MATTERS OF THE SPIRIT: WHAT NEXT FOR WALES?
The State of the Nation — Philosophical Reflections
With Welsh Labour reasserting its dominance in last year’s Senedd elections, it is more important than ever that we do not take electoral politics at face value. We must not assume that 100 years of Labour dominance suggests a society that has changed little in terms of values, culture and everyday life. Realising this fact does not take much reflection, of course. Many parts of Wales have seen immense changes, with heavy industry and the north and south slowly brought to an end, the Welsh language’s erosion in those industrialised areas now being mirrored in the more rural parts, and of course the rapid decline of organised religion is a phenomenon that has reached across the nation.
More immediately, beyond the election itself people are keenly aware of the consequences of multiple crises we are now enduring. The unnecessary poverty forced by austerity; the rupture with the European Union; the rise of the British far right; the climate emergency and the enduring crisis of capitalism that goes back to 2008; to top it off, we are now in the midst of a pandemic that has entrenched previous problems and which has laid bare the inequities of the British State. In such circumstances the rise in support for Welsh independence is perhaps no surprise, and it is a welcome opportunity around which the progressive forces of change can unite in Wales.
However, there is no doubt that our politics and our nation is currently on a knife edge. As Gramsci explained nearly a century ago, crises can persist for years as the dominant forces of old — the presiding hegemony — loses its grip on the majority, whilst a new “common sense” struggles to emerge and replace it.
Certainly this is a useful perspective for understanding the UK during the last 5 years or so as the (neo)liberal Conservatism of Cameron gave way to the more aggressive, racist Toryism inspired by UKIP, which as with Trumpian politics, has left a legacy but has ultimately struggled to assert a lasting dominance — whilst of course Corbyn’s left populism mounted an ultimately unsuccessful challenge as a potentially new hegemonic force. Post-Brexit purgatory appeared as if it might be a prolonged phase of what Gramsci describes as an interregnum; as he famously said, a time ‘when the old is dying and the new cannot be born’. With the defeat of Corbyn and the defeatism of Starmer it looks as if Johnson may be able to limp along with a ragbag form of new Toryism, which will only make Wales’ situation more precarious; witness for one the influx of English capital into Welsh communities (which no doubt represents a form of escape for many).
In Wales thus far Labour have ridden the wave of Covid and under Drakeford’s stewardship have been able to solidify support, but they now find themselves bobbing somewhat aimlessly between the tide of support for independence and the rock of the Union upon which they were securely perched. Their apparent ‘Welshness’ might lead us to be somewhat surprised about their passivity with respect to independence, especially given that half their supporters are sympathetic to the cause, but if understood in terms of Dan Evans’ analysis of devolution there is an inescapable logic.
Evans uses Gramsci’s idea of the ‘passive revolution’ as a heuristic for understanding devolution, which in essence suggests that changes to the state that may appear seismic are often more akin to managed change by the political elite. Where devolution led by Labour might have appeared as a huge rupture wrought by a force looking to challenge unionism and create a unique polity, it can likewise be interpreted as a process that sought to manage it in such a way that it blunted its radical potential, maintained their control, and in practice created a rather denuded statelet. This has meant that the age of devolution in Wales might itself be understood as an interregnum of sorts as the UK state has lost some of its power but the Welsh statelet’s gains in terms of powers and stature has been painstaking (witness the minor tweaks that the Welsh Government has been able to make to №10’s pandemic policy-making).
However, the assertion of the new Toryism at a British level is leading to a greater crisis for the UK state in Wales, and the current crises — this wider western interregnum — is taking on a different, more dynamic character, which both promises more in terms of new political nationalism but in so doing risks also a response that sees Westminster ‘taking back control’ — witnessed for example in the noise around Abolish the Assembly, increased jingoism and flag waving, and Johnson’s internal market bill.
