Faith, Belief and Hope

In this I am touching on something which I have briefly covered before so I ask for your indulgence. When it comes to the belief in God, one is given three options- theistic, atheist or agnostic. A theist is one who believes in God, an atheist is one who does not believe in God and an agnostic is one who sits on the fence. Regular readers will probably be thinking that, given my love of nuance, the divine being in the details, that these three options are something I would, irrationally, have an issue with, and you would be right.

 For many the question as to one’s beliefs is an opportunity to create a certainty. A theist states that there is a God and, not only that there is, but what qualities God has, personality, habits etc. The atheist states that there is no God, and that they know this as they have divine powers to know absolutes, and the agnostic sits comfortably on the fence and says that they just don’t know either way. Interestingly, in my dealings with all three types, all three have claimed that they think as they are because they are open minded. The thought that if they lived in a different time, their thoughts may be the polar opposite, depending on the underlying religious fervour of their epoch, is irrelevant. As has been noted *, few people can rise above the prevailing opinions of their time. If this then creates the question, do people actually believe what they believe or do they just believe what they have been conditioned to believe?, is a conversation for another time.

For the purposes of this piece, let us look at those who claim that there isn’t a God or that there is one who conforms to their concepts. The greater the faith, the greater the doubt is a concept which I have created based on my readings of the lives of some of the greatest believers. The likes of St John of the Cross struggled terribly with their faith. Jesus Christ doubts the necessity of his death but then gives himself over to a greater will (God) yet many who profess a faith (note: I am using faith for all three categories (theist, atheist and agnostic) as they are all forms of faith) have little or no doubt in what they believe, even Job, in the Bible, when being used as a pawn by God (God tortures him to prove to Satan that Job’s faith is true), refuses to renounce the certainty of his faith. And now we have hit on the key word- certainty. As the French philosopher Voltaire noted, ‘Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one’, yet people would often opt for the absurd over the uncomfortable, something we have covered previously. So, let us look at the consequences of certainty when it comes to faith.

The denial of the possibility of, not only a God, but of a God who cannot be understood (does not fit into a set concept) creates two things

1. Certainty
2. A world devoid of Hope

1. Certainty, one can rest assured that they have an absolute ‘knowledge’- if there isn’t a God, I am right, if there is a God, he fits into my concept therefore I am right, if there is or isn’t as I haven’t decided I am right

And

2. A world devoid of Hope as there is no longer the possibility of something greater than us.

If we are to look at the world, we see suffering, pain, much of which is unnecessary. If we say that there is no God, then this world of suffering is all that there is. If we say that there is a God who conforms to our concept, then then we are saying that this suffering is part of God. Either way, the possibility of something better, something greater on earth, not just after we have passed away, does not seem a reality and thusly the world is allowed to suffer as it does for eternity. In this we are stating that the divine and the great mysteries of being are not divine, nor mysterious, rather are, in Nietzsche’s wording, ‘merely human’.  Once we view the world as being an extension of human knowledge then the world becomes governed by absolute ignorance, as humans have no knowledge(!), and the possibility of the Unknown, of the Truth, of God becomes non-existent and the hope of something better becomes impossible.  

‘till next time   

*’Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.’ Voltaire

Biases in Relation to Size

We have often heard the asinine giggles of ‘size matters’, often in a juvenile lewd sense, but, the question must be asked, does size have a relation on the formulation of opinion, or in other words, can size affect our biases?

In 1963, then US President John F Kennedy was assassinated, an act caught on film by a bystander called Zapruder. As the images flashed around the world the unreal nature of what people had seen sunk in.  The comments were, ‘wait, no one there saw it happen? Then it can’t be real.’. Later, when it was known that Kennedy was shot by a lone man by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, a thoroughly unimpressive 24-year-old man, the conspiracies started. Suddenly there was a man on the grass near Kennedy who shot him as well as it was impossible for Oswald, a trained sharpshooter, to make that shot. The identity of the phantom man was speculated to be in US Law Enforcement (CIA and FBI) and it was agreed that the only possible explanation was that it was a large conspiracy, not helped by Oswald being shot by the nightclub owner, Jack Ruby, later suspected to have links to organised crime (the Mafia) who then died in mysterious circumstances, leading to the TV show about who killed JR? (he died of a pulmonary embolism from lung cancer before his second trial). The only facts that we know is that President John F Kennedy was shot in Dallas on the 22^nd of November, 1963 by a Lee Harvey Oswald. Everything else we are told is speculation. The rationale behind it seems to be that such a big event as the assassination of an American President must be the work of a large conspiracy as there is no way that one man can kill the President of his own volition, right?

