Cosmopolitanism

Being cosmopolitan is generally held as a good thing. Its up there with wealth, happiness and birdsong in the things which our society values more than anything else. Or so I thought. Certainly, ‘cosmopolitan’ is held in higher general regard than ’small-mindedness’, ‘xenophobia’ or ‘racism’. Yet I have a feeling it has remained in possession of a somewhat vague value status, in the same way of terms like ‘multi-cultural’ which positively embody diversity yet equally possess that dangerous Other embodied in any encounter between disparate cultures (or enculturation, for all you anthropology fans out there).

To describe an area as ‘cosmopolitan’ can thus be seen to have no fixed meaning (here we go, Foucault again!). This is contextual, and to explain the power-knowledge nexus here would be tiresomely dull and irrelevant, so we’ll stick with the common-sense interaction between context and meaning.

In those glossy tourist guides and University Welcome leaflets, ‘cosmopolitan’ has positive connotations of a place being open, accepting and diverse. It suggests synonyms such as chiche, fashionable, exciting. Yet – and here we demonstrate Foucault’s good point about context and the power-knowledge nexus – a description of “certain districts” of a nearby city by a friend as “so cosmopolitan… I could scarcely believe I was still in England… it was like Bangladesh” implies a whole other series of knowledge/power relations.

In this sense, ‘cosmopolitan’ is merely ironically positve. It has alien – and thus negative – characteristics, it is the Other, the Foreign and (implicitly) the Enemy which is howling at the doors of the proverbial stout yeomanry of Britain. It is not symptomatic of a subjectivity which views diversity as healthy, wealthy or vibrant (in any economic, social or cultural sense), it rather implies the opposite. A threatened culture, a marauding globalised cosmopolitanism eating up at our good British values of intolerance and homogeneity.

Beyond proving a small example of Foucaultian philosophy, all that’s left is to say that if cosmopolitanism is interpreted as diverse, challenging, variegated, culturally rich and innovative. Sign me up!

Trailers…

Having just lost my most recent post in a RSCFAFS (Random Sudden Computer Freeze and Failure Situation), and given the fact that one can get a faster internet connection than this is one uses carrier pigeons, combined with the generally futile and impotent feeling generated by being unable to vent my spleen here (and the consequent calamities caused to friends and family), I thought it would be worthwhile writing a quick post about future posts. Since my brain has been exercised in so many directions recently (I say exercised, more of a light jog), there’s no way that even if I stay up all night I will have done all the things I’ve found vaguely interesting (VIFs if you will, see earlier posts) or generally bloggable justice. Thus, I propose a short list – for the record or the minutes as it were – of things I’ve thought about. If life goes to plan (and it never does), all these topics will be suitably blogged before the end of work in September, if not, this will serve as some sort of inane, pointless, facile and egocentric record of the goings-on inside my head.

So, here goes, a list (and we all love those!):

• The EU Constitution discussed. Something about Peter Mandelson and Sarkozy, tabloids and Europhobia.
• 42 Day detention discussed again, the moral issue and the unnecessary by-election
• Time, and the passage thereof. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ says the old saying, in that case, I feel like an arthritic mole in this job.
• Employment, productivity and studenthood. Speaks for itself, unnecessary navel-gazing aplenty.
• The Male Brain (for all you Simon Baron-Cohen fans), sexuality and homosexuality.
• Alcohol and its neat relationship with the working day.
• Management, little powers and spelling mistakes.
• An attempt to segue (I like that word) Habermas into Sartre.
• Degree results…
• The future considered…
• AAAAAAAAARGH!

So if all goes as swimmingly as the cod of fate that escapes being netted by the Birdseye trawler of doom (sorry Humph), all the above will be dealt with in my own imitable/inimicable (delete as appropriate) style for your enjoyment/revulsion. Plus if anything exciting happens in the news, I’ll be sure to be lurking cynically in the background muttering my liberal-socialist mumblings to myself like some sort of mumbling lurker.

The Mumbling Lurkers, now that sounds like a rock group.
Or maybe a paedophile ring…

Hmm…

Byee!

Hx

PS. In September, I may try something exciting with the blog to divide it into the various spheres of my life, but that’s for the future (basically an unnecessary hook to try to keep all the hallucinatory readers still reading…)

Its Been A While…

Yet again, there have been many things all of which are worthy of blogspace. First off, I am (technically) now no longer a student – until September 24th anyway – and more scarily, my NUS has expired (although no-one in Cornwall understands NUS anyway so I’m not really missing it). Secondly, I’m back at the shop of dooooom, earning money and being a productive member of society. Thirdly, there’s only ten days to go until my exam results are out…

The 42-day detention debate deserves some blog attention, but I’m loathe to attempt a serious post at the moment since I am having to write this in Notepad and paste it into explorer on a Windows Me computer which is nearly ten years old and crashes. Its like a conversation with my Gran, this machine. I keep expecting it to conk out or yell ‘what did you say? Speak up, don’t mumble’ etc etc.

