Mark Rothko: The Seagram Murals at Tate Britain

This past Monday, I went to the Tate Britain in London. There is a single dim-lit room with Mark Rothko’s work, the Seagram Murals.

It seems these paintings were originally commissioned for a restaurant in New York! He eventually withdrew the commission and donated the paintings to the Tate, in honour of William Turner.

The expansive dimly-lit room creates an imposing atmosphere.

The photos below don't do nearly enough justice to the paintings. The paintings are huge and consume a large part of one's field of vision. The colours are strong and intense, and layered. There are faint layers of colour underneath the outermost coatings. When I looked closely, I noticed you can almost feel the texture of the canvas beneath in the bumpiness and unevenness. The net effect is an imposing depth to the colours (as if they soften as one's perspective changes).

There is a void or hollowness at the heart of most of these paintings. The intense, strong inexorable colours (pitch-black and blood-red) attest to some sombre heaviness. These paintings remind me of a recurring nightmare during my childhood. In the dream, I am surrounded by total darkness. I feel myself moving or falling. I cannot see the ground. I am not even sure there is a ground. I am completely consumed by darkness. I can't even see my own hand - even if I bring it to my face. I'm suspended, and the longer it goes on; the blacker-and-blacker it gets around me. Soon, it becomes so dark and black that I'm filled with panic as if I'm going to be lost in it. Then, I'd wake up in a sweat. 

Red on Maroon 1959

This painting looms over you as you enter. It’s nearly nine feet high. The painting itself is enveloped by its surrounding darkness of the room.

Black on Maroon 1959

Panoramic. Colossal. Engrossing. It's enormous.

This mahogany blood red can feel like unearthly & gaseous (planet Saturn?) and separate from the pulsing black form.

Interesting. A portal? What's on the other side? 

Rothko is a master of colour. Though he did say he was "no colourist", he wanted his paintings to constitute a 'spiritual experience'. And, in a funny way, having spent a few hours in the gallery, they tune out the noise and confusion of the outside world, and project an atmosphere of peace and calm. People seem to enter the darkened room solemnly.

Black on Maroon 1959

The fact that Rothko makes the black brush into the different intensities of red, gives the black a misty evanescent feeling. Like ripples on the surface of the sun. The black stirs with the red, and, at points, melts and evanesces into it. Look deeply and it can feel pulsating. 

Black on Maroon 1958

Energy being squeezed? Life being pressed? Windows narrowing? Feeling enclosed? Nothingness? Colour itself dissolving.

Black on Maroon 1958

Intimidating. Uncomfortable. Feeling ensnared and out of time.

Red on Maroon 1959

Another panoramic vista. My photo doesn't do justice here. There is a bench directly in front of this canvas. It takes a while to acclimatise to this one, but this is really special. Just as someone turning off the light, the eyes need a minute to adjust. 

For me, this is serene. Like you want to be alone. 

When I took this photograph and then looked at it on my phone, I whispered ‘wow’ to myself. It really is so beautiful. 

Black on Maroon 1958

I am not sure about this yet. In the face of the heavy pitch-black shadows, my natural impulse is to recoil. But the middle patches of maroon are somehow interesting, pulling you in? Like finding hope amid despairing?

Review: Thor: Love and Thunder by Taika Waititi – a film to miss

This movie is awful. 

I didn’t even wait for the post-credit scenes. I watched the movie with my partner, and, on leaving the cinema, we hardly discussed it. We chatted about other things, and I think that’s unprecedented. Shockingly so. It was so tedious.

I am also getting sick-and-tired of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses.

There’s so much that’s really terrible about this movie that I don’t quite know where to start. I have broken down the criticisms into three headings; firstly, the plot and scripting, then, secondly, the gruelling use of humour and comedy to the general feel of the movie, and, lastly, I shall spend some time examining the villainy of the story.

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The Anakin-Padme redux

One of my favourite reviews – which never fails to make me chuckle and was quite instructive – relates to Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith by YouTuber “Confused Matthew”.

It is worth listening to some of his brief (minute or so) comments – linked here to the time-mark 08:37 – on the Anakin-Padme “relationship”. It captures my thoughts on the Thor-Jane storyline and dialogue. In a nutshell: 

It is, as if, [George] Lucas expects us to believe that these two are in love just because they say they are, over and over again. And even when they say that it’s not only unconvincing, but the dialogue doesn’t even make very much coherent conversational sense.

In movies, the oft-quoted “show, don’t tell” prescription applies. Great acting can disclose more in nuance and subtlety in the performance than via forced storylines and abrupt and stilted conversation. The problem with Star Wars is that the audience is told Anakin is deeply in love with Padme; and that love, in turn, causes him to eventually shift to the dark side. But, in what sense does an audience really believe that he actually loves her? Apart from the occasional embrace and such stiff dialogue, as above, her death feels more like the death of sister than his inamorata.

In Thor: Love and Thunder, the movie starts with rock-guy (“Korg”) eulogistically reciting Thor’s adventures. The circuitous narration explains Thor’s past, his current mid-life crisis, and the apparent relationship he seems to have had with his then “ex-girlfriend” Jane. Just as with Revenge of the Sith, the oral exposition trumps scenes conveying real chemistry, love, and romance. The underlying difficulty is that the audience sees Jane as a plot device. She is not only a relatively trivial character whom Thor happened to have kissed once-or-twice (or whatever they did); but, as we all know, the whole backstory has been contrived in order to cram and squeeze her character into some epic tale.

The audience are exposed to fleeting memories – amid the narration – which is intended to capture the arc of their relationship. But these scenes have the opposite effect: it is forced and their love is thus superficial. There is no real chemistry or affection between them throughout the movie – apart from a clutch of cliché and rather clumsy lines. Even in death, Jane’s demise did not feel all that heart-breaking or sad.

