...again!
I have a new blog, go see.
http://www.lexrigby.com
Friday, September 07, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
It's been so so long...
...I wonder sometimes whether it's actually worth trying to revive this piece of crap or just start again somewhere better with something more interesting to write but I kinda like the title. I think when I finally find the time I'll just redo the whole thing, maybe move it to a nicer place and make it like a billion times better. I also sometimes wonder whether my writing might have improved since I've written a tonne of essays over the last twelve months!
Since September life has been mega mega busy... hence the lack of updates. Unfortunately I'm not working a job that allows me to lurk on the Net all day reading blogs about all the rubbish stuff that is happening in this rubbish world anymore. Instead I've been studying for a Masters in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield. Overall it's been pretty good, not including those hundred ridiculously boring management lectures I've had to endure though. At the moment I'm working on my dissertation about the Iranian blogosphere. It's been incredibly interesting but it's been such hard work at the same time and I think I've had a mental breakdown every three days for the last three months. But in June I did manage to take a holiday to Iran, which was also mega mega brilliant. It was so nice to catch up with an old friend and meet those friends that often just feel like email addresses in a contact book. Weird that, all these 'virtual' people actually being real.
So anyway as of September 3rd I hereby declare this blog officially back open. Yes I do... and vent away I will!
Since September life has been mega mega busy... hence the lack of updates. Unfortunately I'm not working a job that allows me to lurk on the Net all day reading blogs about all the rubbish stuff that is happening in this rubbish world anymore. Instead I've been studying for a Masters in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield. Overall it's been pretty good, not including those hundred ridiculously boring management lectures I've had to endure though. At the moment I'm working on my dissertation about the Iranian blogosphere. It's been incredibly interesting but it's been such hard work at the same time and I think I've had a mental breakdown every three days for the last three months. But in June I did manage to take a holiday to Iran, which was also mega mega brilliant. It was so nice to catch up with an old friend and meet those friends that often just feel like email addresses in a contact book. Weird that, all these 'virtual' people actually being real.
So anyway as of September 3rd I hereby declare this blog officially back open. Yes I do... and vent away I will!
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Merry Christmas
So much for getting back in the game ey?
I just didn't expect to be so busy with school work. It's crazy! It doesn't feel like I've been up to all that much in my time away. I've been trying to study hard and spent weeks stressing over essays. I've been to some talks -- Tony Benn, Robert Fisk and John McDonnell. I've been to some shows -- Hardbreed, Terror, Down to Nothing etc. I've seen some films -- I can't remember which and I've probably picked my nose a trillion times :)
Anywho MERRY BLOODY CHRISTMAS.
I just didn't expect to be so busy with school work. It's crazy! It doesn't feel like I've been up to all that much in my time away. I've been trying to study hard and spent weeks stressing over essays. I've been to some talks -- Tony Benn, Robert Fisk and John McDonnell. I've been to some shows -- Hardbreed, Terror, Down to Nothing etc. I've seen some films -- I can't remember which and I've probably picked my nose a trillion times :)
Anywho MERRY BLOODY CHRISTMAS.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Life is Sweet
I rejoined university this week and as a consequence am now walking around with that horrible student label attached to me. So far I have managed to get up in the mornings and I haven't watched ANY daytime TV, especially not Diagnosis Murder so I'm not quite a student again yet am I? My lectures for anyone not interested in Librarianship would have been extremely boring but for me and my fellow librarians they have been rather good. We've had discussions about management, technological advances, Nancy Pearl (the stereotypical librarian) and the changing roles of information and the need for information management within an increasingly techno-society.
Here's a little clue as to why information management is just as important, if not more so today than it has ever been: between 1750-1950 information doubled, between 1950-1970 information doubled again, in 1995 information doubled every 30 months, in 1998 information doubled every 21 months and then in 2005 information was said to double every 30 days!! WOW. That's a lot of information I'm training to manage isn't it! Librarians don't just sit and say sshhh ya'kno! We preserve information, we organise information, we educate, we make information accessible, we do a bloody lot if you ask me.
Anyway... the main point of my 'Hello, I'm still alive' post wasn't to talk about my course but to give a nod to the Socialist Students meeting I went to on Monday. The main topic of discussion, 'What is Socialism?' got me thinking a lot about human behaviour and whether there can be any truth in one comment that was put forward; 'Everyone wants to be a Lenin, no-one wants to be the masses.'
