During the pandemic, I’ve noticed a shift in what I think matters and what does not; I look into the faces and smile to the bin men, the supermarket cashier etc – more appreciative of their work; I have the sense that I’m not alone in this – that there is rising support for a gentler, more equitable order. Covid has many of the systems that shape our lives, floundering in unknown territory just now; the challenge will be, when these institutions are stable again, that we retain respect for the front-line workers, we’ve learned we depend on.
An important message for me is contained in the ‘failure’ of Zoom; yes, I know its use (and its share value) has rocketed – but I’ve never spoken to anyone who enjoys the experience. Friends, child psychotherapists trying to work, tell me that ‘virtual’ contact reduces effectiveness – eliminates an important ‘force field’.
The radical Scots psychiatrist, R.D Laing, explained this well (see end piece). “The power of interpersonal encounters,” he said, “comes not only from the ‘attunement’ of people to each other – but also from being in tune with – ‘a healing spiritual field’ – always there – in us and between us”. Laing conceded that this force is beyond the investigation of science (and beyond zoom) but personally, I’ve never doubted its potential impact in even the most casual social encounters. The loss of ‘social healing’ is the most devastating of our Covid shutdowns – but it will be first to recover; that’s just the way we are.
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Disorderly Rangers fans, celebrating their league victory in Glasgow’s George Square, attracted my strong disapproval – a breach of Covid regs; yet I strongly approved of the crowd which assembled in Clapham Common on Friday, in solidarity with Sarah Everard. This Conversation piece recognises the need for legislators to protect the right to protest – but that “it is manifestly inappropriate for the police to be arbiters of proportionality in these cases”. Covid aside – in any mature democracy, citizens should only be prevented from assembling in rare, carefully defined circumstances. Rather than legislative clarity – the present drift is towards increasing police discretion – which is the wrong direction.
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The New Left Review has a blogsite called Sidecar; this piece by Jamie Maxwell offers a left-wing take on ‘Scottish Faultlines’ (including the Sturgeon/Salmond spat). Maxwell is familiar with how the SNP evolved – he suggests that much of the hostility to Sturgeon is a delayed and displaced frustration with her predecessor. A well-balanced article.
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Three academics from Durham Uni. have written a piece called “How men can be allies to women right now.” It helped me get my bearings around the Sarah Everard reaction.
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I have an ongoing interest in ‘alternative’ business models which can ‘soften’ capitalism – like ‘The bakery that’s owned by an idea’. From the USA, ‘a perpetual purpose trust’ is a business structure where the legal beneficiary is a ‘purpose’ instead of a person. I wonder if it might contribute anything to the UK’s ongoing evolution of social enterprise.
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Another Ferret article by Rob Edwards about the ‘sins’ of our fish farming industry. Like Grangemouth petrochemical complex, fish farming has an important impact on both the economy and levels of pollution in Scotland. We need more openness about all the numbers. I wish SEPA (environmental protection) was more transparent and more robust.
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I can’t remember UK politics ever being so static/immovable; in spite of almost weekly setbacks (like the smelly £20bn test and trace contracts) the Tories appear impregnable. John Harris, in the Guardian, explores how they became anchored as the ‘Party of England’ and wonders what could budge them – other than the break-up of the Union, of course.
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From a speech given by R.D.Laing – famous Scottish psychiatrist, to an audience of psychotherapists – in Edinburgh – October 1983. His reference ‘beyond science’- to a spiritual healing power – caused much controversy.
“There is nothing in the world more enjoyable than to be in communion with another human being. This has nothing to do with technique. Once it is there it is a field – a sort of force field that is not to be discovered within the investigative competence of science. So I will have to call it spiritual. It is the tuning into a spiritual field that is always there. It has to do with attunement – two instruments getting in tune with each other – harmonising. It is quite an experience. In Christian terminology the name they have given to this healing force is the Holy Ghost. Holy means healthy and spirit means ghost. There is a healthy spirit that exists in us and between us and that is the only healing power that exists as far as I know. It exists not just between us as a single species – but throughout the whole of creation”.
