"The supreme vice is shallowness"

I read De Profundis by Oscar Wilde over the weekend. It's had quite a disproportionate effect on me. I don't suppose I'm the only person who didn't know beforehand that it is in effect a long, long letter of reproach and admonishment from Wilde, imprisoned in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, known forever to anyone who knows anything about Wilde as Bosie. Bosie would have been unknown after his death were in not for his tragic love affair with one of literature's great geniuses (or should that be genii?)

"The supreme vice is shallowness" Wilde says on more than one occasion, as he lambasts Bosie for behaviour which, when one reads it, makes one wonder how he can ever have loved him. Tempers, sulks, cruelty, neglect seem to be according to this account, what characterised Bosie's behaviour towards his older lover. Wilde quotes Bosie as saying to him in a letter "When you are not on your pedestal you cease to be interesting." This is a young man enjoying the fruits of another's genius. Wilde repeatedly refers to his own genius, and to his own Life and Art with capital letters. It is a resolutely unfunny manuscript, devoid of bons mots or witticism, and comes from the heart of a desperately disappointed and confused man.

Shallowness is what the unenlightened might say is what lies at the heart of Wilde's brilliant writing. But it is shallowness as a thin layer on the surface of fanged social satire and comedies of manners. It is a shallowness that characterises the poetry of a less talented poet than himself as shallow. Were Wilde to see the shallowness which we observe now he ould spin in his grave.

Shallowness is what characterises quite a hefty slice of what passes for modern society. It derives from an almost vituperative refusal to consider things in any depth at all. It is a shallowness that tells schools that they must teach that Bullying Is Wrong; that they Shouldn't take Drugs, that Shakespeare is not so important to study and that perhaps other reading materials, like comics, should have their place on the English curriculum. It is shallowness as quite mind-exploding intellectual laziness which says that anything difficult should be dropped from the National Curriculum, and that fails to link the stepping away from intellectual rigour to the pettiness and ignorance of practically everyone in public life, from our top politicians to the appalling woman at passport control who thinks she has achieved something by putting on a uniform and being gioven tiny, unimportant powers.

It is demonstrated by smooth language which, on close analysis, either takes complex concepts and scientifically reduces them to a sheer gloss with an obvious right answer and wrong answer (Drugs are Wrong, Mums working is Right), or elevates the simplistic to something grandiose (Losing weight - eat less, move more, for God's sake. Practically every work of modern art which fetches large amounts at auction.). Look at the whole of the American election campaign. Never has so little been said by so few to so many,and never have so few swallowed it without challenge. I read today that the Republican campaign managers are salivating at the prospect of Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter marrying her self-proclaimed redneck boyfriend, so sure are they that this grubby union will put them ahead in the polls for a week.

I coud go on for weeks, but I am today so sad at the lack of thought in most people's life. Thinking sets you free - the ability to disagree and debate with one another without taking offence or killing each other characterise us as sentient beings separate from our aniumal friends. Reason is what makes us human, and reason is being systematically whittled away to the point where if you diasagree with me you feel quite entitled to stab me, or insult me or lob a bomb into my home.

As some readers know, I think that if we taught kids to think for themselves we would have less violence, and fewer teenage mums, we woud have young people facing the future and embrace challenge and we would have a better educated workforce and a more civilised nation.

Rant over. I am sick at heart.

Matching the dogs.

Someone asked me yesterday if I'd bought my dogs to match my hair. I had to tell them that no, I'd changed my hair colour to match the dogs.

Not quite true, but probably there's something in it subliminally. I'll post a picture of me to compare and contrast if I can get someone to take a decent one.

Language is power

People underestimate the effect of our use of language. Where the meanings of words shift subtly so that our view of the world is warped, the effect is insidious.

There have been ludicrous attempts in some areas of life, notably the military and business, to take unpleasant concepts and attempt to soften their effects by wrapping them up in pleasant sounding phraseology, but these are not successful because they are so obvious. "Collateral damage" and "friendly fire" are brash, outrageous and ultimately unsuccessful attempts to make "people being killed because they are near your target" or "accidentally killing your allies" less appallingly offensive. A problem is still a problem, even if you rechristen it an "issue" or an "opportunity".

But some subtler shifts in the way we use language actually pervert the way we see life over time. There are some words which enrage me when I hear them especially in the news.

