Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

The year of Our Lord two thousand and sixteen  is almost over. Another year soon will be receding into the past and all the joys and pains that came with it will rapidly fade in our memories. All the things that were so important, so urgent, will become distant shadows as new, and equally illusory, issues take up our time and energy.

There will be many, many retrospectives of this year on the media in the coming days, so I won't waste too much time on it. I think that 2016 has been a pretty good year. Oh, there are still some very serious problems to solve, such as fascism in its Islamic and Left wing varieties. They are still very much with us unfortunately. There have been, maybe, some slight signs of a distant glimmer of hope in relation to those two pernicious evils. Maybe.

The great news of the year was Brexit, and then the American Presidential election of course.

I could not vote in the British Referendum because I have not lived in the UK for more than 15 years now. I would, of course, have voted to leave if I could have done. The margin of victory was a bit slim, but a majority it nevertheless was. Excellent. I have indicated elsewhere why I think the vote was so important and so positive. I just wish that they would get on with it!

The American election was also a very positive result. I have no great love for either of the final two candidates, but I was very pleased when Clinton didn't make it. She is a corrupt, criminal, ineffective, ignorant and arrogant representative of all that is so very wrong with the West's political culture. I wish Trump well, but I expect he will have a hard time of it, and by the time the 2020 election rolls around people will be tired of him, too. I just hope that Mrs. Obama doesn't stand in 2020. I don't think that the US, or the world, could cope with another dose of Barry-ism.

What was interesting was the reaction of the losers in both of these cases and what that might mean for democracy. In both Brexit and the US elections the losers had a child like temper tantrum. Like a 5 year old who doesn't win the game, they stamped their little feet and cried because they lost. They wanted to change the rules of the game until they got a result that they liked.

Now democracy is a pretty crappy system, but it is better than all the others that have been tried by the human race. Given that we have to have a state of some kind (as small as possible!) then surely it is vital that those over whom it has power have some say over how it is governed. Democracy at least tries to translate the 'Will of the People' into actual governance. The problems that it throws up are, for example:

1.  WHO are 'The People' - who has a say? Why?
2.  WHAT does it mean to say 'The Will' of the people?
3.  HOW can we measure that 'Will'?
4.  By what mechanism can we turn that measurement into actual policies?

Given that all practical means to answer these questions are pragmatic compromises one has to accept the system that results from that process if one wants to play the game. Fair enough, after the game is over debate and discuss the nature of the system, but while the game is being played one must accept the rules as they exist. I doubt if there would have been a peep from the losing groups if they had, in fact, won.

The US system is interesting and I now understand much better the Electoral College system and I think that it is, in fact, a practical solution to the problem of Federal level democracy in the USA. Given that each State of the Union is, in principle, an independent state there has to be some way of ensuring that all the States have a fair shot. Without the Electoral College system 2 or 3 States would dominate every Presidential election.

Anyway, those events make 2016 a particularly good year I think.

Another positive development in 2016 was the dramatic decline in poverty at the global level.

As a result of increasing economic freedom and allowing enterprise to flourish huge numbers of individuals have now been lifted, or lifted themselves, out of poverty. There is still too much poverty, of course, but the trend is strongly in the right direction.

There have been many, many good and positive things that happened in 2016. One can Google it and find endless web pages listing big and small things that were good.

So, not a bad year at all.

Personally, I have had a good year. Alright, I ended the year in the depths of depression, but that is beginning to lift again. I am happily in love with my wonderful wife, Tove, who has been there for me all year. We have a cozy little house that we love. We have enough to eat and a roof over our heads. Money may be tight, but we are fabulously wealthy in so many ways.

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Now - the obligatory list of deaths in 2016. These are the people whose death this year affected me to a greater or lesser extent:

January 10th: David Bowie died at the age of 69. I always liked his music, some more than others.

January 14th: Alan Rickman died at the age of 69. A very good actor.

January 24th: Marvin Minsky died at the age of 88. A groundbreaking cognitive scientist.

January 31st: Terry Wogan died at the age of 77. He was just always a part of everyday life on the radio and on TV for many years.

February 19th: Umberto Eco died at the age of 84. A wonderful writer. Both The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum are excellent.

March 11th: Keith Emerson committed suicide at the age of 71. A major part of the development of my musical taste. A wonderful keyboard player. I saw him live, once, as a part of Emerson, Lake and Palmer in the early 70's. Tarkus had just been released.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg2KjxNtAiM

April 17th: Doris Roberts died at the age of 90. Wonderful actress and I loved her in Everybody Loves Raymond.

