*
From the final section of The Tale of Pigling Bland - by Beatrix Potter:
*
The grocer flicked his whip-- "Papers? Pig license?" Pigling fumbled in all his pockets, and handed up the papers. The grocer read them, but still seemed dissatisfied.
"This here pig is a young lady; is her name Alexander?" Pig-wig opened her mouth and shut it again; Pigling coughed asthmatically.
The grocer ran his finger down the advertisement column of his newspaper -"Lost, stolen or strayed, 10s. reward;" he looked suspiciously at Pig-wig. Then he stood up in the trap, and whistled for the ploughman.
"You wait here while I drive on and speak to him," said the grocer, gathering up the reins. He knew that pigs are slippery; but surely, such a very lame pig could never run!
"Not yet, Pig-wig, he will look back." The grocer did so; he saw the two pigs stock-still in the middle of the road. Then he looked over at his horse's heels; it was lame also; the stone took some time to knock out, after he got to the ploughman.
"Now, Pig-wig, now!" said Pigling Bland.
Never did any pigs run as these pigs ran! They raced and squealed and pelted down the long white hill towards the bridge. Little fat Pig-wig's petticoats fluttered, and her feet went pitter, patter, pitter, as she bounded and jumped.
They ran, and they ran, and they ran down the hill, and across a short cut on level green turf at the bottom, between pebble beds and rushes.
They came to the river, they came to the bridge -
they crossed it hand in hand -
then over the hills and far away
she danced with Pigling Bland!
***
"Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy stories must have it.(...) I will call it Eucatastrophe (...) the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous end. (...)
"In such stories, when the sudden turn comes, we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through."
From Tree and Leaf, by JRR Tolkien
*
I would add that the eucatastrophic effect here comes from a prose tale breaking into verse for the final sentence only.
*
Friday 22 October 2010
Inverted boasting and the profound psychosis of modernity
*
Boasting is bad - although nearly everyone is prone to it.
But the content of a boast can be revealing.
There is rational boasting, which is boasting about something that is spontaneously desired, that you have and others have not; and there is that psychotic phenomenon of inverted boasting about that which is spontaneously despised, and which anyone could have easily - if only they could degrade themselves enough.
(I am using 'psychotic' to mean pathological, irrational, without reality-testing, going-against adaptiveness, and un-understandable at the individual level).
*
I first came across inverted boasting in my teens among young men who bragged about getting drunk, and of what happened when they did. I found this puzzling, and hardly knew what to say. Anyone could get drunk, it simply involved drinking too much. What was there to boast about? except that most people preferred to refrain from it for most of the time.
In the past people got drunk, but either kept quiet about it, or were ashamed. What was there to boast about, after all? Anyone can put fluid inside their body.
Presumably, the willingness to boast about something so facile was related to displaying a disdain for 'social pressures' - and a product of moral inversion.
In modernity, moral inversion is taken as a sign of moral superiority, of being able to 'see through' the shams and pretenses of society.
So that public figures whose major accomplishment is getting drunk are famous for the fact, and serve as fantasy figures of liberation.
*
In terms of sex it is a standard element of evolutionary psychology that (because they get pregnant and invest far more into the offspring - both before and after birth) women are the shortage sex - men court and women choose.
At a crude biological level, men (like many other primates) trade and invest resources for sex. Women trade sex for resources. That is - to some extent - the way that human minds have evolved, and accounts for the spontaneous morality differing between men and women.
So it is rational (although despicable) for men to boast about promiscuity - having sex without investing resources (sex without strings); and for women to boast about getting resources without giving sex.
Traditionally (as it were) nasty men boast about their string of conquests and how they did not even buy the woman a meal and left her straight afterwards; nasty women boast about how they have a string of men buying them expensive gifts, meals, treats, holidays - and how they give them nothing in return - not even a kiss.
*
In nothing is the psychosis of modernity more apparent that the inverted boasting by which women, the shortage sex - and indeed young and healthy women - boast about giving-away sex, about offering sex without strings.
For young women to give away sex without strings is about as difficult as it would be for a man to give away diamonds. In brutal cash terms, the young women are giving away something worth many hundreds of dollars - and then boasting about it, as if it were some kind of achievement!
Of course, there have always been women of this general sort. Women who liked sex so much, or had such weak self-control, that they were prepared to risk their reputation, risk their health and survival, to get the kind of sex that they wanted.
But in the past promiscuous women kept this behavior quiet, because they knew how other people would regard this; and how this kind of behaviour becoming widely known would ensure that the woman would never get a good husband.
*
But of course it is not just about dollars - because a woman known to offer sex without strings is a prostitute, and among prostitutes the pecking order comes from the fee charged. To be an unpaid prostitute is to be the lowest form of an already-degraded occupation.
Yet in modernity women boast about this.
In nothing is the psychosis of modernity more apparent that - somehow - women are induced to boast about something which anybody could do (I mean any young healthy woman) simply by choosing. It does not even require effort - just saying yes. It is pushing at an open door, the only barrier being that few could (or would want to ) degrade themselves to do it.
Perhaps the only skill is in reassuring the recipient of the gift that it really is a gift, that the woman really is offering sex-without-strings. This is hard for men to believe, they naturally suspect some kind of trick or scam; but the whole thing is made easier by intoxication - and intoxication is a near-universal in modern social interactions.
*
What are they actually boasting about is that - by giving away sex - they can have sex with attractive men, they get to choose (within a reasonably large range) to whom they will give free sex.
They get to choose upon whom they bestow this (biologically) immensely valuable thing, something in extremely short supply. Well, yes... if a man was giving away 500 dollar bills, he could no doubt choose some attractive women who would help him spend them. That is not the point.
Of course you get more choice in bestowing a gift than in selling the same product.
*
What seems to be the point is to advertise ones liberation from blah blah blah.
To demonstrate one's moral sophistication.
To demonstrate girl power, the power of women over men.
(What irony! - the 'power' to bestow casually and for free what men will pay a lot to get, pay even with their lives to get!).
After all, if sex is fun - who has the right to stop me doing it? What more is there to say?
*
Drink and sex are surely related in modernity. Evolved instinct makes it extremely difficult for normal women to give away sex-without-strings - and to get into a state where this can be accomplished usually requires intoxication.
So intelligent, healthy young women are getting used-to getting helplessly drunk, and encouraging each other in this; and this helps them achieve the degradation of offering free sex - which they then boast about.
Having done it, then whether the act is repented, concealed or boasted-of depends substantially on social attitudes - especially attitudes of the female peer group (since that is what matters most to women, even more than to men).
Whatever; it seems that women are now in situation of the most extreme moral inversion, the most extreme going-against evolved spontaneous instinct (to say nothing whatsoever of Christian morality) that is conceivable.
A social situation where intelligent, young, health women find that they can get what superficially appears to be prestige for being boldly-degraded, for publicly and self-destructively seeking short term pleasure regardless of cost or context.
*
A visiting Martian biologist would immediately recognize that there must now be, at some level, a profound psychosis at work in modernity - in generating such widespread female behavior that is such a gross violation of such a powerful evolved instinct.
*
Boasting is bad - although nearly everyone is prone to it.
But the content of a boast can be revealing.
There is rational boasting, which is boasting about something that is spontaneously desired, that you have and others have not; and there is that psychotic phenomenon of inverted boasting about that which is spontaneously despised, and which anyone could have easily - if only they could degrade themselves enough.
(I am using 'psychotic' to mean pathological, irrational, without reality-testing, going-against adaptiveness, and un-understandable at the individual level).
*
I first came across inverted boasting in my teens among young men who bragged about getting drunk, and of what happened when they did. I found this puzzling, and hardly knew what to say. Anyone could get drunk, it simply involved drinking too much. What was there to boast about? except that most people preferred to refrain from it for most of the time.
In the past people got drunk, but either kept quiet about it, or were ashamed. What was there to boast about, after all? Anyone can put fluid inside their body.
Presumably, the willingness to boast about something so facile was related to displaying a disdain for 'social pressures' - and a product of moral inversion.
In modernity, moral inversion is taken as a sign of moral superiority, of being able to 'see through' the shams and pretenses of society.
So that public figures whose major accomplishment is getting drunk are famous for the fact, and serve as fantasy figures of liberation.
*
In terms of sex it is a standard element of evolutionary psychology that (because they get pregnant and invest far more into the offspring - both before and after birth) women are the shortage sex - men court and women choose.
At a crude biological level, men (like many other primates) trade and invest resources for sex. Women trade sex for resources. That is - to some extent - the way that human minds have evolved, and accounts for the spontaneous morality differing between men and women.
So it is rational (although despicable) for men to boast about promiscuity - having sex without investing resources (sex without strings); and for women to boast about getting resources without giving sex.
Traditionally (as it were) nasty men boast about their string of conquests and how they did not even buy the woman a meal and left her straight afterwards; nasty women boast about how they have a string of men buying them expensive gifts, meals, treats, holidays - and how they give them nothing in return - not even a kiss.
*
In nothing is the psychosis of modernity more apparent that the inverted boasting by which women, the shortage sex - and indeed young and healthy women - boast about giving-away sex, about offering sex without strings.
For young women to give away sex without strings is about as difficult as it would be for a man to give away diamonds. In brutal cash terms, the young women are giving away something worth many hundreds of dollars - and then boasting about it, as if it were some kind of achievement!
Of course, there have always been women of this general sort. Women who liked sex so much, or had such weak self-control, that they were prepared to risk their reputation, risk their health and survival, to get the kind of sex that they wanted.
But in the past promiscuous women kept this behavior quiet, because they knew how other people would regard this; and how this kind of behaviour becoming widely known would ensure that the woman would never get a good husband.
*
But of course it is not just about dollars - because a woman known to offer sex without strings is a prostitute, and among prostitutes the pecking order comes from the fee charged. To be an unpaid prostitute is to be the lowest form of an already-degraded occupation.
