Germany: a few thoughts and impressions

https://markenglish.substack.com/p/brief-travel-update-germany?r=3knty7

A few thoughts and personal impressions garnered from my twelve-week stay.

Travel notes: thoughts and observations from Germany, Belgium and Albania

For the past fifteen months I have been travelling in Europe, staying successively in Greece, Bulgaria, Malta, England, Germany, Belgium and Albania. I'm now back in Germany.

I've published occasional pieces on these wanderings but nothing for more than four months now. Here, then, are some recent thoughts and observations on specific places and on Europe in general.

Economic and social problems are everywhere evident, and are getting worse. The cultural decline (or "forgetting") which accompanies these changes — a long, drawn-out process which seems to be gathering pace — has always disturbed me. And, though it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth and resilience of the cultures of Europe and the values which they represent, forces hostile to these values have created in recent years what feels like a dangerous instability.

The natural world is important to me also, both in itself and in terms of how it has influenced and is influenced by regional and national cultures. In places to which I have a connection and/or feel some kind of affinity, I like to be able to identify at least the most common local species (especially birds, animals and trees). I happened to mention this fact to a knowledgeable English friend (the French adjective moqueuse would fit her well) as we walked in the garden of her home in a picturesque part of southern England. Pointing towards a nearby field she said, “Those are black sheep, those are white sheep.”

I spent the first week of September in Dortmund and found it nondescript and a bit unkempt, but my stay was pleasant. There was a park near my hotel to walk and relax in; easy shopping; very friendly and obliging people; a good U-Bahn network linked to a manageable Hauptbahnhof.

From Dortmund I travelled by train (via Cologne, Aachen and Liège) to Namur, the Wallonian capital, and later to Charleroi. National and local elections were held while I was staying in Namur which I did not follow closely but election slogans, graffiti and general conversation reflected social polarization and were very much in line with recent trends across Europe.

Charleroi isn’t a pretty or prosperous city but where I was based (on Place Verte, a pedestrian precinct only a short walk from the main station) there was evidence of new business investment and no obvious signs of social conflict.

In the mid-1930s, an extreme conservative and corporatist political movement and party, the Rexists (after the Latin phrase for Christ the King), was formed in Belgium by Léon Degrelle. It persisted during the German occupation and Degrelle himself fought for the Germans with the Walloon Legion on the Eastern Front. Rexists played prominent roles in government during the occupation and were a target for the local Resistance. Late in the war, there was much civil violence and tit-for-tat killings between these groups. The only memorial I saw which mentioned the Rexists was a plaque on a presbytery wall in central Charleroi honouring a prominent priest, Pierre Harmignies, who was murdered by Rexists in 1944.

Most war memorials in Belgium commemorate soldiers who died during the Great War. There was one, I noticed, in Queen Astrid Park in central Charleroi at which flowers had been laid. A few metres away stands another, more modest, war memorial featuring the representation of a pigeon with wings outstretched atop a pillar with the simple inscription: AU PIGEON SOLDAT.

I mentioned the pigeon memorial to my unsentimental English friend who subsequently made an oblique allusion to it in an email. She won’t mind my quoting her, I’m sure: “Autumn colours seem to be late this year but I am looking out at oak and ash trees that are turning golden brown and already the pigeons and field fares have stripped the berries from the holly (if only some of the former could be sent to The Front!).”

My recent stay in Tirana was more educational than enjoyable. Though the hotel was good, the surrounding area was not, particularly in terms of pedestrian and other local infrastructure. There was nowhere pleasant to walk and no acceptable public transport (other than taxis). As a consequence I breakfasted in the hotel restaurant every day and spent a lot of time in my room. Fortunately the hotel staff (local people) were friendly and easy to talk to and I had positive encounters with a few other Albanian nationals. One was a young man who was on the same flight as me out of Tirana. I noticed that he went out of his way to help a frail woman whom he didn’t know to alight from a tarmac bus and walk to the crowded arrivals hall at Niederrhein Airport where airport staff took over and ushered her through.

Though most of the people I spoke to in Albania were aware of — and frustrated by — government corruption, I didn’t see much evidence of overt political activism there. Nor did I witness the social and religious frictions which are so evident elsewhere in Europe. No doubt there was a lot going on beneath the surface however — these are just impressions from a three-week visit.

The country’s Ottoman past has left indelible marks on religious and other practices and cultural links with Turkey and the Levant persist. This despite the fact that, for more than four decades following World War 2, Albania was governed by a hardline Stalinist (and increasingly isolationist) regime.

I did manage to develop a daily walk routine centred on the mainly residential area behind the hotel in which the streets and lanes are set out — and not in a planned way — like a complicated maze with many dead ends. The “river” on the map turned out to smell like a sewer and its banks looked like an unofficial rubbish dump (building waste etc.).

Car wash businesses operated in virtually every significant street (a consequence of the combination of poor roads and parking areas and a car-proud population). Lots of good German cars. The city of Tirana has no metro and the country has no rail network. Peak-hour traffic is horrendous.

Along the back streets in which I walked, women and old men pushed wheelbarrows with mysterious cargoes. There were some grand houses, but most were shabby. Albanian flags were displayed in private homes and businesses, hung from balconies etc.. National day celebrations had occurred just after my arrival but many of the flags had not been taken down weeks later.

The national anthem or hymn to the flag is basically a call to fight — and die. Strangely the focus in the song seems to be on dying rather than on winning. A warrior culture, certainly. “... From war abstains only he who a traitor is born...”

The children seemed unusually well-behaved. Given the many Christmas trees and fairy lights in private homes, I assumed the area I was in was predominantly Christian. But there was also a significant Muslim presence. Though most of the women I saw were unveiled, quite a few wore the hijab.

My main Albanian interlocutor at the hotel was a Muslim married to an Orthodox Christian. She only wore a head-covering when going to the mosque or to church, she said. There was a mosque nearby and, depending on the depth of my sleep at the time, I would hear early-morning prayers (around 5 am).

Though I had used up (in Belgium and Germany) 88 of my allotted 90 visa-free days (per 180 days) in the Schengen zone, I decided to fly to Germany and invoke a little-known bilateral visa-exemption agreement dating back to the 1950s which allows Australian citizens 90 days in Germany irrespective of previous Schengen country visits so long as certain conditions are met.

I entered Germany (as mentioned previously) via Niederrhein Airport, a very small and isolated facility close to the Dutch border which has been misleadingly dubbed Düsseldorf Weeze by Ryanair. (It’s nowhere near Düsseldorf.) Not so long ago the airport was an RAF base known as Laarbruch.

