than that brought about to bring him down. And while we are on that subject, since when has the UK condoned capital punishment since its abolition within its own territory? For my own part, I dread the day when, in relation to international affairs, countries like those commonly called BRICS, will come to bear most influence in the world. You mention the inter-war economic crisis and I should hate to be thought of as a stirrer up of international strife but let us not forget how those wars began and who were responsible for the consequential devastation and misery. Your reference to Jack the Ripper is curious - every age has some such madmen - my point about the current age is that knife crime is becoming commonplace amongst ordinary people - especially young people - I don't know how old you are but, having read somewhere else that you have a 31"waist, presumably not old enough to remember the Swinging 1960s. Moreover, when you mention Hogarth and Gin Lane - just reflect that every town now has its Gin Lane. I recall, in the 1980s travelling on the London underground and of course there were tramps, drunks and undesirables in those days but they were not organized to create a riot just for the hell of it and back then football crowds were not overall so violent that they would do more harm that the IRA bombers of ten years before in a city like Manchester. When you mention the originators of the Industrial Revolution, I think that we need to include a few more names: Trevithick; Stevenson, Davy and Faraday at least - and who matches them in the name of modern progress - O Yes - the progenitors of the Chimera and its licensees. We have come a long way from neck ties. Or have we? I can definitely recall being 3 years old because that is how old I was at my first brush with death and I can recall clearly how the world seemed to me then: I was allowed to play harmlessly outside on my own; if people came to speak to me over the garden wall there was no fear that they were paedophiliacs, kidnappers or knife-murderers or any of the other kinds of deranged morons which modern britain produces, to the extent that it has not room enough in its prisons to contain them all. And, yes, when my father took me to matins on Sunday mornings there was a congregation - I can see and hear them in my mind's eye even now - even remember some of their names - Cyril Organ, Miss Polmounter, Mrs Williams, Alan Andrew and Kathleen Gaved - all dead now for about 30 years but do you know what? They were the salt of the earth and the women wore hats and the chaps wore ties. Go into a country church in England now and just hope that it is the Sunday for any service at all. You seek to excuse modern decay by reference to ancient ills but it will not do. In my lifetime, civilization has perceptibly cracked and it is just no use to bleat on about William Blake's dark satanic mills - especially when one considers that the modern world - from banks to some tailors - is again exploiting the impoverished east where they underpay service providers to assist us with our requirements.
NJS
NJS
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Frog in Suit
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My late father was very interested in prehistory and the study of civilizations. He would reasons in thousands of years or even geological eras. On that scale, the obvious “yobization” of the UK (and France and many other places, no doubt), the replacement of polite and thoughtful public discourse by Berlusconian TV entertainment, deplorable as they are, may or may not be really significant phenomena.
I would hazard that the two major events of our lifetime are, one, man’s proven ability to destroy the natural environment faster that it can renew itself (that never happened before, except in a localized or otherwise limited fashion) and, two, our ability to gather and disseminate information on an unprecedented scale and at unprecedented speed. Both these phenomena have had and will have many consequences, most of which we can only dimly discern, many of which will only be obvious to historians of the twenty-fifth century! Western dominance of the world only dates back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. By way of comparison, the Middle Ages, in passing a pretty meaningless notion, lasted a thousand years (more or less, depending on definition). Earlier eras lasted for thousand of years.
I think we all agree on the unpleasantness attendant on the “progress” we have experienced. I for one, like NJS, remember going to Mass in French country churches in the fifties, and you did not have to go far away from Paris to find the country; the churches were full, with all ladies, all dressed in black and wearing hats of the same colour and singing, often off-key! Then after Mass, everyone would rush to the pâtisserie to buy pastries for Sunday lunch. The post WWII period, at least in Western Europe and North America, was edenic and safe. Parents would think nothing of letting their children walk alone, in the country or in the city.
Things could be worse: at least we can still dress decently. I also wonder whether we may not be experiencing the real agolden age of tailoring (if not of sartorial elegance), as modern suits look much more precisely cut and fitted than those in old photographs.
It all boils down to perspective: we are going through history, or a small bit of it (seventy, eighty, ninety years?) not liking some or much of it, and cannot do a damn thing about it. Do not worry: we shall not live forever…
I shall end on that cheerful note.
Frog in Suit
I would hazard that the two major events of our lifetime are, one, man’s proven ability to destroy the natural environment faster that it can renew itself (that never happened before, except in a localized or otherwise limited fashion) and, two, our ability to gather and disseminate information on an unprecedented scale and at unprecedented speed. Both these phenomena have had and will have many consequences, most of which we can only dimly discern, many of which will only be obvious to historians of the twenty-fifth century! Western dominance of the world only dates back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. By way of comparison, the Middle Ages, in passing a pretty meaningless notion, lasted a thousand years (more or less, depending on definition). Earlier eras lasted for thousand of years.