Yet in modernity women boast about this.
In nothing is the psychosis of modernity more apparent that - somehow - women are induced to boast about something which anybody could do (I mean any young healthy woman) simply by choosing. It does not even require effort - just saying yes. It is pushing at an open door, the only barrier being that few could (or would want to ) degrade themselves to do it.
Perhaps the only skill is in reassuring the recipient of the gift that it really is a gift, that the woman really is offering sex-without-strings. This is hard for men to believe, they naturally suspect some kind of trick or scam; but the whole thing is made easier by intoxication - and intoxication is a near-universal in modern social interactions.
*
What are they actually boasting about is that - by giving away sex - they can have sex with attractive men, they get to choose (within a reasonably large range) to whom they will give free sex.
They get to choose upon whom they bestow this (biologically) immensely valuable thing, something in extremely short supply. Well, yes... if a man was giving away 500 dollar bills, he could no doubt choose some attractive women who would help him spend them. That is not the point.
Of course you get more choice in bestowing a gift than in selling the same product.
*
What seems to be the point is to advertise ones liberation from blah blah blah.
To demonstrate one's moral sophistication.
To demonstrate girl power, the power of women over men.
(What irony! - the 'power' to bestow casually and for free what men will pay a lot to get, pay even with their lives to get!).
After all, if sex is fun - who has the right to stop me doing it? What more is there to say?
*
Drink and sex are surely related in modernity. Evolved instinct makes it extremely difficult for normal women to give away sex-without-strings - and to get into a state where this can be accomplished usually requires intoxication.
So intelligent, healthy young women are getting used-to getting helplessly drunk, and encouraging each other in this; and this helps them achieve the degradation of offering free sex - which they then boast about.
Having done it, then whether the act is repented, concealed or boasted-of depends substantially on social attitudes - especially attitudes of the female peer group (since that is what matters most to women, even more than to men).
Whatever; it seems that women are now in situation of the most extreme moral inversion, the most extreme going-against evolved spontaneous instinct (to say nothing whatsoever of Christian morality) that is conceivable.
A social situation where intelligent, young, health women find that they can get what superficially appears to be prestige for being boldly-degraded, for publicly and self-destructively seeking short term pleasure regardless of cost or context.
*
A visiting Martian biologist would immediately recognize that there must now be, at some level, a profound psychosis at work in modernity - in generating such widespread female behavior that is such a gross violation of such a powerful evolved instinct.
*
Thursday 21 October 2010
What is the value of culture?
*
1. It is sometimes suggested that culture has no value. This is partially correct in the sense that culture has no necessary positive value, and may do harm.
2. One benefit of culture is to increase happiness, provide pleasure. Happiness is a good - although it is not a sufficient reason for something - rather, it is a desirable side effect.
3. Above this, culture may provide glimpses of transcendence - for example of transcendent unity, truth, beauty or virtue. These glimpses may be first knowledge, hints or reminders, or an inspiration for efforts. Indeed, for culture to be worth anything more than any other form of amusement, entails a belief in the reality of transcendence.
4. But culture is a form - and its value depends on content. In this world, any form which has power to do good, may also do harm. That which may point towards transcendent good may also point towards evil.
5. Since the romantic era, and exacerbated by modernism, there has been a notion that (properly considered) culture can only do good. That the arts - poetry, novels, the theatre, music; or indeed education, science, medicine - are intrinsically and always 'a good thing'.
6. But if you believe in the reality of transcendence, then you must acknowledge that transcendence can be evil as well as good. Culture may therefore point up or down.
7. If culture can do us real good, it must also be able to do us real harm. And the proportion of good-doing versus harm-doing culture will, presumably, vary according to time and place.
8. Once this is recognized we can see that culture is now and has been for many decades, mostly harm-doing. This used to be recognized clearly - but the net-harmful effect of culture has been hidden and made possible precisely by the doctrine that culture is intrinsically and always 'a good thing' - that funding of 'the arts' is intrinsically and always a good thing, that poetry, drama, novels, serious music - are intrinsically and always 'good for us'.
9. Untrue. I repeat and amplify - most contemporary poetry, novels, drama, movies, fine art, dance, serious music, sculpture, architecture and the rest are bad for us: glimpses not of transcendent good but of transcendent evil; foretastes not of 'heaven' but of 'hell' - but lyingly presented as the opposite. In so far as they do anything, they make us worse, not better.
10. This explains why 'culture vultures', those undiscriminating mass producers and consumers of contemporary culture, are such shallow, selfish, arrogant, despicable characters.
*
1. It is sometimes suggested that culture has no value. This is partially correct in the sense that culture has no necessary positive value, and may do harm.
2. One benefit of culture is to increase happiness, provide pleasure. Happiness is a good - although it is not a sufficient reason for something - rather, it is a desirable side effect.
3. Above this, culture may provide glimpses of transcendence - for example of transcendent unity, truth, beauty or virtue. These glimpses may be first knowledge, hints or reminders, or an inspiration for efforts. Indeed, for culture to be worth anything more than any other form of amusement, entails a belief in the reality of transcendence.
4. But culture is a form - and its value depends on content. In this world, any form which has power to do good, may also do harm. That which may point towards transcendent good may also point towards evil.
5. Since the romantic era, and exacerbated by modernism, there has been a notion that (properly considered) culture can only do good. That the arts - poetry, novels, the theatre, music; or indeed education, science, medicine - are intrinsically and always 'a good thing'.
6. But if you believe in the reality of transcendence, then you must acknowledge that transcendence can be evil as well as good. Culture may therefore point up or down.
7. If culture can do us real good, it must also be able to do us real harm. And the proportion of good-doing versus harm-doing culture will, presumably, vary according to time and place.
8. Once this is recognized we can see that culture is now and has been for many decades, mostly harm-doing. This used to be recognized clearly - but the net-harmful effect of culture has been hidden and made possible precisely by the doctrine that culture is intrinsically and always 'a good thing' - that funding of 'the arts' is intrinsically and always a good thing, that poetry, drama, novels, serious music - are intrinsically and always 'good for us'.
9. Untrue. I repeat and amplify - most contemporary poetry, novels, drama, movies, fine art, dance, serious music, sculpture, architecture and the rest are bad for us: glimpses not of transcendent good but of transcendent evil; foretastes not of 'heaven' but of 'hell' - but lyingly presented as the opposite. In so far as they do anything, they make us worse, not better.
10. This explains why 'culture vultures', those undiscriminating mass producers and consumers of contemporary culture, are such shallow, selfish, arrogant, despicable characters.
*
How peer review trains scientists in untruthfulness - journal refereeing
*
One of the many flaws in peer review as applied in refereeing is that it trains scientists to become-comfortable-with untruthfulness, and to make excuses for (what they believe to be) wrong facts or ideas published under their own names.
*
This has become an almost routine aspect of the journal peer review process.
The original and proper function of a scientific paper was for an individual (or small group) to publish their views and observations under their own names, and to be responsible for these views - to defend these views against competent critique - or, if they could not defend them, eventually to retract them.
But nowadays, in order to publish, authors are frequently - probably usually - compelled to alter their arguments and interpretations in line with what journal referees suggest.
*
The modern 'scientific' paper as it appears when published in a peer reviewed journal generally ends-up as a mosaic of some of the author's own best estimates of truth (although some things the authors consider to be important will probably have been deleted at the insistence of referees), along with the various opinions and interpretations that originate from the journal referees.
In a nutshell, the modern editorial process changes what the author believes and considers important, to yield an incomplete and biased version of the authors best knowledge; but the result is published under the name of the authors, and these authors are supposed to take responsibility for it.
*
In my opinion, this is a corrupt and corrupting practice.
Except for the correction of accidental errors, articles submitted to journals ought not to be subjected to substantive changes.
The editor's role should be restricted to matters of presentation. By and large, papers should be accepted or rejected - not rebuilt.
As I used to express it when I was myself an editor; to preserve the integrity of science, the editor's role should be as a chooser, not a changer.
*
One of the many flaws in peer review as applied in refereeing is that it trains scientists to become-comfortable-with untruthfulness, and to make excuses for (what they believe to be) wrong facts or ideas published under their own names.
*
This has become an almost routine aspect of the journal peer review process.
The original and proper function of a scientific paper was for an individual (or small group) to publish their views and observations under their own names, and to be responsible for these views - to defend these views against competent critique - or, if they could not defend them, eventually to retract them.
But nowadays, in order to publish, authors are frequently - probably usually - compelled to alter their arguments and interpretations in line with what journal referees suggest.
*
The modern 'scientific' paper as it appears when published in a peer reviewed journal generally ends-up as a mosaic of some of the author's own best estimates of truth (although some things the authors consider to be important will probably have been deleted at the insistence of referees), along with the various opinions and interpretations that originate from the journal referees.
In a nutshell, the modern editorial process changes what the author believes and considers important, to yield an incomplete and biased version of the authors best knowledge; but the result is published under the name of the authors, and these authors are supposed to take responsibility for it.
*
In my opinion, this is a corrupt and corrupting practice.
Except for the correction of accidental errors, articles submitted to journals ought not to be subjected to substantive changes.
The editor's role should be restricted to matters of presentation. By and large, papers should be accepted or rejected - not rebuilt.
As I used to express it when I was myself an editor; to preserve the integrity of science, the editor's role should be as a chooser, not a changer.
*
Reading Tolkien for the first time; and *not* reading The Silmarillion (1977)
*
Regular readers will be aware that I value JRR Tolkien above other authors.
While accepting fully that Tolkien is not for everybody (my sister, for instance, finds him utterly without interest - including the movies); I'd just like to make a few pointers about reading Tolkien - so that people who might appreciate his world will not be put-off by reading the wrong things first.
