Is seks literatuur? (of om te huilen)

Door Frank van Empel, nonfixe.

Wie kent het niet, dat gevoel van uitsluiting, van niet mee mogen doen, van 'Verboden Toegang'? Dat gevoel van een elite die een gebied claimt en nieuwkomers buiten sluit. De Wereld van Gearriveerde Uitgevers en Gevestigde Schrijvers is een voorbeeld van mistige belangen verstrengeling die is verkalkt tot een coterie van hielen likkers, die maar op één ding uit is: het eigen bestaan verzekeren. Een bestaan dat wordt geschraagd door een grijs verleden, niet door de fel gekleurde toekomst. De bewoners van deze Oude Wereld vloeken met het wezen van de roman en de betekenis van de romanschrijver, zoals Milan Kundera - zelf een begenadigd schrijver - die formuleert. De schrijvers waar hij op doelt, bevinden zich nog op koude, tochtige zolder kamertjes en worden nog niet herkend, laat staan erkend. Het is nooit anders geweest. En, zoals altijd, komt er ook nu een moment waarop oude bloemen verleppen en nieuwe knoppen open gaan.

‘De roman onderzoekt niet de werkelijkheid, maar het bestaan. En het bestaan is niet wat er gebeurd is, het bestaan is het veld van menselijke mogelijkheden, van alles wat de mens kan worden, van alles waartoe hij in staat is. De romanschrijvers tekenen de kaart van het bestaan door deze of gene menselijke mogelijkheid te ontdekken.’ (Milan Kundera, De Kunst van de Roman).

Volgens de Franse filosoof Jean-Paul Sartre is er nog een beperkende voorwaarde. Een schrijver moet in zijn ogen iets te melden hebben dat er toe doet. En hij moet dat ook nog eens doen op een wijze en in een stijl die niet opvalt, maar die door niemand veronachtzaamd kan worden. Zodra een schrijver bijvoorbeeld een misstand signaleert of aan de kaak stelt, kan niemand meer zeggen dat hij of zij er geen weet van heeft. Of, zoals de Franse essayist Brice-Parain het uitdrukt:
‘De geëngageerde schrijver weet, dat woorden “geladen pistolen” zijn. Als hij praat, schiet hij. Hij kan ook wel zwijgzaam toezien, maar vanaf het moment dat hij ervoor gekozen heeft om te vuren, moet hij zich daar ook als een man naar gedragen, door op concrete doelen te richten en niet door, als een kind de ogen te sluiten en in het wilde weg te schieten, louter om het geknal te horen.’(Jean-Paul Sartre, What is Literature?)

De fallusvormige schietijzers van Jan Cremer, Heleen van Royen en Ronald Giphart produceren in elk geval géén literatuur. Hun boodschap is tamelijk opportunistisch: er moet meer gevingerd, gelikt en geneukt worden. Een boodschap die geen genade vindt bij Sartre, ook al was die vlak na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zelf al een vrijdenker op seksueel gebied. Met geëngageerde literatuur hebben de volgende passages uit Giph van Ronald Giphart echter weinig van doen.

...’Het begon toen Freanne (de moeder van Noëlle, zo weten we uit het voorgaande) naar de wc ging. Noëlle boog zich prompt naar me toe om me te kussen. Daarna keek ze me aan. Freanne kwam terug en Noëlle liet me schielijk los. Freanne lachte en besteedde er geen aandacht aan. Toen Noëlle zelf naar de wc ging, pakte Freanne me bij mijn zalmzwarte feestblazer en trok me naar zich toe.
‘”En nu ik,” zei ze, en ze stak haar tong in mijn mond. Het ging een beetje wild.’...

Even verderop:
‘Noëlle ging op haar rug liggen, ik boog me over haar heen. Freanne begeleidde mijn pik naar Noëlle, en ik begon langzaam en regelmatig in en uit haar te bewegen. Noëlle kraaide. Eerst keek Freanne alleen maar toe, maar na een paar minuten ging ze met gebogen benen over Noëlle heen staan. Ik richtte me op en nam haar kittelaar in mijn mond. Ik moest me inhouden om niet zelf klaar te komen.’

Proza dat niets over laat voor de fantasie, de verbeelding, van de lezer. Geen literatuur dus, maar het verkoopt en het levert de met gouden ezelsoor bekroonde auteur vast en zeker extra aanloop op. Willig en kritiekloos. Maar het betekent in elk geval wél dat elke scheet van Giphart dankbaar wordt ingeademd door zijn uitgever.

