Following the worst nights of civil disorder seen in my lifetime I expected some big questions to be asked during the recall of Parliament. Something is clearly beyond damaged in our national psyche when chaos descends, not because of any one cause or factor, but the simple collective realisation that you can get away with it. Destroying your community for personal gain has, and always will be, morally bankrupt. Big questions on the state of the means, morality and aspiration and the lack thereof in Britain's young working class I thought would be the central theme of the debate in Parliament on Thursday.
Unfortunately what I heard was almost the complete denial of any problem. They were labelled 'opportunistic' 'Greedy' and 'mindless'. This sort of language is simply used to vindicate the political classes of any responsibility. These individuals may have been all of the above but these are learned behaviours from a society that successive governments have helped to create. It's time they owned up and it's time they took real and lasting action on social stagnation.
We live in a divided Britain. While I think we do a good job in providing great access to the means of social mobility, we keep the classes so vehemently separate it's no wonder they begin to demonise each other. I have always believed that it's a working class pragmatism and humility mixed with an upper class education, motivation and ambition that produces the kind of people that change our world. Yet we're all so scared of each other this paradigm is almost impossible to achieve in our society.
I say this needs to end now.
So in the spirit of blue-sky thinking that such endemic social problems demand, here are some of the ideas the government needs to issue to end the plague of seperateness, the denial of access to centres of excellence and the realisation our ideas of a punitive justice system does not recognise the value, and indeed the need for, the inclusion of the community it affects.
Private Schools: Centres for the rich and famous to keep their children away from the working classes. They provide a wonderful service to the tax payer by having parents who essentially 'pay twice' for their childrens education. They also enjoy tax-free status due to the special value they give to the community. I say they keep this- but only if each and every school that claims charitable status accepts 20% of their students to those with entitlement to free schools meals at no cost. Schools either become businesses and contribute in tax to the education of others, or become charities that make a difference and cease to exist in the current state where they do neither.
Bring back EMA but reform it: No free money for kids but give them everything they need to have a meaningful college experience. Free School meals, Free travel to college and book vouchers to cover the cost of any materials they need for their courses. Those who can pay do, those who can't get support they need. It means not a tax payer cent is ever spent on cigarettes, but college no longer becomes a financial burden on those who cannot afford it. Education should be for the capable- not the rich or the financially needy and policy should finally reflect this.
Restorative justice: One of the most depressing things to emerge post riot is the first e-petition to make it to the 100,000 mark was to revoke the benefits of the rioters. I won't go into the legal nightmare of a mum being made homeless because her thirteen year old son bricked a Dixons but what I will say is that our justice system needs to A) involve the community it affects and B) Rehabilitate those who believe their community is so worthless that it is worthy of destruction. You destroy a shop? You help rebuild it. You steal its stock? You help make it profitable again. You threaten them with violence? You become an assistant to a police officer and help prevent violence in the future. Justice has to be more than punitive- it has to show how everyone benefits from a society of tolerance, freedom and order. It also needs to show how people working together create a meaningful direction for the whole of the community. Inevitably people outside of this are the very people who turn on it in times of crisis.
National Citizen scheme: National service lite essentially. Potentially a great scheme for social mixing but A) it's only 6 weeks long and B) it's not compulsory. Many peoples first 'defining experience' is that of being away from home. Combine that with something that educates someone in the value of community service, gives them skills they can use, and bonds them with people of all backgrounds you create a platform that unifies people and gives all classes a degree of common experience. This would be at least be a nine month scheme that ends the endemic social separateness that affects people of all classes.
Role Models: Unfortunately there is no one policy that can fix this. We need a greater celebration among the wider world of those figureheads that foster peace, tolerance, innovation and imagination. I went through history class without ever being taught about Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Mother Theresa. People like Richard Branson, Alan Sugar or Mark Zuckerberg never have their story told about how their one idea changed the world in business studies. Education should be about helping people to have a degree of self-actualisation that helps them realise that success doesn't come from an accident of birth but an understanding that as long as you're passionate about something you can lead by example and become the kind of person people talk about for decades.
This is not about wealth. It is about values, it is about creativity and a non-linear view of what success is. Part of the problem is too many people view wealth as a statement of success- People need to view social value in new and more complex ways and providing more role models in our education system is a great way to encourage people to think differently on the idea of what 'success' is.
You may argue that these ideas won't work, you may even argue that these ideas are crazy. You may believe that there is more that we the people, and the government can do. If so 'share' this article and contribute to the debate- Because the silence of our politicians is nothing short of jarring.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Why you must kill critics, attempt to fail and paint the world.
If there’s one thing that confuses me it’s how standardised the world has become. If this blog has any personal value it’s myself trying vainly to produce something that makes me distinctive. Graduates have to produce a thesis- a piece of work that is entirely theirs. It’s a right of passage, you’ve gone from being a consumer to producer. It’s seems like an apt finishing note that education has changed how you approach learning.
How we learn is probably the most important facet of being human. Learning made us the most powerful species on the planet because we do it best. Bizarrely in a world of increasing non-linearity how we learn has remained remarkably uniform. Sure we have the internet now, libraries are everywhere but everyone will read books, do exams and pass or fail.
Learning for me comes in two forms- understanding and experiencing. Universities do well on the understanding ‘didactic’ style learning but really fail on the experiential side, which really undermines the idea of being ‘learned’. Instructional or observational learning is only part of the story and for this humanities tend to have the greatest missed opportunities in experiential learning. John Dewey an American philospher and education reformer suggested the uniformity in education weeded out the originality and the individual nature of intellectual development it was suppose to create.
“Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. "
Say for instance, you observe a relationship between two people through a one-way looking glass. You might understand how a relationship operates; you may even begin to work out behaviours that foster good or bad relationships. You will never understand the emotional value of pursuing that relationship precisely because it’s not something you learn as an observer it’s something you feel as a participant. Experiencing is a fascinating aspect of knowledge because it is teaching you the unteachable, it filters through a personal and unique biological and psychological system to create an indefinable essence of knowing not just how but why, when and if through the prism of individual expectation and involvement.
This car crash realisation happened to me just over a year ago. I had just started work in a laboratory on my graduate thesis. I had known what science had involved before then but one thing that had never occurred to me is how lonely that job makes you. I had lots friends, a girlfriend, an active hobby in debating but from 9-5 I was occupying an otherwise empty space. Maths, measuring and materials became my only friends for the majority of my time. The sterility of my environment had become a metaphor for my working life.
By the end of the three months I had nearly lost my mind. I had every expectation of what science would involve but not how it would affect me.
Now I realise that science is not one of the careers that hardly markets itself for the socially marvellous, but one thing I learned is that I’m not mentally wired for a job that requires a lot of isolation. This was a psychological filibuster that effectively ended my career in science before it even begun. The kick in the teeth was that it took my entire university career before I could experience this.
