Pistis ponders forgiveness (weekending November 27th 2021)

‽istis ponders forgiveness (weekending November 27th 2021)

The week began with a three part political phrase that one day (perhaps sooner rather than later) may be used to sum up at least the prime ministerial phase of the life of the current UK Prime Minister: “Forgive me... Forgive me... Forgive me...” (1)? A place was lost in a speech that detoured off (with fossil-fuel driven car noises optional) to Peppa Pig World; and how the business leaders laughed - with or at?, the jury may still be out.

Real tragedy followed as the desperate channel crossings of many ended in a terrible, terrible death for a few -  people probably with far more in common with you and me than that which differentiates us;  dehumanised perhaps into a collective term ‘migrant’ and a numerical addition to the record of deaths in similar circumstances this year. The ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors from last week’s blog seem to continue to ebb and flow - and many possibly cannot forgive the architects of attitudes, policies and systems constructed over decades and now maybe working their way out on the seas and in the actions and tears of desperate people; in the eyes of the voting public and the world’s media.  

Meanwhile, the ‘Daily Mail online records a potentially complex news item (2): ‘Cricketer Azeem Rafiq meets Holocaust survivor (Ruth Barnett) and tours Jewish Museum in London: Rafiq, the ‘cricketer-turned-whistleblower had rocked world of cricket with allegations of 'institutional racism' - but then ‘last week apologised for posting historical anti-Semitic messages... to a cricket colleague.’ Hailed by some as the way to do an apology. Layers and levels of apparent misdemeanour, ‘crime’ and forgiveness to ponder. 

The week began to draw to a close in the UK with news of the death of a 12-year old girl in Liverpool, with four teenage boys arrested in the early stages of the police investigation (3). The occasion of the turning on of Christmas lights coincided with the terrible snuffing out of a young person’s life leaving parents, family and friends who may not be able to forgive - even as the commercialised festive preparations (for what some see as the birth of a Saviour and a supposed cosmic gesture of forgiveness) begin and which come round year after year - potentially bringing fresh waves of grief.

When the investigation is over and any charges brought, when ‘facts’ are presented, possible ‘mitigating factors’ highlighted and verdicts pronounced - can it ever be that to know all is to forgive all when it comes to matters of culpability? 

And so, strangely, that brings ‽istis to a final point of wonder: at the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim whose death was announced yesterday. So much could be drawn out to represent a life and talent, to illustrate or express a point. And whilst ‽istis believes that the beauty of ‘Sunday’ (4) can prompt personal forgiveness for perhaps more tricky, maybe less 'easy' sounds of some of Sondheim's music -  it is to the lyrics of ‘West Side Story’ that ‽istis is drawn and which somehow seem to resonate with this week’s theme. 

Enter Officer Krupky, Diesel, Action, Snowboy, Baby John, the other Jets and assorted professionals: a judge, a social worker, a psychiatrist - all perhaps seeking to bring analysis, to bring insight into the locus of the problem (who or what do we blame?) and the focus of a solution and response (how can we make things better?) (5)

So, perhaps, if “Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.” (Stephen Sondheim - see link 4 below), then let us add art in all its many forms (possibly beautiful, challenging, in memoriam, provocative, dreadful, disturbing and cathartic) to a toolbox that already may contain political theory, historical analysis, sociology, social psychology, criminology, psychology, etc, etc... For just perhaps, possibly, maybe they can all help us to make sense and form a response to an everyday gaff-laden (6) speech; to personal, sectarian, social, cultural, political, organised, institutionalised and structure-embedded expressions of racism in a pernicious hierarchy; to the awful, tragic, fatal chaos in the channel or in Liverpool. 

Surely we need as many tools to help us express and explore, to understand and deal with the ‘stuff’ which (whilst acknowledging that explanation may be very different from excuse) perhaps, possibly, maybe seeks and needs forgiveness - for and in us all.

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog

entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p7TDt3qFIs 

2. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10243235/Azeem-Rafiq-meets-Holocaust-survivor-apologising-historical-anti-Semitic-messages.html (my addition of Ruth Barnett’s name from elsewhere in the headlines - in brackets). Also, perhaps further complicated by reports that: ‘At the beginning of the 1930s, the then Viscount Rothermere (Harold Harmsworth) owned the Mail and the Mirror. In January 1934, he wrote - under his own byline - articles that appeared in both the Mail and the Mirror. The former was headlined "Hurrah for the Blackshirts". The latter was headlined "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand." ‘  From a 2011 article by Roy Greenslade:  https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2011/dec/06/dailymail-oswald-mosley 

3. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/everything-know-far-murder-investigation-22294587 

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8vlE-6Hfs4 

5. https://www.westsidestory.com/gee-officer-krupke 

6. (Bo)risible...?  

