“Quotations”

A therapist once chided me, in a therapists’ way, for using too many quotations in our sessions. The point was that quotations are often used in lieu of substance, something real, be it thought or emotion. I explained that, for me, quotations served a different role.

Often in previous years I would use quotations just because I liked them and wanted to share them. Indeed, a friend of mine bought me a book of quotations noting how often I would use them. Buried within them, or perhaps coming later, was the different reason why I would use quotations. Quotations, for me, are often a form of shorthand. Instead of floundering to find the right words to express my thoughts and feelings, I would stand upon the shoulders of giants (tee hee) and use their articulation to get my thoughts across. Often, I later realised, my reason for doing so was lost in the thought, ‘oh, it is a quotation, what has this got to do with what we are talking about?’. Later, I would have quotations on the wall of my workplaces. This I did to use as cues. Having noted that when experiencing negative emotions, I would have to go through the proverbial journey to eventually reach a point which could be expressed more elegantly by others before, I mapped my emotional responses and found which quotation, for example, I would find to explain the situation or get me back into the mental state I wanted to be in. In this way, the quotations served as shortcuts of the journey to arrive where I knew I would eventually arrive at. Seeing them, they triggered the thought process, and I was able to do in a few moments what might, previously, take 30 minutes or so to do so.

This use of quotations is frowned upon in academia. In academia the prevailing emotion is fear. People live in fear of being misunderstood or criticised or, even worse, face the suggestion that they may be wrong! (the horror, the horror). With this in mind, in academia you have to understand and explain exactly what Kant or Goethe, or people who aren’t German meant, so that you can then use the quotation. To say, ‘to use the words of Kafka, but not the meaning…’, is frowned upon as it does not fit nicely into the academic concept of what a quotation is.

Quotations permeate daily life. The internet is full of them from self-help (please like), to ancient wisdom (please like) etc. Often the quotations are either misappropriated to an individual or just wrong. There are many, many, false quotations in the public sphere. Some quotations are 100% accurate and authentic. For example, a Twitter conversation I saw between Jesus Christ and Leonardo Da Vinci in relation to Da Vinci’s historical errors when painting The Last Supper (to save time reading it, I will summarise- Da Vinci used the wrong type of butter and Jesus is shown wearing sandals when he claims, in his tweets, that he was wearing Adidas flip flops as endorsed by Lionel Messi.)  but often the quotations are wrong. This can be dangerous for a number of reasons.

1. People may use them to justify bad behaviour

When Nietzsche said that what is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil, some can see it as an excuse for abuse. Many abusers state that they do what they do out of love (for your own good), when it is objectively, axiomatically, bad behaviour

2. People mistake words for wisdom and knowledge

Not seeing words in context, people often think that they understand them. This can lead to problems as they superimpose their own meanings on them and, as with 1, use them to justify opinions, behaviours etc. which are damaging

Plato, the great philosopher, bemoaned the advent of the written word as he foresaw the dangers that would come from mistaking the ability to write and read words with the accumulation of actual knowledge.  Language is merely a tool, whereas wisdom is that which guides the tool. If one reads comments put under quotations on the internet, one sees how the celebrity of the speaker drowns out the critical faculties of the reader, and thus, as Oscar Wilde wittily (I’ve never used that word before) noted;

‘Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.’

meaning that one never becomes who one is as one is shaped by their environment and their thoughts, which determine in a great part who we are, are just the echoes of other words passed down since the dawn of civilisation, containing all of the errors called ‘truth’ within.

‘till next time

The Court of Public Opinion

In 2021, there was a BBC newsflash. The Nobel Prize winner, musician Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmermann) had been accused of, essentially, grooming and raping a 12 year old girl back in 1965. The delay in the court filing being due to a new legislation where previously ‘timed-out’ crimes could be reported (note: many crimes can only be processed within a small timeframe).

With this pronouncement and lack of information, the world went into its usual, controlled, considered response- or not. Instantly, many people formed sides. Dylan was either guilty or not depending not on facts and legal cases but on one’s personal feelings (subjectivity).

