All the world is a stage

One of the (relatively) recent innovations in the horror/thriller genres has been found footage[1]. The appeal of the horror genre is, if it’s effective, it takes you inside a terrifying scenario but leaves you completely safe. The result is not terror but exhilaration. Found footage removes another barrier to the suspension of disbelief. The genre’s weakness is, of course, when it goes beyond the stage any believable character simply drop the camera and run.

But what is that stage?

The vital element in reports of the Woolwich murder has been citizen-gathered footage. Harvested mobile camera footage has brought the audience closer to the event than any professional news crew ever could take them.

The first commercially produced digital cameras came out in the late 1980s, there's been time enough to develop a set of cultural norms based around said cameras. The ability to record and share all aspects of our lives has created the expectation[2].

When confronted with a brutal murder people filmed it. The killers interacted with the camera. They posed, creating a compellingly grotesque tableau – the lifeless, prone body, the meat cleaver, the butcher’s knife, the out of season clothes, the bloodied hands etc. It’s almost as if the killers had been directed. They also spoke to the camera in a similarly precise manner.

The witnesses may have considered themselves as gathering evidence, but evidence was abundant and the perpetrators made it clear they did not want to hide anything. Besides, could that have possibly been going through the witnesses minds at the time (as opposed to an awful torrent of thoughts)? Why didn’t the onlookers flee the scene? Is it the case that the first instinct in these kinds of situations is to press record?

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_footage_(genre): “Found footage is a genre of film making, especially horror, in which all or a substantial part of a film is presented as discovered film or video recordings, often left behind by missing or dead protagonists”.

[2] Note: if ever there were any illusions as to how much of the internet is a commons, most if not all significant social media platforms now claim rights over photographs and videos posted on them. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/9752288/Facebooks-Instagram-claims-perpetual-rights-to-users-photos.html

Big cats and stuff

There is an extract in today’s Guardian taken from an upcoming book by George Monbiot, called Feral. Judging by the Amazon review, it seems to cover a similar area to Mike Davis’s essay Maneaters of the Sierra Madre, from his Ecology of Fear (civilisation-nature, environment-consciousness etc). The extract is about big cat sightings in Britain.

There is no big cat population in Britain. Though there may be feral big cats loose in the countryside at any point in time they will be individuals. Big cats are elusive. The most commonly described cat resembles the black leopard – a very shy creature. They also are creatures of habit. There are no signs, nothing out there, carcasses, dung, urine, footprints and so on, that suggest big cats exist in any number. But there are still 2,000 sightings a year. Many communities have a legendary cat. The majority of sightings though are almost certainly of slightly larger than normal domestic cats. 

Humanity of course arose in East Africa. Monbiot suggests there would be an evolutionary advantage to quickly recognising the feline form. Perhaps there is a Cat Exaggeration Gene, but then Monbiot also suggests big cats represent a reaction against domesticity and an urge towards wildness. While he may be on to something I should think that urge is stronger in George Monbiot than Average Joe. I would think it’s more specifically to do with a process that has its basis in an alienated civilisation.

The ancients lived with a natural world that was far beyond their ken. Human cultures tend to personify phenomena beyond its human control, thunder is the wrath of god, comets and eclipses are ominous portents, the forest or the outback becomes a dreamland; these are just examples.

This has been complimented by human civilisation, which now musters forces not only far beyond individual reckoning but perhaps even eclipsing the combined forces of nature. Man-made phenomena are often naturalised. Examples: recessions are regarded almost as bad weather to be endured, there is a “natural” rate of unemployment, deracinated youth are “predators”.

In Ecology of Fear, when confronted by natural phenomena that are not supposed to happen, middle and upper class Southern Californians, having bestialised the working class, recapitulate ancient thought, transforming mountain lions into serial killers, coyotes into gang members, and living in dread of “Africanised” bees.

Where nature does undergo sudden transformation there is usually human agency behind it. Whether this is recognised depends on the degree and type of alienation (fellow Londoners – we live among parakeets). The modern city is uncanny in many ways. Not only does the city seem to have no basis in nature, the post-industrial city seems to have no basis in economics either. The energy that goes into daily sustaining human civilisation must surely tear the social relations it’s based upon apart – yet capitalism goes on.

No wonder strange creatures stalk our borders, nature lurking and repressed but ready to return.

Doom, glorious doom

Capitalism will leave a legacy to socialism. It’s likely then that if workers power comes to pass it will be an emergency regime. Here’s is another thing to consider, a report by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, discussing likely future health emergencies resulting from climate change. If Britain becomes warmer and wetter it will become more prone to previously tropical diseases.

