Contraception, Abortion and Vegetarianism

I like to think that one's opinions do not remain static.
If they did, it would demonstrate we were idiots.

We can only ever hold an opinion on the basis of what knowledge we have, what facts we are aware of, and the degree to which we have thought something through.

I like to think it is POSSIBLE to base morality on common sense and the best scientific knowledge we have.

I think long term readers will be aware that abortion has been a sensitive subject for me, partly because I was brought up within the Roman Catholic faith, but also because I have personally lost what I considered to be a son to the practice.

I suppose I have always found it a tricky subject, precisely BECAUSE, strong though my feelings are in favour of the right to life, I can also see some sound points being made on the other side.

I would agree to a certain degree that a woman does have the right to decide what happens to her body. Where does one draw the line?
When does it become murder?

Does a woman who is carrying a rapist's baby have the right to abort?
Or a mother carrying a severely deformed child?
Should stem cell research be banned, when it's possible benefit to the human race could be huge?

It's actually a topic which has been on my mind a lot of late. And it was actually the post I did a week or two ago on sperms and ova that got me pondering.
And it occurred to me that there are in fact dividing lines where we can make value based judgements.

In other words, both pro life and pro choice camps have it wrong, in a sense. Both, in extreme, are out of kilter with science and what we know of the pregnancy process.
There is a compromise position between the two which actually reflects the real life judgements we apply to living things.

To start with, it is worth looking at a little aside, one of the main reasons that the Catholic Church, Orthodox Jews and some other denominations are against contraception. Contraception was disapproved of because it was going against the idea that sex is only for making babies. But there was also two schools of thought about where babies come from.
Some anatomists held that women did indeed have tiny eggs in their womb. But the more common theory was that the entire embryo came from a tiny Homunculus swimming in the sperm. Thus; the Homunculus was already a human in miniature. The womb was simply a kind of greenhouse for growing mini-people in.
Therefore, contraception was murder.

We now know this not to be true. But it is the reason secular states still prosecuted people for encouraging birth control even in the nineteenth century. Wasting sperm, was wasting lives.

Now I guess one can say that wasting sperm IS wasting lives. But no more than having a period is wasting lives. Sperm cells and egg cells die. They are lives. Lives of single celled organisms. But not human lives. We do not regard single celled lifeforms as sacrosanct. God know how many we unthinkingly kill every day.

This raises of course, the question of what degrees of sanctity we should attach to other lifeforms in general.
I have to admit to having become somewhat of a convert to the 'Great Ape Project'. This takes the view that we should regard our near cousins as being so emotionally similar to us, that in effect they are human without conceptual ability. And thus have an extended version of the idea of human rights. Great Ape Rights. This would mean that all Great Apes would have right to Life, freedom from torture, freedom from captivity, etcetera.

One might see that as unnecessary altruism. We as a species have no loyalty to them. Loyalty to bonds of kinship only has a value when your own genes are the ones at stake.
Actually, I would say it DOES have a value. It has a value in raising the threshold of the value of life. And empathy for life in general. I think there is actually something to be said in us a species using our knowledge of how life works to make existence for ALL, not just ourselves, a little better than 'nature red and tooth and claw'. Rather than other groups armed with our knowledge have done, sought to make 'nature red in tooth and claw' the laws of society.

If we are going to, as a species, change the world beyond recognition, it might be an idea to make being alive a more worthwhile experience for everyone who has to go through it.
That surely, is what marks as apart from the animals.

As regards plants, we have no particular qualms about tearing them up and eating them. And I'm not sure there is any particular reason why we should. But animals, animals raise pertinent points.

It is hard to be objective about using other animal life. I guess the honest to God truth is, we have no alternative but to balance our own needs against that of causing suffering.

The main factor determining the abundance or otherwise of large mammals on the face of the Earth is; utility to man. There aren't many Tapirs or Rhinoceruses left. Or Pandas. Or Grizzly Bears. Or Tigers. And I guess the day will come when most of these species really do only exist in artificially preserved habitats.

But sheep, cows, pigs, these are, in Darwinian terms, highly successful today. But it's an odd survival skill. Their survival skill is that they provide tasty dinners for us.
I suppose their genes might well be grateful to us. Evolution is a blind watchmaker.

One looks at Amphibians as a Class. The entire class is rapidly declining in numbers. It's a tight niche. Being a creature that relies on freshwater. Not sea, not land, freshwater.

It's unrealistic to say any of this is going to radically change. We can, now we're aware of this, show some concern for species whose habitats we have destroyed and are destroying. We can preserve them, and I think we're making an effort to do that. But it's unrealistic to suggest that animals like Tigers CAN ever exist in numbers more than a few thousand in the Earth any more. Not unless you were to completely remove human civilisation.



Whereas sheep, pigs and cows, will continue to exist by the million.

In other words, the vast majority of animals on this planet bigger than a shrew, are either us, our pets, or our food.

Many animal behaviour experts believe that if some disaster did wipe out humanity, these species would die off as well. Because they have now been bred to be docile and incapable, basically. They exist by the million, but as we desire them to be.

What rights does this give us?

In one sense, that question is utterly meaningless. We have any right we choose to give ourselves.
As regards whether or not we should be vegetarian, the question is a tricky one. I think if we actually had to face the fact that life had to be taken every time we had a fry up, we'd be less keen on having the fry up. I had a sausage and bacon sandwich earlier, but it's only as I type this I think of the fact it was a pig once. We have become detached from the slaughter process and in a way, that's had a good effect on us. Sensitised us a bit more, I guess.

It's true that our ancestors didn't rely on meat to the degree we did, but we really have to go back a few million years to find them. We have evolved our big brains, three times the size of the chimpanzee, partly as a result of eating so much more meat. Our brains cost us a lot of energy to run. Human beings have evolved as meat eaters and as yet we haven't really found a successful way of living without having meat as part of our diet. I include fish here, obviously. Vegetarianism is one of those things that seems to be the right thing to do, but so few of us can do it, and the evidence suggests it's not actually that healthy.

It's no accident meat tastes so good. Usually, things taste good because they're hard to get, or were. This is actually a bit of a problem today. Carrots don't really get our juices going because it was easy to find carrots. But sweet things were hard to find and meat needed a hunt. Now these things are easy, but we still have taste buds designed to make us think 'Must go find these things, have a real taste for some meat now. And then some sweet berries'.

The ethical argument that more cows and pigs would live if we didn't eat them is, paradoxically, untrue. Not being food for humans actually renders an animal less useful, no need to devote human time to breeding them in huge numbers. I don't know whether one could say that cows and pigs are lucky that we eat them, but in a sense, I guess they are. Millions and millions of them exist, simply because we do. Being eaten is the price they pay for being alive.

I guess if one takes the view that essentially, we have now bred these animals so he happiest way they can fulfill their natural lives- natural the way they have now come- is by allowing them to live a stress free life chewing cud or eating swill, then maybe one could take the view that the trip they will one day take to the Meat Packing Plant is, for their species, their natural end. It is, today, their natural life cycle.

But I still think one should accord a certain set of rights to them. Their end is Euthanasia, perhaps. But their lives should not contain suffering. Wilfully torturing an animal shouldn't be allowed. Keeping an animal in inhumane conditions shouldn't be allowed. And animal testing that wilfully causes pain shouldn't be allowed. And common sense should rule here. Growing a human ear on the back of a mouse is bizarre, but not cruel. Pouring acidic cosmetics into the eyes of a mouse, is something we should not tolerate. Killing animals isn't wrong, I don't think, as long as it really is Euthanasia. And not a slow and painful death.

How far do we go here? I admit, there has to be limits. One can't start prosecuting kids for pulling legs off Daddy longlegs. I guess I would say we adopt these standards as regards all Vertebrates. There seems to be a general consensus that this is our sort of life, our family. We all feel at least some of the same emotions. The pain of a tortoise is something that is probably akin to ours, in at least some ways.