Pistis reclaims belongings (weekending November 20th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims and wonders: belongings (weekending November 20th 2021)

In a week 

...with a day when a record number of migrants crossed the Channel (1)

• and perhaps the ‘push’ factors of home devastation or danger linked to the working out of geo-political manoeuvrings of Empires, nations, ruling majority peoples and parties, minorities empowered and sustained perhaps unsustainably, or those in opposition, excluded and minoritised into action - over decades and centuries - the tipping back and forth of power held, retained, acquired or sought…

• perhaps meet the ‘pull’ factors of perceived safety, wealth, opportunity, freedoms, the ‘homeland’, of friends and family who have gone before

...when a hire van is booked to help with a final clearing of furniture and furnishings, books, photos, ‘knick knacks’ that represent a life of a parent who has now also gone before 

Then ‽istis ponders belonging and belongings...  the ‘stuff’ of life accumulated, on show, cluttering, archived, stored away, lost or left. 

And when the ‘things’ have gone; when all we have is: 

• what we can wear or what we can carry across cold, grey, deep, dangerous seas in a small rucksack that may have to be ditched; 

• what we can remember

• the echo of influences and experiences, encounters and relationships - lodged within - hidden, exposed, deep or raw, for worse or for better

• each other in memory or, if fortunate, in person

...then what do we have‽

And  ‽istis wondered and pondered on...  into a future unknown to us all - the currently safe, the currently desperate; floundering or waving.

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog

entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

 

1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59257107 

Pistis reclaims knowing me, knowing you (weekending November 13th 20212)

 ‽istis reclaims knowing me, knowing you (weekending November 13th 2021)

This week as ‽istis again completed a Belbin assessment (1) as part of a new manager’s approach to trying to understand the team and the roles that we could play in helping (or hindering) effectiveness, ‽istis pondered ‘personality’ and how we might seek to understand the perhaps glorious, possibly frightening, maybe mysterious nature or nurture that is me and you....

‘Tests’, ‘assessments’ and ‘indicators’ abound (2) - just type ‘personality tests’ into a search engine and the extent will begin to be revealed - free, to purchase, for anyone, for professionals, only for those who are registered or trained to administer and interpret etc, etc... 

Who am I? What am I? How am I? Where am I on a scale? What role do I play/could or should I play? How will I fit? Who might be my ideal partner? Which other roughly twelfth of the world’s population am I like and what will my day/week/month/future be? How do I learn? What is my intelligence? What is my intelligence type? What can explain what and how I do, think or feel? How do I explain problem-locus and solution focus (3) and what therapeutic approach might be congruent? What political party am I most in affinity with? How can I understand and relate to you better? Which of two kinds of people am I - one of those who think that there are two kinds of people in the world or one of those who don’t?!...  (4) 

...and on and on...

‽ Shaper, Implementer, Completer finisher, Co-ordinator, Team worker, Resource investigator, Plant, Monitor evaluator, Specialist (after Belbin)

‽ Extroverted - Introverted; Sensing - Intuitive; Thinking - Feeling; Judging - Perceiving (after Myers and Briggs) (5)

‽ Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic (after Hippocrates) (6)

‽ Structured - Flexible, Sensitive - Tough-minded, Reactive - Stable (7)

‽ Kinaesthetic (body smart), Linguistic (word smart), Logical (number smart), Interpersonal (people smart), Intrapersonal (myself smart), Musical (music smart), Visual (picture smart) (8)

‽ Follower - Leader, Borrower - Lender (9)

‽ Freedom -- Determinism, Rationality -- Irrationality, Holism -- Elementalism -- Constitutionalism -- Environmentalism, Changeability -- Unchangeability, Subjectivity -- Objectivity, Proactivity -- Reactivity, Homeostasis, Knowability -- Unknowability  (10)

All potentially extremely interesting, but perhaps leaving one with a sense of being at the far end of a scale that runs from ‘full of energy’ to ‘exhausted’! 

And then, ‽istis wonders about the potential influences - the ‘why’ of how I am or you are. Nature and nurture may be offered as ends of a spectrum but ‽istis tends to find talk of ‘interactive equations’ and the territory in the middle sections of a continuum more helpful than the bi-polar ends (“oh, so you’re one of those sort of people!”). 

Having gone through the hard work of undertaking learning-style inventories several times (11),  ‽istis is aware that there seems to be a continuing strong tendency towards  ‘reflector/theorist’ but hopes that there can be room for ‘activism’ and ‘pragmatism’ too. 

