Jonathan Bowden’s Fury, Part 3
Letters & Fragments

You can buy Jonathan Bowden’s Western Civilization Bites Back here.

3,034 words

Part 3 of 3 (Part 1 here, Part 2 here).

Edited by Greg Johnson and Peter Jacobi

This final installment of Fury is a miscellany of letters, essays, and a diary entry. Everything could be fictional. But, as with other texts by Bowden, the fictions might be overlaid on actual people. If you have any guesses about the real identity of such characters as Malcontent Meaning, Priapic Miscegenator, Hitlerite Spaniard, Lift Those Weights Spastic (Cheated Spiderman), Emotional Swivelling, Wistful Romantic, Prickly Armenian, and Splenetic Indifference (Mr. Angry), or any information on the journal Vanguard, please comment below or email me at [email protected]. — Greg Johnson

Extended Diary Entry (with Reference to Politics)

As you are doubtless aware, I am engaged at present in a feud—if it can be described as such—between myself and Gaudier Louter-Finiscue of the Tuesday Club.[1] Of course, all feuds of this type are essentially puerile in aspect. Although I have the pleasure of knowing that I did not actually start this particular battle and that responsibility for it can be firmly placed at Louter-Finiscue’s door. However, I am more than aware that everyone accuses everyone else in a feud of being the instigator of the proceedings—when in actual fact the fault, if such it is, usually lies with oneself. Nevertheless, in this particular instance I can claim to be relatively innocent—although I am more than aware that in such instances no one individual is as innocent as they pretend to be. In this case, however, Louter-Finiscue initiated proceedings quite a while back when he took a decidedly supercilious attitude towards me and refused to have me on his precious Foreign Affairs Committee. This was a decidedly sub-fusc outfit which consists of a few grand-dames, retired colonels from Eastbourne with handlebar moustaches, and various other professional idiots whom Louter-Finiscue has gathered, primarily for the purposes of mutual congratulation. After this contretemps there was another incident which involved the possibility of appearing for five or so minutes on SKY news, a satellite TV channel, in order to take on the Reverend Mealy-Mouthed Negritude[2] in a head-to-head confrontation in the studio. But this was blocked by Louter-Finiscue, who filled the vacancy with his own nominee or presumed nominee, Steely Romantic. So as you can imagine I was not that well disposed towards Finiscue, whom I have habitually regarded as an idiot in any case, and so I waited for the possibility of my revenge. And sure enough it was not long in coming, because a policy seminar of the entire club was organized at Westminster Hall, essentially the central Methodist Hall, in order to allow the membership to ventilate some long suppressed opinions as well as to introduce some politics back into the organization, an organization which had become increasingly moribund during the years of Tobey Blunderbuss’ tenureship as Chairman. As luck would have it Louter-Finiscue strode to the podium first in order to give a long, tiring, not to say tiresome address on the nature of foreign affairs—a subject about which he knows little—although he affects to know a great deal. And Louter-Finiscue then proceeded to give a long, rambling, and relatively disconnected disquisition on foreign affairs, something which was broadly equivalent to a form of verbal mastication—or is it masturbation? As Louter-Finiscue proceeded, rather like an Irish tramp, to “joss” himself off in the bushes, in this case in the presence of the assembled company. Although I must stress that my intervention, timely though it was, was completely unforeseen.