As to 42 day detention – and now I’m forced to be short, direct and to the point, three things which don’t come naturally – my main concern is not the egocentric publicity stunt of David Davis but the big Brown fudge that the Government has accomplished. Beyond the initial reaction last week, our Dear Leader has done little to defend the constitutional position, or to assert the patent absurdity of Davis’ position. By-elections exist to choose local constituency MPs, not to resolve complicated legal issues.

If he wanted to genuinely influence the progress of the Bill or derail it, there are so many more logical things he could’ve done. First off, press for Tory policy (as Shadow Home Secretary, no less) to aim at parliamentary reform to prevent whatever scandal he is so aggreived by – from what I can fathom, this amounts to the Labour party legislating on a manifesto commitment mixed with a good dose of sang froid that things didn’t go his way.

Alternatively, he could get other Dave (‘Call Me Dave’ Cameron) to kick him upstairs and move from the proverbial animals to the vegetables and as a meber of the House of Lords involve himself in the legal scrutiny of the Bill. Of course, that might seem a bit radical – to become a single-issue Lord as it were – but the point still holds that the Terror Bill has a massive amount of parliamentary procedure to go before it becomes law. After all, a layman could be forgiven for thinking either that the Lords was a Tory/Opposition free zone, or more significantly, that David Davis has no confidence in his party colleagues in the Upper House.

His decision – as I said before – is childish and egocentric. Furthermore, it sets a bizarre precedent. It suggests that his constituents (and by implication, any local constituency) is a valid location to decide national security policy, or (equally) any issue which the incumbent feels passionately about. This is a bizarre and ludicrous idea for all the obvious reasons. The entire point of the bicameral system of the UK is to allow for high level and highly qualified legal deliberation in the House of Lords. In forcing a by-election on this issue, David Davis has in my view done more to harm democracy in the UK than 42 day detention ever would.
He has ridden rough-shod over parliamentary procedure and democratic principle in asserting (superciliously and egocentrically) that he is to be the arbiter of the forum in which the 42-day debate should be discussed – and choosing one which is entirely inappropriate. The election of an MP should be based on the suitability of the candidate and their party team to represent local people.

OK. Breathe in, here I go on the petrol crisis (the computer just crashed, conveniently). Living in the West of Cornwall (where they still eat their young etc), I have to confess to being slightly confused on two fronts by the idea that the country will be brought to a halt by two four day strikes by Shell workers (+ associated wildcat strikes). As usual, I have a fatuous and a serious comment.

Going for the comic first, one of the manifold joys of working in Essentials (there’s certain to be a post later in the season listing these), is the local Atlantic FM radio station. They have – over the last three days – been sending – by car – reporters to different petrol stations up and down Cornwall to see what the price is and what queues there are. On top of this, first local news (creeping over the border from Plymouth, armed with garlic and crucifixes to ward of the Cornishness), then the national news broadcasters have sent people into the region worst affected by the petrol strikes. The quick-witted among you will be expecting what’s coming next…

Is it not possible that the petrol shortage down here is being exacerbated by journalists reporting on the petrol crisis using petrol to fuel their investigations of the crisis?

Secondly, and mroe seriously, just what is it about a spokesman saying ‘don’t panic buy’ that makes the entire nation rush out and, err, panic buy? I heard the news when still in Cardiff but no part of my brain ever considered that this was an invite to dash down to the mounting queues to fill up my tank, even with a 217 mile journey ahead of me. Furthermore, I did not think when I left Bristol on the M5, I must top up now “because ‘ey don’t ‘ave petroleum down in corrrnwaaall” (imagine a ludicrous rural accent if you wish).

Other people – some of them sensible, others less so – however, have been flitting hither and thither across the county searching for a petrol station and getting worried because the station down the road has sold out. Possibly if people stopped panic buying, there wouldn’t be as much of a problem. Perhaps if people just used petrol for urgent journeys – and driving round to find a garage is not really urgent, that is panicking – there wouldn’t be any garages out of fuel.

Its not as if the petrol is even disconnected. The majority of non-Shell deliveries have continued, with some companies arranging extra deliveries to maintain supplies in their stations. Equally, its not as if – in the modern era of motorways and massive lorries – that it will be impossible for all but the most rural and remote petrol stations to be refuelled during the five day gap between Monday monring when the strikes ended and Friday when the second strike is due to start. This is particularly true in Cornwall where moving things by car is pretty much the only quick and efficient way to transport goods such as fuel in and out of the county.

