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The Bubble
Dec. 1st, 2021 08:17 amFriends up at the weekend, snow and icy winds on the Cnoc, cue yorkshire puds and lamb, red wine and too much chocolate. All good, very good.
My MIL writes to complain about another holiday being cancelled. She remarks, 'what a mess the world is in.' Well, we've got people in this country who are angry at the RNLI for saving lives at sea (not cool if they are immigrants apparently; some think we should let them drown) we've got the most corrupt government arguably since 1215, there's looming choice between food and fuel for millions of Brits this Christmas, there's global warming, there's the mass extinction event, there's China closing in on Taiwan and Russia on the borders of Ukraine, there's refugees fleeing everywhere, and lest we forget, yer actual Covid. But hey, holiday gone, and now suddenly the mess of the world is worth remarking upon.
She's a good woman and a fine mother. But by god, she and her husband live in a pretty little bubble of Boomer, and long years have stretched between them and the concept of not getting their way. This was the couple annoyed when the Australian desert let them down by flowering. It is a very rare event but they were not impressed. 'That's all very well,' she said, 'but we wanted to see the desert.' There you go Oz, must try harder.
Anyway, that's my harsh given a little airing. Is it enough? Almost. At the weekend one of our guests lent me a book called The Righteous Mind, why good people disagree on religion and politics I am suspicious because while he's a warm excellent guy, he's also a Tory, and has something of a bee in his bonnet about people claiming moral superiority. One might argue that as a Conservative voter, he might well have regular occasion to be irritated by this, that one way out might be to stop voting for venal mendacious incompetent charlatans, but as my guest and someone I want to see happy, it would be quite wrong for me to say so. I'll read the book if I can get past its initial dryness.
It's not easy though, after the engagement of Salem Possessed . This goes into the socio-economic issues around the Salem witch trials, and our newly discovered ancestors turn up in a couple of chapters, one of them coming across as some kind of Medici in a sugarloaf hat. The book's good but old, published in the 70s and absent in details. I probably could use more recent research.
When I say I could use, it's very unlikely to be useful at all. I don't intend to write about Salem, it's been done to bits, and everybody wants the witchcraft. Looking at the background of Tituba, it's perfectly possible that she picked up knowledge of Barbados folk magic along with whatever she recalled of Arawak customs. Bet that was a pretty heady brew, all mixed up with Christian European traditions. She was a dramatic teller of supernatural tales with good reason; confession escaped the noose far more adroitly than innocence. Later she admitted to making it all up, and being beaten /coached by her owner, Samuel Parris. But that might have been as much of a fiction as anything else. All we can really be sure of is that having been accused, Tituba said what she needed to say, convinced those who wanted to be convinced, and survived.
But all that's a different aspect of the story. One thing seems evident; if you want witch hunters, look for those frustrated about money and prospects. They don't need to be abjectly poor, but they do need to have less than they consider their entitlement. Resentment works the charm better than ignorance though the latter certainly helps, at least among the audience.
That right there is probably a good starting point for the Brexit bubble. I suspect it is of more use than a social psychologist writing about how a selfish human chimp can, via a 'hive switch' become a "groupish" human "bee". But we shall see.
My MIL writes to complain about another holiday being cancelled. She remarks, 'what a mess the world is in.' Well, we've got people in this country who are angry at the RNLI for saving lives at sea (not cool if they are immigrants apparently; some think we should let them drown) we've got the most corrupt government arguably since 1215, there's looming choice between food and fuel for millions of Brits this Christmas, there's global warming, there's the mass extinction event, there's China closing in on Taiwan and Russia on the borders of Ukraine, there's refugees fleeing everywhere, and lest we forget, yer actual Covid. But hey, holiday gone, and now suddenly the mess of the world is worth remarking upon.
She's a good woman and a fine mother. But by god, she and her husband live in a pretty little bubble of Boomer, and long years have stretched between them and the concept of not getting their way. This was the couple annoyed when the Australian desert let them down by flowering. It is a very rare event but they were not impressed. 'That's all very well,' she said, 'but we wanted to see the desert.' There you go Oz, must try harder.
Anyway, that's my harsh given a little airing. Is it enough? Almost. At the weekend one of our guests lent me a book called The Righteous Mind, why good people disagree on religion and politics I am suspicious because while he's a warm excellent guy, he's also a Tory, and has something of a bee in his bonnet about people claiming moral superiority. One might argue that as a Conservative voter, he might well have regular occasion to be irritated by this, that one way out might be to stop voting for venal mendacious incompetent charlatans, but as my guest and someone I want to see happy, it would be quite wrong for me to say so. I'll read the book if I can get past its initial dryness.
It's not easy though, after the engagement of Salem Possessed . This goes into the socio-economic issues around the Salem witch trials, and our newly discovered ancestors turn up in a couple of chapters, one of them coming across as some kind of Medici in a sugarloaf hat. The book's good but old, published in the 70s and absent in details. I probably could use more recent research.
When I say I could use, it's very unlikely to be useful at all. I don't intend to write about Salem, it's been done to bits, and everybody wants the witchcraft. Looking at the background of Tituba, it's perfectly possible that she picked up knowledge of Barbados folk magic along with whatever she recalled of Arawak customs. Bet that was a pretty heady brew, all mixed up with Christian European traditions. She was a dramatic teller of supernatural tales with good reason; confession escaped the noose far more adroitly than innocence. Later she admitted to making it all up, and being beaten /coached by her owner, Samuel Parris. But that might have been as much of a fiction as anything else. All we can really be sure of is that having been accused, Tituba said what she needed to say, convinced those who wanted to be convinced, and survived.
But all that's a different aspect of the story. One thing seems evident; if you want witch hunters, look for those frustrated about money and prospects. They don't need to be abjectly poor, but they do need to have less than they consider their entitlement. Resentment works the charm better than ignorance though the latter certainly helps, at least among the audience.
That right there is probably a good starting point for the Brexit bubble. I suspect it is of more use than a social psychologist writing about how a selfish human chimp can, via a 'hive switch' become a "groupish" human "bee". But we shall see.
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