Monday 29 September 2014

History has shown us that the working class have little to gain from far right groups like UKIP

The unfortunate electoral success of the far right over the past year ought to be a wake up call. It should alert anyone who has yet to notice that the world is not content.

One of the beneficiaries of this discontent are UKIP. They have found fertile ground for their anti-immigrant, anti-government, right-wing populism in the South East of England and now look to test the soil in the North.

Those to whom they will look for new support are the working class who make up the traditional base of the Labour Party's support. They will look to these people in hope that their disillusionment with the Labour movement, and its many deals done with and within a distant Westminster establishment, not always in the worker's best interest, will be enough for them to supplant the Labour Party in working class affections (The Guardian, 2014).

Their play seems simple enough. Lower taxes, protection of the NHS, curbs on immigration and a restoration of national pride - out from under the European Union (Mason, 2014).

The trouble is that these are vague, and often bad, promises. The interests of the working class are not served by a society restructured for the benefit of only a capitalistic few, no matter how the policies leading to it are dressed up in a simplistic and emotional pitch. Cutting taxes is being pitched to the working class, but benefits only the wealthy. The poorest are most likely to be deeply disadvantaged by resultant public service cuts, and to find the least recompense from the market.

The comedy in the promise is that it's not as if this is the first time these kinds of promises have been made, to the working class by the far right, and its not as if they haven't failed before. Spectacularly.

Fascism

The fascist parties that emerged following the Great War made many of the same promises that the far right still turns to today. The main difference is that these parties believed in a state dictatorship that would oversee a populist nationalist movement - one that would restore national pride and advance the national interest, which usually led down violent and racist paths.

Fascism, on top of its fundamentally conservative aims - preservation of tradition, moralism and social status-quo from any sort of change - carried corporatist ideology. They sought to manage society, in a fundamentally totalitarian fashion, through state affiliated trade unions, or entire sectors of the economy through massive private corporations.

The policies of Mussolini's Partito Nazionale Fascista in Italy saw the most ready applications of those beliefs, though other countries, such as Spain where Franco's regime and the Falange party ruled, saw fascism flourish as well.

Mussolini tried to achieve full employments through state guilds, or national syndicates, that enlisted all men, and even banned women from the workplace - confining them to a 'traditional place' in the home as wives and mothers. His efforts however produced few results.

More prominent were the social attitudes of fascists, that drove militaristic language and attitudes into civil society. Mussolini in particular, in his The Doctrine of Fascism, said that:
"Far from crushing the individual, the Fascist State multiplies his energies, just as in a regiment a soldier is not diminished but multiplied by the number of his fellow soldiers."
Fascism in Spain was also heavily infused with militaristic nationalism from the beginning. Franco's Regime began as a military coup against Spain's Republican government, its Republic constitution and the political left that supported it. It sought to regiment society in an authoritarian order, along the lines of conservative values - tradition, hierarchical order and morality.

Though Franco's system of fascism was altered in subtle ways from the Italian model, with a greater emphasis on national moralism - Spanish Catholicism - it retained most of the common elements. A patriarchal society, deeply controlling, with dictatorships that protected the landed classes and the wealthy, and their institutions, by holding the population in an iron-handed grip.

The people were controlled by the state, in favour of those with vested interests and good connections, with the benefits to the people being peripheral or dependent upon a complete denigration of individual choice and an acceptance of, and compliance with, authoritarian rule.

Neoliberalism

The new era of far right movements, represented by political parties such as UKIP, have learned the lessons of fascism's failure. But, they have also learned the lessons of English classical liberalism and neoliberalism, and of American libertarianism and objectivism.

It is no longer necessary to control the state, and thence society, to protect the interests of the upper classes. The language of militarism has been replaced by the language of the boardroom and the stock market floor. The powerful corporations no longer find themselves beneath the authority of states (Orr, 2013).

Protection of the interests of the upper classes today takes place in a world run by money and financial investments, where most of the vested interests find any kind of government at all to be an inconvenience. So begins the era of small government and minimal taxes.

Talk of freedoms is twisted to fit the narratives of the privileged elite, who became so thanks to the protections of 'English liberty' - the protection of private property and the freedom of business and financial transactions. The state, home to the public institutions that restrict and regulate the interests of the elite, becomes a hindrance.

