Category Archives: thoughts

books, natural history, thoughts

On Wild-Life and Adolescence

I’ve just finished reading My Natural History by Simon Barnes.  Barnes is the award-winning Chief Sports Writer for the Times as well as a great wildlife enthusiast and ornithologist who has travelled the world in search of both sport and wildlife.  He is erudite, as befits one who is so hugely well read, and a fan of Anthony Powell’s Dance, often working Powellian references into his sports writing.

My Natural History is written in Barnes’s light, forthright and eminently readable style.  In 23 short chapters it tells the stories of significant moments in Barnes’s fifty-odd years in all of which he finds a wildlife connexion – many indeed being centred around wildlife.  The tales vary from great achievements (mostly of the wildwood; always understated), through great loves to the occasional disturbing poignancy.  It is short, light, bedtime reading, and no worse for that for it could easily be sub-titled “How to be a Success without any Effort while Remaining Interesting and Human”.

As a example of his insight be writes this apropos his (no, anyone’s) adolescence: 

Does that [an idealistic, youthful vision] sound frightfully adolescent?  Well, so it bloody well should.  We were bloody adolescents.  Why do we sneer at adolescence?  Why, when we look back in maturity at the wild notions and the demented hopes and the illogical beliefs and the ephemeral soul-deep passions of our adolescence, do we feel it our duty to sneer?  Or apologise?  Why do we not instead believe that adolescence is not a cursed but a blessed period of life: a white-water ride down the river of time.  These rapids are not a place to spend a lifetime, but they are an essential transitional process if you wish to be an adult with any kind of life, any kind of passion, any kind of meaning.  True, the stuff we came up with was half-baked: but then neither it nor we had been in the oven for terribly long.  We were celebrating our newness, our rawness, celebrating the irrefragable fact that life was all before us: for us to change, for us to be changed irretrievably by.

books, current affairs, people, science, thoughts

Martin Gardner, RIP

Martin Gardner, scientific skeptic and maths puzzler has died at the age of 95.  Although maybe best known, at least in scientific circles, for his “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American, for me he will be remembered for his The Annotated Alice which has gone through several editions and numerous reprints; it remains one of my all-time favourite books.

There are short obits here and here.

And you can find all his books available on Amazon.

nudism, personal, thoughts

Are children traumatised by nudity?

1 Comment

This question is posed by Vanessa Woods in her blog Your Inner Bonobo.  As an anthropologist Woods, an Australian living in America, clearly doesn’t understand the default American assumption that the answer to the question is “Yes”.

This is something about America that puzzles me. What do children stare at for the first year of their life? I think it’s a female breast. Did [male student] think at the sight of naked breasts, every child under 5 would be lining up for a feed, like at an ice cream truck?  What is it, exactly, about breasts, that would be so terrifying to children?

[…] at no time have I seen a woman in public pull down her top and breast feed her child – which is totally common place in oz. And my friends here have told me it’s not socially acceptable.

Can someone explain it to me? Why is a wardrobe malfunction [as per Janet Jackson] a threat
to moral authority?

I fear that the explanation for America and the UK lies in the puritanism of the religious right. And of course as I’ve blogged before (for instance here) this seems to me and many others to be the root cause of the high rate of teenage pregnancy etc. in these two countries.

But what is the real answer to the question?  Are children really traumatised by nudity?

No, of course they’re not! Isn’t it daft just to suggest that they are?

In a recent-ish article in British Naturism’s magazine (BN, issue 182, Winter 2009; I’ve naughtily put a copy of the article online as it isn’t otherwise freely accessible to non-members) Roni Fine

explores the issues that surround the presumption from the outside world that simply being nude means a lot of saucy goings-on.

Yes a large part of the article is about the erroneous perception that the naturist movement is, by its very nature, merely a cover for “adult” activity.  It isn’t, and there’s the problem. Roni Fine goes on …

Too many people […] just cannot differentiate nudity from sex. If only they would visit a typical naturist club […]

The times I have heard people say it is “disgusting” to be undressed in front of children. They use [children] to warrant their own outrage […]

Outrage, I might add, which the same people cannot articulate when asked. Fine continues …

Children are not associating what they see with anything remotely sexual; they just see bodies. They grow up with a realistic attitude to the human form. I envy their upbringing.

