What important political and ethical questions are raised by the covert nature of secret intelligence?

What important political and ethical questions are raised by the covert nature of secret intelligence?

The practices and covert nature of secret intelligence always inspire public debate by raising difficult ethical and political questions. Most of these challenging questions can only be answered with more questions thus creating a cycle in which real answers prove almost impossible to achieve. The only ways in which these questions can be tackled is to look at the covert nature of secret intelligence through individual practices. Tactics such as torture, surveillance and ’honey traps’ bring in to question violations of basic human rights and the ethical issues surrounding intelligence gathering. However, most issues such as these are overruled by the need to maintain and support national security. Intelligence is a ‘hard security’ topic and realism would argue that national security, and all means used to protect and sustain it, is more important than individual rights, advocated and protected by the more liberal point of view. National security is a fundamental task of any government so its strategic decisions to maintain it at the cost of breaching human rights is supported by political rhetoric which justifies its existence. The justification is almost always that the practices and tactics employed are used against ‘the enemy’:

The political enemy need not be morally evil…But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien, so that in the extreme case, conflicts with him are possible (Schmitt 2007 ed: 27)

Though espionage is not necessarily deemed as conflict, it is still justified in this way; preserving national security is of paramount importance and identifying the enemy in order to maintain this security means that there will always be a need for intelligence gathering to gain the upper hand against said enemy. However, the national security justification does not always convince the public if the presence of an enemy or a real threat is not posed. Just War theory and the theoretical concept of the political, as laid out by Carl Schmitt, being one in which an enemy must be identified coincide with realism to provide answers for the ethical and political questions raised by the covert nature of secret intelligence.

As there will always be an ‘enemy’, there will always be a need for intelligence. And intelligence gathering must always maintain its covert nature in order to continue to gather sensitive but useful information. One of the ways in which secret intelligence is continually justified, despite its questionable ethics, is that ethics and morality seem to be suspended in times of war or conflict. Interstate animosity “is the leading presupposition which determines in a characteristic way human action and thinking and thereby creates a specifically political behavior” (Schmitt 2007 ed: 34). Politics and international relations between states is moulded by external threats and the ever present possibility of war. Particularly in today’s world where warfare follows very different rules. Modern warfare is no longer confined to the battlefield. The threat is constant because the timing is not known, nor are the ways in which  attacks may be orchestrated. War is no longer state versus state, but more ideology versus ideology. The most blaringly obvious example of this is of course the Cold War period. Communism was the principle threat to the west and the challenges surrounding this threat demanded an upper hand, in the form of foreknowledge and information, or intelligence. In 1954, President Eisenhower established a panel whose specific objective was to “make recommendations regarding covert political action as an instrument of foreign policy” (Barry 1993: 19). This panel was headed by General Jimmy Doolittle, the namesake of the panel itself. The panel produced a report in which they said:

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination by whatever means and at whatever cost. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply…American concepts of “fair play” must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated means than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy (quoted in Barry 1993: 19)

Though this was written in 1954 with Communism being the main threat, this seems as relevant today with the threat of Islamic fundamentalists replacing that of Communism. So long as there is a major threat to security, there will always be justification for drastic measures. The national security of the state is of paramount importance so any techniques used to promote this security is justified and necessary. Though a lot of practices used by the intelligence community do not sit comfortably with the conscience of most in democratic societies, the majority of people are prepared to over-look questionable tactics if it means security and protection against a legitimate threat.

The term the ‘war on terror’ was first coined by President Bush in “an address to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington” (Reynolds 2007). The Bush administration made the decision to not only identify the enemy, or the absolute enemy as Schmitt would suggest, but to also make the animosity between the west and Islamic fundamentalism the ‘just cause’ needed to term this struggle a war which would then justify any ethically problematic decisions in order to defeat the threat. War is a last resort and, according the guidelines laid out by the likes of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, which today provide the backbone for theories such as Just War Theory, there are three conditions which must be followed for war to be justifiable: (1) “the action must be ordered by proper authority”, (2) “the cause must be just” and (3) “the authority must have a right intention of promoting good and avoiding evil” (paraphrasing Aquinas’s Summa Theologica in Barry 1993: 20). Bush’s use of the term ’war on terror’ provided validation for strong, decisive action. Bush declared that “On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country” (Bush quoted in Reynolds 2007) provoking a desire in the public for retribution and retaliation, while also highlighting that al-Qaeda was the enemy and a legitimate threat to the security of the United States. Thus any and all tactics and strategies used by the United States against al-Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalist groups were in this one speech act made justifiable and morally right. This was now a ‘war’ with the “right intention of promoting good or avoiding evil” (Barry 1993: 20) and a ‘just cause’. According to Barry, the threat of a global spread of Communism during the Cold War “became a compelling rationale for covert action, to the extent that many operations needed no more specific justification” (Barry 1993: 19). He continues by suggesting that this threat “made it possible for policymakers to ignore competing ethical considerations when they endorsed covert actions” (Barry 1993: 19). This is also true for the ‘war on terror’. The threat of Islamic fundamentalism and al-Qaeda attacks has lead governments such as the United States government to make some ethically troubling decisions. The fear of terrorism has lead to issues with racial profiling, detaining suspects just because they fit a certain type, and, most controversially, intelligence gathering using the methods of torture.

The viability of the term ‘war on terror’ was “undermined when the controversy over the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay raised questions about the tactics being used” (Reynolds 2007). Torture is arguably the oldest and most controversial of tactics used by secret intelligence. Though it is now banned under human rights laws, its continued practice is undeniable. In 2011, the Human Rights Watch released a report in which they claimed that “there is enough strong evidence from the information made public over the past five years to not only suggest these officials authorized and oversaw widespread and serious violations of US and international law, but that they failed to act to stop mistreatment, or punish those responsible after they became aware of serious abuses” (Brody 2011: 2). If this is indeed the case, who needs to be held accountable and is there any way their actions can be justified? Even with the success story of tracking down and assassinating the key leader and figurehead of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, cannot escape controversy as questions have been raised about the methods used to achieve that goal. As one American journalist, Frank Bruni, so bluntly put it, “No waterboarding, no Bin Laden” (Shane 2012). But does that sit well with us as moral human beings? In the past couple of years, new information regarding the Bush administration’s stance on torture has come to light as President Barack Obama released top secret memos “that allowed the CIA under the Bush administration to torture al-Qaeda and other suspects held at Guantanamo” (MacAskill 2009). The memos prove that Bush has given the legal go-ahead to CIA officers to use torture to gather intelligence. However, though the president had made this legal, torture is illegal under international law. This seems to bring to the fore the question over whether or not, during ‘times of war’, ethics and legal obligations regarding ethics and morality are suspended. Bush made it clear in his speech that in his mind America was at war with terrorism, but does that really mean that his administration was above international law when it comes to torture? Though the age in which the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric could be flung about as justification for breaking international human rights laws has passed, there is still no real sign of accountability or retribution.

Bush, though having given the go-ahead to gross human rights violations, has not been tried in international courts of justice. Nor has current President, Obama, branded his decisions during this time as criminal acts. When the memos were released in 2009, Obama issued an accompanying statement which “ruled out prosecutions against those who had been involved. It is a “time for reflection, not retribution,” he said” (MacAskill 2009). The attorney-general, Eric Holder, backed up Obama by saying that the CIA operatives who did use torture should not be subject to persecution as these guidelines were set by their administration. They were operating within the law as set out by their government which confuses the matter even more. Do we hold those who abused the human rights of a detainee accountable if they were merely following orders and guidelines set out by a person of higher rank? According to Eric Holder “It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the justice department” (Holder quoted in MacAskill 2009). Though perhaps persecution for all involved would be a fairly drastic undertaking, it is unsettling that members of the Bush administration (in particular former vice-president Dick Cheney) claimed that “waterboarding did not amount to torture” (MacAskill 2009). Bush’s speech act creating a ‘just cause’ and identifying the evil of al-Qaeda is constantly being brought up in an attempt to create a sense of the west’s ‘moral high ground’ but debating the actual definition of torture does not eclipse the fact that it was used. Ironically, the decision to use such tactics during this ‘war on terror’ actually undermines the ‘moral high ground’ Bush attempted to establish:

The US government’s disregard for human rights in fighting terrorism in the years following the September 11, 2001 attacks diminished the US’ moral standing, set a negative example for other governments, and undermined US government efforts to reduce anti-American militancy around the world (Brody 2011: 4)

Effectively the establishment of secret prisons, detention camps and a legal fall-back for the usage of torture did exactly the opposite of what the US wanted to achieve. At least publicly. Thought it is important that covert operations within intelligence agencies remain classified, the use of torture is abhorrent and morally wrong and those that use it and those that sanction its use are in the wrong and should be held accountable. However, when its use culminates in a ‘success story’, it is very easy to turn a blind eye.

