The news SUCKS. One of my sons has withdrawn almost entirely from news coverage. Being a fan of the fantasy genre, he brings different perspectives. He calls most news stories 'cursed knowledge', quoting the American writer HP Lovecraft's 'The Call of Cthulu', written in 1926:
'The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.'
He's not ignorant of events, he just refuses to subject himself to a stream of reminders of bad news happening in the world that he - and we? - struggle to understand, let alone do anything about. There's an argument to be had here about political activism, sure. But Trump, Ukraine and, yes, Israel/Gaza are all very far from our influence as individuals. Thousands have marched to signal their disgust at what's happening, and to put pressure on our own government, but few believe the UK's stance on these issues will move any needles. And that's painful.
It's hard to know what to devote our attention to, these days, such is the weight of stuff we'd do well to avoid. I've just written this on another thread, debating the phrase 'living your best life':
'...until social media, if we wondered what other people's lives & relationships were like, we had to use our imagination & our common sense ... Now, though, we get to 'curate' ourselves, we get to edit and transmit what amounts to a minor tv series called 'Me', or 'Us' ... the cumulative effect of all these mini-series is huge, and debilitating ... my common sense tells me it's self-harm for most of us.'
Weirdly, both remote international events and close, personal matters seem to be 'cursed knowledge'. Is there any knowledge that ISN'T cursed these days? How did this happen?
I think the clue is that, via social media, we are replacing direct experience with, essentially, the same 'televisual', heavily edited storytelling that the news uses to inform us about wars, earthquakes & famines. Charity donations aside, there's little any of us can DO about corruption at COP29 - and even less about the fact that, look, the Joneses are on their second foreign holiday this year, how the hell are they affording THAT?
That's it, John, I struggle with it very much too. Feel it is basic citizenry to keep myself informed of what's 'going on' but every time I look I feel depressed and scared. And that sends me diving into work, my own nuclear family, my friends, and a sort of denial of all of it.
But, the one thing I think I have learned over the last few years is that the more grey and mis the news is, the more creative people provide found families and communities for each other, out of which comes some of our most profound and beautiful art.
And we get out and march against fascism whenever there's a chance to.
It's telling that you end on resisting fascism. I too get depressed and scared by much of what appears in the news, and have to resist completely burying my head in the sand (aka Radio 2 & re-runs of Sort Your Life Out). But I have an increasing sense that many others react with anger, an embittered sense of something having been taken away from them by developments in society.
My sense is that it's primarily a working class phenomenon; in the last ten years or so, nearly every time we've got a job done at our house and a builder or plumber came round, we've ended up having conversations about conspiracy theories and/or resentment against 'wokery' (though this is by no means the only way I hear these views). It doesn't necessarily equate to out-and-out fascism or bigotry; I know some of them well enough to be sure they're not in those places.
The truth is, in some ways they're right: you don't have to be poor in British society, not just to earn too little to own your own home, but to find you can't live in a house where, as one 50-something guy put it, "I get to decide what colour my living room walls are." You don't need to be a millennial to feel poorer than your parents, poorer than someone doing the same job 15, 20 years ago.
But there it is; an underlying sense that they/we, 'the country', have been 'sold down the river'. Again, partly true: what else is globalisation to most of us but the baffling news that your local bus company, reducing already inadequate services, is owned by Spanish, German or Australian companies, registered in the Caymans for 'tax efficiency'? It's one thing to feel control of our own affairs has slid out of democratic control, quite another to feel the process is irreversible.
As we know, populist fascists feed on feelings like this: betrayal, real or imagined. Mussolini believed fascism was the only form of socialism appropriate to proletarian nations like Italy; and of course Nazi is a contraction of National Socialism.
Should we be surprised that a politics of blaming others is on the rise when it's the go-to personal modus operandi of so many people? It's the psychological equivalent of junk food: a rapid feelgood sugar hit. Ooh, I was in danger of having to examine why I'm feeling bad there for a second, but it turns out it's all THEIR fault. Moving ON!!
I sometimes find myself wondering how much of this Keir Starmer understands. Does he know how many of the working class, the class that founded his party, feel today? He seems unable even to pronounce the phrase. He's gonna need to do a lot better than that to survive the next five years. Me, I've got an urgent appointment at the Stoics.
