Cat casserole: why are we outraged that people eat cats?

February 17, 2010 — xanthippa

A scandal has erupted in Italy over a famous chef’s suggestion that people should eat cat meat because it tastes good.

Well, well, well…

The 77-year-old chef, Beppe Bigazzi (OK – I could not make up a funnier name if I tried…. the jokes about cats and cat lovers ‘Bepping’ his ‘Big-Azz-i’ pracally write themselves) used his show to give out a recipe for a cat casserole.  He advised that the skinned cat ought to be soaked in spring water for 3 days, to ensure the meat is tender….and that it tastes even better than rabbit!

As a person with a pet rabbit, I’d tan his hide for that crack about rabbits, but…

Mr. Bigazzi went on to  say that it is hypocritical for people to eat some meat, then turn around and criticize people who eat dog or cat meat.  He claims that ‘cat’ is a traditional Italian dish, which he himself has eaten many times, and that it is delicious!

He may have some point: cats have, historically, been eaten in Italy and considered a delicious white meat.  But now, eating cat is illegal in Italy and Mr. Bigazzi’s big mouth-y got him into a lot of hot water….there is even talk of criminal investigation of his eating habits as a result of his comments – which he now claims were ‘a joke’.

OK – I can see that ‘eating pets’ thing happening in times of famine.  Our rules for what is acceptable and not tend to be ‘stretched’ when we see our kids starving.  But, I also know of people who would eat cat and dog meat when they had other choices:  the cultural taboo made it that much more appealing to them.

So, are we hypocrites?

Is eating cat or dog meat the same as eating beef or chicken?  Are we hypocrites if we indulge in one while condemning those who partake of the other?

This question goes much deeper than many people give it credit.  It is very closely tied to things I’ve been ranting about, on and off – like, say, that various cultures interpret the concept of ‘murder’ quite differently.   Something very similar is at the heart of this, too.

It’s about ’empathy’ and ‘drawing lines’…

As much as we think of ourselves as gentle, caring creatures, our empathy is not limitless.  The more affluent we are, the more empathy we can afford to have.  That is the nature of empathy – and that the nature of humanity!

We can only empathize with someone or something if we can, in some way, on some level, identify with them.

Actually, this is something which comes up with the whole ‘Aspergers’ thing, too.  That is when I first started to think about the nature of empathy…

Some doctors – and some books ‘out there’ by ‘experts’ claim that Aspies are not empathetic.  This could not be further from the truth!  Aspies ARE empathetic.  They just do not think that empathy is warranted in the same instances that neurotypicals (non-Aspies) do!

Plus, most Aspies find it  embarassing  when others display empathy towards us, so, we usually attempt to suppress any show of empathy on our part, in order not to add to the other person’s discomfort.  Still,the more important thing here is that Aspies will often feel empathy when neurotypicals do not think it warranted, but do not see any reason to feel empathy in many instances where people around them expect an overt show of it.

So – why do we feel empathy, and when?

When I wrote about the different interpretations of  the concept of ‘murder’ (we consider ‘killing of another human being’ to be ‘murder’, while some cultures do not consider the killing of an unfamiliar human to be ‘murder’ – but killing a familiar animal that shares their dwelling is considered ‘murder’), our reaction depends on where we draw ‘the defining line’ of  ‘expectation of non-aggression’.  In other words, just about every culture considers ‘murder’ to be killing someone or something which has an expectation of protection or non-aggression from the one doing the killing.  If that expectation of ‘safety’ is not there, it is ‘killing’, not ‘murder’.

Similarly, when we take animals into our homes and them an expectation of safety/non-aggression from us, we have now drawn the line of ’empathy’ with them solidly on ‘our’ side of the dividing line.  They share our homes and we identify with them.  Therefore, we have empathy for them.

That is the big difference between a ‘pet animal’ and a ‘food animal’.  And that is why it is not hypocritical to eat the meat of a ‘food animal’ while being upset that someone would eat  a ‘pet animal’.

A really good example of this are rabbits….

My parents grew up in a culture where rabbits were 100% in the ‘food animal’ category.  When we got my son a pet rabbit, they were scandalized!   They thought it wrong to keep a rabbit in the same rooms as we live in!  It was just ‘wrong’!

