THE TROUBLE WITH BOYS
Once again Britain's secondary school exam results have provoked anxiety about the better results girls get over boys - as they have since 2000. The difference is not that great with girls getting more of the higher grades, but overall passes much higher. Indeed grade inflation calls into question just how true a measure the exams are. Earlier this month the Department for Education and Skills suppressed a poll in which A-level students feared that their qualifications were devalued in the minds of employers. The course-work content of qualifications has grown as exams have been reduced - something that girls are often said to be better at. But course work is a stronger measure of class-room obedience than the self-management of revision. But goal-oriented performance is macho, and frowned upon.
Years ago, when the best performing children were creamed-off into grammar schools at age 11, the 11+ examination showed girls consistently outperforming boys. Then Education Authorities took a pragmatic attitude, by topping up the boys' marks until the numbers were equal. But today the marginal success of girls is the occasion for much breast-beating about boys' failure.
Only superficially is the concern about boys focussed upon the way that society fails boys, as it would be if girls were falling behind. Substantially the preoccupation is with boys' own 'culture of laddishness' which is held to reward laziness and punish achievement. But these anxieties say more about the authorities in school and beyond. The boys' presumed sub-culture is a myth sustained by nervous educationalists, only expressing their underlying belief that they have little to offer boys. The truth is that the 'sex war' is not a zero-sum game, and boys have everything to gain from girls' success. But in truth, grade inflation is not a real success, but only an empty affirmation awarded for obedient behaviour.
Read James Heartfield, 'There is no masculinity crisis', Genders Online Journal http://www.genders.org/g35/g35_heartfield.html
'THIS IS NO TIME TO GO WOBBLY, GEORGE'
That was what Margaret Thatcher told George W. Bush's father, George Bush Senior on the evening of 26 August 1990, discussing preparations to attack Iraq (M Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p.824). Twelve years later right-wing columnist Andrew Sullivan was insisting that 'America can't and won't hear Europe's wobblers' over the heavily leaked plans to re-attack Iraq (Sunday Times, 11 August). In the end, though, it was Bush's own administration that wobbled, with the President first rushing to scotch press stories of imminent invasion and insisting that he would listen to his allies' concerns. The President's failure to hold the consensus together is not due to weak-willed allies, but a weak-willed America.
Earlier this month US military war games involving 13 000 troops at a cost of £165m were staged between America and an imaginary Middle Eastern power, modelled on Iraq or Iran. But midway through the enactment, General Paul Van Riper, a retired marine lieutenant general resigned his role as leader of the enemy forces, alleging that the battle was scripted to ensure US victory. Mistakenly believing his own job to be to find weaknesses in army strategy, Van Riper set about putting up a fight, at one point 'sinking' the US fleet. But unwilling to hear bad news, the Generals 're-floated' the fleet, and countermanded Van Riper's orders to leave the 'Iraqis' exposed to US firepower (Guardian, 21 August 2002).
Meanwhile 'senior military officers' told the New York Times that the United States had been providing intelligence back-up to Iraq that enabled it to use chemical warfare against Iran in the 1980-88 war (18 August 2002). Defence Intelligence Agency Officers were helping Saddam identify areas for gas attack while America was officially condeming the use of gas. Today, the charge that Saddam 'gassed his own people' is one of the justifications cited by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice for 'regime change'.
While hawks like Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld have been treading the boards to drum up support for an attack, most of the ex-military men - Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Wesley Clark have been urging caution. The image of the president urging action while teeing off summed up the confusions of the administration. On the one hand Bush wants to appear laid-back, on the other resolute. Overall the impression is of indolence.
EARTH SUMMIT
While Europe is refusing to join in with America's campaign against Iraq, it has its own international game, the Earth summit in Johannesburg. President Bush was congratulated for declining the invitation to the follow-up conference to the 1992 Rio summit that first put 'climate change' onto the international agenda. Right-wing pressure groups told him that the summit would be 'anti-people, anti-freedom, and globalisation and' a show case for 'anti-western agendas'. For the most part, that is a pretty accurate description of the likely rhetorical content of the conference.
Originally focussed on the environment, activists have lumped in Third World poverty, with air pollution in an attempt to broaden their appeal beyond middle class environmentalists. But the connection is at best tenuous. Development is the condition for increased living standards, but the demand for 'sustainable development' would only serve to arrest the needed economic growth.
Though green activists are keen to represent themselves as a popular movement, the Earth summit is mostly supported by government funded aid organisations. Today the movement's biggest sponsor is the World Bank. The Bank's latest report warns that the projected population in the next fifty years 'simply cannot be sustained on current production and consumption patterns'. Of course the World Bank is not the first business-led organisation to demand reductions in working class consumption, or even output, if that is what is necessary to preserve the capitalist system as a whole. -- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'