Attitudes to Terrorism

On a weekend late last year, I went into Cardiff to do some shopping. On the end of the high street stood two armed police. I know they were armed because they had their rifles on display. Lots of people were looking at them, some seemed in disbelief and some seemed anxious. There was a football match on later, and that's apparently the only excuse they needed. If you want trouble, the worst thing you can do is provoke it. Violent people are provoked by intimidation and the thought of violence. What were they thinking?

Guns on display unnecessarily. Bag searches. Security cameras. Notices on streets, threatening you of consequences to actions that you wouldn't have thought of had the notices not educated you. It all serves to put innocent people on edge, creating paranoia and panic. At best, all of these things make the perpetrators accessories to terrorism. At worst, it makes them terrorists themselves, regardless of whether their aim is to subdue or to provoke, and regardless of whether they had foreseen the consequences of their actions.

If this is seen by nation states as the way forward to tackle terrorism, the terrorists have won. This approach is an obscure form of "if you can't beat them, join them:" This argument is that people need to be terrorised in order to protect them from terrorists. Such steps are necessarily at the sake of civil freedom and liberty. Even accepting the not-quite-paradoxical argument that you need to control people to give them freedom, using terrorist tactics (intentional or not) cannot be the answer. (Or if it is the answer, the very concept of society (and social freedom) is fatally flawed and should be abolished, which admittedly would remove terrorists' main target.)

So what is the right course of action? Anyone sane would have to agree that something needs to be done to curtail the influence of bad people, such as terrorists. The answer simple. I'll split it into two parts.

First, let people know how ridiculously unlikely it is that they will be affected by terrorism. (That is, at least by terrorists; governments are much more of a nuisance in this department.) There are more pressing, more prevalent things to worry about, such as dangerous driving, disease and the increasing prevalence of supermarkets and mindless TV, and the effect on women of and women's magazines. There are more likely things to get you killed, and even they are very low risk: You just have to be careful.

Terrorism isn't any worse now than it used to be. In fact, the situation has improved. Governments spend more money averting it. People are more vigilant. In the last few decades, many prominent terrorist groups - the IRA and al Qaeda and ETA are three obvious examples - have been subdued or eradicated completely. People always point to the Twin Towers. But that was a one-off - and it happened in another country, a long way away! Why are we associating it with our country, for gods' sakes? Numerous mass shootings occur over there as well. Why aren't we equally worried about that? Why one specific thing but not the others? It isn't rational.

Second, terrorism is here to stay. There will always be terrorists, and sometimes, on rare occasion, they'll do something bad. So get people to accept terrorism as a fact of life - the inevitability that it is - rather than making them worry about it. Whereas caution is a positive thing, worry gets us nowhere, except depressed, and it drags people, and society, down. People stop trusting each other, they become more suspicious, they stop communicating, and this makes a bad situation worse. It leads to misunderstanding and eventually hatred. In other words, people stop functioning like the social animals that humans naturally are.

Terrorism occurs, bombs explode, people die. It sounds flippant, but I know and agree it's a huge tragedy, and such things are the necessary price of a free society. So when on the extremely rare occasion terrorist events happen, we should mourn, move on and get on with it. The situation can be controlled more appropriately (and equally well) if governments take greater steps to improve the secret services, so that they can do their job without sacrificing free society and meddling with the average person's life. And I see very little of that happening. Instead, they've taken the easy option and decided to treat everyone as a potential killer.

If people accept rather than worry about the unlikely doings of terrorists beforehand, if they're correctly mentally prepared about something over which they can't do much about anyway, then there can't be terror. Terrorists, as a consequence, can't win. In a country where the phrase, "keep calm and carry on" is once again an ubiquitous cliché, why has no-one actually realised what it means?

"Independent" Think-tanks

There is no such thing as an "independent" think-tank. Or at least, if there is, think-tanks' use of the word is misleading, because it relates to independence from particular group-types (such as political organisations), and not independence from all with an axe to grind. They can't be fully-independent: most are privately funded. Why would companies fund a think-tank that doesn't produce results that benefit them? Conversely, how would a think-tank function if it was completely impartial and thus received no funding?

Take Civitas as an example. It recently made the news for releasing research that showed longer prison sentences were a good thing.

My guess is that most of the companies funding their Civitas think-tank (the funders' names, suspiciously, do not have to be made publicly available) are... those that stand to make money out of running prison services. Longer prison sentences means that more prisons (and thus money) will inevitably be needed. Just fancy that!

My guess is also that other (really-independent) researchers have found longer prison sentences have the opposite effect, and that Civitas has chosen the group most likely to represent the findings that benefits it. In fact, I've found a good example here.

I did some research into Civitas, suspicious as to why news articles seem to be so keen to associate the spin agency – er, think-tank – with the word "independent." Do a search for that word on this page. It turns out that the oft-used phrase "independent think-tank Civitas", comes from... Civitas press releases! So when it comes to corporate news, the agencies get it from the mouth of the company they're reporting on. (Incredibly, although The Guardian succumbed to using the corporate brainwashing word "independent," BBC News didn't.) And it's so good to see that Civitas are impartial enough not to promote itself in a good light by flooding news articles with the word "independent." Do call me a cynic. Or a realist.

Imagine how many other articles you're reading that are dictated directly by corporations, and how many you should be reading but aren't because they portray corporations in a negative light. Do you trust your beloved news source now? Do you think you're getting the news, the whole news and nothing but the news?

Tweeting

Can you transform yourself spontaneously into a member of the bird family? No? Then you can't tweet.

It sounds so crap. "I'm tweeting," "I've just tweeted." Sounds like a euphemism for breaking wind discretely. Or an involuntary tic.

We don't tweet. We compose text messages. Whether on your phone, or in an e-mail, on this blog or on an arbitrary bulletin board such as Twitter, Facebook or the millions of others that are less cool. They're nothing special, they're just different ways of composing text messages. We've been doing it since the '80s.

Twitter is just a mediocre site that does the same as many other sites. Despite this, it's not only transformed into the bulletin board of choice, but the marketers managed to invent a word specific to their site that has entered common language. Even the media use it. "If you want to know more, follow our tweets." No thanks, and if you want to know my opinion, you sound as if you need to see a doctor about that irritable bowel syndrome. They're just Doctor Evils, saying "look, we're hip, we're with it." It's all just a load of crap designed to sell an idea, and they've fallen for a cheap fad for the sake of publicity.

"Tweeting" is a way of making something mundane sound new and better than the rest, just like marketing does with all other products and services. But it isn't new, and it isn't better. Forget about the preconceptions you've been fed, and just think about what it is. It even has a severe restriction on the number of characters you can type in per message, which in fact makes it worse than some of the others. "Don’t let the small size fool you", Twitter's about page tells you. "You can share a lot with a little space." Well yes, you can, but you can share even more with a better bulletin board with fewer restrictions. And even the word "tweet" means to write a text message on Twitter. Not any of the other sites, just Twitter. If it's not Twitter, you're not tweeting. Don't you see what they're doing? Don't you see?

In short (but using more than 140 characters - just because I can, as I'm not using Twitter), it's nothing more than a tragic marketing trumph. Every sucker has been pulled in, lured by the prestige of "tweeting" and the cool, shallow connotations that it provides.

The idiot public is suckered into it just so that can say they've "tweeted", which is somehow a good thing, and the media is suckered into latching on to something trendy for their own pretentious reasons. You know all those pathetic adverts that you've watched on TV and thought, "who on Earth is gullible and moronic enough to be taken in by that shite and buy the product?" Well, if you use Twitter, that person is the likes of you.

Let me market a slogan of my own: "Don't be a twat, stop using Twitter."

Present Tense in News Reports

There's a clue in the name, and it's only a one-word name: 'News' is a collection of reported events that, although new (hence "old news" makes as much sense as "new olds"), have already occurred. Even news reported in breaking events has already occurred; the rest is speculation and thus not (yet) news.

So why do the news media insist on using present tense in their reports? Here's an example from your favourite news source and mine, BBC News (although you can readily find your own examples from other sources). "Biker Jorge Martinez Boero dies on Dakar Rally first day", it claims. Oh, really? How often does he die? Or is it a fictitious plot, and BBC News is reading from a manuscript? (BBC News is not known for the high quality of its reporting: In the same article, at the time of writing, the opening sentence says, "Argentine motorcyclist Jorge Martinez Boero had (sic) died in an accident". Presumably, they think he's now recovering from the ordeal.)

