23 November

Added a review of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.

Updated Multimedia Index page.

19 November

Last week was the University of Warwick's reading week, and Laura took the opportunity of academic downtime to whisk me away on a mystery tour that turned out to be Kraków in southern Poland. At the heart of this city, which was the capital of a Polish state until the late sixteenth century, is the medieval Stare Miasto, or 'old town'; now a UNESCO world heritage site. Although most of the city walls have gone, the old town is still separated from the rest of Kraków by the moat, now filled in and converted into the Planty: a sort of park belt. At the centre of Stare Miasto is the Wawel hill, the site of the fourteenth-century castle and cathedral, decorated in the Renaissance style during Poland's golden age. Laura knew all of this would greatly appeal to an early modern historian like myself, but she also knew that I had a specific interest in a darker, more modern chapter of Poland's history. Kraków was the capital of the Nazi General Government, essentially a German colony, with Hans Frank establishing himself at Wawel Castle. Poland's ethnic Slavs were reduced to a workforce without rights, while it's Jewish population were forced to move from the Jewish quarter north of the river (Kazimierz) into a ghetto on the other bank (Podgórze) and ultimately to Plaszow concentration camp; developments famously recorded in the movie Schindler's List.

In January 1945, with the Red Army closing in on Kraków, Plaszow's Jews were marched 30 miles to another UNESCO world heritage site: Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of course this heritage is not a consequence of aesthetics or antiquity, but of ugliness and the significance of a story that demands preservation. Bestial as the facts of this complex are, they are only one cog, albeit the largest, in a vast pan-European machine designed to exploit untermenschen as a cheap means of production, dispose of the waste, and utilise the by-products. At least 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, most of them in the gas chambers, but many succumbing to the harsh conditions imposed on them in the related labour camps, where life expectancy appears to have been no more than three months.

There are many things that could be discussed after visiting a place like Auschwitz: the philosophy that led one of the most cultured nations in the world to genocide; the psychology of those who did the killing; the fantastic assertion made by some that the Holocaust never happened. All these things interest me greatly (and the psychological questions have piqued Laura's interest too) but I think there were two thoughts that particularly struck me on my tour. Firstly, although I had wanted to come to Auschwitz for a while, and although I viewed it as a sort of pilgrimage, I was surprised to find it impossible to empathise once I was there. I was reminded of a quote, often ascribed to Joseph Stalin, that runs along the lines of 'if you kill one it's a tragedy; if you kill a million it's a statistic'. There was something so impersonal about these events as a consequence of their sheer scale, that I struggled to get my mind around them and to grasp them. It is only by reading individual stories that you reintroduce the humanity, and then of course not only do you lose the sense of scale, but you are also limited to the voices of survivors: men like Primo Levi.

The second thing that struck me was the rhetoric that is used about these events. 'Holocaust' and 'Shoah' are narratives; backward looking constructs. Nobody ever sat in a meeting and said 'let's have the Holocaust'. Consider a Dutch homosexual, a non-Jew, killed in a concentration camp, or a Jew beaten up during Kristallnacht in his own home in Munich. Neither of these individuals would fall within the popular definition of Jews in the camps. For Poland, and to an extent the museum at Auschwitz reflected this, the genocide of 1942-45 was aimed at Poles: her intellectuals were also targetted, a solid percentage of Europe's Jews in 1939 were Poles too, of course, and camps like Birkenau, Belzec and Maidanek can be seen in a broader context, touched on above, of a Polish dark age. For Jews, 'the Holocaust' doesn't seem to involve anyone else. Many have rejected a term which is Greek and therefore considered either pagan or Christian, in favour of 'Shoah', a term exclusively Hebrew. There has also been enormous controversy about Poland's deeply Roman Catholic society making any candid religious commemorations in a place where so many non-Christians were killed. Such politicisations are surely dishonouring to those who suffered.

In writing, I have tried to avoid loaded terms by talking about 'events' and 'killings': while we can surely speak of 'genocide' and 'victims', if we construe 'murder' as defined by national (as opposed to international) law, are we at liberty to impose our own ethics against a legally constructed and democratically elected government and call it a 'crime'? If we talk about this as an activity of the Nazis, do we exonerate the vast majority of the German population; conversely if we talk about the Germans, are we implying a guilt for all who identify themselves with that nation for generations to come? In one photograph of the Wehrmacht in a Polish town, the museum had labelled 'Nazi soldiers': but is that not as calling the boys in Iraq 'Brownites'? In the end, I wonder if anything can be said about these millions of individual incidents of brutality that will satisfactorily collect them into a comprehensive whole, without using words and concepts that remove the very humanity we so desperately need to preserve.