And further on here’s the crux of the whole problem at an individual level: basically people don’t think things through:

[…] something is only “rude” if you perceive it to be so. How can the natural body be deemed as rude? We all have one, it is how we are made and it isn’t “rude” until someone tells us it is … so who are they to decide? And why let them dictate their own hang ups onto other people?

As BN’s researched briefing paper Children and Nudity says:

Young children are completely oblivious to their own nudity. Consider the archetypal nude toddler in the supermarket with a trail of discarded clothing behind them.

As they get older they are taught that clothing must be worn but until about age 10 or 11 it doesn’t really take hold. They will quite happily go naked when the circumstances are appropriate.

As children enter their teens they become more body conscious and unless they have prior experience of naturism they are usually nervous about participating.

Many naturist children become more reticent as they enter their teens but then teenagers are notorious for not wanting to do the things that their parents do. They do usually continue to participate, at least for activities such as swimming, and many return to naturism when they become more mature […]

There is no evidence that children are any more at risk at naturists events than at equivalent textile events. Indeed in some ways they are safer.

Let me end on a personal note …

I admit I had a somewhat bohemian upbringing, back in the 1950s and 60s. So it should be no surprise that when I was about 9 or 10 my parents were foresighted enough to organise a couple of summer holidays at a nudist club in Essex. I was totally not bothered by this; indeed I enjoyed the nudity and running round in the sun all day. Yes I realised that little girls were constructed differently to me; just as there was a difference between my parents’ anatomies. Beyond that I couldn’t care less; if anything I was more amused by the size and shape of peoples’ bums (typical small boy!). And that was the point; it was all part of my education to make me aware that people were all different and to be comfortable with nudity. It succeeded. I have retained that comfort ever since, even (as I recall) through the embarrassed teenage years.

So there we seem to have an answer.  Are children traumatised by nudity? Absolutely not – unless the adults they’re with tell them they are.

Adults … get a life!

current affairs, environment, science, thoughts

A Question of Sandblasting

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There’s a lot of fuss around at the moment about the inconvenience being caused by a bit of Icelandic ash causing disruption to air travel.  There are, naturally two major schools of thought.

First.  Volcanic ash cases major problems with jet engines (see at least two near-miss major disasters in the 1980s).  Given that the ash is being blown across northern Europe, one of the most densely used pieces of air space in the world, we have to exercise real caution and ground flights.  We must not take the risk of anythinggoing wrong; after all we don’t want another Locherbie-style disaster (different cause, of course, but similar effect) and inconveniencing a few (hundred thousand) people.is better than the repercussions of killing a couple of plane loads.

Second.  The naysayers are of the belief that this is health and safety gone barmy.  They contend (seemingly on little evidence) that a disaster is unlikely and that the world economy cannot be held to ransom in this way by disruption that could last weeks (at best) by a load of risk-averse numpties.  In their favour there are reoprts that KLM have flown a plane through the ash cloud in Dutch air space without any damage (Lufthansa have also reportedly flown test flights); KLM are now pressing for the restrictions to be lifted.

As always there is a degree of logic on both sides.  How does one weigh the cost (monetary or otherwise) of the potential for a major disaster against the inconvenience of not flying?  This is hard and depends entirely on one’s underlying philosophical approach to life (see the last section of this).  I feel sure when the original “no fly” order was given the expectation was that the ash cloud would clear in a day or so.  Now it seems the disruption may last weeks, even months or years, depending on the course of the eruption.

