Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[monkeysarefun]

8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Hopeless people, more than stupid people?

 

 

I'd say  maybe 2:3 or so?

 

 

[Nearholmer]

We don’t have an OMFG icon for n here, do we?

[Tom Burnham]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian executed by the Nazis, commented that stupid people were more dangerous than evil ones...

[Edwardian]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer; I do not know where to begin in commenting on the courage, integtrity and good of that man. 

 

Probably too tired to make sense, bu I am reminded of the quote often apparently misattributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

 

The closest Burke seems to have come was “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” in 1770 (Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents). Burke makes explicit what the version in general circulation necessarily implies, that evil people are active while the good people are doing nowt about it. 

 

In fact the nearest genuine attributable quote appears to be from John Stuart Mill in 1867 (inaugural address at the University of St Andrews): “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

 

These are both true sentiments, but the truth that the unlikely pairing of HL Mencken and Dietrich Bonhoeffer hit upon is the role of the stupid, or, as I persist in thinking, those at least bamboozled into taking a stupid position, in allowing bad men to compass their ends (which may not be as painful as it sounds).    

 

These thoughts bring me to another possibly misattributed quote, Abraham Lincoln's famous lines "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." These words, in fact, seem to have been attributed to Lincoln at the earliest some 20 years after his death, so there is no real evidence he said them. 

 

It may, in fact, have been a paraphrase of earlier French writings. Jacques Abbadie, in 1694 (Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne), wrote the remarkably similar, if less pithy "ont pû tromper quelques hommes, ou les tromper tous dans certains lieux & en certains tems, mais non pas tous les hommes, dans tous les lieux & dans tous les siécles."  The formula was reproduced in 1754 in the Encyclopédie, which I feel was likely to be more well-known among the educated of the Nineeteenth Century. 

 

Predictably Joseph Goebbels gave some thought to who "the people" were who needed to be fooled and how best to fool them; "There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect." And really that's exactly what the Sun and the Daily Mail (and now Talk TV and GB News) exist to do.

 

Anyway, attribution aside, what the unlikely pairing of Jacques Abbadie and Joseph Goebbels both pointed to is what can happen if you get enough of the people to believe you for enough of the time to get away with whatever you're up to. For Abbadie this realisation would have served as a warning, for Goebbels it was more an opportunity.

 

Nevertheless, we see over the centuries a consistent understanding of the potency of fooling significant numbers of people for a sufficient time until you do, indeed, get a moron in the Whitehouse, or BREXIT, or [insert populist government or policy of choice here]. As Goebbels understood, you acheive this via repetition and the good old British electorate has been pounded with the same toxic lies for decades now (mostly by the same toxic Australian). No wonder they now resemble nothing so much as Christmas-voting turkeys.

 

Hope, I think, lies in the assertion that you cannot fool all men in all places in all centuries, or, all of the people all of the time.  It just seems an awfully long time waiting for the lies to collapse under their own weight, as Goebbels, of all people, predicted they eventually would, leading to the re-emergence of truth.

 

If only there was a way to de-programme them sooner.

 

[Schooner]

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

It just seems an awfully long time waiting

 

It's a broad generation we're waiting for. Those who have had the good fortune to be able to live well in a period of enormous growth, on sacrifices made by their parents and grandparents, and loans taken out against their children and grandchildren. Who have been shielded, and able to afford to shield themselves, from the consequences of their choices; always the largest voting body, able to get their own way whilst enjoying the benefits of a healthy democracy. To whom this state of affairs is entirely normal. Naturally they've kept assuming that getting their own way  is  democracy; naturally our democratic institutions are rotting as a result.

 

A generation of child-like innocence, perhaps.

 

A spoiled, greedy and bullying child, but still.

 

Who, having seen their parents light a fire against the cold, are starting to feel the chill but through naivety or ignorance or arrogance have set the house on fire, and now sit around as the room fills with smoke wondering what all the fuss is about . Afterall, they're not choking.

 

It's only a consequence-free environment which had space for moral relativism, subjective truth, alternative facts, "enemy-of-the-people" press and judiciary, a political dependence on a tiny and extreme fringe...but it seems consequences are starting to be felt now, though. And, as so often in our past, we'll find a way through. But it'll be into a harsher future than was once available to us.

 

The worst bit is that we know. We know the UN is a joke at a time we need it most, Brexit an horrifying mistake (Scottish independence would be similarly), the NHS unaffordable, populism a threat to our children's welfare, migration the most natural thing in the world (and net immigration economically essential), climate change a staggering risk to millions of lives.

 

The problems are clear (if not easy), but implementing a solution just hasn't mattered to us, so we've continued to vote to please ourselves, pulling the ladder up behind us.

 

FAFO.

 

Schooner (who's back to bed, to try getting out of the other side...)

