As I had mentioned Om Puri's language was regrettable. An apology will surely set things right. But don't for a moment think the clamour to censure him is about maintaining parliamentary dignity. Its more about salvaging the collective esteem of parliamentarians who have taken a terrible bashing the past week. After all, who amongst us can take a hit when its comes to self esteem?
I am convinced the need for self-esteem far outstrips every other need, even basic physiological ones. Take taking to suicide for example. People don't mind killing themselves. Its the loss of face they can't put up with.
The need for esteem is good news to marketers. It allows them to offer consumers solutions that heighten their sense of self-esteem. Of course, it isn't good news to poor Om Puri who was ganged upon (on a TV show) just now by parliamentarians seeking to bring back from the brink some of their lost esteem. I am not sure the politicians salvaged anything judging from the mouthful they got from Arun Bhatia (also on the show), and the studio applause that accompanied the latter's tirade.
P.S. - Wanna know who willingly took a beating to his esteem? Read this.
Monday 29 August 2011
Its a loss of face they're salvaging
Sunday 28 August 2011
Empathy is never in plenty
Alphy can't stand the commercial (featured above). But she can't tell why. I can. As a mom of a baby girl, and a li'l boy, she's dying to catch a quiet moment. Yet she doesn't see herself as someone who'll take to a grimace if she's loses a hush moment she's trying to steal.
The Admen behind the commercial thought there were connecting to consumers with a witty and identifiable scene. Yet what they lacked is empathy. They didn't care to know what moms really feel about 'exasperating' baby cries.
One critical skill when you sell is empathy.
Of course, being a mom helps too. As for the Ad, frankly I don't get it and I am not surprised. It'll be a while before we get empathetic Adpeople who make sense.
Saturday 27 August 2011
Why Middle Class greed is good!
Why is Middle Class greed good?
Before I say why, note that this 'condemnable' greed is funded by their own hard earned money. I wonder why anyone should have a problem with that? Consider this. If the middle class are greedy that means they'll only care for themselves. Is that bad? What would they do when they care only for themselves? They'll try and make their lives better. How will they do that? By buying products and services that increase their comfort. What will that do? Put money into the hands of people that sell those products and services. What will that in turn do? Put money into the hands (read salaries) of those who participated in the process of making products and services.
The average man will have money in hand only if average others consume. That consumption is at the heart of a nation's prosperity.
Again, if the greedy middle class didn't spend their money, what would they be doing? Sleeping with the money beneath their pillows? Far from it, they would be investing it. If they invest their money, what good does it do? It becomes capital for others to use to make products and services.
You see, its the same products and services story. Goods and services remain the only fuel to prosperity of a country.
Making a direct reference to the middle class hankering for lower interest rates as stated by Alam, what's again wrong with that? If for a moment the government or Alam think that's greed, so be it. But do us middle class a favour. Open up the markets to competition in lending. Let competitive markets decide the rates.
Think about it. Where do you think the rates are gonna go?
I rest my case.
Socialist Idiocy
Even as the upper-crust hanker after second cars and bigger houses, their ‘Yeh dil maange more’ cries as insatiable as ever, they find their anxieties echoed by millions who earn less but are eager to gatecrash their party. In an ironic twist of fate, both middle-class achievers and aspirants—who together number about half a billion—feel threatened by renewed reforms. They have developed a set of vested interests in the status quo...
Second, the global financial meltdown of 2008 gave people a vivid picture of the horrors of a free market run amuck. Suddenly, Indians saw the ugly side of globalisation, a lack of which had insulated them from jobs and investments going poof overnight. Once the West’s Great Recession hit, India’s economy dipped to a growth rate of under 7 per cent in 2008-09, from over 9 per cent earlier, but bounced back soon after. India suffered no bankruptcies and few job losses. This was a relief. In a 2009 article, Ruddar Datt, an economist, wrote that ‘the lesson of this experience is that India must exercise caution while liberalising its financial sector’.