For Wales’ most famous Gramscian, Gwyn Alf Williams, this latest episode would be for him but one more crisis for a people that have existed in perpetual crisis. And whilst his later work is infused with an understandably maudlin tone, there was also hope sounded in his view of us as a people who had survived such crises through our ability to reinvent ourselves (it surprises me, by the way, that the parallel between this view of our history and that of the great novelist Emyr Humphries is not more often remarked upon: presented in his book the Taliesin Tradition, he posits the Welsh as shape-shifters extraordinare).
Unsurprisingly, in his reading of Welsh history Williams would place a great deal of emphasis on the idea of organic intellectuals. These were the people “who exercised some organising, planning, expressive function — anyone in truth who was a ‘worker by brain’… Those people who whatever else they did, expressed, made historically operative, the consciousness of groups and classes coming into historical existence” in opposition to “the kind of moral hegemony which was as all-engulfing as the air we breathe.. which made some thoughts virtually unthinkable.” In more straight forward terms, these are the groups who create a new hegemony.
To survive, Williams believed that we needed a movement that would restore organic intellectuals, those that could fight back against the hegemony through reconstruction and retranslation.
Thatcher, as we know, wrought misery in Wales, and that misery wrought Devolution, but as with the recent election result, to read this constitutional change at face value would be to ignore how the angst that Williams expressed at this time would not be much assuaged by twenty years of devolution. For it has done little to reverse the effects of late capitalism, and it has arguably done less to encourage the sort of cultural grassroots change that might encourage a new generation of organic intellectuals.
However, in the throes of this crisis and the recent support for indyWales we may be seeing the “green shoots” of such a movement with a chorus of voices slowly rising. Many of these have been given new platforms, some more radical than others of course, whilst there is evidence in the recent Labour-Plaid agreement that their view of the world is being adopted to some extent in the Senedd. I would suggest this new emerging common sense has been captured effectively in a recent collection, namely The Welsh Way, in which we brought together many activists and practitioners with academics, and to which Adam Price referred to in recent discussions about the agreement.
A Welsh Tradition?
Arguably a successful reinvention requires some knowledge of our present and past, and even amongst those who are inclined to engage with these matters, the level of understanding is far less than it should be — an inevitability given the sporadic and un-unified teaching of history in our schools, and the more general sense in which our historical consciousness has been moulded at a British level.
Composing a meaningful progressive historical narrative around our intellectuals is a necessary act in this context, in a bid to inspire us in the present: to have us reflect on who we are and where we’ve come from, and about how our intellectual history might lead us to think about what answers to the current multiple crises might look like.
In a narrower sense, there is a more academic orientated purpose to such efforts, which is to work through and set out what constitutes our historic intellectual tradition. As the discussion around the teaching of Welsh history attests to, there is always every reason to expand our self-understanding, and in particular I would argue — as a philosopher — from the perspective our intellectual history.
Moreover it is important in an academic context because of the postcolonial position of our Higher Education sector in particular; the very fact that the Learned Society have pushed for quite some time for the idea of ‘Wales Studies’ tells you all you need to know about this. What sort of country has Universities where there is a need to create a discrete theme of study, for the purpose of ensuring at least some research and teaching occurs that is relevant to that country? I imagine those Universities in the world where teaching and research is not carried out first and foremost in reference to the country where they reside must be in the minority. It might not be so problematic, were it not for the fact that Wales plays such a marginalized role — if any — within the pervasive British intellectual worldview. Just ask anyone who tries to publish journal papers on Wales, outside of Wales.
There are also practical consequences to this issue. Having a strong sense of a people’s intellectual inheritance I would argue is central to their identity as a polity — if you have a Welsh ‘nation’ and citizenship, part of that encompasses an intellectual identity. In a phrase borrowed from Kristie Dotson, every people is a thinking people, so how is it that we have thought through the ages? And how does that relate to who we consider ourselves to be now?
