I once had a workmate who kept a clean desk. I don’t really mean clean, I mean clear – but the improbability factor is the same. Although working in a field where there were always on-going matters to be dealt with, and where colleagues had un-dealt-with stuff stacked in all corners of their offices and their lives, he was able to deal with each day’s in-tray in a conclusive manner. In retrospect it’s unclear whether this attribute served him well, but it is clear that when he dropped dead on his way home at age 51 he left no unfinished business for his colleagues to deal with.
I had another workmate who approached life in a similar vein. He had an appointment with himself at his office each New Year’s Day, and spent part of the day in ruthlessly shedding and shredding most of the (non-client) paperwork of the year past. A ghastly practice to the minds of the hoarders (like me), but one that seemed never to cause him any grief……although he, too, died before reaching retirement age.
I can’t be sure whether these two anecdotes from long ago have much relevance to what follows - except, perhaps, as reminders that there is a time to clean up the mess, and that that time is now.
George Monbiot is not dead yet, although he notes having survived “major surgery for prostate cancer” in 2018. He is now age 61. Given the number of causes and issues with which he chooses to engage there is no way in which he could ever have a clear desk, but neither he nor his followers would want it any other way. I thank my friend Max R. for years ago alerting me to Monbiot, and to Monbiot’s blog.
George Monbiot is a journalist, a columnist for The Guardian, London. Unlike others, Monbiot doesn’t blah on about the same stuff column after column, and he doesn’t do inanities. The frequency and breadth of his contributions is prodigious. There never appears to be a pause for breath in what seems to be the busiest journalistic life on Earth.
George Monbiot is an eloquent activist for good – in both deeds and words – in numerous fields, all of which have as their focus the life of the planet, and the welfare of planetary lives. He gives praise to his employers for allowing him free rein. Hence Monbiot’s ability to give public exposure to his (always) interesting, (sometimes) trenchant, and (often) unpopular views – unpopular, that is, with authority (all levels of government), conservatives (both lower and upper case), business (big), polluters and destroyers of planet Earth (without exception).
The core of George Monbiot’s blogsite is the re-publishing of his Guardian columns. There have been so many postings that they are indexed into subject groups. It’s impossible to convey the whole scope, but here’s a sample: climate breakdown, corporate power, food, law and order, nuclear, oil, privatisation, racism, religion, supermarkets, tourism, war (four theatres).
Monbiot is sufficiently significant to have a substantial number of words written about him, in addition to the many words written by him. He studied zoology at Oxford, worked for some years in BBC radio and television in natural history and current affairs programming, and travelled the world as an investigative journalist. The Wikipedia entry for that phase of his life is colourful, bordering on gaudy: “Working as an investigative journalist, he travelled in Indonesia, Brazil, and East Africa. His activities led to his being made persona non grata in seven countries and being sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia. In these places he was also shot at, brutally beaten up and arrested by military police, ship-wrecked, and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets. He came back to work in Britain after being pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya, after contracting cerebral malaria."
Having returned to Britain after his six years in the tropics George Monbiot – at considerable personal peril - worked actively against interests, both Government and private, seen by him as exploiting the Amazon jungle.
After two years of writing occasional pieces for The Guardian he became a regular columnist in 1996. He has written more than a dozen books. In his blogsite he includes an extensive autobiography, with a hint of hubris perhaps, but nevertheless gobsmacking in the events and achievements it recounts.
On that blogsite George Monbiot, uses his Introduction section to set out his credo, his overview, what drives him. Here are some excerpts.
On Trying to be Less Wrong
My job is to tell people what they don’t want to hear. That is not what I set out to do. I wanted to cover only the subjects I thought were interesting and important. But wherever I turned, I met a brick wall of denial.
Whenever I have tried to bring an awkward issue to public attention, it has been greeted with a cacophony of voices insisting that there is nothing to worry about. The volume of denial bears no relationship – except perhaps a positive one – to the strength of the evidence.
