Strategies for living?

“Reading someone like a book” is supposed to denote an easy penetration of someone’s motives and thinking. But in fact reading is an interactive process which depends not only on the reader but on the context and timing. I find that I get different things from rereading a book. Two years ago (almost to the day) I enjoyed the wry humour and scope of Michael Foley’ s The Age of Absurdity - why modern life makes it hard to be happy which mocks contemporary anguishes and values (an early chapter has the great title of “the righteousness of entitlement”). By coincidence I came across this US stand-up comedian who deals with the same issues.
But rereading Foley in the last few days showed me a depth I had missed the first time round. He criticises the generality of the six convergent values identified by Martin Seligman (the founder of the positive psychology movement) in his trawl of religions – justice, humaneness, temperance, wisdom, courage and transcendence. 

“Do the classic texts , he asks, not give us more practical strategies for living ?” 

“The good news (he tells us on page 68) is that there are indeed such strategies. The bad news is that all of them are discouraged by contemporary Western culture”. 

The "strategies" are personal responsibility; autonomy; detachment; acceptance of difficulty; understanding; mindfulness; ceaseless striving; and constant awareness of mortality.

Drawing on philosophy, religion, history, psychology and neuroscience, Foley then explores the things that modern culture is either rejecting or driving us away from:

• Responsibility – we are entitled to succeed and be happy, so someone/thing else must be to blame when we are not
• Difficulty – we believe we deserve an easy life, and worship the effortless and anything that avoids struggle (as Foley points out, this extends even to eating oranges: sales are falling as peeling them is now seen as too demanding and just so, you know, yesterday …)
• Understanding – a related point, as understanding requires effort, but where we once expected decision-making to involve rationality, we moved through emotion to intuition (usually reliable) and – more worryingly – impulse (usually unreliable), a tendency that Foley sees as explaining the appeal of fundamentalism (“which sheds the burden of freedom and eliminates the struggle to establish truth and meaning and all the anxiety of doubt. There is no solution as satisfactory and reassuring as God.”)
• Detachment – we benefit from concentration, autonomy and privacy, but life demands immersion, distraction, collaboration and company; by confusing self-esteem (essentially external and concerned with our image to others) with self-respect (essentially internal and concerned with our self-image), we further fuel our sense of entitlement – and our depression, frustration and rage when we don’t get what we ‘deserve’
• Experience – captivated by the heightened colour, speed, and drama of an edited on-screen life, our attention span is falling and ‘attention’ (at least in the West) is something we pay passively rather than actively and mindfully:

From a recent blog discussion, I noted this interesting perspective -

 I think we need to address the question with our own actions, the things we do that make life worth living. Verbs, not nouns. When I think of how I would answer the question, the following behaviors come to mind:

Creating: Writing, drawing, painting (though I’m not good at it), playing music (though I’m not especially good at that, either). For others, it might be inventing something, building a business, coming up with a clever marketing campaign, forming a non-profit.

Relating: It’s not “family” that makes life worth living, I think, but the relationships we create with members of our family, and the way we maintain and build those relationships. Same goes for friends, lovers, business partners, students, and everyone else.

Helping: Being able to lend a hand to people in need – however drastic or trivial that need may be – strikes me as an important part of life.

Realizing: Making, working towards, and achieving goals, no matter what those goals are.

Playing: Maybe this is a kind of “relating”, but then, play can be a solo affair as well. Letting go of restraints, imagining new possibilities, testing yourself against others or against yourself, finding humour and joy.

Growing: Learning new things, improving my knowledge and ability in the things I’ve already learned.

Those seem like more satisfying answers to me – they strike deeper into what it is I want for myself, what makes it worthwhile to get up in the morning.

