It’s time we debunked the myths peddled by neoliberal cheerleader Rupert Murdoch and the like.
Poor-hating bigotry peddled by tabloids
Everything below I have mentioned repeatedly on this blog and/or my Facebook account. I thought it was time for me to compile the items as a handy resource, having recently been reminded of the distressing reality that many people have no understanding at all of what is going on. The incident that triggered this was one of those pointless Facebook exchanges where I was confronted by the poor-hating bigotry of those who have completely swallowed the scapegoating propaganda of the far-right tabloids and project their poisonous vision onto all they see, impervious to evidence.
Anecdotes better? Persecution of asylum seekers.
In circumstances like that, the facts are useless, and I would probably have done better to relate the details of my own direct experiences (what it is really like to be on benefits) and those of people I have met – such as asylum seekers fleeing horrific persecution (in lands sucked dry by our multinationals) and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, only to face abuse and persecution in this sceptred isle, while living on a pittance.
Nonetheless, facts are facts, and they need to be widely disseminated. If people chance on them by themselves rather than being confronted by them in mid-rant, perhaps they stand a chance of registering. (I wish they were taught in schools, but our present neoliberal overlords would never allow that!)
Here’s the toolkit!
A) Know thine enemy: what is neoliberalism?
Click on this for a definition of neoliberalism. (Scroll down the page to see the five points.)
What is destroying people’s lives and the environment on which we all depend has various names.
This nails it! I wish we could force every politician and editor of mainstream media outlets to watch Nick Hanauer’s myth-busting talk in the video below. They have been found out!
C) Myth #2: Things have got better and trickle-down works
In fact we have a far more unequal society now than we did a couple of decades ago. The super-rich are pulling way ahead and the rest of us are getting worse off. The video below applies to the USA but much the same can be seen in other developed countries.
And these are the effects of such inequality. Click on the image below for a treasure trove of striking data.
Graph modified from the Equality Trust website showing that health and social problems are worse in unequal countries. Click on the image to visit the site and learn more.
D) Myth #3: There is a major problem with multi-generational wilful worklessness and benefits-scrounging
Many of the popular myths about “benefits scroungers” are debunked in the article below. Click on the image below to read it.
E) Myth #4: Companies that issue shares are subject to market discipline and are the most efficient…
Click on the image below to watch a great video in which David Erdal shows that, in fact, employee-owned companies are generally better for society in every way! (You will be taken to another post on this blog where you will also have the option to read a summary of his talk.)
Work for many feels like rape/prostitution, but it needn’t be this way! Click on this image to watch David Erdal’s inspiring talk on employee-ownership.
F) Myth #5: Choice is a good thing – the more the better!
I, for one, do not want to waste my valuable time and energy making essentially meaningless choices between often mediocre products. I want a good cup of coffee, a good local school, a good public transport system, and I do not want to have to compare and choose.
Lastly, a word about Scottish independence…
This is the image I submitted to the National Collective.
All the mainstream UK parties are clearly hell-bent on pursuing a destructive neoliberal course, tangled inextricably with the USA and the massively powerful military-industrial complex (warned against by Eisenhower). Here in Scotland we have a fantastic opportunity to break away from this and realise the visions espoused by such inspiring movements as:
Please visit their websites and see what could be! I shall certainly be voting for independence on 18 September 2014. We have nothing to lose (except the horrors of ongoing neoliberalism) and everything to gain!
And finally… here’s Resurgence magazine’s inspiring site, if you want to know what an entire world without neoliberalism could be like and how we might get there!
Inspired by this excellent Facebook group, I decided to pass my concerns to the Co-operative Group, because I am a member who joined believing them to be ethical. Below you will find our correspondence to date, in reverse order. I hope you will find it informative and inspiring.
