An article in the news today (link) made me question what the writer's assumptions are.
The basic assumption he makes is that there is a baseline level at which human beings are responsible for their actions. Go beyond the line and you become "mad", but stay below it and you're fine.
This is an absurd idea. Surely the mental capacity of humans varies according to type and on a continuous scale. To choose a dividing line between those who are mad and those who are not is plainly wrong.
What about temporary "madness". Someone can be completely sane most of the time, but occasionally flip out and do something completely mad. How does one judge their responsibility to their behaviour? Are they allowed to diminish their responsibility for specific periods or should their sane selves control their behaviour all the time.
Even those who inhabit the "sane" areas of behaviour are occasionally "mad". What about the person who is violent at a football match. They may well have a day job and responsibility, but somehow they lose their sense sometimes. Of course their behaviour is controlled by the law (if they cause physical violence and are caught then there are penalties (pardon the pun!)), but could they not claim diminished responsibility, either through alcohol abuse or sport-related euphoria?
The only fair way to deal with this is to treat everyone the same. The punishment should fit the crime so, for example, if a murder is committed then (unless completely accidental) the punishment should be the same for everyone regardless of their mental state. This gives an added responsibility on society to protect those susceptible to bouts of violence (for example) form hurting others.
The bigger issue for me is how to deal with the concept of free will. There is still a belief that humans act under their own volition - a kind of spiritual being who controls the body. This is nonsense and it's obvious to me that we are no more than a collection of cells which interact in immensely complicated ways to create the behaviour we experience.
If this is the case then it is arguable that we all have diminished responsibility. There is not one of us alive who can claim that it wasn't their biological structure that dictated their behaviour.
This line of thought quite quickly leads to ideas like eugenics and existentialism, however it's not one which should be shied away from. I readily accept that everything I do is in response to biological reactions cause by yet more complex biological reactions and interactions.
Unfortunately this argument is theoretical and, since I don't think it would benefit many of us if our society were to change into one which fully recognised this theory, is unlikely to be made real until the average intelligence of society increases substantially. In contrast, however, our society would benefit if it were to change into one in which its members were respected along humanist lines rather than capitalist, tribalist or religious lines.
For now there is another person's life wrecked (Kerry Barker) simply because our society (the morons who govern and administer us) cannot get its act together (or is too selfish to really want to).
Friday, December 21, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Fela Kuti; a curse; and the proliferation of digital media
I am cursed with an almost stupidly wide-ranging love of music. I adore music by artists as diverse as "Fluff, fluff, fluff and Cuddlyness" to "Napalm Death". And I seriously like the music. It's not an affectation. My taste in music effects and is affected by my mood.
I have had this view since I was in my late teens when I was particularly interested in independent music, but also had a love of folk, classical, blues, jazz, heavy metal, rock, prog-rock, electronic and (some) pop music. There was a time, about 10 years ago, when I thought I knew all the music I was ever likely to need to know. I also had bought most of these recordings so my musical world seemed complete (and just a little dull). I was wrong.
As I get older my taste has changed slightly: I don't like as much pop music as I used to and I like more jazz and funk (I also believe that the vast majority of modern music is intrinsically inferior). Over the past few years I have begun to appreciate progressive rock much more and have recently opened a treasure-trove of music I had previously never heard of. Music from bands like Magma, Klaus Doldinger's Passport and very recently (yesterday) Fela Kuti.
Early-70s Afro-Beat and Jazz-Funk is something I have not listened to very much, but I find now that it's something I have definitely been missing. Some of the Afro-Beat stuff like Fela Kuti, Santana etc is mind-blowing! Even modern groups like The Budos Band are producing electrifying jazzy, funky, Afro-Beat-type music.
So I realised that there is a whole new world of music I have never heard before and that I enjoy immensely.
Not only have I found this new seam in the coalface of media, but the way that all media are transmitted and stored has been revolutionised in the last few years. I am slowly digitising all my music onto a home computer which acts like a media storage device and allows me to play music through any other computer connected to the home network (including my PS3!) (don't get me started on the licensing issues!!). I also download several albums a month from the Internet at little cost.
