For the Sake of Argument

Opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the author or authors. Ideas propounded below are to be considered not for the sake of self-congratulation nor for the sake of truth or moral supremacy. They are to be digested only for what is truly important - the sake of argument.

[tobyhambly]

The Meaning of Life

Let me tell you that we know the meaning of life. We haven't known it for long, but we know it now. Banded around as a question that has no answer, an answer is ours if we just choose to put ourselves in perspective of what we know.

Life is a physical construct. It is a product of the evolution of this universe. Matter and energy, both borne of the same when looked at deeply, meandered along an increasingly disordered path throughout the universe and after many chaotic interactions eventually jostled into atoms, which clustered into clouds, and then collapsed under gravity into stars. Around some of these stars a portion of the remains collected into spheres - gaseous, and rocky - and on at least one rocky sphere orbiting one average star, the conditions were right for billions upon billions of random chemical reactions to give rise, just once, to life. This is the name we give to a system that copies itself again and again simply because it does. 

Meaning is a human construct. It is the product of the biological evolution of our mental processes, the most crucial component being the organ we call the brain. Billions of cells, connected through electrochemical pathways, fire signals to each other. From the necessity to have had to survive to be extant today, they have evolved into a structure that can traverse their universe in a way that is, simply, good enough. However, these cells (our brain) are just an organic computer and therefore none of the results it produces necessarily have any true relation to what's actually going on in the universe. They have just had to do a good enough job to continue. The universe is very good at ticking on without anyone or anything prescribing meaning to it. Meaning is a human creation, the product of complexly organised processing matter, firing off synapses in a certain way. It only exists within a mind. It could only exist within a mind.

This leaves us at a singular point where we can ponder the question - what is the meaning of life? What we mean here is the meaning of human life, human lives, our lives. A human analysis of the unmeaningful creation of some conscious minds, and what, if anything, they should do? What should our existence mean? What is its purpose? On what should we spend our time, with our accidental consciousnesses and agency?

It is down to us to think. It will come from nowhere else. It cannot and will not. All meaning comes from the human mind. All life was fortuitous and accidental.

In a very short time the scientific method has shown us much and taught us of much more that we don’t know. So far, we know our planet is the only one to support life. We are the only species with which we can communicate and cooperate compliantly. Only amongst ourselves, and on this planet, can anything truly be done to improve the experience of each conscious mind. Through the understanding of our humble and minute place in the universe we can only see how small we are in relation to it all. This tips the probabilities away from a solipsistic perspective for it is unlikely that of all the human beings you are the only one that can experience reality in the way that you know you do.

Biology, chemistry and physics teach us that the barriers between you, any other human, and the natural world are all imagined and not mandatory. Sexualities, skin colours, genders, nationalities, languages, religions and cultures are all cosmetic, they are not cosmic. They are nothing more than the crude attempts to analyse this word by minds. This universe is already physically harsh. We do not need to invent new ways to make ourselves susceptible to each others' wilful destruction.

The meaning of life is to make the experience of everything conscious and alive the most excellent for each individual mind, from its start to its end. This means what we know it must mean. Every effort must be made in the spirit of everyone being worthy to explore this strange existence in glory together. We happened upon being able to know that knowing was even a concept therefore all knowledge must be sought out using the methods we know to have worked consistently well. 

Every human's upbringing must be made optimum. What makes an upbringing optimum must be worked out. We know that fear, shame, violence, and discrimination cause only damage to human beings. They provide no positive impact. Be suspicious of those who tell you, or try to persuade you of, the opposite. We know that education, creative exploration, and a concerted effort to understand ourselves, each other, and the universe can only lead to our fulfilment and our betterment.

The meaning of life is ours. It is yours. It is the duty of all of us to strive towards creating that meaning and excelling together, as one, into the dark extremities of our co-existence. We must spread the fire of our virtues wide, deep, and as far as we can go. All that we know to do is to try.

- J/T

[tobyhambly]

#No makeup selfie: charity, narcissism and Ways of Seeing

When I first noticed the biblically viral onset of the most recent social media charity drive, I was thoroughly unsurprised. I have written before about ‘neknominate’ and its relationship to Movember. Both rest on the narcissism inherent in one’s social media existence. Participation in Movember involves apparently forgoing one’s image in the name of proving your ‘awareness’ of men’s health issues. The same is true of the ‘no makeup selfie trend’, or so I first thought.

