War on...

The war on people:

~

The war on: women, obesity, terror, drugs, crime, immigrants, civilisation, refugees, scroungers, the natural habitat..war citizenship.

(Stunning photos by Adriane Ohanesian).

News from a strange planet:

By 2025 20% of the world's population will be obese (outnumbering the people who will be undernourished).
--The Guardian.

Antarctic ice less stable than once thought
--Elizabeth Kolbert.

'"Behead all Muslims" were daubed in foot-high capital letters beside beach huts that lined the coastal path'
--(The tragic story of four kids radicalized in Brighton), The Guardian.

"Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife."
--Trumpet.

"And look, and look!! The helicopter has scampered off, with its tail between its legs."
(A crazed mullah after inciting the mob to throw their slippers at an army helicopter flying above them. There's a hilarious online video as well. Who needs Monty Python!).

"He started to tell me it [to sit next to a woman] was forbidden by the Torah. I interrupted him to say the Torah says nothing about a man sitting next to a woman. He conceded I was right, but said there was a general principle that a person should not put himself in a dangerous position."
--R. Rabinowitz, an eighty-one year old aeroplane passenger.

~

The human mind delights in seeing (or positing) continuity. So, we immediately see the pictures above and think of some timeless, almost Biblical, scene of displacement. We need our words and images to carry us over the abyss of time. 

But what if the human story is coming to an end? Not human beings per se, but human beings with a past and a future?

There are no more storytellers. 

At the end of time there is no more time, and no more place. No more place for human beings, for human habitats, gestures, responses. No more dwelling because that implies continuity, order, but only aimless wandering and transitory, weightless pleasures: instagram, a few scribbled words stored on a distant "cloud". A mechanical world that is at once a product and cause of our mechanical thinking. And in that world which is not a world no-one loves no-one.

Radical Hope: a faith in the continuation of the good of the world (Plenty Coups). But after the 20th century did history come to an end? 

Plenty coups, again: After that, nothing happened.

Huddled together, next to the dying flames, what is there to do but wait?

~

The small, enclosed world we once knew gives way to abstractions, movements through "space" (like the American/Israeli settlers or the American woodsman). 

The last hour of the sun. For centuries these bent backs, this gathering and passing down. Hands that would have known, rich and old. There, behind the trees, the knot of uneven graves cast in shadow, the queen's words dry on her lips, her folded hands unmoved through the centuries, her brow still fresh.

The fruit lay waste on the ground, some allowed to fall and lie, as is the custom of this place, as long as anyone can remember. The gnarled apple tree at the edge of the field, near the slow river. And she looks out from the high window with the light from the east: who will dress me in red and green? 

'Great summer sun, great summer sun,
All loss burns in trophies.' 
--G. Barker.

Joyful Forms

The invisible axis around which all revolves, the space, still, open, in which all forms find their origin, the white space of possibilities, the second space of second chances, beyond "height", the dark brilliance inside the 'No'. The Hindus would say, "not this, not that". 

The Garden of Flames. What shape does the day take today, which hat to wear!

A Qur'anic saying which, to me, gets to the heart of it:

And God's is the East and the West: and wherever you turn, there is the Face of God.
--2.115.

Times Square. From across the centuries, through all that flux, still something survives, as elementary as the gesture of a hand, a wry smile, a few stray or dissonant notes in a composition. A child, your child, looks at the haphazard movement of a butterfly, unpredictable as ever, and is as bewildered as the first child on earth ever was. I have only five words; I need only one. But to think only of one's child in these times is a monstrosity. No-one knows.  

~
A small and flexible tin with perforated sides, the soursal creates a buzzing sound when the strings of the gnbri are plucked. That "sizzle" is a reminder of the Gnawa's West African ancestry, and makes the gnbri a "ritual instrument," Schuyler says.

--NYRB.

This reminded you of the mesmerizing music of Makran in which you think you can pick up reminders of African roots, as if something old had been woven, concealed with great care, in the new forms, as if to say: no matter how far we travel we will never really leave home: fidelity to the true note in our lives.

