Having a bit of a think about John Lloyd's closing sentences to his piece What price education? in the 'Life & Arts' section of today's Weekend FT. In his closing paragraph, Lloyd summarises two beliefs: first, that a "rational-liberal education" can be trusted to deliver, and secondly, that such an education's underlying principles are being eroded so that protest is appropriate (this is my over-brief summary; the article's worth reading).
     Then we get those closing sentences. Lloyd writes of these two beliefs: "Both are, at root, principled. Both cannot be right."
     Is that a problem? It's not that I disagree. It's just that I think rightness is over-valued these days. If one lot has to be right, the other lot has to be wrong, and there's no scope for compromise. More importantly, no allowance for the basic truth that nobody knows what's going to happen next. Nor for the impossibility of knowing (clearly, with an "objective" understanding) what's happening now, nor indeed for the not-quite-infinite variety of educators delivering that education.
     What constitutes leaving an education alone, and what constitutes intervention, if that education is based on a syllabus determined and devised by - I could go too far with this, but I doubt that any current debate comes down to a binary right/wrong. Because the future kicks in. Change. Events, right?
     I've been enjoying a revived spat on Facebook about Brexit. Not because any of the arguments are new, nor changed in any way from the arguments of last Summer (or, strictly, the Summer before), but because it's a subject on which so many people feel competent to make forward-looking statements about what the future holds now that we've voted out.
     Some of them may be right. Sterling's fall may indeed be good/bad, and there may indeed be dastardly "brexiteers" lurking in the undergrowth. But I don't know. And nor does anybody else. And so many other things have happened since then, that might have an impact on the future, that it's getting a little strange to go on insisting that the Brexit vote is the single positive/negative causative event that will determine all our futures. What do all the protest votes tell us about the belief systems at the heart of all this?

Incidentally, somewhere in the depths of the Weekend FT, there's a genius at work. Title given given to a review of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere (Little, Brown): 'Mothering heights'. Liked that. Just one example for now, but somebody there is good at titles.

And while we're on about right/wrong, here's the line from F Scott Fitzgerald that I was trying to fit in earlier: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." If that's true, it's difficult to see how a first-rate mind could get anywhere these days.

Okay, I get it*. There are two varieties of AI - artificial intelligence. The first is the popular one, which passes the Turning Test, aces the whole singularity thing, takes our jobs and eventually conquers the world. We recognise this one, because it gives us a frisson every time we come across it. There's something in the human mind - not a thing that a robot would understand - that almost likes the idea of disaster. We name our storms now, like they're pets, and we invest vast sums in building AI that if successful (in the way that we imagine), might mimic any or all of the doomsday scenarios we create for each other in fiction. Anyone remember WOPR, playing that game with a teenager in the successful film Wargames (1983)? Love to play that game.
     Had my first encounter with a (not very) new word the other day. Came up in an Innotribe session at Sibos (I would link, but the conference isn't my point here and it's copiously online). The word is "cobot". And the thinking is: your job is taken by a robot, and the robot is very good at most of it. But there's an element that the robot just doesn't get. For example: "Why are we making a film that depicts the destruction of the human race by..."...terminators, Mayan prophesies (remember?), zombies, overly warm weather? Delete as applicable. Difficult to explain to a shiny silver mind that human minds enjoy disasters, horror movies, chaos, entertaining thoughts of their own destruction. So you need a human mind to do the understanding of all that.
     Asimov got it right, in the sense that the motivation (sorry, spoiler) in his Robot books is protection. So did James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd. Sort of. Or possibly not. Have I got that wrong? It was pre-emptive self-defence, maybe? Anyway - I suspect that if there's ever a real-life equivalent to any of that, there will have to be a human mind behind it all, getting a thrill out of nudging that robot finger towards the big red button. Stretching a point, I suppose the Terminator is only doing what James Cameron directs it to do.
     And then secondly, there's the real variety of AI. It's present in the world today, and it isn't half as impressive as the first. Real AI does that thing with your fridge where it works out that you're low on milk and orders more from a delivery service. Or it sits on tables in the houses of people who live in television advertisements, and responds wittily to their instructions to alter the mood lighting or the heating. Real AI has names, but not always, and it just extends our capabilities - "just"! It's useful in the way that a TV remote is useful if you've just got comfortable and an ad comes on for, er, [insert name here]. It kills us slowly, like so much technology kills us eventually. [Discuss.]
     When the real disaster comes, and the supermarkets are emptied by looters, I hope I can channel some kind of ancestral hunting/warming the house instinct. How many of us secretly believe we'd manage quite well in the proverbial zombie apocalypse - and how many of us had full fuel tanks when the tanker drivers went on strike in the UK a few years back? When the real disaster comes - if it ever does - it won't be because some machine decides all by itself to turn nasty. We'll nudge it along. "Algorithms have parents," says Clara Durodié, CEO, Cognitive Finance Group (Sibos again). We're "bringing up" the machines; we're responsible for their "adult" behaviour (but let's not get into nature versus nurture, please).
     So the singularity that matters isn't the one where some robot starts making up its own mind (in however many senses - sic). It's the singularity where the real AI does what we all seem to want it to do, and merges with the imaginary AI - with our encouragement. The danger is not robots going crazy on their own; it's robots doing what they're told.

