Another election looms for those that care. In the next two months, party activists and political journalists will try to enthuse everyone else about voting for local councilors and members of parliament. Everyone else will likely wonder what all the fuss is about.
I will follow the General Election in the way I follow the football World Cup or a drama series on television. I will invest my emotions in the arguments and take sides with those I feel some connection to or empathy with, but I know that ultimately it is insignificant. Insignificant although, like Hunter S Thompson, I have an addiction to political contests and I am the sort of amateur wonk that sits up waiting for European Parliament election results.
One thing the professional wonks will certainly debate will be the low voter turnout, which will mostly be attributed to apathy. Apathy in an election that is seen as a foregone conclusion, which will bring an uninspiring, insipid Tory to Number Ten, is only to be expected, but it misses a growing constituency of deliberate non-voters. My constituency.
I have given my reasons for not voting above the local level before, but there are some counter-arguments that also need to be identified as myths. Like myths of good English usage, once identified, they can be appreciated and then put aside.
Myth 1: people fought and died for universal suffrage, so not voting dishonours their struggle.
Obviously, the first part of this is true. Reformists and suffragettes devoted, and sometimes lost, their lives getting the vote for almost every adult citizen. And whatever the causes and motivations, the Second World War stopped the growth of fascism in Europe.
The question that remains is how to honour that legacy. It would be non-sensical to think that our form of democracy should neither be stagnant nor evolve without popular examination. It is a common fallacy among US conservatives that the founding fathers created and/or revealed true democracy, and that it has not and should not be altered again. The US Constitution was almost immediately amended by the Bill of Rights, and has been amended another seventeen times. Not every amendment was progressive or successful, but the rules for running the federation include rules for changing the rules.
If you believe that democracy can and should evolve beyond nations and federations, and that not voting is one suitable method of effecting that change, then you do more honour to past reformers by following your beliefs than by devaluing your suffrage by giving it to the least-worst candidate for Member of Parliament.
Myth 2: significant localisation can be achieved through election to a higher parliament.
Also covered in previous posts. Power is what drives change, so it is a rare politician that will give power away.
Myth 3: it is better to vote for something with somewhat positive intentions (e.g. Labour) than not vote and allow the election of something worse (e.g. the BNP).
It is easy to think that we have to use every resource to oppose extremism, and it is not obvious that voting in national elections is a negative act. But if our aim is to deligitimise national government then we will have demonstrably succeeded when an MP is elected by only 5% of the eligible voters, whether the winning candidate is Green, Labour or BNP.
It would, I admit, give me great pain if I could contribute to the election of a Green MP but did not. I never said it was easy to stick to your principles.
Myth 4: we are working towards a unified world with one government, which equates to world peace.
If positive political change is driven by utopian vision then it can also be driven by visions that are unhelpful. Utopia by definition is nowhere and therefore unachievable, but some are more unachievable than others.
In science fiction, one-world government is not unusual, possibly so that inter-planetary politics can act as a substitute for international politics, but also because many writers think societies will evolve towards global harmony. In Star Wars and The Fifth Element, advanced planetary civilisations are mostly ordered and peaceful, truly post-modern and technocratic.
This assumes a homogeneity that cannot be desirable, surely? Our cultures have more to distinguish and differentiate themselves than colourful languages, clothes and customs. And that is within a single species. Self-determination preserves the differences in value hierarchy, moral code and cultural history, and self-determination cannot be achieved under a one-world government.
More practically, bigger government simply means greater alienation of the electorate. Opinions are formed and elections won and lost by popular media. As the political race gets bigger, the differentiators between candidates are reduced to the soundbite, the smile and the wave.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Want sustainability: need more
I've avoided it before, but I have to dish the same old quote from Bruntland: "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." There are many other definitions that are just as good, but this one famously talks about "needs" rather than activities. Perhaps, after four years of debate on the bleak future for humanity, the Commission felt that we could only plan for necessity rather than desire.
