AK Haart raised the question of how over-entertainment and superinformation are changing us. I think it's at least as serious an issue as the phoney drugs war.
Mentally Addictive Devices (MAD) seem to me to be shortening attention span, overstimulating and exhausting the mind with trivial and repetitive tasks, and fostering a hazy expectation of instant gratification in other aspects of life.
They also divert attention from pursuing action that furthers one's real long-term interests - there are students flunking college because of their addiction to computerised role-playing games.
And they override alertness to real physical risk. Look at those who walk blindly across a road while on their cellphones; and the poor girl murdered on a Birmingham bus last year had previously noted the strange behaviour of what was to be her killer, but had merely commented on it on her phone - I think the phone gives the illusion of society and so misleads one into a false sense of security.
What if Orwell's eternally ruling Party had realised that you could subjugate the people with endless dreams?
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Thursday, September 25, 2014
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Ur-language: "Politics"
One of the striking aspects of archaeolingustics is how certain words have survived millennia almost unchanged - one thinks for example of "atman" (breath, to blow) in Cave Six, the ancestor of the German "atmen" (to breathe) and "atman" (vital breath, the soul) in Sanskrit. The glyph for "atman" is found close to the depiction of a hunter using a blowpipe to bring down some as yet unidentified arboreal creature; given the age of the painting, this has sparked a lively debate on the tools that early Man may have developed before the Rift Valley diaspora.
Similarly, there are several images of what appear to be mouflons in a non-hunting context, suggesting that they may have been domesticated much earlier than the c. 8,000 BCE date previously theorised, perhaps owing to the local geography and micro-climate at the time and the protection offered by the size and depth of the cave complex.
Long duration of settlement and relative prosperity and security may also have fostered more complex forms of social organization not re-created until after the last Ice Age; this may explain the apparently formally-arranged groups of humans in some of the images. One of these shows such a group gathered around a flock or herd, possibly for the purposes of division, which may have been unequal, seeing the crown or helmet on one of the figures. Alternatively, it may have been to do with some form of treatment, since the co-habitation of man and animal promotes diseases and pests.
It is possible, therefore, that one of the compound words found beside this image may either have a purely literal meaning or, as Professor Strumpfhosen has controversially suggested, be the world's first example of metaphor: "poli" (many) and "tics" (bloodsucking insects). As the Professor remarks, some things never change.
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Similarly, there are several images of what appear to be mouflons in a non-hunting context, suggesting that they may have been domesticated much earlier than the c. 8,000 BCE date previously theorised, perhaps owing to the local geography and micro-climate at the time and the protection offered by the size and depth of the cave complex.
Long duration of settlement and relative prosperity and security may also have fostered more complex forms of social organization not re-created until after the last Ice Age; this may explain the apparently formally-arranged groups of humans in some of the images. One of these shows such a group gathered around a flock or herd, possibly for the purposes of division, which may have been unequal, seeing the crown or helmet on one of the figures. Alternatively, it may have been to do with some form of treatment, since the co-habitation of man and animal promotes diseases and pests.
It is possible, therefore, that one of the compound words found beside this image may either have a purely literal meaning or, as Professor Strumpfhosen has controversially suggested, be the world's first example of metaphor: "poli" (many) and "tics" (bloodsucking insects). As the Professor remarks, some things never change.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2014
I sit on a man's back
I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back.
Leo Tolstoy - What Is to be Done? (1886)
Yes I know it's only another quote, but it seems about right for the party conference season.
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Ur-language: "Managers"
Researchers at the E207 Caucasian cave complex, the world's oldest continuously-inhabited site, believe they have deciphered another part of the ancient wall-scratchings in Cave Six.
It has already been established that the Ur-word ancestor of the Chinese word "ma" (no) and Italian/French "ma/mais" (but) is "man", a generalised negative. More difficult, but extremely exciting, are the pictograms that appear to represent abstracts, including the one that is tentatively rendered as "thought" or "reflection".
It is now theorised that the Ur-etymology of "manager" is "man" (not) + "ager" (much idea).
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It has already been established that the Ur-word ancestor of the Chinese word "ma" (no) and Italian/French "ma/mais" (but) is "man", a generalised negative. More difficult, but extremely exciting, are the pictograms that appear to represent abstracts, including the one that is tentatively rendered as "thought" or "reflection".
