VIOLENT BRITAIN

READ MY ALL NEW ULTIMATE MAGAZINE POST
What’s on today: How to sort out rising violence in society … PLUS … New health policies demand sensible lifestyle from people. Bush finally takes green measures.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

VIOLENT BRITAIN

Five people in Britain died over the New Year festivities due to violence, including a 16 year old teenager. Now, for some countries this is maybe not a terrible death toll, but for Britain, it is part of a growing problem of unrestrained violence.
Measures taken to combat it include attempts to raise the price of alcohol and put restraints on known violent louts. But the problem will never be sorted out by specific measures alone. Something more significant is needed.

Looking back to the 18th century crimewave could be useful.

At this time, Britain seemed to self-destruct into an orgy of crime and violence. Why is this? If we look at the time, certain things become obvious.
It was the time when capitalism was beginning, and religion was in decline. Today, that religious decline is almost complete, and we have a new breed of super-capitalism. Hence, the social ingredients are remarkably similar.

As such, maybe we can gain answers by looking at how the crimewave was finally sorted out.

And it was a three-pronged solution. First of all, the streets were flooded with Police, beginning with the Bow Street Runners. But other things were far more significant.
A new social movement began, financed by philanthropists, to properly tackle social inequalities; and a new breed of preacher – the Methodist – went on to the street to bring back morality.
Of course, I’m not saying religion needs a popular return, but in getting rid of it, we also got rid of the moral and social constraints of good order. We need to relearn these values. But of most importance, the answer to crime is found in taking a holistic approach to society.

© Anthony North, January 2007

DOCTOR GOD

A new NHS constitution will soon be with us in the UK, giving us clear rights we have to health care. However, our ‘esteemed leader’, Brown, has worryingly indicated that this will mean ‘duties’ on us to look after ourselves …
… read more …

BUSH DOES A GREENY

Okay, it’s happened. President Bush has actually signed into law a new energy bill that – wait for it – attempts to help the environment. Now I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t a joke, really …
… read more …

You can comment on any linked post below if you wish

Try North’s Encyclopedia. Expand your mind

PICTURES OF LIFE – Chapters 13-14

Click Fiction Page for more of this novel

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Life can be a funny old thing. It is thought of as the most precious thing in the universe. Yet, so often we can class it of little importance. When a man kills another, when a person takes his own life, we demean the beauty of life. That which is so precious is so easily lost. Yet Dale Crawford had reason to think about life in recent years – life, and, of course, death. He realized the irony that wife and life rhyme – is this for a reason? Does a wife make a man’s life complete? If so, then Dale’s life ended so abruptly when his wife died in the hit and run. But life had gone on for him? How was that so? Maybe we are always able to reinvent our life. That’s what Dale had obviously done. And when Julia came along, was he heading for yet another life? Until …
How did he place her words in terms of his appreciation of life? ‘You could kill Vernie,’ she had said. Kill, kill, kill.
Julia immediately saw the change in his demeanour. He stiffened; his jowls became taught. An eruption seemed to be building up deep inside him – somehow he managed to control these waves of emotion, but with difficulty. Perhaps it was his innate decency.
Julia said: ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It was stupid.’
Dale leant over her; reached for the door handle. Opened it. ‘Get out.’
‘But Dale.’
‘Out!’