Others have made the connection between Bruntland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission) and Maslow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) since both use the same frame of reference. It only seems right that we should aspire to meet all our needs, including self-actualisation, so any sustainable development has to leave room for or nurture individuals' whole being.
Among our higher needs is an appreciation of the balance between the individual's desires and the effect that acting on those desires will have on others and society as a whole: an appreciation and formation of a personal moral code that interfaces effectively with others'. The exact method by which such a code is developed and adopted cannot be immaterial: codes handed down by religious order will be different from those developed in conservative societies, which will be different again from those developed in more liberal communities.
Although the differences might be critical, it would be hypocritical to say that one methodology should be preferred over another if we value self-determination. Which is one reason why it would be wrong to add transcendence or spirituality to the top of Maslow's hierarchy as some have done. One may believe that morality is handed down from God, but one cannot impose that belief on others.
Similarly, although several religions (notably Buddhism) see transcendence as the ultimate goal in personal development, that does not make it a need that has to be facilitated through sustainable development. Further, it cannot facilitate transcendence. One can be achieved in exclusion of the other.
What can be argued is that in facilitating moral development, an organisation has to be moral itself. Codes of conduct are not unusual, but are usually part of corporate or political image building. A social organisation with a moral code would behave somewhat differently, and the recent snow highlighted one particular way how.
Like many companies in the UK, my employer either believed that clearing the snow from outside the building was not its responsibility, or that clearing snow would leave it liable for injuries suffered subsequently. In the latter case, behaviour is decided by straightforward risk assessment. But what would the "right" thing be to do? Surely, for the good of the community that my company is part of, we should have cleared the snow and taken the risk?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another thing that Bruntland's definition brings attention to is that the Commission was clearly talking about development and not sustainability. Committed effort by motivated individuals has moved the mainstream focus to the point that surely we should be talking about "sustainability development"?
Others have made the connection between Bruntland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brundtland_Commission) and Maslow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) since both use the same frame of reference. It only seems right that we should aspire to meet all our needs, including self-actualisation, so any sustainable development has to leave room for or nurture individuals' whole being.
Among our higher needs is an appreciation of the balance between the individual's desires and the effect that acting on those desires will have on others and society as a whole: an appreciation and formation of a personal moral code that interfaces effectively with others'. The exact method by which such a code is developed and adopted cannot be immaterial: codes handed down by religious order will be different from those developed in conservative societies, which will be different again from those developed in more liberal communities.
Although the differences might be critical, it would be hypocritical to say that one methodology should be preferred over another if we value self-determination. Which is one reason why it would be wrong to add transcendence or spirituality to the top of Maslow's hierarchy as some have done. One may believe that morality is handed down from God, but one cannot impose that belief on others.
Similarly, although several religions (notably Buddhism) see transcendence as the ultimate goal in personal development, that does not make it a need that has to be facilitated through sustainable development. Further, it cannot facilitate transcendence. One can be achieved in exclusion of the other.
What can be argued is that in facilitating moral development, an organisation has to be moral itself. Codes of conduct are not unusual, but are usually part of corporate or political image building. A social organisation with a moral code would behave somewhat differently, and the recent snow highlighted one particular way how.
Like many companies in the UK, my employer either believed that clearing the snow from outside the building was not its responsibility, or that clearing snow would leave it liable for injuries suffered subsequently. In the latter case, behaviour is decided by straightforward risk assessment. But what would the "right" thing be to do? Surely, for the good of the community that my company is part of, we should have cleared the snow and taken the risk?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another thing that Bruntland's definition brings attention to is that the Commission was clearly talking about development and not sustainability. Committed effort by motivated individuals has moved the mainstream focus to the point that surely we should be talking about "sustainability development"?
