“I am increasingly wondering what the point of Starmer actually is.”
The point of Starmer is pretty clear. He takes up the role of faithful under-manager when the owner of the shop is indisposed (a.k.a. too unpopular to be seen behind the counter). This is the traditional role of the ‘Labour’ Party, as exemplified in its purest form by To…
“I am increasingly wondering what the point of Starmer actually is.”
The point of Starmer is pretty clear. He takes up the role of faithful under-manager when the owner of the shop is indisposed (a.k.a. too unpopular to be seen behind the counter). This is the traditional role of the ‘Labour’ Party, as exemplified in its purest form by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who built upon the less dedicated examples of Harold Wilson, Clement Attlee and Ramsay MacDonald and in the deep past, the Fabian Society. (Jeremy Corby, by way of harking back to the scarcely radical policies of Harold Wilson and not believing in the infallibility of Zionism, was clearly not fit for purpose, and so was replaced). This is what such people are actually doing. What they either believe or profess to be doing is neither here nor there.
There a number of contentious opinions outlined in this essay (not including the immigration problem, or the decrepitude of liberalism, which are more or less as described), but I will confine myself to the most interesting to me - the cultural one.
It seems to me that the dearth of works which are both contemporary and genuinely ‘new’ reflects the fact that almost every possible mode or form which can be conceived has already been produced. Contemporary popular music, perhaps because of its limited, mostly US, origins shows this clearly - every time you hear something recent you are almost always reminded of something you heard fifty years ago. In ‘classical’ music too, almost everything conceivable has been tried, including random sounds and no sound at all. The only possibility of fresh new forms (and this is in music only, really) is by borrowing from the indigenous traditional music of alien cultures (Berber, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Mongolian etc.), but this can only go on for so long.
Painting and sculpture have only four possible modes - abstract and figurative, small to gigantic, and these have all been comprehensively explored.
Literature is limited by the requirement of readability, and Joyce has gone as far as one can feasibly go in opposition to that, while others (Marcel Proust, Henry James, Virginia Wolf, e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, James Merrill & etc. & ad infinitum) have explored most of the other nooks and crannies. Literature even in its less exotic modes is however potentially endless, as the social customs it sits within perpetually change and mutate - unless we descend into one uniform world culture, which seems less and less likely as global industrial society nears its end. Perhaps when that end comes it will result in the obliteration of current cultural deposits, and it can all begin afresh.
“I am increasingly wondering what the point of Starmer actually is.”
The point of Starmer is pretty clear. He takes up the role of faithful under-manager when the owner of the shop is indisposed (a.k.a. too unpopular to be seen behind the counter). This is the traditional role of the ‘Labour’ Party, as exemplified in its purest form by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who built upon the less dedicated examples of Harold Wilson, Clement Attlee and Ramsay MacDonald and in the deep past, the Fabian Society. (Jeremy Corby, by way of harking back to the scarcely radical policies of Harold Wilson and not believing in the infallibility of Zionism, was clearly not fit for purpose, and so was replaced). This is what such people are actually doing. What they either believe or profess to be doing is neither here nor there.
There a number of contentious opinions outlined in this essay (not including the immigration problem, or the decrepitude of liberalism, which are more or less as described), but I will confine myself to the most interesting to me - the cultural one.
It seems to me that the dearth of works which are both contemporary and genuinely ‘new’ reflects the fact that almost every possible mode or form which can be conceived has already been produced. Contemporary popular music, perhaps because of its limited, mostly US, origins shows this clearly - every time you hear something recent you are almost always reminded of something you heard fifty years ago. In ‘classical’ music too, almost everything conceivable has been tried, including random sounds and no sound at all. The only possibility of fresh new forms (and this is in music only, really) is by borrowing from the indigenous traditional music of alien cultures (Berber, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Mongolian etc.), but this can only go on for so long.
Painting and sculpture have only four possible modes - abstract and figurative, small to gigantic, and these have all been comprehensively explored.
Literature is limited by the requirement of readability, and Joyce has gone as far as one can feasibly go in opposition to that, while others (Marcel Proust, Henry James, Virginia Wolf, e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, James Merrill & etc. & ad infinitum) have explored most of the other nooks and crannies. Literature even in its less exotic modes is however potentially endless, as the social customs it sits within perpetually change and mutate - unless we descend into one uniform world culture, which seems less and less likely as global industrial society nears its end. Perhaps when that end comes it will result in the obliteration of current cultural deposits, and it can all begin afresh.