Before I elaborate, I must insert some preparatory caveats. Revving up a critical perspective on a trend that has, to date, raised millions and millions of pounds for Cancer Research would seem about as legitimate as defending Joseph Kony. It is hard to argue that money flooding in droves to charitable institutions is a negative phenomenon. But what does it say about the way we do things? In the large mirror held up to society by twitter and facebook, what are the contours of our reflection?

My initially facetious view on the no makeup trend was based on a rather cynical understanding of how people act on facebook. Of course this would go viral, I thought. Not only does it involve people forgoing their image, it is also a very public act of charity, establishing one’s credentials as a socially aware, altruistic person who is not concerned with the way they look. Bravo Cancer Research, I thought. Good on them for harnessing these facts of modern life in the fight against cancer. Who cares that wearing no makeup has either nothing to with, or a slightly pernicious relation to, the actual sufferers of cancer?

This arms-length view of mine turned slightly sour after I read Ways of Seeing by John Berger. In the third essay of the book, Berger focuses on the way of seeing manifested by the European artistic tradition of the nude. Central to his argument is the notion that women had been painted naked for the benefit of the spectator or owner of the painter, always presumed to be a man. The nakedness of women was, in this way, literally owned and is a constant validation of a man’s sexuality and power by displaying the submission and prostration demanded of feminine sexuality. This signifies echoes of Berger’s socialist feminism. This ideological cocktail blends socialism’s contempt for capitalism’s corruption of human nature with feminism’s notion of patriarchy. Such is Berger’s view of the European tradition of the nude.

How on earth does this relate to the no makeup selfie? Well, in slightly more abstract swathes of Berger’s essay, he talks about the differences in gender roles intimated by the way of seeing inherent in the nude. Excerpts are worth quoting at length.

 ‘the essential way of seeing women, the essential use to which their images are put, has not changed. Women are depicted in a quite different way from men – not because the feminine is different from the masculine – but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’

‘In the art-form of the European nude the painters and spectator-owners were usually men and the persons treated as objects, usually women. This unequal relationship is so deeply embedded in our culture that it still structures the consciousness of many women. They do to themselves what men do to them. They survey, like men, their own femininity’

I think the no makeup selfie trend has within it the seeds of Berger’s concepts. The whole point of it is ostensibly the fact that one wouldn’t ordinarily display oneself without makeup. The supposed courage that it takes for someone to forgo this ‘normal’ image is predicated on the strength and influence of the socio-cultural norm that would otherwise preclude that same person from picturing themselves in such a way. What are the origins of that norm? For whose benefit does it exist? What is the basis of the notion that femininity is wedded to the use of makeup?

These questions are for each individual to answer for themselves – no moralizing on my part could or should coerce anyone’s freely chosen behaviour. Nonetheless I feel that something quite disappointing is demonstrated by the no makeup selfie trend and its monumental virility. Not only does it show that charity is best served by harnessing certain narcissistic instincts (perhaps not the way things would be in an ideal world), but it also reflects and reinforces the inequalities between the norms that dictate our image of the masculine and the feminine.

During Movember, men forgo their image and in so doing acquire an element of masculine identity usually associated with virility, strength, control and distinction. For women to participate in a similarly public charitable trend, they are asked to relinquish an element of their normal identity, without which they are normally viewed as less beautiful, less desirable, less feminine. Even in light of the millions of pounds added to the armory of Cancer Research, this trend disappoints me.

Money to charity is almost undeniably positive no matter what I think of it. I just can’t shake the idea that this money has been spawned from some disheartening facts about the way we think of one another. If I could think of a way for charity to be served while negating and transcending these trends, I would suggest it. But I can’t, so I won’t.

John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Penguin, 1972)

[tobyhambly]

Thought for the day...

Have you ever noticed hat 'celebrity' magazines bend over backwards to sensationalise Kate Moss going to the shop, or Hugh Grant taking a dump, while 'real life' magazines contain stories completely removed from anything approaching normal life - 'I gave birth to a half alien, half hispanic pigeon', 'My fiancee slept with my whole family the day before the wedding'.

