morning all, hope you are all well. it's "last pool party of the summer" today, am on salad duty. so am putting off starting to make coleslaw and potato salad on the grounds that it's still breakfast time...
So its Koran burning day in the US, MOntana, whats the latest? I heard the original pastor ahs called it off but now the Westbroro lunatics have decided to ahead instead?
That's some genuine, really right-wing, paranoid politics of a particular kind. The only question is whether the Republicans have any real idea of the forces they're actually playing with. I doubt they'll be able to damp it down again after the elections they're aiming at.
"The only question is whether the Republicans have any real idea of the forces they're actually playing with."
Unlikely, they seem to exist in a fantasy land, America's crazy world of make believe where many think Obama is Muslim, millions of them have been abducated by aliens, the European "fabians" only wanted Obama to win so he would destroy the US, etc... More than any other developed nation i find the level of fantasy in America continually shocking.
and agree that westboro wingnuts won't be put off by any amount of presidential involvement / press / public condemnation - they don't seem to care.
it's the inconsistency of thought that makes me bang my head on the desk - they are 'proud' to be american and all that but when america is american (following the constitution and stuff) then it's 'unamerican' and...they don't seem to realise that the commie-liberal values they hate are actually the values they profess to admire, as well as being the values that mean they get to stand outside funerals insulting the dead without getting dragged off and shot in an alleyway.
i mean, that "God hates fags" thing (sorry jay, you've got me riled now) - for a lot of people 'don't ask don't tell' is unconstitutional because it denies equal protection to gay people wantingg to serve in the military. whereas for the westboro wingnuts, it's too liberal (because teh gay should all be rounded up on reservations and given ECT until they get over it, or something) and therefore evidence that the US government and the military in particular is a 'gay organisation' (kind of like the paramilitary wing of the GLAAD) and therefore to be resisted at every turn. hence the placards.
i believe they also consider the IRS to be a 'gay organisation'
the mind has gone way past boggling and just can't cope with the 'logic' on display there.
"i believe they also consider the IRS to be a 'gay organisation'"
They are genuine lunatics. They should be put in a secure institution, but because their lunacy is based in religion they are allowed to roam free. I'd section them myself.
You watching the game today Turgle? Northants Quins, Lawes should hopefully be playing. If he gets hold of your girl ROG in the 6 nations its going to be ugly.
Morning all. The Prodge were sensational as usual. I havn't downloaded my pics to the computer yet, but they're probably all crap.
I'll be off again shortly. Madness today. And in all likelihood, not just the band. :-)
Re the Westboro nutters, I don't know if any of you watch True Blood, but the story is that with the invention of synthetic human blood, the vampires have come out of hiding and are campaigning for equal rights. So in the title sequence, there's a rather neat allusion: a sign saying "God hates fangs".
America's crazy world of make believe where many think Obama is Muslim etc...
I really don't get it. How is it that so many people living in what is arguably, the most sophisticated and technologically advanced country on the planet be so wilfully ignorant? It's incredibly dangerous when one insignificant lunatic living in a Florida backwater can be allowed to command the world stage the way that bloke Jones has.
another "hmm, yes, interesting idea, but shouldn't we be using tax revenue for something else" thing from Freche - Christian Lacroix is designing the decor for the new tramway.
OK, he was at college here, and his fee is probably not much compared with the total €530 million for it, but...
Christian Lacroix?
I mean, line 1 is blue with birds on it and line 2 is yellow with flowers. This one is just mental...
"I really don't get it. How is it that so many people living in what is arguably, the most sophisticated and technologically advanced country on the planet be so wilfully ignorant?"
The clue's in the word 'wilfully'...you can't hold it against them too much..just like your choice to drink and smoke could reasonably be termed 'wilfully self-harmful'..cos you like to chill out, wind-down or have a laff now and again.. ...obviously your wilful self-harm doesn't do any harm to anyone else and has huge life-affirming benefits now and again...pretty much the obverse of the wilfilly ignorant religious zealot but...there ya go..
...they're so keen to belong, fit in, feel justified, chosen, righteous..whatever that they'll put objectivity and rationality aside and sign right-up for whatever this week's round of other-bashing might be.
I'm certain some do occasionally reflect on their actions and sometimes stand in the cold light of dawn and see themselves and their beliefs clearly for what they are...only it would be a brave step to voice their discovery..much warmer and cosier to bury any doubts aside...ignorance is the easy..lazy option...I don't think it requires a huge effort to ignore the malice,dispel reality and accept the oddball or perverse..I really do think it's just the lazy, soft, timorous option for most of them..hardly wilful at all..they aren't wilful people.
That is interesting, although only significant - it seems to me - for those who want to describe males and females as members of groups rather than as individuals.
"a scientific myth"?..oxymoron in my book..science..real..'hard' science is precisely that field which doesn't deal in myths
Either, the 'science' of this particular topic is still in the developmental stage and has yet to reach the mature state in which testable hypotheses can be put forward...or we just accept that we simply can't yet meaningfully describe psychology, never mind gender studies as science
..and as for evolutionary psychology...that's just a receptacle for vague wishful thinking for anyone with a half-formed- likely very dodgy-assertion which can't be meaningfully proved, disproved, tested or even confidently stated in the absence of pre-existing assumptions whose motivation is entirely partisan and ideological.
Just been down the shops...at least one good thing has come out of all this cuts business...and it's a development that would warm the heart of many a Guardianista...gone is the soulless identikit High Strret...not a golden arch, a Starbuck, a KFC in sight..
If my high street were a band, it would be a fucked-up glue-sniffing, crack-smoking grunge-plastic outfit called "Greggs and the Charity Shops" and they'd probably sound a bit like this
I'm off somewhere similar, Hillsborough. Particularly grim when it's raining, which it is. Got to take recycling to the Tesco bins, another fruitless exercise as most of it ends up in landfill in China I believe.
I once said on Waddya, after some daft article or other that I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever, just people making stuff up that sounded like it could possibly be true and building a 'science' around it.
Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
"Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male."
Yeah..that's the thing with it...it's a clear source of justification for the alpha male trope.. but equally it's a source of succour for feminists who find in it a justifiable route for claiming latent gender biases are simply an atavistic reaction which cling to hunter-gatherer sensibilities...anyone alluding to gender determinism simply hasn't evolved sufficiently and in the fullness of time we'll all have reached a sufficient lofty branch in the evolutionary tree
..it's actually difficult to determine which response is the more condescending...
"I am a 'big male beast' and my dominance is a genetic and historical inevitability.."
or
"You're a troglodyte, stuck in the gloopy primeval cesspit of maladaption with only extinction to look forward to.."
forget what's it's called but evolutionary psychology is like the mirror in Harry Potter..you see what you want to see.
I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever.... Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
Guess I just got got defensive, being blown away an' all by the napalm-quality of the analysis.
I wouldn't worry about jennifer, Peter. she seems to be quite proud of her ability to completely misunderstand and misinterpret even the simplest of comments. (Sometimes she apologises the next day, claiming she was drunk rather than just stupid.) Both excuses work for me.
Let’s not forget that the Religion is gaining more influence in the Conservative party in the UK.
Led by Tim Montgomerie, who sometimes writes on CiF and said in an article on CiF last year that Rupert Murdoch has been "a force for good in British Politics."
He’s a huge influence on Ian Duncan Smith’s “compassionate conservatism” (nauseating hypocrisy dressed as 19th Century moral and religious rectitude) being IDS former chief of staff and is also founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship which had 37 members stand as Tory candidates at the last election.
Emerging to prominence is also Nadine Dorries MP, who has long campaigned for the abortion time limit to be lowered. She is also involved with “Christian Concern for our Nation” (CCFON) which believes abortion should be legal, homosexuality should be outlawed and that the world is 4000 years old etc.
Dorries good Christian values didn’t stop her using £50,000 of taxpayers money through MP’s to fund a business research colleague in Christian affairs though. The CCFON and CCF are inveigling themselves increasingly in the candidacy of Conservative MP’s and are estimated to have influenced at least 70 laws being implemented by Cameron.
The Tories were also given £50,000 by the weirdo Alpha Organisation before the election.
So compared to the US it is small beer but the wacko religious nut jobs are gaining more and more influence in the Conservative Party.
'His time as the Vatican official in charge of overseeing priestly discipline was the period when, in Robertson's furiously eloquent words, "tens of thousands of children were bewitched, buggered and bewildered by Catholic priests whilst [Ratzinger's] attention was fixated on 'evil' homosexuals, sinful divorcees, deviate liberation theologians, planners of families and wearers of condoms".'
It seems that everyone now feels the need to post simultaneously, both here and over at the other place.
Thus:
peterbracken 11 September 2010 1:35PM
I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever.... Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
Guess I just got got defensive, being blown away an' all by the napalm-quality of the analysis.
Then, immediately underneath:
peterbracken 11 September 2010 1:37PM
Just asked for previous post to be deleted - wrong site. Humble apologies.
How many parallel universes can people inhabit in any one lunchtime?
Have to concur there Peter. Some of the comments are filthy though. Eagleton went a bit nuts over religion a while back; seems to have maintained his marbles over this issue though.
I logged on here for a while at around 1.00am this morning and i noticed we had a lurker here who was labelled as 'Satellite Prog' rather than a specific nationality.I,m sure there must be a perfectly simple explanation for who/what 'Satellite Prog' is but being a bit of a technophobe i'm not sure what it is.
Any suggestions anybody or has the UT now entered the Twilight Zone
I'm not sure what the latest is on the Koran burning. Only been up about 45 minutes. MSNBC is currently running their coverage from 11 Sep 01 in real time. CNN just got done interviewing a woman named Talat Hamdani whose son was a NY firefighter who died on 9/11. And I don't have Fox programmed on my TV.
Last I'd heard before I went to bed was that WBC was going to do it and the original nutjob in Florida had resumed his plans to do so because he felt duped. Apparently, he thought that he'd succeeded in brokering a deal to get them to build the centre somewhere else and he got angry when he realised that all they were offering was to talk to him.
And Donald Trump was claiming that he offered to buy the site for $6 million to try to defuse the situation but his offer was rejected.
BREAKING NEWS:
CNN just said that the Florida nutjob says there will never be a Koran burning at his church.
Hah! CNN has also just said that a lawyer for the Park 51 project says that Trump's claim was "just a pathetic publicity stunt" -- which is exactly what I thought last night when I heard the dickwad.
OK. I have no intention of debating this with you, but I will make a couple of points.
News is now sudden and global, whether we like it or not.
That is why the cat in the wheelie bin went around the world in a matter of a few hours and was fiercely debated.
So, imagine a couple of other scenarios.
A Nazi rally starts burning books, like in the good old days. Let's say these books are all by or about Jews.
Just a flash in the pan?
Let's say, when the Pope comes to visit, someone cleverly has a look at the Index Librorum Prohibitorum and decides what a jolly jape it would be to burn a few hundred titles on the list.
