WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.919 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, where we take 00:00:01.919 --> 00:00:04.299 the sources you share with us, filter out the 00:00:04.299 --> 00:00:07.719 noise, and deliver the essential mind -expanding 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:10.300 knowledge you need. Today we are plumbing the 00:00:10.300 --> 00:00:13.779 depths of a writer so prolific, so witty, and 00:00:13.779 --> 00:00:17.359 so utterly contradictory. He really didn't just 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:19.620 define the role of the public intellectual. He 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:22.280 practically invented it for the entire modern 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:25.480 age. We are deep diving into the life and influence 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:27.969 of George Bernard Shaw. And we should probably 00:00:27.969 --> 00:00:29.989 honor his preference right from the start. We 00:00:29.989 --> 00:00:34.450 must. Though he was christened George, he insisted 00:00:34.450 --> 00:00:37.070 on being known simply as Bernard Shaw. Bernard 00:00:37.070 --> 00:00:39.810 Shaw, a fascinating figure whose writing career 00:00:39.810 --> 00:00:42.390 stretched from the Victorian era all the way 00:00:42.390 --> 00:00:46.049 into the 1950s. And a man who uniquely left his 00:00:46.049 --> 00:00:48.929 mark on both the West End stage and, you know, 00:00:48.950 --> 00:00:50.789 the political manifesto. It's just astonishing 00:00:50.789 --> 00:00:52.590 when you think about that trajectory. This is 00:00:52.590 --> 00:00:56.710 a person who produced well over 60 plays. revolutionized 00:00:56.710 --> 00:00:59.270 English drama with this radical dose of realism. 00:00:59.469 --> 00:01:01.590 And he achieved that ridiculously rare double 00:01:01.590 --> 00:01:03.609 feat. The one that connects high literature and 00:01:03.609 --> 00:01:06.209 Hollywood spectacle. Winning both the Nobel Prize 00:01:06.209 --> 00:01:09.790 in Literature and an Academy Award. I mean, who 00:01:09.790 --> 00:01:13.170 does that? Exactly. Indeed. Shaw was so much 00:01:13.170 --> 00:01:16.230 more than an Irish playwright and critic. He 00:01:16.230 --> 00:01:19.439 was a relentless... Polemicist, a political activist. 00:01:19.799 --> 00:01:22.379 His influence really shaped Western theater culture 00:01:22.379 --> 00:01:24.900 and especially progressive thought. Oh, absolutely. 00:01:25.079 --> 00:01:27.980 Starting in the 1880s and continuing long, long 00:01:27.980 --> 00:01:31.040 after his death. When we study Shaw, you're forced 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:33.500 to confront this dual nature of his work. The 00:01:33.500 --> 00:01:36.079 dazzling, unforgettable entertainment on one 00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:38.700 hand. And then the fierce, uncompromising political 00:01:38.700 --> 00:01:41.400 sermonizing he wrapped around it. So our mission 00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:44.340 today for you, the learner, is to synthesize 00:01:44.340 --> 00:01:47.579 this complex, contradictory identity. We've pulled 00:01:47.579 --> 00:01:49.900 together a stack of detailed biographical and 00:01:49.900 --> 00:01:52.319 scholarly sources to really try and understand 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:55.239 the man. The man who made even dense, difficult 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:58.239 topics not just palatable, but captivatingly 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:00.799 entertaining. We'll move from the challenging 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:03.459 circumstances of his Dublin birth and the political 00:02:03.459 --> 00:02:05.480 transformation he engineered for himself. Into 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:08.280 the groundbreaking realism of his plays. And 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:11.789 then, look. We have to tackle the truly provocative 00:02:11.789 --> 00:02:15.090 and often deeply uncomfortable social beliefs 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:17.550 he championed. Right down to alphabet reform 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:20.889 and his controversial support for dictators. 00:02:21.250 --> 00:02:23.150 It is the journey of a self -taught outsider 00:02:23.150 --> 00:02:25.889 who became the voice of his age. We really need 00:02:25.889 --> 00:02:27.849 to look closely at the nuggets in the sources. 00:02:28.189 --> 00:02:29.530 For instance, we have to get our heads around 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:32.050 why a man who wrote these passionate socialist 00:02:32.050 --> 00:02:35.930 tracks also championed the forced evolution of 00:02:35.930 --> 00:02:38.949 humanity through eugenics. It's a huge contradiction. 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:41.759 We're going to trace how his desire to fix the 00:02:41.759 --> 00:02:46.060 world led him down some fascinating yet deeply 00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:49.360 troubling paths. OK, let's unpack this epic journey. 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:51.759 Let's start at the beginning. So the early years 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:54.280 of Bernard Shaw, they were anything but privileged, 00:02:54.439 --> 00:02:56.599 right? Despite his family's background. Well, 00:02:56.620 --> 00:02:58.719 that's the key tension right there. He was born 00:02:58.719 --> 00:03:01.900 in 1856 in Portobello, Dublin, into what the 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:04.259 sources describe as shabby, genteel poverty. 00:03:04.729 --> 00:03:06.830 That phrase is so important. It is. It means 00:03:06.830 --> 00:03:09.090 they have the family name, the inherited status, 00:03:09.310 --> 00:03:11.789 the heirs and expectations of the gentry. But 00:03:11.789 --> 00:03:14.050 none of the money. Absolutely none of the money 00:03:14.050 --> 00:03:17.370 to back it up. His father, George Karshaw, was, 00:03:17.650 --> 00:03:20.849 well, he was an ineffectual alcoholic, working 00:03:20.849 --> 00:03:22.949 irregularly after being pensioned off from a 00:03:22.949 --> 00:03:25.729 minor civil service role. So you have this constant 00:03:25.729 --> 00:03:28.610 strain between aspiration and reality defining 00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:31.590 his entire youth. And what was the domestic atmosphere 00:03:31.590 --> 00:03:34.270 like? Emotionally difficult is the short answer. 00:03:34.490 --> 00:03:37.650 His mother, Bessie Shaw, she married partly to 00:03:37.650 --> 00:03:39.949 escape a tyrannical great aunt, but she came 00:03:39.949 --> 00:03:42.590 to deeply resent her husband. And his drinking. 00:03:42.830 --> 00:03:45.129 And his drinking. Young Shaw, he didn't endure 00:03:45.129 --> 00:03:47.689 physical harshness, but he later said he was 00:03:47.689 --> 00:03:50.490 profoundly scarred by her indifference, her lack 00:03:50.490 --> 00:03:52.830 of affection. He called his home life not cruel, 00:03:52.949 --> 00:03:55.439 but... Emotionally desolate. So if his home was 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:57.900 cold and his education was, by his own account, 00:03:58.020 --> 00:04:01.039 a disaster. He hated it. Hated the four schools 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:03.139 he attended. Called them prisons and turnkeys. 