This happy episode came to mind while thinking about the writer's block that has descended this last fortnight. Casting an eye over Keir Starmer's leadership and you could be forgiven we're living 10 years in the past. Crap slogans are back with 11th dimensional reasoning performing an Emporer's new clothes' job on vacuous banalities. And we have a rapid distancing from anything remotely smacking of progressive politics. Yesterday it was a failure to oppose the Tories on exempting military personnel from war crimes prosecutions. Today Labour Lords abstained on a mortorium on 55,000 evictions. Even mentioning the Covid dead is out of bounds. Like Ed Miliband, Keir Starmer won a Labour leadership contest on a soft left platform. And like his predecessor, he's busying burying his pledges because the geniuses around him think alienating core support is the only way to win.
Then we have the appalling nonsense of the Tories. With a pathetically needy Prime Minister getting the brick bat treatment, the dead cat distractionism of withdrawal agreement posturing is so Autumn 2019 and all the more indecent for it. Continuing the theme of pillaging the recent past, Johnson's announcements of new Covid-19 restrictions are so tissue thin we can look forward to infection rates galloping higher and higher, just like the start of the outbreak. And what do we have here? Rishi Sunak offering an economic support package that leaves culture workers out in the cold again, will compensate workers for only upto £700/month, and incentivises employers to dispense with full-time workers. It's enough to remind one of the economic support packages announced earlier in the year with all the inadequacies plus a few new ones.
These egregious examples of eternal recurrence are the root of my writerly malaise. Different day, literally the same old shit. The thought of repeating myself over and over as the same things keep happening doesn't appeal, so I'm taking it a bit easy. Get the old book finished (first draft done, now editing), read some more to stop the brain rotting, and write when the block is blocked out. It could be tomorrow, next week, or next month. And so, until then.
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Yes, Phil, you are doing the best thing.
ReplyDeleteI think that we are currently in the lull before the storm, when a lot of issues are going to come together.
The combination of pandemic and No-Deal Brexit is, when added to the current and growing turmoil in the Labour market, explosive.
We were warned, but many chose not to heed it.
And not one iota of sense from either front bench.
But I look forward to the book!
Editing your own work, what a joy; particularly writing in the academic style.
ReplyDeleteOn slogans-We deserved to lose the election. As with so many things, if only I’d known earlier.
“Nietzschean expounded the doctrine of eternal recurrence, which he interpreted as cyclical history. Everything was doomed to repetition”
ReplyDeleteWell the Marxists should have been familiar with Marx saying history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce!
One thing about Starmer, he doesn’t think twice about harassing and bullying and sacking his enemies whether they are women or not. If only Corbyn had been so decisive instead of being taken for a mug.
Starmer believes that exempting the thuggish British military from killing and torturing the backward natives in its supremacists project will go down well with the electorate in Britain, he is probably correct about that!
Boffy will see it as a victory for the civilising mission of capitalism! Sentinel will just be glad that darkies can be killed with impunity. Same shit different persona.
«These egregious examples of eternal recurrence are the root of my writerly malaise. Different day, literally the same old shit. The thought of repeating myself over and over as the same things keep happening doesn't appeal»
ReplyDeleteSometimes one has to win by persistence. The rentier/extractive side are very patient, they have been working for decades to undo the New Deal in the USA and undo the social-democracy in the UK, and little by little they have advanced their cause, with great persistence. But that does not means it has be be always *you*, as long as the producers/workers side has always someone pushing their interests forward.
«so I'm taking it a bit easy. Get the old book finished (first draft done, now editing), read some more to stop the brain rotting,»
Getting the book done, more reading are also ways to be persistent, and valuable too, not just blogging.
«the doctrine of eternal recurrence, which he interpreted as cyclical history. Everything was doomed to repetition: the present will recycle itself somewhere down the line, while we shuffle along an unoriginal course revisiting the same experiences and thoughts of previous generations. It has always been this. It will always be thus.»
