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

Pistis ponders Hallowe'en: RIP? RIG? (weekending October 30th 2021)

‽istis ponders Hallowe'en: RIP? RIG? (weekending October 30th 2021)

This week as Hallowe’en/All Hallows’ Eve beckons potentially for a night of mystery, mayhem, fantasy, a deadly subject dressed up just for fun (and a little targeted commercial trading) and perhaps a frisson of fear, ‽istis ponders death...  

As is often the case with ‽istis’ wonderings, there are some numbers discovered, some person-focused reflection on and about the souls behind the numbers - and there may be a big question or two...‽ And as with so many of the topics and issues, these wonderings and ponderings are simply a possible jumping on point that may spark  further thoughts and explorations of your own, if indeed there is anybody there... 

First the R.I.P. - rest in peace (other phrases and euphemisms are available), a consummation devoutly to be wished? - and the following seem to be some pretty important numbers:

‽ The ‘worldometer’ (1) website counters spin on and at the afternoon time of typing, today’s estimated deaths pass 115,835 (with births notching up at more than twice the rate, it seems today) and the total deaths this year nears an estimated 48.5million. All those last breaths; all that pain for those going and those left, hardly tempered by a sense of relief for some people where the going has been tough and the going in to the dark night (2) was far from gentle, but raged through choice or circumstance.

‽ All that illness, all the care and treatment that must surely lie behind so many of the numbers with ‘the top global causes of death... associated with three broad topics: cardiovascular (heart disease, stroke), respiratory (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lower respiratory infections) and neonatal conditions...’  And perhaps we can just begin to imagine the ripples of activity, the people involved throughout the more or less adequate and complex domestic, private and public health and care systems across the world... the unpaid family members, friends, volunteers and the paid professionals - millions and millions of them, millions and millions of us, working to maintain and preserve optimal well-being and life in quantity and quality; managing chronic or rapid decline and last days - all those hands holding; responding to accident or the reasonably preventable that could perhaps have been avoided; the deliberate and inflicted or seemingly chosen; the acute crises!

‽ And all the after-wards... the unseen care-takers, undertaking on our behalf...

‽ And all that emotion! Waves and waves, complex, fleeting or lasting. Loved ones grieving, missing someone that they did things with and missing the person they just did nothing with - and for whom it perhaps does not get any better, though maybe one day some may find that they have somehow got a bit better at coping.

There is so very much more that could be said, even though words may fail us or be so inadequate...  

But what of the 'All Hallows', the all saints, the expectation of some people that R.I.P. could  be followed with R.I.G. (‘rise in glory’)? What of the belief for some that there is (not just may be) more, better, reunity: in some form or other hereafter, in some place or other, with some people or other, with a deity or without, here or there, for ever or again and again, etc.?

What do you think, or believe, or feel...?

And ‽istis grinds to something of a halt with all this weighty pondering...  

Thoughts turn to caterpillars becoming butterflies...

And ‽istis wonders finally whether life is held more preciously and lived more fully by those who believe or those who don’t. 

And as the ‘worldometer’ tally rises relentlessly and a thousand schools of thought about life and death bloom and sometimes contend, the poet Mary Oliver’s words seem to fall down with the rain on this far from summer’s English grey day: ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?’ (3) - perhaps just imagine what could be possible - and indeed may be... 

© 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.worldometers.info/ 

2. After Dylan Thomas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2cgcx-GJTQ 

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBPHUE961zI

Pistis reclaims your very good health (weekending October 23rd 2021)

‽istis reclaims your very good health

This week in the UK, as Doctors and the capacity of hospitals hit the headlines - leading some of us to fear that (the Government*) highlighting/creating* problems for a national health service might serve to soften up the public for a potential greater role for the (not-so)-’hidden sleight of hand’ of the market to work its dark arts and herald a blue-lit parade of private companies with their siphoning-profits-off-to-shareholders predilections supposedly riding to the rescue..., ‽istis sought to toast ‘your very good health’ and wondered about relative spending, effectiveness and value for money; about how we define ‘health’, ‘well-being’; and remembered a powerful perspective-giving test to apply to announcements about spending (perhaps more of this with next week’s budget proclamation from the UK House of Commons).