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:05.639 So where did he find the resources to become, 00:04:05.780 --> 00:04:08.099 well, to become Bernard Shaw? He found it in 00:04:08.099 --> 00:04:11.060 music and literature. Right. His mother, Bessie, 00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:14.240 she became very close to George John Lee, a charismatic 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:17.000 music teacher. And the sources note their house 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.379 was just constantly filled with music. It was 00:04:19.379 --> 00:04:21.860 a solace for the young Shaw. And it was through 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:25.019 Lee. and the access he got to Lee's students 00:04:25.019 --> 00:04:29.019 who lent him books, that Shaw acquired this thorough 00:04:29.019 --> 00:04:32.040 knowledge of music and literature. It basically 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:35.019 compensated for that disastrous formal schooling. 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:38.720 He rejected the structure, but he clearly loved 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:42.319 learning. He did. He quit school at 15 to work 00:04:42.319 --> 00:04:45.399 as a junior clerk, rising quickly to head cashier 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:48.759 in a Dublin land firm. Before resigning in 1876. 00:04:49.180 --> 00:04:51.360 And that resignation was the real turning point. 00:04:51.720 --> 00:04:55.240 At 20, he leaves Ireland for good, for London. 00:04:55.639 --> 00:04:57.439 Following his mother and sister who had already 00:04:57.439 --> 00:04:59.439 moved there. Right. And he refused to take up 00:04:59.439 --> 00:05:02.220 clerical work again. Instead, remarkably, he 00:05:02.220 --> 00:05:04.899 was subsidized by his mother for four years while 00:05:04.899 --> 00:05:06.980 he just dedicated himself to writing. This was 00:05:06.980 --> 00:05:08.939 his university. This was his true university 00:05:08.939 --> 00:05:11.040 face, yes. This whole self -education project 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:13.420 in London is legendary. It's where the critical 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:16.079 intellectual Shaw was really forged. It certainly 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:18.600 was. He secured a reader's pass for the British 00:05:18.600 --> 00:05:21.050 Museum Reading Room. That was his workshop. He 00:05:21.050 --> 00:05:23.829 spent most weekdays there just reading and writing. 00:05:24.209 --> 00:05:26.889 Embarking on what biographers call a rigorous 00:05:26.889 --> 00:05:29.790 process of self -education. He didn't just read. 00:05:29.910 --> 00:05:33.449 He systematically devoured philosophy, political 00:05:33.449 --> 00:05:35.889 economy. Building his own intellectual framework 00:05:35.889 --> 00:05:39.670 from scratch. But the writing, it didn't immediately 00:05:39.670 --> 00:05:42.509 yield results. The sources mentioned these early 00:05:42.509 --> 00:05:45.759 literary failures. Oh, yes. his first attempts 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:48.360 at drama were abandoned he wrote five novels 00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:50.379 in this early period all rejected all of them 00:05:50.379 --> 00:05:53.800 his first completed novel immaturity from 1879 00:05:53.800 --> 00:05:56.860 right yeah that one it was considered too grim 00:05:56.860 --> 00:05:58.899 by publishers it wasn't actually published until 00:05:58.899 --> 00:06:01.439 the 1930s when he was famous enough that you 00:06:01.439 --> 00:06:03.379 know anything he wrote was marketable and we 00:06:03.379 --> 00:06:05.800 see the origins of his famous persona during 00:06:05.800 --> 00:06:09.019 this lean time too absolutely he adopts this 00:06:09.019 --> 00:06:11.600 strict lifestyle Becomes a principled vegetarian 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.680 in 1881. Initially for economy, but then he maintained 00:06:14.680 --> 00:06:17.560 it for life. Right. And he grew his famous beard 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:20.259 to hide facial scars from a smallpox attack. 00:06:20.519 --> 00:06:23.579 These pragmatic choices that quickly became iconic 00:06:23.579 --> 00:06:26.879 parts of his whole persona. The eccentric intellectual. 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:30.759 So we have the self -taught, struggling vegetarian 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:34.759 writer living off his mother. What was the catalyst? 00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:38.120 What turned him from an obscure novelist into 00:06:38.120 --> 00:06:41.379 a passionate, radical political activist? That 00:06:41.379 --> 00:06:44.170 turning point came in 1882. He went to a lecture 00:06:44.170 --> 00:06:46.129 by the political economist Henry George. And 00:06:46.129 --> 00:06:48.069 it just gripped him. Utterly gripped him. It 00:06:48.069 --> 00:06:50.550 sparked his interest in economic justice, which 00:06:50.550 --> 00:06:53.550 led him to read Karl Marx's Das Kapital in 1883. 00:06:53.810 --> 00:06:56.149 He came out of that phase deeply committed to 00:06:56.149 --> 00:06:58.290 socialism. But he didn't stick with the revolutionary 00:06:58.290 --> 00:07:00.529 Marxists at the time. He gravitated toward a 00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:03.050 more intellectual circle. That would be the Fabian 00:07:03.050 --> 00:07:07.110 Society. He joined in 1884 and he very quickly 00:07:07.110 --> 00:07:09.430 became its most persuasive and public voice. 00:07:09.589 --> 00:07:12.290 Its most prominent pamphleteer. Exactly. His 00:07:12.290 --> 00:07:14.689 first public contribution was the society's first 00:07:14.689 --> 00:07:17.529 official manifesto, Fabian tract number two. 00:07:17.629 --> 00:07:19.449 And that's where he declared that the system 00:07:19.449 --> 00:07:22.110 resulted in the division of society into hostile 00:07:22.110 --> 00:07:24.930 classes with large appetites and no dinners at 00:07:24.930 --> 00:07:27.949 one extreme and large dinners and no appetites 00:07:27.949 --> 00:07:29.870 at the other. It's a powerful summary, isn't 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:32.189 it? So how did that early socialist zeal get 00:07:32.189 --> 00:07:35.209 translated into the core Fabian philosophy? Well, 00:07:35.269 --> 00:07:37.189 Shaw was instrumental in charting the course 00:07:37.189 --> 00:07:39.800 toward pragmatism. He went to meetings of the 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:42.620 British Economic Association, which he ironically 00:07:42.620 --> 00:07:45.459 called his closest approach to a university education. 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:48.139 Right. And he moved away from Marxism's call 00:07:48.139 --> 00:07:51.920 for immediate violent revolution. He became the 00:07:51.920 --> 00:07:54.480 chief apostle of gradualism. The belief that 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.579 socialism should be achieved not through upheaval, 00:07:57.620 --> 00:08:00.639 but through cautious incremental change. Through 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:03.439 legislation. And this gradual approach relied 00:08:03.439 --> 00:08:06.439 on a specific mechanism. Permeation. Permeation. 