The film Zero Dark Thirty has reopened the torture debate as it’s brutal depiction of torture has been dubbed by critics as glorifying the use of torture and presenting it as a vital step in finding bin Laden, something which irks the conscience. However, torture raises questions about whether or not we are willing to overlook the human rights of one if it means saving the lives of potentially thousands. Its claimed that the film depicted the CIA as the ’Good Guy’ and the detainees subjected to the brutal torture as being the bad, thus giving an impression that all methods used are necessary for good to triumph over evil (Greenwald 2012), which seems to hark back to the idea of identifying the enemy and the need for just cause. If you have set up an enemy, it will always be considered the ‘other’. Greenwald, a political journalist, claimed that “[p]eople who support torture don’t support it because they don’t realize it’s brutal […but…] they believe it’s justifiable because of its brutality”, and that the film depicts “torture exactly as its supporters like to see it: as an ugly though necessary tactic used by brave and patriotic CIA agents in stopping hateful, violent terrorists” (Greenwald 2012). A lot of documents from the Bush administration regarding torture and the detention camps have been ordered to be released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but many documents remain classified meaning the public is still in the dark over the complete picture. The Human Rights Watch believe that the classified documents could contain “incriminating information, strengthening the cases for criminal investigation” (Brody 2011: 2). The film itself and its depiction of torture actually led a handful of US Senators to launch an investigation in to Bigelow and scriptwriter Mark Boal’s connection to the CIA. It was known that leading figures within the CIA had been talking to the pair, but exactly how much was what the investigation hoped to find out (Zakarin 2013). If information is still classified, neither the CIA nor the American government can allow that information to be released publicly by any of its operatives. Least of all to the media and the film industry. Thus the purpose of the investigation was to determine whether or not the CIA had explicitly told them that torture had led to useful leads, not whether torture was used. However, the investigation has since been dropped as controversy surrounding the film has died down since the Oscar boycott meant that the film missed out on many of the big awards it was nominated for (Zakarin 2013). With the need for answers no longer under such scrutiny, the pressure for the investigation was lifted in a sort of out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of way. Though it is through movies such as these that torture and its association with intelligence gathering is embedded within the public consciousness, often meaning that people have become desensitized to its uses as it has more to do with the fact that we only associate it wit the ‘other’ not with our own. While torture is morally and ethically repugnant, when it is used against the ’bad guy’ it is necessary evil.

Though of course torture and human rights violations are perhaps the most glaringly obvious of all ethical questions levelled at secret intelligence, other tactics are used with damaging effects. In 2009, MI5 released a report titled “The Threat from Chinese Espionage” that explicitly drew attention to the practice of operatives who “exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships…to pressurise individuals to co-operate with them” (MI5 report quoted in Knightley 2010). Sexual relationship, though frowned upon by security services, have a history in intelligence gathering and the “report on Chinese corporate espionage tactics is only the most recent installment in a long and sordid history of spies and sex” (Knightley 2010). The practice of what has been dubbed ‘Honey Traps’, or honey pots, has “been a favourite spying tactic as long as sex and espionage have existed - in other words, forever” (Beam 2010). There are numerous, and some notorious, examples of these honey traps. For example, the case of Mata Hari. During WWI she was arrested by the French accused of spying for the Germans. The French had intercepted telegraphs between her and a German military attaché in Spain. It was thought that he was her control officer to whom she was passing secrets obtained by seducing prominent French politicians and officers. Though she denied the claims, she was executed by firing squad. Such was considered the severity of her alleged crime and the danger that other women were also using the “amorous arts to obtain secret information” (Knightley 2010), that after the war it came to light that there had never been any real evidence against her, leading many modern historians to believe that she was executed “to send a powerful message to any women who might be tempted to follow her example” (Knightley 2010). Here, of course we are faced with not only the ethical quandaries surrounding the death penalty but also the questions that arise about exploiting people using sex as it takes advantage of a certain vulnerability and weakness. After WWII and the division of east and west Germany, the notorious spy master Markus Wolf recognised an opportunity for the Stasi to exploit: “with marriageable German men killed in large numbers during World War II and more and more German women turning to careers, the higher echelons of German government, commerce, and industry were now stocked with lonely single women” (Knightley 2010), women who would fall very easily into the ‘honey trap’ set up by Wolf and his attractive and intelligent officers nicknamed the “Romeo Spies”. These ‘honey traps’ were hugely successful for a time. The Stasi managed to penetrate most levels of West German government and industry, at one point going as high up as NATO. Though West German security services soon devised ways to track down and spot these Eastern “Romeo Spies”, damage was still done. These women had been duped and played in the most unfair ways, being made into traitors by people whom they believed they could trust. In his autobiography, Wolf claimed that though his operators “realized a lot can be done with sex” (Wolf quoted in Knightley 2010), he never put pressure on his officers to seduce these women. Though using sex as a means of getting information is unethical and morally dubious, there “is nothing in the law…to prohibit undercover officers having sexual relationships with those they are spying on” (Deith 2012). Not only that, but “…the government has also hinted it is unlikely to make it illegal for undercover officers to sleep with people they are spying on” (Deith 2012). Unlike torture, I would argue, there is not the same justification for it as it is not about identifying an enemy in times of war, it is simply to gather intelligence using any means at your disposal. But it does work from the point of view of the operatives as they can get the information that they want by exploiting that weakness. In a world of realists, what must be done for the protection of the state regardless of the consequences to the individual, is justified. Ethical issues surrounding the art of seduction, in order to obtain information, are often in the background of the issues which come with the need for accountability.

Over the past few years cases such as that of Mark Kennedy have sparked some debate over not only sexual relationships had by an officer while working undercover but also questions about the overall covert nature which seems to be unable to offer any amount of accountability as questions remain unanswered. Mark Kennedy, alias Mark Stone, was an undercover officer who had been infiltrating a leftist environmental protest group for seven years. His cover was only blown when he swapped sides and gave evidence in defence of members of the group who had been arrested for plotting to shut down an important, coal-fuelled power station (Prodger 2013). When his cover was blown, it came to light that he had had sexual relations with at least two of the women in the group. The case raised two interesting ethical question; first, is it ethical to spy on a legitimate group that pose no serious threat to the security of civilians or the state, and second, is it right to then have sexual relationship while ‘on the job’? It is fairly easy to assume that an environmental protest group poses little danger to the overall security of a state. However, so long as this group was objecting to official government policy regarding whatever issues it wishes to tackle, it could still be technically classified as an enemy. And any enemy is capable of disrupting the security of a state, however mildly or indirectly. But, the real issue here is of course the sexual relationships had by Kennedy during his time undercover. According to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Patricia Gallan, there are “lots of safeguards put in place to ensure officers are not only gathering evidence, but it is done ethically and with integrity” (Deith 2012). Though this may the case, there is still no real legal guidelines which prohibit sexual relationships: it “is not explicitly banned under the code but is considered to be “grossly unprofessional”” (‘Undercover police officer Mark Kennedy ‘defied’ bosses’ 2012). The word ‘unprofessional’ seems to almost make light of the severity of the lasting psychological and emotional effect on the women (and men) who do partake in these affairs. It makes it seem as though the officers who do enter in to sexual relationships while undercover get no more than a spell on the naughty step as opposed to actual punishment, as it is not illegal. The Kennedy case brought about questions of the laws governing these undercover policing operations and the stance on these inappropriate relationships. One woman who had been romantically involved with Kennedy for six years made a statement, after herself and seven other women had brought a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Police for lasting emotional damage, saying that learning the truth meant her “sense of what was reality and what wasn’t was completely turned on its head…it is also important to remember that that person that I cared about deeply did not in fact exist” (’Lisa‘ quoted in ‘The women betrayed by undercover officers’ 2013). Similarly, ‘Alison’ (all the women involved in the trail were given false names to use in the press to protect their identity) had a relationship with another undercover officer known as Mark Cassidy in 1994 said that “This is not about just a lying boyfriend or a boyfriend who has cheated on you…It is about a fictional character who was created by the state and funded by taxpayers’ money” (quoted in ‘The women betrayed by undercover officers’ 2013). Undercover policing operations are part of the intelligence community, and therefore funded by the taxpayer. These women are entitled to closure and to justice as there is a case in which you can say that this is a violation of human rights.