This is not to ignore the many consumers who have been dreadfully affected. It is odd though, that to my knowledge, the farmers and fishermen – who, after all require fuel in order to grow/catch/raise foodstuffs – have had a much lower profile than the apparently poor motorist. Certainly, there are more motorists than fishermen, but they have other options – even down here in deepest Ruralland. For example, public transport of various forms. Though I guess a panic increase in rail use due to a petrol crisis wouldn’t be as newswoprthy for the ‘the end is nigh’ -mongers of the media. Igf you are a fisherman with a small commercial or private boat, without diesel there is very little way of maintainign your livelihood.

But of course, the Curse of Jeremy Clarkson means that it is the motorist who always suffers, the motorist whose livelihood is threatened, and of course, the motorist who flies into a big girly panic-buy when some of the fuel is stopped for a few days.

Forty-Two Days

Today was a momentous day for the media of Britain with the final fall of the story that has kept Britain’s news media going for nearly forty-two weeks has now fallen. ‘It was a long, hard slog but the story finally had to go’ said one distraught journalist, ‘the whips killed it in the end, they got the decision they wanted and it is with great regret that we see this story fall…’ Yep, that’s right. In theory, the government has won a vote in the House of Commons approving detention of terror suspects for 42 days.

Apparently, this is not a vote of conscience by those MPs who voted with the government. It is, in fact, ‘a very sad day indeed for the great tradition of liberty that this country has represented’, it is a victory of ‘the whip’s office’ and not the strength of the government’s argument. This strikes me as opportunism on the part of Her Majesties’ Opposition – which is what we expect and is entirely healthy in a democracy – but also on the part of the 37 Labour MPs who voted against the government.

David Davis – whom I quoted earlier, claiming it was a victory for Labour whips – evidently needs his head examining. I don’t wish to get involved in the moral ins and outs of 42 day detention – which I personally oppose – but I feel the shadow Home Secretary needs a lesson in political reality. It is a fact universally acknowledged that any party leadership who feels significantly strongly on an issue will use its centralised resources to influence/persuade/cajole MPs to vote a particular way.

To say after losing a vote that ‘it was the whips what won it’ strikes me as a slightly facile observation in the circumstances. Is he suggesting that, when put in a similar position, a future Tory government would sit back, shrug their shoulders and decide that their own principles just aren’t important? This is a ludicrous position and strikes against the whole idea of the party system in this country. Furthermore, it strikes me as opportunism. Quite how this becomes a defeat for liberty – when the democratically elected government has successfully promulgated legislation and ensured that its policy has been passed – is rather confusing for me.

For once, the government has demonstrated some leadership and authority, leading the way on a controversial issue and not letting troublemakers dictate or confuse government policy. This is not – as failed leadership candidate John McDonnel put it – a hollow victory for the government.

Personally, I will admit to feeling uncomfortably ironist on the fact that the government has shown leadership on an issue which effectively ‘repeals Magna Carta’ (Tony Benn).

Change? Don’t Make Me Laugh…

The government – we are told – is old, tired and boring. What we need – the papers incessantly remind us – is a new, shiny, so-clean-they-squeak government led by David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron. Under ‘Dave’, there would be no corruption. Under Dave, there would be no more misery. Indeed, under Dave, it is alleged that sadness and general miserableness would be abolished ‘within the first hundred days’…

Unfortunately, I can’t help but be somewhat cynical about all these claims. I can’t help reading, hearing and watching a myriad political journalists give out the same (ironically) tired bunch of cliches as they observe that Mr Brown looks tired, or that Alistair Darling has eyebrows (and what eyebrows they are!) or that certain senior Labour members in the Scottish parliament perhaps should be strung up and shot. The news industry seems to have taken the golly-we-have-to-give-away-free-shit-to-get-readers to an extreme, I can practically hear the newstand men of the future declaring chirpliy; ‘READALLABOUTIT! Free bunch of cliches’ with every copy!’

Beyond the facile observations made above though, there are two frankly disturbing aspects at the bottom of the current predicament of the government as the media portrays it. And, as a good student, I’m going to employ both my skills as a historian and a politics student to diagnose them (you lucky, lucky bastards, dear reader!)

Historically, at the start of the Blair years – and writing that still looks weird; look at it, Blair, historical: how the hell did that happen?? – we were all told (infamously) ‘things can only get better!’ The Major government was tired, populated by a motley array of minor freak-show exhibits and the Tory party was more riven with internal disputes than the last meeting of EU Commissioners and Spanish fishermen.

