Unreal
Weekend freebie edition
Hello! Here’s this week’s freebie edition of More Than A Feilding which begins in the customary way with an invitation to become a paying subscriber.
I’d love to be able to give it all away, but sadly New World and the bookshop and Hammer Hardware continue to put their stuff behind a paywall, so I’m forced to follow suit. Trust you understand.
In a moment, this week's free edition, Unreal, plus a preview of other recent editions.
But first, the button.
Unreal
Posted Oct 13
There is theory, and there is practice. There is the ideal world, and there is the real world.
Come with me on a short illustrated tour. This train of thought began last Wednesday evening as I was walking down Queen St.
In the great fever of Auckland's 1980s property boom, so very many historic buildings had their facades preserved as a token gesture of heritage protection
It'll look great, they said. It'll combine the best of the old and new.
Here we see what they preserved of the Queen’s Head Tavern. What do you reckon? Were they right? Did they combine the best of old and new?
What I mostly see is a glass and steel turducken. Although I must admit I have always quite enjoyed that striking shade of aquamarine.
It has cost us billions in foregone tax, but Christopher Luxon assured us it was worth reinstating interest deductibility for landlords.
Renters will be grateful costs are not being passed on to them, he said
We're going to get downward pressure on rents, he said
Excellent! And now with interest rates easing, everything should be coming up Milhouse, right?
What do you reckon? Are we winning yet?
Get lots of exercise, be moderate in all things, follow the people in Okinawa and the hilly bits of Sardinia and other places where people aged 90 look to be more like 70, wrote this newsletter, enthusiastically embracing the Blue Zone story.
Er, not so fast, Dr Saul Newman told the world, and Jim Mora, in 2019 and again a couple of months ago, I have belatedly learned.
The record-keeping in all these regions — the basis on which these longevity claims are made —was not good, he said.
It's wild. There were 230,000 people in Japan that were alive on paper and dead in reality - 230,000. It's incredible. Greece was roughly 8000.
In fact, he said, Okinawans were among the least healthy people in Japan.
It's astounding the level of poor health and the extensive records of poor health in Okinawa.
What have I learned from this?
Clearly I ignore Jim Mora at my peril.
But I'm not entirely going to let go of the essential proposition. It's not as though the general health advice we get doesn't run strongly along the same lines of moderation, balance, exercise, and healthy food.
Ever since my heart attack I've been embracing that approach — with, of course, the glaring exception of alcohol — and it has served me well. I'm going to keep pedalling. I'm just going to backpedal a bit on the promises of near-eternal life.
He's getting more deranged every day, people say, watching Trump.
He's losing it, they say, people must surely see this?
But what if they’re looking past all that to the infantilising fascist fantasy he’s painting them?
When he tells women voters, for instance: I am your protector. I want to be your protector … You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You will no longer be in danger … it might sound empty, false, offensive to our ears; but the clear lesson of fascism is that there can be an enthusiastic audience for the fantasy of a world where nothing can come and harm you, because you will be protected by an all-powerful figure who will always put you first.
Likewise all the chest-beating talk of vengeance. (Which you just know this craven bully would outsource.)
He promises that his first day back in office will be one really violent day.
He promises to give criminals one rough hour—and I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately.
In large numbers, still, people are favouring the imaginary comforts he is offering them over the discomfort of the real world. This has always been the seduction of fascism, and in that seduction you surrender your judgement and your reasoning. You leave all that to Him.
My longtime client the newspaper man and I have been talking a lot lately about populism. The headwinds they face in his country as the populist administration begins its second term are a bit discouraging, to put it neutrally.
We have talked about how he might best rally his people and their readers in the face of that. We have talked about studies that suggest a predictable pattern to this; that populism gets its head, has its cresting wave, but then in the fullness of time as the emptiness of its promises becomes apparent, falls away. Why, it could be over in as little as… twenty years.
How do you deal with all this? How do you reason with the unreasoning?
I'm putting these questions, more than proposing answers. Although I do wonder if this from Barack Obama offers some kind of example of how to go about it. (Starting at 37 mins, just in case the link doesn’t do it)
Damn, he’s good.
I love the way he’s casting this in personal terms, in the undeniable truth of the everyday reality: you wouldn't take this lying from a coworker, you wouldn’t do business with someone who lied like this.
We all surely know this, cannot deny it, would not do otherwise.
People, please. None of what that guy is telling you is real. Please, please, do not be fooled.
