tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post2384687468431057731..comments2024-03-29T17:12:19.648+13:00Comments on Bowalley Road: For the Love of the PeopleChris Trotterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-42302187067464198012010-06-30T12:26:40.063+12:002010-06-30T12:26:40.063+12:00Olwyn: You're probably right about NZers not b...Olwyn: You're probably right about NZers not being good at "the hubris". We certainly don't have the magisterial American sense of the individual self. And look at at how angst-ridden and tragic the various NZ "Man Alone" literary mythologies have been.<br /><br />Contra to this, we have traditions of empathy and organic society in our team sport, like you say, and bequeathed to us in different ways by the likes of Savage, Holland, Lee, Robin Hyde, Jim Henderson, Janet Frame...mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-21835089068052937652010-06-30T11:09:50.288+12:002010-06-30T11:09:50.288+12:00Victor @ Mike: Iris Murdoch also sees this sort of...Victor @ Mike: Iris Murdoch also sees this sort of realism as tinged with romanticism: She says, "Stripped of the exiguous metaphysical background that Kant was prepared to allow him, this (Kant's) man is with us still, free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, brave, the hero of so many novels and books of moral philosophy." <br /><br />In actual fact New Zealand is not very good at the hubris that accompanies this man - it always comes out tinged with panic and spite, and if anyone demurs on account of this, "the tall poppy syndrome" is called forth as an explanation. <br /><br />Given the joy that our football team has given people, manifesting the better features of NZ in being humble, diligent and attentive (characteristics which sound dull written down, but which are lovely to see) we may actually be happier with politicians that are driven by the love of the people than their managerial counterparts.Olwynnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-69084191529628537272010-06-30T08:59:11.003+12:002010-06-30T08:59:11.003+12:00That's "No LEFT Turn", Mike.That's "No LEFT Turn", Mike.Chris Trotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-51139842631613732932010-06-30T08:49:51.814+12:002010-06-30T08:49:51.814+12:00Chris,
Thanks for the No Right Turn quote - that&...Chris,<br /><br />Thanks for the No Right Turn quote - that's an interesting analysis. Reminds me of the influence of Scrim during the Depression and his messages of optimistic empathy.<br /><br /><br />Victor,<br />Cheers for the comment on the songs.<br /><br />Recently read an essay by Robert Bellah about the American "religion" of the sovereign individual, first identified and critiqued by Tocqueville. I think many NZers have started by sway into this worldview. Consider the individualiam/isolationism celebrated by Emerson:<br /><br />"Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear... the currents of Universal Being circulate through me... The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, - master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance."mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-34044770997794510002010-06-29T17:26:47.758+12:002010-06-29T17:26:47.758+12:00Olwyn
"One odd effect of sidelining thoughts...Olwyn<br /><br />"One odd effect of sidelining thoughts of goodness is a rather childish and narcissistic view of maturity: that to be mature is to accept that the world is a dog-eat-dog place."<br /><br />I believe that those who wallow in dog-eat-dog 'realism' are actually a species of romantic. <br />They get high(in both senses of the word)on an image of themselves as practical, incisive doers.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-7115589412130615712010-06-29T14:02:37.497+12:002010-06-29T14:02:37.497+12:00"We are too prone to dismiss the apparently s..."We are too prone to dismiss the apparently simplistic emotions and morality of previous generations as hypocritical, self-serving or self-deluding gush."<br /><br />Yes Victor. It is all too easy to denigrate a genuine virtue by presenting it in its degraded form. And often writers who exposed hypocrisy did not intend to do away with virtue so much as to reveal our failure to live up to the virtues we espoused. <br /><br />One odd effect of sidelining thoughts of goodness is a rather childish and narcissistic view of maturity: that to be mature is to accept that the world is a dog-eat-dog place. A truer conception of maturity you would think would be the realisation that the person who is not me is just as real as I am, despite the fact that I can't feel it when he stubs his toe.Olwynnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-88236210133080936412010-06-29T11:46:00.060+12:002010-06-29T11:46:00.060+12:00On the subject of Labour's expenses 'scand...On the subject of Labour's expenses 'scandal', I noted with some dismay (but no surprise) that Helen Clark's totally appropriate use of her ministerial credit card to buy a cheap pair of gumboots for the obviously good purpose of visiting a flood-stricken area, was condemned as 'mean' by her normal rag-bag of critics.<br /><br />That's what happens when you behave with the personal parsimony once expected of Labour leaders.Victornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-6556609079020163092010-06-29T11:36:08.943+12:002010-06-29T11:36:08.943+12:00This is a very interesting and valuable discussion...This is a very interesting and valuable discussion. Mike's point about Victorian and Edwardian songs is particularly well-made <br /><br />We are too prone to dismiss the apparently simplistic emotions and morality of previous generations as hypocritical, self-serving or self-deluding gush.<br /><br />But not every heroic Tribune of the People became a wife-beater or child molester when he shut his front door at night. Nor was high-flown humanitarian rhetoric always a mask for baser motives. <br /> <br />Both the deliberate crudities of Modernism and the vaguaries of Post-Modernism have sapped our ability to empathise with our fellow creatures. We have become more cynical but not necessarily more sceptical, let alone wiser or freer of mind.