Perhaps it's done to exaggerate the currentness of the events and the report: "We're so reactive to events that we're reporting it as it unfolds." Except that they're not: Rather than being there before the event occurs, to "catch" it as it happens (because they can't be everywhere), they're largely told the details by Reuters and other agencies.

In a sick world, run by groups of people who no doubt manipulate and fabricate a lot of the news stories for their own gain (and I don't necessarily mean governments, or even journalists), "fictitious plot", which I jokingly mentioned in paragraph two, is hardly out of the realms of possibility. To make things worse, they also suspiciously call news articles "stories". Is this a deliberate sick joke on the rest of us, or is it blatant, blasé honesty?

Respect for Life

People often put down the crazy Catholic notion (such that it is) that sex is wrong if you try to prohibit the production of a child. Catholics consider this notion part of the idea of the "sanctity of life." This is yet another example of a religion inventing a word (here, "sanctity," or "holy," and "sacred") then attaching an arbitrary meaning and importance to it, and not explaining the meaning or importance. To paraphrase Mr. Prosser, on why sanctity is so important: "it's sanctity. You've got to have sanctity."

The other, supposedly more sane element of society has its own problems. "Respect for life" is translated as meaning "the right to life." This means that anyone has the right to continue living. However, in most of Europe, this is taken to mean that people must continue living, by whatever means necessary. This even supercedes the individuals' right to die. In what way is this respectful to the living, when it takes away a fundamental decision that they may want to take? It effectively condones torture.

The main point of what I want to say here, is that the solution of many of the problems is to redefine "respect for life" to something more basic and sound:

Respect for the quality of life.

This embodies the general well-being of each individual that all worthy causes should teach in their moral stories, and it includes enshrining the right to live without coercion.

One of the best ways to improve quality of life is to vet embrios before or shortly after they are born. If the defects are too major, and the would-be person (or the parents, or anyone else) would likely suffer more than enjoy life as a consequence of their being born, then they should not be allowed to continue living.

Not only is this in the best interest of the would-be person, but also of the state, which has to spend fewer millions on the drugs, treatments, equipment and staff necessary to help them continue their existence, and by extension all the state's subjects, who pay taxes to fund it.

Embrio vetting would also improve the devastating impact of overpopulation that the world is currently suffering from, thanks to the sort of people who ignorantly or selfishly (to paraphrase George Carlin) shit out yet another worthless baby. After all, the more people there are in the world, the less each person is "worth": Beyond a certain point, people effectively cease to be individuals. But after the overpopulation tipping-point, they're full-fledged burdens. They get in the way of everything, they form ever more groups and create ever more divisions, they become more emotionally and respectfully isolated from the other groups, conflict inevitably occurs, and eventually people don't want what is good for all, they want what is good for them or their individual group, at whatever cost this might bring to other individuals or groups. And that's where we are in the world today. Exactly where is the global, or even national, respect for life now?

Even better, the the parents should be screened in order to determine whether they should be allowed to have children in the first place. That way, this whole sorry mess can be avoided before it begins. As I've said previously, remove people's right to bear children, and let them apply. Those who can prove that they can afford to keep a child and care for it adequately, those who are not likely to give the child a life of physical or mental agony through genetic defects, those who can show that they have a good case to have a child other than "we want one," should be allowed. Otherwise, it's child cruelty, and therefore a crime against humanity.

Unfortunately, as soon as I started mentioning genetics, you probably jumped straight to Hitler and his use of eugenics, as you were programmed to. Here's fallacy number one:

Since Hitler was evil, and Hitler advocated eugenics, eugenics is evil.

Hitler must have polished his shoes at some point, and he was also vegetarian. Are shoe-polishing and vegetarianism evil? There's some logical jiggery-pokery going on here. Go and read something unbiased about eugenics, which examines what it is, but doesn't include how it's been used in the past, and doesn't play the Hitler card. Because chances are, you don't currently know what it really is.

Here's fallacy number two:

Allowing people to judge who lives and doesn't is a slippery slope and open to abuse.

Yep, it's sensitive in nature, and everything sensitive can be abused if adequate checks and measures aren't in place. So let's put them in place: Decisions like this can be made fairly enough by a panel of respected, independent, expert advisers, in the same way that judges shape laws and preside over trials. And if you're not even happy that that would be fair, then there's no pleasing you. Humans are hardly perfect. You may as well say that granting someone a fair legal trial is impossible. And then we're at an impasse. So what do we do then? Exterminate all of humanity because they may make a wrong decision that unduly affects someone's life?

It's an emotionally-touchy subject, of course, and that means it's easier to sway people's opinions one way or the other. After an association with Hitler, people are given the excuse to shy away from what is quite an obvious force that could be used for good, simply because a bad guy used it for evil. Atomic bombs were invented and used for evil, does that mean atomic power is evil? No. Of course not. It has sound practical implications that provide a variety of benefits, such as electricity. So if you have strong feelings one way or another about what I've said so far, then you would definitely not make a good judge: We need people who examine the facts objectively and come to a rational conclusion.

Nor is the "discrimination is bad" argument worth pursuing. Discrimination in favour of the greater good is objectively the right thing to do. People discriminate all the time: let's say you give money to a charity to cure muscular distrophy. You're then depriving the other charities, such as cancer, poverty and the homeless. Does that make you a complete bastard? No: You made a decision, and the "fair" decision not to give any money out at all would be worse. Giving your money equally is impossible, because there are too many causes. And in any case, "equal" would be subjective - there are too many variables, and some causes should in "fairness" be given more than others.

Hopefully, by now, I've deconstructed your misconceptions enough at least for you to consider that eugenics can be used for good. I know the denial of a life sounds not to be a very nice thing: That person might have grown up to be brilliant and contributed hugely to humanity and people's lives. But if, on average, such as person is unlikely (which, let's face it, it is), then it's not cruel to deny that chance - rather the opposite, because of the probabilities. In any case, you're not denying any person a right, because the person didn't exist in the first place. No-one suffered, because no-one was there to begin with.

So let's reconsider what the right to life really is, use genetic screening for the greater good, and remove the automatic right for people to have children. It's scary, but all radical changes are scary. Unfortunately, some are necessary.

Guarantees

You might think that I'm going to harp on about the problems people have with claiming on them, and that they're not worth the paper they're written on. Well no. In fact, I think they're worth quite a lot.

Guarantees are a clear, un-fakable expression of how much trust manufacturers place in their own workmanship. So the length of a guarantee is a good indicator of the quality of the product.

Then something odd comes to light: How short guarantees are. I've rarely seen a guarantee for a major, pricey product that spans more than five years. So that means most products are only expected to remain intact for a short period of time. Why aren't people extremely angry at this, and why are they not boycotting products? If I buy a vacuum cleaner, or a TV, or a washing machine, I would expect it to last for at least ten years. "Will probably last beyond the guarantee" isn't good enough.

If a long-term product that costs a lot of money is guaranteed to last for fewer than ten years, then I don't consider it a purchase: I consider it a rental.

A purchase is something that should be considered final. Nothing lasts forever, of course, I recognise that. The thing is, the focus should be on the product being built in a decent way, built to last. Less time wasted by things going wrong and less stuff going into landfill. If a product that you'd expect to be qualitative comes with a five-year guarantee, then that's definitely not built to last. It's the manufacturer's way of saying, "we can only risk giving you the assurance that the product will work for five years. After that, god knows. The chances of you possibly needing to buy a new one after five years are so great that we can't afford to cover you beyond that." Quite incredible.

To pick on a random, expensive, common household appliance, let's look at a washing machine. At the time of writing, this one from Hoover is the cheapest one in their range available at Argos. It's just under £270, and it comes with a five-year guarantee for parts (only one year for labour!) This effectively means that you're renting it. It works out at £54 per year. Yes, your washing machine alone is expected to cost £54 per year, for life. Imagine how many other espensive appliances you have, with even more restrictive guarantees (if any) than that.

We need the Minimum Quality of Goods Act, in which specific minimum guarantees must be offered for specific products. That way, companies will be forced to manufacture goods to a better quality so that they don't get stung by masses of claims. As a benchmark, 10 years is a good minimum figure: Even then, your washing machine is costing £27 per year (plus labour costs, if it breaks down). Any less than 10 years should be considered rental by law, and the companies should be forced to advertise the products clearly as "for rental" rather than "for sale."

