What the FUCK America? What are you DOING?
It's half two in the morning, no detailed analysis here right now... Just...
Dear God, America. Do you not... Markets... International... Political...
GAH!
Acanthus
A blog containing ramblings about politics, philosophy, asexuality, and whatever else is interesting to my deranged mind at that exact moment.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Friday, 20 September 2013
Liberalism 101
Modern Liberalism
is quite often confused with Socialism. Mostly by Americans.
Liberals... are not socialists. There are quite a few differences
there, most notably that a modern Liberal – at least in theory –
doesn't care about equality.
I hate the word
'equality' (not the concept, the word), and I'm not going to explain
why I hate it right
now, but I do. Just know for the moment that I'm referring to
equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity* can go sit in the
corner for a while to let it's ugly step-sibling take up the
attention. A Socialist*** wants everyone to have an outcome which
is... roughly equal. Fair, at least. Some might think that effort
should be exactly proportional to reward, and that everyone should
thus be able to have exactly the same quality of life as anyone else,
no matter what awful mistakes they might have made in the past. Some
might think that all reward should be equal and thus that everyone
should work for the good of the collective, rather than their own
selfish ends. Some might think that effort should be based on
contribution... there are a lot of Socialisms. But the point is that
the outcome should be roughly equal in some
way. Noone should be left behind. If anyone is, it'd be because they
refuse to do any work. They're probably evil capitalist landowners
who live on the sweat of the poor, downtrodden masses, and are
incapable of being of benefit to society, like the salt of the earth
workers are*****.
Modern Liberals don't,
inherently, care about this. This might seem like a rather
counter-intuitive statement, since modern liberalism seems to have
sprung entirely out of concern for the poor. A large part of the
point of the development of modern liberalism was that the 'freedom'
of the classical liberals was all very well, but that this freedom
might be, for the poorest in society, actually no more than the
freedom to starve. It was modern liberalism which brought into being
in the UK the beginning of the welfare state, which takes care of its
citizens from cradle to grave. But the difference here is illustrated
by the ideas of a classical liberal – Hayek (and no, the dates
don't matter). He said that what we should have to protect people
from poverty is a minimum level of provision – a line which noone
would be allowed to fall below. Modern Liberalism carries on this
tradition (despite predating Hayek). They care about lifting people
out of poverty††,
but not necessarily about how far above 'not in poverty' the top –
or even the average – member of society might be. Whilst Socialists
care about the range of wealth levels, modern liberals are focused on
the minimum.
Of course, the
distinction is not always this clear cut. Even in the time of Smith,
it was recognised that there were such things as positional goods,
goods the utility of which is based upon the position of the rest
of society. What is absolutely vital to a modern westerner might be
not classify in the same way if you happen to be a Medieval Spaniard
– a car, the internet, proper nutrition, etc. And this means that a
greater objective level of wealth may be required in some places,
times or societies, and for some people, to achieve the same level of
utility – giving results similar to a sort-of system of relative
poverty, but one with entirely different motives – one concerned
about a basic level of utility (or standard of living), one concerned
about equality of outcome.
The spread of
liberalism also, at least arguably, has a tendency to increase the
drive for equality. In a feudal society, a peasant might consider
themselves 'wealthy', regardless of falling short of the poorest
king, because a king is not measured on the same scale as a peasant,
and so the presence or absence of positional goods in the life of a
king is not to the same extent an influence on the happiness of the
peasant. As social mobility (or at least the perception of it)
increases, and society becomes less organised into castes, people
start comparing themselves to a larger portion of society. So whilst
a peasant might not compare themselves to a king, a worker will
compare themselves to their boss in a modern liberal society – and
moreso as class mobility increases. So someone who is objectively
better off, living further up a much more liberal society, may
actually feel worse off than someone who is further down a poorer
society, simply because of who they're comparing themselves against.
So Modern
Liberals support universalised healthcare, unemployment benefits, and
all those myriad other things that prevent someone's life from
becoming a hellish living drudge, from which the only escape is
death. But their motivation is the extension of freedom, since 'work
twelve hours a day or die of malnutrition' is not really freedom.
Meanwhile Socialists tend to support far more radical wealth
redistribution programmes, and their goal is equality.
So yeah. Modern
liberalism is not
Socialism. There's a difference – a huge difference. Liberals don't
have to be modern liberals, either. And I'm focused on the Liberal
side of things here. Being, y'know, a Liberal. Also, the UK isn't
socialist. Neither is any of the rest of Europe, but some bits do
have more of a Socialist bent than others††††.
I have run out of
things to say. I will now stop typing.
*The good kind of
equality, but that's just my opinion**
**And also the correct
one.
***As the term I used
today in political science, or at least in the kind of political
science I've studied.****
****On the USSR,
I wrote an essay once on whether they were actual
socialists or not. I should update it one of these days.
*****The salt of
the Earth is, if I remember my Mill correctly, the kind of
intellectual/revolutionary person who massively improves the world,
but in small quantities
– you couldn't have a society made entirely of that kind of person,
in the same way that you wouldn't want to eat salt, but you add a
little bit of it to something, and it improves it. I have no
idea how this ended up meaning what it does now, but I'm guessing it
was probably the Illuminati. It's usually the Illuminati.†
†OK,
fine, yes, I do also
know about the Sermon on the Mount. You should never trust me again.
But, honestly, I prefer the version above – which makes sense in a
modern context – to continuing to use it in a way which not only
doesn't, but which also
probably wasn't the way Jesus meant it.
††Absolute
poverty, by the way – not the whole stupid 'relative poverty'
thing, where you can lift people out of poverty by causing the right
kind of recession, and where people can fall into poverty for no
other reason than that even though their lives are actually improving
in economic terms, there are some other people hundreds of miles
away, whose lives are improving faster.
†††France.
I'm talking about France. In case that wasn't clear.
Sunday, 1 September 2013
The Scouring of Greenland (with thanks to HP Lovecraft)
|Well, that 'post early in August' thing worked out! I wrote this story about 18 months ago. I really hope I've improved since then. A lot... ugh.
It occurs to me that possibly I should explain this. I just kinda started writing something else, and got distracted. For a month.
After the unification of Ireland under High King Conn, and their subsequent annexation of Wales under his son, King Art, an effort was made to avoid a costly war with the English, and alternate means of expansion were sought. Thus it was that the Irish explorer Naos UaDonaill came to discover Greenland, and despite the hostile conditions, a small colony was established. So, when war did come with England upon Art’s death, and defeat seemed certain, a large proportion of the inhabitants of Ireland fled to their colony in Greenland, leaving King Lugaid with only a very small force with which to fight the English. Needless to say, England’s conquest of Ireland followed quickly.
It occurs to me that possibly I should explain this. I just kinda started writing something else, and got distracted. For a month.
