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The meaning of the word “great” in a “black” context by Alexander Baron Recently, while doing some totally non-controversial research into contemporary music, I happened upon a website called 100GreatBlackBritons; I was led there by the name Phil Lynott. I was surprised to find his name on this site, because although I knew he was born in Britain, I have never regarded him as great in that context. I have been a Thin Lizzy fan since I first heard Whiskey In The Jar way back in the early 1970s, and have studied no less than three biographies of the man. Phil Lynott was one of a kind, along with Rory Gallagher he is unarguably the most influential figure in Irish rock music. Thin Lizzy hailed from Dublin, and Lynott himself often claimed to be Irish born and bred. In March 1973, articles in Melody Maker and New Musical Express said he was born at Dublin and in the Irish Republic respectively; the former gave his date of birth as August 20 1951. In fact, Philip Parris Lynott was born in the Hallam Hospital, West Bromwich, the illegitimate son of an Irish Catholic teenager and a Negro civil servant. Although black, or technically half-black, he was totally assimilated, paying only lip service to his Negroid roots by writing a mere handful of songs with racial themes, mostly early on in his career. In his personal as well as his musical life he was surrounded by white people, and was totally accepted by them as he grew up between Manchester and Dublin. It is doubtful if he ever experienced racism, even if such an entity existed. Although renouncing his British identity, Lynott was not in any way ashamed of it; he identified with Ireland for mystical reasons, primarily his fascination with Irish history and legend, which is reflected in many of his songs. This romanticising flowed over into his personal life; he liked to claim his father was a Brazilian seaman, but in January 1976, after rising star Phil and his band were featured in the popular weekly Titbits, Cecil Parris materialised. Rather than a character from an Errol Flynn film, he appears to have been more like Del Boy out of Only Fools And Horses. They did not meet again. Phil Lynott was the archetypal rock star – live fast, die young. He succumbed to septicemia and multiple organ failure in January 1986, the result of his addiction to heroin. Although not the greatest bass player in the world, he was a competent rock musician, but his true strength was as a writer/composer. A lot of his songs, even the more commercially oriented, have deeper meanings, and to call him the High Poet of Irish Rock is no exaggeration. But was he a great man? According to the Collins English Dictionary, Ninth Edition, published in 2007, at page 712, the word “great” in a human context can mean “of larger size or more importance than others of its kind”; “extreme or more than usual”; “of exceptional talents or achievements” – giving the example of a great writer. Sure, Phil was a great songwriter, even a great poet, but people we acknowledge as great men, or great women, are generally those who make great contributions in the political or humanitarian fields, though even then there is considerable room for debate. Has anyone ever called Bill Gates a great man? He has built a multi-billion dollar fortune, given inexpensive computing to the masses, and of late has been giving away billions for humanitarian purposes, but somehow the phrases “great man” and “Bill Gates” don’t seem to fit in the same sentence. Let us, though, give Phil Lynott his due and acknowledge his greatness. The jury is still out on Bill Gates! But, looking down the list of one hundred great black Britons, there are many names which not only don’t belong there but their inclusion is, quite frankly, laughable - none more so than the name of Stephen Lawrence. The basis for his inclusion appears to be that “His death changed the political face of Black Briton forever” – (verbatim). This makes it sound as though he was some sort of martyr, as has been made of plagiarist and serial womaniser Martin Luther King. It is, of course, true that Stephen Lawrence was a murder victim, but his murder was in no way politically motivated, and in spite of the claptrap churned out by the ludicrous Macpherson Report and regurgitated uncritically ever since, there is little real evidence that it was racially motivated either. Stephen Lawrence was the victim of a now universally acknowledged culture of youth knife crime. And, it is fair to say, if his killers had also been black, his name would have been known only as another sad statistic. If he had died in a road accident, no one outside of his own small circle would have heard of him. What bizarre logic is it that bestows the mantle of greatness upon an eighteen year whose most outstanding achievement was to obtain a work placement with a firm of architects? Fortunately, this list of “great” black Britons does not include Stephen’s increasingly dotty mother, Doreen, who in a readers’ poll for the Voice, the black newspaper, seven years after her son’s murder, was voted nothing less than Woman Of The Century – ahead of Madam Curie, Indira Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Anita Roddick, and a few hundred thousand others. Exactly how does Lenny Henry’s name appear on this list? Certainly not as a great comedian, even allowing for his stint on The Black And White Minstrel Show. Also on the list is “poet” Benjamin Zephaniah, whose main claim to fame is that he is a Borstal boy made good. In view of this, and of his generally belligerent attitude towards our wonderful boys in blue, one can only wonder