There is, of course, the old argument that the lower classes go for cheaper products that they can more likely afford. However, if you define "cheaper" in terms of the cost per year (i.e. the total cost of the product divided by number of years guaranteed), "cheaper" products become pretty damned expensive. If they have any guarantee at all, they're likely to be very short and very limited, and the products are much more likely to break down (a probability that would bias the rental cost even more).

Who specifically goes out wanting a washing-machine that will only last for five years? The only people I can think of are dodgy landlords who want to blame the occupants when something breaks down, rather than bear the cost themselves, and I don't really think they have a particularly good case.


So next time you go into Dixons, and a poster proudly states, "Guaranteed for 5 Years!", kindly flag down an attendant and make a statement of your own.
---
[Edit: 18.12.11] By astonishing coincidence, I just watched one of David Mitchell's very good rants about precisely the same subject. (WARNING: There'll probably be an advert inflicted on you at the start.) He takes a different slant on the idea, to my relief (as he got there first).

The Libyan I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-a-War

Imagine you're in charge of Libya. Some other countries start an unnounced attack aimed at "the regime". (This, they say, doesn't constitute a declaration of war, just a few bombs here and there accompanied by an occupation. What's a bomb or two amongst friends?)

It's quite obvious that they're trying to target you personally: regardless of their rhetoric that they "don't target individuals", those bombs have an uncanny habit of completely decimating places you happen to have been soon beforehand. You shore up your family in what you presume is a safe haven for their own protection, only for the Americans to bomb it. (Again, suspiciously, you happened to have been there shortly beforehand - you're paranoid at this point that you always seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.) You then find that your son (and three of your grandsons, if you believe BBC News) were killed in the blast. Your son just came back from University, and your grandsons never did anything to anyone either. That's OK, they say: indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians in collateral damage is fine, even when the high risks of this were known beforehand. Just as long as individuals aren't targeted, that's what matters.

By this time, your subjects are understandably a bit peeved about the unprovoked attacks, and start campaigning against the invading countries. Some of the wilder bunches of people start attacking what you hope are impartial outsiders - diplomatic missions and aid workers. You can't really do much about this, because you're too busy trying to defend against wave after wave of attacks. Incredibly - and it would be a hilarious farce if not for the present situation - the countries demand that you defend their people, while they continue to bomb the hell out of you.

If you were a Libyan, wouldn't you be a little pissed off by all this, and justifiably so? And why haven't such obvious points been made by the media or the interviewers? Surely journalism should be truth-seeking, hence impartial, hence seeing a situation from all perspectives. And if we can't live by our own values, how can we have the audacity to force them (with utmost violence, in this case) onto someone else? Could it be that all these questions (and the corresponding answers) are being hushed up, for fear of upsetting the propaganda machine?

My (and hopefully your) thoughts are with Gadaffi's family at the moment, who have suffered huge losses at the bloody hands of insurgents that are supposedly on my side, your side, and the side of justice and the truth. Let's hope it's all just a sick joke; the alternative is worse.

- - -

Speaking of the propaganda machine - the world is now safer and better without Osama, says President Obama (well, at least according to the BBC - as you know my favourite news source).

Hang on, let's rewind a bit. Al Qaeda is a well-organised, well-run, talented military group. This is no doubt because they have received training from groups like the Taleban, who in turn (I have to say allegedly) received the best training that various Western Secret Services had to offer. (This seems suspiciously to be missing from the Taleban wikipedia page. You can't have your people having too much access to the truth, can you? How can you brainwash them into supporting you then? And of course I'm not suggesting the article has been sanitised by the American and British governments. Oh no. As we all know, government is of, for and by the people.)

Given the above points, bin Laden would undoubtedly have trained up a next-in-line to take over immediately in the case of his death. So the situation has actually got worse, not "safer and better," because one man, revered by al Qaeda, has been killed by their enemy (increasing their resolve), and an equally-good leader has taken over. Here are some obvious War Office preliminaries:

1. Don't train up "terrorist" groups in the first place
   
2. Don't give the proverbial vicious dog a bloody nose. The nose will heal quickly, and it'll just enrage the dog even more

As these two fundamental points are obvious, so the various Western governments involved, which are supposedly on the side of the righteous, must know them all too well. Yet they choose (blatantly, in this case) to ignore them. They must have done this on purpose, which means that they actually wanted the dog to become more vicious, making the world more dangerous, causing a greater climate of fear. Cue George Orwell...

The Orange Prize for Fiction

What a load of crap. The prize, the sentiment, all of it.

The immediate thing to note is its title, which is as accurate as the American 'World Series'. The prize isn't for "fiction" at all. It's more specific than that. It's for women fiction-writers. That's right - not fiction-writers as a whole, but ones written by a group chosen arbitrarily at best (chauvinistically at worst). It's as if they withheld the "for women" bit to avoid people trivialising the prize - which would surely allude to a guilty self-consciousness of the award's trivial, pretentious and ultimately meaningless nature.

And as the prize's title might subtly suggest, it's is biased against men. Not only this - it's also biased against women; the worst of both worlds (despite, ironically, treating both sexes equally, in a way).

Kindly allow me to explain by starting with a question: Why should there be a literary prize specifically for women, particularly when there is no equivalent one for men? One way of looking at it is this:

Of course, in phsyical events such as the Olympics, there are separate competitions for men and women. This makes sense - the most physically-adept men are stronger than the most physically-adept women. This is biological.

But literature is (primarily) a mental endeavour and ability, and there are unisex prizes and women's prizes for fiction. I cannot find an equivalent men's prize. By singling out women in this way, everyone responsible for and supportive of the award is therefore stating that women's fiction isn't good enough to compete directly with men's fiction. This argument would be consistent with the fact that an overwhelming number of prizes for literature - open to both men and women - are won by men. One might argue that more literature is written by men, so proportionally the prizes might average out between the sexes. But I have seen no evidence of this. The reason why most published literature is by men might simply be because men's literature is indeed better than women's - and, given the evidence (as opposed to emotive viewpoints, which are irrelevant), that is most likely.

But there is a second way of looking at it. Consider this telling quote from Wikipedia:

The prize was established to recognise the contributions of female writers who Mosse believed were often overlooked in other major literary awards, and in reaction to the all-male shortlist for the 1991 Man Booker Prize.

Oh, what a surprise, "Mosse" is a woman. I am not being chauvinist for thinking that, being a woman, she would be seeking more power to women, because there is a rationale to my belief - it is simply the way of the world. (I've covered this in more detail previously. For example, see So-called Feminism.) Anyway, the second point, made clear here, is the idea that the Man Booker Prize is unfairly biased towards men - that is, simply because they are men. Who is she to make such an erroneous accusation? How dare she, and why has she not been put in her place for such a travesty of free speech?

Women like this might be chauvinist, but why assume that everyone is capable of the same evil? To tar others with their own brush? Particularly established, respected judges of established, respected awards, who are passionate experts in the subject matter beyond who might or might not have written what. Perhaps it's the EastEnders effect. One reason why people watch it is because the characters are so bitchy that it makes them feel better about their own menial lives. For similar reasons, female chauvinists would try to demonise men so as not to seem so bad by comparison. That seems to be the going trend for the 'Modern Feminist.'

So if women are "often overlooked," then where's the evidence? Why can't it simply be that the judges genuinely thought, in their wisdom and experience on the subject, that the authors they chose - who happened to be men - were simply better authors?

It seems to me that the very existence of the award is unnecessary, gratuitous, sick, ignorant, female-chauvinist and counter-productive to society, and that the assertions that it makes are defamatory. It is tragic that these glaring blotches of diseased puke on our supposedly-advanced societal canvas are deliberately overlooked, and for what - for the sake of political correctness and the fashionable fad mistakenly known as 'feminism.' The disparity it creates goes against what we have to hope is the core feminist agenda, namely, equality. Or is it alleging that feminism is merely a misguided, uninformed, romantic and fantastical ideal? Surely not...

- - - - -

[27.09.10]

Over June and July, I was fortunate enough to engage in a series of debates and discussions surround what I've written above. My main contact was Lisa Gee, who runs the Prize's Web site. My main questions to Lisa, and her answers, were as follows:

1. Why are the titles for "Prize for Fiction" and the "Award for New Writers" misleading in their focus, rather than stating explicitly, "for women"?
   