The customary online exploration has unearthed some websites, organisations, reports and sources of information that surely will be plundered again in the future. Here is a taster...

‽ The World Population Review (1) considers ‘the best healthcare in the world 2021’ ‘determined by considering a wide range of factors, including the care process (preventative care measures, safe care, coordinated care, and engagement and patient preferences), access (affordability and timeliness), administrative efficiency, equity, and healthcare outcomes (population health, mortality amenable to healthcare, and disease-specific health outcomes) and links to:

‽ CEO's Health Care Index (2):"...a statistical analysis of the overall quality of the health care system, including health care infrastructure; health care professionals (doctors, nursing staff, and other health workers) competencies; cost (USD p.a.per capita); quality medicine availability, and government readiness."  Scoring these factors reveals a top five: 1) Denmark, 2) Norway, 3) Switzerland, 4) Sweden, 5) Finland (is there a theme here, ‽istis wonders...) with the UK coming in at a beaten-by-quite-a-bit-of-the-world 13th place.

‽ Further link-following took ‽istis to the ‘Legatum Prosperity Index’ (3) ‘ a tool for transformation, offering a unique insight into how prosperity is forming and changing across the world.’ As an aside, ‽istis was intrigued by this statement on the website: ‘Developed nations that expect so much of emerging nations must beware the trap of falling into the mindset of an overdeveloped society, vulnerable to entitlement and complacency...’

Nations are analysed and assessed against 300 country-level into indicators grouped into 66 policy-focused elements.  

The good news seems to be that: ‘Near universal progress in health over the past decade, with all but 12 countries, including the U.S., seeing an improvement, has contributed to the rise in global prosperity.’ Health and welfare and well-being linked. 

‽ But coming back to the ‘World Population Review’, a further table links healthcare and prosperity analysis - revealing that effective systems may not just be the product of prosperity, it may be as much about what you do with it as it is the size (a well-known saying perhaps from a particular branch of medicine and therapeutics...?).  And so, we can announce the top ranked nations in respect of health care according to the analysis on this organisation’s webpages - followed by its prosperity rank (will the UK beat the world again? and with suitable pause for dramatic effect):

Healthcare rank:

South Korea (prosperity rank 28)

Taiwan (prosperity rank 20)

Denmark (prosperity rank 1)

Austria (prosperity rank 10)

Japan (prosperity rank 19)

Maybe, even now, the detail of methodology may be coming under scrutiny and that vital matter of whether apples are indeed being compared to apples may be being looked into (strangely enough perhaps more when the findings are unfavourable or disliked?), and there is almost certainly much, much more that could be explored and considered (not least perhaps in relation to such issues as: expenditure on health as a proportion of GDP; models of provision; private v public v insurance funding schemes; political system and hue of governments etc) and there are many organisations and reports and websites that could help, but just perhaps this first foray can provide some food for thought...?  

Finally, what of that test mentioned in the lengthy opening paragraph? 

A calculation for you (adopted from, and courtesy of a one-time feature on the BBC Radio 4’s ‘More or Less’ programme, I believe) when hearing announced spending (for example in a forthcoming budget): 

• divide the sum of money announced - especially if it is linked to a timeframe (e.g: ‘this year we will be spending an additional £125million..., for example) 
• by the relevant population e.g: c.67,220,000 people (UK as of today) = £1.86p per person
• further divide by 52 (weeks in the year) = 3.5p per person, per week
• further divide by 7 (days in the week) and lo and behold, as if by hidden hand magic, you have an amount which perhaps begins to represent the spending commitment per person, per day (= ½ p). 

Just imagine what perhaps, possibly, maybe we could do with that!

© Pistis                                                                                                              

* 'the Government' and '/creating' added later to differentiate

from those who are pointing out, vitally, the acute and chronic

problems for the NHS, its patients and staff...

1. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world  Accessed October 2021

2. https://ceoworld.biz/2021/04/27/revealed-countries-with-the-best-health-care-systems-2021/ Countries with the best healthcare systems.  Accessed October 2021

3. Legatum Prosperity Index: https://www.prosperity.com/  Accessed October 2021   

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 very much welcomed...  

