Modern winemaking

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Until the mid-20th century, most vineyards were small and worked mainly by hand. After the Second World War, as French vineyards modernised and the industry grew into a global economic behemoth. To them, what seems like a story of technical and economic triumph is really the tragic tale of how wine lost its way. Before the War, France had just 35,000 tractors; in the next two decades, it would acquire more than a million, as well as US-made pesticides and fertilisers. At the same time, oenologists determined that wine should cease being a matter of chance, but should be based on science.

Vineyards are now soaked with pesticide and fertiliser to protect the grapes, which are a notoriously fragile crop. In 2000, vineyards used 3% of all agricultural land, but 20% of the total pesticides. In 2013, a study found traces of pesticides in 90% of wines in French supermarkets.

What happens once the grapes have been harvested is, to natural wine enthusiasts, scarcely less horrifying. The modern winemaker has access to a vast armamentarium of interventions, from supercharged lab-grown yeast to anti-microbials, antioxidants, acidity regulators and filtering gelatins, all the way up to industrial machines. Wine is passed through electrical fields to prevent calcium and potassium crystals from forming, injected with gases to aerate or protect it, or split into its constituent liquids by reverse osmosis and reconstituted with a more pleasing alcohol to juice ratio.

Natural winemakers believe that none of this is necessary. The basics of winemaking are, in fact, almost stupefyingly simple: all it involves is crushing together some ripe grapes. When the yeasts that live on the skin of the grape come into contact with the sweet juice inside, they begin gorging themselves on the sugars, releasing bubbles of carbon dioxide into the air and secreting alcohol into the mixture. This continues either until there is no more sugar, or the yeasts make the surrounding environment so alcoholic that even they cannot live in it. At this point, you have wine.

Making natural wine means going without the methods that have given modern winemakers so much control over their product. It also means jettisoning the expectations of mainstream wine culture, which dictates that wine from a certain place should always taste a certain way. (A part of an article in The Guardian, reproduced in The Week, 7 July 2018)

What has this to do with Epicureanism? I choose it, among a host of other dismal issues, because it illustrates a lack of moderation – the conversion of a simple procedure into a massive, modern, chemical-contaminated production dependent on science and fancy machinery. Pesticides in 90% of wines in French supermarkets? What is natural anymore?

The sorry state of British education, part 2, A-levels

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The second in a three-part series on the sorry state of British education. You can read the first part on GCSEs here.

A-levels are the exams British students take at 18 years old to assess whether they can go to university, and how prestigious a university they can go to. They are also important when applying for jobs; an A-level in Maths for instance, can give you access to jobs in the technological and finance sectors that would otherwise be very difficult to enter.

Traditionally, A-levels were highly regarded internationally. They were said to be the same standard as a degree in America. But it’s clear that the system has some underlying weaknesses.

The first is the narrowness of the A-level curriculum. Most students will only complete three full A-levels; a small proportion of highly able students will complete four. This means that British students lack the breadth of knowledge that could make them more internationally competitive. Most students in other developed countries, particularly those who take the International Baccalaureate, leave school with a far more varied range of skills. They will have studied Maths, at least one science and a foreign language until 18. The vast majority of British students will not leave school with those abilities, and so are at a disadvantage when applying to university or for jobs which involve working abroad and require a wide set of skills.

The second problem is the excessive emphasis British society places on A-levels, and academic education generally. Despite a slight decline, they are still a tough qualification, one which many people aren’t naturally suited to. Yet the more vocational alternatives to A-levels are seriously underfunded, and lack the recognition by employers and social respectability that they ought to have. As a consequence of this system, Britain has some of the most able university students in the developed world, and a disproportionate number of the world’s leading universities. But it faces a severe shortage in technical skills, something which will get worse if migration falls after Brexit. There is also an increasing political and economic gap between those who have A-levels and those who don’t.