what he makes of another great black Briton, Mike Fuller, Britain’s first black Chief Constable. Does this mean all Britain’s chief constables are also great men? Including that dickhead Sir Ian Blair? In the 1980 Noontide Press edition of IQ and Racial Differences, at page 4, the eminent American psychologist Henry E. Garrett writes “The roster of Negro achievements has been greatly distorted and is largely fictitious”. That is very true. In the same pamphlet, Garrett tells us why this fiction has been created, and by whom, but let us not stray too far afield. Precisely what has the Negro contributed to Western civilisation? We can all reel off the names of black sportsmen and TV personalities, but although sport is very much part of our culture, it is also an individual endeavour, even team sports can be said to be so, in a manner of speaking. Likewise entertainment, or acting at any rate. A man may be a great actor, but a great actor is not necessarily a great man. In fact, the real contribution of the Negro to Western and to world civilisation can be summed up in one word: music. While classical music proper is in every sense a Western (ie white) contribution, and while reggae and hip hop are of dubious if any value, there can be no denying the contribution of the black man to contemporary music, a music that, ancestral roots aside, was really born in the plantations of the Deep South, in the suffering of slaves whose chants fused with the music of the Christian churches as spirituals, and later meandered its way through the syncopation of ragtime to blues, jazz, boogie woogie, and soul, to Chuck Berry, and thence to white audiences as rock ‘n’ roll, mainstream rock, and the eclecticism of the present day. Music may be the only such contribution, but it is a truly awesome one, and surely one with which any Negro should be satisfied. Alas not. Certainly not “Ms” Dynamite, who also appears on that list, a young woman who once decried the lack of black role models in British society, claiming “we” never hear of a black scientist. What black scientist might that be, exactly? It is, of course, black role models or the lack thereof that are blamed for the scandalous rates of deliquency and crime amongst young blacks. Another specious argument. Not satisfied with the contribution of blacks to contemporary music and their individual achievements in entertainment and sport, they need black role models on mainstreet too. And of course, it is racism, in particular the double chimera of institutional racism that is responsible for these desiderata. But seriously, how many people white or black can name Britain’s only black chief constable? And how many can name the countless black musicians, sportsmen and entertainers? This is the reality of racist stereotyping. It should come as no surprise that 100GreatBlackBritons was partly set up to indoctrinate the young, though it remains to be seen if even the dumbest homeboy or wigger can be persuaded that the route to greatness for any person of any race is to be cut down by a knife-wielding thug before even having the chance to make a mark on society. Comments:2
Posted by frolicker on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:32 | # When Nietzsche sat down to philosophize, was he ‘being great’? When you shit yourself running from a groid, were you being great? 3
Posted by Lee John Barnes on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:01 | # He made some great records - he was not a great man. He was just another degenerate smack head junkie scumbag, like the thousands of them that live near me. ‘Great’ in the contemporary context means simply ‘able to be used to peddle PC propaganda to the idiot masses’. History is a whore. All of history is subjective. Objectivism is impossible, as each historians opinions are a product of his own perceptions - and hence so is his work. History in the multi-cultural society is merely multi-cultural propaganda. Change the people who run society, change the ethos of society, change the media, change the owners of the publishing houses, change the academics = change history. History is not history - history is propaganda. History is not a science. It is not based on scientific evidence but perceptions. 4
Posted by Wandrin on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:53 | #
This made me think. jews have an “always the victim” world-view which they use to justify their stealth tribal warfare to themselves. One way of looking at the media aspect of the multicult is jews using the media to pass on this world-view onto other ethnic groups to advance jewish interests. With white people they pass on the other half - “always the villain” - to induce white guilt. However with minority groups they passed on a version of the same “always the victim” world-view as an way of gathering allies. (None of this needs to have been planned. If it’s naturally how they see the world then it would automatically come through in books and films.) One side-effect of this might be tensions over who gets to be the number one victim. http://www.occidentaldissent.com/2010/06/13/black-panthers-on-holocaust/ I also wonder if they did this in Russia - if Bolshevik agitators used “we’re all the victims of white Russians” rhetoric in non-Russian minority areas? 5
Posted by Dan Dare on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:55 | # I couldn’t help smiling on perusing the ‘category winners’ in the 100 Great Black Britons poll. Mary Seacole, the ‘Crimean war veteran nurse and original lady of the lamp’ won in two categories. First she nudged ahead of Dame Shirley Bassey in the ‘Greatest Black British Women’ category which I suppose is fair enough in a not particularly crowded field , but then she also scooped the poll in the ‘Science, Innovation and Design’ field as well. Does that have something to do with the lamp, I wonder. Although I had been under the impression until now that some other negro is usually touted to have beaten Edison (and Joseph Swan) to the draw on that one. 6
