There's a very badly-written film about how a group of men in their late twenties "grow up". Apparantly the original was a big hit in the Netherlands, but the British version sunk without trace to the bargain bins at Fopp. Sadly I borrowed it from Blockbusters just before I stopped borrowing anything there at all. The writer clearly didn't like the male characters and to judge from his script has had a life full of demanding and judging women. Or maybe that's how he sees them. Right from the opening scene the guys have no chance against Billie Piper's character, who is... well, I'm not sure Ms Piper or the writer understood that most of the audience would assume by the end that she was a closet lesbian: why else would she be going out with such a nebbesh?
What the writer missed is that when someone asks you when you're going to "grow up", they are not asking you about the course of your personal development. They aren't even asking you a question. They are just trying to shame you. "You did something that I didn't like / didn't want you to do / embarrassed me / doesn't fit into my plans / generally pissed me off." That's all it means. They have no idea what they might mean by "growing up" - except "not behaving like a child / idiot / spoiled brat / teenager / whatever", which is sort of circular.
The law says you're an adult when you reach your eighteenth birthday, because that's the age it's decided you can't claim you're a dumb kid with no sense that your actions have consequences for which you are responsible. That's the core of the idea: that you become responsible for the course of your life and the foreseeable consequences of your actions.
By contrast, being a grown-up used to be about taking a role in a community, having a status, a standing, an identity. From which it follows: no community, no grown-ups. There are no grown-ups in the suburbs,because the suburbs aren't a community. Post-modern capitalism attempts to substitute "economy" for "community", so that you're grown-up when you have a job, a pension plan, a mortgage and other debts and possessions. Of course it would: what better than to link a moral virtue with consumption? You can't be a grown-up at the office, because you aren't you there, you're the function. Replaceable by with the same "skill-set", disposable when the management decide to play musical chairs.
Due to the lack of effective birth control, parenthood usually happened around the same time as you took your place in your community. Parenthood was a co-incidence, not a component. One thing a grown-up isn't, and that's the couple with the trophy wailing baby, the trophy pram blocking the aisles, the trophy SUV blocking traffic as they try to turn right, the two-salary mortgage, the wedding plans and an air of entitlement as strong as the smell of a brewery at fresh hops time. Consumer toys make them consumers, not grown-ups or parents.
So if we can't be grown-up the old-fashioned way, is there a new-fashioned way that makes sense? It's tempting to suppose it's about behaviour: dignity, restraint, appropriate playfulness, and other such. The catch that a child can behave like that - even if it's slightly scary when they do. Personally, I don't think you're a grown-up until you've been made redundant at short notice and learned that you can't just "get a job", but that's really about learning a little humility. I suspect surgeons don't "grow-up" until they've had their first death on the table, but that's about professionalism, not moral fiber. "Grown-up" is as opposed to "child": the kids sleep in the back of the car after a long day out, the grown-ups drive them home and tuck them up in bed. Grown-ups can be depended on by children and won't deepen the insecurities of women; they are reliable, trustworthy, don't say they can do what they can't and do do what they say they can. Amongst men, grown-ups deliver and amongst women and children, grown-up men protect.
That's the idea, anyway. The truth is that "grown-ups" only exist in the eyes of children. Just as every generation deplores those younger for having no manners and being functionally illiterate, so every generation wonders who amongst its own can replace the grown-ups it knew when it was young. No-one can, because those very grown-ups were wondering the same thing. If you're over thirty, have stopped binge-drinking and don't do drugs, hold down a job, don't live with your parents, don't expect other people to fix you, exercise some financial caution and generally keep your promises, you're a grown-up. If you're still calling everyone "dahling" or living off debt and dodgy jobs, you have a way to go. You can ignore your parents when they ask when you're going to grow up - they are just resentful you haven't produced a grandchild for them - and you can ignore your girlfriend as well - she has to learn that other people can't ease that chronic insecurity she feels.
In the next post, I'll talk about what you can make a movie about, if you can't make one about "growing up"
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Monday, 6 December 2010
Why Philosophy?
There's an article on Arts and Letters Daily in the New York Times that asks philosophers why they study the subject, and maybe why other people should. And suitably judged and academic their answers are. Here's mine.
