December 2009
Tue 22nd
Instead, I would rather that they shoplift. My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.
Mon 21st
Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good…
There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.
— Oscar Wilde, The soul of man under Socialism
I can’t quite bring myself to agree, but I’m not entirely convinced he’s wrong. To minimise (on the personal scale) the evil effects of a system is to defend and perpetuate that system. This is even more true when the evil effects are not an unfortunate side-effect but the natural outcomes of the system.
Or, to put it elsewise, “using private property for good” is just a way of justifying your own participation and competition in that system. It might be intended as an act of subversion, but it’s not a particularly effective one. 2 Comments
Thu 17th
What I don’t get is the kind of deliberate delusion in which a person chooses to pretend the world is more horrifying and filled with more and more-monstrous monsters. Why would anyone prefer such a place to the real world? Why would anyone wish for a world filled with socialist conspiracies, secret Muslim atheists, Satan-worshipping pop stars and bloodthirsty baby-killers?
— Slacktivist, Preferring Nightmares
あなた
This is by way of a lead-in to a post on identity and labels I have percolating.
Japanese manners of address are fascinating, because they contain so much information. Usually, a person is addressed with some combination of name and descriptive suffix.
The suffixes express relationships (and, incidentally, power dynamics), with examples (and rough meanings) like san (Ms/Mr), sensei (teacher), senpai (senior), oniisan (older brother), chan (cute wee thing), or kun (little buddy.)
There’s also a solid hierarchy of formality → intimacy. From least to most intimate:
- Family name, suffix (Wilson-san)
- Given name, suffix (Matt-san)
- Given name (Matt)
- “you” (あなた, anata)
Anata is usually reserved for the closest of intimate partners – spouses or lovers. Given names with no prefix are for romantic partners and, perhaps, very close friends. Family names with a suffix are the default, first names with a suffix for good friends. (English obviously has parallels with use of titles, given names etc.; Japanese just makes it a little more apparent.)
The thing I find most interesting about all of this is that the more intimate the form of address, the less information is carried.
The more intimate the situation or relationship, the less cultural notions of identity seem to matter.
If you don’t know someone well, you address them in a way that makes explicit your mutual status, and in terms of their family. If you know them a little better, you still define them by status, but no longer by their family. (Names also carry cultural implications – “a good family,” “a noble name” etc.) And in the most intimate situations, there are no labels, no carried meaning, nothing more than the other person’s self.
Women in the News
First, this article, headlined “Women caught drink-driving overnight”
…although, as it turns out, it wasn’t only women. In fact:
Police pulled over 7524 cars at checkpoints in Manukau and Papakura overnight. In total, 81 drivers would be making court appearances, facing charges of excessive breath alcohol. Thirty-two of those caught were women, Inspector Heather Wells said.
So, a little less than 40% of those caught were women. Perhaps a better headline would have been “More women than usual caught drink-driving, but still fewer than the number of men.” Although we don’t even know that it’s more than usual, as the only ‘stat’ is the less-than-useful “years ago, it was just men were dumb enough to drink drive, but this appears to be changing.”
Secondly, an unpleasant little dose of blame-the-victim in “Celeb sex victim ‘angry’ at name suppression”:
The girl [the victim of the attack], now 17, said she had been subjected to cruel and untrue stories about her reputation since the court case.
…and:
“Afterwards, the police rang me and said that the musician was offering $200 to go towards a charity,” she said.
“They suggested I should ‘have some compassion’. My dad went berserk about that.”
I just love that. “They suggested I should ‘have some compassion’.” You know, for the guy who shoved his junk in an unwilling 16-year-old girl’s face. The dude just needs some love and understanding, people.
Sat 5th
Next, the team asked another group of volunteers to undertake tasks designed to soften their existing views, such as preparing speeches on the death penalty in which they had to take the opposite view to their own. They found that this led to shifts in the beliefs attributed to God, but not in those attributed to other people.
November 2009
Wed 25th
…retired hairdressers volunteered to cut the hair of out-of-work electricians, who would wire their kitchens in return; retired English teachers gave language lessons in return for the services of a dog-walker. The point was, not a single pfennig changed hands.
Morality, Compassion and the Sociopath
‘First, sociopaths are driven by unsentimental observation of external realities, no matter how unpleasant. Second, they use the information they acquire through reality-grounding in skilled ways. Third, their distrust of subsuming communities and groups leads them to adopt personal moralities. Whether good or evil, the morality of a sociopath is something he or she takes responsibility for.’ [356 words]
Read More (4 Comments)
Tue 10th My year of living without money:
Is it possible to live without spending any cash whatsoever? After becoming disillusioned with consumer society, one man decided to give it a try.
Squeee! 1 Comment
This makes me angry
Cop forced prostitute into sex:
Nathan Thorose Connolly, a former Christchurch policeman, is on trial for extorting free sex from a prostitute – on several occasions in the back of his patrol car. […]
He told her he could give her $1000-worth of fines for her unwarranted and unregistered car.
He did not fine her but rather took her in his marked police car to a cemetery in Belfast where they had sex.
In case that isn’t bad enough by itself, there’s this:
The defence would say that the complainant agreed to the sex and enjoyed it because it was “kinky” having sex with a policeman.
Connolly never said anything threatening and the prostitute never asked for money, Eaton said.
Because, you know, the threat of $1000 worth of fines hanging over your head is “kinky” rather than “blackmail.” And oh, sorry, it can’t be a threat because “he never said anything threatening.” What the fuck.
