Reorientations: Collected Articles On Society

By Martin Goldsworthy

This book contains 52 separate articles which are about various aspects of society. One set is about Power; where it is held and how it is used, or abused. The other two sets are about how we sometimes fail to use our intelligence in living our lives, and about how we might do better.
Experience, especially in places other than your home town, can trigger many types of responses, and almost certainly some learning. I was optimistic enough to go and live and work in a wide variety of places in different continents. From such places your perspective is automatically reorientated. These collected articles are one result.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Goldsworthy
• Release date: Nov 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463423257

Martin Goldsworthy

Martin Goldsworthy lives with his Peruvian partner in Lima. He comes from a large family and has two daughters of his own, both of whom live in Europe.He completed his university studies in Cambridge and in London, and has lived and worked in the UK, Malaysia, Germany and Perú. Currently he works part-time as a consultant.

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Reorientations - Collected Articles On Society

By Martin Goldsworthy

Copyright 2018 Martin Goldsworthy

Smashwords Edition

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Contents

1 Introduction

2 Power

2.1 Monuments To Power

2.2 Where Corruption Starts

2.3 Lawless Zones

2.4 Disinterested Governors

2.5 Changing Womens’ Place

2.6 Does Anyone Think That Corruption Doesn’t Affect Them?

2.7 Outing Incumbents

2.8 Nationalism Rules. OK?

2.9 Weak Constitution

2.10 Hard Immigration

2.11 Multinationality

2.12 Who Drives Germany?

2.13 Foreign Intervention And Venecuba

2.14 In The Interests Of Transparency

2.15 Governing Sustainably

2.16 Solutions To Abuse Of Power

2.17 Industrial Smokescreens

3 Dimness

3.1 Entranced Reality Rules OK

3.2 After Midnight Attraction

3.3 Virtual Reality - The Status

3.4 Baked Or Frozen

3.5 Quacks Still At Large

3.6 Packaging Genius, And Madness

3.7 At Risk Of Being Clueless

3.8 Back To Pre-Statistics

3.9 Police Abuse

3.10 The Few

3.11 Priority Rules OK?

3.12 Crossing Precautions

3.13 Disaster Waiting

3.14 Brexit’s Risks

3.15 Immigration Post-Brexit

3.16 Wismut Et Al. For Ever

3.17 No Growth An Option?

3.18 Lawyers And The Unexpected

3.19 Fracking Frenzy

3.20 Blowing Hot And Cold

3.21 Getting Into Hot Water

3.22 Hardware Or Software

4 Brighter

4.1 Pale-Skinned Beauty

4.2 Tackling Chronic Anxiety

4.3 Policy Of Honesty

4.4 Approaching Ageing

4.5 Alternative Family Scripts

4.6 Surviving The Future

4.7 Responsibility For Outings

4.8 Splendid Isolation

4.9 Offsetting Emissions

4.10 Better By Regulation?

4.11 Taxing Issues Around Global Warming

4.12 On Packages

4.13 Targetting Sustainability

About The Author

1 Introduction

This book contains articles which are loosely about Society. One important aspect of a society is Power, where it is held and how it is used, or abused. There is a corresponding set of articles. Also, there is individual experience and action by members of that society. I have presented two sets of articles for this area; those which indicate that we are sometimes rather Dim in the ways we go about our lives, and those which suggest how we can be Brighter in this respect, if only we put our minds to it.

Experience, especially in places other than your home town, can trigger many types of responses, and almost certainly some learning. There is a joke about types of education, and one of the types it considers is the experience gained when you don’t read the small print. I didn’t, and I was optimistic enough to go and live and work in a wide variety of places in different continents. From such places your perspective is automatically reorientated. It remains to be seen whether you, the reader, will judge that this experience resulted in me learning something useful.