Saturday, January 02, 2010
A kick in the teeth for optimism
There has been a recent smattering of blog posts and discussions out there about the need for optimism in the sustainability movement. The gist being that the only alternative is pessimism, and that is neither practicable nor appealing. Certainly, if we are pessimistic about our chances of success then we will be demotivated and will essentially be admitting that our project is not likely to succeed.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
I might seem like a matter of semantics, but I think the only thing we can allow ourselves is hope. The difference between hope and optimism is the difference between a thoughtful human and an open-mouthed labrador. I know which one I would prefer to be.
Having said all this before, I succumbed to optimism recently. I thought that the dangers of climate change and the action necessary were so clear that our national leaders and negotiators would do the right thing. Just this once.
I'm not going to lay particular blame or analyse the Copenhagen process in detail: others have done that to death. But I do have to admit that I was wrong. The process of international negotiation is inherently unsustainable, which is what I had always said before: undemocratic, untransparent and subject to disproporionate vested interests. There is a possibility that an agreement with half-decent, binding targets will be made in Mexico this year, but we can't count on it. Besides which, time is running out.
Somewhere between luck, the effects of campaigns like 10:10 (http://www.1010uk.org/) and movements like Transition Towns (http://transitiontowns.org/), we might get through this crisis. But there is no place for optimism. 10:10 might demonstrate that ordinary people are aware of what has to happen and are willing to make the changes needed, even if it involves expense or changes in lifestyle.
-------------------------------------------
Another dose of cold reality came from reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle). The book is seen as the predecessor of modern exposes of the food industry and working life at the bottom of the social ladder such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation) and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed). It would be wrong to leave it in the footnotes however.
Towards the end of The Jungle, Sinclair spells out the alternative vision he sees for America and the world. It is a hardcore socialist vision, where the proletariat takes control of all industries and runs them for the benefit of all people, sharing the profits and making safe and fulfilling workplaces. Interestingly, he also catalogues the counter-arguments given by working-class voters: that it is unreasonable to believe that power could be rested away from the barons of meat, steel and coal, that a free-market capitalist system is more efficient than any alternative, and that people's place in society is somehow predestined and immutible.
A century later and many of those arguments against the practicability of socialism, which are also directed against green anarchism, do hold some weight. Capitalism itself has evolved to entrench the interests of big business, with oil now the dominant force. Corporations have have also evolved so that there are no longer industry barons such as John D Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller) that can become permanent hate figures; for comparison, even if he had not gone to jail and died, Kenneth Lay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Lay) was an entirely removable figurehead at Enron. What's more, corporate activity has become globalised and global corporations have negotiated themselves into operating conditions that cannot be rationally justified.
State organisations have also managed to build a reputation for terrible inefficiency, usually bound to bureaucracy apparently for the sake of bureaucracy. Anyone who has suffered at the hands of one of the United States' Departments of Motor Vehicles might find it hard to believe that a state-owned industry could avoid a decline into nincompoopery.
Why should a green anarchist vision succeed where the rabble-rousing might of socialism has had few successes? The same vested interests and arguments of potential inefficiencies stand against it. Worse, capitalism has evolved to be more pernicious rather than less.
On behalf of socialism, I would point out that the same old inequities still remain to be opposed. This is a matter of principle rather than pragmatism. It is still wrong that wealth is accumulated at the expense of the most vulnerable. And that is also one of the principles of green anarchism. Ecology simply adds the evidence that wealth is finite and cannot sustain indefinite growth, which means that this is not simply a short-term limitation.
Further, anarchism may be spelled out as an ideology, or family of ideologies, but it does not have to be espoused in the way that state socialism does. A movement that wants to change state-level organisation has to build consensus amongst the population of each nation. A majority is needed in elections or enough revolutionaries are needed to overthrow the government. Anarchist ideas and initiatives can be taken up by any community group, whether they are labelled as such or not.
There are enough of these ideas and initiatives in action today to give me hope.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The hero in all of us
One of the reasons that I studied (if that's the right word for going to a few lectures) physics at university is that it has a very simple view of creation. General relativity, quantum electrodynamics and statistical mechanics might get quite complicated, but they never try to address the question: "Why?"