DI Summers was well aware his investigation seemed to be going nowhere. Forensics had come up with a big fat zero, and as if conditioned by the words ‘big’ and ‘fat,’ he found himself stood outside the butcher’s. Inside, Duane Hollis seemed to be hovering. He could imagine the intent. His big brother had disappeared, leaving him in an awesome position of having to please his father. Maybe he was threatening Thadias Grimes right now? If, of course, Grimes was telling the truth.
Alternatively, Duane may be frightened. His brother had disappeared. Maybe he would be next? And if so, who was after the Hollis family? There were plenty of candidates, that was for sure. And an enmity existed between the family and Grimes. So maybe Duane was pleading for himself.
It was difficult to tell. Duane was now moving closer to Grimes. An altercation was inevitable. From their faces, both were angry. Bile was being launched at each other. Indeed, to Summers, Grimes seemed a little more confident, as if HE was controlling the situation. Did that mean it was true that Duane was frightened of the butcher, or could it be that, as the kid of the Hollis family, Grimes was not as afraid.
Summers’ musings came to an end when he saw Grimes reach for a meat cleaver. He opened the shop door, walked in and coughed.
Thadias stopped in his tracks. He looked at the meat cleaver and seemed shocked it was in his hand. Comically, he tried to put it down as if Summers had not seen it. As for Duane, he stood faking nonchalance. ‘Lovely day, inspector,’ he said. It was clumsy, his voice high, shaky, unconvincing.
‘Haven’t you got someone to play with?’ said Summers. Affronted, Duane Hollis rushed from the shop.
‘Thank you, inspector,’ said Thadias. ‘That was good timing. I thought he was going to go for me.’
‘Why would he do that?’ asked Summers.
‘He’s young, petulant. And with his brother gone, he has something to prove.’
‘He seemed more frightened than you did.’
‘Don’t be silly. Why do you think I picked up a weapon?’
‘Why indeed,’ retorted Summers.
Thadias changed the subject. ‘So what can I do for you?’ he asked. ‘Maybe you want another of my pies.’
Summers smiled. Thadias went to pick one up. Then the detective remembered the rumour going round the street. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, rather too forcefully.

Julia James almost ran home; and as she wasn’t as young as she once was, the effect was pain; pain which trebled within her mind.
She sat on the settee, stunned. Thoughts raced in her head. How had she been so stupid? Didn’t she realize that decent men didn’t take killing easily. Perhaps she had been so used to Vernie’s mentality. She could imagine him having no trouble killing someone. She had known that for a long time. After all, when they met, he worked for Old Man Hollis, and she was sure he did things that were not – how shall we say – legal. And then there was their falling out. The Old Man was always suspicious of Vernie. Perhaps he had tried to double-cross him? But one thing was for sure. If Vernie James ever tried to kill anyone, he would come up from behind.
But Dale was different. She was stupid, stupid, stupid. And as that realization dawned, she buried her head in her hands and cried.

Dale Crawford did not cry. He had sat in his cab for a long time, stunned. He had thought her such a wonderful, pure woman. He had thought there could be a life with her. But to suggest murder? How could he ever think he could have a life with her after that?
How long he sat there, he didn’t know, but eventually he realized life goes on – it was precious like that. Hence, he pulled himself together and switched on his mobile.
It was then that he received the message. ‘Oh my God, Bobby,’ he wailed, and then drove like the devil.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

To say Bobby Crawford looked worse for wear would be an understatement. How long he remained unconscious he had no idea. Neither did he know whether Moz and Jimmy did it on purpose, or whether this escalation was an accident. Not that that mattered. Regardless of motive, his head hurt like hell. Maybe he’d get DI Summers to investigate, he thought; after the case of Jack’s ghost, of course.
The nurse hovered, smiled. His father hovered, looked worried. Strange, thought Bobby, it must be serious. Dad usually smiled when pretty women were around.
‘Nothing too serious, Mr Crawford,’ said the nurse. ‘He’ll have a headache, and if you check this card, you keep an eye for concussion.’
Dale nodded. Thanked her. Then, turning to Bobby, he said: ‘Who did this?’
‘I slipped.’

Rachel Hollis fumed as she walked down the street. She had two loves, of which one was really a hate, whilst the other was a growing problem. The former was her love of hating her uncle. The Old Man was everything she hated, and she knew he detested her presence in his household. She had often thought of wiping out all the family, but could rarely be bothered. As for the latter, this was her love of sex. Sex was something she could really enjoy, but she was becoming aware that, if she wasn’t careful, she’d catch a reputation or maybe something worse. But unfortunately, the two problems seemed to merge, for whenever she felt hate for her uncle, she had an equal and opposite reaction to vent her frustrations with sex. Physics was obviously not wasted on HER at school.
She banged on Peter Picasso’s door with a vigour in proportion to the force she hoped he would use, soon, with her. Hating the wait, she banged again, just as Peter opened the door.
‘Oh,’ he said in surprise.
‘Yes,’ replied Rachel before pushing him inside, pinning him against the wall, kicking the door shut with her foot, and struggling to relieve him of his trousers.
Through some Herculean effort, Peter managed to get up the stairs and into his bedsit, dragging Rachel with him in some miraculous, conjoined way. Of course, his protestations seemed to fall on deaf ears, and as the two of them collapsed on the bed, Veronica Dean rose from under the covers and said: ‘Don’t mind me, why don’t you.’