   There are no prizes (to our knowledge) that include their eligibility criteria in their titles. The Orange Prize for Fiction and Award for New Writers conform to one of the norms for literary Prize titles: ie - include the name of the sponsor and give a ballpark idea of the prize's remit.
   
   
2. What evidence is there that women have been "passed over" for illigitimate reasons, rather than for ligitimate ones?
   
   The founders of the Prize did lots of research into how prizes were awarded and who they were awarded to in the process of setting up the Prize. Much of this information can be found in the article – http://www.belletrista.com/2010/issue4/features_2.php – and video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHelFLucl9Y.
   
   
3. How does a women-only prize help promote the highest standards of fiction literature, given that literature is not gender-specific?
   
   The research conducted by the Prize has demonstrated that although writing isn't gender-specific, reading choices are informed by the gender of the reader - at least they are when the reader is male. While women and girls read work by both men and women, men and boys tend to read only writing by other men; this is why, for instance, JK Rowling's publisher encouraged her to write as JK rather than Joanne Rowling.
   
   And the Orange Prize brings great books by women from all round the world to the attention of both male and female readers, promoting fiction of the highest standard.
   
   
4. How can segregating female fiction-writers from male fiction-writers give the former the confidence to compete in the same arena as the latter?
   
   Celebrating writing by women - which is what both the Orange Prize for Fiction and the award for New Writers do - is not the same as segregating female writers from male writers . Every Prize has eligibility criteria: the Man Booker excludes writers from America, (amongst other places); the Somerset Maugham Award excludes writers over the age of 35; the McKitterick Prize excludes writers under the age of 40.
   
   The Orange Prize is awarded for a novel, written in English by a woman and published in the UK. It is not an isolated, isolating entity, but one amongst a constellation of literary prizes, all of which celebrate different aspects of writing, different writers from different parts of the world. Which is as it should be.
   

To be fair, my questions were pretty demanding difficult to answer, - mostly because the Prize is on the losing side due to its fundamentally- and fatally-flawed logic. (I will explain why later.) In light of this, Lisa did a good job of defending the Prize, and went so far as to convince me that she, the panel and the founders are not the spiteful, man-hating female chauvinists that might appear to be apparent.

She was also honest enough to admit that some of my points had merit and have been argued successfully by both men and women over the last 15 years of the Prize's existence. (Quite how she can give the Prize her full confidence in light of this, however, is beyond me.) As a consequence of our exchanges, a few changes were also made to the site's Q&A sections to make the answers more clear and less evasive.

However, there are one or two of Lisa's answers that are questionable, and a few points I made that have not been answered. For example, the "lots of research" mentioned as a reply to Question 2 is not available. Unless they produced a comprehensive paper on the subject compiled by the world's most forefront minds on the subjects of humanity, and unless they themselves are masters of the subjects of human psychology (and - dare I say it - sociology), which is doubtful, then I don't consider this 'research' to have much credence. Additionally, regarding Question 4, the fact that there are multiple segregations doesn't automatically justify any of them. I don't consider the question to be answered. "Because everyone else does it" is not, to me, a valid answer.

The last point I'd like to make is perhaps the most profound. It exposes the fundamental flaw of the Prize, and suggests a solution that would be much worthier than either the Orange Prize or any other Prize for Fiction, as they stand at the moment. It is for this reason most unfortunate that it was never replied to by anyone related to the Orange Prize.

If supposedly-unisex prizes such as the Booker prize are (whether intentionally or not) male-orientated, then surely the goal should be to correct this unfair advantage within that prize, rather than create a new prize to counteract it. The Prize is only adding to the problem by compounding it with more arbitrarily-segregated (and thus meaningless) entry criteria.

Here is my suggestion:

1. The judging rules should be sufficiently strict and pre-defined that the possibility of unfair bias is minimised. (Frankly, I am amazed in the "professional" world of prize-giving that this isn't in place already. Must I spell out all the obvious necessities for them?)
   
2. The exact reasons for the nominations should be recorded and traceable, so that they can be checked independently for signs of unfair bias.
3. The shortlist manuscripts should be presented to a panel of judges who have no knowledge of the works' authors or content.
4. The manuscripts should only contain the text of the work, and no details that might give away the gender of the author (or any other biases that are irrelevant to the quality of the works).
5. The judges should be locked in separate hotel rooms, with no access to the outside world (e.g. internet), until they have made their nominations. This would cut out the possibility for the judges conducting research that may instil unfair bias in their judgements.

There. Problem solved. Surely. Unfortunately, of course, there would be people out of a job - albeit people with a limited view of the big wide world that they're trying to navigate (badly). But that's for the best, surely: Bring someone in to do the job who's worthy. Someone who doesn't care about arbitrary groupings, who is more interested in the worth of literature in itself. Only then can we have prizes that are founded on good reasoning, and thus worth winning. It that really too much to ask?

Sheilas' Wheels Revolve Again

You might remember, in my last post, that I made an open letter to Sheilas' Wheels regarding the sexist and unfounded "fact" that women are better drivers. I sent this letter both to Sheilas' Wheels and the Advertising Standards Agency, hoping that the former would make a U-turn, or at least put the brakes on the spreading of such lies.

No such luck (or sense). Here is the Advertising Standards Agency's response (edited for brevity, without omitting or altering relevant content):

Thank you for contacting the Advertising Standards Authority. I’m sorry to hear that this ad has caused you concern.

We’ve carefully considered your complaint and the ad in question, but I should tell you that there doesn’t seem to be a case to answer under the Code on this occasion. Section 45 of the Sex Discrimination Act permits preferential treatment in relation to certain types of insurance, and we note that the broadcasters and publishers received substantiation to show that female drivers have a better claims record on their motor insurance policies than male drivers. This doesn’t, of course, mean that there are no good male drivers or that women drivers don’t have accidents. Whilst I do appreciate your concern regarding the claim “It’s official- women are better drivers” we note that the leaflet immediately explains the advertisers basis for this claim, and taken as a whole we don’t consider the ad likely to mislead consumers. I also understand that you find it offensive, however, we consider that the ad is merely playing against the generalisation that women are bad drivers, and given this we believe it unlikely to cause serious and widespread offence on the basis you suggest.

Although we don’t propose further action, I’d like to thank you for taking the trouble to raise this matter with us.

So there you are. It seems that you get nowhere as an individual writing letters of complaint. If this sort of response is typical for my type of complaint, then it is obvious why organisations like Fathers for Justice have resorted to using physical stunts coordinated by groups. It might seem immature behaviour on the face of it, but then the system they're battling against is immature in its views: the only way they listen is by being shouted at, put in the media and coerced into doing the right thing.

Sadly, rather than realise the errors of its ways on moral grounds, Sheilas' Wheels chose to expend its energies developing a defense of its claims. It was equally dismissive, and refused to answer the specific and clear points that I made. Their response (edited similarly):

Thank you for your letter [...] We are always interested to hear our customer's [sic] views [...]

We apologise if you found the Sheilas' Wheels literature insulting as this was not the aim of the leaflet. Sheilas' Wheels marketing materials, such as this leaflet, is intended to make women aware of a brand that recognises the lower insurance risk that women represent, whilst providing great benefits at competitive prices.

All our marketing materials go through a stringent approval process and are not released into the public domain without careful consideration of content, including messages and any substantiation used.

I hope this alleviates your concerns and thank you again for taking the time to write to us.

Interestingly, they 'apologised' for the insult. Now let's examine that more closely. If I tell someone to go stick their head in a pig, then just saying "sorry" is not a real apology. The only way to apologise is to admit its inappropriateness and withdraw the insult. An insult is done deliberately, to someone else, without regard for their feelings or well-being. It is a callous and thoughtless act that does not take into account the damage it might do to an innocent party.

The "apology" is thus irrelevant. The only two valid points the letter makes are that they wanted to flatter women, and that the material was approved by an internal body. The problem is, of course, that they aimed to flatter women with flagrant disregard to men. Their response, then, simply says that they knowingly approved a leaflet that demeans men.

Well, at least they're honest, I suppose.

But even if its assault on men is technically within the law, it isn't necessarily within the spirit of the law. Section 45 of the Sex Discrimination Act (as quoted by the Advertising Standards Agency) allows the use of statistics by insurers to show facts that provide gender bias. However, surely this does not extend to making an absurd claim that one sex is "better" than the other, nor of abusing the word "fact."

