Nationalism is a fantasy. Like religion it can mean whatever you want it to mean and doesn’t have to be encumbered by too much reality. Nationalism is put forward either by political types who are deluded enough to actually believe its promises or by those who use it for purposes of manipulation. As with religious doctrine, it is driven by human impulses both naive and sinister.
I dislike the nationalistic outlook because I prefer building bridges to knocking them down and staking nationalist claims is invariably destructive. It draws on the more primal, pre-intellectual aspects of the human being. Now, it may well be that groupings of smaller units held together by international agreements is a better way of organising world politics than what exists currently. Maybe we should be moving towards that. Who knows. Whichever way, it is always so much harder to build a bridge than to destroy one. It is easier to huddle together in a tribe than it is to go out and make new and constructive connections.
The European initiative was about bridge building. The currency may have hit the rocks recently but at least it was an attempt for some old communities, often historically hostile, to come together in common cause. A generation earlier Europeans were murdering each over German nationalism. The Europe of my lifetime has allowed me to go to Germany, to live, work and participate there if so inclined without having to ask some guy in a uniform for permission. That is a huge benefit. That the project is having such a tough time is a reminder of how tough such initiatives can be.
These thoughts are relevant because of the Scottish government’s current agenda of putting independence on the table. Being pretty much against that agenda I am nevertheless interested in the detail. Just recently for example the Nationalists announced they would keep sterling as the currency in an independent Scotland. It was immediately pointed out how, straight of the bat, Scotland would then be tethered to London and the Bank of England in the same way that the countries in the eurozone have recently had to look to Germany for leadership. The alternatives - adopting the beleaguered euro or creating a new currency - are less appealing and riskier. With that decision alone, immediately your independence is not so independent.
Whether you value the United Kingdom or not it is still a three-hundred year union. The notion that the Scots have the absolute right, legally, morally and any other way, to dismantle it is delusional. Others have a say too in what would amount to the ending of an institution in which they are partners. The SNP’s bellicose pronouncement that it is up to Scotland alone to make that decision is typical of the kind of arrogance associated with nationalism. It pontificates as if Scotland is an autonomous unit, already sovereign and separate, able to act from self-determining positions. It is not. It is part of an alliance with an ancient history, one that when formed in 1707 set the tone for an end to centuries of war and conflict. I don’t say that as any kind of unionist, merely as someone respectful of these old associations. Unlike many Scots I bare no animosity whatsoever towards the English. And that is another thing that fuels nationalist sentiment in Scotland: a hatred of Englishness that is positively xenophobic.
Of course, a more credible basis for an independent Scotland would be the case for economic advantage. I suspect that might be the issue that would swing the balance. True to reputation, they’re a canny lot the Scots and would go the distance for a bag of cash. If the SNP were to make a convincing argument for financial gain, if they could turn their dubious claims about oil revenues into something believable, then I suspect their fantasy could be a step closer to reality. To seal the deal they might then offer everyone a job working for the state. Scotland’s tribal roots, masking as communitarian and still vibrant under the veneer of modernity, could then achieve apotheosis. Like a latter day Gaddafi, some future Son of Salmond could officiate from the glens in full kilted regalia and the picture would be replete. Ridiculous, yes. But perfectly in keeping with the romantic nonsense of nationalism.
Where quoting from Judith Stacey’s book was helpful with aspects of relationship life, a business equivalent would be the essays of Paul Graham. Graham is a software guy whose technology paved the way for making internet purchasing possible. He sold to Yahoo! and now funds start-ups.
He also writes insightful pieces on the creative and business trials facing people who are establishing new ventures. Although his focus is on tech start-ups his thoughts are philosophical and apply to anyone involved in any creative endeavour where they are fully committed to making it work.
I have quoted here from Paul’s writings some remarks which connect closely with my own experience as an independent music-maker. No one I know has the kind of wisdom he has, let alone who could articulate it if they had. Being able to access intelligence like this across a divide is lifeblood to me. Such is the value of the internet.
On getting a venture going.
From: Start-Ups in 13 Sentences
From: Cities & Ambition
He also writes insightful pieces on the creative and business trials facing people who are establishing new ventures. Although his focus is on tech start-ups his thoughts are philosophical and apply to anyone involved in any creative endeavour where they are fully committed to making it work.
I have quoted here from Paul’s writings some remarks which connect closely with my own experience as an independent music-maker. No one I know has the kind of wisdom he has, let alone who could articulate it if they had. Being able to access intelligence like this across a divide is lifeblood to me. Such is the value of the internet.
On getting a venture going.
From: Start-Ups in 13 Sentences
The number one thing not to do is other things. Nothing kills like distractions. The worst type are those that pay money.On the importance of being around like minds.
From: Cities & Ambition
Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few places where that sort of thing was done at the time. You get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.
I’ve spent a lot of energy over years in the tortuous process of raising money to fund my ventures. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes it took so long to succeed that by the time the money was raised I was so demoralised the last thing I felt like doing was the venture itself. Here is Paul on the perils of trying to get funding.
From: The Anatomy of Determination
From: A Fundraising Survival Guide
What kills you is the disappointment. And the lower your expectations, the harder it is to be disappointed.
When it comes to deals, you have to consciously turn off your everyday intuitions and become pathologically cynical.
Don’t take rejection personally.
The worst case scenario is the long no, the no that comes after months of meetings.
Most investors have no idea how dangerous they are. They'd be surprised to hear that raising money from them is something that has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival.
There are people who make and there are people who manage and these two jobs require very different mindsets. I know so well that as a maker (music in my case) you need the freedom to flow. Paul talks about how one meeting in a day can ruin the flow.
From: Maker’s Schedule, Manager's ScheduleA single meeting can blow a whole afternoon. I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you're a maker, think of your own case. Don't your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.
On how working for yourself is more natural than being employed.
From: You Weren’t Meant To Have A Boss
If you're not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them.
It will always suck to work for large organisations, and the larger the organisation, the more it will suck.On the drive required for success.
From: The Anatomy of Determination
Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline. The more willful you are, the more disciplined you have to be.
One reason the young sometimes succeed where the old fail is that they don't realise how incompetent they are.
Achievements tend to increase your ambition.
Most types of work have aspects one doesn't like, because most types of work consist of doing things for other people, and it's very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to align exactly with what you want to do.
I’ve spent much of my adult life going against conformity. Trying to stay clear of the conventions around exclusive relationships has been especially stressful and a constant fight. Thus far I have won battles but they have been costly and perhaps I have ultimately lost the war. I’ve increasingly had to forsake valued things like intimacy, romance and the kind of connection and companionship that spices a life.
I’ve particularly resisted the sort of monogamy upheld by conformists. I am unsuited to much of what they demand. It took a long while to get over the suspicion that there had to be something wrong with me. I imagine I’m not alone and that there are many people coupled who probably shouldn’t be, at least not in the customary way. Yet I’ve often wondered why, among the thousands of people I’ve known throughout a varied social life with many attachments, I’ve met hardly anyone who shares a similar outlook when it comes to relationships. All the women, with no exceptions, sought exclusive commitment along conventional lines, either explicitly or furtively.
It’s also true that I’ve come across almost no literature which looks at possibilities for living outside of partnership norms. Reading Tracey Clark-Flory’s excellent articles on monogamy in The Salon changed that, in particular her interview with sociologist Judith Stacey about the need for alternatives to the standard models for intimacy.
It’s uplifting to find an author who helps make sense of your thoughts and experience. Stacey’s book about love, marriage and family values did just that for me. She is not advocating full scale re-evaluation of the moral codes around relationships. She is saying there is a need for other ways and the lack of alternatives is actually damaging for many people and to society as a whole. Bravo!
The book is titled “Unhitched”. Rather than attempt to summarise it, here are some quotes that resonated with me:
I’ve particularly resisted the sort of monogamy upheld by conformists. I am unsuited to much of what they demand. It took a long while to get over the suspicion that there had to be something wrong with me. I imagine I’m not alone and that there are many people coupled who probably shouldn’t be, at least not in the customary way. Yet I’ve often wondered why, among the thousands of people I’ve known throughout a varied social life with many attachments, I’ve met hardly anyone who shares a similar outlook when it comes to relationships. All the women, with no exceptions, sought exclusive commitment along conventional lines, either explicitly or furtively.
It’s also true that I’ve come across almost no literature which looks at possibilities for living outside of partnership norms. Reading Tracey Clark-Flory’s excellent articles on monogamy in The Salon changed that, in particular her interview with sociologist Judith Stacey about the need for alternatives to the standard models for intimacy.
It’s uplifting to find an author who helps make sense of your thoughts and experience. Stacey’s book about love, marriage and family values did just that for me. She is not advocating full scale re-evaluation of the moral codes around relationships. She is saying there is a need for other ways and the lack of alternatives is actually damaging for many people and to society as a whole. Bravo!
The book is titled “Unhitched”. Rather than attempt to summarise it, here are some quotes that resonated with me:
Monogamy is not natural or even possible for everyone.
The normal family is not normal. Family diversity has always been normal.
Domesticity is rarely an aphrodisiac.
Throughout much of human history, and still throughout much of the world, romantic love has occupied a realm outside of marriage. Most family systems try to manage the conflict between desire and domesticity by sacrificing the yearnings of the former to the demands of the latter.
A family system that insists on hitching eros to domesticity through monogamous marriage is a recipe not for stability but for higher rates of adultery and divorce.
The sooner and better our society comes to terms with the inescapable variety of intimacy and kinship in the modern world, the fewer unhappy families it will generate.
Whether or not we want more sex in our lives, we and our societies could certainly benefit from more forthrightness and less shame or hypocrisy about our sexual yearning.
We might redefine fidelity to signify faithfulness to the particular sexual, emotional and social commitments that intimates mutually arrive at through honest negotiation and renegotiation. Sexual integrity should trump exclusivity.
The normal family ideology fosters bad faith, bad behaviour and bad public policy. A singular focus on monogamous heterosexual marriage justifies discrimination and disrespect for everyone who lives outside the charmed family circle, whether by design or by destiny. It generates infidelity, deception, desertion, high divorce rates and family instability.
The state should be trying to assure that citizens can freely enter supportive relationships and freely exit abusive ones. It should value the quality and substance of relationships over their form.
This week Amanda Knox faces the final stage of her appeal against a murder conviction in an Italian court. Having spent four years mired in the machinations of law enforcement it looks now like she and her co-accused, Raffaele Sollecito, are only days away from being released from the long nightmare of a wrongful verdict. It looks that way but it is not foregone. The prosecution is going all out to make sure the earlier sentence sticks and as a result some of the argument heard in that court-room in Perugia this week has been colourful to say the least. The young American has been characterised as both she-devil and Jessica Rabbit.
Of the shocking aspects of the case, not least the savage murder of Knox’s British housemate Meredith Kercher, the lack of hard evidence against the accused pair stands out. They were convicted mostly on circumstantial evidence along with some questionable DNA. Less questionable is the standing conviction for Meredith’s murder of Rudy Guede an outsider with only a tenuous connection to the others involved. Every kind of evidence pointed to him short of his signature on the wall of the murder scene. He is already doing sixteen years with all appeals exhausted.
So why were Knox and her partner also dragged into the web of accusation? It seems Amanda’s odd behaviour explains much of that. She didn’t exhibit the right attitude for someone whose friend had just been murdered. And under pressure from the not very competent authorities she confessed to having been present when the murder was committed fingering another man, Patrick Lumumba, in the process. Though Lamumba was the police’s own suspect, when his alibi checked out Amanda was in deep trouble. She had been incriminated after days of aggressive questioning with no representation; the “confession” was taken from her under duress in an interrogation later deemed illegal and inadmissible in court.
Having a dodgy prosecutor hasn’t done much for justice either. His focus was led by sexual preoccupation. He posited a murder driven by some bizarre sex game gone wrong. Who knows where he got that from but consequently the arguments made against Knox have had a prurient thrust. This week at the closings the lawyers attacking her have been especially virulent. Knox didn’t only commit a murder, she did it because she is evil and demonic, given to drug binges and rampant sexuality. This quasi-medieval language in a modern court-room with such heavy issues at stake is reprehensible. It strikes me as the sound of a losing argument in a last ditch attempt to sway the jury. Equally ridiculous is the vindictive demand that Knox should have her 26-year sentence increased to life and be given six months of day time solitary. The logic here is that the crime was devoid of motive. Are they oblivious that a lack of motive is also consistent with innocence?
If ever there was a time when humanity needs to be hyper-rational it is when it has one of its number in the trial dock. It is then that courts need to employ all powers of forensic logic available to them and stay as close as possible to where the facts lead. Alas that proves to be too high an expectation. The adversarial system reduces to being a contest high in theatricals and rhetorical slant. The outcomes are less to do with establishing truth and more to do with what can be made stick. Justice gets compromised and is at times rendered barely credible.
I hope an acquittal isn’t too much for the Italian legal system to sanction. Its credibility will have been shaken and there is a danger it will seek to save face by upholding the previous conviction. This would be a further offence. It is criminal in itself that systems of law punish people by simply accusing them. They can do so with as much time as it takes and the players can build virtually any case they like in pursuit of their end. The perpetrators of such legalised injustice walk away guilt free after having inflicted considerable damage on a defendant. That doesn’t seem very just.
What happened to Meredith Kercher on that terrible night back in 2007 is horrific. Her brutal killing is the overriding tragedy here not to be forgotten. Nothing about the outcome of the trial can change that. But although the desire for retribution is strong, particularly for the victim’s family, it shouldn’t cloud the conclusion. It certainly shouldn’t add further injury to an already grave situation by disregarding reasonable doubt. If the defendants had nothing to do with the crime then only they know for sure. It must be very distressing to be wrongly accused when you and only you know it. It must be one of the loneliest predicaments ever to be in. Knox may have brought it upon them with her odd behaviour but odd behaviour isn’t criminal behaviour.
I don't like forming partisan opinions about court cases absent of sound knowledge as if in some reality show. I don’t know for sure if the accused are innocent of the charge though my guess is they are. I do know that a system that puts people in the dock has to be scrupulous and the Italian version was not. From incompetent policemen with their bungle and botch to eccentric lawyers with a dubious moral agenda it fell short of the mark. There comes a point when shaping facts to fit an accusation is tantamount to framing. The case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito should have been let go when findings didn’t meet with initial suspicions, certainly by the time evidence against Guede was discovered. At that point the trial in Perugia was set to became an affront to justice. That is why the jury must now acquit.
The most illuminating piece I read about this case was by Nathaniel Rich in Rolling Stone: The Never-ending Nightmare Of Amanda Knox
UPDATE: 8/10/11
They were acquitted. I was nervous for these kids as the verdict went out live across the world. And the more I read about the case in the following days the more convinced I became of their innocence. Now the incarceration looks all the more like a terrible cruelty, a crime on top of a crime as I said.
The bile that was thrown up on Knox was a disgrace, the Daily Mail in the UK being especially belligerent. That dreadful rag couldn’t contain itself. Upon the jury’s announcement, one of its bile-makers, Nick Pisa, actually sent out a pre-written report wrongly stating that the original conviction had been upheld. The next day it summoned Amanda Platell to continue the dirty work. She didn’t know whether Knox was guilty or not but asked what was it about her that “so chills the blood”. I’ll match one bitchy remark with another and suggest that Platell’s comparative ugliness speaks to that.
