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Two Cheers for Democracy
Essays that applaud democracy's toleration of individual freedom and self-criticism and deplore its encouragement of mediocrity: "We may still contrive to raise three cheers for democracy, although at present she only deserves two."
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 24, 1962
About the author
E.M. Forster
578 books3,698 followersEdward Morgan Forster, generally published as E.M. Forster, was an novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect".
He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.
Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.
Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 4, 2018
The guy writing this was an erudite, no doubts! However, I do have a few apprehensions that I would like to share with the readers of this book. First that the book contains a few obvious contradictions. I have highlighted this and many other things in the book which are ambiguous in an essay I wrote. You can read it here on my website: Two Cheers for Democracy
June 21, 2012
Surprisingly, I really enjoyed some of these essays. "What I Believe" contains one of my favorite quotes from literature: "What is so wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it, towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also the creative impulse. Lost in the beauty where he was lost, we find more than we ever threw away, we reach what seems to be our spiritual home, and remember that it was not the speaker who was in the beginning but the Word."
June 25, 2019
I wished I liked it more but his writing style in his essays didn't captivate me, felt very dry. There were some highlights but I had trouble connecting and felt like I was reading someone's diary without the proper context.
December 1, 2019
I enjoyed this collection of essays and radio talks by E.M. Forster very much. I read one essay every morning while I was having my first tea of the day, and Forster has this quiet conversational way of writing that made it feel like I was having a short chat with him. The topics range from politics over art, books and writers to places, and the thing I appreciate most about him is that he can say, "I may not like this or approve of it, but this is something that concerns young women/young men, and so my opinion doesn't count."
While it can be a depressing read at times because the topics he addresses still need addressing eighty years later, his views and attitude and intelligence are a balm for the soul. In times like these, it helps reminding yourself that good people exist and always have existed and will exist. That is worth something.
It's not a book that I would recommend to someone who hasn't read any Forster yet, but if you like non-fiction and essays and want to learn more about him, this is a good book. I'm very glad I have another volume of his essays still to read and also hope that for the 50th anniversary of his death there will be a new collected edition of his work because I would love a proper one.
While it can be a depressing read at times because the topics he addresses still need addressing eighty years later, his views and attitude and intelligence are a balm for the soul. In times like these, it helps reminding yourself that good people exist and always have existed and will exist. That is worth something.
It's not a book that I would recommend to someone who hasn't read any Forster yet, but if you like non-fiction and essays and want to learn more about him, this is a good book. I'm very glad I have another volume of his essays still to read and also hope that for the 50th anniversary of his death there will be a new collected edition of his work because I would love a proper one.
June 19, 2017
These essays remind me what is missing in our current age: an erudite thoughtful man with critical thinking skills who sustains ideas far beyond the blog and tweeting crowd.
There are 10 essays here that I think are superb: Tolerance, What I Believe, Gide and George, Virginia Woolf: The Rede Lecture, The Enchafed Flood, English Prose between 1918 and 1939, In My Library, The London Library, and, The United States. The rest is a bit too arcane; these ten are the meat of the book for me.
If you wonder what kind of books intelligent people used to read, this is it. You might not find everything to your taste but the range of his interests and knowledge is impressive, as well as the depth of his humanity, all again something rare in today's world.
The decline of Western civilization is clear when you compare the level of writing in this book of essays with contemporary writing...
There are 10 essays here that I think are superb: Tolerance, What I Believe, Gide and George, Virginia Woolf: The Rede Lecture, The Enchafed Flood, English Prose between 1918 and 1939, In My Library, The London Library, and, The United States. The rest is a bit too arcane; these ten are the meat of the book for me.
If you wonder what kind of books intelligent people used to read, this is it. You might not find everything to your taste but the range of his interests and knowledge is impressive, as well as the depth of his humanity, all again something rare in today's world.
The decline of Western civilization is clear when you compare the level of writing in this book of essays with contemporary writing...
