I don’t usually write about my personal beliefs but I am going to today. Nothing political. Something deeper than that.
We all like to think we ‘listen’ to people – we often assure them, “I’m listening to you” But are we, really?
Of course listening at all is better than not listening. So we feel superior to the shouters and those whose smug certainties make them morally and intellectually deaf to others. But all too often even those of us who do listen, do so in the shallowest way. We listen to find out if the other person agrees with us or not and then we wait. And when they finish we disagree with their view and re-iterate our own. They do the same and each time round, voices raise and tempers fray.
I would call this democratic listening. It is turn taking that makes the effort to be polite. But no one is concerned to get behind what the other person said in order to understand why they fear what they fear, and believe what they believe. For democracy it is enough to know we disagree. Then we set about trying to convince some imagined audience of the undecided. We turn a conversation into a hustings. Everyone listens but no one understands.
How many times at the end of such a debate have you heard people say, “I can’t understand why he thinks that”? And that is my point. Too often we do not try to understand the legitimate fears that brought the person to the opinion they express. Not really. Our concern with the other person’s opinion is only that they change it. But will they, if all we do is argue against them?
Might we do better to try to understand them and the fears that underpin their opinions? Behind every opinion I have ever disagreed with I have nearly always found a fear I could at least acknowledge. I might not agree with that fear or share it myself but often I could sympathize with it. I could at least imagine ‘why’. And that, to me, is the way forward from blunt disagreement to the beginnings of understanding.
Our times are full of fears. We become afraid when our old certainties, like old gods, are deserted by some while still defended by others. Each side feels betrayed by the other. And it is that feeling of betrayal which will, I argue, bring us to ruin if we let it.
Each side feels we could solve the problems which beset us all if we could only see the problem clearly and pull together. But we aren’t pulling together are we? And each side bitterly blames the other.
Both sides feel the other is putting us all in terrible danger. In times like ours we do not always feel we have the luxury of agreeing to disagree. The shadows of our different fears lead us to see those who disagree as a greater danger than the original crisis. Each side becomes certain that there is only one path to safety and salvation and those who follow the false god are liable to bring destruction upon us all. Therefore ‘they’, are the enemy who must be silenced.
The sense of having been betrayed is strong and violent.
In such times as ours we have to do better than just disagreeing. If we do not make the effort to really listen to each other and admit the validity of our different fears, then we will fall upon each other just as we have done so often before.
I srongly agree with your thoughts and feelings on this. Worth taking a look at Zeldin’s ideas on deep conversations at: http://www.oxfordmuse.com/.
One big educational problem is the lack of philosophy taught in schools, where perhaps deeper issues around assumptions and values might be raised and understood. Debates are terrible competitive things that do not seek truth and understanding but one upmanship and competiton. University philosophy is also frequently poor and often too macho and competitive. We need plurality, openness and depth, long term and big picture thinking, not helped by lack of cross discipline teaching and thinking, but getting better in places. But yes, more conversation and real understanding and listening. I am all ears!
Over valuation of objectivity also an issue, as if we can discuss truth and knowledge without a context of values. See Robert Pirsig and Nicholas Maxwell (philosopher of science) on this problem:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/From-Knowledge-Wisdom-Revolution-Humanities/dp/0955224004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362073434&sr=8-1
Foucault too was onto this idea of ‘truth as social construct’ by the 1970s with discourse theory which provides a context for the language and representations we use to communicate. For instance, we are addressing each other in the discourse of ‘the internet blog’ where certain rules and conventions come into play within dialogical exchanges as opposed to say, the discourse of ‘the conference’ or ‘team meeting’ where different formal codes are used. This contextualisation compromises attempts at objectivity – infact, it’s impossible to avoid.
Likewise the moment when a journalist/film-maker decides to focus on an issue, write or film an event is a conscious subjective decision based upon a value judgement and is thus influenced by a particular bias which in itself is an ideological construction – infact Volosinov’s studies of linguistics suggested this idea in the 1930s.
Additional words/phrases ==> … hearing … comprehending … empathic … intellectually honest … clear …
Unger may be of interest too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Unger#External_links
arguments are things that can be deemed to have been won or lost!! I doubt that any argument has ever been won or lost. So i wonder why we bother.. maybe its because we have failed to grasp the meaning of discussion. Or because we hold our ‘opinions’ and identify ourselves with them. Principles and discussions about them are all but non existent
these days. Overall it seems to me that trust in any objective view is diminished as each of us strives more and more to find our own place in it all. Subjectivity rules the day and maybe its evolutionary or more real for us. Whatever i do hope that this time we can find the way to not kill each other so much as we have done to date..
Excellent, wonderful piece. This, I believe, is the crux of many of our problems – simple listening and empathy; an attempt to understand one another and what exactly informs our beliefs. The sequestration in the US today is a prime example of how motivated reason/confirmation bias/dogma/ignorance/self-interest (etc. etc.) are utterly corrosive and destructive traits for society, brought on only by ego, greed, power lust, and selfishness. If we had the will, the passion, to care for each other’s opinions and beliefs maybe we could get somewhere in debate. Lack of critical thought/philosophical education in schools/unis is very important in this sense – debate is always described in terms of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’; ‘steamrolling’ and ‘destroying’, but why is it not used for its prime purpose – to learn? Isn’t that what Socrates and co. used discussion and debate for? I’m glad other people have noticed this problem too – very heartening.
Well said Liam, yes Socratic questioning aiming for deep understanding and drawing out assumptions is very useful. We need to put understanding so far above mere point scoring and an impatience to reach conclusions too soon and with too shallow a grasp of
the problems and the differences in values that underlie the problems, sure we have different interests but through understanding we might be able to cooperate and work together better to reach both common and individuall ends.
It isn’t just conversations, you can see the same in comments forums. It is not just competition but confrontational. A lot of arguments include propaganda, stereotypes and quite a bit of sarcasm. But every now and then someone lets their guard down and speaks from the heart, and it is then that you might see some common ground and the opportunity for some better understanding. Of course with all the people on such threads it is rarely possible to follow up these opportunities.
There is something pathological in all this the anger, fear and inability to communicate it seems. A lack of experience of good family, civil society and cooperation at work, Almost like a repressed a backlash against the command and hierarchy structures of our society and work relations, the infantilism of our politics and media. All showing a lack of development as autonomous adults able to work together, instead we explode and stamp our feet and shout insults.There are many good people who are adults but they don’t seem to appear in the media or on line too much, except places like here of course.But don’t think I am blaming 60s progressivism for this, we don’t need repression back, the over commercialisation of society and the dominance of markets.
Wonderful piece David Malone… with the caveat that you are talking about those people who understand that a+b=c. Unfortunately, there are people who are not like that. They are so divorced from ‘themselves’ that their internal narrative is like shifting sands.
I totally agree that it is possible to comprehend their fears but only by moving into the bubble of their reality which comprises no or little empathy with the other. A reality of self-entitlement and specialness that surpasses all others’ needs. It is a frame of reference quite unlike yours and is usually non-negotiable because they experience any disagreement as a ‘mortal attack’… and in a way it is.. because to accept your position would feel as if their psychological defenses had completely crumbled away.
