Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, classicism and fascism

Transcription

1 Univesity of Wollongong Reseach Online Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Ats - Papes Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Ats 2001 Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, classicism and fascism Gegoy Melleuish Univesity of Wollongong, gmelleui@uow.edu.au Publication Details Melleuish, G. 2001, 'Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, classicism and fascism', Austalian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, pp Reseach Online is the open access institutional epositoy fo the Univesity of Wollongong. Fo futhe infomation contact the UOW Libay: eseach-pubs@uow.edu.au

2 Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, classicism and fascism Abstact Duing the 1930s Alan Chisholm and Randolph Hughes wee located at the antipodes fom each othe, even as they shaed many of the same aesthetic and political peoccupations. Hughes was an academic at King's College, London until he esigned his post and sought a living fom his witings; Chisholm taught Fench at the Univesity of Melboune, ising eventually to the ank of pofesso. Sepaated by thousands of miles, they coesponded egulaly, exchanging lettes coveing aesthetic, liteay and political topics, as they bemoaned the state of the wold aound them. Outlooks wee shaed at a vaiety of levels. Both wee dissatisfied: Chisholm wanted nothing moe than to escape what he saw as the povincial wold of Austalia, and to obtain a scholaly position in England; Hughes meanwhile viewed the AngloSaxon academy of which he was a pat with a jaundiced eye. Both also felt deeply alienated fom the wold aound them, but wee sustained by mythologies nouished by thei expeience of thei espective situations, paticulaly by myths of the Antipodes, and myths of Euope. Both men detested Austalia. Keywods alan, hughes, fascism, classicism, chisholm, andolph, omanticism Disciplines Ats and Humanities Law Publication Details Melleuish, G. 2001, 'Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, classicism and fascism', Austalian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, pp This jounal aticle is available at Reseach Online:

3 1 Randolph Hughes and Alan Chisholm: Romanticism, Classicism and Fascism GREG MELLEUSH Duing the 1930s Alan Chisholm and Randolph Hughes wee located at the antipodes fom each othe, even as they shaed many of the same aesthetic and political peoccupations. Hughes was an acad~mic at King's College, London until he esigned his post and sought a living fom his witings; Chisholm taught Fench at the Univesity of Melboune, ising eventually to the ank of pofesso. Sepaated by thousands of miles, they coesponded egulaly, exchanging lettes coveing aesthetic, liteay and political topics, as they bemoaned the state of the wold aound them. Outlooks wee shaed at a vaiety of levels. Both wee dissatisfied: Chisholm wanted nothing moe than to escape what he saw as the povincial wold of Austalia, and to obtain a scholaly position in England; Hughes meanwhile viewed the Anglo Saxon academy of which he was a pat with a jaundiced eye. Both also felt deeply alienated fom the wold aound them, but wee sustained by mythologies nouished by thei expeience of thei espective situations, paticulaly by myths of the Antipodes, and myths of Euope. Both men detested Austalia. Hughes savaged the 'integal' nationalism expessed in Pecy Stephensen's Foundations of Cultue in Austalia and elsewhee, and egaded Austalia as an intellectual deset. 1 Whee nationalists such as Stephensen and Bian Penton could be citical of the eality of Austalian life even as they sang the paises of the Austalian ideal, Hughes and Chisholm wee unequivocal in thei citique. They ejected both the eality and the ideal of Austalia, paticulaly whee that 'ideal' found expession in democacy. nstead, they looked to Euope fo inspiation, and sang the paises of, amongst othes, Chales Mauas, leade of the Action Fan~aise, and theoetician of 'integal' Fench nationalism. Thei eadings of Mauas wee howeve clealy Austalian Studies, Vol. 16, No.2, Winte 2001, pp.l-18 Published by the BRTSH ASSOCATON (BASA)

4 c----~-~ selective: stictly speaking, they shunned naow nationalist positions, and wee, moe accuately, suppotes of a paticula pan-national ideal of Euope, which they stove to uphold in the face of what they peceived to be a hostile and philistine wold, a detemination peculialy einfoced by thei fomative expeiences of the Austalian context. The oigin of thei idealising vision of Euope was theefoe distinctively Antipodean, and gounded not in the pesence of Euope, athe, but in a sense of its absence. Austalia and Euope The peculia chaacte of Hughes and Chisholm's peoccupations owe much to thei oigins within an emegent Austalian academia. Duing the late nineteenth centuy, a vision of the univesity as a place whee 'aistocats of the spiit' stuggled to peseve the light of cultue in a wasteland whee philistines thived and pospeed, had gained a paticula cuency in Austalia. n the small, stuggling Univesity of Sydney, fo example, this idealisation of the spiitual life, of cultue, came to be symbolised by a sting of heoic figues who fought on its behalf: fistly John Woolley, then Chales Badham, and in the ealy twentieth centuy, the poet and schola Chistophe Bennan. Although this vision of the univesity possessed a democatic side (it was the task of its gaduates to spead the light of cultue out into the wold) it was also inspied by a ecognition that tue spiitual insight and cultue was popely the peseve of a paticula cultue elite.2 This elitism made its devotees at best lukewam, and at wost hostile, to the egalitaian myths of Austalia which gained cuency in the decades immediately befoe and afte Fedeation in Myths of labou and of the odinay man, but also myths of the vitue of philistinism, and the supeioity of the pactical and the mateial ove the spiitual and the intellectual, sat uneasily with an emphasis on 'aistocacy of spiit'. Fo Chisholm and Hughes, such emphases only confimed Austalian emoteness fom Euopean achievement, and undelined a need fo local cultual stewadship by a moe intenationally-minded elite. Chisholm and Hughes wee thus symptomatic of thei histoical moment and thei class faction, and though them one can see clealy how cental the ideal of Euope was fo that geneation of Austalian intellectuals educated to view the 'univesal' as the goal towads which they, and thei society, should stive. One finds such sentiments, fo example, in the wok of V. G. Childe, whose intellectual entepise centeed aound the poblem of.cc ),,, J T ',,,~ '' l.( RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 3 explaining how Euope was diffeent fom those ancient middle-easten societies whee civilisation had begun, fascinations which pehaps suggest why Euope has emained a cental efeence point fo Austalian cultual life up to the pesent day. 3 The battle-lines dawn up by Hughes and Stephensen in 1936 have emained fundamental, with a stuggle between the nationalist myth of Austalia and the univesalist myth of Euope continuing to stuctue debate at a vaiety of conspicuous levels. As inheitos of the taditions of the spiitual 'aistocacy' and selfpoclaimed keepes of the Bennan flame, Hughes and Chisholm appopiated a paticula vesion of the Euopean myth. Following Bennan, they engaged Euope though the study of Romanticism and Fench Symbolism, and developed a paticula fascination with nineteenth-centuy Fench poety, as it culminated in the wok of Mallame. Hughes viewed Bennan as the chief theoist of Symbolism in the English-speaking wold, as well as ecognising in him a geat Symbolist poet in his own ight. The celebation of Bennan also howeve signalled potential divegences between Hughes and Chisholm, paticulaly ove Bennan's constuction of the Euopean. Like his followes, Bennan had also been a classical schola, whose image of Euope was as much Gaeco-Roman as moden; and it was aound the question of the elationship of this Gaeco-Roman heitage to both Chistianity, and to moden Euope, that Hughes and Chisholm would develop thei most fundamental disageements. Ultimate diffeences thus shaed common points of oigin, with a shaed love of the classical wold and an appeciation of the classical heitage nutued by those aound them (anothe key influence came fom the Pofesso of Geek at Sydney duing those yeas, W. J. Woodhouse) gadually giving way to contention. Such a peoccupation with the classical was genealised amongst the pees of Hughes and Chisholm. n the aticles and poems of the Univesity of Sydney magazine Hemes._ in the yeas leading up to the Fist Wold Wa, one can discen a geneation satuated in Romantic ideals that wee both pagan and Chistian in oigin. Hughes and Chisholm wee pat of this milieu, as disciples of the Bennan encounteed as poet and convesationalist holding foth at the Casuals Club. 4 With Bennan acting as something of a catalyst, they wee inducted into a spiitual and intellectual elite that spuned the bougeois mateialist wold of a society devoted to the accumulation of money, and pusued the life of the mind. As Hughes was late to insist, it was a goup inspied lagely by a pagan ideal of the spiitual life, descibing

5 4 Bennan at the Casuals Club as a pesiding spiit 'looking like a pontiff of what Novalis called The nvisible Chuch'. 5 Wa destoyed this idyll, and tested the 'aistocacy of spiit' to beaking point. Both Hughes and Chisholm seved in the amy duing Wold Wa One; Chisholm as an intepete on the westen font, Hughes in the light hose in the Middle East. Hughes neve etuned to Austalia; he enteed Oxfod to study Fench, and then moved on to a numbe of teaching posts in Fance, including the Ecole Nomale Supeiee, befoe etuning to London to take up a post at King's College, an institution fom which he eventually esigned in the mid- 1930s, amid accusations that he had been 'done in' by a Jewish colleague. 6 Chisholm etuned to Austalia to wok at the Univesity of Melboune. Both continued thei wok on Fench poety, with Hughes completing a doctoate on Baudelaie, and Chisholm witing his fist book on Rimbaud. Hughes and Chisholm shaed cetain political instincts, and in the wold of the 1930s both wee tempted by the Right. t was not the Austalian Right, no even the Bitish Right, that attacted them (thee is no evidence that Hughes had any connections with Bitish fascism), but a vesion of the Euopean Right which appealed, in paticula that espoused by the Action Fan~aise, although Hughes was also dawn to Nazism. The attaction of the Action Fan~aise lay in the fact that it was pimaily a movement of intellectuals, and that its leade, Chales Mauas, was, as Hughes put it, a fine liteay stylist. 7 t is pehaps difficult to constue such fascination as affiliation, in the fist instance. As moe than one commentato has emaked, to be consideed a fascist one has to be a nationalist, fo that is pat of the 'fascist minimum'. 8 On such a gound, both Chisholm and Hughes fail the test, since fo them the basic intellectual efeence point was not that of the nation, but the civilisation, of Euope. Yet the myth of Euope cetainly did dive both to suppot an authoitaian politics, to admie Hitle in the case of Hughes, and to wish fo a Caesa in that of Chisholm. 