It would be wrong to call Dale Crawford an alcoholic. As with most things in life, he could control them with ease. But something was clearly going wrong at that present time. Perhaps life-changing factors can accumulate to the point that the most courageous of men can succumb to self pity and bury their psyche in worry.
This was one such time. Hence, seeing Bobby safely to bed, he rang the babysitter and felt an absolute need for the pub.
Of course, he felt guilty, leaving Bobby like that. But in his presently faulty mind he realized he had to be separated from the problem to work it out.
He drank thirstily from his second pint. What is wrong with him, he thought. It was clear, now, that he was being bullied. But why wouldn’t he tell me? Do kids always keep secrets from their fathers?
This was a hard lesson for Dale to learn. Being a regular sort of chap, he had the superiority of the breed, sure that he was not going to make the mistakes that other fathers did. Maybe he didn’t realize that the problem was not with him, but with the world. Kids simply had to keep secrets; it was the way they were; it was the first stirrings of independence so important for the learning curve to adulthood.
I must speak to him, thought Dale as he drank some more; ordered a third pint. I must convince him that he must speak to me; and then I’ll have to do something about it.
He had moved on to Julia by the fourth pint. Oh, Julia, why did you have to say that? Is that all our relationship is about? Getting rid of Vernie? Is there no more to it?
But he couldn’t believe that – not really. He had made love to her, and he knew genuine love when he felt it. There was no faking there. It was real alright. So maybe it was just a stupid mistake, so out of character that it would never happen again. Could I really throw away happiness because of a stupid mistake?
It was by the end of his fifth pint that he had decided what to do.

Peter Picasso surveyed the wreckage of his bedsit and smiled. He sat alone, experiencing the calm after the storm.
‘You cheating bastard!’ Rachel had said.
Rescuing his face from under her chest, Peter had said: ‘That’s rich.’
‘And who the hell is that tart?’
‘Hardly a tart,’ said Veronica, climbing out from the bed and dressing.
‘Now Rachel, listen,’ said Peter.
‘Listen?’
‘Yes, calm down.’
‘How could you?’
‘But you’ve cheated on me all the time.’
‘So she’s your girlfriend,’ said Veronica.
‘No,’ said Peter, ‘she’s …’
‘What?’
‘Yes what?’ offered Rachel.
‘You know …’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes, do I,’ echoed Veronica.
‘This is madness.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Rachel.
Peter decided on drastic action. After all, Rachel had begun throwing things, and he was certain one of those things would be him. ‘Now stop it, Rachel,’ he said. To Veronica, he continued: ‘She is not my girlfriend. Has never been my girlfriend. We simply get together when there’s no one else. It’s a kind of therapy, I suppose.’
Veronica, being an open sort of women, said: ‘Oh, is that all.’
‘What do you mean, is that all?’ stormed Rachel, moving on to cups and small furnishings.
Veronica decided not to reply at first. Instead, she approached Rachel, spun her round, grabbed her arm, put her in a half Nelson, and marched her down the stairs. Opening the door, she threw her out, advising, ‘have a tantrum elsewhere, sweetie,’ before ceremoniously shutting the door.

Eventually finding herself back in the bedsit, she finished dressing as she watched Peter. He was back with his painting . Sweat was beginning to break on his brow, and his brush moved feverishly.
‘Oh yes,’ she said before departing. ‘Let’s see if THAT comes true.’

Dale Crawford banged on Julia’s door with gusto, and when she finally deemed to answer it, two pairs of slightly unfocused eyes stared at each other.
‘Is Vernie out?’ asked Dale, his voice a little slurred.
Julia raised a finger to her lips, said: ‘Sshhh.’ Then she pulled him inside and closed the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dale. ‘I know you didn’t mean what you said.’
Julia said: ‘I’m sorry too,’ as she slipped as she tried to undress. Deciding to be a man and catch her, they both fell in a pile on the floor.
Their love making was fevered, and as Dale kissed her again on the door step as he left, he felt he was finally putting the past behind him. Indeed, as he sauntered across the street to his house, he never saw the shadow in the corner.

