The late British author George MacDonald Fraser (who died this year), was one of the great writers of our time. His humor, his courage, and above all, his classical liberal philosophy and willingness to challenge the politically correct orthodoxy of our times make his writings a tonic for those who understand and respect the tradition of liberty in Western society.
Fraser was best known for his Flashman novels, about a caddish, arrogant, oversexed, cowardly, lying, cheating, sadistic British military officer during the Victorian era, whom the public mistakenly believes to be a hero. The novels, written between 1969 and the mid-2000s, made fun of Britain's foibles during the Victorian era, but above all they showed what true courage, decency, and honor are by depicting Flashman's consistently outrageous contempt for and mockery of these virtues.
Flashman, based on the villainous upperclassman Harry Flashman of the mid-Victorian bestselling novel Tom Brown's Schooldays, never pretends to be anything other than what he is. In that way he is thoroughly different from the real villains in the stories. They pretend to be good, which makes them much more dangerous than the honestly rascally Flashman.
The villains are also strongly reminiscent of their counterparts in our own time, a connection that was deliberate on Fraser's part. Despite the obvious selfishness of his actions, Flashman is immensely attractive because of his political incorrectness. To hear him speak openly of his contempt for hypocrites, trimmers, and pious worldsavers is a positive delight for those who are tired of being browbeaten by these same individuals of our own time, an era when criticism of such skunks is often punishable by law.
That such a wicked and loathesome character could be attractive and even laudable because of a simple willingness to tell the truth as he sees it shows how absurdly oppressive the government and elites are in our time.
Thus the
Flashman novels constitute a classic series of satirical fiction done with great historical accuracy. They are among the very few important and lasting bodies of work in narrative fiction from the literary desert that was the second half of the twentieth century.
For more information on the Flashman novels, click here. They are both delightful and essential reading.
Not long before his death, Fraser published a "Last Testament," an essay giving his opinions on modern society (extracted from his 2003 book The Light's on at Signpost). As might be expected, they are far from complimentary. His main target is political correctness, which he correctly sees as central to the oppressiveness of our modern-day elites, observing that the infection that had started in the United States had reached Britain. This is so apposite and well-expressed that an extensive quotation is in order:
The philosophy of political correctness is now firmly entrenched over here, too, and at its core is a refusal to look the truth squarely in the face, unpalatable as it may be.
Political correctness is about denial, usually in the weasel circumlocutory jargon which distorts and evades and seldom stands up to honest analysis.
It comes in many guises, some of them so effective that the PC can be difficult to detect. The silly euphemisms, apparently harmless, but forever dripping to wear away common sense—the naivete of the phrase "a caring force for the future" on Remembrance poppy trays, which suggests that the army is some kind of peace corps, when in fact its true function is killing.
The continual attempt to soften and sanitise the harsh realities of life in the name of liberalism, in an effort to suppress truths unwelcome to the PC mind; the social engineering which plays down Christianity, demanding equal status for alien religions.
The selective distortions of history, so beloved by New Labour, denigrating Britain's past with such propaganda as hopelessly unbalanced accounts of the slave trade, laying all the blame on the white races, but carefully censoring the truth that not a slave could have come out of Africa without the active assistance of black slavers, and that the trade was only finally suppressed by the Royal Navy virtually single-handed.
In schools, the waging of war against examinations as "elitist" exercises which will undermine the confidence of those who fail - what an intelligent way to prepare children for real life in which competition and failure are inevitable, since both are what life, if not liberal lunacy, is about.
PC also demands that "stress", which used to be coped with by less sensitive generations, should now be compensated by huge cash payments lavished on griping incompetents who can't do their jobs, and on policemen and firemen "traumatised" by the normal hazards of work which their predecessors took for granted.
Furthermore, it makes grieving part of the national culture, as it was on such a nauseating scale when large areas were carpeted in rotting vegetation in "mourning" for the Princess of Wales; and it insists that anyone suffering ordinary hardship should be regarded as a "victim" - and, of course, be paid for it.
