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Guns into shovels and pistols into pianos…

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I loved this;

I heard one of the artists (Pedro Reyes)  talking about this on Radio 4’s Midweek. He described how the guns were seized in some of Mexico’s cities, where the murder rate has sky rocketed.

Previously the group had taken 1527 guns, melted them down into 1527 shovels, and used these to plant 1527 trees.

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However, this time they wanted the guns to still be recognisable so that the darkness of their past was not forgotten.

And I suppose to make it clear that we are not ready to beat our swords into ploughshares.

Reyes talked about the nature of guns- the way they are flooding on to the market at the rate of hundreds of thousands every day- perhaps bought as playthings by those (particularly in North America) who fetishize the gun. He pointed out that the things about guns is that they are not like computers or other consumable goods- they do not wear out and need replacing after a couple of years. Virtually any gun ever made is still capable of killing someone.

According to Reyes, the music made on these guns (many of which have taken lives) is like some kind of exorcism, or a requiem.

Hear for yourself;

Poverty in the UK 2013…

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The strivers/skivers language used by our present government is a shameful smokescreen over what is happening to whole sections of our society.

I make no apologies for this assertion- I have seen it with my eyes, and now there is this;

Senior welfare experts have urged the government to reconsider benefit cuts coming into force next week that will disproportionately hit the poorest families and push a further 200,000 children into poverty.

In an open letter to David Cameron, published in the Guardian, more than 50 social policy professors warn that the welfare reforms, coupled with previous tax, benefit and public expenditure cuts, will result in the poorest tenth of households losing the equivalent of around 38% of their income.

They say the changes will undermine public support for the welfare state – which they call “one of the hallmarks of a civilised society”.

“Welfare states depend on a fair collection and redistribution of resources, which in turn rests upon the maintenance of trust between different sections of society and across generations.

“Misleading rhetoric concerning those who have to seek support from the welfare state, such as the contrast between ‘strivers’ and ‘shirkers’, risks undermining that trust and, with it, one of the key foundations of modern Britain.”

The letter argues that such rhetoric does not reflect the reality of a UK where families move fluidly in and out of work and in and out of poverty.

It adds: “In the interests of fairness and to protect the poorest, as well as to avoid the risk of undermining the consensus on the British welfare state, we urge you to increase taxation progressively on the better off, those who can afford to pay (including ourselves), rather than cutting benefits for the poorest.”

As I read this, I can hear ringing in my head the voices of people who regard poverty in this country as almost entirely the fault of the poor- their poor planning, fecklessness, gambling, smoking, drinkings, laziness, refusal to get out there and find a job. I hear them tell me how benefits are the problem- removing the imperative for change and industry in those who then become a sponge on the productivity of society. ‘Nobody needs to be poor in this country’ I hear them say. ‘Nobody can be regarded as poor if they wear designer trainers and sit on their arses playing X-box all day.’

People who say these things, even those who grew up in poor households, they have rarely had any contact with those living in poverty- whose confidence and hope have been undermined by the brutalising effect of living as a non-citizen in post modern classless Britain.

I too grew up in a poor family- the child of a single mother who often did not eat so we could go to piano lessons, or have a new pair of shoes. I remember still the shame of this life- the feeling that I was less than my peers, and that no matter what I did to try to hide this, it was as if I wore a big badge saying ‘poor’. This was nothing to do with choices that I, or even my mother had made. There was nothing romantic about this experience, nothing that might be regarded as character building. What I became has always been built on these very shaky foundations.

I was reminded again of this when reading this;

A separate report compiled by academics from six UK universities concludes that Britain’s poorest are worse off today than they were at the height of the cuts imposed by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1983.

The Poverty and Exclusion project reports that 33% of British households lacked at least three basic living necessities in 2012, compared with 14% in 1983. These include living in adequately heated homes, eating healthily, and owning basic clothing items such as properly fitting shoes.