The question is probably unanswerable, but it is part of our nature to ask it. Having wondered why, we also seem to find it impossible to accept that things might just be the way they are for no reason at all, so we attach meaning where none already existed.
This is part of the premise for The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces). And since we share the same psyche, the meanings we tend to attach to our reality share similar themes, conforming to what Campbell labelled the "monomyth".
The Hero was first published in 1949, but gained noteriety when cited by George Lucas as an influence in writing Star Wars. Ever since, Hollywood producers have sought scripts with similar elements and structure.
The hero, the quest, the journey through the underworld, the tests, etc., have become de riguer and, as a result, movies have become depressingly predictable. You can see the pattern in everything from Dodgeball to Die Hard, but The Matrix is its ultimate update. Or should that be upgrade?
What Hollywood missed, or discarded, are Cambell's final thoughts on what the monomyth did for the ordinary individual when the myths were developed, and what they tell the modern individual. It's all very well knowing why the deeds of Beowulf and Odysseus appeal to the human brain, but how did that help the ploughman and what can it do for the telesales operator, other than provide a distraction from drudgery?
Cambell's view is that historically myths provided an analogy for everyone's life. We are all the hero on a quest. The quest is probably not what we think it is but we will learn and grow as a result. What we learn is to accept our changing role within family and community.
These lessons are still relevant in the modern world, although the rise of nations and corporate globalisation make it even more difficult to feel connected to community. Contentment can still come fom being the ordinary hero.
If nothing else, Campbell's words amused me when they came back to mind in John Lewis, while buying a vacuum cleaner. I reluctantly answered the hero's call, journeyed far (on the Overground and Underground), was assisted in my quest (by my wife), faced my ordeal (finding the toilets), passed through the underworld (the Waitrose food hall) to the reward (a Dyson, waiting to be picked up from Customer Orders) before returning home to share my treasure (with an unappreciative cat).
Myths are full of the extra-ordinary, so we know what is expected when we hear the call. And the call to extra-ordinary or difficult tasks is more common than you might think. There is always a need to speak up for the voiceless, stand up to bullies, take up the minority cause. Myths reassure us that there is something magical in simply doing the thing we believe is right.
Further, the line between ordinary and extra-ordinary is impossible to draw. Disease and disability, childbirth and child rearing, devotion to parents and siblings, are ordinary challenges that often require extra-ordinary character.
What is usually lost in the Hollywood version of the monomyth is the analogy to the everyday. As a result, we are allowed to long for a life like Luke Skywalker or Neo without any hope of fulfilment.
But the Jedi Order and the Matrix are both real and unreal, now that they have become rooted in our psyche. They provide us with another set of analogies and sometimes a touchstone for modern life.
The question is probably unanswerable, but it is part of our nature to ask it. Having wondered why, we also seem to find it impossible to accept that things might just be the way they are for no reason at all, so we attach meaning where none already existed.
This is part of the premise for The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces). And since we share the same psyche, the meanings we tend to attach to our reality share similar themes, conforming to what Campbell labelled the "monomyth".
The Hero was first published in 1949, but gained noteriety when cited by George Lucas as an influence in writing Star Wars. Ever since, Hollywood producers have sought scripts with similar elements and structure.
The hero, the quest, the journey through the underworld, the tests, etc., have become de riguer and, as a result, movies have become depressingly predictable. You can see the pattern in everything from Dodgeball to Die Hard, but The Matrix is its ultimate update. Or should that be upgrade?
What Hollywood missed, or discarded, are Cambell's final thoughts on what the monomyth did for the ordinary individual when the myths were developed, and what they tell the modern individual. It's all very well knowing why the deeds of Beowulf and Odysseus appeal to the human brain, but how did that help the ploughman and what can it do for the telesales operator, other than provide a distraction from drudgery?
Cambell's view is that historically myths provided an analogy for everyone's life. We are all the hero on a quest. The quest is probably not what we think it is but we will learn and grow as a result. What we learn is to accept our changing role within family and community.
