Celebrating the bore

The river Severn is tidal, and when the moon causes a particularly big tide, the river experiences a bore – a large amount of water moving up it at speed. They come in the spring and autumn for the greater part and are dramatic. Elvers (young eels) come up on the spring bores, and were important food for people round here.

Last night I had my first bore encounter. We walked down to the river bank at twilight and waited, not being sure when it would come. I like walking in to any kind of spiritual event, it’s more grounded than driving, and I like having time to be in a place, rather than turning up purely as a spectator for an event. As we waited, the sun went down and the owls came out – at least 2 tawnies and a barn owl. We were also treated to the efforts of the least able group of bellringers I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear, but by the time the sun set, they gave up and went home.

There wasn’t a great deal of light – some reflections from lights on nearby hills, some ‘ambient’ light reflected off clouds, thanks to Gloucester. Had there not been clouds, we would have seen the moon.

The bore began for us as a distant noise. At first I mistook it for traffic, but it was too even. My guess is that the bends in the river and the shape of the hills combine to make the sound of advancing water carry for miles ahead of the wave. Gradually, the pitch and volume increased, until we knew it had to be the bore. We could see a dark wave spanning the river and heading towards us at a pace. The roar as it swept the banks on both sides was dramatic and the energy in it tremendous. In the poor light, it felt like a huge and wild creature was racing up the river. After the main wave came several smaller ones, a sow and pigglets, I like to think. With the creature impression in mind I had images in my head of a river boar. The water level remained high, and the current loud. We could hear the boar himself roaring his way towards Gloucester for some time after he had passed us.

There have been humans in this part of the world for a long time. I don’t know what my Neolithic ancestors got up to round here, but they were certainly living near the river and burying their dead up on the hills. I feel that the bores would have been a significant part of any spiritual calendar – impossible to experience that and not feel a sense of wonder. And for anyone frequenting the waters in a boat, the bore represents a big change in the life and temperament of the river. Knowing when to expect them would be vital. As they vary in timings and heights, I can imagine that divination based on the behaviour of the bore would also be a possibility.

But for me, the image of a river boar is going to stay, and that sense of something alive and full of its own intent. I know there are entirely reasonable scientific explanations, but with all uie reference to the recent blog about belief, I can also hold, for myself, the sense that something passed this way last night, bringing its magic up the river.

Living with faith

Atheists often ask how anyone can base their lives on things for which there is no evidence. Things which they argue are manifestly not even true. Sometimes it seems as though belief and disbelief are the only options open to a person. If you’re even slightly philosophically minded, pure blind faith is virtually impossible. The questioning mind demands to know why, how, and what if? For some druids, personal experience offers a strong enough basis not for faith, but for a sense of certainty that the world works in certain ways. And then there’s the rest of us.

I’ve come to think that belief and disbelief are not the only two positions available to me. I’m going to play out the options by poking some issues.

I don’t think anyone knows what happens when we die. Some people have vivid past life memories, but I don’t know if that’s reincarnation, an ancestral remembering, something about the nature of time, or a brain malfunction. And even if you do remember a previous life, it is no proof there will be lives to come, just as remembering yesterday is no proof that tomorrow will happen. Near death experiences, ghosts, and other paranormal things encourage people to think they know, and yet everything we know about biology makes it hard to see how consciousness continues after death. I must add that everything we know about biology makes it hard to explain how consciousness occurs during life as well.

So my first held position around the afterlife, is one of total uncertainty. I do not know. Holding that thought, I can then go on to say that I believe there is more, and for me reincarnation makes sense. I find I can hold belief as belief, without having to believe that it is fact. It works just as well for gods. I do not know if gods exist, I choose to believe that they do, whilst recognising that this is a position of belief and not an assertion of fact.

I live guided by my beliefs, but these beliefs all hold within them the awareness that I could be wrong. So, for example, while I mostly believe in the possibility of reincarnation, I live this life as though it is the only one I have, because that’s a far more pragmatic call. My belief in gods leads me to honour and respect them, and seek insight, but at the same time my doubt requires me to take full responsibility for myself and not hold out too much hope for divine intervention. I don’t find I need any proof of anything, working this way. Not least because it makes me very aware that ‘proof’ is a flawed, subjective thing and largely isn’t available anyway.