It is now theorised that the Ur-etymology of "manager" is "man" (not) + "ager" (much idea).
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Monday, September 22, 2014
The Great Leap Backwards
Preparations for the Great Leap Backwards began in October 1927. According to Wikipedia that’s when the first feature film talkie was released - The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson.
From this small beginning the world changed forever as a number of social trends began to march in step.
Firstly the moving image became an important part of life all over the developed world. Not just for entertainment, but news, information and commentary. Although books had become much cheaper and lending libraries were popular, the moving image gripped its audience in a way books would never emulate.
Cinemas were built in every town, cities had lots of them. Only a few decades later the moving image entered our homes via television. The conquest was complete.
Secondly as the twentieth century progressed and in spite of wars and financial disasters, the developed world began learning how to feed and house even the poorest of its citizens.
These two factors brought out something fundamental about ourselves, an issue we must have missed while still hypnotised by the moving image. Something to do with how we deal with the real world – how those dealings can be subverted by security and physical comfort.
In a way this something is merely the circus of bread and circuses, but much more powerful, intrusive and sinister. As the moving image and comparative prosperity took hold of our lives, intellectual curiosity began to wane.
Today, nearly eighty years after that first talkie, we are losing the urge to know in favour of an urge to be entertained. With it comes a deep-seated love of show and display - a love of theatre. As if life’s edge has been dulled by comfort and prosperity, as if a less basic need slipped into the driving seat while we were queuing up to watch the latest blockbuster at the Odeon or switching on the box for an evening of family entertainment.
Display has always been important to us, as it is with other animals, but without the sharp edge of survival – well the arts of display seem to be all we have left to push us on into our brave new world.
Perhaps we thought intellectual curiosity was enough to spur us on in spite of our full bellies, but apparently not. Curiosity is intimately linked with survival and we’ve dealt with survival. For now. Folk memories of genuine poverty and real hardship are disappearing from the reach of living memory.
The recent Scottish Referendum was pure theatre, rational argument very much noticeable by its absence. Instead we had the unedifying sight of political theatre and its emotional power to get those metaphorical bums on seats. From economic summits to Prime Minister’s Questions, from elections to great debates, it’s all theatre.
Even the mad murderers of ISIL seem to be gripped by a grisly sense of theatre. Black uniforms, sinister headgear and black flags. All theatre. Grim, deadly, insane and even juvenile in some respects, but still theatre.
Science is certainly drifting towards theatre and away from a knowledge culture. Climate change is pure theatre, always was. Take leading actors on the climate stage. Al Gore, Vivienne Westwood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sting, Emma Thompson...
Strewth!
But it's just theatre – nothing else, nothing deeper, nothing demanding, nothing intellectual. Forget the science - the names topping the bill tell you all you need to know about the show. Apart from who dunnit.
Climate impresarios rope in celebrities, fashion designers, artists, pundits and assorted thespians with limited knowledge of the science because they don’t need it. They have their lines off pat. It’s what they do, why they are able strut their stuff on the climate stage without knowing anything worth passing on.
Staying with science - how about physics? Multiverse theories? They look like theatre to me. The vast drama of the cosmos, the thrilling strangeness of untrammelled scientific conjecture, the mysterious depths of untestable notions. Bums on seats matter, even in relatively small and publicly supported theatres such as this.
All the world’s a stage – literally. Yet if people are to be liberally rewarded for acting a part, for learning a narrative instead of the truth, then we cannot use the cold blue light of reason to show us the way to anywhere worth visiting.
So lots of drama but no happy ending.
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Sunday, September 21, 2014
The problem with democracy
Last week's Scottish referendum has lit a match to other firecrackers in this country and elsewhere - Belgium and Spain, for example. But how far (and in what way) should the collective will of the people be sovereign?
The sense of being effectively disenfranchised by a remote political elite leads to calls for localism and direct democracy, an example of which is the Harrogate Agenda:
The trouble is, any system can be gamed. The strategy and tools merely vary according to the way the game is set up.
The birthplace of democracy is said to be ancient Athens, and the classical scholar Peter Jones in The Oldie magazine runs a column in which he often compares current affairs with how matters were settled by the Athenians, who voted en masse on everything, in their weekly assemblies. Yet this democracy excluded women, and the slaves on which the city's economy largely depended. Not everyone's interests were represented.
