Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "society"
Discussion
Which theory of history best explains the triumph of market fundamentalism? Have your say on The Write Room Blog http://www.thewriteroomblog.com/?p=2301
Murphy's Law and the Two Theories of History
Have you read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine? If you are in the USA, you may have seen the Public Service TV series called Commanding Heights, which was based on it. It’s a marvellous book, I’ve just finished it, one that shows you things that were in front of your eyes but you had not noticed, or had noticed but not paid due attention to. It is about the rise of market fundamentalism and the disasters which that has unleashed upon the world since 1973, the date of the violent overthrow of democracy in Chile, which, by coincidence, is also the year in which my novel-in-progress opens.
When I lived in Africa in the 1980s, the crimes of the international financial institutions on that continent were no secret: basically forcing countries in debt to sacrifice their children by denying them health and education so that bankers could sleep easily at night secure in the knowledge that the bad loans they had made would be repaid at any cost. That, it seemed to me, was in the nature of bankers; what seemed more scandalous was how little anyone outside Africa was bothered. People in Europe would care very deeply when famine hit Africa, and fork out enormous sums to alleviate the suffering it caused, but were oblivious to the suffering meted out by human institutions. Well, as you know, what went round came round, and since 2008, when many of the less rich countries in Western Europe got into trouble over their finances, international financial institutions have been forcing market fundamentalism on them in return for debt relief. And guess what? The people in those countries do not like it.
Now, I live in one of the affected countries, and boy, do people moan. About the loss of their jobs, their children’s future, decaying public services, you name it. Quite right, too. But they do not actually do very much, here in Italy. Klein’s book was published in 2007, before “disaster capitalism” turned its attention to Western Europe, but she would accurately have predicted people’s initial reaction here: they were shocked into inactivity. Klein details how, in Latin America, it took over 20 years before governments started to stop taking the medicine that was killing them. People in Europe, with more hindsight available to them, may swallow less before they say “We’re not going to take it!” I hope I live to see that day.
One useful way of seeing history is that it offers us two main theories for why things go awry (Murphy’s Law, no relation): the balls-up theory and the conspiracy theory. The latter says that things go wrong because tightly-knit groups of politically or economically motivated men cause them to do so for their own ends. The former says that people would like things to work to everyone’s benefit, but we are just too incompetent to make that happen. Klein is clearly in the conspiracy camp; I’ve always been in the balls-up camp, which is a hard place to be in Italy, where mafias and politicians traditionally feed off each other out of public sight. I had thought that Italy was exceptional, in this as in so many other ways. Maybe it is not.
It is irresistible for a science fiction writer to imagine where market fundamentalism will lead us, if it manages to continue its current dominance unchecked. Unfortunately, I think we have already seen the answer, in the cult classic film Zardoz, in which the rich live a genteel life inside a high-tech bubble which physically excludes the poor, whom the rich continually urge to renounce sex and kill each other. It is the ultimate gated community, although in the real thing the bubble will have to be opaque, because transparency helps people to see not just into fundamentalism, but through it.
When I lived in Africa in the 1980s, the crimes of the international financial institutions on that continent were no secret: basically forcing countries in debt to sacrifice their children by denying them health and education so that bankers could sleep easily at night secure in the knowledge that the bad loans they had made would be repaid at any cost. That, it seemed to me, was in the nature of bankers; what seemed more scandalous was how little anyone outside Africa was bothered. People in Europe would care very deeply when famine hit Africa, and fork out enormous sums to alleviate the suffering it caused, but were oblivious to the suffering meted out by human institutions. Well, as you know, what went round came round, and since 2008, when many of the less rich countries in Western Europe got into trouble over their finances, international financial institutions have been forcing market fundamentalism on them in return for debt relief. And guess what? The people in those countries do not like it.
Now, I live in one of the affected countries, and boy, do people moan. About the loss of their jobs, their children’s future, decaying public services, you name it. Quite right, too. But they do not actually do very much, here in Italy. Klein’s book was published in 2007, before “disaster capitalism” turned its attention to Western Europe, but she would accurately have predicted people’s initial reaction here: they were shocked into inactivity. Klein details how, in Latin America, it took over 20 years before governments started to stop taking the medicine that was killing them. People in Europe, with more hindsight available to them, may swallow less before they say “We’re not going to take it!” I hope I live to see that day.
One useful way of seeing history is that it offers us two main theories for why things go awry (Murphy’s Law, no relation): the balls-up theory and the conspiracy theory. The latter says that things go wrong because tightly-knit groups of politically or economically motivated men cause them to do so for their own ends. The former says that people would like things to work to everyone’s benefit, but we are just too incompetent to make that happen. Klein is clearly in the conspiracy camp; I’ve always been in the balls-up camp, which is a hard place to be in Italy, where mafias and politicians traditionally feed off each other out of public sight. I had thought that Italy was exceptional, in this as in so many other ways. Maybe it is not.
