BEAM ME UP maSCOTT

A fizz of controversy frothes  in the public eye when Wenlock and Mandevill rise to the Olympic Macot Scene.

Following the 2012 logo fiasco that the public has become familiar with, those two creatures are the archetype of  the mould breaker, no less.

Iris, the ad shop behind the idea is constructing a forward-thinking brand that is standing head and shoulder above previous mascots.

The initial reaction was an acerbic one.  Because the animated version brings them alive, I think it's all about a digital content, a social media platform that projects them into who they were designed to be.

On a personal level, I have had difficulty accepting their concept, never mind the logo.  But, on second thought, these mascots have some kind of edge. They blend into the digital world of animation and pulse with idiosyncracies pertinent to what tomorrow is made of.

The London mascots have shed their conservative designs and I have resigned myself to the acceptance of post-modernism.

THE FRANKENSTEIN EFFECT OF OUR WRONGDOINGS

By Julian Sudre

My imagination could have stretched like Spandex and sharply snapped back with surgical precision into modern 21rst century, visualising a farrago of environmental riptides gushing their way through the outgrown misgivings of my fears. Fortunately, I am no Rip Van Winkle and what I have doubted for so long is only accentuated by being more real than ever.

The whirlpools of human greed have jolted the placid waters of our ancestors; our energy consumption has tripled since 1970 to the equivalent of almost 30 million tonnes of oil a year while energy to light homes and run household appliances has rocketed by 135 per cent in the period. The problem is not cultural but sociological.

The effects of modern life could to all intents and purposes alter our attitudes to our lifestyle and produce a considerable shift in family patterns. Such phenomenon would create a divide in natural harmony with what is normally perceived as complimentary and elementary to the healthy progress of humanity. We unconsciously ratchet up a level of unnaturalness in our life today that it has become out of keeping with a progressive society.

The continuous growth of the population alongside a spirit of competitiveness cannot sustain the pressure of markets forces on one end and the politics of nations on the other. Slowly, we have come to see that the perpetual law of the fittest is eroding our mental capacity to separate the wheat from the chaff and the resulting factor transforms a family into a bilious synthesis of fractured monstrosity. The bedeviled cadence of marriage versus divorce has swung in favour of celibacy bending our instinct to find comfort amongst not our fellowship but towards self-centred work occupations that impart the whiff of money aplenty. And whoosh comes the charge that we people double up as electrodes linked to a world of turbocharged rewards that have us gasping for more. Divorces can be magicked at a click of a button so the traditional marriage with all its consequences has lost its sanctimonious weight. The ungraciously easiness to hammer through ceremonial protocols almost obliges to be an irrelevant feature of modern society. We have invented plastic surgery to cut out the flab of time-consuming rituals that today have fallen by the wayside.

In Britain, the population should reach 70 million by 2028 according to the Office for National Statistics, more homes will be required and we are not talking about 4 bedroom houses but more likely to have one bedroom or two-bedroom flats built that will see to unmarried, put-your-nose-to-the-grindstone males and females who will be using even more energy than their parents. Of course, I would not want to paint a grim picture of the states of things to come but on a sociological level, we have been more inclined to forgo family etiquette for business priorities, discarding the importance to discern primal values in our lifestyles and thereby reducing our perspectives to minimal contentment.

I must say unless there is war or natural disaster to "reboot" mankind's peripheral visions, there will be a continual demand for more energy until we slam the the no-more option button.

But because the pace of life is far to quick, we haven't got much time to meditate and step out of the game, we get stuck inside and our direction veers a wee off everyday. We are warned at times to tweak our tack, the signals become louder in the ears of the wise but the rest ignores the fundamental philosophy of our existence. The rules are cast away and our assets, the ones we have accumulated, the ones that make us more alive, the ones that scream for modernisation are slowly destroying us. We acknowledge the dangers but spurn them offhandedly simply because we think it won't happen to us.

At least, we cannot deny we were not told; if we ate the apple , we will be the only to be blamed for and it will be too late to change anything afterwards.

World of misconceptions and globalisation

By Julian Sudre


Scientists know how to use their brains while philosophers know how to use their minds. The cold war between those two dynamics have engendered conflicts and a perpetual disparity that swings the pendulum of reason into the delphic pronouncements of rationales.

Although, the quest for the fundamental answer that humanity has comprehended and established a pattern of distinctive evolution, the latter has not been concommitant with Earth's adaption of our deeds. The whimsical attributes of the scientists have confounded the conceptions of progress and therefore philosophical questions have emerged. If scientific progress has enabled to quicken our material needs, those needs have degenerated into anthropocentric pressures that eleminate all thoughts of altruism. The antithesis between compassion and egocentric-cum technology has precipitated an affront of cataclysmic results. Darwinism, to a certain degree, propounds that the mutation of our species by a natural cycle injects continuity in the linear time. Nevertheless the evolution of species by natural selection is rendered limited if our philosophy of captivating the essence of Nature's verity is diminished.

The insatiable need to develop most of the Earth has caused an ecological crisis, human overpopulation and extinctions of many non-human species. On an environmental level, we have followed the route of Machiavelli who was heard to say "It is much safer to be feared than loved." Machiavelli not only described a world but created one and consequently we have been inspired by it and contructed our political, social and economic conceptions.
Francis of Assisi spoke of brother Sun, sister Moon, brother Wolf; and of water, fire, trees and people as brothers and sisters as well.
Christianity has been critical of anthropocentrism as humanity is placing its own desires ahead of the teaching of Christ which leads to rampant selfishness. From a Buddhism perspective, the very core of globalisation and inherent progress is the cause of craving. Craving is the root cause of suffering. It could be said, mankind has absorbed an unconscious derivative of addictions that only a disaster could annihilate.
Our Western Judaeo-Christian civilization has been the result of many bifurcations we have determined. We have gone for superlative schemes to empower ourselves and our nations. The great Spanish Philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasser pointed out: "I am myself and my circumstances." Therefore we have found comfort in a certain dissociation from Nature by torturing her in order to extract from her what we believe to be the truth. We have conformed to Bacon's philosophy who was a fervent believer in absolute truth.
We are still under the spell of Galileo and Newton and Descartes. We have avoided Goethean science and Picot and Francis as science is the supreme manifestation of reason and reason is the supreme attribute of the human being.

Symptoms of narcissism and depression appear to be the major illnesses of our actions. But deep down, I daresay, the reductionist science and neo-liberal globalisation have metamorphosed our reality into schizophrenic confusion of where we are and what we have achieved. The parameters of understanding the laws of cause and effects have been cast aside, as mankind basks in complacency and believes that it knows a lot but understands very little.

The ontological argument and Pantheism should be harmonised in the interest of re-creating communities and fraternities and eradicate globalisation for localisation. We perhaps should accept more our intuition and spirituality to heal the wounds of the Earth. As the Earth is the reflect of our soul, we would relish the oneness and collective consciousness of the universe, tame our schizophrenia, and soothe the pains of ignorance we have absorbed.

We are witnessing the systematic karma of our modern Pac-man society and the disintegration of spiritual advancement. Once, we will get to comprehend that linear time is a misconception that cannot be boxed into another dimension and that we have delineated our successes only on a material level, the environmental, political and social problems alongside our own existence will mend apace.