The third problem is that despite being a respectable qualification, A-levels are insufficient when applying to the more lucrative jobs. Because so many people now go to university, many employers will insist their prospective employees have degrees. But this reduces the value of the A-level as an achievement in and of itself. Instead, it has been reduced to a signalling device for universities. My grandmother left school at 18 with A-levels, and went on to work for the Daily Telegraph. Such an opportunity would be virtually unthinkable today, unless my grandmother had gone on to university. If they don’t go to university, A-level graduates tend to have to do an apprenticeship or some form of further training to make a success of their careers. This is an utter waste of taxpayer’s money, one which only punishes the working class who are disproportionately unlikely to have a degree. Instead, fewer people should go to university, giving more opportunities to those who could only afford to be educated by the state.

Overall, A-levels are still a decent qualification- one which anyone should be proud to have done well in. But the government needs to realise they’re increasingly anachronistic in a globalised world where university education is becoming the norm. Instead, more funding should be allocated to alternatives to A-levels, and to students who never intend on going to university. But those who would genuinely benefit from university should do the International Baccalaureate or the Cambridge Pre-U: both of which are more rigorous and enjoy a better international reputation than A-levels. Private schools are already making the switch, it’s time state schools followed.

 

Epicureanism and death

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At the beginning of his autobiography “Speak, Memory”, Vladimir Nabokov writes:

“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness ……Nature expects a full-grown man to accept the two black voids, fore and aft, as stolidly as he accepts the extraordinary visions in between.”

This is a crucial point of Epicureanism: to accept the two black voids fore and aft as a natural and inevitable part of life.

So you strut and fret your way upon the stage and then are heard no more. It is therefore valid to ask yourself, “Have I led a happy and productive life? For the brief time during which I will be remembered, will it be with affection, with respect for achievement, or simply for being a kind, decent person, thoughtful of others, dismayed at poverty and injustice, generous and kind, and with a sense of humour?

If none of the above, think hard about your life, because it is a waste if you depart an unfeeling nonentity. For depart you surely will, and the shock of death is more acceptable if you feel you have lived decently and well.

A maximum wage?

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Could capping top incomes tackle our rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches to narrowing ghe vast economic divide? The Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies hss published “The Case for A Maximum Wage”, by Sam Pizzigati, an IPS associate fellow and the co-editor of Inequality.org. 

 Pizzigati docusses how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a “maximum wage” could be both economically viable and politically practical. One major American city is already socking a higher tax rate on companies with wide divides between worker and executive pay. Activists in other jurisdictions are working to deny inequality-generating enterprises government contracts and subsidies.
 
Governments could go further still and start using their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios between rich and poor across the board. The ultimate goal ought to be a world without the super-rich.

Moderate Epicureans would probably support a maximum wage. Every unequal society in history has either descended into violence or otherwise collapsed, so there is an historical backing for quickly doing something about excessive income and wealth. Why does the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, need $143.1 billion? How can he possibly spend even $1 billion of it? How can he justify the low wages and poor working conditions in his company? Yes, I have done my little bit to put him where he is – customers love the sevice – but the key is “moderation” – he has none.

The problem comes with implementation. Studies have shown how insecure rich people actually are. Few believe they have enough money and want even more. They are willing to spend some of it to protect their store of wealth, and this means lobbying and the suborning of ambitious people who are prepared to curry favour in return for hard cash. It’s why American democracy is descending into farce. The people involved are focussed on themselves, not the nation. Almost the last political patriot standing, John McCain, has just, sadly, died; the future of the Supreme Court as a fair arbiter of law and the Constitution is uncertain, to say the least. The chances of a maximum salary are slim indeed, but future generations will see the rich-poor divide as part of the death knell of a rather good political system.

The traditional dinner party is apparently doomed, part 2

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Second part of yesterday’s posting (too long for a single one):

It seems that the formal dinner is on life support. No one is setting out different wine glasses or (horror!) seating interesting strangers next to one another if they have special things in common. Entertaining is now informal, from a buffet to a casual get-together.

Fast food
Guests expect to be fed within two hours of arrival, max. If you work slowly in the kitchen, factor that in.

There are people (OK, men; men of a certain age) who treat the unveiling of a buffet like the race for the last helicopter out of Saigon. Or, at the table, start lobbying for seconds while the host is eating. Hold back.

Music
Forgoing music is not an option. But don’t play music that is too intrusive.

