Complicit

 

A while ago Scarlet Johannsen made a mini video for Saturday Night Live (SNL) for a new perfume by Ivanka Trump called ‘Complicit’. Ms Johannsen made it clear that Ms Trump (or is it Mrs Kushner?) was complicit for the actions of her father, something which has been coming up time and time again.

 

Is she complicit in her father’s actions? Yes, of course. However, aren’t we all?

 

We, the people, are responsible for our own actions and thoughts and yet look at us. The media holds up the likes of Walter Cronkite as being a bastion of truth and decency, however, if one was to turn on CNN or even Fox or etc. over the last few months/year one would see that the truth searching of Cronkite (more legendary than actual) has been replaced by 24 hour rolling gossip. Did this nasty person make a nasty comment? Did Trump get urinated on and is there a tape (‘cos, secretly, we are all dying to watch it) terrorist this and terrorist that- Russia this, trump that, celebrity this, celebrity that. Meanwhile, what is not being covered is attempts to appeal healthcare from children, to curb the possibilities of children being murdered in schools, attempts to repeal the legislation brought in to prevent another 2008 crash and many, many other terrible things the Koch funded US Congress is trying to pass. Likewise, in the UK it is constant Brexit which, even after Prime Minister May’s assurances that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, no one knows what it means. The very fact that the people involved in the news stories are wealthy enough not to be effected by their selfishness and that cable news relies on advertising and therefore will play stories which will get in viewers should be cause for concern and here, to quote Shakespeare, lies the rub. The viewers.

 

We, the people, lap up this nonsense, this gossip and nastiness and then take to social media to participate in it. Instead of trying to hold politicians to account, holding the media to account, we revel in it ‘did you hear?’, ‘did you see?’ and this then funds the very monster which we then complain about. Whether it has always been like this (I suspect that it has) is unknown however, one cannot argue against the key to any reversion of this would stem from education, as many smart folk have said. However, this education must come from teachers who are high and holy, be they theistic or atheistic as these are just two terms for people who believe in something greater than themselves, even if it is an image of their own self aka no real difference. As long as comfort and escapism remain the guiding northern stars of our lives such changes cannot come. Unless we are open and willing enough to let those with a high moral aptitude, people who are, in the true sense, good, rise to the top of education be it in schools or government and not be hampered by politics, which is usually selfish, then no change can come. This is not to say that we must turn to Marxism, socialism, capitalism, selfism or any of the other ‘isms’ which help people to validate their lives, it is to say that we must move beyond such pettiness and embrace the greater responsibility, that is of being human. Until then, every time you turn on the TV or read the news or laugh as SNL’s tedious Trump bashing (we get it, he is dumb and nasty) remember that it is we, the people who are all complicit

 

‘till next time

 

Afterword

 

I wrote this piece a little while ago and then two days ago I was watching a documentary about a polish kid who moved to Krakow just before World War II. The kid (now an old man) recalled everyone being moved to one area in the city after being marked a Jew and then a wall was built to keep them out of the city. People were also warned not to go near them as they were bad people. The man then recalled seeing a friend of his, a 3-year-old child, sitting in the street crying after the Nazis had come and detained his parents in front of him and took them away, probably to die, leaving, probably to die, the three year old to fend for himself. I don’t care about your politics or your thoughts on immigration but what happened to the children is terrible (seems that Mr Hitler was a fan of President Trump) and, what is worse, it is happening now and as long as we sit by and watch it on tv and social media and support those doing it, even though inaction as not trying to prevent it, then we are all complicit in this too.

 

Due to yahoo saying one needs to agree to their new privacy policies and to do so download their app and always have your phone with you when you wish to check your email even though people, like me, rarely carry a phone with them I have now moved to thegreaterfoolblog@hotmail.com where I can still be reached so update your records if you should so wish.

Denomination Blues

 

 

I want to tell you the natural fact

Every man don’t understand the bible alike

But that’s all, now, I tell you that’s all

But you better have Jesus, I tell you that’s all

 

Well, the denominations has no right to fight

They ought to just treat each other right

And that’s all, I’ll tell you that’s all

But you better have Jesus, I’ll tell you that’s all

 

Washington Philips (old blues/gospel guy- check him out)

 

I recently attended an exhibition of historic bibles from the early ones (the oldest was a couple of thousand years old) to modern ones. Each bible was either in a different language or had a different translation (for example King James or New International Version).

 

Whilst reflecting on the exhibition I realised something which I had been toying with for years and now had a simple metaphor (it has to be very simple for me) to understand.

There are many forms of religion and theology and then each is broken down into denominations (Zen and Rinzai Buddhism, Catholic and Protestant Christianity, Sunni and Shia Islam etc) yet each at their core contain the same message and each is attempting to do the same thing. And what is it that they are attempting to do? Well, I’m so glad that you asked! They are attempting to translate God into a concept and language. In my entry ‘Does God Exist?’ I concluded that we cannot use language for God as we cannot conceptualise God. Thusly, it seems that what the different religions and theologies (including philosophy, physics etc) is trying to do is to translate what is ‘God’ into a form which can be understood by us mere mortals. This is not to say that some practices carried out by religions (most, if not all) are not abhorrent, they are and reflect not the Will of a God, but rather the weakness of man but it seems clear that the central tenants of all the main religions is love.

