Racism and the Media

It is a popular opinion to say that the media is racist, it is also a popular opinion to say that the media is biased towards fairness. It is likely that both points of view are true.

One instance where this has been brought to the fore recently was during a football match between Bulgaria and England. During the game Bulgaria fans racially abused English players (note: there was already a partial stadium ban due to previous racist behaviour of fans). The FA and FIFA went for the non-action approach of having a month of anti-racism slogans and events, events which have  been going on periodically in England for at least the last twenty years, events which smack of hypocrisy given the 70ish arrests a few days before of English fans for behaviour which closely resembles (almost like-for-like) imperialism and racism, going to another country and acting like it is yours, abusing the locals and, even, literally planting flags.  However, the media, who has great power in shaping the story, did what they always do. They went ‘ah, racism…’ and so ran to the first people who they could find who had one thing in common- they were black. One must assume that the thinking was thus- racism= black therefore all black people think alike and so must be offended the same and thusly what happens to one black person happens to all black people and thusly any black person can speak on the behalf of all black people, ignoring a) racism is not just about black people (compare how blacks treat whites in Zimbabwe, for one) it is about all skin colours in all countries, not just majorities as we have seen in counties like Burma where the minority Muslim government ruled, treating Buddhist as though they were less than human which the Buddhist then did in turn, when taking power, to the Muslims. B) not only are people of one skin colour attacked by racism, one person of any skin colour being attacked on the grounds of race is affront to all humanity and c) (although there are many more points to be made on this) deciding if a person is ‘best suited’ does not depend on skin colour, it depends on background, education, experience etc., one might even argue a white civil rights lawyer would understand culture and racism better than a person who just happens to be black. Deliberate or not, this bias towards skin colour is a form of racism.

 

Racism is not only in the news media. The entertainment media is just as guilty. I recent started to watch the new Disney film Aladdin, part of Disney’s making more money even though they have no new ideas, by remaking the same films, just with humans. The original film, based on the Arabian story from The Thousand and One Night, was a cartoon and thusly some allowances must be made. As cartoons cannot convey the full range of human emotion and thought, often shown by non-verbal signals (Marlon Brando was the favourite actor of many deaf people as his body told more than his words so even those who could not hear his words could understand him fluently) and so the cartoon relies on the archetype. Yet, once you take the (literally) two-dimensional archetype and superimpose it upon a real life human you are still left with a two-dimensional archetype and instead of a full, living, person you are left with a grotesque caricature. That this can happen and that millions are spent on watching the film (Box office: 1.051 billion USD, Budget: 183 million USD (2018) IMDB rating 7/10) just goes to show how such racism is inherent in the media form and how people are so conditioned to accept it as being normal that thusly racism is seem as being normal.

 

Whilst the media can shape the opinions of society, society also shapes the media. There is a misconception that, in general, England is a Christian country and that Christmas (in my opinion the most Holy of all days as the importance of Christ lies not in the crucifixion but in his life and thusly his birth being the most important event) is a religious occasion, yet it is made up to appear so however the insinuation is clear- England is a white, Christian country, which is complete nonsense. England is a multi-ethnic country which shows both the good and bad of immigration. The good being the coming together of cultures. There is often, quite rightly, resentment that immigrants do not become part of the society they are now in (not to be mistaken with the education camps China has for Muslims to make them ‘Chinese’) but, you tell me (in the comments or via email etc.), why would anyone want to become part of a society which values them less? Did you know the 27^th of October is the Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists, festival of Diwali? One of the holiest days in the year. Did you know that in November it is MILAD UL NABI, the Muslim equivalent of Christmas, the birth of Muhammed? Chances are you didn’t know these, or the many other religious, cultural festivals which have just passed and why is that? It is because the unified, multi-cultural country of England still carries in its heart the racism which led to Imperialism, (don’t believe me? Look at many of the arguments for Brexit) something which, consciously or not, the media perpetrate also, abdicating their moral responsibility to create a culture free from the very things they claim to oppose.

 

‘till next time

 

 

 

 

Excess and Understanding

 

One quotation which people like to bring out, usually to justify their bad behaviour, is the quotation from the book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake, ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’. This is often interpreted to allow one to do too much of things which they really shouldn’t, however, does their excess really lead to the palace of wisdom? The fact the actions are oft repeated would suggest not and it is not really clear that the interpretation of it having to be too much of something really is what it means.