~

Ko-Ko

"That's the Negro's life," he said. "Hear that chord!" Ellington played it again. "That's us. Dissonance is our way of life in America. We are something apart, yet an integral part."

[Kadosh ]

Ko--Ko, written in 1939, evokes the drum-and-dance ceremonies that slaves once performed on Sunday afternoons in New Orleans.

--from Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise.

~

Some wonderful music here

The Idea of the East

In the wake of another terrible tragedy here in Lahore I was tempted to write a cynical post about the phony idea of the 'mystical east' and, more importantly, of how the cancer of violence and extremism has spread in the so-called Muslim world. But at the moment I'm simply too sad to do that. Instead, there's Bulleh, always Bulleh, for what it's worth. 

~

Though I hate to say it: Virat Kohli is world-class. His breadth of vision almost creates space on the field and his mind is so 'present' and centred that other people always seem like bit parts in the unfolding drama, the story that he's writing. Inzamam was a genius, for sure, but Kohli, let is be said in hushed words, is another one too.

~

There have been many shocking attacks over the years and this ranks as one of the worst (What does "ranks" even mean? Words, of course, buckle and slide, lose their precision under such circumstances).

There is something terrible in that first picture, raw grief etched on the faces, the woman on the right in the pink head covering completely speechless, bemused. These faces could be from a painting, from a scene 10,000 years ago. Nothing much changes in the sordid and grim tale of human history. The hands, the hands reaching out to protect or simply touch loved ones, the hands open in desperation, resignation: "Lord, why this?" 

Decade Zero

When the forests have been burned
their darkness remains.
--W.S. Merwin.

Our names, scratched in stone, as faint as the hours of our lives, or the rubbed out pencil marks you find in a book indicating nothing but the wonderment of the imagination's delight in picking out a word, a phrase, that unlocked some room in your unknown heart.

There is time without me & you..and that time is now. Drink well, Khayyam. The cup is empty!

~
A dinner in the old historical part of town, an enclosed space with high walls blocking out the cacophony from outside. A school friend from another era who keeps his rifles on the wall. The conversation is dominated, no matter how much we put a brave face on it, by the "theme"-God, that's a good way of negating it!- of ageing and illness (since one friend recently passed away and another barely survived a heart attack).

He asks, bemused, like a wild animal caught in the lights, a moment of reckoning dawning upon him: where did all the years go? As if no-one else had asked that, as if human beings hadn't been asking that question right from the start.

~

N. Klein has some startling facts in her new book. State and private fossil fuel companies have 2,800 gigatons of carbon on their accounts (coal, oil and gas deposits they have on their books). To keep the chances of global temperatures not rising by more than 2C requires that we don't extract more than 565 gigatons. That means roughly 4/5 ths needs to stay in the ground. That means that all the investments these companies make in terms of exploration and extraction are "stranded assets".

On 2C Kevin Anderson has the most succinct summary. Two degrees, remember, has now been upgraded to "extremely dangerous" (which is why everyone emphasizes 1.5). But for the earth to stabilize at + 2C depends on assumptions about improvements in technology and peak emissions (for Stern those are supposed to have happened by 2015-16). The later we reach a peak the worse it is because the stock of co2 will continue to be in the atmosphere (for on average a century). 

Over the last decade carbon emissions in the States has in fact fallen (by 12%) but global increases remain high (roughly 2.7% each year over the last century). Also, some academic work suggests that the gains made in less carbon are offset by the increase in methane. Do we, then, need to look at co2-e? 

What gets missed in this story-and where Klein is so good-is the way in which "innovation" is leading to other, in some cases "dirtier" types of extraction (tar sands). Fracking, for example, results (it is estimated) in 30% greater leaks of methane than from usual natural gas extraction. And methane, though shorter lived (14 years) is 36 times more effective at trapping heat than co2. Unsurprisingly, methane levels in the atmosphere have increased (figures?) and at a quicker rate. 

Brown coal production in Germany is at its highest level since 1990. So, co2 emissions actually went up 2011-12 (and have fallen only now for the first time in three years). Czech republic, Poland too (N. Klein). 

