On Having an Impact

Asteroid Impact

I am not the sort of Classicist who often goes on about Latin roots or tags. I promise not to write many blogs consisting of etymological lectures. But given the song-and-dance about IMPACT, which we in British universities have been told is a main goal of academic research, I thought it was worth recalling what this word actually means. 

Our research is supposed to have an ‘impact’ on people, who are defined either as other boffins or the general public, depending on which bureaucrat you are talking to. In the next Research Excellence Framework assessment, twenty per cent of the points given to each academic for her or his research will be decided on the criterion of their ‘impact’.

Greek Professor impacts the public

The Latin word impactus is the passive participle of the transitive verb impingo ‘I impinge something on something else’, and has a violent resonance. If you were an ancient Roman, you used the term impactus to describe what happened to your fist if you smashed it in someone’s face (Plautus Rudens 3.4.5), to thick fetters when they were welded onto a slave’s limbs before he was sent down the mines (Plautus Captivi 3.5.76), to a stone which you hurled at someone you despised (Phaedrus 3.5.7) or to soldiers forced by superior military force backwards onto earthworks (Tacitus Hist. 2.41).

The term was also used metaphorically, but almost always with a rather negative implication—you could have an impact on someone by harassing them or laying an allegation against them. These are also the implications of the term in English until very recently: so the Oxford English Dictionary in 1909 offers, in the literal sense, ‘The striker's thumb…impinges the skull of his opponent’, and in the metaphorical, the imputation of crime.

Roman Fist-Fighter

Don’t get me wrong.  I have argued since decades before research ‘impact’ was dreamed up that no academic deserved a cushy lifestyle at the taxpayer’s expense if s/he was incapable of explaining to that taxpayer why their research mattered. As a result of this stance I even acquired a reputation amongst some refined classical scholars, whose research was clearly far too elevated to be understood by mere lay people, for having a ‘streak of vulgarity’. (This is an actual quotation from a 2011 anonymous AHRC peer review of the 'impact' section in a research proposal of mine; the review was not redacted before being sent to me). I think anyone whose salary is paid by other citizens should be accountable to them.

But the word ‘impact’ does not really get what I mean. I would like the general public and other academics to understand what we do and why we think it benefits life on earth. But do we really want to impinge it on them? Actually, it doesn’t matter if we don’t, since our research will be assessed on the impact criterion regardless.

UK Classicists Training for the REF

We clearly need to start smashing our monographs into people’s faces and hurling transistor radios tuned to Melvyn Bragg’s BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ at unsuspecting members of the public from our university library windows. We need to go to war on other academic departments, dispensing bullets made from squashed-up articles in History Today and Nature from our automatic rifles. Fortunately there is still time to organise this before the REF submission deadline of November 29 2013.

The Sophist and the Tub-Thumper

On Wednesday night I met one of Tony Blair’s chief speech-writers, whose name is Phil Collins, over the microphones on Radio 3’s Nightwaves. He has written a useful book on how to write speeches, with some nuggets from Aristotle and Cicero (which is where I came in).

Collins is fun and  very, very clever. He talked brilliantly about clarity and audiences.  But when he addressed actual politics the charm wore off. I suddenly saw an explanation for the whole Blairite world-view when Collins claimed, in reference to the oppression of black people, ‘It’s  more difficult now to write great speeches', since ’those issues, those stories aren’t really there now’. I protested that, for example,  the ownership of 90 per cent of wealth by 10 per cent of people might be regarded by some as an issue of significance. But he insisted that ‘our politics now...don’t contain many massive, grand issues,’ because  ‘this is a nicer place than it was’.

Phil Collins

Collins was one of the chief architects of the later period of New Labour ideology. He continued to write speeches for Blair when  Labour’s back was up against the wall over Iraq after the revelations of detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib. But here he was saying, on national radio, that we live in a world without social injustice or racism serious enough to warrant indignation (which he dismissed as ‘tub-thumping’).

The only conclusion to draw from this is that the rich and the sophists on Planet Spin may not be cynical liars, as I had always thought, but actually deluded.  Perhaps they can’t see the world around them accurately because they only travel between Hampstead, Westminster and the BBC, and spend all their time with each other (Collins, although once from the north, has himself worked as an investment manager and used to go out with Natalie Imbruglia).
 

Perhaps this explains why the wealthy so beloved by Blair are adept at tax avoidance: they don’t think that there ARE any problems, and so it’s okay to put money in offshore tax havens like (e.g.) David Cameron’s father’s investment company. This fund explicitly reassured its customers in 2006 that its affairs were ‘managed and conducted so that it does not become resident in the United Kingdom for UK taxation purposes’. Places like Panama proved amenable.

Curiously, the fund from which Cameron’s fortune was consolidated was named BLAIRMORE Holdings Inc. By 2006, this could have been interpreted as meaning that ‘you can siphon off MORE under BLAIR’.  For myself, not having any spare cash to invest in Panama right now, I’ll have to stick to Tub-Thumping.

On Snooping

The UK government proposes a law allowing police and security services to monitor all our communications by email and social media. This is an outrageous development in a country that claims to be a democracy, which means that the people (demos) have the sovereign power (kratos). The government, police and security apparatchiks are supposed to work for us, not against us. The legislation we actually need is a review of the twenty-three exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These include Parliamentary Privilege, the Queen’s right to non-disclosure, and, extraordinarily, information which, if disclosed, ‘would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person.' 

Having said that, one of my top ten Rules for Survival is never to say anything to anybody about a third person that I wouldn’t be prepared to say to their face. Theresa May, Home Secretary, is more than welcome to read my emails. On the rare occasions when, because of too much wine, I have accidentally copied in people to emails in which I criticise them, I never in the end regret it. I always subconsciously wanted to let them know anyway (as in ‘x was a pusillanimous pillock at that meeting yesterday’). In Vino Veritas.