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Schooner
Correcting auto-correct

[Welchester]

10 hours ago, Edwardian said:

These thoughts bring me to another possibly misattributed quote, Abraham Lincoln's famous lines "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." These words, in fact, seem to have been attributed to Lincoln at the earliest some 20 years after his death, so there is no real evidence he said them.

 

Readers of George MacDonald Fraser will know that Lincoln got the idea from Flashman.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

 

It's a broad generation we're waiting for. Those who have had the good fortune to be able to live well in a period of enormous growth, on sacrifices made by their parents and grandparents, and loans taken out against their children and grandchildren. Who have been shielded, and able to afford to shield themselves, from the consequences of their choices; always the largest voting body, able to get their own way whilst enjoying the benefits of a healthy democracy. To whom this state of affairs is entirely normal. Naturally they've kept assuming that getting their own way  is  democracy; naturally our democratic institutions are rotting as a result.

 

A generation of child-like innocence, perhaps.

 

A spoiled, greedy and bullying child, but still.

 

Who, having seen their parents light a fire against the cold, are starting to feel the chill but through naivety or ignorance or arrogance have set the house on fire, and now sit around as the room fills with smoke wondering what all the fuss is about . Afterall, they're not choking.

 

It's only a consequence-free environment which had space for moral relativism, subjective truth, alternative facts, "enemy-of-the-people" press and judiciary, a political dependence on a tiny and extreme fringe...but it seems consequences are starting to be felt now, though. And, as so often in our past, we'll find a way through. But it'll be into a harsher future than was once available to us.

 

The worst bit is that we know. We know the UN is a joke at a time we need it most, Brexit an horrifying mistake (Scottish independence would be similarly), the NHS unaffordable, populism a threat to our children's welfare, migration the most natural thing in the world (and net immigration economically essential), climate change a staggering risk to millions of lives.

 

The problems are clear (if not easy), but implementing a solution just hasn't mattered to us, so we've continued to vote to please ourselves, pulling the ladder up behind us.

 

FAFO.

 

Schooner (who's back to bed, to try getting out of the other side...)

 

 

 

Yes, though you are not wrong, Boomer-bashing, however cathartic to a Millenial told for the umpteenth time that he, too, could own his own home, despite the current cost of doing so relative to income compared with when his grandad bought his house, if only he ate fewer avocados, I feel I should resist any idea of collective guilt. After all, if current events in Palestine tell us anything, it's that collective guilt is a bad idea to push.

 

As a Gen-Xer who does not own property, I feel that I am simply ahead of the curve in failing. 

 

And the world burns because of the delusions of the past.

 

As to the fault, I feel it is those leaders who fed the comforting lies to the Baby Boomer, and Boomers cannot have known that their propseprity would come at the expense of every subsequent generation becoming poorer than the last. So far as my parents generation knew, everyone was perpetually on the up. 

 

We have to be confident that the younger generations do not become reactionary and selfish in their old age for progress to be maintained, of course, and the populists will work against you there. 

 

My daughter said what if no one over 75 should be allowed to vote? Universal suffrage gives the old a disproportonate influence, both in terms of their numbers and their relatively short life expectancy, which means that they are overwhelmingly determining other people's futures, or, given climate change, lack of future. Of course, the wisdom of the young is rather a Western idea, where we do not venerate the wisdom of the old and, therefore, resent the power they nonetheless appear to have. Since, in the West, the wisdom of the old has arguably led us to be comprehensively f-ked, we might park the wisdom of the East for now. Anyway, she asked if I would mind losing the vote at 75. My thought was "no, I'd gladly give it up provided everyone does, because for every vote like mine that was lost, Daily Mail Britain would lose 10" However, I do not think I could sign up to compulsory disenfrsanchisement on principle, which Miss T accepted, but it's worth the discussion for the thoughts it provokes. 

  

[Schooner]

31 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Boomer-bashing

Not the intent, although exactly how it read, apologies. I think I include Millenials in with the Problem-Causers, although they (we) are perhaps the transitional age group between the FA-ers and the FOers.

 

As to fault/blame...I'm not sure I find this useful in looking at the past, nor helpful at the present (it being more likely to cause upset than positive change). We who had the good fortune to be born c.1950-2000 absolutely knew better than we have behaved, and as such we have some responsibility. We continue to change slowly, reluctantly, and largely only if fully compensated for any perceived loss. Those we elected to make decisions in our stead, based on information unavailable to us, also bear responsibility for the deceit they displayed in office (a healthily unpartisan issue) particularly insofar as the deceit was designed to appeal to a small but reliable electorate to maintain power at the expense of being able to enact good government.

