Book Review: John Bull's Other Island (GBS)

Shaw, George Bernard John Bull’s Other Island (1907)

I started to read the preface and gave up. GBS was not the best analyst of politics - his notions of how the Irish Question came about and how it should be resolved were shown to miss the point by events. About the only thing he seems to have gotten right was that it would be a protracted and bloody affair if it wasn’t settled quickly.

The one thing GBS never seems to have fully understood was the lure of power for its own sake. (This leads him to make Undershaft a seeker after profit, which is the only serious flaw in Major Barbara. Profit (money) is a means and instrument of power, not and end in itself.) Like many idealistic ideologues, he believed that sweet reason would prevail, if it was made clear enough what the benefits would be. He would not recognise the irony of the Canadian toast, “Peace, order, and good government.”

That sheer bloody-mindedness and paranoid delusions are more potent motives than the desire for peace, prosperity, and lawful order was something he could never see. That’s one reason he (like many other Socialists of the time) kept excusing the excesses of Soviet Russia, for example. He was of course right that the Protestants would have nothing to fear in a Catholic united Ireland, but he couldn’t see, because he couldn’t understand, that religious paranoia would prevent a settlement. He also couldn’t see that the IRA was dominated by psychopaths, who carried on their bloody vendettas, not because they expected politically acceptable results, but because they liked the murder and mayhem (as well as the loot).

So I didn’t read the play. I don’t think I missed anything.**