The Guardian is currently trying to give its readers some understanding of the nation which is now in the driving seat of the "European project" and indeed of our futures - Germany. I have several times on this blog remarked on how seldom this effort of understanding our neighbours (their culture and history) is made in British books or journals - with most of the accessible literature being humorous accounts of setting up home in rural France or Spain (occasionally Italy). I'm not particularly impressed with the Guardian series - no mention, for example, of the two recent writers who have tried to do the country justice (Simon Winder and Peter Watson).
But this article about one region's attitudes to saving and spending is useful.   

exposing the lies

If you are consumed with greed, enjoy a permanent sense of superiority, are incompetent, suffer from Acute Controlling Syndrome, think ethics are for wimps, or have never created anything worthwhile in your life, the chances are you hold some kind of senior position in one of these professions: politics, the media, investment banking, multinational business, management consultancy, tax accountancy, the Law, or internet service provision.You are the reason all those pursuits serve your interests rather than mine.If you have all of those features in your personal make-up, then you are a seriously big wig, engaged in running the world. You are probably a sociopath, perhaps a psychopath, and definitely delusional…to the extent that your ideal world is one in which the small community and the middle classes have been wiped out, and a few very big bananas have near-monopolies on everything.You are the reason the world is falling apart.In order to retain your position as an influential idiot dedicated to pauperising everyone except the elite, you are going to talk bollocks almost all the time. (Trans: US – horsesh*t, French – conneries, German – Bockmist). You can get away with doing so, because most of the rest of us are too thick, bored, busy or tired to bother analysing the bollocks that pour forth from your mouth in a never-ending testicular stream.

Such is the powerful raison-d'etre for A Diary of Deception and Distortion - a very readable blog dedicated to the deconstruction of bollocks which I am now adding to the list of links here.

Seasonal changes

I’ve been offline for more than a week – initially because my two-year old HP laptop crashed and I had to fit up a new Samsung with all the relevant software, files and websites.

But the silence is also due to the sheer amount of work involved preparing the mountain house to face new rigours and challenges – leaving little time for reading and the stimulation that offers. Not just of winter – but of the rise in rural break-ins. Last week we strengthened our back door and remounted the old shutters on the ground-floor windows. Their absence over the past 5 years caused me no anxiety – but yesterday we talked in Brasov with a home security advisor and are now installing various facilities – including perhaps a “state of the art” sprinkler system to give our extensive wooden beams and floors (if not traditional schiza wood roof) some added protection.

A digger has also gouged out a parking space from the steep front meadow – for our 15 year-old Daewoo which must shortly give way to a new car. Part of me wants to indulge myself and go for a good but economical touring car (eg the 3.5 lires per 100 kms  Skoda Octavia) – but being seen with that sort of car could create the impression of a house worth breaking into. My faithful old Daewoo strikes a usefully modest image in the Balkans! In the meantime I scour the area looking for stones with which to pave the new space.

The weather has been superb in the past week – with the clouds strung out as I remember seeing over the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of the West of Scotland; and quite a strong breeze blowing the trees in front. And the neighbour’s cow was moved this week from the higher pasture to their immediate garden area. The season visibly changes – it’s one of the great features of this part of the world that the season’s changes are still so visible.

Some videos of the area - the villages of Ciocanu and Sirnea; and again Sirnea
a mysterious road trip around the edge of the village; and another strange video by a developer showing the potential of this beautiful village for post-modern nerds

A Guide to blogs about Romania

I know of at least three other Brits who blog from a Romanian base – first a highly literate Conservative with a blog entitled A Political Refugee from the global village. He’s an “Englishman in love with Bucharest’s blowsy charms” who apparently came to live here in 1998; works as a “headhunter”; and blogs regularly. His posts in 2010 are good on various aspects of Romanian history and the disappearing charm of Bucharest. 
Then there is Dr Peter Fogarty who has apparently been blogging about life here for the past decade on pictures of romania - and has indeed collected his various comments together in several books which can be accessed on his site.

The other blogger is Andy Hockley whose blog has the catchy title Csikszreda Musings - that being the Hungarian name for Miercurea Ciuc – which, to me, always sounds like “Wednesday beer” (Ciuc being one of the big beers here). He’s been here since 2004 and some of the early entries are good – but, understandably, his blogposts have fallen off in the last 2 years. His posts about English politics suggest that he too is a Conservative – if of a more populist type than the first Bucharest guy. I can’t quite work out what he does for a living. A couple of years ago he had a good blog about the Romanian film Katalin Varga - a film which gives a very good sense of the old village life. 