Why Philosophy? Because if you haven't studied epistemology, basic mathematical logic, informal logic, rhetoric and moral philosophy you are going to be hoodwinked by every charlatan and false priest who can string together words - or worse, you will simply ignore it all for fear of being hoodwinked and learn nothing. You wouldn't go out on the streets without having the basic skills of self-defence, would you? Oh. That's right. Almost all of us do. That's why you don't tell that irritating jerk to speak softly or not at all (because you know you can't handle yourself in a fight), and it's why you let people talk the most utter crap (partly because you're polite, but mostly because you can't handle yourself in an argument).
The same line has you learning some science and hence some mathematics as well - especially statistics and statistical reasoning. Oh. And law. And medicine. You have plenty of time. What else are you going to do? Take a Business Studies degree? Read a Dan Brown novel? Prepare yourself for the endless fight against bullshit, spin and ignorance that is the life of an engaged adult in today's world: start with a class in self-defence and a short reading list in Western Philosophy. Aristotle's Nichomanean Ethics, Descartes' Meditations, Locke's Essay On The Human Understanding, J S Mill's On Liberty, William James' Pragmatism, Imre Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations, Karl Popper's Conjectures and Refutations. Come back for the reading list on informal logic and statistical reasoning later.
Why Philosophy? Because if you haven't studied epistemology, basic mathematical logic, informal logic, rhetoric and moral philosophy you are going to be hoodwinked by every charlatan and false priest who can string together words - or worse, you will simply ignore it all for fear of being hoodwinked and learn nothing. You wouldn't go out on the streets without having the basic skills of self-defence, would you? Oh. That's right. Almost all of us do. That's why you don't tell that irritating jerk to speak softly or not at all (because you know you can't handle yourself in a fight), and it's why you let people talk the most utter crap (partly because you're polite, but mostly because you can't handle yourself in an argument).
The same line has you learning some science and hence some mathematics as well - especially statistics and statistical reasoning. Oh. And law. And medicine. You have plenty of time. What else are you going to do? Take a Business Studies degree? Read a Dan Brown novel? Prepare yourself for the endless fight against bullshit, spin and ignorance that is the life of an engaged adult in today's world: start with a class in self-defence and a short reading list in Western Philosophy. Aristotle's Nichomanean Ethics, Descartes' Meditations, Locke's Essay On The Human Understanding, J S Mill's On Liberty, William James' Pragmatism, Imre Lakatos' Proofs and Refutations, Karl Popper's Conjectures and Refutations. Come back for the reading list on informal logic and statistical reasoning later.
Friday, 3 December 2010
The Generations Game
It's been Diversity Week at The Bank. In common with all large institutional British companies, The Bank is pretty much British, white and middle-class, except for a handful of second-generation Indians and Chinese/Hong Kong/Japanese middle-class graduates, and the usual smattering of EC and ex-Colonial white middle-class graduates whose partners have real jobs in the City. You will search for a long long time before you see a West Indian or an African face in the Bank and even longer if you look in the ranks of "senior management" and above. Now this is partly because most of the British population is white (check the statistics - the rest of Britain is not like East London) and you need to be half-way numerate and literate, hence educated - or at least have a Business Studies degree - and hence middle-class, to work in banking. In other words, you're going to have a tough time demonstrating a lot of Diversity - compared with, say, an inner-London Local Council.
They did "Generational Diversity" and trotted out a graphic with Boomers, Generation Y and Generation X. It's a hoot. I've edited the graphic to protect my sources so you can chuckle away. For one thing, these are the US generations, not the UK ones, but that's really just a quibble.
The “Generations” idea isn’t serious psycho-sociology, or whatever discipline it should fall into. It’s a marketing device: you’d never heard of “The Greatest Generation” until “Saving Private Ryan”, “Band of Brothers” and all those other Second World War TV series and books. The idea that people will have similar attitudes and expectations just because they were born in the same (say) ten-year period is about as silly as astrology – except that astrology does a lot more detail. There was a spate of petty house-breakings in the early 1980’s: that had nothing to do with the weak moral fibre of the young men born twenty years previously, it was caused by the increased availability of cocaine and heroin combined with the availability of an easily stolen, easily-fenced high-value item: the video player. The disillusion of older people with corporations is not a function of when they were born: it’s how anyone would feel when they have seen all their friends and neighbours get dumped out of work because their employers are run by barely competent, socially irresponsible stock-market cronies. Career dynamics mean that you don’t see this happening to you and yours until you hit thirty-five or so. (But let’s not get into politics.) The attitudes of age-grouped people are due to their experiences, not their date of birth or even the circumstances of their birth. That puts politicians, bureaucrats and business managers on the hook for those attitudes – how much nicer to say it’s because there was no Internet when the disgruntled were born.
