Published: April 15, 2008 12:06 pm            

WRITE ON: Shaw ’Nuff

I feel that all assassins are fools who should remain nameless in history. Assassination is such a contemptible act that unless, like Brutus who stabbed Julius Caesar, your name has become part of the language (“brute”), the world should not reward treachery by remembering cowards’ names. Lee Harvey Oswald should only be remembered as the fool who murdered John F. Kennedy, just as John Wilkes Booth should be

recalled only as the coward who killed Abraham Lincoln.

April fourth is always a sad day for me. That is the day back in 1968 when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis by a fool who shall remain nameless. His murder was, ironically, followed three months later with the murder of Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles.

Why was the killing of Robert Kennedy ironic? It is because on the evening of the day King was killed, Robert Kennedy addressed an audience of mostly black folks at a political rally. It was there Bobby announced the death of King. As the crowd reacted at first with surprise and later with anger, Robert Kennedy spoke to them from his heart. He told them he knew how it felt to have a family member murdered. He told them that he also knew Dr. King and that King would not want people to use his death as an excuse for violence.

Non-violence was the very thing Dr. King, like Gandhi before him, had advocated as the means to protest for social change. What impressed me so much on that dreadful day was the sight of John Kennedy’s brother Robert speaking to a mob of plain common people, and quoting from Greek philosophers and modern playwrights without sounding stuffy or academic.

To display the common touch while also revealing a splendidly educated mind is a rare gift. Bobby Kennedy had that gift and one can only wonder how this world would be different had he and Dr. King not been killed in that cruel year of 1968.

At the end of his address to the crowd, Robert Kennedy cited a quotation I have long cherished. It is this: “You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say, Why not?” I took the time to track down where this quote came from. It was written first by George Bernard Shaw in 1921 in a work called “Back To Methuselah.”

As someone who loves words, I enjoy reading. George Bernard Shaw may not be a familiar name to some of you. But if you enjoyed the play or

movie “My Fair Lady,” then you have enjoyed Shaw’s work. “My Fair Lady” is the musical tale of a lowborn English urchin girl transformed into an upper-class beauty by the efforts of an arrogant aristocrat name Henry Higgins. It is based on a book called “Pygmalion” by G. B. Shaw.

Born in Ireland in 1856, George Bernard Shaw moved to London when he was twenty. He was at first an art and music critic and wrote book reviews and other things until embarking on writing original creative works.

He joined a Socialist group called the Fabian Society, which advocated creating a Socialist state within England. This Society shaped much of Shaw’s literary output and also provided the founding philosophy for England’s Labor Party of today. It was this social consciousness which rested beneath Shaw’s works like “Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” a play about prostitution Shaw wrote in 1893 but which was banned from performance for ten years. Other works by Shaw include “Arms and the Man,” “Caesar and Cleopatra,” “Major Barbara,” and “Saint Joan.”

Shaw was a man after my own heart. I share a lot of his values and that is one of the reasons I am proud to call myself a Liberal, as were Dr. King and Robert Kennedy.

But it is Shaw’s great command of English along with his insight into the human condition which make his writing timeless.

So for those of you who may not be familiar with Shaw, along with those who just enjoy witty writing, here are some memorable samples

from this genius’s work:

On managing a successful love life: “It’s well to be off with the Old Woman before you’re on with the New.” — from “The Philanderer,”

1893.

On being truly civilized: “The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.” — also from “The Philanderer”

On self-reliance: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” — from “Mrs. Warren’s

Profession,” 1893

“On inheriting a fortune: “We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.” — “Candida,” 1898 (That quote reveals a lot about Shaw’s Socialist-based politics. He opposed leaving large inheritances to descendants because he didn’t want to see a separate class of rich folks created who didn’t earn the money they had.)

On theology: “There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” — from “Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant,” 1898

On the opposite of love: “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.” — from “The Devil’s Disciple, 1901

On being self-sufficient and fulfilled: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” — “Man and Superman,” 1903

On being careful what you wish for: “A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.” — “Man and Superman”

On not-so-good music: “Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.” — “Man and Superman”

On why we marry: “Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.” — “Man and

Superman”

On poverty: “The greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes is poverty.” — “Major Barbara,” 1905

On Greed: “I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.” — “Major Barbara”

On raising kids: “If parents would only realize how they bore their children.” — “Misalliance,” 1910 (Find the hidden joke in that one)

On the act of nameless fools: “Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.” — “The Rejected Statement,” 1911

On the power of intelligence: “One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t.” — “The Apple Cart,” 1929

George Bernard Shaw received the Nobel Prize in 1925 and died in 1950. Yet for his wit, irony, and keen insight, his works remain timeless. They are at our library, waiting to inform the curious mind.

One last quote from him I cannot resist adding is this: “Never wrestle with a pig; you’ll get dirty, and besides, the pig enjoys it.”

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Copyright 2008 Peter Ferrara

        

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