In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • Britain’s Return to Health

     

    I want to talk about the British Labour Party which – despite everything – still occupies the ground I look to for the beginning of this nation’s regeneration and return to health.

    But “ground” is one thing ; the withered and stunted vegetation I see presently over-running and littering that ground, is another.

    To understand better why the Party is presently so choked, so ineffective outside its own circles, so splintered and dysfunctional within them, I want to explore a bit what fundamentalism means, and what is “leadership,” and where “quality” fits in. And I might name a few beasts along the way, items and realities which – through being so little named – are haunting and hurting the Party all the more.

    The immediate context is, of course, Corbyn’s disastrous defeat in the recent UK general election, his consequent resignation, and the present weirdly stretched-out contest to establish his successor. I myself shall be voting for Keir Starmer. If he succeeds in that vote, he will inherit a profoundly dysfunctional Party and will have his work cut out to make it fit for any constructive purpose. If he loses, the Party is anyway finished. 

    It was Corbyn’s particular politics (or his translation of them) – as well as his ineffectiveness and ineptitude as leader of his Party, as well as the way he presented himself and his party to the nation  – which were rejected so emphatically last December, at this crucial time for our country. And yet, in the contest for his replacement, he still seems to maintain a crippling influence over the proceedings. Mystifyingly, a significant number of people within the Party seem to want to carry on down the same self-indulgent branch-line to nowhere that he followed. As an example, I am writing this paragraph on February 19th 2020 and have had a look at the Labour Party website today. It remains unchanged since before the election in December. There is Jez all over it, campaigning. And “Time for a change,” it says. How true. How true. And time for some plain competence. Time for reality. Time for coming to.

    Ancestry – the Inheritance

    But let’s start with some history. What Labour is now – and what it is failing or refusing to become instead – might have something to do with where it came from. Or, where it came from might at least provide us with some context against which to assess its present predicaments. I shall be as brief as possible here, in order then to draw a couple of  conclusions.

    The Labour Party was formed late in the nineteenth century, as a result of dramatically changing social conditions and new political opportunities. For a bit more detail than I’m about to give, here is the relevant link on Wikipedia.     

    Crudely, it can be said that, as the Liberal Party (once called the “Whigs”) had emerged some decades previously to give political representation and influence to the emerging middle or mercantile class, so now the Labour Party would give representation and influence to the working or “labouring” class.

    The emergence of both these parties, of course, had as its background the Industrial Revolution and the UK’s shift away from a largely agricultural and rural economy towards an urban one based on manufacturing industry. Mill, factory and mine had become the centres around which huge numbers of lives revolved, surely the majority of the nation’s populace.

    The Party’s background also includes a long succession of Acts of Parliament, throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, progressively enlarging the electorate, the percentage of the population entitled to vote.

    Two points to make, on the back of these bald facts :

    1/ the Labour Party emerged at a particular time in the context of, and in response to, particular conditions, conditions which of course did much to shape it. Over hard decades it achieved great things, on behalf of the class it represented and to the benefit of the nation as a whole. But time runs on and conditions change. This nation’s economy is no longer based on manufacture as such ; and the labouring class is not nearly so distinct an entity as it was, nor –  in terms of plain political muscle – as crucial to the economy and therefore as powerful a voice.

    No party can or should survive whose life-force still relies on old frames of reference, previous cosmologies, old moorings, beachheads for curative action no longer directly applicable, animating only people formed and still rooted in the past – and maybe minor figures – old dinghies, not ships.

    For there will have been a shift, maybe unnoticed by the activists themselves. At some point, those initial frames of reference will no longer stem from, and speak to, other people’s urgent and present reality ; at some point and all too easily, those frames become mere echo chambers, familiar reference-points, thought-patterns and career-paths just for the Party activists themselves, members of the Party “family.” Dynamics change. Motivations change. Incentives change. The quality and kind of activist change. For a Party to remain an effective force, a real catalyst for social good and, in our present perilous times, even for our and democracy’s survival, it must put itself under constant review – its aims, its composition, its structures, its hierarchies, everything. Refresh. Refresh.

    2/ The Labour Party would not exist had it not been willing from the outset to work in alliance with other groups with similar aims. Yes, its emergence had much to do with extending the work of the Trade Union movement into parliament. But Labour was never, and is not, just a party of the Unions. It was the result of, and was made possible by, a set of alliances across a broad front of reform-minded activists.  I quote from the Wikipedia entry I referred to earlier  : “In addition, several small socialist groups had formed around this time [1870], with the intention of linking the movement to political policies. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the intellectual and largely middle-class Fabian Society, the Marxist Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

    And, thirty years later, Labour’s first leader, Keir Hardy, had the following motion passed at a meeting in 1900, that they would establish “a distinct Labour group in Parliament…which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour.”

    And I would add a bit more, on this point. Various groups are mentioned above. But there were more which contributed and to think just in terms of distinct groups and change-agents is anyway perhaps a bit misleading. These groups were merely part and reflective of a wider picture. For instance, the co-operative movement eventually combined with emergent Labour ; but the co-operative movement’s beginnings were more social and self-help  and economic than political and it ranged wide and involved lots of different networks, educational as well as social. And there were ties and connections with various religious groupings also seeking social justice, reform and amelioration in industrial and urban Britain – the Methodists, the Quakers… Thus, the Labour Party became the political expression of a wide-ranging social movement and uprising and in some ways was the result of that movement, the crest of a great wave. For across the country at that time, there was the deepest possible sense of urgency. The Party came into existence to address and correct human conditions across much of society, that were plainly unacceptable by any moral standard.

