Weltanschauung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Category: The Human Zoo

  • Fauda – Do we, Should we Watch It?

    Fauda – Do we, Should we Watch It?

    My latest Netflix Binge is Fauda – a violent, compelling and visually superb take on the Arab Israeli conflict.

    Typically with a subject of such sensitivity, there is much hand wringing in the press. As usual The Guardian takes a staunch anti Israeli approach and calls the series Israel’s Brutal TV Hit. Israeli Newspaper Haaretz calls the show “morally dubious”. The New Yorker and the New York Times are a little more even handed as is the BBC (uncharacteristically).

    I don’t much care what the various commentators are saying about this particular drama, or the world in particular. I do rather question my own motive for watching the program and feel surprise that it affords me much interest and absorption.

    Let me fess up to the origins of my quandary. I have Jewish heritage somewhere along the line and a deep fascination with Jewish culture, as a result both of my ancestry and of my Church of England upbringing.

    What child would not be fascinated by the stories of the Old Testament? Sodom and Gomorrah, Daniel and the Lions Den, Moses in Egypt, Joseph and his coat of many colours. Those apparently wicked Midianites and Babylonians! The terrible Pharaoh of Egypt! How very partisan, this musty old book – biased musings of an ancient desert tribe. Much like the equally unamusing bias of the Koran and its equally bloodthirsty, tribal raving.

    At the same time I was fascinated by all things Middle Eastern and indeed Islamic. The haunting beauty of the call to prayer, the exotic food, the eerie and beautiful folk music. The exotic countries. The warm people, the lovely women. Sufi poetry, intricately decorated mosques, religious devotion (ever so foreign to my secular mind)

    And then the disillusion set in as romance was replaced by reality. I remember vividly my sad awakening to the brutality of the Israeli state following the Sabra and Shatila massacre. I was sitting next to a beautiful young Jewish woman engaged to a young Israeli about to do his National Service; the massacre was fresh in my mind and I sorrowfully told her of my disappointment.

    Did I ever fully understand the events which lead up to the formation of Israel? Did I condone the terrorism of Ben Gurion and his ilk or compare it to that of the Palestinians?

    No, I don’t think I ever thought any of that through but I am not sure it would have helped. We humans are rats in a cage and will fight and kill over land, possessions, food water and power. Sadly I don’t think there is much more to know.

    But what of Fauda (meaning “chaos” in arabic apparently)?

    Well the banal aspect of my attraction to the programme is to see something of the life and countryside in Israel. Safer from my own armchair, much as I would love to see those mythical Biblical lands in the flesh.

    My next recognition (or at least I thought it was recognition) was that this was a rather even handed account of the tragic Arab Israeli conflict. The arabs are not all viewed as monsters. They have exquisitely beautiful women folk, children, wives, husbands. The sun shines, the architecture is attractive, the people seem normal. Well of course they do – they are.

    But the the brutality shocked me – torture and bestiality is portrayed as the normal course of events on both sides of the divide. The Israeli hit squad mercilessly torture captured arabs from Hamas or Isis. The arabs kill and maim the Israelis. It is business as usual in the human zoo.

    The Americans in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the inexcusable extraordinary rendition. The bombing of civilians throughout the Islamic world, the merciless hunting down of Bin Laden and his extra judicial execution. The hideous Isis executions, the savagery of many Islamic states towards women and gays.

    The human zoo. It is business as usual the world over.

    So should I be watching Fauda? Should I find it so utterly captivating? Well the answer is probably no on both counts. But I am afraid I can not help that and shall continue to watch each series as it is brought out.

    I do not condone or agreed with any side in this conflict or any other conflict. There must be a better way to resolve our differences.

    On reflection I find this Israeli based drama pro-Israeli, although it does its best to bring out the humanity of Israel’s opponents while not hiding the bestiality prevalent on both sides.

    I would like to redress the balance by seeking out some Arab drama. I am not at all sure I have ever knowingly come across any but it would be an interesting exercise. Neither side are without blame, neither side are without legitimate grievance.

  • Flogging Blogging

    Flogging Blogging

    Commerce is so utterly grubby and most practitioners of the art are second hand car salesmen, whatever they pretend they are selling or “doing”.

    The blogosphere is no exception; it is an area where people try to practice commerce but usually, it seems unsuccessfully.

    The blogosphere has its fair share of oily salesmen particularly in the world of stock market trading where I spent some years and at times made a lot of money. Until I decided to quit because it had all become too nerve-wracking for my ancient body and mind to put up with any longer.