The border police I dealt with there were not fluent in English and I don’t speak German. They scanned my passport and the system indicated that I would have to depart Germany within 48 hours. I tried to put my case and showed them on my phone a brief explanation of the longstanding visa-exemption agreement from an official German source, but the text was in English and the officer did not read it. Three of them discussed the matter between themselves, asking me the occasional question. Then suddenly it was all smiles and thumbs up on their part as my passport was finally stamped and handed back to me but I have no way of knowing what caused the change of heart. Given that the arrangement doesn’t involve a visa or written authorization, there could conceivably be trouble on my departure from Germany and the Schengen zone but I don’t expect there will be.

It was very cold and almost dark by the time I boarded a local bus which took me from the airport to a train station in a small town nearby (Weeze). And it was completely dark when the train to Düsseldorf arrived. I enjoyed the warmth of the train for the hour-long journey, secure in the knowledge that my hotel was within easy walking distance of the Hauptbahnhof. No more checkpoints or complicated connections.

Travelling independently and (to a certain extent) off the beaten track does pose challenges but so far they are proving manageable. And on this latest journey it was gratifying to realize that others (including younger people and native German speakers) did not necessarily know what I knew or had figured out. Once or twice I was able to help rather than being the one asking for advice or directions.

Having spent a month in Düsseldorf and having quite enjoyed getting to know the city (or parts thereof), I have now bought a train ticket to Dortmund. (I had been planning to stay longer in Düsseldorf actually, but there is a big trade fair coming up and hotel room rates are rising rapidly.)

Future movements are uncertain but the plan to stay in Germany until the spring still looks attractive.

Coming to terms with cultural change in Europe

I haven't been writing much lately but it is important to me to keep some sort of diary going which is accessible to friends, relations and other interested parties. My focus lately has been on Substack but I also want to keep this site active. Reprinted here, then, is my latest Substack piece which has the somewhat unwieldy title, Old memories, current realities: coming to terms with social and cultural change in England and Europe and finding a long-lost friend...

For me the past year has been a time of travel, observation and reflection, and I intend to continue this itinerant lifestyle for the foreseeable future. Not everything has gone smoothly but things have gone well and happily enough for me to want to continue the experiment.

My geopolitical views and opinions have, on the whole, been reinforced as I have followed the events in Ukraine and other areas of conflict or potential conflict. And I have deepened my knowledge of the changes that have occurred and are occurring in Europe and Great Britain, having spent considerable time in the Balkans, Malta and the U.K.. The last six months, spent entirely in England, has been a particularly significant and emotional time for me as I have slowly come to terms with current British social, cultural, political and economic realities.

Though they often become entangled, the personal has always been more important to me than the political. Old memories gain a new lease of life when they are activated and added to, and this process — which can be painful and confronting — has been driving my thoughts and feelings lately in all sorts of ways. I’ve always been fascinated by time and the dynamics of memory, and I’m not alone here: it’s been a perennial literary theme from (at least) the early modern era.

Cultural traditions (including literary and artistic ones for those so inclined) make us who we are. For me, literature and film are important in two main ways: in so far as they reflect the cultures in which they arose; and for the ideas which drive them. Naturally we are drawn to works which reflect a culture with which we feel a strong affinity, attitudes which we share and ideas which we find stimulating.

Artworks only justify themselves, in my view, to the extent that they shape, shake or comfort us; that is, to the extent that they touch individuals at a deep level and nourish the various cultural and transcultural values that we all embody (and so bring to life and carry forward).

I recently had some personal encounters which got me thinking about these matters and about time and memory but privacy concerns prevent me from giving an account of the most significant of these meetings and the communications which led up to it. This encounter involved seeing again an English couple I had not seen or been in touch with for decades.

There is a personal dimension to the story and also a cultural one. The woman in question — who, I readily admit, had made a much greater impression on me than I had on her — influenced my cultural attitudes quite deeply when I was in my twenties. It was fascinating and satisfying to make contact again after so long, and in an England which has changed so radically.

Part of the interest related to seeing to what extent our respective values and attitudes had changed in response to these broader changes as well as to growing older. (Not a lot, as it happens!) But part of the interest was — as is often the case with long-delayed reunions — simply in discovering who remembered what in regard to prior interactions.

The moral of the story (were it to be told) would probably be something along these lines: that the persistence of values and character traits in the respective parties is more important for the possible continuation of a disrupted friendship than a perfect congruence of shared memories.

Calmer and marginally less pessimistic (at least on a personal level), I am leaving England for Germany tomorrow.

Trying out Substack

Here is a link to my latest Substack piece:

https://markenglish.substack.com/p/towpath-reflections

If this Substack site (called Parsing the Parade) gets some traction I may put my main focus there and put my other sites on the back burner. At this stage, however, it is just an experiment.

Submit your email address and new posts (one every few weeks perhaps?) will be sent to your email inbox. It's free, and it's easy to unsubscribe at any time.

Here is a general link to Parsing the Parade: https://markenglish.substack.com

Outpatient at Mater Dei

Back in December, when I was in Sofia, I noticed a dark, more-or-less rectangular shape in my field of vision when I opened my right eye after sleeping but which resolved itself after a few seconds. It was obviously a symptom of something but, as it wasn't affecting my life in any way and as it appeared to be stable from day to day, I decided not to see a specialist.

In January, after talking to friends about it, I finally decided to act. I was staying in Malta at the time at a hotel which happened to be within walking distance of a large public hospital (Mater Dei). I went there to make enquiries and was directed to the emergency department. They organized an immediate examination by an ophthalmologist; no red tape or bureaucratic obstruction. Laser treatment was recommended and a booking for the next day was made for me at the hospital's ophthalmology outpatients clinic. The purpose of the treatment was to seal a retinal tear which had already healed itself naturally but which could (I was told) be made safer.

The treatment was quite an experience. The doctor, a young woman, seemed at first to be having a bit of trouble. It wasn't going quite as she wanted or expected. With my approval she turned up the power. The long laser blasts were still not having the desired result however. Apologies, and another tweak upwards on the power dial. This happened three or four times.

The bright yellow blasts seemed to go deeper and deeper and were painful in a dull, edge-of-consciousness sort of way. It was quite unlike the sharp pain of a dentist's drill. A couple of times the doctor stopped and took a short break, presumably for my benefit but maybe for hers also. Normally a bit of a wimp about pain, I played the stoic this time because, for obvious reasons, I didn't want to move my head or distract her in any way. Eventually her supervisor took over and added some final touches (with short bursts and a lighter hand).

At a follow-up appointment a couple of weeks later at the same clinic, the eye was examined by another doctor who recommended no further treatment. My response: relief, cautious optimism and a renewed focus on stress minimization, hydration and diet.

