The existence of eccentric works like these is, however, broadly positive, in that it shows people are giving serious consideration to what should replace the intellectual and political framework dying all around us.
Am I the only one seeing in writers of this kind – left and right – not so much serious thought or dire warnings, as the working out of secret personal desires, even fantasies. The similarities of these futures to film and video game fantasy is hard to miss.
I’m also always struck that the views of many environmentalists express not so much a regret that the hopes we had will come up against the limits of what the environment can sustain – but a desire that humanity be made to pay the price for its greed and superficiality. A desire that we be punished.
Should things turn out not to be so bad, or should technological solutions be found, many, one feels, will be bitterly disappointed.
Patrick Cosgrove
3 years ago
While standing in for Mr Johnson, Dominic Raab also said we cannot go back to Business as usual with China. I agree with that on many fronts, particularly: – opacity over Coronavirus; – failure to stamp on trade in wildlife; – the need to pull back from outsourced manufacture (and associated CO2,emissions); – disdain for human rights (e.g. Uighur re-education camps). (Of course, such sentiments should not be conflated with xenophobic comments about Chinese people, or UK residents of Chinese origin).
No 10 is also claiming that the coronavirus crisis strengthens the need for UK to be free of EU regulation after 2020, but the desire for separation flies in the face of the stark reality that crises such as pandemics and climate change cannot be solved through greater isolation.
Having said that, and even as someone who campaigned energetically to remain in the EU, the lessons of the Coronavirus pandemic create good arguments for different alliance blocs as well as moving away from our present model of globalisation.
The inevitable move to greater food self-sufficiency (not, I hope, at the expense of the natural environment) and the need for shorter supply chains could work alongside redrawn international alliances on a north-south basis. To some extent they are already there. North and South America have strong cultural and linguistic connections because of the Hispanic populations. They are also joined physically. China, much of the rest of Asia and Australasia are already closely linked for trade and, like it or not, China and India will be wanting Australian coal for a while yet. Russia is firmly entrenched with Syria and to some extent with Iran, and do we really want to keep trying for that impossible peace deal? Europe and Scandinavia are well connected but are dependent on fresh produce and seasonal labour from North Africa. We still have strong links with African members of the Commonwealth.
I’m not suggesting hermetically sealed silos, but future pandemics might be easier to contain, and north south trade is kinder on the environment than shipping goods from anywhere to anywhere, – more so if rail infrastructure were improved. Vertical time differences between Northern and Southern Hemispheres are so small as to be Irrelevant. Dividing the world into north south chunks might also make it easier to resolve the poverty divide as the enlightened self-interest involved would be easier to understand if closer to home. Tourism could mirror such a trend. Personally, I’d much prefer a trip by train and short ferry hop to Morocco than a long haul flight to Bali.
Perhaps this should be the focus of our post-Brexit, post-pandemic trade strategy. The reliance on a UK-US trade deal previously assumed by many pro-Brexit enthusiasts was already running into sand (my farmer neighbours detest the idea). President Trump’s increasing volatility only weakens any remaining arguments for it.
You forget language. North America is probably better for us than France for instance. We have more in common with North America.
If you truly think that north/south blocks would work better, then you must look at the whole of the each hemisphere and break each into blocks. Having done this what does UK do with its middle east immigration?
I do think the world is changing fast and I think our present dilemmas regarding climate, XR and globalisation are actually in their last throw of the dice. But there are huge numbers of people in these groups who would gladly create wars in order to keep their control over populations.
I also think sweeping change only happens in real catastrophic conditions, like famine and war. This pandemic, the 2008 crash, are man made and create waves of change through greed.
What may happen after this present hoax, is people realise how important close relationships are and how wrong it is to hand our children over to strangers for 20yrs of their lives. People will also realise that stressful travelling doesn’t need to be. Community needs rebuilding and every citizen realises the importance of a national home. It is these realisations that will change society and create a climate of cooperation locally. Not the Ugly and destructive World governance the globalists Have been quietly pushing for some years.
mike otter
3 years ago
Faye’s work and Gove’s Celsus 7/7 have much more in common than they have apart: Historicist, concerned with race as character or history, lacking in critical thought and pandering to the feelings of the mob more than the thinking of the post enlightement era. I was actually shocked when i read Celsius 7/7, so i’ll say no more on the subject other than i can see why the BBC have made such vile ad-hominem attacks on the man, “aborted foetus” etcetc, though i think they are very wrong to do so. Faye belongs to a long tradition of utopian idealogues who cover every corner of thought from Ayn Rand through the Arcadians classical and Rousseau era to the dark mysticism of Himmler. It is the very fact that these ideologies are floating above reality that makes them a problem and a feedstock for the paranoia of Guardian
(and other UK MSM) types. Whilst i enjoy Giles Fraser’s writing i wish he’d take the “wide variety of radical thinkers” more by the horns than the tail. Their asinine rambling causes at best misery and at worst murder if they gain the levers of power.
