"After Virtue", Trump's America & The Descent Into Barbarism

Last week one of the world's great moral philosophers, Alasdair MacIntyre, passed away. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/25/alasdair-macintyre-obituary He was an intellectual giant and his great work "After Virtue" is one of my "Bibles". In many ways, he was a rebel - unfashionable in today's political and philosophical worlds, but uncompromising in his beliefs. It was this rebellious nature and his challenging of the moral landscape's status quo, however, that ensured his importance and relevance; you might agree with him or not, love him or hate him, but you cannot ignore or dismiss him or his views for they asked questions that cannot be ignored abut the nature of man, of goodness and of rightness of action.

The word "virtue" in the title of his seminal magnum opus seems today old fashioned, twee, but to MacIntyre, and indeed to me, a world without virtue is a barren and bleak place; it would be a world where dishonesty, lack of empathy, lack of honour, lack of doing the "right thing", lack of decency or justice prevailed. We are already seeing this in our everyday worlds; it is the defining culture of Trump's Presidency in America, it is the edge of barbarism. If we have no virtue - goodness, a willingness to do "the right thing", to live our lives striving to act morally - then what are we and what will the world become? To be virtuous does not mean to simply obey society's rules or be fearful of the consequences of our actions but to strive throughout our lives to develop qualities such as honesty, courage, empathy, sympathy and to do these things with no thought of reward or punishment. As MacIntyre says so powerfully in After Virtue: “Virtues are dispositions not only to act in particular ways, but also to feel in particular ways. To act virtuously is to act from inclination formed by the cultivation of the virtues”; as humans we must strive daily to develop virtuous qualities. In short, it is to fulfil the requirements set out in St Paul's Letter to the Philippians:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,

Whatsoever things are honest,

Whatsoever things are just,

Whatsoever things are pure,

Whatsoever things are lovely,

Whatsoever things are of good report;

If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things...."

After Virtue sits by my side, within touching distance on my office shelf with other great philosophical works or the western civilization: Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, Karl Popper's The Open Society & Its Enemies, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, Iris Murdoch's Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Sartre's Being & Nothingness, Ayre's Truth & Logic, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Descartes' Meditations, Pascal's Pensées, John Rawls' Theory of Justice, Michael Sandel's Justice, Isaiah Berlin's The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Derek Parfit's Reasons & Persons, John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding......and many, many more.

My life would be quite unthinkable without these great works to dip into, to help me make sense of our world and my place in it; and in these worrying times to provide some consolation and understanding as I ponder the dangerous paths that modern mankind is travelling. These works, some of them thousands of years old, are not dusty old fashioned tracts with no relevance for us today. They are timeless, about today and for today; they are the wisdom of thousands of years by the greatest intellects of those centuries and as such, teach us and show us the way forward.

In 1981 (almost 50years ago!) when After Virtue was first published Alasdair MacIntyre wrote in his book: “What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without ground for hope. This time however the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time.”

Fifty years ago MacIntyre wrote that but, given the state of the world in 2025, it is so prescient today. He was not wrong; in Trump's America, Putin's Russia, Netanyahu's Israel, many parts of Europe and here in the UK the barbarians are indeed governing us or at least at the gates, the dark ages are returning. It may be too late, but we owe it to ourselves, to past generations and to future generations to understand the wisdom of MacIntyre and these other great thinkers and ensure that "civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained".

RIP Alasdair MacIntyre - a brilliant mind, a rebel, a man unafraid to stand up for what he believed in and most importantly a good and virtuous man.

"Music For a while shall all your cares beguile" (From Henry Purcell's incidental music to the play "Oedipus")

 

In his welcome to last night’s Ruddington & District Choral Society concert in St Peter’s Church here in Ruddington Musical Director Paul Hayward promised us an evening of joyful music. As a lifelong lover of Baroque music I was anticipating an enjoyable concert but in the event the Choir and the Ruddington Chamber Ensemble delivered not only a wonderfully joyful evening but an exquisite selection of beautifully played and sung early and late baroque gems.

The first half of the concert was devoted to the music of arguably the greatest of all English composers, Henry Purcell – a particular favourite of mine. Purcell was a master of all kinds of music – state music for great events, theatre music, sacred music and celebratory music of all kinds – and we had a wonderful, selection of these in this carefully and beautifully constructed programme. The concert opened with a fitting work: “Welcome to all Pleasures” one of Purcell’s anthems written to celebrate St Cecilia’s day (Cecilia is the patron saint of music and musicians). This was followed by a short solo work “Music for a While” composed in 1692 by Purcell as incidental music for a play telling the story of Oedipus.

The Choir and soloists then had a short break while the Ensemble gave a magical rendering of the “Rondeau from Abdelazar” – again incidental music for the play of that name. This work is both glorious and stirring – and I would suggest very English. When first performed the play flopped but this work lived on in the hearts and minds of the nation and came to international prominence when 20th century English composer Benjamin Britten used it as the main theme to his ”Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra” – a work that I can vividly remember listening to and enjoying as a child – and indeed using in my own teaching career on many occasions.

Then, having had a short break the Choir and soloists returned with one of the giants of Purcell’s oeuvre, his working of Psalm 122, “I was Glad”. Composed for the Coronation of James II in 1685 it is a glorious celebration of the new King and a plea for peace and prosperity under the new monarch. The concluding section is a sweeping and soaring celebration of God, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

The work is not easy for either singers or players, the weaving melodies requiring both concentration and musicality, but all involved produced an intricate and at times breath taking tapestry. I sat at the back and closed my eyes; it was easy to imagine that I had been transported back in time. Paul Hayward and his players and singers had managed to create for me what I can only call an “authentic” Baroque sound – and in my mind’s eye I was not sat at the back of St Peter’s Church in Ruddington in 2025 but in some grand and gracious Palace surrounded by sword bearing, bewigged gentlemen and bejewelled ladies in their crinolines in late Restoration England; in short, it was magical.