What's the problem with Alam's analysis (stated above)? As usual it's a lack of understanding of free market economics. And please don't assume all economics is welfare economics.
Note Thomas Sowell's response on the same,
Reason: What do crisis (finacial meltdown) like this, and public reaction, say about general public understanding of economics?
Sowell: I think in the U.S. and in most of the world the public understanding of economics is abysmal. But it’s one thing not to understand something. I don’t understand brain surgery. It’s another to want to form policies on things on which you are ignorant. I hear the wonderful phrase “I want to make a difference” when it comes to policy. I would be horrified if I wanted to make a difference in brain surgery. The only difference is more people would die on the operating table.
The only encouraging thing about public reaction to the crisis is that going by polls citizens seem to have more misgivings about some of these policies than politicians or the media. Still, though there have been studies that indicate the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by years, what is also clear is it was enormously popular. FDR was elected four straight times, and more than once without ever having brought unemployment down to single digits. An economic disaster does not necessarily mean a political disaster. If we could raise the average level of understanding of economics to what Alfred Marshall had in 1890, the vast majority of politicians would be voted out of office.
What should the likes of Alam do before they write such one-sided nonsense?
Learn free Market Economics for real, not the welfare kind.
If you can't, at least listen to Sowell (video above).
Read my post above on why middle class greed is good.
Om's said what Brands say
The talking heads on TV don't get it because they've never been in my class. If they had, they'd known though regrettable, what Om Puri slurrily ranted about is exactly what every other citizen wants to say. Om Puri said it. Every other person in India has been saying this in silence for decades.
Okay, but what about being my class?
Being in my class would have taught you and the talking heads, consumers are dying to express who they are. But they can't mouth it from the rooftops. 'Cos no one would care to listen to who they are. So what they do is take to brands. Brands speak for them. The brands they wear is the language that articulates their identity. For instance, denims from Levis that rides the girl's long legs is what screams her diva status to everyone else.
Om Puri's rant, despite regrettable language, connects 'cos it spells out what everyone's been dying to say. Tell you what, listening to Laloo's performance on the floor about parliamentary procedure, intended not as much for constitutional compliance as wanting to preserve a status quo that's made him what he is, seems to only confirm the possible truth in what Om said.
What say?
Friday 26 August 2011
Do you believe?
'Evolution is the only subject that is discussed exclusively as a "Do you believe?" question with yes-or-no answers. How about conservative journalists start putting mikes in front of liberal candidates and demanding, "Do you believe in the Bible -- yes or no?" "Is an unborn baby human -- yes or no?" and "Do you believe teenagers should have sex -- yes or no?"
This is the flash mob method of scientific inquiry. Liberals quickly surround and humiliate anyone who disagrees with them. They are baffled when appeals to status (which would work on them) don't work on everyone else...
It is a mathematical impossibility, for example, that all 30 to 40 parts of the cell's flagellum -- forget the 200 parts of the cilium! -- could all arise at once by random mutation. According to most scientists, such an occurrence is considered even less likely than John Edwards marrying Rielle Hunter, the "ground zero" of the impossible.
Nor would each of the 30 to 40 parts individually make an organism more fit to survive and reproduce, which, you will recall, is the lynchpin of the whole contraption...
The more we have learned about molecules, cells and DNA -- a body of knowledge some refer to as "science" -- the more preposterous Darwin's theory has become. DNA is, as Bill Gates says, "like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created." (Plus DNA doesn't usually crash when you're right in the middle of reproducing.)
Evolution fanatics would rather not be called on to explain these complex mechanisms that Darwin himself said would disprove his theory.
Instead they make jokes about people who know the truth. They say that to dispute evolution means you must believe man walked with dinosaurs...
Maybe if we called the Intelligent Designer "Louis Vuitton" to avoid frightening the Godphobics, they'd finally admit the truth: Modern science has disproved Darwinian evolution.'
