Layer 259 . . . Michael Foot, Political Activism, Wellbeing, Truth, Ashcroft, Anger and Education

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Some interesting links this week.

Michael Foot died yesterday at the age of 96.

An article in the Guardian this week highlighted a linkage between political activism and wellbeing.

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Political Activism

Brain food: does activism make you happy?
Who'd have thought it? New research shows there is a link between being politically active and wellbeing
by Aditya Chakrabortty

Political activism is hardly a barrel of laughs. And yet it makes you happier.

So find two university psychologists in new research that looks for the first time at the link between political activity and wellbeing. Malte Klar and Tim Kasser started by interviewing two sets of around 350 college students, both about their degree of political engagement and their levels of happiness and optimism. Both times, they found that those most inclined to go on a demo were also the cheeriest.

The groups who involve themselves in political debate were far and away the strongest on the "vitality" scale: they felt more alive and enriched than those who merely complained . . .

The study flies in the face of the popular wisdom that happiness resides in creature comforts and relative affluence. Perhaps activism gives people a sense of purpose, or of agency or just a chance to hang out with other people. Most likely it does all of the above.

"I will fight for what I believe in until I drop dead," Barbara Castle told this paper in 1998. "And that's what keeps you alive."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/02/brain-food-activism-makes-you-happy

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A Radical Conscience

Michael Foot has been described as the radical conscience of British socialism. He was a man of principle, an idealist, an internationalist and an anti-colonialist. He was a man with values and convictions. He believed in justice and equality. He pursued big causes with great passion.

Michael, and his nephew Paul, were major figures and role models for radicals, students and activists back in the Sixties. Both of them were well-informed, great speakers, and often very amusing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Foot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/03/michael-foot-appreciation-michael-white?CMP=AFCYAH

Michael was an anti-fascist and he was in favour of nuclear disarmament. He was pro-peace, pro-democracy, and in favour of winning debates and arguments through the force of logic and truth.

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Some quotes regarding truth:

Ỳe shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Herbert Agar

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
Plato, Dialogues, Phaedo

Chase after truth, and you'll free yourself . . .
Clarence Darrow

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer

These are all taken from the preface of a book by John R. Talbot called The 86 Biggest Lies on Wall Street (2009) - currently on sale in W H Smith for a very reasonable £4.49.

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More Tory Lies

The Tories have again been caught out telling big lies. It's now official - William Hague knew perfectly well that 'Lord' Michael Ashcroft had not complied with the undertakings that he'd given (regarding becoming a permanent resident and paying full taxes) in order to be eligible for a peerage.

And it's utter bullshit for Cameron and co. to say that his residential status and tax affairs were private matters for Ashcroft and the Inspector of Taxes, and were no business of the Tory party, as such. The question for New Labour is  - how have they allowed the Tories and Ashcroft to get away with this for so long? If this man made certain promises in order to get a peerage then the least we, the people, can expect is for both the Tory and the New Labour leadership to follow through and make damned sure the bastard had done what he promised he would do. NOT to do so is unbelievably negligent. For TEN years!

William Hague hid Lord Ashcroft's tax status for months
Former leader's disclosure reveals peer kept financial affairs secret from senior Conservatives for a decade

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/03/william-hague-lord-ashcroft-tax-status

The turmoil at the top of the Tory party over the tax affairs of Lord Ashcroft escalated last night as the former leader, William Hague, admitted he had known "for a few months" that the peer had renegotiated the terms under which he took his place in the House of Lords.

Hague's disclosure put pressure on himself and the party to explain why they have repeatedly evaded questions about the matter in a succession of recent interviews. It also highlighted how Ashcroft, the Conservative deputy chairman, kept his tax status secret for almost a decade from his closest Tory ally and the man who lobbied hardest for his peerage in 2000.

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Why David Cameron's schools policy is out of date

The Tory leader says uniforms and pupils standing when an adult walks into the classroom help define a good school. He must be joking

by Francis Beckett

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/01/david-cameron-education-policy

We can stop worrying about how to improve schools. It's simple, according to David Cameron. It's a good school if it's got a uniform, and children get up when an adult walks into the room, and teachers set and teach by ability. That clear? Good.

School uniforms are a British obsession. In most of Europe and America, they don't bother. It always seems to be the apostles of economic liberalism who are keenest to dictate every inch of what our children wear.

Politicians have a key role in state education – to make sure it is properly funded, supported, and accountable. But pronouncing on whether children should stand up or sit down? Come off it, Dave.

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Lambeth is Britain's angriest borough
by Deborah Orr

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/01/lambeth-britain-angriest-borough

London, according to a new survey, is the angriest city in Britain, and Lambeth is the angriest borough in London. What's it like to reside inside this hotbed of throbbing, Brownite disgruntlement? I've lived in Lambeth for almost a quarter of a century, and let me tell you, it's extremely infuriating.

