You couldn’t make it up

One of the headlines on respectable news programme Today this morning was that British prisons, awash with drugs, are so comfortable now that people are breaking into them, leaving ladders up, and nobody even wants to use them to break out.

It’s hardly surprising when prisoners are paid to work while in there (and even paid to play Scrabble), get to choose the colour of their cells and make a multitude of contacts at the “University of Crime”. I suppose we should be grateful that playing on their Playstations and playing pool do not count as paid activities too, but certainly the whole situation is unbelievable.

I do not understand why prisoners are not forced to work constructively for society, ideally in an area related to their crime. Why don’t I see chain gangs cleaning graffiti off walls and dredging out canals as I go about my business? There are miles of graffiti throughout London to occupy them. Perhaps they could fill in the craters and pits in the roads that the councils ignore too. This would be a warning to others to think twice before offending, and certainly a warning to those offenders, as they make their atonement.

As for prisoners being paid, they should run up debts at their own expense as the country teaches them discipline and responsibility. None of this will happen of course, not because of logistical problems, but because Brussels will always over-rule the UK and claim any such measures “violate prisoners’ human rights”. But being a constructive member of your society is a duty and not a right, especially for convicted criminals, who have a debt to repay.

One sometimes wonders if the runaway political correctness of the United Kingdom, already causing decay in the fabric the society, will lead to all-out civil war if not taken in hand before long.

Then they came…

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

- Martin Niemöller

Islamofacism

There’s nothing wrong with fundamentalism, providing it’s about the right things. There’s nothing wrong with being fundamentally humanist, for example. But there is something very wrong with committing fundamentally to abhorrent and out-dated texts, based upon myths, which urge such a commitment and contain overt imperialist ideology. There’s something very wrong with that.

There is no obligation on us to continually attempt to “interpret” and excuse offensive passages in books like the Bible and the Koran either. It is possible (and true) that they simply are what they seem to be: unacceptable. We can and should reject them, outright, regardless of their claim to being “the word of God”.

There are two reasons, by the way, why “moderate” muslims are slow to condemn Islamic terrorism:

1. They are afraid of becoming targets themselves.
2. They secretly know that the books themselves encourage such acts.

And Islam (like Christianity) has self-preservation built-in: the penalty for apostasy is death. So they bide their time, allowing others, further away, to take the most drastic and controversial action, ignoring the somewhat awkward position in which they find themselves, of enjoying the benefits of a liberal society that those texts would have destroyed.

If you still don’t believe that people’s blind allegiance to these texts, and the continued capitulation of the West, represent the primary threat to civilisation and liberty in the world today, and that we are morally obliged to speak out about it, take a look at this video.

George Carlin on religion

Irreverent, but true!

Beethoven: Allegretto from Symphony No. 6, “Pastoral”

Conducted by Herbert Von Karajan.

The disadvantages of fame

I’m not famous, but I thought twice about even making my thoughts public on this site because it has long seemed to me that fame is more a burden for people than a benefit. There are some benefits to be had from it, but I would never wish it upon anyone who had not sought it while fully appreciating its negative impact. Some of the many people who care far too much about the lives of “celebrities” want nothing more than to be famous themselves. They think it will solve their problems and make them happy. They should consider the following disadvantages of fame:

• Never being able to tell whether a person likes you for who you really are
  (This is a serious problem, presented also by looks and wealth)
• The come-down when it is all over
• Scrutiny of your private life, potentially everything you did in the past, and everything you do in the present
• Lies and insinuations about you
• Envy and resentment, often turning to personal insults
• Possible stalking, kidnap, robbery or even murder attempts
• Feeling indebted to people as they do unrequested favours for you
• Being stared at wherever you go
• Constantly being asked “Aren’t you..?” (And sometimes they’ll get the name wrong)
• Having to be careful of everything you say and do, especially due to possible covert surveillance and recording (in this day and age a faux pas could be publicised across the world in minutes)
• The fame turning to infamy

James Blunt: Carry You Home

Observations

• Happiness comes when you have properly calibrated what you want and what is actually good for you.
• If something can be said at all it can be said clearly.

