Every Album Tells A Story: The Suburbs

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire remains one of my favourite albums because of the loyalty is pledges to its concept - suburban youth, and the transition into adulthood. The album is compelling and philosophical, but creates a sonic space where the every instrument evokes nostalgia and the feel of the suburbs, and crucially, its corruption. Today, I'll be telling the story of the album - each individual song tells its own story about suburban life.

We begin with a confrontation of reality. The protagonist tells us that his life in the suburbs was meant to be fulfilling, a great opportunity for a better life. The suburbs are a place where your family can live in a house of their own, with a garden, and play on the streets without fear. But our protagonist looks back and truly believes it all meant nothing at all. Much like the children who want to be hard, when their most beloved moments come when they completely let their guard down, when they run and scream through the yard, our protagonist feels like the kid pretending to be grown up and mature - but all he wants to do is live, at least he feels this deep down. All the while, as he grows older, he moves past the feeling, even though he doesn't want to.

Life in the suburbs can be particularly difficult when it comes to maintaining genuine friendships. Here, another person begins to tell a story, about his friends from art school. The protagonist made great friends in art school, and they were socialist hippies. They wanted to take down the corporations and knew all the wicked ways of the blood sucking businessmen. Soon, the protagonist tells us that people bow down to the 'emperor' because it's better than not conforming, but not him, he would never give up his values. But like everyone, he does. His old friends come to his door, but he knows he isn't one of them anymore. He has a family to support, he has a life and responsibilities, and yet he hates himself for it. He's resulted in a mass of contradictions, he doesn't know if he likes the suburban life he had learned to hate in art school, but it's the only way, right? It was for his family.

Another protagonist takes the helm of the story. This man is a father, who begins to question whether he is really living, whether he is really going anywhere. He'll have kids and then what? He's standing in line waiting to be called up for his moment, but in the suburbs, and in all life, you don't just get called up, and he acknowledges this. He knows he's one of the chosen few to be in such a privileged position. He could do anything, but his responsibilities weigh him down. He wastes it. Again, we change perspectives to an older gentleman, commenting on modern youth, particularly those most sheltered from the real world in the suburbs. This person has had some horrible experiences with them. They want to own him, but they don't really know what that means. Memories of slavery and the civil war are long gone now in America. This man still has the second world war fresh in his mind.

The tension of the suburbs is expressed by another storyteller. A young girl tells us that she can only be herself when she's by herself. There's a certain expectation of her in the suburbs. To be adult, proper and mature. But she's just a child, the contradiction feels like a strait jacket on her, trapped. The narrative shifts again, with one man reflecting and noticing that the city is not what it used to be. In the suburbs he doesn't feel a spark or any energy. His childhood is lost, the spark of a wide eyes kid, lost. There's an immense pressure to assimilate to the standardised life of going to work, going home, and dying.

One man and one woman take us through the next two songs. The firs is a story of ruin. They feel like they've ruined their kids bringing them up in an environment where only one lifestyle is generally accepted. And they know when they walk around the neighbourhood, everyone else feels the same way. The houses hide an ocean of distress and hurt behind them - no family is perfect, but in the suburbs they all appear to be, which only makes everyone feel worse. Then they look around. The world has been ruined on the outside too. In the aftermath of the recession, the suburbs barely feel the impact. Their skin has grown thick and their eyes turn blindly.

The 8th person explains the division that he has lived through. In suburbia, friends never really seem genuine. He tells of a personal tragedy, one that we all think only has happened to us. But in truth it happens to everyone, we all grow up. It's a universal tragedy. And we all leave friends behind. But in a reversal, the protagonist rouses the kids. Shouting the flaws and faliures of our system. Sure we have this suburban culture of purity and righteousness, but the kids...they're not being kids. They're just stood with their arms folded - prim and proper.

Again we turn onto a new protagonist, telling a melancholic acoustic tale of how they wasted their hours. In a retrospective they speak of technology becoming far greater than anything in the past.