In short, Waititi wanted Jane to take a leading role and the whole relationship was a device to pivot her into the movie and then back out again. She was afraid of dying because she was, in fact, dying. In the presence of Eternity, she ultimately died of what she was already dying of. So, what is the point? 

My grievance is not just restricted to the Thor-Jane ‘dynamic’ , but the movie broadly. It has a weak and incoherent storyline (angled towards audience gasps and the shock-factor) and is fastened together with an uncomfortable script. The ‘children’ section of the movie felt very disjointed. Taken away from Asgard and stored in a cage, they end up briefly taking part in the final battle. This felt like a bizzare plot turn in the film. Why didn’t Thor ask the Guardians Of The Galaxy for help instead, given their role at the beginning?

The CGI – as one would expect – is dazzling; but I think heavy CGI masks a lack of catharsis that great acting & cinema can induce in cinemagoers. The pace of the movie is dizzying and much of the film involve Jane’s “this is happening now … don’t ask why” variety of scenes which, as you can expect, has all the grace of a sharp U-turn to the natural ease and flow of the film. 

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The comedy and humorous

In Thor: Love and Thunder, the jokes and the general comedic effects were incessant. 

Thirty minutes into the movie and it feels like the dialogue is largely quips, hahaha-s and general trying to be funny. So, for example, Zeus’s sexual jokes about orgies didn’t seem funny at all. Nobody in the cinema laughed and it felt a bit awkward with families watching. (And Poor Russell Crowe, that dreadful Greek accent he had to contrive!)

At one point, at the beginning, an exchange between Chris Pratt’s character and Thor – opportunity for some man-qua-man ‘the meaning of life’-type discussion – is also shoved through the jokes blender. Ultimately, these jokes feel inappropriate, even humourless. The trouble is that Thor – by relying so heavily on jokes and wisecrack triviality – remains the grating child-like character. Despite the movie’s premise that Thor has ostensibly “matured” (following Infinity War and Endgame), his behaviour and attitude affirm the contrary. Such as, for example, the way in which Thor callously destroys the temple of the aliens in the opening act, and is utterly indifferent about it. Was the audience supposed to find this funny? 

Also, I am a bit ambivalent about the movie’s handling of Jane’s terminal cancer. I didn’t think it was explored, beyond cliche. A solemn subject like that should demand a more considered management. I was a bit surprised that the hammer (according to the movie) supposedly sped up her cancer? A bit random? Gorr (Christian Bale) does not kill her, nor does she really ‘sacrifice’ herself: indeed she dies in a cancer-related sense; and completely un-Viking-like. It did not really fit with the storyline at all, and I am not sure justice was done by the broader sombre issue of cancer.

Ultimately, the jokes were not really subversive at all, but rather increasing tedious and it felt as thought the movie could not really wrench itself off those tracks. It felt as if we were being drowned (especially with the moronic goat screaming). Additionally, given the general levity of everything in the movie, there was never any real weight or force behind anything. There are no high stakes, no real sense of risks being taken, and the whole movie feels a bit tedious.

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The villain

I did quite enjoyed Bale’s performance as Gorr. 

The problem here is that Gorr isn’t really a villain. He’s called the “god butcher” but does no butchering. As a matter of facts, he’s was kind of sweet to the kids. If anything, he seems like an eccentric sympathetic dupe-like victim. In a way, his revenge against the gods felt authentic and even justified. 

Drawing on my recent discussion of evil in The Black Phone, Gorr is the villain – not from any inherent vice or evil or malevolence – but merely because he’s counterposed to Thor. He’s a villain for the sake of it. Thor may well be a great superhero but he’s a cold and indifferent god – as the rest of them in the Omnipotent City while the “small people”, like Gorr’s family, struggle. (Classic Marxian class struggle.)

Firstly, we are told, that his nefarious evil goals are actually the result of the corruptive influence of the “necrosword” which granted him power. So, basically, he’s alright deep-down. Secondly, he isn’t defeated. He chooses to resurrect his long-dead daughter, in the end. Thor doesn’t really fight him (beyond the usual CGI kicks and punches). Gorr feels like Thor’s opponent perforce (his ire being directed at all gods and celestials). There is no sense in which this is personal.

The problem is the complete absence of any genuine villainy as – not merely the struggle of the battlefield but – a clash as to who is actually right (i.e. justice).

On the whole, this movie is one to miss.

Review: The Black Phone by Scott Derrickson - very intense thriller/horror

When it comes to the cinema, I try to avoid watching the official trailer (which usually completely surrenders the movie’s intrigue and substance). As a result, and in this case, I had no idea what to expect. 

The film begins in the despairing community of a suburban town amid an ongoing police manhunt of various ‘missing’ kids with posters and uneasy parents (1970s, it would appear). 

Finney Shaw (Mason Thames) is a sensitive shy schoolboy eluding school bullies and an abusive alcoholic father, especially abusive to his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) who has clairvoyant dreams, which the father is eager to suppress. Some of these scenes were difficult to watch.

Soon enough, the kidnapper (Ethan Hawke) – in the guise of an friendly masked magician – grabs the boy, renders him unconscious and throws him into the back of his van (van trade name: “abracadabra”). That is how Finney wakes up from a slumber on a dirty mattress of a barren and sound-proof basement.

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The Black Phone is an intense experience. The level of suspense, tension and anticipation rises steadily throughout the movie, like the turning of an oven knob. Watching this on the big screen, there were moments where I had to hold my breath. At home, I am the sort who pauses a movie for a brief respite. 