But Rachel Hollis had seen him. And she had seen her. And she was in the frame of mind to do something about it. ‘You’ll suffer, Dale Crawford,’ she said as she walked, dejectedly, up the street. It was clear she was in a mood to kill.

Bobby Crawford, however, was not. He had enjoyed his conversation with the ghost of Jack Thomas. It hadn’t been about anything in particular. Jack had simply sat on the end of his bed and listened to Bobby’s worries and woes. But as Dale walked quietly into the house, he just seemed to dissolve and then vanish.
Bobby Crawford sighed as he turned, pressed his head into his pillow and went to sleep.

Outside, Duane Hollis walked up the street, satisfied that he could do the job his father had demanded of him. He may be the youngest, but he decided he was equally as capable as his brother Wayne.
He was thinking about these matters when suddenly …
Oh dear. It’s happened again.

(c) Anthony North, December 2007

Click Fiction Page for more of this novel

EUROPEAN THINKERS

Click North’s Encyclopedia to expand your mind

As we saw in an earlier post, the Renaissance forged a new form of enquiry, slowly breaking the chains of Christian dogma. In 1492 Columbus’ need to know had led him to discover a New World of America.
This was not referred to in the Bible, suggesting that Christian doctrine could be incomplete in itself. Such doubt, led to humanism – a system of thought that dealt with human affairs in the real world. Leading humanist scholar Erasmus travelled Europe disseminating this new mood.

CHANGING CHRISTIANITY

As humanist philosophers rose throughout Europe, questions began to be asked about the Catholic Church. The only authority for so long, it was becoming increasingly clear that this had led to complacency and corruption.
The German reformer Martin Luther was aware of this and in 1517 instigated the Reformation, leading to the Protest-ant Church in northern Europe, where Christianity was to be found in the Bible rather than Catholic ritual.
Although Protestantism could be equally as dogmatic, forming into many Puritan movements, this new religious view did offer a new outlook to learning, seeing new knowledge as enhancing rather than threatening.

THE UNIVERSE

In the 15th century the scholar Copernicus had investigated problems in the calendar and come to the conclusion that Aristotle and the Bible were wrong in saying that the Earth was centre of the universe and unmoved. Rather, the centre was close to the sun, and the Earth revolved around it.
This blasphemy was ignored, but in 1632 Galileo proved the idea after turning his telescope to the heavens and noticing the movements of planets and moons that could only be explained by accepting a sun centred system.
Galileo lived and worked in the Catholic south and faced the Inquisition for his blasphemy, just escaping death. But his observations severely damaged the authority of the Bible.

WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

This image was exploited in the Protestant north. In 1637 the philosopher Rene Descartes published his ‘Discourse on Method’, becoming the father of modern western philosophy.
Although Descartes believed in God, he realised faith inhibited new knowledge. Hence, he separated spirit from body, the spiritual from the physical. In this way, faith remained important for spiritual salvation, but was removed from enquiry into the physical world.
Introducing his idea of Radical Doubt, he refused to believe anything unless it could be supported by incontrovertible proof. This was the beginning of the scientific method of inquiry, immortalised in his dictum: I think, therefore I am.

TWO FRIENDS

Descartes opened up the mind to new knowledge. And no one exploited this more than the 17th century English philosopher John Locke. Devising empiricism, he denied the existence of innate knowledge. To him we are born with a mentally clean state.
Knowledge comes from observation and reflection upon those observations alone.
Such views soon predominated and instigated the rise of science, immortalised by Locke’s friend, Sir Isaac Newton, who devised the theory of universal gravitation, as well as doing work in optics and calculus.
However, Locke was also a vital political philosopher, a great liberal who devised the separation of powers into legislative and executive, where those who make the law have no say over those who administer the law.
Laying the foundations of modern democracy, he emphasised the person’s right to life and property, and argued that government could only be instigated to better the lot of the individual. In an intellectual stroke, he banished the idea of monarchy.

