*
When I was a child, official gambling was generally supported by pro-business conservatives, and opposed by socialists: by the Old Left.
The Old Left typically opposed gambling for two main reasons:
1. Protestant Christians, especially nonconformists such as Methodists, were opposed to gambling; and British socialism had strong connections with nonconformist churches - for example, socialists of this type were often against smoking and drinking alcohol.
British mainstream Nonconformism has utterly collapsed in its official status, and what remains are almost wholly hollowed-out non-religious organizations - deeply complicit in mainstream leftism - nowadays, in essence, a Methodist church is just another NGO.
(Of course, some low level individuals in specific Nonconformist churches will be real Christians.)
2. Because the gambling habit (or addiction) was seen as taking food from the moths of 'the poor' - and socialists were wary of the poor being vulnerable by their short-termists to being manipulated by advertising and appeals to hope of 'getting rich quick'.
*
In general gambling was opposed by Middle Class and Respectable Working Class English values - the upper classes seemed to gamble on horse racing especially - although they could usually afford it; the disreputable, 'undeserving' poor would drink and smoke and gamble at the cost of their families well-being - but decent people did not gamble. It was even thought to be a little dodgy to bet matchsticks in a game of cribbage - it might encourage something worse.
There were very low levels of corruption in England at this time - I never came across anything more significant than a pushing at boundaries of the private medicine/ state medicine boundary (although I was shocked even by this).
*
The UK National Lottery was launched by the John Major-led Conservative government in 1994 and promoted by government as a 'good thing' - because money from the lottery would be allocated to 'good causes' such as charities, the arts and so on.Far from being killed-off, the lottery was then embraced by Tony Blair's 'New Labour' government.
At this time, mid nineties, I came across a couple of examples of systematic corruption. The first was related to the Arts Council - which is the government agency tasked with funding the arts.
With another chap, I had started a small cultural magazine which was self-funded. After an issue or two, we were approached by the local Arts Council who said they wanted to support it and asked us to apply for a grant. We did, although the process was more time-consuming than expected, but to our surprise this invited application was turned down. We were invited to re-apply with a more sophisticated business-plan - and the Arts people said they would fund this application, and recommended a particular person who would 'help us' write the business plan - this business plan person, we discovered, had-a-relationship-with one of the people at the Arts Council who had proposed funding the business plan. Clearly we were being used to allocate Arts funding to a person with a personal connection with the Arts administrator.
This was a big shock - but it was the kind of thing that was in the air. What was shocking was how blatant it was - we sensed that the individuals involved did not perceive it as graft, but in a bureaucratic context felt moralistically correct in what they were doing: proper business plans were regarded as a good thing ('accountability'); but unfortunately proper business plans cost thousands of pounds; however luckily the administrator just happened to know somebody who could do the job in the way required (it was a coincidence that they shared a bed, but that only meant they knew they could be trusted). In the end, most of the grant money allocated to 'support the arts' was going into the Arts administrators pockets, but that was (unfortunately) necessary in order that these things be done in a properly transparent and auditable fashion...
Of course, all the great and good were continually clamouring for more money to 'support the arts' - a 'good cause' - but from the inside, a small amount of money actually supporting the arts (or, at least, ideologically correct arts) was just the minimal necessary price to pay in order to justify spending most of the budget (by various means) on their own salaries and bonuses and artsy lifestyles.
*
About the same time, but under the New Labour regime, I heard from an insider that the National Lottery money was being used in a systematically corrupt fashion. The 'lottery money' - very large amounts of it, in chunks of tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds - was being allocated to 'good causes', and the 'goodness' of causes and the subsequent allocations were being made by committees appointed by 'the great and good' and was, mostly, being shared-out among this same group as mutual favours.
Also around this time, but gradually and incrementally, the national system of school examinations (O-levels/ GCSEs and A-Levels) became systematically corrupt - with systems being modified to allow easy and undetectable cheating, and this kind of cheating therefore expanding to endemic proportions and going-through the college and university system (where is had already become endemic in many subjects and institutions).
*
So, nowadays, Britain is a much more corrupt place than ever it was thirty or forty years ago; people hardly even notice it, and when they do they just shrug and try to find ways to join in.
What is noteworthy, is that the corruption has been introduced from above, was associated with the decline of Christianity, the decline of the Old Labour party, the rise of political correctness and identity politics- because it was usually considerations of 'inequality' or 'injustice' that were used to dismantle (mostly) fair and honest systems in order to divert resources to 'deserving' groups.
The best known example, thoroughly documented, is university admissions; which are now highly corrupt in multiple ways on the excuse of social engineering 'equality', indeed so corrupt that their corruption is hidden from itself because there is no clear idea of what would constitute 'fairness'. ought to be.
*
Corruption and dishonesty seem to be the natural state of things in the public life of most parts of the world - but this was not the case in Britain, especially not among the middle class and skilled working class. But it turned out that when Christianity collapsed from the mid-1950s onwards, it was not long before the honesty collapsed too (of course there was a lag and the change was incremental, while those who grew up in the old system were gradually replaced).
Now there is corruption and no prospect of change, because there is no anti-corruption group which is powerful enough to influence the national ethos. Almost all groups, including religions, are themselves corrupted by inclusion into the systems of conditional subsidies and control, conditional tax breaks etc.
The agents of corruption of exactly the bureaucracies which were themselves supposed to cure the problem of corruption due to 'unaccountable' individual discretion.
*
The clearest evidence of the corruption of modern Britain is gambling. Thirty years ago, gambling was almost invisible; and the few 'betting shops' had plain windows. Now most shops have prominent advertisments for gambling - at the checkouts. There are manyfold more betting shops - prominently displayed. TV advertising has very frequent adverts for online betting organizations.
For example, sports betting (on football, cricket etc - as well as horse racing) is represented as participating in your favourite sport, as contrasted with merely watching it.
The idea is that people who are serious about sport will 'put your moeny where your mouth is' and bet on it.
I remember the same thing was fashionable in libertarian economists circles about a decade ago - serious economic forecasters were supposed to make bets about the future. Such bets were advertized and praised.
In a broad sense, gambling - along with drinking alcohol to the point of intoxication and serial promiscuity and foreign travel - has been incorporated into the core of the mainstream 'fun' lifestyle towards which 'young' people are supposed to aspire.
The representative modern aspirational Briton is a thin-Falstaff (of either sex).
*
But is betting, is gambling, a good thing? Or is it evil or perhaps neutral?
In the past, most serious British Christians would certainly have said gambling and betting were a bad thing; gambling something that should not be encouraged, and should indeed be strongly discouraged.
It was a fact of life, like drunkenness and fornication, was it was a low-life kind of fact. But now gambling is part of government, sustains a vast bureaucracy, a source of funding for 'good causes', advertized to the point of ubiquitous hype - and by this advertizing a factor sustaining much of the mass media; and to be hostile to gambling, to criticize the pervasive culture of betting, is seen as an aggressive, kill-joy form of uptight, repressed, freedom-limitation.
So, the rise and rise of gambling in Britain is a microcosm of the modern condition.
*
Tuesday 16 June 2015
Monday 15 June 2015
Carl Orff's 'other' scenic cantatas - Poems of Catullus, Triumph of Aphrodite
*
If you don't know them, you might like them - they are not much like Carmina Burana (or, only occasionally); but are highly dramatic with a fair bit of virtuoso singing, acapella/ plainchant sections, lyrical solos, and declamation.
Catulli Carmina is for male and female chorus, tenor and soprano with pianos and percussion; and Trionofo di Afrodite for larger forces but also very percussion orientated.
The lyrics are in Latin and Greek, and I recommend that you only get the full value of these pieces if you follow a translation - however I can't find a convenient full translation online.
Both pieces are distinctly smutty/ suggestive/ vulgar/ bawdy (especially the poems of Catullus) - indeed the ethos is very much neo-pagan (as befits their origin in a Third Reich Zeitgeist); alternating intoxicated, self-forgetful lust with existential despair.
*
If you don't know them, you might like them - they are not much like Carmina Burana (or, only occasionally); but are highly dramatic with a fair bit of virtuoso singing, acapella/ plainchant sections, lyrical solos, and declamation.
Catulli Carmina is for male and female chorus, tenor and soprano with pianos and percussion; and Trionofo di Afrodite for larger forces but also very percussion orientated.
The lyrics are in Latin and Greek, and I recommend that you only get the full value of these pieces if you follow a translation - however I can't find a convenient full translation online.
Both pieces are distinctly smutty/ suggestive/ vulgar/ bawdy (especially the poems of Catullus) - indeed the ethos is very much neo-pagan (as befits their origin in a Third Reich Zeitgeist); alternating intoxicated, self-forgetful lust with existential despair.
*
Sunday 14 June 2015
Psychopharmacology book recommendation - Psychiatric Drugs Explained by David Healy (2008)
*
If you are interested in psychoactive, psychotropic, psychiatric drugs - then David Healy's book Psychiatric Drugs Explained (5th Edition 2008 - or earlier editions are equally good) can be recommended to you without reservation.
It is written in a clear and enjoyable fashion for the general reader, assuming zero background knowledge; but written by the premier world expert in the subject.
If you understood this book, you would then have more valid knowledge on the subject than nearly all practising doctors and psychiatrists (whose heads are full or marketing nonsense and lies).
You might also read my book from 2000, Psychiatry and the Human Condition, which takes a more evolutionary perspective on psychiatric illness and treatments; and has the great virtue of being available free online!
http://hedweb.com/bgcharlton
*
If you are interested in psychoactive, psychotropic, psychiatric drugs - then David Healy's book Psychiatric Drugs Explained (5th Edition 2008 - or earlier editions are equally good) can be recommended to you without reservation.
