Say you're a straightforward Social Democrat with radical opinions about the role of the financial sector in the global economy. Well...? Go on and say it.
Good. Now that's out of the way, assume you're also eligible to vote in the Scottish election on May 5th. Chances are then you hold a political belief system equivalent to mine. Who do you vote for?
I've been arguing against the SNP with friends and relatives for months. I'm not comfortable with the notion of a Scottish National Party because it is not committed to any brand of politics besides identity politics. Their ideological framework seems to derive from Hume's common sense approach, which is fine except that it means that when circumstances require it, they can perform a complete u-turn at any point and on any issue except independence (and they can do little shuffles around in there too).
This argument against shrivels the moment you perceive that the same is true of any party on the ballot.
So - I would vote Labour because the Scottish party is grounded in the SD values that I share. Great! But the current Labour candidate sheet is seemingly made up of idiots, cowards and villains. Dammit!
Right, so I look at the Lib D... oh. Right.
Greens? Well... yeah, but they are smuggling a sheer Socialist agenda under the foliage and I'm not interested in that any more. There is an argument for saying that a regional list vote will exert a small gravitational pull which is probably worthwhile, but really we're talking tiny units of force.
So let's break it down to what I want from Holyrood. Firstly, the independence referendum: let's get this done and out of the way. Is it not time? The Nationalist movement dogged us throughout the last century and shows every sign of dragging us into fantasies of the paragon state for the next one. Let's get the decision made and go on with one reality.
Second: Renovation of education. From early secondary onwards, I was misled about what I was working towards. I think that we need to demarcate whether we are pursuing an academic, a technical or a physical form of education. They are different things and the fact that they have been merged into one catch-all stream, is damaging to the effectiveness of all of them.
Third... third?
There isn't much of a third policy-wise as the pressing policy issues of any given time period will always fall under the powers of the UK Government. Financial reform has to be carried out globally to mean anything. Foreign policy is reserved to the UK. So what I really want is simply for things to work.
On these grounds, it can only be the SNP that one votes for. They have proven over the last parliamentary term that they are orders of magnitude more competent than Labour. They are also willing to work with any part of the political consensus to achieve progress. In their approach (if not their stated philosophy) they are shown to be progressive.
So it's Flash Alex again. Close your eyes and think of England I suppose...
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Tuesday 12 April 2011
What Freedom Means
I'm dealing at the moment with a crucial decision that thousands of people have to make every day. The last of my vices. Am I going to give up smoking...?
STOP! COME BACK!
I'm not writing about me here - it's just a way into a larger subject. As one of those insufferable indie cindies who identified themselves at the start of the last decade as a 'Libertine', I've always defined the principle human right as freedom. I still believe this, but at the same time, I've come to my senses when it comes to what that means.
What it doesn't mean is the right to indulgence. That right exists (just) and it should be expanded, but it has little to do with the concept of liberty itself. That the current beneficiaries of liberty utelise it to get shit-faced is understandable and for a long time, I've been unable to overcome this logical dead-end myself.
What I took so long to understand is that the revolutionary ethos, was not primarily aimed at emancipation from the current nanny state with which we're so familiar, but from monarchy, oligarchy and theocracy. It was these powers that represented the fundamental yoke on the aspirations, yearnings and ambitions of the human heart. They were the ones who emplaced the societal structure, which ensured that the people remained in their places. The structure of these institutions was based on the unquestionable order that had come into being at the will of the instigating force, or to give him his street name, 'God'.
This iron-fisted shepherd had made certain that everybody was living exactly the life that was due to them and if anyone refused to take up the set task then they had best make sure that they were prepared for an afterlife in Max Mosely's basement. Social mobility then, was an act of political and spiritual subversion. The only safe ways to achieve it were the patronage of the nobility or the church. Commerce and art were what changed this. Where skill became an imperative in the business of the state, suddenly the chinless and intellectually moribund agents of church and gentry were no longer helpful at the top of society.
It was a generation of self-made Tamburlaines that took the Western world into the modern age and who defined freedom for our modern world. So before we started taking it for granted - before we were subdued by the 22 grand job, what was it we were looking for in the term 'freedom'? What was it that we wanted?
'All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.' - John Locke
'The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.' - Thomas Paine
'All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.' - Benjamin Franklin
'But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.' - Edmund Burke
These selected founders of the age of freedom, lay their emphases on the idea that humanity is moving within a common labour of creation. That the point of freedom is to create tomorrow and to make it better, wiser and more human than today.
Coming to an understanding of this has been incredibly difficult for me. Freedom means work? What kind of bullshit is that? And yet... the freedom that I have pursued for the last decade - the freedom of folly and vice for the most part - has left me in a bad place. I've pursued learning, but I haven't gained anything satisfactory from it because once my learning is done, I've gone and gotten lashed. I haven't applied it in any constructive way at all (unless you count blogging and you shouldn't).
