Books

(To appear in Issue 2 of the Oxford Left Review.)

‘One of the most encouraging developments in the emergent intellectual space [...] has been a new willingness to advocate the Necessary rather than the merely Practical.’ – Mike Davis, Who will build the ark? New Left Review 61 (January/February 2010)

Political events since mid-2009, especially the parliamentary expenses scandal, accentuated long-standing symptoms in the British body politic, eliciting predictions of doom (in the form of further voter disengagement, among others) and calls for reform. Among these, many an opinion poll suggested the possibility of a hung Parliament, and many a campaign group called for a referendum on reforming the electoral system of first-past-the-post (FPTP). Peter Tatchell outlined the case for electoral reform in the inaugural issue of this Review. Beyond this, the wide Left ought also to think a few more steps ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m just now getting into the spiritual and intellectual work I associate with Lent. Barring some quick epiphanies, this work will stretch into the Easter season.

Here are some of the things I’m planning to read and watch. No real curriculum here, just what’s on one man’s shelf.

• The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (also planning to read the recent thesis “The Sister Karamazov: Dorothy Day’s Encounter with Dostoevsky’s Novel” by Michael H. Hebbeler)
• Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by Hume
• The Gospel of Luke
• News reports on the Catholic church’s German child-rape scandals
• The Last Temptation of Christ (have not seen this, though I signed a petition against it when it came out, something I’ve some to regret)
• Jesus of Montreal (have not seen this in years, and have mixed memories)
• The Gospel According to St. Matthew (have not seen this)

If anything else comes in handy I’ll add comments or maybe a second post. Probably 2001 (my favorite movie) and Breaking the Waves (my favorite religious film, though not for everybody–I freaked out a friend yesterday just explaining the plot) will find their way onto my screen.

At one o’clock Monday morning, I counted the votes to select a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party in the Oxford East constituency, to replace Peter Tatchell who had to stand down due to health reasons. Announcement to follow in due course, soon.

From one o’clock to three in the afternoon, I attended the Green group of councillors to discuss budget proposals for Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, and election strategies.

From seven to about nine o’clock in the evening, I was glad to be at the launch of the inaugural issue of the Oxford Left Review. There I talked with three journalists (among other radical right-on comrades), from Aamulehti of Tampere, Corriere della Sera of Italy, and Samoa’s Environment Weekly. Very nice people they were.

Here is the table of contents for the inaugural issue of the Oxford Left Review (Issue 1, February 2010):

• Samual Burt: Equality and Republican Ideals
• Peter Tatchell: Voter Reform and the Left
• Stuart White: An End to Labourism
• Cailean Gallagher: Call to Scottish Labour
• Matthew Kennedy: The Putney Debates
• Jeremy Cliffe: A Fourth Way for Labour?
• Brian Melican: Germany’s Fragmented Left
• Christopher Jackson: The Return of Keynes
• George Irvin: Time for a Tobin Tax
• Kaihsu Tai: The Science of Copenhagen
• Sophie Lewis: COP15 – Activist’s Perspective
• Matthew Kennedy: Žižek review
• Roberta Klimt: Bennett review
• Noel Hatch: Today’s Lost Generation

Pace Radford, it was typeset in Palatino, to good effect dare I so say. All references to non-L——r party affiliation were cautiously scrubbed, for which I am (to be frank) a bit miffed. Despite that, it was an excellent effort by the editorial team in setting off this worthy initiative.

Near midnight, I refined my letter to the Oxford Times about public ownership of assets, after email-shots to follow up all the interesting discussions I had for the last 24 hours of politicking.

It is amazing that I am not getting paid to do any of this, but certainly it has been more fun than staring at molecules on the computer. Citizenship is a full-time job, and the work of a citizen is never done….

貨惡其棄於地也，不必藏於己；力惡其不出於身也，不必為己。 – ‘Lǐ Yùn’ in The Classic of Rites, attributed to Confucius. Translation by James Legge: ‘(When the Grand course was pursued, they accumulated) articles (of value), disliking that they should be thrown away upon the ground, but not wishing to keep them for their own gratification. (They laboured) with their strength, disliking that it should not be exerted, but not exerting it (only) with a view to their own advantage.’

Whoever destroys anything that could be useful to others breaks the law of bal tashchit, “Do not waste.” – Babylonian Talmud, Kodashim 32a (second or third century), quoted in ‘Teachings on Creation through the Ages’, edited by J. Matthew Sleeth M.D., in The Green Bible (2008) San Francisco: HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-162799-6.

508 is a show about Worcester.

This week, I talk to Brendan Melican. Topics include inaccurate predictions, the Telegram & Gazette’s website troubles, and WPI making non-tax payments to the city.

If you’d like to leave a comment for next week’s show, the number is 508-471-3897.

