Current Affairs 6:15 pm
By a group of special needs terrorists.
Seriously, two car bombs that can’t go off, and a jeep gets driven into a wall with no casualties or fatalities.
Don’t get me wrong, i’m very glad that our assailants are imbeciles. But i think now the best response is to laugh at what must be the most inept terrorist attacks in human history.
Let’s of course pray they don’t get lucky, but still, what a bunch of useless muppets.
Philosophy and Stuff only I know why is here 11:14 pm
I really hope they don’t move to the wider legalisation of drugs, because that will mean more people start taking them, and drugs are bad (this is a ‘fact’).
After all, the only reason I don’t murder people is because it’s illegal – and believe you me, if child molestation was legally sanctioned I’d have a whole tribe of Filipino Child Love Slaves.
However, i am rather worried. Nobody seems to believe in God anymore (at least, not really deep down). But if God is Dead, doesn’t that mean we can just go about doing whatever we want? If there’s no hell, what have I got to worry about? Maybe I will order myself those Filipinos after all…
Corrections and Apologies 12:34 am
I was thinking back over some of the previous posts on this blog, and i would like to unconditionally apologise for what i wrote about torture and suspected terrorists. I’ve been reflecting, and I think I must have been going through a patch of mild insanity-cum-idiocy when I wrote that stuff. Here’s a rebuttal of the nonsense I wrote.
Firstly, torture is despicable, inhumane and indefensible. I cannot coherently support any government that licenses it or acquiesces in it. When I said that it raised ‘interesting questions regarding acts and omissions doctrines’ I was talking crap. If the end result is that people get tortured, our government is as responsible whether it carries out the torture itself or merely allows it to happen. It’s a cliche for sure, but if we license torture, no matter how indirectly, we’re as bad as the people we’re supposed to be against, and we compromise the values we claim we stand for.
Secondly, suspects who we consider so dangerous that they must be removed from our shores must surely have an overwhelming amount of evidence against them. If so, then we should be able to imprison them, by due process and rule of law, in this country. If there isn’t enough evidence to secure a conviction here, then there aren’t good grounds to send them to be tortured.
Thirdly, regimes that carry out torture cannot be trusted. Just because they say a suspect is a ‘terrorist’ doesn’t mean it’s true. There is much evidence that regimes such as those in Morocco, Algeria and Libya cite legitimate political activists as ‘terrorists’ so as to have them returned in order to murder them (after torture). Even if we had no qualms about sending people we knew to be terrorists to be tortured themselves - which I now think is an unsustainable position – the risk of sending innocents is too great. The Foreign Office is far from perfect, and has quite a history of getting things wrong.
Now, if men like Abu Qatada just happened to be tortured, then I wouldn’t shed a tear for him personally (though i would despair that there are regimes that still carry out torture). But I feel bound to oppose any government or regime that licenses, facilitates, condones or acquiesces in torture, no matter how despicable the victim.
Finally, I would like to apologise again for having previously voiced opinions that might have led you to believe you had stumbled across a rogue manifestation of the Daily Mail.
Current Affairs 5:24 pm
Yes, i’ve had another letter published in The Observer.
This one is better than the last one, because I make Christine Odone look like the absolute fucktard (word of the week) that she is. It’s so satisfying; for so many weeks i’ve read her dreadful little column and thought “why is this woman allowed to publish???” I now feel as though i have struck a small, but important, blow on behalf of The People.
Ha.
Read it here.
Afterthought: I must admit that i had to be a little dishonest to strike the blow. Anyone who has actually read Machiavelli will know that he’s not a proto-fascist and isn’t interested in subjugating the individual, he’s just an imperialist republican nationalist (in the pre-20th Century meaning of the term) who didn’t really mind if a few people got killed along the way. Oh well, I bet Odone doesn’t know that, so i still sort of win.
Edit: The poor grammar in the published version is not mine. I put this down to counter-revolutionary Odonists sabotaging my work in an attempt to deflect attention from Odone’s idiocy. Which was all in vain after the UTTER CRAP she published today about how Tony the Catholic is now super wonderful. I bet she would hide peadophiles in her attic, so long as they were ordained priests. God i hate her.
Current Affairs and Middle East and Politics 1:32 pm
Although as a general rule i think knighthoods, honours and so forth are symbolic of a bye-gone era, and represent the last vestiges of a lost empire Britain can’t let go of. But in this case i’ll make an exception.