6 November

As I embark on this new chapter in my journey, one of the questions I have posed at myself concerns the place of this website in the new schema. Stevie's World used to sit in a context of youth work and, since I'm presently ex ecclesia, or on sabbatical from ministry while in between churches, the whole thing felt a little sycophantic. For almost a year I felt that way about it and visitors will have seen no updates in that time: for example, the photos presently up in Multimedia are eighteen months old and more. Actually, the other day I was discussing the process of blogging and the impending creation of an ePortfolio on the University's website with my fellow doctoral researcher, Dave, and he made what I felt was a helpful distinction between blogging about someone and blogging about something: he felt the latter lacked the pretension (or obsequiousness) of the former. I suppose the youth work context was the 'something' and without it, it was just a website about me.

It seems to me that the distinction between 'someone' and 'something' can be fairly grey at times. Is 'talking about my journey' a narrative about me, or about a journey? The answer to that, I think, is to open the narrative up into a discourse. Acquaintances often think I am opinionated; friends who know me well recognise that I tend to make statements to get a reaction, by which I mean a conversational, rather than an emotional, response. By way of example, I was listening on the radio this morning to a guy who has been the subject of a control order under Britain's anti-terrorism legislation, having done little more than convert to Islam and try to visit Syria and Bangladesh. This led me to wonder why anyone would convert to Islam and I would probably open up the discussion with that very question: 'why would anyone convert to Islam?' Implicit behind this are my views on the historical veracity of the Qur'an and my deep concerns about the ingrained cultural assertions that pervade contemporary Muslims; never the less, this would not be a statement designed as a buttressed wall against discussion, nor an attempt to give offence, but rather an honest statement of my current position as an invitation to dialogue. Your insight may educate me; mine may educate you and, in the process of discourse we may grope an inch or two further towards Truth.

Of course one consistent piece of advice all research students receive is to write, because it is by the process of writing that one disseminates one's ideas into the academic community. Blogs are specifically encouraged. I don't know what other researchers do, although the University of Warwick makes specific provision for blogs, but I would certainly be writing down my thoughts somewhere. Those relating specifically to my doctoral research (my thesis, incidentally, has the working title 'Reimagining the Virgin Mary in Reformation England') I tend to compile in a Word document, but those thoughts of broader significance also require articulation and it is these that, I feel, could benefit through exposure. That does open up the questions of who is looking at the site and how can they contribute to the other side of the dialogue: issues that I need to look to address. I would hope that this would allow friends and visitors a broader engagement with my own telos; not merely to test my existing paradigms and help broaden my own vistas, but to allow others to share. The wish is that through disseminating these ideas I am not journeying on my own.

1 November

Added a new Quote de Mois for November.

Updated the Multimedia Index page.

29 October

Removed old book reviews.

Added a review of Ludmilla Jordanova's History in Practice.

26 October

In deciding to undertake a PhD I am clearly making the assertion, or the assumption, that through it I can make a difference. The bourgeois fortress that I was objecting to two weeks ago will never result in a changed community or, at a national level, a transformed society. If I want to leave a legacy, to have a metaphorical statue built of me after I've shuffled off this mortal coil, there has to be another way. The way I have chosen is through academia and it requires defending: what do I think I can achieve and how will a doctorate bring that about?

Reaching the University of Warwick has been a convoluted journey of about eight or nine years. Maybe longer. At that time I decided that political action was unlikely to transform anything: change was brought about through ideas, and ideas were transferred through pedagogical activity. Initially I therefore thought about full-time youth work; an obvious choice given my active involvement with church and school based youth ministry. I decided however that youth work was sharply defined by the age of the youth worker: the younger carrying credibility and the older respect. Consequently, it is not a vocation that one can lock oneself into until retirement, although I have observed plenty of people who are giving it a go through acting eternally 16. Moreover, youth work has a microscopic impact: a classroom of 30 pupils for one hour, or a study group of a dozen teenagers for two. It was not, and I acknowledge the pretension even as I write it, strategic enough.