I’m talking about those who could be called narcissistic .. and it has been the subject of a lot speculation as to why those sort of people dominate the upper echelons of the power elite… but their lack of empathy with the victims of their actions is clear enough.
syzygy — I hear you clearly …
Regarding …why those sort of people dominate the upper echelons of the power elite… …well … I ask why truly empathic people tend to support/succumb to the predatorial, pathological, dictatorial, amoral, narcissistic type person(s) you describe.
Furthermore, what can be done/undone to devalue/deflate the apparent domination of these individuals/cliques?
I struggle daily to arrive at the answer(s) …
Just wondering what triggered Golem to write this on this topic – might he have just viewed The Master ?
Phil T. – You ‘ask why truly empathic people tend to support/succumb to the predatorial, pathological, dictatorial, amoral, narcissistic type person(s)’
Who but a highly ’empathetic’ person would be able to meet the needs of a narcissist?
Narcissistic people drop anyone who ‘challenge’/or fail to meet their needs … However, those ultra-empathetic people are also much more aware of the ‘other’s’ feelings than they are their own. One could frame the relationship as ‘mother-baby’ and narcissism as infantile.
However, the ruthlessness of that unreasonable self-belief can be useful to society as a whole eg Picasso, Churchill, … but as Masters of the Universe, or in their personal relationships, they are parasitic.
‘ what can be done/undone to devalue/deflate the apparent domination of these individuals/cliques?’
Education and exposing the contradictions .. The world of the elites is maintained by secrecy and opacity.. The joy of this site is the manner in which David Malone (and his comment’s thread) manage to explain the intricacies and tricks of the banks and power brokers. We need to confront the collusive stranglehold of the MSM which is why the hidden threats to internet freedom contained in the TPP and EU-US FTAs must be strongly opposed.
syzygy … I start by a humble attempt at responding to ==> Who but a highly ‘empathetic’ person would be able to meet the needs of a narcissist?
Those of us who respond to narcissism (individual or group) appear to me to be the ones who are in the most likely position to be manipulated & exploited by narcissistic behavior. These targets may or may not be persons who engender empathy.
Your introduction of ultra-empathetic (behavior) is new for me and I wish to understand it better … as perhaps there is something to the notion that ultra-empathetic behavior feeds narcissistic manipulation. I am vaguely aware of cognitive empathy and am not sure if that is relevant here.
My personal experience(s) with listening and communicating 1:1, 1:Many, Many:Many are very parallel to that which Patricia has so well articulated in her comment below (https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/02/the-art-of-listening/#comment-25831 ). To that point, I believe that functional persons engendering empathy are not fanatic or ultra and are therefore able to draw the line as to when to throttle down their empathy and let their other cognitive assets guide them – which brings me to my original question (upthread) to which you thoughtfully responded.
I hope we push further on this topic of Listening so that we can get beyond the toxic stalemate, the likes of which steviefinn describes below (https://www.golemxiv.co.uk/2013/02/the-art-of-listening/#comment-25832 ) between Niall Ferguson and Ralph Nader, 2-very intelligent, educated and accomplished individuals that have many followers.
I may be mistaken but I have the sense that you have particular people in mind and I’m not sure that I can answer if too specific a base.
All of us lie on a spectrum between florid narcissism and a frankly disordered place where the individual could be said to be ultra-empathetic ie. very attuned to the other’s needs and wishes but dissociated from their own wants and needs. Ideally, a healthy position is to be in touch with both one’s own inner experience and aware of the ‘other’s’ feelings.
What I was trying to get at, is that narcissistic people cannot tolerate people who do not meet their needs and wants intuitively and selflessly. For them, the most anyone can do for them is the very least that they expect.
You are correct in identifying that there is a sort of a collusion or symbiosis in which both a narcissistic person and a dissociated over-nuturer play out together.
Very, very interesting, the qualification about wanting to have one’s emotional needs met without having to express them directly, or… FOR FREE ? (Is perhaps the idea of having one’s needs met “selflessly” a form of wanting to have one’s needs met without… paying a price, in some form or another ?)
I have spent much of my adult life under the star of our Christian concept of “grace” which has a lot to do with selflessness and “for free” (what relation, for example, to the idea that a selfless person could also be a person who is impulsive, not calculating, but also… not CONSCIOUS of self (self conscious)? I think you will find that these issues are very intertwined. )
Our Western world has historically created an opposition between grace and interest, interest being a complex of meanings that include money matters, but not exclusively. We do say that we are.. “interested” in something without consciously meaning that money is involved, particularly in English.
The religious concept of sacrifice has a lot to do with selflessness. One is supposed to be selfless in order to be capable of sacrifice…
In my reflexion, our world is divided over conflicting perceptions of interest, self interest, or other forms, and sacrifice, which we no longer call sacrifice, and do not thus recognize as such.
We intuitively attach great importance, due to the long lasting influence of our religious heritage, to “selfless”, and sacrificial behavior, while railing “interested” behavior as being.. narcissistic, for example.
But.. could we possibly manage to understand that it is indeed possible for both parties in a relationship to… “win”, without sacrifice being exacted ? (The both/and paradigm, in contrast to the either/or one…)
As a mother… I can realize that my behavior towards my children was very interested and… narcissistic, in that my individual and personal needs were met AT THE SAME TIME that I was meeting my children’s needs (in different places, and on different planes… there is a great deal of symbiosis involved in the mother/child relationship, particularly during the early stages.)
I suspect that our current negative value judgments on narcissistic behavior are new translations of our religious heritage, which we continually shove under the rug…
On having one’s needs met intuitively… I believe that it is healthy ? normal ? for a man or a woman to want to bypass the extremely volontaristic societal demands to sit down, look somebody squarely in the eye, and use simple direct sentences in the form “subject verb object” (with no adjectives, of course) in order to express exactly in verbal language what one expects and wants. Where is the.. um.. poetry in sounding like a computer printout ? The irrational aspect of our animal nature ? Why are we supposed to know at all times what we want, who we are, with no contradictions in sight ? This is rationalism pushed to its.. logical ? irrational conclusion..
Is there perhaps a methodological flaw in your analysis above, which I hasten to add, is not just your analysis, but reflects common perceptions of the question ? What if… people were different, at different times of their lives, in different circumstances, and with different people ? What if… somebody who is “narcissistic” with one person could be selfless with somebody else ? (After all, consider this sobering thought.. even those horrible Nazi types who were involved in abstract murder of the Jewish masses kissed their children good night before going to bed ?)
Observations like these offend our simplistic desire to be able to label people, once and for all, stick them into little linguistic boxes, and shove them out of sight and mind, thus free to go on to the next labeling task.
I speak as a person who was trained to be a shrink, but who has now given up on the jargon (and the labeling…) for ideological and personal reasons…
One last comment here : our ideological positions are very normative, which means… finger pointing, and this, despite many people’s convictions that an “objective science” is at work. In the 1970’s, when I was at university, I was not subjected to constant, disguised moralizing in all spheres of intellectual inquiry. Less than five years ago, on a return trip to my alma mater in the States, I was greatly surprised to find finger pointing alive and well in French literature classes…
That’s.. “progress” for you, right ?… No comment.