- Ann Coulter, 'The Flash Mob Mentality of Scientific Inquiry.'
Thursday 25 August 2011
For the umpteenth time, its REGULATION, stupid!
'The entire gamut of intellectual discussion has been focused on a top down approach to the given issue. The issue is to have a competent authority at the top and hope he runs the show. While the top end of the spectrum is required, what one needs to realize is that the focus should be equally on the bottoms up approach. The focus should be equally on how we can break open the issues at the bottom end of the entire chain, at the fundamental and mundane level. People need to be empowered with education and the audacity to confront the bribe giver head on. At the bottom end of the chain, the systems need to be refined at the point of delivery. Why should a cop bribe? Because he is not paid enough and he is not punished for violating his code of conduct. Why is my friend forced to give a bribe to the cop? That is because we neither have the patience to not break the law nor do we have the means to go through the trouble. This is where the system needs to be equally more refined so as to address the weaknesses in the system in terms of parity of pay for the cop and introspection within us not to bribe the cop. Once this approach of addressing the bottom end equally as much as the top is adopted, this would ensure that on a pragmatic level, the society as a whole refines itself to move forward.'
If there's dumb, what you read above is as close as it gets. What's recommended above stems from zero understanding of both human behaviour and free market economics.
Contrast what Sriram recommends with that of Joh Stossel,
'We grow up learning that some things are just bad: child labor, ticket scalping, price gouging, kidney selling, blackmail, etc. But maybe they're not. What I love about economics is that it can show that what seems harmful is actually good for society. It illuminates what common sense overlooks...
Most people call child labor an unmitigated evil. David Boaz of the Cato Institute and Nick Gillespie of Reason.tv say that's wrong.
"If we say that the United States should abolish child labor in very poor countries," Boaz said, "then what will happen to these children? ... They're not suddenly going to go to the country day school. ... They may be out selling their bodies on the street. That is not an improvement over working in a t-shirt factory."
In fact, studies show that in at least one country where child labor was suddenly banned, prostitution increased. Good economics teaches that as poor countries get richer and freer, capital investment raises the productivity of labor and child labor diminishes. There's no shortcut through government prohibition -- unless you like starvation and child prostitution.'
The answer to corruption isn't a sermon on introspection and a call to down greed. The fact is greed's GOOD! The pursuit of self interst is best thing that can happen to a society. The real answer to corruption isn't greater regulation and more regulators. On the contrary its zero regulation that downs corruption.
And for God's sake listen to the likes of Milton Friedman to get a hang of what I am saying, and take the time to watch video above.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll wisen up.
Wednesday 24 August 2011
Conversing isn't Engaging
Every once a while India Inc. come up with a dose of corporate varnish that sure looks slick, but dig deeper and you see its all a gooey mess inside. Take the latest one on how CEOs are engaging and sniffing out talent from within their flock. And the techniques they are using include going up the flock at a canteen table and striking conversations so they can a get a picture of their flock's office lives, or sitting through and participating in a selection process that decides who amongst their flock will be sponsored for a study program abroad.
I gotta ask, is this for real? Do the CEOs really think this is the way to engage? Do they realise conversing isn't engaging? Do they know conversations only result in perceptions? Do they realise to get to reality, they have to go beyond mere conversations? Plus I guess the bigger question is, do they really wanna engage to gauge what's real? Or is this mere lip-service?
Its the same classic mistake marketers make. Marketers think engaging with consumers is drowning them with advertising yakety-yak. Its no surprise they sink their money on mindless Ads that aren't even noticed by consumers. And then they go on to treat their frontline staff with disdain and pay them peanuts as compensation. The result?
Unhappy frontline employees.
Skeptical consumers who know they matter till they pay the price.