ENLIGHTENMENT

This was the birth of the Enlightenment, with intellect directed to the scientific understanding of nature and improving the political lot of the individual. Locke’s political philosophy was crowned with the American Declaration of Independence.
However, as the Enlightenment’s greatest tool – reason – fragmented the world into separate specialisations for study, an intellectual cry of agony went out.

THE ROMANTICS

The cry was that of the Romantic. Beginning in the late 18th century, the Romantics are best known by the poetry of Byron and Shelley, but the movement was much deeper than artistic endeavour.
The Enlightenment had led directly to the Industrial Revolution, and all around them the Romantics saw the result as being counter to the aspirations of the ordinary man. Rather, it had become a method of exploitation of nature and the poor by the powerful.
In ‘Frankenstein’ Mary Shelley offered a metaphor of this new world – this new fragmented world ruled by science and incorrect reason.
Romantic philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau had developed direct democracy invested in the people echoing the cry of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. But it ended in blood and tears with the Terror of the French Revolution and ascendancy of the dictator, Napoleon.
The Romantics were anti-industrial, anti-science and anti-Enlightenment. They realized, intuitively, that reason alone is unsatisfactory. Reason cannot be separated from the emotions, leading them back to a new medievalism and fantasy, enshrined in the Gothic tradition that arose alongside the movement.

EVOLUTIONARY INFLUENCE

How true was this anti-Enlightenment stance? Surely the Enlightenment stood for everything that was good about humanity? Yes. But how easily reason can be stood on its head. In 1859 Charles Darwin virtually banished God with the publication of his ‘Origin of Species.’
Rather than being a Godly Creation, life was a process of evolution through natural selection, where fitness in a ruthless world was the main aspect of survival. ‘Survival of the fittest’ became the new social and political battlecry.
Such a cry gave licence to the capitalist to become the fittest in a ruthless world of business. Then, as revolts erupted throughout Europe, the cry formed the foundation of a new breed of radical political philosopher.

DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY

Typical was the German, Georg Hegel. Writing before ‘Origin,’ he devised the dialectical interpretation of history. The dialectic was devised by Plato as a form of enquiry. It begins with a statement which becomes a thesis. This is opposed by the antithesis, or opposite argument.
The two are debated to produce a synthesis of the two stances, which becomes the new thesis for the process to begin again. However, to Hegel history was subject to the same processes, with a civilization clashing with an opposing civilization to produce synthesis.
This view of history became the rockbed of the philosophy of Karl Marx, who saw a dialectical clash through history between classes as opposed to civilizations. Adding Darwinian survival to the concept, his philosophy led to violent overthrow of the existing order, first in Russia in 1917, and then on to many parts of the world. The outcome of pure reason was communism and a new collectivist but totalitarian regime.

THE NATION STATE

Hegel’s dialectical interpretation of history was not his only contribution to modern politics. The Napoleonic Wars led to a new conception of politics throughout Europe. During the wars the idea of modern political nationhood grew, and with an industrial base the concept of the Nation State came into being.
With the continuing decline of religion, a power vacuum existed in Europe, and this was filled with a specific ideology of the state, defined by Hegel.
Hegel saw the Nation State as an organism in its own right, endowed with reason which he saw as ‘spirit.’ Arguing that the state is Divine in its own right, it was the individual’s purpose to serve the state. Such an idea subtly transformed theology into a distinct national ideology.
However, once Darwinian survival infiltrated the concept, the whole idea was perverted into the supremacy of, not just the State, but the race endemic to the particular State. The ‘reason’ of the Enlightenment was thus transformed to Fascism, and the credibility of Enlightenment thinking died in the butchery of Auschwitz and the ruins of Hiroshima.

MIND LET LOOSE

The reasoning mind did, infact, intuit the coming storm. In 1900 Sigmund Freud published ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’, discovering the unconscious mind and the emotions and anxieties that dictated our actions.
His interpretation was pessimistic, our unconscious drives propelling us to near destruction. The European had arisen and displaced God from heaven. And in his His fall, the world was Hell.

© Anthony North, January 2008

Click History of Man for more posts in this series