A contemporary phrase, repeated mantra like in a wide variety of situations, is “not being judgemental”. The phrase (which in a positive negative variant can have an ism attached to as in “non-judgementalism”) is meant to clearly indicate that the person saying it brings no prior judgement or prejudice to meeting other people or any […]
More often than not the subject of drugs and rational discussion and debate are mutually exclusive entities as emotion and the search for quick, easy solutions take precedence over all other considerations. A vivid example of this has occurred over the past few weeks. Several deaths in quick succession have been reported in the press […]
Glasgow City Council is the largest of 32 local authorities in Scotland with an annual budget of £2.4 billion and the city’s largest employer with a compliment of some 36,000 staff (the second largest employer in the city is the National Health Service; Glasgow’s workforce is largely concentrated in the public sector). Recently buffeted by […]
It is not often that one’s rantings and ravings get confirmed. But two weeks ago the Scottish Government launched an “anti-obesity strategy” which in its aims, objectives and potential implications could be a virtual textbook example of what I have called pseudo-benign liberal totalism or PBLT (see posts Liberal-Fascism, Nonsense or the Way We Are […]
Four weeks ago, I wrote about the current high-profile focus on alcohol use in Scotland (The Trouble with Alcohol: posted 26th January on Meikle’s Blog). One of the striking aspects of this present ‘campaign’ is, apart from concerns about irresponsible promotions of alcohol and the absurdly low prices of some brands of liquor, which can […]
Over the past two weeks in Meikle’s Blog I have been looking at how ostensibly altruistic, benign liberal values and principles, have become enmeshed with grand totalising solutions and attempts to enforce norms and values, in effect to micro-manage people’s behaviour and interactions with each other, on a scale unprecedented in liberal-democratic societies. This combination […]
(Last week we examined the situation where benign liberal ideals have been allied to sweeping regulation enforced by law reinforced by a set of all-embracing values and principles which attempts to direct how people behave and interact with each other. This has been described as liberal-fascism. This week we look at how this impacts on […]
Recent Meikle’s Blogs looking at regulation (REGULATION AND INSPECTION: ALL FUR COAT AND NO KNICKERS, posted 16th December 2009), reaction to the recent severe weather in Britain (Risky Weather: posted 19th January) and last week’s blog examining the current moral panic regarding alcohol use (The Trouble with Alcohol: posted 26thJanuary), have had two underlying sub-texts. […]
No-one living in the UK at the moment could fail to notice the high profile that is being placed on what has been described sardonically as “our love affair with alcohol”. In the last ten days alone here in Scotland we have had an academic report which states that the costs of alcohol per head […]
The thaw has set in (for now) here in the west of Scotland, but from just before Christmas until last week the UK has been experiencing its worst winter weather since… well that depended on which paper or TV programme you were watching which varied somewhat on what year the weather was last as bad […]