And there’s a thing: A pretty, young, American was tried by tabloid and found guilty when the evidence against her was next to none. A black African with a ton of evidence to incriminate him had his sentence for the crime halved on appeal and these same voices were silent. A shameful indictment indeed.
Of the shocking aspects of the case, not least the savage murder of Knox’s British housemate Meredith Kercher, the lack of hard evidence against the accused pair stands out. They were convicted mostly on circumstantial evidence along with some questionable DNA. Less questionable is the standing conviction for Meredith’s murder of Rudy Guede an outsider with only a tenuous connection to the others involved. Every kind of evidence pointed to him short of his signature on the wall of the murder scene. He is already doing sixteen years with all appeals exhausted.
So why were Knox and her partner also dragged into the web of accusation? It seems Amanda’s odd behaviour explains much of that. She didn’t exhibit the right attitude for someone whose friend had just been murdered. And under pressure from the not very competent authorities she confessed to having been present when the murder was committed fingering another man, Patrick Lumumba, in the process. Though Lamumba was the police’s own suspect, when his alibi checked out Amanda was in deep trouble. She had been incriminated after days of aggressive questioning with no representation; the “confession” was taken from her under duress in an interrogation later deemed illegal and inadmissible in court.
Having a dodgy prosecutor hasn’t done much for justice either. His focus was led by sexual preoccupation. He posited a murder driven by some bizarre sex game gone wrong. Who knows where he got that from but consequently the arguments made against Knox have had a prurient thrust. This week at the closings the lawyers attacking her have been especially virulent. Knox didn’t only commit a murder, she did it because she is evil and demonic, given to drug binges and rampant sexuality. This quasi-medieval language in a modern court-room with such heavy issues at stake is reprehensible. It strikes me as the sound of a losing argument in a last ditch attempt to sway the jury. Equally ridiculous is the vindictive demand that Knox should have her 26-year sentence increased to life and be given six months of day time solitary. The logic here is that the crime was devoid of motive. Are they oblivious that a lack of motive is also consistent with innocence?
If ever there was a time when humanity needs to be hyper-rational it is when it has one of its number in the trial dock. It is then that courts need to employ all powers of forensic logic available to them and stay as close as possible to where the facts lead. Alas that proves to be too high an expectation. The adversarial system reduces to being a contest high in theatricals and rhetorical slant. The outcomes are less to do with establishing truth and more to do with what can be made stick. Justice gets compromised and is at times rendered barely credible.
I hope an acquittal isn’t too much for the Italian legal system to sanction. Its credibility will have been shaken and there is a danger it will seek to save face by upholding the previous conviction. This would be a further offence. It is criminal in itself that systems of law punish people by simply accusing them. They can do so with as much time as it takes and the players can build virtually any case they like in pursuit of their end. The perpetrators of such legalised injustice walk away guilt free after having inflicted considerable damage on a defendant. That doesn’t seem very just.
What happened to Meredith Kercher on that terrible night back in 2007 is horrific. Her brutal killing is the overriding tragedy here not to be forgotten. Nothing about the outcome of the trial can change that. But although the desire for retribution is strong, particularly for the victim’s family, it shouldn’t cloud the conclusion. It certainly shouldn’t add further injury to an already grave situation by disregarding reasonable doubt. If the defendants had nothing to do with the crime then only they know for sure. It must be very distressing to be wrongly accused when you and only you know it. It must be one of the loneliest predicaments ever to be in. Knox may have brought it upon them with her odd behaviour but odd behaviour isn’t criminal behaviour.
I don't like forming partisan opinions about court cases absent of sound knowledge as if in some reality show. I don’t know for sure if the accused are innocent of the charge though my guess is they are. I do know that a system that puts people in the dock has to be scrupulous and the Italian version was not. From incompetent policemen with their bungle and botch to eccentric lawyers with a dubious moral agenda it fell short of the mark. There comes a point when shaping facts to fit an accusation is tantamount to framing. The case against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito should have been let go when findings didn’t meet with initial suspicions, certainly by the time evidence against Guede was discovered. At that point the trial in Perugia was set to became an affront to justice. That is why the jury must now acquit.
The most illuminating piece I read about this case was by Nathaniel Rich in Rolling Stone: The Never-ending Nightmare Of Amanda Knox
UPDATE: 8/10/11
They were acquitted. I was nervous for these kids as the verdict went out live across the world. And the more I read about the case in the following days the more convinced I became of their innocence. Now the incarceration looks all the more like a terrible cruelty, a crime on top of a crime as I said.
The bile that was thrown up on Knox was a disgrace, the Daily Mail in the UK being especially belligerent. That dreadful rag couldn’t contain itself. Upon the jury’s announcement, one of its bile-makers, Nick Pisa, actually sent out a pre-written report wrongly stating that the original conviction had been upheld. The next day it summoned Amanda Platell to continue the dirty work. She didn’t know whether Knox was guilty or not but asked what was it about her that “so chills the blood”. I’ll match one bitchy remark with another and suggest that Platell’s comparative ugliness speaks to that.
And there’s a thing: A pretty, young, American was tried by tabloid and found guilty when the evidence against her was next to none. A black African with a ton of evidence to incriminate him had his sentence for the crime halved on appeal and these same voices were silent. A shameful indictment indeed.
My earlier post about Protools not being so easy to master led to another question: does the apocryphal ease of studio apps suggest a more widespread prejudice against music production generally?
I'd say so, yes. It seems something has happened down the years for producer types to have lost credibility. They seem to have been sucked into the trashed reputation of the corporate record business and become tarnished by it’s excesses. After all, the successful ones did share in the vast spoils able to take a percentage chunk of an artist’s income. All the while they are barely considered to be artists themselves. At best they’re catalysts, at worst knob-twiddling parasites who ProTools the life out of otherwise sparky and talented performers.
Of course producers are invariably as much artists as anyone else worthy of the name. A well crafted production is a high value thing. Producers have often been virtual band members whose contribution to a work is essential sometimes definitive. Some write songs, do arrangements and perform on tracks. Others, like me, are in at the inception of a project with a hand at every stage the same way a film director might be.
The exemplary work of greats like Quincy Jones, Trevor Horn and Brian Eno puts them in a category of creative artists as outstanding as in any field. Contrast their production values to those on most contemporary records and the current crop doesn’t come close. Many modern works sound almost amateurish by comparison, like demos. They are so devoid of production that being that way is almost considered a virtue. Obviously I’m not suggesting that high production is a requirement for good work. Just that it shouldn’t be disparaged.
I think that the devaluing of the producer’s art has been compounded by the availability of cheap software tools for music, making it seem as if production is no longer necessary, no longer valid, no longer artful. Surely that’s a nonsense. The assumption that production is easy and irrelevant because the kit is cheap is ignorant. It makes about as much sense as saying that because guitars are affordable anyone can be Hendrix. Plainly ridiculous.
Those who comment on these things and who shape the zeitgeist need to be better informed. They have a responsibility I’d say to be initiated and not allow their lack of knowledge and experience to dictate a prejudice especially when that prejudice is detrimental to the craft. Until then perhaps they might comment less. The producer’s art in its myriad forms is a precious thing and one very much worth preserving.
I'd say so, yes. It seems something has happened down the years for producer types to have lost credibility. They seem to have been sucked into the trashed reputation of the corporate record business and become tarnished by it’s excesses. After all, the successful ones did share in the vast spoils able to take a percentage chunk of an artist’s income. All the while they are barely considered to be artists themselves. At best they’re catalysts, at worst knob-twiddling parasites who ProTools the life out of otherwise sparky and talented performers.
Of course producers are invariably as much artists as anyone else worthy of the name. A well crafted production is a high value thing. Producers have often been virtual band members whose contribution to a work is essential sometimes definitive. Some write songs, do arrangements and perform on tracks. Others, like me, are in at the inception of a project with a hand at every stage the same way a film director might be.
The exemplary work of greats like Quincy Jones, Trevor Horn and Brian Eno puts them in a category of creative artists as outstanding as in any field. Contrast their production values to those on most contemporary records and the current crop doesn’t come close. Many modern works sound almost amateurish by comparison, like demos. They are so devoid of production that being that way is almost considered a virtue. Obviously I’m not suggesting that high production is a requirement for good work. Just that it shouldn’t be disparaged.
I think that the devaluing of the producer’s art has been compounded by the availability of cheap software tools for music, making it seem as if production is no longer necessary, no longer valid, no longer artful. Surely that’s a nonsense. The assumption that production is easy and irrelevant because the kit is cheap is ignorant. It makes about as much sense as saying that because guitars are affordable anyone can be Hendrix. Plainly ridiculous.
Those who comment on these things and who shape the zeitgeist need to be better informed. They have a responsibility I’d say to be initiated and not allow their lack of knowledge and experience to dictate a prejudice especially when that prejudice is detrimental to the craft. Until then perhaps they might comment less. The producer’s art in its myriad forms is a precious thing and one very much worth preserving.
It’s annoying to hear commentators talk about music production software as if using it was a doddle. Like my remarks about Auto-tune recently such comments belie ignorance. It took me forever to command ProTools. It was a while before I didn’t have to stop every five minutes to ask why the damn thing wasn’t complying. Constantly the flow was broken. Many hours were lost sometimes just trying to complete one small innocuous task. And then there were the compatibility issues i.e. getting everything in the system to talk to everything else. Just recently we spent three days trying to hook ProTools up with a digital mixer before giving up. Maybe we’ll come back to it. Maybe not. The will to live soon drains from your soul. At that point I want to kill these people, the designers who didn’t try hard enough, the ones who weren’t Steve Jobs enough to push for a higher resolution in order to arrive at that promised land, the place where stuff “just works”.
It’s true that increasingly there are software tools where first base can be achieved more easily. Apple’s Garageband is one such. But to go to any level of complexity, to be able to use these programmes like musical instruments in a full-spec professional way, is a whole other thing. First base isn’t enough. You need complete command just as you do with any musical instrument. The instrument itself needs to be transparent. Thousands of hours of dedication are required to achieve that no matter how fast you are on the pick-up.
And just to be clear, I’m talking thousands of hours AFTER you’ve struggled with the bullshit from bad design. By that I mean everything from hellish configuration trials to the obtuseness of the operational aspects. ProTools particularly is full of eccentric nonsense that should’ve been long since fixed. The company are also monumentally slow at bringing in crucial features that lesser applications had going a decade ago. I suppose having the biggest market share affords that kind of complacency.
I read some guy the other day telling about the amazing things his four year-old was doing with Garageband. While that is interesting in itself, it creates a false impression. The fact is that studio instruments, traditional and contemporary, are tough to master. The idea that you buy a rig, press a few buttons and like magic have a beautifully produced album is ridiculous. ProTools, once tamed, is an incredible instrument but achieving mastery over it is no mean feat.
Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple yesterday and is everywhere being discussed like he’s dead already. I suppose the obituary style commentary is fair enough given that his standing down is a death of sorts. It’s the death of an iconic man’s career, the career of a rare individual admired by millions.
We owe a lot to Jobs. There are few of us who haven’t used his products and been delighted with the experience, at least a little. From the playfulness of the early Macs to the tactile magic of the iPhone and iPad, Apple became the byword for quality of engineering and design, available to all.
When I bought my first Mac I didn’t know I needed it. A friend told me I did and he was right. Soon as I powered up it took me on a ride, a “bicycle for the mind” indeed. A creative impulse, particularly to write, was ignited. That was twenty years ago and hardly a day has passed when an Apple device hasn’t serviced me in some way.
It wasn’t always unalloyed joy of course. Trying to get computer software to bend to my will in the recording studio was an almighty battle. Friendlier to use, and the main act for me, was the whole iPod/iTunes phenomenon which dragged the record business kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. It has been a revelation. I now listen to more music than I ever did, work and play, with ever greater appreciation. I realise now we were too much beholden to the fads of gatekeepers and tastemakers. Being increasingly free of them in a world of ready access is a liberation and although Apple is not solely responsible for that its contribution has been at the leading edge. Without the drive and tenacity of Steve Jobs to force the major labels’ hand then things would not have advanced as they have.
On a human level I feel a certain connection to Jobs. We are about the same age. Like me, he has the 60s counter-culture in his spiritual DNA. Like me, he renounced convention and went his own way. Like me, he can be prickly and difficult. He has been criticised for his abrasive manner but when you go your own way, to do so without force of personality would be to wither on the vine. I think he will be roundly forgiven for his shortcomings.
It is clear that the health of Apple, currently the highest valued company in the world, is in sharp contrast to the health of its celebrated founder. It is not the said thing but I guess his resignation is a prelude to his further demise. The human condition is brutal like that: it gives here and takes away there. I think it’s fair to say that Steve Jobs has given more than he has taken. Likely he will be going home to die now, and if he’s not there already, to pass into legend.
UPDATE: 8/10/11
As I suspected when I wrote a few weeks back Steve didn’t have long to go. He died on Thursday of this week. Having already said my piece, I’ll do the guy a final credit by quoting him. His words have a ring of the mantra about them:
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
We owe a lot to Jobs. There are few of us who haven’t used his products and been delighted with the experience, at least a little. From the playfulness of the early Macs to the tactile magic of the iPhone and iPad, Apple became the byword for quality of engineering and design, available to all.
When I bought my first Mac I didn’t know I needed it. A friend told me I did and he was right. Soon as I powered up it took me on a ride, a “bicycle for the mind” indeed. A creative impulse, particularly to write, was ignited. That was twenty years ago and hardly a day has passed when an Apple device hasn’t serviced me in some way.
It wasn’t always unalloyed joy of course. Trying to get computer software to bend to my will in the recording studio was an almighty battle. Friendlier to use, and the main act for me, was the whole iPod/iTunes phenomenon which dragged the record business kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. It has been a revelation. I now listen to more music than I ever did, work and play, with ever greater appreciation. I realise now we were too much beholden to the fads of gatekeepers and tastemakers. Being increasingly free of them in a world of ready access is a liberation and although Apple is not solely responsible for that its contribution has been at the leading edge. Without the drive and tenacity of Steve Jobs to force the major labels’ hand then things would not have advanced as they have.
On a human level I feel a certain connection to Jobs. We are about the same age. Like me, he has the 60s counter-culture in his spiritual DNA. Like me, he renounced convention and went his own way. Like me, he can be prickly and difficult. He has been criticised for his abrasive manner but when you go your own way, to do so without force of personality would be to wither on the vine. I think he will be roundly forgiven for his shortcomings.
It is clear that the health of Apple, currently the highest valued company in the world, is in sharp contrast to the health of its celebrated founder. It is not the said thing but I guess his resignation is a prelude to his further demise. The human condition is brutal like that: it gives here and takes away there. I think it’s fair to say that Steve Jobs has given more than he has taken. Likely he will be going home to die now, and if he’s not there already, to pass into legend.
UPDATE: 8/10/11
As I suspected when I wrote a few weeks back Steve didn’t have long to go. He died on Thursday of this week. Having already said my piece, I’ll do the guy a final credit by quoting him. His words have a ring of the mantra about them:
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
I wish they would stop saying that using Auto-tune somehow slights your artistry. The idea is uninformed and only shows the ignorance of those who propound it. There are even some who will choose not to like a singer’s work any longer should they learn the despicable tuning software was used on a recording.
