Anthony Ludovici

"Ludovici" redirects here. For the American author, see Laurence James Ludovici.
Anthony Ludovici

Portrait of Anthony Ludovici, by Claude Harris, 1927
Born Anthony Mario Ludovici
(1882-01-08)8 January 1882
London, England
Died 3 May 1971(1971-05-03) (aged 89)
London, England
Nationality English

Anthony Mario Ludovici MBE (8 January 1882 – 3 April 1971) was a British philosopher, sociologist, social critic and polyglot. He is best known as a proponent of aristocracy, and in the early 20th century was a leading British conservative author. He wrote on subjects including art,[1] metaphysics, politics, economics, religion, the differences between the sexes, race, health and eugenics. Ludovici began his career as an artist, painting and illustrating books. He was private secretary to sculptor Auguste Rodin for several months in 1906, but the two men parted company after Christmas, "to their mutual relief." [2][3][4] Ultimately, he would turn towards writing, with over 40 books as author, and translating over 60 others.

Early life

Ludovici was born in London, England on 8 January 1882 to Albert Ludovici, and Marie Cals. Ludovici's father and grandfather, Albert Ludovici, Sr., were both artists. He was educated privately, in England and abroad but chiefly by his mother.[5] As a young student he became friends with Harry Guy Radcliffe Drew,[6] with whom he visited the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Years later he befriended Drew's young daughters Dorothy (later a student of F. M. Alexander) and Joyce (better known as architect Jane Drew). He married Elsie Finnimore Buckley on 20 March 1920, and they first lived at 35 Central Hill, Upper Norwood in South London. He spent several years in Germany where he studied Nietzsche's writings in the original German. He was fluent in several languages.

He began lecturing on art, politics, religion, and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche,[7] about whom he wrote Who is to be Master of the World?: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909) and Nietzsche: His Life and Works (1910). Nietzsche scholar William Mackintire Salter called Nietzsche: His Life and Works "the well-nigh perfect short manual" on Nietzsche.[8] According to Steven Aschheim, his 1911 Nietzsche and Art was "a unique attempt to write a Nietzschean history of art in terms of rising aristocratic and decadent-democratic epochs".[9] This was the year of the first Parliament Act 1911, cutting back the power of the House of Lords. It also marks a watershed or change in Ludovici's writing, to a more overt political line, which would only sharpen over the next 25 years.

During World War I he joined the New Army as a translator, and then served as an artillery officer at Armentières and the Somme, where he described himself as "a miserable and vermin-ridden trench-rat", and then in the Intelligence Staff at the War Office, where after two years of service he rose to head of his department (MI6 A).[10] For his service during the war he was awarded the Order of the British Empire, which he immediately returned because he felt that it was too easily attainable and held by too many people. He attained the rank of Captain during World War I, of which he remained proud for the rest of his life, and was even called 'Captain' as a nickname by his peers throughout his life.[11]

After the war, he became a student of Dr. Oscar Levy, editor of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, the first translation of Nietzsche's works in English. Ludovici contributed several volumes.[12]

Ludovici came across the Alexander Technique in 1925 and said he had lessons in 'deportment' over a period of four years with F.M. Alexander.[13]

Writing

Ludovici's writing was varied, and took traditional conservative stances on social issues. Liberalism, socialism, Marxism, Christianity, feminism,[14][15][16][17] multiculturalism, the modern culture of consumerism and revolt against tradition constituted Ludovici's main areas of attack.

He wrote "I have long been an opponent and critic of Christianity, democracy, and anarchy in art and literature. I am particularly opposed to 'Abstract Art,' which I trace to Whistler's heretical doctrines of art and chiefly to his denial that the subject matters, his assimilation of the graphic arts and music, and his insistence on the superior importance of the composition and colour-harmony of a picture, over its representational content." He was an early critic of Jacob Epstein, attacking him in The New Age,[18][19] to which he contributed as an art critic before the Great War.[20][21][22]

In his A Defence of Aristocracy (1915), Ludovici defends aristocracy against government in popular control. In The False Assumptions of "Democracy" (1921), he attacked the democratic idea and the liberal attitude in general, as having originated in specious philosophy, wholly opposed to nature.[23] A Defence of Conservatism (1927) defends tradition as not only a policy of preservation, but of discernment in change, writing, "Man is instinctively conservative in the sense that probably millions of years of experience have taught him that a stable environment is the best for peace of mind, present and future security, automatism of action... and a ready command of material and artificial circumstances. It is the repeated introduction of new instruments, new weapons, new methods, and needs for fresh adaptations, that makes automatism impossible. And it is the complication of life by novel contributions to life's interests and duties that makes a ready command of circumstances difficult."[24]

For Ludovici, egalitarianism in all its forms constituted a denial of the innate biological differences between individuals, the sexes and races. He criticized what he saw as the sentimental coddling of the mediocre and botched. His articles were a regular feature of the New Pioneer, a far-right journal controlled by Viscount Lymington and closely linked to the British People's Party.[25] Ludovici repeatedly warned of the dangers of miscegenation.

