The Bewilderness

Breaking Brexit

Dan Hannan, writing in The Parliament, provides some flesh on the current thinking of Tory Eurosceptics; so far let down by the existing leadership. What would a Brexit look like? 

Hann points out that the Europhile polemicists attack a straw man that does not exist. They argue that Britain would have no ties with Europe after a referendum and negotiation, even though there would be strong ties between the offshore island and the onshore core. This would count for nothing apparently.

Hannan and other Eurosceptics point out that some trade agreement is appropriate with access to the single market, whether through fax diplomacy or negotiated agreement. We shall see how this develops: but economic arguments alone will not win this debate.

 

Politicians: prepare to be grilled and pitchforked

Without using such volatile terms as "Endgame" (which will be a political rather than an economic play), are we nearing another phase transition, an acceleration of identified dangers? Ambrose Evans Pritchard charts the gradual tightening within the Eurozone as the European Central Bank does little to counter the reduction in inflation. 

If deflation is triggered through an exogenous shock then the political fractures may widen visibly and with rapid consequences. Polticians may be pitchforked in more than one Member State. 

 

A thirst for the green on the London Loop

After the station of Hayes (Kent), the LOndon Loop meanders south and westwards along the borders of Bromley and Croydon. The path seeks out whatever stretch of green open space divides two housing estates and gently explores ancient woodland. All of the land here is an extension of the North Downs, and the slopes become steeper as the walk trends south towards Whyteleaf and Kenley. 

The Loop shares its apth with two other ways: the Vanguard Way (completed) and the Tandridge Border Path. South of Croydon, the path is supposed to entertain the spirit of the rural. This was not my expectation or experience. A series of commons was advertised but felt like a succession of London's wilder parks. Only Happy Valley and the view back from Farthing Downs convinced me that I was part of a wider landscape.

The section from Hayes to Coulsdon South has merit but, imprisoned by the city: the promise of heath and woodland hemmed in all around, only served to leave the path wanting in a wider sense. 

A success story (and quite a good one)

Cancer is understood as never before. This is one of the earliest outcomes of the research programme undertaken though the sequencing of the human genome. Despite the media attention earlier this century, there were no real breakthroughs that could provide a definitive milestone of success.

Imrpovements in cancer resarch are incremental and, perhaps, approximate some of the paradignatic shifts that Thomas Kuhn charted. It may not be a scientific revolution as socially defined but we now recognise the fundament of cancer: a set of cells reproducing out of control, the consequences of which are the eventual death of the host. The causes of cancer are manifold and, even worse, the groth of the tumour becomes a Darwinian competition between parasite and host. A moveable feast or target for the oncologist?

There are plenty of new and expensive treatments that could counteract cancers. More are being developed and as commonalities emerge within this disease complex, it may prove easier to combat. Just as there are no wonders out of the Human Genome Project, so there is no magic bullet that can cure cancer. The success remains illusive for public consumption: but we understand more, we manufacture better treatments and people survive for longer or are cured entirely. 

This is a success story (of sorts)

A test of memory

Euractiv has an article on the proposed commemorations of the Great War within Europe. Noting that a shared history is one of the foundations for a demos, the European Commission's unwillingness to participate in these events proves a notable failure for the Project. However, it is politically astute.

The British commemorations will focus on memory and loss, the defining themes of the war for thirty years as the last of the few have passed away. If there is an ebbing tide of the 'just war' and the 'right thing to do', this will not ne questioned deeply under the current coalition. Euractive misdescribes this as a focus on victory. The French reaction is similar. For both countries, the conflict is bound up with notions of cultural identity and how communities were tested or split asunder.

For Germany, Austria and Italy, the war is almost forgotten. Some view the emphasis on the conflict in the West as a form of victors' justice. Others cannot focus on the start of their tragedy since the prologue proved a miserable commencement to greater disasters. And in Russia, the centenary is viewed as a path for resurrection and a chance to draw upon Tsarist, not Communist, antecedents:

Vladimir Putin's Russia, meanwhile, has seized on the chance to fan national pride, reviving the memory of a war it says was unjustly forgotten under the Soviet regime -- which today's Russian rulers accuse of bowing shamefully to Germany in 1917.

How we recall the war depends upon national experience and the final disposition of the war. Those countries that lost and suffered revolutionary upheaval displaced their grieving and forgot their dead. But where losses were borne by stable democracies and without political change, there was a groundswell of remembrance and the names of the dead can still be discerned in lichened village sculpture under cross or sword. 

For the only lesson from the Great War that we still observe for our citizen soldiers is recited in the Ode of Remembrance:  "We shall remember them!" "Lest we forget!" 

Another set of moderns

The victories that the Green movement have won over the past three decades in policy have proved detrimental to the poor, counter-productive for the environment and blind to the economic mechanics of conversation. How many environmentalists have praised China for its 'green' policies, seduced by a decisive rhetoric and draconian population policy. They will often forgive China anything for introducing the one child policy (and killing off its products with smog). 

Now, some in America, have broken away from the romantic notions of sustainability and balance that threaten to undermine the rise in living standards. Known as the environmental modernists, they champion the acceleration of progress and specific research paths that will reduce man's footprint on the earth. As an example, they would try and attract peasants into slums as quickly as possible and then squeeze the slums into attractive high-rises, all within a few decades.

A rejection of the red tinged romanticism that disfigures green politics is overdue and welcome, but many view the space freed up as an opportunity for rewilding: the recreation of a nature without humanity. In practical terms, this is deemed a sucess if an ecosystem comes into being that supports the few large animals left in the wild. Most of the others have been killed off by the Anthropocene. Earlier attempts like wolves in Montana have proved gruesome failures. And wolves in Scotland/England does not appear to be a votewinner, especially as Great Britain's civil service has its hands full cocking up a badger cull.

The support for technological solutions is a useful tradition to adopt and set itself apart from the left-wing irrationalists guided by a reactionary adherence to unproven farming methods and an insistence upon a local community that vanished with English folk culture. Hopefully, this influence will reverse the greenwash that has disfigured our political system for twenty years.  

An Anglosphere reference

The New Criterion has a special issue on the concept of 'The Anglosphere' and its cultural consequences. All articles are behind a firewall but worth perusing. Hopefully, they will be reprinted in a more accessible format.

Ukraine's dilemmas

A number of protests have continued to spell out the 'stable crisis' in the Ukraine that now runs into 2014. Thousands of protestors flocked to celebrate the Western New Year: a date that marks their promotion of Western perspectives and a release from Orthodoxy (in its Greek or Marxist-Leninist variants). A subtext within the prevailing political protest against President Yanukovych.

While they waved their flags, fifteen thousand nationalists marched to commemorate the birthday of Stepan Bandera in 1907. Founder of the League of Ukrainian Nationalist, Bandera is a figure of some controversy, having allied with the Nazis twice during World War 2. A reminder that the history of Ukrainian nationalism is not strewn with liberal democrats. (A run of bad luck for the country as a borderland between two totalitarian visions of modernity). 

Svoboda, the nationalist party, is linked with the protests and this march. A reminder that the people may fly EU flags and yearn for a more respectable country, where laws are followed and bribes are abnormal, yet all remains unclear. The Ukrainians are more nationalist, but are they yet liberal? And will their fellow Russians follow them west?