So that's four of us Brits who have chosen to live here in Romania (me at least half of the year now) - and blog about it. Apart from us, I know of another 3 Brits who have settled in Romania - 2 in Brasov (with property and tourist businesses respectively) and an ex-British Council training guy who has chosen Iasi (which he calls Romania's cultural capital by virtue of its intellectual heritage).
That's 7 of us - compared with the 6,000 who settled a decade ago in Bulgaria! (although there are apparently now only 2,600) There are some French people - generally associated with food and drink (!) - and a French couple has indeed arrived in our village here and is doing a good job of restoring an old house faithfully in the old tradition.

An American in Cluj has a blog which used to be called “I’m more Romanian than you” but now seems to be called, more modestly, on Romania. He’s a more recent arrival; is more chatty; but has offered various language lessons.

Bucharest Life is a fairly typical, mundane collective ex-pat site which did, however, in the winter have some good photographs of the snow and of examples of the highly annoying habit of parking on the pavements.

There are also a handful of Romanians with great blogs in English about the beauty of landscape, buildings and art you can find in this country. Guide to Romania is a blog which gives good detail (and pics) about various famous Romanian buildings and sites. True Romania was another blog giving useful information about historical Romanians and sites - operated by a teacher and pupils at Ludus secondary school. Sadly the blog stopped posting in 2011 – but the archives go back 4 years and offer a great source. 

Historical Houses of Romania is an excellent site maintained by Valentin Mandache – who has also taken to organising walks around the architectural jewels of Bucharest. It was one of his posts which pointed me to this interesting piece about the legacies we can see of one of Bucharest’s modernist architects. 

There was a TV journalist here who had great entries about modern art – but his address now gives me the Artindex auctioneers in Bucharest which has, however, retained his posts. Look at this great one on the Zambaccian Museum in Bucharest.

Last but certainly not least is an external blogger. Sarah in Romania is actually based (still I think) in Paris although I understand she's American (??). Her's is the only serious external site I know. Her posts are always instructive and passionate – for example this recent one on the superb Mogosoira Palace on the outskirts of Bucharest.

postscript; I have just come across this rather unctuous American blog.

Dangerous politicians

We’re used to reading powerfully-crafted descriptions of characters in novels – but, for some reason, this treatment seems to be rarely applied to politicians and others in the public eye. The current issue of London Review of Books has a short article by David Bromwich on the Republican Convention in the USA which contains as lacerating a picture of a human being as I have ever read -

His constant demeanour is cocksure; his face never registers reflection. Listening to other people is a formality, for Ryan, to be endured before he springs his answers. And how the answers pour out! There is an attractive, efficient speed in the way he works, but also a kind of deadness. And the deadness is there in his eyes – the hard eyes of the self-fulfilled and self-justified, clean of mind and clean of body, a whole mental mansion trip-wired against invasion by entities seeking pity and bearing excuses.

Savour that last phrase - a whole mental mansion trip-wired against invasion by entities seeking pity and bearing excuses. It purports to describe the guy just nominated by Mitt Romney to be his Vice Presidential running mate. It could be applied to a lot of young, arrogant professionals I have met in the Balkans!

I don’t want to get into the American Presidential election – save to express my disgust at the blatant way Republican Governors have been going about the disenfranchisement of poorer voters by trying to introduce requirement for ID. Apparently, since 2000, there have been only 10 cases of voter fraud. So it is not an issue – except for those who want to prevent the supporters of opposing parties from voting. In Britain, the organisation of election lists and elections is kept out of the politicians’ hands – and that’s the way it should be  

Climate Change - celebrating the clumsy approach

The UK Royal Society of Arts is an interesting British institution –

committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today’s social challenges. Through its ideas, research and 27,000-strong Fellowship it seeks to understand and enhance human capability so we can close the gap between today’s reality and people’s hopes for a better world.

