Revolution

 There is an illusion our culture has fallen under. The concept of endless growth from finite resources is something that only Jesus has managed with his fish and loaves magic. Now we have to address the fact that, as a people we have blown tomorrows money. The game is up.

The extreme capitalism that all recent governments have promoted has left politicians incapable of seeing other options. The Tories may help the few to keep more and socialists call for redistribution. The idea of enforced meritocracy may enable those who are born poor but smart to escape their background but offers nothing to the stupid, the ugly and the just plain unlucky. As all talent drifts upwards environments are left without wisdom or heroes. We must change if we are to develope.

Each time I turn on the TV I hear the patronising consevative voices of Jeremy Kyle or David Cameron telling folk that they should get a job. No thought for purpose, just work. We can't all work anymore but we can all find purpose in life.

Looking for meaning outside of wealth is something all young people should be taught. Born in to shelter and food but little else I was fortunate to have a father who was a naturalist and bar stool philosopher. With an interest in wildlife and reading few days are dull. Socialist redistribution just reshuffles the cards of the same game.

With money you can change your environment. People need to learn to adapt. The answer to many of Kyles victims is not to get a job, get money, escape. There are not sufficient jobs. The answer is to live in ways that render wealth irelevant. We need to eat and sleep dry, of course, but entering a game rigged for you to lose deprives life of all meaning.

The skills to tap in to the true wonders of life that transcend money trump all others skills. Creative skills, the ability to make, thinking, debate, observing, gaining knowledge for its' own sake all come cheap. The idea that we need a job or even a place at university in preference to  an interest and the ability to learn is simply wrong. We have lost some, not all of the community and family skill transference where a child may learn their wildlife or joinery from uncles but cheap technology has rushed in exposure to vast information resources.

It isn't the fact the rich seal off routes to join them that is killing us but a cultural depression that has set in. Children are being groomed by television to think X Factor or the lottery will pluck them and place them in  a new world. Knowing this to be trivia should be available to all.

We need to see money as the problem, not the solution. It will always be necessary but as a measure of worth it is limited and highly corrupting. Placing it at the center of human existence is a serious mistake.

There was a time when money for its' own sake was seen as crass and people would reject it if it interfered with their integrity. Even in my lifetime, under Thatcher, those of us who knew we were disenfranchised. Those who knew we would not be able to join the property ownership game turned our backs on it to find a better way. We embraced unemployment. Each city had scenes where creative unemployed people formed bands, theatre groups, launcxhed fanzines. Some took to the road. The traveller movement offered an rural escape. An idyllic view of it perhaps but give my an ideal anytime.

Thatchers government did wage war on the travellers. Many returned to the cities where there still were no jobs. They just further clogged the dissolving social housing and welfare systems.

Our politics took a beating. Some whose creative projects had been good took advantage of the opportunities that arose through the abundance of the early New Labour days. What travellers remained became tribalised. The divisions were very clear when I returned to sights, some 17 or 18 years after I had last lived like that. Heroin had taken its' toll. Where famillies had fought for an idealistic life of clean outdoor life. many now got up angry, looking for a hit or a can.

These people would not top any applicant lists for jobs. Where they had purpose and solidarity in a lifestyle with legend and history, once pushed back to the city many died. No minimum wage job can give meaning or purpose like they once had. Even if you disagree with someones honour code it is easier to interact with someone who has one. After Nostell Priory, the Beanfield and countless further attacks on their lifestyle only the hardy, the bitter and those who could find no tow hold anywhere else survived. The prejudice they had suffered pushed them further together till those with good hearts would defend even bad actions of their own.

After my time as a traveller I returned to University. Since leaving there I have become disappointed with many who went. For three years students would talk the talk. Once out many abandoned dreams and principles in order to take low level jobs and get on the bottom rungs of the ladder. Under Blair it seemed even the alternatives aspired to this. Now they seem lost. Stuck, desperatly holding on to this shaky ladder, scared to fall down, always looking up to see who has more than them. I never saw that ladder like pattern, always an expansive, growing, organic splatter of possibility.

This is no nostalgic mid life yearning for lost punk or hippy youthful simplicity but a political realisation that not everyone can succeed in the type of game they are playing. Meritocracy excludes as much as aristocracy.

As left leaning intelectuals concern themselves with establishing level playing fields, redistribution of wealth we frequently see as soon as they are able they privately educate their children. Who would not give their kids a better chance? This is not the only game in town. I see it taking the lives of close freinds as profoundly as drugs take my other freinds. As the talented leave the places of their birth those places suffer.

It is the belief in money as your god that undermines. There is no above or below unless you make one.