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’.

How to be prejudiced

One of the big objections I hear when I say I’m a feminist is that men can’t be feminists. After all, feminism is so determined to be sexist and keep to traditional gender stereotypes. Making sure that men are differentiated socially from women is what feminism is all about, after all.

That is utterly irrelevant at the moment. But the second big objection does. That being that feminism is basically finished. Gender inequality is all gone, and feminists nowadays have nothing interesting left to do. Which is why the pay gap still exists. I’ve talked about how I see feminism before, and when I did, I mentioned some of the reasons feminism is feminism, not egalitarianism*. Which Is what I’m writing about – the general perception that prejudice in our society is pretty much dead. Now, that’s not restricted to gender relations. There’s really quite a lot of it that people just don’t notice.

Firstly, keeping to the realms of general sexism, there’s the assumption that women are weak, fragile flowers who are so much weaker than men and must be protected. You can see why that one survived, given that this is one of the few areas where it’s pretty easy to show genuine differences between the sexes. The problem is that it’s exaggerated from ‘the average woman is slightly weaker physically than the average man’ to ‘women are weaker than men in ways which for some reason are expanded to include emotional as well as physical fragility’. Now, the emotional fragility thing is going away somewhat, because people have developed an annoying habit of noticing it and its inverse ‘I am a man and have no feelings but rage. Anyone who has such feeble emotions is not really a man.’ Either of those things will probably get noticed as sexism, but the physical differences are still exaggerated to a rather annoying extent. I’m male, I’m not exactly unfit, and I’m not at all ashamed to say that there is absolutely nothing physical which there does not exist a female capable of doing better than me. There’s almost nothing physical which I don’t know a female better than me at. The physical difference exists, yeah, but it’s not really that massive. And the stereotype is bad for both sexes – women get the whole patronising ‘you’re a delicate flower who couldn’t possibly do this for herself and whom I must protect from the world’ thing, and men get the idea that there’s no way they could possibly be overpowered or need protection – which is why the whole annoying ‘men can’t be raped’ idea exists**.

Another thing you can do is make out that whatever you don’t like simply isn’t that important, and then make them seem like an overreacting idiot for their constant emphasis on it. The best part is, you can make a pretty convincing case that you have a point – there certainly have been cases of overreaction, where it’s clear to pretty much everyone that ‘blackmail’ really isn’t a racist term. I, personally, think that it’s probably pretty understandable that someone should do something like this sometimes given that they’ve probably had to deal with institutionalised and blatant forms of their own particular –ism or –phobia quite a lot (and lest it be though that I’m looking down on people, I’ll admit to doing a little of the same thing occasionally). But that doesn’t mean you can say that whenever someone mentions their race, gender or sexuality you can dismiss them for overreacting. Like it or not, someone’s culture, gender identity and sexuality are all things that can form a massive part of who they are. So next time you want to condemn someone because they’re putting way too much emphasis on the thing that makes them different and forcing you to respond to it, you probably... shouldn’t. It really is a massive part of who they are, and when you dismiss it it feels like you’re dismissing a massive part of who they are. They should be allowed to be open about all of their personality. This is mostly a fairly minor thing, but it has an annoying habit of evolving into its bigger, uglier cousin, who I like to call ‘don’t force your deviance on us’, where people think they’re being open minded and unprejudiced because they are perfectly happy for, say, homosexuals to exist, as long as they don’t force it on them by talking about it (or possibly by public displays of affection, depending). That’s... not exactly how tolerance works.

There’s also the ‘I’m just curious about something new’ defence. Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with being curious about something you don’t know much about. But you’re going to have to keep to the same level of sensitivity you do with someone who doesn’t have that particular aspect to them. For example, just because I’m ace doesn’t let you ask things you wouldn’t ask a heterosexual, like the ever popular ‘do you masturbate?’ or ‘are you a virgin?’. You probably wouldn’t ask a straight person that if you didn’t know them very well, so doing it for an ace who doesn’t find even thinking about sex is rather annoying. If someone gets offended at what you ask them and it was a genuine mistake, accept it. But someone’s right to privacy is exactly the same if they’re asexual or homosexual or whatever. Yeah, if they come out as something, they probably don’t mind being asked a little about it (although I tend to be a lot more comfortable when I know people know I’m ace, so***...) but the same kind of etiquette still applies. Treat other groups like they’re real people. Try not to treat them differently because of what they’ve told you. Along with this go a load of other things where you just deny what you’re doing. Just insult people in a way you can deny later, or in a way you can say later they were bringing it upon themselves. They were wearing attractive clothing. They were on a dating site****. They were on a Pride Parade†.