Its Director’s blogs give a very good sense of what a highly intelligent and engaged individual in today’s Britain is thinking. Sometimes, for me, it sounds like messages from Mars! No reflection meant on Matthew Taylor! Just on the environment in which the UK chattering classes currently operate with its neo-liberal government.

One post (no longer accessible) gave a superb treatment to Professor Mike Hulme’s most recent book – Why we Disagree about Climate Change - who applies cultural theory and reframing to the issue and argues that the very different perspectives and underlying values we all have make climate change an issue for which we should not be trying to find "a solution". A question of the best being the enemy of the good. Finding a way through the highly contested values involves intense dialogue and the acceptance of "clumsy" compromises. Here are some of Taylor's questions....

Climatology/Science

1. Do we really understand how the climate works?(If it’s so much more complex than the financial system, and we got that badly wrong…)
2. Is climate change happening?(Yes, demonstrably so, but some say ‘climate change’ is not – i.e. it’s nothing out of the ordinary if we had access to records that went far enough back. They are almost certainly wrong)
3. Is climate change anthropogenic (man-made)?(Almost certainly, but there are enough sceptics to allow people to imagine there is a position to be taken here- we are often asked “Do you believe in climate change”)
4. Is ‘runaway global warming’ likely or not?(How valid/important is the idea of ‘tipping points’)
5. How many degrees of planetary warming are ‘safe’?(Is the 2 degree limit a political or scientific judgement?)

Science/Technology

6. Are there any likely scientific breakthroughs that will solve ‘the problem’?
7. Do current intellectual property laws help or hinder the development of carbon abatement technologies?
8. Will anticipated technological change happen quickly enough to prevent avoidable harm, or not?
9. Could an ‘energy internet’ meet our energy needs?(Some, e.g. Jeremy Rifkind argue the key is to make households produce and share energy, not just share it)

Macroeconomics/Modelling

10. Is it viable to stop seeking economic growth in the developed world?(Some say economic growth is economically imperative, but ecologically impossible)
11. Do we have to assume indefinite economic growth in climate models?(Most climate models, e.g. The Stern Review, assume 1.2% growth in perpetuity- this matters because it implies future generations will be richer, and better able to deal with the worst effects of climate change)
12. What should the price of carbon be?
13. Is ‘absolute decoupling’ possible?
14. Does/could ‘cap and trade’ work?
15. Can we design a viable carbon market that is ‘functional and fair’?(The magazine Ephemera recently devoted an issue to this question)Ethics
16. Do natural systems and species have intrinsic value or not?
17. Can we place a quantitative or comparative value on a life?
18. Should/can we value the quality of life of future generations as much as our own?(This question, the so-called ‘discount value’ appears to be a critical wedge issue because it can only be a value judgement, with no objective way of settling the question, but most economic models discount future generations considerably in their models).

Communication/social marketing

19. Is ‘climate change’ the best expression to work with?
20. Is climate change an environmental issue?
21. Is Climate change best framed as a public health issue?

Political

22. Are relatively short democractic electoral cycles part of the problem, or not?
23. Does the developed world have an obligation to allow the developing world to pollute relatively more to correct for historic exploitation, or not?
24. Do we need more regulation or less?

Worldview

25. Is nothing sacred?(Are there things that don’t have a price, or that if they were given a price, would be valued even less?)
26. Do attitudes drive behaviour, or is it the other way round?(A biggie, but I was impressed by this resource as giving some ammunition for an answer)
27. Is the rebound effect serious or not?
28. Should we appeal to economic incentives, or not?
29. Should we work directly with values, or not? 

Framing and reframing (and recognion of the importance of cultural values to problem-solving) goes back a long way. I remember being impressed in the 1960s with the 3 world views suggested by Etzioni in his "Social Problems". Post-modernist thinking, however, has focussed more and more on the variety of ideological prisms with which we sense of the world. And yet, the professionals in my field who teach policy development to the senior civil servants in the Balkans, Near East and Central Asia continue to sell the rational model of problem solving. I hope to look at this in more detail in the future.  

