.Luther and Marx...I hear on radio 4 that it is 500 year ago today that
Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wiurtenberg Cathedral.
I am not keen on the effects of Luther . I dislike his misogyny his
anti semetism and the effects of Luther on guilt shame and emotions. It
felt is time for a secular society. Belief and spirituality is a
personal matter. The sea of Faith must always be a personal matter..
last night we watched a programme on the spy networks of Elixabeth
1 . I often reflect that you could learn much from the 1950s about the
Elizabethan period. In Elizabeth's time the state feared the snmy
within who were loyal to a foreign ruler the Pope. In the 1950s the
state feared the communists within who loyalty to a foreign ruler called
Stalin. In Elizabethan times the struggles between the Cecil family and
Essex were mirrored in the intelligence factions of the British states.
Each period saw Catholics or communists everywhere.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/spying_01.shtml
Fear and
projections were everywhere. The ideological fears and anxieties all
went back to Luther and often his followers and interpreters were the
worst. Perhaps we might think of Marx that way ad well. However I
suspect that I would infinitely prefer Marx to Luther and prefer Trots
to Tankies...and both to Calvinists . However in general I do worry
about dead white men with messianic missions...but for me it has to be
Marx .anyday. Idle thoughts frim me today for you all http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/the-cold-war/spies-of-the-cold-war-era/
To understand what scholars are talking
about when they discuss the "J" or "E" or "P" Text
of Genesis, it helps if
we look closely at the first two chapters of Genesis*,
which illustrate the subject. If we note some textual oddities
first, it becomes easier to see how scholars formulated the
ideas of the J, E, and P text. To begin, when textual criticism and
its systematic techniques for analyzing ancient manuscripts
first became
available in
the 18th
and 19th centuries (and even earlier in nonscholarly readings
from the Renaissance) many readers noticed some odd details
in the book
we call Genesis. The
first part of Genesis (1:1-2:3) differed from the
later parts (Genesis 2:4-3:23) in interesting ways.
(1) First, each
of these two sections of Genesis contains a different
introduction for the creation story. Genesis 1:1
launches
with the eloquent and imminently quotable, "In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now
the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over
the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the waters." The text reaches
its conclusion in Genesis 2:1, where the narrative
voice announces, "Thus
the heavens and the earth were completed in all their
vast array." Finis. The end. However,
a second introduction appears in Genesis 2:4: "This
is the account of the heavens and the earth when they
were created. When
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, no shrub
of the field had yet appeared on the earth . . . ." This
initially seems a little redundant--at least on the surface
of things. It seems to suggest a second creation story
rather than one alone. (2) The sections
also differ in genre.
One is written in poetry and the other is written
in prose. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a poetic text. It
is metered,
and probably the writer(s) intended for it to be sung
as a hymnic chant. Rhyme
is not all that important
in Hebrew poetry, but Hebrew poems commonly use repetition,
chiasmus, parallelism,
and other rhetorical schemes and tropes. The Genesis
1 text uses "high style" and
those
artistic devices common
to
Hebrew poetry--especially catachresis, anaphora,
and parallelism.
To indicate these artistic qualities here, most NIV
translations reproduce
the text with hanging indentation to mark the
poetic structure. Each section begins with an anaphora:
"And
God said . . ." Each section
ends with epistrophe:
"And
there was evening, and there was morning--the . . .
day." Likewise, after the first two
days, we have the
artistic
repetition of the phrase "And
God saw that it was good," leading
up to a final crescendo,
"and
it was very good" in
Genesis 1:31. This structure is high poetry in
the best Hebrew style.
Contrast that with the material following. Genesis 2:4-3:23
is a non-poetic text. It is written in prose rather
than
in
poetic lines--no meter.
It does not
use anaphora and parallelism the same way as that
first section. To indicate the non-poetic nature
of the text here, most NIV translations
break the
text into paragraphs. In terms of literary devices,
the primary schemes and tropes are puns providing
Hebrew folk
etymologies.
