Druidism’s challenge for the modern left today

Liam redux

Druidism’s challenge for the modern left today

This is the second and final grapple with shibboleths. Sometimes you just have to get these things off your chest. Everyone who wants to have a fully modern British identity in modern contemporary Britain wants a little bit of David Beckham in them. Which bit depends on that melange of elements that make up the…

Liam

September 9, 2009

2–3 minutes

This is the second and final grapple with shibboleths. Sometimes you just have to get these things off your chest.

Everyone who wants to have a fully modern British identity in modern contemporary Britain wants a little bit of David Beckham in them. Which bit depends on that melange of elements that make up the identity we have in these modern times.

Yet to be truly modern we can’t stop at acknowledging our debt to celebrity culture, cricket, the England football team and the other innumerable tesserae that make up the mosaic of our modernity. We also have to pay righteous homage to the figures and themes of the past, even those which force us to ask difficult questions. The problematical but great heralds of modern Britishness like the Duke of Wellington and Lord Kitchener are names which evoke nostalgia for Britain ’s lost empire but also touch all those families which dimly remember ancestors who fought with them in the people’s armies through the centuries. These are challenging issues for the left.

So too are the Druids. Slavoj Žižek probably said somewhere “Christianity is a bullshit religion. It hit the big time with Roman slaves and ended up enslaving. To hell with all that meek and mild excrement! If you’re looking for a religion with a big emancipatory message offering a grand narrative for a society you can do a lot worse than Druidism and I bet Alain Badiou would agree.”

It’s a fair point if he did make it. Even their modern adepts are a bit vague about what druids actually did and said beyond trussing up young men and throwing them into bogs, taking narcotics and sacrificing virgins. That’s a drawback with oral traditions. Yet they speak to so many aspects of our modern selves. In their day they fought the Romans to preserve their self conception of their modern Britishness much as many people today conduct an inner struggle to define what being British and progressive means. Where they fought pitched battles against highly trained professional armies today’s foes are the eddies and currents of conflicting outmoded ideologies, the need to get New Labour elected and the ups and downs of a range of English sports teams.

Even those of a Greener persuasion have a lot to learn from Druidic wisdom. With the scientific evidence irrefutably proving that capitalism is causing climate change the druids have a timeless message. They offer a reproach of our abuse of Mother Earth that makes hidebound ideologues like Marx and John Bellamy Foster seem to be speaking an obscure dialect of a dying tribe.

With Vera Lynn in the album charts giving the Arctic Monkeys a run for their money and reminding us of the songs that beat Hitler the barriers between old and new are as permeable as the cloth on the Union Flag. The druids, their ancient wisdom and modern followers can also be part of the progressive rainbow we need to beat the Tories.

13 responses to “Druidism’s challenge for the modern left today”

Fatal Paradox

September 9, 2009 at 11:28 pm

Speaking of Alain Badiou, what’s up with him these days? He seems to have a real thing for reclaiming the “universalist” heritage of Christianity for the left – writing books about what a great guy St Paul was etc etc.

Although as I noted a few months back on my blog, there may be some disconcerting similarities between the far left and Pauline evangelism – just not quite the sort that Badiou imagines…

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James

September 10, 2009 at 7:04 am

Engaging with the popular, innit?

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johng

September 10, 2009 at 11:41 am

I think all this is terribly unfair for those trying to break out of the hidebound patterns of the fundementalist left by reading back-issues of Marxism Today. Lets have a bit more imagination…and above all fun! who wants to sit in endless boring meetings voting? Lets discuss hegenomy and progressive strategy without voting instead!

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skidmarx

September 10, 2009 at 3:32 pm

I bumped into a couple of druids on midsummer morning in the mid 90s in Wiltshire.Within a few minutes the police and the archdruid Arthur Pendragon had shown up. While the latter explained that he was still suing the chief constable for false arrest from a couple of previous occasions, I and a couple of friends slipped away. Wisdom learned that day: don’t plan your run at the Stones for sunrise on a cloudy day when you can’t tell when the sun has actually come up.
I went to Amsterdam with a druid a couple of years later. I didn’t realise he was a druid until a couple of years after that, when I saw Tony Robinson patronising him on the TV for impeding the Time Team’s attempts to dig up Woodhenge while the power point was still active. Wisdom learned on that trip: trees rely on underground water courses as well as rain for survival, allowing water companies to ignore this and deplete underground reservoirs was turning Essex into a semi-arid region.
After a couple of days in Holland the druid and I concluded that the other bloke we were with was too crazy and we headed back the England.