Not everyone is included in the “Generation”. Generation Y are supposed to have “multi-cultural ease”. Really? This applies to UK Indian boys who import village girls from back home because they find the Indian girls they went to school with too Westernised? How about the West Indians boys in Brixton who call anyone who aims to be a white-collar worker a “Coconut”? Or the young white lads in the National Front? Not so much. What it means is that nice middle-class graduate boys and girls of many ethnicities get on with each other and eat each other’s food – which is not surprising because it's not the ethnicity that's important but the middle-class graduate bit. Englishmen were marrying Indian women way back in the 1800’s. Attraction has always been ethnicity-free and it has always been culture-specific (smart people mix with smart people, cool people with cool people, outcasts with outcasts, normals with normals).
Remember, “Generations” is a marketing game, so the base population is the one your client can sell to. In the polarised world of post-modern capitalism, that tends to mean those nice middle-class graduate boys and girls of many ethnicities. They’re the ones with the money – outside the City. While we’re on the cultural thing, the “Generation” excludes people with strong morals (aka “religious beliefs”), other assorted outcasts and I’m not so sure it doesn’t exclude all the quiet apolitical people who do their jobs, raise their children to be reasonable people and have never been to an Apple Store or a steampunk event. Within whoever is left, some people will have had good luck, some bad luck, some were just born mess-ups and a few were born into money, contacts and influence. Even if they all went to the same school back in the day, they haven’t had the same lives and may have little in common with one another except a superannuated teenage pop culture.
Look at the details. Notice how "autonomy regarding work tasks" is a value for the older guys but not the younger? Actually, everyone wants that, but it's not so possible with young folk who do the junior and more process-bound roles. How convenient that they don't want it!
The question is why a serious company such as The Bank would go in for this twaddle. In this case, it's an easy way to tick a box no-one cares about anyway. And some people call me cynical.
They did "Generational Diversity" and trotted out a graphic with Boomers, Generation Y and Generation X. It's a hoot. I've edited the graphic to protect my sources so you can chuckle away. For one thing, these are the US generations, not the UK ones, but that's really just a quibble.
The “Generations” idea isn’t serious psycho-sociology, or whatever discipline it should fall into. It’s a marketing device: you’d never heard of “The Greatest Generation” until “Saving Private Ryan”, “Band of Brothers” and all those other Second World War TV series and books. The idea that people will have similar attitudes and expectations just because they were born in the same (say) ten-year period is about as silly as astrology – except that astrology does a lot more detail. There was a spate of petty house-breakings in the early 1980’s: that had nothing to do with the weak moral fibre of the young men born twenty years previously, it was caused by the increased availability of cocaine and heroin combined with the availability of an easily stolen, easily-fenced high-value item: the video player. The disillusion of older people with corporations is not a function of when they were born: it’s how anyone would feel when they have seen all their friends and neighbours get dumped out of work because their employers are run by barely competent, socially irresponsible stock-market cronies. Career dynamics mean that you don’t see this happening to you and yours until you hit thirty-five or so. (But let’s not get into politics.) The attitudes of age-grouped people are due to their experiences, not their date of birth or even the circumstances of their birth. That puts politicians, bureaucrats and business managers on the hook for those attitudes – how much nicer to say it’s because there was no Internet when the disgruntled were born.
Not everyone is included in the “Generation”. Generation Y are supposed to have “multi-cultural ease”. Really? This applies to UK Indian boys who import village girls from back home because they find the Indian girls they went to school with too Westernised? How about the West Indians boys in Brixton who call anyone who aims to be a white-collar worker a “Coconut”? Or the young white lads in the National Front? Not so much. What it means is that nice middle-class graduate boys and girls of many ethnicities get on with each other and eat each other’s food – which is not surprising because it's not the ethnicity that's important but the middle-class graduate bit. Englishmen were marrying Indian women way back in the 1800’s. Attraction has always been ethnicity-free and it has always been culture-specific (smart people mix with smart people, cool people with cool people, outcasts with outcasts, normals with normals).