Someone on a music forum I use, tried to make the thread (part of the board to talk on one issue) on Dylan into a salacious did he/didn’t he thread, and if not him, then which other ‘stars’, who ‘all did this stuff’, will be next? I ignored it and posted a link to a video from Dylan’s latest output, a ‘live event’ called Shadow Kingdom. The person then responded to accuse me of trying to ignore the facts of Dylan’s action etc. I responded along the lines of- if he is guilty, I hope he is found guilty, if not, then not. Neither you nor I nor anyone here have any knowledge or expertise on this matter. This is a place to discuss music, if you do not wish to discuss music, if you find the possibility of underage sex with famous people more ‘titillating’, then may I suggest you find another place to discuss it. Another comment I saw simply stated that, ‘Dylan is God’, presumably forgetting that if the Christian Bible is literal then God carried out genocide on multiple occasions and then sentenced his son to death (or maybe that was his point? Apologises if I misunderstood the nuanced comment).

‘Experts’ on Dylan (i.e., people who have let their whole lives be about someone who famously finds such people repulsive) came out in his defence, saying it could have never happened due to diaries etc. After one small press release, the case had been decided. Dylan was innocent and the lady was a liar. At this point it is important to note that this verdict was reached, not by a legal court but, by the court of public opinion.

Public opinion is usually uniformed and depends very much on cultural trends and subjectivity. Over the last few years, we have seen many great movements destroyed by the ignorance of the leaders and those who make up the public. The #MeToo movement was about the chance to protect people (men and women) from sexual assault. It was designed to bring about legal and social equality. Pretty soon it was turned into a -I hate all men/I hate all women- shouting match with everyone assuming that they were right just because they thought they were (or, more likely, had read someone else who had shaped their thoughts). The Black Lives Matter movement was also designed to bring about social and racial change, to reduce police brutality. However, as with the #MeToo movement, self-interest and ignorance got in the way. Politically Correct terms such as ‘non-white’ were used to denote anyone who isn’t…uh…white? Essentially creating a socially acceptable racial divide in which whites were in one category and the rest were chucked in the miscellaneous category. The Black Lives Matter, as I wrote at the time, became not about racial equality but revenge and the rights of black people. During the same period, assaults on Asians and Asian-Americans in the United States shot through the roof as they were blamed for the pandemic based on their skin colour and ethnicity. However, the Black Lives Matter movement did not support them. Why? Because the court of public opinion had ruled that instead of white/other, the racial categories were white/black/other with the other, a category which, it has to be noted, included some whites, some blacks, Asians, Natives etc., was treated exactly how the black community (again, isn’t it racist to have a community built around the principle of one colour? Imagine of you heard the phrase ‘white community’ and compare and contrast how the two phrases make you feel.) were opposing.

Nothing I have written here is new or surprising, indeed, one must ask, how did this press release re: Dylan’s alleged paedophilia (which is what it is) become public? Simply, the lawyers of Mr Dylan released a press release to bring the court of public opinion to their side. These, one must assume, are smart people who know how to manipulate the public and juries to ‘win’, not find justice, but to win (these are not mutually exclusive terms, one must add- sometimes winning is justice, other times not). If Mr Dylan is guilty, I hope, as someone who owns all of his albums, books etc., he gets thrown in prison and that his reputation is ruined, as what should have happened to the director Roman Polanski for his paedophilia. If he is innocent, then I hope his reputation is saved and he can go one creating great art.         

The one thing that defines most judgements by the court of public opinion is ignorance and insecurity (ah, that word again!). People like to assume that they know everything and that their opinions on things they have no expertise on are as, if not more, valid as experts’. We all know that Dylan is innocent just as we all know that Blacks and Whites are superior to the other races, we all know that all Jews are all guilty for the actions of the Israeli Government whilst all Palestinians are saints. How do we know this? Because the court of public opinion has told us that these are our current truths.

Isn’t it nice when people tell you what to think?

‘till next time  

Some Thoughts on Gossip

You are locked into your suffering/ and your pleasures are the seal
–          ­Leonard Cohen
 
 
Last week, you may recall, we looked at how, even when bad things happen to us, the opportunity to use them to develop empathy for others often goes unseen, unnoticed, or unused. One illustration of this was the concept of gossip. Whilst gossip may not seem like such a big issue, it is an excellent microcosm, not only of society, but also of the individuals who make up the society.
 