February 7, 2024
3.5 stars - I don't agree with everything in these essays - but then imagine coming across someone that you agreed with on every subject? There is humanity in Forster's writing - a belief that it is always worthwhile to be good and care for those around you.
It's also important to recognise that much of this was written 70 to 80 years ago and is fundamentally dated. There is also a number of essays on topics I don't have particular interest in - a short essay about the musical scale c minor, another about a novel I've never even heard of. Despite this, there are beautiful and astute moments. A lot of it reads as a scarily accurate prediction of the future (now our past). I would have loved to have a conversation with Forster - you never get the impression that he is some great authority, but just someone who cares and thinks deeply. You don't have to agree with him but here are his thoughts anyway - what are yours?
"No better and stronger League of Nations will be instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christianity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual; no "change of heart" will occur. And yet we need not despair, indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scientific and donestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had better follow their example under the shadows of aeroplanes. Others, with more vision
or courage than myself, see the salvation of humanity ahead, and will dismiss my conception of civilisation as paltry, a sort of tip-and-run game. Certainly it is presumptuous to say that we cannot improve, and that Man, who has only been in power for a few thousand years, will never learn to make use of his power. All I mean is that, if people continue to kill one another as they do, the world cannot get better than it is, and that since there are more people than formerly, and their means for destroying one another superior, the world may well get worse. What is good in people - and consequently in the world - is their insistence on creation, their belief in friendship and loyalty for their own sakes; and though Violence remains and is, indeed, the major partner in this muddled establishment, I believe that creativeness remains too, and will always assume direction when violence sleeps."
It's also important to recognise that much of this was written 70 to 80 years ago and is fundamentally dated. There is also a number of essays on topics I don't have particular interest in - a short essay about the musical scale c minor, another about a novel I've never even heard of. Despite this, there are beautiful and astute moments. A lot of it reads as a scarily accurate prediction of the future (now our past). I would have loved to have a conversation with Forster - you never get the impression that he is some great authority, but just someone who cares and thinks deeply. You don't have to agree with him but here are his thoughts anyway - what are yours?
"No better and stronger League of Nations will be instituted; no form of Christianity and no alternative to Christianity will bring peace to the world or integrity to the individual; no "change of heart" will occur. And yet we need not despair, indeed, we cannot despair; the evidence of history shows us that men have always insisted on behaving creatively under the shadow of the sword; that they have done their artistic and scientific and donestic stuff for the sake of doing it, and that we had better follow their example under the shadows of aeroplanes. Others, with more vision
or courage than myself, see the salvation of humanity ahead, and will dismiss my conception of civilisation as paltry, a sort of tip-and-run game. Certainly it is presumptuous to say that we cannot improve, and that Man, who has only been in power for a few thousand years, will never learn to make use of his power. All I mean is that, if people continue to kill one another as they do, the world cannot get better than it is, and that since there are more people than formerly, and their means for destroying one another superior, the world may well get worse. What is good in people - and consequently in the world - is their insistence on creation, their belief in friendship and loyalty for their own sakes; and though Violence remains and is, indeed, the major partner in this muddled establishment, I believe that creativeness remains too, and will always assume direction when violence sleeps."
August 13, 2016
CONTENTS
PART I. The Second Darkness
The Last Parade
The Menace to Freedom
Jew-Consciousness
Our Deputation
Racial Exercise
Post-Munich
Gerald Heard
They Hold Their Tongues
Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts:
1. Culture and Freedom
2. What has Germany done to the Germans?
3.What would Germany do to us?
Tolerance
Ronald Kidd
The Tercentenary of the "Areopagitica"
The Challenge of Our Time
George Orwell
PART II. What I Believe
Arts in General
Anonymity: An Enquiry
Art for Art's Sake
The Duty of Society to the Artist
Does Culture Matter?
