The Greatest Work of all Time

I suppose for everyone there are things they have been introduced to which have changed their lives. Ideas and concepts which have been crucial in forming their outlook.
And for many of us, there are books which have been crucial to forming our worlview.

I suppose most of you would assume I'd be naming Nietzche, Marx, Darwin or St Augustine here. I'm not. Because if it wasn't for one book, I may never have read any of those works.

That book was the Lord of The Rings.
I first read it aged ten. It opened my eyes to a genre. Not just fantasy literature- Tolkien is more than that, he is the creator of a whole mythology. The mythology the Lord of The Rings is built upon, seven thousand years of battle between The Children of Eru and the forces of Melkor, is so intricate and so rich, it took most cultures hundreds of years to build the same.
And the richness of it touched me deeply.

As a teenager I developed a fascination with Greek and Roman Myth, Norse Myth, the Arthurian Legend, Indian Myth, the whole collective subconscious of man's legends.



This is what led to my doing my degree in Literature.
But by then, I myself had moved on. My reading had led to a deep interest in human history per se. By following the whole process from its begining, by getting a depth and perspective to the place we are now, by considering the logic behind viewpoints, I found myself involved in politics on the one hand, and philosophy and theology on the other.

As I got to my mid twenties, many of the philosophical speculations I was encountering in my reading led me to into checking the science behind ideas. This got me into reading people like Hawking, Dawkins, etc.

So I have quite a range of interests. I know a little about a lot, rather than a lot about a little.
But I think you get a better overall that picture that way.

It's still true today however, that I'm unlikely to read a fiction novel NOT in the fantasy or science fiction genre.
I'm currently eagerly awaiting the next installment of Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series.

It's also sadly true that I know almost as many words in Sindarin as I do in French.



JRR Tolkien. The giant of man's literary endeavours.
The man who first set my imagination free.

Let's Put it to the Vote

It's Monday again.
Goodbye to last week's poll, in with the new.



Your verdict on the future of the Union was in favour of its dissolution, although to be fair this issue didn't really get any of you over-excited.
Seven of you thought it was time the UK passed into history.
Five of you thought it still had a purpose.

My guess is that the Union will pass into history and with relatively little resistance.
I think most of those who don't like the idea of its passing, can still see the writing on the wall.

I think Alex Salmond will get his wish one day.



So, on to this week's issue.

Well, you can guess.
We've been discussing it for the last few days.

Multinational Corporations.
A force for good in the world?
Or a hindrance to progress?

There have been some strong opinions either way, with some good arguments produced by both supporters and opponents of that small, largely anonymous, band of men who own our planet.

Pommygranate has certainly been a robust defender of the wisdom of the market; 'Sure we might not be back on the moon (thank God) but we do now have the internet, fantastic advances in medical technology that has added ten years to life expectancy, no-one in England need go hungry, women have equal status to men for the first time ever, and if we dont like our ruling party we can boot them out.'

Ed too, has concerns about what would take the place of the corporations; 'Would these democratic organisations be willing to take huge risks to create new industries? I doubt it. They might work in stable industries but I can't imagine they would be able to innovate like competitive companies can.'


Not nationalised corporations. Certainly not in my vision.
I've said, I look forward to a TRUE democracy where EVERYTHING is under democratic control.

On the other side, Helen had this to say; 'I think a civilization that sees no alternative to corporate exploitation than primitive, squalid conditions is doomed to fail. In the case of the steelworkers, why would experienced, highly-skilled metallurgists revert to subsistence living? If our future is to be re-written we must admit to failed systems and direct our course to a more egalitarian method of labor management and profit control.'

And Jenny thought this; 'Until we can check our materialistic ways, we will never have any progress! We value money and things over humanity.'



Anyway, I'll be interested to know the general feeling on this.
How do we feel about this?
Are they a force for good or a force for ill?
You decide.

Have your say.

Why It Just Isn't Working Any More

Put simply, our current economic model has outlived it's usefulness.
It's just not taking us forward any more.
It is not up to the challenge of dealing with the real human problems of the twenty first century.

National governments have too narrow a frame of reference, multinational corporations stand in the way.

Once upon time, it worked. Human Progress was a fortunate dividend that came as a byproduct of the Capitalist Economic model. It wasn't bust, there was no need to fix it.

But let's look at the problems we face now.

Firstly, Africa's problems are the problems of all of us. The world is just too small to think otherwise. But aid concerts and famine relief won't deal with the real problems.
The real problems are to do with corruption, civil war and lack of infrastructure.
Those are not insurmountable problems.
But they are if short term self interest rules.
Long term self interest would have those of us with the advantage to be able to do so, to go into Africa and build the railways, road networks, airports, hospitals, schools, universities, everything that we have, so that the whole continent of Africa has everything that Europe and North America have.

It's about resources and Human Expertise.
How is the all wise market going to acheive this?
But when it's done the lives of all of us would be better, because human existence and life on earth will work better.

