'Housman Was Perfectly Right'

In the introduction to his most recent book, Gallimaufry: A Collection of Essays, Reviews, Bits (2020), Joseph Epstein writes: 

“In so heatedly political an atmosphere as ours, one cannot avoid engaging with politics, at least not entirely. Still, as a man without a theory of government, or strong opinions on foreign policy, or much in the way of knowledge about economics, I continue to prefer to believe that I am only political enough to protect myself from the politics of others.”

 

The problem is, politics and its enthusiasts increasingly have no manners (let's put morals aside for the moment). They are not respecters of autonomy. Power is their aphrodisiac. It’s as though everyone has become a telemarketer on speed-dial, with or without a phone. They’re not selling time shares or their pet charity but a vision of how the world ought to be run. This is not a realm where the genteel can safely go about their business. In the Sixties, when the trendy-minded were fond of proclaiming that “All politics is personal” – they really meant it. Yentas of the world, unite!

 

A late poem by Auden is titled “A Shock” (Epistle to a Godson, and Other Poems, 1972), and it begins: “Housman was perfectly right: / our world rapidly worsens. / Nothing now is so horrid / or silly it can’t occur.” What triggered Auden – “upper-middle-class me” – was being frisked for weapons by a cop at the airport in Vienna. The following year, during my first visit to Europe, security men with machine guns patrolled the airport in Munich and I too was frisked for weapons. It was the high season for airline highjackings. A year earlier, eleven Israeli athletes and a policeman had been massacred in Munich.

 

Auden wrote and abandoned a book in 1939, shortly after arriving in the U.S. It was published posthumously as The Prolific and the Devourer. In it he illuminates why politics has grown so popular among the arrogant and pushy:   

 

“There are many people, and they number some artists among them, who today seek in politics an escape from the unhappiness of their private lives, as once people sought refuge in the monastery and convent. Driven by envy and hatred they spread discomfort wherever they go and ruin everything they touch. A wise political party will have nothing to do with them.”