Have you noticed that the verb "to attribute" and the perfectly serviceable, and emotionally neutral, adjective "attributable" have all but disappeared from our language, replaced by the much blunter and more loaded "blame"? Years ago when job losses were reported on the news, we were told that the need for redundancies was attributable to the economic climate, or cheap imports from abroad, or poor sales, or whatever. Now we are told that the economy/cheap imports/poor sales are blamed. It may seem a moot point, but I would suggest not. We live in a world where anything that happens is somebody's fault. Nothing is ever an accident. If anything goes wrong, wew all look around to find someone to blame. If a child falls off a climbing frame, instead of dusting him off and advising him to be more careful next time, we insist that the climbing frame is dangerous and must be closed off to ensure that no other child incurs an injury. We may consider calling one of the "accident helplines" (ambulance chasing lawyers) who advertise shrilly on day-time TV, appealing blatantly to the dispossessed and unemployed, and bring a suit against the council/school/leisure centre. Accidents, or the matter of blame associated with accidents, has become a way for the desperate to make money and to feel important.

Because if you bring a suit, you are a "victim". And that's my second loaded and dangerous word. Recently I notified the police that I had had my car wing mirror knocked off. I had to in order to claim on my insurace. I received a sympathetic letter from the Victim Support Unit, offering me comfort because I had been the victim of a crime. I wasn't the victim of a crime. My car was. Sometimes you just have to accept that shit happens. If every time something unwelcome happened to me I was told that I was a victim, I would be completely disempowered. I have control of my life because I have personal responsibility. My wing mirror got knocked off because I parked badly. Not long ago I read a statistic which told me that (and I'm being approximate as to the actual figure here) something like 1 in 5 women in Britain had been victims of sexual assault. Appalling, I'm sure you'll agree. Except that further enquiry revealed that a bottom grope was included in this. By that token, yes, I have been sexually assaulted. Now how ludicrous does that seem? To lump someone on a crowded tube squeezing my bum with the ordeal of my friend who was a true victim, pinned to the ground and raped in her own home? It is an isult to those who have been rendered powerless and diverts resources which should be targeted for their use. I am not a victim. Many, many bad things have happened to me, but I am not a victim. What is the point of making us all feel scared and powerless by labelling us as victims? The only possible outcome is that gradually we learn to accept that we have to entrust to others our lives and our futures. Because we are all victims we can do nothing for ourselves.

My third pet hate is "deserve". Because you deserve it, trills the spokeswoman for L'Oreal. How do you know I deserve it? What do you think I have done to deserve it? Have I done something really great to deserve it? We're told a lot about what we deserve, but we hear very little about what we should to to get our desserts. Again, we are disempowered. We are pampered like babies and told we are all special and we all deserve all that is good in this life, and we don't need to do anything to get it for ourselves. We can't all be special. If everyone is special then no one is special. As was so brilliantly illustrated in 'The Incredibles'. The only exception to this is babies: all babies are special to their parents. And so we ARE babies. And babies are powerless. If you've seen Wall-E and seen the baby-adults drifting around in their TV chairs on tramlines, well, that's where I believe the trilogy of 'blame', 'victim' and 'deserve' are taking us.

Of course there are victims with people to blame. But they are in a small minority and they must be cared for by those of us who are able to look after ourselves. We are the majority.

I was brought up with a firm belief in the power of personal responsibility. I believe that if I work very, very hard I can have whatever I want. I deserve nothing, unless I work for it. I have no entitlement, and I have no one to blame for my future but myself. I am no victim. And I think I'm very happy for that reason. Aldous Huxley said "Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities." I'm with him on that - the clue is in the word 'activities'. Take control, grab responsibilty and you will find yourself empowered. And then you'll be happy.

The times, they are a-changing.

It's been a funny old year. Daughter is twelve today and the world is a different place to what it was the day she hit eleven.

New terms have entered the vocabulary; hopefully they will die away very soon because they are ugly, annoying and imprecise terms. Credit crunch is used to mean the fact that everyone's a bit poorer. The term staycation means not going away as soon as school breaks up and holidaying at home - hardly a novel concept except perhaps for the mega-rich. Food costs more. Vegetables don't cost a lot more yet but they will, because it's rained for the last eight weeks. Meat already costs more and we can all afford just a dribble of petrol because the price is rising at a rate which would be reasonable only in Zimbabwe. Power executives are giving themselves mammoth pay rises and bonuses (boni?) funded by 30% hikes in the bills of their customers. Nice work if you can get it - I wonder how you sleep at night.

No one is flying because the price of aviation fuel has increased so fast, so budget airlines are going under. We all holidayed in Britain this year and we were repaid for our forced patriotism with the biblical floods we all enjoyed all over Europe. A few thousand who gave up and went abroad for fear that their feet would rot in the wet got stranded when their carrier went bust.