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I mentioned in these pages that the “green” Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, His All Holiness Bartholomew I, addressed the European Parliament earlier this year. This was as part of a series during the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. The other speakers were His Eminence Sheikh Ahmad Badr El Din El Hassoun, Grand Mufti of Syria; Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth; and most recently His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Thanks to the intervention by the Liberals and the Greens, Dr Asma Jahangir, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, were also invited to speak. (Sophia in ’t Veld: “I would like to know why the Conference of Presidents has chosen to interpret intercultural dialogue exclusively as an interreligious monologue and whether it feels a part-session is an appropriate platform for religious messages.” and Sarah Ludford: “it seems that you [the President(s)] have made the Grand Mufti comparable to the Pope and the UK Chief Rabbi as a European representative of his particular religion.”)

Here are some highlights from each the speakers, with links to their texts for the gentle readers’ perusal over Christmastime: Read the rest of this entry »

At the risk of obsessively praying about waste and recycling, I have this prayer to offer, which I trust to be sensibly Trinitarian.

(John Calvin was wrong. The Purgatory does exist. I have seen it with my own eyes, at the Redbridge recycling station.)

God our Creator, in your mercy:
Help us to learn how to live in Paradise, where nothing is wasted,
where we walk or cycle with you as you intended.
Bless the workers who sort our recycling,
who, as befit people created in your image, re-create order out of chaos.

Κύριε ἐλέησον.

Christ our Saviour, in your mercy:
Remove us from the flashy sports cars and the 4×4s (SUVs)
which only speed us to the incinerating Armageddon.
Remind us of your crown, when we see the thornbushes growing over the landfill.
Remind us of your Cross, whenever we see smokestacks or wind turbines on the hill.
Remind us of your Passion and your Resurrection.

Χριστὲ ἐλέησον.

Holy Spirit our Advocate and Comforter, in your mercy:
Guard us on our bus route for the recycling centre.
Purge us of our sins of pride and greed.
Blow your wind on us and drive us in your dynamic,
as on the wind turbines, and as on Pentecost.
Bless with your wordless prayer
everything that has a recycling symbol.

Κύριε ἐλέησον.

Amen.

(By the way, Chris Goodall’s second book is out: Ten Technologies to Save the Planet.)

So they scorn: “The Left has been predicting for decades the recession that never came.” Alas, now the recession has finally come, where is the Left? The Right will steal and fight (indeed, are already stealing and fighting) to keep the status quo. See earlier kairos (καιρός).

I have been reading Saint Paulo Freire’s classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and not before time! It is steeped in Gospel (though without annoying prooftexts) and in every turn corroborating with the insights of Herman Dooyeweerd. He articulated about “praxis” better than I did in my muddle about shopping as prayer. And it remains relevant: to start, it is a devastating predictive analysis of the British phenomenon called New Labour.

Are you in communion with this church? Iglesia Cristiana Reformada Paraíso, Barahona, República Dominica:

Verso published earlier this month a collection of Toussaint Louverture’s writings, introduced by Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That’s the next book on my reading list.

On Saturday, I went to the autumn conference of the Green Party of England and Wales. Not as many hugs as previous ones, but after 35 years, we finally elected our first leader, Caroline Lucas: yay! I also got my copy of the new book Making poverty: a history signed by the author, my friend Tom Lines.

I saw there fellow blogger Jim Jepps of The Daily (Maybe), who (gentle readers will recall) not only mentioned this blog in the Guide to Political Blogging in the UK last year, but also said that we were “extra-respectable”. (Thanks, Jim!) This year we were not mentioned in the text, but remain in the listing of political blogs.

In other news, thanks to the efforts of Jim and other Green blogging-activists, a Green Party bloggers home was launched at the conference! My little bit of contribution was to buy the domain name….

Non-political news: If our gentle western-Atlantic readers ever visit our humble town of Oxford, be sure to visit the café Vaults and Gardens next to the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, run by local entrepreneur Will Pouget of French aristocratic stock. Most of the food there is local, organic, and/or Fairtrade, and there will always be a vegetarian/vegan option. His newest venture is a healthy “kebab van”, which has already been reported locally in the Oxford Times and nationally in the Daily Telegraph.

From the first chapter of Christian Non-Resistance by Adin Ballou (1846).

What is Christian Non-Resistance? It is that original peculiar kind of non-resistance, which was enjoined and exemplified by Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures of the New Testament. Are there other kinds of non-resistance? Yes.

1. Philosophical non-resistance of various hue, which sets at nought divine revelation, disregards the authority of Jesus Christ as a divine teacher, excludes all strictly religious considerations, and deduces its conclusions from the light of nature, the supposed fitness of things and the expediency of consequences.
2. Sentimental non-resistance, also of various hue; which is held to be the spontaneous dictate of man’s higher sentiments in the advanced stages of their development, transcending all special divine revelations, positive instructions, ratiocination and considerations of expediency.
3. Necessitous non-resistance, commonly expressed in the phrase “passive obedience and non-resistance,” imperiously preached by despots to their subjects, as their indispensable duty and highest virtue; also recommended by worldly prudence to the victims of oppression when unable to offer successful resistance to their injurers.

With this last mentioned kind Christian Non-Resistance has nothing in common. With philosophical and sentimental non-resistance it holds much in common; being, in fact the divine original of which they are human adulterations, and embracing all the good of both without the evils of either. This treatise is an illustration and defense of Christian Non-Violence, properly so designated.