Demagogues and Facts

Over the last few months we have been inundated, in the media and in conversation, with the words of a person. The person likes to stand before big crowds and make, frankly, passive-aggressive comments about people in authority. The people who agree with the person wildly cheer and those who disagree bemoan their existence, who spouts opinions as facts, something google could counter in five minutes. It is obvious, from this description, that I am talking about Greta Thunberg. Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teenager who is going around the world raising the issue of climate change. One must applaud the fact that she is working on such an issue, raising awareness to something which is undeniable, although natural, humans (who are also natural) are making it much worse. However, as with most people who rise to such prominence, the message that is being given is so simplistic that it is devoid of all nuance and also, maybe more importantly and ironically, facts.

 

Miss Thunberg, the other day in the UK, asked if her English was too bad to be understood as a passive aggressive, rather nasty, reference to the UK Government not dropping everything to do as she commands. If the UK Government had spared five minutes for her they could have replied- almost 40% of the energy used in the UK is from renewable sources, it is following the agreements put in place in the Kyoto Protocol (an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) to reduce emissions giving aid to climate change, that it is making ‘ultra-low emission zones’ in cities such as London and many, many more things which my Google search and knowledge of the news in the last ten tears, or so, failed to bring to light in the last two minutes.

 

The definitions of a demagogue are:

Noun-a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.

“a gifted demagogue with particular skill in manipulating the press”

synonyms:      rabble-rouser, political agitator, agitator, soapbox orator, firebrand;

Verb-rhetorically exploit (an issue) for political purposes in a way calculated to appeal to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people.

“he seems more interested in demagoguing the issue in media interviews than in dialogue”

Or as H.L. Mencken said:

 

‘The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he (or she not to be discriminately- women can be demagogues too!) knows to be untrue to men (and women!) he (she) knows to be idiots.’

Or, in other words, someone who presents opinions into the echo-chamber which they know their audience wants to hear, not hindered by facts, and people, free from the burden of factual proof, hear their opinions echoed back at them and then, for some inexplicable reason agree with themselves.

 

History has shown the danger of demagogues and the lack of a nuanced argument and there are people in the unravelling, continent drifting (both literally and figuratively) world of today, be they Miss Thunberg, Mr Trump or whoever else this piece made you think of who are exploiting this fact as Hitler or Caesar or any other despot who you care to mention has. But then again, if someone stood in front of a big crowd and said, ‘ok, this is the problem, these are steps which have been taken, maybe if they added this initiative, as laid out in this 15 slide PowerPoint presentation then the problem will be potentially made better, building upon the work already being done’ then the old joke from the TV show The West Wing:

‘You know what they call a leader with no followers? Just a guy taking a walk.’

would come true and we all know that there is nothing a demagogue likes more than an adoring crowd. By all means listen to Miss Thunberg, Mr Trump et al but whilst doing so, ask yourself, are these the facts and why are they telling me this? What is it that they wish to gain? And how would they react if someone questions their version of events/comments?

      

‘till next time

Suffering

We in the developed (notice how I didn’t say civilised) world have an incredible capacity and that capacity is to produce whine. On the tv, in our works, in our daily lives, all we seem to hear is people whining about their levels of suffering. It seems that we are all modern day Jobs, being tortured by a cruel God just to prove a point to the devil- that we can endure and then still present our backs in thanks

 

‘Heard your songs of freedom and man forever stripped

Acting out his folly while his back is being whipped

Like a slave in orbit, he’s beaten ’til he’s tame

All for a moment’s glory and it’s a dirty, rotten shame’

 

-Dylan

 

In his novel, which is actually a thinly disguised memoir of his time in a Siberian prison camp (more on which another week), House of the Dead, Dostoyevsky writes:

 

‘Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him’.

 

Within this context Dusty (Dusty-Toy-Vest-Key) is showing that even those in the least humane conditions (an overcrowded camp in 19^th Century Russia- if you’ve read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich you’ll have a good idea of the conditions or any reports from the Nazi camps) and yet, we, in the developed world (including Asia) constantly whine about our misfortune. This stems from a lack of perspective. We are so self-centred, not out of necessity, but rather out of ignorance, that we cannot see the blessings that we have. To us, our sufferings are worse than Prometheus and Sisyphus combined but if we consider the words of the great Socrates:

 

‘If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.’

 

then maybe we would be able to get that most elusive of all things- perspective.

 

One argument which people have against following the news is that – o- it has nothing to do with me, an opinion which is as disturbing as it is ignorant. If a child starving to death is nothing to do with you then, by golly, can I fairly assume that you are not part of the human race?

 

If one reads the memoirs (such as the book I like to mention here, In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park) then one can see something which should chill them to the bone, and beyond, and that is that the matter-of-fact manner that Yeonmi says things such as ‘we learnt to catch dragonflies so that we wouldn’t starve to death’ (to paraphrase- seriously read her book, I’ll even buy you a copy if it requires that). Observations that I have made from life and from my readings is that those who suffer most, those who genuinely suffer, speak about it least, be they living in fear of genocide or having returned from a war and so on and so forth and so it seems fair to draw the conclusion that, if someone is whining about something then it is fair to assume that they are not really suffering as the Jobs we think we are and rather we are suffering from nothing more than a lack of perspective.