And what about our own countries?
They all now have a bottom rung, the rejects of the system, a whole class that wasn't there fifty years ago, surviving on the crumbs that fall from above.
Oh sure, we house them and feed them for free.
But we have no use for their energy.
How wasteful is that?
How can any way of life be said to work, that throws away human energy?
That creates a class of people who have nothing to gain from co-operation with the rest of society, that doesn't care if you send them to prison, because prison is no worse than their real lives, that is happy for an early death on heroin?

Working is it?



And what of our future?
We are blind to it.

The population of the Earth isn't going to go down.
And birth control can only ever be a short term solution.
It can slow the growth, it will never stop it.
And if we truly believed in ourselves, why would we want it to?

Practised on a large scale, it's very negative, certainly the way it's practised in the west.
It's foolish to pretend that many characteristics, health, intelligence, understanding, compassion, etc, are not often inherited.
Yet the people with the largest share of these traits to pass on are made the ones who pass on their traits least.

A progressive human society would see the problem, not as one of limiting the number of mouths, but of finding more space for humanity.

Yet the bright hopes of the sixties have faded.
We haven't been back to the Moon in over thirty years.
So little money is put into space research that we can't even send a probe to Mars that works.
This wonderful capitalist system will throw more money at Pokemon than Colin Pillinger.

Let me be clear here. I believe if we can't make it off this rock, if we can't make our neighbouring worlds into homes for our descendants, we are failing in our potential as a species.



We are failing in our potential now.
Because we are wasting our energy.
Most of the products of human energy consist of a pointless musical chairs of assets, the wasteful western game of buying and selling.
A game about short term individual self gratification.
A game we think we enjoy, because it somehow recreates the primtive hunting instincts in us.
Is that all we're good for? Subsitute hunting in suits?
But who are we hunting?

Time to move on.
Time to reach for the stars

The Window to Your Soul?

It's Friday night, (or Saturday maybe, by the time you read this), and I think it's a day for light posts. There will be more on the liberty versus materialism issue tomorrow.



This is for those of you who say I never give you anything personal.

I'm supposed to be anonymous!
That's how anonymity works!

But I really don't think anyone is going to come running up to me in the street, shouting 'You're Crushed By Ingsoc!', simply because I post this picture.
In fact, I sincerely doubt that anyone reading this blog, is ever likely to walk past me in the street.

So my anonymity is quite safe, but they say the eyes are the window to the soul, and I guess that's what you really want.
You want to know what type of person I am.

This is the fullest picture of me that will ever appear here.
The rest is entirely up to your own imagination!

I will tell you, I wasn't christened Crushed. I made it up.
Quite like the name now though. It kind of suits me.

Liberty- But Not For the Few

Pommygranate has quite reasonably asked what my gripe with Walmart was.
A just point, and I felt it deserved it's own post.

My problem isn't with Walmart on its own, it is with multinational corporations full stop.



I don't just think that they are a threat to our freedom, I think they make a mockery of the concept.
Yes, I think we have to fight the inching march towards totalitarianism.
But we also need to free ourselves from this conditioned wage slavery too.

Let's get back to basics.
The form of any social structure, is basically geared to human needs.
Our mode of living needs to distribute food, extract raw materials from source, manufacture the material goods we need, distribute them and maintain the necessary infrasctructure our society needs to acheive that.
That's basically what is necessary for our species to survive and develop.

So at this level, it is wise to be Utilitarian.
Utilitarianism has gone out of fashion, which is a pity really. The Works of John Stuart Mill are worth studying, not only because he made one of the first coherant arguments for female equality, but because in works like 'On Representative Government' and 'In Defence of Utilitarianism', he presents a good description of gradual evolution towards true democracy and social equality. He rightly points out that social modes of government are dictated by the level of technological progress acheived.

For example, the Athens of Classical Times was not a democracy in the way we would see it. The majority of the subjects of Athens were slaves, and a minority of the rest were full citizens.
Marx, of course, makes much the same point. He saw no point in trying to overthrow the Capitalist system whilst it was working (His followers must have stopped reading by then), but he pointed out that one day, it MUST run out of steam. Continual Economic growth, like perpetual motion, just isn't feasible.

One day, the economic model we are used to, the financial concepts we are familiar with, must have reached the end of their day.

This shouldn't shock us. The Mercantilist mode of trade that lasted until the advent of Capitalism, depended on Trading Monopolies and Slavery.
These things ended, not because people suddenly became more moral, but because they now hindered human progress, where once they aided it.
Life was just much harsher once.

Morality is a luxury.
But it is the most important luxury.
Technology and Social Progress allowed us to lead a form of existence that was better for all than the previous mode, with slaves, serfs, absolute monarchs, etc.

Technology and Social Progress have now reached the end of another cycle.
It is the Capitalist mode of life that now stands in the way.

It was still on the way up when Marx wrote. He said that himself.
And it was still flourishing in 1917.
But anyway, Soviet Russia was not a Communist state, nor a Democracy.

The point is made here. Collectivisation has been perverted to mean private ownership by the state.
That's not the idea.