Now I look at my CV and see that my degree takes up less space than my address and that alone suggests to me that education in this country isn’t working. Most of the people who talk of the formative experiences of education simply don’t talk about essays, tutorials or deadlines. They talk about time they wrote for the newspaper, went travelling with the debater or ran for student president. They were experiences that I created, chose and most importantly participated in.
It's easy to sideline experential learning when the environment becomes all about grades. Those who decide to do little but study at university probably degrade their employability and intellectual development for two core reasons- they become risk averse and lack initiative. Risk adverse behaviour is exactly what you would expect in an environment where you are forced into an observational role in education. The observer is set apart from those that create knowledge.
I've known many English literature graduates during my student travels all of which that can recite some of the most beautiful poetry I have ever known. Few, if in fact any, have even attempted to write poetry of their own. Whilst continually forced to be an observer and asked to critique the work of others over time it pushes them further and further away from participating in the very work they are celebrating. A builder can only be called a builder if he builds things. The first attempt might be somewhat crude but at least he can call himself a builder. At university everybody becomes what any builder hates. They become critics.
Being in an environment full of critics can kill the artist within many people. This is because critics, especially inexperienced ones, will almost always judge their peers (or in many cases their competition) very harshly. The first mistake the inexperienced critic makes is judging people by impossibly high standards, the second is attempting to make themselves feel good about doing so. The third mistake is assuming that people want to here about their tastes rather than their opinions. The final and most maddening of all is oft-committed crime of attempting to prove how knowledgeable they are instead of helping the reader or the artist appreciate or develop the piece. Thus we must kill the critic without trial. Creative genocide is the ugliest crime of them all.
Luckily for the critic there is a cure for this sickness- attempting to fail. The experience of attempting to produce any work of merit weather it be a poem, a book or an article teaches us something that didactic learning never could- that originality is hard, motivation is inconsistent and that writing about yourself makes you vulnerable and scared. Most critics never come from this point of view precisely because they are armchair generals in this regard. Viewing the tactical moves without the human reality of the experiences involved, and therefore ill-informed to make judgements on that which they do not know.
It seems that, at least formally, we are only taught one type of learning our entire lives. I think experiential learning needs to become a bigger facet of all our lives, precisely because requires us to be participant in what we love observing and that transition teaches us things we could never otherwise know about our discipline and our very personal relationship with it.
I say get out of the armchair and head for the front line and start experiencing what you learn, appreciate and love. Don’t be educated to be a critic, be educated about yourself. Maybe then you’ll paint the world. Maybe then I won’t kill you.
How we learn is probably the most important facet of being human. Learning made us the most powerful species on the planet because we do it best. Bizarrely in a world of increasing non-linearity how we learn has remained remarkably uniform. Sure we have the internet now, libraries are everywhere but everyone will read books, do exams and pass or fail.
Learning for me comes in two forms- understanding and experiencing. Universities do well on the understanding ‘didactic’ style learning but really fail on the experiential side, which really undermines the idea of being ‘learned’. Instructional or observational learning is only part of the story and for this humanities tend to have the greatest missed opportunities in experiential learning. John Dewey an American philospher and education reformer suggested the uniformity in education weeded out the originality and the individual nature of intellectual development it was suppose to create.
“Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. "
Say for instance, you observe a relationship between two people through a one-way looking glass. You might understand how a relationship operates; you may even begin to work out behaviours that foster good or bad relationships. You will never understand the emotional value of pursuing that relationship precisely because it’s not something you learn as an observer it’s something you feel as a participant. Experiencing is a fascinating aspect of knowledge because it is teaching you the unteachable, it filters through a personal and unique biological and psychological system to create an indefinable essence of knowing not just how but why, when and if through the prism of individual expectation and involvement.
This car crash realisation happened to me just over a year ago. I had just started work in a laboratory on my graduate thesis. I had known what science had involved before then but one thing that had never occurred to me is how lonely that job makes you. I had lots friends, a girlfriend, an active hobby in debating but from 9-5 I was occupying an otherwise empty space. Maths, measuring and materials became my only friends for the majority of my time. The sterility of my environment had become a metaphor for my working life.
By the end of the three months I had nearly lost my mind. I had every expectation of what science would involve but not how it would affect me.
Now I realise that science is not one of the careers that hardly markets itself for the socially marvellous, but one thing I learned is that I’m not mentally wired for a job that requires a lot of isolation. This was a psychological filibuster that effectively ended my career in science before it even begun. The kick in the teeth was that it took my entire university career before I could experience this.
Now I look at my CV and see that my degree takes up less space than my address and that alone suggests to me that education in this country isn’t working. Most of the people who talk of the formative experiences of education simply don’t talk about essays, tutorials or deadlines. They talk about time they wrote for the newspaper, went travelling with the debater or ran for student president. They were experiences that I created, chose and most importantly participated in.
It's easy to sideline experential learning when the environment becomes all about grades. Those who decide to do little but study at university probably degrade their employability and intellectual development for two core reasons- they become risk averse and lack initiative. Risk adverse behaviour is exactly what you would expect in an environment where you are forced into an observational role in education. The observer is set apart from those that create knowledge.
I've known many English literature graduates during my student travels all of which that can recite some of the most beautiful poetry I have ever known. Few, if in fact any, have even attempted to write poetry of their own. Whilst continually forced to be an observer and asked to critique the work of others over time it pushes them further and further away from participating in the very work they are celebrating. A builder can only be called a builder if he builds things. The first attempt might be somewhat crude but at least he can call himself a builder. At university everybody becomes what any builder hates. They become critics.
Being in an environment full of critics can kill the artist within many people. This is because critics, especially inexperienced ones, will almost always judge their peers (or in many cases their competition) very harshly. The first mistake the inexperienced critic makes is judging people by impossibly high standards, the second is attempting to make themselves feel good about doing so. The third mistake is assuming that people want to here about their tastes rather than their opinions. The final and most maddening of all is oft-committed crime of attempting to prove how knowledgeable they are instead of helping the reader or the artist appreciate or develop the piece. Thus we must kill the critic without trial. Creative genocide is the ugliest crime of them all.
Luckily for the critic there is a cure for this sickness- attempting to fail. The experience of attempting to produce any work of merit weather it be a poem, a book or an article teaches us something that didactic learning never could- that originality is hard, motivation is inconsistent and that writing about yourself makes you vulnerable and scared. Most critics never come from this point of view precisely because they are armchair generals in this regard. Viewing the tactical moves without the human reality of the experiences involved, and therefore ill-informed to make judgements on that which they do not know.
