We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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The recent death of the footballer George Best has seen an outpouring of sentimental remembrance about the skill and talent of one of Britain’s greatest ever footballers. It has also seen a sober reflection of the darker side of Best’s life. As Sue Mott pointed out:
As a sportsman, he was ruinously worshipped as a god. As society’s golden boy, gloriously handsome, funny and highly intelligent, he enjoyed all life’s little luxuries in conveyor-belt quantities. He was a Hollywood film star from Belfast and while we may now lament the wine, women and song, if you had been there at the time, could you have been the one to say: ‘Shall we put the cork back in the champagne, George, I think we’ve had enough?”
It is a common theme of society that those who are blessed with extraordinary talents at one discipline are allowed special leeway in manners, morals and behaviour that are not bestowed upon lesser mortals. Had Best not been such a great footballer he would undoubtedly have been shunned by society as a drunk and a lecher. But because he was once a truly great footballer, he was treated as something different. People tolerated his drunkenness and women gave themselves to him sexually because he was genuinely seen as being cut from a higher cloth then other men. This may seem unfair, and in a way it is, but it was also the root of his downfall.
George Best, and footballers in general, though, are hardly the only sort of celebrity to take advantage of the special rules of society that are afforded to those touched by genius. And it has been going on for a long time.
Nearly 200 years ago, the poet Lord Byron made use of his fame as a poet to indulge himself in all manner of peccadillos, most of them sexual. That was perhaps not so uncommon for a Peer of the Realm back then, but it was mirrored by the behaviour of Percy Bysshe Shelley. A more dramatic example is in the personal life of Ludwig van Beethoven. Poor health, deafness, depression, loneliness and financial troubles made him a very difficult man to deal with, but he was indulged by many people precisely because he was obviously the greatest musical talent of his day.
Poets and classical composers do not have the influence on society in this day and age as they used to. The place of Byron and Beethoven has been taken by sports stars and actors and television celebrities. Some of these people, like Shane Warne are as gifted in his field as Byron was as a poet; and Warne has been noted for womanising on a considerable scale as well. Some are, in sober fact, non-entities, but we live in a vacuous time where everyone gets their ‘fifteen minutes of fame’.
Many not so talented people have also exploited their celebrity to get away with actions that would not be tolerated in others; Hollywood is of course notorious for this sort of thing, where actors and actresses have their notions of their own worth and talent over-inflated by agents, publicists, and the media. A similar fate has befallen many popular musicians over the last forty years. This sort of bad behaviour takes many forms, not just in terms of sexual self-indulgence, but substance abuse, or simply by being a difficult and unpleasant person to be around. The life and times of John Lennon reflect this- he confused his musical talent with wisdom, and spent his latter years pontificating about a society of which his understanding of seems have been very limited indeed. However, because he was such a fine musical talent, no one was willing to stand up to Lennon and tell him that he was talking nonsense.
Why? Why do we allow this select group of people, not all of whom are that talented, to get away with this sort of thing. Why can’t we “put the cork back in the champagne” as it were? There seems to be something innate to many people who must feel that they can reflect the glory of the star’s achievements by indulging them in their foibles. This can not be healthy for us any more then it is healthy for the stars. Just look at George Best now.
Society is something emergent that occurs when people interact with each other, you cannot point at it and you cannot owe it anything. When any politician says the word ‘society’, you can be damn sure what he really means is ‘the state’.
– Perry de Havilland
If people want to make a fuss about what a cultural phenomenon the Beatles were, and comment on their innovative and interesting music, well that is just peachy and not at all hard to understand. What is a bit baffling is why so many folks are trying to suggest John Lennon was anything more than a talented musician.
I just watched part of the old recording of his peace-bed thing with Yoko Ono and I was reminded of an old Dirty Harry quip: a man’s got to know his limitations.
“All we are saying is give peace a chance”. And it was true, that really is all he was saying. Lennon said it over and over again. Peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace… and presumably felt that just repeating the word over and over again was a better way to convince people that is was a mistake to oppose the communist take-over of South Vietnam… rather than, say, a geo-political critique of US involvement or, say, arguing that preventing communist domination of South Vietnam was not worth American lives or in fact articulating any sort of coherent argument at all. I too would like to imagine a world without war, but I would like to imagine it without tyranny first.
The guy was a buffoon. A talented, gifted, artistic, charismatic buffoon. Just stick to celebrating his art.
Granted his early appearances with Take That were aimed squarely at the pink pound, but that is a historic video persona. Robbie Williams himself is virtually a by-word for, how should I put it… cocky, pop-star heterosexuality. So much so, it seems pretty darn odd that even gossipy, downmarket, national newspapers should choose to print flimsy stories attributing to him a history of casual gay sex. The sequel, however is odder.