9 Cetainly in the case of the latte, it was also anti-communism that led initially to welcome fo the ise of Hitle, but such pefeences, in the pesent context ae moe suggestive of the extent to which Euope in thei eyes stood at the antipodes of democatic Austalia, as a symbol of high cultue and spiituality, opposed to the low cultue and mateialism that Austalia embodied. Despite his pesonal espect fo Mauas and his fiendship with Jacques Delebecque, Hughes, howeve, was neve eally at ease with the doctines of Mauas as leade of the Action Fan~aise. Univesalism sat uneasily with nationalism. Neve able to accept the ' j,,~ l ' i: RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 5 idea that Fance was the exclusive potecto of classical Euopean civilisation, Hughes poposed, in a lette to Mauas, that the Fench, like the En~lish, wee essentially Gemanic heis of a common Latin inheitance. 0 That the lette emained unansweed is pehaps suggestive. Othe evidences of Hughes's scepticism emain. Thee is in Hughes's coespondence, fo example, an account of a visit he made to Mauas at his home in Povence, whee the two of them passed the aftenoon visiting some local classical uins." Hughes could clealy admie the Mauas who extolled the vitues of classical Geece and its pagan vitues. Paganism also attacted Hughes, who believed that the Nazis wee to be admied because they wished to wipe out Chistianity and eplace it with a new paganism. Unlike Mauas howeve, he saw no value in Catholicism, egading it as a fom of Chistianity that had been subjected to classical values and Euopeanised. Fo Hughes, it emained an exotic oiental impot. onically, Hughes emained something of a Romantic, deaming of a pagan Euope, dominated by England, Fance and Gemany, that would thow off Chistianity and adopt a tue pagan spiituality. Chisholm, on the othe hand, was fa moe attacted to Mauas' Classicism, and could accept the significance of Catholicism fo the development of a classical Euopean civilisation, even if he was not pepaed to believe in its doctines. Unlike Hughes, Chisholm was neve paticulaly attacted to Nazism, save as a bulwak to Bolshevism, and ultimately condemned National Socialism. His admiation fo, and desie to peseve, the values of Classicism and classical civilisation emained paamount. Both Hughes and Chisholm wee thus admies of the Gaeco-Roman heitage, disliked the bougeoisie, sought to pusue beauty, wee attacted to authoitaian politics, and believed in the supeme spiitual value of Euopeanunivesalist taditions. Yet they also stood apat in thei espective visions of Euope to some extent; fo Hughes, Euope connoted paganism, omanticism and Nazism, fo Chisholm the efeence was equally classical, but also Catholic and Chistian. Taking its title fom one of Mallame's poems, Chisholm's book Towads Heodiade (1934), descibes its object as being to: show how, as a esult of vaious influences, patly Gemanic and Hindoo, patly Fench, the most epesentative Fench poets fom Leconte de Lisle to Mallame attempted to beak down the plastic stuctue of the univese and found behind phenomena, fist, an immense and incessant flux, and then a shee void. 12

6 6 RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 7 n: ij' The aim of the execise, in othe wods, was to mount a classical citique of Romanticism in ode to demonstate that its ultimate destination was, nothing less than nihilism; at the same time, Chisholm wanted to show that this doctine of the void, and hence Romanticism itself, was not Euopean in oigin but oiental. dentifying his 'Euopean and classical pejudices' and expessing the hope that thee would be 'a estoation of plastic values and a ehabilitation of phenomena' in the not too distant futue, Chisholm insisted that the Fench poets had been led towads a 'Dionysian nihilism' by a vesion of Schopenhaue's doctine of the Will, undestood as endlessly eceating the phantom foms by which it sees itself. Fom this pespective, Will became fo the Fench poets the tue eality of the univese. 13 Fo Chisholm, Dionysus was a 'convenient symbol fo expessing a faily common human desie to bust the bounds of individuation by identifying the self with the wold-all'. He associated this desie fo 'anti-individuation', the uge to become pat ofthe geate unity, with a ange of visions, including Rousseau's myth of the golden age, with Chistian desie fo edemption, and even with Communism. The Dionysian impulse led to an absobing of the individual into some fom of geate wold spiit, undestood as a vast cosmic wi11 that is constantly 'becoming', and whose ultimate destination is a spiitual nihilism that exalts the cult of nothing. This cult of the void, claimed Chisholm, obs Euope of its moal basis 'by stipping it of its spiitual sanctions'. n moe diectly political tems, it is an exotic impot whose populaity povides a sign ofthe decadence ofeuope. 14 Tue Euopean civilisation, accoding to Chisholm, 'has evolved on a Chistian basis', and 'is ooted in the idea of being and stability, not in the idea of an etenal becoming o an etenal void'. t has always espected the value of the individual. The contast between Euope and non-euope could hadly be stake; on the one side stands Chistianity, being and the individual, on the othe, stands becoming, the void, and nihilism. The impotant question fo the Euopean mind as fa as Chisholm was concened theefoe, was how to elate this espect fo the paticulaity of existence with the unfomed cosmic will. Chisholm believed that the 'typical westen mind' has always been able to contol and use that will: 'it has put shape into it (though the intellect), logical contol (though moality), beauty (though at), and has even made death not an escape fom it but a discipline within it. Thus has it put Will at the sevice of the individual and the ace' The classical appoach is to ecognise that those in the finite wold can only come into contact with the pefect and the infinite occasionally. ndividuals must be satisfied with these occasional moments of pefection and be content to view the wold sub specie aetenitas. 