This is Bound to End in Tears

[MrGongGong]

And why when we are still in the EU?

Because we are due to be ineligible for EU funding very soon
How can we plan a collaboration with multiple partners when we are almost definitely (but WHO knows?) not going to be able to participate?

[MrGongGong]

Because for several years now the UK has been frozen out of participation in EU projects. Contracts for new projects do not come to the UK and extensions of existing contracts are not renewed. We may still be in the EU, but we are no longer treated as a partner that the other countries want to have on board.

Exactly

Or to put it bluntly (as one of my offspring would say!) "don't be a dick"
if you behave like one, no-one will want to spend time with you

It's a great shame as events like last weekends "EMAS @ 40" showed the UK is at the forefront of many wonderful things.

[oddoneout]

Because we are due to be ineligible for EU funding very soon
How can we plan a collaboration with multiple partners when we are almost definitely (but WHO knows?) not going to be able to participate?

Reports in the local paper of a couple of science projects so affected made it clear than when such projects are going to takes years rather than months to complete, however much the planners may want particular UK people and expertise involved, if UK funding towards the project is in doubt then they cannot be taken on. To what extent this will affect whether such people remain in the UK remains to be seen.

[Dave2002]

Because we are due to be ineligible for EU funding very soon
How can we plan a collaboration with multiple partners when we are almost definitely (but WHO knows?) not going to be able to participate?

Do we know for sure that such collaboration with Europe or the "EU" (quotes - because not quite sure what that is, or will be, anymore) won't be possible if Brexit actually happens? I don't know, though I doubt whether it is top priority for people like Mrs M who seems more concerned about the cons than the country. I don't actually see why such cultural exchanges etc. can't be part of an agreement, and also all the (mostly) good work in education.

I agree it would be a great shame if such efforts were to be trashed completely, but politicians and not a few others may really not care.

[french frank]

I think your assumption “.. one would have hoped...” is where you are going wrong.

I was just being polite

[Dave2002]

I was just being polite

Don't worry about it.

One mght notice that "they" say they have to take notice of the masses who very possibly don't know or care about details and logic, but it may all be a ploy anyway to bolster their positions. Logic vs gut feeling .... a well known issue.

[french frank]

One mght notice that "they" say they have to take notice of the masses who very possibly don't know or care about details and logic, but it may all be a ploy anyway to bolster their positions. Logic vs gut feeling .... a well known issue.

I was being careful not to say 'the masses' or 'ordinary people': 'the public' sounds slightly less patronising .

I think psychology is very important. Being 'in denial' (about climate change, Brexit, smoking &c) probably correlates strongly with either an underlying pre-existing belief or good old-fashioned self-interest; in those cases, logic, rationalisation don't count.

[Dave2002]

I was being careful not to say 'the masses' or 'ordinary people': 'the public' sounds slightly less patronising .

I think psychology is very important. Being 'in denial' (about climate change, Brexit, smoking &c) probably correlates strongly with either an underlying pre-existing belief or good old-fashioned self-interest; in those cases, logic, rationalisation don't count.

Sorry - I'll try to remember not to use the m***** word again.

"For underlying ... belief" read ignorance. Sometimes there is a balance - there is no established truth, so one can either believe or not - but in other cases the "truth" is obvious.

[Lat-Literal]

A thought that struck me is what difficulty we have in this country (or have had in recent years) with the idea of compromise - or even understanding the concept, politically. We are one of the few countries where having to work with others is not a necessity, as in coalitions, for instance. The 2010 coalition didn't work after the Lib Dems conceded on a key policy (tuition fees) but then were only offered a referendum on AV, not PR, which the same people as were behind the EU Leave campaigns rallied to persuade to country to reject anyway - with mainly spurious arguments.

Similarly, the anti-EU groups here cannot understand that this is not between two parties: UK v EU: it's between the UK and a coalition of 27 other countries who, for better or worse, consider membership of the EU valuable enough to make concessions if they have to. To anti-EU people, this is 'bullying'.

My jaw dropped at the end of last night's shambles when the politicians had voted NOT to ask for an extension to Art. 50 but then voted to 'renegotiate' what had been made clear by the 27 was not open for negotiation. This is the behaviour of children.

I was being careful not to say 'the masses' or 'ordinary people': 'the public' sounds slightly less patronising .

