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I talked about my father, so now some words about my mother

January 10, 2021 By graham stewart

I’ve been reading Vivian Gornick’s book on essay and memoir writing. The Situation and the Story is a smart and lovely little book, full of wisdom and insight into what makes for great writing in both essays and memoirs. The book’s subtitle is “The Art of Personal Narrative”.

I have just read a section in which she discusses the life and work of Loren Eiseley and, especially, the memoir he completed shortly before his death in 1977. Eiseley’s book is called All The Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life. Gornick makes the book sound unmissable and it is already on my shortlist for this month’s books to buy.

It is something Gornick picks out in the book that I want to talk about in this post. After my post yesterday about my father it is almost suspicious that it is Eiseley’s relationship with his mother that caught my eye this morning when reading.

Eiseley’s description of his mother as “paranoid, neurotic, and unstable” found me nodding my head in agreement. As I have grown older I have come increasingly to realise the depth of my mother’s mental health issues, how those affected her life, and, of course, affected me as a child.

There is a sort of stigma about criticising your parents too publicly. But whereas when I was younger I would happily criticise my mother and rail at her actions and beliefs, with age has come a certain compassion and it is hard, obviously, to blame her for the things she did because she was unwell. What puzzled me as a child — and later as an adult — was that my father seemed to see no warning signs in my mother’s behaviour. In contrast, past girlfriends — and my wife, most definitely — can attest to behaviour that was not normal by any stretch of the imagination.

In the five years since my mother’s death, my father continues to talk about her as if she was a paragon of common sense, kindness, and fun. She was none of those things, except rarely. My father talks of the strength of their mutual bond and their long years of marriage. I haven’t — and of course I won’t ever — tell him of the hours my mother would spend telling me of my father’s faults. Every day for more years than I want to remember, my mother would greet me as I came in from school and start with stories that showed my father in a poor light. This did nothing, as you can imagine, for my opinion of my father and is one of the root causes for a relationship with my father that has never been more than polite.

Of the three terms for his mother used by Eiseley, it was the “neurotic” and “unstable” that immediately conjured up memories of my own mother. She may also have been paranoid but I suspect that aspect of her was easily hidden beneath her neuroses and instability. And those were the character traits that most defined her, I think. And those were the traits that made her life so small and, in the end, such a bitter thing to live through each day. The strength of her bitterness sucked my father into that same life.

It is hard to escape the lessons of a lonely childhood lived in the shadow of such a woman. Even now, with a family around me that I love and in I which I feel loved, there are times when I must resist the call of a different response to comfort and happiness. It is like a seed of misery that has to be squashed before it sprouts. There have been times in the not-too distant past when I have allowed the seed grow – through a mixture of depression and wilfulness — and it has taken me hard lessons to recover.

Surviving Covid-19 at 91

January 9, 2021 By graham stewart

That’s not a palindrome

I didn’t get to see my father this week. And I have tried calling him but his phone is switched off. So, I thought I would write this post about him instead.

My father is 91 years old. He is in a care home not far from where I live. He caught — and survived — Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic. That’s getting on for a year ago now, which is both strange and frightening to consider. The home called to say he had the virus but they weren’t going to tell him in case it worried him. He had a week of mild symptoms and then was fine again. When I visited him later he said he had not felt unwell at all and had no sense of being in danger. One of the lucky ones, obviously.

He enjoys the care home life. the best part is that he has everything done for him. My mother used to do everything for him, too. She died five years ago and for a year he found living a struggle. I suspected he would soon give up eating — apart from chocolate and biscuits — because he would tell me he was bored of even thinking of what to ask me to bring him from the shops. Arthritis in his hands had stopped him driving. He talked of wanting to go into a home. This, for him, was code for “I want to be looked after again.”

Our relationship has never been close and yet, as an only son, I felt it my duty to invite him to come live with us. My wife, not exactly a fan of the man, agreed that it was something we should do.

He stayed with us for two years and I don’t think any of us were happy. The happiest day of those two years for all of us was the day he left for the home.

I visit frequently for thirty minutes at a time. It is all that is allowed at the moment and it is long enough. We sit separated by a screen in a cabin in the grounds of the home. It is like visiting a prisoner but I’m not sure my father feels that the prisoner is him. My father remains, for the most part, cogent. He repeats the same questions from week to week. The best part of the slight memory loss is that he forgets how we argue about politics.

