Lies Will Set Us Free?!

Sherkin Island and Baltimore Beacon, put there to make sure seafarers found the right gap in the cliffs!

Happy Christmas and a Joyful and Prosperous New Year to all my readers!

Maybe it was just as well that I have been horrendously busy, with Fiona incapacitated and a lot of work to the house to be finished in time for Christmas, so I have not had much time for thinking about the Rt Dishonourable Johnson and the horrendous election result in Blighty. Meanwhile, season of goodwill and all that, I have to reflect on why I am so out of tune with all those voters. Not that I accept that the election represents, as the RDJ avers, 'a powerful people's mandate' for his lousy deal - that's another addition to his long list of lies. 
     
     In fact a majority (52.6%) of votes were cast for parties that either opposed Brexit or, in the case of Labour, called for a second referendum on the final deal with the option of remain, as opposed to 47.33% who voted for Brexit parties. Meanwhile all opinion polls still indicate that there is 'a consistent and clear majority for “Remain.”'* So much for the British 'beacon of democracy'.

     I do however understand how many voters are convinced, in good faith, that the EU is too remote and cumbersome, and have come to identify it with globalising tendencies that they do not like. As G.K.Chesterton put it:- 'Democracy is never quite democratic except when it is quite direct; and it is never quite direct except when it is quite small.' Yet for all its size, the continental set up is not doing so badly. Great Britain and its post imperial, first-past-the-post system barely qualifies as democracy in comparison. 

     Where was the intelligent and respectful debate in that election? Are elections just a matter of who has the best slogans and can shout loudest? Those little knitty problems, especially the Irish ones, were simply ignored by the Tories, as of course were the even knittier big ones like turning the massive investments in war, weapons and fossil fuels over to peace and sustainability. The Brexiteers have been promising a great future with all sorts of new trading opportunities, above all a great new trade deal with the USA. That it would come at the cost of what little progress is being made in tackling climate change bothers them not at all. I do not think the moment of reckoning will be long delayed.

     Chatting to an islander home for Christmas but living in Philadelphia for years, I commented how shameless the Republicans were in simply repeating the Ducky's line about the 'scam' of the impeachment hearings, rather than engaging with the facts as established, while lamenting that the same approach appears to be prevailing nearer home. "Well, at least Johnson is reasonably intelligent and knows he's lying", says he,"Trump is too thick for that!"

     In another recent conversation, about climate change, I was quite confounded. My man admitted that the planet was heating up dangerously, and that CO2 etc were building up in the atmosphere - "but the scientists cannot prove a connection between the two!" What can one say? Millions and much expertise have been expended demonstrating this connection with hugely sophisticated computer models, yet I suppose it is true to say this does not constitute 'proof'. To me this constitutes a good demonstration of the whole fallacy about 'proof', that we have heard so often in the mouths of clever fellows who 'don't believe anything that can't be proved by science'. Actually none of the really important things can be, such as the fact that I love Fiona or even the beautiful island that we live on - or any connection there may be between these two facts!

     Perhaps we should be glad of the fact that it has become quite impossible to continue to pretend that our 'democracies' are rational affairs, and electorates make their decisions on the basis of reasoned arguments. The very conviction of the potential primacy of reason is in fact ultimately a matter of religious faith. Getting there is a journey, to be undertaken at many different levels. Clearly the EU represents considerable strides on this journey on some levels, but we Europeans can admit too that the heady ideals need to be more effectively rooted in people's experience. The degree and success of subsidiarity is critical, and the ability to embrace these ideals at a personal and practical level.

     Meanwhile British Europeans may recall that it was a lot worse for catholics when His Narcissitic Majesty Henry VIII was on the job. Today's catholics, those who have universal solidarity and sustainability at heart, can only keep on trying to take hold of truth wherever they find it, build on it and trust that in the end it will prevail. We can also be profoundly grateful for the positively miraculous fact that, for all the many failings of her children, the Catholic Church remains basically on track, and thank God for Pope Francis!

