New Voice

Vietnam. A word that still to this day means many things to many different people. Travellers etch across its landscape throughout the year wandering its myriad paths and villages, soaking up its cultured cities. Its people are famous for their relaxed personalities and interesting take on life. But for several thousand Vietnam War veterans, this beautiful country remains a nightmare of ferocious memories, strange drug-addled flashbacks, and the emotions of fear and loss. Recently, I was picking through a history of America in the Twentieth Century and spent some time looking at this infamous war. One of the recommended readings, I was informed, was Michael Herr’s Dispatches. Herr wrote for Esquire Magazine during the late sixties and spent two years embedded with the US forces in Vietnam. A number of years following his return Herr wrote this book as a memoir of his time in the country and a scathing overview of the human catastrophe of the conflict. I was surprised, and deeply enlivened to the book before I even began reading, to find that Herr had co-wrote Full Metal Jacket – and indeed the crisp dialogue of that film is referenced significantly in the reality of his account of the war. He went further by writing much of the voiceover in Apocalypse Now – thus acquiring a central role in the two greatest Vietnam War movies. (continue reading…)

There are whole masses of positive news items circulating the science media. When you read around, the collection is not always particular to the fear-mongering I discussed in an earlier post. When I sat down a few months ago to begin these selections on the new science that may impact on climate change, I always imagined it as a positive approach to a vastly ominous situation. I think that this positivity is expressed in the media, with multitudes of blogs and news sites discussing the effects of climate change but through the prism of significant counter-action from the global community. I think in my posting I may have got side tracked in my last two pieces and begun the tremulous fixation of the ‘deer in head lights’, as the all powerful wonder of nature became all too clear in my readings. Partly, this was the blame of my picking through that mighty tome of a work, On the Origin of Species, which has enamoured my mind for the past while. Given the timing (2009, one hundred and fifty years since it was first published) it seemed an apt period to finally embrace the book and see if it was (in my opinion) as comprehensively argued as it is understood to be. Having completed the work, it seems there is no question but that it makes its point; rather well if I might say. (continue reading…)

There are reams of words. Whole spillages of words delivered into the ether of the internet acknowledging the fear of humanity at our capacity to wreak lasting damage on our society. Just read the pages of the climate project or the climate count down. Whole earthquakes of tiny words. Such is the embrace of the people and the fear. Bill Bryson, in his revelatory work of simple genius – A Short History of Nearly Everything – discusses at length the shocking power of the earth to unleash damage on the surface of the planet. In fact it incorporates a number of chapters. There is as seriousness to that power. I think that it is always present, and can never be fundamentally shifted. Utilised, though, is another thing entirely. (continue reading…)

Is war a guaranteed consequence of humanity? I think most people would consider it is, given the planets consistent, and extremely long-term infatuation, with war – and all other forms of violence. But is it really in our nature to be violent? I read an article recently in which scientists examined the human propensity for war craft. Archaeologists have confirmed that civilization itself had only commenced before weaponry is known to have come into increasing use: archaeological remains seem to tie the strong arrival of warlike tendencies to movement of our ancestors from hunter gather status to farmers; which makes sense since farming forms a connection to the land, and hence there then exists something to fight to control. Though violence would have existed before this point, it seems not to have been more than individuals, as opposed to large numbers of organised participants. But apparently it does not stop there: it has been noted extensively in chimpanzees that some contain a violent disposition – say a member of one grouping clubbing to death a member of another grouping (2001: A Space Odyssey style), for no noticable gain. This illogical violent nature leads some to believe that war is part of our biological heritage. (continue reading…)