Category Archives: Philosophy

Why is religion absent from good conversation.

christianity, Philosophy, Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why religion so absent from good conversation? When I speak with my friends I avoid the subject, good manners deeming as embarrassing subject not fit for polite conversation. Similarly religion is missing from serious public and political debate. Why when it informed the thinking of so many political and intellectual greats in the past?One reason is that peculiar kind of unthinking religion has crowded out other types of religious thought from the public and political debate. This religion is subordinate to a political ideology, that of the political conservatives. They use this sacred something from the past to counter all that they hate about modernity. Women controlling their bodies through contraception or abortion, is one such hated modernity

Religious conservatives may claim that I am wrong in calling their’s an unthinking religion or more unkindly a religion of ignorance. Having an interest in Hellenic philosophy and the Neo-Platonists, I have found that an American Catholic publisher that is a good source of texts on this subject. When scanning reviews of other books in the catalogue, I noticed one book by an author opposed to abortion. He claimed that abortion had long been regarded as wrong by Western thinkers, even those from the classical period. He cited Musonius Rufus, the Roman stoic thinker as such opponent of abortion. This was the same Musonius Rufus who in his role as magistrate had condemned Justin Martyr to death and ordered the torture and execution of his Christian followers. This writer’s failure to adequately check on his source is illustrative of the ignorance, so often demonstrated by the political religious right.

Obviously the barbaric actions of Muslims extremists as demonstrated in the Bataclan attacks discredit religion thinking from a place in the mainstream of political and public discourse. However there is another Islam that is very different, an Islam typified by Sufism. An Islam tolerant of others and one that emphasises concern for the community. A religion that has been subject to more violent attacks by Muslim extremists than any Western community.

What I want is good religious thinking and practice to replace bad religion so often used in the public discourse. A religion that admits of the mystery of life, best explained in the words of Heraclitus, ‘nature hides in plain sight’. Life is not knowable or at least in its entirety, there remains the part that is unknowable, and it is this unknowable that religion addresses. Religion is a paradox, it admits to the unknowable and yet claims to this unknowable makes itself known to man. William Hague is an unlikely figure to quote in support of my contention, he spoke of a feeling of oneness with nature, being part of something greater, when walking in remote parts of Yorkshire. A Christianity described as nonsense by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yet for a deist it speaks of the mystery that is at the heart of religion.

What William Hague was expressing was the belief that appearance is not all, there is a something beyond immediate experience, that gives it its unity and coherence. When Carlo Rovelli suggests that there is a something, probably information that gives reality its structure, I feel that I am not so wrong after all. Heraclitus wrote that nature was hiding in plain sight. A statement of the religious experience that cannot I believe be bettered. This sentiment Pierre Hadot states has been the inspiration for thinkers since the classical period, German Romantic writers such as Goethe demonstrate this. For Goethe it was metamorphous that was the engine of natural evolution and change. He searched for the originals from which all things developed through the process of metamorphous. Later Romantics such a Schelling saw will as mysterious something that drove human development. He used the meanderings of the Rhine as a metaphor for the German will. The inevitable something that although it took many unexpected turns was the driving force of German history.

For me this something is an unknowable, I find the medieval text, ‘The Cloud of Unknowing,’ an expression of the mysticism which I share. Can I quote Joe a former teaching colleague and former Jesuit priest, ‘God is not some father figure up there, beyond the clouds‘.

There is a rational mysticism which I believe was demonstrated in the lives of the great medieval scholastics such as Duns Scotus. He writes that God is infinite and as such finite beings such as ourselves cannot have the means to know God. Although God is unknowable as such he does make himself known to humanity, though a variety of religious experiences. The rituals of the religious service are one such way. For a Catholic Christ’s presence is present in the ritual of Holy Communion. Although Duns Scotus practised those contemplative mystical practices of a cleric, yet he was also a supreme logician. Religious mysticism was the foundation on which his thought rested, but that mysticism did not cloud his thinking or make him less of a rational thinker. Descartes was one more secular minded philosopher that mined the writings off Duns Scotus for his use in his own work. Mystics can be as hard nosed and practical as others of a more secular persuasion. It is unfortunate that for many religious mysticism is associated with orange robed Hari Krishna monk.

Mysticism is for me accepting the mystery of life, a mystery that is not amenable to the reason or rational thought. Yet a something that informs my life. Not knowing means humility, accepting limits on knowing. Unlike the realist who knows, as everything that is, is out there to be seen and observed. Realism of this kind dominates the political debate. There is an arrogance in the speaking and conduct of those who know, if there are only a limited number of facts at your disposal, it is easy to know. Particularly if these known truths come in simple easy to understand ideological boxes, such as Neo-liberalism. The Neo-liberal confidence belief that they and only they know the truth means that it that they adopt a hectoring, bullying and often irritated tone towards those who don’t know. One merely has to hear a ‘knowledgable’ British politician speak to recognise this truth.

Not knowing means being respectful to others or other ideologies or beliefs. What it means is a profession of tolerance towards others. Perhaps this example illustrates my viewpoint. The Knights Templar were the successful shock troops of the Crusader army that invaded Palestine. Residence in Palestine bought them into contact with the ‘unknown heathen’. Evidence suggests that they adopted some of the beliefs and practices of the more educated and sophisticated Muslims. One was the requirement for initiates to the order to tread on and deface an image of Jesus Christ. This was not as the inquisition thought an act of blasphemy, but the Sufi religious practice of defiling images of God. In doing so the initiate learnt that the worship of God was not to be confused with the worship of idols. Ignorance of the Inquisitors prevented them from understanding that these Templars were acting according to the Biblical injunction that Christians should not worship any graven idols.* A very old story, but one that illustrates my point, that those who know that they know all to often act in ignorance.

Being religious to me means accepting the mystery and wonder that is life. What I profess is a Socratic ignorance. I don’t know the answers, as that would be thinking that I had the powers and knowledge of a being far superior to me. However what I do know is several possible and probable answers. In fact my knowledge of particular topics and subjects is often superior to those who ‘know’.

Practising mysticism is a uniquely individual experience. It’s a unique and exciting voyage of exploration, one in which there are no guides other than yourself. Mysticism is a uniquely individual act, is an act which is beyond the control of the church authorities. As it is a questioning of everything that is known, it is regarded as suspicion by these very authorities. Past mystics such as Theresa of Avilia are acceptable to the church as their works are part of the church’s canon and as such present no challenge to its authority. Contemporary mystics challenge the churches’ authority. The mysticism of the questioning individual is the religion for those that believe the best life is a pilgrimage, that is a constant but unfilled search for the truth. As J.S.Mill stated better a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig.

As J.S.Mill wrote better to be a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig.

*in 1307 the French king Phillip (a monarch desperately short of money) wanted the Knights Templars suppressed so he could acquire their wealth. The Inquisition provided a justification for the suppression of this order, by forcing these men under torture to confess to blasphemous acts.

Musonius Rufus was not the magistrate responsible for the execution of Justin Martyr, it was an error. I am guilty of the same error made by unthinking Conservative Christians.