Before having the treatment I had asked around about Mater Dei Hospital (positive responses), and also did a quick Google search which indicated that standards were high but waiting times could be long. Not in ophthalmology apparently. As a foreigner from a country which has a reciprocal health care agreement with Malta, I was impressed by the quick and no-nonsense way I was integrated into the system and treated.

Maltese culture and language

My first introduction to Malta was via my childhood stamp collection and some richly coloured, colonial-era stamps. Subsequently, as a student, I came across Samuel Taylor Coleridge's account of his sixteen-month stay in 1804-5. He was struck by how noisy the place was.

There's still a lot of noise here 220 years later. Too many cars, for example. The local driving style is pretty aggressive and road rules are rarely enforced. Double parking is endemic and you often hear car horns being sounded aggressively and repeatedly by the angry owners of blocked-in vehicles. Overall, I would characterize the culture as free and easy, verging on the chaotic.

Maltese is a very unusual language. Its grammatical structure and morphology derive from an old form of Arabic (Siculo-Arabic) while much of its lexicon derives from Italian and other European languages (including English). Since independence in 1964, the Maltese language has been strongly promoted and supported by the government and official bodies (with a bit of help from the European Union since 2004).

In general, I am not a supporter of keeping languages alive via legislation and regulation. Language change and death is a natural process and individuals should as far as possible be free to choose what language or languages they want to speak and what language or languages their children should speak and be educated in. I recognize, however, that language policies of one kind or another are necessary in multilingual jurisdictions and decisions must be made. The way I see it, something is gained and something is lost either way when it comes to a choice between promoting a local language (or dialect) as against a more widely-spoken and professionally useful one.

As I understand it, the policy during British colonial times was to promote the use of English and standard Italian rather than Maltese. Italian is still spoken, though it is less prevalent than it was.

English remains an official language and is taught in schools but proficiency varies greatly and most locals (including young professionals) are more comfortable speaking Maltese. The situation is slowly changing however. Survey data indicates that Maltese under-20s are more likely to favour English and identify English as their first language than other age groups.

Anti-colonial sentiments are still evident here. I noticed, for example, that Malta's period as a British Crown Colony was referred to as the "British occupation" on an official plaque displayed outside Malta Police General Headquarters in Floriana. How deeply this kind of attitude runs amongst the general population is hard to say. Not very deeply, I suspect. It should be noted that before becoming a British Protectorate in 1800 and a Crown Colony soon thereafter, Malta had for more than 600 years been part of (or, during the period when it was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem, a vassal state of) the Kingdom of Sicily.

On the whole, people here seem very laid back and friendly and not at all weighed down by post-colonial resentments. Their patriotism generally manifests itself (as one might expect in such a tiny nation) as a cultural phenomenon, as pride in cultural identity, rather than as something political or militaristic.

There are dark aspects to Maltese society, however. They are mainly related (as far as I can ascertain) to racial frictions and to organized crime and corruption. On the latter issue, a local journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was killed by a car bomb in 2017 and people still leave flowers at a memorial set up to honour her memory.

In Bulgaria

My lack of knowledge of the Bulgarian language has made it difficult for me to get beyond a superficial understanding of the country but the very fact that so many people here (including the young) are strongly committed to their language and culture is revealing.

Compared to Athens, Sofia seems gentler and more congenial. Bulgaria is clearly a poor country, but I think it’s safe to say that the economic situation here is not as dire as the situation in Greece. Greece struck me as a very unhappy country indeed, with abundant signs of psychological stress, anger and resentment in sections of the population. Such signs are less evident here.

There are countless reminders of Bulgaria’s Communist history, both physical (older buildings and infrastructure) and psychological (culture and attitudes). But whether the apparent Stoicism of the not-so-well-off is due to the country’s experience during the Cold War or something older and deeper I do not know.

I found the metro in Sofia more pleasant to use than the Athens metro. But one day, hurrying to board a departing train, I was not quite quick enough to entirely clear the rapidly closing doors. The doors caught and crushed my small backpack so that, for a few seconds, I was pinned to the doors and unable to move.

This was an old, square-fronted Soviet-era train, one of the few still operating. The carriage interior, from the floor covering to the seating to the ventilation and heating system, was markedly different from any other metro carriages I had seen here. But the most striking feature (pun intended) were the automatic doors which closed with sudden and vicious force. Guillotine-like. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.

As it happens, I have had no health insurance cover while in Greece or Bulgaria and so am living dangerously. I thought that so long as I took reasonable care and avoided wild, wooded areas (there are wolves and bears apparently) I would be safe. Little did I realize that even in boring parts of town (to which I tend to gravitate) hazards abound.

On the roads for example. It’s amazing how ingrained one’s intuitions are about traffic flows. This applies to pedestrians as much as to drivers, and if virtually all one’s prior experience was gained in countries where traffic drives on the left-hand side, it’s so easy to step off the curb at the wrong time and walk under a passing bus.

Even some instances of the apparently benign walk (or “green man”) traffic-light signal may betray sinister intent. Were these configurations cunningly designed to trick foreigners or perhaps – more sinister still – to cull the duller or less-alert segments of the population? For example, the other day I was just about to respond to a green walk signal straight ahead of me across the street when I noticed a red signal on the thin median strip and so just managed to avoid walking into the torrent of traffic surging from my left.

Returning to my Sofia hotel (near the airport) one afternoon, I was surprised to see an unsupervised and untethered horse grazing on the grassy verge. As I walked past on the paved sidewalk, I saw a teenaged boy approaching the horse and was vaguely reassured that the animal would in due course be taken to a safer place. The horse panicked however and bolted past me, rather too close for comfort. It galloped around behind the hotel, followed by the running boy.

Another hazard are automated boom gates. They are everywhere in these parts, usually complemented by cyclone fencing topped with barbed wire. There are boom gates and no dedicated pedestrian entrance at the hotel I am staying at, but thankfully no barbed wire.

On a more serious note, I must say that I am glad to be in Europe again and beginning the slow process of acclimatizing myself to the practical contingencies and perspectives of contemporary European life. New experiences meld with literary and intellectual influences. Old memories are revivified and tested.

Though I have no expertise in natural history, I feel the need (or the desire at least) to be able to identify common plants, birds etc., at least to the extent that any normally observant person growing up in a given geographical location will know them. I know some European birds and trees but found it slightly frustrating not to be able to identify, for example, the black birds that formed large flocks in the vicinity of Sofia airport and whose aerial manoeuvrings reminded me of bats. Were they Eurasian jackdaws? The elegant, long-tailed Eurasian magpies were easier to identify.