It is irresistible for a science fiction writer to imagine where market fundamentalism will lead us, if it manages to continue its current dominance unchecked. Unfortunately, I think we have already seen the answer, in the cult classic film Zardoz, in which the rich live a genteel life inside a high-tech bubble which physically excludes the poor, whom the rich continually urge to renounce sex and kill each other. It is the ultimate gated community, although in the real thing the bubble will have to be opaque, because transparency helps people to see not just into fundamentalism, but through it.
Angels versus Virgins
My latest short e-book is an antidote to fundamentalism, as well as a story about soccer, society and growing up. http://amzn.to/1vaWwap For young adults and others interested in the future.
Introduction to Freemasons
We have a splendid post on Freemasonry over on the Write Room Blog, http://www.thewriteroomblog.com/?p=2637, in which Canadian author Clayton Bye makes it clear that in North America, the Freemasons are good guys.
Over here in Europe, it is not always so evident. In the UK, Freemasons are often seen as a bit of a joke – “grown men prancing around in fancy dress” – although there are concerns about the prevalence among them of high-ranking police officers, who might form bonds inside the lodge with dodgy businessmen. Italy has had real problems with a lodge called P2 that tried to subvert its fragile democracy. That, however, was a secret rogue lodge, run more like a personal fiefdom by its main man. In stark contrast was the role played by Freemasonry during the fascist days in Portugal: when the dictatorship finally fell, the leader of the new centre-right political party (PPD) stated bluntly that “the Freemasons saved my life” from the former régime.
I was very interested by Clayton’s statement Freemasons have to profess belief in a God, though it does not matter which one. In the e-book I have just released, “Angels versus Virgins”, http://amzn.to/1vaWwap, that precise demand is the basis for the new order established in a future Britain following a religious revival. I didn’t get the idea from the Freemasons, nor from Alcoholics Anonymous, but from our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who seemed to get hooked on it after taking our country into a war that has yet to end.
If you have any experience of Freemasons or Freemasonry, do hop over to the Write Room Blog and join the discussion.
Over here in Europe, it is not always so evident. In the UK, Freemasons are often seen as a bit of a joke – “grown men prancing around in fancy dress” – although there are concerns about the prevalence among them of high-ranking police officers, who might form bonds inside the lodge with dodgy businessmen. Italy has had real problems with a lodge called P2 that tried to subvert its fragile democracy. That, however, was a secret rogue lodge, run more like a personal fiefdom by its main man. In stark contrast was the role played by Freemasonry during the fascist days in Portugal: when the dictatorship finally fell, the leader of the new centre-right political party (PPD) stated bluntly that “the Freemasons saved my life” from the former régime.
I was very interested by Clayton’s statement Freemasons have to profess belief in a God, though it does not matter which one. In the e-book I have just released, “Angels versus Virgins”, http://amzn.to/1vaWwap, that precise demand is the basis for the new order established in a future Britain following a religious revival. I didn’t get the idea from the Freemasons, nor from Alcoholics Anonymous, but from our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who seemed to get hooked on it after taking our country into a war that has yet to end.
If you have any experience of Freemasons or Freemasonry, do hop over to the Write Room Blog and join the discussion.
The music of the future
When you write science fiction, you tend to extrapolate current trends to picture the future. If you write social science fiction, you will look keenly at cultural trends. Last night, the BBC (which is watchable because they are prevented by statute from bombarding you into submission with commercials every few minutes) provided a neat juxtaposition of one aspect of culture, popular music, 50 years ago and today. What struck me most was the change in the clothing of the musicians. The men in “Sounds of the Sixties” were seen as alpha males at the time, but they'd only dress so flamboyantly these days if they were striving for recognition as gay icons. And almost every part of their body was clothed. On next was the Reading Festival, where the headliners were all stripped to the waist. So how about 2066? Will the disrobing have continued, perhaps to the point of musicians of all sexes appearing starkers except for high-tech tattoos, the shyer ones preserving their modesty with hologram pixelation? Or will a reaction have set in, with performers only appearing as holograms, perhaps not even of themselves but of depersonalised avatars?
Marxism for the genteel
Penelope Fitzgerald sets her demolition of provincial life, The Bookshop, in Little England. However, I know from experience that it holds good as far afield as provincial China, and I'd guess almost everywhere in between, too.
Although her focus is on the personal, in her understated way Fitzgerald offers a devastating critique of a worn-out society that embraces change only to keep things the way they were. Marxism for the genteel.
Although her focus is on the personal, in her understated way Fitzgerald offers a devastating critique of a worn-out society that embraces change only to keep things the way they were. Marxism for the genteel.