And even for those who had a voice, there was the question of how their decisions were influenced. The way to game a system based on debate and voting is to refine the arts of persuasion, so that emotion can sometimes not assist but overcome reason. Set against Socrates, who asked questions to get at the truth, were the sophists such as Gorgias, who held that nothing really existed and who gave answers simply to sway opinion. Socrates was forced by his enemies - who persuaded the Athenian assembly - to drink poison at the age of 71, when he was still in good shape; Gorgias lived to 108.
As well as his opponents, the skill of the orator can ruin his supporters, and even himself. Demosthenes, reputedly the greatest speaker in history, caused Athens to resist the Macedonians, and it was only by the earnest pleading of Phocion with Alexander the Great that the city was spared the destruction visited on Thebes. Phocion also persuaded Alexander to give up his demand for Demosthenes and other crowd-rousers to be delivered up to him, which gave the orator a few more years of life (until he had another go at the Macedonians).
A modern example of the deadly persuader would be Adolf Hitler, whose speeches were electrifying even though he was eventually off his head with the cocktails of drugs he took daily. In the latter stages of World War Two the Allied decided to stop trying to assassinate him, because we were more likely to win with him still ruling his roost and terrifying his general staff.
Ultimately, democracy can be used to annul itself. The French Revolutionary Assembly quickly turned into a reign of terror that consumed its own leaders. Democracy turns to mobocracy and the rise of cliques and strongmen, as the Communists - heirs of Gorgias as far as respect for the truth is concerned - well know. Those who advocate local democracy can look across to the USA and see how wrong it can go in some communities - judges and police chiefs making decisions with an eye to re-election - just as democracy is failing in the nation as a whole, with a developing media-and-law-buying oligarchy that even the Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen can't quite deny.
And those who think referenda are the universal answer might like to watch Peter Cook's 1970 film, "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer". What the Wikipedia synopsis doesn't make clear is how the antihero becomes a dictator: he offers the public the power to take part in all law-making via referenda , so that the ordinary man finds himself fretting at home over proposed legislation while his tea is getting cold, and eventually the people decide to leave it all in Rimmer's hands.
Nor do the people speak with one voice. I think it's an American spin doctor who describes the electorate as "a bag of magnets", that is, groups of people who feel strongly on both sides about issues and about other groups, so that the art is not to please all but to get a small majority polarised in the direction chosen by the manipulator.
Majority voting is not only decisive, but divisive, as we now see north of the border. Members of the minority have become sharply conscious of the numbers that share their view, and there will be work to do in reconciling the two sides. It is not enough that the greater number should have their will; their defeated opponents must agree to abide by the result.
Debate continues about voting systems and how fair they are, and we saw in 2011 how the Establishment united and fought hard against proportional representation. This misleads us into viewing the political crisis as psephological. It is not.
Far more important is what unites the community through its differences: a sense of common identity, equality for all under the law, the preservation of individual rights and liberties, and the justified expectation that by obeying the law and applying oneself it is possible to better one's economic condition. In these aspects there have been grave failures by the political elites and the magnates within and outside the country who have their ear.
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The sense of being effectively disenfranchised by a remote political elite leads to calls for localism and direct democracy, an example of which is the Harrogate Agenda:
The trouble is, any system can be gamed. The strategy and tools merely vary according to the way the game is set up.
The birthplace of democracy is said to be ancient Athens, and the classical scholar Peter Jones in The Oldie magazine runs a column in which he often compares current affairs with how matters were settled by the Athenians, who voted en masse on everything, in their weekly assemblies. Yet this democracy excluded women, and the slaves on which the city's economy largely depended. Not everyone's interests were represented.
And even for those who had a voice, there was the question of how their decisions were influenced. The way to game a system based on debate and voting is to refine the arts of persuasion, so that emotion can sometimes not assist but overcome reason. Set against Socrates, who asked questions to get at the truth, were the sophists such as Gorgias, who held that nothing really existed and who gave answers simply to sway opinion. Socrates was forced by his enemies - who persuaded the Athenian assembly - to drink poison at the age of 71, when he was still in good shape; Gorgias lived to 108.
As well as his opponents, the skill of the orator can ruin his supporters, and even himself. Demosthenes, reputedly the greatest speaker in history, caused Athens to resist the Macedonians, and it was only by the earnest pleading of Phocion with Alexander the Great that the city was spared the destruction visited on Thebes. Phocion also persuaded Alexander to give up his demand for Demosthenes and other crowd-rousers to be delivered up to him, which gave the orator a few more years of life (until he had another go at the Macedonians).
