The Scottish Soul – from the outside

Skimming the books about Scandinavia got me thinking about how contemporary Scotland might look to an outsider. Of course, having lived for more than half of my adult life abroad does make me a bit of an outsider – what visits I’ve made to the country since 1990 have been short, with 2018 being the only time I spent a few weeks in it. I did. however, have the temerity to produce a little E-book after the September 2014 referendum - based on the posts in my blog as it followed the 2 year discussion which took place in Scotland about its future 

The Scandinavians attribute their good fortune to the “folk-school” tradition which started in Denmark in the 1840s and soon spread to their neighbours. And part of that reflected the German concept of “Bildung” – which is much wider than the british understanding of “education” as explained in this short article. The Danish schools were designed to help the rural poor develop the skills which would be useful to them as they developed their agricultural system and was very much about developing their character and identity as Danes. And that same commitment can be seen in contemporary Germany with the strong emphasis on industry and on the training sector which has almost the same status as universities. 

Of course, the Scots have long been proud of their democratic approach to education – with schools and universities having been open to talent for centuries. Indeed in the 15^th century, Scotland had 3 Universities to England’s 2 – and this increased by the end of the 16^th century to a numerical advantage of 5-2. There has been less reason in the last century to celebrate what one important book published in 1961 called “The Democratic Intellect” by Scottish philosopher and historian of ideas, George Davie, who followed up with “The Crisis of the Democratic Intellect” (1986). Broadly speaking, Davie is concerned with the relationship between ‘the experts’ and ‘the people’. He states his overall case towards the end of the second book: 

The words “democratic intellect” offer a twentieth-century formulation of an old problem. Does the control of a group (of whatever kind) belong, as of right, to the few (the experts) exclusively, and not at all to the ignorant many? Or are the many entitled to share the control, because the limited knowledge of the many, when it is pooled and critically restated through mutual discussion, provides a lay consensus capable of revealing certain of the limitations of interest in the experts’ point of view? Or thirdly it may be held that this consensus knowledge of the many entitles them to have full control, excluding the experts.7

This is the first of five books I have chosen to reveal Scotland’s soul. The other four I will unveil tomorrow – although I’ve just realised they are all non-fiction. I’ve actually read more (Scottish – and Irish) fiction than I tend to let on so I may need to let this run longer as one of the blog’s series.  

Limits to Growth – time to get serious

It is 50 years since the Club of Rome published the famous “Limits to Growth” which, contrary to the propaganda spewed out by the billionaire and fossil-fuel funded think-tanks, made no predictions - but offered 12 scenarios about the world

Dona Meadows was one of the report’s principal authors (with her husband Dennis) and did a 30 year update which is summarised here. The book deals with an issue which affects us all – but in different ways depending on where we live. But even rich people – in Australia, France and the US – are now experiencing the floods and fire which indicate that we have reached too far. But the world has been strangely quiet about the book’s 50^th anniversary   

Dona Meadows died sadly in 2001 but was a marvellous woman who wrote the most accessible book about systems - “Thinking in Systems – a primer” (2008) and this powerful little essay helpful to anyone seriously interested in change - Leverage Points.   

Those of you who prefer videos will be moved by this presentation of hers from 1993 when she threw away her notes to address an issue which was lurking in the lecture hall full of technocrats like the veritable elephant – namely the need for vision and the difficulties scientific people have in speaking about dreams and hopes rather than problems. It’s a superb performance – quiet but authoritative – and well worth watching. And she has a short note which captures the essence of the talk here.

In 2019 her husband Dennis did an equally powerful presentation which started with a memorable invitation to the audience to cross their arms and learn a lesson about the difficulties of changing our habits. 

And that’s the central question – why we seem unable to accept the evidence that’s been so obvious for at least the last decade that our present habits are simply not sustainable? It took me some time to pose this question – and to be open to the need to better understand the way our minds work

And I was impressed with this recent story of someone who gave up a well-paying job in the financial sector in his early 50s to join Extinction Rebellion – to realise that he simply didn’t understand the financial system That duly led me to this paper “A map for navigating climate tragedy” by academic activist Jem Bendell (2018) 

Have professionals in the sustainability field discussed the possibility that it is too late to avert an environmental catastrophe and the implications for their work? A quick literature review revealed that my fellow professionals have not been publishing work that explores, or starts from, that perspective. Why not? I looked at psychological analyses, held conversations with colleagues, reviewed debates amongst environmentalists in social media and self-reflection on my own reticence - concluding that there is a need to promote discussion about the implications of a societal collapse triggered by an environmental catastrophe.

I then asked another question – How do people talk about collapse on social media. I identified a variety of conceptualisations and from that asked myself what could provide a map for people to navigate this extremely difficult issue. For that, I drew on a range of reading and experiences over my 25 years in the sustainability field to outline an agenda for what I have termed “deep adaptation” to climate change.