I hate to bust their bunny-rabbit world but studio people have been fixing the intonation of performers for decades. The process was called editing. Initially it was done by cutting tape, by choosing from multiple takes and splicing the best of them together. When multi-tracking appeared it was “dropping in” that took care of it - i.e. dubbing over offending lines with improved ones. Sometimes several takes of a vocal were recorded on separate tracks and the best ones chosen from the many to form a composite. This process survived into the digital age and became known as “comping”, easily done with ProTools and the likes.
Tuning software, appropriately used, further assists that rather mundane process of fixing intonation. It is only a different and more effective way of doing what has long since been a common-place procedure. Using software to perform the task means less fussing at the voice recording stage in favour of the more important aspects of performance. Pitch problems can be identified by ear in the time honoured way and the software used simply to make the correction, painlessly and undetectable even by the singer. It is a perfectly legitimate practice with nothing necessarily fake about it, at least no more fake than music recording has ever been.
If there is a contentious issue it is overuse. It is tempting when using the eye rather than the ear - when being able to actually see on the screen that a note is off centre - to correct everything. I think that is to be avoided. A vocal too perfectly pitched feels unnatural. I suppose the worst culprit is “auto” mode when the corrections are quite audible. Of course the artificiality of “auto” may well be the effect that does it for you in which case artistic license presides. At that point the two finger gesture is the appropriate one towards critics.
Yes, there is an awful lot of rubbish talked about how studio tech is used, as if the recording techniques themselves conferred a legitimacy on a work. I don’t agree with that at all. The beginning and end of artistry is connection. It doesn’t matter how music is recorded: using a laptop or an SSL console, one microphone or fifty, digital or analogue, professional or amateur, it is impact that counts, whether listeners are touched or not. The tools and instruments employed to get there are of no consequence to anyone other than the train-spotters.
Auto-tune when used skilfully is transparent and undetectable. It is therefore legitimate. Overused, then like any badly executed technique it can be called out. To condemn its usage absolutely is unhelpful and uninformed. It is time for those who do to shut up and let a useful tool have its place.
I hate to bust their bunny-rabbit world but studio people have been fixing the intonation of performers for decades. The process was called editing. Initially it was done by cutting tape, by choosing from multiple takes and splicing the best of them together. When multi-tracking appeared it was “dropping in” that took care of it - i.e. dubbing over offending lines with improved ones. Sometimes several takes of a vocal were recorded on separate tracks and the best ones chosen from the many to form a composite. This process survived into the digital age and became known as “comping”, easily done with ProTools and the likes.
Tuning software, appropriately used, further assists that rather mundane process of fixing intonation. It is only a different and more effective way of doing what has long since been a common-place procedure. Using software to perform the task means less fussing at the voice recording stage in favour of the more important aspects of performance. Pitch problems can be identified by ear in the time honoured way and the software used simply to make the correction, painlessly and undetectable even by the singer. It is a perfectly legitimate practice with nothing necessarily fake about it, at least no more fake than music recording has ever been.
If there is a contentious issue it is overuse. It is tempting when using the eye rather than the ear - when being able to actually see on the screen that a note is off centre - to correct everything. I think that is to be avoided. A vocal too perfectly pitched feels unnatural. I suppose the worst culprit is “auto” mode when the corrections are quite audible. Of course the artificiality of “auto” may well be the effect that does it for you in which case artistic license presides. At that point the two finger gesture is the appropriate one towards critics.
Yes, there is an awful lot of rubbish talked about how studio tech is used, as if the recording techniques themselves conferred a legitimacy on a work. I don’t agree with that at all. The beginning and end of artistry is connection. It doesn’t matter how music is recorded: using a laptop or an SSL console, one microphone or fifty, digital or analogue, professional or amateur, it is impact that counts, whether listeners are touched or not. The tools and instruments employed to get there are of no consequence to anyone other than the train-spotters.
Auto-tune when used skilfully is transparent and undetectable. It is therefore legitimate. Overused, then like any badly executed technique it can be called out. To condemn its usage absolutely is unhelpful and uninformed. It is time for those who do to shut up and let a useful tool have its place.
It’s not the thing to vilify someone just after they’ve passed. But against that grain I’m going to be critical here of Amy Winehouse who died last week. It’s not her music I’m condemning but her demeanour which I think undermined her credibility. She was diminished as an artist in my view because she didn’t hack it. She didn’t have the grit to face down her addictions and really push through when it mattered however bad she felt. She didn’t keep the show on the road.
It’s an old ethic in the business that anything less than comatose, the gig goes on. It goes on especially if you’ve been given enormous rewards for little more than cobbling together a small collection of pop tunes. Real artists really do the work. They do it even when the going’s tough - especially when the going’s tough.
Winehouse was too much the waster. Clearly she had a musical spark and could come up with back-of-the-envelope song sketches. But a crafter she was not. She depended on the talents of producer types, guys who have the staying power for artistry. Mariah and Britney were constantly marked down for needing substantial input from others. There’s nothing wrong with that and let’s not forget Amy Winehouse was not a self-contained artist either. Like Lily Allen she caught an early break and became part of a successful team. Any talent can have a hit record with some luck but having the mettle to build a career against the trials and pitfalls, to take the knocks and scrapes, to endure the meltdowns and failures, to live with the attendant emotional problems, the difficult relationships, to endure all that and still perform, still produce, still be able to bring the house down, that’s the real deal, that’s the true artist.
Amy fell short. She couldn’t match the moment, couldn’t be bigger than her problems and just do the work. She came apart in a spaced-out haze cancelling a tour and leaving thousands disappointed. That’s not an artist. That’s a casualty. There are creatives whose personal lives are totally shot who will still get up there and give flawless performances and you would never know their troubles. Lennon was depressive throughout much of The Beatles. When he was tripping out at home on the couch indulging a plethora of addictions he still got off his arse when it mattered, even just to save face, to match McCartney song for song. Laurence Olivier went through crippling stage terror, night after night on the brink. But the show went on as it does in the theatre where the ethics of professionalism are deeply hewed like military discipline.
Such is the artist’s integrity. Such is the gallantry at the heart of the performer. You do it despite everything. You do it no matter what even when no one wants it which is the hardest do of all. Winehouse was lucky that way. Early in the game she became very much wanted and had a captive audience, a luxury afforded only to the few. She wasted it. Had she rallied, had she battled through, had she kept her edge, kept doing work that befitted her considerable vocal talent then that would have made her heroic. That would have made her an artist worthy of the title.
It’s an old ethic in the business that anything less than comatose, the gig goes on. It goes on especially if you’ve been given enormous rewards for little more than cobbling together a small collection of pop tunes. Real artists really do the work. They do it even when the going’s tough - especially when the going’s tough.
Winehouse was too much the waster. Clearly she had a musical spark and could come up with back-of-the-envelope song sketches. But a crafter she was not. She depended on the talents of producer types, guys who have the staying power for artistry. Mariah and Britney were constantly marked down for needing substantial input from others. There’s nothing wrong with that and let’s not forget Amy Winehouse was not a self-contained artist either. Like Lily Allen she caught an early break and became part of a successful team. Any talent can have a hit record with some luck but having the mettle to build a career against the trials and pitfalls, to take the knocks and scrapes, to endure the meltdowns and failures, to live with the attendant emotional problems, the difficult relationships, to endure all that and still perform, still produce, still be able to bring the house down, that’s the real deal, that’s the true artist.
Amy fell short. She couldn’t match the moment, couldn’t be bigger than her problems and just do the work. She came apart in a spaced-out haze cancelling a tour and leaving thousands disappointed. That’s not an artist. That’s a casualty. There are creatives whose personal lives are totally shot who will still get up there and give flawless performances and you would never know their troubles. Lennon was depressive throughout much of The Beatles. When he was tripping out at home on the couch indulging a plethora of addictions he still got off his arse when it mattered, even just to save face, to match McCartney song for song. Laurence Olivier went through crippling stage terror, night after night on the brink. But the show went on as it does in the theatre where the ethics of professionalism are deeply hewed like military discipline.
Such is the artist’s integrity. Such is the gallantry at the heart of the performer. You do it despite everything. You do it no matter what even when no one wants it which is the hardest do of all. Winehouse was lucky that way. Early in the game she became very much wanted and had a captive audience, a luxury afforded only to the few. She wasted it. Had she rallied, had she battled through, had she kept her edge, kept doing work that befitted her considerable vocal talent then that would have made her heroic. That would have made her an artist worthy of the title.
John Lennon gets criticised for Imagine like it’s some trite little ditty. I don’t think so. The message of the song is as grounded as it is utopian. It is bluntly existentialist: there is no heaven! Lennon was asking us to imagine no heaven, no hell, no country, no possessions. For him they were abstractions, part of invented belief systems, often corrupt.
Given that people hold their abstractions dear then asking that they be given up is a big ask. Living without illusion sails perilously close to nihilism. Indeed, Imagine is as much rooted in Lennon’s disillusionment as it is in his idealism.
Yet in the face of scepticism about other worlds and associated fictions there still remains the real possibility that humans might learn to live better with each other. Actually they might get along better if they discarded the nonsense they believe about their own existence. That’s the spirit in which John Lennon wrote his song. The guy was no believer.
It’s a tough call though, the idea that you might live absent of belief. Maybe it’s not possible given the way minds are constructed. But that there is an easy disposition toward belief doesn’t mean it can be gorged on free of consequence. Believing stuff that is factually contradicted borders on mental illness. It is reasonable to believe the sun will rise tomorrow but questionable to think the sun god will make it so.
So, the philosophy that informs Imagine is far from trite and lays down a challenge. It demands we deal with the world based on its actuality, that we embrace its facts; and from that place we might for once be able to live peacefully with each other thus maximising potential rather than compromising it as is so often the case.
You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.
Given that people hold their abstractions dear then asking that they be given up is a big ask. Living without illusion sails perilously close to nihilism. Indeed, Imagine is as much rooted in Lennon’s disillusionment as it is in his idealism.
Yet in the face of scepticism about other worlds and associated fictions there still remains the real possibility that humans might learn to live better with each other. Actually they might get along better if they discarded the nonsense they believe about their own existence. That’s the spirit in which John Lennon wrote his song. The guy was no believer.
It’s a tough call though, the idea that you might live absent of belief. Maybe it’s not possible given the way minds are constructed. But that there is an easy disposition toward belief doesn’t mean it can be gorged on free of consequence. Believing stuff that is factually contradicted borders on mental illness. It is reasonable to believe the sun will rise tomorrow but questionable to think the sun god will make it so.
So, the philosophy that informs Imagine is far from trite and lays down a challenge. It demands we deal with the world based on its actuality, that we embrace its facts; and from that place we might for once be able to live peacefully with each other thus maximising potential rather than compromising it as is so often the case.
You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.
If you lean leftish and read the Guardian you’re supposed to hate Rupert Murdoch. I can’t say I have particular feelings towards the man one way or another even although my contempt for the conservative capitalism he represents is marked. Otherwise not inhabiting the world he commands Murdoch is not on my radar.
What I do hate though, and with a vengeance, is the junk news he has peddled for decades. The so called red-top newspapers in the UK are a cultural menace, a corrupting influence on the national psyche. Junk news is like junk food. It titillates the palate and has a compelling quality. If a red-top is in the room I will probably scan it through despite my disgust. It is the intellectual equivalent of a McDonald’s.
But I think to blame one guy for the junk is to exaggerate his power. There are many culprits not least consumers who gorge on the daily trash spewed out by the tabloids. I might read such a rag wearing protective irony but it is alarming how many people buy the red-tops and actually take their content for real. Is that a genuine reflection of the mass mentality I wonder or is it like a bad diet where one knows it’s harmful but indulges anyway? The latter case is the less depressing being fixable. The former, the stupidity of the mass, is more problematic.
Aside the intellectual poisoning another good reason to disapprove of Murdoch is his supposed political muscle. Why has he been allowed to cast such a long shadow? Andrew Neil in his memoir called him the Sun King referring to the effect he has on those around him. For employees to feel that way might be understandable but grown-up politicians, really? All because he owns some newspapers? Whatever the reason, if Murdoch’s influence is so pervasive it needs to be curbed. Any individual or institution with such a disproportionate pull should be cut to size.
I can only hope that the events of the past few weeks will have that effect on News International. There is something curiously provident that it was Milly Dowler who tripped them up. There was a strong revulsion to the discovery that her phone had been hacked when she was missing feared dead. A moral line had been crossed there.
Of course the extent of the hacking comes as no surprise. The junk journalists are always over the line anyway. And the idea that the bosses don’t know it is laughable. There is a sense of comeuppance about the whole business. That they hadn’t been stopped before now was a serious omission. The “last chance saloon” was many miles back.
The NI honchos including the Sun King himself appear in front of a committee of MPs tomorrow supposedly to be grilled. I hope the inquisitors don’t miss the chance to make a little rain. I may not care much about Murdoch personally but we would be no worse off with him less powerful. I do care however about the pollutants that are the red-top newspapers. If every one of them was abolished overnight society would be a better place as a consequence.
What I do hate though, and with a vengeance, is the junk news he has peddled for decades. The so called red-top newspapers in the UK are a cultural menace, a corrupting influence on the national psyche. Junk news is like junk food. It titillates the palate and has a compelling quality. If a red-top is in the room I will probably scan it through despite my disgust. It is the intellectual equivalent of a McDonald’s.
But I think to blame one guy for the junk is to exaggerate his power. There are many culprits not least consumers who gorge on the daily trash spewed out by the tabloids. I might read such a rag wearing protective irony but it is alarming how many people buy the red-tops and actually take their content for real. Is that a genuine reflection of the mass mentality I wonder or is it like a bad diet where one knows it’s harmful but indulges anyway? The latter case is the less depressing being fixable. The former, the stupidity of the mass, is more problematic.
Aside the intellectual poisoning another good reason to disapprove of Murdoch is his supposed political muscle. Why has he been allowed to cast such a long shadow? Andrew Neil in his memoir called him the Sun King referring to the effect he has on those around him. For employees to feel that way might be understandable but grown-up politicians, really? All because he owns some newspapers? Whatever the reason, if Murdoch’s influence is so pervasive it needs to be curbed. Any individual or institution with such a disproportionate pull should be cut to size.
I can only hope that the events of the past few weeks will have that effect on News International. There is something curiously provident that it was Milly Dowler who tripped them up. There was a strong revulsion to the discovery that her phone had been hacked when she was missing feared dead. A moral line had been crossed there.
Of course the extent of the hacking comes as no surprise. The junk journalists are always over the line anyway. And the idea that the bosses don’t know it is laughable. There is a sense of comeuppance about the whole business. That they hadn’t been stopped before now was a serious omission. The “last chance saloon” was many miles back.
The NI honchos including the Sun King himself appear in front of a committee of MPs tomorrow supposedly to be grilled. I hope the inquisitors don’t miss the chance to make a little rain. I may not care much about Murdoch personally but we would be no worse off with him less powerful. I do care however about the pollutants that are the red-top newspapers. If every one of them was abolished overnight society would be a better place as a consequence.
I notice there are many who don’t get that they are engaged by others for what they deliver. There will be something you have, something you do, something you are, which others want or need. Everybody needs something and you are there to provide it.
