Occasionally the NY Times - perhaps by accident - publishes something intelligent and worth reading. Such is the case with playwright David Hare's review of Matthew Sturgiss' biography of Oscar Wilde. There are passages that flew over the heads of NYT Book Review editors. 1/
The review, published today, is titled, "The Importance of Being Oscar". Apparently aware that Wilde, were he alive, would attract the wrath of MeToo and the NYT, Hare writes: 2/
"Wilde brought to literature a liberating philosophy that struck hard at Victorian society, but also at our own. He did not believe that morality consisted of judging other people's faults. He believed it consisted of judging your own." Ouch! 3/
Hare rejects the biography's claim that Wilde was not interested in politics as "an odd suggestion to make about the man who wrote 'The Soul of Man Under Socialism.'" Wilde held that without "commercial competition," the individual "should thereby flourish." Hare continues: 4/
"But anyone who recalls Trotsky's argument that under socialism, the ordinary working man and woman would be elevated to be on a par with Aristotle, with Goethe and with Marx, will recognize that these two wildly dissimilar characters are ringing on the very same bell." 5/
Hare is citing the passage with which Trotsky concludes "Literature and Revolution," written in 1924 in opposition to Stalin and Bukharin's advocacy of "proletarian culture" [Proletkult], which was connected to their anti-Marxist program of "socialism in one country." 6/
Under socialism, Trotsky wrote,
"Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic." And then the concluding sentences: 7/
"Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonized, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic." And then the concluding sentences: 7/
"The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will arise."
Even after a century, the grandeur of Trotsky's vision of humanity's destiny remains undiminished and inspires the socialist movement. 8/8
Even after a century, the grandeur of Trotsky's vision of humanity's destiny remains undiminished and inspires the socialist movement. 8/8
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