For me the term "the military mind" has long been a criticism of a personality type, a mode of behaviour, a concept of an attitude bordering on insult. It has been equated with behaviour expectations such as 'do as ordered', 'do not question orders', and the fundamental expectation of rigid adherence to codified discipline in the art of warfare. In the past that perception was enhanced by the separation of the military establishment from the civilian 'everyday world' most of us inhabited and experienced. It also fitted in with the world I grew up in and especially the perceptions of the 60's in Britain. Even when the frequent wars and British military interventions happened near and far, during those times and since, the reporting of them, and the general perception, was of a remote military establishment doing what it was expected to do away from the run of our our civilian lives.
But in recent years, especially with the impact and comment on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, almost since the deaths of the last survivors of the 1914-18 war, there seems to me to be a disturbing emphasis on marking anniversaries of wars, battles, campaigns and almost anything else of significance in relation to warfare, as a target for memorials and celebrations. I say celebrations as, although the words spoken at ceremonies talk of honouring the sacrifice, they are portrayed a sanitised sacrifice shorn of the true horror and sordidness of warfare. Shorn of the uncomfortable truths about wars be they described as unavoidable, futile, necessary, honourable or dishonourable.
It seems that the increasingly frequent anniversary celebrations are turning the marking of these terrible events into another branch of the entertainments industry. They are supposed to remind us, we are told, of the sacrifice of those who fought, died, and were traumatised by the events in the wars, but is that really what we get from such celebrations. We are told that the lessons of these terrible events must be learnt, especially by those who did not live through them, but are these celebrations really addressing that expectation, I think not. They are/have become rituals, a routine, an entertainment even, where the reason for them and the message they should convey are being lost, sanitised, buried. Where the military and its warfare turn of mind is seen as standard, acceptable, necessary, a sanitised and disembodied way of viewing the world and conflicts, when it should be a decent to a desperate final recourse. This new and cosy acceptance of the military establishment and their activities is, for me, the very opposite of how we ought to view the military, their use and their behaviour.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
Inheritance of ideas
I like many others blame Thatcher for a great deal that went wrong in the UK during her time in power and since. Of course that it grossly unfair to her as some of the things she is reputed to have done were already in place before she ruled the roost, some were sadly necessary although very unpleasant to those on the receiving end, and of course political friends and foes of hers have hung all sorts of praise and guilt on her for things she did not do. She has become a talisman for whatever political or social point we want to pontificate about. Never the less I still can't accept what her government did to the social order and aspiration in this country, nor her for what she stood for, even if it was on occasion necessary.
These changes, if not initiated during the Thatcher years were certainly encouraged and fuelled by her policies and deregulation of the finance industry. People were encouraged to go out and fend for themselves, this of course presumes they are in a position to do so and are not knocked back by those better able, suited, positioned to scramble up the greasy pole of ambition, wealth and achievement. In any race there need to be, by definition, losers if there are to be winners. Just as so ably illustrated in the Victorian era where wealth, especially great wealth, is built on the labour and backs of others. Arguably the entertainment industry is one area where this is not true, but that is not the province of the bulk of the population.
I do remember when the historic class system of upper, middle, and lower in this country was the standard norm of judging people and am so very glad that seemingly, in inverse proportion to my growing distaste for it, it has fallen away over the last 60 years. I am not sure I know enough about the reasons for that to draw any worthwhile conclusions, but those perceptions and prejudices seem to have been replaced by an equally cruel way of dividing people up into social enclaves. We are so judgemental, I wonder why we find it necessary? Money seems to rule supreme now, especially as exemplified by the phrase so beloved of social commentators, the haves and have nots. Then there are the increasingly frantic fights over education policy and methodology in this country. Sadly all people are not created equal or brought up equal, their natural talents or lack of them will leave them at the mercy of their family circumstances and education opportunities. But in the "bad old days" there was a great variety of work available for the bulk of the people. Sure there was a lot of the work I would have hated to do or would be supremely incapable of lasting even five minutes doing, but there was something that we could all find or fall into to provide some income and some sort of life. Its all very well saying people should come off benefits and find gainful employment but that needs jobs for them to do and income sufficient for them to survive on. In these times where industry has been minimised in this country there are not the mass employment opportunities necessary to support the numbers looking for it.