It seems that, at least formally, we are only taught one type of learning our entire lives. I think experiential learning needs to become a bigger facet of all our lives, precisely because requires us to be participant in what we love observing and that transition teaches us things we could never otherwise know about our discipline and our very personal relationship with it.
I say get out of the armchair and head for the front line and start experiencing what you learn, appreciate and love. Don’t be educated to be a critic, be educated about yourself. Maybe then you’ll paint the world. Maybe then I won’t kill you.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
Getting lost in the violence
I recently read an interesting article written by a friend of mine titled 'Don't ignore the violence it's all we have left' supporting the recent protests against austerity cuts. It argued that the violence that ensued shouldn't be written off as the actions of a few renegade students trying to grab the headlines, but as a group willing to resort to violence to stand up against perceived injustices.
While much of the debate around the fairness of the fees increase or the recent finance settlement for local government is a road well travelled in the media, I think a simpler question could be asked- Should political activism include violence?
There is a part of me that thinks violence should be a tool we can use to defend that which we value, although at the time I felt it wasn't doing a very good job of defending anything. Defacing the cenotaph maybe a great way to get on the front of the Daily Mail but it's hardly a way to endear the electorate to your cause- even if that cause involved protecting the Care-Bears from Mumm-ra's Doomsday cannon.
I think understanding what constitutes an effective symbolic gesture is something the left lacks, and if they are to succeed they must understand that media attention and media sympathy exist in very different ballparks. I think if everyone in receipt of the EMA spent one pound and sent a letter to the treasury saying “How much does your independence cost?” I think the 2 million letters arriving at the treasury would hardly slide past the 24 hour media. It would show a unified voice of protest without tainting it with violence.
Along with making effective symbolic gestures, it also pays to realise what your political objectives are. They are not destroying Conservative HQ and not burning effigies of Nick Clegg, It's to get the current government out and make Labour look like a reasonable alternative.
Shooting the government down now is incredibly easy- Osbornomics is a widely perceived economic gamble, which is ironic because reckless fiscal gambling contributed to the mess we're in. Not to mention the axing of the arts council and regional development funds which actually raised government revenue not depleted it. Doesn't being a good Conservative involve knowing what to Conserve?
The list could go on- Cameron's aides involved in illegal journalism, Lord Young saying 'we've never had it so good' Grayling's defence of homophobic motel owners (rewarded with a ministerial post no less). When Brown made similar mistakes the media barked on for months over lost gold reserves, bottling elections and 'that bigoted woman'.
The fact remains if you want the current government out you don't shotgun the libdems, you target the Cons and the amount of ammunition they've provided over the last nine months far outweighs that of Clegg's reneged pledge. It's also worth spelling out that many of the Lib-dem seats that will be lost at the next election will probably move into conservative hands.
This lack of vision in hijacking the media against Liberals only undermines the lefts political agenda, and yet they blithely go along with it. Understanding that activism involves picking effective political targets and not making crass ideological statements is another lesson that needs to be learned by Britain's austerity left.
Finally the political statement made by flying the red flags, placards with Iron Fists and attacking the royal family suggests the modern-day left idolises the revolution embodied by political violence. This can only bring associations of the current and past regimes of Communism, which I think uncontroversially can be called the 20th century's biggest failed social experiment. Millions left to rot in Gulags, Freedoms trampled worldwide, Continents enslaved whilst protecting an immovable oligarchy of complete moral bankruptcy is hardly a historical legacy worth holding onto.
Remove your association with Communism immediately- it's unnecessary, extreme, immature and associates your movement with one of the darkest chapters in modern political history. The good news is that Social Democracy is a far nobler ideology encompassing a respect for individuals, a faith in democracy and defined role for the government dictated by and for the people.
Idealising the roots from which a movement came might sound nice but ask your media team if it's good idea to associate your product with Communism and I think they'll politely ask you to check into the local re-education centre.
The lessons for the left must firstly be violence grabs headlines but not sympathy, violence only creates fear and disaffection with those who don't understand your message. Effective symbolic messages require thoughtfulness and media accessibility -do something different- don't just resort to violence and do something they don't expect, remember Gandhi brought down a government by not fighting back.
Secondly the Conservatives record in government has involved the usual fuck-ups and reversal of positions of any parliament and concentrating fire on the Lib-Dems will help you lose the next election not win it. If you want to attack the Cons now is the time to do it- Cameron’s lost a powerful media ally and his spin team is currently without leadership. Give him all the mercy they Gave Brown- None.
Lastly remember kids, put the Lenin T-shirts and motorcycle diaries aside- Communism isn't cool.
While much of the debate around the fairness of the fees increase or the recent finance settlement for local government is a road well travelled in the media, I think a simpler question could be asked- Should political activism include violence?
There is a part of me that thinks violence should be a tool we can use to defend that which we value, although at the time I felt it wasn't doing a very good job of defending anything. Defacing the cenotaph maybe a great way to get on the front of the Daily Mail but it's hardly a way to endear the electorate to your cause- even if that cause involved protecting the Care-Bears from Mumm-ra's Doomsday cannon.
I think understanding what constitutes an effective symbolic gesture is something the left lacks, and if they are to succeed they must understand that media attention and media sympathy exist in very different ballparks. I think if everyone in receipt of the EMA spent one pound and sent a letter to the treasury saying “How much does your independence cost?” I think the 2 million letters arriving at the treasury would hardly slide past the 24 hour media. It would show a unified voice of protest without tainting it with violence.
Along with making effective symbolic gestures, it also pays to realise what your political objectives are. They are not destroying Conservative HQ and not burning effigies of Nick Clegg, It's to get the current government out and make Labour look like a reasonable alternative.
Shooting the government down now is incredibly easy- Osbornomics is a widely perceived economic gamble, which is ironic because reckless fiscal gambling contributed to the mess we're in. Not to mention the axing of the arts council and regional development funds which actually raised government revenue not depleted it. Doesn't being a good Conservative involve knowing what to Conserve?
The list could go on- Cameron's aides involved in illegal journalism, Lord Young saying 'we've never had it so good' Grayling's defence of homophobic motel owners (rewarded with a ministerial post no less). When Brown made similar mistakes the media barked on for months over lost gold reserves, bottling elections and 'that bigoted woman'.
The fact remains if you want the current government out you don't shotgun the libdems, you target the Cons and the amount of ammunition they've provided over the last nine months far outweighs that of Clegg's reneged pledge. It's also worth spelling out that many of the Lib-dem seats that will be lost at the next election will probably move into conservative hands.
This lack of vision in hijacking the media against Liberals only undermines the lefts political agenda, and yet they blithely go along with it. Understanding that activism involves picking effective political targets and not making crass ideological statements is another lesson that needs to be learned by Britain's austerity left.
