It’s not just hearts that break on St Valentines Day

I am not really one for Valentine’s Day. The idea of a scheduled day for expressing love toward ones significant other seems somewhat against the point to me, and consequentially I was not going to make any Valentine’s Day related post. But then as usual I read something that got my mind ticking along, and before you knew it, I had a rant on the way.

It was this article over at io9, 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Love and Sex that started it all; this line in particular jumped out at me (no pun intended):

"We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap," he says.

The ‘he’ in this case was Hunter Wessells — chair of the urology department at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and he is talking about "[Penile fracture] a severe form of bending injury to the erect penis that occurs when a membrane called the tunica albuginea tears". Apparently then blood fills areas that it isn’t meant to, and you are left with painful swelling and bruising. Ouch!

But enough about that, I am only including the quote because it spurred me on in writing this post (and because it creates a pretty amusing mental image). You have to admit, the man must have had some gusto. And though perhaps this doesn't embody the more loving parts of Valentine’s Day, it nevertheless was the catalyst for the rest of this post.

All I can say is I hope the guy had some form of costume on when they dragged him to the emergency room.

"Holy fractured penis Batman!"

Anyhow, onto the rest of the post:

Saint Valentine's Day, as the name hints, is a celebration rooted in religious steeping. There are a lot of holidays that try and force their religiosity on us, but I can’t claim that it is my atheism that makes me averse to this Saint centered holiday, as one of my favourite days of the year likewise takes its name from an esteemed Catholic of old.

There are 14 Saint Valentines (the Catholics are nothing if not thorough in their application of religion en masse), but the one most often associated with the holiday was a Roman priest martyred (cf. killed) during the reign of Claudius II. What had he done during this time to enrage the then Emperor, but to also instill himself as the name of a holiday based on love?

Marrying Christians.

You see back then it was the Christians who were being persecuted and refused marriage; something you think they would have learnt from by now. The emperor was against marriage for young men in general, because he figured married men would be less willing to serve in his army. So combine the fact that Valentine was helping out Christians (a crime in itself), and marrying people under the Empires nose, and you begin to understand why he was soon put to death.

While in prison, the ever pious Valentine even tried to convert the Emperor, who was likewise trying to convert him! It wasn't much of a competition in the end, with the Emperor being offended by the others efforts (an offended religious person; who would have thought it?), and as a result having Valentine beaten with clubs, stoned and beheaded.

Perfect fodder for a day celebrating love yes?

But there are much more interesting facts about Valentines Day from around the world that don't necessarily involve gruesome murder, for instance:

It is a public holiday in Mexico.

In Slovenia the traditional day of love is March 12, the Saint Gregory's day, which I love solely for its dispassionate sound.

Guatemala isn't as willing to commit, and simply calls it Affection Day. While Latveria celebrate it as ‘Just Good Friends’ day, though don’t quote me on that one.

The most depressing of all the worlds traditions I read about has to be Korea’s. It starts off good; on the 14^th of February men are given chocolate by women, so I am up for that. Then on March 14^th, men reciprocate by giving non-chocolate candy to the women, in what is called White Day. But then, to add insult to what would have hoped to have been private injury, April 14^th is called ‘Black Day’, and those who did not receive anything on Valentine’s Day, or White Day, “go to a Korean restaurant to eat black noodles (자장면 jajangmyeon) and "mourn" their single life”!!

Nothing helps you cheer up about your single life more than drab black noodles

After reading up a bit on Valentine’s Day, and how it is expressed across the globe, I have to say that the cynics, who often bemoan the commercialisation of this ‘holiday’, are pretty on the ball in this case. It’s obvious that Valentine’s Day is latched on to by the flower, chocolates and greeting card industry, but in many cases this is the sole reason for the holiday’s existence. Many cultures have a love related day, and many western ones derive this from some sort of religious origin and custom dating back to the days of Chaucer. But many more, such as those in Japan, Denmark and Norway were forced into the native culture by florist organisations, and chocolate company executives.

This has been so successful in Japan that Japanese chocolate companies now make half their annual sales during this time of the year!

Japanese ladies may seem a bit jilted, as due to a typo from one of these executives back when they were fabricating this special day, it was perceived that the custom should be only for women to give chocolates to men. However don't feel too bad for the Japanese female population, as those crafty execs also managed to institute a ‘White day’, or ‘Reply Day’ on March 14^th, where men are expected to return the favour to those women who gave them chocolate, but the return gifts are expected to be at least two or three times more valuable than the gifts received on Valentine's Day.

The obverse situation to all this lovey stuff is of course found in Saudi Arabia where the ‘cheer police’ not only ban the holiday for its Christian origins, but also warn local store owners not to stock any red items on that day. How lovely.