I am new to the topic of societal collapse and wish to define it as an uneven ending of our normal modes of sustenance, shelter, security, pleasure, identity and meaning.

The article summarises what I consider to be the most important climate science of the last few years and how it is leading more people to conclude that we face disruptive changes in the near-term. It then explains how that perspective is marginalised within the professional environmental sector – and so invite you to consider the value of leaving mainstream views behind. And outlines the ways that people in relevant social networks are framing our situation as one of facing collapse, catastrophe or extinction and how these views trigger different emotions and ideas. I outline a “Deep Adaptation Agenda” to help guide discussions on what we might do once we recognise climate change is an unfolding tragedy. Finally, I make some suggestions for how this agenda could influence our future research and teaching in the sustainability field…..

Significantly, the same month that saw the story of the financial expert brought forward another confession from scientists who had suddenly realised that the techno-optimists were peddling dangerous delusions

Background Reading

Was given in the annotated bibliographies of two previous posts

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2021/11/is-patriotism-answer.html

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2019/07/what-is-wrong-with-us.html

another attempt

The table in the penultimate post didn't work - hopefully this one will

Good “Journalistic” writers – by focus, base and nationality

People	Ideas	Events	Places	Mixed genres
Biographers	Peter Watson Naomi Klein  (Can) Charles Handy Bryan Magee	Victor Serge (Belgium) Kenneth Roy Masha Gessen (RU)	John Ardagh Dervla Murphy IR Jan Morris Neal Ascherson Philip Marsden Giles Milton	George Orwell Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Ger) Francis Wheen Arundati Roy (India) Joan Didion  US Tariq Ali  (Pak/UK)
Biographers	Mark Greif  US Mark Lilla  US Perry Anderson US Jill Lepore US	Historians Political scientists Economists	Geographers Anthropologists Sociologists	Raymond Aron  (France) Michael Pollan  USA
Oriana Fallaci (It)   Joseph Epstein (US)             Clive James	Francois Bondy (Switzerland) Claude Roy  (Fr) Chris Hitchens Martin Jacques Paul Mason George Monbiot Duncan Campbell Owen Jones     Adam Curtis	Arthur Koestler Hu/UK Vasily Grossman (Ru) Seb Haffner (Ger) Joseph Roth (Ger) Rudolf Augstein (Ger) Paul Foot Patrick Cockburn Simon Jenkins	Luigi Barzini (It) Andrew Sampson Svetlana Alexievich (Belarussia) Robert Kaplan  (US) Geert Mak  (Neth) John Hooper John Pilger (Aust) Robert Fisk Tobias Jones	Anthony Lane James Meek Andrew O Hagen
	David Goodhart Susan George (US)

 

 

 

 

 

Getting to Denmark

I’ve always been a sucker for books which promised to reveal the essence or soul of a nation or Region and “The Nordic Secret” (2017) - which I’m now half-way through - offers insights not only into the Scandinavian “soul” but a solution to the puzzle Francis Fukuyama set us a more than a decade ago - How to get to Denmark?

And it’s written in a highly accessible style – offering a variety of superb vignettes into the various French, German, Scandinavian (and even British) characters who helped develop the thinking which led to the “folkschools” which, the book argues, are the basis of the much-admired Scandinavian success story.  Its focus is very much on a concept with which we Brits are not very familiar – what the Germans known as “Bildung” or “opening up of the world” – with a good short article here on the concept. The authors express it nicely here - 

As we kept on reading, Lene reading more ego development psychology and Tomas reading more about Bildung, we realized that we might have stumbled upon a connection between Bildung and ego-development theory that nobody in academia had explored before. As we kept on reading and went to the German sources, we saw more and stronger similarities between Bildung (as described by the German philosophers) and ego-development (as described by contemporary developmental psychologists) than we had ever imagined.

The trouble is that it poses so many questions and leads me down such an amazing number of paths as to leave me gasping for breath eg

·       How exactly did the Scandinavian countries manage to transform themselves from backward societies in 1850 to become the most advanced and envied nations today?

·       Is it true that Denmark started the process with an outspoken and activist priest/politician who established model inspirational rural schools?

·       Ever since Robert Putnam and Edward Banfield reminded us decades ago that southern Italy seemed stuck in the 19^th century, we have become ambivalent about the prospects for positive social change

·       Why have people lost interest in the question of getting corruption-free societies?

  and apparently given up on ever achieving effective states? 

