Ronnie Reagan died over the weekend. To give you some sort of clue as to how that event made me feel, my friends and I played a song in his honour after we read the news. The song was called "Lake of Fire" and it is a heartwarming little tale of going to Hell and suffering for all eternity.
Now that may seem rather spiteful in spirit. After all, we're talking about Ronnie! The harmless dope who made "Well, I uh...I don't recall" a catchphrase. The good-natured buffoon who bumbled his way through every episode of Spitting Image. Not only that but he'd spent the last 10 years watching his brain slowly going soggy thanks to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease (we'll draw a discreet veil over the fact that he almost certainly started to develop the illness in the last years of his Presidency; bearing in mind the Pope is another victim of dementia, yet is still allowed to issue edicts that affect Catholics worldwide, having a 'confused' US President seems almost reasonable). So why, bearing in mind that the death of another person isn't really something one should be celebrating, did my friends and I react with a little whoop of joy and "he's finally dead" sentiments?
Well, because the cuddly image of a genial old buffer who had made it his business to wipe out the menace of Communism to secure freedom for future generations is, to be blunt, a lie. Much eulogising has already been done about how Ronnie "oversaw the defeat of Communism"; He made a speech whilst President that described the USSR as 'an evil empire'. That speech has been reprinted as his finest moment. If we are to listen to the tributes that pour in, we'd think that ol' Ronnie was the last of the Cowboys; a brave and noble soul who fought the bad guys at high noon and sent them packing. But it's horseshit. Why? Well...
Firstly, because there was a lot more to the Ronnie Regime than the end of Communism. I actually don't really dispute that it was his presidency that saw the cracks in the Soviet Union become chasms. However, those cracks had been on their way for a while; the Soviet leadership had concentrated pretty much entirely on the Arms Race with the US, and so had neglected its infrastructure and agriculture. So one was left with a cluster of countries with top-notch weapons, but where food rotted uncollected in the fields. Unsurprisingly, this led to a certain amount of unhappiness. Mikhail Gorbachev capitalised on that feeling to start the dismantling of the Single Party State. In other words, it was already happening before Ronnie and his Movie Star Speeches. To give him credit for the end of Communism is like giving a father credit at the birth of a child; sure, he was there at the time. But in the long run he had very little to do with it.
Mainly however, it's the rank stench of hypocrisy (that gives off a pungent odour not unlike one of his Presidential nappies that were a feature of the last years of his life) that bothers me about him. Throughout his reign, he made speeches that had two fundamental pillars to them; that the USSR was an Empire and therefore evil, and that he was using his presidency to guarantee truth, justice, and the American way.
Let's deal with the latter first of all. To listen to Ronnie speak, you'd think that he was turning the US into the Superhero of the world. Under his auspices, poverty and hunger would be eliminated and everyone would be able to sleep soundly in their beds. But if that's the case, why did his policies include deliberate Genocide? No, I'm not making this up; that nice Mr. Reagan gave his approval to a policy that explicitly ordered the Genocide of the people of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Not all of them of course; no, only those troublesome left wing people. Because we don't want no dirty commies on our doorstep, no sirree (I think someone must have told him that Cuba had disappeared or something like that as it was pretty much left alone under a screen of sanctions). So he gave his authorisation for the CIA to train up some of the most brutal torturers in world history and let them loose on the peoples of other nations.
Now maybe I'm being naive (and after seeing how the US military and CIA treat their prisoners in Iraq, I almost certainly am), but encouraging mass murder doesn't really sound very All-American to me. Nor does propping up the various dictatorships in South America. Or arming and encouraging rebels in African states (or governments, depending whether the left or right wing were in power) to commit ever more savage acts of butchery in the name of 'defeating communism'. To me, it sounds like he was advocating and spreading terrorism to a far greater degree than the sandal wearing defectives in Al-Quaida. And, for the most part, he's gotten clean away with it; the American people saw little of this. All they knew was that the Soviet Union had fell, and they were getting some seriously good quality cocaine at low prices (didn't I mention that the right wing governments in South and Central America had no problem using drugs to get additional funds? And that the CIA were perhaps the biggest drug runners of them all?) so who cares if some little brown men get carved up in front of their families. Or if a bunch of street kids get kicked to death by police 'hit squads'.
Of course, now America is reaping what it has sown in terms of the terror it engendered throughout the world. And is it the likes of Reagan and his echelon of money whores who supported him that are suffering? Of course it isn't. It's the ordinary people of America who are having their freedoms curtailed, being told to be afraid of anyone different, and (if you're poor enough) being pretty much forced into the army to serve in the 3rd Brigade (Cannon Fodder Division) in Iraq or Afghanistan. In the meantime, an equally unpleasant and even more astonishingly hypocritical President continues the work of spreading terror (Dubya said his favourite philosopher was Jesus; at which point in the Bible exactly did Jesus say "And lo, thou shalt launch a pre-emptive strike on thine enemies"?) and thus pretty much guarantee that the good people of America will be the most hated and fearful folks in the world. It seems to me that Americans shouldn't be mourning this man; they should be cursing him for leaving them a world of hate, fear, and terror. Good ol' Ronnie gave America the world it lives in today. But hey, who cares? He got rid of the evil empire.
A closing note about the end of the USSR; which Imperial power has now replaced the Soviets? Well, the US maintains military bases in roughly 100 different countries. Iraq is being turned into a client state where the 'sovereign' Iraqi government will have to keep the large number of US and UK troops in the country. Afghanistan is being discarded now that it's been invaded. It seems we have a new Evil Empire, with a chimpanzee as their Emperor. Thanks Ronnie; this is your legacy.
Tuesday, 8 June 2004
Monday, 7 June 2004
Won't someone please think of the children?
I can't stand our national obsession with forcing people into the unwanted position of role model, then criticising them for failing to live up to it.
We in the UK have a defining national characteristic that confuses the hell out of me. It's something that we're all aware of and that we all partake in, and I can't decide if it means that we're an embittered nation, or that we simply refuse to respect those whom we are assured are our betters. I'm referring to our great national pastime of building up our heroes before knocking them right back down again.
Oddly it was the Beckham 'scandal' about his allegedly naughty behavior with his PA, Rebecca Loos that got me thinking about this. Once I'd calmed down from my standard "we're living in a world run by a powerful and greedy elite who are making war without any consideration for how it affects ordinary people, yet we're content to let ourselves be diverted by THIS sloppy panda poo of a story?!" position that I always take about frivolous news items (a position which, although I still agree with, sort of indicates just how much I needed to lighten up), I actually started to feel rather sorry for Goldenballs.
I should qualify that; the man has basically consented to be used as a market brand and, although it's making him obscene amounts of cash, it's making his sponsors and advertisers rather more. He's handed over his life to the public domain, and if you live by the sword you die by the sword when it comes to publicity and selling yourself via the media. However, even with all that in mind I was more than a little sympathetic towards him. Why? Well, because the main tone taken by tabloid journalists was that Beckham had let down the people (mainly the children) who idolise and look up to him.
Now maybe this is just me, but how exactly did he let anyone down? By rutting with a bisexual nymphomaniac with a filthy mind and highly developed bedroom skills? Who did he let down by doing that, because surely that's a class above emptying himself up a talentless, vain, bulimic babyprovider with a face like Dutch elm disease. As near as I can tell, he was being criticised for setting a bad example to the precious children of the world. Apparently "millions of kids look up to Beckham; what kind of lesson does it teach them when their hero cheats on his wife?" (although one could say he's teaching them not to marry a Prada-bedecked ghost train skeleton).
So then; that's the answer to the soaring divorce rate in the UK. It's all the fault of David Beckham. Glad we've got that one cleared up. I confidently expect to find that, if he puts on a few pounds, he'll be to blame for the rise in obesity in children. Doubtless Labour’ll soon blame him for increasing voter apathy in elections. Maybe we'll see him cited as the reason for domestic violence next (of course, if he does take it into his head to batter his wife into a bloody smear on the wall, he'd almost certainly get a knighthood).
This is, of course, complete and utter camelbollocks. I don't deny that Beckham is an idol to millions, but to say that his actions will be reflected by his legion of admirers is rather like saying that we're a society so devoid of individuality and ideas that we're content to try and turn our children into clones of anodyne, soulless clones of supposedly perfect people. Unfortunately, it seems that that's exactly what this society is doing.
What do I mean by that? Well, firstly I want to look at how we view heroes in the first place. This little scandal seemed to me to say that if someone is a hero to millions, then those millions should try and emulate that person exactly. They should give up any vestiges of their own personality and identity in order to try and become their hero (and alas, with the number of brainbubblingly poor girlbands that make up the pop industry these days, anyone who knows their way around a football pitch will probably consider a member of Liberty X as their birthright). Then the same tabloids that criticise Beckham for having "let down his fans" run a story about the "evil freak" that is stalking Britney/Xtina/{Insert name of Pop Tart here}.