June 3rd: Muhammed Ali died at the age of 74. Best boxer ever!

July 27th: Jerry Doyle died at the age of 60. Loved him in Babylon 5.

August 29th: Gene Wilder died at the age of 83. Just a wonderful, and very funny, actor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1FLZPFI3jc

November  7th: Leonard Cohen died at the age of 82. Just a wonderful, wonderful musician, songwriter and performer. Has had a lasting, and deep, effect on me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wRYjtvIYK0

November 11th: Robert Vaughn died at the age of 83. Alway and forever the Man from Uncle.

November 23rd: Andrew Sachs died at the age of 86. He comes from Barcelona you know.

December 7th: Greg Lake died at the age of 69. Again, a key part of my musical development. Saw him live, once, at the same gig when I saw Emerson way back in the 70's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AXxQGai4JU

December 8th: John Glenn died at the age of 95. A hero from my young days as I followed the American space programme with a passion.

December 24th: Richard Adams died at the age of 96. He wrote that wonderful book Watership Down.

December 27th: Carrie Fisher died at the age of 60. Always and forever Princess Leia.

I wish you all a wonderful New Year and a Peaceful 2017.

Presidential thoughts.

I realise that in the wake of the recent Presidential election in the USA, there has been an awful lot of writing, commenting, discussion and so on. I am a little hesitant to add to that pile, as in a few months it will probably all be forgotten. However, I just want to make my feelings clear, for anyone who may be interested.

Firstly, I am very, very happy that Clinton lost the election. She is a corrupt and criminal individual who must never be allowed near power.

The media around this election has been a disgrace, an absolute disgrace. They built up a very specific narrative, based on no evidence, that Trump was a fascist clown and that Clinton was almost a goddess. No questions were ever put to Clinton about the heap of evidence that reveals her rottenness, and yet any small thing that could cast Trump in a bad light, no matter how old, or how minor, was blown up out of all proportion.

I don’t, particularly, have any great hope in Trump. On the whole I regard politicians as a necessary irritation, best avoided. And I seriously think that Trump will find the realities of formal political power daunting.

However, I am still pleased that he won, and not Clinton.

Like Brexit (which I would have voted for, but could not as I have not lived in the UK for more than 15 years) this was an expression of the wishes and hopes and frustrations of perfectly decent, ordinary, people who have just had enough of being ignored, talked down, and treated with contempt

The ordinary everyday people who run the shops, work in the factories, clean up the trash, make sure that the electricity and water systems work and so on, have had enough. The have had enough of identity politics and the relentless focus on ethnicity, gender and religious belief that splits and divides people into smaller and smaller groups that then argue about who is most privileged and who is most oppressed. They are tired of the new forms of racism and sexism produced by their so-called betters. You’d better not be white, and god knows don’t be male!!!!!!!!

They are tired of the way in which every damn thing becomes an argument about race, or gender, or ethnicity or whatever, that continually splits people into groups.

They have had enough of cultural relativism and mass immigration. Yes, they feel that their way of life is threatened and, by god, looking around the mess that is Europe now who can blame them?

These ordinary people who get up, go to work, save up, buy a house, raise a family under conditions of increasing economic pressure and social uncertainty, of course they are frustrated and angry.

They cannot trust their politicians any more, they cannot trust the media any more, they cannot even trust the education system any more and when one looks at the bizarre antics of so called cultured people and what is actually taught these days again, who can blame them?

And thank god it is Trump. The cultural warriors of the left have created a situation open to exploitation by some really frightening political movements.

This is in danger of turning into a formless rant so I will wind up. Other people, good people, have said all this and said it better than I have.

The ordinary people have spoken, they have spoken for freedom from the continuous micro management of their lives by intellectual idiots. And for that, I am very, very grateful.

Carthago delenda est.

Some time ago I posted on Google+ a small item about ‘the groans of the Britons’. This was a request sent by Romano-British aristocrats to the Western Roman Emperor in the year 446. The Roman Army had been withdrawn from Britannia in 407, some 39 years before. The text we have is this:

“To Agitius, thrice consul: the groans of the Britons. [...] The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned.”

It was a plea for assistance. And the Romans had responded to such pleas twice already, with military aid. This time they did not come back. There is no record of a reply, but they had definitely abandoned Britannia by now.