We then had a nod to another English great: William Shakespeare, when we enjoyed “If Music be the Food of Love”, written as a solo it explores Shakespeare’s words from "Twelfth Night" and speaks of the ecstasy of music and love – a fitting tribute to the works in this concert and to the performances of all involved. And so to the last work in the opening half of the concert – and another “great” – Purcell’s use of the words from Philippians IV in his “Rejoice in the Lord Alway”. Often referred to as the “Bell Anthem” because of the orchestra’s playing of a descending scale which sounds like bells in the introduction to the work this is Purcell at his best: celebratory, profound, intense, lyrical and quite

simply beautiful. A splendid ending to the concert’s first half.

From the early Baroque of Purcell the second half of the concert moved forward a little in time to the music of Joseph Haydn. Papa Haydn knew a good tune when he composed one and all his works are full of them – none more so than his triumphal “Te Deum” written for the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II as a thanksgiving for Nelson’s victory over Napoleon. The brilliant soaring playing and singing in this work caught the celebratory nature of that occasion and of Haydn’s composition. It brought memories for me of one of the great days of my life standing in the Great Hall of the Esterhazy Palace in Eisenstadt - a place where Haydn spent most of his working life composing and conducting for the Princes of Esterhazy. We had visited Esterhazy while in Austria and to stand in the same place where Papa Haydn would have stood and conducted this work – and his famous “Nelson Mass” - while the great and good of Europe plus Admiral Nelson and his lover Lady Hamilton sat listening was both humbling and magical.

We then had another break for the singers while the Ensemble gave a delightfully lyrical and hugely enjoyable rendering of one of the little gems of Baroque music, William Boyce’s Symphony Number 1 – often called “The Little Symphony” because of its short length. Boyce, a vastly underrated and under celebrated composer today, was like Purcell, Master of the King’s Music and hugely popular in his time writing music for every occasion and of every kind. Today he has perhaps been squeezed out a little by the other greats of that period – Handel, Bach, Mozart etc. but his every work is a jewel in the musical crown.

And so the finale – Mozart’s “Coronation Mass”. What more is there to say about Mozart? As someone famously once said, “The music of Mozart is what the angels sing as they go about their jobs in Heaven”. Well, that’s as maybe, but to paraphrase the comedian Eric Morecambe in his hilarious contretemps with Andre Previn about the playing of Grieg’s Piano Concert, Mozart “plays all the notes in the right order” – and so did the Choir, soloists and Ensemble last night. This was always going to be a rousing and splendid finale to this lovely, joyous concert but in the event it was more than that. All the performers were magnificent and as I crept forward to take a couple of photographs I could see the concentration and the pleasure on the faces of all who sat entranced, listening to Mozart’s wonderful music. And it wasn’t just the audience – the expressions on the faces of the Choir members said it all; obvious enjoyment and enthusiasm on everyone’s face as they put everything into this much loved work. Written in 1779 the first documented performance of this Mass was for the Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II in Vienna in 1792 – almost a year after Mozart’s early death at the age of just thirty five. It’s often been said that “Those whom the Gods love die young” and although Joseph Haydn lived to a ripe old age and William Boyce died in his late sixties, Henry Purcell, like Mozart, died soon after his thirty sixth birthday – but what a treasure house of glorious music these two prodigiously talented musicians left us.

Last night’s concert, as well as some gloriously triumphal, joyous and celebratory music – just as Paul Hayward had promised – gave us, too, much to quietly savour. It was full of graciousness, contentment and quiet subtlety. In part this was because of the wonderful music that these composers have left us but it was, too, because of the skill and flair of Paul Hayward and his colleague Michael Overbury’s direction and musical mastery. Between them they got the very best out of the Choir and the Ensemble. As I noted above, for me, they caught the very essence of early baroque music and this was amply illustrated by the fundamentally “different” sound that they created in the second half of the concert with works that were composed within a slightly different time frame. By the time Mozart and the later Haydn works were being written music was gradually moving away from the Baroque into the early Classical era and it showed, as it had to, in the performances last night. This is no easy matter – it’s not, as Eric Morecambe jokingly implied all those years ago, just about playing all the notes in the right order – it is much, much more and Paul Hayward and Michael Overbury ensured that last night every nuance, every emotion, every thread of this rich musical heritage and tapestry was both explored and brought out. And to make it all a reality every single performer was outstanding. The four soloists were superb: mezzo Hope Pugh’s rich and commanding voice gave both a subtle depth and sheer musicality while Grace Bale, as she always does at our concerts, used her soaring soprano voice to both uplift and take the audience with her – these two young ladies gave us music from the Gods. And, not to be outdone, tenor Philip Leech and bass William Burn gave a master class in depth and resonance which gave each work the gravitas and strength it both needed and deserved.