With respect to local trees, many of them (unsurprisingly) are identical to English and other familiar European varieties.

But my main areas of interest (at least in recent times) relate to the human realm: to psychology, to culture, to politics. And cultural attitudes in Bulgaria incorporate a number of apparently conflicting strands. A certain nostalgia for the Communist era mixes with attachments to older religious and mystical perspectives; and strong commitments to the EU exist side-by-side with elements of Romantic nationalism.

Environmental issues are taken very seriously but usually in sensible and practical (rather than ideological) ways, with the focus on simple and appropriate technologies.

More generally, ordinary life seems less politicized here than it has become in other countries with which I am familiar. This is a good thing, in my opinion. Politics has its place but when it dominates a culture and intrudes into private, personal and inter-personal areas, social and intellectual life is inevitably compromised.

Athens interlude

I spent the latter part of October and most of November in Athens. The weather was glorious. And the rocky, dry, austere landscapes of Greece have always appealed to me. But economic pressures are obviously taking their toll and the country appears to be locked into a downward spiral.

Just down the street from where I was staying is Athens railway station (also known as Larissa Station). The station has seen better days. In the past it was integrated into the European rail network and hosted the Orient Express and an express to Berlin. No more. Today there are no international links. You can get a train to Thessaloniki – if you’re lucky. When I tried to book, there was a notification that part of the line was out of action.

Athens road traffic is heavy and not easy to deal with as a pedestrian. There are many parks, however, including Pedion tou Areos with its oleanders and jacarandas and extensive network of paths and walkways.

There is a quaint little park by Larissa Station but this area (like many areas of the city) is impoverished and run down. Next to the park – as if mimicking the ancient ruins which characterize this part of the world – is a derelict basketball court, two hoops lying on the ground with their support structures uprooted. And overlooking the abandoned court is a residential building with its ground floor a boarded-up and apparently fire-damaged retail space. So many buildings hereabouts (hotels, residential, commercial) are standing idle, abandoned and boarded-up or half-demolished.

Many of the people I encountered seemed stressed, unhappy and not well disposed to tourists. I would go so far as to say that there is resentment towards tourists on the part of a sizable proportion of the general population. Such sentiments spill over into politics. I saw some graffiti touching on this theme (“neighbours not toyrists” [sic]).

I won’t go into the political situation except to note that Greece has a long and strong tradition of radical thought and action. Police – with armoured vehicles and riot shields – were out in force on at least two occasions while I was there to deal with student demonstrations. Trade unions were also involved in the demonstrations.

There is widespread poverty and borderline living. Many beggars, some of them elderly; and people selling bags of vegetables etc. on the streets. In the area in which I was staying, there are dozens of depressing “mini-marts” selling the same limited range of groceries and halal products, businesses run for the most part – and patronized by – Muslim immigrants. Service with a scowl seemed to be their preferred approach – though they may, for all I know, have been very pleasant to their regular clientele.

While in Athens I needed to replace my sneakers and bought a new pair from a cluttered local shop-cum-warehouse run by a Chinese couple who import shoes and jackets from the People’s Republic. The mini-marts accept credit and debit cards, but this Chinese entrepreneur only took cash. The shoes I chose were marked €23.

“For you, 20 euro,” he said. A real businessman this one!

One of my high school teachers (his name was Lionel Lobstein) was said to speak six European languages, all with the same accent. He taught us social studies (geography and history) and later joined the Italian department at the local university. He was full of praise for Greek culture. They had their priorities right, he told us, valuing social intercourse and conversation over mundane chores, etc.. He routinely spent his annual holidays in Greece, sipping coffee and chatting in shaded courtyards (or so the story went). Later I latched on to the poems and novels of Lawrence Durrell, a British expatriate who was deeply immersed in the Mediterranean world.

Even allowing for nostalgic and literary distortions, I have the strong sense of a culture which – exposed to various external forces and (perhaps) internal contradictions – has sadly lost its way.

In the Blue Mountains

Having given up the apartment in central Melbourne which I had leased for more than a decade, I have been staying for the most part in hotels – and intend to continue to do so. The general plan is to travel in a slow and leisurely way as I consider my longer term options. One thing I need to do is to develop a shortlist of retirement destinations, places where – when (or if!) the travelling stops – I could live contentedly and within my means.

I won't go into the details of my personal finances here but the general picture is that I have cash savings and a few stock market investments which generate a modest income. Part of my strategy is to simplify my life as much as possible and (without going to extremes) to minimize "overheads", i.e. income taxes and monthly or annual fees and charges.

I am currently staying in the Blue Mountains, about 100 km from Sydney, and intend to move on soon and spend some time in Southeast Asia and, later, Europe.

I have never been all that fond of the Australian bush and feel more comfortable by the sea or in certain urban environments. But the landscapes here, as well as the flora and fauna, are certainly unique and worth taking in. I recently went with a friend on a relatively challenging walk near Blackheath.

The photos were taken on the Centennial Glen walking trail by Anne Williams.

Certain towns in the Blue Mountains were fashionable resorts in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Foreign tourists still come (to Katoomba and Leura, for example) but the towns and villages of the region, though still reasonably prosperous, have clearly undergone profound social and economic changes over the years, not all of them positive.

This old black and white snap, taken in 1942, bears witness to a family connection with this part of the world.

My mother (nearest to the camera, 17 years old) is holidaying with an older sister and friends in Katoomba.

Geopolitical tensions

 

Current American foreign policy settings are arguably at the root of our most serious and urgent geopolitical problems. Under the influence of advisors committed to extreme forms of neoconservatism, aspects of policy have become disconnected from reality, even delusional.

In fact, the Cold War period was sane by comparison. Sure, it was a dangerous time but U.S. policies were hard-headed and sometimes intelligent. And, crucially, they were not completely out of kilter with underlying economic realities.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and its allies have pursued policies based on what I see as very problematic assumptions (regarding American exceptionalism, for example). These policies often involved regime change and the attempt to establish Western-style democracies in places lacking the cultural prerequisites for such systems to establish themselves.

Unfortunately, past failures are not being fully acknowledged and there are few indications that any serious reassessment of current policy settings is in train. Nor is there sufficient recognition of the irrevocable nature of various changes that have occurred on the geo-economic front.

As I have previously noted, the relative size of the U.S. economy with respect to the rest of the world has declined significantly over the last sixty years. Throw in other factors – like sovereign debt levels and financial and monetary issues – and it becomes clear that the prospects for a continuation of U.S. global hegemony are slim to non-existant.

Fading powers are always particularly dangerous. They see their military dominance as being eroded or as being under threat (ultimately for economic reasons). Time is not on their side, so they are motivated to provoke wars, to fight sooner rather than later in an attempt to turn the tide.

