March 29, 2019

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History 🏛️ | Permanently Moved 🔊

S02E03

A brief history of the aphorism “May you live in interesting times” and a little about what to do about it.

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Permanently moved is a personal podcast 301 seconds in length, written and recorded in one hour by @thejaymo

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May You Live in Interesting Times

There are so many things I could talk about this week, from the US media waging a two year long mind war on the domestic population, to the minds of men swallowed by the seas of social media, bowing their heads in reverence to a feed that could destroy their lives at any moment from the whims of a virtual the mob. Instead I want to talk about interesting times… 

“May you live in interesting times”. A phrase you have heard many many times I’m sure.

In 1966 Robert F. Kennedy delivered a speech that included it:

There is a Chinese curse which says “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.

Unfortunately this whole story is a load of old bollocks. There is no evidence of this phrase in china at all. The website Quote investigator found that the earliest match for the phrase appeared in The Yorkshire Post in March 1936

The expression was used in a speech by the influential British statesman. Sir Austen Chamberlain – addressing the annual meeting of Birmingham Unionist Association.

He was speaking about: the “grave injury” to collective security by Germany’s violation of the Treaty of Locarno.

Sir Austen, who referred to himself as “a very old Parliamentarian,” said:—

“It is not so long ago that a member of the Diplomatic Body in London, who had spent some years of his service in China, told me that there was a Chinese curse which took the form of saying, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ There is no doubt that the curse has fallen on us.”

“We move from one crisis to another. We suffer one disturbance and shock after another.”

And there you have it. A very old white dude relaying a pithy expression from his mate who probably made it up but instead attached it to the wisdom of the orient.  But there’s still more to this story.

Sir Austin Chamberlain’s father Joseph Chamberlain wrote in a speech in 1898:

“ I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times. (Hear, hear.) I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety. (Hear, hear.)

So perhaps the phrase comes from the mind of Austins father, and became a foreign curse after the events of the first world war. I’d also like to note that new objects of interest / new objects for anxiety line echos the message of Paul Virilio’s ‘Invention of the ship is the invention of the shipwreck’

There is a clear implication i think that “uninteresting times” of peace and tranquillity are more life-enhancing than interesting ones, which, from a historical perspective, usually include disorder and conflict.

Indeed yer man Hegel wrote in the History of philosophy:

“History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in it are the blank pages of history.”

Even in 2003 Hillary Clinton released an autobiography that included an instance of the expression where she joked that Bill and I would ask each other, “Well, are you having an interesting time yet?”

The question i have about all this is WHY? What is it about the truth of the phrase ‘May you live in interesting times’ that makes it feel like a curse. Perhaps even A truth perhaps so powerful that it becomes one – regardless of its origins. 

In 1944 D. W. Brogan of LSE wrote that interesting times are “times not to be made better by any simple formula.“

It is safe to say that we do indeed live in interesting times. But it is also essential that we ask or challenge the blank pages of history and ask:

‘Interesting for whom?’.

Yes we are living through catastrophic biosphere collapse, wealth inequality last seen by eyes in heads rolling into blood soaked baskets, and of course the contemporary age of planetary scale computation. Last year I spoke a lot about living in a time like this, and strategies for living though:

Focus on your friends, family and loved ones. They actually do matter more than any of the problems i just mentioned. People in your life experience tragedy and apocalypse all the time. Sharing these with friends and helping people though is more important than worrying about the tides or times of history.  

Focus on the little things and make them better.  The smear on the mirror that needs cleaning, the fraying seam of your friends jumper that needs sewing. Hold someone weeping like you will never let go.  

The only person who can make times better for others and less interesting is you.