Pistis wonders how clear and present a danger (weekending October 16th 2021)

 

‽istis wonders how clear, how present, how dangerous (weekending 16th October 2021)

This week, ‽istis tried to buy a copy of the Daily Mail (1). Being thwarted by the paper buying habits of residents and visitors, ‽istis read online (2) the report of a BBC interview with Prince Charles on climate activism which included these phrases:

‽ “It’s just talk. The problem is trying to get action on the ground which I’ve been trying to do for the last 40 years.”

‽ “I knew in the end all these young people would get fed up because they feel nothing is even happening so of course they’re going to get frustrated... They see their future being totally destroyed.”

And also this week: 

● a report suggests that Coal-fired power generation in China appears to be ramping up to meet the country’s growing demand for electricity (3) 

● the UK was perhaps reminded of the cost of coal as: ‘U.K. power prices rose after a coal power plant switched on Monday to make up for a shortfall in wind generation and limited flows on two power cables to Ireland.’ (4)

● doubt was cast about the likelihood of breakthrough outcomes being reached at COP2 (5)

● Drivers threatened to run climate protesters over as ‘Insulate Britain’ stage roadblock protests for the 13th time (6)

● ‽istis wondered about the planning meetings and communications underway to co-ordinate the expected protests at the conference 

● ‽istis started to dip in to the 2021 ‘Climate Transparency Report’ (7) and found some of the highlights:

○ Fossil fuels subsidised throughout the recovery

○ Rebounding emissions signal a return to business as usual

○ Financial regulations improving, but public fossil fuel finance continues

○ Transformative policies urgently needed in key sectors to curb rising emissions

○ Revised ambition but the G20 is not on track for a 1.5° world

○ Vulnerability of G20 members highlights the need to adapt now

And this last point chimed with thoughts about change and the potentially important and motivating power of presenting and recognising something as a ‘clear and present danger’...

‽istis therefore started to ponder the characteristics of a perceived danger that may be clear, present and leaves no explanation, reasonable reason or excuse to not act now! What might help tip the balance from leaving things how they are (so close maybe to that resigned and shrugful: ‘it is what it is’), the stasis, the devil better known...?

Characteristic a):  the threat (8) level and potential impact of a hazard or danger perhaps needs to be understood. What might be the task here? Maybe raising awareness; helping to promote risk assessment and identification of hazards; modelling the impact, highlight what could be lost, and - for those conservatives (whatever size the ‘c’ is) - what may never be the same again  

Characteristic b): the danger or threat level and potential impact perhaps needs to be perceived, seen, felt, experienced actually right now - or imminently where likelihood has tipped from impossible, to on the balance of probabilities, on to beyond reasonable doubt towards certainty. What might be the task here? Maybe raising awareness - what has happened, what is happening - now; helping people to think realistically about what could happen and make judgements about probability 

Characteristic c) the danger or threat level and its actual or likely impact perhaps needs to be thought and felt to relate to ‘me’ and ‘mine’ (relatives, friends, people ‘like me’, property, possessions etc.). What might be the task here? Maybe expanding empathy, or sympathy; perhaps promoting narratives of similarity more than difference, that no-one is safe unless all are safe, that wealth and status and individual merit possibly have little to do with individual merit, that we are more connected, inter-dependent and co-dependent than some perhaps may think; persuading that there is more that unites than divides, that me and ‘mine’ can include you and yours - and that ‘we’ together might be essentially and existentially both part of the problem and part of the solution.     

So ‽istis wonders how much these three characteristics (9) perhaps, possibly may resound in speeches or fill the pages of reports produced inside the COP26 buildings or be proclaimed from the wittiest or starkest of banners outside... 

And ‽istis wonders what the balance might be between them - and whether the last should be first? 

How clearly can the apparently clear and present danger be presented‽

© 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 the first time... but all sold out

2) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10079315/Prince-Charles-says-totally-understands-groups-like-Insulate-Britain-XR.html  

3) https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/china-reopening-coal-mines-to-meet-accelerating-demand/ 

4) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-11/u-k-turns-to-coal-as-low-wind-output-increases-power-prices 

5) COP - (United Nations Climate Change) Conference of the Parties

6) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/13/drivers-threaten-insulate-britain-activists-in-essex-protests 

7) https://www.climate-transparency.org/media/climate-transparency-report-2021 ‘The Climate Transparency Report is the world’s most comprehensive annual review of G20 countries’ climate action and their transition to a net zero emissions economy. The review is based on 100 indicators for adaptation, mitigation and finance compared against 1.5°C global benchmarks and aims to make good practices and gaps transparent. The summary report and 20 country profiles allow the report to be a clear reference tool for decision makers.’