In these multiple overlapping contexts we must attempt to map some of the key ideas and beliefs that have been indicative of Wales. Related to my personal and professional preoccupation this is also to do with bringing philosophy into the way we reflect upon and think about Wales. We tend to think of the English as having a particular philosophy or view of the world that is historically connected to schools of thought such as empiricism and utilitarianism, and although we may have some general ideas about what the Welsh intellectual characters might be, it’s largely unsubstantiated. How we think as a nation is a question we must reflect upon.
It is also worth reflecting in this context on the method, for whilst certain concepts and beliefs are central to ways of thinking, they cannot either be separated from the manner in which they’re expressed. In the field of philosophy, for example, the Anglo-American ‘analytical’ style of philosophy is one that is fairly austere, whilst more generally ‘continental’ philosophy of French and German thinkers is often more literary, stylized or flamboyant. This is not merely a side note around style; the way in which ideas are conceived and expressed is connected to the language and method that are employed to express them.
Partly also these techniques can be an effort to connect some of our thinking with our past. For example, in deploying various figures and characters to tell the ‘story’ there is a connection in the Welsh context, for example the world of the late middle ages, which for one regarded birds as messengers and creatures of symbolic import — one of the most famous pieces of literature being the Llyfr y Tri Aderyn by the mystic, puritan and son of Wrexham, Morgan Llwyd.
From one perspective — namely that of the reader familiar with the analytical styles — this approach might appear strangely fantastical; whilst of course from the point of view of someone familiar with the work of someone like Nietzsche, it might barely seem worthy of comment. However, in thinking about who we are and depicting our intellectual lifeworld there is much to be gained from thinking self-consciously about what motifs and figures have inspired the Welsh imaginary.
All of these considerations come together in a Welsh-language book that I published last year and which, a year on, appear yet more relevant. I wish to reflect on some of its key tenets here partly to bring attention to them in the Anglosphere, and also to try and distill its essence into a set of problems that I — and hopefully others — need to take on in future.
Firstly is the consideration of the contemporary crisis in a philosophical register, and the challenges of the western world more generally in its postmodern, secular state. In particular there is a need to consider how mainstream political philosophy, influenced by key figures such as Habermas and the American John Rawls, is not perhaps so engaged in some of the more immediate questions that affect us now. This is most clearly reflected in Rawls’ separation of the ‘right’ and the ‘good’ and the precedence given to the former. In general terms his political philosophy encourages us to put broader questions around ideas of the good life, faith and total moral systems to one side, and concentrate instead on reflecting on those ideas connected to our rights and how we establish a set of political values for the modern, just society, that allow people to pursue their preferences in a fair manner. Whilst this liberal approach has its virtues and is entirely valid I would argue that in a contemporary society riven by clashes, extremism and spiritual emptiness we need to pursue a social philosophy that engages with these very questions about the ‘good’.
One philosopher who has for some time taken this approach is the Scot Alasdair MacIntyre, who in his early work at the start of the 80s bemoaned the moral vacuity and confusion of modern society, whilst developing in his later work more extensive discussion around the need for political society to be discussing and collectively constructing the common good. Much of his work speaks to current challenges, especially in Wales — in particular his emphasis on narrative; we do not often recognise that many of the ideas that influence our priorities and desires are ‘stories’ that have great appeal and strength, and one can think about political ideologies in this sense also. We need to realise the strength of such ‘stories’ — and come to the realisation of how all-embracing and damaging the narrative of capitalist consumerism is to our individual and collective lives. One part of addressing this crises is thinking about what our values are at a societal level — the ideals we aspire to as a people, and in that manner it encourages us to reflect on what our story is as welsh people in a historical context.