But even a minimal state still requires democracy, with voters on your side, and the trouble for the 1% is that there are just so few of them. In their search for populist narratives to supported a conservative political establishment that is favourable to the interests of elites, the old far right overtones seem to have been revived.

Historically, the far right of old either made an autocratic appeal to the army and suspended democracy; or it made a popular appeal to the people - the poorer, more numerous, and more ignorant, the better - on simple emotive terms. It appealed to religion, to nation, to duty.

The new front of the far right seem to have found for themselves a new role within that neoliberal, economic conservative, pro-business, anti-state era. They are wedding the neoliberal economics of globalised corporate capitalism, with the politics of nationalism, traditionalism and moralism that underwrote the old far right - in a way that has been so effective in the United States.

Controlling the state has become bypassing and minimalising it - even maiming it along the way to keep it quiet and ineffective as a token veil of democracy that is being otherwise shredded in favour of elitism.

Promises

UKIP, as the newest voice of the far right in the Britain, makes all the same appeals as the far right groups of the past. It appeals to popular sentiments, promising national revivals and returns to traditional values, while wielding a language of divisive nationalism - combined now with profitable capitalism.

But those promises, when made by the far right before, have not been kept, and have often been sought along those paths at a great price. The lie of nationalism has divided workers into nations, and then divided them again, against themselves, into cynical ideologically named groups like 'strivers and skivers', of hardworking citizens and welfare cheats.

It is to be hoped that UKIP's brand of far right populism finds itself far removed from the dark days of fascism. But their own brand of anti-Europe, anti-government, anti-immigrant, low tax, pro-business and National revivalist politics, bearing all the hallmarks of the far right of old, deeply conservative and deeply reactionary, carries plenty of causes for concern.

The far right of today may not want to control society by controlling the state any longer, but their attempts to popularly undermine the state does no favours to the working classes. The state is not necessarily in itself a good thing, but its replacement as an establishment force by a capitalist market dominated and controlled by the interests of massive corporations and a 1% of wealthy elites is hardly an improvement.

More privatisation, with corporations given even more of a free hand, together with being bound within a narrow society shaped by narrow perceptions of otherness, does not give the impression of either freedom or prosperity. Neither laissez-faire capitalism, nor far right nationalism, have ever offered the working class something without taking more for a powerful elite. There seems to be no reason to believe that has changed.

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References:
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+ The Guardian's 'The Guardian view on Ukip conference: Nigel Farage’s phoney flutter'; 26 September 2014.

+ Rowena Mason's 'Ukip vows to slash immigration and cut taxes in pitch for blue-collar vote'; in The Guardian; 29 September 2014.

+ Deborah Orr's 'Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom'; in The Guardian; 8 June 2013.

For more information about Fascism and the historical far right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism

Monday 22 September 2014

Four years, two hundred articles, and there are still reasons for hope

This is the two hundredth weekly post on this blog. Over the last four years we have covered everything from the Scottish independence referendum, to the Hacking Scandal, to the Chilean Winter student protests and the first free elections in Tunisia since 1956.

The purpose of this blog, from the beginning, has been to observe politics, society and authority; to scrutinise them and attempt to find moderate solutions to our contemporary anxieties. This has meant searching out the motivations behind political and social movements, identifying ideological themes, exposing them and analysing them.

At times that has been a gruesome task. The past year, in particular, has seen the world take a significant turn for the darker. War has broken out once more in some parts of the world, like Iraq, where the West had believed that peace had been achieved.

In other places, war has broken a long peace. Ukraine has been pulled apart by war after protests against the government led to a severe split in the country, between the pro-European and the pro-Russian elements.

Furthermore, the world has yet to break out of the economic crisis that began in 2008, and continues to be affected by how governments have responded - especially the, Conservative ideology influenced, economic orthodoxy of public sector cuts.

The cutbacks and the hard times associated with them are not unconnected to the rise of far right populism in Europe, having often being the breeding ground for it in the past. Right wing groups have made a significant impact, gaining political representation in a number of countries, including the UK and France, and it has caused concern to many.

But in amongst these depressing events, over the past four years there have been reasons for hope.

Even while voting turnouts have dropped, public engagement with politics has been high. Progressive protesters of all kinds have taken to the streets to campaign for everything from the right to education, to the protection of vital public services like healthcare, pensions and welfare from ideologically driven public sector cuts, to the occupy protests that demanded a more equal society, free from exploitation.