I, for one, see little evidence of empathy in finger pointing…
Syzygy
Totally off topic but I would like to get in touch with you but don’t know how
Richard IN ‘I would like to get in touch with you but don’t know how’
That would be good. Do you still have Tom Pride’s email? He could let you have mine or through the website http://think-left.org/. I’m also on twitter @SyzygySyzygysue so you could DM.
In an economic system that reduces humans to units of production for profit, where people’s real needs are ignored, primal instincts of fear, rage, anger etc will result in an endless cycle of brutalization and de-humanization, making all its attendant evils of confrontation, violence, war etc inevitable.
A new economic model is required that respects humanity. Capitalism reformed is not solution. More radical and revolutionary thinking needs to be applied.
Thank you for this post, David. I’m an ordinary American who has been wondering why staggeringly wealthy current and former hedge fund managers, Wall Street and High Street bankers, those who have inherited great wealth, corporate CEOs, and others in the 0.1 percent care a whit about imposing austerity, “balancing sovereign governments’ budgets”, and dismantling social insurance programs that are presently adequately funded. Surely these individuals are far beyond the point of fearing for their personal economic welfare or that of their families in raw economic terms and can also see the stark evidence of the failure of those policies in Southern Europe.
Given their deep understanding of both the nation’s and global monetary and financial system, I simply can’t fathom why they have adopted their Austerity policy stance, why they are intentionally misrepresenting fiscal effects, why they are sowing civil and political discord, and why they have coopted the corporate media in an intensive effort to persuade the public of the economic necessity to adopt policies that reflect their views.
However, your article has caused me to consider revisiting and trying to understand the reasons that underlie their policy view rather than to dismiss them out of hand. They may all be “greedy psychopaths who desire a corporate neo-feudal state and absolute political power”, believe “the best defense for their past behavior is a good offense”, “hate the plebes”, feel this is the best route to perpetuating the status quo and consolidating their power, or simply view this as another game to win… or they may not. Either way it pays to not only Listen, but to closely watch their actions and those of their tools in government, and to insist on restoration of the rule of law if we are to resolve matters civilly.
I do like this article BUT it is very hard to listen when someone denies the existence of what you are saying. For example I have just been out with a friend. We went to a film called Amour, which, while very good, is not for anybody 65 or over. We have lived it. Anyway how do you listen to someone who denies the existence of what you are talking about. Listening in those circumstances is impossible. My belief is that the people you can listen to are those who have a similar belief system to you. Different but similar. Then you can listen and develop. But the others – a big fat no. The question them becomes can the world only be divided into those you can talk to and those you can’t. If that is the case the world becomes a very isolated compartmentalised lonely place.
I spend a lot of time listening, as I am fortunate to be able to play online videos while I work. Recently I played Niall Ferguson’s ‘ Ascent of Money ‘. I was not previously aware of his existence to this point. It was fascinating, full of facts such as that the stock market was invented by a Scottish murderer & compulsive gambler named John Law, an action that led to the French revolution. As the series progressed closer to the present, the subjectivity, as Penny noted, of it’s creator increasingly became apparent. In particular when the author visited Chile & met with a leading light from the ‘Chicago boys ‘ in which they put forward, with a few figures, that this country was much more successful than it’s South American counterparts who had unfortunately for them, not been lucky enough to benefit from the experiment.
At this point I was squirming in my seat, this seemingly positive nice guy had to my mind spoken heresy. I then thought that maybe my opinion on the subject could be wrong, I do not know much about Chile, so perhaps I should check it out. I decided to check out NF first, so I had a listen to some of the many videos available that express his views. Here was someone different to the crafted persona I saw previous, a someone with very right wing views, a devoted Friedmanite who did not hesitate to steamroller his opponents in debate, using what I would call the tricks politicians often use.
I then found a video, 2hr 16 minute long which featured a debate called ‘ Class conflict, Inequality & the 1%. This featured the aforementioned Harvard professor. Lewis Lapham from Lapham’s quarterly, Charles Murray & finally Ralph Nader, consumer advocate & author.
I think it is a good example of what David has written above, all of the panel were in fear of something. What I found heartening was that 3 of the panellist’s found common ground in relation to their worries that the things that made the US a special place are being lost. A breakdown of community values & the sorry state of secondary education were 2 things that they concentrated on. Nader whose position was I think similar to that of Chris Hedges was in agreement with libertarian Murray on many important points. I was touched by Lapham, an old man who very slowly stated his fears regarding Americans & America & what in his eyes it should stand for.
NF & Nader were however poles apart – Nader attacked abuse perpetrated by corporations, to which NF countered that Nader wanted to take us back to the horse & cart & asked him & all present if they possessed a laptop, a car etc as if this justified all the corporations actions. His contribution it seemed to me was designed to bring the debate down to the level often seen when a group of slick politicians, using methods that bring the level down to aggressive one upmanship, which include stock phrases & soundbite facts, whilst playing to the crowd, all of which seek to destroy any possible agreement, solve nothing & do not questions anyone’s set beliefs.
I find it hard to empathise with people like NF whose fears are only grounded on the basis that they themselves might lose out & their only solutions are based on privatisation of schools etc, the absolute freedom of their God the market & the so called benefits to mankind of globalisation. As I would find it hard to empathise with paedophiles who would like sex with children to be legalised, or those who are Holocaust deniers. Empathy to my mind is something these people do not possess, unlike the other 3 panellists who because they do can agree on fundamentals.
Nader made a point that will stick with me, pointing out that politicians waffle on incessantly about liberty & freedom, but they very rarely talk about justice. I wonder does the fact that I consider some to be beyond the pale, beyond reason & having the mindset of a brick wall, makes me the same as they are ? & I am not giving them the justice I feel is due to others ?. Perhaps the truth in regard to Chile is the key. I sincerely hope that the ‘Chicago Boys’ insistence is false, hopefully only justified by statistics that they have manipulated to hide the truth.
I think that certain people use debate to smother the truth & unfortunately because of this we might end up with a debate carried out in a Jerry Springer show style on a Worldwide scale with guns.
Here’s the vid. It gets pretty heated at the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PEdY2OZXVd4
in reference to Niall Ferguson’s assertion & the economic miracle trumpeted by the ‘chicago Boys’ in regards to the neo-liberal ‘ Shock doctrine ‘ enforced on the people of Chile, a few hours searching on the web, confirmed my opinion that it was bollocks.
Chile is now doing relatively well compared to other South American states, which unfortunately isn’t saying much. However It’s income disparity between rich & poor is 17th worst on the planet:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_inc_equ_un_ric_10_to_poo_10-equality-un-richest-10-poorest
It also seems that the real economic improvements started after Pinochet left the stage & have involved a gradual unravelling of Freidmanite policies. This process is still evolving with the last few years seeing huge demos from students to improve the education system. i found this article that sums up a lot of the info I found, that concentrates on the privatisation side of things :
http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1991/05/collins.html
It seems as though the ‘Shock Doctrine ‘ only works fully when all dissent & democracy have been crushed, perhaps it shows that the current fashion for austerity favoured by the elites is doomed to failure unless it can ruthlessly enforced.
