“Blues
Twentieth century blues
They’re getting me down
Who’s
Escaped those weary
Twentieth century blues?
In this strange illusion
Chaos and confusion
People seem to lose their way
What is there to strive for
Love or keep alive for
Say, ‘Hey, hey!’
Call it a day”
I don’t think the great Noel Coward, whose song this of course is, ever really thought of “calling it a day” but being born a week or so before the Century began he lived through enough events to give anyone the “blues” – though in the main his personal life was a happy, if unconventional, one.
I was born 47 years after Sir Noel and my generation, certainly in Britain, is regarded as “lucky” – rightly I think. This can make us sometimes self-satisfied and arrogant. We are privileged in many ways, not least in never having to wear uniform unless we chose to. We’ve had good healthcare and education – new Universities were built for us! There have mostly been jobs for us, foreign travel and freedoms even our parents couldn’t have imagined were possible. We have a few whingers though and a bit of an “entitlement” mindset. But mostly we never “had it so good”.
But has the bubble burst, and are we to blame? I went to a new production of Wagner’s “Meistersinger” in Düsseldorf on Saturday. In it law and order breaks down in the Nuremberg of the 2030s and by 2035 there is a military dictatorship. Yesterday morning as I waited for a flight home I saw footage from France of just such a serious breakdown in order. Last night some in the audience booed Daniel Kramer’s dystopian portrayal of a newly fascist Germany. Are they booing now?
Leadership is a continuum from genuinely engaging and participative at one end to dictatorship at the other. Sometimes the switch from the former to the latter is missed as it happens. The insanity of Trump a present-day example. Just read the history of the Weimar Republic if you think I exaggerate. Liberties had gone a long time before there were tanks in the streets. (Unburdened by democratic sensibilities the Chinese sent in the tanks in Beijing in 1989 as soon as there was trouble.)
The key is the presence, or absence, of checks and balances. The United States is proud of its Constitution. A great legacy of the Founding Fathers. But it failed to prevent the Civil War. It failed to protect the post-Civil War rights of the African American population. And in the Trump autocracy it’s failing again. Noble words can’t always prevent ignoble actions.
In this “chaos and confusion” many are indeed “losing their way”. Britain post-2010 has had seven Prime Ministers – an unprecedented turnover. In Daniel Kramer’s Meistersinger model this could surely only lead to an extra-constitutional power grab by a man, or group, in uniform. Do we have the strength here, or in France or Germany democratically to resist this? I’m not sure that we do. In America even if Trump departs the scene the likely successor cabal is terrifying. “Far worse than Trump” as perceptive commentator Louise Mensch put it to me.
Complacency is the biggest threat but almost as big is the search for figures to blame. The ubiquity and availability of media is such that it’s hard to avoid the disturbing events around us. They inevitably, all too often, lead to people trying to identify someone or something to blame. Refugees didn’t escape from what they saw as oppression on a whim. But when they arrive in a safe haven in Western Europe and Britain they are routinely vilified by people who see them as a threat. That was one of the themes in Düsseldorf.
The “Twenty-first Century Blues” have common characteristics with the previous century. Power still corrupts and absolute power absolutely. Trump again, but not just him. Once respected institutions from the British Royal Family, to famous branded companies and sports teams and celebrities in all walks of life fall seem to fall from grace daily. Column inches ( and the digital equivalent) can cause a loss of public trust instantly.
Dialogue, especially on Social Media, all too often descends to abuse. Where once there was informed debate now there is inflexibility of opinions and a shouting match. Positions are defended with a stubborn refusal to accept the possibility of having been mistaken. After ten years of living with first the threat and then the gruesome reality of Brexit few if any of its original proponents have admitted they were wrong. Despite the unshakable evidence all around.
In these circumstances, despite there being plenty to “strive for” and “keep alive for”, the fact that honest politicians and truthful commentators are a rarity could well make us shrug and say “why bother” ?
The writer and theologian Thomas Merton said “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” That was my take on the “Deutsche Oper am Rhein’s” Meistersinger. Setting it in the present day challenged us in a way a more traditional historical setting would not. And moving into a frightening future even more so. Daniel Kramer’s timing was no doubt coincidental. But to see masked rioters clad in black on the stage in Düsseldorf at precisely the same time that they were rioting in Paris was chilling.