Surveys are sometimes silly. But this one is not. Commissioned by the British Association of Anger Management, which sounds like something from a Chris Morris satire, it does make the right connection. Its director, Mike Fisher, says: "I believe that issues such as crime, violence, domestic violence, road rage, addiction, eating disorders, depression and many other mental health issues all stem from our inability as a culture to handle or express our feelings, especially those of anger."

Lambeth isn't only the angriest place in British, it also boasts one of the highest incidences of mental disorder. GP records for 2009 suggest that about 1.4% of the adult population suffers from a severe mental illness. That's nearly three times higher than the average expected from national surveys. Go figure.

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Affluenza, Greed, Anger and Ways Forward

And why, as a culture, are we unable to "handle or express our feelings, especially those of anger"?

"Crime, violence, domestic violence, road rage, addiction, eating disorders, depression and many other mental health issues" stem directly from a general spiritual sickness and a shocking lack of emotional and social intelligence in our society. Need we say more?

From the lies and obsessions of politicians and bankers, to the general culture of greed, inequality and materialism that's been created in this country, it's clear we're a sick society. It's not that everybody is afflicted by affluenza and a lack of these key intelligences, but when a critical mass of people and the media in general become afflicted then everybody suffers. Virtually nobody really sees the truth, nobody understands what's happening, and nobody sees the way out.

The only way out is for adults to seek enlightenment, and for schools to begin offering opportunities for children to develop spiritual, emotional and social intelligence. Just like they do in more enlightened countries and societies.

Sadly this is unlikely to happen when our leading politicians still cling to the idea that the most important things in education are uniforms, getting children to stand up when an adult comes into the room, and making sure the (allegedly) most academically able kids are split off from the less able, both in terms of the schools they attend and within each school.

What Cameron and his ilk desire is the militarisation of education. Put the troops in ranks, make them wear uniform, make them salute their superiors by standing to attention whenever one appears in their vicinity, break down any semblance of disobedient or disorderly personality or conduct, fill them with the drills and skills they'll need to be either foot soldiers or members of the officer class, and then we'll have an orderly and disciplined society - which is just the way the traditionalists like things to be.

This approach is the polar opposite of an education system that stresses the need for children to become confident, self-disciplined, self-motivated, autonomous, creative individuals who march to the beat of their own individual drum; who live and learn in the ways that they prefer, and speak in their own individual voices. Such individuals define the common good in their own terms, rather than the status quo, and need to be convinced that something is right before they'll accept it as right. They're critical thinkers rather than uncritical pawns in someone else's games.

More on this in the next blog.
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Layer 253 . . . Education and Employment

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Mark my words . . .

Channel 4 news last night:

"British and Nato forces pushing forward in their current operation (Moshtarak) have met little or no resistance from the Taliban."

Oxzen - Layer 248:
Here we have the Americans telling the Taliban they're massing forces and about to 'surge' into Taliban-held areas, having already said that American troops will be withdrawn from the country within a year ot two. So what are you going to do if you're a Taliban? Take to the mountains and hang out there for a while until the Americans and their allies have cleared off . . .
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Education and Employment

Brother B got in touch yesterday and let me know about this piece in the Sunday Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7034975.ece

February 21, 2010
Schools are churning out the unemployable

The latest unemployment figures are a shocker. Eight million adults are “economically inactive”. That means one in five people of working age does not have a job. A new and expanding group, poignantly described as “discouraged” workers, have even given up looking.

They are right to be discouraged but wrong that there is no work. A report out on Friday points out that a fifth of firms and a quarter of employers in the state sector are still hiring — despite the recession. Except they are taking on migrant workers — not our home-grown “discouraged” variety.

The managing director of a medium-sized IT company explained why. High-flyers — Oxford and Cambridge graduates — are still as good as any in the world. His problems come when he tries to recruit middle management. Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools. On paper they looked “brilliant students”. Each had three As at A-level and a 2:1 degree. He shook his head. “There’s a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work.”

This was obvious even before the interview began. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, “Good morning.” The rest “just ambled in”.

The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their “lackadaisical” attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to “engage in business” was “incredibly” disappointing and “at 5.30 on the dot they left the office”.

A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems. More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations.

The Department for Work and Pensions says UK citizens are on the dole because of “issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation”. It is a pity it has not passed that insight on to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils.

We have children who can barely read and write scoring high marks in their Sats because it makes the school, and therefore politicians, look good. We have exam boards competing to offer the lowest pass mark because it allows heads to fulfil their GCSE targets. We have pupils pushed into easy subjects at A-level — which excludes them from applying to a top university — because it benefits the school.

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None of this comes as any great surprise. In 1998 Daniel Goleman wrote a book called 'Working With Emotional Intelligence'. Chapter 1 begins with these words:

The rules of work are changing. We're being judged by a new yardstick:not just by how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other. This yardstick is increasingly being applied in choosing who will be hired and who will not, who will be let go and who retained, who passed over and who promoted.