They are already heading our way. Dengue was detected in France in 2010. Malaria was reported in Greece in 2011. The West Nile Virus first emerged in New York in 1999 and is now found across the United States.

If and when these diseases do infiltrate our society it will be a question of what cost we, or more precisely the people in power, are willing to pay, greater overheads maintaining public health, or the running cost of continual human suffering. Given the debased state of our ruling class I suspect they’d prefer a debilitated and desperate working class to a mild redistribution of wealth for a conscientious and functioning society. 

This week's All the Hegemony You Can Eat

Here’s an interesting little story. The state of Louisiana currently legislates for the equal teaching of evolution and intelligent design. The state’s governor endorsed the act, asking the rhetorical question, “what are we scared of”?

Disinvestment in science and technology is one thing. Students who hold that the laws of nature can be suspended at any point are going to struggle with the sciences. If the state education system will not foster a scientific culture it will not turn out new scientists and will drive existing ones away.

It’s an interesting illustration of the practical limits of neoliberal economic theory. Businesses love state investment. Capital needs an appropriately educated workforce. Equally it needs a healthy workforce with good morale. It needs a strong transport infrastructure, reliable utilities and waste disposal, post, telecommunications. It needs a guaranteed currency. It needs enforced property rights and well defined borders. It needs all these things and more. Capital requires an actor, something at least the size of a national state, to pool the necessary resources. Of course individual businessmen and women don’t want to pay for these things out of their own pockets, but it’s these factors, more than income or capital gains taxes, that affect investment choices.

Why has there been a continual drive in the United States to restore creationism as a legitimate scientific credo? Why would a ruling class hurt itself so? There are ideologues out there, and the bourgeoisie relies on the state to preserve its coherent unity as a class. Creationism is contested as well as advocated by bourgeois representatives. But this is also clearly part of a management problem, of hegemony. It is about how to deal with mass participation in public life.

We have gone on a lot about Truthiness on this blog. There are ideologies, and there are ideological assumptions, but part of what makes truthiness recent and real (and not just a humorous quip) is there are areas of public life where rational debate has been fully subverted in favour of things like “family values” or “legitimate concerns”. If you attack every iteration of the scientific method, particularly if you stop it from ever forming in the first place by, say, insisting descent through natural selection is at least as plausible as intelligent design, you render people incapable. The gain that the masses make through achieving universal education is, in this instance, nullified.

If you have no concept of what is scientific and what isn’t then you will not be able to discern something as basic as your own material interests. Each attack on science is a pre-emptive strike against a counter-hegemony trying to form. Socialism is as much about the preservation of four centuries bourgeois achievement as it is anything else.

Age of conspiracies

This picture has been buzzing round the internet immediately after the Boston bombings. Who is this man?

The Boston bombings are compelling firstly because they are awful to contemplate but secondly because they are, as of yet, motiveless (if it was Al-Qaeda we would have been told straight away). The President initially did not even call the bombings and act of terrorism, then he did, but he still upset some people.

For the time being there is room for myth-making and pareidolia. What was that man doing on the roof? What would anyone do on a roof?

There are immediate psychological reasons for embracing conspiracy theories, the solidarity of the initiated, perverse reassurance about human agency and so on.  There are political reasons why one may promote a conspiracy theory, or conspiracism in general. Fear and projection are key stimulating factors for right wing populist movements, the tributaries of fascism.

The unacceptable attributes of the self, in this case a political body, for example a nation or a race, are projected on the enemy, who is always more powerful, cunning and prolific. Triumph over the enemy requires urgent action, great passion is mobilised, and it becomes a transforming force. It helps also when you find attributes of the enemy within the political body, these people become ‘traitors’ and can be dealt with peremptorily (btw – is anyone else spotting a similarity between this and the SWP CC’s epistemology of internal debate? – a leap I appreciate, but word has it Alex Callinicos turned up at a CC meeting with a copy of the infamous Facebook conversation and started ranting about conspiracies).

There is a short Marxist rider to this, we live in the age of public life, where all the formal decisions about society are taken in the open, yet society seems to career down strange, unwarranted paths beyond any apparent human control. Noam Chomsky contrasts conspiracy theories to institutional analysis. Conspiracies fill the gap left by the absence of the theory of class rule, the nature of the state. Perhaps this means they are part of the operation of bourgeois hegemony? In which case more consideration is necessary.

Some news

Here’s dome news to chew on. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, may be useful in treating severely depressed patients, but it is a Class A drug (I did not know that) and red-tape and costs make it prohibitive to develop.

This is of course a living critique of moralistic laws, legislating what adults of sound mind can put into their body and the unintended knock on effects such laws have. It also shows up the absurd contortions law based on private property can get into. Psilocybin is made in nature, proscribing it does not stop it from being made. You may as well outlaw the tide.