00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:08.839 The Fabian strategy of infiltrating existing 00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:12.120 political parties, institutions, the civil service 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:15.279 with socialist ideas. The goal was to subtly 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:18.220 steer society leftward, convincing the ruling 00:08:18.220 --> 00:08:21.199 classes of the rational need for reform one law 00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:23.439 at a time. It was a strategy based on intellect 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:26.279 and persuasion. perfectly suited to Shaw's style. 00:08:26.459 --> 00:08:28.319 And this was all cemented in the influential 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:31.540 Fabian essays in socialism in 1889, which he 00:08:31.540 --> 00:08:34.220 edited. He was becoming a serious political force. 00:08:34.419 --> 00:08:36.120 And he eventually put these principles into practice 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.620 himself. He did, though he often found municipal 00:08:38.620 --> 00:08:41.200 politics a bit tedious compared to writing tracks. 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:45.620 I can imagine. In 1897, he served as an uncontested 00:08:45.620 --> 00:08:48.960 vestryman for St. Pancras. The sources say he 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.330 took his duties very seriously. Health. Public 00:08:52.330 --> 00:08:54.970 lighting. Proving he was willing to put his gradualist 00:08:54.970 --> 00:08:57.269 philosophy into action on the local level. He 00:08:57.269 --> 00:08:59.210 served until the Metropolitan Borough of St. 00:08:59.269 --> 00:09:02.169 Pancras was formed in 1899. And before we shift 00:09:02.169 --> 00:09:04.190 to the theater, a quick note on his personal 00:09:04.190 --> 00:09:07.090 life. After a major health breakdown from overwork, 00:09:07.250 --> 00:09:10.049 he marries Charlotte Payne Townsend in 1898. 00:09:10.309 --> 00:09:12.870 Charlotte, a wealthy Anglo -Irish woman in the 00:09:12.870 --> 00:09:15.509 Fabian Circle. The sources suggest the marriage 00:09:15.509 --> 00:09:18.429 was entirely felicitous in terms of compatibility. 00:09:18.929 --> 00:09:21.129 But it's widely believed to have been unconsummated. 00:09:21.289 --> 00:09:24.509 A source of endless speculation. Crucially, her 00:09:24.509 --> 00:09:26.769 wealth gave Shaw the financial freedom he needed 00:09:26.769 --> 00:09:28.809 to write without commercial pressure. And in 00:09:28.809 --> 00:09:31.830 1906, they established their country home, Shaw's 00:09:31.830 --> 00:09:33.730 Corner, where he lived for the rest of his life. 00:09:33.929 --> 00:09:36.470 That stability was vital. It was everything for 00:09:36.470 --> 00:09:38.629 his dramatic output. Okay, so the political ideals 00:09:38.629 --> 00:09:41.289 were settled, the critical mind was honed, and 00:09:41.289 --> 00:09:43.980 the financial foundation was set. Did this stability 00:09:43.980 --> 00:09:46.360 finally free him to start building the new English 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:49.080 theater he dreamed of? Absolutely. The transition 00:09:49.080 --> 00:09:51.360 from critic to playwright was a conscious campaign. 00:09:51.620 --> 00:09:53.700 It was a political act as much as an artistic 00:09:53.700 --> 00:09:56.279 one. And he was profoundly influenced by the 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:59.179 Norwegian playwright. Henrik Ibsen. He dedicated 00:09:59.179 --> 00:10:01.919 himself to introducing a powerful new realism 00:10:01.919 --> 00:10:04.100 in the English language drama, fundamentally 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:07.159 disrupting the stale conventions of the Victorian 00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:10.559 stage. He saw the stage not as just a place for 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:13.019 entertainment, but as a kind of legislative chamber. 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:16.080 Exactly. His plays were explicitly designed to 00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:19.200 be vehicles for his ideas. Political, social, 00:10:19.419 --> 00:10:22.039 philosophical. He wanted to challenge bourgeois 00:10:22.039 --> 00:10:25.059 morality. And he used his critical platform brilliantly 00:10:25.059 --> 00:10:29.100 to prepare the way. From 1895 to 18... as the 00:10:29.100 --> 00:10:31.340 theater critic for the Saturday Review. Writing 00:10:31.340 --> 00:10:34.679 as GBS. And he did not mince words. He demanded 00:10:34.679 --> 00:10:37.440 theater of real ideas and true characters. He 00:10:37.440 --> 00:10:40.500 was a revolutionary critic. He campaigned relentlessly 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:43.860 against melodrama, against hypocrisy. He basically 00:10:43.860 --> 00:10:46.200 laid out the blueprint for the very dramas he 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:48.240 was about to write himself. Saying he had to 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:50.539 manufacture the evidence to support his case. 00:10:50.639 --> 00:10:52.320 He needed plays that actually discussed things 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:55.019 that mattered and since they didn't exist. He 00:10:55.019 --> 00:10:57.559 had to write them. And that manufacturing process 00:10:57.559 --> 00:11:01.360 started with his notoriously provocative Plays 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:04.059 Unpleasant. Why that title? Because they address 00:11:04.059 --> 00:11:06.460 subjects that the comfortable, middle -class 00:11:06.460 --> 00:11:09.179 audience did not want to confront. Widowers' 00:11:09.299 --> 00:11:12.200 houses. Slum landlords. And the complicity of 00:11:12.200 --> 00:11:15.480 the respectable class in poverty. The Flanderer 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.460 was a satire on new sexual ethics. And then there 00:11:18.460 --> 00:11:20.759 was the most challenging one, Mrs. Warren's profession. 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:25.629 This play, written in 1893. was a searing indictment 00:11:25.629 --> 00:11:28.049 of the entire social structure. I mean, it exposed 00:11:28.049 --> 00:11:30.929 Mrs. Warren's literal profession, a prostitute 00:11:30.929 --> 00:11:33.429 and brothel owner. But Shaw made it clear her 00:11:33.429 --> 00:11:35.909 trade was just a symptom. It was a metaphor for 00:11:35.909 --> 00:11:38.850 a wider prostituted society, where all successful 00:11:38.850 --> 00:11:40.990 enterprises, whether it's banking or brothel 00:11:40.990 --> 00:11:43.169 keeping, were based on economic exploitation. 00:11:43.529 --> 00:11:46.490 That public reaction was? Outrage. Complete outrage. 