Entertaining Boris Johnson

Or rather “Boris Johnson entertains”. For the Member for Henley came to the Classics Faculty today to give a seminar called “The Love of Classics” (his choice of title, not ours). BJ read Classics at Oxford – and is one of the keenest supporters of the subject we have. “Love” is hardly too strong a word.

Our idea in inviting him was to get him talking Classics to Classicists. This wasn’t to be a lobby on tuition fees, or university funding. No-one even mentioned Patrick Mercer who was being ejected from the Tory front-bench practically as we spoke. This was all about Rome.

My verdict? Well, it is only in a fit of madness that I would find myself  actually voting for this endearing toff (even if I did live in Henley). But he passed this particular test pretty well. To put it another way, I ought to hate the guy – but, in fact, I cant help but think that he’s rather a good thing.

That’s not to say his Classics -- still less the practical politics -- were faultless. The idea that some new Council of Nicaea (a repeat of Constantine’s attempt to deal with Christian disagreements in 325) might be a way of solving current clash of civilisations was frankly dotty; and anyway, as someone pointed out to him, the Council of Nicaea itself hadn’t been an obvious success. And in general BJ’s view of the Romans was a touch too cosy for me: true, he made no bones about the violence that underpinned Roman imperialism; but he lingered rather more lovingly than I would on the advantages of Roman civilisation and, in particular, on Rome’s “generosity” in extending full citizen rights throughout its empire. Not an initiative that was followed by the British, he points out.

On the other hand, his questions about the “identity politics” of modern Europe were worth taking seriously. He talked about this in his book-of-the-tv-series, The Dream of Rome. Basically his idea is that we should think of Europe as lying within the boundaries of the Roman empire, and using the traditions of ancient Rome as its unifying cultural mythology. This is where much of our debate came. Could Greco-Roman culture really sell itself as a cultural glue for the Mediterranean basin and beyond? Or was it –  at least, for the Islamic countries of North Africa  --   forever tainted as a symbol of Western exploitation and imperialism? And where were the lines to be drawn. If the boundaries of the Roman empire bring Turkey into the European club (as BJ urges – pointing out, memorably if not wholly relevantly, that 15% of British fridges come for Turkey), then what about Israel?

Right or wrong on his Classics, BJ rose smartly to the spirit of the occasion. I began to understand why he has so many unlikely supporters – from middle-aged academics to twenty-something feminists and card-carrying Socialist Workers. It’s not just that he has a knack for a funny performance (though calling me “Professor Mary” throughout tickled the students no end). More to the point, I think, is that he doesn’t stand on ceremony (BJ just came and went on the train – and was, all in all, a lot less trouble than your average academic grandee). He seems to be prepared to take risks in what he talks about. He is happy to say he’s wrong (as he did several times this evening). And, for all the foppery, he’s very clever. It seems an absolute world away from the defensive party line of the Blair front bench.

Of course, I’m not quite as naïve as I sound about this. You don’t need to have learned much about classical rhetoric to know that casual informality can be as careful and contrived a pose as the most elaborate formality. And, as a friend pointed out later, David Cameron and co have found the admission of error a clever way to the people’s hearts (which is not likely to last when they actually form a government). For all I know BJ spends hours each day planning his next piece of clever and outrageous spontaneity or witty apology.

All the same he does a lot more for me than Hazel Blears.

Comments

[Lord Truth]