Straw man arguments

So called “straw man” arguments are even more common than ad hominem attacks in conversational discourse. They are equally underhand and equally logically invalid (the conclusions drawn don’t follow from the premises). I met somebody yesterday (a member of the political party UKIP – some of whose policies I actually agree with) who not only spoke extremely loudly but deployed so many straw man arguments that I had trouble keeping up with them all.

So, without further ado, what is a straw man argument? It is a gross simplification and misrepresentation – usually an extreme version – of an opponent’s position, either created deliberately or because of lack of comprehension that positions can be complex. In the most dishonourable cases it will be deliberate. The simplified position is easier to knock down, hence it is often chosen in preference to the true position.

This is bound to be annoying for the opponent (much to the glee of the proponent, one often suspects) because:

1. Their views are being (perhaps deliberately) misrepresented
2. Their actual argument is not being addressed
3. The argument is not proceeding (time is being wasted)
4. The proponent is behaving as if they have “won a point” when they have not

Examples of straw man arguments:

Person 1: “I think there should be more CCTV in society.”
Person 2: “You want a totalitarian state.”

Person 1: “I don’t have a problem with identity cards.”
Person 2: “You trust everyone in the government.”

Person 1: “I’m morally concerned with the problems in society.”
Person 2: “You think all of society is bad.”

And so on.

Straw man arguments should be exposed for what they are as soon as possible, but we are reluctant to be too damning of those who deploy them, because we never know if they are deliberately being underhand or simply cannot grasp the position as stated. These kind of arguments always involve rash assumptions, at best, however, so are never admirable.

I pointed out to my own “opponent” yesterday that he was deploying straw man arguments and entirely misrepresenting my position, probably willfully. To make matters worse, his response was to then deploy two other underhand tactics often used by those who see arguments as more an exercise in ego than an co-operative attempt to establish the truth:

1. Denying he had made statements of one minute ago
2. Accusing me in playground style – without any foundation – of having used the same tactics (as if two wrongs would ever in any case make a right)

It is at this point that we might rightly feel extremely annoyed, and I often wonder how people such as Richard Dawkins manage to keep their cool against others who are not arguing properly. That some people apparently want to argue for the sake of argument itself instead of for the sake of truth is truly a source of regret.

For the Wikipedia entry on straw man arguments, see here and for an excellent article on logical fallacies in general, see here.

Exposing the delusion of religion

Are you a religious believer? If so, please take the time to view this video. Its intention is not to offend you, but to free you.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was about 20 years old, very reflective and introspective, and familiarising myself with philosophical texts. I thought it rather meandering and weird, and very much born of its era (and I still do). It is not rigorous philosophy and is written somewhat in the style of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. I adopted this abstruce style myself at that time as I wrote thousands of words of reflections. I even used the name Phædrus, from the novel, as a pseudonym for a while on chat clients (we called them “talkers”) back in 1994. At that point there was no MSN and no Internet Explorer, just NSCA Mosaic and Lynx, a text-based browser – and the talkers consisted of just a command line.

Whatever the book’s shortcomings, though, it certainly contains a number of insightful remarks, and here are some of them:

“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”

“The solutions all are simple… after you have arrived at them. But they’re simple only when you know already what they are.”

Robert M. Pirsig

On incest

“Disgusting! We should cut off their heads!” said my barber today as he cut my hair here in Balham. “I’m not sure about that…” I replied, not wanting to be too contrary since his passions were obviously running high and he was the one holding the scissors. He modified his position: “We should burn them with acid”.

He was talking about an article on the TV news about an Australian man who has a child with his daughter and they’re both now in a perverted kind of relationship. My barber is not English, of course. He is possibly Moroccan and more than likely Muslim. I didn’t enquire. “Don’t you think it’s wrong?!” he demanded of me. “Yes,” I replied, “it’s unhealthy”. “It’s not just because it’s unhealthy!” he said, “It’s because it’s disgusting!”. “No,” I said, “it’s interesting to think about why it’s disgusting, and it’s disgusting probably essentially because it’s unhealthy, and it’s accordingly wrong”.

