Ray Bradbury

I think I was 11 years old when some clever soul sent two books wrapped up as Christmas presents through the post. I can't remember who it was who sent these two books, and I had to wait, as usual, until the evening of December 24th - when my family conducted its annual festive ceremony - before I could see what they were

They were a red book and a yellow book of the same size. The stories of Ray Bradbury volumes 1 and 2. My mother was far from impressed with this present - shaking her head portentously, thinking I'd be frightened by the stories. The present-giver had known better.

Seeing one of my more precocious friends reading things like 1984 had instilled in me the desire to read, and to hopefully somehow become 'cleverer' by doing so. But what was I to read? If I were to write a page of advice to my 12 year old self it would certainly contain, in bold letters, the message "read what you enjoy reading, and don't worry too much about the rest. Give it a chance, but if it consistently fails to arouse your interest then leave it"

Reading through those volumes for the first time was one of the periods of inspiration in my life. As the above piece of advice will tell you, I don't think I always followed my nose faithfully enough - too many other things distracted me, and quite often after a period of being interested in a topic, I will get bored - and we're back to square one. But for a while that year I was enthralled.

And when you are that interested as a child, you learn things. You do so as naturally as going to sleep and waking. The next day you are in some sense a new person because your day is lit up with an important piece of understanding that was not there before, and all that you see and hear are linked to this new important fact, so you will remember it for good. It is incorporated into your life.

What I learned I cannot tell you, really. Except that when you read a good writer you get a strong dose of  their personality. And what a personality his was. The preface to those stories was his passionate defence of his creative side. School friends jeered at his stories and comics, till he realised that those were not his friends, but his enemies.

This was eerily close to my own experience - the boys at school laughing at my imaginative life. I was something of a coward, and desperately wanted to fit in. I never could, of course - children are an intolerant bunch. I didn't have his moral courage, but then I never forgot his message in those pages either. The message, and the mesmerising stories stayed with me all my life. I still go back to them from time to time. There really was no other choice over how to live one's life. I clearly can not have the same personality as Bradbury. No one is the same as any other person exactly. But those books helped me find some of mine.

There's not much I can do about it now he is gone. He would want me to turn it to something positive. So I will make his death a spur to remember that lesson every day. I heard the lesson early, I'm still processing it.

The Guardian on Shakespeare

I have a new post on GraunWatch.

A writer named Emer O'Toole has written a piece for the Guardian claiming that the plays of Shakespeare are little more than an tool of colonial/imperialist control over the world. As I tend to see Shakespeare's plays as having been very central to British culture for centuries, I take issue with her here.

As the owner of the blog says, this isn't necessarily the "Guardian line" on Shakespeare. But I believe this line of thinking is all too common, and needs to be subjected to strong critical analysis wherever possible. Too many people are getting away with some very woolly thinking.

The subject was also discussed on David Thompson's blog (in the comments section of this post). The point was made that education and thought in the UK is being influenced by a strong anti-patriotism - quite common, I think, in the pages of the Guardian and Independent, and in the output of the BBC.

The dishonesty of the left on racism

So I understand that in the BBC's ongoing fight against racism, they interviewed a lady (alas I don't have her name) on the radio, who gave a few opinions on the subject. Sadly, it seems that she rolled out the argument - completely discredited in my view - that 'racism' only exists within a particular power dynamic or relation. The idea is that black people cannot be guilty of racism by definition, because they have less power in UK society.

There are so many problems with this argument. Ask a white man being beaten up by several black men - if he thinks he has much greater 'power'. How exactly is this power defined? And where does this idea leave the problem of racism between racial minorities? Does that not count as racism any more? Isn't one rule for white, another for blacks racist in itself?

But today I want to focus on the basic hypocrisy behind all this. Anti-racism was once a noble sentiment. I was under the impression – I think we all were – that racism used to mean something like the following:

“a wrong done to (or a dislike taken towards) someone, on the basis of their ‘race’ or skin colour”

It meant this for a long time, and the fight against this sort of racism had much moral sway. But at some stage a deeply dubious subclause was added (by some) so the new definition became:

“a wrong done to (or a dislike taken towards) someone, on the basis of their ‘race’ or skin colour, but only if they are on the wrong end of a power relation”

Never mind that this ‘power relation’ was undefined and undefinable, everyone knew what the point of it was – to provide a specious rationale for saying that black people could not be called ‘racist’ under any circumstances. Now the only racists were white people. Put this way, it becomes clear where the actual discrimination by race lies. Some want a political stick to beat white people with.

The (creaky) reasoning behind it could be – for all I know - that  white people have “too much” or disproportionate power in the United Kingdom, so that any means are justifiable to try and reduce that power.

But if the meaning of the term “racism” is being casually altered to put one set of people in power and kick another out, then anti-racists are not acting from principles of equality and justice, and merely playing politics, as dishonestly as any politician ever did.

