Archive for the ‘politics’ Category

Democracy needs you

Monday, January 19th, 2009

From mySociety: “Ministers are about to conceal MPs’ expenses, even though the public has just paid £1m to get them all ready for publication, and even though the tax man expects citizens to do what MPs don’t have to.”

My letter to my MP on the topic:

Dear David Lepper,

I write to you today in the hope that you will vote against the draft Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order 2009 this Thursday, and additionally sign Jo Swinson’s Early Day Motion.

While I greatly appreciate the hard work undertaken by MPs to represent our needs, I do believe it is imperative that, as public servants, they are held accountable to high financial standards. Removing details of MPs’ expenses from FoI legislation is contrary to this important goal.

My hope is for a more open Government that operates with true transparency, and thus reinstates the trust it has sadly lost in the modern public’s eyes. Therefore I believe that this proposal would be very much a retrograde step for British politics. I hope that, as my MP, you will share my viewpoint.

Yours sincerely,
Cennydd Bowles

I normally conduct my political activism solely at the ballot box, but this is an issue so important that I’d urge anyone reading to get involved too. Please consider writing to your MP too (WriteToThem makes this extremely easy), or failing that please join the Facebook group and add your name to the ranks of concerned citizens. Normal apolitical blog service will be restored shortly.

Posted in politics | No Comments »

Social topiary

Thursday, November 27th, 2008

Our tiny brains are reaching social saturation point. Any heavy email receiver, Twitter user or RSS subscriber will tell you that there comes a point whereby the flow of inbound information is more than we can handle. The result is a flood which can often only be stemmed by giving up and hitting that reset button.

200 inputs is my approximate upper limit. Any more and I struggle to keep up, and eventually have to admit information bankruptcy. I can handle a few more on Twitter, a few fewer on RSS subscriptions, about that number on Facebook. This ballpark figure isn’t particularly surprising, as anyone who’s read The Tipping Point or read about Dunbar’s number will tell you, but I’m interested less in the theory as the consequences of overconsumption.

An elegant social dance is being performed across the web, as people realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, and decide to cut back. The resultant social politics are fascinating. Is unfollowing someone on Twitter a meaningful act of disapproval? At what level of ‘busy’ is it ok to ignore a friend’s forwarded email? Can a friendship survive a Facebook defriending?

Mostly these are rhetorical questions, or at least ones where the answers are so personal it’s hard to give a definitive judgement. Whatever the answers, this phenomenon is occurring so regularly I’m amazed we don’t seem to have a name for it yet. So what the hell, I’ll try: “social topiary”.

Posted in politics, psychology | 1 Comment »

Farewell to anti-intellectualism?

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Until recently, I equated politics with duty: something that I must participate in, but that was never elevated above a choice between deeply unsatisfactory options.

I find most politics ideologically empty, and it is almost a truism to say that we know very little about how President Obama will govern. However, I do believe that yesterday’s election will make a profound difference to the world, and for the first time I’m genuinely excited at the prospect of political change. Of course the race issue is important, but my personal hope for Obama’s presidency is the end (or, at worst, the long suspension) of a culture of anti-intellectualism that has plagued Western politics for years.

Anti-intellectualism is not a uniquely right-wing stance, but it has been used with alarming regularity by the current US administration. Bush himself is the archetypal example but, consigning him to the history he deserves to inhabit, we’ve seen examples in the recent campaign too. Sarah Palin’s attempt to champion the cause of the “real America”, by conflating intellect and elitism, failed profoundly.

The right’s attack has not been constrained purely to intelligence: it has also involved the devaluation of education, reason and evidence. All have been systematically discarded by the incumbent government, state education boards, Supreme Court Justices and hawkish military generals.

This framing of intellectuals as The Other is counter-productive, dangerous, and hopefully moribund.

It is clear that Obama is an acutely intelligent man and a gifted orator. As such, he received his mandate from two ends of the spectrum: those with the lowest and highest privileges. His race and his stance on welfare made him attractive to disenfranchised minorities, while his sharp, rational demeanour made him almost entirely dominant amongst liberal urbanites. This top-and-bottom split was complemented by a generational shift: a fierce reaction against the hegemony of old, rich, white men. The campaign itself owes much of its success to the internet and, yes, even graphic design. Fairey’s Hope poster will stay with us as one of the most important political design works of our generation.

Republicans may wish to blame their loss on the economy. 63% of Americans say it was the primary issue. But I think the Republican attitude that the economy needs to be restored to its former glories is fundamentally wrong. It doesn’t. The way forward is a new, sustainable, evenhanded economy with environmental conscience, and checks and balances protecting the public purse from the risks of the free market. Where the poor get richer, not just the rich.

While I’m concerned I’ve compromised my cynicism and have gone a bit gooey over a single politician, yesterday feels to me as significant as 9/11, and as constructive as the aforementioned was destructive. I believe that, given the pace of innovation and change in our society, we are already caught up in a second Renaissance. Politics, historically, always lags behind social trends. Yesterday it caught up, and the 21st century can really begin.

Posted in politics | 1 Comment »