Posted by PF on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:45 | # froh-and-clear wrote:
Was he a groid? He sure had me fooled. I coulda sworn he was a german drug addict. I got such an adrenaline rush I had no choice but, waiting in the early morning sunshine at a german “I got to have it, I miss Mr. Magic classic moment. 7
Posted by PF on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:01 | # More interesting… who is great and who is not? In the old days, guys who did things to help the collective used to be rewarded with praise and laurels. Nowadays, it would be guys who adhere to PC. Obviously one type of great is maladaptive, another is adaptive. But the question of what is adaptive is second to the question of what is truly great? I love to study the theory-of-greatness that revolves around the personal achievements of famous Is Lord Byron great? Nietzsche? To say this concept of literary/genius-greatness is problematized in my mind is an understatement. Personally I dont think the non-great are able to decide who is great or not, but they inevitably do. Why should we accept society’s opinion about something that they by definition have no access to? There is no debate about ‘exceptional’, but ‘great’ carries such a positive connotation that one wonders. When a man fights in a war, at what precise moment does he cross the boundary into greatness? I’d love to have a yardstick to measure who is great, to quantify this variable. Frederick the II must be conceded as great, by the mental algorithms people adhere to - yet he was quite a fluffy literature-loving fellow, possibly homosexual. He may have even not been very brave in combat (anyone?). Von Hindenburg, acknowledged in his day to be a far lesser luminary that FII, nevertheless has other interesting faults that make his ‘greatness’ interesting/suspect. It seems that anyone can wear this mantle, if they do something that attracts a lot of social attention and hype, and do it well. Watson and Crick obviously are not great for discovering the double helix - think about that one. Why not? Was Darwin great? He certainly became great for far different reasons than Richard the Lionheart became great! 8
Posted by frolicker on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:34 | # Was he a groid? He sure had me fooled. I coulda sworn he was a german drug addict. Even patheticker. 9
Posted by Guessedworker on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:59 | # Look, pal, I probably can’t IP-ban you, but I don’t have to give you a free pass to make trouble. You don’t have any intellectual capacity. You don’t have a point. You are no use to us. Don’t bother to reply. Just go. 10
Posted by Thunder on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 03:15 | # I apologise for going off topic but I was reading this article about movie propaganda over at Occidental Observer http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Thornton-2012-Legion-Book-of-Eli.html#PT . Last night I went with my wife and daughter to the Outback Spectacular on the Gold Coast. It is a show/dinner celebration of Outback Australia and the Australian Lighthorse brigade. All the entertainers and riders and staff were white. The audience was overwhelmingly white, with a few Chinese looking tourists thrown in. The show was uanabashedly pro European Aussie history and was well received by, as far as I could tell, all. It got me to thinking that emotional beings that we are it would take very little to counter the effect of the poisonous crap we watch at the movies and on TV. A few shows and the average joe would be back on track. 11
Posted by Angry Beard on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:10 | # I seem to remember he was married to Leslie Crowther’s* daughter, and Crowther was none to pleased with the union. * English show-man, crackerjack presenter, entertainer and comedian of the 1960s and 70s, a slicked back haired facsilime of a Las Vegas lounge lizard of that period 12
Posted by Gorboduc on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:33 | # Hang on, PF:
I know you go on to qualify that just a bit, but although it’s only an opinion, it’s still an absurdity. It is the biggest question-begger of all time. The membership of a pantheon of The Great is not to be decided by a vote taken within that pantheon, for there is absolutely no means of determining who belongs to it in the first place - it’s not a self-perpetuating elite like the Academie Francaise. The pantheon’s impenetrability and indefinability may well indicate that it’s only a fantasy anyway. We may perhaps allow that there IS a group of people whose membership includes Alexander the Great and Alfred the Great. How about including Pope St. Gregory the Great (often referred to as S. Gregorius M.) or Albertus Magnus? Even that fugleman of Whig historians, Macaulay, who dearly loved a Protestant hero, found Frederick a figure for ridicule rather than reverence. Surely in some cases the suffix “the Great” should really be taken as a mere identifier like “III” or “of Utrecht.” Myself, I’m amazed that rock-and-roll music should be discussed as a category in which true musical greatness COULD EVER be achieved, no matter WHAT the colour of that music’s promulgators. LJB seems to give a clue as to what’s wrong: he uses the term “great records”. Well, of course a record isn’t a piece of music, or a song. It’s not even a performance any more: it’s just an artefact. Here’s Evelyn Waugh writing to The Times on 18 December 1945, about a controversial exhibition of two 20th. century “greats”, Picasso and Matisse, which had opened at London’s Victoria and Albert:
