I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD TWEETS


There was a speech last week made by Maria Miller the Culture Secretary. In this speech, which, though widely reported, seems now to have sunk without trace, Ms Miller set out the governments priorities respecting the arts. This speech was the clearest indication of not only this government’s ideological basis but more widely that of the whole ruling elite. I qoute:-

Culture Secretary Maria Miller has said the arts world must make the case for public funding by focusing on its economic, not artistic, value.
She told arts executives in a speech that they must "hammer home the value of culture to our economy".
Ms Miller said: "When times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture's economic impact."

But arts organisations were told they should "demonstrate the healthy dividends that our investment continues to pay".
Ms Miller said British culture was "perhaps the most powerful and compelling product we have available to us", especially after the success of last year's Olympics and Paralympics.
"Either way, British culture and creativity are now more in demand than ever before... The world clearly thinks this is a commodity worth buying into," she said. [1]


There you have it in a couple of sound-bites, the whole rationale for the arts, for the creative spirit and imaginative life of the mind; creating a commodities worth buying into; to describe this cretinous speech as intellectually bankrupt would be to praise too highly.
 What is truly and deeply depressing is that Ms Miller is merely giving voice to the dismal ideology that is shaping the world we are now all being forced to inhabit. The arts, dance, drama, music are now to be judged solely on their ability to bring in the tourists, to attract paying audiences.
The rot though goes deeper still. Few now even bother to argue for education as having an intrinsic value in its own right; it is to be seen purely through the prism of economic utility that is on its ability to produce employable and productive people, no longer citizens but employees of UK PLC.
The message is no longer even subliminal: Work until you drop.  It’s a hard world out there, the Chinese, Brazilians, and Indians all are knocking at the door. Libraries, museums, unless they can somehow be made to pa no longer have a rationale. Indeed the whole concept of leisure itself has suddenly become a luxury we can no longer afford. All must now strive under the slogan:-

WORK SETS YOU FREE

 Even those with disabilities need to recognise they must become productive; and whenever we are not being productive we must consume. Neither to produce or to consume renders one a  non person, dead weight, a burden on the state, surplus to requirements. We have become ‘human resources.’

        *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *

Now by the time anyone has hit 45 a rather stark truth has hit home, life, before it is anything else, is incredibly short. Given this bald reality anyone with any sensibility must face the unavoidable question, how is one to spend the time that is left.
 Now it could be that your answer to this question is “I want to become more of a ‘striver,’[2] I want to spend more time at work.” Then again if you are like me you may think not. You might like Houseman conclude:-

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.[3]

If you do so conclude be aware that you will be engaged in a subversive act, admiring cherry blossom being a distinctly unproductive activity. You are brought directly into conflict with the prevailing ideology. Take one step further and begin to see and extol the virtues of idleness and contemplation and you become an enemy of the state.

I happen to believe that life is too short, too precious to allow oneself to be reduced to a mere unit of production, a human resource. A refusal to accept this agenda is what gets me out of bed in the morning. If I can, even to the slightest degree, dent this disgusting anti-life ideology then my days are not wholly wasted.

Though if we are to reject this vision of a world made safe for unregulated capitalism this may involve some sacrifice of living standards; though since these standards are already being eroded this may not in the long term prove such a sacrifice. However a rejection of purely material values might involve the loss of, for example, your smartphone; you might no longer be able to tweet. Mind you isn't tweeting the activity that caged birds engage in?


HAPPY MAY DAY 



[2] I do not use the word aspire since this is a misuse of language the dictionary definition: being be eagerly desirous, especially for something great or of high value. The meaning of aspiration, when applied by government spokesman  when speaking of the need to inflict desire upon the average citizen,  is the exact opposite.
[3] A E Houseman ‘Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now’
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