 

‘till next time

Genius in Retrospect

 

We all know that there are two tragedies in life: being born and dying.  (For the record, the thought that death is inevitable is fallacious, for to be able to die, one must first be born which is in no way, shape or form inevitable- this has nothing to do with anything, it just irritates me). The psychiatrist Sigmund Fraud (tee hee) said that being born is the worst trauma we ever experience and messes us up for life. Considering his daughter, Anna, one of the pioneers in child psychology, never left her parent’s home and then turned it into a shrine (I’ve been there twice, even sat on the famous couch, only setting off two alarms) suggests that he was onto something. The psychiatrist R. D Laing said that parents ‘f*** up’ their children, and then gave a good example of how it is so.

The point of this ramble is this, often I have seen/read articles in which some guy at some university will write a paper, which is picked up and then be published in the popular presses, with a headline such as ‘Playing with his toes is what made Einstein a genius, if you want your kids to be a genius make them play with their toes’. Obviously, this is complete nonsense, but it speaks to something which is all too apparent in academia and popular culture. The obsession with finding a great person and then looking at their childhood to see what made them a genius so that it can be repeated is as absurd as it is stupid. 0k, so maybe X did Y when she was a child but that does not detract away from the fact that X had the natural intelligence and inclination to do so. Many people who we call a genius have something that others do not do, or do but lack the gift to do so, and that is desire to be noticed. One example of this is Mozart’s father, a man whom R.D Laing would have been proud of. Leopold Mozart noticed the natural gift and then dragged him around the world as an organ grinder would do to his monkey. The damage that this had on Mozart we cannot know, also he is widely considered to have had what is now know as Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, but anyone who writes a piece of music called Leck mich im Arsch (actually Lick my Arse or figuratively Kiss my Arse) must have had a pretty special sense of humour. However, without Leopold’s desire to have his son made public we may never have known of one of the greats of music (even if most of his music is boring pop songs).

 

The tendency to look at a person’s childhood and claim that X or Y made them into a genius is absurd. Whilst signs of genius may manifest in childhood, the genius, or what we lazily call genius, is there before and with the proper environment (nurture) the innate abilities (nature) can flourish. And, who knows, with enough will to do so and a few lucky breaks, in a hundred years time someone may be rummaging through your nappies looking for the stains of the birth of genius.

 

‘till next time

The Dehumanisation Of Sport

 

The other day, the Juventus (football) player Moise Bioty Kean, Italian of Ivorian descent, was playing a match. During the match, the opposition fans hurled abuse at Kean due to his skin colour and then, when he scored, he celebrated by standing in front of the Cagliari fans who had abused him all game. As he stood there, the Cagliari fans responded by throwing plastic cups and making monkey noises. After the match, the Juventus captain, Bonucci, a much capped and distinguished Italian international, said that the blame was ’50-50’, meaning that Kean was to blame for celebrating and the shared equal responsibility with those hurling racist abuse at him. Across the globe the actions of the fans and Bonucci was unanimously condemned, in Italy, people, including the manager of Juventus, bent over backwards to support, not the victim, but rather Bonucci. Here was a situation where a person is racially abused for him skin colour and being blamed for being abused whilst everyone tried their hardest to protect the perpetrators of such a heinous act. The theory from philosophy and psychology (too many sources to name) of bad behaviour in a group being treated better than good behaviour without is obvious here but it also speaks to a wider problem and that is how sports stars are dehumanised by their teams, the media and, maybe most tragically, by their own fans.

 

Yes, we must put in the disclosure that they know what they are getting into and make the choice to do so. Also, the average national annual wage would be an insult for a player for one week and this is true and speaks to what I wrote about last week in the notion of actual and perceived value  but this is no excuse for behaviour which is beyond the pale/pall (depending which one you use).

 

Clubs have a frankly bizarre relationships with players. Players are bought and sold, sometimes against their wishes, and even used as makeweights for other deals, as one would buy or sell a pencil (you can tell I’m sat at my desk) although they can refuse to leave (unlike my pencil), in theory, there have been accounts of when it was acquiesced with under less than ideal circumstances. Value is perceived by the markets and the player is bought or sold in accordance to club needs. Players also have agents who often get a big lump sum of money from deals, on top of their percentage from the player, so it could be seen that some agents have a vested interest in their players being bought and sold. If a club goes into finical problems, the players are listed among the assets and can be sold to raise capital etc.

 

The media needs content and needs ‘stories; to gain readers/viewers/listeners. Before and after games there is in-depth analysis of every inch of a player’s game and then they are judged, given a ranking such as 5/10.  The amount of money spent on sports journalism shows how important it is in generating revenue, thusly some of the stories and behaviours may be seen as being vile and even manufactured to gain revenue. The sports journalist is one of the most superfluous journalists and yet commands some of the most money and influence. Some are excellent at their jobs, but one has to see what they are doing as being little more than dehumanisation. Also, the fervour with which journalists band about managers being sacked is sickening as they do not seem to realise that these are people with jobs who would rather not spend every moment of their lives having every inch scrutinised and day in day out being asked if they will be sacked.