ReplyDeleteAs to the gems that one can accidentally discover in the unlikeliest places, I read sometimes ago a beautiful "larouchist" argument that one of the great points of christianity is that its central belief, the sacrifice of Jesus, it fundamentally rejects the point of view of the cyclical nature of history: things can change, there are points in time that switch the path of history. This is both against the whig notion of history, where there is no repetition, just "progress" towards "the end of history", and the traditional "asiatic" (but not necessarily buddhist) view of history as a series of repeating cycles, none identical, but very similar.
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/fid_912_hzl_c_flor.html
“The emergence of Christianity marks the greatest turning-point in human history. By becoming man, Christ broke the cyclical image of history, which had been the leading feature of pagan, pre-Christian myths and cults.”
I think that's an interesting point of view. The Larouchists even when they exaggerate their claims tend to have interesting arguments well supported by amusing erudition.
Karl...I agree combination of pandemic & no-deal Brexit will add to turmoil...I see a pre-revolutionary situation developing in Britain which like the Spanish revolution in the 1930s will go on for years, if not decades...the reason being that a revolutionary party i.e. mass Communist Party is absent.
ReplyDeleteAcross the pond we are likely to see a civil war situation...Trump & his far-right armed militias will not give up the Presidency if Biden wins...The US military will have to intervene to eject Trump...However...Trump is still odds-on to win in November...Whatever happens civil war of the streets of US cities is on the agenda.
John...Thanks for opening up by on my comments. I agree entirely with your observations.
DeleteThe commonality between UK and US societies continues, although each has its own particular driving factors.
Interesting times indeed, that do require a serious response from the left.
Hi Phil, I do look forward to reading your commentary and the insights you offer, but also understand the weariness that comes with contemplating a party that has turned it's back on the future. Haven't got any solutions but I think, as a nation, we are hurtling into unknown territory. Whether by design, incompetence, or ideologically driven blindness, the British Establishment (all of it - business leadership, government, Parliament, judiciary, public sector leadership) is failing. All of us in the UK are facing mass unemployment, closing businesses, mortgage/loan defaults, collapsing services and an unravelling of the union. The double whammy of Covid 19 and Brexit will see to that. All of those running the show with the power to make decisions are clearly disengaged from reality. For example, universities could have acted collectively and challenged the government on 'return to campus' 'quality online teaching' and worked in unity to organize HE education for this year. Instead, they followed a market agenda and are contributing to a public health disaster. There are many other examples. We are surrouned by 'naked emperors'.
ReplyDelete«pandemic & no-deal Brexit will add to turmoil...I see a pre-revolutionary situation developing in Britain which like the Spanish revolution in the 1930s [...] Across the pond we are likely to see a civil war situation...Trump & his far-right armed militias will not give up the Presidency if Biden wins»
ReplyDeleteOh, marvellously self-delusional yearnings for the revolution, just "one last heave" :-).
The "Ancient Regime" lasted for around 1,000 years, despite wars, peasant rebellions, etc.; presumably capitalism will last less, but after 200 years it seems dominant in most of thw world, and capitalist parties (Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, LibDem, New Labour, ...) gather almost all votes, by one way or another.
That the production relationships that have given rise to the various forms of capitalism will probably endure for quite a while does not mean that like the Democrats and New Labour one has to be completely surrender; it means that those who represent the interests of workers and producers have a difficult but not impossible task of pushing back and getting the best possible deal for their constituencies, because that is negotiable, within limits.
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DeleteSimple acts of observation and prognostication do not constitute "self-delusional yearnings for the revolution", but after I have worked out what you mean by that, I might feel put out a bit.......
Deletewriters block?
ReplyDeleteAccountants don't get Accountant's block.
Lawyers don't get lawyer's block.
No, they just suffer with their mental health instead and are forced to take time off work.
ReplyDeleteDip said
ReplyDelete"writers block?
Accountants don't get Accountant's block.
Lawyers don't get lawyer's block."
That is because Accountants and Lawyers require no imagination to do their work. Oh they fabricate, they cheat, but they don't imagine.
Well Accountants imagine that they are not Accountants!
Looking forward to what I expect to be a very good read.
ReplyDelete