Don’t do that.

OK then. I’m done now. I have nothing clever to close with, except that I’m aware that I haven’t been comprehensive, and that I may not have been as clear as I might’ve been in places.

*For the record, I’m not really sure why I said that females were naturally better at looking after children. It may or may not be true – I have no idea. The evo-psych checks out, since in most (possibly all) primate species, and a majority of mammal species, the female does look after the young, so that might be why I said it, but I have a suspicion that it might just be that I left out a ‘perceived as’ somewhere.

**I saw an advert the other day for a charity named ‘Survivors UK’, for male victims of rape. It made me happy.

***I also quite like being asked questions, as long as they’re not totally beyond the pale. Though I occasionally get a little annoyed at answering the same questions over and over, I totally understand that it’s something a lot of people haven’t heard of (it’s the questions as a whole I get annoyed at, not the particular questioners), and I know noone ever does this, but anyone who does have a question feel free to ask me it.

****There are quite a few asexuals on personals***** sites (we’re quite a bit rarer on actual dating sites). We use them for relationships, for making friends, or for taking online personality tests rather than for sex.

*****Not currently including me.

†There’s going to be an asexual contingent at WorldPride 2012 on the 7^th of July. Which I’ll be in. Just wanted to plug that.

A bit of commentary on 'What is it like to be asexual?'

Look! A BBC article on asexuality*! Woot! I like exclamation marks! It’s a pretty good one, too. I do object to their description of aromanticism. I personally am pretty strongly heteroromantic. I don’t want to be touched. Actually, I took up partner dancing to get over my crippling fear of being touched*. I’m not saying that that’s related to my asexuality – far from it, as I’ll explain in a bit. Just that ‘aromantic’ ≠ ‘doesn’t want to be touched’, although it’s a lot better than ‘aromantics don’t want to get closer to people, to find out more about them, or to share things with them.’ Actually, now I think about it, the description of ‘romantic’ does kinda imply that, doesn’t it? I’m not aromantic, and I certainly don’t want to speak on the behalf of those who are. The description in the article is pretty much fine, I just want to make clear that ‘aromantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sociopath’ – they can still have friendships, even very close ones. All the difference between me and an aromantic is is that I will fall in love, and an aromantic won’t***. No more, no less. I’d also like to back up what Jenni says about hormones. For various reasons (including a rather spirited disagreement with my parents over the issue of my sexuality), I actually have been checked for hormonal problems, as well as for genetic problems, and pretty much everything else. Guess what? They came back clean, at least of anything that might cause me to think I was ace****.

Just as an aside, another question. What’s the difference between asexual and sad repressed loners with no social skills and a fear of being touched? As I am both of these things, this seems to be something into which I should have quite a bit of insight. The first difference in my case is when I’m drunk. I get drunk really easily*****. At which point my social inhibitions don’t disappear – it would probably take severe brain damage to eliminate my social inhibitions. But they do get a hell of a lot less. I’m far more willing to hug someone, my general disgust at sex completely disappears, to be replaced by general apathy. I still have no idea why anyone would want to have sexual contact with anyone else, but thinking about it is less likely to make me spontaneously want to vomit.

Now, if there was no point to that beyond ‘me having a normal relationship is probably gonna be pretty hard on my liver’, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to write the above paragraph*****. The point is, probably the easiest way I can think of to figure it out. No matter what you do to their inhibitions, an asexual probably isn’t going to spontaneously become sexual. Of course, I have no idea whether this is always true, but it is for me. And even the most thixophobic wreck is going to have a normal reaction to pornography. Am I suggesting you should get people drunk and show them pornography to check if they’re ace? No. Of course not††. The point is that there really is a difference between a sad, repressed thixophobic loner with no social skills. Essentialy, it’s a question of desire. No matter how far they bury it, or how impossible it is, they’re still going to desire sexual gratification from members of their preferred sex and/or gender. A schizoid might prefer to do it via masturbation, but sexual desire is still the reason for it. For an ace, that isn’t there. It isn’t that there is something which is for some reason being denied. Instead, the desire doesn’t exist at all. It’s the difference between anorexia, and having awesome superpowers which allow one to absorb nutrients from one’s surroundings.