I think psychology is very important. Being 'in denial' (about climate change, Brexit, smoking &c) probably correlates strongly with either an underlying pre-existing belief or good old-fashioned self-interest; in those cases, logic, rationalisation don't count.

Psychology does play a part in relation to compromise.

My mother's side of the family - large - tended to say when on holiday that they would each take it in turns to decide what to do on a day and everyone would do it. It was largely instinctive until it came to me - an only child in an immediate family of three where that approach was knocked into me persistently so that I would behave more as if I had siblings.

As an adult I've been on holiday with 30 odd people in small groups or twos and threes. It never worked in the application. The attitude I always encountered was one in which I was expected to go along with the group or the other lone individual on every day. I was well into my thirties when I realised that it was an aspect I found emotionally quite painful.

So then I started to try to apply my system.

What happened was that I did what the others wanted to do on one day and then on the next day I asked for us to do what I wanted to do. They said no but I could do it alone. Not quite comprehending that dynamic, it upset me until it happened so regularly I would often calmly test it. And that testing confirmed that this was always the way of other people.

Someway down the line, several factors led to a distancing from the people I knew and even society which I now saw them as reflecting. It meant I was doing almost everything on my own. It still disappoints me but I am more critical of what I have encountered. I'm more the only child I wasn't supposed to be but only because what might be described as sibling style gatherings revealed that people who weren't only children were more like the stereotype of an only child. And what is patently obvious to me is that people don't see it in themselves.

The politics:

What does this say politically? Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was in the centre ground from day one. I naturally assumed that as class backgrounds and other social distinctions became less relevant, people would coalesce in greater numbers there. They would recognise that it represented compromise, that compromise was good for everyone and it equated to progress.

What I found was that I had to get used to "my side" not only losing but always coming third and to be viewed generally in my positioning as indecisive and even a bit strangely independent. That is, because I had not signed up to one of the majority based "poles". When the centre ground moved towards polar positions first in coalition and then in terms of representing the EU side, I was cast adrift from it in terms of representation. There was no longer any compromiser on that level. I find that this has paralleled societal changes.

But then it gets more muddled. The PM is of one of the major parties. Her WA is - or was - the closest thing to a Brexit style compromise. Consequently, I have partially moved to a pole that is out of sync with my history to align. Other people would not necessarily regard the compromising as being there at all but rather in ongoing membership of the EU. In contrast I am seeing that position as indicated above as the polar opposite to those who are not bothered with any deal. So it can also depend on the with whoms and whyfors. To remain in EU would need more and more compromise but only with what other people want. They aren't going down my road. Hence as with holidays, I am left with no alternative but to go it alone.

[french frank]

Psychology does play a part in relation to compromise [ … ]
Subsequently as an adult I must have been on holiday with 30 odd different people in small groups or twos and threes. It never ever worked in the application. The attitude I always encountered was one in which I was expected to go along with the group or the other lone individual on every day.

But doesn't that suggest that, when part of a group, you resent doing what the group wants to do if it differs from what you want? The group will not force you to do it - because you can leave and let the ones who agree stay together. But 'compromise' may very well involve conceding to the group - unless you prefer being on your own, doing your own thing.

For me, I have this belief that as long as the 'group think' is not intolerable, something I believe to be fundamentally wrong/wicked/evil/unfair &c &c, I will go along with it. I have no wish to impose my preference on anyone else (though I may attempt to explain it). Leaving the EU goes against all my cooperative instincts - pre-existing inclinations which are applied when, say, Brexit crops up.

But the Brexiteer stance has also been described as 'anti-intellectual': mistrust of 'experts' and academics, who speak of factors that are not fully understood by non-experts; a belief in one's own inherent common sense which is prioritised over what the experts say, 'because they're usually wrong'.

But I, innately, am not anti-intellectual. Working in a university environment I know there were times when I approached other academics for advice in their fields, and they approached me (usually with rather less reward ). I even learned quite a lot from students. I can only think that that influences my readiness to accept what 'the experts' say. I know that as an 'expert' in my own field I was sometimes wrong. But that didn't mean all the experts who agreed on one issue were ALL wrong. Always.

[Lat-Literal]

But doesn't that suggest that, when part of a group, you resent doing what the group wants to do if it differs from what you want? The group will not force you to do it - because you can leave and let the ones who agree stay together. But 'compromise' may very well involve conceding to the group - unless you prefer being on your own, doing your own thing.

