the far right

This was a provocative piece by Goodhart from a few years back. Reviewed an awful piece by some Muslim conservative for him and then had a bit of an argument with him soon after. "Radio silence", as he called it, followed. Boiled down to this: he thought I should be supporting the English cricket team. What a tosser! The reason: the English team had a few Pakistani and Indian-origin players at the time and since I supposedly believed in diversity, then it followed...

Well, first things first: those players were terrible/mediocre. Secondly, The English team as a whole plays in such a boring and lacklustre way that to support such a team would go against my principle of favouring teams (in cricket or football) with flair and panache. Thirdly, cricket is not politics. But the point I made, and the one that really got him going was this: the Pakistani team was made up of a collection of individuals from a far more diverse background. Class, for instance. That was something he didn't want to talk about (partly, I suspect, because he either knew nothing about such distinctions or didn't care much for them even if he did). Also, at the time the team had a Christian and a Hindu playing for them, so even on his narrow terms they were about par (especially if one considers how small a minority they form).

Behind all of those rather unpleasant exchanges was, on his part, I fear, the puzzlement over having a rational discussion with someone who you disagree with. In the final analysis it's quite discomforting not having to deal with a lackey or a raving lunatic, a house-n__, or a field-n__. Far, far easier to put people you don't like-Jews, Muslims, etc. in a box.

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Listening to the fag end of a discussion on the radio about the rise of the far-right. What on earth has happened to the Dutch, for example? Or the Danes? Halal food. That's what politics has come down to, I guess. The crisis of "European values" brought on by a few burkas and chicken tikkas! Populism and conservative reactions. Since when has identity been political!? Well, probably from quite an early on (as Goodhart's very interesting article indicates). The nation-state is precisely that: the bringing together of 'the people' and the state. Of course, that question has always been a contentious one: who, exactly are the people? Not the poor and not women (for a long time). Certainly not black people or the Red Man either. More radically: is it possible to exist (politically) without being inscribed into the history, projects, archives, 'subjectivizations' of the state: non-representable citizens, rebel-citizens? A community of saints (or 'bastards')

Augsburg: 1555.

Which is not to say that there aren't other trajectories within that political tradition or that the very notion of the nation might not alter as economic changes take place (globalisation, say) or as cultures become more intertwined, or as we realise the commonality of our problems (eg. the environment).

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Well, wanted to jot down a few notes made on H.P. Lovecraft, that nasty piece of work, but I guess that will have to hold 'till morning.

And this on the day that I visited the wonderful museum of childhood. Ho hum.