Some Thoughts of George Bernard Shaw

"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)

George Bernard Shaw 1936. This is how the great man, born in 1856, looked in the year of my birth. And he still had another 16 years to live
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There are many awful things going in the world, at home, e.g., Marjorie Taylor Greene (and her totally awful wardrobe choices) and abroad (seriously, e.g., the War in Ukraine and the Earthquake in Turkey/Syria). But for this column, I thought that I would return not to an any less dangerous time (for as you will see in a moment, the period in question spans Word Wars I and II) but to, from the last half of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th century, the time of the great English playwright, George Bernard Shaw. He still has much to teach us, as you will see further down in this column.

Among other things, GBS, as he was known, was a great champion of the Rights of Women, something fairly unusual for a man in that period. But of course, he was not a champion of women of the type of Marjorie Taylor Greene. Yes, it's true that Eliza Doolittle did start out in the gutter. But with her own smarts and some help from Prof. Higgins she did get out of it. As for Greene, who seems to relish being there, the chances that she will ever rise above it, as Eliza did, seem fairly slim. Actually, on Ari Berman's MSNBC program on 2/9/23, no less an authority than Louisiana's own James Carville called Greene "a cracker.

Turning back to GBS, in addition to writing "Pygmalion," on which the musical "My Fair Lady" is based, in which a woman is at least a co-heroine, Shaw also wrote "St. Joan," in which a woman is THE heroine, "Caesar and Cleopatra," in which, once again, a woman is the co-heroine, "Major Barbara," in which a woman, as in St. Joan, is the heroine, and "The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism." Also, through the Fabian Society, active in the women's suffrage movement.

In thinking about Shaw, I happened to come across a collection of sayings of his some of which I thought to share with you in the balance of this column. Some of them are famous, some not so much. But taken all together, I thought that they might provide some guidance for dealing with these perilous times. In terms of the threat of oncoming fascism (and not only in this country), these times are indeed much like the latter part of Shaw's. Overlaying our period of course are two factors which did not appear in Shaw's: the threat of nuclear war and climate change. Which of course, in terms of peril make things even worse. Here they are, not necessarily either in chronological order, or in order of importance.

1. "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

2. "Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance."

3. "The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum."

4. "Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."

5. "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

6. "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

7. "Write your Sad times in Sand; Write your good times in Stone ."

8. People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

9. "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

10. "We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."

11. "Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense."

12. "Some people look at the world and say 'why?' Some people look at the world and say 'why not?'"

And then, finally, one which has been attributed to Shaw, but who knows whether or not it was his or whether it is simply grammatically correct:

"A preposition is a word you should never end a sentence with."

And a one further final note: Why write about Shaw now? Why not? His thoughts are of eternal importance.