    What has happened in more recent years, to make Labour not merely so reluctant to work in partnership with other groups, but unable even to accept different perspectives within its own boundaries ? For a significant number of Corbyn’s supporters, it is not enough even to be “Labour” – you must associate yourself with their own exclusive and narrow wing within Labour.

    But manifestly, that way ensures annihilation for Labour as a force for change in Society. Is that what the “Far Left” want ? Surely not. But it suggests that being a “force for change in Society” may no longer be their primary concern here. That is a strange thing to say, perhaps, but these are strange, bewildering and tumultuous times and I am not suggesting any intention or behaviour that is conscious. In such times, many of us might actually just yearn to have something to hang onto in the mind, something that feels solid, reassuringly clear-cut or comfortingly familiar, or both – lines that sing to us, places of refuge, a castle on a hill. But nothing to do with Society as it really is, out there.

    People lost at sea may not be particularly discerning when it comes to grabbing hold of something that might keep them afloat. 

    But, in the present day, the consequences for all of us of no change, or not enough, or the wrong sort, do not bear thinking about. So forces for change, change towards health and sanity, have to make themselves fit and inclusive, as never before.

    The Labour Conference 2019

    The Labour Party has apparently looked hard for the reasons for its catastrophic electoral failure in December, which has allowed a grossly unworthy, fraudulent man to form a government and “take control” of this nation for the next five, dangerous years. He and his gang disgrace even their own Conservative Party and are a threat to all of us, including themselves and their families.

    I haven’t read all the conclusions so far arrived at by the Labour reviewers. But those I have are simply pathetic. They are not conclusions, but symptoms of pathological denial, myths. Rebecca Long-Bailey’s “Ten out of ten” as a score for Mr Corbyn’s leadership stays in the mind and sticks in the gullet. Another phrase that has stood out for me is the headline of a recent article by Owen Jones : “All the Labour candidates have tacked to the left, but do they really mean it ?” That word “Left.” Like a talisman. Like a miracle cure. Like a holy relic. Like a relic.

    In some ways, I don’t think there was any need to conduct painstaking studies of what went wrong for Labour at the election, especially if the studies’ real purpose was to come up with scapegoats and falsities painstakingly put together to mask the truth.

    Forget the studies. Just remember the Labour Party conference of September last year. It shows you all you need to know. The election was not yet announced, but everyone knew that an election was round the corner and Labour under Corbyn was repeatedly saying that an election was what it wanted. So here on public display was a Party claiming to be ready for government, in debate.

    First thing : just before the conference started, a plot to get rid of Tom Watson, Deputy Party Leader, hit the headlines. It seems he wasn’t sufficiently far to the left. Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum, was apparently behind that clever move. (Mr Lansman is currently advising Rebecca Long-Bailey’s campaign for Labour leader).

    Here was this force for change, for the “many not the few,” this beacon for a “new kind of politics,” on full public display, its “leaders” warming up for the election race by sticking knives into each other. 

    And then that vote from the floor. Remember it ? The motion was an attempt to persuade Labour to come off the fence on Brexit and commit to “Remain.” The Chair’s name was Wendy Nichols. “Show of hands, please.” (Show of hands ?). Wendy did a quick count – “Motion carried,” she said. But Jennie Formby, close ally of Corbyn and present Party Secretary, was sharing the platform with Wendy. Did she whisper something ? Or did she give Wendy a kick ?  “No, Sorry, sorry,” says Wendy. “Motion lost.”

    Was this a government in waiting ? This bumbling shower presenting itself to the many and saying, “Vote for us, we’re here for you (when we’re not fighting each other, that is, and fiddling the figures) – see what we’ve got for you !” The electorate looked and saw and said, no thank you.

    Better a posh liar and hoodlum repeating “Get It Done” ad infinitum, than this sorry, muddly, nasty lot, betraying their followers, betraying their predecessors, betraying their inheritance.

    Fundamentalism

    What is fundamentalism ? It seems a strange word, because – at least according to my understanding of things – “fundamentalism” has nothing to do with what is fundamental, the essence, the “central,” the “still point of the turning world.”  Whatever the word meant when it first became currency, what it now seems to mean is “literal” and externalised. “These words are the literal truth, so stop arguing and there’s no need to fret about anything or take any responsibility. Look, it’s clear, it says here…All you have to do is follow…”

    And the words on the page are not seen as human expressions of their particular time, images of that time, in search of timeless truths. The words are truth itself, truth beyond time. Moreover, they are rules. They instruct and they determine. And they don’t turn as the earth turns, yielding the principles they carry to new times and conditions. They are fixed and unmoving and they yield not an inch. You might even say that, in themselves, the words are sacred, holy writ. Idols.

    And the holy writ, this body of rules, is simple and plain and wholly right. You can take cover in this body and be sure of it.

    It acts as a kind a castle on top of a hill. Those who “convert” to its appeal and enter in, feel henceforward protected by its walls of certainty. And in there, you don’t have to worry, or ponder, or seek, or change.  You are saved and you belong.

