NEVER SCOTLAND

As a young guy I dared to be serious, to think big thoughts, to pursue goals and chase dreams. Scotland was not the kind of place to be doing that. New York maybe. Never Scotland.

TOUGH LATERAL

Maybe it was a 60s counter-culture thing but as a young man I became disposed to alternative systems of value. Conventional wisdoms seemed to be so inadequate. When faced with a situation I would adopt some kind of lateral approach to see if another way round a problem could be found. But with time I understood that the conventions I found unsatisfactory were so deeply embedded that they would be gone against only with great difficulty. These conventions were the fundaments of the culture. Tough call.

CONTRADICTIONS

We’re fond of pointing out inconsistencies in what others say. I wonder about that. Life is full of contradictions and so are people. Given the complexity of things this is quite natural. Yet we object strongly to a contradictory statement as if pointing it out is sufficient grounds for dismissing its value. Why? Because it’s a bit of a game with a set of rules. The rules are the rhetorical rules of language and argument with people pitch against each other. It’s part of the adversarial way of things. Some get off on that and can use it for advancement, politicians being the most obvious example. Personally I’d prefer something a bit more complementary where the impulse is to help resolve contradictions and reach a better understanding rather than use them for adversarial ends. But like most of my aspirations that one too is well wide of the mark.

EXISTENTIALISM

I used to think that if it wasn’t this it had to be that because it had to be something. But it doesn’t have to be anything does it? Everything is contingent. This is the existentialist position.

DEFINITION OF HELL

Not fire, damnation and the abandonment of hope. But a place of infinite hope and promise that can’t deliver. That’s hell. Here, the more you try the less you achieve. Everything is contingent and transitory. Ultimately nothing works.

PSEUDO SOCIALISTS

I am often angry when thinking back to the 1980s about some of these pretentious bastards I knew who posed as lefties and blamed all the evils of the world on the capitalists. One of them said once in response to my referring to us as a collective that there is no WE there is only ME. Even Thatcher would not have gone that far.

THE LONG WAIT

The pushy, with their relentless mediocrity, are in the ascendency these days. Our aggressive, competitive society ensures it. The reluctant, in contrast, invariably more talented and essential, are hanging back somewhere doing what they do, waiting to be called. They will have a long wait.

PLATO

“The ideal candidate [for government] is the reluctant one.”

SEPTEMBER 11th

The history of humans is the history of power struggles: tribe to tribe, nation to nation, man to man, woman to man. Events in the US yesterday are a particularly abhorrent variation on the old theme. It is difficult to imagine a world free of this kind of stuff.

HYPOCRISY

John Humphrys rather bravely points out that “we condemn those who support terrorism as having no concern for the sanctity of life. But neither do we if the cause is sufficiently in our interests.” In similar sentiment Tony Benn informs that the US has bombed nine countries since 1945 (Cambodia, Japan, Iraq, etc). Is a terrorist action any worse a deed morally than the killing of innocents done by national or international sanction?

AA GILL ON SEPTEMBER 11TH

“...... this is about having to take a look at what our civilisation has become and whether it is doing what we want and need it to do. The answer has to be NO! It has become cynically decorative. We have accepted that culture is a synonym for entertainment. We have become consumers not epicureans. We applaud people who market things rather than make things. We have lost the tools or the talent to be serious, to keep a straight face or conjure up gravitas. Suddenly bereft of a cheap joke or cosy irony we search for profundity and it’s not there.”