Robert Sharp

Barrister

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Is multiculturalism conservative?

18 July 2007 / / 4 Comments

I’ve been re-reading a little bit of Andrew Sullivan’s book The Conservative Soul, in which he attempts to wrestle back conservatism from the theocons. By his analysis, Conservatism is the Politics of Doubt (and thus incompatible with fundamentalism, be it Christian or otherwise). This is outlined in chapters Five and Six. The pace of change for a conservative is necessarily slow, argues Sullivan, because conservatives are naturally skeptical of any change, and will endorse such a change only when his questions have been exhausted.

The conservative, unlike the fundamentalist or Marxist or any other adherent of a direction for a time, simply observes that this is the way the world is. He will confront the fundamentalist with a puzzled look, and ask him how he knows for sure that something beyond contingency and choice is at work in human history, that some other force is directing human action and ends. … He will enjoy pointing out the collapse of this great history or that one. And in the meantime, he will simply make the choices he wants to make and live.

Reading these chapters, it occurs to me that multiculturalism could be considered conservative in its temperament. By this analysis, multiculturalism is the realistic approach. It acknowledges that when humans move and mix, they are unlikely (and maybe unable) to change their culture overnight. It is surely unreasonable for a migrant to announce Year Zero on their arrival, and simply abandon their old culture in favour of the new one. Change will come, cultures will evolve, but slowly. To demand that new additions to our society simply equalise their values to our own is illiberal, unworkable, ignorant of human nature, and ultimately counter-productive.
The first critique of this idea is that some of the cultures we are asked to mix with are fundamentalist in nature. They may not change at all, and are the polar opposite of any Politics of Doubt. This may be true for a few people (and it is relatively few), and to give them the bulk of the attention is to willfully ignore the wider truth. As we see in the UK, the reality for most people is that the cultures do change, and the change is slow – often spanning generations. They achieve this precisely because, however annoyingly insular they appear to be, they are not fundamentalists. Liberal democracy is as much a part of their culture as it is of ours. In such cases I see no problem in respecting and actively celebrating their culture, its history, and its traditions. When this is done by the British it is often labelled ‘conservative’ or ‘Conservative’. It seems logical to give the same label to the act of celebrating other cultures too.

Living With a Computer

12 July 2007 / / 4 Comments

Reading old articles, in which a journalist enthuses about a technology that is now obsolete, is always fun. Reading Jim Fallows, writing in 1982, describe what it is like Living With a Computer is no exception (via Daily Dish). There is plenty of discussion of how much memory to fork out for, and whether to buy a tape or floppy drive.

The system prints about thirty characters per second, which means it takes less than a minute per double-spaced page. When it has completed its work, I take the manuscript and start working it over with a pencil, just as I did in days of old. The difference is that after I’ve made my changes, I have only to type in the changes I have made and start the printer up again—rather than retype the whole mess.

This passage is echoed in an article by Umberto Eco, discussing how the process of drafting has changed with the advent of computers. Before, writers would compose one discrete draft after another until the thing was complete. Jim Fallows was following this same process in 1982. In these cases, the earlier drafts were actually on paper and might not be thrown away, leaving a resource for the author and researchers if required. Eco points out that these days, there are an indeterminate number of drafts and sub-drafts – “ghost drafts” he calls them – which are lost to the world.

It could be the case, though rare, that the author – narcissistic and fanatical about his own changes, and using some kind of special computer program – has kept somewhere, inside the memory of the machine, all these intermediate changes. But usually this does not happen. Those “ghost” copies have vanished; they are erased as soon as the work is finished.
And so the work of the philologists of the future will be based on conjecture, on what those “ghost” copies might have contained – and who knows how many great texts and other erudite publications will be born from that conjecture? To outsiders, they might seem like problems suited only for college exams. But the discussion shows that the use of mechanical systems for writing doesn’t necessarily simplify and thereby mechanise the creative activity, but rather can make it that much more shaded and complex.

Whenever I’m working on something creative, I do periodically make a copy of the document, especially when I’ve decided to purge a few paragraphs of verbosity. I don’t think this is particularly narcissistic, as Eco has it. It is just an insurance against changing your mind. Those thoughts that don’t make the cut might be useful for something else, later.

Update, 27th August

Matthew Kirschenbaum expands on this theme in The Chronicle Review.

What if we could use machine-learning algorithms to sift through vast textual archives and draw our attention to a portion of a manuscript manifesting an especially rich and unusual pattern of activity, the multiple layers of revision captured in different versions of the file creating a three-dimensional portrait of the writing process? What if these revisions could in turn be correlated with the content of a Web site that someone in the author’s MySpace network had blogged?