    For you’re not alone here. All your companions have identical beliefs, and that’s a kind of togetherness and offers relief. And also it helps confirm you in your rectitude, so that now you can define yourself against the multitudes you can see outside the walls. They are clearly wrong, and either a risk to themselves or a threat to you, or both. In fact, concerned to defend your castle, you might find yourself viewing all who live outside it as threat and/or cause for contempt. You might feel entitled to attack them at any moment.

    And of course the word fundamentalism is often associated with religion and often with a conservative tendency within religion.

    But I would suggest that fundamentalism as I’ve described it is a universal human regressive tendency, or refuge, and belongs in all sorts of spheres of human behaviour and activity, including, and perhaps especially, politics, and especially, of course, in times of uncertainty and anxiety. People feeling lost draw back from doubt and anxiety. They look for some wall that looks solid and capable of sheltering and defining them. Then they look for people outside the wall, people ripe for blame. This process is presently happening all over the world. Humanity, fear-filled, is drawing back into delusional castles, when for its survival’s sake, it should be advancing and mingling, grappling humbly with reality for solutions.

    And of course what I’m heading for here is to suggest that the way properly to understand the “Far Left,” as represented by Corbyn and his allies within the Labour party, is not so much that they are extreme “socialists,” more “radical” than everyone else in the Party or on the political spectrum.

    I suggest rather that they are simply the fundamentalists of the Labour Party. And how can fundamentalists “cooperate” with anyone at all, since what they follow is holy writ, written when times were different ? How can they adapt their ideas in the light of other people’s ideas, since “other people” are all heretics and doing so might result in the walls collapsing ?

    Real “radical”, a radical based on principle and creativity rather than on habit and refuge, is inclusive and of the present. It requires high talent and courage and generosity of spirit. I do not think fundamentalists are capable of being truly radical. What they do instead is seek to make the shapes of the real world conform to the hiding places in their own minds. 

    Old Frames of Reference, New Times to Refer to

    In the previous section I have talked about fundamentalism ; in this one, I shall talk about the political spectrum, questioning its present validity. Strangely, the two sections merge slightly in their implications. Or, maybe, not so strangely.

    We all need frames of reference by which we can understand what’s happening, or try to understand, or kid ourselves that we do. One such frame, commonly referred to as if it were a natural feature of the landscape, is the “political spectrum,” with its Left and its Right and something altogether less clear between the two, called the Centre. And within that frame, or along that line, there are all sorts of other meanings or attributes given, such as “Moderate” (linked to Centre) or “Far” this, “Far” that, or “Hard” this, “Hard” that, or “Radical” associated with each of the opposite ends. 

    And it does appear, according to this way of seeing things, that in many countries the “centre” is being squeezed out or is splintering and in-fighting, while the far or hard or radical extremes on either “side” – both the right and the left, but especially the right  – are gathering power and multiplying in number across the world, drawing people towards them like magnets or – perhaps more pertinently – like whirlpools or black holes in Space.

    Thus, as I write, the American Democrat Party’s nomination process is beginning to favour Sanders, the aged radical, a most unlikely counter to Trump ; in Iran the “Moderates” have recently lost much of the ground they were gaining from the Conservatives. And in December’s UK election, the Lib Dems failed utterly ; and just beforehand, the group pressing for a second referendum on EU membership split and then vaporised ; and although Corbyn’s “hard-left” Labour was trounced, a hard-right leaning Tory party “triumphed” and Brexit – favoured by the hard right – went through with an Etonian smirk and a sorry bong.

    And even now, as Labour at last approaches the end of its search for a new leader to replace Corbyn, there is real pressure from a significant proportion of the party’s membership, as well as from his inner circle, to retain Corbyn’s programme, his position and even his presence. The adjectives used to describe progressives who do not share the Corbyn line, and wish Labour to become effective instead, are somehow pejorative, delivered with a sneer. The imputation seems to be that unless you take this “far” and “hard” position, you’re somehow a sell-out, a Blairite, a compromiser. “Moderate” comes to mean “status quo,” the “liberal elite,” the “sell-out,” and all the rest of it. Not just less than truly radical, less than truly Labour.

    But I question that whole frame of reference now, that line with Left and Right at each end of it, as if opposites, with “hard” and “radical” applicable in both cases, and wishy-washy “moderate” lost somewhere between them. I think in many ways our present time has left all previous times behind and all our previous frames of reference are therefore wide open to question and probably derelict. That is frightening and suggests in turn the real reason why far left and far right are so attractive now, as if mesmerising. They are not really radical at all. They are retreats from human presentness and complexity and a necessary openness to doubt. They offer cover and protection and they relieve you from anxiety. They are castles on a hill. They offer no solution and their cover is delusional. We seek to hide in them but they offer no hiding place.  They will not save us.

    It may be that “Left” and “Right” don’t hold good any more, as political terms. It is human pathology now, rather than political orientation. It may be that the political spectrum as a whole, as we keep referring to it, has become meaningless.

    To save ourselves, we have to let go of all precedent, all old references and familiar furnishings, and work from first principle. We have to come together again, outside all familiar castle walls however “Far” and “Hard”, and – working from First Principles – come up with something truly radical and effective in response to our present grave need.

    Quality and Quantity

    It’s as if people are already discarding from their minds anything that a computer would not recognise or accommodate. By definition, the computer categorises, quantifies, measures, counts, its assessments restricted to externals and enslaved to its programming. It’s as if the assessor sits, (and maybe takes cover) behind a screen, turning “otherness” or the outside world, or other people, into mere objects of attention, fish in a bowl, images on film, a list of measurements.