It’s not a readily acceptable thought because it goes against the standard mythology. It appears to conflict with the moral norms - that it’s all about caring - and is reinforced by centuries of Christian belief alongside notions of romantic love. Together they result in an overwhelming dogma that paints a pretty false picture of human nature I’d say.
Even when experience confirms the narrowness of self-interest it is still not an easy reality to work with. The narrative, other than from the mouths of the fucked-up and cynical, doesn’t allow for it. A dissonance takes hold in the mind. Actions go one way while talk goes another.
The optimum attitude would be to realise that you are essentially a provider and for that to be okay. It’s really not a bad job to have. It can have as much and more a moral tone as does the whole love agenda. In loving someone you are supposed to be looking out for them but of course that is often not the way of it. Lovers are selfish. What they are in love with is the feelings they are having. They are less concerned with the feelings of the other so taken are they by their own emotion.
So I say embrace your self interest and that of those around you and be fine with it. Cater to the needs of others. Understand what they want. Appreciate that you are there firstly as a provider and not for your own ends. With such an understanding selfishness can be made to work for the common good. The two become fused and are not confused like they tend to be ordinarily.
It’s not a readily acceptable thought because it goes against the standard mythology. It appears to conflict with the moral norms - that it’s all about caring - and is reinforced by centuries of Christian belief alongside notions of romantic love. Together they result in an overwhelming dogma that paints a pretty false picture of human nature I’d say.
Even when experience confirms the narrowness of self-interest it is still not an easy reality to work with. The narrative, other than from the mouths of the fucked-up and cynical, doesn’t allow for it. A dissonance takes hold in the mind. Actions go one way while talk goes another.
The optimum attitude would be to realise that you are essentially a provider and for that to be okay. It’s really not a bad job to have. It can have as much and more a moral tone as does the whole love agenda. In loving someone you are supposed to be looking out for them but of course that is often not the way of it. Lovers are selfish. What they are in love with is the feelings they are having. They are less concerned with the feelings of the other so taken are they by their own emotion.
So I say embrace your self interest and that of those around you and be fine with it. Cater to the needs of others. Understand what they want. Appreciate that you are there firstly as a provider and not for your own ends. With such an understanding selfishness can be made to work for the common good. The two become fused and are not confused like they tend to be ordinarily.
I enjoyed the clash between Samantha and Charlotte in Sex & The City over how they talked about sex. Charlotte recoiled, sometimes leaving gaps in her sentences where the dirty words went, whereas Samantha let loose. Neither woman had the right measure hence the comedy.
Their bust-up reflected how deficient the English language is when it comes to discussing relationship stuff, particularly the carnal pleasures. It’s either too formal or too slang. The formal words seem to convey embarrassment as much as anything else. To talk of having sex for example seems inappropriate for describing the act, the powerful and life-affirming experience it can be. Sex is a gender term encapsulating male and female. To talk of having the gender just isn’t doing justice to making love. Even that phrase - making love - is hardly any more romantic than having sex. It suggests a kind of manufactured bonding like it’s an industrial process.
I suppose these formal terms reflect the taboo in polite society around sexual love generally. Expressions for discussing romance and relationships fare no better. Take conventions like girlfriend and boyfriend. They sound like euphemisms. They are used to describe an exclusive partnership not legitimated by marriage. Maybe in their beginnings these words were used with a nod and a wink alluding to a sexual connection not explicit. Literally, a girlfriend is just a girl who is your friend. But in parlance a girlfriend is not just your friend. She might not even be a girl. She could be a fifty year-old woman. She is someone you have no formal arrangement with, yet someone you’re probably sleeping with. And there again - sleeping with - one of the many silly euphemisms for fucking.
Now there’s a fine old word, the fuck word. It is more like the real deal in its sexual context. It is so relished a term it is not to be kept just for sex. It has been commandeered for ordinary use as an all-purpose utterance. In its adjective form - the ubiquitous fucking this and fucking that - it has come to mean anything or nothing. Unfortunately it’s sexual prowess is diminished because of overuse elsewhere.
When respectable language fails there is no shortage of slang for those who need it. Long lists of words for every sexual activity can be found online. There are dozens of terms for blow-job and wank. Interestingly a standard thesaurus I just checked provides no synonyms at all for masturbate. What a stiff word it is, more appropriate to a biology lab than an orgasm. And again - orgasm - surely that doesn’t quite capture a lover’s ecstasy. It has to be said though, occasionally the formal offerings are more appealing. I’ll have anal sex any day before fluff the duff or the meat-missile mud bath!
There doesn’t seem to be much gender equality when it comes to how certain sex words are used. Take genitalia: Whereas prick, cock and schlong are pretty harmless - even in their erectile form, hard-on and boner - we are not appreciated for saying cunt. For whatever reason that’s a no go area. Pussy slips off the tongue far easier being something of a cuddle-word like shag. These words convey soft and playful. Like the personified dick and fanny they have a jokey-ness about them. Not to be taken too seriously they mask embarrassment.
And I suppose there’s the rub, the embarrassment around sex. It mirrors the shame humans feel about many of their animal functions. Perhaps it is part of the denial over time, part of the pretence that we are essentially elevated, that we are spiritual beings set apart from the rest of nature. That may be true in respects but not fundamentally. At root humans are as biological and material as any other nature entity.
It would be a mark of species maturity I think if a new lexicon evolved for talking about sex. But before that is possible maybe people need to be more at ease with their sexuality in general, better able to discuss and disclose and find expression that actually points to the richness of the experience rather than the embarrassment. These terms don’t have to be slang. Somewhere between the bawdy and the prim, between Samantha and Charlotte, lies a fertile breeding ground.
After their fall-out the two women came to meet each other half way. Charlotte by then had noticed just how stuffy her old Park Avenue friends were and Samantha had met a woman whose overt sexuality offended her. The two women were not as far apart as they thought and found an accommodation. The English language could well do the same.
Their bust-up reflected how deficient the English language is when it comes to discussing relationship stuff, particularly the carnal pleasures. It’s either too formal or too slang. The formal words seem to convey embarrassment as much as anything else. To talk of having sex for example seems inappropriate for describing the act, the powerful and life-affirming experience it can be. Sex is a gender term encapsulating male and female. To talk of having the gender just isn’t doing justice to making love. Even that phrase - making love - is hardly any more romantic than having sex. It suggests a kind of manufactured bonding like it’s an industrial process.
I suppose these formal terms reflect the taboo in polite society around sexual love generally. Expressions for discussing romance and relationships fare no better. Take conventions like girlfriend and boyfriend. They sound like euphemisms. They are used to describe an exclusive partnership not legitimated by marriage. Maybe in their beginnings these words were used with a nod and a wink alluding to a sexual connection not explicit. Literally, a girlfriend is just a girl who is your friend. But in parlance a girlfriend is not just your friend. She might not even be a girl. She could be a fifty year-old woman. She is someone you have no formal arrangement with, yet someone you’re probably sleeping with. And there again - sleeping with - one of the many silly euphemisms for fucking.
Now there’s a fine old word, the fuck word. It is more like the real deal in its sexual context. It is so relished a term it is not to be kept just for sex. It has been commandeered for ordinary use as an all-purpose utterance. In its adjective form - the ubiquitous fucking this and fucking that - it has come to mean anything or nothing. Unfortunately it’s sexual prowess is diminished because of overuse elsewhere.
When respectable language fails there is no shortage of slang for those who need it. Long lists of words for every sexual activity can be found online. There are dozens of terms for blow-job and wank. Interestingly a standard thesaurus I just checked provides no synonyms at all for masturbate. What a stiff word it is, more appropriate to a biology lab than an orgasm. And again - orgasm - surely that doesn’t quite capture a lover’s ecstasy. It has to be said though, occasionally the formal offerings are more appealing. I’ll have anal sex any day before fluff the duff or the meat-missile mud bath!
There doesn’t seem to be much gender equality when it comes to how certain sex words are used. Take genitalia: Whereas prick, cock and schlong are pretty harmless - even in their erectile form, hard-on and boner - we are not appreciated for saying cunt. For whatever reason that’s a no go area. Pussy slips off the tongue far easier being something of a cuddle-word like shag. These words convey soft and playful. Like the personified dick and fanny they have a jokey-ness about them. Not to be taken too seriously they mask embarrassment.
And I suppose there’s the rub, the embarrassment around sex. It mirrors the shame humans feel about many of their animal functions. Perhaps it is part of the denial over time, part of the pretence that we are essentially elevated, that we are spiritual beings set apart from the rest of nature. That may be true in respects but not fundamentally. At root humans are as biological and material as any other nature entity.
It would be a mark of species maturity I think if a new lexicon evolved for talking about sex. But before that is possible maybe people need to be more at ease with their sexuality in general, better able to discuss and disclose and find expression that actually points to the richness of the experience rather than the embarrassment. These terms don’t have to be slang. Somewhere between the bawdy and the prim, between Samantha and Charlotte, lies a fertile breeding ground.
After their fall-out the two women came to meet each other half way. Charlotte by then had noticed just how stuffy her old Park Avenue friends were and Samantha had met a woman whose overt sexuality offended her. The two women were not as far apart as they thought and found an accommodation. The English language could well do the same.
It was the summer of 76 and I had an epiphany. The revelatory moment came amid record-breaking temperatures and, in thrall to sun-worship at a time before that was considered dancing with death, I was happy.
For a few weeks over July and August I was living alone for the first time. Until then Kev and I had been sharing. The place had been a hub for hanging out. Parties, spontaneous gatherings, stoner sessions and constant music was the scene. Kev was a Hendrix freak. I was big on Joni Mitchell. The band’s PA speakers were hooked up to the stereo and they dwarfed the room. Fortunately the neighbours were cool and tolerant, young hipsters themselves. I first heard Hall & Oates coming through their wall.
I was in my late teens with an active social life to match. Things were happening musically meaning I spent a fair amount of time with the band, rehearsing, gigging, doing the stuff young guys in a band do. I also had a full time job in the family business. When Kev moved out I stayed around for a bit unsure where to go. My girlfriend, much to my dislike at first, had gone off to pick tomatoes for the season with her student pals and so, ready or not, I had my first encounter with solitude.
And I loved it. I found myself able to think more clearly and allow my mind to wander where it would go. I could read in peace without interruption and choose whatever music I wanted to have bursting out the giant sound system. In that moment there was initiated in me a hankering for solitude that would be life-long. When an intensely busy schedule was showing no let-up, a day in the diary weeks ahead with no obligations to fulfill became a treasured thing. Eventually solitary would become my default life-style.
Of course it doesn’t do to be too far removed from congress and I was lucky enough for that not to be a problem. Being a studio animal I was never short of company for long. I tended to have a bigger issue keeping folks away and had to actively protect my solitary from what often felt like contamination by others. It is impossible to be social without soaking up toxins in the social environment, without being exposed to the spiritual pollutants that infect a shared space. After a period of engagement it takes alone-time to detox and cleanse oneself of the ill-effects.
No, the bigger problem I’ve had in life is not lack of attachments but being free of them. I notice there are many who don’t much like being alone for any length of time. It is sad to say but I think the majority of attachments exist mainly to alleviate this condition, a condition I would call fear of self. People who fear solitude should overcome it. It is a barrier to spiritual advancement wherever it maintains.
I consider myself blessed that an ease with being alone came naturally. In a way I discovered it by accident over that memorable summer. If Kev hadn’t moved on, had my woman not gone away perhaps things would have turned out differently. When she returned the old miseries returned with her. In stark contrast to that perfect summer a wretched winter ensued. I determined then such corruption would not prevail and resolved to make a change. She would never effect me that way again. For that and other things that have served me well I have to thank the revelatory power of solitude, and of course not discounting the therapeutic value of the very vibrant summer sunshine of 1976.
LATER:
I like it when synchronicity calls. Just after writing this I came across a brilliant piece by William Deresiewicz titled Solitude & Leadership. It is a transcript of his lecture to students at West Point. Deresiewicz argues that knowing how to be solitary is essential to being a good leader. Curiously, after my epiphany period I was always much more leadership conscious and would only ever be comfortable when in that role.
For a few weeks over July and August I was living alone for the first time. Until then Kev and I had been sharing. The place had been a hub for hanging out. Parties, spontaneous gatherings, stoner sessions and constant music was the scene. Kev was a Hendrix freak. I was big on Joni Mitchell. The band’s PA speakers were hooked up to the stereo and they dwarfed the room. Fortunately the neighbours were cool and tolerant, young hipsters themselves. I first heard Hall & Oates coming through their wall.
I was in my late teens with an active social life to match. Things were happening musically meaning I spent a fair amount of time with the band, rehearsing, gigging, doing the stuff young guys in a band do. I also had a full time job in the family business. When Kev moved out I stayed around for a bit unsure where to go. My girlfriend, much to my dislike at first, had gone off to pick tomatoes for the season with her student pals and so, ready or not, I had my first encounter with solitude.
And I loved it. I found myself able to think more clearly and allow my mind to wander where it would go. I could read in peace without interruption and choose whatever music I wanted to have bursting out the giant sound system. In that moment there was initiated in me a hankering for solitude that would be life-long. When an intensely busy schedule was showing no let-up, a day in the diary weeks ahead with no obligations to fulfill became a treasured thing. Eventually solitary would become my default life-style.
Of course it doesn’t do to be too far removed from congress and I was lucky enough for that not to be a problem. Being a studio animal I was never short of company for long. I tended to have a bigger issue keeping folks away and had to actively protect my solitary from what often felt like contamination by others. It is impossible to be social without soaking up toxins in the social environment, without being exposed to the spiritual pollutants that infect a shared space. After a period of engagement it takes alone-time to detox and cleanse oneself of the ill-effects.
No, the bigger problem I’ve had in life is not lack of attachments but being free of them. I notice there are many who don’t much like being alone for any length of time. It is sad to say but I think the majority of attachments exist mainly to alleviate this condition, a condition I would call fear of self. People who fear solitude should overcome it. It is a barrier to spiritual advancement wherever it maintains.
I consider myself blessed that an ease with being alone came naturally. In a way I discovered it by accident over that memorable summer. If Kev hadn’t moved on, had my woman not gone away perhaps things would have turned out differently. When she returned the old miseries returned with her. In stark contrast to that perfect summer a wretched winter ensued. I determined then such corruption would not prevail and resolved to make a change. She would never effect me that way again. For that and other things that have served me well I have to thank the revelatory power of solitude, and of course not discounting the therapeutic value of the very vibrant summer sunshine of 1976.
LATER:
I like it when synchronicity calls. Just after writing this I came across a brilliant piece by William Deresiewicz titled Solitude & Leadership. It is a transcript of his lecture to students at West Point. Deresiewicz argues that knowing how to be solitary is essential to being a good leader. Curiously, after my epiphany period I was always much more leadership conscious and would only ever be comfortable when in that role.
Milly Dowler’s killer was convicted yesterday. He’s already doing life for the murders of two other young women. A further sentence will make no difference to him. I think that guy would be better gone. His termination would be the best thing for everyone, including him. But instead society has to support his existence for a few more decades probably to the tune of millions.
