This is an afterword to my father’s memoir which I have just edited for forthcoming publication by eyeglass books.
I thought that the reader might be interested to know a bit more about the biographical background to this memoir, what motivated and influenced my father to write it, its relation to other books about life in the Gorbals, and finally what was at stake for me personally in editing the text.… Read the rest
What follows is from a forthcoming publication with the above title by eyeglass books which contains extracts from my lockdown diary.
Home is wherever what is to hand feels familiar and trustworthy. Unlike the Archbishop cited by Lewis Carroll, we instantly know what it is and where to find this or that . That sense of secure dwelling is often embodied in objects, which remain faithful to their location, unless some outside disruptive force intervenes.… Read the rest
In this interview Phil Cohen discusses his latest project and two linked publications from the Left wing think tank Compass.
How did this project come about?
For me the starting point in this journey goes back to the 1980’s , the Kinnock years, when having abolished the Young Socialists because it was controlled by Trotskyists, they launched an initiative called Labour listens to Youth.… Read the rest
By Phil Cohen
The text assembled here represents a thoughtful attempt to begin to find a way out of the current impasse in which progressive politics finds itself.
The collection explores the connections between the personal and political dimensions of mindfulness and how this might help us build strategies capable of winning the battle for hearts and minds in a post Brexit, post pandemic Britain.
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1. We don’t want to be heroes, even for one day
We are not heroes. We do not want to be fallen martyrs. All this war imagery makes us very uncomfortable. It distract people from the reality. We are ordinary people who have chosen to become health workers and carers. We are professionals and highly trained. All we want is to be given the tools we need to do our job properly, to look after people in a safe environments.… Read the rest
Published on line by Compass Wednesday June 24 2020
This essay looks at a range of public, personal and governmental responses to the pandemic for what it tells us about the kind of society and culture we live in. Drawing on insights from anthropology and psychoanalysis a model of risk perception is outlined and applied to understanding the forms of social solidarity which have been invoked by the government’s confused and often contradictory public health messaging.… Read the rest
There must be some way out of here
The title of this discussion might at first sight appear to be a plea for some kind of radical escapology. We are in a mess, how do we get out of it? There are currently a number of escapisms on offer on the Left. An escape into the past via nostalgic evocations of a world of working class community support which has been lost .… Read the rest
On Mindfulness [i]
We are living through a conjuncture which almost defies conjunctural analysis, where politics are taking an increasingly toxic turn and we are indeed entering uncharted waters. Against this background, the propagandists of neo-liberalism urge us to cultivate ‘resilience’ and ‘mindfulness’ as a way of seizing and surviving the present moment. Mindfulness in particular has been popularised as a kind of do-it-yourself therapy, a way of promoting well being by enabling people suffering from anxiety or depression to become more aware of internal mental states and their relation to external circumstances.… Read the rest
Today we are all too familiar with the two cultures of cartography, belonging to the worlds of science and art . Digital mapping technologies produce ever more precise and dramatic visualisations of big quantitative data sets generated by the procedural methodologies of natural and social science. The map’s power to abstract and totalise has never been greater, or more accessible.… Read the rest
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| Available from Compass | Available from Compass | Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS | Available from EYEGLASS BOOKS |  |
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