Finally the political statement made by flying the red flags, placards with Iron Fists and attacking the royal family suggests the modern-day left idolises the revolution embodied by political violence. This can only bring associations of the current and past regimes of Communism, which I think uncontroversially can be called the 20th century's biggest failed social experiment. Millions left to rot in Gulags, Freedoms trampled worldwide, Continents enslaved whilst protecting an immovable oligarchy of complete moral bankruptcy is hardly a historical legacy worth holding onto.
Remove your association with Communism immediately- it's unnecessary, extreme, immature and associates your movement with one of the darkest chapters in modern political history. The good news is that Social Democracy is a far nobler ideology encompassing a respect for individuals, a faith in democracy and defined role for the government dictated by and for the people.
Idealising the roots from which a movement came might sound nice but ask your media team if it's good idea to associate your product with Communism and I think they'll politely ask you to check into the local re-education centre.
The lessons for the left must firstly be violence grabs headlines but not sympathy, violence only creates fear and disaffection with those who don't understand your message. Effective symbolic messages require thoughtfulness and media accessibility -do something different- don't just resort to violence and do something they don't expect, remember Gandhi brought down a government by not fighting back.
Secondly the Conservatives record in government has involved the usual fuck-ups and reversal of positions of any parliament and concentrating fire on the Lib-Dems will help you lose the next election not win it. If you want to attack the Cons now is the time to do it- Cameron’s lost a powerful media ally and his spin team is currently without leadership. Give him all the mercy they Gave Brown- None.
Lastly remember kids, put the Lenin T-shirts and motorcycle diaries aside- Communism isn't cool.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Lets stop asking questions and start telling stories.
One reason I think I'll remember this Christmas for a long time, is that this year I learnt that everyone has a story to tell. In a room of people aged between 20-78 I simply asked someone tell me a story, and people were falling over themselves to tell me their story. Polish, Jewish, Irish, English gathered to tell me tales across four continents. My world became bigger and better with every one.
Perhaps one of my biggest post-graduation problems is escaping mundanity. Life is just so full of bus rides, tube journeys, queueing and stock-question, stock-answer scenarios. Lots of sterile conversation, lack of eye contact and faux sincerity. Can be quite maddening when you notice it everywhere.
My lack of updates has been in part to my new job, I too have aspired to the dizzying height of unpaid desk drone complete with personalised email version 2.0. Unfortunately the most terrible and repetitive conversation many of you will have post-graduation is 'What do you do?' I seem to remember when social status came from a delicate distillation of guesswork of intellectual capacity, relative confidence and interests. Personally I'd prefer 'Shaughan, just tell me a story'
It almost feels like people can't even be bothered any more, I expect the American approach to be next- 'Sorry buster, too busy to ascertain your relative personal wealth could you just write down your numerical value on a piece of paper please?' . Perhaps the deeper tragedy is when they find my actual market net worth currently resides at £0 PA. The come hither eyes rarely work after that bombshell.
It was nice to see Christine recently, we both banned the topic of 'career development' an as such talked about the correct use of punctuation. I hadn't laughed about grammar in a long time, and to many of you probably sounds like the conversational version of hell, but for me the hyphens of hope spelled an end to mundane, samey conversation I'd gotten used to. It was different, unique and a conversation I'd probably never have with someone else.
It held value because it was both personal and rare, a celebration of our nerdy interest in language and formed a connection between us in a marvellously comic framework. It struck me at that moment she is very good at telling stories. Has anyone ever told you story about a hyphen that made you laugh? All about how you tell it. Told you she was good.
This experience reminded me of the value of telling stories, since then I've been a small mission of mine to start telling a few stock tales. It's a pleasant reminder for me that life isn't always mundane. Sit me down and ask me and I can recall the time I was almost killed by the Bulgarian Mafia, my interesting experience at my first and last Students Association dinner and the time I accidentally looted a listed building. Those are just the ones that made it's past Dolansphere's PR team.
The best part is these are self-contained little epics is that each one contains elements of comedy, tragedy and the overcoming of the absurd and extraordinary. I've found them great with connecting with people, because it ends our association to the familiar. Because it presents something about us both funny and vulnerable. Gives an insight into often bizarre events that have shaped me.
Now being a 21st century male a sizable amount of my life is to do about escapism. Books, Movies, TV, Radio, the internet, Video games and alcohol keep me suitably removed from the world around me for most of my spare time. Probably because these media are all very good at telling stories, maybe we feel we don't have to any more.
In an age overloaded with information we need to hang onto that which is personal, and our stories are little pieces of our identity. If we forget them we forget part of ourselves.
Lets stop asking questions and start telling stories. Maybe then we'll get some meaningful answers.
Perhaps one of my biggest post-graduation problems is escaping mundanity. Life is just so full of bus rides, tube journeys, queueing and stock-question, stock-answer scenarios. Lots of sterile conversation, lack of eye contact and faux sincerity. Can be quite maddening when you notice it everywhere.
My lack of updates has been in part to my new job, I too have aspired to the dizzying height of unpaid desk drone complete with personalised email version 2.0. Unfortunately the most terrible and repetitive conversation many of you will have post-graduation is 'What do you do?' I seem to remember when social status came from a delicate distillation of guesswork of intellectual capacity, relative confidence and interests. Personally I'd prefer 'Shaughan, just tell me a story'
It almost feels like people can't even be bothered any more, I expect the American approach to be next- 'Sorry buster, too busy to ascertain your relative personal wealth could you just write down your numerical value on a piece of paper please?' . Perhaps the deeper tragedy is when they find my actual market net worth currently resides at £0 PA. The come hither eyes rarely work after that bombshell.
It was nice to see Christine recently, we both banned the topic of 'career development' an as such talked about the correct use of punctuation. I hadn't laughed about grammar in a long time, and to many of you probably sounds like the conversational version of hell, but for me the hyphens of hope spelled an end to mundane, samey conversation I'd gotten used to. It was different, unique and a conversation I'd probably never have with someone else.
It held value because it was both personal and rare, a celebration of our nerdy interest in language and formed a connection between us in a marvellously comic framework. It struck me at that moment she is very good at telling stories. Has anyone ever told you story about a hyphen that made you laugh? All about how you tell it. Told you she was good.
This experience reminded me of the value of telling stories, since then I've been a small mission of mine to start telling a few stock tales. It's a pleasant reminder for me that life isn't always mundane. Sit me down and ask me and I can recall the time I was almost killed by the Bulgarian Mafia, my interesting experience at my first and last Students Association dinner and the time I accidentally looted a listed building. Those are just the ones that made it's past Dolansphere's PR team.