Again, this is just a bit of something and nothing.
Or were you just saying: "I don't know what these towel-heads are getting worked up about" and not bothering to put it into any kind of cultural or historical context?
All of those things would be complete non-events, provided they didn't herald something much larger, such as a resurgence of the Third Reich, or an anti-Catholic pogrom or something. Similarly with the Koran burning - it's not going to start a new crusade, it won't kill anyone, it'll just inflame 'sensibilities'.
"people never get wound up over what you describe as nothing"
It's not so much what I describe as nothing - it literally is nothing. The problem is some people's inability to see that. A novel, a cartoon or a film is just that, nothing more. A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined. You either see that for what it is - nothing at all - or you're deeply confused.
A novel, a cartoon or a film is just that, nothing more. A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined.
Unfortunately, whatever we think about it, a lot of people would disagree with you. Apart from AB and anon's points above, the potty pastor's grab for a bit of notoriety has already had people shot and injured on the other side of the world.
His proposals to burn the Q'uran probably won't of itself generate a 3rd world war but it is provocative and could be another bullet in the breach at a time when we really don't need more provocation.
And no, I don't support banning books films etc that offend Muslims but just because we are free to offend doesn't mean we should bend every sinew to be offensive.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the chain of reasoning that leads some to believe that burning a Koran is a significant act. But I can also see the big gaping hole in that reasoning where the logic should be.
I wouldn't burn a Koran on the news, but if someone suggests doing it - like with the cartoons, Rushdie, Van Gogh - it presents an opportunity to ask why some people see these things so illogically, and why you and I should be asked to respect that medieval mindset.
Anon - so do you propose we ban films, books and cartoons that will offend Muslims, just in case they riot and start murdering people?
No, I certainly do not, why would I propose that? I can however see the common sense of considering what consequences certain meaningless provocative actions may have. The narrow, blinkered mind-set that believes that 'a burnt Koran is just a pile of paper', and has no possible deeper significance to millions of other people is, as I have previously said, a fucking idiot. (And an ignorant, arrogant and dangerous one to boot).
A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined. You either see that for what it is - nothing at all - or you're deeply confused.
Except for the fact that, as far as I am aware, each individual copy of the Koran is, to a Muslim, holy in itself.
So, to put it in a context which you might be able to grasp, think of it like someone burning your pet dog or your car or house or mother or a pile of your cash.
It is not what values you attach to it which matter.
If Muslims thought of it the same way as you, obviously the preacher concerned would not be bothering because it really would be a damp squib.
Your original comment was not about whether we think people should or should not be offended or outraged by others desecrating their beliefs, but that none of this mattered and should not be global news.
Clearly, that standpoint had its basis in a crock of shit.
Still, I've asked a group of Muslims to pop round your gaff for a chat and a spot of burning later on tonight.
I know you won't mind.
If you tell them it really doesn't matter if the Koran gets burnt, I know you'll get on like a house on fire.
If the potty pastor's decision to burn the Koran were just an isolated incident, then it wouldn't be any big deal. It would be stupid and offensive, but not particularly newsworthy. The problem is, Muslims and Islam are being demonised here to an extent that is positively chilling.
Talat Hamdani, the woman I mentioned above, is now receiving death threats and messages telling her that her son was a terrorist, not a hero. This only started happening since Obama was elected and the Repugs ramped up their xenophobic, Islamophobic propaganda machine.
Park 51 isn't the only proposed Islamic centre or mosque that is being opposed by ignorant fucks who think Muslim = terrorist. The opposition to Park 51 isn't really that it's too close to the site of the WTC, it is simply that it's Muslims wanting to build it. (By the way, the original plans for Cordoba House, as it was originally planned to be called, included prayer rooms for Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, as well.)
In this climate, I think that it is important to know about these things, so that we can fight the ignorance behind them.
I try and give people i don't know the benefit of the doubt and initially i thought ANON was being a bit harsh with you.But on reflection i can understand where he's coming from.And i also agree with the points both Atomboy and Sheff have made.
To believe as you do that the burning of the Holy Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper shows a lack of understanding on your part of the wider issues.And with respect i think you should think about that a lot more than you clearly have done so far.
There was a bloke on R4 this morning talking about being taken hostage by a Bedouin Al Qaeda cell when he was working for the UN. He was held for several months and as some of them spoke French they were able to converse quite a lot - mostly about god.
When the interviewer asked him if there had been anything like a meeting of minds, he said no, it was liking talking to people from 700AD.
I don't know how we bridge this huge gap in world views. The potty pastor and the people like the WBC lot have views that are similarly backward and I haven't noticed that the application of rationality and logic on them has done much good.
Am not optimistic and think given the present state of global politics things will probably get worse.
"What do you suppose the reaction by American fundie Xians would be if it came out that some imam in Iraq was planning on burning a stack of Bibles?"
Probably slightly less hysterical than some of the Muslim reactions to the Koran burning, but only slightly. And I'd be on here saying the same things - this isn't about Islam with me, it's about all the ridiculous 'sensibilities' which I'm somehow expected to respect.
@Paul
"To believe as you do that the burning of the Holy Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper shows a lack of understanding on your part of the wider issues"
It's not that I 'believe' that burning a Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper. It's more that whichever way you look at it, a Koran IS a sheaf of paper. I can sit and think about that for the rest of my days and still come up with the same inevitable answer - it's paper. It'll never be anything more or less, regardless of what you, I or some Imam 'believes'.
I see what you're getting at - billions don't see it that way. But that doesn't mean that the view is valid - it just means that billions are not seeing the issue clearly.
@Sheffpixie
"The potty pastor and the people like the WBC lot have views that are similarly backward and I haven't noticed that the application of rationality and logic on them has done much good."
I agree, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with rationality and logic - it just means they're incredibly resilient to it. They have all had millennia of practice.
Going back to Jennifera's scintillating debunking of evolutionary psychology I think it's fair to say that judgements concerning the desirability of arrangements of human affairs - the stuff of politics - contain assumptions about what humans are like and what they want.
Because EP contributes to our understanding of human nature, it is capable of informing public policy, largely for the better.
For example, its insights cast considerable doubt on left-leaning Utopian visions for society. Not least, they emphasise self interest, which implies that market-based economic systems will work better than planned economies, and differences between the sexes, which are likely to undermine policies that seek a rigid gender parity in home and workplace, with all the career and earnings potential that implies.
Drill down even further, and EP has things to say on the nature of welfare provision, child abuse, the suitability of same sex parents as adopters and the efficacy of rehabilitation for violent offenders, to name but a few issues that perennially exercise wider society. I won't elaborate on any of this because I'm in no mood for a dog fight. Oddly.
Needless to say, evolutionary psychology does not make a moral judgement on any of these matters. That is for people, through their political elect, to decide upon. But that it should inform those decisions is, IMO, beyond questioning.
"it's about all the ridiculous 'sensibilities' which I'm somehow expected to respect"
You're not meant to respect them...why would you be expected to respect an arbitrary and contingent set of attitudes and tastes?...you're just meant to show some sensitivity toward them..if it suits you; obviously in this case it doesn't suit you.
It's not that I 'believe' that burning a Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper. It's more that whichever way you look at it, a Koran IS a sheaf of paper. I can sit and think about that for the rest of my days and still come up with the same inevitable answer - it's paper. It'll never be anything more or less, regardless of what you, I or some Imam 'believes'.
You can follow this line of argument with burning paper money.
It is purely paper and has no implied value beyond flattened wood-pulp with patterns printed on it.
It is not something which has entered the culture and mindset of people the world over as a kind of collective delusion or cult or cultural symbol, is it?
Don't know much about EP, although I understand it's a hugely contested area. Doesn't it seem to suggest we're all predatory, self interested survivalists and would willingly eat our babies if we had to? Or some such thing.
Nah, money's a bad example. Money has an arbitrary value, Whatever the colour of your skin or the religion you follow or the culture you're from. That''s not true of the bible or the koran.
There's no Swiftian baby-eating exhortation, sheff. Quite the opposite. All animals are to a greater or lesser extent self-interested survivalists, though. And predators. You just buy your meat from Tescos.
Lots of problems around EP. The most basic one being we do not know what man was like in very early societies. We are limited in our knowledge of possible behaviour - we can only extrapolate from those obseved today and as recorded by history - not always reliable. Lots more - but like you I haven't the energy for a row.
the alternative to your model is the 'Tit for Tat' society in which we all agree to play fair, care for each other and collectively thump anybody who cheats or thumps someone else. he who throws the first thump will thumped be - he who cheats or deprives another of his share of goods or opportunities is also thumped until he learns the value of cooperation and mutual respect.
I have occasionally bought meat at Tescos but at least I have hunted and killed it myself a few times (rabbits and a couple of goats). If you want an animal skinned and dressed, I'm your woman.
Anyway the babies remark was obviously flippant. I'm groping in the dark here but what I'm really trying to say I suppose, is that EP suggests that we're all wasting our time when we demand fair dibs or show concern for, or solidarity with the less fortunate - what we should be doing is buttering up the wealthy and powerful so some of their stardust benefits us.
It's true that politics involves some ideas, usually ill-founded ones, about human nature and satisfying it. But it also involves taking decisions that run against what might be considered human nature, in the interests of individual rights and fairness.
There may well be research showing that human evolution gives the average human a tendency to think and behave in a certain way, but that tells us nothing about: A) How any individual human being would think and behave in any given set of circumstances; B) How laws and social structures should be modelled if that research is true.
This is the problem of treating a flexible, teachable, malleable, and unpredictable thing like the human brain and consciousness as a product of its individual evolution, let alone its evolution as one member of an animal species.
A crude example, taken from what I was suggesting before in the field of gender. Evolutionary psychology apparently tells us that males are better map-readers than females. So if I have a job where map-reading is the primary requirement, and I have six men and six women presenting themselves for interview, then this would suggest that I forget about giving a woman the job. But as it turns out, the six individual men who turn up aren't actually very good at map-reading, and two of the women actually are. So evolutionary psychology would be leading me into the wrong decision.
The same goes for broader decisions. Humans evolved so that one-man-one-woman groupings were generally better for child upbringing? Fine, but what about this particular gay couple who would clearly be better to adopt this particular child than this particular heterosexual couple who are a bit weird?
You can't take species-level generalisations and apply them to individual-level political decisions as though single human beings and their societies were all prisoners of their evolutionary history.
"Hey you fucker! That Stars and Stripes you're burning - my daddy fought in Korea for that flag!"
"What a remarkable coincidence, the flag I'm burning was made in Korea."
(Bill Hicks)
Evenin' all and a big thank you to the bluenose, whose side cheered me up when I was feeling down.
Salman Rushdie - guilty of crimes against humanity. Fatwa was only slightly too harsh. Honestly, if anyone has read "The Satanic Verses", please tell me if there was a point to it? One of the worst books I've ever read.