Before, during and after Thatcher's time heavy and manufacturing industry was declining in this country as we fell behind other countries in terms of our production costs, innovation and competitiveness. That was probably inevitable given our history and social attitudes but the results and corrective treatments took an enormous toll on the workers in those industries as they found, despite being told to "get on their bikes" to find work, that there was little or no work to be had. It did not even matter if you had failed the education system or it had failed you, skilled or unskilled, gifted or not, you were unemployed and often unemployable. You were sacrificed, be you a type of worker, a social group, the economy of a nation if you supplied the raw materials. In some ways it seems that it is a right of passage of development/progress that large numbers of people, unassuming multitudes of private lives, will be abandoned, dare I say sacrificed, in the name of progress.
And now we are in one of the worst and longest running financial crises the developed world has experienced and all those without the where with all to manage their own destiny are again being sacrificed to the future. What makes it more unpleasant, if that were possible, is the deliberately weasel words that purport to tell us that our politicians and bosses care when they either do not or can't do anything about it. How many more generations of people in so many different countries for so many different reasons will be abandoned and sacrificed in the names of progress and a so called better future.
These changes, if not initiated during the Thatcher years were certainly encouraged and fuelled by her policies and deregulation of the finance industry. People were encouraged to go out and fend for themselves, this of course presumes they are in a position to do so and are not knocked back by those better able, suited, positioned to scramble up the greasy pole of ambition, wealth and achievement. In any race there need to be, by definition, losers if there are to be winners. Just as so ably illustrated in the Victorian era where wealth, especially great wealth, is built on the labour and backs of others. Arguably the entertainment industry is one area where this is not true, but that is not the province of the bulk of the population.
I do remember when the historic class system of upper, middle, and lower in this country was the standard norm of judging people and am so very glad that seemingly, in inverse proportion to my growing distaste for it, it has fallen away over the last 60 years. I am not sure I know enough about the reasons for that to draw any worthwhile conclusions, but those perceptions and prejudices seem to have been replaced by an equally cruel way of dividing people up into social enclaves. We are so judgemental, I wonder why we find it necessary? Money seems to rule supreme now, especially as exemplified by the phrase so beloved of social commentators, the haves and have nots. Then there are the increasingly frantic fights over education policy and methodology in this country. Sadly all people are not created equal or brought up equal, their natural talents or lack of them will leave them at the mercy of their family circumstances and education opportunities. But in the "bad old days" there was a great variety of work available for the bulk of the people. Sure there was a lot of the work I would have hated to do or would be supremely incapable of lasting even five minutes doing, but there was something that we could all find or fall into to provide some income and some sort of life. Its all very well saying people should come off benefits and find gainful employment but that needs jobs for them to do and income sufficient for them to survive on. In these times where industry has been minimised in this country there are not the mass employment opportunities necessary to support the numbers looking for it.
Before, during and after Thatcher's time heavy and manufacturing industry was declining in this country as we fell behind other countries in terms of our production costs, innovation and competitiveness. That was probably inevitable given our history and social attitudes but the results and corrective treatments took an enormous toll on the workers in those industries as they found, despite being told to "get on their bikes" to find work, that there was little or no work to be had. It did not even matter if you had failed the education system or it had failed you, skilled or unskilled, gifted or not, you were unemployed and often unemployable. You were sacrificed, be you a type of worker, a social group, the economy of a nation if you supplied the raw materials. In some ways it seems that it is a right of passage of development/progress that large numbers of people, unassuming multitudes of private lives, will be abandoned, dare I say sacrificed, in the name of progress.
And now we are in one of the worst and longest running financial crises the developed world has experienced and all those without the where with all to manage their own destiny are again being sacrificed to the future. What makes it more unpleasant, if that were possible, is the deliberately weasel words that purport to tell us that our politicians and bosses care when they either do not or can't do anything about it. How many more generations of people in so many different countries for so many different reasons will be abandoned and sacrificed in the names of progress and a so called better future.
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
The 70's then and now
History is my current enthusiasm and comparing my memories and experiences from the earlier parts of my life with how those times seem now is, for me, a particular part of that and a fascinating way of passing the time. I have just competed reading the book "When the lights went out" by Andy Beckett and, of course, we have just had all the talk, adulation, criticism etc of Margaret Thatcher following her death. She seemingly rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the 70's, the decade the book covers and particularly lays bare the back and detailed story of those times. In all the adulation that poured forth about the blessed Maggie, I need to point out here I was never a fan of hers, so many people credit her with "rescuing" the UK from socialism, economic disaster and anything else that can be strapped onto the battle bus.