    And certainly, that measuring ability is part of being human and great good can be, and has been, made of it. But if living a human life involves only that, we die. We shrivel up.

    For the human individual is more than some vastly sophisticated computer. We experience reality as more than just a set of quantities. We give out and take in across a front vastly wider and more complex than the binary. We are artists as well as functionaries ; creators as well as customers ; we can (and must) empathise and be empathised with, as well as count and be counted ; we need community and belonging and not just acquisitions and ownership.

    I am saying the obvious here, but I am growing old in a world in which the obviously true is giving way all round me and it is frightening. What I am trying to say is partially covered by the word “quality.” We cannot flourish without a life of sufficient quality as well as material needs fulfilled. We must protect the quality of our lives, and of all that goes on in our lives, the how, as well as just the what.

    I am still saying the obvious. Yet if what I’m saying is so obvious, why are Corbyn’s qualities as a leader so little discussed ? His reach, effectiveness and natural authority as a leader were so limited and so flawed. More now to the point, what qualities should we be looking for in his replacement ? What qualities does a leader of a democratic political party need at this tumultuous time ? The ability to lie without a qualm ? The ability to work up a crowd and turn it into a mob ?

    As far as I can tell, the subject of leadership qualities is not really being discussed at all. It seems a matter more of what policies each candidate will pursue, how much of a “true socialist” each would be, how much they loved Corbyn, how “Left they really are, or whatever.

    Whoever becomes leader will need to be a good party manager, which is a huge task in itself ; old Jon will need to be persuaded to put his knives away ; old Len will need to be helped to do without the camera attention he has been so enjoying in recent years, to Labour’s cost  ; the new leader will need to be able to project him/herself as real and eloquent, warm and self-assured in a whole range of settings, including in front of the TV cameras, as well as in the Commons ; the person will need to command the respect of a wide range of people and also reach far beyond that range to extend greatly Labour’s present constituency, in these times of anxiety and uncertainty ; the person will need to seek out and facilitate and process and introduce and win widespread assent for much genuinely original and radical policy thinking ; the person will need to bring out the best in people and restore the hope and self-belief of a nation.

    I see Johnson as a felon, a toad squatting gleefully in a broken hall, a shattered forum which he further despoils, not a leader at all, but a mere symptom of a nation depressed and in disarray. A wart with a muddle of yellow fur on top. If the nation were in a healthy condition, he would not be here. This nation needs a true leader, someone worthy not just to lead but to heal. Labour has a responsibility to the nation, as well as to itself, now to choose and provide someone capable of fulfilling that momentous task.

    Without hesitation, I shall be voting for Keir Starmer to be the new leader of the Labour Party. In my view, he is the only real leader among the candidates – not because of his gender but due to his qualities and his record. But “without hesitation” does not mean in great excitement, hope or confidence. For the task is enormous, a real cliff face. Is Starmer enough of a rock-climber ? Would anyone be ?

    This piece is being written over several days and of course, as I struggle with it, different news items keep coming in. So today, I have heard that Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, will also be voting for Starmer, saying that he would be the “best person” to unite the party, “take the fight” to Boris Johnson and return Labour to power.

    And so much more will be needed from him. But I am quoting Khan (whom I greatly respect) in order to make a final point. If the validity of the political spectrum is these days open to question, so certainly is our present party system, and much else. What is a Party for ? Just to survive ? Uniting Labour should not be the first concern. Renewing and healing this nation should be. Only so long as the Labour Party can become capable again of taking power to accomplish the task of renewing and healing the nation, does it deserve to exist or command anyone’s loyalty. To come anywhere near becoming capable again it has to renew itself, even if this means annoying the likes of old Jon and old Len. There is much to be done. Refresh. Refresh. 

    PS  Some Suggested First Principles to Work from

    Labour stands for the principle that a nation exists for the benefit of all its citizens, not just for the few at the expense of the many. It recognises also that human society will not flourish or even survive unless it ensures that the natural environment in which it exists, also flourishes. 

    The party believes, and will act in the belief, that the measure of a successful individual is not that person’s earnings or possessions, but his/her actions on behalf of the community and environment. The party will seek to ensure that all its citizens have equal and sufficient access to justice, health services, and all other essentials for lives of human dignity and fellowship ; and in the process it will prioritise communal responsibility and connectedness over individual self-interest, on the assumption that the good citizen is interested in more than mere material gain, a fulfilled life is more than the acquisition of superfluous wealth.

    PSS   The Party’s Title

    It is surely time for the Labour Party to change its name. Its past is an honourable and necessary one, worthy of pride, but in a post-industrial economy, the Party surely no longer sets out to improve conditions and secure justice for a single class only. The primary concern of this progressive party of the present is to work in co-operation with the like-minded to create and support a healthy, fulfilling and inclusive society living at peace with, and with care for, the Earth on which we all absolutely depend.

     

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  • Cat Vies with Hard Drive for my Soul

    Our race has re-made the world to be a reflection of our own chaotic inner lives and processes. We’ve fashioned our environment in such a way that it has become our self-portrait (if we dare to look). Perhaps we see ourselves for the first time, when we look out on the world we have made.

