Category Archives: beliefs

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, quotes

Language, Politics and War

I the last couple of days I’ve seen two articles, of very different natures, invoking George Orwell (1903-1950, right) against the deceit and obfuscation of modern politics, and indeed public life generally.
The first goes under the banner 10 George Orwell Quotes that Predicted Life in 2015 America, although it applies just as well to any other country. Here are a few of the Orwell quotes (sadly not referenced):

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.
In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.
Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.

I’ll wait here while you think about those for a few minutes …
…
…
…
OK? Good. Then I’ll resume …
The second article is quite a long essay in last Saturday’s Guardian from Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. But don’t let that deter you because the article is erudite, well-written and in the tradition of English essay-writing. It is an edited version of this year’s Orwell Lecture.
[Orwell was working at what may well have been the height of the English art of essay-writing — and he was a master essayist. Essay writing was the way for journalists and intellectuals to summon up and communicate their thoughts; which is why we were taught to write essays at school. It was essentially the 1920s to 1950s version of modern blogging — at least the more serious end of blogging.]
In his article Williams looks at the way in which Orwell, and his contemporary Thomas Merton (an American Roman Catholic monk, 1915-1968, pictured right), teach us about the language of terror and war. Essentially the thesis is that in order to counteract the obfuscation of “military strategists and politicians” the commentator has to write well — clearly, concisely, transparently — in order to permit communication and hence understanding.
Williams’ essay is dense. So dense I had to read it twice. Nevertheless it is itself clear and well written — so don’t let the density put you off; it is very well worth reading. This is where I would normally give you a couple of quick quotes as the nub of the article, but were I to do that here I would have to reproduce the whole essay! That is how good it is. But undeterred, I will anyway because Williams says it so much better than I can …

Bureaucratic double-speak, tautology and ambiguous cliché not only dominate the language of public life from the health service to higher education, talking and writing badly also prepares the ground for military and terrorist action.
Merton relished the comment of an American commander in Vietnam: “In order to save the village, it became necessary to destroy it”.
When the agents of Islamist terror call suicide bombers “martyrs”, the writer’s job is to direct attention to the baby, the Muslim grandmother, the Jewish aid worker, the young architect, the Christian nurse or taxi driver whose death has been triumphantly scooped up into the glory of the killer’s self-inflicted death.
Both Merton and Orwell concentrate on a particular kind of bureaucratic redescription of reality, language that is designed to be no one’s in particular, the language of countless contemporary manifestos, mission statements and regulatory policies, the language that dominates so much of our public life, from health service to higher education. In its more malign forms, this is also the language of commercial interests defending tax evasion … or worse, governments dealing with challenges to human rights violations, or worst of all (it’s in all our minds just now) of terrorists who have mastered so effectively the art of saying nothing true or humane as part of their techniques of intimidation. In contrast, the difficulty of good writing is a difficulty meant to make the reader pause and rethink.
Our current panics about causing “offence” are, at their best and most generous, an acknowledgement of how language can encode and enact power relations … But at its worst, it is a patronising and infantilising worry about protecting individuals from challenge; the inevitable end of that road is a far worse entrenching of unquestionable power, the power of a discourse that is never open to reply … On both sides of all such debates, there can be a deep unwillingness to have things said or shown that might profoundly challenge someone’s starting assumptions.

Yes it is a dense, but good and illuminating, essay. It’s well worth the effort required to read it. And when you’ve read it, please hammer its lessons into the concrete heads of our politicians.

beliefs, sexuality

Young Men and Porn

During his eight years as editor of lad’s mag Loaded Martin Daubney was often accused of being a pornographer.
When he stopped editing Loaded he decided to try to put his experience to good use and he now spends time visiting British schools to give talks to teenagers, teachers and parents.
Daubney explains a little about what he’s doing in this short article from the Guardian earlier this week. It is well worth a read as a refreshing approach to what is still very much a taboo subject.

beliefs, ramblings, science, thoughts

Cargo Cult Ethics

Yesterday I came across an article on the Farnham Street blog which talks about, and reproduces, Richard Feynman’s 1974 commencement address at Caltech entitled “Cargo Cult Science”.
As always with Feynman it contains good stuff, explained simply. Let me pick out a couple of quotes:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist … I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen …
One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out.