I choose to believe in other things too. I believe that justice matters, that life should be respected, I believe that life is rich with meaning, and that everything we do, matters. These are also faith positions, with no ‘proof’ to back them up. Most values are in fact faith positions, based on beliefs we have chosen. I believe we can make those choices consciously. I would rather be the person who lives a life shaped by positive beliefs and aspirations, both about other people, and the nature of reality as a whole, than someone who chooses a perception that is gloomy and hopeless. I would rather assume the best of people. I would also rather have faith in myself, and those close to me, than choose not to, even while I still retain my capacity to doubt.

I have no idea if there’s a technical name for holding a space that encompasses both belief and disbelief in this way – if anyone knows what it’s called, please do leave a comment.

River stories

I’ve spent the last few days on rivers – The Severn and The Avon. I grew up near the Severn, longing to get into the water by any means, but unable to do so. She’s a magical river, home to the goddess Sabrina. There was a Roman temple to Nodens on her banks, no doubt other temples too and she has seen human activity since there were humans around. She’s also a fickle, moody, changeable river, which makes her dangerous, and every so often she takes a blood sacrifice. The Severn kills.

Simply being afloat and on the river was an intensely emotional and spiritual experience for me. You see the world differently at water level, familiar cities and landscapes came at me very differently. Travelling at the slow speed of a narrowboat, I also saw a lot of wildlife – kingfishers, egrets, herons, cormorants, an abundance of ducks and swans as well and lots of trees. It’s been a beautiful few days.

So, what have I learned? That I want longer ropes on the boat, for one. But on a spiritual level, it’s harder to pin down. I saw mist on the flood meadows where sheep and cattle have been grazed for thousands of years. I saw ducks sleeping afloat, ours the first boat in the early morning, catching the river as it is before the people come. People, boats, and noise change everything. Most of the time we don’t even get a glimpse of what life is like without us. But I had a little of that – a sense of the lives lived beyond human awareness, the secret lives of creatures and plants. I want to be a smaller, quieter presence, better able to blend in, to move amongst other living things without frightening them off. What I really want is to be on the river at dawn, in a canoe or coracle, paddling quietly, making few ripples, not breaking the air with sound. That would be true magic.

The more I think about this as an ideal, the more I feel it’s how I want to move through the world all of the time – as unobtrusively as I can, catching glimpses of those other worlds and existences. Going slowly enough to be able to see them, quietly enough to hear them, taking the time to look, and the care to notice. I think there is always more to see, deeper to go, and I wonder how much further I can take my own understandings in my day to day living.

Art, religion, druidry

Recently in Tewkesbury abbey I saw an exhibition by Christian artist and priest Iain McKillop. It was incredibly vivid, sensual, physical depictions of Jesus, focusing on his last days. As a consequence it was also heartrending and brutal in terms of subject matter. There were a lot of paintings – Gethsemane, last supper, cross bearing, depictions of crucifixion. There were also images inspired by religious crisis. It was incredible art work, and at the same time, almost unbearable to look at.

Coming to it as a non-Christian, as someone outside the story, I was simply shocked by the intensity of pain. The abbey contains plenty of older, more traditional art. Usually, the crucifixion is portrayed in a very clean, peaceful way. Beautiful colours, peaceful faces. Often Jesus looks like he’s taking a little nap, not dying by one of the most tortuous punishments ever devised. Those older paintings must have informed a lot of perceptions of what the death meant. Jesus dying is usually a gentle, soulful affair. To see it offered up, so bloody, extreme and agonised, is a bit of a shock.

As a druid, I’m very open to art, beauty and expressions of soul. I also seek to be aware of reality in all its complex shades, the pain as well as the pleasure. And still I am stumped by what I’ve seen. Trying to imagine the journey of the artist into creating this kind of work. What does it mean to live with such brutal images? To work on them, unrelentingly? And more importantly, what does the depicted pain and suffering mean?

I believe that everything has the scope to bring meaning and religious experience into our lives. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. Pain is no exception. Except that kind of extremis makes it nigh on impossible to think. There comes a point when both physical and emotional pain start to blot you out, so that nothing seems real, nothing is truly experienced beyond it. Is that a religious experience?

It’s easy to turn away from that which horrifies. Especially in art. It’s easiest to close down senses, refuse to engage and go somewhere safer. I stood those paintings for as long as I could bear, and I’ve meditated on them since, and I know I do not understand. All I can offer here is a profound sense of confusion. What does it mean, to offer such suffering as spirituality? For me, pain has taken me away from my spiritual self, not deeper into it. In the aftermath of pain, I have learned compassion and tolerance, and no doubt other things too, but that requires a time after, a peace, a space to regroup and move on. There are things here I feel a need to understand, but I have no idea what to ask, or whom. (Suggestions most welcome).