Is the disruption of air travel over much of northern Europe viable (even justified) for a protracted period?  The powers that be seem to be working on the assumption that they have no option and that they have to be risk-averse.  The naysayers contend that such disruption is not justified.  Let’s look at some aspects of the disruption:

  1. There are large numbers of people, who are through no fault of their own, are in the wrong place.  They’re either on holiday or away from home on business and unable to return.  Or they are at home when they should be away on holiday, business or attending to family emergencies.  Some are managing to travel, and anyone on mainland Europe has a chance of travelling over land or sea – capacity permitting.  But anyone across the sea, eg. in the Canary Islands (as is at least one friend), in the Far East, the Americas or Africa is basically stuffed until air travel is resumed.  Clearly anyone who is away and cannot get home may have issues with employment, studies, animal welfare, supply of essential medicines etc.
  2. This naturally has a knock-on effect on business.  Business people can’t travel to/from where they (think they) need to be.  Is this a really justified concern?  I suggest that in these days of efficient audio- and video-confereceing this should not be a concern for a large number of businesses.  For the last several years before I retired I did almost no business travel despite running geographically spread teams – and I don’t just mean people spread across the UK; I regulalry worked with, managed or worked for people right across Europe, in South Africa, the USA, India and Australia without once leaving the UK!  What it does demand though is (a) more thought about organising teams and tasks, (b) reasonable telecomms and IT facilities, (c) most importantly a “can do” attitude on the part of those involved.  By reducing travel in this way organisations can save millions of (select currency of your choice); that’s millions a month for large companies (in 2005-ish just one sector of the company I used to work saved over $1m a month in travel).  Clearly there are jobs which cannot be done remotely: anything which requires specifically my bodily presence, for instance anything medical or where I (and not anyone else) have to handle a specific object; but the range is increasingly small.
  3. The third aspect is the disruption of trade – or at least that part of it which has to be done by air-freighting stuff around the globe. This of course includes food supplies and the postal service.  People are beginning to worry that we are going to run out of food.  While my feeling is that this is unlikely, I concede that our choice of food may be restricted somewhat with anything being air-freighted around the globe dropping off the market – prices will get too inflated to be viable or it won’t be possible to get the commodity from source to shop quickly enough. Indeed all prices may rise as a consequence of supply and demand.  Is this a bad thing?  Well clearly price rises are a bad thing, but beyond that it depends how one views food miles.  For my part I suggest the reduction of food miles is a good thing.

It’s a tough call, and one I’m very glad I don’t have to make.  Who would want to be the person responsible for either closing air space and risking such massive disruption or (perhaps worse) saying it’s OK to fly and then watching 100, 10, even just one, 747 fall out of the sky?  Undoubtedly there is no right answer, but I can’t help feeling I too would err on the side of caution.

So what of the long-term effects of all this?  Well the following seems at least plausible:

  1. There will be a permenant downturn in business travel, as businesses discover they can save lots of cash for a small investment in remote working.  Bad for the airlines; good for business generally and probably good for the work-life balance of many professionals.
  2. There will also be a further downturn in foreign holidays – at least where air travel is required.  Again bad for the airlines and the holiday companies; good for trail/ferry companies, the indigenous holiday sector and maybe even, longer-term, for heavy engineering like shipbuilding.
  3. Also there might, with luck, be a downturn in the amount of food we ship (specifically air-freight) around the world; either because we get used to doing without it, because it can’t be shipped fast enough or because Joe Public won’t pay the inflated prices.  Undoubtedly this will be bad for the producers and the airlines.  But it should be good for local farmers who might be encouraged to put land to better use and it could lead towards the much needed restructuring of world-wide agriculture (which I’ve written about before, see for example here and here).
  4. All of this leads to a long-term downturn in aviation with (if ones believes in it) a positive effect on climate change and probably several airlines going out of business.  

As one of my friends on Facebook has observed: “perhaps we need to get used to the fact that the modern ease of transporting ourselves [and our stuff – K] across continents is not something that should be taken for granted”.

And as a final thought: who can now justify the expansion of Heathrow, or indeed any other airport?

beliefs, medical, nudism, science, thoughts

Air Baths

Thinking yesterday about nudism, I recalled some connection with the great American statesman, scientist, diplomat and thinker Benjamin Franklin.  And indeed it is so for Franklin was in the habit of taking a daily “air bath”, as he called it.  Almost 250 years ago on 28 July 1768, when in London, Franklin writes to the French physician, Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg:

I greatly approve the epithet which you give, in your letter of the 8th of June, to the new method of treating the small-pox, which you call the tonic or bracing. method; I will take occasion from it to mention a practice to which I have accustomed myself. You know the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic; but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent, and I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution to bathe in another element, I mean cold air. With this view I rise almost every morning, and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but, on the contrary, agreeable; and, if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it, and that at least it does not injure my health, if it does not in fact contribute much to its preservation. I shall therefore call it for the future a bracing or tonic bath.