These lessons are still relevant in the modern world, although the rise of nations and corporate globalisation make it even more difficult to feel connected to community. Contentment can still come fom being the ordinary hero.
If nothing else, Campbell's words amused me when they came back to mind in John Lewis, while buying a vacuum cleaner. I reluctantly answered the hero's call, journeyed far (on the Overground and Underground), was assisted in my quest (by my wife), faced my ordeal (finding the toilets), passed through the underworld (the Waitrose food hall) to the reward (a Dyson, waiting to be picked up from Customer Orders) before returning home to share my treasure (with an unappreciative cat).
Myths are full of the extra-ordinary, so we know what is expected when we hear the call. And the call to extra-ordinary or difficult tasks is more common than you might think. There is always a need to speak up for the voiceless, stand up to bullies, take up the minority cause. Myths reassure us that there is something magical in simply doing the thing we believe is right.
Further, the line between ordinary and extra-ordinary is impossible to draw. Disease and disability, childbirth and child rearing, devotion to parents and siblings, are ordinary challenges that often require extra-ordinary character.
What is usually lost in the Hollywood version of the monomyth is the analogy to the everyday. As a result, we are allowed to long for a life like Luke Skywalker or Neo without any hope of fulfilment.
But the Jedi Order and the Matrix are both real and unreal, now that they have become rooted in our psyche. They provide us with another set of analogies and sometimes a touchstone for modern life.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A question of strategy
It's Blog Action Day, with an estimated 8,000 bloggers and 11 million readers focusing their efforts on combating climate change. Well, here's one more blog and maybe two more readers.
The focus on climate change is, by necessity, on the now and the near future. It has been asked whether dealing with this crisis will leave us any wiser, assuming we survive. One would hope so, but any victory will be claimed by authoritarians, capitalists and chauvenists as much as localists, anti-capitalists and progressives. So, while everyone (OK, nearly everyone ) is listening, we have to make our case for a fairer, more caring society, as a long-term method of avoiding future crises as well as a form of common sense.
Yet this is not nearly the only opportunity to evangelise about sustainability. The direct political approach makes most sense to me: seeking election at local level with a manifesto of responsible community control over community resources. But there are "ins" of all sorts, including the standards I work on in my day job.
Perhaps it's a sign of gathering momentum, but radical ideas are showing up in surprising places. Strategy for Sustainability by Adam Werbach (http://www.strategyforsustainability.com/) is one example, and currently a bestseller among business books in the United States. What's really surprising about Werbach's book is that, although it contains a lot of radical thinking, it is based upon work with some of the largest corporations in America, and should appeal to many others.
It attempts to bridge the gap between reactive, arse-covering attitudes to social and environmental issues, and genuine commitment to improving corporate culture. The book, and Adam's activity as a sustainability consultant (now for Saatchi and Saatchi S; saatchis.com), chimes well with advanced sustainable development thinking, including the thinking behind recent British Standards and a lot of my own beliefs.
If I had one serious reservation, it was that Adam doesn't emphasise the need for balance between different aspects of sustainability or the desirability of trying to be objective about which issues are most critical for an organisation. One particular case study, WalMart, is portrayed as a surprising success, which it is in mainly environmental terms, although most critics of WalMart are more concerned about its social impacts, particularly how it treats its employees.
Having mulled over the contents of the book for longer than it took to read it, my residual feeling is one of hope. If the megacorps of America are even taking Adam's advice in a lop-sided way, it will begin the embedding process and a mixture of improved management and stakeholder engagement will push them towards a more balanced approach.
Around the time that I was reaching these conclusions, I attended a seminar organised by London PR and branding (https://twitter.com/lonpr) and led by my friend Erica Grigg (http://www.carbonoutreach.com/) on social media PR 2.0 for sustainability. Although the time was taken mostly with using social media (blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.) for public relations, it did make me think about PR and its role in sustainable development.