It is written in a clear and enjoyable fashion for the general reader, assuming zero background knowledge; but written by the premier world expert in the subject.
If you understood this book, you would then have more valid knowledge on the subject than nearly all practising doctors and psychiatrists (whose heads are full or marketing nonsense and lies).
You might also read my book from 2000, Psychiatry and the Human Condition, which takes a more evolutionary perspective on psychiatric illness and treatments; and has the great virtue of being available free online!
http://hedweb.com/bgcharlton
*
Reader's Question: How should a Christian view the concept of race and differences between racial populations?
*
My response: To answer this question concerning 'a Christian', it is clear that good, real, holy Christians have held all sorts of views on this subject. It often boils down to specific persons in specific contexts - and views on race will depend on that person's knowledge and experience.
But Christians should be, must be, honest. The main problem nowadays in relation to race is sheer dishonesty - from 'special pleading', unilateral emphasis, and denied assumptions; to the most extreme lying.
So, for some people in some situations, the range of legitimate views on race are limited by the Christian requirement for honesty.
*
My response: To answer this question concerning 'a Christian', it is clear that good, real, holy Christians have held all sorts of views on this subject. It often boils down to specific persons in specific contexts - and views on race will depend on that person's knowledge and experience.
But Christians should be, must be, honest. The main problem nowadays in relation to race is sheer dishonesty - from 'special pleading', unilateral emphasis, and denied assumptions; to the most extreme lying.
So, for some people in some situations, the range of legitimate views on race are limited by the Christian requirement for honesty.
*
Saturday 13 June 2015
I am now blogging at Junior Ganymede
*
I am very pleased to report that I have been invited to join the Junior Ganymede group blog, and have started posting:
http://www.jrganymede.com
That blog is primarily aimed at a Mormon audience, so I will not always be cross-posting or linking here everything that I publish over there.
*
I am very pleased to report that I have been invited to join the Junior Ganymede group blog, and have started posting:
http://www.jrganymede.com
That blog is primarily aimed at a Mormon audience, so I will not always be cross-posting or linking here everything that I publish over there.
*
Reader's Question: What is the proper definition of manhood?
*
My answer: It doesn't have a 'definition' because Manhood ultimately has a metaphysical explanation.
I regard manhood as dating back eternally; a matter of fundamental existence - and the same applies to womanhood.
In other words, sexual difference is a primal reality.
Reality began with a multitude of distinct entities, from which humans were 'made', and these were either male or female - one or the other.
Each of us was an independent eternal essence, even before we were made Sons and Daughters of God. And this is the basis of agency or 'free will' - because there is something in us that did not come from God.
(And intermediate or combined or ambiguous sexual states are not fundamental but biological, metaphysically superficial. Although we do not necessarily or usually know the specific causes - we must presume that they have the same kind of pathological origins as other illness states: e.g. genetic, infective, toxic, neoplastic, traumatic and so on. Human physical and psychological development is an exceedingly complex process, and many things can - and do - go wrong at many or several stages. But metaphysically, in the soul; each person is either man or woman.)
The ultimate basis of reality is therefore dyadic; male and female; in a universe that is pluralistic - cannot be reduced to a single-entity unity.
The two sexes are not equal but strictly complementary - i.e. different and inter-dependent. Both are necessary. 'Man' is the combination of man and woman; but not a fusion, not an existential unity - rather as an irreducible duality bound by a relationship of love.
*
My answer: It doesn't have a 'definition' because Manhood ultimately has a metaphysical explanation.
I regard manhood as dating back eternally; a matter of fundamental existence - and the same applies to womanhood.
In other words, sexual difference is a primal reality.
Reality began with a multitude of distinct entities, from which humans were 'made', and these were either male or female - one or the other.
Each of us was an independent eternal essence, even before we were made Sons and Daughters of God. And this is the basis of agency or 'free will' - because there is something in us that did not come from God.
(And intermediate or combined or ambiguous sexual states are not fundamental but biological, metaphysically superficial. Although we do not necessarily or usually know the specific causes - we must presume that they have the same kind of pathological origins as other illness states: e.g. genetic, infective, toxic, neoplastic, traumatic and so on. Human physical and psychological development is an exceedingly complex process, and many things can - and do - go wrong at many or several stages. But metaphysically, in the soul; each person is either man or woman.)
The ultimate basis of reality is therefore dyadic; male and female; in a universe that is pluralistic - cannot be reduced to a single-entity unity.
The two sexes are not equal but strictly complementary - i.e. different and inter-dependent. Both are necessary. 'Man' is the combination of man and woman; but not a fusion, not an existential unity - rather as an irreducible duality bound by a relationship of love.
*
Friday 12 June 2015
The metaphysical task: to know the truth of imagination by personal revelation, by impression.
*
Continuing from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-primacy-of-impressions-metaphysical.html
**
People may feel that imagination is true, but their inability to explain this, or their inability to accept the explanations, blocks them from engagement with the world - consigns them to alienation and despair.
There is a general need for people to re-examine their metaphysical assumptions!
*
Current mainstream metaphysics is that we only 'know' what we know because of evidence; but it does not take much thought to recognize that this is false - e.g. because evidence does not play much of a part in beliefs, especially the most motivating and profound beliefs; and anyway, this begs the question of what counts as evidence?
For example, some Christians base their belief on the evidence of the Bible, but many non-Christians simply do not regard the Bible as evidence at all. One man's utterly convincing evidence is written-off by another as anecdote, delusion, or nothing to do with the case.
*
The modern problem can be framed as that our subjective experience is cut-off from the objective world of public discourse. When we are not being distracted (by social life, work, the mass media) and become self-aware; we feel ourselves to exist in a state of isolation where we doubt even our own thoughts.
There are two unsatisfactory possibilities for modern man - What we think subjectively in our heads is regarded as real but not true; what is forced-upon-us objectively from the public real is regarded as true but not real.
Modern Man oscillates between these two kinds of alienation - either overwhelmed by the crushing but meaningless weight of the public world, or retreating into the imagination, but with this escape negated by the conviction that it is a made-up fantasy.
The only answer - the metaphysical task - seems to be to go back and re-examine the assumptions that led us into this dead end.
*
Where do we start? Anywhere.
How do we tackle it? A piece at a time.
What do we do? Work from imagination - start with what is real - then evaluate what is true.
But, but, but- how does this escape logic, evidence, argument and all the other futile stuff which got us into this situation in the first place?
Well, the new thing we are doing is that we recognize that metaphysics is different. It is not a kind of science. And the philosophy of metaphysics can only come into action after the metaphysics is in place.
So what we are seeking is wordless, imageless impressions - we are seeking to feel the truth and reality, before we (very imperfectly) try to articulate it to ourselves, or communicate. We must, indeed, draw this distinction within our own thoughts: 1. This is the impression I feel, the conviction, the motivation... 2. Now I will try to articulate it.
*
For example, we want to ask if our current understanding is adequate, or our current plans are correct? The thoughts are focused, the mind is calmed and opened to an answer... an answer comes, it is recognized as an answer, we know the answer - it is being felt as an impression of some sort. Now we can try to articulate the answer, if we wish.
This is how we know God (as our loving Father) to be both real and true, if we do indeed know this. We ask, and we receive an answer. If we are unsure about what we have received, we ask again. If we think we have misunderstood, we ask several related questions to check.
If we have not asked, or if we asked and did not receive an answer - then we do not (yet) know.
*
The greatest difficulty is probably attaining the necessary state of mind to receive such impressions - the second problem is failing to recognize when we have received an answer because we expect the answer to be in words, pictures, as a sign or something.
We fail to recognize that a direct answer is simply a pure answer, without anything else, the sense of now knowing.
On this basis bad metaphysics may be challenged, good metaphysics may be built - piece by piece.
*
Continuing from:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-primacy-of-impressions-metaphysical.html
**
People may feel that imagination is true, but their inability to explain this, or their inability to accept the explanations, blocks them from engagement with the world - consigns them to alienation and despair.
There is a general need for people to re-examine their metaphysical assumptions!
*
Current mainstream metaphysics is that we only 'know' what we know because of evidence; but it does not take much thought to recognize that this is false - e.g. because evidence does not play much of a part in beliefs, especially the most motivating and profound beliefs; and anyway, this begs the question of what counts as evidence?
For example, some Christians base their belief on the evidence of the Bible, but many non-Christians simply do not regard the Bible as evidence at all. One man's utterly convincing evidence is written-off by another as anecdote, delusion, or nothing to do with the case.
*
The modern problem can be framed as that our subjective experience is cut-off from the objective world of public discourse. When we are not being distracted (by social life, work, the mass media) and become self-aware; we feel ourselves to exist in a state of isolation where we doubt even our own thoughts.
There are two unsatisfactory possibilities for modern man - What we think subjectively in our heads is regarded as real but not true; what is forced-upon-us objectively from the public real is regarded as true but not real.
Modern Man oscillates between these two kinds of alienation - either overwhelmed by the crushing but meaningless weight of the public world, or retreating into the imagination, but with this escape negated by the conviction that it is a made-up fantasy.
The only answer - the metaphysical task - seems to be to go back and re-examine the assumptions that led us into this dead end.
*
Where do we start? Anywhere.
How do we tackle it? A piece at a time.
What do we do? Work from imagination - start with what is real - then evaluate what is true.