I think generally, when people take about Animal cruelty, that is what they mean, cruelty to Vertebrates. Creatures with brains. Brains of our type. How can we emote to the grasshopper, the slug, or the woodlouse? It might as well be an alien.

So how does this all fit in with abortion?

Well, it's about setting criteria. The value we put on living things. And when something acquires certain rights, by our standards, as a living thing.

Pro choice activists would say that the embryo is not a life, it is merely a ball of cells. Now that statement is in a sense, complete drivel. Each cell is alive. So it is, even at the embryo stage, a lifeform.

What it isn't at this stage, is a HUMAN lifeform.

For the first eleven weeks of pregnancy it remains classed as an embryo, after that point it will be classed instead as a foetus. By this point, it has already developed the rudiments of most organs, indeed at that point it actually passes the point where it can be distinguished from the foeti of any other species on the planet, even that of a chimpanzee.
So that point, when it changes from being an embryo to a foetus is when it moves from just being indiscriminate Vertebrate life, to being specifically human life.

I would argue that up till that point, it doesn't matter what the future holds. It's what it is.
At eight weeks, looking at the embryo, it is indistinguishable from that of a cow. We know that if both embryos progress, one day one of them will have full human rights, the other will be his sandwich filler. But that future has to come to pass first. At this point, their senses are the same. The decisive changes that will mark their differing destinies out, have not yet taken place.

The human embryo contains the codes to become a human foetus, just as the bovine embryo contains the code to become a bovine fetus, but it isn't yet something they have done. A human embryo can perhaps better be seen as an indeterminate vertebrate embryo which, due it's parentage, WILL join the human race- but hasn't yet.

At which point therefore, it has the same rights we accord any other vertebrate life outside the human species.

Taken from that point of view than yes, stem cell research is perfectly moral. And so is abortion practised up till that point. After all, we reserve the right to decide when a non human vertebrate life comes to an end, as long as that end is painless.

In which case, we also answer any of the other moral questions regarding abortion. Any woman has a clear window within which to make her choice. One is aware that it does happen that women DO get the foetal stage without realising, but it is a tiny minority of cases.
Up until that point I think we can say the mother has the right to choose, as much as any pet owner has the right to have an animal humanely put down.

But after that point, then one should say that one values the life of the foetus as being of equal worth to that of the mother. The argument that it cannot fend for itself, is meaningless. Nor can a two month old baby, but that has a right to life. Once it has joined the human race- by being a recognisable foetus of the human species, it has human rights. The right to life.

And I don't think from this point on anyone has the right to make choices concerning it's valid right to exist. In essence, it has 'chosen'- or it's genetic makeup has- to be human, and not a cow, or a pig, or a three toed sloth. And we must respect it's decision.

One can say it could not have chosen otherwise, it was programmed to make that choice. This is undeniably true. But by the same token, one can say that a woman does indeed have a right to choose, before the embryo she is carrying makes the inevitable choice of joining the human race. At which point, it's one of us.



And once this point has been passed, I would say that arguments about whether it will be born handicapped have no necessary relevance either, particularly. Perhaps if it could clearly be demonstrated that the life of the child in question would be such that allowing it to live would be forcing a life to exist in conditions that replicated torture. A life that really would be day to day agonising pain. Perhaps in those circumstances it might be ok to second guess the unborn on what choice they'd make.

But Down's Syndrome and the like certainly do NOT come into that category. As I say, before eleven weeks, than if a woman chooses to abort a child she perhaps shouldn't need a reason at all, but after that point, Down's Syndrome is not a reason. A child born with Down's Syndrome will indeed need care. Lot's of it. But it can certainly enjoy quality of life.

It would be inconsistent to my view that we should extend the right to life to all Great Apes to then say I thought that human life that didn't meet the standards of human perfection was LESS valid than that of a 'perfect' chimpanzee.

I guess what I'm trying to work towards is a kind of tier of rights.

The lowest, the rights of a Vertebrate. The basic rights of any vertebrate. Freedom for torture or undue suffering.

Then the rights of a Great Ape (including humans), acquired once the foetus is identifiable as that of a Great Ape. The right to life, unless otherwise expressed, or where it can be certain that if power to express were there, the subject would wish not to live. The right to freedom for torture. The right to free expression. The right to sustenance. The right to freedom from captivity, where the subject is no harm to themselves or others.

Then the rights of a sentient citizen of humanity. Acquired by reaching a set standard of adulthood and maturity and filling a role within human society. All the rights of citizenship, basically.

I guess the post has seemingly moved amongst apparently unrelated topics.

But I do think we DO need to apply scientific knowledge of how animal life works to deciding what is right and wrong and how we accord rights.

I DO think we badly need to apply some sort of systematic reasoning to the rights of living things and deciding when human rights apply and what those rights to be.

And I like to think that the reasoning I have put forward in this post might go some way towards clarifying the sort of ethics that are appropriate in the sort of enlightened era that one hopes will succeed when the last vestiges of superstitious ignorance that still marked this era have finally gone for good.

Nineteen and a Halfth Crushed Sunday Memusetica

This week, Judd has come up with a meme that...

I can't really answer. Any of it.
I don't have a wife. And never will. I do have a mother. But I'd pushed to answer half these questions, I would. Mostly, I don't know the answers, those I do...
I figure it's not my business to share. I guess my mother is kind of personal. Details about her don't belong on this blog. I have a mother. You don't need to know any more than that.

Because of that, because there are questions but no answers, but you still get music, this can't really count as a full Memusetica.

1. What is something your mom/wife always says to you?

2. What makes your mom/wife happy?

3. What makes your mom/wife sad?



4. How does your mom/wife make you laugh?

5. What was your mom/wife like as a child?

6. How old is your mom/wife?

7. How tall is your mom?



8. What is her favorite thing to do?

9. What does your mom/wife do when you're not around?

10. If your mom/wife becomes famous, what will it be for?

11. What is your mom/wife really good at?



12. What is your mom/wife not very good at?

13. What does your mom/wife do for a job?

14. What is your mom/wife's favorite food?

15. What makes you proud of your mom/wife?



16. If your mom/wife were a cartoon character, who would she be?

17. What do you and your mom/wife do together?

18. How are you and your mom/wife the same?

19. How are you and your mom/wife different?



20. How do you know your mom/wife loves you?

21. What does your mom/wife like most about your dad/yourself?

22. Where is your mom/wife's favorite place to go?

France- Not a Bang, But a Whimper

I am a little conscious in writing these series of posts that what I am attempting to do is analyse the political realities of certain European cultures. And this is hard to do. Especially when one lives in one of them.

Yet the reality is, when one looks at long gone cultures, one does not accord equal value to their ideas. We are aware for example, that the success of Rome was due to a blending of Athenian and Spartan virtues in many ways, taking the best of both worlds. But when we analyse Athens and Sparta independently, we find more to commend in the Athenian virtu than in the Spartan.

Sparta gave to the mix, certainly, but it was the ethos of Athens that won long term.

It is Solon we look to as a an early example of a wise statesman who shone a torch for the future, not Lycurgas.

And it is hard, perhaps, to see Europe in the same way. Though I believe that Europe in many ways holds the same position to the world as Greece once did to Europe. With America perhaps being the New Rome. Not entirely a perfect parallel, because in another very crucial way, Britain was the Rome of its day and America now plays Byzantium.

But the European continent has its very own Athens and Sparta. And it's hard to be objective about this without being accused of undue patriotism. Yet not to do so is to ignore history. Which we seemingly do. We ignore perhaps the most important struggle of modern history, we fail to understand one of the most important sweeps of modern history.

Perhaps because we tend to focus so much on the last two wars. Where we fought the Germans. Of course, those wars perhaps obscure the wider picture. Those were essentially wars of Capitalism and whilst I argued in the previous posts that both wars were partly caused by factors intrinsic to German culture, neither conflict need necessarily have taken the form it did. Conflicts involving Germany were inevitable, but it is possible to imagine Britain not having been involved in such conflicts at all. Or playing a different role.