Thankfully however, I'm past the point of living for the routine session. Don't get me wrong about this - a night spent in the company of friends having an adventure under the influence, is among the finest of things. However, once you have narrowed these occasions into the exceptional bracket, how does one reap the fruits of liberty? Once you cease to use the freedom to indulge, it feels to me like you might as well be living without freedom if the only other active use of it is work.
And here is my point. The above has only become my view through the sickly lack of ambition that the self-destructive impulse has wrought on my brain. The vast majority of us (by which I mean my peers) saw nothing in the world we were born into that merited the the application of our labour. Any institution we thought of as attractive turned out to be booked up for the next thirty generations. Which is why we work in call centres then (when we wake up) go out to seek dodgy-looking vendors in the corners of crusty pubs.
So what do we work towards? How do we work as we can? And for whom?
Recent thoughts have included the Libyan rebels, Avaaz, The Big Issue and other, equally pompous and futile daydreams. I used to ask the question rhetorically, but now I really want to know - what is there worth working for? My liberty depends on an answer. Otherwise, I'm going to be stuck under the tyranny of nicotine forever.
STOP! COME BACK!
I'm not writing about me here - it's just a way into a larger subject. As one of those insufferable indie cindies who identified themselves at the start of the last decade as a 'Libertine', I've always defined the principle human right as freedom. I still believe this, but at the same time, I've come to my senses when it comes to what that means.
What it doesn't mean is the right to indulgence. That right exists (just) and it should be expanded, but it has little to do with the concept of liberty itself. That the current beneficiaries of liberty utelise it to get shit-faced is understandable and for a long time, I've been unable to overcome this logical dead-end myself.
What I took so long to understand is that the revolutionary ethos, was not primarily aimed at emancipation from the current nanny state with which we're so familiar, but from monarchy, oligarchy and theocracy. It was these powers that represented the fundamental yoke on the aspirations, yearnings and ambitions of the human heart. They were the ones who emplaced the societal structure, which ensured that the people remained in their places. The structure of these institutions was based on the unquestionable order that had come into being at the will of the instigating force, or to give him his street name, 'God'.
This iron-fisted shepherd had made certain that everybody was living exactly the life that was due to them and if anyone refused to take up the set task then they had best make sure that they were prepared for an afterlife in Max Mosely's basement. Social mobility then, was an act of political and spiritual subversion. The only safe ways to achieve it were the patronage of the nobility or the church. Commerce and art were what changed this. Where skill became an imperative in the business of the state, suddenly the chinless and intellectually moribund agents of church and gentry were no longer helpful at the top of society.
It was a generation of self-made Tamburlaines that took the Western world into the modern age and who defined freedom for our modern world. So before we started taking it for granted - before we were subdued by the 22 grand job, what was it we were looking for in the term 'freedom'? What was it that we wanted?
'All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.' - John Locke
'The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.' - Thomas Paine
'All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.' - Benjamin Franklin
'But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.' - Edmund Burke
These selected founders of the age of freedom, lay their emphases on the idea that humanity is moving within a common labour of creation. That the point of freedom is to create tomorrow and to make it better, wiser and more human than today.
Coming to an understanding of this has been incredibly difficult for me. Freedom means work? What kind of bullshit is that? And yet... the freedom that I have pursued for the last decade - the freedom of folly and vice for the most part - has left me in a bad place. I've pursued learning, but I haven't gained anything satisfactory from it because once my learning is done, I've gone and gotten lashed. I haven't applied it in any constructive way at all (unless you count blogging and you shouldn't).
Thankfully however, I'm past the point of living for the routine session. Don't get me wrong about this - a night spent in the company of friends having an adventure under the influence, is among the finest of things. However, once you have narrowed these occasions into the exceptional bracket, how does one reap the fruits of liberty? Once you cease to use the freedom to indulge, it feels to me like you might as well be living without freedom if the only other active use of it is work.
And here is my point. The above has only become my view through the sickly lack of ambition that the self-destructive impulse has wrought on my brain. The vast majority of us (by which I mean my peers) saw nothing in the world we were born into that merited the the application of our labour. Any institution we thought of as attractive turned out to be booked up for the next thirty generations. Which is why we work in call centres then (when we wake up) go out to seek dodgy-looking vendors in the corners of crusty pubs.
So what do we work towards? How do we work as we can? And for whom?
Recent thoughts have included the Libyan rebels, Avaaz, The Big Issue and other, equally pompous and futile daydreams. I used to ask the question rhetorically, but now I really want to know - what is there worth working for? My liberty depends on an answer. Otherwise, I'm going to be stuck under the tyranny of nicotine forever.
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