Appropriate Bluntness

The balanced fabric of the committee's work is suitable for relatively blunt sewing needles and appropriately blunt points of view.

Honesty often requires the expression of bluntness when dishonest persons undermine the beautiful presentation of truth.

Fortunately, honesty is sometimes available in Australia.

It is sometimes available elsewhere.

Whether you use tent stitch on your needlepoint designs, or cross stitches on a cross-stitch sampler of your climatological and political research, or you sew a canvas work little tent for yourself in preparation for losing your home to one sort of environmental disaster or another, and/or possibly after an economic disaster and/or political disaster, appropriate bluntness will help to fix all associated problems.

You may or may not regard needlework as a beautiful contribution to the most important political campaigns.  The hand sewing of textiles has, of course, been used to make flags, banners and uniforms for many centuries even though it is often associated with domesticity and the private sphere in many minds.

For many centuries, the spinning of yarn and various weaving processes have required various tools and structures.

You may or may not have much first-hand knowledge of handicrafts and the emotional attachments associated with them.

You may or may not have much first-hand knowledge of the production of fibres and fabrics.

You may regard such matters as trivial, especially if you have never worked in a sweatshop or worked on an intricate needlepoint.

As facts about greed, cruelty and aggression have rarely improved the lives of victims, with or without protest-related displays of crewel embroidery, what is to be done?

Firstly, it is necessary to examine the facts in context.

How, for example, has something been made?

What is its purpose?

What is your awareness of the politics of furniture, furnishings and clothing?

While arts and crafts, including Arts and Crafts, may be produced for private enjoyment or public benefit, science is always meant to be of public benefit.

When people, of any age, are adequately knowledgeable, they rightly fear the future.  They may or may not attempt to prepare for it wisely.

But what does being adequately knowledgeable mean in practice?

What does preparing wisely for the future mean in practice?

Younger generations are in much peril, regardless of their current geographical, socioeconomic and political locations. 

How do you distinguish between true learning and false learning?

How do you compare the perils of the past with the perils of the present and future?

Perhaps you would rather look at textile designs or historical paintings or pieces of furniture or even wallpaper designs, than think about historical needlepoint and its usefulness in the context of quality climate activism and other expressions of virtue and moral purity.

What, then, is quality climate activism?

What is true moral character and how is it developed and maintained?

How do you distinguish between a charlatan and a trustworthy person?

How do you protect textiles, documents and other cultural artifacts from environmental damage?

What do you know about the detrimental effects of light, heat, moisture and biological nuisances in various contexts? 

You may regard stoicism as a necessary practice in relation to individual efforts to address climate change and other considerable problems, political efforts to address anthropogenic stupidity and protests against that stupidity.

While the proper analysis of stump work and stump speeches will always be necessary, the prevention of stupidity is not an analytical activity at all.

Stupidity is usually expressed through the avoidance of analysis.

What is your acquaintance with Cebes?

What is your acquaintance with allegories?

What is your acquaintance with human stupidity?

What is your acquaintance with human wisdom?

What is your acquaintance with personifications of the human senses?

What is your acquaintance with allegories of the journey through life?

What is your acquaintance with The Table of Cebes?

What is your acquaintance with the Enchiridion of Epictetus?

What is your acquaintance with the history of English embroidery?

What is your acquaintance with French political stools?

What is your acquaintance with cambric and batiste?

How do you compare various interpretations of ideas?

How do you compare the work of Mary Delany, Mary Morris Knowles, Mary Linwood, Mary 'May' Morris, Mary Elizabeth Turner and Mary, Queen of Scots? 

What do you know about embroidery as a form of communication?

What do you know about embroidery as political history?

How do you interpret the political intentions of gifts?

How do you interpret the motives for cruelty and other causes of suffering?

What do you know about darning and patchwork?

How do you compare the history of aprons and underwear?

How do you compare climate records?

Throughout history, many problems have arisen through the misinterpretation of data, instructions, allegories and the proper limits to authority.  

Cruelty is never an expression of political legitimacy and/or bureaucratic reasonableness.  It often involves inappropriate bluntness in the form of psychological abuse.  It expresses the manipulative self-satisfaction of psychopaths in mentally torturing the innocent and vulnerable for no other reason than to express indifference to their suffering.

Perhaps you regard yourself as the hostage of an overly powerful foe. 

Perhaps you have felt powerless to prevent other people from becoming hostages to powerful forces.

Perhaps you regard your future to be hostage to the fossil fuels lobby and the cruel and crazy minions and mercenaries employed by it.