A modern example of the deadly persuader would be Adolf Hitler, whose speeches were electrifying even though he was eventually off his head with the cocktails of drugs he took daily. In the latter stages of World War Two the Allied decided to stop trying to assassinate him, because we were more likely to win with him still ruling his roost and terrifying his general staff.
Ultimately, democracy can be used to annul itself. The French Revolutionary Assembly quickly turned into a reign of terror that consumed its own leaders. Democracy turns to mobocracy and the rise of cliques and strongmen, as the Communists - heirs of Gorgias as far as respect for the truth is concerned - well know. Those who advocate local democracy can look across to the USA and see how wrong it can go in some communities - judges and police chiefs making decisions with an eye to re-election - just as democracy is failing in the nation as a whole, with a developing media-and-law-buying oligarchy that even the Federal Reserve chairman Janet Yellen can't quite deny.
And those who think referenda are the universal answer might like to watch Peter Cook's 1970 film, "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer". What the Wikipedia synopsis doesn't make clear is how the antihero becomes a dictator: he offers the public the power to take part in all law-making via referenda , so that the ordinary man finds himself fretting at home over proposed legislation while his tea is getting cold, and eventually the people decide to leave it all in Rimmer's hands.
Nor do the people speak with one voice. I think it's an American spin doctor who describes the electorate as "a bag of magnets", that is, groups of people who feel strongly on both sides about issues and about other groups, so that the art is not to please all but to get a small majority polarised in the direction chosen by the manipulator.
Majority voting is not only decisive, but divisive, as we now see north of the border. Members of the minority have become sharply conscious of the numbers that share their view, and there will be work to do in reconciling the two sides. It is not enough that the greater number should have their will; their defeated opponents must agree to abide by the result.
Debate continues about voting systems and how fair they are, and we saw in 2011 how the Establishment united and fought hard against proportional representation. This misleads us into viewing the political crisis as psephological. It is not.
Far more important is what unites the community through its differences: a sense of common identity, equality for all under the law, the preservation of individual rights and liberties, and the justified expectation that by obeying the law and applying oneself it is possible to better one's economic condition. In these aspects there have been grave failures by the political elites and the magnates within and outside the country who have their ear.
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Saturday, September 20, 2014
Man of Sorrows
According to the Loeb Classical Library translation, the root of the name "Odysseus" is "man of pain". Athene, remonstrating with the chief of the gods, uses a pun on the hero's name to ask why he has been imprisoned on Calypso's island so long:
τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ
Why then did you will him such pain (ὠδύσαο - "odusao"), O Zeus?
(Odyssey, Book I, line 62)
Something I never knew before, and which changes how I see the story: a series not of adventures, but tribulations. So it is about endurance and fidelity - Penelope waiting ten years after the Trojan war has ended for a husband that most would by then have assumed was dead; Odysseus turning down Calypso's offer of immortality so that he may spend his remaining mortal years with Penelope.
The Greeks: grief, grit and pride.
And loyalty and pathos, exemplified by the moment his ancient dog Argos is the first to recognise the much-changed man on on his return to Ithaca.
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τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ
Why then did you will him such pain (ὠδύσαο - "odusao"), O Zeus?
(Odyssey, Book I, line 62)
Something I never knew before, and which changes how I see the story: a series not of adventures, but tribulations. So it is about endurance and fidelity - Penelope waiting ten years after the Trojan war has ended for a husband that most would by then have assumed was dead; Odysseus turning down Calypso's offer of immortality so that he may spend his remaining mortal years with Penelope.
The Greeks: grief, grit and pride.
And loyalty and pathos, exemplified by the moment his ancient dog Argos is the first to recognise the much-changed man on on his return to Ithaca.
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Could the law order a fresh Scottish referendum?
 |
| http://i4.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article4265480.ece/alternates/s615b/1.jpg |
On 15th September 2014, the leaders of the three largest political parties in Westminster made and published the above "vow".
I understand that when a contract is negotiated, any oral explanation, or additional undertaking given as a condition of agreement, forms part of the contract, even if it is not in the wording on the page.