But, but, but- how does this escape logic, evidence, argument and all the other futile stuff which got us into this situation in the first place?
Well, the new thing we are doing is that we recognize that metaphysics is different. It is not a kind of science. And the philosophy of metaphysics can only come into action after the metaphysics is in place.
So what we are seeking is wordless, imageless impressions - we are seeking to feel the truth and reality, before we (very imperfectly) try to articulate it to ourselves, or communicate. We must, indeed, draw this distinction within our own thoughts: 1. This is the impression I feel, the conviction, the motivation... 2. Now I will try to articulate it.
*
For example, we want to ask if our current understanding is adequate, or our current plans are correct? The thoughts are focused, the mind is calmed and opened to an answer... an answer comes, it is recognized as an answer, we know the answer - it is being felt as an impression of some sort. Now we can try to articulate the answer, if we wish.
This is how we know God (as our loving Father) to be both real and true, if we do indeed know this. We ask, and we receive an answer. If we are unsure about what we have received, we ask again. If we think we have misunderstood, we ask several related questions to check.
If we have not asked, or if we asked and did not receive an answer - then we do not (yet) know.
*
The greatest difficulty is probably attaining the necessary state of mind to receive such impressions - the second problem is failing to recognize when we have received an answer because we expect the answer to be in words, pictures, as a sign or something.
We fail to recognize that a direct answer is simply a pure answer, without anything else, the sense of now knowing.
On this basis bad metaphysics may be challenged, good metaphysics may be built - piece by piece.
*
Thursday 11 June 2015
The primacy of 'impressions': the metaphysical necessity for direct communication: wordless, imageless, by-passing the senses
*
Since I believe that bad metaphysics is at the root of many modern problems, we (almost-) all need to examine our fundamental assumptions.
One assumption that I think is necessary for any metaphysical system which is not self-refuting (and despair inducing) is that it is possible for communications to be direct. And 'communication' includes divine communications, such as personal revelations.
In other words, there must be some form of communication which by-passes the senses, and does not involve anything like language or symbols (or smells, touches, or tastes).
This is not something which can be proven by observation or experience; it is something which is a required assumption for there to be any possibility of real communication - otherwise all communication is compromised by the impossible-to-rule-out chance of errors, illusions, delusions, self-deception; the inevitability that all symbolic communication is partial and biased, and that all receivers of communications are likewise.
*
The assumption of direct communication is necessary because any communication which relies upon, say, words or pictures requires that these symbols be interpreted; and it is possible, indeed likely, that we will misinterpret them.
So the classic description of divine revelation of a religious visionary or mystic is missing the point if it is assumed that someone seeing pictures, or hearing spoken phrases, or reading a text, or remembering a dream was the essence of the revelation.
Instead, the essence of any true revelation must have been the wordless, un-envisioned impression (as Mormons call it) of a non-symbolic communication; and the words or pictures are merely serving the function of an aide memoir, a mnemonic, a convenient summary of that impression.
*
This means that more people are religious mystics in receipt of divine revelation than probably realize it, and that such communications are commoner than generally recognized - because most people are looking-for a vision, spoken words, a prophetic dream or some such thing.
It is, indeed, probable that many people will receive only the essence of the revelation - they will experience the pure or true 'impression' of the communication - but without any sensory or symbolic representation.
And this impression from a direct communication is not some kind of second-rate revelation but actually the unadulterated 'real thing'!
*
Since I believe that bad metaphysics is at the root of many modern problems, we (almost-) all need to examine our fundamental assumptions.
One assumption that I think is necessary for any metaphysical system which is not self-refuting (and despair inducing) is that it is possible for communications to be direct. And 'communication' includes divine communications, such as personal revelations.
In other words, there must be some form of communication which by-passes the senses, and does not involve anything like language or symbols (or smells, touches, or tastes).
This is not something which can be proven by observation or experience; it is something which is a required assumption for there to be any possibility of real communication - otherwise all communication is compromised by the impossible-to-rule-out chance of errors, illusions, delusions, self-deception; the inevitability that all symbolic communication is partial and biased, and that all receivers of communications are likewise.
*
The assumption of direct communication is necessary because any communication which relies upon, say, words or pictures requires that these symbols be interpreted; and it is possible, indeed likely, that we will misinterpret them.
So the classic description of divine revelation of a religious visionary or mystic is missing the point if it is assumed that someone seeing pictures, or hearing spoken phrases, or reading a text, or remembering a dream was the essence of the revelation.
Instead, the essence of any true revelation must have been the wordless, un-envisioned impression (as Mormons call it) of a non-symbolic communication; and the words or pictures are merely serving the function of an aide memoir, a mnemonic, a convenient summary of that impression.
*
This means that more people are religious mystics in receipt of divine revelation than probably realize it, and that such communications are commoner than generally recognized - because most people are looking-for a vision, spoken words, a prophetic dream or some such thing.
It is, indeed, probable that many people will receive only the essence of the revelation - they will experience the pure or true 'impression' of the communication - but without any sensory or symbolic representation.
And this impression from a direct communication is not some kind of second-rate revelation but actually the unadulterated 'real thing'!
*
The special role of Mary the mother of Jesus, and John the Evangelist in Christ's work
*
It may be possible to summarize Christianity as aiming at the economy of Love; a world in which the primacy of Love is something perpetually lived-by.
Since the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were necessary to the salvation and divinization of Men; then it seems to follow that Christ came to earth for something-to-do-with Love.
And by 'Love' must be meant Love as it is known and experienced by Men (because God already knew all about Love from the divine perspective - the incarnation of Christ would not have been necessary if that divine type of Love was sufficient).
So, perhaps we could say that one reason Christ came to earth was to be loved as a Man, and himself to love as a Man.
If so, then the two loves of Christ we know most about from the Bible are: 1. Mary's love for her son Jesus; and, 2. The love of Jesus for his disciple John - 'the disciple 'whom Jesus loved'.
I think it likely that Jesus was loved by, and personally loved, other people than these - but these two we know for sure. So, if Jesus became a Man in order to experience love from the perspective of a Man, then we can say that he both was loved, and himself loved.
I suspect that this experience of love may have been a very important fact in enabling the Atonement.
**
Note: It may or may not be significant, I am not sure, that (according to some Christian understandings) neither Mary nor John the Evangelist have (yet?) died - Mary was translated directly to Heaven while John's ministry continues on earth.
*
It may be possible to summarize Christianity as aiming at the economy of Love; a world in which the primacy of Love is something perpetually lived-by.
Since the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were necessary to the salvation and divinization of Men; then it seems to follow that Christ came to earth for something-to-do-with Love.
And by 'Love' must be meant Love as it is known and experienced by Men (because God already knew all about Love from the divine perspective - the incarnation of Christ would not have been necessary if that divine type of Love was sufficient).
So, perhaps we could say that one reason Christ came to earth was to be loved as a Man, and himself to love as a Man.
If so, then the two loves of Christ we know most about from the Bible are: 1. Mary's love for her son Jesus; and, 2. The love of Jesus for his disciple John - 'the disciple 'whom Jesus loved'.
I think it likely that Jesus was loved by, and personally loved, other people than these - but these two we know for sure. So, if Jesus became a Man in order to experience love from the perspective of a Man, then we can say that he both was loved, and himself loved.
I suspect that this experience of love may have been a very important fact in enabling the Atonement.
**
Note: It may or may not be significant, I am not sure, that (according to some Christian understandings) neither Mary nor John the Evangelist have (yet?) died - Mary was translated directly to Heaven while John's ministry continues on earth.
*
Conceptualizing National Socialism - a negative, reactionary definition
*
National Socialism specifically, and Fascism in general, has never been adequately defined - that is because it was negatively conceptualized as a reaction-against Communism.
When Fascism arose, just after the Russian Revolution, Communism was an urgent and imminent threat. To be anti-Communist was, for many people - indeed significant majorities in some countries - sufficient; so Fascism and National Socialism attracted powerful and highly-motivated supporters.
Such supporters were drawn from a wide spectrum of anti-Communists, including religious groups and persons; but Fascism and National Socialism were themselves secular parties, with secular priorities - they did not envisage running the state according to and within religious priorities.
So, National Socialism seemed OK because they were against the primary threat of Communism; but, of course, they weren't OK.
*
Update to now - modern secular reaction is also negatively conceptualized and secular - being against the New Left/ Feminism/ Antiracism/ Political Correctness/ Social Justice Warriors and the rest of it.
But the difference is that New Leftism is not new (its dominance dates from the middle 1960s), nor is its threat urgent and immediate - not least because New Leftism is The Establishment.
Therefore, (unlike Fascism and National Socialism) reaction against the New Left is not powerful, nor is it a majority, nor is it highly-motivated.
Furthermore, it may seem that any party who is against the insane evils of the New Left is OK, just what we need. We might even be tempted to wish for a secular reactionary revolution. But - even if there was sufficient support for it to happen - any anti-Left party with secular priorities that attained power would surely go the same way as National Socialism or Fascism - why not?
Do not tempt fate by thinking, or saying, 'anything is better than' or 'things can't get worse'... That is a sure and certain path to things becoming very bad, very swiftly.
*
National Socialism specifically, and Fascism in general, has never been adequately defined - that is because it was negatively conceptualized as a reaction-against Communism.
When Fascism arose, just after the Russian Revolution, Communism was an urgent and imminent threat. To be anti-Communist was, for many people - indeed significant majorities in some countries - sufficient; so Fascism and National Socialism attracted powerful and highly-motivated supporters.