    In the world of trading I believe that most people must know they are selling nonsense, particularly where they are pushing trading “systems”.

    But it is much the same in blogging generally.

    In particular I am most amused by those whose trade is to sell blogging advice.  Their business seems to be more than usually incestuous and tautologous.  Who knows whether these people make money or not, but it is more than a little ironic that in order to make money out of blogging they have to tell other people how to do so.

    What is that all about then?

    Enough of such scepticism and negativity. I argue elsewhere in favour of freedom of choice: in euthanasia for instance or the use of “recreational” drugs.  It is equally evident to me that those who do not like blogging salesmen should avoid them – they have a choice.

    I tend to avoid “infomercials” and many blogs fall into this category.  Shopping on the internet is different – and very convenient. If I want to find a canoe or a book by Sartre I can do so with ease end enjoyment.

    Infomercials and blogs selling stuff (information or otherwise) under the guise of being interesting and informative are a tedious switch off; so switch them off.

    There is some acceptable crossover. Interesting authors may talk about their life as well as offer books. Newspapers these days are simply money making blogs – and I guess most of them carry advertising to make it pay.

    There is no harm in people being paid for what they do, provided the sales pitch is inoffensive and the goods or services offered are genuine.

    I suppose I have come across too many offensive sales pitches and too many crappy blogs. Perhaps including my own.  Who knows; as in every other area of life, I find myself mired in uncertainty, a certain amount of hypocrisy and much ennui.

     

     

     

  • Communist Manifesto vs Mein Kampf

    Communist Manifesto vs Mein Kampf

    In today’s Guardian, some dear lady says that she gives the Communist Manifesto out as a gift.  Presumably to young nieces and nephews, to educate them in the ways of righteousness.

    In the comments section I suggested she may just as well as hand out copies of Mein Kampf.

    Unsurprisingly (we are talking the Guardian after all!) my comment created an uproar for and against and ended up by getting deleted.

    The Communist Manifesto calls for “forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”.  The ideas of Engels and Marx have brought more death and misery on the world than any other barbarity in history. Communism with a small c was advocated by the historical Jesus but it may be noted by the more canny amongst us that poor old JC did not suggest armed revolt or the brutal death of untold millions.

    I am all for a better and fairer society, achieved slowly and using democratic and peaceable means.  The communist manifesto ushered in a dystopia of gargantuan and horrific proportions, dwarfing the evil works of Hitler, another 20th Century madman, in terms of eventual body count.

    The communist manifesto promotes the slaughter of the wealthy, the capitalists and the bourgeois – and didn’t they do well? From Stalin and the Kulaks, to Mao and the intellectuals. From Pol Pot to the despots of Eastern Europe. Mass slaughter in the name of communism, which equated not to a better world for all, but a life of luxury and power for a political class who committed every evil known to man and were the equal of every awful tyrant humanity has ever known.

    And we are still suffering from the aftermath, with Mr Putin and his cronies carrying on the great example of his forebears.

    No excuse can be made for Hitler and Mein Kampf. A hideous, barbaric book and a hideous, twisted, vile, evil human being.

    But I consider the Communist Manifesto of a work of evil as shocking as that of Mein Kampf.  To promote revolution and death is an atrocity. Hitler both promoted and carried out atrocity. Marx and Engels may not themselves have committed atrocity but they were certainly responsible for it.

  • We are all Gay now

    We are all Gay now

    I am so grateful for the BBC who explain that LGBT+ is now passé. Now apparently we are LGBTQQIAAP.

    I really do need to know that:

    The 10 terms cover the different ways people define their gender and sexuality, but the list is not exhaustive.

    Adam would have been staggered that it was not just Eve who popped out from his ribs but a non exhaustive list of at least ten others! Wow!  Live and learn eh? What a busy seven days the creator must have had!

    I am more than happy that my excellent local Church of England priest is living with his gay partner. I am more than happy that homosexaulity was righly legalised in Britain in 1965; criminalisation was a disgrace. Inhuman and bigoted nonsense.

    It is a scandal, an abomination that (according to Wikipedia) homosexual activity carries the death penalty in Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia (in some southern regions), Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.  What savage and backward lands.

    But as with “multiculturalism” (whatever that is) I really do not need it thrust in my face every single day by countless media and news outlets.

    So what? What do you want me to do about it? Grow breasts? Get a boyfriend? Have a sexual organs implanted on my forehead?