The fallacious misunderstanding of the medieval world and why it matters

History, Philosophy, Politics

The medieval world has been characterised as the Dark Ages, a misconception that remains current today. One example that comes to mind is the television presenter and historian who on describing the fall of Constantinople, said that the siege was of little concern to the monks of St.Sophia who would be spending their time debating such unworldly issues as to how many angels could dance on a pin head. What the presenter did not realise was that he was repeating the black propaganda used by the Protestants to discredit there Catholicism. In fact if he had read William of Ockham, he would have discovered that the thinking of medieval theologians was both pragmatic and sophisticated. In fact David Hume cited William as one of key thinkers that influenced his philosophy. His essay the ‘Treatise on Human Nature’ echoes William’s scepticism about the limitations of human reason. Although separated by five hundred years and starting from different intellectual standpoints, there conclusions are remarkably similar. Seb Falk a historian decided to turn this thinking on its head by writing a book about medieval science, that he called ‘The Light Ages’.

Seb Falk’s contention is that despite its mischaracterisation, this time was a period of remarkable scientific and mathematical advance. Sun dials he states that despite their rudimentary construction could be sophisticated means of measuring time. He gives as evidence of this sophistication the astrolabe. A flat disc that when used with a sighting device for checking the position of the stars or sun could determine the viewer’s latitude and longitude. They knew that there location could affect their astronomical reading, as position of the stars the sky would change according to their latitude. John Westryk a monk from St.Albans knew that when he was relocated to Tynemouth could still use an astrolabe made for use at the southern location of St.Albans, because the small variation in latitude would only effect a minimal change in the position of the stars.

Despite their wrongful belief that earth was at the centre of seven concentric circles of heaven, each one being ever closer to God, they were remarkably accurate in their charting of the night sky.

Sailors in the open sea would use the cross staff or astrolabe to find their position. By the fourteenth century sailors were using compasses and charts marked with rhumb lines. The latter were lines leading to various ports. Despite what appears to be the rudimentary nature of their navigational aids, they were capable of accurately navigating the seas. British and other fishermen by the end of this period were beginning to use this technology to find the fisheries located off Newfoundland. Manuscripts suggest that St.Brendan (an Irish monk) of the early medieval period may have been the first European to discover America.

What Seb Falk establishes is remarkable scientific understanding and practice existed within the learned clerical class.

This class also displayed a remarkable openness to non Christian thinking. The Arab philosopher Avicenna was significant, it was through familiarity with his writings that medieval theologians became familiar with the works of Aristotle. It was through the writings of these theologians that Aristotle was reintroduced into the Christian world. Such was the sophistication of their philosophical reasoning, that later philosophers made use of their findings. In fact the use of Avicenna in their writings was controversial, it was the two path controversy. Christians believed that truth could only be found through faith, now Avicenna was saying that truth could be found through philosophy. In fact he believed that only the philosopher could truly know the truths of God. Theologians would accuse their rivals of being adherents of the two truth theory, which was anathema to the church. This and other contentious issues ensured that medieval universities were lively and stimulating centres of learning. Often earning the censure if the church authorities, as happened to the university of Paris.

There is the intriguing story concerning St.Francis of Assisi. He took time out from his reforming work to travel to Spain. Idries Shah believes that he was hoping find the master, a man he made many references to. Shah thinks the master was Rumi the great muslim thinker and poet. Speculation perhaps, but the medieval church was more open to new ideas that is usually thought.

Medieval universities could be lively places of intellectual discovery, but there was a dark side to the medieval university. William of Ockham a particularly controversial thinker was accused of heresy by the master Oxford university, and had to flee to the continent.

I am aware that in describing medieval England as a time of enlightenment and intellectual advance, is painting as partial a picture as that of the Victorians who described it as the dark ages. How should we judge or characterise this period? By its monsters and the crimes they committed or by its best and most enlightened and their achievements? If the former it should be noted that the twentieth century regarded as a time of progress and advance, was a time when there were men such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot who committed far worse crimes than there medieval predecessors.

At my last school my colleague taught the ‘Wars of the Roses’, as it was he said, an interesting period of history. Perhaps if we view education as a making a positive contribution to the students development, we should not glorify a group of arrogant, brutal men, who gloried in the butchery of their rivals.

I have always thought we neglect teaching what is best from the past. Once Erasmus’s’ ‘Adages’ was regarded as essential reading for statesman. Now a book only read by the intellectually curious. I value from that book the essay entitled ‘War is sweet only to those who have never tried it’. I think this should be required reading for any aspirant politician on a PPE course.

When we reflect on the achievements of the medieval period, does it not undermine the theory of human history as a constantly upward progressive movement? There are a group of Anglican theologians who think the high Middle Ages represent the peak of human civilisation. These radical orthodox theologians have among their adherents, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

The fallacious misunderstanding of the medieval world and why it matters

History, Philosophy, Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The medieval world has been characterised as the Dark Ages, a misconception that remains current today. One example that comes to mind is the television presenter and historian who on describing the fall of Constantinople, said that the siege was of little concern to the monks of St.Sophia who would be spending their time debating such unworldly issues as to how many angels could dance on a pin head. What the presenter did not realise was that he was repeating the black propaganda used by the Protestants to discredit there Catholicism. In fact if he had read William of Ockham, he would have discovered that the thinking of medieval theologians was both pragmatic and sophisticated. In fact David Hume cited William as one of key thinkers that influenced his philosophy. His essay the ‘Treatise on Human Nature’ echoes William’s scepticism about the limitations of human reason. Although separated by five hundred years and starting from different intellectual standpoints, there conclusions are remarkably similar. Seb Falk a historian decided to turn this thinking on its head by writing a book about medieval science, that he called ‘The Light Ages’.

Seb Falk’s contention is that despite its mischaracterisation, this time was a period of remarkable scientific and mathematical advance. Sun dials he states that despite their rudimentary construction could be sophisticated means of measuring time. He gives as evidence of this sophistication the astrolabe. A flat disc that when used with a sighting device for checking the position of the stars or sun could determine the viewer’s latitude and longitude. They knew that there location could affect their astronomical reading, as position of the stars the sky would change according to their latitude. John Westryk a monk from St.Albans knew that when he was relocated to Tynemouth could still use an astrolabe made for use at the southern location of St.Albans, because the small variation in latitude would only effect a minimal change in the position of the stars.

Despite their wrongful belief that earth was at the centre of seven concentric circles of heaven, each one being ever closer to God, they were remarkably accurate in their charting of the night sky.

Sailors in the open sea would use the cross staff or astrolabe to find their position. By the fourteenth century sailors were using compasses and charts marked with rhumb lines. The latter were lines leading to various ports. Despite what appears to be the rudimentary nature of their navigational aids, they were capable of accurately navigating the seas. British and other fishermen by the end of this period were beginning to use this technology to find the fisheries located off Newfoundland. Manuscripts suggest that St.Brendan (an Irish monk) of the early medieval period may have been the first European to discover America.

What Seb Falk establishes is remarkable scientific understanding and practice existed within the learned clerical class.

This class also displayed a remarkable openness to non Christian thinking. The Arab philosopher Avicenna was significant, it was through familiarity with his writings that medieval theologians became familiar with the works of Aristotle. It was through the writings of these theologians that Aristotle was reintroduced into the Christian world. Such was the sophistication of their philosophical reasoning, that later philosophers made use of their findings. In fact the use of Avicenna in their writings was controversial, it was the two path controversy. Christians believed that truth could only be found through faith, now Avicenna was saying that truth could be found through philosophy. In fact he believed that only the philosopher could truly know the truths of God. Theologians would accuse their rivals of being adherents of the two truth theory, which was anathema to the church. This and other contentious issues ensured that medieval universities were lively and stimulating centres of learning. Often earning the censure if the church authorities, as happened to the university of Paris.