For instance, the narrative voice tells us that
humanity (the Hebrew word adam) is called adam because
God made him from adamah (ground or dust).
The folk etymology
provides an etiology explaining
why the word for "woman" in Hebrew sounds so much like
the Hebrew word for "man." (3) Partly because
of the difference between poetic devices and puns, and
partly because of changes in diction,
the tone of each passage is quite different. In the Genesis
1 passage,
the
diction
is grandiose--designed
to emphasize the majesty
and the
ordered
nature of creation. In Genesis 2:4 and following, the
tone becomes more familiar--more "folksy" and
simple. We have moved away from the grandeur
of the heavens where a disembodied Spirit of God hovers
over the dark waters to a smaller setting--the
muck and dirt of a single garden where we find God shaping
men out of mud and where animals
like
the
serpent can talk in the best beast fable tradition.
(4) Fourth, Genesis 1:1-2:3 treats the matter
of creation differently than in Genesis 2:4 and following
passages. In Genesis 1:27, God simultaneously creates multiple
men and women on the sixth day, and he does so by speaking:
Then
God said, "Let
us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let
them rule over the
fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,
over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move
along the ground.
So
God created man in his own image, in the image of God
he created him; male and female he created
them. [Note the plural forms indicated
by the object pronouns them in the top and bottom
passages]
Contrast this bit
with the section following Genesis 2:4, where we read
a different creation
account: "And
the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man
became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). Here, rather
than an abstract and transcendental deity that speaks humanity
effortlessly into existence, we have a God who works in
the dirt and sculpts a single male human from the earth,
rather than one
who
commands the land itself to produce living creatures.
God, as described in this passage, uses a form of divine
C.P.R. to instill his holy essence in
humanity. To create
woman,
rather
than making
several different men simultaneously with several
different women, God in Genesis 2:21-22 extracts a rib
from Adam and fashions
Eve out of this body part--but without breathing his essence
directly into her.**
The
acts of creation characterize God differently in each
section, suggesting a different perspective
or attitude towards God. In Genesis 1:-2:1,
the Spirit of God need not exert himself to create the
cosmos--only talk. He is an abstract, remote, omnipotent,
and grandiose God
hovering
over the dark
waters. Creation is effortless.
When we get to Genesis
2:2, however,
we have a God that
can
grow
tired
and needs
rest: "so
on the seventh day, he rested from all his work." Rather
than presenting the remote and omnipotent deity appearing
in Genesis
1, this section of Genesis depicts
a God who needs helpers like Adam to tend his creation.
This depiction characterizes God in a more earthy,
physical
manner. Instead of speaking Eden into being,
he plants the garden (Gen 2:8). Additionally, he feels
sympathy for lonely humanity (Hebrew adam),
so he builds him a helper (Gen. 2:20-21). This God
takes walks in
the
shade of the garden
(but
he only
goes for walks when the day
is cool, as Genesis
2:8 tells us--apparently to avoid the hot weather?).
Furthermore, the text characterizes God as limited
in
perception rather than omniscient.
When
Adam
and Eve hide
from
God,
God can't seem to locate them, so God calls out
to them to reveal themselves (Genesis 3:9). It's
a striking difference
in the narrative voice and in characterization.
(5) The
sequence of what gets created when appears to be slightly
different in each account.
In Genesis 1:1-2:3, the sequence is as follows:
Day
One: Light or "Day" is
separated from Darkness or "Night." We
have an evening and a morning pass by (though the
sun and moon are
not yet created, nor solid ground to be a revolving
earth).
Day
Two:
An expanse or barrier (the firmament)
is made to separate and hold apart the "waters
above" and the "waters below."
Another evening and another morning pass.
Day
Three:
God separates the "waters below" from dry land.
The
"waters
above" are still left in place somewhere above
the firmament. On the same day, God commands the land
to produce vegetation
including both seed-bearing trees and plants (though
the sun is not yet created for photosynthesis).
Another evening and another morning passes.