Conservatism and tradition

Ludovici's doctrines were nationalist, traditionalist, and centrally concerned with a form of eugenic reasoning.[26] He argued that heredity can yield strong family lines, group values, and national and racial characteristics. Politicians should not only be individuals of intelligence, and knowledgeable of mankind, but also of the same stock as those they lead.

It is in the interest of the nation to maintain unique characteristics by safeguarding a native and particular potentiality of success and opportunities for self-expression and expansion. This includes a concern for the health of one’s people, that ill-health not only leads to maladaptation, but also to the decay of the strength capacity and character of the nation. "To be a good forester, a man must know how to give trees their proper health conditions, and must also know how to chop and prune them."

National prestige means power, power is safety, and safety is security. Since the conservative politician is concerned with the security and extension of his own nation’s power, he cannot tolerate anything that jeopardizes its position. In dealing with a vis major, he acts firmly and quickly; using the full might of his nation against any enemy that threatens it.

The conservative is naturally suspicious of change. He must know enough about his nation's character and potentialities, of mankind in general, and be able to judge whether new tendencies are desirable, in keeping with the eternal nature of men, or fatalistic, when they apply "only to angels, goblins, fairies or other harebrained fictions".

The conservative is concerned with the happiness of his people. When examining unhappiness amongst his people he differentiates between the type of maladaptation that arises from injustice and oppression, and that which is resultant from degeneracy or morbidity. He can meet the demands of the former easily and accomplish improvement, but in taking on the later he will only penalize the nation.

Ludovici summed up his definition: (esoteric) conservatism "is the preservation of the national identity throughout the process of change by a steady concern for the whole of the nation's life." He opposed Jews, foreigners, and 'odd people' — eccentrics, cranks and fanatics — having anything to do with government.

Later life

He was on the Selection Committee of the Right Book Club,[27] with Norman Thwaites, Trevor Blakemore, Collinson Owen and W. A. Foyle.[28]

After the Second World War, Ludovici fell rapidly into obscurity.[29] In 1936, he had written enthusiastically about Adolf Hitler, whom he had met personally that year, along with many other high ranking Nazi officials.[30] He was critical of the effect of Jews on the history of England, writing a work under the pseudonym Cobbett, The Jews, and the Jews in England (1938).[31]

Ludovici was dismissed from his intelligence work on 14 August 1940 and his house was subsequently raided allegedly due to his membership of the political group The Right Club. On Friday 8 October 1940, Ludovici was interviewed at Scotland Yard where he distinguished his views from Fascism, and was then released.[32]

From 1955 until 1969 Ludovici wrote a series of essays in the monthly journal The South African Observer.[33] Topics under his analysis included The Essentials of Good Government[34] in a series of 20 monthly parts, and Public Opinion in England[35] in a similar series.

