Archive for ‘Daily Life’

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November 12, 2012

End of Hiatus!

It’s been over a month since my last post here. The reason for that is I’ve been really busy attempting to find full time work, copywriting for other blogs and putting together PhD proposals. Now that I’ve found a Christmas job, and I’ve put together one of the two PhD proposals I’m really focusing on, I should be back to posting more frequently!

Thanks for the continued support everyone – I appreciate all the views and likes you’ve been giving me. I’ll be responding to any comments you’ve made in the next couple of days!

Very best wishes,

Jonathan

Posted in Daily Life | 3 Comments »

June 6, 2012

Jubileeway: Thoughts after a weekend of Pageantry

This Tuesday sees the last of many celebrations, marking our monarch’s 60th year on the throne. Reams of bunting, mountains of barbequed meat, oceans of pimms and enough cake to sink a royal yacht have been devoured in honour of Queen Liz – and a merry time was had by all.

Except on Twitter and Facebook, where legions of those I follow have expressed their overwrought frustration about the entire affair. Plenty of people I know have avoided built-up areas because of the doubtlessly thronging crowds; still more have kept their televisions switched off in order to avoid the BBC’s shambolic and obsessive commentary of the whole thing.

 

My mum and dad have been away for most of the weekend – going out to a jubilee party on Sunday and a beacon-lighting ceremony last night. I couldn’t attend the former because I had a friend staying over, nor the latter because I had two blogs to write. But whenever they’ve been in, my mum and to a lesser extent my dad have spent a good couple of hours watching the celebrations in London.

 

Now, I’m not an ardent republican. I have quite a lot of respect for the Queen as an individual, so I think the degree of violent bile certain anti-monarchists tend to vomit in her direction – wishing her dead, that sort of thing – is just horrible. Personally, I feel that when the real power-brokers in our society – large corporations and the big political parties – do great evil on a daily basis; it seems rather odd to get more annoyed about a little appendix of a power-structure like the royal family. There are far bigger fish to fry.

 

But I’ve nonetheless found the jubilee celebrations irritating. For me, the main thing is not who is being celebrated, but what – sure, it’s about Britishness, but what vision of Britishness has the jubilee been used to express? What values flow from it, and underpin it? And where might those values take us as a society?

It’s pretty clear that what’s being invoked with all the funny hats and partying in the rain is the sort of obstinate zeitgeist that characterized the Britain throughout and between the two World Wars – a blitz spirit of pulling together as one nation in the face of adversity. The sheer amount of wanky emoting about how everyone was doing so very well at partying despite the recession and despite the rain was being eagerly pumped straight from the rhetoric of a 1940s public service announcement. Of course, nobody seemed to feel that equating standing out in the wet for a couple of hours and or buying some (reduced in price, numerous in quantity) foodstuffs, to an entire nation fighting for its life, to be poor taste.

 

Despite Wilfrid Owen’s dire warning about the attitude of dulce et decorum est, pro patriae mori in the First War, the British sense of national pride never quite broke under the weight of mass mortality and destruction of the two wars; instead, the heat of battle reforged the tattered remnants of our 1900s swagger into a sort of quieter dignity; gone was the Empire, in its place was a Commonwealth, with a mawkishly nostalgic former colonizer at its heart. Nostalgic not for the glory days of the Raj and British hegemony though, but for a “Finest Hour” that happened immediately afterwards. Instead of believing, as the rest of Europe does, that the Wars were a terrifying part of a collective history that must never repeated, we Brits seem obsessed with them; or at least, who we were whilst under their influence. We still talk of those dark days reverently, even fondly, and have been busily elevating them to the position of a national foundation myth for the past eighty years. It seemed to me that a wartime, Edwardian tone stalked behind the jubilee celebrations; which, combined with the constant obsessing over what Britishness is, Euroscepticism, the continued popularity of Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs, stands as grim testament to our collective sense of awe at our grandparents and great grandparents who fought for us – a sense of awe that sits at the heart of how we think about our national identity.