Denial is exacerbated by the nature of the media. I believe that the first purpose of journalism is to hold power to account. But it is used, overwhelmingly, to support power against those who challenge it. Most media organisations are owned by very wealthy people or corporations. They appoint editors in their own image, and the people who work for them are acutely aware of where their interests lie. One of the privileges of wealth is that you can employ other people to engage in denial on your behalf. Ideas and information which conflict with the interests of the proprietorial class, or upset their assumptions, are either energetically denounced or comprehensively ignored by their employees.
It is not just power that journalists should challenge: they should also challenge themselves. Before making any claim, we should ask ourselves whether the evidence supports our beliefs. When we discover that we have got something wrong, we must be prepared to say so.
There is no virtue in sustaining a set of beliefs regardless of the evidence. There is no virtue in either following other people unquestioningly or in cultivating a loyal and unquestioning band of followers.
While you can be definitively wrong, you cannot be definitively right.
I have tried to navigate and understand a world that is extraordinarily complex. The world’s complexity, and the impossibility of mastering any subject, let alone of achieving a comprehensive overview, means that we will always be wrong in some respects.
But while my opinions about particular issues have changed and become more complex, my underlying principles have not. These are that we should stand up for the victims, whoever they might be, and against the aggressors, whoever they might be. We should defend the poor against the rich, the powerless against the powerful, the defenceless against the armed. We should defend the biosphere that gives us life: both because it is wonderful and because those of us who possess agency (who are alive today and have money) have no right to deprive others (who are not yet born or who are poor) of their means of survival. We must treat other people as we would wish to be treated ourselves.
None of these aims can be passively achieved. All involve confrontation. Among other forms of conflict, they require confrontation with denial – our own and other people’s – and with the falsehoods of those who possess power. This is where I have a role. The articles on this site are my stumbling attempts to confront power with research, and to tell the stories you would prefer not to hear.
With this as the foundation of his beliefs, George Monbiot has engaged in a life of never-ending advocacy and reform. I have already listed some of the category headings for articles published on his blogsite. Here are some more: advertising, books, culture, economic justice, education and childhood, employment, environment and the natural world, farming, genetic engineering, globalisation. And so on.
In a disquieting post earlier this year (25th July, 2024) Monbiot offers some searing thoughts on the way the world operates: capitalism and neoliberalism, the immutability of powerlessness, the failures of democracy. Beyond challenging.
Withal, George Monbiot is no hypocrite. On his website he scrupulously lists his assets. And he opens his tax returns. And he lists – in somewhat laborious detail – every penny and relevant benefit he has received during the previous decade. He will not be accused of the dissembling that he levels at others.
And George Monbiot is no effete greenie; and no shrinking violet. In his 4th July, 2024 column he was breathtakingly direct in his view of the world should Donald Trump win the forthcoming Presidential Election.
He heads his piece:
I never thought I’d argue for rearmament. But a looming Trump presidency changes everything.
Monbiot predicts that there will no longer be a “special relationship” between the USA and the UK, and no special relationship between the USA and Europe, and that under Trump the USA Government “will rip up what remains of global security and détente, environmental and human rights agreements, and international law……In short, the UK and Europe will need to find the means of defending ourselves against a Trump regime and its allies.” Those allies will include Russia – with whom Trump is developing a special relationship. Monbiot reminds us that during his erstwhile presidency, Trump announced that he trusted Putin ahead of US intelligence agencies. And subsequent to that presidency Trump has praised Putin for his invasion of Ukraine; and has stated he would encourage Russia to attack any NATO member that doesn’t spend heavily on defence.
Indeed, Monbiot has developed a scary picture of the world under a second Trump incumbency, and he concludes: “Independence from the US is difficult, hazardous and uncertain of success. But remaining a loyal servant of the US if Trump becomes commander-in-chief is a certain formula for disaster. There is nothing we can do to stop his election, except to plead with US voters not to let a convicted felon, coup plotter, sex assaulter, liar, fraud and wannabe dictator into the White House. But we can seek to defend ourselves against it.”
All too late; but for those who still want to wallow in regret, here's a link to the full article:
With the second Trump incumbency looming it does seem that the world has now reached the time to take the storm clouds seriously, the time to acknowledge the Cassandra warnings of George Monbiot. The time to clean up the desk.
Gary Andrews
Top notch blog, Gary!
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