{"id":7786,"date":"2020-10-09T09:31:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T09:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7786"},"modified":"2020-10-09T09:31:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T09:31:16","slug":"david-hume-new-corn-laws-and-bp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/10\/09\/david-hume-new-corn-laws-and-bp\/","title":{"rendered":"David Hume, new Corn Laws and BP"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Library of Scotland\u00a0has announced that it will be addressing the \u201csilences\" in its collection by placing place people such as David Hume, Adam Smith and Robert Burns, in the \u201ccontext\u201d of their day. \u00a0John Scally, the national librarian, is quoted in the Times as saying: \u201cWe had changed our collections policy to be more open about those parts that need to be explained in the context of slavery and in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment and all the rest of it. \u00a0[BLM] allowed us to have a wider conversation.\" \u00a0<\/span>The Times then quoted the sensible Edinburgh academic Lindsay Patterson:<\/p>\n

\u201cHume argued that slavery was iniquitous. \u00a0At the same time he was able to write a footnote that was racist. \u00a0The educational purpose of a historical exhibition should be to encourage understanding of how, in the context of his times, someone of such intellectual distinction could hold views that we now regard as contradictory. \u00a0I hope the National Library will encourage this subtlety of judgment in all its exhibitions, and avoid easy political gestures of the kind that led to the renaming of the David Hume Tower by Edinburgh University management<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, from another part of our chequered history, a billionaire hereditary peer, Lord Granchester [ the family seat is Lower House Farm\u00a0]\u00a0spoke for all poor and downtrodden peoples (actually, the Labour Party) when he successful moved a motion in the House of Lords to the effect that\u00a0any future free-trade agreement \u2014 think with the USA here \u2014 should prevent the import of food produced by cheaper methods than our own. \u00a0The arrogance of it: assuming that all British farming sits on a pedestal of virtue; well, tell that to the zillions of chickens that end up priced at around \u00a32 \/ kg. \u00a0More than 95% of the the chickens bought in UK supermarkets are from battery farms, many of which are no better than they ought to be. \u00a0Most UK chickens are now from breeds developed to increase weight by up to 95 g \/ day \u00a0and be slaughtered in 35 days. \u00a0The Times<\/a> says that fifty scientists, including professors of veterinary science at Edinburgh, Bristol and Surrey, have written to supermarkets urging them to sign the \u201cbetter chicken commitment\u201d, which sets minimum welfare standards. \u00a0The Times article includes undercover footage of birds in distressing conditions. \u00a0Issues of motes and beams here, I think, and a new set of corn laws in the offing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BP (Beyond Politics<\/em> aka Burning Pink<\/a>) is a new political party that has arisen out of the ashes of Extinction Rebellion. \u00a0It recently reached out to NGOs by emptying pots of pink paint in their offices demanding they call out the government for their inaction on the climate crisis. \u00a0They'd sent\u00a0a letter to 50 NGOs stating that as \"the social contract with those in power is broken and so they should appeal to all their members to rise up against the government\". \u00a0BP ( a confusing initialism, you'd think) demands the creation of citizens\u2019 assemblies to hand power to ordinary people (I think they probably really mean climate activists). \u00a0Greenpeace, Amnesty, Christian Aid and Friends of the Earth were targeted. \u00a0Beyond politics? \u00a0Beyond satire more like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Library of Scotland\u00a0has announced that it will be addressing the \u201csilences\" in its collection by placing place people such as David Hume, Adam Smith and Robert Burns, in the \u201ccontext\u201d of their day. \u00a0John Scally, the national librarian,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}