Something seems backwards here.. 

[tobyhambly]

Ladies and gentleman, may I introduce Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association

Honestly, the babble that issues forth from this man's mouth would be almost unbelievable if it weren't spewed so confidently. Mr Fischer, during what would appear to be a typical 'day at the office', manages to string together a little necklace of crazy. In the nutjob bingo of life this man is a full house.

He seems to be conscious of appearing vague as he re-clarifies his little nugget of moral wisdom for the last time:

"If you are for the legalisation of homosexuality, you are for the acceptability of homosexuality, you are for the normalisation of homosexuality [then] you do not care about black males. You have no compassion in your black heart for black males because they are being decimated by HIV/AIDS... so why am i opposed to the normalisation of homosexual behaviour?  Because I love black males.

Firstly, I think Mr. Fischer is in for some disappointing news when he finds out that it isn't really possible to be 'for the legalisation of homosexuality' in a country where it's not against the law. I'm also struck by the idea that someone, especially a white male, would play the race card (a race card at any rate) in order to justify banning homosexuality. I think we can agree that is contorting solidarity more than a little too far. While superficially funny, quite a few more pernicious assumptions are riding on the coattails of this unique use of racial inequality. 

Most blatant is the unquestioned synonymity of HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. Whatever the statistics are on the relative rates of infection among different communities it is irrelevant from the get-go. Fischer, and those like him that believe homosexuality to be a crime against nature and a 'choice', are often tempted to think of homosexuality as a sort of ideology. Therefore being gay is practically the same as approving or 'normalising' sexual orientations other than heterosexual in that all are in favour of the right to a 'lifestyle choice' that is unnatural and immoral by definition.

From this kind of thinking a forgone conclusion can be read into any supposed facet of homosexuality; that it is a violation of God's law and is therefore responsible for natural disasters, that it corrupts the God given or otherwise sacred 'nuclear family' and thus harms children, that it spreads diseases like HIV/AIDS - it's a circular argument that starts from the belief that other sexual orientations are wrong and ends with the conclusion that other sexual orientations are wrong because of x y or z. 

I almost feel bad linking this sort of thinking to religion because I know that religions are not universally homophobic or indeed universally anything. Religions, like all systems of thought, cannot be considered as monoliths. I've never met anyone that believes, for religious reasons, that homosexuality is wrong. What I can't escape thinking and noticing however, is that organised religions lend themselves to this irrational, often circular and often chauvinistic kind of thinking. Especially when used to gain power in the here and now or to legitimate opposition to a status quo, religions exhibit the tendency towards total solutions, universal dichotomies and monolithic thinking.

It doesn't occur to this representative of the American Family Association that some of the 'black males' he loves so much, and in whose name he valiantly oppresses homosexuality, might also be gay or bisexual or transgender or anything else of their choice that conforms to something other than his narrow, bigoted, monolithic and primitive understanding of humanity.

Evidently for some, society exists in categories. Categories which deny the heterogeneity of our species in order to satisfy a bronze age dogma. I should clarify - I'm not saying he is primitive because he is religious, I'm saying he's primitive and religious. Primitive because his worldview seems devoid of nuance and extremely partial to moral dichotomies separating 'them' from 'us'. This primitivism (I can't find a better word for it) empties the richness of his religion and nullifies the possibility for further enrichment by asserting his opinion of the will of the creator of the universe, implicitly denying the inherent pluralism and diverse complexion of our species.

I'm sure it seems odd, at least a little disproportionate, to expend so much energy dredging up views that are marginal and by no means mainstream. I don't want to appear as someone who looks for any opportunity to have a go at religion. I will defend anyone's right to believe what they want about whatever but I will never miss the chance to oppose those who wish to categorise and divide human beings according to total or universal truth.

I suspect that one of the few 'us'/'them' dichotomies that I will ever get close to believing is the one that sees the enemy as anyone who would wish to stifle argument and debate. Anyone who asserts truth that is 'members only'. As always, I reserve the right to disagree simply for the sake of argument, a cause well worth fighting for.