Roughing it
(This is exactly what the writer wrote:
Few of us these days have the money or space to maintain the dinner party basics, such as endless dining chairs or matching cutlery. The modern dinner party is all about mucking in, to the extent that, if numbers nudge above six, everyone accepts that someone will end up sitting on a camp chair. It would be churlish to complain. The lack of ceremony is a release. Get the kitchen paper roll on the table. The age of the napkin (ring) is over.

Bacteria hysteria
When dining communally, remember: generally, people are not infectious. If someone passes you a piece of bread rather than the plate, if someone manhandles the cheese, remain calm.

Hands-free
It is 2018, moderate at-table phone use is expected. ( Really? Ed.) Two things, though. Repeatedly corralling the room into photos for social media is tedious and intrusive. As is Instagramming the host’s food.

Zen and the Art of Dishwasher Maintenance
Don’t start a) tidying things into bin bags while the party is in full swing, b) washing up, or c) putting crockery back in the wrong cupboards.

Going home
Ordinarily, if an invite is for 2pm on a Sunday, the host expects their house back by 8pm. On Saturday night, if your host is bathing the kids, tiidying the kitchen or asleep on the sofa, ik the hint. Forget “one for the road” and scarper.

Gratitude
Thank your host as you leave and next morning by text. They deserve it. Do not comment on kitchen disasters until the host is ready for the inquest.

Away leg
In nature, there are hosts and there are people who, for various reasons, would never dream of cooking for you. Do not dwell on it, much less demand a reciprocal date. Feeding people should be an honest act of generosity. Otherwise, it leaves a bad taste. (This article has been edited to cut out egregious chatter. The name of the writer has been, thank goodness, lost).

My comment
My wife and I pride ourselves on trying to give guests as elegant evening as possible. I am aghast that such advice is even thought necessary. Long live the 12 piece dinner service, the napkin rings, the candles and attentive hosts! Alas, they will disappear with us and parties will be catered for the socially clueless, dressed in trainers and T-shirts. The old way of entertaining was not a matter of being one-up – it was a matter of giving the guests good food, well served, in an elegant, even uplifting, way, accompanied by interesting conversation. It was a matter of respect for the guests. Oh, well. we can’t go back now.

The traditional dinner party, part 1

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It seems that the formal dinner is on life support. No one is setting out different wine glasses or (horror!) seating interesting strangers next to one another if they have special things in common. Entertaining is now informal, from a buffet to a casual get-together.

Here are the modern do’s and don’ts for dinner party guests and hosts:

Confirmation
If someone offers to feed you, accept or decline (hopefully) promptly. Under no circumstances should you start quizzing the host about who else is invited.

Arrival
When someone tells you to arrive at 7.30pm, the last thing they want you to do is arrive at 7.30pm. They will be in the shower. Or at the supermarket. Give it 15 minutes. In Washington the Brits still turn up dead on time, the Virginians much later.

Keep it simple
Do not be too ambitious. Ultimately, no one cares. They will remember how drunk they got and what a laugh they had. The food is almost immaterial, a framework for social interaction.

Gifts
Flowers? Wine that needs decanting? A dessert that needs defrosting? Do not lumber your host with extra work.

Alcohol
Bring more booze than you need. Do not arrive with a four-pack of Carling or a Hungarian prosecco someone left at your house three years ago. An easygoing sharing of the wine goes with the territory. But contribute fairly, and in no circumstance try to return home with any of the wine you brought. That alcohol is the host’s to keep, a bonus embedded in law.

Cold calculation
Do not cram your beers into the host’s fridge. Buy some ice and bring your chilled drink in a cool bag.

Sharing the load
If everyone is pitching in and you’re asked to bring a starter or dessert, no one will mind how much you spend. This is not a financial quid pro quo. Nor are you under obligation to cook from scratch. This is not The Great British Bake Off. It should be a relaxing meal among people you love, not a high-wire test of your choux pastry.

Do not turn up late with a starter that takes an hour to cook, causing an oven logjam. Bringing paté? Then bring the bits, too: bread for toast, chutneys and pickles. It is the thought that counts. That, and bringing enough to feed everyone. This is a party, right?

Potluck packaging
Do not bring dishes in fancy cookware. Such things are often mislaid in the melee. It may be weeks before you see your cookware again.