The wars of the twentieth century were important, perhaps, in that they marked decisive phases in the development of globalisation.

Their violence and the fact they showed us that with modern technology war is far too stupid a game to play means that we tend to treat them is more important than in other ways they were.
That in fact, the most important struggle of the last three hundred years had long ago been decided.

Of all the countries in Europe, the one that probably seems most strange to most Brits, is France. And the reason is clear. It is the one which has most stubbornly resisted any external influences to its culture from elsewhere. Everywhere else has accepted the globalising influences of Anglo-American culture. But France has resisted it to a greater degree. And thus it still feels 'foreign' in a way no other European country does. Because the French, perhaps subconsciously, are bitterly aware that global culture is the culture of the winners, for the most part.

Because they are aware in a way other countries never consider, or don't really care about, that the United States that is dominant today spreads values that for the most part it acquired from its parent. That the game that unites the entire world is a game whose rules were decided by Cambridge University, not the Sorbonne, in short; that the force which played the role in modern times that the Roman Empire once played, was the British Empire. And that came to pass at the expense of the French Empire.

And the entirity of Modern French history has been about coming to terms with that.

The history of modern times often overlooks the most important war of the last three hundred years, the one that kind of set the stage for so much that came afterwards.

And we need to go back to the end of the seventeenth century to find the reason way. The time before Capitalism. Just before.

Two important things happened in Europe in the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The first was the rise of Europe's obvious new Superpower. To be sure, Europe had always had states which could have been classed as European powers. And mostly they had tended, since the early middle ages to be the same ones. But in terms of rising far above the others and marching towards global supremacy, none had really ever risen so high above the rest. Spain had seemingly been set to do it with her vast annexations in the new world and the personal dominance of the Emperor Charles V. But something hadn't quite worked. The Spanish Empire had failed to be anything much more than a plunder system for the Castilian nobility. It had markedly failed to do much to establish a system for turning its plunder into something that would achieve stability in its Empire.
And now the silver was running out, it was already declining. It had become rich on wealth, not its own strengths.

But the France of Louis XIV was something new. Louis XIV really was a model ruler. His France was modern, a triumph of administrative efficiency, the opulence of Versailles shouting to the world that the state which would actually achieve what Spain had failed to do, was here.

The France of Louis XIV was seemingly unstoppable.

It was ascendant in art, in literature, the French language was becoming the new lingua franca. The future was France. The future was the form of enlightened despotism and centralised government demonstrated by the Sun King. 'L'etat, c'est moi'.
Sun Kings, are the French way.

But something else happened at the end of the eighteenth century in one of those European countries which was seemingly being eclipsed by this rising sun.

After decades of arguing over the best way to govern a country and whether God or the people decided who was King, the British people finally came up with a solution. A sort of Republic, cunningly disguised as a monarchy. With a complex system of checks and balances which effectively meant that their island was now going to be run as a kind of shareholder corporation. In Britain, it was very simple. Anyone could have shares in governing the country, you just had to buy them. They were called seats in parliament. And the purposes of such shares? Well, to help your other shares.
The government of Britain was just the master corporation, to make all those other corporations work, be they the City of London, the East India company, or a company for building turnpike roads.

Now at the time no one could have foreseen that this new trend towards freeing commerce and even government from royal control would lead essentially, to Capitalism. Capitalism was the logical consequence of the Glorious Revolution. The Industrial revolution and a country which actually had an incentive to produce lots of goods and then sell them abroad, were a direct result of the 1689 settlement, a country run for commercial purposes, not royal aggrandisement.

So it was kind of a different experiment to that happening under Louis XIV. It's purpose wasn't world domination by a monarch and his family. No one in England- or Scotland- wanted to rule the world. They wanted to NOT be told what to do by Kings. And yet curiously- it would turn out that the logic of what was now possible without having absolute monarchs would mean that the corporations set up by this system- would aspire to rule the globe. They would need to.

They didn't- yet- realise that the little constitutional experiment being started would result in wealth creation that would soon only be sustainable by ensuring that the Bourbons ruling the world was prevented.

The first hint that this modern equivalent of the Athens-Sparta conflict was on its way, was the War of the Spanish Succession. Basically, this was a war between France and everybody else who was naturally apprehensive that France was on the verge of becoming dangerously powerful.

It was caused by Carlos II of Spain leaving his vast Empire to a grandson of Louis XIV, thus raising the possibility of Bourbon dominion over the Earth. The possibility that it could be a mere precursor to welding more fully into a Franco-Spanish block under one Bourbon was raised.
When the war started, the object was to place a Habsburg Prince on the Spanish throne so the Habsburgs seemed to be the leaders of this anti-French league...

But as the war progressed, events showed something even the British hadn't expected.

Their new lean, efficient system of government was damn good. It worked. They were able to be key players in this war. In fact, they were the ones giving the French a run for their money.
Peace came, when Louis agreed to a peace on British terms.

And left no one in any doubt. The real battle for world domination was on its way. And now everyone could see what hadn't been apparent before. France had a rival.

And the next forty years saw both sides preparing for the inevitable struggle.

The seven years war of 1756-1763 was in fact, the TRUE First World War. It was the first war fought on more than one continent. Indeed, Britain and America, and in India. And there was never any doubt what was at stake. The winner was going to talk it all.
Both states now depended on vast overseas Empires for their continuing development, their increasing wealth, their advance in science and culture. The winner was going to eat the loser and stand as the foremost of the European powers. And the verdict was almost certainly going to be irreversible.

And it was the first war where efficiency mattered. This war would be fought till one side ran out of money. So the question was- who was actually running the most efficient state?

If France had won, the thirteen colonies would have gone to France. There may never have been a Unites States of America. Maybe a Union D'Etats de Amerique. India would have gone to France. The world would have been blue, not pink.

But France did not win.

Short term, Britain had bitten off more than she could chew. The most immediate result was in North America. On the one hand complete British supremacy meant that Britain now found itself in conflict with its own colonists who no longer had the French to fear.

But it sealed the death warrant of French monarchy. Before the war, some writers, such as Voltaire, had commended the English system of government. Now many intellectual condemned the rigid, centralised inflexibility of the monarchy as the cause of France's weakness. It was OK if the King was Louis XIV. But if it was the less impressive Louis XV, it was less good. The theory that you needed strong Kings to tell people what to do and that popular institutions weren't suited to governing major powers had just been disproved.



The French government also had the bright idea of sending its troops to aid the American revolutionaries. I find it highly comical that Kentucky possesses a Dauphin county and a Lafayette County- both named in 1785- to say thankyou to the French.

Because those French soldiers went home telling excited tales about this new way of governing.

Of course, the French went further than the British/American ideas ever went. Though not perhaps quite that much further than is sometimes claimed. Of course, Britain was only to keen to act shocked at the French beheading their King, forgetting that it's own revolutionaries had-er-cut off the head of their King a good hundred and fifty years before.
But perhaps we need to see things the ways the revolutionaries saw it.

They believed that it was the inefficiency of the monarchical system that had prevented France from winning the seven years war. And now they had overturned that handicap, brought in a 'modern' system of government, surely they could make things how they were 'supposed' to be? France as top dog?

Well, it didn't quite work like that. Mostly because they got silly. The French never quite got what had made the English Revolution work. By English Revolution, I really mean THREE separate revolutions taking place over a hundred year period; the Glorious Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the American Revolution.

This revolution worked by basically being a common sense revolution. It didn't so much destroy things as find ways round them. And it was largely bottom up as opposed to top down. It wasn't about imposing things, it was about removing obstacles.

What the French revolution didn't get was that it was establishing a new creed; 'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite'. Whereas the English Revolution had been about removing creeds. Having liberty from creeds, even creeds called 'Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite'. The conclusion of this English Revolution was that it doesn't matter much if people are butchered by a King claiming divine right, a priest claiming to speak for God, or an idealist shouting about Liberty, the results are much the same. Designing a calendar with a decimal week and a clock with a ten hour day comes into the category of things which would certainly be a better way to do it if one started from scratch. But are actually a pointless waste of time when everyone is quite happy with a seven hour week and a twenty four day.