Of course I understand there are big problems with the state executing people. Like all human systems they get it wrong and end up killing innocents. For me, that is the main reason capital punishment isn’t viable. Otherwise it would solve many problems. Actually if it were possible to separate out the good folk from the bad and dump the bad then we’d be justified in doing so. Alas things are never that simple. Good and bad are not measurable quantities. And that apart, a state that lawfully kills people becomes draconian in more ways than how it deals with capital offences. It likely degenerates until it is doing away with people simply because it doesn’t like them. So we stick with a botch, one where a man like Levi Bellfield murders teenagers and society has to cover the substantial cost of providing for him.
No, Bellfield won’t care much about yet another conviction. Here was a man who was happy to ensure Milly’s already traumatised family were exposed to the most trying of court proceedings. Not only did they endure the unimaginable horror of losing their daughter but they were also subjected to all the absurdity that is law enforcement.
It is seriously questionable whether society’s attempts at redress following an atrocity help the victims much. I think they may often only add further injury. And as a barrister defending the system said last night: the justice system is not about catharsis. It is there to serve society and its best ends. That these ends often don’t work in the interests of individuals is nothing unusual. Dumb but not unusual. That being so, people should understand that the way to come to terms with a damaging event is probably not through society’s processes.
I read a piece in The Observer a while back that nailed this. Carol Sarler was sexually assaulted by a stranger as a child but her parents chose not to report it and instead looked to their own pastoral resources for recovery. They saw their first duty to their daughter and not to criminal justice. Carol did recover and was saved the fall-out that comes from making such an ordeal a public matter. She was saved from a life condemned by media as “ruined forever”. Her family was spared the further indignity of being dragged through the court system where an adversarial defence counsel tries to maximise its client’s position. In the case of the Dowlers, issues were made of (shock!) the father having porn in his possession and (shock!) Milly having emotional problems typical of many a teenager.
I think it was wise for the Sarler family to avoid all that. From a spiritual perspective it is wise to separate an atrocity from society’s recourse. People should be encouraged to marshall their own resource in such a crisis because ultimately the healing has to come from within. Or more to the point, it should not be assumed, as that barrister argued on TV, that the justice system is there to provide emotional support for victims. Above all, people should not be railroaded through all these procedures, paraded in front of a news media mainly interested in voyeurism and the pornographic value of a family’s trauma.
We want a system of values that encourages alternative methods of redress for victims. It is what happens in their inner world that determines healing along with nurturing relationships. That is where the real work is done. I recognise that some might get satisfaction from seeing a perpetrator convicted. I suspect just as many won’t or at least not for long. They may find the momentary lift a rather hollow one.
Society has to do what it has to do in trying for justice. Individuals have to make far more valiant attempts at repairing the spiritual damage that can come from a crushing episode such as what happened to the Dowler family. It rather looks like the healing process for these people still hasn’t started and it is doubtful whether it will ever end. Society and its processes seem only to have added to their tragedy.
Of course I understand there are big problems with the state executing people. Like all human systems they get it wrong and end up killing innocents. For me, that is the main reason capital punishment isn’t viable. Otherwise it would solve many problems. Actually if it were possible to separate out the good folk from the bad and dump the bad then we’d be justified in doing so. Alas things are never that simple. Good and bad are not measurable quantities. And that apart, a state that lawfully kills people becomes draconian in more ways than how it deals with capital offences. It likely degenerates until it is doing away with people simply because it doesn’t like them. So we stick with a botch, one where a man like Levi Bellfield murders teenagers and society has to cover the substantial cost of providing for him.
No, Bellfield won’t care much about yet another conviction. Here was a man who was happy to ensure Milly’s already traumatised family were exposed to the most trying of court proceedings. Not only did they endure the unimaginable horror of losing their daughter but they were also subjected to all the absurdity that is law enforcement.
It is seriously questionable whether society’s attempts at redress following an atrocity help the victims much. I think they may often only add further injury. And as a barrister defending the system said last night: the justice system is not about catharsis. It is there to serve society and its best ends. That these ends often don’t work in the interests of individuals is nothing unusual. Dumb but not unusual. That being so, people should understand that the way to come to terms with a damaging event is probably not through society’s processes.
I read a piece in The Observer a while back that nailed this. Carol Sarler was sexually assaulted by a stranger as a child but her parents chose not to report it and instead looked to their own pastoral resources for recovery. They saw their first duty to their daughter and not to criminal justice. Carol did recover and was saved the fall-out that comes from making such an ordeal a public matter. She was saved from a life condemned by media as “ruined forever”. Her family was spared the further indignity of being dragged through the court system where an adversarial defence counsel tries to maximise its client’s position. In the case of the Dowlers, issues were made of (shock!) the father having porn in his possession and (shock!) Milly having emotional problems typical of many a teenager.
I think it was wise for the Sarler family to avoid all that. From a spiritual perspective it is wise to separate an atrocity from society’s recourse. People should be encouraged to marshall their own resource in such a crisis because ultimately the healing has to come from within. Or more to the point, it should not be assumed, as that barrister argued on TV, that the justice system is there to provide emotional support for victims. Above all, people should not be railroaded through all these procedures, paraded in front of a news media mainly interested in voyeurism and the pornographic value of a family’s trauma.
We want a system of values that encourages alternative methods of redress for victims. It is what happens in their inner world that determines healing along with nurturing relationships. That is where the real work is done. I recognise that some might get satisfaction from seeing a perpetrator convicted. I suspect just as many won’t or at least not for long. They may find the momentary lift a rather hollow one.
Society has to do what it has to do in trying for justice. Individuals have to make far more valiant attempts at repairing the spiritual damage that can come from a crushing episode such as what happened to the Dowler family. It rather looks like the healing process for these people still hasn’t started and it is doubtful whether it will ever end. Society and its processes seem only to have added to their tragedy.
For about five minutes when I was a kid I fancied being a rock star. The moment passed. Much as I loved music and was determined to make it my life somehow, the rock pose always felt a bit dumb. It seemed to take itself over-seriously, hedonistic appearances aside. Rock people were immature, too big on their own importance, not really the way to be I thought. I left band life behind in my early twenties in favour of “the studio” where I have remained since.
But looking back at the rock era it really was a phenomenon. It was incredible that for a few decades in the 20th Century a young man (a woman less so) could rise to such heights. He could hang with his mates and play music, a fun thing to do anyway. He could hope to be appreciated for it - and then some. He could aspire to being famous and idolised, to making big money, to being internationally renowned, to becoming an institution and a historical figure revered by future generations, discussed, analysed and endlessly written about. He might even die young as some kind of cultural hero. Way to be, surely!
In post-war Britain there was a significant number of young men who succeeded in ticking one or two of these coveted boxes. I was one such. Another from Liverpool ticked them all and had an airport named after him. That was after being assassinated by a fan. I’m talking John Lennon of course who qualifies for being possibly the godliest of all rock royalty. I’d probably choose him as my personal favourite.
That this tired old shorn-of-empire country still steeped in its Victorian heritage could produce such as Lennon alongside a raft of imitators like me is a remarkable fact in itself worthy of examination. I suspect there are many my age who still keep their inner Mick alive, who think they could have rivalled Clapton with the right breaks. Yes I might be a tad sniffy about rockers but for all their excesses they seriously left a mark. It was something of a privilege to have lived through their time, a time when youth had a really potent voice.
It’s pretty much over now and rock no longer rules. In the manner of all cultural swings, that was always going to be the way. The attentions of today’s youth are dissipated. Music is effectively free and the record business is on life support. There will be no more stars who act out like medieval monarchs. Tech guys like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are the icons of now.
But even the techs look upward to the gods of rock, to the young men who a few years ago set the tone, who defined the era, who created a youthful excitement previously unimaginable and unlikely in future. To call them rock gods is hardly an exaggeration. Their deportment is well captured in the words of one of their number, one of their highest deities: “excuse me while I kiss the sky”.
But looking back at the rock era it really was a phenomenon. It was incredible that for a few decades in the 20th Century a young man (a woman less so) could rise to such heights. He could hang with his mates and play music, a fun thing to do anyway. He could hope to be appreciated for it - and then some. He could aspire to being famous and idolised, to making big money, to being internationally renowned, to becoming an institution and a historical figure revered by future generations, discussed, analysed and endlessly written about. He might even die young as some kind of cultural hero. Way to be, surely!
In post-war Britain there was a significant number of young men who succeeded in ticking one or two of these coveted boxes. I was one such. Another from Liverpool ticked them all and had an airport named after him. That was after being assassinated by a fan. I’m talking John Lennon of course who qualifies for being possibly the godliest of all rock royalty. I’d probably choose him as my personal favourite.
That this tired old shorn-of-empire country still steeped in its Victorian heritage could produce such as Lennon alongside a raft of imitators like me is a remarkable fact in itself worthy of examination. I suspect there are many my age who still keep their inner Mick alive, who think they could have rivalled Clapton with the right breaks. Yes I might be a tad sniffy about rockers but for all their excesses they seriously left a mark. It was something of a privilege to have lived through their time, a time when youth had a really potent voice.
It’s pretty much over now and rock no longer rules. In the manner of all cultural swings, that was always going to be the way. The attentions of today’s youth are dissipated. Music is effectively free and the record business is on life support. There will be no more stars who act out like medieval monarchs. Tech guys like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are the icons of now.
But even the techs look upward to the gods of rock, to the young men who a few years ago set the tone, who defined the era, who created a youthful excitement previously unimaginable and unlikely in future. To call them rock gods is hardly an exaggeration. Their deportment is well captured in the words of one of their number, one of their highest deities: “excuse me while I kiss the sky”.
I woke to Radio 4 this morning hearing Mark Tully quote Sarah McLachlan. I was half conscious but became fully alert with her words about the idealism in one of her songs:
"... it’s sort of about loss of innocence and the feeling that for every generation, with every generation, there is a group of individuals who will go outside of the norm and outside of society. We'll be the outcasts, and we'll try to make a difference. But it seems, eventually, they all get sucked back in, or they lose their minds completely, so it was kind of a sad thing for me. But I still have that idealism.”
It is pathetic to think of oneself as a misunderstood visionary. If I was ever to act like that I’d appreciate a slap. That is not to say that there aren’t people who look to a bigger picture (I do) and even on occasion might actually bring that picture into play (I fail miserably). And although it may be that often the visionaries are indistinguishable from the nutters howling at the moon, between the crazies and the gods are many ordinary idealists who contemplate better possibilities. McLachlan’s point is that their high hope gets tarnished by reality and they either compromise or start howling. Her words made me think about the vision thing particularly the history of my own meanderings in futurism.
I read the other day something I’d written in 2003. In the piece was a summary of the ideals I’d held as a young guy starting out in the 70s. It was a sardonic statement mocking ideology in general and how wrong my predictions had been then. I couldn’t help notice though that there was a resonance these earlier “wrong” thoughts had with the emergent ways of the Internet and its disruptive effect on the old systems. I considered that perhaps my idealism wasn’t as misplaced as I had made out in the 2003 piece.
It made me think about futurism and why some are given to it, why they might consciously set out to make a difference beyond simple existentialist concerns. Not that I can answer that question very well. I certainly don’t subscribe to notions of pre-determination and that somehow futurists are tapping that. I guess it is just a creative force like any other, the similar force that has driven art, philosophy and the sciences down the ages. It is as Darwinian as any of the other drives and it makes its contribution accordingly. As with all artistry, nature produces more than it uses. The rest is left to wither. In the case of those who try to make a difference, the outcasts, as McLachlan says they get sucked back in or they lose their minds.
I have remained an outlier yet just about managed to hold together spiritually despite the terminal frustration. Sarah’s words made me feel less an aberration and more a part of an archetypal process, natural and necessary. I am not a freak of nature but a part of nature. Such comforts don’t of course tell you what to do or where to go. I’ve never known that luxury. I’ve never had a road map or a set of conventions to follow like most do. I am always travelling blind other than for this faint beacon that shimmers in and out of view. Sometimes the darkness is so pervasive that it would be nice just to expire into an invisible non-existence having failed in one’s endeavours. But alas that is not possible as nature has the final say. Nature may produce an excess in idealists but is no less brutal in their disposal.
"... it’s sort of about loss of innocence and the feeling that for every generation, with every generation, there is a group of individuals who will go outside of the norm and outside of society. We'll be the outcasts, and we'll try to make a difference. But it seems, eventually, they all get sucked back in, or they lose their minds completely, so it was kind of a sad thing for me. But I still have that idealism.”
It is pathetic to think of oneself as a misunderstood visionary. If I was ever to act like that I’d appreciate a slap. That is not to say that there aren’t people who look to a bigger picture (I do) and even on occasion might actually bring that picture into play (I fail miserably). And although it may be that often the visionaries are indistinguishable from the nutters howling at the moon, between the crazies and the gods are many ordinary idealists who contemplate better possibilities. McLachlan’s point is that their high hope gets tarnished by reality and they either compromise or start howling. Her words made me think about the vision thing particularly the history of my own meanderings in futurism.
I read the other day something I’d written in 2003. In the piece was a summary of the ideals I’d held as a young guy starting out in the 70s. It was a sardonic statement mocking ideology in general and how wrong my predictions had been then. I couldn’t help notice though that there was a resonance these earlier “wrong” thoughts had with the emergent ways of the Internet and its disruptive effect on the old systems. I considered that perhaps my idealism wasn’t as misplaced as I had made out in the 2003 piece.
It made me think about futurism and why some are given to it, why they might consciously set out to make a difference beyond simple existentialist concerns. Not that I can answer that question very well. I certainly don’t subscribe to notions of pre-determination and that somehow futurists are tapping that. I guess it is just a creative force like any other, the similar force that has driven art, philosophy and the sciences down the ages. It is as Darwinian as any of the other drives and it makes its contribution accordingly. As with all artistry, nature produces more than it uses. The rest is left to wither. In the case of those who try to make a difference, the outcasts, as McLachlan says they get sucked back in or they lose their minds.
I have remained an outlier yet just about managed to hold together spiritually despite the terminal frustration. Sarah’s words made me feel less an aberration and more a part of an archetypal process, natural and necessary. I am not a freak of nature but a part of nature. Such comforts don’t of course tell you what to do or where to go. I’ve never known that luxury. I’ve never had a road map or a set of conventions to follow like most do. I am always travelling blind other than for this faint beacon that shimmers in and out of view. Sometimes the darkness is so pervasive that it would be nice just to expire into an invisible non-existence having failed in one’s endeavours. But alas that is not possible as nature has the final say. Nature may produce an excess in idealists but is no less brutal in their disposal.
Just another fat lass who can sing was how somebody put it. I don’t much care for disparaging remarks like these but I get the point of that one. Adele is hugely over-rated. I don’t mean I dislike her music. She is perfectly listenable and easy to get just like a ton of other artists. And that’s fine. When I say over-rated I mean by critics and commentators, the ones who create the cultural context in which music is understood. I think of them as storytellers because in many ways that is what they are. They invent stories around music and its makers.
To them Adele is the real deal, authentic and unpretentious, and that is what I take issue with. The other day I dialled up her 19 album and the first thing that struck me was how unnatural it sounded. I noticed DI-ed acoustic guitars (i.e. recorded without microphones). I heard digital pianos where “real” ones might have been used. Moreover, I was surprised just how audible the tuning corrections were.
Now, I have no complaint with any of that especially tuning software per se. It can save a huge amount of time in sessions, time which can be given to things more important than fixing pitch. However, if you’re “authentic” then you probably wouldn’t artificially pitch the vocal. Or if you’re going to do that, you’d make sure it was imperceptible.