Elsewhere Franklin also writes:

In summer-nights, when I court sleep in vain I often get up and sit at the open window or at the foot of my bed, stark-naked for a quarter of an hour. That simple expedient removes the difficulty (whatever its cause), and upon returning to bed I can generally rely upon getting two or three hours of most refreshing sleep.

Let us remember too that Franklin was no mean inventor.  Amongst other things he gave us: bifocals, the flexible urinary catheter, the lightning conductor, an especially efficient design of wood-burning stove, the odometer, America’s first public library as well as hugely increasing our understanding of electricity and mapping the Gulf Stream.  And as if that wasn’t enough he was one of the founding fathers of the United States.

Who would doubt the wisdom of such a man?

beliefs, science, thoughts

Hume's Guillotine

Astrophysicist Sean Carroll, over at Cosmic Variance, wrote an interesting piece on moral philosophy a few days ago. Carroll was reviewing/commenting on a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk by Sam Harris in which, according to Carroll “he [Harris] claims that science can tell us what to value, or how to be moral”.

Now I’m not concerned with the actual content of Harris’s talk, nor the arguments subsequent upon Carroll’s comments, which you can find in the links from here and here.

My concern is to highlight the interesting proposition in moral philosphy that you can’t derive an “ought” from an “is”. This appears to have been first discussed by philosopher David Hume around 1739 and has become known as Hume’s Guillotine. Wikipedia quotes book III, part I, section I of Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

In case you didn’t follow that (yep, I struggled too!), here’s Carroll’s version from the final paragraphs of his Cosmic Variance piece (remember he’s commenting on Harris’s talk):

In the real world, when we disagree with someone else’s moral judgments, we try to persuade them to see things our way; if that fails, we may (as a society) resort to more dramatic measures like throwing them in jail. But our ability to persuade others that they are being immoral is completely unaffected – and indeed, may even be hindered – by pretending that our version of morality is objectively true […]

The unfortunate part of this is that Harris says a lot of true and interesting things, and threatens to undermine the power of his argument by insisting on the objectivity of moral judgments. There are not objective moral truths (where “objective” means “existing independently of human invention”), but there are real human beings with complex sets of preferences. What we call “morality” is an outgrowth of the interplay of those preferences with the world around us, and in particular with other human beings. The project of moral philosophy is to make sense of our preferences, to try to make them logically consistent, to reconcile them with the preferences of others and the realities of our environments, and to discover how to fulfill them most efficiently. Science can be extremely helpful, even crucial, in that task. We live in a universe governed by natural laws, and it makes all the sense in the world to think that a clear understanding of those laws will be useful in helping us live our lives […] When Harris talks about how people can reach different states of happiness, or how societies can become more successful, the relevance of science to these goals is absolutely real and worth stressing.

Which is why it’s a shame to get the whole thing off on the wrong foot by insisting that values are simply a particular version of empirical facts. When people share values, facts can be very helpful to them in advancing their goals. But when they don’t share values, there’s no way to show that one of the parties is “objectively wrong”. And when you start thinking that there is, a whole set of dangerous mistakes begins to threaten. It’s okay to admit that values can’t be derived from facts […]

All of which seems about right to me; as is the corollary: you can’t derive an “is” from an “ought”, or in words of Flannery O’Connor “the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it”.

beliefs, nudism, personal, thoughts

Naturist Belief

Having mentioned naturism (again!) in my previous post, I thought it might be wise to reprint here the Naturist Beliefs, as documented on the British Naturism website.

Naturist Belief

Naturists believe that nudity is an enjoyable, natural and moral state which brings benefits to themselves and to society at large.

Decency and Shame
The human body in all its diversity is an object of intrinsic beauty of which the owner should be proud.
Simple nudity is not indecent, shameful, or immoral.

Children
Bringing up children to respect their own and others’ bodies improves their well-being and fosters more responsible sexual behaviour as they grow up.
Children have a right to know what humans really look like.