Such supporters were drawn from a wide spectrum of anti-Communists, including religious groups and persons; but Fascism and National Socialism were themselves secular parties, with secular priorities - they did not envisage running the state according to and within religious priorities.
So, National Socialism seemed OK because they were against the primary threat of Communism; but, of course, they weren't OK.
*
Update to now - modern secular reaction is also negatively conceptualized and secular - being against the New Left/ Feminism/ Antiracism/ Political Correctness/ Social Justice Warriors and the rest of it.
But the difference is that New Leftism is not new (its dominance dates from the middle 1960s), nor is its threat urgent and immediate - not least because New Leftism is The Establishment.
Therefore, (unlike Fascism and National Socialism) reaction against the New Left is not powerful, nor is it a majority, nor is it highly-motivated.
Furthermore, it may seem that any party who is against the insane evils of the New Left is OK, just what we need. We might even be tempted to wish for a secular reactionary revolution. But - even if there was sufficient support for it to happen - any anti-Left party with secular priorities that attained power would surely go the same way as National Socialism or Fascism - why not?
Do not tempt fate by thinking, or saying, 'anything is better than' or 'things can't get worse'... That is a sure and certain path to things becoming very bad, very swiftly.
*
Wednesday 10 June 2015
Susanna Clarke's collection of short stories (The Ladies of Grace Adieu, 2006)
*
Having absolutely loved her novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/review-of-jonathan-strange-and-mr.html
I immediately read Susanne Clarke's only other book: a collection of short stories called The Ladies Of Grace Adieu.
This was a very interesting experience, because the first story - from which the collection gets its title, was - in my opinion - a worthless piece of gimmickry. It is a contrived piece of early 19th century pastiche, like an exercise done for a writing class. In the collection, it was followed by the equally futile On Lickerish Hill which is Rumpelstiltskin done as a seventeenth century pastiche.
This is interesting because the first story was published in 1996 and the second in 1997, which presumably suggests that the author was in her middle forties when she wrote them. If I had seen these stories at the time, given that the author was middle-aged, and she had asked for my advice; I would have told her to forget about writing a novel; because although she was technically skilled, she apparently had nothing to say.
It would seem unlikely that somebody at her time of life would somehow 'find her subject' and become consumed by it sufficiently to write a great and big novel.
But, of course, I would have been completely wrong! And it just goes to show... something or another.^
A year later she published Mrs Mabb which is extremely good, and just swept me along; and in 2000 she published Mr Simonelli, or The Fairy Widower which is even better. But by then she was at work on 'Strange and Norrell' and - apparently - put more than a decade into that single novel, which gave it the depth and reality that make it stand-out.
Something happened! Either she found her subject, and it took her over; or she was picked-out and visited by that genius whose inspiration enabled her to write Strange and Norrell - not for her benefit, but for ours.
*
^My English Literature MA supervisor had, earlier in his career, taught the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney at Queen's University, Belfast. The undergraduate Heaney had shown my supervisor some of his poems; and my supervisor had, apparently - legendarily, advised Heaney that he had no talent for poetry and should give-it-up.
I suppose the lesson concerning creative endeavors is something on the lines of Nobody Knows Anything - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goldman
*
Having absolutely loved her novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/review-of-jonathan-strange-and-mr.html
I immediately read Susanne Clarke's only other book: a collection of short stories called The Ladies Of Grace Adieu.
This was a very interesting experience, because the first story - from which the collection gets its title, was - in my opinion - a worthless piece of gimmickry. It is a contrived piece of early 19th century pastiche, like an exercise done for a writing class. In the collection, it was followed by the equally futile On Lickerish Hill which is Rumpelstiltskin done as a seventeenth century pastiche.
This is interesting because the first story was published in 1996 and the second in 1997, which presumably suggests that the author was in her middle forties when she wrote them. If I had seen these stories at the time, given that the author was middle-aged, and she had asked for my advice; I would have told her to forget about writing a novel; because although she was technically skilled, she apparently had nothing to say.
It would seem unlikely that somebody at her time of life would somehow 'find her subject' and become consumed by it sufficiently to write a great and big novel.
But, of course, I would have been completely wrong! And it just goes to show... something or another.^
A year later she published Mrs Mabb which is extremely good, and just swept me along; and in 2000 she published Mr Simonelli, or The Fairy Widower which is even better. But by then she was at work on 'Strange and Norrell' and - apparently - put more than a decade into that single novel, which gave it the depth and reality that make it stand-out.
Something happened! Either she found her subject, and it took her over; or she was picked-out and visited by that genius whose inspiration enabled her to write Strange and Norrell - not for her benefit, but for ours.
*
^My English Literature MA supervisor had, earlier in his career, taught the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney at Queen's University, Belfast. The undergraduate Heaney had shown my supervisor some of his poems; and my supervisor had, apparently - legendarily, advised Heaney that he had no talent for poetry and should give-it-up.
I suppose the lesson concerning creative endeavors is something on the lines of Nobody Knows Anything - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goldman
*
Read Miss Read
*
I have known of Miss Read's stories about the imaginary English village of Fairacre since the mid 1990s - they are excellent light reading for those of a countryside-loving and Anglophile disposition.
They have also passed the stringent test of being read-aloud last thing at night with my wife, including re-readings; and only a small subset of books have proven able to meet this exacting standard.
The literary conceit is that (most of) the books (not all of which I have yet tackled) are written in the voice of 'Miss Read', the spinster headmistress of a small primary school; and over twenty volumes they form a chronicle of life in the downland village with its various characters over a time scale of (I guess, approximately) the 1950s to 80s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Read
The reason the books are worthwhile is that they are so deft, witty and well-observed (the author, whose real name was Dora Saint, used to write for Punch when it was the premier British humour magazine) - and because the books are good-hearted.
The character of Miss Read herself is very likeable, with her wry self knowledge of her own limitations and faults; and her appreciation of (and exasperation at) the multi-generational cast of well-defined, traditionally-English, characters that surround her.
Sooner or later, here or there, pretty much the whole of life - as seen and described from this particular perspective - is woven into the tapestry.
I have known of Miss Read's stories about the imaginary English village of Fairacre since the mid 1990s - they are excellent light reading for those of a countryside-loving and Anglophile disposition.
They have also passed the stringent test of being read-aloud last thing at night with my wife, including re-readings; and only a small subset of books have proven able to meet this exacting standard.
The literary conceit is that (most of) the books (not all of which I have yet tackled) are written in the voice of 'Miss Read', the spinster headmistress of a small primary school; and over twenty volumes they form a chronicle of life in the downland village with its various characters over a time scale of (I guess, approximately) the 1950s to 80s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Read
The reason the books are worthwhile is that they are so deft, witty and well-observed (the author, whose real name was Dora Saint, used to write for Punch when it was the premier British humour magazine) - and because the books are good-hearted.
The character of Miss Read herself is very likeable, with her wry self knowledge of her own limitations and faults; and her appreciation of (and exasperation at) the multi-generational cast of well-defined, traditionally-English, characters that surround her.
Sooner or later, here or there, pretty much the whole of life - as seen and described from this particular perspective - is woven into the tapestry.
*
Tuesday 9 June 2015
What can beat antiracism as the primary moral imperative? For sure, not anti-antiracism. (Clue: The only answer is Religion)
*
Decades of secular conservative, libertarian, reactionary, reasonable, humane responses to the insane evil of primary antiracism have been utterly futile.
Logical analysis, humane reason, appeals to decency and moderation, appeals to national or personal self-interest, satire and mockery, attempts to usurp antiracism with other secular Left ideals such as compassion, alleviation of suffering, equality... all utterly ineffectual.
After all this, antiracist witch-hunts are more frequent and more severe than ever before.
*
'Racism' remains undefined to a point way beyond absurdity, anyone is vulnerable, the consequences of antiracist mania very obviously extremely harmful...
But it makes no difference.
The scale, organization, duration and public/ police/ official visibility of child and other sexual slavery abuse 'scandals' unveiled after 'Rotherham' is off-the-map for Britain in known history - and these are a direct product of antiracism.
But nothing has changed after 'Rotherham' etc, things continue to get worse. 'Rotherham' is merely the tip of an iceberg of suffering, and fundamental national and personal damage from antiracism which will only cease with utter societal destruction unless it is defeated.
*
Why does antiracism rule supreme and invulnerable to consequences?
In a nutshell because for the modern secular (which is Leftist) mind - in other words for the mainstream mass of people with power, influence, education, and authority - nothing is worse than racism. Thus, antiracism is the highest human value.
Antiracism trumps all. This is the situation.
*
What can be done about this situation?
Well NOT trying to attack the moral primacy of antiracism - that will not work, this has not worked - it has indeed been if anything counter-productive.
(We have to assume that everything done so far is likely to be counter-productive.)
*
So what is strong enough to beat antiracism?
Religion, obviously.
Not any religion - but some religions: a few traditional, patriarchal, monotheistic religions or particular groups (or sects) within those religions.
So that is it. Matters are very clear. Antiracism cannot be defeated as a primary goal but only as a secondary by-product of higher goals: religious goals.
Therefore, if you believe it is vital to defeat antiracism as the primary moral value of The West, then you must accept that we must have Religion.
*
Matters are not just simple but clear: there is a choice of possible Religions.
All you have to do is make your choice, and then live by it (as best you can).
Therefore, unless you are already an adherent of one of these religions; your moral priority (merely from the perspective of the necessity to defeat antiracism) must be to investigate these religions.
Socio-politically, nothing could be more important.
*
(This is not the best reason to investigate and choose your religion; but it is one reason - and it is a sufficient reason.)