I am extremely disappointed by your apparently complacent and condescending response. I strongly disagree that GM food/feed is not a risk to humans or animals that consume it. I refer you to this documentary, in which various credible doctors, veterinarians, farmers, etc., present compelling evidence to the contrary. (Incidentally, I am a veterinarian myself, and I hold master’s in ecology and a doctorate in ecotoxicology.)
Who benefits from GM crops? A Friends of the Earth report.
GM crops are also extremely harmful to producers and biodiversity, as this document demonstrates. GM production does not generally increase yields, generally requires high inputs of herbicide, fertiliser and fossil fuel energy, damages biodiversity, and is developed by companies whose ethics and treatment of producers have been widely questioned. It is reasonable to conclude that it is completely at odds with sustainable food production.
Ecosia search on the links between Monsanto and food regulators.
You appear to be unaware of the links (revolving doors) between GM companies such as Monsanto and regulatory bodies that supposedly govern food safety. There are huge vested interests in covering up the evidence of the damage done by such crops, as a tiny bit of research on your part would reveal. See, for example: http://ecosia.org/search.php?q=monsanto+fda+revolving+door&addon=opensearch
Brazilian non-GM soy producers baffled by UK retailers’ decision.
I look forward to a more satisfactory response from yourselves, in which you provide evidence from unimpeachable sources refuting the evidence presented in the links I have provided. Alternatively, I expect to receive assurance that you are dropping your pro-GM stance. If I do not receive either of these responses I can only conclude that you are not an ethical business, and care little for your customers and members, the environment (including biodiversity, on which all future food production depends), and the welfare of food producers.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours sincerely
R. Eric Swanepoel Phd, MSc, BVSc, MRCVS
Co-op member 633174 9111 1128 4242
Response from the Co-operative:
Thank you for contacting the Co-operative regarding our policy on GM.
The amount of GM crops grown across the globe has increased rapidly and it’s becoming more and more difficult to have a continuous and guaranteed supply of non-GM soya for animal feed.
We’ve been working with suppliers to maintain non-GM feed for as long as practically possible, but this position is now becoming untenable. Our own-brand chicken and turkey supplier has informed us that they are no longer able to guarantee that the animal feed they are using is non-GM, so we are no longer able to guarantee to you that these animals have not been fed a non-GM diet.
We’ve looked for alternative ways to source non-GM feed, but the limited supplies of guaranteed non-GM feed available, and the increased costs to farmers and customers means this isn’t feasible.
Our shell egg supplier has also informed us that, they are having difficulties maintaining a guaranteed supply of non-GM soya, although they are continuing to look at ways to resolve this issue.
Rest assured the poultry and eggs themselves are not genetically modified and the FSA have proven that meat fed on GM soya is no different from meat fed a non-GM diet. GM feed poses no risk to either your safety or that of the animals it’s fed to. In fact, before any GM products can be used in the EU, the European Union has to verify it’s safe for human and animal health.
I am writing to you as a member who joined because I thought you were an ethical organisation. I urge you not to stock any GM products, including those issuing from animals fed GM crops. There is now an abundance of information showing how GM crops benefit only companies such as Monsanto, at the cost of many producers, the environment, animals and human consumers. See, for example: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/who_benefits_from_gm_crops.pdf and http://geneticroulettemovie.com/ .
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
R. Eric Swanepoel PhD, MSc, BVSc, MRCVS Co-op Member 633174 90111 1128 4242
The article by Hayley Gallimore mentions the support Angela is receiving from MP John Mann, Peter Saunders and NAPAC and local politician and campaigner Adele Mumby.
I went out with my camera in Stockbridge and wandered along the Water of Leith, taking these pictures. I had to add the text in later as it didn’t show up in the photographs. I look a bit grim, but it was an enjoyable exercise, with the added challenge of having to find places where I could rest my camera as I was on my own and using the camera’s delayed shot function.
Myself in Stockbridge. Click on this to see it larger.
Myself on some stairs near the Water of Leith. Click on this image to see it larger.
Myself with Dean Bridge in the background (designed by Thomas Telford). Click on this to see it larger.