1. If you are an adult - read The Lord of the Rings first.
2. If you are a child - read The Hobbit first.
3. Do not read The Silmarillion - single volume, first published in 1977.
Do not read it after LotR, do not read it ever.
It was a mistake to have published this book (as Christopher Tolkien, who compiled it, now frankly admits).
Those who want to read into the backstory behind and around LotR (e.g. those who have enjoyed the Appendices) should disregard The Silmarillion and read first Unfinished Tales, then the twelve volume History of Middle Earth.
4. The small stories Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wooton Major and Leaf by Niggle are all first-rate and repay repeated reading (or listening, in the superb renderings by actor Derek Jacobi).
*
Regular readers will be aware that I value JRR Tolkien above other authors.
While accepting fully that Tolkien is not for everybody (my sister, for instance, finds him utterly without interest - including the movies); I'd just like to make a few pointers about reading Tolkien - so that people who might appreciate his world will not be put-off by reading the wrong things first.
1. If you are an adult - read The Lord of the Rings first.
2. If you are a child - read The Hobbit first.
3. Do not read The Silmarillion - single volume, first published in 1977.
Do not read it after LotR, do not read it ever.
It was a mistake to have published this book (as Christopher Tolkien, who compiled it, now frankly admits).
Those who want to read into the backstory behind and around LotR (e.g. those who have enjoyed the Appendices) should disregard The Silmarillion and read first Unfinished Tales, then the twelve volume History of Middle Earth.
4. The small stories Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wooton Major and Leaf by Niggle are all first-rate and repay repeated reading (or listening, in the superb renderings by actor Derek Jacobi).
*
"Writing is thinking"
*
I read this somewhere, years ago, and at first could not understand it.
But as I continued writing, I found it was true. Writing is a kind of thinking (or can be).
One consequence is that a writer's writings are sometimes much more intelligent than he is in 'real life' - Kurt Vonnegut admitted this candidly - that he came across as smart in his writing, but not when people met him. This happened because Vonnegut could refine the written word, work on it to increase the concentration and wit - but could not do this in real-time.
Another example is JK Rowling who - with Harry Potter - managed to write a very extended and complex plot across seven books while creating characters people care-about and firing-off lots of fantasy ideas. Yet in interviews she comes across as incapable of having done this.
On the other hand, some writers are pretty much the same person on the page and in real life. I used to know the Scottish author Alasdair Gray quite well, and his conversation was very similar to his prose style. And Gray's prose style was pretty much the same in letters and diaries as it was in his novels. It may be relevant that he was a 'natural' writer who won a national competition and published a short story in his childhood (The Star) - and this was good enough to be re-published with adult work in Unlikely Stories, Mostly.
The contrast can also go in the other direction, with writers who are good enough at writing to become known as such - but who by all accounts were much better conversationalists: Samuel Johnson and Oscar Wilde spring to mind (none of Johnson's works are in the mainstream canon of English Literature, and only the Importance of Being Earnest from Wilde's ouvre).
I would guess that the explanation is that for some writers like Vonnegut writing is thinking - which allows them to extend their natural oral capabilities; for other writers (Alasdair Gray?) writing is transcription; while for others (like Wilde, perhaps) writing was a distraction from living ("I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."); or even an actively unpleasant activity - as Sam. Johnson said: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
*
I read this somewhere, years ago, and at first could not understand it.
But as I continued writing, I found it was true. Writing is a kind of thinking (or can be).
One consequence is that a writer's writings are sometimes much more intelligent than he is in 'real life' - Kurt Vonnegut admitted this candidly - that he came across as smart in his writing, but not when people met him. This happened because Vonnegut could refine the written word, work on it to increase the concentration and wit - but could not do this in real-time.
Another example is JK Rowling who - with Harry Potter - managed to write a very extended and complex plot across seven books while creating characters people care-about and firing-off lots of fantasy ideas. Yet in interviews she comes across as incapable of having done this.
On the other hand, some writers are pretty much the same person on the page and in real life. I used to know the Scottish author Alasdair Gray quite well, and his conversation was very similar to his prose style. And Gray's prose style was pretty much the same in letters and diaries as it was in his novels. It may be relevant that he was a 'natural' writer who won a national competition and published a short story in his childhood (The Star) - and this was good enough to be re-published with adult work in Unlikely Stories, Mostly.
The contrast can also go in the other direction, with writers who are good enough at writing to become known as such - but who by all accounts were much better conversationalists: Samuel Johnson and Oscar Wilde spring to mind (none of Johnson's works are in the mainstream canon of English Literature, and only the Importance of Being Earnest from Wilde's ouvre).
I would guess that the explanation is that for some writers like Vonnegut writing is thinking - which allows them to extend their natural oral capabilities; for other writers (Alasdair Gray?) writing is transcription; while for others (like Wilde, perhaps) writing was a distraction from living ("I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."); or even an actively unpleasant activity - as Sam. Johnson said: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."
*
Wednesday 20 October 2010
MacIntyre and Tolkien
*
It is now nearly thirty years since the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre made crystal clear in After Virtue that the moral system of modernity was rationally incoherent - yet in the past decades piecemeal and casual moralizing has come to occupy an ever greater share of public discourse - such that (in the guise of political correctness) it now exerts an absolute control over what can be said.
This came to mind while I was reading a selection of opinions on that ever-tedious topic of whether JRR Tolkien was a 'racist'.
The absurdity of the 'evidence' brought against him was matched only by the feebleness of those who attempted to 'defend' him.
But it was not so much the specifics of what the protagonists actually said that I found interesting, but the form of this discourse - its framing assumptions.
Underlying this debate is the assumption that 'somebody like' Tolkien (born in 1892, a man, white, middle class, English) was almost-certainly a racist - but he may have been masking this. All that is necessary is to find a single instance where 'the mask slipped' and this assumption can be confirmed.
The method (the game) was essentially that in order to find-out whether Tolkien was 'a racist' the proper procedure was to comb though the utterances of his life.
To win the prize of calling Tolkien a racist, all that was needed was to find a sentence which leftist secular moderns would regard as - well - insensitive, stereotyped, possibly offensive, denigrating... basically anything which would make a liberal sociology professor uneasy or uncomfortable - and that is it!
Clearly this assumption is widespread nowadays - since one single remark which is (more or less plausibly) deemed to be 'racist’ is sufficient for a public figure to be permanently 'disgraced' and ostracized – so long as he is in the demonized category of presumptive racists.
On the assumption he is masked, the mask needs to slip *only once* for people to see the hideous features that were (it was always expected) being concealed.
And once the hideous features under the mask have been seen, they never can be forgotten.
A single ‘inappropriate’ or ‘offensive’ remark will therefore invalidate anything and everything a man may ever have done or said about any other matter.
Against this there is no defence (in particular, contrary to the hopes of many men, lifelong thorough-going leftism is no defence).
This is how it is. A solid confirmation of MacIntyre’s thesis.
*
After Apple Picking - a poem by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
*
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
*
What can I say? Perfection in a poem. As with pretty much all of Frost, there are at least two readings - one about apple picking, the other about writing - with apples as the metaphor for poems.
Read it aloud, slowly - and ignore the paragraphing which I added for clarity.
*
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Byzantine Christianity characterized
*
From the chapter Byzantine Christianity - by Hannah Hunt
In The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, edited by Ken Parry, 2007.
*
[The city] had a population of nearly three quarters of a million. (...) Monasticism shaped Constantinople to a considerable extent. Monasteries abounded in the city: there were over 300 by the time of Justinian in the sixth century. (...)
Byzantine Christianity demonstrates a profound liturgical emphasis (which is nourished by its monastic tradition) and simultaneously a sense of catering for the spiritual needs of real people who inhabit a very physical world.
It seeks to elevate God's people to heaven (...) yet acknowledges the chthonic nature of humanity.
*
Byzantine Christianity (...) is based on the concept of tradition (paradosis) and rooted in the study of patristics and scripture.
The theological definitions given by patristic authors continually refer, intertextually, to other fathers, even when they are not named or identified clearly. (...)
Scripturally based, the Christian tradition of Byzantium relied on the accumulated wisdom of living saints, whose experience illuminated the love of God and his desire for perfection of all humanity. (...)
*
The presupposition was that humanity was made in God's image, and strove continually to be reunited with God. Through the unique sacrifice of the god-man Christ, all humanity shares in the godhead, a total participation. (...)
*
A dominant characteristic of Byzantine Christianity is that its concepts and doctrine cannot be easily separated: in the Eastern Christian world, praxis and theoria are enmeshed, just as in Christ, divinity and humanity are intertwined and indistinguishable. (...) There can be no theorizing, no theologizing without the practical impetus of prayer and faith. (...)
*
Greek Christianity of the Byzantine period may be characterized as restrained within certain traditional and ecclesiastical parameters. (...)
The utilization of the patristic method of theological discourse provided it with a dynamic source of renewal and replenishment which never succumbed to scholasticism on the one hand, or other-worldly mysticism on the other.
It attempted to maintain a balance between excessive rationalism and unarticulated rapture, and on the whole it achieved this.
Byzantine Christianity was able to articulate its religious faith through sound (liturgy) and sight (iconography) as well as through texts, to produce an integrated world view that sustained it over one thousand years of change and development.
Christianity in Byzantium was an imperial religion, and although the relationship between the church and the state was not always clear or convivial, it did at least provide a sense of destiny for the Greek people.
That sense of destiny was in turn passed on to the Slav nations to the north, who continued to promote the idea that a Christian state was a realizable ideal.
*
From the chapter Byzantine Christianity - by Hannah Hunt
In The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity, edited by Ken Parry, 2007.
*
[The city] had a population of nearly three quarters of a million. (...) Monasticism shaped Constantinople to a considerable extent. Monasteries abounded in the city: there were over 300 by the time of Justinian in the sixth century. (...)