But apart from the fact that a lot of those economic, social and financial trends were in their early stages before she won the 79 election, the 70's for me never seemed as bad as everyone is so keen to point out. I was starting out in my career and independent life as the 70's started, getting my diploma in architecture and marrying in 1971, getting my professional qualification in 1973, buying our first house in 1974, and working for the rest of the decade in a cash strapped British Rail learning the architectural business.
Yes money was very tight when we bought our first house but, because of inflation, the mortgage repayments soon became an increasingly reduced part of our outgoings. Despite capped incomes we still managed to put some savings aside. Neither of us had well paid jobs, rarely got away for holidays or bought major costly items, but we, by comparison with similarly placed young people these days, did relatively well with stable rewarding jobs easy to come by. So it is fascinating to compare those times with now, with the detailed information in such books as "When the lights went out," as well as with what I remember of those times, and my experiences of income, society and expectations.
And then there is what they were all saying recently about how Thatcher saved the UK. It did not feel like it then with whole industries withering and dying. Social strife, combative politics, and the rise of selfish affluence for the few. But it was not Thatcher who started those trends they were already under way before she came to power. I left British Rail architects just after she came to power, seeing the writing on the wall for nationalised industry and in house architects departments. But before then, travelling round the Midlands in the late 70's I saw devastated industrial landscapes. In BR there was the timeless justification by the bosses for their substantial pay awards while we office fodder got little or nothing, "it will trickle down" and it never did.
So what was this watershed of the end of the 70's and the coming to power of Thatcher. Nothing as dramatic as current politicians and romantics for the 80's would have you think. That ideology developed in the late 70's blossomed in the 80's and did for us now, giving us deregulated finance and avarice, the seeds of our current problems. This is not to say that those times were all good or all bad, there were great and beneficial social changes, increasing understanding of different peoples and cultures, the liberation of thought and endeavour, all arising out of the escape from dark days of the immediate post war years and the constraints of thought, and expectation before then. It all depends where you stand and what your version of the truth is.
But apart from the fact that a lot of those economic, social and financial trends were in their early stages before she won the 79 election, the 70's for me never seemed as bad as everyone is so keen to point out. I was starting out in my career and independent life as the 70's started, getting my diploma in architecture and marrying in 1971, getting my professional qualification in 1973, buying our first house in 1974, and working for the rest of the decade in a cash strapped British Rail learning the architectural business.
Yes money was very tight when we bought our first house but, because of inflation, the mortgage repayments soon became an increasingly reduced part of our outgoings. Despite capped incomes we still managed to put some savings aside. Neither of us had well paid jobs, rarely got away for holidays or bought major costly items, but we, by comparison with similarly placed young people these days, did relatively well with stable rewarding jobs easy to come by. So it is fascinating to compare those times with now, with the detailed information in such books as "When the lights went out," as well as with what I remember of those times, and my experiences of income, society and expectations.
And then there is what they were all saying recently about how Thatcher saved the UK. It did not feel like it then with whole industries withering and dying. Social strife, combative politics, and the rise of selfish affluence for the few. But it was not Thatcher who started those trends they were already under way before she came to power. I left British Rail architects just after she came to power, seeing the writing on the wall for nationalised industry and in house architects departments. But before then, travelling round the Midlands in the late 70's I saw devastated industrial landscapes. In BR there was the timeless justification by the bosses for their substantial pay awards while we office fodder got little or nothing, "it will trickle down" and it never did.
So what was this watershed of the end of the 70's and the coming to power of Thatcher. Nothing as dramatic as current politicians and romantics for the 80's would have you think. That ideology developed in the late 70's blossomed in the 80's and did for us now, giving us deregulated finance and avarice, the seeds of our current problems. This is not to say that those times were all good or all bad, there were great and beneficial social changes, increasing understanding of different peoples and cultures, the liberation of thought and endeavour, all arising out of the escape from dark days of the immediate post war years and the constraints of thought, and expectation before then. It all depends where you stand and what your version of the truth is.
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Comparing notes
As I mentioned in my previous blog I have a long term family connection to the US through my cousin Arthur and his wife Jodie, the part of my family who live in New York and were born in America. That has led, through most of my life, to me being very curious about the US and making comparisons with the country and culture I know as home, the UK. Thankfully, some might say miraculously, Arthur and I share this curiosity for each others worlds and what it might mean in terms of how this world and our cultures/societies work.