Is this the last chance to make a change, decade zero, as it were? Think about increases in population, the shift in population from low-income to middle-income, urbanization, the infrastructure and demand for consumer goods that follows, and you begin to see that we're being locked into a pattern of development that can have long-term consequences. And the longer we delay radical change to our production and consumption habits, the type of economies we have, the more difficult it will be to stabilize temperatures without very significant damages. Our decisions today may be locking us in to an unenviable future. 

Maybe I should have linked to Bowie's Five Years. 

The top ten countries (mischievously I've included the EU as one country) in the world produce 80% of all co2. China, which is the highest in absolute terms (25% of the total) still only produces half of what the states does in per capita terms. India, which is fourth in absolute terms produces at level that is 1/10th of America in per capita terms. So, if India and China even come close to America you can imagine what the implications will be.   

And, of course, back in the land of the pure there is a massive interest in coal production (since, apparently, we have the seventh largest reserve of the dirtiest kind). In fact, one of your former students is involved in a Pak-China six-year project to extract 4.2 m tonnes of coal per year. 

A photo taken by a friend who is working on people who are being displaced as a result of the coal projects:

The perfect housewife

That's Kim Kardashian (in case you're living on a different planet) whose mural was taken down because it was deemed offensive. And the other picture is of the stunningly beautiful Adriana Lima (who was Ford's Brzail supermodel at the age of fifteen, Wikipedia helpfully informs us). 

'The perfect housewife has been replaced on advertising hoardings by...there is more money to be made in fashion, leisure and sex [than durable goods].'

--Matthew Taylor.   

Children once existed solely to inherit a man's genes, his moral code and his name. This was taken fro granted among the aristocracy, but merchants, craftsmen and peasants also bought into the idea; it became the norm. That's all gone now. There's nothing for my son to inherit. I have no craft to teach him. By the time he grows up, the rules I live by will be meaningless; the world will be completely different. If a man accepts this then his life is reduced to nothing more than the sum of his own experience; past and future generations mean nothing to him. That's how we live now. For a man to bring a child into this world now is meaningless.'

--M. Houellebcq.

Gravity and Grace

A kind of grace that comes from losing or coming off second best. Sometimes said to be the best team that never won the world cup (but in all fairness I think that has to go to Brazil, '82).

But there was something special about Holland in the '70's and J.C. in particular: stylish, cool, off-centre. And, of course, the idea of "total football" which allowed for a lot more fluidity, interchangeability. 

But what was it about sportsmen and women like Cruyff and Borg and Nadia Comeneci (or, to a lesser extent, Viv Richards, "Hurricane" Higgins, Imran Khan, Zidane), what was that special kind of invulnerable and aloof mystique?

Not just brilliant technical skill (that is taken as given). Beyond phenomenal levels of skill, discipline and concentration there was always the question of personality and how it was somehow magically expressed in technique. And always the word 'effortless' would crop up, as if a kind of intelligence had been so ingrained in one's way of life it could manifest itself at any moment. Another way of thinking about this is the repertoire of shots/moves they could call upon at any given time. But surely originality doesn't stem from a quantitative notion of the scope and range of options?

How is greatness connected to timing, to having more space because one has a fraction of a second more time? You're there just before everyone else, in the moment but also out of it, the mind still holding close to it a picture of a quiet Romanian meadow, the streets of Marseilles after sundown..Does having more time mean you see what other people can't see? (The Greek gods?) 

Related to that sense of having more time is surely the idea of balance. There is a wild kind of talent (Higgins, George Best) but the three named always seemed calm and collected, unruffled. Borg, for instance..it was like he didn't need to speak a word.  

small wonders

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--Wendell Berry.

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Following up on yesterday's thoughts about the relation between economic democracy and political democracy I was reminded of how, in mainstream economics textbooks, there is no discussion whatsoever of corporations. The theory of the firm, as it is taught at the undergraduate level, is a one-dimensional black box in which inputs are simply converted into outputs. 

In a similar vein, discussions about markets traditionally start with a stylized example of wheat production, say. Of course, no historical discussion can be allowed (for example: of actual land relations, various understandings of the role of land in sustaining a way of life (a "land ethic") or, indeed, of how power shapes the way in which economic agents interact).