Property, theft and municipal strategies

Rural crime, we are told by the radio, has been increasing so much recently that new policing methods are being introduced. 

Curious to know what this meant for our area (one of the local shops suffered a break-in a couple of weekends ago), we tried today (at 16.00) to call in at the local police station (the neighbouring village some 20 minutes drive away) – only to be met by a closed door and 3 telephone numbers. 

In one sense, “neighbourhood watch” is old hat here as everyone can (and does) see what is going on elsewhere (that includes my middle of the night pees!!)

Seeing is, however, one thing – the issue for crime detection and prevention is getting people willing and able to summon help; and for that help to arrive expeditiously. Romanians are exhorted in national campaigns to use the 955 national number (which connects to Bucharest) - but I suspect most follow the advice on the police door and use their local connections. And how quick is the response?
Of course it is only nouvelles arrivees such as me who are vulnerable – not the poor locals - vulnerable, that is, for the fantasising that goes on about the wealth of foreigners. Perhaps the best protection would be a few articles and media episodes about the low-income (or possession) profile of most ex-pats here. Why else would foreigners buy property here - except that they don't have the means to buy elsewhere? A Bulgarian magazine did a good article on the profile of the Brits who bought there big-time a few years back -with many being unable to adjust to the new life and returning home.

It is the Romanians with the large, ugly villas who have the cars, white goods and possessions the thieves want.

Yesterday we changed the 2 kitchen windows – replacing the rather shoddy double-glazing job with state of the art triple Thermopan. I was horrified with how quickly the guys dismantled each window. It took them less than 5 minutes to prise out the frame and hop inside!! Fortunately the new system we installed makes it impossible for such entry. Anyone trying will be blasted to kingdom come!! Other, simpler, barriers have also been created against those wishing to steal the black and white photographs I treasure of my childhood!

If local villagers are not worried about break-ins, they should at least be concerned about water; and here the municipality could and should be doing more about water conservation. Since water meters were installed a year or so ago, I suspect the ruling assumption is that the price signal is enough to alter behaviour. But people still need to know the options - and to be encouraged to use water responsibly. I know how wasteful I was until I realised how little water I actually needed for cleaning my teeth and washing....  

Social Democracy alive and well?

I don’t talk enough here about my homeland – so I am glad to devote this post to an important policy issue in devolved Scotland. Melissa Benn is a name to conjure with in UK educational circles – her mother, Caroline Benn, was the most ardent campaigner for some 5 decades for good education for all; her father is the tireless socialist Tony Benn; and she carries on the family tradition in her role as a radical educational journalist. She had a platform at this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival and has posted a thoughtful piece which points up some Scottish successes in the educational field which she considers are not getting the attention they deserve in England.  

The most immediate thing to strike a visitor from the English educational field is how very different the atmosphere and assumptions are on this subject north of the border. With its proud tradition of the "democratic intellect", long history of compulsory education and world-renowned universities, the Scots seem genuinely to value their school system.
Here one finds very little teacher-bashing and scant reference to market solutions to social problems. At the Edinburgh event, the overriding concern was how to improve access by poorer students to higher and further learning and keep universities free, despite considerable pressure from an unholy alliance of English newspapers and Scottish conservatives. There is a heartening and robust belief in publicly funded, publicly accountable high-quality education.
Is this perhaps the very reason we in England hear so little about Scotland's education system, bar some envious carping at its avoidance of tuition fees? While every fashionable free-schooler or educational conservative has rushed to bash underfunded Wales as proof of comprehensive failure, or bemoaned attempts in Northern Ireland to eliminate its outmoded selective system, there is little discussion of the evident strengths of the Scottish comprehensive system.
In fact, Scotland has deliberately rejected what (their Education Minister) Russell accurately labels the Germ (Global Education Reform Movement) approach so beloved of the coalition, with its commitment to privatisation, competition and deregulation.
He is rightly scathing of the "three initiatives before breakfast" policy-hyperactivity of the current English government. At the Edinburgh session he declared himself "stunned" at recently announced English plans to allow unqualified teachers into classrooms. Rigorous teacher training is at the heart of the Scottish approach, and there are plans, modelled upon the Finnish example, to require every teacher to possess a master's in addition to a first degree.
Scotland publishes no official league tables, although individual schools release their results. (Even Wales now publishes the results of secondary schools grouped into one of five bands.) The Scottish government is moving towards greater school self-evaluation and has, over the past decade, slowly rolled out a progressive "curriculum for excellence", in stark contrast to our own government's speedily devised, overly prescriptive and increasingly contested programmes for learning.
And it seems to be working. Results for Scottish highers, a formal examination taken between 16 and 19, have slowly climbed over the years and are up again in 2012, with no serious claims of grade inflation. From this year, pilot schemes will be rolled out, with the ultimate aim of each child learning two languages in addition to their own. And only last year, the Royal Society praised the high numbers of Scottish students – 49.7% – who study science to the higher levels, and suggested that the rest of the UK should emulate Scotland in this regard

