I’ve only just got around to seeing this, and although I have been reliably informed that it has been “memed to death”, it really is very funny and if you haven’t seen a musical animated potted commentary on the current US political situation then you need to watch this.
Go!
Ok, I feel the need to demonstrate that I’m not just wallowing in self-pity musing on the shape my life is taking, so I’m going to write about Ideologues and Activists, something that the last election drew my attention to and this argument made me think about.
I’m what I’d like to call a pragmatic ideologue (in political, and moral terms). That is to say; I have ideals, but I’m incredibly aware of my limitations, and (to a lesser degree) am slightly cynical about the mechanisms in place to preserve my morals/politics.
I didn’t vote in the last elections. I wanted to, but essentially it was a hectic work week and voting got dragged to a low priority; even if I’d managed to make it to the polling station before it closed, I would have had no idea who I was voting for. I mean, I would never vote BNP or UKIP; there’s limited need for hesitation there; I am at least that liberal. Beyond that, I would have had no information.
In the argument I link to above, Chris, who I think of as a slightly idealistic activist, is accused, essentially, of letting his middle class sympathies (re; the War in Iraq) take control over his rationality in his view of the Labour Party, and their man Tony.
I say, even if this is true (and while I do think that Chris would have been slightly emotional about it, that there is a core of reason and evidence sitting somewhere that sustains his position quite rationally): so what? I’m completely aware that my ideal world is occasionally unsustainable, internally inconsistent or simply impossible. I’m aware of my mental state, which like me is “affluent but left wing”, but I don’t think that politics is predicated on pure rationality in any case.
I think I’m beginning to lose the thread somewhat; the point I wanted to make was simply this: ideology and political activism (even if its just democracy) are often incompatible, and irreconcilable. I think being a wishy-washy ideologue is absolutely fine because part of the politician’s job is to get you feeling that they’re doing the right thing, as well as doing it themselves.
But maybe that’s just an excuse for my general apathy. Who knows?
Since my recent silence began, this site has been visited by people from 27 countries, enabled by Google blogging, which has given a hundred mini- and un-optimized archive pages for each of my posts, and the friendly men at ‘G’ have also offered a terabyte of storage to selected Gmail users (not me). I’ve also audioscrobbled a fair number of songs, and have discovered a great new way to discover music based on music I like already, thanks to the mysterious ‘Bob’.
Tom has launched THE FIRST GLORIOUS TURKMENBASHI SHORT NON-FACTUAL WRITING CONTEST, Chris has been blogging in terms too geeky for me to understand although I still try, I’ve started reading the Economist Country Briefings to rid me of my occasional ignorance of events of world import.
Phew. And I haven’t even mentioned Tony Blair being attacked by a condom.
Oh. D’oh.
Seriously, y’all. That said, as Mr P frequently points out, weird is infinitely preferable to horrible.
Writing and therefore thinking, once again, on altruism – and trying to understand more fully some of the things that supposedly tie in to my world view.
I believe, in a nutshell, that humanity is predisposed to altruistic motivations (and therefore altruistic behaviour, on occasion when akrásia fails). And I believe there’s an evolutionary basis to this (and all other) morality.
What, then, is my view in light of the obvious and evident acts of torture and brutality that’s been going on, by the supposed good guys?
I guess, and this is something that Michael Madsen (Mr Blonde of Reservoir Dogs fame) says when talking about how to best play the bad guy: the bad guy never believes he’s the bad guy. Although this is not the most original thought there’s been, I think nothing could be more true than for the ‘crusaders’ in Iraq – watching their friends die in what they’ve been told is a war on evil, a war on terror.
The travesty, of course, is that no-one is quite speaking in terms of these acts of atrocity as acts of terror, acts of evil. They are atrocities, but somehow one accepts atrocities in war and we remain entrenched in the rut. I think someone needs to through the hyperbole back into Bush’s face and then we’ll see how grey his black and white universe is.
Alright, this is a post about two things. First, it’s about New Labour: some chaps called Tim Ireland and Balders, who I believe are friends of Chris, have put together a really excellent video presentation (warning: its a 1.3MB flash video, with good noise) outlining exactly where Labour has failed to deliver, and why the Tories would have been worse. It’s entitled, or at least themed, “I see red”. It goes by quickly, but is damn entertaining, damn informative and extremely well done. Check it out.
The second thing I’m blogging about is, well, again, blogging. A meta-level post: the point being, why regurgitate stuff on my blog that Chris has already posted on his, and no doubt has been blogged about everywhere else in the world? Well, because that’s how memes propogate: a meme, a viral piece of knowledge, is as successful as it is profligate: by my talking about it to my somewhat esoteric audience (which does include more people than just Chris and Tom, honest – about 5,000 hits this month, I think), the various Blog tracking services (Technorati, Blogdex etc.,) track the popularity of certain memes and rank them accordingly – they do this by scanning blogs with ‘bots – web programs that trawl for information. In fact, a substantial part of the traffic this site has seen is due to these network agents.