After the unification of Ireland under High King Conn, and their subsequent annexation of Wales under his son, King Art, an effort was made to avoid a costly war with the English, and alternate means of expansion were sought. Thus it was that the Irish explorer Naos UaDonaill came to discover Greenland, and despite the hostile conditions, a small colony was established. So, when war did come with England upon Art’s death, and defeat seemed certain, a large proportion of the inhabitants of Ireland fled to their colony in Greenland, leaving King Lugaid with only a very small force with which to fight the English. Needless to say, England’s conquest of Ireland followed quickly.
The
relationship between the sudden influx of new settlers and the prior
inhabitants of Greenland is far too complex to be briefly documented here.
However, suffice to say, that by the time of the Wars of the Americas, their
society was remarkably integrated, albeit with
the Irish settlers forming a clear overclass. During the Wars, with the
American Continent fully occupied by various separatist factions, it was
decided that Greenland would form an ideal staging point for the reinvasion of
the North. The government, due to their clear military inferiority, agreed to
this, but there were still memories within the country of having been forced to
evacuate their homeland, and many factions within the country objected
strenuously to allowing such access. Still, historians are puzzled to this day
as to how they might have achieved such destruction, and many believe that
contemporary sources have misattributed to human action a natural phenomenon,
although no credible explanation as to what this phenomenon might have been has
yet been proposed.
My name is Jonathan Smith… Actually,
that’s a complete lie. I work for the government of the British Empire. Since
noone ever uses my real name any more, it’s really just easier to stick to
‘Jonathan Smith’. I had a wife once, but she left the first time a tentacled
aberration the size of a small ship crashed through our wall. It’s a pity – I
really cared about her... Where was I? Ah, yes. The British Government. Actually,
I’ve never really seen it that way. The job of the British Government is the
protection of its citizens (or taking over the world – whichever). Mine is
making sure that noone destroys the world. So the way I see it, they work for
me.
Yes,
of course. Because when you tell them that leaving Greenland before rebels
summon an abomination from beyond time to turn the entire country into
obsidian, they do it immediately, don’t they? So there’s no way you might ever
have to go traipsing through a frozen waste looking for a cult which you have no
idea of how to even start to go about stopping, even if you do manage to find
them.
And I have a voice in my head. I
think it’s probably a result of losing my last regular human companion when my
wife left, combined with far too much time spent dealing with various creatures
from beyond God’s creation. He claims to be one of the Virtues, but I really don’t
believe him.
And as you might’ve worked out from
that, I’m currently in the middle of Greenland, looking for a world destroying
cult. So, tangent over, back to my story. My name is Jonathan Smith. I arrived
in Greenland just over two weeks ago to try and prevent the summoning of Cthroorn.
I still remember my first arrival here. The frozen wastes stretched as far as
the eye could see. So imagine what it was like when I left the capital city. And when my story starts, I’m on a coach
going to a castle in the middle of nowhere. Not even knowing whether or not
there’s anything there. I only know about the summoning at all because someone
named Kaiwan told me about the cult, their plans and that this was the place to
go to find out about it. You might’ve
wanted to examine that one a little more closely. He seemed nice, though.
No. No. No. That’s no way to start a
story. Noone wants to hear me talk about the boring details of my job. My name
is Jonathan Smith. I fight crime. No you
don’t. If you consider causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and undoing
God’s creation to be a crime I do. And I do. Anyway, you’re probably wondering
why I started my story here. This is where the interesting bit starts. I was
approached by someone calling himself Sean. Of course, I know now that that
wasn’t his real name. That’s terrible!
What kind of despicable person would use a false name? Shut up. Sean asked
me why I was travelling to the castle. So I told him that I’d heard reports of
strange things happening there, and I was visiting him in order to try and find
out about them. In retrospect, that was
kinda stupid. Well how would you have
gone about finding information? Obviously, though, he said he didn’t know
anything about strange happenings in the castle that he informed me he’d never
been to before, and I didn’t think anything of it.
Nothing else of particular note
happened in the time between that conversation and our arrival at the castle. Except the deep one. Yes, except that
our group was attacked by a deep one. I’m not sure how the thing had got there,
but about half of us ended up dead. That was incredibly relevant, thank you for
reminding me. Always happy to remind you
of your devastating failures. There was nothing I could do. Even with the
best reverse engineering available, a musket isn’t going to do much against a
deep one.
Nothing else of particular note
which is actually of relevance to my story happened before we reached the
castle. When we did reach it, accommodation,
at least, wasn’t a problem. I may not be able to end wars, but I do have at
least enough influence to get myself a place to sleep. You bribed someone. And you still couldn’t get into the castle itself.
Why must you constantly correct me on the most minor of details? In this case, it’s actually important.
Although it is true that his interruption might’ve been justified. I was,
indeed, forced to take shelter in a small, windowless hut in the village
surrounding the castle. The next night, I heard a knocking on my door. It had
probably been going on for some time, since I’d tired myself out making sure
that the hut was safe for habitation.
I am not some untrained lordling,
who runs across a cult whilst exploring his heritage. I was trained for this.
When you’re investigating a world destroying cult, and someone knocks on your
door in the middle of the night, the correct response is not to assume that
they’ve got the wrong door. I’d put a bullet through the door before I was even
fully awake. It’s a good thing you live
in the modern day. In the past, you might’ve had to get up in order to commit
random murder. It was self-defence, and you know it. So you say. It’s going to be rather embarrassing when you have to tell
people you shot your landlord. It is true that, as I now know, the person I
had just shot was, in fact, the owner of the place I was staying, as Sean later
informed me. At the time, however, I was rather more concerned with the fact
that cultists tended to come in swarms. And, indeed, there now seemed to be a
mob trying to break down his door. I managed to get off a few more shots before
my door gave in.
Another brilliant invention of the
modern age is the socket bayonet. So I did still have a way of defending
myself. You didn’t, though. Fighting
people when they can fight back? Sounds dangerous. Better to wait until there’s
a door between you. Gah! How am I meant to tell a good story with these
constant interruptions? There must’ve been about fifty of them. Twenty. Regardless. There were too many
of them still standing for me to deal with. And the hut I was staying in didn’t
have any windows. They’d probably been planning this. Unfortunately, I was, as
I pointed out before, trained for this, and trained rather well. One of the
first things I’d been trained to do when I was sleeping in someone else’s house
was to make myself an exit that they didn’t know about. With the work I’d
already done, it took me less than half a second with the bayonet to make a
hole in the wall. I grabbed the bag I’d stored next to it, and was out of the
hut before the mob had crossed the room.
Another fortunate habit I’d managed
to developed was sleeping in clothes I could go outside in. It might be rather
uncomfortable to try and sleep in a full length coat, but that’s nothing
compared to having one’s toes fall off whilst one tries to flee a town. So if you could escape any time you felt
like it, why did you have to shoot someone just for knocking at your door?