The next stage would be to campaign. But why should it come to this, when it's merely common sense and decency? The answer, of course, is that companies are not there to be decent. They're there to make money in whatever way they can get away with. And the law needs to be changed to stop them. Not that this is likely until more enlightened times: men-bashing is fashionable.

As I've said before, the message is clear: it's OK to be sexist, as long as it's against men.

- - - - -

Update (13.03.11) - It seems that this saga has taken a funny turn. As from the end of next year, it will be illegal for car (and other) insurers to discriminate on grounds of gender. While the sentiment makes sense (at least in the case of car insurance), I can't help but be suspicious. No doubt, it'll be used as an excuse for the insurers to make more money by putting insurance premiums up per person on average. I also have no doubt that that's exactly why the legislation was passed. Secret/golden handshakes? Corporations controlling the European Court? Surely not...

An Open Letter to Sheilas' Wheels

I received an advert leaflet from Sheilas' Wheels. I kid you not, it makes the following absurd and insulting claim:

"It's official - women are better drivers."

Interestingly, I can't display it here, for legal reasons not related to this post - despite the fact that I'd be advertising their advert for free. There is a different version that makes the same claim, which can be seen by clicking on the link given on the above title [not available - see Addenda at bottom of post]. However, my copy is considerably more forthright in this assertion, and includes the following justification for this astounding 'fact' in the smallprint:

"Source: Ministry of Justice National Statistics Offences relating to motor vehicles England and Wales 2006, published April 2008. Based on motoring offences taken to court."

It is with the leaflet version in mind that I write the following open letter to Sheilas' Wheels in response. A copy will be sent both to Sheilas' Wheels and the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). I will post details of any signifant response. If you would like to complain to the ASA, you can use this link to find out how. Please feel free to leave a post about it, and good luck. Update: Three years after my letter was sent, in 2012, The EU finally came round to my way of thinking and banned gender discrimination in relation to insurance premiums. Sheilas' Wheels no longer pulls this stunt.

* * * * *

Dear Sheilas,

I have to say that I and my intelligence are insulted by your leaflet that arrived through my door (see attached). It claims that "it’s official – women are better drivers." The given source for this is the Ministry of Justice National Statistics relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales 2006, based on motoring offences taken to court. And as the leaflet says, I indeed can’t "argue with the facts." However, I can and feel compelled to argue with how the facts are utilised and portrayed.

Neither Sheilas’ Wheels nor anyone else is in a position to make such a claim, regardless of the evidence quoted. Evidence is not proof, whether it be statistics, empirical analysis or otherwise. The claim is akin to me saying that, for example, based on the official statistics of people’s salaries by gender, "it’s official – men are better than women at more important jobs" (see refs. [1] & [2]), or that, again based on selected official statistics, "it’s official – black people are more criminal than white people." (ref. [3])

None of these statements is 'official,' regardless of the statistics used. As we should all know, it’s more of a complicated world than that. To this end, I of course do not believe that the references quoted do in themselves show either of the above claims to be factual or official. In fact, I’m sure I could find statistics showing the contrary. However, allow me for one moment to use your own rules for establishing "facts," and make a case in point. If you penalise men in general for being "worse drivers" for committing more motoring offences, do you also penalise black men additionally for being "more criminal" and thus "even more likely" to cause a motoring offence? If not, why not? It would certainly be consistent. If the answer is "because that would be illegal and unfairly discriminatory," then why are you allowed to use the same means to "show" that women are "better" drivers than men?

Just because it seems more socially acceptable for women to discriminate against men doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I apologise for pointing out the sorts of basic morals that we were taught as children, but it evidently needs reiterating.

I’d also like to express concern about what and who makes a "better" driver. Allow me take the source you quote as an example: It is not enough to say that, based on motoring offences taken to court, women are "officially" "better" drivers. Here are some of the more obvious reasons why:

• "Better" is a subjective word. What it means depends on the eye of the beholder. You cannot prove, or claim as factual, that something is "better" than something else.

• The claim does not take into account the possibility that men spend far longer on the road than women. I would have thought it obvious that the vast majority of truck and taxi drivers are men. Should this be the case, then it would be out of proportion to use the statistics cited in the leaflet in order to make such a statement. Using the crash statistics of Formula 1 Racing, it would be easy to say that women drivers are "better" drivers because they never crash, but of course this would be grossly unfair because of the number of men competing in F1 compared to the number of women.

• It may be the case that a small proportion of men commit multiple offences. The claim would seem to assume that each offence is committed by a different person. If a minority of men commit all of the offences taken to court, then it is unfair to say that all men are worse drivers. The statistics suggest that this is the case, but that doesn’t amount to an official confirmation.

• The statistics only take into account motoring offences taken to court in one year. What about other evidence that can equally validly be used in an attempt to evaluate who is a "better" driver? What about people who are not caught committing offences, or who commit offences that are not taken through court? There is no sense of proportion and thus no fair treatment given in the statement. The statistics used are entirely and deliberately out of context to reality.

• Official statistics could be used to establish the "excellence" of drivers, in the same way that your leaflet determines a "better" driver. It could then be argued that the "excellence" of male drivers might outweigh those men who are "worse" to the point that, on the whole, male drivers are still "better" than women drivers. In fact, does the absence of women in F1 not give this some credence?

• Another thought occurs – which official body endorses this specific "fact"? Surely if there is no such endorsing body, this claim cannot legitimately be made.

I anticipate the claim that the leaflet is intended to be light-hearted, or tongue-in-cheek. If so, I fail to see the joke – mainly because there isn't one. It quotes evidence and attempts to assert facts, and its tone is portrayed seriously. There are no exclamation marks and there is no clue about any a jocular nature. Even if it were intended as a joke, it is certainly not in good taste. Instead, it simply seems to use a biased and severely limited set of statistics in order deliberately to portray women as better drivers, and then make the ludicrous jump to claim this as a fact. To say that men are statistically in a more high-risk category may have merit; to say that women are better drivers is simply an unfounded, sweeping statement.

As a consequence of this, I would ask that the claim be withdrawn and that people not be subject to such insulting, female-chauvinist propaganda. Furthermore, I would hope that more care and consideration be employed in the future to treat everyone, regardless of gender, with the same level of courtesy.

Yours Sincerely,

Alan Nyquist.

Footnotes/References

[1] Far more women are in part-time jobs than men - source: Office for National Statistics, Sept 2008 (link - PDF)

[2] On average men earned 17% more than women in 2007 – source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Office for National Statistics, Nov 2007 (link)

[3] According to the 2001 UK Census and the Office for National Statistics, 2% of the population was black (link). However, as of June 2007, 15% of male prisoners were black (source: Ministry of Justice Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2006, Oct. 2007 (link, see p91).

* * * * *

Addenda

[19.01.10] I recently received an e-mail regarding the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I kid you not, it features this sentence. Spot the dubious bit.

"In the medium and longer term programmes will also include temporary shelters; nutrition for women and children; control of infectious diseases and helping to rebuild the livelihoods of those affected by this disaster."

[10.06.10] As of checking today, the link to the advert that made this claim has been removed. I like to think that I had a small part in it, but who knows. It's also suspicious that a Google search of "It's official - women are better drivers" with reference to Sheilas' Wheels yields no results, including cached pages.

So-called Feminism

I paid a visit to that most saintly of companies the other today, Tesco. The woman behind the till was talking to one of the packers, also a woman. As I approached the till, the packer moved to end the conversation. All I heard her say was,

“...typical man.”

Till Woman agreed, with a stern look. No-one in the queue so much as batted an eyelid.
Being too surprised to do anything about it at the time, I also did nothing. But I kick myself not to have asked her whether, if a man had exclaimed, “...typical woman,” she would have considered him a male chauvinist pig, or whether she would have considered it tolerable behaviour.

I doubt that the latter would have happened, because, while it’s perfectly socially acceptable for a woman to insult a man (indeed, all men) in this way, vice versa is not. “But that’s sexist, you can’t say that!” they would no doubt exclaim. If you can’t say something because it’s sexist, then you can’t pick and choose which sex can have a bash at the other. That would be… well, sexist, funnily enough.

So there you are: Socially speaking, sexism is wrong, unless a woman does it.