15 The poblem with the nineteenth-centuy Euopean mind fo Chisholm was that it had lost this classical vision of the cosmos as something to be gasped and analysed by the individual intellect. nstead it had sought to lose itself in the etenal cosmic flux and to identify with that flux. The 'new aesthetic... [sought] the identification of the self with this flux' and this meant 'a tagic enunciation of the classical ideal'. This immesion in 'the cosmic whilpool', claimed Chisholm, meant a loss of 'eal intellectual contol; we ae no longe mastes of ou own destiny, this mastey shifting fom the stable human intellect into the whiling cosmos'. n paticula, it meant the tiumph of sentiment and feeling ove intellect. n this, claimed Chisholm, lay the oigin of both nineteenth centuy pessimism and twentieth centuy mateialism. 16 Romanticism, Politics and The Void The cental battle fo both Chisholm and Hughes was that between the nihilism of the void, to which Romanticism inexoably led, and the 'classical and 'Latin' element in the 'Fench genius'. Hence fo Chisholm, 'oiental' nihilism can ultimately be identified with Gemany and Nazi ideals, and the policies of Mauas and the Action Fanyaise ae justified because they embody not just Classicism, but also the ideal of the individual and a decentalised polity that ecognises both the centality of the individual and the necessaily limited and fmite natue of human existence. At the same time, Chisholm can claim that Fench poety was saved fom complete nihilism by 'this classical atavism, this faith in the ultimate necessity of wods to expess ideas '. n these poets, he ecognises a constant stuggle between the void and the flux of becoming, and the need to impose fom and ode on that flux. n that battle, the victoy of fom and ode ove flux and the void epesented moe than the victoy of Classicism ove Romanticism; it also signified the victoy of Euope ove oiental pinciples. Discussing Leconte de Lisle, Chisholm claimed that he was 'too Euopean to yean instinctively fo Nivana, he believes too heatily in the estless, onwad stiving of the Westen aces, pedestined to inheit the wold's hegemony', and that Lisle was being 'Euopean' in putting 'Will' at the

7 8 sevice of moality o doctine. Baudelaie's doctine of 'coespondences' was anothe way in which the cosmic unity and the plastic ealities of this wold wee bought togethe. Thee was a thist fo the absolute but also a ecognition that the absolute is inaccessible. 17 Finally Chisholm discened in the poety of Mallame a 'pseudoclassicism, a classicism of decadence', in which Mallame applied a classic method to omantic data. n Heodiade, Mallame poclaimed the etenal void, 'escape fom which is not a eal escape, but a tagic denouement'. Fo Chisholm, this embacing of the void, of the nothingness that lies at the heat of the Absolute was not just a cisis fo Fench poety; it was an indication that the 'Euopean intellect faces suicide'. He believed that only two outes of escape lay open; a etun to medieval Chistianity o a patial acceptance of the Schopenhauian thesis. Despite his dislike of Austalia and the new wold, his book's final sentence is inteesting since it seems to imply that only 'in a new beginning' could 'some younge ace' find 'in life itself and in its splendid enegies' an escape fom this Euopean nihilism and decadence, echoing the view that Stephensen was to embace in his celebation of Austalian nationalism. 18 n a late piece entitled 'The Aftemath of Euopean Romanticism', Chisholm developed this pictue of the flaws and faults of Romanticism. Again he invoked Mauas, but now stated that it was not the politics of Mauas, but his achievement in puging citicism of its sentimentality, and eplacing it with a sound intellectual foundation that attacted him. The poblem with the omantics, as he saw it, was that they established the cult of the infinite and sought to ceate the divine by moving beyond the finite and the eal. n seeking to move outside the finite, he claimed, 'we un the isk of getting beyond the ealm of at altogethe, fo at is essentially a selection with a view to achieving something pefect, that is, finished'. This led to the omantic adoation of wods and the omantic penchant fo talking as opposed to thinking. 1 <} What Chisholm was expessing hee was a pefeence fo logic and dialectic, as opposed to the gnostic incantation that he associated with Romanticism. n this egad, it is woth noting that Bennan had explicitly ejected Platonism fo gnosticism in his exposition of Symbolism, and that in his ejection of the incantatoy powe of wods as the oute to the infinite, Chisholm was also castingoff a cental element of Bennan's teaching. 2 Chisholm could not accept Bennan's gnosticism because it lacked the capacity to engage in ational citicism and analysis; ultimately he saw it as leading away fom the individual and the ational to the void and 'utte annihilation'. 21 ~,~ RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 9 Fo Chisholm, Romanticism led to Mauice Baes' Culte du Moi, the belief that the objective wold is an illusion, and to attempts to withdaw fom the wold into a ealm of subjectivity. This attempt to withdaw fom the wold, he agued, had aleady had political consequences, including the institution of a 'taiff-guaded, hemetic nationalism' and the ceation of an 'isolationist' nationalism in Austalia. Similaly, he condemned Gobineau's theoy of ace because he saw it as yet anothe manifestation of the omantic cult of wods, it was built up fom a small numbe of examples, and then allowed to develop beyond the finite into the void. 22 Given that the fascist egimes in both taly and Gemany developed doctines of autachy and ace, such an affimation of fee tade and condemnation of acism is hadly the stuff of fascism. 