Good point. I should probably explain that. It’s not that I particularly enjoy
randomly murdering people who I’ve never even seen. Liar. Quiet. Even if they didn’t know about the hole in the wall,
they might’ve surrounded the hut. Besides which, leaving behind the only place
I have to sleep and losing most of my possessions into the bargain isn’t
exactly convenient. As I was saying, I was able to outdistance the mob,
probably aided by the fact that they seem to have paused to burn down the hut.
I’d say I wasn’t sure why, but given that most of my important possessions
which weren’t in my bag had been hidden in various places, it was probably the
best way of making sure they’d destroyed all my possessions. Which is exactly
what cultists would do. Or people who’d
just seen you murder their friends, and wanted to make life as difficult for
you as possible. But they weren’t. They were cultists.
As I ran, I tried to think of what
to do next. I think it’s probably safe to
say you made the wrong choice. I haven’t got to that bit yet. I decided
that I probably shouldn’t go to the castle for help, since there was a pretty
good chance that they were in on this. Because
they wouldn’t let you sleep in the castle and laughed at your identification?
Wouldn’t that be what most people
would do? Do you have to criticise everything
I do? As it turns out, I was totally right, so I don’t think you’re allowed to
criticise me for that particular call. But it didn’t exactly leave that many
choices as to what to do. Fortunately or not
I hadn’t really started my investigations yet. I always find it better to have
an escape route before I start asking
the homicidal maniacs suspicious questions. So the only person I’d told was
Sean. Pity you didn’t exercise that level
of caution with Sean. Actually, it was a good thing I didn’t. Or I wouldn’t
have had any leads. And having leads worked out so well for you.
Just let me tell the story. I decided that what I needed to do was track Sean
down. Of course, when I got to the coach he wasn’t there. I hardly expected him
to be, not when there were actual beds nearby. But I thought I could wait
nearby until he came back. Then I saved
the day. Then the voice in my head revealed that he knew how to track
people. I’m not really sure how he
knew that, since I never learned it. Because
I’m a Virtue. Why wouldn’t I know how
do things you can’t? Or I did
learn to do it at some point, and repressed the memory. I’ve seen that kind of
thing happen to people in my line of work before. Why is my being a Virtue so hard to believe? Because I have a
passing knowledge of theology. Virtues don’t deal with humans. I’ve told you before. My job is to ensure
order in the cosmos. I don’t like the idea of things like Cthroorn being on the
loose any more than you do. But I’m not allowed to just smite people. So I work
with the tools I’m given.
Anyway. However it happened isn’t
particularly important. I was able to track Sean’s footprints, anyway. Excuse me? I was-. I just said it didn’t
matter. What does matter is that I tracked them, and they led to the castle.
Which pretty much confirmed my ‘the guards are in on it’ theory. Because only a complete idiot would be
fooled by Sean. Shut. Up. You’re just
trying to rationalise what you did next. What I did next was fine. The lives
of two people are really not of that much concern compared to the lives of
everyone in Greenland, and many of those outside it.
There were two guards outside. I had
a bayonet, and I didn’t want to be delayed or draw too much attention to
myself. So I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture. And you’re feeling too guilty about what you did to want to talk about
it. I’m not really proud of what I did, I’ll admit it. But it was the right
decision, and I’ll stand by it. I was able to do what I had to, and I managed
to get into the castle.
Wherever it came from, my tracking
abilities didn’t work inside the castle. Have
you ever tried to track someone across a solid stone floor which hundreds of
other people have also walked across. You already know I can’t track
anyway. But I’m sure an angel would’ve found a way of managing it. I don’t exactly have a lot of experience with
humans. Think yourself lucky I got as far as I did. Unfortunately, I do
have to agree with him. That particular random ability had just come in rather
useful, and it would seem rather ungrateful to complain about losing something
I hadn’t even had five minutes ago. So I had to search the castle manually.
I’ll spare you the description of
what, exactly, it was that I found in that place, but suffice to say that there
was rather more evidence that there really was something untoward and culty
going on here… Surprisingly, the voices in my head seem to agree with me on
that one. Anyway, I did manage eventually to find Sean. I didn’t know that I
had at the time, since everyone was calling him ‘lordship’ and he was wearing
the face concealing black hooded robe that most cultists seem to favour. It makes them harder to identify. And
makes it easier to sneak in. Until
someone tries to talk to you. Yes, that can be a problem. I ambushed one of
the cultists on the way out of the room, and went in to see what they were
doing. Clever. Yeah, that might’ve
been a mistake, but killing random cultists isn’t really helpful if it turns
out that the actual summoning is going on a few miles away, and you don’t have
a clue that you just completely failed to prevent the apocalypse. It seemed to
work at first, and we proceeded without incident into the room where the
summoning ritual was going to take place. You
didn’t find it the least bit suspicious that your arrival should suddenly
trigger them being ready for the start of the ritual? And if I had, what exactly could I have done
about it? The problem came when Sean called for the sacrifice to be brought
forth, and two cultists grabbed me from behind.
I am, as I have said before, trained
for this. The very concept of not
having some way of defending myself is alien to me. Unfortunately, even well
trained and armed with a bayonet, numbers take their toll. Let alone when it’s someone like you who’s armed with a bayonet.
The cultists restrained me, and held me in front of Sean, who lowered his hood,
and revealed his identity to me.
He told me that we hadn’t really
been properly introduced, and that his real name was Cu Chulainn. I don’t
believe that that’s his real name, any more than Sean is, so I’m just going to
stick with Sean. He also explained to me that they’d been expecting me. Like I said, you should really have been
less eager to trust Kaiwan.
Then the ritual started. It was
surprisingly painless, although given that it summoned Chthroorn inside of me,
and he’s going to burst forth and destroy everything for miles around soon, I
suspect that it is unlikely to remain so.
I doubt anyone will ever find this
account, but there’s hardly anything else I can do at this point. And if anyone
else ever does hear this... Good luck.
Jonathan finished his account, and
put down the recording device. Like the musket, it was reverse engineered –
this had been taken from a Cammora. Unlike his musket had recently proven to be,
it was nearly unbreakable, so it would probably survive Chthroorn. Then he
waited.
He had been intending to simply wait
for the end to come, but someone came down the hall to visit him. Someone
interesting enough to shake him out of his reverie. It was Kaiwan.
‘You murderer!’ Jonathan sprang to
his feet. ‘Why did you even come here? You’ll end up as dead as everyone else.
‘I severely doubt that.’ Kaiwan
smiled smugly. ‘Regardless, I had to make sure you didn’t go off track.’
‘Sorry?’ Jonathan asked.
‘Don’t you recognise me?’ His smile
had gone from smugness to downright mockery. ‘I’m your virtue. And now Cthroorn
will rise, and it will be glorious.’
It was Jonathan’s turn to smile
smugly ‘No it won’t.’