So this "vow" must be considered as an integral part of the referendum held by the Scots. A vow is a binding commitment and for me the implication is that by making it the British Government has turned the No decision into a legal contract between itself and the Scottish people. If it fails to keep these promises in full, then the contract is invalidated and Scotland will be entitled to a fresh referendum.
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Like I said...
‘What price the union?’ said one senior Conservative MP angered by the last-ditch offers to the Scots. ‘And why is Gordon Brown the tail-wagging Westminster dog?
‘Nobody wants to cause trouble ahead of the referendum but these panicked offers mean Alex Salmond has won whatever the result.’
- Daily Mail, 16 September 2014
"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."
- Broad Oak Magazine, 9 September 2014
Ye heerd it here fust.
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Manchester, 1965: aliennation
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China heading for a bust, the rich are running
"Over half the nation's monied Elites have either left the nation or plan to leave and transfer their financial wealth overseas."
Another fascinating post from Charles Hugh Smith.
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Another fascinating post from Charles Hugh Smith.
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#indyref - accusation of vote-rigging in favour of No
Genuine? If so, on what scale?
htp: Karl Denninger
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Friday, September 19, 2014
The two black wings of self
I wished to believe myself angry, but really I was afraid; fear and anger in me are very much the same. A friend of mine, a bit of a poet, sir, once called them ‘the two black wings of self.’ And so they are, so they are...!
Crude it may be, but to my mind the Scottish referendum is well summed up as a battle between fear and anger - the two black wings of self. The Yes camp was angry with Westminster and the No camp fearful of change. Both strove mightily to stoke their emotional engines but fear always had the edge. We live in a fearful age.
The AV vote referendum was much the same and there is no reason to suppose an EU referendum would be any different. The establishment knows how to use the endless subtle pressures of fear, knows too well how potent they are.
In any event it isn’t easy to whip up anger over abstractions such as democracy, accountability or even lying and corruption. For one think, angry criticism is being choked off by the pervasive pressures of political correctness. An intemperate outburst could have the police knocking on your door, an association of ideas which is surely deliberate. Expect more of the same.
So angry words are being squeezed from our language. Not primarily because they offend, although that is the official narrative, but because anger has far too many political hazards for a morally corrupt establishment. Anger rocks the boat - fear doesn't.
To a large degree I think we have the BBC to thank for this deplorable state of affairs. That and our collective laziness. Fear of change saturates BBC output. Not overtly, but covertly in an endless unwillingness to engage with anything genuinely radical.
Comedy and satire are fine as long as they don't quite hit the target, but any serious challenge to the status quo is always beyond the BBC pale. The abode of extremists. A fearful place where decent folk never go. Room 101.
To my mind the important message is one we knew already. It is better to vote against the big three parties than to expect Cameron to deliver a fairly contested referendum. He knows the value of fear and probably knew he was unlikely to lose Scotland. He also knows he is unlikely to lose the EU if voters are foolish enough to trust him.
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Now for independence WITH the Scots
"How shall I be sad on my wedding day?" (at 48:40)
It's not business as usual today. As Professor Vernon Bogdanor said last night, there has been a collective rejection of all the major Westminster parties.
In England, this will tend to strengthen Farage's hand, despite the seethings of various independence/democracy purists who seem to hate UKIP as much as the Establishment does.
If, as now seems likely, the Scots have marginally voted No under intense cross-party Westminster political pressure (including reckless concessions re further devolution) - and with a biased and powerful news media - then we are on for Independence Royal instead of Independence Lite.
Alex Salmond has not shown signs of being able to ride the mighty horse he caught - keeping the pound and staying in the EU would tie Scots to a wider disaster still forming.
The idea that No - the status quo - is safe is almost laughable. Gordon Brown's gusty guff (where has he been these past four years?) lacked specifics on the security offered.
We are not secure.The UK's 90% government-debt-to-GDP is bad enough, but pales in comparison to our housing-soaked total national debt/GDP ratio of 500%.
And when some other place in the world - Frankfurt? Hong Kong? - gathers enough cheats together to replace the City of London, the golden goose in Britain's GDP flock will have been stolen from us - and what will be the debt ratio when that happens?
Everything is now in the pot, and we must play for all we are worth. The old arrangements and lazy political heirs must go for the sake of the nation as a whole.
Scotland, as so often before, we need you in this fight.
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Thursday, September 18, 2014
Scotland: the REAL question
If Scotland were an independent country today, should her people vote to give up self-government and be ruled from Westminster?