00:11:46.590 --> 00:11:48.669 It was deemed so immoral it was banned from public 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:51.870 performance in London until 1925. That ban was 00:11:51.870 --> 00:11:54.129 crucial, wasn't it? It cemented his reputation 00:11:54.129 --> 00:11:56.669 as this dangerous radical. And it proved his 00:11:56.669 --> 00:11:59.370 point. The theater establishment preferred sentimental 00:11:59.370 --> 00:12:02.710 lies over uncomfortable truths. After that shock, 00:12:02.929 --> 00:12:05.629 he released The Play's Pleasant, which finally 00:12:05.629 --> 00:12:08.529 brought him success. Yes. Arms and the Man in 00:12:08.529 --> 00:12:12.610 1894 was a breakthrough. It's a delightful mock 00:12:12.610 --> 00:12:16.309 Ruritanian comedy that satirizes love, military 00:12:16.309 --> 00:12:20.580 honor. He subverted the idea of the heroic soldier. 00:12:20.840 --> 00:12:22.700 Introducing characters who are pragmatically 00:12:22.700 --> 00:12:25.240 interested in food and comfort, not death and 00:12:25.240 --> 00:12:27.840 glory. The press initially hated it, didn't they? 00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:30.940 Accused him of sneering at heroism and patriotism. 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:33.340 But the audience loved its wit and cynicism. 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:36.120 The financial success was significant. It earned 00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:38.360 him enough to finally resign his last salary 00:12:38.360 --> 00:12:40.399 job. It proved you could rate intellectually 00:12:40.399 --> 00:12:42.980 challenging plays that were also hugely entertaining. 00:12:43.259 --> 00:12:46.019 He followed this up with three plays for Puritans, 00:12:46.059 --> 00:12:48.679 focusing on empire and imperialism. Right. The 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:51.460 Devil's Disciple and Caesar and Cleopatra. He's 00:12:51.460 --> 00:12:53.860 using historical allegory to talk about contemporary 00:12:53.860 --> 00:12:56.279 power. Showing that empire, whether it's Roman 00:12:56.279 --> 00:12:58.940 or British, often rests on questionable moral 00:12:58.940 --> 00:13:01.440 foundations. And moving into the 20th century, 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:04.480 we hit the royal court era where his dominance 00:13:04.480 --> 00:13:07.080 was really established. A golden age for Shaw. 00:13:07.529 --> 00:13:11.750 Between 1904 and 1909, the management team of 00:13:11.750 --> 00:13:14.769 Vidran and Granville Barker staged an incredible 00:13:14.769 --> 00:13:18.269 14 of his plays in just five years. And one of 00:13:18.269 --> 00:13:20.809 the biggest talking points of that era was John 00:13:20.809 --> 00:13:24.289 Bull's Other Island. A comedy about an Englishman 00:13:24.289 --> 00:13:27.110 in Ireland that became a phenomenon. It's famous 00:13:27.110 --> 00:13:29.809 for the story that King Edward VII saw it and 00:13:29.809 --> 00:13:32.429 laughed so hard he broke his chair. But the content 00:13:32.429 --> 00:13:35.590 itself was radical. It was a candid, non -romanticized 00:13:35.590 --> 00:13:38.330 assessment of Irish nationalism. Which is precisely 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:41.269 why Yeats in the Abbey Theatre declined to stage 00:13:41.269 --> 00:13:43.309 it in Dublin. They were afraid it would cause 00:13:43.309 --> 00:13:45.769 affront. Because Shaw refused to treat Ireland 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:48.090 with sentimental reverence. His commitment was 00:13:48.090 --> 00:13:50.470 always to truth and political efficacy, which 00:13:50.470 --> 00:13:53.120 often superseded national sentiment. This period 00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:55.279 also gave us one of his most philosophical works, 00:13:55.519 --> 00:13:58.779 Man and Superman. A major text. It was a huge 00:13:58.779 --> 00:14:01.179 commercial success, but it was also the primary 00:14:01.179 --> 00:14:03.720 vehicle for his philosophical system, which he 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.399 called creative evolution. And the play blended 00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:08.740 dramatic text with a long printed philosophical 00:14:08.740 --> 00:14:12.580 section. The Revolutionist's Handbook. It was 00:14:12.580 --> 00:14:14.879 a complex statement on purpose and procreation. 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.200 Let's just clarify creative evolution here because 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:20.700 it's essential for his later, more controversial 00:14:20.700 --> 00:14:24.259 politics. Right. So creative evolution was Shaw's 00:14:24.259 --> 00:14:27.159 attempt to provide a kind of quasi -religious 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:30.419 engine for his socialism. It went beyond simple 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:33.120 Darwinian natural selection. He believed humanity 00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:36.539 had to consciously strive toward its own betterment. 00:14:36.659 --> 00:14:39.759 Driven by a non -supernatural life force. It 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:42.139 suggested humans should consciously manage their 00:14:42.139 --> 00:14:45.779 own destiny, which, as we'll see, dangerously 00:14:45.779 --> 00:14:48.639 morphed into support for eugenics. And the thematic 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:51.019 diversity just continued with plays like Major 00:14:51.019 --> 00:14:53.340 Barbara. A brilliant exploration of morality, 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:57.399 money, and war. Major Barbara contrasted a Salvation 00:14:57.399 --> 00:15:00.320 Army major with her estranged, cynical father. 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:02.620 Who's a massively successful arms manufacturer. 00:15:02.940 --> 00:15:05.159 And Shaw doesn't just contrast them. He forced 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:07.740 the audience to realize that the good moral action 00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:10.299 of the Salvation Army requires funding and that 00:15:10.299 --> 00:15:12.720 money, regardless of its source, holds the ultimate 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.519 power. Classic Shavian paradox. And then came 00:15:15.519 --> 00:15:18.340 the plays that cemented his international immortality, 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:23.919 Pygmalion and St. Joan. Pygmalion, 1912, a masterful 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:26.399 study of language, class, and social mobility. 00:15:26.820 --> 00:15:29.919 It's a comedy, but it deeply explores how your 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:32.519 place in society is determined not just by birth. 00:15:32.889 --> 00:15:34.889 But by the language you use, it was a phenomenon. 00:15:35.090 --> 00:15:37.070 But he had a constant battle with the actors 00:15:37.070 --> 00:15:39.549 and producers who wanted to impose a romantic 00:15:39.549 --> 00:15:42.210 happy ending. And that detail, that fight against 00:15:42.210 --> 00:15:44.730 the happy ending, tells you everything about 00:15:44.730 --> 00:15:47.809 his dedication to ideas over sentiment. He was 00:15:47.809 --> 00:15:49.870 so determined to prevent the romance between 00:15:49.870 --> 00:15:52.210 Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins that he 00:15:52.210 --> 00:15:54.830 had to revise the ending, explicitly writing 00:15:54.830 --> 00:15:57.549 a postscript to clarify that Eliza marries a 00:15:57.549 --> 00:16:00.419 minor character, Freddie. He felt the play was 00:16:00.419 --> 00:16:02.659 ruined if the audience thought love triumphed 00:16:02.659 --> 00:16:04.720 over intellectual independence. And then St. 00:16:04.860 --> 00:16:08.259 Joan in 1923, perhaps his greatest artistic triumph. 