The Raison d'etre of Criticism in the Arts
The C Minor of that Life
Not Listening to Music
Not Looking at Pictures
The Arts in Action
John Skelton
"Julius Caesar"
The Stratford Jubilee of 1769
Gibbon and his "Autobiography"
Voltaire and Frederick the Great
George Crabbe and Peter Grimes
Bishop Jebb's Book
Henry Thornton
William Arnold
"Snow" Wedgwood
William Barnes
Three Stories by Tolstoy
Edward Carpenter
Webb and Webb
A Book that Influenced Me
Our Second Greatest Novel?
Gide and George
Gide's Death
Romain Rolland and the Hero
A Whiff of d'Annunzio
Virginia Woolf
Two Books by T. S. Eliot
"The Ascent of F.6"
"The Enchafed Flood"
Forrest Reid
English Prose Between 1918 and 1939
An Outsider On Poetry
Mohammed Iqbal
Syed Ross Masood
A Duke Remembers
Mrs. Miniver
In My Library
The London Library
Places
A Letter to Madan Blanchard
India Again
Luncheon at Pretoria
The United States
Mount Lebanon
Ferney
Clouds Hill
Cambridge
London is a Muddle
The Last of Abinger
PART I. The Second Darkness
The Last Parade
The Menace to Freedom
Jew-Consciousness
Our Deputation
Racial Exercise
Post-Munich
Gerald Heard
They Hold Their Tongues
Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts:
1. Culture and Freedom
2. What has Germany done to the Germans?
3.What would Germany do to us?
Tolerance
Ronald Kidd
The Tercentenary of the "Areopagitica"
The Challenge of Our Time
George Orwell
PART II. What I Believe
Arts in General
Anonymity: An Enquiry
Art for Art's Sake
The Duty of Society to the Artist
Does Culture Matter?
The Raison d'etre of Criticism in the Arts
The C Minor of that Life
Not Listening to Music
Not Looking at Pictures
The Arts in Action
John Skelton
"Julius Caesar"
The Stratford Jubilee of 1769
Gibbon and his "Autobiography"
Voltaire and Frederick the Great
George Crabbe and Peter Grimes
Bishop Jebb's Book
Henry Thornton
William Arnold
"Snow" Wedgwood
William Barnes
Three Stories by Tolstoy
Edward Carpenter
Webb and Webb
A Book that Influenced Me
Our Second Greatest Novel?
Gide and George
Gide's Death
Romain Rolland and the Hero
A Whiff of d'Annunzio
Virginia Woolf
Two Books by T. S. Eliot
"The Ascent of F.6"
"The Enchafed Flood"
Forrest Reid
English Prose Between 1918 and 1939
An Outsider On Poetry
Mohammed Iqbal
Syed Ross Masood
A Duke Remembers
Mrs. Miniver
In My Library
The London Library
Places
A Letter to Madan Blanchard
India Again
Luncheon at Pretoria
The United States
Mount Lebanon
Ferney
Clouds Hill
Cambridge
London is a Muddle
The Last of Abinger
May 24, 2011
A pleasurable, low-key book that could easily be read in an afternoon or two. I liked the shorter essays better. The Forster that speaks here is middle class and comfortable, and you imagine him sitting in a library. He is a humanist and moderate social reformer who is always trying to see things from the other person's point of view. He is curious about other cultures and places, and a "free-thinker" in the British tradition - i.e. tolerant and kind, artistic and literate, flexible, some might say complacent. In fact, nothing here seems to have much urgency at all, which is strange given the historical context of the war. The tone is almost placcid next to Orwell's dispatches and journals of the same period, in which Orwell fears there is a very high chance of England being overrun either by the Germans or some homegrown variety of totalitarianism. Forster's seems almost oddly detached, as if he finds permanence in his domestic sphere, his books and music, and his ideas. He clearly dislikes showy prose; he prefers the definite to the speculative. Therefor, while there are a lot of memorable phrases and some wise things here, there is almost nothing original and nothing that would change the mind of a person in 2011, disturb or provoke.