I suppose it is better than in Malaysia where last year over 100 couples were arrested on Valentines Day simply for being together (and perhaps wanting to have sex), while the Deputy Prime Minister remarked on how celebrating romantic love was "not suitable" for Muslims.

At the end of the day there is no real harm in having a day set aside for celebrating romantic love. And hell, it might even spur on those less likely to express this stuff daily to their loved ones. But honestly I find the stuff above, the changes through history, and the differing perspectives of the world, far more interesting than boxes of chocolates and soon to die flowers.

Tata for now.

MM

My Thoughts on Religion as a Child Weren’t That Childish

I have been reading a lot of ‘Why I am an atheist’ posts from various people over at PZ Myers blog Pharyngula, and thought it would be interesting to tackle my own. However I found my explanation for why I am an atheist somewhat less interesting (I am an atheist, and always have been), and slowly my post turned into yet another rant. This one involved some of my early thoughts regarding religion when I was a child, and how my early version of atheism treated religion when it was thrust upon me.

I hope it is entertaining in some way for you dear reader, so please, enjoy:

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I have been an atheist for as long as I can remember. I am not one of those atheists who have a nice story of discovering their atheism, or conjunctly losing their religious faith. I can’t really explain how I became an atheist, only point out that at some point along the way, I realised that I was one.

I remember attending religious education classes in primary school, I don’t recall what age I was, or why I was in religious education at a public school at all (I assume my parents could have opted out, but chose not to for some reason); but I do remember the stark differences I noticed between real classes, and what was essentially story time, with unconvincing, and un-entertaining stories.

Like when Jesus cursed a tree. That's right; a tree. A worthy foe for the son of a god

The god stuff never gelled for me, and I remember sneakily voicing this fact to my fellow students in a hushed tone.

“I don’t think this god stuff is real” I would whisper.

Many of my mates didn’t either, but there didn’t really seem to be any room for questioning the truth of these classes; we just undertook them. Indoctrination after all is only really a one way process.

I do remember one of my early reasoned arguments as to why I didn’t think that the particular religion I was being exposed to at school was the ‘right one’. Being an avid reader and watcher of documentaries as a child, I was vaguely aware of the history of western civilisation’s conquest of other nations and peoples. I knew about Inca gold, and conquistadors; about Native American Indians, and Australian aboriginals.

Thus it seemed to me at an early age that there was a conspicuous lack of verification from any of these newly encountered peoples, regarding the ultimate nature of the universe. Each group appeared to have their own guesses, and Christianity only seemed to flow from country to country with the power and influence of its current believers (or at the tip of their divine sword).

"Behold; my rational arguments for believing in Jesus!"

What would have convinced me was the arrival of Cortez to an unknown land, but one replete with Christ worshipers (or at least a form of proto-Jew still waiting to hear of the messiah’s arrival). When civilisations meet, there are generally common facts that they will be able to confirm with one another.

Have you heard of Mars, the fire planet?Yes we have, but we call him something else, and believe it is a wandering beast.

Fair enough. Not really the same answer and perhaps a charge of blasphemy if someone was zealous enough; but nonetheless a general agreement on the physical facts. Mars is up there, looks a bit reddish, occasionally moves in retrograde motions et cetera. The notion of a god however, is never so similar.

Have you heard of Jesus of Nazareth, your eternal saviour?
No I have not. But if you sacrifice a young girl to Tezcatlipoca, I am sure he will enlighten us.

Sure people might like to point out that most, if not all, of these civilisations nevertheless had concepts of supernatural beings in common. However if you look at the nature of these disparate deities you will see they are far too different, and often outright contradictory, to be different interpretations of the same fact.

In order for a semblance of credibility to be attributed toward the Christian explanation for the universe, and mans place within it, there would need to be interpretations which though they may differ, at least bare more than a passing resemblance to one another.

But of course, this is never the case. Some religions have similar stories to others, but inevitably, they are always within walking distance, or perhaps hiking, trading or sailing distance from each other. We would expect the Egyptian mythology to have similar characters to Greek ones. I am not in the least surprised that the religion of the Carthaginian Empire bears a resemblance to the Phoenician one because if you chanced to look at it, I would bet their cultures also share similarities.

Pictured: Carthaginians. (And if you think that was a stretch to get Gladiator in there, then you forget you are dealing with a man who had his son named Harrison Maximus Gunn Morton)

However when you look at it rationally, there is an obvious excuse for this lack of knowledge being spread around the globe, namely that it isn’t true. The Christian on the other hand must explain why, for some reason, their almighty god decided that rather than appear in one of the more advanced civilisationsof the day, it was better to confine himself to a small portion of the Arabian Peninsula.