The types of values and ideas that have shown themselves to be predominant in Welsh culture over time are subject to well-worn cliches, and without reinterpreting and re-presenting the narrative of our intellectual history over time it becomes nothing more than a shibboleth. It is my view that in articulating Wales’ much-rehearsed “radicalism” we can return to the beginnings of our hanes brodorol in the pre-Roman era, before moving forward to antiquity to our ‘Christian fathers’ most notably the heretic Pelagius (Morgan in Welsh, it is suggested); many of these ideas can be recovered in the work of Pennar Davies and his book Rhwng Chwedl a Chredo, looking at how the Christian-mythical world of the Brythoniaid emerged and was sustained over time in our folklore and literature, such as our poetry and the Mabinogion.
What emerges are the contours of what I call Ysbryd Morgan, and the structures of thought I claim that can be mapped across time and that emerge in a variety of ways across our history. These structures are broadly triadic and embody the following motifs: the ability of humanity to shape its own world; a belief in the underlying unity of being; the possibility of attaining a material embodiment of this unity on earth (in more prosaic language, a spirit of utopianism). In particular what emerges is a pattern of thought that underscores a belief in achieving a better world, fighting fate, and the salutary potential of human nature. One can argue that it emerges, for example, in Cyfraith Hywel — our native law — in Glyndwr’s vision for Wales, with the Humanists that fought for Welsh culture during the annexation of Wales and the development of the English Tudor state. I argue in particular that it comes to the fore in the visions of Morgan Llwyd, the 17th century Welsh puritan who so inspired later generations, and then in particular Richard Price (whose birth in 1723 we will be celebrating next year): the great Welsh philosopher whose texts during the late 18th century took the cause of radical dissent to the core of the English establishment, inspiring the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft but also provoking a crushing conservative response from Edmund Burke that helped to reassert the ascendancy of the elitist, aristocratic state that lies at the heart of the British state today.
This predominant Welsh intellectual tradition is one that can be defined as being broadly millenarian in both Christian and secular terms, Neoplatonic rather Empiricist in its philosophical outlook, and one which in the work of Llwyd and Price (who were connected via the puritan tradition from which Price threw himself into a radical Unitarianism) prefigures the 19th century radicalism that founds its most important expression in the dissent, protest and emerging socialism of that century.
This spirit is intuitively in contrast to the Augustinianism that came to define mainstream Christian thought that was built upon the doctrine of original sin, and which those in Wales have claimed as their own tradition in particular through the emergence of Calvinism. However, in my view one can only understand the particular unorthodox, active, salvationist Welsh Calvinism that emerged by the 19th century in the context of the wider historical tradition — and which eventually developed into the social gospel of the late 19th century and early 20th century, that was prevalent also amongst those who still considered themselves Calvinists.
In a broader context the argument being put forward is that whilst material conditions dictate that utopian, salvationist thinking is common to peripheral and poor societies such as Wales, there is also a particular story that we can tell from the ‘idealist’ perspective in Wales, where there have always been pre-existing, deeply-held convictions that have buttressed such tendencies and underscored the emergence of our tradition. In some ways one might understand the book as attempting to present a form of myth through which we can understand ourselves and face the present, much in a way that is in keeping with Gramsci’s belief that such stories are important to the socialist cause in imagining a different world (it was partly his reliance on the idealism of Croce and his embrace of such views within his Marxist framework of thinking that made him the unique thinker that he was).
Such a historical narrative also amounts to a framework through which competing political traditions in Wales that emerged in the modern era can be understood. The predominant political traditions — in very broad terms — are all expressions of this same underlying structure of thought when looked at through the ideas of particular figures who developed these traditions in systematic ways, in particular Henry Jones and his social liberalism, Robert Owen and Aneurin Bevan and their socialism, JR Jones and his cultural nationalism, and Henry Richard and David Davies with respect to their pacific internationalism. All tell a similar story but in different political schools of thought, their key ideas map onto the contours of ‘ysbryd morgan’, fitting as they do with the triadic form of a belief in our capacity to change the world, its underlying unity, and the possible attainment of some form of societal and individual completeness. The underlying message is that these traditions are actually much closer than ideological fissures promoted by political figures often suggests. Moreover, whilst some would want to take the cultural nationalism of a figures such as JR Jones as conservative (he articulates many similar ideas on Wales and Welshness as Saunders Lewis), this form of a particularly unique “conservative” Welshness is built upon similar underlying structures, and in that sense is as equally radical and utopian as more left-wing political traditions in Wales.
