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Showing posts from October, 2016

The Trouble with Causes... is that they're rarely causes

Lily Allen cries on screen and apologises for 'her country's' refusal to take in enough migrants. As if emptying the Jungle would solve the reason why impoverished desperate people fight their way to be there. I've no problem with highlighting the suffering of individuals or communities. Indeed it's important we don't ignore suffering. I've also no problem with people and states doing something to relieve that suffering. Of course we should. What I do have a problem with is the naivety that assumes solving the symptom sorts out the cause. Causes are rarely the causes of the problem, they're symptoms. It's an odd misnomer. Voting for Brexit (sorry) is another example of the dangers of focussing on symptoms without understanding underlying causes of issues - or, in the case of Brexit, of not understanding the consequences of curing symptoms. Intriguingly by making the UK less attractive for immigrants by devaluing our currency, frightening off mult