One might then seek to get away with this lack of independent Christians throughout the world, and explain it away by pointing out a Bible passage that commands Christians to do their best to spread the word (a task I might add that surely could have been better achieved if Christ had lived in China, or perhaps if the almighty god itself had helped out distributing his leaflets). In this sense the lack of confirmation from other lands is acceptable, as the almighty predicted this occurrence, and took account for it in the decree to prosthelytise.

Ignoring the fact that this seems quite an inefficient and demonstrably unsuccessful way of spreading ultimate truth, the avid apologist would still have to account for the fact that these isolated pockets of other religions seem to have wildly different origin stories than those prevalent in the middle east. The Hindu people believe that the earth was created by a cosmic egg being split, while the early Finns will tell you about how the world was created when a beautiful teal landed on the primordial waters and laid seven eggs, one of which would become the earth. It’s not like they are just a bit out; they are way out (though both are at least ova related).

However, don’t count out those persistent Christian apologists yet, because thousands of years of cultural evolution have made quite a slippery beast of their originally desert dwelling religion.

Ask a learned Christian about the question of different cultures and languages, and you will no doubt be presented with the Tower of Babel as the panacea for all rational thought on the subject.

For those not in the know, the tower of Babel is a Biblical story whereby man got quite cocky with himself, and decided to build a tower so high, that they could reach heaven. God, seeing that and being caught quite off guard, decided to thwart mans attempt to jump the queue (he is the arch-conservative after all), and scattered them upon the face of the earth. To add insult to injury God moved to hinder mankind further by confusing his language, remarking “Come, let us go down and confound their speech”.

Considering the modest height of it, God must be incensed at the Burj Khalifa

This is supposed to explain the profusion of differing languages across the globe, but is woefully inaccurate and childish when compared to the linguistic analysis we have about the development of humanlanguages. Not to mention the odd way that this god talks, which is either to himself, or some bizarre combination of first and third person narrative (he is after all three gods in one I suppose).

So here we have a story trying to explain the different languages and cultures across the earth. However it fails to really address the question, as though it would be true that two peoples unable to communicate will develop differently; it doesn’t then follow that they will drastically change their religious views accordingly. I find it hard to believe that the Mayans developed their rich mythology and religious practises from a primitive version of Christianity, or that the fortelling of Ragnarök has merely resulted from inexact interpretations of Christian eschatology.

This smacks of a form of linguistic elitism, whereby those who follow the Bible must assume that the only group of people who managed to ‘get it right’, were those who spoke their own favoured language.

Nor does this biblical explanation take into account mankind’s adroit ability to learn other languages! Surely two groups of people living nearby would not give up so quickly upon realising they speak a different language. It is this kind of fairytale explaining that not only fails to capture the truth of the world, but also sets up our kid’s minds for failure in the future, when real life explanations cannot be counted upon to be so childish.

Though I am still partial to invoking Thor as the explanation for thunder...

Now, whether the Christian believes this story as literal or as merely metaphorical is another matter.

But, I don’t want to turn this post into a rant too focused on these particular arguments against the Christian religion. Rather I just want to highlight the fact that this was an influential argument that I came up with all by myself whilst in primary school. It isn’t really that technical, nor was it planted in my head by any overwhelmingly atheist or secular influence; it’s just what I believed to be the rational outcome after learning about humanity’s history on this earth.

As time went by, and my atheistic roots grew ever deeper, I would amass a bevy of additional arguments against the religious myths and assertions thrown my way. But I always remembered this particular set of reasoning that allowed me to come up with my own theory of what they world would be like if these religious claims were true, and why the facts that I knew about the world negated this null hypothesis.

It was my first example of what is now a long tradition of atheism setting me free.

I can only hope that by arming my son with similar tools of the mind, he too will be able to see through the false claims of religions, and observe the fundamental inconsistencies within. The world may be a bit of a harsh reality to face at first, especially with these religions tailor making their ontology to be more attractive to susceptible human minds. But I think there is a much more satisfactory existence to be had in accepting the truth regardless of the outcome, because surely there is more virtue in such a thing, than there is in the alternative (i.e. comfort in untruth).

I am a firm believer in the art of quoting other people, if only because of the modest fact that pretty much anything I say can and has been said better by more qualified people before me. So as I am wont to do, I shall end this post with a couple of quotes from my arsenal.

“The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it” – George Santayana

“I cannot believe — and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable — that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome. It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth” - Bertrand Russell

Cheers.
MM

February

February is definitely the weirdest month of the year. Its the only variable month; the only month that never (at least nowadays) has the standard 30, or 31, days. As a result, this mucks up that useful rhyme that helps us remember how long a month is. Or you can just use this handy tool:

It is also the month most often mispronounced, with the initial ‘r’ causing a lot of trouble. There is something called the dissimilation effect, which explains the fact that having two ‘r’s so close together in a word causes us to drop the pronunciation of one of them as we speak (think of surprise, or particular for instance). This is why we sometimes hear February being called ‘Febuary’, like its January neighbour.