There is no free market in nature. While directly capitalist relations appear to be egalitarian and free (of course in reality they’re not), capitalism applied to nature is naked appropriation. Rent was created out of the violent appropriation of land. When pharmaceutical companies appropriate naturally produced chemicals it is no less of a violent act.

Thoughts for the brain...

I am, I hope, about to have something of mine (a rewrite of the recent Another Green World post) put up on the IS Network blog. The point of the piece will be there is something to be said for socialists incorporating environmentalist politics in a non-utopian way.

Part of the difficulty of green politics is who is expected to put on the agenda, let alone into action. The piece ends with a set of suggestions, possible demands that can link improving quality of life to curbing greenhouse gas emissions to tangible action in the here and now.

The other problem with green politics is the scale of climate change. There is no plausible environmentalism-in-one-country. We’ve commented before on the potential risks and rewards geo-engineering, particularly the scheme for carbon dioxide removal via iron fertilisation of the oceans.

Another solution proposed is solar radiation management, the most realistic idea being spraying the atmosphere with particulates that reflect sunlight. It’s a very costly outlay but it’s familiar from nature. Very large volcanic eruptions have cooled the global climate many times. But the knock on effects can be drastic. Two African droughts in the twentieth century have been linked to eruptions in the northern hemisphere. 

Geo-engineering is no substitute for reducing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, but, given the late hour we will need some measures to ameliorate climate change. An environmental movement linked to the workers movement can bridge the gap between the huge ends and currently inadequate means. 

More thoughts for the brain

Asteroids and comets are almost the functional equivalent of nuclear war today. They are a function of alienation in Marxism and the uncanny is Psychoanalysis. Despite the persistence (within the human context) of capitalist civilisation we know in our marrow that it is unsustainable. 

Despite various adventures, we always seem to be back where we began, like we’re in an ongoing sitcom. Ecocide and revolution are difficult to imagine. Only the prospect of existential cosmic calamity it seems can erase that. We rightly fear such an event, yet we do not sublimate or banish it from our minds, as often happens with climate change. The only difference between this and nuclear war is you can check the news every now and then - phew another asteroid will miss us.

A staffed mission to an asteroid is a good idea. We need to start working out how to defend civilisation from the threat of cosmic debris.

Another green world - some ideas

There will of course be lots more refined ideas out there, but these are some suggestions that can act as both demands and an means to get people active:

Housing:
There should be an urgent house building programme, linked firstly to available brownfield sites and secondly to a plan for redistributing work around the country. All building materials to be locally sourced where possible. Priority should be given to key workers, then to workers in nearby industries, thus reducing the need and length of communing, reducing emissions and costs. New houses to be owned by an elected local government commissioner and administered by Tennants and Residents associations. Rent control to be administered

All houses, new and old, are to be properly insulated and supplied with solar panels where appropriate. Where possible houses to be redesigned to make them energy efficient more generally.

Controlled flooding should be carried out in vulnerable areas. The new land should be used either for recreation or as a wildlife reserve.

Transport:

The centre of all towns and cities with populations over 100,000 (or whatever appropriate figure) are to be pedestrianised, with vehicle access given only to residents and business access. This will reduce both emissions and lower accident numbers. This measure (combined with the reduction in commuting) will lower particulate levels, leading to a decrease in asthma, bronchitis and other lung diseases.

Food:

Brownfield sites not converted into new housing or parkland should be turned into city farms, all city farms should be twinned with local primary and secondary schools. All local shops and supermarkets should be sourced primarily by local  farms, with incentives given to farmers to use organic rather than artificial inputs. The cumulative effect would be to reduce both emissions and costs.

Another green world...

Using the non-pejorative sense, a utopian idea is an end without a means. One of the benefits of utopian, or perhaps thinking beyond immediate goals, is it can inform and refresh political activity. One of the sites I occasionally browse is the Long Now Foundation. As you can see it is quite corporate, and it’s very obvious the location within current social structure makes it utopian. Yet it's projects, from wildlife recording to language preservation to the general emphasis on planning and legacy are exactly the kind of things a communal society would be doing in earnest.

Here is a blog post about flood control, not the sexiest subject perhaps but given the fact of global climate change and how much of human settlement is based in low-lying areas it’s an important topic. The great investment the Dutch government made in flood control paid itself in a few decades. In order to allow residents to continue living in parts of the country the proposal is to convert farmland into flood land, another long-term project. The lives and livelihoods of affected farmers must be taken into consideration (I don’t know if they have been) but, apparently the cost-benefit ratio is worth it in terms of housing stock but I would guess also biodiversity.

