Dependency arising

 

 Dependency arising

If our search for "dependence arising" is a process of analysis, a process to establish the root of our experience and more importantly, our own relation to that understanding, does it not disconnect us from reality, 'our reality' as it seeks to impose an understanding of the layers which make up that understanding.
There is only one way to look through a telescope to make sense of what we see but in a sense, what we see is imperfect and the more we try to define the distortion we simply amplify that distortion. How then, other than defining what we look at can we see the reality of that which lays around us. What lays around us is inconsequential, it's the snow on the radar screen which prevents us from seeing the object we actually wish to see. Seeing only the snow we have to imagine what it is that lays beyond but if we haven't experienced what lies beyond we have to experiment with a series of assumptions. 

The first assumption "awareness arising" would have us question our resolve to put 'self' at the centre of 'our' equation. If we rid ourselves of the notion of self in this search for an elemental truth and put in its place a collective 'we', then we escape the questions surrounding our experience, the distortions, and pursue a generality, a sort of base line on which our philosophy can make progress.

So emptying the mind is rather, a transference of the individual mind, to the fundamental mind, a philosophical mind which has a philosophical basis on which to create a new way to consider our existence.

Living just to the east

  Living just to the east

Grey sky's and a sandwich for lunch. Sitting in my car in East London one experiences the dilemma most English people have as winter slowly takes hold of all that surrounds us. The streets are wet and the people look miserable as they rush around on those interminable journeys we are prone to. 

Not far away is the tube station and an escalator running into the hot stale depths of the tunnel system by which millions of commuters have each day to make their way about the metropolis. The crowded platforms, and stifling trains which rush out of the dark tunnel mouth like monster dragons, squeezing the hot air in front of them they rush at you as you jostle with other people, like yourself tied into this devils merry go round. Once on board the train, having forced your way through the throng of people wishing to disembark you stand staring into a strangers face not twenty inches away as the doors close and the train jolts into motion. Searching for a hand hold you sway and stumble in unison with all the other passengers as the train flees once again into the blackness of another tunnel. The screeching of the steel wheel,  the friction of steel on steel rails provides a ghoulish background noise as the train sways around the unseen corners on its way to the next station. Every day the commuter on the London Underground absorbs this punishment for the so called pleasure of living in one of the great cities of the world at least that is what the blurb on the tin says.
London does have its historic buildings particularly around Whitehall and on up to the palace. It does have the reprieve of the Royal Parks and the Embankment to stroll along watching the tidal Thames, ebb and flow regardless of the city.
The street names are, for the prodigal from the north a wealth of history and storytelling passed down in the tales of Dickens and Conan Doyle.
The majestic buildings of State. The Foreign Office and the Home Office, the Admiralty with its radio masts keeping in touch with the fleet were, in my minds eye, as a boy, enraptured by my fathers commentary, flights of fancy enhancing the picture that this very spot was the centre of the world and we the most important country in it.
The reality is now far different. Disparity is all around, with wealth and attainment displayed by the exclusivity of the hotels and restaurants, the very private domain of the mega rich. Central London is not for the likes of you and I other than, cap in hand we join the queues to gawp at a world so exclusive, our tender minds would become unhinged at the callousness of it all.
As a lad I had no wish to wave at the queen. The whole pomp and pageantry of our traditional heritage, interesting is now an anathema in the modern world and whilst I, like the rest am drawn to the jingle of the House Hold cavalry as they trot by or the ramrod smart drill of the sentries, it's all a bit irrelevant when a mile or so away they are feeding the poor from a food bank.
I wonder if Disney will ever do a feature length film of this dysfunctional nation with its elegant disdain for that other nation, living just to the east.

Please keep it on the back row

Subject: Please keep on the back row.

Watching Mrs May bounce back and forward, between her seat and the dispatch box answering questions from parliamentarians on all sides, reminds me of watching Geoff Boycott playing cricket for Yorkshire and England. His stonewall style, straight bat to each ball, dealing with each as a singularity, totally separated from the innings as a whole, not interested in the run rate but only in the time spent at the crease.
Her strength is also of someone who has to spend time at the crease, she is playing for time in that deadlines are coming from the timetable which Article 50 triggered two years ago. Each week and each month she scrapes by, handing off the opposition (playing that other game) she pirouette and sidesteps the tackles, slowly getting closer to the try-line. She understands that perhaps that will be enough. The complexity of the deal she is tabling bewitches the mind and unnerves the sane observer. Her team, those who are left, will congratulate her for the try but only then to announce to her she has scored under the oppositions post.