*
Decades of secular conservative, libertarian, reactionary, reasonable, humane responses to the insane evil of primary antiracism have been utterly futile.
Logical analysis, humane reason, appeals to decency and moderation, appeals to national or personal self-interest, satire and mockery, attempts to usurp antiracism with other secular Left ideals such as compassion, alleviation of suffering, equality... all utterly ineffectual.
After all this, antiracist witch-hunts are more frequent and more severe than ever before.
*
'Racism' remains undefined to a point way beyond absurdity, anyone is vulnerable, the consequences of antiracist mania very obviously extremely harmful...
But it makes no difference.
The scale, organization, duration and public/ police/ official visibility of child and other sexual slavery abuse 'scandals' unveiled after 'Rotherham' is off-the-map for Britain in known history - and these are a direct product of antiracism.
But nothing has changed after 'Rotherham' etc, things continue to get worse. 'Rotherham' is merely the tip of an iceberg of suffering, and fundamental national and personal damage from antiracism which will only cease with utter societal destruction unless it is defeated.
*
Why does antiracism rule supreme and invulnerable to consequences?
In a nutshell because for the modern secular (which is Leftist) mind - in other words for the mainstream mass of people with power, influence, education, and authority - nothing is worse than racism. Thus, antiracism is the highest human value.
Antiracism trumps all. This is the situation.
*
What can be done about this situation?
Well NOT trying to attack the moral primacy of antiracism - that will not work, this has not worked - it has indeed been if anything counter-productive.
(We have to assume that everything done so far is likely to be counter-productive.)
*
So what is strong enough to beat antiracism?
Religion, obviously.
Not any religion - but some religions: a few traditional, patriarchal, monotheistic religions or particular groups (or sects) within those religions.
So that is it. Matters are very clear. Antiracism cannot be defeated as a primary goal but only as a secondary by-product of higher goals: religious goals.
Therefore, if you believe it is vital to defeat antiracism as the primary moral value of The West, then you must accept that we must have Religion.
*
Matters are not just simple but clear: there is a choice of possible Religions.
All you have to do is make your choice, and then live by it (as best you can).
Therefore, unless you are already an adherent of one of these religions; your moral priority (merely from the perspective of the necessity to defeat antiracism) must be to investigate these religions.
Socio-politically, nothing could be more important.
*
(This is not the best reason to investigate and choose your religion; but it is one reason - and it is a sufficient reason.)
*
The intolerance of the Middle Ages - the future of Romanticism
*
Since the advent of the Romantic Movement with Coleridge and Wordsworth, it has been a counter-current of mainstream life to assert the truth of imagination, the validity of fantasy. But modern people, by and large, want to know how imagination is truth: they require an explanation; otherwise they cannot feel that imagination really-is valid.
But this is just part of a much larger problem for modern people; which is that they cannot feel the truth of anything. They suppose that if only they are presented with enough strong-enough evidence, that they will believe with indomitable certainty whatever is thus proven, and that this belief will sustain them through whatever may happen.
Somehow this never happens - and the usual excuse is that the evidence is insufficient, and they are (like any good modern person) simply awaiting more evidence before committing themselves. But the fact is that they never do quite seem to commit themselves. They may fool other people by acting as if they have a core of solid conviction, around which their lives are built - but they do not manage to fool themselves.
The modern consciousness is cut-off from its own thoughts, it words and emotions. And this does seem to be a modern phenomenon - in this respect something seems to have changed. Things were, for instance, different in the European Middle Ages (up until about the fifteenth century)
*
Consider the following edited excerpts from pp 53-5 of Romanticism Comes Of Age by Owen Barfield (1944):
In the Middle Ages, words and thoughts began to be identified. Hence the medieval period was above all the age of Logic - it worshipped Logic, in which the word and the thought are kept as close together as possible.
But if we scrutinize the men of the Middle Ages we shall find something yet more significant. They identified themselves with their thoughts.
It is this which strikes a modern observer as most incomprehensible and alien about the men of that time - for example, their intolerance.
Identifying the thought with the words, they felt that truth could be wholly embodied in creed and dogma; and, identifying the self with the thought, they were - quite rightly - intolerant. A wrong thought could strike them as far more immoral than a wrong action.
When confronted with the universal intolerance of the Middle Ages, we can only explain it in one of two ways. Either common sense, kindliness and self-control have miraculously increased among us, and the great men of that time were therefore a kind of foolish children compared with ourselves; or thinking was actually something different from what it is now - not only believed to be different, but actually different.
Today, everybody is tolerant. We are extraordinarily polite to each other, even on such subjects as religion. Does this universal tolerance arise from the fact that we have at last succeeded in subduing the evil passions that formerly drove men to quarter and burn one another for their opinions?
Or is it, can it possibly be, that we no longer care very much whether people agree with us or not?
There is no doubt at all about the answer. The fact is that we have ceased to identify ourselves with our thoughts - at any rate with such thoughts as can be expressed in words. We distinguish between thinking and believing. This is indeed one of the most typical modern experiences.
*
This is modern alienation. But the fact that we have ceased to identify ourselves with our thoughts cannot, I think, be solved by re-asserting medieval Logic, and the identity between thoughts, words and reality.
When I say we 'cannot' do this, I mean that it simply does not work. We can, or course - and many people have tried, assert that we are adopting that 'medieval' assumption that truth is wholly embodied in creed and dogma - but for us moderns it is an 'as if'.
The way our minds work means that our selves feel separated from creeds and dogmas. Since this is what we feel, an assertion of identity can only remain an assertion. In a sense we are all solipsists now...
*
But not so, because - as the romantics discovered - the imagination enables us to escape from this solipsism. But the escape is limited - limited in time, context, and fullness. The Romantics escaped - but sooner or later - and usually all-too-soon - they returned to their predicament.
Since then, we have got no further. Currently, we have immersive distraction by the mass media, but clearly it is no more effective - probably much less effective - than the Romanticism of the 19th century. Nobody seriously advocates that increased engagement with the mass media is a solution to the fundamental alienation of the modern condition - we know that (even if it were desirable, which it is not) it would be ineffective, we know it would not work.
*
So, we are not able to go back, we hate where we are, we must go forward - and seek to understand the imagination in new terms, by new kinds of explanation - and the validity of our explorations will be tested by our feelings.
Our feelings will not be fooled - if any new way of thinking fails to satisfy our innermost soul (currently trapped by its own operation, trapped by its own solipsism) then it will not carry sufficient conviction to be an effective solution.
Our appeal is not to logic (as in the Middle Ages) nor to Evidence (as in the modern age) nor to assertion of the intrinsic validity of the Imagination and Fantasy (as with Romanticism) - it must be an appeal which is not an appeal to anything else; but a kind of validation in-action.
Our consciousness must become such that it is satisfied by its own fundamental operations.
*
In philosophical terms this is first-philosophy - i.e metaphysics. To get where we want to go, we need to turn philosophy back upon itself, and examine the fundamental assumptions of modern consciousness.
Metaphysics is perhaps the single most important intellectual activity of our time.
This is neither futile nor paradoxical - because we have separate ground to stand upon - the ground of the imagination. The lesson of more than two centuries is that Romanticism, the power of imagination, is too incomplete and feeble to replace modern consciousness; but it is different enough to analyse modern consciousness from a separate evidential basis - and I think this analysis can point-to the next necessary step.
*
The future of consciousness, the cure for alienation, is something we can know - but it is not necessarily something we can, yet, do. Doing comes later, requires different circumstances; indeed doing may not come this side of death.
In a sense we could regard our task as trying to describe Heaven.
Heaven has currently lost its psychological effect, because our descriptions of Heaven typically have all the faults of our current predicament. But if Heaven can be described in a way that uses the Imagination, satisfies feeling, and if Imagination can also be validated as a genuine source of truth... well, then we have achieved our goal.
But knowing where we are going, even if we cannot expect to get there for a considerable while, can be a source of hope and an antidote for despair.
*
Since the advent of the Romantic Movement with Coleridge and Wordsworth, it has been a counter-current of mainstream life to assert the truth of imagination, the validity of fantasy. But modern people, by and large, want to know how imagination is truth: they require an explanation; otherwise they cannot feel that imagination really-is valid.
But this is just part of a much larger problem for modern people; which is that they cannot feel the truth of anything. They suppose that if only they are presented with enough strong-enough evidence, that they will believe with indomitable certainty whatever is thus proven, and that this belief will sustain them through whatever may happen.
Somehow this never happens - and the usual excuse is that the evidence is insufficient, and they are (like any good modern person) simply awaiting more evidence before committing themselves. But the fact is that they never do quite seem to commit themselves. They may fool other people by acting as if they have a core of solid conviction, around which their lives are built - but they do not manage to fool themselves.
The modern consciousness is cut-off from its own thoughts, it words and emotions. And this does seem to be a modern phenomenon - in this respect something seems to have changed. Things were, for instance, different in the European Middle Ages (up until about the fifteenth century)
*
Consider the following edited excerpts from pp 53-5 of Romanticism Comes Of Age by Owen Barfield (1944):
In the Middle Ages, words and thoughts began to be identified. Hence the medieval period was above all the age of Logic - it worshipped Logic, in which the word and the thought are kept as close together as possible.
But if we scrutinize the men of the Middle Ages we shall find something yet more significant. They identified themselves with their thoughts.
It is this which strikes a modern observer as most incomprehensible and alien about the men of that time - for example, their intolerance.