    I don’t care what freely consenting adults do or what they do with parts of their anatomy. They are most welcome to do whatever they want.  Perhaps I should give it a go.

    I am a liberal Guardian reader verging on lefto-pinkie but I am sorry, I don’t need to be told day after day that I should riot for gay rights or tranhumanism or transexulaisim or whatever the latest crusade is.

    Any more than I wish to be told to worship Ganesh, or Zeus or Allah or Yahweh. Or Zarathustra, Buddha or the Flying Pink Spaghetti Monster.

    Who started all this stuff? Where does “political correctness” come from?  And is it politically correct to keep ramming this stuff down my throat?

    I don’t campaign for atheism or mild socialism or heterosexuality.

    These things are not outlawed but then nor is LGBTQQIAAP.

    So why can’t I be left alone?

    I don’t want to be constantly harassed by people campaigning for rights of any sort, minority or majority. L or B or G or T or +++++. Thanks very much.

    Where there is injustice and discrimination I am happy to campaign against it. Where there is poverty or sickness or violence I abhor it.

    But please, give me a break from political correctness.

     

  • The Internet Blagger and Bluffer

    The Internet Blagger and Bluffer

    I am always amused by the sheer vastness of the Blagging and Bluffing community on the internet, offering advice on subjects in which they themselves possess no expertise whatsoever.

    I know someone whose motto is “bullshit baffles brains”.  I believe what he means is that if he spouts enough nonsense, his victims will think he knows what he is talking about and buy his second hand cars or cave in to his unreasonable demands.

    Alas, there will always be fools in the world. It was ever thus!

    The internet is a very heaven for such people.

    “Never in the course of human history has so much, of so little value, been written by so many.”

    To misquote Winston Churchill.

    We are all Salesmen now.

    Bloggers, who (like myself) have never made a penny from the written word, hold forth on how to make money from Blogging.  More dangerous by far are the countless thousands out there offering trading and investment advice when (if they had any real experience) they would know they are selling moonshine.

    It must be the sheer ease of the process which has brought out these legions, like bugs crawling from under a stone.

    Go to WordPress or “BottomBook” or a thousand other centres of internet expertise and excellence, press a few buttons and LO!  Suddenly you are baffling other people’s brains with YOUR bullshit!

    Many are called but few are chosen. (Matthew 22:14, for those in doubt)

    Like any other calling, many will try and baffle your brains with their bullshit but few will actually make money out of it.  Their internet blagging career will end not with a bang but with a whimper.

    And yet there are those who will persevere.  You will subscribe to their trading tips, you will buy their fashionware or delight in the prurience of the lives they reveal to you or the breasts they expose to your gaze.

    And then they will go “viral”.

    Apparently this does not entail contracting or spreading STDs (although who knows these days?).

    It means that suddenly their bullshit has baffled not only YOUR brains but those of hundreds, thousands and millions like you.

    Welcome to the Internet!

  • Bingeing on Netflix

    Bingeing on Netflix

    As deadly sins go, bingeing on Netflix probably ranks among the less serious.

    It isn’t something I feel guilty about as I skulk off into the spare bedroom on occasions when my wife says “lights out”. Well, not too guilty anyway although depending on extent of the binge I might find myself a bit grumpy the next morning.

    I suppose though that like most things in life, bingeing on entertainment has a lesson to teach if we care to listen.

    It’s not something I feel ashamed of (no need for that, surely?) nonetheless it does put me in mind of other (more venal sins) that I might have been guilty of in the past.  And the memory of those does worry me, notwithstanding the fact that I managed to escape irreparable damage and don’t do it anymore.

    You have to wonder whether the Nanny State is planning legislation on the matter; after all it seeks to control every other aspect of our waking lives.

    Every one of us must be guilty of committing some minor infraction every day.  We fail to sort our rubbish into appropriate piles like good eco-warriors.  We flush our loos late into the night (a real cause for worry in Switzerland where a neighbour once set the lavatory noise inspectors on us).  We are obese, we fail to use enough fluorine brushing our teeth, we are not sexually diverse enough, we are not gender aware.  We aren’t multi-cultured, we stick to the narrow traditions and religion of our birth place.

    Yep, I can see it coming – I will turn on Netflix one day and I will get a notice flashing across the screen (in Kermit green) telling me I have already had my permitted 40 minutes viewing time for the day.  The program shuts itself down.

    There is a serious case to be made that the state has transgressed its boundaries but I can’t see a retreat anytime soon.

    So enjoy it while you can; it can’t last!  Nanny McPhee is coming to switch you off.