 

Likewise wisdom...it's 'just' information processing and making useful predictions based on the result. We have better tools to do that than in any point in history, but have not yet worked out how to deal with the answers. Here the younger have a definite advantage over the older; in return, the older have better understanding of people and how they behave. Both will be essential to make accurate predictions about the future, pick the most beneficial, and make the required changes.

 

31 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

it's worth the discussion for the thoughts it provokes. 

I agree totally :) What the answer is I don't know, but it is a good question. We simply have to start acknowledging that these are real problems that need discussion, and it is a political choice as to how we solve them. It is not a political choice to choose what information you admit to the discussion, nor if there is even a problem in the first place. I look not at particular countries or age groups - none are above reproach - but at what seems to be a global pendulum swinging away from f*cking around with our choices to finding out their consequences. 

 

Miss T seems to have her head screwed firmly on, can't imagine where she picked that up from...

Edited October 25, 2023 by Schooner
Sp.

[Edwardian]

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Not the intent, although exactly how it read, apologies.

 

 

I did not think it was, but it is worth stressing that one cannot really blame any previous generation. In terms of voting age people of a given generation, they had to rely on what public debate threw up and what politicians tried to persuade them of. When my parents were in their prime and I was growing up, the Greens were absolute cranks with no credibility in mainstream media or the commentariat. The then Prince of Wales, as it turns out a wiser and better informed bird than he was given credit for, was in this as in many things, ahead of the curve and was mercilessly mocked for his pains. Turns out he was right.

 

So, one can look at a Baby Boomer or a Gen-Xer and how they use their vote now, given what we all now know and (most of us) accept about the world, and if they have not caught up with the present reality, one might have a bit of a moan that relates to some extent to their age or generation. 

 

What one cannot really do is blame a past generation voting and acting as they did in the past (when most of the present problems were caused), when they could not reasonably have anticipated the consequences of the choices placed before them.

 

 

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

I think I include Millenials in with the Problem-Causers, although they (we) are perhaps the transitional age group between the FA-ers and the FOers.

 

Unfortunately Millenials get a bad press. 

 

But then, they can be quite irritating ..... 

 

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

As to fault/blame...I'm not sure I find this useful in looking at the past, nor helpful at the present (it being more likely to cause upset than positive change). We who had the good fortune to be born c.1950-2000 absolutely knew better than we have behaved, and as such we have some responsibility. We continue to change slowly, reluctantly, and largely only if fully compensated for any perceived loss. Those we elected to make decisions in our stead, based on information unavailable to us, also bear responsibility for the deceit they displayed in office (a healthily unpartisan issue) particularly insofar as the deceit was designed to appeal to a small but reliable electorate to maintain power at the expense of being able to enact good government.

 

Ah yes, I agree, as stated above

 

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

Likewise wisdom...it's 'just' information processing and making useful predictions based on the result. We have better tools to do that than in any point in history, but have not yet worked out how to deal with the answers. Here the younger have a definite advantage over the older; in return, the older have better understanding of people and how they behave. Both will be essential to make accurate predictions about the future, pick the most beneficial, and make the required changes.

 

Yes, they do. 

 

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

I agree totally :) What the answer is I don't know, but it is a good question. We simply have to start acknowledging that these are real problems that need discussion, and it is a political choice as to how we solve them. It is not a political choice to choose what information you admit to the discussion, nor if there is even a problem in the first place. I look not at particular countries or age groups - none are above reproach - but at what seems to be a global pendulum swinging away from f*cking around with our choices to finding out their consequences. 

 

Which is why a populist party that will not take responsibility for the grave issues we face and instead practices deflection and denial to dirstract the electorate for the doom the government is ignoring.

 

"Don't look up!" 

 

(a truly terrifying fiolm that everyone should watch!)

 

20 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Miss T seems to have her head screwed firmly on, can't imagine where she picked that up from...

 

To paraphrase Wellington, "I don't know what effect she'll have upon the future, but, by God, she frightens me!!" 

[rocor]

13 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Predictably Joseph Goebbels gave some thought to who "the people" were who needed to be fooled and how best to fool them; "There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be 'the man in the street.' Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect." And really that's exactly what the Sun and the Daily Mail (and now Talk TV and GB News) exist to do.

 

 

 

 

Joseph Goebbels, there is a good case to be put forward, for him to be recognized as the patron saint of advertising (propaganda for commercial purposes).

[Compound2632]

Perhaps if you want to disenfranchise the elderly the way to go is voting by an app downloaded to your phone, with dual authentication etc. Would disenfranchise me!

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Don't look up!" 

Son and I watched that, and it’s about the most accurate/chilling thing I’ve seen in years …… every day that passes makes it seem more true.

 

When it was released it got a lot of knocks for being crude an unsubtle as a piece of satire, and it is in some ways, but I honestly think that a great many people wouldn’t get it, blunt as it is.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Talltim]

36 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Perhaps if you want to disenfranchise the elderly the way to go is voting by an app downloaded to your phone, with dual authentication etc. Would disenfranchise me!