8) For some who may benefit from a situation or changes that could be made - then it may be the opportunity level that tips the balance (e.g: companies that can switch to making PPE as well as can make hand sanitiser alongside gin in a pandemic): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppe-manufacturing-business-transformations/ 

9) and others that no-doubt could be identified and pondered.

Pistis daydreams a manifesto (weekending October 9th 2021)

 

‽istis reclaims leadership and manifesto consequences (weekending 9th October 2021)

This week, perhaps well in to political party conference season ‽istis, gazing out through Overton's window, starts to daydream... 

‽ a leader arriving to the music of Sara Tavares, or Duncan Chisholm, or Aretha, or Nitin Sahwney, or Natalia Lafourcade, or The Unthanks, or Susana Baca, or Blick Bassy, or Dolly, or Max Richter, or The Buena Vista Social Club, or Show of Hands, or Raquel Tavares, or Bellowhead, or Joan Baez, or Mike Vass, or Susheela Raman, or the AKA Trio, should any give permission, or the sound of silence... what might your entrance music be?

‽ speaking in words poetic and prophetic; humble; qualificautionary; nothing promised in hope of a vote, in vain or in vanity; discussion invited; comments heard and heeded... what might your tone be?

‽  rolling headlines - not necessarily in chronological or progressive order – to perhaps, possibly, maybe include something like this:

● Nothing about you, without you – nothing about us, without us 

● Rights: hierarchical, universal, all living things, recognising duty-bearers and mutual responsibility 

● Defined: individual, family, parish, district, county, national responsibilities, duties and powers

● Health and social care: not for profit, needs-led not means-led

● Honours: nothing bestowed in the name of Empire or at the behest of outgoing leaders or not-so reigning monarchs; titles no longer

● Second chamber: non-hereditary, non-clerical; representative; checking and balancing

● Education and training: lifelong; schools - local, non-selective by means or ability, public where public means not-private.

● Recognising that maybe Kermit was perhaps more spot on than some may think (i); that Planet A is wondrous and enough but midnight seems fast-approaching

● Business: sustainable, just, socially responsible - people and corporations; more co-operative than competitive; profit invested not divested in to private hands

● Income: universal for all citizens; remuneration recognising interlinked  systemic and structural necessities, essential work and workers throughout; CEO, senior managers, directors - salaries linked to an assessment of inter-/co-dependence across the whole company of employees, differentially capped; living wage for all, not gross (or net) excess for some

● People and groups: processes of minoritising, prejudice, discrimination, abuse and the exercise of many and various sources of power - understood, mitigated, counteracted, recompensed, repented 

● Arms: not made, not sold; nuclear disarmament - unilateral

● Tax: at point and place of profit; redistributive; to each according to need, from each according to ability

● Misogyny: understood; a hate crime

● Anti- discrimination

● Justice system: recognising social, familial and psychological factors that may affect capacity and culpability; a penal system - restorative, rehabilitative

● Nation-alism, subsumed - a vision of 'us' all, connected, more the same than different (flags in offices and the corner of video calls from those working from home - only in sandcastles and no bigger than 7cm by 5cm, printed on paper and mounted on a stick!)

● Needs before wants, for all

● Anglican Church: disestablished and with buildings given - converted through local co-operatives and partnerships of apprentices, trades and crafts people, education and training organisations; fair rent, social housing, community meeting and wellbeing spaces included

● Foreign aid: recognising past exploitation, appropriation, development and under-development; reparative, recompensing; repentance

● Evidence-based policy-making

● 50%+ 1: a limited mandate - only ever 'some of the people’s parliament'

● What might your manifesto be?

And then ‽istis woke realising that far more work was needed, in theory and in practice; but also wondering what perhaps, possibly, may happen: 10 minutes after; 10 hours after; 10 days after; 10 weeks after; 10 months after; 10 years later...  

Just imagine‽

© 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...

i) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51BQfPeSK8k