I wonder whether this social acceptance has wheedled its way into the public hive mind because of so-called feminism (i.e. female chauvinism). There is quite a big difference between feminism and female chauvinism: Feminists strive for equality between men and women. Female chauvinists strive for more power to women. It’s a subtle difference, I know, but it’s quite a huge one when you think about it. The former is a worthy cause; the latter is the same sort of reasoning that dictators and other compulsive egomaniacs use to fuel their never-ending desire for conquest.

The next time you watch someone spouting their spiel about women’s rights and woes, whether on the TV, in Tesco or elsewhere, just consider: Are they really fighting for justice, or are they fighting for their own selfish and vain desires? If it's the latter, then it's your duty as a citizen of humanity to point it out. You'll get it off your chest, they'll learn something (even if it's that they can't get away with such a remark) and society can go forward more positively.

Whatever it is, it seems to have given these women the power base that they obviously crave for shallow reasons. The men are just as pathetic for being weak about it and allowing it to happen as the women are for being vain and childish to do it.

The dawn of so-called feminism, at least in the UK, seems to have been around the time "girl power" entered the lexicon. I'm not sure whether the marketing team that came up with the 'Spice Girls' product invented the term or jumped on the bandwagon. Regardless, the effect was to amplify something evil and add to the descruction of the society. Even worse, it was all presumably for the sole purposes of cashing in.

The lyrics to their song, "Wannabe" has it all. Read those lyrics and you have the complete picture of female chauvinism. Of particular interest is the lyric, "If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give." That's what so-called feminism is all about: Gaining something without giving anything back, at men's (and, ultimately, everyone's) expense.

The Spice Girls should be ashamed at themselves for what they purpetuated. They failed the cause of Feminism, by become female versions of the supposed oppressive men that resulted in feminism in the first place; and they were pretenders to the concept of Equality, tempting a lot of young, equality-driven admirers subtly across to the dark side towards bitchiness, anger and hatred. That the Spice Girls might themselves have been young and innocent to their crimes is no defense: As adults, they were (and are) responsible for their own actions, and they have never apologised since.

I’m sure this post will get some poor soles' hackles up. Well, good – I welcome it. If you’re one of those people, then the chances are that I’ve hit a nerve due to personal reasons you may not have considered or admitted to yourself. Understanding is the first step towards acceptance, and then self-improvement. There are no vendettas here, except regarding crimes against humanity. If you’re offended, it must be because you have an axe to grind to the contrary, or else you've been misled. Go and do some thinking, and find out the truth about (and for) yourself. See it as a challenge. It’s certainly a worthy one.

So, what do you think about that? Now you know how I feel.

Martin Creed

You could be forgiven for not knowing who Martin Creed is. Indeed, he should not be known at all. Unfortunately, he seems to be the subject of considerable media hype, and he’s currently “cool” in the modern art world (or should I say “scene”, to borrow a fittingly pretentious and fundamentally meaningless word).

The blame for the popularity of Martin Creed can only be placed in part upon Martin Creed. Again, it is the media interest and the pretentious art world (as distinct to the art world in general) that provides the advertising crap. Creed just supplies the artistic crap and goes along for the ride. But it’s all still just crap, nevertheless.

Let me refer you first to a Reuters story on his June 2008 creation, “Work No. 850”. The whole thing is so telling that I could just quote the whole lot and be done with it, really. But let me go through it in bits, for the sake of completeness, and justify my viewpoint.

The Reuters article mentions that Creed’s latest creation is a runner who runs from one end of the gallery to the other every 30 seconds. It would be easy to say that this isn’t art, but this would be wrong: Anything can be considered artistically, and it is to this tedious and tenuous argument that artists (particularly the worse ones, who cannot find their own justifications for their works), often use by default.

Unfortunately for them, it evades the real point: whether a work is worth being considered as a work of art. What is the point of the work? If its significance is not be justifiable, then it is not in a state to be exhibited or pondered over. If a work doesn’t show anything worth considering, such as something profound or new, then there really isn’t any point in anyone wasting time on it, the artist or the viewer. (See also, ‘Pop Music’ blog.)

That a work is popular with the public is not really a good justification: Given enough media coverage and hype (i.e. marketing), people would go and see a Tesco frozen chicken in a cage. Particularly if it were controversial in some way, let’s say if it had tattooed to it a naked picture of a dead man in a wheelchair holding a Nazi flag. But that doesn’t make it art: At best, it makes it meaningless, sick and attention-seeking. Besides, anyone can come up with that sort of tripe. It takes more than this to justify oneself as a good artist.

So, there are four fundamental things that Creed needs to identify in order for his work to be considered a worthy addition to art. The rule-set goes for any other artist and work of art (in any form), as well.

1. What does it try to show? Or: What does it represent?


2. Does it show something that hasn't been shown before in other works of art? Or is it just a weak imitation of the works of artists that have already been there and done that? In other words, what's the innovation?


3. Is his chosen medium the best one to use, in order to express what he wants to express?


4. Should anyone care what it is it's trying to say? How does it inspire people? Is it going to add to culture in any meangful and positive way?

Let’s start at the beginning, and then when we’ve reached the end, stop.

1. What does it try to show/represent?

In the Reuters article, Creed gives the following explanation for what his work tries to express.

“Running is the opposite of being still. If you think about death as being completely still and movement as a sign of life, then the fastest movement possible is the biggest sign of life. So then running fast is like the exact opposite of death: it's an example of aliveness.”

What? Surely that’s excusable logic for your average ten-year-old, but a fully-grown adult?

Here is his thesis in a nut-shell:

• Running fast is the opposite of death. (Funny, I always thought that life was. But what do I know.)


• Those living things which are the most alive move most rapidly.

Where do I start on that bombshell? Firstly, if running fast is an example of aliveness, then that does not in itself mean that it is the opposite of death. Secondly, literally speaking (as indeed Creed is in the above quote), how can anything be any more alive than anything else? Is a baby, who can only crawl slowly, less alive than Paula Radcliffe?

Indeed, this argument holds for any sense of the word: Even if you’re taking the word ‘alive’ to mean something less literal than ‘not dead,’ or even ‘close to death,’ then surely you can say that something that is brighter in colour is more ‘alive’ than something that is darker. Why hasn’t he created a work of art based on colour instead? How does he justify that his interpretation is the best one for his purpose? There are many interpretations of ‘alive,’ and I’d say that Creed’s interpretation was a pretty mediocre one at best.

2. What’s the innovation?

Even if it is innovative to represent aliveness as someone running, the reason why no-one else has done the same thing is probably because they rejected it as a crap idea.

The best justification of innovation I see is of the use of the medium (whatever the medium actually is, in this case. And don’t give me some pretentious claptrap about life or nature itself, being the medium). But it is severely limited. It’s easy to say “a human form in motion has many levels and shows many things that can only be felt and not expressed in words.” From what Creed has said about it, however, this is not what he’s trying to do.

All he is trying to do is to exemplify aliveness artistically. I can go into the street and see or do the same thing. It requires no thought on the part of an artist to represent aliveness in a live person in movement. Similarly, it is of no inspiration to the viewer. In any case, ‘nature itself’ shows us many more things than the human form to demonstrate aliveness, and it does it better. Nature can do it much better than we can, so the whole exercise is pointless – he may as well present his ‘work’ in the form of a directive: “go and have a walk in the park.” Why impersonate downwards? Why buy sterilised milk if you can get Jersey cream for free?

3. Has he chosen the best medium?

His reason for choosing the medium (if you can call it that) of a runner is that he likes running. The trouble is, I like Kung Fu, but I wouldn’t try to explain something by knocking people to the floor just for the sake of it. (Having said that, it would be an interesting justification for giving idiots what they deserve: “I’m a martial artist, this is my way of expressing my opinions, so it’s my prerogative to knock you unconscious.”) In terms of a medium, I wouldn’t say that his explanation was enough to warrant a justification.

4. Is it going to add to culture in any meaningful way?

Here, we can summarise the previous three points. He’s given a ‘full’ account of its purpose in just two sentences in the Reuters article (see quote in point 1, above). Its only innovative quality can be bettered by other means, and even if it is intended to be an innovative expression of nature, it’s a pretty weak one. It isn’t even an interpretation – it’s just taking something straight from life and presenting the thing iteslef as art. The same goes for the chosen medium.

* * *

If this is all the justification he can give, and that’s all there is to it, then what’s the point in trying to pass it off as art? It’s not clever, interesting, insightful, innovative nor inspirational. Thank God for artists like Banksy, who express what they want to express through real desires and with real talent, with none of the pretence and being free of the purely financial motivation to be “contemporary.”