Incidentally both these months share name roots with two ancient Roman gods; January Being Janus (that’s right, the god of doors), and February being Februu. Though actually the god Februu was named after a purification ceremony that took place at that time of the year. I find it interesting that the Romans explicitly named their gods after things that already existed, such as festivals, or concepts. Seems a much more human way of making a religion.

Janus also had two faces, one to look back and the other forward; which makes sense as the first month of the year I suppose. Looking back at the previous year, looking forward to the new year.

Anyhow, odd though February may be, looking into its history actually helps explain why our calendar looks the way it does today, and solves a little quirk involving the months names that used to annoy me as a child.

Way back prior to 713 BCE, before Jesus was invented, the Roman calendar was based on the lunar cycle, so that every month had around 30/31 days. It was a ten month calendar, with roughly each month being named in the Roman fashion for its position throughout the year. Hence back then the fifth month was called Quintilis (literally Latin for fifth), and the sixth was Sextilis (later to become August, the best month), ‘sept’ for seven made September, ‘oct’ for eight: October, and so on up to December.

I remember noticing this as a kid and being confused as to why the numbering order was out of sync with the months place in the year.

Well it turns out that back when this roman lunar calendar was being used, there were only ten months in a year, and they were named and set out as such:

Martius (31 days), Aprilis (30 days), Maius (31 days), Iunius (30 days), Quintilis (31 days), Sextilis (30 days), September (30 days), October (31 days), November (30 days), December (30 days).

The more astute of readers might have noticed that this leaves us with a year only 304 days long. It turns out that the Romans didn’t consider the winter season as having any months at all, and so when the month of December came to an end, the calendar simply stopped and waited until the winter season broke, and Martius (March) could begin.

Then King of Rome, Numa Pompilius, put a stop to this practise by adding in two 26 day months at the end of the year; and here is where we find the beginning of January, and February.

Around two-hundred and sixty years later the start of the year was moved from March to January, and the length of the months altered so that January began to resemble a more normal month, while February was doomed to forever be the odd month out, accounting for the sloppy ellipse our planet makes around the sun each year (why didnt the gods just make a more evenly divided circuit of the sun?).

And so February moved from being a disjointed time of the year, to the end of the year, and now to its current spot as the second month of the year. It started off as no days, was born with 26 days, fluctuated for a while from 23, to 27 and even 30 days before settling on its four year oscillation from 28 to 29 days.

On a leap year it is the only month that ends on the same day of the week that it began, which just has to be true, because it’s on Wikipedia.

Though it is named after a ritual that we no longer practice, perhaps we should think ourselves lucky that February didn’t retain its old English name of Solmonath, which described it as the mud month, or the curious Kale-monath, which proclaimed it the month of cabbage.

Cabbage; great for Chow Mein, not so great for naming months after.

There are languages whose names for February stem from nicer etymologies, such as the Finnish name helmikuu. This translates to the month of the pearl, and describes the frozen droplets that form on trees around that time of year in Finland. The Polish and Ukrainian languages likewise refer to the obvious season properties in that region, where they call February Luty or лютий, meaning the month of ice or hard frost.

Luckily us English speakers from the southern hemisphere can focus on our defunct Roman ritual based month, instead of having to reside in a month named after cold, when the time of year can be anything but.

February also has some interesting anniversaries in it:

National No-Bathroom Month [sic] (whatever that means) 

Groundhog Day: February 2 

Abraham Lincoln's birthday: February 12 (More importantly Darwin Day, as the great naturalist was born on the same day in history as the great emancipator) 

Liberation Day (Kuwait) February 26 (Really?) 

National Wear Red Day………..

I for one celebrated Groundhog Day with a re-watch of the Bill Murray classic.

"I would love to stay here and talk with you... But I'm not going to ......." - Phil Connors

And with that I end my little post on the shortest month of the year; I hope it was in some way enlightening for you.
Cheers.
MM

My Domesticated Palate

My wife, son and I recently attended a family dinner for my mother-in-laws birthday. The main event of the night was a lobster based meal, prepared in advance (drawn and quartered in a manner that would impress the English executioners of old) and to the fervent delights of many of the nights attendees.

Alas poor Lobsterheart, you suffer the same fate as William Wallace.

As my wife and I (and consequentially now our son) are ardent opponents of sea foods, we did not take part in the culinary ordeal.
It is quite a thing to watch from the outside as people who are accustomed to it commence taking apart a lobster. The viscera on display, the crunch of exoskeletons, the sucking of innards, the dead eyes of the creature on display and themselves under threat of being devoured; it is a scene more accustomed to narration by David Attenborough than to be witnessed at a dinner table.