The French revolutionaries were surprised that their quest to liberate everyone else was initially well received, but after a while, not so much. They didn't, of course, realise that their liberty would end up being an imposed liberty and not everyone else was overly convinced the French had got it right.

And so the French tried a new model. Louis XIV Mark II. Otherwise called Napoleon.

Now of course, this time period is fundamentally important in European history. It marks the death knell of monarchy, basically. True, when things are 'restored' in 1814, everywhere is a monarchy again. The point is, it has been proved you can live without them. The case for Republican government has been made. Universally. It was the end of the old order and the start of the new.
It was the start of the Capitalist epoch. The beginning of the Liberal Democratic world order.

But let us not forget what the Napoleonic wars were all about.

The sympathy shown by Britain towards the Ancien regime was essentially a convenient sham. From a British point of view, these wars were all about making sure France did not regain her position of pre-eminence. Britain was not unduly concerned what sort of government the French lived under. I think that Pitt was entirely correct that the British concept of liberty was a truer concept than the Napoleonic concept. But I think it's clear that the Napoleonic concept was still somewhat freer than the Ancien regime.

So a certain part of the British view was conditioned by the belief that whatever the French came up with, the British were already doing it better. A tried and tested system of Freedom. Of course, it wasn't exactly that free for everybody and some of the ideas unleashed in the French Revolution would indeed impact on thought in Britain and lead to radical social and political change. But in ways that didn't involve people having their heads cut off.

But the real point of the Napoleonic wars were this; in reality they were the final phase of that century of struggle over which power was to be the global superpower. And the final gamble of the French was to entirely overturn their system of government to try and produce one which could silence the Lion's roar for good.

And the gamble failed.

Between 1814 and 1914, there was only one superpower on the face of the Earth and during that time period, it and the system of values it propagated triumphed.

From that time forth, the rest of Europe ceased baiting the Lion and instead played another game; who could take second place. The Lion had seemingly learned not to bite off more than it could chew. It's system was based on expanding its markets. So it didn't actually go round invading random places; its troops went in AFTER its economy had already saturated the place making troops necessary. Which meant there was plenty of world to round. If one wanted to invade other places where the Lion didn't have lots of greedy Capitalists milking the natives, the Lion didn't much care.

Since 1814, the story of France has been a frustrating story, in terms of national pride. The story of a not quite, an also ran. A story of attempts. Attempts to find something for France to excell at. And yet every time France has tried, someone else has stolen its thunder.

Napoleon III tried to restore French greatness in a new way. As the European power broker. Britain wasn't much interested in Europe as long as it was quiet and stayed away from its Empire, so Napolean III figured France could be the lead power of Europe, leaving the rest of the world to Britain.
It ended in the failure of the Franco-Prussian war and the emergence of the Second Reich. French national pride knocked down another peg.

France tried to establish a colonial empire, not so much to match the British, but at least to show it was still great. Yet even here, it was conned. Lord Salisbury was only too happy to let the French have the vast reserves of territory known as French West Africa. He took the view that possession of those areas was of no commercial use and would cost France more than it gained.

The British weren't so much interested in owning a quarter of the globe, they wanted the quarter of the globe that made most money. Let the French get excited about owning the Sahara desert.
Whilst we BUY the Suez canal THEY built.

And even in Africa, French aims weren't to be. French national pride was dependant on being able to gain an East to West land route without leaving French territory. This clearly conflicted with the British aim of doing it North to South.

The twentieth century begins with an uneasy truce between the ancient enemies. Who had hated eachother for getting on for a thousand years. As Blackadder said 'Was the man who burned Joan of Arc simply wasting good firewood?'

Because the world was getting tight. The last scraps of territory not under control of European powers had been carved up. For, whilst a quick look at the map in 1910 suggests many countries existing outside Europe, we should remember that in fact China was divided up into Economic spheres where specific European countries had the same economic control they did in their colonies, and in practise the straits of Panama marked the end of the United States' economic colonies and the start of Britain's.

Some had enough territory to keep them going, others did not. Some were powerful enough to perhaps fight and conquer. Others, if war came, might lose what they had.

France had lost to Germany before. And Germany was looking greedily at France's colonies.
Now Britain would rather no one in Europe got too powerful- so was quite happy to give support to the underdog.

There are two ways of viewing Britain's traditional foreign policy. One is to view it as laudable. Britain always backed the underdog. The other way to view it- as many in Europe have- is to see it as a fairly cynical principle of divide and rule. Back weak states against ones which might prove a threat if allowed to get away with it.
And some would say that we still do it through our pupil. That the special relationship is largely based on the idea that America has now inherited the burden of defending the world the way we left it to them, but to do it the way we did, it still needs Britain along for the ride. Things tend to go wrong when it goes it alone. Up till recently, that logic seemed to work. Perhaps because Britain refused to get involved in conflicts it wouldn't have gone it alone with in the days when it ruled the roost. A sign of Blair's weakness as a leader perhaps.

So one could say that France in the twentieth century had to say 'If you can't beat them, join them'.

It's not been stated, but since the signing of the Entente Cordiale, France has accepted that it lost the struggle. It agreed to co-operate in the world that had emerged, to accept the scraps that fell its way.

And in doing so- it was able to retain its status as a power. A tolerated power.

It gained a seat on the permanent Security Council of the League of Nations. In spite of its laughable conduct in WWII, it was allowed to be one of the Four Powers responsible for reconstructing Germany. It was one of the five powers given a permanent seat in the UN security council. It has been treated as one of the key powers on the globe, in a manner totally out of proportion to its actual strength, economically OR militarily.
And all because it signed the Entente Cordiale.

One is reminded in a way, of Pu Yi. Allowed to remain Emperor- but only in the Forbidden City. By signing the Entente Cordiale, Britain agreed to support France, and only France, as a power it would trust in Europe. And allow France all the trappings of a major global power.

But the stress of all this on French culture cannot be underestimated.

France has still sought to be King Canute. It cannot admit to itself that by signing the Entente Cordiale, it was conceding the defeat of 1763. In that year, it was determined that one day the entire world would speak English. That the ideas spread by winners of that war, would win out. That one day the world would indeed be as one. There comes a point when clinging to national pride can be silly. There can be no clearer demonstration of this than in Wales. Its one thing to preserve the Welsh language, it is quite another to create handicaps to international investments by having workforces with poor command of the language of commerce- especially when you live in an English speaking country to begin with.

And France has this problem. It is stubbornly resistent to the way now nearly EVERYBODY else does things, because that way, is not the French way. It resists the English language, for the simple reason it isn't French.

And the strains of having to stay up there as one of the big boys has put huge strains on France. Let's face it, it has been hard for Britain to sustain it. Britain realised in the early sixties that certain things, like being the Space Race, really weren't things Britain could afford. And spending money on the armed forces costs a lot of money. Living costs in this country are ridiculously high and a lot of that is caused by hidden taxation. I'm amazed when I look at the rates of taxation in other European countries that we AREN'T paying vastly more per head of population, because we, the British taxpayer pay a high price for that permanent seat on the UN security council. High, when you bear in mind we're a little island with only sixty million people.

I guess it's a delicate balance. We can afford it- just about. This country can just about afford to pay the mortgage every year to stay in the big boys club.

France- since 1945, France has been BADLY struggling to make the payments. The cost of even being a pretend power has been too much.

The country has come closest of any European country to fullscale revolution and civil war of any European country in that time period- twice. It's economy is generally stuck in a timewarp, unable to match demand and bad industrial practices seem always be leading to strikes. One can blame the French workers I suppose, but that doesn't negate the fact that they seemingly feel they have something to strike about.

But surely the most damning indictment of French culture's helplessness and inability to face reality, has been it's failure to come to terms with multiculturalism.

