The Luddites were right.

 This may be a strange idea coming from a software developer. But I will return to that later.

I have been reading Kropotkins "Mutual Aid" recently, and it is an interestsing thesis. What is more, as I watch programmes like Digging for Britain, ther eis a resonance there. Let me explain in my own words - drawn from Kropotkin but my interpretation.

We have an idea - promoted and established throughout our society - that the Western, industrialised world is more advanced than "Primitive" cultures. In particular, the paternalistic, heirarchical society in the best way to be, and the natural organisation for our society.

The truth is, I think, that this is a myth propogated by those who wish to keep their power.

History tells us that the Roman Empire was the peak of civilised society, for all its problems. They made roads, they waters their cities, they protected their people. Those outside were called barbarians, because they didn't have this civilisation. Well, actually, it is beause they didn't speak Latin, and their language sounded like "Bar Bar Bar Bar" to the Romans - this is just the common demeaning of "others" that we see even today (Rees-Mogg is considered to talk sense because he has a posh voice, Rayner is demeaned because she has a Stockport accent).

When the Romans left, of course, the UK fell into the "dark ages" of uncivilised society. Of course, what that means is that the records we have are minimal, the structure of society becomes more hidden. Without the admin and documentation, we assume the society is less "civilised".

The truth is, I think, that it was more civilised. The inequalities, the murder, the rampant empire building of the Romans (under the guise of "Civilising the Natives" as was the British Empire centries later) was corrupt and broken.

"Ah no" those in charge will say. "Look at the monuments they built - that is the indication of their civilisation." Monuments build - usually - with slave labour. To honour someone who was not worthy of it, but had power to make it happen. Often the worst of people. But people wrote about them, so we know - admin and documentation.

I would take the view that these are the indications of a broken society. In many of the "primitive" societies, they communicate their stories and their skills verbally. I would say this represents a far more advanced environment than one where everything is written. Stories told have so much more life and vibrancy to them - this is why we read stories to our children, sometimes even when they are able to read for themselves. This is why poetry that is performed is so much more engaging than poetry on a page.

And skills - well, I know that in my business, documentation is both something I hate doing (along with most others who are developers of some form) and very difficult, because it needs to go into such a lot of detail. Passing on ideas, approaches, concepts is much easier in person. You cannot learn skills form a book, you need a person to work with you. 

And I am also reminded that the film industry also sees this divide. Look at, for example, Avatar. We are definitely encouraged to be on the side of the Na'vi. The people who are the community, who work in harmony with the Earth. And we are expected to be against the RDA, the technologically advanced side. We see it in Lord of the Rings as well. We are always expected to be on the side of the nature-lovers in the films. And yet, in the real world, we are expected to be on the side of the technological teams. And they are not compatible.

 

But what about the Luddites? It is the same thing, in a different context. The mill owners insisted on running things for their own benefit. When they found they could introduce machines to produce their products cheaper, using machinery, they did, and removed the workers. They did this to make more money for themselves - to increase their market share. To keep their money coming in.

The problem here is that, by reducing the VALUE of a product to financial, we don't take into account the HUMAN aspect. If people work together to produce what they need, it is entirely possible to introduce new machinery (as Kropotkin describes) for the benefit of the whole group. By losing this, the ideas of mutual aid are sacrificed to the god of capitalism, and that is why I think the Luddites had it right - they saw the route we were going, that has lead to global outsourcing, and the tragedies like the Dharma collapse. Losing the mutuality is a bad thing - the more advanced societies are, oddly enough, the ones where they do not have the Wests sociopathic capitalism drive and insistence of paternalistic heirachies.

More recent evidence has come from the pandemic times in the UK. The biggest success has been the vaccine rollout - largely done by volunteers, which is the mutual aid principle. Driven by the NHS (which is an example of a mutual aid organisation on a large scale). The biggest disaster has been teh Test and Trace, which was just throwing money and failed to achieve anything.

What if?

