Kmflett's Blog

In his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843) Marx made a specific reference to Hegel’s error of understanding about the role beards played in society.

For Hegel a beard was something abstract, something worn by a beard wearer. For Marx the key thing was the social interaction that the beard and beard wearer had. Hence the focus was on human relationships rather than abstract principles. The key passage is here:

The activities and agencies of the state are attached to individuals (the state is only active through individuals), but not to the individual as physical but political; they are attached to the political quality of the individual. Hence it is ridiculous to say, as Hegel does, that ‘it is in an external and contingent way that these offices are linked with particular persons’. On the contrary, they are linked with them by a vinculum substantiale, by reason of an essential quality of particular persons. These offices are the natural action of this essential quality. Hence the absurdity of Hegel’s conceiving the activities and agencies of the state in the abstract, and particular individuality in opposition to it. He forgets that particular individuality is a human individual, and that the activities and agencies of the state are human activities. He forgets that the nature of the particular person is not his beard, his blood, his abstract Physis, but rather his social quality, and that the activities of the state, etc., are nothing but the modes of existence and operation of the social qualities of men. Thus it is evident that individuals, in so far as they are the bearers of the state’s activities and powers, are to be considered according to their social and not their private quality.

Beard Liberation Front

27^th August

Media Release

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Lack of Diversity at top of UK politics slammed as Ed Davey makes it 4 clean shaven men in suits

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has slammed the complete lack of diversity at the top of Westminster politics.

With the election of Sir Ed Davey as Liberal Democrat leader all the top four parties represented at Westminster (by seats) are led by clean shaven white men in suits.

The campaigners say that while they are still waiting for the first Prime Minister with a beard since 1902 it goes much wider than that, in respect of the signals it sends to anyone who is not a male middle class suit wearer, about Parliamentary politics in the UK.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Ian Blackford and Sir Ed Davey have different politics but image wise they appear as one. That cant be a good thing for democratic politics.

Your editorial on the election of Sir Ed Davey as Liberal Democrat leader (27 August) misses a key point. The leaders of the four largest parties in parliament are now all clean-shaven, middle-aged white men in suits. Two have knighthoods. This is what diversity in 2020 at Westminster looks like it seems.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London Guardian 29th August

My thanks to sometime beard wearer and biographer of Karl Marx Francis Wheen for dredging up a letter that Gavin Williamson wrote to the Guardian on 19th June 1997.

He wrote as Vice Chair of the now defunct (but very right-wing) Federation of Conservative Students in support of ‘free education’ and against Labour plans to introduce a modest tuition fee of £1K. Unusually, indeed possibly uniquely, he was right.

Unfortunately posterity has not treated Gav’s letter well, given the level of fees the Tories later introduced. Still every letter writer may well fall down if judged by history.

Overall though its difficult to avoid the point that Mr Williamson might have done better if he had just stuck to the letter writing, as I mostly have…

The mixed heritage of Rule Britannia: From Empire to the Freeborn Englishman

The usual Culture War over whether Rule Britannia should be played at the Last Night of the Proms(10th September) has been largely absent this year.

The exception has been the Times where the paper’s Chief Culture writer Richard Morrison described it as a ‘racist chant’ (5th Septemer)

The song was offensive of course when it was first sung in the eighteenth century when British run slavery still existed in numerous locations globally and it was designed to be so.

The history of the usage of the song is more complex.

While officially it celebrated far less than glorious official English (if not necessarily in the 1740s British) traditions, what these actually were was disputed.

Radicals held to a concept of the Freeborn Englishman with a number of liberties and rights. While these in theory accorded with how Governments of the day saw things, the practice often diverged. Hence on occasion the singing of Rule Britannia could be subversive.

E P Thompson gives an example in the Making of the English Working Class.

In the Middlesex By-Election of 1804 the radical candidate was Sir Francis Burdett. He won the poll (in pre-1832 Reform Act conditions) but his opponent was declared the winner by one vote by the Sheriff who determined that the poll had  closed when his opponent was ahead after 15 days of voting.

Even so a moral victory was celebrated by Burdett’s supporters:

An exultant crowd dragged him through London ‘amidst a cavalcade, that appeared like a moving wood- the carriages and horsemen being covered with green boughs’, while the band played ‘Rule Britannia’ and a flag flew above Burdett’s coverage painted with Hercules treading on the Hydra’.

An appropriate Last Night of the Proms anthem for our times is surely William Blake’s Jerusalem though. A vision, as Thompson notes, based partly on a millenarian understanding of the future, of a post market-capitalist society.

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

26^th August

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Southern Rail comment about face masks as ‘beard hammocks’ slammed as pogonophobic

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that a comment by a train manager on a Southern Rail service that people were not wearing face masks correctly- as required by law- but using them as ‘beard hammocks’ was potentially pogonophobic.

The remark was noted on Twitter by Telegraph journalist Robbie Collin

Very funny impromptu announcement on @SouthernRailUK just now advising passengers to think of masks as “underwear for the face” which should be worn “covering mouth *and* nose, not as some kind of novelty beard hammock”. This should be the official government messaging (26^th August)

The campaigners say that are 100% behind wearing face masks and there should be no problem with wearing a non-medical mask with a beard. However singling out beard wearers for not doing so is not such a good look.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, of course it was a joke, and the BLF which is often light hearted always enjoys a good joke. However care does need to be taken because while we can see its funny, there are always beard haters out there ready to take such remarks very seriously indeed.