* In a way that I didn't quite get it here.

If we're atheists, why do we behave? Watch enough nature documentaries, and you get the impression that (for example) males fighting males (and clubbing together for the purpose of hunting, fighting and killing) and males bothering females is widely accepted as normal behaviour by the non-human populations of the earth. In the absence of somebody beginning with a big capital G, or some equivalent moral imperative, the arguments for limiting one's own assertiveness, selfishness, impulse towards immediate gratification lose something of their force.
     The issue goes away with empathy. It goes away with understanding. It goes away with any sense of the self as one of many. Talking about behaviour, we can agree on what's "bad" and what's "wrong" because we come together in communities and have to/want to get along. If we're going to bring in words that echo religion, we could mention tolerance here, even forgiveness. Maybe persuasion fits in as well, and possibly even reason? The statement "We are not animals" is true as well as false. But I don't think anything goes away - not completely, not finally - with intolerance, or coercion, or any kind of legalistic, judgemental enforcement of rules.
     It's a difficulty to which I doubt there's an answer. I just notice the hostility that we bring to disagreement these days. We argue for our political ideals by vilifying the believers in other ideals - left versus right, Remain versus Brexit, Trump versus ... yeah. We attack each other's rival ideas of how to achieve peace. To labour the point, we're aggressive in our pacifism.
     Actually, this goes back through history and religious belief hardly guarantees good behaviour either, does it? I suppose what I'm suggesting is ... oh ... a combination of self-confidence and respect for others? Something like that? Lots of high-sounding qualities that come from within. Or maybe what I'm doing here is thinking around the apparent disappearance of all those "goes away with" qualities from the second paragraph.
     What's missing from our lives, and why? What makes us react the way we do?

Went out and bought myself a new tablet the other day. The old one, given to me free with the phone before last, has started freezing for extended periods just as (for example) I spot that the red six goes on the black seven. It also has a stubbornly un-mute-able (not sure why, but the hyphens are deliberate) and universally recognisable new-deal sound. Difficult to look like you’re concentrating on what the congressman is saying if your tablet (or laptop) is dealing you a new hand. [Put ‘legislators playing solitaire’ into a search engine if you don’t get the reference.]
     So. I got the thing home. Opened the box. Found two leaflets. Fine so far.
     Now. In the morally ambiguous old days, one of these two leaflets would have been titled “Instructions for use”, and the other perhaps “Warranty information”. Although I think we used to use the word “guarantee” rather than “warranty” back in the (old) day. Must look up the difference. One leaflet would have given me a little picture of everything in the box and some guidance on how to charge my new tablet and switch it on. The other would have given me a string of addresses around the world where I could go if I had a problem.
     Both for eventual filing under W. Although I have fond memories of my late uncle, who used to say: “In the last resort, read the instructions.” He would have been fascinated by my new tablet. Probably by Spider Solitaire, too.
     Anyway. Times have changed. The two leaflets that came with my new tablet were both - both - titled “In search of incredible”. In capitals, but we don’t need to shout here. Every time I turn on the tablet, I see the words “In search of incredible”. In capitals. One leaflet gives me (brief) instructions (on where to find the online instructions) and the other talks about warranties. If you go in search of incredible, you find a signpost to an instruction leaflet and some warranty information.
     I had a Toshiba Portege laptop a few years back - loved that machine - and every time I turned it on from dead it showed me the words “In touch with tomorrow”. If that promise meant anything, and if it didn’t literally mean “in touch with the day after today”, but “tomorrow” in the larger sense, I guess I should be hearing from it soon. We’ve gone past Skynet’s awakening, and the future in Back to the Future, and now it’s my Portege’s turn. Can’t wait to hear what it has to say.
     But do we need to be told that technology is so impressively ahead of itself? Or so earnestly in search of an adjective? Doesn’t it trust its own capacity to amaze?
    My problem is, I have an issue with the word “incredible”. It’s today’s meaningless emphasis-word. People work “incredibly” hard. A challenge is “incredibly” difficult. Give yourself a point every time a media interviewee uses “incredible” or “incredibly”. You’ll score big.
     I’ve given up boring people with the difference between “less” and “fewer”. I use apostrophes, but I don’t particularly mind, and I make up my own rules for semi-colons; they’re useful.
     But “incredible”. It’s just a thing I have. “Credible” means “believable”. If something is “credible”, you take it seriously.
     I’ve just looked up “incredible”, and I found “too extraordinary and improbable to be believed”. And that's my point. Incredible, eh? Then I don't believe you. Okay, meanings change, and I also found “amazing, extraordinary”, but I still find the word difficult.
     I worked incredibly hard on this post. It was incredibly difficult to write. Yeah, right.

