We were there

 

Subject: We were there.

Will Covid  change our lives irreparably. Will we from now on-wards have to take into account the implications of the virus in virtually everything we do. Will the normal hopes and fears we all experience throughout life be overshadowed by one of natures natural biological elements which in the order of things don't seem to have much use but is part of the natural battlefield that our immune system usually copes with as we evolved those mechanisms to help keep us alive.

It's hard to imagine that we have been found wanting by such a tiny part of nature and whilst this is not the first virus to bring us low and we are far from extinction, the range of outcomes is so wide, not just medical but economic and emotional too. It alters how we look at other people, are they carriers, can I risk going near them and how do we handle the tactile interaction between boy and girl. The distortion between what was acceptable and the new rules which now govern our lives will be with us for some time and the longer that goes on the more difficult it will be to establish some semblance of the past. The difficulty of creating trust is a two way event and the more we hear the doom and gloom on the media the more we will distrust everyone other than a small intimate clique which includes family. I can't ever think of a time when I have had to be theoretically wary of virtually everyone I see on the street or in the shop. There were times in certain countries when your awareness antenna was up searching out pockets of potential violence but not with everyone you met  whilst in the case of the pandemic you best friend could be a carrier, you son or daughter, everyone is suspect. This is pretty unique since even in a world war the combatants were recognisable, we dressed each army in different uniforms before ordering them to fire at each other. The virus on the other hand is sly, it hides in people who show no symptoms, it twists and turns showing it's hand to only a few but to those few, it's a cruel adversary.

Walking the streets of Bishops Stortford yesterday it was still a ghost town. Restaurants were boarded up the traffic on the street light and only a few people walking around, it was like a shopping street in the 1950s, on a Sunday when the shops were closed from Saturday lunch-time onwards. It's on reflection of the past that one can see proportionality. We have been here before. We have survived rationing, we have experienced bombs falling and killing thousands around us, we have gone through times when millions of people were out of work with no support system such as we have today. And yet we survived, in fact we did more than survive we gained strength by understanding ourselves as part of the society, not independent of it. Learning that life is a question of accepting your options and not demanding that someone else will come to your rescue. Of understanding we can live happily on so much less if we begin to relate our lives to our own strengths, be it our health and family ties, by get off the consumeristic treadmill we have been encouraged walk. If we could cut down drastically on the amount of advertising we receive which unsettles our natural equilibrium. An advertising industry  to lure you into false horizons of over-consumption, as if consumption was a badge of success. 

Yes we have been here in my lifetime and so, as with yours, it will be a moment to look back upon to say "we were there".

Conformity

 

Subject: Conformity

Is conformity a good thing or bad. When we conform we accept what has gone on in the past and at least in part acknowledge it's value by agreeing to repeat it. If we are non conformist is the reverse true, that only new ideas and modes of thinking are of value.

Of course it needn't be either and most people wouldn't be able to decipher their acceptance of the intricacies of past customs, when set against the open, anything goes system we have today.

To conform you have to acknowledge the values of the past,  not slavishly worship them but at least see the value in thinking in an established way. The conformity people had was based on the need to find security for and within the society they lived in. It was a formal, uniform way of thinking which relied on the consensus of the many and formed a common web of support to fall back upon when events demanded it.

For instance If a girl fell pregnant the boy responsible was duty bound to marry the girl and help fund the family, not to do so was seen by the society as disreputable and he was blacklisted as untrustworthy. Today it's a lottery if the couple marry, there is no  censure if the girl is left to raise the child on her own and certainly that element we called 'responsibility' is now a days discounted as irrelevant.

The attitude to teachers and the police was totally different as was our attitude to most people in authority. We accepted that structures were there for a purpose, in the long run to protect us and we saw the need for balance between the members of the same society. Income tax for-instance was seen as necessary, it was the fuel to make a provision for services which we all relied on. Road building and repair, street lighting, the refuse collection, gas and electricity, the nurses and doctors were all funded out of tax and whilst our pay packets were meagre we accepted the deduction as a means to live in a civilised country.

Today we see ourselves as individuals and a "beggar thy neighbour" instinct is alive in most people. The question of who pays for social and infrastructure services never seems to be raised and only when, because of a lack of funds these services are withdrawn due an unwillingness to pay taxes are we surprised when we see no police on the streets or fewer doctors and nurses in our hospitals. When we find that the council run Old Age homes have been sold to private investment companies who are allowed to charge ridiculous fees, forcing these most vulnerable members of society who in my youth could look to the State to look after them, now have to hand over any savings, including the house to cover the cost.

This disconnect between ourselves and others. This lack of awareness of how we are integrated. That only if we accept this will we survive the discombobulation which lies ahead.

The virus just might

 

Subject: The virus just might.