The long struggle for equality of civil rights also continues. Awareness of feminism is at a new high. Rape culture and everyday sexism are all now well known issues, and people are standing up against them. The rights of gay people to civil equality is being taken seriously around the world, and beginning to bear fruit - the first steps of which has been gay marriage.

Rising awareness and greater possibilities of being better informed and better connected than ever before promise us that a new era of radical reformism is only just around the corner. Hypocrisies, contradictions and corruption are being exposed. People are speaking out, openly, about the need to pursue civil liberties, social justice and a sustainable society, and they are getting together to go out and campaign for them.

After four years, and two hundred weekly articles - posted every Monday - of sifting through corruption, hidden agendas and political double-speak, I can still see hope. There are lights sparking everywhere that, just maybe, can illumine the way forward. Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you back here again next Monday.

Friday 19 September 2014

What now for Scotland, and for Britain?

The votes are counted and Scotland will not be independent. That result will not, however, change much about the situation that the UK finds itself in.

There are 45% of the people of Scotland who wish for the country to break away. Nowhere did less than a third of voters choose independence. Those are not insignificant numbers. Furthermore, even a no vote comes with the promise of some additional autonomy.

For the Unionists, all they have won is a delay until the question is asked again. But, for supporters of the Union, there was really no way, as it presently stands, they were ever going to able to revel in a victory - shy of achieving a comprehensive 90% or more rejection of independence.

Even with a no vote, the autonomy of the provinces will increase, and continue to do so in a lopsided fashion - something bound to agitate those who see the situation to be unfair upon English voters. Westminster will, likely as not, continue to be despised as a distant and out of touch central government.

Scotland is still divided, still drifting away, still retaining its autonomy and independence remains popular. If it comes to vote again, and economic conditions are not so dire as to give Unionists such ammunition for a negative campaign, it is possible that independence could just scrape through.

The rest of Britain could also likely follow the Scottish path to greater regional autonomy and more federalisation, rather than centralisation. The close no vote could well act as a positive spur for Britain to finally claw its way towards modern institutions; towards decentralised, federal government with more power sent to the provinces and local government.

Or, the public will lose interest now that change has been prevented, and Westminster, responding with victorious flag-waving patriotism, will take the no vote to be an opportunity to change nothing at all. It is to be hoped, however, that this referendum will prove a turning point.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'Scotland Decides: Results'.

+ James Landale's 'Scottish Independence: What happens after the decision?'; on the BBC; 18 September 2014.

+ Nick Robinson's 'The people have spoken. But it's not over'; on the BBC; 19 September 2014.

+ Andrew Black's 'Scotland votes 'No': What happens now?'; on the BBC; 19 September 2014.

+ BBC's 'David Cameron sets out UK-wide changes 'to build better future''; 19 September 2014.

+ Rafael Behr's 'Nine things the indyref campaign has taught us'; in The Guardian; 18 September 2014.

+ Martin Kettle's 'Scotland votes no: the union has survived, but the questions for the left are profound'; in The Guardian; 19 September 2014.

Monday 15 September 2014

Scottish independence is a difficult question, but there are answers to be found

As the vote on Scottish Independence draws near, the people of Scotland are being faced with difficult choices. They are being asked to decide in favour of independence and its attached risks, or to reject it for some alternative, lesser, additional freedoms within the Union - held out as a counter offer by the Conservative Party, that Scotland has little reason to trust, having been burned before (Robinson, 2014).

Scotland, on the one hand, is being lectured on the dangers of gambling financially on independence. On the other, it is being given demonstrations of unity - like those happening this evening in London (Nelson, 2014) and the far more controversial Orange Order march on Edinburgh over the weekend (Brooks & Carrell, 2014) - in which they are regaled with stories of sacrifice and bonds of tradition, all calling for a renewal of British patriotism rather than choosing to embrace Scottish nationalism.

Any way it turns, Scotland is being warned that it can't have everything.

Scotland faces difficulties with Britain, primarily over money. While First Minister Alex Salmond has repeatedly expressed a willingness to work with Britain, in a spirit of openness and cooperation even after independence, these overtures have repeatedly been met with negativity.