Sheff"Am not optimistic and think given the present state of global politics things will probably get worse."
EP doesn't need to worry about earlier social behaviour. It's just very good at explaining behaviour - in animals and in humans.
Whichever way you slice it, evolution has given us adaptive qualities that inform how we act and how we think. That's not to say that culture doesn't have its say - of course it does. But it is not some against-the-grain graft on the nature. Culture largely nests within nature, and more often than not reinforces latent behaviours.
To take just one example among loads. Why are gay men much more promiscuous than lesbians? EP has the answer. Clear as day why, and wholly predictable according to EP.
EP does ,in truth, have to consider earlier bahaviour - how else does it prove an evolutinary process ?
What it does is describe - and accept as inevitable - behaviour from recorded histeory.
In socioeconomic terms this means looking at societies which were based on the premise that there *is* and therefore * must be * a ruling group who take the major part of resurces and riches to themselves.
EP seeks to perpetuate this model. It differentiates between groups and within them.
An evolutionary approach would suggest we move on from thousand year olmodels towards something better. Human nature is not static - education can change behaviour as can expectations. We can and adapt our behaviour within the constaints or opportunities on offer.
We actually have latent adaptability - enabling us to adapt to conditions not previously experienced. Those in positions of power do not want society to change. You are suggesting an inbuilt status quo - great for the winners, hell for the losers.
Interesting talking about this at the same time as watching a re-construction of what happened in the World Trade Centre buildings after the planes hit.
There were examples of real altruism in those extreme conditions.
Thought you would be interested in reading this article-the full version will be appearing in tomorrows Observer.There's a thread for comments but i,m off now so i'll probably have a drunken rant on it later.
[paper money] is not something which has entered the culture and mindset of people the world over as a kind of collective delusion or cult or cultural symbol, is it?
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money. I didn't when the KLF did it. Nor is it 'holy' to me. It's value isn't intrinsic, but derives from the real-world fact that it can be exchanged for goods and services (as Homer Simpson's brain pointed out).
thanks for that - very worrying overall Still no corresponding plans for investment in job creation. This is an unworkable plan unless the British people are willing to accept long term poverty and homelessness for m lilions.
where are the newspapers - analysing, pointing out the flaws in these plans ? Who is moblising genuine debate and informed opposition ?
I'd love to have an answer for you, Leni, but it's not looking very good is it!?
(I suppose the fact that the Observer seems to have done a bit of digging/encouraging 'leaks' is better than nothing, but, if precedent's anything to go by, they'll more than balance it out with a further 10 articles about why Osborne, Clegg and Cameron are iconoclastic trailblazers, with impeccable table manners or some such shite, so I won't be holding my breath just yet!)
I mean, it's not like it'd be that hard to point out the flaws, is it!?
I'm sure even The Guardian's unpaid/six-month rolling contract/work experience types could have a reasonable crack at it, but maybe that's just me.....
..even the X Factor's shit these days...at moments like this I figure that's just me getting older and irascible, an inevitable retreat into miserabilism..then you hear 16 year-olds going "everything round 'ere's shit"..but they say that everywhere..and they always did..I did..and it was shit
difference was..in those days people would say "no it isn't, a bored mind's a sign of a ..[insert appropriate homespun piece of optimistic chicanery which normally involved you: going to the shops, carrying something heavy or cleaning or painting something]"
...if a 16 year old these days came up to me and said he considered his surroundings, prospects and chances of ever actually meeting Cheryl Cole where they could "y'know..really get to know each other" (..it happened) to be shit, I'd have to say "tell me about it"
Bought the Guardian today..this stuck in my mind..couldn't work out why..then it struck me..it's a magical incantation to make Peter Bracken's head explode
"But there is still much to chew on, especially in Žižek's concluding essay, an extended fantasia on the "gaze" wherein we learn that the public's fascination with Hannibal Lecter "bears witness to a deep longing for a Lacanian psychoanalyst"."
Re: EP.Its big problem lies with its unverifiability. Unlike psychology proper (or at least clinical psychology) it lacks scientific rigour. I'll admit as momkeyfish posted upthread that even clinical psychology can be on thin ground operating from at times a meagre evidence base, but it has one via the scientific method: hypothesis,experiment,evaluation,confirmation (capable of being repeated with the same results) etc etc. Now you can pick holes in that, bloody huge holes with some of the experiments, but at least they have been done. EP, by and large lacks most of such rigour. The little we know about what's often termed 'pre-history' means that the start point is so vague, so general as to be of little use.The distance too, up to the present day is so long that chains of causality are stretched beyond credibility in too much of EP. It's an interesting field, but there again, so is counter-factual or "what if" history: long on speculation, short on solid substance. Good for senior common room debate, as a spark for discussion, but unsuited as a justification for far-reaching policy decisions in the here and now. Their justification has to come from other,grounded,more legitimate disciplines even if EP "Just So stories" (cf Kipling) prompted the idea.EP can scarcely give policies legitimacy, when its own standing is so contested and its reductive,even reductionist,often unsubstantiable approach open to post hoc ergo propter hoc abuse. Now, having been serious, here is a top tip I got texted:
"Now, having been serious, here is a top tip I got texted:"
Alisdair, at the risk of leaving you to be pursued by a mad group claiming you are the messiah ("I should know, I've followed a few"), what were you going to say?
Sorry,habib, put it in then deleted it without deleting the lead-up. It's bad one though, so look away now: 3-IN-ONE Oil is not in fact the best product for that purpose. You are much better off with a water based lubricant.
A much better tip is this one: BOOK-BURNERS. Instead of burning books, try reading them. If you object to what you've learned, just set fire to your head.
OK, the money example was not brilliant, but it was done quickly before I went out and this is done quickly before I go to bed.
However, you seem to keep changing your argument, which has gone through these stages:
It's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
...the direct consequences of the action will be precisely zero, apart from a lot of people getting wound up over nothing.
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money.
My argument was simply that saying something is just paper and has no resonance beyond its physical properties is only part of the story. That saying it should not be news did not consider either the current religious climate, the current anniversary of events or the way news now works. That saying all this was "nothing" was not accurate, nor did it explore the potential these events possess.
Let's say Stonehenge will be broken up and sold to garden centres for people to make rockeries, with the government taking a slice of the profits. It's only a bunch of stones.
Yesterday, they found Noah's Ark but they are going to cut it up for people to use it as decking for their gardens. It's just a load of old wood.
Your argument can be used to reduce anything to its simple physical properties and say that nothing has a cultural or symbolic value beyond the stuff from which it is made, but your original point was that it should not be news because it was just some bloke having a bonfire.
You then say you would not kill or riot if someone burnt money, which was not my argument and you had already said that nothing would happen over the Koran burning, other than people getting a bit peeved.
You seem to be confusing the idea that one person's beliefs do not trump another person's freedoms with an assumption that one person's actions should never affront or offend another person.
It is just as irrational to try to pretend away the fact that other people have beliefs as you imagine those people to be in having their beliefs in the first place.
However, you seem to keep changing your argument, which has gone through these stages
I try to make my arguments go through stages. I'm still new here - is the form to say one thing and then repeat it verbatim each time it's challenged? Here's my three statements:
It's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
...the direct consequences of the action will be precisely zero, apart from a lot of people getting wound up over nothing.
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money.
Yep, still stand. So what are you objecting to?
Anyway let's have a look at what you're saying:
Let's say Stonehenge will be broken up and sold to garden centres for people to make rockeries, with the government taking a slice of the profits. It's only a bunch of stones.
That would make sense as a comparison if there were several billion stonehenges in existence, as there are Korans. If there were that many stonehenges, then it would make complete sense to chisel them down and sell them off for materials - it might even help the deficit.
If there was only one Koran, then obviously burning it would be nihilistic and inexcusable.
It is just as irrational to try to pretend away the fact that other people have beliefs as you imagine those people to be in having their beliefs in the first place.
That's not what I'm saying. I appreciate that people have beliefs, including the one that a factory-produced, commonplace physical object is somehow 'holy' and therefore can't be destroyed.
My contention is that such a belief is utterly ridiculous, and I fail to see why I need to be sensitive of it. I would posit that if someone feels that destroying a book that anyone could buy in a Foyles is worth rioting over, then that person is slightly deranged and is best not indulged. Let them explain why they feel the object is sacrosanct - if they persuade me, then I'll get outraged over some pastor burning it.
Each copy of the Koran is holy to Muslims - I think only if in Arabic, translations not so. It is not 'just a book'. So to burn a copy of it is to destry a sacred object.
You may not agree - that will not stop reaction to the burning neither will it change their belief.
In the current climate such a provocative act is crazy - and suggests that the guy proposing it is well aware of the sacred nature of the Koran. Why would he propose it other than to cause offence and outrage ?
whether any object is intrinsically sacred or only becomes so through general agreement is another matter and is not the subject under discussion. We do not sanctify the sacred objects of others but tend to respect them out of respect to the people.
The Koran is not responsible for terrorism any more than the Bible is responsible for crazy Christians.
We do not sanctify the sacred objects of others but tend to respect them out of respect to the people.
Well that's just it - do you not think that by respecting these ideas you validate them to some degree? To me, showing respect to the notion that a commonplace object can be 'holy' is to imply acceptance that the object could in fact be holy. And once you have accepted something like that, then where do you draw the line? Is the Earth 4,000 years old? No. Should we respect the view that it is? I don't think so. But some people hold that 'fact' as sacred.
Hank also called Keith Richards no more than a "fucking pusher" once, back in the day when CiF was young and fresh and Sunday night online piss-ups were de riguer.
PS, I hate to say it but fucking nice one with your team today MF, very ammusing.
The problem is that using the argument of mass-production in factories does not work if my initial observation that to Muslims each and every Koran, however new or old, handwritten or printed, part of a million run or a collectors' limited edition is holy and sacred is, in fact true.
The point about belief is also that it is not rational or logical and, in some ways, that is its point. It is a system where faith trumps reason. That is its essence.
However annoying you may find this, even Richard Dawkins accepts that you cannot expect to smash faith with reason.
You are free to find faith ridiculous and you do not have to be sensitive to it or what it makes people do. You are entitled to your way of looking at the world and you are entitled, if you choose, to think it is the only proper way to do so. It is just one way of operating.
However, this implies that it is just as reasonable for other people to employ other ways of seeing and behaving and believing. They may even think it is irrational and improbable but still choose to believe anyway.
If there was only one Koran, then obviously burning it would be nihilistic and inexcusable.
How do we set the number beyond which this goes from nihilistic and inexcusable to just a bit of a jape?
Surely, if there were just three, it would not be OK. Three hundred? Maybe, if there were a billion people and they each were required to have a copy, then the figure would be a billion.
Your argument seems to be far less about being able to comprehend the irrationality of people's beliefs and what importance those beliefs may freight and invest objects with and simply boils down to the idea that commonplace objects can have no inherent value beyond their basic material one.
