For better or worse, this post feels like the spirit of Tangentville, whatever that is.
It started with Edward Sturton's excellent interview with Tom Hooper, director of "The King's Speech".
Hooper depicts George V as a man driven by a sense of duty to do a job which he did not want, and by which he was terrified. That legacy has been passed down, and lies at the heart of what our current queen regards as the discharging of her role as head of state. An overwhelming sense of duty can give human beings tunnel vision, and can lead people into dark places. We may succeed in doing what we see as our duty or we may fail. Thus Diana, late Princess Of Wales, found herself caught up in others' sense of duty, the politics of royal marriage and the need for clear succession to the throne, while her husband, having discharged his duty to his family and country, clearly fell short of his obligations to a woman who loved him - obligations he had freely taken on. This is to say nothing more than sometimes we succeed, with good results, and sometimes we fail, with tragic results. Our success or failure may result from conflicting personal priorities, or from some endemic personal weakness.
Being lately married myself, I'm bound to think of the vows I have recently made, and previous vows I had to break in order to make them. All the individual can do is to follow his/her conscience. Every set of circumstances is unique. Past failure doesn't guarantee future failure, as those fond of making blanket judgments might say. And we may find that tendency in ourselves in different areas. For instance, it strikes me that the Roman Catholic church's monumental mishandling of the sexual abuse of children by priests has tended to make me hostile to priests who have done absolutely nothing to deserve hostility. Celibacy may be too risky for the Church hierarchy to insist upon it, but that doesn't mean it can never work for some people. As I say, sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed, and only we can know the most likely outcome, based on previous experience and self-knowledge. It would seem that charles failed Diana because, God help them both, he did not love her enough. On an individual level, love certainly seems to be a better basis for human action than duty.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Marriage - what's new?
It's no secret, I've been married before - 3 times. It's also no secret that, last Saturday I got married for a fourth time. I don't look on the first 3 marriages as total failures but, to the extent that they were failures, I'm bound to ask myself why someone with my matrimonial track record finds himself embarking on a fourth marriage, with all those solemn undertakings, some of which I have previously failed to live by.
Previously, I thought I meant those undertakings, particularly in the case of my last marriage. Given that even I wouldn't be stupid enough to knowingly drag someone else or myself through the same gradual realisation that the necessary commitment was absent, What's New"? Last Saturday was the culmination of 2 years, during which Ann and I have wrestled with our differences and the pain we would visit upon others. During that time, love has emerged for me as much less of a balance sheet, concerned with how many planks of the dream platform might be present. Mysteriously, getting in touch with Ann via her blog (see blog roll) marked a rekindling of my interest in religion, and the extent to which my feelings about the reality of a spiritual dimension might amount to something I could call faith. At the same time, and prompted by Ann's lucidly written struggles with her own persistent faith, I've joined my local Quaker meeting, which suits me very well.
And so to what's new. Since we're both currently in the American Mid-West, last Saturday evening, I was prompted to fancifully observe that we had "Hitched our wagon to the power of transformative action". And that's the point this time. "Love In Action" is a big thing for the Quakers, and it seems to me like a major reason for believing in anything. To me, there's no point in professing something if it makes no difference to our aspirations and our lives. So, as I contemplate this fourth marriage to a woman who has already made great changes in my life, neither of us stands alone. If we try to be the best we can be, we believe that help and support is available. I hope and pray I now have a better understanding of what commitment means, and I, perhaps pointlessly, regret the suffering caused by my earlier failure to grasp it. Last Saturday, I made that commitment, not only to Ann and our family and friends, present and absent, but the Divine, "The Light", call it what you will, is now involved. This I believe, and that's "What's New".
Previously, I thought I meant those undertakings, particularly in the case of my last marriage. Given that even I wouldn't be stupid enough to knowingly drag someone else or myself through the same gradual realisation that the necessary commitment was absent, What's New"? Last Saturday was the culmination of 2 years, during which Ann and I have wrestled with our differences and the pain we would visit upon others. During that time, love has emerged for me as much less of a balance sheet, concerned with how many planks of the dream platform might be present. Mysteriously, getting in touch with Ann via her blog (see blog roll) marked a rekindling of my interest in religion, and the extent to which my feelings about the reality of a spiritual dimension might amount to something I could call faith. At the same time, and prompted by Ann's lucidly written struggles with her own persistent faith, I've joined my local Quaker meeting, which suits me very well.