I don’t like the term eco-socialism. It seems to me to be apologetic. The Green movement, judged on its own terms is not such a fantastic success, no more than any other movement. Socialists should incorporate environmental concerns without incorporating utopianism. The biggest difficulty for Green politics is agency. There are a number of ways in which environmental reform can be realised. Green politics can pull in several directions. Lest we forget, there is such a thing as eco-fascism though it’s usually an attack-term – Karl Max Schwarz anyone?).

Linking environmental concerns to working class agency of course starts with issues around the quality and cost of living, the first will be driven down and the second up as the legacy of climate change accumulates. Flood defence is one issue. Electricity generation is another. Why, in a country like Britain, with long hours of sunlight, consistent wind (Britainhas 40% of Europe’s wind energy but only generates 10% of wind-powered electricity) and three tidal rivers, do we not have cheap, clean and plentiful energy? Environmental concerns permeate issues such as transport, housing and food. It is still difficult to found a meaningful environmentalist practice though. Global climate change is an even bigger challenge than capitalist austerity. But solutions will need to come.

More supernature

I was mulling over my post on the Wikipedia list of cryptids when I turned to the list of extra terrestrial species. It is much shorter and simpler. Either people are much more imaginative when it comes to inventing earth creatures than they are spacemen or there are a few interesting cultural abstractions to be made.

It shows an instinctively shrewd understanding of natural selection. Humans are as they are as much because of their posture and their thumbs as their brains. We had pre-adapted large brains, nimble digits and forward facing eyes. Our ancestors moving permanently to two footed locomotion freed their hands to do other things. The ability to look at and manipulate objects in fine detail was the likely foundation for human consciousness. If we do meet intelligent extra-terrestrial life it will be uncannily familiar to us.

We will probably have to search for quite a while before we do find intelligent extra-terrestrial life. We know from the natural history of mammals that flippers and wings have evolved several times on Earth. This is called convergent evolution. Some mammals went back to the ocean, some took to the air. In both cases their found familiar solutions to the ongoing difficulties of locomotion. I looked up the evolution of the eye. Apparently while some of the prerequisites of vision evolved once (which means the rudiments of vision are quite ancient and spread across many species) image forming eyes evolved between 50 to 100 times. What does this mean? It means eyes flippers and wings evolved dozens of times in natural history. Human intelligence, as far as we know, only evolved once.

What do aliens mean? In folklore aliens mean two things. Firstly they are the angels and/or spirits of late capitalism. There is a strong affinity between alien abduction and the incubus/succubus phenomenon, although there’s also clear links with schizophrenia and drug abuse. They are also supermen. Alien encountered are cold, unknowable, superior and in control.

Tuppence for Hugo Chavez

Here are a few words for Hugo Chavez; and why not? He had plenty of words for everybody else.

The first thing to say was he was not a socialist. This is not to do the man down. He was a reformer and a powerful inspiration. I am quite particular about my socialism however. There is nothing more damaging to socialism than Actually Existing Socialism. A socialist movement does not need to whip out a mat and pray to Caracas five times a day. Socialism is critical or it is nothing. The Bolivarian movement’s achievements and setbacks have been marked by the lack of one crucial aspect, namely workers power.

What did Chavez mean for Venezuela? Well, I’m being undoubtedly being phenomenally crude, but this is my opinion nonetheless. Bolivarianism can be judged on three things:

1) Is Venezuelaa more or less egalitarian society? That is a big question. Venezuelais still an unequal society. It is still a very good place to be rich. Nonetheless it has become a better place for the poor. Even since the beginning of the global depression the Venezuelan government has tried to uphold living standards, whereas in almost every other country it is standard statecraft to drive them down and down.

2) Is Venezuela practically independent, meaning has Venezueladeveloped at all beyond being an oil export country? Thanks to the global agricultural market most countries import food to survive. I remember reading that 90% of the country is uninhabited. A radical government with time and resources would try to rebalance the economy and make the country agriculturally self-sufficient. If this process is underway it is likely to be an ongoing project.

3) Is Venezuelaa less violent and corrupt society? Not by a long shot. The old state structure remains intact. The centres of power in civil society remain largely the same, even if sometimes nationalised.

These three problems inform each other. The state is corrupt because economic power is concentrated in a few hands; the oil industry has long been a state within the state. Power is concentrated in a few hands because society is unequal.

What does Venezuelamean to the world? Well here I’m on surer ground. Chavez message at its simplest iteration is that another world is possible. There is a devious irony though that the Bolivarian Republic defied neo-liberal orthodoxy by using the wealth from oil sold on the world market during the neo-liberal boom, much of it to the United States. Despite its government, Venezuela, as constituted, can never be a socialist hegemon because it is an integrated part of global capitalism.