Even leaving aside the standard media hypocrisy of encouraging people to worship celebrities whilst demonising those whose lives are so empty that they stalk the object of their obsessions, it seems to me that we've got our treatment of heroes all wrong. Yes, a hero is someone to look up to and emulate. But a hero is not someone whom we should expect absolute perfection in every conceivable way from; they're simply someone who sets an example to us to live our life in a particular way. OUR life, not a bland Xeroxed copy of the hero's life. So, for example, my biggest hero in life is Bill Hicks and I try to emulate him in key areas of my life. However, I don't share his philosophy on relationships for example. Nor do I allow my adulation of him to dictate exactly what my opinions are; unlike him, I don't believe that a UFO will come down and rescue me from planet earth to educate and enlighten me about our place in the cosmos (by the way, Hicks did an extraordinary amount of hallucinogens which I think sort of explains his UFO beliefs...).
What my hero-worship of Hicks amounts to is that I'm compelled to speak my mind, tell the truth, and stand up for my beliefs. Beckham is a footballer, so why should anyone’s adulation of him go beyond "I want to be a good footballer"? Why in the name of Mary's minge should he be a role model for the perfect family life? He's a multi millionaire; who can reasonably expect to have a family life involving shopping trips to Milan, villas in 5 countries, and a disposable income so vast that looks like it should be stated as a physics? No-one is criticising him for setting a bad example by giving people false hope of impossible dreams, so why criticise him for something done by depressingly large numbers of people anyway?
Well, because we'll criticise anything and anyone if it means we don't have to acknowledge that the society in which we live has some major flaws in it. Don't want to acknowledge our hypocrisy in marketing youth and young women as being sexually attractive whilst jumping up and down in a frenzied rage about paedophiles? (Of which the finest example has to be the Daily Mail running an article on 15-year-old Charlotte Church having a nice ass, whilst on the opposite page an article about protecting our kids from Paedogeddon screamed out at us) Simple; just blame pornography. Upset that house prices are rising and wages are still low? Then blame immigrants. Don't fancy acknowledging that the failure of the model of an ideal family is losing relevance in the modern western world? No problem, just blame celebrities and say that their infidelity is bringing down western civilisation.
If we want our oh-so-valuable children to grow up to be good footballers, Beckham is as good a role model as any. If we want them to be angry and paranoid middle class white men, Bill Hicks is your chap. If we want them to grow up to be faithful to their partners, tolerant of differences in others, determined, hard working, compassionate, brave, and decent then maybe we should look at ourselves and start closer to home. After all, we can't blame celebrities for everything. However amusing it is to do so.
We in the UK have a defining national characteristic that confuses the hell out of me. It's something that we're all aware of and that we all partake in, and I can't decide if it means that we're an embittered nation, or that we simply refuse to respect those whom we are assured are our betters. I'm referring to our great national pastime of building up our heroes before knocking them right back down again.
Oddly it was the Beckham 'scandal' about his allegedly naughty behavior with his PA, Rebecca Loos that got me thinking about this. Once I'd calmed down from my standard "we're living in a world run by a powerful and greedy elite who are making war without any consideration for how it affects ordinary people, yet we're content to let ourselves be diverted by THIS sloppy panda poo of a story?!" position that I always take about frivolous news items (a position which, although I still agree with, sort of indicates just how much I needed to lighten up), I actually started to feel rather sorry for Goldenballs.
I should qualify that; the man has basically consented to be used as a market brand and, although it's making him obscene amounts of cash, it's making his sponsors and advertisers rather more. He's handed over his life to the public domain, and if you live by the sword you die by the sword when it comes to publicity and selling yourself via the media. However, even with all that in mind I was more than a little sympathetic towards him. Why? Well, because the main tone taken by tabloid journalists was that Beckham had let down the people (mainly the children) who idolise and look up to him.
Now maybe this is just me, but how exactly did he let anyone down? By rutting with a bisexual nymphomaniac with a filthy mind and highly developed bedroom skills? Who did he let down by doing that, because surely that's a class above emptying himself up a talentless, vain, bulimic babyprovider with a face like Dutch elm disease. As near as I can tell, he was being criticised for setting a bad example to the precious children of the world. Apparently "millions of kids look up to Beckham; what kind of lesson does it teach them when their hero cheats on his wife?" (although one could say he's teaching them not to marry a Prada-bedecked ghost train skeleton).
So then; that's the answer to the soaring divorce rate in the UK. It's all the fault of David Beckham. Glad we've got that one cleared up. I confidently expect to find that, if he puts on a few pounds, he'll be to blame for the rise in obesity in children. Doubtless Labour’ll soon blame him for increasing voter apathy in elections. Maybe we'll see him cited as the reason for domestic violence next (of course, if he does take it into his head to batter his wife into a bloody smear on the wall, he'd almost certainly get a knighthood).
This is, of course, complete and utter camelbollocks. I don't deny that Beckham is an idol to millions, but to say that his actions will be reflected by his legion of admirers is rather like saying that we're a society so devoid of individuality and ideas that we're content to try and turn our children into clones of anodyne, soulless clones of supposedly perfect people. Unfortunately, it seems that that's exactly what this society is doing.
What do I mean by that? Well, firstly I want to look at how we view heroes in the first place. This little scandal seemed to me to say that if someone is a hero to millions, then those millions should try and emulate that person exactly. They should give up any vestiges of their own personality and identity in order to try and become their hero (and alas, with the number of brainbubblingly poor girlbands that make up the pop industry these days, anyone who knows their way around a football pitch will probably consider a member of Liberty X as their birthright). Then the same tabloids that criticise Beckham for having "let down his fans" run a story about the "evil freak" that is stalking Britney/Xtina/{Insert name of Pop Tart here}.
Even leaving aside the standard media hypocrisy of encouraging people to worship celebrities whilst demonising those whose lives are so empty that they stalk the object of their obsessions, it seems to me that we've got our treatment of heroes all wrong. Yes, a hero is someone to look up to and emulate. But a hero is not someone whom we should expect absolute perfection in every conceivable way from; they're simply someone who sets an example to us to live our life in a particular way. OUR life, not a bland Xeroxed copy of the hero's life. So, for example, my biggest hero in life is Bill Hicks and I try to emulate him in key areas of my life. However, I don't share his philosophy on relationships for example. Nor do I allow my adulation of him to dictate exactly what my opinions are; unlike him, I don't believe that a UFO will come down and rescue me from planet earth to educate and enlighten me about our place in the cosmos (by the way, Hicks did an extraordinary amount of hallucinogens which I think sort of explains his UFO beliefs...).
What my hero-worship of Hicks amounts to is that I'm compelled to speak my mind, tell the truth, and stand up for my beliefs. Beckham is a footballer, so why should anyone’s adulation of him go beyond "I want to be a good footballer"? Why in the name of Mary's minge should he be a role model for the perfect family life? He's a multi millionaire; who can reasonably expect to have a family life involving shopping trips to Milan, villas in 5 countries, and a disposable income so vast that looks like it should be stated as a physics? No-one is criticising him for setting a bad example by giving people false hope of impossible dreams, so why criticise him for something done by depressingly large numbers of people anyway?
Well, because we'll criticise anything and anyone if it means we don't have to acknowledge that the society in which we live has some major flaws in it. Don't want to acknowledge our hypocrisy in marketing youth and young women as being sexually attractive whilst jumping up and down in a frenzied rage about paedophiles? (Of which the finest example has to be the Daily Mail running an article on 15-year-old Charlotte Church having a nice ass, whilst on the opposite page an article about protecting our kids from Paedogeddon screamed out at us) Simple; just blame pornography. Upset that house prices are rising and wages are still low? Then blame immigrants. Don't fancy acknowledging that the failure of the model of an ideal family is losing relevance in the modern western world? No problem, just blame celebrities and say that their infidelity is bringing down western civilisation.
If we want our oh-so-valuable children to grow up to be good footballers, Beckham is as good a role model as any. If we want them to be angry and paranoid middle class white men, Bill Hicks is your chap. If we want them to grow up to be faithful to their partners, tolerant of differences in others, determined, hard working, compassionate, brave, and decent then maybe we should look at ourselves and start closer to home. After all, we can't blame celebrities for everything. However amusing it is to do so.
Wednesday, 2 June 2004
How to Hate
Good moods always seem to lead to ruminations on bad things with me. Christ knows why. Whatever it is, it's doubtless Freudian.
It's been a while since I sat down to vent my spleen into one of these rants. A new lady in my life has meant that I'm full to bursting with the milk of human kindness; I'm so obscenely in love that most of my friends are convinced that they're seeing the first stages of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. And so, my mind being the fun-packed, "Glass half full" thing that it is, it seems entirely appropriate that I spend a little time considering the nature of hate. Because, y'know, I'm Iike that.
Hate is rather an odd emotion. We will frequently hear the old wives saying that it is nothing more than the flip side of the coin to love. We may also be informed that to hate someone, you must have loved him or her first. But is there anything to back up these sayings? And regardless of whether there is or is not, is hate always the negative thing that we think it is? Or are there any circumstances where hate is acceptable? Or even desirable? And what exactly defines hatred anyway?