[tobyhambly]

Neck + Nominate: Social Media and Narcissism

Have you ever noticed that, often, someone's facebook profile will portray a ludicrously emphasised version of what their life actually is. If believed, people's social media guises would give the impression that they were always partying, always with friends who are cooler than yours, always having a great time - a much better time than you. Of course no-one updates their facebook status with 'just me, this lukewarm chicken tikka ready meal and my crushing loneliness' - it seems a trusim to say that social media are tools for the extension of the ego and are repositories of narcissism.

This is why I just don't get the outrage over 'neck and nominate' - a craze that involves two really unsurprising, predictably lame facets of the culture of my generation. The first is the narcissistic culture of social media (of which, by the way, I fully recognise myself as a member), the second is 'lad' culture. Both these things are quite odious in isolation but form a kind of double-whammy of internet predictability when combined. 

Its virility as social media meme is based on it satisfying these two pillars. What better way to massage your online ego than prove you have friends enough to 'nominate' you, nominate others yourself, and distinguish yourself from your peers by your unique take on that goldmine of wit: drinking a quantity of alcohol. 

This, I feel, is the strength behind Movember. Movember has blown up over the last few years and the aim of starting conversations about men's health has certainly been achieved. Discounting the overtly good intentions behind something like Movember for a second, I think the reason why that has done so well is because it has the inevitable 'look at me' factor. The incremental photo updates to social media showing the progress of the 'tache and the endless repetition of the hashtag that this procures. The act of deliberately forgoing image for the sake of a cause or for 'awareness' is a strong enough meme that the cause has become ubiquitous, especially among students.

In universities, where there is enough image-concern and drinking culture to go around, something like neknominate is inevitable. Hearteningly however, the trend has been transformed into a force for positive change. In my town of Durham, where neknominate has done the rounds, a student has reconfigured it into donate + nominate. Charitable donations are made and others are nominated to do likewise. This development has within it an inherent criticism of neknominate as a trend that serves no purpose or 'greater good' and we may agree or disagree with that at our leisure. The point remains that its success or failure will be decided on the basis of its satisfaction of social egos in a social media setting just like any other temporary trend and fleeting fad.

This doesn't denigrate or lessen the charitable impulse involved at all, but it does acknowledge the competition that exists between causes celebres and the rules of the social media game. Facebook, twitter and tumblr are powerful tools if used astutely. But now, in 2014, we should reserve our outrage for things truly deserving of it, not something so predictable and determinable as neknominate.

[tobyhambly]

The Right to Ill-Health and Early Death

In a brief scan of the papers today at my local petrol station, it seemed that the most important story worthy of front page attention was the supposed 'obesity crisis'. This is thanks to a report by the National Obesity Forum that claims that the predictions made in a report in 2007 - most notably that half the population will be obese by 2050 - may have grossly underestimated the scale of the issue. 

In an unsurprising exhibition of the paucity of the journalistic rigour in our time, the Guardian, the Express, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and BBC news have all unquestioningly churned this non-story into a thick consensus of doomsday nonsense. The Independent parroted this 'news' but buried it on page 10. As with many issues in recent months, it was only until I navigated to Spiked online magazine that I was greeted with what used to be called journalism. 

First then, the claims themselves. Is British society going to be beset by a scourge of obese children and overweight parents wheezing their way to an early grave? Is the remaining portion of the populace, the better informed apparently superior constituency, going to have to pick up the financial burden on our health system? Well, not necessarily, and certainly not according to Rob Lyons or the Health Survey for England. There is a pile of data that furnishes a less apocalyptic conclusion - that in fact rates of obesity have flattened out and fallen away slightly in the last few years. 

That not one of the outlets covering this story has questioned the statistics could be slightly offensive to those who demand some acuity from the news media, but it should not be altogether surprising in this case. There is a veritable cacophony of self-righteous and holier-than-thou voices that have grown in strength as the notion of personal responsibility has diminished in the popular imagination of politics. 