Do we have a pandemic or not. It depends on who you speak to. If it's a medic, it's a deadly virus which is particularly dangerous for some segments of the population. To others, those best described as carefree, the couldn't care less group of young 20 somethings who persist in discounting the fear of becoming ill, assuming it's the equivalent of catching flue  and continue to disregard the danger in their desire to go out and have fun!

The lifestyle they are used to and the support society has given them in asserting their right to do virtually whatever they wish, has filtered out into an assumption that consequences are for others.

This philosophy that actions don't have consequences is evident in the wide range of risky activities, including the use of drugs, and embarking on a life of single parenting as a choice, not something forced onto the individual by circumstance. As a member of an older generation I don't understand the assumptions people make these days it's as if what they do, or wish to do is a god given right.  

If I go back to when I was growing up in this country so many opportunities which are assumed these days were not available then. Holidays were spent within the confines of the country and invariably were simple and inexpensive. The assumption that you were owed a holiday on a sun blessed beach in some part of Southern Europe was for the well off and not for the likes of us. Of course the likes of us has expended to include so many more people and yet there are still large segments of society who can't afford these trips away. For them the accent is on the word 'afford' and sadly so many families who can't afford these holidays are still encouraged to spend money they can't afford, in part because it's expected of them both by their kids and the people in their social mix and part because we can't conceive a life where we evaluate our means and live accordingly. 

The idea that something isn't affordable dropped away with the invention of the credit card. Enjoy now and pay later was an anathema to my parents and the people I grew up with. Buying things second hand was normal and waiting until you could save up the money for the purchase was what my contemporaries did and were happy doing. Our mind set hadn't been corroded with adverts and the consumerism which blights us daily. We were happy living in our own skin as it were and envy for what the wealthy had was never evident in the friends I had.

So when I hear people winging about not being able to get away on a flight abroad it makes me wince. Grow up and smell the coffee (more appropriately, smell the beautiful aroma of fish and chips). Don't they know there's a war going on right amongst us. 

The enemy has no compassion and the narcissistic nature which so many of my fellow countrymen display is dreadful.

No holidays abroad, no eating out, using caution when mixing, no concerts or sporting events, non of this will kill us - but the virus just might.

Schools reopening

Subject:Schools reopening.

As the schools begin to contemplate reopening their doors to the kids sidelined from school through the pandemic one begins to see through the figures, the cataclysmic gap between the rich and the poor, or in some cases the families who forgo their twice yearly trip aboard to the beach in Majorca or strap on skis around Christmas in an overpriced Alpine resort and instead invest their cash in their child's education in a private school and of course for the bulk of people, the fees are way out of reach to even contemplate. The stats are telling.  During the lock down only 3% of State primary and 6% of State secondary schools provided any meaningful live, 'on line' lessons against 59% primary and 72% secondary in the private sector. 
I know a number of teachers in the State system. People who are enormously conscientious  and work tremendously hard each year to further the progress of their pupils but unfortunately the mixture of girls and boys willing to apply themselves is disproportionately offset by kids who, for a range of reasons are not interested in learning and are a disruptive element in the class as a whole. The teacher who's job is to pacify the unruly whilst encouraging the willing are on a beating to none when compared to the private school environment where the children are there to learn and the teachers encouraged by their enthusiasm. This mindset to use your time at school positively is inculcated at home whilst all around them the children  see the positive effects of what a good education can buy. 
The secondary teacher has to compete with a society which sees employment as a job, often short term, as a means to a limited end, to buy a car and money for entertainment whilst the career minded person sees his, or her for gaining status and money in the ranks of a profession.
One is supposed to avoid the stereotypical labelling of families from which many, if not all troubled children come but disruptive, violent environments often leading to single parenthood are threads running through most disruptive children and it seems to be getting worse as society makes a point of describing a a country in flux, where short term individualistic desires are paramount and a sense of give and take is seen as a failure. The insatiable appetite for success without understanding how it comes is the basis for many of the broken homes from where most if not all of these damaged children emerge. For them the experience of their own family is enough to know that nothing changes from generation to generation on the the estate. 
Educating Rita was a film which I will never forget. Julie Walters was the actress who played the hairdresser who wanted something better. She pursued her dream through 'A levels' and university and the counter-play between her and her tutor, played by Michael Caine, the academic donnish type who saw in her the spark of an intellect  which he could kindle. Rita from the insecurity of her past life was initially overawed by his apparent authoritative grasp of life through his own academic success but she gradually overhauled him emotionally with her tremendous joie de vivre. It was a beautiful story and so well acted that one fell in step with the fictional characterisation of a plausible real life event as their lives unfurled, she released into a world of self assuredness, he left with his split infinitives.
It was the 'peasants' drive to seek knowledge and his assumption that the intricacies of knowledge was the  measure. A mental construct which is the downfall of most educational systems since it sets out to provide the pupil with a view of the heights without enjoying a saunter through the easier ground of the upland scree before the more serious stuff begins.
The teachers have to ignite a fire, the thirst  for learning, the enjoyment of fitting together the jigsaw. Too often teachers are handed the equipment to fight fire  rather than encourage an academic spark to warm the pupils heart irrespective  of the chaos they see around.