Remember, “Generations” is a marketing game, so the base population is the one your client can sell to. In the polarised world of post-modern capitalism, that tends to mean those nice middle-class graduate boys and girls of many ethnicities. They’re the ones with the money – outside the City. While we’re on the cultural thing, the “Generation” excludes people with strong morals (aka “religious beliefs”), other assorted outcasts and I’m not so sure it doesn’t exclude all the quiet apolitical people who do their jobs, raise their children to be reasonable people and have never been to an Apple Store or a steampunk event. Within whoever is left, some people will have had good luck, some bad luck, some were just born mess-ups and a few were born into money, contacts and influence. Even if they all went to the same school back in the day, they haven’t had the same lives and may have little in common with one another except a superannuated teenage pop culture.
Look at the details. Notice how "autonomy regarding work tasks" is a value for the older guys but not the younger? Actually, everyone wants that, but it's not so possible with young folk who do the junior and more process-bound roles. How convenient that they don't want it!
The question is why a serious company such as The Bank would go in for this twaddle. In this case, it's an easy way to tick a box no-one cares about anyway. And some people call me cynical.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Untitled (Photographs Two)
Three more photographs, two taken on a trip to my Osteo (earlier entries passim) and one more from the walk round Virginia Water.
(The GPO Tower Across A Building Site)
(The Gulley, Red Leaves)
(The Stone Lawn, Harley Street)
Monday, 29 November 2010
Employment Market Opportunists Number 15: The Money Launderer Again
This week's dodgy e-mail came from someone's mailing list. The lead-in name is david@dpetherbridge.freeserve.co.uk. Here you go...
(starts)
Hello.
Worldwide association Auction Centre , based in the United States, is looking for new assistants for cooperation at distant office, in the United Kingdom. We propose flexible schedules full-time and part-time available. These careers concentrate on providing administrative representation in online auction sales.
Auction Centre presents best auction decisions, concentrated on market research and growth as well as database control.
The main duties of the job as a Representative will include but are not limited to: compiling and maintaining records of business transactions; preparing and sending out invoices and checks; performing basic bookkeeping and routine tasks such as operating the administrative and partially financial fields of the Auction Centre activities, preparing payroll, and other office activities.
Professional Characteristics:
- Giving a priority to customer needs manager
- Demonstrates a high level of personal accountability
- Thinks about the team first over individual issues
Basic Requirements:
- Internet Access
- Microsoft Office
- Basic Accounting Skills
If you are interested in this job please contact us via email.
Have a happy day,
Auction Centre Team
(ends)
By now, you don't need me to tell you this is a 100% money-laundering scam. Test yourself on how many implausible things you can find. Whoever wrote had English as their second European language and French as their first ("We propose flexible schedules"). That means West Africa - nah - or the Far East. Is this Vietnamese? I suspect the "have a happy day" is a giveaway - it's an American thing, so we're looking for French with an American influence. I'm going with Vietnam here.
(starts)
Hello.
Worldwide association Auction Centre , based in the United States, is looking for new assistants for cooperation at distant office, in the United Kingdom. We propose flexible schedules full-time and part-time available. These careers concentrate on providing administrative representation in online auction sales.
Auction Centre presents best auction decisions, concentrated on market research and growth as well as database control.
The main duties of the job as a Representative will include but are not limited to: compiling and maintaining records of business transactions; preparing and sending out invoices and checks; performing basic bookkeeping and routine tasks such as operating the administrative and partially financial fields of the Auction Centre activities, preparing payroll, and other office activities.
Professional Characteristics:
- Giving a priority to customer needs manager
- Demonstrates a high level of personal accountability
- Thinks about the team first over individual issues
Basic Requirements:
- Internet Access
- Microsoft Office
- Basic Accounting Skills
If you are interested in this job please contact us via email.