 

All this is completely understandable, of course. It is only natural that after the transformative experience of two world wars and losing an empire, that Britain should become a very different nation. The nation it has become doesn’t represent what I most love about this place – the magic and the fire and the rustic mysteries of the Isle of the Mighty – but instead this sort of pseudish ironic mashup of the 1950s, the 1890s and the present. But I also note with concern how easily this hero-worship has been used by those in power to silence dissent and to demonize rebellion. Legitimate protest and popular revolt, such profound mainstays of British folk culture since Boudicca, have become almost blasphemous, held up against the sterling example of our (genuinely) brave boys and girls who went off to fight and die without complaint. The spiritual (and sometimes physical) descendants of the very over-privileged dolts who sent our young men to die by the thousands at Ypres and Passiondale are now elevated as the respectable voice of necessity. And yes, they still send our brave soldiers to die in foreign fields – just look at Iraq. While those of us who cry foul at the injustice of it all are decried by those same elites as weasley malcontents. The social justice campaigner is the new “conchie”.

Of course, they will be those who say that the jubilee isn’t about these sort of divisions. But that’s precisely the problem – such events as the jubilee are fully part of the spectacular pageantry of statecraft; serving the explicit purpose of masking the differences between the many echelons of British society, merging us into a single political body – with the head of that body being the Head of State herself. Bathed in the reflected glow of Her Majesty – as we saw during the service of celebration at St Pauls – are the rich and powerful. And the City of London Corporation; the very organization which was instrumental in clearing St Pauls of Occupy; hosted a sumptuous reception after the service. At a time where we more than ever need to hold the wealthy and priviledged to account, we’re being encouraged to wave the flag and proclaim our solidarity, regardless of income. This is as a perversion of the genuine heroism of our forebears; a cunning confidence trick, that makes a mockery of what they stood for.

Posted in "Britishness", Daily Life, Social Anthropology | 2 Comments »

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April 16, 2012

More Beatitude than Platitude? An Open Letter to Cristina Odone

Cristina Odone believes it is ridiculous that Paganism be included in British RE lessons.

Dear Ms Odone.

You recently produced an article condemning the inclusion of Paganism and Druidry as part of the Religious Education syllabus in Cornish schools. You omit, though, that teaching about these faiths is not actually required, merely optional – what is required however, is that 60% of every RE course in this county must be concerned with your own faith of Christianity. It is therefore patently ridiculous for you to claim that our society believes that “one set of belief(sic.) is as good as another.” Christianity still is top dog, being the only faith that it is mandatory for schools to teach our children about.

Of course, the error at the heart of your article – you elide cultural and moral relativism and class this unwarranted merger as a “liberal fear of religious values” – is nothing new. The right wing press (including your erstwhile sparring partners over at The Daily Mail) regularly roll their eyes at any mention of Pagans or other minorities getting greater religious rights; considering such concessions to be the acts of timorous bureaucrats with no discernment when it comes to matters of religious validity.

Such journalists, as you have done, make the allegation that Paganism doesn’t have an ethical compass. Indeed, in reference to your encounter with Emma Restall-Orr on the BBC’s The Big Questions, you said much the same thing – dismissing the ethical teachings she shared on that show as “platitudes” and expressing high dudgeon that such a base occult person as a Druid should be permitted a platform in the high halls of public service broadcasting. Presumably, you believe the BBC’s function is to  “edify” (read “indoctrinate”) everybody in true, good religious values. The alternatives are wishy-washy relativism.

To be honest, I think you’ve fallen into the usual trap of Christians faced with people who aren’t, and assumed that just because we don’t have Abrahamic-style morality, we must not have any morality at all. This could not be further from the truth. We Pagans have very clear moral frameworks – they’re just not like yours.

Pagan ethical teaching, was, I felt, very clearly elucidated by Emma (a Druid, like myself) on The Big Questions, and in a very good book she wrote to answer the questions she received there. To use her words, Pagans believe that the good life is founded upon sustainable relationship. We must always, as moral beings, be sensitive to the needs and situation of all others – only in light of that sensitivity can ethics truly shine. Empathy – the same principle that underpins the Christian Golden Rule – is critical here. This is not simply a principle poached from Christian thought though; it has its origins in the work of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, and beyond. Refusing the special pleading of humanism, modern Pagans attempt to apply empathy universally to create a fully heartfelt ecological perspective.