January 17, 2010
E.M. Forster's literary output is more than Merchant-Ivory films might have you think. This collection of Forster's generally light-hearted but thoughtful prose from the 1930s through the 1950s records the myriad ways in which two wars and an uncertain peace affected European social, political, and literary culture. His keen-eyed observations gives contemporary readers a clear-eyed perspective on the changes wrought by the passing years both at home and abroad.
October 25, 2010
i can think of few authors i would rather listen to babble on about religion and culture and literature and being nice to each other, dammit. sure, there are some essays on specific authors that i wasn't as interested in, but just to read his description of how much virginia woolf loved the act of writing balanced all that out.
January 10, 2011
I had started reading this only for the "What I Believe" essay, but couldn't put it down. It is witty and insightful and I am finding myself laughing out loud while reading it. After having to read Forster for a Literature class, I am finding him to be a new favorite author of mine. He is a very fascinating man and views and ideas very close to my own.
December 5, 2016
I liked the first half of the book, the second once I passed into his modern English lit-crit section, was a bit thick, what with all these contemporary writers of his I never heard of & such. But the first half is full of some good thoughts, and what might be having a look at in today's new era of President Stumpy. I am sure there are heads set to boil on some accounts in coming years!
September 19, 2022
A grab-bag of Forster’s writing from 1936 – 1951, which, by virtue of its emphasis on the time period, includes some pearls of wisdom, as well as some duds.
Paramount in his mind during this time is the looming WWII, its occurrence, and the rebuilding that follows. These wartime articles are the best ones in this collection. The fear of losing everything: the Empire, his library, his way of life, his ability to think and express freely that would be muzzled under a Nazi regime is palpable and, especially for a writer, takes on nightmarish proportions, which Forster tries to face with equanimity. He laments, not so much for the established writer whose work is already out in the world, but for the writer of tomorrow still gathering grist for their mill, who would be subject to censorship of the Fascists should they cross the Channel. His solution to building a great civilization is not Love, but Tolerance, the ability to accommodate the Other.
Several articles tackle other subjects of art apart from prose literature: music, painting, and poetry. As a person who played piano, his dissertations on music are quite deep (for me), but he is a novice at painting and it shows. Forster’s poetry reviews, mostly of poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, are incisive, and he quotes from the reviewed works quite extensively. He dips into Milton in the 17th century and likens the censorship of that time to that of the Nazi variety in his present. There are also many essays written on lesser-known personalities, some known to him, and about places where he had lived (London, Cambridge, Abinger) or travelled to during his life (India, South Africa, the USA et al). I found the travelogues not as revelatory and only skimming the surface.
Forster was a thinker, and some of his philosophical observations bear repeating:
1. “Lord, I disbelieve. Help thou, my unbelief,” – the prayer of the intellectual.
2. “Spend your money, don’t save it, spend it on art” – his exhortation to citizens of wartime England.
3. If Science could “discover” instead of “apply,” we would be better off.
4. Life has no order, art has.
5. “Think before you speak” – criticism’s motto. “Speak before you think” – creation’s motto.
6. Knowledge must not only be protected from the gangster; it must also be protected from the crowd.
7. “Opinion is but knowledge in the making” – this one borrowed from Milton.
Forster’s criticisms and observations on literary personalities interested me. Virginia Woolf is described as a poet trying to be a writer and hence weak on plot and character. Voltaire is compared to Emperor Frederik of Prussia – a man of truth vs. a man of power. So is Andre Gide the humanist compared to Stefan George the authoritarian. A book is likened to a church – you enter it alone and are awakened to its resonance with our lives.
There you are – a miscellany of writing from an eminent writer, for many of these pieces were extracted from speeches given at prominent lectures at home and abroad. As for the unusual title, democracy gets two cheers for its accommodation of variety (diversity) and its openness to criticism. Given that democracy is the least imperfect of political systems we have still to invent, the third cheer is withheld.
