This idea of the importance of growth is then put into the context of other countries around the world that are seeing exponential growth rates and seem little affected by this down turn. The difference in comparison to these countries current condition is bad news for us, but why do we or should we compare our economic situation with other economies when they are - although this could just be my naivety on the subject - radically different.
Our country has experience rapid growth and development through an industrial age, dominated by a manufacturing based economy, which has moved to a post-industrial age where the industrial means of society has been replaced and based around the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services. This state of transition and displacement of the production of goods alters the mechanics of the structure and capabilities of a countries economy. Is it right then to compare this countries economy to others such as China, India, Brazil and Russia which are more along the industrial then the post-industrial line and why is it so nasty and awful for a countries economy to stagnate? Stagnation means stillness and unchanging and while that implies a loss of increase that also implies no decrease too.
In the words of Jeremy Paxman in the BBC series Empire, the history of the British Empire - the Empire that the sun never set on and the blood never dried - where at its height Britain controlled around a quarter of the worlds population, changed the mentality of this nation. Through this control the British came to believe that they had a morale mission to civilise the world. This power of Britannia is now a memory, although a memory that's never really faded and is a heritage that makes its governments continue to believe it is still entitled to be an influential voice on world affairs.
This mentality of believing we are still a strong influential power may be one reason for the need to compare and try to stand up with and next to the new super powers coming into being in this changing world.
Change is something that is part of the entropic nature of this universe and while we as a species have pushed an expectancy for a continuing growth and evolution in our capabilities, technologies and understanding of the world we live in, change is something we still seem scared of. Change is difference in kind and is happening right now in the economic climate, and the natural environment among others. Although these two are very different things, both are currently in a state of transition and we as a society seem to be gripped by the need to keep them exactly as they are without losing anymore of what we currently have. We want to change the world but we don't want the world to change.
The forecasts of the bad changes happening right now and seemingly out of our control - even if they were supposedly caused by our hand - brings a foreboding and unhealthy distrust of what the future will bring and this has made us more retrospective. Being retrospective though hasn't just come about but has existed for quite a while, it just seems far more potent now and is a certainty we can cling onto in an uncertain world. Even if it is a highly idealised and polished version of certain pasts.
With this in mind I have recently come across and been reading a couple of articles that deal with these subjects and thought I would pass them on your way here is a little piece in the Independent by Philip Hoare titled 'The shock of the old and why we seem to be so culturally conservative' and here is a piece of writing by Franco Berardi Bifo on the e-flux journal titled 'The Future After the End of the Economy'.
Also here's a link to information on an exhibition that's just finished at Wysing Arts Centre in Bourn Cambridgeshire. A place that I spent a lot of my childhood there making pottery, animated films, eating lunch up the spire of a wooden sculpture, slicing the length of my arm with flint while sliding down a hill, watching amazing hedge fireworks and art burnings. It's always surprising when places you seem to just accept as being, are so much more fascinating and impressive. Here is a review of that show and below is a picture from Erth (1971) by John Latham
John Latham, Erth, 1971. 25mins, 16mm. Courtesy the estate of the artist and LUX, London.
Some text about the film:
John Latham's film, Erth, is a visual countdown of the age of the universe, through time and space, to the surface of the earth. Latham was fascinated by the photographs of the earth that were being returned from the first space missions. From their great distance, these images described the perspective which Latham felt was necessary to perceive our temporary habitation of the planet in relation to what he called the 'whole event', the Universe. Periods of silent black space are punctuated by momentary glimpses of the earth, getting closer as the film rolls. As the camera zooms in, there is a change of pace when an entire volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica flickers past, frame-by-frame. The encyclopedia stands in as representative of our accumulated knowledge as a race, but the acceleration and obfuscation of the text alludes to the difficulties in processing or 'taking on' knowledge received in this form. For Latham, knowledge of the past could not be relied upon to solve the problems of the present, including destruction of the planets ecological systems. In the final frames of Erth a blurred figure is seen in the landscape, a representative of the "brilliant streptococcus organism for which no antidote exists" (JL).
from http://www.flattimeho.org.uk/project/25/
Enjoy!
Kit
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