As I have recounted here before, a while ago I asked a friend of mine why people gossip. Gossip is something I have, from an early age, disdained, even before I knew I was doing so. To me, it always seemed superfluous. It was, like lying, one of the things which I knew that people do but, in my naivety, did not understand that it involved me in any way. For example, what would anyone have to gain from lying to me? Also, what have I done that is interesting enough, given the vastness of the universe, for anyone to use their precious time to discuss me? The answer to both is nothing, nothing unless we look at those who are doing the said actions. I asked a friend of mine (yes, I have friends…bas****s!) why people gossip. She replied in a heartbeat- because they are bored.
 
Having previously determined that people do actually lie to me, not for anything I can offer but for their own benefit, after all, as Nietzsche said, the most common lie we tell is to ourselves, my friends analysis seemed spot on. People gossip because they are bored
 
My previous objections to gossip- i.e., gossip serves no good value and can only be the cause of problems (note: I was not correct here to use an absolute, after all, gossip can lead to good things. For example, assaults on children have been brought to light through people gossiping) were dismissed by the argument that gossip is an essential part of society.
 
Before we address this, let us have a look at what gossip is. If a person does something, it can be an action or a medical diagnosis, or etc., this information belongs to the individual. If second or third parties (second party- one who is not the individual/s involved but has first-hand knowledge. Third party- only has second-hand knowledge) then divulges this said information then they are disclosing information for which they have no stake in. If personal information is just that, personal, then it falls under the definition, legally and other, of confidential. To disclose confidential information is illegal. In the past I have been advised not to use words such as ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ in relation to what is seen as daily activities, but, rest assured, that is what they are. The reasons for these advisements will come clear later.  The reason why this information is protected by a law- laws which should be created objectively- is that we are dealing with subjective beings. Both the first party (1), second party (2), and even third party (3), are subjective. 1 might not want the information disclosed for personal reasons. 2 might want to disclose it for personal reasons. 3 may be indifferent to the whole situation. The information belongs to 1 and because 1 has the best knowledge of 1 and can understand, possibly, the consequences of the disclosures, 1 should be the one who decides whether the information should be disclosed (note: in extreme cases medical and legal experts may subsume this right). The reason why 1 should be the one to decide whether the information should be disclosed is because, bluntly, it is their life. A person may disclose a piece of information in a 2-minute conversation. The conversation lasts two minutes but the information is now disclosed for the entirety of 1’s life. From this we can conclude that a short-term action may have short-term gains but long-term losses.
 
The losses are, for example, a) 1’s information disclosure will make 1 uncomfortable around those who know what they don’t want to know, b) there may be damage in future relationships, c) trust may be eroded.
 
The three examples are, if you look at them closely, the same. Due to a violation of one’s privacy, one may not be able to trust other people. Trust, not gossip, is the core to any healthy relationship- be it personal or suprapersonal (e.g., a society) and if this is eroded then the relationship will have rotted foundations.
 
Given the great costs of the violation of one’s privacy, the question must be asked, why do people carry out such actions?
 
1)      People often gossip just so they have something to say. They are insecure and if they are not receiving attention they struggle. As my friend has noted, these people are often very boring as people and have nothing of value in their self to share with others
2)      People don’t want to violate their own privacy, so they violate another’s to protect their self
3)      People don’t consider the consequences of their actions on them or on others      
There are many more reasons, but as I am running out of my word count, let’s get to the crux of the matter (hey, stop cheering! So mean)
 
Gossip is a part of society in that it is expected and considered normal. Indeed, one might say that gossip is a pathology which dominates many societies regardless of idiosyncrasies to each culture. The very reason why such behaviours happen is that because no one is taught of the consequences. Indeed, as many are insecure, society was built to protect the insecure and thusly anything that is built on rotting foundations cannot grow to be good or true. Society has a sickness, and this sickness is called Normalcy. The notion that bad behaviours are embraced and expected goes to show that the solutions may not exist in the people who make up society now, rather must come later through the education of children. Society is very unhappy and keeps looking for quick fix solutions to problems. However, often these solutions are not real solutions. If hedonism and objectively bad behaviours brought joy, peace, and love, then people would not have to keep repeating them. Rather, if these were real solutions to life’s problems then life’s problems would vanish. Yet, they do not and as Leonard Cohen notes, it is our distorted notion of pleasure which keeps the cycle of suffering going. It is easy to defend such behaviours by saying they are ‘normal’ but as the excellent psychologist Erich Fromm notes in his book The Sane Society,
 
