ENGINEERING UTOPIA: CHINA’S PROJECT FOR DESIGNING ‘TRUSTWORTHINESS’

Posted on December 16, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged 1984, Alibaba, autarchy, Black mirror, Botsman, censorship, china, citizen score, citizens, control, dystopia, Eggers, fiction, firewall, hypermodernisation, internet, Jonathan Margolis, Orwell, protectionism, social credit system, social media, state, trust, utopia, we, Xi Jinping, Zamyatin.

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by Justin Reynolds

Visions of a great civilisation enjoying ‘peace under heaven’ have haunted the Chinese imagination from the time of the sages to today, when President Xi Jingping’s ‘China Dream’ of a prosperous ordered nation is propagated ceaselessly by the state-controlled media.

Here hypermodernity is filtered through ancient virtues. China’s gleaming new cities, high-speed rail links and technology parks are studded with billboards urging honesty, modesty and filial piety. Its vast wired economy is screened for decadent Western influences, blocking Facebook, Google and YouTube, and magazines infatuated with celebrity gossip or ‘crude language’. This year the ‘Great Firewall of China’ was reinforced when the state banned VPN services used by millions to break through to the global web.

Now China is finetuning the ultimate technological fix for designing a virtuous society: a ‘Social Credit System’ that will use the data produced by a population of some 1.4 billion citizens in the course of their daily interactions with digital services to rank them according to ‘trustworthiness’.Continue Reading

POLITICS & CULTURE – THE AMIEL & MELBURN SEMINAR 2017

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Inter|national and tagged 7 Days, academia, access, activism, alpha male, alt-right, alternative media, Annie Kelly, anti-feminism, art, Athina Karatzogianni, Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust, Chardine Taylor-Stone, class, corruption, critique, culture, culture war, curricula, digital culture, direct action, disillusionment, economics, education, fake news, far right, fascism, feminism, feminist allies, future generations, GE17, higher education, history, holding power to account, ideology, inequality, inheritance, Jo Littler, Judies, knowledge, language, mainstream media, male psyche, marxism, media representation, meritocracy, Michael Rustin, Milo Yiannopolous, Mod, Mod women, modernity, music, neo nazi, neoliberalism, peer-pressure, politics, Politics & Culture Seminar, politics of difference, progress, progress narrative, progressive media, public education, punk, Punk women, representation, Rhian E Jones, right wing, Rosalind Delmar, Roshi Naidoo, Skinhead, Skinhead women, social exclusion, social media, social mobility, socialism, society, strike action, subcultures, talent, Teddy Girls, tenant strike, trust, universities, working class movement, young people, Zahra Dalilah.

by Gunnar Eigener and Rowan Gavin

CW: mentions misogyny, anti-feminism, neo-nazism

Earlier this month, a writer and an editor from the Radical took part in the Amiel & Melburn Trust’s annual residential seminar. The Trust’s aims are “to advance public education, learning and knowledge in all aspects of the philosophy of Marxism, the history of socialism, and the working-class movement’. This year, the topic of the seminar was ‘Politics & Culture’, and the various intertwinings and intersections thereof. What follows are thoughts and reactions about the seminar from our contributors.

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PROFIT BEFORE PUPILS — SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national, Student and tagged academies, academy, budget, chief executive, coalition, Community, comprehensive, council-run, democracy, department for education, devolved powers, education, education secretary, george osborne, gove, Green Party, independence, junior doctors, local authority, local council, local elections, lucy powell, Michael Gove, michael wilshaw, national curriculum, national union of teachers, new labour, nicky morgan, ofsted, parents, privatisation, pupils, salary, school, school selection, schools minister, sponsor, state-funded schools, student, students, teachers, Tories, trust, Vix Lowthion, whitehall.

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Wednesday was Budget Day and George Osborne set out plans for a huge shake-up of the schools system. He announced that schools in England must become academies, independent of local authorities, by 2020. It’s farewell to your old council-run comprehensive and hello to corporate sponsored academies — and no, you don’t get a say in the matter.

Along with junior doctor contracts, the majority of the public have not supported the government’s argument on academies — so the Tories have gone and imposed them anyway. Democracy, right?Continue Reading

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