It's Just My Blog

"If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the forces of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before which the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destroy, whoever is victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation. Even though the result disappoint us, must we not base our actions on better expectations, and believe that the prosperity and happiness of one country promotes that of others, that the solidarity of man is not a fiction, and that nations can still afford to treat other nations as fellow-creatures?" - The Economic Consequence of the Peace, Ch. 7 'Redemies', sec. 1 (1920).

Thirteen years later, after Germany had been saddled with crushing war reparations payments which Keynes had shown were impossible for it to meet, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. And we all know where that ended up.

I read with delight that a female journalist has been sentenced to 60 lashes over a TV show in which a Saudi man openly discussed his many extra-marital affairs (he got 1000 lashes and five years in prison):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8324117.stm

Yet again the Saudis lead the way in re-establishing morality in the cesspot of vice that is the modern world. Hurrah; we are saved once again.

But surely this sentence is, if anything, too mild? For merely reporting such filth, the journalist should surely at least have had her eyes put out. And why not actually castrate the philandering beast who she deemed worthy of airtime? If there is one thing I am absolutely sure of, it is that God only intended us to have sex for purposes of procreation. Such a vile and unspeakable form of activity could have no other justification. I am tempted to write to the members of the House of Saud and urge them not to go soft; I can detect the sulphuric stench of Western liberalism at work here, and am deeply concerned lest this creeping corruption reach any further.

I wrote the following as a response to something else...

"I am probably both somewhat rationalistic and somewhat nihilistic. I take the general Nietzschean point about the lack of foundations for a meaningful human life to be entirely true, and to an extent one can embrace and even celebrate this as liberating, fashioning one's own meanings out of the materials one inherits, appropriates, or even invents for oneself. But then along comes the Buddha with old age, sickness, suffering and death, and none of these things strike me as particularly worth celebrating. An appreciation of one’s own mortality is one of the curses of self-consciousness; animals do not live every day knowing that they have to die, or indeed that they could do so at any moment with all their works unfinished. And that is merely at the individual level. When one surveys the extent of the vanity, stupidity, misery, and injustice in the world at large, one can indeed feel quite nihilistic about the human condition.

There was a lot to be said for the medieval conception of humanity as situated between the angels and the beasts – we are creatures of marvelous intellectual, artistic and scientific creativity, and great sympathy, friendship, and love for one another, on the one hand, and greedy, short-sighted, and even willfully destructive and malevolent, on the other. In the face of this paradox it is sometimes easy to despair, and for the insane laughter of absurdity to take over. Reason, insofar as it can recall one firmly to the facts of the matter, and thus pave the way for constructive action, is in this sense a kind of solution – but it is of course reason with a small ‘r’ that I have in mind, and it goes along with the cultivation of a ‘better half’ in oneself that cannot, in the end, rely solely on reason. Even then it offers no ultimate guarantee; there is actually no way I can see of insulating oneself altogether from nihilism, though that may in the end just be a matter of (my) temperament – some individuals may simply possess more natural equanimity (or insensitivity?) than myself (sensitivity by no means being an unqualified good; it can take a morbid form that can be quite literally unhealthy)."

Kind of a trick title, that. There isn't going to be one. At least, not for a while. Here is a marvellous quote from Max Weber, who understood a thing or two about capitalism:

"The Puritans wanted to be men of the calling - we, on the other hand, must be. For when asceticism moved out of the monastic cells and into working life, and began to dominate innerworldly morality, it helped to build that mighty cosmos of the modern economic order (which is bound to the technical and economic conditions of mechanical and machine production). Today this mighty cosmos determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual who is born into this mechanism, and may well continue to do so until the day that the last ton of fossil fuel has been consumed".

Weber wrote those words in the original version of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published over a century ago now in 1905. All that has happened since then is the intensification and extension of the mechanism. There is much talk, following the economic crisis of 2008, of the end of capitalism; in fact, I strongly suspect it is simply another of its periodic crises, one of those episodes of creative destruction of which Marx wrote.

What is very striking is that the whole world is now committed to the capitalist enterprise; the global effort by the major economies to co-ordinate fiscal rescue efforts was truly unprecedented. Whereas the crisis of the 1930s with which the present one has (in some ways justly) been compared occurred in an era where there still seemed to be genuine alternatives (communism, socialism, national socialism, fascism), the distinctive feature of the contemporary situation is that nothing else is on offer. The market is now regarded as the only viable form of economic exchange, for good or ill, just as Weber foresaw.

As proof of the trouble that the internet can get you into, look no further than Maxi Sopo, who was on the run for credit fraud.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8306032.stm

He managed to get himself busted because - get this - he was updating his Facebook profile by telling everyone what a great time he was having and in so doing giving plenty of clues about his whereabouts. Don't today's youth watch spy movies any more? Does he not realise that if you are a wanted criminal then the last thing you should be doing is making public announcements on the web? This is on a par with the woman who went swimming with polar bears (see below); at least she was probably suffering from a mental disturbance of some kind whereas this is really just plain dumb. Enjoy prison, Maxi; you belong there.

There's this channel I've been hanging out in for years. This might give you some idea of why...

7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) School 1970s vs. School 2000s
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fight after school.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best mates.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - Police are called; Armed Response Unit arrives and arrest Johnny and Mark. Mobiles with video of fight confiscated as evidence. They are charged with assault, ASBOs are taken out and both are suspended even though Johnny started it. Diversionary conferences and parent meetings conducted. Video shown on YouTube.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Jeffrey won't sit still in class, disrupts other students.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Jeffrey is sent to the principal's office and given 6 of the best. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. Counselled to death. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra funding because Jeffrey has a disability. Drops out of school.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his Dad gives him the slipper.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. Psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mum has an affair with the psychologist. Psychologist gets a promotion.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Mohammed fails high school English.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Mohammed retakes his exam, passes and goes to college..
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - Mohammed's cause is taken up by local human rights group. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that making English a requirement for graduation is racist.. Civil Liberties Association files class action lawsuit against state school system and his English teacher. English is banned from core curriculum. Mohammed is given his qualification anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers, puts them in a model plane and blows up an anthill.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Ants die.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - MI5 and police are called and Johnny is charged with perpetrating acts of terrorism. Teams investigate parents, siblings are removed from the home, computers are confiscated, and Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) Scenario: Mark falls during break and scrapes his knee. His teacher, Mary, finds him crying, and gives him a hug to comfort him.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 1974 - Johnny soon feels better and goes back to playing.
  7:51a    (~gjinn[a]lappy) 2009 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces three years in prison. Johnny undergoes five years of therapy. Becomes gay.