Pictured: David Attenborough, not pictured: acceptable human food

We are evidently much more at ease leaving the face and general form of an animal on display so long as its place on the evolutionary tree is sufficiently to the left of us mammals.
My own dislike for any foods pulled unwillingly from the water can trace its genesis back to my mother, who is deathly allergic to any such foods. This is quite unfortunate for my dad, who loves most of what the sea has to offer, from fish and octopi, to squid and lobsters.
As such growing up in this household of opposing tastes was an interesting experience, where every once in a while my dad was either banished to the outdoors where he and my sister would have a seafood smorgasbord, or else my mother and I would be relegated to some other corner of the house, while the dining room was filled with various marine feasts.
And I don’t care what you say, seafood has quite an intrusive, and unpleasant odour. I don’t think my dislike of this smell can be pinned solely on my dislike for the food, as there is something slightly rotten about the smell in general; something all too easily associated with a particularly dirty beach.

Above: How seafood smells to me

But the main reason I bring this up dear reader is because I had an interesting epiphany about my eating habits as I sat at that table watching carapace being crushed with glee.
I only eat domesticated animals.
Bear in mind that I am not being inclusive of the whole set here; that is to say, I don’t eat all domesticated animals (though I do hear that dog is especially delicious). I just mean that all of the animals that I do eat appear to be of the domesticated variety. Cow, pig, sheep, chicken, turkey; these are all species forged by man from their wild ancestors.

Wild Turkey.... I prefer a nice scotch.

But if you look at the nature of seafood, and the creatures on the menu, you will seldom find anything that can be genuinely called domesticated.
What’s that you say? There are lobster farms. Well yes, you are correct (gold star), but animals can be farmed without being domesticated. Domestication involves artificial selection by humans that results in a genetic change of the population; so that the new animals are fundamentally different from those at the beginning. Animals can be farmed without this selection process influencing the population, and this is what is done with fish, lobsters et cetera.
I mentioned earlier the fact that seafood is generally displayed in a lot more confronting way that its terrestrial counterpart, with heads on display, superfluous body parts remaining unbutchered, and sometime the whole animal remaining on your plate. Now, one of the more obvious properties of an animal domesticated for food is the enlarging of these eatable areas, and the general ‘softening’ or the rest of the animal. Thus we can hack off steaks, and chicken fillets with ease, but perhaps a fish, or lobster are less advantaged by the fact that their physiological structure has not been altered by the thousands of years of animal husbandry that turned the beastly Auroch, into the manageably corpulent Friesian.

I busted out my MS Paint skills to give this comparison of the Auroch's size to that of a modern cow.

Evidently the barrier of water between us and our fishy prey is enough to hold off mans domesticating advances. Sure nowadays we do have fish farms, and a couple of domesticate fish varieties, but these things have a long way to go before they can match the variety and specialisation of our more celebrated domestications.

So I was very interested when I came to note this property of my eating habits. Previously I had maintained that I would only eat an animal that swam solely to escape the water; an animal which if thrown in the water, would not feel at home.
Now I have a slightly better basis to explain my eating habits; I don’t eat wild animals.
This is more likely than not a by-product of my aversion to eating meat at a philosophical level, but my inability to stop eating meat at a “it just tastes so damn good” level.
But what the hell, I am willing to take this explanation at face value, and deal with the further implications another day.

MM

In The Courier

I have been a pretty regular commenter on The Courier's website this past couple of years. It’s a great way to interact with those in your community [I was going to say ‘especially the crazy people in the community', until I saw the double edge to that sword], and I had even managed to have a few of my comments cross over into the physical world when they were published in the Web Words section of the paper, which was nice.

But last week for the first time I noticed as I was typing one of my replies to a particularly inane Letter to the Editor, that its length was growing to well above what would fit in the meagre comment box provided. Rather than trim and cull sections as I usually do, I decided to submit this as my first ever Letter to the Editor.

It got in, despite its lengthy rant, and gave me a warm feeling for the day. I had a couple of people come by my desk at work and mention it, and all seemed to agree with my points, and claimed I wrote a nice piece. I was pretty wrapped, but was disheartened when it failed to appear on the internet as well.

How would I know what the public thought if I didn’t get any comments of my own?

What would the SvetlanaBabe’s, My Thought’s and Clint’s of Ballarat think of my letter?

I was not to know.

As a result I decided to chuck it up here, starting with the letter that was the catalyst for my response, so that at least somewhere there was a sense of continuity.

So here is the post by a Mister Phillip Slade; those of you in the audience who are averse to sloppy arguments, rash generalisations and fuzzy rationale, look away now.

Display of Australian flags disappointing31 Jan, 2012 02:57 PMI MUST say on seeing the omnipresent display of flags in and around Ballarat on Australia Day, I felt a sense of disappointment for the bearers of those flags. 

