(click on picture for the same in a bigger size)
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Film review 5: Marie Antoinette (2006) directed by Sophia Coppola
The ultimate party-girl: fun and loveable, worried about a lot of day-to-day things and trying to re-create an island of bliss for her friends. She’s not entirely oblivious to the world but she’s busy trying to hold her ground and be happy.
She reminds me of so much in mainstream western life: honestly, we can’t spend our lives trying to debunk capitalism or thinking about who produced our sneakers, that'll just drive us nuts. On some days, I'm scared by the grimness of having to painstakingly document disastrous working conditions (did you know that it was Franz Kafka’s day job for a while?) and I'm scared of the emotional toll. I don’t even want to inhabit that world; I want nothing to do with it actually, why should I even seek it out? Do I even have to be aware at all? Let’s have champagne in the park instead!
She reminds me of so much in mainstream western life: honestly, we can’t spend our lives trying to debunk capitalism or thinking about who produced our sneakers, that'll just drive us nuts. On some days, I'm scared by the grimness of having to painstakingly document disastrous working conditions (did you know that it was Franz Kafka’s day job for a while?) and I'm scared of the emotional toll. I don’t even want to inhabit that world; I want nothing to do with it actually, why should I even seek it out? Do I even have to be aware at all? Let’s have champagne in the park instead!
My favourite commemorative plaque
"Thank God for James Young Simpson's discovery of chloroform anaesthesia in 1847"
in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.
And while I'm at it, one of my favourites mottos ever is also British: "We believe in life before death", motto of Christian Aid UK.
in St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh.
And while I'm at it, one of my favourites mottos ever is also British: "We believe in life before death", motto of Christian Aid UK.
Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Film review 4: The Squid and the Whale (2005) Directed by Noah Baumbach
Divorce as experienced by the kids. In the movie, teenager Walt Bergman seeks to manage the madness and idealises his friends' parents. Said friends' parents only see him as an awkward and dysfunctional youth, and not a good influence on their own kids. Ouch.
Crybaby
We were traveling in Peru with a psychologist friend and we had each gone separate ways for the afternoon. In front of a monastery was a guy in rags. I'd never looked alienation in the face until I saw this guy, he seemed profundly disturbed and unable to relate to man or beast, utterly beyond reach. It made me want to scream, or run, or I don't know what: like a chemical reaction it totally unsettled me.
I decided that I would sit there, with him, not too far. Sit there and not say a thing, wait for a sign to come from him. Lots of people stopped for me: what are you doing there? Are you alright? I asked them about this guy; how long has he been there? Do the monks not care?
-This one you know, he's just like that, it's sad but there's nothing we can do
-The monks have tried but it's too difficult
-I know, this is really sad, someone would usually just give him some food on
market days
I stayed for a while. I got zero signs from this guy. I bought him a pack of pralines and walked back home. I was mega bugged. My friend Helen asked me what was wrong and I just cried convulsively for twenty minutes. She was worried about me now. In pure psychologist fashion she said "this guy is not the reason why you're crying, there must be something else, that was just the trigger, you must be really sad about something else, and this is just the excuse you've got to cry, what else is making you sad? You should talk to someone if you feel like that". Now there was something wrong with me.
Psychology was telling me that whenever I think I feel for someone else, I really don't feel for them at all: human beings are just a bundle of selfish motives anyway, and these motives get expressed in socially acceptable ways. Psychology could uncover these hidden motives, teach me how to deal with them and turn me into a happy consummer.
I'm sure that there's some truth in this, but I don't think that's the whole truth. When I'm sad I cry like a newborn until it passes. I don't even care what my motives are. But now I either lock my bedroom door first or I choose to be with friends who know that they do the same when they're sad, and are therefore not in the least freaked out by it.
Another friend once told me: "you cry like a baby, it's almost soothing, I haven't cried in fifteen years". She had had two abortions, and lots of problems but she was a tough one. I almost said: look let's get a bottle of wine and feel sad about stuff. I promise you that we'll come out on the other side with angelic smiles. Still, like in Dante's divine comedy, we've got to cross hell first. Then we can rejoice like mad people in the joys of purgatory: there life still sucks, but now you've got hope and you've taken on God's gentle yoke and you're so unspeakably grateful you feel like crying for joy.
I decided that I would sit there, with him, not too far. Sit there and not say a thing, wait for a sign to come from him. Lots of people stopped for me: what are you doing there? Are you alright? I asked them about this guy; how long has he been there? Do the monks not care?
-This one you know, he's just like that, it's sad but there's nothing we can do
-The monks have tried but it's too difficult
-I know, this is really sad, someone would usually just give him some food on
market days
I stayed for a while. I got zero signs from this guy. I bought him a pack of pralines and walked back home. I was mega bugged. My friend Helen asked me what was wrong and I just cried convulsively for twenty minutes. She was worried about me now. In pure psychologist fashion she said "this guy is not the reason why you're crying, there must be something else, that was just the trigger, you must be really sad about something else, and this is just the excuse you've got to cry, what else is making you sad? You should talk to someone if you feel like that". Now there was something wrong with me.
Psychology was telling me that whenever I think I feel for someone else, I really don't feel for them at all: human beings are just a bundle of selfish motives anyway, and these motives get expressed in socially acceptable ways. Psychology could uncover these hidden motives, teach me how to deal with them and turn me into a happy consummer.