There is the intriguing story concerning St.Francis of Assisi. He took time out from his reforming work to travel to Spain. Idries Shah believes that he was hoping find the master, a man he made many references to. Shah thinks the master was Rumi the great muslim thinker and poet. Speculation perhaps, but the medieval church was more open to new ideas that is usually thought.

Medieval universities could be lively places of intellectual discovery, but there was a dark side to the medieval university. William of Ockham a particularly controversial thinker was accused of heresy by the master Oxford university, and had to flee to the continent.

I am aware that in describing medieval England as a time of enlightenment and intellectual advance, is painting as partial a picture as that of the Victorians who described it as the dark ages. How should we judge or characterise this period? By its monsters and the crimes they committed or by its best and most enlightened and their achievements? If the former it should be noted that the twentieth century regarded as a time of progress and advance, was a time when there were men such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot who committed far worse crimes than there medieval predecessors.

At my last school my colleague taught the ‘Wars of the Roses’, as it was he said, an interesting period of history. Perhaps if we view education as a making a positive contribution to the students development, we should not glorify a group of arrogant, brutal men, who gloried in the butchery of their rivals.

I have always thought we neglect teaching what is best from the past. Once Erasmus’s’ ‘Adages’ was regarded as essential reading for statesman. Now a book only read by the intellectually curious. I value from that book the essay entitled ‘War is sweet only to those who have never tried it’. I think this should be required reading for any aspirant politician on a PPE course.

When we reflect on the achievements of the medieval period, does it not undermine the theory of human history as a constantly upward progressive movement? There are a group of Anglican theologians who think the high Middle Ages represent the peak of human civilisation. These radical orthodox theologians have among their adherents, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Ecology and Nature Mysticism

country life, Philosophy, , , , , , , , , , ,

Growing up in the countryside gave me a different perspective on life. Life around me changed with the seasons. As a child I was aware of the change with the seasons, but the reason for that change remained largely inexplicable. In spring I eagerly waited for the first signs of change in nature. The solitary snowdrop hiding under a tree, the bursting into bloom of the ma and the appearance of hazel nuts on the trees, each indicating the onset of a different season. Although I knew at an early age this was due to changes in the position of the sun, the process of change in nature still seemed a mysterious process. Primary school science was not sufficient to explain the changes in the moods of nature. None of the adults I knew could explain the sudden changes in the weather, why did a bright summer’s day suddenly darken with storm clouds which would erupt into a sudden downpour. An uncontrollable force which could disrupt people’s lives. The eruption of the storm would instantly change people’s lives. In a fierce thunderstorm people would take cover, as the fierce rain made work impossible. Storms demonstrated not only the power of nature and the insignificance of man, but also its mystery. How did the cows know long in advance that a storm was coming? Hours before it arrived they would sit down in a group, nobody could explain to me how the cows knew or why they sat in a group? Was it some primeval instinct that was necessary for the survival of the primeval wild cattle that roamed the land. Living the country you learned to accept the mystery and power of nature, us dwarfish beings had no choice to the live and work according to the rhythms of nature.

Our village church steeped in human history as it was, also gave testament to the power and majesty of nature. The purpose of the steeple I was told was to show distant travellers that there was human habitation here, a civilised Christian place, were shelter could be found in a storm. At the entrance to the church, at the lych gate were two ancient yews. Planted we were told to provide yew for the English bows, used by the archers at Agincourt and the other battles of the Hundred Years War. In fact this was a lie, concealing there real purpose, a purpose dating back to pre-Christian times. Now thought to either provide protection against evil spirits, or more likely due to their great age, seen to provide a link to the underworld and the Gods thereof. Just their survival and purpose added to the mystery, as when planted these yew trees would have served little practical purpose, as their berries were poisonous to livestock.

Rather than being frightened I grew to love the power and magic of nature. I loved being out in storms witnessing their power. How trees bent, swayed and buckled beneath the wind. Being careful to avoid elms, as they were notorious for shedding their branches without warning. Even in good weather countrymen were wary of elms, often keeping a safe distance from them.

Heraclitus to me sums up the essence of nature, when he said that ‘nature loves to hide’. Nature or the essence that is nature hides in plain sight. I know yet don’t know nature. To the Greeks nature was a Goddess Isis, who hid behind her veil. This was how I experienced nature, I could see the changes taking place, trees getting leaves in spring and shedding them in autumn, yet feeling that I did not really understand what was happening. Possibly I have too much of the country mans’ acceptance of what is, knowing that I cannot change it. Although I have an understanding of biology, quantum physics, chemistry, I cannot shake to the belief that these come together in a something that is both unknowable and knowable. What I have to admit to a knowledge of a thing that I cannot express in the language of ordinary or scientific discourse. Poetry with its ability to give a sense of what lies behind the words is perhaps better suited for this task.

Goethe expressed this sentiment far better. When he wrote “A.Humboldt sent me the translation of his Essay on the Geography of Plants with a flattering illustration that implies Poetry, too might lift the veil of Nature.” What he was referring to was an illustration in the book of the God Apollo unveiling the Goddess of Nature at whose feet lay a copy of Goethe’s book ‘The metamorphosis of Plants’.

What I believe is that there are many valid modes of understanding. Jaspers and Benjamin expressed this in similar but different ways. Jaspers said there are many ways to the truth. He was thinking of the stories, parables and myths of Christianity that can express the truths of that religion in a manner that is impossible through the use of reason and rational discourse. When writing of the task of the translator, Benjamin said there was but one universal language, but one that could be expressed in different senses according to which spoken language was used. He gives the following example the French call bread pan and the Germans call it brod. They are both describing the same thing, but subtle differences in what they mean when they use the respective terms. Can not my nature mysticism and biological discourse be equally valid, are not the both expressing equally valid senses of what is understood as nature? What is being described, explained or understood are two different sensory experiences that need not be contradictory. Does not ecology suggest a reconciliation of the two experiences. Ecologists have a sound scientific understanding of nature, yet they also experience a sense of the wholeness of nature. A natural order that they wish to preserve through application of their scientific knowledge to prevent the catastrophe that the anthropocene threatens. A threat that can be simply illustrated in the words of my father a former old countryman. He said looking at a field full of cattle, does not the farmer realise that there are too many cows in that field and that many cows will destroy the drainage system and turn the field into a muddy mess. He was right the industrial farmer inflicted irrevocable damage on that field significantly reducing its value as pastureland.

Debating how many angels could dance on a pinhead, a fallacious reading on medieval education. An argument for the soundness of medieval education.

christianity, Education, History, Philosophy, , , , , , , ,

What I want to argue for is the superiority of aspects of monastic led education to that of today. Not so long ago I saw a television programme about the fall of Constantinople. The presenter, a distinguished scholar claimed that while the city was under siege, the monks in the Hagia Sophia were so completely removed from the reality the awfulness of the siege, that they were distracted by discussions such as “how many angels could stand on pin head”. This calumny directed at monkish education was in fact black propaganda used by the protestant reformers to discredit Catholicism. These unworldly monks would in fact have been very engaged with the circumstances in which they found themselves, knowing that the gold in the Cathedral would make them a target for looters from the victorious besiegers.