London Socialist Historians

Media Release

25th August

Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

Historians accuse Boris Johnson of hypocrisy over talk of ‘our history’

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, has accused Boris Johnson of hypocrisy over references to British history that he made while commenting on the BBC’s decision to retain Rule Britannia as part of the 2020 Last Night of the Proms.

The Political Editor of the Daily Telegraph Gordon Rayner tweeted on 25^th August:

Boris Johnson pulls no punches over Proms row: “I think it’s time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history, about our traditions, and about our culture, and we stopped this general fight of self-recrimination and wetness, I wanted to get that off my chest.”

The historians say that Johnson’s words seem to indicate that he believes that all of British history, warts and all, should be discussed and remembered.

However on the 200^th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre on 16^th August 2019, Johnson managed not one tweet or comment about the event. The peaceful demonstration for the vote in Manchester 200 years ago saw 18 people killed by the Yeomanry and hundreds injured.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, we are certainly in favour of researching and understanding all of British history and that includes the bits Boris Johnson prefers to forget such as the Peterloo Massacre

After something of a media and social media furore, largely confected as a culture war by the right it might be suggested, the BBC have determined that Rule Britannia will be played at the Last Night of the Proms this year but without the words. Apparently the words will be back next year.

This suggests that the BBC is still on the page of thinking that Black Lives Matter is a moment not a movement.

Objections to the song came because of the words but also because of the context it is now sung in. When you get Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage backing something you know something is very wrong.

The song itself has a mixed history. Written as patriotic, the tune was often played but with different words sung.

It was for example played at Peterloo on 16th August 1819 when 18 people died and hundreds were injured by the Yeomanry after peacefully protesting for the vote.

The words sung are not fully clear but one likely version included the verse:

Will ye yield to die with hunger?

Shall the dungeon hide each head?

Shall the scoundrel Borough-monger

Rob you of your hard earn’d bread?

Perhaps the BBC could try Rule Britannia with similar words in 2021

Beard Liberation Front

Contact Keith Flett           07803 167266

25th August

NEW WIND ALERT FOR BEARD WEARERS: TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT YOUR FOLLICLES

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that as high winds are set to sweep across the UK on again over the next two days beard wearers are strongly advised to take special care of their beards.

The campaigners say that while danger to life and limb is the central issue when extreme weather hits, a secondary concern for organic beard wearers is that exposing the beard to high and blustery winds may blow the beard out of shape and can cause permanent hair and follicle damage in some cases.

It is less likely that designer and some hipster beards will suffer significant wind damage

The BLF advises the following precautions:

Keep the beard slightly damp at all times by immersing it in a glass of hazy IPA or imperial stout. This will give solidity to the beard hairs and prevent them being blown around.

Use a scarf or snood to protect the beard at all times

Secure the beard with elastic bands, strapping the hairs to the chin

If the beard is blown out of shape use a hair dryer to re-form the hairs in the correct position and then stay indoors for a several hours to allow the hairs and follicles to recover

BLF organiser Keith Flett said, the answer is most definitely not blowin’ in the wind this week. We advise the hirsute to take care out there

London Socialist Historians

Media Release

24^th August

Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

Historians say Blake’s Jerusalem a more appropriate end to Proms 2020 than Rule Britannia

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, has backed calls for Rule Britannia to be dropped from this year’s Last Night of the Proms.

The historians say that the Black Lives Matters movement has rightly brought a focus on sentiments in the song about slavery that are inappropriate in 2020.

While the song was often sung in a patriotic context in the first decades of the nineteenth century it  was also sung by radicals and Chartists. Their purpose was to underline the difference between the liberties and democratic rights that the song implies the ‘Freeborn Englishman’ had and the reality, where very few even had the vote.

A more appropriate song for the Proms in 2020 is one that is also a regular Last Nighter, William Blake’s Jerusalem. Blake’s poem dates from 1808 but the music was written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916 and the orchestration is by Sir Edward Elgar.

The historians say that while even the most right-wing Tory would struggle to find fault with that pedigree, in reality as E P Thompson notes in The Making of the English Working Class, the song is about a vision of a better world, almost millenarian in intent, which relates very well to the troubled times of 2020.

London Socialist Historians Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, dropping Rule Britannia, is not about ignoring or rewriting our history. It is about acknowledging what matters to people now and looking for a song that can bring people together. William Blake’s call for a green and pleasant land is not the reality for many just now, but it is something people are fighting for.

Marmite Defence League

24^th August

What is the best Marmite derivative commercially available?

The Marmite Defence League, which exists to defend Marmite as an essential food, is running a late summer poll to discover views on the proliferating number of Marmite derivatives now commercially available.

Traditionally there have been things like marmite flavour crisps, rice cakes, cashew nuts and twiglets. Occasionally there is also marmite chocolate.

However 2020 has seen a significant extension of commercially available marmite derivatives, the latest being marmite houmous (hummus).

The poll is open now and the result will be announced on Bank Holiday Monday

Where we stand on Marmite

Marmite is a natural product deriving from brewer’s yeast. It is historically a by-product of brewing

It was ‘invented’ by a German scientist Justus von Liebig

Originally Marmite was derived from the Bass brewery in Burton on Trent.

Marmite is salty but also has some health enhancing elements to it including vitamins.

Its recent marketing focuses on a ‘love it or hate it’ element to Marmite, and it is a ‘which side are you on’ food.