POLITICS
The case for the prosecution will win the trial of the century
BRUCE ANDERSON
If the human race does survive, historians will probably spend a significant part of the next millennium discussing conflicting audits of the 20th century; there is little likelihood that the disagreements will subside into a consensus. The 20th century's defence coun- sel will have stronger arguments than is sometimes recognised, drawing on the con- quest of disease, the vast increase in living standards, the information revolution and the long period of relative peace since 1945, with the West's political classes devoting much of their energies to learning from past mistakes and avoiding war.
But it is easier to argue the prosecution case. With world wars, Stalin, Hitler, Mao et al., this has been the least successful century since the Dark Ages — and possibly the least successful of all. The men of the Dark Ages had more excuse and did less damage. The prosecution would not dispute the defence's claim that the century has seen rapid technological progress. It would mere- ly insist that some of those achievements have also become mortal threats: most notably splitting the atom.
There will be a similar debate about British 20th-century history. Yet again, the defence can cite improved material condi- tions, including substantially greater life- expectancy. But the prosecution can mount a formidable counter-attack. In 1900, Britain ruled a quarter of the globe. Admittedly, there was a little local difficulty in South Africa where the Boer War had begun disas- trously, as if the high command had learned nothing from the Crimea. On the Continent, there was gloating over Britain's difficulties; some of the Queen Empress's more thought- ful subjects were worried about imperial overstretch. But we were always going to win the Boer War in the end, thus expanding the bounds of empire yet again. In 1900, any spirited youngster must have felt that the British were born to a high destiny.
In 2000, it is all very different. The empire is gone, but the Europeans are still gloating; this time, they can use the ELT's courts to ensure that their gloats overturn our laws. It is still not clear whether the UK can avoid being sucked into a European superstate, nor whether the kingdom will remain united.
The prosecuting counsel could also draw on culture and on society. In 1900, Conrad, James, Kipling, Housman, Hardy, Yeats, Shaw, Elgar and Sickert were all at work. 2000 offers only one name worthy to be included in that group: Lucian Freud. We in 2000 are immeasurably richer than our forebears throughout the past millennium, so we should surely be able to create a monument which would resound down the ages and still stand triumphant at the next millennium — if there is one — just as the Norman cathedrals do today, nearly 1,000 years after they were built.
All we can come up with is the Dome. A resounding monument indeed — to triviali- ty and meritriciousness. If the Victorians had been in charge of the millennium pro- ject, we might have had a building as majes- tic as Scott's Anglican cathedral in Liver- pool. As it is, we are stuck with something which looks like a large expired beetle, left to decompose.
But the Dome is only a symptom of a more basic intellectual dishonesty. We are unable to celebrate the millennium properly because we are not prepared to acknowledge what it is that we are celebrating. Those in charge of the Dome seem embarrassed to admit that their activities might just have some connec- tion with the birth of Christ. Thus they have created a vacuum which will be filled by a mixture of pseudo-intellectuality and super- stition. This illustrates the decline of Chris- tianity as a social force, which should worry not just Christians but all non-Christians who believe in social order. Prime minister Salis- bury warned us that those who thought that the Christian ethic could outlive Christian theology by more than a generation or two were deluding themselves. The vindication of Salisbury's prescience is all around us.
The Dome was a wasted opportunity, and that is equally true of much of the 20th cen- tury's social policy. Most of this century's social engineers refused to accept that they had anything to learn from the Victorians; remember the derision when Margaret Thatcher referred to 'Victorian values'. This is one reason why our policy-makers' efforts were so counter-productive, for those Victo- rian values inspired one of the most fruitful periods of social improvement in all history.
It is easy to forget just how hard the Vic- torian reformers' task was, and just how lit- tle they inherited. In many respects the Hanoverian era can seem like the day before yesterday. Its architects and town- planners set standards which the Victorians struggled to emulate and which were far beyond the 20th century's reach; we have treated the Georgian city much as the Visig- oths treated classical Rome. Nor is it just a matter of townscape. The great writers of the 18th century are much more accessible and relevant than most 20th-century savants, and that is equally true in art and in music. If we judged the Augustan/Hanove- rian era solely by its prose, its paintings and its palaces, it would be easy to think of its luminaries as our contemporaries (they might not have wished to return the compliment).
The sewers and the social fabric would lead to a different assessment. In those areas, the second Augustan age did not even equal the attainments of the first one. Early Victorian London needed missionaries and enlightened administrators just as much as Africa did. Fortunately, it found them. By a judicious blend of state action, private chari- ty, church work, and the encouragement of self-help, the Victorians created a new civic order. They moralised an underclass.
A hundred years later we have re-demor- alised our underclass, but there is a crucial difference between the underclass which Dickens describes and our one. The only public spending Dickens's street urchins were likely to encounter took the form of a treadmill, a flogging or a hangman's rope. But every member of the modern underclass has been the recipient of tens of thousands of pounds' worth of education, health care and social so-called security. The Dome has its equivalent in the ill-fare state.
But our domestic problems, grave though they are, are not the fundamental indictment of the 20th century's failure. That arises from our inability to create a new world order. With every passing month, it becomes easier to manufacture weapons of mass destruc- tion. These need no longer take nuclear forms. Any country with a pharmaceutical industry can make biological weapons; any chemical plant can quickly be adapted to chemical warfare. A world full of rogue states and ruthless terrorist groups is a world in which such weaponry poses a terrible threat. We in the West have almost unlimit- ed financial resources and military might; we only lack political will. This could destroy us.
In the 20th century, the misuse of reason has brought forth monsters which we seem powerless to control. It is almost inevitable that in the course of the 21st century these evils will unleash some of their hideous potential. Happy New Year.
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