In the most high-profile action against the US Senate’s ‘Protect Intellectual Property’ Bill (PIPA) and the House of Representatives’ ‘Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Wikipedia has begun an English language black-out of its main site.

As you’ll know if you read here often, I’m in the depths of a book-length piece on piracy. The aim is to look at the multiple forms of piracy – from Somalia to the internet to music to books to historic figures, fictional heroes and children’s fascination with everything pirate – and formulate some general principles that link all of them together.

It’s an ambitious project, but it’s going well, and I do believe that the thesis is not only a good one, but a timely one too. Piracy, and interest in it, is exploding in all areas of culture and commerce. So it seems high time to think intelligently not just about what piratic activity is going on, but why it is happening.

What I find interesting about these cases is that the US have become the world leaders in trying to battle piracy – and protecting their own intellectual property… and yet this is a country which was founded on pirate principles of minimal copyright. Why? Because the founding fathers understood that progress was only possible if the poorest had free access to knowledge – which at the time meant books. For decades the US refused to sign up to international book copyright agreements.

It seems that PIPA and SOPA are laws designed to protect the wealthy. These are people who have enclosed things that many consider should be part of the ‘commons’ – knowledge, code, biology, songs – and are unwilling to allow access that doesn’t go via their paywall. That may be good for their share price, but is no good for, as Henry Hill the book pirate of 1680 put it, ‘the benefit of the poor.’

The key question that has to be asked is this: why is piracy proliferating? Is it because people are naturally tight, and don’t want to pay? I don’t think so. I think it’s becoming so common because people are so fed up with the narrowed and capitalised world that demands taxation and profit at every turn.

Listening to the radio this morning I was struck by the odd similarity between three of the major news items.

Firstly, ubiquitously, there’s the economic crisis – which more and more seems to boil down to the fact that people – that’s you, me and them – got greedy. With the boss of Barclays now earning nearly 120 times the wage of the average employee (when 30 years ago it was about 13 time) it seems people are finally waking up and demanding equality, and movement towards a financial system in which people, not just profits, matter.

Secondly, there’s the Leveson inquiry into the behaviour of the press, and in particular the mess over phone hacking. Behind all of the lurid details of whose messages were listened to and which celebrities were outed for doing what, we have to remember that the driving force behind all of this was simple: selling more papers. We simply cannot express disgust at what went on if we too were titillated into reading the stuff. It seems now that finally people are waking up and demanding a media in which people, not just puerile stories for profits, matter.

Thirdly, a shocking report into the state of the care system, which has left countless elderly and vulnerable people abused and maltreated.

‘Findings included carers neglecting tasks because councils paid for too little of their time.’

As the reporter highlighted on a piece on the radio this morning, people are finally waking up to the fact that a genuine sense of empathy needs to be restored to a care system that has been run by council accountants and bean-counters for too long.

With all of these disperate stories, the over-arching sense I get is that there appears to be an awakening to the terrible poverty at the heart of capitalism. The market has failed, not because it hasn’t always turned a profit, but because the market has let people down. Capitalism has proved profitable for some, but has impoverished the spirits of so so many more.

Over the weekend I went to the Bank of Ideas building that the Occupy London protesters are now squatting in Sun Street. And though yes, there are unrealistic idealists, what I found was a network of concerned and genuinely caring people.

Perhaps in the midst of what is a pretty depressing news cycle at the moment we can find hope in this resurgence of empathy, of a wider realisation that people, ordinary people, do matter, and our laws and systems do need to reflect that first and foremost.

It’s been interesting watching the argument over whether the England football team should be allowed to wear poppies for their international matches this weekend. The international governing body of the sport, FIFA, ruled that they could not have poppies on their shirts as this contravened their guidelines.

The FA, the British body, cried foul and argued that it would be offensive to the memory of those who fought in the wars if the poppies were banned.

As it turned out, a proposal by a Tory MP that they should be allowed to wear them as an emblem stitched onto a black armband.

What’s interesting is that there’s some kind of altercation over poppy-wearing every year. A figure appears on TV not wearing one. A newsreader says they won’t be forced to and calls it ‘poppy fascism.’

Thinking it about it today, it struck me that in some ways these transgressions are actually required for the act of remembrance to be performed properly.