A universal science must abstract from local particularities and idiosyncrasies. The "rational peasant" is motivated by gain alone and culture, social norms an solidarity must be explained as an outcome of individuals interacting (on pain of negating the fundamental outlook or style of thinking in the bizarrely named social sciences: methodological individualism).

For a subject that supposedly promotes (implicitly, that is) a version of liberalism (free competition, individualism, autonomy) it is remarkable how little it has to say on the concentration of economic power and how the system perpetuates inequalities, inequalities that eventually undermine the notion of political democracy that is supposed to go hand in hand with the economic system.

The fact that people are now looking to China and Singapore, to a "managed" form of capitalism, is revealing. 

~

A very interesting discussion on the differences between Sanders and Clinton through the prism of big business/ small yeoman which is still very relevant to all of us. In other words, what are the chances of a small 'r' republicanism, a small 'c' conservatism emerging, one that is not steeped in bigotry and pettiness?  

Is the left, for example, irrevocably committed to an idea of the big state? With dwindling trade union influence and serious questions about the sustainability of a welfare state in the presence of a greying population (not to mention the weakening support for social democracy in an age of instant gratification and a changing composition of the population) is there a case for the left reclaiming a forgotten strand of thinking? Can it go back to the radical notion of opposing capitalism not by setting up large enough forces to tame it (that, on reflection, has resulted in the opposition being compromised: state capitalism) but by becoming small again?

The difficulty with that is that those modes of production (crafts, agriculture) and ways of thinking barely survive. We've been weaned on the market and the state for so long that we've almost lost any sense of a viable alternative (which is why, of course, anarchist thought is floundering). The only really alternative that exists is the nihilistic one of the fundamentalists-at least at the social level.

At the individual level, of course, there is always Pessoa and Walser; take a step away from it all, and live a quiet life amongst the beautiful and small wonders.  

The Idea of Europe

It is hard to think calmly these days. After the atrocious bombings in Paris and now Brussels there is probably not much to say but what little there is might be worth repeating.

This is, to some, about 'accounting'- there is a horrible sentiment that I increasingly hear being expressed: "Why should we have sympathy for them when so many people in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed directly or indirectly because of their misguided policies?"

And so, the logic continues, this is just those without any power, the dispossessed, striking back at the powerful with the only weapons they have.

Of course, it's conveniently forgotten that whatever the degree of validity to those views there may be there is the uncomfortable truth that the vast majority of people who have been killed at the hands of these fanatics are, in fact, other Muslims. In the land of the pure, support for these groups from General Z onward (in the name of 'strategic depth') has resulted in a terrible blowback and a radicalization of parts of the society. 

And, of course, it's also conveniently forgotten that lots of the tyrants, dictators and autocrats who brutalized their own people were Muslim (at least nominally) and that they were supported by western powers. So, my view really is: a pox on both your houses. Or, in other words: the little boy has it absolutely right: you have to piss on power (as Ian Buruma notes in a NYRB article written five days before the attacks). 

From the same article, a quote by Benda:

"Europe won't be the result of a simple economic, or political transformation. It will not really exist without adopting a system of moral and aesthetic values, the exaltation of a certain way of thinking and feeling.."

Now, in itself, this is a fascinating idea. From the outside it seems as if there has been little else but an economic transformation (and the political one, as far as the trends indicate, is a transformation that is seeing the dismantling of the social democracy consensus and a lurch to the right (or even worse, the far-right). 

Badiou is quite right to say that the market provides a false idea of universality. And one might add, of unity. What if the economic system is actually undermining the very notion and possibility of independent aesthetic values? Ditto morality. 

And it's not just the market per se but the attitudes and 'culture' that accompanies it. If Macintyre is right then the fragmentation of value at the workplace, educational institutions and more generally in life itself means that there is no real consensus on what constitutes the 'good life' over and beyond the value-neutral liberal stance that the freedom to pursue whatever one wants is the right of each individual. 

So, being bereft of any notion of the common good (the previous Pope's idea that that itself was underwritten by a common faith, a shared symbolic order, cannot be ignored), coupled with an economic system that favours individuality over solidarity and equality means that any discussion about the establishment of genuine political communities is severely limited. Dahrendorf (from memory): no political democracy without economic democracy. 