Is this not exactly what we are seeing now in Eastern Europe and the East China Sea? There are irresponsible actors on all sides, I don’t deny it. But America and its closest allies now pose the greatest danger in my opinion.

As individuals our primary duty in respect of these matters is, as I see it, simply not to fall for or contribute to unnecessarily divisive ideas. Ideally we will also assess and either embrace or try to change our own governments’ policies.

I am not interested in demonizing or assigning blame but rather in identifying – and, where possible, promoting – Western policies which will manage in a responsible way the fault lines of a world which is armed to the teeth with increasingly sophisticated weapons.

Military conflicts are occurring and will continue to occur. Foreign policy settings may encourage or discourage such conflicts. But, whatever the situation, whatever specific goals are being pursued, the overriding goal for policy-makers should always be to minimize the chances of conflict between major powers.

And outsiders attempting to engineer regime change in Russia or China in pursuit of a geopolitical strategy based on notions of American exceptionalism is clearly not the way to go.

Death and destruction

My analysis of the Ukraine situation has continued to attract criticism. I have been saying for some time that American and NATO strategies are fatally flawed and extremely dangerous. Responding to the latest episode of my podcast, Culture and Value, which was featured recently at The Electric Agora, Daniel Kaufman commented:

"The idea that somehow Ukraine is at fault for the prolonged death and suffering from the war – or those like the US, UK and others who are helping Ukraine – is not only a poor analysis of the situation, it represents what to my mind are really terrible values. Ukraine does not want to surrender. It does not want to hand over part – or all – of its country to Vlad the Impaler and his armies. It does not accept the rape and torture and mass murder that Russia has been inflicting on it. The idea that it should ... in order to satisfy your conception of proper geopolitical order – or that of Russia or any of the other murderocracies and kleptocracies on the planet – is just so out of whack, I don’t even know how to respond to it."

I question some of Dan's assumptions here and naturally reject any suggestion that my values are flawed or my motives tainted. My brief reply to his comment did not deal with Ukraine so much as with what arguably lies at the root of this and certain other international crises (or potential crises): the failure of those currently in power to see and come to terms with a changed geo-strategic environment.

I wrote as follows:

I am not talking about some desired political order. Rather I am noting, as carefully and accurately as I can, current geopolitical and geo-economic realities. I am making the point that the situation has changed over the last thirty years or so and not in ways which favour an overwhelming level of American dominance (such as applied immediately after WW2, and again after the break up of the Soviet Union) in the future.

For example, the US is no longer as economically dominant as it once was. Its share of the global economy has declined from about 40 percent in 1960 to about 24 percent today. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing but it does mean that a broader range of countries will have a say in reshaping the financial system than was the case, say, in the immediate post-WW2 period.

This is important because economic factors underpin military power. And though the USD is strong at the moment, the widely-acknowledged fragility of the current debt- and derivative-based financial system – a system which creates demand for (and so guarantees the value of) the dollar – strongly suggests that the United States will not be able to continue to play, at least to the same degree, the dominant global role which it has played over the last three-quarters of a century.

Inertia

Even at the best of times I am not a model of decisive action, but I have to say that it feels more and more difficult to set goals and maintain personal momentum in the present environment.

It’s not just me. The bureaucracy in which we are all increasingly enmeshed is failing. A wave of indolence or “quiet quitting” is washing over the white-collar workforce.

Case in point: earlier this year I applied for a new passport. Since then I have rung the issuing office twice. Twice they apologized; twice I was told that the process would be fast-tracked. Nothing. No communication from them. When I handed in my application I was assured that the passport would be ready within six weeks. I have now been waiting more than four months.

I had hoped to begin my travels some time ago. The lockdowns, curfews and travel bans may finally have been lifted but it is difficult to make concrete plans without a passport – especially when one has no clear idea of what is causing the delay. Only when I have the new passport in my hands will I think seriously about booking flights, etc..

This passport business is relatively trivial – in my case at least. No grave implications. But it is certainly emblematic, and indicative of wider problems.

Here is a short list of some of my current (non-travel-related) preoccupations…

Health concerns are always there, even in the absence of (known) serious illness or disease. This is particularly so as one ages. Personally I am prone to health-related anxieties and, consequently, try to minimize my interactions with Dr. Google and the medical profession. So long as I can function more or less normally and have no new or alarming symptoms, I feel justified in putting my focus on other things than the inner workings of my body. One health-related area I do take an interest in, however, is preventive medicine, and especially the effect of diet on health.

I had expected (or hoped) that the SARS-CoV-2 virus would be fading from the scene by now but it continues to spread. Worse still, bad news is coming through on the long-term effects of COVID-19. If (as seems to be the case) the virus was a product of gain-of-function research conducted under the auspices of various national governments and official agencies, this is not only a tragedy of epic proportions (it obviously is that) but also a scandal which, by further undermining trust in ruling elites, will have deep and lasting political implications.

Though they don’t concern me in a direct or personal way, I am following geopolitical developments closely. I am concerned by the belligerent stances being assumed by all major powers, and by the lack of leadership and intelligent diplomacy being exhibited by major Western powers.

More generally, I am appalled by the transformation of our media into an integrated propaganda machine. News has always been propaganda to an extent but the balance between propaganda and hard (factual or critical) content varies from time to time and from place to place. What we are seeing now in the West is somewhat reminiscent of old communist and fascist models and of World War 2-era American and British newspapers and newsreels, etc.. But arguably the situation is worse now than it was back then because of the intrusive nature of current technologies. The combination of digital news services and social media has produced an integrated – and insidious – framework of communication which is being effectively exploited by governments, powerful corporations and other favoured organizations.

As a preparation for possible future writing on social, economic and geopolitical themes, I have been reading (or rereading) the work of some early 20th-century thinkers, including Louis Rougier. Born in Lyon in 1889, Rougier was an intellectual historian and social philosopher who, unlike many intellectuals, had a good grasp of fundamental social, political and economic principles. In his best writings (from the 1930s and 1940s especially) he takes a refreshingly down-to-earth and non-ideological approach to political and economic questions. More on him later perhaps.

Politics, personal attitudes and the approaching crisis

The following observations had their origin in an exchange I had with a friend, some of whose ideas about, and attitudes towards, politics and human freedom I saw – rightly or wrongly – as being false (the ideas) and counterproductive (the attitudes).

1. Attitudes

For me politics is a boring necessity which, at its best, runs in the background. Enthusiasm for politics is always a danger signal.