This famous scholar was obviously ignorant of the achievements of these monks in mathematics, astronomy and the other sciences. Monks were capable of sophisticated mathematics, calculations would be made using their hands. Not just one to ten, but my giving particular fingers symbolic values or functions they could do advanced mathematics. One monk by observing the lengths of the shadows cast by sticks in the ground calculated the latitude of the Abbey in which he lived. One of the most spectacular medieval achievements was the clock of variable hours at St.Albans Abbey. One problem that bothered the monks was the timing of the prescribed services during the day. This was particularly hard as the days varied so in length. When should the Nones service be celebrated, when given the hours of daylight differed daily, what particular point in the day was midday? If the time of daylight was divided by 12, the difference between the shortest hours at mid winter and midsummer was seventeenth minutes. St.Albans’s answer was a clock of variable hours. This mechanical clock would adjust the length of the hours in the day according hours of daylight. The monks could through a reading the figures off this clock together with a sophisticated system of mathematics accurately calculate the time.

Having now demonstrated that monks and clerics could demonstrate a level of sophistication in their thinking similar to that of today’s scientists. I can now justify my contention about that education in the medieval university could in some respects be superior to that of today. I use my now own experience of university education as proof of my contention. When given an assignment by my tutor there would always be what appeared to be a vast number of books to read. Even selective readings of these texts, that is looking primarily for those phrases underlined by previous readers as significant to note, could be very time consuming. For me at least it was often a matter of quantity over quality. The more references and quotations that I could smuggle into my essay, the higher the grade. Then and now I thought there must be a better way. When I read that for clerics and monks there was one initial essential book to study. Whose study in depth was seen as the basis for a sound theological education, I could only reflect on what I saw as so many hours wasted in study. Paraphrasing an old English phrase, my study was of forests not trees. Incidentally the primary book or books were Peter Lombard’s ‘Four Books of Sentences’. Even today I cannot understand why it was thought necessary by my tutors thought it necessary for me to read every book or article written on a particular topic What benefit is there to be gained by having a wide and superficial knowledge of a subject, as opposed to a real understanding?

The medieval professors on holy days, celebrated them by having free and open discussions with their students. Often these discussions were recorded for prosperity. I have dipped into one such Thomas Aquinas’s “Quodlibetal Questions 1 and 2”. What impresses me is not just the sophistication of the students questions, but the replies given by Thomas Aquinas. He assumes that his students are capable of understanding the most difficult of his ideas. No concessions are made in his answers, he assumes that his students can follow the sophisticated train of his thoughts This experience I can contrast with that of my students peers. One internationally recognised philosopher was complained about by some of my fellow students as giving lectures too difficult to understand. Next year he was replaced by a colleague with a more straight forward exposition manner and who gave out student handouts. Perhaps the difference in the student responses is a matter of respect. Medieval students deferred more readily to authority. However given the frequency of town and gown riots, perhaps this was not the cause. Can I suggest an alternative, in the medieval university the emphasis was on understanding, not the accumulation of knowledge?. Over a period of six hundred years students and society’s expectations of what a degree course entails had changed dramatically.

What I am suggesting is that true education is something other than the accumulation of knowledge. There is a something that resides behind and above the accumulation of knowledge, a something that makes understanding possible. A something that I can describe as a sound method of thinking, a means correct thinking and speaking. A sound technique of analysis and comprehension, the ability to derive knowledge from whatever text of subject is studied.. Real education is something that as Plato might have said, which is not readily explainable, one not given to simple common place expression. It is something whose essence once experienced is never given up. Again I wish to give myself as an example. At university I was a hopeless student of philosophy, one of my lowest marks was awarded to me in my ethics paper. However in that final year of university, I glimpsed a something, which I cannot readily put into words, but which left me with a passion for a life long study of philosophy.

In Search of Truth

Philosophy, religion, , , , , , , , , ,

Prior to university, I was like many students ignorant of philosophy and I was not expecting the trashing of my long held ideas and beliefs, that a study of philosophy entailed. After this numbing experience, I began to realise that there a something that I could take from philosophy, a more well founded and subtle understanding of the nature of truth.

When I started the study of philosophy, I and my fellow students were warned that it was not about the big questions of life. It was something much more modest in its ambitions. Our study of ethics was not about how to achieve the good life, but a study of what philosophers had to say about the nature of good. A course that contained a strong element of scepticism about it. One of the first texts we were introduced to was a G.E.Moore’s essay on the non existence of good. Locke’s statement on the purpose of philosophy perhaps best explains our course in ethics. He compared the role of the philosopher to that of the under labourer. The under labourer cleared the ground prior to the builder constructing a building on that site. A philosopher cleared the ground of the intellectual rubbish cluttering up the site, and in that act of clearance left or identified the key questions that had to be answered. In our study of ethics were learnt why all previous ethical philosophies of the good life were flawed. They had been looking for the answers to the wrong questions. They had muddled the study of ethics. Study after study had failed to demonstrate the nature of good, so the obvious conclusion was that what was called good, was in fact something else, an emotion or sentiment, not a thing as concluded by GE.Moore.

Probably in trying for brevity, I have done a disservice to my tutors by over simplifying their teaching.

As a student Ernest Gellner was the philosopher who impressed me most and who gave me a life long love of philosophy. His lectures were enlivened by his use of metaphors, which suggested a clarity of thought, not always apparent in others. One metaphor he used that has since remained lodged in my mind is this one. Imagine he said that you get of a train in a town with which you are unfamiliar. You immediately look for familiar buildings such as a church, you use these familiar seeming buildings on which to construct a mental map of the area. Without this internal map from which you can judge your location at a particular moment you would get lost. What he was stating was that without a prior orientation or commitment to a philosophical perspective, any intellectual investigation was doomed to failure, as it would lack a coherence of purpose becoming instead little more than a collection of interesting facts.

However he was not prescriptive, he never said what those philosophical reference points might be. It was up to the student to discover them for himself. Philosophy was an open ended pursuit, the last thing he intended was to recruit the student to a particular philosophical perspective. I studied philosophy in the 1960s, in what was the heyday for academic freedom. Since then there has been a closing down of the academic mind. Now an intellectual checklist has to met by students wishing to get a degree. Algis Uźdavinsys is justified in summing up so much contemporary philosophy as ‘The modern scholarly pursuit that also too often resembles a sort of self-confident obsession enacted by a host of hypocritical and angry ‘grammarians’. The emancipated philosophical discourse – their object of torture – is treated in accordance with certain language games and imagined history, which paradoxically, ends, by rejecting as ‘irrational’ the love of wisdom itself.’ *

What I think leads to a misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of philosophy is the failure to recognise the paradox that lies at the heart of it. Philosophy is simultaneously both a nothing and an everything. The nothing is the irony of Socrates who demonstrated in market place of Athens that its citizen’s of new nothing. He observed the truth of the Delphi oracle, by demonstrating that although he knew that he knew nothing, others did not, until he informed them of the fact. Using his dialectal method he could show they thought was truth or justice was wrong. This philosophic nihilism can threaten to reduce everything to a condition of meaninglessness. Perhaps the exemplar of philosophy as nothing is Heidegger. All that existed is, what is, beyond what is, there is nothing. Underlying conscious thought is a nothing, the abyss, and human culture was a something constructed on this nothing. In consequence there is no must have belief system, the individual is free to choose. Unfortunately Heidegger choose Nazism, a choice he would come to regret as it that meant he was barred from teaching in post war German universities.