  • Why are we forgetting the deaths of 100 million in the Spanish Flu outbreak?

    Why are we forgetting the deaths of 100 million in the Spanish Flu outbreak?

    The death of 100 million people in the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918 was a tragic event but I would argue we are right in remembering deaths from human atrocities in preference to natural disaster.

    Martin Kettle writes a good article and I understand where he is coming from.  I just feel that if we are to improve as a species we must concentrate on our own behaviour because we are slowly managing to combat natural disasters through science.

    We are making no such progress on combating the atrocities perpetrated by our evolutionary instincts.  Yes, I care that 100 million people died in the 1918 flu pandemic and yes perhaps it is curious that less has been written on it than the Black Death which presumably killed rather fewer. But at least natural disaster is no one’s fault. Human bestiality is.

    The Black Death was sad. So was the Irish Potato Famine. So was the great flu epidemic. But those are issues we are addressing through science, thankfully. War, brutality, greed is not being addressed nearly so well. Without improvement in behaviour Pol Pot and his like will continue through eternity.  That is why I argue we should give prominence in attention to human created evil over natural disaster. We need to improve ourselves if we want to prevent “killing fields”. Scientific progress is wonderful but unless we reflect on our behaviour it will be of little avail to us.

    I guess my view is also that while any sort of premature death is horrible, I would rather die from natural causes than at the hands of human hatred and stupidity. I can live with the godless hell of an uncaring universe but I find human evil somewhat harder to stomach than blind and dumb evolution such as the flu virus.

    It is the “intent” of a Pol Pot and the lack of any “intent” in a flu epidemic which interests me. As Martin Kettle rightly points out, 100m deaths from flu is a terrible thing. But somehow I find the fact that no one intended it, no one caused it makes it less of a cause for note. But perhaps his point is right: after all much has been written on the black death, rather less on Spanish flu which caused a far greater death toll. Mere musing on my part as ever. The struggle to grapple for meaning in chaos.

  • Division and indoctrination, greed, violence and politics.

    Division and indoctrination, greed, violence and politics.

    Why does society have to be so divisive? Why does political posturing have to increase polarization and seek to indoctrinate?

    The simplest messages are the best and it was more than usually dispiriting to read the newspapers this morning.

    The Real Tory Civil War.  Who is Australia’s current head of state?

    Christians versus muslims versus jews.  America and Britain bombing desert tyrants to protect their own economic interests.

    It is business as usual. Self interest, hatred, suspicion, violence and greed. Everyone else is always wrong, our opinion is always right. Whoever “we” are.

    It does not have to be this way. We do not have to give in to our baser impulses. We do not have to force our own way, our own interests at all costs. We have a choice. We can, could, should choose to co-operate and help rather than to compete. Rather than endlessly do battle.

    All human life is about battle, fight, conflict.  Me, mine. My religion, my garden, my views, my politics my business, my money.  Its my land so get out, get off.

    It is not easy to listen to Bishop Michael Curry let alone take any notice or put his theories into practice:

    Treat others as you would have them treat you.

    In its simplicity this message ends all our problems at a stroke but few will listen and fewer will take action.

    To take action is not easy. How can we turn the other cheek when those around us are out to swindle and rob us? And we them.

    I recently read about the Abolitionist Project and realised there are some decent people in the world (along with the Bishop).  What a magnificent manifesto.  And these guys – I applaud their efforts.

    And yet I am doing nothing. So many of us do nothing. Worse, so many of us not only do no good, we do actual harm.  Are there any good guys out there? Who not only preach but act?

    How about Amnesty? Are they good people? I must find out. There must be many good people and many good organisations out there. I suppose they must be heavily outnumbered by the violent and venal and greedy.

  • Art Prices are Obscene .

    Art Prices are Obscene .

    Art prices at ‘obscene’ levels as Chinese join high-spending elite  says Richard Partington, the Guardian’s economics correspondent.  Apparently, newly wealthy Chinese buyers compete with financiers and Saudi sheikhs to push up prices and “with its $450m price tag six months ago, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi remains the most expensive painting ever sold”.

    The tenor of the article is that the money could be better spent elsewhere by supporting 10,000 struggling artists for a year or by funding medical research.

    Well, yes, I quite agree.  I agree with everything he says but great art has always been patronised by great wealth and without great wealth great art would not exist. Define “great”: well look at Venice. The Doges were not nice people, not at all. And look at Florence, the same can be said about the Medicis.  Most people who create great wealth seem to be….possibly not very nice people?

