Kate Womersley is a doctor and academic specialising in psychiatry
Seven Children: Inequality and Britain’s Next Generation by Danny Dorling is published by Hurst & Co (£14.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com
So a psychiatrist is used to review a book on economics by a geographer.
He cleaves to his theme on economic income, explaining that “none of the eight ‘protected characteristics’ enshrined in UK law matter even a fraction as much as income and wealth” when it comes to inequality: whether or not you can afford a winter coat, internet access, heating, holidays, a new kettle if the old one breaks, or a school friend over for tea are what segregates us. Through these windows on each child’s life, Dorling exposes how financial inequity affects housing, education, health, employment, tech access, social care, rent and food. The stress for families of securing these necessities hums through the chapters.
The doctor fails to spot the geographer’s trick about economics. What is being described is poverty, not inequity. “Npot having enough” is poverty. “Having less than others” is inequty. If lots of people don;t have enough then what we require is a richer nation – more economic growth. Which isn;t the answer the geographer reaches about economics. Amazin’ly.
Is it inequity or inequality? The former seems to be taking on new meanings in the same way as eg ‘woman’ has.
I wonder if TTK, in his guise as Free Gear Keir, will influence Lefty economic theory? Bit tricky to fit “taking bribes” into current thinking, but with Lefties anything is possible…
So a psychiatrist is used to review a book on economics by a geographer.
Alternatively, an idiot is reviewing a book by an idiot. Seems entirely appropriate.
‘”Sunday’s child” Gemma, daughter of successful corner shop owners yet her father feels the pinch and is flirting with far-right ideas.’
Very believable, that.
If the child is called “Jimmah”, and the far right ideas are derived from middle-eastern tribal life.
There was an article in yesterdays Guardian noting that nearly 1 in 3 children are in relative poverty and that was causing convulsions BTL.
I may be wrong, but based on definition isn’t that an inescapable fact unless we made all incomes the same?
Zaichik @ 8.59, I once suggested to a very well off Corbyn acolyte work colleague, that you could indeed end relative poverty if we all earned average wage (about £20,000 – less than 30% of his salary at that time).
For some reason or another he didn’t favour the idea.
“flirting with far-right ideas.”
Maybe if the majority – or a very sizeable minority – of people have those ideas, they aren’t ‘far’ right ideas.
What exactly is a geographer? Apart from someone rather untidy, wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbows. I seem to remember checked shirts & knitted ties were favoured. I’ve just Googled the question & got several results, all different. And one saying a geographer needs to investigative & artistic but doesn’t say why.
BiS:
Geography affects humans, since we are subject to gravity. As far as I can tell, they’re the ones studying how to make maps that give more information about how the world is arranged.
In short, they make maps. If they’re good maps (they did a good job), maybe when a politician decides to put a train route that goes over mountains, they can make a map that shows clearly that that route is going to cost a lot of money.
Or the maps will show why armies keep having battles in more or less the same place over the centuries.
I suppose it relates to economics in that both try to show why things will be expensive? Some “economists” don’t do that (our Sage of Ely for one), but I’m not sure I would grant them the title.
I suppose it makes a change from “Peer Reviewing” being carried out by the authors mates…
“flirting with far-right ideas.”
Maybe if the majority – or a very sizeable minority – of people have those ideas, they aren’t ‘far’ right ideas.
What they really mean is we, “the good people”, have decided what is best for you, “the little people” and what may or may not think and we don’t want you reading about those ideas in case you find them appealing.
If that’s the explanation, Mr M , why isn’t he out with his theodolite industriously mapping? And not bothering us.
BiS & MrM: That’s cartographer, not geographer. I’m a cartographer. I relish studying and making maps. I’ve got a load to do starting tomorrow when some stats are published to go into them. I don’t think I’ve ever described myself as a geographer, and as upthread, would be uncertain how to define one.
Is it inequity or inequality? The former seems to be taking on new meanings in the same way as eg ‘woman’ has.
Indeed. If A is wealthier than B, that is (most would agree) ‘inequality’. But if A has worked hard and saved all their life, while B has scrounged on benefits and spent every penny as soon as it arrives, that isn’t ‘inequity’ – it’s perfectly equitable in my book.
Woman moment:
One of the first social rules children learn is the painful necessity of sharing
Society isn’t made up of toddlers and the government isn’t our Mummy, but the feminine urge for things to be “nice” persists even when it’s horribly misplaced.
What did we learn from The Lord of the Flies?
Anybody? Anybody? Piggy? Piggy?
“ One of the first social rules children learn is the painful necessity of sharing”
Yes, but then as teens we’re supposed to learn the importance of standing your round. Perhaps the state of the world today is due to the decline of proper pub-going?
What exactly is a geographer?
A type of sociologist.
I was going by the Wikipedia definition, which is about as accurate as it usually is.
I’m certainly not an expert on this, or even all that knowledgeable.
My guess would be that a cartographer makes maps using existing methods and updates them, whereas a geographer perhaps tries to find ways to make maps easier to use, or more accurate, or in some way improve them?
On the other hand, a geographer is probably much more susceptible to making maps more “equitable”, and similar wheezes involving grifting public money. Since a geographer’s maps are less likely to be used for e.g. orienteering.
If you go back to the original Latin, then a geographer is someone who draws the world, so perhaps a landscape artist?
I suspect Danny Dorling would not like that label.
So we’re all agreed it’s another word for cvnt, then? I’ll add it to my lexicon. (Looks like I’ll need to start a second volume)
What exactly is a geographer?
A type of sociologist.
+1 on that. Every bit as useful as a sociologist as well.
An English bit for you, Dennis. In public schools (which you know are the private ones) the Geography teacher was almost always also the games master. Like, say, the football coach in a high school. But of course being English we never took sport that seriously, so would never actually pay money to a teacher who only did that. But of course we did take sport that seriously but hypocritically. Therefore near the entirety of the haute bourgeois have been taught Geog by people in track suits.
Just one of those oddities. Might even explain why we had such difficulty in working out which countries were our and which weren’t.
Intrigued, I looked up this DD character on Wiki. Amongst the waffle, it says he’s made much use ofcartagrams So not being daunted I looked up cartagrams. They seem to be an aid for people can’t understand numbers.
And one notes from photos of the subject taken 2011 & then 2018 that he’s well on the way to becoming a major lardarse. So sports would seem to be out.
Difficult to estimate a Tosser Factor with so little to go on. But provisionally 8.8 +/_ 0,1
Something I remember about the only geography teacher I can remember in secondary first year (me being more interested in cartography than geography, though I didn’t realise the difference then) was:
I asked: What does 1 to 50,000 mean?
Them: It means two centimetres on the map is one kilometre on the ground.
Me: Ah. Ok, so does that also mean two inches on the map is one mile on the map?
Them: Hmm. I’m not sure.
I leanred within the year what scales actually were and what the numbers meant. The geography teacher in their* 30s? clearly had no idea what they meant and just remembered spot facts.
*I can’t remember they were male or female.
Theresa May read Geography. I’ll just leave that thought there …
One of my best friends taught geog at the local grammar school (as we still have in leafy Bucks) for 40 years. He was universally known as TOG (Teacher Of Geography). And, yes, he was also in charge of cricket and the railway society.