Kaiwan’s smile disappeared.
‘Explain.’
‘Cthroon’s part of me now. I can
feel what it will do. How did you think I knew what its name was? Cthroorn’s
not going to rise. It’s going to do what anything would do if it was woken in
the middle of the night by an annoying little insect. Smash the annoyance, and
go back to sleep. You’re a mass murderer, but if you were looking for the
apocalypse, you’ve gone about it all wrong.’ Jonathan closed his eyes, and felt
the transformation begin.
He was right. It wasn’t painless.
Wednesday, 31 July 2013
Convolvus minor
Still July!
I need to start getting this stuff done faster...
Anyway, my foratting has gotten all screwed up, and I can't be bothered to replace most of it...
I don't think I have anything else to say this...
Oh! The topic of the post!
OK, doubt. I'm big on doubt. I'm agnostic, for a start, and I heartily dislike glib oversimplifications. Things are more complicated than that. Things are always more complicated than that*. Always**. So doubt is a kinda 'me' thing.
In the case of asexuality, it's rather easy to be less than entirely sure of where you stand, especially if you've got fairly used to identifying as straight before you even hear that you might be something called an 'asexual'. Straight is... kinda the default, it's what you assume. You need some reason to start doubting it, and being a heteroromantic asexual doesn't really lend itself to you getting that kind of push. You don't start getting attracted to people of the same gender as you (which I've always thought must be a definite hint that one is not entirely straight), you just... aren't attracted to anyone. Except you are. You're attracted to those of the opposite sex***, and in a way that you are not attracted to those of the same sex****. So that must make you straight, right? Sure, the attraction isn't exactly what you'd imagine sexual attraction to be, since, y'know, it doesn't actually come with any desire whatsoever to actually have sex with anyone, but, well, even if you do ask someone else what sexual attraction feels like, they generally don't have a particularly satisfactory answer for you. Even if (as I did) you have a suspicion that what you feel isn't sexual attraction, it's rather hard to figure out what other options there might be. The distinction between romantic and sexual orientation is really something almost unique to the ace community, and knowing about it can be a huge part of trying to figure out if you're ace or not. Which means that you have to be part of the asexual community in order to figure out that one should be part of the asexual community. It's pretty easy to get stuck in a state of existential doubt, where you really doesn't know what on earth you are. You must be straight... and yet you're kinda not.
If you are lucky, and find out that 'heteroromantic asexual' is a thing (or any other flavour of romantic asexual), then there's still the problem of being sure that you are one. It's easy to determine, for example, polysexuality. At least somewhat. One simply has to be attracted to people of a variety of genders. Determining for certain the complete absence of something? That's a lot harder, especially if it's something you've never experienced, and which noone can describe to you properly. It's always hard to be sure that something isn't there somewhere, let alone when you don't, technically, actually know what you're looking for. Just ask Nessie. The best you can do is, eventually, to decide that if there was someone you were going to be attracted by, you would have seen them by now. You would have found at least one person you had at least a little attraction to. And you decide that, if there is such a person, and you haven't found them yet, you might as well be functionally asexual. The kind of people you're attracted to are clearly so rare you're unlikely to ever come across them, anyway, and they'd have to be a long way from what is commonly thought of as attractive, or you would have known what your friends were talking about when they said that they found people attractive.
And then you find out about grey-aces and demisexuals. And as far as I know, there is no way of determining that you aren't one of those. Maybe I only get attracted to people I feel a certain way about. Maybe I've never really felt that way about anyone, or maybe the people who I have felt that way about aren't the kind of people I'd find attractive anyway. I mean, people of other orientations aren't attracted to absolutely everyone with whom their orientation is compatible (I don't think). So it would seem rash of me to assume that demisexuals must be*****. I still don't know if I might be, for example, demisexual. I have no idea how I'd go about finding out, really.
And then there's the final piece of doubt. Or the final piece that I'm going to talk about right now, anyway. Which is when you come out, and you are doubted. Generally, this doubt is really not helpful. You get told that you just haven't found the right person yet†. You get told a whole load of things about how you just haven't tried it††, or about how if you're a repulsed asexual, rather than a merely indifferent one, then that means you must be ill†††. None of this is helpful, if you're still not entirely confident in your conclusions. A sexual might not be trying to be at all hurtful when they say something like this. They might genuinely be trying to help. To any sexuals reading? You're really not. The person you're talking to has probably thought of all this. They've probably heard all this from someone else. If they've been out for a while, they definitely have. If you're a close friend, and you know what you're talking about, and you have some specific reason to think they're not asexual, you might go ahead (though remember that if it's something obvious, all their other close friends have probably mentioned it too, and try to be polite about it. For example, it's probably better to assume it's your mistake, and to ask for clarification, than to accidentally come off as a 'Ha! Gotcha!' kinda accusation (and remember that they really do have no obligation to explain this to you - if they do, it's out of politeness).
Obviously, if they're a close friend and they're not coming out, but just telling you, specifically, because they're not sure, you obviously have a lot more leeway to ask questions. And because you're a close friend who they trust enough to tell, you probably won't screw it up. You do still want to be pretty careful, yeah, and think about how they're likely to be feeling right now, but if they came to you, I would hope that you'd be able to deal with it.
Anyway, that's it for now. I have another post I've been working on that should go up in early August, hopefully (I have no idea how these things take so long to write). Seeya!
*To be clear, it's not the fact that something's been simplified that I dislike - I do that all the time myself, after all. It's the denial that this is, in fact, being done. Reducing something complicated into something simple is helpful. Pretending that something complicated is something simple is really downright unhelpful.
**Mathematics often claims to be the exception here, saying that mathematical truths are absolute truth, and thus (at least some of them) are entirely straightforward and simple. I would like to point out to these people that in Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell (two rather intelligent philosophers) spent several hundred pages attempting to prove that two plus two equals four. An attempt in which they were only partially successful. And even this partial success depends on the validity of deductive logic - which, it must be pointed out, is seen to be reliable only on the basis of deductive logic,a level of circular reasoning roughly equivalent to the claim that one knows that astrology is accurate because the stars predict that it will be.
***Whether or not they are the opposite gender is not necessarily something our hypothetical heteroromantic asexual, who is totally not me knows, or has even considered, as yet.
****OK, in my case, I am sometimes attracted to men - cisgendered men - in that way. But it's a lot rarer, and I'm just going to skip over it right now.
*****That is... not actually an entirely uncontroversial statement. Yes, I know about the thing about primary vs. secondary sexual attraction. I'm saying that I don't find the idea of a demisexual who is attracted to some people to whom they have a close enough emotional connection, but not to others, to be a self-contradictory one. In the simplest case, imagine demisexual A is biromantic, but actually only, as it turned out, demi-heterosexual. The primary vs. secondary model does not seem to, in the form I have encountered it, be able to account for it, but it seems to me not to be too absurd, and whilst I'm happy to be shown to be wrong, I'd need to have some fairly compelling evidence that it just doesn't happen at all to discard it as a possibility.