The thousands killed, tortured & disappeared are a very high price to pay for a faux miracle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_government_of_Chile_(1973%E2%80%931990)
In response to your comment and the original piece…
As recently as five years ago I might have written the original piece, so perfectly it expresses my feelings at the time.
But… I remember about ten years ago giving a presentation against the death penalty for an already converted audience with one exception : a Texas woman who really believed that the penalty was expiation for wrong doing.
In spite of my patience, refusal to call names, but also in spite of my rational, and well reasoned arguments, we just did not manage to see eye to eye. It was as if… we were not living in the same world, even.
I think that it is reductionist to suppose that fear is the dominating reason why people are living in different realities. (Yes, well, why not stick an “s” on reality, and take it out of capital, neon flashing letters, because after all, if we think hard about it, there are multiple realities in the world… thank God)
When I arrived in France, there was the occasional heated debate where people ended up calling each other nasty names. And poor little Polyanna American me, I was just so… shocked, and disapproving.
Just recently I realized to what extent I have been conditioned by Disneyland, and “it’s a small small world”. Do you know that attraction ? It is the summum of what the collusion between slick Hollywood, and a slicker American dream has produced (in the 1950’s ? 60’s ?) in order to persuade us that “we are all one”, and that our multiple realities are one, small.. REALITY, where we all need to love one another, and cooperate, and be empathetic… twenty four hours a day in order to be saved in the new republican fashion.
In it, you can see miniature, hand waving, ubiquitously smiling automats singing “it’s a small small world”, while disguised as Japanese, Mongols, South Americans…
Is this… the empathy we are crusading for, maybe ?….
Is it any wonder that such.. reductionist (albeit slick) pap has elicited some reactions in the opposite direction ?
I like to say that only individual men and women are capable of reason.
That, my friend is why… a government BY the people (attention, not FOR the people…) is a nightmare…
Last week I saw “Caeser must die”, an Italian film by the Taviani brothers, which is a sophisticated fiction based on Shakespeare’s terribly relevant play, “Julius Caeser”. The film follows the production of the play in a maximum security prison, and all the roles are held by convicts serving long sentences.
It skillfully interweaves the convicts’ individual personalities and interventions with the play itself.
Needless to say… “Julius Caeser” is not Disneyland, and it is not “it’s a small small world” either…
In fact, there is not a woman in the play. Very, very interesting.
The last spoken line comes from a convict who, back in his cell after the performance says “Before I came into contact with art, I never felt the full measure and horror of my imprisonment.”…
Kind of makes us squirm, right ?
No, the world still resists our steam roller desire to squash it and compact it into ONE reality, world without end, amen.
Debra
Maybe it’s a question of balance, I do not think for one moment that this sorry world, which I think reflects the human race, will ever achieve a state of full government by the people or some other imagined utopia. I look on it as a perpetual fight between dark & light, mixed with thousands of shades of grey.
Unfortunately perhaps, all we can hope for is a state of compromise in which we can all breathe a little, with no force having too much dominance over any other. The problem for me is that power has now become so unevenly balanced in favour of those who are responsible for your Disneyland cutie pie reality. A reality designed to dumb down & to promote allegiance to a fake dream using distraction & instilled false hopes.
I look on the world in terms of a painting, in which chiaroscuro has a large part to play. For me a picture that best reflects my hopes for this World, is one which achieves a balance between dark & light, with a multitude of greys in between. I love the work of Carravagio, but I would not like to live in one, as I would not want to live in the prison you mention. His paintings I think reflect in their darkness, the world he lived in & his own inner torment.
My own imagined painting of the world is becoming ever darker, gradually the light & the greys are being swallowed up. All I want to do is to be able to put back some of the light & colour back, because I need it, as I imagine do many others. This picture to my mind would never become too dominated by light, as I think it would be very bland,& a lie, like your Disneyland. Instead I would hope to create something that reflects what humanity is capable of, a canvass where no shade has precedence over any other & through a cascade of colours represents a place that appeals to the viewers own particular sensibility.
We need dark to see the light, but I do not want to be left in a large room with only a small candle. Empathy I think should be the colour of blood.
Ha, you are a poet, Stevie Finn, and that pleases me mightily…
You are making a disguised plea for reason though… 😉
I like Caravaggio much better than Murillo, and other Spanish paintings of the Age d’Or ? (just guessing…) where black is so dominant.
But Seurat is not really my tasse de thé, as we say. Not my cup of tea.
Think about what the Bard says in “The Merchant of Venice” :
“That light we see is burning in my hall ;
How far that little candle throws his beams !
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
So doth the greater glory dim the less.
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brrok
Into the main of waters. Music, Hark !
It is your music, madam, of the house.
Nothing is good, I see, without respect :
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended ; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cacklng, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection !
Peace ! How the moon sleeps with Endymion, and would not be awaked…”
Act V, 90-109
For you, Stevie Finn, the poet…who doesn’t like small candles…
(We could all be small candles, but… if we all want to be big suns, well… you get the picture.)
Now that is real poetry, thank you, I was not aware of it’s existence.
I suppose that I am not going to be left alone in a large room, as there are millions out there with similar stubby candles, lights of hope maybe.
Phil T asked why I wrote this peice.
The trigger was blacklisting one of the readers of this blog, Joe R. I felt I had to ban him because he seemed to have become stuck in a destructive rut of being abusive, but I hated doing it. I had never before had to ban anyone and had hoped I never would. I feel that banning him is a failure on my part as well as his.
Thank you for the work you have done here and your many posts, David. Perhaps you will reconsider your initial reaction of disappointment in light of a New York Times article a couple of days ago titled “This Story Stinks” (unfortunately behind an access wall) and related posts (See: http://gawker.com/5988167 as an example).
I want to posit another possibility. I don’t know if the individual who you mentioned was trolling, but I think that possibility should be considered. Sadly, “trolls” have been with us for a number of years now and have refined what they consider to be an art form into a very disruptive set of tools designed to disrupt, obfuscate, divert, diminish and misrepresent. If this was the case in this instance, consider yourself honored to be targeted, David. It shows that the individual involved (or their handlers) consider what you have to say to be of material importance, that they view you as an effective communicator and person of influence, and that your views run counter to those that they or the organization for whom they work want to be communicated.
Again, I don’t know whether the individual to whom you referred was trolling or if he genuinely disagreed with the views presented here. We can all learn from well reasoned arguments in civil discourse, but that doesn’t sound like what was happening in this instance.
Again, I appreciate very much what you are willing to share here.
GB – “This Story Stinks” from the N.Y. Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html?_r=0
Or you can get the other types of people who don’t use blatant words like “idiot” or “retard,” but who call your post “naive, backward, uninformed”, and then state their “frustration” with those who just don’t seem to “understand,” leaving everyone with the impression that they MUST know what they’re talking about and what they say is beyond reproach.