Tuesday 23 August 2011
What lets Institutions stay
Its classic Catch-22 for the Congress Party. Whatever it does, it'll mess up. Its either succumbing to persuasion and subversion of Parliamentary procedure by taking up the Bill, or the risk of being booted out of power come next election should Anna's health deteriorate.
What should the Government do?
Find a middle ground. Pronto. Don't bother too much procedures. After all, democracy is about the people, and the latter currently don't seem to come across as a lynch mob, though the risk is they may degenerate into one. Also loose any remnants of belligerence and negotiate with the Anna team in earnest.
In the world of business too its consumers who matter. Not procedures, not policies. Procedures and policies matter only if they aid in the creation and delivery of superior value to consumers. If they don't, yank them out and consign them to the bin. Businesses stay and thrive only if they matter to consumers.
In nations, institutions stay if they serve the people.
Sunday 21 August 2011
Perish the thought of local wisdom
We're back to familiar territory. B School surveys for the year tumbling out, accompanied by local management wisdom. What's familiar? The nonsense. The clamour for Indian management thought to break away from 'western models', for Indian management to tap into spiritual wisdom, the list is nonsensically endless.
Pray, what is western thought? Take for example the concept of CRM which proposes consumer engagements not be treated as transactions, rather as opportunities to build relationships for a lifetime so as tap into what's termed 'life time value'. Now why would such a 'western' concept be irrelevant in India? Take another. What about the Motivational hierarchy from Abraham Maslow? Are Indians motivated any differently?
The call to 'indianising' management thought is a big bunkum. All management concepts, whether western, eastern, northern, or southern are generic and so can be applied universally. It really doesn't matter where you live, the principles in business as in life are universal. Of course, its a different take when you say Indian-centric research. Surely that is very important. For now we have no documented, studied data on the Indian business scenario. For example, understanding the Indian buying psyche so as to position a value proposition correctly requires we go out into the marketplace to study that psyche. That's research for you that's India-centric, and as I mentioned that is a space that's currently blank.
What Indian management needs isn't a dose of spirituality or India-centric thought. Instead it needs to embrace the western but universal principle of free markets unleashing the ingenuity of private citizens. And for heaven's sake, such thought is what must find its way into Indian business schools as part of teaching curriculum, rather than socialistic nonsense.
Here's hoping it will.
Saturday 20 August 2011
Gendered violence: Beyond her body politic
'By conservative estimates, there are 1,500 'half widows' in Kashmir, says the APDP report. These are women whose husbands have 'disappeared' during the conflict, but have not been confirmed as deceased. These women live a life of perpetual limbo, which is cemented by failed legal mechanisms, and results in economic squalor, social isolation, and psychological trauma. Since the law does not deem them 'widowed,' these women are ineligible for administrative relief, and instead are solely dependent on their individual resilience, which may include begging in burquas (covering out of shame, rather than religion), menial labour, prostitution, or seeking aid from family members. Their children grow up vulnerable to exploitation (even child labour or abuse in orphanages) and impoverishment; face lack of education; and suffer psychological damage...
Beyond spending time on photo-ops to assess whether a woman minister is simply a prop or something to be taken seriously, or news-cycles that assassinate the character of yet another woman who alleges rape, the citizens, their governments, and the media would be wise to spend time understanding and responding to the gendered effects of protracted conflict. Just as peace and security discussions require lesser fixation on the sex or appearance of the political leader across the table, peace and security generation requires an investigation into women's overall experiences, beyond fleeting, sordid fascinations with direct inflictions on their bodies.'
- Mallika Kaur, 'Gendered violence: Beyond her body politic.'
Friday 19 August 2011
We follows I
Jaden's art on the wall isn't always welcome. At home we're trying to find a balance between permission and denial to his scrawls on the walls. For now, we aren't getting anywhere. His creative instincts seem to be on a gallop. But what's interesting is they seem to reveal much.
