Rediscovered pleasure

Posted by Parson Thru on Sat, 01 Aug 2015

I'm reading the Guardian for the first time in years (any newspaper for the first time in years, really). Only problem being that you only really need one a week. Maybe it was the frustration of throwing away so many daily papers largely unread that put me off the whole idea of newspapers. Maybe it's the "news" bit of the "paper" that I don’t need.

Fascinating articles. Still engrossed in yesterday's, which I bought at the station for parking change. I've felt guilty about using time like this for years, what with so much to do and all. I'm now overwhelmed trying to analyse and assimilate all the ideas that are being suggested.

One that leaps out of the complexity of Mark Haddon's article on "Spare Rib Reader" is how a society can be anything but redistributive when a human being has absolutely no choice in the circumstances into which it is born, but unlimited potential (Haddon having enjoyed a privileged birth, an Oxford education etc).

He seems a decent enough sort, for all that, but at a time when this society is reverting to privilege and racing away from redistribution (of opportunity, not necessarily wealth alone) there's some food for thought. You can't choose your parents. Why should one's cot-sides limit the rest of one's life?

I could also point out that each individual's lost potential is lost potential for the society in which she or he lives. Redistribution? Spend to save. ROI, in fact.

Maybe what's missing from political debate is imagination - a real vision for how and why redistributed wealth should be spent. To what end.

Comments

Submitted by london_calling79 on

Reading something like the Guardian makes me feel a little more connected with the world. They seem to (mostly) have some sort of human interest. This does tend to veer toward the sniffy and elitist in the culture pages but on the whole it seems the heart is there. In a society that nowadays seems to be careening towards the self I find it incredibly comforting. I often wonder if I'm out of touch and cutting benefits, cutting free health care, alienation from our continent etc. are right and paying taxes for the good of your family and other families is completely incorrect.

 

Submitted by Parson Thru on

I think it's healthy to keep challenging one's own understanding and beliefs. Much easier not to. I undermine myself as a matter of course - always assume I've got it all wrong. The Guardian is a middle-class club really, but being born to a working-class family who believed the best way to preserve status is to hold everyone back, I'm grateful for anyone who'll reach down and haul me out of it. In terms of the big C Culture, I envy their education. Not sure I would ever embrace middle-class small c culture. But, then, we are all individuals - all different. Nobody really fits everywhere all of the time. I just don't feel that I have to fit anywhere any of the time, but I'm still grateful for the opportunity. That's the thing that every human born should have.

Parson Thru

Submitted by celticman on

I read the Observer, cover to cover, news, views, politics, magazine, and reviews. It keeps me up to date, not that I can  be up to date. The myths of everyone getting a fair shot in life and trickle down economics works is wearing very thin (see Stiglitiz or the daddy of them all Thomas Piketty Capital) but when it comes to the ballot box fuck-you and I'll vote for the grubbers that might push something my way seems to win every time. Labour as a party are finished. An independent Scotland will not offer the answers but at least it points in the right direction, which is not ironically more right wing and isolationist. Back to the Obsever and the 'swarm' of migrants trying to reach our hallowed shores. Offhand I know from that source the French get and process double the number of asylum seeks, the Germans time times as much and poor old Lebanon 1 million to the UKs paltry 25 000. Makes you think and question?  

 

Submitted by Kurt Rellians on

I like that phrase 'each individual's lost potential is a lost potential to the society in which he or she lives'.
And that other sentence at the end :- 'Maybe what's missing from political debate is imagination - a real vision for how and why redistributed wealth should be spent. To what end.'
These are indeed the sort of directions we should all be thinking about today. Instead governments seem to be giving up idealism in favour of financial expediency and seem to believe that 'business' holds the only answers. A good article! Thanks.

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