As I have said before in these reports, when I sit in a concert I often reflect what the composer of some great work from centuries ago would think if he or she could sit high above the church or concert hall and hear their music played today by some modern ensemble or choir. Last night, and still this morning, I have absolutely no doubt that Papa Haydn, had he sat in the rafters of St Peter’s last night, would have quietly smiled to himself and gently nodded his approval, William Boyce would, I have no doubts, been delighted that his music was still enjoyed and performed so well. Mozart – well, we know that he was never lost for words and forthright, so I am sure that he would have shouted down from the rafters “Bravo – I wrote that!” as his “Coronation Mass” came to its glorious conclusion. And what of Purcell, a quiet man who walked with kings and queens, during his short life? Henry Purcell, a man not only skilled with the writing of wonderful music also wrote some of the most glorious words in the English language for his music and I suspect that had he been with us in St Peter’s last night he might have looked down from the rafters at the performers and reflected upon his words from “Welcome to all the Pleasures”:

”……Here the Deities approve

The God of Music and of Love;

All the talents they have lent you,

All the blessings they have sent you,

Pleas’d to see what they bestow,

Live and thrive so well below…..”

Thank you to all – Choir, Ensemble, soloists, Michael Overbury and Paul Hayward for an uplifting and magical night in Ruddington. In an increasingly frenetic and threatened world and on a lovely English spring evening you brought the glorious gracious music and culture of centuries to our little Parish Church. And for a couple of hours transformed both it and us.

A "Fantastic Deal" or Shameful Appeasement?

I have voted Labour all my voting life - and I'm 80 now. Sometimes I have voted for Labour through gritted teeth, but always with the perhaps naïve belief, that although I might disagree with a particular policy or action Labour would always act in my, and others', best interest; in short I have always believed Labour to be a party of some integrity. Until now.

I will probably continue to vote Labour since the alternatives are unconscionable. But, as I sit here reading Mandelson's weasel words and watching his face (one can tell much about a person from studying their face and eyes as they speak- and in Mandelson's case none of it is good) and Starmer's "fantastic", "awesome" gibberish clap trap, I am ashamed to be British. Both of these representatives of His Britannic Majesty's Government anxious to be the most grovelling as they (and through them, we) pay fealty and homage to a power crazed man and a morally bankrupt and kakistocratic US "government". I use the word "government" loosely. Trump and his acolytes are not just unreliable but erratic, untrustworthy, uncouth, functionally illiterate, egregious and, arguably, criminal demagogues.

And I think 1938, Appeasement...............We made the same mistakes when dealing with another such madman - Hitler, who had already, like Trump made plain his intentions. British PM Neville Chamberlain returned from making a "deal" with the Fuhrer, he waved a piece of paper and said "I have reached agreement with the German Fuhrer - we have peace for our time". Well, that didn't end well and we all know what followed. On this anniversary of VE Day when our fathers and grandfathers fought and died for the very ideals and principles that Trump and his government are criminally treating with disdain we can and must do better.

Shame on you Keir Starmer; I believe that you are inherently a good man with the best of intentions but you have got this dreadfully and frighteningly wrong. And Peter Mandelson, sadly, I cannot say that you are inherently a good man with the best of intentions; you are, without doubt, a venal, self absorbed and self serving egocentric - you need to take a long hard look at yourself, your integrity and, indeed, your moral compass. We have forgotten the lessons of 1938 which led to the catastrophe of 1939 - in Biblical terms we have sold ourselves for a mess of pottage .

I know not whether this is a "fantastic deaI" as Keir Starmer calls it but I do know that it is a deal that should never have been done and I am ashamed of my country today. Almost a century ago John Maynard Keynes, the man whose wisdom, intellectual brilliance and economic skills gave us (and other western nations) the wealth and raised living standards that we still enjoy today, famously said “Once we allow ourselves to be disobedient to the accountant’s profit then we have begun to change society for the better......” . Keynes was not wrong then and his comment is still applicable to day - for it poses a question that Keir Starmer and Peter Mandelson did not ask of themselves. Instead of asking "Can we make a deal with a power mad felon demagogue", they should have asked themselves "Should we make a deal with a power mad felon and demagogue"? We live in a world where profit and riches now, as a matter of course, trump morals and integrity and are fast losing our moral compass.

In 1770 Oliver Goldsmith's poem "The Deserted Village" - a savage social commentary on the money driven inequalities of his day - famously warned us: ".....Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay....". And in 2025 we both, individually and collectively, our societies and our political systems, our beliefs, our moral compass, guardianship of the planet, our very humanity are in decay as the acquisition of wealth and all that goes with it, profit and loss, making a deal dominate our mindset and actions. If you want evidence of this look to the USA with its gross inequalities, its gun crime, its lack of social and health care, its obsession with celebrity culture, its racist society, its opioid crisis, its burgeoning homelessness, its increasingly extremist political landscape, its Trump government........it is a society well on the path to terminal decay - and we in the UK, with this deal are one more step down that road to decay; increasingly happy to follow the same path to ruin. We should have done the right thing, been "disobedient to the accountant's profit," and taken the harder, but morally correct path; stood up for the hard right and not the easy wrong; stood with our close, reliable, decent allies - nations who have over the centuries often looked to us as a beacon of fairness, decency, wisdom and integrity and said "No, this shall not be, not on our watch". We should have said "Thank you but no thank you" to Trump's entreaties to make a deal. Sadly and worryingly we have, instead, chosen to make a cheap and grubby "deal" with a crew of reckless and feckless snake oil salesmen. We will not be thanked or thought well of by those who come after us.