Byzantine Christianity demonstrates a profound liturgical emphasis (which is nourished by its monastic tradition) and simultaneously a sense of catering for the spiritual needs of real people who inhabit a very physical world.
It seeks to elevate God's people to heaven (...) yet acknowledges the chthonic nature of humanity.
*
Byzantine Christianity (...) is based on the concept of tradition (paradosis) and rooted in the study of patristics and scripture.
The theological definitions given by patristic authors continually refer, intertextually, to other fathers, even when they are not named or identified clearly. (...)
Scripturally based, the Christian tradition of Byzantium relied on the accumulated wisdom of living saints, whose experience illuminated the love of God and his desire for perfection of all humanity. (...)
*
The presupposition was that humanity was made in God's image, and strove continually to be reunited with God. Through the unique sacrifice of the god-man Christ, all humanity shares in the godhead, a total participation. (...)
*
A dominant characteristic of Byzantine Christianity is that its concepts and doctrine cannot be easily separated: in the Eastern Christian world, praxis and theoria are enmeshed, just as in Christ, divinity and humanity are intertwined and indistinguishable. (...) There can be no theorizing, no theologizing without the practical impetus of prayer and faith. (...)
*
Greek Christianity of the Byzantine period may be characterized as restrained within certain traditional and ecclesiastical parameters. (...)
The utilization of the patristic method of theological discourse provided it with a dynamic source of renewal and replenishment which never succumbed to scholasticism on the one hand, or other-worldly mysticism on the other.
It attempted to maintain a balance between excessive rationalism and unarticulated rapture, and on the whole it achieved this.
Byzantine Christianity was able to articulate its religious faith through sound (liturgy) and sight (iconography) as well as through texts, to produce an integrated world view that sustained it over one thousand years of change and development.
Christianity in Byzantium was an imperial religion, and although the relationship between the church and the state was not always clear or convivial, it did at least provide a sense of destiny for the Greek people.
That sense of destiny was in turn passed on to the Slav nations to the north, who continued to promote the idea that a Christian state was a realizable ideal.
*
The immortality of souls - consoling or terrifying?
*
Over recent centuries in the West, there has probably been no change more profound than the loss of belief in souls, including the loss of the assumption that souls were eternal.
In the past this was taken for granted.
Indeed, it seems that a belief in the soul is universal, spontaneous, and rational.
*
There was disagreement about what became of souls (whether they were recycled, became ghosts, went to another place, became godlike...); but there was no doubt to our ancestors (and indeed probably most people in the world today) that souls were real and survived beyond death.
*
It is remarkable that this universal assumption has - somehow - become so ridiculous as now to be literally incredible among mainstream intellectuals.
(That was certainly how I saw things for most of my adult life.)
Why such a seismic change? After all, there was no discovery of the non-existence of the soul, no discovery that soul was an incoherent concept - there was merely a reversal of assumption.
And since the soul is disbelieved, modern secular people do not not worry about what happens after their death - they see death as merely going to sleep then not waking-up.
*
In the past, people would worry about what would happen after they died - because it seemed to them that their souls would be around for a lot longer than their bodies. Indeed, it was usual to be terrified about what might happen to the soul after death - that its fate might be horrible.
Belief in the soul was certainly not a consoling one; or not usually.
But secular moderns, disbelieving in the soul, assume that a belief in the soul is a species of wishful thinking - that people believe in the soul merely because they cannot face the reality of extinction after death.
Moderns regard those who believe in the soul as weak, or feeble minded, or deviously manipulative; to be pitied or despised but not to be admired or emulated.
*
But someone could only imagine that a belief in the soul - in 'life after death' was intrinsically a consoling fiction if one didn't really believe it.
The soul can only be a consoling concept if it is fictional and evanescent - to regard souls as factual and permanent is to be faced with a major consideration which would tend to dominate life.
So, on the one hand, when someone really believes in the survival of the soul and is capable of reasoning and imagination, then this is worrying; and to believe in the immortality of the soul is nothing less than a terrifying prospect.
*
Perhaps it is, therefore, more rational to reverse the modern secular assumption and to regard disbelief in the soul as the soothing, consoling fiction, the belief of those who cannot face the terrifying prospect of an uncertain state of immortality.
Also, modern secular intellectuals may need to acknowledge that they are deluded in their subjective disbelief in soul.
They (and I was one of them until recently) really sincerely disbelieve, and this disbelief seems intractable - yet rationally they must recognize that their subjective conviction is (at least highly probably) wrong, and souls are real.
Secular intellectuals therefore need, at least, a course in self-cognitive therapy. Sometimes this can shake a delusion. At root, this is a training in habit.
But even if by their best efforts they cannot shake the delusional disbelief, they still need rationally to acknowledge its delusional status.
Maybe it will help if they recognize that belief in soul in not consoling, but profoundly worrying - maybe belief in soul will then seem less pitiful and more heroic?
However they cross the delusional divide - we need to see that the collective spontaneous wisdom of mankind has been that souls are real and survive death, and are probably immortal - and this is a starting point - a given - for understanding the world and our place in it.
*
The reason why acknowledging the reality and probable immortality of the soul is a necessary first step for understanding human existence is that otherwise human society, its institutions and civilization (art, science, philosophy etc.) will be valued more highly than the individual - because they outlast the individual (as well as being stronger than the individual).
Indeed, we came come to value the environment or the planet more than humans or human society, since the earth will outlast humanity.
Whereas, in reality individual souls will outlast all forms of human society; will outlast the planet, will survive even the death of the universe.
This dizzying recognition was normal for thoughtful humans in the past, but has now been lost from mainstream discourse.
Indeed it is likely that a typical modern intellectual (to whom the soul is a childish superstition) would go through life without ever encountering this basic underlying perspective; a perspective once all-but universal, and a reality that ought to underpin our understanding of the human condition.
*
Over recent centuries in the West, there has probably been no change more profound than the loss of belief in souls, including the loss of the assumption that souls were eternal.
In the past this was taken for granted.
Indeed, it seems that a belief in the soul is universal, spontaneous, and rational.
*
There was disagreement about what became of souls (whether they were recycled, became ghosts, went to another place, became godlike...); but there was no doubt to our ancestors (and indeed probably most people in the world today) that souls were real and survived beyond death.
*
It is remarkable that this universal assumption has - somehow - become so ridiculous as now to be literally incredible among mainstream intellectuals.
(That was certainly how I saw things for most of my adult life.)
Why such a seismic change? After all, there was no discovery of the non-existence of the soul, no discovery that soul was an incoherent concept - there was merely a reversal of assumption.
And since the soul is disbelieved, modern secular people do not not worry about what happens after their death - they see death as merely going to sleep then not waking-up.
*
In the past, people would worry about what would happen after they died - because it seemed to them that their souls would be around for a lot longer than their bodies. Indeed, it was usual to be terrified about what might happen to the soul after death - that its fate might be horrible.
Belief in the soul was certainly not a consoling one; or not usually.
But secular moderns, disbelieving in the soul, assume that a belief in the soul is a species of wishful thinking - that people believe in the soul merely because they cannot face the reality of extinction after death.
Moderns regard those who believe in the soul as weak, or feeble minded, or deviously manipulative; to be pitied or despised but not to be admired or emulated.
*
But someone could only imagine that a belief in the soul - in 'life after death' was intrinsically a consoling fiction if one didn't really believe it.
The soul can only be a consoling concept if it is fictional and evanescent - to regard souls as factual and permanent is to be faced with a major consideration which would tend to dominate life.
So, on the one hand, when someone really believes in the survival of the soul and is capable of reasoning and imagination, then this is worrying; and to believe in the immortality of the soul is nothing less than a terrifying prospect.
*
Perhaps it is, therefore, more rational to reverse the modern secular assumption and to regard disbelief in the soul as the soothing, consoling fiction, the belief of those who cannot face the terrifying prospect of an uncertain state of immortality.
Also, modern secular intellectuals may need to acknowledge that they are deluded in their subjective disbelief in soul.
They (and I was one of them until recently) really sincerely disbelieve, and this disbelief seems intractable - yet rationally they must recognize that their subjective conviction is (at least highly probably) wrong, and souls are real.
Secular intellectuals therefore need, at least, a course in self-cognitive therapy. Sometimes this can shake a delusion. At root, this is a training in habit.
But even if by their best efforts they cannot shake the delusional disbelief, they still need rationally to acknowledge its delusional status.
Maybe it will help if they recognize that belief in soul in not consoling, but profoundly worrying - maybe belief in soul will then seem less pitiful and more heroic?
However they cross the delusional divide - we need to see that the collective spontaneous wisdom of mankind has been that souls are real and survive death, and are probably immortal - and this is a starting point - a given - for understanding the world and our place in it.
*
The reason why acknowledging the reality and probable immortality of the soul is a necessary first step for understanding human existence is that otherwise human society, its institutions and civilization (art, science, philosophy etc.) will be valued more highly than the individual - because they outlast the individual (as well as being stronger than the individual).
Indeed, we came come to value the environment or the planet more than humans or human society, since the earth will outlast humanity.
Whereas, in reality individual souls will outlast all forms of human society; will outlast the planet, will survive even the death of the universe.
This dizzying recognition was normal for thoughtful humans in the past, but has now been lost from mainstream discourse.
Indeed it is likely that a typical modern intellectual (to whom the soul is a childish superstition) would go through life without ever encountering this basic underlying perspective; a perspective once all-but universal, and a reality that ought to underpin our understanding of the human condition.
*
Monday 18 October 2010
Live in the present, plan for eternity - but don't dwell on the future!
*
From The Screwtape Letters - by C.S. Lewis - excerpted from letter 15.
Letters from one demon to another (i.e. the 'Enemy' is God):
*
"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.
"Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them.
"He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
"Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present.
"With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future.
"Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities.
"In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. (...)
"To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present.
"This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it.
"We do.
"His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.
