Some new guitar recording today. I think, after three days, I've completed the guitar parts. Things are not 'perfect' but sufficient. When painting, I usually paint as well as I can, and then leave it. Generally, if I'm unhappy with a painting (I'm never satisfied completely) I will throw it away and start again, I never correct my paintings. I think now, I must enter a phase of music where I record in single takes and accept this - this should remove anxiety about perfection, and, over time, lead to better performances - even if by the shame of poor first takes. Of course, rehearsal and pracice of a part is important. Perhaps the luxury of multiple takes as a home studio has this downside; the ability to keep trying, like the digital photographer with a million shots available rather than a film-roll of 24.
In the afternoon Deb and I went for a nice garden visit, a last social call before lockdown.
It is also American election day. I've been thinking about Donald Trump and his phenomenon.
Due to social media, the free and democratic world has turned into one where people expect, or desire, to rule themselves via these media. This leads to a form of self-empowerment that bypasses the important checks and balances of a democracy, which were often many decades or centuries in their evolution. Donald Trump is a representation of the self-centred rule-by-media, rather than rule-by-parliament people. He doesn't need to implement the desires of his supporters, but merely convince them that he is one of them, that he is doing what they want. This is why he is not thought of as 'a politician', but as an 'ordinary person'; in a way, this is true, he is a representation of a mass-ego of his supporters. Of course, there are other people like him who both represent and exploit the ordinary citizen's desire for power via 'mass-media will'.
This form of rule is ineffective, because the casual wills of a large number of ill-informed people will miss and ignore crucial details; and because it is the quantity of the self-imposed leaders, that matter, not their level of competence or ability to deliver. People of all political perspectives participate - this is not a left/right, black/white, conservative/liberal, issue. People recently used this power to implement the political desire, seen as moderate and left wing, of footballer Marcus Rashford; people would in no way consider him or his proposals as Trump-like, yet they were exactly so.
This new political reality is one that affects the whole world.
The answers are complex. There has been a recent (since 2007, the start of the social media era) explosion of dictators, and most control the media tightly, perhaps a reaction to this concept of group-rule. One could regulate social media, and perhaps this would be enough. Both world wars were ultimately caused by the international press, first great media explosion, which was unregulated and generally unchecked; but social media platforms are easy to create and could be created in an 'underground' manner.