Notes on Tintin in the Congo

12 July 2007 / / 15 Comments

Gouche Cover, Tintin in the CongoI usually baulk at the idea of banning books, but I do find myself in favour of the CRE’s suggestion that Borders bookstores ban Tintin in the Congo.
Now I do consider myself something of a Tintin expert. A few years ago I was even an avid contributor and fact checker on the Cult of Tintin website, now defunct, but partially resurrected at Tintinologist.org. I’ve read Tintin in the Congo, and it is indeed appalling. In addition to the obvious racism, it is also distinctly environmentally unfriendly. Tintin blows up a rhino with a stick of dynamite, shoots an entire herd of impala by accident, makes a snake gobble its own tail, performs a summary execution of a chimpanze, attempts to shoot a crocodile in the face, and poaches an elephant for its tusks.
Where to begin with the racism in the book? Throughout, the Africans are portrayed as simpletons, who idolise Tintin and Snowy and fetishize anything western they can get their hands on. The chief of one tribe has a rolling pin for a sceptre.
The book’s only redeeming feature, and the only possible argument for it being on my shelf, is that it clearly demonstrates the change and improvement that Herge and Tintin underwent in the years following its publication. Congo is a meandering, incoherent story, where the latter books have carefully plotted story arc. Congo is dull and flat, where the latter books are rich and detailed. Congo is a stereotype, whereas the latter books were carefully researched, with artists from Herge’s studio sent all over the world to make sketches that could serve as a primary source. And the character of Tintin himself morphs from a patronising colonialist in Tintin in the Congo, to a character with much more empathy later on. In the early books he is an agent of governments. By the later books, he is a revolutionary, a subversive. In the early books, he desecrates tombs and customs with impunity, whereas the later books warn against such disrespect for other cultures.
Continue reading

To my credit

11 July 2007 / / 4 Comments

I think my eyes have trained themeslves to ignore banner adverts. Any animated oblong bar is ignored. It is as if I have a blind spot. It was therefore quite improbable that I noticed (only just, mind) the advert on FaceBook for a free credit report, courtesy of Would you beleive it was via F that I discovered the Credit Expert website.
Some banner adverts do yield useful information, it seems. I was surprised to discover the amount of information that a company can gather on you if it wishes. They do need a fair amount of information from you – date of birth, name and address, which more than I would normally give to a website for any other kind of service – but it is still surprising how much information those standard details will yeild. The exact amount of my mortgage and monthly payment is in there, as is (amusingly) a store card which I signed up for a few years ago, and forgot I even had.
Quite interesting, was the presence of The Camelot Group, who run the National Lottery, on the list of people who have seen part of the report. I signed up to their site a few months ago in order to buy a lucky dip ticket worth £1. I was indignant that they should see this as an excuse to ruffle through my records… but I suppose gambling sites are a prime place to launder money. I could load up my account with thousands of pounds of drug money, then deposit it back into a different account as ‘winnings’.
Most satisfying, however, is the fact that the credit report missed off an entire bank account in my name that I used in my student days. If ever I am on the run from the cops, perhaps for refusing to carry an ID card, or perhaps for laundering money through the lottery website, then I’ll know which account to use as a springboard for my series of Robin Hood style adventures.

An alternative to Live Earth

8 July 2007 / / 5 Comments

A further problem with Live Earth is the much publicised waste of energy used to power the event. The Arctic Monkeys recently spoke out against the ‘hypocrisy’:

“It’s a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world,” said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders … “Especially when we’re using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It’d be a bit hypocritical,” he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.
…
Large parts of the band’s hometown of Sheffield were flooded at the end of last month after a deluge of mid-summer rain that some blamed on global warming. Two people were killed.
But the band wonder why anyone would be interested in the opinion of rock stars on a complex scientific issue like climate change.
“Someone asked us to give a quote about what was happening in Sheffield and it’s like ‘who cares what we think about what’s happening’?” added Helders. “There’s more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we’re in a band?”

Much of the Live Earth message is about changing our lifestyles, to cut down on planet spoling emissions. As well as reducing power consumption, we should reduce our carbon footprint by travelling by car and plane less, on foot and bicycle more, and through the purchase of locally produced goods with fewer ‘food miles’. Why, then, was the Live Earth event not concieved with these ideas in mind? Instead of highly centralised concerts, with artistes imported from all over the world, the Live Earth brand should have been used to promote dozens, if not hundreds, of more parochial concerts. Big Name bands could curate a gig in their home town, discovering the latest talent via MySpace and the recommendations from the local scene – an easy ask for the Arctic Monkeys, say. These big name bands would, of course, headline the gig, and the crowds that they attract would be able to walk to and from the venue. Beer would be supplied from the local pubs – and it would be the local economy that recieved a financial boost.
Instead of a distant and mythological Al Gore, local politicians could re-engage with their electorate by explaining what the council is doing to recycle, and on what day the blue bins are being collected. Instead of a Jonathan Ross and Kate Silverton overload, local radio journalists could host the concert, and perhaps inspire some of the community cohesion that many towns lack.
The Live Earth website, instead of being a promotional tool for Madonna and Bon Jovi, could instead carry YouTube clips from thousands of concerts from all over the world. The most popular, as voted for by the Internet viewing audience, would be broadcast on network TV. Sure, these would probably be mostly the big acts (the Sheffield gig for the Arctic Monkeys, the St Andrews gig for KT Tunstall), but this method would undoubtedly throw up some interesting, idiosyncratic acts with a little local flavour, which nevertheless prove popular with Internet users. Some exposure for these artists would be welcome change from the smooth-edges required of any musician who wants to go ‘mainstream’.
Such an approach would also mean than millions more people could actively participate in the event, rather than passively via the TV as some of us have done this weekend. This would still inspire a collective memory, even though individual recollections would depend on which concert you went to see. The question “Where were you for Live Earth?” would not be about which pub you chose to sit in to watch the TV, but about what bands you saw and which friends you went with – an altogether more interesting question, and one that could travel the world.

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