Bringing you your M & SIn this case I’m not talking high street retailers, but Marx and Smith. Karl and Adam to be precise. And why not throw in William Morris to boot.
This month’s Gateway sees the final part of the serialised pamphlet from 1927, ‘Matter, Spirit and Karl Marx.’ I’m not sure whether it’s true that everything in the world is connected in more subtle ways than we usually imagine, or what part we play in making the connections, but this month I’ve found that a lot of my thought strands have come together and this (I hope) is reflected in the Gateway output. What am I talking about? Here goes: In the modern world, I was irked recently by some social media ‘bigging up’ of Adam Smith. He’s a Scot. As was David Hume. As was Sir Walter Scott. And, according to the intellectual arena of social media (now there’s a contradiction in terms surely?) all of these, it seems, must be revered whether you’ve read their work or not. What particularly irritates me this month is people who praise Adam Smith and yet in the rest of their lives espouse political philosophies that are diametrically opposed to his. Let’s get one thing clear. Marx and Smith are at opposite ends of a spectrum. One Socialist the other Capitalist. And despite what some folks today would have you believe, these two things are indeed different. The New Labour experiment was an attempt to square this particular circle – or bring these two opposite sides together. It’s a dangerous thing to do with political and or moral philosophies. Other examples are Nationalism and Fascism, and Anarchism and Ayn Rand style ‘objectivism.’ Whereas Smith developed the concept of division of labour, and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity, Marx’s socialist dream of a free association of producers is a completely different animal. Capitalism with its inherent competition harks back to the ‘survival of the fittest’ whereas communism (and socialism) in pure theoretical forms are about a classless, equal society (perhaps utopian) where money is a lot less important than time. Marx and Smith are ideological opposites. Some modern writers claim that their economic theories have a lot in common. Well, they both deal with labour and the rise of capitalism. But they are on opposite sides of the fence. Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’ free market economy is not compatible with Marx’s state ordered communism. Not unless you have a really strange conception of ‘only connect’ as a theory. There may be a point somewhere if you squint into the theory far enough, where they both say things about individual human beings which could be construed as similar. But Smith is all for the advancement of both individuals and nations in a profit driven economy whereas Marx is about a fundamental moral integrity between a man and his labour. Smith was writing in the mid-18th century. The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. Marx was writing in the mid-19th century. Das Kapital was published between 1867-1984. A century is a long time in both economic and political philosophy and maybe it’s not right to compare them at all. Even political theory is subject to cultural relativism after all. In the late 19th century Leatham couldn’t read Marx because it wasn’t translated from the German. So his socialism developed out of the American version of Marxist philosophy. Now what is interesting to me is that Leatham was soon after Marx’s death (in 1883) - between 1896 and 1945. He thus offers an interesting close contemporary view of an emerging philosophy/political/economic system – after the death of its author. Leatham experienced the ‘birth pangs of a nation’ – though vicariously because the demise of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union was as contemporary (and therefore as ‘hidden’) to him as the current Middle East crisis is to us. Sure, we have our views and opinions, but we do not have hindsight. Our relationship with history, political theory and contemporary issues is something we should really think more closely about. For example, I venture to offer one shocking revelation for my fellow Scots – The Enlightenment is not the best thing that ever happened to us. It’s inconsistent to praise Enlightenment values and claim to be in favour of egalitarian social justice. Capitalism gets in the way. The free market is not the same as ‘from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.’ Join up the dots folks. Think harder. Think deeper. Think. This month we also have an article on William Morris. How does he fit into this picture (or jigsaw if we’re going to hold with that analogy). In one sense he’s an interesting example of a man who has been used to serve two incompatible purposes. Morris was (at least later in his life) a Socialist. That presented a problem for himself and his business interests in his own time and its certainly presented a problem for his legacy. Well, not so much of a problem as where it’s not been airbrushed from memory, hidden behind the wallpaper and medieval poetry, it’s been dismissed as a whim or fancy. I recommend you get your hands on both Leatham and Glasier’s works on Morris – something of a wake up call. And while you’re at it, why not delve into some of Morris’s own writing. News from Nowhere is an interesting place to start for those not enamoured of medieval poetry. While I’m in recommendation mode, I would really recommend that folks read