Then we have evidence in the U.S. (from a whistle blower) of people who are actually being hired by corporations and vested interests to sit in rooms full of computers (in San Francisco) and refute, dismiss, or discount those opposed to the vested interests’ agendas. They are given lists of catch phrases and the appropriate jargon in order to carry this out, and they jump from blog to blog.
After listening well, we must be very careful to “think” well, because I think you can listen all you like, but you will only take in what your belief system allows you to.
The art of thinking (and knowing history is key) is what is sorely lacking. If you don’t know history, you can’t see the agendas put forth for what they are, history just repeating itself.
Think.
I recall reading this by a Tibetan monk:
“The more you listen, the more you hear. The more you hear, the more you understand.”
Hi
I thought everyone would be talking about grillo, I’ve been watching some you tube videos of him. One thing I found is that already in 98 he was talking about the evils of thin air money and the bankers perpetrators
I have been listening to him through his blog, his success was predicted but those who are now panicking obviously didn’t take the comedian seriously. Something new anyway which we need as TPTB seem to have covered all the old other angles. I always thought that Italy could be a game changer but I thought that it might come from the poverty stricken, the level of which within the PIIGS is only worse in Greece.
Pity he is not more like Peter Cook, but it’s all very interesting, the knock on effects are already apparent & the movement might even have babies in other places.
This is a norwegian 0.1 percenter talking about the evils of speculators and how income inequality has gone way way to far
http://www.manifesttidsskrift.no/finansterrorisme/
Since we are considering listening, listen to this and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face you’re utterly beyond redemption – http://bit.ly/13B27h4
The ‘talk’ of the 1% get 99% of the coverage. the cries of the 99% get 1% of the coverage -and even that is biased towards the pragmatism claimed as sense by the 1%.
In the last month Greece has been ‘visited’ by a number of European and Global conglomerates. They have offered to invest in Greece provided the government passes into law a statute that restricts the minimum wage to 300 Euros per month – at present the minimum wage in Romania is around 130 Euros perm month and Bulgaria around 150 Euros.
Whichever we you look at it irresponsible capitalism is creating the trend towards downgrading the people market. The same trend is being applied in the UK, Ireland and most of the Western world.
Ultimately it will fail and I suspect the oligarchs know that and fear the result and chaos it will bring. But just as hope can nurture the despair of existence into life for the 99%, the 1% hope their ambitions will bare fruit and their dog eat dog mentality will somehow prevent them from eating the last bitch.
For the moment they have played a blinder,and they are winning. Having created a crises they have forced the common herd to pay for it while they take the gains; adding insult to injury by making the same herd pay for the privilege through usury Allied to the blackmail of wage penury.
This trend is not peripheral, it’s global – the beggared neighbour policy of the 21st Century debt and despair spiral.
What’s next on the eco front – perhaps 3 billion is the viable quantity of humanity to keep the game and their markets flourishing in the super league?
So listen and learn but don’t forget to do – because if you don’t other will continue to do unto you what you do not want to be done – and that’s a fact.
I just wanted to post this here to help spread the word, that things are being done, lots of things actually in Europe, that we in the equal countries that are so much more equal than the others, just don’t get to here of.
There have been massive, I mean massive protests in Portugal & Spain the last few days – one million people on the streets of Portugal for example, and not one word in any major paper, although from what I can see you can find out about it on BBC World – but you’ll have to search pretty hard on UK BBC? And of course the EU Pravda style newspapers that we have here in Ireland are being very careful not to let the excitable Latins lead us dutiful Paddys astray.
(Although of course they have more than enough time to cover everytime a Celelbrity/Royal/Obama so much as farts or to sensationalise the latest selected murder trial)
So for me while I have loved this blog for analysis and must thank Golem and all the posters for all the education and information to counteract the darkness I need this blog:
https://spanishrevolution11.wordpress.com/
I love just seeing the numbers at the protests and feeling that there is a sliver of hope, more than a sliver in fact. I think it was Glenn Greenwald I heard stressing the importance of doing something positive no matter how small to balance out all the listening and reading about the seriously fucked up shit going on. Personally I think the indignados have had the right idea all along – pick a public place and start the conversation the media doesn’t want you to have, but I think it needs to be tweaked for each country – so I think in Ireland (poss. England) you have a better chance of reaching people by scaling back the hippydippy festival vibe, that alot of people came to associate with the American Occupy, and making it about education and investigation first, rather than expecting everyone to rush straight to the barricades. But hell if this thing in the South can get up the momentum to sweep us along with it I won’t complain
As regards, the blackmailing of the Greeks the only new thing is that its being done in Europe now. A whole range of supposedly left leaning Americans (y’know the kind that support womens and gay rights, so they must be ok?- your Clintons and Kristoffs for example) have been pushing the idea on the majority world that its sweatshops or poverty and there’s no other choice. – just take a look at the one thing actually ‘achived’ by Clinton with all that Haiti relief money -why look its a Free trade area! I can’t talk about that too much I’ll only damage my keyboard.
These lovely lefties justify their stance on the basis that sweatshops and child labour are what the English and Americans built their wealth on so why shouldn’t the developing world do the same? Of course you could use the same logic to justify slavery and the colonisation of America by China, but that would be inconvenient.
I don’t find the rationale for this a mystery though, nor do I think its due to some kind of post-racial elite the traditional WASPY kings of the world are alarmed by the Asian powerhouses and the only form of patriotic allegiance they understand is sports teams and flags, after that its school chums and golfing buddies. They may want to see ‘American’ or ‘English’ or ‘German’ companies maintain there dominance in the world’s stock markets, and if that means sacrificing the well being of the majority of most of their compatriots, it won’t make them turn a hair. They may be concerned that Davos remains a predominantly white club, but if that means treating mainly white workforces with as much contempt as they do mainly brown workforces, they won’t be bothered. And for many of these kings of the universe if throwing a bone to the gays/the womens helps them twist things to suit their aims, they’ll swallow their pride and do that too.
One last recommend is Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies series, its a brilliant series so far and it gives many an insight along the way into the ideology of the corporatist 1% of the 19th century – and thereby I would say a very good insight into what todays corporate kings might envision for our own futures.
(Just to be clear I am very much pro gay & women’s rights but I think they are being used more and more in a disgustingly machiavellian way now by some very unpleasant characters as a political football. And come 2016 and Hillary Clinton I may have to reoccupy the Blasket Island hermit huts for the sake of my own sanity, and in order to preserve at least a mm or so of my teeth)
Cora
Thanks for the link & the ‘Sea of Poppies’ tip. I am hoping that one good thing came out of the death of the Celtic pig, sorry, tiger, that the greedy prick of solicitor from Dingle, failed to in his plans to ruin, sorry, develop that magical island of ‘ Great Blasket ‘.
steviefinn – very interesting video you posted re Ralph Nader and Niall Ferguson. Thanks for posting it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PEdY2OZXVd4
I haven’t listened to it all, but at 0:54:00 one gentleman suggests democracy in the U.S. is not working too well, to which Niall Ferguson says it is working quite well, and then Ralph Nader at 0:57:00 comments on the fact that the citizens of the U.S. do own the commons, but they don’t “control” the commons. Nader says it is the inequality of “power” that’s at the heart of the problem. I was not impressed with Niall Ferguson, especially when he put Nader down and said “nobody voted for him”.