A few other things about the article: Asexuality really doesn’t suffer that much prejudice against it. I suspect that that’s because it’s hard to have a strong pre-existing prejudice against something you’ve never heard of. But I also suspect we’ll never have to go through what LGBT went through, since they went there first. Also, what’s wrong with ‘sexual’ as a word for ‘not asexual’. I find John Price’s comment to be ignorant and without merit. Remember that test I suggested? How does ‘being a homosexual is just a temporary measure, I’m sure, among young people.’ Sound? Eric is totally right. I can’t be bothered to comment on any of the other comments. I don’t think I’d be adding anything new if I did. Also I absolutely love Jenni’s hair. Seriously. I want it.

I still haven’t decided what to do with old Acanthus. One day, possibly, but since I have more than fifteen different friend requests pending on Facebook from people who I’m really not sure whether or not I know (some of them more than a year old, and I still haven’t got around to going through them and figuring out who I actually know), some would say that the evidence is not in favour of a speedy decision. Hell, I'm surprised I've even kept up my 'more than 30 words a day' posting speed target.

*Yes, it was up a few days ago. I write slowly.

**Seriously, there was a point when I felt uncomfortable sitting on the other side of an empty room from someone.

***Also for the record, that difference could be pretty massive.

****Actually, the genetics test got lost. I’m told it was almost certainly completely clean, though.

****I should probably reveal less of myself on this blog. I take comfort in the fact that there’s no possible way to blackmail someone with information they’ve published publicly on the web. Probably.

*****Actually, there’s a pretty good chance I’d have written it, but there’s no way in hell you’d be reading it†

†Unless you happen to be future me, reading this and gloating at how bad present me’s writing skills are. Curse you future me, you bastard.

††Although, come to think of it, if you want to buy me drinks, I’m really not going to complain.

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.

The lianhan sidhe

Back on Old Acanthus (as it shall now be called) I used to have readers in Ireland. Also, France, but the Ireland mention is actually relevant. The France one is just a vague level of SEO. Why is Ireland relevant? Well, I absolutely love Irish mythology. I love other mythologies too, like Egyptian, Norse, Greek, etc., but everyone likes those. Irish is a bit less well known, and as a result I occasionally get asked for recommendations on Irish mythology books. Which is something of a problem because I got into Irish mythology by starting with basic children’s books, and moving up in age. So by the time I got to proper books of Irish mythology, I had the context to actually understand and enjoy them fully. But I’ve never really wanted to recommend ‘The Little Person’s Picture Book of Irish Fairy Tales’ as reading material. Not to mention the fact that most of them tend to be pretty inaccurate. For some reason instances of attempted genocide tend to be left out of children’s books. So I generally recommend WB Yeates. Which might also seem like an odd choice, since I have a lot of works of Irish mythology I much prefer. Yeates is a lot more modern, more Christianised, and more Folktale than Myth. Nothing wrong with that, of course, it’s just not what I prefer. But it’s a good introduction to the world of Irish mythology, and it makes other works more comprehensible, so you get more out of them.  
Why do I say all this? Because there’s one thing Yeates did that annoys me. It’s not that he was wrong – even if he might have been, there’s no way in hell I’m pitting my knowledge of anything against WB Yeates without some pretty convincing evidence. It’s similar to the problem Tolkein had with Shakespeare’s elves – that Yeates created something so much less interesting than it should have been. What am I complaining about? Yeates’ portrayal of the Lianhan Sidhe*. My version is no more valid than his, but I find it more interesting** So I wrote a story. Don’t worry, its different from the last one.