“Despite the fact that the UK is a much wealthier country, levels of deprivation are going back to the levels found 30 years ago,” says the report, titled The Impoverishment of The UK.

Some of the findings are featured in an ITV Tonight programme titled Breadline Britain on Thursday evening.

The report found:

• Around 4 million adults and almost 1 million children lack at least one basic item of clothing, such as a warm winter coat, while 3 million adults of working age (including over a fifth of those looking for work) cannot afford appropriate clothes for a job interview.

• Roughly 4 million children and adults are not fed properly judged against what most people consider to be a minimally acceptable diet – meaning they do not eat three meals a day, including fresh fruit, meat, fish and vegetables. Over a quarter of all adults skimped on meals so others in their households could eat.

• One-third of all adults can’t afford to pay unexpected costs of £500 (such as if a cooker breaks down), 31% can’t afford to save at least £20 a month, and 1 million children can’t afford to join sports training or drama clubs.

• About 11 million people cannot afford adequate housing conditions and nearly one in ten households are unable to afford to fully heat their home.

The project measures who and how many people fall below what the majority agree are “necessities for life” in the UK today. The list of necessities also includes consumer items such as a washing machine and a telephone, and social activities like visiting friends and family in hospital.

“The results present a remarkably bleak portrait of life in the UK today and the shrinking opportunities faced by the bottom third of UK society,” said the head of the project, Professor David Gordon of Bristol University. “Moreover this bleak situation will get worse as benefit levels fall in real terms, real wages continue to decline and living standards are further squeezed.”

What gets me most about our present government and the politics they espouse is the grubby defensive self serving flavour of it all. Our ambitions for society have become, at best, to carve for ourselves some individual security, and let those who lack our ambition go hang.

How do you find ambition if you feel nothing but defeat? If the zeitgeist all around you is redolent with hopelessness?

My mate Graham posted this quote the other day;

I stored this from a wonderous mailing called ‘Friday night theology’ back in October and is written by someone called Roger Sutton. Most of this could as easily be read by a person with faith or no faith. I love the way that it points us to the other and is not the usual motivational self, self guff. Great for Holy Week:

‘When you believe life is limited, with only so many resources to go round then you naturally hold on to what you have, you grasp and hoard and defend. It’s an ugly place to live, with fear and anxiety at its heart. But if you believe life is unlimited, abundant and providential then you can respond with a grateful heart for the bread we receive each day knowing there will be more bread just around the corner. We can give and bless others and take care of those who are the most vulnerable, knowing that true compassion knows no limit, it has no fatigue element. Stewardship then replaces control, where we take responsibility to make sure the resources are allocated in fair and just ways, but always knowing that we bring our small offering of loaves and fish. It’s simply what we have, and the force of abundance adds to those humble gifts and multiplies them.

We need to challenge our propensity towards anxiety, believing that life is out to get us. We need to trust again in the God of harvest time, the providing abundant force in the universe. The future, as Daniel O’Leary in Passion for the Possible tells us: “is a mother waiting for us with outstretched arms, and a father who is crazy about our  freedom and our fulfillment and longs only for us to let him love us”

Where my friends is this kind of politics, this kind of economics, this kind of social policy?

This kind of religion?

How do you put out a mountain thats on fire?

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I suppose the answer to this is- you do not.

Here are some photos taken from Taynuilt today on my way round to Oban. As far as I could gather from the locals the fire has been burning for two days and looked spectacular last night as the flames lit up the hill. Someone told me she thought that the fire started over the other side of the mountain, and had spread- fortunately only slowly towards the houses this side as the wind was pushing the flames away.

Despite heavy snow falls in parts of Argyll (Campbeltown was cut off for three days over the weekend with no power) the hills are incredibly dry at the moment. What little moisture there is has been held in the form of ice.

Economic lie number 4; inequality is good for the system…

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The whole Capitalist system is dependent on aspiration, or so we are told. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer has just heralded his 2013 budget as something for an ‘aspiration nation’- seeking to help those who want to help themselves- those who want to own their own houses.