So is hate just love in reverse gear? Well, to a certain extent I think it is. If one is in love with someone, then one is willing to do anything at all for that person (although it seems that anal is not included in that criteria, and God knows I've tried...) to the extent that one will put ones own hopes and desires on the backburner in the name of doing whatever it is your loved one desires. If one hates someone then one is equally willing to do anything at all to hurt or damage that person in some way, to the point of ruining one's own life if it means causing pain to the object of your hate. Love and Hate are two very extreme emotions, and the actions they inspire are equally as extreme.
But the thing is, how can we tell if we hate someone? I'm sure you've talked to friends who have agonised over whether they really love a particular partner. Maybe you've done so yourself. Yet we don't seem to have any difficulty in knowing whom we hate. You'll hear the phrase "I hate him/her" FAR more often than you will "I love him/her". Does that mean that we're an emotionally bankrupt bunch of hatemongers? Or are we confusing Hate with mere Dislike?
In an unusually optimistic move, I'm going to say it's the latter and I'm going to do so for a reason of personal bias. Despite being a worryingly good example of a bilious and generally vitriolic chap, I can count on one finger the number of people that I truly hate. On the other hand, I'd need more digits that the decimal value of Pi to count the number of people and things that I dislike (and did I really just make a maths joke?). Whilst we all seem to recognise the value of Love and are sparing in committing to just who and what we do love, the distinction between fiery hatred and lukewarm dislike is much less distinct in our heads.
It's worth diverting our attention for a moment to consider something else; does hate just apply to individuals? It's seems entirely possible to hate a group of people, or an organisation (as that happy-go-lucky cluster of ignorance known as the BNP proves rather well). Is this the same as the Hate one may have for an individual? Hating a group of people is, without any exceptions, an example of unthinking, blind hatred. However, as one can be unthinkingly and blindly in love with someone, this doesn't really work as a distinction.
However, you rarely (if ever; I know I can't think of an example of this) hear of someone being in love with a group of people (despite what some unfaithful partners might protest!). So if we agree that Hate and Love are opposites, we cannot define this group hatred as being Hate in the truest sense. It could be an educated and considered dislike (something only appropriate for hatred of organisations, e.g. an animal lovers hatred of vivisectionists, a Labour activists hatred of the Tories, everyone's hatred of Manchester United, etc), or it could be an empty headed loathing of a racial group (anti-Semitism, the Gunmen who attacked foreigners in Saudi over the weekend, and xenophobic hatred of asylum seekers being the best examples here).
So then; we can perhaps accept that Love and Hate are indeed opposite sides of the same coin. So does that mean that one has to have loved someone to hate then? Absolutely not; if we accept this logic than that would mean that it's only possible to truly love someone if you've hated him or her first, and that is ludicrous. It is of course possible to hate someone whom you've previously loved, and vice versa (the chap who is the object of my hatred is a former friend for example) but it's not exactly compulsory.
Just as love is, to an extent, indefinable then so is hate; you may find yourself thinking that the person or people in your life whom you love have 'a certain something' about them that you love, as well as all the doubtless huge number of more concrete reasons for your warm feelings toward them. By exactly the same token, although we may have good reason to hate the object of our ire, there will almost certainly be 'a certain something' about them that makes you want to smash them in the face with a shovel. These two different types of 'something' are completely independent of each other, and so there is no reason to suppose that we must have one to have the other (though I do accept that perhaps you have to have experienced one to fully appreciate the other).
So having looked at what Hate is and it's relative relation with Love, can we find any circumstances where it is a positive thing? To be blunt, no. If one is, as per my earlier definition of hate, willing to destroy ones own life just to hurt someone, then this is surely not a good thing. I've even found myself working on trying to downgrade my venomous loathing of the lucky chap that I hate to some sort of simmering discontent on the basis that I don't want to ruin my life over that cockwasp. Both Love and Hate are selfish emotions, but whilst an expression of love is designed to make someone else happy as well as making yourself feel good, that selfishness is entirely forgivable. Hate has no such get out clause.
I can, however, see circumstances where the hatred of organisations could be seen as positive (and I'd best tread carefully here; can we all assume that I believe any form of racism is a particularly awful thing so as to forestall the cries of "You're a fascist!"? We can? Jolly good...). Some types of group hatred stem from the following assumption;
"This group is trying to destroy something good. I do not want it destroyed, and will fight to protect it".
I would contend that this type of hatred is a good thing in theory, if not always in practice. If someone hates injustice, then one is naturally inclined to try and fight it. We can accept that as a good thing. That said, I suppose whether or not you consider it a good thing will depend on your own views and outlook; I hate the current US Government for their blatant greed in launching the land grab in Iraq. Others would disagree, and say that they hate the defeatist and appeasing attitude of people opposed to a war that was fully justified. But then, the world would be a boring place if we all had the same opinions, and some of the most interesting discussions I've ever had have been with people who's hatreds are diametrically opposed to mine. I don't hate these people, and I'm pretty sure they don't hate me. The trouble with this form of hatred only arises when we confuse it with hatred of an individual whose beliefs differ to yours. When that happens, we're back to being unpleasant bigots and that is the kind of thinking that I never want to be guilty of.
And that, in a long and rambling nutshell, is what I think of hate. I shall now return to being a doe-eyed and gooey lump of blissed out happiness and think loving and lustful thoughts about the wonderful lady in my life. If that sentence doesn't make you all hate me, nothing will.
It's been a while since I sat down to vent my spleen into one of these rants. A new lady in my life has meant that I'm full to bursting with the milk of human kindness; I'm so obscenely in love that most of my friends are convinced that they're seeing the first stages of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers. And so, my mind being the fun-packed, "Glass half full" thing that it is, it seems entirely appropriate that I spend a little time considering the nature of hate. Because, y'know, I'm Iike that.
Hate is rather an odd emotion. We will frequently hear the old wives saying that it is nothing more than the flip side of the coin to love. We may also be informed that to hate someone, you must have loved him or her first. But is there anything to back up these sayings? And regardless of whether there is or is not, is hate always the negative thing that we think it is? Or are there any circumstances where hate is acceptable? Or even desirable? And what exactly defines hatred anyway?
So is hate just love in reverse gear? Well, to a certain extent I think it is. If one is in love with someone, then one is willing to do anything at all for that person (although it seems that anal is not included in that criteria, and God knows I've tried...) to the extent that one will put ones own hopes and desires on the backburner in the name of doing whatever it is your loved one desires. If one hates someone then one is equally willing to do anything at all to hurt or damage that person in some way, to the point of ruining one's own life if it means causing pain to the object of your hate. Love and Hate are two very extreme emotions, and the actions they inspire are equally as extreme.
But the thing is, how can we tell if we hate someone? I'm sure you've talked to friends who have agonised over whether they really love a particular partner. Maybe you've done so yourself. Yet we don't seem to have any difficulty in knowing whom we hate. You'll hear the phrase "I hate him/her" FAR more often than you will "I love him/her". Does that mean that we're an emotionally bankrupt bunch of hatemongers? Or are we confusing Hate with mere Dislike?
In an unusually optimistic move, I'm going to say it's the latter and I'm going to do so for a reason of personal bias. Despite being a worryingly good example of a bilious and generally vitriolic chap, I can count on one finger the number of people that I truly hate. On the other hand, I'd need more digits that the decimal value of Pi to count the number of people and things that I dislike (and did I really just make a maths joke?). Whilst we all seem to recognise the value of Love and are sparing in committing to just who and what we do love, the distinction between fiery hatred and lukewarm dislike is much less distinct in our heads.
It's worth diverting our attention for a moment to consider something else; does hate just apply to individuals? It's seems entirely possible to hate a group of people, or an organisation (as that happy-go-lucky cluster of ignorance known as the BNP proves rather well). Is this the same as the Hate one may have for an individual? Hating a group of people is, without any exceptions, an example of unthinking, blind hatred. However, as one can be unthinkingly and blindly in love with someone, this doesn't really work as a distinction.
However, you rarely (if ever; I know I can't think of an example of this) hear of someone being in love with a group of people (despite what some unfaithful partners might protest!). So if we agree that Hate and Love are opposites, we cannot define this group hatred as being Hate in the truest sense. It could be an educated and considered dislike (something only appropriate for hatred of organisations, e.g. an animal lovers hatred of vivisectionists, a Labour activists hatred of the Tories, everyone's hatred of Manchester United, etc), or it could be an empty headed loathing of a racial group (anti-Semitism, the Gunmen who attacked foreigners in Saudi over the weekend, and xenophobic hatred of asylum seekers being the best examples here).
So then; we can perhaps accept that Love and Hate are indeed opposite sides of the same coin. So does that mean that one has to have loved someone to hate then? Absolutely not; if we accept this logic than that would mean that it's only possible to truly love someone if you've hated him or her first, and that is ludicrous. It is of course possible to hate someone whom you've previously loved, and vice versa (the chap who is the object of my hatred is a former friend for example) but it's not exactly compulsory.
Just as love is, to an extent, indefinable then so is hate; you may find yourself thinking that the person or people in your life whom you love have 'a certain something' about them that you love, as well as all the doubtless huge number of more concrete reasons for your warm feelings toward them. By exactly the same token, although we may have good reason to hate the object of our ire, there will almost certainly be 'a certain something' about them that makes you want to smash them in the face with a shovel. These two different types of 'something' are completely independent of each other, and so there is no reason to suppose that we must have one to have the other (though I do accept that perhaps you have to have experienced one to fully appreciate the other).