The reason for the intensity is because Scott Derrickson doesn’t waste any time exploring the ‘background’ or the psychology of the maniac (the whys? and the hows?) or other tangential storylines. This is a much needed effect. 

Nowadays, the central philosophy in movies is the attempt to 'rationalise' the villain. It's a social commentary based on the regnant cultural view that people aren’t born innately evil. As such, movie studios, tend to eschew anything remotely veering on “pure evil”. Instead, the villain is cast as the product of social or economic woes that have contorted them into misshapen tragic victims in their own right. I intensely dislike this pervasive motif; from Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising, Emma Stone’s Cruella De Ville, to Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent. The attempt in all these cases is to ‘contextualise’ the villain. They are not born diabolically wicked or psychopathically evil – but are merely reacting to the harsh and unforgiving world around them. The villains are objects in need of our affection, kindness and understanding. The recent blockbuster endeavour – in Cruella – to redeem and ‘humanise’ a villain’s goal of murdering hundreds of adorable puppies for the mere want of a fur-coat, as anything other than deranged evil, is an illustration of this absurdity.

Returning to The Black Phone, Derrickson doesn’t explore the psychology of the kidnapper. Instead, Finney, in that basement, is the cynosure of the cinematic experience. It’s in that basement that Finney discovers the spirits of his former schoolfriends.

Also, the movie does pivot to Gwen and her own home terrors. As already mentioned, she does seem to have inherited the gift of clairvoyance from her mother. But, because of her mother’s death, her drunken father condemns this preternatural powers in the hopes of subduing it. Derrickson makes Gwen the movie’s steadfast beacon of compassion and indomitability in her determination to find, and help, her brother.

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Hawke’s performance adds degrees to the chill factor. Despite wearing that demented all-encompassing comedia del arte mask, which would obviously impede normal vocalisation and enunciation, he manages to add guttural layers so that he can switch from being relatively human-like, if perhaps unstable, to the unalloyed depths of psychopathic sadism.

The mask itself is a fascinating object in the movie which seems to have a psychological hold over him. Ethan’s character, at various points, removes distinct portions of the mask so that, at different points, at least some his aspect remains concealed. But, when the mask is fully removed, he appears to recoil and shriek. Why does being fully denuded exact such a psychological toll? It’s an interesting thought.

In the end, The Black Phone works superbly by focusing and amping up the stifling unease and suspense in a confined atmosphere. The ticking of the clock is interlaced with jumps and startles of the supranatural.

Populism and the masses: cynicism and conspiracy theory

This blog post is more of a ‘note’ on some technical points which I plan to refer to in the future in upcoming posts. 

I am interested in defining the underlying issues concerning populism.

To my mind, originally, the word “populism” radiated a protean murky journalistic-type of opprobrium. The sort of politics calculated to whip up popular support rather quickly with vague promises. In this sense, populism is opposed to rational debate and sensible discussions in favour of feel-good soundbites and charisma.

As for definitions, the word “democracy” – etymology: Greek words “demos”, denoting “people”; and “kratos”, denoting “power” – entails a form of government which is, literally, rule by the people. If that’s the case, then what exactly separates it from populism (as regards populism’s corresponding appeal “to the people” à propos legitimacy). 

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The four features of populism (by Cas Mudde)

In The Oxford Handbook of Populism (OUP, 2017), Cas Mudde outlines a useful framework for defining populism. For the purposes of concision, I have edited the academese from relevant passages. The critical elements are: 

1. “Thin” Ideology
2. “The people”
3. “The elite”
4. The general will

I shall briefly quote the essence of each element identified by Mudde with emphasis added by me.

As regards ideology:

Populism is a “thin” or “thin-centered” ideology. 

Thin or thin-centered ideologies do not possess the same level of intellectual refinement and consistency as “thick” or “full” ideologies, such as socialism or liberalism. Thin ideologies have a more limited ambition and scope than thick ideologies; they do not formulate “a broad menu of solutions to major socio-political issues”. For example, while populism speaks to the main division in society (between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”), and offers general advice for the best way to conduct politics (i.e. in line with “the general will of the people”), it offers few specific views on political institutional or socio-economic issues.

As regards “the people”:

The key core concept of populism is “the people.” Even the other core concepts, “the elite” and the “general will,” take their meaning from it. 

Laclau’s influential work on populism refers to the concept of the people (and therefore also the elite) as “empty signifiers”. But while the signifier is certainly very flexible, it is not completely empty: first of all, as populism is essentially based on a moral divide, the people are “pure”; and while purity is a fairly vague term, and the specific understanding is undoubtedly culturally determined, it does provide some content to the signifier. The essence of the people is their purity, in the sense that they are “authentic,” while the elite are corrupt, because they are not authentic.

With regards to “the elite”:

The elite is the anti-thesis of the people (ex negative) ... Theoretically, populism distinguishes the people and the elite on the basis of just one dimension, i.e. morality. This pits the pure people against the corrupt elite — or, in Manichean terms, the good people versus the evil elite. In practice, populists combine populism with other ideologies and apply different meanings to the people. Populists using class or commonness in their definition of the people will normally also use these criteria for the elite. For example, American conservative populists pit the common people against the “latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving” liberal elite.

As regards the general will:

Based on a kind of vulgar Rousseauian argument, populists argue that politics should follow the general will of the people. After all, as the people are pure and homogeneous, and all internal divisions are rejected as artificial or irrelevant, they have the same interests and preferences. The belief in a general will of the people is linked to two important concepts in the populist ideology: common sense and special interests. 