Dat er alleen al in Nederland honderden getalenteerde, kwalitatief betere schrijvers rondlopen, die bij de gevestigde uitgevers geen kans krijgen, dat bomt de vaste bezoekers van het jaarlijkse Boekenbal niks. Maar de kanslozen nemen daar geen genoegen meer mee. Ze weten dat ze beter schrijven dan de doorsnee Boekenballer en beginnen uit recalcitrantie voor zichzelf, onder eigen label.

Caro Sicking is één van hen. Ze studeerde af in Nederlands aan de Universiteit van Leiden. Hoewel zij na haar studie diverse andere activiteiten ontplooide, is en blijft haar ideaal: kunnen leven van dat wat ze het allerliefste doet, fictie schrijven. Op eigen kracht heeft zij inmiddels twee fictie boeken uitgegeven: NIN en Wat de Hel! Hier volgt een fragment uit NIN, de debuut novelle van Caro Sicking, gewoon verkrijgbaar in de boekenwinkel, net als Giph geleverd uit het Centraal Boekhuis in Culemborg. Al zul je er wel naar moeten vragen. NIN loopt via dezelfde distributie kanalen als Giph, maar moet het doen zonder de power van de marketing-communicatie. Giphart schijt zijn woorden in de computer en de uitgever zet ze op papier. Titel met trekkracht, interviewtje bij Pauw en Witteman, die zich overal voor lenen. Makkelijk zat, als je er bij hoort. Maar wie er bij hoort, dat horen toch vooral de lezers te bepalen en niet zozeer de uitgevers en hun loopjongens. Het is de hoogste tijd voor revolutie hier, met de vrije keus van de beoogde lezer als inzet.
Oordeel zelf. En grijp de macht door Vrije Boeken van Vrije Schrijvers te lezen naast en in plaats van de voorgeprakte woorden van de gevestigde orde.

Uit NIN van Caro Sicking. Een passage over de eerste ontmoeting van Nin met de minnaar van haar pas overleden moeder:
‘De rode wijn is koud en stevig. We zitten op het dakterras dat minstens even groot is als de rest van het appartement. Voor Nederlandse begrippen woonde mijn moeder klein, bijna als een student. Andy en ik zitten tegenover elkaar. Twee onbekenden die een liefde delen die voorgoed verloren is. Het voelt onwennig en tegelijk is hij vertrouwd. Ik herken iets in hem. De mannen van mijn moeder hebben kleine gelijkenissen. Dingen die onder de oppervlakte liggen. Een oogopslag, een handgebaar of de klank van een woord. ‘Waarom ging ze nog rijden?’ vraag ik Andy zo plotseling dat ik er zelf van schrik. Ik had me zo voorgenomen om niet met de deur in huis te vallen, maar ik moet het weten. Wat had mijn moeder ertoe gebracht om midden in de nacht dronken achter het stuur te gaan zitten en keihard over de slingerende bergwegen te racen? Haar oude Mercedes was niet bepaald een auto die racegedrag uitlokte. En ondanks haar wispelturigheid en rare sprongen was Viviënne er niet de persoon naar om whisky te drinken en vervolgens achter het stuur te kruipen. Dat was een van de weinige verboden die ze niet overtrad. Andy kijkt me aan.

‘Ik herhaal mijn vraag en hoor dat mijn stem dwingend klinkt ‘Waarom reed ze terwijl ze zoveel gedronken had?’ De rimpels om de ogen van Andy verstrakken. Hij opent zijn mond, maar er komt geen geluid uit. ‘Waarom, Andy?’ vraag ik nogmaals. En dan zachter: ‘Hadden jullie ruzie?’ Hij slikt zichtbaar. ‘Nee, dat is te zeggen, ja, wel, nee eigenlijk niet.’ ‘Fuck Andy, zeg het maar.’ Ik schreeuw nu. ‘Had je haar bedrogen? Wat heb je gezegd? Waarom reed ze, Andy?’ ‘Ze was ziek.’ ‘Ziek? In haar hoofd of zo? Ze deed rare dingen af en toe, Andy. Ze was wispelturig en egocentrisch. Ze dacht dat ze eeuwig jong was. Maar ze was niet gek!’ ‘Mijn god, wat lijk jij op haar.’ Zijn ogen verzachten, maar ik laat me niet vermurwen. De koele rode wijn en de brandende zon hadden hun werk gedaan. Ik ben razend, op het hysterische af. Die klootzak zit daar doodgemoedereerd tegenover me en zegt dat mijn moeder gek geworden is. Mijn moeder die ik zo razend mis. Mijn moeder die mijn hele leven vulde, mijn leven lang. Die mijn kind werd voordat ik zelf volwassen was. Mijn moeder met al haar onvolkomenheden, aanvallen, gekke buien, talloze liefdes, altijd blut en altijd onderweg. Mijn moeder die me tot waanzin kon drijven, die ik dood wenste, meerdere keren. Ik wilde rust, met rust gelaten worden. En nu is het zover. Nu is ze dood. En hij, hij heeft haar vermoord. Zo, ik heb het gezegd.

