One of my beefs against socialism, among numerous dislikes explored variously in these blogs, is the complete inability of those who lean to the left to understand economics.
I presume there is, somewhere in socialist heaven, a money tree that keeps on giving. Sadly, here on earth where we have to endure all the misfires, misjudgements and assorted blubbering moonbattery of the left, there is no money tree. But, and all lefties are overjoyed by this, there is taxation.
Something wrong with the world? Then tax someone. Don't like someone's thoughts? How about a handy tax? Polar bears dying? Hey, there's tax for that.
Ideally the left likes to tax the rich but if that isn't possible (after all if you do that you have to tax your own elite and 'leaders' who usually are wealthy, too, but please don't tell anyone) then the obvious answer is tax anyone and everyone. By all means dress it up as fairness and equality, but make sure everyone pays. Preferably pay again and again. This, in case you are wondering, gives socialists the cash to squander on light-headed, thought-free schemes and ill-considered 'social engineering' gestures which often, purely coincidentally, also helps their own elite get richer.
Pretty much win-win for the left and the left's millionaires with this scheme, very much lose-lose for society as a whole. But who cares about them when there is a political agenda to pursue?
All of which brings me to the Laffer Curve, and why socialists fail to understand money (except when they are helping themselves to other people's, of course.)
The Laffer Curve is a fairly straightforward diagram that reveals, as simple truths are happy to do, that if you forcibly reduce the number of people who can be taxed, the amount of tax gathered will fall. No shit, Sherlock? I hear you cry. Shit indeed as this is always news to socialist governments.
France did it recently with their caring, sharing new lefty bosses and found a good number of their wealthy citizens opted to no longer live in France to avoid paying higher taxes. Do'h!
The essential principal of Laffer is taxation income alters in response to changes in the rate of taxation. Basically, a government gets no tax income if there is no tax imposed, and at the other end of the scale they get no tax income if it reaches 100 per cent taxation. The reason? The 100 per cent tax payers cease to exist as they can't stay alive, or find a way to stop being taxed. Like living elsewhere.
Between those two points is a curve, which while disputed exactly what the shape of this curve is, the principle is that the more you tax people the less they have to spend on themselves. They also begin if they can to indulge in various tax evasion plans or, if you prefer, dishonesties to keep body and soul together. They stop spending and that cuts the income of other people who rely on money moving round.
For example, take the taxation levied at the petrol pump. Currently the UK government takes 64 per cent of each litre of petrol sold (slightly less for diesel and a lot less for LPG) and most drivers put up with it. It is deemed unfair by some but a balance has been struck, of sorts. Now let's say that the tax rate rises to some 75 per cent: petrol will be sold still but apart from the price rise in distribution of foodstuffs and other goods, a lot of people will start -- if they can -- cutting out 'fun' journeys like seaside trips or cinema and theatre visits or even visiting elderly relatives.
Less problem this as the Big State will always provide scads of people to nurse and aid the elderly. Oh wait, these helpers have to be paid from the public purse, right? And what's that, it costs money to do that? Who knew?
Fuel costs rise, road use declines, motoring related businesses suffer, but more importantly for the government (who try not to go where ordinary people have to go, like traffic jams) tax income falls. Our caring, sharing ruling classes now have a problem; if they raise the tax at the pump they theoretically get more money but fewer people buy the stuff. That could well mean a lot less money for all those exciting caring and sharing schemes like giving immigrants large free houses, for example.
But the Laffer curve bites at various points where a tipping balance is reached. What that level is, is a matter of debate. Some say that between 65 and 70 per cent is the optimum point of most tax revenue before decline kicks in, others pitch it lower. We also have to acknowledge that modern life isn't just at the petrol pump; there are a huge number of things to be taxed away from fuel duty.
I accept that getting all these different factors in balance is difficult, but the underlying thrust of all socialist governments is to tax the wealthy. Squeeze the rich, and make them pay for everything. Or rather, squeeze most of the rich and excuse the ones you like.
But if you are unaware of the Laffer curve effect you may be tempted to just tax people and impose financial burdens. I do accept that a lot of lefty drones get giddy at the thought of making the rich pay for all the left's excesses, but there aren't that many rich people to do it all. They get poorer, they run out of cash or they run away. After all, if you can afford a house in London you may well be able to afford a house in a warmer place with less tax. At some point socialist governments have to look at how they can fund their silly idealisms and making the rich become poor might not be the best idea ever.
Every rise in pressure on disposable income for ordinary people affects their ability to spread that wealth by using the money for goods and services they want. True, if you are left-leaning you think the Big State should do that. Choice and individual responsibility are uncomfortable ideas for socialism because then the people don't need them to oversee, demand, nanny or decide for people what's best.
A sort of Laffer curve kicks in too with things like minimum wage. The more you raise the minimum wage (double plus good indeed and a surefire vote winner) the more services and products cost, so people buy less. Or they demand more money themselves to pay for that 99p burger that has rocketed to £1.49, in which case they stop having fries with that as they queue longer because there are fewer staff behind the counter.
You see, economics is a very fluid subject, and as such not easy to grasp all the implications and effects. More akin to the dark arts than a simple 'look and see' exercise. It may explain why no two economists can agree and why a huge part of government is walking a sort of fiscal tightrope, or should be.
Every so often we vote in a socialist government who promise to spend, spend, spend and then when it flounders and debt rockets they slink away as all their heady plans fall apart. Two or three years later they are back saying we need to spend, spend, spend again and this time they have just the plan to make it work.
You can chart their chatter on a sort of Laffer curve: the longer they are out of office the more they raise the promises until even they begin to see that tipping point where fewer and fewer people are believing them.
Thursday, 5 December 2013
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Choices, Choyces, Choyseses
There are lots of debates going on at the moment around us -- no, wait... there are lots of shouty statements of position and accusations flying and ludicrous claims, which I suppose is just another day in the World of Democracy. It passes for sensible debate these days so lets go with the flow and shout back.
Somewhere among all this yelling and posturing is the subject of education, or as many of us feel at the moment, 'edukayshun' because spelling isn't one of the aims of teaching the young any more. In fact, it is hard to determine what education -- whether you spell the word correctly or not, innit -- is trying to achieve these days.
It ought to be acknowledged that in many ways education is the root of everything we do and aspire to, yet it gets pushed behind other things in a queue of urgent matters. You could say get the teaching of the young right and a lot of other things follow more easily. I won't by the way say 'automatically' because I had a boss once who would say things in the business should happen 'automatically' but they never quite did; if someone didn't make an effort and be focussed on the task then the 'automatic' didn't happen automatically.
Anyway, let me not talk about a man who ran a publicity department in the media sector having gained a degree in geography. On the other hand, that may be part of the problem... Universities handing out degrees like confetti in subjects that no one but the tutors think is important and which have no bearing on real life can be assumed not to help. I have no problem with geography as a subject (I like it myself; some of my favourite people live in places around the world) but unless you go into a business that needs geography it is a bit of a waste for media management.
I want however to talk about education before we get to the 'Non-normative Gender Identification in Mayan Architecture Studies' degree level. We need to talk about what the younger ones are learning.
The consensus is they are not learning very much at all. Each year they seem to be asked to take in less and less and yet are praised for being able to even attend a class even if they only mess around in it when they arrive. Dumbing down is the phrase, though this ought to be 'dumming down' because the silent b can be damn tricky and if we eliminate all those awkward spelling problems we are less likely to have the kids in det any more. But then maybe spelling isn't important. Maybe being able to communicate effectively doesn't matter. Perhaps being to add up simply doesn't add up for the young any more when machines and electrickery can do it for you.
But what then is important? We really are struggling here, because a lot of people will tell us that the young are changing and we must change too.
I am not sure about this. I don't think we as humans essentially change whether there are computers and rap music or whatever around us. History by and large has shown the fundamentals that drive us are the same however we dress things up. We can see that people tend to remain people and whatever humankind does usually comes to the same sort of reaction and desire. The young have to be made aware of this if they are to have a chance. They have choices to make and the better able they are to evaluate the choices that will confront them throughout life will help. For example, we might reasonably assume that some practices like heavy drinking, drug taking and so on tends to result in problems of health so it is wise to make the young aware of them.
But I am not talking about lecturing them: I have taught and I have had to resort to lecturing and some of the kids stayed awake. Amazing, because I can be pretty boring when I get going.
No, you cannot just hand out leaflets and give powerpoint presentations. You have to give the youngsters the ability to discern matters for themselves. This requires children to learn to focus and be aware and apply themselves to a task.
If the young are taught the need to be self-disciplined and thus be able stick to a task to achieve a result then they are less likely to be distracted by the shiny things glittering in the mud at their feet. Ideally they need to be aware of others and their own evaluation processes and they need to think for themselves by examining the options and trying to foresee any consequences.