Without the wealth creators (business entrepreneurs) there can be no long term prosperity. All that you will have is stagnation- look what happened in the old soviet bloc countries.

Without greed we have bad cars, cabbage soup and bureaucrats in stone washed denim.

Except that the rich are getting richer, even WITHIN our western economies. This from The Telegraph;

The world’s rich are getting richer. The Forbes billionaire list was published this morning (there are now 1,426 of them globally in dollar terms, with 210 new entrants in the last year), and collectively they are $800bn richer than they were a year ago. Each billionaire is, on average, $100m richer than in 2011, with an average wealth of $3.7bn.

And the poor poorer; The Institute of Fiscal Studies forecasts that, as a result of UK tax and benefit policies, there will be significant increases in child poverty in the coming years. In Scotland alone forecast trends would suggest between 50,000 and 100,000 more children being pushed into poverty by 2020. (See here.)

And what is more, the argument can be questioned even by people on the inside;

There is the opposite argument too- that the more equal societies are in terms of income, the better its citizens seem to do. This from here;

In The Spirit Level Wilkinson and Pickett base their analysis on data from 23 rich countries as well as data from the 50 American states. They say that in the main this shows that the following problems are much more pronounced in countries with higher levels of income inequality.

Health inequalities: At the end of the 1990s there was an average gap of 7.3 years in mortality between rich and poor people in unequal societies. This can rise to as much as 28 years in some American states. They argue that research shows these differences cannot simply be explained by differences in health behaviours.
Mental illness: They argue that ‘inequality is  causally related to mental illness’; that rates of mental illness are five times higher in the most unequal societies compared to the least unequal.  Illegal drug taking is also higher.
Obesity: Unequal societies are more likely to have higher levels of obesity, with poor people most at risk, partly because of the attractions of ‘comfort eating’.  Indeed the rate of obesity is six times higher in the most unequal, compared to the least unequal, societies.
Divorce rates: There have been larger rises in more unequal societies. This then creates more stress for children.
Teenage pregnancy: This is more prevalent in unequal societies. Indeed in the USA the rate of teenage pregnancy is four times the EU average.
Violence: Wilkinson and Pickett argue that the strongest evidence or the negative effects of inequality is violence figures. The reasons for this are explored below.
Imprisonment: Unequal societies are more punitive. People are five times more likely to be imprisoned in the most unequal societies than the least unequal.
Social mobility: Inequality leads to less social mobility. Inequality ‘solidifies the social structure’ and also depresses educational attainment for the poor.
Women’s position: In general women are less likely to be in higher status jobs in unequal societies and they also have worse health than women in more equal societies.

Wilkinson and Pickett argue that the problem of inequality is not just for poor people: everyone suffers. The life expectancy figures even for rich people is lower in unequal societies than more equal ones. The reason they advance for this is that unequal societies have lower levels of trust than more equal societies. This lack of trust leads to more hostility, fear and lower levels of community participation. In this way everyone suffers.

In the data they present the societies which are most unequal, and have the biggest health inequalities and social problems, are the USA, the UK, Portugal, Australia and New Zealand. The least unequal are the Scandinavian countries and Japan.

 

Tested to distraction, Myers Briggs and the like…

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So here is how it goes for most of us.

The company/organisation/bureaucracy that you work for is in trouble. There have been rumours of cuts and financial black holes for months. Anxiety gathers like dust on every workstation. Eventually the inevitable happens- it is announced that there will be a ‘restructuring’ of the workforce.

Because our managers are human too (and soon to be subject to their own version of the same) it is possible that a firm of consultants will be brought in- people with relevant expertise in helping other organisations through the ‘essential modernisation process.’ Their skill set is to bring anonymous quasi-scientific ruthlessness to bear in such a way that changes appear inevitable, inexorable.