23 Pehaps the fact that Chisholm evised Mauas so that Classicism was identified not exclusively with Fance, but also with Euope, meant that he was eleased fom the excesses of nationalist chauvinism. n any case, what matteed fo him about Classicism was its defence of the citical sense and of eason and logical citicism. This affimation of intenationalist values can also be seen as an indication that Chisholm continued to be influenced by those univesalist libeal values that wee so significant fo many of his contempoaies at the Univesity of Sydney, in paticula those influenced by Fancis Andeson. Randolph Hughes, howeve, was an entiely diffeent case. n his extended eview of Towads Heodiade, entitled A Futhe Decline of the West (1934), Hughes ecognised that Chisholm was engaged in moe than just an account of the development of Fench poety, and saw him as seeking to expose the 'maladies of the moden spiit'. Hughes, howeve, sided with Bennan against Chisholm, contending, in a lette to Chisholm, that Bennan had agued that Mallame's Absolute was not a void but a Totality. The 'Absolute, fa fom being a void', claimed Hughes, 'was a thing of supe-ealities'. Symbolism thus emained a sound doctine; it did not lead to nihilism but to some of the vey best poety eve witten. 24 Equally Hughes defended 'becoming' as the basis of eal spiituality, invoking in its defence T. H. Geen, Enest Renan and Samuel Alexande. Accoding to all of these wites, the movement of humanity involved an 'etenal tendency o dive of the univese towads eve highe foms; of the wold infinitely pogessing towads infinite Deity'. Becoming plus gnosticism equalled a spiitual vision of histoy fo Hughes, a vision in which Humanity is diven towads the infinite and the Absolute as it moves to become God. Hughes defended such eligious visions on ethical gounds; 'they make an ugent call to

8 10 the enegies of the individual, making him patly esponsible fo the evolution of Godhead'. 25 The cult of nihilism, claimed Hughes, may be a poduct of oiental knowledge, but then so too is Chistianity, which is seen as an oiental alien impoted into Euopean civilisation. Fo Hughes, the 'tue foundation of the [Euopean] civilisation is Gaeco-Roman cultue'.26 Hee then ae the continuing themes of Hughes's witings: the Absolute is not a void but a plenitude, becoming is a eligious pocess that leads to God, and the tue Euopean tadition within which this univesal pocess of becoming occus is defined by Gaeco-Roman paganism and its moden descendants. Hughes's vision of Euope, despite its emphasis on the classical wold was theefoe not paticulaly classical, and was quite diffeent to that of Chisholm. Wheeas Chisholm emphasised Euope in tems of stability, ode and being, fo Hughes Euope meant becoming and a constant movement towads the Divine, albeit a Divine conceived as a Euopean pagan divinity, athe than a Chistian, oiental o Jewish one. When Hughes wote on Symbolism, Bennan and Mallame, he emphasised not only the fact that the key to Mallame's aesthetic lay in absence and silence, but also that Symbolist poety went beyond ational language, theeby leading to both a 'stiing of tanscendental pesences' and an act of genuine ceation. The aesthetic of Symbolism leads the individual into a new county that he can 'ecognise as his tue home'. As such it: is nothing less than a eligion; as spiitual and mystical as any othe, and yet making no had and impossible demands upon the eason... it is noble than any othe, fo it makes no appeal to the lesse, basely selfish side of man's natue, which is despeately concened to polong its individuality, howeve little woth pesevation it may be; its sole appeal is to the highest pat of man, the pat that seeks towads what else is highest in this wold, and thence to what is highest in the tanscendental wold. And it einstates man in his Eden... t offes him sue salvation, and salvation ofthe only acceptable sot. 27 Thee is little in this account that is not to be found in Bennan's theoy of Symbolism, and in this sense Hughes was a tue disciple of his maste. Hughes also saw Bennan as a poet of absence but, he contended, absence does not imply a void but a memoial pesence beyond the absent. As he explained, 'it is pecisely the ide~] the divine achetypical idea, that is absent fom any paticula ose'. 8 This is a,. ' RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 11 fom of negative theology; it is the vey finitude of the human mind that endes it incapable of knowing the divine as infinite and absolute. Human beings can only know the divine as an absence, but it is that vey absence that implies that thee is a divine. Hughes continued also to pusue the theme that man moves towads God though histoy. He found this idea in his studies on Swinbune, and agued that Swinbune was an adheent to the doctine of theantopy. 29 Witing to Jack Lindsay, Hughes affimed his belief that 'the deity is not complete, but that it is on the way to becoming such'. 30 t is though human stiving and paticipation in the divine, though, in paticula, ceative endeavous, that God evolves and develops towads pefection. Becoming is a divine pocess claimed Hughes, and he could identify this as the doctine of the Euopean pagan elite, an elite that stetched fom!eschylus to Lucetius to Giodano Buno to Shelley, Mallame and Nietzsche. 31 Chisholm, by and lage, ejected Hughes's position, although at a late stage he admitted that he had been excessively hash on Romanticism. 32 Nevetheless, he continued to claim that Mallame was diving towads the void, and agued that Hughes's attacks on Chistianity wee misguided because the value of Chistianity lay not in the fact that it was Chistian, but in its Euopean-ness. At the same time, the political oientations of the two men diveged. Chisholm condemned Nazism because he believed that it was ooted in sentiment and Rousseauism; it was 'wild and fantastic', and lacking an intellectual foundation. 33 Hughes, meanwhile, was attacted by the paganism of Nazism and became a 'fellow tavelle'; this suited his paticulaly vicious band of anti-semitism, and his hope that the Nazis would uttell destoy both the oiental diseases - Judaism and Chistianity. 