"But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see.
"We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present."
*
From The Screwtape Letters - by C.S. Lewis - excerpted from letter 15.
Letters from one demon to another (i.e. the 'Enemy' is God):
*
"The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.
"Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them.
"He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
"Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present.
"With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future.
"Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities.
"In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. (...)
"To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present.
"This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it.
"We do.
"His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him.
"But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see.
"We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present."
*
Has the internet encouraged or defeated political correctness?
*
Many on the secular right (libertarians - such as I was until a few years ago) believed that the internet (including blogs) and other modern mass communication media would act against the excesses of PC, by preventing the elites from controlling information.
I certainly believed that.
But overall this prediction was quite wrong, and I think that overall the opposite has been the case.
In other words, the modern mass communication media have increased the scope and strength of PC.
*
This is because the problem of PC was not due to lack of contrary information.
(I should have realized this - after all, PC can be refuted simply by taking personal experience at face value.)
Instead the modern communications media have hugely exacerbated the distractability of the elites, and their tendency mentally to inhabit an abstract realm where ideas are played-with and where morality is chosen on the basis of lifestyle considerations.
*
Indeed, PC probably depends on the mass media - since it has grown up in parallel with the media; and is not found in societies which lack a large mass media.
The least politically correct groups are those which leads the most detached lives, those with the least frequent interaction with the culture of internet, cellphones and the like.
If/ when the mass media collapse, so will PC.
*
In a McLuhan-esque fashion, the content of the mass media seems to matter less than the psychological effects of its structure: with the elicited psychological responses of abstraction, distraction, neophilia, unreality, pick-and-mix hedonism, and so on, and so forth....
Anything which reinforces the intellectuals' (natural) tendency to ignore the here and now and objectively constrained, in favour of the remote and potential and subjectively wishful - will overall tend to encourage political correctness.
And it has.
And I realise that this appears to make blogging a self-refuting activity for reactionaries - and this is true, but only overall. This blog may be one of the exceptions
*
Many on the secular right (libertarians - such as I was until a few years ago) believed that the internet (including blogs) and other modern mass communication media would act against the excesses of PC, by preventing the elites from controlling information.
I certainly believed that.
But overall this prediction was quite wrong, and I think that overall the opposite has been the case.
In other words, the modern mass communication media have increased the scope and strength of PC.
*
This is because the problem of PC was not due to lack of contrary information.
(I should have realized this - after all, PC can be refuted simply by taking personal experience at face value.)
Instead the modern communications media have hugely exacerbated the distractability of the elites, and their tendency mentally to inhabit an abstract realm where ideas are played-with and where morality is chosen on the basis of lifestyle considerations.
*
Indeed, PC probably depends on the mass media - since it has grown up in parallel with the media; and is not found in societies which lack a large mass media.
The least politically correct groups are those which leads the most detached lives, those with the least frequent interaction with the culture of internet, cellphones and the like.
If/ when the mass media collapse, so will PC.
*
In a McLuhan-esque fashion, the content of the mass media seems to matter less than the psychological effects of its structure: with the elicited psychological responses of abstraction, distraction, neophilia, unreality, pick-and-mix hedonism, and so on, and so forth....
Anything which reinforces the intellectuals' (natural) tendency to ignore the here and now and objectively constrained, in favour of the remote and potential and subjectively wishful - will overall tend to encourage political correctness.
And it has.
And I realise that this appears to make blogging a self-refuting activity for reactionaries - and this is true, but only overall. This blog may be one of the exceptions
*
Greatness versus Genius
*
Greatness can be distinguished from genius - although greatness is even less common than genius (and greatness may be - apparently - absent from areas of life where genius predominates - e.g. the theatre).
Genius is about ability - about outcomes, but although greatness requires abilities it is more about character - wisdom, maturity, dominance, solidity.
*
In English literature the premier genius is Shakespeare, and there are others such as Milton and Wordsworth - but none of these were great men.
The greatest figure in English literature was Samuel Johnson - who, although extremely able, was not a creative genius.
The contrast can be seen also between CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien - Lewis was a great man, while Tolkien was a genius.
*
It is possible to be both - Einstein was both a genius and a great man. Perhaps Rutherford too?
But you could be 'just' a genius - like most big names of the past: Newton, Darwin and so on.
I can't think for sure of any great men in science that were not also geniuses - maybe Lord Kelvin or David Hilbert? But maybe they too were geniuses?
*
Indeed, it is possible - maybe even usual - to be a rather small man and a genius - immaturity, foolishness, inconsistency, even insignificance are all compatible with genius. That was the contention of the play and movie Amadeus, and there are plenty of other examples. As an extreme and recent example, although I would not rate Picasso as a genius, most people do - and he was a very small man, qua man (and not just in stature).
*
Greatness is generally associate with politics and generalship - perhaps because effective p&g especially benefit from the same constellation of aptitudes as are found in greatness - however greatness is still rare.
I have already named King Alfred the Great as the prime example in English history; it is hard to find another so clear cut.
Perhaps there were great English generals (I'm not sure of this) - maybe Wellington, maybe Cromwell?
Perhaps the explorer Captain James Cook?
An example of greatness from my part of the world might be the railway engineer George Stephenson - he seems to have struck contemporaries in that way.
*
In US history the greatest man of whom I am aware is Robert E Lee.
Another possible 'great American' was William James.
Robert Frost (the poet - himself the premier genius of literature that America has produced, and who took his middle name from Robert E Lee) named the three greatest Americans as Washington, Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'm not sure about W and L but Emerson was a genius rather than a great man - which illustrates the difficulty of this distinction.
The greatest Scottish writer was undoubtedly Sir Walter Scott - despite that many would now deny him the title of genius.
Maybe King David the First of Scotland was their nearest equivalent to Albert (although, naturally, not so great!)
Greatness in music is of course rare - and seems likely to be found more among conductors and performers than composers.
For recent examples, the conductor Otto Klemperer and singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau seem to have had aspects of greatness - although the activities of being a conductor and singer are not themselves first rate creative activities in the way that composition is first rate - and despite that DFD was not even a first rate singer qua singer, in my opinion (lacking in tonal beauty and musical spontaneity).
Among painters only Rembrandt strikes me as great; among sculptors only Rodin. Although both of these were also geniuses - so do not make perfect examples.
*
Greatness can be distinguished from genius - although greatness is even less common than genius (and greatness may be - apparently - absent from areas of life where genius predominates - e.g. the theatre).
Genius is about ability - about outcomes, but although greatness requires abilities it is more about character - wisdom, maturity, dominance, solidity.
*
In English literature the premier genius is Shakespeare, and there are others such as Milton and Wordsworth - but none of these were great men.
The greatest figure in English literature was Samuel Johnson - who, although extremely able, was not a creative genius.
The contrast can be seen also between CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien - Lewis was a great man, while Tolkien was a genius.
*
It is possible to be both - Einstein was both a genius and a great man. Perhaps Rutherford too?
But you could be 'just' a genius - like most big names of the past: Newton, Darwin and so on.
I can't think for sure of any great men in science that were not also geniuses - maybe Lord Kelvin or David Hilbert? But maybe they too were geniuses?
*
Indeed, it is possible - maybe even usual - to be a rather small man and a genius - immaturity, foolishness, inconsistency, even insignificance are all compatible with genius. That was the contention of the play and movie Amadeus, and there are plenty of other examples. As an extreme and recent example, although I would not rate Picasso as a genius, most people do - and he was a very small man, qua man (and not just in stature).
*
Greatness is generally associate with politics and generalship - perhaps because effective p&g especially benefit from the same constellation of aptitudes as are found in greatness - however greatness is still rare.
I have already named King Alfred the Great as the prime example in English history; it is hard to find another so clear cut.
Perhaps there were great English generals (I'm not sure of this) - maybe Wellington, maybe Cromwell?
Perhaps the explorer Captain James Cook?
An example of greatness from my part of the world might be the railway engineer George Stephenson - he seems to have struck contemporaries in that way.
*
In US history the greatest man of whom I am aware is Robert E Lee.
Another possible 'great American' was William James.
Robert Frost (the poet - himself the premier genius of literature that America has produced, and who took his middle name from Robert E Lee) named the three greatest Americans as Washington, Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I'm not sure about W and L but Emerson was a genius rather than a great man - which illustrates the difficulty of this distinction.
The greatest Scottish writer was undoubtedly Sir Walter Scott - despite that many would now deny him the title of genius.
Maybe King David the First of Scotland was their nearest equivalent to Albert (although, naturally, not so great!)
Greatness in music is of course rare - and seems likely to be found more among conductors and performers than composers.
For recent examples, the conductor Otto Klemperer and singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau seem to have had aspects of greatness - although the activities of being a conductor and singer are not themselves first rate creative activities in the way that composition is first rate - and despite that DFD was not even a first rate singer qua singer, in my opinion (lacking in tonal beauty and musical spontaneity).
Among painters only Rembrandt strikes me as great; among sculptors only Rodin. Although both of these were also geniuses - so do not make perfect examples.
*
Sunday 17 October 2010
Two dust poems by Sir Walter Raleigh and Anon
*
Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have;
And pays us but with age and dust,
Which in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
Sir Walter Raleigh (?1552-1618)
(The final couplet may be a later addition)
*
Kind angels watch this fleeping dust
Til Jesus comes to raise the just
Then may they awake in fweet furprise
And in their faviour's image rise
(Transcribed by me from a grave in the churchyard, Beltingham, Northumberland.I have used 'f' to represent the long 's'.)
(Variant of final couplet: Then she'll awake in sweet surprise/ To meet her saviour in the skies. From Malahide Township, Elgin County, Ontario)
*
I find these almost equally moving - although Raleigh's is near-flawless and pure poetry, while the Anonymous epitaph is (fittingly) somewhat rough hewn and achieves an almost accidental poetry.