France society has been unable to deal with its own insecurities in the face of those it told were French coming home to the country it told them to see as the mother country. It clings rigidly to a sense of identity it increasingly sees in narrow racial terms.
France today, appears a society suffering from a split personality, polarised in a way no other country in Europe is. A culture tearing itself apart at the seams.

A culture clinging to national identity, in the face of its increasing irrelevance, a country in which Archbishop Lefebre and Jean Marie le Pen fight against some of the most sincere radical movements in Europe for the soul of the nation.

It is a bitter irony that so much of the energy of the 'New' Europe goes into propping up this rotten door.

In the last post we dealt with what Germany gets out of the Franco-German axis. What France gets out of this, is a deal in which she has control. It allows her to break away from having to do deal with Britain. Deals in which, on her own, she can never have the advantage. But in alliance with Germany, the story is different.

France provides the skin of a power, Germany the skeleton. Germany has all the ingredients of a power, could indeed pay the price of being a power, could pay the mortgage to join the big boys club. But it isn't allowed to. So it pays France's instead. Germany connives at an EU subsidy system designed mainly to pour money into the coffers of the west's most inefficient economy. France really is propped up by Germany and the Benelux rump.

From France's point of view, the EU exists to enable France to stay in the big boys club.

As things stand, the EU consists of twenty seven states, but it is set up to serve the needs of two. To bind those two countries together, because each of them is half a power and each wants to be a power.

What is wrong with the EU is at stands, is that all it is is a cloaking device for this unholy alliance, with everyone else simply a hanger on, largely treated as irrelevant. France and Germany didn't want Britain in because British entry spoiled the party. And they've tried their hardest to get us to leave by simply ignoring us.

Really, what France and Germany really want, is a to revitalise themselves, to unite their two half-powers into one Whole power, and for this whole power to annex other European states into it without them noticing- basically, the Empire of Charlemagne restored.



A state that pretty much matches the current Eurozone.

I don't believe that aim is really for the good of the European continent.

I don't think it will lead to stability, and I don't think such a 'power' would be inherently stable.

The EU as it stands is not simply a case of the lunatics running the asylum, it's an asylum set up BY the lunatics FOR the lunatics.

And if its ever going to work properly, everyone else needs to assert themselves.

A United Europe can indeed, I think, solve the problems of France. But France isn't actually using it to solve its problems. It's simply taking the cash. The French aren't 'Good Europeans'. They're forcing Europe to fit in with France's refusal to address it's own problems. It seems to me they take as much notice of European Union regulations as Israel does UN Assembly resolutions.

I think we in the UK need to start taking the view that some sort of United Europe is going to happen, with or without the UK.

And a United Europe with the UK playing a central role, has a very good chance of turning into a very good society indeed.

But the sort of Europe that is going to emerge if things carry on the way they are, is not good.

Because it a Europe where the EU is used to avoid facing problems, rather than doing something about them.

The German Burden- Goethe and Gotterdammerung

I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be German.
I don't mean that in a nasty way.

I mean, I wonder what it must be like to know that is what you are. A German.
And by extension, an Austrian. Austrians now like to emphasise they are Austrian not German, but let's be honest. They're Germans. Who live in a state called Austria.

And the history of Austria, is part of the history of- Germany.

And it's a thought experiment I find- disconcerting.

Pandora's box.

The number of Germans alive today who were alive then, is surely a minority. And they are not responsible for what happened, not responsible for their history. But the problem is, it happened. It carries their name. Like a mark of Cain.

And think what that must do.

It's things the rest of us take for granted. Learning history. Any bit of history. For us over here, history is a story going somewhere. We have Alfred the Great seeing off the Vikings- the birth of England, something to make you feel good, if you're English. Then we have the Middle ages, nasty, dirty, ignorant, but hey, it got better. We get to learn about how things began. How the familiar institutions started that would one day lead to all that was good. Then we have Charles I and his fight with Parliament. All good stirring stuff, it's going somewhere. It's a story with a happy ending. And we know what the happy ending was. Britain became great, taught the world to play cricket, founded America and therefore caused Hollywood films, defeated Napoleon, beat Hitler after winning the Battle of Britain and Churchill's stirring words about our finest hour, but that was yet to come when Bobby Charlton raised the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966.

You can't really knock the story too much. You can criticise bits of it. Point out that some pretty shitty things happened along the way. The slave trade, Catholic burning, child factory labourers, Black and Tans, etc. But the overall thrust of the story is filled with star studded moments which mean that generally, no matter what you feel about Queen and Country, one recognises that as countries go, one happens to be living in one that has a proud history.

People lament that we're not very patriotic in Britain. I don't think that's true. I think we kind of have an uncomfortable attitude to overt patriotism, because so often it represents a kind of national inferiority complex. It marks new countries, young countries, the kind of overt flag waving patriotism. I guess most middle of the road people in Britain have a certain quiet pride in real things. Like Scott, Shackleton, Cook, Faraday, Darwin. It doesn't need to be shouted about; we know. To most of us, the Jingoists have always seemed like embarrassing idiots. They have a childish attitude to their country. Value silly things, symbols, words, metal hats. When what they should admire is that somehow or other, we generally got it right over here. Not always. But more often than anyone else, seemingly.

And that, I guess is what national identity means. Crass Nationalism, based on race is not a good things. National stereotypes aren't helpful, but they can sometimes say something about a culture. These things aren't so often genetic, as memetic. In different countries, certain standards of behaviour have differed. And that has had an overall effect on history. The attitudes people have had.

So what it is that people are REALLY being proud of, is the knowledge that the culture in this country has worked. The culture by which we lived, and to some degree still live. The things that are so stereotypically English, we feel justified in cherishing. Because we feel we can see 'These things are ours. These are things we do. And doing things the way we do has worked. Been a good way of doing things'.

And we can feel secure in saying that, that even someone to whom those ways were not familiar, would take such a statement seriously. They might analyse that way of doing things and say 'No. That's not it. That particular aspect of their culture is neither here nor there'.

For Americans too, history is a happy story. Sure, it has its black spots too. But the point is, the American pupil knows it is leading to a happy ending. The story leads forward, gets better.

We're lucky. I don't think we realise that. We the living didn't earn that. And we don't owe the dead. But we are lucky to live in the cultures they left behind. It really is true that if your flag has the colours red, white and blue in it, it marks you out. The special colours. History's winners.

Imagine approaching history a different way.

Imagine that when you learn about how your country developed, the ending isn't a happy ending.
Every single aspect of it is leading to something. The climax is indeed a time of great power, a time your nation shook the globe.

But not in a way you can be proud of.

Imagine if the culmination of a thousand years of history, was the moment of your greatest shame, a shame that the name of your country could never lose.

Learning about how a culture developed in which it was possible for Hitler to arise. That the culture whose history you are studying was the culture whose psyche Hitler tapped into.
And that culture is the one you belong to.

Imagine studying your important figures of history, like Martin Luther and seeing in his attitudes that shadow, that germ, there it is, there. That little remark there, symbolic of something in German culture that would one day lead to 'Arbeit Mach Frei'.

Your history doesn't have a happy ending. It came to a dark end. And since then, everything has been new. It's not talked about. A New Germany.

Only- it's not. It was your grandparents. It happened in the streets outside. The lovely old chocolate box houses in the town square, people leaned out of those windows shouting 'Sieg Heil' at Hitler's motor cavalcade...
Your grandmother was one of them...

It is said that after the 1966 World Cup, one of the German players made a remark out of pique. 'Yes, but England should have won more World Cups! Football is your national game!'
To which one of the England squad replied 'Yes, but so far we've beat you at YOUR national game twice'.

To which I guess there was no reply. When I was younger I used to smile at that story. Now I don't.
It has a taint. It's actually much the same as emphasising someone's skin colour. Calling someone a white bastard can't hurt a white person. Calling someone a black bastard can. Because of what is being implied. White people were never told by black people they were inferior. So being called a white bastard doesn't have the implication 'You are a bastard AND inferior'.