I read the Wikipedia page on Niall Ferguson (which I know is not the best source; I’ll look into it more), but here are some of the highlights:
Professor of History at Harvard; in 2004, he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine; Ferguson was an advisor to the John McCain U.S. presidential campaign in 2008, and announced his support for Mitt Romney in 2012 and has been a vocal critic of Barack Obama; wrote “The House of Rothschild” – the books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson
Now, why was he one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004? Why? The jury is still out, but so far I am not impressed with him. He appears a corporate apologist and very much tows the official line.
Speaking of getting into Harvard (or the other ivy league schools), this is a long, but fascinating and exhaustive article of just who DOES get into these schools.
Is it grades, family connections, money that gets you in? Yes, but it’s also so much more: you have to have the right IDEOLOGY to get in. They want people like Niall Ferguson, people who do not want to change the system, but protect it.
These are the people who end up on Wall Street, and in so many positions of power. Do you think they, after their upbringing and their schooling, are going to want to see a big change? Not on your life.
“The Myth of American Meritocracy” re the Ivy League schools:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-meritocracy/
Well worth the read!
Backwardsevolution.
Thanks for the links – Judging on the amount of vids on youtube, Fergie certainly gets around, preaching his Freidmanite fundamentalism. I wonder if he is paid to teach or more rewarded for being a tool for the elite’s propaganda.
steviefinn – he certainly does get around! Know of others, at least as knowledgeable as he is, who can’t buy a minute on T.V. or are never asked to partake in panel discussions. They must be saying the wrong things.
These guys reward those who spread their ideology out as thick and as wide as possible (like Krugman with his pseudo-Nobel).
I think your use of the word “tool” is bang on!
An don’t go takin up, that last bit was only abit o a dig, it weren’t meant all serious like, but it can get a bit hoity toity round here.
I once watched a panel on internet privacy with the very British BBC establisment types and then Jacob Appelbaum and Brigita Jonsdotcan;tspellername. Think it on youtube, but the attitude of all the Brits towards those two – who I personally think our heroes of our time – kinds reminded me of the tone round here sometimes. I think the only way to express it is a sort of sigh followed by a silent ‘pppffft’. And its the silence of that pppfft, the unspoken derision, the flipping condesencion that makes it really cutting.
Another view on the trend of irresponsible capitalism cashing in on the crises.
I’ve lifted it from today’s Glasgow Herald – a wee regional paper as it likes to call itself, where a couple of my favourite columnists lurk.
Chancellor has nailed his colours to a crooked mast
Ian Bell
Columnist
Wednesday 6 March 2013
ACCORDING to the Office for National Statistics, corporate Britain held £627 billion in cash reserves at the end of the third quarter of 2012.
To you and me, that’s called money in the bank. Despite all the pleading by politicians, big firms are declining to invest in an economy in desperate need of growth.
It is not a uniquely British phenomenon, or a recent development. One recent estimate says that, between them, non-financial companies in the developed world have cash in hand to the tune of $8 trillion. Thanks to falling real wages, cuts to workers’ benefits and systematic tax avoidance, they have been building up this hoard for years.
So here’s Rolls Royce, proud British builder of the finest aircraft engines. We told the story yesterday: £1.4 billion in pre-tax profits and not a penny paid to the Exchequer. In fact, the company was given a £3m credit. While Tory MPs demand a cut in corporation tax in this month’s Budget – to “encourage enterprise” – Rolls Royce solves its own problems.
The company maintains that it sells most of its products abroad and reduces its tax liability thanks to investment in research. It states, too, that it paid £218m in taxes abroad in 2012. In other words, by a rough calculation, it surrendered around 15% of that £1.4 billion to foreign jurisdictions. In his last Autumn Statement, George Osborne cut Britain’s corporation tax, for those who pay, to 21%. As Americans say, do the math.
Here, then, is HSBC, an international bank that maintains headquarters and a corporate domicile in Britain. At £13.7 billion, its profits for 2012 were down by 6%. Last year, it was fined £1.2 billion for laundering money on behalf of murderous drugs cartels in Mexico and America. As banking outrages go, that one occupies a special category.
HSBC has nevertheless handed £1m bonuses to more than 200 staff, 78 of them in Britain, with a £7.4 million package for its chief executive, Stuart Gulliver. Part of that was a £1.95m bonus in the year the bank was named and shamed. Mr Gulliver was not in charge during the money laundering, it should be said. Still, this is a strange display of corporate contrition.
Certain of HSBC’s competitors have meanwhile been exposed and punished, after a fashion, for their parts in the Libor scandal. Some of them, publicly owned, have had their fines paid, in effect, by the taxpayer while continuing to distribute bonuses when the international demand for investment bankers is as low as it has been in a generation.
Elsewhere, new PPI claims are running at an astonishing 2000 cases a day simply because the banks, having lost in court, refuse to settle with customers they conned and mean instead to swamp the Financial Ombudsman Service. You could call it the PPI-Plus scandal. The fact remains that “mis-selling” – the implication of inadvertence is hilarious – has cost the banks £15 billion and counting.
Never fear. There’s always quantitative easing, by which the state secures dodgy assets. It is otherwise known as free money. Should Sir Mervyn King, the Governor, have his way £400 billion will have been created by this means before the year is much older. If that’s not enough – and how much is ever enough? – there is Mr Osborne’s next best wheeze, the Funding for Lending Scheme.
Briefly, the banks were to be granted money at extremely low rates to help them lend to small firms and individuals. Some £14 billion duly left the Bank of England as the public’s gift to private enterprise. In the last quarter of last year, nevertheless, the banks managed to reduce their lending, collectively, by £2.4 billion while rebuilding balance sheets. Now that’s welfare dependency.
A long preamble. It leads us, nevertheless, to yesterday’s spectacle of Mr Osborne fighting for Britain in Brussels. Or rather, fighting to avert the possibility that a handful of banking Britons might have to toil under the European lash with bonuses pegged to 100% – rising to 200%, if shareholders agree – of salary. Even the Swiss have just voted in a referendum for an equivalent proposal. Even those who suspect, rightly, that banks will simply bump base salaries to compensate besuited serfs are struggling to defend our Chancellor.
Damage to the City? Corporate flight? The myth is persistent. Even HSBC, with most of its business and profits in the Far East, has stopped pretending it might move to a new oriental home. At the end of last year, in fact, the foreign banks that create vitality in London were making their real fears clear to the Treasury. The City is at the heart of euro trading. What truly worries such institutions is David Cameron’s half-promise of an in-out European referendum.
More than 160 EU financial institutions have headquarters or offices in London. Would Deutsche or BNP Paribas stick around if the Tories take us out of Europe? Would they argue seriously with the collective will of the EU’s finance ministers and national governments? With investment banking in a trough and pickings slim, would even Wall Street put up a fight for long? Not for the first time, Mr Osborne is being ridiculous.