Your reasons, please.
Now replace "Scotland" and "Westminster" in the above sentence with "Britain" and "Brussels".
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Your reasons, please.
Now replace "Scotland" and "Westminster" in the above sentence with "Britain" and "Brussels".
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Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Scotland: today's precis challenge
Q1. Reduce the following article from 1,590 words to 650 or fewer.
Q2. "The union... has endured since 1707." Respond, with reference to 1715 and 1745 among other events.
Q.3 "... considerable benefits for all involved." Discuss to what extent the Union alone was responsible for growing prosperity. Your comments should take into account scientific and technological innovations, overseas colonialism and the defeat of Napoleon.
Q.4 If Scotland had always been a sovereign nation, what arguments could be made for subsuming it into the present British political and economic arangements?
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"Scottish independence: catalogue of errors that has brought UK to the brink"
Both sides of the independence struggle have failed to understand each other. The repercussions could affect millions
T ony Blair's New Labour tried harder, in part because its
leaders knew Scotland better and needed it more. Nonetheless, in formulating
its devolution measures in the late 1990s, his government fudged. It pursued ad
hoc measures in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but declined to adopt a
systematic federalism that might properly have embraced England as well; and it
created a new Scottish parliament and local electoral system that helped the
SNP to acquire a degree of power that it had never previously possessed. And
Blair did more. One of the strongest arguments for the union has always been
that it helps defend the component countries from attack from without. But by
pursuing his unpopular war with Iraq, Blair allowed nationalists to argue that
the union was instead a machine that sucked Scotland into profitless and
expensive exercises in overseas aggression.
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Q2. "The union... has endured since 1707." Respond, with reference to 1715 and 1745 among other events.
Q.3 "... considerable benefits for all involved." Discuss to what extent the Union alone was responsible for growing prosperity. Your comments should take into account scientific and technological innovations, overseas colonialism and the defeat of Napoleon.
Q.4 If Scotland had always been a sovereign nation, what arguments could be made for subsuming it into the present British political and economic arangements?
____________________________________________
"Scottish independence: catalogue of errors that has brought UK to the brink"
Both sides of the independence struggle have failed to understand each other. The repercussions could affect millions
Linda Colley
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 September 2014
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The fiercer, more uncompromising, often utopian nationalism
that now grips some Scots possesses echoes in other parts of the world. In part
this is because the relentless advance of globalisation has fostered a desire
in many countries for a more distinctive and reassuring local identity. This
trend is particularly marked in Europe because it contains so many ancient,
culturally distinctive groupings – like the Catalans in Spain – who do not
possess a state of their own, and want to have one. But a growing desire to
secede from longstanding political unions so as to construct something fresh
and distinctive is evident in other parts of the world too. There is a lively
separatist movement in Texas, for instance, which only became a US state in
1845, and which is incontestably large enough and rich enough to flourish
mightily on its own.
As John Stuart Mill remarked in regard to Ireland, once
countries and regions become sufficiently enamoured of separation and
independence, political concessions on the part of their rulers lose effectiveness,
because men and women in such countries and regions will no longer settle
merely for concessions from above. They only want separation and independence.
If a majority of Scots have reached this critical stage, this will not just be
because of long-term British developments and international shifts and
pressures, but also because of more short-term and contingent events. In
particular, if Scottish secession takes place, this will largely be because all
of the main protagonists involved in this struggle have failed in recent
decades fully to understand the pull and repercussions of varieties of
nationalism.
As far as the leaders of the main Westminster groupings are
concerned, they have often seemed to exhibit a tin ear in regard to the importance
and volatility of national identities in at least two respects. At one level,
they have failed creatively and systematically to replace the old, declining
props of British unionism with new arguments and supports. At another level,
they have failed to anticipate and keep up with the challenges posed by a new
and more venturesome Scottish nationalism.
The litany of miscalculations and unforced errors is a
depressing one. Margaret Thatcher's decision to use Scotland as a testing
ground for the poll tax was arguably the most disastrous attempt at fiscal
engineering since London slapped the stamp tax on the American colonies in the
1760s. Thatcher did not understand that the union with Scotland had in practice
always been a limited one. From the outset, Scots retained their own legal,
educational, and religious systems, and were traditionally governed by way of
their own indigenous grandees and operators. It was sadly ironic that the
arch-prophetess of a limited state appeared to want to rip up this formula for
indirect rule and to impose on Scotland in radically new ways, one reason why
so many people there still detest Thatcher's memory.
