via Pli

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Well, if you haven't gone to Bob's wonderful blog (link: "a music box" on my main page, what on earth have you been doing?!)  

Not all things musical but an outstanding source of the weird and the wonderful. What strikes one about his blog is just how open he is to differences (I'd say the mysterious). Anyway, here's another of his recommendations.

The social

For some reason everything coming my way is related to the social- or, more particularly, to the decline of social democracy: Jacobs, Rogan, Collier and now Tomasello. 

Underlying the crises of social democracy in the 20th c. (of which neoliberalism is simply an extended modern version) is the tension between the individual and the social (or what Gellner would call: atomism and holism). The political manifestation of this tension was, of course, liberal, free-market regimes on the one hand and totalitarian or collective states on the other. Social democracy being a kind of compromise solution (as long as prosperity lasted and as long as societies weren't too diverse). But it really was, in hindsight, a papering over of the fundamental question. And to believe that the state rather than solidarity, fairness and fraternity (as expressed at the institutional level (firms, trade unions, say)) could solve the social problem was, perhaps, problematic from the outset.

So, what of the social is left-apart from, it might be said,a  dim recollection of older instincts and habits? Rogan says, rightly in my opinion, that there's no going back to the older metaphysical perspectives and languages. Reciprocity may have worked in small-scale societies and when society was underwritten by religious scripts, but after so many years of self-interest, avarice and with the emergence of large-scale institutions is there really any going back? Society is much more bureaucratic and impersonal. Markets deal with the needs of strangers.

In some sense, you get the feeling that Adam Smith was grappling with this all along. What can bind people in a commercial society? And so the idea of sympathy comes to the fore (since religion is too divisive). But, as we've seen, unless it's expressed in particular forms it's hard to rely on moral sentiments alone. Which leaves us where? the near-absolute dominance of a shallow kind of individualism?              

In the time that remains

The story of the world in a year, the story of a life in a year (the last book you bought is one you will never read but since anton recommended it and since she is always the person to turn to in such matters you bought it anyway: Anniversaries).

What can be told, without what went on before, and what goes on after. The silence after is nothing like the silence before. 

I liked the cover of the book and it seems to dovetail with Rogan's book, The Moral Economists. There's a collapse on the cards, one can sense it: the smouldering smoke, the powder dust that has fallen on people's faces, the signs erased, the grimaces on people's implacable faces. Even if you could name it, so what? The question is: what can you do about it? How to begin again? I think this will be the question for us when climate change steps up a gear and grabs us by the collars. What resources, institutional, physical, and above all internal resources are available to us to stave off disaster? Not education and not religion, probably. Few will inhabit and breathe poetry; music will point us there but little else. What chance of reconstruction, then? Or is there a kind of Benedict option, a withdrawal and a waiting of it out? Turn your back to the future? Or, worse, give over to the forces which you name as fate and enjoy your two moments in the sun?

Do you trust in the continuation of the good life?

What a story it's been, what a ride!   

   

morality and the university

The victory of specialized scholarly methods over scholarship.

Twentieth-century universities separated the education of the mind from that of the soul.

Within the classroom, universities and colleges increasingly understood their role in moral education as one of developing liberal moral agents—that is, helping young people develop capacities (critical thinking, reflection, understanding, self-awareness) they would need to function as self-aware citizens and make moral decisions on their own. 

More:

Specialized scholarship, and thus the university, offered no answers to life’s ultimate questions. Wissenschaft (scholarship), he famously wrote, was “meaningless” because it could not answer the most basic questions: “What should we do” and “How should we live.

--Chad Wellmon, Melancholy Mandarins.

Crisis

To all of us, I believe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Roman Empire is like a mirror in which we see reflected the brutal, vulgar, powerful yet despairing image of our technological civilization, an imperium which now covers the entire globe, for all nations, capitalist, socialist, and communist, are united in their worship of mass, technique and temporal power. What fascinates and terrifies us about the Roman Empire is not that it finally went smash but that … it managed to last for four centuries without creativity, warmth or hope.

--W.H.Auden.

Interesting book on Tawney, E.P. and Polanyi. The idea that they were responding to a social crisis, trying to steer a middle path between market individualism and state collectivism/totalitarianism, a conflict or crisis that would devour so many in the 20th c.  Underlying it all, you suspect, the attempt to recover the notion that we are, at heart, social beings. And for Tawney, it appears, this was connected to the (Christian) idea of personhood. But that idea couldn't float in our secular times and so the moral and spiritual critiques of capitalism turned to economic ones (distribution) or environmental ones (climate change a constraint on growth).

Then there's Alan Jacobs's book (just acquired) on the response of Maritain, Auden and Weil to the nihilism of the second world war and technology.

Earlier, there was Keynes and the social welfare consensus to patch up the ravages the economic system inflicted on people in the Great Depression.