The fragmentation of value (which is, no doubt, partly exacerbated by immigration) isn't necessarily the same thing as a vibrant pluralism. In fact, quite the opposite! Not only does it entail the loss of coherence at the individual level as well as the loss of the idea of a common good; further, it allows for a dull uniformity to be imposed on us by states and corporations. The 'subjectivization' of the individual cannot but be a political act (an act, precisely, of de-politicization..."It's the economy, stupid").

"But Benda also believed that the idea of Europe should remain utterly rational, abstract, devoid of tribal sentiments." 

In other words, is being boring the only anti-dote today against barbarism? 

~
Elizabeth Smither:

The dark brilliance inside the 'No'.

Yes, I mean no. Have always meant no. Start my sentences that way, since I'm unwilling and unable to speak about myself. You see what I'm saying, no? Inside: the perpetual no, no matter how life drifts by. 

No to ideology, to state and religion, too. No to the life of the mind, since I get my artificial stimulants elsewhere. No to the individual, but to society also. No, a thousand times no to technology, to tribe, cast and class. No to 'the east' and no to 'the west'. No to the poet, the intellectual, the journalist and other fakes.  

An English state of mind

There is no such thing as 'the individual' or 'an individual', or a 'society of individuals'.

That is in stark contrast to the idea (perhaps 'myth' would be a better word) that the English have always been individualistic. The very life blood of English culture is nothing without an understanding that Liberty is the pulse that keeps it flowing. 

This notion of an 'essentially' highly individualistic people is sometimes related to 'English eccentricity' and sometimes to a natural isolation and shyness. Individuality, then, is equated to either simply being atypical or to an almost suffocating fear of contact (on the latter, you only have to mistakenly bump into someone and note how quickly the words "sorry" or "excuse me" are proffered). Individuality is in that sense really a manifestation of a highly developed desire for privacy, and to be left alone.

All of that is-as any myth of uniqueness is bound to be-quite comforting (parallel, perhaps, to the American myth of the rugged individual). Emphasize psychological explanations over social ones, and stick to the idea of continuity rather than change. By doing so one can crowd out other dispositions that might also be seen to be natural (such as social or altruistic ones), and one can in addition also find a justification for all sorts of harsh positions and policies (which is what, in fact, Thatcher managed to do) under the false assertion that one is only helping to reassert the fundamental, timeless and unique traits of  the English people.

Of course, the truth is radically different. England has always suffered from an incredible sense of class differentiation and deference to authority. Note the reaction to a simple sign such as "Keep off the Grass" or the passion with which people will form themselves into queues. Or, think about how easy it is to put someone in their place by pointing out how they've mispronounced a particular word. Equally telling is the way in which industrialisation generated mass conformity in habits, ways of thinking (the docile acceptance of these changes), and the way in which (newspaper) reading habits are shaped by a highly concentrated media industry. It is hard to imagine genuine individuals so easily accepting the trash produced by the cultural and educational industries or, indeed, the vast inequalities in income and wealth. 

What we've actually seen in the age of neo-liberalism is a process of "de-individualization". A gambler or an addict is not, in any recognizably familiar sense, an individual. Our addiction to consumption (cars, food, images, political and celebrity gossip) suggests that we're more slaves of our desires than individuals who possess the capacity to determine their own fate. (I say "our" because in reality the English state of mind is one that is symptomatic of the conditions produced, to varying degrees of intensity, in many other countries that are in thrall to the market). 

If to be an individual is to be 'free from' the determinations charted by family, tradition, church and state then in what sense are we individuals when so much of our lives is governed by the corporations and the war machine? 

But the more central question remains: to what extent can we even be individuals without social relations and attachments to specific places, objects, ways of life, language, people. The 'thin', ahistorical, rootless or cosmopolitan view of the individual, it turns out, is hardly a person at all, and one who is ripe for manipulation by the state, the media and the market.  

Alpha Territory

The real wealth and power of global capital is expressed in the compliance of politicians who have come to act as ushers and butlers to the wealthy...