The first scrawls that started a while back put his name on the wall. Over and over. Then they started getting more inclusive. Currently, Brooklyn, Alphy, and I feature on the walls. Isn't that interesting? At first, for Jaden its a sense of self that's exhibited. A certain comfort achieved in that category and his circle gets bigger. His immediate social setting that's us as family get included.
As people and as consumers we fixate on ourselves. Meaning we're absorbed by our own needs. From a behavioural perspective, this is the recognition of need stage in what could turn into a consumer decision making act. After the recogniton's done we loosen our grip and let the socio-cultural environment in (note, the socio-cultural could also be the reason to a recognition of need). That's the influence stage playing out. Pretty soon we may decide.
For the marketer the hope is for a sale. For the consumer, the hope is need fulfillment.
Care's rare
Now I don't think food's a big deal. Ditto with cooking. But then when its me cooking dinner at home, it means much. Because knowing I am doing something that's for family brings in a certain sense of warmth. Its a good feeling, and its based on something real.
Its like in the case of love. Hearing love's different from experiencing it. On the flipside saying love's different from doing love. Saying's cheap. Doing's everything. And at times, doing is cooking. The way I did.
Saying you care about consumers is cheap. That's what your ads do. Consumers take such ad-talk with a pinch of salt. Caring's about doing. If you care for your consumers you need to prove it in your actions. Real care is caring post purchase. Though the money's in your pocket you respond to a plea and rush in to plug a problem the consumer's having. As I said that's real care.
Which by the way is rare. In life, as elsewhere.
Thursday 18 August 2011
The Marketing story in Anna
What is the marketing story in Anna Hazare?
Simple. Its a story of a need and a promise of fulfillment. What's the need? Pretty simple again. The need of a better life. And who's out there with a promise of fulfillment? Anna Hazare, of course.
Its mind boggling to think that for the last sixty years no one's (read governments in power) been able to give the common man in India a shot at a better life. But then again should you be surprised? Where in the world has government been the cause to a better life for the citizenry? In fact its always minimal government and minimal regulation that frees the ingenuity of people, which in turn translates into the unleashing of entrepreneurship that's at the heart of a nation's prosperity.
But I guess that realisation is going to take donkey's years in India. After all shaking off an entrenched socialist past first requires a paradigmic psychological shift in mindset. Then it requires fundamental structural changes in policy and governance frameworks. All of which takes time.
So I guess for now, we can sit back, or participate and hope the Anna movement hits home.
(As I write this, the idiot box's favourite gasbag Suhel Seth is waxing eloquent about a lot of things associated with the Anna movement that mean almost nothing. Coming from a former adman, should that be surprising?)
Wednesday 17 August 2011
The making of the Anna nightmare
Could there be a worse PR disaster ever for the UPA government, more so the Congress Party? Nah. Don't think so. Anna while rising by the minute, is taking the UPA image down into the gutter. Its a pity there aren't any smart spin doctors around to bail the Congress Party, and the UPA out of this nightmare.
First, what the did the government do wrong?
One, they got the THEME wrong. The government put out rational arguments to confront the emotional blitzkrieg Anna had unleashed. Its common knowledge to marketers, consumer won't rationalise when their right brains dictate their behaviour. Wish the government knew that. No amount of constitutional lectures are going to work when a crowd's in frenzy.
Two, they got the MESSENGERS wrong. Suave, sophisticated cats don't work when the opponent is earthy and simple. The likes of Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Singhvi, and Salman Khurseed work if the audience is the English news watching kind. If the audience is the swooning kind, you need a different lot to connect with the ones in frenzy. You need someone who's got mass appeal. Now who fits the bill in the current government? None, I guess, though I must add, Rahul's getting there.
Three, they got their ENDORSERS wrong. Constitutional lawyers who've gotten fat on the status quo-system don't make great endorsers. Their 'subversion of institutions' story may be right, but who's willing to listen? Especially when the masses know these 'constitutional experts' may probably have never faced the brunt of corruption. Their glibness and their stature would have bailed them out at government offices. Not so for the common man. His lot's different. He knows the hell government bureaucracy is, having experienced it throughout his life, and so he's least willing to listen to the constitutional fat cats.