Populists often claim to base their policies on common sense, i.e. the result of the honest and logical priorities of the (common) people. Anyone who opposes common sense is, by definition, devious and part of the corrupt elite. By arguing to propose “common sense solutions” to complex problems, populists often implicitly also argue that the elite creates problems and is out of touch with the people. Moreover, they can present themselves as the voice of the people (vox populi), expressing its general will, and as non- or reluctantly political. After all, common sense solutions are neither ideological nor partisan, they follow “logically” from the general will. 

Whereas the populist’s common sense solutions follow the general will of (all) the people, the elite’s proposed solutions are representations of “special interests”. Calls for policies that benefit specific groups, even if it is to remove existing inequalities, is denounced as “special interest politics.” More broadly, the elite is painted as the voice of special interests, in opposition to the populists, who are the genuine voice of the people.

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A further note on “elitism” (and it’s threat to liberal democracy)

Speaking for myself, I have always had something of a bias against democracy. In the words of E. B. White, “democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time”. I have always preferred some system of elite rule by an educated assembly – against the mob. I think it emerged from reading about the Founding Fathers of the United States who often spoke of democracy pejoratively.  They preferred a Roman “republic” to “democracy” (à la Ancient Greece). Their scepticism of majority rule involved the creation of mechanisms to avoid it, such as a representation system to filter out the rabble (see Madison’s Federalist Paper No. 10 vis-à-vis the emergence of sectarian factionalism and majoritarian tyranny). 

I have to admit the below excerpt gave me pause to consider my thoughts on elitism vis-à-vis the politics of compromise.

According to Cas Mudde: 

“Elitism” is the true mirror-image of populism. Most notably, it shares with populism the Manichean division between the two antagonistic and homogeneous groups, the people and the elite. Consequently, both elitism and populism reject essential aspects of liberal democracy, particularly the politics of compromise. After all, compromise can only lead to the corruption of the pure. But in contrast to populism, elitism considers the elite to be pure and virtuous, and the people to be impure and corrupt. Hence, much elitism is anti-democratic, while democratic elitists only want a minimal role for the people in the political system. Though elitism has lost most of its popularity among the masses, and even among the political elites, in the twentieth century, it had informed most major political ideologies and philosophers until then (from Plato to José Ortega y Gasset).

Even more fundamentally, pluralism is a direct opposite of populism. Where populism sees the people as essentially homogeneous, pluralism believes them to be internally divided in different groups. And, whereas pluralism appreciates societal divisions and sees politics as “the art of compromise,” populism (and elitism) discards societal divisions, denounces social groups as “special interests,” and rejects compromise as defeat. By considering the main struggle of politics in moral terms, any compromise with the elite will corrupt the people, making them less or even impure. Unlike elitism, which finds few relevant proponents in contemporary democracies, pluralism is a key feature of liberal democracy and is an essential ideological feature of most political ideologies (including Christian democracy, social democracy, liberalism).

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Populist ideals and conspiracy theories

The realm of the conspiracy theory is a fascinating aperçu into the postmodern human condition. It’s far more ubiquitous in mainstream political thinking than, I think, we presently realise – even in fairly innocuous terms (e.g., “there’s no smoke without fire”). 

On more theoretical terms, it’s worth noting the consequential philosophical backdrop. In our world today, the camera lens of postmodernism elicits a profound sense of distrust and suspicion. The attendant suspicion of power and structures, suspicion of motives and truth claims is a fertile terra for theories that sustain that latent perception of humanity. 

Similarly, in David Aaronovitch’s book Voodoo Histories, if I remember correctly, he argues that conspiracy theories tend to postulate a sense of “order” to world events in the face of its unsettling randomness. Of recent times, the foreboding precedent was probably set on the assassination of former US President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. This cataclysm – despite two official government investigations in its aftermath – ignited a culture of conspiracy theory into mainstream film, books, and radio – probably like no other among its antecedents. The incident speaks to a psychological anxiety in the need to attribute an ulterior and calculating, if shrouded, agency to random traumatic political events in the world. It’s viscerally quite incongruous for people to accept the mundane reality that a US President – the most protected person on Earth – can be shot by a mere random lunatic. A similar phenomenon expresses itself in the gambler’s fallacy. The innate human perception of chance and probability lends itself effortlessly towards a willingness to attribute a superior agency or pattern or logic to the flips of a coin.

On a more prosaic footing, and more relevantly to populism, the appeal of a conspiracy theory is its elementary simplicity, often glib and near-accessible apparent answers to complex and difficult problems. It has a way of simplifying our incredibly complex world. Furthermore, these theories countenance the framing of everything amiss by affixing moral blame onto a single shadowy group. Instead of reckoning the inherent challenges of our society – that nobody engineered, and nobody is in ‘control’ of – they seek to uncover the individuals doing the ‘bad things’ and stopping them, warding off corruption and iniquity. The world is thus binary; paths are bifurcated, and systems are bicephalous. As such, this sense of moral superiority decorated by a deeper ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ – which informs the conspiracy theory architecture – is apt to coalesce with populism (for the above reasons).

Indeed, research published in Political Psychology (Wiley.com) has recently revealed that populist attitudes are associated with conspiracy mentality. According to the abstract:

The present research examines the relationship between populist attitudes—that construe society as a struggle between the “corrupt elites” versus the “noble people”—and beliefs in unsubstantiated epistemic claims. We specifically sought to assess the often assumed link between conspiracy beliefs and populist attitudes; moreover, we examined if populist attitudes predict conspiracy beliefs in particular, or rather, credulity of unsubstantiated epistemic claims in general. Study 1 revealed that populist attitudes are robustly associated with conspiracy mentality in a large multination study, drawing samples from 13 European Union (EU) countries. Studies 2 and 3 revealed that besides conspiracy beliefs, populist attitudes also predict increased credulity of obscure and politically neutral news items (regardless of whether they were broadcasted by mainstream or alternative news sources), receptivity to bullshit statements, and supernatural beliefs. Furthermore, Study 3 revealed that these findings were mediated by increased faith in intuition. These studies support the notion of populist gullibility: An increased tendency of people who score high on populist attitudes to accept obscure or unsubstantiated epistemic claims as true, including nonpolitical ones.