Judging by what some people have said, the connections aren't obvious to them either, but PR is a perfect part of an organisation's strategy for sustainability. And sustainable development is where the distinction between marketing and PR is most obvious. Marketing is about communicating and selling to customers, but public relations is about communicating with a user community, and therefore building relationships with stakeholders. In other words, stakeholder engagement. When building transparency and inclusivity, the goal is to get the communications right for the stakeholders involved, and publicists should be the people who have the tools and knowledge to get it right.
New social media should be in the publicisist's tool kit because they allow the creation of virtual communities of concerned and interested individuals. They provide a way of getting the two-way communication that can seem impossible for an old-fashioned outfit. Even better, although it might be seen as a problem by some, a real community spirit will only grow under an open and honest approach. Which brings us back to the principles of sustainability.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Lessons in democratic intellect
I must admit a simple motive: I was persuaded to read a book, I found it to be a satisfying mountain to climb, and now I want to reflect on what I learned. The book is The Democratic Intellect: Scotland and Her Universities in the Nineteenth Century by George Elder Davie. The subject could hardly be less intriguing but the subtext is profound. So, even though I would want to write about The Democratic Intellect anyway, I would argue that it does have relevance in a blog about Gandhist politics. Just bear with me.
In the Act of Union of 1707, Scotland retained independence in law, religion and education, which it retained to a great extent to the creation of the new Scottish Parliament in 1999 and on to today. However, the Nineteenth Century saw a challenge to Scotland's independent education system and, by the end of the century, its universities were more closely aligned with England's. But it is not merely nationalist pride that was dented by the change: Scotland had nurtured an educational system that was beneficial in ways that could not be reproduced in the English system.
In particular, Scotland had a preference for teaching philosophy to all students and any subject from first principles. What it lacked in detail, it more than made up for in rigour. The traces of this method can still be found today, but it is continually diluted and political pressure is always towards vocational training and away from strength in generalism.
This has immediate and pragmatic effects. The ability of science graduates to think around a problem or to come to terms with a new subject area is very poor. I remember a tv documentary (but can't find it archived) where engineering graduates were asked to explain where the mass of a tree branch came from--many of the answers were non-sensical. We're becoming increasingly dependent on computer software that makes complex calculations for us without having to understand the maths. It would simply be good sense to teach some problem solving to scientists, some Latin and Greek to English students, and some history and philosophy to everyone.
Davie also made it clear that an internationally respected school of philosophy, whose techniques were powerful and useful, was essentially lost in the political turmoil of the 1800s. With every Scottish student learning philosophy, academic philosophers were hugely influential, which meant that a dynamic community of philosophers was an obstacle to alignment with England. The obstacle was removed, as the result of both in-fighting and political machinations, by the appointment of less erudite men.
Even before I read The Democratic Intellect, I wondered about how we learn. Not so much as individuals, important though that is, but more as a culture or a species. Areas of knowledge grow and evolve with time: science becomes more coherent and universal while the arts explore different ways of seeing and thinking. Some progress is haphazard, like noticing the behaviour of penicillin, and some is planned, like mapping a new island.
Yet knowledge is only part of learning in the same way that training is only part of education. It is an enrichment of our intellect that has raised us from smart animals to cultured and sophisticated people. How did that happen, and how do we keep it happening? We have a good idea how to reproduce our values and our intelligence in the next generation, but how do we encourage them to build on what we have achieved?
I would argue that only people with a grasp of the fundamentals of why we believe what we believe and how we know what we know can question those facts and beliefs in any meaningful and productive way. Such an education is not cheap, but what we would be buying is immeasurable.
Of course, I have an ideology in development, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe that a progressive education system would lead everyone to the same conclusions as me. Self-determination means accepting the will of the community, after all. But surely a progressive education system would nurture a progressive society, locally if not more widely influential?
