Why the silly name?

This posting is not about Miriam, my (I should say "our" but my wife will doubtless disown the burbling of this site) beloved daughter. Her name is great.

Rather, it occurs to me that entitling a blog "Down with the Enlightenment" may seem rather daft. It is impossible to campaign against something which is done, the fruits of which are celebrated worldwide and which had so many positive aspects that it is almost universally popular - except perhaps with ultra fundamentalists deep in caves in Pakistan or enraptured in churches across rural America. Moreover, I am a Mason and much that is good about the craft can be traced back to principles which animated enlightenment thinkers. Finally, to fight against the Enlightenment may be as facile as to launch a "war on terror" - in that the endeavour is doomed to failure - just as you cannot bomb ideas or cage concepts it is impossible for me to win this debate.

Anyway, over the next few months I will endeavour to fail gracefully - indeed too cogent and successful an exposition would mark me down as a product of the very thing I revile. It will be my purpose perhaps to suggest that the pre-Enlightenment was less superstitious and cruel than is often imagined and that the post-enlightenment world we inhabit is more so than we suppose. Over time, I will also argue that the fruits are often over-rated and that, even in areas of science, such as particle acceleration, perhaps we ought not to aspire so "rationally" for further knowledge until we have gained greater wisdom. Anyway, my rant about CERN, or the increasingly disconnected and shallow age of ours will wait for another day - I have nappies to change.

Miriam - Puzzled like her dad

Fatherhood

I am thinking about my father a lot these days. That may be a strange way to start a blog (my first) but my wife is due to give birth at the end of January and that has turned my thoughts backwards as well as to the future. I remember him in the round (he has been dead fifteen years) and recall his various positive qualities (kindness, courtesy, erudition and common sense) with his more infuriating (he could be a 'mood hoover' sometimes) and wonder how I will measure up as a father.

As I drift in to my forties, I have increasingly taken on his views and values about society, as well as that quality of inexuberance (is that a valid word?). However, it strikes me that my generation strives to maintain the appearance of youth (consider all the grooming products available to both sexes - should that be 'genders' nowadays? - the way we dress and the views we profess) whereas as my father's was just more comfortable with the notion of getting older and eventually dying. I would be loathe to admit this to my friends, but I am much more like Mark from Peepshow (watch it if you haven't already) than Jez - my guilty secret is that I would like to have a pipe and smoking jacket. Will fatherhood push me further into old fashioned middle age or will I claw back some rebellious quality? Will a baby stir up youth or senescance?