The current that underwrites and gives strength to these voices is one that denies the basic right to decide the trajectory of one's own life and health. The question that no-one is facing is, simply, do we have a right to be unhealthy and die early of diseases brought on by smoking, drinking or eating too much or don't we? The consensus around moral lifestyle crusades is allowed room to breathe and expand due to the side-lining of this question. Either the law allows people to damage their health or it does not. Why is it insisted upon that we waste so much time and energy skirting this fundamental question, while investing ourselves in ways to nudge and redirect the helpless masses away from that which they couldn't otherwise resist?

The miserabalist doomsdayers form and advocate what I feel can be reasonably called a non-opinion. A non-opinion is something that is based more in the necessities of self-regarding moral supremacy than those of argument, logic, reason and dialectic. A non-opinion therefore arranges itself against a supposed antithesis in order to draw moral reverence to the cause. In this case the supposed antithesis is someone arguing, "I hate life, I want people to die early of obesity and I think kids should smoke 'cos it's cool". Of course no-one would ever argue such a thing giving the original non-opinion the veneer of objectivity and total uncritical acceptance. 

The supposed obesity epidemic is a perfect storm for non-opinion of this type as well as a good opportunity to use the phrase 'tax-payers money'. After all, even someone committed to personal responsibility and agency can see the problem with an overburdened health system. The NHS is stretched as it is so any step away from the stigmatisation of ill-health by choice might push it to breaking point... right?

Well again, not necessarily. It makes an immediate and lazy form of sense to implicate the NHS in a supposed crisis of health because it allows individual's choices to come under the remit of the moral hierarchy of others. It places the overweight person and the smoker in the same all inclusive term 'tax-payers' and thus blankets an imagined debt between members of society for their private choices. But there is decent evidence to show that far from reducing the collective burden on healthcare, curbing obesity causes more long term cost to the system. Whatever it costs to treat obesity related illness pales in comparison to the costs of keeping people alive past a point. Dying early reduces the burden on the healthcare system even if that involves some treatment in the declining phase. If people want to make this an argument about cost then far from requiring higher duties to pay for the unhealthy choices of others, we should really be subsidising them. 

I would like a discussion of the central question - do we have a right to an early death and ill-health or don't we? Provided that there is sufficient information available to free such a right from the coercion of ignorance, I would say that yes we do have that right. Indeed, if we don't have the right to choreograph our own demise then where does that leave us? If, in the end, we owe our life to something other than our own decisions and agency, then of what quality are those decisions? 

[harriet-bruce]

angela carter inspired ink book

[tobyhambly]

Just a pinch of the work of my eminently talented friend Harriet. I would strongly advise all to check out the rest of her art. 

[tobyhambly]

Drug education and personal responsibility

A while ago the chief constable of Durham police, Mike Barton, came to the university to take part in a series of talks called 'difficult dialogues'.

About a fortnight prior to this, he took the step that many senior figures in law enforcement have been taking - coming out against the 'war on drugs'. He argued that this war has comprehensively failed. He described how the sale of hard drugs was pumping tens of thousands of pounds a week into organised criminal gangs and that the best that his force could do was to shut down as many open drug markets as possible. Of course, the black market economics of the drugs trade means that these markets will always come back, so it was with a visible sense of desperation that Mr. Barton sought to open debate.

I was thoroughly impressed by the chief constable. It was refreshing to hear such an open and candid case being made for decriminalisation and a change of attitudes. Afterwards, as I shook his hand, I said that a year ago if someone had told me I'd hear such things from a senior police officer I'd have thought they were tripping serious melons. But no, here in County Durham, we have a chief constable who wants to take steps towards decriminalising seriously addictive substances and taking drugs out of the realm of force placing them in the remit of our health system - hazaar!

It became clear that Mr Barton was principally concerned with the discussion surrounding drug taking. Fittingly, I think he may have been consciously controversial for the sake of argument, which I certainly applaud. The discourse that shrouds drug taking is rightfully scrutinised for its effects on young people and their perspectives towards mind-altering substances. This 'drug education' as many will certainly think, is not only inaccurate and patronising but also counter productive if the aim is to create a generation of tee-total sober types.