Works

Non-fiction

Fiction

As translator

Articles

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Scholes, Robert E. (2006). Paradoxy of Modernism. Yale University Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-300-10820-0.
  2. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1923). "Personal Reminiscences of Auguste Rodin," Cornhill Magazine, Vol. LV, Nos. 325-326, New Series.
  3. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1925-6). "Further Personal Reminiscences of Auguste Rodin," Cornhill Magazine, Vol. LIX-LX. Nos. 334-356, New Series.
  4. ↑ Bacci, Francesca; David Melcher (2011). Art and the Senses, Oxford University Press, p. 146.
  5. ↑ Kerr, R.B. (1932). "Anthony M. Ludovici: The Prophet of Anti-Feminism," in Our Prophets, Studies of Living Writers. Croydon: R.B. Kerr, pp. 84–99.
  6. ↑ Guy Drew was the son of organist Harry Drew and grandson of Joseph Drew of Weymouth
  7. ↑ Stone, Dan (1999). "The Extremes of Englishness: The ‘Exceptional’ Ideology of Anthony Mario Ludovici," Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 4 (2), pp. 191-218.
  8. ↑ William Mackintire Salter, ‘Book Reviews’, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jul., 1915), p. 404.
  9. ↑ Aschheim, Steven (1994). The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890-1990, University of California Press, p. 48 (footnote).
  10. ↑ Day, John V. (2012). "My Education Part III" "Anthony M. Ludovici: My Education,"
  11. ↑ Francis, Samuel (2004). "Buried Alive," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1, pp. 85-92.
  12. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1946-7). "Dr. Oscar Levy," The New English Weekly, Vol. 30, pp. 49–50.
  13. ↑ Religion for Infidels. London: Holborn, 1961. Excerpts reprinted as "How I came to have lessons with F. M. Alexander" in The Philosopher's Stone: Diaries of Lessons with F. Matthias Alexander, edited by Jean M. O. Fischer. London: Mouritz, 1998, pp. 102–108.
  14. ↑ Balfour, Lady Frances (1923). "The Anti-Feminist Folly," English Review, Vol. 37, pp. 741-744.
  15. ↑ Harrison, Austen (1924). "The New Anti-Feminism," English Review, Vol. 38, pp. 80-87.
  16. ↑ Ditzion, Sidney (1953). "Female vs. Male in the Twentieth-Century," in Marriage, Morals, and Sex in America: A History of Ideas. New York: Bookman Associates, pp. 355-380.
  17. ↑ Freedman, Estelle B. (1974). "The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s," Journal of American History, Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 372-393.
  18. ↑ Ardis, Ann L. (2002). "'Life is not Composed of Watertight Compartments': The New Age's Critique of Modernist Literary Specialization," in Modernism and Cultural Conflict, 1880-1922, Cambridge University Press, pp. 149-151.
  19. ↑ Buchowska, Dominika (2011). "English Rebels in Art Circles: The New Age in its Elitist and Populist Dimension," In Regarding the Popular: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and High and Low Culture, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 44-56.
  20. ↑ Mairet, Philip (1936). A.R. Orage: A Memoir. London: J.M. Dent.
  21. ↑ Selver, Paul (1959). Orage and the 'New Age' Circle. Reminiscences and Reflections. London: George Allen & Unwin.
  22. ↑ Martine, Wallace (1967). The 'New Age' Under Orage, Manchester University Press.
  23. ↑ Day, John V. (2003-4). "What is Best Will Rule: Anthony Ludovici on Aristocracy and Democracy," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. III, No. 4, pp. 55-68.
  24. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1927). "The Meaning of Conservatism," in A Defence of Conservatism. London: Faber and Gwyer, pp. 1-2.
  25. ↑ Martin Pugh, Hurrah for the Blackshirts! Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars, Pimlico, 2006, p. 279
  26. ↑ Scholtke, Paul Ernest (1980). The Fascist Element in A.M. Ludovici's Defence of Conservatism. Masters thesis, Durham University.
  27. ↑ Green, E. H. H. (2002). Ideologies of Conservatism: Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, p. 151.
  28. ↑ Webber, G. C. (1986). The Ideology of the British Right, 1918-1939, Croom Helm, p. 161.
  29. ↑ Francis, Samuel (2004). "Buried Alive," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1, pp. 85-92.
  30. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1936). "Hitler and the Third Reich," The English Review, Vol. 63, pp. 35–41, 147–153, 231–239.
  31. ↑ Ludovici, Anthony M. (1938). The Jews, and the Jews in England, Boswell Publishing Company.
  32. ↑ Day, John V. (2012). "My Education Part III" "Anthony M. Ludovici: My Education,"
  33. ↑ Brown, S. E. D. (ed.), The South African Observer - A Journal for Realists, Pretoria, South Africa.
  34. ↑ "The Essentials of Good Government," South African Observer, Vol. IX-X, September 1963/May 1965.
  35. ↑ "Public Opinion in England," South African Observer, Vol. X-XIII, July 1965/June 1968.
  36. ↑ Lewis, Wyndham (1914). "Epstein and His Critics, Or Nietzsche and His Friends," The New Age, Vol. XIV, No. 10, p. 319.
  37. ↑ Pitt-Rivers, George (1919). "The Sick Values of a Sick Age," The New Age, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, pp. 25-27.

Sources

  • Barker, Rodney, (1978). Political Ideas in Modern Britain. London: Methuen.
  • Green, John (1934). "Youth Speaks Out, II - A Political Writer," National Review, Vol. 103, pp. 220–227.
  • Kerr, R.B. (1932). "Anthony M. Ludovici: The Prophet of Anti-Feminism," in Our Prophets, Studies of Living Writers. Croydon: R.B. Kerr, pp. 84–99.
  • Ludovici, Albert (1926). An Artist's Life in London and Paris, 1870-1925. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
  • Stone, Dan (2002). Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0-85323-997-5.

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