The news SUCKS. One of my sons has withdrawn almost entirely from news coverage. Being a fan of the fantasy genre, he brings different perspectives. He calls most news stories 'cursed knowledge', quoting the American writer HP Lovecraft's 'The Call of Cthulu', written in 1926:
'The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.'
He's not ignorant of events, he just refuses to subject himself to a stream of reminders of bad news happening in the world that he - and we? - struggle to understand, let alone do anything about. There's an argument to be had here about political activism, sure. But Trump, Ukraine and, yes, Israel/Gaza are all very far from our influence as individuals. Thousands have marched to signal their disgust at what's happening, and to put pressure on our own government, but few believe the UK's stance on these issues will move any needles. And that's painful.
It's hard to know what to devote our attention to, these days, such is the weight of stuff we'd do well to avoid. I've just written this on another thread, debating the phrase 'living your best life':
'...until social media, if we wondered what other people's lives & relationships were like, we had to use our imagination & our common sense ... Now, though, we get to 'curate' ourselves, we get to edit and transmit what amounts to a minor tv series called 'Me', or 'Us' ... the cumulative effect of all these mini-series is huge, and debilitating ... my common sense tells me it's self-harm for most of us.'
Weirdly, both remote international events and close, personal matters seem to be 'cursed knowledge'. Is there any knowledge that ISN'T cursed these days? How did this happen?
I think the clue is that, via social media, we are replacing direct experience with, essentially, the same 'televisual', heavily edited storytelling that the news uses to inform us about wars, earthquakes & famines. Charity donations aside, there's little any of us can DO about corruption at COP29 - and even less about the fact that, look, the Joneses are on their second foreign holiday this year, how the hell are they affording THAT?
Gotta keep it as real as possible, I guess.
That's it, John, I struggle with it very much too. Feel it is basic citizenry to keep myself informed of what's 'going on' but every time I look I feel depressed and scared. And that sends me diving into work, my own nuclear family, my friends, and a sort of denial of all of it.
But, the one thing I think I have learned over the last few years is that the more grey and mis the news is, the more creative people provide found families and communities for each other, out of which comes some of our most profound and beautiful art.
And we get out and march against fascism whenever there's a chance to.
It's telling that you end on resisting fascism. I too get depressed and scared by much of what appears in the news, and have to resist completely burying my head in the sand (aka Radio 2 & re-runs of Sort Your Life Out). But I have an increasing sense that many others react with anger, an embittered sense of something having been taken away from them by developments in society.
My sense is that it's primarily a working class phenomenon; in the last ten years or so, nearly every time we've got a job done at our house and a builder or plumber came round, we've ended up having conversations about conspiracy theories and/or resentment against 'wokery' (though this is by no means the only way I hear these views). It doesn't necessarily equate to out-and-out fascism or bigotry; I know some of them well enough to be sure they're not in those places.
The truth is, in some ways they're right: you don't have to be poor in British society, not just to earn too little to own your own home, but to find you can't live in a house where, as one 50-something guy put it, "I get to decide what colour my living room walls are." You don't need to be a millennial to feel poorer than your parents, poorer than someone doing the same job 15, 20 years ago.
But there it is; an underlying sense that they/we, 'the country', have been 'sold down the river'. Again, partly true: what else is globalisation to most of us but the baffling news that your local bus company, reducing already inadequate services, is owned by Spanish, German or Australian companies, registered in the Caymans for 'tax efficiency'? It's one thing to feel control of our own affairs has slid out of democratic control, quite another to feel the process is irreversible.
As we know, populist fascists feed on feelings like this: betrayal, real or imagined. Mussolini believed fascism was the only form of socialism appropriate to proletarian nations like Italy; and of course Nazi is a contraction of National Socialism.
Should we be surprised that a politics of blaming others is on the rise when it's the go-to personal modus operandi of so many people? It's the psychological equivalent of junk food: a rapid feelgood sugar hit. Ooh, I was in danger of having to examine why I'm feeling bad there for a second, but it turns out it's all THEIR fault. Moving ON!!
I sometimes find myself wondering how much of this Keir Starmer understands. Does he know how many of the working class, the class that founded his party, feel today? He seems unable even to pronounce the phrase. He's gonna need to do a lot better than that to survive the next five years. Me, I've got an urgent appointment at the Stoics.