There is one last aspect of The Democratic Intellect that I have to mention. Historically, the alignment of Scotland's universities with England's meant a loss of identity. Not knowledge of its differences or knowledge of its heredity, which is all that seems to justify narrow nationalism, but genuine cultural distinctiveness. And it is depth and diversity of culture that provide comparisons for future development. Not all aspects of a culture are worth preserving but something good was undoubtedly lost in this instance.
Given the freedom to develop independently, perhaps we can build a culture that regains its democratic intellect.
In the Act of Union of 1707, Scotland retained independence in law, religion and education, which it retained to a great extent to the creation of the new Scottish Parliament in 1999 and on to today. However, the Nineteenth Century saw a challenge to Scotland's independent education system and, by the end of the century, its universities were more closely aligned with England's. But it is not merely nationalist pride that was dented by the change: Scotland had nurtured an educational system that was beneficial in ways that could not be reproduced in the English system.
In particular, Scotland had a preference for teaching philosophy to all students and any subject from first principles. What it lacked in detail, it more than made up for in rigour. The traces of this method can still be found today, but it is continually diluted and political pressure is always towards vocational training and away from strength in generalism.
This has immediate and pragmatic effects. The ability of science graduates to think around a problem or to come to terms with a new subject area is very poor. I remember a tv documentary (but can't find it archived) where engineering graduates were asked to explain where the mass of a tree branch came from--many of the answers were non-sensical. We're becoming increasingly dependent on computer software that makes complex calculations for us without having to understand the maths. It would simply be good sense to teach some problem solving to scientists, some Latin and Greek to English students, and some history and philosophy to everyone.
Davie also made it clear that an internationally respected school of philosophy, whose techniques were powerful and useful, was essentially lost in the political turmoil of the 1800s. With every Scottish student learning philosophy, academic philosophers were hugely influential, which meant that a dynamic community of philosophers was an obstacle to alignment with England. The obstacle was removed, as the result of both in-fighting and political machinations, by the appointment of less erudite men.
Even before I read The Democratic Intellect, I wondered about how we learn. Not so much as individuals, important though that is, but more as a culture or a species. Areas of knowledge grow and evolve with time: science becomes more coherent and universal while the arts explore different ways of seeing and thinking. Some progress is haphazard, like noticing the behaviour of penicillin, and some is planned, like mapping a new island.
Yet knowledge is only part of learning in the same way that training is only part of education. It is an enrichment of our intellect that has raised us from smart animals to cultured and sophisticated people. How did that happen, and how do we keep it happening? We have a good idea how to reproduce our values and our intelligence in the next generation, but how do we encourage them to build on what we have achieved?
I would argue that only people with a grasp of the fundamentals of why we believe what we believe and how we know what we know can question those facts and beliefs in any meaningful and productive way. Such an education is not cheap, but what we would be buying is immeasurable.
Of course, I have an ideology in development, but I'm not arrogant enough to believe that a progressive education system would lead everyone to the same conclusions as me. Self-determination means accepting the will of the community, after all. But surely a progressive education system would nurture a progressive society, locally if not more widely influential?
There is one last aspect of The Democratic Intellect that I have to mention. Historically, the alignment of Scotland's universities with England's meant a loss of identity. Not knowledge of its differences or knowledge of its heredity, which is all that seems to justify narrow nationalism, but genuine cultural distinctiveness. And it is depth and diversity of culture that provide comparisons for future development. Not all aspects of a culture are worth preserving but something good was undoubtedly lost in this instance.
Given the freedom to develop independently, perhaps we can build a culture that regains its democratic intellect.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Didn't vote and don't feel sorry
Britain has fascists elected to the European Parliament. It's sickening and sad. The racism is inexcusable. For whatever reason, nearly one million people put a cross in the box in favour of the neo-Nazis.
But I didn't vote for them. I didn't vote at all, and even if I lived in the North West or Yorkshire and the Humber constituencies, I wouldn't feel guilty.