There are social implications of this proliferation of media which Max will experience. When I was younger I had restricted access to the music that I liked. Not only did it have to be bought from a real shop (!), but it was expensive and required specialist equipment (vinyl record player etc). When I wanted to watch a video of my favourite bands playing their music it either simply didn't exist or was unavailable or was broadcast on one of the four TV channels at 2.30am!
One particular time I remember trying to record the music from a live ACDC video that my dad had videotaped from the TV by sellotaping a microphone in front of the (mono) TV speaker and pressing play and record on the crappy tape recorder I had. This barbaric methodology is in stark contrast to the way Max will undoubtedly find media.
Youtube is something that has revolutionised the process and I absolutely adore what Youtube have done, but I wonder whether something has been lost by having so much information available so readily.
In any event I'm going to need new headphones soon (and probably new ears!!).
I have had this view since I was in my late teens when I was particularly interested in independent music, but also had a love of folk, classical, blues, jazz, heavy metal, rock, prog-rock, electronic and (some) pop music. There was a time, about 10 years ago, when I thought I knew all the music I was ever likely to need to know. I also had bought most of these recordings so my musical world seemed complete (and just a little dull). I was wrong.
As I get older my taste has changed slightly: I don't like as much pop music as I used to and I like more jazz and funk (I also believe that the vast majority of modern music is intrinsically inferior). Over the past few years I have begun to appreciate progressive rock much more and have recently opened a treasure-trove of music I had previously never heard of. Music from bands like Magma, Klaus Doldinger's Passport and very recently (yesterday) Fela Kuti.
Early-70s Afro-Beat and Jazz-Funk is something I have not listened to very much, but I find now that it's something I have definitely been missing. Some of the Afro-Beat stuff like Fela Kuti, Santana etc is mind-blowing! Even modern groups like The Budos Band are producing electrifying jazzy, funky, Afro-Beat-type music.
So I realised that there is a whole new world of music I have never heard before and that I enjoy immensely.
Not only have I found this new seam in the coalface of media, but the way that all media are transmitted and stored has been revolutionised in the last few years. I am slowly digitising all my music onto a home computer which acts like a media storage device and allows me to play music through any other computer connected to the home network (including my PS3!) (don't get me started on the licensing issues!!). I also download several albums a month from the Internet at little cost.
There are social implications of this proliferation of media which Max will experience. When I was younger I had restricted access to the music that I liked. Not only did it have to be bought from a real shop (!), but it was expensive and required specialist equipment (vinyl record player etc). When I wanted to watch a video of my favourite bands playing their music it either simply didn't exist or was unavailable or was broadcast on one of the four TV channels at 2.30am!
One particular time I remember trying to record the music from a live ACDC video that my dad had videotaped from the TV by sellotaping a microphone in front of the (mono) TV speaker and pressing play and record on the crappy tape recorder I had. This barbaric methodology is in stark contrast to the way Max will undoubtedly find media.
Youtube is something that has revolutionised the process and I absolutely adore what Youtube have done, but I wonder whether something has been lost by having so much information available so readily.
In any event I'm going to need new headphones soon (and probably new ears!!).
Friday, December 07, 2007
José Martí and Chrisopher Hitchins
I've been turned around fairly recently (not that I was ever completely anti-war: it's far too complicated to be only on one side or another). I am starting to believe more and more that the appropriate response to Islamic fundamentalism is not appeasement. It's far more complex than the situation Chamberlain was in in 1939 and there are certainly good arguments for and against I think.
Christopher Hithchens tells a good story about Barbary Coast pirates and Thomas Jefferson. This episode from history pits Islam against Christianity (link) more than a hundred years before the current conflict. The upshot is that the pirates blatantly used the Koran to excuse their actions of slave-taking since those slaves were infidels. This history of infidelity (sic) has been the cause (excuse) of many, many religious wars going back millennia, but is relevant in this argument because there's a feeling in the West that Islam is out to get the West and destroy all infidels. Is this really the case or, more likely, the few extremists who we hear about? It's a very complicated argument and the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that it's a neo-conservative plot to keep us afraid of Islam. Certainly in my experience I have met a few Muslims and they are generally the same as anyone else.
Is it me and my pseudo-Christian sensibilities or are Islam-led regimes more cruel and oppressive and naturally infidel-hating? I suspect that it's a bit of both, e.g. there are infidel-haters in all societies (Christian to Muslim too), however the Taliban are certainly more extreme.