His days are spent reading the Daily Telegraph. Literally all day. He reads it more or less from cover to cover. A break for meals. The weirdest effect this generates is that he will raise an issue that is a result of Tory mismanagement, Tory policy, or the results of the years of pain and misery instigated by Thatcher and yet, when I point out the reasons for what he bemoans, he refuses to accept the root causes. His view seems to be that the world is a mess and the Tories are best placed to make it better.

You can imagine this makes conversation difficult. And this is not new. My father and I have been at loggerheads politically since I was a teenager. I think my father turned right-wing at an early age and has not deviated. He has not become more extreme but he has certainly not mellowed. He has a dry sense of humour and a notion of absurdity but his humour can turn to condescension when it comes to politics or economics. My father knows nothing of economics but thinks he is smart with money because he used to be a pensions manager for a large company. He is a perfect example of someone who accepts the right-wing myth that a national budget is the same as a household budget, with all the implications of balanced books and not spending what you don’t have. His acceptance of this ideological nonsense is the thing that most separates us.

We talk football and rugby and when we discuss Hearts or the Scotland team we are on safe ground. My father took me to my first game at Tynecastle a long, long time ago and I have followed Hearts ever since. For anyone who knows Hearts, this is a poisoned chalice that my father has given me. I forgive him for that.

There has been a new outbreak of Covid-19 at the home. The new strain, probably. They are starting to vaccinate the residents. My father has not been re-infected and it looks like the outbreak has been managed well. I received a message yesterday that the home was letting the residents mingle again and have meals together in the dining room. My father enjoys the chance to walk along the corridor to the dining room. I think it makes him feel like he’s in a hotel.

Tomorrow I will call the home and ask someone to remind him to turn his mobile back on. He worries about saving battery. I am the only person who calls him. Last time I saw him I said I had tried to call and asked him to remember to turn the phone back on. He said he would. He hasn’t.

Perhaps he’s happy not to talk to me.

It wasn’t funny but…..

January 8, 2021 By graham stewart

How satire nailed events at the Capitol better than mainstream media

The thing about satire is that if you find it funny and you recognise the truth that makes it funny, it’s probably wasted on you. That’s not to say that good satire is worthless or that a good belly laugh at the absurdities of the politics of the day is neither satisfying nor restorative. It just means that those on ‘the other side’ won’t be laughing along with you.

On the back of the mob gate-crashing the Capitol, there were a number of tweets and posts that captured the events with humour. This is in contrast to the apocalyptic responses from those so worried about democracy they immediately forget what the US has done recently in Venezuela, Honduras, and Bolivia, to name just three near neighbours.

So, first, the Onion explained why police numbers were low at the Capitol:

D.C. Police Lose Control Of Rioting Trump Supporters After Hundreds Of Officers Called Away To Deal With Black Jaywalker

Then there were a couple of tweets that appeared in my feed. Neither of which I saved or copied because I’m an idiot.

The first tweet went along the lines of :

“At last, a right-wing coup not supported by the Democrats”.

That was both accurate and timely, I thought. Kudos to its originator and I apologise for the lack of attribution.

Same goes for the next tweet:

“The coup was bound to fail because Washington doesn’t have a US Embassy to co-ordinate communications and logistical support.”

A serious moment captured through a wry humour that does more to explain the dangers we face from the right—and what we can call the ‘extreme centre’—than some easy blaming of Trump and his supporters. The ills that have led us here lie deeper in the rotten core of empire and the capitalism that makes victims of more and more of us.

I’m trying to kick my book habit

January 7, 2021 By graham stewart

One of the last books I read in 2020 was Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. This is a wonderful combination of a memoir of working with some of the most deprived addicts in Vancouver, a study of the neuroscience behind addiction, and a plea for a more enlightened treatment of addicts. It is a book both harrowing and hopeful.

The book addresses not only addictions to substances but also behavioural addictions. And it is with reference to that latter that Maté can bring his own experience to the party. He shares the effects of his own addiction on his life and family. Compared to the crack addict with life-threatening illnesses as result of the drugs, Maté’s labelling of his compulsion to buy classical music CDs an addiction can seem at first both frivolous and bordering on the insulting. Maté himself is unwilling at first to call it an addiction but as he works with the addicts at his clinic over the years and comes to understand the motives, the outcomes, and the patterns of addiction, he is able to apply the label with less and less embarrassment and more and more justification.