Day
Four: The
sun, the moon, and the stars are created. Another
evening
and another morning pass.
Day
Five:
Aquatic creatures and birds are created. Another evening
and
another morning pass.
Day
Six:
Terrestrial creatures are created--including livestock
and "all
the creatures that move along the ground." Then
God makes humans. Another evening
and another morning
pass.
Day
Seven:
God rests from his labors.
This account above from Genesis
1:1-2:3 contains elements very similar to Mesopotamian
creation stories found in The
Epic of Gilgamesh and other texts. It takes ideas
of the firmament common
in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian cosmology,
but it restructures the creation so that it is the work
of a single deity rather than a combined effort of several
gods in conflict. Like the Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation
stories common in the 8th century BCE, it assumes a chaotic
watery darkness as the primal state of the cosmos. The sequence of creation and the
details focused on in Genesis 2:4 onward differ significantly.
Here's a chart adapted from page 90 of Gabel and Wheeler's The
Bible as Literature to illustrate those differences:
Genesis 1-2:4a
Genesis 2:4b-3:24
Creation is divided into days.
No days or other periods of time are mentioned.
Creation has a cosmic scope.
Creation has to do with the earth only.
Animals are created before man.
Man created before animals.
Animals are part of a cosmic design (along with plants
and everything else)
Animals are created
for a limited purpose: to keep man company or be
"a helper"--though they turn out to be
unsuitable for Adam, forcing God to make Eve instead.
Man is to rule the world.
Man is to have charge of Eden only and, presumably,
is never to leave it.
Woman is created simultaneously with man.
Woman is created
after (and from) the body of man.
No names are given to creatures.
All creatures, including man and woman, are given
names.
Only the deity speaks.
Four speakers engage in dialogue, one of them an
animal.
The deity makes a day of the week holy.
The deity forbids eating the fruit of a tree.
According to scholars of Hebrew,
the differences in each passage's diction
sharply contrast
in
tone (Gabel 90). Even
in translation, without looking at the original Hebrew,
a modern reader
can see
significant
differences in the narrative voice.
The narrative voice in Genesis 1-2:3 is solemn, dignified,
precise, and organized. He wastes no words. He is a
poet of great skill. He focuses on God as transcendent.
The
narrative voice in Genesis 2:4 is also skillful, but
in a different way. He focuses much more on down-to-earth
details and appeals to vivid and concrete imagery.
In anthropomorphic
terms, he describes God doing
a "hands-on" creation
like a potter shaping clay. (The Hebrew word used, yatsar,
is the same verb Hebrew uses for human potters molding
or shaping a vessel, as Gabel and Wheeler
note.) The narrative voice
in
the
first half is ultimately concerned with demonstrating
order over chaos; the text emphasizes that creation
is a planned,
orderly construction of God rather than the chaotic
by-product of several gods squabbling as in other
creation stories of the same time. The narrative voice
in the
second section is instead concerned
with etiology--why
is agricultural labor necessary? Or pain in childbirth?
Why do snakes crawl on their bellies?
Why do certain
Hebrew words
like ground and man sound
alike?
These differences
make it look initially like there could be two creation
stories appearing in Genesis--possibly written by two
(or more) different
authors
and later anthologized together by a single believer. (6) Another factor
distinguishing the two passages is the way each refers
to God and the date of respective vocabularies. Some
passages
refer to God by calling God by the name Yahweh,
but others refer to God using a plural noun as Elohim ("the
Lords)"--sometimes
while attaching singular verbs to this plural noun. In
the 18th century,
H. B. Witter and Jean Astruc suggested
that these terms were not being used indiscriminately,
but that the terms matched the contrasting
creation stories in Genesis we have noted above (and
other passages elsewhere in Genesis and the Hebrew Bible).
The first creation story (Genesis 1-2:3) always and only
refers
to God as
Elohim. The second creation story always refers
to God as Yahweh, or Yahweh Elohim,
but never as Elohim alone. These changes in
diction consistently match the pattern of other distinctions
mentioned above--again suggesting two different linguistic
dates or at least two separate authors.
