Old man, new manuscripts

Oxford’s Bodleian library is currently running an exhibition called ‘Tolkien:

Maker of Middle-Earth’. More than anything it exhibits Tolkien's colossal

diligence—with almost identical maps drawn and redrawn countless times—a

diligent imagination that over decades created one of England’s greatest

mythologies. But only a portion of what Tolkien wrote was published in his

lifetime, and as Stephen King observed,

a thousand pages of hobbit hasn’t been enough for three generations of

post-World War II fantasy fans; even when you add in that clumsy,

galumphing dirigible of an epilogue, The Silmarillion, it hasn't been

enough. Hence Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, the

questing rabbits of Watership Down and half a hundred others. The

writers of these books are creating the hobbits they still love and pine

for; they are trying to bring Frodo and Sam back from the Grey Havens

because Tolkien is no longer around to do it for them.

But his son is around, and lately he’s been prolific in meeting that longing.

The world’s most dedicated student of JRR’s manuscripts, Christopher

Tolkien has not only reassembled three of his father’s novels set in Middle

Earth but also published some of his translations—including one of Beowulf.

They’ve proven popular, of course, but I don’t think that’s just because people

want more hobbits; I think they want more Tolkien.

And so the Bodleian’s exhibition, where some of Tolkien’s art and letters have

been made public for the first time. (The art is beautiful.) And also the real

point of my drivelling on. One of the exhibits was a spoof exam paper devised

by Tolkien for a walking holiday with his fellow Inklings, a group of writers

that included CS Lewis and Owen Barfield. It’s nonsensical, hilarious, and

nowhere else on the internet. One way and another, Tolkien's genius is getting

out.

College of Cretaceous Perambulators

Re-entrance Examination

April 1938

No more than 14 questions should be answered

1 Comment on the following

(1) It is no good setting them that, they would know it

(2) 'The poet sat in the third and laughed'

(3) 'Ten twenty thirty you're so very dirty'

(4) 'The armada can wait but my bowels can't'

(5) παντα σφαιρει ('everything on earth')

(6) Felix qui portuit felis cognoscere caudam ('happy is he who has

been able to know a cat's tail')

2 What are the five principle weaknesses of the 'Orpheus'?

3 Discuss the orchestral uses and abuses of the Viol de Gambons, the

Silver Trumpet, the Cor Anglais and the Cuckold's Horn

4 Distinguish between (a) Thursday and Friday (b) the man who was

Thursday and Man Friday (c) Basingstoke and Alton (d) Coming on a

walking tour and directing it (e) gibbets and Hobbits

5 Where do you get off?

6 Compare Poetic Diction.

7 Define a cone. See question (11)

8 On a given Field either

(a) Erect a perpendicular edifice subtending at the extremities of the

Field angles whose sum is equal to half the erection.

or

(b) Exterminate all pests

(c) Conjugate the principle parts

9 'In acute cases of Differential Calculus Stone Ginger has been found

a Sovereign Remedy' - T Brown. Discuss

10 Who were Owen Glendower, Owen Nares, Robert Owen, Owen

Moore, Owen Barfield, Vale Owen, Owain, Ywain, Rowena, Bowen,

Rowin', Sowin', Hoein', Growin', Knowin', and Glóin

11 And stuff it up.

12 Estimate, compare, distinguish, discuss and trace to its principle

sources Everything.

* Dinner will be served for the candidates when the examiners are

satisfied.

(Though I think Tolkien’s lines might have landed better if he’d known which ones to cut. Or

maybe there are just a lot of Inkling in-jokes here.)

David Gandy's garbage and gravity

David Gandy’s greatest asset is not his beautiful features. It’s the sense of gravity those features bestow. Just look at the picture of him below, ruminating like a man who’s discovered the assassination of his spy lover, or who’s learnt of Rome’s fall to the barbarians. His granite looks and hulking muscles aren’t the centre of attention. They’re there to support his expression, that of a man with a soul as deep as a canyon, bravely facing challenges unconscionable and foes innumerable. (Though whoever those foes are, he probably should probably put on more clothes before tackling them.)