The best part is these are self-contained little epics is that each one contains elements of comedy, tragedy and the overcoming of the absurd and extraordinary. I've found them great with connecting with people, because it ends our association to the familiar. Because it presents something about us both funny and vulnerable. Gives an insight into often bizarre events that have shaped me.
Now being a 21st century male a sizable amount of my life is to do about escapism. Books, Movies, TV, Radio, the internet, Video games and alcohol keep me suitably removed from the world around me for most of my spare time. Probably because these media are all very good at telling stories, maybe we feel we don't have to any more.
In an age overloaded with information we need to hang onto that which is personal, and our stories are little pieces of our identity. If we forget them we forget part of ourselves.
Lets stop asking questions and start telling stories. Maybe then we'll get some meaningful answers.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
On closure, moral dilemmas and breaking my design.
I once wrote in this blog that 'self reflection needn't be the bastard child of tragedy' and I hope over the last year I've given you some indication that reflection on morbidity is often a barrier to a life worth living. However if you'll let me indulge in a little artistic hypocrisy for one blog post I hope that I can explore my most recent experiences with you in some depth.
If there's one thing I despise it's lazy storytelling. There has to be part of the writer that dies when they finish a new Hollywood script in which the ending where every plot thread is resolved and every moral crisis the protagonists faces is dealt with. Life doesn't happen that way, there is never one complete resolution to everything.
A great example of this is Virginia Woolfe's Mrs Clarissa Dalloway of which much of the book is spent reflecting on the big choices she made in her life as she prepares for an evening party. As she is reminded of all the choices she never made in marriage and sexuality and she is driven mad by the life that never was. Clarissa begins to admire the courage of an acquaintance Sepitmus who is a shell shocked war Veteran who commits suicide to escape forced incarceration at mental hospital. Clarissa as begins to sympathise with Septimus she fields herself question after question on the choices she never made. Eventually she's reasons that her personal captivity, as a Victorian housewife, is much like the one Septimus killed himself to avoid. She herself considers suicide but partly through a mixture of cowardice and self deception decides to return to her party. Nothing is resolved, because most of life never is. It's what makes the narrative real for me.
The best stories never seek closure because it's not a part of life we ever learn from. Experiences of importance should remain with us forever however they make us feel. Years later they can create distinct emotional responses in ourselves. If closure were to numb the recollection of our most intense moments it would be poisonous to who we are.
The story of our lives won't be remembered in the regular day to day lives, but in the terrible moral dilemmas we make. We can't take them back, we can't even rationalise them because sometime there are no right answers. There are permanent decisions we make in our lives that make us ache. The real tragedy is these experience erode in poignancy over time .
The reason these stories resonate with me is because my brother died at the age of 18 and I was last member of my family to ever see him alive. I knew something was wrong, on reflection I probably knew he was leaving. I never tried to stop him, I made pleasant conversation. I went to school on time. I didn't want to be late. Even as a small, stupid child afterwards I felt heaped with that responsibility I never wanted. I could have understood him better. I could have asked him to stay. Things could have been different.
For years I wanted closure, I wanted some epiphany to happen that meant either I didn't have to take responsibility or that I wouldn't care any more. It never came, but as I grew older, met others and read more, I understood that there is a part of life would always have some unresolved finality to it. How we feel about a person remains remarkably constant. A terribly human trait is that it is often easy to get attached but so very hard to let go.
Our personal war of instinct vs reason is one where we see past our present needs in order to see the benefits of a future concept. As we've evolved as creatures of immediacy, I suspect that's why we're emotionally punished for being creatures of the long term. I think it is this facet of human nature that predisposes us towards wanting closure. Sometimes you have to wonder why we've evolved to be creature with such a questionable emotional memory. I think the simple answer is that it's just easier that way.
Science produces some pretty depressing data on this- There are some studies that suggest the amygdala, a hemisphere in the brain that stores emotional memory, is gradually suppressed over time, long before degradation. Evolutionists have postulated it's pre-programmed restriction on our ability to recall strong emotions to prevent constant, vivid emotional recollection. It seems nature has decided that total recall of our entire emotional history is more than we can take.
When we are asked to take the long view of relationships, I hate the idea that feelings or the emotional impact of our experiences somehow ebbs away over time. It seems impossible to hold onto the concept of a coherent self, if what was important to us seems to decline over time. Not through any realisation, or change in outlook, just a result of the inability to recall accurately the emotions involved.
I think one of the best virtues of human evolution is that part of the process involves breaking the previous design. Because we even have memories suggests there are advantages of going beyond being creatures of the now, even if we still have a huge evolutionary hangover involving the immediate demands of instincts or the suppression of long term memory. I think as our consciousness evolves this bizarre need for closure will eventually fade away. We will continue to 'break the design' all over again.
As we all struggle to come to terms with closure, I'd like to suggest that maybe closure isn't healthy or necessary to move on with our lives. It's simply a biological and psychological mechanism to make our lives easier. I think if are to take the time to explore ourselves, breaking this behaviour is part of that process.
This denial of self and the forgetful nature of emotional experience doesn't require closure, it requires an acceptance of what I value. Maybe experience is a dish served raw. I hope I never forget that.
If there's one thing I despise it's lazy storytelling. There has to be part of the writer that dies when they finish a new Hollywood script in which the ending where every plot thread is resolved and every moral crisis the protagonists faces is dealt with. Life doesn't happen that way, there is never one complete resolution to everything.
A great example of this is Virginia Woolfe's Mrs Clarissa Dalloway of which much of the book is spent reflecting on the big choices she made in her life as she prepares for an evening party. As she is reminded of all the choices she never made in marriage and sexuality and she is driven mad by the life that never was. Clarissa begins to admire the courage of an acquaintance Sepitmus who is a shell shocked war Veteran who commits suicide to escape forced incarceration at mental hospital. Clarissa as begins to sympathise with Septimus she fields herself question after question on the choices she never made. Eventually she's reasons that her personal captivity, as a Victorian housewife, is much like the one Septimus killed himself to avoid. She herself considers suicide but partly through a mixture of cowardice and self deception decides to return to her party. Nothing is resolved, because most of life never is. It's what makes the narrative real for me.
The best stories never seek closure because it's not a part of life we ever learn from. Experiences of importance should remain with us forever however they make us feel. Years later they can create distinct emotional responses in ourselves. If closure were to numb the recollection of our most intense moments it would be poisonous to who we are.
The story of our lives won't be remembered in the regular day to day lives, but in the terrible moral dilemmas we make. We can't take them back, we can't even rationalise them because sometime there are no right answers. There are permanent decisions we make in our lives that make us ache. The real tragedy is these experience erode in poignancy over time .
