Introduction (OA)

I've decided to post at least some of the bits of Old Acanthus on here (marked OA), with some footnoted commentary. This is the first thing I ever posted on Acanthus, though not actually the first thing I wrote for it. Since this is something I said I'd update, though, this has changed a bit from the first post of it. What's a change to the text is pretty much arbitary.

Incidentally, I also jsut posted something else, which was actually new, in case you want to check that.


I suppose I should start this with a general explanation of my insanity, and the random stuff on this blog. I'm Ben, although you probably already know this, as I can't imagine that anyone came across this blog without knowing me¹. Still, best to mention it, for anyone who's randomly passing through on the way to something more interesting. So I thought I'd answer some of the questions you probably have:

What the hell is wrong with you?
Please be more specific, imaginary question asking voice. I'm tired of that question.

What does Acanthus mean?
It's a flower - used a picture of it to the right of the old blog²*. According to the Noblis rulebook it represents the fine arts (although the dictionary of flowers I normally use disagrees, not having a definition for acanthus at all). It's also the name of one of the Paths in Mage. As you may have guessed by now, I am a massive nerd (although in my defence I only remembered the Mage thing whilst looking for a picture).

So why did you use it as a blog title?
I'm going to be honest here, and say that it's the voices in my head told me to. But I'll put a winky face here, so you think I'm joking: ;).
Seriously, though, I really have no idea. It was originally going to be called 'Winter and Twilight' (which I also have no idea of the origins of), but someone might have thought it had some connection to Twilight³. I'm rubbish at names, so I generally go with 'random nonsense stuff that has some vague relevance and doesn't sound too terrible'.

What about 'Hamlet 22288 ⁴?
Hamlet act 2, scene 2, line 288. It's at the end of one of his speeches to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

When will you update this?
I have no idea. When I get round to it, and have time. I'm happier to update at random when I have something which at least I'm happy with than have a schedule and try to think of things on that schedule. That said, as it turns out, I do try to do at least one update a month (mainly to prevent annoying month gaps in the display of my archives).

What will this be about?
Whatever I find interesting at the time. There'll be at least a bit of random politics and philosophy, and at least a bit about me. Yeah, as you may have guessed, I'm not really much good at the whole 'planning' thing. Another thing it turns out I talk about a lot is my sexuality (or lack thereof).

Why are you so bad at spelling?
I can't proofread. I'll try to run these things through spellcheck, but some things aren't in spellcheck, so I'll miss some stuff. If I've spelt your name, the name of your home, or anything like that wrong, I apologise in advance, tell me and I'll fix it⁵.

Why are you so wordy?
I have a tendency to go on a bit. That's why I got a blog in the first place. It's probably the first** stage of my slide into super-villainy - first comes uncontrollable monologuing, then comes stroking a white cat and holding the UN hostage with a giant laser. So I'll shut up now. If you have any other questions, ask them in comments, and I'll try to keep this updated.


*A note on that picture: I think that's public domain, but it’s from http://nobilis.mapache.org, also known as the tenth result on Google Images, and if anyone wants me to remove it I will.
**OK, the thirty-seventh, but bear with me.
Commentary
¹ This, apparently isn't true any more. Strangely.
² Actually, one of the reasons I've been reluctant to switch entirely to this blog and delete the old one is (basically) that, aesthetically, I kinda prefer the old layout. On the other hand, this layout is probably more streamlined, easier to read, and let's the reader choose their own formatting. Since you lot won't tell me what you prefer, I'll probably drag someone in for a second opinion at some point.
³ As you probably know by now (or will, if this is the first of my posts that you're reading), I... don't really like the Twilight series (and no, it is not a saga).
⁴ The old blog's adress was hamlet2-2-288, which I think makes the reference clearer. That's another reason I have some lingering affection for it. But I'm probably stuck, since people know this adress, and I don't know how to make one redirect to the other (but if this ever does go down, it might be worth).
⁵ I actually don't think I've made that many spelling mistakes, somewhat to my surprise.

Dialogues on the arts

Happy Leap Day, everyone*. In celebration of such a rare day, I thought I’d do something special (other than updating, which is pretty rare anyway).  Also, the number of pageviews this blog gets seems to be going up. I feel all responsible and important and stuff.