Child maintenance
Give kids (cheap, frozen) pizza and chips. Anything else is a waste. On no account give them what the adults are eating. There is nothing more demoralising than watching a seven-year-old refuse to eat as its parents let their meal go cold.

Continued tomorrow…… ( P.S By now you might have guessed where I am going with this)

The email below was sent by Bernie Sanders

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I want to ask you to clear your mind for a moment and count to 10.

1…

2…

3…

4…

5…

6…

7…

8…

9…

10…

In those 10 seconds, Jeff Bezos, the owner and founder of Amazon, made more money than the median employee of Amazon makes in an entire year. An entire year.

Think about that.

Think about how hard that family member has to work for an entire year, the days she or he goes into work sick, or has a sick child, or struggles to buy school supplies or Christmas presents, to make what one man makes in 10 seconds. According to Time magazine, from January 1 through May 1 of this year, Jeff Bezos saw his wealth increase by $275 million every single day for a total increase in wealth of $33 billion in a four-month period.

Meanwhile, thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low. And guess who pays for that? You do. Frankly, I don’t believe that ordinary Americans should be subsidizing the wealthiest person in the world while he pays his employees inadequate wages.

But it gets remarkably more ridiculous: Jeff Bezos has so much money that he says the only way he could possibly spend it all is on space travel. Space travel!

Well here is a radical idea, Mr. Bezos: Instead of attempting to explore Mars or go to the moon, how about paying your workers a living wage? How about improving the working conditions at Amazon warehouses across the country so people stop dying on the job? He can do that and still have billions of dollars left over to spend on anything he wants.

I have never understood how someone could have hundreds of billions of dollars and feel the desperate need for even more. I would think that, with the amount of money he has, Jeff Bezos might just be able to get by.

But this is not just about the greed of one man. These are policy failures as well. Last year, Amazon made $5.6 billion in profits and did not pay one penny in federal income taxes. The Trump tax cuts rewarded Amazon with almost $1 billion more. And city after city is offering additional tax breaks, mostly in secret, for the right to host Amazon’s second corporate headquarters.

A nation cannot survive morally or economically when so few have so much and so many have so little. Millions of people across this country struggle to put bread on the table and are one paycheck away from economic devastation. Meanwhile, the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good. Epicurus would invoke moderation. Actually, these days it is out of hand and simply has to stop. (slightly edited)

Educational divide

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All the signs suggest that leaving the EU will cause economic hurt, yet voting intentions over Brexit remain unaltered. Why?

The answer lies in a novel written 60 years ago by a Labour Party grandee. In “The Rise of the Meritocracy”, Michael Young envisioned a dystopian future polarised between a class of winners (exam-passers) and a class of losers (exam-flunkers): his great insight was that, in modern society, it is your relationship “to the machinery of educational selection” (from the 11-plus on) and not to the means of production, that determines your life chances and your sense of self-worth. So it is in today’s Britain: public schools have become exam factories, the top 10% of households own 44% of the wealth, and the “smug” cosmopolitan exam-passers act as if they are morally and intellectually superior to the exam-flunkers.

Brexit expressed this culture war: 75% of those with no educational qualifications voted for it; 70% of graduates voted Remain. So why would Leavers admit they’re wrong? Having been told their vote reflected their low intel-ligence, they’ll be damned if they’ll give their opponents “yet another reason to feel smug”. (Bagehot, The Economist. 17 Feb 2018)

The Rhyme: a short poem

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Poets now despise the rhyme,
Or that’s the affectation.
But nonsense is as nonsense does
And what is worse
Than bad blank verse?
Gibberish strung a word a line,
Conforming to the fashion?
The wish being father to the thought,
It’s promptly
Found
To
Be
Profound.

Rhymes outdated? That’s just rot!
Some can rhyme, and some can not.

It’s content, not the form, that counts,
And mastery of meaning.
A certain discipline of mind
Is requisite when using rhyme.
So don’t reject the tools at hand,
Misused as they may be.
The means can justify the end.
My point is penned.
Enough!
The End!

From “The Rueful Hippopotamus” by Robert Hanrott, published by ByD Press and a available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de

Children returning home? Bad news for parents!