3 Chisholm's inceasing hostility to Nazism was famed within a context of defending Classical values, and was often accompanied by a defence of Mauas. n an aticle entitled 'Pantheism, Poety and Politics', Chisholm identified thee foms of pantheism. The fist was mateialism. The second was what he temed 'Patten-Pantheism', a fomulation owing much to Oswald Spengle's Decline of the West (1922). n this fom of pantheism pattens move out fom a cente of adiation, at which the souce of all being is located. Fo Chisholm, this patten-pantheism was connected with Romanticism and its desie to mege the individual with 'the etenal life-foce, so that the diffeences between the individual and the totality disappea'. By moving back to the cente of this 'spiitual adiation', the individual could become one with the spiitual souce. Chisholm claimed that it was this desie to go

9 12 RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 13 back to the souce that lay at the coe of the new authoitaian political systems of his day. Each stove to move in one geat hythm, adiating fom a cente: the Dictato. Each had its musical incantation, its Dionysian hymn as it wee, its patten-gestue o salute. Each also had its saced fund of emembances: fo Gemany it was the golden age of the Altgemanen, eaching back to the still holie peiod of the Ayans; fo taly it was the classical age of Rome, eaching backwad towads the She-Wolf. 35 Chisholm contasted this vesion of pantheism which led fom Romanticism to the ule of the dictato with the classical vesion of pantheism in which, as Chisholm always loved to explain, we see things sub specie etenitatis. He continued to emphasise that the etenal must have a concete and paticula fom, fo only 'though the magnification of the paticula' was 'the attainment of the univesal' possible. Chisholm did not theefoe associate Classicism with the cause of democacy so much as with the doctines of Chales Mauas. Mauas, he claimed, defended the idea of the individual and the paticula, as fo example in his defence of egionalism. Mauas, claimed Chisholm, was the defende of an ideal of attaining pefection not though agitation, but though 'the calm of the spiit'. As a esult, Chisholm inceasingly came to see Euope as a battlefield cossed by foces deived fom the Gaeco-Roman wold, best exemplified by the Latin societies of Fance and Bitain, and the Romantic destuctiveness ofgemany. 36 Chisholm was also led inceasingly to defend the significance of the individual. n a piece entitled 'God, Man and Reich', witten in 1939, he sought to establish the elationship between the development of the individual consciousness and that of the goup consciousness. He agued that the long expeience of humanity had established two pinciples. The fist was that human beings live fulle and iche lives when they live in society, because it was only though contact with othe people that they could enlage thei pesonalities. The second was that the wide the scope of the society, the moe univesal was the ode it ceated. Geat civilisations, such as Rome, Geece and ancient Judea, wee geat because they had contibuted to an inceasingly univesal and civilised humanity. The goup consciousness that emeged as a consequence of the development of these societies and civilisations did not submege and abolish the individual; athe it found its fulfilment in the individual. Abolish and limit the individual, contended Chisholm, and the consequence is that the goup is also pevented fom developing. 37 This agument, howeve, owes little to Classicism and f i Mauas. Again Chisholm eveals his debt to the idealist libealism that was taught at the Univesity of Sydney when he was an undegaduate. On this basis, Chisholm could contast the tue univesality of classical Latin Euope and the naow, paticulaism of Nazi ace theoy. The Nazis, accoding to Chisholm, wee ceating a pseudocollective consciousness by tying to impose one paticula consciousness on all othes. They wee seeking to absob all othe foms of individuality though egimentation. n this way, they wee denying the tue univesal spiit of Euopean civilisation as it had developed ove the millennia. Euopean civilisation had attained this univesality by absobing the univesal elements of othe civilisations. Classicism and individualism wee the tue foundations of moden Euopean civilisation and the pinciples of univesality that it embodied. The classical, Latin civilisations of Bitain and Fance wee the fulfilment of that univesality and individualism, standing fo disinteestedness and fo the undogmatic libeal view of the wold that deived fom that univesality. 38 Last Bastions The fall of Fance in 1940 stimulated Chisholm to develop his defence of this Latin, classical civilisation. n this 'tagic moment', he claimed, 'Bitain alone epesents that geat Gaeco-Roman civilization which can neve be destoyed'. As the tue heis of Latin civilisation, Bitain and Fance alone etained the paticula qualities that had enabled the seeds of Roman civilisation to take oot and bea fuit in moden Euope. Fo this eason Bitain, accoding to Chisholm, was 'moe Latin' than the taly ofmussolini. Fom this pespective, the babaians, in the shape of the omantic Nazi Gemans, wee once again attacking the Roman empie, but despite the defeat of Fance, one vibant and uncouj?ted pat of the Latin bloc emained to defy these new savages. 39 As the last bastion of classical civilisation, Bitain was stonge than Gemany because she possessed the qualities of that inheitance. Chisholm contasted the 'immense spiitual stength' of Bitish values, deived fom the classical-latin tadition, with the lack of spiitual coheence of a Gemany that had delibeately boken with its past. At the same time he claimed that while Bitain had achieved 'a eal and spontaneous unity... by the scapping of the paty idea', Gemany had meely attained a 'kind of specious unity' that elied on the paty imposing its will on the nation. 40 Bitain had now taken on the task of