I don't and won't feel guilty because I didn't vote out of principle and conviction. The election of BNP representatives is incidental in sticking to my principles. That doesn't make it any less sad but it doesn't make it more my concern.
The principle is that devolution should be maximised and my belief is that achieving such devolution cannot be achieved via overcentralised governance bodies. I've stated these principles, why I believe them and why they matter in previous blog entries, but some things are worth re-stating.
For one thing, it is a fallacy that the way to deal with globalising corporations is to globalise democracy. If anything, local communities being able to keep posession of its own resources and set conditions for external businesses is the only way that they can keep control of their lives. Even more importantly, a fragmented economy can only be more stable than a globalised one: like leaves of grass are more resilient in a storm than a single exposed tree.
In recent times there have been positive changes and initiatives, supported by central government, such as Agenda 21 and the Sustainable Communities Act, but the overwhelming tendency has been to liberalise markets and agree to more consolidated power and decision-making. How else could it be when power comes with money, and corporations and corporate lobby groups continually stay richer than elected governments?
I assert that the ideal distribution of power is a pyramid, with local communities at the bottom and the United Nations at the top. The current power distribution, with nations of various sizes wielding most power and a mish-mash of supra- and sub-national bodies taking a lesser share, is therefore wrong, but also impossible to dismantle from within.
In practical terms, I can't see how voting will lead to signficiant devolution. What's more, without the ability to change power distribution, the large regional, national and supra-national bodies are illegitimate. If a body, elected or not, is illegitimate, it doesn't matter how it is populated, or by whom.
As I've admitted before, the most difficult historic situation to face as a pacificist and anarchist would have been the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. So what happens when Nazis or neo-Nazis gain control of national parliament? The parliament is no less legitimate and the right to disobey becomes even clearer.
If anything, my conviction will only get stronger if the BNP continues to gain ground. I will not be intimidated by the politics of hatred, but neither will I be scared into voting against them.
But I didn't vote for them. I didn't vote at all, and even if I lived in the North West or Yorkshire and the Humber constituencies, I wouldn't feel guilty.
I don't and won't feel guilty because I didn't vote out of principle and conviction. The election of BNP representatives is incidental in sticking to my principles. That doesn't make it any less sad but it doesn't make it more my concern.
The principle is that devolution should be maximised and my belief is that achieving such devolution cannot be achieved via overcentralised governance bodies. I've stated these principles, why I believe them and why they matter in previous blog entries, but some things are worth re-stating.
For one thing, it is a fallacy that the way to deal with globalising corporations is to globalise democracy. If anything, local communities being able to keep posession of its own resources and set conditions for external businesses is the only way that they can keep control of their lives. Even more importantly, a fragmented economy can only be more stable than a globalised one: like leaves of grass are more resilient in a storm than a single exposed tree.
In recent times there have been positive changes and initiatives, supported by central government, such as Agenda 21 and the Sustainable Communities Act, but the overwhelming tendency has been to liberalise markets and agree to more consolidated power and decision-making. How else could it be when power comes with money, and corporations and corporate lobby groups continually stay richer than elected governments?
I assert that the ideal distribution of power is a pyramid, with local communities at the bottom and the United Nations at the top. The current power distribution, with nations of various sizes wielding most power and a mish-mash of supra- and sub-national bodies taking a lesser share, is therefore wrong, but also impossible to dismantle from within.
In practical terms, I can't see how voting will lead to signficiant devolution. What's more, without the ability to change power distribution, the large regional, national and supra-national bodies are illegitimate. If a body, elected or not, is illegitimate, it doesn't matter how it is populated, or by whom.
As I've admitted before, the most difficult historic situation to face as a pacificist and anarchist would have been the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. So what happens when Nazis or neo-Nazis gain control of national parliament? The parliament is no less legitimate and the right to disobey becomes even clearer.
If anything, my conviction will only get stronger if the BNP continues to gain ground. I will not be intimidated by the politics of hatred, but neither will I be scared into voting against them.
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