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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
FIVE WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT SOCIETY & POLITICS<\/strong><\/p>\n by David Betteridge, with drawing above by Bob Starrett<\/em><\/p>\n Three of the five ways of thinking expressed below He is a reckless driver and a wrong-headed THE TAINT AT SOURCE<\/strong><\/p>\n There was a taint at source, No later tributary could flush away Virtue might feature sometimes THE WHEEL<\/strong><\/p>\n Round and round On and on, relentlessly, This is the world\u2019s great carousel THE BEAM BALANCE<\/strong><\/p>\n Good<\/em> and evil<\/em>: How often has the balance been QUALITATIVE CHANGE<\/strong><\/p>\n Wanting peace, it is better Wanting plenty, it is better Wanting new answers SUPERSESSION<\/strong><\/p>\n Things change. Such work requires of us FIVE WAYS OF THINKING ABOUT SOCIETY & POLITICS by David Betteridge, with drawing above by Bob Starrett Three of the five ways of thinking expressed beloware overly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":15087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
are overly deterministic, and therefore dangerous;
the other two ways are better…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
philosopher. I would sooner ride in his car
than follow his lead in politics.<\/em>
– After Bertolt Brecht<\/p>\n
that kept renewing:
that was how our killing flaw,
in mind, and hand, and heart,
was ever-present, age on age,
from our species\u2019 very start.<\/p>\n
the heaped contaminants that infected us,
giving us our propensity to ill;
and they are ever-present, ever-active still.<\/p>\n
in our rhetoric, even in our dreams,
but, incurably it sickens,
victim of a fact of life
that no force on earth redeems.<\/p>\n
goes the hateful, fateful wheel.
It takes us up – oh look, the views! –
and then, of course, just as quickly,
brings us and our visionings
back to ground.<\/p>\n
there is no change,
no chance of progress ever,
always the same old shit, round
and round, and there is no way
of stopping it.<\/p>\n
that over-rides and undermines our politics.
It is a gift and curse from Hell.<\/p>\n
imagine every instance of the first
recorded in the form of a pebble
or, better, a grain of sand,
then placed, as it occurs,
in a giant balance
in the right-hand pan; likewise,
imagine every instance of the second,
placed in the opposing one.<\/p>\n
in equilibrium, or how seldom, rather?
And, just supposing that the balance
tips towards the good,
how soon before the rival camp contrives
to pile a desert opposite,
and so restore the evil bias as it stood?<\/p>\n
that we ask our enemies\u2019 followers
to cease their following
than that we seek to start a war.
Better, too, that we ask ourselves
how long<\/em> and what<\/em> our enmity is for.<\/p>\n
that we sow a more fecund seed
in a more fertile soil
than that we force two meagre harvests
from the same tired field,
with twice the toil.<\/p>\n
to inform our striving for a kinder life,
it is better that we frame new questions,
entering new arenas
for the conduct of our mental fight.<\/p>\n
We make them change;
and, in doing so,
we ourselves are changed.<\/p>\n
that we deploy the best<\/em>
of everything that time has given;
that we annul the worst,<\/em>
especially the worst within us;
and that we transmute the rest.
<\/em>
Root, stock, and branch,
in these dark days, we have no choice
but to pursue such three-fold acts
of supersession, exerting every atom
of intelligence, every syllable of art,
and so give back to the heartless world
its heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"