†Any sexual readers: how old were you when you first found someone you were attracted to? I mean at all. Not the first person you fell in love with, the first person you found at all desirable
†† With straight people, of course, it's easy to go with the old 'have you tried gay sex?' thing. And it's not much harder to do the opposite to gay people, if they come out with that. Bisexuals, polysexuals and pansexuals might be harder, but I've never actually come across one who didn't believe me, strangely enough, so I've never had to deal with it. Possibly you should ask them if they've ever tried auto-amputation.
††† Though, curiously enough, the people I've tried this on have been less than receptive to the idea that they must be mentally ill if they're disgusted by having to watch two people of their less preferred gender having sex. I don't know if one has tried this on Dan Savage, but I think most people accept that there are number of people who would actively dislike, and even feel some sense of disgust at sex between two people of their less preferred gender, or even between two people of different genders, at least one of which they are unattracted to, no matter how homo/hetero-phobic they may or may not be. You could argue that the level of disgust is different, but once the general principle is conceded, the rest is really just haggling over the price.
I need to start getting this stuff done faster...
Anyway, my foratting has gotten all screwed up, and I can't be bothered to replace most of it...
I don't think I have anything else to say this...
Oh! The topic of the post!
OK, doubt. I'm big on doubt. I'm agnostic, for a start, and I heartily dislike glib oversimplifications. Things are more complicated than that. Things are always more complicated than that*. Always**. So doubt is a kinda 'me' thing.
In the case of asexuality, it's rather easy to be less than entirely sure of where you stand, especially if you've got fairly used to identifying as straight before you even hear that you might be something called an 'asexual'. Straight is... kinda the default, it's what you assume. You need some reason to start doubting it, and being a heteroromantic asexual doesn't really lend itself to you getting that kind of push. You don't start getting attracted to people of the same gender as you (which I've always thought must be a definite hint that one is not entirely straight), you just... aren't attracted to anyone. Except you are. You're attracted to those of the opposite sex***, and in a way that you are not attracted to those of the same sex****. So that must make you straight, right? Sure, the attraction isn't exactly what you'd imagine sexual attraction to be, since, y'know, it doesn't actually come with any desire whatsoever to actually have sex with anyone, but, well, even if you do ask someone else what sexual attraction feels like, they generally don't have a particularly satisfactory answer for you. Even if (as I did) you have a suspicion that what you feel isn't sexual attraction, it's rather hard to figure out what other options there might be. The distinction between romantic and sexual orientation is really something almost unique to the ace community, and knowing about it can be a huge part of trying to figure out if you're ace or not. Which means that you have to be part of the asexual community in order to figure out that one should be part of the asexual community. It's pretty easy to get stuck in a state of existential doubt, where you really doesn't know what on earth you are. You must be straight... and yet you're kinda not.
If you are lucky, and find out that 'heteroromantic asexual' is a thing (or any other flavour of romantic asexual), then there's still the problem of being sure that you are one. It's easy to determine, for example, polysexuality. At least somewhat. One simply has to be attracted to people of a variety of genders. Determining for certain the complete absence of something? That's a lot harder, especially if it's something you've never experienced, and which noone can describe to you properly. It's always hard to be sure that something isn't there somewhere, let alone when you don't, technically, actually know what you're looking for. Just ask Nessie. The best you can do is, eventually, to decide that if there was someone you were going to be attracted by, you would have seen them by now. You would have found at least one person you had at least a little attraction to. And you decide that, if there is such a person, and you haven't found them yet, you might as well be functionally asexual. The kind of people you're attracted to are clearly so rare you're unlikely to ever come across them, anyway, and they'd have to be a long way from what is commonly thought of as attractive, or you would have known what your friends were talking about when they said that they found people attractive.
And then you find out about grey-aces and demisexuals. And as far as I know, there is no way of determining that you aren't one of those. Maybe I only get attracted to people I feel a certain way about. Maybe I've never really felt that way about anyone, or maybe the people who I have felt that way about aren't the kind of people I'd find attractive anyway. I mean, people of other orientations aren't attracted to absolutely everyone with whom their orientation is compatible (I don't think). So it would seem rash of me to assume that demisexuals must be*****. I still don't know if I might be, for example, demisexual. I have no idea how I'd go about finding out, really.
And then there's the final piece of doubt. Or the final piece that I'm going to talk about right now, anyway. Which is when you come out, and you are doubted. Generally, this doubt is really not helpful. You get told that you just haven't found the right person yet†. You get told a whole load of things about how you just haven't tried it††, or about how if you're a repulsed asexual, rather than a merely indifferent one, then that means you must be ill†††. None of this is helpful, if you're still not entirely confident in your conclusions. A sexual might not be trying to be at all hurtful when they say something like this. They might genuinely be trying to help. To any sexuals reading? You're really not. The person you're talking to has probably thought of all this. They've probably heard all this from someone else. If they've been out for a while, they definitely have. If you're a close friend, and you know what you're talking about, and you have some specific reason to think they're not asexual, you might go ahead (though remember that if it's something obvious, all their other close friends have probably mentioned it too, and try to be polite about it. For example, it's probably better to assume it's your mistake, and to ask for clarification, than to accidentally come off as a 'Ha! Gotcha!' kinda accusation (and remember that they really do have no obligation to explain this to you - if they do, it's out of politeness).
Obviously, if they're a close friend and they're not coming out, but just telling you, specifically, because they're not sure, you obviously have a lot more leeway to ask questions. And because you're a close friend who they trust enough to tell, you probably won't screw it up. You do still want to be pretty careful, yeah, and think about how they're likely to be feeling right now, but if they came to you, I would hope that you'd be able to deal with it.
Anyway, that's it for now. I have another post I've been working on that should go up in early August, hopefully (I have no idea how these things take so long to write). Seeya!
*To be clear, it's not the fact that something's been simplified that I dislike - I do that all the time myself, after all. It's the denial that this is, in fact, being done. Reducing something complicated into something simple is helpful. Pretending that something complicated is something simple is really downright unhelpful.
**Mathematics often claims to be the exception here, saying that mathematical truths are absolute truth, and thus (at least some of them) are entirely straightforward and simple. I would like to point out to these people that in Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell (two rather intelligent philosophers) spent several hundred pages attempting to prove that two plus two equals four. An attempt in which they were only partially successful. And even this partial success depends on the validity of deductive logic - which, it must be pointed out, is seen to be reliable only on the basis of deductive logic,a level of circular reasoning roughly equivalent to the claim that one knows that astrology is accurate because the stars predict that it will be.
***Whether or not they are the opposite gender is not necessarily something our hypothetical heteroromantic asexual, who is totally not me knows, or has even considered, as yet.
