God and Country

For any thinking person life is riddled with the absurdities of people’s belief systems. Personally I wonder why people think royalty has any place in today’s society. Equally, I have no real idea why we maintain an established church. On top of this I cannot understand why our political imperatives pay such overweening regard to any religion, per se. Put the lot together and you have a strange political-cum-social stadium that straightjackets the playing field of thought and expression.

Wouldn’t it be better if religion was a totally private matter between a person, place of worship and his or her god and then we could set about developing social structures that maintain a constant winnowing of the chaff of the so called sacred? If people behave according to the fundamental virtues of their religions but don’t aggrandise such behaviour with the language and gesture of religious superordination, then we may develop better conversations and rub along a lot better.

Meanwhile, we have a royal family, an established church and a governmental system which act together to reward privilege. To salve their consciousness for this self-evident iniquity they then adopt a policy of appeasement for fear of upsetting other religious groups whatever their ethnicity. This whole deluded absurdity undermines any hopes we have of releasing the potential of ALL peoples, regardless. Let’s move towards a society that affirms our rights as equal citizens but denies us any right to expect any more or less than these because of our particular version of God.

Labels: Religion and lack of opportunity

¶ 10:23 AM 0 comments

Goody Goody MPs

Is it a sign of an egalitarian society that Jade Goody is regarded as a significant subject on whom self-opinionated, pompous parliamentarians can focus their sound bytes? Big Brother appears to create a virtual fence over which we can all be neighbours, spilling our vitriol, whether we are taking part like Jade Goody or voting her out. All is virtual now. We can be voyeurs. (We can even up the ante and enjoy a new life in an Internet universe, our first so-called real one being a recipe for insignificance and ennui.) Our MPs can express virtual moral outrage, basking in the reflections from the virtual blaze of publicity of a culturally bankrupt TV show. Our priests can declaim, virtually, their saccharine truths. Our news presenters can fake orgasms over the consequences for international relations with India - for most a seeming virtual state full of call centres where its workers are coached in British soaps so that their virtual identities seem authentic down the line. Meanwhile, programme makers at Channel 4 rub their grubby, culture-free Pilate palms and deflect any notion of guilt by claiming they had initiated a necessary national debate over racism.

Has it escaped every one's virtual attention that Jade Goody is not real? She is a character in an alternative Truman Show. If we watch, it is we who may be racist. Certainly, Channel 4 is racist for ensuring the whole virtual garbage continues to spill over our virtual garden walls.

No, she is not a sign of an egalitarian society but a cipher for how easily we are willing to switch from life and death realities, from the challenge of making our world worthy of our children, whatever their background, to a virtual game world where everything from the appalling to the toe-curling can attract our fulminations whilst never really impinging upon us.

Labels: Jade Goody

¶ 1:41 PM 0 comments

"God, how brilliant was that?!"

Not very, most of the time. I watched a programme about University Challenge a couple of months ago. There were cuts from Bamber Gascoigne's times to Jeremy Paxman's. There was an amusing infill from the Young Ones and shots of the then student, Stephen Fry, gaunt and earnest. A central motif was that this was a programme that showcased intelligent people displaying their knowledge. Of course it is no such thing. It is merely a high-flown version of Mastermind or Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

What all these programmes require of their 'contestants' is the ability to remember. The brain is reduced to its simplest function, that of an MP3 player, and it switches back and forth to find the appropriate reference point to produce an answer. There is nothing remotely intelligent about it. Nothing has to be debated to evince an evidence based surmise. There is no stretching for an answer that lies beyond current thought. There is no appraisal of concepts in order to create an overview. No intriguing new perspectives on anything at all. Let's try to use terms relating to our brain's operations a little more rigorously. How about the following delineation:

1. Clever: - the capacity to recall facts and the relationships between them
2. Intelligent: - the capacity to utilise 1. to create further meanings and insights
3. Intellectual:- The capacity to utilise 1. and 2. to create hypotheses and theories that account for them and even connect with others in other fields

Now, what human examples might you give representing each of the three categories, sticking to a single profession, from fields such as politics, the arts, the sciences? Here's a stab at comedy:

1. Ruby Wax, Jimmy Carr
2. Victoria Wood, Stephen Fry
3. Jennifer Saunders, Eddie Izzard

Hm... what do you think?

Labels: Eddie Izzard is to Ruby Wax what Jennifer Saunders is to Jimmy Carr

¶ 5:16 PM 0 comments

Tony Blah, Prime Minister

What can one say of a Prime Minister who has led his people into war, his socialist party (New ‘Labour’) to drown in private sector mores and lately suggested that individuals could not be held responsible for their carbon footprints? (forget his gruesome u turn). What is the explanation for this apparent disregard for self evident truth? The pervasive one is that he suffers from a middling messianic pathology and thus counters the discontent with his leadership, as any messiah does, by intoning to himself, “Only I can see the true path…” With it goes an unshakable assumption that eventually he will be proven right in his decisions.

I prefer to see him in a different light. He is the ultimate public figure of our time. He works hard. He is confident in his prowess. He seeks adulation. He is a product of celebrity culture. He is ambitious. In the superficial world of quick-wittedness, thinking on your feet and smooth articulation of an appealing populism, he is a Master; a true alter ego for the vast anonymous, passive masses. But deep thinker he is not. Cultured, no. Self-aware, in the meaningful sense, certainly not. Perfect for a society that dislikes intellectuals, he is the ultimate water boatman, flashing importantly over the surface of British life, ignoring any complexities that lie beneath. Like Mrs Thatcher before him, his solipsistic tendencies deny the mass in favour of the individual. Individuals can be addressed. Connected with. Embraced. Blamed. Extolled.

Its personal.

So what of his comments about air flights? He is seeking approbation from us as individuals. “I am like you,” he is saying. “We need our holidays. We need to consume. It is our way. The scientists will clean up our mess.”

Sorry, Mr Blair, but we individuals must act upon moral conscience in all matters; and challenge all forms of inhumanity, whether they be the indefensible invasion of other countries or the environmental legacies we leave our children.

Labels: Blair's pollution

¶ 6:40 PM 0 comments