The Notion of 'Love at First Sight'

Let me let you into a little secret. Whoever you are, you did not fall in love at first sight. Stop saying you did, because you didn't. By all means cling on to your pathetic delusions if you must, if it gets you through your life. But for gods' sakes, stop spouting them to the rest of us.

Am I the only person to see what a pathetic pile of crap the notion of “love at first sight” is? Let me be clear that I'm not on about Platonic love. I'm on about the sort of love that is a combination of friendship and sexual attraction, respect - an affinity for all aspects of a person. In other words, the sort of love that people are thinking about when they use the term, ‘love at first sight.’

Are you trying to tell me that you can get all of this information from a person within a few moments of seeing them? Even before you actually meet them? Wow, that's quite a powerful delusion. You must be the sort of person who believes that it's one of the unexplainable miracles of life that God throws at us. Well, that explains a lot.

Let's get back to reality. All you had, in those first few moments of seeing him/her/it/them, was a feeling of lust and (consequently) a drive to get to know them better. That's probably what they felt when they met you as well. Sorry to spoil your romantic mental masturbation here, but you're clearly living a lie. Any evidence that might seem to back your point up is coincidental. It must be. There are only two ways you could possibly love someone on first seeing them: You must either be telepathic, or you must have at least spoken to them beforehand, say on the phone, and decided that you were “in love” at this point instead. Both of them are ridiculous, and the second one is slightly missing the point about what the phrase is supposed to mean.

A common reply to such so-called “sceptics” as myself (I would prefer the term, “rationalist”) is this:

“Aah, you need to experience it, and then you'll know.”

What a brilliant non-answer. Religious people use this ploy to defend against arguments which “offend” their gods. (I’ve always found that one odd: If I were religious, I would try to refrain from believing that my god or gods were weak enough to succumb to vanity.)

Let's just suppose I tell you that I have seen the tooth fairy in my back garden. The sane-minded amongst you might argue that this cannot be, to which I can reply “aah, wait until you see it, then you'll know.” In a way, it's a perfect argument - the arguer cannot battle against that one easily, without waiting in garden until my tooth fairy appears. The response to its inevitable non-appearance is, “well, you haven't waited for long enough.” If, eventually, you believe that you have seen the tooth fairy, then in all probability you were so focused on it that your brain mis-associated it with something else. Imagine all the times you've desperately searched around the house for something you needed urgently. After a while of looking, you get fatigued, and your mind will trick you into thinking that you've seen it in the corner of your eye. You look around and it's not there. I would expect that mirages are a similar experience.

Love at first sight is this unwavering belief, the stubborn, irrational, religious clinging-on of an ideal that you want to believe in, that eventually tricks the mind into thinking it is real. As far as I can see, there are three ways of succumbing to the delusion:

1. Introspectively, by deciding from the outset that you want to fall in love at first sight, probably out of sexual or egoistic desperation, or a hyperactive sense of romance. In this case, you are likely to assume that any person you meet who you “fall in love” with was down to that first encounter. Here, “I knew from the start that we were in love” translates as, “I assumed from the start that we would fall in love,” which of course is somewhat different.
2. Posthumously, by changing the way you remember first contact in order to suit the retrospective situation. Here, “we were in love from the start” translates as, “I remember that we were in love from the start because that's how I want to remember it.”
3. Mistakenly, as one Henry Velez suggests. On first contact, a person fits the stereotype of who they would like to “love.” Later on, if this develops into a loving relationship, they mistakenly and lazily assume that the initial spark must have been love at first sight, because of a lack of alternative explanations that are immediately apparent to them. It is easier to latch onto a well-known idea that is easy to understand (because there is no explanation to understand) than it is to search endlessly for another explanation. Rather than subscribe to the idea that there is no explanation to search for, this sort of person will choose the “love at first sight” explanation because it is both decisive and conforting.

I find this article from RomanceTracker.com particularly engaging, although for unfortunate reasons. I'm particularly interested in the way it tries to justify the supposed existence of love at first sight. Let's take a look at all the points it makes to this effect.

“the concept of Love at First Sight has been lauded in countless stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions. Poets and romantics regard Love at First Sight as an unquestionable truth”

All of these poems, stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions are, no doubt, works of romantic fiction. No wonder they contain concepts as fanciful as love at first sight. Based on this observation, the second sentence almost invites its own answer:

“millions of lonely people around the world pray every day that it will happen to them.”

The fact that millions of people want it to happen doesn't make it real. What’s more, the sentence just derogates a section of society, painting them as pathetic, weak individuals who would cling on to a flimsy and unlikely hope rather than going out and doing something about it. I'm not sure how this goes in their argument's favour.

“So, how do you know if you’ve experienced Love at First Sight? Well, if you have to ask, you probably haven’t.”

Aha! One of those nonsense circularity responses that I was talking about in paragraph 5.

“before you roll your eyes and underestimate the power of romance, be careful [...] Love at First Sight can happen to skeptics [sic], too!”

I had to summon a lot of willpower to avoid using swear-words in response to this patronising, childish, demented tosh. Having failed at proving, or even providing valid evidence as to the existence of love at first sight, which is both the basic and the fatal assumption of the entire article, it then presumes to impose authority over the subject by offering pity to those not self-admitted into the asylum of fantasy.

And that's it! They are all of the points that this great authority on the subject has to offer. It doesn't even attempt to define the word ‘love.’

Look, you can't have it both ways. Either you can own up to the whole package – believing in love at first sight, telepathy, mysticism, astrology, superstition, deism, little people in the garden – or you can drop the charade and admit that you think you fell in love at first sight, simply and only because you want to believe it. Please, open your brain to rational thought, and stop degrading yourself. Frankly, it's painful to have to witness.

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Unfortunately, this BBC News Article on the subject seems to lose track of the “at first sight” bit, which is quite pivotal really. Or perhaps it's just BBC News making up any old headline to grab attention, gutter-press style – it is BBC News, after all.

This Guardian article makes the same overall point as me. I would be surprised if it is “new research,” as the article claims, though – not only have I (and, no doubt, many other rationalists) found it patently obvious for a very long time, but philosophers must have been spouting similar for centuries.

The Financial Misery

We're all going to die! Death, destruction, misery! The markets are going to collapse, and there's going to be complete mayhem!

Hang on a minute. I'm still here, you're still here. We still buy things which are expensive but affordable if you're careful about what you buy. Petrol's gone down in price. What's the problem?

I tell you what: The "misery" isn't in the supposed "crisis" that we're in. It's in the constant barrage of media hype that we're bombarded with day after day. I've been checking on its progress on Reuters. How long has the so-called "credit crunch" been the headline? Three weeks, a month?

But why? Have people stopped starving in the nation's poorest countries? Are the various altercations around the globe in a state of suspense? Is there no good news to report? (Don't tell me the standard line that no-one's interested in good news. This mentally disturbed minority are the sort who watch EastEnders and Celebrity Love Island, listen to vacuous music and use the word "cool" as if it actually means something. Enough said.)

Is it really such a bad a situation that everything else in the news has to be put on hold? Is it not suspicious that the term "credit crunch" is coined, and soon afterwards referred to as if it is real? (Credit to Channel 4 News last night, who ran a fascinating and off-beat cultural story about Lucian Freud campaigning to save a Titian painting.)

What is a "credit crunch", and where is it defined? If it is defined, was it defined by experts in the field - economists, philosophers, mathematicians? Somehow, I don't think so. If it were, then it has been very carefully hidden. Frankly, I find the politicians who must have come up with the idea laughable, and I find the people who are taken in by it laughable. I have to, because if I didn't laugh then I'd be depressed, which incidentally is what the people who make money out of market turbulence would like me to believe is happening to the economy. No doubt, that is the real reason for the invention of the term "credit crunch".

What a crap state of affairs that, not only does the news spread this tripe as if it's the end of the world, but people actually buy it, in more ways than one. Where's George Galloway when you need him?

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Update (30.10.08): Today's Reuters front-page headline mentions rising fears about the economy. Perhaps, just perhaps, media propaganda such as that same article might have something to do with it. Hmmm.

Faith

Sod the meek.
- The Pope

This month (July 2008), a quarter of Anglicans boycotted a religious conference because of unrest over Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop.

