No, Hodge was right. What you get after a revolution. The French revolution say, is a cultural revolution. This is a "good" thing. Let me give you the example of the Mexican Cultural revolution, which was messy and partial, like the Mexican Revolution itself.
Well before the revolution the descendants of the Olmecs and the Zapotecs and the Tarascos and the Aztecs and the Mayas were despised and looked down upon by the ruling class in Mexico. After the Revolution this changed. Now in every school in Mexico they are taught to be fiercely proud of the achievements of the old Mexican civilisations going back about 3000 years. Statues to the kings and princes, like Cuahtemoc and Nezahualcoyatl, went up in every town. And when we look at France, or at any country that has been mature enough and lucky enough to get rid of its ancien regime, then we see the cultural flowering that happened as a result. Russia in the 20s, despite the grinding poverty and the civil war, was a great cultural force in the world.
But in Britain we have not had this cultural flowering yet. This flowering when a nation discovers its true national identity. When everyone, somehow, becomes equal and the true value of things shine and a great creative force is liberated. Instead we have the establishment and its porous edges and ceremonies of belonging. The proms is one of those ceremonies of belonging. Henley is another, and so it goes.
These events are not affirmations of identity, they are clubby and represent a form of British elitism, that in itself has little or no great quality. Playing "Pomp and Circumstance" may one day, somehow, represent "Britain" but I don't see it. Unless it's played ironically, especially in the face of the sons of the empire builders: who were British and Indian and African and Chinese and Latin American and Australian and Islanders and and and many of whom have their representatives here.
We talk about the disestablishment of the Anglican Church and how to get rid of the Monarchy and become a republic and how to increase social justice and how to act responsibly as a nation in the face of all these challenges to our humanity: principally how to face down the profit hungry corporations.
The Proms are an incidental part of all that, and if we do manage one day to build a Jerusalem for everyone in the UK, I doubt the Proms will survive the cultural revolution that would ensue.
Well before the revolution the descendants of the Olmecs and the Zapotecs and the Tarascos and the Aztecs and the Mayas were despised and looked down upon by the ruling class in Mexico. After the Revolution this changed. Now in every school in Mexico they are taught to be fiercely proud of the achievements of the old Mexican civilisations going back about 3000 years. Statues to the kings and princes, like Cuahtemoc and Nezahualcoyatl, went up in every town. And when we look at France, or at any country that has been mature enough and lucky enough to get rid of its ancien regime, then we see the cultural flowering that happened as a result. Russia in the 20s, despite the grinding poverty and the civil war, was a great cultural force in the world.
But in Britain we have not had this cultural flowering yet. This flowering when a nation discovers its true national identity. When everyone, somehow, becomes equal and the true value of things shine and a great creative force is liberated. Instead we have the establishment and its porous edges and ceremonies of belonging. The proms is one of those ceremonies of belonging. Henley is another, and so it goes.
These events are not affirmations of identity, they are clubby and represent a form of British elitism, that in itself has little or no great quality. Playing "Pomp and Circumstance" may one day, somehow, represent "Britain" but I don't see it. Unless it's played ironically, especially in the face of the sons of the empire builders: who were British and Indian and African and Chinese and Latin American and Australian and Islanders and and and many of whom have their representatives here.
We talk about the disestablishment of the Anglican Church and how to get rid of the Monarchy and become a republic and how to increase social justice and how to act responsibly as a nation in the face of all these challenges to our humanity: principally how to face down the profit hungry corporations.
The Proms are an incidental part of all that, and if we do manage one day to build a Jerusalem for everyone in the UK, I doubt the Proms will survive the cultural revolution that would ensue.
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