![]() ![]() The novelist Arthur Koestler puts it concisely in Darkness at Noon, the book that signed him off from Communism. I’m sure, like me, most of you are very much looking forward to seeing which of the ‘statesmanlike’ figures, vying to be contenders, becomes our next Prime Minister. Decisions called ‘brave’, ‘statesmanlike’, ‘justified’. Economic or ‘tough’ decisions are made regularly that even with every effort to be fair, require politicians, commanders, anyone making large-scale decisions, to set the needs of the few to one side. The great unsentimental wickednesses of Fascism and Socialism made no excuses here, but it also becomes the embarrassment of our own politics. The evil of having to get up early every morning because the need of your partner to have half an hour more in bed, and your baby for his milk, outweigh your need to sleep. For when ‘as logic clearly dictates… the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’, we are in to the language of ‘collateral damage’, of ‘necessary evils’. That conflict is at the heart of most human tragedy. I bring this up because there’s a tension throughout history, but most clearly in the twentieth century between - paraphrasing Mr Spock - ‘the needs of the many’ and ‘the needs of the few’. It’s not that he failed - he never even got a chance. Against his conscience, against his pride, with no support, Brando has become a bum, a nobody. I coulda been somebody.” Not ‘I coulda been a champion’, but just ‘I coulda been a contender’. You may have never heard of the film but you’ll know the line: “ I coulda had class. ![]() ![]() The film is less famous than one particular line in it, spoken by Marlon Brando, a boxer who is convinced by his brother under pressure from the Mob to lose fights for money. Only this week moving from Taxi Driver to the superb 1954 film On the Waterfront. If you happened to be at church last week, you’ll be delighted to know that I’m sticking with the classic movie references. Sermon by the Reverend Doctor Brutus Greenīased on readings: Ezekiel 37.1-14, Acts 16.9-15, John 5.1-9 ![]()
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