Well, that says it all.

Tweets, status updates, blogs: we spend a lot of time voicing our message, communicating our opinions, talking to (at?) others about what we believe in - a right old case of meme warfare.

Not so much time is spent on listening.

For sure, we do listen, sometimes, but even then it’s only to some people; only to the people that we side with, our own choice victims. For feminists, women; for race activists, ethnic minorities; for capitalists, businesses; for Marxists, workers; for recovering addicts, current drug-takers; for labour voters, the vulnerable in need of public services; for conservatives, the employed who need lower taxes.

My friends, there is something painful in that, this myopia, that we only listen to the suffering we identify with – to everyone else, we preach, pontificate, even persecute, determined to being them ‘on side’, to our side. Sure, why wouldn’t they support our cause, worthy as it is? Except they’re supporting their own cause, as worthy also, as that actually is.

This is a very sad situation. A very stuck situation.

Camps of tribal affiliations, groups of equally noble causes fighting their own corner, fighting each other. I’ve often seen this: that something isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t include everything else. Conservatives are wrong, pulling back spending on public services in their pursuit of lower taxes for the employed, because they don’t speak enough about protecting the vulnerable. Labour is wrong, seeking to maintain spending on public services for the vulnerable, seeking to invest more capital in infrastructure to build houses, because they don’t speak enough about the need to reduce the deficit, to relieve the burden of debt on the next generation. A polarity thus develops, both sides declining to see the full picture: that we are no longer as well off as a society, that perhaps taxes have to either remain constant or even go up if we wish to maintain the current level of social services, and at the same time, in the face of these higher taxes, we must nevertheless accept a reduced quality of life. There simple isn’t as much to go around. Mother Earth hasn’t got as much left to give. 

Nowhere is this tribalism more evident than on Twitter, where camps of different tribes, affiliated to their own chosen values and causes, form exclusive cells with impermeable membranes.

For me, I’d much rather belong to no group. Whenever I feel myself getting subsumed into one camp or another I subvert the process by focusing on something else. I abhor affiliations - political, ideological, religious, whatever. I like to promote a diverse, sometimes conflicting array of narratives: feminism, equality, Buddhism, social welfare, the NHS, mental health, environmentalism, renewable energy, population controls, atheism, banning pornography, reformed/regulated capitalism, a non-regulated press, and nuclear decommissioning.  I buy the Observer and The Telegraph on Sundays. Both usually make good points. 

But that’s just me.

My point is that life is too complex, too complicated to foster simplistic affiliations. That’s far too close to religion, to dogma, for me. I’m a complex person, with strengths and weaknesses. I make good points sometimes, and terrible mistakes. I find it hard to see both sides of the story most of the time, but I want to try, and I have a right to try. On Twitter I’ve seen people being jumped for trying to consider an alternative view, and quite often I’ve been the one doing the jumping. I don’t like this part of me – I don’t think it’s useful, let alone humane. And I don’t like the process. It smacks of the schoolyard fight where everyone gathers round chanting ‘fight, fight, fight’. There’s an absence of human dignity in it. I want to be more patient, more at ease with difference. I want to feel less of a megalomaniac, living as I sometimes do from some bizarre, arrogant belief that I can change the world if only I say the right thing at the right time to the person I believe needs to hear what I want to say.

I can’t change the world.

So, if there’s anything I want to be able to say upon my death bed, then, it’s not that I changed the world (an impossible task!), but that I made a difference to some people, and that I tried to understand, and that I was as non-violence as I could be. To do that, I need to listen more. Maybe the last thing that I can do then, on my death bed, is listen, to those around me, and to myself, to just listen and try to understand.
When all is said and done, maybe that’s the only thing left to do, to listen and try to understand.

News Round-up (March 24th-30th)

BENEFITS: Stay-at-home parents have seen tax increases since coalition came to power, unlike single- or both-parents who go to work, who have all seen reductions. Suggestions that Tories undervalue stay-at-home parents taking root.
(Telegraph)

MEDIA REGULATION: “Hands off from my interwebz!" says local blogger.
(Twitter) 

HEALTH AND SAFETY: Triangular flapjacks banned for health and safety reasons, but not square or rectangular flapjacks. Many concerned about the increase of corner-related injuries.
(BBC Radio 4)

ON THE PAPERS: Telegraph and Sun move to join Financial Times and others embracing paywalls. The Guardian denies intent of doing same, despite its online advertising revenue failing to sustain newsrooms. Many now ask: How much is news worth?
(BBC Radio 4)

CELEBRITY: Angelina Jolie at Nzolo camp in DR Congo fights to raise awareness of warzone rape in Africa.
(Metro)

EDUCATION: Teachers call for children as young as eight to be taught about risks of porn, including sexting. Also in the news, teacher strikes looking likely as general discontent on the increase.
(Metro; Guardian)

NEWS ON NEWS: Various stories of isolated, heart-breaking tragedies involving ordinary people you never knew.
(Metro etc.) 

