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Saturday 26 September 2015

United in Diversity?

Adopted in 2000, the motto of the European Union, United in Diversity, was structured in reflection of 'how Europeans have come together, in the form of the EU, to work for peace and prosperity, while at the same time being enriched by the continent's many different cultures, traditions and languages' (europa.eu). Certainly, since the tumult of the early 20th Century, the European Union appears to have stood with such strength, continuing to grow with the addition of 13 new member states since the turn of the century, two, Romania and Bulgaria, joining as recently as 2007. Growing national tensions around whether, as Nigel Farage enthusiastically espouses, the UK should leave the EU cloud the benefits being a member state can bring: ease of living abroad (migration), strong workers' rights and non-discrimination (see equal pay treaty of 1957), paid leave (the EU Working Time Directive entitles everyone to a statutory minimum of 4 weeks paid leave a year), foreign study (exchanges under the EU's Erasmus programme), consumer protection, food labelling, commitments to clean environments etc. (BBC, eruopa.eu). Oh, and who could forget - under the Schengen agreement, freedom of movement.

The United Nations has recently warned that the exodus of 8,000 refugees to Europe, daily, looks set to continue. Germany expects to have at least 800,000 asylum seekers this year (BBC News). Around 500,000 migrants are thought to have arrived this year. Hungary had received 96,350 asylum applications by the end of July, second only to Germany's 222,000 by the end of August (BBC News). Around 115,000 applications (January - August 2015) are from Syria, stemming from the ongoing political conflict, 60,000 from Kosova, motivated by the widespread poverty, just under 60,000 from Afghanistan, where violence continues to pervade everyday life, and 40,000 from Albania; Iraq, Pakistan, Eritrea, Serbia, Ukraine and Nigeria each herald up to 36,000 applications themselves. An emergency meeting in Brussels convened to vote by the majority upon the relocation of 120,000 refugees across the EU. Earlier this month, following suit after Angela Merkel's reimposition of border controls along Austria, Austria, Slovakia, the Netherlands and other EU member states have begun to set up strict border controls to manage the 'crisis' (The Economist).

"But there's a big, enduring question which hangs over all of this: what kind of country do we want to be, what is our role in this globalised world of ours? Open or closed? Leading in our own European backyard or isolated from our nearest neighbours?" (Nick Clegg)

"We will manage!" (Angela Merkel)

Saturday 12 September 2015

Huxley's Dystopia

"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. 

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions'. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

-Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death

Hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure. It's an age-old concept, initiated by Adam and Eve in their greed of the seductive wisdom held in the forbidden fruit, and fictionalised a multitude of times in Dr Jekyll's duplicity, the effervescent Lord Henry and his idolised project, Dorian Gray, and the less contemporary population of the Capitol in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, amongst other examples. Adam and Eve resulted in the fall of man, Jekyll sells his soul to the Devil, Dorian Gray stabs himself in an egoistic demise, and the Capitol fall victim to their own blindness. In no case is it what the protagonists hate that ruins them but, as Huxley implies, what they love: Adam and Eve were seduced by the love of power and equality, Jekyll by the freedom of magic and power, Dorian by his own beauty and pleasure-filled sensual lifestyle, and the Capitol by its sheer egoistic culture. In all instances, it's power, egoism, hedonism, which develop the tragic climax of the narrative arc.

Friday 4 September 2015

The I in Sustainability: Interstellar

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

You can taste the exsiccation of the dust whispering in the background. The futuristic notes of Hans Zimmer marry the nostalgic organ-like sound of the score in an oxymoronic palimpsest of present. "My dad was a farmer. Like everybody else back then. Of course, he didn't start that way."