Thank you for visiting this blog. The object is to challenge orthodoxy and to try and get past some of the hype surrounding politics and culture, and in particular to challenge some of the cosy assumptions that underlie public discourse. As I’m writing this in Britain it inevitably has a UK perspective but I want it to be as universal as possible – and to stimulate real debate.
The blog’s title comes from an essay by the great Socialist historian R.H. Tawney. It derives from his essay The choice before the Labour Party, written in 1931, lambasting Ramsay Macdonald’s government for its timidity, concluding that, “to kick over an idol you must first get off your knees.”
It’s apposite at a time when it seems increasingly difficult to get to the truth. We live in a society of spin and salesmen, of popular culture whose purpose is to manipulate rather than to allow expression. The purpose of this blog, then, is to try and challenge some of the consensus and to get past the sales pitch and the misinformation, and to ask some fundamental questions about the nature of the society in which we live.
A bit about me …
Male, mid-forties, located Brighton, UK
My outlook…
Is Green, Left and sceptical, especially about market economics and commercial popular culture
My influences …
R H Tawney, William Morris, Ivan Illich, Erich Fromm, Richard Hoggart
June 28, 2008 at 11:32 pm |
Nice blog, good to see some William Morris, Fromm and Illich…what about Edward Carpenter a bit of a Brighton green left hero.
thanks for linking to me..also take a look here http://shanoakes.blogspot.com/
http://gptu.net/gleft/greenleft.shtml
June 29, 2008 at 9:03 pm |
Thanks, Derek. I’ll certainly look into Edward Carpenter.