I’m really glad that Salman Rushdie gets a knighthood. Not really because he’s a great author (which he is – but Cliff Richard got a knighthood and he should be shot for crimes against civilisation so there’s no correlation here). Rather, because it’s a nice clear message to those who would attempt to bully us into restricting freedom of speech and expression, and who do it either by declaring that somebody is to be murdered, or by crying ‘offence’ – see previous post for that particular rant. Giving Rushdie a knighthood is, whatever else it might be, a nice little way of saying we will not be bullied. And I like that.
Some other quick reflections while we’re here. First, that a spokesman from Tehran pointed out that because Rushdie mocks Jesus as well as Mohamed in The Satanic Verses, Christians should condemn him also. I think this is the wrong conclusion to draw. I think the right conclusion is to observe that religion need not necessarily be about terrorising people and trying to control them. Which leads to a second reflection; that if God is so almighty that we must do nothing by praise him, can’t he stand up for himself? I mean, can’t he murder Rushdie himself, or at least send his sole to hell? Equally, if one’s faith is truly stable, surely one could just ignore Rushdie and despair for his soul which is surely bound for hell, rather an obsessing over him and giving him lots of publicity?
But then again, those reflections i think bring out the real issue here – that it’s never been about God at all, it’s always been about the people who want to act on his behalf.
Current Affairs and Sagar's Social Commentaries and Sports 9:04 pm
Utterly disgusting. Rich people throwing their money around, wearing stupid clothes and being smug about it. But I keep finding myself watching it on TV: it’s like when there’s a road accident and you know you should walk away, but you just keep staring.
But it really does make me feel quite nauseous. In fact, it’s the same feeling I got when the Bullingdon Club turned up at Filth (nightclub) the other week and proceded to queue-jump and laugh in our faces about it. I’m increasingly regretting that I didn’t take the night in the cells after leaping over the barrier to punch two or three of them in their horrible little faces. After all, they’ll be running the country sooner or later, and everyone needs a good kicking (at least) once in their life, and now they’ll probably never get one. It’s them i feel sorry for, really…
Ah well, life is full of missed opportunities.
These are not hats, these are crimes against aesthetics. Nice biceps on the hermaphrodite, though.
Current Affairs and Philosophy and Politics 11:52 pm
So, the term from hell is over, the unprecedented requirement of essays has been dealt with, and I’ve spent the day reading about the Spanish Civil War. As I had more than 6 hours sleep last night, I’m wide-awake tonight. Time to start releasing some of what has been burning holes in my brain for the last few weeks.
Let’s start with offence. Offence is the new black. If something is offensive, then it is automatically and unconditionally bad. At least, that’s the message I’m hearing from most quarters here at the start of the 21st Century. ‘It’s offensive’ was the reason Balliol College’s highly esteemed gossip-rag John de Balliol was edited out of existence last term (apparently, a feature called ‘bum or boob’, where my large, loveable friend William George Sharp had his anal cleavage photographically compared to the female cleavages of Balliol women, who had put the photos on Facebook and all of whom were asked for permission, was banned because ‘it might be found offensive to women and fat people’. Seriously.) If something is ‘offensive’, it can’t be tolerated; offence is top of the no-no list on Blair’s so-called ‘Respect’ agenda.
I’m now going to point out how utterly bonkers – not to mention dishonest – this all is.
Here’s my starting counter-example to the claim that offence, by itself, constitutes a good enough reason to ban (or outlaw, or silence, or censor etc etc) anything:
Ian is a racist. Ian really hates black people being shown on television. In fact, he hates them so much that their faces offend him. Indeed, he is offended every time he has to see a black person’s face on television.
So should black people be banned from television? Well of course not, that would be stupid. But why would it be stupid? When asked this question, most people usually laugh and say something like “well if you can’t see why, then I can’t tell you”. Which is a crap answer. Indeed, this example of Ian the Racist appears to be an obviously stupid one until you slow down and see the very subtle but important philosophical point being made: that offence alone is not enough to justify a ban, or any kind of action. Other considerations are, implicitly or otherwise, being brought in when we say that “X is offensive, and therefore to be banned”. Offence alone cannot be a good reason to ban something – or else we would have to ban black people on TV to avoid offending racists.