 What if the Christian story originated in the North? I mean, not Wigan, just somewhere in more Northern lattitudes, rather than on the Med.

It is a question that struck me recently, with the shorter days here - something that doesn't happen to the same degree in Israel, but is important in the UK and even more so into Scandinavia. I am not saying a different understnading would be better, just that it might be different.

Phrases like "From the rising of the sun to the setting, the Lords name be praised" (Ps 113) - well, in Norway that would mean a couple of hours praising God in the winter, and 22 hours in Summer. This is not the intention of the passage, but the change of day length is so core, so fundamental to those of us in more Northern locations that it would hold a different meaning.

The sense that God departs in the Winter - something that is quite common in folk legend - becomes part of our inherent understnading, whether we mean it or not.

There is a related matter that is also important - in Israel, at around 6:00 in the evening, the sun vanishes, and it turns from light to dark in a matter of minutes. In the more northern places, we have a think called a "sunset". Especially in the summer months, this can be an important part of the sun going down - this transition is significant, and in some places even further North can be very extended. Even to the point where the suns light does not entirely vanish. The low sun, even at this time of year, lightens up the horizon. This is so much a part of our understanding of the evening, it would have featured. The transitional times are at the core of our relationship to the world. The rather black and white interpretation of good and evil that some put on the Bible messages comes from this light and dark relationship to the world.

Maybe in the North, we would have introduced more gray into the equation.

The context was also one of a very consistent seasonal pattern. Of consistent patterns across the year, of hot times and of rain. I am reminded of Luke 12: "When you see a cloud in the West you know it is going to rain". In the UK at least, it just means you are East of Manchester. Clouds not only don't mean rain always, but they don't always mean a lot of rain where you need it. Or when you want it.

Now, of course, farmers do know the patterns and signs of the weather, but it is far more complex than the comparatively simplistic weather patterns seen in Israel and that area. This is why in the UK we always talk about the weather - it is highly unpredictable. This is why the Weather Gods of the Northern lattitudes are seen as a lot more capricious. It is why the mythology of Northern Europe is so much more about a battle with nature, about adapting ourselves to the world, than about rights to land.

That might have proven a much more environmentally sound approach.

Finally, one of the features of Israel is the desert - or wilderness. the barran land, where Jesus went to be tested. In the UK we don't have deserts, and even in the further North locations, the wildernesses are more likely to be ice-deserts. Equally inhospitable, but in a different way, meaning the temptations would be different. I wonder, also, if some of the imagery of Hell would be different - maybe less burning heat, more freezing cold.

 

The conceptions of this world and next are very much based on the environment these stories were developed in. The challenge to those of us living in different environments is to take these stories and images, and understand the messages contained within. And then to re-interpret them in ways that fit and work for us. To see the reality of the divine as it related to us, here and now.

And not to ignore the cultural and environmental influences on the story we tell.

Evil

This came up today in meeting, and I have been thinking around it since - it never quite solidified into anything within the time.

I come from a tradition that tends to personify evil - the Devil or the Demonic. One of the problems with this is that it tends to lead to a combatative idea - which turns into an "Us and Them" mentality: good vs evil. Of course, the Christians are on the side of Good.

I have moved from that position. In fairness, I get why it can be helpful to personify the evil, and the good, to be able to identify these as differing sides to people. But I think we need to understand that there is no "us and them", there is only us. That there is no devil and angel on our shoulders, there are just our own desires and intentions, and we need to balance these to make the right decisions. It is our own responsibility to choose what to do and to take responsibility for those actions.

This came partially from the conviction of Sarah Everards murderer. It is easy to assign this to "an evil person" and so to "other" these types of people, that is, to make them fundamentally not like us, and so deny that there are evil intentions in all of us, that most people manage to control. That is, to deny their humanity, because it is challenging to accept that they share anything with us.