More chiseled than the sphinx

One of the brands that the gravitational Gandy does modelling for is Wellman, a part of Vitabiotics, a nutritional supplements company. (Vitabiotics’ other brands include Wellwoman, Wellkid and Wellbaby. Rumour has it they’ll launch Wellfoetus and Wellcodger in the autumn.) In Wellman’s adverts Gandy poses manfully next to the words ‘I’ve been taking Wellman since my twenties to support my health and hectic lifestyle.’

Or so he thinks. In a fearsome article entitled ‘Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements’, Edgar Miller et al. pointed out that ‘most supplement users’ have ‘no clear evidence of micronutrient deficiencies’. In other words, most supplement takers don’t need their supplements. Miller, a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, observes that many of us fear our diets are insufficient because of how much unhealthy food we eat. Our fears are stoked and preyed upon by supplement companies. But eating a lot of unhealthy food doesn’t mean we’re getting too little of some nutrients, only that we’re getting too much of others. Most people, Miller asserts, get ‘completely adequate’ nutrients from their diet.

That ‘most people’ bit has got a lot of flack from other researchers. But whether most people do have a good diet or not, there does seem to be broad agreement that—absent of an unusual condition—a good diet is sufficient for good nutrition. So has Wellman really supported Gandy’s health and hectic lifestyle? My guess is only a little, occasionally. He doesn’t look like he skips leg day, and I doubt he skips beetroot day either.

But I know what you’re thinking: why’s Rob talking about the scam of the supplements industry when there’s a much more important issue at hand? You’re right, of course. There was a cunning little hendiadys in Gandy’s Wellman promo.

A hendiadys, as you know, is where you split one idea into two and insert an ‘and’ in between. Think of Macbeth’s ‘sound and fury’ (instead of ‘sounding fury’), or of Jesus’ promise to give his disciples ‘a mouth and wisdom’ (rather than ‘a wise mouth’). In the same vein, Gandy’s probably not taking Wellman to support both his ‘health and hectic lifestyle’, as if they’re two unconnected things. The two are probably more related than that, as in ‘I’ve taken Wellman to support my health despite my hectic lifestyle’ or ‘support my health because of my hectic lifestyle’. But saying things that way sounds clunky. So he’s just replaced all that explanatory material with an ‘and’. Woosh.

Gandy’s hendiadys doesn’t just make his statement briefer. In this case, at least, it also gives the sentence a stronger rhythmic flow: ‘support my health and hectic lifestyle’. And it brings out the he assonance too. The most important thing, though, is that the hendiadys gives each element equal standing. If Gandy had said ‘support my health despite my hectic lifestyle’, his hecticness would sound as if it came at the cost of his health. But by substitute in an ‘and’, the two elements sound like they naturally go together. Or, at least, they do when you’re supported by Wellman. The idea that Wellman’s very useful is probably bosh, but with Gandy’s clever verbal sleight of hand it seems a little more plausible.

Trump's America: The Power of Groupthink (my notes on a Special Report from The Economist)

I felt like this was a phenomenally illuminating Special Report from The Economist. Here are my notes on it. It explains that people aren’t that swayed by policy, but by the person they most like or trust. Trump, by sticking up for issues his voters care about, has won their trust. And he now has the latitude to pick the policies he wants, confident that his supporters will go along with them.

Why do people support candidates in general?

Not by weighing up each of the candidates’ policies in turn: most voters pay little attention to politics.

• Only a fifth of Americans pay ‘close attention’ to politics.
• At the other end of things, a fifth of voters weren’t sure whether Trump or Clinton was the more conservative.

Instead, voters adapt their preferences to fit the candidate or party they like. Their political attitudes are not fixed.

• About half of anti-abortion men who voted Democrat in 1982 had become pro-choice 15 years later.
• In 2011, white evangelicals were the most likely group to say that personal morality was important in a president; now they are the least likely.

That said, voters are more likely to like candidates who come up with certain policies.

• People favour tax cuts and also increased government spending. Trump promised both.
• Many voters have also been attracted by Trump’s nativism, seen in his railings against trade (which voters care about a little) and immigration (which they care about a lot).

But generally, people tend to vote for, and vote with, people like them—people they can trust. And they tend to do this very consistently.