“Is it illegal here?” he asked, snipping away again. I told him it was, and in America. “Does the bible say it’s wrong?” He was obviously aware that the Koran outlaws it and wondered if what he assumed was my moral guide did too. “Yes”, I reassured him, “the bible outlaws it”. I didn’t mention the fact the bible also advocates stoning people to death in the street, because I realised this would hardly condemn it in the eyes of a man who accepted the Koran and had already recommended beheading and burning with acid. I did however mention that some cultures encourage the marriage of nine year old girls and below and that I considered that wrong too. His view was that after the first time a girl menstruated, she was then “fair game”. I also mentioned the fact that the British royal family are very inbred.

Incest isn’t unnatural, because it appears in nature, but it is rare, repulsive to well balanced people and inadvisable. But then so is burning with acid and beheading, and reacting with the remarkable ignorance my barber (and doubtless many thousands of others) did today.

Fitna

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Arnold Toynbee

Fitna is a film released on the Internet by Dutch MP Geert Wilders which has caused great controversy across the world, with many people condemning it before it was even released (so, of course, before they could possibly pass any valid comment on it). The fundamentally religious don’t even need to see or read things any more before condemning them: so thin skinned are they that just the mere whisper that things might be offensive (perhaps because they state uncomfortable truths) is enough for fatwas to start flying.

Usually western nations capitulate to this pressure, and the Dutch government accordingly disassociated itself from Mr Wilders’ film very quickly. Many others have too. Even the cartoonist who originally drew controversial cartoons of the alleged prophet Mohammed seems to have treated this as an opportunity to “clear his name” and nullify any outstanding fatwas, by drawing a cartoon of Mr Wilders instead.

I saw the film on the first day it was released, just before website LiveLeak removed it from its servers due to death threats against its staff from Muslims (who thereby ironically endorsed the film’s message). But the funny thing is that Mr Wilders (who is of course in hiding and under armed guard 24/7) actually says very little in the film. Most of the words shown are quoted directly from the Koran, and it is those words – and the images of those following them – that offend. The trouble is, Muslims are obliged to follow this text fundamentally. Like Christians when it comes to the bible’s more difficult passages advocating stoning, they’re not at liberty to pick and mix – if it’s the word of God it’s the word of God – and this is the problem to which Mr Wilders wishes to alert us.

Fitna is a disturbing and offensive film, certainly, offensive to anybody who values modern humanist morality, but it shows mostly news footage and verses from the Koran already known, so should hardly be banned. Whether Mr Wilders has an ulterior right-wing motive is another matter, but this film as it stands is merely an exercise in free speech, one that has been crushed by a creeping totalitarianism to which we in the West continue to capitulate.

Snow on my birthday

It is snowing in London today on my birthday, making my Flash “masthead” above not so inappropriate for the time of year after all. That’s English weather for you, global friends.

I was born on this date 35 years ago and was very ill as a baby. I have been extremely lucky regarding the family I was born into. I’ve had more ups than downs, and these days things are going better than ever.

Straight edge

“Straight edge” is a new movement arising out of the “hardcore” music scene. Since “hardcore” is in itself vague, we need further clarification, and it turns out to be the hardcore punk genre to be precise.

It is evidently a reaction to the self-destructive behaviour common to this scene (and others), with ex-drug addicts deciding to abstain from drugs, drink and smoking completely. This is great, and particularly good that they do not do so with any religious baggage. They do so just because it’s healthier.

However, they need to be careful that their backlash is not just as severe as the problem they are rejecting. Sometimes straight-edgers also reject all sex before marriage, and there need be no harm in some moderate alcohol intake in the right circumstances from time to time. It’s self control that really needs to be learnt, and moderation.

Unfortunately another sign that their backlash is nearly as severe as the original problem is the straight-edgers’ tendency to tattoo themselves with three Xs to announce what they won’t do, tattoos always seeming to indicate a somewhat desperate mental state.

Lastly, there is the fact that they have represented their decisions as a “movement” and given it a name at all. There does not need to be such a movement any more than there needs to be the term “atheist”, when for both simply “rational” and “sensible” will suffice.

But on balance, “straight edging” is a good thing, and if the tattoos mean one less paramedic attending a drunkard lying or fighting on streets my parents can no longer walk in the evenings, that’s most welcome indeed.