Mike LoweOne of the things I love about the film-maker Adam Curtis’s work is that he doesn’t just accept the way things are. He keeps inviting us to look deeper and question the assumed truths of our culture.
One of those assumptions is that revolutions don’t work because the people who come into power always turn out to be just as bad as old lot.
If you want to educate your kids (or yourself) about how money works at this point in time, I suggest a simple experiment. Get a bunch of friends around (where Covid-safe) and start a game of Monopoly, but you and your kids aren’t allowed to join at the start. If you are born before 1980 you get to join when about half the properties on the board have been bought by the other players. if you were born between 1980 and 2000 you join when 75% of the properties have been bought, and if you were born after 2000 you get to join when there is only 1 property left for sale.
Warning – lengthy but profound reflection on a subject where angels fear to tread – the problem with religion and atheism.
Religion isn’t going away and progressives who continue to attack religion do themselves no favours. In fact their attacks simply fuel the “persecuted victim” narrative that Trump and the religious Right have so skillfully exploited.
I saw this article yesterday after a conversation with a friend about this dilemma:
If humans are part of nature, then why are we destroying so much of the natural world – including our own life-support systems?
My answer is that we humans have evolved a specific mechanism – culture – which allows us to adapt to many different environments and changing situations. Unlike a Wallaby or a Deer, we are not born with a mostly complete innate sense of what kind of animal we are and what kind of environment we will exist in. Humans have to be shaped by culture over a number of years (it’s a year before we can even walk and another year before we start to talk).
All we like sheep(le) have gone astray!
I’ve always loved the Christmas story. In the Northern hemisphere where I grew up it is closely associated with the Winter solstice (the point at which the days start to get longer again) and its theme of the coming of light into the darkness. And this marking of the seasonal transitions is linked to a deeper story about death and resurrection, power vs love, suffering and forgiveness and new beginnings.
(Another long and important read – I’ve tried to make this accessible for people who normally switch off when the word Economics is mentioned.)
One of the most painful aspects of a recession is the many people out of work, sometimes for a long time.
Mainstream economic thinking says that jobs are created by entrepreneurs and by more investment, so this should be encouraged with tax breaks for the wealthy.
There’s a partial truth to this, but it ignores an even more important fact that jobs are created by customers with money in their pockets.
Who’s fault is it? (another long but important read)
Who’s to blame? is not something we ask when things are going well. But when the proverbial shit hits the fan it’s often the first question that comes up. And right now, when so many people are struggling with what feels like a lifetime’s worth of shit hitting a fan of global proportions, it’s a question and a sentiment that is showing up everywhere. It’s a question that comes up whenever people are hurting and angry and looking for somewhere to direct that anger. Current popular targets of blame include various political leaders, certain wealthy individuals and corporations, the Deep State, the Illuminati, various ethnic groups or genders or even nations.
A lot of people are concerned about the loss of “normal” freedoms and rights that have been brought into focus by the pandemic. But I think the breakdown in trust that I see is even more concerning. Ultimately, I believe, this breakdown in trust will lead to the end of free societies, because a free society depends on an atmosphere of trust. Let me explain:
Sometimes we don’t know the value of something until we’ve lost it!
We’ve been taking democracy for granted for a long time. For some of us that means not thinking about or engaging in political debates, not bothering to vote (in countries where that’s allowed), not studying history.
A few days ago I watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor on Netflix and was deeply moved, especially by this section on mistakes. I can definitely remember as a child wondering if I was a mistake because there were times when I didn’t seem to be able to fit in, or get what was expected of me, and people didn’t seem to get me or appreciate me.