I recognised this addiction of Maté’s for two reasons. First, my late father-in-law had exactly the same compulsion — both for vinyl and CDs. John stretched his compulsion to cover jazz as well as classical music but the pattern was the same. I remember when I was based in Singapore and our first child was born. John and my mother-in-law flew over for an extended visit. John would spend hours flicking through the boxes of CDs in the many outlets selling cheap music in the shopping centres of central Singapore. He was in his element. I understand now that what he was doing was not giving him as much pleasure as I assumed it was.

And the second reason? Well, that’s my own compulsion. For me it is books. I spend too much money on them — by buying more than I can ever read — and I hide away from my family in books. Reading — and the physical comfort of books — has been a haven for me since I was a young boy. An only child, left alone much of the time and without the recourse to TV or computer (we’re talking many many years ago) I discovered books.

Now, I understand addiction. Scratch that. I have experience of addiction. I’m not sure I can say I fully understand any addiction, even my own. I am a recovering substance addict and it was only on reading about Maté’s CD buying that I was able to confront the other addiction in my life. Maté’s book also uncovered some of the reasons for both my addictions and that has been helpful.

Over four years ago, I documented on Medium a purge of books instigated by my wife that saw me dump about 1000 volumes on local charity shops. I suddenly had space on my shelves. Unfortunately, that space triggered some need and I started filling the shelves again. So, four years on, it’s as though the purge never happened. I’m not planning another mass dumping of books: the charity shops are all closed at the moment, anyway, thanks to the latest lock-down. But, armed with my new understanding, I am taking a more ‘mature’ approach to book buying.

So, here are the new rules coming into play this month.

Only two (two!) books to be bought each month
Before those books can be bought, I must have read at least one of the previous month’s books
For each new book coming into the house, an existing book has to leave

Like a true addict, I can almost feel my hands sweating at the thought of only two books a month. But the rules seem achievable. Then again, I tried routines of controlled use when I was trying to quit my other addiction. Never worked for long.

Growing up can be painful sometimes, can’t it?

Can I get a mass party of the left, please?

January 6, 2021 By graham stewart

…and I think we know now that Labour is not it

Sir Keith Strimmer revealed his true colours (blue?) quite quickly after assuming the leadership of the Labour Party. This has led to much discussion both inside and outside the party about whether socialists should leave and form a new party of the left. A socialist party, in fact.

I’m pleased to say that I left Labour the day after The Strimmer was announced as leader. I didn’t have any foreknowledge that he would be quite so disastrous a leader but my reasons for leaving were straightforward. As a socialist, I had never seen a reason to join Labour, but I joined to vote for and support Jeremy Corbyn, and I left when he was no longer leader. Although I believed that Sir Strimmer was one of the main reasons behind the disastrous 2019 election result, with Corbyn gone, it was clear that Labour’s once in a generation flirtation with the left was once again over.

There are left wing parties out there. Is there room for a new one? Possibly. However, remaining within Labour and thinking that there is any possibility of advancing socialism from there smacks to me of a combination of wishful thinking and laziness. The laziness that comes with the comfort of a party with large membership. So I think the only chance of success for a new party of the left depends on a majority of those who joined or re-joined Labour under Corbyn to switch en masse. This is not a guarantee of electoral success, of course. It will only generate funds. There have been desertions from Labour since the purge of the left began but, to be frank, not enough — and not quickly.

Would I vote for a credible socialist party at an election? Yes, in short. Then again, it’s an easy choice for me because I live in a constituency that is a Tory safe seat. Then again, with the proposed boundary changes and with Scotland lost to Labour for ever, an increasing number of English seats appear to be safe for the Tories. A party offering mild rebukes to the corporate class and pandering to business and repeating the old canards about spending and cuts and taxation is not going to instil a new generation of voters with passion — or even hope. After all, it was the centrist bromides of Clinton and Obama that led us to Trump. And the long decline of hope under Blair that brought us Johnson ultimately. A party of the centre always finds itself drifting ever to the right.

And speaking of Scotland, I remember when the SNP was considered a joke, both inside and outside Scotland. When they won a Westminster seat, it was thought a flash in the pan. A new party with a purpose, a strong message, and a grassroots network that links movements and communities may not win many seats at a first election. But this is about the long term, despite the fact that ‘long term’ is becoming increasingly relative with the planet burning.