Tewkesbury abbey also features modern stained glass windows by Thomas Denny. He has windows at Gloucester too. They are beautiful, vivid, detailed and use colour in the most amazing ways. The more you look, the more you see. Light coming through the glass fills the chapel with warmth and every shift of light affects the image. Standing in front of Denny’s work, I see an expression of pantheism, God shining through in all things. It’s not emotionally uncomplicated or free from shadows, but is rich, moving, challenging and inspiring all at once.

I stand before those windows and I see something that fills me with wonder and a sense of the numinous. Just encountering Denny’s art is a religious experience for me. It fills me, nourishes my soul and sends me out into the world wakeful and hopeful. My Druid self loves what he does, and the different sources of our inspiration don’t seem to matter at all. This kind of Christianity, I understand.

Becoming a Druid

Bish asked, on facebook recently, how you become a Druid, as he had questions from others to tackle. I think these are the standard answers available. The general feeling is that recognition by other Druids is important in this.

1)      You can’t. The Druids existed historically and were wiped out by the Romans. There are no modern Druids.

2)      Train with a formal teaching body who will give you a qualification as a Druid (eg OBOD) Not everyone recognises the validity of any, or all of these, so this is not sure fire. Some people will recognise you as a Druid if you go this route, others won’t.

3)      Demonstrate your Druidness through your actions. Being a priest, an author, teacher, lecturer or researcher will establish your Druid credentials. Except that there’s the small issue of how you get to be established as these things in the first place, starting from a place of not being a Druid.

4)      Call yourself a Druid and steadfastly ignore anyone who says otherwise. Someone will say otherwise, this is one of the few reliable truths out there.

 

When it comes down to it, what we all do is option number 4, to some degree. At some point, for entirely individual reasons, a person comes to feel entitled to use the term. Study, attendance of rituals, recognition by others, and having bought a really snazzy wand can all contribute to this. We can do it out of ego and self importance. We can do it in service, in genuine belief and aspiration.

There are people who would like to be able to police who is entitled to use which terms. I’ve run into them on forums before now. I feel confident in saying we would never achieve an overarching Druidry structure that would teach everyone, bestow titles, decide who was allowed to call themselves an arch-druid, and otherwise define things neatly. There would be schisms, splitters, counter movements, and we’d be back to our current near-anarchy in no time.

You can’t tell if someone else is a ‘proper’ druid by making them sit an exam paper, or obliging them to do ritual in a certain way. And yet so many of us feel confident we know it when we see it. Apart from the people we know are getting it wrong.

I love this about Druidry. I love that anyone can claim the title of Druid, and that there is no inbuilt way of forcing conformity. I love the people who take their Druidry in crazy directions, and I also love the folk I heartily disagree with. More than anything, I love the fact that we’ve not given up being so hard to pin down, that attempts to shoehorn Druidry into tidy boxes have thus far failed. Long may it continue so.

You become a druid, by becoming a druid. And your first job as you take up the path, is to figure out, for yourself and on your own terms, exactly what that’s supposed to mean. To become a druid, you have to plough through all the things you will find and read about other people’s methods and definitions. You will have to cut a swathe through impenetrable and incompatible ideas, and you will be puzzled a lot. For every person who has so far embarked on that journey there will be a different story of routes taken, dead ends banged against, paths that just melted away in the night, teachers who were idiots, books that were unhelpful, rituals that didn’t work. And somehow, through it all, there is a not giving up. That’s probably the core of it. Decide you want to be a Druid. Weather the confusion. Seek your own path. Don’t give up. Get to the point of being able to call yourself a Druid.

When Worlds Collide

What happens when we run into something – be it an individual, or an organisation with such radically different beliefs to our own, that there is no scope for finding common ground or areas of overlap? For pagans, encountering people for whom your world view simply does not exist, is not an unusual experience. It’s not a problem exclusive to us – every field of study and human endeavour has scope for paradigm clashes. I know many pagan folk who have found themselves at odds with their families, because of irreconcilable beliefs. Such situations can be painful indeed.

