There's a review by David Barrett of Clive James' programme A Point of View in which he praises James for reaching a deep and mature worldview in his later years. This being England, we can assume that Barrett and James are good friends. He quotes James as saying...
"There should be pride in it, that you behaved no worse. There should be gratitude, that you were allowed to get this far. And above all there should be no bitterness. The opposite, in fact. The future is no less sweet because you won't be there. The children will be there, taking their turn on earth. In consideration of them, we should refrain from pessimism, no matter how well founded that grim feeling might seem."
Maybe in the context - Radio Four listeners with decent pensions, children who didn't turn into criminals, wastrels or Bank CEO's and who gave them wonderful grandchildren - these sentiments make sense. They do for Clive James, and I have no doubt that he is really speaking for himself. What David Barrett really means is: Clive James has finally lost his sting and is now repeating the same old wisdom literature twaddle.
There should be pride in it, that you behaved no worse...
So give yourself a pass on all the times you were a jerk and an asshole, because you could have been a much bigger jerk and a much wider asshole. I guess what he really means is this: if you've been a decent person most of the time, don't beat yourself up that you weren't perfect. Which is not the same thing, and doesn't sound quite as well.
There should be gratitude, that you were allowed to get this far...
"Allowed' by whom? Some nine year-old with a Kalishnakov who didn't shoot me? The drunks who didn't run me over? I got this far because I didn't die yet, and that's nothing to either resent or be grateful for. This is a silly sentiment. And yes, I've been in a could-have-been-fatal accident, and I was grateful to be walking afterwards. Right up to the point where I had to go back to work. Maybe what James means is that people who have had lives like his should be grateful, and perhaps they should be. I haven't. But he covers that.
And above all there should be no bitterness. The opposite in fact...
Because? Bitterness is counter-productive for the person feeling it, but even more it's a pain for other people to have to live with. It's kinda, well, not polite. I don't think that's what James means. I think he means we should be thankful for the lives we've been "allowed" to lead. This may make sense for him, and a dying twenty-three year old drug dealer couldn't care, but for the rest of us? When we look back on the lost opportunities, the wasted talents, the pointless arguments, the empty, empty days and years, the long periods of unemployment kidding ourselves we can get back on the merry-go-round, the endless insolence of office we had to endure at work and dealing with the bureaucracies... you would have to be on drugs not to feel slightly bitter about it. This was it? Clive James lives in a world where Elle McPherson is a friend. Not our world.
The future is no less sweet because you won't be there...
It's no less ghastly either...
The children will be there, taking their turn on earth...
Pass the Desiderata poster! By the time they are "taking their turn", they will be frustrated adults who have been waiting for the career blockers to retire for at least a decade longer than they wanted. But then that's why he says "their turn" - to make it sound like he hasn't been keeping the kids waiting until he felt gracious enough to step aside. It sounds like there is opportunity a-plenty for the young and freely given at that, when the truth is anything but.
In consideration of them, we should refrain from pessimism, no matter how well founded that grim feeling might seem...
I grant there's no point in telling the kids it's all going to be awful if you can't tell them how to avoid the awfulness. But I can't help wondering if he wants to refrain from pessimism because it was his generation who fucked it all up and he doesn't want to live with that consequence?
I know what I'd tell the young about the future: that it seems to balance improvements with losses and it's full of unintended consequences. In the 1970's, we could afford flats of our own but the nightlife was awful, the jobs were secure but working was a catalogue of pettiness. Now the nightlife is marvelous, jobs are all temporary, working is much more relaxed, and thirty-year-olds can't afford anywhere to live. Sure, it's great that the Iron Curtain has come down, but the first people across were those possessors of the ultimate transferrable skills, the gangsters, criminals, hookers and scroungers. The second bunch of people across helped take jobs from English workers because they were prepared to sleep on floors and had no intentions of staying, only of sending money home. We have expensive CCTV on every street corner, rendered useless by a £5 sweatshirt with a hoodie. We have a hundred channels when once we had four, and there's nothing on ninety-nine of them. But whatever happens, the Duke of Westminster still owns Mayfair, Belgravia and chunks of other prime property around the world. That won't change.
Oh Clive! How are the mighty fallen! I will cherish two lines of his. The first is the argument against banning abortion. That the choice isn't between legalised abortions or no abortions, it's between legal abortions and illegal abortions. The second is his opening line of a review of a TV series called Stay With Me Till Morning, "a title designed to evoke a more exotic mileu than the one the rest of us live in, which might on the same principle be called 'Shouldn't You Be Going Or You'll Miss The Last Tube Home?'".
If I ever start prattling on like a second-rate Seneca, or even a first-rate one, you can kill me. Headshot. Exploding bullet.
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