Oh come on Camilla! It's a good idea for a parlour game, but I am afraid I just can't do it without taking the piss! You'll have to relax the rules before I play I'm afraid.
Perfect! Any more? **yawns**
In wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish, but enivrez-vous! The art is to be absolutely yourself -Charles Baudelaire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmhEMPN7y1I
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
Have we lost the capacity to be sincere about anything? I watched the Service of Remembrance this evening.All those people have not lost the capacity to be sincere and to value something beyond themselves.It is so much more honest than an automatic burst of irony and mockery.The 18 year old medic( first female Military Cross) who risked herself for a comrade and for her duty.Would you mock her too?Is nothing good.Does nothing command respect?
We will never hold onto the decent things unless we do value them and take them seriously.
I value irony very highly. People have died for irony. (I presume.)
Personally, I would not mock that girl who risked her life. I would however mock the notion of a national motto.
Does that make me bad?
"Have we lost the capacity to be sincere about anything? I watched the Service of Remembrance this evening.All those people have not lost the capacity to be sincere and to value something beyond themselves.It is so much more honest than an automatic burst of irony and mockery.The 18 year old medic( first female Military Cross) who risked herself for a comrade and for her duty.Would you mock her too?Is nothing good.Does nothing command respect?
We will never hold onto the decent things unless we do value them and take them seriously." Camilla
Camilla, this is an absolutely extraordinary post. I don't forget all those people who have died in uniform; I try to recall for what precisely they laid down their lives. The 1st day of the Somme hardly gives me cause to celebrate nationhood.
"Is nothing good?" you ask. No, absolutely nothing is good about the British state or crown. The institutions that you celebrate are bathed in blood and soiled by conquest and imperialism. The national interest is the interest of a privileged class and the very idea of Britain is a confection; effectively no more than a trick to get men to go over the top.
The things which should command respect are not respected by the state. Why should I respect the monarchy or the flag? What are they to me? This is not mockery, this is a serious question. It's an old one but it's a good one: why should I believe that I have more in common with the ruling classes of Britain than with the working people of other countries? Actually I believe the exact opposite.
You want a motto? How about: Smash the State! or WTF did the Queen ever do for me?
So you would not stand up against tyranny if it involved personal sacrifice? Too much trouble ? .It doesn't matter whether one approves of what the military are tasked to do .It isn't conditional on whether we like it.An awful lot of us may not feel adequately represented by the politicians we have.There are two important points I think.That there are (for those of us that believe in any government at all) rational and humane aspects to the UK that we take for granted.There is also a distancing from real emotional experience if the automatic reponse to any discussion of nobilty ,duty,sacrifice is.... mockery.Any group can only exist if its members can cooperate and individuals be generous.Large groups need shared ideas.
If Rome has no idea of itself and how civilized it is the Barbarians will make themselves right at home.A motto at least raises a discussion of what is important and what we value.
I do not doubt the value of the discussion Camilla, it's just that you and I come at the question from completely different points of view. Let me try to explain.
Standing up to tyranny is of course worthwhile, but I ask you at least to accept that some of us see little difference between the tyranny practised by the British crown over the years and the tyranny of "our" enemies.
I would not bear arms in the name of the British state, but that is not because I could not be bothered, and neither do I mean to belittle the sacrifices made by men and women who died in the dreadful conflicts of the Twentieth Century. I just think that the cause of defending the British Empire was misguided.
Groups of any kind need shared values, that is perfectly true. But there are both defensible values and indefensible. I would argue that Britain - official Britain - is based on a series of lies; these lies are similar to the lies on which all modern states are built. I cannot support them.
Nobility, duty and sacrifice are found not in states or in the patriotic heroes of the national myth, but in ordinary people who see through the myths propagated by their rulers and choose to work for their fellow men and women despite not because of the great lies thrown at them since childhood.
As for Rome, you see, if that is your benchmark of civilisation then for me you are way off beam. I ask you whether you would rather have been a woman in Rome or a woman in a German village beyond the Rhine frontier. The Romans were barbaric; murderers and destroyers. It has always been convenient for the supporters of latter day imperialism to summon images of Rome to legitimise the imperial urge, but excuse me if I'd rather live without aqueducts if it means I could also be without the Circus, a slave economy and an ever-advancing imperial frontier.