Poppy-wearing has become meaningful only in its disruption. It is only in arguments about the violence of its absence that its meaning is renewed. If everyone wore a poppy, and nobody forgot to, no one would remember why they were really being worn in the first place. What this means is that the day we remember the end of the two great wars requires a person or body to be demonised. The energy from this opposition is then channelled into the revitalisation of the memory of the event.

We can think about this in relation to other symbols too. There have been a number of cases about the rights of employees to wear crucifixes, for example. What we can see from this is that these battles are, in fact, welcome to those who put great meaning by the symbol, because it’s only in the context over a fight about its absence that its presence is re-invigorated. Without the battle, the symbol dissolves into easy familiarity.

Ironically then, those who really want poppy-wearing to be remembered are actively looking for, and excited to find, people each year who forget. They need these transgressors as a sort of sacrifice in order to breathe life back into the memory of the event.

The question this poses then is whether symbols of remembrance are to be encouraged at all. If it’s only by transgression and the demonisation of a transgressor that they work to draw the act of remembrance back to life we need to ask if that is appropriate.

What we tend to find is the media going not for ‘poppy fascism’ but ‘offence addiction.’ They talk up how offended people will be if poppies are not worn. But again, I wonder if this it is more offensive for to the memory of those who died if they felt that people were only wearing them so as not to be caught out and cause the stir.

It is very possible to remember properly without physical symbols of remembrance. So while I think remembering is hugely important, let’s stop haranguing people who choose not to show they may be doing so with an external symbol.

One of the key questions that has been often asked about the ‘Occupy’ protests is ‘what are your proposed alternatives?’ This, I think, is often asked with a background attitude of ‘I really don’t think you have any alternatives, do you?’ The implication being, before you moan about how bad things are, make sure you have a fully worked solution to how you can undertake improvements.

One comment on a previous posted ended with this:

What alternative ways of living are the occupiers proposing? and what alternative are you proposing? If you’re really suggesting the occupiers mutiny, as opposed to just complain, then surely that entails appropriating St Paul’s as rebel territory and mugging any banker that comes within range? If that’s not the plan, what are the new ways of living that will transform our society?

Couple of points on this.

Firstly, it is part of the corruption of power to insist that any protest or critique against the dominant system comes fully formed. When you’re being beaten down, it is entirely valid to simply scream in frustration, without any idea what changes need to be made.

Secondly, that said, I do want to reflect on the sorts of changes that I think we need to see. Importantly, they do not involve mugging bankers. In fact, in some ways it would be inappropriate to blame the bankers at all. Why? Because bankers are not ‘bad guys in an essentially good system.’ They simply lucky guys in an essentially unfair and unjust system.

Zizek makes this point in his typical style in the video above, when he comments that Hitler was never violent enough. Why? Because, however radical, he worked only to make the system work for him. Counter this, Gandhi was far more violent – why? Because he wanted to dismantle the system entirely. He wanted the whole thing to stop and change.

So the point is not to mug the bankers as some attempt to redistribute the wealth that they have pooled into their possession. The only ethic behind this is jealousy – you’ve got more than me, so give me some. The fundamental point is that we need a different system – or, more poignantly, a different ethic.

In other words, the changes that need to be made need first to come at the inner, personal level. We need to deal with our own desires to be rich and wealthy, to use more than our fair share of resources. Without that, all we are wanting is to swap places with those who have done better than ourselves out of the current system.

Interestingly, the debabcle at St Pauls fits nicely into this. Why? Because at the centre of the debate is the ethical question of what constitutes ‘Christian’ economics. What Would Jesus Do? is the right question here, but, it seems, the Anglican church has come a very long way from that original radical ethic. Compare this:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

(Acts 4, 32 – 35)

to this:

The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.

(38th Article of the Church of England)

There are nuances and interpretations, I’m well aware. But the grandeur and opulence of St Pauls does seem to sit rather too comfortably in the Corporation of London…and does seem a very very long way away from the spirit of radical equality that the gospels and new testament talk so much about.

I don’t want to be petty or anti-American, but one of the scourges of the past decade or so is the growth of Halloween as a fully marketable ‘festival’ to give supermarkets a little bump in the run up to Christmas. Halloween is big in the US, and it’s getting bigger…and more depressing here.

It seems a rule set in stone: the more marketing a festive ritual gets, the less meaning it has to people taking part in it. It seems a far cry from ‘All Hallows Eve’ when dark spirits were given free rein to roam, in a dirty inversion of ‘normal’ life.

