Mr. Poster
08-19-2008, 06:19 AM
5 Questions with the venerable Samuel Flynn.
1. Would you care to comment on whether any philosophical parallels could feasibly be drawn between the motivations of the Welsh rapscallion Iolo Morganwg and the Diary scribe? In particular with attempting to (re)create things?
Iolo Morgannwg was, first and foremost, a very talented writer - something that could not be said of the author of the Diary, whoever s/he was. Although it is true that Iolo pretended that the stuff he wrote was genuine, and indeed tried to pass off some of his work as "discoveries" of ancient bardic literature, he seems to have done this to create a mystique around himself, and to create a corpus of material to bolster his romantic notion of a Celtic utopia. This was a time of revolution in Europe, and no doubt the establishment of a New Order may have coloured his motives to an extent.
The notion I'm sure lay behind his ressurecting the Eisteddfod towards the end of the 18th Century. The fact that Iolo decided to cloak it in an aura of mystery seems to be more a product of his romantic poetic nature than to any malicious conceit on his part. In a sense, he was more of a mystical eccentric than a fraud - one thinks of Crowley, or perhaps Anton La Vey, as later exemplars of the same thing.
Building up a bunch of devotees, and providing an ersatz philosophy and literature to delight them, is far removed from producing a one-off volume with no literary merit, offering remarkably little in the way of historical insight - which is certainly true of the Diary, whether genuine or not.
2. The George Hutchinson debates are well known and are an area in which you have participated. Yet there is lacking (at least to me) a clear statement of position from the Welsh side. Care to definitively state your position on the famous but probably innocent GH?
I don't consider it at all infeasible that a murderer might come forward and "get his retaliation in first" with the authorities, by volunteering himself as a witness, and it's possible, therefore, that Hutchinson (as Ripper) may have adopted this tactic.
If Hutchinson indeed saw Kelly that morning (I'm inclined to believe that he did) he may have decided to over-egg his evidence to ensure that suspicion remained pointing away from him, whether he was innocent or not. After all, Hutchinson had no alibi to speak of, and he may have become paranoid that he'd been seen either with Kelly, or somewhere in the vicinity of Miller's Court.
On balance, however, I now incline to believe that he was exaggerating what he saw - whatever he did see, I'm still dubious to the point of disbelief that it included the popinjay he claims he saw.
3. Public bulletin boards/fora. A much heralded development in the area of Ripperology. And yet, Ripperology arguably appears no more well developed now than it did 20 years ago with respect to its methods of research. Would you say such fora have hindered, helped or otherwise affected Ripperology? And by Ripperology I mean the "field" as opposed to the loose grouping of personalities it seems to have come to denote potentially as a result of such bulletin boards.
I've not been around the fora for long enough to give a "definitive" opinion on that. I would say, however, that some very useful and interesting stuff has come about arguably because of the bulletin boards. One might mention Colin Roberts' aerial mapping, the various splendid reconstructions produced by Jake Luukanen, Jane Coram etc, or the contributions of various forum members in census/historical research, transcriptions and the like.
Whilst these activities might have happened anyway, I daresay the very existence of the boards has provided not only a catalyst, but also a natural sounding-board where others can contribute the odd correction, comment or word of encouragement here and there. This can only be a good thing, in my view.
There's a saying in the Open Source movement to the effect that "Given enough pairs of eyes, all [software] bugs become shallow", and I think that's what we're seeing here. The only frustrating thing is that, even when bugs are found - usually in hoary old arguments around various Ripperological "articles of faith" - not everyone shakes them off, and some of the worst still retain their propensity to infect new systems!
4. An old topic that is often thrown about is that Ripperologists do not want the ripper to be identified. Do you feel it could be more correct to say that the Ripper cannot be identified due to the existence of Ripperology and the tenets/constructs it uses to define itself?
Firstly, I don't believe that any Ripperologist wouldn't want the case to be solved, and it's hard to see why anyone should think otherwise. I may be wrong, but that accusation tends to be trotted out by those who, subconsciously or otherwise, have decided that the Ripper was either their favourite subject, or at least was one of the "usual" suspects. Folk get righly irked by slavish adherence to the "Canonical Victims" but much of the debate, it seems, is hampered to a a far greater extent by the notion of the "Canoncial Suspect".
Many of those who try to operate outside such constraints (I count myself amongst them) tend to maintain that it's unlikely that we'll identify the Ripper, which seems a reasonable stance to take. This is emphatically not the same as not wanting a solution to be found, but it's a perspective that's often difficult to get across, especially to those who believe they have THE solution already. In this sense, I suppose, Ripperology may indeed be a victim of its tenets and constructs.
5. If you could have a 5 minute conversation with any one of the victims but were not allowed to ask any question that would identify the Ripper......what would you ask and to whom?
As I'm reasonably sure that none of the victims were well-acquainted with the Ripper before they died, not asking them the "killer question" wouldn't be too much of a handicap.
On that basis I'd simply ask Mary Kelly to tell me her history, and the first question would be in Welsh. That'd hopefully solve, in a single sweep, one or two mysteries as impenetrable as the identity of the killer himself.