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A quarter of young British adults now live with their parents, more than at any time since records began in 1966.

According to a new study by the London School of Economics, adult children who return to the family home after a period away – often at university – cause a significant decline in their parents’ well-being. While the study acknowledged that these “boomerang” children can be a source of emotional and practical support for parents, it found that the quality of life of the parents studied fell by an average of 0.8 points on the researchers’ scale when their kids moved back in – an effect similar to developing an age-related disability.

It’s natural that people have mixed feelings about boomerang children, but it’s not just about parents wanting a spare bedroom again, or more time for new pastimes. Putting up a grown child also “feels at some deep level like a failure for all concerned”, even if the reasons for it – mainly insecure employment and the cost of housing – are beyond their control. Meanwhile, the children may feel they have worked hard through school and university only to find themselves back where they started. The sense of injustice among the young is powerful, and that’s not a healthy situation. (adapted from an article in The Week and The Times, March 2018)

We bring them up to make friends, to be independent, to stand on their own feet, to have the confidence to apply for, get and successfully keep a job. We hope we have instilled into them a sense of honesty and integrity, a sense of humour, a caring attitude towards the more vulnerable in society, social ease, and enough mathematics to manage their own financial affairs. We have applied some of the principles of Epicurus, although mostly we are unaware of the fact. We have really tried. And we have failed.

There is something desperately wrong with this scenario, this system. Maybe socialism, the nanny State, doesn’t work and can’t be afforded, but nor can this. We can no longer afford the grave gap between rich and poor, the stagnant wages, the lack of housing, the gig economy, the insecurity and the activities of a now-corrupt capitalism that buys politicians. We may not personally see it collapse, but collapse it will, because it is not acting for the greater good, but for a tiny minority. Collapse is what happens to deeply unfair cultures. Read your history.

The sorry state of British education, part 1, GCSEs

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The first in a three-part series on the sorry state of British education. Hope you enjoy these multi-part blogs. 

I started secondary school in 2008. Then, British secondary education was in a terrible mess; the Labour Education Secretary Ed Balls was presiding over a period of serious grade inflation. GCSEs, the qualification achieved by British 16-year olds, were getting easier, and the number of As and A*s being attained was increasing.

To rectify this, Balls’ successor, the Conservative Michael Gove revamped the GCSE curriculum. The subject matter would become more difficult. There would be a greater emphasis on ‘British values’, to make a more cohesive society and combat against extremism. And instead of students being graded A*-U, they would be graded 1-9, with 9 being the highest grade. The theory was that in the event of grade inflation, the exam boards could add numbers above 9 so the most capable students would be distinguished.

But in many respects, these reforms have backfired. It’s true that grade inflation has largely ceased.  But the curriculum is in many aspects too difficult. Schools are reporting increasing levels of anxiety and other mental health issues. The increasing reliance on exams over coursework doesn’t prepare students for the real world. The notion of British values is subjective and difficult to teach: are things like freedom of speech really British values or just universal liberal values? More importantly, Gove wanted to toughen the GCSE to allow state schools to compete against the more rigorous private schools. But the opposite has happened. Private schools, which use the world-recognised iGCSE, will have a higher proportion of their students get the top grade than state schools. This amounts to a major advantage for privately-educated students when applying to university. State school children will be taking harder exams than their fee-paying counterparts, in exchange for getting worse grades and consequently poorer prospects in higher education.

The lesson from all of this is that successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have failed to reform the GCSE. The curriculum changes too quickly, leaving teachers to struggle with each period of reform. The league tables are meaningless since private schools now refuse to participate in them. Comprehensive education was meant to be egalitarian. Yet we now face a system where the wealthiest parents buy houses in the best catchment areas, thus securing the best places in the state school system. And for those who can afford it (or are lucky enough to win scholarships), private education is as much of an advantage as it has ever been.

The obvious solution to all this is for all schools to adopt the iGCSE. It’s an internationally-recognised, demanding but fair qualification. Since both private and state schools would use it, league tables would regain their relevance. It would be difficult at first for state schools to adjust, but it would be worth it in the long term. Most importantly, it would prevent the constant meddling by education secretaries, since the iGCSE curriculum is run by the University of Cambridge. It would be a fair outcome for all students. If only the government had the humility to admit it.