At this moment I immediately realized that this was an excellent time to revenge myself upon the odious Louter-Finiscue. So after Finiscue (or is it Louter?) had been speaking for approximately twenty minutes I attempted to get the attention of the Chairman, a notoriously weak Chairman, Malcontent Meaning,[3] whose essential role in life is to upset as few people as possible. Nevertheless, I forced on with my intervention, during the course of which I essentially referred to Louter-Finiscue as a public speaker of limited ability who was guilty—in essence—of verbal onanism; of “tossing himself off” in front of the assembled company.” Louter-Finiscue was completely disconcerted by this, and sat back in his chair flabbergasted, unable to comprehend what was going on around him—although he later retreated to the toilets vowing revenge against me in particular. Despite the fact that other Tuesday Clubbers, such as Priapic Miscegenator[4] (Wistful Romantic), put a more negative construction on his retreat when they accused him of playing with himself in the toilets, something which Louter-Finiscue readily confessed to (if only in a jocular vein). Since then, Louter-Finiscue has lost no time in his various campaigns against me, including attempts to investigate my background, particularly to see if I have a far-right past which he could use against me. When in actual fact there is no such past, and if there were, he would only be able to discover it if he sent some notification to, say, the British Fascist League’s national organizer, Hitlerite Spaniard,[5] in his ridiculous neo-nazi lock-up down Thamesmead in southeast London. Indeed, if Louter-Finiscue thinks I would ever be part of such a putrescent and ridiculous outfit as the BFL then he clearly has no idea of the calibre of the individual with whom he is dealing. Nevertheless, much to Louter-Finiscue’s consternation I have been forewarned of many of his manoeuvres by fellow members of the executive, such as Lift Those Weights Spastic[6] (alternatively Cheated Spiderman), almost before they have occurred. Indeed, various other members of the executive who believe that Louter-Finiscue is behaving in a ridiculous manner, such as Emotional Swivelling[7] and Steely Romantic, have intervened actively on my behalf with both Louter-Finiscue and the Chairman, Malcontent Meaning, so hopefully Finiscue will be forced to relinquish his vendetta as a result of force majeure. For the time being, however, Louter-Finiscue has disappeared abroad, probably to the Soviet Union on one of his alleged fact-finding tours in relation to foreign affairs, particularly the affairs of the Monarchist League, his restorationist and Ultra-Reactionary grouping which has many contacts in Eastern Europe. Incidentally Emotional Swivelling, who I just mentioned a moment ago, is an interesting man—essentially a half-Jewish neo-fascist who is loyal to a left-right axis in the Italian MSI, now led—at least in part—by Pino Rauti.

Accompanying Letter to Louter-Finiscue

Dear GLF,

I have been informed from a large range of sources—such as Steely Romantic, Wistful Romantic,[8] Prickly Armenian,[9] Cheated Spiderman, Splenetic Indifference (Mr. Angry),[10] and Emotional Swivelling—that you have been plotting against me.

I gather that you have been ringing people and asking them whether they have “any dirt on me” or not.

I also gather that you have attempted to investigate my educational credentials.

I must say that I regard all of this as reprehensible in the extreme.

I now regard you as a personal and political enemy.

Yours sincerely,
JB

An Open Letter to The New Statesman & Society

Dear Sir,

I was delighted to see that you published a letter by Steely Romantic in the last edition of your magazine. It may interest your readers to know that Steely Romantic and myself are the joint directors of a cultural and intellectual initiative on the right which is known as the New Right. This an intellectual initiative which seeks to go we beyond the vagaries of the Salisbury Group and The Salisbury Review, and that wishes to place New Right thinking in the intellectual tradition of Maurras, de Maistre, le Bon, Gabriele D’Annunzio, Primo de Rivera, Spengler, Moeller van der Bruck, and Alain de Benoist (without necessarily being beholden to any of these thinkers).

We intend to publish a large amount of material and hold debates with interested parties, some of whom can be drawn from the Left.

If any of the readers of The New Statesman & Society are interested in these developments, they can contact us at the address below.

Yours sincerely,
J. B.

An Open Letter to The Guardian

Dear Sir,

The Guardian has had the wool pulled over its eyes if it believes that the KGB will ever allow Western journalists to examine its secret treasures. Does the Guardian not know that the KGB are attempting to win over western businessmen and media personalities in order to help with the bankrupt Soviet economy—all of which has been decided as a matter of state policy? Is the Guardian also unaware that all intelligence and security agencies have two sets of files—one external (and extremely well vetted to prevent embarrassing disclosures) and the other internal (only open to people inside the organization)? Perhaps the Guardian is being naive, but then again this is the paper which under C. P. Scott’s editorship wondered aloud whether Stalin was that bad, whether his genocides were actually taking place, and whether talk of famine in the Ukraine was being spread by hysterical anti-Soviet opinion in the West.