I am aware that this is very much in the 'touchy-feely' abstract realm that bedevils teaching, but in my defence I would say it has to be rooted in the three Rs. Kids need to be taught the value of being able to read, write and do basic sums.
Most of the youths I taught were mid to late teens, but they had little concept of the need to read and write and few of them had any idea of numbers and less of how to manipulate them effectively. It was painful trying to have a conversation with some of them because they could not focus their minds and concentrate on the conversation. Having a laugh with their mates while having their feet on the desk and playing with their mobile phone in lessons was more of interest to them. Oh, it happened from time to time and was better than work they thought. But please don't think that discipline was the issue here: the college I was at was very keen on this (outwardly) because it had put signs on the wall of each class saying 'no mobile phone use in class' though it may have well have been a picture of a puddle of water for all the difference that made. I did try once to demand a student hand me her phone in class but all she did was refuse. Take it higher because the college frowned on it? No, I was told to just let it go. It didn't matter. No one wanted the confrontation and anyway, why stop one when they were all doing it? Make the lesson more interesting and varied and then this girl wouldn't want to text her friend sat next to her, okay?
I could have dressed as a clown and juggled balls with the subject of the lesson in neon on them and I doubt it would have done much good here. This girl wasn't very bright even if a nice enough kid in that she wore her jeans on the right way round, but nothing much else was going on. She didn't read much (certainly not the signs on the wall of the class) and she couldn't spell (though thankfully copying and pasting from wikipedia meant her work was understandable) and adding up wasn't anything that interested her.
You will be pleased to know however she endured it all, stuck out the course and eventually got her piece of paper that showed she was a successful student. I hope the diploma helped her get a job.
But this young lady, like many others in the classes I taught, had slipped unseen through the early school levels. Somewhere, her education failed to show her the joy of reading or the value of communication or even the importance of numbers. But above all she had no ability to achieve a task. She, like many others I met, felt no urge to do anything on time. Allowances were made, deadlines extended, work corrected by the teaching staff but never really resubmitted by the students.
As one student said when he triumphally handed in a late piece of inadequate work, "You have to accept this or the college doesn't get money from the government." Smart lad: he was right because attendance was everything, keeping them there no matter what mattered the most. No matter what he did (as a colleague of mine found when she was assaulted in class sexually but told the lad had to stay in the class. She just had to make sure she didn't go near him in the lessons until he suddenly upped and left of his own free will).
The smart-if-late youth too lasted the course and got his diploma and I expect he is now earning the 30,000 a year they all thought they would get the minute they left college. Apparently my lectures on the unlikelihood of that salary materialising fell on deaf ears.
But to go back to the education issue of the young. Making it a priority to teach them, maybe with no excuses, to focus on achieving a task on time and present their work in a clear and understandable manner will do them more good than anything else in the long run. And if they still can't focus and achieve because they really are quite different to anything that has arrived on this planet before then at least they can tell us how and why they are different.
Somewhere among all this yelling and posturing is the subject of education, or as many of us feel at the moment, 'edukayshun' because spelling isn't one of the aims of teaching the young any more. In fact, it is hard to determine what education -- whether you spell the word correctly or not, innit -- is trying to achieve these days.
It ought to be acknowledged that in many ways education is the root of everything we do and aspire to, yet it gets pushed behind other things in a queue of urgent matters. You could say get the teaching of the young right and a lot of other things follow more easily. I won't by the way say 'automatically' because I had a boss once who would say things in the business should happen 'automatically' but they never quite did; if someone didn't make an effort and be focussed on the task then the 'automatic' didn't happen automatically.
Anyway, let me not talk about a man who ran a publicity department in the media sector having gained a degree in geography. On the other hand, that may be part of the problem... Universities handing out degrees like confetti in subjects that no one but the tutors think is important and which have no bearing on real life can be assumed not to help. I have no problem with geography as a subject (I like it myself; some of my favourite people live in places around the world) but unless you go into a business that needs geography it is a bit of a waste for media management.
I want however to talk about education before we get to the 'Non-normative Gender Identification in Mayan Architecture Studies' degree level. We need to talk about what the younger ones are learning.
The consensus is they are not learning very much at all. Each year they seem to be asked to take in less and less and yet are praised for being able to even attend a class even if they only mess around in it when they arrive. Dumbing down is the phrase, though this ought to be 'dumming down' because the silent b can be damn tricky and if we eliminate all those awkward spelling problems we are less likely to have the kids in det any more. But then maybe spelling isn't important. Maybe being able to communicate effectively doesn't matter. Perhaps being to add up simply doesn't add up for the young any more when machines and electrickery can do it for you.
But what then is important? We really are struggling here, because a lot of people will tell us that the young are changing and we must change too.
I am not sure about this. I don't think we as humans essentially change whether there are computers and rap music or whatever around us. History by and large has shown the fundamentals that drive us are the same however we dress things up. We can see that people tend to remain people and whatever humankind does usually comes to the same sort of reaction and desire. The young have to be made aware of this if they are to have a chance. They have choices to make and the better able they are to evaluate the choices that will confront them throughout life will help. For example, we might reasonably assume that some practices like heavy drinking, drug taking and so on tends to result in problems of health so it is wise to make the young aware of them.
But I am not talking about lecturing them: I have taught and I have had to resort to lecturing and some of the kids stayed awake. Amazing, because I can be pretty boring when I get going.
No, you cannot just hand out leaflets and give powerpoint presentations. You have to give the youngsters the ability to discern matters for themselves. This requires children to learn to focus and be aware and apply themselves to a task.
If the young are taught the need to be self-disciplined and thus be able stick to a task to achieve a result then they are less likely to be distracted by the shiny things glittering in the mud at their feet. Ideally they need to be aware of others and their own evaluation processes and they need to think for themselves by examining the options and trying to foresee any consequences.
I am aware that this is very much in the 'touchy-feely' abstract realm that bedevils teaching, but in my defence I would say it has to be rooted in the three Rs. Kids need to be taught the value of being able to read, write and do basic sums.
Most of the youths I taught were mid to late teens, but they had little concept of the need to read and write and few of them had any idea of numbers and less of how to manipulate them effectively. It was painful trying to have a conversation with some of them because they could not focus their minds and concentrate on the conversation. Having a laugh with their mates while having their feet on the desk and playing with their mobile phone in lessons was more of interest to them. Oh, it happened from time to time and was better than work they thought. But please don't think that discipline was the issue here: the college I was at was very keen on this (outwardly) because it had put signs on the wall of each class saying 'no mobile phone use in class' though it may have well have been a picture of a puddle of water for all the difference that made. I did try once to demand a student hand me her phone in class but all she did was refuse. Take it higher because the college frowned on it? No, I was told to just let it go. It didn't matter. No one wanted the confrontation and anyway, why stop one when they were all doing it? Make the lesson more interesting and varied and then this girl wouldn't want to text her friend sat next to her, okay?
I could have dressed as a clown and juggled balls with the subject of the lesson in neon on them and I doubt it would have done much good here. This girl wasn't very bright even if a nice enough kid in that she wore her jeans on the right way round, but nothing much else was going on. She didn't read much (certainly not the signs on the wall of the class) and she couldn't spell (though thankfully copying and pasting from wikipedia meant her work was understandable) and adding up wasn't anything that interested her.
You will be pleased to know however she endured it all, stuck out the course and eventually got her piece of paper that showed she was a successful student. I hope the diploma helped her get a job.
But this young lady, like many others in the classes I taught, had slipped unseen through the early school levels. Somewhere, her education failed to show her the joy of reading or the value of communication or even the importance of numbers. But above all she had no ability to achieve a task. She, like many others I met, felt no urge to do anything on time. Allowances were made, deadlines extended, work corrected by the teaching staff but never really resubmitted by the students.
As one student said when he triumphally handed in a late piece of inadequate work, "You have to accept this or the college doesn't get money from the government." Smart lad: he was right because attendance was everything, keeping them there no matter what mattered the most. No matter what he did (as a colleague of mine found when she was assaulted in class sexually but told the lad had to stay in the class. She just had to make sure she didn't go near him in the lessons until he suddenly upped and left of his own free will).
The smart-if-late youth too lasted the course and got his diploma and I expect he is now earning the 30,000 a year they all thought they would get the minute they left college. Apparently my lectures on the unlikelihood of that salary materialising fell on deaf ears.
But to go back to the education issue of the young. Making it a priority to teach them, maybe with no excuses, to focus on achieving a task on time and present their work in a clear and understandable manner will do them more good than anything else in the long run. And if they still can't focus and achieve because they really are quite different to anything that has arrived on this planet before then at least they can tell us how and why they are different.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Why do I like people and hate socialism?