So what is socialism? In my opinion a socialist state is a typically egalitarian-like state, a state that provides for everyone and maintains fundamental human rights such as healthcare, education, social security, food, shelter etc etc. Socialism is a rejection of the inequalities brought about by wealth and power. Socialism rejects poverty, war, human suffering. What I don't think socialism is however is a struggle for equality by stripping away individualism. The term equality suggest that everyone is equal in the sense that everybody is the same and has the same needs. I don't think this is right. Our inequalities are due to many factors including age, sex, physical strength, environment, culture, tradition etc etc. In my opinion a truly workable social state would therefore need to be one that recognised these differences and set out to provide for a states individuals rather than its masses.
I think one of the main failings of socialism has been its need to group people together on mass because it doesn't recognise patterns of human behaviour. Take Mao for example... The failure of communism in Mao's China followed Mao's totalitarianism, his desire for absolute power. It led to the great famine and the disaterous Cultural Revolution. He denounced aids that were essentially fighting for the same cause, he allowed torture, threatened to crush any 'anti-Mao' activity which included caring for your own children slightly better than your neighbours. Mao's China was nothing more than a fascist dictatorship. He called for criticism yet should anyone dare, they would be crushed, their whole family would be crushed and disposed of. You would be a 'class enemy', a 'Capitalist roader', a 'Kuomintang sympathiser' and forced to attend regular denunciation meetings, beatings and interrogations. The point I'm trying to make here is the fact that socialism could never work should it fail to recognise human behaviour and human emotion.
I read about an experiment earlier today by Philip Zimbardo at the Department of Psychology at the Stanford University in California. He took 21 healthy young men and decided to monitor their behaviour in a fictional prison environment. He appointed 10 prisoners and 11 guards and left them with a basic instruction: the guards are to maintain law and order. After six days he was to abandon the project entirely as the prisoners suffered appalling mistreatment leading to psychological defects. While he concludes that individual behaviour is largely under control of social and environmental forces, rather than being the result of personality traits, character or will-power I can't help but question whether it might be possible that the result of this experiment was mainly caused by an innane human behaviour to abuse power. Is it human nature to abuse power? Is abusing power a natural outcome of human nature that seeks to dominant? Is life simply a survival of the fittess? At any cost?
Maybe to answer such questions socialism should learn from role relationships and the consequences of organisational structures that ignore personalities, understandings of others, attitudes to behavioural constraints, abilities to inhibit and control behaviour and degrees of socialisation with respect of constraints. Well that's what I think anyway.
Here's a little clue as to why information management is just as important, if not more so today than it has ever been: between 1750-1950 information doubled, between 1950-1970 information doubled again, in 1995 information doubled every 30 months, in 1998 information doubled every 21 months and then in 2005 information was said to double every 30 days!! WOW. That's a lot of information I'm training to manage isn't it! Librarians don't just sit and say sshhh ya'kno! We preserve information, we organise information, we educate, we make information accessible, we do a bloody lot if you ask me.
Anyway... the main point of my 'Hello, I'm still alive' post wasn't to talk about my course but to give a nod to the Socialist Students meeting I went to on Monday. The main topic of discussion, 'What is Socialism?' got me thinking a lot about human behaviour and whether there can be any truth in one comment that was put forward; 'Everyone wants to be a Lenin, no-one wants to be the masses.'
So what is socialism? In my opinion a socialist state is a typically egalitarian-like state, a state that provides for everyone and maintains fundamental human rights such as healthcare, education, social security, food, shelter etc etc. Socialism is a rejection of the inequalities brought about by wealth and power. Socialism rejects poverty, war, human suffering. What I don't think socialism is however is a struggle for equality by stripping away individualism. The term equality suggest that everyone is equal in the sense that everybody is the same and has the same needs. I don't think this is right. Our inequalities are due to many factors including age, sex, physical strength, environment, culture, tradition etc etc. In my opinion a truly workable social state would therefore need to be one that recognised these differences and set out to provide for a states individuals rather than its masses.
