sillypunk's posterous

As I've studied and continue to study the period in history where people were fighting for the rights to even be able to affirm in court or publish criticisms of the church without being thrown in jail, the retrogressive nature of some of these positions seem right out of the history books.

We are fighting for different things in the case:  saving the NHS, marriage equality, gender equality and some of the same - the right to freedom from religion as much as freedom for religion.  In many respects we are fighting for some of the same things - reproductive rights being the main battle that is constantly waged against the tides of the religious and conservative right.

But across the spectrum  you see the same elements that existed in the 19th century.

1 - The weight of history.  There are always many people using the argument for weight of history which as an historian I find appalling.  There is no reason why current generations should be shackled with the weight of the past.  The past has almost in every case been proven wrong.  If we rely on tradition, we embed notions of privilege to what is established and restrict the innovative (hello copyright vs the Internet).  We enforce the status quo and oppress those who don't adhere to current cultural norms.  Also, our interpretation of the past is mostly, very wrong.  If you see how certain fads get embedded in culture, you see how malleable our cultural norms are (ie the whole blue/pink thing in the Victorian period for boys/girls).  If you look at the past with a very critical eye, you see how ad-hoc our established institutions are and how they've forced their way into the national fabric.  The past was not logically or rationally ordered, it is by chance, force, criminality, money and occasionally democratic process that things evolve.   You can justify a lot if you depend on history from the oppression of minorities and the poor, to slavery, to rape, to murder, to the domination of an elite over the majority of a population.  History is not a good judge of anything, we don't have to rely on it to inform our current morals, values, ethics or way we do business.

2 - The arrogance of authority.  If you look at Cameron and the NHS and the bullying that is going on this is a very good example of arrogance of authority.  The recent thing of not inviting the organisations that oppose the reforms with those that to do.  Sure, you can say that we only want a productive dialogue as the reforms are going through but at the same time, those organisations that you don't invite are still going to have a massive part to play in all the reforms IF they go ahead.  It is very emperor's new clothes - surrounding yourself with the courtiers that will not say that you are naked whilst the reality of the situation still exists and the entire world can see you are starkers.  Cameron could fit in well with so many of the most arrogant rotten borough MPs in the 19th century (and that is not a compliment).  He's taking his position for granted, that it is his privilege (as do, it seems many of the political class on all spectrums of political affiliation) when it clearly isn't.  It is a position of service to the state and people.  The state does include businesses but the business interest shouldn't undermine service to the people.  The weight of history in this case can be relatively illuminating when that ration becomes unbalanced.  While Cameron and Lansley and their supports try to divide the NHS amongst private interest - banking regulations (which were promised) and curtailing the dangerous elements of banking culture seem to have disappeared.  That is what they were elected for, yet they seem to be hell bent on doing things they expressly said they wouldn't do.  That is the arrogance.  The say and won't do element of this class of politics.  It is not serving the interest of the electorate rather it is awaiting a peerage post-PM and the lecture circut thereafter.  It's like being in politics is a stepping stone towards more wealth and privilege.  