You could as well say he is showing where his loyalties lie. The European Parliament’s call for a pegging of bank bonuses is an attempt to remove incentives for “recklessness”. Yet the Chancellor, having swallowed the evidence of sheer criminality, having struggled each day to balance the books while money flows endlessly to the few, having seen all the promises made and broken, sticks to his task. Note the fact.
He is the representative of a dysfunctional, self-serving and criminal industry that has caused immense harm to its host nation. Imagine: bonuses of only 100% to 200% of salary. Mr Osborne’s Coalition Government never tires of invoking the national interest. If the statement is serious, the issues of bankers’ rewards, tax avoidance and public dole to the rich are in everyone’s interest.
The Chancellor, otherwise a public servant, doesn’t see things that way. Your next banking crisis will be along shortly.
Great article John, thanks.
Good news! – 2 bankers jailed, ironically in one of the supposed most corrupt countries on the planet.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/03/05/two-bankers-of-afghanistan-sentenced-to-five-year-prison-terms
Stevie – just goes to show; in Kabul never bullshit a bullshiter.
Brilliant video that would be well worth passing around which illustrates wealth disparity in the US. It is based on a survey of over 5,000 US citizens on what they thought the actual figures were – They were shockingly way off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=QPKKQnijnsM&list=FLHavDAeDMMItTuPCAqIIPUA
Incidentally, according to this the US is the 45th worst in this respect, with the UK coming in at No. 55.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_inc_equ_un_ric_10_to_poo_10-equality-un-richest-10-poorest
steviefinn – now that is a good video! I’ll pass it around. Thanks for posting it, stevie. Everyone should get this video around.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/income-inequality-is-at-highest-level-since-the-1930s-says-report-8518073.html
I’ve been helping with homework again, and read part of “A People’s History of Britain” by Rebecca Fraser. OMG, talk about watching your back! Deceit, treachery, collusion, scheming.
The rulers who appeared (from what I read) to survive the longest were the ones, like Elizabeth I, who took the middle road on everything, handed out monopolies to make sure potential enemies were pacified, or Henry VIII who handed out huge swaths of land (after it, a third of England, was taken back from the church) to placate or win the loyalty of the gentry. It appeared that if you kept this segment (the upper classes) happy, you maintained the throne. If not, well…..
The riff-raff public were not even considered, except when their lives were needed to defend the upper classes.
Fascinating stuff, and somewhat reminiscent (at least as far as who is in control or who has the real power) of what is going on today.
Can’t vouch for the veracity of this video, but the narrator appears to see history in a whole different way. Very interesting listen (43 minutes).
“All Wars Are Bankers’ Wars”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfEBupAeo4
There probably are far greater things in common between disparate groups in society than things that they would disagree on. My great worry is that an unholy mix of distraction, anger and fear could fill the vacuum and chaos should the crisis worsen. Many divisions in society are already teed up:
Private sector v Public sector
Science v Religion
Right v Left
Small Government v Big Government
Home owner v New home buyer
Environmentalism v Man-made progress
Young v Old
I myself have always been uncomfortable with asserting any strong allegiance to a political standpoint. Maybe I have been lazy. Maybe I have been too busy, or too selfish and introverted to get involved. Unlike many of my friends and family though, I have sensed that this crisis has more to it than meets the eye and hence I have read and written much over the years.
In the 4 or 5 years that I’ve been reading about the crisis and blogging, I have always tried to live by the ethos of listening. I hope in that time I haven’t resorted to blunt persuasion to ram home my views. There have been times that I’ve disagreed with people and quite often in the process of such discussions I have learnt something new. This has been a journey of exploration, and one in which many of the simplistic divisions / explanations have failed to provide a satisfactory diagnosis of our predicament. Maybe it exposes me to the accusation that “If you are not one of us, then you must be one of them”. But the divisions / divisiveness were not of my construction, but of the accuser.
I have never heard the term “Identity Politics” until listening to this recent interview with Paul Kingsnorth:
http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-07T07_28_00-08_00
There is a risk that fear and anger can lead to dogmatic tribalism. Identity Politics could well be a convenient vehicle for stoking these “us and them” divisions, and therein overpower everyone’s ability to calmly listen, discuss and reason with each other.
Hawkeye -perhaps there are inherent dangers in Identity politics, but that depends very much on the value you apply too politics.
Other than that can you honestly see irresponsible capitalism listening, let alone discussing and exposing the reasons for their irresponsibility?
Could it not be, that as the 1% who believe they hold all the aces that it is they who are the proponents of dogmatic tribalism in the global elitist sense.
I can’t post am I banned as well? Never mind it seems to be working what I tried to post to you Golem follows.
Your banning of Joe was a good example of why we don’t listen. We don’t listen well because in our distant past if you took the time to listen it could be fatal. In this case you are defending your Blog in other circumstances it could be your life.
Think about a campfire 50 thousand years ago. A stranger walks in who may not speak your language and his intentions my be suspect. You have only a limited amount of time to make that determination to survive. All the good listeners are dead.
NO you are not banned. The ONLY person I have ever banned is Joe R.
Sometimes, however, the spam filter seems to get a rush of code to its head and it spams comments from people for no reason I can detect.
Sorry for that.
I have enjoyed reading teh different opinions expressed on this thread. Thank you.
It is well worth listening to Beppe Grillo’s thoughts on money & banks on this video made in 1998, knew his stuff way back then it seems :
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-10/why-central-planners-are-so-scared-italys-beppe-grillo
stevie – The Automatic Earth did a post on Beppe Grillo. They actually went to his house and spoke with him. Now isn’t this bad luck for TPTB: Grillo was actually trained as an accountant!
“In between all the other activities, Beppe was instrumental 10 years ago in exposing the stunning $10 billion accounting fraud at dairy and food giant Parmalat before it went bankrupt, as well as the recent scandal at the world’s oldest bank, Monte Dei Paschi Di Siena, which will cost a reported $23 billion. Corruption is everywhere in Italy, which has a large political class that is all too eager to share in the spoils. Mr. Grillo was trained as an accountant, and he understands what he’s talking about when it comes to dodgy numbers. What he needs is the power to act.”
http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/beppe-grillo-wants-to-give-italy-democracy.html
Backwardsevolution
Thank you for that.
It would be refreshing to read something from the MSM that doesn’t think it necessary to remind us that Grillo was a comedian, & also show the facts you list above. He has also come in for a lot of criticism from the left, the same left who basically have done nothing for working people since this crisis began. British unions stage the occasional day of protest which appear to me to be totally useless, except for giving the opportunity for the likes of BBC puppets to fill up their meaningless 24hr news airtime with pot noodle journalism.
I have always classed my self as a socialist, but as that label now means association with what seems to me, to be a bunch of sellouts to vested interest, whether they come in the form of a trade union or political party, I no longer consider myself as such. The people who have tried to grasp the nettle, the Indignados, & Occupy have it seems to me been handicapped by the Left, who especially in Greece, like the members of the Pame union & others, march pointlessly around in circles, in order that their in the pocket of the government leaders, can give them the illusion they are doing something useful, rather than the reality of only impotently letting off steam.