What happens after Chavez? Who knows? Let’s hope the Chavez supporters intervene decisively, like they did in 2002, when they raised a popular movement that restored their leader to power after a coup. That would be something.

Democracy and culture

I have just been given a copy of The Beatles Esher Demo. It was a very kind and thoughtful gift. The Esher Demo was made in spring of 1968 after The Beatles returned home from India. The songs were recorded in George Harrison’s home, many of which ended up on the White Album, recorded and released later that year. The recordings had been passed around as a bootleg for a long time and were so almost-official parts of the tape were eventually released on the final part of the Anthology.

The interesting thing was as soon as I mentioned I had a copy I was asked whether I downloaded it. This of course was the sensible thing to do, but then we live in an age where there’s really no such thing as a bootleg any more.

Pop culture produces two contradictory but complimentary modes of knowledge. One is popular; mass culture, mass enthusiasm and sometimes even mass participation. It has the all the appearance of democracy, i.e. the public gets what the public wants. More often than not a mysterious, ruinous law of averages seems to triumph. What the public gets seemingly no one wants. The response to this is esoteric knowledge, cult followings and very particular enthusiasms. Bootlegs are just one aspect of this. There is also an apparent democracy here too, the solidarity of the initiated; the negation of this is tribalism.

The point is each of these modes conditions the other. Sometimes the esoteric and alternative culture grows and for a brief period dominates mass culture. This is of course unsustainable. In the mid-nineties indie bands were having number one hits, which begged the question, in what sense was this ‘indie’ music any more?

An important side effect of the bourgeois revolution was democracy. The events of the revolution took millions upon millions of people of feudal bondage and thrust them into public life. This democracy however is relentlessly subverted by the commodity form. In the case of culture we see either a fake democracy, where the means of cultural production and dissemination remain in the hands of a minority, or a cultural cottage industry stamped by a sectarian mindset. 

Thoughts for the Brain - Sherlock

Apropos of nothing, except perhaps finding out the new series of Sherlock goes into production next month I decided to scan various online theories about the Final Problem, the Reichenbach Fall and how Sherlock escaped death. It also helps because it means after this little blurb comes a list… great.

The mechanics of Sherlock’s faked fall are still unclear, but there is a wonderful section in the middle of this post, which very convincingly unpicks the Final Problem and the origins of Jim Moriarty. It’s not spoiling much (because it’s really excellent detail) to say the headline is Jim Moriarty is the fake identity while Richard Brook is real. It also explains why Moriarty/Brook, a man with very high self-regard, ends up committing suicide on St Bart’s roof.

It’s worth emphasising that show like Sherlock would not have been made 15-20 years ago. It is a product of internet culture, the now instant pooling of popular expertise, and the DVD. Sherlock rewards repeated, detailed viewing and lateral thinking. Video cassettes could not offer the same level of viewer scrutiny. In McLuhanite terms, Sherlock is the medium of television warming up (we are talking here of the dialogue and visual tableau), changing from broad effect to fine detail. Nothing can be taken simply as random. The narrative however cools everything down. We see at the end Sherlock died yet is clearly alive (Schrodinger’s Detective).

The audience is invited to peer deeply at the detail of the show, the norm under modern mass culture, yet is compelled to fill in key narrative details as the story is left unexplained. In a whimsical way it is an example of the mass critical intellectualism engendered by capitalist culture. Whether they write about Sherlock or Doctor Who or David Bowie  or whatever, people are out there examining whole topics, illuminating subjects and doing it for free. The barriers between manual and intellectual labour have long since been removed. There is one enormous obstacle left, namely private property.

  

1. There are two SherlocksWe were all a bit confused when that little girl went mental upon seeing Sherlock in Sunday’s finale. Some people are suggesting that she was actually one of Moriarty’s youngest employees, or that she had been threatened with dire consequences like the jury before her, but some of you are convinced that Sherlock has a doppelganger. The fact that this lookalike apparently co-operated with Moriarty’s plans makes him even more of a mystery, yet it is possible that Holmes talked him round and persuaded him to commit suicide on his behalf.
Likelihood – 2/10 