Four, they got their MESSAGE wrong. The two biggest blunders of the past two days have been, the attack on Anna's credibility via corruption charges, and taking Anna to Tihar jail. The irony in these two acts just got amplified. A corrupt government calling a Gandhian corrupt. A corrupt government taking the Gandhian to a jail housing the corrupt! How much more ironic can it get!?
Now, what's the way out for the government?
One, back off from a direct confrontation. Two, open up to a dialogue with Anna and party. Three, shut up, and stop sermonising. Four, go back to the drawing board on the government Lokpal Bill. Five, Lose the arrogance, and start talking to the masses via mass media on the future course of action on the bill.
Finally, for god's sake, get your governance right by punishing the corrupt, increasing transparency, and loosening on bureaucratic regulation.
Of course, I know, easier said than done!
Monday 15 August 2011
Sunday 14 August 2011
How Civilizations Die
We're beginning to see the final result of that idea in Britain. The welfare state creates a society of beasts. Meanwhile, nonjudgmental elites don't dare condemn the animals their programs have created.
Rioters in England are burning century-old family businesses to the ground, stealing from injured children lying on the sidewalks and forcing Britons to strip to their underwear on the street.
I keep reading that it's because they don't have jobs -- which they're obviously anxious to hold. Or someone called them a "kaffir." Or their social services have been reduced. Or their Blackberries made them do it. Or they disapprove of a referee's call in a Manchester United game.
A few well-placed rifle rounds, and the rioting would end in an instant. A more sustained attack on the rampaging mob might save England from itself, finally removing shaved-head, drunken parasites from the benefits rolls that Britain can't find the will to abolish on moral or utilitarian grounds. We can be sure there's no danger of killing off the next Winston Churchill or Edmund Burke in these crowds.
But like Louis XVI, British authorities are paralyzed by their indifference to their own civilization. A half-century of berating themselves for the crime of being British has left them morally defenseless. They see nothing about England worth saving, certainly not worth fighting for -- which is fortunate since most of their cops don't have guns.
This is how civilizations die. It can happen overnight, as it did in Revolutionary France. If Britain of 1939 were composed of the current British population, the entirety of Europe would today be doing the "Heil Hitler" salute and singing the "Horst Wessel Song."
- Ann Coulter, 'THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE BRITISH WELFARE SYSTEM.'
What rises, What sinks
Corporate branding means zilch to consumers till a company's products deliver. I mean Mahindra can cry hoarse with its 'rise campaign'. So can Hero Motors, proclaiming it will rise post the Honda exit. To consumers all of this doesn't matter one bit. They'll take nothing for granted. In fact, they will wait for these companies to unveil their products, and then they'll judge making comparisons to MNC products. If Mahindra or/and Hero deliver, they'll 'rise'!
Corporate branding surely gives a company's products a 'consideration' edge. I mean consumers may put them higher up in their list because of greater recognition and recall. But tell you what, these considerations won't come because of any communication campaigns. They will materialise because the company's delivered in the past with products. Take Mahindra for example. Their SUV product Scorpio's done more for their corporate brand than all the advertising dollars they've sunk.
Mahindra and Hero won't get any favours from consumers for their corporate brand communication campaigns. Those favours will come only if they can bring to market products consumers value. That'll then be their best communique ever. Plus they can save up on what they've sunk on the likes of Akon, Boris and others.
Saturday 13 August 2011
Thursday 11 August 2011
For whom the bells must toll
'If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.
Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.
They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong. '
They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.
Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it...
The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.
Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community. They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies.
Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present. They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.
The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations...
An underclass has existed throughout history, which once endured appalling privation. Its spasmodic outbreaks of violence, especially in the early 19th century, frightened the ruling classes.
Its frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies. Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.