The obvious response here is to point out that not all offence should be considered as equal by the relevant authorities. And I think that is right. The offence ’suffered’ by Ian the Racist – even if we grant that, to the extent that he is a fully committed racist, he really is offended – is not an offence we as society make the choice to prevent. But once again, in making that choice, we have to bring in other considerations apart from the mere fact of offence. We are bringing in other reasons, whatever they might be, when we say that it is OK for Ian the Racist to be offended, but not for Primo the Holocaust Survivor to be offended by neo-Nazis denying his past ever even happened.
Now of course there is a significant difference between Ian and Primo. And of course I am committed to protecting men like Primo, but couldn’t give one what happens to men like Ian. But I think that what differentiates these two cases cannot be the issue of offence alone – and perhaps not even at all; other considerations have to be brought in when we say Primo is to be protected, but not Ian. (IMPORTANT SIDE POINT: At root, I don’t think the reason we protect Primo is really a protection from ‘offence’ at all. I think we are protecting him from outright harm, whereas what Ian ’suffers’ does not constitute harm at all. Now, the dividing line between offence and harm is a blurred one; i can’t sort it out here. That will have to wait for another day. But notice the point at issue; we have moved from talking purely about ‘offence’, to talking about harm).
Having established that offence alone cannot be a good (enough) reason to ban something, I wish now to show that in fact there are many reasons why offence can be a very good thing, and so should, if anything, incline us to resist bans, censorship, outlawing etc.
First, and contrary to what the Blair Project would have you believe, offence is not automatically a bad thing – in fact, it can be rather a good thing. For example, i think it is rather a good thing if Ian the Racist is offended by black people being on television. Why? Because i think a diverse, tolerant multi-racial society is desirable, and if that means insulting bigots like Ian, then so be it. By offending certain people we send them a message that their views are not ours; that their views will not be part of a world we want to live in. Offending some people is a damn good thing.
Secondly, offence can move people to reconsider their own opinions. For example, many men before 1918 might have found it instinctively ’offensive’ to consider women worthy of the vote. Having the ideas put forward, however, might have moved some to reconsider this instinctual reaction, and after reflection abandon it. I’m not saying this happens all the time, or even most of the time; but the fact stands that when somebody is ‘offended’ this can serve as a prompt for them to reconsider their views. I think that is a healthy and essentially good thing – regardless of whether the person ends up maintaining or abandoning the views that led them to be offended in the first place.
Thirdly, and connectedly, issues of offence are important because they serve as the stimulus for public debate. If one group does something, and another decries it as offensive, then we have a public debate on our hands. Whatever the issue is, people on all sides will sit-up, think and start talking about it. This means open public debate, and open public debate is, in my opinion, integral to a healthy liberal democracy. But if issues can be immediately smothered because one group claims that they are ‘offensive’, then we lose something; we lose the opportunity for real, free debate – what we have is at best a shadow of real debate. We are left with a debate as to whether something should have been banned, rather than whether it should be – and whether it might in fact, upon reflection, have some value.
Fourthly, and rather unconnectedly to the above, I have a personal sentiment on this issue. Namely, that the world is full of different people, with different outlooks, sentiments, beliefs and opinions, all trying to forge their different paths. Conflict is inevitable. People will not always get along. Sometimes people are going to say things that you just don’t like. That’s a fact about the world; sometimes you just are going to be offended. I think the healthy response to this is to suck it up, grow a thick skin and (sometimes) walk away. Just accept that sometimes others will do and say things you really don’t like. Sometimes you will want to just ignore them and get on with life. Sometimes you will want to do something about it; perhaps try and convince them to change, or to convince others not to listen to them. Perhaps sometimes you will consider their actions so odious that you will try and actually stop them – and that might be highly appropriate depending on the circumstances. The point is, however, that it is not a healthy response for every time somebody does something that you do not like, for you to cry ‘offence’ and try and get them banned. I do not see it as – nor do I think it should be – the job of relevant authorities to jump to the defence of anybody and everybody who cries that they have been ‘offended’. Offence is a healthy part of life, because it shows that there is plurality in society, and that you have opinions worth getting passionate about. But we are no longer children in the playground, and so should not expect, nor demand, that the metaphorical dinner-ladies put right all and every of our particular personal upsets.