Dan pas zie ik zijn gezicht. Hij huilt. Langzame grote tranen. ‘Nee,’ hij slikt weer alsof er een pinda in zijn keel is blijven steken. ‘Nee, ze was niet gek. Ze was……’ Zijn woorden blijven steken. ‘Ze was echt ziek.’ ‘Hoe kan dat nou?’ Ik wist van niets. Viviënne belde me en schreef. Ze schreef me aan de lopende band. Kleine kaartjes, kladbriefjes. Ze schreef op bierviltjes en alles wat maar voor handen was. Ze stuurde me enveloppen vol met foto’s, berichtjes, rood omcirkelde krantenknipsels. Als ze echt ziek was, dan had ik dat geweten. Ze vertelde me alles. Ik wist zelfs hoe Andy in bed was. Ik wist wanneer ze haar teennagels rood lakte. Ik wist meer van haar dan van mezelf. ‘Kanker in de baarmoeder,’ zegt hij. Ik neem een grote slok wijn en verslik me. Hij praat tergend langzaam. Viviënne had al een paar maanden lang buikpijn. Eindelijk ging ze naar een dokter. De dag van het ongeluk had ze uitslag van het ziekenhuis gekregen. Andy was aan het werk. Toen hij bij haar aan kwam, zag hij een lege fles wijn en drie pakjes sigaretten liggen. Viviënne lag op bed. Ze wilde niet eten. Ze wilde niet praten. Toen ze eindelijk op stond, greep ze de whiskyfles. ‘Mij krijgen ze niet levend’, had ze gegromd. Andy wilde haar vastpakken. Ze duwde hem weg: ‘Bemoei je niet met mij’. Hij zag de uitslag van het onderzoek op de grond liggen. Van tafel gewaaid door de beroemde wind van Tarifa. Viviënne stond op het dakterras te zwaaien. ‘Ik dacht even dat de wind haar mee zou nemen. Als een flinterdun zeil woei ze mee met de vlagen,’ zegt hij. ‘Ik kon haar niet tegen houden. Ze was onbereikbaar. Het was geen ongeluk…

‘Die nacht vrij ik met Andy. Nee, ik vecht met hem. Ik haat hem, omdat hij mijn moeder niet heeft gered. Ik verlang naar hem, omdat hij mij dichter bij Viviënne brengt dan iemand anders in de wereld op dat moment kan. Hij is mijn bondgenoot en mijn tegenstander. Hij is mijn lot van die nacht. Hij is het laatste tegenstrijdige cadeau dat Viviënne me geeft.’

Terug naar 1966, naar Jean-Paul Sartre. ‘De schrijvers van nu zouden zich in geen geval moeten inlaten met tijdelijke aangelegenheden. Zij moeten zich concentreren op hun voornaamste taak: boodschappen overbrengen naar de lezers, ook (of júist) als die nog geboren moeten worden. Veel namen van hedendaagse schrijvers zijn dan verzwolgen door de tijd. Wellicht overleven hun ideeën en boeken, al dan niet digitaal opgeborgen in bibliotheken. Is de schrijver overleden en is ook zijn boodschap dood, dan is evenmin sprake van literatuur.

Waves of Change

(some reflections of my mind)

Proposition 1: in essence, every human being is good. At the end of the day however, some may be bad and some may be confused. The bad have reasons to be bad. Some guys just get mad. (Life can be hard).

Proposition 2: people are social beings after all; they want to be part of at least one, but often a lot of communities: people who have something in common. Can be a gang too. If you convince some influencial members of the group, maybe you convince the whole group too. More will follow, until the tipping point has been passed, then it’s common sense.

Proposition 3: usually communities have leaders that usually float away as soon as they are in charge. Some of them are already out of sight. They have lost their touch with reality.