How can Germans not feel it? Looking at football crowds. The Inger-land fans. Able to sing 'Rule Britannia' with pride. Because what are those fans really telling the Germans? They're saying 'Yes, we're proud of that. We DID rule the waves. And we don't have to be ashamed'.

And the Germans can't answer back. They cannot show that exuberation, that joy, they have to remember. Remember that their pride can only go so far.

Because Germans remember that bad things happen in Germany when Germans get too proud of being German.

Because when Germans take pride in things that are special about Germany, the question always arises 'Was that a factor?'

Because even the things they CAN take pride in, like making good cars, people still think; 'They were just as good at making gas ovens'.

Because everything, everything a German ever said, or ever did, is judged by the rest of the world by the question 'Is this related to the Third Reich?'

What Germans have to live with is actually pretty terrible, when one thinks about it.

And it is this.

The entirity of German history leads up to the greatest perversion of science, philosophy and human instinct we have yet seen. One can argue that Stalin was just as bad as Hitler, but that's not quite the point. The Nazis fascinate not so much because they killed the most people, but because of how warped their worldview was. And to say it could have happened anywhere, is not true. It could only have happened in Germany. Only German history made it possible. The climate and the culture that created the National Socialist movement is already to be seen in the Second Reich. And to say that every Nazi party member was evil and it's that simple, is escaping the more disturbing reality. I don't think even most of the LEADING Nazis were evil, per se. Forty percent of Germans voted for them, and I doubt they were all evil, as individuals.

The scary reality is that Nazism came out of German culture. Nazism was a home grown mass ideology that captured the German soul. That is the scary horror of it.

One can look at Countries like the Soviet Union and we can point to what went wrong. It's obvious.

But with Nazi Germany, the problem is deeper. Working out how the psyche of Germany produced it.

And when we start to look back, we can say that psyche rearing its head before. I guess it had been spotted in the Second Reich, but no one paid it much attention till they faced the Germans in the trenches. But the genocide of the Herero in 1905 and other such incidents stand out, ghostly whispers of a culture which had scant regard for human life that was not German life. And nihilistic.

There as so much that if one looks at it, one realises now, in post-Nazi Europe, was disturbing. A culture at once great, poetic, philosophical and thoughtful. And yet one in which the spirits of the old Gods, Thor and Odin lived on. Ragnarok. The Ride of the Valkyries. The rabid Anti-Semitism of Luther. The witch burning craze, the atrocities of the thirty years war, perhaps the most brutal conflict of its time. And then the fact that its driving force was Prussia, that army with a state attached to it, built on the back of crusading knights, on brutal junkers and oppressed slavic peasants, add to that the sorts of lunacy which produced lunatic rulers such as the Emperor Rudolf II and Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria and nobody seemingly batted an eyelid.

And what is it? What is it in the history, in the history of this culture? Deep, in it's psyche.
It's something, something we can't quite identify. Which is why we keep morbidly obsessing about the Nazis. WHAT was it, what ultimately is it in German culture? And is it still there?
The world asks that- and surely Germans themselves ask that, uneasily. Is it suppressed but still under the surface? Whatever it is, it is not tangible.

And can we separate it, separate it from the uniquely German intensity of passion and thought that brought us Mozart and Beethoven, the pathos of Schopenhauer, the incisive conceptualism of Nietzche and Marx, the profundities of Kant? Could any culture BUT the German culture have given us those jewels of mankind?
Do not these great minds resonate a certain dark and bleak background, they stand out as enlightened genii cast forth by a dark and turbulent undercurrent.

Nietzche once referred to Socrates as being absurdly rational. Rational to the degree of absurdity. A curious concept, perhaps. But perhaps it has a resonance to German culture. Grotesquely logical, the heights of civilisation with the primal instincts of pre-Christian human sacrifice thrown in. A culture that could march human beings into chambers full of Zyklon B whilst playing them Mozart.

And perhaps we, us Brits have more reason than ever to look with fascination at this culture. Much as humanity looks at the Chimpanzee. Because England, England is Germany's closest cousin.
The English came from Germany. Not so very long ago. Recently enough for it to have been written about as it happened.

Our cultures started the same. But our histories took different paths. Not obviously at first. But a different series of events. Very different. And whatever it was that meant that German culture took the route it did and English culture did not, it happened in historical times. And it can't have been just one thing, it must have been a series of turns.

And this is what leads to the German problem.

Look at Germany now. Rich, prosperous, civilised. Brilliant, in so many ways. A success story. As always. Kick the Germans down, they just get up again. Their culture is resilient. Admirable in so many ways. With much to give the world and much to show the world.
But- the rest of the world still doesn't quite trust them.

That's a terrible thing to say. But it's why everyone else is apprehensive about letting Germany rearm, why US and British troops remain in Germany.
And it's why Germany needs Europe. So she can be trusted. Within Europe, protected by a framework of interdependence, Germany isn't to be feared. And Germany herself seems to accept this. Europe gives Germany respectability. It has allowed Germany to become an economic powerhouse again.
Because France has nurtured it. That has been the deal. The Franco-German axis has been about the German economy propping up the country who has the clout in the UN and on the world military power stage, to get Germany access back into the big boys club.

And- as long as they don't have weapons of their own- we've been happy to let them in.

I remember hearing somewhere about a contributer, I think it was to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in the nineteenth century. He sent in many articles, well written, scientifically accurate, etc. So the editor went to visit him. And found he was a resident of a hospital for the criminally insane.

The idea that these things are genetic, as I say, is ridiculous. These things are memetic. But the point is, nobody agrees on what caused Nazism. But we can all see it wasn't just something totally out of character. Culture essentially, is people living together and sharing ideas and values and passing on those ideas. Certain values take hold and flourish, others don't. The Germans know that Nazism was a terrible thing and they are thoroughly ashamed. And on an individual level, a German is no more evil than an English person.

But the point is, in 1932, if you gathered a load of English people together on mass, they would never have voted for Hitler. The Germans did. It's one thing todays Germans knowing NOT to vote for people with raised arm salutes, silly moustaches and Swastika flags. It's another to know what it was made their grandparents think it such a good idea.

In other words, we know that something had developed in German culture which led to Nazism. And as yet, we can't agree on exactly what that was. However hard both us and the Germans tried to erase what it was in German culture created it, we don't really know for sure. And since then, both us and the German themselves have lived in funny kind of place.
The only way to describe it, is as a culture which under extreme stress in the past brought out all the darkest aspects of humanity, coupled with some of their greatest.

And we don't know if the culture has been, for want of a better word, 'cured'. We don't know that. And more importantly, nor do the Germans.

Since then, Germany's reappearance in international affairs has been like the return of a valued colleague to work after a nervous breakdown. No one really knows if it could happen again.

The Germans themselves are right, I think, to see their salvation in a United Europe. But Germany needs to be able to have an easy role in it, to be able to blend into it properly. It's hard for Germany to do that when it is such an economic power house, but it is condemned to remain a non player in international relations.

The failure of a United Europe would have devastating repercussions on Germany, because it's only way to be able to influence international affairs in accordance with its economic strength is through Europe. The failure of the European vision, could cause old monsters to stir in their sleep.

Chancellor Kohl once contrasted the aims of himself to those of Hitler 'He wanted to put a German roof over Europe, we want to put a European roof over Germany'.

Germans really do feel, I think, that the second will prevent the first from happening. That a European roof STOPS German culture from ever going down that route that Germans don't now want it to go down, but feel in their guts that yes, it could happen again.

And this, this is an unspoken issue that not only Germany, not only Europe, but everyone has to come to terms with.

Human intelligence HAS to solve the German question.

One major difference between Marxist thought and non Marxist thought, is that Marxists believe history CAN be turned into a science.



We have to solve the puzzle of what caused Nazism. Not just go over and over film footage of the holocaust. We know what happened. We need to get to grips with the thousand years before.
Why in that steady march forward throughout history things got blended into the cultural psyche of Germany that allowed a whole culture to let it happen.