****OK, in my case, I am sometimes attracted to men - cisgendered men - in that way. But it's a lot rarer, and I'm just going to skip over it right now.
*****That is... not actually an entirely uncontroversial statement. Yes, I know about the thing about primary vs. secondary sexual attraction. I'm saying that I don't find the idea of a demisexual who is attracted to some people to whom they have a close enough emotional connection, but not to others, to be a self-contradictory one. In the simplest case, imagine demisexual A is biromantic, but actually only, as it turned out, demi-heterosexual. The primary vs. secondary model does not seem to, in the form I have encountered it, be able to account for it, but it seems to me not to be too absurd, and whilst I'm happy to be shown to be wrong, I'd need to have some fairly compelling evidence that it just doesn't happen at all to discard it as a possibility.
†Any sexual readers: how old were you when you first found someone you were attracted to? I mean at all. Not the first person you fell in love with, the first person you found at all desirable
†† With straight people, of course, it's easy to go with the old 'have you tried gay sex?' thing. And it's not much harder to do the opposite to gay people, if they come out with that. Bisexuals, polysexuals and pansexuals might be harder, but I've never actually come across one who didn't believe me, strangely enough, so I've never had to deal with it. Possibly you should ask them if they've ever tried auto-amputation.
††† Though, curiously enough, the people I've tried this on have been less than receptive to the idea that they must be mentally ill if they're disgusted by having to watch two people of their less preferred gender having sex. I don't know if one has tried this on Dan Savage, but I think most people accept that there are number of people who would actively dislike, and even feel some sense of disgust at sex between two people of their less preferred gender, or even between two people of different genders, at least one of which they are unattracted to, no matter how homo/hetero-phobic they may or may not be. You could argue that the level of disgust is different, but once the general principle is conceded, the rest is really just haggling over the price.
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Sex+
NOTE: The formatting on this post might be a bit funny, because I'm using a spare computer, and therefore wrote it mostly in Notepad.
I was ambushed by a wandering gay Pride parade* yesterday! So I joined it, and now I own a nice, colourful gay pride lei. Along with the other assorted stuff that one seems to end up with whenever one is at a Pride event.
You might think that, for an asexual, it would be entirely natural to be in favour of gay pride. Sex is sex, after all, and looking from the outside, there's not really that much difference between various kinds. And it's true that, at least for me, there's really not any significant difference there. I don't, honestly, care much about little things like the gender of the participents. It's like, if you'll pardon the theft, fighting over which end to open a boiled egg.
But that analysis is an analysis that does make one important assumption - that the asexual in question is in favour of sex at all. One may make no distinction between heterosexual sex and homosexual sex, but that does not preclude one from hating them both equally.
And... well, some people do. It's easy to do. I make no secret at all of the fact that sex is something I find disgusting, and personally, I would not be unhappy at all if it just disappeared. The distinction here is betweren sex negative asexuals, and sex positive asexuals. As the terms suggest, sex positive asexuals think sex is a good thing, and that anyone who wants to have sex should be free to have it without prejudice or judgment. Whereas sex negative is, obviously, the opposite - someone who doesn't like sex**.
Being sex-positive isn't limited to asexuals, of course. Sex positive feminism, for example, is a thing. Sex-negativity, too, happens outside the asexual community***. But it's a lot more prominent in the asexual community, simply because there's more of a debate to be had - if you think sex is disgusting, and you're not sure why people are so interested in it, then, looking from the outside, it would be very easy to misinterpret it as an addiction, and then start thinking of it in terms of drug addiction. Or to just be so bloody annoyed by everyone talking about it constantly that one just wants it to go away. Or to look at all the conflict that happens around sex, and decide that it's really doing more harm than good (you'd think that the last one might be the most sensible of the three reasons to be a sex-negative sexual, but no, actually sex-negative sexuals in general tend to be more divisive about different kinds of sex).
I, personally, am sex-positive. Because, for me, not understanding why something is appealing doesn't mean caring whether or not someone else does it. I mean, I'd appreciate it if they didn't do it in front of me, but that's something that happens pretty rarely, especially if you're trying to avoid it. And... well, I'm not (quite) arrogant enough to think that my own personal preference is very relevant here. For me, sex-positivity is mostly bound up with Liberalism, with viewing people as real people, with whom one has no real right to interfere, unless their actions are harmful. I would hate it if someone told me I had to stop playing Settlers of Catan, and I like Catan a lot less than I think most people enjoy sex. 'It disgusts me' is a terrible reason to say anything is bad. If there's any doubt of this, look at this short list of things that can be (and are) opposed on these grounds: Transsexuals, gay people, coleslaw****.
And frankly, I don't really see that much that might make opposition to sex in any way better than opposition to board games. You might argue that there are, indeed, qualitative differences between the two. And I would, to some extent agree with you. I'm not going to get into all that right now. But what differences there are, I would argue, are really mostly irrelevant. Sex compares more closely to Catan than to Cocaine. It's a bit more dangerous than Catan, admittedly*****. But mostly only if you don't do it safely. And I have this wierd bias towards treating people as responsible adults, who can make their own decisions about risk. This is also why I completely fail to be opposed to hang-gliding, cheerleading, drinking, carving beef, and crossing the road. And at least one of those can actually be dangerous†!
As for talking about it all the time... Yeah, it would be nice if the rest of the population could shut the hell up about this already, but... well, freedom of speech and all that. It's really not that different from people talking about football the whole time. Yeah, it might be a little impolite, if you're in a group with someone who is more interested in carpet lint, or who even finds the conversation rather squicky, but... well, at this point you're moving away from being sex-negative, towards being 'politeness-positive'††.
Also, there are all the problems associated with sex. Fortunately, most of them don't come from the sex itself. They come from things like lying, assult, prejudice and all those various other things that just so happen to already be wrong, even without the sex being involved. So attacking consensual sex between two people just because it's vaguely associated with things which are generally condemned anyway? That sounds counter-intuitive. And really rather unhelpful.
Ultimately, then, being sex-positive is about treating other people as genuine people, as human as oneself, whose preferences are as valid as one's own. In other words, not being an arrogant bastard. Which is something that I think a lot of sex-negative aces could be accused of. At least it's not the last reason to be sex negative - that sex is an animalistic, base thing, and therefore bad, that asexuals, not being saddled with this animalistic desire, are less animalistic, and therefore 'more human' or 'more evolved'. Making them inherently superior. Obviously.
Well, at least it's straightforward in its arrogance?
And, I suppose, I'm asexual. So there is some evidence that asexuals are just way better than the rest of the population.
But yeah, I'm honestly not going to dignify that one with a reply. No. Just... no.
*It genuinely surprised me - I thought is was in about a month.
**There's a bit of a double definition here. Sex negative can either mean someone who doesn't like sex personally because it disgusts them, or someone who actively thinks it's a bad thing. I'm sticking with the latter definition because otherwise it would be possible to be sex positive and sex negative at the same time (it still sort of is, but it's a lot harder). Also because 'repulsed' works fine for the first definition.