Last week’s heatwave in England and global warming

On Tuesday last – 19th July – this was the global temperature across Earth:

In the UK, there were serious wildfires, homes burnt down, railway-tracks buckled and runway tarmac melted. 

Is this an omen of things to come? In this piece, I would like to outline my thoughts on the reasons related to the lack of a straightforward solution to this challenging problem.

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Human nature

In Thinking Fast and Slow, the Nobel-prize psychologist Daniel Kahneman explained the reason human beings make irrational decisions. In short, the brain has two separate systems for thinking: a strong, fast, emotional, and relatively ‘stupid’ one; and then, a weaker, slower, rational, and much smarter one. Thinking ‘with your gut’ relies on the first system, while pondering something cautiously – and arriving at a rational choice – is the second system. In the realm of behavioural economics, the term “hyperbolic discounting” is used to refer to the partiality of humans when it comes to evaluating the worth of future objects. In a cost-benefit analysis in prioritising decisions, we have a tendency to prioritise the more proximate rewards – which are much safer – and whose effects are more immediately felt. In contrast, long-term rewards are much more remote are harder to evaluate and weigh; and their risks and analysis is more abstract. The net effect of hyperbolic discounting is the large tendency to disregard future events – which may entail sacrifices in the present. Similar observations were made in the celebrated Stanford marshmallow experiments.

Furthermore, the problem is compounded by a phenomenon referred to as “the tragedy of the commons”. In Garrett Hardin’s thought-experiment, one should imagine a lush verdant pasture of grass that is not owned by the state or a private individual. Farmers adjoining this meadow would bring their cattle to graze for free. However, the process of grazing would slowly spoil and damage the pasture. Nevertheless, every farmer would know that an over-grazed pasture would culminate in all the grass eventually dying, and then, the pasture will be of no benefit to anyone. Even if a farmer withholds his cattle from the pasture to let the grass regrow; another farmer will just as easily take his place. The tragedy of the commons refers to the incentive structure that leads to the inevitable destruction of the pasture, because nobody takes responsibility for maintaining it – “it’s someone else’s problem”. This can account for the overexploitation of the seas by fisherman. (The solution would favour capitalism’s inherent system of private property rights; with profit and individualism as incentives to protect investments which foster the resultant common good.)

Taking into account the above models, for many in the West, the consequences of climate change – serious as they may be – are too remote to supersede our more pressing quotidian anxieties and exigencies. Moreover, the structure and institutions in society do not incentivise any form of sustainable management of the commons-at-large.

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Fossil fuels

The world is betting on higher-and-higher CO2 concentration with no end in sight. Every single year, global daily oil consumption increases. In 2020, the “global demand reached a record 100 million barrels a day, driven in part by the needs of rapidly industrialising emerging markets”. According to the FT:

The world runs on oil. The dark, often viscous liquid is the single biggest contributor to the world’s energy mix, at 34 per cent of consumption, followed by coal at 27 per cent and natural gas at 24 per cent. But the fossil fuel has also quietly seeped into other aspects of our lives: from paint, washing detergents and nail polish to plastic packaging, medical equipment, mattress foams, clothing and coatings for television screens. (FT.com)

World’s oil consumption levels. Graph: FT.com.

Political leaders in the West – to whom climate change is an exigent and glaring electoral issue – are now franticly drilling for more oil and gas and planning to burn more coal. According to the FT, and as a result of the Ukraine war;

Brussels has given the green light for the EU to burn more coal over the next decade as it tries to end the use of Russian gas and oil. Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel but the European Commission said the EU would use 5 per cent more than previously expected over the next five to 10 years as the bloc tries to replace Russian energy imports. The EU’s insistence that it must end the use of Russian oil and gas has been one of the biggest consequences for the bloc from Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Brussels wants to eliminate ties to Russian energy by 2027, both to deprive President Vladimir Putin of revenues and to give itself more freedom of manoeuvre to act against Moscow. But the likely increased use of coal shows the short-term consequences for the EU’s green agenda, although the commission insisted it would still hit its carbon reduction goals. (FT.com)

The point here is that even the West – with all its shared political resolve and high-tech capability – cannot successfully wean itself off fossil fuels. If so, what hope is there for the rest of the world? As an example, former President of Ireland, and ex-UN climate envoy, Mary Robinson recently entreated the world to let “Africa exploit its natural gas reserves” (The Guardian). The continent’s energy demands are so great that – like us – they need to rely on fossil fuels.

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Overpopulation

Another dimension to the problem is the overpopulation of the planet with its concomitant negative externalities. Industrial agriculture contributes enormously to the greenhouse effect. It seems methane contributes more to warming than carbon. Per capita, the United States is by far the most polluting large nation in the world. The graph below is shocking. The world cannot live like the United States. By comparison, the Chinese are fairly abstemious. Most of the developed nations have a much larger per capita pollutant debt extending as far back as the Industrial Revolution. It’s only in recent times, for example, that we have made an effort to re-invigorate our former wrecked forests in England (as compared to the Amazon rainforest’s ongoing deforestation). Moreover, when it comes to China, half of their produce supplies the West with our wants and needs. If anything, China is the world’s offshored pollutant factory.

Changes in CO2 emissions per capita. Source: economicshelp.org.