     Unfortunately, when people are confronted with horrors like having to rein in the destructive habits that are so dear to them, like driving whenever they like in the biggest car they can afford and flying to beat the band, they are inclined to react against those who would try to persuade them to do so. We can only try to find another way to live, and show perhaps what fun it can be. But, if nothing short of a flood through the Palace of Westminster will persuade the English to change their political set-up, so be it! One may hope and pray for wise and honest leaders, but they are a rarity, and we should not be downcast or confounded in their absence. We just have to keep on trying to hold the ones we are stuck with to account, refusing to give in to their false narratives and speaking the truth as we see it....

Photos by our Cristiona, whom we are so lucky to have home from London for Christmas.

 *see https://fedtrust.co.uk/brexit-the-end-of-the-beginning/     

WhyTell the Truth When a Lie Will Do?

It was one of those quirky sayings that I picked up about Glencolmcille. "Why tell the truth when a lie will do?" I can hear it now on the lips of Old Johnnie, in his sweet Donegal brogue, with the merest hint of a smile glinting in his dark eyes. "Bah," he commented one evening - "Joe doesn't tell any lies!" While there may have been some smidgeon of respect behind the comment, it was not exactly a compliment. After all, seeing how successfully one could pull the wool over some people's eyes was a time-honoured sport, honed over generations who had to deal with bossy and over-bearing landlords.

     He tried it on Fiona pretty quickly when we landed in Braide, fresh from English middle-class life. She went over to  his house with some ticks that she had extracted from the children, on a saucer, to ask what they were and find out if they were harmful. "Ah, them's very good to eat!" said old Johnnie. 

    In that square head beneath the grizzly grey hair, set on the squat, powerful body, the questions must have played endlessly as his solitary toil went on - 'was Connie Dan lying about the big money he got for that beast? What is going on between Moira and Sean? Is the world coming to an End?' What after all would one be doing with a mind unless it were to play with such questions? And what kind of a man does not sometimes come against the final culmination of them - 'What is Truth, anyway?'

     How many people in England today would even recognise this query, from when it was most famously employed? By Pontius Pilate questioning Jesus, I suppose that I had better add! For surely the contemporary 'crisis of truth' has not a little to do with the fact that only a minority now have a basic acquaintance with Holy Scripture. I am not even commenting that the world would be so much better and happier if everyone believed the Gospel. What I am saying is that it is unlikely that our civilisation can last much longer when people have no knowledge of or acquaintance with the Man who claimed to be the Truth, and not the least opportunity to put to themselves the questions, 'could his word be true?' Or even, 'if there were such a thing as truth, is that really what it might it look like?'

     One aspect of the matter should be obvious - the Truth can get one crucified. It is simply incompatible with narcissicism. To perceive it requires training and discipline, and a  civilisation requires foundational stories that commend it to succeeding generations. Any profession is built upon the recognition of certain truths, which sometimes may well be inconvenient. A professional person is someone who one can rely on spot and express the truth of a given set of conditions, whatever they may be, 'in season and out of season'.

     Regular readers of this blog will know that I value the sea

particularly as a teacher of truth. It sometimes seems these  days that my career as a professional sailor came to an end when I recognised an inconvenient truth - as we were sailing along on a beautiful day with everything going well, except that the bilge pump was working overtime, in spite of my having done my best to fix the leaks, and we were heading north, homeward bound for Ireland, on the Portuguese coast. I chose to put the Anna M on the concrete at Nazaré, despite the facts that there were plenty of fathoms beneath us, we had a brand new liferaft, a fine long sandy beach under our lee, and she was insured for €60,000.... But there you go, that course of action would have involved some whoppers! Who would want to have ended their career that way?

     We are all confronted with a rather larger 'inconvient truth'! Our spaceship Earth is in serious trouble. We need to fix it, fast. It will not suit a lot of people to recognise this fact, and cost a lot of money. But truth is a habit and a skill that we seem to be losing. Even old Johnnie Andy would have admitted that it is well to avoid lying to oneself with that dangerous little phrase - 'oh, it will be fine!'

     Time was when Englishmen prided themselves on speaking truth and standing up for it, at whatever cost to themselves. When I confounded my Dad with the information that we were heading to live in Ireland, one of his parting shots was 'Never trust an Irish lawyer!' I doubt if he was even aware that even in those days some of the unfortunate lesser breeds of the world harboured a very different kind of stereotype - that of the deceitful, devious and downright untrustworthy Englishman. 

     I wish I could shout it across the land of my birth - please, please do not elect one of them as your Prime Minister!