So having looked at what Hate is and it's relative relation with Love, can we find any circumstances where it is a positive thing? To be blunt, no. If one is, as per my earlier definition of hate, willing to destroy ones own life just to hurt someone, then this is surely not a good thing. I've even found myself working on trying to downgrade my venomous loathing of the lucky chap that I hate to some sort of simmering discontent on the basis that I don't want to ruin my life over that cockwasp. Both Love and Hate are selfish emotions, but whilst an expression of love is designed to make someone else happy as well as making yourself feel good, that selfishness is entirely forgivable. Hate has no such get out clause.
I can, however, see circumstances where the hatred of organisations could be seen as positive (and I'd best tread carefully here; can we all assume that I believe any form of racism is a particularly awful thing so as to forestall the cries of "You're a fascist!"? We can? Jolly good...). Some types of group hatred stem from the following assumption;
"This group is trying to destroy something good. I do not want it destroyed, and will fight to protect it".
I would contend that this type of hatred is a good thing in theory, if not always in practice. If someone hates injustice, then one is naturally inclined to try and fight it. We can accept that as a good thing. That said, I suppose whether or not you consider it a good thing will depend on your own views and outlook; I hate the current US Government for their blatant greed in launching the land grab in Iraq. Others would disagree, and say that they hate the defeatist and appeasing attitude of people opposed to a war that was fully justified. But then, the world would be a boring place if we all had the same opinions, and some of the most interesting discussions I've ever had have been with people who's hatreds are diametrically opposed to mine. I don't hate these people, and I'm pretty sure they don't hate me. The trouble with this form of hatred only arises when we confuse it with hatred of an individual whose beliefs differ to yours. When that happens, we're back to being unpleasant bigots and that is the kind of thinking that I never want to be guilty of.
And that, in a long and rambling nutshell, is what I think of hate. I shall now return to being a doe-eyed and gooey lump of blissed out happiness and think loving and lustful thoughts about the wonderful lady in my life. If that sentence doesn't make you all hate me, nothing will.
Monday, 19 January 2004
Free Speech
Though I think the points raised about Free Speech are valid, the reason behind this rant was simple; I fucking HATE Kilroy-Silk.
You may have seen over the weekend that Robert Kilroy-Silk has quit his job as the Most Annoying Little Smear of Dogturd on British Television, saying, "the time is right for me to go" (though personally I felt that 1976 was the right time for him to go, preferably into an oversized mincing machine). I'm sure that the fact that the BBC scored an extra million viewers in the slot where his program was before it was suspended did nothing at all to convince the arrogant dollop of rectal bacteria that maybe the public DIDN'T share his belief that he could walk on water, and maybe cure lepers of their ailment. And I'm especially sure that the uproar over his column in the Sunday Express branding all Arab people as barbaric, suicide bombing, women abusing limb amputators had no bearing at all on his long overdue decision.
Anyway, I've just about stopped laughing at the downfall of this abhorrent little man now, so I now find myself looking back over the couple of weeks since his initial racist faux pas. There are two things about it that really interest me. One is the response of Kilroy to the swathes of people who were offended by what he wrote. The other is the somewhat surprising defence used by his apologists; that he was simply exercising freedom of speech.
So then; what did the silver haired simpleton say in his defence? Well, firstly he said that he couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. To a certain extent, he actually has a point; the column was a reprint that had been published earlier in 2003 with not a squeak of protest being raised. He then went on to apologise for causing offence whilst, at the same time, standing by what he'd said. This is a quite stultifying piece of arrogance on his part; he seemed to be implying that, as what he said is sparkling with universal truth, it must therefore be the fault of those oversensitive suicide bombers that they got offended. As he was magnanimous enough to forgive them for that and say sorry, he assumed it would sooth their angry, tea towel encased heads.
Even the fact that he stood by what he said should indicate that Kilroy thought he was hosting an edition of his program. Only this time, he was unable to shout down or ignore guests who disagreed with his ill-informed bigotry. He couldn't fake the face of a sensitive listener before closing the program with a semi-retarded stream of clichés that belittled whichever poor sod he'd just been patronising, whilst trying to bolster his own hype of a straight talking man of the people. No, this time he found that he was on the defensive. And faced with the task of justifying how "Arabs have never contributed anything to civilisation" is a valid statement (all the science, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy that we got from Arabic and Persian worlds mustn't count in his world; I'll make the differentiated between Arabs and Persians, even if Kilroy didn't know or care about it), he decided to tuck his tail between his legs and resign. Though he didn't actually withdraw his remarks. He didn't even spend much time trying to qualify them; had he been pointing the finger at one or two Middle Eastern governments, I daresay that he wouldn't have come in for so much, or any, flak. So, not only has the BBC lost a bullying, arrogant egotist, but a cowardly one to boot.
And it would have ended there, were it not for the multitude of people who were willing to defend Kilroy for braying this jingoistic headspew. When I read about the BBC's decision to suspend him from his job because of the comments made I, perhaps naively, expected the reaction of the overwhelming majority to be the same as mine; hate-filled, mocking laughter. Instead, there was a chorus of cries that Kilroy was being picked on for his "courageous stance on free speech" and that his suspension was "political correctness gone mad".
This was a reaction that took me entirely by surprise; Kilroy had made some pretty hateful comments; had he replaced the word 'Arab' with the word 'Jew' or 'Black', then there would have been a race to Kilroy's house, with the lucky winner getting to change him from an annoying minor celebrity into about 200 pounds of rapidly cooling meat. Should we really be talking about protecting bigotry under the heading of free speech? Does that mean I can start ranting about wogs, spiks, kikes, poofs, slags, ragheads, and so on and so forth, and claim the same justification? Of course it doesn't.
So what about the charge that the BBC are pandering to the politically correct by suspending him? Well, there is a certain amount of logic to that argument; why the hell wasn't he suspended when the article was first published? But beyond that, there is no real case for the BBC to answer. There are laws against inciting racial hatred in this country, and Kilroy has fallen foul of them by pretty much anybody's definition. His employer has every right to suspend him for his public declaration of racism. Would you expect to still have a job if you marched into work offering a cheery "Sieg Heil" to all of your colleagues? If you wrote a newspaper article stating that all Black people are worthless as a race, would you really be surprised to find a P45 waiting for you in your day job? Personally, I find it far more offensive that he got away with these remarks earlier. If I were to complain about anything in this incident, it would be that the media are only against racism when it's newsworthy.
Finally, as we reached the last desperate dregs of humanity who attempted to stand up on behalf of Kilroy, we had that old favourite; "There wouldn't have been as much fuss if it had been a non-white making these comments". I always enjoy seeing racists whining that they're not allowed to be as bigoted as those goddamn pesky blacks. Well, much though I hate to sprinkle foul-smelling urine on their parade, they're talking complete and utter asshat. If this is a case of de poor ol' white man getting victimised, how come he had to publish the bilious cack twice before anyone raised an objection? And if non-whites do get away with more bigotry than whites, how come Abu Hamza (the London based Moslem cleric/James Bond villain wannabe with the hook for a hand) was barred from preaching at his Finsbury Park Mosque for his racist, anti-Semitic nonsense?
All in all, I find myself wondering whether these apologists would have been quite as vehement in defending an Arab making negative comments about English culture? If it's all about free speech, then those same people are presumably equally irate at Hamza being silenced. Except that they're not. The majority of these people are arguing for the same right that Kilroy seems to have dedicated his life and career too; the right to remain ignorant racists. If stopping someone in the public eye from encouraging hatred of another person based on nothing more than race is "Political Correctness gone mad", then pass me the straitjacket.
Oh, and if anyone reading this actually sympathised with Kilroy and gets offended at being called racist, relax; it's just me exercising my right of free speech.
You may have seen over the weekend that Robert Kilroy-Silk has quit his job as the Most Annoying Little Smear of Dogturd on British Television, saying, "the time is right for me to go" (though personally I felt that 1976 was the right time for him to go, preferably into an oversized mincing machine). I'm sure that the fact that the BBC scored an extra million viewers in the slot where his program was before it was suspended did nothing at all to convince the arrogant dollop of rectal bacteria that maybe the public DIDN'T share his belief that he could walk on water, and maybe cure lepers of their ailment. And I'm especially sure that the uproar over his column in the Sunday Express branding all Arab people as barbaric, suicide bombing, women abusing limb amputators had no bearing at all on his long overdue decision.
Anyway, I've just about stopped laughing at the downfall of this abhorrent little man now, so I now find myself looking back over the couple of weeks since his initial racist faux pas. There are two things about it that really interest me. One is the response of Kilroy to the swathes of people who were offended by what he wrote. The other is the somewhat surprising defence used by his apologists; that he was simply exercising freedom of speech.