I think one of the main failings of socialism has been its need to group people together on mass because it doesn't recognise patterns of human behaviour. Take Mao for example... The failure of communism in Mao's China followed Mao's totalitarianism, his desire for absolute power. It led to the great famine and the disaterous Cultural Revolution. He denounced aids that were essentially fighting for the same cause, he allowed torture, threatened to crush any 'anti-Mao' activity which included caring for your own children slightly better than your neighbours. Mao's China was nothing more than a fascist dictatorship. He called for criticism yet should anyone dare, they would be crushed, their whole family would be crushed and disposed of. You would be a 'class enemy', a 'Capitalist roader', a 'Kuomintang sympathiser' and forced to attend regular denunciation meetings, beatings and interrogations. The point I'm trying to make here is the fact that socialism could never work should it fail to recognise human behaviour and human emotion.
I read about an experiment earlier today by Philip Zimbardo at the Department of Psychology at the Stanford University in California. He took 21 healthy young men and decided to monitor their behaviour in a fictional prison environment. He appointed 10 prisoners and 11 guards and left them with a basic instruction: the guards are to maintain law and order. After six days he was to abandon the project entirely as the prisoners suffered appalling mistreatment leading to psychological defects. While he concludes that individual behaviour is largely under control of social and environmental forces, rather than being the result of personality traits, character or will-power I can't help but question whether it might be possible that the result of this experiment was mainly caused by an innane human behaviour to abuse power. Is it human nature to abuse power? Is abusing power a natural outcome of human nature that seeks to dominant? Is life simply a survival of the fittess? At any cost?
Maybe to answer such questions socialism should learn from role relationships and the consequences of organisational structures that ignore personalities, understandings of others, attitudes to behavioural constraints, abilities to inhibit and control behaviour and degrees of socialisation with respect of constraints. Well that's what I think anyway.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Back in the Game
Its been a while... A long while.
I spent August in India having the time of my life... I ignored the real World for a whole four weeks. I've been home a week and still not been able to pick up a paper or watch the news. I'm sat on my ass waiting for uni to start. In a weeks time I begin my Masters in Librarianship and hopefully will find myself thrown back into life outside my bedroom. I'm not sure whether avoiding my RSS feeder has done me good or not. I feel ignorant and stupid. I have no idea what Lenin is talking about, I don't give a shit about the latest Blair/Brown fight, I haven't read Comment is Free for what feels like a decade and the only news of the past five weeks to have stuck with me is the death of Steve Irwin.
When life begins again I'll find something worth saying... Maybe. I'll be in touch.
I spent August in India having the time of my life... I ignored the real World for a whole four weeks. I've been home a week and still not been able to pick up a paper or watch the news. I'm sat on my ass waiting for uni to start. In a weeks time I begin my Masters in Librarianship and hopefully will find myself thrown back into life outside my bedroom. I'm not sure whether avoiding my RSS feeder has done me good or not. I feel ignorant and stupid. I have no idea what Lenin is talking about, I don't give a shit about the latest Blair/Brown fight, I haven't read Comment is Free for what feels like a decade and the only news of the past five weeks to have stuck with me is the death of Steve Irwin.
When life begins again I'll find something worth saying... Maybe. I'll be in touch.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Marjane Satrapi
After falling off my bike on Tuesday resulting in a mangled up mouth and thick lips I've been pretty miserable, but today I have some great news! Marjane Satrapi's book 'Persepolis' is being made into a 100% hand-drawn animation. The Independent have the word here. She is brilliant... If you haven't read these books you simply must! They're easy reading for anyone interested in women/Islam/Iran/fundamentalism etc etc.
Now for something totally off topic -- Lebanon. I have nothing to offer. Hit up Lenin! PEACE.
Now for something totally off topic -- Lebanon. I have nothing to offer. Hit up Lenin! PEACE.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Enemy Combatant
I got a copy of Moazzam Begg's 'Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back' when I went to see him give a talk in London back in March and have finally got round to reading it. It's been hard! Terribly heart-breaking in fact. At times I struggled to even read a whole chapter in one sitting. This is more than just an account of his terrifying ordeal though... it's literally the story of a British Muslim surviving his 'God's Will'. It's definitely worth picking up!NOTE: 15/10/2006
Moazzam is coming to Sheffield on the 27th to give a reading! BE THERE
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