Identifying the thought with the words, they felt that truth could be wholly embodied in creed and dogma; and, identifying the self with the thought, they were - quite rightly - intolerant. A wrong thought could strike them as far more immoral than a wrong action.
When confronted with the universal intolerance of the Middle Ages, we can only explain it in one of two ways. Either common sense, kindliness and self-control have miraculously increased among us, and the great men of that time were therefore a kind of foolish children compared with ourselves; or thinking was actually something different from what it is now - not only believed to be different, but actually different.
Today, everybody is tolerant. We are extraordinarily polite to each other, even on such subjects as religion. Does this universal tolerance arise from the fact that we have at last succeeded in subduing the evil passions that formerly drove men to quarter and burn one another for their opinions?
Or is it, can it possibly be, that we no longer care very much whether people agree with us or not?
There is no doubt at all about the answer. The fact is that we have ceased to identify ourselves with our thoughts - at any rate with such thoughts as can be expressed in words. We distinguish between thinking and believing. This is indeed one of the most typical modern experiences.
*
This is modern alienation. But the fact that we have ceased to identify ourselves with our thoughts cannot, I think, be solved by re-asserting medieval Logic, and the identity between thoughts, words and reality.
When I say we 'cannot' do this, I mean that it simply does not work. We can, or course - and many people have tried, assert that we are adopting that 'medieval' assumption that truth is wholly embodied in creed and dogma - but for us moderns it is an 'as if'.
The way our minds work means that our selves feel separated from creeds and dogmas. Since this is what we feel, an assertion of identity can only remain an assertion. In a sense we are all solipsists now...
*
But not so, because - as the romantics discovered - the imagination enables us to escape from this solipsism. But the escape is limited - limited in time, context, and fullness. The Romantics escaped - but sooner or later - and usually all-too-soon - they returned to their predicament.
Since then, we have got no further. Currently, we have immersive distraction by the mass media, but clearly it is no more effective - probably much less effective - than the Romanticism of the 19th century. Nobody seriously advocates that increased engagement with the mass media is a solution to the fundamental alienation of the modern condition - we know that (even if it were desirable, which it is not) it would be ineffective, we know it would not work.
*
So, we are not able to go back, we hate where we are, we must go forward - and seek to understand the imagination in new terms, by new kinds of explanation - and the validity of our explorations will be tested by our feelings.
Our feelings will not be fooled - if any new way of thinking fails to satisfy our innermost soul (currently trapped by its own operation, trapped by its own solipsism) then it will not carry sufficient conviction to be an effective solution.
Our appeal is not to logic (as in the Middle Ages) nor to Evidence (as in the modern age) nor to assertion of the intrinsic validity of the Imagination and Fantasy (as with Romanticism) - it must be an appeal which is not an appeal to anything else; but a kind of validation in-action.
Our consciousness must become such that it is satisfied by its own fundamental operations.
*
In philosophical terms this is first-philosophy - i.e metaphysics. To get where we want to go, we need to turn philosophy back upon itself, and examine the fundamental assumptions of modern consciousness.
Metaphysics is perhaps the single most important intellectual activity of our time.
This is neither futile nor paradoxical - because we have separate ground to stand upon - the ground of the imagination. The lesson of more than two centuries is that Romanticism, the power of imagination, is too incomplete and feeble to replace modern consciousness; but it is different enough to analyse modern consciousness from a separate evidential basis - and I think this analysis can point-to the next necessary step.
*
The future of consciousness, the cure for alienation, is something we can know - but it is not necessarily something we can, yet, do. Doing comes later, requires different circumstances; indeed doing may not come this side of death.
In a sense we could regard our task as trying to describe Heaven.
Heaven has currently lost its psychological effect, because our descriptions of Heaven typically have all the faults of our current predicament. But if Heaven can be described in a way that uses the Imagination, satisfies feeling, and if Imagination can also be validated as a genuine source of truth... well, then we have achieved our goal.
But knowing where we are going, even if we cannot expect to get there for a considerable while, can be a source of hope and an antidote for despair.
*
Monday 8 June 2015
The 'Overton Window' metaphor misrepresents the nature of Leftism
*
The conservative/ reactionary blogosphere has adopted the tern Overton Window to express the range of 'acceptable' (i.e. non-crazy, non-evil) political opinion enforced by the mass media; along with the idea that this window moves ever-Leftward.
This is a useful shorthand in some ways, but misleading in others. The Left is not fundamentally about a different set of opinions (through its history, the Left has picked-up and discarded 'causes' with extraordinary and increasing rapidity); the Left is about destruction of The Good - it is about subversion, inversion of truth, beauty and virtue; propaganda and enforcement of untruth, ugliness and vice.
Insofar as there is a 'window' - it is therefore defining the scope for acceptable attack on The Good.
Insofar as the window changes, it does not really slide to the Left, but enlarges.
So the change Leftwards should be seen as a greater and greater scope for 'acceptably' critiqueing, problematizing, and in multiple ways attacking The Good.
The window has enlarged recently to allow attacks on various new themes - attack on marriage via the recognition and encouragement of non-marriage; attacks on the family by promotion of everything-but; attacks on sanity by the legal enforcement of individual person's delusions; attacks on health by the encouragement of behavioural/ psychiatric/ sexual diseases (disease being here biologically defined as a condition which damages probable functionality, lifespan or reproductive success).
And so on.
In sum - if we use the Overton Window metaphor - we should regard the 'window' as enlarging the scope for 'acceptable' attacks on The Good and the 'acceptable' scope for active promotion of evil.
**
Note added: Consider the 1960s sexual revolution. This reveals clearly the expanding range of behaviour it was acceptable to first accept, then approve, then advocate and finally (recently) actively promote and enforce. Divorce, sex outside marriage, promiscuous sex, non-reproductive and anti-reproductive behaviours and orientations. Indeed, most of the heavy-lifting against Good was done in the late sixties and early seventies with legal decriminalizations and elimination of negative moral status in the mass media. Recent expansion of the Overton window have been mostly about the escalation from illegal to officially-promoted; not-disapproval to approval, not-forbidden to actively-encouraged.
*
The conservative/ reactionary blogosphere has adopted the tern Overton Window to express the range of 'acceptable' (i.e. non-crazy, non-evil) political opinion enforced by the mass media; along with the idea that this window moves ever-Leftward.
This is a useful shorthand in some ways, but misleading in others. The Left is not fundamentally about a different set of opinions (through its history, the Left has picked-up and discarded 'causes' with extraordinary and increasing rapidity); the Left is about destruction of The Good - it is about subversion, inversion of truth, beauty and virtue; propaganda and enforcement of untruth, ugliness and vice.
Insofar as there is a 'window' - it is therefore defining the scope for acceptable attack on The Good.
Insofar as the window changes, it does not really slide to the Left, but enlarges.
So the change Leftwards should be seen as a greater and greater scope for 'acceptably' critiqueing, problematizing, and in multiple ways attacking The Good.
The window has enlarged recently to allow attacks on various new themes - attack on marriage via the recognition and encouragement of non-marriage; attacks on the family by promotion of everything-but; attacks on sanity by the legal enforcement of individual person's delusions; attacks on health by the encouragement of behavioural/ psychiatric/ sexual diseases (disease being here biologically defined as a condition which damages probable functionality, lifespan or reproductive success).
And so on.
In sum - if we use the Overton Window metaphor - we should regard the 'window' as enlarging the scope for 'acceptable' attacks on The Good and the 'acceptable' scope for active promotion of evil.
**
Note added: Consider the 1960s sexual revolution. This reveals clearly the expanding range of behaviour it was acceptable to first accept, then approve, then advocate and finally (recently) actively promote and enforce. Divorce, sex outside marriage, promiscuous sex, non-reproductive and anti-reproductive behaviours and orientations. Indeed, most of the heavy-lifting against Good was done in the late sixties and early seventies with legal decriminalizations and elimination of negative moral status in the mass media. Recent expansion of the Overton window have been mostly about the escalation from illegal to officially-promoted; not-disapproval to approval, not-forbidden to actively-encouraged.
*
Why do people believe the mass media, instead of their own knowledge and experience?
*
Anyone who has been vilified in the mass media will recognize that nearly everybody believes mass media accounts, even when they are contradicted their own knowledge and experience as friends or colleagues.
There is a palpable reluctance, a suspicious resistance, against anything here-and-now, anything personal, which goes-against the mass media line.
But why? In theory everybody 'knows' the mass media selects, distorts and lies; everybody claims not to believe the mass media - in practice almost everybody believes almost everything.
*
Part of it seems to be a kind of misdirected primitive deference to 'power' - the mass media, despite that it isn't a person, is perceived and regarded by the human mind as if it was something like a tyrannical totalitarian dictator who must be obeyed - even in terms of belief.
Another part of it is the psychological corruption induced by living in a mass media society, and being personally addicted to the mass media (as most people are) - so that people dwell psycho-spiritually inside the mass media, and cannot even imagine not living inside it.
But another part has to do with the nature of human consciousness as it is and has been in our particular civilization for some centuries; but which is different in other parts of the world and times.
*
This is hard to describe, but it is something like the following: People are able to believe the mass media because they do not really believe anything.
This is part of the modern condition - that modern Man is so profoundly alienated, that he is alienated not just from work, bureaucracy, and society; but alienated also from his own thoughts and even his own beliefs.
*
Our subjective experience of ourselves, is of an isolated self, detached from even our own beliefs.
Our beliefs are not 'us' - our beliefs are 'merely' one of many things which may entertain us or bore us, which we observe with various attitudes... our beliefs are things we 'entertain' rather as we entertain the guests at a party; which is to say we invite guests whom we hope will entertain us.