This is the original image from which I cropped my submission. Click to see it larger.
You can also view a letter she wrote to Jimmy Savile, now revealed as a serial child-abuser, asking him to ‘fix it’ for her. Fortunately, he did not respond.
Twenty pence from every copy sold will go to NAPAC, and it’s less than £3 a copy!
Yesterday while I was meditating, this essay popped into my head. I grabbed a notebook (set aside for recording ideas that jump out of the ether when I am meditating) and jotted down a few key points, then returned to meditation.
Join the dots!
Today I feel ready to transcribe it. It amounts to a cross-fertilisation of ideas, the disparate sources of which will become apparent. I won’t immediately reveal how I have connected them, so you have an opportunity to join the dots yourself.
Please excuse what may appear to be sweeping generalisations. Of course I recognise there are people of all sorts in every country. However, I do think that there is such a thing as national character. (I also think that some individuals triumph because they rebel against the national character – something they almost need to kick against – but that’s another story.)
Source 1: Clare Galloway’s thoughts on Scottish negativity and Italian self-assurance
Clare Galloway’s provocative essay on Scottish negativity – one of the seeds of this essay.
Some time ago I read Clare Galloway’s provocative essay on what, for want of a better phrase, I would describe as Scottish negativity, which she describes as ‘this sense of something pressing down on [us], stopping [us] from growing’, and illustrates with the phrase, ‘…you don’t want to go and do that!’
A key passage is this one:
‘Two years ago, I decided to quit my country (again), and head for the sun, the positivity, the relative freedom of southern Europe, where people are not bound by this sense of something pressing down on them, stopping them from growing. Yes- the warmth, the good food, the family-oriented culture, and affordability of comfort, these are things which come from being closer to the sun, simple as that… but there is something essential to this bountiful freedom; an inherent need which is lacking in my own country’s psyche: confidence.’
Clare Galloway in Guardia Sanframondi, Campania, Italy. She made some interesting observations on the way people hold and conduct themselves in Italy, borne out by what I witnessed myself.
I think this must have lodged in my subconscious, to lie there quietly, waiting for some companion thoughts to bring it to life. Well, I visited Clare in gorgeous Guardia Sanframondi in September last year, staying in her charming Arthouse Guardia, and she made some observations that added to the mix.
She said (and I paraphrase) that people in Guardia Sanframondi generally held and conducted themselves with much more self-assurance than people did in Scotland. There was none of the cringing, self-abnegating, deferential, apologetic-ness that we see in Scotland. Put charitably, this Scottish meekness could be described as humility or modesty, but it can also be associated with the slow drip of ineffectual moaning and the outright nastiness of put-downs such as ‘Ah kent his faither’ (‘I knew his father [so who the hell does he think he is?]‘) – in other words, don’t get above your station/tall poppies should be pruned. More strongly: ’There’s no point trying to make things better, and if you do try we’ll shoot you down.’
I had an opportunity to see what she meant about the Italian character when I attended a public meeting in Guardia Sanframondi’s municipal building (to discuss how the town could capitalise on the international interest triggered by Clare’s appearance in an episode of House Hunters International). Without exception, people stood up, radiating confidence in the way they held themselves, and took their time to set out their thoughts, speaking directly and unapologetically as they expressed views that were not necessarily shared by others (as far as I could make out).
Source 2: Daniel Goleman, mirror neurons and empathy
Mirror neurons play a key role in empathy. By preparing the body to mimic another’s movements, we can get to feel what they feel.
A while ago I read Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence. In it, he talks about mirror neurons, and the role they play in empathy. (Coincidentally, much of the research he refers to took place in Italy.) What this boils down to is that if you observe an action or an expression, your mirror neurons prepare your brain to mimic the observed activity, and this, to some extent, puts you in the mind of the observed individual. In other words, they play an important role in empathy.
Source 3: Amy Cuddy’s TED talk: Your body language shapes who you are.