In spite of my intellectual dilly-dallying my inclination is to mistrust a culture that places pressure on women to cover their bodies completely. How much of this is tradition and welcomed by some women is debatable, but it doesn't do a cause much help.
What impressed me this morning, however, is a statue of Jose Marti in New York (link). Marti was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who lived for a time in New York. He is a national hero in Cuba.
Perhaps my impression is wrong, but I get the feeling that, especially the US, but also most Western countries, regard struggle and sacrifice as high virtues and socialist ideals are valued strongly (even some communist ones). For a statue of this calibre to be placed in a foreign city speaks volumes about a country, i.e. the US's ideals are humanistic rather than spiritual; they believe in human endeavour and strength and heroic actions are valued more highly than anything else. This strikes me as particularly Christian and I wonder how compatible this ideal is with Islam (or Buddhism, or Hinduism either).
For now I have to stick with Western ideals because that's all I have ever known and I feel that it's more humanistic and valuable and will encourage the expansion of human knowledge (I am not saying that Islam discourages these things - far from it if you consider Algebra and Astronomy!).
Christopher Hithchens tells a good story about Barbary Coast pirates and Thomas Jefferson. This episode from history pits Islam against Christianity (link) more than a hundred years before the current conflict. The upshot is that the pirates blatantly used the Koran to excuse their actions of slave-taking since those slaves were infidels. This history of infidelity (sic) has been the cause (excuse) of many, many religious wars going back millennia, but is relevant in this argument because there's a feeling in the West that Islam is out to get the West and destroy all infidels. Is this really the case or, more likely, the few extremists who we hear about? It's a very complicated argument and the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that it's a neo-conservative plot to keep us afraid of Islam. Certainly in my experience I have met a few Muslims and they are generally the same as anyone else.
Is it me and my pseudo-Christian sensibilities or are Islam-led regimes more cruel and oppressive and naturally infidel-hating? I suspect that it's a bit of both, e.g. there are infidel-haters in all societies (Christian to Muslim too), however the Taliban are certainly more extreme.
In spite of my intellectual dilly-dallying my inclination is to mistrust a culture that places pressure on women to cover their bodies completely. How much of this is tradition and welcomed by some women is debatable, but it doesn't do a cause much help.
What impressed me this morning, however, is a statue of Jose Marti in New York (link). Marti was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who lived for a time in New York. He is a national hero in Cuba.
Perhaps my impression is wrong, but I get the feeling that, especially the US, but also most Western countries, regard struggle and sacrifice as high virtues and socialist ideals are valued strongly (even some communist ones). For a statue of this calibre to be placed in a foreign city speaks volumes about a country, i.e. the US's ideals are humanistic rather than spiritual; they believe in human endeavour and strength and heroic actions are valued more highly than anything else. This strikes me as particularly Christian and I wonder how compatible this ideal is with Islam (or Buddhism, or Hinduism either).
For now I have to stick with Western ideals because that's all I have ever known and I feel that it's more humanistic and valuable and will encourage the expansion of human knowledge (I am not saying that Islam discourages these things - far from it if you consider Algebra and Astronomy!).
Monday, December 03, 2007
Depression
Reports in the news (link) have indicated that the Hippocampus plays a leading role in some forms of depression. Further to this, exercise and movement can also help people feel less depressed. It's suggested that the reason for this is that the exercise itself is the aiding mechanism.
The Hippocampus is the centre in the brain mostly responsible for spatial navigation (link) which leads me to think that the depression/exercise balance is actually more of a depression/spatial awareness balance!
It would make some sense to me for there to be a biological imperative to keep our spatial awareness and knowledge of our surroundings up to scratch and hence any imbalance to this could lead to depresssion and cerebral problems.
It's an interesting thought anyway. I suppose I'd better go for a walk now ....
The Hippocampus is the centre in the brain mostly responsible for spatial navigation (link) which leads me to think that the depression/exercise balance is actually more of a depression/spatial awareness balance!
It would make some sense to me for there to be a biological imperative to keep our spatial awareness and knowledge of our surroundings up to scratch and hence any imbalance to this could lead to depresssion and cerebral problems.
It's an interesting thought anyway. I suppose I'd better go for a walk now ....
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