It’s tough to market fear, so the bats all have to have smiley faces on them now. It wouldn’t do for people to really be frightened! So get people shopping as a panic suppressant…

And yet… this Halloween, it seems there’s a lot to be afraid of. If you want to celebrate properly, forget the plastic tat and get yourself really scared by the real dark spirits that are haunting us:

• FTSE 100 directors’ pay going up an average of 50% in a year, at a time when inflation is roaring at 5%+ and everyday wage packets are frozen solid.
• £4bn – you read that right – will be handed out on top of salaries this Christmas to workers in London’s financial district. And this is seen as a ‘bad’ year for bonuses…. it’s normally around £6bn.
• The earth’s population has passed 7 billion, just at a time when climate change means land is becoming less productive.

The tradition of carving out pumpkins (or turnips, traditionally in the UK) comes from the ritual of ‘souling’ – making a lantern to remember the souls held in purgatory. Forget the crooked teeth – carve out the face those facing eviction, those made redundant or those whose crops failed this year…and may do next.

Mutiny

Or just read the text…

In May 1724, in a small bookshop just a stone’s throw from here under the imposing shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, a plain, leather-bound volume went on sale among the fine bibles and illuminated religious texts of the day.

What it lacked in aesthetics it made up with its arresting title: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates. Captain Charles Johnson’s book was an instant hit, lapped up by the same crowds who flocked to the banks of the Thames to see the bodies of freshly executed pirates hanging in chains.

Why, nearly 300 years later, do we still flock to all things pirate? Why are we happy for our children to dress up in eye patches and torn trousers to go to pirate parties when we would probably be less happy to send them off to one with an ‘aggravated robbery’ theme?

The brutally violent lives of sea-faring 18th Century thieves have long been domesticated into polite children’s books with titles like Pirates Don’t Change Nappies and Shiver Me Letters – a Pirate ABC, yet while children point cardboard swords into the backs friends, demanding they walk to their death from chipboard planks laid on the floor, we know that Somali fishermen are holding men at gun-point, demanding millions of dollars in ransom payments, while across in Brussels, having won a huge section of the youth vote in Sweden, the leader of The Pirate Party is enjoying the trappings of being a member of the European parliament. In countless homes hooky DVDs that Hollywood technologists will have used sophisticated encryption and watermarking techniques to prevent copying of are being watched illegally, following frightening warnings about copyright and media theft, despite the story-line itself being buxomly full of swash-buckling thievery. Perhaps the striped t-shirt and eye-patch is all wrong. Children should be sent to parties with a plastic bag of pirated movies, or arrived in inflatable ribs, toting AK47’s.

Pirates are everywhere. Why? In his 1724 book, Captain Charles Johnson called them ‘hostis humanis generis’ – the enemies of all mankind – so why do pirates adorn t-shirts, skateboards… and even baby bottles?

Why do we think children should be dressed in images of death and violence?

The reason is this: deep down, we know that pirates say something to us about freedom from oppression, about standing up to systemic violence, and about taking back free access to that which has been enclosed and privatised by the wealthy.

Captain Johnson’s description of pirates – as romantic and sometimes daring people, who were nonetheless needlessly violent, greedy and out to pillage all they could from the good Empires of England and Spain – is the impression most of us are left with now.

The historical truth is somewhat different. Sailors aboard Royal Naval ships and merchant vessels were some of the sorriest men alive. Here were poor men who found themselves, in the words of surgeon of the time, ‘caught in a machine from which there was no escape, bar desertion, incapacitation, or death.’ Historian Marcus Rediker writes that

‘sailors suffered cramped, claustrophobic quarters, “food” that was often as rotten as it was meagre… they experienced as a matter of course devastating disease, disabling accidents, shipwreck and premature death. They faced discipline from their officers that was brutal at best and often murderous.’

The merchant ships were the engine of the emerging global capitalism. They transported slaves from West Africa to the plantations, and sugar and other commodities back to England – where they were sold for huge profits, all of which went to the small number of merchants and shareholders. The sailors on these vessels were utterly excluded from this wealth. Though providing the skill and muscle to make the entire enterprise work, they were brutally treated and could expect to live only a couple of years. If injured, they were thrown overboard or abandoned on land to die.