What currency will they use? Westminster makes the pound sound unlikely. Who pays for what part of the national debt? Westminster will want Scotland to take its share. What about the North Sea oil? Westminster will want a cut. What about the Trident nuclear defence program? Westminster thinks it too expensive to remove from Scottish soil. None of these are simple matters to address (Traynor et al, 2014).

Salmond has also openly stated that he wants Scotland to take a seat within the European Union. Yet it faces difficulties with the EU, as member states do not want to offer any encouragement to independence movements in their own countries. This is a particularly thorny issue at present for Spain, where their has been agitation in the Catalan country for independence (Burgen, 2014).

Citizens of other European states have even moved to offer warnings against separatism. Some certainly feel that the 'velvet divorce', the peaceful disentanglement of the Czech and Slovak republics from Czechoslovakia, might have been a mistake (Seifter, 2014). The argument goes that separation resulted in a problematic loss of identity, prestige and negotiating power on the world stage.

All of these arguments against independence seem to come as, either, careful pragmatisms - averse to any sort of risk - or as a warning against upsetting another nation's interests.

The financial situation is clearly a challenge, but one that can be overcome. By taking it on, there is a possibility of reshaping those finances around provincial priorities rather than trying to eke them out from within those of a separate set of provinces, with their own problems and priorities (Jenkins, 2014).

The entry into Europe is also far from an insurmountable problem, and one that is known from the beginning to be a political creation. It is a conflict of interest with other EU member states, that stand to lose prestige if independence movements within their own borders flourish, that stands between Scotland and a fast-tracked entry into the European fold.

Even the regrets of some over the Czechoslovakian split are based on outcomes that are not systemic to small nation-states, nor the products particularly of separatism. Nationalisms, extremisms, fascisms, and the flawed and simplistic politics of identity; all of these things are a product of difficult times endured by individuals with little support and little hope, in many countries, not just of Europe, but of the whole world.

The question, then, comes down to the matter of difference between union and independence. The primary differences for Scotland, between autonomous government within the Union and sovereign government with independence, will be control over their own economy, and a separation and distancing of the identity Scottish, from the identity British.

With independence they will have a government closer to the people affected by its decisions (5 million people, rather than 60 million), and potentially, in federation with Europe, solidarity with an entire continent rather than just an island. With continued union, there is status quo - security offered by Westminster, and an extension to autonomy.

The ideal of independence is self-determination. That we should be ruled by ourselves alone, and not from some distant palace. The question always comes down to where you draw the line. At 5 million people with a common language and history? At 60 million people with a language or two in common and an intertwined history?

The pragmatic talk against independence has been warnings of dire economic risks, and denouncements of petty nationalism. But it all seems so very unnecessary. It is reasonable that different regions have different needs, and divided can better debate their own, address them and represent them. But that division does not have to be about severing connections and building up walls, and closing borders, between peoples.

Independence can  be about moving the powers over local and provincial lives to the localities and the provinces, and of engaging those localities more directly with federal organisations of a much larger scale - for example, with the EU. A much more local and personal government, involving its people and connecting them with a much wider community. The best of both worlds.

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References:
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+ Nick Robinson's 'Scotland - Vote No and get something better?'; on the BBC; 8 September 2014.

+ Fraser Nelson's 'UK #unity2014 rally announced: Trafalgar Square, 6pm on Monday'; in The Spectator; 12 September 2014.

+ Libby Brooks & Severin Carrell's 'Orange Order anti-independence march a 'show of pro-union strength''; in The Guardian; 13 September 2014.

+ Ian Traynor, Katie Allen, Tom Clark, Claire Phipps, Terry Macalister, Robert Booth & Ewen MacAskill's 'If Scotland votes for independence: the key questions answered'; in The Guardian; 9 September 2014.

+ Stephen Burgen's 'Catalans to demonstrate and demand right to hold referendum'; in The Guardian; 11 September 2014.

+ Pavel Seifter's 'Czechs and Slovaks were better together'; in The Guardian; 9 September 2014.

+ Simon Jenkins' 'Scottish independence: A yes vote will produce a leaner, meaner Scotland'; in The Guardian; 4 September 2014.

Monday 8 September 2014

Principle, compromise and the politics of the status quo

If there is anything that any political establishment does not like, it is an unflinching unwillingness to compromise. If you won't deal with the establishment and its priorities, you will find yourself frozen out to the fringes.

