Earth Mother mumbling: green advocacy and gender perspectives

Pic source

"As our boat rocked in that terrible place – the sky buzzing with Black Hawk helicopters and snowy white egrets – I had the distinct feeling we were suspended not in water but in amniotic fluid, immersed in a massive multi-species miscarriage. When I learned that I, too, was in the early stages of creating an ill-fated embryo, I started to think of that time in the marsh as my miscarriage inside a miscarriage. It was then that I let go of the idea that infertility made me some sort of exile from nature, and began to feel what I can only describe as a kinship of the infertile."

Naomi Klein's Guardian article yesterday ("Naomi Klein: the hypocrisy behind the big business climate change battle", retitled "Climate Crimes and the Greenwashing of Big Business" for the Reader Supported News site) runs to 4,508 words, not counting photo captions.

The piece includes some 72 instances of "I" and 50 of "me/my/myself". Women's talk often features more of these words, presumably driven by the instinct for social dominance and attention (noted comically by Miranda Hart - "and back to me" - and slyly exploited by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in his TV cookery scripts to increase the appeal of his show for its female viewer demographic - listen for it if and when the old episodes are re-screened).

The excuse in Klein's case is doubtless that she is not only peeking behind the green front of polluting businesses but mixing in her personal journey towards hard-attained motherhood and deeper eco-commitment.

She also has a book to sell. Although I share her environmental concerns, I shan't be buying it - because I won't be able to read it. It was hard enough to get through her article. I wanted to cut out all the self-referential material and generally do a precis as we were taught to do at school in the Sixties, reducing a piece of prose to about a third of its original length in order to expose the central argument (in Russell Brand's case you can cut 92%, but there's an unusual amount of wind in his head). How like a man, you may say, so impatient and task-oriented.

But if you do this, you'll see how well she picks the flaking green paint off Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg. It's factual, and penetrating.

Set against this male-dominated industrialism is Klein's female, instinctual, emotional response, an Earth Mother feeling the world's desecrated tides inside her as her child forms. Well, maybe I should get in touch with my inner woman.

Yet it's not just men-billionaires and their monstrous appetite for wealth and power that are to blame. Who wants all the stuff they make? The average man would be content to live in a caravan or a tree. Food, drink, a woman and some peace and quiet - all right, a bit of singing if you must, then some peace and quiet. Maybe something to read, and a few pals.

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Still, I've managed to squeeze in a few first-person pronouns myself. Maybe I'm making progress.


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M6 doglocked

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And we must always beware of romance: of people who love nature, or flowers, or dogs, or babies, or pure adventure. It means they are getting into a love- swing where everything is easy and nothing opposes their own egoism. Nature, babies, dogs are so lovable, because they can’t answer back.

D.H. Lawrence  ...Love Was Once A Little Boy (1925)

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Scum lies on shallow waters

To my mind, one of the most striking aspects of the internet is the way it so often brings out the raw power of colloquial language. Many areas of public debate are much shallower than elites and pundits would have us believe.

Social, political, economic – many important aspects of apparently complex subjects are easily described in pithy colloquial language – even crude language.

Most politicians are lying scum.

No, I don’t mean this kind of simplistic yet curiously accurate language. Although it has been enlightening to discover quite how accurate it is. Too many politicians are lying scum aren’t they?

No, I’m thinking of colloquial language in general. How easy it is to use ordinary language to tease out a valid and useful aspect of almost any complex social or political issue. In other words, there is not as much depth to these matters as we may have supposed or as we may have been told in the past. Nobody needs a doctorate in political history in order to say something worthwhile about politics.

We common folk may not have imbibed heaps of academic data about political language and the classification of political trends, but it is surprising how often a simple colloquial summary is good enough.

Politicians always brown-nosing vested interests.

Oops – still somewhat basic, but I think the point begins to emerge well enough. One could write a treatise on political pressures given enough patience and nothing better to do. No doubt somebody has or is doing or will do in the future, but it’s easier and possibly more constructive to keep it simple and colloquial.

To the horror of many and the puzzlement of many more, institutions such as the BBC, the monarchy, established churches, major charities and numerous others are not nearly as trustworthy as we once supposed. Not nearly as truthful, adaptable or transparent either. Even their supposed expertise is tarnished as the world becomes less deferential, more inclined to explore alternative points of view.