What do we make of these distinctions?
What do they suggest about the authorship of Genesis?
Biblical scholars today think they indicate that several
people wrote the creation accounts, and then these accounts
were
anthologized together much later in the book we currently
call Genesis. Before
the Renaissance, Christians assumed a single individual
wrote all the first five books
of the Bible--the Pentateuch of
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Traditional
Jewish and Christian belief
assumed Moses wrote these books for the Israelites. This
idea is often called "Mosaic Authorship." New
Testament writers, for example, seem to think Moses wrote
all of the Pentateuch, and credit Moses with various
ideas from it. See for instance, Mark 10:3, Luke 24:27,
and John 1:17. The problem with this hypothesis
is that it doesn't make much
sense
in the
context
of Moses's
life.
In Genesis
12:6,
we read, "And
the Canaanite was then in
the land" (KJV, emphasis mine). In both Hebrew
and English, the then bit
implies that, for the narrator, no Canaanites
live now in the land. It would
be odd--even nonsensical--for Moses to write this if
he were
the author.
Moses
lived before the Conquest of the Promised Land.
He dies looking down on the Promised Land, but he never
enters
it, at least according to Deuteronomy 34. At the time
Moses would have been writing, the land was still inhabited
by Canaanites. Similar "unto-this-day" phrases
appear in Genesis 26:33, 35:20, and Deuteronomy 3:14
and 10:8.
These all indicate
a much later perspective than that of Moses. In fact,
Moses's death happens in chapter 34, before the book
of Deuteronomy
ends! While readers might possibly imagine Moses writing
about himself in the third person, it is much more difficult
to imagine
Moses sitting down and chronicling Joshua's activities
(or even Moses's own burial arrangements) if Moses has
already
died and
been interred in a Moabite valley
opposite
Peor.
But if Moses
could not have written Genesis, was there a single author
at all? Biblical
scholars analyzing the different sections of Genesis now
think that at least three textual traditions operate
in the work. Based on the language, linguistic studies, the
anthropomorphism, and the folkloric qualities, the section
from Genesis 2:4-3:3
is thought to be actually the oldest textual tradition.
Paleography and linguistics would date this section
to about 799-700 BCE and locate its dialect in the northern
kingdom of Israel around Ephraim. Scholars refer to this
text as part of the the "E
Text" or the Elohist
Text because
this tradition uses Elohim as the name of God.
If that part
is the E Text, what is the J Text, you ask? In German transliteration
of
Hebrew, the letter "J" is used for "Y." Thus,
scholars today refer to the "J
Text" or the Yahwist
Text when they discuss a second textual tradition.
This second tradition refers to God as Yahweh or Yahweh
Elohim
but never refers to God as Elohim alone. The
J Text was once thought to have been written about 999-800
BCE, but most recent scholarship would date it after the
period of exile (597 BCE). It is written in a dialect
associated
with
the city of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah,
the
more
southerly
of the tribal nations. These
two textual traditions probably existed independently
of each other
for
some time,
but the
northern
kingdom of Israel was destroyed toward the end of the eighth
century. The priests of Judah seem to have incorporated
the E
Text into
their J
Text tradition after that. This blending resulted in occasional
duplications and repetition of detail in the Pentateuch
because often
the same tale would be told twice, once with a northern
orientation and
once
with a southern perspective. We can see the same phenomenon
in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles.
The final editing--and
the addition of the P Text (Priestly Text)
material--occurred during or soon after the Babylonian exile
(597 and 587/586 BCE). At this time,
the Judaic
priests were probably desperate to retain their unique
monotheistic beliefs in the face of overwhelming Babylonian
influence, but they also faced the challenge of harmonizing
their world view
with that of the Babylonian tradition. Babylonian cosmology
(like Egyptian cosmology) believed in a world-destroying
flood and a transparent firmament in the sky. These
ideas go back in the writings of the Babylonian conquerors
to The
Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1800 BCE), long
before classical Hebrew even existed as a separate language from
Proto-Canaanite.