Melanie Phillips on intolerance towards religion

Melanie Phillips has written an essay on the current prevalent intolerance towards religion, as seen in the writings of scientist Richard Dawkins, but which is in fact quite widely spread. I've much sympathy for the initial impulse behind her piece, but I think that she gets a few things wrong, and that there is a far stronger case for religion, which has been lost in the silliness of this debate.

Francis Crick's "directed panspermia" theory was one of his odder hypotheses, to be sure. It's a workable idea, just not one for which we have any evidence. Crick was a theorist, a very brilliant and very logical one, and I think he didn't much like the improbability of the complex biological mechanisms he'd made his name discovering. As with the puzzle of how the eye evolved by a series of small steps, it's hard to see how DNA, RNA, and all the proteins and processes of the human body evolved over time. Just because this is a mystery, of course, doesn't mean that it's insoluble, so the panspermia idea was arguably a kind of scientific impatience from Crick.

Phillips' argument (maintaining that the wilder theories of science are "fantasy") seems populist to me, or perhaps it is simply that she doesn't understand the space between science and religion. Few do.

She touches on one thesis - much beloved of some on the left, actually - that I don't much like. It is this idea that science is of no more value than any other 'narrative', which seems to allow those working in humanities departments the  freedom to say or think whatever they wish - freed from the constraints of any logical and evidential basis. This may be a wonderful freedom for the lazy minded, but not much use for actual scholarship and science. The differences between science and other narratives are simple: science makes verifiable observations, and constructs theories that make verifiable predictions

Even so, it seems to me quite correct to say that Dawkins' tiresome intolerance and blinkered intellectual bullying seem as narrow-minded as the attitudes of the worst religious bigot. If you believe in freedom of thought, you have to practice what you preach. So to, the progressive left seem to thrive on social pressure to believe their version of events. According to them, they are both rational and caring.

There are a couple of reasons for this misguided debate between science and religion. From the start, Darwin's theories got a rather mixed reception from the church, and the famous debate between Thomas Henry Huxley and Wilberforce in Oxford seems to have set the attitudes of many British biologists against religion in general, which is seen solely as a theoretical adversary. It is surely far more than that.

(This minor controversy concerning Darwin's theories echoes the previous dispute between Galileo and the church on whether the earth was the centre of the universe. One other case where the church opposed good science. But I'd argue this is quite rare)

My feeling is that these biologists (some are the pride of UK 20th century scientific endeavour) miss out on almost everything that Christianty is, by focusing on this small part of the belief system. Some then go on to vaguely wave their hand in the direction of the middle-east and say how much trouble religion has caused there - when the truth is that religion has just given human nature a reason to take sides and persecute, and if the religious aspect had not existed, people would have found another reason to take sides and fight - as people often do.

So we can't blame religion for all wars, as some unsophisticated 'rationalists' claim. But when they do a U-turn and  state that religion had no effect on the development of music, art, literature, society, and law they sound particularly desperate. There really does seem to be a strong influence - from religion - on all these areas, and of course on the development of science itself.

But even though science is brilliant at making observations, theories and predictions that come true, it is wrong to see religion as simply a rival to science. It may have attempted to fullfil those roles long ago, but it's power is in it's ability to transform many individual personal lives, and give sense and purpose to them in a way that science cannot do, since it only describes how things are, not what to do about them. Since we are human beings,  and need such a sense of purpose, religion will still be around for some time.

Though religion ought to stop trying to compete with science on it's own territory (many religious teachers haven't twigged to this) it thus certainly has a future of some sort. Though Phillips says correctly that if we start to make  a religion of some simplistic unscientific idea like Marxism, or for that matter feminism or egalitarianism then we may be in serious trouble. These religions do indeed provide us with all the dogma and intolerance of some religious orthodoxies, and none of the spiritual solace.

How an ideology-driven broadcaster might work

A little while back now, I worked for a public-sector quango producing statistics and reports for other people in very similar jobs to look at. One feature of this job was the unsurprising left-wing flavour of the conversation there, another was the curious authoritarian atmosphere. The woman in charge of the (rather female heavy) group was a fine person, but slightly intimidating.

To illustrate why, take morning coffee. Most bosses grudgingly accept coffee breaks as one of those things to be tolerated, like haemorrhoids or Laurie Penny. But actually in this job attendance at morning coffee was compulsory. Despite the bosses' diminutive size, her habit of singing happily over her desk, and the fact that you could imagine her knitting there quite happily, there was a quiet that came over this whole matriarchy when her will was expressed - there was NO WAY you would contradict it.

At these strictly enforced chats over coffee, which the boss-lady presided over (and dictated the tone and topic of each day's chat) there was a on-your-best-behaviour-or-else atmosphere. It was somehow required that you contribute, and you would try jolly hard to say things that met with approval - both general and from on high. This meant having an intelligent observation to make - but also one that fitted the prevailing political feeling. And it may not surprise readers to learn that boss-lady was a strongly political reader of the Guardian newspaper.

