A lot of September has had me reflecting on music I used to listen to a loooooong time ago, when I first started to get out of only listening music recommended by elders or pop charts,(not that there isn't a few great gems in there, but it does feel good to get to that age and start to finally develop your own taste). Say what you want about the internet but it's a great way to discover new music. The album that sticks out most for me would definitely have to be Dusk by The The. I remember reading Johnny Marr's autobiography to find out about this one. I think it was sometime soon after leaving / breaking up The Smiths, he found comfort in his friend Matt Johnson, who was creating all of his music by himself I believe. Marr adds so much character to this record and its actually quite refreshing to see him used as almost a session musician, I don't know what it is about him after leaving The Smiths but his work is extremely hit and miss, and let's not even talk about his solo career.... (Sorry Johnny), especially on songs like Slow Emotion Replay, his guitar work is so funky. Anyway, here's one of my favourite tracks from the album but I would definitely recommend listening to the whole thing back to front, gives a great insight into Johnson and the death of his brother, with Marr's harmonica (which he played while crying his eyes out) on this track, it's just full of emotion! Just a solid album with great songwriting and at some points is quite theatrical, check it out!
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
What I've Been Listening To - 26/09/2023
Big Business / I Zimbra (Live) - Talking Heads
"This is mine" - Jean Jacques Rousseau's 'Private Property' Britain
Under the Conservative government in the UK, immigrants have been consistently vilified and marginalised since the first non-British person set foot on ‘our’ land. The claim that Britain should be for the British and that we should be proud to own our own country, not opening our opportunities and liberties to anyone but those that look identical to ourselves is not a new concept.
It would do the British people good if they were to ignore the propaganda being forced upon them by a conservative , property-driven government and to think for themselves by taking this argument that ‘immigration is a bad thing’ to its natural conclusion of the empty, desolate lack of culture that would exist in Britain without immigration, and to forget their ‘God-given’ blessing of simply being born British and the unjust pride that comes with it, “you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody”1 is a quote from Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality that should be better understood in the Western world. There is a strange sense of entitlement that the British seem to cling onto from the moment that they learn where they are from that denies the existence of anyone that dares to come over to this country and make it any better than it already is. The British conservative government in control of this country at the moment are doing everything in their power, both culturally and legally, to keep anyone remotely different to them out, as Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, called for “Lower immigration, and suggested more British people should be trained to do jobs commonly done by overseas workers”2.
The establishment of property,
according to Rousseau, is the root of all inequality and that by nature all
humans are peaceful and have little capabilities for making reasonable
decisions; the civil society that has emerged from the slow evolution from the
state of nature man originated from is where the inequality has birthed. The
slow progression from, man first claiming a piece of land and claiming, “this
is mine” 1, into the formation of tribes in which humanity learned
to socialise turned slowly into full ownership of those claiming private
property for themselves, “Where there is no property, there is no injury”1.
From this socialisation came a sense of relation comparisons between one
another, comparing who was stronger or weaker, faster or slower, bigger or
smaller, etc. When these characteristics became apparent, humans living in
their societies became aware of their superiority over not just other animals
but the people living around them. Rousseau is trying to say that once humans
work together and the division of labour is created then equality no longer
exists, as they become dependent on one another. The way that our society, and most
societies around the world, operate, under a capitalistic system, is that that
those slight indifferences, that were apparent in early stages of society has
been expanded and exploited to the furthest possible extent, creating a
difference in wealth, wellbeing and privileges bigger than has ever been
recorded in history, and yet continues to grow bigger, the quote from Rousseau
“when estates become so multiplied in number and extent as to cover the whole
of the land… no estate could be enlarged except at the expense of its
neighbour”1 highlights this point best. The want for this country to
hold onto what we have over helping those less fortunate than us (many due to
our own actions during the British Empire), is all encompassing; it is a notion
that helps only the top percentage of wealth owners, and the Conservative party
have managed to convince those it will not benefit, that it in fact will. The
indoctrination of the poor to this ideology that they should not support their
fellow common man is astounding, the fact that the UK government has them
basically doing their job for them without having to implement laws to prevent
immigration, they simply spread propaganda about how their jobs are being
stolen and that this country is great. Once a person who is no wiser, than this
clear act of brainwashing, gets this idea in their head, the Conservatives no
longer have to work as they will spread the message for them!