*
Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have;
And pays us but with age and dust,
Which in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
Sir Walter Raleigh (?1552-1618)
(The final couplet may be a later addition)
*
Kind angels watch this fleeping dust
Til Jesus comes to raise the just
Then may they awake in fweet furprise
And in their faviour's image rise
(Transcribed by me from a grave in the churchyard, Beltingham, Northumberland.I have used 'f' to represent the long 's'.)
(Variant of final couplet: Then she'll awake in sweet surprise/ To meet her saviour in the skies. From Malahide Township, Elgin County, Ontario)
*
I find these almost equally moving - although Raleigh's is near-flawless and pure poetry, while the Anonymous epitaph is (fittingly) somewhat rough hewn and achieves an almost accidental poetry.
*
The greatest Englishman ever - King Alfred the Great
*
King Alfred the Great (849-899) was, according to Winston Churchill, the greatest Englishman ever. I agree.
*
"We discern across the centuries a commanding and versatile intelligence, wielding with equal force the sword of war and of justice; using in defence arms and policy; cherishing religion, learning and art in the midst of adevrsity and danger; welding together a nation, and seeking always across the feuds and hatreds of the age a peace which would smile upon the land. (...)
"In the grim time of Norman overlordship the figure of the great Alfred was a beacon-light, the bright symbol of Saxon achievement, the hero of the race."
From Winston S Churchill: A history of the English speaking peoples, 1956.
*
More on King Alfred's astounding range of achievement and his exceptional personal qualities at: http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/athlifea.htm
*
King Alfred the Great (849-899) was, according to Winston Churchill, the greatest Englishman ever. I agree.
*
"We discern across the centuries a commanding and versatile intelligence, wielding with equal force the sword of war and of justice; using in defence arms and policy; cherishing religion, learning and art in the midst of adevrsity and danger; welding together a nation, and seeking always across the feuds and hatreds of the age a peace which would smile upon the land. (...)
"In the grim time of Norman overlordship the figure of the great Alfred was a beacon-light, the bright symbol of Saxon achievement, the hero of the race."
From Winston S Churchill: A history of the English speaking peoples, 1956.
*
More on King Alfred's astounding range of achievement and his exceptional personal qualities at: http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/athlifea.htm
*
Saturday 16 October 2010
Why do Western elites disbelieve in culture (as well as genetics)?
*
Who could ever have imagined that any society, such as the modern West, would deny that genetics makes a significant difference to human society, and also deny that culture makes a significant difference to human society.
*
It is - surely? - very obvious that people from different nations or societies behave differently. And that such differences are enduring, multi-generational - are, for example, carried with migrant populations and reproduced all round the world.
That is not a matter for debate, that is what needs to be explained.
The most obvious explanation (a matter of common observation throughout history) is that many differences in personality and intelligence are inherited from parents and run in families; they are present from early life and stable through many changes; and rationally we would now regard these differences as substantially genetic.
*
Of course this obvious and common sensical interpretation is flatly denied by the politically correct elites, and indeed regarded as extremely dangerous.
But that still leaves the phenomena to be explained - the default explanation being culture.
A serious cultural explanation would be along the lines of that argued-for by Thomas Sowell - that culture is much stronger than realized, much harder to influence or change, and endures through many generations even when populations migrate or are displaced halfway round the world.
So (Sowell argues) Chinese adopt middle-man economic positions in all the places where they have migrated, Germans are good at crafts wherever they have migrated etc.
Sowell, rejecting genetic explanations (wrongly in my opinion) does take the observations seriously, does not dispute the basic phenomena that need explaining - but argues that the reason must be that culture runs deep and is tough.
*
For all the PC talk of cultural influences, for all the assumptions that everything which is taken as evidence for the substantially genetic, inherited nature of intelligence and personality can be better explained by culture; it is clear that the politically correct elites do not really believe in culture as the really powerful force it would need to be to explain the magnitude of cultural differences, and their stubborness to displacement, and resistance to policies designed to eradicate them.
Western elites indeed assume the opposite - they assume (in the teeth of massive contrary evidence) that all cultures will inevitably 'get along', and that unwanted cultural aspects like violence, corruption, cruelty will simply be melted-away by...
...well, melted-away by politically correct public discourse, by the policies of kind bureaucrats.
*
This is a pure, unadulterated form of wishful thinking; a political version of the kind of naive personal recklessness that would invite a known serial murderer to share in a quiet, private meal.
It is a refusal to generalize or predict; a denial of relevance of the past for the future, a denial that knowledge of the group allows any probabilistic inferences of the individual.
It is - in short - the behaviour of a solipsistic social incompetent.
*
However, although naive, political correctness is not innocent, because innocence is humble.
PC by contrast is vastly arrogant and prideful - indeed it is motivated by pride that is not merely unrestrained, but by the moral inversion whereby bad becomes good, pride becomes a virtue instead of the worst of vices.
It is the pride that everybody has always gotten things wrong about everything important until *now* (or very recently) when the PC elite saw through the errors of the world.
Why was everyone in the past so wrong, and why are most people still wrong about the fundamentals of human existence? - well, because they were and are wicked. Why are people wicked? - well, because they were predisposed to wickedness by wicked public discourse (not by genetics, and not by culture).
*
Political correctness therefore rejects *both* genetic and cultural explanations for national and ethnic difference, and denies the power of national and ethnic differences - but not by direct denial rather by restructuring evidence, evaluation and knowledge such that national and ethnic differences are trivialized.
To PC, unwanted (conflictual, aggressive) national and ethnic differences are merely like bad manners, something learned that is readily correctable by enlightened public discourse.
*
At a psychological level political correctness is implicitly a wholesale rejection of the past, indeed a wholesale rejection of human knowledge and experience as it applies to human interactions. This is why I regard PC as insane, literally.
Yet PC is not a benign form of insanity; it is manic, aggressive, irritable, impatient; its delusions are grandiose, self-glorifying. PC wants to monopolize discourse; wants power and glory, wants to be listened to: wants everyone else to shut-up and be forced to listen.
And PC believes that if only it got what it wanted, then national and ethnic differences would (like bad manners) simply melt-away.
In the mean time, PC behaves as if national and ethnic differences were utterly trivial, just an amusing bit of 'vibrant' colour; and it feels free to ignore their obvious power.
And protects this ignorance, by force if necessary.
*
No, PC is not really nice.
*
Who could ever have imagined that any society, such as the modern West, would deny that genetics makes a significant difference to human society, and also deny that culture makes a significant difference to human society.
*
It is - surely? - very obvious that people from different nations or societies behave differently. And that such differences are enduring, multi-generational - are, for example, carried with migrant populations and reproduced all round the world.
That is not a matter for debate, that is what needs to be explained.
The most obvious explanation (a matter of common observation throughout history) is that many differences in personality and intelligence are inherited from parents and run in families; they are present from early life and stable through many changes; and rationally we would now regard these differences as substantially genetic.
*
Of course this obvious and common sensical interpretation is flatly denied by the politically correct elites, and indeed regarded as extremely dangerous.
But that still leaves the phenomena to be explained - the default explanation being culture.
A serious cultural explanation would be along the lines of that argued-for by Thomas Sowell - that culture is much stronger than realized, much harder to influence or change, and endures through many generations even when populations migrate or are displaced halfway round the world.
So (Sowell argues) Chinese adopt middle-man economic positions in all the places where they have migrated, Germans are good at crafts wherever they have migrated etc.
Sowell, rejecting genetic explanations (wrongly in my opinion) does take the observations seriously, does not dispute the basic phenomena that need explaining - but argues that the reason must be that culture runs deep and is tough.
*
For all the PC talk of cultural influences, for all the assumptions that everything which is taken as evidence for the substantially genetic, inherited nature of intelligence and personality can be better explained by culture; it is clear that the politically correct elites do not really believe in culture as the really powerful force it would need to be to explain the magnitude of cultural differences, and their stubborness to displacement, and resistance to policies designed to eradicate them.
Western elites indeed assume the opposite - they assume (in the teeth of massive contrary evidence) that all cultures will inevitably 'get along', and that unwanted cultural aspects like violence, corruption, cruelty will simply be melted-away by...
...well, melted-away by politically correct public discourse, by the policies of kind bureaucrats.
*
This is a pure, unadulterated form of wishful thinking; a political version of the kind of naive personal recklessness that would invite a known serial murderer to share in a quiet, private meal.
It is a refusal to generalize or predict; a denial of relevance of the past for the future, a denial that knowledge of the group allows any probabilistic inferences of the individual.
It is - in short - the behaviour of a solipsistic social incompetent.
*
However, although naive, political correctness is not innocent, because innocence is humble.
PC by contrast is vastly arrogant and prideful - indeed it is motivated by pride that is not merely unrestrained, but by the moral inversion whereby bad becomes good, pride becomes a virtue instead of the worst of vices.
It is the pride that everybody has always gotten things wrong about everything important until *now* (or very recently) when the PC elite saw through the errors of the world.
Why was everyone in the past so wrong, and why are most people still wrong about the fundamentals of human existence? - well, because they were and are wicked. Why are people wicked? - well, because they were predisposed to wickedness by wicked public discourse (not by genetics, and not by culture).
*
Political correctness therefore rejects *both* genetic and cultural explanations for national and ethnic difference, and denies the power of national and ethnic differences - but not by direct denial rather by restructuring evidence, evaluation and knowledge such that national and ethnic differences are trivialized.
To PC, unwanted (conflictual, aggressive) national and ethnic differences are merely like bad manners, something learned that is readily correctable by enlightened public discourse.
*
At a psychological level political correctness is implicitly a wholesale rejection of the past, indeed a wholesale rejection of human knowledge and experience as it applies to human interactions. This is why I regard PC as insane, literally.