__________________
Regards, Sam Flynn
"Tradition is handing down the fire, not praying to the ashes" (Gustav Mahler)
1. Would you care to comment on whether any philosophical parallels could feasibly be drawn between the motivations of the Welsh rapscallion Iolo Morganwg and the Diary scribe? In particular with attempting to (re)create things?
Iolo Morgannwg was, first and foremost, a very talented writer - something that could not be said of the author of the Diary, whoever s/he was. Although it is true that Iolo pretended that the stuff he wrote was genuine, and indeed tried to pass off some of his work as "discoveries" of ancient bardic literature, he seems to have done this to create a mystique around himself, and to create a corpus of material to bolster his romantic notion of a Celtic utopia. This was a time of revolution in Europe, and no doubt the establishment of a New Order may have coloured his motives to an extent.
The notion I'm sure lay behind his ressurecting the Eisteddfod towards the end of the 18th Century. The fact that Iolo decided to cloak it in an aura of mystery seems to be more a product of his romantic poetic nature than to any malicious conceit on his part. In a sense, he was more of a mystical eccentric than a fraud - one thinks of Crowley, or perhaps Anton La Vey, as later exemplars of the same thing.
Building up a bunch of devotees, and providing an ersatz philosophy and literature to delight them, is far removed from producing a one-off volume with no literary merit, offering remarkably little in the way of historical insight - which is certainly true of the Diary, whether genuine or not.
2. The George Hutchinson debates are well known and are an area in which you have participated. Yet there is lacking (at least to me) a clear statement of position from the Welsh side. Care to definitively state your position on the famous but probably innocent GH?
I don't consider it at all infeasible that a murderer might come forward and "get his retaliation in first" with the authorities, by volunteering himself as a witness, and it's possible, therefore, that Hutchinson (as Ripper) may have adopted this tactic.
If Hutchinson indeed saw Kelly that morning (I'm inclined to believe that he did) he may have decided to over-egg his evidence to ensure that suspicion remained pointing away from him, whether he was innocent or not. After all, Hutchinson had no alibi to speak of, and he may have become paranoid that he'd been seen either with Kelly, or somewhere in the vicinity of Miller's Court.
On balance, however, I now incline to believe that he was exaggerating what he saw - whatever he did see, I'm still dubious to the point of disbelief that it included the popinjay he claims he saw.
3. Public bulletin boards/fora. A much heralded development in the area of Ripperology. And yet, Ripperology arguably appears no more well developed now than it did 20 years ago with respect to its methods of research. Would you say such fora have hindered, helped or otherwise affected Ripperology? And by Ripperology I mean the "field" as opposed to the loose grouping of personalities it seems to have come to denote potentially as a result of such bulletin boards.
I've not been around the fora for long enough to give a "definitive" opinion on that. I would say, however, that some very useful and interesting stuff has come about arguably because of the bulletin boards. One might mention Colin Roberts' aerial mapping, the various splendid reconstructions produced by Jake Luukanen, Jane Coram etc, or the contributions of various forum members in census/historical research, transcriptions and the like.
Whilst these activities might have happened anyway, I daresay the very existence of the boards has provided not only a catalyst, but also a natural sounding-board where others can contribute the odd correction, comment or word of encouragement here and there. This can only be a good thing, in my view.
There's a saying in the Open Source movement to the effect that "Given enough pairs of eyes, all [software] bugs become shallow", and I think that's what we're seeing here. The only frustrating thing is that, even when bugs are found - usually in hoary old arguments around various Ripperological "articles of faith" - not everyone shakes them off, and some of the worst still retain their propensity to infect new systems!
4. An old topic that is often thrown about is that Ripperologists do not want the ripper to be identified. Do you feel it could be more correct to say that the Ripper cannot be identified due to the existence of Ripperology and the tenets/constructs it uses to define itself?
Firstly, I don't believe that any Ripperologist wouldn't want the case to be solved, and it's hard to see why anyone should think otherwise. I may be wrong, but that accusation tends to be trotted out by those who, subconsciously or otherwise, have decided that the Ripper was either their favourite subject, or at least was one of the "usual" suspects. Folk get righly irked by slavish adherence to the "Canonical Victims" but much of the debate, it seems, is hampered to a a far greater extent by the notion of the "Canoncial Suspect".
Many of those who try to operate outside such constraints (I count myself amongst them) tend to maintain that it's unlikely that we'll identify the Ripper, which seems a reasonable stance to take. This is emphatically not the same as not wanting a solution to be found, but it's a perspective that's often difficult to get across, especially to those who believe they have THE solution already. In this sense, I suppose, Ripperology may indeed be a victim of its tenets and constructs.
5. If you could have a 5 minute conversation with any one of the victims but were not allowed to ask any question that would identify the Ripper......what would you ask and to whom?
As I'm reasonably sure that none of the victims were well-acquainted with the Ripper before they died, not asking them the "killer question" wouldn't be too much of a handicap.
On that basis I'd simply ask Mary Kelly to tell me her history, and the first question would be in Welsh. That'd hopefully solve, in a single sweep, one or two mysteries as impenetrable as the identity of the killer himself.
__________________
Regards, Sam Flynn
"Tradition is handing down the fire, not praying to the ashes" (Gustav Mahler)