Rethinking the policy of “taking no prisoners” (a blog in two halves)

Part 1/ For most of my lifetime, I failed to understand what people meant when they said that they would “take no prisoners.” Its meaning only became fully clear to me when, in 2002, on a Prospect holiday to the Hill Towns of Umbria, it was used by our guide. She had never been to either Oxford or Cambridge, but nevertheless had an Oxbridge knowledge of her subject (fine to her fingertips); and in stating (without the least degree of unpleasantness) that she would “take no prisoners”, she of course meant that if any of us were not prepared to pay full attention to what she had to say, she would not spoon–feed us. It is rather like teaching: if a pupil makes an effort to understand the subject being taught, then all help will be given to them. But if they cannot be bothered, then — to put it bluntly to get off their butt – what use is there in troubling about them? (Not that this applies remotely to the abused or traumatised child, for whom intensive counselling and compassion is absolutely required.)

It is true to say that there are too many imponderables to lay down definite rules: gentle coaxing may be in order – it is in order – in the early stages of trying to help someone; but there sometimes comes a stage when our willingness to help meets with a resistance that is impossible to overcome: and at that point – if we are to  preserve our energy – we must finally and drastically drop our project. Is this a hard counsel? You will not think so when you have the courage to adopt it. The same obtains with friends: it takes a very long time to get to know someone, and sometimes – in a flash of lightening – a friendship can be vitiated. I have suffered too long in silence from slights (and near–ridicule dressed as humour). But never again. From now on steel will be met with steel. It seems to be a characteristic of those who wound never to apologise: rather, such people continue to preen themselves. Ah me, how short our life, and how soon we will be forgotten! We should be kind to one another while we are here, should we not?

With the exception of ‘white’ or ‘kind’ lies, I have made a resolution to tell the truth when asked about any aspect of my behaviour. I am not a great one for religion, yet I cannot but agree with St Thomas A ‘Kempis when he writes: “I had rather feel compunction than understand the definition thereof.”   

Part 2/ I’m find myself having to rethink the bold – if not, rash – assumption that ‘taking no prisoners’ is wise counsel. This in the light of the following response:

“I think of ‘taking no prisoners’ as meaning, not being prepared to make allowances under any circumstances (as with your Umbria guide). Sometimes I find people whom I would describe as taking no prisoners aggressively forthright, or domineering, but perhaps they are, more colloquially, simply ‘on a mission’, ‘shooting from the hip’ or ‘getting their retaliation in first’.”

I see what my correspondent means, because most of the definitions I can find of the phrase, term, or idiom “taking no prisoners” suggest a highly aggressive stance, which is not at all what I mean; or think remotely desirable. Further, our Umbria guide was not at all aggressive; nor did she wear her scholarship on her sleeve, for all to see and admire. She was, in fact, one of those rare guides who are truly learned, enthusiastic, inspiring, and personable. And it is not too much to say that she made, and immeasurably enriched, our holiday. So how to square this with her saying that she took no prisoners? It should be said that this was a comment made some time during the holiday, and not a ‘mission statement’ made when she first met us. And, from the way in which she expressed the sentiment, I understood no more than that – given her time constraints – she would not trouble herself about anyone who was not prepared to enter into the spirit of her thoroughly well–prepared programme. And should she have? Why drag the unwilling behind you? They are so much dead weight, are they not? This is the true Hellenistic approach: attend only to those who are willing, and do not shackle yourself to those who wail, weep, and would flagellate themselves to all eternity, for all the good it would do them.

Those of you of a certain age will remember the pre–corner shop neighbours who would call and ask if they could “borrow a cup of sugar”, or flour, or whatever. A petty annoyance, it must be agreed. But had they no ability to go without, or use their imagination and do something else? Worse annoyers are those people who, on learning that you are going to Paris or some other place not on their immediate doorstep, ask: “While you are there can you get me such and such a perfume?” – or something else of a presumed exotic nature without which life is, shall we say, on the brink of the insufferably dull. No! Go without, or wait, or find something else.

W. N. P Barbellion wrote, in his Diary of a Disappointed Man, that – after reading Nietzsche he felt like a mastiff. Well, I think that a dose of Emerson is needed at this point.

Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. The worst of charity is, that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving. Masses! the calamity is the masses. I do not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet, accomplished women only, and no shovel-handed, narrow-brained, gin-drinking million stockingers or lazzaroni at all. If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.  

Shami Chakrabarti would be appalled by Emerson’s sentiment; but then she would not understand the context. But, a few paragraphs later, Emerson balances this paragraph:

Meantime, this spawning productivity is not noxious or needless. You would say, this rabble of nations might be spared. But no, they are all counted and depended on. Fate keeps everything alive so long as the smallest thread of public necessity holds it on to the tree. The coxcomb and bully and thief class are allowed as proletaries, every one of their vices being the excess or acridity of a virtue. The mass are animal, in pupilage, and near chimpanzee. But the units, whereof this mass is composed are neuters, every one of which may be grown to a queen-bee. The rule is, we are used as brute atoms, until we think: then, we use all the rest. Nature turns all malfeasance to good. Nature provided for real needs. No sane man at last distrusts himself. His existence is a perfect answer to all sentimental cavils. If he is, he is wanted, and has the precise properties that are required. That we are here, is proof we ought to be here. We have as good right, and the same sort of right to be here, as Cape Cod or Sandy Hook have to be there.

Well, I have strayed too far, but will not after all advocate the policy of ‘taking no prisoners’ except under the precise terms I have outlined above. (And is it true to say that “Nature turns all malfeasance to good.”? I would like to think so, but I somehow doubt it. sometimes Emerson’s optimism gets the better of him, and we mere mortals find ourselves suspended in the ether, our legs dangling in a vain attempt to find firm ground.)