However, although he was liberal in his criticism of others, Forster admits that criticism of his own writing did not work for him, and he often did not take the advice offered. “They said I killed off too many of my characters abruptly. How could I change that? It was a hallmark of my work.”
Paramount in his mind during this time is the looming WWII, its occurrence, and the rebuilding that follows. These wartime articles are the best ones in this collection. The fear of losing everything: the Empire, his library, his way of life, his ability to think and express freely that would be muzzled under a Nazi regime is palpable and, especially for a writer, takes on nightmarish proportions, which Forster tries to face with equanimity. He laments, not so much for the established writer whose work is already out in the world, but for the writer of tomorrow still gathering grist for their mill, who would be subject to censorship of the Fascists should they cross the Channel. His solution to building a great civilization is not Love, but Tolerance, the ability to accommodate the Other.
Several articles tackle other subjects of art apart from prose literature: music, painting, and poetry. As a person who played piano, his dissertations on music are quite deep (for me), but he is a novice at painting and it shows. Forster’s poetry reviews, mostly of poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, are incisive, and he quotes from the reviewed works quite extensively. He dips into Milton in the 17th century and likens the censorship of that time to that of the Nazi variety in his present. There are also many essays written on lesser-known personalities, some known to him, and about places where he had lived (London, Cambridge, Abinger) or travelled to during his life (India, South Africa, the USA et al). I found the travelogues not as revelatory and only skimming the surface.
Forster was a thinker, and some of his philosophical observations bear repeating:
1. “Lord, I disbelieve. Help thou, my unbelief,” – the prayer of the intellectual.
2. “Spend your money, don’t save it, spend it on art” – his exhortation to citizens of wartime England.
3. If Science could “discover” instead of “apply,” we would be better off.
4. Life has no order, art has.
5. “Think before you speak” – criticism’s motto. “Speak before you think” – creation’s motto.
6. Knowledge must not only be protected from the gangster; it must also be protected from the crowd.
7. “Opinion is but knowledge in the making” – this one borrowed from Milton.
Forster’s criticisms and observations on literary personalities interested me. Virginia Woolf is described as a poet trying to be a writer and hence weak on plot and character. Voltaire is compared to Emperor Frederik of Prussia – a man of truth vs. a man of power. So is Andre Gide the humanist compared to Stefan George the authoritarian. A book is likened to a church – you enter it alone and are awakened to its resonance with our lives.
There you are – a miscellany of writing from an eminent writer, for many of these pieces were extracted from speeches given at prominent lectures at home and abroad. As for the unusual title, democracy gets two cheers for its accommodation of variety (diversity) and its openness to criticism. Given that democracy is the least imperfect of political systems we have still to invent, the third cheer is withheld.
However, although he was liberal in his criticism of others, Forster admits that criticism of his own writing did not work for him, and he often did not take the advice offered. “They said I killed off too many of my characters abruptly. How could I change that? It was a hallmark of my work.”
January 13, 2023
E.M. Forster has become one of my friends from the past. I met him in his novels and started conversations with him when reading these essays of him where he conveys his attitude and shares his reflections on life as he experienced it. A person with a subtle sense of humor, not afraid to call himself a prig, and not afraid to speak his mind. He is a gentleman with an open mind and a nostalgia for things passing. I feel connected to him when he says, “I am grateful when a great person comes along and says for me what I can’t say properly for myself”. He was a prolific reader with wide interests. He found joy amongst his books, as all us bibliophiles can attest to. In his essay “In my library” he captures a feeling, “It is very pleasant to sit with them [his books] in the firelight for a couple of minutes, not reading, not even thinking, but aware that they, with their accumulated wisdom and charm are waiting to be used, and that my library, in its tiny imperfect way, is a successor to the great private libraries of the past”. My conversations with Forster continues.