‘It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health. Just as there is a “folie a deux” there is a folie a millions. The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane’
 
‘till next time
 
 
Note: we looked in this piece at the revealing of confirmed personal data. The majority of gossip is untrue, however, many of the affects are the same as above
 

The Chance for Empathy

I previously wrote a piece on these pages entitled Tragedy is not Enough. In the piece I looked at how if something terrible happens, unless others have a personal experience or stake within it, then the personal impact in minimal, at best, and any possibility of changes stemming from it are gone as soon as the article is read. This week, we will look more at why this is.

The workplace is an unnatural environment. It is an attempt to create a heterogenous environment from a disparate number of individuals. There is usually a veneer of civility, but this is usually a veneer only (not always, some workplaces are truly delightful to be in).

Workplaces are often created by the most dominant individuals. This usually equates not to the best and brightest, those with a true aptitude for compassion, but rather those who are the most boisterous and those who gossip the most as by doing so they can hide their insecurities (ah, that word again!) and create an environment for them at the expense of others. Recently, there has been a rise in people working away from the workplace. This, for some, has been a blessing. For others, not so. However, the perceptions of these are very different as we will see in the examples below:

1. Person A is an introvert and does not feel comfortable in the office environment. Person A is gossiped about, insulted behind their back, and told that they have to make more effort to fit in.
2. Person B is an extrovert and needs attention to be happy, the kind who speaks because they have to say something even when they have nothing to say. Person B says they are uncomfortable being away from the office environment. People say how sad it is that Person B cannot be in their natural habitat where they can thrive.

Can you see the difference? Essentially, we have two situations which are the same but reversed. One is an introvert uncomfortable in the environment, the other is an extrovert uncomfortable in the environment. However, the reaction to these two are very different. One is seen as having a problem and the other is seen as being the problem.

Yet this can change, no? With people being situated in environments which are contrary to their nature, surely, they can understand how difficult and unpleasant it is for them, so, post hoc ergo propter hoc, they can develop empathy for those in the same situation, just inverted! Unfortunately, as you have probably guessed, tragedy for others does not equate to empathy from others and suffering for the self rarely translates into analysis of the situation and understanding and learning so as people fail to understand their own situation, just complain and whine about it whilst getting sympathy from those who think alike. There is no cognitive or emotional development and thusly the suffering of self does not translate into empathy for others, it only goes to become something that, as a monkey with a computer, they can wave it around, use it as a weapon against others whilst they, as badly trained opera singers, stand on their stage which no one can see bleating ‘Me Me Meeeee’ as the sheep they are.

This is not confined to the geographic location of one’s self, it also relates to other things which are incredibly toxic and have a high personal cost. The amount of suicides and mental health problems caused by bullying and gossiping is concerning. Often, those who carry out such behaviours like to moan about how everyone is mean to them as an attempt to a) make themselves feel better (doesn’t work or they wouldn’t keep having to do it), b) make themselves appear to be the victims, c) avoid being judged themselves by others, and d) (there are many more) avoid having to judge themselves.

Just think, if people of this ilk had the emotional intelligence to develop empathy then they would be able to better emote with themselves, and so, as with most tragedies, the opportunity for the world to grow and become a place where unnecessary suffering is lessoned, falls by the wayside as people are far too concerned with tying to hide their insecurities by attacking others for the very flaws they attempt to hide.  

‘till next time   

Geopolitics and Responsibility

In this piece, given recent events, I will be focusing on the United States of America. The same arguments can be made about countries such as Britain, Germany, France, Spain, China, Japan, Russia etc.

