Mark Higginson

staccato signals of constant information

A decade defined

I remember exactly where I was on 11th September 2001. I had taken a day off work and travelled to London with my friend Tim. We were just outside the ExCeL Centre, the exhibition space that was hosting DSEi, an arms fair. A particularly tough-looking set of riot police had lined up six deep shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the crowd we were with, most of us in white overalls. It was looking like it was about to turn ugly. 

The news that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center rippled through through the crowd. I've never mentioned this before but I remember distinctly that a big cheer went up as the announcement was made. I looked at Tim as he shook his head. We immediately assumed this was an accident, a light plane perhaps. We were acutely aware, stood on the periphery, of a small number of journalists and a few cameras, filming the demonstration. The lack of self-awareness of our fellow protestors was disheartening, plane crashes not being something to celebrate, whatever the perceived symbolism. A microphone was stuck under our noses, I can't recall which news channel the interviewer said he was from, but I remember the question was something like "what does this mean for what you're trying to accomplish here". We correctly answered "no comment" and moved away. We saw him interviewing someone else minutes later, some idiot chatting away, presumably responding to the same question with no inkling of what was to follow. In light of the events of the next few hours I was glad of our reaction. I wonder what happened to that footage?

The sense that something significant had happened was palpable, despite the fact we knew very little. We picked our way between metal barriers that had been intended to fence us in on one side and the line of police on the other (the term 'kettling' had yet to be coined). No one stopped us. The roads immediately around us were deserted, no doubt closed by the police due to the march passing through, which added a surreal air as we walked away. 

We found a pub, I guess it was around midday and I suppose watched the towers fall from there, the order of events became a blur as the enormity of what had happened sank in. Our dress marked us out from the regulars, all hardened daytime drinkers. We faced down one man who accused us of being unemployed trouble-makers, the irony we were taking time off work to protest a cause we believed in while he was clearly so gainfully employed as to be drunk in a pub prior to most people's lunch hour was lost. He had no interest in why we were there, he'd simply pigeon-holed us immediately and was taking the opportunity to pick an argument. As we sat down a second man, a pensioner, limped over and admonished us. He pointed fiercely at a television in a corner with his walking stick as the repeated images of smoke pouring from the towers took up the screen and told us "that's your lot that is". I don't know in what world he conflated two demonstrators with a terrorist attack, possibly the same one from which the people we marched with cheered at the news earlier in the day. I don't remember how we got home to Brighton. I think we found some double-decker bus hired to take people to the demo and just climbed on.

A black day. There was a sense of foreboding. I had no idea how many deaths would follow over the next decade.

And so, to today, and the news Osama Bin Laden is dead. 

Mind as system

"The phenomenon of mind is neither an intrusion into the cosmos from some outside agency, nor the emergence of something out of nothing. Mind is but the internal aspect of the connectivity of systems within the matrix. It is there as a possibility within the undifferentiated continuum and evolves into more explicit forms as the matrix differentiates into relatively discrete, self-maintaining systems. The mind as knower is continuous with the rest of the universe as known. Hence in this metaphysics there is no gap between subject and object... these terms refer to arbitrarily abstracted entities."

from 'Introduction to Systems Philosophy' by Ervin Laszlo quoted in 'Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory' by Joanna Macy

See also my favourite quote by Nikola Tesla I've mentioned before:

"Really, we are something different, like waves in subjective time and space and when these waves disappear, nothing remains of us. There is no personality. We cannot see that waves in the ocean have individuality. There is only an illusionary sequence of waves, which go one after another. We are not the same as that which was yesterday; I am only a sequence of relative existences, which are not similar. This sequence is the thing which creates an effect of continuity, not my subjective and mistaken understanding of my real life."

The sun never sets

Samuel_smith_beer_bottles

The labels on Samuel Smith's beer bottles are examples of how design can evoke all sorts of associations. They all conjure a collective sense of an England from history; a past that may not have actually existed but one we collectively understand.

On another note most of their beers are vegan. Recommended.

Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace: action and inaction

Good news. Sea Shepherd have reported they’ve intercepted the Japanese whaling fleet before they’ve had a chance to start their murderous activity.

I urge you to contribute to Sea Shepherd so they can continue their vital campaigning until whaling is brought to an end. They are currently opposing this barbarity by sailing to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and physically interposing themselves between the whales and the harpoon ships, at risk to their own lives.

I also commend to you this great post: Should we Save Paper Whales, Virtual Whales or Real Whales? by Captain Paul Watson in which his anger and sadness towards Greenpeace’s inaction on whaling comes across clearly. It caused me to think again on the difference between the two organisations and how the Greenpeace of today is really just a marketing agency with itself as the only client.

It saddens me that an organisation that pulls in millions will restrict its anti-whaling activity to a letter-writing campaign while pan-handling for further donations. As the comments on this page of the Greenpeace site make clear the money would be better spent on action in support of Sea Shepherd, an organisation Greenpeace refuses to co-operate with. One suspects this has less to do with the tactics Sea Shepherd employs and more to do with the fact that they see them as competition on a subject which Greenpeace used to make great capital out of ‘bearing witness’. I can’t speak on behalf of the whales but if I was them I’d favour intervention of the kind Sea Shepherd brings over observation and origami any day.

Back when Greenpeace did actually send a ship south I remember seeing a documentary, one detail of which stuck in my mind. The food on-board the Sea Shepherd vessel was strictly vegan; the Greenpeace kitchen was busy preparing a meat dish. That really struck me as summing up the difference between the two, trivial in the wider context, but a moment that stood out nonetheless.

Greenpeace can only exist in a late-capitalist society, thriving on the paid deferment of responsibility for one’s actions, while simultaneously playing along with our democracy theatre. Whaling in the Antarctic will be stopped one day due to Sea Shepherd making it economically unviable through their continuing direct action. I’m sad to say I expect Greenpeace will trumpet this success as their own. No matter, as long as the whales are safe.

Related posts: Sea Shepherd boat rammed by illegal Japanese Whalers and Donations to worthy causes.

Firle snow

(download)

With temperatures dipping to freezing again and snow thick on the ground we haven't risked venturing out of our lane. Another nice thing about living where we do is that when things are grim we can walk over the fields to the farm to get provisions. Shortly after three o'clock in the afternoon; a cold blue light before dark.