Free online courses

Check this out - a great project with free online courses. Let me know what you think ! http://alison.com/

Thursday 24th November 2011 Edinburgh free talks

On Thursday 24th November 2011 From 7.00pm upstairs at The Meadows Bar (EH8 9LP). Maggie Kang - Doing Business between China and the UK + Antonella Sorace - One Brain, Two languages, many advantages. Free

Montesquieu and Cultural Relativism (1689 – 1755)

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu was one of the most relativistic thinkers of the 18th century. He greatly contributed to the notion of a science of human society. His great work, The Spirit of the Laws (L'esprit des lois )was first published anonymously in 1748 because Montesquieu's works were subject to censorship. It demonstrates great intercultural vision suggesting a science of societies in an intellectual framework which suggests influence by Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) who put forward his basic principle of relativity in 1632.

In the Spirit of the Laws it reads “It would be highly unlikely that the laws of one nation could suit another; laws should be relative to the physical characteristics of the country, for the climate, to the quality of the terrain, it's location and extent; to the style of life of it's inhabitants whether farmers, hunters or shepards, to the degree of liberty permitted by it's constitution, to the inhabitants religion, inclinations, riches, number, commerce, moreys, and customs.”

The book's influence outside of France was considerable as it was rapidly translated into other languages. This kind of relative approach was a sensitive area as demonstrated in 1751 when the Catholic Church added L'esprit des lois to its List of Prohibited Books. Montesquieu's political treatise had an enormous influence on the thinking of many people across Europe, most notably Catherine the Great who was also friend of Voltaire.

The problem of relativism for Montesquieu is the issue of how much human knowledge and experience is relative to time and place and circumstance, and yet within that how much we can know about the natural order of things. This problem is echoed in John Locke's work, who lived from 1632 to 1704. Locke had asked the relativistic question of 'what if a creature had a wholey different sensory perspective', for example, if humans had microscopic eyes, or additional or fewer senses – how might the world in value appear to them ?

Voltaire popularized Locke by positing in his writings visitors to earth from distant galaxies, and despite exponentially longer lives and thousands of senses they lament their ignorance to understand what they are in part experiencing and how bound they are by their relative lack of knowledge.

Europe of that age indeed was encountering more intercultural relativisms with the birth of the printing press and explosion of trade with far off places. The Europe of that time is encountering different chronologies from it's own as cultural diaspora mingle and merge with indiginous ones. Indeed Voltaire begins his own history of the world with China rather than with Judaism.

In France Louix XIV had overridden and bullied the parliaments in the 17th century reducing them to obedience and submission, but after his death the great parliaments of France began to reassert themselves.

Montesquieu married a French Huguenot, which deepened his understanding and appreciation of toleration, as well as how much follows from the accident of birth. The Huguenot's were Protestants in France inspired by the writings of John Calvin in the 1530s. By the end of the 17th century, roughly 200,000 Huguenots had been driven from France through a campaign of religious persecution.

In Paris he became involved with a group of researchers at the Royal Academy of Inscriptions who's official role was to decipher various ancient medals, coins and records for the crown. In terms of studying the chronologies of cultures and the nature of past civilisations, the scientists at the academy became scholars of comparative ancient religions and beliefs.

They were shocked by and wrote privately about the functional resemblance of cultures discussing this widely with Montesquieu – 'each has a clergy, each has an explanation of the creation, each has a justification of its political structure yet all of these are substantively different in the particular'.

One of his close friends in Paris was a Chinese scholar who managed the Kings Chinese Library who was a convert to Christianity whilst in China. He could not wait to get to Europe, having converted to becoming a Christian, because he expected to find a nation in which, if struck on the cheek, everyone would turn the other cheek; when asked to carry something a mile, everyone would carry it two. He was anxious to see the society in which everyone was motivated by charity and kindness as represented by scriptures.

He was, however, astonished to find the difference between the idea and the practical reality. This stimulated Montesquieu to think about how belief and practice can so diverge. Montesquieu published a work called the Persian Letters. The structure of this work is that of an epistelary novel in which Persian travellers see France and the West through alien eyes and write back to Persia about their experiences.

This afforded Montesquieu the opportunity to explore differences between cultures and to deepen his readers sense of the relativity of belief to time and place. In the book he used satire through his Persian characters looking at the Pope, the King, nobles and bishops, through these Persian eyes which lacked European French Christian preconceptions.

Here the Pope is perceived as a great magician who can make the people think that three is in fact one – the doctrine of the trinity. The king is described as an even greater magician who, by debasing the currency, can make people think that ten is one. The bishops are people who gather together to make the laws of the church and then separate to sell dispensations. It raises the humour and question of ethnocentricism.

What Montesquieu wanted to know and distinguish between is plastic what is plastic and maleable in human life; and what is common to all human experience. He looks through various lenses, and in the Persian Letters he looks at systems of power, and in particular systems of despotism, relative to time and place.

In it he explores how the circumstance of French women would be unbearable to the Persian women; and how the circumstance of the Persian women would be unbearable to French women; yet, he writes beneath this, there is a natural law of liberty that revives whenever despotism is loosened.

To summon an example he describes how when Louix XIV dies, France comes alive again in it's culture. He looks at the varieties of ethical codes in the world which are striking in their multiplicity, yet there is a reality of natural consequences. Nations may adopt various moral codes but nature determines whether humans can live together and survive, and perpetuate a society.

Montesquieu's major works are Persian Letters (published in 1721), Considerations on the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (published in 1734), and The Spirit of the Laws (published in 1748).

Again and again he revisits the theme that amid the relativity of human perspective there is a science which is a unifying truth. One examines the religions of different cultures; they all make different and often mutually incompatible claims. For Montesquieu it is the laws of natural philosophy which offer a unifying truth across all cultures.

There is a regularity to human nature and that human nature exists in such a stunning variety of circumstances. The task of the student of society is to recognize what are the common forms and the common laws at work beneath the surface differences of human affairs.

Montequieu sets out to classify the different types of human political association, not by their structure of power but by what he calls the spirit that animates them. His fundamental distinctions are that all societies may be divided into republics in which either the whole people (a democracy) or some part of the people (an aristocracy) rule; or monarchies in which there is the rule of one man guided by law and by custom and by intermediary institutions of power and despotism in which human beings are governed by the will and caprice of a single individual which has absolute dominion over their lives.

He posits there are different spirits which animate each of these forms of human association. Essential to republics is virtue; without virtue there can be no republic – central to this form of government is a concern for the common good, a concern for the business of the public.

Monarchies depend upon honour, obedience to the rule of law, acceptance to the obligation of the rule of law and intermediary institutions (courts, aristocracies, parliaments) which all must be bound by honour. Without honour the whole system would fail and despotisms are always governed only by fear.

One of the problems of Montesquieu is the instability of these forms and the fact that would seem morally the most desirable – a democratic republic animated by the virtue of all – is one of the least stable forms of human association though all of them carry within them the seeds of their own non-stability and destruction.