There was a time when we as a nation did not need to display a flag — other than at ceremonies and sporting events — to affirm our patriotism. 

We should therefore ask ourselves where this sudden inclination to air our nationalistic fervour comes from. 

Could it be a manifestation of John Howard's dog whistle politics? ("We shall decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come ..." — code for we will keep the foreigners out). 

And the multiplication of flags is acknowledgement of a perverted call to arms that still, to this very day, has an odious impact on those not fully sure of who or what they are, and in turn makes all refugees and immigrants feel marginalised. 

Phillip Slade 

Ballarat

I am not sure about you guys, but that post really made me want to say something in return. The article touches on a lot of things as it rambles aimlessly along: the objections people have shown in recent years to Australian flags, hostility toward Australia Day in general, it’s got a hint of conservatism, but also of out of control liberalism, it mentions nationalism, Howard, Refugees, immigrants; enough buzz words to incense someone no matter what quadrant of the political spectrum they find themselves

I don’t feel my reply needs any introduction, as it takes off in direct opposition to the above letter. Enjoy:

Just because our flag can be misappropriated, does not mean it should be hidden.

Phillip Slade’s letter to the editor (Display of Australian flags disappointing,31 Jan) in which he bemoans the ubiquitous Australian flags on Australia Day seems to highlight a man missing the point. 

Australia Day is a day to celebrate your nation, and what better way to display this than with the symbol of our nation; the Australian flag? To do so doesn’t have any underlying isolationist meaning as Phil suggests. 

He says “There was a time when we as a nation did not need to display a flag — other than at ceremonies and sporting events — to affirm our patriotism”. That may well be true, but it doesn’t make it right. How people displayed their love for Australia in the past doesn’t condemn us to the same solemn practises today. 

Contrary to Phil’s assertion, I believe we can safely celebrate Australia without fear of ostracising refugees or immigrants. Indeed I would think it quite the opposite; we should be celebrating Australia and showing these groups the true mettle of our nation. A nation that helps others and that was built by immigrants. 

Remember an immigrant is still an Australian, and if a refugee is successful in their citizenship, then so are they. They should feel no more marginalised by the display of Australian flags, then they do by the existence of an Australia Day. 

Just because some people can take our flag, and drape it over their shoulders whilst they commit crimes in a race riot, does not mean that the flag itself, or the ideals it carries, follow too. The Australian flag can be appropriated by those who think of Australia as ‘theirs’ and not available to outsides. It can be adopted by nationalistic bigots, but it doesn’t belong to them.I personally don’t fly a flag on Australia day, or any other day. I am not an overtly patriotic man, though I love the country I live in, I don’t hold it higher than any other man-made institution. But if others choose to I don’t look down on them, or feel ashamed at their Aussie zeal. 

My son is five and he loves waving a flag on Australia day because he thinks it is a great place to live in, and at the end of the day we shouldn’t take this away from him just because it can be likewise waved by those with more nefarious intent.

So then, what do you think? Yes, a bit of an all over the place rant, but I think I manage to pull off a better letter than Slade did, so I'm happy enough.

Also, as I was reading up on Schopenhauer for my last post, I came across this quote of his dealing with national pride. As is usual for the cranky German, he doesn’t have much nice to say about it, and I don’t quite agree with all its precepts. But it is a nice way to think of how those extreme ‘Australian Pride’ people might be falling back on their nationalistic views in order to make up for what seems to be an obvious faltering of their own character.

“The cheapest form of pride however is national pride. For it betrays in the one thus afflicted the lack of individual qualities of which he could be proud, while he would not otherwise reach for what he shares with so many millions. He who possesses significant personal merits will rather recognise the defects of his own nation, as he has them constantly before his eyes, most clearly. But that poor beggar who has nothing in the world of which he can be proud, latches onto the last means of being proud, the nation to which he belongs to. Thus he recovers and is now in gratitude ready to defend with hands and feet all errors and follies which are its own.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

Schopenhauer: it surprises me not that he was convicted for battering an old lady once....

It’s funny; first of all I was intent with my comments making it on to The Courier’s website simply under the articles I was commenting on, then I became excited when they were taken from the net and printed in the paper as Web Words. But now I find myself slightly annoyed that what I wrote made it straight into the paper, bypassing the electronic world I had originally resided in!

Anyhow, now I have that off my chest, I think this post has come to an end.

Let me know what you think in the comments, cheers.

MM

Wednesday's Words - Week 2

Second installment of Wednesdays Words and I already find myself running behind! Its barely still Wednesday, and I have no post on the go. I shall blame this on the pitiful quotes to choose from (“Buildings should be good neighbours” – Paul Thiry; really? Should cars be pen pals as well?).

Anyhow, I have found one worthy quote from the list that I will do my best to write a quick spiel on before the p.m. moves to a.m.

“Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

Meet Arthur Schopenhauer. For those of you who don’t know him, he is the pessimistic philosopher who gave us such gems as “Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex”, “ If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it”, and "Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people".
But as grim and sexist as some of his thoughts may be, the man did have a keen mind when it was employed in more rationale pursuits, and his philosophical writing (though over 152 years old), is refreshingly easy to read. Especially for a philosopher.

His above quote I like good enough as it is, but I also think the thought behind it would go well updated a bit for our modern era.
Newspapers, though they aren’t dead yet, have definitely been overtaken in terms of currency as a source of projecting the news of the day. Indeed, its no longer sufficient to have our news delivered daily, we need it hourly, by the minute, or updated by the second. This is the age of Twitter after all, and if you lumber behind, saving your well thought out articles for 24 hour increments, you are sure to be scooped.

Perhaps the quote is best altered by a quick reallocation of positions. Lets call newspapers the minute hand of history; slow enough to appear immobile at times, yet quick enough to notice as events move on. Perhaps the hour hand would be symbolised by more permanent and steadfast forms of the written word; by books.
So now we find the second hand of history moving much closer in sync with the flow of time in the real world; where news can be read pretty much as it happens. Whether it be the instant dissemination of recent deaths, the ability to run revolutions on the ground, or even the inadvertent tweeting of significant world events; we don't wait to hear about things the next day.

But this rapid news hand of the metaphorical clock has its faults still, and as Schopenhauer mentioned, its metal is hardly the metal of its fellow hands. As the ability to report things moves into the hands of everyday people, its quality is likewise diluted (if you don't believe me, just look at the blog you are reading; written by a man with no discernible qualifications).
Sometimes I cant help but feel that the tendency of news and events to form a self perpetuating loop these days is all the more increased as the spread of information becomes easier, and more wide-spread. News is news simply because it is news. The more people report on speculation, the more weight that the speculation seems to have. It is a worry when things can become so distorted, where news and information can spread so fast and unverified, whilst our mindsets are still set in days where we put stock in such things.
How often do you hear of Twitter and 'social media' being quoted on the news, or of the number of hits a YouTube video received, without any proper context being given (is a million hits really lending credibility here?).
The new second hand of history moves so fast and so erratically that people confuse it with the more steady motions of the minute hand. But at the end of the day, I am still much more entertained by the history this clock reveals, that I was before it developed.


Anyhow, this post didn't really have much of a point, nor much of an end; I just thought it an interesting concept.
Good night all.
MM

Censorship Rumblings in the World’s Biggest Democracy

Worrying and disappointing news from the sub-continent today.

It appears that a court in New Delhi has given 22 internet based companies (including heavyweights such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and Blogspot) two weeks to present plans for policing their various networks for photographs, videos or text that they deem to be “anti-religious or anti-social”.

Google India already began their cull of sites on Monday, not citing any specific examples of what was taken down, but asserting that it would be “willing to go after anything that violated local law or its own standards”.

India has always been a somewhat conservative country, so it isn't surprising to see its official’s religious views finding their way into their professional duties. But for a country that is hoping to use the information technology boon to help raise the living standards of its 1.2 billion strong population, such conservative religious views are invariably going to become a hindrance.

But it isn’t just the idea of censorship that gets me worried when reading about this latest development, but rather the odd rationale those in support of it employ and the dangerous arguments that are used to justify it.

Rationale such as this:

“Indian political leaders in support of the new rules say that their socially-conservative country has a long history of religious division and that publishing offensive material online presents a public danger.”

Now hang on here. Surely the greater public danger is the fact that such ‘religious division’ can be so readily counted upon as a source for reliable future violence. You shouldn’t seek to combat violent religious retaliations toward freedom of expression by halting the expression; you do it by countering those who not only silence people by force and the threat of violence, but who also seek to forestall anything that may offend their religious sensibilities from ever seeing the light of day.

This is the kind of dangerous argument and rationale that I am referring to; focusing not on the cause of the problem, but on seeking to avoid the problem by placating those who so readily turn to violence.

It’s like telling your kid not to behave a certain way, because then bullies will pick on them. No. You behave how you want to (provided it doesn’t hurt others), and be damned the consequences! It is the bullies who need to be confronted, and their way of behaving changed.

Unfortunately for us, the bullies in this real life example won’t change, and their claim to injury is purely in their minds. Injuries like this can be as capricious as they like, because they cause no real tangible harm, and they have no way of being quantified, so that those who claim to suffer for it, can do so with impunity and vigour.

Such claims should not only not be taken seriously, but also put under scrutiny as their origin is generally a hidden motivation, and not just a response to outside influence (as real injuries are).

