Adam Smith’s Legacies and Wellbeing

This year is the 300 year anniversary of the birth of one of Scotland’s greatest thinker. Only in 2008, a statue was erected to this genius and great Scot, Royal Mile, near St Giles. Worldwide every economist, business and politician has relied on Smith’s pioneering science of political economy and almost every major economist has quoted Smith – terms such as the free market and danger of monopolies.

 

We must also turn more to Smith’s first book his ‘Theory of Moral Sentiment’ – which is equal in every way to his ‘Wealth of Nations’ - “ No society, can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

 

**BUT he was crucially and equally a moral philosopher. 

Smith advocated the free market and drive of merchants, but …..equally balance by concern for all of moral standards. He believed any new law required careful and long considerations.

 

He believed self-interest should be balanced with concern for the common good – with virtue and ethical – as part of a whole.

“Over the years Smith’s lustre as a social philosopher have been less attended to.”

 

“Smith’s philosophical, historical and economic work as part of a single whole, and the psychological drives which support man’s desire to better his condition.” Andrew skinner writes (Adam Smith professor of political economy, Glasgow 1994-2020)

Moral philosophy was based on what we would know as psychology. He believed individual self-interest should be balanced with concern for the common good, emphasising the importance of virtue and ethics in society.

 

**BIO

Age 14 Smith studied at Glasgow university under professor of moral philosophy Francis Hutchison (one of the founders of the Scottish enlightenment). After he won a scholarship to Balliol college oxford (Snell exhibition scholarship of future clergy of Scottish episcopal church). He considered the standard of tuition at Oxford inferior to Glasgow and educated himself. ‘the greater part of the public professors have given up pretence of teaching. At 27 he took up a post as professor of Logic Glasgow.

 

Then he was Chair of Moral philosophy , where he met David Hume and James Watt. In 1764, he became tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch – with travels in Europe, met Voltaire in Paris and wrote the Wealth of Nations.

“Smith is the very epitome of the enlightenment, hopeful but realistic, speculative but practical; always respectful of the classical and past, but ultimately dedicated to the great discovery of his age – progress.” Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

“Over the years Smith’s lustre as a social philosopher have been less attended to.”

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

 

This is one of the best films about the power of art.

Art as protest!

 

She went to war for the people she loved and who loved her back – the bowery junkies, the late-night queens, and the forgotten. Nan Godlin spent three decades photographing the low life – the jagged, raw, scary company. And she nearly died herself from an over dose of opioids. 

 

Artist Nan Goldin set up an art activist group called PAIN - 

She campaigned to force the Sackler name removed from art galleries –

 “Hear us Roar!”

 

At the Guggenheim museum New York – with blood red banners they all chanted …

.”400,000 dead/ 200 dead each day / shame on Sadler / take down their names." 

 

They roar to blow the roof off! As white papers fall like snow…with the words

“if only Oxy-Contin is controlled how substantially would it improve sales?”

In the Sunday Times 15^th January 2023 and the art critic Wlldemar Januszczak says this art film is the best art film he’s seen. “For her art is a friend, a refuge, a family. When she and her buddies stormed the Guggenheim - they weren’t looking for easy publicity. They were hoping to rescue art from the Sacklers.”  

 

ART as protest

Picasso - Guernica

Goya – Third of May 1808

John & Yoko – Bed ins for Peace

Suffragette Mary Richardson – Slashed a Velazquez at the National galleries

 

 

Worth watching 

 

Edinburgh festival returns for 2023!

To offer new horizons

 

Edinburgh International festival 2023 now with new director Nicola Benedetti – firsts women and first Scot – this August with 2,000 artists, from 48 countries. 

of theatre, music, dance and drama. How can our institutions embolden and make people’s lives better.’

 

This years theme of ‘IDENITITY, COMMUNITY AND RESILIENCE.”

 

Nicola wants the festival to offer something mystical, magical, community and resilience. 

 

This year the festival will host the BUDAPEST FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA – their motto  is “To serve the people”

Nicola discussed concerns over recent cuts to the Arts. “We must work together to put arts as a must. We must go out to the community. Once you’ve felt it, you want to feel it again. How can we make progress in a different way? It’s a complete picture. The Arts are not an added extra. “

Nicola spoke of positive ways we can make the arts matter.

Where do We Go From Here?

Aly Bain’s soaring Shetland fiddle

I’ve been taking photos at Celtic Connections Transatlantic Sessions since 2008, and one of the highlights is the soaring fiddle of Aly Bian. He plays with an ease and grace that makes it all look effortless -  which is genius in itself.

As a child Aly liked the shape of the violin and started lessons at age eleven when he sat on the knee of his teacher. He was a protégé of Tom Anderson and of the passing on the heritage of Shetlands.

 

Eventually he left for Glasgow and where he played radio Glasgow and played little clubs

He uses a driven bow. Aly play a Scandinavian fiddle made by Adolf springer – which is “sweet and more like a voice”.

 

Aly has recorded 11 albums with Phil Cunningham, with whom he continues to tour extensively. In 2023, he has been recording with Eric Clapton at Abbey Road - 

The Transatlantic Sessions – Since 2008, Aly, along with Dubro master Jerry Douglas, has led the ever more popular Transatlantic sessions as the finale of the major winter festival, Glasgow’s Celtic connections. Hosting many iconic musicians as well as popular Scots Gaelic singers, and American country singers.

 

1960s Aly played with several bands and was in great demand – The HUMBELBUMS, MIKE WHELLANS, BOYS of THE LOUGH.