This is about how to do good science — indeed any good investigation. What Feynman is saying in the article is that in doing an investigation one has to publish the full scenarios. Whatever the outcome, why could it be wrong. If the experiment didn’t work, why might this be. And importantly, show that you understand, have accounted for, and can reproduce any prior work and assumptions on which your work depends.
Being Feynman this is all explained quite simply with lots of examples, often drawn from his own experience.
But it is wider than this. It is something Feynman touches on but doesn’t highlight. It is essentially about being open and honest; being ethical. Feynman is applying it to scientific enquiry but, as you can see from the quotes above, it should apply equally to any enquiry, aka. life.
Feynman’s address is an interesting 10 minute read even for non-scientists.

beliefs, current affairs, ramblings

They just don’t learn

When will the Western world understand that, by their actions, they are responsible for the terrorist attacks which are happening around the world? I’m thinking specifically of Paris last Friday but there are many many others.
By interfering — usually with military force — in the Arab nations all they are succeeding in doing is further radicalising those countries’ (potentially) disaffected youth and other (misguided) religious zealots.
And why are they surprised at this? If some set of foreigners, with a different culture and religion, were launching air strikes on us, wouldn’t we be sending anyone who would into their countries as insurgents? Especially if we had poorly organised and equipped military ourselves.
Of course we would — and we have. For starters, see the WWII French Resistance and other clandestine organisations like SOE. And we have officially sanctioned and organised terrorists called the SAS.
The more we meddle, and the more we retaliate, the worse we are going to make the problem. And it is a problem which is of our making! We started meddling in the Middle East way back at the time of the Crusades and it has escalated (on and off) ever since. In After the Victorians AN Wilson makes the point that one of the underlying causes of WWI was Britain trying to prevent Germany getting access to Arab oil which we had claimed. We’ve been interfering ever since. And it goes on.
None of these countries — in fact overall very few countries in the world — have a tradition of democracy. They are nearly all used to autocratic rule in one form or another. Just as we were, once upon a time. It has taken us 800 years, starting with Magna Carta in 1215, to get our democracy to its current (fragile) state. Some of the countries of our erstwhile empire have taken the English model on board. Other European countries have got there too by their own, often bloody, routes — see, for example, the French Revolution.
So how is it we expect to be able to walk into any country, tell them to embrace democracy and expect them to jump for joy and do so overnight? Why would they? How can they when it’s taken us 800 years? To them democracy is a revolution and a totally different culture. People don’t like change and they are mostly OK with what they have because at least they understand it. Nearly everywhere we’ve done this in the last 200 years we have ended up with, at best, a bloody nose.
The Arab countries are large enough and well enough orchestrated that they can bring their resistance to us. They have a religion which, by and large, transcends their tribal divisions and they aren’t confined to their own little enclaves like many African nations. Contrary to Christianity, when push comes to shove, the Arab religious beliefs will overcome any tribal animosities.
Why is it that politicians cannot learn from history? It isn’t that hard. If I, a mere scientist, can do so then so can anyone with more than six brain cells. (Oh, hang on, do politicians even have six brain cells?)
No I am not saying we should be soft on terrorists. Yes we have to deal with them on our territory according to our laws — just as they would if the tables were turned.
What I am saying is twofold: (a) stop meddling in other countries, except perhaps through diplomatic channels, and (b) stop bombing the shit out of them at any excuse. Unless, of course, your objective is to radicalise them.
Let me leave you with two final thoughts.
(1) Never lose sight of the fact that your enemy is a human being too. He (or she) has a mother, a sister, a child, a spouse who loves them. They eat, pee and lust the same as you. They were once that carefree child playing in the street. To lose sight of your enemy’s humanity is to lose all respect for others and yourself.
(2) And in the words of Abraham Lincoln:

Do I not destroy my enemies by making them my friends?

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, ramblings

From Agincourt to WWII

This is a very lightly edited version of something I posted earlier today on Facebook, but I’m repeating it here as I feel it needs to be filed for posterity.
There’s an interesting perspective from Martin Kettle in today’s Guardian under the banner

It will soon be time to drop our oppressive remembrance rituals.
We can respect the fallen without wrapping ourselves in the flag,
as the Agincourt anniversary shows.