I find that fragment deeply moving somehow. Even though current evidence suggests that the text was exaggerating the situation, and that immediate post-Roman Briton was more stable than was previously thought, it nevertheless speaks of a kind of desperation. A world that they had known was folding up underneath them.

In my darkest moments I sometimes feel like they must have felt. A world I have known is under great threat, serious threat. We in Europe have no Empire to call on. Once upon a time I would have placed the USA in that sort of a role. But America is not what she was. In fact America puts me in mind of the Western Roman Empire on its last legs. The lunatics are running the asylum.

Because make no mistake, we are at war. 

A bald statement that requires some explanation. When I say ‘we’ I am not referring to a particular country, I am referring to a whole culture, a whole way of life and a set of values that are worth defending, that are worth fighting for. With ‘we’ I mean those of us who stand by these values, who love these values and who are prepared to fight for these values. The values in question are the core values that define Western culture and Western civilization.

I will come to those in a moment.

If we are in a war, who are we fighting? Who is the enemy? As an initial generalisation I would argue that we are fighting an ideology, or two wings of a core ideological mode of thinking. The fighting is taking place on real battlefields in the Middle East, but also in Universities, colleges, public spaces, in the media. It is a sprawling war with many fragments. It is, mostly, a guerilla war. It is a war that those of us who appreciate Western values must fight.

The values that I label ‘Western’ are these:

“Rationalism, self-criticism, disinterested searching for truth,  separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience and expression, human rights, liberal democracy …”

http://www.westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/

These are precious things to believe in and to guide one’s actions and decisions. They have been very hard won over 2000 years, or more. They have been hammered out in conflict and battles and wars. They define, I believe, Western Culture and Western Civilization. They have produced some of the greatest works of art, literature and music. They have formed and shaped the lives of people, giving people more and more control over their own destinies. They have produced the wonder of modern science and the technology that arises from it. They have unleashed humanity’s productive potentials. They have assisted us in the great escape from poverty and short nasty lives. It is a superior cultural heritage and we must not throw it away.

I, personally, have a problem with the concept of democracy, which I may discuss another time. I agree, though, with Churchill’s remark:

“Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947)

The enemy who we face is a form of fascist ideology. I say that because they manifest several key elements of fascist ideologies – totalitarianism and anti democratic thinking; one-party statism; zero-sum, black-and-white, thinking, and, in its extreme form, militarism. There are other elements too, and some differences and variations. However, I hold that we are in a war over something really fundamental. Like all fundamental conflicts in essence it boils down to the question posed to Alice:

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.”

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)  Lewis Carroll 

This fascist ideology takes two main forms, I feel. On the one hand there is Islamism, or Islamo-fascism. Islam is, at heart, a fascistic political ideology. This wing is represented in its most extreme form by ISIS. But ISIS is only the most extreme manifestation of this ideology. The other wing of this ideology is social-fascism, as represented by the Social Justice Warriors, modern ‘third wave’ feminism, Black Lives Matter movements, and the various forms of identity based ideologies and ‘gender’ based ideologies.

The aim of all of these is very similar – to police the thinking of everyone who disagrees with them. To enforce their particular ideology by using the power of the state. And the power of a state always rests on force.

Other bloggers and vloggers cover all of these issues in more detail than I am doing here. I will recommend some at the end.

There is a slight glimmer of hope I think. ISIS does appear to be slowly losing ground and, as it does so, it is losing support. In the West our own fifth columnists are showing some signs of weakness. The claims of, for example, feminism are sounding more ludicrous by the day. And now that Black Lives Matter appears to be prepared to use extreme violence maybe this will turn people away from them.

However, we must never stop in defending our civilization and attacking the enemy wherever possible. Just to be clear, I am not advocating violence, but I am advocating that we should be prepared to stand up for our values, defend them and positively argue for them every day. Stand up and be counted, or else we stand to slide into the most nightmarish dystopia this world of ours has ever seen.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

¤

Carthago delenda est

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDmCBKaKOtOrEqgsL4-3C8Q

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yewGHQbNFpDrGM0diZOLA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT9D87j5W7PtE7NHOR5DUOQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsjJvehvV00&list=PLrWS5lcEmbnvTFb6rgm9rM49t6HpSEzXE

http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/no-more-martyrs-now-civil-society

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Immanentizing the eschaton.

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. [...] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4.