I don'tget  why its always the elderly who are quoted as being unable to use smartphones. They've been around at least 20 years , so the elderly have had far longer to get their heads round them than my 12 year old son. And he's also had to learn how to eat solid food, crawl, walk, talk and read in that time.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Talltim

[Caley Jim]

Well, I suppose I count as 'elderly' (would certainly be disenfranchised if Miss T had her way), but I can cope reasonably well with a smart phone, internet shopping, etc..  I refuse, however, to go anywhere near internet banking, no matter how hard the banks try to force us into that!

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

The elderly are a temporary problem, although it has to be said quite a large temporary problem, in that us Brit-boomers* will fall off the end of the conveyor belt of life into the waste-bin of eternity over the next c15-20 years, leaving a more sensibly balanced population profile, but something does need to be done to prevent them/us (I’m a borderline case just now) applying a dead hand to the country.

 

Import more young people. It’s not as if they aren’t queueing up to come here (which of itself proves that there are worse places to be).

 

* Care needed not to get too caught-up in US timelines, because the boom here was later.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Talltim]

There’s always more elderly in the pipeline, although that fact seems to confuse people that start ‘death of the hobby’ threads

[Compound2632]

59 minutes ago, Talltim said:

There’s always more elderly in the pipeline, although that fact seems to confuse people that start ‘death of the hobby’ threads

 

A point much overlooked by those in the arts desperate to appeal to a more youthful audience. The audience to target is those in their late 50s with children now graduated or soon to do so. Do you know how often I went to the opera or theatre in the last year before the pandemic? Once. Do you know how often this year? If so please tell me as I've lost count.

[Nearholmer]

There are, but we are at a point where the proportion of elderly in the population is beginning to really bulge, after which is will eventually level and, I think, fall (I need to double check the last bit though).

 

The prospect of growing old, tired and grumpy, in an old, tired and grumpy country full of other old, tired and grumpy people doesn’t thrill me one little bit, and goodness only knows how it must feel to be young and growing up into such an environment. If I were young, I think I’d be looking to emigrate to somewhere a bit younger, more vibrant, and with fewer people talking about how wonderful it all was back in their day.

 

PS: I’d especially want to emigrate to avoid paying tax to subsidise old geezers with nothing better to do going to the opera.

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

29 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

PS: I’d especially want to emigrate to avoid paying tax to subsidise old geezers with nothing better to do going to the opera.

 

1. What better thing is there to do than go to the opera?

 

2. On various pieces of information gleaned, I'm not convinced I'm significantly older than you.

 

3. Certainly not yet an old geezer, at least in my own mind!

[Nearholmer]

Sorry.

 

I’ll try putting it in a less offensive way:

 

If I were young, I would resent seeing tax revenue spent on subsiding arts that are patronised mainly be the older demographic that has a strong tendency to vote against paying taxes for anything, yet also needs a disproportionate amount of tax-funded health and social care, and complains vociferously if it isn’t provided.

 

TBH, I’ve got a very twitchy relationship with subsiding the arts in general, a tendency to reach for my revolver, unless it’s stuff that is very genuinely  involving of a broad constituency of people from all walks of life and of all ages, and/or is very much participatory.

 

 

[Caley Jim]

53 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

....... If I were young, I think I’d be looking to emigrate to somewhere a bit younger, more vibrant, and with fewer people talking about how wonderful it all was back in their day.

Mars?  Don't think it's any younger, or more vibrant, but there are fewer people!  😁

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

I don’t mind people (well, I don’t mind some people), but it would be far nicer to live in a place where they are all planning a better future than in one where they’re all lamenting the loss of a better past.

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

Import more young people. It’s not as if they aren’t queueing up to come here (which of itself proves that there are worse places to be).

 

 

 

 

We should welcome with open arms anyone coming here in a "small boat"

 

Apart from being just the sort of plucky underdogs we inisist we love, anyone who would rather risk death than become French surely deserves a home on our shores.

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

TBH, I’ve got a very twitchy relationship with subsiding the arts ... unless it’s stuff that is very genuinely  involving of a broad constituency of people from all walks of life and of all ages, and/or is very much participatory.

 

 

 

So, The V agina Monologues not for you then?

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Edwardian
Battling the Automated Prude

[Nearholmer]

Not if it’s subsidised.

[drmditch]

4 hours ago, Talltim said:

There’s always more elderly in the pipeline, although that fact seems to confuse people that start ‘death of the hobby’ threads

 

There is a good Pratchet quote from the last (?) book, 'Raising Steam'. An elderly lady when asked what she thought about the new 'hygenic railway', suggested that they should have waited until all the old people were dead.

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by drmditch