This philosophical nihilism is continued in post modernism. For post modernists truth, is the truth of or for a historical period. Socialism and Fordist capitalism etc. were the competing foundational truths of the modern age. They were not both timeless universal values. An age that is generally reckoned as ending in the 1960s.

However there is a contradiction inherent in post modernism. They use truth in two different but contrary ways. Truths are both something of a particular time period and that is a statement this is a truth. These two meanings of truth are in conflict. In making this statement they are using truth as a judgement of correctness or rightness,; truth that is the timeless and universal statement of rightness. If they assert that truth is time relative, they must admit that this is not a true statement, but a something else.

What I find true is Wittgenstein’s statement that if you have untruth, you must have truth, as without its opposite untruth is meaningless. We are trapped within our language and to communicate we must use the conventions of that language. Communication is only possible because we obey the grammar of our language. If we try to say things contrary to that grammar, they become nothing more than a jumble of words. Those who deny the foundational grammars of our language, that is the binaries of truth/untruth, good/bad are denying reality.

Truth may be one of the foundational grammars that I cannot know completely, as words cannot adequately express that fundamental something that gives them there meaning. Not knowing truth etc. in its entirety does not prevent me and others from using it. Accepting this truth does not mean we are trapped within this grammar of language. These grammars give an infinitely flexible structure and fluidity to language. Once these grammars are accepted, an infinite variety of beliefs, ideologies and understandings can be constructed using language. Yet with the proviso these constructions must remain within the limits imposed by the foundational grammar or they become meaningless. Rather than language trapping the individual within a particular reality, it provides the means for transcending the immediacy of the lived experience. Philosophers will hopefully continue to offer imaginative solutions to the problems humanity faces, particularly those of the lived experience of humanity.

Going back to my earlier paragraph, that critical study of philosophers of the past that we as students found to be wrong; revisiting that now I would claim that what those philosophers offered was an incomplete statement of the truth. There writings although flawed contained elements of rightness, that have added to man’s understanding of himself and nature. Reading them gives the individual not an incorrect or wrong understanding, but read correctly they add insight and depth to current understandings.

*Algis Uzdavinys Philosophy and Theurgy in Late Antiquity

Reflections on the education system from a retired teacher (or more accurately its failings)

Economics, Education, Philosophy, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the occupational hazards of being a teacher is disillusionment. The disillusionment that I experienced was something dating from the last years of my teaching career, I began to question the value of what I was doing. Teaching A level sociology was increasingly about cramming as much of the course content as possible into two short years. At best I was giving them an insight into the society in which they lived, but at worst to my teaching threatened to turn into a recitation of the facts, as were required by the exam system. Neglect of the latter would have meant, I and they would be judged failures.

English education as I experienced it can be described as ‘throwing as much information as possible at the student hoping that some of it sticks’. Quantity is confused with quality. I am a committed supporter of slow education. There has to be another way of delivering education, a way of teaching that ensures the student develops an understanding of the subject. Not that this is something new and revolutionary. When I was undertaking teacher training in the early 1970’s ‘patch teaching’ of history was in vogue. Rather than a liner course that was literally a run through of world history. Focus would be instead on particular patches of history in depth. In that way they would develop an in depth understanding of the subject. Michael Gove disliked this method of teaching and returned to subject to a history of great Britons. What I am advocating is not new, this is the discovery approach to learning advocated in the Plowden Report 1967 and Rousseau’s ‘Emile’ 1763 and Plato’s ‘Meno’ 4BCE. Education that takes the child as it’s starting point, rather than the subject, as is now the favoured approach.

I can cite Conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott as part of my evidence to demonstrate the superiority of slow over quick education. Education he said should be the initiation of the student into new areas of experience. What he meant was that students should be inducted into a new of thinking or understanding. He believed subjects such as history had a distinct identity or essence. Only through an i immersion into a subject area would enable the student to grasp its essence. Although he did not state it as such, he was an advocate of a liberal education. A good education would involve the student being initiated into a number of distinct but overlapping educational experiences. Quick fire education of the type so popular in England will not give students the experience of education that Michael Oakshott wanted for them.

Recent changes to the national education curriculum have put limits on what is taught or certain subjects off limits. Universities have been discouraged from offering modern languages on the dubious basis that they are not self financing. Not the approach to education envisaged by this most conservative of philosophers.

Nietzsche’s criticisms of German grammar schools in the 19th century are worth considering as they add to the understanding of what bad education might be. These schools all taught the same set of facts or understandings with which there teachers had been rehearsed in at institutes of higher learning. Nothing too challenging for the students or teachers was taught in these schools. German education was focused on teaching conformity. Round pegs for round holes, no difficult square pegs. They produced generation after generation of unthinking intellectual sheep, the untermensch.

Contemporary English education would earn Nietszche’s strictures. It is a system that seeks to discourage intellectual curiosity and the love of learning. The real villain of the piece is the English exam system. A system that values mediocrity. When doing supply teaching I taught Macbeth through the use of a comic book. Macbeth can be reduced to an exciting story, but was taught is not Shakespeare’s Macbeth. English Standard Attainment Tests required that all English students demonstrated a knowledge of Shakespeare, the greatest of all English playwrights. Given that it was a test to be undertaken by all fourteen year olds it had to be rendered in a form all could understand. The comic book had the advantage of providing students a number of simple facts that could be easily learnt and memorised for an exam in which students demonstrated there knowledge of Shakespeare. Whatever was being taught was not Shakespeare. Not only facts but the demonstration of government preferred writing formats were required to pass the SAT’s. Government diktat is stifling in students in any love they may have for this most creative of subjects. It is not surprising that having done their best to destroy a love of the English language and literature, there has been a marked fall in the number of students studying this subject at university.

The real villain of the piece is the exam system, it forces the education curriculum into a learning straight jacket. Creativity or going beyond the limits as specified by the minister earns no points from the education ministry and as it was not in their curriculum it can lead to a downgrading of a school. Too much creativity or pupil enlightenment can lead to the imposition of sanctions by the ministry.

When teaching economics in the 1970s, I used to teach my students about the command economy in the Soviet Union. It was not on the curriculum, but I then had the freedom to go off course with my teaching. The interesting thing is that then the government in Moscow tried to set the direction in which the economy moved, it did so through setting out global or quantitive targets for each sector of the economy. To ensure that central directives were met they had the KGB who would sanction those politicians managers who failed to fulfil their quotas. Sanction being a spell in a labour camp. Consequently local politicians and factory managers conspired together to give the appearance of meeting their targets. If the target for shoe production could only be met by producing left handed shoes (productivity increased if all workers made exactly the same product) that is what had to be done. All politicians up to the level of the capital city were in on the act, as failure to comply with centrally set targets meant a spell in the labour camp.

I feel the current education system in the way it is administered threatens to produce the equivalent of left handed shoes in education. Nick Gibbs the education minister insisted that a rigorous grammar component was added to primary school curriculum. He was little more qualified to write a course in grammar, that the Moscow politician was to direct the production of shoes in the distant Urals. Educationalists have accused this man of making up principles of grammar to teach students. One such make up grammar was the adverbial. A term unknown to grammar specialists at university and certainly to teachers.

Ministers of education have found setting of quantitive targets, such as demanding that a certain percentage of students to get a particular level in the SATs, is the ideal way to control the how and what of teaching in schools. From my reading of educational practice and philosophy, never did I ever come across ease of central control of schools as an objective.