Trump, Farage, Kakistocracies & A Supremely Elegant Letter

 

Just over 60 years ago, on a late autumn evening, I sat, having eaten my tea at a small card table in the little front room of my parents’ tiny terraced housed in Preston Lancashire. It was a Friday, the weekend beckoned - no more College work for a day or two - but as I sat knife and fork in my hand little did I know that it was to be a Friday I would never forget, one I would still remember in my 80th year. I was 18 years old. The ancient black and white TV in the corner of the room was on and I had before me an empty plate having just eaten the egg and chips that my mother had cooked for my tea. I was half watching the local North West News on the TV whilst at the same time copying up notes from an A level Economics class that I had attended that day at Blackpool Technical College & School of Art, having just started the A level course at the College with the hope that I would get the required qualifications to gain admission to a teacher training college.

Now, 62 years later I remember that night with absolute clarity and I know that I am not alone. It is often said – correctly – that those who were alive when President John F Kennedy was assassinated will always remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news of Kennedy’s death. I can and do. As I sat, my lecture notes in front of me and my pen in my hand, the local news was interrupted and a newsflash began to give the early details of JFKs assassination and I, like millions of others across the world, suddenly found our world turned upside down; in the words of Don McLean’s iconic “American Pie” ‘…There we were all in one place, A generation lost in space, With no time left to start again….” That night we sat glued to the TV and radio waiting for more news, hoping against hope that it would be good news. It wasn’t – and the whole world, I think, both cried and held its breath at the same time. The following morning I walked into an eerily silent Preston town centre and can well remember joining the crowded groups of people – many in tears - standing outside TV retailers, TV rental shops and the Owen & Owen department store looking at the screens of the TVs on display in the shop windows and following the black and white pictures of the scenes in Dallas, Washington, New York and the rest of the world's great capitals.

I have thought much about that night and those events in the past 48 hours because of recent national and international events and especially because of a book that I have just finished reading – but will read again, and again, and again. The book is called “Letters that Changed the World” by the internationally renowned British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. The book is a compilation of letters written by prominent people – Kings & Queens, politicians, cultural leaders, soldiers, religious leaders etc – and these letters not only give an insight into the writer, but give a context to the times and events in which the writer lived and in doing so give us an understanding of our world and its and our own history. There are letters written by Henry VIII, Ghandi, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Mozart, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Queen Elizabeth I, Michelangelo, Stalin, Alan Turing, Catherine the Great, the Egyptian Pharoah Rameses the Great, Vita Sackville West, George Bush, Churchill, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, Ada Lovelace, Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln ……….and many, many more. Each one illuminating, humbling, and marvellously uplifting – and the common thread being that the words of the letter perhaps changed the world. In short, they reflect and explain our shared history.

The world events of the past four months have seen a dangerous and uncouth, mad, and almost functionally illiterate demagogue, Donald Trump, elected to the most powerful office in the world by half an American electorate drunk on its own Republican stupidity, crass naivety, triviality, and anomie. But not to be out done, we in England are throwing ourselves down the same horrific abyss as millions of egregious, ill-informed, intellectually challenged and delusional electors hang on to the venal utterances of the snake oil salesmen that comprise the Reform Party and of their insouciant, solipsistic, perfidious and pernicious spokesman Nigel Farage.

Neither of these situations mirroring each other across the Atlantic will end well; we have two once great nations increasingly in thrall to the stupid, the misinformed, the ignorant and, if the events at the Washington Capitol in January 2021 promoted and sanctioned by Trump are anything to go by, the violent and criminal. Sadly, however, it is the innocent, our children and grandchildren that will ultimately suffer in the fall out from the rise of these demagogues and in the repercussions that will follow these tragic travesties of democracy. I am now 80 years old and a member of the generation that has allowed this to happen on our watch - our children and grandchildren will not view us kindly for the world we are leaving them. They will not be wrong.

As I have reflected upon the latest utterances and narcissistic behaviours of the 47th President of the USA – namely, a declaration (plus AI generated photo) from the White House suggesting that he wants to be Pope – and have taken in the awfulness of the Reform Party’s election "promises" and successes in the recent English local elections (including to my horror and regret, my own local area of Nottinghamshire), I have concluded that the UK and the USA are both choosing a kakistocracy as their preferred form of government – government by the least suited, the least qualified and the least competent. While it is true that the UK's central government is still in the hands of an established and reasonably responsible and coherent political party – the Labour Party – great swathes of our nation are now under the local control of the Reform Party - a party at best of the inept, the inexperienced and most worryingly the dangerously irresponsible. It seems that like the USA we are happy to give the lunatics the keys to the asylum.

And as I have pondered this I have thought of a letter included in the book I mentioned above. It is a letter which, I believe, both in content and style, shows how far we have declined both as a society and as a politically conscious and responsible democracy. Today, we live in an age when Donald Trump, his acolytes and his electors fill social media with poorly structured, grammatically suspect and often foul mouthed text tirades and in the UK Nigel Farage and his followers think that the high spot of the human condition and ambition is a pint of cheap beer in a tacky Weatherspoon’s pub while they curse, rant, and pour scorn and hate upon other human beings and their beliefs and aspirations. This letter shows a different world – but sadly, in my view, a world long gone, although still within my memory.