When I read of alleged “intellectuals” like Faye, so indifferent to, and even eager for, human suffering, so contemptuous of the decencies that have sustained civilisation through the centuries, I think of Julien Benda’s anthema at the end of La Trahison des Clercs: “And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died”.
Dianne Bean
3 years ago
A most intriguing read.
Helen Wood
3 years ago
What about Paul Gottfried…is he “far right” or an academic exploring the nature of fascism?
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Fascinating, thanks. Of course, the French have a track record of throwing up right-wing nutters. A couple of years ago I read ‘The French Right from de Maistre to Maurras’. It consisted of short profiles of, or extracts from the writing of, some very unpleasant anti-semites etc. The said, Maurras certainly had some scathing and very interesting things to say about the politics, structure and nature of the Second Republic, or whichever one it was.
Nigel Clarke
3 years ago
“unchecked climate change equals the world depicted by Mad Max, only hotter, with no beaches, and perhaps with even more chaos.”
Before the world was going to turn in to Mad Max, it was going to turn in to The Thing.
I would have linked to the NOAA page, but they took it down yesterday. I wonder why…
I stopped reading after you started on Climate Change. Anyone who believes in the cult and thinks it’s some kind of warning from nature and will have catastrophic effects on the planet is delusional. I don’t worry about the planet, it’s been here a long long time and has had a lot worse than humans visited upon it. No, it is the humans that I worry about, they’ll believe, apparently, whatever you tell them to believe…and all the consequences that that realises.
Oh yeah, and what’s with calling everyone who has a different view from quasi-neo-marxist liberalism “Far-Right”? Following that logic, the author of this piece is Far-Left?
Otherwise an interesting piece, let down by the authors uninformed and ignorant beliefs on climate.
The Bellwether
3 years ago
Excellent article! I don’t suppose we have a view of Mr.Cummings’ bookshelf? Maybe the books were lent to Gove by Mr.C?
Perhaps it will be the USA that splits up into red and blue States each with their own autocratic strong man/woman ruler. Bit like the pre-Civil war. The South going ‘medieval on you’ (to quote Jules in Pulp Fiction) and the North and California ruled by a techocratic elite. Who knows!
Alan Hughes
3 years ago
Extremely interesting. As a monoglot I much of these other strands of thought remain inaccessible to me. It is important that we are aware of the ideas which are becoming political driving forces.
stephenmoriarty
3 years ago
Western liberalism took the nuclear family for granted, or assumed a “one in, one out” norm for spouses. Religion, however, was old hat. An obvious contradiction there. And why did liberals care so much about society? Why should they? La nouvelle droite, it would appear, was not immune to sentimentality either: are “cultures” – in the plural – “great”? Or are they all corrupt in the same and/or different ways, even if they look charming from outside? And what does it matter what anyone thinks about all this? Does anyone, “listen to reason”? I’ve a book about St Kilda and its former inhabitants. The end, the author (Charles MacLane) says, partly came because too much contact with the mainland robbed the islanders of the sense that there was a way – their way – of doing things. Everything lost sense and significance in the light of alternatives. Yet you wouldn’t have wanted to live as they lived. I think Christ was a secular genius. He laid out a philosophy (not a dogma – the parables invite questioning and we must allow for his historical circumstances) that really does offer humanity hope; yet, by its nature, there is no means of enforcing it. It shimmers beyond us, for those with eyes to see it, like heaven.
David Simpson
3 years ago
Also see “Metanoia: a short history of the 21st century” – there the crunch date is 2026, when the real pandemic hits.
G. Ian Goodson
3 years ago
H.G.Wells “Time machine” and George Orwell “1984”. Plato “Republic”. There is nothing new under the sun. Song of Songs Bible.