Is that an echo I hear? No, thought not. The media has massive power to influence people’s opinions of the government. Would it not be good – just for once – to not hear about the next-best-thing on the menu, but the highlights currently on offer? Is there something behind all this though? Certainly, both the Tories in 1997 and the last year or so of Labour government seem to have got too worked up with the institutional agenda. With sleaze and cash-4-peerages, both have been rocked by major scandals…

But has anything really changed? In the last week two senior Tories – the Party Chair Caroline Spellman and their leader in the EU Parliament – are going to be investigated by the Parliamentary Standards commission for what are alleged to be serious breaches of expenses regulations. I think it is important that the people ask if they can really trust ‘new-best-thing’ Call-me-Dave Cameron and his cronies. I worry that taking him at face value could be exceedingly detrimental to the country. More importantly, it alarms me considerably that any government’s fate can be determined by a small, unelected bunch of hacks and newspaper editors. Because they’re obviously the best qualified people to comment on the qualities of Her Majesty’s government and opposition, aren’t they?

Facebook Protest?

This is becoming something of a trend in my posts (well, one other post on the topic, but whose counting? Oh, you are. Bugger.) My exceptional procrastination efforts have actually started to implode in on themselves, with the ultimate end of time-wasting being replaced by actual constructive, productive and inductive logic/work. And nowhere is this more clear than my Facebook activities.

I am well aware of the irony that emerges from complaining about unnecessary, unproductive and apathetic internet content in a blog. What interests me in this though is the qualitative aspect of debates, opinions and issues on the information superhighway of the interweb. For example, see http://hectorroddan.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/reformation-of-manners/ for a specific instance of this) is the post I make on a Facebook comments page or an online forum/chat room of the same quality as a written letter to someone in authority, a complaint delivered over the phone or a heated face-to-face exchange?

I personally think that internet discussions, almost regardless of topic, when conducted on public message boards or other fora do not neatly fit into any of the traditional categories of information exchange or dispute. For instance, to complain or raise a point of view on any issue on a Facebook page, profile or group requires much less effort than writing a letter to your MP, arranging a public meeting about an issue or setting up a real-life petition. Secondly, I cannot help wondering if there is a narcissistic element to many such posts. It is a case of “here be my views, querrel in thy boots all ye who readeth here” as opposed to stating a point of view to the public in general, or a specific audience.

Of course, many would doubtless argue that the internet has democratised and revolutionised communications, allowing a much wider section of society to present their own world views and engage in the key debates of the day. But I have a serious problem with this since internet communication is by its very accessibility, exceptionally diffuse and vague. It can only feed into official decision making in an off-hand way. Furthermore, the anonymity of the internet – and ’social networking’ sites in particular – seems to strip many debates of the usual decencies and politenesses, often reducing them do a slanging match between equally uninformed parties.

If such communication is routinely pointless, why has it become so popular? My own gut feeling would be that it is a form of communication which shares aspects of the public platform and big spectacle embodied in, for example, the US Presidential election debates which are about to get under way, and the intimacy and privacy of drunkenly setting the world to rights in a pub with your mates.

Thus, there are no entry qualifications to engage in internet debates. Beyond the ubiquitous profile mugshot and whatever information one chooses to disclose via profile pages etc, your views are effectively anonymous. Thus, there is nothing to stop the exaggeration of facts and, beyond the subjectivity of the individual reader, no real means of verifying the truth status of any claims made. More importantly, since there is no real target audience (since the comments page, discussion board or chat is likely to be available to anyone in possession of internet access), what you say has no official standing.

Is this reduction of major issues and debates to a radically intersubjective exchange of personal opinions necessarily negative? There are clearly two sides, but I have a feeling I would err on the side of caution. Firstly, it is ludicrous to suggest that the sort of exchanges which proliferate on the internet are some product of the technical revolution. I would suggest rather that their accessibility has been – to use that much cited word of our time – globalised. Furthermore, this process is not as value neutral as some may suggest. Theoretically, the internet has provided merely a way for distant peoples to exchange views and interact. Yet I would argue this process is value-sloped. The sort of everyday discussion of issues of the day (broadly defined) that was going on in the alehouses of the sixteenth century and in informal and semi-formal social groups ever since human beings have been around simply does not corealate simply with the slanging matches of the information superhighway.