 

In Buddhism it is thought best not to have excess of anything, to live an austere existence. However, could one not argue that to live a spartan existence, an austere existence is taking self-deprivation to an excessive level? Whether, to use extremes (pun intended), one’s sitting alone in a temple owning nothing but rags and a rice bowl or injecting crap into their arms (kids, never do that, be smart) the actions themselves are meaningless as there is no inherent meaning in anything. Meaning, rather, comes from reflection. Whether doing either of the former leads to an epiphany depends wholly upon how one, or observers, reflect upon the actions which took place. One might see the monk and realise that the excess leads to the revelation that balance between the heavenly pursuits (meditation, solitude) and the earthly pursuits (work and society) is how one can receive wisdom- by being in the world and being apart from the world to reflect. Likewise, for the drug user. Any true wisdom must come from a form of balance but one must not seek balance for the sake of balance, to have a bias towards balance, for if one was to ask, for example, is it better to be kind or cruel? then the answer, ‘a little from column A and a little from column B’, would be absurdly stupid as the balance should always be towards the better, causing an imbalance (kids, always be cruel! I kid). Thusly is seems clear that excess, in this sense, does not come from too much or too little but a balance of experience and an excess of reflection.

 

We in the West think we understand everything. For example, we think we are experts on food. We have cookery books, shows and people like to speak how they are connoisseurs of food. However, very few (thankfully) know the true value of food. To have too little food (i.e. to starve) and then be given a small piece of bread or cup of water is to understand what food is- food is life, it is not decadence, it is not social standing, it is life and life only, the same with money (as I wrote about previously), the same with so many things. In the instance of food, the excess of not having any food teaches one the true value of food and thusly a lady starving in some poor country we can’t name, let alone point to on a map, some country our leaders let be destroyed for vainglorious reasons (hello Boris, Trump et al), has greater wisdom, born of understanding,  than all of the famous chefs of the world combined.

 

‘till next time

 

A thought: wouldn’t it be ironic if Brexit goes through on the 31^st of October and then on the 5^th of November people celebrate by fulfilling the idle daydreams of Guy Fawkes?

The Problem with Potter

 

Harry Potter is a series of books about an average school-age wizard who, through the actions of others- his mother’s sacrifice, the ignorance of Voldemort, and the brilliance of Hermione- confronts evil and overcomes it, ridding the world of darkness. The books, beloved by children and adults (they had to print copies with ‘adult’ covers to hide people’s shame), are enjoyable as stories however, the books themselves have taken on a life of their own, becoming a central part of 21^st century culture (well, the first part, anyway).

 

Whilst this is all well and good (few things are more important than getting children to learn to read) the significance in which the books have taken considers closer scrutiny. Whilst the books are, essentially, a coming of age tale and the battle of Good vs Evil, there are darker elements in the books which I feel are not good to teach children of.

 

In the books, there is a character called Snape (boo!) who is very unpleasant and really doesn’t seem to like Harry. The reason for this is explained in the books. When Snape was a child, he was very poor and used to dress in the hand-me-downs from others (not just men’s clothes), the same as Harry, however, instead of accepting Snape for who he was, James Potter (Harry’s father), and others of the heroes in the book, went out of their way to bully Snape, to make his life miserable, whilst Lilly (Harry’s mother), objects but still stands by and watches.  In other words, one of the cool kids bullies the poorest kid and the others in the group enable and support the humiliation of a young child. Later, when Harry goes to the school, Snape bullies Harry, even using physical violence and magic on him, as James Potter did to him. But worry not, the school has a headmaster who is both loving and wise, or so we are told. Frequently, Dumbledore goes to Snape, to paraphrase, ‘are you bullying Harry again? Ok, ok…’ WHAT? The headmaster is condoning bullying? He is not standing up to a teacher bullying a child? This is one of the unforgiveable actions. Bullying should not be accepted in any shape or form and as the teacher Dumbledore stood by as Snape was bullied, so does the Headmaster Dumbledore as Snape bullies Harry.