    And perhaps we choose, or allow into power, our leaders, in the same way. They represent some sort of answer to the questions that plague us, that disturb us in our sleep, questions we cannot resolve on our own. So we choose these individuals to resolve them for us, or as a living embodiment of the answers we think will do the job. Often, I believe, our assumptions of what sort of leader is needed, or what sort of person the leader we’ve turned to actually is, are wildly wrong. This is because we have projected onto them our own images of what we want them to be, blinded by our confusion and dissatisfaction, and yearning for relief, however illusory.

    I think Jeremy Corbin is a case in point. He still has a following, despite the dreadful election result, despite all the evidence he has provided of gross inadequacy and incapacity as Party Leader. A legend has been written, overriding the reality. The legend will rise again from the waves some day, waving Excalibur, this dream leader who never was.     

    Onto to a more present legend – in my terms, the legend of Mr Toad and Dr Doombeetle. Other people might give it a different title, such as Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings. I was recently struck by a correlation between these two individuals (whoever they really are) and the title of a book called “The Master and his Emissary – the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” It is by Iain McGilchrist and was published in 2009. As I understand it, it took McGilchrist over 20 years to write. 

    And this book is not of some legend. It is a study of the human brain, a study, in other words, of how each one of us functions.  And the Master is the term McGilchrist gives to our right brain hemisphere. And the Emissary is the term he gives to our left. 

    And our two brain hemispheres are very different from one another and yet have to work in close partnership, despite the gap that exists between them, and the fact that they are not equal, nor easily complementary.

    And – wait for it – they are actually at odds. And the “emissary”, the more analytical hemisphere, which should be working in the service of the more imaginative right hand side, does not see the point or validity of the Master and strains at all times to unseat and replace it.  

    And McGilchrist suggests and demonstrates that the world we create at any one time, or in any one generation, reflects which of the human brain hemispheres is in the ascendant at that time. And if the emissary finally and fully comes out on top and takes over from the Master, the human race as a whole will not survive. For the emissary to “win,” runs against all our interests, including those of the emissary.

    Get the connection ?

    And a few years ago, I wrote a poem inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s great book, making my own kind of legend out of it. And, for the purposes of the poem, I called the left hand side of the brain “Hard Drive” and the right hand side “Cat.”

    Personally, I think things have got worse since the days of Cat and Hard Drive. Our present Toad is a dreadfully degenerate version of Cat, in thrall to Self and now hypnotised by Doombeetle’s world-view (so long as Self benefits from it).

    Truth and Reality are accordingly old hat. Now Dr Doombeetle stands at the wheel of our human ship, the human brain, while the Toad preens himself down below, in his first class cabin, admiring himself in the mirror.  

    Here is the poem :

     

            Cat vies with Hard Drive for my Soul

     

                                 A Confession of Bias

     

    I wish myself cat

    cats-eyes

    cats-ears

     

    I wish myself cat-alive

    cat alert,

    sonar centre,

     

    electric

    lithe advance.

    Hard-drive blunts me

     

    splits

    and thickens me

    Hard-drive weighs on me

     

    like a hump,

    an imperialist                      

    goiter.

     

                                       Cat asleep

     

    Ears at attention

    sharp as bayonets

     

    still scanning

    and reading.

     

    And eyes though closed

    are still reckoning

     

    keeping the captain                  

    abreast of all weathers

     

    as he paces

    alone

     

    on the bridge.

    Any time now

     

    those eyes will blaze

    open

     

    and cat will rise

    and crouch

     

    and bare teeth 

    and pounce.

     

                               Hard Drive in the bath

     

    Hard-drive specialises

    in mean look

    and fierce straight line.

     

    Curves dismay him

    They hint at softness

    and lying back in the bath.

     

    You don’t bathe for joy,

    proclaims Hard Drive, but for profit,

    an increase of power and standing.

     

    So yes, bathe often

    but with vigour

    and never lie back.

     

                             Hard-drive comes alive

     

    Hard-drive waits for nobody

    and never gives way.

     

    To pause is life-threatening

    and to make allowance for other life

     

    risks invasion                                

    by gargoyle

     

    possession

    by Dracula.

     

    I shall force my will

    on the landscape.

     

    I shall stamp myself on the earth

    like a brand.

     

    Hey mother, do you see

    this corpse at my feet

     

    this victim at my hands ?

    Until the moment

     

    of victory

    I had not arrived

     

    O mother, mother,

    I was not born.

     

                                        Cat in the Sun

     

    Cat glories in the sun.

    He sees it a mile off

    and knows he belongs there.

     

    He rolls in the hot dust

    and delights in that sliding, grain by grain,

    inwards to the skin

    to play among the follicles.

     

    Hard Drive can’t bear to look.

    Instead he fixes on the horizon

    in case typhoon is threatening there

    or the barbarian horse

    have broken through at last.

     

    Hard Drive busies himself

    on his preventive measures,

    glancing with contempt

    to where Cat lounges,

    absorbing the sun’s heat,

    cat ears pointy,

    muscles flexed.

     

                  Hard Drive begs to go hunting

     

    Gimme routine

    rages Hard Drive,

    you’re unsettling me,

    gimme something that stays

    the same, gimme repeats,

    gimme quarry to

    run down, gimme

    victims, gimme

    leave to blame.

     

                               Cat’s astonishment

     

    Cat spends all his life astonished.

