Monday 15 September 2014

Aghast From The Past

It's been a tough old day at Puddlecote Inc and in Puddlecote Towers. Had our HR consultants in for a very long chat - and will soon be having their monthly direct debit out of our bank account for good (long story) - before being on the road for the rest of the day due to staff shortages. Whilst back home I've spent the evening setting up our new wireless printer - vital for the little Ps' homework in years 9 & 10 - to replace the one which had decided to be as reliable a piece of electronics as Yul Brynner in Westworld, only to find that the boy's PC has since come out on strike too. Only rains when it pours, eh?

So I'm grateful to Snowdon for helping me get another airing for one of my personal favourite pieces of surreal prodnosery from these pages.

If you haven't seen the news at the weekend about a Barnsley school's decision to ban the 'filth' that is the school packed lunch, do so now before reading his well-argued article at the Telegraph by way of response.

This part in particular.
None of this concerns the head of Milefield Primary School, who self-righteously proclaims that "We have got to work towards what's best for our children". The clear implication is that parents have not got their children’s best interests at heart, that they are unfit to feed their own offspring, and that schools exist to protect kids from their parents. Her use of the proprietorial term "our children" – rather than "the children" or "our pupils" – is telling. She uses the term to imply ownership by her institution, perhaps even by the nation, but when Adam and Claire Martin, who have moved their three kids to a different school as a result of the ban, say that they "don't need somebody to tell us what our children should be eating", the word "our" is literal, meaningful and should be deserving of respect.
It is strongly reminiscent of this shrill and unhinged performance by Sonia Poulton - broadcast to the nation in the summer of 2012 on Radio 5 Live - as she laid down her plans for requisitioning the nation's children to justify why she is entitled to interfere in the lives of other parents.



If you listen carefully, you can just make out Nicky Campbell suppressing his laughter as her extremist ranting is calmly dismantled by Sean Gabb.

As I said at the time:
We used to have a few of these prodnoses dotted around, but they're everywhere now. Self-aggrandising, aloof, condescending of others, and entirely dismissive of choices different from their own. 
Put this latest over-wrought moral panic to one side for a minute. Let's instead try to investigate why we have an army of shrieking curtain-twitchers who insist on getting involved in everyone else's life as well as their own. 
Now that's something that government should be doing if it cared for society, instead of encouraging the most objectionable to forcibly dictate their own personal gripes on the rest of us ... as they seem to do at every turn nowadays.
The same can safely be said of the lunatics at Milefield Primary School in Barnsley, and I reckon my illustration from back then works very well for their nasty policy too.


Or, as Snowdon puts it.
The fact remains that a ham sandwich at lunchtime is not, and never will be, a child protection issue.
Quite.


6 comments:

Stugo said...

Here in Scotland, "Our children and grandchildren" is a popular phrase right now.

The 'No' camp says that "Our children and grandchildren will be better off if we stay in the Union".

The 'Yes' camp insists that "Our children's and grandchildren's future will be more secure when we are free to make our own choices", etc., etc.

So, these are 'Scotland's children'. The SNP 'government' is rolling out GIRFEC (Getting it right for every child), which means that every Scottish child will have a "Named Person" as a state nanny throughout their entire childhood; the person depends at what stage in life the child is at, but they will be free to share personal information about the child with other 'agencies' without approval from the parents.

Clearly, up here, "our children" and all future children are considered property of the state.

Perhaps normal people talk about "future generations" as in "I hope that future generations will be free from the sort of government interference we are seeing today".

Stewart Cowan

truckerlyn said...

"Now that's something that government should be doing if it cared for society, instead of encouraging the most objectionable to forcibly dictate their own personal gripes on the rest of us ... as they seem to do at every turn nowadays."


WTF!


It is most definitely NOT something the government should be doing! They are already interfering far too much in everyone's life when they don't have a clue what 'real life' for the ordinary person is like.


I agree that government should not be encouraging the most objectionable to forcibly dictate their own personal gripes on the rest of us - but isn't that just what government is doing with the help of ASH, the BMA and umpteen other so called 'charities' and associations?


The whole darn lot need to BUTT RIGHT OUT OF OUR LIVES!

Norbert Zillatron said...

Read it again and you'll probably agree. ;)

What the government should do is:
"... investigate why we have an army of shrieking curtain-twitchers who
insist on getting involved in everyone else's life as well as their own."

truckerlyn said...

See what you mean! That's the problem with working from 1300 to 0300 then trying to quickly catch up with emails before starting work again!

Still had to read it a few times this time round. Still I am sure you know what I meant.

Cheers.

Ian B said...

Well Dick, my argument about why we have so many of these people about is that this is a social formation- who I lump together as Puritans- that dates back to the Civil War. Their second major assault on English liberty was, of course, the Victorian Era. This is their third. In the first wave they were focussed on religion with "lifestyle" as a secondary thing; in the second wave they switched to lifestyle as a means to "christianise" by sleight of hand. In this third wave, they've largely abandoned the religion entirely and it's All Lifestyle, All The Time.

It is basically a worldview which sees governance as a moral system rather than as (say) a political system. Hence the (to most people) baffling disregard by the Puritanised police for things we traditionally consider criminal, in order to focus on moral corrections. It's all right to nick somebody's car, so long as you aren't rude to a matron on Twitter.

What they started building in the Victorian Era was an infrastructure of institutions and nice careers, in the "charity" sector. This is largely why charity itself suddenly mushroomed during the 19th century, a largely Anglosphere phenomenon. That has now become an enormous business, subsisting on donations, State grants from the local to transnational level and philanthropic funds, etc. So what we are up against is a kind of secular clerisy. And we really need to think up a way to put a spanner in the whole works of it, which is sadly where I am rather short of ideas myself. But it's all one big thing, of which issues like smoking, drinking or porn or whatever (trying to retain the legality and acceptability thereof) are particular manifestations.

One general thought is that there is no current philosophy of libertinism[1] or hedonism, whatever you want to call the right to have a beer and a ciggie. The New Left sort of had a cobbled mess from Marcuse, Freud and the deranged Wilhelm Reich for sexual hedonism, but it was utter post-marxist claptrap and nobody would seriously use it these days. So we need (a) a coherent philosophy which (b) can be reduced to catchy slogans simple enough for somebody with an IQ of 90 to use and (c) a means of getting them out into the public discourse. For what it's worth, I'm still working on (a). What we do know is that "I like doing X, please leave me alone" doesn't get traction. Not against the Clerisy. The crucial thing really is that we have to make these people look ridiculous. That's always the trick to pull off in destroying the powerful. I believe myself that demonstrating a clear and undeniable linkage between modern "liberals" and Puritanism will play a considerable part in kicking the stool out from under the bastards. And we should be able to do that. Because it is true.

[1] Libertine is an entirely noble and apt word; the original Libertines were Calvin's opponents in Geneva.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

"The crucial thing really is that we have to make these people look ridiculous"



Well, tobacco control -in their laughable stupidity - is starting to do just that with e-cigs, so you never know, it may happen naturally.


If you'd accept my ever-open invite to be a co-writer here perhaps you could help speed the process? ;)