That PC should have become acceptable in Britain is a glaring symptom of the country's decline.
As a true classical liberal, Fraser does not look to politics for the solution:
I loathe all political parties, which I regard as inventions of the devil. My favourite prime minister was Sir Alec Douglas-Home, not because he was on the Right, but because he spent a year in office without, on his own admission, doing a damned thing.
This leads to a marvelous dig at the current British political class:
This would not commend him to New Labour, who count all time lost when they're not wrecking the country.
Fraser correctly notes that such an astonishing amount of political power has been mustered to support the fictions of our time that there is little that people can do through politics to change it:
Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the true meaning of the democracy of which they are forever prating, are determined to have their own way at all costs and hold public opinion in contempt.
Hence the solution, if any is to be found, must ultimately be cultural.
Fraser is no stodgy conservative or reactionary longing for a return to some mythical time of civilizational glory (usually the person's childhood years, by some odd working of psychology). On the contrary, he fully understands and appreciates the technological and social progress achieved during the past half-century. But he doesnt' allow that to blind him to the awfulness of our current political, social, and cultural miasma.
Yes, there are material blessings and benefits innumerable which were unknown in our youth.
But much has deteriorated. The United Kingdom has begun to look more like a Third World country, shabby, littered, ugly, run down, without purpose or direction, misruled by a typical Third World government, corrupt, incompetent and undemocratic.
My generation has seen the decay of ordinary morality, standards of decency, sportsmanship, politeness, respect for the law, family values, politics and education and religion, the very character of the British.
The self-destructive illusions of contemporary Britons are his target of concern, and he recognizes that despite the political class's stranglehold, changing the situation is entirely a matter of choice for the deracinated modern Briton:
They regard themselves as a completely liberated society when in fact they are less free than any generation since the Middle Ages.
Indeed, there may never have been such an enslaved generation, in thrall to hang-ups, taboos, restrictions and oppressions unknown to their ancestors (to say nothing of being neck-deep in debt, thanks to a moneylender's economy).
We were freer by far 50 years ago—yes, even with conscription, censorship, direction of labour, rationing, and shortages of everything that nowadays is regarded as essential to enjoyment.
We still had liberty beyond modern understanding because we had other freedoms, the really important ones, that are denied to the youth of today.
We could say what we liked; they can't. We were not subject to the aggressive pressure of special-interest minority groups; they are. We had no worries about race or sexual orientation; they have. We could, and did, differ from fashionable opinion with impunity, and would have laughed PC to scorn, had our society been weak and stupid enough to let it exist.
Yes, that is what real freedom is, and it is what we miss most today, both here and in Fraser's Britain. And as Fraser's testament makes perfectly clear, whether we will put up with the situation or change it is entirely a matter of choice:
We did not know the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views, and beginning to resemble George Orwell's Ministry of Truth.
Above all, we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain values and standards held true, and that our country, with all its faults and need for reforms, was sound at heart.
There are many more people who think this way than the elites seem to realize, Fraser notes:
[A]mong the middle-aged and people in their 20s and 30s there is a groundswell of anger and frustration at the damage done to Britain by so-called reformers and dishonest politicians who hardly bother to conceal their contempt for the public's wishes.
Plainly many thought they were alone in some reactionary minority. They had been led to think that they were voices muttering to themselves in the wilderness.
Well, you are not. There are more of you out there than you realise—very many more, perhaps even a majority.
The desire is there, and the numbers are on our side.
A fundamental cultural change is urgently needed. All it will require is courage and honesty.
Resources
"The last testament of Flashman's creator: How Britain has destroyed itself," by George MacDonald Fraser: Most Highly Recommended.
The Flashman novels of George MacDonald Fraser: Most Highly Recommended.
The writings of George MacDonald Fraser: Highly and Most Highly Recommended.
But his time was really over by the mid-1970s, as Hollywood increasingly purveyed the demoralized New Left notion that there were no longer any real heroes in the world, only antiheroes, and replaced the Hestons of the world with cynical, self-centered antiheroes played by Clint Eastwood, Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, and the like.