Climate change must be a logical consequence of the recent exponential population growth. Electric cars and paper straws simply won’t have a measured effect. I don’t think there is a solution that one could propose to “cap” the numbers – at least humane or decent. Indeed, it seems we have still not peaked in the population projection incline. Traditionally, birth rates have plummeted through the broad education of women and girls and from wide access to family planning; so that might be an avenue to support in areas with high fertility rates. However, unless GDP increases inline with the broader human population, then poverty will also increase. As we know, in our society people can expect to have a well-paid job, a few holidays a year, a car, a flat and so on. But, the population increase may put a strain on living standards we have become accustomed to as well as intensifying global warming.

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Has the time has come to ban bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the original cryptocurrency. Like any currency, it’s value stems from its nominal scarcity and broad utility. Cryptocurrencies seek to replace the scarcity of traditional currencies, such as the USD. They require absurd levels of computational power and electricity which – I would submit – no intelligent and rational person would configure into any system ab initio. The amount of calculation required to create new ‘coins’ exacts an obscene amount of power. Or, maintaining a copy of a ledger should not – in any normal everyday life – require that much power. The entire process is computationally intensive, and thus power intensive. See graph below for comparison. Bitcoin consumes more energy than entire nations.

Indeed, crypto’s scarcity derives from the scarcity imposed by its protocols. A person using crypto – as a form of money – is replacing one means of exchange of value with another that exhausts orders of magnitude more energy. It’s even worse as crypto entails units of soi-disant ‘miners’. These people are not themselves using crypto for anything other than to cash out – while the music is playing. Their energy use makes the whole enterprise way more resource-intensive than any normal everyday alternative. 

Bitcoin’s energy problem. Source: FT.com

For me, I don’t believe crypto or bitcoin has any utility. It is neither a medium of exchange nor – as recent market sentiment has established – any store of value. In my view, the energy associated with crypto has the sole purpose of bolstering a Ponzi scheme with no attendant benefits whatsoever to humanity – but amplifying our global warming woes.

Happy birthday Gregor Johann Mendel – A revolutionary imagination

Yesterday was the birthday of Gregor Johann Mendel. Born in Heinzendorf, Austria on the 20th July 1822.

When I was in school, I was enthralled by genetics (and even did a school-sponsored “advanced course” during my A-levels with the OU) and considered studying it as a degree. For me, Gregor Mendel is a true legend and a huge figure in the branch of genetics, within biology. The Austrian monk worked out the basic rules of inheritance well over a century ago by breeding pea plants that had sets of easily distinguishable characteristics.

But he remains largely unknown even today, whereas Darwin’s theory was accepted rather quickly in his day. At a meeting at the Brünn Natural History Society, Gregor Mendel read a paper about his findings. None of the forty-two present members probably thought it was noteworthy. Two years later, it was later published – in 1867 – as part of society’s reports. It was received by the Royal Society and the Linnean Society of London. It was only until 1900 that the three separate independent botanists specifically named Mendel by following in his footsteps.

The modern theory of evolution is a marriage in the ideas of Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin. Darwin’s theory concerned evolution through fossils and historical lineages (i.e., shared features between different animals etc.), whereas Mendel proved inheritance through genes (via breeding peas). It’s a shame that neither of these great titans ever met one another, and probably didn’t know of each other’s works. 

In certain respects, Mendel was quite lucky. Residing in a monastery, he cultivated lots of peas and may have specifically picked pea as the selection of their traits presented clear dichotomies. Plants could be either tall or short (but not in between) and bear either green or yellow fruit (but not greeny-yellowy) and so on. However, as we now know, many traits – especially in humans – cannot be reduced to a single gene and are highly variable (thus, hard to measure). At any rate, he was able to extrapolate that even in crosses between greater varieties, the number of possible recombinations must be very large. 

What makes Mendel so amazing is that the system he conceived of (Mendelian genetics) was an incredible feat of imagination and inspiration – and especially patience!

Nowadays, we take this point of fact for granted; but – pausing to think about it – it is an enormous conceptual jump in abstraction and ingenuity. 

So, hat tip to you Gregor Mendel, our forgotten hero.

This is the front of the monastery where Gregor Mendel lived in the present day, the Augustinian order of St. Thomas’s Abbey Monastery in Brno.

Trip to the Tate Modern – my modest reflections on the artworks

Monday, 18th July 2022; 11am. London had one of its hottest days on record. Temperature soaring to a high of 38C. Nonetheless, I've decided to go on an excursion around the Tate Modern. I had actually intended to visit the Mark Rothko exhibition, the Seagram Murals. But no luck. There were no Rothkos on display. I think they were at a different gallery or in transit.

So instead, I decided to tour the art gallery. It’s free of charge – unless you visit a special exhibition but other than that, you don’t need to book. 

Below are some of my reflections on some of the artworks. I am not as clued-up on art, and I have never studied it etc…, so these are much inchoate thoughts and opinions at this juncture. I plan to do some researching and perhaps visit a few more galleries in due course. So, who knows, perhaps my thoughts will change again.

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Low tide London outside the gallery.

The Tate Modern is just on the River Thames. It was 38C on Monday 18th July. Not a cloud in sight.

An understated entrance.

The Tate Modern is too big to photograph. It’s an expansive ashlar structure, like a foundry, harking back to the industrial epoch.

A former power station.

Cavernous space, with slits of windows, help the Tate Modern retains its original power station spirit of Giles Gilbert Scott. An imposing contrast to its cheerless entrance, it has a breezy cool environment on such a hot day.

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Conceptual art (2015) by Haegue Yang

This “suspended sculpture” was made with over 500 Venetian window blinds. Apparently, this was created in commemoration of artist Sol LeWitt’s Structure with Three Towers. For me, I don’t think I like this installation much. I appreciate that artists are trying to be thought-provoking or “conceptual” – but if that was in my home, I’d probably take it down and put it in the skip. As I type these words, it occurs to me that – notwithstanding the illumination from the suspended structure – could this be compared to a gigantic chandelier in an expansive lobby?

