Zygmunt Bauman, author of the "Liquid Series" on late or "liquid" Modernity, with a look at how the individualism and consumerism that informs so much of Modernity undermines the community and solidarity that was build by "Producers".
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-05-08-bauman-en.html
Tuesday 11 June 2013
Monday 10 June 2013
In defense of gentleness?
The Bible says that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Perhaps it means some other earth, because in the days of half hour soaps being a continuous volley of vicious insults, in the days of entire blogs dedicated to vitriol,- the gentle are getting trampled.
I think that gentleness (like so many other words that have become 'bad' words) has had its meaning twisted. People now confuse it to mean meekness or weakness - and who wants to be seen as weak?! Weakness means getting taken advantage of; it means being at the bottom of the social heap. Who wants that? Come on!
Except people who trip all over themselves to prove that they are not gentle are missing the point. In their race to prove that they are tough and can take all punches, they are simply proving their own weakness.
Were the Suffragists (headed by Milicent Fawcett) weak when they campaigned for rights for women, and stood up for social change? They were gentle, yes - they didn't have the destructive yet admittedly attention grabbing tactics of their sister organisation, the Suffragettes - but weak? Anybody who could stand up and publicly flout the conventions of her time could hardly be called weak, I think.
And yet, and yet. It seems that anybody who doesn't fall into the 'get other people before they get you' mentality is seen as somehow....off. Inferior - almost as though something is wrong with them. As though they have not yet put away childish things and accepted that in this world, it is dog eat dog, and it can't be any other way. Which is a pitiful way of looking at the world, if you ask me.
Think of Octavia Hill, Josephine Butler or Florence Nightingale. They were all women who stood up and did extraordinary things. What they did flouted the conventions of their time, both for their sex and their class - all these women must have had extraordinary reserves of strength to keep on as they did. Again, not really what one could call weak.
It is time to stop accepting this conflation of gentle and weak. I know plenty of gentle people who nonetheless manage to survive in the outside world. I'm sure you do too. Have a look.
Perhaps it means some other earth, because in the days of half hour soaps being a continuous volley of vicious insults, in the days of entire blogs dedicated to vitriol,- the gentle are getting trampled.
I think that gentleness (like so many other words that have become 'bad' words) has had its meaning twisted. People now confuse it to mean meekness or weakness - and who wants to be seen as weak?! Weakness means getting taken advantage of; it means being at the bottom of the social heap. Who wants that? Come on!
Except people who trip all over themselves to prove that they are not gentle are missing the point. In their race to prove that they are tough and can take all punches, they are simply proving their own weakness.
Were the Suffragists (headed by Milicent Fawcett) weak when they campaigned for rights for women, and stood up for social change? They were gentle, yes - they didn't have the destructive yet admittedly attention grabbing tactics of their sister organisation, the Suffragettes - but weak? Anybody who could stand up and publicly flout the conventions of her time could hardly be called weak, I think.
And yet, and yet. It seems that anybody who doesn't fall into the 'get other people before they get you' mentality is seen as somehow....off. Inferior - almost as though something is wrong with them. As though they have not yet put away childish things and accepted that in this world, it is dog eat dog, and it can't be any other way. Which is a pitiful way of looking at the world, if you ask me.
Think of Octavia Hill, Josephine Butler or Florence Nightingale. They were all women who stood up and did extraordinary things. What they did flouted the conventions of their time, both for their sex and their class - all these women must have had extraordinary reserves of strength to keep on as they did. Again, not really what one could call weak.
It is time to stop accepting this conflation of gentle and weak. I know plenty of gentle people who nonetheless manage to survive in the outside world. I'm sure you do too. Have a look.
Thursday 13 September 2012
Goodbye, Blue Sky
How does one describe what it is to wake up one day and find God gone? Only one friend knows I am currently an atheist, and as a lifelong atheist who has never had any experience more divine than a general wonderment at the universe, he inquired what that was like from my perspective. I said the first thing that came to mind, "It was like waking up one day and not being able to see blue any more."
Tuesday 4 September 2012
Religion Without God?
Why not, that's what Marxism is....
But it's a serious question. If God is at the centre of traditional religion, how can anyone function there without it? Aren't you living a lie by saying you are still a part of the religious world?
To deal with the last question first, I have only been coming to terms with this new small-a atheism for a few weeks now and am not aware of any religious rule that says you must immediately be public with every religious, or irreligious, experience you are undergoing. If it seems pertinent to the conversation, I will share my experience. Secondly, this may turn out to be simply a "glitch". By this time tomorrow it could be gone as easily and silently as it came. Am I obligated to throw out the baby at the first sign of the bathwater getting cold? Thirdly, I don't know that this IS an irreligious experience. Moments of doubt and absence, and even depression and anxiety, are a part of the religious experience itself.
But it's a serious question. If God is at the centre of traditional religion, how can anyone function there without it? Aren't you living a lie by saying you are still a part of the religious world?
To deal with the last question first, I have only been coming to terms with this new small-a atheism for a few weeks now and am not aware of any religious rule that says you must immediately be public with every religious, or irreligious, experience you are undergoing. If it seems pertinent to the conversation, I will share my experience. Secondly, this may turn out to be simply a "glitch". By this time tomorrow it could be gone as easily and silently as it came. Am I obligated to throw out the baby at the first sign of the bathwater getting cold? Thirdly, I don't know that this IS an irreligious experience. Moments of doubt and absence, and even depression and anxiety, are a part of the religious experience itself.
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