That instability allows us to understand predictable cycles of human history. In the Persian Letters, Montesquieu relates the story of the Troglodytes, an ancient people who over throw a king and after a period of anarchy they come to self government. They come to self government because with absent virtue or honour, or fear, their anarchic state (after overthrowing despotism) cannot survive because they cannot cohere as a society.

Noone fulfills an obligation, noone protects anyone else, noone honours a contract, noone will return to do business with the Troglodytes a second time. By a kind of natural selection the virtuous survive and there is a period of self government but self governance and virtue produce prosperity. Free virtuous people prosper, but prosperity produces selfishness, avarice, greed, a laziness about the public business. This work long predates Rousseau's critique on civilisation where he suggests that the mores of civilised culture are decadent trappings.

The Troglodytes seek a king who says I will be bound by your laws but this is the saddest day in history for you are no longer virtuous enough to govern yourselves; and this predicts the cycle which leads back to despotism.

For Montesquieu, this is the case of Rome as well. The virtue of the Roman republic made it the most formidable force, it defended itself so successfully after which it then went on to conquer, and as it conquered, it increased in size, militarism and wealth losing the virtue which animated the republic, which then could not sustain itself thus leading into the cycle of monarchy and then to despotism.

In the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu asks the question that historians do in thinking about how so much chance and contingency goes towards influencing the paths of a civilisation. He answers that this is true that there is a role of chance in history but consider if one says this republic or empire fell because it lost a battle, one must ask the deeper structural questions – what kind of society falls from the loss of one battle ? What kind of society put itself into that situation. The accidental theory of history cannot account for coherence entirely.

Human societies can achieve any number of forms but they cannot survive unless the problem of linking the individual to the broader society, of security, of equity, and of justice; but such success however, given human nature, will not be permanent.

Virtue at some point weakens, monarchy at some point becomes despotism, despotism is at some point overthrown when fears weaken producing anarchy and a whole new cycle of human phenomena. Despotism is a particular problem which he focuses on. All cultures in general, and those in a position of power assume that their particular forms of association are natural and never see despotism in their own behaviours.

Despotism is the subjection of one persons life to the whim and caprice of anothers will. When the despot is unable to exercise terror, freedom reasserts itself against arbtirary will. Only terror can make despotism seem stable and permenant.

How can one overcome this tendency towards despotism in human affairs. For Montesquieu there must be rights and law without anarchy. To correct the tendency of every form of power to degenerate there must be a separation of powers. The ideal would be to have a popular power, an artistocratic, a senatorial power, a monarchical or executive power but separated, each acting as a check and balance upon the other.

With those ideas one can see the influence that Montequieu had on the founders of the American republic who read him with great attention to detail and passion. They found in his work a naturalism and took from it that it was the task of the founders of the new republic to learn from nature, to learn from the past whilst avoiding idealising man, to introduce checks and balances into the foundations of the new republic.

They learned that they were all under the necessity of mutual restraints upon centres of power so that each might prevent the degeneration of the other. They knew also that any experiment in self government depended, in final analysis, upon public virtue, and that in it's absence nothing on paper could be stable.

Edinburgh Festival

Ragged Talks in the Edinburgh Festival

Free talks are being put on in Out of the Blue Drillhall, Dalmeny Street (EH6 8RG), all through the month of August. This is a chance to listen to people and their passions in a friendly informal talk at lunchtimes (1245 – 1345). Brought together in conjunction with Leith on the Fringe, these events are brought to you by the not-for-profit Ragged project:



3rd August: Alex Dunedin
Social Capital – Fancy words for working together

A talk about what inclusive Social Capital means and what it's practical benefits are in community, education, economic and arts terms.


4th August: Brian Chrystal
Lets Talk About Population Baby!

What is it going to be like when we have a harvest failure and an extra 200 mega cities worth of people to feed.


5th August: Mike McInnes
The Anorexic Brain: Why Obese Westerners are Starving

The Paradox of Modern Metabolic Impairments is that of the Anorexic Brain/Obese (Orexic) Body


6th August: Dr Denise Borland
The Singer’s Psyche: a psychological approach to vocal performance

Aimed at creative artists and those who support them, teachers, ENT, producers, managers, agents within the popular music field.


7th August: Patrick D. Whelan
A Short History of Skiing in Scotland

Through sharing resources and expertise find out how we can come together to make free skiing happen


9th August: Maggie Kang
Business Opportunities between UK and China

Given the tremendous changes in our world it is crucial to let our students and young professionals of British, Chinese, and all nationalities to get working together in the UK to understand each other

10th August: Mike McInnes
The Nocturnal Fast, Cerebral Energy and the Honey/Insulin/Melatonin (HYMN) Cycle.

This talk will explain the pathway activated by the HYMN Cycle, a cycle that optimally forward provisions cerebral energy, promotes quality sleep and recovery physiology


11th August: Tom Muirhead
A critical look at latest Census taken in Scotland on the 27th of March, 2011

Highlights some of the dangers inherent in taking and storing vast amounts of highly personal data


12th August: Tom Muirhead
Human Rights Protections in a European Union

The history of the European Union and Human Rights


14th August: Tom Muirhead
Right to a Fair Trial Part 1 – ‘The Painted Bird’

Explains why the wearing of wigs and gowns by judges and other officers of the court introduces apparent bias into all legal proceedings


16th August: Adam Smyth
The Mcdonaldization of society, the Slow movement and the Industrial food system?

Slow Food is a manifestation of the Slow philosophy in a real life context. It fights for food to
be good, clean and fair


18th August: David Greig
The Poetry of W.S. Graham - Knocking from the other side of the page

WS Graham was a self taught poet from Greenock who left Scotland in his twenties to live in Cornwall where he spent the rest of his life.


19th August: Kevin Williamson
Robert Burns: Shortbread Tin Icon, or Radical Subversive?

Few Scots know much about the radical subversive aspect to Burns’ life and work. Nor indeed the times he lived through


21st August: Mike McInnes
The Consciousness of the Long Distance Runner: The Exercise Theory of Relativity

This talk will focus on the optimal ways for fuelling cerebral energy during exercise and during recovery


23rd August: Gypsy Charms (Dr. Sarah Vernon)
‘Striptease in Scotland: Tits, Tassles and Ten Pound Notes’

I finished my fieldwork in 2008, and at the time there were no long term-fieldwork studies conducted in the UK. My research is Scotland’s first long-term participant observation study.


25th August: Bob Redwater
Memoirs of an Edinburgh Poacher

I have written an honest account of my life as a hunter, which includes my criminal conviction for poaching on the Laird's land.


26th August: Jatin Puri
Music in India – Music in me

Indian music has always gathered interest in the rest of world, from classical music to Bollywood to Punjabi Bhangra. It is a very lucrative career to be in as well.