The deceit of these officers has lead to a trial in which eight women are suing because of lasting damage. The trial is being heard in secret in a closed court known as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which has jurisdiction over the women’s human rights claims (Prodger 2012). Harriet Wistrich, a solicitor for six of the claimants, believed that the decision to have the trial heard in secret “prevents both the claimants and the public from seeing the extent of the violation of human rights and abuses of public office perpetrated by these undercover units” (quoted in Prodger 2013). The case brings the covert nature of secret intelligence in to serious question, perhaps even more so than the relationships themselves do, as the legal proceedings underway stemming from the relationships are still being kept shrouded from the public. According to the home affairs committee chairman, Keith Vaz, the “families who have been affected by this deserve an explanation and a full and unambiguous apology from the forces concerned” (’Undercover policing: MPs demand reforms’ 2013). But, as with most secret intelligence, the justification for it is that information was being gathered, cover stories were being kept intact and the groups targeted were being infiltrated and watched in order to protect national security interests. Its easy to question the ethics surrounding sexual relationships while working undercover, but if it is the best way in which to gather information is it more acceptable, or does it depend on the case? It could potentially be considered less morally corrupt if the stakes are higher. No one really questions the ethics of war time ‘honey traps’ as gathering information was essential for the war effort by any means necessary. But a leftist environmental protest group seems fairly harmless in comparison to wartime ‘honey traps‘, so there does seem to be very little in the way of validation for the need of this kind of intelligence gathering. In the Kennedy case, it was not a deliberate ‘honey trap’ as it was with the likes of the ‘Romeo Spies’. Kennedy’s job was simply to infiltrate the group and to gather information. But were these relationships part of that job? Jon Murphy, Merseyside Chief Constable, claimed that undercover policing, when used correctly, is “lawful, ethical, necessary and proportionate” (quoted in ’Undercover policing: MPs demand reforms’ 2013). Though he also claims that it is “one of the most challenging areas of operational policing and can have considerable impact on public confidence” (quoted in ’Undercover policing: MPs demand reforms’ 2013) as we are seeing with the Kennedy case. The use of undercover policing may be necessary, but can it really be argued that sexual relationships are also justified? James Bannon, former undercover officer, would say yes:

If you have exhausted every other avenue of infiltration in order to gather evidence on a particular person or particular group and your only course of action after you’ve exhausted everything else is to have a relation in order to effect your cover with somebody, then I think there’s a justification around it (quoted in ’Undercover policing: MPs demand reforms’ 2013)

It may be morally and ethically questionable, and it certainly has lead to a call for political responses and changes to legislation, but any form of espionage is almost irreversible linked to the need to obtain information in any way possible regardless of damage to the individual involved. It is troubling and the lasting emotional effects are difficult to overlook, but as Wolf put it “[a]s long as there is espionage, there will be Romeo’s seducing unsuspecting [targets]” (Wolf quoted in Knightley 2010). Though this by no means excuses its practice, it does offer an insight into the ways in which honey traps are treated by those involved with secret intelligence. It may be ‘grossly unprofessional’, but it could be seen as another necessary ethical evil when it comes to intelligence gathering. If it protects the cover of the undercover officer and means that important information will be collected perhaps we can agree with Mr. Bannon is suggesting that there are times when it is justified.

There are two main aspects to discussions of the ethics of intelligence collection: (1) “As long as the purpose of the espionage is to protect and enhance a nation’s security […] many deem intelligence collection as ethical, particularly if the state is democratic and affords its citizens human rights” (Taylor 2010: 310) (2) “As long as other nations are spying on us and, in effect, are compromising our security, it is ethical for us to spy on them if it enhances our security” (Taylor 2010: 310). Because intelligence agencies work for and at the expense of the people, there should be a clear line of accountability. But when an enemy is established and a ‘just cause’ provided, tactics and strategies normally considered unethical and politically questionable become less offensive to the public as national security is and always will be the main objective. If the human rights of a state’s own people are being protected by the violation  of human rights of someone considered the enemy, there is a suggestion that the public are more willing to turn a blind eye. The establishment of an enemy helps to create a political environment which defends the use of strategic tactics, like covert intelligence, as conflict changes the rules: war “has its own strategic, tactical, and other rules and points of view, but they all presuppose that the political decision had already been made as to who the enemy is” (Schmitt 2007 ed: 34). By securitizing an issue such as Bush’s ’war on terror’, unethical tactics that provide national security to a state become forgivable. Torture led to the death one of the world’s most dangerous men which could be said to have saved potentially thousands of lives. War time ‘honey traps’ could be awarded the same justification, but when a genuine threat to the lives and well being of a state’s people is not the target but a benign threat to the official position of the government, human rights violations which result in lasting emotional damage for those involved, morality and accountability must once again take centre stage. Though it is important that ethical questions continue to be raised, as it allows for the continuing evolution of laws that govern secret intelligence, it is for the benefit of the agencies and their ability to protect the state and its citizens that the covert nature of their work is not jeopardised. Though accountability when required and called for should be readily available, transparency for transparency’s sake could be argued to do more harm than good as “Secrecy is essential if the agencies are to be able to perform their statutory functions effectively” (‘Policy of Disclosure’ MI5: Security Service 2013). Of course when ethics regarding the practices of secret intelligence are called into question, accountability and retribution are necessary. Torture, surveillance and honey traps may sit uncomfortably with most people’s conscience but in some cases, usually extreme cases, it can be justified. Regardless of whether or not we as people agree with all of their practices, we are living in relative security because of their continued work. Secret intelligence is here to stay, and if its highly covert nature is not compromised in any way, its ethically and morally challenged practices will continue to aid maintenance of our national security and thus remain justifiable.


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White Feather

White Feather

It’s oddly quiet. Only the ticking of the old clock offers the comfort of sound. Occasionally the wind will howl around the building and the rain will pound the windows with a ferocious temper as though desperate to get to the people inside, the people in this case being me and you.

Tick, tick, tick, tick….the passage of time constantly chiming away the lives of those in the world, like a constant reminder that once gone, time is gone forever.

Tick, another second gone.

Tick, and another one, and another and so it goes until eventually time stops for us all together.
And I got all of that from a ticking clock.

From where I sit the world is varying shades of grey. Outside is grey, inside is grey – if there are colours, they have little shine now. Life since that day has not been the same. Everything has been grey – no clarification, no easy black and whites. Nothing seems to matter now.
That day, I haven’t really let myself think about it. It’s amazing how one event can change everything, the way you look at things, the way things look at you. Life can become so complicated in the blink of an eye but can take a lifetime to understand. It hardly seems fair. Perhaps life would be more fun if it was the other way around. Well maybe just easier. But I suppose whoever’s running this thing has no time for ‘easy’. Things have to be difficult otherwise you won’t learn anything . . .  I think I would rather not learn anything and have an easy life . . . Life’s just full to the brim of those little challenges.
You’re probably thinking, ‘God, stop being philosophical and tell us what the hell happen on that day!’ All people have the tendency to want to know what’s not being said, but ever thought what’s not being said is not being said for a reason? Of course you have, that goes through everybody’s head a split second before that uncomfortable desire kicks in: the desire to be the ‘one who knows’. We are all the same. We all have the same thoughts. It’s just how we act on those thoughts that make us who we are.
Sorry, I guess I’m getting all philosophical again but I think I need to before I talk about that day. It’s like when you’re driving and you spot a stop sign just ahead of you. You can’t stop immediately; you put your foot down slowly, calmly, building yourself up for the second that you stop altogether. That day is my stop sign and I have to slow down before I can stop. So be patient ‘cos I’m getting there.