Such enthusiasm may manifest itself rhetorically or be rhetorically generated, but I am not condemning rhetoric per se. Rhetoric is an inevitable feature of any communication which incorporates a human element and engages the emotions. You can’t avoid it, and political talk – which is often designed to persuade or (let’s face it) to manipulate – is always going to be rhetorical to some extent.

So I am not criticizing people for utilizing rhetoric in the political sphere so much as for believing it – for falling for their own or other people’s rhetoric. Doing so, they are often implicitly seeking in politics something which politics or political action cannot, in the end, provide: that is, some kind of deep satisfaction or “salvation”. They are turning politics into a religion-substitute. This is a very dangerous thing to do.

Emotional satisfaction is a personal rather than a political matter and is best sought, I believe, in interpersonal relationships and personal, non-political activities and practices (work, hobbies and “creative” activities, walking, sitting in the sunshine, etc.). When people get (or seek to get) their deepest satisfactions from political or, more broadly, from ideological beliefs and activities, something is amiss.

2. Romanticism and politics

I keep seeing not only ideological (that is, political and personal-value-based) but also metaphysical elements in the political views of activists both of the left and the right. Much has been written about the implicit (and in my view dangerous) metaphysics of Marxism but right-libertarians – with their views on natural rights and their fetishization of freedom – are also committed to their own, ultimately empty and baseless, metaphysical ideas.

The origins of many current ideological fashions can be traced to the 19th century and the Romantic movement. Many Romantic ideas carry religious and metaphysical baggage deriving from Biblical as well as classical sources (Plato, the Stoics). It took me some years to see my own Platonist and Romantic commitments and assumptions for what they were – and so let go of them.

One’s views on art and human creativity and action need not have a metaphysical dimension but Romantic aesthetics certainly does, and these ideas have and still do play into political thinking in unfortunate ways. I am not saying that we, as individuals, can’t find deep satisfaction in creative activities at a personal level. My point is that no political solution can ever alter the underlying realities and imperatives of social and economic life and deliver the sorts of universal freedoms and satisfactions which are typically promised by radical, progressive or libertarian ideologies.

3. The current situation

Ideologies are real in the sense that they motivate political action and affect the way people interpret history and current events. They are essentially action-oriented, reality-distorting mechanisms and are worse than useless as analytical tools.

The “system” we currently find ourselves in is not capitalism, at least in the historical sense of the term. Western capitalism had deep cultural roots and was associated with certain patterns of thought and behaviour which no longer prevail (work ethic, deferred gratification, thrift, certain religious ideas, etc.). It involved the slow accumulation and deployment of actual capital, “creative destruction”, unprofitable companies being allowed to fail, and so on.

This is nothing like what we are witnessing today where everything is driven by debt and derivatives and there is an unholy alliance between heavily indebted governments, central banks and financial institutions. Markets are grossly distorted. Currencies are losing purchasing power. The financial system has become detached from economic reality.

The seeds of the current crisis were sown when the USD’s link to gold was finally severed in 1971. Or actually before that: in the fiscal profligacy of the 1960s which made the suspension of the Bretton Woods arrangement necessary.

Governments and central banks have played a major role in creating the current perverse and dysfunctional system, but other groups have also been involved (Wall Street bankers, certain business people and billionaires, NGOs, big tech and media). The system – such as it is – is now collapsing.

There will be inevitable pain.

Circles of concern

There is much to be said for seeing life primarily in local terms, for seeing one’s personal situation as dictating to a large extent one’s actual duties and responsibilities, and for resisting temptations to moralize, pontificate or parade one’s opinions in the public sphere. Sadly, the current digital media environment works against such reticence and self-restraint, exacerbating the drift away from real connections and real communities.

The “uncoupling of shared content from physical proximity and ongoing relations” was recently a topic of discussion at The Electric Agora. One participant lamented the current situation, seeing “the constant deluge of information about far-off goings on” as the root cause of the problem.

Apart from the occasional message from family, it’s not natural for people to be concerned about what’s going on more than a few day’s ride or walk away. It makes diffuse the collective ethics of cooperation, and lends itself to costless performative virtue. Easier for a New Yorker to wave a sign on behalf of a Uyghur than knock on doors for the would-be county mayor, or boycott Israel instead of putting a stone through a scab’s windshield. Solidarity and hope are reduced to self-parody.

I'm not sure I see any form of solidarity or hope worth having in picket lines – but let that pass.

We need to rebuild [heal?] social division geographically. People are best at improving things close by, and knowing what needs improving. Unfettered individualism and social division are symptoms of the sickness. Humanity writ large is not a society, let alone a community. Put your neighborhood, family, and city first, and maybe you’ll feel like part of something bigger. The welfare of your locale is part of the world’s welfare, and the part you can do the most about.

Self improvement comes into it too.

You’re part of the community. Improve yourself, and you improve the community. Prowess, beauty, and fitness are all good. A personable friend to shoot hoops with, a scoutmaster teaching kids to camp, or a schoolgirl putting her all into clarinet chasing that scholarship do far more for a neighborhood than a conscientious news-junkie or devout activist for the identitarian cause of the day.

We need to go back, but most won’t. Streaming videos, internet news, and cell phones are popular for a reason. Distraction has its place, but it’s not a legitimate way of life. The EA crowd has a lot of this going on. Buying 20 Malaria nets for strangers a continent away is less virtuous than playing catch with your kids or baking a pie with grandma, and – no matter how they pretend otherwise – they know it too.

I quote these passages in full because they are vividly expressed and because there is significant overlap with my own views. These sorts of topics are never clearcut, however, and caveats and reservations necessarily apply.

One caveat relates to the fact that there are circumstances in which long-distance concerns demand attention: foreign policy questions, for example.

Quite obviously, the interventionist policies currently being pursued by the U.S. and its closest allies sit uneasily with the principles outlined above, and some kind of regionalism or system of geographically-based spheres of influence would be a better fit.

No set of principles is sacrosanct, however, and it may be – I don’t think they can, but it may be – that current policies can be defended or justified on other grounds. I can see that proximity counts for less and less in purely military terms – in terms of weapons technology, for example – just as it does in terms of general communication. But, of course, any strategic analysis needs to be contextualized and supplemented with a wide range of data and information (including cultural information) if it is to be useful in the real world and effective in the long term.

Some believe that only continued American global dominance can save us and deliver a more just, peaceful and prosperous world but I see dangers in the unipolar model and in the very notion of a global elite, however it is constituted and however sensitive this supposed elite might be to the nuances of cultural variation.

A few thoughts on culture, religion and Jewish identity

So much talk about religion is empty of substantive content or tediously partisan, mere apologetics. I try to avoid the subject myself as far as I can. But religious practices and beliefs constitute an important aspect of culture and so can’t entirely be ignored, even by those who count themselves as non-religious.