But near the end of meeting, something else happened. I look out over a tree in the park opposite, and it has been interesting to watch it over the year as it changes. Now, of course, the leaves are starting to turn brown as Autumn sets in, and at this moment, the sun shone through it making it glow golden. The reality is that this golden picture is only possible because of the dying of the leaves - it will, in a few weeks, be bare, I am sure. The death of leaves, and the regrowth is part of the life of the tree. Without this death and regrowth, the tree will not grow

And it made me think that the reality of ourselves is that the dark side of ourselves - the parts we might not want to acknowledge - might the parts that make us grow. That make us shine golden. That make us the well rounded people we are. They are part of us and accepting that is how we grow.

Edge of Tomorrow

I am actually watching a film with this title, but it is also referring to the so called "Freedom Day" that is tomorrow (19th July) as I write.

I know that many who are clinically vulnerable are really worried about the relaxing of restrictions, and for then, "freedom" means precisely the opposite - it means they are unable to go out as much.

So it made me consider the difference between "Freedom From" and "Freedom To". There is a lot of celebration of the supposed freedom from restrictions. I totally get that people want to be free from the restrictions put on us - because wearing masks is uncomfortable, and keeping social distance is inconvenient. Yes, I totally want freedom from these restrictions.

But also, we need to see it as freedom to - freedom to wear a mask, to protect others, freedom to act in a way that considers the needs ot other people. That is also freedom.

Freedom always has two sides. I have freedom to use the roads to drive on to get places, but that freedom means that I have a responsibility to drive safely, and it constrains others from their freedom to drive however they like. These restrictions are not that severe, and they make the world safe for all.

For some, it would seem, the need to keep wearing a mask is too far, too much. Some people celebrate freedom day when they no longer have to. But "freedom from" restriction should also mean "freedom to" make the right choices to keep everyone safe. They are no longer legal requirements, but that does not mean they are no longer a good idea, for everyone.

Keep safe.

Deep Adaptation

 So, I have read a paper by Jem Bendall called "Deep Adaptation", not least because it is a core paper for Extinction Rebellion. I was not entirely happy with this paper, and have found some critiques of this. If you want to read the original paper, it is available in many forms online.

It draws on a concept known as Collapsology, which I will also consider later. The core approach is that our society will collapse in the near future, and we need to understand how to deal with this.

As I have argued before, there is a lot of overlap between Quakerism and Anarchism, so you might think I would embrace these ideas wholeheartedly. The problem is that the deliberate introduction of an anarchist society is not the same as a societal collapse - which is (as we have seen in the last years) liable to benefit the wealthy who can use their money initially to remain safe. The society we would have at the end is much more like the nightmare scenario at the end of Atlas Shrugged, not a fair and egalitarian society for all.

So this is the critique of Deep Adaptation. The main problem they have with the original paper is that it is unscientific. This is critical, because Bendall makes leaps of assumption, without evidence, without a justification. He makes claims that are exagerated and not jsutified by the evidence or the science behind this.

A lack of scientific basis does not as such mean that he is wrong. He may be right, the science may be wrong. But the point is that he is making claims based on the science, and that is always dangerous. Right or wrong, there is no actual justification for his claims.

Most importantly, he draws from individual scientists who differ from the consensus argument. These outliers are really important in scientific study - they can sometimes identify issues with the consensus argument, and drive modifications and change to adjust the consensus position. Not to change to the outliers view, but to adjust the core principle to embrace the issues.

Bendall does not do this. He ignores the consensus provided by the IPCC, and focusses on contrasting views. This is worrying, because it is the same approach that the "-deniers" use - climate, vacine, covid: whatever it is, they use the same techniques. They ignore the 99% of scientists and focus on the small number who disagree. It is dangerous in all sorts of ways, not least, because these ideas can then get emphasised and repeated way beyond what they deserve. Because they are then often repeated, they are seen as being authoritive, which they are not.


So, Collapology - an idea based on books like this. The problem with this idea is that it is similarly not really backed by science - not least because there is little science around the collapse of civilisations. Because there are insufficient examples, that are applicable.