I suspect, too, that in the not-too-distant future The Strimmer will want to pursue his own Clause IV moment and suggest the time has come to rename the Labour Party. After all, the name has overtones of, well working and the working class. Surely that connection is now redundant, they will say. The new party should describe where the true interests of its members lie. A focus group will be set up. Brand managers will be hired. And after many hundreds of thousands of man-hours and many hundreds of thousands of membership fees, the new name will be presented. Something bland like The Centrist Party, perhaps. More on the nail, do you think? How about the Neo Liberals?

Is this a good time to discuss guaranteed jobs?

January 5, 2021 By graham stewart

One of the things I want to do this year is to learn more about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Lat year I listened to a few episodes of The MMT Podcast and read a few articles about MMT that had me believing this was the missing piece that explained how the ideological foundations of austerity could be dug up and destroyed.

When Cory Doctorow appeared on The MMT Podcast not once, not twice, but four times….. and talked sense, as always, I was hooked. Listen here to the first of those episodes.

Two of the MMT books on my reading pile at the moment are Stephanie Kelton’s The Deficit Myth and Pavlina Tcherneva’s the case for A Job Guarantee.

Early on in chapter 2 of the Tcherneva, she discusses the way neoliberal idealogues have convinced us that unemployment is not merely an unfortunate by-product of a successful economy but, indeed, essential. This is both morally corrupt and completely wrong.

Tcherneva uses the examples of starvation, homelessness, and education to point out the stupidity off a policy that states that a level of, say, 5% unemployment is unavoidable. Here is how she relates that to some other measures of a successful society:

“Suppose you heard that, in a strong economy, the optimal level of children who wanted to but were unable to receive primary and secondary education was 5 percent; or that there was a natural level of starvation equal to 5 percent of the population; or that 5 percent of people would ideally remain without shelter.”

As she says, although — for the latter two categories, especially — our so-called advanced economies could do better, “we do not design or implement policy on the basis that there is some ‘optimal’ level for these social ills.”

On the other hand, it is clear that we do implement policies that keep a large number of people unemployed. This is likely to become a policy that becomes increasingly apparent as our corporate servants in government seek to reimpose austerity — possibly under a new name — to ‘pay’ for the cost of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I have skin in this game. My son is at home and unemployed. This is not a good time to find work, of course. It is especially not a good time to find work that he has trained for. His sense of self-worth diminishes by the day.

We have not always been so tolerant of an ‘optimal’ level of unemployment. And it’s worth asking; ‘optimal’ for whom? Although high levels of unemployment depress wages and lift profits, it turns out that unemployment has a detrimental effect, not only on the unemployed but also their families, their communities, and the economy as a whole. Go figure: economic policies are pursued that knowingly damage the economy simply to prevent wages from rising.

Of course, the old canard is that rising wages cause rising inflation and there is nothing that a central bank hates more than inflation. There are two things wrong with this belief now.

The first is that in the years since the crash of 2008 inflation has not been a concern. There were fears that great dollops of stimulus and quantitative easing would be followed by inflation. With low interest rates bordering on the negative, we’re more in danger of deflation now than inflation. No sign of increasing wages, of course.

The second is that, even in the old myth of inflation-driving wage increases, this happened when firms were competing for the same resources (i.e. workers). A policy of providing employment funded by the government at a living wage for the currently unemployed would not trigger competition with those employers who have no need of staff. (It might drive down the numbers of those forced into the gig economy — at what tends to be less than the living wage — or who are forced to hold down multiple part-time jobs but that does not feel like such a bad thing.)

Tcherneva makes a good case for the detrimental impact of unemployment beyond the unemployed worker. I don’t think this is new information or will come as a surprise to anyone with a modicum of awareness of our society. The issue is not so much how to pay for jobs for everyone as how can we afford not to?

It’s worth noting here that the points that Tcherneva makes about the cost of unemployment are valid regardless of whether you think MMT is a fantasy about a magic money tree or you see it as a mystery-dispelling antidote to the ‘there is no alternative’ brigade who believe in balancing the budget.

In the end, though, I suspect turning unemployment ‘benefit’ into employment benefit can only improve all our lives.