This is not to condemn Adele and her people as being fake. As I’ve said many times in these writings I don’t care about authentic whatever that is said to be. All performance is fake. All art is fake. In a way that is what makes it interesting. It is a fabricated version of life that brings perspective to the real thing. Actually I’d say authentic doesn’t mean authentic but its opposite. It means faking it like an actor fakes her part. The measure of her talent is her ability to fake convincingly. And anyway, I doubt it is Adele herself who is claiming to be faithful to any creed. She didn’t set out with an authenticity manual. It is the commentators, the storytellers, who are making the case for her “realness”.
My point here about such stories is that they are fashioned around artists and their work retrospectively and are a thing apart from their source material. They are constructions from the imaginings of commentators and are as much invention as the art itself. I used to find this bemusing as I often couldn’t connect the work with the commentary. Through time I realised that I didn’t have to connect the two. It was possible to engage an artist’s work without much adherence to its context which was as separate as I wanted it to be. It is well possible, and I do it all the time now, to have a good relationship with an artist’s work without any knowledge whatsoever of what is being said about it. Sometimes I know nothing at all about who an artist is but still engage their work meaningfully. And I rather like that relationship of minimal context. It is a much more direct and immediate experience.
Yes I appreciate that many people need help from a tastemaker. They need pictures painted. They want contextual material in order to “get” what the music is about. They want someone to expound on what the music means and answer that question. To me it is rather an unnecessary question because music can mean pretty much what you want it to mean. Perhaps you want it to mean not very much at all beyond the sensual pleasure of listening to it. I think that the requirement for too much context before a connection is made with music is actually detrimental to the art and to one’s relationship with it. It is rather like sugar and salt in food: too much and that is what you are tasting. After a while it’s the sugar fix you’re after before the nourishment.
Adele’s so called credibility is an additive. She gets spun by critics as the real thing, true and modest, not like your typically hyped pop star. Her record label XL pitches her that way. They happen to be the current hipsters translated into commercial success. I have no qualm with that. Success is the measure of good art. But the bullshit that gets spouted in its name is annoying. One piece I read this morning praised Adele for not using studio trickery. Huh!? The commentator spoke of her like a messiah come to save music. She must be really special because nothing’s good enough for this particular guy. In a world absolutely teeming with music old and new he finds little to please him so addicted is he to the sugar and salt of his own myth-making.
Significantly Adele complained this week about having to pay 50% of her big take to tax. She resented that apparently, having to give £4M to the exchequer. Banking the other £4M is not bad for a young woman singing songs. She was criticised for the remark and now you sense the tide beginning to turn, the story starting to change. Even an ex-boyfriend was said to be suing her for using their relationship as material for her lyrics. (Barking!) She is no longer “just another fat lass who can sing” but now a massively rewarded pop star taking her place among the super-rich. I wonder how long will it be before her music isn’t sounding quite so good? Not long I’m sure.
LATER:
A few days after writing this I read Tom Ewing’s piece in The Guardian which also casts a sceptical note on spin. “Music business stories are a cocktail of post-facto rationalisation and wishful thinking,” he said. “A lot of good music gets released all the time: sometimes, some of it gets bought. Beyond these boring facts, the rest is storytelling.” He could’ve taken the words from my mouth, framing his piece around Adele and giving perhaps another indication that her credibility is already on the wane.
To them Adele is the real deal, authentic and unpretentious, and that is what I take issue with. The other day I dialled up her 19 album and the first thing that struck me was how unnatural it sounded. I noticed DI-ed acoustic guitars (i.e. recorded without microphones). I heard digital pianos where “real” ones might have been used. Moreover, I was surprised just how audible the tuning corrections were.
Now, I have no complaint with any of that especially tuning software per se. It can save a huge amount of time in sessions, time which can be given to things more important than fixing pitch. However, if you’re “authentic” then you probably wouldn’t artificially pitch the vocal. Or if you’re going to do that, you’d make sure it was imperceptible.
This is not to condemn Adele and her people as being fake. As I’ve said many times in these writings I don’t care about authentic whatever that is said to be. All performance is fake. All art is fake. In a way that is what makes it interesting. It is a fabricated version of life that brings perspective to the real thing. Actually I’d say authentic doesn’t mean authentic but its opposite. It means faking it like an actor fakes her part. The measure of her talent is her ability to fake convincingly. And anyway, I doubt it is Adele herself who is claiming to be faithful to any creed. She didn’t set out with an authenticity manual. It is the commentators, the storytellers, who are making the case for her “realness”.
My point here about such stories is that they are fashioned around artists and their work retrospectively and are a thing apart from their source material. They are constructions from the imaginings of commentators and are as much invention as the art itself. I used to find this bemusing as I often couldn’t connect the work with the commentary. Through time I realised that I didn’t have to connect the two. It was possible to engage an artist’s work without much adherence to its context which was as separate as I wanted it to be. It is well possible, and I do it all the time now, to have a good relationship with an artist’s work without any knowledge whatsoever of what is being said about it. Sometimes I know nothing at all about who an artist is but still engage their work meaningfully. And I rather like that relationship of minimal context. It is a much more direct and immediate experience.
Yes I appreciate that many people need help from a tastemaker. They need pictures painted. They want contextual material in order to “get” what the music is about. They want someone to expound on what the music means and answer that question. To me it is rather an unnecessary question because music can mean pretty much what you want it to mean. Perhaps you want it to mean not very much at all beyond the sensual pleasure of listening to it. I think that the requirement for too much context before a connection is made with music is actually detrimental to the art and to one’s relationship with it. It is rather like sugar and salt in food: too much and that is what you are tasting. After a while it’s the sugar fix you’re after before the nourishment.
Adele’s so called credibility is an additive. She gets spun by critics as the real thing, true and modest, not like your typically hyped pop star. Her record label XL pitches her that way. They happen to be the current hipsters translated into commercial success. I have no qualm with that. Success is the measure of good art. But the bullshit that gets spouted in its name is annoying. One piece I read this morning praised Adele for not using studio trickery. Huh!? The commentator spoke of her like a messiah come to save music. She must be really special because nothing’s good enough for this particular guy. In a world absolutely teeming with music old and new he finds little to please him so addicted is he to the sugar and salt of his own myth-making.
Significantly Adele complained this week about having to pay 50% of her big take to tax. She resented that apparently, having to give £4M to the exchequer. Banking the other £4M is not bad for a young woman singing songs. She was criticised for the remark and now you sense the tide beginning to turn, the story starting to change. Even an ex-boyfriend was said to be suing her for using their relationship as material for her lyrics. (Barking!) She is no longer “just another fat lass who can sing” but now a massively rewarded pop star taking her place among the super-rich. I wonder how long will it be before her music isn’t sounding quite so good? Not long I’m sure.
LATER:
A few days after writing this I read Tom Ewing’s piece in The Guardian which also casts a sceptical note on spin. “Music business stories are a cocktail of post-facto rationalisation and wishful thinking,” he said. “A lot of good music gets released all the time: sometimes, some of it gets bought. Beyond these boring facts, the rest is storytelling.” He could’ve taken the words from my mouth, framing his piece around Adele and giving perhaps another indication that her credibility is already on the wane.
There’s a lot of talk about “the deficit”. I wonder how important is that really, that such draconian measures are needed to reduce it. In relation to the overall debt that the government in the UK is carrying, a figure in trillions apparently, the deficit is a drop in the ocean.
Going back generations the state was small in comparison to what it is today. Throughout the 20th Century the responsibilities of government increased exponentially and with that so did its borrowing. As with all debt it is the ability to service it that is the important thing. In a sense future generations pay for services rendered in the past. If the nation is wealthy enough then that obligation can be carried. As long as there is sufficient growth then there is no big problem.
That future generations will be saddled with the debt of the current one is as it has always been. The commitments of the past are always paid for from the purse of the present. And why shouldn’t that be? We all stand on the steps of past endeavours. We benefit from historical toils and hardships, from the creativity, invention and sacrifice of our forebears along with the structures they built. We also pay for their indulgences. In part, taxation pays for history.
The consumer boom of the past twenty years was to everyone’s overall benefit. Every item purchased, every penny spent, over-indulgent or not, helped support someone’s existence. A liquid economy is a good and necessary thing even if it is driven by debt. Consumption is its lifeblood. Yes future generations will be stumping up but they will be doing so as inheritors of the huge material successes of recent times. These successes are inherent in societal advances, in property, in technology, in expertise, in knowledge, and in the developed social structures.
Economies will wax and wane all the while as they have always done and the public debt will be carried forward never to be cleared. I suggest it doesn’t matter much and that it might actually be trivial and unnecessary, dangerous even, to go tinkering with deficit reduction, an act done more out of ideology than anything prudent.
Going back generations the state was small in comparison to what it is today. Throughout the 20th Century the responsibilities of government increased exponentially and with that so did its borrowing. As with all debt it is the ability to service it that is the important thing. In a sense future generations pay for services rendered in the past. If the nation is wealthy enough then that obligation can be carried. As long as there is sufficient growth then there is no big problem.
That future generations will be saddled with the debt of the current one is as it has always been. The commitments of the past are always paid for from the purse of the present. And why shouldn’t that be? We all stand on the steps of past endeavours. We benefit from historical toils and hardships, from the creativity, invention and sacrifice of our forebears along with the structures they built. We also pay for their indulgences. In part, taxation pays for history.
The consumer boom of the past twenty years was to everyone’s overall benefit. Every item purchased, every penny spent, over-indulgent or not, helped support someone’s existence. A liquid economy is a good and necessary thing even if it is driven by debt. Consumption is its lifeblood. Yes future generations will be stumping up but they will be doing so as inheritors of the huge material successes of recent times. These successes are inherent in societal advances, in property, in technology, in expertise, in knowledge, and in the developed social structures.
Economies will wax and wane all the while as they have always done and the public debt will be carried forward never to be cleared. I suggest it doesn’t matter much and that it might actually be trivial and unnecessary, dangerous even, to go tinkering with deficit reduction, an act done more out of ideology than anything prudent.
In bygone days there were a lot of things I was indifferent to, a position I reflect back on as luxurious innocence. As an angry old sod now there are too many issues in the world that make me bristle. Mercifully, royals doing their thing is not one of them. I see them as slaves to tradition, all the privileges gained are balanced by the burdens. I bear them no ill will.
Actually there is something oddly pleasing about today’s occasion, it being rare for any event to bring a sense of national feeling. And agreeable or not, the British royal family represents a long lineage, a chunk of historical continuity. The Brits are far from alone using terms like Victorian, Georgian or Edwardian in meaningful ways. That the old institution has been stripped of its political muscle renders it a pretty harmless instrument of state, there for symbolic value only, akin to a museum piece.
Moreover today is about the newly-wed Windsors, William and Kate. How will their relationship be? No one knows of course, not even them. My guess is that they will have a better married life than the groom’s parents though that would not be hard. Charles and Diana always looked like a disaster in the making.
Interestingly, I watched Abi Morgan’s brilliant film, Royal Wedding, the other day which used footage of Charles and Di as a backdrop to a story about relationship life in a small Welsh community. How naive and clueless the characters were about their love lives, just like the young Princess about to embrace her regal future, clueless of how lonely she would be in a troubled union, clueless that she was entering a vortex, that she was embarking on a journey that would take her from the fantasy of marital bliss all the way to her tragic end in a Paris underpass. Morgan’s point was clear: idiocy presides when it comes to romance.
Yes none of us knows our fate. We go forward only in hope. I would like to think that over thirty years, knowledge might have been gained to impart to the emergent generation about how to do it right, but I doubt it. There is no store of cultural intelligence available to which young couples can turn for relationship values. If Will and Kate work out it will be from their own endeavour or simply a throw of the dice and not from any wisdom that has been acquired from the transgressions of their forebears.
I saw a satirical sketch last night where the interviewers asked Snow White and Cinderella for tips to give to the betrothed. That’s about right I thought. That about sums up the mentality of approach when it comes to matters of matrimony royal or otherwise.
Actually there is something oddly pleasing about today’s occasion, it being rare for any event to bring a sense of national feeling. And agreeable or not, the British royal family represents a long lineage, a chunk of historical continuity. The Brits are far from alone using terms like Victorian, Georgian or Edwardian in meaningful ways. That the old institution has been stripped of its political muscle renders it a pretty harmless instrument of state, there for symbolic value only, akin to a museum piece.
Moreover today is about the newly-wed Windsors, William and Kate. How will their relationship be? No one knows of course, not even them. My guess is that they will have a better married life than the groom’s parents though that would not be hard. Charles and Diana always looked like a disaster in the making.
Interestingly, I watched Abi Morgan’s brilliant film, Royal Wedding, the other day which used footage of Charles and Di as a backdrop to a story about relationship life in a small Welsh community. How naive and clueless the characters were about their love lives, just like the young Princess about to embrace her regal future, clueless of how lonely she would be in a troubled union, clueless that she was entering a vortex, that she was embarking on a journey that would take her from the fantasy of marital bliss all the way to her tragic end in a Paris underpass. Morgan’s point was clear: idiocy presides when it comes to romance.
Yes none of us knows our fate. We go forward only in hope. I would like to think that over thirty years, knowledge might have been gained to impart to the emergent generation about how to do it right, but I doubt it. There is no store of cultural intelligence available to which young couples can turn for relationship values. If Will and Kate work out it will be from their own endeavour or simply a throw of the dice and not from any wisdom that has been acquired from the transgressions of their forebears.
I saw a satirical sketch last night where the interviewers asked Snow White and Cinderella for tips to give to the betrothed. That’s about right I thought. That about sums up the mentality of approach when it comes to matters of matrimony royal or otherwise.
Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxing champ. His victory over James Jeffries in 1910 sparked race riots and apparently even killings. Famously he is supposed to have said: “I’m black and they never let me forget it. I'm black all right. I'll never let them forget it!”
To those of us sympathetic to oppressed minorities Johnson’s words get all round approval. They represent the voice of vengeance putting the wrong to right. I wonder. Is it not a voice that makes the same mistake over again merely compounding a problem?
When the oppressed fight back successfully there is an inescapable feeling that some greater justice has been served. It is understandable and fair enough. As I said before, an eye for an eye is usually about as good as it gets. But it is still a low grade response, a primitive morality which often adds to further injury. As moral endeavour it is no more than the first step. It is what follows that counts, the hard work of building bridges.
Truth be told, if history had turned a different corner and black people had come to rule the world, then there would have been oppressions just the same. For the powerful group to dump on the less powerful one is the natural way of things. It takes a considerable effort of moral intelligence to hold that back.
I’m not saying that such intelligence is impossible, just that it is not typical. The Jesus imperative is something radical but also something difficult. Most are not capable of it and Johnson’s remark, apocryphal or not, isn’t it.
To those of us sympathetic to oppressed minorities Johnson’s words get all round approval. They represent the voice of vengeance putting the wrong to right. I wonder. Is it not a voice that makes the same mistake over again merely compounding a problem?
When the oppressed fight back successfully there is an inescapable feeling that some greater justice has been served. It is understandable and fair enough. As I said before, an eye for an eye is usually about as good as it gets. But it is still a low grade response, a primitive morality which often adds to further injury. As moral endeavour it is no more than the first step. It is what follows that counts, the hard work of building bridges.