    His astonishment exhausts him

    so he sleeps and then, on waking,

    is astonished all over again.

     

                              Interview

     

    So what do they make

    of each other, these two,

    Cat and Hard Drive 

    forced to travel on opposing sides

    inseparable  ?

     

    He leans over me

    snarls Cat, he positions

    himself way beyond his station.

    He eclipses my sun.

    He has tricked me into a cage.

     

    He frightens me, rages Hard Drive.

    Every pace we take along the path

    wears on me. It is like walking

    chained to a fire-storm.

    I never sleep.

      

                         Conclusion

     

     It is cat who carries the weight

    of true being,

     

    who loves and suffers

    in his worn flesh

     

    the seasons, the tides, the razed trees.

     

    Hard Drive lives in panic, a life-long

    franticness to avoid

     

    being overwhelmed. The fears

    of Hard-drive

     

    will overwhelm us all.

     

                                        Rogan Wolf, June 2013

     

     

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  • What does “Advisor” mean in Toadland ?

    Semantics – the study of words and their meanings – is an important subject, after all. I used to hang back from it as being peripheral, academic, finickity, pedantic. But now, especially in this era when the Lie is so greatly in the ascendant, I see more clearly that being alert to how words are used, and how subtly that use can change, is a crucial way of seeing the truth of human motivation and behaviour and the use and abuse of power. 

    For words don’t just mean. They also suggest, imply, deflect, obscure, hide, deceive. Words don’t just live. They also die and kill.

    For instance, this word “advisor.” It was being used quite a lot last week, with regard to the Toad’s reshuffling of his “cabinet” and – specifically – with Sajid Javid’s “resignation.”

    And this “resignation” was occasioned by the Toad’s insistence that, to keep his job, Javid must get rid of his Treasury “advisors” and exchange them for Number 10’s “advisors” (all of the latter answerable to Dr Doombeetle).

    But hold on. What has just been said ? Did we take note, before rushing on, or being rushed on ? Of course there’s been some discussion about Number 10’s “power-grab.” And the new cabinet’s manifest leaning towards the toadie, the rookie and the rubbery spine.

    But “advisors” ? What was really being said here ?  What is an advisor, after all, according to one’s usual or previous understanding of the term ? First, the advisor is a human being, at least in most cases, and therefore not a chattle. Second, that person might have some expertise or experience or similar set of qualities, which make him/her worth listening to. Third, you don’t have to take his/her advice. If you happen to be a Minister of State, you are the person with the power and the responsibility to make the decisions.

    But those meanings do not appear to have held good in this case, despite the word being used repeatedly.

    Here, the “advisors” appear to be toys, or furniture, or flowers, or weapons, or drones, or uniforms, ie mere objects to sweep in or out, as convenient. Not people. “Sack them ?” What for ? Incompetence, misconduct ? None of those things. Just ownership. Further, consideration of human rights, human treatment, didn’t come into it. Therefore, we must surely conclude that, at least in this case, “advisor” did not mean human being.    

    But although they’re mere objects, they seem to be regarded as very powerful and important ones. That’s why they have to be the Doombeetle’s objects and not the Chancellor’s objects.

    Maybe they’re dummies (so that, on top of Dr Doombeetle’s other extraordinary abilities, he must be a ventriloquist, as well) and that would explain why his dummies must replace those of Mr Javid. To give orders. To keep watch. Like thought-police. Like drones, hovering.

    But this is taking us a long way from what I once understood “advisor” to mean. And it is taking us a long way towards abuse of power, further debasement of quality in government, and plain abuse of people. And that already means, and in the Toad’s case has always meant, not just certain people, but any people. All people.

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  • Where the Hoodlums Are

     

    The stanza was written and uploaded on the day the UK left the EU, January 31st, 2020. The picture is of a tower built in Victorian times in belated tribute to the great William Tyndale. It stands on the edge of  the Cotswold escarpment, overlooking the Severn estuary. The lovely photograph was taken by Derek Harper.

    “A new dawn,” is how the UK prime minister described January 31st to the nation, this man already sacked twice for lying, a man no law-abiding employer would dream of even shortlisting for a job.

    In contrast, Tyndale was interested in truth and the nation can take pride in him. The parrot has now withdrawn to the top of Tyndale’s monument and will stand sentinel there, on watch for better and wiser times when we might come to realize our mistake.

    You can climb a spiral of stone steps up to the top of the tower and nowadays might meet the parrot there, glaring at you, impatient for the flood of lies to retreat and the honour and grace of this nation be restored.

    I had thought the parrot had finished writing his verses on Brexit (see “Parrot Addenda“). There are over 150 of them, after all. But, in recognition of a tragic and shameful occasion, he couldn’t resist adding a grumpy postscript here. 

     

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  • High Noon is Nearly Upon Us. Where’s the Sheriff ?

    Around the world, the hoodlums and outlaws are running amok, in their suits of armour made of lies. By contrast, the sheriffs seem downcast, overwhelmed and on the run. I feel downcast and overwhelmed, too. Might it mean that I’m a sheriff, in disguise ? But there is no star in my cupboard.

    The picture I have, or image I’m struggling with at the moment, is that, to an extent that’s hard to fathom, we – as individuals and citizens – are like onions, or trees. We are each surrounded by many layers of growth, and to a significant degree, are made of them. Those layers can fairly be called our “culture,” the medium in which we live and move.