10 14 defending the vey pinciple of civilisation, ooted in Gaeco-Roman cultue, without which thee could be no pogess and no univesality. Such an identification of Bitain with classical civilisation is simila to one made by the Austalian-bon Gilbet Muay, in his 1941 essay on Geece and England, whee he identified Bitain as the hei of Geek civilisation. 41 Muay, howeve, was a libeal, which Chisholm cetainly was not. n this egad it is woth ecalling that Chisholm identified the 'spontaneous' unity of Bitain with the suppession of the paty system in favou of a watime coalition. ndeed he spent much of this essay defending and justifying Mauas, a man he still looked on 'with genuine intellectual affection'. Mauas, meanwhile, had condemned capitalism and the moden mechanistic spiit, and Chisholm viewed him as an undogmatic Fench socialist, not without some justification. Above all, fo Chisholm, his impotance lay in the fact that he had 'ecognised that the basis of Westen civilisation was the Gaeco-Roman cultue handed onto Fance by the Romans'. 42 The tue Euope fo Chisholm, was classical, Latin and espectful of the individual, it most cetainly was not libeal, democatic and capitalist. Gemany was the enemy because she was omantic and babaic, not because she had ovethown democacy. Hughes followed a diffeent path fom Chisholm because he had a diffeent idea of Euope, and of the values Euope was meant to embody. He was attacted to Nazism, in pat, because he believed that the Nazis would ovethow those eligions that he detested: Chistianity and Judaism, and was a tue believe in a pagan ideal of the sot in which vitalists such the Lindsays had engaged in Austalia. t was cetainly no accident that Hughes coesponded on a fiendly basis with Lionel Lindsay, and that they had a genuine inte11ectual compatibility. Hughes believed that the Nazis wee genuine idealists and could wite of the 'spiit of disinteested sevice in Naziism... moal discipline... a vast amount of idealism'. Even at the end of the wa he could still moun thei passing, and claim that 'thee is something tagic in the fact that a11 this idealism and its good pactical human esults have been shatteed out of existence'. 43 Fo Hughes, the values of the pagan Gaeco-Roman wold wee the souce of a11 ceativity and spiituality in Euopean civilisation. Ranged against this vital and ceative foce wee the foces of Democacy, Jewy, Chistianity and Ameica. Opposing Chistianity meant opposing democacy because 'democacy is indeed the Chistian polity pa excellence'. 44 This helps to explain how Hughes had been initially attacted to Mauas, because he appoved of Mauas' anti-semitism and his distinction between Euope and the oiental foces of Judaism. Jews could not be RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 15 assimilated by Euopean civilisation because they wee oiental. The same was tue of Chistianity. Both had to be eliminated fom Euope. As Hughes opposed both Chistianity and democacy, his vision of Euopean civilisation was auite distinct fom moe outine invocations of 'Westen Civilisation'. 4 His ideal of Euope was of a continent puged of Jews and Chistians, in which an alliance of Gemany, Fance and Bitain was dominant. As mentioned ealie, he could not accept the Mauas view that Fance was the paticula hei of classical civilisation. His vision of ancient Geek civilisation was coespondingly authoitaian athe than democatic, and Hughes believed that the Nazi egime had much in common with the ancient Geeks. Witing to Edwyn Bevan he claimed that 'Aistotle's view of the individual to the state was singulaly like that which has been enfoced in Gemany', and suggested that 'Plato took in a lage degee the Geek countepat of Nazi Gemany as the model fo his ideal Republic'. 46 Regimentation and ode wee cetainly not alien to the Geeks, and Hughes agued that the Melian oation was Hitleism aised to the ninth powe. Fom this pespective, the Nazis wee the moden heis of the Geek heitage, even down to the cuelty and hashness of the Nazi egime. Thee was much, contended Hughes, that was dak and toubled in the Geek tempe. 47 Conclusions Hughes's idealisation of the Nazis as the heis of a Euopean civilisation based on pagan ideals owed a consideable amount to his omantic view of the wold and his belief that the development of humanity epesents movement towads the divine and the infinite. t also echoed his elitist view that the tue Euopean pagan-spiitual tadition h~d been peseved by a small goup of illuminati, of which Hughes believed himself to be an hei. Opposed to democacy and Chistianity, Hughes saw Hitle and the Nazis as ceating a egime in which these aistocats of the spiit would flouish and thei tue woth be appeciated. Most cetainly, at a pesonal level, Hughes was seduced by the pageanty and itual of Nuembug, as is clea fom his desciptions of the ally that he attended. 48 t would also be tue to say that Chisholm was saved fom the excesses ofnazism by his adheence to classical ideals. Like Hughes, he was an elitist, despaiing of the mediocity of the moden wold and its inability to ecognise the place of the tue aistocats of the spiit, a view focused by a paticula encounte with Austalian contexts ealy in the centuy. Hence he was