October 31, 2017
A gently moving collection of essays animated throughout by Forster's gentle humanism which never descends into muddle-headed mushiness nor loses sight of what he calls "the City of God". In an age when Fascism is on the ascendant and Democracy again under threat, we would do well to hear Forster's voice.
February 21, 2021
An odd book of writing by Forster around the years of WWII. He embodies and defends a way of life which is disappearing, a slow, ponderous, particular, complex, remembered sort of life. He recognizes this himself, but goes on his merry way. There is something to what he is saying, but overall he declines to sufficiently make his point. He is content with hinting at it, and I am not.
August 22, 2019
Thoughtful, witty, kind.
May 29, 2021
I only read the first 130ish pages, as suggested by my professor, but I really appreciate Forster’s arguments and thought the styles he used to present them very interesting.
September 12, 2023
did not agree with some of the essays, and I think it tackles some of the issues on a rather surfaced level way. I particularly enjoyed the "Racial Purity" essay.
April 27, 2021
People who are NOT ordinary and seeks power usually create war as previous generations did, they destroyed many lives. So maybe being ordinary in a democratic system is better than living under other types of systems that leave you in chaos.
May 9, 2017
Essential Forster. As an essayist E.M. Forster is every bit the equal of George Orwell.
'Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts: 1. Culture and Freedom 2. What has Germany done to the Germans? 3. What would Germany do to Us?' 1940
'George Orwell'
'The Menace to Freedom'
'Tolerance'
and 'What I Believe'
These essays and broadcasts were written of its time, on the experience of the time (1936 to 1951) and still illuminate universal principles that one can identify in any era.
The essay 'Tolerance' and 'What I Believe' are very relevant to the political climate in this era.
'What I Believe' p.75 - 84 'One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life, and therefore essential that they should not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I must, myself, be as reliable as possible, and this I try to be. But reliability is not a matter of contract - that is the main difference between the world of personal relationships and the world of business relationships. It is a matter for the heart, which signs no documents. [ ] 'Democracy is not a Beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support.'
The Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts are very good. One aspect Forster focuses on is the comparison of censorship under the Nazis to the freedom of the Democracies. While reading, the inconsistency of banning D.H. Lawrence's writing came to mind, which Mr. Forster doesn't mention.
'Culture and Freedom' p. 43. 'So here are two of my reasons for believing that freedom is necessary for culture. The third reason concerns the general public. The public, on its side, must be free to read, to listen, to look. If it is prevented from receiving the communications which the artist sends it, it becomes inhibited, like him, though in a different way: it remains iimmature. And immaturity is a great characteristic of the public in Nazi Germany. If you look at a photograph of our enemies they may strike you as able and brave and formidable, even heroic. But they will not strike you as grown up. They have not been allowed to hear, to listen, or to look. Only people who have been allowed to practice freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.'
And here is a paragraph from the third broadcast, 'What Would Germany Do To Us?'
'In the end, they might achieve world domination and institute a culture. But what sort of culture would it be? What would they have to work with? For you cannot go on destroying lives and living processes without destroying your own life. If you continue to be greedy and dense, if you make power and not understanding your aim, if, as a French friend of mine puts it, you erect 'a pyramid of appetites on a foundation of stupidity', you kill the impulse to create. Creation is disinterested. Creation means passionate understanding. Creation lies at the heart of civilization like fire in the heart of the earth. Around it are gathered its cooler allies, criticism, the calm use of the intellect, informing the mass and moulding it into shape. The intellect is not everything - the Nazis are quite right there. But no one can insult the intellect as they do without becoming sterile and cruel. We know their cruelty. We should see their sterility if this orgy of destruction were to stop, and they turned at their Fuehrer's command to the production of masterpieces.'
There is so much more to recommend in Two Cheers for Democracy.
'Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts: 1. Culture and Freedom 2. What has Germany done to the Germans? 3. What would Germany do to Us?' 1940
'George Orwell'
'The Menace to Freedom'
'Tolerance'
and 'What I Believe'
These essays and broadcasts were written of its time, on the experience of the time (1936 to 1951) and still illuminate universal principles that one can identify in any era.