And so to what's new. Since we're both currently in the American Mid-West, last Saturday evening, I was prompted to fancifully observe that we had "Hitched our wagon to the power of transformative action". And that's the point this time. "Love In Action" is a big thing for the Quakers, and it seems to me like a major reason for believing in anything. To me, there's no point in professing something if it makes no difference to our aspirations and our lives. So, as I contemplate this fourth marriage to a woman who has already made great changes in my life, neither of us stands alone. If we try to be the best we can be, we believe that help and support is available. I hope and pray I now have a better understanding of what commitment means, and I, perhaps pointlessly, regret the suffering caused by my earlier failure to grasp it. Last Saturday, I made that commitment, not only to Ann and our family and friends, present and absent, but the Divine, "The Light", call it what you will, is now involved. This I believe, and that's "What's New".
Monday, 18 October 2010
Our craving for certainty
Certainty, and people who are certain, keep coming up. Once again, I'm reminded of one of its side effect by another MOI post.
The face value of certainty is obvious. We all want a simple life, in which X is true and Y is not. How are we ever to get anything done if we're always hedging our bets against the possibility we may be wrong, or to placate others? But these "others" may have their own certainties, opposed to ours. Does this mean I must face passivity and abject surrender? No it does not, because opinions and our view of what is right is much less the problem than is certainty itself.
The best science is the elucidation of uncertainty, by presenting a better approximation of what the truth may be.
A small example might be my personal take on religion. I believe in something which I call God, and very vague, but very marvellous it is. I feel my beliefs to be true but, even in so doing, I have to acknowledge the fact that my sense of god as some kind of distillation of the best of which we are capable, may simply be an externalised version of my conscience on a good day. I have no means of proving this not to be true. This makes a crucial difference to my attitude to my own version of truth.
Certainty is the enemy of humility, and without humility, the various ideological log jams which currently bedevil humanity can never be broken. Even the smartest human being is a creature of finite intelligence. In some measure therefore, we all possess the potential to be wrong. If our disagreements are born of the uncertainty inescapably part of the human condition, can we not take common cause in the preservation of the planet for all its people, and the future welfare of our grandchildren? If we can't be certain of the disease, let's start by treating the symptoms. You never know, we might all get along better in the process.
The face value of certainty is obvious. We all want a simple life, in which X is true and Y is not. How are we ever to get anything done if we're always hedging our bets against the possibility we may be wrong, or to placate others? But these "others" may have their own certainties, opposed to ours. Does this mean I must face passivity and abject surrender? No it does not, because opinions and our view of what is right is much less the problem than is certainty itself.
The best science is the elucidation of uncertainty, by presenting a better approximation of what the truth may be.
A small example might be my personal take on religion. I believe in something which I call God, and very vague, but very marvellous it is. I feel my beliefs to be true but, even in so doing, I have to acknowledge the fact that my sense of god as some kind of distillation of the best of which we are capable, may simply be an externalised version of my conscience on a good day. I have no means of proving this not to be true. This makes a crucial difference to my attitude to my own version of truth.
Certainty is the enemy of humility, and without humility, the various ideological log jams which currently bedevil humanity can never be broken. Even the smartest human being is a creature of finite intelligence. In some measure therefore, we all possess the potential to be wrong. If our disagreements are born of the uncertainty inescapably part of the human condition, can we not take common cause in the preservation of the planet for all its people, and the future welfare of our grandchildren? If we can't be certain of the disease, let's start by treating the symptoms. You never know, we might all get along better in the process.
Friday, 10 September 2010
"The Other Woman"
To put it briefly, the other woman is routinely cast as the villain in instances of marital break up, and I think this is neither fair nor reasonable.
It has been suggested to me that a woman, especially a self-proclaimed feminist, has a duty of care towards her married sisters, which should oblige her to keep her nose - or anything else - out of their marriages. As a male, it is tempting to be offered a way of avoiding some of the responsibility for one's own actions, but it really won't wash. Even if a man is a stereotypically spineless creep, driven by his own poorly understood sexual urges, nobody except him is compelling him to act in this way. He cannot hide behind Eve like Adam and say "She made me do it".
I am not a student of Feminism, but from my understanding of it, on a point of ideology, feminists believe that men exercise disproportionate patriarchal power. This surely doesn't sit well with a view of women which would ascribe to them the power to act as the guardians of other people's marriages.
No, I'm afraid, men or women, those of us who have been instrumental in breaking up our marriages must take responsibility for having done it. I cannot hide behind the skirts of the other woman.
The impulse to blame a third party is understandable and touching; the refuge of love for those who cannot easily hate us. We are shielded from the full force of our former partner's rage by the luckless third party who gets it, in my view, undeservedly, or certainly disproportionately.
