Video

Confidence

By Kevin Steel ⋅ November 4, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

I went looking for a video of the opening of the Kenneth Clark series, Civilisation, where the host speaks about society and confidence. Though I didn’t find it, I discovered that on Oct. 22 someone had posted Clark’s statement from the end of the series which refers to the remarks on confidence at the beginning;

Here’s my transcript;

At this point I reveal myself in my true colours as a stick in the mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole, I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance. And I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that in spite of recent triumphs of science men haven’t changed much the last 2,000 years. And in consequence we must still try to learn from history: history is ourselves.

I also hold one or two beliefs that are more difficult to put shortly. For example, I believe in courtesy–the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos. And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters.

Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals and I value a society that makes their existence possible.

These programs have been filled with great works of genius, in architecture, sculpture and painting, in philosophy, poetry and music, in science and engineering. There they are. You can’t dismiss them. And they’re only a fraction of what Western man has achieved in the last thousand years, often after setbacks and deviations at least as destructive as those of our own time. Western civilisation has been a series of rebirths. Surely this should give us confidence in ourselves. I said at the beginning of the series that it’s lack of confidence more than anything else that kills a civilisation. We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion just as effectively as by bombs. Fifty years ago, W. B. Yeats, who was more like a man of genius than anyone I’ve ever known, wrote a prophetic poem and in it he said;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Well, that was certainly true between the wars and it damn nearly destroyed us. Is it true today? Not quite because good people have convictions, rather too many of them. The trouble is that there is still no centre. The moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism. And that isn’t enough. One may be optimistic, but one can’t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us.”