The essay 'Tolerance' and 'What I Believe' are very relevant to the political climate in this era.
'What I Believe' p.75 - 84 'One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life, and therefore essential that they should not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I must, myself, be as reliable as possible, and this I try to be. But reliability is not a matter of contract - that is the main difference between the world of personal relationships and the world of business relationships. It is a matter for the heart, which signs no documents. [ ] 'Democracy is not a Beloved Republic really, and never will be. But it is less hateful than other contemporary forms of government, and to that extent it deserves our support.'
The Three Anti-Nazi Broadcasts are very good. One aspect Forster focuses on is the comparison of censorship under the Nazis to the freedom of the Democracies. While reading, the inconsistency of banning D.H. Lawrence's writing came to mind, which Mr. Forster doesn't mention.
'Culture and Freedom' p. 43. 'So here are two of my reasons for believing that freedom is necessary for culture. The third reason concerns the general public. The public, on its side, must be free to read, to listen, to look. If it is prevented from receiving the communications which the artist sends it, it becomes inhibited, like him, though in a different way: it remains iimmature. And immaturity is a great characteristic of the public in Nazi Germany. If you look at a photograph of our enemies they may strike you as able and brave and formidable, even heroic. But they will not strike you as grown up. They have not been allowed to hear, to listen, or to look. Only people who have been allowed to practice freedom can have the grown-up look in their eyes.'
And here is a paragraph from the third broadcast, 'What Would Germany Do To Us?'
'In the end, they might achieve world domination and institute a culture. But what sort of culture would it be? What would they have to work with? For you cannot go on destroying lives and living processes without destroying your own life. If you continue to be greedy and dense, if you make power and not understanding your aim, if, as a French friend of mine puts it, you erect 'a pyramid of appetites on a foundation of stupidity', you kill the impulse to create. Creation is disinterested. Creation means passionate understanding. Creation lies at the heart of civilization like fire in the heart of the earth. Around it are gathered its cooler allies, criticism, the calm use of the intellect, informing the mass and moulding it into shape. The intellect is not everything - the Nazis are quite right there. But no one can insult the intellect as they do without becoming sterile and cruel. We know their cruelty. We should see their sterility if this orgy of destruction were to stop, and they turned at their Fuehrer's command to the production of masterpieces.'
There is so much more to recommend in Two Cheers for Democracy.
January 28, 2023
3.5 stars. A fairly random anthology of short pieces by Forster, encompassing lectures, journalism, short stories, memoir and criticism, written between 1936 and 1951. As with many such collections it has a whiff of his publisher's desire to print any old stuff from a famous author to make a few quid.......
I found it a very mixed bag. He expresses himself beautifully (of course), and some of the deeply-felt pieces about tolerance, humanism, liberalism and the importance of individual freedom are memorable. One of the few pieces of fiction is "A Letter to Madan Blanchard", one of the best short stories I've ever read. And he has a good stab at the thorny issue of what makes a work of art (as opposed to just a very well-made bit of "stuff"). As I understand him, it involves something coming from the subconscious of the artist, which is in some way "innate" and unique to the piece, and which can't be taught or analysed or even properly explained. I sort-of agree.......but then in the literary criticism articles in the same collection, he contradicts himself, making it clear that his own higher, enriched appreciation of great art is very much dependent on his knowledge of the religious/historical/cultural allusions which inform his appraisal of a picture or a text or a score. But all that is dependent on an education. And education of a very different kind than I had, Mr. Forster. And/or the leisure to spend many, many years teaching yourself and talking to similarly-privileged aesthetes about such elevated matters. Like many clever, well-read people, he is occasionally a bit of an intellectual bully, making points 'ex cathedra' without explaining that they are really just his own opinion and those of a few of his similarly-minded friends (interestingly he's very "down" on science and scientific progress throughout).