3 - Jesus and Co.  The 19th century and early 20th century saw huge waves of evangelicalism that swept across the US and the UK.  It saw attacks on other religious and other minorities.  It saw the persecution of those who were atheists and agnostics for blasphemy.  It threw people in jail for publishing an insult against their religion. It forced women into an unattainable ideal.  It persecuted people who did not conform to their definition of marriage.  It clamped down on any discussion of contraception and abortion (in fact it is where most the abortion laws started.  It was not 'always illegal' in the past).  Now, I'm not going to say that we are anywhere near the level of oppression that existed in the 19th century but I will say that all the arguments are the same.  It's all about a narrow definition of family, of womanhood, masculinity, parenthood, children and sex.  Victorians were enormously repressive and that is where a lot of our issues today stem from.  Go back a few hundred years earlier and in some ways there was a great deal more liberty (not all, it was still a very restrictive society).  The evangelical movement polarised discussions and has led to some of the absolutely regressive views on gay marriage, contraception/abortion and even women's rights in general.  In the 1950s you had this brilliant focus on science and that it would save everything - when this utopia didn't happen you had a growing distrust of science and evangelicalism which is starting to bear the fruits of ignorance and repression in today's society.  How we let this happen, I don't know but it is of serious concern.  The media in the passed few weeks from the charge of militant secularism being totalitarian and Richard Dawkins' slave genes are the results of this narrow minded view (though a narrow minded view with a lot of money).  So despite continuing polls (like last week) or studies (like a few months ago) or demographic trends (from the last 100 years) - these polarising views are still the one's that get attention, that formulate policy and get media attention. It is boring to report "HEY LOOK! Everyone is moderate and rational" on the six o'clock news.  I don't know the way to combat this stupid view of stupidly regressive and unrepresentative people getting attention and making an impact on policy.  Everyone donate to the NSS or the BHA?  We need to hit them with equal amounts of money and support - this is what happened in the 19th century, people gave money, read periodicals, demonstrated and went to jail.  I don't suggest we do the same but we have to do something because I don't fancy being persecuted for publishing my PhD in a few years time.  We know they have such a 19th century point of view - when I get more into my research I'll put up a few blog posts of where the language is almost identical it is scary.  

Anyway, that's just three.  There are so many more.  It's made me so impossibly angry and annoyed this week with everything that has been printed in the press or how much our government is not listening to their electorate.  I found it very difficult to understand how angry people got in the 19th century about what they were fighting for - how they'd rather go to jail than put up with the status quo.  Not so much now.  There is just this impotent aggravation that I feel - that signing petitions and demonstrations are just not working, that our representatives don't listen to us because they have invested interests that are more important.  How do we make the government more representative, how do we hold them to account when they make the laws?  This was the rage that those in the 19th century felt because their elected MPs had vested interests and didn't care about their electorate; they were corrupt and it was in people's faces every day that the corruption wouldn't be dealt with.  I think the difference now is a matter of motivation:  most of us don't go hungry, live comfortable lives or those of those that don't need to work hard to be able to make ends meet.  We have a million distractions and worries about losing our levels of comforts that it is genuinely scary to think of how to fight back.  I'm scared.  I don't want to not have a job or a house or food.  But I want representation and I want justice.  How do we change the system so that it works again and not just for those making the laws but actually need them to be protected, to have the same rights as everyone else?  How do we dis-establish privilege when that privilege is justified on the basis of always being privileged?  Time to find out I think.  Or welcome to the 19th century, take two.  More Victorian, more regressive and now with more money.

I wanted to Tweet that maybe the only people that should be allowed to talk about contraception and abortion or those most likely to use them but danger lies that way.  However, it might be useful to recognise that when men, especially religious men, are dominating the issue something has gone terribly wrong.

It really does stagger me how regressive and oppressive these laws really will be.  The most mind boggling thing is how un-representative they are and how it is the influence of very right wing religious groups. 

But why won't this go away?  Why do these bills get on the books?  Why aren't people writing in to their representatives and telling them that these sorts of right are voting issues?  Maybe they are, maybe no one is listening.  Maybe its all sound and fury and no substance (though the fact that many of these laws are being debated is frightening enough).  

If only all women (at least the vast majority of women who depend on contraception) could somehow organise and have a sex strike like in the Lysistrata - telling their boyfriends, husbands, whoever that a very limited sex life is they way it'll probably be if these laws keep getting passed.  That unless they want to support them and their vast amounts of children, this is what their future is going to be like.  It would certainly put the GOP in their place (except for maybe Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum).  Maybe it would get to men a bit more as well.  This is a women's right issue but it is also a fundmental attack on how modern society operates.  This isn't a small government GOP anymore, its a socially conservative monster.

I hope many Christians start questioning where their political and religious donations are going - are they fighting the very services they take for granted?  Are they being used to curtail the rights and freedoms that they are used to having?  

I worry about the millions of American women one day who might wake up and find their prescriptions cancelled or their planned parenthood shut down.  There's something very wrong in American politics and I can't just sit back and thank my lucky stars because I don't live in the US.  Money flows across borders and one victory can embolden.  It's all our problem, it affects the US, it affects the US policy when it comes to reproductive rights in the developing world and it will affect us, is affecting us now in the UK.  It must be stopped.  