They will no doubt set up meetings with individual members of staff, who will be subjected to ‘evaluations’ and ‘reviews of job role’. This process will almost always miss the crucial ingredients for the productivity or otherwise of your team- it will not be able to deal with the bullies or the psychopaths, who will probably find the process entertaining, motivating invigorating.

To add to the feeling of objectivity, the consultants will also employ various forms of psychometric testing to measure our supposed fitness for the job roles we are undertaking.

The most common of all being the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI.)

Within a few short months, a handful of people will have succumbed to stress related illnesses or high blood pressure. Strangely, unless they decide to jump ship, their employment will probably be safe- although they are very unlikely to rise any further in their organisation. Rather they will be given a backwater to swim quietly in until the next reorganisation.

A few others will be made redundant. Some of them will have made a positive choice in this direction- it is better to have your fate in your own hands of course.

Many more will be in lower paid jobs. There will be fewer middle managers, and staff will be increasingly called ‘autonomous professionals’.

It is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Sorry about that- I felt the cynicism building up in my fingers like lactic acid as I typed away…

But back to the point of this piece, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and its many imitators.  It was developed by a couple of ladies during world war two who had become fans of the wild and wonderful work of Carl Jung. Jung had this view of personality as being made up of dichotomies- polar opposites that we all find ourselves fixed upon; our ‘type’. This from Wikipedia;

Jung’s typological model regards psychological type as similar to left or right handedness: individuals are either born with, or develop, certain preferred ways of perceiving and deciding. The MBTI sorts some of these psychological differences into four opposite pairs, or dichotomies, with a resulting 16 possible psychological types. None of these types are better or worse; however, Briggs and Myers theorized that individuals naturally prefer one overall combination of type differences.[1]:9 In the same way that writing with the left hand is hard work for a right-hander, so people tend to find using their opposite psychological preferences more difficult, even if they can become more proficient (and therefore behaviorally flexible) with practice and development.

The 16 types are typically referred to by an abbreviation of four letters—the initial letters of each of their four type preferences (except in the case of intuition, which uses the abbreviation N to distinguish it from Introversion). For instance:

  • ESTJ: extraversion (E), sensing (S), thinking (T), judgment (J)
  • INFP: introversion (I), intuition (N), feeling (F), perception (P)

All of this has a real seductive truism to it- it manages to place us all in a pigeon hole that we are all more or less happy with as it all feels very neutral and more or less supportive of some of our good qualities. Where is the harm in that?

Well, as with all these things, it depends on the use we put things to. If we are going to use something like Myers Briggs as a blunt instrument to knock people into jobs like we would a pit prop, then we need to be pretty sure that it is testing something real, something that makes sense on more levels than our employers organisational convenience right?

Because there is a vase array of criticisms of Myers Briggs. It is simply not used by psychologists- even the ones who are prepared to concede the validity and usefulness of individualised psychometric testing.

This from the Guardian

The trouble is, the more you look into the specifics of the MBTI, the more questionable the way it’s widespread use appears to be. There are numerouscomprehensivecritiques about it online, but the most obvious flaw is that the MBTI seems to rely exclusively on binary choices.

For example, in the category of extrovert v introvert, you’re either one or the other; there is no middle ground. People don’t work this way, no normal person is either 100% extrovert or 100% introvert, just as people’s political views aren’t purely “communist” or “fascist”. Many who use the MBTI claim otherwise, despite the fact that Jung himself disagreed with this and statistical analysis reveals even data produced by the test shows a normal distribution rather thanbimodal, refuting the either/or claims of the MBTI. But still this overly-simplified interpretation of human personality endures, even in the Guardian Science section!

Generally, although not completely unscientific, the MBTI gives a ridiculously limited and simplified view of human personality, which is a very complex and tricky concept to pin down and study. The scientific study of personality is indeed a valid discipline, and there are many personality tests that seemingly hold up to scientific scrutiny (thus far). It just appears that MBTI isn’t one of them.

The lure of a quick fix. An easy simplification. MBTI appears to me to be to psychology what astrology is to astronomy- it uses some shared language but that is about it. It has entered our hospitals, our schools, even our churches….

