OUT OF STEP

  

My generation, the wartime and early post-war generation, is of course largely retired, economically inactive and slowly but surely diminishing in number. We are not a key constituency but take pride in our traditions, our achievements, our human contributions and our wider families. We try to take a mellow view of the behaviour of our younger successors, although we are not always in sympathy with, or in understanding of, the modern world. We prefer not to talk of alienation nor isolation but the fact is we find ourselves living in a hectic, noisy, mad-house cosmos beyond parody, stretching our tolerance and critical faculties to the utmost limit.

                The Finnish Eurovision entry – Cha-cha-cha

To set the scene, this year’s Eurovision in grim Liverpool, upon which vast treasure is expended, was won by a Swedish (actually a Berber Moroccan) chanteuse called Loreen caged in a box whose tortured “song” was supplemented by gestures from her hideously elongated finger-nails. Worse, in second place was the Finnish effort, fronted by a kinky-looking gentleman with lurid green sleeves who ululated his tongue in a disgusting fashion. The UK entry, screamed by Britain-hating activist Mae Muller, was deservedly second last, only just surpassing the truly dismal German entry. All the songs were of the thumping Euro-technopop genus, their connection with real music totally inaudible. What rubbish and yet how many column inches and TV hours were devoted to this dystopian, freak-show spectacle!

The second-rate-farce theatre of Westminster politics is in equal turmoil. I am a Brexit-supporting Conservative, much influenced by the transformational Margaret Thatcher governments of the 1980s. We are supposedly enjoying a Tory regime, but where are the Tories? Our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has piled tax upon tax, regulation upon regulation as if he wanted to outdo unlamented Brussels. The economy creaks forward by a tiny fraction a month, robotically controlled by Jeremy Hunt and less internationally competitive by the day. There are occasional flashes of common sense from Michael Gove, Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg but we see no consistent vision for the future and nothing remotely inspirational. Some blame inflation, the Ukraine war and Covid for the malaise, but actually the basic problem is a Tory lack of grip and political cunning – a government needs to be 5 steps ahead of its political adversaries, not 3 steps behind. But who on earth will follow these inept, burnt-out has-beens?

 

Most people believe Sir Keir Starmer and Labour are in pole position to sweep into power at the next election. That is not a mouth-watering prospect, to say the least. Starmer is an unreconstructed Woke Leftie, who swallowed every idiocy pronounced by the appalling erstwhile Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, without demur. The image most associated with Starmer is he (accompanied by his crass deputy Angela Rayner) piously “taking the knee” in respect towards the dubious and violent Black Lives Matter cause. His principles blow with the wind – Brexiteer one day, Remainer the next – today he promises to ‘renegotiate” Brexit. He denounces crime, while failing to mention he was Director of Public Prosecutions 2008-13, and took no relevant initiatives. He says he would give the vote to working- resident EU citizens, but flip-flops today when the obviousness of this gerrymandering became plain. He is a man of straw. There are no principles he would not bend in the search for power and none he would defend if seriously challenged. He has no spine and Churchill’s 1931 description of Ramsay Macdonald would resonate, –“The boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury bench”

             Keir Starmer and friends

Starmer’s party, his members and activists, are a talentless rabble, mad, bad and dangerous to know. They are bad because they have turned their backs on key principles of liberal democracy, like free speech (supporting the cancellation of dissenting voices in universities). Their attitude towards Russia and China is at best ambivalent, so we certainly cannot sleep easily in our beds, as the Left has no respect for our hard-won freedoms or the principle of national defence. Their traditional pay-masters, the trades unions, are re-asserting themselves and openly preach communist claptrap, such as the imminent destruction of capitalism. They may well fool many in the moronic reaches of the electorate, but we can only pray that enough sensible voters have survived to stem their toxic flow.

Currently, there is not much to encourage us. The Civil Service is infiltrated by the Woke, doctors and nurses strike for absurd pay rises, the NHS is near collapse, school staff strike at the drop of a hat. It is not just the public sector either. Bank workers “work from home”, businesses suffer huge absenteeism, the entire work-force is often idle and work-shy. Can it ever be turned round?

My generation needs some good news. In the existing atmosphere, we are returning to our shell and not surrendering anything. We are not sending the Elgin Marbles back to Greece, we are not apologising for the sins of the past like Slavery (Arabs and black African rulers were much worse than we were) or Colonialism (that impertinent US Declaration in 1776 was a robbery for which we should be richly compensated! Maybe that is a long shot!?). Just say No! to adversaries and not be an easy touch for anyone.

