Religion

George Walford: Why It Sells

‘Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead.’ Whether the headline ever appeared or not it makes a good story, and Martyn Lewis, a BBC newscaster, may have had it in mind when making his suggestion. He wants the media to pay greater attention to ‘positive news’; not packing the bulletins with cheerful trivia, but weighing… read more »

Harold Walsby: Science and Utopia

Harold Walsby, founder of the study now known as systematic ideology, began his investigations in 1938-39, first using the title ‘psychopolitics.’ The Social Science Association (October 1944 to 18 January 1956) joined with Messrs. William MacLellan to produce his only book, The Domain of Ideologies. It also issued a number of pamphlets intended for general… read more »

George Walford: Notes & Quotes (62)

NIAT: ‘A reduction in road accidents is a good thing’ might seem to be an absolute truth, but no. Organs for transplants grow increasingly scarce, and surgeons blame the declining number of traffic victims. (Observer 19 Sept). NIAT: ‘Nothing ought to be compulsory reading.’ (Alan Ryan TLS May 21, 9) NIAT: Physical quantities like energy… read more »

George Walford: Expediency

In the late 16th Century John Hawkins, one of those rumbustious Elizabethan sea-captains, commanded a trading fleet intending to buy slaves from African rulers and sell them in the New World. The Spaniards, having been granted exclusive rights in America by the Pope, disapproved of this practice but Hawkins relied on his own ingenuity, and… read more »

George Walford: Freedom in Freedom

Interest in theory grows with ideological development. The expedient group hardly attempts to justify its behaviour, while towards the eidodynamic end of the range attention becomes focused on theory, even to the point where practical application drops out of sight. Anarchists tend to place high value upon concepts, logically unassailable, which do nothing to help… read more »

George Walford: Ideology in Practice

POPULATION: Between 1960 and 1990 the population of Kenya quadrupled, from 6.3m to 25.1m. In the same period the population of Africa (including the North African states) has jumped from 281 to 647m; it is expected to treble, reaching nearly 2,000 million, by 2025. The only serious prospect (it can hardly be called a hope)… read more »

George Walford: Forward to Nature

Humanity may have arisen from the apes rather than descended from the angels, but some thinkers see its later history as a decline; condemning our present ways of living they look back with nostalgia to the life of the original stateless communities. Engels set the theme with ‘primitive communism’ in his Origin of the Family,… read more »

George Walford: Notes & Quotes (61)

NIAT: ‘Perfect co-ordination is achieved only when there is nothing to co-ordinate.’ (C. N. Parkinson). NIAT: Bob Black offers a statement (from Harpo Marx) which is absolutely true, not in any way false, questionable or even conditional: ” .” NOTHING washes whiter than Persil. CAPITALISM causes war? Might as well say that computers cause calculation…. read more »

George Walford: Eastern Ideology

A. C. Graham 1991 Unreason Within Reason: Essays on the Outskirts of Rationality Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company. 309 pages. Cloth 0-8126-9166-0 $59.95; Paper 0-8126-9167-9 $19.95. Reviewed by George Walford. Physical science, high technology, market capitalism and political democracy belong to a syndrome. Although now worldwide, it emerged spontaneously only in western Europe, arriving elsewhere… read more »

George Walford: The Rational Effort

For people who claim to be rational, or trying to become so, one task overrides all others: to understand the society we both inhabit and constitute. Only by doing this can we hope to understand ourselves, our gods or our environment, for all of these are largely produced by our ideology-governed society. People display different… read more »

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