Yet PC is not a benign form of insanity; it is manic, aggressive, irritable, impatient; its delusions are grandiose, self-glorifying. PC wants to monopolize discourse; wants power and glory, wants to be listened to: wants everyone else to shut-up and be forced to listen.
And PC believes that if only it got what it wanted, then national and ethnic differences would (like bad manners) simply melt-away.
In the mean time, PC behaves as if national and ethnic differences were utterly trivial, just an amusing bit of 'vibrant' colour; and it feels free to ignore their obvious power.
And protects this ignorance, by force if necessary.
*
No, PC is not really nice.
*
Friday 15 October 2010
Treating one disease by causing another
*
This is actually a pretty mainstream therapeutic strategy in medicine - and especially psychiatry.
The ideal is to use a milder or temporary disease to treat a more severe or permanent disease.
*
Examples:
1. Malarial therapy of GPI (general paralysis of the insane - cerebral syphilis)
Patients with incurable and fatal GPI were deliberately infected with malaria. The very high pyrexia (temperature) killed the syphilis germ, but (hopefully) not the patient. The patient was then (hopefully) cured of their malaria using quinine.
2. Leucotomy/ Lobotomy
Patients with chronic and incurable anxiety or tension were deliberately given brain damage, cutting off the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex from the rest of the brain. This made the patients docile and indifferent - which was presumed to be an improvement. The procedure became so popular that brain damage was inflicted on patients with less severe and probably temporary anxiety and other conditions too.
3. Neuroleptics/ Antipsychotics create Parkinson's disease for the treatment of fear, agitation, delusions and hallucinations, and hyper-activity
Patients with a range of very distressing psychological and psychotic symptoms were deliberately made to suffer from Parkinson's disease by giving them dopamine blocking drugs. As well as producing the physical symptoms of Parkinsonism (tremor, stiffness, movement disorders), the drugs produced the psychological symptoms of Parkinsonism - emotional blunting and demotivation. Patients could no longer be bothered to respond to delusions and hallucinations.
Unfortunately they could no longer be bothered to do anything else, either and became asocial, withdrawn, idle, and without the ability to experience pleasure. Also the drugs were found to have a permanent effect (tardive dyskinesia) and to create dependence - such that withdrawal caused a psychotic breakdown.
In a recent development neuroleptic/ antipsychotic drugs are being given to tens/ hundreds of thousands of over-active children (aka 'bipolar'). Parkinson's disease certainly puts a stop to these children's hyper-activity - and this is regarded as progress.
*
Some drugs 'normalise' the situation as their primary therapy - for example a narrow spectrum antibiotic (more or less) does this by killing an invading germ.
'Side effects' are often an instance of the phenomenon. Epilepsy may be prevented, at the cost of causing chronic sleepiness. Pain may be alleviated, at the cost of causing reduced alertness and constipation, or stomach pains and potentially ulcers.
Ideally the side effects are less severe than the original pathology, and temporary - but unfortunately this doesn't always happen.
*
Examples also occur in surgery: treating colon cancer by removing the colon - creating a disease state (colostomy etc.), but often saving the patients life - the same applies to many 'resections'.
Or in plastic surgery, face wrinkles are treated by causing muscle paralysis (using 'Botox').
Indeed, 'curing. is relatively rare. Medicine is mostly about trying to relieve symptoms, or choosing the least worst of several pathological alternatives.
This is actually a pretty mainstream therapeutic strategy in medicine - and especially psychiatry.
The ideal is to use a milder or temporary disease to treat a more severe or permanent disease.
*
Examples:
1. Malarial therapy of GPI (general paralysis of the insane - cerebral syphilis)
Patients with incurable and fatal GPI were deliberately infected with malaria. The very high pyrexia (temperature) killed the syphilis germ, but (hopefully) not the patient. The patient was then (hopefully) cured of their malaria using quinine.
2. Leucotomy/ Lobotomy
Patients with chronic and incurable anxiety or tension were deliberately given brain damage, cutting off the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex from the rest of the brain. This made the patients docile and indifferent - which was presumed to be an improvement. The procedure became so popular that brain damage was inflicted on patients with less severe and probably temporary anxiety and other conditions too.
3. Neuroleptics/ Antipsychotics create Parkinson's disease for the treatment of fear, agitation, delusions and hallucinations, and hyper-activity
Patients with a range of very distressing psychological and psychotic symptoms were deliberately made to suffer from Parkinson's disease by giving them dopamine blocking drugs. As well as producing the physical symptoms of Parkinsonism (tremor, stiffness, movement disorders), the drugs produced the psychological symptoms of Parkinsonism - emotional blunting and demotivation. Patients could no longer be bothered to respond to delusions and hallucinations.
Unfortunately they could no longer be bothered to do anything else, either and became asocial, withdrawn, idle, and without the ability to experience pleasure. Also the drugs were found to have a permanent effect (tardive dyskinesia) and to create dependence - such that withdrawal caused a psychotic breakdown.
In a recent development neuroleptic/ antipsychotic drugs are being given to tens/ hundreds of thousands of over-active children (aka 'bipolar'). Parkinson's disease certainly puts a stop to these children's hyper-activity - and this is regarded as progress.
*
Some drugs 'normalise' the situation as their primary therapy - for example a narrow spectrum antibiotic (more or less) does this by killing an invading germ.
'Side effects' are often an instance of the phenomenon. Epilepsy may be prevented, at the cost of causing chronic sleepiness. Pain may be alleviated, at the cost of causing reduced alertness and constipation, or stomach pains and potentially ulcers.
Ideally the side effects are less severe than the original pathology, and temporary - but unfortunately this doesn't always happen.
*
Examples also occur in surgery: treating colon cancer by removing the colon - creating a disease state (colostomy etc.), but often saving the patients life - the same applies to many 'resections'.
Or in plastic surgery, face wrinkles are treated by causing muscle paralysis (using 'Botox').
Indeed, 'curing. is relatively rare. Medicine is mostly about trying to relieve symptoms, or choosing the least worst of several pathological alternatives.
Meta-analysis
Often, perhaps usually, a treatment will make some people better, do nothing for others, and make some people worse.
When a treatment makes about as many people worse as it makes better, then meta-analysts say it doesn’t work.
But often it *does* work - for *some* people. Indeed, it might work very well indeed for them.
The other people - those for whom it makes no difference or makes worse - just need to stop using it - then everyone benefits.
It is just a matter of using patient response as a feedback loop.
Is that really so difficult to understand? - yet I can never get this point across to bio-statisticians/ epidemiologists, meta-analysts and the like…
When a treatment makes about as many people worse as it makes better, then meta-analysts say it doesn’t work.
But often it *does* work - for *some* people. Indeed, it might work very well indeed for them.
The other people - those for whom it makes no difference or makes worse - just need to stop using it - then everyone benefits.
It is just a matter of using patient response as a feedback loop.
Is that really so difficult to understand? - yet I can never get this point across to bio-statisticians/ epidemiologists, meta-analysts and the like…
Plagiarism versus cheating
*
I have come to loathe the word ‘plagiarism’ as it is now euphemistically used in UK universities – where it has served merely to justify the growth of yet another ineffectual but self-serving administrative bureaucracy to ‘address the issue’.
(To ‘address the issue’ but not, of course, to ‘solve the problem’ – because for a member of the plagiarism bureaucracy that would be to abolish one’s own job.)
Why not return to the clearer and more inclusive concept of ‘cheating’ – of which plagiarism is only one rather specific and arcane example.
*
*
When I went through formal education it was very difficult to cheat.
All of the evaluations for which I was awarded marks leading to qualifications (i.e. O-level, A-level and university undergraduate degree) were done under examination conditions: under the direct observation of invigilators, all of whom knew me.
All of the evaluations for which I was awarded marks leading to qualifications (i.e. O-level, A-level and university undergraduate degree) were done under examination conditions: under the direct observation of invigilators, all of whom knew me.
This was done because everybody realized that if it was easy to cheat, then people would cheat.
First of all the dishonest people would cheat, and when it was seen that the dishonest people either did less work for the same marks or else got higher marks, then the honest people would themselves also be all-but forced to cheat.
*
*
The main method of cheating in academic evaluations is to present somebody else’s work as your own work.
This can involve copying-out someone else’s work, buying someone else’s work, getting someone else to do the work (a servant, boyfriend or bullied victim, perhaps), or (and this is the specific behaviour called plagiarism) using another person’s work without quotation marks and formal attribution.
This can involve copying-out someone else’s work, buying someone else’s work, getting someone else to do the work (a servant, boyfriend or bullied victim, perhaps), or (and this is the specific behaviour called plagiarism) using another person’s work without quotation marks and formal attribution.
Due to computers and the internet, all these types of cheating are now much quicker and easier than ever they were in the past.
When evaluations are done without observation, then this kind of thing can happen and will happen.
*
*
It has never been easy to detect cheating when work was not being directly supervised, but in the past it was punished very severely, which acted as a deterrent.
In the pre-war era at Oxford, C.S Lewis detected that one of his undergraduates at Magdalen College, Oxford had copied, unattributed, from a textbook to write his weekly essay.
Lewis called the undergraduate to a private interview and made his opinion clear. The undergraduate left the university and was never heard from again.
Yes, really. The student was shamed into self-expulsion: that is how seriously ‘plagiarism’ was taken 80 years ago.
*
Lewis called the undergraduate to a private interview and made his opinion clear. The undergraduate left the university and was never heard from again.
Yes, really. The student was shamed into self-expulsion: that is how seriously ‘plagiarism’ was taken 80 years ago.
*
But nowadays, when somebody is caught cheating they are punished mildly, if at all.
Instead of expulsion, the cheating modern undergraduate faces some paltry penalty such as ‘making them do it again’ (gasp!), perhaps with a cap of forty percent on the mark; or (surely not!) a mark of zero!