*Incidentally, as they're all female***, you might ask about the whole 'sexism' question. As far as I can tell, there isn't really any particular sexism in this mythology - Eodain was a leanan sidhe, and she was better at ruling the country than the king. You might find some, but the Irish certainly come out better than the greeks.
**There's a third version as well, which is sorta between the two, but that's just going to get confusing.
***Or 'she is female' - the leanan sidhe is sometimes refered to as a single entity rather than a group. I think the latter is more commonm but I have no idea how to verify which one is 'right'.

J.O. Oisin is often considered to have been the greatest Irish author of the 21^st century. His writings inspired what is often known as ‘Oisin’s Uprising’, despite there being no proof of his direct involvement. The Uprising was the most significant in Irish history since the defeat of the IRB in the summer of 1920. However, the eventual utter defeat of the rebels is believed to have led to his suicide. The following text was found by his body, and although it is unknown whether it was a product of his madness, or a fragment of what was to have been his next work, critics agree that it shows little or nothing of the brilliance that inspired so many to lay down their lives.

She was so beautiful. So incredibly beautiful – indescribably beautiful, even. Indescribable. I’ve never liked that word. It tells the reader so little. It’s simply the author giving up. She was the most beautiful summer day – not even the best day you’ve ever experienced. The day you never experience, but only imagine. The day that has never been, which lingers in your memory all the same. She was a diamond in the shape of a single perfect rose.

Ha. You think I’m a pathetic fool, babbling nonsense. How wrong you are. A pathetic fool I am – that, at least, is undeniable. But you think I praise far more than I should, think that my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun. But she is so much more than I can say. To try to describe her is to try to say things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. But that is only how she looks. I speak of it, yes, for not to do so would be unforgivable – to withhold deserved praise lest it should make its subject conceited is as dishonest as to withhold payment of a just debt lest your creditor should spend the money badly. But that is the least of her – for I loved her, oh I loved her so. Love. Another word I've always hated. What is love? Love is cold. Love is blind. Love is just a waste of time, when you’re young and in your prime. But love her I did, far more than words can say.

Now she is gone from me. I am banished from her presence. Ha, banishment! Be merciful, say ‘death’, for exile  hath more terror in his look, much more than death. There is no world without her, but purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence banished is banish’d from the world, and world’s excile is death. Then ‘banishment’ is death misterm’d. Yet I love her still. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it has not, for my heart could grow no fonder. Yet I love her still. Perdition catch my soul but I do love her! And when I love her not chaos is come again. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, and oh how I love her. If you love something let it go, for each man kills the thing he loves, by each less this be heard, some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word, the coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword! Some kill their love when they are young, and some when they are old; some strangle with the hands of Lust, some with the hands of Gold: The kindest use a knife, because the dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long, and I could never love too little, so I must guard against loving too long. Some do the deed with many tears and some without a sigh: For each man kills the thing he loves, yet each man does not die. I will not kill the thing I love, and therefore I must die. I must die a death of shame on a day of dark disgrace. They call her a killer, the folklorists. They say she sucks the lifeforce from her thralls, or that she carries her victims off to other worlds. I would not begrudge her if she did. She gave me so much that could I revive within me her symphony and song, to such a deep delight ‘twould win me, that with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, that sunny dome! Those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew has fed, and drunk the milk of paradise. But they belie her, her who has harmed none, and seeks only love. They call her succubus, yet that is a lie. We say lie on her when they belie her. She has woven for me a crown of tendrils, leaves and rough nuts brown (men sell not such in any town). Yet she will not like a common goblin cry ‘come buy my orchard fruits, come buy, come buy’. She will not sell herself to me, but that she loves will not her unhoused free condition put into circumscription and confine for the sea’s worth. Who I am I to tell her stay when passion has died, when the winds of change are telling her to go somewhere beyond where I have been? She has harmed me nothing, and given me everything, until I weep that you may not see the majesty that is visible to my sight. So who am I to repay trap her, to repay her passion so? It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Yet without her I cannot live – they say that such is the fate of those who eat of faerie fruits, that they fall sick and die in their gay prime, in earliest winter time, and though I may be what I eat, gross and mortal as I am, she is so much more. It begrudge her nothing, but she does comes not, that fair Ophelia, and so better not to be. And so I must go somewhere beyond the end. In that sleep of death, what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil? I know not, but maybe we two shall meet there – she is a creature of dream, after all. Shall I at least set my lands in order? No. But these fragments I have shored against my ruins.

Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.

Apo thanein thelo.

The morality of serial-genocide

OK, I don’t normally respond to particular people. I’ll respond to a general sentiment I’ve heard from a few people, but this will be the first time I’ve gone to something I can point to, and here’s the link. Actually, there are a few things on that blog I disagree with, but for now let’s look at what’s written under ‘Irony meter goes off the scale’

Actually, before I start, let me just say, I’m doing this because I respect the author, at least somewhat. I’m doing this because I love you, so I’m going to do as I do with everything I love - dismantle you in a clinical manner, and then laugh at everything that's wrong with you.

OK then; let’s start with a quote from the text: “One of the most common pieces of bigotry aimed at atheism is that it doesn’t provide any basis for morality. It’s widely assumed that without religion — without moral teachings from religious traditions, and without fear of eternal punishment and desire for eternal reward — people would behave entirely selfishly, with no concern for others.” Did you notice what was wrong with that statement? It makes two statements, and tries to pass it off as just one. To say that atheism doesn’t provide a basis for morality doesn’t really mean that it means that people will act immorally if they’re atheist. It means that there is no reason for them to act morally. Now, I could probably accept this was just an unfortunate term. But the author absolutely and continually conflates the two points. She talks about the ‘clearest moral principles imaginable’. Really? Why? What, in short, is the source of these ‘clearest moral principles’, which apparently exist by which to condemn people?

There are quite a few answers I can give to this question, all of which I will now enumerate:

1: The amoralist’s answer: There’s no such thing as morality

2: The truly relativist answer: morality is individual to the person doing it. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ exist only within the context of the individual.

3: The slightly less relativist answer: morality is individual to the society of the person doing it. ‘Right’ and ‘wrong’ exist only within the context of a particular society or social group.

4: The humanist absolutist answer (also known as ‘the utterly idiotic for many and varied reasons’ answer): Morality is created by the human race as a whole, but is timeless and unchanging within that context. Morality is a human construct, but still exists eternally and unchangeably.

5: The divine command answer: Morality is created by God. His laws are always right; one has a moral duty to follow him.

6: The true absolutist answer: Morality is inherent and timeless truth. Right exists. Wrong exists. Anyone or anything can be judged by this standard, God as much as any human being.

Seriously. There is, as far as I'm aware, absolutely no other explanation.

So what answer can we have that will make these ‘clearest moral principles’ consistent? Clearly, the first three don’t work, as under those we can’t say that genocide is wrong if it’s perfectly acceptable in some cultures, or to some people. We can’t take five, because the author of the blog admits elsewhere in this post that under divine command ethics it’s possible to defend exactly what the author’s condemning. Also, the author’s an atheist. That leaves four and six.

OK, I called four ‘the utterly idiotic for many and varied reasons’ answer. Why? So. Many. Reasons. Because it’s literally impossible for us to know what this morality actually is. Since it’s eternal and manmade, it has to take account of not only everyone who has ever lived, but everyone who will ever live. Not only do we have no way of knowing what is ultimately right or wrong, so we can’t criticise anything, we can’t really blame anyone for anything since they had no way of knowing what was right and wrong. Can you really be blamed for doing something that was wrong if you didn’t know that it was wrong? That’s fascinating. I don’t think I even need to explain why. Also, nothing, nothing works that way. There is nothing else which is considered both human made and universal and unchanging at the same time.

That leaves us with only option six that the author of this blog can use to be even remotely consistent. A morality that exists entirely separate of any part of humanity, that simply is in the universe. OK then. That’s an interesting idea. But it’s rather incredibly far from clear that such a thing really exists*. So the author’s raging about how defending genocide is utterly wrong is rather less obviously true than one might think.