It's a question I have asked often, and maybe I am beginning to get the answer. How come if I like people why do I despise the cult of socialism which professes to like all people?
Let me explain my thoughts on this as best I can. I doubt whether any of this is breaks new ground or is even illuminating but I have to try and say it.
Essentially, I find most people okay. Some of them are great, some of them waste of space but the majority are decent people trying to do their best in frequently trying circumstances –– and make no mistake about this, everyone has some circumstance in their lives which makes them feel isolated or hurt or even in varying degrees feeling anxious or downright fearful.
There are many people who have had shattering events in their past or worry about a future they can see isn't going to be great. They may have to face both the past and the future alone and may not, between those worries, have a great life right now. It happens and there are no easy answers, no platitudes or cosy chats that will make it easier for them. We all have to make our journey.
The more you look this huge majority of people and talk to them the more you realise that they are trying to balance a number of factors in their lives. Many are pulled by responsibilities and affections and most of them by and large silently get on with what they must do. Sometimes they screw up, sometimes they make someone else very happy, but they do what they can.
There are people who exhibit a small and quiet bravery in their lives, putting up with some hardship that when you discover what it is you wonder how they keep going. But they do. Sure, they may complain from time to time but then we all do. It's inevitable to try and let it all out; if we didn't moan about our lot it is possible the internal pressure would blow us apart.
Sometimes though we all come across the story or example of someone's difficulty and simply say, wow, I'm not sure I could do that. Oh, and if I had to do it I would complain to the heavens.
Years ago I read an article by the late Chris Brasher who as a journalist (post-athletics career) had gone to meet a sheep farmer who lived miles from anywhere. It was a late spring and the snows descended which in some remote parts of Britain can still be very dangerous indeed. Being a sheep farmer and miles from anywhere the man had a responsibility to the animals in his care; he was making a living from this so everything he did was to help him and his family as well as help the sheep. He wasn't looking after sheep because he thought they were fluffy friends. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
The snow fell deep and the wind howled and the sheep farmer set off to get one of his sheep who was having trouble giving birth. Brasher went with the farmer and together they waded through the drifts some two or three miles into the hills. If you have ever walked in deep snow you soon realise it is not only cold and wet but very tiring as well as slow going. Add to this the uncertainty of the land with its many dips and rocks all hidden under snow then it becomes incredibly tough. Well, they located the pregnant ewe and the farmer hoisted the sheep on to his shoulders in a sort of fireman's lift and carried the sheep back to the farmhouse to tend to it. The farmer had done it before, alone, and would probably do it again. No trade union, no support group, no forum for his angst, no counselling, no fine words from a politician miles away. He did this because he had to do it, and chances are he would be astonished if you called him a hero. He wasn't: he was just a man who was willing to carry a sheep in weather conditions that could well kill him if he fell badly or collapsed. It would be unlikely the sheep would turn out to be like Lassie and go and fetch help.
The sheep was brought home, the lamb born and the job done. Done until next time a sheep out on the moors needed help again and the farmer would set off, just like perhaps thousands of shepherds and sheep farmers do all over the world every year, unpublicised and unpraised.
I remember reading this and then the last thing Brasher said at the end of the article has stayed with me. He wrote that after doing this and experiencing it all, he would never complain about a bus being late again.
Well, we all complain about the bus being late as it were, because eventually we tend to forget the hardships of others or even to a degree the hardships we ourselves have faced. The bus being late is probably neither here nor there in the great scheme of things but we forget that, even if we know deep down inside we are glad it came eventually.
I try to remember this story because it reminds me to tone down the complaints I feel I am entitled to make. It helps me stay in the right frame of mind.
So this brings me to socialism. This brings me to thing that I dislike more than I can tell you.
Oh, I can easily paint a picture of the hypocrisy and the deceits and the shallow intentions and the smug, endless grins of left-wing people who have made -- and are making -- a very comfortable living for themselves by 'being on the side of the people' and not giving a damn.
When Gordon Brown (a man whose ineptitude was to help plunge this country into crisis after crisis because he knew all about the economy he said) was prime minister he was confronted by a woman who complained, with some justification many would say, about immigration. When she made her view known this great man ran away, calling her a bigot. This was accidentally recorded so we knew what he said. But you see, Brown was an ardent socialist; he 'cared' about people the way all socialists do and yet here was someone with a care who he had no time for. Busy schedule for a man being busy being busy, I am sure, but then how convenient he had to be hustled off. How inconvenient he revealed, as all socialists eventually do, how much they despise the ordinary people they profess to love.
You as an ordinary person are there to be used, and socialism uses you better than anything. You are classified and labelled and reduced to the level of a drone. You are meant to watch in awe as those who 'care' manage to care for themselves far more than you will ever do. But get this: they do not want you to join them at the top. You are a mere worker, someone who merely toils so they don't have to toil. You are required to do what they don't want to do, what they can't do. Your job is to fetch the sheep in through the snow while they attend conferences and form committees and drink liberally to the health of their friends who share the warmth.
Oh, of course their impassioned words sound fine and noble and uplifting and they even have a song about a red flag that makes them all weep as one. But the red flag that has flown over so many people's heads has been a disaster for humanity yet socialism can never see, or rather will not admit, that all the tyrants and thieves who have waved that flag do it because they don't really care.
The left has heroes who aren't heroes. People like Che Guevara who was a murderer. People like Mao and Pol Pot who 'led' their people to starvation in fields. Men like Stalin who gave orders that his soldiers who had been captured by the Germans would, on their release when the war was over, be shot for having been caught. A hero's welcome home, indeed.
These are the socialist ideals you are meant to worship. You are meant to say as the left does: we love gay people and we fully support a religion that hangs gays. You are meant to echo the lefty feminists who say: we hate the privileged male but we will not raise our voice against small girls having their genitals mutilated.
You are meant to say: I will shout in anger against Thatcher who closed some twenty-odd coal mines but will not raise my voice against Labour PMs like Wilson who closed far, far more.
You see, you are meant to be a puppet, responding to tear-jerking and knee-jerking and all the jerks who assemble under the red flag, and do it without question.
Socialists for me are those who find ways of saying heartfelt things they never mean. This does not make me a Tory or some right-winger but it does mean I have seen what socialism does. It is a cult that says one thing and very much does the other. It stands remote and aloof and makes statements but never backs them up. Socialists become the self-glorifying elite, scurrying over each other to get to the top, preening themselves on hubris and untruths and all the while making statements of intent but never producing the goods.
If you care for people you do more than talk; you have to listen and that means you have to listen to their fears. You have to listen to their real voice, not some imagined hack of a dead man by the name of Marx.
Socialism repeatedly criticises people who do something to help others by blaming them for not doing even more.
Socialism is about complaining, not at the side of the road about the next bus, but from the comfort of a public-funded luxurious car, sweeping past and sneering at the people who stand waiting.
Socialism has shown time and gain it is not about helping people who are trying to help themselves, but about making political capital from them. It is about power. It is about saying these people need the help of the state but we want to be the Big State and then not do very much at all to help.
Socialism will not carry that sheep through the snow for you, but they have a committee who can talk about ludicrous theories of global warming causing more snow. I am sure that would really help the ewe give birth and make you feel better that they are safe and warm but have some very concerned words for you.
This Big State that socialism wants has all the words but can't even begin to look at the desperate state of many people's lives, not unless it allows them to offer platitudes and gives them votes in order to put them in the comfort for which they yearn at your expense.
Let me explain my thoughts on this as best I can. I doubt whether any of this is breaks new ground or is even illuminating but I have to try and say it.
Essentially, I find most people okay. Some of them are great, some of them waste of space but the majority are decent people trying to do their best in frequently trying circumstances –– and make no mistake about this, everyone has some circumstance in their lives which makes them feel isolated or hurt or even in varying degrees feeling anxious or downright fearful.
There are many people who have had shattering events in their past or worry about a future they can see isn't going to be great. They may have to face both the past and the future alone and may not, between those worries, have a great life right now. It happens and there are no easy answers, no platitudes or cosy chats that will make it easier for them. We all have to make our journey.
The more you look this huge majority of people and talk to them the more you realise that they are trying to balance a number of factors in their lives. Many are pulled by responsibilities and affections and most of them by and large silently get on with what they must do. Sometimes they screw up, sometimes they make someone else very happy, but they do what they can.
There are people who exhibit a small and quiet bravery in their lives, putting up with some hardship that when you discover what it is you wonder how they keep going. But they do. Sure, they may complain from time to time but then we all do. It's inevitable to try and let it all out; if we didn't moan about our lot it is possible the internal pressure would blow us apart.
Sometimes though we all come across the story or example of someone's difficulty and simply say, wow, I'm not sure I could do that. Oh, and if I had to do it I would complain to the heavens.