And there's more in here to grate on those who find EM Forster a bit of a bore. Snobbery, pretentiousness, sententiousness, and smugness abound. And a LOT of name-dropping. And, when you get past the polemics about the importance of individual and artistic freedom, many of the pieces in this anthology are just dull and anodyne and should have remained locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. Preferably forever.
But overall, the view is positive, hence 3.5 stars. I could have filled another review with pithy, witty, sharp quotations on a vast range of subjects from literary criticism to appreciation of nature and the small pleasures of life. But actually if you're going to read this collection I think you should find those gems for yourself amongst the dross. If it's worth reading it is probably for just that.
A qualified recommendation. Two cheers, maybe.
I found it a very mixed bag. He expresses himself beautifully (of course), and some of the deeply-felt pieces about tolerance, humanism, liberalism and the importance of individual freedom are memorable. One of the few pieces of fiction is "A Letter to Madan Blanchard", one of the best short stories I've ever read. And he has a good stab at the thorny issue of what makes a work of art (as opposed to just a very well-made bit of "stuff"). As I understand him, it involves something coming from the subconscious of the artist, which is in some way "innate" and unique to the piece, and which can't be taught or analysed or even properly explained. I sort-of agree.......but then in the literary criticism articles in the same collection, he contradicts himself, making it clear that his own higher, enriched appreciation of great art is very much dependent on his knowledge of the religious/historical/cultural allusions which inform his appraisal of a picture or a text or a score. But all that is dependent on an education. And education of a very different kind than I had, Mr. Forster. And/or the leisure to spend many, many years teaching yourself and talking to similarly-privileged aesthetes about such elevated matters. Like many clever, well-read people, he is occasionally a bit of an intellectual bully, making points 'ex cathedra' without explaining that they are really just his own opinion and those of a few of his similarly-minded friends (interestingly he's very "down" on science and scientific progress throughout).
And there's more in here to grate on those who find EM Forster a bit of a bore. Snobbery, pretentiousness, sententiousness, and smugness abound. And a LOT of name-dropping. And, when you get past the polemics about the importance of individual and artistic freedom, many of the pieces in this anthology are just dull and anodyne and should have remained locked in the bottom drawer of his desk. Preferably forever.
But overall, the view is positive, hence 3.5 stars. I could have filled another review with pithy, witty, sharp quotations on a vast range of subjects from literary criticism to appreciation of nature and the small pleasures of life. But actually if you're going to read this collection I think you should find those gems for yourself amongst the dross. If it's worth reading it is probably for just that.
A qualified recommendation. Two cheers, maybe.
October 15, 2013
One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life, and it is therefore essential that they should�not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I must, myself, be as reliable as possible, and this I try to be. But reliability is not a matter of contract - that is the main difference between the world of personal relationships and the world of business relationships. It is a matter for the heart, which signs no documents. In other words, reliability is impossible unless there is a natural warmth. Most men possess this warmth, though they often have bad luck and get chilled. Most of them, even when they are politicians, want to keep faith. And one can, at all events, show one's own little light here, one's own poor little trem- bling flame, with the knowledge that it is not the only light that is shining in the darkness, and not the only one which the darkness does not comprehend. Personal relations are despised today. They are regarded as bourgeois luxuries, as products of a time of fair weather which is now past, and we are urged to get rid of them, and to dedicate ourselves to some movement or cause instead. I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome. Probably one will not be asked to make such an agonizing choice. Still, there lies at the back of every creed something terrible and hard for which the worshipper may one day be required to suffer, and there is even a terror and a hardness in this creed of personal relationships, urbane and mild though it sounds. Love and loyalty to an individual can run counter to the claims of the State. When they do - down with the State, say I, which means that the State would down me.
June 28, 2016
A "dip and savour" book, not an end to end read. The bits I've read are enjoyable and thought-provoking.
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