Social Division and Respect
Naturism engenders self-respect and respect for others regardless of shape, age, gender, size, colour, or disability.
People should be accepted for who they are and not for what they wear.
Communal nudity discourages social barriers but clothing accentuates social differences.

Clothing
Clothing can provide needed protection but often it is unnecessary and it can be harmful.
Naturism transcends fashion.
In a tolerant society what to wear is a matter of personal choice.
Governments should promote toleration and not impose unnecessary restrictions on freedom.

Environment, Nature, and Quality of Life
Naturism encourages respect for, and harmony with, the environment.
Naturism can add to the quality of life through the enjoyment of simplicity.
Naturism can reduce impact on the environment.

As the BN page says in it’s preamble:

Not every naturist will agree with all of it … but that is no different from any other belief system.  For some naturists it will form part of a religion but for others it will be part of their philosophy or life.

I’ll go along with the “philosophy of life” bit but not the “religion”.  I’ll also go along with 99% of the beliefs, even if I wouldn’t weight them all equally.

memes, personal, thoughts

What is this Thing Called Life?

I’ve stolen this meme from both My Life Inside and Bringing up Charlie mainly because I thought it might be a bit of harmless fun.

I’m not going to tag anyone – but anyone is welcome to do this meme and tag others as they see fit.

OK, so …

I collect … all sorts of dross, but mostly books.  Just books, books, books.  Interleaved with the occasional bit of technology and music and dross.  It’s no wonder really our house is a good emulation of a distressed jumble sale: I buy new stuff and Noreen doesn’t throw anything away.  Anybody got a month to spare to come round and sort it all out for us?  If so, bring a skip!

I can’t live without … well let’s be honest we could all live without everything except occasional food and water.  But there are things without which we would struggle to feel life worthwhile.  For me this would include, but may not be limited to, Noreen, cats, good food, beer, books and access to the natural world.

My guilty pleasure is … I don’t have guilty pleasures!  Why are pleasures always supposed to be guilty anyway?  But I do have a few pleasures: sex, beer, erotica, cats, nudity.  If you think any of them are guilty, then that’s your problem, not mine.  Guilt, like obscenity, is in the mind of the beholder.

Our house is filled with … dross.  Piles of it.  And books.  See above.

I treasure my … mind.  I am able to think; logically.  I was trained that way.  It saves me from all forms of Devil worshippers.  And as Noreen has said in the past “mind the size of the Albert Hall and he runs around in it”.  Slight exaggeration, but flattering nonetheless.

Right now I can’t stop thinking about  … well being a bloke the obvious answer is: sex.  After all aren’t all men supposed to think of sex every 4 seconds or something daft.  More prosaically I’m contemplating all the useful things I should be doing instead of this.  Boring!

Currently I am reading … the pile of books about 6 feet high beside the bed.  Books on science, mythology, Chaucer, Anthony Powell, Romney Marsh … it’s all there!

My favourite item of clothing is … nothing.  Yes, that’s right, I’m happiest in the nude.  Well I did have a Bohemian and naturist upbringing!  One of my underlying philosophies is: Nude when possible; clothed when necessary.  Sadly the necessary is all too frequent.

The last thing that really inspired me was … Oh My God, That Britni’s Shameless.  Whether you agree with the young lady or not (and it happens I do agree with a lot she says) she is so outspoken and tells it as she sees it, that she has made me question not only what I believe but also the extent to which, and how, I communicate this.

My comfort food is … errr … food?  Quite a few things fall into the comfort food category: fish and chips; sausages; almost anything in good cheese sauce, beer.  All of them hideously bad for one – but that’s the point isn’t it?

On my desk are … PC, screen, keyboard and mouse; laser printer; backup disk array; filing trays; phone; piles of paperwork; pens; keys; mobile phone; rubber stamps; half a dozen CDs; teddy bear; fax machine; tissues; vase of daffodils; and a large mug of tea.  Yes it is a large desk (aka. worktop).

This weekend I will … catch up on some sleep; try to empty the spare bedroom ready for house guests.

Tonight I must … take delivery of the supermarket order.

I love what I do because … as I’m retired I can do whatever the hell I like!!

So there it is.  Do with it as you will.  After all, it’s free!