Basically, you are saying, I don't understand why they can think like that and unless they think like me, they must be wrong.
Which is probably, in reverse, exactly what they would think of you.
Anyway, I still haven't finished what I intended to do but I am definitely ending this for tonight.
The Koran is not responsible for terrorism any more than the Bible is responsible for crazy Christians.
That's a different proposition altogether. The Koran does in fact provide plenty of scriptural support for someone that wants to wage a Jihad on unbelievers. Just like the old testament can be used to justify, say, capital punishment.
But Muhammed was actually very peaceful for his time, and was frequently mocked for being soft. The tribal culture he and his followers had to operate in was extremely retributive and violent, so there's an argument to be made that he had to include some fire and brimstone stuff to a) get any following at all, and b) so that his 'flock' could survive and at the same time stay true to the revelations.
The mistake is to transplant that part of the message - out of context - to today's world. Islam itself isn't responsible for terrorism, but it provides a framework, and bestows meaning on these acts. That said, I have no doubt that if it wasn't for that, there would be some other justification in its place.
Come on habib, I'm not saying I'm some world authority on it or anything. I assumed the English version is pretty close in meaning, although I hear it loses a lot in terms of the intonation and rhythm of the Arabic version.
but not Holly May, fucking hell, let the oldest one onto the computer and you even lose your identity, BW, is I, and I beg you, do not go there with the Jack Russells, can't even post my JR story here...
to my mind it is about validating people whilst not necessarily sharing their views.
People hold views which I do not share - however if they ofer no harm to anyone else why should I contest them ? Discuss yes - dismiss out of hand no.
Respecting the Muslim belief that the Koran is holy allows for the same recognition for a Torah scroll or a RC communion wafer. Dismiss one you needs must dismiss them all. The believer does not need my validation - I am not that important.
The OT has some very scary injunctions - written within a time and context which no longer apply. It is a matter of interpretation and understanding.
And IMHO you are the mistress of inconsistancy.I notice you didn't say anything when scherfig was slagging off me and charlie the other day.That wasn't fair either IMHO.
Sorry i,m not looking to have a fight with you but you also said nothing yesterday when scherfig called vizzo a cunt.Hence i'm not sure why you've chosen to intervene on scherfig's behalf tonight.
@heyhabib-i don't like scherfig.And as with Leni why are you interevening on his behalf and yet saying nothing when scherfig slags off other people here.If it's OK for scherfig to call other people here a cunt then why can't other people call him a cunt.Can't get my head round that double standard.Anyways i'm off to bed now.
Apparently nobody has worked it out yet, 'I to the Vizzo' is OZXYZ666754321 (or whatever the fuck he's called) on Cif (Ivo Hypocritovic) and he's a neo-con wanker who claims he's 'left wing' and has somehow been embraced by the bourgeois elite on Cif and the Cif commissioning editors. He recently wrote a very important article on Cif about who he was supporting for the Labour party leadership. And he has just started his own blog which is he is shamelessly whoring to the luvvies on waddya. It's probably only a coincidence that he turns up today on the Untrusted for the first time. I'll just save monkeyfish and hank the bother here and call him a cunt straight away, and I'll also save Martyn and Charles the bother of saying that he has consistently been one of the best posters on Cif ever. Various other undiscrimating dimwits here will probably say 'hi, vizzo, welcome!' But they probably shouldn't.
Love and kisses, an occasional very unwelcome visitor (thx Montana).
Scherfig
Anyway people there's your evidence.Scherfig gets to call Vizzo a cunt and none of you say anything.I call scherfig a cunt and you're all up in arms.Classic case of double standards methinks.
"If it's OK for scherfig to call other people here a cunt then why can't other people call him a cunt."
They can if they want to, Paul. Just saying I don't think he is.
I know the silence here can be deafening when someone has a pop. Few people raise their heads above the parapet, perhaps because they think the one being shot at is a dick, has said something dickheaded, or in any case deserves being shot at.
That's their opinion and it may well be a justifiable one.
I don't much care for the ones who refuse to stand up and defend someone who they think is right, but are too scared to do so, in case they get shot at themselves. I can understand their behaviour. I just don't like them much.
Apparently nobody has worked it out yet, 'I to the Vizzo' is OZXYZ666754321 (or whatever the fuck he's called) on Cif (Ivo Hypocritovic) and he's a neo-con wanker who claims he's 'left wing' and has somehow been embraced by the bourgeois elite on Cif and the Cif commissioning editors. He recently wrote a very important article on Cif about who he was supporting for the Labour party leadership. And he has just started his own blog which is he is shamelessly whoring to the luvvies on waddya. It's probably only a coincidence that he turns up today on the Untrusted for the first time. I'll just save monkeyfish and hank the bother here and call him a cunt straight away, and I'll also save Martyn and Charles the bother of saying that he has consistently been one of the best posters on Cif ever. Various other undiscrimating dimwits here will probably say 'hi, vizzo, welcome!' But they probably shouldn't.
Love and kisses, an occasional very unwelcome visitor (thx Montana).
Scherfig
For some reason my last post disappeared so here's Take 2.Scherfig calls Vizzo a cunt(see above) and Leni,Habib and Bitterweed say nothing.I call Scherfig a cunt and Leni,Habib and Bitterweed object.Classic case of double standards.I rest my case.
But Paul, you did say something to Annetan not long ago about her laying off the sauce, or something to that effect. It was somewhat memorable as most of us are aware that Annetan does not, can not, drink.
Leni and Annetan are patient, kind and tactful without fail. If either of them suggests, in the gentle way that they are wont to do, that one might want to re-evaluate one's comment, or that one has perhaps been a tad unfair, one fucking well ought to re-evaluate.
Well, I promised you something different, didn't I?
ReplyDeleteThank you. I may now sleep easy.
ReplyDelete:-P
Montana!
ReplyDeletenow that's a genius headline...
ReplyDeletemorning all, hope you are all well. it's "last pool party of the summer" today, am on salad duty. so am putting off starting to make coleslaw and potato salad on the grounds that it's still breakfast time...
[sigh]
So its Koran burning day in the US, MOntana, whats the latest? I heard the original pastor ahs called it off but now the Westbroro lunatics have decided to ahead instead?
ReplyDeleteMorning all.
ReplyDeleteObama has intervened Jay, so the rev has promised to behave. According to the Graun, anyway.
Twisted knickers in the bible belt
ReplyDeleteMuslims in America increasingly alienated as hatred grows in Bible belt
@Sheff
ReplyDeleteThat's some genuine, really right-wing, paranoid politics of a particular kind. The only question is whether the Republicans have any real idea of the forces they're actually playing with. I doubt they'll be able to damp it down again after the elections they're aiming at.
"The only question is whether the Republicans have any real idea of the forces they're actually playing with."
ReplyDeleteUnlikely, they seem to exist in a fantasy land, America's crazy world of make believe where many think Obama is Muslim, millions of them have been abducated by aliens, the European "fabians" only wanted Obama to win so he would destroy the US, etc... More than any other developed nation i find the level of fantasy in America continually shocking.
the westboro 'church' is basically one twisted family with a control-freaky dad, isn't it? bit like carrie but with media attention.
ReplyDeletewhenever there was news of their funderal 'protests', was always praying that one of the colleagues of the deceased would go over and just chin them.
not big or clever, know. but if there's clearly no chance of engaging them in a reasoned argument, one has to come up with something.
and agree that westboro wingnuts won't be put off by any amount of presidential involvement / press / public condemnation - they don't seem to care.
ReplyDeleteit's the inconsistency of thought that makes me bang my head on the desk - they are 'proud' to be american and all that but when america is american (following the constitution and stuff) then it's 'unamerican' and...they don't seem to realise that the commie-liberal values they hate are actually the values they profess to admire, as well as being the values that mean they get to stand outside funerals insulting the dead without getting dragged off and shot in an alleyway.
arsewipes.
i mean, that "God hates fags" thing (sorry jay, you've got me riled now) - for a lot of people 'don't ask don't tell' is unconstitutional because it denies equal protection to gay people wantingg to serve in the military. whereas for the westboro wingnuts, it's too liberal (because teh gay should all be rounded up on reservations and given ECT until they get over it, or something) and therefore evidence that the US government and the military in particular is a 'gay organisation' (kind of like the paramilitary wing of the GLAAD) and therefore to be resisted at every turn. hence the placards.
ReplyDeletei believe they also consider the IRS to be a 'gay organisation'
the mind has gone way past boggling and just can't cope with the 'logic' on display there.
Philippa - I believe there's been a court decision saying precisely that DADT is unconstitutional.
ReplyDelete"i believe they also consider the IRS to be a 'gay organisation'"
ReplyDeleteThey are genuine lunatics. They should be put in a secure institution, but because their lunacy is based in religion they are allowed to roam free. I'd section them myself.
You watching the game today Turgle? Northants Quins, Lawes should hopefully be playing. If he gets hold of your girl ROG in the 6 nations its going to be ugly.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RgNtaUK4eo
Is it on now? I'm working, but I don't usually watch that inferior English rugby anyway.
ReplyDeleteWill be watching Cardiff/Leinster tonight though!
Morning all. The Prodge were sensational as usual. I havn't downloaded my pics to the computer yet, but they're probably all crap.
ReplyDeleteI'll be off again shortly. Madness today. And in all likelihood, not just the band. :-)
Re the Westboro nutters, I don't know if any of you watch True Blood, but the story is that with the invention of synthetic human blood, the vampires have come out of hiding and are campaigning for equal rights. So in the title sequence, there's a rather neat allusion: a sign saying "God hates fangs".
1.30 thaum.
ReplyDeleteAmerica's crazy world of make believe where many think Obama is Muslim etc...
ReplyDeleteI really don't get it. How is it that so many people living in what is arguably, the most sophisticated and technologically advanced country on the planet be so wilfully ignorant? It's incredibly dangerous when one insignificant lunatic living in a Florida backwater can be allowed to command the world stage the way that bloke Jones has.
Even people in Rotherham have more common sense.
PS Wacko Jacko is a cheese-eating-surrender-monkey-groper.
ReplyDeletethauma - aye, but given the ongoing arsing about in getting rid of it...hope it gets sorted soon/
ReplyDeleteSpike! Was just thinking this week when reading the local paper - arghhhhhh, it's this weekend! after all that - time got away from me. enjoy it!
Cheers, Phil. Bye all!
ReplyDeleteanother "hmm, yes, interesting idea, but shouldn't we be using tax revenue for something else" thing from Freche - Christian Lacroix is designing the decor for the new tramway.
ReplyDeleteOK, he was at college here, and his fee is probably not much compared with the total €530 million for it, but...
Christian Lacroix?
I mean, line 1 is blue with birds on it and line 2 is yellow with flowers. This one is just mental...
He's also apparently advised on the colour of the track.
ReplyDeleteThe track.
Sheesh.
jay
ReplyDelete"I'd section them myself."