On the 30^th of March, 1981, 30 year old John Hinckley Jnr shot the then US President, Ronald Reagan six times. However, Hinckley was not a sharp-shooter and missed with 6 shots from close range, only wounding Reagan. The report of the assassination attempt is as follows:

‘Hinckley said that he wanted to shoot President Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster. He planned the assassination after he saw the movie Taxi Driver and there was a scene similar to the event.’     

Despite Hinckley having a better opportunity to assassinate the US President than Oswald, with Oswald being in the Book Depository 265 feet away from Kennedy and Hinckley being near Reagan’s limousine, mere feet away, it is considered that the former was a mass conspiracy and the later was just a lonely guy who took Hollywood too seriously. One argument for this could be, ‘ah but, Oswald succeeded whereas Hinckley didn’t’. If this was the case then surely other assassinations of US Presidents would have the same level of conspiracy as Kennedy’s, no?

On the 14^th of April, 1865, US President, Abraham Lincoln was at Ford’s Theatre taking in the play Our American Cousin, when the famous actor John Wilks Booth walked up behind the President and shot him in the head. Booth then ran away, breaking his leg jumping from the box. The Doctor who set Booth’s leg, Samuel Mudd was then charged and convicted for treason even though no charges of conspiracy were brought against him. Yet, the assassination of Lincoln is not seen in the same light as Kennedy’s, even though it changed the country. The question then must be, why is Kennedy’s assassination seen as an event of mass conspiracy and other, successful and unsuccessful, assassinations of United States Presidents not seen as such?

Often, when confronted with reality, people prefer fiction as it helps then to cope with reality. As we have discussed over previous months, society likes to formulate around one opinion, be it factual or otherwise, and so if a society, aided by the media- factual and other- formulate a theory which will help people to understand that a single person cannot carry out a world defining act and so conspiracy theories are born. Voltaire, the French Philosopher and satirist, noted that:

‘The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it gets the appearance of wisdom’ which, added to Mark Twain’s misattributed (note: he is credited with saying it nine years after his death, although it is most likely from Johnathan Swift in 1710, 125 years before Twain was born) comment that, ‘A lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes’, goes to show why the size of some events, in terms of global importance and size of the media coverage, creates an imbalance of  values when it comes to the biases which govern our judgements.

‘till next time     

How Bias Shapes the History of the Past and Future and Influences the Development of Personality

Regular readers may recall the epic struggle I have had in reading the historian Plutarch’s lives of the great Greek and Romans (by epic struggle I mean utter delight but I’ve been told positivity does not sell so if I wish to appear ‘cool’ I must be more negative). Whilst reading them I jotted down the names of those who I found the most interesting and made a note to come back to later. Having completed the Lives, I went to find biographies of the likes of Agis IV (King of Sparta), Thales, Solon (pre-philosophic Sages according to Ancient Historian, Diogenes Laertius) and Phocion. Agis was considered ‘idealistic but impractical’, Solon was known as Solon the Wise and Phocion was known as Phocion the Good. However, no matter how hard I tried I only manged to find one other book on Phocion, a handful on Thales and a couple on Solon, not to mention a grand total of zero on Agis IV. Yet, I found reams of books on other lives such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. This got me thinking, why would there be many books on some but few, if any, on others? The answer seems quite obvious. If a person lived a ‘heroic’ life with much ‘glory’ aka bloody battles won, then they would have a hundred books about them. If they were, as in the case of Solon, a wise man who laid down laws which brought about a healthy civilisation (balanced) then there were be very few, and those which there are would be overpriced and academic (note: the one book I found on Phocion costs £50, many books on Julius Caesar cost £1-5). The reason for this would, it seems, apply to the primitive part of the human mind. As we have spoken of before, the basic instinct is survival which would be excited by things such as danger and reproduction. Combine these with the insecurity of the ego then we can see why people would gravitate towards people who fulfilled their ideals and gave them things to gossip about, (‘tut tut, that Julius was a bad boy’) whereas those who gave no gossip and transcended the primitive brain would find little attention as people would find them ‘boring’ or be scared of them as they appear superior to them.