28th August: Emily Dodd
Banana Me Beautiful

Award winning author Emily currently lives and works in Edinburgh where tells stories, delivers Environmental Education, makes podcasts and films and writes for BBC Scotland (Cbeebies).

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Dont forget to see the full listings for Ragged Music, Theatre and Arts on the website

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Great Educators: Confucius - K'ung-fu-tzu 551 - 479 BCE

“If one loves humanness but does not love learning, the consequence of this is folly; if one loves understanding but does not love learning, the consequence of this is unorthodoxy; if one loves good faith but does not love learning, the consequence of this is damaging behaviour; if one loves straight forwardness but does not love learning, the consequence is rudeness; if one loves courage but does not love learning, the consequence of this is rebelliousness; if one loves strength but does not love learning the consequence of this is violence.”

Confucius, or K'ung-fu-tzu, married at the age of 19, got employed as a storekeeper and later as a superintendent of parks and herds. He established a private school when he was about 30 years old (522 BCE) and gained a reputation for his expertise in 'rituals'.

During his lifetime the private school he established had enrolled 3000 students. It is generally agreed among historians that Confucius' philosophical and education ideas are recorded in the 'Four Books' – The Analects of Confucius (Lunyu), the Book of Mencius (Mengzi), the Great Learning (Daxue), and the Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong); amongst others.

In Chinese society, prior to the twentieth century, these four classics were among the textbooks for those who planned to take the imperial examination which selected officials for the imperial government.

The psychological foundation of Confucius' educational thought is that human nature is neutral at birth. He observed that 'By nature, people are close to one another; through practice they drift far apart.' Because of the neutrality of human nature at birth, the environment, including education, plays a very important role in raising the young.

Confucius' private school has been extolled as an institution which provided educational opportunity to the common man as well as the elite. He said: 'I instruct regardless of kind... to anyone who spontaneously came to me with a bundle of dried pork I have never denied instruction.'

The students who had conversations with Confucius as reported in the Analects came from various social backgrounds. Although many of his philosophical notions were about maintaining the status quo his educational policy enabled outstanding students from poor family backgrounds to become important officials in the government. He said: 'Those who excel in office should learn; those who excel in learning should take office.' The notion of the scholar-official was the primary justification for the later emperial examination.

Confucius was heavily involved in teaching and there are several texts about his ideas and practice related to teaching method and instructional content. Confucius paid attention to students' individual characteristics and suggested they were best suited for varying kinds of jobs.

He expected his students to be motivated and active learners. In his words 'If I have brought up one corner and he does not return with the other three, I will not repeat'. Confucius urged his students to take the initiative in learning. They should be eager in and dedicated to learning. When students were taught something, they were expected to draw relevant inferences from it.

In terms of instructional content he said “Inspire yourself with Poetry, establish yourself on The Rituals, perfect yourself with Music”. Amongst other books Confucius used the so called Five Classics – The Book of Odes (Shi Jing), The Book of History (Shujing), The Book of Rites (Li), The Book of Changes (Yijing) and The Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu) as the primary instructional materials.

One of Confucius' students, Fan Chi, requested to learn farming: Confucius responded 'I am not as good as an old farmer.' When Fan Chi requested to learn vegetable gardening, he said 'I am not as good as an old vegetable gardener.'

In addition to intellectual education, moral education also played a very important role in Confucius' educational theory and practice. He is reputed to have instructed in four aspects: culture, moral conduct, wholehearted sincerity, and truthfulness.

According to Confucius' ethical theory humanity is the supreme virtue and the total of all virtues, and it was manifested in many aspects of our lives. He said 'To restrain oneself and return to the rituals constitutes humanity; 'For a man of humanity is one who, wishing to establish himself, helps others to establish themselves, and who, wishing to gain perception, helps others to gain perception and a man of humanity places hard work before reward'.

Confucius emphasized the importance of humanity in daily life in the way one treats parents and others. He said 'What you do not wish for yourself, do not impose on others.' He also stressed the importance of humanity in governing observing that 'if you yourself are correct, even without the issuing of orders, things will get done; if you yourself are incorrect, although orders are issued they will not be obeyed'.

In the Analects he similarly remarks: 'If you can set yourself correct, what difficulty do you have in conducting state affairs ? If you cannot set yourself correct, how can you correct others ?' Confucius and his followers had a tremendous impact on education and culture in Chinese and many other Southeast Asian nations. So much so that in some dynasties only scholars from the Confucian school could advise political leaders.

Many of the traditional values advocated by Confucius such as filial piety, respect for the elderly and moderation still play a very important role in Chinese people's life. Confucius and his followers emphasized education and learning which became the corollary notion for the imperial examination that selected officials based on individual merits; a system not abolished until 1905.

In order to prepare the most able and virtuous rulers, Confucius held that education should be available to all, irrespective of social class. He was a pioneer in providing education to the common people.

Confucius' purpose of education focused more on social impact than individual development. The moral values he advocated were ultimately related to governing and regulating social relationships. The developmental path he laid out for his students was first to achieve self cultivation, then family harmony, then good order in the state and finally peace in the empire. The instrumentality of educational purpose is still one of the most serious issues in current Chinese education.

Cheng did an interesting intercultural study in 'A Study of the Philosophy of Education of Confucius and a Comparison of the Educational Philosophies of Confucius and John Dewey' (University of Wyoming, 1952) which focuses on some of the strong similarities between these great educators.

Newsflash: Dyslexic Makes Typo on Flyer....

...Extra Extra Read all about it....

New free education project manager Alex Dunedin delivers leaflet with spelling mistake. The event being held at the Blind Poet on the 6th of July at 7pm was being advertised with a quote from Great Educator Mary Wollstonecraft but the copy lacked a consonant - to his shock and surprise.

When asked about it he said "B.F.D (Bone Fide Distraction) not to worry, no big deal, in fact, the more we think about language the more important it is to realise that living language is an organic thing"

When asked, Dr Johnston said "language is as mutable as a cloud". Billy Shakespeare united the local dialects in his work to create an expansion of the English language which popularized and shaped the whole of it's future. Despite being accused of being a common hack at the time he is now considered the height of culture now.

Dyslexia has made me casual about formal language in a creative context. Since discovering the excellent work of Oxford Neurosciences on dyslexia much of the problems of reading certain texts have resolved.

This does not omit the importance of formal language, a misplaced letter here or there in a technical document can be as affecting as a misplaced decimal point in mathematics.

"This is a good opportunity to raise awareness of what dyslexia is or is not". for so long is has been a little understood condition which is by no means a handicap" said Alex. In criticism of his response, spokesperson for W.T.F (We're Too Formal) said "A fine excuse for a typo ! Must try harder Dunedin !"

A Crash Course in Social Capital

So, what is social capital ? Jeremy Shearmur describes social capital as loosely as situations where people choose to voluntarily associate with each other and where membership in that group serves as a free resource to those members.

Why is it important ? I feel that social capital is important because it expresses community or belonging. I suppose that it is because we are social creatures and I suggest we are social creatures because of the greater benefits of being part of a community than of being solitary.