I'd certainly get the kids away from the paterfamilias, he's clearly beyond help, they might be saveable...
"I really don't get it. How is it that so many people living in what is arguably, the most sophisticated and technologically advanced country on the planet be so wilfully ignorant?"
ReplyDeleteThe clue's in the word 'wilfully'...you can't hold it against them too much..just like your choice to drink and smoke could reasonably be termed 'wilfully self-harmful'..cos you like to chill out, wind-down or have a laff now and again..
...obviously your wilful self-harm doesn't do any harm to anyone else and has huge life-affirming benefits now and again...pretty much the obverse of the wilfilly ignorant religious zealot but...there ya go..
...they're so keen to belong, fit in, feel justified, chosen, righteous..whatever that they'll put objectivity and rationality aside and sign right-up for whatever this week's round of other-bashing might be.
I'm certain some do occasionally reflect on their actions and sometimes stand in the cold light of dawn and see themselves and their beliefs clearly for what they are...only it would be a brave step to voice their discovery..much warmer and cosier to bury any doubts aside...ignorance is the easy..lazy option...I don't think it requires a huge effort to ignore the malice,dispel reality and accept the oddball or perverse..I really do think it's just the lazy, soft, timorous option for most of them..hardly wilful at all..they aren't wilful people.
This'll be interesting to follow
ReplyDeleteGender gap a scientific myth, says psychology expert
Good point Monkeyfish - Americans are always going on about individuality but are the most conformist people as a group you'll find.
ReplyDelete@Sheff
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting, although only significant - it seems to me - for those who want to describe males and females as members of groups rather than as individuals.
"monstrous fictions".
ReplyDeleteThat'll do.
"a scientific myth"?..oxymoron in my book..science..real..'hard' science is precisely that field which doesn't deal in myths
ReplyDeleteEither, the 'science' of this particular topic is still in the developmental stage and has yet to reach the mature state in which testable hypotheses can be put forward...or we just accept that we simply can't yet meaningfully describe psychology, never mind gender studies as science
..and as for evolutionary psychology...that's just a receptacle for vague wishful thinking for anyone with a half-formed- likely very dodgy-assertion which can't be meaningfully proved, disproved, tested or even confidently stated in the absence of pre-existing assumptions whose motivation is entirely partisan and ideological.
Just been down the shops...at least one good thing has come out of all this cuts business...and it's a development that would warm the heart of many a Guardianista...gone is the soulless identikit High Strret...not a golden arch, a Starbuck, a KFC in sight..
ReplyDeleteIf my high street were a band, it would be a fucked-up glue-sniffing, crack-smoking grunge-plastic outfit called "Greggs and the Charity Shops" and they'd probably sound a bit like this
MF
ReplyDeleteI'm off somewhere similar, Hillsborough. Particularly grim when it's raining, which it is. Got to take recycling to the Tesco bins, another fruitless exercise as most of it ends up in landfill in China I believe.
You forgot the betting shops btw...
I once said on Waddya, after some daft article or other that I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever, just people making stuff up that sounded like it could possibly be true and building a 'science' around it.
ReplyDeleteMajor Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
"Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male."
ReplyDeleteYeah..that's the thing with it...it's a clear source of justification for the alpha male trope.. but equally it's a source of succour for feminists who find in it a justifiable route for claiming latent gender biases are simply an atavistic reaction which cling to hunter-gatherer sensibilities...anyone alluding to gender determinism simply hasn't evolved sufficiently and in the fullness of time we'll all have reached a sufficient lofty branch in the evolutionary tree
..it's actually difficult to determine which response is the more condescending...
"I am a 'big male beast' and my dominance is a genetic and historical inevitability.."
or
"You're a troglodyte, stuck in the gloopy primeval cesspit of maladaption with only extinction to look forward to.."
forget what's it's called but evolutionary psychology is like the mirror in Harry Potter..you see what you want to see.
Positive review by Eagleton and lots of apologists for papist rapists here
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/11/pope-vatican-abuse-geoffrey-robertson
I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever.... Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
ReplyDeleteGuess I just got got defensive, being blown away an' all by the napalm-quality of the analysis.
I wouldn't worry about jennifer, Peter. she seems to be quite proud of her ability to completely misunderstand and misinterpret even the simplest of comments. (Sometimes she apologises the next day, claiming she was drunk rather than just stupid.) Both excuses work for me.
ReplyDeleteRe: Religion and the US Republicans.
ReplyDeleteLet’s not forget that the Religion is gaining more influence in the Conservative party in the UK.
Led by Tim Montgomerie, who sometimes writes on CiF and said in an article on CiF last year that Rupert Murdoch has been "a force for good in British Politics."
He’s a huge influence on Ian Duncan Smith’s “compassionate conservatism” (nauseating hypocrisy dressed as 19th Century moral and religious rectitude) being IDS former chief of staff and is also founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship which had 37 members stand as Tory candidates at the last election.
Emerging to prominence is also Nadine Dorries MP, who has long campaigned for the abortion time limit to be lowered. She is also involved with “Christian Concern for our Nation” (CCFON) which believes abortion should be legal, homosexuality should be outlawed and that the world is 4000 years old etc.
Dorries good Christian values didn’t stop her using £50,000 of taxpayers money through MP’s to fund a business research colleague in Christian affairs though. The CCFON and CCF are inveigling themselves increasingly in the candidacy of Conservative MP’s and are estimated to have influenced at least 70 laws being implemented by Cameron.
The Tories were also given £50,000 by the weirdo Alpha Organisation before the election.
So compared to the US it is small beer but the wacko religious nut jobs are gaining more and more influence in the Conservative Party.
'His time as the Vatican official in charge of overseeing priestly discipline was the period when, in Robertson's furiously eloquent words, "tens of thousands of children were bewitched, buggered and bewildered by Catholic priests whilst [Ratzinger's] attention was fixated on 'evil' homosexuals, sinful divorcees, deviate liberation theologians, planners of families and wearers of condoms".'
ReplyDeleteFantastic stuff.
It seems that everyone now feels the need to post simultaneously, both here and over at the other place.
ReplyDeleteThus:
peterbracken
11 September 2010 1:35PM
I thought evo psych was the biggest load of old shite ever.... Major Bracken got very snitty with me, apparently it is one of his 'interests' what with him being a big old alpha male.
Guess I just got got defensive, being blown away an' all by the napalm-quality of the analysis.
Then, immediately underneath:
peterbracken
11 September 2010 1:37PM
Just asked for previous post to be deleted - wrong site. Humble apologies.
How many parallel universes can people inhabit in any one lunchtime?
Have to concur there Peter. Some of the comments are filthy though. Eagleton went a bit nuts over religion a while back; seems to have maintained his marbles over this issue though.
ReplyDeleteAfternoon all
ReplyDeleteI logged on here for a while at around 1.00am this morning and i noticed we had a lurker here who was labelled as 'Satellite Prog' rather than a specific nationality.I,m sure there must be a perfectly simple explanation for who/what 'Satellite Prog' is but being a bit of a technophobe i'm not sure what it is.
Any suggestions anybody or has the UT now entered the Twilight Zone
Actually its probably just a satellite programmer doing maintenance or something.No big deal
ReplyDelete...it's thauma in her space-ship.
ReplyDeletePosted by AllyF on waddya
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGtCeyu9hxQ&feature=related
Posted by Paul on waddya
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what the latest is on the Koran burning. Only been up about 45 minutes. MSNBC is currently running their coverage from 11 Sep 01 in real time. CNN just got done interviewing a woman named Talat Hamdani whose son was a NY firefighter who died on 9/11. And I don't have Fox programmed on my TV.
ReplyDeleteLast I'd heard before I went to bed was that WBC was going to do it and the original nutjob in Florida had resumed his plans to do so because he felt duped. Apparently, he thought that he'd succeeded in brokering a deal to get them to build the centre somewhere else and he got angry when he realised that all they were offering was to talk to him.
And Donald Trump was claiming that he offered to buy the site for $6 million to try to defuse the situation but his offer was rejected.
BREAKING NEWS:
CNN just said that the Florida nutjob says there will never be a Koran burning at his church.
Hah! CNN has also just said that a lawyer for the Park 51 project says that Trump's claim was "just a pathetic publicity stunt" -- which is exactly what I thought last night when I heard the dickwad.
ReplyDeleteIt's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
ReplyDeleteIt's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
ReplyDeleteOnly if you think the idea behind an action is the same size and shape as the person doing it.
In this instance it is - the direct consequences of the action will be precisely zero, apart from a lot of people getting wound up over nothing.
ReplyDeleteOK. I have no intention of debating this with you, but I will make a couple of points.
ReplyDeleteNews is now sudden and global, whether we like it or not.
That is why the cat in the wheelie bin went around the world in a matter of a few hours and was fiercely debated.
So, imagine a couple of other scenarios.
A Nazi rally starts burning books, like in the good old days. Let's say these books are all by or about Jews.
Just a flash in the pan?
Let's say, when the Pope comes to visit, someone cleverly has a look at the Index Librorum Prohibitorum and decides what a jolly jape it would be to burn a few hundred titles on the list.
Again, this is just a bit of something and nothing.
Or were you just saying: "I don't know what these towel-heads are getting worked up about" and not bothering to put it into any kind of cultural or historical context?
All of those things would be complete non-events, provided they didn't herald something much larger, such as a resurgence of the Third Reich, or an anti-Catholic pogrom or something. Similarly with the Koran burning - it's not going to start a new crusade, it won't kill anyone, it'll just inflame 'sensibilities'.
ReplyDelete"people never get wound up over what you describe as nothing"
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much what I describe as nothing - it literally is nothing. The problem is some people's inability to see that. A novel, a cartoon or a film is just that, nothing more. A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined. You either see that for what it is - nothing at all - or you're deeply confused.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteViz
ReplyDeleteA novel, a cartoon or a film is just that, nothing more. A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined.
Unfortunately, whatever we think about it, a lot of people would disagree with you. Apart from AB and anon's points above, the potty pastor's grab for a bit of notoriety has already had people shot and injured on the other side of the world.
His proposals to burn the Q'uran probably won't of itself generate a 3rd world war but it is provocative and could be another bullet in the breach at a time when we really don't need more provocation.
And no, I don't support banning books films etc that offend Muslims but just because we are free to offend doesn't mean we should bend every sinew to be offensive.
@Sheffpixie
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I understand the chain of reasoning that leads some to believe that burning a Koran is a significant act. But I can also see the big gaping hole in that reasoning where the logic should be.
I wouldn't burn a Koran on the news, but if someone suggests doing it - like with the cartoons, Rushdie, Van Gogh - it presents an opportunity to ask why some people see these things so illogically, and why you and I should be asked to respect that medieval mindset.
Anon - so do you propose we ban films, books and cartoons that will offend Muslims, just in case they riot and start murdering people?