Yours sincerely,
J. B.

The Beginnings of an Article on Arno Breker, Hitler’s Sculptor, for Michael Walker and his Review Scorpion, a Journal of the Extreme Right

Arno Breker was a neo-classical sculptor whose work involved a radical return to elements of the naturalist tradition which had been too easily forgotten. Although the use of the term naturalism in relation to Breker’s work is somewhat misleading, because his work is too stylized to be anything other than non-naturalistic. Nevertheless, the absence of the pure naturalism with which we speak is symptomatic of a heroic quest in relation to the possibility of reviving an ancient form. After all, Breker’s art is essentially a form of radical classicism, a return to classicism with a vengeance, rather than a late and attenuated form of antiquarianism. Indeed, Breker’s art is totally opposed to the discipline of the archivist and the pictorial possibilities of the past for their own sake. He is certainly not a reactionary sculptor or artist—as is sometimes alleged—in that he is essentially a radical traditionalist; a mixture of the revolutionary and the reactionary at one and the same time. His desire to return to a form of classical art is by no means unique in this century, although the extent to which he wished to return to classical forms is unprecedented for the modern era. Yet the strength of Breker’s art lies in the degree to which it is resolutely outside of its own time, devoid of the nature of the time in which it was manufactured, and yet in some respects—like all great art—deeply personal and autobiographical.

One of the other distinguishing features in Breker’s work is the bold, clean, and yet spare masculine outlines—the removal of anything which would disrupt his understanding of beauty. Indeed, even the concept of beauty in his work in nuanced, because his sculpture is too masculine to completely embody the concept of beauty. It is as if the clear marble, its lineaments and structures, embody a form of beauty where all elements of the feminine have been removed. In a sense, as in Aeschylus’ tragic drama, the feminine element is stated and yet at one remove from the action—it is distended and spectral. As a consequence, there is a complete absence of the homoerotic in Breker’s sculptures, even in his male nudes, and there is a certain absence of the lascivious, a moment in which even eroticism—which is part and parcel of aesthetics—is pushed into the background; ultimately is regarded as anterior to the object itself, unnecessary and redundant. It is as if the prospect of the sensual has been lost somewhere; it is over-mastered by a tragic prospect in relation to form; what we might call the absence of a tragic concept in relation to art. When art is a form of identity which does not allow itself to speak; in short, it is redundant and sublime. Yet there is an important point which has to be made about homosexuality, in relation to Breker’s art or any art whatsoever. When we remember that not all forms of homosexuality, no matter how weak or bereft of dignity, are lacking in some of the forms of masculine grace, toughness, and magnanimity. For instance, when Breker’s statues were shown at the Orangerie in the centre of Paris during the German occupation, Jean Cocteau was one of the main guests at the exhibition. Cocteau—a masculine-feminine homosexual—and an admirer of Breker’s work, was captivated by the nudes, the redundant gestures and clean limbs, and they were like Cocteau’s own hands which were masculine, webbed, graceful, and yet full of force. You see, an invert like Cocteau could appreciate the forms of Breker’s synthesis, his mingling of anima and animus, of masculine and feminine in Jungian terms, in a higher synthesis, a synthesis which fell short of itself. Indeed, it was less that Breker’s art represented a radical synthesis between the male and the female, than that he had over-shot the target, not into hermaphroditism, the taint of the bisexual, but into a form of crowning synthesis, a type of religious art.

An Article to be Printed in Vanguard, the Organ of a Radical Right Organization

What is inflation?