I chanced upon this TED talk the other day. In it, Amy Cuddy echoes some of what I gleaned from Daniel Goleman’s book, and goes on to provide evidence that, by changing your posture etc., you can not only change how others perceive you but, more importantly, how you feel, behave and perform yourself. The effects are reflected in levels of testosterone and cortisol. You must watch this!
Putting it together
Are you thinking what I am thinking? Is it mere coincidence that we have such descriptive Scots words as dreich (for the weather), and dour and crabbit for personalities?
Myself in Inverleith Park, a place where I often go walking. I generally have to wrap up warmly! The pond was frozen over when I went there on 17 January 2013.
I took a break from writing this essay and went for a walk. It was cold but not nearly as dreich as it has been of late. Even so, many people were visibly braced against the weather, shoulders hunched and heads down, hands in pockets or arms folded. It’s not hard to imagine, if Amy Cuddy is right, how this might affect mood and, with chronic exposure, personality!
…And if mirror neurons affect our mood by merely preparing for us to mimic another’s actions, how much more powerful an effect on our emotions will actually adopting certain postures have? Does this add something to the understanding of a mechanism for Amy Cuddy’s thesis?
OK, I hear you say, let’s assume that the hunched-against-the-world, negative posture caused by cold does affect people’s moods and attitudes. If that’s the case then there ought to be a simple relationship between temperature and national personalities, but it’s much colder in continental Europe, America and Asia, and these places don’t have the negativity associated with the national character of the Scots…
Sweating in Sweden
Of course, there are many factors at play here – I don’t claim that climate is the only one - but let’s tackle the point about other places being colder… This is certainly true, in terms of absolute temperature. When I first visited Scandinavia it was mid-winter, and I was well prepared, or so I thought. Having read about the average winter temperatures in Oslo and Stockholm, I had bought thermal longjohns. Well, dressed in several layers of clothing over my longjohns, and carrying a backpack, I discovered I couldn’t walk more than a short distance without feeling uncomfortably hot! Yes, the air temperature was several degrees below freezing, but the sun beat down on the blindingly white snow and the air was dry and still. I could have dressed as I did in Scotland and felt much warmer than I had in Aberdeen. One feels the cold much more in horizontal rain or sleet, and the gloom caused by the sempiternal low clouds/haar of Scotland also does not help!
More recently I returned to Sweden in the middle of the year – glorious T-shirt weather, with all ages swimming in pristine lakes and gathering berries in the forests. Completely unlike the miserable apologies for summer we generally experience in Scotland!
Of course, feeling cold is not just a question of climate, because we spend much of our time indoors, but also of housing and heating, and therefore of poverty and the economy. The UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world (and Scotland as part of it), fuel poverty is widespread and much of the housing stock substandard. This can only exacerbate the effect of the dreich weather. (This raises another question, of course: does the weather indirectly make it less likely that the Scots will have the confidence to break away from this shockingly badly run entity, one that has consistently undermined Scottish confidence, as illustrated in the next paragraph? These people, anyway, don’t appear to be suffering from negativity.)
A national lack of self-confidence isn’t only due to the weather. Scottish culture and languages have long been persecuted and/or sneered at. A friend was given the tawse for daring to speak Scots in the classroom.
The Scottish cringe: given the tawse for speaking Scots
Yes, there are undoubtedly other factors contributing to the Scottish lack of get-up-and-go. Centuries of ‘culture-cide’ have undoubtedly contributed to the Scottish cringe. The most obvious example of ‘culture-cide’ is the longstanding hostility to Scots and Gaelic displayed originally by the English, and to some extent now assimilated by the Scots themselves. A friend of mine was given the tawse in the 1970s for daring to speak Scots in the classroom! Thankfully attempts are being made to rectify the situation, but ingrained prejudices die hard.
In summary, I suggest that the miserable weather we endure in Scotland may play a significant role in the national character, and that this may operate through the neurological circuits that link posture and mood.
