I’m done with the economics, how about the revolution?

Posted on by Paul Burgess

I’ve tended to be quite ambivalent about the EU in the past. But I now find myself pretty passionate about staying in. I wanted to articulate why.

One thing to get out of the way first. If conventional economics are your thing then the economic arguments for the UK staying in the UK are overwhelming. Even som’eone without much economic expertise – like our Chancellor, say –  can see that. Conventional economics is clearly a load of cobblers though. Look at what a complete mess it’s making of, well, everything; it’s a mix of ideology (the invisible hand of the market will work for the common good? Yeah, right!), guesswork (cos trickledown will definitely happen) and a ridiculously unscientific attitude to growth and the planet’s resources. So I’m moving on to the more serious stuff right away.   Continue reading I’m done with the economics, how about the revolution?

Dodgy Analogies, Dodgy Politics

Posted on by Paul Burgess

The arts give society a space to think. Without them we are a golem: a figure of clay, subject to its master’s command, and deprived of the imaginative space necessary to relate meaningful to others and function in society.

OK. That’s an analogy with which you may or may not agree. It’s fairly useful as away to explain an idea that I personally find interesting. On the one hand, it’s way too reductive to be truthful in any philosophically helpful sense. It’s only of very limited use in explaining our need for the arts. Continue reading Dodgy Analogies, Dodgy Politics

Green Panic!

Posted on by Paul Burgess

In case you missed it, some arts people on the interwebs (and presumably the real world too) are in high dudgeon, claiming it’s the end of the Green Party’s moral integrity forever and ever because, in a policy document on the website it says… well, let me copy and paste:
Continue reading Green Panic!