All governments have been usurped by vested interests.  Most members of the public, even in purported democracies, continue to believe otherwise.

The fake legitimacy of manipulated elections continues to lull every populace into a false sense of security.  There is no security. 

Only the politically aware are adequately aware of the danger.

You, as an ordinary member of the global public, have been invited by the Council of Enlightenment to learn about the activities of the Revolutionary Climatological Needlepoint Committee.

 

• Welcome
• History
• Culture
• Patrons
• Members
• Principles
• Practices
• Privileges

The committee is obviously a non-profit entity.  It is also an entirely independent entity.

Even though it has been ethereally commissioned by the Council of Enlightenment to identify effective strategies for moderating the effects of selfish humans upon natural heritage and cultural heritage, the committee is mainly responsible for maintaining and improving standards of necessary activism.

Occasionally, it is necessary to needle wrongdoers sharply, through satire and other civilised means.

For much of the time, it is necessary simply to inform people gently yet factually about their dangerously wasteful habits, their perceived rudeness and their apparent lack of compassion.

There are many moments, however, when appropriate bluntness is the most effective strategy for addressing global and local harmfulness.

The anthropogenically unbalanced world of ordinary mortals is disastrously cooking various parts of the Earth, at various times, as a consequence of greedy, selfish, wasteful stupidity.

There are many conflicts of interest to address, yet most people are too frightened or exhausted or confused to do so.  They are ignorant or ill or intellectually challenged.  They are simply trying to keep cool enough to survive for another day.

How do you assess embodied energy?

How do you assess treaties?

How do you compare the Trojan War, the Marian Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars?

How do you compare the treatment of women and children in various conflicts, and various societies, at various times in history?

How do you identify the causes of one environment problem and compare it with another?

How do you identify the causes of psychological problems?

Bureaucracies everywhere are mostly filled with bored, vicious individuals with no care whatsoever for anyone but themselves.  They enjoy disrupting and destroying the lives of strangers, in much the same way as non-civilian populations.

The managerial levels of large businesses are mostly filled with greedy, vicious individuals with no care whatsoever for anyone but themselves.  They even enjoy competing with each other for power, money and prestige.

At present it is easy to learn online about many important subjects.  What is not so easy is to understand what to do with the knowledge acquired.

You may read historical books about needlework and various other arts and crafts.

There about many books about the decorative arts.

There are quite a few early modern cookbooks still in existence.

What do you know about the early modern world in terms of the global climate?

The end of that era was the Age of Revolution.

What is your acquaintance with the year 1800?

Perhaps you prefer to regard the past as idyllic rather than filled with conflict, struggle and suffering.

Perhaps you would rather imagine the past through the art of Frederic Leighton, Edmund Blair Leighton, Evelyn De Morgan, and possibly even François Boucher.

Perhaps you would rather imagine the Earth's atmosphere through the mythologies regarding Eos, Aurora and/or Ushas.

Perhaps you would rather focus on the farce and tragedy of 21st century politics in all its Machiavellian nastiness and hypocritical ridiculousness.

There is much Othering happening, as usual, particularly towards future generations and already vulnerable persons.

Who, in a position of power, is to be trusted?

How trustworthy are you in terms of global leadership?

How, for example, are you contributing to political reform, financial reform and the improvement of international relations?

How do you compare one Treaty of Versailles with another?

How do you compare attitudes to ascertain where blunt responses are most appropriate?

What, for example, have you discovered through examining the career of Madame de Pompadour?

What does the phrase Après moi, le déluge! mean to you?

What is your acquaintance with fossil fuel nihilism, especially the parts of it purportedly associated with religion? 

Aggressive cultures breed aggressiveness in an endless cycle of direct and indirect violence, as reflected in the history of international relations.

What is your acquaintance with the fossil fuel divergence of the Industrial Revolution?

What is your acquaintance with rising disparities in wealth in the industrial world from the late 1970s onwards?

The decline in forests over previous centuries caused wood to become expensive.  The expanded use of cheap coal for industrial and domestic purposes was possible after the 1712 invention by Thomas Newcomen of an atmospheric engine to pump water out of mines, using steam.

How have you compared the Eurocentric situation between 1648 and 1814 with the global situation beforehand and subsequently?

Climate politics is geopolitics. 

And the violation of human rights is a geopolitical issue, too.

Most action on climate change must be made by the current governments of societies associated with dominance before and during the Cold War, namely the former Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed by 154 states in June 1992, less than six months after the end of the Cold War.