***It's a lot less popular, of course. Because it's really kinda dumb.
****OK. Fine. It may just be me who hates coleslaw this much. But it shouldn't be.
*****If your games of Catan involve any risk of death, consider the possibility that you may be doing it wrong.
†I'm not sure, but I think it's the carving beef. It lulls you into a false sense of security.
††I would like to take this opportunity to declare myself broadly in favour of 'manners'. Y'know. In general. It's this kind of bold stance on difficult and important issues that's the reason for half my readership.†††
†††I'm really not sure what the other person comes here for.
I was ambushed by a wandering gay Pride parade* yesterday! So I joined it, and now I own a nice, colourful gay pride lei. Along with the other assorted stuff that one seems to end up with whenever one is at a Pride event.
You might think that, for an asexual, it would be entirely natural to be in favour of gay pride. Sex is sex, after all, and looking from the outside, there's not really that much difference between various kinds. And it's true that, at least for me, there's really not any significant difference there. I don't, honestly, care much about little things like the gender of the participents. It's like, if you'll pardon the theft, fighting over which end to open a boiled egg.
But that analysis is an analysis that does make one important assumption - that the asexual in question is in favour of sex at all. One may make no distinction between heterosexual sex and homosexual sex, but that does not preclude one from hating them both equally.
And... well, some people do. It's easy to do. I make no secret at all of the fact that sex is something I find disgusting, and personally, I would not be unhappy at all if it just disappeared. The distinction here is betweren sex negative asexuals, and sex positive asexuals. As the terms suggest, sex positive asexuals think sex is a good thing, and that anyone who wants to have sex should be free to have it without prejudice or judgment. Whereas sex negative is, obviously, the opposite - someone who doesn't like sex**.
Being sex-positive isn't limited to asexuals, of course. Sex positive feminism, for example, is a thing. Sex-negativity, too, happens outside the asexual community***. But it's a lot more prominent in the asexual community, simply because there's more of a debate to be had - if you think sex is disgusting, and you're not sure why people are so interested in it, then, looking from the outside, it would be very easy to misinterpret it as an addiction, and then start thinking of it in terms of drug addiction. Or to just be so bloody annoyed by everyone talking about it constantly that one just wants it to go away. Or to look at all the conflict that happens around sex, and decide that it's really doing more harm than good (you'd think that the last one might be the most sensible of the three reasons to be a sex-negative sexual, but no, actually sex-negative sexuals in general tend to be more divisive about different kinds of sex).
I, personally, am sex-positive. Because, for me, not understanding why something is appealing doesn't mean caring whether or not someone else does it. I mean, I'd appreciate it if they didn't do it in front of me, but that's something that happens pretty rarely, especially if you're trying to avoid it. And... well, I'm not (quite) arrogant enough to think that my own personal preference is very relevant here. For me, sex-positivity is mostly bound up with Liberalism, with viewing people as real people, with whom one has no real right to interfere, unless their actions are harmful. I would hate it if someone told me I had to stop playing Settlers of Catan, and I like Catan a lot less than I think most people enjoy sex. 'It disgusts me' is a terrible reason to say anything is bad. If there's any doubt of this, look at this short list of things that can be (and are) opposed on these grounds: Transsexuals, gay people, coleslaw****.
And frankly, I don't really see that much that might make opposition to sex in any way better than opposition to board games. You might argue that there are, indeed, qualitative differences between the two. And I would, to some extent agree with you. I'm not going to get into all that right now. But what differences there are, I would argue, are really mostly irrelevant. Sex compares more closely to Catan than to Cocaine. It's a bit more dangerous than Catan, admittedly*****. But mostly only if you don't do it safely. And I have this wierd bias towards treating people as responsible adults, who can make their own decisions about risk. This is also why I completely fail to be opposed to hang-gliding, cheerleading, drinking, carving beef, and crossing the road. And at least one of those can actually be dangerous†!
As for talking about it all the time... Yeah, it would be nice if the rest of the population could shut the hell up about this already, but... well, freedom of speech and all that. It's really not that different from people talking about football the whole time. Yeah, it might be a little impolite, if you're in a group with someone who is more interested in carpet lint, or who even finds the conversation rather squicky, but... well, at this point you're moving away from being sex-negative, towards being 'politeness-positive'††.
Also, there are all the problems associated with sex. Fortunately, most of them don't come from the sex itself. They come from things like lying, assult, prejudice and all those various other things that just so happen to already be wrong, even without the sex being involved. So attacking consensual sex between two people just because it's vaguely associated with things which are generally condemned anyway? That sounds counter-intuitive. And really rather unhelpful.
Ultimately, then, being sex-positive is about treating other people as genuine people, as human as oneself, whose preferences are as valid as one's own. In other words, not being an arrogant bastard. Which is something that I think a lot of sex-negative aces could be accused of. At least it's not the last reason to be sex negative - that sex is an animalistic, base thing, and therefore bad, that asexuals, not being saddled with this animalistic desire, are less animalistic, and therefore 'more human' or 'more evolved'. Making them inherently superior. Obviously.
Well, at least it's straightforward in its arrogance?
And, I suppose, I'm asexual. So there is some evidence that asexuals are just way better than the rest of the population.
But yeah, I'm honestly not going to dignify that one with a reply. No. Just... no.
*It genuinely surprised me - I thought is was in about a month.
**There's a bit of a double definition here. Sex negative can either mean someone who doesn't like sex personally because it disgusts them, or someone who actively thinks it's a bad thing. I'm sticking with the latter definition because otherwise it would be possible to be sex positive and sex negative at the same time (it still sort of is, but it's a lot harder). Also because 'repulsed' works fine for the first definition.
***It's a lot less popular, of course. Because it's really kinda dumb.
****OK. Fine. It may just be me who hates coleslaw this much. But it shouldn't be.
*****If your games of Catan involve any risk of death, consider the possibility that you may be doing it wrong.
†I'm not sure, but I think it's the carving beef. It lulls you into a false sense of security.
††I would like to take this opportunity to declare myself broadly in favour of 'manners'. Y'know. In general. It's this kind of bold stance on difficult and important issues that's the reason for half my readership.†††
†††I'm really not sure what the other person comes here for.
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Quick nameless update
So, I went to see The Tempest on Friday. The play takes place simultaneously over two days and over three hours, and over the course of the play, Miranda and Ferdinand meet and fall in love. Miranda has never seen a man before. Whilst Ferdinand admits that there were other women he was attracted to before Miranda (like Romeo before Juliet). And there is no indication whatsoever in this comedy to say that Shakespeare is intending the audience to disapprove of this relationship. It's treated pretty much entirely positively. I won't go into this too deeply, but I thought I'd mention it, since it pretty much reenforces the argument I made last time.