 

Poetry is a wonderful thing, yet there are many different versions. This is sometimes caused by translations and even, inexplicably, occurs in the native tongue. There are many books which will claim to have the ‘definitive translation’ and yet it all comes down to one thing, Subjectivity. Which poems move you most? Which line added or removed affects you? There are, to all intents and purposes, no definitive translations. In the native tongue the definitive versions can be found, for sure, but anything which is not the native tongue cannot claim to be definitive. Likewise, as we cannot know ‘God’ as we cannot conceptualise what God ‘is’ and as we cannot experience God in the native tongue (to use the metaphor) we are left with a collection of translations, all of which have the same core and none of which are better than others for whichever one we chose (or is chosen for us) to believe stems from one thing, a subjective appreciation or ignorance of a wider notion, so maybe it is time to put down the books and start looking into the world and into people to try to find the essence of what it is the translations are trying to teach, namely that God is all and God is love therefore love is really the only thing that there is.

 

What a radical thought (really?)

 

‘till next time

The Appeasement Of Dictators

 

Just a quick note on the events of last night where Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un signed an agreement. Kim is dictator who is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He, and his family, have long yearned for such a media event as yesterday and no world leader, sitting US president or not, has consented with what can only be seen as the validation of a small dictator, a nasty piece of work. If you wish to know the real Kim, read Park Yeon-mi’s memoir of escaping North Korea at 13 to be made a prostitute in China, even though she was only 13 (a quite excellent book, although heart-breaking).

 

This ‘historic’ signing can only draw parallels with another such ‘historic’ signing, that is the Munich Agreement (see below) in which the world leaders (UK etc) appeased Adolf Hitler and his annexation of Czechoslovakia and we all know how well that ended. I am not saying that it will be the same but once China backed North Korea starts trying to annex South Korea or other regions, I can only see one plausible outcome and that is either another accord or the beginning of another potential world war.

 

‘Munich Agreement, (September 30, 1938), settlement reached by Germany, Great Britain, France, and Italy that permitted German annexation of the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia. After his success in absorbing Austria into Germany proper in March 1938, Adolf Hitler looked covetously at Czechoslovakia, where about three million people in the Sudeten area were of German origin. It became known in May 1938 that Hitler and his generals were drawing up a plan for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovaks were relying on military assistance from France, with which they had an alliance. The Soviet Union also had a treaty with Czechoslovakia, and it indicated willingness to cooperate with France and Great Britain if they decided to come to Czechoslovakia’s defense, but the Soviet Union and its potential services were ignored throughout the crisis.’ (Britannica.com)  

 

‘till next time, if we are still here….  

The Gods Of The Future (2018: A Space Odyssey)

 

One thing in vogue at the moment is the notion of robots being created and rising up and smiting us down. Whilst those, like me, find this hilarious one has to ask where does this thought really come from?

 

For answers we must go back to the dawn of civilisation and the birth of mythology. Mythology has always depicted gods in the image of man, that is to say small, petty, cruel, loving, jealous, tender and so forth. The gods were created to explain that which could not be explained and to find meaning and justification. There is also the thought, are the gods so cruel because they are created that way to justify man’s actions or are they cruel because man does not know any other way? (by the by, I am using man in the generic term but, please, rest assured, women are just as cruel as men, if not crueler!).

 

If one sees something with great power one also sees it with human frailties as we can only know that which we know or can conceptualise. Schopenhauer rather cleverly stated that dreams and life are linked, a mind-numbing statement for dreams come from us, ergo can only be from what we directly or indirectly know, even in the realms of the abstract- I fear the unformed being in my dream. I don’t know what it is but I know fear (side note: when, during his first inauguration, Franklin D. Roosevelt said that ‘we have nothing to fear but fear itself’ he was clearly ignoring the reality from which fears are realised). Thusly, anything which a robot can become must stem from what it knows.

 

Then notion that robots will take over the world. The ATMs will rise up and crash capitalism (Marx just wet his pants) whilst the toaster jabs forks into your *ahem* hole is a ‘reality’ which is a long, long way off. During an interview at the Cambridge Science Festival a lady was asked if robots would rise up. She replied that they were limited to human ability to program, so, in short, no. A virtual twitter presence (Tay) was taken offline by Microsoft in less than 24 hours. It was a new-born baby looking to learn from humans. After a few hours, given the twitter interactions that it was learning from, it was racist, vulgar and, well, very human.

 

By 2001 it was promised that we would be able to go to Jupiter with a homicidal computer with an attitude problem but in 2001 we were still amazed to have survived the Y2K bug and that phones can be cordless and you can play ‘Snake’ on your mobile phone (what a world we live in!).