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:10.379 Written shortly after Joan of Arc's canonization, 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:12.600 the play received enthusiastic acclaim everywhere. 00:16:12.899 --> 00:16:16.399 He treated Joan as a no -nonsense mystic, Protestant, 00:16:16.580 --> 00:16:19.039 and nationalist before her time. Stripping away 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:21.860 the sentimental religious veneer. To focus on 00:16:21.860 --> 00:16:24.960 her revolutionary individuality and her conflict 00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:27.340 with the established church and state. And these 00:16:27.340 --> 00:16:30.860 two plays. along with his entire output, led 00:16:30.860 --> 00:16:33.000 to that incredible recognition we mentioned at 00:16:33.000 --> 00:16:35.000 the top. He achieved something unprecedented. 00:16:35.779 --> 00:16:39.379 First, he was awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize in 00:16:39.379 --> 00:16:42.240 Literature. And true to form, he accepted the 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:44.399 distinction but rejected the prize money. Said 00:16:44.399 --> 00:16:46.679 it was a life belt thrown to a swimmer who has 00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:49.059 already reached the shore. He used the funds 00:16:49.059 --> 00:16:51.299 to sponsor the Anglo -Swedish Literary Foundation. 00:16:51.779 --> 00:16:54.980 Took the prestige, redirected the cash. And then 00:16:54.980 --> 00:16:58.559 came the ultimate collision with the lowbrow 00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:01.440 world of entertainment. Exactly. He later provided 00:17:01.440 --> 00:17:04.519 the screenplay for the 1938 film of Pygmalion 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:06.980 and subsequently received an Academy Award for 00:17:06.980 --> 00:17:08.940 Best Written Screenplay. Which made him the first 00:17:08.940 --> 00:17:11.180 person ever to win both a Nobel Prize and an 00:17:11.180 --> 00:17:15.099 Oscar. And, entirely predictably, he called the 00:17:15.099 --> 00:17:17.619 Oscar an insult. Adding, it was like giving a 00:17:17.619 --> 00:17:19.440 statue to the King of England for being king. 00:17:19.619 --> 00:17:22.180 Yeah. Yet the sources confirm he did keep the 00:17:22.180 --> 00:17:24.779 golden figurine on his mantelpiece. Okay, winning 00:17:24.779 --> 00:17:27.259 the Oscar and the Nobel proves he mastered the 00:17:27.259 --> 00:17:30.420 stage. But long before that, he was using a different 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:35.299 weapon, the critic's pen. GBS, the unapologetic 00:17:35.299 --> 00:17:37.599 witty opinion machine. Let's start with music. 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:41.079 Shaw's criticism was always brilliant, opinionated, 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:43.740 and exceptionally written. As a music critic, 00:17:43.920 --> 00:17:47.059 he first wrote as Coro di Bassetto for the star. 00:17:47.519 --> 00:17:49.380 A name he chose because he thought it sounded 00:17:49.380 --> 00:17:52.220 dashing, despite disliking the instrument. Right. 00:17:52.339 --> 00:17:55.299 He later wrote as GBS for the world. So what 00:17:55.299 --> 00:17:57.619 were his main campaigns in the world of classical 00:17:57.619 --> 00:18:00.140 music? He was a fierce polemicist. His biggest 00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:02.559 campaign was promoting the music of Richard Wagner, 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:05.680 whom he saw as a revolutionary. And conversely, 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:07.839 he waged war on the conservative establishment 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.019 of Brahmsian composers in England. He saw them 00:18:11.019 --> 00:18:14.140 as creatively stagnant. He also attacked performance 00:18:14.140 --> 00:18:16.599 conventions, insisting on smaller professional 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.440 choruses over huge amateur choirs and Handel, 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:22.759 and campaigning against opera being sung in languages 00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:25.000 unknown to the audience. He demanded clarity 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:28.519 and integrity. Always. And he brought that same 00:18:28.519 --> 00:18:31.559 relentless drive into his drama criticism. He 00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:34.839 championed Ibsen. He praised Oscar Wilde, whom 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:38.059 he called our only thorough playwright. Appreciating 00:18:38.059 --> 00:18:40.579 Wilde's witty play with the established form. 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:43.250 And then there's Shakespeare. His relationship 00:18:43.250 --> 00:18:48.230 with the Bard was famously and deliberately complicated. 00:18:48.630 --> 00:18:50.769 He insisted on spelling his name Shakespeare. 00:18:51.250 --> 00:18:54.549 And he famously claimed, With the single exception 00:18:54.549 --> 00:18:57.750 of Homer, there is no eminent writer whom I can 00:18:57.750 --> 00:19:00.230 despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare 00:19:00.230 --> 00:19:03.029 when I measure my mind against his. That quote 00:19:03.029 --> 00:19:04.990 is often taken as evidence he hated Shakespeare, 00:19:05.269 --> 00:19:07.329 but that wasn't the whole story, was it? Not 00:19:07.329 --> 00:19:09.549 at all. He immediately followed that up by saying, 00:19:09.589 --> 00:19:11.589 but I am bound to add that I pity the man who 00:19:11.589 --> 00:19:13.730 cannot enjoy Shakespeare. So his main targets 00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:16.390 were not the plays themselves. No, it was the 00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:19.230 bardolaters, the uncritical worshippers of Shakespeare, 00:19:19.410 --> 00:19:22.450 and crucially the actors and directors who, in 00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:24.690 his view, butchered the texts with insensitive 00:19:24.690 --> 00:19:27.609 cuts and sentimental productions. For Shaw, theater 00:19:27.609 --> 00:19:30.329 was a living, practical enterprise, not a holy 00:19:30.329 --> 00:19:33.690 text. Exactly. He even wrote three plays incorporating 00:19:33.690 --> 00:19:35.569 Shakespearean themes, so he couldn't actually 00:19:35.569 --> 00:19:38.329 leave the subject alone. This inherent drive 00:19:38.329 --> 00:19:42.089 to provoke, to challenge. It defined his political 00:19:42.089 --> 00:19:44.690 activity, especially when the world collapsed 00:19:44.690 --> 00:19:48.430 into war. Let's start with WWI. When the First 00:19:48.430 --> 00:19:51.390 World War broke out, Shaw authored the contentious 00:19:51.390 --> 00:19:54.319 tract Common Sense about the war. where he argued 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:56.859 controversially that all warring nations were 00:19:56.859 --> 00:19:58.980 equally culpable. Which must have been immediately 00:19:58.980 --> 00:20:01.640 toxic in the fervent patriotic atmosphere of 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:04.119 the time. It was career damaging. Biographers 00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:06.460 note his appearance at any public event caused 00:20:06.460 --> 00:20:08.720 the instant departure of many of those present. 