Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Abuse of language
Pleased to find the TLS (I think) picking up on the red top abuse of the word 'hero'. In red top speak a hero is someone who happens to find himself in an unpleasant situation and conducts him or herself well, or even just comes out alive. In Homer, a hero is someone who is a fighter, a fighter who is gifted (at fighting), brave and honourable. A fighter who seeks out the good fight. It was understood that heroes were apt to have poor life expectancy. This sort of hero is not accidental, rather it is a state of being, a rather different order of heroism from that advertised by the red tops. Not that their heroes are not good chaps, it is the devaluation, the impoverishment of the term that I object to. Bearing in mind that a lot of Homer's heroes were not good chaps at all. Not the sort of neighbour one would want.
And then I find in the small ads part of the NYRB, a dating agency for NYRB reading NY resident intellectuals which calls itself 'Infidelities'. Which I find irritating for a different reason. Breaking faith ought to be regarded as a bad thing. My word is my bond and all that. Death before dishonour. There is far too much of it around to be making a sort of jokey virtue of it.
And then there are the Bertolli people who give their margarine cuddly Italianate packaging and advertising. Closer inspection reveals that the stuff actually comes from Unilever, the same people who brought us Port Sunlight and Sunlight Soap. Furthermore, the primary ingredient of the margarine is water and it looks as if there is pretty much as much rape seed oil as olive oil. Rape seed oil which might well be grown in the Wirral. Not to mention whey. All in all a big con. Just the same as the corresponding product from Sainsbury's.
More satisfactory was an easy read from one Branko Milanovic about the haves and have nots. A thoroughly recommended and engaging canter through the world of income & wealth distribution by someone who, inter alia, seems to be a wow on these matters in ancient Rome. In the scheme of things were Augustus and Crassus richer than Page, Brin and Gates?
I have been reminded about the coefficient of gini. I have learned that the biggest component of inequality is inequality between countries, rather than inequality within countries, although this last is big and rising in both the UK and the US. Not healthy - and one consequence of which is claimed to be the recent crash. The rich people had managed to corner so much of the money that they did not know what to do with it. Nothing sensible left to invest it in. Nothing sensible left to spend it on. But they couldn't bear to actually part with it so they came up with the wheeze of lending it to people who couldn't afford to pay them back. The rest being history.
And despite the fact that otherwise respectable US academics - such as Rawls - do not seem to find it obnoxious that there are huge differences between countries - he makes a convincing case for the importance of these differences.
Countries which have different parts with very different levels of income are apt to fall apart. He cites the former USSR and Yugoslavia as example of this problem, while pointing out that while the US might be very unequal, it is very unequal across the board. All the states are pretty much the same, so inequality is not driving the states apart. While Europe is busily playing catch up with its poor eastern periphery and it is doubtful whether it has any stomach for another dose in the form of Turkey. Young and energetic people who live in very poor countries are going to invest a lot of effort into making it to very rich countries: bog cleaner in London better than unemployed clerk in Ubundu. So rich countries like Spain which are near poor countries are going to have problems.
# posted by Jim @ 2:05 AM 