I can only speak for my school when i criticise the formal education I was given, but from what I could glean from the talk it seemed that my experience was fairly universal. At the relatively doctrinaire Oxford private school that I attended, drugs were dealt with as though they were beneath people like us and were only done by desperate dropouts. They were described in the context of their adverse effects which themselves were often grossly exaggerated. We learnt how much prison time to expect from possession and distribution and how much hospital time to expect from an overdose. All the while, 'drugs' and 'drug taking' were mysteriously set apart from normal and rational behaviour. The palpable undertone to all the 'education' I received was a patronising fakery that deemed my class-mates and I to be above such foolishness. Though the information I received was mostly accurate, it left a sour taste in my mouth because really it was all a polite and well-meaning fiction that aimed not to educate but to nudge us away from drugs.

Now what's wrong with that? Should we instead extol the virtues of spangling, tripping and gurning one's way through life? Well no. But if the goal is to stop a generation of teenagers from doing something, the best thing to do is recognise their personal responsibility. At a time of heightened curiosity about the mind, the world and one's place within it, the worst way to treat adolescents is as though they are above something. It spawns a distrust of authority when one's personal responsibility and agency is removed from the equation. Worse still, it makes kids want to find out what is being hidden and from what they are being shielded. If one source of education is debunked, the remaining source is personal experience and all the pitfalls therein.

I noticed this sense of imbalance between the two sources of education particularly strongly one break time when a very well-meaning teacher of mine came to talk to me about smoking. After our terse and rather awkward discussion he leaned in a bit closer and in hushed tones said, '...and it's only tobacco right Toby? not weed..? Because I had a friend at university who really screwed his life up on that stuff'. A well-meaning comment on the dangers of marijuana rendered completely ineffectual because my friends and I were being educated far better through our own experiences. The severity with which he was speaking of weed seemed frankly quite silly, not simply because I smoked every day, but because I knew dozens of people my age who maintained a fairly outrageous array of habits while still managing to achieve, create, succeed and be happy

I'm not trying to blame anyone for my habits nor am I trying to defer the responsibility for them to my education. I have been lucky for my entire life in about as many ways as one could care to count. I have been especially lucky that I have avoided the dangers that drugs pose and have emerged unscathed. I quite strongly believe that the basis for ensuring this for future generations is a change of attitudes towards drugs. If we give people like chief constable Barton more time in our public discourse we might see that shift. If the stigma is removed from drug taking and the responsibility of those involved is appreciated not in terms of offence but in terms of the rational agency of the curious mind, we will create a better healthier society.

[tobyhambly]

What's So Great About Jesus?

I think it's about time that we interrupted the uncritical acceptance of certain Christian doctrines as 'moral'. 

Firstly, the notion that Jesus 'died for our sins' is a disgusting idea. It was taught to me in the grovelling and pious tones of my school's chaplain (which might have coloured my perception slightly). Jesus, fully aware of his fate, allowed himself to be tortured to death upon a cross all the while forgiving his torturers and imploring his father to spare them for 'they know not what they do'. This act of frankly pathetic fatalism, this human sacrifice is supposed to have been laden with the sins of humanity and from this emanates the gratitude and unquestioned nobility attributed to the act. Why should I be thankful for this? How are we all implicated in this vile cult of death and torture and sacrifice?

If a friend owes money, I might pay it back on their behalf. If someone injures me or steals something from me, I might forgive them. But what one cannot do if making claims to an absolute and received morality is remove the sins of all. Vicarious redemption takes a huge dump on the notion of personal responsibility which is itself the basis of any morality. Also, what is so noble about forgiving others for their sins? C.S Lewis wrote the following treatment of such an action;

We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct

Asinie fatuity - now that's more like it. Lewis' argument is essentially that if not the son of God, indeed if not God himself, Jesus' teachings would be immoral and wicked. One's own mind can be made up about that rather important status, but the simple fact remains that vicarious redemption is a morally dubious idea. Such redemption through the torture and sacrifice of an innocent man is sick and should not be remembered and forced upon people as if it were the epitome of moral nobility

Also, in our culture we uncritically accept that the charge to 'love thy enemy' pertains to the same uniquely noble and untouchably moral standard achieved by the aforementioned sacrifice. Well fuck that. Why should I love my enemies? Pacifism, though an important creed, is often just not applicable. The universalisation of the notion of 'love' to include those that hate us and seek to harm us might sweat a superficial odour of moral supremacy but in practice this is a repugnant idea. It stems from the principle - the very same notion that animates most organised religion - that this world is not enough, not everything, and not even worth living in.