Instead of expulsion, the cheating modern undergraduate faces some paltry penalty such as ‘making them do it again’ (gasp!), perhaps with a cap of forty percent on the mark; or (surely not!) a mark of zero!
And what is more, their cheating will probably be kept secret.
*
*
The idea of failure or expulsion for cheating is regarded as wildly excessive, indeed vindictive – yet by failing to punish and covering-up for cheating we are directly penalizing honest students.
We are rewarding dishonesty and thereby punishing honesty.
We are rewarding dishonesty and thereby punishing honesty.
So why have UK school and university examinations changed such that it is now so easy to cheat, and almost impossible to be caught cheating? Why do we fail to punish or even identify those caught cheating?
Whatever the dark and seedy reason - as a consequence, we are now training educated young people into habitual and systematic dishonesty.
*
*
Failing examinations on grounds of immorality
*
I recently read that in medieval universities it was unusual for undergraduates to fail formal examinations on the grounds of poor performance. However, not all students were allowed to proceed to take their degrees.
I recently read that in medieval universities it was unusual for undergraduates to fail formal examinations on the grounds of poor performance. However, not all students were allowed to proceed to take their degrees.
But the main reason for ‘failing’ an examination was apparently some kind of moral failure in the student’s life: specifically, some kind of un-Christian behaviour.
*
How things have changed, indeed reversed!
Nowadays, academic failure is possible (just about possible - albeit usually on the grounds of failing to do, or complete, some item of work - rather than from failure to perform well in an examination situation); but it would now be unusual, and technically difficult, for examiners to ‘fail’ a student on the grounds of immoral conduct.
This demonstrates a seismic change in social priorities.
*
How things have changed, indeed reversed!
Nowadays, academic failure is possible (just about possible - albeit usually on the grounds of failing to do, or complete, some item of work - rather than from failure to perform well in an examination situation); but it would now be unusual, and technically difficult, for examiners to ‘fail’ a student on the grounds of immoral conduct.
This demonstrates a seismic change in social priorities.
*
I am aware of a case from several decades ago where a dental student displayed repeated examples of dishonest and irresponsible behaviour, of a type presenting clear danger to the public.
Yet even then it was extremely difficult to prevent this individual from qualifying so long as they were able to pass their examinations. The idea that the public should be defended from a psychopathic health care professional apparently carried little weight.
Nowadays, it would of course be impossible to exclude such a student from professional registration, no matter what evidence they gave of selfishness and dishonesty.
Indeed, a student would be much more likely to be excluded for a trivial but non-politically correct faux pas, than for persistently lying, cheating and endangering the public.
*
Yet even then it was extremely difficult to prevent this individual from qualifying so long as they were able to pass their examinations. The idea that the public should be defended from a psychopathic health care professional apparently carried little weight.
Nowadays, it would of course be impossible to exclude such a student from professional registration, no matter what evidence they gave of selfishness and dishonesty.
Indeed, a student would be much more likely to be excluded for a trivial but non-politically correct faux pas, than for persistently lying, cheating and endangering the public.
*
Last year there were news reports that a UK medical school got into trouble for declining to admit a applicant on the grounds that they had a history of imprisonment for a violent crime.
The medical school had to defend themselves against the argument that the person had ‘done their time’, and had apparently reformed, so the past should now be forgotten: indeed ought to be forgotten.
*
The medical school had to defend themselves against the argument that the person had ‘done their time’, and had apparently reformed, so the past should now be forgotten: indeed ought to be forgotten.
*
The increasingly common line of reasoning seems to be along the lines that ‘just because’ somebody has behaved immorally in the past, this does not necessarily mean that they will behave immorally in the future.
Since the past does not absolutely predict the future, and since it may disadvantage someone to have their past held against them; the only 'fair' thing to do is to act as if the past had not happened, and to treat ex-convicts exactly the same as those who have displayed good behaviour.
Since the past does not absolutely predict the future, and since it may disadvantage someone to have their past held against them; the only 'fair' thing to do is to act as if the past had not happened, and to treat ex-convicts exactly the same as those who have displayed good behaviour.
Indeed, the – perfectly accurate - opposite point is also made that 'just because' somebody has behaved consistently well in the past does not necessarily mean that they will continue to behave well in the future.
*
*
At the end of this sophomoric line of reasoning we will have destroyed the fundamental basis of learning from experience.
Which has, indeed, happened.
The logic will then be that nothing which ever happens to anybody can ever be allowed to influence predictions of future events; since all generalizations have exceptions and all evaluations are imprecise.
*
Which has, indeed, happened.
The logic will then be that nothing which ever happens to anybody can ever be allowed to influence predictions of future events; since all generalizations have exceptions and all evaluations are imprecise.
*
At that point society will have collapsed.
But on the path to this situation exams would be abolished.
Because no matter how well, or how badly, somebody has performed in examinations the past, all exams are biased and partial estimates of ability, and past performance never correlates 100 percent with future performance.
Therefore it is ‘unfair’ to make distinctions, selections, awards or promotions on such a basis.
It is therefore only 'fair' to assume the same of everybody.
But on the path to this situation exams would be abolished.
Because no matter how well, or how badly, somebody has performed in examinations the past, all exams are biased and partial estimates of ability, and past performance never correlates 100 percent with future performance.
Therefore it is ‘unfair’ to make distinctions, selections, awards or promotions on such a basis.
It is therefore only 'fair' to assume the same of everybody.
And the education system will neatly have abolished itself.
*
Which would be rather an extreme outcome. Still, maybe, in the long run, something better than the system we have now might eventually emerge...
*
*
Which would be rather an extreme outcome. Still, maybe, in the long run, something better than the system we have now might eventually emerge...
*
Thursday 14 October 2010
Notes on cohesive (secular) nationalism
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Secular nationalism was a big force in the world from the mid 19th century to the mid twentieth, because it led to larger and more powerful nations, like Germany (especially Germany).
In other words, this was the era whan secular nationalism was a strong cohesive and strengthening force.
(Indeed, all-but-secular nationalism arguably led to the USA differentiating itself from Great Britain even before this.)
*
But in more recent decades, secular nationalism has not been able to make big units cohere, but has instead been (merely) a force for fragmentation and weakening.
So there are two kinds of secular nationalism, in terms of effects: cohesive nationalism (which is strong and creates power) and fragmenting nationalism (which may be weaker and diminishes power).
*
Effective cohesive secular nationism requires that the ruling elite of a potential or actual nation (or a significant proportion of them) are seriously concerned with differentiating themselves (their culture) from another specific country.
So that Germany nationalism defined itself in terms of differences from the French, the USA was defined in terms of differences from the British.
And the pattern can be seen almost everywhere: nationalism differentiates-against.
Fragmenting nationalism has done the same: Irish and Scots and Welsh nationalists are almost exclusively concerned with differentiating themselves from England.
*
Sometimes nationalism tries to work in more than one direction: e.g. Canada tries to define itself against both the USA and the UK (and in the case of Quebec, against Anglophone Canada) - but this bi-directionality merely makes 'Canadian nationalism' very weak.
*
My reading of history is that nationalism does not keep its strength for more than about a generation, at most two. After this, some other factor is needed to maintain coherence.
In other words, nationalism is a phase in the life of a nation - not a permanent basis for organization.
*
But when the ruling elites do not have this concern to differentiate themselves, then nationalism is insignificant.
Nationalism is currently insignificant in England and in the USA - because they do not have this concern to differentiate their culture from another nation. Whether this is a good or bad thing, they just don't.
And if the ruling elites do not have this concern, then nationalism has no purchase, no strength, no power to cohere or re-shape.
*
So there is near-zero chance of a politically and culturally strong nationalism arising in either England or the USA.
People who are worried about resurgent English or US nationalism therefore need not worry; people who hope for resurgent English or US nationalism are going to find their hopes disappointed.
*
Secular nationalism was a big force in the world from the mid 19th century to the mid twentieth, because it led to larger and more powerful nations, like Germany (especially Germany).
In other words, this was the era whan secular nationalism was a strong cohesive and strengthening force.
(Indeed, all-but-secular nationalism arguably led to the USA differentiating itself from Great Britain even before this.)
*
But in more recent decades, secular nationalism has not been able to make big units cohere, but has instead been (merely) a force for fragmentation and weakening.
So there are two kinds of secular nationalism, in terms of effects: cohesive nationalism (which is strong and creates power) and fragmenting nationalism (which may be weaker and diminishes power).
*
Effective cohesive secular nationism requires that the ruling elite of a potential or actual nation (or a significant proportion of them) are seriously concerned with differentiating themselves (their culture) from another specific country.
So that Germany nationalism defined itself in terms of differences from the French, the USA was defined in terms of differences from the British.
And the pattern can be seen almost everywhere: nationalism differentiates-against.
Fragmenting nationalism has done the same: Irish and Scots and Welsh nationalists are almost exclusively concerned with differentiating themselves from England.
*
Sometimes nationalism tries to work in more than one direction: e.g. Canada tries to define itself against both the USA and the UK (and in the case of Quebec, against Anglophone Canada) - but this bi-directionality merely makes 'Canadian nationalism' very weak.
*
My reading of history is that nationalism does not keep its strength for more than about a generation, at most two. After this, some other factor is needed to maintain coherence.
In other words, nationalism is a phase in the life of a nation - not a permanent basis for organization.
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But when the ruling elites do not have this concern to differentiate themselves, then nationalism is insignificant.
Nationalism is currently insignificant in England and in the USA - because they do not have this concern to differentiate their culture from another nation. Whether this is a good or bad thing, they just don't.
And if the ruling elites do not have this concern, then nationalism has no purchase, no strength, no power to cohere or re-shape.
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So there is near-zero chance of a politically and culturally strong nationalism arising in either England or the USA.
People who are worried about resurgent English or US nationalism therefore need not worry; people who hope for resurgent English or US nationalism are going to find their hopes disappointed.
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