Social capital is a phrase being explored and studied across the world. Vivid importance has been attached to there being social capital in culture and it has been suggested that it is vital for stable growth economies, happy communities, healthy communities, efficient administrations, and effective learning environments.


Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam are three major names who have done famous research on this area. Similarly the concept is not necessarily new but can be found expressed in Aristotle, Alexis de Tocqueville, and many other thinkers. As an exercise in understanding, it is good to think about what value trust has.

The Economist equates social capital to trust, and Partha Das Gupta explores trust in context with economics. This is a rich area of study which warrants being looked at and brought into everyone's lives and conversations. Some basic descriptions follow:

Bourdieu: 'Social capital is the 'the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition' (Bourdieu 1983: 249).

Coleman: 'Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities, having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of a social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure' (Coleman 1994: 302).

Putnam: 'Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called “civic virtue.” The difference is that “social capital” calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a sense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital' (Putnam 2000: 19).

The World Bank: 'Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions... Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together' (The World Bank 1999).

Social Capital and Trust For John Field the central thesis of social capital theory is that 'relationships matter'. The central idea is that 'social networks are a valuable asset'. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. A sense of belonging and the concrete experience of social networks (and the relationships of trust and tolerance that can be involved) can, it is argued, bring great benefits to people.

Trust between individuals thus becomes trust between strangers and trust of a broad fabric of social institutions; ultimately, it becomes a shared set of values, virtues, and expectations within society as a whole. Without this interaction, on the other hand, trust decays; at a certain point, this decay begins to manifest itself in serious social problems.

The concept of social capital contends that building or rebuilding community and trust requires face-to-face encounters. There is now a range of evidence that communities with a good 'stock' of such 'social capital' are more likely to benefit from lower crime figures, better health, higher educational achievement, and better economic growth.

However, there can also be a significant downside. Groups and organizations with high social capital have the means (and sometimes the motive) to work to exclude and subordinate others. Furthermore, the experience of living in close knit communities can be stultifying - especially to those who feel they are 'different' in some important way.

Measuring networks and shared values is not a simple black and white thing to do. People and cultures are organic, dynamic, interdependent, flowing. With this borne in mind we can make rough attempts to measure the impact, as have done the Office for National Statistics:

Social capital describes the pattern and intensity of networks among people and the shared values which arise from those networks. Greater interaction between people generates a greater sense of community spirit. Definitions of social capital vary, but the main aspects include citizenship, 'neighbourliness',social networks and civic participation.

The definition used by ONS,taken from the Office for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is "networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups". Why does social capital matter? Research has shown that higher levels of social capital are associated with better health, higher educational achievement, better employment outcomes, and lower crime rates.

In other words, those with extensive networks are more likely to be "housed, healthy, hired and happy". All of these areas are of concern to both policy makers and community members alike. How do we measure social capital? There are a number of different aspects to social capital and measuring the level of social capital in communities can be complex. In many surveys respondents are asked a range of questions that cover a variety of issues.

They commonly focus on:- Levels of trust - for example, whether individuals trust their neighbours and whether they consider their neighbourhood a place where people help each other.- Membership - for example, to how many clubs, societies or social groups individuals belong.- Networks and how much social contact individuals have in their lives - for example, how often individuals see family and friends. What are networks? Formal and informal networks are central to the concept of social capital.

They are defined as the personal relationships which are accumulated when people interact with each other in families, workplaces, neighbourhoods, local associations and a range of informal and formal meeting places. Different types of social capital can be described in terms of different types of networks:

Bonding social capital – describes closer connections between people and is characterised by strong bonds e.g. among family members or among members of the same ethnic group; it is good for 'getting by' in life.

Bridging social capital – describes more distant connections between people and is characterised by weaker, but more cross-cutting ties e.g. with business associates, acquaintances, friends from different ethnic groups, friends of friends, etc; it is good for 'getting ahead' in life.

Linking social capital – describes connections with people in positions of power and is characterised by relations between those within a hierarchy where there are differing levels of power; it is good for accessing support from formal institutions. It is different from bonding and bridging in that it is concerned with relations between people who are not on an equal footing.

All of this has led me to bring together the Ragged University as an inclusive social capital project. We as individuals are all Ragged Universities – that is unique and distinct bodys of knowledge. By coming together to realise each others work and creative endeavours everyone prospers. The fundamental premise of this is having trust in each other and working together through mutual respect.

Great Educators: Mary Wollstonecraft 1759 – 1797

“The most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the hear. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as well render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of it's own reason”

Mary Wollstonecraft left home after receiving a haphazard education in a miserable and unloving family situation. She spent the next nine years in some of the few occupations open to unmarried women at that time. First she was a companion to a widow in Bath. Next, with the help of a sister and close friend, she established and ran a school for girls; then when that venture had to close, she became a governess.

When she was dismissed from her last position, Joseph Johnson who had published her 1786 tract “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters” gave her housing, hired her to write for his new 'Analytic Review', and introduced her to an intimate circle of literary friends whose number included William Blake, William Godwin and Tom Paine.

In this environment she came into her own. Her great leap was to come in 1790 when Wollstonecraft published 'A Vindication of the Rights of Men' in reply to Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' which made her a public figure. It was in 1792 that she published her opus 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' which was a landmark in egalitarian literature.

Praised by radical thinkers of the time and damned by the conservatives, her treatise propelled her to fame both in England and abroad. When she arrived in revolutionary Paris in late 1792 she was to discover that a French translation of that work had preceded her. She went on to marry William Godwin, author of the acclaimed radical treatise 'Enquiry Concerning Political Justice'.

It was a loss to the world that she would not have the opportunity to repeat this achievement. In August 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft died after complications in childbirth. The child lived, and her portrait (as that of her mother's), can be seen hanging in London's National Portrait Gallery after reaching fame herself when at the age of 19 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley wrote the great gothic novel Frankenstein.

Such an influence she had that great authors and feminists like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Emma Goldman, Virginia Woolf, as well as Simone de Beauvoir are among the many thinkers who have paid tribute in their own writings to Wollstonecraft.

So often 'A Vindication of the Rights of Women' has been compartmentalised and read only as a political or feminist text, but an intellect such as Wollstonecrafts must not be confined to pigeon holes. Just as she draws upon Rousseau's text Emile, we can do so as well – 'Read Plato's Republic. It is the most beautiful educational treatise ever written'. In this spirit, the Republic is both a political and an educational treatise as can also be perceived of Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women.

It is a celebration of the rationality of women. It constitutes an attack on the view of female education espoused by Rousseau and countless others which would render women artificial and weak by subordinating cultivation of understanding to the acquisition of some 'corporeal accomplishment'.

To be a moral individual Wollstonecraft stated one must exercise one's reason: 'The being cannot be termed rational, or virtuous, who obeys any authority but that of reason'. The exercise of reason requires, in turn, that knowledge and understanding be cultivated. In other words an education of the mind is essential for the rationality that is the mark of the truly virtuous person.