Have a happy day,
Auction Centre Team
(ends)
By now, you don't need me to tell you this is a 100% money-laundering scam. Test yourself on how many implausible things you can find. Whoever wrote had English as their second European language and French as their first ("We propose flexible schedules"). That means West Africa - nah - or the Far East. Is this Vietnamese? I suspect the "have a happy day" is a giveaway - it's an American thing, so we're looking for French with an American influence. I'm going with Vietnam here.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Reflections on Holly Golightly
Just what is it about Breakfast at Tiffany's and Holly Golightly? There's La Hepburn's look and performance, of course. There's a nicely-judged masala of silly comedy (Micky Rooney), adult stuff (George Peppard and Patricia Neal), romance, heartbreak (Holly's previous husband) and some neat legerdemain with Holly's weekly visits to the crime boss. There's the bits where Holly makes fools of the men she suckers in nightclubs and her ease with cafe society - very appealing to teenage girls of all ages - and the collapse of her dreams of marrying into wealth, which is also very reassuring to suburban teenage girls everywhere, as it confirms that they aren't missing a trick because there are no tricks to miss. Most of all there is the portrayal of life as dizzy and basically innocent fun. With handsome men. Which, oddly, is very appealing to teenage girls everywhere. It's so easy to get a bit of Holly for yourself. Say "Darling" and change your mind a lot, and avoid anything that feels remotely serious.
Holly Golightly was a role model for many thousands of women of my generation. It was a long time before I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's. When I did, I saw fifteen minutes of Holly Golightly and said "Margie". Margie behaved as if she was going to marry up to some Kensington Male, and for a long time we thought that was a real ambition. So did she, which might explain her breakdown in early middle age when it had clearly reached a point where it wasn't going to happen. First, she didn't quite have the looks to compete with the Guildford Girls; second, I'm not sure she had the tolerance for functional sex needed for the task; third, no-one raised in that household with those parents in that marriage could possibly get the idea that marriage was desirable. She thought of men as something to be manipulated and tolerated, and that's not how men think of themselves. I suspect she understood somewhere in her psyche where secrets are recognised but never spoken that her life was not going anywhere special and being Holly throughout her twenties gave her a way to pretend it was. After all, Holly herself falls romantically for a writer who has so far been supported by a wealthy sponsor. (A relationship as far as I know used twice in mainstream movies: the other one is in An American In Paris.) But whereas Holly had actually left a perfectly fine - if backwoods - marriage, Margie had never seen one. Holly had a role model for the future of her relationship with George Peppard: Margie didn't.
That generation of women could use Holly as a role-model because they didn't understand the details. Today's girls do understand the details: for one thing, there is no way they can get a flat anywhere in Manhattan (no-one can). For another, they know that her early mornings and general breeziness are sustained by taking drugs - maybe the amphetamines were better back then, but I'm betting the real Hollies all blew a little pot to come down after a night running the suckers round the nightclubs. Above all, today's girls have jobs and have had since they left education. The job might be as a Good Mother or it might be as an HR Drone, but it's a job, and likely more secure than any partner's. I'm guessing the suburban girl looks at Breakfast at Tiffany's and sees it as an historical curio: Audrey's glamour is still there, but it's the glamour of a museum piece, like a Fortuny dress in the V&A. Your contemporary suburban girl knows that modern glamour takes luck, hard work and a single-minded ambition: Victoria Beckham taught her that.
None of which stops the opening of Breakfast at Tiffany's being one of the Top Five Movie Openings Of All Time. Or one of the best constructed stories in the movies. It may be time to retire it from "iconic" to "historical curio" though.
Holly Golightly was a role model for many thousands of women of my generation. It was a long time before I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's. When I did, I saw fifteen minutes of Holly Golightly and said "Margie". Margie behaved as if she was going to marry up to some Kensington Male, and for a long time we thought that was a real ambition. So did she, which might explain her breakdown in early middle age when it had clearly reached a point where it wasn't going to happen. First, she didn't quite have the looks to compete with the Guildford Girls; second, I'm not sure she had the tolerance for functional sex needed for the task; third, no-one raised in that household with those parents in that marriage could possibly get the idea that marriage was desirable. She thought of men as something to be manipulated and tolerated, and that's not how men think of themselves. I suspect she understood somewhere in her psyche where secrets are recognised but never spoken that her life was not going anywhere special and being Holly throughout her twenties gave her a way to pretend it was. After all, Holly herself falls romantically for a writer who has so far been supported by a wealthy sponsor. (A relationship as far as I know used twice in mainstream movies: the other one is in An American In Paris.) But whereas Holly had actually left a perfectly fine - if backwoods - marriage, Margie had never seen one. Holly had a role model for the future of her relationship with George Peppard: Margie didn't.
