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Tuesday 5 December 2017

What I have I hold


You see, for a thousand years we have been going on here, and other people like us, but we only endured because we were alive. We have the usual conventional motto on our coat of arms—Pro Deo et Rege—a Herald’s College invention. But our Gaelic motto was very different—it was ‘Sons of Dogs, come and I will give you flesh.’ As long as we lived up to that we flourished, but as soon as we settled down and went to sleep and became rentiers we were bound to decay…My cousins at Glenaicill were just the same. Their motto was ‘What I have I hold,’ and while they remembered it they were great people. But when they stopped holding they went out like a candle.

John Buchan - John Macnab (1925)


Buchan’s character makes a comment on social change and the hard-nosed self-interest required to keep a firm grip on what we have. Otherwise it will be taken from us by those who are stronger and by this exacting standard more deserving. The meek shall not inherit the earth is the message – so don’t be meek. The motto is not original but this is fiction, a way of adding social depth to a central character. Still worth a thought or two though.

A conspicuous feature of modern culture is how tolerance and intolerance have been twisted around to loosen our grip on the culture we had – the one our ancestors fought two bloody wars to defend. Now we see vicious intolerance towards any suggestion that we are less than thrilled with forced multiculturalism and even worse – any implication that the culture we had was worth holding on to and what we have now is not an improvement.

What I have I hold is not a bad motto, possibly more acceptable today than Sons of Dogs, come and I will give you flesh, but it is already too late. We have been induced to let go of what we once had in favour of – in favour of what?

7 comments:

Sam Vega said...

We have been induced to let go of what we once had in favour of – in favour of what?

Either servitude (i.e. someone has done this to us, to make us weaker and subject to their control) or ease (i.e. we have done it to ourselves because the alternative is tiring, and we thought we could afford to relax.)

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure John Buchan is a good and reliable guide to the truth of our situation back then and our situation now. Remember he was a scribbler, a propagandist and a social climber. I'm also not too sure how the people of Africa, India and Burma felt about being 'haved and held'. For it was their efforts and resources that enabled Buchan and his mates to live high on the hog. Even in Buchan's time the writing was on the wall for the British Empire, it could not go on and today it is all over.

The Jannie said...

"he was a scribbler, a propagandist and a social climber"

- and he wrote several jolly good yarns which need to be read with reference to THEIR time.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I'd say we have done it to ourselves because the alternative is tiring. Laziness in other words. We don't seem to understand what might be required to preserve and pass on what we have.

Roger - to my mind Buchan was articulating a universally valid conservative mantra via his fictional character - if we want to pass on what we have then we need to keep hold of it. To do that we need to recognise and place a value on what we have, but modern political life obscures a reality where millions of us are now 'haves' in a world of 'have nots'.

DCB - I agree and via his yarns he passed on some interesting insights.

Clacket said...

DCBain's point was well made. It was of its time. Good instructive and telling fun, though. Doesn't in and of itself mean Buchan was or was not (despite latter day re-writers of history) a terrible person, retrospectively adjudged (by who? you?) to be a bit of a prick; he may well have been. Or quite possibly and effectively unknowably quite probably he was guilty of misplaced confidence and economic illiteracy, just as it happens to turn out. Could have gone either way; for now he is on the losing end, and probably worse for us generally...

Sometimes history (at least to date) is not entirely written by the victors, but by the noisiest whimperers or constituencies. The poor have power. Actually have had since the early Roman empire. You don't mess with the organised poor, to a degree. I wonder how many people will pick up on this critical point. Not many, I'd hazard.

Demetrius said...

Rule or be ruled?

A K Haart said...

Clacket - yes it is very difficult to judge even recent historical figures and much of that is down to contemporary noise. That's a good point - history being written by the noisiest whimperers or constituencies.

Demetrius - or for most of us just win or lose.