We reach the last protagonists, a boy and a girl. The boy tells us of the horror and depression of the suburbs. Never really identifying somewhere as a home. But the last girl. She delivers a message of hope. They heard her singing and they told her to stop - she sings. She is still there, as vibrant and beautiful as ever. She has beaten the metagame of the suburbs - seen through it all, and knows she will be greater than anything it has ever made.

The Galibier Raid

5 years ago today, the Tour de France witnessed an incredible feat of human endurance, as Andy Schleck rode alone for over fifty kilometers up the Col du Galibier, winning the stage. It was an audatious move, that set him into prime position for the yellow jersey.

He lost the tour in the end at the time trial. He was probably doping. His brother was caught for it. But I'll never forget that stage, that absolute steal of two minutes. 

Love and War

When it comes to terror, there is little to say that hasn’t already been said. The tragedy that unfolded last night in Nice was horrifying and the very epitome of terrifying. Yet, we go through the depressing cycle of grief, anger, futile action, and eventually, further terror.  It is also an extremely sensitive topic, especially for the people of France, which makes discussion of terror particularly difficult and measured.

The Supreme Court ruling in the USA that it was unfair to not allow people of the same sex to marry sparked the hashtag LoveWins to reach the top of twitter. But in the face of modern terrorism and its responses, how far is this true?

Right-wing nationalist movements have sprung up across Europe and North America, perhaps most significantly at the moment: The National Front in France. Marie Le Pen came 3^rd in the presidential elections of 2012 and led a huge number of departments in the 2015 election’s first round, before left wingers came out in their droves to support the opposition. The rise of Donald Trump alongside this, as well as UKIP, promotes a distinct anti-outsider rhetoric. Although this may appear to be a new phenomenon of right-wing extremism being cultivated by terrorism (flying in the face of #LoveWins) the matter of fact is that the ‘Others’, the ‘Bad guys’ have always existed in society.

The excellent lecture from Prof Rodney Barker puts this into better perspective, but it can be generally said that governmental demonisation of outsiders unifies the nation. Barker references Lincoln describing the unifying effect the Revolutionary War had, distracting them from the real cultural divisions between the north and south, which led to the civil war. Since the civil war, America has essentially always had an outsider to focus hatred on. The Jim Crow laws intensified the racism in America, increasingly with a colonial mindset as they approached the first world war. Then the red scare set in, which set up American foreign policy with an outsider for 90 years. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11, there was a period of relative calm, despite the shocking events in Bosnia.

After September 11th and the subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the political enemy had been set. Communism had fallen, and so the War on Terror began. George Bush's Axis of Evil speech was an incredible display of this mentality of the outsider. 

The key difference, though, with terrorism as opposed to any other outsider, is that it grows with the increasing governmental spotlight placed on it. The war in Iraq being a key inducer of terrorism as we know it today. However we cannot apply all of terrorism to governmental actions. Terrorism is an absolute horror, a true evil in the world. What unfolded in Nice was barely short of inhuman.

So how far can love get us in these situations. Surely the logic is to go and destroy whoever is performing and endorsing these sickening acts, but time and time again this approach has failed. We all feel anger and despair in these moments and we think why not go into Syria and turn those bastards to dust? Maybe that would be easier. Equally we have to consider how love factors into this. Terrorists do not feel compassion for those they see as infidels, so should people even entertain a compassionate approach to government? Maybe not. 

But we can all do our best to create an atmosphere of compassion within our own society. This may seem utopian and unachievable, but just being helpful and considerate can go a long way.  Despite this, I'm not sure that without a unifying hatred of an 'Other' society can be properly unified in order to be compassionate, and people within society will be demonised.

Don't listen to me though I'm not the expert! Ask our new Head of Foreign Policy, Boris Johnson.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

The year is 1812. Napoleon Bonaparte is the Emperor of France, and he has Europe at his fingertips. He approaches his final prize: Moscow.

The rest is history. Napoleon wins the battle but loses the war, and his empire. He arrives in Moscow to a sea of flames. Prisoners set loose in the city with the population evacuated, he occupied the Russian capital waiting for a surrender he knew wasn't coming. With no food and the winter approaching, he was forced into a retreat. With starvation, and a relentless pursuit from the Russian military, Napoleon's Grand Armee was destroyed, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in Czar Alexander's grasslands. Three years later, Napoleon loses to the British and the Prussians at Waterloo and is condemned to be exiled to Saint Helena.