After the pondering and the wonder-ing (perhaps there are 'wonder' - in both senses of the word - and 'appreciation' scales‽) just perhaps, possibly, maybe the thinking and the feeling leads to the doing, lest one is so ‘heavenly minded’ that one is ‘no earthly use’... 

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog

entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

 

1. For example: https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/dmg/tools-and-techniques/belbins-team-roles/ 

2. An article by Louis Menand in ‘The New Yorker’ suggests that there are more than 2,000 personality tests on the market in a $2bn industry  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver  

3. See ‘Brief Counselling: A Practical Guide for Beginning Practitioners’ Windy Dryden and Colin Feltham  OUP  ISBN10: 0335099726

4. With thanks to the article above. I am definitely the type of person who appreciates this joke!

5. https://www.truity.com/myers-briggs/story-of-mbti-briggs-myers-biography 

6. https://www.thecolourworks.com/hippocrates-galen-the-four-humours/ 

7. ‘Persona Bubble’ see: https://www.themuse.com/advice/14-free-personality-tests-thatll-help-you-figure-yourself-out

8. After Howard Gardner https://www.smartbrainpuzzles.com/blog/theory-of-multiple-intelligences/

9. https://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/10-signs-youre-a-follower-instead-of-a-leader.html & http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.1.3.html (neither says Polonius)

10. See Hjelle, L. A., & Ziegler, D. J. (1992). Personality theories: Basic assumptions, research, and applications (3rd ed.). Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.

11. https://vark-learn.com/the-vark-questionnaire/ (VARK styles) & https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/pluginfile.php/629607/mod_resource/content/1/t175_4_3.pdf (Honey and Mumford styles)

Pistis ponders no small change (weekending November 6th 2021)

 

‽istis follows the climate money - no small change needed (weekending November 6th 2021)

A delayed posting this week as ‽istis has been pondering the financial implications and arrangements of responding to the climate crisis. And the head has been spinning while the earth has kept on spinning, and seems likely to - with or without us! 

There are some astronomic figures to be found in reports and in analyses, relating perhaps to both the potential cost of inaction and action, money pledged (and lesser amounts delivered).  Just possibly the tide is turning to a systemic and structural recognition (individuals, households, boardrooms, Cabinets, houses of government, internationally) that maybe we cannot afford not to - and even that the economic advantage lies in change.

There is certainly plenty to read in the newspapers and online with multiple column inches, graphs, and tables of statistics, and leagues (of the good, the bad and the seemingly indifferent) ranked in a reminder that competition and advantage is perhaps a dynamic not far away from the problem; and graphics that add detail and depth, as well as adding to the impression that things are very complex...  (1)

So after some naive dabbling, what are the ‘residual messages’ and headlines that ‽istis is left with: 

i) That perhaps there are at least four major areas for consideration when calculating cost, who might bear that cost, where the money might be spent, and the target of spending: 

‽ Emissions: accumulated over time to recognise the historic contribution (e.g: up until 1882 more than half of the world’s cumulative emissions came from the UK alone- see reference (2) below -  during a key period of over-development at the expense of others’ lives, freedoms, livelihoods and under-development, perhaps?) as well as now (US calculated as being responsible for 410.24 billion tonnes in total since 1751; India: 51.94bn tonnes; China: 219.99 bn tonnes; Russia: 113.88 bn tonnes; UK: 77.84bn tonnes; New Zealand: 1.85bn tonnes - see reference below). Recognising differential contribution across time, across nations (2), across industries, across social position/status/class/wealth, across sources: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, cement etc.; across causes: burning fossil fuels, deforestation, agriculture (3) 

‽ Consumption: to recognise the locus of demand (across nations and social position within societies in particular) that may be met through emissions elsewhere (e.g: goods made in China for the UK and US markets).

‽ Crisis response to the effects (and the destination of spending - already shown in something like the projects funded by the ‘Green Climate Fund’ portfolio: e.g: ‘Supporting vulnerable communities in the Maldives to manage climate-change induced water shortages’ (see reference 1 again, below)

‽ Mitigations and transformations: reforestation, renewables, recycling; towards a zero-carbon future; disinvesting; reinvesting; slowing, halting, reversing - again shown in the list of projects funded by the ‘Green Climate Fund’ e.g: ‘Large-scale ecosystem-based adaptation in Gambia: developing a climate-resilient, natural resource-based economy’ (again see reference 1)

ii) That managing an effective response and evaluating the beneficial impact and/or unintended consequences in order to increasingly inform, refine and ‘smarten up’ the response, seems very complicated (4) and may derail confidence and commitment. But that we surely have to find a way. 