I think we all agree on the unpleasantness attendant on the “progress” we have experienced. I for one, like NJS, remember going to Mass in French country churches in the fifties, and you did not have to go far away from Paris to find the country; the churches were full, with all ladies, all dressed in black and wearing hats of the same colour and singing, often off-key! Then after Mass, everyone would rush to the pâtisserie to buy pastries for Sunday lunch. The post WWII period, at least in Western Europe and North America, was edenic and safe. Parents would think nothing of letting their children walk alone, in the country or in the city.
Things could be worse: at least we can still dress decently. I also wonder whether we may not be experiencing the real agolden age of tailoring (if not of sartorial elegance), as modern suits look much more precisely cut and fitted than those in old photographs.
It all boils down to perspective: we are going through history, or a small bit of it (seventy, eighty, ninety years?) not liking some or much of it, and cannot do a damn thing about it. Do not worry: we shall not live forever…
I shall end on that cheerful note.
Frog in Suit
"Great thoughts, great feelings came to them
Like instincts, unawares.
Blending their souls’ sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,
They went about their gravest deeds
As noble boys at play."
There's more truth than nostalgia in Milnes's closing lines.
I share with NJS and Frog, whose contemporary I believe I am, a wistful anguish over the not-so-gentle decline in Western civilization. It is most easily if superficially seen in the abrupt decline in civility, the which (as noted at length elsewhere in the Lounge) is statically displayed in dress. None of us in our forties or older need be merely anecdotal to remember well when deference was given to others just because they were -- others. Even in the American South, which until very recently was unable to awake from the two-hundred-year nightmare of racially-based slavery and its sequelae, the better sorts of "whites" (of whom there were not a few) invariably spoke to older men and women with calmness and respect, regardless of race or ancestry. And today? Those of my readers who've not emulated Rip Van Winkle can answer as easily as I, and as fully.
In the increase in number and and barbarity of crimes; in the decrease in education and, far worse, wisdom; in the general cheapening of human and other life, not only that held by others but even that borrowed by the deluded and unhappy actor in today's increasingly frenetic dramas: in all this, and more, we see a world that is hurtling toward an oblivion of the best in our nature and the nature which surrounds us.
The great question of our day is not whether to wear a necktie, then, but how to restore a sense of worth to the many, and not through compulsion, but persuasion. Without some sort of enlightenment from without, I fear, there will be no ears left to hear.
Like instincts, unawares.
Blending their souls’ sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,
They went about their gravest deeds
As noble boys at play."
There's more truth than nostalgia in Milnes's closing lines.
I share with NJS and Frog, whose contemporary I believe I am, a wistful anguish over the not-so-gentle decline in Western civilization. It is most easily if superficially seen in the abrupt decline in civility, the which (as noted at length elsewhere in the Lounge) is statically displayed in dress. None of us in our forties or older need be merely anecdotal to remember well when deference was given to others just because they were -- others. Even in the American South, which until very recently was unable to awake from the two-hundred-year nightmare of racially-based slavery and its sequelae, the better sorts of "whites" (of whom there were not a few) invariably spoke to older men and women with calmness and respect, regardless of race or ancestry. And today? Those of my readers who've not emulated Rip Van Winkle can answer as easily as I, and as fully.
In the increase in number and and barbarity of crimes; in the decrease in education and, far worse, wisdom; in the general cheapening of human and other life, not only that held by others but even that borrowed by the deluded and unhappy actor in today's increasingly frenetic dramas: in all this, and more, we see a world that is hurtling toward an oblivion of the best in our nature and the nature which surrounds us.
The great question of our day is not whether to wear a necktie, then, but how to restore a sense of worth to the many, and not through compulsion, but persuasion. Without some sort of enlightenment from without, I fear, there will be no ears left to hear.
This raises an interesting point, though I would contend that we have seen an increase in 'education' and, at the same time, a decrease in 'wisdom.' Everybody seems to have a university degree nowadays (usually in 'Business', 'Arts' or some other equally vague and/or esoteric field), but it is not often that you come across people who can be considered 'wise.' That being said though, I can imagine this being the trend throughout history.RWS wrote:The decrease in education and, far worse, wisdom.
its death is greatly exagerated.
