The release of Norman Kember returns him to normality. For four months he has been a ghost, hovering on the edge of our consciousness. Now he is human again, we can criticise him for going there in the first place, or not thanking the troops enough. We would not talk of Ken Bigley in this manner.
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Benefit Scroungers! A wife, a mistress, and fourteen kids – one one council house
So shouts this week’s Closer magazine. Only that’s not right, is it? Scrounging would be putting each kid in their own council house, thus depriving their council of more resources. Shoving fourteen kids into a single council house is the opposite of scrounging: it seems positively thrifty. Good on them.
He is an analogue politician in a digital age.
So said David Cameron, of Gordon Brown, during their exchanges in the House of Commons today. This is a difficult metaphor, and I fear David may be using it in a very lazy manner, to mean simply “old and new”. In fact it has meanings that I doubt the Tory leader would wish to imply.
Analogue technology may be old, but music fans agree it means better quality. Analogue records capture the subtleties that digital recordings lack. Did David Cameron mean to describe the Chancellor in those terms?
Technically speaking, analogue captures all the different inputs one continuous, flowing record. In audio terms is hears all the sounds. In photographic terms, it sees shades of grey. Digital recording, by contrast, converts everything it senses to binary data. Ones and Zeros, On and Off, Black and White. Which is better for political discourse?
Most importantly, consider how the analogue and digital mediums are treated. Vinyl records are treasured by their owners, sought after by collectors. Original photographic prints fetch a fair price at auction. They carry auora of permanence. Compare this to the digital medium, where tacky CDs lie scrtached on the floor, and digital files are carelessly deleted almost as soon as they are created. Transient things of momentary interest.
Analogue: High quality, subtle, perceptive, permenant.
Digital: Flat, extreme, polarising, disposable.
How kind of David Cameron to flatter the Chancellor! One wonders if Gordon is receiving such compliments from his own party…
“A person without imagination is like a teabag without hot water.”
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Now the last thing I want to do is write a meta-blog post about a meta-blog post, not least because Tim Worstall coined the frankly hilarious ‘meta-meta-blogging’ conudrum at the weekend, and I do not wish to be shouted at, again. Suffice to say it was pleasing to see Sunny include a post of mine, among others, in his first contribution to Comment Is Free, the Guardian’s new superblog.
What interested me about the post was how the opinions of several people had contributed to the meat and substance of the piece. I was reminded of a great article by Nosemonkey at The Sharpener:
In some areas it’s already almost turning into a Britblog hive mind…
Whether this truly captures the nature of blogging I am not sure, since ‘hive’ seems to imply one homogenised idea, rather than the diversity we see online. I am reminded once again of ‘democracy‘ in the proper sense of the word: Not the vote-every-four-years kind, but true democracy, where a diversity of opinions and ideas are thrashed out in public, and everyone can have a say, play a more active part at every level, from war policy to whether the so called ‘Green Parking Zone’ outside my flat is a good idea (and in case you were wondering: no it most certainly is not).
Blogging – change the world it won’t.
I am not so sure, Sunny. Ministers, and MPs are increasingly realising that the medium simply cannot be ignored.
What can be ignored apparently, is politics. All of it. This is the analysis of an astonishing 17% of the electorate, who said that they ‘did not want a say’ when questioned. The Third Audit of Political Engagement by the Hansard Society and the Electoral Commission, also found that 14% of people were ‘not interested in politics’.
The report of course links lack of political engagement with wider social exclusion, and points out the need for better political education and communication to widen this gap. Nevertheless, even with these measures, there will be a proportion of people who, regardless of their upbringing or social class, will still describe themselves and ‘not being interested in politics’.
I have infinite tolerance in the general case. But in the individual case, those people I actually meet and interact with, the one thing I cannot and will not abide is “Oh, I don’t do politics.” I will not patronise them by suggesting it is merely down to social exclusion, because most of the people I meet would not describe themselves as such. No, these are people who proudly announce they are ‘not interested’ and revel in knowing more about Big Brother 6 the TV programme, than whether the government’s ID Cards bill is a surveillance too far. I invariably challenge them, and an argument ensues.
Being ‘interested’ in politics is not like being ‘interested’ in sport, the arts, gardening or cooking. Politics is not simply about the Reds or the Blues at Westminster, but about the interaction between the State, groups and the individual. Unless one retires to a hermitage and lives in total solitude, you will interact with society, and you are therefore a political animal. If you drive a car, you are political. If you turn on a tap, you are political. If you buy food, have a bank account, go to school, use a telephone, you are political. To suggest that you are not is actually antisocial in every sense, and those who do not engage, though they have the capacity to do so, are every bit as liable for an ASBO as the hooligans who kick over wheelie bins.