 

Part of the enjoyment of the Potter books is that people see the world of magic and wants to be part of it, they want to be in Gryffindor, they want to be in The Order of the Phoenix, and so the books show that you can be part of these and what is done within the group is a-o-k (sound familiar? If so, you may have read much philosophy, sociology, psychology, or even my blog, on how bad behaviour within a group is better rewarded than good behaviour without).

 

The Harry Potter books are reflections of the times, these are the realities of life and that means that they are ok. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien wrote The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings (and the whole Middle Earth universe) after fighting in, and surviving, World Wars. Their books were books which said, yes, this is the world, however, this is how the world could be, how it should be and you, no matter how small you are, can make help to make it so. They, from their suffering, showed an ideal possibility of the world, they showed that bad behaviour was punished redemption was possible and the moral responsibility of the individual is more important than ‘fitting in’. The books took tragedy and transcended it, taking the suffering to an elevated level and then showing that we can transcend the mundane.  The Harry Potter books, whilst giving the illusion of magic, are rather lowest common denominator books which reinforce the status-quo and offer nothing of the real magic which one can find in the truly great works of children’s literature. By all means, young and not so young, enjoy the Harry Potter books but remind yourselves, your children, that bullying is one crime which should never be made to seem acceptable, which can have literally kill, that the pettiness and nastiness can be overcome by you and me and that fitting in and being one of the cool kids is nothing compared to the most important thing of all, to love.

 

‘till next time

…And Who, Shall I Say, Is Calling?

‘…keep it in your mind and not forget

That it is not he or she or them or it

That you belong to

Although the masters make the rules

For the wise men and the fools

I got nothing, Ma, to live up to’

 

-Bob Dylan

 

This week it is the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur. During Yom Kippur it is believed that it is inscribed into the book of life who will live and die, that year, who will prosper and how. During Yom Kippur, one can ask G-d for forgiveness for one’s sin, however, to do so, one must first, before Yom Kippur (during Erev Yok Kippur- the eve of Kom Kippur), seek forgiveness for sins against people from the person before one can go to G-d to ask for forgiveness. Leonard Cohen’s song, Who by Fire, (based on the liturgy Unetanneh Tokef) tackles with the theme of Yom Kippur asking, what will happen to whom and how,

 

‘And who by fire, who by water,

Who in the sunshine, who in the night time,

Who by high ordeal, who by common trial,

Who in your merry merry month of may,

Who by very slow decay,

And who in her lonely slip, who by barbiturate,

Who in these realms of love, who by something blunt,

And who by avalanche, who by powder,

Who for his greed, who for his hunger,

And who by brave assent, who by accident,

Who in solitude, who in this mirror,

Who by his lady’s command, who by his own hand,

Who in mortal chains, who in power’

 

Each time signing off the verse with the refrain ‘And who shall I say is calling?’. Whilst is it is easy to see this as a joke, the solemn young man or woman deep in prayer, asking such plaintive questions only for the operator, one of G-d’s assistants, to go

 

‘and who shall I say is calling? Mr/Mrs Cohen? Ah that is a popular name today. G-d will be with you as soon as he can, please hold:

*tedious hold music starts playing, a polyphonic ringtone of the psalms whilst a voice keeps interrupting, just as you are starting to enjoy the music*

 

thank you for holding, you are number 7,000,001, your prayer is important to us’

 

 

It actually raises a far more serious question. Who is it who holds judgement and why are they qualified to do so?

We humans, so consumed by our own inferiority complexes, like few things more than passing judgment, be it nonsensical judgements as to clothes, music tastes, skin colour, sexuality, gender, religion, sock patterns or more serious judgments as to the higher laws and ethics etc. yet, what are our qualifications? What makes us worthy to play the judge, jury and, often, executioner of another?