Years ago I read an article by the late Chris Brasher who as a journalist (post-athletics career) had gone to meet a sheep farmer who lived miles from anywhere. It was a late spring and the snows descended which in some remote parts of Britain can still be very dangerous indeed. Being a sheep farmer and miles from anywhere the man had a responsibility to the animals in his care; he was making a living from this so everything he did was to help him and his family as well as help the sheep. He wasn't looking after sheep because he thought they were fluffy friends. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
The snow fell deep and the wind howled and the sheep farmer set off to get one of his sheep who was having trouble giving birth. Brasher went with the farmer and together they waded through the drifts some two or three miles into the hills. If you have ever walked in deep snow you soon realise it is not only cold and wet but very tiring as well as slow going. Add to this the uncertainty of the land with its many dips and rocks all hidden under snow then it becomes incredibly tough. Well, they located the pregnant ewe and the farmer hoisted the sheep on to his shoulders in a sort of fireman's lift and carried the sheep back to the farmhouse to tend to it. The farmer had done it before, alone, and would probably do it again. No trade union, no support group, no forum for his angst, no counselling, no fine words from a politician miles away. He did this because he had to do it, and chances are he would be astonished if you called him a hero. He wasn't: he was just a man who was willing to carry a sheep in weather conditions that could well kill him if he fell badly or collapsed. It would be unlikely the sheep would turn out to be like Lassie and go and fetch help.
The sheep was brought home, the lamb born and the job done. Done until next time a sheep out on the moors needed help again and the farmer would set off, just like perhaps thousands of shepherds and sheep farmers do all over the world every year, unpublicised and unpraised.
I remember reading this and then the last thing Brasher said at the end of the article has stayed with me. He wrote that after doing this and experiencing it all, he would never complain about a bus being late again.
Well, we all complain about the bus being late as it were, because eventually we tend to forget the hardships of others or even to a degree the hardships we ourselves have faced. The bus being late is probably neither here nor there in the great scheme of things but we forget that, even if we know deep down inside we are glad it came eventually.
I try to remember this story because it reminds me to tone down the complaints I feel I am entitled to make. It helps me stay in the right frame of mind.
So this brings me to socialism. This brings me to thing that I dislike more than I can tell you.
Oh, I can easily paint a picture of the hypocrisy and the deceits and the shallow intentions and the smug, endless grins of left-wing people who have made -- and are making -- a very comfortable living for themselves by 'being on the side of the people' and not giving a damn.
When Gordon Brown (a man whose ineptitude was to help plunge this country into crisis after crisis because he knew all about the economy he said) was prime minister he was confronted by a woman who complained, with some justification many would say, about immigration. When she made her view known this great man ran away, calling her a bigot. This was accidentally recorded so we knew what he said. But you see, Brown was an ardent socialist; he 'cared' about people the way all socialists do and yet here was someone with a care who he had no time for. Busy schedule for a man being busy being busy, I am sure, but then how convenient he had to be hustled off. How inconvenient he revealed, as all socialists eventually do, how much they despise the ordinary people they profess to love.
You as an ordinary person are there to be used, and socialism uses you better than anything. You are classified and labelled and reduced to the level of a drone. You are meant to watch in awe as those who 'care' manage to care for themselves far more than you will ever do. But get this: they do not want you to join them at the top. You are a mere worker, someone who merely toils so they don't have to toil. You are required to do what they don't want to do, what they can't do. Your job is to fetch the sheep in through the snow while they attend conferences and form committees and drink liberally to the health of their friends who share the warmth.
Oh, of course their impassioned words sound fine and noble and uplifting and they even have a song about a red flag that makes them all weep as one. But the red flag that has flown over so many people's heads has been a disaster for humanity yet socialism can never see, or rather will not admit, that all the tyrants and thieves who have waved that flag do it because they don't really care.
The left has heroes who aren't heroes. People like Che Guevara who was a murderer. People like Mao and Pol Pot who 'led' their people to starvation in fields. Men like Stalin who gave orders that his soldiers who had been captured by the Germans would, on their release when the war was over, be shot for having been caught. A hero's welcome home, indeed.
These are the socialist ideals you are meant to worship. You are meant to say as the left does: we love gay people and we fully support a religion that hangs gays. You are meant to echo the lefty feminists who say: we hate the privileged male but we will not raise our voice against small girls having their genitals mutilated.
You are meant to say: I will shout in anger against Thatcher who closed some twenty-odd coal mines but will not raise my voice against Labour PMs like Wilson who closed far, far more.
You see, you are meant to be a puppet, responding to tear-jerking and knee-jerking and all the jerks who assemble under the red flag, and do it without question.
Socialists for me are those who find ways of saying heartfelt things they never mean. This does not make me a Tory or some right-winger but it does mean I have seen what socialism does. It is a cult that says one thing and very much does the other. It stands remote and aloof and makes statements but never backs them up. Socialists become the self-glorifying elite, scurrying over each other to get to the top, preening themselves on hubris and untruths and all the while making statements of intent but never producing the goods.
If you care for people you do more than talk; you have to listen and that means you have to listen to their fears. You have to listen to their real voice, not some imagined hack of a dead man by the name of Marx.
Socialism repeatedly criticises people who do something to help others by blaming them for not doing even more.
Socialism is about complaining, not at the side of the road about the next bus, but from the comfort of a public-funded luxurious car, sweeping past and sneering at the people who stand waiting.
Socialism has shown time and gain it is not about helping people who are trying to help themselves, but about making political capital from them. It is about power. It is about saying these people need the help of the state but we want to be the Big State and then not do very much at all to help.
Socialism will not carry that sheep through the snow for you, but they have a committee who can talk about ludicrous theories of global warming causing more snow. I am sure that would really help the ewe give birth and make you feel better that they are safe and warm but have some very concerned words for you.
This Big State that socialism wants has all the words but can't even begin to look at the desperate state of many people's lives, not unless it allows them to offer platitudes and gives them votes in order to put them in the comfort for which they yearn at your expense.
Monday, 2 December 2013
The thede goes on
There is something you need to know. It is called a thede, and it matters to you.
No, I have not mistyped theme, nor has my spellchecker gone bananas and come up with a variation of there. The word is thede and it means "tribe, nation, people, race." Presented like that it seems to be just another word for division, but it actually runs a lot deeper. It is choice, not restriction. It is not just where you are, but what you choose to belong to.
People form themselves into thedes. They do this willingly because, like it or not, we are attracted to our own kind, our own type. You and I have done it often, from groups of mates to the associations we form. We tend to like what we find there because if not, we gradually separate ourselves from it.
A thede is where you freely form associations to a greater or lesser degree. It is quite natural and, to most reasonable people, perfectly understandable. You like what you are, you like people who are like you, and usually you like people from the same background or heritage as you. All this means is you want to form a group with what you are familiar with and what you like.
You can’t help it because it is how human beings are. We are thede crazy, if you like.
Unfortunately for us while all this is how we are, our new shiny society has turned this truth on its head. We have people now among us who seem to think your preferred thede is bad for you and you need to have a different thede thrust upon you. Being in proximity to what you like is currently deemed not acceptable. It is called selfish and bigoted and of course, it is labelled racist. That stirring rallying cry of the weak-minded must be shouted at every opportunity, and what better opportunity than to say your thede is bad and reliant on racism.
The solution is to mix people up and hope they get along. Put people into an environment where they aren't comfortable and smugly tell them it is for their own good. You can even bring in people with a thede of their very own that excludes the natives; people who arrive in these islands and steadfastly do not wish to integrate or be absorbed into an existing society. Outsiders who bring their own language and customs and having only done the minimum to be part of it all gradually begin to demand everyone now does what they think best.
But the mulit-culturists who insist you share your patch with people who don’t want to be in your thede (and who therefore wouldn’t even acknowledge your right to have a thede) are muttering and plotting still. Their view is you are a victim of what humans beings always do, and now you must stop doing it. Better still from the stoppers point of view, they are building the muscle to insist you stop.
Your words must be moderated, your thoughts checked, your preferences pushed aside.
The result of all this is a stress that creates new fractures across a society that may well be coming apart at the seams anyway. This desire for forcing in a whole new thede is merely speeding up the cracking and causing tension. Please however note this is nothing to do with assisting strangers and being welcoming; traditionally many societies are mistrustful of outsiders moving in to their area but equally will assist strangers to go on their way, by offering food and temporary shelter. But their thede is what they cling to and the strangers, having dined and rested, will want to return eventually to their own thede.
No, I have not mistyped theme, nor has my spellchecker gone bananas and come up with a variation of there. The word is thede and it means "tribe, nation, people, race." Presented like that it seems to be just another word for division, but it actually runs a lot deeper. It is choice, not restriction. It is not just where you are, but what you choose to belong to.