I'm sure that there's some truth in this, but I don't think that's the whole truth. When I'm sad I cry like a newborn until it passes. I don't even care what my motives are. But now I either lock my bedroom door first or I choose to be with friends who know that they do the same when they're sad, and are therefore not in the least freaked out by it.
Another friend once told me: "you cry like a baby, it's almost soothing, I haven't cried in fifteen years". She had had two abortions, and lots of problems but she was a tough one. I almost said: look let's get a bottle of wine and feel sad about stuff. I promise you that we'll come out on the other side with angelic smiles. Still, like in Dante's divine comedy, we've got to cross hell first. Then we can rejoice like mad people in the joys of purgatory: there life still sucks, but now you've got hope and you've taken on God's gentle yoke and you're so unspeakably grateful you feel like crying for joy.
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
And I say: love the policy-makers!
I get paid to think about the broader political economy of developed European nations. I work in direct co-operation with the civil service and the political parties. In this sense, I'm not exactly countercultural.
I feel isolated in a sea of radical christian literature that just wants to "resist the evil system". Evil or not, I'm involved in managing that system in the best, most compassionate way. I've got the ear of quite a few officials, except that I'm not sure what to tell them.
I really wish I could find an accountability partner not so much on my personal ethics, but on the direct advocacy which I provide to people in power: So how are we going to run this country in the present socio-economic conditions? What are we going to offer the electorate at the next election? Failing that, I just imagine an accountability partner in my head, someone who, knowing my aims, would be proud of the work I'm doing.
Why are christian thinkers so rubbish when it comes to thinking about democracy? They all supposedly operate under the rule of the spirit. Well fine, me too, as it happens! But hell, I've had enough of people understanding this to mean that God rules their personal ethics, like whether they recycle, or give a few coins to a guy on the street or buy ethical coffee.
Sometimes I feel like even Jesus did not care about the business of running countries, and in any case He did not bother to say a word against the institutions of slavery, torture or the death penalty; although you may say that this flows quite logically from the injunction to love our neighbour and to treat the least brothers of His in the way we would treat Him*.
In any case, I deeply admire people who engage in politics and who manage to bring about great policy changes, just like the Quakers (who as you know never remove their hats) deeply admired Thomas Clarkson, and they did remove their hats at his funeral. I'd like to remove some hat today.
Let's think politically at the scale of our country: what would the spirit want there? And don't even get me started on the idiotic argument that all political power is necessarily satanic because by essence it takes upon itself a power that should lie with God. Politics is stewardship too: what does our country want to achieve in the world? Please people, let's reclaim politics! Please let's do politics again.
*I find the thought strangely vindicating: policy makers (and policy advocates) can make great policies for the most vulnerable! See if we don't.
Picture: Thomas Clarkson, the (unofficial) patron of policy-makers, academic political scientists and of this blog.
I feel isolated in a sea of radical christian literature that just wants to "resist the evil system". Evil or not, I'm involved in managing that system in the best, most compassionate way. I've got the ear of quite a few officials, except that I'm not sure what to tell them.
I really wish I could find an accountability partner not so much on my personal ethics, but on the direct advocacy which I provide to people in power: So how are we going to run this country in the present socio-economic conditions? What are we going to offer the electorate at the next election? Failing that, I just imagine an accountability partner in my head, someone who, knowing my aims, would be proud of the work I'm doing.
Why are christian thinkers so rubbish when it comes to thinking about democracy? They all supposedly operate under the rule of the spirit. Well fine, me too, as it happens! But hell, I've had enough of people understanding this to mean that God rules their personal ethics, like whether they recycle, or give a few coins to a guy on the street or buy ethical coffee.
Sometimes I feel like even Jesus did not care about the business of running countries, and in any case He did not bother to say a word against the institutions of slavery, torture or the death penalty; although you may say that this flows quite logically from the injunction to love our neighbour and to treat the least brothers of His in the way we would treat Him*.
In any case, I deeply admire people who engage in politics and who manage to bring about great policy changes, just like the Quakers (who as you know never remove their hats) deeply admired Thomas Clarkson, and they did remove their hats at his funeral. I'd like to remove some hat today.
Let's think politically at the scale of our country: what would the spirit want there? And don't even get me started on the idiotic argument that all political power is necessarily satanic because by essence it takes upon itself a power that should lie with God. Politics is stewardship too: what does our country want to achieve in the world? Please people, let's reclaim politics! Please let's do politics again.
*I find the thought strangely vindicating: policy makers (and policy advocates) can make great policies for the most vulnerable! See if we don't.
Picture: Thomas Clarkson, the (unofficial) patron of policy-makers, academic political scientists and of this blog.
Do you speak clubbing?
They know what is what
But they don't know what is what
They just strut
What the fuck? Fatboy Slim, Song 69
Strut, strut·ted, strut·ting: to walk with a vain, pompous bearing, as with head erect and chest thrown out, as if expecting to impress observers. (dictionary.reference.com)
But they don't know what is what
They just strut
What the fuck? Fatboy Slim, Song 69
Strut, strut·ted, strut·ting: to walk with a vain, pompous bearing, as with head erect and chest thrown out, as if expecting to impress observers. (dictionary.reference.com)
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