Swimming with the times

We took Grandson to the local swimming baths today. I'm not sure when we last visited, but we are talking decades rather than years. The place has certainly changed since we were there last. Mixed changing was the first surprise, although I don't know why it was a surprise because it seems perfectly sensible.

So some things have changed for the better, but others I'm not so sure about. We were able to keep an eye on Grandson through a vast glass wall while we sipped our coffee in comfort. All very civilised I thought. The coffee was okay too, in spite of disposable cups.

The whole environment was more tightly controlled and decorous than our day. Highly visible lifeguards, lots of staff, no diving boards and no kids hurtling around bombing each other. It was altogether more earnest. There were more tattoos on display too, especially among the women.

Behind us was another vast glass wall and behind that was gym full of huge fitness machines. Energetic folk pounded their way to nowhere on a row of walking machines. Conveyor belts with handles and lots of electronics, all of which looked hideously expensive. The whole place looked hideously expensive. The price of fitness I suppose. Yet nobody seemed to be enjoying themselves on their conveyor belts. Perhaps enjoyment isn't the idea. Indoor walking avoids outdoor uncertainties, avoids the wind, rain and sheep shit - perhaps that's the idea.

Ah well. On the whole I thought the place had improved. Controlled it may be, but even in the old days we had the attendant bellowing out the rules every now and then. Apart from the gym it was a pleasant experience. The gym was weird.

Stand up

An interesting piece in Quillette begins by addressing a mandatory orientation event at Princeton University.

"Stand up if you identify as Caucasian.”

The minister’s voice was solemn. I paused so that I wouldn’t be the first one standing, and then slowly rose to my feet. “Look at your community,” he said. I glanced around the auditorium obediently. The other students looked as uncomfortable as I felt, and as white. ¨Thank you,” the minister said finally. After we sat down, he went on to repeat the exercise for over an hour with different adjectives in place of “Caucasian”: black, wealthy, first-generation, socially conservative. Each time he introduced a new label, he paused so that a new group of students could stand and take note of one another. By the time he was finished, every member of Princeton University’s freshman class had been branded with a demographic.

This mandatory orientation event was designed to help us appreciate our diversity as a student body during the first week of classes. But what did it really accomplish? In compressing us into isolated communities based on our race, religion or gender, the minister belittled every other piece of our identities. He faced a crowd of singular young adults and essentially told them that their heritage outweighed their humanity. The message was clear: know your kind and stick to it. Don't risk offending people from other backgrounds by trying to understand their worldviews.

Perhaps one should not generalise too much from such eccentric activities and the effect on students may not be the intended effect. As a theatrical introduction to the limits of Princeton's cultural life it comes across as remarkably unsubtle. 

However the whole piece is well worth reading. The paragraph below sums up both the malign aspects of Princeton culture and the wider problem it so singularly fails to resolve. Not for the first time, this observer is left wondering if universities have had their day.

My teachers and classmates openly referred to Trump’s voters as uneducated bigots throughout the election season, while taking any criticism of Clinton as an attack against women. Anyone who dares to voice a religious opinion is regarded as unintelligent. The fear of being called racist draws our attention to a black woman’s skin instead of her character, and the fear of being called homophobic emphasizes a gay man’s sexuality over his personality. We have been trained to tiptoe around each other and distribute trigger warnings with generosity.

—and then

A man gets himself placed in life, all is settled, everything is going well, unpleasant things of the past are forgotten, the future is rosy—and then. What a man wants is to be let alone. If life would only flow straight on, like a river.

Sherwood Anderson - Dark Laughter (1925)

It is odd how being busy creeps up on one. I feel pretty busy these days, even though I’m retired and ought to have plenty of spare time. Unfortunately for many of us that isn’t how it works. If we have spare time it seems to attract another dose of busyness from a mysteriously infinite supply.

Working life is like that too. Those who know how to be busy seem to attract it. Those who don’t are immune and everyone knows who they are.

Political v Apolitical

Brexit and Trump seem to have stirred up a belated realisation that third-rate won’t do. Clinton was the answer to a question nobody asked, the EU is a mess and perhaps even Meryl Streep really is overrated.