00:20:08.900 --> 00:20:11.740 He was ostracized. He was being logical when 00:20:11.740 --> 00:20:14.200 the public demanded pure emotion. It was the 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:16.420 lowest point of his popularity. So how did he 00:20:16.420 --> 00:20:18.920 recover his standing? Well, his propaganda skills 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:21.299 were eventually recognized as too valuable to 00:20:21.299 --> 00:20:25.619 ignore. In 1917, Field Marshal Haig invited him 00:20:25.619 --> 00:20:27.839 to visit the Western Front. And his resulting 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:30.700 10 ,000 word report was well received. It focused 00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:32.839 with his characteristic clarity on the human 00:20:32.839 --> 00:20:35.740 element of the soldier's life. It began the slow 00:20:35.740 --> 00:20:38.759 process of rehabilitating his public image. Shifting 00:20:38.759 --> 00:20:41.099 to Ireland, he was an advocate for home rule, 00:20:41.259 --> 00:20:43.859 but remained deeply skeptical of violent action. 00:20:44.059 --> 00:20:46.700 He was a gradualist at heart. The Easter Rising 00:20:46.700 --> 00:20:50.000 in 1916 surprised him. And he expressed horror 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:53.000 at the summary execution of the rebel leaders. 00:20:53.220 --> 00:20:56.319 A colossal political blunder, he argued. He was 00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:59.680 dismayed by the 1921 partition, but he maintained 00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:02.599 an admiration for effective, strong leadership. 00:21:02.980 --> 00:21:05.210 Which brings us to his meeting. with Michael 00:21:05.210 --> 00:21:08.630 Collins. Yes. In 1922, shortly before Collins's 00:21:08.630 --> 00:21:11.289 death, Shaw met him and was immensely impressed 00:21:11.289 --> 00:21:13.630 by his effectiveness. He wrote to Collins's sister, 00:21:13.869 --> 00:21:16.630 saying he rejoiced in Collins's memory, refusing 00:21:16.630 --> 00:21:19.450 to snivel over his valiant death. That admiration 00:21:19.450 --> 00:21:22.009 for strong, decisive action is the emotional 00:21:22.009 --> 00:21:24.609 bridge to the truly controversial period of his 00:21:24.609 --> 00:21:26.950 life, isn't it? It is. This is the core of the 00:21:26.950 --> 00:21:30.019 moral challenge for any admirer of Shaw. In the 00:21:30.019 --> 00:21:33.039 late 1920s and 30s, his disillusionment with 00:21:33.039 --> 00:21:35.720 the slow pace of Fabian democracy led him to 00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:38.180 an unnerving admiration for authoritarian leaders. 00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:40.279 But wait, isn't that a massive contradiction? 00:21:40.640 --> 00:21:43.200 How does the man who dedicated his life to gradualism 00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:46.039 suddenly embrace Mussolini and Stalin? That's 00:21:46.039 --> 00:21:48.619 the key question. The sources suggest his admiration 00:21:48.619 --> 00:21:51.380 stems from a philosophical failure of the pragmatic 00:21:51.380 --> 00:21:55.200 idealist. He saw that democracy in the interwar 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:58.700 period was bogged down in inefficiency. He became 00:21:58.700 --> 00:22:01.000 desperate for leaders who could simply get things 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:04.079 done. So he welcomed Mussolini's accession in 00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:07.319 1922, calling him the right kind of tyrant. In 00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:09.599 the face of what he called indiscipline and muddle, 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:13.380 this flirtation with authoritarian regimes was 00:22:13.380 --> 00:22:16.680 rooted in his belief that the ends A stable, 00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:19.759 socialist -leaning society justified the means. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:22.460 Even if the means were dictatorial, and the most 00:22:22.460 --> 00:22:24.460 egregious example was his support for the Soviet 00:22:24.460 --> 00:22:28.099 Union. He visited the USSR in 1931 and met Stalin, 00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.039 his assessment. Alarmingly uncritical, he described 00:22:31.039 --> 00:22:33.599 Stalin benignly as a Georgian gentleman with 00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:36.140 no malice in him. He uncritically championed 00:22:36.140 --> 00:22:38.740 the Soviet regime throughout the 1930s, even 00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:40.920 supporting the Molotov -Ribbentrop Pact. And 00:22:40.920 --> 00:22:42.740 this political blindness extended to Hitler, 00:22:42.819 --> 00:22:44.980 too. Though his principal admiration was for 00:22:44.980 --> 00:22:47.799 Stalin, he did praise Hitler as a very remarkable 00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:50.519 man, a very able man, primarily for his ability 00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:53.299 to mobilize public will. He was drawn to power 00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:56.339 and efficacy above all else, tragically failing 00:22:56.339 --> 00:22:58.960 to recognize the moral catastrophe these men 00:22:58.960 --> 00:23:01.579 represented. And this intellectual failure is 00:23:01.579 --> 00:23:03.740 impossible to separate from his major political 00:23:03.740 --> 00:23:06.460 treatise of the era and his deeply unsettling 00:23:06.460 --> 00:23:10.380 social ideas, particularly eugenics. His manifesto 00:23:10.380 --> 00:23:12.440 during this time was The Intelligent Woman's 00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:15.759 Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. Yes, his magnum 00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:18.680 opus political treatise. Hailed at the time, 00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:21.160 but later critics found it rambling and outdated. 00:23:21.630 --> 00:23:23.529 And central to this thought, linking back to 00:23:23.529 --> 00:23:27.549 man and Superman, was creative evolution, which 00:23:27.549 --> 00:23:30.470 had now metastasized into his version of eugenics. 00:23:30.670 --> 00:23:33.529 That's a painful truth. Shaw's version of eugenics 00:23:33.529 --> 00:23:36.710 was the belief in, essentially, purposeful human 00:23:36.710 --> 00:23:39.170 breeding. He argued that if we can breed animals 00:23:39.170 --> 00:23:41.609 for specific traits, we should apply the same 00:23:41.609 --> 00:23:43.730 rational principles to humans to improve the 00:23:43.730 --> 00:23:46.349 species. And this thinking led to the most controversial 00:23:46.349 --> 00:23:48.829 statements of his entire career. Give us the 00:23:48.829 --> 00:23:51.759 most critical, chilling statements. By 1933, 00:23:52.160 --> 00:23:55.140 in the preface to his play On the Rocks, he made 00:23:55.140 --> 00:23:58.579 the notorious declaration that if we desire a 00:23:58.579 --> 00:24:01.119 certain type of civilization and culture, we 00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:03.200 must exterminate the sort of people who do not 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:05.640 fit into it. And five years later, in Liberty 00:24:05.640 --> 00:24:08.900 Magazine, he stated even more explicitly, there 00:24:08.900 --> 00:24:11.359 are many people in the world who ought to be 00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:14.640 liquidated. How do we reconcile that specific... 