Similarly empty is the gauntlet laid down by Jesus that his followers should take no thought for the morrow, drop everything and get behind him. No thrift, no saving, no investment or infrastructure or industry or medicine or effort in the fortunes of future generations because hey, this life is just the throat-clearance for an eternity of grovelling, supervised praise in paradise.

 While I'm on the subject of supposedly great things Jesus did I'd just like to say nice one on curing that blind guy, really, top marks. Could you have maybe cured blindness? Oh and while you were on earth maybe you could have revealed to the deluded Bronze Age inhabitants of rural Palestine that it is in fact microscopic organisms that cause disease - no worries that you didn't, it was still awesome when you cured that leper. 

Now I don't even have to agree with what I have written above for it to be worth saying. Conformity in this area of cultural and moral argumentation is a dangerous thing. It plays into a kind of chauvinism about Western culture and Western religion. Indulging in the uncritically accepted moral supremacy of Jesus' life, while relaxing the critical faculties paves the way for lazy prejudice about Eastern religions and culture.

'Oh look how the Muslims treat women!' or 'Islam is so not a religion of peace' is so often said that it is impossible for me to conclude anything except that Christians and Westerners tend to overlook the vile, the unjust and the plainly immoral within their own histories due to nobody getting up and saying things like, 'what's so special about Jesus of Nazareth'.

I write the above not to make anyone agree with me but for the sake of argument. In this case, for the sake of an argument that doesn't exist.

[tobyhambly]

Why Alan Turing should not have been pardoned

The genius mathematician should be celebrated for his achievements, not his legal victimisation.

Politicians apologising for things is not only ridiculous but offensive. Tony Blair apologising for slavery makes a non-sensical claim to responsibility that trivialises the slave trade. That entire chunk of history in which hundreds of thousands of people were condemned to nameless obscurity and misery cannot be undone by apologising centuries later. It might make everyone feel better about themselves but that's why it's so damaging. The history of slavery should stand in its entirety. No one has the right to apologise for it and doing so just recreates the unjust orchestration of the history of nations. 

Alan Turing was pardoned. Pardoning, according to OED, means that the crime he committed still stands, he has just been absolved of its implications. The vile treatment that was doled out to Turing and many other thousands of homosexuals who did not make it into the national treasury should remain as hateful, intolerant and horrific as it was in 1952.

We can only hope to do better by people in the present. Acting like we have the right to undo past wrongs, apologise for historic injustice or pardon those crushed by vile governments of old is only a self-serving exercise in historical denial. It is our responsibility to digest our history as it is and we should stand in the way of any attempt to tint it with a rosy hue.

[tobyhambly]

New Year's Eve and the Prisoners' Dilemma

It occurred to me last night that new year's eve plans often progress somewhat similarly to the prisoner's dilemma.

Strictly speaking, the prisoner's dilemma involves only two participants. Upon capture, both prisoners are offered their freedom if they implicate the other in a worse crime but only if their partner stays quiet. If they betray one another they get two years each but if both stay silent they each get one year. The dilemma stems from the fact that, from a purely rational point of view, it is in each prisoner's self interest to betray the other to be set free. However, if both pursue this rational course of action they each end up worse off than if they cooperated.

The principal cause of the dilemma is that the prisoners can't communicate with one another and so they are forced to guess how cooperative the other will be. This is not the case with new year's eve plans but the outcome is pretty similar. 

In my experience, people are unwilling to commit to plans until the very last minute. There is a mystique surrounding what is an otherwise totally arbitrary time of year that forces the idea that something extra special must be done to bring in the new digit at the end of the date. The promise that the 31st can bring a party like no other, with more booze and good times than an orgy in a nunnery, forces the dilemma of cooperation on people.

No one wants to commit to something early in case something better comes along. You don't want to be huddled round a game of boggle with the grandparents while your friends are out drinking themselves into sublime oblivion. So what usually ends up happening is that everyone ends up waiting until the last minute and the mystique of NYE comes crashing down in a shower of disappointment and cheap Prosecco. 