Gentlemen, you mistake me if you think I mean to excuse modern decay by reference to ancient ills. I deplore every lapse from civility as do you; I have abominated the naive, cruel, wasteful, and strategically disastrous Iraq venture and the endless "war on terror" since long before the "Project" was put into action (I specifically mentioned in my post that I was not defending my country's policies).
My thrust was more along the lines of Frog In Suit's: that taking the long view, one can evenhandedly deplore stupidity, incivility, greed, cruelty, and all ills of the present as well as the past, and celebrate those moments of courage, cheerful courtesy in spite of want or pain, altruistic action, and the pleasant achievements of nature and culture past and present, while acknowledging that "we are going though history." There has been a deal of human happiness and misery in every age, and how things appear depends inevitably on where you sit--and how far afield you allow yourself to look. I agree that in many ways we seem poised, as a species, to do irreparable harm to ourselves and our planet. This state, along with almost all the points you make about violence, Berlusconiesque media manipulation, etc., and many you could add (UXBs, for instance) are, like the information revolution and various eco-disasters, the result of the long process of applying leverage to human power (thus my use of the Lunar Society's members as representatives--not an exhaustive list--of the sparks of the industrial age) while human nature has not been comparably improved. Thus, we can do damage on an ever larger scale.
Every Regency and Victorian city had its Gin Lane, and crime was endemic. Tyburn Hill was a very busy place. But it is true that a knife or a derringer or even a service revolver can only do so much damage, especially when the guns are not widely distributed. In a city like Philadelphia, where I live, there are literally tens of thousands of illegal guns, most of them semi-automatic and automatic pistols, and a substantial fraction of assault weapons--in addition to the entirely excessive number of legal guns. Innocent children are killed here every week by stray spray. Again, the social and political policies resulting in this state of affairs deserve scrutiny and the address of all people of sense and good will, but my point is simply that the number of criminals per capita here is probably not notably larger than in Victorian London. If you are/were in the wrong part of either town, you'd be at risk. Today the risk is graver because amplified by technology.
On the other hand, today we do not in Philadelphia have regular epidemics of cholera, as we did up through the mid nineteenth century. Nearly all children here (though fewer than in most developed countries) live to adulthood, unlike in Britain or the U.S. in Mayhew's day. Even among the nobility and gentry, death in childbirth was not uncommon; now it is. And every nineteenth century novel, it sometimes seems, had its scene of death by consumption or pneumonia--art imitating life. By contrast, the atypical mycobacterium that killed my wife, while imitating the course of Mycobacterium TB, is thankfully extremely rare.
In my own lifetime (I hope I don't disappoint by confessing to my 53 years) I remember, in addition to childhood churchgoing, having to do duck-and-cover drills under my desk in primary school. I lived in San Antonio, where there were five important military bases, so we were first strike targets for Soviet ICBMs. I'm sure putting my hands behind my neck would have made all the difference in my odds of survival. Still, I'm glad not to have those nightmares any more.
In sum, I don't believe in golden ages, in art or culture. The achievements of every age should be appreciated without prejudice, and its horrors (and foibles) likewise deplored. We gain ground and we lose ground. But the good fight--for reason, tolerance, self-restraint, kindness, courage, beauty, and even style--is always there to be fought. I find this not just a bracing but a cheering thought. Certainly there are opportunities everywhere today.
Which brings us round again to ties, or at least the sartorial arts. Since my holidays are approaching, I look forward, this time a week from today, to returning from Galvin Bistrot to a flat at 100 Piccadilly next the park, and cheerfully anticipating my first fitting of the original LL Coop tweed on the Row on Tuesday morning. And counting my blessings.
My thrust was more along the lines of Frog In Suit's: that taking the long view, one can evenhandedly deplore stupidity, incivility, greed, cruelty, and all ills of the present as well as the past, and celebrate those moments of courage, cheerful courtesy in spite of want or pain, altruistic action, and the pleasant achievements of nature and culture past and present, while acknowledging that "we are going though history." There has been a deal of human happiness and misery in every age, and how things appear depends inevitably on where you sit--and how far afield you allow yourself to look. I agree that in many ways we seem poised, as a species, to do irreparable harm to ourselves and our planet. This state, along with almost all the points you make about violence, Berlusconiesque media manipulation, etc., and many you could add (UXBs, for instance) are, like the information revolution and various eco-disasters, the result of the long process of applying leverage to human power (thus my use of the Lunar Society's members as representatives--not an exhaustive list--of the sparks of the industrial age) while human nature has not been comparably improved. Thus, we can do damage on an ever larger scale.