Now nobody would advocate the deliberate undermining of another's marriage. To deliberately disrupt a relationship by stirring things up, or to put pressure on someone to go beyond their own inclinations, would constitute unacceptable interference. Simply to find oneself in a relationship with someone, leaving them to decide what the consequences of that might be, is not interference at all. Undue interference is engaged in by other men as well as other women, and it is an issue completely separate from some imagined female duty to safeguard the sanctity of marriage.
It has been suggested to me that a woman, especially a self-proclaimed feminist, has a duty of care towards her married sisters, which should oblige her to keep her nose - or anything else - out of their marriages. As a male, it is tempting to be offered a way of avoiding some of the responsibility for one's own actions, but it really won't wash. Even if a man is a stereotypically spineless creep, driven by his own poorly understood sexual urges, nobody except him is compelling him to act in this way. He cannot hide behind Eve like Adam and say "She made me do it".
I am not a student of Feminism, but from my understanding of it, on a point of ideology, feminists believe that men exercise disproportionate patriarchal power. This surely doesn't sit well with a view of women which would ascribe to them the power to act as the guardians of other people's marriages.
No, I'm afraid, men or women, those of us who have been instrumental in breaking up our marriages must take responsibility for having done it. I cannot hide behind the skirts of the other woman.
The impulse to blame a third party is understandable and touching; the refuge of love for those who cannot easily hate us. We are shielded from the full force of our former partner's rage by the luckless third party who gets it, in my view, undeservedly, or certainly disproportionately.
Now nobody would advocate the deliberate undermining of another's marriage. To deliberately disrupt a relationship by stirring things up, or to put pressure on someone to go beyond their own inclinations, would constitute unacceptable interference. Simply to find oneself in a relationship with someone, leaving them to decide what the consequences of that might be, is not interference at all. Undue interference is engaged in by other men as well as other women, and it is an issue completely separate from some imagined female duty to safeguard the sanctity of marriage.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Personal and national responsibility
Confused as ever, this is triggered by me, us, and Mr Fahrenheit451 Jones in Florida burning Korans.
The confusion in this case is not I think limited to me. If individuals or societies think it right to regulate the behaviour of others, it doesn't follow that they are therefore responsible for behaviour which they might condemn or declare illegal.
Societies which regard themselves as democratic often place limits on free speech. There are both ethical and practical arguments for this. We take action to foster a political discourse not based on ethnic, religious, or sexual hatred on principle; and/or we see the impossibility of living in communities while they burn down around us.
So Pastor Jones Et Al decide to burn some Korans as if every follower of Islam were implicated in the 9/11 attrocities. We can voice our disapproval, or someone can stop it if it's illegal. So far so good. Then I just heard on the news that the Indonesian government are saying that if this act takes place, it will damage relations between Islam and The West. But this is not The West, this is Pastor Jones Et Al doing their bit to exacerbate conflict, hastening the final battle when they get raptured up into heaven, while the rest of us provide them with some divinely approved mayhem and torment to enjoy from their celestial vantage point.
It seems to me that the Indonesian government is being as irrationally hysterical as Mr Jones. I can't be held responsible for the actions of a few loonies burning books just because some Moslims want to feel globally persecuted. Members of all religions have had, and continue to have, enough suffering on a personal and local basis, without others trying to capitalise on it by turning the action of every bigot into a harbinger of global catastrophe.
The confusion in this case is not I think limited to me. If individuals or societies think it right to regulate the behaviour of others, it doesn't follow that they are therefore responsible for behaviour which they might condemn or declare illegal.
Societies which regard themselves as democratic often place limits on free speech. There are both ethical and practical arguments for this. We take action to foster a political discourse not based on ethnic, religious, or sexual hatred on principle; and/or we see the impossibility of living in communities while they burn down around us.
So Pastor Jones Et Al decide to burn some Korans as if every follower of Islam were implicated in the 9/11 attrocities. We can voice our disapproval, or someone can stop it if it's illegal. So far so good. Then I just heard on the news that the Indonesian government are saying that if this act takes place, it will damage relations between Islam and The West. But this is not The West, this is Pastor Jones Et Al doing their bit to exacerbate conflict, hastening the final battle when they get raptured up into heaven, while the rest of us provide them with some divinely approved mayhem and torment to enjoy from their celestial vantage point.
It seems to me that the Indonesian government is being as irrationally hysterical as Mr Jones. I can't be held responsible for the actions of a few loonies burning books just because some Moslims want to feel globally persecuted. Members of all religions have had, and continue to have, enough suffering on a personal and local basis, without others trying to capitalise on it by turning the action of every bigot into a harbinger of global catastrophe.
