Elections - 2011 Fit the First.

I have a real problem at the moment.

Do I vote for the Jonkey, the Nats?

Or do I vote for the Gofer, the Labourlites?

Of the minor parties; ACT has self-obessessd on the occupiers; Winnie the Pooh has ressurrected for the third time; the Greens have taken a jump to the left; Maori will lose their Mana with the departure of Pita and Tariana; Tamahere is making a joke of the idea of mana; the rest are just lost in the wilderness.

The problem is this.

The Nats have not done anything that drastically changes the economy, personal rights or the general state of society. In other words, they have not done much atall at all. That is something that they want to change. After spending three years borrowing in excess (well in excess) of requirements for reasons that were hazy at the time and incomprehensible now they are now suggesting the sale of assets such as power supply utilities so that the proceeds are available for a National Infrastructure Fund.

I guess that makes as much sense as a long-haul carrier selling half his truck so that he can buy a car for the wife.

Labour has just one problem. The Gofer. He sounds too much like an earnest scout master trying his hardest to sell raffle tickets in the local pub. They have a new team. The old guard left with absolutely no regard for succession, or for the continuity of ideas. Bring Back John A!!! The ideas that have come forward thus far have merit. Well, there is only one that has not originated in the powerhouse of the FOL. The Gofer is right about one thing; the minimum age for national superannuation MUST increase to 67, and I would bring the idea forward by about ten years for what he is promoting. Give him credit for what is, so far, the most realistic policy plank put to the electorate.

The rest can be discounted. Totally. I can't even raise the energy to consider Maori for a protest vote. I know the Tai Tokerau Labour candidate and he is not a bad chook. The Nat candidate similarly, with the proviso that he has to support the sale of state revenue earning assets.

Indications at the moment are that public support is on the side of retaining MMP. This is a good thing. I am not going to lose sleep (yet) on that quarter.

Next weekend is for friends; the Monkfish and co have opened their door. Good food, good wine, good company; three that just can not be beat.

On friendships...

Thanks to my old mates at ALD this interesting little essay appeared in The Wilson Quarterly.

Since Asimov wrote The Naked Sun, Americans have been engaged in wholesale flight from one another, decamping for suburbs and Sunbelt, splintering into ever smaller households, and conducting more and more of their relationships online, where avatars flourish. The churn rate of domestic relations is especially remarkable, and has rendered family life in the United States uniquely unstable. “No other comparable nation,” the sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes, “has such a high level of multiple marital and cohabiting unions.”

Oceans of ink have been spilled on these developments, yet hardly any attention is paid to the one institution—friendship—that could pick up some of the interpersonal slack. But while sizzling eros hogs the spotlight these days—sex sells, after all—too many of us overlook philia, the slower-burning and longer-lasting complement. That’s ironic, because today “friends” are everywhere in our culture—the average Facebook user has 130—and friendship, of a diluted kind, is our most characteristic relationship: voluntary, flexible, a “lite” alternative to the caloric meshugaas of family life.

But in restricting ourselves to the thin gruel of modern friendships, we miss out on the more nourishing fare that deeper ones have to offer. Aristotle, who saw friendship as essential to human flourishing, shrewdly observed that it comes in three distinct flavors: those based on usefulness (contacts), on pleasure (drinking buddies), and on a shared pursuit of virtue—the highest form of all. True friends, he contended, are simply drawn to the goodness in one another, goodness that today we might define in terms of common passions and sensibilities.

Akst points to the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson as the genesis of the self-centred individual rather than social person. I don't know that the answer is that simple in fact. Akst's example of the "male buddie films" as a "social contra-indicator" is also open to debate. That is why I offered the following comment...

Of the comments thus far the two that strike the strongest echos for me are David Jewett and RameshRaghuvanshi; the former for his very detailed personal insight, the latter for his chink-hole peep into the divided society.

I do not make friends easily. In that respect I am perhaps in the same category as David, although I do not dredge the internet into the picture as a rationalisation. I have always had a reticence to be involved with other people and particularly other men. The reasons are manifold. Some are echoed by Ramesh.

On the other side to Akst's (excellent) article is that there are times when man (generic) needs solitude as much as he needs close friendships. That has been (in the past) my justification for being so insular and "self-reliant".

Is it likely that our society's disconnection with personal relationships is the result of that desire (and hence the attraction of the internet where friendships are far more ephemeral than real life)? In old history, the community and its inter-relationships could be avoided by a simple walk into the distance. Today (and despite the divisions Ramesh notes) that pressure of "community" is far greater and unavoidable.

"Friendships" on the internet are easy, passing and almost always strongly boosted by a search for "people who are of the same mind".

In real life, strong friendships are far more difficult - as Akst points out. They require regular maintenance. They do evolve, and can often eventually die through the events as he describes.