I used to have no fear, I was ideal for what they wanted, I would swagger around as though I owned the town but now the world seems so much more sinister and unwelcoming then it did back in the good old days. Even if I still had it in me I don’t know if I would want to own the town now. All I feel now as I walk down the street are eyes on my back, boring into me with an intensity that would knock out a heavyweight boxer. That’s why I’m here, in this small room with nothing but a ticking clock for company. I just can’t face outside anymore. Everything that used to fill me with a joy so profound that I felt as though I could burst into a thousand happy suns, now just serves to remind me of everything that is wrong with the world, and with me. I’m far too young to be filled with such cynicism but that’s just what happens I guess. So I sit here, hoping that maybe the outside world will come to me. But my small ray of sunlight doesn’t come here anymore. She stopped coming.
Since I came back she’s left, couldn’t stand the sight of me or maybe she just got tired of waiting. I can’t be what I once was but life just goes on regardless, with or without her and I told her as much. She didn’t deserve that though. She tried. I couldn’t. But I wish I had told her before that she’s everything, everything I have ever done was for her. I wish I had told her that. That day was what I’d been trained for, what I signed up for but who knew that I would end up there. Everyone was signing up, so I guess I should too, right? I had never really considered it until one day I was just sitting there on the tram, twiddling my thumbs, when this old lady came up to me. She looked me up and down like a was covered in horse dung and handed me something. Part of me knew that I didn’t want what she was trying to give me but I held out my hand anyway and took it, ramming it in my pocket before I had even unclenched my fist. She just continued to look at me (if looks could kill) as if I was the scum of the earth, without saying a word or even blinking. It was like I was back at school and being looked over by the Head Master just before he gave me the cane, I was forever getting in trouble at school. The tram stopped and without thinking I just jumped off. I couldn’t take that look anymore. Part of me was so unbearably angry that I had reacted like a coward when the only threat was this tiny old lady who probably just wanted my seat. And I would have if it hadn‘t been for that look. Never had I been made to feel so worthless. Nobody makes me feel like that. Nobody. Processing this in my head, I found myself wondering toward the river, as I always did when I needed to clear my head and calm down. I was heading towards our bench, mine and Fee’s. Sitting down I decided to look in my pocket. Taking it out carefully, I looked at it in horror. So that’s what she thought of me. Jesus, the war had only been going on for a month or two and already I was labelled like this! It would be over by Christmas anyway. At least that’s what they were all saying. That woman had no right, no right whatsoever. Ramming it back in my pocket, I went in search of my ray of sunshine.

Do you want to know something funny? This isn’t even that day, you know the one I was rambling on about earlier. This is my car still slowing down. Do you want me to get back into the story? It’s really not something that you, in your happy little world will want to hear about. I don’t have a happy ending up my sleeve, no neat little bows to tie the loose ends up with. Things just end up exactly how they started. You, sure you want me to go on?

Well, I found my sunshine but like all rays of brilliant sunshine, there is a cloud lurking to cover it up and destroy the picnic. Today the cloud was the thing in my pocket. Who knew that something so innocent looking could spark off a chain of events that could just twist, stretch and torture your soul as harshly as it has mine. Felicity looked at me, the cloud moving across her face. She did not need to say anything; I could read what was in her head through those clear blue eyes that swam in the tears that threatened to spill over the dam of her eyelids.

“You agree with that woman, don’t you?”

I couldn’t control it, the angry just bubbled away below the surface as she tried to explain. “Look, John’s gone, Bill’s gone, everyone’s gone. It’s just you left here. It’s not going to be over by Christmas and you know that. You can’t keep putting it off. This kind of thing’s just going to get worse and you know that too. I don’t want you to go but I don’t think that you have much of a choice. You know I don’t want you to go right? You understand that I want nothing more then for you to stay here, with me… For God sake, just say something!”
How could I? I just looked at her, with those earnest eyes of hers looking straight back at me. I put it back in my pocket.
“See you when this is all over, Fee,” I say as I turn to walk out the door. From the door I turn to look at her, in time to see the water breaking the dam. She didn’t deserve that either but that’s said only with hindsight, like most things.
So, I left her house and just walked. I couldn’t go back home, I couldn’t go back to Fee’s so I headed right up to the office and put my name on that sheet they held out in front of me, their eyes taking me in and sizing me up and then the smirk spread across their greasy little faces; “He’ll do, yes, he’ll do nicely”.
What happened between then and that day is the same for pretty much every name on that piece of paper. Trucks took us to and from places where little by little your soul left you ‘til you were moulded into the perfect soldier with no heart or remorse. Every muscle in your body hurt, everything hurt but that’s what they wanted. It’s what they needed. They needed you to feel the pain.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body. Get used to it boys.”

That’s what they shouted at you when you just couldn’t take it anymore, when you just fell over and couldn’t get back up. Well, couldn’t or wouldn’t out of choice and spite. That’s when they got nasty. Sometimes, despite the pain, it was better to just get up, avoid the wrath of the Lords. We had an enemy to fight, boys. Forget the ones at home. Soon we were shipped off like cattle being taken to the abattoir. All I remember of the night across the Channel was the railing, my own personal friend for my first time on a boat. How supportive that railing was! Never letting me fall into the dark, restless mass underneath even when I was leaning over him hurling my guts out. It didn’t take half as long as I thought it would. France was a distant country, no less than a days trip, I’d say. But then again, everything past your front doorstep is always going to be a distance away, specially when the furthest you’ve been away from home is to the sea ‘bout 50 miles down the road. France seemed like an eternity away. But there I was staring France right in the eyes, wondering what the hell I was doing there and there she was staring right back saying “Just wait ‘til you see what I’ve got in store for you.” And I looked at it with that horrible sinking feeling that something’s watching you, lying in wait. You know that feeling, the one that just pulls you down and the longer you feel it the more you just want to turn around, run and hide somewhere ‘til the darkness stops coming after you and your stomach returns to normal? Well, I had been experiencing that since that day on the tram. It had been clouding my every thought, my every action and I couldn’t shake it.
We docked in some harbour with the rest of the war looming over us like an impenetrable mountain that you couldn’t just go round, you had to go through it but that was near impossible ‘cos it’s a goddamn mountain. The nearer we got to the Front the closer we got to being stuck next to this mountain with The Enemy hot on our heels and the sheer cliff face in front with no way up and out of the sticky spot we had got ourselves into. We were then herded into our lines and away we marched. The people who weren’t singing and clapping and enjoying the prospect of this grand adventure that we found ourselves on were thinking “God, these people are just marching us to our deaths, aren’t they?” and you want to know the sad part? They were right. Maybe a quarter of those men I was marching with made the trip back. A quarter, if that!