Friday, 3 September 2010
"There's none so blind as those who won't see"
Without descending into self pity, it's fair to say that, in spite of technical advances, there are many frustrations in using the Internet for screen reader users like me, particularly in Blog Land.
It is MOI who provided me with the spur to take these on for my own greater good. To illustrate what this means, and to get to the point of this post, she likes this article, as do I, and as I hope will you when you've read it. She also likes "Get Over It" by The Eagles.
The article and the song are both critiques of different kinds of miopia. One seeks to legitimise a sense of superiority and special righteousness, while the other seeks to blame someone else for everything that's wrong with our world.
It staggers me that the proponents of Mr beck's view don't seem to pause for one moment and ask, "isn't this just a bit too convenient for me personally?" I'd love to be one of a chosen people, and to have a special place in the scheme of things.. There's even a form of verse named after the man who wrote:
How odd of God
To choose the Jews".
I don't know if it still exists, but there used to be a group here in the UK called The League Of British Israelites. The idea is that "The English" are descended from the 12 lost tribes and therefore, guess what, we're the chosen people.
Glenn Beck's thesis implies to me that the God of the old testament temporarily chose the Jews while he was waiting for a random bunch of merchant adventurers and religious fugitives to colonise the land mass which later became the USA. And because it later grew to be a rich and powerful nation, the rest of us have good cause to be grateful that many of its original founders were not selfishly miopic, being people of faith and good conscience. If a version of Hitler had come "Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born" with the USA as his power base, who knows what might have become of humanity.
The fact that we'd all like to be special is totally unsurprising. It's the fact that so many seem to forget that in the very act of proclaiming their specialness that astounds me.
We have what we have, and we are born where we're born purely by accident. Everything we have can be taken away by a Hurricane Catrina, a river Indus in flood, or a bunch of Goths coming over the hill, who have finally lost patience with those whom they think have more than their "fair share".
We deserve nothing; certainly nothing we haven't personally earned. If we're tempted to believe that we do, we should "Get Over It", and just be grateful for what (and whom) we have in our lives.
It is MOI who provided me with the spur to take these on for my own greater good. To illustrate what this means, and to get to the point of this post, she likes this article, as do I, and as I hope will you when you've read it. She also likes "Get Over It" by The Eagles.
The article and the song are both critiques of different kinds of miopia. One seeks to legitimise a sense of superiority and special righteousness, while the other seeks to blame someone else for everything that's wrong with our world.
It staggers me that the proponents of Mr beck's view don't seem to pause for one moment and ask, "isn't this just a bit too convenient for me personally?" I'd love to be one of a chosen people, and to have a special place in the scheme of things.. There's even a form of verse named after the man who wrote:
How odd of God
To choose the Jews".
I don't know if it still exists, but there used to be a group here in the UK called The League Of British Israelites. The idea is that "The English" are descended from the 12 lost tribes and therefore, guess what, we're the chosen people.
Glenn Beck's thesis implies to me that the God of the old testament temporarily chose the Jews while he was waiting for a random bunch of merchant adventurers and religious fugitives to colonise the land mass which later became the USA. And because it later grew to be a rich and powerful nation, the rest of us have good cause to be grateful that many of its original founders were not selfishly miopic, being people of faith and good conscience. If a version of Hitler had come "Slouching towards Bethlehem to be born" with the USA as his power base, who knows what might have become of humanity.
The fact that we'd all like to be special is totally unsurprising. It's the fact that so many seem to forget that in the very act of proclaiming their specialness that astounds me.
We have what we have, and we are born where we're born purely by accident. Everything we have can be taken away by a Hurricane Catrina, a river Indus in flood, or a bunch of Goths coming over the hill, who have finally lost patience with those whom they think have more than their "fair share".
We deserve nothing; certainly nothing we haven't personally earned. If we're tempted to believe that we do, we should "Get Over It", and just be grateful for what (and whom) we have in our lives.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Off and on line shopping and the individual shopper
People usually have a ready opinion about shopping, and how they feel about doing it, either alone or with others. When asked such a question, most would, I think, assume you were asking about store-based pedestrian shopping, a feature of which is that you can customise your own approach to it.
There are those who go out resolutely to find a particular thing or things and, the task being accomplished, they stop shopping. There's an intermediate category of those who set out with all kinds of good intentions, but are seduced by plenty, and all the stuff they never knew they wanted. They may well get home to find that they never knew they wanted it because they really don't, it just seemd like a good idea at the time. Lastly there is the true stuff junky. They love to buy stuff, individually or in packs, but they also get high on just contemplating stuff, whether they buy it or not.