In this world nationalism is directly opposed to the much higher ideal of internationalism. Unfortunately internationalism has been much abused but the realisation at its core, which is that ordinary people from all countries have more in common with one another than with their exploiters and their rulers remains as true today as it was in the Nineteenth Century.
Here is a motto for you: An End to the Vanity of Nations!
Surely Camilla, suggesting that 'reason' and 'humanity' be in our national motto is taking the piss.
This country has been party to an entirely unnecessary war that has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, and most of us seem more concerned about which Z-lister is going to appear on 'I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here'.
A more appropriate motto might be: Stupidity, Apathy, Selfishness.
hairy axe wound
now I've heard some sick ones, but...ugh, lol
not give a flying fuck. Vrb phrs. To not care one little bit.
In wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish, but enivrez-vous! The art is to be absolutely yourself -Charles Baudelaire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmhEMPN7y1I
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
But before you do, Camilla.
A motto is all very well, but I imagine if we did get one it would be thought up by a focus group paid for with taxpayers money. We'd end up with something like the Metropolitan Police's
'Working together for a safer London.'
What I'd prefer to a motto is some integrity in public life: despite Kropotkin's diatribe against the British Empire (and I've no doubt that the Empire has a lot to answer for) the Nabobs and officers and yes, even some politicians, understood that if you failed catastrophically, you were expected to do the honourable thing.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Sir Ian Blair.
You deserve him.
Do you remember 7/7? Sir Ian Blairs calm voice
telling people what to do was fantastic,hugely helpful.It is also a British disease that we always attack leaders and people in authority.We ask someone to do a job then immediately put in the boot making their jobs difficult and their lives foul.If he resigns now he admits that the Menezes death deserves more than the usual scrutiny of proceedures and probity.It does not.He then opens the door for expensive court cases costing millions everytime something goes wrong .It also would mean that coppers could no longer act at all because they might infringe health and safety. There was a case recently when two community policemen obeyed the rules about health and safety and allowed a child to drown .I think IB would actually like to pack in the crummy job he is looking so ill ,but if he does he lets down the police force he leads .He may have been wrong but he is doing his duty as he sees it which is all any of us could do.
"Surely Camilla, suggesting that 'reason' and 'humanity' be in our national motto is taking the piss."
Well, just because we don't always achieve things, that's not necessarily a strong argument against aspiring to them.
"No, absolutely nothing is good about the British state or crown. The institutions that you celebrate are bathed in blood and soiled by conquest and imperialism. The national interest is the interest of a privileged class and the very idea of Britain is a confection; effectively no more than a trick to get men to go over the top."
This is all a bit sixth form, isn't it?
It all depends what you compare the British state and the British crown to.
"This is all a bit sixth form, isn't it?"
To be fair to Kropo, 'Come up with a motto for our country' is a bit secondary school, so I reckon he's done alright with that answer.
Now you see Buk, because I have paid attention to what Mr Cook said about the tone of these forums I will not deal with that comment in the way it deserves. In fact my argument does not depend on comparison at all; a closer reading of what I had written would have served you well.
I will also spare you the embarrassment of comparing our educational pedigrees. You have resorted to setting up a very feeble straw man and I really don't need to address it any further.
"Well, just because we don't always achieve things, that's not necessarily a strong argument against aspiring to them." Now this I like. It is precisely because I would like people to aspire to more than the hollow blandishments of nationalism that I find it impossible to suggest a positive national motto for Britain.
If you want to make an intellectual argument Buk then I suggest you make one.
Dendrite, I fail to see why Camilla should shake her head and move on. I do not expect that Camilla started this thread expecting all of the responses to be sweetness and light. I have to tell you that I have always found encounters with conservatives very rewarding intellectually. I would much rather an honest conservative than a social democrat of New Labour stripe not to mention all sorts of other authoritarians of the left.
It is about having values to aspire to. It is easy to criticise and mock.It is much harder to talk about things like integrity courage duty etc in a straightforward sincere way. I think we should be able to do so without going all pink with embarrassment.
I have been
imagining all afternoon Kropotkin what it would be like to live somewhere without government or order that follows from it.I imagined a medieval forest with subsistance farming for the lucky few,no energy for heating and light and no healthcare of course.Back to the bronze age.Life would be nasty brutish and short.