The dead hand of exams is choking the life out of the education system. Politicians boast of the rigour of the English exam system. Every year steps are taken by ministers to ensure that only a small intellectual elite are awarded the best grades. A levels are the gold standard of education. What they never admit is that public exams are designed to make the majority fail. Only an A grade qualifies you for entry to the elite universities. Despite being called passes, grade B or less are in reality fail grades. I cannot see any merit in an education system that is designed to make the majority fail. This is the moral rottenness at the heart of the English educational system.

Grading students from A to E, 8 to 1 or from a First to a pass degree is not part of education. It’s a sorting system for employment or higher education. It’s main purpose is to make life easier for admissions tutors at university or employers. Unfortunately contemporary society insists on school and universities sorting students into various categories of person, so schools and universities cannot escape there sorting role. The only solution is to relegate this sorting function to a minor role in the curriculum, so ensuring that education takes the central place in the school or university curriculum.

Tearing it up by the roots – a new approach to economics

Economics, Neo-Liberal economics, Philosophy, Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Michael Gove dismissed the profession of economists, as one of those unnecessary groups of professionals, who stopped the common sense will of the people from prevailing. Although Michael Gove knows little of economics and the value of his statement can be questioned, he is right to suggest that something is rotten within the economics profession.

Just as Karl Popper looks back to Parmenides (early 5 BCE) as the originator of the modern scientific discourse, I believe that the same philosopher can be used to demonstrate the failings of contemporary economics. Parmenides has a vision in which the Goddess reveals to him two separate worlds that of truth which is known only to the Gods, and the world of shadows and falsehoods known to man. Man can only glimpse but shadows of truth, he can never know. Certainty is only known to the Gods. What Popper understands from this is that scientific inquiry can never know certainty, truths known today will be demonstrated as false tomorrow. Scientific truths are conjectures which should be in a form that makes capable of refutation. It is this verification process that makes possible the advance of science as new and better truths replace those of today and yesterday. However he does suggest that these founding fathers are giants on whose shoulders we stand to advance. They make the initial discoveries that make possible the advance of science. Today Newton’s cosmology and theory of gravity are regarded at best partial truths. Yet without Newton’s discoveries Einstein and the advances of modern cosmology would be impossible.

What Karl Popper believes is that there can be no certainties only probabilities. The latter being an admission that we don’t know. Contemporary economics ‘does know’ it knows certain truths about the economy. There are two fundamental truths and they are those of the market economy and modern monetary theory. These are the two foundational principles that underpin all contemporary economics..

Market theory is often referred to as Neo-liberal economics. This theory asserts that the free market is a self regulating organisation, which if subject to minimal government interference will find its own level of equilibrium. Governments that interfere and over regulate the economy risk upsetting the balance of forces in the economy, that determine the best of all possible outcomes for all. It was Alfred Marshall (1840 – 1924) who demonstrated the truths of market economics with the supply and demand theories with which all students of economics are familiar today. Familiarly known the diagrams that demonstrate the ‘Marshallian Scissors’. Nearly all economic theory is a derivation of market economics.

Perhaps the most notorious is Says’ law of incomes. This states that it is self defeating to try to maintain wage levels during a recession, as this will merely increase unemployment through making workers to expensive to pay. Far better to let wages fall to a level at which it becomes profitable for firms to employ workers. These newly employed workers will spend the wages they receive, which will increase demand and kickstart the recovery. With the economy growing wages will return to their former high levels, as newly profitable firms bid against each other through paying higher wages to attract workers from the diminishing pool of unemployed labour. No government will ever admit to following Say’s law, but it is implicit truth, as they are always concerned to avoid the situation in which high wages make workers unaffordable to employers. When Tony Blair introduced the minimum wage he took great pains to ensure that it was not set at a too high a level, as that would make labour too expensive to employ.

A common sense truth which seems obvious to all. However there is very little economic evidence to demonstrate the truth of this ‘common sense’ theory.

The other great truth of orthodox economics is modern monetary theory (now associated with Milton Friedman). This quite simply states that the level of economic activity is determined by the quantity of money in the economy. Increasing the quantity of money in the economy increases the number of purchases people make, so increasing the level of economy activity. However if the quantity of money is increased too much, there is too much money chasing too few goods and so inflation occurs. All the government needs to do to control the level of economic activity is to either change interest rates or the supply of money (so called Quantitive Easing). Although this theory is associated with Milton Friedman he was merely putting the ideas of Irving Fisher (1867-1947) into a more modern format. This school of thinking in fact has a long history, as it’s origins can be traced back to Copernicus who first gave it form 1517.*

Unfortunately modern monetary theory has one flaw, if if the government is to control the supply of money, it must know what it is controlling. Unfortunately it does not. When the Treasury introduced this policy in the 1980’s, I think they came up with seven different definitions of what constituted money. In practice they adopted one definition, M4 as the most likely one. Despite this flaw in the theory, governments have since the 1980’s all been practitioners of modern monetary policy. Never in academic circles will you hear this criticism mentioned.

J.M.Keynes and the economics named after him is regarded as an aberration and no longer regarded as one the foundational truths of economics. The British Treasury the fount of all economic truth has long since dismissed his ideas as irrelevant.

What the economists ‘who know’ have in common, is that they possess what that they believe is a bag of tricks from which the appropriate tool can be chosen to fix any crisis. At present the favoured tool is a combination of reducing interest rates and increasing the supply of money through quantitive easing.

Karl Popper influenced me in my choice of names, he does as do I, belong in the school of ‘don’t knows’ or to put it more accurately we believe our respective subjects consist of a series of probable or possible truths which for the present have great utility. As Karl Popper writes that to state that something is a probability is to admit to doubt. Probably the best known advocate of this school is J.K.Galbraith.* As he had no grand theory linked to his name and was dismissive of such theories. Academic economists tended to regard him as not one of them. He was an agricultural economist, who caught the eye of Franklin Roosevelt and who drafted him in to help manage the wartime US economy. He was one of the authors of the post war report into the effectiveness on allied bombing on Germany. They as a group were surprised to discover how little impact it had on the German economy. A fact conveniently overlooked in the Vietnam war.

What discredited him in the eyes of other economists was his prioritising the human factor over any grand theory. While Hayek claimed that the mad speculation that led to the Wall Street crash of 1929 was due to a drying up of legitimate investment opportunities, Galbraith lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of the financiers. The bosses of Goldman Sachs and the other major banks were both reckless and irresponsible. They made huge profits from the foolish and reckless investments made on the Stock Exchange and had no incentive to discourage them. This is illustrated in the example of the Florida property developer who bought swamp land claiming to to be prime real estate. The authorities on the New York Stock Exchange saw no reason to prevent the sale of stock in this fraudulent enterprise. It was just too profitable. In Galbraith’s words the great crash was 1929 was due to the activities of a group of rogue financiers.

Not surprisingly it turned out that Goldman Sachs was involved in similar activities in the events leading up to the crash of 2008. They were fined millions of dollars for selling what they knew to be worthless bonds to their clients.

When I studied economics at university, I was disappointed to discover it avoided the big questions. The issue of distribution of wealth was redefined as the optimum output curve. Any point on that curve represented the best possible distribution of resources within a given community. This as an exercise in logical thinking was impeccable, but it had no relevance to world outside the seminar room. While this ‘economic scientism’ dominates the subject of economics it remains detached from the real world. When Russians during the ‘Moscow Spring’ came to study economics or more precisely free market economics; they expressed disappointment about how little it taught them about the real economy.

