Williamson’s cat

Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, has devised an ingenious scheme to cope with the problems posed by the coronavirus debacle and a perfectly natural desire to keep schools open. His scheme is based on Schrödinger's cat. From Wikipedia - 

In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illustrates an apparent paradox of quantum superposition. In the thought experiment, a hypothetical cat may be considered simultaneously both alive and dead as a result of being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur.

Taking this idea just a little further, Mr Williamson’s plan is that school kids can be both present and absent from school at the same time as long as nobody triggers the present/absent superposition by actually checking.

Brilliant, so let us hear no more about Mr Williamson’s general uselessness here.

Adapt is the message

"The hooligan," pursued Thorndyke, as we walked briskly across the silent square, "covers a multitude of sins, ranging from highway robbery with violence and paid assassination (technically known as 'bashing') down to the criminal folly of the philanthropic magistrate, who seems to think that his function in the economy of nature is to secure the survival of the unfittest.

R. Austin Freeman - The Red Thumb Mark (1907)

Many of us probably know that we may not survive in a brutal, dog eat dog world. Not a remarkable assumption because we not adapted to that kind of world. Guardian readers may think they have been forced to adapt because of capitalism, but loons merely reinforce the point. Most of us would even struggle to survive in eighteenth century England for example - in spite of our superior knowledge of climate change, gender politics and diversity.

It is worth pushing this a little further because it is clear enough that even as supposedly free citizens in an enlightened world we cannot shake off the basic survival urge. How could we? A likely consequence is that many of us are clearly not afraid of handing over that freedom to an all-embracing managerial class. This is the class now engaged in taking away even our most basic freedoms and our ability to make our own decisions. All we appear to be offered in exchange are virtue, emotional massaging and a sense of belonging.

Of course the virtue is mostly fake, the emotional massaging is demeaning and the sense of belonging is akin to serfdom but that doesn’t seem matter to a surprisingly large number of people. In other words the exchange works and the managerial class now knows for sure that it works even if they didn’t know it before. The coronavirus debacle has hammered the lesson home very firmly indeed.

Modern survival angst may have been stimulated by familiar aspects of modern life. Professional sport, celebrity culture, racial tensions and a pervasive, constantly evolving confusion sowed by political correctness all make their not inconsiderable contributions.

I’m not a celebrity, not rich, not outstanding at sport… not outstanding at all.

Ironically, mass inadequacy is the starkly obvious message, rammed home every single day of modern life. An all-embracing managerial class is bound to have mass appeal if it merely projects a comfortable sense of belonging, especially if it reinforces that sense of belonging by the intrusive management of daily life. 

It works too. We see it all the time and mainstream political parties have already adapted to it.

New Year Resolutions

A little late but here are my New Year resolutions.

1. Never vote for any mainstream political party in any election ever again under any circumstances whatsoever - or at least until well after Hell freezes over. If there are no worthwhile candidates not tied to a mainstream party then don’t bother voting.

Er – that’s it really. By far the biggest lesson of 2020.

Ignorance is good say the narratives

 

Source

Carbon pollution? Maybe they mean soot, the only form of carbon pollution I can think of, but of course they don't mean soot they mean carbon dioxide. It's sloppy reporting, but common enough to be almost standard. Yet the use of a scientifically incorrect term raises the question of why it is done and why it is so rarely corrected.

Apart from common usage, one obvious possibility is that the climate change narrative is not merely a narrative about the catastrophic effects of carbon dioxide emissions, it is two narratives.

One narrative is the official we’re all doomed unless you become relatively impoverished serfs narrative. A parallel covert narrative implies that assent is safe so don’t venture beyond it or social disadvantages will be the result. Disadvantages such as abuse for example.

Here in the UK, the coronavirus narrative turned out to be similar. One narrative is the official we’re doomed unless you observe all official guidelines. A parallel covert narrative implies that assent is safe so don’t venture beyond it or social and perhaps legal disadvantages will be the result.

Ignorance is good say the narratives. 

Only the excuse varies

 

You have despoiled churches. You have threatened every corporation and endowment in the country. You have examined into everybody’s affairs. You have criticised every profession and vexed every trade. No one is certain of his property, and nobody knows what duties he may have to perform to-morrow. This is the policy of confiscation as compared with that of concurrent endowment.

Benjamin Disraeli to William Gladstone - House of Commons, March 11, 1873

Surely Not Minister

 

In an extraordinarily courageous move, Secretary of State for Health and Social Matt Hancock has volunteered to have the Oxford vaccine injected into his head to demonstrate how safe it is. The idea is to show this amazing procedure live on TV.

Although strongly advised that his head is not a suitable location for the vaccination as his skull is unusually thick, Mr Hancock has stressed what a powerful message it would be to link the notions of vaccination freedom with Brexit freedom.

What an extraordinary chap he is - in so many ways.

Our indoor civilisation

Suddenly the scream of some animal came from the near thicket. The women started and asked what it was.

"It was a hill-fox," said Maitland to Clara. "They used to keep me awake at nights on the hill. They come and bark close to your ear and give you nightmare."

The lady shivered. "Thank Heaven for the indoors," she said. "Now, if I had been the daughter of one of your old Donalds of the Isles, I should have known that cry only too well. Wild nature is an excellent background, but give me civilisation in front."

Maitland was looking into the wood. "You will find it creep far into civilisation if you look for it. There is a very narrow line between the warm room and the savage out-of-doors."…

…You must remember that that visit to Fountainblue was the first that he had paid since his boyhood to his boyhood's home. Those revisitings have often a strange trick of self-revelation. I believe that in that night on the island he saw our indoor civilisation and his own destiny in so sharp a contrast that he could not choose but make the severance.

John Buchan – The Watcher By The Threshold (1902)

Some time ago I happened to look at a large, new 4x4 with its engine running parked by the kerb. It was a cold day - hence the idling engine. Inside was a middle-aged woman, probably waiting to pick up a grandchild from the nearby school. Eventually she switched off the engine, climbed out of the car and disappeared in the direction of the school.

She was dressed as if she had just returned from a long lunch with a group of lady friends, leaving me with the impression that she spent hardly any time outside in the open air. As if her world was house, shops and car and maybe some tourism in the summer.

I could be mistaken and there is nothing wrong with it anyway. I'm writing this blog post indoors. Yet it could be quite a recent change, this shift to an indoor civilisation. Buchan wrote about it over a century ago when an indoor life was not only possible for the rich - even middle class people could spend almost all of their lives indoors. 

Does it matter? It is certainly a form of isolation.