The first will be to see what definition those already in the field have used - a short snippet of historiography I suppose (loads of historiography yet to come of course!)  But that has a lot of nuances itself - much of the history has been segmented into various time periods:

• Owenism
• Cooperative movement
• Chartism
• Holyoake secularism
• Bradlaugh secularism
• Post-Bradlaugh
• Modern 
• etc.

The other thing I might have to consider is theory vs practice.  Having been to 3 secular organisations' AGMs this year there is some variation in what is in a charter and what they actually do in practice.  Much of this will depend if I can distinguish between the two as my sources permit.  It is something that will be in the back of my mind though.

My time period should only stretch about 30-40 years but as it crosses over a century and has a world war in the middle, I'm still expecting a bit of fluctuation!

And who knows!  The other ticker is what organisations themselves would consider to be part of the secular movement.  Or that I might consider based on their actions? There are the obvious ones that specify that they are or that they don't believe in the supernatural - but there are the Quakers and other dissenting religions that would have profited more from teaming up with non-theists to secure their own rights.  There was a huge crossover when it came to anti-war movements during the First World War which will be within my time period to sort out.

Anyway, that will be one of the first things I'm going to be contemplating as I hunker down and get into reading all the secondary sources that will refresh my mind before I dive into the voluminous amount of archive material that awaits me.

I have been having some thoughts about how I'm going to keep track of my work, given that I am doing it part time and working full time.  I figured one way to keep thinking about things more broadly, rather than getting mired in millions of details (which is bound to happen with a history PhD) is do an informal report once a week or every two weeks to basically tell you what I've found out.  I think this will help me make sure I'm consistently doing something every week whether reading a book, articles or at the archives.  Also, one of the things I never really liked doing in undergrad was writing book reviews. I hear this is quite a staple of academia, so I better get used to it.  I'm hoping if anyone is even vaguely interested they'll ask me some questions and maybe think in different ways.  The other good thing is that when I have to get a gist of what I've been doing - presto! A record!  I could perhaps just keep my own record and hide it in some file somewhere but I feel like inflicting the history of secularism on all of you.  I wonder how much my focus will wander from my original topic?

The other thing I need to do is create a file structure to save everything and when I start researching/writing keep proper citations.  I'm really shit at that when I actually start writing and then have to spend AGES fixing my citations.  I usually put a book/page number but when you have 150 references to go through at the end of it all, it's more than a bit irritating!  I've never actually used anything other that Word or in the old days Word Perfect to write so I wonder if I should find some other sort of software to keep me more organized.   If anyone has any suggestions that would be great.  Note that I am doing a history PhD rather than something sciency!

I had intended to spend the last two weeks researching but this cold has really kicked the shit out of me.  Even just cleaning the flat wears me out.  I think there is some light at the end of the tunnel though (maybe, hopefully, oh god please be light).  However, I've got a job now so I'll have to work on it during weekends/evenings like usual.  Perhaps at the end of this contract, I'll take a couple weeks off between jobs and dig in the archives.

Theoretically, I haven't been accepted yet though all indications seem green lit. I'm rather excited about all this, even though I'm still full of this blasted cold.  I hope I don't cough my way through this interview tomorrow!  It's been a crazy couple weeks since I got back from Canada.  I've spent most of the time being horrible ill, coughing, unable to hear half the time, sneezing, congested and generally miserable interspersed with getting a new job (five month contract but really good pay) and getting ready to start my PhD.  I imagine both the job and the PhD are going to be challenging so I hope I get healthy quick so I'll be ready for them both.

My evening was rung in at the wonderful Snakes and Lattes where we played board games well into the wee hours of the morning.

This morning we were all rather sleepy, so it was puttering about my friend's flat and then getting a mound of vegan sushi AND EATING IT ALL.

Then MI4 with my big brother in downtown Toronto.

Now ending it was some Black Books and tea.

I hope the next 364 are equally relaxing.