ReplyDeleteNo, I certainly do not, why would I propose that? I can however see the common sense of considering what consequences certain meaningless provocative actions may have. The narrow, blinkered mind-set that believes that 'a burnt Koran is just a pile of paper', and has no possible deeper significance to millions of other people is, as I have previously said, a fucking idiot. (And an ignorant, arrogant and dangerous one to boot).
A burnt Koran is just a pile of paper, ruined. You either see that for what it is - nothing at all - or you're deeply confused.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the fact that, as far as I am aware, each individual copy of the Koran is, to a Muslim, holy in itself.
So, to put it in a context which you might be able to grasp, think of it like someone burning your pet dog or your car or house or mother or a pile of your cash.
It is not what values you attach to it which matter.
If Muslims thought of it the same way as you, obviously the preacher concerned would not be bothering because it really would be a damp squib.
Your original comment was not about whether we think people should or should not be offended or outraged by others desecrating their beliefs, but that none of this mattered and should not be global news.
Clearly, that standpoint had its basis in a crock of shit.
Still, I've asked a group of Muslims to pop round your gaff for a chat and a spot of burning later on tonight.
I know you won't mind.
If you tell them it really doesn't matter if the Koran gets burnt, I know you'll get on like a house on fire.
If the potty pastor's decision to burn the Koran were just an isolated incident, then it wouldn't be any big deal. It would be stupid and offensive, but not particularly newsworthy. The problem is, Muslims and Islam are being demonised here to an extent that is positively chilling.
ReplyDeleteTalat Hamdani, the woman I mentioned above, is now receiving death threats and messages telling her that her son was a terrorist, not a hero. This only started happening since Obama was elected and the Repugs ramped up their xenophobic, Islamophobic propaganda machine.
Park 51 isn't the only proposed Islamic centre or mosque that is being opposed by ignorant fucks who think Muslim = terrorist. The opposition to Park 51 isn't really that it's too close to the site of the WTC, it is simply that it's Muslims wanting to build it. (By the way, the original plans for Cordoba House, as it was originally planned to be called, included prayer rooms for Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, as well.)
In this climate, I think that it is important to know about these things, so that we can fight the ignorance behind them.
@Ivo:
ReplyDeleteWhat do you suppose the reaction by American fundie Xians would be if it came out that some imam in Iraq was planning on burning a stack of Bibles?
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteI try and give people i don't know the benefit of the doubt and initially i thought ANON was being a bit harsh with you.But on reflection i can understand where he's coming from.And i also agree with the points both Atomboy and Sheff have made.
To believe as you do that the burning of the Holy Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper shows a lack of understanding on your part of the wider issues.And with respect i think you should think about that a lot more than you clearly have done so far.
Viz
ReplyDeleteThere was a bloke on R4 this morning talking about being taken hostage by a Bedouin Al Qaeda cell when he was working for the UN. He was held for several months and as some of them spoke French they were able to converse quite a lot - mostly about god.
When the interviewer asked him if there had been anything like a meeting of minds, he said no, it was liking talking to people from 700AD.
I don't know how we bridge this huge gap in world views. The potty pastor and the people like the WBC lot have views that are similarly backward and I haven't noticed that the application of rationality and logic on them has done much good.
Am not optimistic and think given the present state of global politics things will probably get worse.
PeterBracken
ReplyDeleteI think a fair summary of the nearly-holy-book-burning would be:
- The Florida geezer's a bigoted dick for proposing it;
- Some Muslims are deluded dicks for taking offence; and
- The media are irresponsible dicks for giving the whole dickish affair publicity.
Well as you should well know life ain't as clearcut and straightforward as that.Never has been and never will be.
@Montana
ReplyDelete"What do you suppose the reaction by American fundie Xians would be if it came out that some imam in Iraq was planning on burning a stack of Bibles?"
Probably slightly less hysterical than some of the Muslim reactions to the Koran burning, but only slightly. And I'd be on here saying the same things - this isn't about Islam with me, it's about all the ridiculous 'sensibilities' which I'm somehow expected to respect.
@Paul
"To believe as you do that the burning of the Holy Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper shows a lack of understanding on your part of the wider issues"
It's not that I 'believe' that burning a Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper. It's more that whichever way you look at it, a Koran IS a sheaf of paper. I can sit and think about that for the rest of my days and still come up with the same inevitable answer - it's paper. It'll never be anything more or less, regardless of what you, I or some Imam 'believes'.
I see what you're getting at - billions don't see it that way. But that doesn't mean that the view is valid - it just means that billions are not seeing the issue clearly.
@Sheffpixie
"The potty pastor and the people like the WBC lot have views that are similarly backward and I haven't noticed that the application of rationality and logic on them has done much good."
I agree, but that doesn't mean there's a problem with rationality and logic - it just means they're incredibly resilient to it. They have all had millennia of practice.
How do you do italics here?
ReplyDeleteOh hello. Anyone watching Leinster/Cardiff? Cannot find English commentary! :-(
ReplyDeleteScoreline is good though.
viz
ReplyDeleteHow do you do italics here?
Just use basic html. If you look on the resources tab at the top of the page you'll find a link to an html primer.
Sorry thauma - anything remotely sporty has completely passed me by today...
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDamnit now it looks like I was swearing at P-Brax and / or self-editing. I was only trying out the html, honest.
ReplyDeleteAs you were.
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about it.Will take a bit of time before you find your feet here.Welcome btw.
cheers Paul
ReplyDeleteI to the Vizzo
ReplyDelete[i]text you want in italics[/i]
But ... for it to work properly
replace [ with <
replace } with >
This is the example
Replacing [ and ] with < and > ... e.g.
[i]This is the example[/i]
That should have been .. replace ] with >
ReplyDeleteDon't piss about with all though brackets and arrows, Ivo. Just cut and paste from CiF.
ReplyDelete(without the plum's typo's)
ReplyDeleteGoing back to Jennifera's scintillating debunking of evolutionary psychology I think it's fair to say that judgements concerning the desirability of arrangements of human affairs - the stuff of politics - contain assumptions about what humans are like and what they want.
Because EP contributes to our understanding of human nature, it is capable of informing public policy, largely for the better.
For example, its insights cast considerable doubt on left-leaning Utopian visions for society. Not least, they emphasise self interest, which implies that market-based economic systems will work better than planned economies, and differences between the sexes, which are likely to undermine policies that seek a rigid gender parity in home and workplace, with all the career and earnings potential that implies.
Drill down even further, and EP has things to say on the nature of welfare provision, child abuse, the suitability of same sex parents as adopters and the efficacy of rehabilitation for violent offenders, to name but a few issues that perennially exercise wider society. I won't elaborate on any of this because I'm in no mood for a dog fight. Oddly.
Needless to say, evolutionary psychology does not make a moral judgement on any of these matters. That is for people, through their political elect, to decide upon. But that it should inform those decisions is, IMO, beyond questioning.
"it's about all the ridiculous 'sensibilities' which I'm somehow expected to respect"
ReplyDeleteYou're not meant to respect them...why would you be expected to respect an arbitrary and contingent set of attitudes and tastes?...you're just meant to show some sensitivity toward them..if it suits you; obviously in this case it doesn't suit you.
It's not that I 'believe' that burning a Koran is tantamount to burning a sheaf of paper. It's more that whichever way you look at it, a Koran IS a sheaf of paper. I can sit and think about that for the rest of my days and still come up with the same inevitable answer - it's paper. It'll never be anything more or less, regardless of what you, I or some Imam 'believes'.
ReplyDeleteYou can follow this line of argument with burning paper money.
It is purely paper and has no implied value beyond flattened wood-pulp with patterns printed on it.
It is not something which has entered the culture and mindset of people the world over as a kind of collective delusion or cult or cultural symbol, is it?
Don't know much about EP, although I understand it's a hugely contested area. Doesn't it seem to suggest we're all predatory, self interested survivalists and would willingly eat our babies if we had to? Or some such thing.
ReplyDeleteNah, money's a bad example. Money has an arbitrary value, Whatever the colour of your skin or the religion you follow or the culture you're from. That''s not true of the bible or the koran.
ReplyDeleteThere's no Swiftian baby-eating exhortation, sheff. Quite the opposite. All animals are to a greater or lesser extent self-interested survivalists, though. And predators. You just buy your meat from Tescos.
ReplyDeletePeter
ReplyDeleteLots of problems around EP. The most basic one being we do not know what man was like in very early societies. We are limited in our knowledge of possible behaviour - we can only extrapolate from those obseved today and as recorded by history - not always reliable. Lots more - but like you I haven't the energy for a row.
the alternative to your model is the 'Tit for Tat' society in which we all agree to play fair, care for each other and collectively thump anybody who cheats or thumps someone else. he who throws the first thump will thumped be - he who cheats or deprives another of his share of goods or opportunities is also thumped until he learns the value of cooperation and mutual respect.
Peter
ReplyDeleteYou just buy your meat from Tescos.
I have occasionally bought meat at Tescos but at least I have hunted and killed it myself a few times (rabbits and a couple of goats). If you want an animal skinned and dressed, I'm your woman.
Anyway the babies remark was obviously flippant. I'm groping in the dark here but what I'm really trying to say I suppose, is that EP suggests that we're all wasting our time when we demand fair dibs or show concern for, or solidarity with the less fortunate - what we should be doing is buttering up the wealthy and powerful so some of their stardust benefits us.
@PeterB
ReplyDeleteIt's true that politics involves some ideas, usually ill-founded ones, about human nature and satisfying it. But it also involves taking decisions that run against what might be considered human nature, in the interests of individual rights and fairness.
There may well be research showing that human evolution gives the average human a tendency to think and behave in a certain way, but that tells us nothing about: A) How any individual human being would think and behave in any given set of circumstances; B) How laws and social structures should be modelled if that research is true.
This is the problem of treating a flexible, teachable, malleable, and unpredictable thing like the human brain and consciousness as a product of its individual evolution, let alone its evolution as one member of an animal species.
A crude example, taken from what I was suggesting before in the field of gender. Evolutionary psychology apparently tells us that males are better map-readers than females. So if I have a job where map-reading is the primary requirement, and I have six men and six women presenting themselves for interview, then this would suggest that I forget about giving a woman the job. But as it turns out, the six individual men who turn up aren't actually very good at map-reading, and two of the women actually are. So evolutionary psychology would be leading me into the wrong decision.
The same goes for broader decisions. Humans evolved so that one-man-one-woman groupings were generally better for child upbringing? Fine, but what about this particular gay couple who would clearly be better to adopt this particular child than this particular heterosexual couple who are a bit weird?
You can't take species-level generalisations and apply them to individual-level political decisions as though single human beings and their societies were all prisoners of their evolutionary history.
"Hey you fucker! That Stars and Stripes you're burning - my daddy fought in Korea for that flag!"
ReplyDelete"What a remarkable coincidence, the flag I'm burning was made in Korea."
(Bill Hicks)
Evenin' all and a big thank you to the bluenose, whose side cheered me up when I was feeling down.
