I've recently moved to a new flat - So will be without full time internet access for a while. I also have some big deadlines coming up, so I won't be able to post that often (if at all) for the forseeable future.
Catch you all later.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Through Early Morning Fog I See, A Vision of the Things to be,.....
First point - Who knows where the title originates from?
Now to the task of 'blogging' -
I'll be brief, i'm going to take a wild, drunken-style swing at the people who prophesise the doom of our society along the lines of 'it's all going to hell, the kids are out of control, blah blah blah'.
I'll start in a high brow manner, so the descent into inanity and childishness afterwards will be all the more dramatic and painful.
So let me quote (in modern, not old, English) from 'The Sermon of the Wolf to the English', it was written over a thousand years ago,
'But this nation has become, as it may appear, very corrupted by manifold sins and by many crimes, by murder and evil deeds, by avarice and greed, by stealing and robbery, by the barter of men and pagan abuses, by betrayals and trickeries, by attacks on kinsmen and manslaughters, by violation of holy orders and breaches of divine law, by incest and various fornications'
Sound familiar? Of course it does, its pretty much the editorial of every sunday newspaper in the Western World.
Let us pluck some perspective from the great historical tomes and our general critical thinking - For the vast majority of humanity, this is the best time to be alive, things have never been better.
When someone is in their nice home office, in a quiet low crime street in a pleasant London suburb, sipping their home made expresso, writing an article complaining about how awful modern life is on their laptop, ready to email it to the editor so they can turn the HD widescreen tv on to watch part of the DVD boxset of 'Bleak House' - I cry 'Thou art a hypocrit, vile piece of journo-trash, go back from whence thou camest - wanker'
As I posted on a certain internet forum a few days ago - 'I get the impression that the past must have been such a wonderful place to live - such a pity i'm stuck in the present and only have the future to look forward to'
Let's get a few things straight, the past wasn't some glorious hayday of love, tolerance and no crime - it was pretty much just as life is now, similar fears and challenges, except we now have the internet and many, many wonderous advances in medicine. Nothing is ever perfect, no generation ever gets it right and most people are 'doomed' to repeat the same mistakes and fight the same fights that their parents generations did (but have now forgotted, apparently) - Doesn't mean that we are doomed, it just means the previous generation, like all others, 'failed' to achieve the unachievable society - that glorious existance that they remember, though it never was.
I'm not saying that there aren't major issues, but these issues are managable and beatable if we are honest about their nature and existance, and if we are honest about what really needs to be done about them, and not just resort to the usual window dressing. Only then can we make the drastic improvements we want, but until that time we'll just continue to progress the way we have been since before the bronze age - 'climbing out of hell, one inch at a time'. The problem with the 'it's all gone wrong compared to how it used to be' mentality is that it's got an inaccurate picture of the past, so it's views of the present and vision for the future will always be slightly off - thus most of the people with this mentality can never think up any realistic solutions to the problems that plague our societies.
Well, i'm bored now - So are you, if you're honest. Also, notice how vague I was when talking about 'issues', it lets you fill in the blanks with what you deem to be important, but you'll always remember that it was my blog that brought it up, hee hee, cunning! (Actually no, not really)
For a final flourish and on a completely unrelated note - Dimitar Berbatov you ungrateful, sulking dickpole, i'm glad you fucked off to Man Utd, we didn't want you anyway, moody git.
Now to the task of 'blogging' -
I'll be brief, i'm going to take a wild, drunken-style swing at the people who prophesise the doom of our society along the lines of 'it's all going to hell, the kids are out of control, blah blah blah'.
I'll start in a high brow manner, so the descent into inanity and childishness afterwards will be all the more dramatic and painful.
So let me quote (in modern, not old, English) from 'The Sermon of the Wolf to the English', it was written over a thousand years ago,
'But this nation has become, as it may appear, very corrupted by manifold sins and by many crimes, by murder and evil deeds, by avarice and greed, by stealing and robbery, by the barter of men and pagan abuses, by betrayals and trickeries, by attacks on kinsmen and manslaughters, by violation of holy orders and breaches of divine law, by incest and various fornications'
Sound familiar? Of course it does, its pretty much the editorial of every sunday newspaper in the Western World.
Let us pluck some perspective from the great historical tomes and our general critical thinking - For the vast majority of humanity, this is the best time to be alive, things have never been better.
When someone is in their nice home office, in a quiet low crime street in a pleasant London suburb, sipping their home made expresso, writing an article complaining about how awful modern life is on their laptop, ready to email it to the editor so they can turn the HD widescreen tv on to watch part of the DVD boxset of 'Bleak House' - I cry 'Thou art a hypocrit, vile piece of journo-trash, go back from whence thou camest - wanker'
As I posted on a certain internet forum a few days ago - 'I get the impression that the past must have been such a wonderful place to live - such a pity i'm stuck in the present and only have the future to look forward to'
Let's get a few things straight, the past wasn't some glorious hayday of love, tolerance and no crime - it was pretty much just as life is now, similar fears and challenges, except we now have the internet and many, many wonderous advances in medicine. Nothing is ever perfect, no generation ever gets it right and most people are 'doomed' to repeat the same mistakes and fight the same fights that their parents generations did (but have now forgotted, apparently) - Doesn't mean that we are doomed, it just means the previous generation, like all others, 'failed' to achieve the unachievable society - that glorious existance that they remember, though it never was.
I'm not saying that there aren't major issues, but these issues are managable and beatable if we are honest about their nature and existance, and if we are honest about what really needs to be done about them, and not just resort to the usual window dressing. Only then can we make the drastic improvements we want, but until that time we'll just continue to progress the way we have been since before the bronze age - 'climbing out of hell, one inch at a time'. The problem with the 'it's all gone wrong compared to how it used to be' mentality is that it's got an inaccurate picture of the past, so it's views of the present and vision for the future will always be slightly off - thus most of the people with this mentality can never think up any realistic solutions to the problems that plague our societies.
Well, i'm bored now - So are you, if you're honest. Also, notice how vague I was when talking about 'issues', it lets you fill in the blanks with what you deem to be important, but you'll always remember that it was my blog that brought it up, hee hee, cunning! (Actually no, not really)
For a final flourish and on a completely unrelated note - Dimitar Berbatov you ungrateful, sulking dickpole, i'm glad you fucked off to Man Utd, we didn't want you anyway, moody git.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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