Every Regency and Victorian city had its Gin Lane, and crime was endemic. Tyburn Hill was a very busy place. But it is true that a knife or a derringer or even a service revolver can only do so much damage, especially when the guns are not widely distributed. In a city like Philadelphia, where I live, there are literally tens of thousands of illegal guns, most of them semi-automatic and automatic pistols, and a substantial fraction of assault weapons--in addition to the entirely excessive number of legal guns. Innocent children are killed here every week by stray spray. Again, the social and political policies resulting in this state of affairs deserve scrutiny and the address of all people of sense and good will, but my point is simply that the number of criminals per capita here is probably not notably larger than in Victorian London. If you are/were in the wrong part of either town, you'd be at risk. Today the risk is graver because amplified by technology.
On the other hand, today we do not in Philadelphia have regular epidemics of cholera, as we did up through the mid nineteenth century. Nearly all children here (though fewer than in most developed countries) live to adulthood, unlike in Britain or the U.S. in Mayhew's day. Even among the nobility and gentry, death in childbirth was not uncommon; now it is. And every nineteenth century novel, it sometimes seems, had its scene of death by consumption or pneumonia--art imitating life. By contrast, the atypical mycobacterium that killed my wife, while imitating the course of Mycobacterium TB, is thankfully extremely rare.
In my own lifetime (I hope I don't disappoint by confessing to my 53 years) I remember, in addition to childhood churchgoing, having to do duck-and-cover drills under my desk in primary school. I lived in San Antonio, where there were five important military bases, so we were first strike targets for Soviet ICBMs. I'm sure putting my hands behind my neck would have made all the difference in my odds of survival. Still, I'm glad not to have those nightmares any more.
In sum, I don't believe in golden ages, in art or culture. The achievements of every age should be appreciated without prejudice, and its horrors (and foibles) likewise deplored. We gain ground and we lose ground. But the good fight--for reason, tolerance, self-restraint, kindness, courage, beauty, and even style--is always there to be fought. I find this not just a bracing but a cheering thought. Certainly there are opportunities everywhere today.
Which brings us round again to ties, or at least the sartorial arts. Since my holidays are approaching, I look forward, this time a week from today, to returning from Galvin Bistrot to a flat at 100 Piccadilly next the park, and cheerfully anticipating my first fitting of the original LL Coop tweed on the Row on Tuesday morning. And counting my blessings.
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Frog in Suit
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- Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 9:42 pm
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Dear Couch,
Very eloquently put! We did not have nuclear drills in France in my days (the powers that be probably thought that it would have been useless) and we thankfully do not have so many guns floating around now.
I wish you an agreeable stay in London and a useful and pleasant visit to your tailor. Perhaps we could organize a lunch there sometimes with other members of the forum, if we can sychronise our travel plans.
What are UXBs, if I may ask?
Kind regards,
Frog in Suit
PS: I am older by five years.
Very eloquently put! We did not have nuclear drills in France in my days (the powers that be probably thought that it would have been useless) and we thankfully do not have so many guns floating around now.
I wish you an agreeable stay in London and a useful and pleasant visit to your tailor. Perhaps we could organize a lunch there sometimes with other members of the forum, if we can sychronise our travel plans.
What are UXBs, if I may ask?
Kind regards,
Frog in Suit
PS: I am older by five years.
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storeynicholas
Dear Couch,
I agree that you argue your point of view with great force and persuasiveness and, even if I do not wholly agree with your assessment of the way the world is going now, you make me consider my reasoning.
I too wish you a happy stay in London.
NJS
I agree that you argue your point of view with great force and persuasiveness and, even if I do not wholly agree with your assessment of the way the world is going now, you make me consider my reasoning.
I too wish you a happy stay in London.
NJS
Dear FIS and NJS,
Thank you both for your kind words. FIS, my apologies for the shorthand--UXBs stands for unexploded bombs, a subcategory of which (cluster munitions) has recently been in the news, so it came to mind.
NJS, I believe on most points regarding what is worth emulating and what is worth excoriating in contemporary life we are in entire agreement, and differing views on means and trends is what makes for good scholarship and conversation, yes? It's a privilege to be able to think about these things in such good company. I simply find taking a longer view to be a tonic against despair, and a caution against enthusiasm, to which I am vulnerable enough as it is.
By coincidence, I just today read in the latest New York Review of Books a superb and evenhanded review by John Brewer of the latest volume in the New Oxford History of Britain by Boyd Hilton, which addresses part of the period we were touching on, from 1783-1846. Hilton has provocatively titled the volume "A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?" This review essay is quite lively and penetrating, as one would expect of Brewer, and besides being readable raises some of our questions as problems of historiography: how do we know, weight, and narrate the different forces that result in societal change? Who evaluates the costs and benefits? Fascinating stuff.