 

Who am I.

 

Subject:Who am I.

Up in the Cloud, the internet world of computing, a fusion of bits and bytes brought into being an electronic doppelgänger, a creation of artificial intelligence which had kept tabs on me for over two years sifting my purchases, from the books I read to assessing my taste in music and which sports I followed. The assembly was a good attempt but it lacked many of the things which marked out the real me. It knew my email address and the bank I banked with but it didn't understand how I came by them or even the period which preceded them. 
Still it was enough to start indoctrinating the supposed influencers.  Unsolicited messages began to appear on my email and advertisements popped up alongside the story I was reading on Google. 

My doppelgänger was everywhere reminding me of this creation which sought to advise by mimicry. The problem was that it had got me wrong. I was not the skin deep avatar reincarnated from some past life but a work in progress, unfathomable for an assembly of ones and zeros but a person like we all are made up of fives and sixes, sevens and eights, the shades and shadows, not just the primary colours.

One of the things which worries me is that in another fifty years, AI will have computed its version of people who lack the subtlety of generations of breeding by sifting out the strange  unfathomable  quirks which make mankind so unique and instead we will be drafted a sense or predictable which will conform only the role nominated by random selection. People will have a purpose as evaluated by AI but others without purpose will be cast outside the walls of the city state,  far away from those idyllic retreats which success pines for. 
Of course Mad Max comes to mind, the illiterate horde eking out an existence in a half  life of of violence and debauchery. Perhaps we are already on our way as the street brims over with rioters and choking teargas swirls around. The differentials get wider more grotesque, 40 years ago a CO in a company earned a ratio of 25-1 compared to the average worker, today it's getting close to 300-1. If you equate the earnings of the likes of Jeff Bizos,  there is no end to the disharmony within society. 
Unregulated free market capitalism is the bane of most people's lives and it can only get worse as the market prefers to deal with its AI postulated Avatar. The day is fast approaching when we will be required to fit an AI profile rather than the other way around.

In the land of my fathers

 

Subject:In the land of their fathers. 

If we continue to be exposed and called out in class and made to explain the language we use in public, why is my discomfort at swearing or the continual display of sexual coupling in films on television not taken into consideration as well, or is it only the bodies who opinionate on racial matters who carry weight these days.

The Chairman of the Football League was kicked out of his job yesterday, within an hour of him appearing in front of a parliamentary committee and having used, in his testimony the word "coloured" to describe black players. The term, used in America "a person of colour" has also now been deemed inappropriate and it appears that the only term which can be used is "black" to describe a whole swathe of people, some of who are very black whilst others are relatively fair skinned. In South Africa there is a section of people who call themselves 'Cape Coloured' and who's history has seen their segmentation/separation from both the black and white communities in the country and who would resist being called anything other than Coloured, they see it as their identity and are proud of their heritage.
In this 'them and us' contest a white person who resembles a piece of chalk, or one who has a sallow pigmentation has to be careful about what they say when defining the skin colour of everyone else. The argument is that in defining people by skin colour we add a sort of derogatory epithet to that person, even if it's not our intention and the decision to take umbrage lays wholly with the black person. People who are not black, tread on eggshells and its this bias, another blatant agenda for raising black consciousness  which troubles me.
Of course we are not actually talking of colour we are talking of prejudice which we all have and the historical context in which nations are categorised.  Colour was used to describe a nation state where there was little mixing, except at the periphery. Colour only became an issue when white people colonised other nations composed of people of a different skin colour.  Interestingly the reverse happened when mass immigration, (contrived through economic consideration) brought significant numbers of nonwhite people into an area where few nonwhite people existed.
In this uncertain world of racial and cultural mixing, white  people, who were largely found in the colder Northern geographical climes, where skin colour was the most recognisable and visible aspect, (other than clothing), from people who had immigrated into the region, over the last 60 years and were becoming a growing feature of the society.  
 To define them, as is sometimes needed, terms such as coloured were used. Coloured was a catch all definition which encompassed people who were not white but which now for political reasons a definition black is now decreed, even though it itself does not describe and is not accepted by the largest non white cohort. 
There are a whole range of nations who would not agree to describing themselves black but their views as not sort by that vociferous section of people who have taken on the mantle of activist/spokesperson, and who regularly appear on our television screens. People who are only a generation away from belonging elsewhere and are now the loudest to condemn and find fault, they are like cuckoo's who throws out the hosts egg. 
Today people with a white skin are accused of a whole range of offences. Colonial exploitation, there questioning of cultural practices which are considered abhorrent, religious practice which openly describe people as being inferior and would like to add to their own concept of what society should look adding their own legal format to that belief. For all these complaints and calls for reparation we are asked to turn the other cheek and accept it as the march of history and a sign of progress. 
The rap artists and black activists, who are scathing in their language, when describing white people are allowed in the context of a country willing to recognise free speech until that is someone like Greg Clark uses the word colour.  What makes me really queasy is the sight of white people self flagellating for past ills in an effort to be seen as fair. After centuries of exploring, colonising, modernising and educating, -  white people are seen as wrong in trying. Perhaps we should have left well alone and not developed those markets. Maybe like the Chinese, we should have exercised our financial power and imported the skills to do the work whilst remaining in our own isolated compound so as not to not contaminate the indigenous society.
The banditry, melted out to Greg Clark for using a term which was appropriate 30 years ago and was the lingua franca  of people like Greg Clark and used across the world. A world which including those undemocratic nations in the Middle and Far East, often viewed as totalitarian regimes who use a similar type of censorship, meted out to Clark to keep their own people in line. 
We still have a way to go but I see the seeds of a different type of autocracy, one built on 'displaced communities', each keen to have its say in a way they were never able to in 'the land of their fathers'  and each mightily disgruntled by the completion for what's left of the cake after years of mismanagement. 