A personal digression
I was born in Edinburgh and currently live in Edinburgh, but from the age of four grew up in Zimbabwe and South Africa, countries where I often felt uncomfortably hot and where the glaring sunlight would bring on headaches. When I first returned to Blighty I did not miss the warmth and sunshine, but as the years went on the greyness and cold took their toll.
My mother is Scottish and I often visited Scotland as a child, so I could not really view the character of the people with any perspective, having always been familiar with it. I would say, however, that white people in South Africa struck me as relatively loud and pushy, which perhaps says something about the Scottish character being the opposite. There is a pithy Afrikaans saying – ‘n boer maak ‘n plan – which translates literally as ‘a farmer makes a plan’, and metaphorically as ‘there’s always a way’. This expresses something akin to the US ‘can-do’ attitude, and it might be said to be the opposite of the Scottish negativity discussed above.
I get my electricity and gas from Good Energy so don’t feel too guilty about heating my home.
Anyway, for years I eschewed heating, preferring to grit my teeth and tough it out. This was for both environmental and financial reasons. Does this have anything to do with my apparent lack of material success? Those who believe in the so-called law of attraction would say that I had adopted a poverty/anti-abundance mindset and that this might explain it as much as a hunched posture. (Most other people would probably say that I have should simply have stayed working as a vet rather than try to make it as a writer!) Lately I have taken to using heating for several reasons:
My gas and electricity are supplied by Good Energy. All the electricity I use comes from renewable sources and some of the money I spend on the gas is used to fund more renewable energy generation. In other words, my energy consumption probably has less of a negative impact on the environment than most.
It is my responsibility as a tenant to keep the property I am renting in good order, and cold and damp are not good for it.
I feel it’s worth experimenting with an ‘abundance mindset’. Worrying never gets anyone anywhere, and my financial situation appears to be improving anyway.
It’s more comfortable.
So now I add to these reasons the theory I have come up with, as presented above. I realise that this cannot in any way be considered a scientific experiment, as I am doing more than one thing that may affect my worldly success (of which meditation is the major one) and there is no control, far less a double-blind protocol and replication, but it will still be interesting to see what happens now that I am allowing myself to heat my home and shall be consciously changing my posture! Happiness and wealth in abundance?
Education: meditation, ‘fake it until you become it’, inequality and, above all, empathy!
Whatever the merits of my own theory on the effect of weather on the Scottish national character, I am convinced of the benefits of meditation, which possibly triggered the idea in the first place. It certainly boosts creativity, and it is extremely helpful to know that one does not have to identify with one’s thoughts and emotions; that one is more than one’s thoughts and emotions and that one can have some control over them. Meditation is an invaluable tool for doing this, and should undoubtedly be taught in schools, perhaps under the title of ‘mindfulness’.
It seems that Amy Cuddy’s advice (‘fake it until you become it’) may also be worth passing on. It’s another way of influencing one’s mental, emotional and physical state, and therefore one’s happiness and performance. If there is as much evidence for it as it seems, how can we deprive our children of this knowledge?
I alluded above to the effects of income inequality on individuals and society as a whole. There is now a mountain of evidence on this subject. This should surely be on the school curriculum. We should, in my opinion, measure every government policy against its effects on socio-economic equality.
The most important thing we should teach our children, however, is empathy. This topic is fundamental if we are ever going to make a significant impact on their miserable, materialistic, bullied existences. The ability to empathise is, interestingly, impaired by living in extremely unequal societies. Empathy starts with not being too hard on oneself, so mindfulness must surely play a role here too. These things are all related!
Tying up the topics of mindfulness (awareness/consciousness) , education and empathy, here is a discussion I highly recommend:
And here’s an extremely short video on empathy, imagination and education:
What will the ‘crabbit old bat’, an author of books on the brain, make of this?
I wonder what Nicola Morgan, a famous ‘crabbit old bat’, and an author of two excellent books on the brain, will make of this essay?