One of her positions of argument was that if the requirements of morality and also of immortality demand that woman's education develop her reason as fully as possible, so do the requirements of the wife-mother role. In vindicating women's rights, she rejected the education in dependency that Rousseau prescribed. A woman must be intelligent in her own right, she argued, because she cannot assume that her husband will be intelligent. Moreover, 'Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers'.

Wollstonecraft was a spirit of the Enlightenment. Reason served as the starting point for her philosophy as it did John Locke's. She believed that there are rights that human beings inherit because they are rational creatures; that rationality forms the basis of these rights because reason, itself God-given, enables them to grasp truth and thus acquire knowledge of right and wrong; that the possession of reason raises humans above brute creation; and that through its exercise they became moral and ultimately political agents.

Wollstonecraft was someone who systematically argued for bringing women into the enfranchised world domain. The originality and profundity of her ideas are to be found in the extension of the Enlightenment philosophy to women. In A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft brings forth a threefold argument:

1: A rebutal of the presumption that woman are not rational but are slaves to their passions

2: A demonstration that if the rights of man are extended to females, women's domestic duties will not suffer

3: The proposition of an education and upbringing for females that will sufficiently develop their ability to reason independently so that they will clearly deserve the same political rights as men

Approaching the first task she documented the details of what has come to be known as female socialisation displaying a sensitivity to the educative powers of the community on a par with Plato.

She proposed an experiment in living – since women have been denied the very education necessary for the development of reason, it is impossible, she said, to know if they are rational by nature; thus cultivate their understanding and then see if women are not rational creatures. By shifting the burden of proof onto those who deny female rationality, she turned a question about political rights into one about education.

Wollstonecraft's approach to the second part of her great argument was to incorporate the characteristics of rationality and personal autonomy that the Enlightenment associated with the good citizen into her redefinition of the wife-mother role; she made the performance of women's domestic duties dependent on the extension of the rights of man to woman.

To accomplish her third task it must be understand that although the idea of female education she put forward constituted a wholesale rejection of Rousseau's recommendations for the education of girls, it incorporated the education Rousseau designed for males. She managed to appropriate the Enlightenment's philosophy of men's rights and bring them to more egalitarian terms. Needless to say, Rousseau would have been horrified, and he would have been all the more distressed to learn that she wanted men and women to receive identical educations but also to be educated together.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, reformers started translating Wollstonecraft's coeducational philosophy into practice. By the end of that period coeducation had become a fact of life for millions and millions of people around the world. The problem that occurred was that in the reification of Wollstonecraft's vision the inequities of the old paradigm were carried in to the new bringing with it the problems she had tried to resolve.

Unfortunately, as the official tracking system of separate schools with distinctive curricula for males and females became all but extinct, a de facto gender tracking system within coeducation developed to take it's place. The coeducational classroom climate would be a chilly one for women.

In 1932 Virginia Woolf wrote that the originality of A Vindication of Womens Rights 'has become our commonplace'; however, so far as Wollstonecraft's educational vision is concerned this judgement was premature as was brought into perspective in Woolf's 'A Room of One's Own'; an extended essay on patriarchalisms which dominated the literary and learning landscape.

All in all what Mary Wollstonecraft gifted in educational thought to the world has yet to reveal all it's benefits and fruits. She was someone out of her time, someone who was relentless in her intellectual pursuit of rationality, and someone who had the high mindedness to see a truly equal landscape. As a great educator I think everyone should be familiar with her work.

Roberta Wedge has written an interesting blog on Mary Wollstonecraft pointing out some of the things that she managed to do in her relatively short live. You can find her blog here

Categorical Thinking and the Narrowness of Rhetoric

Oh, what a bloody week ! Sometimes it is that uphill struggle to get the most simple of things done. I find myself occasionally battling with people's apathy and cynicism born of apathy, the inertia of the superstructures we work and live within, the anger of people reifiedfrom years past when they tried and failed to do something, and the desire to be recognised.

I remind myself what is possible by looking around to the buildings, the landscape; I go to the library and think of those with the perseverance and tenacity to have written their thoughts down and shared them. I look at the skies and see the planes fly overhead and think about the millions of people from every culture who contributed to the necessary knowledge to have lifted us to the clouds in these manifest collective efforts.

I look at the Victorian times and see the optimists clashing with the self-defeating pessimists and raising the game to say this bloody well can be better – this can happen, these are the ways we can make simple constructive progress. Getting people to work together and carry out what they say is a tricky task, there are all sorts of reasons why people don’t get around to doing things.

The Monty Python syndrome – for this I casually refer to that great film The Life of Brian, a masterpiece in my estimation. Let us have a meeting about a meeting about a meeting. Talking and talking and talking and talking – a state of constant deferral from action. This is a common symptom we find in modern life where, in an attempt to structure a coalescent action amongst a group, action is lost in debate, rhetoric and personal drama.

So often in conversation the convenient default is the position of the devil's advocate. This is to work from the opposite extreme of the idea being put forward to understand the weaknesses of the argument being put forward. In my opinion, without careful self-regulation, the spoken word is prone to give rise to categorical expressions and use of absolutes. Why do I think this ? Generally because we can only process one person vocalising at a time, also we can only say one thing at a time – I feel that there is thus an inherent dualism which arises in the spoken word.

Spoken conversation around certain topics so often degenerates into power dynamics, argumentation and rhetoric simply to win a point. Argumentation and rhetoric often creates an exciting and pleasing adrenal flow which results in a sating self-affirmation. Dale Carnegie picks up on something which influences his book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. He touches on the point that we all want to feel important. In a section discussing why people go insane he writes this:

“I put that question to the head physician of one of our most important psychiatric hospitals. This doctor, who has received the highest honors and the most coveted awards for his knowledge of this subject, told me frankly that he didn't know why people went insane. Nobody knows for sure But he did say that many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality.”

I think it is important to understand some of the neurotic discussions and decisions we make when working with others. Carnegie also touches in on the use of praise instead of criticism as the basic concept of B.F. Skinner's teachings – another person who dealt with human psychology. When we work with people on the premise that the affirmation we seek comes from agreeing and mutually finding a solution, things become a lot more productive and communally enjoyable. I think that by this road more complex questions and tasks can be tackled.

Competitive behaviour is a pain in the neck. Oneupmanship, as it has been put by Stephen Potter, is incredibly destructive in that it cuts short the finer points which need a passive environment to thrive and yield fruit. I try and remind myself – beware the feelings of self-importance – maybe Rudyard Kipling was thinking about this when he wrote “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same”...

It is easy to criticise, mope around and say the world is going to hell in a hand basket. It is easy to accuse others of laziness and selfishness to post justify inaction. It is easy to say you will do something and get swept away on the next given daydream. It is easier to talk than to listen. It is easy to behave according to the prevalent group.

