Planning and freedom

600th post

So this is the 600th post.

I would have reached this milestone more quickly had I not deleted several posts. I don't regret doing this at all, as so much of this blog is complete and utter tripe. It would have been better had I deleted 90% of it. I still like to keep it, as I can reach more people every time I write an essay or a short story. (I don't think that I would reach as many people if I started another blog from scratch.)

Ahoy Facebook #13

Oh dear, I've always admired 'polymaths.' I once bought a ticket to see a conversation with him at university, but a power cut occurred. There's only one member of Beyond the Fringe left - Alan Bennett.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/nov/27/jonathan-miller-writer-and-director-dies-aged-85

Hey Corbyn, McDonnell & Momentum... take some responsibility and stop blaming others... you've enabled a hard-right populist... YOU CONTEMPTIBLE CUNTS!!!!!

The 2019 British general election has been compared with the 1983 general election, as Labour were wiped out in both. In 1983, Labour won 209 seats whereas they won 202 in 2019.

I am glad about this outcome for the following reason - I actually like Michael Foot, Labour's leader in 1983, but I don't like Jeremy Corbyn. Although both leaders are routinely compared, they are actually rather different for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Foot was a libertarian. Indeed, he described himself as 'a libertarian socialist' because socialism heightened 'the freedom of individuals.' He was independent-minded and was not prone to group-think. He defended civil liberties and was a staunch defender of individual rights.

Foot was also a patriot who fought in the Second World War. He always opposed appeasement with Hitler and he loved his country.

He was highly literate and he was an eloquent orator. His house teemed with thousands of books. He wrote influential books about Jonathan Swift. He wrote book reviews. Indeed, he often considered a literary career, but he pursued politics instead.

He believed in consensus and reaching out to people with different politics to his own. Indeed, he became leader of the party for this very reason - the party wanted a 'unity leader.' They parliamentary Labour party elected him because the party was drifting left and they wanted a leftist who could unite all of the competing factions. He partly won because everyone in the party, regardless of their politics, liked him personally.

Now let's consider Corbyn. Does Corbyn have a libertarian bone in his body? His politics are cultish and he is definitely prone to groupthink. He does not reach his positions after thinking about them independently as an individual - he simply adopts his position because they are fashionable left-wing positions. He never speaks about the virtues of individual freedom. He'd rather go to some dreary demonstration and wave a naff placard instead. True, he was a backbench rebel who defied the whip multiple times, but he did this because of his doctrinaire leftist politics, not due to independent thought.

Would Corbyn have been a patriot during WWII?! He opposes NATO and he is hostile about any sense of national pride. He opposes wars because they are imperialistic and sides with enemies, no matter how crazy they might be, because they oppose the west.

Corbyn is a dreary, inarticulate, vague and boring speaker and his speeches are riddled with awful platitudes. He failed academically and does not seem to have the mind of a curious autodidact either. He does not read widely - he does not mention literary authors, philosophy or history. He does not have a hinterland and he does not seemed inclined to learn anything new.

Corbyn is definitely not interested in creating consensus and creating harmony between competing factions. Foot tried to keep the SDP on board whereas Corbyn walks out of a meeting with Chuka Umuna in it because 'he is not a proper leader.' Foot hated harming the feelings of opponents whereas Corbyn relished this. In fact, this is quite possibly the worst thing about Corbyn's leadeships (and that's saying a lot), it's his factionalism. 'Blairites' are evil because they are right-wing, they are the enemy and they must be defeated. Meanwhile, Foot (and all other Labour leaders) attempted to create harmony between disparate factions and keep harmony between them. Granted, Foot failed.

This is quite possibly the only good outcome from this election.

These are all the books that I read in 2019.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2019/5993530?fbclid=IwAR1YE2O8cFnFh_PChJ26h-bLRFLmwGKJZ5H28PdZ_ZRJIwk5dP2k1XF_Udg

Oh dear, I've been enjoying his writings for a while. I ploughed through his philosophy of music recently. He wrote clearly about about really complex subjects - I found out about him when I bought an introduction to Kant. I also enjoyed his critiques of the hard left, Soviet communism, May '68, etc. I'd take him any day over the continental word salads that make my brain explode (Zizek, Foucault, Derrida, etc.).

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-01-12/conservative-philosopher-sir-roger-scruton-dies-aged-75/?fbclid=IwAR0hAftBlTKII_Y1-oigDcnrVUmBSopXkUAf0_8zuQc8qX80tH-jdjYaTxY

I have not been listening to much music recently, so I decided to rectify this. I've therefore provided a list of all the music that I've heard in the past week. This won't be terribly be interesting to the vast majority of my Facebook friends, but I know that there's a small minority that shares my penchant for more niche music and lists.

Tuesday:

Ludwig van Beethoven - String Quartet in A Minor - performed by Quarteto Italiano - Record

Wednesday:

Franz Schubert - Death and the Maiden - performed by Amadeus Quartet - record

Thursday:

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Doc at the Radar Station - CD

Saturday:

Ken Mackintosh and his Orchestra - The Very Thought of You - Record
Louis Armstrong - The Very Best of Louis Armstrong: The Early Years - Record

Sunday

Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony no. 9 - Conducted by David Barenboim and performed by Staatskapelle Berlin - CD
The Beatles - Srgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band - CD

Tuesday:

Faure - Requiem - New Philarminic Orchestra - Record

I went to Oxford for the weekend and I found these three rare-ish items. I had a lovely time. : )

I really like this quote. I've been thinking about this recently. I've tried to avoid posting inspirational quotes recently - because they're cheesy - but I thought that I'd make an exception with this one. Here it is: 'Liberty is inseparable from social justice, and those who dissociate them, sacrificing the first with the purpose of attaining the second more quickly, are the true barbarians of our time.' - Mario Vargas Llosa

Cheesy inspirational quote #2: 'Let us be on the side of those who want people to be free to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, and to decide, in an adult way and provided they do not infringe the rights of others, the code by which they wish to live; and on the side of experiment and brightness, of better buildings and better food, of better music (jazz as well as Bach) and better books, of fuller lives and greater freedom. In the long run these things will be more important than the most perfect of economic policies.' - Roy Jenkins

Cheesy inspirational quote #3: 'Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of our time.' - John Stuart Mill

Cheesy inspirational quote #4: 'A sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.' - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Also, no-one needs to know what I think about coronavirus.

Cheesy inspirational quote #5: 'August 2, 1914: Germany has declared war on Russia. Went swimming in the afternoon.' - Franz Kafka