An Experiment

Let’s try an experiment…

Sadam Hussein’s vaunted weapons of mass destruction turned out to be a chimera and the cost in American, and especially Iraqi lives, has been hideous. We need to ask ourselves how we reached this point of zero empathy for those hurt by our way of life. Of course, I don’t want to be president. But I digress.

Iran, for its part, insists its uranium work is non-negotiable, now or ever. Look at us! We are not politicians. Everywhere it is becoming clearer how social, economic and political misery will endure for a long time yet. We stand on the far promontory of centuries of struggle. A new constitution needs writing. To put it bluntly, I’d say we are asleep at the screen.

In his new book, “Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership”, Warren Bennis, a management theorist, tells a story about Sigmund Freud’s flight from Vienna to London in 1938. In essence, the research suggests if you feel that you should be taking certain actions or that you are not living up to you true ideals, you will probably be a happier person if you take those actions and live up to those ideals. The big fashion these days is to focus on the supply side of innovation: for example, by encouraging everyone to think big thoughts. That is why we dream of nothing less than a global emancipation, a spiritual insurrection that sets this false world ablaze. After firefighters extinguish a blaze they usually look carefully for glowing embers before rolling up their hoses and heading off. This means that we have to publish our private opinions and interrogate our private lives as if they were on display.

Still a word of caution is in order. You can’t fight an enemy you can’t see. Instability afflicts the whole country. I tell you plainly that a dark, dangerous future lies ahead and that it is your duty to resist and to serve Islam and the Muslim peoples.

So, what did you think? What did the article make you think?

The text above is not in fact an article at all, but an amalgamation of around twenty different articles; the sentences are taken alternately from The Economist (28th Aug- 3rd Sep 2010) and Adbusters (Sep – Oct 2010). The articles used range in topic from the Pakistani floods to the Australian hung parliament, and back to Brazilian farming methods. The two publications have very different editorial directions. Adbusters is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist magazine of social activism, whereas The Economist’s principles are rooted in free trade and globalisation. However, the link they share as ‘forward thinking’ intellectual publications brings out a striking similarity in some of the language that is used.

The rhetoric that is printed every day to argue for a diverse range of ideals can all too easily merge into one long rant. If we are not careful that rant – which we see throughout our lives as a constant stream of media produced information and comment – can rustle up some semi-formed, subconscious thoughts in our unsuspecting heads.

The next time you skim through a magazine, reading one or two sentences of each article, remember what you have just read and beware of the subliminal messages that are inevitably seeping in.


Ed Thornton
(thanks to my brother who collaborated on this piece)

The Mouse and the Tiger

A story of our collective action:

After recently watching a lecture given by Matt Ridley, titled When ideas have sex, I have been thinking about the amazing power we possess as a society to create things that are beyond any individual’s innovative capability. By this I mean that as a global community we have produced both objects and systems which require a huge pooling of knowledge. Matt Ridley focuses on the way this is manifested in producing new technology but it can easily be adapted to our creation of other non-physical social structures.

Ridley tells us about the wealth of information which is required to manufacture a humble computer mouse. He points out that there is not one individual in the world who has the capability to build a mouse from scratch. That person would not only need to understand the wiring of the electronics but also how to make plastic; and hence, even how to drill for the oil needed to make the plastic. His point is that through global communication and trade we have created objects which no individual (or even small population) could make on their own. His lecture is a positive appreciation of the wonderful ability of man, but whilst insightful he does not recognise that the same process that allows us to use technology to make our lives easier, also brings interesting ethical questions.


If you own a computer mouse and want to thank somebody for creating it for you, to whom do you show your gratitude? There is no individual responsible: literally thousands of different people through history have been responsible for both the invention of the techniques used and for the actual production of the object in a factory. We can find no one person to thank but are forced to thank that ubiquitous presence, humanity. This means that I should be grateful to everyone who exists now and in history for the technology that I have, I must even thank myself a little bit; as part of the species who created comfortable living I am party responsible for my own situation.


Before we get ahead of ourselves and start cheering for the great innovation of our species and partying in the streets in respect of our brilliant co-operation, we must recognise that the same traits that have brought about an exponential rise in easy living have also had their side-effects. In London Zoo the other day I saw a sign that read, “The future of the tiger is all of our responsibility.” It was saying that if the imminent extinction of this animal finally takes place, we have no one to blame but ourselves. There was no individual who killed the tigers and even the few who did go out and poach did not also make their own rifles; they most certainly did not create the demand which gave them the incentive to kill the tigers. In short, the downfall of the tiger, much like the invention of the computer mouse, is a shared responsibility. I must thank everyone for the amazing technology which allows me to live my life in relative comfort but similarly I must blame everyone for the death of our wildlife; everyone including myself.


The overpowering globalisation that has occurred in relatively recent history is in danger of disconnecting us from our moral obligations. We do not recognise either our part in the creation of brilliant new innovation, which can raise human living standards, or our part in the slow destruction of our planet. It is right that the mouse should make us proud and we should congratulate ourselves on our productivity, but the story of the tiger is an example of a wider problem that should frighten us and remind us of our responsibility. The mouse may be nice, but the tiger will always be scary.