political, economic and philosophical theory in general. Yes it can be hard to wade through – yes you have to adapt to an unfamiliar ‘style’ of writing. Smith isn’t brief (but no 18th century writer was succinct). Marx isn’t for dummies. You do have to employ the grey matter and concentrate. Switch off the smartphone and dedicate some time to it! If you want to understand where we are today and what the issues surrounding the free market – and this one is vitally important to us in the contemporary world of Brexit – then a grounding in political and economic theory from times past will do a lot more to educate you than listening to the news and current affairs offerings we are currently having pumped out at us. It’s time to get out of the gilded cage and put in the hard work. If you want to understand how we are all being manipulated. But maybe you don’t want to know that? To make things just that little bit easier for you, I’ve given you some handy links: Leatham’s Marx is HERE for free as a PDF. Leatham’s work on Morris is HERE and Glasier’s is HERE You can get the entirety of Marx’s output as one ebook collection for under a fiver HERE. You can download Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations as a free ebook HERE (Is there an irony there for the father of the free market?) And HERE from my own recent trawl round t’internet, is an interesting essay on your M&S. Many other offerings are available. It’s good to read opinion, but can I remind you that sooner or later, a trip to the primary sources is a very good idea. Rab Christie I’ve just had a thought. Maybe Orwell’s Winston Smith was named after Winston Churchill and Adam Smith. How does that impact upon your understanding of 1984? Answers on a postcard please. As another month rolls round, I reflect on the particular requirements and skills of writing an editorial piece. A quick google tells me that this should be a short piece that reflects the opinion of the paper/publishing house. Not much to go on there then. This month’s editorial then will give my opinion. And my current opinion as regards the current state of affairs is that I’ve gone into hiding. I’ve been keeping away from ‘news’ fake or otherwise and ‘opinion’ pieces on traditional or social media. The world has just become too dark for me. I know the mood will pass, but looking back on James Leatham’s editorials over the 33 years of the original Gateway I am somewhat heartened by the fact that he had this problem too. Often it’s easy to give your opinion, especially if, like him and me, you have strong ones on most issues. But sometimes, the world just gets overwhelming. This is one of those times. And perhaps that itself IS the editorial opinion of the month. Heading for the Brexit and with President Trump in the White House (yesterday I allowed myself to wonder for just a moment whether that was actually a whole constructed piece of ‘fake’ news and I will wake up to find that in reality he’s not) I find myself, this February, quite overwhelmed to imagine either where we are or where we are going. I am stuck in the following conundrum: What is the value of free speech when no-one is listening? The price of free speech IS that no one is listening. I challenge anyone not to find this overwhelming. The one light touch of the month for me on Social Media (which I have hidden from this month as far as humanly possible in this social media dominated world) was the SNP whistling the European Parliament Anthem ‘ode to joy’ as the voting was going on for triggering Article 50. It was a small and yes, ultimately futile gesture (as I fear all our gestures are at present) against Big Brother world. Small and futile gestures seem to be the order of the day. I note that fellow McRenegade Cally Phillips is indulging in one of her own – she’s giving away copies of Brand Loyalty free in February. For more information click HERE. This is because the ‘news’ keeps telling us that everyone’s ‘into’ dystopias since Trump took the White House. Reading Cally’s article at McRenegades just reconfirmed to me the complete small futility of the world I (and we all) inhabit. That’s just my opinion of course. What can we do? Well, educate ourselves beyond the mainstream. If we can avoid the ‘fake’ news and the hype and the spoon-feeding and critically engage with the world, we may not be able to change it, but we may change ourselves and in the process may find a way to engage with this overwhelming world. The young have hope of course. Those of us who are starting to feel we’ve seen it all before, are less hopeful. And learning to live in the land beyond hope is the journey I am engaged on at present. So what does Gateway have to offer you this month in form of diversion, or exploration? In most cases: more of the same. We finish the 2 parter on Rabbie Burns, the 3 parter on ‘Is the state the enemy?’ and are in the middle of ‘Marx, Spirit and Matter’. And in a post-hope world, we offer you Cally Phillips allegorical story A Fishing Line in the hopes that some of you might realise that we do perhaps get the dystopia we deserve. The Orraman girds his loins in the cause of cultural revolution with an exploration on a similar theme. I leave you with a question. If in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king – who really rules in dystopia? It’s not a rhetorical question, but it is one I feel overwhelmed by this February. Rab Christie. The New Gateway – One year on.