[This has] little to do with what we were told was important in school; academic abilities are largely irrelevant by this standard. The new measure takes for granted having enough intellectual ability and technical know-how to do our jobs; it focuses instead on personal qualities, such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness.

In a time with no guarantees of job security, when the very concept of a "job" is rapidly being replaced by "portable skills", these are prime qualities that make and keep us employable. Talked about loosely for decades under a variety of names, from "character" and "personality" to "soft skills" and "competence", there is at last a more precise understanding of these human talents, and a new name for them: emotional intelligence.

IQ takes second position to emotional intelligence in determining outstanding job performance.

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I'd again urge everyone interested in these issues to follow these links:

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/12/layer-233-we-are-people-and-all-our.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreThePeopleMovie

http://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreThePeopleMovie#p/a/u/1/Zw_7_r-D5Kk

http://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreThePeopleMovie#p/a/u/2/Vr7-IWR_mos

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Politicians who have anger management issues might want to have a careful read of Goleman's book - for example, on Page 9:

"Where earlier [a manager or a Prime Minister] might easily hide a hot temper or shyness, now competencies such as managing one's emotions, handling encounters well, teamwork, and leadership, show - and count - more than ever."

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Strong Foundations?

Without wishing to sound patronising, since I think Estelle Morris is a decent human being, I think it's good, in a way, that the Guardian continues to let her write a weekly wishy washy New Labourist column in its Education section. Estelle was never particularly strong on passion, it seems to me, and never disloyal to New Labour.

This week's column is worth taking a look at.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/23/foundation-degrees-future-model


Foundation degrees offer a strong vision for the future

Those offering traditional degrees could learn a lot from the diverse entry routes and patterns of provision offered by foundation courses

It's not often that announcements about skills and vocational education are covered by the media, let alone written up as a real success story. There is no doubt it is a historically weak part of our education system: we seem to have an inability to stick to any vocational qualifications framework for any length of time, and vocational education has faced wave after wave of repackaging.

The recent announcement, therefore, that the number of students study­ing for foundation degrees had risen by 40% in the last two years and that the 100,000 target would be reached a year early makes good reading.

These degrees have called for new ways of working between higher and further education, and between academia, business and industry. Employers and students are in the driving seat of course design, and strong links between universities and colleges mean it is easy for students to complete an honours degree.

The temptation is always to do less when money is scarce, but Lord Mandelson makes a good case for doing things differently. His call for more two-year courses, greater flexibility and a sector that has the ability to respond better to the demands of its students is worth heeding – and subject courses may learn something from their vocational neighbours.

These courses are "packaged" in a different way from other degree-level courses. There's more contact time, fewer holidays and the chance for paid employment. Compare that to what seems like a continuing reduction in contact time in straight subject courses and not much change to the traditional three 10-week terms.

If the choice is between cutting student numbers or reshaping university education, I'd opt for the latter.

There have been changes. More places are part time, modular courses are on offer, and partnerships with further education are delivering degree-level teaching in communities. But the national debate about student funding and places still too often focuses on the pattern of study dominant when only 10% of the population went to university.

It isn't just the financial crisis that means we need to rethink, but the consequences for people's lives and the changing demands of employers. It calls for diverse entry routes and patterns of provision across higher education.

Foundation degrees will never be at the top of the academic tree, but their record of innovation might be a lesson from which others could learn.

In response to a CIF comment by cmsdengl, Oxzen said this -

I'd say that increasing numbers of people being drawn into higher education because the courses on offer have appeal and relevance to the needs of students is a very good reason for expounding their success. Especially when no-one's trying to claim that they're the same as, or equivalent to, honours degrees.

Who cares whether those taking foundation degrees go on to do three year degrees? If honours degrees have no appeal and no relevance to potential students then they won't do them. Especially if they're not affordable.

And who's to say that employers won't, both now and in the future, prefer to employ those with vocational as opposed to purely academic qualifications? There's plenty of evidence to show that the smarter companies are seeing the error of employing those who are academically able but also, in some cases, arrogant and complacent, especially when many of those people lack any practical or vocational skills, any creativity, any social or emotional intelligence, any interest in lifelong and on-the-job learning, and little or no ability to add value to the workplace.

The possession of an honours degree does not automatically make people more suited to a commercial work environment, just as it doesn't automatically make them a better human being.

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Anyone with any interest in education and politics, and the politics of education, must have a good look at this piece in the Guardian -

Labour's teaching strategies were a burden, say inspectors

Ofsted report says national strategies programme failed to eradicate poor teaching

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/24/national-strategies-a-burden-ofsted

Oxzen's comment on CIF is -

    "A flagship New Labour education reform has failed to eradicate poor teaching and become a burden for schools, inspectors said today."

