19 Sept 2010

A Few Digressions; Modernity, Choice and Lib Dem Conference

After a devestating start (my blackberry was nicked/lost/dissipated into thin air yesterday), I think the whole day picked up greatly.

I want to, and will, digress on modernity.

I recall a time, twelve years ago, when I didn't have a mobile phone. And I didn't miss it. This morning, when I woke and could not tell the time, I was thrown into complete disarray.

All of a sudden, I was at a major city, at a major political event, and I felt completely isolated. Yet why would such a loss make me feel isolated? Surely, the isolation would only occur if I required such a presence of the internet, contact and reaffirment of the indicative survellance structure?

I would be inclined to say, most people feel they choose to communicate with the internet world, the modernity world of social networking and constant awareness. However, I now realise my dependancy on a postmodern concept of reassurance and support that perhaps I had not considered before.

Without the fundemental, and it is to me, internet contact, I feel I cannot identify support and flock mentality. Yet prior to losing it, I didn't realise it was this!

It is ultimately the choice that I am concerned and analysing. Such is the power of the one dimensional man, that we are convinced our purchases into society through modernity are choice of sorts. We chose to engage with social networking, we do not depend on social net working.

It provides a false sense of intimacy that appeases the ego. That generates a validation of social interraction that is integral to gregarious human nature. And yet it is a facade that is facilitated by and perpetuated by modernity and requires technology to maintain. And we consider the technology to be a "choice".

On choice;

Last week I drove passed a cat dead in the road. So when I came back and it was still there, I stopped the car, collected the cat in a carrier bag and attemtped to find it's owner.

To no avail.

Therefore I was left with a dead cat in a carrier bag.

There is a moral there somewhere. Or a metaphor.

On Conference

Delighted to be demonstrated against. One view; I would have done a better job! Home printed A4 banners in black and white. Really, Labour?

I'm genuinely shocked by The Independent Article> This was not the feel I got from the conference at all.

I do wish members would realise we represent 1/6 of the coalition and focus on positive promotion of what we have acheived; Nuclear Power, AV Referendum, Basic Tax Allowance, Free Schools.

There is a need for the party to promote positively what they have acheived not what they want to. And I think we need to start now, not in the future. Carpe Diem

PS I'm not drunk, just tired and introspective, anyone know what the cat thing means?!

4 comments:

  1. I think you should be less harsh on Labour for the banners - perhaps they should have been a little bit more creative with the physical media, like taping pages together to make bigger banners, but anything that can be caught on camera can end up on the internet, can be seen by a million eyes. Where a large banner could stunt your ability to get over to where the cameras are. If you're interested in the post-modern, then this is truly an interesting behaviour!

    But, it's commendable under the pretence of "modern mob mentality" rather than specifically the actions of the Labour Party; they don't deserve the credit.

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  2. Dead cat = Hopeless optimism in the face of the facts? ;-)

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  3. Hi Streve, close I suppose. I was considering it an apt metaphor for political engagement in modern society!

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  4. Sasquatch, my comment was moot after what labour and Unite put us through today http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-11364803

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