There is also the psychological angle: despite individual differences, it’s clear that our brains are wired for religion or something like it. Why else would secular and even atheistic social and political movements exhibit so many similarities to religious sects and cults?

In a recent piece at The Electric Agora, Daniel Kaufman summarized his skeptical views on God and the supernatural and wondered why it is that so many are still drawn to religious belief.

"By now," he begins, "most readers know that I am an atheist, as I do not believe in the existence of God or anything supernatural. Readers also likely know that I am Jewish by lineage and culturally and that I think God is useless both as an explanation and as a moral exemplar."

It was his social and cultural observations rather than the philosophical reflections which interested me. This, for instance:

"When I first moved to the Bible Belt, I was surprised by the level of confidence people had in their particular brand of evangelical or Pentecostal Christianity (some of them brands I’d never even heard of until that point) and used to think that the best thing for them would be to live in a Lubavitch or Satmar community for a few weeks, where it would become quickly evident that there were people far more religiously committed and more rigorous in their religious lifestyles than they are."

Chabad-Lubavitch and Satmar are rival Brooklyn-based Hasidic sects originating in Russia and Hungary respectively. They differ, amongst other things, in terms of their attitudes to outreach and proselytizing within the wider Jewish community [Chabad is active in such activity but Satmar is not]; and in their attitudes to Zionism and the state of Israel [Satmar remains staunchly anti-Zionist].

Unlike these Jewish groups, evangelicals and Pentecostals profess and proclaim (in Kaufman’s words) their own “extraordinary and intense religious faith” whilst behaving in other respects “pretty much like everyone else.”

Dan talks about the “self-deception” or “psychic indolence” involved in seeing ancient religious texts as embodying eternal truths “about the nature and operation of the universe and everything and everyone in it” rather than in more realistic terms. He himself sees sacred texts as “fascinating and often lurid elements from the eclectic, messy, often ugly history of human development.”

US fundamentalist Christians are a group concerning which I have only limited knowledge. Two things are clear, however: they are are less regimented than Jewish ultra-Orthodox or extremist Islamic groups; and most of the individuals involved embrace large chunks of modernity in their thinking and in their day-to-day lives.

Mixing faith-based and modern views involves inconsistencies but compartmentalization of one kind or another is a universal feature of our brains. Some of the greatest scientists bracketed out their religious beliefs in rather crude ways or aligned themselves with extreme and anti-rational ideologies or political movements. Though most of us manage to avoid such extremes, the logical aspect of our thinking is always in an awkward or ambiguous relationship with more emotional aspects of thought – including those that relate to existential anxieties, to attachments and aversions, to religion, politics, self-image and identity.

In the linked piece, Dan explicitly acknowledges and embraces his Jewish lineage as well as the essentially secular Jewish culture in which he was raised. For his parents – and for himself, apparently – ancestral religious practices continued to be meaningful in the absence of belief.

There is a tension here which revolves, I think, around the purported centrality of specifically religious ideas and practices to Jewish identity. When scriptures lose their special status and come to be seen solely in historical or literary terms, when prayers and rituals are no longer expressions of religious experience but mere nostalgic forms or reassuring customs, they gradually but inexorably lose their power to command attention and motivate religious practice. They become museum pieces. They die.

Is this a problem?

My preference is to see group affiliations in personal and individual terms, that is in terms of sets of shared and overlapping cultural elements and personal values. To the extent that Jewishness is seen this way (i.e. as an evolving element within various disparate cultures rather than in terms of direct links with an ancient, Hebrew-speaking population and the religious practices and beliefs of that population), existential questions about cultural survival simply will not arise.

Slow progress

I have been making slow progress on preparations and planning since I wrote that "Travel plans" piece two months ago. The timetable remains more or less the same. It may slip however.

With respect to blogging etc., rather than trying to set up a new site in order to build a bigger audience I have decided – for the time being at least – to consolidate. I intend to post more frequently here and (identical material) at my WordPress site, adopting a more informal approach. Shorter pieces.

My association with Daniel Kaufman and his Electric Agora will probably continue though I have no new essays in the pipeline. With respect to my EA-based podcast, Culture and Value, eight episodes are currently available. They have attracted some attention (and so far about 4000 listens/downloads in toto). But I am not adding new episodes at the moment. (This is for various reasons – including the fact that the podcast has yet to be made available on Apple Podcasts.)

Travel plans

I am in the process of reorienting my life. Over the years I have been caught up, as everybody is, in various projects, commitments, entanglements and responsibilities (or perceived responsibilities). Some of these commitments limited my opportunities for extensive travel, or at least the sort of travel I desired.

In recent years I wanted to ensure that I would be able to visit my ailing mother on a regular basis. She was in a nursing home in Melbourne. So I leased a place fairly close by, a small ninth-floor apartment in Melbourne’s old Chinatown district.

Unfortunately, due to draconian COVID-driven bans on visiting, I was not allowed to see my mother for months on end or liaise in the normal way with nursing staff during 2021. In previous years she had fared pretty well, fighting off occasional acute illnesses and defying predictions by physicians and nurses of her imminent demise. But last year a pressure sore got out of hand and became infected and she went into serious decline. She died in January.

My apartment lease expires in early August and my intention at the moment is not to renew it. I have not decided on where I will be based. The plan, for the moment, is just to travel. Initially to Singapore, and then further afield. This itinerant lifestyle could continue for quite some time if my health and finances allow.

My intention is not to be moving constantly but rather to stay for extended periods (months) at most destinations. I will probably continue to post material online. But how my lifestyle changes will affect the extent, nature or focus of this activity is uncertain.

Naturally there would now be some scope for doing anecdotal travel-related pieces, impressions of various places and so on. But to what end? Before the restrictions of the last couple of years, most people I know traveled widely and on a regular basis. I didn’t. I am the least-frequent flyer I know.

I am aware that the old fogey, Rip Van Winkle angle could easily become tedious, so I'll need to put strict limits on my conversational and other references to four-engined turboprops, Boeing 707s and descriptions of how places have changed. (When I last visited Athens, for example, the Third Hellenic Republic was in its initial stages and the time of the generals was still fresh in everybody’s memory. But, as I say, this is not really a line I want to pursue.)

On places, one has impressions, one makes judgments. But is there any need to talk publicly about them? Opinions and impressions are a dime a dozen; and reportage makes sense if you are being paid for it or if you are pushing some narrative or other which you deem to be important, but not otherwise as far as I can see.

There is always the option of getting involved in scholarly work again or in serious writing – possibly on political themes or international relations, possibly on more theoretical topics. It all depends on various factors (whom I meet, where I am based, how my interests develop, geopolitical developments, etc.).