At this point in their
Babylonian captivity, the Hebrews incorporated a
number of concepts into their later religious
practice. Biblical scholars think these late religious
practices probably included special treatment of the Sabbath
day, elaborate
food taboos regarding what is kosher, and taboos
against writing down the name of God.
Other features
of the P text--such as the details of the Passover ritual,
ordination ceremonies, and descriptions of the tabernacle--appear
to have come from older (and now lost) manuscript traditions.
These lost texts were updated and modified in the P
tradition. The P text also gives much more prominence
to priests such as Aaron (as opposed to the dominant
role of Moses
in
the J
and
E texts), to
the
account
of Moses'
death in Deuteronomy, to the legal materials of Leviticus
and Numbers, and to a series of genealogies showing some
influence from older Mesopotamian sources.
At this time, the P-text
editors also adapted elements
of the Chaldean creation stories
into
the Genesis
account. Some of the elements
from the Chaldean creation stories include the
flood motif, the idea of a firmament that
holds up "the waters above" from "the
waters below," and
certain characters
and genealogical names appearing in both Genesis and The
Epic of Gilgamesh,
a much older pagan text first written down in cuneiform
tablets about 1800 BCE. Additionally, many Aramaic (aka "Chaldee") loanwords appear
in the Hebrew text at this time and they are incorporated
into the Hebrew Bible thereafter. This influence explains
today why most biblical concordances and dictionaries
(such as the
1979 version
of Strong's
Comprehensive Concordance of the Bible) refer to
their Hebrew sections as a "Concordance
of Hebrew and Chaldean," a "Hebrew and Chaldee
Dictionary,"
or a "Hebrew and Aramaic Dictionary." Christ
will still be using some Aramaic terms 400 years later
in the New
Testament gospels, which show how influential and long-lasting
the
linguistic
effects of the exile were on the Hebrew vocabulary.
Biblical scholars think that Genesis 1:1-2:3 and other
sections
such as Genesis
6 come from the P Text, and these are probably the latest
additions to the Genesis account. The loanwords mean
the Hebrew texts couldn't have been written before coming
into contact with
the Chaldeans--at least not in the form in which they
come down to us today in surviving manuscripts.
If students
are reading a study Bible like the Anchor
Bible series,
the editors helpfully mark which sections
come from the
J, E, and P Texts.
For more information, students
should consult the following introductory works:
Gabel, John B. and Charles B. Wheeler. The
Bible as Literature: An Introduction. New York: Oxford U P, 1986.
Metzger, Bruce M. and Michael
D. Coogan, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. New York:
Oxford U P, 1993.
**Note
2:
Genesis does not specifically discuss God
breathing life
into
Eve. This fact
has been used in some odd ways in scriptural arguments.
Today, a common popular misconception is that the Council
of Nicea (circa
323-325
CE) debated whether
or not women actually had souls since God did not breath
his essence into them. After 325, or so the story goes,
the ensouled status of women became accepted as an official
part
of orthodox
doctrine when the Council of Nicea voted in favor.
In actual point
of
fact,
the debate
did not take place in an official ecumenical council,
but it took place informally in a Church Synod in France
in 585
CE,
as
recounted in the Historia Francorum of Gregory
of Tours. This debate did not make use of the Genesis
text at
all, but instead
focused on the Latin word homo (man), and argued
whether Biblical passages referring to homo or homines were
equally applicable to women. This account appears to
be the seed from which the later legend grew--a legend
that
the church decided fairly late that women had souls.
In actual fact, even at the time
of the Council of Nicea, women were already being baptized,
taking communion, and taking last rites--all rituals
that presuppose in the recipient the presence of an applicable
human soul. That suggests many (and probably most) early Christians believed
women had souls, even if a few unorthodox believers might not have shared that thought.
Blessings to those who have gone before.
I call to the ancestors who lived and died before I took breath, to all the mothers and fathers who created life, who created life, who created me. Walk with me tonight.
