by Neil Vodavzny
Scotland is the home of the Scottish Enlightenment, which is known as the home of humanism. But that was then. Today, humanism is synonymous with destruction of tradition and anything and everything that belongs to a distinct, self-confident people. So, for example, the latest pronouncement of AC Grayling of the New College of the Humanities . Whether or not you’re a believer, there is something appealing in collective worship - as opposed to individual brainwashing. But not for Grayling, who has suggested RE in schools be replaced by philosophy lessons (run by him).
This same manipulative focus on impressionable youth was taken up by the Scottish Nationalists in their referendum campaign (even if the final results were not quite as expected). Salmond’s shallow mockery of the established way of doing thing, albeit probably a permanent aspect of his twinkly personality, was yet more evidence of humanist thinking. Salmond may be smarter than most, but it was easy to second-guess his intention of adding “a few more percentage points” to finally emerge a with a mandate for a free, independent Scottish State (with hints of Shylock to boot).
Nowhere is naturalism to be seen, and yet this is the real glory of Scotland. Man must mingle with nature, and nowhere is this more evident than in that most Scottish of creations, Royal & Ancient:
The majesty of this image in stone, grass and tweed has a quintessential stasis, as demonstrated by the 300 years to the club took to admit women members. Salmond’s aim, were it to be realized, would obliterate the free and (truly) independent spirit of Scotland. The spirit of the Borders, of ruined abbeys, of monuments to border battles, of Flodden and the lament The Flowers of the Forest. “Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border”.
Stasis is a territorial aspect of a country that fixes images in mind, symbolic of human destiny. Indisputably, they are Man’s link to nature, and thereby the more certainly human. That is why they affect us so.
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That is why Robert Burns is a poet. The Scottish vote, though misplayed badly, was probably an important win for stasis and spirit. The pipe, the march, and the manse in the shape of Gordon Brown. Church and State, and faith in place, are thereby essential to the spirit of a people. Race without nature simple does not exist is any existential sense. Just as a hypothesis.
Faith ties you to or, at least, sacraments the land, “God’s creation”. Its song and ritual song and ritual are a type of transcendence of the material or Mammon. Customs and beliefs, not materials, bind you to a place. If material does come into it (not being a hermit) so does spirit of place. Pagan monuments – the standing stones of north-east Scotland – are a testament to that.
We in the material world get a hint of the lost spirit of place but cannot easily escape the bonds of Mammon – we lack the fidelity.
The widening of the debate post referendum is already touching on this. I was going to cite the new English atavism and the demand for an English parliament - for me, a red herring – except the Labour MP, ironic Jedi, and definite humanist Jamie Reed already has.