And I have to agree, especially as I see the BBC have already dusted off their never-ending supply of Remembrance Day poppies. Basically I’m with Evelyn Waugh who back in the 1930s described Remembrance Day as a disgusting idea of artificial reverence and sentimentality. Moreover I object to being subjected to what is now basically moral blackmail.
But note very clearly: I’m not saying be unpatriotic, not to remember and not to be grateful for the sacrifice others have made to protect our freedoms. I’m saying that the current public display of maudlin sentiment and obsequiousness associated with Remembrance Day (and everything around it) is nauseating and unnecessary and serves only to glorify war. Martin Kettle says it much better, and in much more measured words, than I can:

… if we are capable of thinking about Agincourt without wrapping ourselves in the flag, why not other later conflicts too? In three weeks’ time we will reach the climax of the annual military remembrance rituals. A century after the great war, these rituals have become more culturally hegemonic than ever before. Yet it is surely possible to respect the importance of history and to support events that bring peoples together while still feeling that … these particular rituals have now become unnecessarily oppressive.
At some point in the future … we will begin to let go of these rituals. One day, the head of state will no longer lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in November for the long-distant dead. One day, MPs and TV newsreaders will not feel the press of obligation to wear poppies on all public appearances …
For the present, people in public roles have little scope but to conform on such matters … we will be right to stop doing these things … and there is nothing inappropriate or disrespectful about suggesting that we would benefit from that time coming sooner rather than later.

We need to be looking and going forward, working for peace; not looking mournfully backward.

You can’t look forward and backward at the same time

beliefs, medical, sexuality

Foreskins

1 Comment

Digging back through my pile of unread articles over the weekend I came across one from earlier this year entitled The Troubled History of the Foreskin [long read].
Common in the US, rare in Europe and now championed in Africa, male circumcision is hotly debated. Author Jessica Wapner looks at the prevalence of male circumcision in America, the way circumcision is being forced onto developing nations (especially in Africa) and the evidence for whether it is actually effective.


Would you buy a banana like this?

And her conclusion is much the same as mine: It is unnecessary and an abuse just as FGM is. As the article is a long read, here are Jessica Wapner’s concluding paragraphs:

After reading the literature, I’m unconvinced by the evidence used to justify circumcision for health reasons. I’ll explain why by means of a thought experiment. Imagine that infant male circumcision had never been a part of American medical practice, but was common in, say, Spain or Senegal or Japan. Based on what we know about the health benefits of the procedure, would American doctors recommend introducing the procedure? And would that evidence be enough for American parents to permanently remove a part of their child’s body without his agreement?
Remember what the evidence tells us. Either the benefits can be obtained by a milder intervention (antibiotics and condoms in the case of urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases), or the risk is low and open to other preventive measures (penile cancer), or the concern is rarely justified (HIV in the United States). Remember also that Western countries where circumcision is rare do not see higher rates of the problems that foreskin removal purports to prevent: not STDs, not penile cancer, not cervical cancer, not HIV. It’s hard to imagine circumcision being introduced on this basis. It’s equally difficult to picture studies on the benefits of the procedure being done.
The main reason we have circumcision in the US today is not the health benefits. It’s because we’re used to it. After all, if circumcision is not definitively preventing a life-threatening issue that cannot be prevented by other means, can removal of a body part without the agreement of the child be justified? We are so accustomed to the practice that operating on an infant so that he resembles his father seems acceptable. I’ve heard many people give this as their reason. It isn’t a good one.
It’s disconcerting to think that circumcising infant boys may be a violation of their human rights. We castigate cultures that practise female genital mutilation (FGM). Rightfully so … removal of the clitoral hood … is anatomically analogous to removal of the foreskin. Some forms of FGM, such as nicking or scratching the female genitalia, are unequivocally deemed a human rights violation but are even milder than the foreskin removal …
Thinking about male circumcision as an unnecessary and irreversible surgery forced on infants, I can’t but hope that the troubled history of the foreskin will come to an end, and that the foreskin will be known for its presence rather than its absence.

Yes, male circumcision should be a human rights abuse just as is FGM.
Footnote: Before anyone wants to ask, no I’m not circumcised. I’m very glad my parents thought as I do that the procedure is unnecessary and thus an abuse. Indeed from memory a majority (maybe 60-70%) of the guys at school and with whom I’ve shared cricket etc. changing rooms were also entire.

beliefs, ramblings

Frustration and Greed

I was reading the latest on Brad Warner’s Hardcore Zen blog last evening — always worthwhile as Brad is eminently sensible and a Zen master.
He was writing about greed, especially greed for good.
And he nailed why it is that so many of us get frustrated that, while we can make a difference, we can’t make the huge difference that we know is needed. We are being greedy for the goodness we are striving after, and in Zen greed (any greed) is one of the “three poisons”.
Here’s the key extract of what Brad had to say. [My explanations in brackets.]