Agreed. Let’s not forget Fauci’s public announcement before the Trump Administration took control that it would face a Pandemic. He clearly has a very good crystal ball. And, BTW, Ecclesiastes methinks not Song of Songs.
Am I the only one seeing in writers of this kind – left and right – not so much serious thought or dire warnings, as the working out of secret personal desires, even fantasies. The similarities of these futures to film and video game fantasy is hard to miss.
I’m also always struck that the views of many environmentalists express not so much a regret that the hopes we had will come up against the limits of what the environment can sustain – but a desire that humanity be made to pay the price for its greed and superficiality. A desire that we be punished.
Should things turn out not to be so bad, or should technological solutions be found, many, one feels, will be bitterly disappointed.
While standing in for Mr Johnson, Dominic Raab also said we cannot go back to Business as usual with China. I agree with that on many fronts, particularly:
– opacity over Coronavirus;
– failure to stamp on trade in wildlife;
– the need to pull back from outsourced manufacture (and associated CO2,emissions);
– disdain for human rights (e.g. Uighur re-education camps).
(Of course, such sentiments should not be conflated with xenophobic comments about Chinese people, or UK residents of Chinese origin).
No 10 is also claiming that the coronavirus crisis strengthens the need for UK to be free of EU regulation after 2020, but the desire for separation flies in the face of the stark reality that crises such as pandemics and climate change cannot be solved through greater isolation.
Having said that, and even as someone who campaigned energetically to remain in the EU, the lessons of the Coronavirus pandemic create good arguments for different alliance blocs as well as moving away from our present model of globalisation.
The inevitable move to greater food self-sufficiency (not, I hope, at the expense of the natural environment) and the need for shorter supply chains could work alongside redrawn international alliances on a north-south basis. To some extent they are already there. North and South America have strong cultural and linguistic connections because of the Hispanic populations. They are also joined physically. China, much of the rest of Asia and Australasia are already closely linked for trade and, like it or not, China and India will be wanting Australian coal for a while yet. Russia is firmly entrenched with Syria and to some extent with Iran, and do we really want to keep trying for that impossible peace deal? Europe and Scandinavia are well connected but are dependent on fresh produce and seasonal labour from North Africa. We still have strong links with African members of the Commonwealth.
I’m not suggesting hermetically sealed silos, but future pandemics might be easier to contain, and north south trade is kinder on the environment than shipping goods from anywhere to anywhere, – more so if rail infrastructure were improved. Vertical time differences between Northern and Southern Hemispheres are so small as to be Irrelevant. Dividing the world into north south chunks might also make it easier to resolve the poverty divide as the enlightened self-interest involved would be easier to understand if closer to home. Tourism could mirror such a trend. Personally, I’d much prefer a trip by train and short ferry hop to Morocco than a long haul flight to Bali.
Perhaps this should be the focus of our post-Brexit, post-pandemic trade strategy. The reliance on a UK-US trade deal previously assumed by many pro-Brexit enthusiasts was already running into sand (my farmer neighbours detest the idea). President Trump’s increasing volatility only weakens any remaining arguments for it.
You forget language. North America is probably better for us than France for instance. We have more in common with North America.
If you truly think that north/south blocks would work better, then you must look at the whole of the each hemisphere and break each into blocks. Having done this what does UK do with its middle east immigration?
I do think the world is changing fast and I think our present dilemmas regarding climate, XR and globalisation are actually in their last throw of the dice. But there are huge numbers of people in these groups who would gladly create wars in order to keep their control over populations.
I also think sweeping change only happens in real catastrophic conditions, like famine and war. This pandemic, the 2008 crash, are man made and create waves of change through greed.
What may happen after this present hoax, is people realise how important close relationships are and how wrong it is to hand our children over to strangers for 20yrs of their lives. People will also realise that stressful travelling doesn’t need to be. Community needs rebuilding and every citizen realises the importance of a national home. It is these realisations that will change society and create a climate of cooperation locally. Not the Ugly and destructive World governance the globalists Have been quietly pushing for some years.