    "The programme was obsessed with monitoring, but rarely evaluated how well initiatives worked."

    "The schools and local authorities visited were often overwhelmed by the volume of centrally driven initiatives, materials and communications."

Oh dear. I think we already knew this. How come Ofsted have only just discovered it? That's what I call a failing inspection regime.

The first thing to say is that with such an unsatisfactory Ofsted report as this one the government and the DCFS should now consider themselves, as failing authorities, to be in Special Measures, and the schools system should be handed over to more competent authorities - trained and experienced educationalists for example - for direction and management. Fortunately this seems to be happening.

Naturally enough, the schools minister, Vernon Coaker, says the government makes no apologies. They never do, and they never will. Which is one of the reasons they've become so despised.

Coaker claims that the government and its strategies are responsible for "the highest ever school standards" - again, without the slightest shred of evidence. Leaving aside the fact that high tests scores say nothing meaningful about whether anyone has had a good all-round education and is well equipped for future employment and for life in general, let's be clear that the teaching profession, left to its own devices, and left well alone by a bullying ("robust") regime of target-setting and "accountability", would have continued to strive for greater excellence these past many years and in all probability would have achieved both better results and a more balanced, more rounded, more innovative, more creative, more relevant and more enjoyable education for all pupils. I can't prove that this would be the case, but then again Coaker can't prove his claim that his government and its strategies deserve all the credit for improvements and the teaching profession deserves none.

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The well-known educationalist Zoe Margolis has an interesting column in today's paper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/23/sexually-confused-sex-education-faith-schools

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It's worth taking a look at the current Lib Dem ideas on education, as set out by their education spokesman, David Laws.

What's the policy we might vote for?

Readers interview David Laws, the Lib Dems' education spokesman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/23/interview-david-laws-lib-dem

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And finally . . . .

This is wonderful -

Justice begins at home

More and more schools are aiming to put human rights at the heart of their curriculum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/23/human-rights-amnesty-competition

For several years, Villiers high, a comprehensive secondary in Southall, west London, has been taking a global view of its mission to prepare its pupils for the modern world. And increasingly, its international education has focused on human rights issues. Attempts are also being made to embed human rights values into the fabric of the school's daily life.

Robin Street, the assistant head, is responsible for the programme. Street and his colleagues are aiming to educate a new generation that will have a clearer understanding of threats to human rights across the world.

The school is now working closely with Amnesty International, which has linked up with 15 schools in 14 countries to create the Human Rights Friendly Schools project.

A similar scheme known as the Rights Respecting Schools Award has been run for the last six years by Unicef UK, a charity that promotes the work of the United Nations Children's Fund. Now running in more than 1,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK, this project aims to help children learn more about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

At Villiers, education about basic liberties is incorporated into geography and media studies lessons, as well as citizenship, history and RE. Over the last 15 years, says Street, increasing numbers of refugees have settled in the school's catchment area, so a study of local geography must involve learning about the reasons why people seek asylum in the UK.

Last October, the school hosted a two-day international students' conference, inviting pupils from schools in Denmark, the Czech Republic, Israel, Mongolia, Germany and Northern Ireland. With the help of artists, musicians and media advisers, the pupils worked together in a series of workshops to explore ways in which greater awareness of basic rights can be integrated into every area of a school's life. Meanwhile, staff from Villiers and the visiting schools received training from Amnesty and Unicef about the development of human rights education.

Street says: "The conference allowed our students, other students from across the UK and from across the globe to share thoughts and ideas about the importance of knowing about their own rights and, by definition, their own responsibilities."

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Layer 98 Morris Minors, Outliers, Outright Liars and Oasis.

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Now here’s a thought. The Morris Minor is 60 next year. And someone called Martin Wainwright has just published its ‘biography’. It’s a vehicle that’s still seen on our roads, in spite of having been developed and manufactured initially way back at the end of the 1940’s, when all cars had proper wheel arches, chrome bumpers, thin tyres, wing mirrors, if any, on the front wings, and chrome wheelcaps.

Those were the days - the 1950’s - when new council estates like ours had streets that were virtually car-free, and the few cars you saw parked on them tended to be ancient black Austins, Morrises, Standards, Hillmans, Fords and Vauxhalls, some of them with semaphore indicators, not flashing lights.

I happened to notice when I was out walking the dog yesterday that most of the vehicles in my relatively downmarket part of the city are now BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, VWs, Citroens and Renaults, with a scattering of Fords and Vauxhalls. Not many of them new or nearly-new, but all the same - quality vehicles that are comfortable, quick, safe and reliable.

The Morris Minor was none of those things, but what it did have, and still has, is character and charm. It had individuality and a certain funkiness. It’s a legend, like that other Issigonis classic, the Mini. See also the Beetle, the Fiat 500, and the Deux Chevaux. It’s ripe for an update, a revamp, a retro makeover.