2. A Sherlock Mask on Moriarty’s Body.
This theory fits in nicely with the idea that the name Rich Brook (Moriarty’s alias) is loosely German for Reichenback and as such the title of the episode falls into place, yet there are plenty of unanswered questions. Most theories hold the delay between Dr Watson seeing Sherlock fall and him reaching the body as crucial, but this one utilises the gap between the point when the Napoleon of crime shot himself and Watson arrived upon the scene. The bus that drove past after Cumberbatch threw down his phone could have been the point when Holmes pushed his dead adversary over in his place, yet it doesn’t explain why the person falling seemed to be alive on the way down.This theory fits in nicely with the idea that the name Rich Brook (Moriarty’s alias) is loosely German for Reichenback and as such the title of the episode falls into place, yet there are plenty of unanswered questions. Most theories hold the delay between Dr Watson seeing Sherlock fall and him reaching the body as crucial, but this one utilises the gap between the point when the Napoleon of crime shot himself and Watson arrived upon the scene. The bus that drove past after Cumberbatch threw down his phone could have been the point when Holmes pushed his dead adversary over in his place, yet it doesn’t explain why the person falling seemed to be alive on the way down.
Likelihood – 5/10 

3. Mycroft Was In On It
Mycroft Holmes is certainly a cold fish, but we thought the reaction to his brother’s demise was dislocated even by his standards. He even looked a bit bored during the scene in which he read about Sherlock’s death in the newspaper. If you also consider the way he completely sold his brother out to his most deadly enemy, something doesn’t quite fit. Maybe Sherlock realised that his death would be inevitable as the scandal rose and enlisted Mycroft to help him out by planting an idea in Moriarty’s mind. But what? And how?Mycroft Holmes is certainly a cold fish, but we thought the reaction to his brother’s demise was dislocated even by his standards. He even looked a bit bored during the scene in which he read about Sherlock’s death in the newspaper. If you also consider the way he completely sold his brother out to his most deadly enemy, something doesn’t quite fit. Maybe Sherlock realised that his death would be inevitable as the scandal rose and enlisted Mycroft to help him out by planting an idea in Moriarty’s mind. But what? And how?
Likelihood – 7/10

4. MollyBy far the most popular theory is that the often-sidelined Molly helped Sherlock fake his own death. There are two cast iron pieces of evidence for this. First of all, she had a stack of corpses at her disposal and could have fixed any autopsy. Secondly, Sherlock called her back and told her that she was important just before his death. The second part of that conversation should explain everything when it’s revealed. Also she fancied his pants off and would have done anything for him. That’s actually four reasons now we think about it..
Likelihood – 9/10 

5. Sherlock was the bloke on the bike.How exactly this would work is unclear, but a large proportion of the internet community are determined that Holmes was actually the bloke on the bike who bumped into Watson, delaying him from getting to the body. The question of how he got down from the roof break-neck speed (you know what we mean) is another puzzler. Hmm..
Likelihood – 2/10 

6. Dummy from their roomIf you watch the episode again, there are countless references that appear for mere seconds, but could be crucial in the final mystery and one such prop is the mannequin hanging from a noose in Sherlock’s flat. When you remember that it was Holmes who suggested that he and Moriarty meet on the roof of St Barts, it becomes clear that he could have prepared the location in advance with all manner of tools to kid us. Much is also being made of the rubbish truck which was seen hanging around just before his fall and the fact that Sherlock wanted Doctor Watson to “stay exactly where he was!” Obviously his location was vital if he was to believe that Holmes was dead. Maybe Sherlock dropped into the rubbish truck as the bus passed and then Watson saw the dummy falling. Sherlock then swapped places with the dummy as the bike hit Watson. Yet if Sherlock jumped before the dummy – who pushed it off the roof?
Likelihood – 6/10

7. All people on the pavement – including cyclist – were Sherlock’s peopleIf any body-swap/de-masking/dummy-replacement took place then Holmes would almost certainly have needed help from those pedestrians, who could have aided him while delaying Watson from getting to the scene. Why would he trust a load of people and not Dr Watson though? Possibly because he knew that if the Doctor believed him dead then everyone else would as well. Some boffins have also pointed to the squash ball that Homes was playing with and suggested that he could have used the ‘Squash ball in the Armpit’ trick to disguise his pulse from Watson. Points for cleverness.
Likelihood – 7/10 

8. Baskerville Drug administered to WatsonThis theory suggests that Holmes administered the drug from the previous episode to Watson and put the idea of him killing himself in his head. As such Watson was hallucinating when he saw Sherlock fall. Plausible, but it doesn’t take into account the fact that Moffat, Gattiss & Co would consider it the height of laziness to use the same ploy in two separate episodes. For that reason, probably a non-starter.
Likelihood – 1/10 

9. ScotomaScotoma essentially refers to the power of suggestion and the affect it can have over what a person thinks they have seen. Related to the previous theory, many have suggested that when the Beeb give us the big reveal in 2013, it will actually transpire that someone completely different was standing on top of St Barts and we mis-saw him. There are two ways of doing this; with skillful filming and clever editing or by simply showing us the correct thing and then telling us we were mistaken at a later date.
Likelihood – 6/10 

10. Moriarty Is Not DeadWe really hope this one’s true – how good was Andrew Scott? Anyone who has read the books will know that the idea of one of Holmes or Moriarty striking such a winning blow (ie. killing the other) was unlikely to happen, as Conan-Doyle emphasised how closely matched they were. Essentially they were both struggling for an edge, so if Holmes can return from beyond the grave, why not his arch-enemy?
Likelihood – 5/10

Ecology etc...