People form themselves into thedes. They do this willingly because, like it or not, we are attracted to our own kind, our own type. You and I have done it often, from groups of mates to the associations we form. We tend to like what we find there because if not, we gradually separate ourselves from it.
A thede is where you freely form associations to a greater or lesser degree. It is quite natural and, to most reasonable people, perfectly understandable. You like what you are, you like people who are like you, and usually you like people from the same background or heritage as you. All this means is you want to form a group with what you are familiar with and what you like.
The solution is to mix people up and hope they get along. Put people into an environment where they aren't comfortable and smugly tell them it is for their own good. You can even bring in people with a thede of their very own that excludes the natives; people who arrive in these islands and steadfastly do not wish to integrate or be absorbed into an existing society. Outsiders who bring their own language and customs and having only done the minimum to be part of it all gradually begin to demand everyone now does what they think best.
But the mulit-culturists who insist you share your patch with people who don’t want to be in your thede (and who therefore wouldn’t even acknowledge your right to have a thede) are muttering and plotting still. Their view is you are a victim of what humans beings always do, and now you must stop doing it. Better still from the stoppers point of view, they are building the muscle to insist you stop.
Your words must be moderated, your thoughts checked, your preferences pushed aside.
So if we have a society breaking under this pressure, imposed incidentally by people who cling stubbornly to their own thede but demand you surrender yours, there has to be a change. For this I propose a new future for these islands.
We cannot apparently stop anyone coming to these islands, we cannot deny them a share of what has been created before they arrived with hands held out and fierce glares for what we are. Perhaps then it is time for people to withdraw into areas where people of a similar mind can have their own thede. After all, if there are "no go" areas being established in some of our towns and vigilante patrols out on the streets with gangs of people enforcing an externally fuelled world view then perhaps the natives of these islands have to withdraw to areas and associations of their own choosing.
These would be small, self-sufficient and possibly defensible areas where people of a certain thede can feel safe. There may well be trade with other thedes and hopefully offer no conflict because there is no point in trying to expand your thede as it would involve trying to fit other thedes in, and we have already tried that with no good effect. Most important however there would be no one there who didn't want to be there, and none demanding you to relinquish what you had for some airy-fairy concept. Those who do not wish to be in your thede would be free to form their own, or join with those who maintain the "no go" areas in a general, unhappy society.
You see, it would be our choice and their choice.
Eventually those traditionally of our thede who had chosen to stay in the "no go" areas and said how much they supported these no-go people and how we were all one by saying how they loved everyone and how it would result in true harmony, would arrive breathless and tearful, banging on the gates of our thede wanting to be let in.
"They didn't want us, despite all we did for them," would wail those who chose not to come with us at first, and now they would want shelter.
The question is, having given them shelter and food, would these people want to stay and then revert to what they always were, becoming that irritating worm once again undermining our thede and demanding we abandon our preferred ways for the mythical good of all? Call for the dismantling of thede borders and an 'open' society once again with all its attendant troubles?
Who knows. Only time will tell.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
That Apocalyptic Shopping List
Although Christmas is on the horizon, I feel some of you may be getting worried about the other list you carry round with you at this time of year along with the usual who-gets-what-from-Santa stuff. Namely, your Apocalyptic End Of Time Disaster Survival List.
You may have had one from last year when you got ready for the Mayan Prophecy farce, and perhaps you think that will do again. But I always think its best to keep these lists up-to-date while you can. You'd feel pretty stupid scratching round for pencil and paper under all that rubble wondering whether you really have got the best choice of survival gear, right?
I do understand that last year was a bit of a downer, what with the Mayans getting it totally wrong, and I also freely acknowledge it was par for the course. As far as I can tell without doing extensive research there has never been an end-of-the-world prediction that has come true. But with each one the likelihood factor doesn't diminish. In fact it gets more likely because one has to be correct sometime I think you'll agree.
There have been some big disappointments over the years when it comes to saying "that's it, it's all over" (I am thinking Millennium Bug here from a shadowy time when people weren't anywhere as near dependent on computers as we now are) and no one has felt it more bitterly than those people who took a cash bet that the world would end. Despite generous odds they never collected and many a bookie has reluctantly banked the fat profits from failed End Of Everything predictive bets.
On the other hand they would never have collected if they were right, so either way those who placed a bet might have well have thrown their money down a drain and not gone into the bookies.
Frankly, it gets embarrassing to remember past failures of doom arriving, so let's be positive and look ahead to the Next One Big as we call it. Or if it hasn't happened before, the First Big One.
Before we go too far into this please remember that life clings, on this planet, to a very thin sheen indeed: we as humans can't go very deep and we can't go very high from the surface. Someone once said that a layer of dust on a snooker ball has far more depth than the margin we live inside on this planet. That's pretty thin, you will agree. There is also within this thin layer not many places you can go should it all go pear-shaped. 'You can run but you can't hide' sums it up neatly.
I am fully aware that a comet, having played that old trick of passing us by might sneak round the back of the sun and return to put an end to it all. I am also aware that those ecoloons who screamed and wept that the old filament lightbulbs that lit our lives were reducing the planet to a graveyard of dead polar bears amid arid deserts about to be overwhelmed by rising oceans simply can't wait for it to happen. What with cows farting poisonous methane by the tanker load every day we are lucky to get through to Christmas any year.
Living on a prayer, sang Bon Jovi, and he wasn't joking.
But let us say the end of everything isn't quite the end. You know, while dinosaurs (earth's most successful large creatures, probably) were wiped out in the blink of an eye by a lump of flying rock from the heavens, the ants somehow carried on among the grasses. So say there is some life left, and you really would like to join the cockroaches in making it through the next living hell.
This is where your survival list comes in handy. To help you, here are my suggestions.
1) Get something sharp to help you. A good saw is probably very useful, but a sharp knife and a better still, a good axe are going to be invaluable. These can cut meat and chop wood for fires and fend off those less fortunate than yourself. Sorry, I know this is hard to believe but there will be people out there who want to take what you have got off you, and that might include your life. I do know that many liberal wet-thinkers will believe during an apocalypse the government will swiftly set up diversity and equality forums and oversee empowerment committees to help people like yourself understand the disaster. Counselling may be available, but unlikely. Stress levels may rise as the bien pensant among us slowly realise that the great function of modern government they loved -- namely watching one's every step and controlling all thoughts -- won't be around to airlift you and yours to a safe place where free food and comfortable housing with pleasant views will be the minimum hand outs.
Trouble is, although that person you voted for had all those fine words about caring for people and protecting you, he or she will get hungry too when their carefully manufactured shell breaks. That favourite newspaper pundit of yours who argued so eloquently for the disadvantaged artist can be just as desperate as anyone else when push comes to shove, or push comes to flattened. You may need a sharp instrument against them, too, as arguments like "but I loved your critique of the fast food corporations" may not stop them thinking the piece of bread in your hand ought to be in theirs.
2) Get something to start a fire. Matches are good, but will run out in time. So learn a way of keeping warm without turning the central heating up. I recommend flint and tinder. Not perfect and a little labour-intensive, but it will probably work in all conditions.
Oh yes, and don't forget to take something with you that will, in fact, catch fire. You will, if you are a liberal wet, be tempted to think that right-wing publications are the most inflammatory of all but truth is paper of any kind burns well. In this regard, while your professor of applied culture studies said that your treasured thesis on how crass capitalism has degraded the purity of Marxist ideals and was one of the best exposes of how a modern world chose to reject the utopia of socialism, it will burn just as well. Possibly better as it already contains hot air.
3) Learn a useful skill. While I accept that you think being able to sit round a campfire and tell everyone your theories of social inequality, institutional racism coupled with right-wing media bias will inevitably entertain people for several hours and never fail to get you invited to the best campfires, the stark truth is that what people will want in the end aren't social observations but those with practical skills.
If you can grind flour or catch fish or even fashion a shelter from animal skins you will be very welcome indeed. Even being able to tell which berry or fungus won't make you violently sick is a start.
Eventually the survivors will need clock makers and mechanics and boatbuilders and of course potters to make pots, but the immediate priority will be getting through one day and into the next. Those skills will be essential, if however somewhat dull and not intellectually exciting the way a good debate with like-minded people can be.
4) Preserve greatness. You won't want to be hampered by carrying paintings and works of sculpture, but you may want to put in your bag at least one book that you can best use to stay alive. This could be a survival manual or a guide to cooking dead birds, but perhaps you can find room for one more book. I would suggest that you avoid taking Karl Marx with you as probably plenty of others like you will be eager to also preserve the words of this fabulous thinker, and the world -- once it gets back on its feet -- will naturally need a socialist hierarchy to implement regulations and guide all thoughts once more.