Fire! Fire! (Al fuoco, al fuoco) (1963) by Enrico Baj.

Enrico Baj was influenced by “surrealism and dada” (yes, that’s an actual word: read about it on Oxford Art Online). It seems he was “inspired by children’s art” and power and military images. It does look like the “figure” is on fire. However – once again, I don’t like this. I don’t like the distorted eyes, monstrous misshapen mouth (with only a few teeth) and that a person is on fire. Surreal – it is. I get the undertone about the military – but this leaves me feeling uncomfortable. That’s probably the intended effect. Humm.

Alpine Ibex (2017) by Jimmie Durham.

This is an actual Ibex skull attached to bits of furniture. I think it’s hideous and ugly – perhaps even slightly offensive in the mockery to which the animal was subjected. I don’t think I like surrealism.

Windows Open Simultaneously on the City (1912) by Robert Delaunay.

I think this is quite interesting and feels uplifting. It turns out that the Eiffel Tower is represented here in the centre in verdant green. I think this is supposed to be cubism. I like the fact that the painting feels as if I’m looking into a landscape with various mountainy inclines and perhaps the faint distant outline of the topmost of a tree. The shades of green and orange are quite pretty. Yes, I do like this.

Bottle of Rum and Newspaper (1913) by Juan Gris.

Cubism: this scene was described as an illusion in a familiar café. “UM” for rum and “JOUR” for journal. A table at the centre. I think I can make the spherical heads of two people? However, unlike the above, I am left floundering twisting-my-head in an attempt to make shapes “fit”. I don’t think I like this and I don’t like the darker colours. It feels like an enclosed space. I don’t find this inviting.

Atlantic Civilisation (1953) by André Fougeron.

André Fougeron was a leader in the French Communist Party in the 1950s. This piece is supposed to capture the soi-disant “Americanisation” of Europe. I think it’s nasty, horrible, and I don’t like it at all. I think it’s prejudice distilled, and thus, devoid of any measured perspective. The menace in this sort of effortless anti-Americanism is the way in which people use criticism of America to imagine that their own countries don’t have those “problems”. A kind of “hmm, not sure I understand, must be an American thing” as though war, racism, poverty, pollution, sexism, and death don’t exist in Europe. The scapegoating of America – as the repository of all maleficence and intolerance and so on – is usually accompanied by a purblind outlook of its counterpart. Academics – such as the late Eric Hobsbawm – found themselves championing the USSR as an evolved socialist sanctuary. Political commentary like this really turns me off.

Biloxi, Mississippi, 2005 (2005) by Mitch Epstein.

I do think this is an arresting photograph. The savagery and brutality of the scene is counterposed by its unmistakeable serenity: calm against a cloudless sky. Mitch Epstein, apparently, captured this tranquillity following Hurricane Katrina of 2005. To my mind, the unfortunate characteristic is that the photographer appears to have used this natural disaster to project morality about the human condition. In this case, he is quoted as saying; “I am trying to find and convey truth about how we Americans live, what we want, and what it costs to get it”. I don’t really like that comment. There is no end of people using natural disasters – like AIDS – as a means of projecting forth their personal grudges against humanity.

Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue (1935) by Piet Mondrian.

I find this artwork complicated: the real language of abstract painting. It’s complicated because the painting is simple. Straight lines and the main colours. In literature, Vladimir Nabokov once said that the morality of writing stems from its style. In other words, it’s not the substance of the work per se; but the craft of the writer (as an artist) and how they command language on the page. I imagine a similar mentality with such a painting. For me, if I can draw an aesthetic appreciation from prose arising – not necessarily from its substance – but from the mere wordcraft of the writer; then so it must be that it doesn’t matter that I cannot see trees or sunset on a given landscape. On the other hand, I do feel that there should be some rules as a form of courtesy on the reader or viewer. You cannot just pick and cram any sets of words to form whatever sentences in a piece. That would be a serious imposition on the reader, perhaps a bit of rudeness even. Therefore, I can’t shake the feeling that this work is just too abstract. According to the Tate Modern, “Mondrian was suggesting an idealised view of society. Each individual element contributes to the overall composition of the work … This was intended to symbolise the relationship between the individual and the collective.” I don’t think I could have divined such a view without some aid from the art gallery.

No. 98 2478 Red/135 Green (1936) by Georges Vantongerloo.

It seems Vantongerloo “was one of the pioneers of a mathematical approach to abstract art”. The painting is designed in terms of the units of space, and there is a pattern in terms of their sizes. I am not sure whether I could find this interesting or appealing beyond the interval of a few minutes.

Gironde (1951) by Ellsworth Kelly.

I do quite like this. There is a warmth and radiance to the colours. It seems Mr Kelly was inspired by shadows falling on a staircase at the home he was staying in, in France. He transformed those impressions into a bit of an abstract-ism. I think I can follow this artwork, and it feels warm.

Composition (1962) by Felicia Leirner.

Some part of me thinks this is a stretch too far – veering towards the absurd. This is supposed to be a “mournful ‘reflections upon life and death’”. At most, it has an unsettling and harsh structure and I suppose its black hue connotes the underworld. However, I don’t readily ‘read’ death – if anything, it feels like the contortions and deformities of war. On the whole, I don’t really like it. I don’t think it’s interesting.

The Bowl of Milk (1919) by Pierre Bonnard.