Greed … does not differentiate between good and bad. We’re used to the term greed being applied to things that are either bad for us or to things that are good or neutral except when over-indulged in … greed doesn’t just get directed towards bad things. You can also be just as greedy for good stuff, for things no one would ever say you shouldn’t want …
Back when I was an employee of Tsuburaya Productions [Japanese company who made the Godzilla films], I found myself getting really frustrated with how things were going. I was very dedicated to the company and I knew we could be doing much better than we were. I saw great opportunities for us internationally that we were just passing by because our management refused to see them or take steps to realize them.
During this time I went and saw Nishijima Roshi [his Zen teacher] and complained bitterly about the situation. Nishijima had been a businessperson most of his working life. He understood that side of things very well. I recall once telling him that Tsuburaya Productions was wasting its opportunities because it had no goals. I caught myself and said that I knew Zen was supposed to be goalless. He said, “Yes. But in business you must have a goal”.
So he got what I was saying that day about my frustrations with the company. But he said I needed to be satisfied with making small changes. Those small changes were important and eventually could lead to greater things. He didn’t exactly tell me not to be greedy, but that’s what he was saying.
The same attitude can be applied to the kinds of noble and important work a lot of people I meet are involved in. A lot of these people are terribly frustrated because they can’t seem to make the sweeping changes they know need to be made in order to fix the problems they’re working on. But many of these problems are global in scale …
It’s unrealistic to expect great changes to happen quickly. Getting greedy for good things only makes matters worse. We start getting angry and depressed, leading us to be unable to be effective in our important efforts to do what needs to be done.

This is something which hadn’t struck me before but on reflection is both correct and important. And it is something I (and probably many others) need to take on board.
Don’t be greedy for change. Yes, have a goal, but be prepared to progress towards it one small step at a time. “Softly, softly, catchee monkey.”

amusements, beliefs

Oddity of the Week: Approved Reincarnation

China is notorious for its efforts to control things in Tibet but the law that the Chinese government passed in 2007 was beyond absurd. According to the law it’s illegal for Tibetan Buddhist monks to reincarnate without the government´s permission.


On 3 August 2007 China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a decree that all reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhist monks must have government approval, otherwise they are “illegal or invalid”. The decree states

It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas. The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country.

It also requires that temples which apply for reincarnation of a living Buddha must be

legally-registered venues for Tibetan Buddhism activities and are capable of fostering and offering proper means of support for the living Buddha.

Reincarnation applications have to be submitted to four governmental bodies for approval: the religious affairs department of the provincial-level government; the provincial-level government; State Administration for Religious Affairs; and the State Council.
All of which is sadly part of China’s efforts to sideline the current Dalai Lama and take control of the selection (when the time comes) of both the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama.
For more see http://humansarefree.com/2011/02/china-bans-reincarnation-without.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Religious_Affairs_Bureau_Order_No._5.

beliefs, freedom of speech, personal, thoughts

Lessons for Life

Spread all across the intertubes there are hundreds of sites which suggest a vast number of supposed “lessons for life”. Many, of course, are nothing of the sort but merely personal predilection or religious proselytising. However there are some which seem to me to be much more universally useful and which would serve us well if included in our modus operandi. Here then are my top ten tips for surviving life on an even keel.
My Top Ten Lessons for Life

  1. Life isn’t fair — deal with it.
  2. If it harm no-one, do as you will.
  3. Treat others as you would wish them to treat you.
  4. Be open and honest in all that you do.
  5. You can never have all the information you want to make a decision; every decision is the best you can make at the time with the information available.
  6. Don’t be afraid to admit you were wrong or you don’t know; be prepared to change your mind.
  7. No one is responsible for your happiness, your emotions, your opinions or your orgasms except you.
  8. No regrets — just things you now know weren’t the best.
  9. If you’re faced with a problem, don’t delay trying to resolve it; problems ignored only multiply.
  10. There is no point worrying about things outside your control or which you cannot change.

Of all the rest I’ve seen over the years I have collected some more of what I consider to be the most generally useful on my website at Lessons for Life.