What else? Um... The leader of UKIP is a bloody moron, but that's nothing new. And I'm pretty sure that anyone who says that immigration is bad for the economy hasn't really looked into the actual economic arguments. Because um... it is really pretty clear cut.
There is a Tumblr on which I was interviewed: http://asexualistic.tumblr.com/. It has cute pictures! It was about 1AM when I did said interview, and I was kinda tired, so it's not the most coherent I've ever been, but still.
I was oing to do a full post but... I just kinda don't want to at the moment. It keeps getting all bitter and angry for no good reason. So I'll just leave it at that*.
*Oh, and I'll include this footnote. Because otherwise it's not really a proper post.
What else? Um... The leader of UKIP is a bloody moron, but that's nothing new. And I'm pretty sure that anyone who says that immigration is bad for the economy hasn't really looked into the actual economic arguments. Because um... it is really pretty clear cut.
There is a Tumblr on which I was interviewed: http://asexualistic.tumblr.com/. It has cute pictures! It was about 1AM when I did said interview, and I was kinda tired, so it's not the most coherent I've ever been, but still.
I was oing to do a full post but... I just kinda don't want to at the moment. It keeps getting all bitter and angry for no good reason. So I'll just leave it at that*.
*Oh, and I'll include this footnote. Because otherwise it's not really a proper post.
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
Time's out of joint
Let’s talk about Shakespeare. There are a lot of crazy
theories about the man. Some people think he was the Earl of Oxford, for
example. That’s utterly ridiculous. Obviously, he was a time traveller.
OK, that might sound a little
silly. But it’s a lot less silly than
you might think compared to a lot of the other theories. What evidence is there
that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare? Two centuries after his death,
people decided that someone middle class couldn’t possibly have written something so brilliant. So they’d have to
find a much nicer, more upper class, person, who could have done it, due to
their superior breeding. That’s it, really. On the other hand, there’s the fact
that there are mistakes specifically traceable to things in Shakespeare’s own
background (mistakes which, say, the Earl of Oxford, would never have made),
the fact that the man was actually pretty well educated (he was pretty much middle class), we know
more about the man’s life than about most other writers from the time, the fact
that the man co-wrote several plays without, apparently, managing to tip anyone
off that he wasn’t what he said he was, and the fact that he was mentioned
repeatedly during his life as a genius author, and the fact that his social class
was actually mentioned by his
contemporaries, in case anyone thought that the ‘Shakespeare’ thingy was just a
pseudonym. I could continue, but the point probably stands. If people who knew
him for two decades didn’t notice that he was actually someone else, I cast
doubt on the idea that it should be obvious to someone who lived more than two
centuries after he died.
Given all that evidence, I don’t
think it’s much more idiotic to claim that he was a time-traveller than to
think that the man was any of the other idiotic options we’ve been given about
him. But there is actually some evidence for the man being a time-traveller.
Namely, he had no understanding whatsoever of the concept of time. The obvious
example here is Hamlet – the conversation between Hamlet and his father’s
ghost. During this, they walk a little way along the castle walls, and manage
to have a conversation of a little under seven hundred words. Why does this
matter? Because it apparently takes them about six hours. The ghost arrives around midnight, and leaves with the
dawn. Clearly, the man had no understanding of time on the micro level.
So what about the macro level,
then? Well, here I’m going to look at Othello. Mostly, because it’s a play I
know pretty well. In Othello, one of the reasons some people have condemned
Othello is because of how incredibly fast Othello turns from love of his wife
to utter loathing of her. If, they say, he is so quick to condemn his love.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, after all. But at the
same time, a lot of Othello works because there’s never really any chance to
just sit down and think things through. Or for Othello and Desdemona just to
sit down and talk about things. Othello takes place over a few days, right? Act
one must take place over the course of a single day, then they leave straight
away, the festival in act two has to
start the same day they arrive, by act three the day after that, Othello wants
Cassio dead within three days, and it really seems that the play takes place
over less than a week. Except that in that time, Cassio apparently starts a
relationship with Bianca, it becomes serious, he leaves her for a week, and she
gets angry with him. So that’s about two weeks. At least. This timeline also
fits a lot better with the communications between Othello and Ludovico than the
idea of a play of less than a week does – at this time, it took some time to
travel between Venice and Cyprus, and Shakespeare doesn’t seem to have much truck
with this idea. Almost as though he were
from a time when it didn’t take so long.
OK, no, I don’t really believe
that Shakespere was a time traveller. So what is my point? Well, there’s
a rather popular little theory that Romeo and Juliet isn’t a love story because
of the timeline. They’re too hasty, they fall in love too fast, it would never
have lasted, blah, blah. You might be able to guess what I think about that
idea. I don’t think Shakespeare really subscribed to the notion that falling in
love takes time. In The Taming of the Shrew, the relationship between Bianca
and Lucentio is hardly extended, and on Lucentio’s side falling in love based
entirely on appearance is apparently entirely fine, and encounters no real
problems whatsoever. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, within four days, all the
love problems get sorted out, and Demetrius falls in love with someone couldn’t
stand just a few days before. Also, the cycle of the moon apparently takes
about two days or so. So that’s another bit of time he was a little confused
about. Although if we can take a week
of Shakespeare to be actually a couple of months, that could actually explain
quite a lot. I could go on thinking of examples, but I think I’ve made my
point. The evidence is that Shakespeare didn’t really see time spent getting to
know one another. Midsummer Night’s Dream is a pretty good parallel here, where
the loving couple is completely fine, and, really, Demetrius should just stop
being so stubborn, and fall in love with the person who loves him back, rather
than pursuing the one who doesn’t (as with how Paris shouldn’t be pursuing
Juliet, and how Romeo should give up on Rosaline).
The fact is, Shakespeare was not,
I think, writing to be analysed. He was writing plays to be watched – and this
is not to say that his plays are in any way shallow, or that there aren’t deep
things in them, or that they shouldn’t be analysed. The point is, if there’s a
conflict between what you feel one of
his plays is about when you’re watching it, and what you conclude it must’ve
been about when you study it later, you should actually probably be trusting
the play. Shakespeare’s was, really, quite good at what he did, and with the
exception of values dissonance like in Taming of the Shrew, if he creates an
emotion, I think it’s probably because he wants to.
And I don’t think he was really
worried about the timeline, either. Shakespeare is, in my judgement, a writer.
He is not a historian of the fictional. The story is a lot more important than
sitting down and thinking ‘does this make logical sense?’. I’ll probably talk
about this more if/when I get to Lord Dunsany*, but the events of the play feel true, and they make for a truly
engaging and enjoyable play. They don’t have
to be representations of things which could actually happen.
*Quickly, though, if you have
time, you should read The King of Elfland’s Daughter. It is a very good book,
and it’s really not too long. This has been my mandatory footnote for this post.
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