SMD

17.5.23

LIFE'S MYSTERY

 

Nobody has ever accused me of profundity but now and then I am bemused by the inane superficiality of our modern lives and inevitably this train of thought raises difficult questions, viz:

-          How did humanity evolve, and what sort of creatures are we?

-          Can we improve on the current model?

-          What is the purpose of our existence anyway?

Let us shakily and inexpertly address these unanswerable riddles.

Our cousin the Chimpanzee

    

                                                                 Our Neanderthal brother

Darwin tells us that our ancestor was: A hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits. Our affinity to the chimpanzee is close as our DNA is a 98.4% match to that of the chimp. Over the aeons of archaeological time our species of homo sapiens evolved, with many diversions, from the great ape hominids to the anatomically modern hominims, eliminating the Neanderthals some 100,000 years ago after some intermingling. The human brain was now 3 times the size of a chimp’s. Originally in Africa, our human ancestors spread themselves widely to Asia, Europe and Australia. Sociably, they lived in settlements with their extended family (tribe), hunting and gathering together over many centuries. Eventually something akin to a civilisation developed in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and later in Egypt. Homo Sapiens had at last arrived - though he could easily disappoint!   

                                          

                                                Modern Man, with all his failings

Yes, I chose a picture of a scruffy booze-befuddled American, when I could have selected an image of Goethe, Leonardo, Newton, Balzac or some other worthy. But ask yourself who is more typical? The great majority of Earth’s population live very limited lives, exploited peasants in Asia, helpless cannon-fodder in Russia, toiling wage-slaves in Europe, compulsive consumers in America, prey to all the temptations and abuses of a money-obsessed society. Only a minority on any continent receive the benefits of a decent education, adequate income, a healthy environment and a satisfying lifestyle. Women and children globally still fare much worse than men, to our shame.

Of course, there has been huge progress since our Troglodyte phase. Progress in terms of infrastructure, city life, technology, control of disease, respect for community, self-awareness has been immense, but inequalities are stubbornly persistent and the “toiling masses” live poorly. Man has many animalistic traits – the search for dominance, ruthlessness in many situations, hatred of rivals, all of which create conflict. There are gentler animalistic instincts we retain – like the Atlantic salmon, we are drawn to our birth-place in our later years, or like that dog in Ulster who trekked home, after escaping from a kind rescuer, we have a longing for adventurous travel but often end up not far from home.

Can science and technology improve our lot? No doubt we could live a little longer, but to what purpose? Our youth and maturity are already too short and creating more twilight years is self-defeating (not to say bankrupting!). I imagine we have the technology politely to make sterile large sections of the population, which would quickly give us more room and less mouths to feed, but raises a multitude of ethical and economic dilemmas. Applying straight-forward logic to these loaded questions is perilous. Already the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, has advocated a pause in the development of high-capability Artificial Intelligence (AI).

                        AI guru Steve Wozniak

There is a dystopian fear that sophisticated AI robots could outwit their human creators and execute their own programmes of action. Science fiction drama could become alarming fact. These fears may be exaggerated, but humanity needs carefully to control any huge leap in technological capabilities.

More fundamentally, what’s the name of the game anyway? Stripped of illusion, Western man is born of his mother, grows up in a family of varying closeness, often starts earning his living in his teens, gets married, procreates, reaches maturity at 50, ages quite quickly and dies of various ailments when he is about 80. He decays and turns into dust, the plaything of the winds. Only a few live a remarkable life, and even fewer a heroic one. In my undergraduate days in the early 1960s, I embraced Humanism, morality without religion, influenced by Margaret Knight, Bertrand Russell, Jacob Bronowski and other savants. It seemed sensible but was admittedly a trifle bleak, as our existence seemed to serve no obvious purpose nor solve any mystery.

I deplored “revealed religion” as its pretensions and claims were contradicted by historical method, comparative religion, psychology and even by archaeology and it had produced some very rum characters like Torquemada, St Thomas More, Bloody Mary, John Knox, Ignatius Loyola and Pius IX. And yet…

A few days ago, we British witnessed the Coronation of King Charles III. Carrying his sceptres and wearing his crown, richly cloaked, his image is medieval, wholly at odds with the modern world. There was much hocus-pocus with anointing oils, ancient regalia and pledging homage. But most would agree that the ceremony, with its music, was something beautiful, uplifting and comforting, speaking to some primeval instincts within us.

   King Charles III                      

When I turn up my toes (or, more euphemistically, am “gathered in”) and if I hear a celestial choir of angels; I will be well pleased, and not totally surprised!

 

SMD

9.5.23

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2023