Piss and Vinegar; or, The Balls on Peter Tatchell
In (qualified) praise of physical and moral courage, with further reflections on combat and a pair of substances necessary for civilisation
The recent documentary Hating Peter Tatchell shows us several examples of the man’s sheer guts. Here is a man who calmly faced down the most appalling homophobic abuse and death threats during a 1983 by-election (one charming letter sent to him proffered the view that gays were ‘only slightly more acceptable than the Pakis’); who was beaten up by Robert Mugabe’s thugs as he tried to perform a citizen’s arrest on that geriatric killer (and suffered permanent damage to his right eye because of it); and who was arrested in 2018 in Russia, where he had snuck to hold up a placard, alone, near Red Square in protest against Chechnya’s gay concentration camps, thus achieving his aim of pissing all over Putin’s football World Cup parade (years earlier, he had been beaten by neo-Nazis in Moscow).
This is not to exhaust the examples of Tatchell’s moral and physical courage. And despite the brain and eye damage he’s been kindly gifted by various shades of bastards over the years, he is not stopping. No, even now he plans to protest Qatar’s hosting of the upcoming World Cup, for its disgusting human rights record. His protests are not limited to gay issues, either, as the foregoing shows. He is far from always right, but he stands by his principles staunchly, and many of the causes he has championed have not, unlike gay rights, become widely supported or fashionable (his criticism of Islam and support of the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain could be cited here).
I recommend the documentary, but this isn’t a review. Its reminder of the balls on Peter Tatchell got me thinking a little about courage, moral and physical. It’s easy enough to express one’s opinions and even easier to nod along and mutter how terrible it is that, say, Islamic State is throwing gay men from rooftops. But to put yourself in real danger, or to become a real pariah, in support of your morals and principles- that is something else entirely. I wish I could say I’ve done that, and I hope I could indeed do it, but until the test actually comes, how can I know if I would stand against the onslaught rather than scurry away from it, face shielded and hands trembling?
Not all physical courage and moral conviction can be so easily applauded, however. Yes, there are Tatchells and Mandelas and Nygaards, but there are also Islamic suicide bombers and Nazi soldiers. Mohamed Atta was a physically courageous and morally convinced man. It just so happened that his courage was used in the service of an evil idea. The same goes for the young men who travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic State. No, Islamic fascists are not necessarily cowards. And it should be remembered that, until recently, Peter Tatchell’s actions were regarded with horror and disgust by most Brits. It is only because of the change in morality that the country has undergone in the past couple of decades, in large part due to Tatchell himself, that he has come to be celebrated rather than spat upon.
So physical and moral courage are not enough in themselves. This might seem an obvious point, but it bears repeating. When admiring such courage, one should be highly discriminatory as to the motivating ideas behind it; otherwise, one is logically forced to celebrate Nazis and jihadists. Not all cases can be so clear, of course. But physical and moral courage in a person, however seductive they are, must not be taken in and of themselves as indications of moral worth. Mohamed Atta was moral by his own lights, but not by those of most of the rest of us. Moral courage doesn’t make one moral.
Another lesson from the Tatchell documentary is that sometimes we need piss and vinegar to wake us up, as when in 1998 Tatchell led a disruptive protest during the then-Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter sermon. Civility and politeness are talked up too often these days, as if most of our moral, social, political, economic, and intellectual gains weren’t fought, and often died, for. I don’t mean you should assail your conspiracy theorist aunt at Christmas dinner, just that it’s neither possible nor desirable that we speak calmly all the time. Another obvious point, perhaps, but it also bears repeating.
Piss and vinegar are the fuel of change and progress and the fount of just about everything interesting or important that has ever happened. I’ve probably made the mistake myself of talking up civility and the like too much. I enjoy intellectual fisticuffs as much as the next man. And therein lies an important point: intellectual and political combativeness are good, not so much the real thing. Better to argue with someone than smash their skull in to prove them wrong- let alone to have your own opinion disproven in such a manner! That’s not to say, though, that physical force isn’t necessary sometimes: there’s no arguing with a suicide bomber running towards you. But it’s a good principle for a liberal society in general, one without which it is nothing. Neither violence nor timid debate, but metaphorical blood and guts.
Another caveat: this doesn’t mean being enemies with everyone. Some of my favourite people are the ones I can heatedly argue with as we share a drink and go on being friends. A caveat to this caveat: there are, obviously, some people you should be enemies with.
This rambling little meditation should probably draw to an end now. Let me sum it up. Physical and moral courage are to be admired- but admired discriminatingly. Society needs some piss and vinegar circulating through its veins if it is to be at all interesting or capable of change and progress. Intellectual combat is better than physical violence, but force is sometimes necessary for defence or to effect change: you don’t get rights without a fight. It is the case that some of the best friendships are forged in the fires of passionate disagreement while having enemies isn’t wrong in itself: some people really are evil bastards.
I propose, then, that we refer to the above ideas under the heading of ‘The Piss and Vinegar Principle of Civilisation’. Such are the reflections that the gigantic gonads on Peter Tatchell prompted in me.
DJS