For many Scots, all this is evidence that London is out of
touch and inward looking. Yet one can actually argue the reverse: that a prime
reason why many at Westminster appear inept in regard to nationalist and
identity issues is that they operate in a city that has long been
quintessentially cosmopolitan. London is not just an international financial
centre, it is also one of the most ethnically diverse places on earth. Three
hundred languages are represented within its boundaries, and – as is true of
some other English cities – more than half of London's inhabitants describe
themselves as non-white. By contrast, only 8% of Edinburgh's population is
non-white, and that is twice the average for Scotland as a whole. It is therefore
hardly surprising that some (by no means all) Scots espouse a degree of
cultural and ethnic nationalism that seems incomprehensible to many at
Westminster, or that the latter sometimes gets the former wrong.
Moreover, it is not just Westminster politicians that have
sometimes failed adequately to consider the full ramifications of national
imaginings. One of the undoubted achievements of the union is that over the
centuries it has put a brake on English national assertiveness, an important
factor as far as Scotland is concerned given that its population is now only a
tenth of that of England. Yet precisely because of the union's protracted
existence, some SNP activists – including Salmond – sometimes take continued
English complacency too much for granted. When in Scotland last month, I was
assured by one yes advocate that, post independence, the poison would be drawn,
and that Scots would be "full of love" for their southern neighbours.
Possibly so, but this is hardly the only point at issue.
The proposition that the referendum is only a matter for the
inhabitants of Scotland has become a mantra, but is of course substantially
untrue. Whatever happens on 18 September, not just Scots, but also the English,
the Welsh, and Northern Irish will be affected. Repeated polls suggest that a
clear majority of the population in these three countries badly want Scotland
to remain within the UK. If it secedes, a future division of the spoils is
likely to cost the English, Welsh, and Northern Irish money, time, influence
and face, and yet they will have had no democratic say in this outcome. It is
hard to think of a better recipe for future resentments and divisions.
It is still possible that all this may be managed: that even
if there is a yes vote, political actors in all parts of the present UK will
finally rise to the challenge of events, and work out new constructive
solutions together – perhaps a free federation of the isles. But we shouldn't
bank on it. As we commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the first world
war, this referendum campaign may be yet another example of how easily fierce
ideologies, tribal passions, longstanding grievances, undue optimism and
political cock-ups can take hold, with consequences that go on to affect and
afflict the lives of millions.READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!
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Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Scotland: "No" is not the safe option
It's not about Alex, even though Mail columnist Jan Moir angled her coverage of the referendum to make it a vote on his sexual attractiveness, and Eddie Mair took up that refrain in his recent Radio 4 interview with the SNP leader. Media Lens has a good post on the co-ordinated bias and distortion of the British media here.
This is not a General Election and Salmond is not campaigning for a Parliamentary seat. It is about the future of Scotland, and much of the distortion and distraction in the media focuses on the risks of a Yes vote. Distraction, because the false implication is that the UK as a whole is the safe option. Peter Hitchens' Sunday column exploded that. Our economy as well as our polity is heading for what Carl Hiaasen* - vulgarly, but it's too good not to use - described as "a screaming nose-dive into the sh*tter."
I'll forgive the Scots for their resentment at the perceived absentee-landlordism of Westminster politicians, but they do not sufficiently appreciate how much their feelings are shared by much of the rest of the UK. Scotland must understand that it's not only England she needs to get away from but the EU, else she has exchanged her master for his master.
This is especially urgent since the EU is about to move to a majority-vote (not your vote, of course) system that will nullify our ability to veto their worst and most stupid decrees.
And beyond that there are the various international-capitalist schemes, of which the latest is the TTIP, that aim to make their commercial writ run untrammelled in all lands and disenfranchise the world's electorates.
The Scottish referendum is just a local instance of a global fight for democracy and self-determination.
That's the issue.
_______________________________
* From his novel, "Basket Case". Hiaasen is a brilliantly funny slapstick crime writer.
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All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.