I was exposed to post modernism at college. I learned that there is seldom any such thing as objective truth, there is only the perspective you are looking at things from, the beliefs influencing your perceptions, your own capacity to understand, and so forth. Two people can understand the same experience in totally different ways – with all due reference to the story about the blind men and the elephant. However, in that story, we can see that the blind men are each experiencing an aspect of elephant, their impressions are not irreconcilable with elephant, even if they cannot be reconciled to each other. Given a bit of time and encouragement, I have no doubt that these chaps could have figured things out.

We talk about the elephant in the room. I assume that’s generally taken to be a different metaphorical elephant, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe when things are hard, difficult to talk about, when we can’t reconcile our take with someone else’s we do need to recognise there is potentially an elephant in the room, and that we are only experiencing a part of it. Until we know what the other person perceives, we can’t get a grasp of the whole shape.

So at what point is it that we should refuse to accept another person’s conflicting take on things? When do we say “yes, there is an elephant in the room but you haven’t got to it yet.” When do we write someone else’s perspective off as insane? No doubt we all have at some point – religious fanatics of one brand or another being obvious candidates. We all have people we deem ‘nutters’ and whose opinions we ascribe to paranoia, or a flawed relationship with reality. It’s very easy to do that and avoid considering that another take holds merit when it is wildly at odds with how we understand things to be. And equally, there are folk out there whose opinions we have to deem hopelessly wrong.

There’s a mental dance here that calls for both flexibility, and the knowledge of when to stand firm. When to listen, consider and accept the difference, when to learn, when to reject a lesson. After all, we can all get things wrong, especially when we only have a partial understanding.

I think all that we can rely on when it comes to these clashes of ideology, is honour. If a position is honourable, but flawed, or misguided, or partial, that’s very different from a position that is inherently dishonourable, or that facilitates dishonourable behaviour. When you meet a belief that challenges you, ask what purpose it serves. If it functions to oppress, bully, restrict or undermine, reject it. If the effects are neutral, you can disregard it, or learn from it as you prefer. If you encounter a belief or idea that enables someone to do their work in the world, to stand up with courage, to maintain their integrity, then even if you don’t agree with it, that has to be worthy of respect.

Celebrating my pagan child

It’s my son’s 9^th birthday. He’s working on a monster right now. 9 years feels like a very long time ago, of course to him it’s a lifetime. My tigerboy started going to rituals when he was a few months old. While being pagan informs a lot of how I am and how I live, I did not, in the early years, seek to raise him as deliberately pagan.

When he started attending a Church of England primary school, he found Christianity was being taught as a factual subject in the same way he was learning science, maths and reading. For him, there was no discernable difference and this caused him some trouble. I remember a conversation on the way home from school. “Jesus saves us,” James announced. “From what?” I asked. He had no answer, and recognised that he had no idea what it was supposed to mean, or why it was a good thing. Dealing with Christianity at school and talking to me about what he’d learned, he eventually decided whatever he was, he wasn’t a Christian. He asked “what am I?” and I said “what do you want to be?” So he asked what it is that I do, and we started talking about it. That autumn, aged 6, he opted out of acts of worship in school, whilst deciding to do all the cultural and social aspects of Christianity. He also decided that he wanted to learn Druidry so I set about teaching him.

We’ve done the teaching slowly and in an informal sort of way, as and when things come up. He has a keen appreciation of nature, a questing mind and a passion for philosophy. My tigerboy will happily spend chunks of time contemplating the nuances of ethical dilemmas. He likes to ask big questions, and ‘why?’ is a regular feature of conversations.

At the moment, my boy is doing druid stuff no doubt in part because it’s what’s there. I think there’s a lot about pagan religion that resonates with him. The ethical values and green consciousness will, I think stay with him as he grows. It will be interesting to see how he develops as a spiritual person.

I think many people who grow up in religious backgrounds have the experience of being directed, given one truth. I have no idea where my son will go, given support to be a spiritually aware person, but no pressure to manifest that in any specific way. If he decided to be an atheist, or pick up some other faith, I’d respect that decision. In the meantime, we have a birthday to celebrate, and monsters to draw.

Magic, fiction and paganism

Often in fiction, magic exists as a plot device, and alternative to science and a means to get things done. Sometimes, the mechanics are laid bare. Fictional magic often lacks mystery. Spell casting wizards whose magic is reliable if they say and do the right things are commonplace in fantasy. Psychic powers and magical attributes are usually well defined, predictable, reliable, and (to borrow from Red Dwarf) other words ending in ‘ible’.