The reason these stories resonate with me is because my brother died at the age of 18 and I was last member of my family to ever see him alive. I knew something was wrong, on reflection I probably knew he was leaving. I never tried to stop him, I made pleasant conversation. I went to school on time. I didn't want to be late. Even as a small, stupid child afterwards I felt heaped with that responsibility I never wanted. I could have understood him better. I could have asked him to stay. Things could have been different.
For years I wanted closure, I wanted some epiphany to happen that meant either I didn't have to take responsibility or that I wouldn't care any more. It never came, but as I grew older, met others and read more, I understood that there is a part of life would always have some unresolved finality to it. How we feel about a person remains remarkably constant. A terribly human trait is that it is often easy to get attached but so very hard to let go.
Our personal war of instinct vs reason is one where we see past our present needs in order to see the benefits of a future concept. As we've evolved as creatures of immediacy, I suspect that's why we're emotionally punished for being creatures of the long term. I think it is this facet of human nature that predisposes us towards wanting closure. Sometimes you have to wonder why we've evolved to be creature with such a questionable emotional memory. I think the simple answer is that it's just easier that way.
Science produces some pretty depressing data on this- There are some studies that suggest the amygdala, a hemisphere in the brain that stores emotional memory, is gradually suppressed over time, long before degradation. Evolutionists have postulated it's pre-programmed restriction on our ability to recall strong emotions to prevent constant, vivid emotional recollection. It seems nature has decided that total recall of our entire emotional history is more than we can take.
When we are asked to take the long view of relationships, I hate the idea that feelings or the emotional impact of our experiences somehow ebbs away over time. It seems impossible to hold onto the concept of a coherent self, if what was important to us seems to decline over time. Not through any realisation, or change in outlook, just a result of the inability to recall accurately the emotions involved.
I think one of the best virtues of human evolution is that part of the process involves breaking the previous design. Because we even have memories suggests there are advantages of going beyond being creatures of the now, even if we still have a huge evolutionary hangover involving the immediate demands of instincts or the suppression of long term memory. I think as our consciousness evolves this bizarre need for closure will eventually fade away. We will continue to 'break the design' all over again.
As we all struggle to come to terms with closure, I'd like to suggest that maybe closure isn't healthy or necessary to move on with our lives. It's simply a biological and psychological mechanism to make our lives easier. I think if are to take the time to explore ourselves, breaking this behaviour is part of that process.
This denial of self and the forgetful nature of emotional experience doesn't require closure, it requires an acceptance of what I value. Maybe experience is a dish served raw. I hope I never forget that.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Getting high on isolation. On self, society and solitude.
As I suspected three months in and the smell of the dole queue is starting to get to me. Sure I've worked temp and I've been to three interviews now (I was recently told nine is allegedly the magic number) and some days I just get tired. Tired of making phone calls and tired of attempting to sell myself to people I've never met, for jobs I don't fully understand. The terrible thing about the modern age is the level of insincerity required to get through each working day.
But I am still enjoying myself regardless, moving back to London is definitely a positive step, something about the pace of this place is good for a young person and the monuments around every corner are a nice reminder that anything is still possible.
I've noticed since returning to London that time alone, peace and solitude are more precious probably because they are more finite resources here in the capital. I've noticed several times that cancelling because you want time alone people always assume the worst. I must be depressed or exhausted or I must have some deep emotional trouble. It seems in the war of People Vs NonPeople if you reside in the NonPeople camp you must be fit for the asylum.
Weirdly these are often the times I'm happiest. Most of classical psychology would string me up as a fully fledged crazee. It is widely believed that man is a social being, that interpersonal relationships are the main, if not only source of human happiness. When did we become so afraid of being alone?
As habit dictates I investigated such behaviours and unsurprisingly much of it condemned this choice, until I stumbled across a paper published in 1958 entitled 'The capacity to be alone' by Donald Winnicot who seemed to argue there are healthy aspects to solitude.
“It is probably true to say that in psycho-analytical literature more has been written on the fear or the wish to be alone than on the ability to be alone... Its seems to me that a discussion on the positive aspects of the capacity to be alone is long overdue.”
It seems to me that Solitude is important for at least two reasons. Firstly time alone allows us to develop as individuals, personally. Much of my reading has declared that other persons are dangerous to individualism, and developing false personalities on the basis of reacting, and being subject to, constant external stimuli is probably societies most commonly accepted form of insanity.
Secondly it allows to us to imagine. Remember when we did that all the time? It's funny that something deemed essential for the healthy development of our children is something adults either hardly do, or at least never talk about. Creative spark doesn't come from concentrating so hard something appears, it comes from having the time and the peace to imagine the form of things we wish to create.
For this laptop to exist someone had to imagine it. Reality is simply the affirmation of collective imagination married with physical possibility. I think we need to give ourselves more time to be alone, to imagine and to know ourselves.
Solitude is perhaps the only access we have with individualism, certainly many case studies have revealed that group mentality allows our social image or 'ego' to override the conscious choices the self or 'Id' may have made. Bruno Buttlehiem made this observation with Israeli teenagers forced to conform to a set of group values. Immediately even outside the value remit, as social conscious grows, the individual (and therefore the artist) diminishes.
I think this struggle with our social-ego produces bigger damage than we realise. At the group level it begin to threaten our own needs and desires. Beyond that I am unsure how anyone shares themselves with somebody else when we don't give ourselves enough time to develop a solid sense of self. Being defined, even partially by someone else is a fallacy. We can't be someone we are not.
Post-modernists may try to view us as social constructions, but when we are alone we have to be the ones to make the decisions for ourselves of what we think about, what we dream about and what we decide to care about. It's the only time we become pro-active people rather than simply reactive individuals.
I'm well aware isolation is not always a healthy drug. Certainly excessive use can result in nihilism, the inability to form any relationships or just fear of other people. I think solitude need to be approached in much the same way our relationship with alcohol is. It must be used occasionally and with mild dosage to enhance experience and not deny it.
I suspect this might be harder than it sounds as we seem to have become great 'information addicts'. It is hard for people to not be doing something sometimes anything to avoid doing nothing. I would appreciate a more constructive approach to down time. One that reminds us exploration of self is valuable commodity in a time where, much of who we are is defined by what other people expect.
Anyway in an act of sheer hypocrisy, I've been feeling myself getting a little lonely of late. So I think struggling against a blank screen maybe off the menu for a few a days. Such is the form I would like to end on a quote-
"Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind"
Without imagination reality becomes static, without individualism society becomes sterile and without solitude and a sense of self none of these things are possible.
But I am still enjoying myself regardless, moving back to London is definitely a positive step, something about the pace of this place is good for a young person and the monuments around every corner are a nice reminder that anything is still possible.
I've noticed since returning to London that time alone, peace and solitude are more precious probably because they are more finite resources here in the capital. I've noticed several times that cancelling because you want time alone people always assume the worst. I must be depressed or exhausted or I must have some deep emotional trouble. It seems in the war of People Vs NonPeople if you reside in the NonPeople camp you must be fit for the asylum.