One way or another we have to claw our way at least to second-rate. Trump and Brexit may not lead us there but business as usual was never a viable option. The great political illusion of a left/right spectrum has been criticised on numerous occasions, the trouble is it is just too convenient. Yet we need a far better handle on political realities than left versus right could ever muster.

It may be worthwhile to make a distinction between political and apolitical rather than flog the left/right illusion to death. That is to say our political death.

Political

A political outlook includes traditional left and much of the modern right, both of which make a moral god of government, devalue cultural achievements and see change as the predictable consequence of decisions.

Apolitical

An apolitical outlook sees the power of government as limited, values cultural achievements, and accepts the evolutionary and unpredictable nature of change.

The UK has seen a steady decline in the apolitical outlook as the function of government has come to be dominated by politics over pragmatism, being more concerned with what is politically correct or politically expedient over what works. This trend seems to correlate well with a rise in the professional politician wedded to an entirely political outlook. For the apolitical pragmatist there is no natural place in UK government nor in any of the main political parties.

Yet reactions to Brexit and Trump seem to betray a covert horror that an apolitical dragon is out there and awake, hungry for soft bodies. Things may be changing. Second-rate here we come.

Charlie and the Fruitcake Factory

As has been widely reported, Prince Charles has co-authored a Ladybird book promoting the climate catastrophe narrative. What should we make of it? After all, the guy is heir to the throne and ought to have easy access to good advice on any subject he cares to explore.

A natural and obvious reaction is to ridicule his lack of insight, but as the digital world evolves there is more to add. Charles is a man of his times and his weird political position. He is just as limited as the rest of us and just as likely to go astray whenever he is unwise enough to have a bash at thinking. Not only that, but he has probably been trained from birth to take advice from official sources.

A fascinating feature of our evolving digital world is how the limitations of human nature have become too obvious for mystique to survive. Yet the veils still fall and Charles' Ladybird book misadventure is one such veil. Yet again the guy is exposed as well-meaning but hopelessly shallow. Not his fault - we are all shallow but the shallowness of human nature has become more obvious and more obviously universal. Hierarchies are losing their mystique and Charles never had a strong grip on it in the first place.

We may be shallow but we also have the capacity to be creative and this seemed to be the core of our supposed intelligence. Yet in a cohesive and complex society not everyone has to be creative which implies that not everyone has to be creatively intelligent. In his position Charles is not required to be particularly intelligent at all and does not come across as sufficiently creative to breach that barrier. We all retain the potential but are not necessarily required to use it. That is what holds Charles down.

However the digital world seems to be breaching some of the barriers by enhancing our ability to be creatively intelligent. Thinking beyond the mystique has become easier and more widespread and not reserved for leaders. It is probably too late for Charles and the monarchy, but we’ll see.

Being a sensitive figure

Here's a remarkable quote I forgot to include in my recent post on JFK Miller's fascinating book Trickle-down Censorship. He had submitted a feature on Osama bin Laden already published by The Independent on Sunday, including a photo.  

The response from my censor was so remarkable that I asked my Chinese assistant to repeat herself. Still disbelieving, I looked at the email from my censor on her screen. No mistake, there it was in black and white: 

Being a sensitive figure, Osama bin Laden hasn’t been confirmed to exist. 

When crime ceases

Let men learn that a legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they ascribe to it and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is, at the best, borrowed.

Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral? Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong, or, as we say, despotic, when crime is great? Is there not more liberty—that is, less government—as crime diminishes? And must not government cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform its function?

Herbert Spencer - The Right To Ignore The State (1851)

Sometimes it is worth going back to period when the welfare state did not distort our view of government and how big it ought to be. Derby lad Herbert Spencer suggests here that bearing down on crime is what government is for. It has expanded mightily since his day, but it is worth noting that crime still looms large in what governments do.

In which case, as we become more law-abiding one might expect new crimes to be invented to keep this key function well fed. There is no need to point out that this is exactly what we see, but perhaps worth adding that if Spencer was right we will see it long into the future too.