Ed Thornton

Ponderlusting: A beginner's guide

Philosophising beyond the pub…(Olly)


So here’s something: I’ve actually already written this alleged mission statement.

You see, in order for me to finish it before my partner-in-crime Ed strangled me through facebook chat, it’s taken the switching off of my laptop, and I am writing this with a biro on the back of a bank statement. The admirable intention was for my fondly loved fountain pen to sing these words onto the high-quality paper of my ex-diary. Both diary and pen have, for some reason, disappeared from my desk.

There is a point. For some time, we’ve been coming across more and more ‘for some reasons’. ‘For some reason, it’s a surprise when England are knocked out the World Cup’. Or ‘for some reason, the debate over the Iraq war, in mainstream media at least, lies not on the thousands of murders committed by British and US soldiers but on whether we should have waited for the UN to say it was ok to kill innocent people’.

‘For some reason, I’m surprised not find to my pen.’

A trivial and personal example, yet I can’t help avoiding the impression that not only are we not given answers to many things around us (my pen remains missing), but that we’re not asking the right questions (the novel idea of keeping my desk tidy has never occurred to me). What’s more, it seems we’re slowly being tricked, whether deliberately by an omniscient oligarchy or in an oblivious act of self-destruction on the part of civilisation, into ignoring the most obvious and fundamental of questions about the society in which we live (I am deceiving myself into thinking it would be no use to tidy my desk). Furthermore, we are encouraged, or convince ourselves, that these questions do not exist (there’s no such thing as an untidy desk).

An authentic philosophical superinjunction on uncovering the fabric of our everyday lives.

The seeds of the initial idea to begin a kind-of-writing-blog-thing-sort-of were probably first sewn when we contemplated, prior to finals in our much-mocked arts degrees, setting up a joint plumbing business. The faces which received our idea, among mothers and girlfriends alike, probably resembled those which received Galileo when, well oiled after an Italian wine or two, he plucked up the courage to absurdly pronounce that the world orbits the sun.

It may be time to reach the point: are we too reluctant to say ‘why not?’?

In fact, recently we’ve been chomping at the bit to ask. But then over the past couple of months, layabout soap-dodgers that we were/are, we have witnessed many a sunrise with a can of warm beer in hand. In those epiphanic moments, the negation of ‘why not?’ is magical. It is a question that wipes the slate clean, abolishing all possible previously conceived reasons…because you just know there is no ‘not’. Thought is stripped down and ready to be redressed. The apolitical mind can approach politics. The metaphysical soldier enters into battle on physical terrains. Essentially, the desire to transcribe these drunken ponderlusts onto paper (or screen) is what drove this blog from the start.

…and into the ring (Ed)…

“A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring” – Substitute ‘philosopher’ for a slightly more general, and less big-headed term, and this blog becomes our ring.

The so-called fighter who has never donned a pair of gloves will not only be terrible on the canvas but will also, without doubt, retire unfulfilled. This blog is thus a blow-by-blow account of our attempts to develop our own powers of thought, dialogue and writing; as well as gain more confidence and fulfilment from flexing our intellectual muscles in front of a crowd. Inevitably there will be some spurious beliefs in our collective heads and bringing them to the surface is likely to be embarrassing, but it should also be fun. Every boxer should enter the ring with conviction; weaknesses that arise can be ironed out afterwards in training. After all, even a series of first round defeats should be educational; and hopefully provide some catharsis.

Brawls will most probably centre on politics, philosophy, and sociology. However, you should always be ready for a wild haymaker-of-a-rant about more down to earth issues or a cheeky little uppercut-of-a-passing-thought about sport/music/literature.

…but unfailingly back for last orders (Olly)

Because, at the end of the day, ponderlust is a malleable state of mind. It doesn’t follow a political dogma and has an insatiable curiosity. It might produce a short story, it might produce an comment article, it might produce the transcription of a dream. It might produce a comment article in the form of a short story which appeared in a dream. Expect nothing and expect everything.

Take us with a pinch of salt, of course. Well might we, enlightened bloggers that we are, ridicule the illogical dismissal of a career path. We were able to ask why we should not start a plumbing business, but when we proposed offering philosophical conversations and Spanish lessons with the service, we simply laughed the thought off. But why not? Why not combine our talents and offer something different to the competition? After all, the market rules, doesn’t it? But we chickened out. We don’t offer philosophising plumbing, we offer a blog. Just like every other young start-up spouting their vision to save the world. As for the plumbing business, well my kitchen tap is still leaking.

Let’s be blunt. I was forced to write this on paper because, if the article which was the final prompt for the materialisation of this project is true, Google has already destroyed our ability to philosophise deeply. Maybe this blog exists to enable us to keep ponderlusting.

But then, why would you believe a word I write? I lied to you from the moment I began saying I’d already written this article, which I clearly hadn’t because I’m writing it now. And still am. And still. And. Still.

Beware of what you read, friends. But never stop enjoying it.