We had been at the Front for ‘bout four months when the rumours started. The grouping in the corner to discuss the ‘big offensive’ that was going to drive those huns back to were they came from. Everyone was holding there breath, some with excitement, most with dread. We had been in the reserve trench for most of the four months but just ‘cos we weren’t right there doesn’t mean we couldn’t hear it. Those flares going up in the middle of the night, trying to find the enemy stupid enough to try and cross ‘No Man’s Land’ and the guns that made it sound like the whole bloody world was exploding right below your feet, and the gas. With the right wind, the gas carried right over to us and snuck round every corner searching out a gap to flow into. The look on those guys faces when the gas finds them or catches them unawares. They know what’ll happen to them, they know there’s nothing any of us can do except strap you to a table to stop you from running out and ending your own agony. If you wanted that all you had to do was run in between the trenches. One of those snipers would get you, maybe even your own. In this kind of war, it’s hard to tell which side anyone’s on. We all have the same crazed look on our faces. But the war was catching up with us and we would have to stand up and fight it.
The rumours were confirmed by The Lord himself. He actually came down from his high horse to tell us that he was sending us all over the top in twelve hours, while he would be enjoying his Sunday roast a good 50 miles behind our trench. I just looked at him with a look of sheer disgust, I couldn’t help it. He looked around all of us in turn, catching each of our eyes but not mine. He tried to meet my gaze but he couldn’t, he knew what we’d lose. I knew he knew and he saw that in my eyes and that frightened him. He left us to “prepare” for tomorrow. I just followed him with my eyes, not moving a muscle, he slowed then turned back to face me. He caught my eyes then and this time I was the one who had to break away. His eyes looked exactly like Fee’s the day I left her, filled with tears and remorse. We were all going to die, he knew that, it wasn’t his decision, he was just following orders and he was sorry. I let him leave knowing that the guilt would eat him alive for the rest of his life.. The younger men, boys really, some no more then fifteen, spent the night cleaning and re-cleaning their guns and talking about how those ‘huns’ won’t know what hit ‘em. The older ones spent the night writing home or gazing at pictures of their sweethearts. Me, I sat in the mud and listened to the rats knocking over the cans in No Man’s Land and felt the cold, dripping wet slip in between my shoulder blades, my feet slipping further in to the mud then was comfortable and just letting my mind go numb, completely numb. Perhaps I could survive on instinct. I didn’t want to believe that this could be my last night on earth; the last time I felt rain on my face, the last time I saw the stars in all their glittering glory, the last time I felt the tug of regret pull my heart. I didn’t like how I was going to leave this world. I didn’t want to spend my last night sitting in the mud wishing that I had done everything differently. But I suppose a life without regrets is no life at all, but in all my twenty-one years I never realised I could have made so many mistakes to regret. Mistakes I wouldn’t have the time to put right. I was about to lose my life in a huge brown sea that stretched on forever.
For many, the night was too quick. Most shared the feeling that that night was our last so they wanted it to last. For me, the night was too long. Why wait for the inevitable? The quicker it came, the quicker the whole thing would be over.
The order came and we readied ourselves. Men laughed and joked, men hugged and shed silent tears, I stood patiently beside the others who didn’t join in the hysteria that came before the ‘Ready, steady GO!’ One of them, Private Luke Williams, I had signed up with, trained with and was now going to die with was on my right, dead pan and determined. You could see it in his eyes that he was ready for this. He was as good as they come and wanted this. He never said much but he was always there. When I was getting all philosophical (I was always like this you see, the war can’t change everything) he would just sit and laugh at my silly imaginings or he would listen and nod his head ‘cos he knew what I meant. The first day of training, I fell over on the wet grass and just couldn’t move, everything hurt, my muscles felt like red irons in my legs. Looking up I saw Luke, with the same look in his eyes as he had standing at the Front, looking out over that wide expanse of land, standing over me with his hand out. Something about him told me that I couldn’t give up, that I had to get up. I took his outstretched hand, I got up and continued running. Since then we’d been running together. Standing there looking out, he turned his head to look at me and said:
“There’s never going to be a good time to die, just a good reason and you know what, Ed? I don’t think this war is that good reason and I don’t want to die for nothing.”
“Me neither, Luke. Me neither.”
With that he turned his head again and I saw that determination slip from his eyes. He was no more ready than I was and that scared me, more then going over the top did.
Gunfire, shells, bombs, machine-gun fire, screaming: the sounds of war. The sounds we were accosted with, pretty much the second we clambered over the mud wall and out into No Man’s Land. Ground, dirt, barbed wire and body parts flew in all directions making it hard to even see The Enemy let alone attack. Luke and I ran side by side, dodging explosions and flying objects as best we could, slipping and tripping in the mud, the thick ooze below our feet threatening to swallow us whole. The sound of machine-guns ringing in our ears, like hysterical laughter. I saw it all, bodies being kept upright only by the steady pulsing force of the guns that ripped them to shreds, the people writhing in agony as the mud’s paws groped at them, pulling them under. People I had known died around me, one by one, mowed down like blades of grass. But Luke and I kept running. Sound and sight became one big overwhelming blur that raged around us. Sounds became indistinguishable, it was like running through a dream. No, a nightmare. Until that one shot brought me back to reality. Luke fell, knees buckling under him, then a second shot. This one I felt. I felt the vibration as the bullet hit my shoulder bone. I felt the blood pour out of the gaping hole the bullet created, mixing with the sweat to paste my clothes to my body. I fell to the ground, the world returning to the blur around me, then this unstoppable screaming started. A high pitched wail echoed in my ears. It took me a while to realise this hysterical cry was my own pain. Turning to my right I saw Luke, his eyes fixed on my face. I had forgotten him. I crawled over to him, ignoring the sharp knife point of pain that stabbed around my wound. He was fading away, everything about him was dimming. Frantically I tried to stop the steady gush of blood coming from the poppy sized hole in his chest but it wouldn’t stop. His crimson life flowing from him like the final rays of sunlight before the giant eye closes for the night. Kneeling in a mixture of his blood, my blood and mud, I sat there trying to keep him alive. The war raged on around us but none of it was clear, just a distorted image of the truth. The colours smudged into one mass of grey around us. I couldn’t tell you how long I sat there with my hand on his heart, talking rubbish just to keep him from passing out. After a while, I felt a hand reach out to pull mine away. I met Luke’s eyes and he just shook his head.
“It’s ok, Ed.” I let my hand slip away as I watched his eyes slowly close. That was it. He was gone like that. No family gathering around his bed-side to say their final goodbyes, no priest to help him confess his sins before he passed from this world to the next; just me, holding his heart. I felt the blood pulsing under my hand, I felt that pulse slow. Sometimes, I still feel it. Sitting in my room, I feel his heart beat slipping through my fingers. I sat and watched my best friend die, knowing there was nothing I could do.
He looked more at peace than I had ever seen him. His steely eyes closed to the horrors around him. I sat there, my tears creating streams down my face through the dirt and the blood. A shell went off somewhere ahead of me. I knew I had to react but I couldn’t move. How could I leave him there? I just couldn’t. Shouting was coming from all directions but I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hear what they were saying. Then an explosion hit my eardrums, hard.
When I woke up, I was here. Well, most of me was here. My left arm was buried along with Luke. One side of my face scarred beyond recognition, the other side was still me. But I looked older than I remembered. The explosion had been almost directly beside me, knocking me out on impact, taking parts of me with it and scarring the rest with shrapnel pieces. I’m not a pretty sight, I know that. But it’s not an infectious disease I have. The stares I can take, the physical avoidance is harder to cope with. Though I don’t blame her for not wanting me anymore, I don’t want me anymore but I can’t hide from myself. She can forget me but I can’t. That day made me who I am today. We both have to learn to deal with that I think. Maybe one day she’ll come back and I can wait for that day, but the thing of it is, I can live through it if she doesn’t come back. I can live through a lot of things as it turns out.

But can you do me a favour? If you see her, will you tell her, just tell her everything. I can’t do it, you see, I’ve tried. But for some reason, the dazzling light of my sunshine leaves me unable to. I wish that I could, it would be better coming from me but maybe now she will understand. And I really need her to understand. I don’t need her but that doesn’t really change anything. I still want my sun back. After so long under the clouds, some sun would be nice.

Do you remember what I said at the start of this story, about the old lady? I kept what she gave, you know. During training, at the front, even as I sat next to Luke, watching him die, I had it with me. I’m not a coward. People can see that now by my missing limb, my scarred face and the white feather I wear alongside my medal. That white feather is my explanation for everything that’s happened.

And I wear it with pride.

The “loving and provident mother of mankind” or the temptress: Why is rhetoric personified as female?

The “loving and provident mother of mankind” or the temptress: Why is rhetoric personified as female?

The ability to communicate one’s thoughts and opinions seems commonplace in today’s society. Indeed, one could be forgive for thinking very little about the intricacies of rhetoric itself. This, however, was not always the case. Debates about rhetoric, and its potential dangers, go back thousands of years. Rhetoric, when not used appropriately, is dangerous. Rhetoric has “from the beginning meant two things: ornamental speech and persuasive speech”#, the former having the ability to articulate emotion while the latter manipulates it#. But what of a person who has the ability to do both? In his epic, The Odyssey, Homer presents a mythical character who’s very characteristics have been echoed throughout the centuries in various forms of literature. That character is the temptress Circe. She is an eloquent, beautiful and dangerous sorceress who has the ability to enthral and captivate her ‘victims’. But it is her eloquence that seems of particular interest as it is her ability to lure people with her song and her words that is seen as her weapon of choice. In Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, the poet’s fallen world is occupied by the sorceress Acrasia who has created a world more beautiful than nature itself. Spenser echoes the danger of this beautiful temptress with the dangers of artifice and her enhancement of nature. In discussions about rhetoric and even in artistic representations of the classical idea of rhetoric, rhetoric is portrayed as feminine. In Martianus Capella’s “The Marriage of Mercury and Philology”, the Seven Arts are personified as the attendants of Philology, each with a book to explain her discipline. In Book V and with “trumpet-blasts Rhetoric is ushered into the presence of the gods….[wearing a] helmet and breastplate and clashes her weapons like thunder”. This cross-dressing of a woman in armour and laden with weapons demonstrates the confusion with the feminine characterisation of rhetoric. The pen is mightier than the sword hence the weapons, but the pen (and sword) were denied to women. Interestingly, the practice of rhetoric itself is seen as something masculine because it is associated with reason. In fact, it was so important that to “the Greeks and the Romans eloquence was, quite simply, the source of civilised life, that which distinguishes human beings from animals”#. But such a civilised life had very little room for women themselves. So why then was its very existence so entrenched in something characterised as so very feminine? The answer lies in the position of women themselves as well as the debates surrounding rhetoric and its potential dangers, for women were seen as dangerous to civilised society as much if not more so than rhetoric was.