That generation of women could use Holly as a role-model because they didn't understand the details. Today's girls do understand the details: for one thing, there is no way they can get a flat anywhere in Manhattan (no-one can). For another, they know that her early mornings and general breeziness are sustained by taking drugs - maybe the amphetamines were better back then, but I'm betting the real Hollies all blew a little pot to come down after a night running the suckers round the nightclubs. Above all, today's girls have jobs and have had since they left education. The job might be as a Good Mother or it might be as an HR Drone, but it's a job, and likely more secure than any partner's. I'm guessing the suburban girl looks at Breakfast at Tiffany's and sees it as an historical curio: Audrey's glamour is still there, but it's the glamour of a museum piece, like a Fortuny dress in the V&A. Your contemporary suburban girl knows that modern glamour takes luck, hard work and a single-minded ambition: Victoria Beckham taught her that.
None of which stops the opening of Breakfast at Tiffany's being one of the Top Five Movie Openings Of All Time. Or one of the best constructed stories in the movies. It may be time to retire it from "iconic" to "historical curio" though.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Alasdair MacIntyre and Fantasy Moral Philosophy
There's a neat article on Alasdair MacIntyre on Arts and Letters Daily. It's broadly approving of the Great Man, which you can tell by this quote:
"Ever since he published his key text After Virtue in 1981, he has argued that moral behaviour begins with the good practice of a profession, trade, or art: playing the violin, cutting hair, brick-laying, teaching philosophy. Through these everyday social practices, he maintains, people develop the appropriate virtues. In other words, the virtues necessary for human flourishing are not a result of the top-down application of abstract ethical principles, but the development of good character in everyday life.... MacIntyre yearns for a single, shared view of the good life as opposed to modern pluralism’s assumption that there can be many competing views of how to live well."
I bet you were nodding along, if not admiring the solemn seriousness of it all. "Good practice of a profession", "everyday social practices", "appropriate virtues", "development of good character in everyday life", "single, shared view of the good life". How many questions can you beg in so few phrases? And how much naivety about people can you show?
There is absolutely no connection between being good at your trade and being a decent person. In fact, everything I know about being any good at anything tells me that the relationship is slightly negative: the better you are at your trade, the more time and energy you have put into it and the less you have for family, friends and assorted Good Deeds. I have met people with very high energy levels who can consult with McKinsey, sit on the board of a charity, snowboard at the weekend and play with the kids - but they had the salaries to afford it. I have also met people who are not very good at anything much, oh, except being parents and citizens.
What irritates me is the implicit assumption that the world is organised in such a way that we can thrive, feed our families and be fulfilled craftsmen and virtuous at the same time. How does anyone thrive on a nurse's salary? How does anyone live honestly when they have to bribe the railway clerks to buy a ticket? How does someone even learn a craft if their employer has no training programme and keeps dumbing-down the work? And who said that we would all fall in love with the girl (or boy) next door? Given the make-up of households today, the odds against there even being a girl (or boy) next door are shorter than you might think.
There is no guarantee we will meet people with whom we can develop loving relationships, or that we will find someone to employ us to do something we find satisfying. Many people have such limited opportunities and hard circumstances that religion or whiskey are the only way they can get through the interminable months. Others enter their adult years so emotionally bruised and suspicious that they could not start and then sustain the relationships needed to work and love well. And so many of us turn to substitutes. There is nothing ignoble about substitutes, if we have little chance of getting the real thing. The religious enthusiasts, New Age mystics, compulsive computer-gamers and sorrow-drowners should be left alone: it is simply impolite to tell them they are missing out without also showing them how they could start to live well despite these disadvantages.
As for the idea that we should have a shared idea of the Good Life? How excellent that sounds, until you remember that we live in a world where there is not enough of anything worth having. There's sorrow, poverty, starvation, ill-health, contempt, ignorance, hatred and anger for every man and woman alive, with some over for seconds all round. The good stuff is in short supply - sunshine in Northern Europe, rain in Chad - because that's the way of the world. It's actually better for us to have different ideas of what the good stuff is: that way more of us might get satisfied. If you like fast cars and I like works of art, we can both satisfy ourselves without competing: if everyone agrees that Pre-Raphaelite art is the thing, almost all of them are going to be disappointed.