It is not so easy to do what we say we will. It is not so easy to take into account what we do not know before we suggest an opinion. It is not so easy to think beyond our next self-affirmation. It is not so easy to understand that our identity is not the group which lends us our totem.

The fruits of the easy fall to hand. The fruits of the counter-intuitive we must work to gain. To finish off this blog entry I will quote from the introduction of Francis Bacon's Novum Organon, a work which has vivid importance to each person in this modern day:

“Those who have taken upon them to lay down the law of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men's efforts than good by their own.

Those on the other hand who have taken a contrary course, and asserted that absolutely nothing can be known — whether it were from hatred of the ancient sophists, or from uncertainty and fluctuation of mind, or even from a kind of fullness of learning, that they fell upon this opinion — have certainly advanced reasons for it that are not to be despised; but yet they have neither started from true principles nor rested in the just conclusion, zeal and affectation having carried them much too far.

The more ancient of the Greeks (whose writings are lost) took up with better judgment a position between these two extremes — between the presumption of pronouncing on everything, and the despair of comprehending anything; and though frequently and bitterly complaining of the difficulty of inquiry and the obscurity of things, and like impatient horses champing at the bit, they did not the less follow up their object and engage with nature, thinking (it seems) that this very question — viz., whether or not anything can be known — was to be settled not by arguing, but by trying.”

Great Educators: Thomas Henry Huxley 1825 – 1895

Surely it would be the most undesirable thing in the world that one half of the population of this country should be accomplished men of letters with no tincture of science, and the other half should be men of science with no tincture of letters ?

Thomas Henry Huxley's research was so impressive that in 1851 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; this however brought him no income. After a considerable career in the Navy as a voyaging surgeon, he left it to carry on his career in science.

After honing his literary skills, supporting himself by journalism and translation (most notably from German), Huxley was appointed lecturer at the School of Mines in London in 1854.

He focused his interests on fossils and taught students with a great enthusiasm for knowledge. In the evenings he gave courses to working class men thus making education more available in a time in which it was fairly exclusive. This idea he had long held and he took particular pleasure in delivering these courses, passing on his rhetorical skills.

He also taught at the fashionable Royal Institution in London's West End, where for five decades mixed intellectual audiences had gathered to be entertained and stimulated by Humphrey Davy – the chemist and inventor; Michael Faraday – the chemist and physicist; and John Tyndall – the physicist who was known to hold a distaste for shallow intellectuals in the educational and learned world.

He later taught at the Normal School at South Kensington, both of which later became part of Imperial College London where to this day one can find Huxley's papers preserved. He wrote the famous textbook The Crayfish published in 1880. It is largely taken up by anatomy, physiology and taxonomy. Here we also find a discussion of the evolutionary relationships of crayfishes and other crustaceans.

His teaching method follows in the tradition of Francis Bacon and shows a clear separation of fact and theory. He was noted for using attractive language, masterful sketches on the blackboard presenting eloquent conclusions.

He saw science as 'trained and organised common sense' and did much to demystify it by making it accessible. His view of science went with his rejection of organized religion and he opposed dogma wherever he found it.

Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word 'agnostic' to describe his own position in the philosophical schema. The agnostic 'does not know' being content to doubt what nobody is sure of. Huxley lived a moral life and made agnosticism respectable. He viewed the agnostic position as the common sense guide to life in science and beyond it. He also introduced the word 'epiphenomenon' (applied to consciousness) to discussion.

In a review he criticized the anonymously written Vestiges, a unique work of speculative natural history. He slated it for it's inaccuracies. Never fully convinced that natural selection was sufficient to explain development, Huxley did, however, accept that the Origin of Species (published in 1859) made a sufficiently strong case.

He prepared to fight for Darwin's corner earning himself the name of 'Darwin's Bulldog'. Professing was for him an art and his lectures are reputed to be compelling, especially with the highlights of aggressive timbre he brought to his delivery. In the theory of evolution he found the framework within which to make sense of biology. His predecessors had relied mainly on natural theology, a line of thought which posited evidence for the wisdom and benevolence of God.

In science he put forward 'the warfare against ignorance, bigotry and disease' and stated that unlike religion and politics, science had never done any harm. In February 1860 he lectured at the Royal institution on the origin of the species which he presented agnostically as a hypothesis.

He also suggested how England might 'prove to the world, that for one people, at any rate, despotism and demagogy are not the necessary alternatives of government; that freedom and order are not incompatible; that reverence is the handmaid of knowledge; that free discussion is the life of truth, and the true unity in a nation'.

He also petitioned that science be cherished and preserved from foolish meddlers who thought they did God a service by preventing the study of the works of creation. In the summer at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Huxley took on Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in a debate at Oxford.

This confrontation ensured that evolution would not be dismissed as an idea and turned Huxley to a well known public figure. His book Man's Place in Nature, published in 1863 resulted from these debates. He was never patronizing but instead, for working men he adopted a style like a lawyer putting a case before a jury; drawing them in, and after presenting the evidence inviting them to come to a conclusion.

In a talk delivered in 1868 called 'On a Piece of Chalk', he used this most basic of teaching aids as a way into a truer 'conception of this wonderful universe and man's relation to it'. He urged upon working men that science was not so different from the reasoning they did all the time, and that it was exciting and liberating.

In 1870 Huxley was elected president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he also in due course became president of the Geological, Ethnological and Palaeontographical Societies, and of the Royal Society. He also was involved in the opening of John Hopkins, the first research university in the USA.

From the 1860s his role in education was crucial. At South Kensington he inaugurated laboratory teaching and research in Zoology. By the time of his death, most professors of biology in England had been his students, and biology was firmly in the realm of the secular as a professional discipline distinct from medicine and from natural history.

His campaign to replace clergy in the learned world by meritocrats expert in their field, and aristocratic patrons by professors, had succeeded. With Tyndall, Herbert Spencer and others he formed the X-club which played a backstage role as a pressure group within scientific societies.

Much as he supported the idea of evolution in biology, he rejected the idea that evolution was the key to ethics. For him doing right involved putting the weak first, rather than letting the fittest survive at their expense. Science alone was not the key to living well.

He was an extraordinarily active man and periodically lapsed into depression. He served on ten royal or other official commissions and was in constant demand as a speaker. He was much involved in publishing projects including scientific journals and the important 'International Scientific Series' of advanced textbooks.

In 1870 when universal elementary education was introduced through the Forster Education Act, he was elected to the London School Board. He was a powerful influence in this role and resisted moves by members of the various churches who had hitherto provided all the education there was and promoted science as an essential part of education at all levels. He actively refused the notion that cholera was a scourge sent from God to the wicked, he said it was a punishment for ignorance and sloth.

He was widely read and had high respect for writers but firmly believed that a literary education alone was a poor preparation for life. His role on the Devonshire Commission of 1872 on scientific instruction was particularly noteworthy. He had little time for the idea that education was merely the imparting of facts and was deeply concerned to make it widely available.