We are not captured in this narrow set of words about who we are. Sometimes we are both and. Sometimes we revert to ‘type’, often re transcend it. Let us escape the bloody tramlines- whatever ways we do it.

And as I write this, I will be accused of over simplifying MBTI, of dismissing its usefulness. No doubt people will say that those of my type always tend to do these things.

My reply will be that when quasi scientific quackery rises so far as to become a force for narrow stereotypical judgements it becomes a force of empire, and the empire should be resisted.

 

Generation self?

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I read a really depressing piece in the Guardian not long ago. Here is an extract;

Has Britain raised a new “heartless” generation of children of Thatcher – and, arguably, of Tony Blair? Does this mark the slow death of solidarity? Or has the received wisdom on the imagined journey through life, from hot-headed radical to self-satisfied reactionary, never been all that true?

Guardian/ICM poll is only the latest piece of evidence suggesting that the left’s defining value of solidarity is in considerably shorter supply among the young than the old. A rising generation that finds college expensive, work hard to come by and buying a home an impossible dream is responding to its plight, not by imagining any collective fightback, but by plotting individual escape.

The desolate atomisation of what we might dub “generation self” – today’s twentysomethings – poses a profound challenge for the left over the distant horizon. But it is not a challenge that shows up yet in the headline figures for voting intention, where pensioners remain considerably more conservative and everyone else’s propensity to put a cross in the Tory box remains much of a muchness. Rather, the staunch individualism of the young emerges when they are probed about deeper attitudes. This even manifests in areas like thewelfare state, despite young people being far more likely than their older compatriots to be unemployed.

A full 48% of 18- 24-year-olds, and 46% of 25- 34-year-olds disagreed with a statement suggesting that most unemployed people receiving benefits were “for the most part unlucky rather than lazy” – almost twice as many as in the over-65s group, where only 25% disagreed with the statement.

That gulf on welfare between the age gaps is a strong one: even despite the relatively small samples of each age group, the gap was easily big enough to be statistically significant.

Attitudes on a few other issues also showed a split, albeit not quite so stark: 24% of 18- 24-year-olds disagreed that it’s important to get to know your neighbours, versus just 11% of over-65s. Younger people were also more likely to disagree that they were proud to be British, although an overwhelming majority at all age groups express patriotism.

All this taps into a very familiar story- of how we are letting loose a generation who are disconnected, self absorbed, individualised to the point of atomisation and view everything as commodities to be consumed.

Except…

I have a daughter who is 17, and pretty much plugged into the mainstream- so much so that she calls me an aging hipster for my refusal to conform.

Now perhaps the child of a social worker and a community worker was always going to be gifted with an out sized social conscience but Emily is passionate about social justice, she loves nothing better than to celebrate a friends birthday or to arrange a gathering.

I think each generation has a crisis of confidence in the next one. Perhaps this is ours.

That is not to say that each generation does not need to find it’s own soul. Usually it seems to be found in adversity or mobilised by the eruption of a totemic issue. Mine was cast by the destruction of industry and the miners strike- and we had a name for our pain- Margaret Thatcher.  What is there today?

Well, there are people like Emily.

I might call them (but she would not necessarily use the same language) ‘Agents of the Kingdom of God’. A residue of grace in the middle of us.

Ecomonomic lie number 3- austerity affects us all…

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Austerity

Back to my little mini series about economics. Don’t expect deep learned insights- I did study economics as part of a social science degree 25 years ago, but I was a very poor student. However, there are many approaches to economics- here are a few;

Technical/systematic- clever people who claim to understand the ebb and flow of the complex currents that move in the deep oceans of international finance. They know the difference between M1, M2, and M3. They advise the powerful and hold the fate of millions within their sterile computer generated models. Here, the economy is a desperately complex, ever changing thing, that is not just human in origin, it is supra-human. We are all subject to it, in the same way as the Ancient Greeks lived in the shadow of Mount Olympus. The gods are capricious, mysterious, vengeful and unmoved by ephemera. Our high priest-economists are expected to placate the gods, but they are after all gods and so there is the constant threat of earthquake wind or brimstone…