Seriously, though. This blog has nothing to do with Shakespeare (usually). Or flowers (ditto). If you want help with those, you’d probably be better off looking at Sparknotes or something.

And to those people who’re sending their friends here as a joke, come on. A friendly joke is one thing, but forcing people to read my writing? That’s just cruel (joking – please send your friends here, even as a prank, since the ‘pageviews’ bar is tightly tied to my ego, and it rising is the only way of protecting my fragile self-worth).

Anyway. This blog was originally mainly meant to be about politics and philosophy. That’s why I got a blog in the first place. So here’s something vaguely political for you. And in honour of my domain name, it’s vaguely Shakespeare related. There was other stuff I wanted to say, but it’s late, and I can’t think of it, and I plan to do another post very soon (hopefully this week), so I’ll leave it.

Except this: Happy birthday to everyone born on 29/02 (or on 02/29 and who’s American). You have the awsomest birthday ever.

Ben James: What?

Finn Carter: I didn’t say anything.

Ben James: I know. But you have the kind of look you have when you’re about to say something specifically designed to annoy me.

Finn Carter: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Ben James: Good.

Finn Carter: Incidentally, the arts and humanities are less valuable than the sciences.

Ben James: Of course you do. Would you mind explaining exactly what you mean by ‘arts and humanities’.

Finn Carter: OK, I’m pretty sure you know what arts and humanities are. You cost the state thousands by studying the bloody things.

Ben James: Really? So what’re the political sciences? Science or humanity? Psychology? Sociology? Economics? Philosophy? Can you give me an actual definition that won’t leave me with corner cases?

Finn Carter: You are so bloody pedantic. You know that?

Ben James: Yes. Yes I do.

Finn Carter: Let’s limit it to just the arts then.

Ben James: Great. You still need to explain what ‘arts’ means.

Finn Carter: The arts are those disciplines where the main purpose is the creation of beauty.

Ben James: Really?

Finn Carter: For now, anyway.

Ben James: OK then.

Finn Carter: We’ve finished the boring definitional bit then?

Ben James: So what about Atlas Shrugged?

Finn Carter: …What?

Ben James: Books like Atlas Shrugged, which were written mostly for the purpose of propagating a particular political or philosophical viewpoint. Or what about Paradise Lost? They’re not art then?

Finn Carter: I’m not sure…

Ben James: If you’re going to object to my characterisation of Atlas Shrugged and Paradise Lost, I hope you realise how utterly fallacious refuting the example is. Just because one of my examples is wrong, the principle of literature or other works theoretically existing primarily for political or philosophical reasons still stands. Unless you’re willing to spend about the next three hours refuting the political and philosophical motives of The Waste Land, 1984, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ…

Finn Carter: Fine. You’ve read Plato’s Republic, yes?

Ben James: Yes…

Finn Carter: Then you know what Glaucon’s response to that would be?

Ben James: It’s only art insofar as its purpose is the creation of beauty? I’m not sure I accept that.

Finn Carter: Regardless. You can end this conversation whenever you feel like it if you’ll just accept that I’m right about the uselessness of books that actually are for the creation of beauty, and about the aesthetic aspects of political books.

Ben James: Then I’ll accept your definition for the moment. Care to explain why, exactly, the arts are so utterly useless?

Finn Carter: It’s not obvious? I mean, they’re so utterly useless. The scientists? Even the humanities to some extent? They actually improve people’s life in some way. The arts don’t do anything for anyone.

Ben James: Would you mind defining ‘improve’ for me?

Finn Carter: Oh come on. Improve. Make better. Provide benefit.

Ben James: What makes you think the arts don’t, then?

Finn Carter: …Science has more than tripled people’s lifespans since the Neolithic era. It’s reduced every aspect of labour. Everything you do is made easier and better by scientific advances. We can do things today without effort that people a hundred years ago couldn’t even have imagined.

Ben James: To what end?

Finn Carter: I’m sorry?

Ben James: Why? What about making people’s lifespan longer, and people’s work easier is good?

Finn Carter: You aren’t normally this dumb. Are you feeling OK?

Ben James: Oh, I’m not saying they’re not good. I’ll even concede that one might see making people’s lives longer as inherently valuable for no other reason than that human life is something that should be preserved. But what about making people’s lives easier, or about doing things that are predecessors couldn’t have?

Finn Carter: I think I see where you’re going with this.