    We can be made to feel whole and solid by these layers and we function in the world through them. They are like layers of clothing but also of skin, and go deeper in even than that and often it’s hard to differentiate between them, and harder still to tell where we begin and they end. They support, hold, interpret, orientate and place us. They provide us with familiar landmarks, aspects of the self and the world we can recognise and feel at home in and part of, memories and echoes, traditions, forms and norms of behaviour and expression, regular seasonal events, formative and instructive experiences in our pasts, etc etc.

    And, in the present bewildering times and onrush of new worlds, layer upon layer of these formative aspects of our being have been made redundant, even flayed off, made unfit for purpose, useless as signposts, or sheltering structures, leaving us feeling bereft, undefended, diminished, raw, adrift and at sea, like immigrants in a country which keeps making us strangers.

    It’s as if we’ve been equipped with keys which no longer fit too many of the world’s locks. But many of us keep thinking and acting as if they are still relevant, or still what they once were. We seem incapable of doing otherwise. Perhaps it’s not surprising.

    I wrote the original of this piece as a message to a lifelong Roman Catholic with slightly Puritan rumblings in his belly. Perhaps for that reason, I refer at this point to Christ’s struggle with the Pharisees. That struggle was resolved on the Cross and represents a permanent tension in human life – that between the true and central informing principle, the “still point” at centre, and the various forms and interpretations of that still point, the laws and modes of behaviour out here on the surface of the “turning world.”  The principle informs the law which must then be written in human letters, the pharisees’ book of rules. But what then ? In the turning world, the letter may speak at first as a fair interpretation of the principle upon which it was based. But for how long ? And in a world turning faster and faster ?

    The pharisees were aghast that Christ “worked” on the Sabbath, for instance. But that is not the true meaning, or intention, of the Law, Christ answered. Over time, you have made nonsense of the principle. You have come to worship the merely outward form, the human letter of the law. In a sense, you have come to worship merely yourselves.

    The letter remains true for only a very short while and never more briefly than in our present time. So obey the letter for its short while, but never worship it. And on the surface of our turning world, keep reviewing and refreshing it, so that it remains a true expression and application of the central principle. Too easily the letter becomes a dead letter and hence a bringer of death. Not guidance through reality, but retreat from it, a false and dangerous, voracious god.

    But in these times of unprecedented rapidity of change ? How can you keep up ? How can the letter change fast enough ? How can consciousness stay alive to so much change ? On the contrary, the temptation is to hang onto the letter, or old forms now defunct, even tighter than ever, out of sheer fear and confusion.

    And in too many cases, it is the lesser or plainly wicked people who now climb on board these hollow, failing forms, blind to their own incapacity, or seeking to profit, in some way, from the degrading of standards. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is an example. He has been a disastrous choice and leader of the Labour Party. His own personal refuge and comfort zone, his hollow castle on a hill, was initially mistaken for a necessary and realistic “radicalism” ; his incapacity to inspire, to manage and to lead were misinterpreted as being “authentic” and “different from the others.” Johnson, of course, is another, but he belongs more to the wicked end of the spectrum, and is doing rather well out of it. But in these circumstances, what’s “doing well” ? As things stand for all of us now, even the hooligans will suffer if hooligans “do well.”

    At the time of writing, Jeremy Corbyn is about to stand down, deluding himself to the end, claiming that – despite Labour’s grievous loss at his hands – he and his gang of bumbling back-room in-fighters “won the argument.” And we are able to study, to some extent, the people competing to replace him as party leader. And we can follow their contorted attempts to speak words, find explanations, that might carry, that might fit, that might “cut it” with the membership. Does “cut it” mean speak true ? No, it seems to mean, find some facile slogan that will soothe people and make the sloganiser more popular than his/her rivals. As popular as Jez once was ?

    And the successful candidate will be the person judged most likely to be able to save the “Party” and bring it back to power. But to what extent is Party now a dead letter, just a support system and substitute family (highly dysfunctional) for its own members, a mere familiarity without real vitality or worth or currency ? I cannot help thinking that what these people are competing for is the right to mount a dead horse. The range, the running, the references of the horse in its prime no longer exist. And it is long dead, a collection of rags and frenzied maggots.

    What can a leader say that will inspire us, while sitting on the back of a dead horse full of maggots, with forests aflame in the background ? 

    We need to begin again, in this new, climactic world. We need to work again from first principle, from the still point at centre, where the dance is. Labour is dead. Perhaps the whole concept of Party is dead. Is even the Commons dead ?

    How best to serve the truth, and make good our polity, so that we can trust it again to arrive at decisions for the truly common good, decisions properly informed ?

    It may come down, if we are lucky, to a trusted Few, trusted because they are sane and sound, leading us, the Many, afflicted and wayward as we are, out of the desert, out of the valley of our shadow. To where the dance is.

    How and where do we begin ?  Are we capable ?  

    Footnote

    Lit. Ref. “At the still point of the turning world…there the dance is” ll 16/17, Part Two, Burnt Norton, Four Quartets, by TS Eliot.

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  • Toad and the Bong

    Some of the more ardent Tory Brexiters seem very exercised that, after all, Big Ben will not be breaking into song when the UK vacates the EU and seeks alternative residence in their delinquent yet decrepit Brexit wonderland.