Whatever happens, my preoccupation with culture and value will continue, and exposing myself to different cultures (to the extent that urban cultures have not converged into a boring sameness) will at the very least constitute a kind of experiment in compatibility.

There are still things to do here (sorting papers, legal matters, getting a new passport, etc.). I hope that it will all go smoothly and that my transition to a new way of life occurs without my having to face any further personal stresses or challenges.

Looking to the broader context, it goes without saying that social, political and economic stresses will continue and probably become more intense. To what extent I will be trying to chronicle or wanting to comment on these things in the future I do not know.

Nor have I decided what communication platforms to rely on during my travels. I may even decide, given the state of the world and the direction in which things are moving, that I want to follow the example of many of my literary and intellectual heroes and hunker down somewhere far from the madding crowd.

While I am in traveling mode, however, I would be very open to meeting – for a coffee, say – anyone who may have come across my blog posts or essays over the years, as well as those internet friends with whom I have maintained more direct contact.

[This is an abridged and modified version of an essay which appeared recently at The Electric Agora.]

Personhood and cultural embeddedness

In my podcast and elsewhere, much of what I say is centered around what you could see as the paradox of personhood: our individuality derives from our cultural embeddedness. I thought it might be useful to set out in writing – as directly and concisely as possible – my assumptions about personhood and about what makes us human.

These ideas are difficult to pin down but they are important because they are so fundamental. They also have significant implications, and this is why they continue to interest me. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a currently-contentious social or political issue to which answers to the basic questions I am addressing would not be relevant.

Biology and culture. Culture and biology. That’s not all there is, but – with the inorganic world within which biological organisms evolved and within which they exist – that’s enough to make a human being.

Imagine growing a human fetus in a lab, doing whatever might be necessary to allow the body to grow and muscles to develop but not allowing social contact or cultural (e.g. linguistic) input. Such a being might look human and may even be able to perform some basic physical activities but how human would it be (except in a technical sense)? Crucially it would not (I am saying) be a person.

Now, if you believe in a spiritual substance which inhabits or animates the body you will have a different view from mine and may consider me to be disrespecting human dignity by even discussing such an imagined experiment at all. But my point is not to demean human dignity but rather to understand where it comes from.

The person is not just a body, but a body that has developed within a particular social and cultural environment. There’s no secret ingredient. There doesn't need to be.

I recognize, however, that it’s natural for us to think in terms of embodied – and disembodied – spirits. Such ideas are widespread across many, unconnected cultures. The most concise and compelling account I have read of these things was by the anthropologist Pascal Boyer who, drawing on his research into African religions and on cognitive science, postulated a kind of universal mental template for persons which gives rise not only to our normal notions of embodied persons but also to the notion of disembodied persons, the notion of purely spiritual beings.

I am saying that we are culturally embedded biological organisms. Our personhood derives not from a soul or spirit but simply from the cultural matrix in which we grew up.

This is all very well, you might say, and widely accepted. But I am making two claims here. One is that there is no soul or spirit. One is that we are necessarily culturally embedded. It’s the latter point I want to emphasize.

People often talk as if one can or could “reject” or stand outside of one’s culture. I would reference here the Romantic myth of the rebel. Its hold within the cultural milieu in which I grew up always bemused me and I still see signs of it everywhere. Sure, you can reject aspects of your culture – but only by embracing and deploying other aspects of the cultural matrix within which you came to and continue to exist. An individual is always dependent on – and in fact defined by – this matrix and indebted to the other individuals, past and present, who have contributed to it.

This does not mean that individualism is impossible or is an illusion. The individualist simply seeks out and engages with a wider range of cultural elements than the unreflective conformist does.

The sort of individualism I value most is not about eccentricity or even primarily about creative self-expression (important as the latter undoubtedly is). It is more about independent thinking and practical wisdom (or commonsense).

As I envisage it, independent thinking is closely associated with – and bolstered by – the institutions, traditions and values of science and scholarship. Such values may be universal but they are also culturally contingent in the sense that they have flourished at different times and in different regions. And their current eclipse in Western countries does not auger well for the future.

Mother's death

My mother (Marjorie Clare English (née Shanley)) suffered a sudden deterioration in her health early this week and died peacefully today. She had been battling serious health problems for some time, including Parkinson's disease.

For the last ten years of her life she lived in a nursing home where her two sons visited her on a regular basis. My sister, who lives in Western Australia, had to make do with the telephone most of the time but always kept in very close touch. Circumstances were such that my sister's two boys never really got to know their old and (by then) ailing grandmother as well as they would have wished.

This is not the time to write about my mother as a person other than to say that she was deeply loved by her children and other family members, and throughout her life was liked and respected by just about everyone who knew her. I have written in the past about her illness and her fighting spirit, and about the music she liked and responded to. (See "A Parkinson's playlist".)

The family is grateful to Marjorie's physician for her dedication, wisdom and kindness and especially to the hard-working personal care assistants, nurses and others who interacted with her over the last decade. Above all, it was this friendly interaction which kept her going.

The most unhappy country in history

You know how it is. You are tempted to submit another comment in a comment thread discussion but then think better of it. Because you don't want to monopolize the discussion, appear too negative or just because "less is more."

Disagreements are intrinsically more interesting than agreements and I am often drawn to challenge statements either for what is being said, or for how it is being said.

Take this brief extract from a piece by E. John Winner which appeared recently at the Electric Agora:

"And it has been my experience, although widely denied, that Americans, despite wealth and power, remain the most unhappy people in history.  Others suffer greater physical suffering, of course, but none experience angst, dissatisfaction, frustration, hopelessness, depression, disappointment, more deeply than we..."

There is, at least from an outsider's perspective, something darkly comical about these claims. It's not just that they are hyperbolic. It's more that they come across as yet another manifestation (albeit rather strange and perverse) of American exceptionalism. We are not only the most unhappy people in the world, we are the most unhappy people in the entire history of the planet. We suffer angst, dissatisfaction, frustration etc. more deeply than foreigners can even imagine!

There is something to this however, and it relates to imperial decline. The wealth and power is slipping away, just as it did for the British who faced a series of debacles (including Suez) and eventually the humiliation of an IMF bailout. This process is very painful for those who grew up believing that the status quo would continue indefinitely. I understand that.

I was going to make a moral point here, referring to foreign victims of American violence and suggesting that some kind of karma or communal guilt might have been in play also. But this would have been disingenuous. I don't believe in karma; nor, really, in communal guilt. Besides, it would have been a cheap shot. Bad things happened; and pointing the finger at one group or nation necessarily lets other groups or nations off the hook.