Yes she is beginning to resemble that other female prime minister who's famous utterance "the ladies not for turning", reflected Mrs Thatchers attitude to the growing unemployment her economic package was causing and highlighted the 'winners and losers' philosophy which her tenure in office was all about. 

Perhaps the "Iron Lady" will be cheering from the grave as this modern day Boadicea standing at the same dispatch box, hectoring the class for not keeping up.

An assumption of innocence

Subject: An assumption of innocence.

Quite clearly there is a wide gap between the parliamentary committee members and life as it is lived on the ground. A report has been published criticising MI5 for not adequately following up on monitoring known potential terrorists when they re-enter the country after training by ISIS.

The committee is made up mostly of men, men gifted in the sly obfuscation which is the double speech which determines how well a politician performs in his or her job. There must be few professions other than perhaps the legal profession, which rely on sidestepping what "they know to be the truth" for statements which are pre-vetted by the 'party' for political ends.

To the ordinary man or woman in the street, it is questionable that people who are seen as a threat to the security of our citizens are protected by the laws which are designed to protect the innocent when even the term, innocent is a minefield of assumption. Until a crime is committed you are innocent and unless you catch the criminal/terrorist either gathering the equipment to build a bomb or are caught carrying one, then the guys remain innocent. You are not guilty for thinking or wishing and therefore as things stand, in terms of the law they, MI5, can only monitor what is going on around the potential terrorist until they step over the line.
Clearly the officials hands are tied. But it is also clear that when they don't follow up the information and an act of terrorism takes place then condemnation is also fair. Not just the terrorist but in the sad case of 'Baby P' where social services didn't draw the conclusions which seem obvious after this bruised and battered toddler eventually died and revealed a trail of missed opportunities to rescue the child from its parents.
One gets the impression that the complexity of laws designed to protect the individual from the authorities are the clincher when it comes to the criminal avoiding jail time.
We have to ask, would we like an authoritarian diktat where people are thrown into custody on the slimmest accusation or see people get away with all types of crime for the privilege of giving everyone an assumption of innocence.  

The Vassal State

Subject: A vassal state.

As Boris Johnson retorted angrily yesterday suggesting that Britain would become a "vessel state" on reading an abridged Brexit proposal from the Prime Minister, Teresa May, regarding Britain remaining in the European Customs Union, one has to question, what a vessel state means.
According to the dictionary a vessel state is a state that is subordinate to another.
Apart from the USA, China, the European Union and perhaps because of its military strength Russia, virtually every country has become a vessel state during the process of globalisation. The interlinking reliance of one nation with another has grown in proportion to global trade and the fact that goods and services are now fragmented across the world, in search of cheap labour has become a fact of economic life. 

Even within the EU, whilst some nations are stronger than others, a collective will is required to get things done.
Having just emerged from Downing St with the news that her Cabinet are in agreement with a proposition, (which still has to be passed by the European Commission as well as the remaining 27 States), that we leave much of the EU but, for economic reasons, we would like to remain in the Customs Union to allow the so called friction less trade to continue across our borders and in particular the thorny issue of Irish boarder, between the North and the South of Ireland. 

The danger is that whilst we have committed ourself to leaving (sic) we are still saddled with costs and the rules which govern the goods and their manufacture but over which we have no say.
To my mind, although having an informed input into the rules under which we are in part governed would normally be regarded essential this might not be such a bad thing since we are known for our parsimony when it comes to making decisions for the general good and not just the good of a few. The EU has provided us with a guiding hand over many thing in which we were failing to spend money, environmental standards for one We have a tendency to be more like our American cousins where the rich look after the rich and the rest fend for themselves, as best they can.
My own reason for wishing to leave the EU was largely emotional and tied to Germany's treatment of Greece and also its manipulation of the rules to further its own interests. Also the desire to further Federalise Europe struck a deep cord with the concept of our independence from Europe as an off shore island, separated from the continent, less ingrained with internecine conflicts between the nations which make up a large part of the continent.

 It was only when we learned of the complexity of our economic  entanglement with Europe that we started to have second thoughts but even then, the thought that we could start again with a clean slate to trade, where and with whom was attractive. 

Most nations of the world lie outside the EU and manage to survive quite well, why couldn't we. There would be some adjusting to do and some would loose out from not having the cosy cartel which has flourished over the last 40 years to trade with. But  that didn't seem to me to be unreasonable if the alternative was an ever closer dependence on France and Germany.
 Initially there was the question of open boarders and the effect that unfettered EU immigration had on jobs, school places and NHS resources as well as housing and the general advantage many of the people who come here had on our diminishing social construct.

Norway style EFTA or Canadian-plus were confusing correlations to the European mix and underplaying this was the feeling that France and Germany would make us pay for rocking their constructional boat.