The decision to ‘turn pirate’ was a decision to wrestle back some autonomy. These sailors knew they were going to die anyway – at least by turning pirate they could enjoy life for a while. ‘A merry life, but a short one,’ was their motto.

When they did turn pirate, life on a ship changed dramatically. Officers were democratically elected – and could be democratically removed too. Food was shared equally among men of all rank. When booty was collected the Captain only took two shares where the lowest took one – income differentials that would make modern CEOs faint. Pirate Captains like Bartholomew Roberts had his crew sign up to a code, which demanded no fights on board, no gambling, and lights out by 8pm. Moreover, anyone injured in the course of duties could expect generous compensation. Loss of a limb would be met with a payment of around £20,000 in today’s money. This was healthcare for the common man as had been never seen before.

Have you ever wondered at the clichéd view of the pirate with their wooden leg, hooked hand and eye patch? It may seem ridiculous, but does this not speak to us of a society that did not discriminate against the disabled? Pirate vessels were hugely inclusive, welcoming people of all races and faiths. Pirates would attack slave ships and invite slaves to join them – setting free those that didn’t.

Yes, there was violence and theft. But we have to understand that the levels of violence were dramatically less than that which they had come from, and they saw their theft from Royal ships as no more than what they deserved – for these merchants with their special charters were simply robbing other ships from other nations, and plundering colonies of their natural resources.

What pirates were doing was reacting against a capitalism that was exploiting them, but from which they were totally excluded. Rediker again:

‘Pirates abolished the wage relation central to the process of capitalist accumulation. So rather than work for wages using the tools and machine (the ship) owned by a capitalist merchant, pirates commanded the ship as their own property and shared equally in the risk of their common adventure.’

They were, in other words, standing in the long tradition of beating down those who enclosed ‘the commons.’ Back on land, in the years surrounding the ‘golden age’ of piracy, landowners were increasingly enclosing land that had been worked in common in order to work it for their own profits. This movement of enclosure was one of the most destructive acts in English history, as it removed people from the land that sustained them, and eventually led to them moving to cities to sell their labour in the factories of the industrial revolution.

This is why pirates still resonate with us now: pirates always emerge where economies or cultures have become ‘blocked.’ Where the commons has become enclosed for the good of the wealthy, pirates will rise up and agitate until things change.

We see this in the Atlantic piracy of the early 1700’s, which bubbled up as global shipping grew, making a few very wealthy, at a huge human cost.

We see this in the book piracy of the same time, where illicit publishers like ‘Henry Hill the Pirate’ disobey the crown and the guild of printers to produce cheap editions of books ‘for the benefit of the poor.’ Publishing was a blocked monopoly – the crown granting the right to print to a very small number of guilded printers, who in turn would never print anything critical of the crown.

And we see this in Somalia too – where men who have had their waters ransacked of fish by huge European trawlers, and then poisoned by surrounding states dumping toxic waste, see the billions of dollars of consumer goods being shipped past their barren shores in steel containers and think, ‘you owe me a little of that.’

We see it too closer to home in our music collections, where people grew tired of another £15 on an album of tired songs written by bands with fat contracts who frankly didn’t deserve it. Mick Jagger can rant all he likes about wanting 70 year copyright on his material, but he must know deep down that all The Stones did was sing the blues, and the blues have always been drawn from the deep musical commons that stretches way back before recording was even possible.

And now we see it here at St Paul’s too.

Why do find pirates everywhere? Because we know that in every part of life ‘the commons’ is being eroded and enclosed and privatised for the good of the few at the expense of the many.

Bar a few village ponds and the odd piece of heath, the earth we walk on has been enclosed, and the shared rights that we used to hold together are now held by private owners. We have survived the factories, yes. But our alienation from the land that we still depend on for our daily sustenance, and for the raw materials that are the building blocks of our houses, clothes and possessions has had a profound impact. Unaware of how food was made, we started to lack any care for what ended up on our plates. Unaware of what went into the clothes we wore, we allowed sweat-shops to prosper. Lifted from the earth by air-conditioned cars – privatized, enclosed transportation – we remained ignorant of a climate that is out of control. And as we plug in our headphones to listen to another X-Factor winner covering a song we can no longer quite place, we no longer hear the buskers on the underground, moved from their tunnels into specially branded zones.