Kathryn Hughes’ review of the new book about the Morris Minor mentions the possibility of a complete update and a new version, but also points out that the Nanjing Automobile Corporation of China has, since 2005, owned all the rights to the Morris marque.

It’s impossible to imagine that VW or Fiat (or GM, Ford and Chrysler for that matter) would ever let their brand die and be sold off to the highest bidder, but we do things differently here, and New Labour, like Thatch, has been no respecter of the traditions and skills of our Midlands motor manufacturers, designers, engineers, craftsmen and assemblers, and all that their industry did to help win the last war and bring prosperity to this country when the war ended.

One day I’ll get round to writing a long meditation on what I saw from the inside, as a trainee and a ‘commercial apprentice’ (and I still have my certificate of apprenticeship), within the Midlands motor industry. What a sorry tale of management incompetence and failure that was - with the unions of course getting all the blame for all the problems that caused the indigenous UK motor industry to flounder and sink.

What a sorry tale of management arrogance, incompetence and gross negligence. How could any decent management possibly have allowed the manufacture of rubbish like the Austin Allegro and the Morris Marina, which no sensible person wanted to buy?

A green Morris Minor van was the first commercial vehicle I ever drove, in my first ever job, working part time delivering unwrapped bread for what would now be called a ‘boutique bakery’ - a wonderful Victorian bakehouse set at the end of a row of terraced Victorian houses. I was seventeen and had just passed my driving test in a mark one Vauxhall Viva. Lovely car. Excellent gear change, as I recall. Even then it made the Morris seem outmoded and past its sell-by date.

I’d started the job when the bakery was still delivering bread from two 2-wheeled horse-drawn vans, and as a fifteen year old I had to learn from my cousin how to feed, groom, saddle up and insert the horses between the shafts of the vans. And then I had to learn how to drive them safely on city streets, where many drivers were startled to see such vehicles trundling around like some sort of throwback or apparition from a bygone age.

The two horses, which were stabled right next to the door of the bakehouse, had very different characters. By the time I started they were quite old, and after a couple of years the decision was made to replace them with two Morris Minor vans. Truly the end of an era.

So the Minor has always had a special significance for me, and I feel nostalgic about it, as do many people who take the trouble to keep thousands of them running in spite of their unfitness for purpose.

The wonderful Tony Hawks even had a band called Morris Minor and the Majors, which you can check out on youtube, performing the magnificent Stutter Rap:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIOzM7SsMo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Minor_and_the_Majors

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This weekend I’ve read two other reviews that are worth noting:

1. Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell.

Clearly Gladwell has been a minor sensation on his recent visit to this country to promote his book and his ideas.

A couple of quotes from the review, by Derek Draper:

The crucial factor in achieving the extraordinary is to be in circumstances that allow sustained development of innate talent - "a kind of accidental 'hot-housing'" . . .

(NB all those responsible for education policy)

Gladwell does more than regurgitate. He first identifies and then takes hitherto obscure ideas, fills them out into a compelling narrative and adds plenty of anecdote and drama, before finding for them a mass and appreciative audience.

At the book's heart is the revelation that pure intelligence isn't enough. What great successes need is not the highest IQ but a high IQ, accompanied by other factors. What he's saying, in a message that should be seized on by anyone who regards themselves as progressive, is that it is society that provides the conditions for success, rather than the super-talented individual alone.

(The message should also be that other sorts of intelligence plus creativity and imagination are essential, and that IQ alone achieves nothing.)

Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer . . . reached the pinnacle of achievement because his family taught him the social skills necessary to work his way through numerous obstacles.

(NB social intelligence)

Gladwell's previous two books, Tipping Point and Blink, sold nearly five million copies. They eloquently argued that social phenomena are spread in the same way as disease, and that our instinct can be more valid than our circumspection.

(This is a crucial point - that we need to understand and appreciate the importance of instinctual intelligence. Interestingly I had a conversation with my son this morning about how dogs, for example, live entirely in the present, and by instinct, or instinctual intelligence. They have no reference to either the past or the future, and cannot deal with anything through intellectual processes. Trainers of dogs understand that you cannot make a dog learn anything through either punishing them or rewarding them for something that happened even a short time previously - you have to act on what they’re currently doing in order to reinforce or diminish a certain ‘instinct’ or tendency, or else forget about it.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/06/review-outliers-malcolm-gladwell


2. The Hugo Young Papers edited by Ion Trewin - reviewed by Chris Patten

A few quotations:

This is not the single focus of the self-centred diary of a bit-part shit or of a grander political beast on the post-retirement financial make; this is what a balanced and intelligent man found out about what was happening in Britain and beyond over a generation. For anyone interested in the politics of our times, this is a gold mine. Bring your drills, hammers and chisels, and start digging.