So whatever its failings Britain hasn't done badly by us.Most of us have food,housing ,healthcare and we are managing that for quite a lot of people in a pretty small space.What country does better for the same size of population?
Hitler was sincere. He very much valued integrity, courage and duty. He was also very keen on flags and national pride.
As individuals we should all have values to aspire to. You can't annex what is of value to humanity and stick a national flag in it. National flags often get waved by all sorts of madmen, madmen who truly believe their country is the best, most righteous piece of this planet and when they do it's only a matter of time before lots of people die. Countries are lines drawn on a map. You can love where you live without separating it from the world. You can value bravery, sacrifice and brotherhood without puffing up your chest and brandishing a scrap of material with a few colours on it. To see people from elsewhere as somehow being "other" is the first step in legitimizing their death in the next round of senseless conflict.
I'll make a deal with you Camilla. I will do something that I could not have done a few years ago: I will admit that some people, perhaps many people, in the British Establishment are people of goodwill who try hard to live up to the ideal of public service. (In any event my critique does not rest on the presence of evil people, but rather on the existence of a certain system) Your side of the deal, if you accept, would be simple: keep thinking about a society without government; think about where order comes from; perhaps Google "Colin Ward", or try "Barcelona 1936"; you could have a look at Orwell's 'A Homage to Catalonia'.
I leave you with this: "Liberty is the mother of order, not the daughter". I suspect that a great many people of all political shades could agree with this - even perhaps as a motto :-)
We have learned to let most people go to hell in a basket I think in other words we have learned that we can no longer interfere except we are stuck with bringing current conflicts to the best conclusion we can.Now we know we will only make things worse if we go after most tyrannies.We have not gone after Zimbabwe although we nearly did apparently. We felt some responsibilty.We were watching a country go down the pan which it has We are standing by and watching genocide,We have learned not to have any imperial ambitions.There is a huge difference between "my country is better than yours)" and my country has some good bits I value.
Enzo, it is fun....sometimes.
Perhaps "Is there a storm coming?" would make an excellent heading for another thread, it would be a very open subject.
If I take your question correctly, then I would say that the storm is already here. It seems more likely to me that it will get worse rather than better, and in part that is due to the utter defeat of the libertarian left.
I am unfortunately lumbered with this old fashioned faith in humanity and reason; it is what makes me an anarchist.
Interesting.
I always supposed anarchy and reason were irreconcilable.
Reason looks to the common, the objective, the eternal; by identifying with those, humans can all agree what's best.
I thought an anarchic view of humanity would have us as essentially fluid, with laws or rules (if any) springing out of common individual desires, rather than imposed from external sources.
Reason? Eternal? Anarchy is utopia for the reasonable. Rules are for fools.
In wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish, but enivrez-vous! The art is to be absolutely yourself -Charles Baudelaire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmhEMPN7y1I
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
There is no debate space between Utopia and Western civilization, there’s too much to pin on it, this is the situation with extremes. That contemporary justice, laws and morays of racial and gender equality, are used like sticks on ancient and pre-agrarian societies is a nowhere debate. Utopia is an argument by egregious example, citing events and schisms to indict and invalidate everything caused and produced. Would India be a near superpower (cash + nuclear material qualify) if Britain did not train her on trade, infrastructure, banking, bad software, moving goods and services outside of the tribal non-system? America still (with China holding her notes) pours billions upon billions of cash and free expertise and statistically almost never armies, that’s fucking endless cash gifts mates, not only cheeseburgers and Disney, down continuous pissholes of genocide and corruption. If the West has been truly imperialistic, what has restrained it? The U.S. could have taken over the world and part of the Moon by lunchtime up until 20 years ago. When the East sends out the piranha collection agency, then we’ll get our compare and contrast exercise on historical imperialism.
Enzo, Anarchism is a very broad current, but most commentators would agree that the Anarchist movement is part of or at least arose from the still broader socialist upsurge from the end of the 18th Century onwards. Very few anarchists, and only those of the individualist strain, would argue that individual desires should rule a free society; we are communists or socialists who believe implicitly in the need for a peaceful, radically democratic society which would strive to allow each and every person to achieve their potential. Anarchists have gone under many names, perhaps the most useful in terms of clarity is libertarian communist. I read somewhere Anarchists described as "unafraid Jeffersonian democrats"; that works for me too.