The druids, their ancient wisdom and modern followers can also be part of the progressive rainbow we need to beat the Tories.
Though we should contrast this with Alan Thornett’s words:
For Respect, therefore, as the only party on the socialist left with a chance of a Westminster seat, the immediate priority has to be its own election results… There is little to benefit by Respect going into any new formation if, in the process, it loses the electoral gains which make it unique.
I think I might return to this sectarian perspective at a more appropriate time ,such as when the next Respect paper comes out. The last one was out in May, I’m sure there must be another due soon.

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Adamski

September 10, 2009 at 3:58 pm

When Julius Caesar invaded Gaul/France he believed that Druids were playing a key role in stoking up resistance, one of the aims of the invasion of Britain was to smash Druidry and particularly to aim at its heartland in Anglesey/Ynys Mon.

I recall an edition of History Workshop Journal with an article by ex-CP Welsh socialist Historian, Gwyn Alf Williams on the theme of ‘Druids as Organic Intellectuals’ can’t remember what his line was.

Obviously, Iolo Morganwg who in Wales in the 18th century invented modern bardism and druidry and much other myth-making also had an egalitarian streak being a peruser of various jacobin literature and inspired by the French revolution, he even argued that whereas the old bards had been royal remembrancers chronicling the deeds of the great and good what was needed was a cadre of ‘Peoples Remembrancers’. Gwyn Alf Williams liked to refer to himself as a ‘People’s Remembrancer’.

In a review of a day school organised by Llafur – The Welsh People’s History society I wrote (under nom-de-pume) I mentioned a discussion of Iolo:

“An interesting angle was opened up, when we heard about the influence of Iolo Morganwg, stonemason and inventor of the modern bards, on Price and Welsh chartists. It was argued that Morganwg bequeathed Welsh radicals the equivalent of the English concept of “the Norman Yoke” (read Christopher Hill for background on this idea). The Welsh couldn’t look back to a golden age before the Norman conquest of justice because they had never been conquered by the Normans!

Iolo, “The bard of liberty”, invented a fiction of a radical and democratic druidic past long before the Roman invasion of Britain, a distant Welsh or British utopia, presided over by Druids who were lawgivers and moral teachers, a fiction was promoted that in the Middle Ages, Welsh Kings were appointed and removed by popular assembly. William Price believed that this utopian past could fire people’s imaginations to create a radical present.

We heard anecdotes that Iolo’s Triads of the Social State had even influenced Karl Marx, and it was argued that Iolo had shaped many false ideas that people had of medieval Welsh history, speakers argued that people had read the Laws of Hywel Dda through the prism of Iolo’s preface that gave them a democratic and egalitarian twist that wasn’t really there: For example a group of 19th century squatters invoked in their defence the laws of Hywel Dda, but it was claimed that they had inherited a false and romantic idea of the laws.”

I also mentioned a welsh chartist leader sometimes claimed as a founder of socialised medicine who was also a druid:

“A key figure in the Pontypridd Co-op was a radical Doctor and Chartist leader named William Price, A whole book could be written about Price (and probably has!), an early pioneer of cremation who played a role in laying the ground for the final legalisation of the practice in 1902, he was also a druid and an advocate of free love.

Dr Price can also be seen as a father of socialised medicine: Elected doctor by striking workers who paid weekly contributions in return for free health care, he caustically commented that people paid for doctors when they were sick, but that people should only pay for doctors when they had been cured, and when they were sick the doctors should pay the patients!

This inspired much controversy with the floor, especially when the speaker raised the issue of Welsh suffragettes claiming inspiration from Celtic women who supposedly enjoyed equality as an example of how a completely romanticised view of the laws had developed. Some argued that Hywel Dda’s laws were progressive particularly in regards to divorce and defended them as an egalitarian system of law.”

http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/2008/09/welsh-history-day-school-report.html

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Adamski

September 10, 2009 at 4:09 pm

When Julius Caesar occupied Gaul/France he believed that Druids from Britain were playing a key role in stoking up resistance, the invasion of Britain also had an aim to smash druidry in its stronghold of Anglesey/Ynys Mon.

Gwyn Alf Williams (ex-CP), a Welsh socialist historian wrote an article in History Workshop Journal once about Druids as the first organic intellectuals, read it a long time ago, so can’t remember what his line was.