Whilst a tiny minority own the entire produce of the world- and thus own our labour- DEMOCRACY IS A SHAM.

Let me put this to you.
Imagine a country where there are two parties, the Black Party and the White Party.
A large corporation- We'll call it Greedycorp- says it will close down all its factories and move them abroad if the Black Party win.
If it employes two hundred thousand people, an announcement like that can give a lot of votes to the White Party.

Whoever wins, Greedycorp will make similar profits. Basically, a few large corporations can decide who governs and what laws are passed, by threatening to throw their rattle out of the pram.
A Greedycorp employee would be stupid not to vote for the White Party. We can't blame him/her.
But doesn't it mean our votes are bought?



To me, true liberty means the entire apparatus of production and distribution should be under democratic control.
Not owned by unaccountable vested interests.
Not owned by an all powerful state.
But under the democratic control of the people.
Run by democratically elected executives.

When all the people have a share in the management of our existence, then the attitude of all to the society we live in will change.

The people themselves will have the power to provide full employment, end poverty and make their own economic decisions.

And I think that you would find, everyone was a lot more involved.
That is my vision of Freedom.
That is my vision of Democracy.

Where I Stand

An interesting point has come up recently, about whether I am to the left or the right politically.
I prefer the question, do you have faith in man or not?
Do you trust in mankind?

Because if your trust your fellow man, you believe we can make our own decisions responsibly, if you don't, you just need to decide which form of totalitarianism you want.



The choice we tend to get in most western countries seems to be narrow. We can be governed by people who know how to run an economy, make the right diplomatic decisions and keep the state out of our lives, but is committed to preserving the most outdated social attitudes that you can find.
Or we can be governed by interventionist paternalist control freaks who can at least see the problems, even if their solutions tend to make things worse.

This seems to be the choice. The people who who ignore the problems, or the people with the wrong answers.

For example, this New Labour government is quite possibly the worst government we have ever had. It's been useless and has done untold damage to this country. But it has acheived some good- unintentionally.
Social attitudes have definitely changed for the better. The paradigm shift in Tory attitudes has been a pleasure to behold, though for me it's not far enough.

I personally think the people generally are sleepwalking towards totalitarianism. We give our liberties away daily on the slimmest of pretences.
So we veer between cheering the fat cats, or cheering the intrusion of the state yet further into our lives.
Progressive taxation= redistribution of wealth?
Has anyone ever seen this happen?

But don't be fooled into thinking that the interests of political parties and multinational corporations don't march side by side quite a way.
Ten years of New Labour should have shown you that.
A little flagwaving, a good spending spree in the sales, you'll forget how little of your life is really under your control.

And that to me is what it's all about.

Freedom should mean freedom from exploitation too.




Freedom from the few owning the energy and the brainpower of the many, for their own ends, not ours.

Freedom for us to decide that we'd like to use our collective energy for the benefit of the whole species, not those who control the distribution of resources today.

Mankind has grown up. Adulthood means responsibility for all. We're all part of this. That's maximising our potential as a species. Governing the Earth democratically, means it's resources and their distribution too.

Both the Left and the Right offer different forms of Oligarchical Collectivism.
We want neither version.

Here's an amusing test I found at Bag's Rants. Have fun with it!

You are The Hermit

Prudence, Caution, Deliberation.

The Hermit points to all things hidden, such as knowledge and inspiration,hidden enemies. The illumination is from within, and retirement from participation in current events.

The Hermit is a card of introspection, analysis and, well, virginity. You do not desire to socialize; the card indicates, instead, a desire for peace and solitude. You prefer to take the time to think, organize, ruminate, take stock. There may be feelings of frustration and discontent but these feelings eventually lead to enlightenment, illumination, clarity.

The Hermit represents a wise, inspirational person, friend, teacher, therapist. This a person who can shine a light on things that were previously mysterious and confusing.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Have A Look Around...

There's always a lot to see in the bloggosphere and a lot to get involved in. A couple of things are worth mentioning quickly.
Firstly, Pommygranate is interviewing a number of bloggers at the moment, and Yours Truly was first in the hot seat.
Pommygranate is worth checking out generally. A transplanted Brit, Pommy gives both an Aussie view of Britain, and a British view of Aus, but more importantly, its a blog which creates discussion about liberty and its implications.

Nourishing Smuttiness, described as a 'festival of smut' continues, ably organised by Mutley.



Ian Appleby is being held hostage by the Piltdown Man, Lord Straf-Bilderburg/Coventry, and Gracchi.

And Electro-Kevin is back, by popular demand!


Lastly, I can't complain about bloggers who post Nietzche. And there's often much to discuss here too.
Two Wolves is a new BP member worth reading, although leaving a comment can be tricky!
Life on the Far Side is fast becoming a daily read for me, and I've recently discovered Grendel too.
Edland is fast making a claim to serious political punditry.

So many good blogs out there, it's hard to do them all justice, but it's worth finding the time to do so.