the whimsical wing of the thoughtfully detached blog. pronouns, adverbs and synonyms will be used from time to time.
Exeter, Devon, UK
Joined March 2016
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Against, and Also For, an Austere and Simple Vision
The Perennialists may have identified an important truth in noticing that a longing for inward, esoteric, unification with the transcendent apart from outward, exoteric, forms and rituals is universal
thoughtfullydetached.wordpre…
A new post from thoughtfully catholic (who of course is me in religious extremist mode).
On the Harmony of Law and Cosmos
In which I argue that the Spiritual Law is every bit as universal, and universally binding, as the Laws inscribed in Nature and in the Heavens.
thoughtfullycatholic.wordpre…
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Rioting by those who read Jean-Paul Sartre and rioting by those who do not are both negative manifestations, but have significantly causes and outcomes. The second, though, may be a long term consequence of the first. Once the institutions are marched through they can be razed.
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The question "In your experience as a human being how often do things work out exactly as planned?" is one that is politicians are not asked nearly as often as they should be.
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Total catastrophising about everything all the time is really tiring. And also the worst possible way to prepare oneself or one's society to face genuinely serious risks. Arguably catastrophising will doom us all.
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We often hear talk about 'evidence led policing', although not in relation to Henry Nowak. Which is a shame, because things might have played out differently if they had followed the evidence in front of their eyes rather than the hearsay in their ears.
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It bears saying that even if you believe a particular conflict to be a Just War as per the criteria then that does not obligate you to approve of all the whooping and yelling of people sharing videos of stuff (and humans) being blown up. Quite the reverse, you *must* condemn it.
"Any technology that facilitates attacks without seeing the face of human beings lowers the moral threshold of conflict."
(Magnifica Humanitas 199)
People commentating on military strikes against real human beings as if it were a video game have lost some of their own humanity.
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Amnesty International is an organisation established to help prisoners of conscience around the world. And then it became an omnicause lobby group.
🚨 The Milburn Review must be a wake-up call.
Too many young people are locked out of work.
And those who do have jobs still can’t afford the basics.
No one should be pushed into poverty because decent-paying jobs don’t exist.
We need a root-and-branch reform of the social security system so it protects young people instead of punishing them.
Dignity, security and opportunity shouldn’t be out of reach. ✊
Take action now: amnesty.org.uk/get-involved/…
ALT Young people trying not to fall into poverty... \n\nbut the social security system punishes you if you can\u2019t find a job...\n\nbut even if you had a job you still wouldn\u2019t be able to afford the essentials...
ALT Over 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training
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The slippery slope at work here is that once it becomes normalised for political activists to prevent overtly political events from happening then the moral barrier that prevents them from doing the same to museum gatherings about ancient history eventually disappears as well.
It is easy for me to say this, I'm not a museum curator or an event organiser, I am a rhino-hided journo, but my feeling is if you allow people to stop events, then they've won and you've lost. What I don't know is what the legal position of the British Museum would've been had someone been injured. But my every instinct is that the show must go on.
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If @grok is to be believed in the 1970's when @DAaronovitch was head honcho at the National Union of Students their 'no platform for fascists' policy was suspended because it was being used to disrupt Jewish student meetings. Which show his consistency and the issues persistency.
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Sometimes the words 'possible' and 'could' do a lot of heavy lifting.
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"When the moral way prevails in the world, there is more doing than words.
When the moral way does not prevail in the world, there are more words than doing."
Confucius, Analects: Book 4, Chapter 22.
So long as ordinary people don't get arrested for expressing their honest opinions to people who hold real power then there is still hope for a society. Still more so if such opinions are expressed both politely and firmly.
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Politicians who speak human are likely to do better than those who do not, even where their specific policies may not align too closely with the voters to whom they are appealing. Never discount the benefits of being personable.
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Surprisingly the Guardian hasn't included Rudyard Kipling on its list. But 'Kim' is a delightful novel, with a cast diverse enough to qualify for an Oscar. So what about the conservative imperialist Kipling kept him out of the Guardian's charmed circle I wonder?
Discrediting convicting and even imprisoning the leaders of populist movements will not reconcile millions of alienated voters with the status quo. The alienation was caused by the 2008 crash not by charismatic politicians spontaneously appearing all at once in multiple countries
It would be nice, certainly, if the King's English and the King's Speech had more than a nodding acquaintance with each other.
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At this point UK voters would probably be most grateful for a government that can get the existing things to work as they are supposed to, rather than delivering new things that will be no better at working than the things we already have.
🚨 WATCH: Keir Starmer says he isn't sure working class people believe Labour care about them
"That's tough to say, when you come from a working class background like me"
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Yes, but one or two elections ago many of the 43% you now designate as Right were happily voting Labour in Sunderland or Wigan and some of the Left were voting Tory in the strong Remain areas. These are not tribes, they are persuadable voters with unaddressed concerns.
51% Left - Green, Labour & Lib Dem combined
43% Right - Reform & Conservative combined
Britain is split and reactionary Reform benefit most as the largest minority but there is hope.
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