At the end of his life he was locked in controversy with the physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), a pioneer of thermodynamics, over the age of the Earth and hence the speed of evolutionary change. Huxley could not follow Thomson's mathematical inferences and resented physicists' assumption that their science was fundamental: in the event Huxley was later vindicated because Thomson had known nothing of radioactivity, which transorms the calculations allowing a much longer history for the Earth and the Sun. Huxley's excitement in science is still needed.

Education can be many things

I have been thinking about the nature of education and always having been familiar with the noble aspects of this tenet of human society, I have not thought much about the negatives which it can manifest as.

Sir Francis Bacon is often attributed with having said “Knowledge is Power”. Regardless of who first said this, what is obvious is that it has become common currency as a phrase. There are various ways in which this can be interpreted but one I like, which is not so commonly encounterd is “Knowledge is only powerful when it is shared” (thank you Francis Benton).

This makes me think that education only gains it's potency when it is inclusive. To me, education is knowledge shared and it's carriage is enjoyment. The delight of having someone understand what you are saying is something which intimately social and enriches our environment. This inclusivity is key to empowering the knowledge which can make positive social change.

Whatever way I chalk up education in it's inclusive form, it yields equilateral benefits. It is when knowledge becomes an exclusive enterprise that it loses much of it's power and majesty. Education in it's highest form does not set people up to fail but constantly revisits it's last known communal point and endeavours to extend its horizon.

In these term education is when someone who knows something shares an expression of that knowledge with someone who is new to it. If the person who has the knowledge rejects the other person because they do not know what knowledge they hold, it is an exclusive enterprise and more akin to a mutual appreciation society devoid of fertile ground.

It is less about enriching the world (both inner and outer) through discourse and more about self affirmation through status comparison. Not allowing people to recount and adapt is not facilitating learning it is prescribing a colloquial elitism. Imagine if Albert Einstein's work had been forever rejected on the basis of a spelling or grammar error which is particular to a school of thought !

Many vocational teachers and academics have expressed to me that they learn that 'there is no stupid question, only stupid answers' and that 'if I truly know my subject then I can find a way to express it which will allow anyone to understand what I know.' This sharing is what has inspired in me an aspiration of the beauty of things which I previously thought dull, mundane, ugly or just rubbish.

Here is to the individual who made that vital and bright spark in our lives opening out 'a universe in a grain of sand' without motive beyond sharing the awe which makes their day to day life an ever extending pleasure.

Here is to the friend who taught me of the history and heritage in each brick or carefully hewn stone, signed by it's author in craftsmanship. Here is to those who have taken the time to enlighten me through entertaining chat over a coffee, beer or bite to eat, making me realise how much painstaking attention to detail has gone into the pointing of a building or the turn of a phrase.

Here is to the person who has recognised in others a passion and brought them into a fold to mentor them because they saw in another human themselves – someone who similarly did not have the knowledge once upon a time.

This is enlightenment and the betterment of all which is quite beyond the Malthusian spectre of resources. This is the path to the shared solution of such a logistical hill which we all address.

Here is to climbing that hill through constructive and not destructive means. Knowledge is a limitless resource and our existential crisis' are quite enough to bind us together. I also think that pleasures can bind us together too. Here is to you all who care to share and think !

Ragged Rebrand....

Announcement: We are now changing our face to Ragged ! After much thinking and deliberating and working out the cost/benefits we have decided to change the collective name from that of 'Ragged University' to 'Ragged'...

....Ragged-online, Ragged Talks, Ragged Publishing, Ragged Music; you get the picture. The story is worth telling as we are learning much as we go along on this journey...

...It, of course, must begin with the inspiration of the Ragged Schools and the collective efforts of philanthropists and entrepreneurs to transform the social landscape of Britain. These peoples felt, tried and succeeded in bringing about equilateral positive social change whilst improving the economy.

Thus the inspiration for the Ragged University project. We made our application to become an official charity and four and a half months later we receive a response saying we must refrain from using the word 'university' in our title pending processing of our application. Here is the crux of the letter:

To use this word for the purpose of carrying on business requires the prior approval of the Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills. The requirements are set out in section 1194 of the Companies Act 2006 and in The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business names (Sensitive Words and Expressions) Regulations 2009 (SI2009/2615)....

...This word can only be used in a name by a body that satisfies the Department's separate criteria for university title; these relate to student numbers, good governance and taught Degree Awarding Powers. If the venture satisfies the criteria, BIS will be happy to support its use of the word in its name....

...I appreciate that the activities as described on your website may be charitable and that there is no attempt to misuse the word university....

This is of course important legislation and the the principle of legislation should be respected. There are various ways of looking at it but primarily the legislation we fall under is there to protect the public against misuse of words which carry certain weight and credentials. The idea of being able to buy a degree, for instance, is as corrupt as being able to buy a gold medal or the outcome of a football match.

So I called them up and spoke to a very nice John Sclater who apologised for the trouble and said that they felt that it was a “laudible project” but nevertheless we must fill the criteria if we want o use the word 'university' in our title.

To this I informed him that we offer no accreditation, we have no student body and told him that our good governance is guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as laid out in our policy (which I forwarded to him). It seems that this is a bit of an unusual situation we are in and dont exactly fit the boxes that have been laid out for us, thus a debate has started about the credible and correct use of the word in this context.

Much as the nice Mr Sclater and his department have been very helpful in guiding us through this process, I looked at the calendar and started to weigh things up as the letters of support started to roll in backing our application. My spidy-senses started to tingle...

I thought about all the time and energy which could and would go into winning the application and thought about what else could be done with the untold hours and efforts which must be summoned just to use the word in our name. After tussling with this I thought the opportunity cost was potentially draining to the project. What is is in a name I asked ? And what is our name ? The answer seemed very clear to me – Ragged !

We are about being dynamic and want to avoid drifting off into a quagmire of law, potential argumentation and semantic philosophy. I made the motion to rebrand as Ragged which does not exclude the fact that we can emphasize to people the soul of the idea - “Everybody is a Ragged University”

This is what it is all about – the project is not about bureaurcracy, legislation, semantics, or spending our collective efforts doing anything which is not progressive or productive for the community. The interpretation of words in context with the law can be very mutable, so let us move on and roll over the permafrost of indecision making decisive pragmatic moves to get Madras teaching into social spaces and realise each others projects.

The Ragged project lives, it does not dither.... so, our announcement is this – We are the Ragged project and we coordinate Ragged Talks, we are Ragged-online and realise peoples work through Ragged Publishing. We have Ragged Music forming and Ragged Film rolling.

Year two – here we come – Yeeeeeehaaaaa !!!!!

The Ways in Which We Do Things...

I was recently made aware of the most amazing practical demonstration of what motivation involves. Whilst reading through Andy Cranwell's website, it struck me as interesting the way he approaches team building.