During the Renaissance period, the role of women was ultimately a fairly ornamental one. Though the fundamental job of women during this time was to be wives and mothers, in society their person was very much scrutinised as it was on women’s “behaviour in particular that the whole reputation of the house rested”#. Perhaps more modern sensibilities would underestimate the pressure that such a position entailed. During the Elizabethan era, and indeed much before, a person’s position in society was of vital importance as a social standing was a way in which to establish a sense of self. The household itself was “a crucial political tool” during the early modern era as it was “the smallest unit in a system of analogies that stretched right up to the nation itself”. Indeed, Spenser’s epic The Faerie Queene was written during a time where “the envisioned order” was set out “in terms of corresponding hierarchies, with the masculine God/king/father/head securely at the top of the universe/kingdom/family/body”, as it had been for many centuries prior. But herein lies a point of great interest. The head was seen as masculine. The mind was to the body what the king was to the kingdom. A man’s mind was governed by reason. But, reason itself is articulated and persuaded by rhetoric which is seen as feminine. In his letter The Garden of Eloquence penned in 1593, Henry Peacham sets out a stirring argument for the virtues of rhetoric:

…by her his honor is highly advanced, without her it sinketh into shame. Finallie, by her the true felicitie of man is out and held up, without her it and reproach, and is utterlie confounded: by her hee is indued with a blessed state of life, without her he perisheth in miserie and death

Though he is here articulating his campaign for eloquence, the same argument could be held up for the position of women in the household. Without a ‘good’ woman in the household, the reputation of the house is in jeopardy. Without the feminine skill of rhetoric, a man’s position is tenuous. Feminine virtue in the household and the gift of rhetoric, the “sweete milke of prosperitie”, were the building blocks of men’s honour in a very masculine driven world.

Feminine virtue as a component of the household reputation is not strictly an early modern concept. The virtue of women has long been priced and celebrated. The good and virtuous damsel is often present in old romance poems such as Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec and Enide. Enide is depicted as the perfect woman. She is her father’s “joy and comfort”# and displays the desired traits of one who is shy, uncorrupted and pure; “…when she saw the knight whom she had never seen before, she drew back a little, because she did not know him, and in her modesty blushed”. But much more than this, Enide was naturally beautiful:

Nature herself marvelled more than five hundred times upon this one occasion, she had succeeded in creating such a perfect thing…In sooth, she was made to be looked at; for in her on could have seen himself as in a mirror

It is common in such literature that beauty is synonymous with goodness. For Enide, her beauty is a sign of her purity. Though her beauty reduces Erec to a state of love-drunk recreance, Enide is still portrayed as perfection because she initiates the rejection of her sexuality as something which is an inhibitor on his honour. Enide encourages the journey which would see Erec’s Christ-like redemption as he is resurrected and regains his honour. If all women were seen as such pillars of virtue, the fact that rhetoric is portrayed in art and literature as woman would not be of interest. The debates surrounding rhetoric make it known that it in itself is seen as something potentially dangerous, not Enide-like perfection.

Women were seen as temptresses who had the ability to lure men to ruin, often paralleled with Eve, the original sinner. Being seen as being more bodily and sensual, women were held as being responsible for men’s urges. Men were being tested. In Book II Canto XII of The Faerie Queene, the knight Guyon is the Knight of Temperance. The resistance of temptations is a constant struggle as temptation is a trait of the world. In the poem there is an added struggle between that of the pursuit of pleasure and that of duty. Women, of course, as the villainous temptresses who test the knight’s temperance. On entering the ‘Bowre of Bliss’, Guyon spies two maidens bathing in a pool:

Then th’one her selfe low ducked in the flood,
…But th’other rather higher did arise,
And her two lilly paps aloft displayed,
And all, that might his melting hart entise
To her delights, she vnto him bewrayd:
The rest hid vnderneath, him more desirous made

The maidens toy with Guyon when the spy him gawking at them. Though the first one ducks in the pool she can still be seen through the water. This sense of partially covering up is used often, becoming almost a trope of displaying sexuality. In The Odyssey, Circe wears transparent, floating garments that demonstrate an attempt to shield her body from prying eyes while also attracting them. So too does the Faerie Mistress in Marie de France’s Lanval. It’s a very masculine way of demonstrating sexuality because it is the attempt to cover up certain things that tempts men more. Knowing that something is there that is unobtainable makes one more desirous to obtain it. Guyon’s “secret signes of kindled lust appeare” as the women “…to him beckned, to approach more neare,/And shewd him many sights, that courage cold could reare”. Before being fully tempted by the women, our temperate knight is stopped by the Palmer who “much rebukt those wandring eyes of his”. The Palmer figure in the Canto acts as a kind of personification of Guyon’s conscious. When Guyon wishes to steer the boat in the direction of a beach with a distressed woman, the Palmer is there to act the voice of masculine reason in Spenser’s fallen world. He is not only the voice of reason in a land that has been built by the art of rhetoric in which illusion and reality are at odds, he is also the voice of religious knowledge. The historical definition of a Palmer is a pilgrim, one who has travelled to the Holy Land. The character of the Palmer is thus a personification of the Christian values, values which denounce temptation. A fitting companion then for the knight of temperance.

Unfortunately for Odysseus’s crew, no such companion saves them from such temptation. Upon finding Circe’s abode, the crew who had gone in search of her are struck by her beautiful singing voice (much like the bewitching melodies heard in the Bowre of Bliss in The Faerie Queene). The men are convinced it must either be “a goddess or a woman” and call to her. When she invites them in, the narrator claims they entered “In their innocence”. This suggested innocence seems hard to believe as upon the crews arrival they were met by wild beasts whom they knew “Circe had bewitched with her magic drugs”. Why then feign innocence of her powers were already apparent? Perhaps, it is better to feign innocence than to admit to having been lured in to a trap by a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice? But tempted they were, by Circe herself and the excesses of pleasure she provided, like fine, rich food and wine. These excesses and enhancements parallel with the struggle between illusion verses reality. In a setting where one is being tempted, differentiating between was is good and what is not is a challenge. Through rhetoric one can be persuade that is good which is not. Therein lies its dangers and the dangers of women such as Circe. When these men had succumbed to these temptation, they became what all men do when they submit to these pleasures; beasts. Circe turns the men into pigs which is symbolic of the fulfilment of their animalistic sexual desires. The fact that this symbolic transformation is at the hands of a woman should come as little surprise as it was believe that it was women fault that men even had such desires. Women just by being were desirable. In The Faerie Queene, however, these animalistic qualities are somewhat reversed. Acrasia is the ultimate femme fatale figure. She is a temptress living in a fallen world. Though she too transforms her ‘victims’ in to beasts, she herself takes on animalist qualities.

All in a vele of silke and siluer thin,
That hid no whit of her alablaster skin,
…
More subtle web Arachne can not spin,
Nor the fine nets, which oft we wouen see

Acrasia is characterised as a spider not least by the thin silken attire that she wears and the web she weaves to ensnare her prey, but by the way she feds on them. In the subsequent verse, there are words and phrases such as “hungry eies”, “Nectar”, “sweet toyles” and “quenched not”# which articulate a sense of hunger and appetite which in itself is a kind of desire. It also heightens the notion of the sin of gluttony. Temptation is always the excess. For Plato theses excesses are cosmetics and fine cooking, things that are to be indulged in but are not necessary for life. They are “wastfull luxuree”#. In the ‘Bowre of Bliss‘, these luxuries are Acrasia’s sustenance. When Guyon finds her, after being lured towards her by beautiful melodies, he finds her ‘feasting’ on a young man “As seeking medicine, whence she was strong”#, like she is addicted.  The association with the spider is more strongly enforced with imagery which evokes liquid. A spider eats by entangling its prey in its web then sucking the blood out of it. Spenser uses words like “bedewd”, “humid” and “molten”# to call to mind this sense of fluidity. The idea that Acrasia is feasting on him is suggested by the line “through his humid eyes did sucke his spright”. She is sucking his soul out of him. Though in the poem, this is a physical act it is also one that could be evocative of something more spiritual. By being tempted, one is putting at risk their immortal soul. Initiative poetry attempts to replicate truth but in so doing create falsehood. Believing this falsehood corrupts the soul. Representing rhetoric as female brings to mind these worries. Men can be tempted, or persuaded, be it by women or by words or by both.