Internet access in India is relatively uncensored, especially in contrast to its northern neighbour China. But the Indian Communications Minister Sachin Pilot, displayed a worrying understanding of what censorship entails when he sought to assure people that "there is no question of any censorship" relating to this new court decision, but that at any rate all internet companies “have to operate within the laws of the country”.

So there is no question of censorship, you just have to obey the laws that detail what you can, and cannot display on the internet in that country. So while the internet is relatively uncensored, the groundwork is being laid for a form of censorship to be enacted.

Further justifying the new rulings, the Communications Minister said “Anyone hurt by online content should be able to seek legal redress”. Really?

The idea of being hurt by online content sounds remarkably like a category mistake to me. The form of hurt he refers to here is simply that of sensibilities, and isn’t something that the state need to be in charge of policing.

The government however further claims that it has evidence regarding 21 sites it plans on prosecuting for the rather dubious offenses of “promoting enmity between classes and causing prejudice to national integration”.

Again, they are treating the wrong thing here when they focus on sites that promote enmity between classes, but in this case they should be looking at why class warfare in India remains at the state it is in.

"We must stop people being offended by this caste problem. Perhaps if we censor the sign......."  - Faulty rationale

One wonders what this same style of online censorship would yield in Australia. Perhaps if I took enough offense, I wouldn't have to see Facebook pages exclaiming “Refugees go Home”, or other such xenophobic nonsense. Though I don’t think I would be so lucky, as no doubt the conservative religious forces in Australia would outdo me in their ability to be offended by things that don’t affect them directly (like perhaps gay people being married or the ridicule of mythical Bible characters).

Ouch! Can you feel the hurt that this offensive images exudes?

In case you were wondering what (beyond the mere possibility of offending sensitive people) has spurred on this recent move by the Indian Government, take a look at the examples that were recently brought to its attention.

The Associated Press reported that “Indian officials have been incensed by material insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and religious groups, including illustrations showing Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions and pigs running through Mecca, Islam's holiest city”.

Shocking stuff indeed! Insulting politicians; how dare they.

The thought bubble octopus really makes me wish I read Hindi.

We should be worried when those in the public eye, in particular elected individuals, seek to be excised as a target for public satire, criticism and ridicule. But then again this same tactic was used for centuries to ensure that religions, in particular their adherents and their earthly institutions, were rendered immune to criticism; so perhaps we should not be so surprised.


These new capitulations by the government of India to those who seek offense (and I say seek, because offense seldom forces your participation) are already being capitalised upon by some Indian Muslims, who show the lengths they are willing to go to in order to try and stifle any opposition to their authoritarian worldview. Take a look at this quote from the same article mentioned above:

“Prosecutors, who sued on behalf of a Muslim religious leader who accused companies of hosting pages that disparage Islam, said they would provide the companies with all relevant documents. The court gave the companies 15 more days to report back”

So not only are the sites offensive, but those hosting them will find themselves squarely in the crosshairs of intolerance. This form of multilevel oppression is not uncommon from fundamentalist Muslims who find offense in the most banal of places. Just look at the furore that surroundedthe release of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988, not only was the author himself threatened (and driven underground for years), but so to were “all those involved in its publication”. In the end this resulted in the murder of the book's Japanese translator and the near-deaths of another translator and one publisher.

For a more contemporary example, witness the anger that accompanied the printing of cartoons involving Mohammed in an obscure Danish newspaper, way back in 2005; you will see that thought the times change, the mindsets of those stuck in the Middle Ages remain steadfast.

Commenting on Islam’s prohibition of picturing Mohammed in their art, and their abstinence of things like pork, alcohol and in some cases music and dancing, Christopher Hitchens remarked “Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.”

The Hitch may be dead, but his awesome words remain.

Surrendering to the possible offense of others isn’t just a slippery slope; it is an invitation for further advance. After all how can you be certain to remove all possible offensive actions? The only way to make certain that you will not offend others is to become what they want you to be. The only way to not offend a fundamentalist Christian is to believe in their version of the Bible, and attest as they do. The only human that would not offend a fundamentalist Muslim is one that adheres to their faith, and follows the rules they believe.

There is a simple solution to those who are offended by things they see on the internet, and it isn’t to sue the individuals who put it there, nor is it to block the apparently offensive materials, or kill those responsible.
It is to simply not look at it.

Your offense, as I have mentioned in previous posts, is your own personal thing to deal with. It’s not something people have to surrender to without recourse to rational debate.

Sure there might be examples of things we want to ban from the internet without it necessarily turning into censorship. We should do all we can to eliminate the perfusion of child porn on the internet for instance.

But to ban things from the internet just because they might cause offense to others goes one step too far. It concedes a fight with the very people we should be glad to fight against. It is a step back against the forces of intolerance that will never reciprocate for us any form of concession on their behalf.

Rant complete, let me know what you think in the comments below.

MM