To be durable, any "ruling elite" (for want of a better term), has to be open to its own potential fallibility. To argue that US voters were "wrong" to elect Their Donald, or that UK voters were successfully misinformed during those three weeks of ridiculous lies uttered by pantomime politicians, is to disconnect from the world as it is. Both of those assertions may be true, but examine them first, rigorously. Never to question one's own assumptions, however self-evidently justified they may seem, is to remain stuck in a moment while the world goes on changing.
     To take a long hard look at why the status quo has been losing so consistently in the recent past (or at least, failing to win consistently) is to lay the foundations for the future. To insist that "we're right and you are failing to get that message" is to stop listening to the central message of the world in which you operate. Which may be that you're irrelevant now.
     Democratic governments have the regular reality check of elections. Corporate entities have sales figures. I wonder about the prominence in modern life of big institutions that seem to have evolved to resist accountability. They serve the public, but they get to define the terms of that service. Every setback triggers a statement that such setbacks don't happen. Everything's positive and exciting. If there's ever an apology, they're sorry that we're upset. Great slabs of modern society are geared to remain monolithic. Unchanging.
     While the world goes on changing.

On a lighter note than usual, I wonder sometimes about the people addressed in popular songs. Does Jolene, for example, turn the man down after Dolly Parton has had words with her? Do the two women get to be friends? I'd like to think so (and yes, I have retuned the radio).
     But what about the woman (I guess) shaken awake by Roy Orbison to hear him tell her that he Drove All Night? It's possible that she hasn't been missing him in quite the way he's been missing her. Yes, I also think about the man shaken awake by Cyndi Lauper in a similar situation, and no, I'm not making any assumptions. I don't think either of them got a mug of tea and breakfast in bed, and nor is there any indication that Roy and Cyndi got what they wanted either (now, there's a pairing). I'd guess not - Roy, do you realise what time it is? - but you never know.
     My favourite passive recipient of all these emotional outpourings is the man in the driving seat next to Lucinda Williams, as she starts singing Side of the Road (love that song - hence the link). Does he think about the man in the house? Does he actually wait? Maybe he compiles a shopping list. We should also give an honourable mention to the young woman with whom Marc Bolan wants to Get It On. The song comes up occasionally as on-screen background music; many years ago I owned the album Electric Warrior (T Rex, 1971). Over the years, I've imagined the young woman's increasing perplexity (and bizarre appearance?) as the late Mr Bolan pours out his heart to her. Built like a what, Marc? Love the cloak, darling.
     How long did that relationship last?
     I wonder if Leonard Cohen ever got a reply to his rather formally signed letter to the owner of the Famous Blue Raincoat. Who gets the love and kisses from Laurie Anderson in Blue Lagoon? Thank you. Yes, thank you, okay, you know - but no, don't tell me. I may wonder, yes, but I prefer to leave some things unlooked-up (including that raincoat - yes, I know, but to go from there to the song...). Yes, I knew that about Joan Baez and Diamonds and Rust. Songs have meanings, and meanings are explained exhaustively online; they have references and significances, and there's always an inspiration, a starting point.
     Always an explanation and a collection of facts, and that confusion between knowledge and insight.
     It's a reasonable guess that Marc Bolan did have a girlfriend at the time of Get It On, and I whiled away a few more miles of the boring motorway journey on which I started this daydream by thinking about Patti D'Arbanville and Cat Stevens.
     But I prefer not to know. Not any of the above. It's difficult, these days, to remain unaware of (for example) Patti D'Arbanville's comment to Andy Warhol about Cat Stevens' song about her (that song, yes), but in this case and all of those above, what do I gain from easy - it is easy; stop complaining - access to the background? To the truth, even? The answer isn't nothing, and the answer isn't that I lose by knowing the facts. But what's at risk here is the fragile thing, the imagination-friendly power of the song that comes from just hearing it and clicking with it - just living for a moment with the emotion of it.
     I may think about that man in the driving seat next to Lucinda Williams, but the song itself brings me closer than he's getting to ... well, not exactly to her, but to the "this is what I'm singing about" of the song and her singing. I'd like to preserve the state of wondering. Bolan liked that woman. Williams and Baez expressed interestingly mixed feelings - of a kind that don't submit easily to capture by finite words. So don't tell me. Let's keep on wondering.