The letter was written under the most trying of circumstances and times. It is a letter written by Jacqueline Kennedy the wife of the assassinated President John Kennedy just a week after her husband’s death in Dallas. It was written on one of the last nights that she spent in the White House and ending her role as America’s First Lady after the new President, Lyndon Johnson had been sworn in aboard Air Force 1 on the flight back to Washington from Dallas whilst the newly widowed Jacqueline Kennedy stood looking on in her blood spattered pink Chanel suit. For my generation those events were not simply iconic they were (and still are) deeply moving and influential upon our lives and beliefs. JFK’s charisma and ability to communicate with everyone – no matter age, sex, creed, nation, politics – was the age of a new dawn. His White House became known as Camelot – reminding us of the mythical and court of King Arthur, a place of honour and virtue; Kennedy's White House, like the mythical Camelot, was a place, by repute, of culture, good taste, kindness and above all wisdom. Kennedy, with his movie-star looks, his culture – he was said to read André Malraux while putting on his tie in the morning – his eloquence, his intelligence and wit epitomised this and swept us along. Of course, in reality it may not have been any of those things but such was Kennedy’s charisma and ability to communicate with everyman that we believed; it gave us hope and allowed us to imagine better things and a better world. And in those long gone days we needed hope. In 1961 the Berlin Wall had been built, the Cold War was at its height. On the other side of the world the Vietnam War was exploding and dragging humanity towards the nuclear abyss, and in October 1962 we had all stood on the very edge of nuclear Armageddon as the Cuban Missile Crisis brought terror to us all. I can remember going to bed each night of the two weeks when that Crisis filled our TV’s, radios and newspapers and like millions of others wondering if I would wake in the morning or if my home would just be a nuclear wasteland. Throughout these crises JFK seemed to be the person to whom we clung as the USA and the Soviet Union faced each other, each with its finger on the nuclear button.

The letter is written by Mrs Kennedy to Nikita Khrushchev, President of the Soviet Union – the man who had faced her husband John Kennedy from the opposite side of the world throughout these existential events and terrifying times. It is supremely elegant and touching both in its literary simplicity and political/presidential grandeur. It is a letter full of grace to both uplift and humble and, if you are of my generation and lived through the nightmare of November 22nd 1963, and the years leading up to it, to bring tears to one’s eyes. It is a deeply personal letter but one which the First Lady knew might have international repercussions. Sadly, however, it is a letter that the current incumbents of the White House or Nigel Farage and his acolytes could not begin to write or even understand for what is implicit in the letter are the very qualities that they refute and despise – empathy, kindness, humanity, responsibility. Nor could the malfeasant, feeble minded and feckless Republican voters who voted for Trump or the ragbag tribe of easily deceived, wilfully ignorant malcontents who supported Farage’s Reform Party in England comprehend or relate to the sentiments in the letter. One only needs to read their foul mouthed, illogical, comments on social media or in the press or hear them on TV to know that their only interest is a selfish concern for themselves; wisdom is an unknown trait and wider humanity is dead to them.

So, what did the letter say? I copy below:

Washington, December 1, 1963.

Dear Mr. Chairman President,

I would like to thank you for sending Mr.Mikoyan as your representative to my husband’s funeral.

He looked so upset when he came through the line, and I was very moved.

I tried to give him a message for you that day—but as it was such a terrible day for me, I do not know if my words came out as I meant them to.

So now, in one of the last nights I will spend in the White House, in one of the last letters I will write on this paper at the White House, I would like to write you my message.

I send it only because I know how much my husband cared about peace, and how the relation between you and him was central to this care in his mind. He used to quote your words in some of his speeches-”In the next war the survivors will envy the dead.”

You and he were adversaries, but you were allied in a determination that the world should not be blown up. You respected each other and could deal with each other. I know that President Johnson will make every effort to establish the same relationship with you.

The danger which troubled my husband was that war might be started not so much by the big men as by the little ones.

While big men know the needs for self-control and restraint—little men are sometimes moved more by fear and pride. If only in the future the big men can continue to make the little ones sit down and talk, before they start to fight.

I know that President Johnson will continue the policy in which my husband so deeply believed—a policy of control and restraint—and he will need your help.

I send this letter because I know so deeply of the importance of the relationship which existed between you and my husband, and also because of your kindness, and that of Mrs. Khrushcheva in Vienna.

I read that she had tears in her eyes when she left the American Embassy in Moscow, after signing the book of mourning. Please thank her for that.

Sincerely,

Jacqueline Kennedy

Mmmmm! Big men and little men. The First Lady hit the nail on the head. But today, the High Offices of the USA and the UK are increasingly filled by Little Men – men high on pride, deluded and delusional, fuelled with anger and lacking in wisdom and restraint; ready to confront and fight rather than talk and agree, unable or undesiring of seeing the other person’s point of view or imagining a better world, unable and unwilling to empathise, sympathise or understand. In short, unaware or wilfully ignorant of the advice of Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” JFK and Nikita Khrushchev understood this - and I believe so did Jacqueline Kennedy. But as for Trump, Farage and the rest there is little or no hope.

But within this there is an inherent problem which would be extremist rulers such as Trump and Farage explore and use to their advantage - it is the paradox of tolerance. Karl Popper, an Austrian, fled his native country when the Nazis took over and settled in England. He became one of the world's foremost philosophers and his book 'The Open Society and Its Enemies' first published on 1945 is considered one of the three most influential books of the 20th century. It is a book that I constantly refer to such is its wisdom and power. Popper had witnessed in his own country and wider Europe how easily legitimate, elected democratic parties and politicians caved in and failed to prevent the rise of fascism and totalitarianism. He was also troubled by the influence that powerful people - like Hitler and Mussolini - had over millions, moulding opinion to their own evil ends with little apparent push back. Popper was clear: “If we are to survive then we must break with the habit of deference to powerful men.” But he identified a more important issue – what he termed the "paradox of tolerance". Democracies, he argued, are by their very nature tolerant; they see and respect everyone’s point of view, they understand, and value everyone and their opinions equally. But, he argued, within that there is a potential problem; a paradox. Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. “We must therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate intolerance" he stated. If a society is tolerant without limits, then the intolerant – the Trumps and the Farages, their acolytes, and their misguided, evil beliefs - will eventually destroy the society's ability to be tolerant - just as Popper had seen Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini do in their countries.