I can’t hope to get through the reading my googling has unearthed – so let’s see is any of my readers can help with this annotated list of the more interesting stuff

I can’t hope to get through the reading my googling has unearthed – so let’s see is any of my readers can help. Here’s an annotated list of the more interesting stuff

Getting to Denmark (2020) – a very useful short report about the economic aspects of the Danish experience, which emphasises the importance of rural cooperatives 

Dougald Hine has lived in Norway for 30 years and produced this provocative article in 2019 which included some of the material he had found useful (it doesn’t mention The Nordic Secret which had come out in epub format in 2017) 

Lutheranism and the Nordic Spirit of social democracy Robert Nelson (2017) I’ve just unearthed what looks to be a crucial study in what remains a highly important topic for me 

A Utopia like any other – inside the Swedish model; Dominic Hinde (2016) A short book by a Swedish journalist now living in the UK and mentioned by in Hine’s article 

Viking Economics – how the Scandinavians got it right and how we can too; George Lakoff (2016) a marriage link allowed this American to gain some home truths 

Building the Nation – NFS Grundtvig and Danish National Identity et J Hall et al (2015) A fascinating study of the role this priest/politician played from the 1850s in forging a sense of national identity and loyalty. Includes a chapter by Fukuyama and also by one of the key writers on nationalism – Anthony Smith 

Becoming Denmark; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2006) A very useful summary by one of the top European experts on anti-corruption on the historical stages which led to the Danish success. 

State-building, governance and world order in the 21^st century Francis Fukuyama (2004) A very important little book which reflected the interest in those days in nation- and democracy-building

The search for good government – understanding the paradox of Italian democracy F Sabetti (2000). Rather belatedly, the Italians get back at Banfield and Putnam

Bryan Magee in context

I’ve been captivated these last couple of days by the autobiographies of Bryan Magee (1930-2019) who is remembered here and celebrated on this video. Unusually. two of the autobiographies cover his early years; a third (published in 2018) starts as he makes his way in the world and a fourth is effectively an intellectual biography – “Confessions of a Philosopher” (1997). All are powerfully written – doubts and conflicts evoked almost from the opening pages and a start intellectual honesty pervades the pages

He was a household name from his television broadcasts about philosophy which were captured in the book of his interviews with such thinkers as Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, AJ Ayer and JP Stern which came out in 1987 The Great Philosophers – an intro to Western Philosophers 

I need writing which makes me look at the world in a different way. Rather slowly I’ve grown to understand that clarity and elegance of language is needed for this task. Essayist Tom Wolfe was a favourite of mine ever since I first read his Mau Mauing the flak catchers in 1970. James Meek is exceptional for his ability to reduce economic complexities to 5 or 10 thousand word essays – ditto Jonathan Meades for his forensic analyses of cultural issues.

But it was Arthur Koestler who first stunned me (in my late teens) with memorable writing – hardly surprising given his amazing background. Only Victor Serge could rival the enormity of the events which shaped him. How can those who have known only a quiet bourgeois English life possibly give us insights into other worlds? And yet a few writers manage to do it. 

Somehow academic specialists are rarely able to produce prose which grips…Is it the unrealistic restriction of the scope of their inquiries vision which causes the deadness of their prose – or perhaps the ultra security of their institutional base??

It’s this question which led me to offer this matrix of good journalistic writers dividing them according to their focus on people, ideas, events or places – but also according to their source of income, testing if you like a thesis about the rigidities of the academic base.

I wanted to include examples from countries beyond the UK and managed 20 – whose nationalities are clearly designated in the table. 

Good “Journalistic” writers – by focus, base and nationality

Source of income	People	Ideas	Events	Places	Mixed genres
freelance	Biographers	Peter Watson Naomi Klein  (Can) Charles Handy Bryan Magee	Victor Serge (Be) Kenneth Roy Masha Gessen (RU)	John Ardagh Dervla Murphy Jan Morris Neal Ascherson Philip Marsden Giles Milton	George Orwell Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Ger) Francis Wheen Arundati Roy (India) Joan Didion  US Tariq Ali  (Pak/UK)
Academia	Biographers	Mark Greif  USA Mark Lilla  USA Perry Anderson USA Jill Lepore  USA	Historians Political scientists Economists	Geographers Anthropologists Sociologists	Raymond Aron  (France) Michael Pollan  USA
Journal newspaper             Television	Oriana Fallaci (It)   Joseph Epstein (US)             Clive James	Francois Bondy (Sw) Claude Roy  (Fr) Chris Hitchens Martin Jacques Paul Mason George Monbiot Duncan Campbell Owen Jones  Adam Curtis	Arthur Koestler Hu/UK Vasily Grossman (Ru) Seb Haffner (Ger) Joseph Roth (Ger) Rudolf Augstein (Ger) Paul Foot Patrick Cockburn Simon Jenkins	Luigi Barzini (It) Andrew Sampson Svetlana Alexievich (Belarussia) Robert Kaplan  (US) Geert Mak  (Neth) John Hooper John Pilger (Aust) Robert Fisk Tobias Jones	Anthony Lane James Meek Andrew O Hagen
Think Tank		David Goodhart Susan George (US)