Reflecting on our Future
Some of my final thoughts relate, in a nutshell, to the central importance of the Welsh as a people grasping their future; we face the sort of epochal crisis that Gwyn Alf Williams speaks of and we need to be cognizant of this. It is a time that requires our recreation for us to survive, and in that sense we must cast aside the soporific politics of the Senedd and look beyond the apparent stasis, for we are all aware of the shifting sands into which our future may sink.
These reflections are necessarily speculative because in some ways it is an invitation to the reader to think for themselves about that future; moreover it would be a different book if I were to attempt such a vision for myself (one that would move beyond a bibliography that essentially ends around half a century ago), and would engage with the literature that has more recently — and is currently — forming our intellectual milieu in Wales.
Ultimately it is a call to action that asks us to locate ourselves within this historical tradition, to take inspiration from our past — whilst recognizing its limitations — and urging us to think around the need to forge a new politics for Wales that is grounded in our own, unique culture and ways of seeing the world. It is a call for another creative act of reinvention, beyond those aspects that divide us, and mitigate against the changes that we need.
It is itself perhaps a process of building a myth, and creating a story through which we might understand ourselves. In my view it is crucial that in the contemporary capitalist society with foundational myths that have riven us apart — where it is materially very difficult to build collective consciousness — that we create such narratives that can bring us together. This is a responsibility for all those who are creators in our current society.
In conclusion, the process of reflecting upon the crises of the western world, and constructing a narrative around our intellectual inheritance in Wales as a grounds for a response, prompts these final thoughts:
- During modernity we have lost touch with the spiritual — where spiritual is understood in the broadest sense as being about our mental world: our shared collective consciousness and our individual position within it. National identity, the history it provides us with as people and individuals, is something that can help us centre upon these spiritual matters and instil meaning and reflection in our lives; however in contrast we must be equally conscious of, and careful about the inherent tendency for such narratives to take a fascist turn which includes the sanctification of the state and political history.
- As a society we need to reflect far more, and think much more self-consciously about what our intellectual history is and what the ‘Welsh mind’ constitutes. The book is one attempt to express this, and is no doubt limited, problematic and there to be criticised, but more important than the thesis is the attempt itself. There is a dire need to create these narratives, even if they are inherently limited, because it provides the basis for debate and totems to be torn down.
- Such broader reflections about these traditions should also be a far more explicit basis for inspiring ourselves in terms of our politics, especially as contemporary politics is riven with empty rhetoric where traditional words like ‘radical’ lose any meaning or purpose. Moreover, with the communities and old ways of living that once sustained these genuine traditions now disappearing, we need to grasp these ideals and reimagine them in new ways because our lived reality and material conditions no longer reflect the realities from which they sprung forth. As Gareth Leaman explained, we need to look beyond the political headlines and understand how Wales is bit by bit being turned into a society where our historical values are being undermined and ultimately destroyed by late capitalism.
- Ultimately we must also — in thinking through Wales’ future — keep one eye on the whole, or the universal, and not forget the constant need to work towards unity. We requires forms of unity within our society, most notably between the working classes (in whichever way you choose to define them), between our minorities, our communities. But in our struggle for solidarity we must also look at the importance of global unity and where we — as colonised then the coloniser — locate ourselves. If we are unable to work towards unity in our own society and embrace in particular the global communities that have made their home here in the true spirit of equality and radicalism, we have little to offer the world beyond. On a deeper, personal, existential level such reflections on the social and political world must require us ultimately to reflect on ourselves, and where we stand in the great underlying unity of time and space.