Until then, you may want to take with you say a recognised great book that does not deal with harsh political realities, but prefers to tell a damn good story and reveals something of the eternal human condition. Dickens, Shakespeare or a translation of one of the great non-English authors may be a consideration.
Poetry would be good too, though the lyrics of a popular rap artist may not be as universally appealing as say Byron. But as always it's your bag, your choice.
5) Be ready for change, or better still, a change back. This sounds odd but while you will need to focus on the fact that things won't be as once promised, don't lose heart. For example, as society is making such good progress in accepting the views of a violent minority for which you are an enthusiastic supporter you may be pained to see that sterling progress interrupted and this in turn may damage your self-esteem. However you need to be ready to slap down those who think this is an opportunity to start afresh.
There will, at this point, be those who will foolishly think that once the edifices of hypocritical political privilege have been brought down, the unconsidered waste of money stopped along with the crumbling of shallow intellectual ivory towers, that humankind will have the chance to avoid this sort of thing again. These ignorant people will inevitably believe that real change, freedom of thought and independence leading to the chance to start again is a good thing.
If you are a committed liberal thinker, you will recognise the need for these unregulated thoughts to be checked and corrected, but you will have to accept that a change back to what you think acceptable cannot come at once. Patience is needed and anyway no one ever said a comprehensive taxation plan was easy. Even forming a cultural subcommittee to report on fascism in the under fives takes time.
Give yourself time to bring the world to back to what it was. You may as a result be remembered and perhaps have your portrait painted as a stick figure on the inside of a cave one day. The one where you are running shrieking from a dinosaur who sees fast food ahead.
You may have had one from last year when you got ready for the Mayan Prophecy farce, and perhaps you think that will do again. But I always think its best to keep these lists up-to-date while you can. You'd feel pretty stupid scratching round for pencil and paper under all that rubble wondering whether you really have got the best choice of survival gear, right?
I do understand that last year was a bit of a downer, what with the Mayans getting it totally wrong, and I also freely acknowledge it was par for the course. As far as I can tell without doing extensive research there has never been an end-of-the-world prediction that has come true. But with each one the likelihood factor doesn't diminish. In fact it gets more likely because one has to be correct sometime I think you'll agree.
There have been some big disappointments over the years when it comes to saying "that's it, it's all over" (I am thinking Millennium Bug here from a shadowy time when people weren't anywhere as near dependent on computers as we now are) and no one has felt it more bitterly than those people who took a cash bet that the world would end. Despite generous odds they never collected and many a bookie has reluctantly banked the fat profits from failed End Of Everything predictive bets.
On the other hand they would never have collected if they were right, so either way those who placed a bet might have well have thrown their money down a drain and not gone into the bookies.
Frankly, it gets embarrassing to remember past failures of doom arriving, so let's be positive and look ahead to the Next One Big as we call it. Or if it hasn't happened before, the First Big One.
Before we go too far into this please remember that life clings, on this planet, to a very thin sheen indeed: we as humans can't go very deep and we can't go very high from the surface. Someone once said that a layer of dust on a snooker ball has far more depth than the margin we live inside on this planet. That's pretty thin, you will agree. There is also within this thin layer not many places you can go should it all go pear-shaped. 'You can run but you can't hide' sums it up neatly.
I am fully aware that a comet, having played that old trick of passing us by might sneak round the back of the sun and return to put an end to it all. I am also aware that those ecoloons who screamed and wept that the old filament lightbulbs that lit our lives were reducing the planet to a graveyard of dead polar bears amid arid deserts about to be overwhelmed by rising oceans simply can't wait for it to happen. What with cows farting poisonous methane by the tanker load every day we are lucky to get through to Christmas any year.
Living on a prayer, sang Bon Jovi, and he wasn't joking.
But let us say the end of everything isn't quite the end. You know, while dinosaurs (earth's most successful large creatures, probably) were wiped out in the blink of an eye by a lump of flying rock from the heavens, the ants somehow carried on among the grasses. So say there is some life left, and you really would like to join the cockroaches in making it through the next living hell.
This is where your survival list comes in handy. To help you, here are my suggestions.
1) Get something sharp to help you. A good saw is probably very useful, but a sharp knife and a better still, a good axe are going to be invaluable. These can cut meat and chop wood for fires and fend off those less fortunate than yourself. Sorry, I know this is hard to believe but there will be people out there who want to take what you have got off you, and that might include your life. I do know that many liberal wet-thinkers will believe during an apocalypse the government will swiftly set up diversity and equality forums and oversee empowerment committees to help people like yourself understand the disaster. Counselling may be available, but unlikely. Stress levels may rise as the bien pensant among us slowly realise that the great function of modern government they loved -- namely watching one's every step and controlling all thoughts -- won't be around to airlift you and yours to a safe place where free food and comfortable housing with pleasant views will be the minimum hand outs.
Trouble is, although that person you voted for had all those fine words about caring for people and protecting you, he or she will get hungry too when their carefully manufactured shell breaks. That favourite newspaper pundit of yours who argued so eloquently for the disadvantaged artist can be just as desperate as anyone else when push comes to shove, or push comes to flattened. You may need a sharp instrument against them, too, as arguments like "but I loved your critique of the fast food corporations" may not stop them thinking the piece of bread in your hand ought to be in theirs.
2) Get something to start a fire. Matches are good, but will run out in time. So learn a way of keeping warm without turning the central heating up. I recommend flint and tinder. Not perfect and a little labour-intensive, but it will probably work in all conditions.
Oh yes, and don't forget to take something with you that will, in fact, catch fire. You will, if you are a liberal wet, be tempted to think that right-wing publications are the most inflammatory of all but truth is paper of any kind burns well. In this regard, while your professor of applied culture studies said that your treasured thesis on how crass capitalism has degraded the purity of Marxist ideals and was one of the best exposes of how a modern world chose to reject the utopia of socialism, it will burn just as well. Possibly better as it already contains hot air.
3) Learn a useful skill. While I accept that you think being able to sit round a campfire and tell everyone your theories of social inequality, institutional racism coupled with right-wing media bias will inevitably entertain people for several hours and never fail to get you invited to the best campfires, the stark truth is that what people will want in the end aren't social observations but those with practical skills.
If you can grind flour or catch fish or even fashion a shelter from animal skins you will be very welcome indeed. Even being able to tell which berry or fungus won't make you violently sick is a start.
Eventually the survivors will need clock makers and mechanics and boatbuilders and of course potters to make pots, but the immediate priority will be getting through one day and into the next. Those skills will be essential, if however somewhat dull and not intellectually exciting the way a good debate with like-minded people can be.
4) Preserve greatness. You won't want to be hampered by carrying paintings and works of sculpture, but you may want to put in your bag at least one book that you can best use to stay alive. This could be a survival manual or a guide to cooking dead birds, but perhaps you can find room for one more book. I would suggest that you avoid taking Karl Marx with you as probably plenty of others like you will be eager to also preserve the words of this fabulous thinker, and the world -- once it gets back on its feet -- will naturally need a socialist hierarchy to implement regulations and guide all thoughts once more.
Until then, you may want to take with you say a recognised great book that does not deal with harsh political realities, but prefers to tell a damn good story and reveals something of the eternal human condition. Dickens, Shakespeare or a translation of one of the great non-English authors may be a consideration.
Poetry would be good too, though the lyrics of a popular rap artist may not be as universally appealing as say Byron. But as always it's your bag, your choice.
5) Be ready for change, or better still, a change back. This sounds odd but while you will need to focus on the fact that things won't be as once promised, don't lose heart. For example, as society is making such good progress in accepting the views of a violent minority for which you are an enthusiastic supporter you may be pained to see that sterling progress interrupted and this in turn may damage your self-esteem. However you need to be ready to slap down those who think this is an opportunity to start afresh.
There will, at this point, be those who will foolishly think that once the edifices of hypocritical political privilege have been brought down, the unconsidered waste of money stopped along with the crumbling of shallow intellectual ivory towers, that humankind will have the chance to avoid this sort of thing again. These ignorant people will inevitably believe that real change, freedom of thought and independence leading to the chance to start again is a good thing.
If you are a committed liberal thinker, you will recognise the need for these unregulated thoughts to be checked and corrected, but you will have to accept that a change back to what you think acceptable cannot come at once. Patience is needed and anyway no one ever said a comprehensive taxation plan was easy. Even forming a cultural subcommittee to report on fascism in the under fives takes time.
Give yourself time to bring the world to back to what it was. You may as a result be remembered and perhaps have your portrait painted as a stick figure on the inside of a cave one day. The one where you are running shrieking from a dinosaur who sees fast food ahead.
Friday, 29 November 2013
Seeing angels in the architecture, not seeing elephants
It was probably nearly 40 years ago -- another life, in lots of ways -- that I first read about 'the elephant in the room' concept and wondered what this was. I think I found the reference in a book by Idries Shah, long since dead but a thoughtful writer of the times who helped tell me about sufism.