We didn’t have time to think about these things, because rather than spending our time living, we had to spend more time earning a living: 9 – 5 the polite contractual joke as we do all we can to rake in what we can to pay the mortgage while we can and save what little we can for the rapidly retreating retirement that we can hardly believe will ever materialise.

We didn’t have time for leisure, because inflation had forced everything up save our salaries, all to bail out a tiny clique of money-men who bet wildly on how much debt they could sell us, and, having lost big-time, went crying to the government, threatening to pull the whole financial system down around them if their private losses couldn’t be shared publicly.

Yes, the only commons we have left are the publicly-owned debts we share having bailed out the privately owned banks.

We didn’t have time, we didn’t think, we weren’t aware. But fuck it, now we have time, now we are thinking, and now we are aware. And now were are here, at St Pauls, where pirate mania first began.

We are not much brutalised, nor often beaten or left unpaid, but our lives are no less reduced, narrowed and controlled by powerful forces far beyond our control. So now, more than ever, we need pirates to rise up again against the princes, the captains and merchants, raise the Jolly Roger, and restore to life some democracy, some fairness… and not a little merriment.

Avast occupiers, stay strong and mutiny!

Interesting video here showing Slavoj Zizek at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in New York. His speech can be read in full here, but what I love about the video is that, for some technological reason no doubt, he cannot himself speak. The crowd around him who can hear directly have to shout out what he’s saying so that others further away can hear. In a strangely symbolic way, his message is internalised, and is only heard when the crowd themselves amplify it.

I like that, partly because Zizek has been in danger for a while of becoming a caricature of himself – and thus able to be ridiculed and dismissed without his message being heard. And his message is good.

In particular I like these lines, which I think fit well with my post on the protests:

Carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after when we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then? I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like, ‘Oh, we were young, it was beautiful…’ Remember that our basic message is, ‘We are allowed to think about alternatives.’ A taboo is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want, but what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want? Remember: The problem is not corruption or greed; the problem is the system which pushes you to be corrupt.

He goes on to ask what exactly Christianity is… and outlines briefly that this is Christianity: people gathered in empathy, in solidarity with the poor, concerned to get a grip on a corrupt system and change it together. That’s not happening in church on Sundays people. Just admit it.

The media coverage in the UK has been limited, but I think the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest is interesting, and I hope it turns out to be significant.

There was comment on BBC radio the other morning suggesting variously that it was the Democratic equivalent of the Republican ‘Tea Party’ movement  - though I’m not sure if this was a compliment or not – and that without the scandal of police brutality (or inevitability, one might say) it would have already died down and disappeared.

Either way, it’s happening: people are occupying Wall Street, and demanding… well, just some basic justice. Teachers and nurses and factory workers didn’t run up toxic debts – gambles, effectively – that have cost the world economy trillions of dollars and meant spending on services for those less well off has had to be cut. No, that was those in the banking sector. And their reward? Government bail out money, and Christmas bonuses. Privatised profits and nationalised losses. Pretty damned perfect.

If you’ve visited here at all in the past couple of months you’ll know that I’m working on a book on piracy, and why we continue to be fascinated with these maritime thieves. Well, it’s proving to be utterly absorbing, and I’m genuinely excited about how it’s turning out. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a niche area and I don’t expect it to sell hugely – but I do believe that for those out there undertaking activism like Occupy Wall Street, it may contain some very useful stuff.

Here’s the thesis: pirates emerge whenever what has been traditionally in ‘the commons’ becomes enclosed for private benefit. Those who turn pirate are not the powerful, nor the influential. They are the oppressed, those who have simply had enough and have no more to lose. Having been stripped of everything by an unjust system, they decide that they might as well live a ‘short but merry life’ for a while, because they’re dead either way.

This ambivalent affinity with death is important. Pirates sailed under ‘the jolly roger’ – a flag that did not signify so much that they were bearers of death to others, but that they represented the dead, the discarded, the rejected themselves. Because they were already ‘dead’ they had nothing to lose. Now here’s the thing: we tend to think of pirates as thieves, but after the reading I’ve done, I think it’s more accurate to say that their thievery was simply them getting on with what they’d always done, but for their own good, rather than that of the system. Moreover, they did so in a way that was more equitable (their code demanded that profits were shared equally) and more inclusive (they were multicultural, multiethnic and multifaith.)

