For a long long time - for various reasons - I would get an autonomic response when called upon (by others or myself) to say the simple words "I was wrong" and offer a sincere apology (i.e. not one couched with evasions, so-called 'explanations' and whatabout-eries.) Heart rate up, skin crawling, shortness of breath, etc.... Continue Reading →
One sign we were taking climate change and human/animal futures seriously would be…
... if all the house organs of the smugosphere (I won't mention names) were devoting at least one whole issue a year to the questions of Pathological Activist Cultures (1) - what are they, where they come from, what sustains them, what damage they do (short-term, long-term), what has been tried to overcome them (did... Continue Reading →
The wheels on the bus… another climate metaphor
Thinking a bit about metaphors at the moment, how they are cognitive affordances - make some ways of 'doing' easier, others harder. So, on climate change Human civilisation is in "the bus". And the wheels on the bus, as every parent knows, go round and round. And for a long time the bus didn't really,... Continue Reading →
Specific archive finds as “Rabbit Hole Invitations”
On a particular type of news article/magazine piece you may find when trawling archives and online database, that take you on OTHER documents… I need to come up with a decent name for these “Rabbit Hole Invitations” (but anything can do an RHI, if you want it to!) “Signposters” “Threads to pull on” Something else?... Continue Reading →
Perversity, Futility and Jeopardy – the watchwords of delay.
According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy (compare: Unintended consequences). The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent." Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost... Continue Reading →
On knowing (how) to walk away (and when to run)
Couple of things here. First up, the song "Angel of the Morning" a big hit some 40+ years ago for Juice Newton. Lyrics are about, well, how to break it clean. What Erica Jong called a "zipless fuck" There'll be no strings to bind your handsNot if my love can't bind your heartThere's no need... Continue Reading →
Dunning-Kruger, fnords and the smugosphere (homeosmugopheric mechnanisms)
I am fascinated by failure - personal, movement, species (not that the three are distinct, of course, but that's for another time). (see previous blog post, to which this is a sequel). How is it we persist with doing things so "obviously" stupid and self-defeating? Are we just blind? Blinded by ego? Blinded by fear?... Continue Reading →
The first rule of smugosphere is, nobody talks about smugosphere. #PointlessPodcasts
Ugh. Listened to some podcasts while walking along the canal tow-path feeding the moorhens. Love those moorhens. The podcasts? Not so much. There's so much smug self-congratulatory circle-jerking going on. "Ooh, it's the evil oil companies." "Ooh, it's the corrupted politicians, meatpuppets for the EOCs." "Ooh, it's the x, ooh it's the y." Over the... Continue Reading →
The end of the 1960s – “Nothing was changed, but everything was different”
So, here is another quote from "Dreams Die Hard" by David Harris - him in prison for having burnt his draft card and encouraged others to do the same. He is visited by a former mentor, Allard Lowenstein.., Everyone involved in the decade would have their own date for when the Sixties ended, and that... Continue Reading →
Then (in 1969) it fell apart… of space cadets and proto-Leninists…
This from David Harris "Dreams Die Hard" is absolutely on point. I know I've posted a lot from this book, but it really really should be read by anyone who gives a damn... If 1968 was the year when everything seemed to come together, 1969 would be a year in which a lot of it... Continue Reading →
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