I also thought about teaching. Teaching does not, of course, carry the same relationship problems with it as a youth worker. However trendy it may seem to befriend one's pupils, the reality is that friendship is a two-way construct and the pupils struggle enough to respect a superior, never mind one who condescends. Moreover, after many discussions with teaching friends, Britain's classrooms appear to be a place for delivering material, not pedagogy, and for exercising discipline, not pastoral care: 'The Headmaster Ritual' has become 'The Teacher's are Afraid of the Pupils', and for that matter, of the parents of the pupils. I did not, and do not, wish to be a surrogate parent.

Back in 2006, I was interrogated about The Da Vinci Code by three of my friends: one a Muslim, one a Christian, and one I suppose I'd describe as agnostic. I spent quite some time studying the issues around the novel, at the end of which I thought I would try my hand at writing a book on the question of why we believe what we believe, both as individuals and as part of a community of belief. I took six months out from work, and of course didn't get very far: I had not appreciated the amount of reading and research required. Never the less, this was the point at which I started to consider University teaching as a career. Whereas a one year, funded PGCE would qualify to teach in schools, which I am often told are 'crying out' for male teachers, paying for four years of academic study (an MA to convert to History and a three year PhD) with no guarantee of a job at the end of it, looked a long, unfriendly road.

It seems to me now, however, that if by the grace of God I can complete my doctorate and obtain tenure, I will be positioned to do three things all of which will combine to satisfy my desire for implementing change. Firstly, I will be positioned within a supportive academic community with whom I can engage in discussion about my own thinking to shape it to a position where I am personally content. This means my ideas will be fashioned within a context of academic accountability, rather than homespun philosophy. Secondly, I will be able to directly involve myself on a full-time basis (at least in term time) in the teaching and pastoral care of young people: something for which I have a real heart. Thirdly, I will have that strategic positioning to forward such thinking I feel may be useful and to engage in some of the popular debates about culture and society to which I feel drawn.

It is an ambitious programme and, as it stands, it is full of pretensions about opportunities and abilities that may not exist, but at least the research and writing of this thesis is on the road. If nothing else, even if I fail, at least I can say I had a go.

12 October

As I have grown older and I hope wiser, I have become increasingly convinced of the role of human agency over and against determinism. There is a trend in current cognitive behavioural studies to see the mind as a repository for all our experiences, predetermining all subsequent thoughts and actions. Of course, if they are right, these scientists were preordained to develop this view: their theory effectively undermines itself. I do not believe they are right. There is an interaction between heart and head that occurs after cause, to affect the effect. Stephen Covey makes the point that we have an ability to respond: response ability. I do not have to submit to impulse. Consequently, though I may not be capable of entirely shaping my own destiny, I can certainly be an active participant in the discussions as to what kind of man I become and where I end up. Life is not merely something that happens to me: I happen to it.

What is important, not just significant for me, but objectively important? What legacy, if any, will I leave the world? Most of us wail at life: its iniquities, its brevity, its lack of meaning. Most of us bemoan one another: our selfishness, our myopia, our apathy. Few of us are prepared to do anything about it. Modern living is consistently reduced to building a middle-class existence, ring-fenced as much as possible against the more undesirable elements of life. We take out private health insurance to protect against nasty illnesses, and we move to the suburbs to avoid nasty neighbours. Self-reliance is a modern day virtue, and the loss of community an acceptable consequence. Yet to me, there is a heavy element of playing the victim in all of this, acquiescing that Utopia is only to be found in our own little castle. It is also the failure to see that in such acceptance lies the perpetuation of the problem.

At my most gracious I might concede that a prevailing view of 'although there is clearly something wrong with the world, there is nothing to be done about it,' justifies the decision for flight rather than fight. I do not, however, think we are so helpless and, moreover, I believe we know it. It is the fundamental nature of man to further himself at the expense of the commonwealth, a principal borne out by ten minutes reading through the newspaper, never mind the Bible. We know we could be different but we choose not to be and, in so doing, we justify egocenticism either through conformity, or simply by an impulsive reaction in others. I suspect that we have abdicated the response ability in favour of a culture of 'rights'.

For as long as I can remember now I have struggled with this problem. I do not like the world I live in, by which I mean I do not like the way people live there lives selfishly, recklessly, without any real sense of altruism, and deliberately below their potential. I see it in the schools, on the streets, in the office, and when driving my car. Most of all, I struggle with the kind of person it makes me. This is a cultural problem and I have to live in it, breathing in the contaminated air. I cannot hide away from myself, so even if I wanted to build a castle in leafy suburbia it would not do me any good; but I find I have a choice, and it is in pursuit of changing rather than coping that I have started my PhD.

12 October

Added a new Quote de Mois for October.

Removed old news.