Next Monday, the sorry state of A-levels, which you can now read here. 

Is a maximum maximum wage a good idea?

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Could capping top incomes tackle our rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches to narrowing our vast economic divides?  Some while ago the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies published “The Case for A Maximum Wage”, by Sam Pizzigati, an IPS associate fellow and the co-editor of Inequality.org.

Pizzigati docusses how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a “maximum wage” could be both economically viable and politically practical. One major American city is already socking a higher tax rate on companies with wide divides between worker and executive pay. Activists in other jurisdictions are working to deny inequality-generating enterprises government contracts and subsidies.

Governments could go further still and start using their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios between rich and poor across the board. The ultimate goal ought to be a world without the super-rich. His analysis explains why we need to create that world — and how we could speed its creation.k

Moderate Epicureans would probably support a maximum wage. Every unequal society in history has either descended into violence or otherwise collapsed, so there is an historical backing for quickly doing something about excessive income and wealth. Why does the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, need $143.1 billion? How can he possibly spend even $1 billion of it? How can he justify the low wages and poor working conditions in his company? Yes, I have done my little bit to put him where he is – customers love the sevice. But the key is “moderation” – he has none.

The problem comes with implementation. Studies have shown how insecure rich people actually are. Few believe they have enough money and want even more. They are willing to spend some of it to protect their store of wealth, and this means lobbying and the suborning of ambitious people who are prepared to curry favour in return for hard cash. Hard to stop this, but in America a more intelligent Supreme Court could do marvels. It’s why American democracy is descending into farce. The people involved are focussed on themselves, not the nation. Corruption is the name of the game and we are mired in it.

Genuine complaints received by from customers by Thomas Cook Vacations

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1. “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
2. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”
3. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”
4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”
5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”
7. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers to siesta in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”
8. “No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”
9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers.”
10. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”
11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”
12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”
13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends three-bedroom suite and ours was significantly smaller.”
14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort.’ We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”
15. “When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”
16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”
17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”
18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
19. “My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you all responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

These quotations rxplain a lot. Too much for one posting.

The difference between being educated and being cultured.

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“Culture is only really culture when it has diffused itself through every root and fibre of our endurance of life. Then it can become wisdom, a wisdom that can accept defeat, and turn defeat into victory. It can render us independent of our weakness, of our surroundings and of our age, a fortress for the self within the self, and a universal thing, breaking down of barriers of race, of class, of nation”. (John Cowper Powys (1872-1863), British novelist, philosopher, literary critic, educator and poet).

Powys thought that this kind of culture should permeate the soul, otherwise what passes for culture is a falsehood devoid of humanity. Just being intellectual or an aesthete is not enough, for culture without human goodness is “weird and even terrifying”. Culture reminded him of horticulture: the problem is how to graft the subtle and the exquisite upon the deep and vital. “Only by this grafting can the sap of the natural give life and strength to the unusual, and the roots of the rugged sweeten the distinguished and rare”.

The grafting is the true task of philosophy: to add to a person’s cleverness and erudition an inner identity that can withstand the jungles of brutality, greed, stupidity, self-interest and self-regard. The innermost self, the fortress, should be a source of real feelings and sensations of kindness, true thoughtfulness for others and concern for the welfare of the community.

Tom Wolfe said, “The more culture a man has the more austerely – though naturally with many ironic reserves – does he abide by his own taste“. In other words he is an authentic person who lives his philosophy of life. He is not an intellectual or a snob – he treats every man and woman with politeness and respect. He smiles a lot, he knows how to conduct a conversation, can give and take, and can diffuse a tense atmosphere with humour (something rare, a sense of humour!) He can cope with opposing “truths”, comment without anger or snide remarks, listen and charm. It comes easily because he has internalised it as part of his daily life. To philosophise is not to read philosophy; it is to feel philosophy.

On this blog we encourage readers to learn about Epicureanism – not so different from organised religion, but without the supernatural, the dogma, the preachers and the sects.
Let it’s principles be your “fortress”.