We sit in the solitary confinement of our selves, observing this parade of beliefs - hundreds, millions of them - nearly all of which come via the mass media - as they dance past us.
*
Modern people are accustomed to having all kinds of beliefs in their mind - for a while, holding them only lightly. Entertaining them for a while, being-entertained by them for a while - playing with beliefs as a kitten plays with a ball of wool; or seizing upon beliefs and casting them aside in a desperate search for something precious that is lost... but all the time new guests are coming in and old guests are leaving.
It is not so much that people reject their personal experience and common sense in favour of the mass media, as that they do not hold to any beliefs with strength - not even those based on experience and common sense.
Modern Man does not even have conviction in his own nihilism - modern nihilism has turned and begun to consume itself. He suspects that nothing is real, he is dismayed that nothing is certain - but is he unsure whether some things might be real, and he is uncertain about his own uncertainty.
*
This is what it is to be nihilist - to believe nothing is really real - it is to believe tactically, as an entertainment, or indeed merely as a distraction; because we cannot believe that anything more is possible.
So, to come-up-against people believing the mass media instead of what they might be expected to know for themselves is something new, distinctive, modern, Western; to come-up-against the shallow, spiteful, superficiality of belief among nearly everybody about everything - even things they ought to know - is a revelation of the depth of our spiritual poverty.
*
Anyone who has been vilified in the mass media will recognize that nearly everybody believes mass media accounts, even when they are contradicted their own knowledge and experience as friends or colleagues.
There is a palpable reluctance, a suspicious resistance, against anything here-and-now, anything personal, which goes-against the mass media line.
But why? In theory everybody 'knows' the mass media selects, distorts and lies; everybody claims not to believe the mass media - in practice almost everybody believes almost everything.
*
Part of it seems to be a kind of misdirected primitive deference to 'power' - the mass media, despite that it isn't a person, is perceived and regarded by the human mind as if it was something like a tyrannical totalitarian dictator who must be obeyed - even in terms of belief.
Another part of it is the psychological corruption induced by living in a mass media society, and being personally addicted to the mass media (as most people are) - so that people dwell psycho-spiritually inside the mass media, and cannot even imagine not living inside it.
But another part has to do with the nature of human consciousness as it is and has been in our particular civilization for some centuries; but which is different in other parts of the world and times.
*
This is hard to describe, but it is something like the following: People are able to believe the mass media because they do not really believe anything.
This is part of the modern condition - that modern Man is so profoundly alienated, that he is alienated not just from work, bureaucracy, and society; but alienated also from his own thoughts and even his own beliefs.
*
Our subjective experience of ourselves, is of an isolated self, detached from even our own beliefs.
Our beliefs are not 'us' - our beliefs are 'merely' one of many things which may entertain us or bore us, which we observe with various attitudes... our beliefs are things we 'entertain' rather as we entertain the guests at a party; which is to say we invite guests whom we hope will entertain us.
We sit in the solitary confinement of our selves, observing this parade of beliefs - hundreds, millions of them - nearly all of which come via the mass media - as they dance past us.
*
Modern people are accustomed to having all kinds of beliefs in their mind - for a while, holding them only lightly. Entertaining them for a while, being-entertained by them for a while - playing with beliefs as a kitten plays with a ball of wool; or seizing upon beliefs and casting them aside in a desperate search for something precious that is lost... but all the time new guests are coming in and old guests are leaving.
It is not so much that people reject their personal experience and common sense in favour of the mass media, as that they do not hold to any beliefs with strength - not even those based on experience and common sense.
Modern Man does not even have conviction in his own nihilism - modern nihilism has turned and begun to consume itself. He suspects that nothing is real, he is dismayed that nothing is certain - but is he unsure whether some things might be real, and he is uncertain about his own uncertainty.
*
This is what it is to be nihilist - to believe nothing is really real - it is to believe tactically, as an entertainment, or indeed merely as a distraction; because we cannot believe that anything more is possible.
So, to come-up-against people believing the mass media instead of what they might be expected to know for themselves is something new, distinctive, modern, Western; to come-up-against the shallow, spiteful, superficiality of belief among nearly everybody about everything - even things they ought to know - is a revelation of the depth of our spiritual poverty.
*
Sunday 7 June 2015
Modern 'depression' (and 'bipolar disorder') is not an illness; more a personality type
*
There are two broad classes of 'depression'.
Traditional depression can be called melancholia, or endogenous depression - it is rare, very rare - roughly a tenth of one percent prevalence (0.1% of the population) - including the even rarer and more severe 'psychotic depression' with hallucinations and delusions.
Melancholia is severe and debilitating (sufferers typically cannot look after themselves and nearly always require hospitalization of equivalent intensity of supervision); it comes-upon somebody like an illness.
Sufferers from Endogenous Depression have a very high rate of suicide and may dehydrate/ starve themselves to death. It is perhaps the worst kind of suffering of all.
But if the Melancholia/ Endogenous Depression sufferer survives/ is kept alive; after about a year he will probably recover fully (except for the memories) and return to normal; and he probably will not suffer another episode. This recovery can usually be hastened with some tricyclic drugs like imipramine, and electroconvulsive therapy/ electroshock.
So, melancholia a disease which can probably affect anyone, lasts about a year, and after recovery a return to normal.
*
(SSRI-type drugs such as Prozac are ineffective in Melancholia, or make things worse - so these drugs should never have been called antidepressants. SSRIs aren't antidepressants - SSRIs cannot do what imipramine does. To have claimed otherwise was a dishonest but successful marketing ploy, not a clinical observation.)
*
The usual 'depression' diagnosed and treated nowadays is more like a personality type than a disease, therefore modern depression is a lifetime thing. Episodes are exacerbations of the usual situation for that person, and 'recovery' means simply a return to the usual suboptimal situation for that person.
The most-commonly diagnosed 'depression' nowadays is therefore nothing like melancholia/ endogenous depression at all - except for the slight similarity that misery/ sadness/ inability to experience happiness may (or may not) be the most prominent symptom.
Depression nowadays gets diagnosed in around ten percent of the population - or sometimes even more. While significantly unpleasant, it is not usually severe - sufferers continue to work, look after families, drive - they continue to eat and drink and attend college.
And the suicide rate in modern depression is not increased - it is the the same as the general population.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred cases of modern depression are part of a mixed bag of diagnoses that can be gathered under names like Neurotic Depression/ Reactive Depression/ Dysthymia - and indeed until the 1990s were usually diagnosed as Anxiety States. The main symptoms are varied and would usually be anxiety, sadness, or mood swings; more rarely low vitality.
The main generalization to be made about modern depression is that it is not like a disease which comes over somebody, it is like a personality type which sometimes gets worse but (because it is the personality) is not the kind of thing which can be cured.
*
So, melancholia is rare and terrible but can be cured and the sufferer recovers fully' modern 'depression' is common, unpleasant but not terrible, but cannot be cured - symptoms can be suppressed for a while by various types of drugs; but when you stop the drug, or when it loses effect from 'ttolerance', then the personality re-emerges - so the usual suboptimal personality state will return plus added problems from the drug withdrawal.
This means that when taking drugs to treat the usual (Neurotic/ Reactive) depression, there is a strong tendency to get hooked. Because drugs tend to lose their effect ('tolerance') there is a tendency to escalate doses; because the personality is pretty much fixed, there is a tendency to continue treatment for a long time - forever; because all psychoactive drugs produce withdrawal phenomena, then reducing or stopping the drugs will creates additional problems.
*
In sum, once people with an exacerbation of their usual state of Neurotic Depression (e.g. anxiety, sadness, mood swings, demotivating) have started taking drugs, there is a tendency for this drug taking to become life-long.
This is because the drugs are not curing a disease, but temporarily modifying a personality; and because the body and brain adapt to drugs by becoming dependent on them.
Hence we have a serious, long-term, still-growing epidemic of prescribed-drug dependence among people with Neurotic Depression - with the prescription rates for so-called SSRI-type 'anti-depressants' climbing year upon year, even three decades after the SSRIs were introduced.
There is zero justification for treating Neurotic/ Reactive Depression in order to prevent suicide.The only sensible rationale for drug treatment is to make people feel better; recognizing that treatment will be a temporary suppression of problems not a cure; and any drug treatment will create problems of dependence that will have to be managed.
**
Further reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201502/dismantling-major-depression
***
Modern depression is increasingly being re-labelled as Bipolar Disorder; on the basis of a supposed but false resemblance with Manic Depressive Disorder. True Manic Depressive Disorder was extremely rare - a small fraction of 0.1% - and was diagnosed on the basis of a person having been hospitalized for sustained episodes - often lasting for months - of both melancholia and mania; from which there was complete recovery.
Modern bipolar disorder is diagnosed at a prevalence rate of about 5% (one in twenty) one the basis of self-reports of both high and low moods lasting as little as a few days or weeks and no history of hospitalization; and typical patients never fully recover and seem to be ending up on lifelong treatment with multiple drugs.
The situation developed in a way closely analogous to depression. In other words, modern Bipolar Disorder is being applied to a subgroup of much the same population described above as having 'Neurotic Depression' - that sub-group in which mood swings are prominent. In other words, Old Manic Depressive Disorder was a very rare disease, modern Bipolar Disorder is a relatively common (group of) personality type(s) - being misinterpreted as disease.
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030185
*
There are two broad classes of 'depression'.
Traditional depression can be called melancholia, or endogenous depression - it is rare, very rare - roughly a tenth of one percent prevalence (0.1% of the population) - including the even rarer and more severe 'psychotic depression' with hallucinations and delusions.