For 13 years, Napoleon had built an empire to encompass most of Europe up to the Russian and Ottoman empires. He was a force to be reckoned with, winning countless battles, imposing his own civil code and constitution upon millions. He developed the French army to focus on mobility and drilling them intensely. He made war economically beneficial to the country. He did everything right, until the aftermath of the Battle of Borodino.

Bonaparte began the war in June, giving him time to defeat Russia, before the winter. He took Moscow in September, but only began the evacuation in October, with a starving army. For weeks, Napoleon underwent the conscous decision to continue the occupation of a deserted, burning city, whilst the Czar watched his army starve from St. Petersburg.

Everyone has these moments. We all make mistakes that are uncharacteristic of ourselves, perhaps not as dramatic, monumental and politically paramount as Napoleon's decision to stay in Moscow for far longer than he should have. But they are still significant, within our own lives.

Why do we make decisions that are so uncharacteristic of us? "Why did I not go to the doctor when I found that bump on my penis? I'm usually a fairly sensible person." It seems absurd that we make silly decisions in hindsight.

Despite this, I think that we should consider that these decisions are not uncharacteristic at all. In fact, these things are the very furthest reaches, as Jon Ronson puts it: our "maddest edges". And like it or not, these form a part of our character. The fact that we make these mistakes are part of our character. Napoleon was egotisitcal and overestimated his own skill - that is why this mistake was made in Moscow, and why it was intevitable that he'd fall anyway. But we need to recognise that we shouldn't shun our mistakes, we must embrace them. Absolute denial that these mistakes are part of our character is part of the problem - they're not distinctively negative, they happen to everyone.

So next time you make a stupid mistake, instead of saying "Well I won't do that again!" Look back at what happened. Understand why it happened, and work on improving that part of your character.

Digital Footprint

Recenty, I was told that my digital footprint would likely have a pretty big effect on my emploability, future, etc. Now then, I feel I've done a fairly good job at minimising embarresment or idiocy on mt part, but I know there are things out there I'd rather not people see. I was told not to be too political from now on. Just to clarify, I'm not overtly trying to be partisan. I made a post called 'A biased commentary of PMQs' a while back. The title was a joke, the content was not particularly biased at all (or at least I tried to be), however we are all humans and we all have innate cognitive biases. So of course it was biased. Now enough of that b-word, it really tires the toungue.

Anyway, it was slightly worrying, that employers will judge me based on my digital footprint, and most likely this blog, which appears to be the first thing that shows on a google search of my name. So here it is, this is inside my head! Why airports are shit. It's strange really, to the younger generation, how employers will judge based on our digital footprints. My friends tend to say that they wouldn't let an embarresing moment on the internet cloud their judgment for who they'd employ. Of course, they're not employers. But it still remains an interesting piece of evidence for generational gaps.

Generations are a facinating idea. They're a great way of highlighting how society changes, but they can contribute to quite negative barriers. It was George Orwell that said "Every generation thinks it is more intelligent than the one before it, and wiser than the one after it" or something to that effect. But every generation has its geniuses and ideas. One particular idea I found facinating is the Strauss-Howe generational theory.

This is the theory that every 4 generations there is a cycle: High, Awakening, Unravelling, and, Crisis." Within each of these generations certain types of people are born due to the Turning they grow up in of the above 4. Respectively, these are: Prophets, Nomads, Heroes, and Artists. An example of this is: 1860-1882: Reconstruction and the Gilded Age (High). 1882-1900 Missionary Awakening (Awakening). 1900-1924 World War I (Unravelling). 1924-1945 The Great Depression and World War II. We, are cheerily in the Crisis era, apparently charecterised by the War on Terror and The Great Recession, preceded by the Unravelling of the rise of Postmodernism.

I do really doubt this theory. I mean one of the cited Highs is Superpower America, so does this only apply to America, when it relied on the Armada Crisis during the 1500s? Oh well, it does seem filled with cherrypicked events to fit a narrative, but that's alright, cause it's a pretty good story.