Inflation is a situation where the amount of money which circulates in the economy outstrips the goods and services it can buy. As I say, inflation is essentially a type of economic phenomenon whereby the money which circulates in an economy outstrips the goods and services it can buy. As a result, inflation, as most economists estimate, is a form of virus, almost a cancer within the economy; it eats away at the vitals and sinews of the economy, undermining its strength and subverting its fortunes. In short, no economy which has a high and sustained rate of inflation can function effectively. Nevertheless, there are various forms of inflation, such as cost-push and wage-push inflation, when the two act on one another to increase the price of economic activity.

Cost-push inflation, as the name suggests, is essentially due to fluctuations in raw material prices and other unit costs; while wage-push inflation is the upward pressure on wages—often induced by trade unions—which results from a rise in commodity prices.

As the above makes clear, economic activity is never straightforward, and wages begin to rise when costs are high (to cover the cost of living), but costs were rising—to a certain extent—due to the demand for a product outstripping supply. This is a demand which in itself necessitated a certain buoyancy in relation to wages, to money in the pocket, which feeds through into higher prices, due to the need to maximise profits in relation to increased costs. So inflation, unit costs, pricing policy, and wages are all part of a spiral, they are all connected.

Another influence on inflation is the exchange rate—the value for which currencies exchange—and if it is high then exports do not prosper, but if it is low, imports are highly priced in home markets, something which leads to inflation. Similarly, if there is a fall in the value of the currency, as measured by the exchange rate, then interest rates may have to be raised in order to make the currency—the expression of the value of an economy—attractive. All of which leads to a higher cost of borrowing and increased prices.

Ultimately, however, inflation is proportionate to the amount of money in the economy, and this is why credit controls and high interest rates are used to reduce inflation because both restrict the supply of money, the money supply. Nevertheless, an anti-inflationary strategy, if it is pursued with utmost vigour, creates a situation of social chaos where unemployment and deprivation are used as weapons to reduce prices—while inflation, so some neo-liberal economists believe, is the price of the true level of unemployment within the society. This is the amount of unemployment which exists partially concealed within the economy, the underutilization of certain capacity, spare capacity in other words. As Milton Friedman put it in another context: all of this entails a certain trade-off between inflation and employment within the economy; in a sense it amounts to a form of managed “stagflation”—where inflation and unemployment are managed in relation to one another. If a total monetarist or classical liberal strategy is pursued then it tends to resemble a form of middle-class class warfare with millions unemployed and a desire to balance the books, perhaps a desire to return to the Gold Standard, the convertibility of the currency into gold, stocks of Gold which prevented deficit-financing and the government printing money for social programmes. If a purely Keynesian model is pursued, however, then deficit financing will lead to uncontrollable inflation (if not countered by the stop-go cycle) which prevents inflationary pressure but reduces industrial competitiveness. This is due to continuous state intervention in the market and the degree to which pricing policy and employment—at the micro-economic level—are necessary corrections to sloth and inefficiency. In Keynesian theory, of course, inflation is arrested by excess money passing into “money balances” such as savings within the economy but this is essentially a theoretical speculation; a form of wishful thinking; a speculative lacuna which wishes to deny the inflationary cost of deficit financing.

Nevertheless, a more nationalist form of economic activity is a system which would manage inflation through interest rate rises linked to restrictions on credit; whilst balancing this with “workfare,” social schemes and measures to reduce poverty by taking people out of taxation, and ameliorate unemployment through voluntary service, national service, and conscription—all salaried and linked to present welfare payments, as inflation was kept low, industry competitive, and the socially harmful effects of unemployment were reduced to a minimum

— J. B.

Notes

[1] Gregory Lauder-Frost of the Monday Club.

[2] Who is Reverend Mealy-Mouthed Negritude? Did Gregory Lauder-Frost debate a person who might fit this name?

[3] Probably Mark Mayall, Monday Club Chairman.

[4] Who is Priapic Miscegenator?

[5] Who is Hitlerite Spaniard?

[6] Who is Lift Those Weights Spastic (Cheated Spiderman)?

[7] Perhaps Sam Swerling.

[8] Who is Wistful Romantic?

[9] Who is Prickly Armenian?

[10] Who is Splenetic Indifference (Mr. Angry)?