It’s hard to believe it’s a year since I first wrote an editorial for The New Gateway. This time of year is traditionally one for reflection. And how much there is to reflect on in 2016. How the world has changed. Here’s a few highlights: Labour crisis, Conservative crisis, Brexit crisis, American President (crisis) – not to mention the refugees and economy (stupid). Each month when one pens an editorial one is in the moment and only when you put them all together over a period of a year (and longer) do you realise that each little part becomes part of a whole which is then larger than the sum of the parts and is a witness to social history. The New Gateway is true to the spirit of James Leatham’s original aim in offering a unique and alternative perspective on the past, present and future. It is not monetised and there are no gatekeepers controlling what is put ‘out there.’ (apart obviously from my editorial choices – but these are open and upfront – determined by putting out as broad a range of ‘previously published’ work from Leatham and the public domain with a smattering of truly ‘alternative’ contemporary perspectives. It may be seen as propaganda from the past and present, but The New Gateway has no problem with the word or concept of propaganda in its original sense. There is no shame in presenting a different (even a minority) view. An unquestioning adoption of words such as ‘propaganda’ and ‘democracy’ into the pantheon of ‘juju’ words – which become the clichés all too many people live by- stands in need of regular reappraisal and challenge if we are not to become victim to the bread and circuses of modern (including social) media. Today we are bombarded with information (some may say mis-information) constantly. It comes pre-packaged, easy to consume - ready info - and there is a greater need than ever for slow, considered information that has to be looked for and studied and not reduced to sound bites. This is what we hope we point a gateway to. There are many more backwaters to explore and it is for the reader to learn how to engage with the information age – passive consumer of junk or questing for enlightenment beyond the obvious. That’s your choice. Our job is simply to remind you that you get out what you put in. The options are almost limitless but it requires the individual to engage at a level beyond what we are being taught. There is a world beyond Bestsellers lists, beyond Wikipedia, beyond celebrity… it’s out there – but you have to get up off your virtual couch to look for it. Over this year The Deveron Press has worked on publishing its Centenary Collection of 10 books. The task is now nearly complete with just the ‘Socialist Shakespeare’ to make it through the final proof/publishing process before our anniversary year ends in May 2017. We believe that the Centenary Collection offers a good insight into the work of James Leatham as writer, editor and publisher and, brought together, the books become much more than the sum of the whole. Making hidden works and forgotten writing available again for a contemporary audience is something of a mission, a revolutionary act against the tsunami of capitalist driven version of publishing. I often sit and wonder what Leatham would have made of the technological (and social) changes (I hesitate to call them advances) of the past seventy years. Freed from copyright prison, his work now lives on. To read a book you first have to know it exists. We are bringing work back into print, and we do what little we can to tell the world it’s out here. It will always be a backwater, a side-show, an alternative – artisan publishing if you will (and if you can understand the irony of the ‘juju’ word artisan in this context!) and it’s up to the individual reader to pick and choose what they want. We’re always happy for feedback and to do what we can to promote the cause of wider, free access to public domain work. It’s a collaborative process, about sharing and openness, not about bottom lines and profit motives. Have a wee scout around Gateway this month and you'll find that we are giving away omnibus ebook editions of cultural and political writings from Volume 1. Don't say we never give you anything! There's plenty on offer for free, but if you enjoy what you find here, we recommend that you put your hand in your pocket and buy one of our paperback publications. Not to make us rich, but for our own enjoyment and to demonstrate to us that there are readers out there who appreciate what we're doing. And what of next year? We’ll carry on doing the same. This ongoing, quiet, determined logging, blogging and cataloguing of the kind of writing that has been airbrushed out of history or simply forgotten, may not start revolutions, but it provides an alternative to the mainstream and dominant narratives which surround and threaten to engulf us. The New Gateway offers a door into a different perspective. It’s for you to open the door when it suits you, explore what is behind, and make of it what you will. As 2016 turns into 2017 I wish you all that you might wish for yourself going forward. If you enjoy The New Gateway, I’d appreciate it if you’d share that fact – tell others – and encourage them towards, if not through, the doorway we offer. See you on the other side! Rab Christie. Wake up and smell the rise of rampant, unfettered capitalism. There’s an all too clichéd expression which hails from America. ‘Wake up and smell the coffee.’ Have you ever tasted American coffee? It’s a travesty. Come to that, have you tasted a Hershey Bar? America’s sweetheart confection makes me eternally glad for the Quaker Cadburys and Frys. When it comes to coffee and chocolate (the good things in life) America can’t touch us. But when it comes to capitalism… well, another expression ‘follow the money’ tells you all you need to know. So Donald Trump is to be president. Go figure, as they say. Well yes, why don’t we ‘go figure.’ While everyone is wringing their hands and wondering how it can be that the final part of the tales of the unexpected: Better Together, Brexit and Make America Great has actually happened, I suggest that it’s time we ALL woke up and smelled the obvious. It used to be that everyone wondered how Hitler could have come to power. I think we have the answer to that now. In simple terms it’s because people don’t always tell the truth about their intentions. I don’t know how to state it any more clearly, the thing no one wants to admit. Scotland is still part of the UK because MORE people in Scotland want to be shackled to it than want to be independent and self determining. The UK is about to leave Europe because MORE of the English want Brexit (and what Scotland thinks doesn’t count because, hey, we voted to stay too wee, too poor and too stupid to make our own decisions). And America is about to be ‘Made Great Again’ in the image of Donald J.Trump because WHATEVER people say they’d rather a billionaire business man with high celebrity status ran the country than a politician – especially if that president is either black or female. That’s the stark reality folks. We have got