Which is not to say that we should all go about wilfully offending each other for the sake of it. Say I am doing X, and you really don’t like X. If you come and tell me that X really offends you, then I think I have a pretty good reason to stop X-ing. Now it may be that I also have pretty good reasons to carry on X-ing regardless – e.g. it is the only way to save the world – and so I conclude that I must carry on, even if that means offending you. But ceteris paribus i think it is fair to say that I will stop X-ing, because I am a well-brought up human being. Although if you are unlucky, it could just be that I’m a little bastard and so will go on X-ing anyway. But even if that is so, what is the healthier response? To accept that there are bastards in the world, and to ignore me and get on with life, or to have me banned simply because you don’t like what I’m doing? Now, it may well be that it’s not just that you don’t like what I am doing; I may actually be harming you. And in that case I think there is a strong argument for saying I should be stopped by some outside authority (e.g. the state). But notice that the focus has shifted; I am not being stopped just because I am offending you; harm is now the consideration being brought in. Once again, offence alone can’t be doing all the work, even if we admit that the dividing line between offence and harm is a blurred one.
I want to keep this relatively short, so I’ll summarise. Offence alone cannot provide sufficient reason for banning (or censoring, or outlawing etc) anything; other considerations have to be brought in. But once we see this, we can step back and see that offence can carry with it a number of positive aspects. A friend recently laughed at me for saying that “offence is important because it makes people think about what they think they think”. I stand by that statement, however clumsily worded it might be. Now it may be that offence + other (negative) reasons cause us to decide to ban something. So be it. But it may also be that offence + other (positive) considerations cause us to decide not to ban something (for an example, remember that most political satire is offensive, and the best political satire always is).
In the end, if you say you are banning something just because it is offensive, you are being dishonest – there are always other considerations in play. And you are being dishonest, whether you realise it or not.
So if you say that a gossip-rag article is to be banned, if you are being honest you will have to provide better reasons than simply claiming that it is ‘offensive’. You will, for example, have to show that the given article is harmful. If you can make the case for harm, then I will be happy to acquiesce in the ban. But if you can’t, then appeals to offence alone won’t cut the mustard – no matter what position of power you are in and what clarity and purity of moral judgement you have a ascribed to yourself.
Current Affairs 11:27 am
London 2012. Over-budget, under-funded, and in all likelyhood culminating in one giant cock-up making Britain the laughing stock of the world for three weeks, before we’re left with over-sized sports stadiums nobody in the local area can use.
Which makes this
monstrosity all the more apt. I mean seriously, what were they thinking?
New Job Thursday, Jun 28 2007
Current Affairs and Politics and Sagar's Social Commentaries Paul Sagar 10:47 pm
I have some temp work at a private medical centre (remaining nameless for contract reasons). Now, before I am shot down for selling out my socialist credentials, a) I didn’t know what it was til I got there at 9am, and b) I’m working on the transfer of NHS cases to the private sector so as to reduce waiting list times.
For the first part of the day I had to cross-reference names from one list to the mastercopy of the waiting list, and then delete them. I passed the time by pretending I was Stalin, purging the Glorious Soviet Republic of counter-revolutionary scum (complete with cries of “die, Trotskyite!” when nobody was within earshot). Because that’s how I envisage a true Socialist State.
However, I had a mild revelation: the NHS really is fucked. 18 month waiting lists, 1800 people just for orthopaedic operations in the Merseyside area. But to make things worse, we appear to only have about half the files (the rest, hopefully, will turn up tomorrow) for the patients on the list. This isn’t the private company’s fault, incidentally – it’s all down to an NHS that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. (Although if you want the truth as to why the NHS is under *so* much strain, the answer is the elderly; I’d guesstimate that 98% of people on the waiting list are over 65, and certainly over 60. Make of that what you will).
But I do question the wisdom of paying some kid £6 an hour to sort out the waiting list. Luckily I’m reasonably conscientious, and make big efforts not to make mistakes, and to correct the ones I do make - but somebody less committed might not have cared if a few names went off the list when they should have stayed. And that would mean an old person somewhere, probably already poor and in pain, waiting even longer for their operation – and maybe not getting it at all. Scary stuff.
(For covering-my-arse disclaimer reasons, on the outside chance anyone from the press reads this, I do not authorise you to reproduce what I have said, and will not talk to you. My temp boss is a nice guy (for a pure capitalist who leeches the surplus of my labour value), and i don’t want to land him in the proverbial poop).
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