As we all know, modern consumerist economies rely on our buying more than we need, beyond our ability to pay for it, in order to function. This has required the transformation of debt from a response to emergency into a means of instant wish fulfillment.
"I don't hold with it", says my mother, whose generation saw buying things they couldn't afford as a sign of moral degeneracy.
This transition is highlighted by the on line shopping experience. Naturally, it's set up to exhibit and, hopefully, therefore sell the maximum amount of stuff. So my category1 person, the seeker after particular things, has to negotiate a sea of irrelevance in order to reach their goal. On line shopping is set up for the window shopper. This is an obvious tactic, but it may be a simplistic one, since frustration at wading through the unwanted to reach the wanted may drive away those who just came to get what they knew they were looking for. In fact, it definitely does, in my case at least. I'm frequently bemused and enraged by sites like Amazon, which seem determined to enlighten me about everything my fellow shoppers bought, which apparently means that I might do the same. Now I wish all Amazon customers long and happy lives, but I am not remotely interested in their CD or book collections. With this in mind, I think on line retail sites should seriously think about providing more fast track and targeted links to a particular item for my kind of shopper, sparing me the contents of others' baskets. "This is the range of items within your specific search". Perhaps, "Click here for more choices", but that's all.
I may appear more than averagely (if that's an acceptable adverb) exercised by all this, and that's because I've held off on the blind stuff. Now for the blind stuff.
As a totally blind person, I use screen reading software, which outputs the screen to me as either synthetic speech or Braille. Both speech and Braille offer very welcome access of course, but it probably doesn't strike the sighted reader that both these methods are essentially linear. I can't cast my eye over a page, see what I'm looking for, and stick the mouse on it. I can use on screen "find" commands if I know very precisely the exact words I'm looking for, or there are "place Markers" for previously visited pages if I can be bothered to set them up, ETC. But it's time consuming and, to return to my original point, it's time wasting imposed on me by the retailer to tell me about things I know I don't want. Vast choice feels much less like a cherished human right if you don't want it. Can I choose choice when I want it?
There are those who go out resolutely to find a particular thing or things and, the task being accomplished, they stop shopping. There's an intermediate category of those who set out with all kinds of good intentions, but are seduced by plenty, and all the stuff they never knew they wanted. They may well get home to find that they never knew they wanted it because they really don't, it just seemd like a good idea at the time. Lastly there is the true stuff junky. They love to buy stuff, individually or in packs, but they also get high on just contemplating stuff, whether they buy it or not.
As we all know, modern consumerist economies rely on our buying more than we need, beyond our ability to pay for it, in order to function. This has required the transformation of debt from a response to emergency into a means of instant wish fulfillment.
"I don't hold with it", says my mother, whose generation saw buying things they couldn't afford as a sign of moral degeneracy.
This transition is highlighted by the on line shopping experience. Naturally, it's set up to exhibit and, hopefully, therefore sell the maximum amount of stuff. So my category1 person, the seeker after particular things, has to negotiate a sea of irrelevance in order to reach their goal. On line shopping is set up for the window shopper. This is an obvious tactic, but it may be a simplistic one, since frustration at wading through the unwanted to reach the wanted may drive away those who just came to get what they knew they were looking for. In fact, it definitely does, in my case at least. I'm frequently bemused and enraged by sites like Amazon, which seem determined to enlighten me about everything my fellow shoppers bought, which apparently means that I might do the same. Now I wish all Amazon customers long and happy lives, but I am not remotely interested in their CD or book collections. With this in mind, I think on line retail sites should seriously think about providing more fast track and targeted links to a particular item for my kind of shopper, sparing me the contents of others' baskets. "This is the range of items within your specific search". Perhaps, "Click here for more choices", but that's all.
I may appear more than averagely (if that's an acceptable adverb) exercised by all this, and that's because I've held off on the blind stuff. Now for the blind stuff.
As a totally blind person, I use screen reading software, which outputs the screen to me as either synthetic speech or Braille. Both speech and Braille offer very welcome access of course, but it probably doesn't strike the sighted reader that both these methods are essentially linear. I can't cast my eye over a page, see what I'm looking for, and stick the mouse on it. I can use on screen "find" commands if I know very precisely the exact words I'm looking for, or there are "place Markers" for previously visited pages if I can be bothered to set them up, ETC. But it's time consuming and, to return to my original point, it's time wasting imposed on me by the retailer to tell me about things I know I don't want. Vast choice feels much less like a cherished human right if you don't want it. Can I choose choice when I want it?
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