Status-Q

If I read that someone is

…working on debates within inter-disciplinary urbanism around notions of ‘Darwinistic individual selfishness’ – or ‘Who Dares Wins Urbanism’ attempting to make apparent the predictable, though overlooked failures of individualism within and apparent across the ‘leadership’ of the centre, left and right.

and is preoccupied with

…how social relations (dissolving of nation states and rise of cities) might change on earth with the colonisation of other planets

but has now created a non-profit that intends to

inject a criticality into discussions about cities via creating a platform for existing, though overlooked multi-disciplinary critical actors and provocateurs

then I can’t help feeling that he must find it difficult to get people to take him seriously, and that wrecking the Boat Race must have been a last desperate attempt to get himself noticed.

The above quotes come from the culprit’s RSA profile page. (You shouldn’t read anything into the fact that he’s an RSA Fellow, by the way, even though it sounds good. The RSA is a pleasant-enough club in London, of which anyone can become a ‘Fellow’ by stumping up 150 quid a year.)

But as I read about what he does, the very worrying thought occurs to me that someone, presumably, is paying for him to create this kind of mumbo-jumbo, and I really hope it’s not the taxpayer (i.e. you and me).

The broadcaster Richard Madeley put it nicely: ‘God, the monumental ego and selfishness of the swimmer who screwed the Boat Race. Imagine sharing living space with someone like that.’

But wait a minute… that’s much too obvious an explanation. I’m off to apply for a grant to do some interdisciplinary research which will explore the creation of a forum to inject a criticality into the suggestion that such actions are simply the predictable, though overlooked failure of individualism.