When social surveys speak of ‘deprivation’ and ‘poverty’, this is entirely relative. Meanwhile, sanctions for wrongdoing have largely vanished...
But it will not do for a moment to claim the rioters’ behaviour reflects deprived circumstances or police persecution.
Of course it is true that few have jobs, learn anything useful at school, live in decent homes, eat meals at regular hours or feel loyalty to anything beyond their local gang.
This is not, however, because they are victims of mistreatment or neglect. It is because it is fantastically hard to help such people, young or old, without imposing a measure of compulsion which modern society finds unacceptable. These kids are what they are because nobody makes them be anything different or better.
A key factor in delinquency is lack of effective sanctions to deter it. From an early stage, feral children discover that they can bully fellow pupils at school, shout abuse at people in the streets, urinate outside pubs, hurl litter from car windows, play car radios at deafening volumes, and, indeed, commit casual assaults with only a negligible prospect of facing rebuke, far less retribution.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his great 1859 essay On Liberty: ‘The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.’
Yet every day up and down the land, this vital principle of civilised societies is breached with impunity.
Anyone who reproaches a child, far less an adult, for discarding rubbish, making a racket, committing vandalism or driving unsociably will receive in return a torrent of obscenities, if not violence.
So who is to blame? The breakdown of families, the pernicious promotion of single motherhood as a desirable state, the decline of domestic life so that even shared meals are a rarity, have all contributed importantly to the condition of the young underclass.
The social engineering industry unites to claim that the conventional template of family life is no longer valid...
A century ago, no child would have dared to use obscene language in class. Today, some use little else. It symbolises their contempt for manners and decency, and is often a foretaste of delinquency.
If a child lacks sufficient respect to address authority figures politely, and faces no penalty for failing to do so, then other forms of abuse — of property and person — come naturally.
So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants.
They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so.
They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game.
They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.
Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.
Only education — together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives — can provide a way forward and a way out for these people.
They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.
Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights, for whom their monstrous excesses were ‘a great fire, man’. '
- Max Hastings, 'Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters.'
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Insults, Stupid Arguments, and Lies
'As the 9/11 massacre underscored the failure of the left’s multicultural worldview, so the current debt crisis highlights the failure of leftist redistributionism.
In fact, leftism has failed utterly. It has failed everywhere and it has never done anything else but fail. From the murderous, leftist tyrannies of the Soviet Union and China to the soft but nonetheless oppressive and stagnant socialism of a moribund Europe, the relativist, wealth-crushing, overweening state has revealed itself to be an engine of misery and collapse.
This is a disappointment to many. To those who feel they are entitled to the fruits of other people’s labor, to those who feel their good intentions can be brought to fruition by the government, and to those, most of all, who fancy themselves elite, who fancy themselves better able to make moral and economic decisions on your behalf from on high than you, the citizen, can do on your own — to all of these, the failure of leftism is a trauma so great it has yet to be accepted. Rather, in order to distract both their followers and their opponents — and maybe themselves — from the gathering facts on the ground, leftists routinely rely on three well-worn techniques: insults, stupid arguments and lies.'
- Andrew Klavan, 'Insults, Stupid Arguments, and Lies.'
Tuesday 9 August 2011
The reason to the Louts of London
The louts of London were long coming. What else will you breed if you plant and nurture a welfare state? Of course louts who feed for free off the sweat of those who work for a living. Europe is populated by liberal socialist soft states that have for long rewarded lazy louts by dipping into the working man's coffers. In doing so they've near perfected the immoral welfare state. Now the very same louts bred by state have paid back in kind with arson and looting when bankrupt European states announce and enact welfare cuts.
Be warned. Barack's doing what Europe's done for years, in the US. Creating the immoral welfare state. What London's witnessing will one day dawn across the Atlantic. Its only fit Barack and everyone else knows that a society's glory lies in the promotion and sustenance of acts of industrial value creation. Great societies are those where people toil so products and services can be crafted. And in participating in the industrial act these hard working people earn an income which they then use to buy products and services.