For any serious journalist, this volume must be an object lesson in how a clever practitioner should pursue the professional quest for information and insight.

As a peerless political commentator, an old-fashioned liberal intellectual with a rigorous attachment to values and principle, he managed to keep in play a range of contacts that spanned the political firmament, including many whose political careers had never been touched by his own instinctive liberalism.

In this volume, Blair is the missing prince, or perhaps gravedigger. He was clearly one of a small number of politicians who declined to allow the record of their conversations with Young to be published, even after some necessary revision. He stands at the heart of the tale that wends its extraordinary way through these pages - Britain's bizarre relationship with its principal chosen instrument in the pursuit of its national interest, the European Union.

[Blair was] a prime minister who frittered away the large majorities lavished on him by the electorate and who forsook the chance to augment Britain's influence in Europe, choosing instead to provide fawning and sanctimonious support for Washington's dirty work in the Middle East. So, as Young wrote from his deathbed, our country ceased to be sovereign, making the sort of sacrifice of independence never required in the EU, and was left by Blair "in abject thrall to Bush and his gang". The moral contempt scorches the page.

Talk about looking back in anger - these eleven wasted years; these years of disastrous, unproductive, neo-conservative, neo-thatcherite arrogance, stupidity and cowardice .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/dec/06/hugo-young-chris-patten-blair-brown

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Looking Back In Anger

And talking about arrogance and stupidity, and looking back in anger, there was a long and very revealing article in the Weekend magazine yesterday about Noel Gallacher and Oasis. I’ve never understood their popularity, though by listening to Mr G talking to Russell Brand live on the radio I’ve come to appreciate that he’s a very bright and quick-witted individual with a really good sense of humour.

The music, however, and his appreciation of music, is another story. The magazine piece begins;

Noel Gallagher is listing the world's 10 greatest bands on his fingers, and working out where Oasis sit among this lot. "The Beatles, Stones, Who, Sex Pistols, Kinks, Jam, Smiths, Stone Roses, Bee Gees." He pauses. "I'm putting us at seven ahead of the Smiths cos we've done more." It's classic Gallagher, the great Mancunian motormouth.

It’s complete bollocks is what it is. Where do you even start with someone who thinks like that? Those aren’t even Britain’s greatest bands, let alone the world’s. What they are is just a selection of the best ever POP music bands. The Stones and The Who are the only ones with any blues or R & B roots. The Jam and the Stone Roses are just terrible anyway, though the Beatles had a touch of genius and the Bee Gees wrote and performed some brilliant eclectic songs that appeal to a very wide range of people and age groups.

The Sex Pistols and The Smiths are English eccentrics, brilliant in their own way, but not capable of long life due to the fact that they wrote so little that was of the very highest calibre, and also because of the personality defects of their key members.

The character defects of the Gallacher brothers are very well known, though Noel, at least, used to have some musical talent. But how can he seriously ignore the true greats of the musical firmament - people like Cohen and Dylan, Hendrix and Santana, let alone the great jazzers and bluesmen. This is pure ignorance and stupidity.

Live Forever [from ‘Definitely Maybe’] was Oasis' first top 10 hit - a unique mix of raucous rock and drunken optimism. But while their first album anticipated success, the second (What's The Story) Morning Glory? was about rock'n'roll fulfilment. There was a sense of wistfulness in the famous ballads, Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger, as if Gallagher was already nostalgic for something that had barely started. These two songs became the supreme arm-in-arm, cigarette-lighter anthems of the 90s. They were also archetypal Oasis songs - loaded with emotional meaning, and yet virtually meaningless in themselves (what is a wonderwall, why is Sally waiting, who exactly is looking back in anger?).

He says he often didn't understand his lyrics, yet the larger meaning is transparent - the yearning for something better.

Well if HE didn’t ‘understand’ his damn lyrics then it’s no wonder nobody else could either. As for ‘yearning for something better’ - is that supposed to be insightful, profound or enlightening? ‘Cos it’s not.

Noel regrets that Oasis never did well in America. Well I have to tell him, one of the reasons for that was because Oasis were not very good. America has thousands of decent bands that play great music with real musicianship and some great vocalists. Liam looks, behaves and sounds like a twat. And according to Noel, Liam was supposed to be the focal point and the star attraction of the band. Duh! He was such a tosser he didn’t even manage to get on the plane for the band’s first tour of the USA. Though that could have been a clever move on his part, if he sensed that American audiences were going to react very badly to his drunken, yobbish uselessness.

What interests me is how he managed to keep going when he thought his best work was behind him. He says maybe he shouldn't have done. After Wonderwall and Don't Look Back In Anger became national anthems, he struggled.

"Between ‘Be Here Now’ and ‘Don't Believe The Truth‘, which spans five years, I was putting out records for the sake of it. We shouldn't have bothered, I didn't have anything to write about."