He makes reference to The Fun Theory through, amongst other things, the piano stairs. This video is an impressive example of how the perception of the task defines the response to it. This rings true to me on a number of levels.

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates People is a brilliant part of the The Royal Society of Arts website. Not only have the RSA managed to make something which delights me as a piece of art being created before my eyes, but it conveys a lot of knowledge in an easily digestible form. In a nutshell, what I draw from it is what motivates people is their passions !

An expression I have heard and like is 'the first step is half the journey'. When that first step is taken effortlessly I think it is generally something which innately rewards people, and when this is the case, great things can come of the journey. I am of the opinion that individuals are not born with 'talents' but acquire them through the happenstance of their inspiration.

Inspiration can, of course, come in all guises; a kiss, a word, a sight, a kindness, an encounter. An inspiration puts fire in our belly to know intimately and wholly, everything about something, somebody, sometime...

What drives you ? It is a good exercise to think about how you wound up doing what you do today - who or what created that spark ? Also, I like the question to pose yourself - if you take the last six months of your life, would you be happy to repeat it for eternity ?

My bet is that people get good at what they love should it have been nurtured and allowed to have been nurtured...

How Hard it is to Make Policy

In helping bring together the Ragged University I have been working with lots of people who are keen to make a success of this as an inclusive education project. In day to day life we meet and interact with many people and human relationships are always complex.

I mean complex in the sense that even the smallest moments of speaking, working or interacting with others, countless factors feed into the exchange and outcome. This I think is why other people enrich our lives, fascinate us, educate us.

When a group of individuals come together to achieve a common aim, the idea of organisation comes into play. Obviously the ideal situation is to be able to write down rules which everybody can read and reference when a question arises so everybody knows where they are. It is often not as simple as it seems.

I find people and life usually beyond the Complexity Horizon and not predictable or reducible to a statement, equation or pattern. In designing policy for the Ragged University I can only think it wise not to be prescriptive because so many things I have not invested enough time in to understand the best situation to aim for.

In this I see echoes in all cultures great and small. For me, a knee-jerk stance is as unhelpful as a dogmatic one in approaching matters of policy. Being a big fan of libraries I am intrigued to refer to people who have invested much time in questions I have invested relatively little time in understanding.

Trust to the experts - Experto crede - in my opinion, history and literature are some of the finest resources we have available to us. So over time I am going to read about successful policy and hopefully hold an open mind to developing written policy which wins all votes.

There have been lots of very interesting and successful policy makers throughout human history. One which I think is worth mention is Marcus Aurelius as played by Richard Harris in the popular film Gladiator. I was surprised to find out that this was a reference to a real historical figure who thought deeply about the decisions he was entrusted with.

It is interesting that we are privy to the thoughts of this man as he wrote them down all those hundreds of years ago in his Meditations. A humble man who tried hard to think beyond his own interests and administrate in a way that best met the mean of the world around him. What do you think ?

Is Economics a Dismal Science ?

A famous quote is that of Thomas Carlyle stating economics as the dismal science. Thomas Carlyle complained that society had become mechanical and lost much of its humanity because of the abstraction of 'real things' into monetary terms.

In fact, there appears much gloom around the fabled world of money and exchange, and as someone who is outside of this field of study I wrestle with just what it all means and what is the practical nature of economics.

From meeting various people who love economics and invest their lives in it, they have revealed that it is not about doom and gloom but about all the varying ways that people act to exchange goods and services to improve the lives of people (directly and indirectly.

Without the pretence of understanding the subject, I can say that ideas and elements expressed within it are inspirational and I find it fascinating that great thinkers' ideas have been so useful as to have become common knowledge – much as people may not know the heritage or jargon to formally describe the thoughts they have.

My feeling is that economics is not a dismal science but a way of thinking about and understanding better how we as human beings communally meet the needs of the individual and the group. It stimulates me to appreciate more all the diverse efforts which go into producing something and exchanging it for something else.

Something as simple as a pencil (symbol of Sir Humphrey Chetham) can symbolise a whole chain of collective efforts to get something to market (the place we exchange). If you don't believe me, just try making one yourself! For me economics, like so many other subjects of study, adds value to our world.

Morecambe ce com ca

I had a happy thought and it involved rain

Vivian Aristotle Smiles

An article in the Guardian newspaper (Friday 14 January 2011) was brought to my attention the other day. Hermione Hoby wrote about the amazing Vivian Maier.

This is a fine case of where someone was truly engaged with what they did and got good at it because they were passionate. For the love of photography and the fascination of the world around her Vivian Maier became a great photographer producing thousands of images which further inspire and move other people.

Being quite interested in education and the arts, a passage from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (384 BC – 322 BC) jumps to mind:

"...Moral virtue, like the arts, is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts.... Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly..." Book II

This suggests to me that one theory of learning is practice. How do we learn to be what we want ? What makes a successful author a successful one ? By what yardstick are we to measure people ? These are huge and complex questions which I have no plain answer for, however passion is something which always leaves the greatest impression.

It intrigues me people who have invested in knowing about something - all that time to understand the in's and out's of the life of a footballer or painter; all those moments absorbed in knowing how you can fix a combustion engine or get a certain sound from an instrument; all those years ferreting out the understanding of how to put a perfect finish on some wood or a large plaster wall...

A great writer who I am impressed by in many ways is Samuel Smiles who wrote Self Help. I think he was an admirer of people and human culture. I think he saw possibility in the world around him because he admired the embodied capabilities of people. All of this inspires what the Ragged University is.

For me, people are what they do and when I see people enjoying what they do it makes me think they will not tire of the task, therefore they will tend to excell in their field because to them there is no mundanity. They want to understand each little minute detail and are prepared to do what is necessary to achieve that. There are many perspectives on the theory of learning, and we are always learning more. An excerpt from Samuel Smiles' Self Help (1859) which I like is as follows:

...Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he held that artistic excellence, “however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of heaven, may be acquired.” Writing to Barry he said, “Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed.”

And on another occasion he said, “Those who are resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will find it no play, but very hard labour.” But although diligent application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted education of the schools.

Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in the face of poverty and manifold obstructions. Illustrious instances will at once flash upon the reader’s mind. Claude Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto, the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.

Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the culture of artistic genius. Gainsborough and Bacon were the sons of cloth-workers; Barry was an Irish sailor boy, and Maclise a banker’s apprentice at Cork; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones, were carpenters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in Pennsylvania; Northcote was a watchmaker, Jackson a tailor, and Etty a printer; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, were the sons of clergymen; Lawrence was the son of a publican, and Turner of a barber.

Several of our painters, it is true, originally had some connection with art, though in a very humble way,—such as Flaxman, whose father sold plaster casts; Bird, who ornamented tea-trays; Martin, who was a coach-painter; Wright and Gilpin, who were ship-painters; Chantrey, who was a carver and gilder; and David Cox, Stanfield, and Roberts, who were scene-painters. It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction, but by sheer industry and hard work.