Ben James: As far as I can see, there are only two possibilities. Either there’s the fact that people are made happier by improved technology, or the fact that learning and discovery are inherently valuable.

Finn Carter: Or because freedom is good.

Ben James: Explain?

Finn Carter: Like I said. The sciences have allowed us to do things people a hundred years ago couldn’t even imagine. Unlike your two possibilities, you can’t say the arts have done that.

Ben James: And technology has never been used to restrict freedom.

Finn Carter: They increase the possibility of freedom. Besides, the benefits far outweigh the problems.

Ben James: I’ll accept that. And I’ll accept that the arts have never provided a direct increase in possible actions, despite their inspirational properties. But one’s freedom isn’t just restricted by what it’s technically possible to do. It’s also restricted by what one even thinks of doing. That’s one of the most effective way of controlling people. The arts can provide increases in freedom. Not through direct increases in physical freedom, but the increases are just as important all the same.

Finn Carter: That’s stretching it, and you know it. But you’ll accept that life-extending sciences are of particular value.

Ben James: For now.

Finn Carter: But now you’re running into problems with definitions. Scientific discoveries tend to have unexpected consequences. Preventing people from starving to death. Eliminating disease. Improving transport of food and medicine. Preventing global warming.

Ben James: Which was caused by the sciences to start with.

Finn Carter: Details. Even something like relativity has lead to GPS working. Are you really telling me that you can’t think of a situation where being able to find where you are, or being able to find someone who’s got lost is lifesaving.

Ben James: If you’re going to have things that broad, the arts can save lives too.

Finn Carter: This I have to hear.

Ben James: The arts are pretty much the best ways available to communicate ideas to others. They help educate and spread ideas. They help foster understanding between people, and they help warn people of particular dangers. How many tyrannical regimes and reigns of terror haven’t happened because of the arts?

Finn Carter: We agreed that we’re defining the arts as dedicated to creating beauty.

Ben James: But you contradicted that when you said that the sciences had unpredictable consequences. So do the arts. It’s impossible to tell what works will have a great influence on politics and philosophy, especially with Death of the Author theory**. And anything you do to promote that kind of art promotes all the other kinds as well. So the other kinds end up being a cost-free benefit to society.

Finn Carter: Not as great a benefit as the sciences are, though.

Ben James: I don’t think you can really measure that.

Finn Carter: Sure you can. Remember Aaron Vontrell?

Ben James: No. I’m pretty sure there’s no such person.

Finn Carter: There used to be. He was a writer and artist, and his works ended up uniting most of the world. He prevented World War II, since everyone rallied around to help Germany, and they were never driven to elect an extremist leader, and he severely thawed the Cold War. Then some idiot time traveller killed him when he was still in his twenties.

Ben James: Proves my point.

Finn Carter: The shooter was inspired by The Catcher in the Rye.

Ben James: …

Finn Carter: That’s what he claimed, anyway. To be fair, he probably didn’t know what would happen.

Ben James: …

*Actually, where I am that ended about half an hour ago. This took some time to write. Sorry.

**There’s no natural way to work this into the dialogue, and you don’t need to know, but DotA theory is basically ‘what the author thinks is irrelevant’.

Freedom of speech

Holidays. Meaning I have time to write things*. I have difficulty finding things to write sometimes. It still amazes me that anyone actually reads this stuff. And on the subject of writing complete drivel, let’s talk about freedom of speech**.

Freedom of speech is something a lot of people understand. Whenever someone tells someone what to say, they bring up the idea of freedom of speech to defend their right to call someone a ‘frigid bastard who’s afraid of human contact’***. The thing is, people seem to completely fail to understand what freedom of speech actually means.

You see, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of speech for you. Wait. Sorry. Yes it does, that was a stupid thing to say. What I mean is that it doesn’t mean freedom of speech only for you. Yes, under the principles of freedom of speech, you are perfectly free to say that asexuals**** are mentally handicapped autistics, or, indeed, that we’re subhuman. However, we are then free to say that you’re an ignorant idiot, or, indeed, that you should be burned alive for your bigotry. And if you’re criticising a slightly more public group – say if you said exactly the same thing about women, and say if you’re famous yourself they’re free to carry out a sustained campaign of abuse in several national newspapers. You can complain, yeah, but they can say whatever the hell they want about you, and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. That’s not an attack on the freedom of speech. Stopping it would be an attack on freedom of speech. That’s freedom for you – noone said it had to be nice. Actually, complete freedom almost never is – that’s why the social contract exists in the first place†.