Oh, I said nothing about Utopia. I hate the "End of History" stuff whether it's spouted by Fukyama or by some Trot on the steps outside a university. If you believe in The Revolution - of whatever flavour - and everyone living happily ever after for ever, then I don't think you've really been paying attention to history.
Wow, Dendrite! Why do you assume that people who criticise the west are not critical of the east as well? I fully accept that every nation state on the planet is capable of aggression. It is necessary to see imperialism as a wider phenomenon than the annexation of territory and the raising of the flag. The money that the US sends around the world is as much a form of imperialism as the Raj was. There are multiple imperial frontiers: military, economic, religious, technological and so the list could go on.
If it's all the same with you I'd rather forget the idea of Utopia entirely and yet still do away with all imperialism rather than get the chance to compare different brands.
It will not do to suggest that because someone holds minority views or seems to be demanding something apparently impossible they are a Utopian. I fully accept that I am unlikely to live to see a million anarchists march down Whitehall celebrating the end of the state, but it is no more likely that what we have now will get us out of the social and ecological crises that capital and nation-states have created. I might suggest that the world is full of naive liberal Utopians!
"Very few anarchists, and only those of the individualist strain, would argue that individual desires should rule a free society...we are communists or socialists who believe implicitly in the need for a peaceful, radically democratic society ...."
Yep, yep, gotcha. That's what I meant by "common" individual desires. Poorly expressed on my part maybe. Perhaps: "desires that inviduals have in common"? Or yes, just 'redical democracy'.
Still stems from *people* though, not from some concept of universal reason.
Enzo..
http://nano07.wordpress.com/
"Very few anarchists, and only those of the individualist strain, would argue that individual desires should rule a free society...we are communists or socialists who believe implicitly in the need for a peaceful, radically democratic society ...."
Yep, yep, gotcha. That's what I meant by "common" individual desires. Poorly expressed on my part maybe. Perhaps: "desires that inviduals have in common"? Or yes, just 'redical democracy'.
Still stems from *people* though, not from some concept of universal reason.
Enzo..
http://nano07.wordpress.com/
I see your point & I don't want to split hairs too finely, still for me the capacity to reason is very high on the list of what makes us human and so I would expect qualities like solidarity for example to be central to the decision making processes of a free society. In other words, I would like to live in a society in which individuals would "desire" to use reason to further the common good. Co-operation and selflessness are, in my opinion, indicative of enlightened self-interest.
How about "Am I not my brother's keeper?" as a motto.... someone's used that already haven't they?
"In fact my argument does not depend on comparison at all; a closer reading of what I had written would have served you well."
Well, if it doesn't depend on comparison it's completely meaningless.
"I will also spare you the embarrassment of comparing our educational pedigrees. You have resorted to setting up a very feeble straw man and I really don't need to address it any further."
Educational pedigree is irrelevant. I wasn't misrepresenting your views, I was giving an opinion on them.
States are ruled are by ruling classes in their own interests. The most powerful countries in the world generally pursue some form of imperialism.
These are statements of the blindingly obvious - not least because some political groups use imperialism as the word for anything that powerful countries do - but they don't tell us anything about practical steps to change things.
It's the sort of tedious rhetoric that's best left behind in sixth form.
I agree with Bukh on that point - one of the frustrations of these kind of debates is the lack of a proposed process - it's all well and good to have a radically different vision of society to the one in which we live, but how would you envisage us getting there?
And yes, educational pedigree is, of course, irrelevant.
Enzo..
http://nano07.wordpress.com/
Boys boys play nicely!My original post was about whether we have lost the capacity to discuss virtues .It seems that it is perfectly OK to discuss the worst mankind or an individual can do but not the best.And if anarchists one manages to just plain accept the where we are now, the current reality, may we not aspire to things that transcend politcs?
I suppose there's nowt wrong with the idea of a national motto in itself but applied to a nation of gold chained pikeys?!