This then creates a chain reaction, as person X says ‘1’ is good, person Y then tells person Z that this is the only thing that is good and suddenly the only thing that is considered good is ‘1’, and thusly the other numbers becomes forgotten. Suddenly academic is filled with scholars of ‘1’ regurgitating the same uninformed biases meaning that to be within the tribe, one must shun the notion of numbers other than ‘1’. Thusly the past is shaped by the biases of the academics and society (note: teachers teach children the biases) and the future is also filled with the biases of the making the history of the future an echo of the past. (note: this does not only apply to ‘heroic’ people, the same applies to the likes of Plato, Bob Dylan et al., who, no matter how much I admire them, really do not need more people to spend their lives trying to ‘explain’ (diluting academia to irrelevancy) them and write books about them, eliminating all others and making it hard for people to have the materials to even question the pedestal we are told they are on).  

As children are being taught the biased history, their personalities are being shaped and developed. Hearing that greatness stems from glory, children will be less likely to be willing to be wise or live a life of service, rather they will seek their own glory be it in the stock markets, business, or, even perversely, in civil work.

As our recollection of history is shaped by the biases of those who teach us (note: the other histories still exist, as in Plutarch’s), we find that society becomes shaped towards a certain ideal, often one without any humility or dignity and thusly the crimes of the past become the ideals of the future and shape who we be. The good are disposed of as being against the zeitgeist and so those who are truly great, those who understand not only society but humanity better than others, are crucified and ostracised in service of the biases which shape us and our world, biases which conform to the lowest common denominator.

‘till next time  

Rethinking Polanski

Roman Polanski receiving an Oscar from actor Harrison Ford

When I was a child, I went to the local art house cinema to see a film called The Tenant. It was through this film that I discovered the world of the director Roman Polanski, leading to me watching every film of his I could get my hands on, from his early ‘shorts’ (such as the brilliant Mammals (see YouTube)) to his later blockbusters. When I was 19, I read his autobiography, Roman by Polanski, and yet again was blown away by his brilliance, both personal and professional. Experts can tell you more about the later, so let us focus on the former, the personal.

The key events in Polanski’s life seems to be the following:

As a Jew growing up in Poland, his family were in fear of the Nazis. His family, as many did, gave a Polish family all of their savings to hide their child. The family took the money and then betrayed Polanski to the Nazis, presumably to save their own children. Polanski managed to sneak out of his town on the train, which, if he were caught, would have been a death sentence.

Mr Polanski met the actress Sharron Tate and they got married, however, when the disciples of (cult members) of Charles Manson committed a group murder, Ms Tate and the unborn child were amongst the murder victims. The police and the press suspected Polanski of being complicit, that it was a drug orgy gone wrong.

When Polanski was making a film, the mother of one of the possible actresses wanted to be a star and so pushed her daughter towards Polanski. Polanski then took the girl (underage- 13) to Jack Nicholson’s house (the actor) and gave her champagne (and other things), ran a hot tub and then engaged in various forms of sexual intercourse, including full penetration (coitus) with the, in his account, slightly reluctant young lady, otherwise characterised by various sources as rape. Afterwards they drove back to her house and the girl, not speaking, ran inside and later a warrant was issued for Polanski’s arrest.

The Judge in the aforementioned case, cut a deal with Polanski’s lawyer for a lesser sentence but then, wanting the fame to continue (for which he was notorious), repealed the bargain. Polanski was informed en-route to the court for sentencing and fled the country.