On the 11^th of September, 2001, two planes collided with the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, in New York City, USA.  In the aftermath of the attack, the US invoked Article 5 of the NATO charter, and the other members of NATO joined forces with America on their revenge tour of the Middle East. Despite the terrorists who carried out the attack being stationed in Pakistan etc., i.e. countries which were not the ones attacked, the joint forces of NATO attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. 20 years after the attack on the US, the US claimed victory and withdrew. The victory was not one that one would imagine and seems rather to be along the lines of ‘screw this, I’m done’. President Biden’s announcement to start withdrawing troops by the 4^th of July, American Independence Day, and end it by the 11^th of September showed that the whole event was staged as political theatre. Although President George W Bush proposed the plan without a withdrawal or clearly defined ending, subsequent Presidents such as Obama and Biden decided that they, and their country, had had enough and it was time to go. The moment they were out the door, the Afghans who had aided the US were attacked, many slaughtered, as the terrorists claimed victory. It had taken them 20 years, but one small act of terrorism had seen them defeat the self-proclaimed, ‘Greatest Army ever’.

This half-arsed going in, making a mess and then scarpering off, was nothing new. America, since its inception with the genocide of the Natives, has always been America First, the same thing President Trump was vilified for. What Trump was doing was tapping into the natural indifference and insecurities of the country (why else would they be desperate to have guns?) and saying what many people thought, what, indeed, with his international policies, President Obama was doing. A Syrian I was speaking to expressed his dismay with Obama. When in 2012 President Obama sated that if the Syrian Government used chemical weapons on its people (let that sink in for a moment) a ‘red line’ would be crossed and America would step in. When Bashar Hafez al-Assad, the Syrian President, used chemical weapons (sarin gas) on his people, Obama um’d and ah’d and nothing was done. When the world Security Council were to step in, China and Russia said it never happened and it was just US propaganda and so no actions were taken.  Again, America had shown that it was America First and that the consequences of its actions or inactions were superfluous.

In 1945, America, who had joined World War II after it was attacked (Pearl Harbour) despite being well aware of the actions of Hitler, fascist states and the genocide of Jews, Gypsies, the disabled, homosexuals etc., having declined to take part before then dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was seen as the ending of the war, and in many ways it was. The action, many have argued, saved lives and was unavoidable (note: the subsequent arguments against dropping the bomb were, according to a biography of the physicist Fermi, who worked on the Manhattan (A-bomb) project, made before also). However, the very notion of the bomb would have been enough to end the war, so if the US had dropped the bombs on unpopulated islands the effect would have been one and the same. The decision to drop the bombs on cities, as we would see after September the 11th 2001, was the response of the US having been given a bloody nose and responding as a kid on the playground who had been teased- this is not to lessen the tragedy of the US lives lost, but to add perspective. America could have shown off their bomb without the loss of lives.  Even to this day, almost 80 years later, children are being born in the region with birth defects due to the nuclear residue which, not only destroyed the cities, lives, land, but also entered the water table. America’s one fell swoop to end death and suffering is still being felt today, but not by the US so who cares, right?

The bomb was built partially due to the fear that the enemy (Germany) were building a bomb (they were but they were years behind and the war would have probably ended before they could finish it), and this rumour of a rumour resulted in mass destruction (note: see the amusing 2009 film The Men Who Stare at Goats to see how rumours of secret projects in super soldiers etc. have delightfully absurd consequences).

The reality of the bomb, instead of ending war, only created a new war, one with the Soviet Union (leading to another of America’s wars with great suffering and no end- Vietnam), the Cold War. For the next, well, even to today, the antagonism between the USA and Russia causes the world to become full of nuclear states as the world knows that the US not only have the bombs but are also willing to use them on human lives. The US, is has to be said, petitions against the use of nuclear weapons, but this can only be seen as, again, America First, as, having used the bomb, they don’t want them used on them. Nazi scientists who performed experiments of Jews were given asylum in the US to aide with the Space Race (to be the first to land on the moon- something that still continues with China playing the role of the USSR).

Here we have two examples of how geopolitics are carried out as a whim after antagonism, actions carried out with no restraint or forethought to the consequences. Whilst the likes of the United Nations are essentially toothless in bringing about positive world actions, superpowers such as the USA, the UK etc. have the power to create a safer world in which things such as hunger, genocide, chemical weapon attacks on their own people etc. are rarer, if not done away with. However, as the superpowers care only for themselves and have no conscience when it comes to geopolitics,  these countries cannot be seen as leaders on the worlds stage, indeed, it could be argued that it would be better if they stepped back, if, indeed, the alternative world powers were not more egotistical, power-hungry and all of the other synonyms for insecure.

’till next time