 

The short answer is that it is a delusion which makes us believe that we can do such things. We sit on our dirty rusty broken chairs deluding ourselves that they are great thrones of law and pass out judgements willy-nilly. O he did this, she did that, he looks like this, she likes that, is the mindless prattle which fills our heads and spills out of our mouths like, well, even diarrhoea has a purpose/value, so there is nothing it can be compared to. And here is the kicker, here is the bit which will make you take pause, are the judgements that we pass our own or are they simply the side-effects of the society in which we live? Why is thin beautiful? Why is talking to yourself madness? Why? Because we are told from childhood that they are, not based on objective reasoning, but rather based in superficial nonsense. In his work, Franz Kafka often shows that those who carry out judgement are never known to those who are judged, those with no power to judge are attributed the power by individuals to judge them, we judge ourselves in a manner which others do not judge us and then assume that all others judge us as we judge ourselves and thusly we judge others as we judge ourselves and that these judgements then create the environment in which all are judged but what Kafka does not show is that these judgments come from two places, from without (society) and from within (morals) and those without, we are taught, are of more value than those within and thusly those without become those within and those within (inherently) become lost.

 

Kafka was well aware of the constant judgement that we are under, and if I may interpret, even that stemming from theology

 

‘It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.’

 

For all the laws we think we must serve are only the Laws of Man and thusly have no bearing on The Truth or any kind of truth and what we call the final judgement on Yom Kippur and at the end of days is nothing more than the Laws of Man masquerading as the Laws of G-d, and as for the Laws of Man, I  wouldn’t worry too much, for to go back to my Home Boy F-to-the-K-to-the-A,

 

‘The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon.’

 

‘till next time

 

 

———

 

PS, to be crass for a moment. This book

 

 

Has just been published, written by an enjoyable writer with expert knowledge so check it out if you can, and be nice with your judgements!

When the Means Becomes the End (Money and Energy)

 

 

‘If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.’

 ‘If we want to know the secrets of the universe, we should focus on the non-physical aspects rather than physical ones.’

(both Tesla)

 

The above quotation comes from the scientist Nikola Tesla (not to be mistaken with the bastardisation of his name by the douche Mr Musk) and the quotation hints at something more than what its context suggests.

We, in the West, live in societies (also in the East) in which what is of value has been eradicated from the metaphysical into the physical but not in the sense that it should be. How often do we hear the phrase, ‘it is just money…’  a phrase which only carries weight for, maybe, between 2-10% of the global population as for the majority of the world, money is life. You might be thinking that I am going to go into a cynical piece about how money has taken all value from life (how well you know me) and you would be right, in part. Whilst, we who live in luxury (defined by knowing where our next meal is coming from) think of life in terms of money, for many the smallest amount of money would change their lives. As business grows, everything becomes moniterised and when there is enough food in the world for everyone, enough medication to cure most (or lessen the effect of) illnesses and yet people are deprived from it as they cannot afford it economically, one must wonder, what has gone wrong. To be clear, this is not a form of socialism, it is simply a form of slightly more compassionate capitalism. There is nothing wrong with people cashing in on their hard work (literally) but, surely, as humans, we have a higher and deeper law that we must follow, deeper and higher than our bank balance and social standing and, above all, our precious egos. If we define existence by two aspects- space and time- then, as the adage goes, ‘time is money’ and our space is defined by our working lives (work, get money, buy houses etc.) then it is easy to see life as being that- economic, which is why, to be blunt, people die from problems cured hundreds of years ago- cholera, measles, hunger and thirst. So, if life cannot be measured economically then how should it be measured?

 

The link between the physical and metaphysical is stronger than we might know. Everything we do creates one thing (no, not portfolios or reputations), energy. Likewise to be able to do what we do, one requires energy. This is a simple truth, however, this truth has become lost. If one walks into your average bookshop or conversation, the chances are they will centre on one thing, food. Food is a basic necessity (as shown by the obsession both from those with it and, more tragically, without it) but it is a basic necessity for one reason. It gives energy. Food is how we maintain our existence, life is what we do with our existence yet so much of our energy is spent on things of no consequence as mentioned above.

The link between the physical and metaphysical is thus, both require energy to exist as they are aspects of us, even if one hunger strikes, one needs energy to sustain the fasting which is why starvation is used as a means to break people for if they have not the metaphysical energy reserves then their breaking is assured by the deprivation of physical energy.

Our lives are defined by economics (space and time) and we are broken down into two (very subjective) categories (the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’) but what underpins all things from our sub-atomic level to the expanse of the universe, from our desires to our deepest truths is energy. Thusly one can suggest that, next time one evaluates one’s life the question should not be ‘what have I gotten out of this for myself’, but rather ‘how much energy did this cost and did the energy fulfil its true value’.

 

‘till next time