As has been mentioned, Frye suggests that there are two kinds of rhetoric; ornamental and persuasive. For Plato, rhetoric was something potentially treacherous. Though his initial arguments about rhetoric were purely epistemological, there was also an added ethical dimension: “the end of rhetoric is to furnish pleasure without regard for what is good for its audience”#. Furthermore, Plato asserts that rhetoric is not based on knowledge but experience. But, it was claimed that experience is a loaded philosophical term which is associated with gratification and pleasure. Experience for this reason was reduced to a place in the ‘flattery’ class which was also home to the ‘finer things in life’ such as pasties and cosmetics. Rhetoric is subjected to such a lowly classification in Plato’s eyes because it is not a techne which means a “paradigm of practical knowledge”:

…the kind of experience which constitutes rhetoric and pasty baking is criticized as not being a techne because it does not investigate the nature of the cause of what it seeks to produce, namely pleasure…Plato is saying, then, that rhetoric, like pastry baking, is able to do what it does, persuade, on the basis of the accumulated memory of what has usually produced pleasure in the past

Thus, in many ways, rhetoric is a form of imitation. It seeks to replicate a thing known from the past. And herein lies the hazards of rhetoric. Women were seen as dangerous because of the temptation that they induced. By being sexual beings, they had the capacity to stir sexual desires in men. Such a sexual appetite was sinful because it sullied the basic reproductive reasons for sexual interaction and was associated with the original sin and the subsequent fall. Rhetoric was to be used to enlighten and persuade people of the truth, not persuade it listeners or readers to believe falsehoods. According to Socrates, there is doubt about “the poet’s capacity to teach virtue since he only imitates it”#. In the ‘Bowre of Bliss‘, Acrasia’s domain is a false paradise in a fallen world where there is no satisfaction or pleasure in it. It is not harmonious with reality because it is an imitation of reality and thus an illusion. Spenser draws the readers attention to the surrounding dangers by accentuating its artifice:

…With all the ornaments of Floraes pride;
Wherewith her mother Art, as halfe in scorne
Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride
Did decke her, and too lauishly adorne

The surroundings in the Bowre are likened to a bride, the symbol of virgin purity and innocence, that has dressed in clothes that are too fine and lavish. She has been cosmetically enhanced thus concealing any true beauty. Nature has been turned into something artificial and false. Rhetoric, according to the likes of its harshest critics such as Plato, is the equivalent of wearing make up to appear healthy and beautiful or fine clothes to look more appealing, it is the same as eating fine food that has no nourishment or adding spices to food to make it more tasteful; rhetoric enhances and imitates reality without being part of it. Imitative poetry “corrupts decent people…[and] prevents the immortal soul from attaining its greatest reward” by showing only a representation of truth as fact.

Bringing to mind associations with the fall, eloquence and rhetoric was “first given by God, and after lost by man, and last repaired by God again”. This fall, however, was caused by the lack of knowledge. Men were naturally born with reason and had the ability to lord over all other living things. With this lack of knowledge, and the original sin, society began to live, according to Wilson, like brutes because they lacked the skills to communicate. Society was saved by the grace of God and were gifted with rhetoric and thus order was established. Linking the fall of men to both a corruption of the flesh and a lack of knowledge brings the argument back to why rhetoric is characterised as something feminine. Men were ‘fallen’ because they were desirous of sexual pleasure, women, and lacked the ability to facilitate order through rhetoric. Both of these dangers, when brought under masculine control, can be virtuous and good for society at large. The Arts are portrayed as female but those who employ them as male as only men can mould them with reason. Femininity was placed on a lower rung than that of masculinity and its inherent trait of reason because women were seen as being further from the faculties which could decipher between reality and illusion. During the Renaissance, there was a tendency in art to display the Seven Arts coupled with the Seven Virtues “which signifies the union of intellect and morality”, a union between masculine and feminine. Similarly, during this period “Protestant reformers believed with utter seriousness that husbands and wives could and should help each other to heaven”. Through marriage there was an understanding that husband and wife became one entity with both the masculine and the feminine. Though it could be suggested that this union was empowering for women because it suggests their role was one on par with that of men, the more cynical approach seems more accurate. This forging of one entity was a form of control. Feminine traits taking on masculine qualities meant order. Rhetoric is characterised as feminine because of its capacity to be controlled and its ability to take on a life of its own. When rhetoric becomes out of control of reason, it becomes bigger than its creator. It becomes a representation of truth and therefore dangerous to perceptions of reality and illusion. Rhetoric should be used to persuade people of good without attempting to imitate goodness. Women should be naturally beautiful, virtuous and display true goodness as displayed in the character of Enide. Their natural sexuality must be suppressed lest they awaken men’s animalistic sexual appetites and threaten the established order. Women who follow their own desires and whims are as dangerous to men as uncensored and ill-used rhetoric, but are as necessary to society and order. Characterising rhetoric as feminine links the social conception of women as the embodiment of temptation and pleasure, like Circe and Acrasia, and the notion that rhetoric has also the ability to create an illusion of what is tempting and pleasurable.



(It was all referenced beautifully, but Blogger does NOT like footnotes. Apologies. All the works used for this piece are listed below and I give them all full credit for the quotations used)

Bibliography

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Coumoundouros, Antonis. ‘Plato: The Republic’, Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/#SH5e [accessed 22 March 2014]

Eggert, Katherine. ‘Spenser’s Ravishment: Rape and Rapture in The Faerie Queene’. Representations. 70. (2000), pp. 1-26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2902891

de France, Marie. Lanval. trans. Judith P. Shoaf (2005) http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jshoaf/Marie/lanval.pdf [accessed 21 March 2014]

Frye, Northrop. ‘Rhetorical Criticism: Theory of Genres’. Anatomy of Criticism. (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000)

Garver, Eugene. ‘Aristotle on the Kinds of Rhetoric’. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 27.1 (2009), pp. 1-18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rh.2009.27.1.1

Greer, Germaine. Past Masters: Shakespeare. ed. Keith Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Homer. The Odyssey. trans. E.V. Rieu and D.C.H. Rieu. (London: Penguin Classics, 2003)

Millar, Dana. ‘Rhetoric in the Light of Plato’s Epistemological Criticisms’. Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric. 30.2 (2012), pp. 109-133. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/RH.2012.30.2.109

North, Helen F. ‘Emblems of Eloquence’. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 137.3. (Sept., 1993), pp. 406-430. http://www.jstor.org/stable/987001

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The Confession

(I did say that some of them were unfinished. But I like this one as a start....)

The Confession

So I never know how to start these kind of things. It always seems so impersonal because it is impossible for someone to really put brainwaves into words, except if you are maybe Humbert Humbert in which case nothing is off limits and nothing is impersonal. In fact, with that guy it seems that everything is a little too personal for my personal taste. But in one respect I guess me and that particular fictional character are alike. No no, I do not have a highly inappropriate school-girl fetish, but I do have a confession. At least, a confession of sorts. I was neglectful to someone who needed me someone who needed me desperately. I let them down and I couldn’t help it. It was like going fishing and taking the fish out of the water and just watching it wriggle, gagging for breath but unable to grasp it. That smothering desperation that manifests itself as writhing agony. I watch that fish knowing that with one movement I could end it. It was in my power. I was living out the twisted and disturbing Superman theory. I killed Nietzsche’s God. I controlled this God-like power, I held a life in my hands. Now, the holding-a-life-in-my-hands thing relates only to the fish metaphor, not my confession. Although the writhing agony part was not far off. I could see the pain written all over her face and I did nothing. More worryingly, I didn’t want to do anything. I always used to joke that we all should embrace the inner bitch, but I think that I may have taken things to the extreme and for that I need to apologise.