A slightly more contentious issue is the idea of online censorship. You exercise your freedom of speech on Acebook††, and explain your point of view that deviant sexualities don’t really exist, they’re just signs of mental deficiency and demonic position. You are immediately banned, and your post is deleted. That’s a violation of your freedom of speech, surely? After all, the evil moderators are cruelly violating your freedom to state your point of view. It’s censorship, pure and simple.

Yeah. No. That’s wrong. Understandable, yeah – not like the ‘I can say whatever I like but you can’t’ one. That one’s just stupid. The thing is, you have the right to say whatever you want. Noone has any responsibility to give you a platform, any more than the national gallery has any responsibility to display your retarded fingerpaintings†††, or than a publisher has any responsibility to publish your book, even when it is clearly a timeless masterpiece deserving of a place in the literary pantheon, nay even a place far above those mere scribblers who have in the past pretended to some measure of literary talent.

Ahem. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. Noone has any responsibility to give you a platform for your views. You can say whatever you want to say, but they don’t have to give you a platform to say it. Not only that, whilst you have the perfect right to say whatever you like, in the same way that you have the right to paint whatever you like, that doesn’t violate the property right. You aren’t allowed to paint graffiti on someone’s wall against their wishes, and in the same way, you aren’t allowed to write rubbish on someone’s wall if they don’t want you to‡, or indeed to write anything on anything owned by someone else without permission. And since most parts of the internet are owned by someone, yeah, banning you from posting on a particular part of the internet, or publishing articles in a paper etc. is perfectly fine under freedom of speech. Obviously it’s a bit different if the government does that, it’s a bit different, but if it’s the legitimate owner (or someone appointed by same), it’s perfectly legitimate for them to stop you saying what they don’t want you to say on the internet, no matter how reasonable what you’re saying is. Weirdly, stopping what looks like censorship is actually more of a restriction of freedom than not doing so.

Not really sure why I wrote this, just felt like it. I was getting annoyed with people who invoke 'freedom of speech' without really knowing what it was they were invoking. For anyone wondering, I don't really even believe in 'freeedom of speech'. I belive in 'freedom of expression' - expressing whatever ideas you want, but not in expressing them however you want. I've done too much debating to think that that's the same thing.

Oh yeah. One last thing. Also, if for some reason you want to read more of my rambling, Old Acanthus finally got restored it’s here‡‡‡. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but the content probably won’t end up being the same as what’s on here. I’m not sure. I don’t think all of it as is high quality as what I’ve written here‡‡‡‡, but if you want to read it, it’s there.

*Spending holidays writing blog posts. I’d say it was sad, but I already know I have no life.

**I just want to point out the segue there. Y’know, since it was so subtle, you might not’ve noticed it.

***To be fair, that describes me perfectly. It’s a bit much to assume on the basis of my sexuality, thought.

****Or any other minority group – it should be obvious why I’m using aces as my example, but it applies equally to every group.

†Actually, virtually noone believes in complete freedom of speech. Freedom of speech kinda includes not only minor, harmless things like slander and blackmail, but also giving one’s generals the order to invade that small country to the east of you and murder those who are not of the master race. Probably what I’m talking about would be described more accurately as ‘freedom of expression’ (and yes, I'm aware that I'm not using 'freedom of expression' in the normal way).

††And no, that’s not a typo.

†††I’d be worried about offending someone who actually paints for the national gallery, but I think the chances of anyone that talented reading my drivel is slim to none††††.

††††And now I’ve offended both my readers, so balance is restored.

‡I don’t particularly want to get into an argument about who, exactly someone’s Facebook page belongs to. It’s either Facebook, in which case they give the right to decide what goes on someone’s wall to that person, or the person whose profile the wall is part of. I suspect the former, but I really can’t be bothered to work it out.

‡‡Incidentally, I think this is the most footnotes I’ve ever put in a single piece. And this being that it’s me, that’s saying a lot.

‡‡‡Yes, the web address is almost the same. I didn’t expect to be using this blog very long, so I don’t bother with differentiating it.

‡‡‡‡And, again, that’s saying a lot.