Iolo Morganwg – the Welsh nationalist mythmonger – who essentially re-invented bardism and druidry in the 18th/19th century century also had an egalitarian streak inspired by Jacobin literature then in circulation & the ideals of the French Revolution.

He argued that the old bards had been kings remembrancers and called for a new cadre of People’s Remembrancers (Gwyn Alf Williams like to refer to himself as a ‘People’s Remembrancer)

In a review of a day school organised by Llafur – Welsh People’s History Society I wrote (under nom-de-plume) I touched on some of these themes:

“we heard about the influence of Iolo Morganwg, stonemason and inventor of the modern bards, on Price and Welsh chartists. It was argued that Morganwg bequeathed Welsh radicals the equivalent of the English concept of “the Norman Yoke” (read Christopher Hill for background on this idea). The Welsh couldn’t look back to a golden age before the Norman conquest of justice because they had never been conquered by the Normans!

Iolo, “The bard of liberty”, invented a fiction of a radical and democratic druidic past long before the Roman invasion of Britain, a distant Welsh or British utopia, presided over by Druids who were lawgivers and moral teachers, a fiction was promoted that in the Middle Ages, Welsh Kings were appointed and removed by popular assembly. William Price believed that this utopian past could fire people’s imaginations to create a radical present.

We heard anecdotes that Iolo’s Triads of the Social State had even influenced Karl Marx, and it was argued that Iolo had shaped many false ideas that people had of medieval Welsh history, speakers argued that people had read the Laws of Hywel Dda through the prism of Iolo’s preface that gave them a democratic and egalitarian twist that wasn’t really there: For example a group of 19th century squatters invoked in their defence the laws of Hywel Dda, but it was claimed that they had inherited a false and romantic idea of the laws.

This inspired much controversy with the floor, especially when the speaker raised the issue of Welsh suffragettes claiming inspiration from Celtic women who supposedly enjoyed equality as an example of how a completely romanticised view of the laws had developed. Some argued that Hywel Dda’s laws were progressive particularly in regards to divorce and defended them as an egalitarian system of law.”

And also Welsh chartist leader Dr William Price (whom some romantically claim as the founder of socialised medicine) was a Druid and involved in the campaign to legalise cremation who was involved in the first co-op in Wales that played a key role in a militant workers struggle of the time:

“A key figure in the Pontypridd Co-op was a radical Doctor and Chartist leader named William Price, A whole book could be written about Price (and probably has!), an early pioneer of cremation who played a role in laying the ground for the final legalisation of the practice in 1902, he was also a druid and an advocate of free love.

Dr Price can also be seen as a father of socialised medicine: Elected doctor by striking workers who paid weekly contributions in return for free health care, he caustically commented that people paid for doctors when they were sick, but that people should only pay for doctors when they had been cured, and when they were sick the doctors should pay the patients!”

http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/2008/09/welsh-history-day-school-report.html

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Liam

September 10, 2009 at 4:49 pm

“Lets have a bit more imagination…and above all fun! who wants to sit in endless boring meetings voting?”

That’s rather a sore spot with me Johng. It’s pretty much verbatim what some of your comrades said to me in Respect v1. Picnics, eyecatching spectacle and razzamatazz were at a premium. But let’s not pick at that again.

Skidmarx the most recent paper came out last week.

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johng

September 10, 2009 at 5:17 pm

No lets. It’d be like the old days.

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johng

September 10, 2009 at 5:19 pm

I would begin by point out that picnics can actually be genuinely fun. debating hegenomy and socialist strategy rarely is.

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George T

September 10, 2009 at 5:46 pm

Are druids all blokes? If so, why?

If we need to create barricades in the revolution, it would be useful to have druids hauling great big blocks of stone about

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skidmarx

September 11, 2009 at 10:37 am

And hammers go better with sickles.

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entdinglichung

September 11, 2009 at 1:28 pm

does anybody know more about this – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Universal_Bond – “church”?

“The Church of the Universal Bond was a religious group founded in Britain in the early twentieth century by George Watson MacGregor Reid, promoting socialist revolution, anti-imperialism and sun worship.”

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Adamski

September 14, 2009 at 11:51 am

Sorry for posting 2 almost identical comments, technical glitch.
Re. Druids and the re-invention of druidism in the 18th & 19th century, the work of a Bristol historian called Ronald Hutton is very much worth checking out. He is also an excellent writer on folklore and english traditions.

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