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.

The curious persistence of Cold War thinking

Great powers in decline are often more dangerous than rising powers. The leaders of such countries (today's United States?) may be tempted to take drastic action in an attempt to stem perceived decline and restore the status quo ante or simply to distract from domestic problems.

In the latest episode of my podcast, I argue that, although changes in the geopolitical landscape have taken us well beyond the relatively clear ideological dichotomies of the Cold War era, new and dangerous forms of neoconservatism have arisen which are influencing foreign policy and media reporting and perpetuating the myth of American exceptionalism.

This episode runs for about 13 minutes.

Gingerbread people

I recently noticed some gingerbread men for sale in the local supermarket labelled as 'gingerbread people'. It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Sometimes it is appropriate, however, to change ways of speaking or product names to avoid giving offense. In the realm of children's treats, this brand of liquorice must surely take the prize for insensitivity. (They subsequently changed the brand name to 'Lucky Boy'.)

But engineered changes to the way we speak and write have gone too far, reflecting, I think, various radical agendas.

'People-first' language by some twisted logic sees it as unacceptable to use ordinary adjectival phrases when speaking about people and mandates unnatural-sounding, pretentious (and ultimately patronizing) locutions such as 'person (or people) of color'.

This insidious practice has been promoted by advocacy groups, especially in relation to health-related areas. So remember, you are supposed to say 'people with disabilities' not 'disabled people'.

Other absurdities, like the use of 'differently-abled' or the use of the word 'challenged' were generally seen as such and made fun of.

Since the word 'retarded' just means held back or delayed, it's interesting that it has become unacceptable whereas the use of the terms 'delayed development' or 'developmental delays' is perfectly okay. The problem with 'retarded' derives mainly from the unfortunate slang nominalization 'retard'.

Actually the terms 'disabled' and 'disability' are not too bad. At least they aren't patronizing like some of the terms they replaced (e.g. 'handicapped') and they don't have the offensive ring of many older popular terms.



More sinister than the politically-correct linguistic lobbying of advocates for disabled groups, women and minorities is the term 'social marketing' - and the assumptions and practices which go with it.

Social marketing involves using all the resources of social psychology and commercial marketing techniques to alter behaviors to conform to (usually) a government view of what are considered to be desirable (or healthy or 'sustainable') behaviors.

Never has the term 'soft totalitarianism' been so appropriate. Propaganda ministries in the old 20th-century totalitarian states were engaged in something very like what is now called social marketing. Only they weren't afraid to call it by an honest name.