Yes, I do like this. Not so abstract as to render it undecipherable. I really like warm colours. I find it soothing and relaxing. We can feel the radiant cosy sunshine, the sea beyond the balcony, lovely flowers in a vase; but a faint penumbra conceals the lineaments of her face and a cat (whose milk is being – presumably – set on the floor). This was painted around WWI. Yes, interesting.

Still Life with Sheep (1938) by Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky.

Not quite sure how to think about this oil painting. I think the assorted yellow and black shades are quite pretty and it evokes the feeling of a homey kitchen; but otherwise, not fully sure about these porcelain sheep and some strange fruit. Maybe that’s what makes it appealing. It seems Von Motesiczky and her mother were Jewesses fleeing from the Nazis following the annexation of Austria. She painted this in a hotel room in Amsterdam aged 32 in the very year of the annexation. Hmm.

Interior at Gordan Square (1915) by Duncan Grant.

Duncan Grant – apparently of the Bloomsbury Group – paints rectangles “as the front and back rooms of 46 Gordon Square in London”. It’s not so abstract that I’m feeling mystified, and actually I quite like the bright colours. Though, I may need to see an outline of the house plan. So, it’s interesting.

Mandora (1909) by George Braque.

This is cubism. George Braque has painted a lute at the centre. According to the Tate, “it’s fragmented style suggests a sense of rhythm and acoustic reverberation that matches the musical subject.” I think you can catch a bottle behind the lute. It’s interesting that the lute is in the centre suspended, with unnaturally harsh and abrasive – almost sharp – three-dimensional linear structures. The brownish, leafy, and grey evokes an autumnal mood. It’s unclear where the source of light is in the painting. It feels like a dizzying hallucination. I must say I find this painting interesting – but I don’t warm to it easily. It makes me feel uncomfortable. I don’t think I would like to have this painting hanging in my kitchen.

Glass on a Table (1909) by George Braque.

It seems this painting may have been influenced by Picasso. The idea was to “explore new ways of representing reality”. Some of the glass appears shattered and broken but perhaps that’s the idea. According to the Tate, “breaking up familiar items, and reordering them, he could get closer to a true likeness of the object”. Reality is warped and, for me, this isn’t a relaxing painting. Once again, as above, Braque is drawn to harsh discordant colours. I think this is too complicated and unwelcoming for me although I do appreciate the artistic craftmanship.

Seated Woman with Small Dog (1939) by Meraud Guevara.

I really like this oil painting from 1939. There is something enigmatic and disquieting about it. It feels like there’s a sombre undertone to the painting. We don’t catch the stoical (glamourous?) lady’s gaze which complements the overall note of melancholy. The inert lifeless dog, the chamber devoid of furniture and vibrancy, an agar doorway at the back intimating (perhaps) something beyond? Yes, I do think I like this painting. It makes me wonder.

Dish of Pears (1936) by Pablo Picasso.

I can’t say I find this very appealing. I get that Picasso is depicting life in the abstract: he has set a black-and-white backdrop with two-dimensional pears on two dishes in a limited range of hues. But, for me, I am not sure I like this. I get it’s a bowl of fruit, but – in a way – it’s not really fruit, as we know it. I think it’s interesting, but that’s about it.

Autumnal Cannibalism (1936) by Salvador Dali.

I found this fascinating. At the gallery, I inched closer to the canvas to study the details. This painting is like an abstraction from a lucid dream. You’ll have to forgive me, but the above facsimile doesn’t do nearly enough justice to the original. The stylishness in the details on the canvas and overall opulence of colours contrast with the essence of the painting; namely, two shapes devouring each other. According to the Tate, this “mutually-destructive embrace may be a comment on the Spanish Civil War”. Apparently, the landscape in the background is set in Catalonia which is also quite beautiful. I think this is aesthetically stunning.

Head III (1953) by Graham Sutherland.

I don’t get this at all. Apparently, this is the merging of insects and fossils? According to a contemporary critic, Sutherland’s work was “the now prevailing cosmic anxiety”. It reminds me of the Alien from the eponymous movies, but other than that, I’m disappointed. How can an Englishman produce something so hideous and repellent? Why insects?

Sleeping Venus (1944) by Paul Delvaux.

This painting was enormous. It spans an entire wall. According to the Tate, this oil painting was rendered in Brussels during the Second World War while the city was being bombed. I like the juxtaposition of the elegant classicism against the horror and the terror. The skeleton standing by a voluptuous woman (Venus​​, the Roman goddess of love and beauty). Hands raised to the sky in despair while a nonchalant lady saunters by. Very clever.

Nude woman in a Red Armchair (1932) by Pablo Picasso.

The model was Marie-Thérèse Walter. Picasso painted her entirely in voluptuous curves. Her face is split, and she has two different skin tones. Not sure what to think of her “middle” boob. I guess Picasso wanted us to see it too. Honestly – I am not sure what to think of this. It seems a bit – if you’ll pardon me – simple. It doesn’t make me think much and I don’t think the caricature is all that beautiful.

Man with a Newspaper (1928) by René Magritte.

Four indistinguishable scenes – apart from the disappearance of the gentleman with his newspaper. What to think of this? I noticed that the colours were a bit darker in the bottom duo; perhaps indicating the passage of time? I feel there’s something forlorn in this painting, the loss of someone? It’s interesting.

Paintings (1980s) by Gerhard Richter.

There was a large room adorned by six huge paintings of Gerhard Richter. Although it is quite abstract, it also feels a bit realistic. The painting above was, to me, the most beautiful and engrossing of the six. There is a fluidity to the painting, as if I’m overlooking a lake. Pretty.

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The end. 

Below is a concluding photograph of my visit. I subsequently met my friend and went on a Thames River Cruise from the Bankside area of London. Temp was 38C. So lots to drink but a lovely day afterwards.

Yours truly and the BFF.