Would we sink or swim, would our industries and our intellectual input find a way to promote us as a nation. Had we become too flabby having such an easy market on our boarder or would we rediscover our old trading skills and find new markets in other parts of the world. Just because the proximity of the EU is convenient it shouldn't rule out the fact that other nations seem to prosper without having an economic cartel on their doorstep.

Like the teenager leaving home it's part of growing up. Stay put and you begin to look like your parents, prematurely grey and set in their ways.  Not a healthy proposition for any nation which made up of creative, industrious people. 

Of course this presupposes that description fits us anymore ?

History and its rules

Subject: History and it's rules.

It was a case of the  young and the old, the ones who have lived and experienced a past and the ones who's experience is only of today and the values, which have percolated today into what they are, in part by condemning the past in an effort to turn their backs on the past.

 I was watching a documentary set in Georgia made by a young woman who was trying to knit together the past as it was represented by her parents and grandparents and her own sense of the values of today. Georgia being the birthplace of Stalin, fell under the yoke of the USSR. The power and the repression seen through her eyes was seen totally differently by the older members of the family and the split was even more acute with her father being anti communist whilst her mother was an ardent member of the  communist party and a supporter of the USSR. 

Perspectives are what we carry around with us each day.  We perceive everything through an optic and depended not only on how you felt, or were effected by at the time but also by your power of reasoning. Some people reasoned that the communist ideology was a revelation, for the first time the ordinary people were placed on the same level as the rich. Imagine how this felt for a nation who traditionally were largely made up of serfs living under the largely despotic control of the bourgeois. Communism rejigged society and set norms which are remembered by those who lived through them for their stability in terms of work and earnings. For the older Georgian the filter of time had removed the harsher aspects of living under a dictatorial regime and replaced it with a halo, an antidote to capitalistic individualism. 
The young woman was frustrated that the old should hang on to their sense of history a history which identified them as they identified themselves with the structure which had been a part of their mental modelling. 
You can't and shouldn't throw out your history and it's values, even if these values are at odds with those of today. It pretty certain that today's values will become obsolete as a new batch of thinkers feel fit to realise that the norms of tomorrow need another face lift and once again to rewrite the rules.

The American Constitution, is it fit for purpose

Subject: The American Constitution, is it fit for purpose.

The American mid term elections are over and what does it tell us about the American voter, what does it say about the mindset of the average American.

Repeating my assumption voiced in one of my recent blogs, you can't judge people from another country by your own standards. We are so much a product of our environment that one wonders how much of who we are is really us, how motivated we have become by others around us and the cultural norms we now fall under.

The American is isolated in his own country, the majority never travel outside the States and therefore the consensus is one of an inward turned person who has little reason to consider the outside world other than to be thankful he is not there. His country is still split by the civil war and the reasons it was fought. An economically powerful north and a weaker south. A racially divided country where the numbers of black skinned, slave labour inflicted people employed mainly in the cotton fields and as domestic help,  turned the minds of the white person  and inflicted a 'them and us' mentality which still remains today. The acute disparity of living standards which in the de-industrialisation of many cities, was largely brought about by globalisation, itself a product of Wall Street and the banking city slickers in the north. A largely Right Wing church with its evangelical appeal skews the rational of people to consider our actual existence, here on earth for one blessed by God. 

When we conflate 'other people' into our own culturally formed idea of who they are, apropos who we are, taking our cue from the colour of their skin, the language they speak and the clothes they wear, we form opinions about how we expect them to think and behave. 

The American ticks many of the boxes which go to acknowledge a presumption we have of some sort of commonality yet whilst many of the outward signs are helpful the culture of the American is substantially different.

Their fundamental, high altar segregation from centralised government is an important factor in their lives, so different from ours where government is seen as a backstop when things go wrong.

There reliance on the Charter of Independence speaks volumes and even though it was written at a time when the world was very different, its as if the conditions then are set in stone. Take the gun laws and the right to carry a gun. In a world of frontier politics where self defence was inexplicably bound up in the necessary practicality of life,  the population still carry it as an act of faith towards their founding fathers, a perfect example of true zealotry. 

The Republican represents this zeal for an independent existence where the strong make strong the nation whilst the weak wait for the trickle down to trickle down. 

The Democrat has a more European understanding of government in its attempt to adjust the inflow of wealth so it reaches a much wider section of the population.

Hung on the petard of The Constitution which came into force in 1789, the thinking about the state and its responsibility to the people is to some extent set in aspic and to the American their adherence to their Constitution it is like the Jew to the messages brought down from the mountain by Abraham. 