A week later, Waugh realised that his attitude needed sharpening and re-focussing: in a letter to a friend he regretted saying that the excitement of “Picasso-addicts” was “harmless”, as the then director of Sotheby’s, J.A. Hobson, had also written to The Times :
Imho, an entirely meretricious and deceptive sense of “greatness” is often imposed on a visitor to an art-gallery by means of the setting in which a piece is cleverly displayed; the polished floors, the lofty ceilings, the sense of a large space reverently employed as in a cathedral, the lighting - elsewhere subdued, but which just here throws the exhibit into sharp relief; the attendants imposing order on the queue of pilgrims, the hushed voices and restrained footfalls in a very particular acoustic - the ceremonial and paraphernalia of a secular religion - and what have we here? Ditto with people, records, historical actions, and so on. Off your knees! 13
Posted by Thorn on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:42 | # I say with much regret I’m beginning to believe England is gone. It along with Spain can probably be written off. The immigration has gone to far. France may have a chance to stem to tide if they have the intestinal fortitude to crush the forthcoming rioters in the Paris suburbs. But it seems immigration and political correctness have ruined England This leads me to mention Ken Livingston the Terrible. He and his sick twisted type are responsible for the following disgusting display on the part of Muslim misfits: http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=143782&catid=175 14
Posted by wexler on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 04:09 | # It’s an interesting question to ponder, What makes a man great? Ultimately though, ponder it as long as you want, but history decides. I’ve thought for awhile that a person can accomplish something meaningful and on the path to greatness, in one of three fields: politics, art, and science. And there is a fourth category, which perhaps could be called spiritual or healing power, which could be expressed in the primary three, but would not have to be. Bill Gates and greatness, that was a funny line. He is not great. Enough money and you have some real political power, and he’s used his for vaccinations in Africa, what an ass. Military accomplishments are political, of course. Athletic accomplishments don’t cut it, at all, for a ticket into the Hall of Fame of Great Men. Science I can’t speak of. In art though, I have some opinions, on music. Three of my favorites, whom I include as great men, for no other reason than their accomplishments, are Bob Dylan, Django Reinhardt, and John Fogerty. A better question is, Is a man great now? I suggest, if the answer is affirmative, the greatness lies in one of those three or four fields. And, if a man is great now, well, since we don’t know how history will go, there you go. 15
Posted by wexler on Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:21 | # in my previous comment on this thread, i misplaced that fourth category ... that thing is the first thing. anywaze, whatever. you guys might like this song and video, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dQGistoOKc 16
Posted by Lurker on Sun, 20 Jun 2010 06:52 | # Just saw that vid, it displays a horrifying lack of vibrancy, how could anyone dream of a world like that? *shudders* Something Must Be Done! This is the way its handled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCr81kVTdqE&feature=channel Of course one strongly suspects that this guy was not what Kate was thinking of when she wrote the song. I say that because one can be sure the market for her style of music is overwhealmingly white. But, no doubt, wiser heads at the record company won the day. 17
Posted by wexler on Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:20 | # i like that link, Lurker, thx. makes me feel like getting back on the scene. 19
Posted by Wexler on Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:00 | # this is hardly relevant to the larger issues, but as an addendum to my comments above: athletics can be considered performance art. Post a comment:
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Posted by PF on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:00 | #
Fascinating. Just imagine that most of our (great)-grandfathers lived in a time when it would be hard to find 100 black people in Briton, period.
One could jump from this piece to the larger question of “what makes a great man?”.
Which question strikes me one of the more philosophically interesting questions that it is possible to ask.
Was it greatness that drove Richard Francis Burton around the world, in search of adventure?
Was it greatness that goaded heroes of past eras into battle, again and again? Was it greatness that drove Nelson to attack Napoleon’s fleet?
When Nietzsche sat down to philosophize, was he ‘being great’? Is greatness what drives WNs on the internet to write essays defending their nations?
Are all, some, or none of these actions equivalent? Why? At what point does the singularity arise - i.e. what is the precise psychological/motivational/action moment when the ‘greatness’ is achieved/comes into being/is manifest? When does one reach escape velocity and become assured of greatness?
Fascinating questions.