Considering the fact that politics demands so much of those who take part - expecting them to leave idealism at the door - it isn't too much of a surprise that people's interest in the political arena drifts away. Nor that others encourage people to walk away (Brand, 2013).

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are only the most well known to have been faced with this difficult dilemma.

Clegg and the Lib Dems, by choosing a tawdry compromise - compromise itself being a virtue, not a vice, when attempting to achieve all of the best things without any of the worst - and accepting a coalition with the Conservatives, made a pragmatic choice: to get things done, within the system presently in place, and risk the ire of their slighted support on the left. That choice has so far only burned them.

In 2010, with a potential coalition looming, more than one comparison was made between Clegg's situation and that of the former Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.

Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister in the 1920s and 30s, chose to defy his party and form a multi-party national government to deal with the Great Depression - following the stock market crash of 1929. MacDonald and Labour found that, restricted as they were in their views to a classical economic approach and balanced budgets, they were unable to respond to the crisis.

MacDonald would not listen to the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, who suggested that the country aught to engage in deficit spending - using the cheap credit available to nation-states - in order to cover financial commitments and stimulate a recovery. As unemployment rose drastically the Labour Party split, unable to resolve their differences.

The King encouraged MacDonald to form a National Government - a coalition between all three major parties, in the national interest - to manage the crisis. By forming a government with the Conservatives, however, MacDonald was labelled a traitor and expelled from the Labour Party.

MacDonald paid the price in infamy for making practical compromises with the establishment, in order to achieve his aims. Other have instead paid a price for refusing to compromise their principles.

Louis-Joseph Papineau was the Speaker of the Assembly for Lower Canada, the French-speaking predecessor to the French-Canadian province of Quebec. He would not deal with the British Empire's unelected, and unaccountable, colonial governors, who he felt were allowed to run rampant and ruled through their Chateau Clique.

Papineau was amongst the leaders of Parti canadien, and the founders of its successor Parti patriote, combining Canadians of many backgrounds form French and Irish, to English. He was opposed to British commercial exploitation of Canada and Canadians, led boycotts against British goods and campaigned for responsible government in Canada - government and economic policy accountable to the people.

His resistance ultimately led to open rebellion, which he had opposed at the Assemblée des six-comtés when other had spoken of revolution. Despite not taking part in the rebellion, his arrest was nonetheless ordered, and was forced to flee into exile. By the time his name was cleared, and he was able to return, the country had already changed drastically. The Canadian provinces had been unified, as part of attempts to assimilate the French-speaking population, and the issues of the day had moved on.

Carlo Cattaneo was another who found himself frozen out. Cattaneo - a writer, as well as founder and editor of Il Poletecnico, a journal committed to the positive sciences, to interdisciplinary work and to practical applications - was a federalist and republican in 19th century Italy.

Cattaneo supported the Italian states in their fight for an unified Italy, against the various interfering outside forces. However, when the campaign was brought in line with the ambitions of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Piedmont-Sardinia to become King of Italy, Cattaneo would not go against his federalist and republican principles, by supporting a monarchy, and so withdrew.

By doing so he maintained his principles, but was not involved directly in the shaping of the new Italy. The game of politics does not always, however, reward you any better for trying to work within the bounds of the system than working outside of them.

Millicent Fawcett, leader of the Suffragists, discovered this in her long campaign for women's right to vote. Her long association with the Liberal Party, even with adamant support from many of its most learned members and thinkers, did not manage to advance her cause.

Fawcett, and her Liberal MP husband, were considered to be Radicals and supporters of individualism, trade unionism and other liberal causes, and were active in the Liberal Party. With her husband's death she withdrew for a while, before returning to public life in the role of the leader of the NUWSS (National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies).

Despite her personal connections to the Liberal Party, the Liberals persistently avoided dealing with the issue of women's suffrage. Much as the Liberals managed to drive away the Trade Unions by failing to address the causes close to them, they drove away Fawcett's Suffragists by failing to listen and act.

She ultimately resorted to switching their support to the Labour Party, in protest at having campaigned for and supported a party, within the system, and not received their wishes for reform in return. While ultimately successful, it took extraordinary circumstances for the establishment to listen, let alone to grant reform, even where it was sensible, just and supported by members of the establishment itself.