Now, it would appear that we're living through another crisis (or the same prolonged one), a new dark age perhaps. And what is the response? Well, there's been a tremendous amount of soul searching but part of the problem is that there aren't really any public intellectuals who could hold the public's attention in our fragmented, distracted times. Part of the problem, though, is that there are so many different voices raising the alarm. Maybe Piketty has got some people thinking. Dunno. 

As always, the issue is a complex one with many different dimensions to it. What, Tawney would ask, is at the root of the problem? Maybe that's the question that's not being asked? Yes, lots of writing on anxiety and fear; on the looming climate catastrophe; on the dangers of technology and the internet; on the crisis of education, the crisis of masculinity; the end of the book, the end of creativity; the spreading of neoliberalism's tentacles into the very fabric of our social being (human capital, social capital, cultural capital); the threat to democracy by the 1%; and the rise of the far-right and populists in so many countries.

How liberalism failed. When and how capitalism failed. Economic oligarchy and the impossibility of democracy. The sixth extinction kind of thing. Artificial intelligence and the end of the specifically human ways of interacting, speaking; the loss of a sense of place; the demise of civility and conversation.  

Are these all just the same unresolved conflicts being played out in our century? It's hard to not think that that's the case.        

Same old, same old.

No new ways to be new, as Frost said. I think that’s a reasonably good statement. There’s nothing new under the sun, sayeth the preacher. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full. I think more circularly than linearly. I don’t think there are beginnings and destinations so much as circles that end by closing and starting over again.

--Stegner, Paris Review.

Images and truth

At dusk, Santiago looks like Lahore.

Finnis(hed)?

The knives are out. Not many, but some students at Oxford want to out him unless he outs himself. Are his views about homosexuality reprehensible? And mass immigration? I don't know and these aren't issues that I really think about too much to be honest. I really don't care what other people do in their own bedrooms and I find it hard to believe that homosexuals can't be good people, involved in loving relationships.

I did read two chapters of his book, Natural Law, and I find him to be an outstanding thinker. Even if he wasn't, even if he was just a plain old thinker, does he have the right to express his views or should he be silenced because they are discriminatory?

Well, from what I understand of the sound and the fury (which isn't much, admittedly) I think it's outrageous that he's being asked to leave by these students. What other views should be silenced or effectively banned? A Christian who (privately) thinks Muslims are heretics or an atheist who teaches that religion is merely a construct, an illusion..what about them? And what does one do about the uncomfortable fact -I think it's a fact- that most people of a religious persuasion (Christians, Jews, and Muslims, say) think that homosexuality is morally wrong? Should they be barred from teaching as well? 

I don't know where this could go. All sorts of people have all sorts of (abhorrent) views. What might we end up with? You can think what you like as long as you only loosely or vaguely believe it and as long as it doesn't hurt me (personally, emotionally)? You must (the irony here!) sign up to the idea that everything is a construct and be willing to give up what you formerly believed/thought..nothing is sacred, everything is up for analysis, ridicule, rigorous questioning; there is no such thing as human nature or essences; there is only sovereign becoming, radical doubt. You have to accept that! Confess, damn you! Well, you can doubt doubt itself but then if you want to then please get out of academia (some might say). That orthodoxy (and economic orthodoxy, more particularly) can't really be questioned (sorry Newman, sorry Macintyre, take your feckin' Aristotle and your curs-ed religion and shove them up your *!^*). 

Should Marxists be allowed to teach economics? Why are only academics who subscribe to the tenets and methodology of neo-classical economics allowed to teach? I think the Finnis controversy is going to run and run. It will move beyond him or even this specific issue. Maybe trans. discussions will be next. Let's see.    

So, two questions, as I see it;

One, a question of academic freedom. Two, is that view of homosexuality reprehensible, backward, medieval? Of course, just because a view has been widely held by large swathes of humanity doesn't in itself make that view correct. But it does make me wonder. Are the rights of religious groups/individuals to express their views legitimate (or only legitimate if they correspond to liberal standards)? 'Liberal standards' here seems to me to suggest particular views rather than a process of inquiry.    

Broken Britain

If the deal doesn't go through- which is, I suspect, what some who want to impose yet more 'austerity' on the country really want- then things will only get worse. 

I've seen a lot more homeless people about in Woodford. One man, youngish, can hardly speak, he;s in such a bad state. Tears just well up in his eyes. Just saw a middle aged man, slumped to the floor, his legs askance, as he sang into a traffic cone (as if he was some kind of aboriginal). Absolutely tragic to witness.

