Where has the centre gone? >>>> "...They are ready to provide our shiny new future by providing us with our new shiny things at slither thin margins."

The piece that this was going to be, a piece that will explain the origins of hot:metal:code, is already drafted and will follow soon. In beginning to write about support for bricks and mortar stores I found myself asking, how can we make anything that includes and represents everything without a true centre?

There are lots of places that you can buy Jewellery from, so at every price level there is competition. It stands to reason that if you want to get into the market and carve your niche you must stand out. This was the marketing cliché for a while, but nowadays you are more likely to be advised to simply be, but be excellent. It is unlikely that you are going to find a new niche, where you can settle on your own, for long. We are living in an age where everything moves fast and everything is being challenged. Much of the retail sector has had its margins slashed to compete with on-line competition. Gargantuan players seem to destroy markets at will, undercutting, putting out of business and then filling up the void they created. To an outside observer it looks like a master plan. An algorithm for humanity. By giving us all what we want, cheaper stuff, our on-line retail overlords can amass enough wealth to shape the destiny of mankind even more. Will everyone who sells eventually end up working for them? What will they do with that amount of leverage?

They will do exactly what they have been doing all along, they will obtain even more.

It is good to question the wisdom of allowing this to happen unchecked. They are ready to provide our new shiny future by providing us with our new shiny things at slither thin margins. Then once they’ve truly set themselves up as the kings, queens and saviours of the modern epoch their ultimate plan will become clear, and we will have little or no input into it. But shouldn’t we just settle down and content ourselves with our shiny new things?

You are considered a political luddite if you feel like you want to just slam on the brakes and have a timeout. A pause to consider what we could ultimately lose before allowing the machine to continue. Before we become the machine. There is no time imperative. Why not slow it down? What is wrong in believing that we are better off growing emotionally as a race before we irreversibly change what we are.

It seems we are having our time table set by a group of people whom none of us have elected. If raised as an objection this would pose no major hurdle though. Presumably it won’t be long until they are elected, they have the resources. The precedent has been set. Once in power, rather than whispering their idealistic dollar scented words and steering US (and so world policy) from the background they will be at the wheel.  In fact, their vehicle of choice almost got there. An enormous game of pay to play was about to reach its pay-off phase had Hilary Clinton won the US election. From the reaction when she lost, the sudden closing down of the Clinton Foundation and, the drying up of new ‘donations’, there were obviously some big expectations. Then look at the way that the press has been controlled since Donald Trump’s election and come to your own conclusions about the depth of the collusion. Whatever was said or done, the way that it was reported on was incredibly biased. Personal disbelief at the result was transformed into journalistic tantrum throwing. Chips on shoulders were handed pens. Or was there some other influence? Was the money that was earmarked for the big push being spent elsewhere? Even now there is the constant whisper of an idealism that says everyone should follow their way.  What exactly “their way” is, is not clear. It cannot be distinguished on its own merits. It is characterised only by what it is set up to oppose. The general message is follow our way because it’s the right way, if you need to know why, well, just look at the other way. And, if you are not a cheerleader for our way, or even if you just remain silent, what are you doing? How can you adopt a stance that is so morally wrong? Do you not recognise the moral high-ground when it is so obviously being demonstrated to you?  How could you possibly defend Donald Trump? There must be a dark secret residing in the depth of your soul…

Within the current political climate, we are encouraged to airbrush our past instead of pointing at it owning it and admitting: “Yeah, we used to do that shit, but that’s not us now is it? We’re all US now”. How did it get to this stage? It’s not healthy, it is not inclusive and it is having the opposite effect to what you’d think. If old statues were not politicised (as was managed until relatively recently, in the UK at least) they were nothing but inert pieces of art. Decorative, but largely ignored. But, insist that they must be removed. Tell us that by being there they are exerting influence, that they are somehow glorifying the past, and, it makes me, a centrist, erstwhile idealist, want to stick my neck out and defend them.

It is more understandable to want to remove the art of a nation considered an invader, than to remove the art from a shameful chapter in a countries own history. An invaders art, say in the Ukraine for instance, represents a philosophy that many feel is alien to them. In a sense, it is not yours to own and own up to. Even so, it is still art. And it has a weight of meaning attached to it that makes it interesting. Maybe it gives the viewer an opportunity to Imagine the oppressiveness of a political machine that believed in only one view of the world and to appreciate the history of those unfortunate enough to have been caught up in it. The art itself I imagine as abstract, strange and, awkwardly out of its time.

How about we just agree to treat old statues as art? 99 % invisible. At least until we have arguments over the erection of new statues that are as far reaching. Some will find them abhorrent, some hurtful, and some may admire them but they would mostly just be strange. And usually they’d only ever get the chance to elicit any of these emotions when brought to somebody’s attention. At which point they’d usually hear about a piece of history coloured with the teller’s abstract guilt or disgust. Abstract because the person doing the telling was not there after all. They were not responsible.

Is that how it happens? That disgust at a story of a statue is magnified within the ears of a listener? The listener is at once transformed into an activist. The activist investigates and forms a movement. The movement grows. The story of the statue is gobbled up and repeated. Well-meaning people are given, well…. Meaning.

At this stage, the movement is grounded realistic, objective and gentle. It is open to counter argument and alternative views. The right someone could maybe say:

 “Yes, we could remove the statue, but if you think about it why should we need to? It is a fixture from our history and it represents only what you let it represent. Is taking it down taking down a glorification of a bad deed or man, or is it taking down a symbol of what we were and what we are now not? And that man represented in the statue, can you tell me with certainty what he would be like if he were alive now? What actions would he be taking given the luxury and opportunity of our time? Just what type of who would he be? Do you know? Can you know?  Would he have already perpetrated some similar terrible action in this time? Or would he be just like you, talking to me today? “

Maybe the local amateur historian has a hip-flask takes a swig and carries on:

“…I wonder whether the people of the future will have any understanding for our decisions and behaviours? Decisions we made and behaviour patterns that we followed while facing the unique pressures and mores of our own time.”

The person listening is thoughtful for a moment.

But suddenly the opportunity for a statue to remain art is lost with the trill of a social media notification. The invisible, emotional stakes are raised. The conciliatory arguments from the centre are cast aside. The peaceful local group have just been discovered and trolled by a far-right group. The existence of their movement has been legitimised at an even more meaningful level. There is now no question of ending the movement. Now a hero versus villain dynamic is in place. It’s perpetual. Like a movie franchise.

Now neither side can ever stand down without being seen to have capitulated to the other.

Of course, it cannot be about any moral equivalence when one side so obviously holds the moral high ground; but when this righteous side presses its case there does seem to be a mechanical equivalence in the enforcement of its behaviour with certain political mechanisms from the past. The centre is nullified. A kind of morally superior totalitarianism is unleashed that pummels you with hearts and flowers. Unchallenged, it follows up with a kind of morally charged rhetoric that preaches inclusiveness but, ironically, seems to insist that there should be no tolerance for difference, that if you hold a contrary opinion you are misinformed, unintelligent or worse and, that history can be changed with the removal of its remnants.

So, the extremes push each other further away and at the same time further legitimise each other in each other’s eyes.