Despite this shared cornerstone of empathy, though, Pagan ethics are quite different from Christian ones. Christian ethics are heavily influenced by the political views of their day – most notably the Bronze-Age notions of sacral kingship it inherited from Judaism, and the Roman concept of Imperium. In both these political systems, the king-emperor is the absolute autocrat, whose word is law – never (in principle) to be questioned. Ultimate moral authority is therefore invested in the judgements of a single personality; one who is assumed to be uniquely elevated above all others.

All the Abrahamic faiths retain this concept – although, unlike the cultures from which they sprang, in them this role ceases to be filled by humans, and instead is filled by a transcendent god. The primary human role becomes that of the Prophet, the one into whose ear the absent Emperor whispers. The Pope still holds this role for Catholics such as yourself, as Christ’s representative on Earth. For Protestants, it is the Bible who holds such authority.

As a non-Abrahamic faith, modern-day Paganism has no such fondness for autocrats. We acknowledge the fact, as the ancient philosophers of Greece and India did, that true certainty is inaccessible for human minds. This doesn’t deny that the truth is out there (as relativism proper does), it just insists that the human capacity to know that truth is always provisional, no matter what title a person may have. In our view, the Pope, for all his learning and influence, has no greater claim to moral (or metaphysical) authority than you, regardless of which chair he might be sitting on at the time. The Bible might have been written mere decades after god himself (or one of them, anyway) walked the Earth – but that doesn’t guarantee its veracity.

This centralizing of doubt (the technical term is “skepticism”) in fact makes Paganism, Buddhism and other non-Abrahamic traditions far more like Western academia than they are like Christianity, Islam or Judaism, which place much greater stock in faith. This is always painted as faith in God, but it is really faith in whoever or whatever told you about God in the first place – be it man or book. It is an attitude that breeds hierarchy and autocracy.

Pagans believe that there is certainly a right and wrong course of action to take, in any situation. We reach, we fight, we strive to discern what is right, but, because we’re flawed beings, very often we fail. History more often than not reveals shortcomings in our own choices that we could never have imagined at the time of their making. Both our traditions accept this – but rather than give up, crying in the dust of our failures, and hope that some surrogate eternal parent will pick us up and make everything better as the Christians do; we pick ourselves up, and struggle on.  We don’t do this because we want to, often – we do so because it is right. It is necessary. It is ethical. It is, to point to a growing line of thought within Paganism, the heroic thing to do.

In a positive application of the Nietzschean critique of Christianity as the religion of slavery, we Pagans seek an emancipated morality that doesn’t sugar the pill of a life filled with difficult decisions, but treats us as spiritual adults and calls us to embrace responsibility for our mistakes. It allows for a plurality of views. Although there may be one reality behind the plurality of human experiences of it, it is impossible from our perspective that any one experience could grasp that reality completely. Therefore, it is up to us to come together, and discern the most moral course of action from our many insights. Christians do this too of course, but rather than bow and scrape around the supposed divine authority of Pope or Presbyter, we acknowledge the truth of what we are doing, and honour it for what it is – messy, difficult and ultimately finite.

So what? What do these fine words mean for my daily life?

I recycle. I’m kind to others. I’m seeking a job that doesn’t involve working for an organization that exploits or harms the planet. I don’t have a car, because I feel it’s unsustainable. I support democracy and civil liberties. I respect the autonomy of others. I accept the limitations of my own perspective, and despite my critical view of Christianity, I fully support it being taught in RE lessons. Because I know that I might be wrong.

Posted in Daily Life, Paganism | 24 Comments »

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February 21, 2012

Coalition for Marriage: Religious Discrimination?

Lord Carey: Makes me want to bash the bishop, and not in a good way.

This week, in anticipation of an impending public consultation in Britain on marriage equality for same-sex couples, a group of influential voices, both secular and spiritual, have banded together to produce The Coalition for Marriage – an umbrella organisation for all those who aren’t keen on “gay marriage” becoming a thing. The most famous voice amongst this collection of bishops, MPs and peers is Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who has recently published an article in the Daily Mail about this topic.

Now, as a gay guy, I’m sure my feelings about this are obvious. But I’m not going to bother responding directly to the points made on The Coalition for Marriage website – that has already been done beautifully elsewhere by Martin Robbins of The Guardian. Instead, I’m going to talk about the two reasons why I think gay marriage is a good, nay, necessary thing.

Good in many cases, but should it be the ideal?