I call to the ancestors who lived and died in my lifetime, my beloved dead, my family, my friends. Those who made me laugh and shared in my tears, who shared this journey with me, who shared their journey with me. Visit with me again.
My breath is your breath. My bones are your bones. We are all relations. I drink water for you. I take in food for you.
Together we light the beacon… Together we stand in the doorway…
We call to the recently dead. We offer your names to the air. We offer your names in prayer.
Kieth John Shrewsbury Marian Shrewsbury, Wilfred Earnest
Hazlewood, Edith May Hazlewood, Horace John Shrewsbury Liliie Miriam
Elias
All of my ancestors, all of our relations, wait to greet you. Safest passage to each of you. You are loved, you are remembered.
Be at peace.
It happened this way:,,for my Father at Samhain
When the time was right, when the season had come, he came to the
deadly place and was sacrificed. Knowingly he came; willingly he came
in honor and sorrow he came, To do what had to be done.
Death made life possible; from it sprang the food we eat.
Grain grew where his blood flowed, animals walked forth from the shade
of his fallen body. Like an ash felled by an axe, his body lay and
nourished the ground.
This is the way it happened, and the way it happens today.
For each moment dies and nourishes the next as it is birthed by the
Goddess. Each year dies and nourishes the next as it is birthed by the
Goddess. Each life ends and nourishes the next as it is birthed by the
Goddess.
You who die and are reborn, in this season of death, we remember your deeds. You who are reborn, in this season of life, we remember your sacrifice.
You who die and are reborn, in this season of life and death, we
remember what happened and we praise you in our living, and we praise
you in our dying. death, we remember what happened and we praise you in our living, and we praise you in our dying.
It's
the time of the Crone, the period of Samhain.It's a good time to look back.I always catch myself at this time of year
reflecting on my political experiences of the last 4 years.I think it must be the approaching AGM of the
Wales Green party that sends my memories reeling and cascading through my
dreams and my perceptions .. Perhaps it’s because my blog all too Human is now
two years old.
2014
saw the death of Jeremy Thorpe and it frequently has had the effect of making
me reflect on that period of the late 70`s.In those days forty years ago.Whatever can be said about Thorpe does not take away from the fact he
understood pro to-Environmentalism, called for the bombing of Rhodesia and
thought in challenging ways.He was a
long way from the bland Liberal Democrats of today. When I look at Vince Cable,
amongst others the blandness overwhelms me and I see the shark suited bullies
massing on the Tory side of the House of Commons waiting to gobble him up just
as they consumed and destroyed Nick Clegg I see the community politics that
they once espoused becoming no more than a means to keep a few MPs alive and
functioning.There is no existential
meaning for them anymore.I see it
peeping out of the eyes of Peter Black and Kirsty Williams.They are all action with no purpose or
meaning.
At
Christmas 1977 I was elected Chairperson of the Welsh Young Liberals. It was a
difficult election I had begun as the outsider and was facing two other
candidates.I stood on a Libertarian
Socialist platform my main rival was a traditional Liberal from Cardigan and
another candidate from Cardiff.
Leighton
Andrews our former Minister of Education in Wales pushed the Bangor delegation
my way and I narrowly won.I can't
escape the irony though that when I became Leader of the Welsh Green Party most
of my critics came from the same area..West Wales. I must have some ancient and
long lasting Karma with the area.Of
course all this speculation is merely a literary device.
I
think of other events of the 70`s.Peter
Hain`s acquittal on a bank robbery charge in 1975 at that time we believed that
the South African Secret Service was seeking to destroy the old Liberal party
to make Tory victory certain at the next election.We believed the same thing about the Thorpe
allegations and some hints from Harold Wilson’s reflections made us more
suspicious of intelligence plots.There
is a very interesting book called the Penncourt files and I recommend you to
read it.