When I was in my teens, I am now in my 70th year, I felt very out of sync with the world around me, not exactly unusual for a teenager. But I thought that the world I was experiencing was run on a set of rules I just did not understand, and so tried to take it upon myself to find out what that set of rules was so that I could better get on in those times. This perception was greatly enhanced by so many around me in those days talking about rules of behaviour, the right and wrong things to do, the way politics, religion, society was portrayed, etc. But the older I got and the more I tried to rationalise what I saw of this unfolding story of life, the less I understood what this set of rules might be.
Then of course it dawned on me that I was likely on a fools errand. What my observations told me was that life as we humans know it does not have natural and inherent rules of engagement. Whatever rules there are are imposed by humans upon themselves the better to tackle the vicissitudes that life can throw at you. By that I mean that we can essentially do anything we like, it is the social norms, laws, personal moral codes, that we have established and evolved by trial and error, that are the rules we chose to live by and so get on better with each other. They are not a fundamental part of our make-up as the DNA coding is, they are not established by an omniscient law maker, they are not policed by a all seeing all controlling set of guardians. They are what we chose to make them and of course politics, religions, wars, social and family strife is all part of us making a good or bad fist of it all.
For those who know me well they will know I am an atheist, have been ever since I realised it was the only outlook that made sense. So you can imagine that I view religions as curious phenomena and religious fundamentalism with barely concealed contempt. Life can be hard enough without getting hung up about how some non existent God type figure might expect us to behave, especially as mankind has a nasty habit of determining what they think their version of this god might want/expect and then go on to try and impose this often to the great detriment, if not death, of those around them.
So how does this interface with Arthur and I and our curiosity for each others countries? Well although both countries are defined as rich, both countries are going through, by their standards, hard economic times and for the worst off in both countries those hard times have been going on a lot longer that the current economic woes. We have both seen substantial swings in the politics of our countries, the growth of so called "grass roots - let the people talk" political parties, and we are both trying to make sense of these trends to try and work out what the future holds for us, our families and the future generations in our families. Personally I think these sorts of political parties are just an expression of our discomfort with inevitable change and a doomed attempt to stop any form of necessary evolution of ideas and progress.
No conclusions yet, but oh how I would love to see the growth of rational thought and action. It may already be here and will be clearly seen in hindsight, but it does not feel much like it at the coal face.
When I was in my teens, I am now in my 70th year, I felt very out of sync with the world around me, not exactly unusual for a teenager. But I thought that the world I was experiencing was run on a set of rules I just did not understand, and so tried to take it upon myself to find out what that set of rules was so that I could better get on in those times. This perception was greatly enhanced by so many around me in those days talking about rules of behaviour, the right and wrong things to do, the way politics, religion, society was portrayed, etc. But the older I got and the more I tried to rationalise what I saw of this unfolding story of life, the less I understood what this set of rules might be.
Then of course it dawned on me that I was likely on a fools errand. What my observations told me was that life as we humans know it does not have natural and inherent rules of engagement. Whatever rules there are are imposed by humans upon themselves the better to tackle the vicissitudes that life can throw at you. By that I mean that we can essentially do anything we like, it is the social norms, laws, personal moral codes, that we have established and evolved by trial and error, that are the rules we chose to live by and so get on better with each other. They are not a fundamental part of our make-up as the DNA coding is, they are not established by an omniscient law maker, they are not policed by a all seeing all controlling set of guardians. They are what we chose to make them and of course politics, religions, wars, social and family strife is all part of us making a good or bad fist of it all.
For those who know me well they will know I am an atheist, have been ever since I realised it was the only outlook that made sense. So you can imagine that I view religions as curious phenomena and religious fundamentalism with barely concealed contempt. Life can be hard enough without getting hung up about how some non existent God type figure might expect us to behave, especially as mankind has a nasty habit of determining what they think their version of this god might want/expect and then go on to try and impose this often to the great detriment, if not death, of those around them.
So how does this interface with Arthur and I and our curiosity for each others countries? Well although both countries are defined as rich, both countries are going through, by their standards, hard economic times and for the worst off in both countries those hard times have been going on a lot longer that the current economic woes. We have both seen substantial swings in the politics of our countries, the growth of so called "grass roots - let the people talk" political parties, and we are both trying to make sense of these trends to try and work out what the future holds for us, our families and the future generations in our families. Personally I think these sorts of political parties are just an expression of our discomfort with inevitable change and a doomed attempt to stop any form of necessary evolution of ideas and progress.
No conclusions yet, but oh how I would love to see the growth of rational thought and action. It may already be here and will be clearly seen in hindsight, but it does not feel much like it at the coal face.
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