The trouble is nobody told him he was writing rubbish songs. Liam would tell him everything was great because he'd be desperate to get back in the studio and record something new.

"A lot of it I listen to and think only an egomaniac would convince himself that that was worth putting on. I say to my manager, 'You told me it was brilliant.' And he goes, 'Well, you don't tell the goose that laid the golden egg that his arse is blocked up, do you?' " If he'd been really brave, he says, he would have called it a day after Definitely Maybe.

"Morning Glory is for the squares... It's up there with all those great crossover albums like Thriller, and the greatest-selling albums of all time like Phil Collins and Genesis."

So if Morning Glory is just mediocre, meaningless mush that’s ‘for the squares’, which it is, then clearly Oasis should have quit right after their very first album. And yet he has the gall to say Oasis are the seventh greatest band in the world? What an idiot.

As for the Oasis/Blur rivalry, Mr G says,

"Looking back now that fight's all so pathetic over two really quite shit pop songs."

And that’s all that Oasis have ever been about - some really quite shit pop songs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/06/noel-gallagher-oasis

PS Noel couldn’t write decent lyrics, but what he could do was put together some music that had some interesting and satisfying chord changes and some good melodies. Credit where it’s due. Unfortunately that’s not enough to make him a good songwriter.
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Layer 31 Passion and Patience

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The Today programme on Radio 4 just now featured an item on a new production at the National Theatre of “The Taming of the Shrew”. This came shortly after a trailer for ‘In Our Time’ in which Melvyn Bragg was talking about this morning’s programme, which focused on the human brain. He mentioned that Shakespeare had little regard for the brain, by which he meant ‘thought’, compared with his emphasis on the ‘heart’, meaning human passions and emotions.

This was a real coincidence as I’d woken up today thinking about Shakespeare’s regard for patience, as a crucial human ‘virtue’. He speaks of patience in lots of the plays. For example, in Romeo and Juliet: “Be patient. For the world is broad and wide.” (Act 3 Scene 3) That phrase alone is worth a whole session of reflection and meditation.

Needless to say, Romeo, being a young man under the influence of passion and infatuation, has no interest at all in being patient, and no intention of calming his enthusiasm in order to ensure long-term happiness. Obviously his banishment from Verona was seen as the best thing for him - to give him a chance to cool down.

This week I enjoyed a long and stimulating conversation with two good friends about human emotions - whether they are positive or negative, whether they are simple or complex, whether they have components of thought, feeling and intuition as well as passion, and whether passion is the basic or primitive driving force within us, the fiery part, the libido, and so on.

Yesterday’s Guardian featured a letter from a Hillingdon Councillor, Norman Nunn-Price, who was commenting on what the Labour Party needs to do in the wake of last week’s disaster in the local elections. He speaks of anger, and how to channel this emotion in a positive way.

“ There are now many ex-councillors who are very angry at losing their seats. They are now free to be active where it matters - on the streets and doorsteps. This anger must be harnessed.”

Yes indeed. By everyone, every day. If we take the time to reflect on the things that make us angry, then we should think through the ways in which we can constructively use this emotion and the passion that fuels it to eliminate from our lives the things that make us angry. If not, we either have to learn how to live with the anger and whatever‘s causing it, or else let it rip negatively, and to hell with the consequences.

For myself, I’ve always liked the phrase “Don’t get mad, get even.” Given that we can’t prevent ourselves experiencing anger from time to time, it seems to me that what this means is, don’t just let your anger rip and cause havoc in a useless negative way - consider why you feel angry, and who is causing the anger, and act wisely and logically in a way that will either punish or neutralise whoever or whatever caused you to feel angry. Essentially, revenge is a dish best served cold, as the saying has it. Personally I quite like it frozen, on a stick.

Some quotations on Anger:

http://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_anger.html

Incidentally, Norman Nunn-Price concluded his letter, “The Labour party in Westminster must turn its back on the fat cats in the City and all these media whiz-kids and advisers. Spend the next two years on the streets where people live. Talk to them, listen to them and learn from them. Build up our fighting strength again. Replenish, replace and regroup the shattered battalions. That is the way ahead“.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/07/3

Revenge

(Wikipedia has an interesting page on revenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge)

Working with children and their parents over so many years I frequently had to deal with the notion from the Old Testament of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, and the determination of both the kids and their parents that they needed some sort of revenge on wrongdoers. It was very hard to convince them that the role of the school was to help children learn from their mistakes, and to develop their emotional intelligence.

It was sufficient punishment normally, given that the children did learn from their mistakes and rarely committed the same act of aggression more than once, for them to have to talk through what they had done, and to feel a sense of shame and disgrace. Even more so if their parents were brought in to talk about the matter, which happened whenever children did not learn and did not respond to warnings and demands for better behavior, better self-control, etc.