1) Gay romance needs to be celebrated: In Lord Carey’s article, he cites the definition for marriage lying in an “ideal” formula for childrearing – the heterosexual couple. This is a pretty straightforward attitude – marriage is about children, and children require two parents, of opposite gender, who love one another, and are married.

Now, this definition has all sorts of problems with it. Lots of straight marriages are childless, for starters, and I don’t see Lord Carey campaigning for them to be forced into having civil partnerships instead. And certainly when a couple announce their engagement, the immediate question isn’t “Oh great! When’s the baby due?” As for children needing straight parents to come out well-adjusted, there is simply no evidence for this. Children need parents; the idea that the genitals of those parents are of any remote significance after the act of conception borders on the ridiculous.

What marriage is certainly about is romantic love. To get married, one should have a deep romantic connection with the other person concerned; getting hitched, living together, and (potentially) having children subsequently are all framed in light of this devotional norm.

However, binding this romantic aspect, childrearing, and heterosexuality into an “ideal” causes real problems, and not just for gay people. By taking the stance of “if everything goes to plan, you’ll be married with kiddies eventually”, a huge number of people are instantly marginalised. Gay people, celibate people, asexual people, people who don’t have children. A lot of my female friends who are post-menopausal, single, and childless express a great deal of sorrow about their situation, and fear the future. The reason they feel so destitute is the same reason why I stayed in the closet for years as a teenager; attachment to idealised heterosexuality.

When I was a kid, I didn’t even know what being gay was. Despite having had a great number of gay crushes from an early age (Aladdin was a particular favourite), I just didn’t link those feelings to sexuality. Instead, I figured love would suddenly make sense and just happen when I was older. When I hit puberty and put two and two together, I immediately rejected the possibility of being gay out of hand: I wanted to get married and have kids. I’m a romantic. How could I be gay? Homosexuality, to my eyes, was something not quite as good as fitting the “ideal”.

I never feared that my parents would reject me. I knew I could rely on their love and support, no matter what. The homophobia I had to deal with was internalised; a gift from a society that touted fecund heterosexuality as the ideal, and anything else as a bit of a shame. Of course, I now know differently. Gay love is just as romantic as straight love. Heteros and homos can be just as slutty, just as devoted, as each other. It’s all about choice.

Now, you might ask how gay marriage would change this. Well, it would allow me to send a signal. To shine with the love I may one day have for another man, in such a way that kids going through what I went through might see that the breeder ideal is only one story about love that can be written.

Of course, other people may disagree. My pain, and the resonance it might have with secret pangs felt by those they love, might be immaterial before the decree of a patriarchal god, an essentialist goddess, or tradition, or whatever. That’s fine. In a liberal society, they have as much right to believe that as I do to disagree. But the law should not choose for us. And at the moment, it does. I cannot scream out the truth of my love, and honour that which I feel to be right, in the same way that they can. And this brings me to my second point:

Handfasting: Older than Christian marriages, as it happens, which only became the norm in 1215.

2) The law currently breaches religious freedoms: This might seem an odd thing to claim, given the fact that the major argument given by many anti-gay marriage campaigners is that their religious right to disapprove might be infringed upon, but there’s real sense to it. Let me explain:

I’m Pagan. Although I don’t like describing my path as a “religion”, it covers much the same territory as the social forms most usually assembled under that term. So I have a right to practice my faith as well as I like.

We Pagans believe in marriage. We believe that the gods honour the commitments lovers make to one another through the rite of handfasting; where one can bind oneself to another/s for a year and day, for a lifetime, or for all eternity. We also believe (by and large) that gay relationships can be honoured in this way, drawing inspiration from a piece of inspirational lore known as the Charge of the Goddess, that affirms that “All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.” If a relationship is done in this spirit, it is sacred, and can be acknowledged as such in ritual space.

As the law stands, though, a Pagan handfasting of two men (say) cannot be legally binding in the same way as a Christian marriage. If I wanted to get married, even if I booked the handfasting at a registered wedding venue with a registered Pagan celebrant, I would nonetheless not be able to enter into a civil partnership at the same time, because according to the Civil Partnerships Act, there cannot be any religious activity of any kind during the process of registering the union. The same issue is proving problematic for gay Quakers and reform Jews; despite our religious communities believing gay unions to be as sacred as any, our beliefs and practices in this regard are not recognised, and are actively forbidden, because the law currently reflects the views of more powerful religious groups.