Political- I contend that most politicians know very little about point 1. They have to pretend they do, like the emperor and his new clothes. They have to pretend to be in control of the gods. They have to present deep ocean complexity in the form of simplistic decisions. All the better if the issue can be polarised, and if their are people/groups to be blamed. So we see two narrative techniques being employed at present-

  1.  The economy is constantly compared to a household spending plan. It has to be about prudence, good management, respectability- the image is a solid middle class family who budget carefully for their two holidays, their new sofa and retirement plan. Except that the economy bears no resemblance to a middle class household budget. Houses can not print their own money for a start. They can not set their own tax rates, they can not invest huge sums in education or health or in nuclear arsenals. And of course not all households are the same. Some are broken, bankrupt.
  2. The other narrative I have already hinted at- it is the narrative of blame. Our lifestyles are under threat from the fecklessness of the poor or the tidal wave of immigrants- the strivers are carrying all these skivers on their backs. We no longer talk about social class because stratification in our society has fragmented- but in case you are in any doubt, check out any mumber of tabloid newspapers- the Express, the Mail, the Sun. They are full of stories of benefits dodgers, single mothers getting posh social housing, dark skinned swarthy outsiders who are clogging up our hospital wards. For a while, the bankers got some mud thrown at them- but mud does not stick to shiny power for long.

The economics of justice- There is another approach to economics of course- one which both politicians and technical economists are aware of, some even motivated by- it is the analysis of the flow of capital from the poor to the rich, and the operation of the machine that makes this happen. It points us to the conquest of poor countries, whose raw materials are used to make the toys of the rich. It also points us to the remarkably persistent and stable gulf between the rich, healthy, educated minority and the rest- both globally and locally.  I make no excuse for this statement; these are the economics of the Kingdom of God.

Two stories sum up this gulf within the UK at the moment. Firstly, this one;

Lamborghini Veneno

The eurozone may still be in recession, but there is little gloom at the Geneva motor show, where Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren and Rolls-Royce have launched luxury supercars costing up to £3m each.

While European car sales dropped by 3.3m last year – the equivalent of a car company the size of Fiat failing to sell any cars at all – super-luxury cars are rolling out of the showrooms in ever increasing numbers.

“Most the world is suffering from recession, yet there are clearly people who can buy a Lamborghini at €3m (£2.6m) a pop,” said Paul Newton, auto analyst at IHS Global Insight. “Bentley, McLaren, Rolls are all doing well. There is clearly a market for the most expensive of cars, whereas the mass market manufacturers are nearly all suffering, especially in Europe. It’s the definition of a two-speed economy.”

Philip Harnett, product manager of Rolls-Royce’s latest €245,000 Wraith model, launched at the Geneva show on Tuesday, said that while the global economy was in the doldrums “some people are doing very well and they want to reward themselves”.

He said it was important for staff morale that high-flying company executives continue to buy the most luxurious cars. Executives told him that “the day I turn up for work in a Morris Minor is the day the staff will start to worry”.

(From the Guardian Tuesday 5 March 2013.)

Then, by way of contrast, this story;

Houses in Middlesbrough

One of the most acute concerns about the government’s so-called “bedroom tax” – which from April will force anyone “underoccupying” social housing to either downsize to a smaller property or face a cut in their housing benefit – is the severe shortage of smaller properties available to move to.

The National Housing Federation suggests there are 180,000 social housing tenants underoccupying two-bedroom homes in England, yet fewer than 70,000 one-bedroom properties are available.

From 1 April, anyone living in social housing who has one unoccupied bedroom will have their housing benefit cut by 14%, rising to 25% for households with two spare bedrooms.