Around Bank a solid looking man stumbles on to the train, as if he's been pushed. He speaks with a wonderfully rounded intonation, full of confidence and old-world solidity, the words ringing off his lips; he still retains his Mancunian accent and the looks of man who has years of practical intelligence behind him. Not a banker, that's too abstract. The man who had pushed him has a narrow face and sports an old, used black thick coat. He hisses and foams at the mouth, shaking his fist at the northerner (who laughs at him and then mocks him). The rat-like man then starts shaking his fists at God (this is almost a caricature). Some people try to quietly move away from him. The hissing and swearing and cursing goes on, like a poor silent movie. The northerner (who looks a bit Kashmiri, now that I think of it) turns to his wife (who, in her leopard-skin top is obviously above all these shenanigans) and mutters something in German. 

I'd just got back into Laurus. In fact, there's a peace and simplicity and gentleness to it that makes me want to forget about the so-called real world altogether. I lift my eyes to look at the German-Kashmiri-northerner and feel like telling him, "Give it a rest, mate, he's obviously not right", but I fear the other one will hear me and turn on me. Like everyone else in the carriage, I don't even bother rolling my eyes. "You pratt," he says, as he gets off with his wife/mistress/partner. Unfortunately, unbeknown to them, the rat-man also gets off at the same station.

~~~

S's wife was punched outside her home (next to mine) by two east Europeans. He looked at me exasperated the next day and said, "You know what, Karl, something's broken. I don't know what it is, but there's something not right. I was going to spout off something about us not being in sync with the cosmos, or how the Qur'an talks about the "scattering" at the end of days then think to myself, I'll only come across as mad. If I said that back in the land of the pure they'd just look at me and say, "Well, yeah, like what took you so long to get top that conclusion?" Keep quiet and cut the tree. It doesn't budge and the three of us expend huge amounts of energy to uproot the bugger. I wanted to say, in an old and wise Russian accent (or maybe Jewish): "Every living wants to cling to the earth with the last ounce of its resolve." Totally superfluous and uncalled for, so I let it go.

Yes, I do manage to purchase Sharov and Kempowski. I even find the shop without thinking, my instincts back to normal. Space, that I can deal with. Time: now that's the problem!

At a certain age

At a certain age you look back on your life, your work, and ask, what has it all been about? Perhaps you reassess the fundamental assumptions in your life (the things you held to be true without questioning them), the way you look at life, or what you think is important. I don't know. Maybe a lot of people don't- or can't: the sheer weight of the past incapacitates us. Creatures of habit, it takes a tremendous effort to stay open to the world as we grow older. 

It's interesting to note the economists who, after working for their whole professional lives as bread and butter economists, suddenly and almost miraculously pontificate about how economics is brilliant and useful and rigorous but... And that 'but' usually means; it needs to become a more humanistic discipline, incorporate ethics or the insights of other disciplines. It needs to be more historically informed, less abstract, more mathematical and complex, less certain, more contextualized (add what you will). The point is; these 'moves' are rarely ever made during their professional careers. 

Tirole, a Nobel-prize winning economist, writes in the FT (Jan. 10th, 2019) about how economics needs to become more "multi-disciplinary". One hears that kind of language quite a lot in academia but I'm not sure what it actually means. Here are some examples (from Tirole's article): 

"Researchers there publish papers on issues such as the ethics of self-driving cars, age-related diseases, biases in judges’ decision-making and co-operation in indigenous communities in the Amazon. "

Well, yes. I suppose that gives us some indication of how seriously Toulouse takes "multi-disciplinarity" ! 

How can economics enter into a dialogue with other subjects when it is some committed to methodological individualism? It would have to jettison its whole outlook. That is simply not possible as long as it sits firmly embedded within liberalism and capitalism. A radical critique of economics would require a fundamental metaphysical reconstruction of the individual; it would need to understand our relation to other people and nature and objects of beauty in a different way; it would have to understand time and desire in a different way; and it would have to reconsider what is meant by 'science'.

I don't think Tirole or others like him are really being that reflective. At a certain age there's a tendency to try and justify-perhaps against your better instincts- all that you've sowed. Economists are in a bind and it's one they've sleepwalked into. In fact, they've helped perpetuate delusions, distortions to the idea of what it is to truly be a human being. And those false ideas have had, and continue to have, profound implications for the way in which we live. At a certain age, I suggest, one has to be honest with oneself and take responsibility.

All for Nothing.

No-one knows what they really look like, or what they sound like. I told my students this term that they come across as idiots. And that that's to be expected. I said so many stupid things in my twenties, now that I look back. I suppose when I'm sixty I'll look back to now and think: what a plonker!