A fascinating article in today’s Grauniad, where a variant strategy of Iron Fertilisation as a coping/mitigating tactic in the fight against climate change is under discussion. This particular idea is also simple, by adding silicate dust to the ocean you encourage photosynthetic plankton to bloom, drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere/ocean system and locking it under the ocean floor, as the plants eventually die.

The silicate dust idea has advantages over iron fertilisation. Firstly there’s a lot more silica around than iron. If you’re outdoors you’re standing on some of it already, basic rock and earth. Silicate fertilisation of the ocean already goes on. It’s what rivers do when they reach the sea. There is also the added bonus that silicates are alkaline. Water acidification is one of the by-products of climate change.

There are a number of hurdles that this idea must surmount, legal and financial. There’s also the issue of how the silicate dust is made and transported, currently this would be largely by fossil fuel energy. It is also not a substitute for turning to renewable energy. Finally there is the issue over the knock on effects of altering the biology of the ocean such.

It reminds me of the revolutionary-frontier potential of Environmental Science. It’s a relatively young area of study that attempts to combine discrete sciences, biology, geochemistry, atmospheric science and so on. It was developed in the 60s and 70s and had reached the A Level syllabus by the time I was going through FE. The leading edge in other sciences, physics, genetics and so on, is small, even vanishingly small. Environmental science is different in that it deals with the tangible.

A complete understanding of the totality of natural relations, the aim of environmental science, would be as revolutionary as a as a complete understanding of social relations (in my opinion best described in Marx’s Capital). By revolutionary understanding I mean applied knowledge, knowledge in action, humanity transcending the limits imposed on it and achieving a higher level of existence.

Once more on bourgeois culture...

The role of any socialist approaching modern culture is as a critic. There is no such thing as socialist culture and trying to create such a thing is at best misguided.

Just because something is said in the bourgeois press does not make it untrue let alone something that can simply be written off. Modern mainstream culture is bourgeois. The prevailing ideas in any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class; this includes ideas about law, justice and so on. Most people we want to reach are, to this extent, 'bourgeois'. If mainstream press attacks a part of the socialist you deal with it head on, you don’t dismiss the attack and you don’t hide, because you can’t.

Thoughts for the Brain - the measure of time

We live in time, whether we realise it or not. Time is ultimately the product of entropy. The universe is a closed system travelling from perfect order to perfect disorder. The unevenness of the universe at its earliest known moments is what produced history, we have galaxies, stars, planets and people. The Earth itself is an open system so, within this small context, we experience counter-tendencies, such as the origin of species or the rise of human civilisation.

The experience of time is relative, either to entropy or counter-entropy. In the case of humanity it seems scientists are homing in on a theory of time based on the repetition of actions against the activity of oscillator cells in the brain. A well-developed mind is actually very good at estimating time, at least in certain contexts say catching a ball, playing a piece of music, driving a car and so on. 

The idea that time is relative is less interesting than the suggestion that the estimation of time is based upon practical activity: the role of labour in the development of time. Although it must be said there is a conflict between the relative nature of time and the capitalist prerogative to homogenise and quantify time. The meaning of time changes through different epochs, changes with the application of new technology. Perhaps mostly importantly the perception of time is different for different classes; different classes are different sets of relationships within the world of work.

Generally speaking instant communication has decentralised work. Some (not exhaustive) observations:

1)    The difficulty of commuting between home and work has led to the rise of flexitime. This combined with mobile communication has eroded the traditional sense of time.

2)    The laptop allows much white-collar work to be done on the move.

3)    Manufacturing, especially high-end manufacturing, often takes place in (spatially) long chains. Firms save money by improving freight and communication at the expense of stockpiling, in other words by using just in time delivery.

4)    This does not overcome the labour/capital antagonism, it just reorganises it. While under late capitalism whole swathes of our society are no longer dominated by large factories (the traditionally recognised concentrations of workers), this means, from our point of view, different and sometimes new sections of the working class have sectional strength. In this case communication, freight, IT and so on. Small sections of workers in the chain of production can also have an impact, as can workers in primary input industries.

Thought's for the Brain - why're you talking to me like that?

