La Rochefoucauld was one of the great satirists in literature. His Maximes, written in the 17th Century, secured his place as the master of the ‘aphorism’ – the short pithy phrase.
He was a nobleman of his time, contemptuous of his own aristocratic milieu admired later by Nietzsche. His moral maxims made fun of the pretentious and virtue-sodden and, like Alexander Pope and Oscar Wilde, could see through the hideous nature of public virtue and private squalor.
The Frondeur (aristocratic rebel) was forever falling into quarrels with Cardinal Richelieu, and once spent eight days in the Bastille for hatching a plot to carry the notorious enemy of the Cardinal, Madame de Chevreuse, on horseback to Brussels.
Rochefoucauld would have had a riot in today’s Woke world.
For him, that world would be a place which ‘oftener rewards the appearance of merit than merit itself’. The likes of Starmer and Lammy, in Britain, would provide ample material for humour. Lammy, the man who thinks Libya is next to Syria, would perhaps have been the victim of one of his acidic asides:
‘To awaken a man who is deceived as to his own merit is to do him as bad a turn as that done to the Athenian madman who was happy in believing that all the ships touching at the port belonged to him.’
For Harry and Meghan, the virtue King and Queen of Montecito, there would always be this rebuke. Alas, poor Harry:
’The power which women whom we love have over us is greater than that which we have over ourselves.’
It appears today that satire is not tolerated, that the Brahmins of liberal media detest humour of any form, anything self deprecatory. There is a dull uniformity of thought across Britain’s media which is intolerant of debate. It seeps into every profession. However out of this penchant for uniformity lurks a fear, a fear of rejection, a kind of common narcissism:
‘The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice.’
It is therefore the cancelling culture, such as the man in the UK Civil Service, recently fired for ‘following’ Tommy Robinson on Facebook. Yet the Woke Ancien Régime which has ruled the roost, through ignorance and fear for the past 30 years, is now in abeyance. And, like Zuckerberg, some have ‘read the room’ at the White House and started the ‘Conservative Turn’. This will be copied by the liberal corporations who will now divest from diversity programs or face pecuniary charges in the US. The Woke revolution came from a type of ‘ressentiment’ of the modern clercdom against anything noble or aspiring:
‘There is a general revolution which changes the tastes of the mind as well as the fortunes of the world.’
Nevertheless, Britain will soldier on stuck in an ideological and political limbo; beating the tin drum of Woke whilst the fortunes of the once industrial nation crumbles amidst illogical economic policy and a visceral hatred of its own indigenous people.
The Chancellor, the retail banking assistant from NatWest, Rachel Reeves, went on a long march to China this week to woe the business of the Chinese. Smell the coffee, Rachel; it’s the US you should be wooing.
The early signs of the post -liberal age are there, with the U-turn on a national enquiry into the grooming scandal. The original ignoring of the rape of white girls by Pakistani men in Britain, and its cover up by the government, the police, and social services, so as not to offend the multicultural paradise, will face atonement of some sort. Soon the likes of Starmer and Lammy will be long forgotten; their vapid personalities reflected in their absence of profundity:
‘There are people who are like farces, which are praised but for a time (however foolish and distasteful they may be).’
And what of the Trahison de clercs of Europe, the civil servants of Brussels, and the associated mannequins of European elites bowing in supplication to them? Will they realise the paucity of the European defence situation created by Angela Merkel and a host of metrosexuals relying on Nato to do their bidding? The winds of change are upon us. The GeoEconomic age, where GeoPolitics is dictated by brute economic diktats, not rainbow flag waving greens. The European bureaucratic class, having not known the torture of industry or labour, have no sense of their intolerance to discomfort.
‘That man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage.’
The Russians, the Chinese are accustomed to hardship. With the collapse of the industrial work ethic Europe has become infantile. Even the army and the police accommodate the lunacies of gender philosophies. However, pen pushing and rainbow festivals do not keep your borders secure. The patriotic working class, forever the saviour of the warring European elites in history, now despised by them, will not this time rush to enrol. There is no Henry Vth or Churchill, for the ordinary man has been forgotten.
In the end fashionable moments such as liberal righteousness pass over like sullen grey clouds. The human spirit or will, returns like a ship of old, chartering its course, amidst an occasional torrent:
‘The taste changes, but the will remains the same.’
Brian Patrick Bolger. He has taught political philosophy and applied linguistics in universities across Europe. His articles have appeared in the US, the UK, Italy, Canada and Germany. His new book, ‘Nowhere Fast: Democracy and Identity in the Twenty First Century’ is published now by Ethics International Press. He is an adviser to several Think Tanks and Corporates on Geopolitical Issues.