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Masters of Chiasmus: Winston Churchill (Part 2)

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Churchill was a student of history and this observation reflects his belief that strong nations have historically believed they can force their will on others; and, further, that when nations argue for justice and fair treatment, it's usually because they're not—or are no longer—mighty powers.

Churchill believed that financial solvency and military security were indispensable to the well-being of a nation, and this is his way of saying that one can't exist without the other, offered in a 1953 speech in the House of Commons.

"I hope I shall never see the day when the Force of Right is deprived of the Right of Force."

Here, Churchill expresses his conviction that being right is not sufficient; one must also have the might to back it up. A summary of his philosophy—also expressed chiastically—might go this way: "Right needs to be supported by Might, and Might needs to be guided by Right."

Also from A Roving Commission, this thought may be regarded as an extension of the two previous quotes, and suggests that nations tend to be either good at making war or good at keeping the peace, but not both.

Churchill valued scientific and technical expertise but believed it had to be balanced by people well-grounded in history, philosophy, literature, and the arts. This quote comes from a 1950 address at the University of Copenhagen. He issued a very similar warning against an over-reliance on technically-educated people two years earlier in a 1948 speech in Oslo, Norway: "Young people at universities study to achieve knowledge and not to learn a trade. We must all learn how to support ourselves, but we must also learn how to live. We need a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of modern engineers."

This comment came during a 1953 House of Commons debate on whether or not to change the way parliamentary elections were conducted in England. Churchill believed that a government with a small majority should be allowed to run its natural course, arguing that a proposed law to mandate annual elections would turn the House of Commons into a "vote-catching machine looking for a springboard."

Churchill loved to compare the French and the English, with the English predictably faring better in his assessments. His point here, offered in the 1939 book Step by Step, is that England was capable of changing its policies without a new government coming into power, while even a new French government would continue to implement the policies of the past. He added an additional chiastic comparison a moment later: "The British are good at paying taxes but detest drill. The French do not mind drill but avoid taxes."

From a 1935 debate in the House of Commons, Churchill said this in response to Stanley Baldwin, who had asked him not to panic over a matter they were debating.

From a 1936 letter, Churchill is referring to the short-sighted policies adopted by the French government in the decades after WWI. Here's the complete passage, from which this chiastic observation was taken: "For good or for ill the French people have been effective masters in their own house, and have built as they chose upon the ruins of the old régime. They have done what they like. Their difficulty is to like what they have done."

Churchill made this prophetic pronouncement in a House of Commons speech in 1938, just after prime minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich agreement with Hitler. Chamberlain returned from Germany with the signed agreement in hand, proclaiming that "peace in our time" had been achieved. Churchill attacked Chamberlain's "politics of appeasement" in this and many other speeches.

This quote illustrates how expressions like vice versa and "the other way around" are simply shorthand ways of expressing chiasmus. (For more information, click here). Churchill's point is that, had things been reversed, he might have been elected to Congress rather than invited there as a guest. Churchill's mother was an American citizen and, as a result, Churchill always had a special fondness for America (and, of course, Americans always had a special fondness for him). He delivered the remark in a famous December 16, 1941 speech to Congress, which was broadcast by radio to an audience of many millions.

Churchill demonstrates a facility for political sloganeering with this belated suggestion for Al Smith, the former governor of New York, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 1928. Here's how Churchill described the matter a couple decades later, when he gave a speech at an Al Smith memorial event in New York City in 1947: "I had followed Al Smith's contest for the Presidency with keen interest and sympathy. I was in the fullest agreement with his attitude on prohibition. I even suggested to him a slogan—'All for Al and Al for All.'"

Churchill was an ardent foe of socialism, and this observation comes from a 1946 speech in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, socialism isn't unique when it comes to producing civil servants who are neither servants nor civil, as many people have discovered when they renew their licenses at the Department of Motor Vehicles, try to settle a mistaken tax bill with city hall employees, or are "greeted" by sullen security guards in government buildings. Churchill's entire life was devoted to slowing the steady growth of socialist concepts in English society. His two most famous quotes on the subject are worth recalling, even though they are not chiastic:

"It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses."

"The inherent vice of Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

"In both our lands, it is the people who control the Government, not the Government the people."

After WWII, Churchill became a strong spokesman against the repressive regimes he saw springing up behind what he called the "Iron Curtain." This remark comes from a 1948 speech in Oslo, Norway. He concluded the remark by adding: "That is the great dividing line between the States of the present day and it is just this point that is the cause of so much trouble in the modern world."

This observation, from Volume IV in Churchill's The Second World War, describes how the advent of anti-tank weaponry in the late 1930s changed the way tanks were deployed from WWI to WWII.

Even Churchill supporters will forgive Churchill for the mild hypocrisy contained in this quote. Churchill changed parties twice early in his career, first from a conservative Tory to a liberal Whig, and a few years later back from a Whig to a Tory. Both times, he said he was motivated by principle, but many observers—and all of his opponents—saw him motivated as much by political opportunism.

Just as Churchill used chiasmus to express his thoughts and ideas, others have used chiasmus to describe Churchill. Here are two examples from the English writer Colin R. Foote, in his A Churchill Reader (1954).

This completes our look at Winston Churchill. In our next edition, we'll take a look at another chiastic master, John F. Kennedy. If I were to list the most memorable chiastic quotes in world history, JFK's immortal "Ask not what your country can do for you" line would have to be included in the top five. While that is his most famous creation, JFK was responsible for many other wonderful chiastic constructions as well.