Then
I remember a TV programme about infiltration of the Stop the 70`s tour by
police and intelligence services.And
now nearly three years short of my 60th birthday I still reflect on this role
of the state in disrupting the radicals. Even Fred Fitton of the SWP had spent
some time as a Young Liberal at the time of Louis Eaks time as chairperson of
the Young Liberals.
I
remember Dai Griffith beating the future Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans to become
President of Swansea Students union.Some weeks ago I heard the same but now Nigel Evans MP lay into Tom
Watson over allegations against Leon Brittan.I can't help thinking that Nietzsche's observation was that our morality
was based on our wounds.Young Nigel is
raving about Witch Crazes and persecutions.However, I can't help thinking that it was Nigel's government that
brought in Section 28 and despite his own revaluations and experiences I would
simply say to him if your Party brings in legislation that allows persecution
and witch hunting then your true morality and integrity should have made you
resign at the time.
I
remember a book written by Peter Hain called “Radical Regeneration” in it he
condemns Labour as a hack party.Having
lived in in his constituency for three years I realise that he was he
describing the Neath Labour party and I wonder if late at night he reflects
upon that.In chapters 4 and 5 he
describes a realignment of the radicals into a new political movement. Looking
back nearly forty years I realise that the time has come to see those
principles in my ageing self that makes me rave at the time of the Celtic new
Year.........
But to return to the book I ask you to take a
look.You will be surprised.We are there, the modern Green Party in Peter
Hain`s words.Perhaps the rise of Jeremy
Corbyn is also a reflection of this.However,
I see no changes in the bland Neath Labour Party and I reflect that in Neath
Port Talbot Adult Social Services has become “outsourced” to a private company.
Perhaps it is the dark mornings and the
experience of ageing at the time of the arising of winter ..... but then again
it may be that I am now liberated from the past and can begin to tell my
story.This blog will allow me to do
this, there are many articles, speculations, literary and philosophical issues
and a novel called “Valley of Steel”.It
deals with the experiences of a leader of a small environmental party in a
Southern Welsh City during the early years 21st century.It's all made up though..there never was an
Edwin Salesbury...but you may know different.And Spring 2018 is coming after a long personal Winter.
I have always been
interested in seeing what goes on behind the scenes, at the things that I deny
about myself and what others deny about themselves. Over the last 50 years or so it has led me to
some interesting places, people
and ideas. At Christmas a friend of mine
bought me a copy of the Pencourt File, it's a study of the Intelligence
Services attempts to destabilise the Wilson Government of 1974 to 1976. When I was involved in a previous incarnation
of political activity, I read the magazine "Borderlands" which looked
at the role the same services role in their infiltration of the Radical, the
Left and the Green movement. As we approach another five years of Right
wing government my thoughts go back to these issues.
There is an area where
the secret state intersects with our paranoia and our fears. The Left and all critical views tends to
attract to it a higher proportion of people who are suspicious, egotistical and
obsessive. Of course this proportion is
small but nevertheless there. Just
recently I read a psychotherapy article about that if you compare 100 political
activists with 100 non political activists the non-activists are significantly
less neurotic. Anthony Storr`s book the
Political Psyche is a rich read indeed......but still there is no harm in a
speculative flow of consciousness.......
There is however
something I have observed over the years...wherever I have been involved in
politics and campaigning I always encountered individuals who have a military
or police background underwent an Epiphany and turned to the
Left........perhaps innocent I know, but then again......I often wonder that
with the growth of the anti-fracking movement, for example, would reveal about
police or military backgrounds of a few key activists. I have charted how some activists reappear and
disappear over a number of years. They usually appear when the Green party is
gaining in strength or we see the rise
of a genuine Socialist Labour Party and power and are always involved in
controversy and dispute.
The psychological view
of Freud is that individuals project and displace their fears and loathings on
to others The sadness is that where
the secret state meets the psychotic the intersections are many and varied and
defeats speculation.Knowing the
difference is crucial and essential. But
then again, which quadrant of the Venn diagram have I wandered into in the
silly season in the dog days of rationality that is at the time of the Crone
and Samhain ?