Weirdly these are often the times I'm happiest. Most of classical psychology would string me up as a fully fledged crazee. It is widely believed that man is a social being, that interpersonal relationships are the main, if not only source of human happiness. When did we become so afraid of being alone?
As habit dictates I investigated such behaviours and unsurprisingly much of it condemned this choice, until I stumbled across a paper published in 1958 entitled 'The capacity to be alone' by Donald Winnicot who seemed to argue there are healthy aspects to solitude.
“It is probably true to say that in psycho-analytical literature more has been written on the fear or the wish to be alone than on the ability to be alone... Its seems to me that a discussion on the positive aspects of the capacity to be alone is long overdue.”
It seems to me that Solitude is important for at least two reasons. Firstly time alone allows us to develop as individuals, personally. Much of my reading has declared that other persons are dangerous to individualism, and developing false personalities on the basis of reacting, and being subject to, constant external stimuli is probably societies most commonly accepted form of insanity.
Secondly it allows to us to imagine. Remember when we did that all the time? It's funny that something deemed essential for the healthy development of our children is something adults either hardly do, or at least never talk about. Creative spark doesn't come from concentrating so hard something appears, it comes from having the time and the peace to imagine the form of things we wish to create.
For this laptop to exist someone had to imagine it. Reality is simply the affirmation of collective imagination married with physical possibility. I think we need to give ourselves more time to be alone, to imagine and to know ourselves.
Solitude is perhaps the only access we have with individualism, certainly many case studies have revealed that group mentality allows our social image or 'ego' to override the conscious choices the self or 'Id' may have made. Bruno Buttlehiem made this observation with Israeli teenagers forced to conform to a set of group values. Immediately even outside the value remit, as social conscious grows, the individual (and therefore the artist) diminishes.
I think this struggle with our social-ego produces bigger damage than we realise. At the group level it begin to threaten our own needs and desires. Beyond that I am unsure how anyone shares themselves with somebody else when we don't give ourselves enough time to develop a solid sense of self. Being defined, even partially by someone else is a fallacy. We can't be someone we are not.
Post-modernists may try to view us as social constructions, but when we are alone we have to be the ones to make the decisions for ourselves of what we think about, what we dream about and what we decide to care about. It's the only time we become pro-active people rather than simply reactive individuals.
I'm well aware isolation is not always a healthy drug. Certainly excessive use can result in nihilism, the inability to form any relationships or just fear of other people. I think solitude need to be approached in much the same way our relationship with alcohol is. It must be used occasionally and with mild dosage to enhance experience and not deny it.
I suspect this might be harder than it sounds as we seem to have become great 'information addicts'. It is hard for people to not be doing something sometimes anything to avoid doing nothing. I would appreciate a more constructive approach to down time. One that reminds us exploration of self is valuable commodity in a time where, much of who we are is defined by what other people expect.
Anyway in an act of sheer hypocrisy, I've been feeling myself getting a little lonely of late. So I think struggling against a blank screen maybe off the menu for a few a days. Such is the form I would like to end on a quote-
"Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind"
Without imagination reality becomes static, without individualism society becomes sterile and without solitude and a sense of self none of these things are possible.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Tragedy and why we need it and the moral problems with new liberalism
Two Months in we are beginning to see the first flashlights of the coalitions agenda, it seems we are seeing the scaling back of the Public Sector and a bigger emphasis on us participating in our politics. Weather it be becoming part of the 'Big society' or forming a 'free school' or simply participating in http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/ in suggesting how the government may legislate better in the future. Certainly the angle is to increase social welfare by having the government do less and people do more to shape social welfare in way that they choose.
The angle is to create a more liberal ideal. That seems a natural shift from the Blairite years of nouveaux socialism.
Social engineering on government scale has largely been unsuccessful, particularly in the UK. It is worth noting that even in the boom years, the introduction of the minimum wage and increased access to working tax credits had only one outcome- the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. New Labour was a momentous failure. Increases in social services was funded by debt and was unsustainable, bureaucracies found themselves paid more with less to do and by the end they were approving projects with no fiscal backing to make the incoming government look bad when they cancelled them. By the end it degenerated into school yard politics. You spend too much. You don't spend enough. We've all heard it.
One thing I will gift New Labour with is idealism and a sense of moral purpose (illegal wars aside). As badly managed as it was they made a genuine attempt at making things better. Now I think the new government can't even be bothered incorporating a morality into itself at all. The moral basis for their social policy seems to be an emphasis on Liberalism and the freedom to choose. Liberalism sounded sexy to me at first- the losers lose, the winners win, free markets creating capital unhindered and a world where expression and opportunity are truly free. Hayek believes that these principals to be inseparable-
“Neither good intentions nor efficiency of organization can preserve decency in a system in which personal freedom and individual responsibility are destroyed.”
Unfortunately Hayek didn't graduate into recession caused by high rolling Gamblers. Free trade certainly pissed on my freedom. Individual responsibility meant 6 figure severance packages. Post-recession this emphasis on freedom worries me. It seems a failure of governance caused the recession, so our new masters in No 10 are suggesting now they do even less?
The reality is that power without money always results in optimistic low-cost social agendas. I'm worried that our new found freedoms will result in a new scapegoat for the government- us. Political development throughout the 20th century was a consensus throughout Europe that governments do more, this newfound assumption they now do less seems like a step back, not a step forward.
Getting back to creating a Liberal meritocracy may sound wonderful, but all liberalisers will admit that it is naturally- self serving system. Adam Smith used this as the basis suggesting the selfish ideals will drive will drive all markets including the moral market.
"Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain."
Capitalism may work financially but I don't think it's a moral driver for how we live. It would assume that my interest in the social wellbeing of other is guided by selfish gain rather than that of empathy garnered from being a long sufferer of that terrible illness of being human. One of the problems in investigating economic theory is that those who publish tend to be the winners. Winners tend to be big on knowledge but small on empathy. Perhaps one of the most ironic tragedies of political philosophy is that it's written by people who often don't experience failure at all.
A society that begins and ends solely with self interest manifests itself in many terrible forms, it exploits, is ruled by cronyism and manifested in the very worst parts of the world where day-to-day government play no part in the lives of its citizens. An over managed government ensure social projects become toxic high tax, unsustainable failures.
The terrible thing about living in Britain is that under a two party system, the talk of a progressive politics is exactly that. The reality is we're back into a political swing towards Conservative austerity after years of wasteful socialist largesse. Identical as every political swing since 1945.