It simply won't do to pontificate in such a circular manner with assumptions about the world that just aren't true. It's too much reading Aristotle, of course. You have to have absorbed Aristotle to use words like "virtue" and mean it. Aristotle could do it because he was writing and speaking for an elite and wealthy audience, not merchants, barbers and brick-layers. (I have a feeling he says that such people can't actually live virtuous lives because their pursuits won't let them.) Our modern philosophers are not, and it would be a cruelty to their students and readers if they did. We need philosophers who are going to deal with the real world - one in which there is not even a link between obtaining a degree in philosophy and subsequently finding employment, and no link between employment and being able to afford somewhere to live an independent life.
"Ever since he published his key text After Virtue in 1981, he has argued that moral behaviour begins with the good practice of a profession, trade, or art: playing the violin, cutting hair, brick-laying, teaching philosophy. Through these everyday social practices, he maintains, people develop the appropriate virtues. In other words, the virtues necessary for human flourishing are not a result of the top-down application of abstract ethical principles, but the development of good character in everyday life.... MacIntyre yearns for a single, shared view of the good life as opposed to modern pluralism’s assumption that there can be many competing views of how to live well."
I bet you were nodding along, if not admiring the solemn seriousness of it all. "Good practice of a profession", "everyday social practices", "appropriate virtues", "development of good character in everyday life", "single, shared view of the good life". How many questions can you beg in so few phrases? And how much naivety about people can you show?
There is absolutely no connection between being good at your trade and being a decent person. In fact, everything I know about being any good at anything tells me that the relationship is slightly negative: the better you are at your trade, the more time and energy you have put into it and the less you have for family, friends and assorted Good Deeds. I have met people with very high energy levels who can consult with McKinsey, sit on the board of a charity, snowboard at the weekend and play with the kids - but they had the salaries to afford it. I have also met people who are not very good at anything much, oh, except being parents and citizens.
What irritates me is the implicit assumption that the world is organised in such a way that we can thrive, feed our families and be fulfilled craftsmen and virtuous at the same time. How does anyone thrive on a nurse's salary? How does anyone live honestly when they have to bribe the railway clerks to buy a ticket? How does someone even learn a craft if their employer has no training programme and keeps dumbing-down the work? And who said that we would all fall in love with the girl (or boy) next door? Given the make-up of households today, the odds against there even being a girl (or boy) next door are shorter than you might think.
There is no guarantee we will meet people with whom we can develop loving relationships, or that we will find someone to employ us to do something we find satisfying. Many people have such limited opportunities and hard circumstances that religion or whiskey are the only way they can get through the interminable months. Others enter their adult years so emotionally bruised and suspicious that they could not start and then sustain the relationships needed to work and love well. And so many of us turn to substitutes. There is nothing ignoble about substitutes, if we have little chance of getting the real thing. The religious enthusiasts, New Age mystics, compulsive computer-gamers and sorrow-drowners should be left alone: it is simply impolite to tell them they are missing out without also showing them how they could start to live well despite these disadvantages.
As for the idea that we should have a shared idea of the Good Life? How excellent that sounds, until you remember that we live in a world where there is not enough of anything worth having. There's sorrow, poverty, starvation, ill-health, contempt, ignorance, hatred and anger for every man and woman alive, with some over for seconds all round. The good stuff is in short supply - sunshine in Northern Europe, rain in Chad - because that's the way of the world. It's actually better for us to have different ideas of what the good stuff is: that way more of us might get satisfied. If you like fast cars and I like works of art, we can both satisfy ourselves without competing: if everyone agrees that Pre-Raphaelite art is the thing, almost all of them are going to be disappointed.
It simply won't do to pontificate in such a circular manner with assumptions about the world that just aren't true. It's too much reading Aristotle, of course. You have to have absorbed Aristotle to use words like "virtue" and mean it. Aristotle could do it because he was writing and speaking for an elite and wealthy audience, not merchants, barbers and brick-layers. (I have a feeling he says that such people can't actually live virtuous lives because their pursuits won't let them.) Our modern philosophers are not, and it would be a cruelty to their students and readers if they did. We need philosophers who are going to deal with the real world - one in which there is not even a link between obtaining a degree in philosophy and subsequently finding employment, and no link between employment and being able to afford somewhere to live an independent life.
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