the results we wanted. And even if you or I didn’t get what we wanted out of them – we didn’t vote for them, right? – even so, the reality we have to face is that we are not in the majority. This is the way the world is. The Labour Party has recently been given a bloody nose because they didn’t wake up to the fact that more people in England (or the UK, who knows, given the parlous state of Labour in Scotland?) want Jeremy Corbyn as a leader. The Movement and the Party are at odds and the Parliamentarians need to wake up and smell their own reality. The will of the people when you let them out of their representative democracy box and put them into a participatory democracy box, or give them a pencil so that they can put an x in a box, will be to do what they want to do, or what they’ve been ‘bread and circused’ into thinking is the right thing –that’s the right thing for them as individuals, not the ‘right’ thing for all – to do. The People have spoken. But what about us? The right thinking minority. What do we do about it? This is where I suggest that we shouldn’t compare apples with oranges (or coffee with chocolate). While I think it is right and proper that the Labour Party should accept the will of the Labour Movement, I am a lot less happy about being told as an individual citizen to accept the political realities we are currently being sold. Bandying the ‘d’ word around is intended to frighten us. You can’t be seen to be ‘undemocratic’ if you want to be a good ‘citizen.’ But what if the so-called democracy is corrupt in and of itself? What if that is the reality we should be looking to? Acceptance of the will of the majority is all very well – but do we all just become soldiers following orders? At what point do we stand up for something we believe in – like social justice, or self-determination – instead of kowtowing to some constructed version of a politics we can clearly see is corrupt to the core. Where Donald J.Trump can sell himself as the champion of the working people, and they accept that, I suggest we have come a long way from having an intelligent electorate, or a fair and well balanced system (democratic or otherwise). And before we sneer at the Americans – Gordon Brown anyone? Plenty of people fell for that one. Nigel Farage? A pattern emerges. In America where the right of free speech means exactly that – anyone can say literally anything to anyone else, however inflammatory - everyone also has the right to ‘bear arms,’ aka shoot to kill to defend themselves against another person who might piss them off. This is surely a completely warped moral code. It works fine where individuals are expendable and unimportant. Where people are valued only as human resources and human capital. And here at home, surely we need to stop being so gutless and start standing up and being counted. Not in my name. Fair words but have we all become such social media fodder that we think that signing petitions and liking, or sneering, or trolling or meme-ing our way through life is a practical and positive way of protesting against a society that is going fast in a very dangerous direction? As a man who gave his life in the cause of social justice and freedom, not far away from ‘the wall’ Trump intends Mexicans to build with their own beaten and bloodied hands, (or the financial equivalent) Che Guevara said: ‘words that do not match deeds are unimportant.’ Whatever your view of ‘el Che’ I suggest this is a quotation we should all take to heart. Stop being soldiers following orders. Stop accepting things that you know are completely unacceptable. Stop being afraid that a morally bankrupt version of democracy will call you undemocratic. And stop talking the talk of social justice while walking the walk of individual consumer capitalism. In short – let’s all take a long hard look at ourselves and consider what part WE TOO have played in all this. As Lenin, and Tolstoy before him both said ‘What then can we do?’ Of course there are those who are proud to think that racism, sexism, anti-environmentalism and for whom big boy bully tactics are something to be proud of, being the thing that will ‘make America Great’. All I can say is that like those who endorsed Brexit, it seems increasingly easy to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas in the modern world. I think the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ was invented for just such a situation as this. The American Dream was sold on the ‘anyone can be president’ and these days it’s really true – with one caveat – anyone with enough money (and Donald J Trump has a LOT of money) can be President. So. The American Dream is alive and well, eh? It’s the best damned democracy money can buy. Believe. In today’s celebrity, brand endorsed world it seems that any dream will do. As long as everyone keeps well clear of facing up to reality. It used to be that the answer to ‘what can I do?’ was ‘add your light to the sum of light’ but the light seems to have dimmed so far now I’m not sure that’s feasible. The lights are about to go out folks, and not just on the future of the planet environmentally. The moral light is all but extinct. One thing we can try to do is learn from the past. He who does not learn from his mistakes is, after all, condemned to repeat them. And that brings me to my own contribution. Gateway is a small, but I suggest valuable part in a battle being played out on social media which is a world away from TwitBook World. It may well be that Big Brother has walked away with the day. We maybe cannot win. Utopia is a dream after all. Social Justice looks to be going the same way. Democracy means Democracy but what does that mean? For me, all that is left is to declare ‘I will not love Big Brother.’ If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting. With words that are my daily deeds. I deal, after all, in words for a living. I’m not into the words ‘good’ and ‘evil’ but I leave you with the thought that ‘all that it takes for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.’ How much longer, my friends, are we going to do nothing? Please. Give generously. Do what little you can. Whatever that may be. Walk the walk, however crippled it makes you. Because words that do not match deeds are unimportant. And the future of humanity, currently on soma while the life-support is being disconnected, may just depend on YOU. This month’s Gateway looks at Utopias. From which stemmed Dystopias. I don’t know what the word is for a post-dystopic world but I suspect if the world isn’t blown to bits in the next 50 years someone will find a good label for the world we live in. And it won’t be paradise. Rab Christie Sometimes, and rather too often of late, I become convinced that desperation is now the state of modern mankind. It's easy enough to believe that hopelessness is all there is. If you engage with current politics you'll know what I mean. The alternative seems to be to succumb to a life where culture has become commodified and is parcelled out to us in the sort of packages that makes the phrase 'bread and circuses' all too frighteningly real.