If intolerant ideologies are allowed unchecked expression, they exploit a society’s values and erode or destroy tolerance itself through authoritarian or oppressive practices. We have seen this in the USA in recent months, at the Washington Capitol in January 2021, and now with the election of Reform Party in the UK we are seeing it here too. Extreme, intolerant views are gaining an ever-increasing foothold because we “tolerate” those who hold them. We have been warned, but have not taken heed and that has allowed Trump, Farage and the rest to ignore the wisdom and advice of Atticus Finch and so thrive.

I fear for the world that my children and grandchildren are growing up into, but hopeful that they might create something better - at the moment, however, things look bleak indeed.

Trump: A Gross, Uncouth Man of Little Learning With Much to be Modest About: Or, An Afternoon at the Opera!

 A Sunday afternoon at the opera! Another visit to the Broadway Cinema here in Nottingham to see a live stream from the New York Met. This time it was The Marriage of Figaro - a work we have seen so many times that I swear we could act as stand-ins should any of the stars be indisposed! But of course, as with all Mozart, no matter how many times one hears a work or sees an opera each one is different - there are new themes to explore, new "takes" on characters, new interpretations of music and narrative to enjoy - and this performance from the Met was no different; original, inspiring, innovative, exquisite, enriching and hugely enjoyable. And when the final curtain came we, like the rest of the audience, both applauded and sat back breathless and emotionally drained.

Mozart's great work is not just a silly, humorous romp - although it is that! It has, running through it, a profound and serious message. When, almost three centuries ago, the great man composed it, its message of equality and revolution, of the little man and woman fighting back and overcoming the aristocracy was not lost on those who watched and heard it. And, in that spirit, this production from the Met was just as relevant for today's divided world; a work that was born in and in part gave birth to the Enlightenment brought home the contradictions and ills of our modern world and reminded us that even today with cleverness, faith and forgiveness the Goliath like demagogues of the 21st century can be overthrown by the little David.

As an incidental opening of the live stream we were shown a video of the Met cast singing the Ukrainian National Anthem before a performance and I wondered if there was any intention on the part of the Casting Director when we saw that the part of Susanna (around whom the whole plot is focused) was to be sung by the stunning Ukrainian soprano Olga Kulchynska. I hope it was a considered choice and not simply a happy coincidence. It was a choice, I hope, made to reflect our divided times and send a powerful message of castigation to Trump and Putin whilst at the same time, and in the spirit of the opera, honouring the little nation struggling against the mighty wrongs of contemporary of Moscow and Washington. And if, perhaps, the Presidents of America and Russia watched the live stream then I trust that they were suitably shamed - although somehow I doubt that. I'm sure that Russia's President Putin is a regular and well versed visitor to the opera and would understand (but probably ignore) the message(s) of Figaro. I fear, however, that they would be lost on the intellect and moral compass of Trump, a gross, uncouth and bombastic man of little learning or understanding and with much to be modest about - most of all his intellect, morality and, if his behaviour at the Pope's recent funeral is any guide, his ability to act appropriately or even stay awake.

As we watched the opening credits I noticed that the opera was produced by Richard Eyre, and my thoughts went back 50 or 60 years. When Pat and I first came to live in Nottingham in the early 1960s the "in place" to go was (and still is) Nottingham Playhouse then, undoubtedly, the premier repertory company in the land. Every month or so we would attend the "Student Preview Night " of each new production. These were effectively the dress rehearsal performances but cheap nights out for us poor students. In those long gone days the Playhouse was under the stewardship of the great John Neville and then a young Richard Eyre. We saw young actors who would become the great actors of our nation: a youthful Ian McKellen, a diminutive and wonderful Judi Dench, the superb Eileen Atkins, and the hugely talented Jonathan Pryce...and many others - all taking their first steps on the road to national and international stardom. As I saw Richard Eyre's name on the Broadway screen I was taken back to those magical nights and times and pondered that now, as I near the end of my life, I was seeing his name again coming all the way from one of the world's great opera houses - all the way back to me here in Nottingham. A lot of water has passed under the bridge for both of us in these intervening years!

So, here we were in Nottingham watching something occurring in New York. The music, was composed for an audience three centuries ago by an Austrian - Mozart - and the words written by Lorenzo da Ponte, an Italian. The lead soprano was Ukrainian, the producer English, and the hero of the opera, Figaro, was a black American. The part of the Countess, one of the great operatic roles and whose aria "Dove sono" is one of the great operatic works all sopranos aspire to sing was Federica Lombardi, an Italian. The Count was a Canadian and Cherubino a Chinese American. And conducting the Met Orchestra was a German - Joana Mallwitz. And if one looked at the lesser roles: singing, orchestral, stage production etc then many, many more nations, beliefs and ideas are represented. A real cast of nations and cultures telling a tale that in its day not only entertained but formed opinions and influenced national and international events. Composed in 1786 the opera is inextricably linked with the French Revolution and the development of our modern western democratic world.