iii) That this is a problem ‘on earth’, for the earth and for all that dwell upon it. A problem that crosses imposed or claimed borders and the constructs of nationalism that have wrought them (so often through blood or theft or domination). That if we have to use these constructs to manage the politics, the finance, the distribution, the impact evaluation etc, etc. then let us at least do this through reinvigorated and representative international institutions whilst also recognising that in any and each specific ‘nation’ or society some are likely to have benefitted far more - and are more greatly liable 

iv) That principles may matter most and may be crucial in guiding policy and practice, in underpinning decisions and actions - when the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of an effective response is complex, when so much is uncertain and when what may be needed is improvisation and jazz for there may be no well-composed score or blueprint playbook. Some suggestions:

‽ The polluters and the beneficiaries pay, proportionately; from each according to cause (past and present, accumulatively)... (2, 5 & 6, below)

‽ Those most at risk and those least able to meet the cost need help first; to those according to danger,hazard, impact and need...  (6 & 7 below)

‽ Nothing about us without us!

‽ Transparency

‽ Accountability

‽ That the parable in The Bible of the sower (and similar tales) may hold some seeds to ‘getting on with it’, irrespective of the difficulties - for whilst some grain/finance may be eaten by birds, may fall on rocky ground and be scorched by the sun, or may fall on thorns; some will fall on good soil and the effect will multiply. (8)  

And finally, ‽istis returns to the words of Gus Speth (9) (cited in an early blog from September 2019): ‘I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy.’ ‘...to deal with those issues we need a spiritual and cultural transformation – and we scientists do not know how to do that.’ 

Maybe we have to find a way to either break out of the dynamic that has perhaps so driven change since the origin of our species, or radically redefine fitness for survival - not in individual terms, not in species terms, but in earthly, global, planetary, universal and interplanetary and cosmic terms? And ‽istis wonders whether that might constitute a necessary spiritual and cultural transformation? 

Fully waking up  and recognising the threat; rebelling against the risk of extinction; developing and agreeing guiding principles; finding a way to raise, manage and spend effectively just perhaps, possibly, may be both the necessary tasks and the very processes that transform, evolve and save us...  The words of Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados this week ring out:  ‘Act for all people - and if we don’t we will allow the path of greed and selfishness to sow the seeds of our common destruction.’

Discuss - in no less than several weeks of the ‘Conference of the Parties’, in presentations, speeches (performative or heartfelt, through a sound system or through a megaphone), in the halls, seminar rooms and corridors; in reports and tables and graphs and data sets; in online forums and web-based calls; in TV and radio studios; on the streets; in schools and colleges and universities; in cafés and pubs, in community and village halls; in places of worship, in sports stadia and gyms; in board rooms and offices and on the factory and shop floor; in homes; and, perhaps above all, in minds and souls and hearts...

© Pistis                                                                                                                    

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog

entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders. ‘Follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  

 

1. The UK’s Financial Times has what seems to be a very helpful ‘big read’ - ‘COP 26: where does all the climate finance money go?’: https://www.ft.com/content/d9e832b7-525b-470b-89db-6275853315dd The webpage banner headline says: ’A new world is possible. Let’s not go back to what wasn’t working anyway’.

2. See, for example: https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 Article by Hannah Ritchie  

3. UK Met Office website: https://metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/causes-of-climate-change 

4. There is little agreement on how to spend the money, who should receive it, or how to make sure it is used effectively. There is even a dispute about how it should be measured, and what should be counted as climate finance.’  https://www.ft.com/content/d9e832b7-525b-470b-89db-6275853315dd again. Amar Bhattacharya: 'To date there has been very little impact measurement. It is a very important issue. People look at impact in terms of the composition of finance, things that relate to the financing side. But in terms of real impact of climate finance, and efficacy across different donors, there has been no development impact or climate impact study done to date.' 

5. ODI report and Table 3: Scorecard of progress towards a fair share of international climate finance (2017-2018): https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/ODI_WP_fairshare_final0709.pdf 

6. Molwyn Joseph, Minister of the Environment, Antigua and Barbuda: ‘We are not asking for handouts, we are asking for compensation for damages as a result of the profligacy of the developed countries. Those that emit this carbon, that is causing climate events, should pay.’ In the FT ‘big read’  https://www.ft.com/content/d9e832b7-525b-470b-89db-6275853315dd 

7. Recalling the words of Mia Mottley (Prime MInister of Barbados) at the COP26 this week: ‘Can there be peace and prosperity if one third of the world literally prospers and the other two thirds of the world live under siege and face calamitous threat to our well-being?’  ‘Are we so blinded and hardened that we can no longer appreciate the cries of humanity?’

8. The Bible, Matthew 13; Mark 4.

9. Gus Speth, former dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale. Cited in: https://reflections.yale.edu/article/crucified-creation-green-faith-rising/dean-s-desk