Sufism in case you didn't know has been subsumed by a certain religion, claiming that as they noticed it was already in existence it was therefore theirs to do with as they wish. Numerous islamists will shriek, as they are won't to do, that everything is the creation of their mindset and who am I to argue? After all, nothing existed before about the sixth century AD, as we are slowly being educated to accept.
Anyway sufism was brought to my attention by Idries Shah and I enjoyed reading the aphorisms and stories of the sufis, especially those of Nasruddin who as a 'wise fool' always saw what was going on behind the mask and the truth of life. He was also funny, which helps enormously. But the one thing I couldn't get my head round was the idea of this elephant stood in the middle of the room and no one could grasp what it was. Instead, experts fussed around the edges and into the corners either ignoring the obvious or making great pronouncements if they discovered say, the tail of the creature, or the foot.
They argued skilfully and ingeniously, but no had a conclusive idea what this was. One way or another, they couldn't stand back and see it.
Being a naive young person I thought this was a flight of fancy too far. It couldn't be true in modern Britain, I said. We had come through change and wars, the building up and subsequent loss of power, the ability to create and make things that would help people, offered the world the basis of a fair legal system and along the way provided some of its best literature. Britain had through all sorts of events gained experience and wisdom.
Our great and good leaders now entrusted with safeguarding this glorious tradition, and specially chosen by this wonderful thing called democracy which naturally brought the very best to the top and allowed those exalted ones to gently and wisely rule our lives -- apart from the places where a donkey painted red would get elected to parliament -- would see all. They would not fail to see any elephants in the room. How, I argued to myself, could those educated and superior people not ever see what was in front of them?
If there was a fat elephant filling the room, they would notice. I could trust them.
So I read more books on sufism and some of it made sense, some of it didn't, but as always Nasruddin's clownish-actions-but-accurate-observations made me smile. Wisdom had a sense of humour, I was relieved to discover. However, there was still the elephant in the room.
Here's the rub: either we started to elect the wrong people to the job of guiding us or the elephant came with stunning camouflage. Or perhaps our great and good leaders stopped feeling and searching. Maybe the corners were far more fascinating. Perhaps, as Paul Simon sang about seeing "angels in the architecture" that turned out to be a lot more rewarding. I mean, you could stand, mouth agape, looking up at the wonder of it all and save yourself turning round and shrieking with horror at this big thing threatening to crush you.
So, without naming elephants, it's time to admit we have some big ones packing into our limited room. These islands, some might say, do not a lot of room right now to offer. Whatever; these all-too-obvious massive forms are there but are being ignored. Issues are being skirted round and no one in power is in a position to say "Dear God, what is this thing blocking the light?" Even if one of these creatures treads on someone's foot there are a multitude of excuses either that the elephant didn't mean it, or it isn't all the elephant's feet doing it or it was an accident and treading happens. Get over it and move on round the edges. Look at the architecture and see angels instead. Hey peasants, we do it and look at us: we rule!
Yes, they rule, and don't we know it. And with all that power comes the ability to avoid looking down or turning around because then they will have to do something about all these elephants. The ones we the ordinary people might see but they refuse to notice at all.
Sufism in case you didn't know has been subsumed by a certain religion, claiming that as they noticed it was already in existence it was therefore theirs to do with as they wish. Numerous islamists will shriek, as they are won't to do, that everything is the creation of their mindset and who am I to argue? After all, nothing existed before about the sixth century AD, as we are slowly being educated to accept.
Anyway sufism was brought to my attention by Idries Shah and I enjoyed reading the aphorisms and stories of the sufis, especially those of Nasruddin who as a 'wise fool' always saw what was going on behind the mask and the truth of life. He was also funny, which helps enormously. But the one thing I couldn't get my head round was the idea of this elephant stood in the middle of the room and no one could grasp what it was. Instead, experts fussed around the edges and into the corners either ignoring the obvious or making great pronouncements if they discovered say, the tail of the creature, or the foot.
They argued skilfully and ingeniously, but no had a conclusive idea what this was. One way or another, they couldn't stand back and see it.
Being a naive young person I thought this was a flight of fancy too far. It couldn't be true in modern Britain, I said. We had come through change and wars, the building up and subsequent loss of power, the ability to create and make things that would help people, offered the world the basis of a fair legal system and along the way provided some of its best literature. Britain had through all sorts of events gained experience and wisdom.
Our great and good leaders now entrusted with safeguarding this glorious tradition, and specially chosen by this wonderful thing called democracy which naturally brought the very best to the top and allowed those exalted ones to gently and wisely rule our lives -- apart from the places where a donkey painted red would get elected to parliament -- would see all. They would not fail to see any elephants in the room. How, I argued to myself, could those educated and superior people not ever see what was in front of them?
If there was a fat elephant filling the room, they would notice. I could trust them.
So I read more books on sufism and some of it made sense, some of it didn't, but as always Nasruddin's clownish-actions-but-accurate-observations made me smile. Wisdom had a sense of humour, I was relieved to discover. However, there was still the elephant in the room.
Here's the rub: either we started to elect the wrong people to the job of guiding us or the elephant came with stunning camouflage. Or perhaps our great and good leaders stopped feeling and searching. Maybe the corners were far more fascinating. Perhaps, as Paul Simon sang about seeing "angels in the architecture" that turned out to be a lot more rewarding. I mean, you could stand, mouth agape, looking up at the wonder of it all and save yourself turning round and shrieking with horror at this big thing threatening to crush you.
So, without naming elephants, it's time to admit we have some big ones packing into our limited room. These islands, some might say, do not a lot of room right now to offer. Whatever; these all-too-obvious massive forms are there but are being ignored. Issues are being skirted round and no one in power is in a position to say "Dear God, what is this thing blocking the light?" Even if one of these creatures treads on someone's foot there are a multitude of excuses either that the elephant didn't mean it, or it isn't all the elephant's feet doing it or it was an accident and treading happens. Get over it and move on round the edges. Look at the architecture and see angels instead. Hey peasants, we do it and look at us: we rule!
Yes, they rule, and don't we know it. And with all that power comes the ability to avoid looking down or turning around because then they will have to do something about all these elephants. The ones we the ordinary people might see but they refuse to notice at all.
Thursday, 28 November 2013
Allowing bums on cushions
There is a dilemma for modern society and one that I can't seeing being resolved anytime soon. It's the one about allowing people to do things.
How much allowance do we make for people, how much are they allowed to do before it becomes offensive or counter-productive or even, in a few cases, downright dangerous to the welfare of the society so generous in the first place?
Tough questions, and we don't know the answer. We could of course pick a position somewhere between the tyrannical "Everything not proscribed is forbidden" or "Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!" The problem is no position within the limits of everything and nothing will suit us all, all the time. It certainly doesn't suit governments, who take various and changing views on a wide range of allowances, adjusting them either by weight of popular opinion, what they think will win the next election or simply what they have been told or choose to believe.
It is easy to think that our great and good leaders and the elite who scurries along behind them begging for more scraps from the table of public finance have their fingers on the pulse of society. Easy to think they look and listen and understand it all when in fact most of them live in very restricted environments. If they don't know, and can't know, they need information and input; they need someone to tell them. I am here reminded of the old saying about a prominent British politician of many years ago, who was so influenced by others he "bore the impression of the last person who sat upon him." The quote may not be 100 per cent accurate, but the principle is there.
Sadly, it's a principle enshrined in our leaders these days.
Stepping away from the ridiculous posturings and pronouncements of those paid generously by the public purse, many people have a similar dilemma in their life over all sorts of issues, allowing one thing for themselves while demanding another limit for others. The old "do as I say, not as I do" springs to mind here. We may be hypocritical, perhaps because we inevitably see no harm in a little of what we enjoy but a lot of harm in what other people desire, but we allow ourselves that luxury.
The difference between, say, a bottle of wine over a meal for sociable reasons at a weekend seen against the practice of all out binge drinking where someone lies vomiting in the gutter having smashed shop windows in their drunken state. We did it because we were in control and they are not may be easy to determine from your point of view but maybe not someone else's. So, if you allow one event how far do you go to stop the other event?
All or nothing? All or nothing for some but not for all?
Of course balance and common sense, it will be argued, play a vital role in everything. Except as we know balances can be tipped and arranged or even fixed, and common sense is often shown to be not very common at all.
But here's the broader problem: the one where groups of people emerge who want either freedom (or restriction, or both in some convoluted way) but who may within their ranks have different and varied views. It is a pretty obvious statement that the problem with any group is that gradually one position or another rises to the top, that control and direction of the group devolves to those aggressive, insistent people who have definite views about what should be and how it should be. In other words, the ones who say "Oh, I don't care, it's nothing to do with me," are gradually eased aside by those who shout "This is terrible and must be stopped at once!" or equally "Let us have more of this now, or else!"