If there was any more blatant example of the infringement of religious rights, I’d like to hear it. And yet, we have bishops aplenty, bemoaning the potential ramifications for their homophobic, largely deserted sees if the law changes, despite the fact that current protections for freedom of religion would apply to any change in the laws on marriage. They can keep to their nasty, antediluvian principles – nobody is trying to stop them. They just need to stop standing in the way of the rest of us taking a different road.

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February 15, 2012

Dyspraxia: How to lose friends and alienate people

Dyspraxia can make you feel like an ugly duckling, even when everybody else has graduated to swan-hood.

 

I’ve just got back from a wonderful evening of poetry and panto, gathered under the banner of queerness. The poetry was incredible, filled with a mixture of fairytale, gritty honesty and a gleeful reclaiming of nature from essentialistic gender binaries. The panto was hilariously subversive, casting Baroness “Scratcher” as the evil, greedy stepmother, with Boris Johnson and David Cameron as her sexist and secretly BDSM-loving ugly sisters. The protagonist, a bisexual and newly assertive Cinders, scored with the secretly lesbian Princess Charlotte and ended up forming a blissful polyamorous union with her new beau and her panromantic, asexual partner Buttons. Incredible! Props to the Lashings of Ginger Beer team for an utterly stupendous performance.

But despite really enjoying myself, I noticed something a little disquieting; how uncomfortable I still occasionally feel in queer spaces. This isn’t because of any suppressed bigotry on my part or any of the usual political grievances that some queer writers complain of (too many male voices, too much emphasis on fitting in/not fitting in) though. I’m confident I’m not guilty of the former, and the evening was laudibly balanced and harmonious. No, it’s about something quite personal – my being dyspraxic.

In essence, queer spaces place a huge level of emphasis upon concern for others. New social rules – such as asking a person what pronouns they use to describe themselves before using any to refer to them – and a general push towards gentleness and care when dealing with others is part of what makes queer spaces so wonderful and welcoming. Indeed, all of this is entirely intentional. The problem is, that for a person who finds social interactions difficult (such as sufferers of autism, or dyspraxics like myself), this kind of environment can be counter-intuitively threatening. As most people come to these places as a refuge from an often hostile and unsympathetic world, barriers and defences are lowered, which makes the chance of a stray word or careless gesture causing genuine hurt or offense all the greater. Rules are put in place to prevent this from happening, but if picking up social rules doesn’t come naturally, it is only too easy to foul up without meaning to.

This Imbolc, during an encounter with the goddess Brigit, I suddenly realised how scared I am of such tenderness. My fear is not so much of being hurt, but of unintentionally hurting others. I noticed this fear again today in the swirl of neurosis that gripped me as I spoke to people. Would my usage of the word “dude” to refer to, well, everybody, be offensive here? Am I subconsciously reacting to anybody in a way that makes them uncomfortable? Am I using inaccurate pronouns without realising it?

All this came to a head when somebody candidly admitted to me, after having only met me seconds before, that they had suffered from an eating disorder, and that it was still affecting their health. My reaction, intended by me to show support, gave both them and the other person we were both speaking to the impression that I had as well. I haven’t. When I clarified, the familiar awkwardness that appears when you’ve broke an unspoken rule appeared – a kind of abject unravelling of sociality, when the spell of social confidence that you tirelessly weave shatters utterly, and people realise that you’re weird, or rude, or possibly both. The bystander almost cursorily claimed that I’d given them that impression too – which felt like an act of summarily-offered judgement on my social failing – and they both vanished soon after. Had I really offended them? I don’t know. It’s difficult for me to say. Once you fall into the pit, it’s very difficult to trust your own ability to gauge the social temperature of your interactions aymore. They might have just been swept away from me in the tumult of the meet and greet in the interval. Then again, they might not.

None of this is meant to be a criticism of queer or other loving spaces, of course. I’m not saying for a moment they should change, or that all the rules of courtesy they’ve created are unfair. Personally, I think something as simple as checking somebody’s pronouns should be a standard everybody should follow. But I just feel it’s worth remembering that discourtesy isn’t always due to bigotry or genuine hatred; sometimes, it is literally about people just not knowing the rules (yet). Those who suffer with ASDs face real challenges when it comes to the shifting towards a more respectful world. In a funny sort of way, being high-functioning makes matters worse, as people don’t realise how much effort you put in to being “normal”. They assume you’re just like everybody else, until you fuck up and say something out of turn.