First and foremost, the publication or posting of an opinion on the internet, I would argue, gives it a self-sanctioned quasi-officiality. It is a statement of opinion but in a very different way to one expressed over a pint in the local since it is published and publicly available. This can be seen to objectivise a discourse which in the pre-internet times would have been wholly or mostly private, localised and contained. In short, the act of declaring a statement in an internet post is very different from the lost temporal moment of an utterance in a debate or an official letter raising an issue to an individual or group apparently ‘in the know’ or in power.

Thus, such internet communication occupies an ambiguous position as discourse. This position, I would argue, can have an extremely detrimental effect on the quality of any debate or on perceptions of authority. Since an internet discussion board possesses an ambiguously objective status, it can be seen to be both a public and private expression of opinion. Thus, contributions can be seen to be regulated by the two vastly different modes of behavior appropriate to either public or private discourse. Furthermore, deciding between whether one’s post should be a reasoned, considered, polite and informed contribution to the debate or a sharp gut reaction is made entirely subjectively. Clearly, the equally subjective reader can discern between the two but this is perhaps not yet the heart of the issue.

This ambiguity arguably has larger implications for the power-knowledge nexus (cf. Foucault) of such discourse. If we accept the basic premise that knowledge is subject to power relations and not some a priori to them, it must be agreed that internet debate and discussion can have a radical impact on the perception of power and its exercise. In enabling (to use the most value neutral term) wider access to debate on a given issue, the internet can be seen to impact on the subjective perception of those with power and influence over the issue by the interlocutors engaging in the ambiguous subjective-objective internet debate. This is perhaps a common sense observation (as much Foucaultian thought tends to be, when it is boiled down into non-jargon). Basically, by enabling a quasi-public yet unofficial discourse, the internet devalues the more meaningful and official channels of communication. Such a thing as a Facebook debate allows one to vent steam and/or give one’s reasoned opinion yet the creation of the post is implicitly the end-in-itself. It is an expression of a view, that is all. Thus, such a contribution lacks influence since it bypasses or fails to engage with the prime decision makers with influence over the given issue. Therefore the individual feels they have said their piece – to borrow some imagery from here and there – they feel purged and redeemed by contributing, yet their contribution is inherently meaningless unless the forum they contribute to has some official sanction (for a brilliant examples of such fora, see http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35134540250&ref=ts, or http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42309175229&ref=ts).

Furthermore, as I pondered at the start of this article, contribution to non-official, private message boards, I would argue possess an inherently narcissistic element. Furthermore, the fact that anyone can contribute, but that contribution provides no meaningful goal or objective – such as a petition or letter might – the contribution and, implicitly, its content is rendered meaningless. Simply another bit of flotsam and jetsam floating out there in internet land, clogging up our bitrates.(see many topics on the ‘Pluto isn’t a planet anymore’ Facebook group – one of the most bizarre fora for engaging in moral/social/political/religious debates, http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=2207893888&f=2&start=30&hash=5392502bdfdf1843250d046fd643fa08).

Of course, the fact I have chosen this forum to express my dissatisfaction and objections, is perhaps a beautiful piece of irony, or blatant hypocrisy. Any suggestions?

All links are, to my knowledge, to public sites. No copyright infringement or offence intended.

You Lucky People

As the observant (and few who actually care) among you may have noticed, the blog has been paused since I finished my exams, ooh, a whole three days ago. Just in case anyone is suffering from a chronic bloggy goodness deficiency, this post may be a mere intermission in a persisting radio silence, so get your fix while you can! The reason for the pause is that Cornwall does not have complicated enough internets to allow me to post a blog.

The main issue that has been exercising my braincells – apart from drinking and train travel – is why certain people are allowed on the roads. To be more specific:

1. People who vary their speed on open road at 5 in the morning between 35 and 60 for no apparent reason.
2. Lorries who decide that the slow lane on the M5 just isn’t good enough for them, I mean, the lorry in front is going at 60 mph and they have a top speed of 61 mph so they just have to overtake.
3. Anyone who drives a “smart” car.
4. Especially the “smart” car that passed me somewhere near Bodmin with go-faster stripes, a chavved up exhaust and those weird blue lights down the side.
5. Cars joining a practically stationary motorway and move into the outside lane just to get to the (clogged) junction that little bit ahead of you.
6. The sheer number of different sliproads to other parts of Cardiff, and the lack of distinction between them (I almost ended up in Brigend which doesn’t bear thinking about.

Rant ends.

Byee!

That Moment

This post will be short mostly because I only have about five minutes to get it in before today is finished. Today I finished my exams and was freeee at last (in this context, with that echo, that IS how you spell free)! Its a weird thing, because now I realize just how much all the things I’ve been meaning to do over the last two weeks have been piling up… I guess the hard work is about to begin… Byee!!