Scotland managed to keep its separate educational system even after the Treaty of Union with England of 1707 - so we have generally been spared the more mad of the English initiatives. However the development of the comprehensive school was something which took place in both parts of the kingdom.
The reestablishment in 1999 of the Scottish Parliament and Government has, however, given the distinctive nature of the Scottish directions in social policy a stronger legitimacy.
I am not a Scottish nationalist. The issue of Scottish independence was a live one at my school in the 1950s and, when I became active in local and Regional government in the 1970s and 1980s, the Scottish Nationalist party was always an electoral consideration. As, however, Conservative MPs were wiped out in Scotland in the 1980s, the legitimacy of the Thatcher regime was called in question by us all in Scotland (including the churches and professions) and a long (and consensual) constitutional process produced a Scottish Parliament and devolved powers for a Scottish Executive in 1999. 
New Labour’s policies attracted little respect in Scotland – despite the electoral support we gave to Bliar and Brown. 
And the crude neo-liberalism of the 2010 Lib-Con Coalition has increased the support for the apparently social-democratic core of the Scottish nationalist leadership. 
Hence the astonishing ease with which the Scottish Nationalist Party took power (despite the proportionate voting system) in 2011.  Just look at the lecture delivered in London earlier this year (at the Hugo Young Lecture) by the Government’s First Minister (Alex Salmond)

The Scottish Government's policies attempt to protect many values which would be dear to any post-war social democrat in these isles. For example, we have promoted what we call a living wage - £7.20 an hour. And we have made a conscious decision to provide certain core universal services, rights or benefits, some of which are no longer prioritised by political leaders elsewhere – such as free university tuition, free prescriptions, free personal care for the elderly and a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies across the public sector
And looking at the problems of health reform now, I thank the heavens that Westminster's writ no longer runs in Scotland on health issues. But the looming issues of welfare reform exemplify why Scotland needs the powers to make our own policies to meet our own needs and values.
We do this because we believe that such services benefit the common weal. They provide a sense of security, well-being and equity within communities. Such a sense of security is essential to a sense of confidence – and as we have seen over the last three years, confidence is essential to economic growth.And the social wage also sets out our offer for people who want to live in Scotland, regardless of their background. We will provide a secure, stable and inclusive society. And by doing so we will encourage their talent and ambition. Scotland will be a place where people want to visit, invest, work and live.
An independent Scotland could be a beacon for progressive opinion south of the border and further afield – addressing policy challenges in ways which reflect the universal values of fairness – and are capable of being considered, adapted and implemented according to the specific circumstances and wishes within the other jurisdictions of these islands and beyond.
That, I believe, is a far more positive and practical Scottish contribution to progressive policy than sending a tribute of Labour MPs to Westminster to have the occasional turn at the Westminster tiller – particularly in the circumstances of the Labour opposition's policy increasingly converging with that of the coalition on the key issues of the economy and public spending.

Social democracy, then, seems to be alive and well.......

Those wanting to know more about the Scottish devolution experience of the past 13 years can read a good objective treatment here
And those wanting to get a sense of the sort of discussion which is going on about the future of the country - read here