So yeah, I’m a bit scared of other queer folk. Not because I don’t like them, but because I like them so much, I don’t want to unintentionally wound them in their trust.

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April 6, 2011

More on the 26th…

All of us knew what we were marching against. But what is the alternative?

I suppose it is all ancient history now, given that the legislation has already passed, the pundits have commented and the articles they wrote are now so much fish-and-chips wrappings, but I still feel compelled to write a little something about my experiences of the protests on the 26th of March, and of the subsequent media attention.

For me, the whole day was exhausting, amazing and heartening. Despite the police’s activities in Oxford Street and Piccadilly, the main protest had a carnival atmosphere and was all-in-all good-natured. I don’t actually feel inclined to put the boot in about the black block and the supposed “thugs” who tore up Fortnums, the Ritz and Santander, because ultimately I have a-lot of sympathy with the raw feelings they were expressing. There are times when I’d like to take a baseball bat to the demiurges of corporate consumerism (the institutions, I hasten to add, not the people) – but I don’t because I believe that violence begets more violence. So instead of grandly condemning them as criminals, I do what, frankly, politicians should be doing, and interpret the destruction of property as a sign that there is at least one section of society that isn’t being listened to. Furthermore, when the police willfully deceive protestors about their intentions, my instinct is that further adding to the hysterical vilifications is not a good idea.

All in all, I met a collection of wonderful, passionate people, all of whom believed passionately that there is another way of running a country. I also met some non-protestors, who believed adamantly that there wasn’t. The question they asked was a simple one, and one that I’ve been thinking about a-lot – “What is the alternative?” This sentiment was not one merely voiced by the owner of a cornershop I spoke to; it is one I have heard from the lips of many people who aren’t involved in the resistance against the cuts agenda.

I think the fact that a large part of the public are asking this question illustrates a deeper issue. The Left have, since the fall of state socialism, faced a singular lack of a unifying vision. Direct state control of the market is no longer a concept which has much political backing, from anybody outside the SWP. Deprived of what was for decades was the foundation-stone of our political-economic model, the Left has been reduced to quibbling over details. “The Free Market is great, of course” people seem to say “but couldn’t we tax the rich a little more? Increase welfare programmes maybe? Or regulate the corporate sector more strictly?”

Well yes, we could. And sometimes we do. The Labour Party made great strides in providing public services that helped redistribute the wealth that corporations create. But the problem with this system is quite clear – it’s fundamentally disempowering. Rather than giving working class people control over their own finances and working lives, through a welfare-based system you essentially make them clients of the state. It’s a benevolent dictator, but a dictator nonetheless. They can, of course, make use of this largess to hop across the class boundary,  go to a good university and get a job as a lawyer or a doctor, but that doesn’t really solve the problem:  you will always have people who aren’t academically inclined enough to get the qualifications necessary to make the jump to a higher-paid job. Furthermore, as service-dominated though our economy is, you will always need cleaners, orderlies, binmen and shop assistants. The question of who cleans the loos in a socialist utopia is, I think, worth considering.

Basically, Labour’s way of doing things (and I’m parroting Phillip Blond here) creates a system of clientage. Interpreted in those terms, the direction we were marching in a fortnight ago seems a rather bleak one – we were marching in favor of keeping the state as our feudal overlord, rather than having to be passed into the greedy hands of corporate, unaccountable monopolies. But there’s a bigger problem. If you accept that the current economic system is fundamentally on the right track, then you can’t argue with the market’s demands for deficit reduction. The size of our deficit spooks international investors, which means the country is less able to borrow money, which makes us a more risky investment, which spooks investors… basically, we become an economic pariah. In other words, even if redistribution of wealth were a good idea – in the current economic system we’re being held to ransom by the whims of global capitalist interests and the international financial institutions that represent them. They want to make a profit, and if we look unprofitable, we won’t get any of the investment we need from them.