The hierarchical pyramid under which we serve (unless of course you are at the top of it, in which case I doubt you'll be reading my rantings) dominates every aspect of our lives. And how do we break free? Inevitably as my thoughts turn to revolution, I look back to history and seek solace there - but a successful revolution seems as much a fantasy as everything else we are being 'sold'. And of course revolution is not in and of itself and end-game, its a state of being in the eternal flux of life. I am well aware that I can do nothing to influence the wider world around me. But this does not mean all is lost. The political is in the personal, right? I'm here to tell you that however dark the days may seem, if you keep alert, you can find something good. Even from the very bowels of the cesspit that is social media, a light arises. This month, I was struggling for editorial. I didn't have any more to say about the state of the nation - either ours or America. I was feeling somewhere between numb, despondent and unattractively angry. The depths of moral depravity seem infinite. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, George W.Bush, Donald Trump anyone? The mantra of doom for honesty and a world of kind peacefulness. And then I met Pat. In the course of a two hour conversation I remembered all that is good about being a human. We 'had a news' and if we didn't put the world to rights, at least I came away feeling that I was not alone. There are what Orwell (and others) used to call 'Fellow Travellers' I am pretty sure there's a lot of us out there. It's finding them that's hard. But once you meet one, you get a bit braver about reaching out in the hope there may be others. And reading is a great way to start on the journey. I ‘found’ Pat Hutchison through social media. McStorytellers via Facebook to be precise. Now I’m very wary of Facebook in particular and Social Media in general. Whenever I give up on it as a site for hope, Brendan Gisby (Mr McStoryteller) says to me that at least in one respect, for those of us at the bottom of the Pyramid, ‘the internet is all we have’ and this reminds me that we cannot turn our back on it if we want to change our world. It is part of our landscape and we have to try and work with it to build the future we want rather than the one we are having forced upon us. it is, after all, a tool. We need to construct it as well as consume it. I can heartily recommend Pat's story 'The Steens that Turned' (even if you struggle with 'the Doric'). It will take you out of yourself for a while, to a different time and place. And it's been known to make grown men cry. If you read it and weep, you'll have started on a journey towards a world which is better than the one being foisted on you by the profit-mongers. I am minded of James Leatham, working tirelessly to improve the working hours (and so the freedom) of the print workers – and how they were even more resistant than the owners to his suggestions that they work fewer hours (for the same pay). They were suspicious of what they would lose. They couldn’t see that they had nothing to shake off but their mind-chains. That the most vital commodity any of us have is time. Leatham's review of the ILP 'Capitalist Press' pamphlet is interesting for so many reasons - not least because it's so hard to get hold of that original pamphlet. Even if you can't read it, you can think about that! One of the reasons we keep plugging on at Gateway - now nearly a year into its new incarnation - is precisely to stand up (in a quiet way) against being 'sold' a version of the world that is constructed by others who do not have anyone but their own best interests at heart. We are not just consumers. We are also creators. And we can build worlds the way we want them to be. It's a new twist on the 'possible worlds' theory. In fact I think we should start to admit there are many parallel worlds all around us, (mostly vying for our time and money) - and we have some responsibility for making the choice which one we join. For myself at least, I choose to turn my back on the Pyramid of Aspiration in favour of a type of Altruism that places personal responsibility at its core. I'm not trying to sell it to you - but it exists. Inspired by men (and women) I've met through reading my goal is to 'add my light to the sum of light'. I understand that 'words that do not match deeds are unimportant.' I don't mean to be 'in your face' or confrontational. But I'm not going away any time soon. And I'm always on the lookout for 'fellow travellers.' Rab Christie.