11 16 RANDOLPH HUGHES AND ALAN CHSHOLM 17 attacted to the authoitaian ideas of Chales Mauas, which nonetheless ecognised the limitations that ae placed on human beings. Fom Mauas, Hughes leaned that one must emain satisfied with the impefections of the wold athe than going off in seach of the infinite. At the same time, it would be tue to say that both Hughes and Chisholm could neve eajjy escape the vision of an evolving spiitual cosmos that they absobed as students. Chisholm combined a libeal vesion of this doctine of 'becoming' with Classicism, and this acted as a estaint on his extemism. Hughes, howeve, intepeted this ideal of 'becoming' in a way that ajjowed him to fuse the vision of an aestheticised, spiitual univese moving on the oad to pefection with an exteme fom of authoitaian politics. Hughes was undoubtedly a fascist; Chisholm neve quite made the gade. Despite thei common heitage in the shape of Chistophe Bennan, Hughes and Chisholm wee at the antipodes in tems of thei views of Euope and the tue natue of the Euopean cultual tadition. Neithe Hughes no Chisholm wee defending the West, o westen civilisation, insofa as these categoies ae undestood as a coalition of democacy and libeal values. Both wee authoitaian. One was defending the ideal of a classical Euope in which Chistianity played a cental ole, a Euope founded on Being and ode and stability in which thee was a place fo the ideal of the individual. The othe was defending a adical pagan view of Euope based on pinciples of Becoming and the quest fo the Absolute, a view that was based on Romantic pinciples. The oddity, of couse, is that these two poducts of an Austalia often undestood as the 'social laboatoy' of the wold, of a adicajjy democatic society, should have been pusuing such deams at au. magining themselves as aistocats of the spiit suffeing in a society openly embacing egalitaianism and oppotunism, Hughes and Chisholm constued Euope as escape fom democacy. Euope was the antipodes of democacy, a place fom which they could daw sustenance as they sought to defend what they saw as the tue pinciples of cultue and the spiitual life. NOTES 1. Gegoy Melleuish, Randolph Hughes vesus Pecy Stephensen: An Austalian Cultual Battle of the 1930s, in Ats, Vol. 18, No.1 (1996), pp Gegoy Melleuish, Cultual Libealism in Austalia (Cambidge: Cambidge Univesity Pess, 1995), especially Chapte bid., pp On the Casuals Club see J. Le Gay Beeton, 'naugual Addess to the Liteay Society', Hemes, Vol. xxxiv, No.2 (Tinity, 1928), pp Hughes to Chisholm, 9 Decembe, 1946, Randolph Hughes papes, Mitchell Libay, Ms. 671, f On Hughes see Gegoy Melleuish, 'Randolph Hughes', in John Ritchie (ed.), Austalian Dictionay of Biogaphy, [Vol. 14] (Melboune: Melboune Univesity Pess, 1996), pp On the Action Fant,:aise and Mauas see Engen Webe, Action Fan(:aise (Stanfod: Stanfod Univesity Pess, 1962); Michael Sutton, Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism: The Politics of Chales Mauas and Fench Catholics (Cambidge: Cambidge Univesity Pess, 1982); David Caoll, Fench Liteay Fascism (Pinceton: Pinceton Univesity Pess, 1995), esp. Chapte See, fo example, Geoge L. Mosse, 'ntoduction: Towads a Geneal Theoy of Fascism', in Geoge L. Mosse ( ed.), ntenational Fascism (London: Sage, 1979), p Chisholm to Hughes, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 4, f Hughes to Mauas, 26 Mach 1937, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 25, f. 7.. Randolph Hughes, 'Visit to Mauas', Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 25, ff A R. Chisholm, Towads Heodiade (Melboune: Melboune Univesity Pess, 1934 ), p bid., pp. 8, bid., pp. 14, 15, 17, bid., pp. 31, 34, bid., pp bid., pp. 109,46, 42, bid., pp. 136, A R. Chisholm, 'The Aftemath of Euopean Romanticism', Austalian Quately, Vol. 8 (Decembe 936), pp A R. Chisholm and J. Quinn (eds.), The Pose of Chistophe Bennan (Sydney: Angus and Robetson, 1962), pp Fo an account ofbennan's symbolism see Gegoy Melleuish, Cultual Libealism in Austalia, pp. 97-O. 21. A R. Chisholm, 'The Aftemath of Euopean Romanticism', p A R. Chisholm, 'The Aftemath of Euopean Romanticism', pp. 58, On ace and autachy in taly and Gemany see Stanley G. Payne, A Histoy of Fascism (London: Univesity College London Pess, 1995), Chaptes 6 and Randolph Hughes, A Futhe Decline of the West, Repinted fom the 'New English Weekly' ofnov 22,29 and Dec 6, 934, pp. 2, 18, bid., p bid., p Randolph Hughes, C. J. Bennan: An Essay in Values (Sydney: P. R Stephensen Pess, 1934), p bid., p.l Randolph Hughes, 'Algenon Chales Swinbune: A Centenay Suvey', The Nineteenth Centuy and Afte, No. DCCXXV (June 1937), p Hughes to Jack Lindsay, 5 May 1936, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 5, f Hughes to Cal Kaeppel, 17 Novembe 1937, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 9, f Chisholm to Hughes, 8 May 1938, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 4, f Chisholm to Hughes, 21 August 1933, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 4, f Hughes to Gilbet Muay, Septembe 937, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 3, f A R. Chisholm, 'Pantheism, Poety and Politics', Austalian Quately, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Decembe 1937), pp. 95, 96, bid., pp. 98, 99, A R. Chisholm, 'God, Man and the Reich', Austalian Quately, Vol. l, No.3 (Septembe 1939), pp bid., p A R. Chisholm, 'Bitain and Fance', Austalian Quately, Vol. 2, No.3 (Septembe 940), p.20.

12 bid., p Gilbet Muay, 'Geece and England', in his Geek Studies (Oxfod: Oxfod Univesity Pess, 1946), pp A R. Chisholm, 'Bitain and Fance', p Hughes to Benad Cockett, 2 Januay 1945, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 10, f Hughes to Jacques Delebecque, 5 Febuay 1940, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 19, f Fo a definition of 'Westen Civilisation' see Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of Wold Ode (New Yok: Simon and Schuste, 1996), pp Hughes to Bevan, 15 June 1940, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 7, f See also Hughes to Chisholm, 6 Mach 1940, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 4, folios 399, Hughes to Chisholm, 15 June 1940, Randolph Hughes papes, Vol. 4, f Randolph Hughes, The New Gemany, London, Athenaeum, 1936, pp. 1-2, 18.