Now, if I boycotted work because it employed someone who was openly gay, I’d probably get the sack. If I boycotted my gym because a member was openly gay, then other members would think less of me. If they didn’t, it would probably be a pretty crass, thuggish, chav-type gym that you wouldn’t really want to go to. If I boycotted a conference on the grounds that one of the speakers was openly gay, people would probably be baffled. The thoughts of those that worship rational thought might even posit,

“Why the big hoohar? He’s giving a lecture about botany. He’s hardly likely to go onto the stage in drag, make a series of homosexual double-entendres, pull members of the audience onto the stage and embarrass them with fake sex acts involving flowers. How dare you stereotype him so severely and unfoundedly on the grounds of his benign, personal and private preferences?”

Well, Rational People, you'd be right.

But the Church? Oh, that’s different. It doesn’t have to abide by moral and legal rules – instead, it has its own set of rules, enshrouding a meaningless notion backed up by circular and dead-ended arguments that it likes to call “faith.” The following brainless pattern of justification is typical and - worse - widely accepted as valid by the 'outside world':

“Why do you believe that bishops should not openly be gay?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?”

“Because it’s against the principles of my faith.”

And so into the black hole the argument goes, the faith-defender hiding behind the ridiculous notion that he believes (in) something, and that that's a justification in itself. They believe it “just because.” Not only that – only to those who are members of various exclusive posses that call themselves religions or denominations does the law give an exemption to sense. Even The Public has been taken in, although we know what The Public's like.

Believe in something because it makes sense, by all means. Believing in something as long as it doesn’t unfairly discriminate against someone else is no problem. But believing in something not only immoral, arbitrary and unfounded but hateful is just one step too far. In fact, it's evil.

There is a further point to be made about the word “belief”. Faith is belief, but without rationale. It is unquestioning belief. “I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have faith.” The sentence sounds convincing, except that the “because I have faith” bit doesn’t really mean anything. It’s also yet another circular argument: it’s the same as saying “I believe, because I believe.”

Faith is pathetic and cowardly. It’s a cop-out that requires no thought (and indeed, hides from it) as to a purpose; it gives the ignorant a delusional sanctuary, and provides a convenient way of ‘explaining’ something without really giving an explanation. You might as well replace the word “faith” with “bananas”:

“I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have bananas.”

It makes just as much sense, and it's just as valid a point.

To return to the gay bishop story, such behaviour is childish. If children can’t play with their toys without abusing them, then their toys are taken away. Why does the same not go for religious bigots? I was under the impression that hateful organisations and practices were illegal. They certainly shouldn't be tolerated, regardless. So ban them from practising their faith, if it breaches or erodes the peace between innocent people. The rest of us have to live by these rules, and I see no reason why these haters can get away with such things on grounds that it is “their faith” and that it is “part of the religion.”

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the word “bigot” originally meant “religious hypocrite.”[2]How apt for an organisation that claims to be founded on a doctrine of tolerance and morality.

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[1] Reuters. (16.07.08) “Quarter of world’s Anglicans boycott conference”,http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1572153620080716

[2] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot

Nature, God

Nature? Crap. What the hell was God (or the gods, the Architect, Mother Nature, evolution, luck, fate or whatever else you happen to believe in), thinking when he/she/it/they invented the concept of nature and of the sentient being? It’s made a complete cock-up of humans, for a start. It is the nature of things for living beings to die, but it makes no sense for us to (be able to) worry about death. We only need to have the drive to avoid it. Worry gives us the added complication of thinking about death even when there's nothing we can do about it and when we are not in danger of dying. So why have we been made to worry about it? Why do we have to worry about anything full stop? Things are, people die, and the best we can do is to avoid it as much as possible. What’s more, we have in our possession the ability not only of irrational thought, but negative irrational thought. Oh well done, God, very useful that.

Another thing is that Nature would have us evolve to the point where we live in huge artificial communities. What’s that all about then? We’re put together with a lot of people that we don’t care about, who distract our time and attention from the people who matter – those emotionally and spiritually closest to us. While this is happening, we’re surrounded by artificial constructs that house, clothe and feed us, and have to pay particular attention to politics, law and making money, which wouldn’t be necessary in a natural environment. So, while we’re biologically configured to being “close to nature,” Nature has given humankind the mistaken ability to “better” itself by “improving” on these things. Yep, it’s some improvement: stress, cancer, pollution. Abstraction from the real realities of living can only be a bad thing. Whether you believe it damages the soul or contradicts what comes naturally, it’s at the very least not what we’re intended for. The happiest communities are quite clearly the smallest and most tribal communities. What more proof do we need? This is where happiness comes from – working for others because it’s in the best interest of the friends around you, and doing jobs that please you to do simply because they help everyone. Less stress, no cancer, minimal pollution and everyone knows his place. It doesn’t really offer much room for argument when you think about it.

Intelligence is crap, too. Intelligence is God’s way of admitting, “I can’t do a good job of guiding you on the right path, so you decide.” It’s an admission of defeat. Some reliable, guiding force for good God is, then. And it’s a non-argument to say that God’s purpose is to give humanity the ability to think for himself, and that at the same time He gives humans guidance. God’s perfect, right? And if that’s the case, everything He creates is perfect. So we should need no guidance, because we’re perfect creations. Seems like He’s shot Himself in the foot on that one. Or perhaps God knows this fact, and the theists have missed the point.

Intelligence is also evidence of God’s hobby of tormenting His little pets. The most intelligent people I know are hardly the happiest. The happiest people always seem to be those who are oblivious to what’s going on and those who bypass intelligence in pursuit of a simpler or more natural life. So what does that mean? That the purpose of intelligence is for it to be ignored? Or that God enjoys causing misery?

Here we are, held in a perpetual web of artificial worry, through modern living and evolution, that captivates us with things that, any way you look at it, shouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it’s all a big test, for a higher purpose that we’re not aware of. But to me it just sounds like God is having a laugh. And I don’t think much of His sense of humour.

The Alleged "Oil Shortage"

The laws of profit and loss are simple. If you sell more goods or services, you make more money. If you sell less, you make less.

So why, in a world where we are supposedly facing an oil shortage, are oil companies making record profits? It’s all hype, and it’s all just crap designed to make powerful people more money. This week it was Shell (see main link on title). Even better – the first paragraph (at least, at the time of writing) says that Shell needs continual price rises, otherwise it will suffer a loss in profits. Aww, boo bloody hoo.

There are other examples from around the world of profits increasing over the last 12 months, occasionally even because oil output has increased:

Indian Oil Corp: 17% profit rise[1]
Shanghai Petro: 50% profit rise[2]
Canadian Oil: 400% profit rise[3]

Equally suspiciously, no-one in the media, nor in government, has uttered a single word about the gaping inconsistencies, either to say "haaaang on" or to rationalise them. The conspiracy theories are too obvious and numerous to be mentioned here, and it's getting bloody difficult to discredit them merely for being conspiracy theories, which seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days.

What's next? I predict that, as a result of the problems of Northern Rock in the UK and the so-called sub-prime "crisis" in the US, both countries will soon introduce a raft of measures to allow financial institutions to make lots more mon... I mean, to recover so that they do not adversely affect people's savings. I don't know about the US, but in the UK it's already happening: the government is thinking of allowing banks to be bailed in secret[4][5]. Who needs transparency when it's far simpler to hide problems behind people's backs? And this is despite Mervyn King's excellent statement that:

The only thing that will stop banks taking risky activities is the knowledge that if things go wrong, they, and they alone bear the consequences.[6]

Needless to say, if I go missing within the next few weeks and this Blog is suddenly shut down, then you'll have a good idea as to why.

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[1] Reuters. (31.01.08), “India’s IOC Q3 net profit rises 17 percent yr/yr”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKBMA00028720080131

[2] Reuters. (31.01.08) “Shanghai Petro says 2007 net rose over 50 pct”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKSHA16615320080131

[3] Reuters. (30.01.08) “Canadian Oil Sands profit jumps on prices, output”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKWNA784920080130

[4] Guardian. (31.01.08) “New Powers for Bank to Stage Secret Rescues”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/31/northernrock.bankofenglandgovernor?gusrc=rss&feed=business

[5] publicradio.org. (30.01.08) “Bank of England to save banks in secret”, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/30/bank_of_england_bailouts/

[6] Reuters. (24.09.07) “Regulation stalled Northern Rock Rescue”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/personalFinanceNews/idUKNOA03409820070924?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0