So what’s the alternative? Clearly, the sort of stuff the mainstream left is discussing (Keynesian fiscal stimulation, delayed cuts) isn’t really plausible, given the dominance of capitalist vested interests. It seems to me that a much better direction to move in (the REAL alternative, if you’ll forgive the rhetorical flourish) would be a radical redistribution of ownership – so that instead of allowing corporate fat-cats or political oligarchs to hold all the power, we redistribute of power (rather than wealth) throughout society.

Now, this clearly sounds somewhat “Big Society”-esque. And to be honest, I’m not ashamed of that. Me and David Cameron live in a similar part of the world (we both live in leafy, rural Oxfordshire); one that is characterised by a healthy amount of volunteering, social entrepreneurship and community sentiment. But unlike Big Dave, I don’t believe that you can just expect the society to kick in if you roll-back state support from deprived and economically stagnant areas. Our inner-cities, our isolated rural areas, our poor need help. But the help they need isn’t (just) handouts. What they need is reform – reform of the economy on which they rely, so that instead of being tied to ever greater growth, it gives everyone the opportunity to work meaningfully, and to get a fair and decent return on that investment of labour. To be honest, I think that’s not just an alternative – it’s the only real option.

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March 27, 2011

Beginning with a protest…

Okay, so my first post on wordpress! I should probably introduce myself – my name is Jonathan Woolley – I’m 22, and I’m currently an MPhil student at the University of Cambridge. I’m a practicing Pagan Druid and I’m gay.  I was at the cuts protest yesterday, so as you can guess – I’m a raging lefty.

What can you expect to see here? Well, I plan on writing on articles that cluster around three areas in particular: social anthropology, paganism and authorship.  They’re the three things that dominate most of my time, and are what I’ve been interested in since a very early age, even if at the time I didn’t really have a word for the first two!

Social (or cultural) anthropology has about a billion definitions depending upon who you ask, but is basically the study of the human condition through the method of ethnography – the creation of textual or visual representation of a culture, developed through living and studying with that culture. I happened on social anthropology thanks to my mum suggesting that it might be good option for me at undergrad, as I was interested in both natural science and religious studies. That proved to be a winning suggestion, as I’m now planning on going on to do a PhD in the damn thing. My main interest is in the anthropology of religion, particularly in the religious experience and moral interaction with the environment. I’ve also got an interest in elements of political economy.

My anthropology posts here will probably deal with these topics, but only very generally – in the end, I more see this blog as an outlet for the more general musings I have on anthropological themes. So it’s going to be “academically informed” rather than academic, and the ideas I air here won’t be as rigorously worked-out as the ones you’ll find in one of my essays or articles. I’ll also try to keep to clear, non-technical language to make good on my promise to myself to make anthropology “accessible” – whatever that means.

Paganism is an umbrella term for a collection of nature-revering spiritual movements and traditions. Some people stretch this to include Indigenous Religions, Hinduism, African Traditional Religion, Shinto, Daoism etc but usually Paganism is used to refer to the rejuvenated practice of pre-Christian forms of spiritual practice in Europe and the Near East. In my case, I’m an initiate of the Bardic Grade of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, one of Britain’s largest druid orders. I’ve been a member for about a year, and I regularly attend the camps OBOD members hold down in the west-country. Like many Pagans, I’ve always felt like a Pagan, it’s just that in the past couple of years I’ve taken to changing the way I define my religion to better reflect my beliefs and practices. I incorporate activism, creativity and theology into my practice – so expect to see articles on all the following here.

Authorship is my primary creative medium. As of now, I have just finished my first novel, working title A Frog Among Men. I love writing so much, and find the work of crafting a story, setting and characters to be exhilirating in the extreme. I’d ultimately like to be a professional writer, but considering how competitive writing is I’m also keeping several other irons in the fire. My primary interests in literature are fantasy, sci-fi, historical, spiritual and dystopian/utopian fiction. However, I’m utterly terrible at listing what books I’ve read and/or like, because my memory for title-dropping is so poor. I’ve read my way through half a forest by now, but ask me to name who I read last and who my favourite author is, and I’ll have to sit down and think about it. I might write an article on this in the future, but primarily I’ll be discussing my creative process on this blog.

So that’s what you can expect from me. Updates… let’s say Mondays and Thursdays. See how that goes.

Posted in Daily Life, Paganism, Social Anthropology, Writing | 1 Comment »

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