"London now has a reputation for being the money-laundering capital of the world."

..

[Karen] Clark added that London had become the prime location for family offices, not only because of the high concentration of financial and luxury lifestyles available to meet the needs of the global super-rich but also because it offered a safe haven for those from Russia, China and the Middle East, and a more favourable tax and regulatory environment than its chief rival, New York.

--David Batty, The Observer.

~~

England: the crumbling of its empire, to the crumbling of its industrial cities, to the current crumbling of its welfare state.

It's hard to believe that England is, allegedly, the fifth richest country in the world. Perhaps it's a case of being privately rich, publicly poor. I know there are quite a few wannabe fascists who want to blame all of this on immigrants but that's because they don't want to address the more important perspective of class differences and the economic and political system which are perpetuating them. 

It's both interesting and shocking to see the growth in the number of butlers and family offices (managers of a family's private wealth). Of course, you immediately thought of Walser (but also of your friend who is, in fact, one of those managers (for a super-rich Yemeni family)). Such a nice kid as well. 

The working class 'entirely stripped of any sense of community, neighbourhood, or working solidarity by decades of right-wing social engineering.' It is precisely these people, you suspect, that have turned to the right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-Europe UKIP.

There is a loutish strain to British life (Alan Bennett, more or less, from Writing Home). Of course, some perspective would be useful: maybe England has always, since Gin Lane, been thuggish. D.H.L. may well be right: England has never had public spaces/places. This may account, in part, for the lack of civility. No, it's there on the surface, mind you (one must always keep up appearances), but you only have to scratch the surface to see a rather petty and nasty mentality rear its ugly head.

What Thatcher managed to do so successfully was give full rein to these more raw, crass and brutish tendencies, to somehow make knavish behaviour morally acceptable (greed in the city and in the suburbs was a sign, in some warped Calvinist way, that you were a free and independent person. That is, or so the myth would have it, what this country was all about: Liberty!).

So, in the Anglo-Saxon world neo-liberalsim marshalled in the transition from solidarity and equality as political ideals to the freedom, autonomy and unbounded choice of the market. But this freedom could never be an expression of a way of life since that would choke the whole project. Freedom, from then on, has became a vacuous concept, to be filled in in any way one desires or can care to think of. The only freedom worth talking about (or, more realistically, that one was permitted to talk about) was the ability to be 'free from'. And in this there was only really a childish and infantile striking out against any notion of limitation. Not as part of a modernist project to change reality since reality was now passe, a concept that had served its time. Screw reality, this was the era of 24/7 shopping/t.v., unlimited access, instant porn, trance and rave, chilling out in Ibiza, war as a spectacle.."the situation is fluid," a phrase that captured the moment, except there was no "capturing".

'To be poor now means to be endlessly assessed, monitored, and surveyed, and invariably found wanting.' But this is nothing new: when haven't the poor been counted? Isn't the birth of modern political economy contemporaneous with the birth of statistics (Foucault)? Isn't poverty in some sense created by the drawing of a poverty line and making people (feel) dependent on commodities as a way of satisfying their desires? Also, the growth of the audit culture from 1979 onward (Onora O'Neill).

How could such total, lock-step defiance of reality be maintained in a country with a formally free press and highly educated population?

Graeber is really getting to the heart of it here. That is one of the most troubling questions one could be asked. If you still believe in democracy when the economy, educational, media and cultural industries as well as the war machine are all geared to point you in a different direction then you will obviously be perturbed by the question (assuming you can still think straight). 

A subservient working-class population who, drawing on centuries of tradition, know exactly how to be butlers.

In the end, all the Blairites managed to produce was a world-class marketing sector.

Mainstream economics doesn't deal with the central problems of our times. It is still trying to solve a 19th century problem: how to allocate scarce resources in such a way as to optimize productivity.

The real problems, one feels, are far removed from this technique (for that is what it is, ultimately). Why, you might want to ask, has mainstream economics said so little about inequality or the climate? Or, if you look at a standard development economics textbook you will see very little discussion of the role of the state. Instead, you have the familiar line: the pattern of underdevelopment can be explained by some sort of market failure.