Faye’s work and Gove’s Celsus 7/7 have much more in common than they have apart: Historicist, concerned with race as character or history, lacking in critical thought and pandering to the feelings of the mob more than the thinking of the post enlightement era. I was actually shocked when i read Celsius 7/7, so i’ll say no more on the subject other than i can see why the BBC have made such vile ad-hominem attacks on the man, “aborted foetus” etcetc, though i think they are very wrong to do so. Faye belongs to a long tradition of utopian idealogues who cover every corner of thought from Ayn Rand through the Arcadians classical and Rousseau era to the dark mysticism of Himmler. It is the very fact that these ideologies are floating above reality that makes them a problem and a feedstock for the paranoia of Guardian
(and other UK MSM) types. Whilst i enjoy Giles Fraser’s writing i wish he’d take the “wide variety of radical thinkers” more by the horns than the tail. Their asinine rambling causes at best misery and at worst murder if they gain the levers of power.
When I read of alleged “intellectuals” like Faye, so indifferent to, and even eager for, human suffering, so contemptuous of the decencies that have sustained civilisation through the centuries, I think of Julien Benda’s anthema at the end of La Trahison des Clercs: “And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died”.
A most intriguing read.
What about Paul Gottfried…is he “far right” or an academic exploring the nature of fascism?
Fascinating, thanks. Of course, the French have a track record of throwing up right-wing nutters. A couple of years ago I read ‘The French Right from de Maistre to Maurras’. It consisted of short profiles of, or extracts from the writing of, some very unpleasant anti-semites etc. The said, Maurras certainly had some scathing and very interesting things to say about the politics, structure and nature of the Second Republic, or whichever one it was.
“unchecked climate change equals the world depicted by Mad Max, only hotter, with no beaches, and perhaps with even more chaos.”
Before the world was going to turn in to Mad Max, it was going to turn in to The Thing.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/qc851u461974oct.pdf
I would have linked to the NOAA page, but they took it down yesterday. I wonder why…
I stopped reading after you started on Climate Change. Anyone who believes in the cult and thinks it’s some kind of warning from nature and will have catastrophic effects on the planet is delusional. I don’t worry about the planet, it’s been here a long long time and has had a lot worse than humans visited upon it. No, it is the humans that I worry about, they’ll believe, apparently, whatever you tell them to believe…and all the consequences that that realises.
Oh yeah, and what’s with calling everyone who has a different view from quasi-neo-marxist liberalism “Far-Right”?
Following that logic, the author of this piece is Far-Left?
Otherwise an interesting piece, let down by the authors uninformed and ignorant beliefs on climate.
Excellent article! I don’t suppose we have a view of Mr.Cummings’ bookshelf? Maybe the books were lent to Gove by Mr.C?
Perhaps it will be the USA that splits up into red and blue States each with their own autocratic strong man/woman ruler. Bit like the pre-Civil war. The South going ‘medieval on you’ (to quote Jules in Pulp Fiction) and the North and California ruled by a techocratic elite. Who knows!
Extremely interesting. As a monoglot I much of these other strands of thought remain inaccessible to me. It is important that we are aware of the ideas which are becoming political driving forces.
Western liberalism took the nuclear family for granted, or assumed a “one in, one out” norm for spouses. Religion, however, was old hat. An obvious contradiction there. And why did liberals care so much about society? Why should they?
La nouvelle droite, it would appear, was not immune to sentimentality either: are “cultures” – in the plural – “great”? Or are they all corrupt in the same and/or different ways, even if they look charming from outside?
And what does it matter what anyone thinks about all this? Does anyone, “listen to reason”?
I’ve a book about St Kilda and its former inhabitants. The end, the author (Charles MacLane) says, partly came because too much contact with the mainland robbed the islanders of the sense that there was a way – their way – of doing things. Everything lost sense and significance in the light of alternatives. Yet you wouldn’t have wanted to live as they lived.
I think Christ was a secular genius. He laid out a philosophy (not a dogma – the parables invite questioning and we must allow for his historical circumstances) that really does offer humanity hope; yet, by its nature, there is no means of enforcing it. It shimmers beyond us, for those with eyes to see it, like heaven.
Also see “Metanoia: a short history of the 21st century” – there the crunch date is 2026, when the real pandemic hits.
H.G.Wells “Time machine” and George Orwell “1984”. Plato “Republic”. There is nothing new under the sun. Song of Songs Bible.
Agreed. Let’s not forget Fauci’s public announcement before the Trump Administration took control that it would face a Pandemic. He clearly has a very good crystal ball. And, BTW, Ecclesiastes methinks not Song of Songs.