I think next time I will do exactly what I did last night - absolutely fuck all.

[shortformblog]

Saudi Arabia just gave Lebanon a really big end-of-year present

$3B the size of the investment Saudi Arabia just made in the Lebanese army, an investment meant to strengthen the army’s resources. Those resources are seen as weaker than those of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which is located in the country and is supporting the nearby Syrian government in the country’s ongoing civil war. The move could weaken Iran’s influence on the country, but some analysts suggest the source of the funding makes it divisive. source

[laliberty]

When I first read that Drucker quote, I immediately thought of drones and how their efficiency makes possible aggression that would otherwise be too costly or unfeasible.

[politicalprof]

In case you didn’t know, the enforcement of drug laws in this country is wildly racist …

ht: Chris Hayes; Wonkblog

[tobyhambly]

Bahrain To Double Diesel Prices By 2017 To Cut Subsidy Burden - Gulf Business

The price will rise to 120 fils ($0.32) per litre next Jan. 14, to 140 fils in Jan 2015, 160 fils in Jan 2016 and 180 fils in Jan 2017.

The coming crisis in the Gulf monarchies in a nutshell.

[sktagg23]

Dr. Seuss was not even in the general area of fucking around.

[tobyhambly]

The Gap in the Colonial Memory and International Ignorance

Though not a tangible facet of 'Western' life, I believe there is gap in the collective memory when it comes to colonial history. Given a standard education in history in the UK, to A level standard let's say, you could reasonably expect to view colonialism as a distant antiquated feature of a bygone era. Given normal instruction in history, one is left to the conclusion that at some point during the 20th century, colonialism simply stopped. The British Empire slowly shrank as we woke up and smelled the injustices therein. The next chapter of our history textbooks has a distinctly more modern tone that serves to distinguish the current epoch from that distant Empire. 

It is out of that crucial juncture that much international ignorance spouts. Of course, one has to wait until university to actually study International Relations. The history of international politics that our adolescents digest is really a quite favourable view of Britain's place in that history, rather than an independent history in its own right. What I slowly realised during my first two years of university was that there really hasn't been a colonial watershed in our history. There has been no great departure from the colonial era, at least not in any way that is meaningful.

How many kids leaving school having studied for an A level in history or politics will know that de-colonisation happened  pitifully late, and certainly never occurred on the basis of the imagined trade-off between political control and ideals of self-determination. In most cases, colonies were so thoroughly dependent on external interests, their political histories and institutions so callously and deliberately orchestrated to serve imperial interests, that independence did not usher in a modern epoch such as we imagine for ourselves. 

The same problem has a slightly different configuration in the US. There it is not such much a problem of a gap in collective memory as a wholesale denial of its imperial history. The machinations of Woodrow Wilson, Truman, Nixon, Kissinger, Reagan Bush and Bush are not properly understood in the mainstream and therefore the dissonance between the actions and the ideals of the US is never addressed. Americans will never understand the international cynicism and hostility that greets them until they grasp all the double-standards that have emerged from the thuggish, calculating and cruel realpolitik of their foreign policy. 

I can't really pin down an answer as to why I feel so strongly about the bottomless chasm that divides how we like to think of ourselves from how our governments have acted in our name with our money. The life of someone like Henry Kissinger, from whom extends a sordid political genealogy to the Bushs's neocons, shows the fullest extent of the criminality of the colonial mindset, yet he is eminently respected. He can receive $30,000 for an appearance after a fundraising dinner. His opinions are sought as if they are neutral scientific analyses of the mystifying world of international diplomacy.

This ignites a frustration in me that is as emotional as it is intellectual. The consensus that upholds Western identity is definitively, palpably and obviously untenable if we collate the relevant facts. This consensus is also significantly damaging. The imagined departure in our colonial history allows us to swallow our own chauvinism and act as if it is a feature of history. We allow ourselves to ignore the very simple fact that at no point have we or will we allow the hegemony of a non english speaking country. This is prejudice inherited from our colonial time. It was sustained throughout the Cold War and it persists today in the extent to which we ignore the duties of the identity we have crafted for ourselves,

To conclude I'd like to quote the one instance of agreement I have found between Samuel Huntingdon and myself, 'The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do'.