Salman Rushdie - guilty of crimes against humanity. Fatwa was only slightly too harsh. Honestly, if anyone has read "The Satanic Verses", please tell me if there was a point to it? One of the worst books I've ever read.
Sheff "Am not optimistic and think given the present state of global politics things will probably get worse."
Aye, armageddon fatalistic, myself.
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ReplyDeleteLeni,
ReplyDeleteEP doesn't need to worry about earlier social behaviour. It's just very good at explaining behaviour - in animals and in humans.
Whichever way you slice it, evolution has given us adaptive qualities that inform how we act and how we think. That's not to say that culture doesn't have its say - of course it does. But it is not some against-the-grain graft on the nature. Culture largely nests within nature, and more often than not reinforces latent behaviours.
To take just one example among loads. Why are gay men much more promiscuous than lesbians? EP has the answer. Clear as day why, and wholly predictable according to EP.
I agree with your post, PeterJ, in so far as EP makes predictive generalisations which may or not apply in individual circumstances.
ReplyDeletePeter
ReplyDeleteEP does ,in truth, have to consider earlier bahaviour - how else does it prove an evolutinary process ?
What it does is describe - and accept as inevitable - behaviour from recorded histeory.
In socioeconomic terms this means looking at societies which were based on the premise that there *is* and therefore * must be * a ruling group who take the major part of resurces and riches to themselves.
EP seeks to perpetuate this model. It differentiates between groups and within them.
An evolutionary approach would suggest we move on from thousand year olmodels towards something better. Human nature is not static - education can change behaviour as can expectations. We can and adapt our behaviour within the constaints or opportunities on offer.
We actually have latent adaptability - enabling us to adapt to conditions not previously experienced. Those in positions of power do not want society to change. You are suggesting an inbuilt status quo - great for the winners, hell for the losers.
Interesting talking about this at the same time as watching a re-construction of what happened in the World Trade Centre buildings after the planes hit.
ReplyDeleteThere were examples of real altruism in those extreme conditions.
Leni
ReplyDeleteThought you would be interested in reading this article-the full version will be appearing in tomorrows Observer.There's a thread for comments but i,m off now so i'll probably have a drunken rant on it later.
@Atomboy
ReplyDelete[paper money] is not something which has entered the culture and mindset of people the world over as a kind of collective delusion or cult or cultural symbol, is it?
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money. I didn't when the KLF did it. Nor is it 'holy' to me. It's value isn't intrinsic, but derives from the real-world fact that it can be exchanged for goods and services (as Homer Simpson's brain pointed out).
Evening all.
ReplyDeleteQuick visit, just to say that if anybody's interested, there's an article on The Graun front page about Osborne's plans to slash ESA!!
James
ReplyDeletethanks for that - very worrying overall Still no corresponding plans for investment in job creation. This is an unworkable plan unless the British people are willing to accept long term poverty and homelessness for m lilions.
where are the newspapers - analysing, pointing out the flaws in these plans ? Who is moblising genuine debate and informed opposition ?
Leni
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have an answer for you, Leni, but it's not looking very good is it!?
(I suppose the fact that the Observer seems to have done a bit of digging/encouraging 'leaks' is better than nothing, but, if precedent's anything to go by, they'll more than balance it out with a further 10 articles about why Osborne, Clegg and Cameron are iconoclastic trailblazers, with impeccable table manners or some such shite, so I won't be holding my breath just yet!)
I mean, it's not like it'd be that hard to point out the flaws, is it!?
I'm sure even The Guardian's unpaid/six-month rolling contract/work experience types could have a reasonable crack at it, but maybe that's just me.....
These are the times to try men's souls
ReplyDelete..even the X Factor's shit these days...at moments like this I figure that's just me getting older and irascible, an inevitable retreat into miserabilism..then you hear 16 year-olds going "everything round 'ere's shit"..but they say that everywhere..and they always did..I did..and it was shit
difference was..in those days people would say "no it isn't, a bored mind's a sign of a ..[insert appropriate homespun piece of optimistic chicanery which normally involved you: going to the shops, carrying something heavy or cleaning or painting something]"
...if a 16 year old these days came up to me and said he considered his surroundings, prospects and chances of ever actually meeting Cheryl Cole where they could "y'know..really get to know each other" (..it happened) to be shit, I'd have to say "tell me about it"
Bought the Guardian today..this stuck in my mind..couldn't work out why..then it struck me..it's a magical incantation to make Peter Bracken's head explode
Peter Bracken...little present for you..enjoy
"But there is still much to chew on, especially in Žižek's concluding essay, an extended fantasia on the "gaze" wherein we learn that the public's fascination with Hannibal Lecter "bears witness to a deep longing for a Lacanian psychoanalyst"."
Re: EP.Its big problem lies with its unverifiability. Unlike psychology proper (or at least clinical psychology) it lacks scientific rigour. I'll admit as momkeyfish posted upthread that even clinical psychology can be on thin ground operating from at times a meagre evidence base, but it has one via the scientific method: hypothesis,experiment,evaluation,confirmation (capable of being repeated with the same results) etc etc. Now you can pick holes in that, bloody huge holes with some of the experiments, but at least they have been done.
ReplyDeleteEP, by and large lacks most of such rigour. The little we know about what's often termed 'pre-history' means that the start point is so vague, so general as to be of little use.The distance too, up to the present day is so long that chains of causality are stretched beyond credibility in too much of EP.
It's an interesting field, but there again, so is counter-factual or "what if" history: long on speculation, short on solid substance. Good for senior common room debate, as a spark for discussion, but unsuited as a justification for far-reaching policy decisions in the here and now. Their justification has to come from other,grounded,more legitimate disciplines even if EP "Just So stories" (cf Kipling) prompted the idea.EP can scarcely give policies legitimacy, when its own standing is so contested and its reductive,even reductionist,often unsubstantiable approach open to post hoc ergo propter hoc abuse.
Now, having been serious, here is a top tip I got texted:
"Now, having been serious, here is a top tip I got texted:"
ReplyDeleteAlisdair, at the risk of leaving you to be pursued by a mad group claiming you are the messiah ("I should know, I've followed a few"), what were you going to say?
Sorry,habib, put it in then deleted it without deleting the lead-up. It's bad one though, so look away now: 3-IN-ONE Oil is not in fact the best product for that purpose. You are much better off with a water based lubricant.
ReplyDeleteA much better tip is this one: BOOK-BURNERS. Instead of burning books, try reading them. If you object to what you've learned, just set fire to your head.
"Instead of burning books, try reading them."
ReplyDeleteis a good tip. (Dr Jones Snr?)
"3-IN-ONE Oil is not in fact the best product for that purpose. You are much better off with a water based lubricant."
I don't even want to think about what that means. :-)
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ReplyDeletechecking
ReplyDeleteoriginal
ReplyDeleteYour link isn't working.
Hi chekhov.
hi leni, weird, working for me
ReplyDeletehere
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteOK, the money example was not brilliant, but it was done quickly before I went out and this is done quickly before I go to bed.
However, you seem to keep changing your argument, which has gone through these stages:
It's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
...the direct consequences of the action will be precisely zero, apart from a lot of people getting wound up over nothing.
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money.
My argument was simply that saying something is just paper and has no resonance beyond its physical properties is only part of the story. That saying it should not be news did not consider either the current religious climate, the current anniversary of events or the way news now works. That saying all this was "nothing" was not accurate, nor did it explore the potential these events possess.
Let's say Stonehenge will be broken up and sold to garden centres for people to make rockeries, with the government taking a slice of the profits. It's only a bunch of stones.
Yesterday, they found Noah's Ark but they are going to cut it up for people to use it as decking for their gardens. It's just a load of old wood.
Your argument can be used to reduce anything to its simple physical properties and say that nothing has a cultural or symbolic value beyond the stuff from which it is made, but your original point was that it should not be news because it was just some bloke having a bonfire.
You then say you would not kill or riot if someone burnt money, which was not my argument and you had already said that nothing would happen over the Koran burning, other than people getting a bit peeved.
You seem to be confusing the idea that one person's beliefs do not trump another person's freedoms with an assumption that one person's actions should never affront or offend another person.
It is just as irrational to try to pretend away the fact that other people have beliefs as you imagine those people to be in having their beliefs in the first place.
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ReplyDeleteorignal
ReplyDeleteHi - How you ???
Ready to rock?
Check this guy. Brilliant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7j5SXgbMZ0
@Atomboy
ReplyDeleteHowever, you seem to keep changing your argument, which has gone through these stages
I try to make my arguments go through stages. I'm still new here - is the form to say one thing and then repeat it verbatim each time it's challenged? Here's my three statements:
It's a crazy world we live in when some guy burning a sheaf of paper becomes global news.
...the direct consequences of the action will be precisely zero, apart from a lot of people getting wound up over nothing.
Well I would't riot or kill someone if they burnt a load of paper money.
Yep, still stand. So what are you objecting to?
Anyway let's have a look at what you're saying:
Let's say Stonehenge will be broken up and sold to garden centres for people to make rockeries, with the government taking a slice of the profits. It's only a bunch of stones.
That would make sense as a comparison if there were several billion stonehenges in existence, as there are Korans. If there were that many stonehenges, then it would make complete sense to chisel them down and sell them off for materials - it might even help the deficit.
If there was only one Koran, then obviously burning it would be nihilistic and inexcusable.
It is just as irrational to try to pretend away the fact that other people have beliefs as you imagine those people to be in having their beliefs in the first place.
That's not what I'm saying. I appreciate that people have beliefs, including the one that a factory-produced, commonplace physical object is somehow 'holy' and therefore can't be destroyed.
My contention is that such a belief is utterly ridiculous, and I fail to see why I need to be sensitive of it. I would posit that if someone feels that destroying a book that anyone could buy in a Foyles is worth rioting over, then that person is slightly deranged and is best not indulged. Let them explain why they feel the object is sacrosanct - if they persuade me, then I'll get outraged over some pastor burning it.
I to the Vizzo.
ReplyDeleteBasic trap, easy to get into; you're getting polarised.
You had a point, but your defence, since you made it, has been based on outsmarting others.
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteEach copy of the Koran is holy to Muslims - I think only if in Arabic, translations not so. It is not 'just a book'.
So to burn a copy of it is to destry a sacred object.
You may not agree - that will not stop reaction to the burning neither will it change their belief.
In the current climate such a provocative act is crazy - and suggests that the guy proposing it is well aware of the sacred nature of the Koran. Why would he propose it other than to cause offence and outrage ?
whether any object is intrinsically sacred or only becomes so through general agreement is another matter and is not the subject under discussion. We do not sanctify the sacred objects of others but tend to respect them out of respect to the people.
The Koran is not responsible for terrorism any more than the Bible is responsible for crazy Christians.
Hi people
ReplyDeleteTotally off my face so here's a tune
Likewise Paul. Big Joe's that top bollocks. Cheers.