• 90% of those who supported Obama in 2012 supported Hillary.
• 90% of those who supported Romney in 2012 supported Trump.

Communal groupthink is a powerful force here. People tend to adopt the attitudes of the groups they cluster in. Communities around are becoming more homogenous, more partisan.

• In 1992, 39% lived in districts where a presidential candidate won more than 60% of the vote. The figure was 61% by 2006. It’s not that Republicans and Democrats are moving to be near their own kind; rather, they’re becoming like those who’re already nearby.

So why did people support Trump?

They felt like could trust him. For the first time in many years, they felt had a candidate who recognised them. Trump voters feel that life is unfair. They feel they’ve been ignored by elite politicians. They feel that recent arrivals in America are ‘queue-jumping’. They’re worried about getting left behind economically. Trump has spoken up for them on all these issues.

This feeling of unfairness and victimisation is exacerbated by partisanship, which is increasingly a social virtue.

• A quarter of conservatives and liberals would be unhappy if their children married someone from the other side.
• Many Republicans feel oppressed by ‘liberal feeling rules’, attitudes to minorities, gay people and women that they do not share.

This general lack of trust makes many Republicans blame Democrat elites for their problems. Many of the losses to manufacturing, mining etc. have been because of increased mechanisation, competition from elsewhere in the country or from abroad, etc. But Republicans can interpret the losses as a deliberate choice made by the powerful and uncaring.

Trust in Trump and antipathy towards others are also heightened by issues of race. Few Americans—Trump supporters included—are racist. But they do unconsciously sympathise more with those of their own racial group, and want someone to speak up on their behalf.

• Over 40% of Trump voters think it’s ‘very’ or ‘extremely important’ that whites work together to change laws that are unfair to whites. Just under 20% of Hillary voters thought the same too.
• Half of Trump voters thought Obama was Muslim.

Then there’s economic insecurity. Now, Trump’s popularity is supposed to be the result of economic distress. But the economy’s recovered from 2008. Unemployment is low and the S&P’s setting new records. So what role is economic insecurity playing?

Seymour Lipset theorised that in times of prosperity, some groups become anxious about being eclipsed by others. Unfortunately, there’s not much the government can do to alleviate such status anxiety and conflict, so it persists. Minority ethnic and religious groups often become convenient scapegoats.

Why aren’t they turned off by Trump’s wealth? Or by his promised tax-cuts for the rich? Most Trump voters admire wealthy people, Trump included. The white working class don’t dream of becoming upper-middle class, with its funny food and family patterns. They want to live in their own class milieu—but as their own boss and with more money. Like Trump.

On all these issues—partisanship, race, insecurity—Trump has said exactly what his supporters feel. He attacks Democratic elites, sticks up for whites, and expresses his supporters’ status anxiety in his attacks minorities. For that, he has his voters’ trust. And he may well have it into the next election.

Why might voters continue to support him, despite his blundering presidency?

The president therefore has a great deal of latitude with his voters, both with getting them to support his policies, and with getting them to overlook his faults.

As we saw earlier, his supporters aren’t not sure what they want from him policy-wise. They just know that Trump sides with them. So when they consider a policy choice he’s made, they’re not weighing the policy choice itself. Instead, they’re generally assessing whether the president is trying to do the right thing, whether he’s fundamentally well-meaning. At the moment, they’re continuing to conclude that he is.

• When the president’s criticised, 80% of Trump voters see it as an attack on ‘people like me’.

So are voters turned off when Trump fails to keep his promises, such as those about coal jobs? No. They give him points for taking their side against the elites. And they’re likely to blame other groups for stymieing him.

That’s good for Trump, since there’s no consistent thread running through his policy decisions. One month he says NATO’s relevant; the next he refuses to stand by Article 5, the collective defence agreement at the heart of the Treaty. He criticises Obama’s bombing in Libya, but later launches a cruise missile against Syrian government forces. Perhaps Trump’s biggest concern is simply to appear as if he’s getting things done.

[My notes aren’t a perfect distillation of the Special Report; they often concentrate on what I found interesting or novel. I also haven’t acknowledged any quotations, as most of the original material has been thoroughly interwoven.]