Being of Roman inclination it would have to be in Latin:
"Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas"
" Plumbeus et turpis"
"Nokia, Kappa, Reebok est"
jude
"Cacoethes scribendi"
http://www.judesworld.net
sorry I did take the ...
and secondly I scrolled down and didn't read the rest of the debate but it looked really dull.
jude
"Cacoethes scribendi"
http://www.judesworld.net
Well of course educational pedigree is irrelevant Buk, so why did you raise it in the first place?
What you call blindingly obvious is denied by the powerful everyday & certainly does not play an important role in popular discourse.
Buk you did not really give a useful opinion on my views, you launched an attack which would certainly be better left in the sixth form.
Enzo, I can outline all the possible strategies for change that you would care to hear and some I imagine that you would not. I have not proposed a process beyond changing people's minds - difficult enough when someone suggests that it's all "blindingly obvious" - and I suggest that if you want chapter and verse we take it elsewhere.
In any event, Buk if you think my "rhetoric" is tedious I can see three ways forward other than a spat: you could challenge my ideas one by one rather than dismissing them on a priori basis; you could go and post on another thread and not read my stuff; or I could go and post elsewhere or not at all.
Now all you need do is tell me which of these three you would prefer and I will continue as you wish. How I would hate to bore you.
Jude,
"pikeys"? A nation of gypsies? Are you sure?
Kropotkin,
I don't think that Buk was saying that your argument was at the equivalent educational level of a sixth form pupil. What I think he was saying was that your impassioned black and white view of the world was at that stage: A great big lump of passion that is justified in its logic by the fact that you're passionate about it, a classic sixth form error, being passionate about your passion and expecting that to win the debate.
Spain in '36 is interesting, but as far as I understand, the anarchist-run factories and industries were still operating WITHIN a system, rather than representing a system within themselves. I like the idea of workers controlling industries, but I'm not sure that it can work outside of being connected with a world where everything isn't like that.
Cheers,
Mark
"Well of course educational pedigree is irrelevant Buk, so why did you raise it in the first place?"
I didn't. I refer you to Mark's explanation of my use of the term 'sixth-form'.
The word pikey has evolved beyond the scope of gypsy and can be taken as synonymous with chav or townie. It was a common playground insult in my day. We used to call my father a pikey not because he grew up on a caravan park (which he did) but because he used to wait around in Sainsbury's on a Friday night waiting for them to reduce the stuff about to go out of date and he called it 'Fridee' night and 'Sainsbris' .
jude
"Cacoethes scribendi"
http://www.judesworld.net
Mark, I do endeavour not to have a black and white view of the world. I have said that there was nothing good about the British Empire and I would stand by that. To explain my position would involve a long argument so at this stage you'll have to take my word for it that I have a highly nuanced understanding of both imperialism in general and the British Empire in particular. I can assure you that there is nothing sixth form about my understanding of these phenomena even if that is the impression that Buk took from my writing here.
It is not true that I expected to "win the debate". In fact I never expect to "win" debates. I put forward arguments based on my understanding of the facts, but I know from long experience of others and of myself that all a debate can do is hopefully produce reflection on both sides and perhaps, just perhaps, later on a little synthesis. I could choose to read some irony into your explanation above, but just in case you weren't being ironic I will also say that I do not apologise for my passion. These matters are close to my heart and I am no amateur in this field. As you will appreciate in forums one must attempt to be brief and it is perhaps thus that passion seems to come to the fore.
As to your impression of systems within systems, I do not really see your point. Anarchists have long been aware of the phenomenon of "dual power" and accept that libertarian practice may struggle and, at times even endure, in a world far from sympathetic. Libertarian practice showed a remarkable facility for solving problems in both industry and agriculture in Spain in the 1930s; it has done so elsewhere. As to your uncertainty about its capacity to work in a world where "everything" is like that, it is neither here nor there; the system we have does not work, it is broken, that is demonstrable. My argument is that applied anarchist ideas would be a massive improvement; I do not claim it would be perfect.
Buk, I refer you to my answer to Mark's explanation. If you feel that passion is a sixth form error and that I expected it to "win the debate" then I think you were wrong. In any event you seem to have turned down the invitation to address the ideas directly and that would certainly be a mistake likely to lead to an extra year in the sixth form doing re-takes.
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~
Author Page at the 'Zon
~It's a maze for rats to try, it's a race for rats to die.~