Here is a link to the essay, if you're interested:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21573
If for some reason you are denied access to the article, I'll be happy to send the text in a PM.
Off to begin packing!
(FIS, I'd be delighted to lunch with you and any other members. I'll be in town from 15-28 June except for the 19, 20, and 27, when I'll be in the Peaks or Cambridge. I can be free for lunch on any of several days, so let me know in the next couple of days if you'd like to try to meet. I had tentatively been thinking of trying Bentley's between 1 and 2 p.m. on Tuesday 17 June. How does that sound?)
Cheers,
Randall
Thank you both for your kind words. FIS, my apologies for the shorthand--UXBs stands for unexploded bombs, a subcategory of which (cluster munitions) has recently been in the news, so it came to mind.
NJS, I believe on most points regarding what is worth emulating and what is worth excoriating in contemporary life we are in entire agreement, and differing views on means and trends is what makes for good scholarship and conversation, yes? It's a privilege to be able to think about these things in such good company. I simply find taking a longer view to be a tonic against despair, and a caution against enthusiasm, to which I am vulnerable enough as it is.
By coincidence, I just today read in the latest New York Review of Books a superb and evenhanded review by John Brewer of the latest volume in the New Oxford History of Britain by Boyd Hilton, which addresses part of the period we were touching on, from 1783-1846. Hilton has provocatively titled the volume "A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?" This review essay is quite lively and penetrating, as one would expect of Brewer, and besides being readable raises some of our questions as problems of historiography: how do we know, weight, and narrate the different forces that result in societal change? Who evaluates the costs and benefits? Fascinating stuff.
Here is a link to the essay, if you're interested:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21573
If for some reason you are denied access to the article, I'll be happy to send the text in a PM.
Off to begin packing!
(FIS, I'd be delighted to lunch with you and any other members. I'll be in town from 15-28 June except for the 19, 20, and 27, when I'll be in the Peaks or Cambridge. I can be free for lunch on any of several days, so let me know in the next couple of days if you'd like to try to meet. I had tentatively been thinking of trying Bentley's between 1 and 2 p.m. on Tuesday 17 June. How does that sound?)
Cheers,
Randall
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storeynicholas
Dear Couch,
I think that you have hit the nail on the head with your assessment of the differences in our views. I am aware that I am sometimes too gloomy, retrospective and even sentimental and there is a great deal to be said for making the best of it all and seeing the best too. However, if more people rattled the sabre, in the face of hooliganism - some of it state-sponsored - there would be more order in the world. I shall certainly read the essay for which you kindly sent the link. I too enjoy these discussions very much, especially as we are in quite a sleepy hollow here! When we start travelling again, it would be excellent to meet you and other LL members for lunch - which is still often something in London of which no one would need to complain.
best,
Nicholas.
I think that you have hit the nail on the head with your assessment of the differences in our views. I am aware that I am sometimes too gloomy, retrospective and even sentimental and there is a great deal to be said for making the best of it all and seeing the best too. However, if more people rattled the sabre, in the face of hooliganism - some of it state-sponsored - there would be more order in the world. I shall certainly read the essay for which you kindly sent the link. I too enjoy these discussions very much, especially as we are in quite a sleepy hollow here! When we start travelling again, it would be excellent to meet you and other LL members for lunch - which is still often something in London of which no one would need to complain.
best,
Nicholas.
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Frog in Suit
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Dear Couch,couch wrote:(FIS, I'd be delighted to lunch with you and any other members. I'll be in town from 15-28 June except for the 19, 20, and 27, when I'll be in the Peaks or Cambridge. I can be free for lunch on any of several days, so let me know in the next couple of days if you'd like to try to meet. I had tentatively been thinking of trying Bentley's between 1 and 2 p.m. on Tuesday 17 June. How does that sound?)
Cheers,
Randall
Just a quick answer before I get dresssed and go (to a porcelain exhibition, with my Dear Wife). I regret that I unfortunately cannot make it on those dates. We are still dependent on school holidays, which only start at the end of June. We are all going to Scotland for about a week (our younger son is very interested in that country), then to London (without the children) between the 21st and the 23rd of July. (We might make it to Bentley's).
I shall keep my eyes open for the essay in the NYRB. My wife subscribes. Thank you for the reference.
Some other time, I hope.
Kind regards,
Frog in Suit
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chatterton
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Dear gentlemen, apropos neckties, don't you know where Prince Charles buys his?
I too have been wondering about this recently, noticing in some photographs that his four-in-hand knots usually tie nice and small.chatterton wrote:Dear gentlemen, apropos neckties, don't you know where Prince Charles buys his?
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