Brexit means Brexit but we still are none the wiser what Brexit means. However, why worry. It’s summer – traditionally silly season – and we have the Olympics to consume. We can forget about migrants and poverty and social justice (even as we watch Brazil spend millions on sporting events just metres away from people living in abject poverty) and cheer on our boys and girls. It’s all about medals after all, isn’t it? About being winners in the game of life. This month in Gateway Leatham is at his provocative best, with his articles on Liberties, on Education and on Agriculture. There’s loads to read and even more to think about so I’m keeping my input this month short and will simply direct you towards the authored pieces. Our Public Domain slot is given over to another great overlooked Scottish writer – Robert Bontine Cunninghame-Graham (aka Don Robert0) whose article/pamphlet on ‘Economic Evolution’ was first published by The Deveron Press and is reproduced for you here. Cunninghame-Graham wrote both fiction and non-fiction for Gateway over the years and if you want to find out more about him… There’s a look into the third Little Red Town Talk which, in the wake of the Turra Show explores Leatham’s writing on farming and agriculture from a century and more ago. And last but not least, the Orraman gets his teeth back into the ‘Edinburgh Boys’ suggesting we need to read between the lines of Wikipedia (and other sources) in order to find anything of substance regarding writers and their reputations – how they are made and lost – and more importantly, to avoid being prejudiced (or plain ignorant) about a writer before reading his work. So. Short but sweet from me this month – and all the better for that some may say. Rab Christie
We all know the cliché a week is a long time in politics, but the last month has just blown that cliché right out of the water. As our new Prime Minister has just told us ‘Brexit means Brexit’ – and a pundit remarked on one of the interminable political programmes that have spawned like a virus post Referendum/Referendum (Indy/EU) ‘that’s clear but we need to know what Brexit means.’ It’s clear we are in a state of uncertainty at present and meaning seems to be thin on the ground. I cannot speculate what is going to happen – apart from to suggest it is going to be a very bumpy ride. We’ve seen the Conservative AND UNIONIST (as our new PM reminds us) go through the mother of all political pogroms, and the Labour Party/Labour Movement is not just going through a leadership challenge, or even an identity crisis, but perhaps a defining moment. Not, I should add, its first. The Labour Party suffered its birth pangs just over a century ago. Is it now in its death throes? Thirty years ago I might have been accused of exaggeration – but then did we really see the break up the Soviet Union after a mere 70 years? I didn’t. That’s worth thinking about when we consider the European Union and our part (or not) in it as of 2016. These are not just ‘interesting’ times; they are dangerous times. Change is coming – but we are floundering around trying to make meaning of what that change might be. I venture to suggest that a lot of our current ‘troubles’ are the result of a failure to understand that democracy comes in several flavours (not all of them tolerable.) For oh, so long, we have given ourselves up to representative democracy – and those who didn’t agree with it simply voted (or didn’t) with their feet. Then came a wave of participatory democracy in the form of Referenda. And verily, the public discovered they liked participatory democracy. It made them feel empowered. I see it as akin to the bird in the gilded cage being let out, or the shadow people getting out of Plato’s Cave. But there is no obvious happy ending to either of those scenarios, or indeed to the one we face now. What was overlooked in our recent process was that once the questions had been asked (and answered) people wanted to stay in the loop. But that’s not the way it works in a representative democracy. Representative democracy is about abdication of responsibility – passing the buck to someone else who will ‘do it for you,’ whereas participatory democracy suggests that ‘we the people’ actually get involved and take some responsibility. The two things are rarely compatible. The Labour Party/Movement debacle (for want of a better word) gives us a great example of this. Whatever you think about him here’s the basic story: The Labour Party (under New Labour and post New Labour) lose touch with ‘the people’. In an attempt to ‘democratise’ the party they open up the parliamentary leadership voting process to the ‘members’ and ‘the people’ raise a new champion – one JC- who gets their votes. He, however, almost inevitably, is at odds with the Parliamentary members (the ones who have hopelessly lost touch, remember). At the first chance of a backlash, the PLP hit back. They don’t want the people’s champion to be the leader so they try to depose him. They are really just espousing representative democracy over participatory democracy – albeit in a heavy handed and somewhat crass kind of way. We anticipate a fight to the death – and the ‘good’ bit about it is that ‘the people’ will still have something of a say in that voting process. So in a couple of months JC may rise again. If it all sounds a bit like a soap opera, or a Shakespeare play (Coriolanus anyone) then you might like to consider that this in-fighting in the Labour Movement is not new. James Leatham records a lot of the first iteration (but he’s recording it from the position of one who would not succumb to ‘party’ lines, being a firm believer in the power of people not parties) Reading Leatham’s writings, especially from the 1890’s through till the 1920’s really shows a different view of the history of the Labour Movement (and parties.) Who says history isn’t relevant? This month, you have the chance to take a wider view through The Gateway articles. The Settling of Britain offers a broad, historical opinion piece. ‘Education and Enjoyment’ offers a provocative, time-sensitive and yet oh so relevant view of both reading and rights (especially the right to vote). Don’t expect to agree with everything Leatham says – that’s not the point – he’s a provocateur from the past whose value today is to help us draw comparisons and challenge what we see in front of us. The Orraman continues his exploration of the literature of ‘The Edinburgh Boys’ in 1894 and the role of publishing, whereas ‘Twixt Desk and Shelves’ takes you right back to 100 years ago this month – revealing Leatham’s first observations about his recent move to the small North East town of Turriff. All in all, whether you dip in and out, or binge on this month’s edition, I hope there’s some food for thought in your consumption. Never has it been more important for us to learn to think for ourselves in the face of the machinery of parliamentary politics. We may not be about to man the barricades but we do need to be informed beyond the soundbites we are spoon-fed on social media. It’s up to us. We have been given the smallest taste of empowerment – if we want our democracy to be more weighed in favour of participation rather than representation we need to do something about it. Something more than talk. Before they talk us out of some of our fundamental freedoms, convincing us we don’t need to worry because ‘they’ will take care of all that for us. Human Rights. Climate Change. Free Movement of People. Workers Rights… these are things people have fought (and died) for in the past. We must work out how to step up to the plate and keep the fight alive. It won’t be won in the hallowed halls of the political elite. At least not to our satisfaction and benefit. Despite what the New Prime Minister says. After all, she’s not ‘new’ is she – she looks like a re-tread to me. Margaret Thatcher for the 21st century anyone? Rab Christie, Editor. We know the wind is blowing in the barley and in the boardrooms but we do not know which way the wind is blowing - or at least as I write this we don't. The EU Referendum decision, upon which so much depends, has yet to come - but either way, we will have to learn to live with it. There is no certainty in life (death and taxes excepted) and one thing a study of past authors such as Leatham have taught me is that patterns do tend to repeat and the 'issues' do tend to be similiar if not the same over all the generations. Which does suggest to me that we are those condemned to relive variations of the past because we never seem to learn from them. Or not enough people learn. And those who learn are, like Galt, simply 'realists without hope.' That is my thought for the month. Whatever your political persuasion, or none, whether you vote or don't - something will happen in the wider world and nothing will ever be the same and there's very little any of us can do about it on personal level. If the world could be changed for the better by money or influence do you not think it would have been changed by now? Poverty and hate-crime offer just a couple of examples of where we all claim to want the world to be better but somehow it just never happens. While refugees or migrants suffer and die in their thousands, 'mass' killings and football hooligans in the 'developed' world play out their own personal luxury of 'freedom brought by democracy.' I am brought time and again to question just what 'developed' actually means.