In the face of reason and progress being stifled in the defence of a status quo that crudely bundles progress together with extremist forms of change - from the chaotic, to the militant, to the reactionary, the fascist, and the totalitarian - is it really any wonder that people are disaffected by politics?

Is it much of a wonder that they feel voting to be only an endorsement of a broken and corrupt system (Brand, 2013), and that they promote resistance to it?

Political systems need to be adapted to end these kinds of crude resistance to reason and progress. There have to be a better ways of resisting tyranny than to stifle campaigns for social justice and social welfare. If, within our present political systems, we cannot move forward and make our world better, then our next step has to be reform - lest our brightest minds and best ideas are suppressed in the name of an institutional mediocrity.

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References:
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+ Russell Brand's 'Russell Brand: we deserve more from our democratic system'; in The Guardian; 5 November 2013.

+ Tom Clark's 'Nick Clegg and the ghost of Ramsay MacDonald'; in The Guardian; 9 May 2010.

+ Will Straw's 'Lib-Con coalition? Only if Clegg does a Ramsay Mac'; on Left Foot Forward; 26 April 2010.

Monday 1 September 2014

Doctor Who is showing us how Enlightenment and Romance are intertwined

With the advent of the 'no flirting' with the companions era of Doctor Who, the character of Clara is being forced to adopt a new role alongside the Doctor (Guardian, 2014).

In just two episodes, Clara's new role is already looking to be multi-faceted. Friend. Confidant. Carer. Counsellor. Human Liaison. Ethics Advisor. Teacher. Not just a companion. All of these new roles give us some clues about the nature of this new Doctor, too.

As Clara typifies the role of the Romantics, so the Doctor is playing the role of a product of the Enlightenment. Emotional intelligence, compassion and a caring connection to life, versus rational intelligence, cold and practical. However, Doctor Who has also shown us subversions of that same notion. By breaking these characters out of those moulds, the idea that these characteristics belong to some mutually exclusive personality 'types' is shown to be flawed.

When the Doctor's connections with his companions are loosened, he appears to be less human. By removing love and romance, by making him colder, more calculating and detached, he is loosed from what are seen as the quintessential human preoccupations. That is, emotional attachment and compassion.

He becomes more Gallifreyan, more of a Time Lord - his manner, his logic and fascinations become colder, less caring, and less romantic. He comes to embody all of the most deeply embraced stereotypes of an enlightenment thinker. Those stereotypes are, however, as flawed as their opposite; that of the warm, passionate romantic, embracing nature rather than devising machinery to control it.

It is not necessary to think of these characteristics - cold, romantic, practical or compassionate - as part of polarised and mutually exclusive personality types. In fact, Doctor Who has gone out of its way to remind us that it is not one or the other, but rather both working together in unison that makes us well rounded people.

The Doctor has been seen trying to teach an appreciation of beauty to a Dalek, and a love for Roman Philosophy and a capacity for logical thinking. We have seen before in Doctor Who that the Doctor's romantic nature, and his rational nature, all as one whole, have been what has set the Doctor aside from his own people. He cares. As a constant reminder of this, and its importance, he travels with companions who care.

The Doctor and Clara - with dinosaurs in Victorian London, a clockwork man with dreams of the promised land, and Daleks with thoughts of beauty - remind us that the Romantic-Enlightenment divide is false. It is necessary to have all of these characteristics in order to be well rounded. Rationality cannot overlook emotion as a factor, an important factor. Neither can Romanticism overlook the importance of understanding how the world works, even as we appreciate and connect with it.

We need tangible reminders of the impact of actions on living beings, to stop ourselves from drifting out of touch with the world. We need to avoid distancing ourselves from the world behind a wall of technology and pragmatic practical mechanical thinking. Likewise, we need to be able to understand the practical mechanics of the world if we are to appreciate it fully. Clara and the Doctor's new dynamic is subverting the old notions, and showing us just how much emotion and rationality depend upon one another.

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References:
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+ The Guardian's 'Doctor Who: Peter Capaldi promises 'no flirting' with sidekick in new series'; 27 July 2014.

+ Steven Moffat's 'Doctor Who: Deep Breath'; from Doctor Who Series 8; on the BBC; 23 August 2014.

+ Steven Moffat's 'Doctor Who: Into the Dalek'; from Doctor Who Series 8; on the BBC; 30 August 2014.