The conservatives pledged in their
2019 manifesto to bring down the overall number of migrants coming to
the UK, of which prime minister of Great Britain, Rishi Sunak has recently
reiterated that this promise still stands, despite the number of migrants increasing
since 2019 by over 274,0002. Overlooking the argument of the culture
that is brought to the country by immigrants, this number has increased in
recent years due to the war between Ukraine and Russia, yet Sunak defends and
repeats the sentiment that non-British people are still unwelcome, no matter
the circumstance. Rousseau states that once men had fully developed society and
had little need for their skills to be used in the natural world anymore, they
would turn to dominion over one another, he states “I do not see how it can be
inferred of men in a state of nature, who could not easily be brought to
conceive what we mean by dominion and servitude”1; the inequality at
a man’s most natural level is non-existent, as the chains of the modern man,
i.e. their possessions, tie them down and make it so they have something to
lose. Once man feels the status these chains of possessions have brought him,
he must make it known that he is above those who do not have possessions, and
can far more easily exploit those below him as they do not have chains
themselves, and therefore have nothing to lose and all to gain; those less
fortunate are put in a position where they must take anything they can get, to
acquire the chains of possession which, in the modern world, are the currency
for all things, power and status, “One man, it is true, might seize the fruits
which another had gathered, the game he had killed, or the cave he had chosen
for shelter; but how would he ever be able to exact obedience, and what ties of
dependence could there be among men without possessions?”1. Those
living in impoverished, war stricken and third world countries have their
status symbol removed by this very system, built by the west, and when they
look for reparations, or simply charity, from the very perpetrators of their
misfortune, they are turned away yet again.
This is exactly the way that
conservative, right-wing governments operate, not basing their oppression upon any
of the characteristics, but simply base their superiority on chance of
birthplace. The only thing that one needs to prove their precedence over another
is the location of where you happen to be born, if this happens to be within
the prestigious nation of the United Kingdom, great! However, if you’re unlucky
enough to be born outside the strict borders of our sacred country, then
unlucky for you, unfortunately you would have lost the lottery to become a
person that is respected by the western world. The logic of superiority within
this country goes beneath the reasoning of Rousseau’s primitive man.
Rousseau states, “In proportion as
they grew enlightened, they grew industrious. They ceased to fall asleep under
the first tree or in the first cave that afforded them shelter”1.
This initial push that enhanced the industrious instincts of man was never
supressed; the further and further man pushed for industrial progression, the more the productivity
increased and the sociality and care for others decreased. There was an
extremely small window where it was possible for man to make this decision, but
the greed took over and eventually snowballed and snowballed until it created the
inhumane gap between our fellow humans that has ever been. The UK was built
upon blood and oppression, but this is the version of Britain that we do not
see, the reason we are so successful and stable as our own country is
only due to the mistreatment of others. This is something that the Conservative
party dare not to talk about due to fear of the common brit realising that
their heritage is not actually something to be proud of, but rather the
opposite; we should be ashamed of what our country has done to others and
attempt to create reparations for those less fortunate as ourselves. For Sunak to
state that allowing refugees and asylum seekers is unacceptable, the bare
minimum to save lives from poverty and war, inadvertently caused by ourselves
or not, is shameful. The issue of other people’s pain is something that must be
swept under the rug and ignored by our government to justify that they treat
other human beings; it feels somewhat strange to have to point out the fact
that these people are actually human beings, as the way they’ve been treated is
far from that.
After the initial state of the
primitive man, according to Rousseau, Man begins to change its priorities.
After so long of wandering around the wilderness on their own, gradually start
to come together, uniting in groups by “customs and character – not by rules
and laws”1 for the first time. This is the most beneficial state of
Man during its transition into a more socialised creature, but again this
concept was pushed to its absolute limit, and again the greed that is
slowly generated is spread throughout the whole of the system throughout the
world, and the cultures and humans go the other way, so far the other way in
fact that we are now pushing our fellow people out of our country back to their
‘own country’ to save our jobs and leave them fighting in wars or against
poverty, or of course to solve all of the problems in their ‘own country’
before bringing them overseas to ruin ours!
The British Conservative Party is
cruel and unrelenting to anyone that is different to themselves, anyone that is
unfortunate enough to be born outside of our own border, in a country
desecrated by our own people, anyone that is unfortunate to have a different
skin colour or look slightly different to ‘one of our own’. Rousseau’s theory
of private property may have been formulated hundreds of years ago, yet it not
only rings true today, but has been true for so long it has outdone itself and
created inequality on the largest scale ever recorded in human history, and
growing bigger every day! The UK tory government are synonymous with Rousseau’s
common man, unwilling to socialise with those outside his own inner circle, but
reap the benefits of the socialisation of man, pushed to its extreme limits, at
the behest of those who simply got there first and claimed the crown, ignorant
of all their closest neighbours and allies, as the want to take more and more, as the fruit that they have collected themselves overtakes their morals. The
Conservative government have claimed “this is mine”1 to Britain and
will not give an inch to anyone who stands in the way of progress to turn the
western world into a capitalistic hellscape.
Bibliography
1.) Rousseau, J.J. (1984) A
Discourse on Inequality. Penguin Classics. England: Penguin Books.
2.) (2023) ‘Legal migration is too high, says Rishi Sunak’ BBC News. May 19.