British libel law being what it is, the already wealthy Mr Williams has just received a large financial settlement and an apology. Good for him! Silly newspapers who should know better made untrue statements, and he took full advantage of the law to get compensation.
But there is something weird going on, nonetheless. Leave aside the peculiar way defamation puts the burden of proof on the defence. Here we have an example of the inflexibility of the common law. Why in early 21st century Britain it prima facie defamatory to impute homosexuality to a man (or, for that matter, un-chastity of any kind to a woman)?
This same week the British state directly affirmed (or seized control over, depending on your point of view) same-sex partnerships for the first time. And it is not just official recognition. Openly gay individuals are accepted and successful public figures. The most popular BBC drama series last year was the revival of Dr Who, mainstream family programming with a recurring supporting character who is a polymorphously perverse time-travelling conman, now liberated into his own series. The most imitated comedy turn in the nation’s playgrounds is Little Britain‘s Daffydd*, soi-disant “only gay in the village”, the joke of whom is his determination to be oppressed despite all the evidence around him that plenty of neighbours are un-dramatic queens, and nobody gives a toss anyway.
Likewise, who would give a toss if Robbie Williams had had homosexual dalliances? It wouldn’t make him a less entertaining performer or his music less catchy. It would not make him a less engaging personality. Arguably more complexity is more interesting in a public figure. So it is hard to see how the libellous story, however wrong or personally hurtful, could either lower him in the estimation of his peers or significantly damage his commercial prospects, which is the theoretical justification for libel damages.
On the other hand, I can be disparaging about the content of his musical work, or his stage act, and if I am widely published, then I might do real injury to his sale prospects, as well as emotional hurt to the creative person and performer. That’s not actionable, though. I am not saying it should be, but the comparison illuminates how archaic is libel.
[* I’m grateful for a commentator’s correction.]
So the Boy Wonder (same age as yours truly, gulp) has been elected leader of the Conservatives. We have been fairly rough on David Cameron these past few weeks, concerned that Cameron does not seem to stand for anything much other than a desire to be jolly nice, moderate and sensible (ie. to maintain the status quo with a blue tinge). Well, I am at least prepared to repress my concerns for a while and see how he does. With the economy showing signs of cracking under the increasingly oppressive Chancellorship of Gordon Brown, and with Blair seemingly unable to push through his reforms, the time is ripe. Luck has a huge bearing on politics and as Bonaparte said of his generals, luck is as important as ability. The media has certainly been gushing about him, which again gives me the jitters. If the Tories are to win, they must regain some of their lost territory in places like the West Midlands, not just the salons of Islington.
We shall see.
UPDATE: I seem to have hit the post button almost at the same time as our sainted Perry. Great minds think alike!
David Cameron is the new Tory leader. So we have a ‘choice’ between two Blairites.
I cannot tell you how excited I am about this development 
One of our team brought this bit of aviation humour to my attention.
It is guaranteed to give you a bit of a smile.
The biblical notion of ‘an eye for an eye’ is still taken seriously in Saudi Arabia. Literally.
The only people who object to ID cards and CCTV are ‘bad people’, right? I mean after all, everyone knows that the people who work for the State are of a more incorruptable and moral nature than us mere private people.
Yeah, right. The State is not your friend.
I have this unusual mp3 file (mp3 file now removed to save on bandwidth) on my hard drive and I have no frikking idea where the hell I downloaded it from, what it is called or who the artist is. Does anyone out there have an idea? Please let me know if you have any clues.
It has quite a low bit-rate so I would guess it is a sampler track dumped on-line to promote a CD (so you would think the information tags would be filled in but nooooo).
Update: I have removed the mp3 file to save on bandwidth now that the question has been answered by the commentariat.
Just did some live blogging over on PajamasMedia on the subject of who should control the internet.
I must confess that I was not wearing my pajamas however.
Those smart fellows at the Marginal Revolution economics blog like to track all manner of strange and innovative ways in which Man engages in the age-old routine of truck and barter. Sport has spawned all manner of new business enterprises in recent years and now it is possible for investors to build assets by investing in the future market value of footballers.
Makes sense, really. These days football players, even quite mediocre ones – never mind great talents like Pele or George Best (RIP) – are paid enormous amounts of money in their careers. Rather like the bloodstock trade, I think. The idea of getting a financial stake in a player is also likely to bring investor pressure on players to be monitored off the field as well as on it (do we really want a potentially lucrative asset to be carousing down the pub?)
Personally, I am sticking to equities, bonds, cash and a bit of brick and mortar.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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