IC56 |

George Walford: Steam Engine Time (56)

August 11, 2014

Continued from IC54. Under this title IC54 pointed out that although Buddhism, Christianity and Marxism each had its origins in the idiosyncratic vision of a powerful personality, as they have grown to exercise social influence, becoming established and institutionalised, each of them has departed from the intentions of its founder, coming under determination by one… read more »

George Walford: The Three Ages of Ecology (56)

August 11, 2014

Reprinted, with minimal revision, from Fourth World Review No. 47. – GW In Fourth World Review 40 / 41 the article ‘Start Preparing Now,’ by Kirkpatrick Sale, speaks of destruction of the environment only in connection with expansive European civilization of the last five centuries. If this be all there is to it we face… read more »

George Walford: Domination (56)

August 10, 2014

DOMINATION tends to spread, and the universities display this feature as much as do the other authoritarian institutions. Reviewing a clutch of books on the practice and theory of writing fiction, Malcolm Bradbury tells (not with any hostile intent), how the number of Creative Writing courses has increased. Until quite recently, in the time of… read more »

George Walford: Maintaining Solidarity

August 10, 2014

On Good Friday, 1834, John Henry Newman, later Cardinal, lamented that his position as a minister compelled him to speak his own words; on so solemn a day he would rather have remained silent. Eric Griffiths comments: ‘The heretic wishes ever to speak his own words, the orthodox welcomes the opportunity of shutting up along… read more »

George Walford: Doing the Splits (56)

August 10, 2014

‘Highly intelligent, soft-hearted liberals, who can unite only on issues like freedom of public speech, any threat to which endangers the life of the mind.’ (Lawrence Stone) from Ideological Commentary 56, May 1992.

George Walford: Systematic Ideology (56)

August 10, 2014

SYSTEMATIC ideology ascribes both institutional religion and the law to the one ideology, that of principle / domination. Richard Hughes, writing on transportation, brings out some of the detailed correspondences. He likens the rhetoric and diction, the costume and rituals of the judges to those of the priests. In their addresses the judges delivered the… read more »

George Walford: Women are People

August 10, 2014

History falls short on political correctness, it shows that domination is not peculiar to men. Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Boudicca, Mrs. Gandhi, Mrs. Bandaranaike and Our Lady of Grantham all behaved in much the same way as men holding similar positions. So do women teachers, murderesses, wardresses, judges, chairs and police-women, so do Edith… read more »

George Walford: Happy Families

August 10, 2014

Under this head the Socialist Standard (February) quotes an official report that of the 589 people accused of killing in Scotland 1986-90, only 193 were strangers to the victims. (Rape and child abuse, also, take place mainly between victims and aggressors known to each other). Yet there are people around who want us to exchange… read more »

George Walford: Repudiation

August 10, 2014

S.i. identifies the ideology underlying anarchism as that of repudiation. Two examples: In fact, we regard the notion of Marxist and Anarchist traditions as only holding back revolutionaries today who hold on to either of them – an important element in the development of revolutionary ideas is the rejection of past ideas… revolutionaries today need… read more »

George Walford: The Managers

August 10, 2014

Half a century ago James Burnham saw that the Marxists, calling on us to admire their splendid revolutionary robes, were in fact naked. His book, The Managerial Revolution, [1] showed that socialism had not replaced capital- ism anywhere and had no reasonable prospect of doing so; instead, the managers were taking over. By managers Burnham… read more »