In case you are getting uncomfortable (and let's face it, we really should be very uncomfortable about the state of the world and our own place in it if we have the privilege of even a modest 'lifestyle' in the 'developed' world - which I'm guessing you do if you've the time and energy to read The Gateway - I'll shift focus to the other elephant in our room this month which is The Kailyard. Perhaps the seeds of one lie in the other? Intolerance and prejudice towards authors or styles of literature (or fiction) may seem to be trivial with all that's going on in the world, but they are nevertheless to my mind, indicative of our general malaise - our wrong sightedness. I am leaving a lot of subtext here for you to read. I deliberately don't want to 'spell it out' because I'd rather you thought - really thought - for yourself about how the issues in Gateway have any relevance to your life and the world as you perceive it. If you can't see any, perhaps you need to learn to look a bit harder. If you can, perhaps you will become, or already are, a realist without hope. Perhaps like me, you would self define as a 'utopian realist without hope.' I don't think I've invented the term but it's not as popular as any of the mass movements be they political or religious (or cultural) we find ourselves swamped with in the world today. Or should I say 'worlds' because I feel daily more convinced that the multiple/possible worlds theory is alive and well - and we are living in the midst of it. We don't need to search for other planets, we have all the worlds we could ever need right here in front of our eyes. The past is a different country, the present is a plethora of worlds and the future - well, if the past and present are anything to go by, it's just going to be another variation of the same. With more extreme weather! Put that in your climate change pipe and smoke it. Rab Christie You could be forgiven for thinking that we are living a political groundhog day. Elections and referendums come thick and fast and leave us all wondering a) what’s changed and b) what’s happening. And the media ‘spin’ has become a constant till it becomes difficult to know who, or what, to believe. Leatham has an explanation for this: All the organs of public opinion – press, Parliament, radio, pulpit, are in the hands of careerists who support the established order. It was to counter such dominance that Leatham set up The Gateway in 1912. His ‘propaganda’ press – maintained by himself without advertising or financial input stands as a testament to his beliefs. It is interesting to note that this month as Leatham’s autobiography was published for the first time (surely something of an ‘event’) not one of the mainstream national papers was interested in a free review copy or found Leatham and his life/work worthy of a feature or article. Apart from the Press & Journal (who made it Book of the Week) ‘60 years of World-Mending’ is still more or less invisible. That, I believe, tells us a lot about the reality of our so called open, democratic interweb world. Social media adopts and reflects the same patterns as ‘traditional’ media and politics organisations and one should not for a minute believe that they do anything else than ‘support the established order.’ Yes we can all comment to our hearts content, but to see social media as more than a tower of babel is to imagine that mainstream media or politics has a social conscience. It’s a pay to play world I’m afraid, and one in which disseminating for free is an act of resistance which goes overlooked by the majority. For most, free speech is a wasted gift and the commercialised view of ‘product’ means that people act more like sheep than discerning individuals. Maybe sheep is not the right analogy – too many people these days devour culture, politics and information like goats – omnivorously without much discrimination. And certainly very little thought. Of course if you are still reading this, you are probably not a goat or a sheep – but it’s worth reflecting on the passivity of our cultural (and political) consumption and what the consequences of this may be today and in the future. This month (as always) we certainly aim to give you something to think about at Gateway. What you choose to do with your thoughts is up to you – we just encourage you to think for yourself and make your own choices with a healthy disrespect for what you are being told by those with agendas that may conflict with your own. It is a hundred years this month since James Leatham moved to Turriff and established The Deveron Press. This month’s articles deal with politics and culture in a variety of ways that still have something to offer to us today – if only to throw down a challenge against what we believe to know to be true. In If I were a Dictator Leatham discusses 10 principles of Social Reconstruction. These include his thoughts on railways, agriculture and trade. It’s fair to say Leatham wasn’t in favour of what we now call ‘Free Trade’. I wonder what his views on the EU would be? It’s worth reading this piece to gain insight into quite how much has changed on a social level over the last century. In The Place of the Novel Leatham is similarly provocative. I admit, I struggle with his notions of ‘high literature’ – finding it difficult to square this with his wider political principles. However, one has to remember that context is everything. If, instead of ‘novels’ one thinks of reality TV or Twitter or Action Movies, then it becomes easier to see that however egalitarian one wants to be, there is still some division between cultural experiences which offer something positive and those which are simply ‘bread and circuses.’ Reading Leatham is not about always agreeing with Leatham, it’s about challenging both him and oneself -especially onself – to gain deeper understanding of our country as it is now and as it used to be – and how one became the other. The Orraman gives us his first pass at ‘Digging up the Kailyard.’ These are weed infested fields culturally and hopefully his comments will at least open the mind to the story behind the story – always reminding us that culture is always a political (and commercial) battleground. A bit of light relief is offered in ‘The Smuggler of the Clone’ short story. I’m not sure whether Leatham would have approved of this story, but in the new Gateway he can’t be expected to have it all his own way every month. And finally, for those who are interested in the detail (wherein lurks the devil of course) we have posted the index of Gateway from 100 years ago. I am working my way through a complete indexing of the 30 volumes. Each month throws up more nuggets, reminding me both of the value of the job I’m doing, and the hugeness of the task. Rab Christie, Editor Mind your 'p's please. Publishing, professionalism and politics - by the Editor
'WHAT we want is to stop the State being used for the benefit of a small number of individuals at the expense of all the rest.’ Does this sound familiar? This was James Leatham writing in 1927. These days we are all in the grip of election fever and some of us in the grip of referendum/s fever and somehow to me the whole bandwagon just seems to keep on rolling. And nothing substantial ever changes. Not underneath. It is certainly a truth beyond cliché that those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. The more I read of Leatham, the more I realise we have learned very little and we are on an eternal return, with subtle variations maybe, but we still have and still fail on the same problems. In 1927 Leatham is talking about ‘The Living Wage’ about the dangers of ‘individualism’ to society, about failing industry and nationalisation. There is a lot to be learned from his letter to Ramsay MacDonald. And he is not just a carping critic. He offers his ‘progressive’ alternative – collectivism. I cannot help but wonder if this had become more widely adopted whether we might actually have ‘progressed’ and not be condemned to more of the same under a different name or different hat. As Leatham says: It is not the Collectivist who is the heretic and rebel, but those who would keep society a chaos of warring atoms, each secreting with feeble greed and stupid jealousy for itself, and incapable of co-operating for the grander results of associated effort in which man diminishes his disabilities and increases his powers a millionfold. Moving from politics to professionalism (in the fields of writing and publishing) this month also sees me to some degree in agreement with Virginia Woolfe. This is a rare, and for me fairly frightening experience. Of course I don’t agree with all she says, but her comments in ‘The Common Reader’ do offer some resonance of sense. Well worth a read. And if our new Gateway teaches you nothing else, I hope it will encourage you to read critically and think about the views which you disagree with in the content as well as those you find agreeable. This is the way to progress surely? Those on the margins, both of writing and publishing find themselves invisible in the face of the might of the mainstream marketing mania. Perhaps this is because there is a fundamental conflict between the notion of commodification/commercialisation of culture and the creativity it is born out of. Writers such as Brendan Gisby, (writer of this month's story The Patriot Game) are quite cognisant of the fact that they will never be the next big thing (and in fact, most don't wish for that dubious accolade anyway). Instead they are ‘doing it’ themselves. Not ‘for’ themselves and not always ‘by’ themselves but ‘as’ themselves at least – offering an alternative view not only of publishing but of the purposes and possibilities of writing itself in our progressively virtual world. If you keep yourself firmly in the mainstream you are missing out on many both interesting and important things – that goes for writing as well as other things. And being hung up on an outmoded notion of ‘professionalism’ which is really just a way to keep the elite in their ivory towers is one of the great lies of our time. Professionalism, for me, is more a state of mind than a state of the bank balance. The survival of the fittest is not a simple affair. Are we evolving? In ‘Was Darwin Right?’ Leatham addresses this question in a range of interesting ways. Considering Nature versus nurture and the ‘success’ of life due to natural selection, all of these evolutionary or may we say ‘progressive’ theories can be applied to more than simply the biology of species. Leatham doesn’t shy away from applying the principles to society and morality. There’s a lot of controversy in what he says but it’s well worth reading without prejudice, if nothing else, to test the openness of one’s mind! You will probably draw different conclusions from it to me and you may not see some of the connections I have seen – but I’m leaving it up to you to read the articles in this month’s Gateway and work out how they ‘connect’ for you! Rab Christie |
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