Ireland is a good example of this which can be seen just by looking at the cushy jobs the various union leaders have secured by way of government, the leader of the ICTU for instance David Begg, was not so long ago running the Irish central bank. Then there is another crowd, those who mentally masturbate at the thought of a glorious ‘ Workers of the World unite ‘ revolution, while vehemently criticising those who are at least trying to do something constructive. They like US Democrats, New Labour, the faux Irish Labour party & others are only in any sense liberal when it comes to telling the truth.
However the M5S story eventually plays out, at least to me it spells hope, it’s obvious we need something new, because there is simply no where else to turn, all the old avenues of achieving change seem to have been blocked by a combination of vested interests & grubby careerists. There are many good people out there who are banging their heads against a brick wall, but even those with some power & influence are smothered by this all pervasive mountain of pure self-interest.
I wish I were Italian as I would then at least be able to participate in a small way within something that, although eventually it might well end in tears & more dissillusion, at least it is trying to provide a channel for change where there does not seem to be any other option, We appear to be stuck in a position of impotently waiting for the whole rotten pile of crap to collapse & then amidst the ensuing murderous chaos probably then being forced to watch, as the same turds who caused this mess, or even worse versions, scramble up again, in order to once again sit on top of the ashes.
I now even despise the Guardian with it’s pro austerity line & hypocrisy. I can understand the Right, they are consistent in their self-interest & always have been, whereas the Left appear to be nowhere & the middle have fell off the fence straight into the trough. David mentioned that we need new words to describe states of consciousness, perhaps we also need new words to describe disillusioned socialists & hopeful replacements for the old stale orders.
Still listening as well as ranting – two videos courtesy of Jesse, featuring Chalmers Johnson in 2007, exploring the almighty mess from a different viewpoint, that of Empire. But whatever angle you approach it from, these roads lead to the same place, perhaps that place is called Rome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Q2CCs-x9q9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nfJNFSYFmZs
Stevie maybe it was just that you were/are an anarcho syndicalist all along! (for what these labels are worth)
JayD
In my ignorance I imagined the above to be those fellas the MSM like to focus on during demos, the guys who wear black balaclavas. This led me to the thought that I am long past the age of being capable of such behaviour. So I had a listen to Mr. Chomsky to find out his thoughts on the subject, very very interesting. I like the term Socialist libertarian. Thank you for that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=h_x0Y3FqkEI
I watched the movie, Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks a few days ago. DiCaprio plays a con man, a master cheque forger who steals millions from the banks, a young man who takes on different identities: a pilot, a lawyer, a doctor. Highly intelligent. Tom Hanks plays an FBI bank fraud agent who goes after him, and in the end the thief ends up working for the FBI.
This is the division of the FBI that Bill Black said lost so many of its agents after 9/11; they were transferred to terrorism instead. Bill Black said on many occasions that the division was gutted.
Watching the movie, it occurred to me that these FBI agents HAD been working on behalf of the banks, ensuring that the banks were not defrauded by outsiders.
After the reduction in the FBI’s Financial Division agents post-9/11, it appears the banks turned the scheme around and defrauded everybody else. When they broke laws, they just had the laws changed. They cried “too big to fail”. When they did get charged, they paid a fine from their proceeds of crime.
Armed with a pack of high-priced lawyers (as well as having the U.S. Attorney-General and the Assistant Attorney-General in their pockets, to name a few) they thumbed their noses at us and said, “Catch Me If You Can”.
Hawkeye – that interview of Paul Kingsnorth was a great one! Thanks for posting it.
http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2013-02-07T07_28_00-08_00
Sometimes I forget the big picture and become mired in identity politics too, which is probably just a waste of time because this ship is going to go where it wants to go. Politicians are in the back pockets of corporations, as well as pandering to the electorate who, I agree with Kingsnorth, do NOT want to give up their lifestyle.
Sometimes I get frustrated and write a post about how the human race is destroying the planet, how we cannot afford to have perpetual growth and continue to mine, strip, suck-up, and exhaust the Earth, but I’m usually called a neanderthal or an idiot.
This is the biggest problem facing all of us, and unfortunately we just do not get it. Well, I think we get it, but we just don’t want to admit it. I mean, where would my next granite countertop come from? Man is a greedy and selfish animal, and we don’t like going backwards (which assumes we have ever really gone forward).
I read Kingsnorth’s article called “Dark Ecology”. Great article. We are now at the mercy of the neo-environmentalists. I personally know two people involved in these fields (geoengineering and nano technology). I shudder to think what other imbalances and side effects will occur once these new environmentalists cure what ails us. For every gain there is a loss.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7277
Here’s another good article by Paul Craig Roberts (former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury):
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/01/24/natures-capital-is-the-limiting-resource-paul-craig-roberts/
It is beyond me how, in a civilization where “reason” has become our God, we are incapable of understanding how much we are… “subjects” ? of our current ideological polarization/wars.
For info, last week, our national classical music radio broadcast the following nasty tidbit : an American (woman) New York university professor has (pompously, me) decreed that opera is dead, long live.. telereality.
I think that if “one” wants to be capable of “reason” one must.. ban the expression “the elites” from one’s vocabulary at this time….otherwise, one is engaging in demagogy…
I told my husband last night that if Voltaire were magically resurrected and once again among us, he would be absolutely horrified at what HIS fight against demagogy has produced in OUR world.
Sobering thought…
“But no one is concerned to get behind what the other person said in order to understand why they fear what they fear, and believe what they believe.”
i do. some people think i’m a bit weird, others don’t like to be questioned on how their opinions are formed, others still, enjoy it.
i do it because i have a life long interest in human behaviour. not unsurprising really, for a human.
Sometimes I wonder if we would be having fewer problems if we were not (and that includes me..) attempting to say things in some places that really belong in others ?
Saying things in some places that belong in others ?
Showing things that should not be shown ? In inappropriate places ?
Is this a consequence of the “one size fits all” mentality ?
I share your interest, dave.. and wonder why we think that we are weird…
Except that fear is not necessarily people’s only, or principal motivation.
Overemphasis on “being safe” has multiplied our perception of insecurity, and our fears…
The, uh.. “safer” we are, the safer we want to be, most of us.
The tendency of the… flock to believe that more of a good thing is always better ?
What we believe as individuals is not necessarily the same as what we believe as the flock..
Two days ago I had a heated discussion with a man, and realized that we had no common ground…Perhaps we should not have been talking about what we were talking about, and we would not have noticed that we had no common ground ?
The next time I meet him, I will smile, be polite, and… not engage conversation…
Or just talk about the weather…
Your post resonates ion several levels – firstly, as you say, we live in polarising times where fear, an emotion which we all need to survive, can easily become an excessive part of the way we live. Our era also is characterised by a huge amount of noise all around us, mostly digital, where we all have time fear. These elements mean that listening is not something high on the agenda, but by listening carefully to the voices both within us and externally, is the key to success and balance.
Interesting programme on BBC 4 tonight about metamophosis eh?
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giving us something enlightening to read?
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