After a number of years teaching economics I came to realise that the teaching of economics was about developing the ‘economic imagination’. This was not so much learning the economic theory that relates to a particular scenario, but being creative within the parameters of economic thinking. A Socratic economics in which reasoning is used to disabuse the student of the ‘truths’ of orthodox economics. The conventions of orthodox economics often stand in the way of developing a real solution to the problem. Only the most unimaginative can think that changing interest rates, increasing or reducing money supply is the answer to everything. Any study of the post war management of the economy would surprise today’s readers.Realising a shortage of houses meant that this could lead to a rapid rise in house prices and inflation in the housing market, the government took action to prevent this happening. The annual in increase in house prices was subject to a tax. This of course meant house owners had a disincentive to the over valuation of houses and house prices remained low in this period. This made the majority of houses affordable unlike today.

Again J.K. Galbraith provides an illustration of this in his work in managing the US wartime economy. One of the problems of the wartime economy is inflation. With so much of the nations output requisitioned for the war effort, a shortage of goods in some parts of the economy would lead to a rapid rise in prices and inflation. Galbraith realised that it was not necessary to introduce a national system of price controls, but instead to control prices with the cooperation of the great corporations. Since they accounted for a majority of the nations output, if they could be persuaded to keep prices down there would be no price inflation. All the other medium and small businesses would follow suit, particularly if they were suppliers to the major corporations.

Economics suffers from one problem that is unique to it. What is true yesterday may not be true today. The economy is a dynamic institution that is constantly changing. Evidence about what is happening in the economy is from yesterday. There is no evidence, apart of the most impressionist kind about today and none about tomorrow. This is why J.S.Mill said there can be no science of of economics. Given this uncertainty governments prefer to use the old tried and tested methods, fearing that any policy innovation will make things worse rather than better. This Conservative mind set explains why governments never get to grips with the problems that plague the economy.

The consequences of adopting the ‘economics of don’t know

Universities would change, economics departments would have to teach students to think creatively. Old dead economists, the founding fathers of the subject would no longer dominate the curriculum. The subject would become more open ended, there would now be no arbitrary limits to subject knowledge. All the old certainties associated with this subject would go. Current academic economists would resist any change, as the knowledge they hold so dear would no longer be valued. University departments of economics would revert back to the liberal humanism of the past.

Resistance to this change would not just come from current academics, but also government. University education is now a commodity that is bought and sold. All the current means that are used to measure a universities output would cease to work. Creative and innovative thinking does not lead itself to the current system of box ticking. Governments would lose the main means through which they control what is taught in the universities.

The two greatest employers of economics graduates the investment banks and the Treasury don’t want graduates who think. They want them versed in the ways of the old economics, together the statistical skills acquired in the study of the old economics. This is the problem already known of, when Manchester students demanded a radical change in the economics syllabus, they had to contend with the fact that they would denying themselves lucrative employment in the world of banking.

Economics can be one of those subjects has to be endured and best soon forgotten on leaving university. What I am suggesting would lead to a revolution in the teaching of economics, it would now be a subject that valued creativity, rather than conformity amongst its students. If instead of discouraging students from continuing an interest in the subject, economics would be one of those stimulating subjects whose students would now retain a life time interest. Since so many MPs have studied PPE at university, those MPs would be better informed and rather than parliament collectively demonstrating an ignorance of the subject and debates on the economy and its management would be better informed and enlightening.

Politics would have to change, Chancellors such as Rishi Sunack and the Treasury itself would have to adopt evidence based economics. Rishi Sunak could no longer quote the truths of the founding fathers as justification for his policies. In constructing economic policies real thinking would be required, as real answers to problems would be required. I look forward to the day when any politician is laughed at when they turn to the old economic pieties to justify there ill thought out policies.

* J.K.Galbraith would probably be horrified to know that I consider him the doyen of the economists who don’t know. I include him because he is one of the few economists, unlike many economists does not know the answer before he starts the investigation. He possesses no ready made answers.

The End Days for British Democracy

Economics, Philosophy, politics, , , , , , , , ,

Britain with its Westminster system of democracy has claimed to be the exemplar of good democratic practice. Many countries, most commonly in the former British colonies have adopted the Westminster practice of government. However classical Athens home of the first democracy provides a terrible warning of what happens when the practice of democratic politics becomes corrupted. Tragically Athens provides a template for the systematic corruption of democratic government, a model that Westminster appears to be copying.

While the primary cause for its abrupt end was a brutal foreign conquest, it was already rotting from within. It was the poor behaviour and discreditable practices of its leaders that caused it to lose popular support. According to one source, democracy was so discredited that few of the citizens could not be roused to defend it. What is true, is that after the destruction of Athens by Sulla and his Roman army, no attempt was made to restore democracy.

Given that democracy in Athens involved the demos or the all the citizens how did it become so unpopular. Leading politicians increasingly used informers to discredit their rivals. These informers were planted within the households of their rivals with the purpose of gathering information to discredit their rivals. Often these informer stories were fabrications, but so artfully put together that they put an end of their rival’s careers. Politics became the amphitheatre in which your rivals were discredited and destroyed through a process of character assassination.

In the UK the tabloid press and social media perform a similar function to the Athenian informer. The informed source always claims that there scurrilous stories are in the public interest. What they mean is that by revealing discreditable stories about politicians, they are stopping this rogue from achieving public office, where he would abuse the power of that office. Strangely it’s is only politicians of the opposing party who behave so discreditably. No doubt the same justification was claimed by the Athenian informers.

This has three unfortunate negative impacts. Citizens become disillusioned about the practice of politics. Increasingly they come to believe that all politicians are rogues. The disillusioned people withdraw their support and involvement in the democratic process, so it loses legitimacy. Only a certain type of politician can thrive in these circumstances, that is the rogue. Only the rogue is immune to stories about themselves. They care little for discreditable stories about them, stories that would destroy an honest politician. In fact they claim that the open displays of their roguery demonstrates their honesty. They unlike the other politicians are the prepared to be open about their failings. Unfortunately an people are becoming disillusioned about politics believing that all politicians are rogues a liars. Finally when the practice of politics is reduced to little more than character assassination, politicians are incapable of raising to the occasion when a crisis threatens. They simply don’t what to do.The cheats, the liars and purveyors of scurrilous story are helpless, they have nothing to offer apart from dissimulation. Government policy degenerates into a search for scapegoats on whom to deflect the blame for their failing policies.

There is another minor vice that is beginning to pervade Westminster democracy. The intra party struggle for ideological purity. A struggle in which the enemy is not the opposition party, but perceived opponents within the party. Each of the main political parties has embarked on a Soviet style purging political deviants. The consequence of which, is the unedifying spectacle of seemingly endless civil war within the party. Debates on issues of national importance become secondary to the internal party debate on matters of ideological purity.

One consequence is that if the British experienced the devastation wreaked on by foreign invasion, they would be as unwilling as the Athenians to restore their old discredited democratic system. Athenian democracy was never restored, they remained content to accept domination by a remote central government either in Rome or Constantinople, in preference to government by their own local leaders.