So then; what did the silver haired simpleton say in his defence? Well, firstly he said that he couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. To a certain extent, he actually has a point; the column was a reprint that had been published earlier in 2003 with not a squeak of protest being raised. He then went on to apologise for causing offence whilst, at the same time, standing by what he'd said. This is a quite stultifying piece of arrogance on his part; he seemed to be implying that, as what he said is sparkling with universal truth, it must therefore be the fault of those oversensitive suicide bombers that they got offended. As he was magnanimous enough to forgive them for that and say sorry, he assumed it would sooth their angry, tea towel encased heads.
Even the fact that he stood by what he said should indicate that Kilroy thought he was hosting an edition of his program. Only this time, he was unable to shout down or ignore guests who disagreed with his ill-informed bigotry. He couldn't fake the face of a sensitive listener before closing the program with a semi-retarded stream of clichés that belittled whichever poor sod he'd just been patronising, whilst trying to bolster his own hype of a straight talking man of the people. No, this time he found that he was on the defensive. And faced with the task of justifying how "Arabs have never contributed anything to civilisation" is a valid statement (all the science, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy that we got from Arabic and Persian worlds mustn't count in his world; I'll make the differentiated between Arabs and Persians, even if Kilroy didn't know or care about it), he decided to tuck his tail between his legs and resign. Though he didn't actually withdraw his remarks. He didn't even spend much time trying to qualify them; had he been pointing the finger at one or two Middle Eastern governments, I daresay that he wouldn't have come in for so much, or any, flak. So, not only has the BBC lost a bullying, arrogant egotist, but a cowardly one to boot.
And it would have ended there, were it not for the multitude of people who were willing to defend Kilroy for braying this jingoistic headspew. When I read about the BBC's decision to suspend him from his job because of the comments made I, perhaps naively, expected the reaction of the overwhelming majority to be the same as mine; hate-filled, mocking laughter. Instead, there was a chorus of cries that Kilroy was being picked on for his "courageous stance on free speech" and that his suspension was "political correctness gone mad".
This was a reaction that took me entirely by surprise; Kilroy had made some pretty hateful comments; had he replaced the word 'Arab' with the word 'Jew' or 'Black', then there would have been a race to Kilroy's house, with the lucky winner getting to change him from an annoying minor celebrity into about 200 pounds of rapidly cooling meat. Should we really be talking about protecting bigotry under the heading of free speech? Does that mean I can start ranting about wogs, spiks, kikes, poofs, slags, ragheads, and so on and so forth, and claim the same justification? Of course it doesn't.
So what about the charge that the BBC are pandering to the politically correct by suspending him? Well, there is a certain amount of logic to that argument; why the hell wasn't he suspended when the article was first published? But beyond that, there is no real case for the BBC to answer. There are laws against inciting racial hatred in this country, and Kilroy has fallen foul of them by pretty much anybody's definition. His employer has every right to suspend him for his public declaration of racism. Would you expect to still have a job if you marched into work offering a cheery "Sieg Heil" to all of your colleagues? If you wrote a newspaper article stating that all Black people are worthless as a race, would you really be surprised to find a P45 waiting for you in your day job? Personally, I find it far more offensive that he got away with these remarks earlier. If I were to complain about anything in this incident, it would be that the media are only against racism when it's newsworthy.
Finally, as we reached the last desperate dregs of humanity who attempted to stand up on behalf of Kilroy, we had that old favourite; "There wouldn't have been as much fuss if it had been a non-white making these comments". I always enjoy seeing racists whining that they're not allowed to be as bigoted as those goddamn pesky blacks. Well, much though I hate to sprinkle foul-smelling urine on their parade, they're talking complete and utter asshat. If this is a case of de poor ol' white man getting victimised, how come he had to publish the bilious cack twice before anyone raised an objection? And if non-whites do get away with more bigotry than whites, how come Abu Hamza (the London based Moslem cleric/James Bond villain wannabe with the hook for a hand) was barred from preaching at his Finsbury Park Mosque for his racist, anti-Semitic nonsense?
All in all, I find myself wondering whether these apologists would have been quite as vehement in defending an Arab making negative comments about English culture? If it's all about free speech, then those same people are presumably equally irate at Hamza being silenced. Except that they're not. The majority of these people are arguing for the same right that Kilroy seems to have dedicated his life and career too; the right to remain ignorant racists. If stopping someone in the public eye from encouraging hatred of another person based on nothing more than race is "Political Correctness gone mad", then pass me the straitjacket.
Oh, and if anyone reading this actually sympathised with Kilroy and gets offended at being called racist, relax; it's just me exercising my right of free speech.
Wednesday, 7 January 2004
I want the truth
"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" Anyone with a passing familiarity with the legal system as seen in the world of film and TV will recognise those words as one of the cornerstones of a trial (when I first head them spoken in a real trial I had to stifle a giggle; I was half expecting the defendant to bark "You can't handle the truth" at the court clerk...). It's a ritual formula that assumes there is a definitive story behind whatever chain of events led to some poor b*stard standing in the dock. I've always assumed the same; that most events in life have a clear beginning, middle, and an end. And there is always one version of the story that is the pure, unvarnished truth. But now I'm not so sure. I've just finished a relationship that, although it was unquestionably the right thing to do, I didn't hugely want to end. I did so because of my obsession with knowing 'the truth'. So this seems as good a time as any to ask if there really is any such thing as a universal truth.
For example, think of any event witnessed by yourself and some of your friends. If I were to ask each and every one of you what happened at that event, would your stories be exactly the same? Of course they wouldn't; unless you'd had time to get your stories straight then everyone would give a slightly different version (I once sat in on police interviews with 3 clients accused of burglary. Their stories matched identically. Right down to the exact words used in answer to the questions. Astoundingly, the police didn't believe them. Mind you, I was their solicitor, and neither did I). Does that mean that one of you is telling the truth and the others are all lying? Well, perhaps it does (I'm sure we've all been guilty of embellishing a story), but I think it more likely that all of you will promise faithfully that you are giving me the truth.
So what does that mean? That we're a race of chronic liars (or, to use the correct name for a group of liars, lawyers)? Well, I like to display a little more faith in my fellow man, so I'm going to say that it does not (though if we really are all predisposed towards lying, that's probably another fib). What I think it does demonstrate is that the truth, far from always being something immutable and fixed in stone, is a little more flexible than we may have thought. The truth varies according to who it was that witnessed the event, and what their perception of it was.
Okay; that sounds like abstract bumslop of the worst kind so I'll explain myself a little more. The best place to see that the truth varies depending on your own perceptions is, perversely, politics. Usually, the wide and varied political spectrum is split into two for ease of identifying where one's basic sympathies are; left wing and right wing (or Liberal and Conservative). It is rare indeed that you'll find any sort of agreement between these two sides (mainly because the Conservatives want to preserve all the existing evils and injustices of the world. Liberals want to replace them with an entirely new set of evils and injustices), and you will see this being reflected in the media. There are left wing papers (The Guardian, The Mirror) and right wing (The Times, The Mail). Generally speaking they report on much the same stories. But the reports are rather different to one another.
Take the recent and continuing war in Iraq. Should you read the Mail (assuming you can find news about the war in between the pages and pages of jingoistic, anti-immigrant bile) , then the invasion wasn't just necessary, it was an imperative. It was about freeing a nation from a tyrant. The subsequent steady stream of dead soldiers and civilians is regrettable but shouldn't affect our resolve to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. If however you read the Guardian, then the war is nothing more than a grab for resources by the Americans. The soldiers dying every day are evidence that the Iraqi people don't want the kind of freedom offered to them by an invading army. The indisputable fact is that Iraq was invaded. Yet here are two wildly different versions of just why it happened, and what the result is.
I have my own bias; I'm more inclined to find the left wing version of events more to my liking. And I can produce all manner of reasons and justifications as to why I believe it that are, in my mind, unassailable. Yet I've spoken to people who are equally as adamant that the political right is, well, right. And they (well...some of them) can produce completely valid facts and figures that would seem to prove that they are correct and I am mistaken (and what with my temper, mistaken at the top of my voice). How can this be? Well, mainly because we look for the facts that back up our beliefs and then do our best to either ignore those tricky points that debunk our opinions, or we look for more facts to make those troublesome opposing ideas seem like naively held beliefs at best, lies at worst.
Of course, I'm just talking about people who are able to articulate just why they hold the beliefs they do, and why they believe in one version of events rather than another. I'm excluding entirely another category of people; those screeching idiots who are only able to shout down an opposing view. I'm inclined to believe that these people are not remotely interested in the truth, be it universal or not. Being too stupid to have any actual beliefs of their own, they are interested only in one thing; being seen to be right. Happily, these people are incredibly easy to humiliate into silence; try pressing them on specific facts and watch them dissolve into a red-faced, teary-eyed mess reduced to ranting "You're wrong!" ad infinitum. Unfortunately, an awful lot of these type of people seem to hold fairly important positions in society, and so it means we actually give credence to the menstrual waste that they laughably refer to as their version of the truth.
