People are complex. They are full of all sorts of emotions and contradictions. The beauty of language is that it can be used to support or oppose practically any position.
No specifics here yet, I haven't gotten that far, I'm just generalising, just going with a stream of consciousness and seeing where it goes, I know i want to talk about people and the mind and alliances and all that stuff, but I don't yet have specifics, lets just see where it goes.
I was thinking about how and why it is people tend to side with a position or statement. Why is it that for many, they feel there is no choice other than to adopt a standpoint that opposes the position that they wish to dispute? Where does that come from? What is it that drives that need to dispute and correct; when really, there are very few absolute truths. Are our experiences, ideas and the likely opinions formed from them so immutably fixed that we have little choice but to press ahead and do whatever we can to buttress and reinforce our view? Is it as people like Ekhart Tolle suggest a mere ego thing. Or is it something deeper, something just so intrinsic to us and who we are that gives us very little say in the matter.
A weak analogy yet an anology nonetheless is me and football.
I like Arsenal Football Club, always have done since I was little. It was drilled into me, cup finals and trophies were times of glee, Arsen-al , Ars-enal Ar-se-nal really did and to a lesser extent today - warm my cotton socks. Tottenham Hotspurs Football Club were my popular enemy. The team I loved to hate, the team I could'nt follow ever, no matter what. To do so would be to commit the most heinous of loyalty crimes. It's clear here that my DNA has been drenched and steeped in all things AFC whilst my kryptonite is the obverse, or to be more exact THFC. Even at work, when Derek gets all uppity and starts giving it the big un,I feel a part of me tense inside and cannot but help myself from lashing back with caustic verve and deconstruction. I remind him in no uncertain terms how rubbish they are and how really, my team is much much better than his pile of shite will ever be.
Its irrational, yet, they are the scum and that's that. Why?Um..because they are Tottenham Hotspur FC. End of. Derek thinks the same yet in reverse. I respect him for that. It's how it is, it is as ingrained for him as it is for me. Neither of us could ever cross the floor and join the enemy. Not ever.
Which got me thinking about politics and people who are capable of changing their ideas or more to the point their allegiances radically. This list of MP's who have crossed the floor shows that despite the perceived divides, there are people capable of upping sticks and siding with the 'enemy' who for whatever reason feel that the party to which they'd served no longer represented their view and decided to go with one that suddenly has.
The SDP in the early 80's was formed by a group of discontented Labourites who at the time felt that the Labour party of the time, for whatever reason no longer gelled with how they saw things. Their new party sought to realign the political compass to a more satisfactory position. The other story, or interpretation would be of course, that they as individuals were incapable of affecting change from within the Labour party at the time, so took their ball and ran away with a few like minded individuals to create a team built around how they saw the world.
It's interesting to read from that list of defector (or should that be defective), MP's since 1945, just a handful have taken any hugely radical steps, radical in the sense from perceived left to perceived right and visa versa. Reg Prentince in 1977 went from Labour (AFC) to Conservative (THFC) a remarkable event at the time, and Alan Howarth from Conservative to Labour in 1995, closely followed by Shaun Woodward in 1999 and Robert Jackson in 2005. A less than charitable view would be that jump ship tories weren't really jumping ship at all, as they simply see that the party they were joining was more likely to gain power and therefore maintain their parliamentary seats. A real wag might suggest that the party they were joining wasn't really Labour anyways and was more Conservative than the party that bore the name.
Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott, Margaret Beckett, Jack Straw and all the rest of that mob who helped ditch clause 4 are in the eyes of many Tories anyway, political careerist opportunists, but thats a little outside the remitof this little meander so i'll park that here.
Getting back to the Gooners and the Scum though however much I loved to laugh at their misfortune over the years, I've respected nonetheless, friends of mine who have stuck by them. It cannot be easy to have 16 yers plus of seeing your team win next to nothing whilst your greatest rivals just keep on winning and winning. When George Graham (ex Arsenal manager) went to manage Tottenham it was interesting to hear the respective howls of delight and wails respectively. Arsenal supporters weren't fussed, George was a good manager who'd done his bit, we all knew he had Arsenal running through his veins. he played for the club in the 70's and had taken them to all manner of footballing heights. To us he was a sleeper, a plant. Tottenham supporters on the other hand hated it. They hated him. they knew what the board couldn't possibly relate to in a million years. He was Georgie Graham, ex Arsenal Manager who'd won everything for their most hated rivals.
Loyalties or the feelings that tie us to a thing run deep.I ecall a conversation I had once with a schoolfriend I haven't seen for years. Arsenal were having a rocky patch I was about 12 or 13, he suggested that we become West ham supporters cos they were doing alright and played better football. Jas, I said, are you fucking mad? What!? was his quizzical reply..What! said I, fuckin what! Jas I said, you just don't fuckin do that kind of thing. He saw sense and last time I spoke with him he had a season ticket and has raised his boy in all things Arsene Wenger.
Anyhow, this particular stream of thought has just hit the buffers. So I'll leave it at that for the moment, thanks for hearing me out.