Maureen Hagan, 58, lives in a three-bedroom property in Grangetown, Middlesbrough, with her 18-year-old granddaughter, whom she took in five years ago. She will now see her housing benefit cut by 14%, even though she says she requires the extra bedroom in order to meet standards set by social workers, as she is fighting to bring another young relative out of foster care and into the family home.

She feels that the welfare reform is out of sync with the rate of inflation, and calls for the government to prolong the introduction of the cuts. She spoke of her recent struggles to meet utility payments: “That was before that bedroom tax on top of everything else. What am I going to do then?”

Hagan expects to face a £14 cut to her housing benefit each week – more than half her weekly shopping budget.

“I can’t afford to buy makeup. I’d like to buy it but I can’t. I’d like to buy my own clothes; the charity shop’s my clothes shop, and it has been for a number of years.”

(The Guardian, Friday 8 March 2013)

Both of these extremes are a direct result of the current economic circumstances affecting us all. One part of our society profits- gets richer, amuses themselves with more toys.

The other folk (whilst watching Top Gear on Sunday night) have decisions to make about whether they move house because they are mere grit in the cogs of the system. Their fate is irrelevant to the ultimate prize. If they can not consume, they have no value.

We are not all ‘tightening our belts’, or ‘feeling the pain’. We are not all making the same sacrifice.

There are of course other possibilities. Some are about managing the economy better- taking a Keynesian approach to stimulating our economy again. But this does little to change the game- it just clarifies a few of the rules.

Poverty is not a choice, it is an economic necessity to ensure growth. The alternative is revolution- if not of the Marxist kind, then perhaps the Jesus kind, which takes the emphasis off power, and puts it on love. Against this there is no law.

Off to pastures old…

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M and I are down to the lakes for a couple of days- a present from the kids for Christmas- they found a deal in a hotel near Cockermouth.

Poor Michaela is riddled with a cold, so I think we will be tea-shopping, lake-side walking and standing arm in arm looking at views.

And perhaps contemplating how things change. It is not so long ago that the mountains of the lakes were like Eden to me- they pulled at me like a much loved but half remembered memory. So trips up there with Michaela were quite rare as I was often off into the hills alone or with friends. The times we did go together – taking boat trips and carrying our little ones in back packs – were special too however.

But how odd to be going without the kids. It is almost like a rehearsal for the next stage of life, which is upon us, like it or not.

Emily received her first offer from a University this week- she has an unconditional offer from Glasgow Caledonian to go and do Psychology there. Not her first choice, as she wants to combine physiology with psychology, but well done her anyway as we wait for the other responses.

Which all seems a long road from this trip to the lakes;

Michaela with Emily, some time in the late nineties, Keswick.

The false-god of economic growth…

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Interesting article in the Guardian today about this book;

GetImage

 

Interesting title- considering discussions about apocalyptic end times obsessiveness in some parts of the Christian world. A timely reminder of how we can get snarled up in religion at the expense of hope for the future this beautiful planet.

The book opens up again the question about what we can do as a nation to break economic mono culture that we have spent ourselves into. Here is a quote from the article;

Consume less, he says. Be sceptical about new technology. Slow down. And do not fall for the modern political class’s post-Blair belief that history is bunk, and to draw on the past is to be a hopeless throwback: it is only a comparative blink since the second world war found millions of people reshaping their lives in the cause of a common endeavour, and the same thing could yet happen again.

And then there is the fetish of growth, or rather growth-ism. As Simms points out, the idea that economies necessarily have their limits was being voiced when capitalism was still young: in 1848, John Stuart Mill argued that “a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement”. A century and a half later, Adair Turner, a former director of the CBI, told Simms that if anyone thinks “the most important objective of public policy is to get growth from 1.9 per cent to 2 per cent and even better 2.1 per cent”, they’re worshipping a “false god”, and “extra growth does not automatically translate into extra human welfare and happiness”.

These are pretty ordinary thoughts, but ones that the dull noise coming from Westminster renders almost exotic – and essential.