Early morning. The taxi driver is probably Arab (maybe Syrian). You meet so many different people and don't have an ear for these kinds of things so everyone sounds sort of Greek-ish. A small and sprightly woman gets in the front. Full of bluster, throwing her arms up in the air, her unkempt hair flowing in all directions. She turns to me with a surprising old face, deeply creased but the features also weirdly young. That throws me a bit. "' Morning." And that's the last I speak to anyone for the next hour. She's the practical kind; world-weary. Seen it all. East Ender par excellence. She strikes up a conversation with the driver and it goes on and on for at least fifteen minutes. Navigation systems, the state of the roads, etc. I can't imagine anything more boring.

As we approach the hospital her thoughts turn elsewhere. People are already up and working in the big banks (or maybe they're just finishing up from the night before?). "Look at all these people, running to and fro. For what?" the driver is unimpressed so she continues: " It doesn't matter in the end. We all get ill. I wish I'd known that earlier. But didn't have time. All we need is a beach and the sun and a quiet life." The driver, who is obviously trying to make something of his life disagrees. "I guess it's the journey, not the destination". At this stage in the proceedings I couldn't give- to use a delicate Americanism-a rat's ass about either of them. 

¬¬¬

Later in the day there's a mad rush to find two books. I lose my bearings -which is unlike me (in London). Hop onto a 15 bus and then quickly get off. What a state I'm in! I imagine someone on the top deck looking down and wondering what is going on. I see myself running down Charing Cross, almost out of breath, trying to hold on to my hat with one hand..and the tears, the tears are streaming down my eyes for no reason at all. I'm just the fool playing his role in a moving stage set. Before I know it I'm close to Temple when I should be at Piccadilly. Completely thrown. Leave it. Sidestep the whole curs-ed thing and let that train of events brush by you. 

Anyway, started Laurus (at the third attempt). My mind is much calmer now and so I'm on it. I've placed an order for a book on Bulgakov (texts selected by Rowan Williams). The books, in case you wanted to know -I'm sure the excitement was getting too much for you, Roxana and fff- All for Nothing and Sharov's The Rehearsals. 

One more visit (probably to Roti King, with the boys) and then I'm out of here, down to the deep south-east, hoping there will be sun and a lot of forgetfulness and triviality. Nothing like returning to being a superfluous person. 

Gosh, there were some very attractive female doctors around. The big 5- O approached and went, and still those dreamy eyes and still those hands without grace. Instead, I dream of an age when Terry's chocolate orange was as good as it was in the old days, as if some kind of normality could be reclaimed. How many more acts in this play. [b exits quietly for lunch]    

The old East

Time and disease have hollowed everyone out. A young woman escorts her tall, weak father back home, her arm in his. How old is that scene? At the hospital there are Greeks, Chinese, Africans, desis..

Near Wick Lane, the old, mystical east. West Ham supporters flow out of a pub, some in their t-shirts braving the cold. The only forms of religion to survive are these old-worn rituals of belonging. There is a lot of brutal, soulless, utilitarian architecture here. Stalinist. Whole rows of streets are covered in graffiti. On the car radio 'Vienna' from the 1980s is playing; the hours of your life have stalled around this moment. Around the corner an abandoned church; the upper part is burnt out, adding to the darkness within; the window must have blown out years ago. On the wall are painted the words 'HORROR!' in large black print. I'd like to roam the streets here and make a film. Call it 'East Germany' or something. The look on people's faces isn't so different from the buildings.

Near Stratford some of the lights in the high rises are going on. From a distance there's a kind of beauty to it, like a floating spaceship..if you look at it sideways. What strange galaxy is this?

A few of the patients (English) are reading (newspapers, books and what looks like a film script). One of the women takes a red pen and works vigorously on the text. She's lost some of her hair and has a large gap between her teeth. Professionalism is what she's all about, down to the bone. Another English patient comes in, an old and frail woman with a square face. Her son is dressed identically to me (down to the hat and scarf). Colin floats in. Hard to imagine a Colin who is a threat to anyone. You'll never find a murderer called 'Colin'. You try to pick out a word, a tone of voice. Only a few northern notes survive in this harsh winter...what can you recognize in these times?

With great age, Ahmad said, there is time for forgiveness. Did he mean time for God to forgive us or for us to forgive one another?

Robert Bly's afterword to Transtromer's selected poems is wonderful. Pure extravagance but I bought these translations even though I've got the collected poems. It seems that Bly gives him more space, more room, leaves the door a bit further open. 

With Transstromer there's always a sense that you've got an extra quarter of an hour. Note to self: get Andreas Schiff's version of Schubert.

~~~

Early morning. The W14 glides by in the opening light, its own lights small and magical in the dispersing gloom. The 275 on the other hand roars and heaves up a hill, going through all the motions. Nearby you see the corpse of a fox (Aquinas says one shouldn't call a dead dog a dog. Why? As if it became an 'it', without a name). 'It' is lying there in the middle of the road, sleeping peacefully, its small head pointing north. 

I don't have the money for The Observer. For the same money I purchased Ronald Blythe's book on old age.