Proposition 4: don’t let political-, business- or other leaders solve social problems. They make agreements on a high level about targets that have to be reached by the people deep down below. Maybe one day they’ll find out that their castles are funded in loose sand.

Proposition 5: former leaders who think they are still in charge, but don’t have the power to reign, become dictators and sooner or later will be forced to step or fall down. This kind of leader is tragical and will be remembered as a slave of the real powers.

Proposition 6: if there is commotion in a community – it may be a family, a neighbourhood, a town, region, country or (con)federation of countries – the real leaders will be recognised immediately. Someone has to get them together to find and work out solutions that have mutual gains. That means: all partys concerned can find themselves in the result.

Proposition 7: society is so complex; it doesn’t make sense to intervene in one part of it; if you change one little thing all other things will change as well, but in which direction that's unpredictable.

Proposition 8: disorder is the rule, order the exception. That’s how it works, not how it’s meant to be. Reality simply is too complex to explain with a model of ten equations, or even with a computer as large as a house. Only the science of the unpredictable – chaos theory – gives some light in the darkness of the night.

Proposition 9: the only thing a simple human being can do is trying to see some patterns in the chaos and compare them with the patterns that already are stored in his or her memory. Let’s call it intuition.

Proposition 10: changing is like riding the waves; change comes from down under, from the bottom up, from the outside in, like waves: from behind. Don’t force yourself, because you will miss them all. Change yourself in the first place, because that’s where it all begins, in the hearts and heads of individuals, who form a social network, that grows and grows and makes waves. Waves of Change.

The Battle of Thought

People tend to discuss environmental issues from a negative point of view. The discourse is about pollution, shortage of clean water and food, poverty, decreasing biodiversity, greenhouse effect and climate change. The biggest crook in the house of Misery & Trouble bears the codename CO2, the symbol of decline and entropy. People talk about CO2 as if it’s a poisonous gas. Something very, very bad and nasty. Well, it isn’t. It is a colorless, odorless, non-poisonous ‘growth stimulator’. In fact it is more basic to life than sex. It is plant food, and it drives the whole food chain. All life, every cell in every living organism on the planet is based on and contains carbon. Bacteria, algae and plants remove CO2 from the air and water and store it in their tissues. Together with water vapor, CO2 keeps our planet warm, preventing it from being covered in ice, from becoming too hot or devoid of liquid water.

The Battle of Thought between the so-called ‘deniers and sceptics’ on one side and the ‘believers’ of climate change on the other, is outdated before it reaches its climax. But even if the debate is over, still it is important and urgent to change our lifestyles. We will have to stop plundering nature, eat vegetarian food instead of costly meat, bike and walk before driving, use fewer materials and less not renewable energy sources. This is urgent for other reasons than climate change: namely for the health of the human supporting system and therefore the health and continuation of the human race.The discussion whether or not CO2 emissions are caused by human activities and damage the climate and thus the Earth is delusive and dangerous.

In the perspective of ‘the Deniers’ climate change defenders use the issue to create new business, like emission trade and carbon capture & storage, as well as to enforce more legislation and thus ‘to obtain more power over the masses they try to frighten into obedience’. According to some Deniers the issue ‘has become a strict religion, which endures no questions or criticism. Zero tolerance for dissent. They have become suspect because they entered politics. Power and wealth for some and oppression for others are the outcome of their advocacy’.

The Believers strike back with words grilled in sour undertones. Both sides try to pinpoint flaws in scientific reports and batter the arguments of their opponents. On one point they agree: their opinions on politics and politicians (see the following three statements).

Copenhagen (Dec 2009) recognized the case for keeping the rise in temperature below 2 degrees, but failed to produce a binding agreement …

…Leaving leaders with tarnished reputations…

Cancun Summit (Dec 2010) – Conclusion? They have now selected the paint for the deckchairs on the titanic?
Am I too cynical? I am sure a great deal of hard work has been done, but I worry that nothing binding has been agreed and it is all a lot of hot air (please excuse the pun!). Will countries actually do anything as a result?

The polarization – whether greenhouse gasses are or are not damaging the planet – is dangerous, because it puts the spot on the wrong place and has become a struggle for power and money. The stakes are high. Today in the European Union the primary energy supply is 80% dependent on fossil fuels. Economic growth and prosperity, one can argue, have been built on oil, coal and gas. It’s very important that regional opinion leaders learn to see through all manipulation and power lifting. That’s the highway to a learning region.

