Using -ise for words like ‘maximise’ and ‘organise’ is a relatively new phenomenon in Britain, probably because maximize with a z looks too American to British eyes. In fact, the -ize form originated in Britain and is the preferred international form.
That the new 20 pound note would feature Adam Smith is old news. What I hadn’t known is that his pin-manufacturing ‘case study’ would be immortalized on banknotes as well:
In 2003, Michael Crichton aroused some indignation from largely-nonreligious environmentalists with his Environmentalism as Religion speech at the Commonwealth Club of California:
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsdaythese are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs.
Fast forward to 2006 and the Anglican church has decided to become eco-friendly. Richard Chartres, the Anglican Bishop of London, was recently quoted in the Sunday Times as saying “Making selfish choices, such as flying on holiday or buying a large car, are a symptom of sin.”
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme had a short but interesting chat (mp3) with the man today, and I thought some of what he had to say was particularly apposite to the environmentalism-as-Faith (capital F) thesis:
Q: … You’re a bishop, and what gives what you say particular force is when you give it a moral dimension, which is why I’m trying to establish whether you’re saying … whether the language of language of sin is appropriate to use in the context of these decisions [flying on holiday, buying a large car].
A: … The language of sin is absolutely right as we look at our responsibility as people living in what we believe to be a creation… the responsibility to their neighbours especially the poor of the world and our responsibility to our wellbeing so I think it is very proper to put these questions in the context of our moral responsibility … and that’s what a Christian understands sin to be … sin is living a life that’s turned in upon itself that’s unaware of responsibility and connections.
Q: So we should think about things like the sort of decision we take about the car we buy in the same context and in the same way as we think about decisions we make about relationships with other people, sex, all those issues which perhaps have been more traditionally the area in which people have used terms like, particularly like, living in sin?
A: Well that’s absolutely right because our energy use is something that has an impact on the creation and on other people. And seeing that it is a really important moral issue is one of the ways in which the church has to respond I think to the conditions of today […]
(The rather hurried transcript’s mine.) It is fascinating to see the environmental movement’s message of ecological responsibility being co-opted as a religious message, turning the non-compliers into sinners, with all the heavy connotations that word contains (would people who enjoy driving end up with the gluttons in the third circle of Hell?).
I’m sure the intention behind these interviews, and of the bishop’s recent booklet on environmental matters circulated to every diocese, is noble — to appear to be a church that’s up-to-date with the current scientific consensus. And yet in doing so, Bishop Chartres has harkened back to one of the oldest devices of organized religion (and a particularly Puritan device at that) — control and prohibit the things the masses might like under threat of damnation and bring them back to a life less filled with luxuries and presumably closer to God. Me, I’m betting technological innovation (examples 1 2) will before long make such sinning unncecessary: a culture of environmentally inspired privation is no more necessary than a culture kept in privation by vested religious interests or poor state planning.
The Tube in London is not as art-laden as the Paris Métro, but the Poems on the Underground project does get some good poems into the tube-cars from time to time. Frank O’Hara’s Animals was one of the best poems (that I was not familiar with) I’d come across on the Tube, and I was very pleased to be able to find it on the ‘net today. So without further ado, here it is:
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouthit’s no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp cornersthe whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn’t need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and wateri wouldn’t want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days
I am not sure why this poem appealed to me so much, but the vivid imagery and uneven meter (…want to be faster / or greener than now if you were with me O you) probably played a part.
These are not the images of September 11 — people walking in one direction out of the city. These are Londoners walking left, right, up the street, down the street, going about their normal lunchtime business.
We have faced terror before — Nazi terror, Irish Republican terror — and have not been beaten. This will not beat us either.
The overwhelming feeling round our office is “Is this best they can do?” - it looks and sounds much worse on 24hr news channels than in person.
… in the National Review
Just a word. My sister was at Tavistock Square at the time of the explosions, and my daughter and nephew were also in central London. We had some anxious moments, the more so because the cell-phone system was down (probably due to overloading), but we’ve all spoken now by land-line and email and they’re all safe and well.
For those of you who are anxious to know how the UK will react, we’ve been bombed for years by the IRA, and no-one spoke of quitting. Half of London and much of Coventry was flattened by the Luftwaffe a generation or two back, and no-one ran. Before that, in my grandparents’ time, we were bombed by Zeppelins and didn’t give in. We gave up appeasing after Czechoslovakia. There’s no panic today, and there won’t be, but we, all of us, are bloody angry. Al quaeda may think we’re going to run up the white flag, but I promise you nobody else does.
… in the Mudville Gazette.