I hope one thing we take away from the Blair-Brown era are the moral sentiments that not all people who fail deserve it. Not all people who succeed deserve it either. The Moral bankruptcy of New Liberalism is the assumption that tragic figures could never exist in a Liberal utopia. It forgets even if systems are perfect humans are not.
It seems strange to me that tragedy being the most popular expression of art doesn't find itself into politics more. I accept that politicians or leaders of any kind should lead by by example, but this distorted image that politicians have to perfect all the time means the false picture we get is going to lack the genuine human facets- inconsistencey, the struggle of making hard decisions and the drama that we create when we ask people to put their reputations on the line to justify themselves. David Laws was such a tragic figure caught out not because wanted to make money (he had no need for it) but the fact he wanted to protect his private life from public scrutiny. Yet once smeared he was axed immediately. Politics demands perfection. This idea that politics has to have perfect people undermines it's capacity to accept that talented people sometimes fail.
People who never push themselves hard enough or are just too scared to make decisions they might be wrong on don't belong in politics. Dostoevsky was very aware that human capacity to allow others to redeem themselves is the part of the human condition that forges the strongest individuals and that harmony on the basis of mutual perfection can never be real-
“Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it.”
I think he's suggesting a love of humanity comes from an understanding that as moral agents we fail all the time, that some wisdom that can only comes from failure.
As we embrace New liberalism I would be careful of this idea that the less the government does the more culpable we are for our own fate. It can get horribly judgemental, in Victorian England someone of lower class would be called an “unfortunate” nowadays under in our more liberal society they would be called a “loser” Just because we've found ourselves in our more meritocratic society lets not forget the message of 3,000 years of tragedy- The pure meritocracy can never exist and on that basis many of those who fail deserve moral understanding.
We would do well to remember our fate is never ours alone, morality needs to compensate for both the randomness and the consistencies of the human condition. That in itself is an impossible task but never underestimate the value of investigating the impossible.
It's why philosophy matters.
The angle is to create a more liberal ideal. That seems a natural shift from the Blairite years of nouveaux socialism.
Social engineering on government scale has largely been unsuccessful, particularly in the UK. It is worth noting that even in the boom years, the introduction of the minimum wage and increased access to working tax credits had only one outcome- the rich got richer, the poor got poorer. New Labour was a momentous failure. Increases in social services was funded by debt and was unsustainable, bureaucracies found themselves paid more with less to do and by the end they were approving projects with no fiscal backing to make the incoming government look bad when they cancelled them. By the end it degenerated into school yard politics. You spend too much. You don't spend enough. We've all heard it.
One thing I will gift New Labour with is idealism and a sense of moral purpose (illegal wars aside). As badly managed as it was they made a genuine attempt at making things better. Now I think the new government can't even be bothered incorporating a morality into itself at all. The moral basis for their social policy seems to be an emphasis on Liberalism and the freedom to choose. Liberalism sounded sexy to me at first- the losers lose, the winners win, free markets creating capital unhindered and a world where expression and opportunity are truly free. Hayek believes that these principals to be inseparable-
“Neither good intentions nor efficiency of organization can preserve decency in a system in which personal freedom and individual responsibility are destroyed.”
Unfortunately Hayek didn't graduate into recession caused by high rolling Gamblers. Free trade certainly pissed on my freedom. Individual responsibility meant 6 figure severance packages. Post-recession this emphasis on freedom worries me. It seems a failure of governance caused the recession, so our new masters in No 10 are suggesting now they do even less?
The reality is that power without money always results in optimistic low-cost social agendas. I'm worried that our new found freedoms will result in a new scapegoat for the government- us. Political development throughout the 20th century was a consensus throughout Europe that governments do more, this newfound assumption they now do less seems like a step back, not a step forward.
Getting back to creating a Liberal meritocracy may sound wonderful, but all liberalisers will admit that it is naturally- self serving system. Adam Smith used this as the basis suggesting the selfish ideals will drive will drive all markets including the moral market.
"Every individual... neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it... he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain."
Capitalism may work financially but I don't think it's a moral driver for how we live. It would assume that my interest in the social wellbeing of other is guided by selfish gain rather than that of empathy garnered from being a long sufferer of that terrible illness of being human. One of the problems in investigating economic theory is that those who publish tend to be the winners. Winners tend to be big on knowledge but small on empathy. Perhaps one of the most ironic tragedies of political philosophy is that it's written by people who often don't experience failure at all.
A society that begins and ends solely with self interest manifests itself in many terrible forms, it exploits, is ruled by cronyism and manifested in the very worst parts of the world where day-to-day government play no part in the lives of its citizens. An over managed government ensure social projects become toxic high tax, unsustainable failures.
The terrible thing about living in Britain is that under a two party system, the talk of a progressive politics is exactly that. The reality is we're back into a political swing towards Conservative austerity after years of wasteful socialist largesse. Identical as every political swing since 1945.
I hope one thing we take away from the Blair-Brown era are the moral sentiments that not all people who fail deserve it. Not all people who succeed deserve it either. The Moral bankruptcy of New Liberalism is the assumption that tragic figures could never exist in a Liberal utopia. It forgets even if systems are perfect humans are not.
It seems strange to me that tragedy being the most popular expression of art doesn't find itself into politics more. I accept that politicians or leaders of any kind should lead by by example, but this distorted image that politicians have to perfect all the time means the false picture we get is going to lack the genuine human facets- inconsistencey, the struggle of making hard decisions and the drama that we create when we ask people to put their reputations on the line to justify themselves. David Laws was such a tragic figure caught out not because wanted to make money (he had no need for it) but the fact he wanted to protect his private life from public scrutiny. Yet once smeared he was axed immediately. Politics demands perfection. This idea that politics has to have perfect people undermines it's capacity to accept that talented people sometimes fail.
People who never push themselves hard enough or are just too scared to make decisions they might be wrong on don't belong in politics. Dostoevsky was very aware that human capacity to allow others to redeem themselves is the part of the human condition that forges the strongest individuals and that harmony on the basis of mutual perfection can never be real-
“Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive? I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it.”
I think he's suggesting a love of humanity comes from an understanding that as moral agents we fail all the time, that some wisdom that can only comes from failure.
As we embrace New liberalism I would be careful of this idea that the less the government does the more culpable we are for our own fate. It can get horribly judgemental, in Victorian England someone of lower class would be called an “unfortunate” nowadays under in our more liberal society they would be called a “loser” Just because we've found ourselves in our more meritocratic society lets not forget the message of 3,000 years of tragedy- The pure meritocracy can never exist and on that basis many of those who fail deserve moral understanding.
We would do well to remember our fate is never ours alone, morality needs to compensate for both the randomness and the consistencies of the human condition. That in itself is an impossible task but never underestimate the value of investigating the impossible.
It's why philosophy matters.
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