GUBU
An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary
Monday, September 12, 2005  

Waters on Hobbs

John and I have our moments, some via correspondence, once on-air, mostly in my head, but I really like what he has written today. Here are just some lines. If anyone would like the whole thing mail me and I'll send it to you.

"But more and more the feeling grows that we are going nowhere rather than somewhere, that we live in a land where the miracle of the loaves and fishes has been put into reverse and that the more we pedal the less we achieve.

What Eddie Hobbs has uncovered will not be addressed by ditching the Government or establishing a public inquiry.

The problem is that when we were poor we thought everything would be okay if we got rich. Then we cast off our ancient pieties in return for the baubles of a superficial prosperity and found that the pain we thought would disappear simply became more inscrutable." (my italics)

posted by Sarah | 09:36 6 comments
Comments:
What is the world coming to when Waters writes something worth reading? I'm sure he'll redeem himself by drawing all the wrong conclusions soon.

He's right of course, but most people won't do anything other than project their unhappiness onto taxes, or immigrants or a new SUV. We're all consumers now and for the well-trained consumer money and stuff and status are an end in themselves not a means to something else.
 
Bollocks,
What we have now is the chance to live in our own country, instead of ending up in Surbiton or Kirkcaldy.

If Waters thinks that this isn't much of a change for the better then (than?) he should reread his own book Every Day Like Sunday, a brilliant piece of journalism.

As for capitalism's existential angst. Give me a break. If you aren't comitted to an ultraleft reorganisation of society stop whining about the hole in your soul.
 
As Sunday's article indicated, I am inclined to side more with Leon than with John - altho I think the ultraleft organisations with which Leon is aligned are utterly ridiculous (anarchists, socialist workers etc). I do however think that people have more choices than they claim. You might HAVE to work but to buy what? We've opted out for a while but that also meant opting out of a second car and €1000 mini-breaks in the west. But I agree with John on some other points, namely, everyone did think that our problems were associated with poverty, not just lack of character. And there is massive pressure to join in the consumer fest. When we lived in Dublin and my husband got the bus to work, his friends thought he was cracked. Public transport was students and immigrants. Not real people.
 
I also think that socialist workers are ridiculous.

As for the massive pressure to join in the consumer fest try massive pressure to turn up at stupid and counterproductive demos.

Are you Hobbesian?
 
LOL. I don't know enough about Hobb(e)s, cork man or philosopher to identify myself with him altho JOS did tell me last week that he said that life was brutal and short or something. Will revise and get back to you.
 
The educational powers of the internet. "As Hobbes acknowledged, this account of human nature emphasizes our animal nature, leaving each of us to live independently of everyone else, acting only in his or her own self-interest, without regard for others. This produces what he called the "state of war," a way of life that is certain to prove "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." (Leviathan I 13) The only escape is by entering into contracts with each other—mutually beneficial agreements to surrender our individual interests in order to achieve the advantages of security that only a social existence can provide.
I think this is all quite true. Failure to keep those contracts results in better offer syndrome and food betrayal both of which I have fallen victim.
 
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