As a pagan, my whole idea of magic is completely at odds with this. For me, the very essence of magic is mystery and wonder. I don’t perceive magic as an alternative to science either. I see them in far more complex relationship. That which we do not understand, is magic. That which we have an explanation for, is science, in terms of how humans deal with things. But science can engender wonder and a sense of the miraculous.

Brendan Myers defines magic as that which inspires awe (my books are in storage, I can’t do references!) I think this is a great place to start. The fireworks and thunderclaps of fantasy magic are no different from any other pyrotechnics. They inspire excitement perhaps, but not any sense of wonder.

In fiction, magic just isn’t magical very often.

The desire to explain, to pin down and regulate seems to be on the increase. We confuse understanding, with pinning a thing to a board. To understand a butterfly is to see it in flight, watch how it sits on a flower, to marvel at its colour. Pinning it to a board will help you define and quantify it, but destroys the butterfly. All the mechanical explanations in the world cannot really give you understanding of any complex thing. There is a world of difference between theory and practice, between figures and insight, between taking a thing apart and understanding how it works.

There are some authors who offer wonderful expressions of magic – Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, Charles De Lint, Robert Holdstock, Jonathan Carroll, Terry Pratchett with his witches. There’s the whole genre of magical realism, inspired by pre-colonial ways of knowing the world – I’m not a huge fan of Salaman Rushdie, but he’s a fine example. Isabelle Allende is a personal favourite.

These are authors who write experiential magic, and who embrace the numinous. Magic is not, for them, a tidy and coherent system that works like a science or a technology. Magic is wild and wonderful, unruly and full of mystery. It does not explain itself. It will not sit down and tell you where it came from, how it works, and what you can and can’t do with it. Instead, it is the magic that transforms lives and brings inspiration.

There are a lot of people out there who perceive stage magic, fantasy magic, as the aspiration of actual pagans. They imagine that we want to be Harry Potter. They watch impossible, crazy things and understand that magic is impossible and unreal and not available to them. So much magic in fiction is actually taking away from people the idea that magic exists, by turning it into high fantasy. I’ve yet to meet anyone who does Harry Potter style magic (I assume no one would admit it if they could), but if this vision of what magic means defines it in the public conscious, most people will understand it is not for them, and that only crazy people would seek for it.

Remystifying magic, re-enchanting it and bringing it back into a spiritual and meaningful context, would be an epic task. But not impossible. It’s just such a nuisance that Hollywood pyrotechnic pseudo-science goes round calling itself magic, when it’s about as unmagical as you can get.

Entitlement and Honour

What I want to talk about today is a habit of thought that I think is both dangerous and damaging. It’s also far too easy to slip into, and I suspect it is something we all do to some degree.

The thought form goes something like this. “Because of this thing, I am entitled to act in a certain way.” To develop that, we might say “Because I am in pain it is totally reasonable for me to be short tempered.” That’s a line it’s easy to accept. “Because I earn the most money, I should be the one who makes all the decisions.” “Because I did not like what you said, I am entitled to hit you.” No doubt you can come up with plenty of alternative versions.

It’s a slippery slope to get onto. Now, everything we do is undertaken in a context. Our own feelings are part of that. If we are hurt, we become angry. If we are frustrated we may want to lash out. Feeling a thing is always fine. There can be no wrong feelings, they are simply how we respond. The difficulty arises when that feeling is then used as a justification for subsequent behaviour. Not only is this an issue in abuse situations, but it is something to consider in terms of personal honour and how we treat those around us day to day.

If we rely on justifications, do we accept the same justifications from others? Is it fine for someone else to be snappy with us because they were tired? Is it fine for someone else not to have done a job because they just didn’t feel like it? Wherever we draw our lines, integrity demands that we are consistent. If it is truly justified for us to behave in a certain way given the right circumstances, we have to make the same allowances for everyone else.

Closer scrutiny of the attitude that ‘I am justified because’ can lead us towards the uncomfortable conclusion that really our belief is ‘I am justified because this is what I want.’ When it comes to behaving badly, taking, using, not bothering and not taking care, this is at heart an act of laziness. It’s painfully easy to do, and becoming aware of doing it is very uncomfortable.

There are ways of handling it better. For example, I am frequently difficult around menstruation, I become impatient, short tempered and the pain makes me crabby. I do not always manage that well. If I snap at someone and follow through with “Well tough, I don’t feel good, I can’t help it,” I reinforce having knocked my victim back. If I instead apologise, recognise that I am spiky because of pain and make clear the problem lies with me, not the other person, they at least know not to take it personally and I have at least managed not to compound the initial slip by trying to justify it. If I think pain, illness or some other issue is going to affect me – moodwise, workwise, concentration etc then I try and warn people in advance. I’ve found that helps where circumstances make it genuinely difficult to maintain perfect self control. Explanations tend to work better than justifications.