As a side note, if I had to pick one of the many insultingly idiotic arguments used by this group of people to justify why their blinkered Me-Muppetry cannot be disproved by any available facts as the worst, it would have to be "The media is biased towards the Liberals/Conservatives (delete according to political affiliation), so they will never report facts that prove what I say is right. Not that they have to, because I'm right and I know I am. And if you disagree, you're an idiot". These are always the same people who will cheerfully refer to newspaper articles that support whatever they're braying out as proof of how clever they are. Funnily, they only accuse the media of bias when they produce something that disagrees with them, but I digress.
What I'm driving at in this little rant is that we cannot expect to get a nice, neat version of events that is the undisputed truth. Usually, an event happens. Then different people give their different perceptions of what happened. We then have to look at those different perceptions and make up our own minds as to where the truth lies. As a race, we seem inclined to look for something that fits the 'story' structure; we look for explanations that have a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. The fact that our lives rarely fit the storybook mould doesn't seem to bother us; we expect the rest of the world to do so. So it's not really the truth we look for, but the story that we're most inclined to hear.
But of course, that's just my perception of the truth. Yours could be completely different.
For example, think of any event witnessed by yourself and some of your friends. If I were to ask each and every one of you what happened at that event, would your stories be exactly the same? Of course they wouldn't; unless you'd had time to get your stories straight then everyone would give a slightly different version (I once sat in on police interviews with 3 clients accused of burglary. Their stories matched identically. Right down to the exact words used in answer to the questions. Astoundingly, the police didn't believe them. Mind you, I was their solicitor, and neither did I). Does that mean that one of you is telling the truth and the others are all lying? Well, perhaps it does (I'm sure we've all been guilty of embellishing a story), but I think it more likely that all of you will promise faithfully that you are giving me the truth.
So what does that mean? That we're a race of chronic liars (or, to use the correct name for a group of liars, lawyers)? Well, I like to display a little more faith in my fellow man, so I'm going to say that it does not (though if we really are all predisposed towards lying, that's probably another fib). What I think it does demonstrate is that the truth, far from always being something immutable and fixed in stone, is a little more flexible than we may have thought. The truth varies according to who it was that witnessed the event, and what their perception of it was.
Okay; that sounds like abstract bumslop of the worst kind so I'll explain myself a little more. The best place to see that the truth varies depending on your own perceptions is, perversely, politics. Usually, the wide and varied political spectrum is split into two for ease of identifying where one's basic sympathies are; left wing and right wing (or Liberal and Conservative). It is rare indeed that you'll find any sort of agreement between these two sides (mainly because the Conservatives want to preserve all the existing evils and injustices of the world. Liberals want to replace them with an entirely new set of evils and injustices), and you will see this being reflected in the media. There are left wing papers (The Guardian, The Mirror) and right wing (The Times, The Mail). Generally speaking they report on much the same stories. But the reports are rather different to one another.
Take the recent and continuing war in Iraq. Should you read the Mail (assuming you can find news about the war in between the pages and pages of jingoistic, anti-immigrant bile) , then the invasion wasn't just necessary, it was an imperative. It was about freeing a nation from a tyrant. The subsequent steady stream of dead soldiers and civilians is regrettable but shouldn't affect our resolve to bring freedom to the Iraqi people. If however you read the Guardian, then the war is nothing more than a grab for resources by the Americans. The soldiers dying every day are evidence that the Iraqi people don't want the kind of freedom offered to them by an invading army. The indisputable fact is that Iraq was invaded. Yet here are two wildly different versions of just why it happened, and what the result is.
I have my own bias; I'm more inclined to find the left wing version of events more to my liking. And I can produce all manner of reasons and justifications as to why I believe it that are, in my mind, unassailable. Yet I've spoken to people who are equally as adamant that the political right is, well, right. And they (well...some of them) can produce completely valid facts and figures that would seem to prove that they are correct and I am mistaken (and what with my temper, mistaken at the top of my voice). How can this be? Well, mainly because we look for the facts that back up our beliefs and then do our best to either ignore those tricky points that debunk our opinions, or we look for more facts to make those troublesome opposing ideas seem like naively held beliefs at best, lies at worst.
Of course, I'm just talking about people who are able to articulate just why they hold the beliefs they do, and why they believe in one version of events rather than another. I'm excluding entirely another category of people; those screeching idiots who are only able to shout down an opposing view. I'm inclined to believe that these people are not remotely interested in the truth, be it universal or not. Being too stupid to have any actual beliefs of their own, they are interested only in one thing; being seen to be right. Happily, these people are incredibly easy to humiliate into silence; try pressing them on specific facts and watch them dissolve into a red-faced, teary-eyed mess reduced to ranting "You're wrong!" ad infinitum. Unfortunately, an awful lot of these type of people seem to hold fairly important positions in society, and so it means we actually give credence to the menstrual waste that they laughably refer to as their version of the truth.
As a side note, if I had to pick one of the many insultingly idiotic arguments used by this group of people to justify why their blinkered Me-Muppetry cannot be disproved by any available facts as the worst, it would have to be "The media is biased towards the Liberals/Conservatives (delete according to political affiliation), so they will never report facts that prove what I say is right. Not that they have to, because I'm right and I know I am. And if you disagree, you're an idiot". These are always the same people who will cheerfully refer to newspaper articles that support whatever they're braying out as proof of how clever they are. Funnily, they only accuse the media of bias when they produce something that disagrees with them, but I digress.
What I'm driving at in this little rant is that we cannot expect to get a nice, neat version of events that is the undisputed truth. Usually, an event happens. Then different people give their different perceptions of what happened. We then have to look at those different perceptions and make up our own minds as to where the truth lies. As a race, we seem inclined to look for something that fits the 'story' structure; we look for explanations that have a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. The fact that our lives rarely fit the storybook mould doesn't seem to bother us; we expect the rest of the world to do so. So it's not really the truth we look for, but the story that we're most inclined to hear.
But of course, that's just my perception of the truth. Yours could be completely different.
Tuesday, 4 November 2003
Politics: Not Boring
I have mixed and confused feelings when it comes to voting. On the one hand, I believe everyone should be compelled to vote. On the other, I can see exactly why so few people have faith in the power of the vote.
It’s about that time of the year when the weather gets duller. The skies become greyer with each passing hour, the leaves have long since stopped being a myriad of colours, and chill winds blast icy needles through anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside. All in all, it seems like the perfect time to talk about politics.
Now, I’m aware as I write this that chances are, not many of you will read it. After all, politics is earthshatteringly dull, and more than a little perverse. Where else would a man who professed admiration for the BNP be considered ‘a bit of a character’? In which other profession could the boss lie through his teeth to the shop floor (i.e. us) and, when caught out, refuse to bring the matter up again? Not very many I’d bet.
But why is it so boring? I mean, whether we like it or not, politics is an important matter. Speaking personally, whenever I write these little bursts of vitriol about the political world, I try and make them as accessible and entertaining is possible as possible (not always easy when talking about something duller than the wits of a US President). And one would have thought that it would be in everyone’s best interests to make sure that every effort is made to include people in debate on something as important as politics. Wouldn’t you?
Apparently it is not. A century ago, people were encouraged to believe that the ‘ruling classes’ knew what was best, and should be left alone to the important business of running the country, whilst the working classes should busy themselves working. This attitude disappeared almost totally in the UK after WWII. We’d seen in the build up to the war just what an utter barrel of monkey’s bumholes the supposed ruling elite had made of seeing which way the wind was blowing (“What’s that old chap? Some Austrian chappy is shouting about how he intends to invade half of Europe? And he’s making lots of weapons you say? Well, I’m sure it’s nothing. Now; who’s for a spot of incest? Incest anyone?”), people started to pay a lot more attention to who it was they gave power to. A 6-year war and revelations like the Holocaust tend to concentrate ones mind, and make one less likely to be blindly and idiotically faithful to the idea that their government will do what is best for everyone.
Then we had the Thatcher years. Now, I do tend to think that she was a strong leader and a rather good one (though with the benefit of hindsight, I do get the impression that given a few more years and she would have started doing things like declaring herself “Dictator for Life”...) for the country at the time. However, she did tend to encourage people not to pay much attention to politics. Hers was a pretty much authoritarian rule, and so people grew apathetic about politics because no matter what they said or did, Thatcher went ahead and did what she wanted. And because it mainly worked out for the best (in the short term certainly), no one really wanted to question her too closely anyway. “So a few thousand miners are out of work, and all our heavy industry got canned? Aye well...it was going to die a death soon anyway and who cares when we’re making SO MUCH MONEY!”
So now we’re back in the situation where we’re gently encouraged to leave the ruling classes alone to get on with running society. Only now, we don’t have the excuse of being ill informed, or ignorant. We’re better informed now as a society than we ever have been before. And, as a result, even someone only casually acquainted with the cavernous headed prats who call themselves our government will be well aware that they are a bunch of shifty, power hungry sh*tcake bakers. We wouldn’t trust these people to look after our house for a weekend, but we don’t really much care about letting them look after our country. Why is this?
It’s not as if those in opposition are any better; the Tory party have just jettisoned their leader (I’m not going to mention him by name; I’m intrigued to know how many people actually know it without being prompted...) in favour of Michael Howard; a man who became a byword for Shiftyness after his interview by Paxman, and who is recognised by the general public as “that smarmy Tory bloke”. Doesn’t encourage faith in them as an alternative government really. The Libdems are...well, they’re there. And nobody seems to care.