 

Fans make up a large demographic but let’s say one is a surgeon. How would he feel having 10 million people watching him perform a surgery whilst people go, ‘o, he used a cross stitch, I’d have used a straight stitch, he is ****’, or if one was a postman and was delivering a letter whilst 30,000 people went ‘BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ in his ear. Of course, hardly anyone would like that to happen to them, but they see no qualms in doing it on a Saturday to another human being.

 

In terms of racism, the last World Cup was held in the notoriously racist country Russia and the next one is in Qatar so it seems, without doubt, FIFA do not take their multiple anti-racism initiatives seriously, so why should we? And in terms of the clubs, media and fans, how is what happens grossly different to the gladiators in the circus in Rome? Yes, there are less deaths and more money, and the players are ‘free’ but all in all it seems little different. Objects made to entertain whilst the unwashed masses bay for blood. When Marx said, ‘Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes’ (religion… is the opiate of the masses) he clearly was unaware of sport.

 

‘till next time

Value: Actual vs Perceived

 

A few weeks ago, during a cup final between two English teams, Chelsea and Manchester City, something happened which was shocking, disgusting, and, admittedly, funny, but not in the ha ha way. The Chelsea manager, Maurizio Sarri, wanted to make a substitution.  The fourth official put up his board with the numbers on and it showed that Sarri wanted to bring off his goalkeeper (Kepa) and replace him. Normally, in this situation, the player coming off trots over to the side line, muttering abuse, but goes, sits down and his place is taken. However, this time, the player refused to come off, waving his finger and hollering ‘No!’ at his manager. Whilst, in this situation, the other players, especially the captain, would put their boot up the player’s backside or, if I was the manager, storm on the pitch, grab the player by his hand and march him off like a naughty child but instead the players just stood around watching, or trying not to, and the manager had a tantrum and player power won as the player remained, failing to save easy penalties as Chelsea lost.

 

Afterwards something strange happened. The manager came out and said it was just a ‘misunderstanding’ (it wasn’t) and that it should be brushed under the carpet and journalists were ridiculous to be asking about it, hours after it had happened. Fans, on the phone and social media had their say. The argument was in favour of the actions of the keeper and followed this logic. The player cost 71 million pounds therefore he is valued more highly than the manager. In a choice between the two, the manager must go. Whilst it is true Kepa cost 71 million pounds it cannot be argued that he is valued, in the market, at £71 million. The reason for his cost was that Chelsea executed a release clause in his contact at Athletic Bilbao. A release clause is put in (as a legal requirement in Spain) to say that if you want this player and you offer this amount, we cannot say no. The figure is always wildly inflated to ward off any people even thinking about attempting to sign the player. The most famous example would have to be the 200 million euros that was in Barcelona’s Neymar’s contract which Paris Saint-Germain paid in 2017. Since then Real Madrid players such as Isco and Asensio now have $400+ buy out clauses.

 

Here we have a confusion created. Is Kepa worth £71 million? Of course not, his correct market value should be £25-35, yet having paid £71 the market has become distorted and the costs of players far exceeds their values and thus football edges one inch closer to irrelevance.

 

It is not only in sport that values can become conflicted. The father of behavioural economics, Richard Thaler (shout out, as I am told cool people say, to the grandparents of BE, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky) speaks about an experiment he performed. He told a classroom of students two scenarios.

 

• Having walked into the room they have a 1/x chance of having contracted a fatal disease which will kill them next week. There is one bottle of antidote. How much, considering that interest free loans are available from him, would they be willing to pay for the antidote?

And

 

• There is a room with a disease in. If they go in they will have the same 1/x chance of contracting it. How much would it take as a minimum to get them to go inside the room?

 

Thinking about it the correct answer is, it will cost you x amount + the antidote to get me to go into the room, but the results that he found were thus. The most they would be willing to pay, thinking they may have already contracted it, was about $200 but the amount they would have to be paid would be around $500,000. The discrepancy is fascinating. It seems that people put less value on their lives in relation to themselves having to pay but if another wanted to put them at the same risk, it would cost a lot. Here we cannot conclude the actual value of a human life, but we can see that the perceived value of the same life will fluctuate wildly depending on the context.

 

(note: another anecdote he said was: Mr B mows the lawn. He has terrible allergies but refused to pay $10 to have it cut for him. When asked if he would cut his neighbours lawn for $20, he replies, no chance).

 

When trying to determine the value of something it can be very hard as values change with the times as contexts shift, however, some things should have a consistent value, regardless, yet what happens is that as the context change people see the perceived value and not the actual value and thusly the markets cannot withstand the distortion and events, such as the 2008 Market crash, happen all because people are too willing to buy into the myth and when the new gods disappoint it is the people who know the true value and have created the myth who thrive and those who are caught in the myth, be they believers or just bystanders who are forced to live in the myth as it effects everyone, who see it all come crashing down.

 

‘till next time (uh huh)