For me, I have this belief that as long as the 'group think' is not intolerable, something I believe to be fundamentally wrong/wicked/evil/unfair &c &c, I will go along with it. I have no wish to impose my preference on anyone else (though I may attempt to explain it). Leaving the EU goes against all my cooperative instincts - pre-existing inclinations which are applied when, say, Brexit crops up.

But the Brexiteer stance has also been described as 'anti-intellectual': mistrust of 'experts' and academics, who speak of factors that are not fully understood by non-experts; a belief in one's own inherent common sense which is prioritised over what the experts say, 'because they're usually wrong'.

But I, innately, am not anti-intellectual. Working in a university environment I know there were times when I approached other academics for advice in their fields, and they approached me (usually with rather less reward ). I even learned quite a lot from students. I can only think that that influences my readiness to accept what 'the experts' say. I know that as an 'expert' in my own field I was sometimes wrong. But that didn't mean all the experts who agreed on one issue were ALL wrong. Always.

I found that the groups of four, five and six people were not groups of equals.

Everyone appeared to think they were all equals. But there were leaders - normally two - and followers. No one thought of themselves as leaders and followers. The leaders who largely set the agendas were invariably the ones who had suggested the holidays in the first place. They would not have responded positively to similar suggestions from anyone else. By mixing in as my mother would have had it - and it didn't always come as naturally as I could make it look - I enjoyed far broader experience and many more opportunities than would have been the case without that effort. Much of what was proposed including - it seems ridiculous to say it in this day and age - foreign travel would not have so readily occurred. I would not have had the confidence. There are gains and there are losses. When people have been on planes regularly since age three, they could hardly contemplate how going anywhere at 26 could have felt like some great nervy adventure and even still can at 56. They must feel comparatively flat although they wouldn't know as they have nothing else to compare it with.

Anyhow, in the scenarios I describe:

I would say that the leaders could be depicted as dominant or parental. Again, it didn't seem like that at all. There wasn't in ordinary communication any sense of a power dialogue per se. Everyone believed they were on the same sort of level. But parents expect their children to go on holiday with them. Ultimately they decide on the destination. But there did come a point when I started to feel that I had never been a natural follower. The feeling was that I leant very, very mildly towards leadership not that it was something I craved. And I felt that in my sense of a need for a balance of rights, the one which hoped that any group would shift empathy from person to person, that I was dealing with the parentally domineering. That was not how I had at least interpreted my own relationship with my own parents. I was regarded as unusually childlike which was not entirely wrongly placed but what was actually going on in my head was that I felt I was the adult, albeit one who would not be a parent. That is, in a sea of post adolescents who would soon be actual parents and practicing on me.

Not wholly without justification, people criticise terms like "the people" and "the elites". Both are groups or at least collections of individuals. The latter is/are bigger, more powerful, selective etc and in those ways are more closely aligned to the parent symbol so far as that can be made stereotypical. It is hardly surprising that many people will side with "the people" by which they mean themselves and others as they perceive them to be. They don't want to be told what to do or forced into doing what they don't want to do because it makes them feel as if they are children. At the same time, they rarely wish to get rid of the so-called elites. They realise that they have a role. Elites think about things and take decisions so that we don't have to. The systems are in place to enable them ideally to be accountable so that they are not out simply living it up every night at what is in effect the kids' expense.

The problem is in the sense of a lack of empathy and an unprecedented selfishness. A parent who insists that the toys must be shared around can only have authority to do so when they themselves are seen to have gravitas. Key to this is the demonstrable ability of the parents to happily give way to each other. That is precisely what doesn't happen in a hard negotiating style where two parties say "I demand this" and "I refuse to budge on that". This we are told is the way of the world. It is how all business is done and indeed "managed".

It is a very real problem because it leaves little scope but for one party to just clear off and say "I'm not having this". That in turn then sends a range of seismic waves across a system that is supposedly to support fair distribution. It is less the parents in the living room and the children calm in each of their bedrooms and more one adolescent saying to another "get out of my room" and the other saying "there is no reason why I should wish to stay". Brexit is a divorce. We are constantly told this. But it is only a divorce because people decided that it should be characterised in that way. All sides. To start from a position of it being an agreement - then it has a different dynamic. "What can we give you". Answer - "no, what can we give you". You know, to make this new arrangement something that will work for all concerned. That is the equal adult way. We'll all do what you want. You will then all do what we want. And so the pattern repeats until it is seamless and natural. For without it, then all this talk of giving and sharing to the 27 or 28 - it is mere metaphor for take - and unbelievable.

