The Narcissism of Small Differences
The Narcissism of Small Differences
Liberal commentators are very eager to accuse the left of obsessing — and falling out — over things which, in reality, don't seem to the liberals to matter very much. They have a phrase for this: 'the narcissism of small differences.' Well, OK, we on the left do fall out over things which, seen from outside our spectrum, may seem trivial, such as whether communism should be imposed from above or grown from below; whether people should self organise voluntarily or should be led by a self-appointed vanguard party; whether people should be entitled to food and security as a reward for their work, or simply as a consequence of their membership of the society; and so on.
On Communism
This essay is incomplete; I'm publishing it now for criticism and comment, but will return to it. It is part of a train of thought which includes at least Building Lifeboats, Manifesto for a good society, On Money, and The Standingstone Model. In its final form it will probably be rewritten to include parts of all of those.
The image at the head of this essay is taken from the cap badge of the army of the Soviet Union, which is ironic for many reasons. I see the Hammer and Sickle as an important symbol of the alliance between industrial and agricultural workers, which is what it was designed, in Russia after the 1918 revolution, to be. But the Communist Party of the Soviet Union never really supported this alliance, exploiting peasants ruthlessly.
Building Lifeboats
Building Lifeboats
The job now is no longer to turn the ship around. We don't have the wheel, and those who do will not listen1. The task now is to build lifeboats. To build resilient spaces in which fragments of humanity can survive. Yes, it would be better to try to save everyone. But that literally isn't in our power. We can, each of us, only influence the locality in which we live, and the people in that locality who are willing to listen2.
This essay is incomplete; it is part of an evolving train of thought and will be revised.
The Biodegradable Tricycle
The Biodegradable Tricycle
One of the design goals of my tricycle is as a prototype for sustainable transport. To be sustainable, it has to be fully recyclable, and the simplest way to make anything fully recyclable is to make it biodegradable: nature will do the recycling for you.
Metals, of course, aren't, in the strictest sense, biodegradable, although all except gold will eventually degrade in the environment, typically by oxidation, and the metals I'm likely to use oxidise into not especially toxic oxides; but in any case metals are valuable, and pretty easy to collect and recycle. I'm not guilting about using metals.
The Point of No Return
The Point of No Return
This evening I have been listening to one of Manda Scott's podcasts and thinking about my failure in trying to lead the village's planning working group, and about the cognitive dissonance underlying my Tricycle project. I suspect this essay will be a grim read; it's not well formed in my mind as I sit down to write.