So we have a bunch of people jostling for power, none of whom are liked or trusted very much. The only ones who aren’t disliked or considered untrustworthy are the ones whom nobody has really heard of. And so, most people simply don’t bother to choose their leaders. We just leave it to people who still seem to give a damn about politics.
And who are most of these people? They’re the people who will vote for one party because they have done all their life and their parents before them, and so on. They’d vote for Labour if Tony Blair stood up in Parliament, flicked the V’s at the camera’s, then gave a speech on how he intended to solve unemployment by grinding the jobless up in a giant mincing machine and selling the resulting mush to their families. They’d vote Tory if...well, lets face it; anyone who still votes Tory after the pigs ear they made of things in living memory has clearly not bothered to engage their brain since 1990. But you get the picture; the majority of those who vote are those who are rabidly in favour of one side, and seem to believe that their opposition are in league with Satan.
Because of this, politics has polarised. The parties know that they have to appeal to their hard-core base of voters, and it seems that they’ve decided that the best way to do this is to heap scorn on whoever is their opposition (although it does seem that, using that logic, the Tory party’s main opponent is the Tory party...). So now, when one looks at the political arena, one sees what looks very much like a slightly more grownup version of that old playground favourite, “My gang is better than your gang”.
This doesn’t benefit anybody (except perhaps the Sun and the Daily Mail, who like to keep things simple...), and just reinforces the idea that politics should be ignored. But things have been like this for over 20 years now; to new voters, this venal popularity contest between two main parties is the way things have always been. And those people who DO vote are so preoccupied with denouncing whomever is on the other team politically, that they’ve stopped bothering to examine what exactly their own side is getting up to.
So what are we left with? Well, we have a gang of greedy fools supported by mindless idiots on one side...and much the same on the other. Both of these groups are, I would say, in the minority. The overwhelming majority of the public is made up of people who have simply ceased to care what happens in politics any more. They still complain about the government when it affects them personally, but bearing in mind they don’t vote, why should the government give a toss? Answer: They don’t have too. As long as they pander to the minorities who elect them, they can get away with murder (literally in some cases).
So what am I trying to say (other than the same thing that, in a roundabout sort of way, I always say: I’m bored at work)? Basically I think I’m saying that, boring though it is, politics is something we should try to at least take a passing interest in if we actually want to see any improvements in our own lives, and in society as a whole. The alternative is more leaders like Dubya, who doesn’t even need to hide the fact that he’s only in government in order to line his pockets any more as there are idiots out there who would believe him if he said the sky was yellow, black was white, and WOMD will be found in Iraq any day now. Surely we deserve better than that?
It’s about that time of the year when the weather gets duller. The skies become greyer with each passing hour, the leaves have long since stopped being a myriad of colours, and chill winds blast icy needles through anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside. All in all, it seems like the perfect time to talk about politics.
Now, I’m aware as I write this that chances are, not many of you will read it. After all, politics is earthshatteringly dull, and more than a little perverse. Where else would a man who professed admiration for the BNP be considered ‘a bit of a character’? In which other profession could the boss lie through his teeth to the shop floor (i.e. us) and, when caught out, refuse to bring the matter up again? Not very many I’d bet.
But why is it so boring? I mean, whether we like it or not, politics is an important matter. Speaking personally, whenever I write these little bursts of vitriol about the political world, I try and make them as accessible and entertaining is possible as possible (not always easy when talking about something duller than the wits of a US President). And one would have thought that it would be in everyone’s best interests to make sure that every effort is made to include people in debate on something as important as politics. Wouldn’t you?
Apparently it is not. A century ago, people were encouraged to believe that the ‘ruling classes’ knew what was best, and should be left alone to the important business of running the country, whilst the working classes should busy themselves working. This attitude disappeared almost totally in the UK after WWII. We’d seen in the build up to the war just what an utter barrel of monkey’s bumholes the supposed ruling elite had made of seeing which way the wind was blowing (“What’s that old chap? Some Austrian chappy is shouting about how he intends to invade half of Europe? And he’s making lots of weapons you say? Well, I’m sure it’s nothing. Now; who’s for a spot of incest? Incest anyone?”), people started to pay a lot more attention to who it was they gave power to. A 6-year war and revelations like the Holocaust tend to concentrate ones mind, and make one less likely to be blindly and idiotically faithful to the idea that their government will do what is best for everyone.
Then we had the Thatcher years. Now, I do tend to think that she was a strong leader and a rather good one (though with the benefit of hindsight, I do get the impression that given a few more years and she would have started doing things like declaring herself “Dictator for Life”...) for the country at the time. However, she did tend to encourage people not to pay much attention to politics. Hers was a pretty much authoritarian rule, and so people grew apathetic about politics because no matter what they said or did, Thatcher went ahead and did what she wanted. And because it mainly worked out for the best (in the short term certainly), no one really wanted to question her too closely anyway. “So a few thousand miners are out of work, and all our heavy industry got canned? Aye well...it was going to die a death soon anyway and who cares when we’re making SO MUCH MONEY!”
So now we’re back in the situation where we’re gently encouraged to leave the ruling classes alone to get on with running society. Only now, we don’t have the excuse of being ill informed, or ignorant. We’re better informed now as a society than we ever have been before. And, as a result, even someone only casually acquainted with the cavernous headed prats who call themselves our government will be well aware that they are a bunch of shifty, power hungry sh*tcake bakers. We wouldn’t trust these people to look after our house for a weekend, but we don’t really much care about letting them look after our country. Why is this?
It’s not as if those in opposition are any better; the Tory party have just jettisoned their leader (I’m not going to mention him by name; I’m intrigued to know how many people actually know it without being prompted...) in favour of Michael Howard; a man who became a byword for Shiftyness after his interview by Paxman, and who is recognised by the general public as “that smarmy Tory bloke”. Doesn’t encourage faith in them as an alternative government really. The Libdems are...well, they’re there. And nobody seems to care.
So we have a bunch of people jostling for power, none of whom are liked or trusted very much. The only ones who aren’t disliked or considered untrustworthy are the ones whom nobody has really heard of. And so, most people simply don’t bother to choose their leaders. We just leave it to people who still seem to give a damn about politics.
And who are most of these people? They’re the people who will vote for one party because they have done all their life and their parents before them, and so on. They’d vote for Labour if Tony Blair stood up in Parliament, flicked the V’s at the camera’s, then gave a speech on how he intended to solve unemployment by grinding the jobless up in a giant mincing machine and selling the resulting mush to their families. They’d vote Tory if...well, lets face it; anyone who still votes Tory after the pigs ear they made of things in living memory has clearly not bothered to engage their brain since 1990. But you get the picture; the majority of those who vote are those who are rabidly in favour of one side, and seem to believe that their opposition are in league with Satan.
Because of this, politics has polarised. The parties know that they have to appeal to their hard-core base of voters, and it seems that they’ve decided that the best way to do this is to heap scorn on whoever is their opposition (although it does seem that, using that logic, the Tory party’s main opponent is the Tory party...). So now, when one looks at the political arena, one sees what looks very much like a slightly more grownup version of that old playground favourite, “My gang is better than your gang”.
This doesn’t benefit anybody (except perhaps the Sun and the Daily Mail, who like to keep things simple...), and just reinforces the idea that politics should be ignored. But things have been like this for over 20 years now; to new voters, this venal popularity contest between two main parties is the way things have always been. And those people who DO vote are so preoccupied with denouncing whomever is on the other team politically, that they’ve stopped bothering to examine what exactly their own side is getting up to.
So what are we left with? Well, we have a gang of greedy fools supported by mindless idiots on one side...and much the same on the other. Both of these groups are, I would say, in the minority. The overwhelming majority of the public is made up of people who have simply ceased to care what happens in politics any more. They still complain about the government when it affects them personally, but bearing in mind they don’t vote, why should the government give a toss? Answer: They don’t have too. As long as they pander to the minorities who elect them, they can get away with murder (literally in some cases).
So what am I trying to say (other than the same thing that, in a roundabout sort of way, I always say: I’m bored at work)? Basically I think I’m saying that, boring though it is, politics is something we should try to at least take a passing interest in if we actually want to see any improvements in our own lives, and in society as a whole. The alternative is more leaders like Dubya, who doesn’t even need to hide the fact that he’s only in government in order to line his pockets any more as there are idiots out there who would believe him if he said the sky was yellow, black was white, and WOMD will be found in Iraq any day now. Surely we deserve better than that?
Wednesday, 10 September 2003
You know you gotta have faith
Since I was a teenager, I've been fascinated with the idea of faith (and yes, I was something of a geeky teen...). At first, it was religious faith that interested me. I couldn't for the life of me understand why otherwise sensible and rational people would live their lives according to a set of principles that evolved over a thousand years ago, the lynchpin of which was a mythical father figure of who's existence there is no proof at all. I wanted to know what drove these people to their conclusion that a particular faith was best suited to them, what made them reject the alternative faiths on offer, and most of all I wanted to know whether these gullible fools would be interested in buying these magic beans I had for sale.