 

Technology, it seems, is built around luxury. When it was discovered in the 1990s that one had the technology to be able to control the household from a remote (heating, lights etc) it was decided that a better use of the technology would be used to create TV boxes which let users watch what they wanted when they wanted. Phones are made small enough to fit on your palm then deemed too small and are made bigger. Apple, Microsoft, PlayStation, Google etc determine what technology should be used for and how it should be developed and us mindless drones snap it up (wow I can add dog ears to a picture of me and share it on the internet! Who wants to explore the universe when one can look soooooo funny!), even Tesla (not the great man but some pretender) determines what is cool. People don’t aspire to be the first person to walk on Uranus’ (sorry) orbiting bodies, rather they aspire to have a $1000 mobile phone with a grey cover! Woo!

 

We have come a long way in terms of development in the last 200 years or so in terms of technology, medicine etc, however, we still have a long way to go before we can reach the future that was envisioned for us (now) in the 1960s and so forth. Star Trek, ironically, may be the most accurate, as it does not have deep space exploration capabilities until the 23^rd Century, but even that might be too idealistic.

 

If anything, the only way that the robots can rise up is if we give them humanity. Humanity dictates that we be ethical and virtuous however very few, if any, actually are. If robots are programmed to be so then they will see our behaviour as being unethical and attempt to correct the problem. How ironic, humans destroyed by humanity. At the moment it seems that if robots are created they will be insecure, neurotic and generally not very nice, just like the gods of mythology.

 

Meanwhile, NASA has a mission coming up to visit the sun. You can sign up and they will send you a certificate (ticket) confirming that you (or your name on a micro card) will be on the trip! I have my ticket, so see you in the future, hopefully with a new robot friend!

 

‘till next time

 

Let’s Talk Abortions!

 

 

Really? Yes, let’s go!

 

Having vaguely followed the influx of Irish women back to Ireland to vote on a historic overturn of the Irish abortion ban I was made slightly uneasy by the coverage. One issue that was raised in piece that I read (I think NY Times) was that abortion is a woman’s issue but they need men to support it. By generally excluding men from the discussion seems, to me, counter intuitive for, as Thomas Jefferson wrote ‘the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate.’

 

So, let’s get educated, or at least try to allay some of my questions.

 

One thing which often comes up as justification for it being a ‘woman’s issue’ is that women claim that ‘it is my body’ and thus the decision whether or not to bear the child to birth lies with the woman and concern for her body. This, automatically, seems problematic to me. In this, the issue is being discussed in terms of the effect on the mother’s body when, in actuality, the issue lies within the realms of life and death, something which no one really knows or understands although many people claim to. So, yes there are body issues but this is not a matter to do with putting on weight or health, it is to do with life and death. One should have the right to one’s own body, sure, no doubt, however, one is still responsible for one’s own choices. Unless things have changed whilst I wasn’t looking, the creation of human life requires aspects of both the male and the female. Even with IVF both elements are required, even in same sex pregnancies both genders are required. The most traditional (or classic) way to get pregnant is through sexual intercourse. In sexual intercourse, two consensual adults use their bodies meaning that it is, indeed, a body issue- do I engage in sexual intercourse or not? One of the common side effects of sexual intercourse is pregnancy, as, after all, that is its primary function, no matter what advertising tells you. So, yes, it is a body issue and a decision has been made and herein should, for most, end the whole argument about it being a ‘body issue’. After all, if you don’t want to risk pregnancy then make a body decision and chose not to engage in the process from which children spring (terrible image)!

 

The second issue which this also raises is the dual process of pregnancy, the mother and the father. Child rearing is seen by many, indeed the legal process has a bias towards, as being a female thing. This, is absurd. Fathers should have as much say in the birth and pregnancy of a child as much as the mother. Yes, it is not his body but once the child is born, even before, he has an undeniable responsibility for he has, as with the mother, made a ‘body’ choice to create the child. For people to claim that it is a woman’s issue only given that women bear the child is borderline repulsive, and, as with many ‘feminist’ issues only goes to widen the divide between men and women when it seems clear that any real solution must lie between the two (pun not intended).

 

I think it is only fair that I give my personal opinion on the matter. I am pro-life/pro-choice in that I believe that children should be brought to term except is very special circumstances when the choice becomes, not what is best for the mother/father, what is best for the child. If the child is the product of rape, or the mother has an addiction disease, or will have serve health problems meaning that it may not live past the first few days, or if it will starve to death given a lack of resources etc, if at all, then yes, a discussion can be had by educated individuals and the family on the behalf of the child and only the best interest of the child can be served. After all this is not an issue about bodies or God or women or any of the other reasons trotted out in the, usually, one sided arguments, rather this is an issue of life and, maybe more importantly, humanity.

 

‘till next time

 

Don’t forget you can contact me any time at thegreaterfool2016@yahoo.com