It’s really a remarkable way to track the progression of an idea – hence these remarks.
The impacts to branding, guerilla marketing and dirty tricks campaigners are reasonably obvious, but fortunately most good memes are still free and free of commercial sponsorship. Be interesting to see how it goes; the Blog seems to be on the up-and-up in terms of popularity (every loser has one), and increasingly communities of well read, well thought people doing more than rant about random internet crap are popping up. Watch this space.
It’s not far away, now, my dream of flying around fighting crime. Well, we’ve got the flight, and we’ve got the crime fighters…
Batman link via Chris. If the Telegraph link asks you to register, it’s not my fault. They are losers. Free information! Free Aung San Suu Kyi! Free jam!
Yesterday, Concorde made its, like, 7th “death march” up the Thames and onto Scotland, and Kate asked me if I wanted to go watch it. Curious as to what kind of spectacle it would make, I popped down there to have a look.
It was a big event; many, many people by the Westminster and Lambeth bridges. As they parallel parked the gigantic, wasteful, polluting, inefficient and ultimately failed aircraft, emblazoned with Scottish flags and other pagan iconography (this is a joke, Scottish people everywhere), I wondered if I could raise any appropriate comparisons to the magnificent house behind it… but then decided that I didn’t quite have the degree of wit or political know-how for it. Suggestions on a postcard.
All the same, it made for some interesting photos. The plane says “Concorde in Scotland” and the lift which raised it off the barge is clearly marked “Abnormal Load Engineering”, which I found amusing for some reason. Read the BBC’s report here. I think calling it “history in the making” was hyperbole much, though.
I’ve just started reading Jennifer Government, a novel by Max Barry; thus far its a very amusing vision of a dystopic ‘capitalizm’-centric universe. Here, the ultimate in marketing strategies involves not selling your product and then, when you finally do, shooting the people who buy it. It has a corresponding website, Nation States, which allows people to play a kind of political role-playing-game – you get to choose the location and politics of your country.
Which brings me to my subject: points of reference. I have two; the Sun, and the Devil. Nothing is better than the Sun, and everything is better than the Devil. I don’t think there’s need for anything further.
To that end, I’ve started up two countries on Nation States – “The Rogue Nation of Badass Devils” and the “Republic of the Sunne“. In one, I will vote exactly opposite to my inclinations, in the other I will try to be faithful to them (I’ll let you, dear reader, decide which is which) – and we’ll see who ultimately prevails.
The ultimate battle between good and evil. Right here. Right now. Bring it.
I’ve been walking head first into inspiration lately. First, I read Michael Moore’s latest book, Dude, Where’s My Country, and determined to write to Mr Moore, get a job working on his staff and move to Washington to help the war against Dubya.
Then I watched School of Rock and Mr Jack Black’s high octane, high energy honest-rocking got me geared to write songs. In fact, last Saturday I met a cute New Zealander, and while I failed, in consultant terminology, to “seal the deal”, I’ve decided to throw my inhibitions to the so-called winds and write a song about the sexiness of antipodean-accented-ladies Although I may have to substitute “Australia” for “New Zealand”, for the benefit of good scansion.
While I’ve done and watched many other things recently, the lingering power of those two works has me contemplating my own future, self-involved egotistical bull as that may seem. Michael Moore points out in Dude that the truth of capitalism is that you, being Joe Average, are not ever going to get rich and famous, and that’s part of Capitalist America’s myth that ultimately allows people like Dubya to make massive tax cuts for rich people (because Joe believes that one day he’ll be there, and he’d like that tax cut then). I, being reluctant to accept that I’m Joe Average in any way, and with minimal inclination to money and power, at least, am still looking for a way to change the world. Ok, some money and power might be helpful to that end, but I’m looking for a route. Waiting for my rocket to come. Waiting for my real life to begin.
So a public thanks to Michael Moore and Jack Black. You charming chubby Americans, your pride in what you do, the strength of your convictions and your tireless struggle to promote ideology which I have strong empathy for, if not entirely believe, is inspirational. In the words of AC/DC (and possibly they were paraphrasing a Caesar, but who really knows?): “For those about to rock, I salute you.”
Or in the case of Mr Moore and Mr Black: for those already rockin’.
Afterthought: perhaps the Liberal Myth is that one man can make a difference. I’m not sure I’m cynical enough to abandon that yet.