The benefits of a Jewish upbringing

 

Subject:The benefits of a Jewish upbringing. 

Reading Philip Roths biography, a writer I greatly admire, it became more clear to me the gulf which extends between Jew and Gentile. To all intents and purposes we are all the same and it takes a brave person to argue the opposite in this supposedly inclusive society but the story of his childhood and his schooling, extending on into college and university was a right of passage. Much like Boris Johnson's life and exclusivity at Oxford, so Roths life was patterned on what a good jewish boy should be, including going to a Hebrew school which enable  him to dig down into the fundamentals of his faith and bury his mind into the text of all it meant to be Jewish.
There were many references in the book to those outside the Jewish fraternity, the Gentiles and the Goy, it was a 'them and us' relationship in Newark NY and the close knit Jewish society seemed not to countenance outsiders in any meaningful way.
Of course in today's p c environment, as the authorities struggle to keep a lid on any ethnic disharmony it's no wonder that a society which sees itself possessed of a special place in the hierarchy of man should from time to time display a sense of special pleading.
The furore which broke out over the anti Israeli comments made by Jeremy Corbyn in his defence of Palestinian rights which led to the Jewish establishment in this country repeatedly condemning him and calling for his head as the leader of he Labour Party was an example of religious and social power being used to get rid of someone seen as a threat.
If the leaders of the Catholic Church or the Church of England had turned out in the media to voice disapproval towards a secular head of a political party it would have been damned as an act of religious interference in secular affairs (and by no less than the same media) but the Jewish cause is special and even though they instinctively exclude us from a biblical point of view, we mustn't do the same to them.
Roth's insight into his upbringing, his parents sensibilities, which fraternity he attended (it had to be Jewish) and the all important background of the girls he dated or at least the ones he brought home was like being vetted for acceptance into some sort of cult, a right of passage where ethnicity and training was the all encompassing  prerequisite. The sense of being Jewish, which drills down to upbringing and the stories told about your race and its exclusivity in the eyes of Jehovah was the preparation for a life which has no Christian equivalent other than perhaps a monastic institution and certainly in ordinary life the Christian is taught that god judges everyone is equal. Time and again reading Roth's life one is struck by the duality of the Jewish experience, the battle for social recognition and an equal footing in the society they live in, whilst all the time denying it to others. 
I'm not talking of the extremes such as the ultra orthodox with their devout lifestyle and a dress code to acknowledge their difference, I'm talking of the clannishness and the close affinity with other Jews in both business and at home. This sense of exclusivity has produced many a backlash through the centuries and the reaction to the mild criticism that Corbyn offered to what he saw as the harsh treatment the Israelis meted out to the Palestinians living in the West Bank was an example from the mindset of a powerful clique which advocates for itself "we have a case and irrespective of your squeamishness, we intend to continue" whilst ignoring much of the rest of the world in its concern for Palestinians.
People views are usually confined to their own experience and the propaganda of an institution which wishes to maintain the status quo has to be questioned. 
The Jewish institution, over 3000 years old, is well placed to see off any dissident who might cause it to have to explain itself and given the fragility of race relations in this country it's not in the interests of the establishment, (many of whom are Jewish), to rock the boat and so Corbyn was destroyed, despatched, to become a mere footnote in history. 
In my opinion we deserve much more if we are to hold "freedom of speech" so highly. We deserve that no sect has the power to impose its will through a media which itself has many Jewish connections, the writers, the editorial and even management have a large Jewish cohort and if the fundamentals of your very philosophical being correspond to your faith, then it's difficult to be objective.

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