B A R B I C A N L I F E


Operating on the edge of chaos


Sreela Banerjee examines the so-called ‘killer apps’ which apparently explain the ascendancy of the West and looks at a set of bad assumptions which may become the cause of the end of Western affluence. She takes a walk around the Barbican, and wonders how an Ottoman writer in 1731 shed light on the subject. Have we become hooked on winning? She examines the power of praise on our psyche, wondering if it is the drug which allows us still to operate on the edge of chaos. She asks what story we will tell our children about ourselves – will we use simple words, or dress it up in media jargon? If we do, will they believe us?


A


niece came to visit recently, with her fine young son, whose imitation of a busy crab is almost perfect. He


does a sideways shuffling movement to propel himself, and looks for an escape route - the bid for freedom, fuelled by the need to know and an approving smile, starts early. Our children look at us with innocent eyes, and wishing them good health and happiness, we try to prepare them for a comfortable future. Big boy and little boy - we realise they will soon grow up and ask questions, and we may have to make amends for what we have done, or failed to undo, as we tell them the story of our times. Back in the Barbican for a last few


days, I remembered with pleasure my time at the Dartington literary festival this summer. Peter Hennessy told the festival audience this year the story of his times – amongst many other good things he said he was a ‘Home Rule boy’ - I found myself pointing out that this very identification of oneself with a public issue doesn’t happen now – today’s average sixteen year old would not describe himself as believing in anything other than the need to be famous and rich – we have taught him, by what we seem to have valued, that both are possible; the media provides praise for both. They regard all people over forty as self-seeking power-hungry ‘suits’, using the media


machine to tell them a roster of lies. Lord Hennessy seemed interested. He thinks about the future of his grandchildren. Back home, I put a fiver in my


pocket and went to get the City AM and a pint of milk. How did we end up plundering their future? I found myself going for a long ‘goodbye walk’ in the City. Living somewhere for 24 years


makes you take it for granted. I photographed the Barbican fountains, the signage, the Curve. Home is what feels normal. It is this very instinct to expect what we saw yesterday, to assent to ideas without examining the changing reality that may have become a burden to the West. Stephen D King (the D is crucial; let us call him SDK) who is an economist at HSBC talked this summer about


Sreela Banerjee


how we have taken for granted that there will be perpetual growth – his book, ‘When the Money Runs Out’ is a sobering read – is it a horror story? Well maybe, if we fail to heed any of its recommendations. It was heartening to hear my own thoughts in the words of an impassioned speaker. In his book I noticed many bids for


freedom, not least by banks, his employers included, to be free of regulators – which led to many strange instruments and practices within banking, ignoring the real world which their ‘assets’ represent. His main thesis was that it is unrealistic to expect continuous growth; the last fifty years (his life span and mine) were exceptional for many reasons. But let me start at the beginning – when did this growth start, and why?


Lord Hennessy 17


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