As you can see, Mr Polanski had a quite tragic ‘time of it’, and one thing led to another and thusly, even though his actions seem wrong, it was justified, because of his tragedy and because of his cinematic genius, and the four villains in this story are the Polish family, Manson’s cultist, the mother and the judge. Just looking at these words on the page, I’m sure you are thinking, ‘uh, what?’, but, for my sins, this was how I thought at the time, and for many years afterwards. It was only when I started to think differently (as Apple says when it wants you all to buy its segregationary products) and isolated the narrative. Regardless of his life up until that point, and the pressures on him, Mr Polanski had a choice, he could either take a child to a house, give her alcohol (for which she was also underage), put her naked in a hot tub and engage in sexual intercourse with her, or he could not. He could go, sorry, if you want to be in my film you will have to show you deserve it through acting ability, plus you are far too young, you should be playing with dolls. His argument that she was willing until afterwards also bears no fruit, for the question must be asked, should she have been put in a position to say whether or not sexual intercourse with anyone, let alone an adult (who was quite old by that point) is something she should reflect on and learn from? The answer, obviously, is of course not.

Whilst we can bemoan the judge trying to get him moment of fame, the facts are thus. Roman Polanski engaged in consensual or otherwise sexual intercourse with a child, a child below the age to give consent for such acts (note: reports say that he and Jack Nicholson would often walk the streets of London looking for underage girls in clubs for this very purpose). When confronted with his heinous acts, Polanski fled to a country (France) where he got French citizenship and, to this day, avoids countries with an extradition treaty with the US. Whilst Hollywood friends, such as Johnny Depp, can complain that Polanski has to turn down award shows, there is no escaping that Roman Polanski is a paedophile, unwilling or unable to take responsibility for his own actions. He should, if there is justice, be rotting in jail and then be released onto a registry. He should not be living a comfortable life doing what he loves.

(Note: Reports from the BBC show just how complicit people are with Hollywood and casting Polanski as a victim:

Roman Polanski’s wife has rejected an invitation to become a member of the awards body behind the Oscars, extended weeks after it expelled her husband.

French actress Emmanuelle Seigner accused the Academy of “insufferable hypocrisy” over the incident.

Polanski, who admitted unlawful sex with a 13-year-old in the US in 1977, was ejected from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in May.

Seigner, who was one of 928 artists invited to join the Academy as part of a bid to boost diversity last month, gave her response in an open letter published in France’s Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

She said: “I have always been a feminist. But how can I ignore the fact that a few weeks ago the Academy expelled my husband, Roman Polanski, in an attempt to appease the zeitgeist – the very same Academy which in 2002 awarded him an Oscar for The Pianist! A curious case of amnesia!

“The Academy probably thinks I am enough of a spineless, social climbing actress that I would forget that I have been married to one of the world’s greatest directors for the past 29 years.”

Seigner has worked with her husband on films including Bitter Moon, Venus in Fur and The Ninth Gate.”) …or in other words, so what if my husband is a paedophile, the Oscars gave him an award so they are just as guilty as him. The fact she seems to believe this cast serious doubt on her moral integrity.

Often, as I did, we view a tragedy through the lens we like or relate to most. Not once do we think about this from a different perspective, often the perspective of the victim. We are quick to victim blame and let the stigma follow them around. The girl (I won’t use her name) has written about how this one act has had terrible consequences on her life, similarly to the lady whom a former US President, Bill Clinton, used his power and position to engage in a sexual relationship with, a scandal named, not for the perpetrator but the victim (note: next time Mrs Clinton complains that women did not vote for her in 2016, ask her where she was when another lady was being slandered by many, including her, for being a victim).

There is the school of thought: if a person is a bad person, should we boycott their art? It is a complex question for all art is autobiographical as it comes from within the maker, and not reading the philosopher Martin Heidegger due to his support of the Nazis and informing on fellow teachers (note: he would recommend that some teachers not teach because of their anti-Nazi thinking and then, when the Nazis lost, was himself banned from teaching, a fate he considered worse than death), might seem strange considering that no actual harm may have been done, yet with others such as the creator and Hollywood director, Joss Whedon,  whose bullying of women is well known (defined as ‘casual cruelty), I think it is fair to see the work they have done so far, but in no way, now the allegations have been proven, allow them to make any new art for multi-million pound budgets (if he wants to use a super-8 in his shed, fine), and others, such as Polanski, who have committed the most egregious act imaginable, the violation of the innocent, their films and books should be removed from circulation as a lesson to all (note: not to ‘ban’ or ‘cancel’ Mr Polanski nor can ‘whataboutism’ mask the crimes, rather to try to find closure for his victims) and France should either repeal his citizenship or extradite him for no person, no matter how tragic their past, how smart they are or how rich they are, is above the Higher Laws.