I do hope that Donald Trump found the time to get along to his local cinema to watch this live stream or, if he was in New York, that he nipped down the road from his pad in Trump Tower to the Met to see the action live. If he did then he might have learned something about bringing people of all nations together and of the ideas that were the very basis of the establishment of his own country, America - its ideals, its politics and its belief in democracy - for they are at the very heart of Figaro and the early American Founding Fathers would have got Mozart's message as they drew up their Constitution and arranged an infant democratic society - a constitution and democarcy that Donald Trump is hell bent on holding to ridicule and ultimately destroying.

We live in an age where technology can and does take us to the far reaches of the world and enables us to understand people and places. We live in a world where we can jump on a plane or pick up our mobile or surf the internet and be instantly connected to far off loved ones or to people very different from us. And if all this teaches us anything and if great opera like Figaro has a message it is that whatever and wherever we are we are all human and we all feel, bleed, laugh, cry, fear, love and despair of the same things - whether we live in New York, Nottingham, Ukraine, Moscow, Austria, Italy, Germany, or Canada, or whether we are black, white, Chinese, Muslim, Christian, or no faith at all. All opera, whether it be a light hearted romp as is Figaro or a tale of stirring, overwhelming emotions and gravitas like Madame Butterfly is concerned with the important things of life, of human existence: love, death, hate, loss, desire, integrity, fear, joy, life, regret, forgiveness.......... and Figaro explores all these themes through Mozart's glorious music and da Ponte's wonderful libretto.

In a world where Trump wishes to divide and sow discontent for his own insouciant self satisfaction and perceived solipsistic glory he needs to learn the message of love, brother and sisterhood, fraternity, humanity and forgiveness that are at the heart the music, the words and the plot of Figaro.

"Kissing My Ass": Tells Us All We Need To Know About Trump & His Supporters

Mmmmm! The headline tells us all we need to know about Donald Trump. "Kissing my ass" is about as good as it gets with Trump's use of language. Meanwhile, in Rome today, King Charles (and I'm no great supporter of the monarchy) gave a speech to the Italian Parliament much of his speech in Italian.

Is this "class"? Is it "breeding"? How come King Charles speaks Italian to his hosts but the high spot of Trump's stumbling parody of the English language is "Kissing my ass". No, it's neither class or breeding. It's simple respect for the feelings and intellect of one's audience, and respect for other people. At the moment, and sadly, the whole world is Donald Trump's audience and he chooses to address it with expletives and mind numbingly poor use of the English language - the language that Trump recently proclaimed was the national language of America. It's a shame, therefore, that Trump himself (and many of his followers and supporters) are quite incapable of speaking, spelling or writing any kind of acceptable approximation of English. Clearly Trump et al have not come across the concept of irony - and if they have they clearly didn't understand it!

That, however, is a side issue. The central point and give away is that his poor use of language betrays him; it shows him to not only have a limited language facility but also, to put it politely, to be significantly and worryingly intellectually challenged - a frightening diagnosis given the power that this man holds and can wield. It is through language that we think and understand and hIs paucity of linguistic skills shows him to be a man of poor thought and even less understanding - but we all knew that didn't we!

Sadly, half of the electorate of America voted for him and seem not to be bothered by these failings - which says much about them too: little class, low breeding, a total lack of respect for those he and they communicate with, functionally illiterate and of severely limited intellectual powers. That seems to sum up the man and his followers.

King Charles on the other hand..........

Leering, Lascivious, & Lecherous; But America Looks the Other Way

Of the many awful things that we have witnessed on TV, read, or lost sleep about in the continuing nightmare that is Trump's America this, for me, is one of the most telling. It speaks volumes about the man and his supporters, and the fact that there has been so little reaction from ordinary, right thinking, Americans says much about how America has learned to live with and no longer express outrage at the stuff that is spewing from the mouths of Trump and his acolytes. In 2016 Hilary Clinton was vilified by supporters of Trump when she described them as a "basket of deplorables" because of their misogynistic, racist and morally repugnant policies and beliefs. She was not wrong then or now, but today, only nine years later and a little more than 2 months into Trump's presidency, America has forgotten her warning and submissively accepted and normalised evil, no longer registering its crude vulgarity, lies, extremism and moral vacuity. Now, it is accepted as "just Trump sounding off". "Let it go", "Move on", “Look the other way” America whispers - and in so whispering abdicates itself of all responsibility.

I grew up (as did most of the world) on a diet of Hollywood where the good guy stands up to be counted and ultimately beats the bad guys; westerns like "Shane" or "High Noon" or "The Magnificent Seven" and war films where John Wayne or Audie Murphy or more recently Tom Cruise single headedly overcame insurmountable odds to ensure that the little good guy won over the big bad guy. By implication America and Americans were and are a force for good; that was Hollywood’s message and the raison d'être  of successive American administrations. In the musical “Miss Saigon” and in a moment of high emotion ex-Marine Chris says to his wife Ellen “Christ, Ellen, I’m American.....How can I fail to do good?” – and we all knew what he meant; it was what we all understood of America, part of the evangelical spirit to bring freedom and goodness to the world.

Of course, we knew it was all fiction, America promoting itself, Hollywood dreaming and rewriting history. But we didn't mind, it was exciting and reassuring that the bad guys always lose and America will always stand up for what is right - in short it was a deeply moralistic message. But today we know it was all a myth. America now, it seems can no longer police itself and protect its much vaunted moral high ground, no longer able or wishing to stand up and be counted, and in so doing keep the bad guys from taking all the prizes and doing their worst. The best it can do is post its disapproval on Twitter or Facebook; it has lost its moral compass. It's too easy for Americans to simply vent their spleen on Trump - he would be nothing without their votes and their lack of support. Let's be clear, he is in power because America allowed him to be and Americans did not and do not stand up and be counted when they had to or have to. Where, in contemporary America, are the John Waynes, the Shanes played by Alan Ladd who faced down the unscrupulous Rufus Ryker and his henchmen and fought to the death the evil gunslinger Jack Wilson, where are the Marshal Kanes played by Gary Cooper in "High Noon" who, on his wedding day, single handedly fought Frank Miller and his gunslingers? Who now, in contemporary America, will act and say to Trump and his basket of deplorables "This shall not be?" As Einstein famously said: "If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity" - and America remains silent while the bad guys take over.