Energy has made Europe strong. At the same time it is Europe’s Achilles’ heel. Over 50% of the energy supply is mined outside the EU. The situation will worsen when oil and gas wells dry up. Without a transition the EU – especially in the short run - gets more and more dependent on instable monarchies and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, Africa, et cetera. Thus making the EU still more vulnerable to energy supply disruptions from outside the union and to volatility in energy prices. The solution to this problem may be the entry into the EU of oil- and gasrich Russia. This isn’t science fiction. On the contrary! Russian Prime

Minister Vladimir Putin has said that he does not rule out the creation of a currency union between the Russian Federation and the European Union some time in the future. He was speaking during a joint news conference following his talks with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at the end of November 2010. As to this kind of currency union, he said, we understand, of course, that any currency union is a result of the combination of economies, of economic development. Things should grow ripe, the Russian Prime Minister said.

One thing is for sure: energy is a condition for economic growth. Without energy all machines, cars, electrical devices, and more, come to a standstill. The consequences can be huge. But don’t panic. For the next forty years there will be enough energy, especially if people and organisations will bring more efficiency in their use of energy. ‘More Energy, Less Carbon Dioxide,’ is the name of the game at Shell.

The oil company has developed two scenarios: Scramble and Blueprints. ‘The main difference is in the degree of cooperation between companies, governments and people,’ Richard Sears explains. ‘In Scramble everyone acts independently trying to solve their own supply/demand or environmental problem, whereas in Blueprints there is a greater sense of cooperating to find workable solutions for everyone. By acting together under Blueprints, the outcome is more likely an earlier transition to alternative energy sources.’

Systems tend to correct themselves and solve problems, like we’ve seen with oil and the CO2 issue. Another notion is that life supporting systems are too complex to be mastered on a central level by a government, the European Commission or the United Nations. Regionalism, decentralization, self-organization and citizenship are some coined concepts that dressed as leather eggs roll out of the climate scrum.

For more:check Beyond Oil - http://www.ecolutie.nl

Still Cool or Real Hot

Data by NASA show a world on fire. On the other hand geologists say: ‘global warming is over. The next thirty years global cooling makes the scene.' If global warming is dead, what will happen to CO2?

By Frank van Empel

The world is getting warmer, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies shows in global temperature maps. Whether the cause is human activity or natural variability, thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the Institute states. Planet Ambassadors and other environmentalists are happy with the maps. ‘The next time anyone tells you that the world is actual cooling,’ one of them says on the internet, ‘simply point them to these global temperature maps’. Take a look at the slideshow yourself and make up your own mind. Do they really knock out all critics of global warming?

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/21Tecb/www.good.is/post/real-heat-maps-watch-as-the-world-burns//r:t

According to NASA’s temperature analysis the average global temperature on Earth has increased about 0.8°Celsius (1.4°Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade. Housewives and stallholders may be impressed by this data, but geologists just laugh at it. They think in glacial and interglacial cycles of 10.000 up to 50.000 years. If we take the long-term view, geologists tell us, currently we live in an ice age that started 37 million years ago. In the meantime the Earth’s climate has changed with cycles of warming and cooling.

According to this special breed of scientists the acceleration of the increase in temperature since 1975 can easily be compensated by a 30 year period of global cooling. That’s the storyline of professor Mojib Latif, who works for the famous Leibniz Institut in Kiel, Germany, and who is a highly respected member of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His specialism is cool: measuring the temperature 1.000 meter below the watersurface of the ocean. According to Latif, here in the deep water, oceans give birth to the next climate cycle of 30 years. ‘The two decades 1980-2000 formed a warmth cycle,’ Latif says early 2010 to reporters of Daily Mail and Guardian. ‘That has gone.’

We enter a thirty year long period of global cooling now, Latif says. And he knows he has a lot of experts behind him. Geologists and climatologists like Hays, Imbrie and Shackleton for instance, who already in 1976 have stated in Science that a surplus of greenhouse gasses like CO2 are warming up the Earth. Something that can be overcompensated by another period of global cooling. M.F. Loutie and A. Berger, have put the length of the present interglacial in 2002 at 50.000 years. Who then lives, then worries. ‘No,’ comments Berger in the slipstream of a presentation he gave for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in 2005, we all have to care about emissions right now. Berger believes that the present CO2 perturbation will last long enough to surpress the next glacial cycle entirely.