But in order to do that, I guess that I might have to start at the beginning. I was new in school and a bit of loner. Wait, no no, wait. I probably shouldn’t start this off with a lie. I was a complete loner and a teachers pet and a book worm (hence the ‘Lolita’ reference). I was that person that you could and would walk past in the corridor because they are just invisible. I was invisible. I used to crouch next to the library door, book in my hands, desperate for the bloody librarian to hurry up and finish her lunch so I could escape the agony of having to watch other people who actually had a life. Witness the joy on peoples faces as they shared a joke and solidified friendships. I was sinking into a world where all I saw was blackness, engulfing blackness that comes with rejection. And she took me under her wing. They enfolded me in their group and I did very little to pay them back. But the thing is, that even though I was being notice it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. I wanted more. Sorry, I am potentially getting ahead of myself. In fact I know I am. The thing is, I didn’t just want to just be included in the group, I wanted to be one of the leaders or the leader's right hand man so to speak.

As with every group there are leaders, be it a subconscious gravitation or a deliberate one, there must be a core. In our group (using the word our in itself feels like I’m taking a liberty I have done very little to deserve) there were two leaders. They seemed to represent a united front. One was quiet, rational, kind but strong. She allowed no one to pull the wool over her eyes but she was always so desperate to please everyone with her truly generous nature that she was like the mother hen. We all loved her. The other was opinionated and loud, witty because she had to be. She was not pretty. The opposite of the other in that respect. Her wit, sarcastic as hell, was her enduring quality. While the quiet one was compassionate and open, the other gave all the show of being open and honest but she was a closed book about many things, only ever showing her cards to those she trusted. It was that trust I played off of. The two were inseparable but the latter had a temper on her. A short fuse that often put the unison of the leaders under strain. I found it fascinating to observe this. One moment they could be arguing something in an almost friendly way then bam, she would be off. There would be a fire in her eyes and you could tell instinctively when you had gone too far. But it took a lot for her to lose her temper with her fellow leader. This is what made it so difficult to separate them. But that is where fate intervened. They both had sisters. And the two eldest sisters for the most part didn’t like each other. In fact, you could say there was somewhat of a feud. And, as always, it was rooted in the ever present boy trouble of high school. One sister had the boy, the other wanted him and he loved the attention. When a nonsensical argument about a ridiculous misunderstanding bubbled over I knew it wasn’t entirely based on the why-did-you-say-that quarrel, the underlying motive was the sister drama.  

How to Survive the University Hierarchy

How to Survive the University Hierarchy 

High School, you gotta love it. But seriously, didn’t you just. Everyone was just so kind and friendly, the work load was just right so that you could go and enjoy the precise sunny days in the sentimental summers spent with friends.
LOL JOKES! High School was an absolute bitch. The torture of double PE, the enduring pain of Biology, the long-lasting heartache that was Maths and the never ending sessions spent in the library doing fuck all, all amounted to the one thing; six years of hard graft with very little to show for it except a job for some, a college place for others and a university offer for most. Joy of joys. More work. But this being the goal, it marked a transition between the monotonous chore of High School and the ‘Real World’.

But with this mysterious ‘Real World’ came the expectation that things would be different than the utter joy that we know as the education system. We could say NO to crappy subjects that would have no relevance to anything we could see ourselves doing in the future, and NO to being forced into friendships, because heaven forbid we inadvertently offend what’s-her-face because she was friends with name-escapes-me, who you slagged off behind her back and then the whole world ENDED, etc, etc………And so you fly the nest, full of hope and expectations about the future, saying to your friends “Won’t it be sooo good to actually be studying things that we actually care about?”, or “I’m sooooooo excited to be able to just make a fresh start”. Ah, how cute and naïve we were.

The car was filled with useless crap that I knew I was never going to need but thought I‘d take anyway, fresher’s week began, drunkenness ensued (and continued) and friendships were made. Student life most certainly did start with a bang. And ended with a wallop. Lectures, tutorials….oh, I suddenly remember what it is we are actually here to do. Sigh. Not that that really affected the pure excitement of the whole thing. Sitting in a room with a group of people arguing about literature, or world affairs and politics, makes you feel like you have entered an intellectual Narnia. The main difference is that there is no friendly/horrendous/brutal/kind/encouraging (circle the one that applies to you or place another relevant adjective here____ ) teacher standing over your shoulder saying “Now, don’t forget this homework is due in A WEEK TODAY”, etc…Things aren’t spelt out for you. Another sigh. The main thing that you miss is ‘the fear’. ‘The fear’ stems directly from the pressure put on you by the above mentioned teachers of high school. The panic you get when you have a maths exercise due in on Thursday which you only started on Wednesday night doesn’t have a place at university because what is really going to happen? A harshly worded email about how you really should practice punctuality, or a shitty mark? Both you can decide you can live through if Tiger Tiger are hosting another banging Vanity club night and can boast £1 sambuca shots! But, as a student, going it on your own, you have to make the fear yourself. Easier said then done, trust me. Because, before you can even consider university work, you have to fill your mind with the conundrum that is the social network and were the hell you fit in.

Shall we take my own personal experience as a case study? Yes? Yes, ok then. I stay in university halls and within the walls of this very building there is a hierarchy, a rigid social structure where there are very few exceptions to the rule. According to this imagined and utterly nonsensical hierarchy, which I in no way advocate or indeed approve of, at the bottom of the “pecking order” are the social outsiders, the ones that sits in the TV room socialising with their fellow outcasts playing ‘World of War craft’ or ‘Dungeons and Dragons’, and not helping their cause at all by being, simply put, stereotypical nerds. Just above them are the ‘inbetweeners’ (a group to which I’m certain I belong, and I’m proud of it) . Now this plateau can encompass a wide variety of groups. For example, you will have the Christen sect, the indie kids, the arty group and the foreigners. Directly above them are the Medics. Now this group are separated from most as they believe themselves to be above everyone else. Direct quote from a medic to myself; “I know I worked harder for my exams then you did, you know, being an art student”. This medic friend failed the exams. All of them. But that is just a wee example of the ‘Medic Superiority complex’ shown throughout university life. But there is one group that the medics would consider themselves part of, indeed, they are probably roughly on the same level.

This group is the ‘Rugby Lads’, also know as the ‘Private Schoolers’. Don’t let the name fool you, this group does include girls too. The typical “But daddy, I need that pony” types. They rule the roost, or at least like to believe that they do. They are the university equivalent of the High School ‘plastics’. They are the ones that everyone either wants to be, or wants to be with. The ones that can blow a grand in a strip club in one night and view it as pocket change. This actually happened. People-are-so-crazy SIGH! The guys that believe that they can have their pick of all the girls, and never get an unfavourable answer. And this tri-level social structure is not without its rules. It follows a one-up-one-down policy. You may only interact with member of a group with which you are either on the same level or if they are in the group above you by one move or below you by one move. But, it is much safer to just stick within your own field. For example, an ‘inbetweener’ can acknowledge the nerd in the TV room without their right to hold a conversation with a medic or a ‘Rugby Lad’ being revoked. But for the social outcast group to dare speak to a ‘Rugby Lad’ would be the equivalent of social suicide. It just would not happen. In fact, if the ‘Private Schoolers’ decide that they want to watch something in the TV room, the outcasts leave, they have to move. No one makes them move, and no one of the top sector would ever tell them to leave, but it is implied. Coming straight from High School this subservient nature takes over. Unfortunate as it may be, it cannot be avoided. The hierarchy is put in place before we even know its happened and before we can do anything to stop it. All girls in the hall may have a crush on one of the ‘Rugby Lads’, but only a girl on the same social level will nab him. The rest are left to believe that he is ‘out of their league’. Like hell he is. But he thinks so. Power stems directly from confidence, and that group has it in abundance.

I will be the first person to hold up my hands and say yeah, this is bitchy and it is harsh. But who can honestly turn around, look people in the eye and say that one word of this is a lie? Seriously….Who? This is the harsh reality. It’s harsh….but true. They say that university prepares you for life, more than High School does (which isn’t hard), and if that is the case I’m scared. Does this hierarchy last forever? Will it follow you wherever you go, whatever job you end up doing and if so, do we just have to accept it? The sad truth is probably. No one waltzes in to their dream job which means at some point you need to start from the bottom up. The only difference is, in the real world, you have a chance to move up the chain. And that is a much more exciting prospect.

The beginning....

The posts on here are little bits and bobs I've enjoyed writing over the years. Some are a lot better than others, some are unfinished but I just like them anyway, some were written for me, some were written for others, but the common thread is they were written, put in a folder on my laptop and ignored.

So I thought, why not post some of them for the world to see (if they fancy it, I mean. No pressure) and see what comes of it.

I hope you like what I put up. If you do (or if you don't), please comment, share and edit if you wish.