“There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance”

Recently I have found myself experiencing a range of largely unpleasant emotions. I have felt anger, bordering on rage, and I am not an angry person at all. I have felt profound disappointment. I have fluctuated between apathy and deep depression at times. I have felt, and I do feel, a deep dread, apprehension, for the future. Where have all these emotions sprung from? They are my gut emotional reaction to two current phenomena in our global society that, I fear, have the potential to tear down and utterly destroy everything that is good and true about our Western civilization and its culture.

First, a small comment on my own political position. These days I regard my political and social views as largely Classical Liberal. I think it is a shame that the word 'Liberal' has become distorted, particularly in the USA, into a grotesque mirror image of itself. When I say Classical Liberal I am thinking about philosophers like John Stuart Mill, for example. Essentially, I would regard the rights and status of the individual as an independent actor to be paramount, and to trump all other concerns. The state exists only to ensure that a framework of laws exist that allow individuals to act and interact in pursuit of their own interests in a way that is compatible with social order. I do have a conservative streak in my world-view also. I see little point in change for the sake of change, for example. I also agree with Kant when he commented that:

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Immanuel Kant, Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6.

This means, for me, that human nature is real and we have to work with the essentially flawed and imperfect reality of that as it is, not as we would wish it to be. And our most important tools here are reason, logic, sound evidence and sound arguments. Discussion, based on these things, is essential.

Basically, I have a 'live and let live' viewpoint and as long as you don't bother me, I wont bother you. I gave up voting some time ago, as I have come to regard politicians as rather wicked human beings in general, and the political process as deeply flawed. I may talk about that another time.

The two phenomena I referred to above are:

1. 'Islamism' – the primitive and brutal fascist ideology that grows out of the religion of Islam. It appears to grow rather easily too. I am aware of the many nuances in this argument. I am also aware that 'It is not all of them.' But it doesn’t have to be all of them surely? If only 5% of professing Muslims are Islamist, that is still a lot of people. And yes, there are genuinely moderate Muslims out there that are trying to make a real change, that are trying to begin a much needed reformation of Islam. But they don’t get much public exposure and when they do get some they are condemned as 'racists'.
   
   The fact that every survey that I have seen of ordinary Muslims reveals a majority that are consistently in favour of Sharia Law, are consistently in favour of a range of barbaric practices, that are in favour of gender and gay discrimination indicates to me that a rather large number of these individuals are more 'Islamist' that we would like to believe.
   
   On the issue of so-called 'Islamophobia' and Islamophobic racism I have this opinion. First, Islam is not a race. Many different ethnic groups and cultures are present in the global demographic of Islam. They are not all Arabic. In fact, the single biggest ethnic group present in Islam are Indians, with over 160 million followers in that country. (http://www.pewforum.org/2009/10/07/mapping-the-global-muslim-population/) Islam is an idea, and ideas are not immune to criticism.
   
   Secondly, a phobia is an irrational fear, and I do not think that it is irrational to be afraid of Islamicism. In it's worst form, that taken by ISIS, it represents the most brutal and crude version of George Orwell's terrifying vision of the future:
   
   “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.”
   George Orwell, 1984 Part Three, Chapter 3.
   
   
   
2. What I choose to call 'Social Justice Warrior-ism' … if I may be allowed that ugly phrase here. I am well aware that this is an even broader concept and I may well over-generalise a bit. Under this heading come movements such as Third Wave Feminism, particularly the campus and academic variants. Black Lives Matter also come under this heading. Then there are the various other 'identity' movements, like LGCTI and so on.
   
   These movements, in general, ignore rational argument and empirical data in favour of emotional gut responses. In doing so they are rejecting the hard won victories of the Enlightenment and progress made over the last 2 – 3 centuries. We already have a plethora of 'Committees of Public Safety' and 'Re-education camps,' just by other names, springing up all over to ensure that everyone is 'in line' with the ideology. The very recent example of a student at the University of Houston is a case in point -http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7920
   
   As regards the details of these various movements, there is a great deal of news and information available on the Internet and elsewhere, so I will not go on at boring length about them.
   
   SJW-ism represents a trend that was always present in the more totalitarian left-wing ideologies, whether of the communist variety or of the fascist variety, as I learned 40 years ago as a student who was, at that time, very much a Marxist. The continuous desire to abolish the human as s/he actually is and build a new, improved, one. In the process many, many people suffered and died, in Nazi concentration camps, the Soviet Gulag, or the Cambodian killing fields. And many other places too, just not so well known. While Islamism represents the brutal and primitive method, SJWism represents a less violent and more insidious method. But they have a similar goal, all shall submit to our ideology by fair means or foul.