But as time has passed, I've thought about faith a little more (which just goes to show how boring life can be in Newcastle) and I've gradually and belatedly come to realise that faith isn't just limited to religion. We are constantly encouraged to show faith in, for example, our employers who have our best interests at heart, so have faith and don't ask too many questions about why pay rises are heading the same way as the Dodo. Or our government; Tony Blair and Dubya in particular are fond of using their opportunist religious principles to support their calls for us to have faith in them, so don't look too closely at what they're doing because it'll all work out for your benefit, honest. Unsurprisingly, we in the west are now completely cynical about having faith in anything; in general we greet whatever new soul-sapping announcement is guaranteed to make ones life that little bit less enjoyable with black humour and a wry smile. On the plus side, this means that religion no longer has the influence it once did on everyday life. On the down side, it means that we are losing the most important item of faith that we have; faith in ourselves.
Of course, I say that we're losing that aspect of faith; it has never exactly been widespread anyway. If one looks back through history, we've never really been encouraged to have any faith in ourselves as individuals. It has always suited whoever was on the top of the social heap to make us think that, in order to make anything out of our lives, we would need to rely on those in charge. The message has always been "Trust in your leaders, because if you don't then the world will turn to sloppy dogshit". We're indoctrinated with that belief and have been since the dawn of civilisation. Because of that, it is a very special person indeed who has enough faith in himself or herself to take chances in their life and follow a different path from the norm. And, human nature being what it is, those rare and precious few invariably take up a position in what could loosely be termed the ruling classes of society and become part of the same system that tries to keep people down.
Now, I'm not enough of an anarchist to follow this train of thought through to the conclusion "We need no leaders if we all have faith in ourselves". Frankly, although I think the idea that we could live in a world without leaders is a lovely one, human nature being what it is, we'd almost certainly find ourselves in a situation that closely resembled hell on earth. But on the other hand (and this is a very naive thing to say), surely having large numbers of self-confident people who are willing to think for themselves is good for society as a whole? How can it profit a government to keep the population timid and meek, accepting of their lot in life no matter how indifferent it may be?
The obvious answer is, of course, because the ruling classes are not interested in anyone other than themselves. The general populace needs to be kept fearful and paranoid in order to keep them in power? No problem; just look at the constant propaganda we see in the media telling us to be afraid of bombs and of evil terrorists. Look at the Anthrax scare in America ("No, please no! Not anthrax!! Not the disease that is easily curable by anti-biotics!! Nooooooooo!!!"), or the pointless evacuation exercise that took place in London last weekend. We would seem to faced with a contradiction; the people we elect to power to serve our interests will gladly sacrifice those interests in order to remain in power. All because we don't have enough faith in ourselves to stand up and say "Actually, I'm not happy with the way things are being done." We fear being ridiculed for doing so, and that fear and lack of faith keeps us paralysed and allows those fortunate enough to have a measure of control over their lives to extend that control over ours.
Not surprisingly, this state of affairs has led to discontent. In particular we are seeing that discontent among the people of the Islamic world, who have long been burdened with oppressive and unrepresentative governments who use religious faith as a tool for political control. To put things in perspective, I'm sat here complaining about the lack of control I am afforded in my life, but at least I am not in danger of being imprisoned by my government for doing so. Yet how is this discontent being expressed (or at least, how is the majority of that discontent being expressed)? By putting faith in organisations that remain equally unrepresentative of their supporters and have their own agenda which invariably involves replacing the current ruling classes of their society with the leadership of the organisation. This is true of Al-Quaida in all it's many and varied forms, of Hamas, of Islamic Jihad, of the ultra-violent Islamic rebels of North Africa. All of these so-called revolutionaries are equally dependant on discouraging people from having any faith in themselves, and encouraging them to believe that their problems can only be dealt with by the leaders of the organisation.
In abusing the trust of the very people whom they are meant to serve, governments are effectively sowing the seeds of their own destruction. We're encouraged to have faith in our leaders, but our leaders constantly lie to us and are visibly and demonstratably self-serving buckets of bullbollocks. However, thanks to centuries of being told we shouldn't rely on ourselves, we turn to organisations that encourage us to have faith in them instead, and they in turn abuse that trust to achieve their own aims. Isn't it time to stop placing all of our hopes in groups who couldn't care less about us, and only view us as a means to gain power and control over their own destiny? Isn't it time we started to think a little more of ourselves, of our own potential, and act on it? Or will we simply wait for the group of our choice to tell us that it's okay to have a little self-belief? Time will tell I suppose, but I can only hope that we start to believe in ourselves long before there is no other option.
But as time has passed, I've thought about faith a little more (which just goes to show how boring life can be in Newcastle) and I've gradually and belatedly come to realise that faith isn't just limited to religion. We are constantly encouraged to show faith in, for example, our employers who have our best interests at heart, so have faith and don't ask too many questions about why pay rises are heading the same way as the Dodo. Or our government; Tony Blair and Dubya in particular are fond of using their opportunist religious principles to support their calls for us to have faith in them, so don't look too closely at what they're doing because it'll all work out for your benefit, honest. Unsurprisingly, we in the west are now completely cynical about having faith in anything; in general we greet whatever new soul-sapping announcement is guaranteed to make ones life that little bit less enjoyable with black humour and a wry smile. On the plus side, this means that religion no longer has the influence it once did on everyday life. On the down side, it means that we are losing the most important item of faith that we have; faith in ourselves.
Of course, I say that we're losing that aspect of faith; it has never exactly been widespread anyway. If one looks back through history, we've never really been encouraged to have any faith in ourselves as individuals. It has always suited whoever was on the top of the social heap to make us think that, in order to make anything out of our lives, we would need to rely on those in charge. The message has always been "Trust in your leaders, because if you don't then the world will turn to sloppy dogshit". We're indoctrinated with that belief and have been since the dawn of civilisation. Because of that, it is a very special person indeed who has enough faith in himself or herself to take chances in their life and follow a different path from the norm. And, human nature being what it is, those rare and precious few invariably take up a position in what could loosely be termed the ruling classes of society and become part of the same system that tries to keep people down.
Now, I'm not enough of an anarchist to follow this train of thought through to the conclusion "We need no leaders if we all have faith in ourselves". Frankly, although I think the idea that we could live in a world without leaders is a lovely one, human nature being what it is, we'd almost certainly find ourselves in a situation that closely resembled hell on earth. But on the other hand (and this is a very naive thing to say), surely having large numbers of self-confident people who are willing to think for themselves is good for society as a whole? How can it profit a government to keep the population timid and meek, accepting of their lot in life no matter how indifferent it may be?
The obvious answer is, of course, because the ruling classes are not interested in anyone other than themselves. The general populace needs to be kept fearful and paranoid in order to keep them in power? No problem; just look at the constant propaganda we see in the media telling us to be afraid of bombs and of evil terrorists. Look at the Anthrax scare in America ("No, please no! Not anthrax!! Not the disease that is easily curable by anti-biotics!! Nooooooooo!!!"), or the pointless evacuation exercise that took place in London last weekend. We would seem to faced with a contradiction; the people we elect to power to serve our interests will gladly sacrifice those interests in order to remain in power. All because we don't have enough faith in ourselves to stand up and say "Actually, I'm not happy with the way things are being done." We fear being ridiculed for doing so, and that fear and lack of faith keeps us paralysed and allows those fortunate enough to have a measure of control over their lives to extend that control over ours.
Not surprisingly, this state of affairs has led to discontent. In particular we are seeing that discontent among the people of the Islamic world, who have long been burdened with oppressive and unrepresentative governments who use religious faith as a tool for political control. To put things in perspective, I'm sat here complaining about the lack of control I am afforded in my life, but at least I am not in danger of being imprisoned by my government for doing so. Yet how is this discontent being expressed (or at least, how is the majority of that discontent being expressed)? By putting faith in organisations that remain equally unrepresentative of their supporters and have their own agenda which invariably involves replacing the current ruling classes of their society with the leadership of the organisation. This is true of Al-Quaida in all it's many and varied forms, of Hamas, of Islamic Jihad, of the ultra-violent Islamic rebels of North Africa. All of these so-called revolutionaries are equally dependant on discouraging people from having any faith in themselves, and encouraging them to believe that their problems can only be dealt with by the leaders of the organisation.
In abusing the trust of the very people whom they are meant to serve, governments are effectively sowing the seeds of their own destruction. We're encouraged to have faith in our leaders, but our leaders constantly lie to us and are visibly and demonstratably self-serving buckets of bullbollocks. However, thanks to centuries of being told we shouldn't rely on ourselves, we turn to organisations that encourage us to have faith in them instead, and they in turn abuse that trust to achieve their own aims. Isn't it time to stop placing all of our hopes in groups who couldn't care less about us, and only view us as a means to gain power and control over their own destiny? Isn't it time we started to think a little more of ourselves, of our own potential, and act on it? Or will we simply wait for the group of our choice to tell us that it's okay to have a little self-belief? Time will tell I suppose, but I can only hope that we start to believe in ourselves long before there is no other option.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)