Truth be told, if history had turned a different corner and black people had come to rule the world, then there would have been oppressions just the same. For the powerful group to dump on the less powerful one is the natural way of things. It takes a considerable effort of moral intelligence to hold that back.
I’m not saying that such intelligence is impossible, just that it is not typical. The Jesus imperative is something radical but also something difficult. Most are not capable of it and Johnson’s remark, apocryphal or not, isn’t it.
In Scotland there are the dours and the no’dours. The dours are well enough identified. They are decedent of the joyless Presbyterians, the ones who relate to pain before pleasure.
The no’dours are a bit more difficult to spot, but spot-able nevertheless, usually by their excessive use of humour. In company they quickly descend into a kind of puerile jokey-ness, usually a little harsh, usually at someone’s expense.
I think the no’dours disliked the stereotype of the miserable Scot: mean about money and drink-sodden. Like Britain’s prime minister in the 60s, Harold Wilson, they contrived a humour to throw off the stigma of their natural dourness.
Once in a while they produce a comic genius like Billy Connolly but more often the no’dours are unfunny and tedious as they compete with each other for who can banter best. Put a few of them in a room and the nonsense soon kicks off.
They are mostly male though there are Scots-women who can match the no’dours crack for crack. Whatever their gender I wish they would get serious. Actually, they are serious, very much so just behind the vale. But they’re afraid to show it socially in case they come across dour. And we couldn’t possibly have that could we?
The no’dours are a bit more difficult to spot, but spot-able nevertheless, usually by their excessive use of humour. In company they quickly descend into a kind of puerile jokey-ness, usually a little harsh, usually at someone’s expense.
I think the no’dours disliked the stereotype of the miserable Scot: mean about money and drink-sodden. Like Britain’s prime minister in the 60s, Harold Wilson, they contrived a humour to throw off the stigma of their natural dourness.
Once in a while they produce a comic genius like Billy Connolly but more often the no’dours are unfunny and tedious as they compete with each other for who can banter best. Put a few of them in a room and the nonsense soon kicks off.
They are mostly male though there are Scots-women who can match the no’dours crack for crack. Whatever their gender I wish they would get serious. Actually, they are serious, very much so just behind the vale. But they’re afraid to show it socially in case they come across dour. And we couldn’t possibly have that could we?
I look for ever more simple definitions of the term “spiritual”.
Yet another perfectly mundane way of defining the word would be to say that the spiritual is all the stuff that’s about keeping spirits up.
In a way that is what the religious stories, myths and beliefs were there to do: provide a kind of antidote to the troubles of life made all the more acute by heightened awareness. Simply, to keep the spirits up.
Can the antidote be dispensed with in favour of a commitment to the bald facts of life? I don’t know. Pure existentialism is a tough call.
Yet another perfectly mundane way of defining the word would be to say that the spiritual is all the stuff that’s about keeping spirits up.
In a way that is what the religious stories, myths and beliefs were there to do: provide a kind of antidote to the troubles of life made all the more acute by heightened awareness. Simply, to keep the spirits up.
Can the antidote be dispensed with in favour of a commitment to the bald facts of life? I don’t know. Pure existentialism is a tough call.
There won’t have been too many philosopher-types I imagine, men of reflection, who were charismatic and attractive as well as having lived dynamic lives in the world’s war-zones. Yonatan Netanyahu and Sergio Vieira de Mello would qualify for that unusual order of merit.
YONATAN NETANYAHU
Yoni was the older brother of the current Israeli prime minister. He was army commander at Entebbe and died that day in 1976 as his men successfully freed the Jewish hostages.
He seems to have been one of life’s rare and extraordinary individuals. Alongside an exemplary military career he studied philosophy at Harvard. His writings resonate with spirituality and intellect.
Unusually self-contained and independent, he at the same time thrived on brotherhood choosing military life over the academic or political. He is one of Israel’s eminent heroes.
Quote: “I could endure and persevere, both physically and emotionally way after everyone else broke down."
SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO
After reading philosophy at the Sorbonne and being radical in left wing student politics, Sergio became a leading figure in the United Nations. His preparedness to talk to the world’s bogeymen stood him apart from other diplomat types. He was a central figure in bringing about independence in East Timor after which he became a marked man for an army of fundamentalists.
He met his end in Iraq in 2003, wedged between two collapsed floors, the victim of a suicide bomber. During his final hours he saw the guy next to him saved by having his legs amputated and then a dead guy above him cut in half to clear the way.
De Mello died there in unimaginably terrifying conditions along with twenty of his colleagues. A leader to the last, it was reported by two soldier paramedics that he consistently asked after the others caught in the blast.
It was also reported by one of the soldiers that when urged to pray for help Sergio replied “Fuck God. He got us into this.” The soldier persisted to no avail. Facing death under hundreds of tons of rubble there is something remarkable about a man who won’t give God a shot anyway. “What would’ve been the harm?” the soldier said later.
Outlook: “Go out into the world and be a man of action but never stop being a man of reflection."
YONATAN NETANYAHU
Yoni was the older brother of the current Israeli prime minister. He was army commander at Entebbe and died that day in 1976 as his men successfully freed the Jewish hostages.
He seems to have been one of life’s rare and extraordinary individuals. Alongside an exemplary military career he studied philosophy at Harvard. His writings resonate with spirituality and intellect.
Unusually self-contained and independent, he at the same time thrived on brotherhood choosing military life over the academic or political. He is one of Israel’s eminent heroes.
Quote: “I could endure and persevere, both physically and emotionally way after everyone else broke down."
SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO
After reading philosophy at the Sorbonne and being radical in left wing student politics, Sergio became a leading figure in the United Nations. His preparedness to talk to the world’s bogeymen stood him apart from other diplomat types. He was a central figure in bringing about independence in East Timor after which he became a marked man for an army of fundamentalists.
He met his end in Iraq in 2003, wedged between two collapsed floors, the victim of a suicide bomber. During his final hours he saw the guy next to him saved by having his legs amputated and then a dead guy above him cut in half to clear the way.
De Mello died there in unimaginably terrifying conditions along with twenty of his colleagues. A leader to the last, it was reported by two soldier paramedics that he consistently asked after the others caught in the blast.
It was also reported by one of the soldiers that when urged to pray for help Sergio replied “Fuck God. He got us into this.” The soldier persisted to no avail. Facing death under hundreds of tons of rubble there is something remarkable about a man who won’t give God a shot anyway. “What would’ve been the harm?” the soldier said later.
Outlook: “Go out into the world and be a man of action but never stop being a man of reflection."
I doubt if Facebook will live to be an old institution. Quite apart from the sense that It doesn’t do enough to have staying power, I still feel that virtual social networks are of dubious value. They are really quite antisocial. They allow you to make connections without actually having to. In so doing they are lacking in the things that make connection important. Exclusivity is one of these important facets. All worthwhile relationships have the character of exclusivity.
Now, it may well be that part the attraction of Facebook is that it allows you to get around the stringent requirements for developing a real network. Social conventions are deeply immersed in requirement and restriction. Online contacts bypass these difficulties by pretending they don’t exist.
And I’m not saying here that contact being made easy is a bad thing. I’m not saying that the invention of an entire new tier of virtual connection is useless. Such networks could be helpful to those who take to them with flare and imagination. What I am saying is that most people are not that creative. Through time they fall back on their age-old ways of animal bonding. They relate to those in proximity, the ones they can see, hear and touch, the ones who feed their base needs.
I wonder too about the public nature of Facebook. You are pulled in the direction of saying things to a lot of people. Whereas the really important exchanges in life tend to be more intimate. The valuable conversations run deeper and usually take place in small groups or one to one. They lean to being exclusive where things are said that would not be said publicly.
What I’m led to conclude is that people are on Facebook just to be on Facebook and not for any deep-seated contact value that comes from the experience. Personally I can’t see how any of the relationships I already have would be enhanced by adding a virtual dimension to them. Facebook can do nothing to these associations that can’t be done better by more conventional means.
Yes I can see how it might be a useful bridging tool - i.e. helping make new relationships that convert to the actual. Perhaps there might lie its potential for me. Actually what would work for me was some kind of exclusive professional network that allowed me to build bridges with others in my world that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. I’d happily pay for that and pay well for it.
Most people are not bridgers however and that is why I think Facebook won’t last. Virtual relationships are deficient in the essential elements. Unless they facilitate something actual they will soon lose their cool and be relegated to the realms of passing fad. MySpace, Bebo, Friendster anyone?
Now, it may well be that part the attraction of Facebook is that it allows you to get around the stringent requirements for developing a real network. Social conventions are deeply immersed in requirement and restriction. Online contacts bypass these difficulties by pretending they don’t exist.
And I’m not saying here that contact being made easy is a bad thing. I’m not saying that the invention of an entire new tier of virtual connection is useless. Such networks could be helpful to those who take to them with flare and imagination. What I am saying is that most people are not that creative. Through time they fall back on their age-old ways of animal bonding. They relate to those in proximity, the ones they can see, hear and touch, the ones who feed their base needs.
I wonder too about the public nature of Facebook. You are pulled in the direction of saying things to a lot of people. Whereas the really important exchanges in life tend to be more intimate. The valuable conversations run deeper and usually take place in small groups or one to one. They lean to being exclusive where things are said that would not be said publicly.
What I’m led to conclude is that people are on Facebook just to be on Facebook and not for any deep-seated contact value that comes from the experience. Personally I can’t see how any of the relationships I already have would be enhanced by adding a virtual dimension to them. Facebook can do nothing to these associations that can’t be done better by more conventional means.
Yes I can see how it might be a useful bridging tool - i.e. helping make new relationships that convert to the actual. Perhaps there might lie its potential for me. Actually what would work for me was some kind of exclusive professional network that allowed me to build bridges with others in my world that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. I’d happily pay for that and pay well for it.
Most people are not bridgers however and that is why I think Facebook won’t last. Virtual relationships are deficient in the essential elements. Unless they facilitate something actual they will soon lose their cool and be relegated to the realms of passing fad. MySpace, Bebo, Friendster anyone?
In a sense most talk is sophistry. An example would be the widespread use of fact-stating language to express values. This is a great song they say when what they mean is I like this song a lot. The latter is a statement of personal preferences, the former a pseudo-objective statement of fact.
When using fact-stating language to express values - words like good and bad, right and wrong - the expressions are only metaphors. But because language has such strong psychological import the metaphors are taken to be actual when they are merely linguistic conventions. In short, human beings talk bollocks much of the time, an insight consistent with what the 20th Century language philosophers thought.
Wittgenstein, chief among them, said philosophy was an activity leaving everything where it is. In other words it doesn’t do much, it is just something to do. I’m not sure I agree with him. An activity by definition moves around and leaves things changed as a consequence.
Harvard professor, Michael Sandel, said in a recent televised lecture that reading philosophy carries risks which confront us with what we already know and makes it strange. It provides and provokes a new way of seeing. When the familiar turns strange it is never the same again he said. Self knowledge is like lost innocence. It can be a distancing and debilitating activity. Indeed it is not at all one that leaves everything where it is.
Language is more than just passive noise-making. It is strewn with meaning and value. It has immense spiritual force in that every word spoken has an effect on somebody somewhere. Even if all of philosophy was merely the analysing of linguistic concepts it is still much more than static practice. It can potentially influence thinking and feeling. If all it does is show the inconsistencies and vagaries of speech, if it exposes the bollocks people talk, then it does good service. Thus at the very least it identifies the enormity of the job at hand in having us be more considered and careful about what we say and how we say it.
When using fact-stating language to express values - words like good and bad, right and wrong - the expressions are only metaphors. But because language has such strong psychological import the metaphors are taken to be actual when they are merely linguistic conventions. In short, human beings talk bollocks much of the time, an insight consistent with what the 20th Century language philosophers thought.
Wittgenstein, chief among them, said philosophy was an activity leaving everything where it is. In other words it doesn’t do much, it is just something to do. I’m not sure I agree with him. An activity by definition moves around and leaves things changed as a consequence.
Harvard professor, Michael Sandel, said in a recent televised lecture that reading philosophy carries risks which confront us with what we already know and makes it strange. It provides and provokes a new way of seeing. When the familiar turns strange it is never the same again he said. Self knowledge is like lost innocence. It can be a distancing and debilitating activity. Indeed it is not at all one that leaves everything where it is.
Language is more than just passive noise-making. It is strewn with meaning and value. It has immense spiritual force in that every word spoken has an effect on somebody somewhere. Even if all of philosophy was merely the analysing of linguistic concepts it is still much more than static practice. It can potentially influence thinking and feeling. If all it does is show the inconsistencies and vagaries of speech, if it exposes the bollocks people talk, then it does good service. Thus at the very least it identifies the enormity of the job at hand in having us be more considered and careful about what we say and how we say it.
I think that good and bad are not on a continuum. I mean that the good events and the bad events which make up a life do not sum together resulting in a certain level of happiness as a consequence.
You may count your blessings on reflection and assess the good to have measured up well against the bad. But I don’t think that is how it works. I suggest that the dynamics of good and bad each work on the mind independently.
It would be possible to have had a fortuitous life but for a certain bad event - a traumatic episode say - to have had a debilitating and maybe disproportionate effect. This is what happens with depression which can be defined essentially as grief that stays around too long. In such a case the amount of positive stuff, the number of blessings that can be counted, may add little benefit to mental health.
It is in similar sentiment that the following are said to be true:
It is only with perspective that the good and bad might be seen as being on a continuum. Employing perspective is a worthwhile intellectual exercise with possible therapeutic value. But however good it may look on paper it is mainly a useful tool. The consequence of adversity having deeper emotional resonance exerts a more powerful influence on the psyche than the intellect can manage. Other than for Zen masters perspective is usually not sufficient for the re-mapping of neural pathways. That is why self-help books don’t help much after they are put away. It is why cognitive behaviour therapies often don’t yield long term results.
You may count your blessings on reflection and assess the good to have measured up well against the bad. But I don’t think that is how it works. I suggest that the dynamics of good and bad each work on the mind independently.
It would be possible to have had a fortuitous life but for a certain bad event - a traumatic episode say - to have had a debilitating and maybe disproportionate effect. This is what happens with depression which can be defined essentially as grief that stays around too long. In such a case the amount of positive stuff, the number of blessings that can be counted, may add little benefit to mental health.
It is in similar sentiment that the following are said to be true:
- Misery is more contagious than happiness.
- A melancholy person can make a contented one miserable where the reverse is less likely.
- Happiness is fleeting where unhappiness lingers.
- The bad stuff seems much more powerful than the good.
- It is easier to destroy than it is to create.
It is only with perspective that the good and bad might be seen as being on a continuum. Employing perspective is a worthwhile intellectual exercise with possible therapeutic value. But however good it may look on paper it is mainly a useful tool. The consequence of adversity having deeper emotional resonance exerts a more powerful influence on the psyche than the intellect can manage. Other than for Zen masters perspective is usually not sufficient for the re-mapping of neural pathways. That is why self-help books don’t help much after they are put away. It is why cognitive behaviour therapies often don’t yield long term results.
I used to think that an eye for an eye was a morally primitive idea. It lacked evolved understanding. Turning the other cheek seemed more elevated.
