Påtvingad offerroll, tvingande offerroller

För några dagar sedan presenterade Socialdemokraterna några av sina slutsatser för hur framtidens välfärd ska finansieras. De konstaterar bland annat att det är önskvärt att fler människor jobbar längre innan de går i pension. Så långt inget anmärkningsvärt. Det är antagligen en på flera sätt välgrundad analys för vad som krävs tillsammans med en del andra reformer för att kunna bibehålla någon slags svensk modell i det rådande demografiska läget. Vad jag förstår har exempelvis redan Island genomfört en dylik förändring av pensionsåldern.

Det kan hända att jag är alldeles för känslig eller drar på för stora växlar, men det sticker mig i ögonen att man känner sig nödgad att börja prata om diskriminering av äldre i samma andetag som man redogör för vad man har konkluderat. En officiell rapport från Sveriges största parti kan inte resonera med befolkningen som att den vore vuxen, utan måste i sin argumentation utgå ifrån att gamla är offer. Är det för att den strukturella analysen man har som sosse smittar av sig, och så måste allting ses i relation av förtryckta eller förtryckare? Är inte detta en dålig mylla för all politik som handlar om människor som inte vill se sig som offer, och framför allt, vad implicerar det för människo- och samhällssyn?

Och nej, jag hävdar inte på något sätt att det inte finns strukturer eller förtryck. Det jag vänder mig emot är den syn som ligger till grund för att man alltid ska försöka stoppa in människor i dylika förenklingar, och vidare vänder jag mig mot den otroligt dåliga pedagogik det innebär. Bland det värsta en människa kan göra är nämligen att identifiera sig som ett offer. Ju fler erfarenheter jag får av människor som de facto är offer, ju tydligare blir detta för mig. Det verkar ofta vara rollen av underdog eller martyr som håller människor nere mer än faktiska sakförhållanden, och att sedan bli kvitt känslan av att vara offer verkar också tillhöra bland det som är riktigt svårt.

Livet är ibland jobbigt och vi stöter ofta på motgångar, en del av dessa är av sådan natur att mellanmänskliga attityder och ibland även formella strukturer ligger till grund. Det kan ligga bra politik i att begränsa och motarbeta vissa av dessa, men att tvunget tolka in all politik i sådan tankeverkstad eller jargong är enbart av ondo.

Goodbye to Berlin

by Christopher Isherwood

While I was reading the second of The Berlin Novels it several times crossed my mind how contemporary to the present day Isherwood is in his writing. The depiction of human interaction, also with references to roles of for instance gender, seems to be universal. At least for an enlightened clique of people during the past hundred years. Either that, or perhaps more likely, Christopher Isherwood was quite an avant-gardist and also was staying in such circles in the Weimar Republic Berliner underground scene. It is very clear that what Isherwood in this book, and as William Bradshaw in Mr Norris Changes Trains, experiences and is part of has had a continuity to today's liberal and leftist progressive political thought. Rejecting his well off background, he is an anthropologist rather than a novelist, spending time at the very bottom and making "Brilliant sketches of a society in decay" as George Orwell described it.

When I visited David's in Tasmania last year we released a c64 production entitled Digi Demo in which he called me the traveling man. I remember his data garage in the Launceston suburb, an Iraqi cigar, some local beers and a conversation partly reflected in the scroll text of the demo. The talk was on the subject of inexpensive trips on trains, coaches or as a hitchhiker, seeing places, having the journey itself as a goal, surviving on a few dollars and only having responsibility for yourself. Obviously we came to discuss not being able to procrastinate as adults, with careers, family responsibilities and such. However, both having a history of bumming around quite a while it became a session of adventure nostalgia. When in the early parts of Goodbye to Berlin Isherwood describes how Frl Schroeder tells him stories of earlier tenants and "I have been listening to her for some time, I find myself relapsing into a curious trance-like state of depression. I begin to feel profoundly unhappy. Where are all those lodgers now? Where, in another ten years, shall I be, myself? Certainly not here. How many seas and frontiers shall I have to cross to reach that distant day; how far shall I have to travel", I could not help thinking of the escapism of our youth.

At the same time as Christopher Isherwood may have spent time with people of political will with relation and also some coherence to today's counterparts, his journeys took place in a world where the dogmas were different. The taboos on what issues to debate and which truths to follow are what socially creates much of a political movement striving for consensus, at least in some European traditions. In a sad way such unwillingness to differ rationale from mere taste often creates a hinder for the genuine topics that truly ought to be politically debated.

Knark på flaska

I Danmark, som bekant, fungerar alkohollagstiftningen aningen annorlunda än den gör i Sverige. Då jag var på jakt efter en något mer spännande brygd till en bror som fyller tjugo fann jag till min förvåning att de nu också säljer Knark. I helgen ska jag över till mina bröder i Skåne för att fira och hoppas att tullen inte kommer att ställa till med besvär.

Mer om stouten som är från ett mikrobryggeri på Jylland vid namn Duelund Bryglade kan inhämtas här.

Mr Norris Changes Trains

by Christopher Isherwood

I first encountered Christopher Isherwood's writings in the second half of the 1990s through a couple of female acquaintances. I remember how my interpretation of their way of discussing him and his writings was as if they were part of some sort of fan cult. It was however, with all certainty, my naivety rather than factual circumstances that caused such a deriving from my part. I recall a coach trip to Prague with those ladies around that time, and I believe, though I could be mistaken as my memory of it is vague, that I already on that trip had read a library copy of Down There on a Visit, the book they so much talked about. Later I bought a paperback of Goodbye to Berlin. Since then it has several timed crossed my mind that I wanted to read those two novels again, but it was not until I stumbled upon the first of The Berlin Novels, this one, in Winchester that things really seemed to happen.

Mr Norris Changes Trains is narrated by William Bradshaw, whom encounters Arthur Norris in the opening chapter, taking place on a train trip to Berlin. It is plausible that it starts out when the train travels through either Belgium or Holland. William, lacking something to read, foresees a seven or eight hour tedious journey, and rather than remaining in utter silence he demands attention from the stranger with the unusually light blue eyes. This happens to be the start of a friendship running through the two years that follows. The book was published in 1935 and the background storyline follows that one of the early 30s in Germany which means Nazi national socialism in confrontation with Leninist-Stalinist Communism, public antisemitism growing strong and similar forms of sinister political manoeuvres. Mr Norris, whom really is an exciting character growing increasingly odd as the chapters passes not only seems to be a masochist but also joins a Red Front sect, claiming to be part of the Third International.

The reader is given clues to the Berlin society around Mr Bradshaw: Proletarian Lokale where people go for beer are some being communist and others being governed by the Hitler-Jugend; prostitutes with elaborate sexual services; Baron von Pregnitz dreaming of a Pacific island for him and seven boys, ages ranging from sixteen to nineteen. In the midst of this is the polite gentleman adventurer telling us the story. The well meaning and naive William Bradshaw is lured into one of Norris' schemes for funds and is used as a decoy in order to get the Baron on a holiday to Switzerland. In the Alps Norris' plan is they will meet up with the apparent French spy Margot, disguised as a Dutch gentleman calling himself van Hoorn. Bradshaw returns to Berlin and finds out the plot through one of the Communist leaders. Subsequently Arthur Norris escapes in a hurry to south America and not long after the Reichstag is on fire. A lot of his Communist friends are being eliminated by the Nazis and William returns to England. The final pages of the book are excerpts from letters Mr Bradshaw receives from Mr Norris, whom does not seem to have the best of his times.