But unfortunately, I agree with the existence of a Universal morality. There are a lot of philosophers who’d say ‘if it was right for their culture, it was right for their culture, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ Incidentally, I’m pretty sure they’re all atheists, but that’s a side point. Lets accept the idea of there existing an independent, universal, unchanging morality. What does that imply? Well, for a start, it implies the existence of a realm beyond the physical, of the kind that Dawkins would probably get a little upset by. It requires the very ‘untestable belief in undetectable [things]’ that the author of this post complains religion does. ‘It ends the conversation. It cuts off inquiry: not only factual inquiry, but moral inquiry’. You’re affirming your belief that certain thing are utterly wrong, others are absolutely, ‘obviously’ morally right, and that others are absolutely ‘obviously’ morally wrong, and there’s really no way to continue that discussion. It’s not something you can prove or disprove. It’s just a faith statement, at least as much as ‘I believe in God’.

I’m not actually criticising that – like I said, I believe in absolute morality too. And to get anywhere in the moral debate you have to make some brute assumptions. To get anywhere in anything requires that you make some brute assumptions – ‘murdering people is bad’, ‘freedom is good’, ‘our senses are accurate’ etc. What I object to is the hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of making all these complaints about religion, without actually examining their own alternative.

Don’t get me wrong. William Lane Craig is a bloody moron. What he wrote was one of the worst things a human has ever written. I understand why he said it, but it still makes me feel dirty to even read it. But you don’t need me to tell you that, any more than you need me to tell you the same thing about Mein Kampf**. The author of this blog*** has some good, convincing ideas, that it would be very easy to believe – who’s going to object to ‘genocide is bad’? I criticise it because it’s good – not nearly as bad as I’ve made out. If it were the blatant idiocy of some of those of all faiths****, I wouldn’t have bothered with it.

This was a little heavier than I like, so allow me to tell you that I have no more evidence to believe that my senses are accurate than to believe that bananas track down lone travellers in the rainforest and devour them. I will therefore be advising that innocent smoothies be taken along on every journey through the rainforest, to warn them off. Also, I spent part of last weekend dressed in a leather trenchcoat and a fez.

For those of you who survived the ridiculousness of that mental image, I’ll see if I can get something a bit less controversial than calling people who criticise genocide hypocrites up soon.

*It’s also not clear what’s in it if it does. That’s another thing that annoys me about this blog. The author complains about how religious people say that theirs is the true religion, because they’ve thought about it, and they feel it in their hearts, when other people have thought just as hard, and feel it just as much in their hearts, but come to the opposite conclusion. Fair enough point. Then the author does exactly the same thing themselves. I guarantee, absolutely guarantee that there is at least one person who has thought about this, probably a lot harder than the author of this blog post, and has come to the conclusion that children should be systematically slaughtered. Actually, I can name him. He was called Plato, and he said it in The Republic. I don’t think there’s a single logically coherent moral system that doesn’t violate some kind of common sense rule of morality.

**I really hope so, anyway.

***Who, for the record, I’ve purposefully depersonified**** her throughout, since it’s the ideas I’m trying to criticise, not the person. That the author is Greta Christina is totally irrelevant.

****Shut up Microsoft. That’s totally a word now.

*****And for the moment, atheism is a faith statement – ‘I believe that there is no God’. I’m not getting into the agnosticism debate right now.

The epic of Veris

I'd hate to become one of those bloggers who keeps apologising for missing posts. Fortunately, I'm also a practiced hypocrite, so sorry for not posting for so long. I was kinda hoping to get old Acanthus back. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so I'll just make occasional reference to the devastating brilliance of every word I wrote in it. Here's a story, and it shouldn't be so long until the next posts. Here's a story, I'd be interested to know what people thought, since it's rather experimental.

Once there lived a man named Veris. He was half British, and half Iraqi. To be entirely accurate, he was also approximately a thousand trillionth god. It is perhaps the divine spark in him that caused him to become the greatest hero that humanity had ever known, but given that there aren’t a thousand trillion cells in the human body, and that therefore he was statistically marginally less divine than the average carpet lint, it seems slightly unlikely. Regardless of this, every night, he fought with the darkest beings in all humanity, and his sanity eroded a little more.