This is what ended up scaring the sh*t out of the emerging capitalist empires of Spain and England: here were a strata of people who simply didn’t care. They were living ‘off the map’ and outside of the ethical code that reinforced class structures and kept the money flowing to the wealthy princes and merchants, even though the ships – the engines of this new global economy – were run entirely by brutalised sailors.

So here’s my tuppence-worth for those out in Wall Street, or Greece, or wherever:

1. Ask yourselves this: how much do you still have to lose?
2. Pirating the bankers will not necessarily mean thieving from them. It will certainly mean carrying on what you do best, but in an economic loop that is more equitable, and better connected to ‘the commons.’ The transition towns movement has a lot of good to say on this.
3. Appreciate that your occupation is a TAZ. It will meet resistance, and it will be broken, but while it holds you should use the liberated space to create and build social and physical networks that will survive and thrive and regroup once the inevitable enforced clearance comes.
4. History is with you. But it says this: you won’t win this round, and you’ll be portrayed as losers. It will take time, but good things will come – not at first from above, but among one another.

It’s Black History Month again, a festival I have expressed some concerns about in the past - not because I don’t think Black history should be celebrated and represented, but because giving it a ‘special’ place in a particular month may actually serve to reduce its representation, as we can compartmentalise it, rather than integrate it.

I’ve also been concerned with the sorts of people being showcased. On one local display the names flagged up are: Maya Angelou, Oprah Winfrey, Toni Morrison, MLK , Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X

There are plenty of women there, which is great. But… not one British name among them… and only one African. Why?

I may be wrong, but there seems to be a danger of seeing black history as simply a history of the American civil rights movement. With all of the movies and music and TV shows, we are perhaps suffering an Americanisation of blackness, so that it’s all about MLK and Rosa Parks – whereas British black history, or the vast swathes of African black history is simply forgotten for not being glamorous enough. Or is that too harsh?

Why can’t we celebrate Lenny Henry, Zadie Smith, Shirley Bassey, Ben Okri, David Lammy? I wonder if it’s because they aren’t seen as ‘exotic’ enough. This may be presents an interesting problem, because the fact that there seem to be so many ‘ordinary’ black people in British life (though perhaps they are not represented enough) may suggest that integration has been a success story. And so the continuing of Black History month needs a little glamour, which it has to export from the US, where race is – given the heat over Barack Obama – still much more of an issue, or blackness is seen as more… ‘real’?

As ever, I’m not presenting anything other than genuine questions – so fire back if you disagree – but it did seem strange to have a display in a borough where so many black brits live, with not one Brit among them.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, and in the last few days how it might relate to the discussion of whether ‘newness’ is possible.

This isn’t meant as an holistic critique or discussion of the events all those years ago, instead I’ve been drawn to thinking about the extraordinarily physical nature of them.

It’s extraordinary to think that 9/11 was a pre- Web2.0 event. I’m not sure how this plays out exactly, but my sense is that we have become delaminated from the physical world in the past 10 years as we have become increasingly connected via social media and digital mediation. So much of our ‘news’ now seems caught up in this: scandals that deal not in physical realities so much as feelings people have and comments they may have made.

In contrast, 9/11 presents itself in my memory has a highly physical event. One watched things unfold on TV, with no Facebook posts or Tweets or comment-minutiae. Here was something that wasn’t about the emotional pain of financial or material loss, but people in very genuine pain.

I hope that makes sense and doesn’t come across as insensitive to the disasters that have come since then. What we had with 9/11 was something actually happening. Something very very real. In our recycled, retweeted, repeated, cropped and shortened world, here was an event that exploded into reality. It was, perhaps, a very real outbreak of something ‘new’. Horrible and monstrous, but a cut was made there, a global incisison that left the old world behind.

I have little sympathy for President Bush, but some empathy now with him sitting, utterly lost in a class of children, having heard what was unfolding. Financial crashes, wars, natural disasters… all would have some frame of reference. But here were people taking very human tools: planes and skyscrapers, and turning them into weapons.

I don’t mean it as a glib turn to think in parallel about the conversation that’s emerged over the past two posts, but I do think that one of the small lessons of 9/11 is that real things can still rupture, even in our post-modern world which lacks meta-narrative. And though there is a place for discussion and conversation, there also comes a time when action, real action, is required, when paths need to be chosen.