In a fast moving modern world there is something to be said for having a backstop, some measure of wisdom to turn to as we go 'helter skelter' into the future, some wisdom from the past which seems to conjugate all of who we presume we are but when the context of that wisdom no longer fits our world then perhaps we had better think again.

Cultural insensitivity

Subject: Cultural insensitivity 

How can we judge 'others' except in humanistic terms. How can we hope to judge 'others' from widely disparate cultures when their culture makes up so much of who they are and yet we remain are ignorant of that culture.
Human beings are made up of flesh and blood, the one thing we all have in common. In fact it's this fact which allows others to persuade us into believing we are all the same.
I'm reading a book by Edward Said called Orientalism in which he disparages the West for having a collective view of people living in the Middle and Far East. 

Is it ignorance or arrogance which allows us to ascribe a collective description to people who are far more diverse than we in the West, with a history much older and founded in millennium old civilisations, far outstripping our own which were marvels of education and philosophical conjecture whilst we were still running around in animal skins.
The individual Egyptian or Syrian, the Hindu or the Chinese dynasty's were expressing their collective individualism a thousand years before the major religions, Christian and Muslim had been formed.
Our willingness to presume that we know best is based on the ideal of democracy and fixed term governments but is at odds with much that we find in two-thirds of the world, from Africa, the Middle East to Asia, where the bulk of the worlds population lives.
Interwoven amongst those races and tribes are a myriad of customs and value judgements which are very different to our own and yet, never the less, we ride roughshod over them on the presumption of military might and the observance of our system of law which presumes ownership and contractual obligation.
To gain knowledge of things outside our common experience is often met with the comment "why should I, what do I gain". What do I gain usually means " is there anything in it for me". Perhaps, not before time, we would do better to try to understand, not only the foreign view but also ourselves as a counter point to our seeming cultural insensitivity.

The power of fundamentalism

Subject: The power of fundamentalism.

Mob rule has emerged the victor in Pakistan, a mob whipped up by the religious bigotry of blasphemy law, which in a civilised country would be judged at best, odd. 
Eight ago a Christian woman living in Pakistan had an argument with a woman of the Muslim faith after drinking from her cup which the Muslim woman considered her to be kafir, unclean and in the heat of the moment disparaging things were said about the Prophet Mohamed for which she received the death penalty. Can you imagine someone being sentenced to death for the verbal condemnation of someone who lived 1400 years ago, it beggars belief.
With the new Prime Minister Ahmed Kahn (the cricketer) a touch of realism prevailed and the High Court found voice to proclaim her innocent and free to resume her life.
But wait a minute the religious zealots who make up an influential section of Pakistan's population were enraged and demanded vengeance by turning out onto the streets threatening to overturn the democratic authority. So powerful is this religious voice that Kahn backed down and has withdrawn her passport meaning she can't leave the country which of course puts her life in constant danger of being murdered for her religious views.
Sharia law is unmerciful in the context of blasphemy and when a fatwa is proclaimed pity the person who has wrought the wrath of religious ideology down on their head. They lie in wait of religious killing, any hot headed person can decide to enact religious justice and the woman released from the death cell is now more in fear of her life than when she was on death row.
When we see this strange phenomenon in the modern era, (remember 'we' gave up burning witches in the reign of James V) one has to question the power of religion to enact judicial barbarity in this era of so called enlightenment.
How do we square the circle, how do we equate or attempt to rationalise the groups. One in a distant land behaving like uncivilised barbarians the other we meet every day in the office or on the street as colleagues and fellow citizens. Is the Pakistani different in the one country from the other yet still sharing the same religious values on blasphemy and the Sharia Courts death penalty, sufficiently Anglicised not to chop off our heads when we question the vision of the Prophet but feeling if circumstances were different, they would, since this is a slight to the most important thing in their lives.
We in the West do not understand the hold of religion. We have walked away from much of the concept of God and only ritualised our connection with faith in a cursory way if and when we visit a church on a Sunday.
To the Muslim their faith is their life. It's the staff by which they judge themselves in this life and to make fun or seriously condemn the structure of their belief is dangerous for their self belief and esteem. The power of being absolved by belief, from the conflict an individual experiences in terms of the way we live our life each day, makes one understand how 'group think' and religious conformity is so persuasive. It's a measure of strength which an individual by themselves will never have and because of that the potency of the 'collective view' in any walk of life is immensely powerful. 
Group think over lies our concept of democracy but in a very different way. The assumption that the majority should have the right to politically govern is tested at each election and fluctuates according to individual preference. Imagine if the group think had a religious connotation and the majority are bound not by individual preference but by a book of scripture.
We have not yet had to consider how our cherished political democracy would fare if one of the parties was a religious one. We have not considered the power of middle eastern fundamentalism but if we are not careful - we will and sooner than we think.