    Look at Westminster Abbey and the many Norman churches built or improved after William the First invaded the country, took what he wanted, and killed thousands of the locals.  Read about the harrying of the north.  Genocide no less and yet great beauty emerged from the Normans.  But then the modern Chinese have had their moments: Tiananmen Square was not a pleasant incident, leaving aside the atrocity of Chairman Mao.  Perhaps great wealth from modern China is not untainted especially when you consider the less than attractive lives lead by the industrial workers in the soulless dormitory towns of Shenzhen.  Life is not pleasant for those people and yet their “owners” are the very people pushing up art prices on their ill gotten gains.

    So yes, art prices are “obscene” and it is madness to pay such absurd figures for a mere piece of canvass covered oil.  And yet while we live in a world where factory workers are treated like dogs for the benefit of greedy and vain fatcats, such prices are likely to remain that way.

    It isn’t that I am some crazed revolutionary or hardline Marxist. God forbid.  Who ever benefited from the dystopias created by such monsters?

    But I do yearn for a better world and am not sure where that is going to come from.  Certainly the prospect of obscene art prices on the back of near slave labour is not appealing.  But it’s not just the Chinese who are involved in such benign business practices. It’s every businessman who can get away with it.  Every business man who steals his firm’s pension fund, who sells tobacco which causes cancer, who spies on us and receives our data for free.

    Here is what we need more of: men like American Bishop Michael Curry who wowed the world today with his sermon on love at the Meghan Markle Royal Knees up.

    “When love is the way, poverty will become history. When love is the way, the Earth will be a sanctuary.”

    Here, here Bishop. I’m with you.  It is not just art which is obscene. It is our world. Sadly, I don’t think we ought to hold our breath for better days.

     

     

     

  • Meghan Markle’s Royal Knees Up

    Meghan Markle’s Royal Knees Up

    I am trying to work out in my own mind my exact feelings about Meghan Markle’s Royal Knees Up and the role of the Royal Family in general.

    It’s all a bit muddled in my mind as I have changed my position once or twice over the past 60 odd years but I reckon I now know how I feel.

    As a schoolchild I think I must have been a fervent fan of Royalty.  Certainly I was delighted to be an usher at a couple of Royal Bashes at Westminster Abbey – being at Westminster School in the grounds of Westminster Abbey, we were asked if we would like to help.  The occasions were magnificent, no other word for it.  Princess Anne’s wedding was one such occasion, the other I am ashamed to admit I can no longer recall.  I guess it all arose because the school (with origins before the 12th Century) was re-founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1560 and there has always been a royal tie.

    By the time of Prince Charles’ wedding to Diana I had become a bit jaded by privilege and wealth since I was having an utterly miserable time as a young banking lawyer at a renowned City law practice.  I vividly recall my first day there – it was like being handcuffed and chained to a desk. So I guess I became grumpy and jealous of those who appeared to lead sybaritic lives of “idleness and luxury” and had flunkies to put toothpaste on their toothbrushes.  What a childish motive I had – and envy is never a laudable trait. Nonetheless I think that is the truth of what I felt at the time.

    I became very disenchanted with the whole Diana charade, the hysteria over the death, Squidgygate, the War of the Wales and the whole silly national mourning fest.

    I was and am saddened by her violent death and her unhappiness but let’s face it she was hardly alone in misfortune. Torture, slavery, child prostitution seem equally grim fates.

    And what of Miss Meghan Markle? Well she is very beautiful and she is of black African descent somewhere along the line.  It seems to me that has to be a good thing, in the same way I was delighted by the election of President Obama for similar reasons. As with Miss Middleton, some of the relatives are a little different to those the Royal Family might be used to but that seems no bad thing.

    And what of Royalty and its role in modern Britain? Well, people seem to like them and they surely to do more good than harm?  I would rather have Queen Elizabeth at titular head of state the the truly awful Donald Trump.  Even if Royalty are un-elected they have no real political power so they can be forgiven the lack of mandate.

    Many make financial arguments – they are a waste of public money at one extreme and at the other they are claimed by some to actually help GDP by attracting tourist revenue. I have no idea where the truth lies.

    If I am to be honest I confess a smidgen of envy still for the palaces, the cars, horses, country estates and flunkeys but equally I could never have begun to do the Queen’s job.

    On balance I wish the whole lot of them well and particularly, on this their wedding day, I wish happiness and health to the young prince and his bride.

    There, I have said it.