Can there be anything that so completely encapsulates all the sickly horrors and degredation of Greece and Rome than the visage of Senor Boris Johnson,in all its Neroic,meretricious,flyblown glory....
That this golden haired chimp should produce giggling flutterings among the several tons of female flesh clustered around the pediment of this website,is only to be expected ,yet it might put the loving studies of the ancient world more clearly in perspective if all classicists and students understood that despite the prestigious philosophical edifices constructed around their specialities they are ,in fact only studying the history of the Post World War Two period-assuming Hitler had won of course....
By now for example ,all undesirables would have long become dust,specially bred slaves would be manning everything from factories to hospitals and life would indeed have become,certainly for our comment writers, a continuous swirl of tulle ,organdie and delicate perfumes.Togas would be worn in the evening as befits a return to Roman ways...
Hitler would of course be dead and buried,not I think in Berlin but in the Parthenon,now known as the Hitlerion,fully restored (few voices being raised in protest..),the Elgin marbles glowing in the floodlights...The British Museum,its contents now in Berlin ,having become with the adition of a few swimming pools, a club for senior Nazi officials.
. . . . .
Incidentally, the reason Beloved Boris is so keen on the idea of a new Roman Empire is ,as you cunningly surmised ,to provide yet another reason to get Turkey into the European Union.Turkey is the only country in the world that Israel fears -locking it into the EU will ensure Israels safety even as it condemns Christian Europe to a quick death (certainly within fifty years)
It was Mrs Thatcher who pushed the world back into the nineteenth century,Blair has returned Britain to a Hogarthian eighteenth century and in view of wiretaps torture and secret prisons ,we may well be on our way to the sixteenth ,where in a population of less than three million, some fifty thousand disappeared during the reign of Henry the Eighth and his CIA...
And if we do get there it will probably be on the lisping wings of the Great Boris and his like....
We are indeed being born back ceaselessly to the past....

[Oliver Nicholson]

Hobbes's thoughts on the Dissolutions of Commonwealths did not stop him translating Thucydides and he (T.) had rather a lot to say about the Dissolution of Commonwealths. The oddest case of the Classics inspiring revolutionary fervour must be Cola da Rienzo in a Papal prison reading Livy

[Arnold Attard]

Europe, a revival of the Roman Empire? The latter Roman Emperors were infact Byzantine emperors and Europe is modelled on their failed ways. The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire were something quite different. The portraits of Blair, his deputy, Chamberlain, John Major, Prodi, Chiraq and Angela Merkel resemble the wide eyed gaze of the Byzantine emperors.
Something quite different from the focused stare of Churchill, Thatcher, Caesar, Augustus, Aurelius, the Antonines and why not even Nero.

[Alex D-F]

...presumably though, as 'leftie' classicists you suppressed your swoonings and expounded the revolutionary potential of your discipline, as pointed out by Hobbes, Leviathan, Bk. II, ch. 29, 'Of those things that Weaken, or tend to the DISSOLUTION of a Common-wealth', among which things the study of Greek and Roman authors figures prominently.

[Xjy]

Oh I wish I'd been there to mix it a bit!

If only more of us were so committed to our real personal interests and so little hung up about the "etiquette" of public appearance. The bits of the brain freed up by this confidence and security (lack of reflection and doubting inquiry) are quite enough to make social communication enjoyable fun.

Hence to a large extent the (at least initial) communicative advantages of the socially advantaged. They don't have to give a damn.

[Robert Peake]

Why must we feel we ought to dislike those who are charming, politicians or both? Clearly academics depend upon these people as soap manufacturers depend upon good looking models to sell their product. Without an accessible and effusive presentation of classics (or anything else) it would still all be Greek to most people. Getting it "wrong", and winning people over, seems almost as important as getting it "right."

[Resolute Reader]

Everytime someone who "lingered rather more lovingly ... on the advantages of Roman civilisation" I always think slaves.

It was all built on the backs of slaves.

Perhaps this is how the new Tories are planning to solve the hoodie "problem". That or gladatorial combat.

[Candadai Tirumalai]

I am sure that Boris Johnson would be vastly amused to learn, if he doesn't know it already, that the Christian Right in America considers the European Union a revival of the Roman Empire and its mores and does not approve of the development.
And it seems to me that the protracted conflict between Rome and Carthage centuries ago has not been without consequences lasting into the present.

[Claire]

I'm not sure I'd vote for Boris either, but I've always had a soft spot for him.

[Hypatia]

I am glad to see that it is not just me who finds difficulty in disliking old Bozza, seein' as 'e is a Tory, like!! I have said that I would NEVER vote for him, but, with regard to his Classics - loved the "show", and the book was not too bad either - AND he both cycles and uses the dreaded public transport!!!
(And I have to confess to have liked his novel - the one about the seventy virgins, or whatever...Oh, God, this is starting to sound really awful, I just know it!)
Well, Professor Mary, from one "Leftie" Classicist to another - Old Bozza seems rather effortlessly adept at putting the likes of us in a compromising position, doesn't he?

[Monica]

That was a wonderful event--thanks for organizing it!