ReplyDelete@Paul - Some blokes on a beach knocking out some Howling Wolf pretty good.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69ckKZqIzGA
Fuck do I hate them and their life.
LOL
;-)
(Sorry about the smiley face scherf)
Basic trap, easy to get into; you're getting polarised.
ReplyDeleteHmmm you may be right there, I'll have to own that.
Hi bitterweed
ReplyDelete@Hank i do like the Godfather of Soulso we'll have to beg to differ on that.
Right i need some food before i puke.See yer later.
@Leni
ReplyDeleteWe do not sanctify the sacred objects of others but tend to respect them out of respect to the people.
Well that's just it - do you not think that by respecting these ideas you validate them to some degree? To me, showing respect to the notion that a commonplace object can be 'holy' is to imply acceptance that the object could in fact be holy. And once you have accepted something like that, then where do you draw the line? Is the Earth 4,000 years old? No. Should we respect the view that it is? I don't think so. But some people hold that 'fact' as sacred.
Sweet tune brother Paul.
ReplyDeleteFucking sweet.
Hank also called Keith Richards no more than a "fucking pusher" once, back in the day when CiF was young and fresh and Sunday night online piss-ups were de riguer.
PS, I hate to say it but fucking nice one with your team today MF, very ammusing.
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that using the argument of mass-production in factories does not work if my initial observation that to Muslims each and every Koran, however new or old, handwritten or printed, part of a million run or a collectors' limited edition is holy and sacred is, in fact true.
The point about belief is also that it is not rational or logical and, in some ways, that is its point. It is a system where faith trumps reason. That is its essence.
However annoying you may find this, even Richard Dawkins accepts that you cannot expect to smash faith with reason.
You are free to find faith ridiculous and you do not have to be sensitive to it or what it makes people do. You are entitled to your way of looking at the world and you are entitled, if you choose, to think it is the only proper way to do so. It is just one way of operating.
However, this implies that it is just as reasonable for other people to employ other ways of seeing and behaving and believing. They may even think it is irrational and improbable but still choose to believe anyway.
If there was only one Koran, then obviously burning it would be nihilistic and inexcusable.
How do we set the number beyond which this goes from nihilistic and inexcusable to just a bit of a jape?
Surely, if there were just three, it would not be OK. Three hundred? Maybe, if there were a billion people and they each were required to have a copy, then the figure would be a billion.
Your argument seems to be far less about being able to comprehend the irrationality of people's beliefs and what importance those beliefs may freight and invest objects with and simply boils down to the idea that commonplace objects can have no inherent value beyond their basic material one.
Basically, you are saying, I don't understand why they can think like that and unless they think like me, they must be wrong.
Which is probably, in reverse, exactly what they would think of you.
Anyway, I still haven't finished what I intended to do but I am definitely ending this for tonight.
@Leni
ReplyDeleteThe Koran is not responsible for terrorism any more than the Bible is responsible for crazy Christians.
That's a different proposition altogether. The Koran does in fact provide plenty of scriptural support for someone that wants to wage a Jihad on unbelievers. Just like the old testament can be used to justify, say, capital punishment.
But Muhammed was actually very peaceful for his time, and was frequently mocked for being soft. The tribal culture he and his followers had to operate in was extremely retributive and violent, so there's an argument to be made that he had to include some fire and brimstone stuff to a) get any following at all, and b) so that his 'flock' could survive and at the same time stay true to the revelations.
The mistake is to transplant that part of the message - out of context - to today's world. Islam itself isn't responsible for terrorism, but it provides a framework, and bestows meaning on these acts. That said, I have no doubt that if it wasn't for that, there would be some other justification in its place.
"The Koran does in fact provide plenty of scriptural support for someone that wants to wage a Jihad on unbelievers."
ReplyDeleteI didn't know you could read Arabic, I to the Vizzo.
I don't, but I have read the English version, if that counts...
ReplyDeleteOh so you read a translation of someone else's word? Fair enough, knowledge complete.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, Paul and Bitterweed, here's a bit more (original) Howlin Wolf.
ReplyDeleteCome on habib, I'm not saying I'm some world authority on it or anything. I assumed the English version is pretty close in meaning, although I hear it loses a lot in terms of the intonation and rhythm of the Arabic version.
ReplyDeleteHey Bitterweed, would you believe it my husband is adding to the family....yes, what we apparently need is....drum roll please....a fricking dog.....
ReplyDeleteHallelujah
ReplyDeletePS, good news about the dog. if my plan goes right, I'll have a pair of Jack Russels soon.
ReplyDeleteAsgaard... and... Kevin.
but not Holly May, fucking hell, let the oldest one onto the computer and you even lose your identity, BW, is I, and I beg you, do not go there with the Jack Russells, can't even post my JR story here...
ReplyDeleteNight Ride Accross the Caucasus
ReplyDeleteSweet...
Hi habib
ReplyDeletesome Nancy Wilson
Vizzo
ReplyDeleteto my mind it is about validating people whilst not necessarily sharing their views.
People hold views which I do not share - however if they ofer no harm to anyone else why should I contest them ? Discuss yes - dismiss out of hand no.
Respecting the Muslim belief that the Koran is holy allows for the same recognition for a Torah scroll or a RC communion wafer. Dismiss one you needs must dismiss them all. The believer does not need my validation - I am not that important.
The OT has some very scary injunctions - written within a time and context which no longer apply. It is a matter of interpretation and understanding.
Yo Paul! Just catching up - internet probs tonight. God I love KD Lang.
ReplyDelete"Come on habib, I'm not saying I'm some world authority on it or anything."
Then, ItotheVizzo, don't say things like this:
"The Koran does in fact provide plenty of scriptural support for someone that wants to wage a Jihad on unbelievers."
when you don't know that it does.
Bitters
ReplyDeletelove your W Africans.
Paul
ReplyDeleteYou are the master of sweeping statements - not fair imho.
what happened to chekhov?
Leni
ReplyDeleteAnd IMHO you are the mistress of inconsistancy.I notice you didn't say anything when scherfig was slagging off me and charlie the other day.That wasn't fair either IMHO.
Bloody hell! You're not having a fight with Leni?
ReplyDeletePaul called Annet an "alcoholic" and a "brain dead cunt" a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteMost amusing.
Paul, Pack it in. OK ? Just leave it.
xxx
Muppets.
ReplyDeleteLeni
ReplyDeleteSorry i,m not looking to have a fight with you but you also said nothing yesterday when scherfig called vizzo a cunt.Hence i'm not sure why you've chosen to intervene on scherfig's behalf tonight.
@heyhabib-i don't like scherfig.And as with Leni why are you interevening on his behalf and yet saying nothing when scherfig slags off other people here.If it's OK for scherfig to call other people here a cunt then why can't other people call him a cunt.Can't get my head round that double standard.Anyways i'm off to bed now.
Nite.
bitterweed
ReplyDeleteI didn't call Anne either an alcoholic or a braindead cunt.That's all in your head pal.
Get your facts straight!
Paul; no offence meant BTW.
ReplyDeletescherfig said...
ReplyDeleteApparently nobody has worked it out yet, 'I to the Vizzo' is OZXYZ666754321 (or whatever the fuck he's called) on Cif (Ivo Hypocritovic) and he's a neo-con wanker who claims he's 'left wing' and has somehow been embraced by the bourgeois elite on Cif and the Cif commissioning editors. He recently wrote a very important article on Cif about who he was supporting for the Labour party leadership. And he has just started his own blog which is he is shamelessly whoring to the luvvies on waddya. It's probably only a coincidence that he turns up today on the Untrusted for the first time. I'll just save monkeyfish and hank the bother here and call him a cunt straight away, and I'll also save Martyn and Charles the bother of saying that he has consistently been one of the best posters on Cif ever. Various other undiscrimating dimwits here will probably say 'hi, vizzo, welcome!' But they probably shouldn't.
Love and kisses, an occasional very unwelcome visitor (thx Montana).
Scherfig
Anyway people there's your evidence.Scherfig gets to call Vizzo a cunt and none of you say anything.I call scherfig a cunt and you're all up in arms.Classic case of double standards methinks.
Nite.
"If it's OK for scherfig to call other people here a cunt then why can't other people call him a cunt."
ReplyDeleteThey can if they want to, Paul. Just saying I don't think he is.
I know the silence here can be deafening when someone has a pop. Few people raise their heads above the parapet, perhaps because they think the one being shot at is a dick, has said something dickheaded, or in any case deserves being shot at.
That's their opinion and it may well be a justifiable one.
I don't much care for the ones who refuse to stand up and defend someone who they think is right, but are too scared to do so, in case they get shot at themselves. I can understand their behaviour. I just don't like them much.
Apparently nobody has worked it out yet, 'I to the Vizzo' is OZXYZ666754321 (or whatever the fuck he's called) on Cif (Ivo Hypocritovic) and he's a neo-con wanker who claims he's 'left wing' and has somehow been embraced by the bourgeois elite on Cif and the Cif commissioning editors. He recently wrote a very important article on Cif about who he was supporting for the Labour party leadership. And he has just started his own blog which is he is shamelessly whoring to the luvvies on waddya. It's probably only a coincidence that he turns up today on the Untrusted for the first time. I'll just save monkeyfish and hank the bother here and call him a cunt straight away, and I'll also save Martyn and Charles the bother of saying that he has consistently been one of the best posters on Cif ever. Various other undiscrimating dimwits here will probably say 'hi, vizzo, welcome!' But they probably shouldn't.
ReplyDeleteLove and kisses, an occasional very unwelcome visitor (thx Montana).
Scherfig
For some reason my last post disappeared so here's Take 2.Scherfig calls Vizzo a cunt(see above) and Leni,Habib and Bitterweed say nothing.I call Scherfig a cunt and Leni,Habib and Bitterweed object.Classic case of double standards.I rest my case.
Nite
PS btw Leni,Habib,Bitterweed i love you guys x
So is my wife.
ReplyDeleteBut Paul, you did say something to Annetan not long ago about her laying off the sauce, or something to that effect. It was somewhat memorable as most of us are aware that Annetan does not, can not, drink.
ReplyDeleteLeni and Annetan are patient, kind and tactful without fail. If either of them suggests, in the gentle way that they are wont to do, that one might want to re-evaluate one's comment, or that one has perhaps been a tad unfair, one fucking well ought to re-evaluate.
And that goes for anyone here -- not just Paul.
Okay, Bitters. If you want to be our resident cunt, you can be our resident cunt.
ReplyDeleteShould I have given you credit for the clipping? I wasn't sure if you wanted people to know where I got it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm68LV9sLg
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm68LV9sLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm68LV9sLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm68LV9sLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjm68LV9sLg
Cunt in Residence. I like it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkt8E2Ul-Xw
ReplyDeletePropah kahnt.
ReplyDeleteYou may be a Propah kahnt, Bitterweed, but have you got what it takes to be a wanker?
ReplyDelete