There is less depth to many areas of debate than the pundits and experts would have us believe. Yes there may be complexities and yes there may be mountains of data, but many orthodoxies are essentially shallow and easily discredited by even the most limited investigation. And perhaps some sharply descriptive colloquial language.

Something is crumbling, something essentially false, ugly and repressive. The shallowness of social distinctions, the elusive and misleading nature of genuine expertise in the more complex and intractable areas of human life, our tendency to allow determined dullards to place themselves on pedestals. The absurdity of it all.

Perhaps the resources of language and mass communication are killing off something we need to kill off. Yet perhaps the resources of power and mass communication will ensure its survival via censorship and the mighty power of money to confuse and misdirect. As yet we cannot tell but...

Most politicians are lying scum.

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Salmond has done it!

As I comment on AKHaart's preceding piece:

I think it's coming anyway. The panic last-minute promises from HMG are a gift to the Yes camp, who can say, "Would they have offered these concessions if they didn't think we'd leave; will they keep their promises if we don't?"

Then later, if the promises aren't kept, it'll be let's vote again, now we know; and if the promises are kept, then it'll be like one of those I-need-some-space "trial separations" that end in divorce proper.

Salmond's done it, with the assistance of an incompetent and negligent Westminster.


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If Scotland votes Yes

From Wikipedia

What about this Scottish independence malarkey eh? Which way is the vote likely to fall and what are the expected consequences?

If I had Scottish blood coursing through my veins instead of the part Irish blend I have in reality, then I know I’d be sorely tempted to go for the misty glories of independence. For my heart at least it would be no contest.

However...

Delightful though it would be to deliver a sword-thrust into the stinking bowels of Westminster, I’d have to convince myself that Scotland actually wants and is prepared to grasp a new spirit of adventure. To my mind, the value of independence lies in making a distinctively Scottish future from the distinctively Scottish virtues of the past.

I’d need to be sure that a reborn and independent Scotland would rid itself of the soul-rotting government-sponsored illusions of everlasting welfare. It would have to decide once and for all that there is no magic money tree fed and watered by bureaucrats.

So how likely is that? How does the leadership of Alex Salmond infuse the Scottish people with a sense of personal responsibility in this adventure? Because it could be a fine adventure, but not if somebody else is always supposed to do the adventuring.

How does Alex Salmond attract able people who have left Scotland simply because they are able people – because they need something more than an endless tangle of small surrenders - to borrow Chesterton’s telling phrase.

It’s the chance of a lifetime – literally. He isn't the only player in this drama, but is Alex Salmond capable of delivering the fruits of a vote for independence? To me he comes across as a very accomplished political huckster, a charlatan’s charlatan. As ever it comes down to people, so although I’m not Scottish I’ll watch the vote with interest.

If the vote goes for independence, and whatever my concerns I hope it does, then it will be seen as a huge vote of dissatisfaction with Westminster politics. Whether that dissatisfaction amounts to something different and vibrantly inspiring - that's another matter. The people of today are not the people of yesterday.

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Even the gods love handbags

http://sanjindumisic.com/pergamon-museum-berlin-photos/

Click on the link above for more!


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The UKIP revolt

If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a little revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System: revolt strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow. It puts the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics; it is almost hygiene. Power is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing down.

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862)

Of course Hugo was writing of far more dramatic revolts than anything UKIP is ever likely to achieve. He was writing of death and destruction at the barricades on the streets of Paris in the nineteenth century. Even so his words sound a note of caution for those of us who hope UKIP might at least rock the political boat.

Can we really see the future of UKIP in the words of a nineteenth century French writer? Unless the UK electorate suddenly turns radical I think we can. Not clearly and not in any detail, but the establishment is likely to absorb and make use of UKIP as it absorbed and made use of socialism.

When UKIP is absorbed, then Hugo's point will apply. Effective UK opposition to the EU will not only have been neutralised, but the only viable vehicle for that opposition will be gone. A few UKIP MPs on the green benches will probably help the process of absorption rather than hinder it.

Power is in better health after a revolt. 

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