Melancholia is severe and debilitating (sufferers typically cannot look after themselves and nearly always require hospitalization of equivalent intensity of supervision); it comes-upon somebody like an illness.
Sufferers from Endogenous Depression have a very high rate of suicide and may dehydrate/ starve themselves to death. It is perhaps the worst kind of suffering of all.
But if the Melancholia/ Endogenous Depression sufferer survives/ is kept alive; after about a year he will probably recover fully (except for the memories) and return to normal; and he probably will not suffer another episode. This recovery can usually be hastened with some tricyclic drugs like imipramine, and electroconvulsive therapy/ electroshock.
So, melancholia a disease which can probably affect anyone, lasts about a year, and after recovery a return to normal.
*
(SSRI-type drugs such as Prozac are ineffective in Melancholia, or make things worse - so these drugs should never have been called antidepressants. SSRIs aren't antidepressants - SSRIs cannot do what imipramine does. To have claimed otherwise was a dishonest but successful marketing ploy, not a clinical observation.)
*
The usual 'depression' diagnosed and treated nowadays is more like a personality type than a disease, therefore modern depression is a lifetime thing. Episodes are exacerbations of the usual situation for that person, and 'recovery' means simply a return to the usual suboptimal situation for that person.
The most-commonly diagnosed 'depression' nowadays is therefore nothing like melancholia/ endogenous depression at all - except for the slight similarity that misery/ sadness/ inability to experience happiness may (or may not) be the most prominent symptom.
Depression nowadays gets diagnosed in around ten percent of the population - or sometimes even more. While significantly unpleasant, it is not usually severe - sufferers continue to work, look after families, drive - they continue to eat and drink and attend college.
And the suicide rate in modern depression is not increased - it is the the same as the general population.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred cases of modern depression are part of a mixed bag of diagnoses that can be gathered under names like Neurotic Depression/ Reactive Depression/ Dysthymia - and indeed until the 1990s were usually diagnosed as Anxiety States. The main symptoms are varied and would usually be anxiety, sadness, or mood swings; more rarely low vitality.
The main generalization to be made about modern depression is that it is not like a disease which comes over somebody, it is like a personality type which sometimes gets worse but (because it is the personality) is not the kind of thing which can be cured.
*
So, melancholia is rare and terrible but can be cured and the sufferer recovers fully' modern 'depression' is common, unpleasant but not terrible, but cannot be cured - symptoms can be suppressed for a while by various types of drugs; but when you stop the drug, or when it loses effect from 'ttolerance', then the personality re-emerges - so the usual suboptimal personality state will return plus added problems from the drug withdrawal.
This means that when taking drugs to treat the usual (Neurotic/ Reactive) depression, there is a strong tendency to get hooked. Because drugs tend to lose their effect ('tolerance') there is a tendency to escalate doses; because the personality is pretty much fixed, there is a tendency to continue treatment for a long time - forever; because all psychoactive drugs produce withdrawal phenomena, then reducing or stopping the drugs will creates additional problems.
*
In sum, once people with an exacerbation of their usual state of Neurotic Depression (e.g. anxiety, sadness, mood swings, demotivating) have started taking drugs, there is a tendency for this drug taking to become life-long.
This is because the drugs are not curing a disease, but temporarily modifying a personality; and because the body and brain adapt to drugs by becoming dependent on them.
Hence we have a serious, long-term, still-growing epidemic of prescribed-drug dependence among people with Neurotic Depression - with the prescription rates for so-called SSRI-type 'anti-depressants' climbing year upon year, even three decades after the SSRIs were introduced.
There is zero justification for treating Neurotic/ Reactive Depression in order to prevent suicide.The only sensible rationale for drug treatment is to make people feel better; recognizing that treatment will be a temporary suppression of problems not a cure; and any drug treatment will create problems of dependence that will have to be managed.
**
Further reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201502/dismantling-major-depression
***
Modern depression is increasingly being re-labelled as Bipolar Disorder; on the basis of a supposed but false resemblance with Manic Depressive Disorder. True Manic Depressive Disorder was extremely rare - a small fraction of 0.1% - and was diagnosed on the basis of a person having been hospitalized for sustained episodes - often lasting for months - of both melancholia and mania; from which there was complete recovery.
Modern bipolar disorder is diagnosed at a prevalence rate of about 5% (one in twenty) one the basis of self-reports of both high and low moods lasting as little as a few days or weeks and no history of hospitalization; and typical patients never fully recover and seem to be ending up on lifelong treatment with multiple drugs.
The situation developed in a way closely analogous to depression. In other words, modern Bipolar Disorder is being applied to a subgroup of much the same population described above as having 'Neurotic Depression' - that sub-group in which mood swings are prominent. In other words, Old Manic Depressive Disorder was a very rare disease, modern Bipolar Disorder is a relatively common (group of) personality type(s) - being misinterpreted as disease.
http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030185
*
Saturday 6 June 2015
Cancer is not a disease - it is a process, not a thing
*
I get the impression that many people are terribly confused about what cancer is - or rather they are just plain wrong about what cancer is. In particular they think of it as a disease category.
This is - of course - inculcated and exploited by medical researchers, the mass media, celebrities and the massive cancer charities (e.g. Cancer Research UK is a deeply dishonest and exploitative bureaucracy - and a fund of self-serving disinformation on many matters).
*
People assume that cancer is like pneumonia - ie. a group of lung diseases; but cancer is like 'infection' or 'inflammation' - cancer is a pathological process.
So it is misleading to talk about 'fighting' cancer or 'eradicating' cancer as if it was a disease - as in the Cancer Research UK slogan: 'We will beat cancer sooner'.
Do we fight, eradicate or 'beat' processes such as infection or inflammation? There are general and often effective 'infection control' mechanisms (quarantine, hygiene etc.), there are general anti-inflammatory drugs (steroids, NSAIDs) but this activity does not generate the strident, militaristic nonsense that is usual with cancer talk.
Infection is part of the condition of life on earth; so is cancer. Cancer is not going-away.
*
In general, people suffer diseases - as a man might suffer from pneumonia. But people afflicted with various diseases resulting from the cancer process are described as 'victims', they are said to be 'fighting' cancer. If they die, they have lost their long 'struggle' with cancer.
These are all fake and misleading metaphors, which cloak exploitation and ignorance.
In reality Cancer research, as such, is about the biology of a pathological process - which is as large, vague, complex and obscure - as as remote from curing disease or helping sick people - as research about the biology of 'infections' or the incredible intricacies of the immune system would be.
*
Cancer is not one thing, nor is cancer many things - cancer is not a thing.
The word cancer describes - in general terms - a pathological process, a disease process, something which has gone wrong with certain aspects of the functioning of an organism.
To say what cancer is involves technical terms and uncommon knowledge, to understand what cancer is requires effort, a willingness to learn - to concentrate and read (or listen) for quite a few minutes at a stretch. The understanding must be built-up.
Most people won't do this, some people can't do this - hence very few people indeed have any idea what cancer is - or rather, they have an idea so false and misleading that it misunderstands the very nature of cancer.
This depth and level of misunderstanding of cancer is, I guess, is what has created a situation so wide-open to exploitation - and, by Heavens, it surely has been exploited!
*
I get the impression that many people are terribly confused about what cancer is - or rather they are just plain wrong about what cancer is. In particular they think of it as a disease category.
This is - of course - inculcated and exploited by medical researchers, the mass media, celebrities and the massive cancer charities (e.g. Cancer Research UK is a deeply dishonest and exploitative bureaucracy - and a fund of self-serving disinformation on many matters).
*
People assume that cancer is like pneumonia - ie. a group of lung diseases; but cancer is like 'infection' or 'inflammation' - cancer is a pathological process.
So it is misleading to talk about 'fighting' cancer or 'eradicating' cancer as if it was a disease - as in the Cancer Research UK slogan: 'We will beat cancer sooner'.
Do we fight, eradicate or 'beat' processes such as infection or inflammation? There are general and often effective 'infection control' mechanisms (quarantine, hygiene etc.), there are general anti-inflammatory drugs (steroids, NSAIDs) but this activity does not generate the strident, militaristic nonsense that is usual with cancer talk.
Infection is part of the condition of life on earth; so is cancer. Cancer is not going-away.
*
In general, people suffer diseases - as a man might suffer from pneumonia. But people afflicted with various diseases resulting from the cancer process are described as 'victims', they are said to be 'fighting' cancer. If they die, they have lost their long 'struggle' with cancer.
These are all fake and misleading metaphors, which cloak exploitation and ignorance.
In reality Cancer research, as such, is about the biology of a pathological process - which is as large, vague, complex and obscure - as as remote from curing disease or helping sick people - as research about the biology of 'infections' or the incredible intricacies of the immune system would be.
*
Cancer is not one thing, nor is cancer many things - cancer is not a thing.
The word cancer describes - in general terms - a pathological process, a disease process, something which has gone wrong with certain aspects of the functioning of an organism.
To say what cancer is involves technical terms and uncommon knowledge, to understand what cancer is requires effort, a willingness to learn - to concentrate and read (or listen) for quite a few minutes at a stretch. The understanding must be built-up.
Most people won't do this, some people can't do this - hence very few people indeed have any idea what cancer is - or rather, they have an idea so false and misleading that it misunderstands the very nature of cancer.
This depth and level of misunderstanding of cancer is, I guess, is what has created a situation so wide-open to exploitation - and, by Heavens, it surely has been exploited!
*
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