The Critical Commentator

                                      Tory Voters …Nearly half of Tory voters are over 65 and 83 per cent are over 45, according to a report that Onward released this week. Only one in five women aged between 18 and 24 would even consider voting Tory, and just eight per cent would do so if an election were held today. What was once One Nation is becoming One Generation. …As the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said this week, people used to think about voting Conservative when they got their first pay cheque – they now do so when they get their winter fuel allowance. The reasons for the growing age gap are complex. Falling home ownership and low levels of disposable income mean younger generations are less indebted to capitalism than their elders. Millennials’ economic views have been forged by financial crisis not financial prosperity. On social issues, younger people are well to the left of any generation before them, putting them at odds with older generations’ belief in la

                                              Photography Dynamic Suprematism (Supremus) ,  Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] The photograph operates as an uncritical witness to the reality that exists in front of it. Likewise, the unpeopled educational spaces in the photographic works exist as dispassionate but quietly articulate witnesses to the various forms of life and consciousness that travel through them. (Bernice Donszelmann and Tim Renshaw, handout at Royal Academy photographic exhibition)                                                        What? * Photography is the archaeology and identification of what is invisible, in the inner being of the onlooker. It is the notation of the memory for the memory, which passes through the eye of the photographer and the viewpoint of the observer. It is the infinite point of intersection of the visible and invisible, of what can be expressed and that which is beyond words. (Tiziano Scar

                                                                                                                    Modern Thinking Phaeton ,   William Hilton (1786-1839) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-SA] Svend Brinkmann, professor of psychology and qualitative methods at Aalborg University, Denmark, suggests, in his book Stand Firm , you throw away the self-improvement books, embrace negativity and doubt and stand firm against the tyranny of positivity. The obsession with introspection and self-analysis risks stress, depression and, at worst, turns us into mini psychopaths.                                                                                                              (The Times, 2019)    Hurrah! Common sense rules in one small part of the world                                                  Art     A 16-year-old commented on the behaviour of the crowd milling around a painting of Picasso at the New York Museum of Modern Art. “Why ta

                                                 USA As the rising young star of the Democrat party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is known for her adept use of social media, sending off impassioned tweets to her 3.9 million followers. Always Welcome , Laura Theresa Epps Alma-Tadema (1852-1909) Photo Credit: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum [CC BY-NC-ND] However, she is scaling back her use of all social media, including giving up Facebook, calling it a public health risk that can lead to “increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction, escapism”. …She added that she was confining her use of social media to the working week. …Ms Ocasio-Cortez appears to be following a decision taken by many young users. Roughly 50 per cent of US teenagers now say they use Facebook; in 2015 it was 71 percent, Pew Research Center found. Brian Acton, 47, the co-founder of Whatsapp who sold his company to Facebook in 2014, and Steve Wozniak, 68, Apple’s co-founder, also ditche

                                                  NHS British health spending, at present 9.9% of G.D.P., should rise to match the G7 average of 11.3%. This would mean an increase of £20.8 billion in annual government spending on top of the £120 billion a year NHS Budget. (The Times, 2017) If you want a top-quality Health Service you have to pay for it. Why not put taxes up on those who can afford to pay more?                                                   Books The Science of Fate: Why Your Future Is More Predictable Than You Think – Hannah Critchlow. A Reader Albert Joseph Moore (1841-1893) Photo Credit: Manchester Art Gallery [CC BY-NC-ND] Our positive-thinking, self-willing, dream-dreaming society has apparently got it all wrong. We are “sold the concept of unlimited agency and capability”, says the neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow, told we can be whoever we want to be, if we just try hard enough. The reality, she believes, is cruelly different. Far fro

                                          Generation Z Proserpine , Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND] …If excruciating honesty is the new zeitgeist, it should not surprise us. It is the distinguishing characteristic of the next generation. This is generation Z (born between the mid-90s and the early 2000s) and younger millennials – I’d say the cut-off is around 28. Among their distinguishing features, this generation are far more open in the way they talk about themselves… But generation Z are more honest about what people do when they go online and are happy to admit it. Yes, they are there for the praise. Yes, they are addicted. Yes, they would be lonely without it. You sense the new attitude is almost a matter of survival. For older people, social media is a place where you arrange to see your friends. For generation Z, it is seeing your friends. It is where they live. They have had to make it fit for humans. So, while they post curat

Social Media Facebook has promised to use artificial intelligence to stop suggesting dead friends are invited to parties. Its “emotionally intelligent” AI is part of a rash of changes to how the social network handles “memorialised” accounts – pages kept in the owner’s memory. Memorialisation of accounts allows images, videos and posts to be kept online, and provides a focal point for friends and relatives to share memories. But the feature has caused its fair share of pain: since the account is treated like any other Facebook user, it is used for the same algorithmic features too. That means users have been sent recommendations to invite dead relatives to parties, suggestions to wish them a happy birthday, and more. …More recently, Facebook lost a three-year court battle over access to the private messages of a 15-year old girl who had been killed by a train at a Berlin station in 2012. Her mother wanted to see her messages to find out whether she was being bullied when

                                 Local Government                                From Bristol City Council’s ‘One City Plan.’ Brown and Blue , Alan Michael Green (1932-2003) Photo Credit: Senate House, University of London [CC BY-NC-SA] The lifeblood of Bristol is connectivity. Our connectivity is considered the template for contemporary city living. Whether our people connect in person or in virtual spaces whether they connect in their physical communities or their global communities, our city infrastructure helps bring them together. Bristol connectivity means multimodal connectivity – we designed our infrastructure around the human condition. Pretentious nonsense.       * Donald Adey, a Cambridgeshire councillor, claims more than £14,000 a year in allowances despite living more than 400 miles away in Fife. However, “Donald has a serious rival. Tory Aberdeen city councillor Brett Hunt who supposedly represents the Bridge of Don ward, has been dubbed locally

                                         Letters on Death The Death of Burd Ellen ,   John Faed (1819-1902) Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]  Sir, Miriam Margolyes is right: there is a “conspiracy of silence”, and Britons struggle to talk about death and dying (“Harry Potter actress confronts fear of death”, Mar 11). However, there is also the growing subterfuge of the euphemisms “passed” and “passed away”. Sadly, people do die, it’s a fact; pass it on. (Dr Jim McDermott, Whitwick, Leics, The Times , 13.3.2019) Sir, I recommend attending a death café, where all matters pertaining to death and dying are discussed in an open-hearted and lively manner and without euphemisms. (Ceri Wolfe, Witchampton, Dorset, The Times, 14.3.2019) Wine Consumption The Vintage in the Claret Vineyards in the South of France ,  Thomas Uwins (1782-1857) Photo Credit:Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]  I see (Report, 28 March) that the French are upset by the suggestion they shoul