I'm going to wade into this thread again after a long break from it and also from Fennell himself …
Because I found some old second-hand books from him very cheap - and they have hit me very, very powerfully.
But I want to start with something I said two years ago in this thread:
400936108"]
I've hardly read Fennell yet - but have just ordered
Third Stroke Did It - based on John Waters' evident high regard for Fennell.
In short, I imagine I will agree with Hibernicus that Fennell is too extreme ... but I suspect probably, as with Belloc, I will be more accepting of his shortcomings - rightly or wrongly.
I find myself thinking of how St. John Paul II beatified Bl. Pius IX, a man who I imagine has similar shortcomings to all the above. Yet St. John Paul II could still see what was great in him.
in a number of things - like your deconstruction of Fennell above, but also a number of others - I wonder if you might be in danger of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" ...
in a number of things - like your deconstruction of Fennell above, but also a number of others - I wonder if you might be in danger of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater".
That is, when I "finish" reading Fennell, I wonder if I will agree with you about the dirty bathwater, but still feel he is saying something very, very important which elicits Waters' respect and maybe that of others on this thread.
Well, two years later, that initial impression is heightened. At the time, I never got much further than that one book (plus his Saavy pamphlet).
But I've read 5 or 6 now - and like I say _very_ hit … taken by him ...
Now, Hibernicus, I could debate with a number of points you have made here.
Except … that I might actually agree with you on plenty! And yet STILL come to a very different conclusion.
To illustrate, let me attempt a rough, partial summary of the criticisms that have been made here, mainly by you Hibernicus but also others:
1) Fennell suffers vanity and arrogance.
2) His statements lack nuance. "Enormous brushstrokes" as maolsheachlann usefully put it.
3) There is a dismissiveness with other views, a refusal to make room for them.
4) And this latter naturally leads to extreme polarisation. Eg Anti-American, siding with a certain sort of Irish cultural nationalism and ignoring others etc.
"Rough, partial", as I say. But for the sake of argument, let's say I agreed with all of this 1000 per cent …
I come back to my capitalised word above STILL. I would STILL say there's a great deal that's very, very important in Fennell.
I wonder if my difference here with you Hibernicus and others comes down to a difference of temperament. My temperament may be more passionate. Yours more "level-headed" to borrow an adjective you tend to use.
In my passion, I respond to passionate people like Belloc and Fennell not certain bitter trads though. (Neither Fennell, nor Belloc strike me as bitter the way certain folk I won't mention do.)
Thus by way of temperament, I can easily forgive "enormous brush strokes" - or to come back to what I said originally - keep the baby and forget the bathwater.
For the baby in Fennell's work seems precious indeed to me. Having read several books now, I largely concur with Assisi:
I like Fennell and broadly agree with his analysis of what he sees as the 2nd American Revolution originating from American liberals, the big state policies of Roosevelt's New Deal, through the mass murder of Hiroshima right up to the present day.
He says that the glue that kept this 2nd American revolution together was the ability of the people in America and Western Europe to do things and to buy things. When the money runs out he predicts social disorder - as there is no underlying agreed values that the people can cling to, agree on and make sense of. I think he is being proved correct.
I also admire the fact that at 80 or so he still has the stomach for a fight in which the liberal consensus has control of RTE and the Irish Times and can chose to ignore you if it doesn't agree with your views.
His emphasis on particular key events, Hiroshima for example, as landmark historical turning points may be debatable but his final analysis is sound.
And there's much more I could say. For one, I've been very hit by Fennell's travel writings. That he's lived in Spain, Germany, Italy Sweden - and
quite crucially the USA! - as well as spent significant time living in Eastern Europe and observing the old Soviet states.
In that travel writing, I actually note how much he went to out of his way to
really listen to what local people were saying - either locals in Moscow or locals in Seattle … as well as scan the media and the elites ...
This has helped to bring him to views that are incredibly dissident with mainstream orthodoxy. For example, what is really going on between what he would call the "London-New York axis" and Eastern Europe. But I think this kind of unusual experience gives him a perspective that I find most useful. Obviously not "Gospel", but still very, very useful.
So much I could debate here. But I want to keep to my main point about difference of temperament.
To return to Belloc, who I obviously know far better than Fennell, I see Belloc's sins, I think. Which are often the sins of his passionate temperament - bellicosity, arrogance, all the tragic implications of his sincere belief in a Jewish capitalist conspiracy, certain simplifications, indeed and alas distortions of history etc
And of course I deeply love Belloc. For me, his vast, sweeping gifts far, far outweigh his sins. And I'm still with my analogy above of St John Paul II beatifying Bl. Pius IX ...
So it's almost like a "balance sheet".
Apart from Assisi and now myself, most of this thread is devoted to Fennell's all-too-human failings.
But I would rather focus on his gifts that I think are going to be very, very important to me in the long run ...
So, on this subject, I respectfully part company with you, Hibernicus.
However, I do mean that word: RESPECTFULLY.
I see your possibly-less passionate temperament as having a valuable function to compliment us "hot heads" like Belloc and me :- )
More seriously, you've done a great deal of erudite work on this forum that I have benefitted from enormously, having printed out long threads from the past and carefully studied them.
Moreover, whilst I may seem to be lax and overly pardon Fennell, Belloc others, I actually very much appreciate your commitment to non-polarisation evident in many ways. Having studied these long threads, I am grateful for you reminding us about - say - Dalkey or sexual abuse, your abandonment of "pas ennemis au droit" in the mature realisation that things are hardly a matter of a white pure Catholicism vs evil and etc. etc ...
I was trying for the same thing in my book, by invoking things like the St. Bartholomew's day massacre etc...
Whew! This is getting long and I will stop.
In conclusion: I both want to stand up for Fennell and also honour the important, vital work that mainly you, Hibernicus, have been doing here over many years ...