The Curzon Problem

Character is sacrificed, but it counts forever.

I used to be more provocative than I am. I have learned a lesson from the latter life of the late George Carlin. He was rich, intelligent, popular and angry. Most of all, he was angry at Americans for allowing foolishness to rule. In his entire life of incisive comic routines, started by the seven words you can’t say on TV, he was fortunate to have died before the advent and growth of prosocial censorship. Yet his last comedy specials, as much as he taught us about the Orwellian abuse of language, ironically we could read between his lines. He was mad at his own audience. A ten minute bit called Dumb Americans in his act Life is Worth Losing convinced me that there’s nothing quite as sad as a bitter old revolutionary with heart problems. So I’ve adjusted myself away from trading barbs.

It’s almost too bad that Carlin didn’t live to see, digest and roast Obama, Trump and Biden. He was funny enough in the film Dogma to sway reasonable theists and unreasonable atheists with wit and candor. Alas.

Today, in between my bouts of depression over what the shackles of automation have already done to the business that used to be called Personnel, I find myself enjoying Winston Churchill’s writing with immense pleasure. The chapter in Great Contemporaries I found most compelling yesterday is that on an Englishman named George Nathaniel Curzon. To wit:

But with all this, his charm, his good looks, his fun and his natural ascendancy won him without question the acceptance of the boys and extorted the respect of the scored-off masters. He was certainly not the model pupil, but far and away the most proficient. He matured at an uncanny speed. Before he was seventeen his vocabulary became abundant, his sentences sonorous, and his taste in words polished. His entries in the record of events kept by the ‘Captain of the Oppidans’ are a school legend for amplitude and magniloquence. His ideas and stock of knowledge kept pace with his fluency of speech and writing. He animated and inspired the Eton Debating Society, and led Mr. Gladstone, at the height of his career, a docile captive, to address it. Everyone remarked his present eminence and predicted his future fame.

His four years at Oxford were not less conspicuous. He focused his main attention directly upon politics. His academic studies took a second place in his interest and gained him only a Second Class in the examination. But he swiftly rose to be the leader of youthful Tory opinion. He sustained the Chatham and Canning Clubs. He became President of the Union. He wrote voluminously and spoke continually. He infused energy into everything he touched. His infant reputation spread beyond the University and throughout the aristocratic circles which in those days dominated the political scene. He was at twenty-one notorious as ‘The Coming Man.’

The word ‘notorious’ is used advisedly, for with all this early glitter there mingled an innocent but none the less serious tarnish. His facility carried him with a bound into prolixity; his ceremonious diction wore the aspect of pomposity; his wide knowledge was accused of superficiality; his natural pre-eminence was accompanied by airs of superiority. Nevertheless, all these were but the under-currents to a tide that flowed strongly and hopefully forward.

Churchill, Winston S.. Great Contemporaries (Winston S. Churchill Essays and Other Works) (pp. 262-263). (Function). Kindle Edition.

He might have been PM

Curzon was a boy wonder, a whiz kid of the first order. And in that empire that was Great Britain, he practically waltzed into the House of Commons, ultimately becoming the Viceroy of India. Need I tell you how big a deal that was. It is with particular interest that I note Churchill’s estimation with his particular skills with writing.

George Curzon was a wonderful letter-writer. The toil of calligraphy was a pleasure to him. He could drive a quill or a steel nib in fine style faster and longer than anyone I have known. He must have written letters for many hours a day and far through the night into the new day. Propped up in the steel corsets which sustained his spine, he would write and write, charming, weighty, magnificent letters, often about not much. It was a relief to him, and perhaps unconsciously a counter-irritant to his almost constant pain or discomfort.

I remember in 1903 during his Viceroyalty in India going to see the first Lady Curzon, formerly Miss Leiter—(‘the Leiter of Asia,’ as the wags said)—one of the most beautiful, delightful women of her day, when she was recovering in England from the first attack of her ultimately fatal illness. She showed me a letter from her husband in India. It was a hundred pages long! She showed me the numbers on the pages. All was written in his graceful legible flowing hand. But a hundred pages!

We are told these dark days that the light of AI is on the horizon. There are among us already various mediocre and competent intelligences that might be housed on a computer we peasants can afford. On the horizon are bigger, better and brighter compilations trained in billion dollar computer complexes that, like the gigantic smokestack factories of the 20th century, promise prosperity and a better life for all mankind. Just look at the numbers.

Of course who would be foolish enough to stop at mere human intelligence when there is the possibility for super-intelligence to be found. Maybe even one we might dispatch off to Congress or for the governance of our Outlying Islands and Possessions. Or perhaps one we could employ to outwit and negotiate the peace with Putin. Wouldn’t that be swell?

Yet here I am in my dark room listening to an actual human voice actor take on various characterizations of Churchill’s prose from nearly 100 years ago as he describes the failure of that Old Etonian Curzon at the hands of some crafty character by the name of Mr. Lloyd George under whom Curzon was played and used but never let into the inner circle. This is the way of power and sharp players divine ways in, out and around towards ultimate success. Yet Curzon, despite his alacrity, peerless intelligence and years of service, was thwarted. While he retained the favor and support of his political compatriots and was considered for the highest office in Great Britain, the Prime Minister, the man sitting in that chair, in ill health communicated:

‘I understand that it is not customary for the King to ask the Prime Minister to recommend his successor in circumstances like the present, and I presume he will not do so; but if, as I hope, he accepts my resignation at once, he will have to take immediate steps about my successor.’ This, of course, recognized the priority of Curzon’s claim, but was non-committal.

---

I don’t know much about the history of Prime Ministers, but Churchill’s account provides me with a unique kind of understanding about that world of leadership, personalities, skills, character and bearing that are the hallmarks of greatness. The dynamic of such a man’s judgement of another, if it is possible to look into one’s eyes and observe his behavior reconciled with what written record there is and what others you respect have told you; this is something I recognize. Yet I wonder what it is that keeps me, that keeps other Americans at such a distance from that realm of human intercourse. It is eternally puzzling to me, for here I stand as a writer of thousands of essays, certainly in volume far outstripping my lines of logical code, and still the world of letters escapes me. I say so with a sense not so much of personal dissatisfaction. I think I have measured my ambition and have enjoyed what reasonable prospects of success I could. What annoys is that my assumptions about that place I once called ‘the noble arena’ is so far from the reality of our society.

It’s as if we’re all speeches with no poetry. It’s as if we produce nothing but word salad which bears no weight or responsibility and engenders no sense of duty. It’s like the old Hollywood joke about sincerity. Once you learn how to fake that, you’ve got it made.

So I’m left to wonder how I might employ myself to make some Curzon-esque master of verbiage… No I’m not. I don’t wonder for myself. I wonder for those of us at loose ends if our quanta of solace will indeed come from the comforts and assurances of society - the world outside of our necessary intimate and family ties. Are we all left to abide in little abandoned houses on an infinite prairie beneath a cloud of automation? As much as we talk about free speech and civil liberty, how much will fall through those clouds and rain properly on us as gravity demands?

I’m simply saying that, unlike Carlin, I still care.

---

I have faith in basic human biology inclusive of its mammalian intelligence. Every time I see babies and puppies, I am surely reminded. Most of the time I don’t need that level of immersive therapy, as Stoicism and awareness of the Tao keeps me cool. But I don’t weigh the same every day. Sometimes start writing into my computer and don’t brush my teeth until 10AM. Sometimes I walk my mile and do my pullups and wave to the neighbors walking their dogs. Don’t believe in magic.