What
the corporate media considers important are, for this blog, mere farts……hot air
and smelly……
The
last post was the blog’s first reference to the political events which have
been gripping the European and British press for the past week – the French
Presidential Election and the recently-announced British General Election. For
“groupies”….fantastic opportunitities to rave….but, for the more sober amongst
us, events “full
of sound and fury but signifying…nothing”
Postman
was ahead of his time in suggesting that politics was becoming a mere spectacle
– those, after all, were the days when people such as Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan were forging their neoliberal vision and dramatically changing
the institutional landscape.
Nobody
could suggest then that politics and political power were of no significance….
But globalisation
and privatization have changed all of that…..Macron and May don't even have the stupidity to behave like Canute but happily allow the tide to swamp them…..
The
last line of the previous post mentioned a little book – Journey
to Earthland – which puts the sound and fury in proper perspective. It is one
of these rare books which impresses from the start – with a powerful, extended
metaphor of the train-wreck of a journey the world is on - with the various
passenger reactions of “denial, distraction and despair”.
The
author is Paul Raskin and he sets out 3 fundamental
scenarios (each with 2 varieties) -
-
Conventional worlds ("market forces"; and "policy tinkering")
-
Barbarization ("Fortress World"; and "Breakdown and dystopia")
-
Great transformations
("Eco-communalism"; and "New paradigm")
Readers
will know that I am not, these days, easily impressed by books on these subjects…..but this one impacts on all
sorts of levels – the tautness of its language; the clarity of the various
schemas it presents; the imaginative use it makes of sketches of the future and "retrospective stories"; and its brevity – just 110 pages.
The one criticism I have is the usual one - that it lacks a “further reading” section with a clear structure which pays attention to the various “schools of thinking”;
and, ideally, a short explanation of the reason for each book's selection…As it stands the booklet refers almost exclusively to the Institute's own writers. Some other assessments can be read here
Update; review of book here - from the great Irish Feasta people.
Those interested in pursuing the theme could usefully dip into Organising for the post-growth economy
The painting is my only example of Tony Todoroff's work.....from his Cyprus collection