Welfare states insult the toils of hard working men. They commit daylight robbery when they dip into the hard working mans' income to reward louts who don't move a muscle. Britain and other European states have been doing this for long. And now when they've gone bankrupt they've cut back. With disastrous results
Is it any wonder London's burning? (To know how the louts are bred, watch the Judge Judy video above.)
Saturday 6 August 2011
Its Me, stupid!
If people tell you they love the company they work for, or the cafe they frequent, or the car they drive, they are stating what is an honest lie. They don't love their company, or the cafe, or even the car. Its them they love. All those branded products don't really mean a thing. Well, you may ask, what about the cars, the cafes, and companies?
You see, its what brands do to us that matters. The brands themselves are meaningless, its the personas they construct that have us going ga-ga. The company I work for may allow for greater self expression and articulation. Meaning, it has an informal culture which allows me to sport casual clothes at work, or has me calling my bosses by first names. The Cafe on its part gives me space to 'chill' out. The car elevates me to a status of 'cool'. You see, its me!
They make me! In return I love them. Which is why brands carry personifications that I imbibe (via purchase and use) to make me, me. And I love the made up me. Me loving me's only to be expected. If I insist my love for my company, car, or cafe isn't about me, then I guess its time I had my head examined.
Hey, goes for you too!
Thursday 4 August 2011
The Evil of Benevelonce
'Despite the widely held view that philanthropy is desirable as a way to mitigate the influence of poverty, there is another, often disregarded, side to social beneficence. Some would argue – I am among them – that the welfare state, with all of its well-meaning rhetoric, actually creates more poverty and dependence than it was designed to abolish.
For the recipient of charity there is the intoxicating impression that this transfer payment is necessary and desirable. Hence the behavior that results in poverty is often reinforced, rather than reproved. For the charitable giver there is very often smug righteousness, a belief that one is saving the world through personal acts of benevolence. This is analogous to the good intentions that lead to debilitating effects...
David Stove, an Australian philosopher, agreed: “Benevolence is the heroin of the Enlightened.”
Alas, this is most poignant observation. The benevolent consider themselves superior because they are doing so much by arguing for those who have so little. The fact that this benevolence often has a baneful effect is disregarded. Big government is politically correct because it is ever in search of assisting or attempting to assist one group or another...
Of course the real evil is believing benevolence is a policy government should pursue.'
- Herbert London, 'The Evil of Benevolence.'
Wednesday 3 August 2011
Your money is in your men
One of my students has two job offers on hand. Which is a problem. She agreed to joining the first one who made the offer. Then she got a call from the second. She now wants to join the latter, but doesn't know how to decline the first offer she accepted. She feels bad going to first company and telling them she can't join.
I am not surprised. I am not surprised she's hesitant to talk to the first company. I am also not surprised there's a certain contrast when it comes to employee-enterprise engagement. Employees on their part find it hard to decline an offer, once accepted. Companies on the other hand have lesser qualms in asking on-the-roll employees to leave. I mean companies aren't hesitant when it comes to what they want, as compared to people. People tend to feel bad. Business firms don't. Though firms are ultimately people, the entity called the 'firm' allows for exhibition of impersonal attitudes. Firing's easier because the decision maker can hide behind the form of a firm. 'I didn't ask you to leave, the firm's asking me to do it', is what's bandied about.
Business firms are inanimate impersonal entities. People are flesh and blood. The former can't feel, for the latter, feeling's living. Now that's a lesson marketers must learn. Business firms can't ever psychologically connect with consumers. That's something only people can do. Which means it isn't stuff on display or on the shelf that matters as much. Its the staff on the floor that can do the trick. Its they who can prompt consumers to feel. Feel good. Its they who keep your consumers coming back.
Its people who matter. As providers. As consumers
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