BANKING: Cyprus decides not to raid Cypriot deposits under EU100,000. Bigger deposits hit by up to 100% as Cyprus attempts to remain in the Euro. Decades of hardship predicted as Cypriot economy teeters on the brink.
(Guardian)

IMMIGRATION: Tory focus on immigrants continues, as new, more stringent conditions on how immigrants access welfare and housing is proposed. Many worry of increased inequality, with the UK at odds with EU legislation on human rights. Farage of UKIP highlights the duty of government to house the homeless as undermining Cameron’s intentions. Others highlight how less than 2% of immigrants claim unemployment benefit, far below the national average.
(Guardian)

FEMINISM: Femen in the spot-light: some question their naked tactics - others emphasis freedoms and empowerment. On Twitter, @winnersusedrugs is faced with misogynistic backlash as she comes out in criticism of video-game conference “booth girls”. Those in support of her analysis called for a better view of women in the gaming industry.
(Guardian; Twitter)

POLITICS: Conservative narrative of ‘anyone can succeed if only they try hard enough’ read by some as ‘poverty is sinful’. Says Guardian journo satirically: "the state must shrink to a nub, because the humans who need it don't deserve it."
(Guardian)

WEATHER: Brits grit teeth as temps hit the pits.
(Various)

POLITICS: Mair maims mayor as Boris Johnston is stripped down by Eddie Mair in publicly celebrated interview accusing the conservative top dog as ‘a nasty piece of work’. Boris later praises Mair’s work.
(BBC)

News Round-Up

HOUSING: Tories divided as local councillors seek to protect ‘environmental safeguards’ accusing government of ‘over-development’ while national Conservative party seeks to galvanise house-building market, injecting £3.5b into New Homes Scheme.

FEMINISM: Twitter inflamed over #Steubenville as sympathy expressed for convicted rapists, including on CNN, and suggestions repeatedly made that rape victim was partly to blame.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS: Cyprus in chaos as politicians desperately seek solution to crippled banking system – a 25% bank levy on savings deposits over EU100,000 currently proposed. Observers fear bank run and immanent collapse. Banks have been closed for last seven days.

WEATHER: Bristol struck by cold snap, while nation’s eye turns to dwindling gas reserves as supply from Belgium is cut off by pump failure.

POLITICS: Labour pull ahead in polls as Conservative stick to current economic policy (Poll Average: Con: 30  Lab: 40  Lib-Dem: 11)

MEDIA: Newspapers contemplate new cross-party agreement on new regulations backed by law. Early indications suggest some may refuse to sign. Supporters insist regulations protect freedom of the press while protecting the public.

RELIGION: New pope calls for a ‘poor church’.

WELFARE: “Bedroom Tax” to be implemented as “Mansion Tax” is dropped – nation split between the need for housing and the needs of the vulnerable. Conservatives reward both parents when they decide to work by offering more childcare support – many now ask how much Tories value the work of stay-at-home parents.

Authority's End

Pluto is in Capricorn, and authorities are being relentlessly cross-examined: the police, the government, MPs, Celebrities, the Church, the media, the BBC, the NHS. It is a time of great upheaval, both in the stars, and on the ground. I don’t believe in astrology, but certainly the stars are not far off on this particular subplot of the zeitgeist.

What does it mean, then, to be without authority? More specifically, to be without an external authority? Classically, we’ve killed our fathers, possessed our mothers. Patriarchy is eating itself.

We’ve got nothing to guide us, only appetite, desire, the need for an endless, directionless “more”.

Here, in the great silence of a murdered God, in the graveyard of moral certitude, there resides a trembling silence, a open plot.

We stand alone in ourselves, our own hearts and minds our only guide. Do we have the confidence, the groundedness, the courage to follow our own lights? What does our own voice sound like, apart from the multitude of voices we try to discern around us and try to please on a daily basis? What do we, in ourselves, think is right, beyond what gets us praise or blame? Who are we, apart from what we think we are perceived to be by Others?

The child stands with dagger in hand and Daddy dead. The child looks about, realising what it has done. What next? For Mommy cannot be possessed forever. She will die, her nurture end. All that remains now is the inevitability of being left, alone. What then for the child without authority, without guidance, with nothing but its own heart and mind to heed? What then?

To pluck the fruit of adulthood from this wasteland of destruction – is it possible? Is it inevitable? Is it even conceivable?

A turn for the different.

These days I’ve taken to be, well, less political and more creative – something that happens to me annually; winter stokes the coals of my birthing-burner like an old man poking at the open fire, sending up crackling sparks that from out of the dark set his peering, crinkled face aglow. I scratch the flint over these faceless stones, and from that comes strange tales, mystic messages. Warmed, I shimmy up to these building flames, listen to the roar in the hearth, and let myself dream.

The cold, sharp clink of metal brought down on metal – clink.

These days there is a controlled violence in my words, an accuracy that is visceral. I look forward to these moments with the muse, like one might look forward to an evening’s chat with a close friend before the fire. Nodding and smiling, turning over thoughts between two: ploughing the field.

These days I relish such moments, where I treat words with the respect they are due, select them, and place them, with care. With care, yes. This is the season when I create with care.