[french frank]

I found that the groups of four, five and six people were not groups of equals. Everyone appeared to think they were all equals. But there were leaders - normally two - and followers. Neither thought of themselves as leaders and followers.

In many situations, natural leaders emerge. In the EU decisions are taken either unanimously, or by Qualitative Majority Voting, where the votes are allocated according to population. The practical result is that there are leaders. There are bosses. But believe me, in any organisation where there are volunteers or everyone is equal, there have to be people prepared to take decisions. The larger the group, the greater the apathy, and the greater need for someone to take the initiative and DO THINGS. Otherwise there is Natural Dither.

[Lat-Literal]

In many situations, natural leaders emerge. In the EU decisions are taken either unanimously, or by Qualitative Majority Voting, where the votes are allocated according to population. The practical result is that there are leaders. There are bosses. But believe me, in any organisation where there are volunteers or everyone is equal, there have to be people prepared to take decisions. The larger the group, the greater the apathy, and the greater need for someone to take the initiative and DO THINGS. Otherwise there is Natural Dither.

I agree.

Also, I agree with your concerns about anti-intellectualism although I do see a flaw in our stance which is to say that intellectuals are not always doers.

There is, perhaps, a distinction to be made between intellectualism and expertise. You and I both sought the advice of experts in our work. We could have high regard for them. You will know that effectiveness can require knowing who to turn to for expertise and identifying comparative remits so that each person is in the area which best suits them. That is a sort of ringfencing of strengths from mutually agreed limitations. Then there are "the experts", recently pejorative. Among other things, they might well be influenced by who is funding them. The true expert in the military or technology or a branch of language and literature is sounder. One can often make a sensible assessment purely on the grounds of an individual's tone.

You might recall that in very peculiar circumstances, a police officer described me twice as an intellectual in relation to my comments on music, sport and situation comedy. He meant well. I refused to accept it because I am not that and nor am I close. And I doubt that the topics we were discussing easily slide into the intellectual world. But I have found that word cropping up about me in a number of contexts. In this decade. Never, I think, before it. And that scares me, actually, as much as it staggers me. It scares me as a statement of where society is generally. That someone like me could even be considered in that light. What it says to me is that the standard has slipped and that there are few genuine intellectuals now.

[MrGongGong]

Do we know for sure that such collaboration with Europe or the "EU" (quotes - because not quite sure what that is, or will be, anymore) won't be possible if Brexit actually happens? I don't know, though I doubt whether it is top priority for people like Mrs M who seems more concerned about the cons than the country. I don't actually see why such cultural exchanges etc. can't be part of an agreement, and also all the (mostly) good work in education.

I agree it would be a great shame if such efforts were to be trashed completely, but politicians and not a few others may really not care.

Give it a rest
YES WE DO KNOW
Yes, some things are possible
BUT many of them are ending or not even starting
and NO Mrs May and chums don't give a f*ck about culture, education or scientific collaboration

and for the 1,000,000 time.... (nothing personal) you can't be PART of something if you don't PAY to be PART of it.

[french frank]

although I do see a flaw in our stance which is to say that intellectuals are not always doers.

Didn't say that intellectuals were doers - just the 'natural leaders' (in the sense that, faced with a particular situation, they are the ones who are prepared to take a lead when no one else shows any sign of doing anything).

Then there are "the experts", recently pejorative. Among other things, they might well be influenced by who is funding them.

This is the stance taken by the ERG. Experts and academics are "corrupt", just as the "EU" is "corrupt"; unaccountable and self-serving. Therefore their actions and predictions can't be trusted. We fall back on our own eminently sensible opinions, which are as good as anyone else's (even when we have no special experience or knowledge).

What it says to me is that the standard has slipped and that there are few genuine intellectuals now.

That sounds like low self esteem, Lat - γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know thyself. To me there are no "standards" involved. I just use it to mean people who are prepared to focus their minds on assessing, analysing, seeking more information where it's needed, and processing it, coming to thoughtful, informed conclusions which 'fit the facts'.