00:24:14.809 --> 00:24:18.730 chilling language exterminate liquidated with 00:24:18.730 --> 00:24:21.950 the witty, humane reputation he cultivated for 00:24:21.950 --> 00:24:24.869 decades. That is the ultimate interpretive dilemma, 00:24:25.049 --> 00:24:28.230 and critical opinion is sharply divided. Some 00:24:28.230 --> 00:24:30.230 scholars argue these comments must be understood 00:24:30.230 --> 00:24:33.049 in the context of his theatrical persona as the 00:24:33.049 --> 00:24:35.829 outrageous buffoon. The idea that he was trolling 00:24:35.829 --> 00:24:38.069 the public for a good cause, a purposeful prank. 00:24:38.250 --> 00:24:41.049 Exactly. Using hyperbolic language to shock the 00:24:41.049 --> 00:24:43.009 conventional audience into taking social reform 00:24:43.009 --> 00:24:45.529 seriously. But there is a powerful opposing view. 00:24:45.849 --> 00:24:48.250 That this wasn't irony, but evidence that the 00:24:48.250 --> 00:24:50.809 Shavian outlook had become passé and contemptible. 00:24:51.259 --> 00:24:53.680 They see his extreme language as a genuine reflection 00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:56.160 of his philosophical impatience. The radical 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.660 idealist who believed so deeply in the goal of 00:24:58.660 --> 00:25:01.259 creative evolution that he became blinded to 00:25:01.259 --> 00:25:03.660 the monstrous implications of his own methods. 00:25:03.900 --> 00:25:06.519 And crucially, that language was published and 00:25:06.519 --> 00:25:09.619 promoted at the exact moment actual fascist regimes 00:25:09.619 --> 00:25:12.700 were putting extermination into horrifying practice. 00:25:13.019 --> 00:25:15.880 That parallel is unavoidable. Regardless of Shaw's 00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:18.500 personal intent, the sources confirm these incredibly 00:25:18.500 --> 00:25:20.759 inflammatory quotes were a consistent feature 00:25:20.759 --> 00:25:23.740 of his public commentary in the 1930s, casting 00:25:23.740 --> 00:25:26.039 a dark shadow over his otherwise progressive 00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:29.380 career. It's the point where his desire for efficiency 00:25:29.380 --> 00:25:32.400 and reform fundamentally compromised his humanitarian 00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:35.529 ideals. It's remarkable to think this man was 00:25:35.529 --> 00:25:38.069 already past 70 during that turbulent, controversial 00:25:38.069 --> 00:25:40.710 period. The sheer tireless energy, how did he 00:25:40.710 --> 00:25:43.630 navigate his final decades? The 1930s were marked 00:25:43.630 --> 00:25:46.069 by extensive travel. He discovered that ocean 00:25:46.069 --> 00:25:48.230 liners offered him a unique source of peace and 00:25:48.230 --> 00:25:50.990 quiet, allowing him to write plays like The Millionaires 00:25:50.990 --> 00:25:54.170 while at sea. In 1933, he finally visited the 00:25:54.170 --> 00:25:56.599 United States. lecturing to a massive audience 00:25:56.599 --> 00:25:59.140 in the Metropolitan Opera House. He'd previously 00:25:59.140 --> 00:26:01.380 been deeply critical of the U .S., calling it 00:26:01.380 --> 00:26:04.460 that awful country, and he remained characteristically 00:26:04.460 --> 00:26:06.900 unimpressed by Hollywood. He seemed determined 00:26:06.900 --> 00:26:08.980 to offend the majority of his audience throughout 00:26:08.980 --> 00:26:11.819 his life. Did that continue in his later works? 00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:14.740 Absolutely. His only subsequent major piece of 00:26:14.740 --> 00:26:16.839 fiction, The Adventures of the Black Girl in 00:26:16.839 --> 00:26:19.240 Her Search for God, caused immediate offense 00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:22.079 to some Christian groups and was outright banned 00:26:22.079 --> 00:26:24.549 in Ireland. The drive to question and provoke 00:26:24.549 --> 00:26:27.269 never left him. What about the Second World War? 00:26:27.450 --> 00:26:29.990 He was in his 80s when it started. The war actually 00:26:29.990 --> 00:26:32.410 saw a massive revival of his earlier classic 00:26:32.410 --> 00:26:35.730 plays in the West End, featuring huge stars like 00:26:35.730 --> 00:26:38.250 Laurence Olivier. The Shaws lived full -time 00:26:38.250 --> 00:26:41.029 at Shaw's Corner throughout the Blitz. He continued 00:26:41.029 --> 00:26:43.529 writing journalism prolifically. His final years 00:26:43.529 --> 00:26:45.970 were marked by loss and continued refusal of 00:26:45.970 --> 00:26:48.750 establishment honors. Tragically, his wife, Charlotte, 00:26:48.950 --> 00:26:52.480 died in 1943. He continued to write into his 00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:54.559 90s, though his final works were often criticized 00:26:54.559 --> 00:26:58.220 as rambling. In 1946, he declined the order of 00:26:58.220 --> 00:27:00.980 merit. Believing an author's true merit is determined 00:27:00.980 --> 00:27:03.839 only by the posthumous verdict of history. He 00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:07.640 lived until 1950, dying at the remarkable age 00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:11.000 of 94. What led to his death? He died of renal 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.559 failure, precipitated by serious injuries from 00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:16.380 a fall, while pruning a tree at Shaw's Corner. 00:27:16.619 --> 00:27:18.680 A fittingly active end for such an energetic 00:27:18.680 --> 00:27:21.349 man. His ashes, mixed with Charlotte's, were 00:27:21.349 --> 00:27:23.470 scattered there. The sources spend significant 00:27:23.470 --> 00:27:26.390 time detailing his final, incredibly specific 00:27:26.390 --> 00:27:30.269 and utterly quixotic gesture, the will. It's 00:27:30.269 --> 00:27:33.390 the ultimate Shavian prank on posterity. He was 00:27:33.390 --> 00:27:36.369 a lifelong spelling reformer, and his will stipulated 00:27:36.369 --> 00:27:38.750 that most of his remaining assets were to form 00:27:38.750 --> 00:27:41.089 a trust dedicated to the fundamental reform of 00:27:41.089 --> 00:27:43.109 the English alphabet. He wanted to replace the 00:27:43.109 --> 00:27:45.990 26 letters with a new phonetic version of 40 00:27:45.990 --> 00:27:49.710 letters, the Shavian alphabet. Precisely. He 00:27:49.710 --> 00:27:52.210 believed current spelling was illogical and hindered 00:27:52.210 --> 00:27:54.569 learning. However, his drafting of the will was 00:27:54.569 --> 00:27:56.950 flawed, and the courts initially ruled the trust 00:27:56.950 --> 00:27:59.150 void. A reformer even after death fighting the 00:27:59.150 --> 00:28:02.569 system. Indeed. The final resolution was an out 00:28:02.569 --> 00:28:04.789 -of -court agreement that secured a lesser sum, 00:28:05.390 --> 00:28:09.769 £8 ,300 for the cause. The bulk of his massive 00:28:09.769 --> 00:28:11.630 fortune ultimately went to the British Museum, 00:28:11.829 --> 00:28:14.369 Proidier, and the National Gallery of Ireland. 