Microcosmographia Academica

"F M Cornford was a Cambridge academic and he wrote this very short satire, not much more than a pamphlet, on university politics. In fact it is a wonderful satire on all politics. And some of our most familiar phrases, such as ‘the thin end of the wedge’ and ‘the principle of the unripe time’ or ‘setting a dangerous precedent’ all appeared in the Microcosmographia Academica. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . But he also makes some really serious points. For example, he says there is only one reason for doing the right thing, and that is because it is the right thing. There are lots of reasons for doing the wrong thing – such as it is ‘the thin end of the wedge’ or ‘a dangerous precedent’. These are all excuses for people who daren’t actually attack the proposal on principle and say it is the wrong thing. So this wonderfully elegant Edwardian satire is really a passionate demand for honest politics. And Cornford was a wonderful stylist. In the introduction to the second edition he devised that well-known statement: that propaganda is ‘that branch of art of lying which consists of nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies’. What a glorious definition. No, and what there is is too propagandist. The best satire comes at you almost unexpectedly, not from somebody obviously right-wing making an obviously right-wing point or an obviously left-wing person making an obviously left-wing point. I think some of the best satire of the moment comes from the other side of the Atlantic: I’m thinking of Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. In American terms it’s obvious that he is pretty left-wing, but some of his assaults on Obama have been very sharp and there is real wit about what they do. Rory Bremner is by some way the best satirist we have: ITV had a computer graphic satire, Headcases, but it didn’t succeed. The BBC has lost the bottle for it. At its best Private Eye is glorious, although sometimes it is a bit formulaic. If you are in the world of politics or journalism you have to know what Private Eye is saying."