    And the lying Mr Toad, our bouncy new Prime Minister, is coming up with ingenious plans to soothe them.

    Footnote

    We have a literary reference here : “The Spur” is a very short (four line) poem by W.B. Yeats. Line number four runs as follows: “What else have I to spur me into song ?”

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  • What is a Hyphen to do in 2020 ?

     

    There’s A and there’s B, but that’s not all. There’s also the connection between them. What is it ? They are sharing more than just the air. They were born to share more than just opposite sides of the same wall.

    A hyphen-line, a connecting scratch on the page, a fragile raft of some sort or other. Must it be a fault-line ? Or just a fleeting extra to the fatal reality of Me and Mine ?

    Or, on the contrary, is the mysterious line which connects one to another the only thing that really matters  ? And humanity’s only hope ?

    These ideas/images/questions stem from a book called “I and Thou” by Martin Buber. And the small charity I founded and run (called “Hyphen-21“) was inspired by that book, and the stand Buber takes on the centrality of the hyphen that truly connects me to Thee, me to all that’s outside of me. (The “21” belongs to our present century, of course).

    And every year, in the still period between the ending of one year and the starting of another, I have arranged for our accounts to be sent to Companies House and the Charity Commissioners ; and have written the annual report that for a while had to accompany the accounts, but now only needs to go to the charity’s Trustees as part of the accounting package.

    I enjoy the accounting, the looking back and appraising, the looking forward and exploring, the trying to make sense of, the charting of a course through.

    But what of this year ? What sense can I make of anything ? What sort of passage can a hyphen provide through a tempest, a plague, a flood ? What connections can be made to hold ?

    I decided to send out the usual report a bit more widely this time, beyond the Trustee circle. Would anyone make time to read it ? Would anyone have time enough to make some time ? And now I’ve decided to go one step further and  post it up here. It’s basically asking questions in general, rather than reporting in particular. Where have we got to ? What’s to be done ? The questions belong with all of us.

    When I began the report, the UK general election was about to take place. By the time I’d finished it, I already knew the result. Here is a link to the report.

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  • Poems for Public Display

    I never stop yearning for good poetry to reach past its traditional catchment areas – those shelves in the bookshop marked “Poetry,” the university literature department, the dedicated arts festival, the shy, solitary and possibly eccentric brain – and find a valid place for itself in the public square, the waiting room where we all have to sit at some point and take stock, the moment of true contact in a furious crowd, in these perpetually tumultuous times.

    But do I really mean that ? Would I be content if it really happened ? If life itself became a kind of permanent arts festival ? Is that what I mean ?

    I suspect I have made an image of the whole business. I think what I really mean is that there should be more truth about the place, more emotional honesty, more honesty and goodness and fullness of word, more wholeness of being. And how could anyone disagree with that ?

    And, rightly or wrongly, I see poetry as offering those things.

    I yearn for language to cease being just a sales technique, a cloaking mechanism, a means of control, a contrivance in the service of Me and Mine and the Lie ; to cease being used as an abuse and avoidance of the Truth when we need it to be a passage to, and serving of, the Truth ; to cease being used as a tool to work on people, when it is there for us as a reaching out to our neighbours, open-handed.

    But can poetry really supply all this healing Good ? Certainly not of itself. If you put a few words together and call that a “poem,” does it automatically become some kind of benevolent or even therapeutic magic spell ?

    Of course not. But the fact is that, from time to time, I do meet words that ring in my mind and spirit, by virtue of some kind of truth I recognise in them, and/or they recognise in me, and there is some kind of music about them which seems part of their truth, as if in and through their truth, they have found a music which author and I can both dance to.

    And then there’s a funeral and it’s clear that the person who has died was sincerely loved by those who attend. For there is wordless grief running through and hanging over everyone. And a need for adequate words. And the adequate poet is called on at that point, speaking from the same love. And the poet, from that place of genuineness of feeling, offers the words that are needed and can be shared by the community, giving due honour to the departed, to the angel and mystery of death and to the grief of those who remain. And suddenly the poet and the poet’s words have become essential, ministering to the needs of the moment, everyone’s need.

    Therefore, adequate, good-enough poetry can sometimes be an answer to a simple and essential human need, and is not merely some rarified extra, or ego performance. (And surely not to be wheeled out only in times of loss ?)

    A few months ago, I curated an exhibition of some poems from this project I run called “Poems for…the wall.”  The exhibition was held in Clifton Cathedral, a major Roman Catholic church designed and constructed in the late 1960’s and early 70’s in the architectural style of that time, sometimes called “brutalist.” I find it a remarkable building, an aid in itself to reverence and wonder, and in my opinion the poems looked lovely there.

    In fact, you might almost say that they found their true tongues there. The “brutalist” aspect of the building creates shapes and surroundings of a sort of raw essentialness. And in a way I cannot explain, the wood grain inscribed into the concrete surfaces as they dried, adds to the essentialness – a delicacy married to the massive, an organic complexity bound into the constructed simple.

    And in that setting, the poetry gave of its richness of language in a way that I don’t think I have ever experienced before. On seeing the exhibition for the first time, someone exclaimed that it was like seeing a present-day Book of Psalms open and revealed here, in a concerted cry of the nations.

    Some good photographs were taken of the exhibition, but it has taken me several months since then to find a way to project them adequately online. Now at last I have and, thanks to Google Photos, here is the link.

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