‘till next time      

Unwritten Laws

Torah being read at a Bar Mitzvah

At one point or other in our lives we have found ourselves running afoul of some kind of unwritten rule. Often these occur in childhood, ‘don’t speak with your mouth full’, yet this contains far more than we would think on the appearance of it. The phrase, ‘don’t speak with your mouth full’, connotes a social structure in which certain behaviours are given the notion of civility.  What would happen if one spoke with one’s ‘mouth full’, surprisingly very little which would fall under the definition of the tragic (sorry, Euripides). However, in order to maintain a sense of social decorum in which the bigger, or should we say real, laws are obeyed, then some of the unwritten laws must be adhered to as though they are written laws.   

Some so-called unwritten laws flirt with the actual law. A good example of this would be the Ten Commandments from the Judaeo-Christian faith in which ‘actual’ laws such as ‘Thou shalt not kill’, are interspersed with others such as not coveting thy neighbours’ possessions or family members. Yet, even with the Ten Commandments there is a social element which would go to maintain a society. The notion of not having anyone higher than God can easily be twisted, or read, as one saying that those who are in power cannot be questioned. The possibility of corruption that this can create is obvious, but with the actual written laws, this possibility is removed. Right?

As you probably guess from my obvious sentence structure, corruption of position, or by those in arbitrary ‘power’ (note: real power stems from the freedom of the individual to discover who they are through thought and sometimes action, for example, one can realise one has homicidal tendencies without committing a murder) is common and, in many instances, the written law is powerless to protect the victims. Why is it powerless? Because law is a living thing and must be enacted and without it being enacted it is just words on a tablet. The question this then creates is, how is it powerless? Why is it not enacted? Sadly, the answer to why the written law is undermined comes from the unwritten laws.

Imagine if you will, a servant sees the king committing a murder. The servant runs to the queen but is not admitted due to his lowly social standing. Thusly an arbitrary unwritten law such as social hierarchal structures stymies the written law and if the servant was to speak up it would be his word against a king’s. One does not have to think too hard to surmises the outcome  (note: this is also another example of why knowledge is not always power). We can take this a step back and ask, would a child who is being sexually assaulted be believed over her mother? Would an employee be believed over a manager? Would a citizen over a Prime Minister? And so on and so forth. If you are unsure as to the answer to my questions, have a quick look at history and you’ll probably see a trend emerging quite quickly.

The next question from this would be, why would the unwritten laws have precedent over the written laws? The answer to this is something we have touched on many times. People are, generally, insecure. We worry about our social standing, how we look to others, being in the herd and so on and so forth. The Greek philosopher Plato noted that no one is despised more than he who speaks the truth, and I would go a  little further and say that no one who is despised more than one who speaks a truth which can shake the foundations of those who, through fear, side with the unwritten laws of the herd over the written laws, out of fear of being punished (expelled from the group etc.). Thusly, as history has shown, many good people who have abided by the written law, yet run afoul of the unwritten laws of the group, often suffer disastrous consequences. Whilst we can argue that the written law was created by great, wise people such as the Ancient Greek Solon and Moses et al, the unwritten laws were created by the lowest common denominator to justify their own fears and never put them in a position when they must be held accountable for their own crimes against that which we all are- humanity. 

‘till next time

Note: Biblical Laws can be seen in some contexts to be outdated, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, pro-slavery, absurd etc. but the core of these laws can contain a real truth, it is up to the arbitrators of law (us) to evolve the written law to make it a living law for as society grows, so must the laws guarding it, but even so, maintain the simple truths, for example  Psalm 82: ‘Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.’