This is not a General Election and Salmond is not campaigning for a Parliamentary seat. It is about the future of Scotland, and much of the distortion and distraction in the media focuses on the risks of a Yes vote. Distraction, because the false implication is that the UK as a whole is the safe option. Peter Hitchens' Sunday column exploded that. Our economy as well as our polity is heading for what Carl Hiaasen* - vulgarly, but it's too good not to use - described as "a screaming nose-dive into the sh*tter."
I'll forgive the Scots for their resentment at the perceived absentee-landlordism of Westminster politicians, but they do not sufficiently appreciate how much their feelings are shared by much of the rest of the UK. Scotland must understand that it's not only England she needs to get away from but the EU, else she has exchanged her master for his master.
This is especially urgent since the EU is about to move to a majority-vote (not your vote, of course) system that will nullify our ability to veto their worst and most stupid decrees.
And beyond that there are the various international-capitalist schemes, of which the latest is the TTIP, that aim to make their commercial writ run untrammelled in all lands and disenfranchise the world's electorates.
The Scottish referendum is just a local instance of a global fight for democracy and self-determination.
That's the issue.
_______________________________
* From his novel, "Basket Case". Hiaasen is a brilliantly funny slapstick crime writer.
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Monday, September 15, 2014
Scotland's golden window of opportunity
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Imagine starting a country with no National Debt, a balanced budget and freedom from EU interference.
Imagine controlling the fishing areas of the North Seas together with two other similarly independent countries (Iceland and Norway).
It is not Scotland that faces imminent economic crisis, but the UK. Scots have been granted an opportunity to escape before disaster hits:
Extract from the above:
"Listen to it – the poor Scots are threatened with currency collapse, bankruptcy, irrelevance and isolation. There’ll even be a frontier, doubtless with barking dogs, searchlights and minefields planted with exploding haggises.
"Well, what do you think we’re all going to get if we stay in the EU? The real scare story is that 40 years of EU membership and wild overspending have brought the whole UK to ruin.
"The current strength of sterling is an absurdity and can’t last. George Osborne’s boom is the most irresponsible bubble since the 1970s, based entirely on ludicrously cheap housing credit.
"Roughly half the containers that leave our main port at Felixstowe contain nothing but air, and quite a few of the rest are crammed with rubbish for recycling, because our real export trade has collapsed, much of it throttled by EU membership.
"The incoming containers are full, of course, of cars, clothes, gadgets and food – but how are we to pay for them?
"As usual, the biggest story of the week was buried – the rise in our monthly trade deficit during July to £3.3 billion. That includes the famous ‘services’ which are supposed to make up for the fact that we don’t manufacture much any more.
"It is impossible to see how we can live so far beyond our means for much longer. Both Government and people are deeper in debt than ever.
"So forgive me if I point out that it’s quite scary enough staying in the UK."
"Listen to it – the poor Scots are threatened with currency collapse, bankruptcy, irrelevance and isolation. There’ll even be a frontier, doubtless with barking dogs, searchlights and minefields planted with exploding haggises.
"Well, what do you think we’re all going to get if we stay in the EU? The real scare story is that 40 years of EU membership and wild overspending have brought the whole UK to ruin.
"The current strength of sterling is an absurdity and can’t last. George Osborne’s boom is the most irresponsible bubble since the 1970s, based entirely on ludicrously cheap housing credit.
"Roughly half the containers that leave our main port at Felixstowe contain nothing but air, and quite a few of the rest are crammed with rubbish for recycling, because our real export trade has collapsed, much of it throttled by EU membership.
"The incoming containers are full, of course, of cars, clothes, gadgets and food – but how are we to pay for them?
"As usual, the biggest story of the week was buried – the rise in our monthly trade deficit during July to £3.3 billion. That includes the famous ‘services’ which are supposed to make up for the fact that we don’t manufacture much any more.
"It is impossible to see how we can live so far beyond our means for much longer. Both Government and people are deeper in debt than ever.
"So forgive me if I point out that it’s quite scary enough staying in the UK."
(And - if you dare - just Imagine having the opportunity to issue your own debt-free currency as a sovereign country. Fare well, banking families.)
__________
The only regret is that we could have done much of this together, the UK as a whole... forty years of wasted opportunity. Only the (oft-repeated) short-sighted electoral calculations of the Labour Party have ultimately led Scotland to this unbarred window and the chance to escape; don't blame them if they take it.
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Sunday, September 14, 2014
Earth Mother mumbling: green advocacy and gender perspectives
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"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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Saturday, September 13, 2014
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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