Learning to control anger can be hard, and some children are just naturally more fiery than others - more inclined to flashes of temper, instant reactions to frustrating situations, more passionate in their likes and dislikes. Both carrot and stick are needed. Praise for successfully staying calm or walking away from stressful situations; and having to experience isolation from their friends and teachers, and deprivation of things they enjoy, as well as counseling sessions and having to reflect on whatever got them into trouble, when things go wrong.

In Our Time - The History of the Brain.

A curiously unsatisfying and superficial edition of the programme. No reference at all to the essential parts of the brain and what functions they perform - the frontal and pre-frontal lobes, the amygdala and the hippocampus.

Aristotle regarded the heart as the most important part of the human body. He dissected animals of every kind. He believed the heart was the major organ of the human body. He thought the arteries were the conduits of ‘sensation’. The brain looks as though it has very little blood, being grey in colour. Therefore he considered the brain was relatively unimportant.

Plato thought the soul controls the human body, and was located in three places - one part being in the brain, one in the heart, one in the guts or liver. But ‘the heart’ is what makes us human. The brain is seen as a kind of ‘wise counselor’.

[Very clever, I think, of Plato to recognise that our ‘souls’ are complex, and made up of thoughts, passions, feelings, etc.]

Galen was a prominent ancient Greek physician, whose theories dominated Western medical science for well over a millennium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen

Shakespeare tended to use ‘the brain’ as almost a term of abuse.

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What ‘In Our Time’ left out.

The amygdala is clearly a vital part of the brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigdala

Damage to the amygdala, or perhaps deformation, or under-development, will “produce noticeable changes, including overreaction to all objects, hypoemotionality, loss of fear, hypersexuality, and hyperorality, a condition in which inappropriate objects are placed in the mouth”. Hmmmm.

Problems with the amygdala may also be responsible for Borderline Personality Disorder, paranoia, and autism.

The hippocampus is another key area, controlling memory, inhibition, and a sense of space, it seems. This is one of the first areas to be damaged by the onset of Altzheimer’s.

Borderline Personality Disorder is particularly interesting, since it seems to occur in individuals who have problems with controlling strong passions. Sign and symptoms, according to Wikipedia, can include,

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving).
5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars, or picking at oneself.
6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7) Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
8) Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
For those of us working in education and life-long learning in emotional and spiritual intelligence the above list provides much food for thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_Personality_Disorder

Patience

The cultivation and practice of patience seems to me a vital part of becoming emotionally and spiritually intelligent, as an antidote to excessive passion and a tendency to use it negatively. Easy for an Oxzen to say, you may think, but then again a certain lack of passion or fire in one’s makeup brings its own problems. Ah, the difficulty in finding a balance . . .

http://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_patience.html

Quotes re patience

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
~ W. H. Auden ~
The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.
~ Epictetus ~
Patience means self-suffering.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
~ Barbara Johnson ~
Consider the hour-glass; there is nothing to be accomplished by rattling or shaking; you have to wait patiently until the sand, grain by grain, has run from one funnel into the other.
~ John Christian Morgenstern ~
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
~ Sir Isaac Newton ~
Patience makes a woman beautiful in middle age.
~ Elliot Paul ~
Patience in the present, faith in the future, and joy in the doing
~ George Perera ~
In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
~ W. B. Prescott ~
Rome was not built in a day.
~ Proverb ~
An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains.
~ Dutch Proverb ~
There are times when God asks nothing of his children except silence, patience and tears.
~ C. S. Robinson ~
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
~ Johann Friedrich Von Schiller ~
Who can be patient in extremes? [Henry Vi]
~ William Shakespeare ~

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Here’s an interesting link to Shakespeare and The Normalisation of Violence.

(I was just thinking this very morning how difficult it is to educate children in non-violence when they are exposed on a daily basis to powerful images of men using everything from knives and swords to guns, tanks, rockets and aircraft to blast their enemies, often in the name of revenge, or justice, or just ‘taking out the bad guys’. Brings back to mind the cap badge worn by our very own Prince Harry - “We do bad things to bad people”. Oh - great!)

The Moderate Voice

http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blogitics/19330/clinton-obama-mccain-and-shakespeare-the-normalization-of-violence/

This contains an interesting reference to Ate

Ate, a Greek word for 'ruin, folly, delusion', is the action performed by the hero, usually because of his/her hubris, or great pride, that leads to his/her death or downfall. There is also a goddess by that name (Até) in Greek mythology, a personification of the same.
In Nonnos' Dionysiaca (11.113), at Hera's instigation Ate persuades the boy Ampelus whom Dionysus passionately loves to impress Dionysus by riding on a bull from which Ampelus subsequently falls and breaks his neck.

In the play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare introduces the goddess Ate as an invocation of vengeance and menace. Mark Antony, lamenting Caesar's murder, envisions "And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate' by his side come hot from Hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, ..."

http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Ate.html