And that, I suppose, is my final point. Islamism and SJWism are both ideologies with a primitive religious character. They both have their saints and sinners, blessed and damned, and so on. They both have a goal of building their version of heaven on earth. They both require blind, unthinking submission to the religion they are peddling and damned be individual rights, empirical evidence, due process, reason and logic. They both seek to shut down completely all opposition or disagreement. They are not a new phenomena I know, this 'Millennialism' has long been a part of ideological movements, but any attempt to create paradise with the crooked timber we have will fail, and it may well take our civilization down with it this time.

"Don't immanentize the eschaton !" If you try, you will get hell on earth instead.

I think we should be worried. There are signs of resistance, and I see the recent Brexit in my homeland as such a sign. But there is still a long way to go.

WHAT I BELIEVE.

michael Shermer was once asked what he believed in. Without going into the arguments as to what 'belief' means, I find myself in general agreement with him. His list is at the link. My list is almost identical, but I have edited it slightly, as I do not believe in free-will, at least in the way it has always been understood. This, I am aware, leaves me open to the charge of inconsistency.

http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/11/09/what-do-you-believe-in/

I believe in the Principle of Freedom:

All people are free to think, believe, and act as they choose, so long as they do not infringe on the equal freedom of others.

I believe in civil liberties, civil rights, … … … including and especially freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to assemble peacefully, freedom to petition grievances, freedom to worship (or not), freedom of the press, freedom of reproductive choice, freedom to bear arms, etc.

I believe in the sanctity of private property, the rule of law, and equal treatment under the law.

I believe in truth seeking and truth telling.

I believe in trust and trustworthiness.

I believe in fairness and reciprocity.

I believe in love, marriage, and fidelity.

I believe in family, friendship, and community.

I believe in honour, loyalty, and commitment to family, friends, and community members.

I believe in forgiveness when it is genuinely asked for or offered.

I believe in kindness, generosity, and charity, especially voluntary aid to others in need.

I believe in science as the best method ever devised for understanding how the world works.

I believe in reason and logic and rationality as cognitive tools for answering questions, solving problems, and devising solutions to life’s many problems and quandaries.

I believe in technological growth, cultural advancement, and moral progress.

I believe in the almost illimitable capacity of human creativity and inventiveness for our species to flourish into the far future on this planet and others.

Ad astra per aspera!

Aptera

My wife, Tove, and myself recently returned from a three week holiday in our house on Crete. It was a wonderful break. I love Crete, the Cretans, cretan food and Cretan culture. When I am on Crete I feel as if I can really be myself, I am 'home' in a way.

On one of our last days there we visited the ancient town of Aptera. We had visited the location before, but more excavations have taken place since our last visit.

The town was founded at some point during the Minoan period (3650 to 1400 BCE) and its name is found on Linear B tablets dating from the 14th - 13th Centuries BCE. It was a powerful City State throughout this period, counterbalancing the power of Knossos, and remained influential throughout the Hellenistic Period (323 BCE - 31 BCE).

In Greek mythology, here was placed the scene of the legend of the contest between the Sirens and the Muses, when after the victory of the latter, the Sirens lost the feathers of their wings from their shoulders, and having thus become white, cast themselves into the sea, whence the name of the city Aptera (literally meaning "without wings").

During the Roman period, from mid-1st Century BCE, Aptera was a large and flourishing provincial city within the Roman Empire. It was a part of the Roman province of Creta et Cyrenaica.

Most of the remaining ruins are from the Roman period, particularly from mid 1st Century BCE to the 2nd Century CE.

This is a view of the recently restored theatre at Aptera, with Tove in the middle. The theatre dates from the Hellenistic period, but was greatly modified by the Romans at least twice, becoming much more spectacular than the original structure.

The last picture is from the audience towards what would have been the stage.

The above two pictures are of the Roman water storage cisterns. There are three like this and they are huge.

The above two pictures are views of the Roman baths. They are quite well preserved. The last time we visited the site one could go into the baths, but not anymore.

I thoroughly enjoyed our day at Aptera. I love anything Ancient, especially Roman. I people the ruins with human beings in my imagination. Human beings just like us, with hopes and dreams, fears and worries. Human beings who loved and hated, just like we do.

I also try to 'rebuild' the ruins in my minds eye. The walls would be plastered and brightly painted. All the statues would have been painted too.

Anyway, that is a brief record of our visit to Aptera. We had lunch in a marvellous taverna afterwards too.