The majority of the articles in this book and its two companions (Reorientations - Collected Articles On Life, and Reorientations - Collected Articles On Culture) were originally posts to a weekly blog which I began when I stopped working full-time. I had time available to develop more fully and then present some of my ideas. For many years I had kept a file with notes and clippings. As I worked with those, I found that I had more ideas, based on where I am living now, on events and on my current activities. These new ideas also resulted in posts to my blog and in articles in these books.

One of my teachers described a piece of my work as wide but not deep. The comment must have stung, as I still remember it, many decades later. The articles presented here certainly cover a range of topics, but I think that they now also have a useful depth.

Apart from the organization described above, each article can be considered as separate. You can just dip in wherever you find an interesting title.

2 Power

2.1 Monuments to Power

After the first impression close-up, what do you think about them? We all visit monuments on our travels, and even sometimes at home. The guide-books have trained us well. Their writers could be sure that monuments would be there when the travellers pass by, unlike potentially more interesting and lively things like fairs and festivals.

With ancient monuments it is more difficult to understand what it was all about. Even if they remain complete enough for us lay visitors to visualize how they were, they are often washed out; the original colours mainly eliminated in the passage of time. Similarly tenuous are the connections from them to our time and our way of life. What was the meaning of everything to those who built them? We can be sure that the appearance was not left to chance.

One recent trip we made was to Kuelap, a pre-Inca mountain-top citadel in the north of Perú. It made me wonder how they afforded to build such massive things back then. In the case of Kuelap construction was initiated in the 5th century AD, when populations were much smaller than we are used to today. And this was long before powered machinery and fossil fuels enormously increased our ability to produce and build things.

Ancient societies which built monuments were almost always already in the agricultural phase. Food and other products could usually be produced in excess, and arrangements were made for the surplus to be stored for future use. So there was generally some spare capacity which could be exploited for monument building.

The basic explanation for the affordability of monuments is probably inequality. Robbery of another society’s wealth by warfare and colonization is just another way of applying inequality to that population too. There is some research showing that ancient inequality was indeed higher, this reflecting the absolute power of rulers. So even though there was less wealth available overall, the rulers’ large share was often enough for monument building; as we can clearly see in many examples around the world.

One reason for building large things was fear. If the neighbours were likely to attack then a wall might stop them. The Chinese adopted this strategy. An alternative is perhaps something like Kuelap - an imposing structure which would be visible from afar. Imagine it as a way of showing potential invaders what they are likely to have to face if they dare to attack. For that reason some monuments were decorated in strong colours - to make them look even more intimidating.

Of course such structures could also be conveniently safe places for the rulers to live in, and perhaps to carry out whatever rituals were thought to be necessary to prevent the feared natural risks - earthquakes, floods and droughts are typical in Perú. Such events were thought to be in the power of gods.

The afterlife was another reason for monument building. The fear that the leaders would not be able to survive there seems to have been the essential reason for constructing the pyramids in Egypt. In Egypt some were built specifically as the tomb for one pharaoh.The almost contemporary ones in Perú, at Carál, were multi-use and constructed in stages, each layer on top of a previous pyramid.

Romans were prolific monument builders, and for them fear of society itself played its part. Provision of entertainment for the masses was as important as ensuring they had food. One result was the Colosseum. That is truly a monument to fear; that of the hundreds of thousands who were killed there.

2.2 Where Corruption Starts

Whether you have personal experience of corruption will depend on where you live and what you do. If you are lucky, you may never have been offered something in order to smooth the way for the applicant. Equally, you may never have been asked for a bribe in order that some official complies with your request. In the latter case, you would probably react by saying something like Why should I pay them to do their job?.

In some parts of the world the situation is reversed. Everyone expects to have to pay an official to get what they need. The salary structures may even reflect that, with official pay being so low that the bribes they demand are how they afford to live.

Sometimes these waters are murky. Is the following case corruption? A country wants to develop a site to dispose of radioactive waste. Negotiations are held between the government and the representatives of the community in the target area. It is agreed that various types of public expenditures will be made in the area. OK so far?

What about if these expenditures include payments to individual households? In some countries such payments would be illegal and correspond to corruption. In