No one manages to behave with perfect care and mindfulness at all times. We are human, flawed and fallible, and when life throws us challenges, we are not always going to field them with perfect grace. What matters, is being honest about that. Acknowledge the mistakes, recognise the reasons and they do not become entrenched as assumptions and justifications. Alternatively, if we get in the habit of justifying, it’s so easy to keep sliding down that route, towards an understanding where something as small as irritation justifies causing pain to another, or the suggestion that we are somehow less than perfect makes us feel entitled to verbally attack our ‘accuser’. I’ve seen that done, and it isn’t pretty, but I doubt anyone starts there.

Rioting

We’ve seen violence, looting, burning and mayhem not only in London, but also Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool. “Mindless criminality’ is a phrase that has been offered a few times by way of explanation. Which is no explanation at all. Sat in a quiet corner of the UK, I’m not directly affected, but so many people are, or must be fearful this morning that they too will be caught up. Others, no doubt, are looking at the TV footage and feeling an urge to get their piece.

Civilizations are made up of individuals. They only work so long as enough people co-operate with the systems, institutions, laws and habits that the civilization purports to uphold. In my occasional posts about the idea of quiet revolution, I keep saying that if there are enough people who want a thing, change will happen. But what we’re seeing here isn’t coherent protest or revolution, it’s theft, arson and violence. The homes and property of ordinary people are coming under attack, as the ordinary people themselves. Whatever else is going on here, the people out rioting clearly don’t have much empathy for others or much concern for their communities, or even their own futures.

As a country, we are in financial crisis. Services are being cut all over. Mounting a police response on the scale these riots require, is going to cost a fortune. We are all going to have to pay for that. Damage to homes and businesses is damage to jobs, incomes, communities, futures. Some of us will pay for that more than others, but we will all pay. Part of the problem is that our rioters have no sense of their own involvement, their own relationship with community and state and they probably have no thought for the consequences.

There are a lot of issues underpinning what’s happening here. Loss of hope, lack of opportunity, poverty, lack of work, a materialist culture that stokes demand but can’t pay people to buy what they are told they must have. Lack of social engagement. Widespread isolation. If people feel engaged with each other, if they have meaningful relationships that inspire care and a sense of belonging, they don’t go out and burn each other’s cars. Disenfranchisement is a word that springs to mind.

The people on the streets did not spontaneously wake up at the weekend and decide, out of nowhere, to be destructive and irresponsible. Every single one of them has been through a process, a life, a series of experiences that have brought them to this point and made that action seem like a good idea. That’s something we ignore at our peril. And if the media reporting is much to go by, for every rioter, there are hordes of quieter, but no less angry people. The Metropolitan Police are appealing for people to clear the streets so they can sort out the ‘criminal element’. I fear they are missing the point a bit. Why are all those non-violent folk also on the streets, witnessing but not participating? Why are they taking the risk? What is motivating them? Those interviewed talk about racism, social breakdown, loss of opportunities. The quiet people are angry too. They might not be going to join in the looting spree, but there are a lot of troubled, frustrated people out there empathising with the rioters. They too have been through a series of experiences that have brought them to this point.

Over the weekend, listening to radio reports about the financial crisis, I heard a lot of people questioning the very concepts on which our current, capitalist system is based. We have built a system that is entirely about winners and losers. We’ve gone for competition, not co-operation.  Buy now, pay later. We have an advertising industry that sells us fear, greed, social anxiety and a sense of never being good enough, so that we spend money we don’t have on products we don’t need. We have a government paying a fortune on war that can’t house and care for its poorest people. This is not working.

We need radical change.

Rioting and violence are not answers to social problems, but they are symptoms of despair and alienation. We are not going to make those underlying problems go away just by arresting a few people, labelling the problem as ‘criminality’ and trying to sweep the causes under the collective carpet. I am absolutely opposed to violence. But we have to recognise that what is happening on the streets of our cities, is happening for reasons. Lots of reasons, none of them good. We are all part of this. How we get out of it, I have no idea, but inspired, and inspiring leadership would be very welcome right now, not the language of dismissal or attempts to diminish the wider social issues underpinning this.