Have you ever had somebody walk up to you at work, grinning away manically, and you just think “what do you want from me?” I have been pondering some concurrent phenomena, modern management techniques and systemic infantilsation.

It is a shame, in a way, that there are so many socialists who become teachers or lecturers. Not because the teaching profession shouldn’t be organised or that socialist teachers can’t open minds or make a difference in young people’s lives. Unfortunately the primary product of the education system is not knowledge (if it is tell me all you remember of trigonometry or irregular French verbs – these are just examples). The primary product is habit and deference, and these things are instilled despite the best intentions of the best teachers. That’s why we have an education system.

Why do managers who want to coerce a single individual shut them away in a small room? Why do managers who want to railroad a self-conscious group of workers gather the workers together and present their plans in a faux-democratic manner, called consultation? These are techniques used on people from the age of five.

Hierarchical authority relies on dependence and passivity. It relies on the inner child. Even at the best of times it is very hard to shake your formative education. This is a key aspect in why during revolutions without even realising it people given back what they have won. They cannot imagine a world without managers, bureaucrats, elected politicians, police officers etc, who in normal times they rely on.

It’s is the commonly considered theory that human beings evolved because they were neotenic apes, they preserved juvenile features into maturity. If social management depends infantilisation there is now a worrying trend of preserving social aspects of childhood into adulthood; middle youth, helicopter parenting. They're impressionistic examples, not to cast aspersions on anybody. We are not seeing a moral breakdown so much as describing facts. Here is an article written on the eve of the great crash weighing up the work prospects of Generation Y, who according to this are needy, moralistic, tech-dependent and crave formal structure and personal affirmation. With declining workforce numbers the author advises managers to get with Generation Y’s programme. Of course with mass youth unemployment these days bosses don’t have worry anymore. Young people, especially those on the government’s work programme (3.5% overall ‘success’ rate  ), are even more dependent on the graces of the rich and powerful. 

This week's Phil Space

A fascinating piece on the Runner’s High, how exercise can become literally addictive:

Eight-and-a-half hours into the 100km (62m) Norfolk Coastal ultramarathon, he pain in my legs and badly battered feet was almost overwhelming. I desperately wanted to give in to the urge to curl up in a ball at the side of the trail and shut my eyes.

Sixty-two miles is not particularly far in the ultrarunning world – and the bleak, beautiful and flat Norfolk coastline may not be as hard on the legs as the Alps or Hard Rock 100 – but it was further than I had ever run before. The race pounded me almost into submission before I broke through and was lifted on a wave of euphoria unlike anything I've ever experienced…

Using the 'dark side' had felt cathartic – as if I was performing some kind of alchemy in transforming messed-up emotional crap into endurance running gold (I wish). But as I crunched over the final shingle stretch of Kelling beach and headed up the hill towards the finish, I conjured up an image of my six-year-old running alongside me – laughing and joking as we often do on our Sunday morning jogs around the local park.

It was presumed that this common feeling of elation was produced by endorphins, naturally produced opiates released during prolonged exertion or pronounced stress. Current research is looking at the possible effect of what are called endocannabinoids. It’s all very fascinating, but what’s the angle? Well, nature is the most astonishing chemical and engineering workshop. The HIV virus evolved in West Africa, immunity will have developed there also. This is just an example. 

Is it possible to copyright a gene? Well pharmaceutical companies certainly think so. In a world dominated by commodity economy what’s to stop them enclosing this precious commons?

New York, storm, etc...

New York, the Capital of Capitalism, is currently a federal disaster area. Aside from the spectacular footage and the various personal tragedies there is something to be learned from (ex) Hurricane Sandy. 

This is a natural disaster, but climate change means there will be an unnatural number of them in the coming years. Even so, there is no environment on Earth that is simply benevolent. Stay in one place long enough and you will face some kind of natural disaster. A rational and democratically planned society will be able to cope with natural disasters much better than an irrational and sporadically organised one.

This may be just another event, a memorable and individually significant one, but still an event. It could also be an existential moment for US capitalism and, by extension, global society. Every day New York is a disaster area is another day it is not working. In a global slump one of the major centres of capital accumulation has been shut down.

There is a current bourgeois political drive, known to us as Austerity, which is trying to turn societies like ours into a free market idyll, only found in text-books. The only realistic means for an organised response to a crisis like this is the state. The alternative is to let people fend for themselves. If ordinary citizens are expected to put aside for occasions like these it would be perfectly congruent with an austerity drive. But what would that mean for a city like New York? Millions of people have had to evacuate. If teachers, nurses, doctors, fire fighters, office workers, bus drivers, shop staff etc are forced to leave will they be able to return?