Musical references reveal culture as well as age, don't they? I was writing the post above, and wondering (sic) whether to put in links or leave the further research to those interested enough to do the searches (or at least wonder about doing the searches), when it occurred to me that my "soul music", in the "soul food" sense of music that gets to me right there, includes hymns such as Jerusalem. William Blake's Jerusalem (strictly, his poem set to music under that name, but today's not the day to be overdoing the dates and references).
     And now I've jumped from Lucinda Williams on YouTube to a slightly too perfect (for me, at least) rendering of Jerusalem on YouTube; the paragraph beneath it describes the hymn as "the unofficial national anthem of England", which strikes me as just about right. Needs to be sung by a crowd, though, not just by singers. A slightly out of control crowd, to work as it should.
     I kind of like it that the answer to every question posed in the song is a straight no. Not quite sure why, but to have an "unofficial national anthem" which expresses a surge of optimism, some odd wardrobe choices, and a series of questions that can be answered "no, sorry, that didn't happen" cheers me up enormously. Another favourite piece of music, in that category of music never sought and seldom heard but powerful when stumbled across, is the Nunc Dimittis as sung at the end of the 1979 TV adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which of course is the pseudonymous John Le Carre's very popular novel of betrayal.
     The past is another country and yet I have lived there for a long time without noticing its strangeness.
     We are borne back ceaselessly into the past, as Fitzgerald said at the end of Gatsby.
     Where are we now?

If democracy is the "least worst" system of government, why does it disappoint? Why do we care so much? We know these people. We know they're fallible, self-interested, out of touch with their own lack of stature. They have the lack of humility to talk about humility [I've just switched off the radio] while not hesitating to use their electorate-given right (sic) to meddle in all our lives. They're naive, unworthy, and we know it. And yet when they fail, we react with indignation, as though we've been let down by the people they promised to be, rather than the people they are.
     That's it, isn't it? "Humankind cannot bear very much reality," as T S Eliot put it, see below, and we're complicit in the forgetting of the gap between promise and reality, until reality bites back against the rhetoric and we know ourselves. We're angry with ourselves for - as the song puts it - getting fooled again and for letting ourselves get fooled again. Fooling ourselves again. It's the self-knowledge that hurts. Not so easy to forget that both "Thatcher" and "Blair" (just surnames - think about that) both won landslide victories. Most of us - most of our parents - voted for them. Winning at our expense, with our "blessing", is hard to forgive.
     There's a quotation - quote - that goes around, although I haven't seen it lately. "No-one pretends that democracy is perfect and all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Winston Churchill, speaking in 1947. Well put together, and you can just about hear him pause to let the amusement ripple through his audience. Churchill was Prime Minister through the Second World War, and then, at the brink of peace, he was ejected in favour of Clement Atlee - in a landslide, 393 seats to 197. I remember relatives speaking of betrayal, but the historical record suggests that "the British people" had had enough of war leadership.
     I think about the wisdom of the electorate, and now I'm starting to think that politicians describe who we are. Maybe not in the indecisive decades, when nobody really wins big (and the wisdom of the electorate is to limit the power of political leaders), but whenever there's a properly decisive swing in one direction or another - that's who we are, because we're susceptible to that particular set of promises at that particular moment. We were "Thatcherite" once, then after a brief interval we chose "Blairism", and right at this moment we're dreaming of "Corbynism" while not giving anybody enough of a mandate to do anything. We were in a "We shall never surrender!" mood in the early stages of The War, then we gave Atlee and his government the mandate to set up the National Health Service.
     We kind of know, don't we, that Jeremy Corbyn isn't going to deliver Utopia in this green and pleasant land? No offence to the man, and that isn't a reason not to vote for him, but he isn't. He's human and so are we. Perhaps "Corbynistas" are letting themselves believe in a prospect than is greater than is achievable, and perhaps that belief is a measure of the scale of the eventual disillusionment - but no matter. Whenever the next landslide comes, whoever is elected leader, it will indicate the promises - the dreams, perhaps - that we want to follow.
     And after the dreams, we'll wake up. Again.
     But I still haven't answered my own question. We know all this. We know who we are; we know who they are. What is it in us - that we let them get to us?

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
T S Eliot (Burnt Norton, 1935)

Doctors train for years. More lives are lost to politics than to medicine. And yet when politicians fail, we don't haul them up in front of the political equivalent of the General Medical Council. But they do get their reward.
     There was an elderly politician, decades out of power, writing the other day about what "we" (sic) "must" (sic) do. Sigh. Such people are occasionally awarded the title "national treasure", as though age and familiarity matter more than promises not kept and harm done. Younger politicians - literally, if there's a propitious conjunction of gender, image and photo-op - come to sit at their feet. But they're entertainment by then; at best, they make credible space-fillers in political magazines.
     "All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs." So said Enoch Powell. But - really? Political careers do end in failure, of course. Sometimes - not in this country - politicians die at the hands of other politicians. More often than not, though, the reward for seeking the power to intervene politically in the lives of populations - is irrelevance. We must, must we? Thanks for letting us know.