#Ponanza programme beats #shogi master Shinichi Sato in Japanese chess first; 'Deep Blue shades of #Kasparov' http://t.co/JKMXyOUfzs #iRobot
— ッ MEDIOLANA® EDU (@Mediolana) April 2, 2013
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Food, Inglorious Food: Home of ‘Zero Hunger’ Programme Trashes Comestibles ‘On Epic Scale’!
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Filed under Environment, Urban Life
Why is Liberal Britain Dying?
Regular readers of this blog will by now be well aware that if Mediolana CSO Asad Yawar is reading anything, there’s a decent chance that it’s a copy of the Financial Times; a recent piece by political columnist Janan Ganesh demonstrated once again the power of the beige-papered publication of record to inspire. In Strange death of a more liberal Britain (25th March 2013), Ganesh notes that as well as economic growth, ‘the looseness and openness that has historically accounted for much of the UK’s success – and appeal to outsiders – is also in danger of being misplaced’. Citing (i) the recent mooting of a restrictive press law; (ii) the ever-tougher and now cross-party rhetoric on immigration; and (iii) the repeated ‘wounds’ received by the City of London from Westminster and Brussels, Ganesh laments the loss of tolerance for ‘tolerating real messiness in economic and public life’.
There is little doubt that in many basic ways the United Kingdom (as at least partially opposed to London) has become (and will probably continue to become) a much less ‘liberal’ place than it previously has been. But why is this? After some contemplation, we feel that this trend can be largely explained by the loss of the ‘three cogencies’ of liberalism in the local (and to some degree, global) context:
1. Economic Cogency. With the ongoing and epoch-defining financial collapse which began to make itself felt in 2007, (extreme) economic liberalism has begun to resemble communism: a nice theory that doesn’t necessarily work very well. Rapid-fire financialisation, self-regulation and endless credit were once synonymous with Progress. Now it has become abundantly clear that implementation of these previously unquestionable tenets of (post-)modern growth can in fact destroy economic value far faster than they create it, it is scarcely surprising that to many observers, economic liberalism has lost its appeal.
2. Social Cogency. The cold, hard statistics consistently show that non-UK nationals are a much lighter burden on the state than UK nationals; that they are more entrepreneurial and very significant sources of inward investment; and that if your economy is not attractive to immigrants, you are probably in big, big trouble. But none of this matters if large sections of the media and public taken as a whole prefer to ignore these ‘dry facts’. In a country of increasing economic insecurity and an ever-diminishing global status, the truth is often simply unpalatable for much of the population.
3. Intellectual Cogency. With Francis Fukuyama’s End of History thesis broadly accepted at face value, liberal theoreticians and practitioners alike have been busy fulfilling his ‘prophecies’ with unerring accuracy. Ever-expanding albeit rather selective social freedoms – to marry someone regardless of their gender, to purchase alcohol in a bar 24-7, to never stop shopping – have not papered over the crisis of meaning (and since 2007, sustenance) that has become all-too-apparent since the end of the Cold War. If liberalism can no longer say anything profound about the world or remedy any of its most pressing problems, we should not be surprised at its atrophying – however regrettable this may be.
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Filed under Economics, Finance, Political Science, Politics
Dhow Cannot Be Serious: New Saudi Law ‘Could Throw Millions Into Unemployment’!
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Filed under Business, Economic Development, Economics
From Friends to Two Broke Girls: Is American Popular Culture Adjusting to Tougher Times?
Throughout much of the 1990s and 2000s, Mediolana’s CSO had to blag his way through a whole series of pop culture conversations, but none so often as the one about Friends; he still hasn’t got round to seeing a single complete episode of the 236 that were made over the ten years of the iconic NBC sitcom’s original run. However, such was the total penetration of that programme’s cultural impact that our CSO could more or less survive a Friends-themed interaction, winging it via references to the popular ladies’ haircut the series inspired, observations on the similarity between names of Lisa Kudrow and Barcelona striker Meho Kodro, and ironic musings about whether life in New York City was really that glamorous for most people, most of the time.
Fast forward to the 2010s and an epoch when Asad Yawar has finally carved out forty-four minutes in his weekly schedule to watch an American sitcom, and the scene could not be more different: indeed, the café-based situation comedy of the zeitgeist is not Friends or even the seemingly ageless Seinfeld, but Two Broke Girls, a bleak take on life in post-developed Brooklyn. The promising premise sees underclass waitress Max Black (Kat Dennings) joined in an Asian-owned establishment by Caroline Wesbox Channing (Beth Behrs), a dethroned socialite and alumnus of Pennsylvania business school Wharton whose fortune (along with those of much of the city’s wealthier denizens) has disappeared in her father’s ponzi-scheme.
But Two Broke Girls is about much more than two obviously-contrasting personalities and the rich opportunities for comedic material that this presents. Indeed, in its scripts there is more than a hint or two of a mirror to American society and the direction in which is has travelled:
1. From the Waited-on to the Waiting-on. Of course, Central Perk was a Starbucksesque environment where customers are at least encouraged to – using the technical term – bus their own trash, but there was no mistaking the awe with which the collective global audience was meant to behold the shiny-haired mob that constituted the ‘gang’ of Friends. Conversely, in the Williamsburg Diner, restaurant patrons have an at best ambivalent status, with the ‘stars’ of the show being the overworked, behind-schedule and regularly victimised entry-level staff.
2. Cynicism. Friends was not a series to which the ‘postmodern’ tag applied, at least until the main protagonists became so ludicrously famous that every episode ended up breaking the fourth wall whether it wanted to or not. The NYC of 2 Broke Girls, however, is a conurbation that has been chewed up and spat out by a decade more of dizzying and still-increasing inequality and societal breakdown – Max’s comment that sleeping with a knife in her hand is the best home security system she can afford is barely ironic.
3. Post-Dream. The intrepid pair of waitresses create meaning in their lives by dreaming of, and eventually working towards, opening their own cupcake shop, but well into season 2 it is apparent that if this is going to happen at all it will happen on credit. In the interim, the title characters are left to inhabit a world of predatory men, linguistic vulgarity and emotional distance – with the American Dream having exited stage left while no one, seemingly, was looking.
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Filed under Culture
The Greater Depression: UK’s Generation Y ‘Exhibiting Existential Anomie’
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Filed under Education
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