Pascal's chair and the General Election

"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he is unable to sit quietly in his room," wrote Pascal.
  

I imagine it's pretty hard to sit quietly in your room if you live in Gaza, or any of the troubled areas of the world. (i.e. much of it.)

 Did he mean if we sit on our bums, the sum of unhappiness in the world will decline? Is this the ultimate escapism, the depths of irresponsible selfishness, the ultimate political quietism?

I think it needn't be. Eliot said we are "distracted from distraction by distraction." I offer you, good people of the jury, Facebook and Twitter. Whatever is good about them (much, for many) they are also an easily-available seductions into distraction, an invitation to put aside consistent application and reflection, an opportunity for a short snarl, a nasty but brief verbal attack. I think they tend to make us sit unquietly in our rooms, or on a train staring into our phones.

I take Pascal to mean that calm thought, whether it's the longitudinal pursuit of reason and analysis, or the presentmomentness of meditation, or reflective states of creativity, or some kinds of prayer - calm thought is the only way to develop the wholeness of an integrated personality, of someone who may at least have the potential for happiness in him/herself, and therefore of creating happiness in others. 

Would you agree that happiness, like unhappiness, can be be infectious?

(You may, like me, feel that happiness - joy, perhaps - is a spontaneous sort of thing, whereas contentment is a more lasting state of being.  In which case, please substitute "discontent" for "unhappiness," with due deference to Pascal.)

Living in what might happen next, or what has happened, rather than at least trying to find content in where you are, surely makes us chase our tails. Sitting quietly in a room means our tails can be tucked safely out of the way and we can be what we are right now, for a while at least.

Whilst we were canvassing for a general election candidate yesterday, a good friend who is giving so much more to it than I am,  said "I'll be pleased to get my life back on June 9th." 

At elections people divide, and argue about the divisions - we have to. Policy choices must be made. Then after an election, people gradually drift back into their usual associations, which frequently work round and over the top of political differences. That re-grouping is essential too. But it's getting harder. It was particularly hard for many of us after the EU referendum.

A bit of sitting quietly in our rooms may be very helpful when all the scratching and blaming and arguing - necessary, unavoidable maybe - is done. But it would help if more of the arguing was more civilised, less of a cheap headline howl, less personalised. It might make it easier to get back normal again - whatever that is.
 

An unwatery political note

It's hard being grown-up about politics, I find. I've no truck with UKIP's policies, but under first past the post (FFTP) the relationship between votes cast and seats won for UKIP and the Greens is so much larger than for Labour and Conservative that it's easy to see why so many people, and not just UKIPpers, are saying FPTP is no longer a fair system. 

It seems that some form of PR would have reduced the SNP landslide somewhat, brought about another Tory-led coalition, saved some LibDem seats and made UKIP a force to be reckoned with.

It's been said for a long time that FPTP leads to more stability and consistency, whereas PR almost inevitably leads to coalitions, which some see as more unstable At this point in the discussion someone usually drags in Italy and jeers at their frequent succession of coalitions, but that overlooks stable and economically successful countries such as Holland.

No electoral system is completely fair, perhaps, but a system which alienates large numbers of voters and results in destructive frustrations must surely be called into question. Democracy only works if people believe in it.

We can hardly expect Labour Conservatives and SNP to be keen on changing the system for Westminster, it would greatly reduce their potential for large majorities and significant power blocks.



PR systems look, to many of us, off-puttingly complex to understand, whereas FPTP is at least simple.