Pubs are finding it hard to keep going, especially in the countryside. The smoking ban brought in in 2007 has made it tricky to keep that convivial manly smoky atmosphere that we all either loved, or which stopped us darkening the door of a pub. In addition supermarkets sell beer so cheaply that people are staying at home to get legless and smoke themselves to oblivion in the comfort of their own front room. And they don't need to worry about getting home.

Some eejit has decided that children in this country should be taught creationism alongside evolution. This suggestion in being treated with some seriousness because the eejit in question is a science professor of some ilk. Not a very eminent one, I would venture to assume.

I am being forced off the computer because Daughter wants to use the computer and is playing the birthday card. (No pun intended...) Suffice it to say that I don't think any of these changes are making life particularly better. Shame, because I think so much could be taken from our situation and used to community advantage. I'll bore you with that later.

Sarah Palin. OMG.

I don't know where to start.

When I first saw the anouncement of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate I thought, in my knee jerk reaction way, "Oh good. A woman. That makes a change. Nice balance for John McCain." I'm a woman. I like to see the advancement of women. It goes with the ovaries.

The I saw her billing as "mother of five" and thought, "Well, yes, but if she's reached this stage in her political career then I'm guessing that the children have not been uppermost in her considerations over the past seventeen years." It'd be like calling George Bush "golfer". He does play golf, but frankly there are other important things about him. Like the fact that he's a congenital idiot. But I digress. I overlooked the fact that she's burdened her children with stupid names. Maybe they don't seem as stupid in Alaska. But someone ought to have told her (preparing for office as she obviously has been from the cradle) that in English English Bristol is slang for breast, as in 'Look at the Bristols on that.' I've no idea why that should be.

The I read that John McCain has only met her once for a half an hour and the whole illusion started unravelling in my mind. She's not a brave choice of running mate - she's a walking lure for the feminist Hillary-ites who might not go for Barack Obama.

Then I keep seeing pictures of her clad in fur with something dead at her side; sometimes she has her kids with her (alive). A little off-putting. I know Alaska is cold, but not even polar explorers drape themselves in dead animals these days. I mean, come on!! The photograph of her parents watching her nomination in their Alaskan home was remarkable for me because of the skins festooning the walls as much as for the total lack of expression in her father's face.

Then I start reading her credentials; pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-hunting [and how, pray can you be pro-life and pro-hunting? Make your mind up.] , in favour of creationist teaching and the tinciest bit sceptical about evolution. Hold on!! What??? Creationism?? And I bet she fulminates against the mad excesses of fundamentalist Islam without any sense that there might be some irony in her position...

And if you look at her eyes behind the glasses (which according to her she had to take to to tone down her attractiveness - I paraphrase, but that's kind of what she was saying...) there's this mad emptiness in there. A massive well of ambition and mad emptiness. Is it just me, or does she look slightly startled in those toothy staged family portraits, as if she's wondering who these other people are?

So so far, getting pretty dreadful. And then this morning I read that her daughter is pregnant. But the Republican party reassures us that we should not worry - Bristol will be keeping the baby and she will be marrying the young man who is the father.

Pro-life? Give me a break! What about poor Bristol's life? First of all they saddle her with a name that means tit, then she is brought up the oldest daughter, forever lugging younger siblings around and, one might suppose, instructing nannies on how to bring her up while Mum is chasing office. She is occasionally dragged outside to pose in blood-stained snow alongside some furry corpse. By accident (presumably) she finds herself pregnant, and one can only imagine the scenes inside the Palin household at that little nugget. As they are evangelical Christians, it is possible to believe that she feels that she has made her bed and must now lie in it by keeping the baby; just possible. But I cannot and will not believe that a child of seventeen decides voluntarily to enter into a marriage as an inevitable consequence of such a mistake. And where does this rumour stem from that the youngest and most ridiculously named Palin child, Trig, is not Sarah's but actually Bristol's? Why is Trig shoved into Bristol's arms for public appearances? Is Mr Palin so underendowed in the muscle department that he can't hold his own child?

So because they are 'pro-life', which means that they value the life of a mess of cells more highly than the person they have lived with for seventeen years, and because Sarah is on a mission to the history books, they consign their child to a miserable adolescence of duty-mothering and duty-wifing, and an early, miserable and widely publicised divorce.

I have immense and overwhelming distaste for a woman who foists her own dubious ethics on a child. And contempt. You should under no circumstances be allowed to bill Sarah Palin as a mother. It's as ludicrous as calling Dubya a golfer