It could just be that it COULD have happened anywhere. That might actually be the answer. But our gut feeling tells us otherwise. And I don't think we're wrong.

And this is the bit which I concede might seem unduly nationalistic. But historians and sociologists can only really tackle this one way. There is a starting point.

When Hengest and Horsa landed in Kent. Because back then, they were Germans.

It's a hard fact to face perhaps, because it actually involves judging the worth of cultures. But we shouldn't see it like that. No one is saying that the German culture is valueless- look at all it has given. What we need to acknowledge is that the Germans who stayed progressed into cultural developments resonating down to the individual level which resulted in a society developing which had elements we do not want humanity to carry forward. Whereas those who colonised this windswept isle progressed into developments resonating down to an individual level which resulted in a society developing that led the way in promoting the ideals we DO want humanity to carry forward.

This can not be a patriotic venture, that is the point. It could only be a study done impartially by international experts. It would help if some of those were British, some German and some from other corners of the globe that were totally impartial.

If history is ever to truly be a science and deliver useful answers that tell us things that are useful in taking us forward, this surely should be it.

Until we truly diagnose the psyche of German history, we can never come to terms with the past, acknowledge the present, or face the future.

It's simple. We know the results. And we know that nations in themselves aren't good or evil. So the fact that one culture produced constitutional government and the other the Gas chambers, is down to centuries of differential systematic development. But we need to know what differences mattered. We need to be able to pinpoint the crucial points that led to such different results.

So we can say 'This was it. This was the inherent poison hidden away in German culture. It was this'.

And when we can finally agree on what that is, we can all breath a sigh of relief. Not least amongst us, the Germans themselves. Who after all are only the victims of some flaw somewhere in how their national culture developed that we can't agree on.

Until then, Germany will always to some degree, be treated as a care in the community patient. Politely. No one will talk of it. No one ever does. Make cars, make chocolate, run banks. But you want to get involved in UN security council decisions- er, how about not, remember what happened last time you had guns? That's how it will always be.

And that does no one any good.

A Country Called Europe

Europe is something that worries me.
Very much.

Many people seemingly, are worried by a United Europe.

Actually, I'm not worried- in principle. I think a United Europe is the best way forward, as is a United Africa. Nation states on the old scheme are meaningless in the world of today. Just look in any phonebook in the UK. Patel is now the commonest surname. The nation state is dead. It is no longer the best unit for dealing with important decisions at the macro level.

The problem is- in the UK we tend to look at the smaller picture. THIS Europe, is a bad model, it is a Napoleonic bureaucracy, essentially structured to serve a Franco-German axis, it's unity is centred on a rump- the in crowd and the out crowd. And in the UK, the feeling is we're better off out of it.

Because in the short term, we'd be better off. We would, financially. Short term. And we wouldn't have to legislate according the legislative needs of France and Germany.

But long term, it isn't the right answer, I don't think. Europe without Britain will not work. It will retreat into a Charlemagnian rump, the Franco-German axis and the Benelux countries. And then?

The problem with Europe is exactly that, that as things stand it is geared up to serve the needs of the Franco-German axis. Two states that badly need eachother. Two states whose own problems balance eachother out. Each one gives the other without it cannot provide itself. They prop eachother up. And that is the unspoken problem with Europe.

It's not just about wresting control of Europe away from this axis, it's about addressing the real problems within those states that cause them use the EU as a heroin addict uses methadone.

Because the UK CAN do without the EU. But without the EU, both France and Germany have to face their problems. And them doing so, would be disruptive to ALL Europe. They are both too proud to open up and admit the realities, their own peoples can't. Their countries, their cultures are held up by the strength of the European scaffolding.

And that is what is wrong with Europe, for the UK. The lack of acknowledgement. When I talk to PEOPLE from other European countries, I find a lot of respect for Britain. Respect for the fact that Britain at least puts a brake on the Franco-German axis. But more than that. There is a dim sense, I think, amongst European PEOPLE (as opposed to their press and governments) of why we do it.

Because we don't want a lot of belligerent, impoverished, unstable dictatorships going round invading their smaller neighbours on our doorstep. We don't want another Napoleon, or another Kaiser Wilhelm, or another Hitler. We don't want to have to keep shedding blood in France.



We were there to pick up the pieces last time, at considerable expense to ourselves and we never get much acknowledgement for that. OK, it's history and the living owe the dead nothing, but that isn't the real point.

The main reason the UK stays in Europe and SHOULD stay in Europe, and in our guts we all know it- is if we left- it would all be far more likely to happen again.

Europe was torn apart last time and it hasn't come to terms with what happened. It hasn't faced it. It rebuilt itself after the last war, it looks all shiny and new, but underneath, underneath there is a dangerous instability.

That instability is in the realities of France and Germany. Why as states, they cling to eachother.

The EU creates an equilibrium in which their societies can exist in a stable state- of sorts- but the reality is, both of those states have inherent problems within their societies that make the minor racial tensions, the ineptitude of the Brown government, the high cost of living, the uncertainty of identity as a result of loss of Empire and all the other apparent problems of the UK pale by comparison.

The EU as it stands exists so France and Germany can prop eachother up and so the rest of us can keep an eye on them. And whilst it remains like that, it will always remain the corrupt, bureaucratic, authoritarian mess it currently is.

The answer? Like it or not, for Britain to stay in and give full commitment to the European project. And try wrest power from this rump block and see if a more democratic vision can't be set up. More Thomas Paine than Napoleon. One where the state has to prove you can't, not the citizen prove you can. And through that, see if we can't help both France and Germany address problems which should actually be addressed. Because right now the EU is being used to staunch those festering sores, not heal them.

But institutions alone can't solve those problems. There is no magic wand. But these problems DO need to be discussed. Openly. And in the case of Germany actually, that would go a long way. Talking about it properly.

I'd like to expand on both these countries more. I should add that the next two posts are not designed to offend, but to be candid.

And if this post or the next two seemed unduly jingoistic, then I sincerely apologise. I certainly don't mean them to be. But just because one is opposed to flag waving patriotism and all that God Save the Queen stuff doesn't mean you should go to the extreme of refusing to see good in a country or a culture merely because it happens to be your own. I don't believe that being born here means I can take credit for what people who once lived here once did, but I do believe that the people who sprung from these islands did something right and that the culture that they left behind should get off its sorry arse, stop whinging and realise it doesn't have it so bad.
And start showing some responsibility in the world.

Instead of asking what Europe does for us, we should be asking what we can do for Europe.
Why AREN'T we in the UK showing leadership?

Has it ever occurred to most Brits to wonder what the smaller countries in Europe think? Not France, not Germany, but the Denmarks and the Swedens and the Portugals and the Slovakias?



Do you think these countries would have signed up to a Europe without Britain in it?

Britain is the only country that COULD do it alone and not suffer for it. Which is the reason why we SHOULDN'T.

Britain still has a job to do in the world. At the centre of Europe, not as its grumpy uncle on the sidelines, but its elder, stronger, wiser brother. Elder, because it's here that freedom and responsible government begun, stronger because- let's face it, we're the only serious military power in Europe, we're the only power IN Europe that Europe can rely on to defend it, as things stand. And wiser because- well none of us are that wise really, in today's world all our governments seem to be staffed with power crazed lunatics, but I think our culture has grown up, beyond the sort of kneejerk manifestations of nationalism and racism, beyond some of the medieval throwbacks that still seem to rear their heads in other parts of Europe. Because here in the UK, we've managed to make lots of different cultures living side by side work.

And Britain can make Europe work.

Tomorrows post will deal with the German Identity Crisis. And the problems that causes.

The Love of Grissom and Sara- A True Romance

Like many people in this dull little island, I tuned into Channel Five at nine PM tonight to see the swansong of a TV character who has been a kind of inspiration to me over the last few years.
A character who has grown on me and I have come to admire.

I don't usually take much interest in TV, let alone rigidly follow TV drama series.

But CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has always been a class apart. It is unmissable television drama.
And Gil Grissom is a hero, or perhaps a post-modernist anti-hero for our times.

The spin off series are good in their own way, don't get me wrong. CSI Miami and CSI New York are each of them worthy efforts who have maintained the value of the franchise, much like the Law and Order franchise. These are strong TV dramas, flagships TV dramas of our time.

But CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is possibly the greatest thing to hit global TV since...
Columbo, perhaps.

I hope that Gil Grissom's departure doesn't kill it. It has much to commend it, even without him.

I suppose the tendency is to see it merely as being about forensics and pathology. Partly this is so. It's certainly a great programme for picking up 'CSI facts'. Interesting statistical scientific titbits. But where the original excels- in a way the spin offs do not so much- is in it's weaving in of social and political themes. CSI Miami can irritate with its focus on gang warfare and organised crime. The strongest episodes are those where the motive is the interesting point, the crux on which the plotline is built.

It has never pulled its punches. It can be gruesome, it can be disconcerting. It often tackles uncomfortable issues. But I think it has always succeeded because it has allowed the human factor to show. I can think of several episodes where one finds it impossible to judge any of the people involved and one sees the whole series of events uncovered as a sad human tragedy. And others where one shakes ones heads at human greed or human malice.

Of course, it isn't real. But the fact that one comes across so many things in real life where one thinks 'reminds me of a CSI episode' shows how deep into analysing some of the forces at work within our culture the programme goes.

But perhaps the real strength of the original series has been in the actual members of the team. It has focused more on the actual characters than perhaps the spin offs do. I find I LIKE the staff at Las Vegas more than I do those at Miami. One see into them far more.
And partly because it has always had my favourite male CSI and my favourite female CSI, in terms of character.

I guess I find Grissom to be the sort of character whose company I'd enjoy, in the sense that he's interesting. And calm and level headed. And deeply principled. He stands up for what he believes in. As against the forces of departmental politics, career nesting and back stabbing represented by the loathsome Conrad Eckley. Grissom is not a team player, not prone to following the rules. But he knows why he does what he does.
He isn't the typical TV hero. He is often characterised as being a science nerd, a kind of gifted loner. I wonder about that, because the character as depicted certainly seems to be quirkily eccentric, but by no means the sort who would put people off. Certainly the sort who COULD socialise and perhaps be the life and soul of the party. Yet it seems to be made clear that Grissom doesn't.



OK, perhaps Grissom might not be the best guy to go clubbing with. I guess we'd overlap in more academic topics, but we would have differing tastes in social lives.

The point is, Grissom is a lead character with many admirable qualities. There is something about him that is enlightened and refined. Where Horatio Kane is an Elrond and Mac Taylor is an Aragorn, Gil Grissom is a kind of Gandalf, but with the innocence and humanity of Frodo.

Modern TV culture doesn't offer many good role models for men today, but Gil Grissom is one. The world would be a better place with more Gil Grissoms about.

And this brings me to what for me has been one of the more compelling aspects of the drama.

It takes a lot to get me to care about a romantic subplot. Usually I don't much care for them. A pointless distraction. But just for once...

Lindsay Monroe in CSI New York is possibly the most obviously cute in the franchise as a whole. Catherine Willows, well, she has obvious sex appeal, or certainly did so in the early days. None of the female characters are unattractive, surprisingly. Maybe I should have paid more attention at school and done a scientific subject at degree level.

But in terms of character, well...

There's just something about Sara Sidle. No, she's not the most stunning. In terms of raw sexuality, Catherine Willows will always defeat her there, not to mention the brazen good natured, eternal sunshine of Calleigh Duchesne.
It's her.

The character portrayed.

She is the sort of woman you watch walking away till she's finally passed out of view. The sort of woman you want to hold close and kiss it all better.



She is distant, awkward, uncertain, she never lets go of the burden she is carrying. The way only a woman who has been deeply hurt in life can feel. Only a woman whose scars are so tender that she will not let anyone close enough to even brush against them. And yet for a woman to be like that in the first place, she must have great reserves of love, huge reserves of caring locked inside her. Inside, she is an amazing, beautiful woman. Far more so than most people can ever be.

And full credit has to go to Jorja Fox for being able to convey that persona. You really do feel it. You can FEEL the character of Sara Sidle and see her tremendous worth as a human being behind that cold and hard face she puts across. It's brilliantly acted.

It's in the rather inelegant, face in file of papers marching round the CSI lab, in the rather dull, unflattering clothes she wears, the semi frown, which manages to hang even when her face breaks into a smile.
It's in her voice, slightly terse and uncertain, brisk, matter of a fact, generally devoid of emotion, yet also seeming almost ready to break. And yet- moving. Is it Jorja's voice that is beautiful, or Sara's? I don't know.

Such women, of course, are real. They do exist. And so often they are, in fact, the ones that really do deserve to find happiness. I guess if I'm honest, it's a Sara Sidle and not a Catherine Willows I want to find, though certainly a night of passion with Catherine isn't something I'd turn down.

The real nature of Sara and women like Sara shines through in the empathy and genuine concern she shows to victims when she bonds with them. A woman who truly understands what love is by looking at the hole in her own heart.

My favourite Grissom and Sara moment, this next clip.



So I guess, as a viewer, one feels quite protective towards Sara. You don't want to see her get hurt. Only the best for our Sara- a man who truly understands her and can make her happy.

On the rare occasions when we see Grissom's romantic side, we can see he isn't shallow. Grissom is only really attracted by two women, and both of them stand out from the crowd. Grissom sees the real person, not the act they show the world. One is Lady Heather, the other is Sara Sidle. Both are deserving of being loved by men who truly understand them. Both have special qualities above and beyond the average woman, but qualities the average man doesn't bother to notice. The close, platonic friendship that Grissom shared with Lady Heather had many of the qualities of romantic love, it had a fairy tale quality and I found it profoundly touching. The dominatrix and the bookish professor, crossing their barriers to learn from eachother. Not just eachothers worldly knowledge, but from and as the people they are.

Grissom is the true romantic.



I guess the way I've come to feel about these two characters is simple. If Sara had ended up having a fling with Greg or Nick, I'd have been concerned. Because though I'd happily go for a beer with those guys, I don't think they deserve Sara. And Gil, had he settled for anyone other than Sara, even the lovely Catherine, I'd have been disappointed in him. Because Sara needs him. Men that good, should be reserved only for women like Sara. Girls like Catherine can take care of themselves.

Sometimes one says 'They deserve eachother' about couples composed of two rather crappy people. Bickering, arguing people. Loud, nasty people. It is rare one says it the other way. That two characters are so good that they do deserve only the best, and they have it, eachother.

It's hard for TV to make us feel that way. Because so often the 'boy gets girl' will piss off at least one half of the audience. Girls may want Tom Cruse to win Elizabeth Shue in Cocktail, but all the men in the audience want to see him get his head kicked in. To actually make us feel; 'Here are two really good people who have been looking for eachother all their lives, please let them fulfill eachother', that takes some doing.

And CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has succeeded in doing that.

Because even cynical old me, who doesn't believe in love everlasting, yes, even me, jaded and cynical at thirty one and accepting of the fact that my late forties will be a period of microwave pizzas and fourpacks of Tetleys in front of the TV, even I found myself smiling with pure bliss this evening.

Sad to see Grissom go, a little hesitant as to how this great drama will continue without him.
But over the moon to see him walk along that jungle path to see her standing there photographing Capuchin Monkeys.

And put down his rucksack and walk towards her, arms open wide. So heartfelt. So UNGrissomlike.

And I was happy for them both.

Gil, I'll miss you, but I'm so glad you're happy. And Sara too, you both deserve it.
You deserve eachother.

I guess I'm often highly critical of TV as a medium. Critical at it's bombarding of our senses with messages of control, outright lies, misrepresentations, etc.

But if Gil Grissom can find love in Sara Sidle, then I'll allow it some virtues.
It's not all bad. For once, it offers hope.

A toast!

To Gil and Sara!