Society is changing. In the next decades, we will see some radical changes in the society we live in, because of the challenge of fossil fuels, climate change and who knows what else. We will change, but will we collapse? If - as I can only hope - capitalism is at an end, what would this mean? For some, it would mean something that may appear like collape, but for most people, it would just be a change, a new society, run on different lines. What these lines are we cannot say. But we would still have society.

So Collapology appears to have little real justification either. This doom-mongering is what Roger Hallam of XR is known for. It might help their cause, but for many people it is demotivating. If - as is claimed - our society is inevitably doomed to collapse, why do anything about it? This is a core problem with this approach, and why I struggle with this approach.

I think it is better to argue that we need to change - we need to destroy the capitalist ideaology that destroys everything; we need to change our society to one where all are valued and supported; we need to have a society that exists in harmony with the earth.

Gender is not binary

 I know that I am gooing to get in so much trouble for this, but I would stand by the title. Gender is not binary. People are a mix of male and female, and people exhibit characteristics of their gender identities.

And, yes, some people do not feel comfortable with the gender they are assigned and so should have the chance to change it.

And whenever people say this, the respons is always: "Oh, so you want men to be able to identify as women and invade womens safe spaces?"

And - to me - that just buys into the binary division again. It shouldn't be "womens safe spaces" (Not even getting into the question of what sort of society requires safe spaces for half the population) - maybe cis-womens spaces? Maybe vulnerable females spaces? Defining purely by gender is not what these should be about. And yes, I know that many women feel that they need places where there are no men because of their past experiences, and I support that. But they need defining more clearly - gender is not a good way of specifying these.

"Oh what about toilets then?" Sigh. Well, I think our odd human-created binary division of toilets is itself rather peculiar. I have never quite worked out why we feel a need for shared spaces there anyway. And yes, I do think that some places do need safe spaces as well, for vulnerable people. I think we are confusing messages when we amalgamate these.

 

And then we get to the biblical arguments. Gen 5:2 "Male and female He created them". Well, there are all sorts of issues with this, and I might translate it differently: The (ungendered) divine created humans as (both) male and female. In other words, in each of us is both male and female. 

Now I am not claiming that this is the "right" interpretation - although it does seem to make viable sense. All I am saying is that the traditional understanding is not the only way to understand it. Claiming that there is a "Biblical justification" for a binary gender divide does not hold water.

And there are implications of this in other areas. Complimentarianism is one area: the idea that men and women are "equal but complimentary" which is a teaching very common in some evangelical circles. The thing is, if gender is not binary, the ideas of complimentarianism are invalidated. There are not "assigned roles" to each gender, becasue the genders are not so clearly divided. 

If not binary - if trans people are vallid in terms of who they are - what do I understand? I think - in broad terms - that someone who is born male but understands themselves to be female is not then simply able to define themselves as female. They are then "trans", somewhere on their way to female. They are simply exploring their more female aspects. Like we all should be. Refusing to divide into binary classifications is not a negative thing. It is a positive. It is about acknowledging that we - none of us - are not stereotypes.

I think that is a positive.

 

Spring

So the trees outside my window are just starting to put out leaves - it is odd, because last week there was just sticks and this week all the trees are covered in new leaves. It is a sign of Spring coming!

But not everywhere, of course - we went to near Leicester yesterda and had a walk around a tree garden, and none of the trees had leaves on them. So it is early days - it is just starting to spread northwards.

Sometimes I feel like no more than a leaf on a tree. One of thousands, whose individual contribution is minute. But each leaf on a tree contributes to the whole. And all the trees together are important - the millions of leaves together make up spring, make up the plant life on our planet. Each leaf is a part of this, but each one is important.

Easter is a sign of "new life", and this Easter - for all sorts of reasons - this Easter feel maybe a new start. Maybe just the start of the end of the Covid nightmare. Maybe, the start of the end of so much of what we have seen before - in terms of working, of the capitalism that we have all become so used to, of the political oppression we have experienced for so long. Who knows.

But there is hope. Maybe just a glimmer, but that is enough.