As an incredulous student I remember a lecture by Professor Oakshott in which he said the poor behaviour of the Athenian politicians has discredited the idea of democracy for centuries, and the rehabilitation of democracy and its procedures was but a recent historical phenomenon. I fear that the bad practice which masquerades as democratic politics in both the USA and the UK, will as did that of the Athenians, again make democracy seem the least desirable form of political governance.

A Country Childhood – Enchantment

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A friend of mine often mocks my religious beliefs, citing Bertrand Russell. A philosopher who said he had no respect for those who claimed to worship an unknown God. People such as me believe he thought in an irrational and nonsensical set beliefs that could withstand the cold of scientific scrutiny. What I believe is that they they lack is an understanding of the magic of existence. One of the benefits of a country childhood was being gifted with an understanding of the magic of nature. Now in my seventies I can see it as a time of enchantment.

As a child of the 1940s when technological advances had left the countryside largely untouched, anything could be magical. One such occasion was my first visit to the blacksmith. His workshop was dark and gloomy, the only light coming from the forge and a soft ingrained window. Usually the lack of sunlight meant he left the door open, whatever the weather so as to get sufficient light with which to work. I witnessed this man using hammers, pincers and the forge to manufacture a horse shoe. A man so shrouded in shadow, that the only feature of his that I can recall is his bare arms. As a child of a pre-industrial age I can understand why medieval man intuited magic to the work of blacksmith. Seeing him turn a lump of shapeless metal into a horseshoe for the horse tethered outside seemed to be the practice of some spectral art. Given the powers of the swords wielded by the heroes of the medieval sagas, magic had to be part of the process of their making. Excalibur could well have been made in that age old smithy in the Gloucestershire of my childhood. It was not so far distant from the reputed land of Arthur.Technology robs today’s children of that sense of wonder. Excalibur for them could feature in a game played on their tablet, becoming a sword robbed of all its magic.

Today’s urban children are remote from the natural environment. I was not only in it, but part of it. . The natural environment was an ever changing constant in my life. Nature started at the bottom of my garden. There the hidden world of the woodland started. Even those paths through the woods that were familiar to me were constantly changing. Each day there would be something new to discover. Autumn was the time to look for toadstools, what I wanted to spot was the red Fly Agaric. A red toadstool with white spots, so loved of the illustrators of children’s books. Surprisingly they were not a common sight in the woods, instead they were full of their duller cousins. Although one duller cousin the puffball gave off delightfully clouds of black dust when kicked. Once the red Fly Agaric was finally found you knew that you were a participant in those stories about fairies that you read. Not only that there was the even more exciting time when you came across a fairy circle. These toadstools grew in a circle within which you knew the fairies danced at night. Adults then never disabused you of this belief. They also knew that nature was never a mystery can could never be fully explained. In their lifetime they had seen things that could that not be contained within rational explanation.

Naturalists claim that the rooks court is but a figment of the rural imagination. Rooks courts were those held by the colony of rooks, in which those rooks that have committed infractions of the rules of the colony were judged and punished. Yet my father one day heard a cacophony of noise from the vicinity of the rookery. There he saw a circle of rooks in centre of which were two rooks. From the tone of the rook’s cries it was obvious that were antagonistic to these two at the centre of the circle. Unfortunately these rooks became aware of my father’s presence and flew off, so he never discovered how the rookery would have dealt with these two miscreants. All countrymen could recount the similar stories, so for them nature was a mystery that could never be reduced to the explanations of science.

One of the most important events in the estate calendar was the village fete. All the villagers wanted to earn the prestigious title of best of show for their vegetables and flowers. Tricks and ploys of various forms were used some whose practice seemed to be the practice of some natural magic. Some men swore by planting their vegetables during the evening of a full moon. I cannot comment on the efficacy of this practice, although my father did try it one year, but disappointingly it produced no excessive profusion of vegetables.

None of the men of my childhood ever attended church. Church was for those of a different social class. It was for those who considered themselves superior to the workers, the rural middle class. The attitude of these people towards their supposed inferiors can be illustrated by a story. When the estate agent was checking on the work of the gamekeepers, he came in a car accompanied by his wife. She while observing the workers from the open car window, dropped a glove. She said to her husband while pointing at my father, tell that man to pick up my glove. What my father and his co-workers seemed to believe in was a religion was one that predated Christianity. An older religion that was founded on a respect for nature and its ways. They knew little of the church rituals or practices. Yet they were aware were the seasonal Christian rituals, as these rituals marked the changing of the seasons and there work practices. Then harvest festival signalled such a change. By now the crops had been harvested and the pace of work slowed. Work lost the intensity of summer. No longer would men work late at night harvesting the crop to take advantage of the favourable weather conditions.

While they never delayed the ploughing until ‘Plough Monday’ and certainly never attended a church service on that day, they knew on what day it fell. Plough Monday and other such rituals sanctified their working lives, it was more than a recognition of there value to the community. It elevated the mundane task of work into something out of the ordinary, something hallowed. For a country child Ash Wednesday was not a day of penance, it was instead the day in which we played with keys from the ash tree, trying to make them spin and fly. A shortage or lack of ash keys would have meant something was very wrong in nature. If I could go back in time and tell my father and his friends, that they practised a natural religion, they would have laughed at me. Religion was not something they talked about. Although I believe it governed there lives. Nature was a certain something, a thing to be respected not abused. They always had tales about the farmer or farm labourer who went against nature and suffered in consequence.

Although I think that my father and his workmates would have implicitly understood Democritus’s statement that every changes and nothing changes. They knew that nature was both ever changing and also a never changing something that endured from season to season and year to year.The rhythm of the seasons taught them this.

What a country childhood has given me is a sense of wonder. I can still see the enchantment within everyday things. As a child I eagerly looked for the first snow drop, as being the sign of the approach of spring. Then, if my father had come across the first snowdrop of the year, I and my sister would accompany him to that spot in which the snow drop was found, and marvel at its presence. Even now in my seventies when snowdrops are so common in urban gardens, I still look eagerly for that first snowdrop that is the first sign of the coming spring.

These old countrymen seemed to me to possess the wisdom of the ages. Not the silly version shown in Hollywood films, but a knowing grounded in reality of human existence. This gave them the strength to endure the horrors of war. In my fathers unit of thirty two that went to war, only three came back in 1945. The man who came back my mother said unrecognisable, he had become an old man. Yet he and the others endured seemed to me and his childhood friends to have come through the conflict unscathed. We longed forward to adulthood when we would possess the strength of our fathers.

Unlike my father I can give a name to my religious beliefs, I am a deist. While I respect Christianity and love the Anglican Church, I cannot call myself a Christian. What I possess is a countryman’s natural religion, a sense of awe at the wonder of existence. A religion which is not one that does not fit easily within the narrow confines of a particular doctrine. One that is without boundaries, one that flows easily from one religious discipline to another. That anonymous author who wrote ‘The Cloud of the UnKnowing’ gives the title to my religious belief. It not require a name.

Having inherited the natural religion of my fathers, unlike my friends I have great respect for the religious writers of the past. I read them wishing to give clarity to my natural religion. Medieval theologians were not as I popularly believed, obsessed with silly debates as to how many angels could dance on a pinhead. Anybody who cares to read the scholastic philosophers will discover thinkers as sophisticated in their thought as contemporary philosophers. Also as difficult to read as any modern philosopher.

John Hick with his term the ‘religious ultimate’ expresses best the belief of the those who cling to the natural religion of their fathers.