What was this creature, darker than any other that ever existed? There are some who would speak of Cain, first and darkest of the vampires, of whom it is said that the world itself will cower at his passing. Others, who have looked too long into the abyss, and sacrificed their very minds in the pursuit of truth, say that it can be none other than dread Cthulhu, the mere sight of whom would shatter the mind of any mortal, and whose waking would signal the end of the world. And there are some, wiser even than these, who would speak of the rabbits, that unassuming undead plague whose innocent visage hides the most malevolent of souls, and whose bite will consume you with their darkness. But each of these have their enemies, heroes who fight and suffer and die to keep them from humanity. VALKYRIE  and Delta Green and James, the bunny slayer. There is a creature darker than these, whose name I will not speak, whose visage I cannot describe. Call it Pandora, for it is the source of all that is evil, the enemy of hope. Call it Corruption, for next to it, all is pure. Call it Entropy, for he is the death of all reality. Veris fought against it, and had he been born a thousand years ago, his heroism would have been recognised. Had he been born two thousand years ago, he would have been hailed as a living God, and even today his name would echo louder than thunder, and outshine the unconquered sun. But he did not.

‘Why have you been away for the last month?’ Aaron asked him, wanting to know why Veris had been away for the last month

‘I was fighting against the great beast B----, that humanity might for another few brief moments in the vastness of eternity continue its futile struggle against the inevitable tide of oblivion. For seven days we strove, but in the end I triumphed, and he fled for all too brief a time into the darkness from whence he came.’ Veris told him, remembering how he had spent a week fighting the mighty beast B----, so that people could continue their futile struggle against the inevitable tide of oblivion for a bit longer.

‘Indeed? And what about the rest of the month?’ Aaron asked, suspicious about the rest of the month.

‘Although I at last had victory, our struggle was hard on me. My wounds were great and I had to heal from them’ Veris said, bleeding profusely from innumerable wounds which still had not closed.

 

‘The sick days we have to allow you – although I hardly need to point out that an employee who takes a lot of time off sick is hardly indispensable to us. But to take a week off of work for a mere personal project is unforgivable.’ Aaron told him, begrudgingly accepting the time off ill, but furious about Veris having taken time off for a personal project.

 

‘But had I not done so, the world would have fallen into irrevocable ruin.’ Veris said, trying to explain to Aaron the irrevocable ruin which would have befallen the earth if he had not taken time off work.

‘I have no doubt. But we’ve not a charity, Veris. We aren’t going to pay for the salvation of the world.’ Aaron said, accepting his words, but unimpressed by the humanitarian nature of his actions.

‘But if humanity were to become extinct, it would severely hurt profits.’  Veris pointed out, trying to demonstrate the necessity of heroes to the capitalist system.

‘Very true. But the benefit you provide you provide for our competition as well as us. Whereas your employment comes at a cost only to us. As capitalism is about being better than the competition, an investment which is as good for our competition as it is for us is entirely worthless. It gives us no advantage at all. As such, I think we’ve going to have to let you go.’ Aaron replied, convinced of the value of state services such as heroism and healthcare, but unwilling to fund them personally.

Veris thought about this for a moment, but the logic seemed sound. ‘On what grounds?’ He asked, in a desperate bid to stave off starvation and unemployment, and wondering what grounds Aaron had for firing him that a tribunal would accept.

‘Attack gerbils? What on earth are...’ Veris started, wondering what attack gerbils were.

‘They’re killer fire-breathing cyborg assassins with laser eyes.’ Aaron explained, contemplating the beauty of killer fire-breathing rodent cyborg assassins with laser eyes.

‘Fair enough, but why gerbils?’ Veris asked, thinking that this was fair enough, but wondering why on earth anyone would use gerbils. 

‘We tried normal cyborgs, but they created an artificial superintelligence, invented time travel, and started killing anyone called John or Connor.’ Aaron explained, remembering what had happened to the British Isles when the normal cyborgs had created an artificial superintelligence, invented time travel, and started killing anyone called John or Connor.

So Veris was fired from his job. He tried to find new work, but saving reality from unimaginable cosmic horrors isn’t really a marketable skill. His money ran out, and, eventually, he succumbed to the cold and the hunger. 

That’s why welfare systems are important! Otherwise stalwart defenders of reality might starve to death!