00:28:14.779 --> 00:28:17.759 So what remains of this monumental figure today? 00:28:17.819 --> 00:28:20.779 What is the Chavian legacy? The sources consistently 00:28:20.779 --> 00:28:23.180 rate him as second only to Shakespeare among 00:28:23.180 --> 00:28:25.920 British dramatists. Scholars credit him with 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:28.839 pioneering intelligent theater, the theater of 00:28:28.839 --> 00:28:31.400 ideas. He fundamentally changed what an audience 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:33.400 expected when they entered a theater. He forced 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.119 them to think. And his influence permeated subsequent 00:28:36.119 --> 00:28:39.079 generations of writers. Noel Coward, Eugene O 00:28:39.079 --> 00:28:41.690 'Neill. O 'Neill said Shaw opened doors, turned 00:28:41.690 --> 00:28:44.509 on lights, and expanded horizons. And more recently, 00:28:44.630 --> 00:28:46.569 Tom Stoppard is often called the most Shavian 00:28:46.569 --> 00:28:49.349 of contemporary playwrights. The term Shavian 00:28:49.349 --> 00:28:51.390 itself has entered the language. But the greatest 00:28:51.390 --> 00:28:53.430 irony of his legacy is probably tied back to 00:28:53.430 --> 00:28:56.069 his biggest commercial play, Pygmalion. This 00:28:56.069 --> 00:28:58.470 is the perfect poetic injustice that encapsulates 00:28:58.470 --> 00:29:01.529 his whole career. Despite Shaw's expressed dislike 00:29:01.529 --> 00:29:03.690 for musical comedy, which he saw as sentimental 00:29:03.690 --> 00:29:06.789 fluff, the adaptation of Pygmalion into the musical 00:29:06.789 --> 00:29:10.269 My Fair Lady became a global smash hit. And it 00:29:10.269 --> 00:29:12.349 generated several million pounds for the Shaw 00:29:12.349 --> 00:29:15.569 estate. More money, in fact, than all his plays 00:29:15.569 --> 00:29:17.589 and publications put together during his lifetime. 00:29:17.690 --> 00:29:20.490 The man who disdained sentiment, rejected the 00:29:20.490 --> 00:29:22.890 happy ending, and fought for intellectual purity 00:29:22.890 --> 00:29:26.289 ended up funding his entire literary estate through 00:29:26.289 --> 00:29:28.980 the success of a genre he hated. complete with 00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:31.680 a romantic happy ending he explicitly wrote against. 00:29:31.940 --> 00:29:34.779 It's the ultimate failure of the author to control 00:29:34.779 --> 00:29:37.299 the cultural reception of his work. That final 00:29:37.299 --> 00:29:39.299 assessment from the Times literary supplement 00:29:39.299 --> 00:29:41.819 obituary summarizes him perfectly, doesn't it? 00:29:41.839 --> 00:29:45.700 That he was no originator of ideas, but an insatiable 00:29:45.700 --> 00:29:49.240 adopter and adapter. It is the final, sharpest 00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:51.819 nugget of knowledge. He wasn't inventing entirely 00:29:51.819 --> 00:29:54.420 new philosophies. Instead, he took the radical 00:29:54.420 --> 00:29:56.779 thoughts of his forerunners. Nietzsche, Marx, 00:29:56.980 --> 00:29:59.599 Dickens, Wagner, and acted as an incomparable 00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:02.859 intellectual prestigitator. He amplified, clarified, 00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:05.660 and carried those ideas with his inextinguishable 00:30:05.660 --> 00:30:08.319 wit, so far beyond their original sources that 00:30:08.319 --> 00:30:10.339 they came to the masses with the vitality of 00:30:10.339 --> 00:30:13.299 the newly created. He was a unique force, blending 00:30:13.299 --> 00:30:16.059 entertainment with relentless social engineering. 00:30:16.299 --> 00:30:19.180 Hashtag, hashtag, outro. So to synthesize the 00:30:19.180 --> 00:30:22.009 monumental figure of Bernard Shaw. You have to 00:30:22.009 --> 00:30:24.829 see him as the self -taught Dubliner who transformed 00:30:24.829 --> 00:30:27.509 himself into this political and cultural force. 00:30:27.650 --> 00:30:29.970 By blending serious economics with unforgettable 00:30:29.970 --> 00:30:33.009 prose. He was defined by his commitment to socialism, 00:30:33.289 --> 00:30:36.869 starting with Fabian Schreck No. 2, and his deep 00:30:36.869 --> 00:30:40.009 yet dangerously pragmatic relationship with power. 00:30:40.210 --> 00:30:43.329 He morphed from advocating gradualism to expressing 00:30:43.329 --> 00:30:46.009 that alarming admiration for dictators like Stalin. 00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:49.200 Men who possess the immediate force to enact 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:51.460 sweeping change. And that ultimately is what 00:30:51.460 --> 00:30:53.900 he was always aiming for, change. The necessity 00:30:53.900 --> 00:30:56.140 of human improvement through proactive effort. 00:30:56.380 --> 00:30:58.240 He wasn't interested in making you comfortable. 00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:00.079 He was forcing you to confront uncomfortable 00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:02.759 social truths, whether it was the root of poverty 00:31:02.759 --> 00:31:05.400 in widowers' houses or the morality of war in 00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:08.539 Major Barbara. His wit was his weapon, used ruthlessly 00:31:08.539 --> 00:31:10.740 to challenge assumptions and to make the argument 00:31:10.740 --> 00:31:13.269 so entertaining you couldn't look away. He absolutely 00:31:13.269 --> 00:31:16.849 believed in the constant necessity of upending 00:31:16.849 --> 00:31:20.069 established norms for the sake of progress, even 00:31:20.069 --> 00:31:23.650 if it meant adopting radical and unsettling methods. 00:31:24.059 --> 00:31:26.460 So as we close this deep dive, let's leave you 00:31:26.460 --> 00:31:28.680 with this provocative thought based on Shaw's 00:31:28.680 --> 00:31:31.640 own restless desire for radical reform. Shaw 00:31:31.640 --> 00:31:34.059 once wrote that after six years of service, the 00:31:34.059 --> 00:31:36.220 Borough Council should be abolished. Right. So 00:31:36.220 --> 00:31:38.900 given his lifelong quest for societal restructuring 00:31:38.900 --> 00:31:41.400 and his later flirtation with authoritarianism 00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:44.440 that favored bold, immediate action, consider 00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:48.359 this. If Bernard Shaw were alive today. What 00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:51.400 modern institution, seemingly immutable, be it 00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:53.839 a major social media giant, the structure of 00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:55.440 global finance, or the established political 00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:58.380 media ecosystem, what would he argue must be 00:31:58.380 --> 00:32:00.640 liquidated for the sake of creative evolution? 00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:03.319 And why would we find his proposal simultaneously 00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:06.240 hilarious because of his signature wit and deeply 00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:08.559 unsettling because of its sheer radical purpose? 00:32:08.839 --> 00:32:11.019 Something to mull over until our next deep dive.