Amidst this controversy between global warming and global cooling believers, the British quality magazine the Economist runs an article about 2010 as the warmest year ever recorded. Early December that was the measured reality for 2010. Who looks out the window in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Stockholm or London may think it’s an early Christmas dinner joke. But it isn’t. The global temperature record represents an average over the entire surface of the planet.

The temperatures we experience locally and in short periods can fluctuate significantly due to predictable cyclical events (night and day, summer and winter) and hard-to-predict wind and precipitation patterns. But the global temperature mainly depends on how much energy the planet receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back into space — quantities that change very little. The amount of energy radiated by the Earth depends significantly on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, particularly the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The maps of NASA colour the past. They depict how much various regions of the world have warmed or cooled when compared with a base period of 1951 -1980. They can’t say anything about the future. We have to do here with one of the most complex, nonlinear systems: the weather. Greenhouse gases are just one element in this universe, where Nature still has the power to surprise people with holidays on ice instead of the anticipated hotdays on the beach.

Discussion:
What do you think or believe? Are we getting ‘real hot’, or staying ‘still cool’ in the coming 30 years? And what will happen to the discussion about CO2? Will it fade away too, like the acid rain issue?

Modern Materialism

No one in his senses favours inefficiency. But that doesn’t make efficiency a piece of cake or an attractive, let alone, sexy, subject. On the contrary. The whole concept is narrowed to management literature and practice. It relates only to the material side of things, to the supply side of economics and the ultimate goal of all business people: to make the highest possible profit.

‘Operational excellence,’ (managers’ term for milking out redundant expenses) has nothing to do with demand, planet, or people. ‘Operational excellence’ only has to do with profit. What we need is a whole new concept of efficiency.

Stop rushing for a moment and take some time for reflection. What is business doing with and to people? Daddies and Mammies go to the office or to a factory early in the morning. Their labour is treated as input of useful energy by bookkeepers and mainstream economists. Their bodies are just instruments.

The output of the office or factory is dead matter (paperwork, e-mails, improved commodities, signed documents), whereas the pappas and mammies at the machines get more worn out bit by bit every day. This entropy is labelled: heroic participation in a social-economic adventure, or something like that. Everybody has to shine, even when it is a fake glow.

The prevailing systems (energy, transport, environment, economy) have one thing in common: they are shaped by a technology that drives them into the direction of constantly bigger, more of the same, standardisation, infinite complexity, vast expensiveness, inscrutability and fierce competition.

New social network technology pushes the prevailing systems in the opposite direction, towards smallness, diversity, simplicity, cheapness, transparancy and cooperation. Internet technology supports systems that serve man instead of enslaving him. A kind of modern materialism, that brings organisations, politics and policymaking back to the human scale.

Modern Materialism suggests simple, small and smart solutions for complex environmental issues like the abundant and constantly growing energy-use, as can be seen in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcjgRms6ShQ

The message in three words: BACK TO BASICS.
QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE OTHER SUGGESTIONS?
THEN, PLEASE, POST THEM.

€UROTHINK

HOW TO DEAL WITH KING CHAOS, part 5.

The euro is under pressure. Banks allow less credit, just now people and businessmen need it so bad. As a consequence people and business leaders think and talk themselves into a state of panic. Completely overdone. International rescue is active behind the scenes and on stage. And we have a superhero in our midst, called €URO.

by Frank van Empel

Let’s talk about money. Yesterday, November 28, 2010 the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided to bail out Ireland, the second victim of structural overspending, after Greece. Who is the next candidate in the European default dominoes game to tumble? All analysts bet on Portugal. And so it will be Portugal. Once fear grasps the minds of investors, they behave in ways that make those fears a reality. Portugal has a high debt, meager growth and political disarray, the storytellers say. An easy prey for money hunters and speculators.

Spain will be next in the doom-scenario, but that will change the game. Spain is too big to fail and too big to bail out as well. It has a trillion (1.000 billion, or 1.000.000.000.000) euro in public debt and on top of that almost a trillion of foreign liabilities of the private sector: houses, financial institutions, corporates. As a matter of fact Spain is running a current account deficit for some time to finance an excessive spending of the private sector. It has to attract investors from abroad that want to buy bonds from the government for a certain return (interest) to fill up the gap. If investors become aware of the default risks they’re going to ask a higher return. Et ceterablabla.

Stop!