Racism / Historical realignment

Subject: Racism  / Historical realignment.

Racial issues abound throughout our society but it is invariably seen as white on black issue in so far as reportage goes. The white section of society is thought not to understand the complexities of foreign cultures and rides roughshod over the sensitivities of the minority. There is no doubt that sections of our society hold a grievance against what is seen as foreign influence, conspicuous in all manner of things, shops, dress code religious institutions, language and so on. Societies or tribal tradition which a few decades ago would consider someone from another culture an oddity have now to accept the fact that 'they' have become the odd man out.

 There is a program on television which portrays County Court Bailiffs knocking on house doors trying to effect payment for debts which have gone through the court system and  have the weight of the law behind there collection. Often  a settlement plan is agreed with an immediate  cash payment of part of that which is owing with the balance to follow. If not, articles of value are removed from the home in lieu of cash. 

Attitudes of those faced with immediate payment vary from embarrassment to anger, from huffing and puffing to the desperation when no money is available. Today we saw something different, the effect of a racially identified ghetto community drawing together and threatening the enforcement officers with violence if the offices didn't leave their "brothers and sister" alone. They drew their conclusions of some sort of exclusivity from the law because of their ethnicity and religious affiliation, and an assumption that the whites were picking on them for who they were. It was also a  rejection of officialdom. Any official, the housing officer who checks on the number of people living under one roof, the police to, in this case, the County Sheriffs were the community enemy.
The word was soon around and men began to gather threatening that "we the community will not comply and that a riot will be the result if the officers don't go".
The Sheriffs, visibly worried backed out.
This little scenario is replicated all over the country. Pockets of culturally rather than economically disenfranchised people who see themselves as outside the mainstream culture, gives them a reason to step away and consider themselves special.
The definition of racism. 'prejudice, antagonism, discrimination, directed against someone of a different race' was clearly in evidence here, this time enacted by the minority. I suppose it will be  called something different, historical realignment maybe.
But clearly, in a nut shell, it's a phenomenon practised by both sides and we would do well to remember that as society changes numerically, we will see more, not less, historical realignment.

Ee bah gum

Subject: Ee bah gum.

Bonfire night at the Bankfield. 

It's funny, growing up how certain places or the people who would have used them seemed from another planet when we were growing up. The bicycle ride through Saltaire, down into Bingley heading out into the Dales early on a Sunday morning. Or in the evening the hectic spin of a training run with the "chain gang"over to to Skipton.  Straight from work, we met outside Manningham Park Gates, twenty or so lads, no Lycra or helmets but the best we could afford in quick release wheels and chain sets. In no time we would swoop down past Nab wood and the Bankfield Hotel, sitting majestically  in its leafy grounds and out through Keighley, on to Skipton and over the top to Ilkley and back to Bradford.

We were oblivious of the Bankfield or the people who stayed there, they lived another life, a life of 'posh'. 
Attending a funeral in the Crematorium the Bankfield seemed the perfect location to stay and as I drove up through the grounds I had a memory flash of all those years ago. Those fine houses in Cottingley which even today seemed so grand, clinging to their gated domain where white haired professional people lived. It was far cry from our terraced, two up and two down with its outside toilet and coal house but as we swept by we didn't care since we were the kings of the road and our world was hemmed in with ignorance.

Entering the Bankfield one enters a rather decadent wood panelled hall, the antithesis of the bright foyer of a modern hotel. The reception desk is to one side with the staff somewhat hidden away behind a petition engaged in other things. The hearty Yorkshire lass who eventually appeared soon set the tone, business like and without the fawning subsequence which is mistaken for service in London, she dispatched me upstairs to find my way through more corridors and more stairs to my room. This is of course Yorkshire where a certain resilience and a get on and do it yourself ethos brings everyone down to the same level. 

So here I was the cyclist, the lad on a bike paying my way into 'their' world and discovering, as we always do that there's not much difference ones you've pushed the door open.

I was lucky. Soon to be bonfire night, the hotel had put on a firework display which attracted hundreds of people, mums and dads with their kids, faces happily tuned to the glow and the heat of the bonfire and then the oos and the arrs as the fireworks leapt, whoosh into the black sky setting the darkness alight with pockets of coloured fizz bang

The faces said it all. There is nothing to beat the round good humour of a family orientated section of Yorkshire folk who haven't lost the ability to become kids again and enjoy the simplicity of a traditional night out. Ee Bah Gum.