A couple of days ago Trump spoke at a Women's History Month Event and this clip shows a little of what he said. It's not the words - if I push myself I can believe that they were just about acceptable although appropriate is quite another thing. No, it's the way he said them and the leering expression on his face, the innuendo, the "dirty old man" self promotion; the "unspeakable" being hinted at; and behind it all is a lascivious message of power: "I am a man and I can/will/am able to force myself onto any woman; that is my role and my right, and it is the role and duty of women to submit to my will, my lust".

This was Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" made real; the Republic of Gilead alive and well in the Oval Office, and it is a frightening measure of contemporary America that few seem to think this is not totally unacceptable from any man let alone the nation's elected leader. Trump promised to make America great again - that frightening project still under construction and may, or may not, materialise - but what he undoubtedly has succeeded in doing is creating a nation of the cowed and the quiet, unable or unwilling to stand up for what is right . Hardly the stuff of greatness.

  

Empathy: Separating Us From the Animals- or "Ballet Trumps Trump".

Our trip last night to the local cinema to see a live stream from the Royal Opera House of the ballet Romeo & Juliet was sublime – a high spot of my year so far. I’m no ballet aficionado but was simply swept away by the beauty and skill of it all – the dancers, the music, the sets, the costumes – everything. And of course, it was Shakespeare. I haven’t the words to sufficiently express how wonderfully uplifting and at the same time humbling it all was.

Principal dancers Fumi Kaneko and Vadim Muntagirov were magical, their dancing superb to my eyes but just as important, their ability to tell by movement and expression the great tale of love and tragedy that is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This was ballet – not Shakespeare’s mighty words – but as curtain went up to reveal a Verona street scene I could not help reciting silently to myself the wonderful first words of Shakespeare’s masterpiece: “Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean………” . And three hours later as the lovers lay dead on the stage, their families distraught and Verona’s Prince standing angry and saddened by the events in his city I remembered again the sombre final words of the play spoken by the Prince: “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things: Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe, Than this of Juliet and her Romeo”.As we left the cinema and drove home along Nottingham’s Ring Road I reflected upon what we had been privileged to be part of. During the intervals, and with the power of technology, text messages appeared on the screen praising the performance and the wonder of it from people all over the world who like us were watching the live stream: Berlin, Cardiff, Croatia, the Philippines, Lille, Madrid and hundreds more – their texts running along the bottom of the screen as they poured in from cyberspace. And as I drove I marvelled at the power of technology to bring us together – the world is indeed becoming smaller. What an opportunity we have to become a better, more united world.

And, following this line of thought I mused on something else. The performance was in London, I was watching in Nottingham. Juliet was performed by a dancer born and raised in Japan and Romeo a Russian born and raised in a city in the depths of that vast country. The orchestra was conducted by Koen Kessels - a Belgian and the ballet choreographed by Sir Kenneth Macmillan – a Scot. The musical score was composed by another Russian Sergey Prokofiev – and of course the whole thing was based upon the words of an Englishman, William Shakespeare. We are, indeed, all interlinked and intertwined across world – all reliant upon everyone else’s talents, ideas, skills, resources, aspirations, dream, hopes and fears. There are words for this: “mankind” or “humanity”. We are all part of humanity whether we like it or not; and as humans, all of us who enjoyed last night’s performance – wherever we were – recognised and understood and related to the very human emotions and events that were set out before us precisely because we are human – it’s called “empathy” - it's one of the attributes that separates us from the animal kingdom.

So, as I reversed the car onto our drive late last night the inhuman, divisive, hateful racist and ethnic rhetoric that we have heard from the American President and his henchmen in recent weeks seemed even more unacceptable. The awful dismissal of empathy as a valid human emotion by Elon Musk a week or two ago says far more about him and his crippled perverted view of humanity than it does about empathy. Musk's comment that "Empathy is the fundamental weakness of western civilisation" not only displays his ignorance of a basic human instinct, it calls in to question his understanding of people and the defining qualities in a "civilisation". But Musk is not alone. Equally depressing and damning is the ill considered, vulgar, crude and violent outbursts from the mindless supporters of these would be tyrants. The actions, too, of alleged “strong men” like Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin (no they’re not "strongmen", they are childish thugs who have mistakenly been given, by their mindless supporters, expensive and dangerous toys to play their perverted games with) and their inhumane bombing into oblivion of innocents becomes to me even more of a crime against humanity.

Romeo and Juliet is a story about love being thwarted and it becomes a tragedy. It seems to me that in this hate filled world we need to ensure love and togetherness are victorious. The alternative as we see daily on our TV screens and in our newspapers doesn’t bear thinking about. It's commonly said - and I believe to be true - that Shakespeare's works encompass all it is to be human - all mankind's dreams, failings, misdeeds and triumphs can be found in the Bard's works. Last night's ballet of his mighty tale took that one stage further and brought a beauty and magic to it all - and in doing so showed up the horror of what is happening and being promoted by so many in our modern world.