The designated topic one day seemed to be the pre-eminence, in athletics, of black people. Well I remember the nods of approval when I found something to say about Ussain Bolt. There was no doubt I was fitting in by saying it - rather than mentioning the extraordinary record of white males in gaining Nobel prizes.

The reason I tell this story is that I've been pondering how those in charge of a TV/radio broadcaster might encourage employees and writers to come up with dramas that fit their ideological slant. Now this is pure hypothesis on my part but may turn out to be useful. A political slant in some news coverage is interesting, but in a way easier to understand - if only in terms of journalistic incompetence. But allowing a political slant to enter into dramatic output seems more in the spirit of 1984 or Uncle Joseph himself

It doesn't, I think, take a great deal of imagination to read my story of the awkwardly political coffee mornings, and to start to understand how employees can be pressured into adhering to an ideology in their work. And not just through a dominating boss or bosses.

It might be that the rules - as so often - are left unspoken most of the time, lest an email be leaked and .. ermm .. misinterpreted. Far more effective if staff are left to guess the rules - in the competitive scrabble for position in their careers they are sure to fall in line pretty quickly. These staff may be the ones choosing or commissioning which dramas are shown, for example. 

Thus, unaccountably, the employee will do well, who introduces a drama with the requisite focus on particular designated victim groups (blacks, Muslims, etc). And it helps if the drama contains 'acceptable' representations of gender, race, and sexuality. So members of groups thought (by our hypothetical broadcaster) to be commonly racially stereotyped, will often need to be portrayed in an entirely positive light IN A DRAMA. The justification for this will be to fight said stereotypes.

By contrast, the employee who suggests airing a drama dealing with working-class British heroism in - say - the Falklands conflict, will be ignored. Other employees soon get the idea, and - fearful for their careers - toe the line. The same pressures consequently tell on writers of these dramas. Preference will quietly be given to the more ideologically sound work - and we all know well how this kind of interference leads to a far worse dramatic work.

So our hypothetical broadcaster is in great danger of feeding us ideologically sound drama, but of worthless quality. In my next pieces, I will look at both some possible effects of this kind of censorship, and some of the thinking behind it.

Marxism without the nasty bits!

Readers may be interested to know that the University of Kent has a course on Marxism as part of a 'Social Sciences' degree. No doubt there's a good reason for this but it's puzzling how the course aims to

"enable [students] to assess both the contemporary and historical significance of Marxism in world politics"

when

"Students are not expected to demonstrate any detailed knowledge of the history of Marxist-inspired governments, regimes or political movements"

We wouldn't want any practical experience to influence our discussion of the historical significance of Marx. Might give us the wrong impression.

Thoughts on class

From a comment of mine on the Telegraph news site:

"As soon as the word "class" is mentioned, you've opened  a can of worms. People will have entirely differing presuppositions of what the word entails.

Listen to sociologists talking on "thinking allowed" on radio 4, and you are listening to a group of would-be scientists who base much their work on a set of definitions of assumptions about "class"

But how can you do that? Who knows where one class begins and one class ends - where is that set out exactly? And if many sociologists agree on a particular set of criteria for being one class or another, who's to say those criteria aren't wrong, or completely artificial?

The word is useful for them because it immediately ties them to Marxist theory, but also to a whole set of very real problems in the UK over the last 150 years or more. Because of the Marxist link my heart sinks when people mention class.

But noone in this country seems able to forget the humiliations suffered by the lower classes here. Not just the poverty and hardship (and a certain amount of envy too), but some of the social behaviours that kept the system in place. Social competition in the higher classes, and the pressure to keep those from 'lower' classes - who wanted to join the higher ones - in their place, meant a lot of superior airs and aloofness, and plenty of resentment. 

(just the other day a neighbour told me how she had worked as a cleaner in a girls school in Oxford, and received some pretty haughty bad-manners from a 20-something woman working there.  I'm afraid that, knowing the school, that does not surprise me)

Many seem to blame the class system for all inequalities (which are probably inevitable anywhere to some degree). I think that is wrong. It provided structure, and something to aspire to. Take away the system, and the inequalities have not gone away

The dynamics, the social aloofness, can keep standards, but they can also be an ego trip for those in the middle to upper classes, and thoroughly divisive in relationships as well, to name just 2 problems. 

Now, though, the tables have turned, and some spit the meaningless phrase "White middle-class male" out with real venom..."


I notice that I said "Take away the system, and the inequalities have not gone away". Another interesting facet is that people of the left see that inequalities still remain (as they always will), and that people help their friends (ditto) and take it all as evidence that the class-system has not  died at all. I think they are very wrong. These are just ordinary social dynamics and the hand-wringing over whether a potential son/daughter in law is of the right class is a thing of the past.


We may still worry about our offspring's marital choice, and we may still dislike 'chavs', but this is far more to do with standards of behaviour - a different concept and entirely natural. We are not going to stop worrying about our children and their relationships, neither are we going to be happy about being gobbed on by some unpleasant kid who can't find anything better to do. This is nothing to do with old conceptions of 'class', no matter how much people like Owen Jones claim it is