Apathay devalues every decision taken by every government: Voter-apathy means that decision makers are elected by a tiny minority; and issue-apathy means that decisions are not subject to proper scrutiny, not made with enough public debate.
So to the fourteen percent, I say this: Your lack of engagement affects me in a very real way. I would go so far as to say that I have a human right to hear your opinion. Denying me that right is an abuse of your own human capacity for rational though, but more importantly, it inconveniences me a great deal.
To say “I’m not interested” is to be the tea-bag without water. It is a ridiculous and impossible position, and I will not stand for it. Moreover, if people start asserting their right to disengage, to be apathetic, then other people will soon start trying to deny them the vote, which we cannot condone.
So please, Mr and Mrs Fourteen Percent, I’ll make you a deal: Start engaging in some way, any way… and will I promise to stop droning on about my blog.
Over at Minority Report, DE discusses dumbing down: Playing Grand Theft Auto is probably more socially responsible than the more adult pursuit of corruption or aerial bombing. But when it displaces keeping up with the news or communicating with offspring then it seems less benign.
I was keen to see Syriana at the weekend. The film won a best supporting actor award for George Clooney (it was not, as is sometimes stated, for his role in Good Night and Good Luck). Clooney is a rather divisive actor, bless him, and many people took exception to his rather sanctimonius Oscar acceptance speech.
Tim Newman lives in Dubai, and he posts his thoughts on the oil industry and all things related at Desert Sun. Last week, he took Clooney and the makers of Syriana to task over some glaring factual inaccuracies in the film. It is quite an interesting insight into the film, but I fear on many of the points Tim might be missing the point. Many of the inaccuracies – which I looked out for when I saw it on Saturday – are clearly plot devices of the most basic kind. In reality, a US oil company may not plaster its logo over a refinery in the Middle-East… but taking such a liberty allows the film-makers to establish a link between two apparently disparate plot-lines. The strapline of the film is, after all, “everything is connected”.
And this mantra, this thesis, does hold water, even if the film presents an illiterate take on the oil industry. I do not see anything particularly radical, or left wing in this assertion. Indeed, I am reminded of an article by Nicholas Boles, Director of the right-wing Policy Exchange think-tank, which was published in The Times less than a month before the war in Iraq began. In “A perfectly moral case for fighting for Iraq’s oilfields”, Boles pointed out that a stable Middle-East is essential for the stability of western economies, (and therefore third world countries too). Yes, we meddle in the Middle-East. And yes, it is a good thing.
The characters in Syriana say much the same thing. For them, US control of the oil supply is obviously a necessity, and of obvious national interest. They truly believe this, even if the prime motivation is money. Not even the more morally upstanding characters, such as Jeffry Wright’s lawyer, or David Clennon’s Attorney General, refute this.
What these characters do refute, however, is the suggestion that Syriana is awash with stereotypes. Bennet Holiday (Wright) in particular is difficult to pin down as either a good guy or bad guy. Likewise with Matt Damon’s character, energy analyst Bryan Woodman, who we sympathise with due to the death of his son, but who nevertheless leaves his family to follow a lucrative and career making contract. The arrogant play-boy Prince Meshal is at least pro-West, while his more idealistic brother Prince Nasir looking like he may become another Osama Bin Laden by the time the film closes. One might expect Clooney’s character to save the day. He does not.
I was most struck by Chris Cooper’s character, oil man Jimmy Pope, who persuades lawyer Holiday not to delve too deeply into the workings of the oil business. He is obviously guilty of bribery, but (within the confines of his board room, obviously) he admits as much openly, and is somewhat incredulous that this should be considered wrong. Of course they bribe people! How else would they get the oil? And film asks the question of us, too. This is our reality (says another character), and if we want it to continue, then we must not just accept that bribery happens. It is actually desirable.
These exchanges are echos of interviews that writer/director Stephen Gaghan had with real oil industry executives. In a very interesting podcast interview with Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Gaghan explains how he researched and then constructed the film. During his travels and interviews, he was reminded how easily an economic balance, or simply the balance of power, can be tipped one way or another. Unlike his previous film Traffic, the idea behind this latest offering was to show, through carefully chosen transitions, how small, and connected, the world is.
I think Syriana succeeds in this respect. When it asks “Imagine if 30% of America were unable to heat their houses…” it reminds us that our governments should and must be concerned about global oil supply. The most telling line in the film is when two lawyers celebrate their role in the merger of two companies:
“You just visited what someday soon could be the most profitable corporation in America… Provided we don’t start running cars on water”
Contrast this with the following:
And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources — and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.
State of the Union 2006
President George W Bush knows that the only way out of the mess he finds himself in – we find ourselves in – is to move onto a better source of energy, one less adulterated with blood. If Syriana can persuade people in the United States (and elsewhere) of this imperative, then I think we can be tolerant of its inaccuracies and stereotypes where they exist. The message is a sound one.