This then becomes the problem for society: if you allow people to do something is there a danger they will go to one extreme or the other and want more of what they want, and with it less of what you want? Their demands may seem supposedly reasonable at first but having achieved them, why should the group stop there?
Let's says a religious group wants a limit of alcohol consumption. While a few of their number may individually drink secretly themselves the collective idea emerges that globally drinking booze ought to be limited to one beer can per person in certain places. Later the group, having secured an agreement to the basic idea from those cushions in government (because the weight of their collective bums has grown considerable) begins to say that actually the ban should be everywhere in public. More cushion-sitting follows. Then the group demands no alcohol anywhere, private or public.
The cushions at the top may have been plumped back up but the heavy sitting resumes, the ban enforced.
The extreme end of the group, the ones who have come to set the agenda, have got what they wanted. The rest of their gathering goes along with it all, having already established they really don't mind because they didn't drink and anyway the government has shown it can be sat upon effectively. Our leaders are receptive to threats of voting, or withdrawal of support and the ban is enshrined in law, which now has to be maintained. No point in having a law if no one takes any notice.
Let's say there are enormous repercussions with the closure of breweries, public houses, off-licences and even farms growing hops and vineyards are duly closed. There are benefits too with more shelves in supermarkets available for other products, far fewer binge-drinking and alcohol-related problems (remember some goes on in secret, still) but the public turns to something else which is potentially more harmful to their health and welfare. Perhaps a soft drug, or home brewing with dodgy ingredients. Criminal interest will grow (think the story of prohibition here and the gangland violence) and there is a whole bunch more problems with enforcement, allied with extensive covering up of the fact the original ban was a wretched thing.
But, all this was because allowances were made. A group, or certain individuals within that group were allowed to have a say -- perhaps outwardly a logical, sensible and well-researched say by their standards, but a say nonetheless -- in the shape of society. The result is you are not allowed to do something. The group, emboldened by their success, goes on the demand more things not even related now to booze. They have shown they are organised, powerful and single-minded in their insistence of what they want. Votes can be withdrawn, though there is some evidence by now they never really wanted votes anyway and the establishment of their authority figures is so much better than choice or democracy.
It emerges (or was known all along but no one liked to say anything) that this particular group haven't sought a ban on alcohol because of health issues; they are religious and they have it on good authority that their god doesn't like people drinking. Quite why their god, who is omnipotent, allowed alcohol to be created and the skills to produce it in handy cans and bottles in the first place remains a mystery but not one people likes to examine. Omnipotence, apparently, doesn't like questions being asked.
It is now obvious to the population at large that allowances, having been made in the first place, have resulted in far fewer freedoms being allowed. "We allowed these people to have their say and look what's happened! Now they want us to more of what they want and less of what we wanted."
Oh well, that's allowances for you. Unfortunately you can't have it both ways. Not unless you go down the road of a tyrannical authority in the first place who makes it clear they allow no one to sit on them. They aren't cushions then but concrete slabs.
However that, we can say, is the great question for society: are no cushions allowed or do you allow bums to descend with a self-satisfied grunt and then not get off the cushions?
How much allowance do we make for people, how much are they allowed to do before it becomes offensive or counter-productive or even, in a few cases, downright dangerous to the welfare of the society so generous in the first place?
Tough questions, and we don't know the answer. We could of course pick a position somewhere between the tyrannical "Everything not proscribed is forbidden" or "Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!" The problem is no position within the limits of everything and nothing will suit us all, all the time. It certainly doesn't suit governments, who take various and changing views on a wide range of allowances, adjusting them either by weight of popular opinion, what they think will win the next election or simply what they have been told or choose to believe.
It is easy to think that our great and good leaders and the elite who scurries along behind them begging for more scraps from the table of public finance have their fingers on the pulse of society. Easy to think they look and listen and understand it all when in fact most of them live in very restricted environments. If they don't know, and can't know, they need information and input; they need someone to tell them. I am here reminded of the old saying about a prominent British politician of many years ago, who was so influenced by others he "bore the impression of the last person who sat upon him." The quote may not be 100 per cent accurate, but the principle is there.
Sadly, it's a principle enshrined in our leaders these days.
Stepping away from the ridiculous posturings and pronouncements of those paid generously by the public purse, many people have a similar dilemma in their life over all sorts of issues, allowing one thing for themselves while demanding another limit for others. The old "do as I say, not as I do" springs to mind here. We may be hypocritical, perhaps because we inevitably see no harm in a little of what we enjoy but a lot of harm in what other people desire, but we allow ourselves that luxury.
The difference between, say, a bottle of wine over a meal for sociable reasons at a weekend seen against the practice of all out binge drinking where someone lies vomiting in the gutter having smashed shop windows in their drunken state. We did it because we were in control and they are not may be easy to determine from your point of view but maybe not someone else's. So, if you allow one event how far do you go to stop the other event?
All or nothing? All or nothing for some but not for all?
Of course balance and common sense, it will be argued, play a vital role in everything. Except as we know balances can be tipped and arranged or even fixed, and common sense is often shown to be not very common at all.
But here's the broader problem: the one where groups of people emerge who want either freedom (or restriction, or both in some convoluted way) but who may within their ranks have different and varied views. It is a pretty obvious statement that the problem with any group is that gradually one position or another rises to the top, that control and direction of the group devolves to those aggressive, insistent people who have definite views about what should be and how it should be. In other words, the ones who say "Oh, I don't care, it's nothing to do with me," are gradually eased aside by those who shout "This is terrible and must be stopped at once!" or equally "Let us have more of this now, or else!"
This then becomes the problem for society: if you allow people to do something is there a danger they will go to one extreme or the other and want more of what they want, and with it less of what you want? Their demands may seem supposedly reasonable at first but having achieved them, why should the group stop there?
Let's says a religious group wants a limit of alcohol consumption. While a few of their number may individually drink secretly themselves the collective idea emerges that globally drinking booze ought to be limited to one beer can per person in certain places. Later the group, having secured an agreement to the basic idea from those cushions in government (because the weight of their collective bums has grown considerable) begins to say that actually the ban should be everywhere in public. More cushion-sitting follows. Then the group demands no alcohol anywhere, private or public.
The cushions at the top may have been plumped back up but the heavy sitting resumes, the ban enforced.
The extreme end of the group, the ones who have come to set the agenda, have got what they wanted. The rest of their gathering goes along with it all, having already established they really don't mind because they didn't drink and anyway the government has shown it can be sat upon effectively. Our leaders are receptive to threats of voting, or withdrawal of support and the ban is enshrined in law, which now has to be maintained. No point in having a law if no one takes any notice.
Let's say there are enormous repercussions with the closure of breweries, public houses, off-licences and even farms growing hops and vineyards are duly closed. There are benefits too with more shelves in supermarkets available for other products, far fewer binge-drinking and alcohol-related problems (remember some goes on in secret, still) but the public turns to something else which is potentially more harmful to their health and welfare. Perhaps a soft drug, or home brewing with dodgy ingredients. Criminal interest will grow (think the story of prohibition here and the gangland violence) and there is a whole bunch more problems with enforcement, allied with extensive covering up of the fact the original ban was a wretched thing.
But, all this was because allowances were made. A group, or certain individuals within that group were allowed to have a say -- perhaps outwardly a logical, sensible and well-researched say by their standards, but a say nonetheless -- in the shape of society. The result is you are not allowed to do something. The group, emboldened by their success, goes on the demand more things not even related now to booze. They have shown they are organised, powerful and single-minded in their insistence of what they want. Votes can be withdrawn, though there is some evidence by now they never really wanted votes anyway and the establishment of their authority figures is so much better than choice or democracy.
It emerges (or was known all along but no one liked to say anything) that this particular group haven't sought a ban on alcohol because of health issues; they are religious and they have it on good authority that their god doesn't like people drinking. Quite why their god, who is omnipotent, allowed alcohol to be created and the skills to produce it in handy cans and bottles in the first place remains a mystery but not one people likes to examine. Omnipotence, apparently, doesn't like questions being asked.
It is now obvious to the population at large that allowances, having been made in the first place, have resulted in far fewer freedoms being allowed. "We allowed these people to have their say and look what's happened! Now they want us to more of what they want and less of what we wanted."
Oh well, that's allowances for you. Unfortunately you can't have it both ways. Not unless you go down the road of a tyrannical authority in the first place who makes it clear they allow no one to sit on them. They aren't cushions then but concrete slabs.
However that, we can say, is the great question for society: are no cushions allowed or do you allow bums to descend with a self-satisfied grunt and then not get off the cushions?
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