I’m not so sure now. Someone recently pointed out that an eye for an eye was about limiting retribution so that it was proportionate. It was to be one for one not two for one. In other words, you don’t blow someone’s head off just because they offended you.
So there is more intelligence to that Old Testament notion than is immediately clear. Given that conflict can flare up so easily from the smallest slight there is wisdom in counselling that a response should be measured.
There might be more wisdom still in not responding in kind, in trying to take the longer view over an issue so that a peaceful resolution might be found. But in truth that is not the way that most people feel when in adversarial mode. They want to take down the foe there and then.
The American response to 9/11 wasn’t clever. They went storming across the world with their big guns shooting at anything that got in the way. The result has been an almighty mess with hundreds of thousands dead or displaced to avenge three thousand killed at the twin towers. It is questionable whether that response was proportionate. With Britain in tow, two Christian leaders certainly did not turn the other cheek but neither did they satisfy the considered morality in an eye for an eye.
Not that I agree with turning the other cheek. It is so unrealistic to the point of being stupid, almost masochistic. Who is going to offer up “me too” when the women and children are being raped? No, it is an unfortunate truth that sometimes you have to fight back. But the response needs to be intelligent and much of the time human beings don’t act out of the kind of intelligence that might ultimately be in their good interests. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples.
To not immediately respond in kind to an attack might be wise. But I doubt if turning the other cheek is going to help much. An eye for an eye with its sense of proportional response is probably as good as it gets.
I’m not so sure now. Someone recently pointed out that an eye for an eye was about limiting retribution so that it was proportionate. It was to be one for one not two for one. In other words, you don’t blow someone’s head off just because they offended you.
So there is more intelligence to that Old Testament notion than is immediately clear. Given that conflict can flare up so easily from the smallest slight there is wisdom in counselling that a response should be measured.
There might be more wisdom still in not responding in kind, in trying to take the longer view over an issue so that a peaceful resolution might be found. But in truth that is not the way that most people feel when in adversarial mode. They want to take down the foe there and then.
The American response to 9/11 wasn’t clever. They went storming across the world with their big guns shooting at anything that got in the way. The result has been an almighty mess with hundreds of thousands dead or displaced to avenge three thousand killed at the twin towers. It is questionable whether that response was proportionate. With Britain in tow, two Christian leaders certainly did not turn the other cheek but neither did they satisfy the considered morality in an eye for an eye.
Not that I agree with turning the other cheek. It is so unrealistic to the point of being stupid, almost masochistic. Who is going to offer up “me too” when the women and children are being raped? No, it is an unfortunate truth that sometimes you have to fight back. But the response needs to be intelligent and much of the time human beings don’t act out of the kind of intelligence that might ultimately be in their good interests. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are prime examples.
To not immediately respond in kind to an attack might be wise. But I doubt if turning the other cheek is going to help much. An eye for an eye with its sense of proportional response is probably as good as it gets.
When I saw Vashti Bunyan as part of a vocal group on a Nick Drake tribute I thought she must have been Nick’s sister or something - there for the token. Her singing was so unaccomplished. Then I saw her again on The Review Show recently and realised she was a respected artist.
Apparently she was part of the London scene in the 60s, first taken up by Andrew Oldham (Ã la Marianne Faithfull) and later by Joe Boyd. She made a record then which didn’t do much and gave up music only to be brought back 30 years later when her old album became a cult. She has now put out more releases and is enjoying some success.
It’s a nice story and good luck to her. But I can’t help marvelling at just where the bar is set when it comes to conventional musicality. I like to set it low myself. Actually maybe I like for there not to be a bar at all. But sometimes you hear a performance and it is so devoid of technique that you remember there has to be a bar.
Vashti’s singing would be below the line. Yet I rather liked it in the context of the Drake tribute because I assumed she was token. To learn that she is credible in her own right was such a surprise. If I’ve not said it often enough I say it again: it’s all about context.
I’ve since been checking Vashti out online and indeed her attractiveness is clear. She comes over as a lovely person, delicate, beautiful and modest. Able to inject these attributes into her music then she resonates. I am now a convert. I really shouldn’t be such a technique snob.
Apparently she was part of the London scene in the 60s, first taken up by Andrew Oldham (Ã la Marianne Faithfull) and later by Joe Boyd. She made a record then which didn’t do much and gave up music only to be brought back 30 years later when her old album became a cult. She has now put out more releases and is enjoying some success.
It’s a nice story and good luck to her. But I can’t help marvelling at just where the bar is set when it comes to conventional musicality. I like to set it low myself. Actually maybe I like for there not to be a bar at all. But sometimes you hear a performance and it is so devoid of technique that you remember there has to be a bar.
Vashti’s singing would be below the line. Yet I rather liked it in the context of the Drake tribute because I assumed she was token. To learn that she is credible in her own right was such a surprise. If I’ve not said it often enough I say it again: it’s all about context.
I’ve since been checking Vashti out online and indeed her attractiveness is clear. She comes over as a lovely person, delicate, beautiful and modest. Able to inject these attributes into her music then she resonates. I am now a convert. I really shouldn’t be such a technique snob.
If I said to you that there were invisible spiders everywhere in the empty spaces around us, that these spiders were undetectable, not amenable to the senses in the way everything else is, then there’s not much you can say to disprove me. You might only conclude that I had finally flipped into weirdness.
You could point out that the burden of proof for an assertion should be on the person who asserts and not on the person who asks for evidence. Certainly it is much harder to verify than to falsify but that’s the deal. Credible reality is constantly up against the scrutiny of scepticism.
Still, there are lots of beliefs held that don’t do well scrutinised. Invisible spiders are everywhere in human discourse. The existence of free will is one of them. There is little to no evidence for such a thing but people, even atheists, widely believe in freedom of the will without question.
If free will does exist it would be an entity that can’t be verified. It would be one of these things which operates outside the laws of physics. Yet it doesn’t make much sense to posit knowledge of things that exist beyond the physical. Such entities can’t be verified OR falsified. They are untestable. No amount of information can prove or disprove them.
If everything in existence is subject to causal physics then how can it be said that anything has genuine freedom? Everything in existence is determined by an infinity of other things all interconnected in a massively complex web.
Understood like this, free will is only a metaphor; it is terminology used to describe the behaviour around choosing. There may be ten things on the menu which you consider before settling on one but the idea that you freely chose it is a logical step too far. You may only mean that nobody held a gun to your head. You chose from several options but that the act of choosing was free, that it somehow defied the laws of physics, is far-fetching.
Does the determinism I am arguing for here need to imply pre-determinism? I’m not sure. There could be a cutting edge for events where an infinite number of possible outcomes offer themselves up only for one to be selected. It may only be in the moment that all is ultimately determined but determined nevertheless and not by anything freely controlled by humans.
That somehow humans might control that selection process with their special will is so unlikely as to be ridiculous. Those who argue for this usually only attribute such a super-power to homo-sapiens while denying that other sentient beings have it. These other biological forms are too stepped in their instinctual natures apparently.
No, I think the notion of a will which freely roams the spiritual cosmos is another example of hubristic humanity and its quaint pretensions. It is as fanciful as the wildest of myths, about as credible as invisible spiders.
You could point out that the burden of proof for an assertion should be on the person who asserts and not on the person who asks for evidence. Certainly it is much harder to verify than to falsify but that’s the deal. Credible reality is constantly up against the scrutiny of scepticism.
Still, there are lots of beliefs held that don’t do well scrutinised. Invisible spiders are everywhere in human discourse. The existence of free will is one of them. There is little to no evidence for such a thing but people, even atheists, widely believe in freedom of the will without question.
If free will does exist it would be an entity that can’t be verified. It would be one of these things which operates outside the laws of physics. Yet it doesn’t make much sense to posit knowledge of things that exist beyond the physical. Such entities can’t be verified OR falsified. They are untestable. No amount of information can prove or disprove them.
If everything in existence is subject to causal physics then how can it be said that anything has genuine freedom? Everything in existence is determined by an infinity of other things all interconnected in a massively complex web.
Understood like this, free will is only a metaphor; it is terminology used to describe the behaviour around choosing. There may be ten things on the menu which you consider before settling on one but the idea that you freely chose it is a logical step too far. You may only mean that nobody held a gun to your head. You chose from several options but that the act of choosing was free, that it somehow defied the laws of physics, is far-fetching.
Does the determinism I am arguing for here need to imply pre-determinism? I’m not sure. There could be a cutting edge for events where an infinite number of possible outcomes offer themselves up only for one to be selected. It may only be in the moment that all is ultimately determined but determined nevertheless and not by anything freely controlled by humans.
That somehow humans might control that selection process with their special will is so unlikely as to be ridiculous. Those who argue for this usually only attribute such a super-power to homo-sapiens while denying that other sentient beings have it. These other biological forms are too stepped in their instinctual natures apparently.
No, I think the notion of a will which freely roams the spiritual cosmos is another example of hubristic humanity and its quaint pretensions. It is as fanciful as the wildest of myths, about as credible as invisible spiders.
They say it was a walk-over for Hitchens but I didn’t see it that way. That’s the thing about debate: unlike in sport where the result is final, with rhetoric who the winner is can still be a matter of opinion.
Blair had the harder job. It’s more difficult to argue for a thing than against. If you’re case involves something unprovable and not amenable to evidence, like faith, then it’s tough to beat a worthy empiricist. Religious people end up sounding irrational in such debates. If they would bite the bullet and stop trying to make the case that the thing they believe in is actually true and just argue that believers feel better for believing then their position would be easier. To some extent that’s what Blair did. He said that people like him (and by extension, humanity) were improved by their faith. He also pointed out that bigotry and prejudice are not "wholly owned subsidiaries" of religion, adding: "I agree in a world without religion, that the religious fanatics may be gone, but I ask you: Would fanaticism be gone?"
Hitch got the votes though. The motion that religion is a force for good in the world was defeated 68/32. It may be one of his last victories as it looks like that great polemicist won’t be around much longer having late stage cancer, ironically for a man of speech, of the oesophagus. I’ll honour him here by quoting some of his remarks.
From the debate:
"It's very touching for Tony to say that he recently went to a meeting to bridge the religious divide in Northern Ireland, but where does the religious divide come from? Four-hundred years and more in my own country of birth of people killing each other's children depending on what kind of Christian they were."
“...and making Northern Ireland the most remarkable place in northern Europe for unemployment, ignorance, poverty and I would say stupidity too.”
From God Is Not Great:
“Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism... hostile to free enquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”
CNN interview:
“Religion ends and philosophy begins. Just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins.”
Blair had the harder job. It’s more difficult to argue for a thing than against. If you’re case involves something unprovable and not amenable to evidence, like faith, then it’s tough to beat a worthy empiricist. Religious people end up sounding irrational in such debates. If they would bite the bullet and stop trying to make the case that the thing they believe in is actually true and just argue that believers feel better for believing then their position would be easier. To some extent that’s what Blair did. He said that people like him (and by extension, humanity) were improved by their faith. He also pointed out that bigotry and prejudice are not "wholly owned subsidiaries" of religion, adding: "I agree in a world without religion, that the religious fanatics may be gone, but I ask you: Would fanaticism be gone?"
Hitch got the votes though. The motion that religion is a force for good in the world was defeated 68/32. It may be one of his last victories as it looks like that great polemicist won’t be around much longer having late stage cancer, ironically for a man of speech, of the oesophagus. I’ll honour him here by quoting some of his remarks.
From the debate:
"It's very touching for Tony to say that he recently went to a meeting to bridge the religious divide in Northern Ireland, but where does the religious divide come from? Four-hundred years and more in my own country of birth of people killing each other's children depending on what kind of Christian they were."
“...and making Northern Ireland the most remarkable place in northern Europe for unemployment, ignorance, poverty and I would say stupidity too.”
From God Is Not Great:
“Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism... hostile to free enquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”
CNN interview:
“Religion ends and philosophy begins. Just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins.”
One way of struggling through when your art brings no income is to offer some kind of related service. A singer might teach. A musician might build or fix instruments. A poet might do advertising copy. A painter might decorate. But it’s a risky approach. Because through time you become what you do. One day you are no longer an artist but a provider.
I got by providing studio services with my producer, arranger, composer skills tagged on as an extra when needed. But really it was the extras that were the draw. It certainly wasn’t my virtually non-existent technical ability or my laughable business skills. Nor did the clients come to access the mickey-mouse equipment in every studio I ever owned.
No, they came for the possibility that my ear and experience might bring something valuable to their recordings. Musicians prefer studio folk who are multi-skilled. They can be called on to play a piano part, to do a backing vocal arrangement, to write the third verse, to produce, to musically direct, to be suggestive and generally supportive with advice, to be patient no matter what. They can be called on for all these things and more as long as everything is reject-able and for free.
And there’s the rub: at least when you do your art for free and it gets rejected it is still your art and you still have it. When your creativity as a studio guy gets absorbed into someone else’s work it is all but lost. Sometimes you are barely even credited. I think I would have felt better about that had I been paid a fair fee consistent with other professional services. But rarely does that happen. Painters who decorate and singers who teach are paid more than studio guys.
And anyway, I felt so out of kilter playing the professional that I couldn’t push for it. The jobs came. I never went looking for them. Perhaps had I been more enthusiastic about being a service provider I could have made a financial success of it. But even that is doubtful. Studios have disappeared like snow off a wall. Yet mine is still going, with more work than I can manage, and probably because I invest some element of my artistry into the art of others.
I shouldn’t be such a whiny sod and be pleased I’m still in the game albeit precariously. I get to do my thing having set up an online label this year which means that someone somewhere in the world hears my work every day now. That was never the case historically. Yes it is so far down the long tail as to be nearly invisible. But most artists are invisible. They fail most of the time. That’s why they need day jobs.
I got by providing studio services with my producer, arranger, composer skills tagged on as an extra when needed. But really it was the extras that were the draw. It certainly wasn’t my virtually non-existent technical ability or my laughable business skills. Nor did the clients come to access the mickey-mouse equipment in every studio I ever owned.
No, they came for the possibility that my ear and experience might bring something valuable to their recordings. Musicians prefer studio folk who are multi-skilled. They can be called on to play a piano part, to do a backing vocal arrangement, to write the third verse, to produce, to musically direct, to be suggestive and generally supportive with advice, to be patient no matter what. They can be called on for all these things and more as long as everything is reject-able and for free.
And there’s the rub: at least when you do your art for free and it gets rejected it is still your art and you still have it. When your creativity as a studio guy gets absorbed into someone else’s work it is all but lost. Sometimes you are barely even credited. I think I would have felt better about that had I been paid a fair fee consistent with other professional services. But rarely does that happen. Painters who decorate and singers who teach are paid more than studio guys.
And anyway, I felt so out of kilter playing the professional that I couldn’t push for it. The jobs came. I never went looking for them. Perhaps had I been more enthusiastic about being a service provider I could have made a financial success of it. But even that is doubtful. Studios have disappeared like snow off a wall. Yet mine is still going, with more work than I can manage, and probably because I invest some element of my artistry into the art of others.
I shouldn’t be such a whiny sod and be pleased I’m still in the game albeit precariously. I get to do my thing having set up an online label this year which means that someone somewhere in the world hears my work every day now. That was never the case historically. Yes it is so far down the long tail as to be nearly invisible. But most artists are invisible. They fail most of the time. That’s why they need day jobs.
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