"Don't keep appealing to it"

Norm Geras has done his weekly Normblog profile on George Szirtes whose blog I linked to a while ago.

Here are a few highlights:

What is your favourite poem?

It would be between two Coleridges, 'Kubla Khan' and 'Frost at Midnight', Marvell's 'Horatian Ode', Louis MacNeice's 'Snow', and Eliot's 'The Waste Land'. Oh, very well, Eliot. Today, that is.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to disseminate?

Can I do a bundle of four: 1) The freedom of the imagination. 2) Courage. 3) Generosity. 4) Doubt. I know it's not a thesis, Norm, more a set of values, but I'm a poet so claim special privileges. I can put it into rhyme if you prefer.

What philosophical thesis do you think it most important to combat?

That God is on your side.

What would you do with the UN?

Get in there and argue most of the time but be prepared occasionally to ignore it. Don't keep appealing to it. It's not Holy Writ. In fact, nothing about it is holy.