Truth as a way of life (coincidentally the motto of the California State University, Vox Veritas Vita) is for me a pragmatic rather than a principled stance. I took the decision about thirty years ago when I tried to have two boyfriends at once. I not only kept calling Paul ‘Alan’ and vice versa, but nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to keep track of my falsehoods. 

Hans von Aachen, Justice and Truth

I have since realised how liberating the no-secret-bitching strategy can be. Amateur snoopers like to elicit ‘secret’ opinions from people in order to accumulate power. I have often been able to call such a meddler’s bluff when they discover that what they think was a confidential opinion of mine (e.g. ‘x is a total prick’) was already common knowledge to the third party because I had said ‘you are a total prick’ to them the day before. 

In terms of a little-known pair of cartoon detectives I used to love, I am a Blabber not a Snooper. Truth has no metaphysical mystique for me. It doesn’t set you free. It isn't a naked woman who can persuade Justice and her lion to protect her when she's assailed by Fraud and Force.  But it sure as hell makes life easier.

On Snooping

So the government proposes a law allowing police and security services to monitor all our communications  by email and social media. This is an outrageous development in a country that claims to be a democracy, which means that the people (demos) have the sovereign power (kratos). The government, police and security services are supposed to work for us, not against us. We, not government apparatchiks, are the state. The legislation we actually need is a review of the twenty-three exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These include Parliamentary Privilege, the Queen’s right to non-disclosure, and, extraordinarily, information which, if disclosed, ‘would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).’  

Having said that, one of my top ten Rules for Survival is never to say anything to anybody about a third person that I wouldn’t be prepared to say to their face. Theresa May, Home Secretary, is welcome to read my emails. I do not think there are any which I would mind being made public property. This includes references I write for people. On the rare occasions when I have accidentally copied in people to emails in which I criticise them, always because I have had too much wine, I never in the event regret it. I always subconsciously wanted to let them know anyway (as in ‘x was a pusillanimous pillock at that meeting yesterday’). IN VINO VERITAS.

Truth as a way of life (coincidentally the motto of the California State University, Vox Veritas Vita) is for me a pragmatic rather than a principled stance. I took the decision about thirty years ago when I tried to have two boyfriends at once. I not only kept calling Paul ‘Alan’ and vice versa, but nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to keep track of my falsehoods. 

I have since realised how liberating the no-secret-bitching strategy can be in daily life. There are a lot of amateur snoopers around who like to elicit ‘secret’ opinions from people in order to accumulate power. I have often been able to call such a meddler’s bluff when they discover that what they think was a confidential opinion of mine (e.g. ‘x is a total prick’) was already common knowledge to the third party because I had said ‘you are a total prick’ to them the day before. In terms of a little-known pair of cartoon detectives I used to love, I am a Blabber not a Snooper. Truth has no metaphysical mystique for me. It doesn’t set you free. It certainly doesn’t make you beautiful. But it sure as hell makes life easier.

Cod Capitalism

"Award-winning" inn The Feathered Nest

I do not have a big appetite. I eat little relative to everyone I know except for some Bollinger-and-fag-addicted anorexics. But when my family sprang a Mother’s Surprise and booked a table at the ‘AA Highly Commended Inn’ The Feathered Nest in Nether Westcote on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border, I was left utterly ravenous. 

The serving staff, who looked like agency models, were hurt when we rejected the wine list in favour of 2 cokes and 2 pints of bitter. The ravishing waiter gazed at the ceiling in horrified disdain when child 2 asked if they served scampi and chips.  I ordered cod. To be precise, ‘Cod with roasted cauliflower, bacon, caper and raisin purée’ at the price of £18.50 (that is, more than three times the current minimum wage for over-21s, which is £6.08 an hour).

An hour later, 2 cubic inches of rubbery white fish arrived, along with one very small floret of cauliflower, split in half (see photo with Lego minifigure to supply scale), and no perceptible sauce. Absolutely no bacon, rasins, bread, potatoes or other vegetables either. I know the price of cash-and-carry commodities, and the plateful (which is a euphemism) cost the restaurant approximately 20 pence. 

There were some  noisy people in green wellies at the next table raving about the champagne list. I accept that we were simply tacky wannabes and out of our consumer league. But even tacky wannabes are not completely gullible. Since when did this kind of mark-up become acceptable business practice?

I did complain, and a manicured midlife moustachioed male with an oiled coiffure (centre in this picture, holding the cup) reluctantly appeared. He scrutinised me as though I weighed in at 30 stone and smelt of bovine excrement. He asked disparagingly what Madam Might Feel Was an Adequate Portion of Cauliflower. I suggested 7 small or 4 large florets. He sneered as if I had vomited on his William Morris-themed carpet.

We went home and ate sandwiches. But the incident has worried me. Just how many people pay enormous amounts of money for nearly empty plates of food, in a modern revision of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale of the weavers and the Emperor’s New Clothes? 

The father of my children suggested the title of this blog. Apparently the term COD in relation to supply of commodities means CASH ON DELIVERY, but without comeback for the purchaser. This is insulting to the cod or Gadus morhua, a dignified species resident in the North Atlantic, of which the females can lay an astonishing five million eggs at a time. But it is, surely, appropriate to the experience of the hungry female of the species Homo sapiens who imagines she can eat a decent dinner in a Cotswold pub once it has developed megalomaniac delusions. The phrase ‘to feather one’s own nest’ is glossed in the OED as ‘to avail oneself of opportunities for laying up wealth, to enrich oneself ’ at another’s expense. This should have been warning enough.