The point I want to score is that King Chaos again shall make it clear for insiders as well as outsiders that reality is no dedicated follower of expectations. The reason why is simple. There are too many interrelationships between nations, organisations, consumers, et cetera to handle by a human mind. The becoming of reality is a black box containing several ‘chemical’ and social-economic labs that make ever new combinations of human behaviour, technological progress and all kinds of decision making and market shaking.

Apart from this, there is a phenomenon that’s called imperfect knowledge. Which investor or newsreader realizes that Greece and Ireland are totally different cases? Greece’s problems were fiscal. Its public sector was spending more than it could earn in taxes. Ireland’s problems are caused by a real estate bubble that has poisoned the whole financial sector. The Irish government tried to bail out banks and by doing so, weakened the whole system. Imperfect knowledge breeds imperfect foresight and imperfect policy. So far so bad.

Now, the good news. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and twelve other European countries form one monetary unit: the euro zone, a monetary space shared by 329 million citizens. If some member countries run a current account deficit, that’s no problem, as long as there are other countries, like Germany, that run a surplus. If Spain still had the peseta as a national currency, than it almost certainly would have been devaluated in relation to other currencies. As a consequence Spanish consumers would have paid more for foreign goods and services. Their own stuff however would have been cheaper abroad.

That Spain runs a deficit on its current account is the mirror image of the surplus that Germany runs. The Germans are as responsible for Spain’s deficit as Spain itself. The Germans should have bought more orange juice from farmers in Valencia and should have visited the beaches of the Costa del Sol more frequently. They still can. If they stay in their own Beerhalls and Euroland as a whole is going to run a deficit on its current account with the outer world, that’s no problem either. Maybe the euro looses some value in relation to the monetary units of the other economic powerhouses: the US, China, Japan. But the Euro zone won’t fall of the cliff. On the contrary. A devaluation of the euro makes it easier for us in Euroland to compete.

Moreover, on November 26, 2010 the euro got unexpected support from no one less than the prime minister of Russia, Vladimir Poetin. On a visit to Berlin he declared himself and his big, big country a supporter of the euro. ‘We have to get rid of the overwhelming dominant position of the US-dollar in international trade and finance,’ Poetin said, and he suggested the idea of Russia becoming a part of Euroland. First he wants to work on the realisation of a free-trade zone between the EU and Russia (a kind of extended European Economic Community). ‘The advance approach of Russia and Europe is inevitable,’ the Russian maestro said. If he is right, King Chaos had made his biggest move ever.

In the meantime the jammed motor of the European Economy has been kick-started and is running again, thanks to Germany and investors that throw off their burden of fear and become a little bit greedy again. The year 2009 was a very, very bad year after all, with a shrinking world economy: -4% on average, that’s more than ever. Even in the thirties of the last century it never happened. But the bad days are over. Over viewing the stock markets we observe the same pattern everywhere: investor’s optimism seems to outweigh the bad news labelled ‘realism’.

The stock market is a front-runner, like designers of clothes. If the fashion gets wilder and more colourful, good times are returning, I bet. If I see the girls walk by, I get the spirit and the energy of a recovered former hero too. It’s not all red and yellow yet, but brown doesn’t make it anymore. In winter fashion it’s ochre that rules men and women alike, if my eyes are right. Spring 2011 will give us all the kicks we need. If King Chaos is working it out fine.

King Chaos makes the scene

Maxus has more friends and followers than Zero. You’ll find them in places like China, South Korea, Morocco and Germany. His biggest friend however lives in the United States of America and is called US. Maybe you are not aware of it, but you are an extra in a play about Economics, Ecology and Ethics.

Dealing with King Chaos, part 4.

by Frank van Empel

The quantity of oil in (and on) the Earth is limited. We can explore it, burn it in our furnaces, or use it for medicines. But there comes a time when there will be no oil left. The same story goes for iron, silver, uranium, and all other natural resources. That’s the general pattern of thought in physical science and biology. The world is finite and in a finite world continual growth is impossible. Basta! A matter of logic. When you take from a stock, the stock shrinks until there’s nothing left.
The future looks rather grim, taking into account the forecast that the number of people on Earth will grow from 7 billion now to 9 billion in 2050. The more people, the faster natural resources will shrink until they reach point zero and life on Earth will not be possible anymore.

This though is linear reasoning at top level. All doom stories about climate change, diminishing bio-diversity, fossil fuels et cetera are based on such way of thinking. The environmental doom stories are derived from the assumed positive causal relationship between population growth on one side and depletion and pollution on the other side. And they all lead to the same conclusion: we better hold our horses and start thinking about a higher quality of life in a Steady-State Economy. By steady state the Zero-growth apostles mean a constant stock of physical wealth (capital), and a constant stock of people (population).