<br /><br />From his own idiosyncratic but undoubtably Left Wing perspective, Orwell had a lot to say on the subject of the twentieth century's assault on humane values and old-fashioned empathy. His essay on Charles Dickens is well worth revisiting, particularly the last paragraph.<br /><br />http://www.orwell.ru/library/reviews/dickens/english/e_chdVictornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-34923901023362290712010-06-29T11:09:45.999+12:002010-06-29T11:09:45.999+12:00"In the first half of the 20th Century, the i..."In the first half of the 20th Century, the idealistic, romantic, maudlin – even mawkish – human sentiments resided much closer to the surface of daily life, and were much more responsive to emotional stimuli, than is the case today. One has only to listen to the film scores of the period to understand how susceptible the mass audiences of the past were to the promptings of extreme, and to our “post-modern” sensibilities, quite banal, emotional cues."<br /><br />And yet in the early 20th Century we saw none of the mawkish outpouring of public sentiment that surrounded, as an extreme example, the death of Diana Windsor. Or, here in NZ, the death of Peter Blake. Nor were there laying of wreaths at crash sites, or the inexplicable collection of foliage at disaster sites...Bearhunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06927373498537533968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-80923864282504868702010-06-29T10:44:31.466+12:002010-06-29T10:44:31.466+12:00To: Lew.
Ah, sweet Concord!
To: Mike.
I share y...To: Lew.<br /><br />Ah, sweet Concord!<br /><br />To: Mike.<br /><br />I share your thoughts on the death of empathy.<br /><br />You may be interested in the following passage from "No Left Turn":<br /><br />"It is difficult for people living in the 21st Century to understand how deeply their forebears could be moved by the moral injunctions of the New Testament. In the first half of the 20th Century, the idealistic, romantic, maudlin – even mawkish – human sentiments resided much closer to the surface of daily life, and were much more responsive to emotional stimuli, than is the case today. One has only to listen to the film scores of the period to understand how susceptible the mass audiences of the past were to the promptings of extreme, and to our “post-modern” sensibilities, quite banal, emotional cues. We should strive to understand, however, that the literary and musical tastes of the “average” person in the 1920s and 30s were still, overwhelmingly, dominated by the manipulative sentimentality of 19th Century art. The challenging realism and discordant sounds of 20th Century modernism were appreciated by, and remained the preserve of, an intellectual, and mostly left-wing, minority. Moral simplicity was the characteristic quality of a population which, every Sunday, settled itself into the pews of a local church, where, as the Depression deepened, the uncomplicated ethical injunctions and shrewd parables of “The Carpenter of Nazareth” were increasingly given the aspect of an unchallengeable political manifesto."Chris Trotterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09081613281183460899noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-63562855794623818392010-06-29T10:06:11.023+12:002010-06-29T10:06:11.023+12:00Chris, we have to stop agreeing like this. What wi...Chris, we have to stop agreeing like this. What will become of our reputations, such as they respectively are?<br /><br />LLewhttp://www.kiwipolitico.com/index.php?author=27noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-56623388759354340022010-06-29T09:06:15.300+12:002010-06-29T09:06:15.300+12:00Chris,
You're right. Sincerity is out of fash...Chris,<br /><br />You're right. Sincerity is out of fashion. But I think it's not only a reflection on the politician class, but on (many of) the people.<br /><br />In one of his quasi-memoirs, John A. Lee said that in the early-20thC the ordinary person expressed open empathy than later. This was reflected, for example, in the musical culture of the day, all those Victorian & Edwardian songs we now think of as sickly sentimental which could be, in fact, expressions of genunine feeling.<br /><br />Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of NZers, pre-1935, were what would now be defined as Poor. So of course they had more empathy for their fellows. It was the "natural" ideology of the people. This was where the likes of Savage and Holland came from.mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753486518085091399.post-77870393217570201482010-06-29T09:06:15.301+12:002010-06-29T09:06:15.301+12:00I am not sure that acting "for the love of th...I am not sure that acting "for the love of the people" beats the current rage for "aspiration". The contrasting images from election night of Clark emerging from her Mt Eden villa into a plain car, and Keys convoy of high end limos pouring out of the security gate of his Parnell mansion/ compound said it all. It strikes me that people dont want to share humility anymore, they voted for a chance to "aspire", the corollary of which is the ability to "lord it" over others. Democracy comes a distant second to desire.<br /><br />I am please you pointed out the role Palmer had in the reduction of society to individuals and consumers, and the elevation of politicians to corporatist style "professionals". He was central to that same pack of wreckers who transformed our relationship with our public services from that of citizens to that of consumers and clients. Its about time Palmer recieved the opprobrium he richly deserves for his role in securing the dominance of this warped and loathsome relationship between the institutions of state and the citizens.Nick Jnoreply@blogger.com