The Peterloo Pivot Point

It was in a Sicilian lemon grove that I learned the surprising fact that citrus fruits were cultivated, originally, in China. I mean, it’s obvious where Japanese knotweed comes from but oranges and lemons, those quintessential fruits of the Mediterranean, must surely be indigenous? Not so. I suppose there may be a clue in the name of the variety called ‘mandarin’ but it had never occurred to me to query it, any more than I had ‘tangerine’ or ‘clementine’. My assumption was based on limited knowledge.

It’s not unreasonable to draw conclusions from scant perceptions, especially if we have limited access to learning and education, but we all benefit from bathing in the pool of knowledge. My former impression that the only fruit to have come from China was the lychee has been banished and so it should be, given its shallow foundation. And, despite the saying “a little learning is a dangerous thing” (which I suspect was coined by the gatekeepers of academia to dissuade the hoards from assailing their ivory towers), I certainly feel better knowing that there is much I do not know and for observing that learning is incremental, not absolute.

For those who don’t know, ‘Peterloo’ was an event that took place in Manchester in 1819 and the eponymous film has just been released. It recounts the violent reaction of the authorities to a peaceful assembly of thousands who had gathered to hear orators state the case for enfranchisement. The eventual outcome of that day was the recognition that the right to vote belongs not just to property-owners but to all citizens. According to the director, Mike Leigh, his motivation in making the film was to educate rather than entertain, in which case (assuming its historical authenticity) it should be included in the relevant history curriculum for schools as an adjunct – or even as an alternative – to textbooks. What better way to get a flavour of the past than via intelligent cinematography? (And if this proposition raises the spectre of propaganda films, such as those used by dictatorial regimes, then the same wariness should apply to currently adopted textbooks.) Historical perspective is fundamental to making sense of current affairs. In the case of Peterloo, for example, how many more voters would turn out at election time if seeing the film made them aware that enfranchisement had not been granted to them by a beneficent ruling class, but hard-won from a grudging, greedy elite determined to cling to wealth and power?

Even so, knowledge is not the only thing that will improve our condition. Peterloo highlights the eternal conflict between two human traits: selfishness and selflessness – the instinct for individual survival versus the logic of acting for collective survival. Recent advances in DNA recognition have enabled scientists to deduce that immigration to Britain began 10,000 years ago: we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. In Darwinian terms, this is a good thing, since it provides a bigger gene pool for the purpose of evolution. Yet still we resist newcomers: we are not convinced by the argument that they will enrich our lives in the long term. Perhaps because, in the long term, we are dead and, meanwhile, we must survive.

This defensive strategy also translates into corporate behaviour. For example, companies that promote harmful drugs such as alcohol and tobacco have spent money lobbying and conniving to maximise profits, when their money could have been employed in a forward-looking strategy of developing product less harmful to society. They are slow to adapt but, now that cannabis is becoming more acceptable, there are signs that they may be moving into that trade. Not that it’s a new market: there is DNA evidence that cannabis was being used 5,000 years ago – in China.