In a book on 4 scenarios for the future of energy, we (nonfiXe) wrote in 2003 for then Dutch (now German) energy company Essent, we coined this Steady-State Scenario ‘Voluntary Simplicity’. According to this Zero growth scenario, people start to realise that they don’t need three cars, two refrigerators, four television sets, three holidays a year and sixty pairs of shoes in order to be happy. We can be rich without money if we act different in daily life.

An economist, who shares this pattern of thought, is John Stuart Mill. Mill already in 1857 foresaw that the human economy would some day reach a stationary state, beyond which economic growth is impossible, leaving human ingenuity the task of improving the quality of lives through arts, culture, and improved distribution of incomes. ‘I am not charmed with the ideal of life,’ Mill writes, ‘held out by those who think that the normal state of human beings is that of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress.’

Sounds good, but a little bit unrealistic. Mill is an odd character in the Land of Growth and Wealth Adepts. The mainstream of economists thinks and acts in a completely different way, although they too have a linear approach to keep their models simple. When there’s no oil left, they say, we’ll find substitutes. They even think it’s likely that the world can get along without natural resources. If cars cannot run on gasoline anymore, we humans let them run on water and air (hydrogen). The sky is the limit. If God doesn’t solve the problem of scarcity, the engineers and entrepreneurs will.

Maybe you are not aware of it, but you are an extra in a play about Economics, Ecology and Ethics. This play has four characters:
1. the sympathetic, idealistic, green and egalitarian fool Zero tells the truth, but nobody listens to him; most people think he’s a dreamer with a lot of imagination;
2. Prince Maxus, who wants to live to the max, who doesn’t have to worry about money and knows how to spend it, a metaphor for the US;
3. King Chaos, who takes care that nothing’s going to happen according to expectations, predictions, plans, whatever.
4. Lady Lay, who has to choose on behalf of the people, falls in love with Zero, but marries Maxus, and is being abused by Chaos.

Maxus has more friends and followers than Zero. You’ll find them in places like China, South Korea, Morocco and Germany. His biggest friend however lives in the United States of America and is called US. Without overstretching the metaphor of the world economy as a play, we conclude that Wealth underlies America's sense of itself as a special country. It's also cited as evidence that America is better than other economies on a range of variables, from economic freedom to optimism to business savvy to work ethic.

Statistics show the flexibility, creativity and mobility of Americans. Economic gloom and doom aside, America remains the world’s richest large country. Of course, there are fools too in America, like former vice-president Al Gore, who gave a splendid presentation about climate change for the whole World, but is loosing his power of words and licked graphics since the financial crises attracts all attention of the public.

When the economy is down and growth is stalled, nobody’s getting applause for a plea for Zero-growth or voluntary simplicity. Especially not the sick – Greece, Ireland – who need financial injections. No lip service for Zero anymore. Maxus rules the stock market and takes every occasion to give positive signals. The American Dream has to be fulfilled. Maxus won’t stop until every American is a millionaire. As a consequence of that drive, the economy bounces back after each crisis, to arrive at a higher ground with more wealth for all after all. Fear is swept aside by greed over and over again. Thirty years after the Club of Rome predicted the end of growth, the economy is performing the same trick over and over; running on oil and feeding ever more mouths. Ecology still is in the doldrums.

The Angles are with Maxus, we think, but Zero knows better. In the end it’s King Chaos who decides what’s really going to happen. And because he’s so unpredictable it is of no use to plan the future. We better stick to some global principles like Mill did in his books On Liberty and Principles of Political Economy, or just listen to our hearts, knowing that everything can change in a whisper. If we want to survive as a species we’ll have to love change.

That is were you come in, the extra player. You may think your acts don’t make a difference on a global level, but they do. You, me, each and every individual make changes happen by our little decisions and our reactions to the decisions of the other, every day again.

Every individual is able to create the world he or she wants to live in. We do so by our behaviour, by using our creativity to find solutions for appearing problems and by the government we accept as a ruler. Maybe Mill was right to formulise ethics as the main force in the world, individual ethics. Martin Luther King, Gandhi and other great change agents followed Mills footsteps. They decided to work on change to come closer to the world they liked to live in. Doing so, they got the support of King Chaos and overthrew every linear reasoning on the future, their contemporaries thought of.