Of course, they have come to accept him.  Sort of.  They still seem shocked to see him play with their dogs as if he were a dog himself…

But it was hard for them!

When growing up, of course, they saw many rabbits.  And, as kids tend to be, they were attracted to them – rabbits, especially baby rabbits –  are uber cute!  But, because these were `food’, there were strict prohibitions against ‘playing with them’ and turning the rabbits into pets:   having to eat one’s pet is traumatic!

Here, in North America, rabbits are ‘mostly’ in the ‘pet animal’ category. My kids are scandalized at the idea of eating rabbits!

And rightly so!

Because it does not matter what the species of the animal is:  if it is in the ‘pet animal’ category somewhere deep in our brain, we identify with it as our companion (or potential companion) and we  ought to be scandalized at the thought of it being slaughtered and turned into a piece of meat!

Unfortunately, ‘food animals’ (and ‘food plants’ are on the ‘ far side’ of our ’empathy line’.  They have to be.  We can take steps to only purchase food from places where food animals had a good life and were treated with the least amount of cruelty possible at the end:  small farmers where you can see the living conditions yourself, and so on.  These days, so many people have this as their priority, it is easier to do than many people think.  Do the least amount of harm – that is the best we can do for now.

This does not make us hypocrites:  until we have Star Trek style food synthesizers,  we cannot afford to move that ’empathy’ line to embrace all living things!

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Stephen Harper got to meet Yo-Yo Ma!

October 5, 2009 — xanthippa

WOW!

WOW!

Stephen Harper actually got to meet THE GREAT Yo-Yo Ma!!!  What a lucky man!

OK – so my first reaction to this was a little bit atypical:  I am not so good at ‘typical reactions’…  And, my second reaction was:  what a waste of such a good singing voice – why didn’t Steven Harper pick a good song?

Just for his performance, I actually sat through and listened to a WHOLE Beatles song!   I guess there is a first time for everything… and, it DID have Yo-Yo Ma in it!  Even if it WAS a Beatles’ song.

For those not ‘in-the-loop’:  Laureen Harper is the ‘hands-on’ Honorary Chair of the NAC (National Arts Centre) Gala.  This year’s headliner was the legendary Yo-Yo Ma – and the event raised over half-a-million dollars for the National Youth and Education Trust.  And, with Mr. Ma’s help, Mrs. Harper convinced her husband to be a surprise performer at this year’s show!  But, there is a little more going on in the background…

Last year, Mrs. Harper’s husband (our Prime Minister) tried to re-distribute the ‘arts funding’ in two major ways:

As a pre-Olympic preparation thing, he tried to give a greater piece of the overall ‘arts-funding-pie’ to British Columbia.  This earned him the wrath of Quebec artistic elites who claimed that by giving them a smaller piece of the pie, even temporarily, Prime Minister Harper was attempting to murder Quebec culture and that he would singlehandedly destroy it…  Oh, the screeching was unbearable – and it did cost the Conservatives much support in Quebec.  (Frankly, I did not think one single Anglophone was capable of destroying Quebec culture, but the Quebec arts intelligentsia obviously have a higher opinion of Steven Harper!)

Also, he tried to shift a little bit of the funding away from supporting well-established artists and into education programs which would make arts accessible for all kids.

The horror!

Take from the professional leeches (anyone who thinks ‘government grants’ are ‘owed’ to them, because of their ‘calling’ as ‘an artist’ is a professional leech) and give to kids instead!  How will the elites remain elites, if just about everyone will understand art?!?!?  Unthinkable!

Predictably, the elitist and snobby elements from within the arts community (the loud ones – who rely on government grants for a living) started to say some nasty things about Mr. Harper.  He, in turn, lost his temper and said something about taxpayer money going to support ‘a bunch of rich people at galas’ not resonating with ‘real, hardworking people’….

They ate him alive.

The meaning of what he said -and tried to do – was lost in the rhetoric.  That whole ‘taxpayer money going to support’ bit was dropped…and the ‘galas’ part was played up…I mean, why bother with substance when one can get a snappy headline?  And the bit about bringing art education to kids….well, that was interpreted as ‘not supporting the arts’!

And here he was, this past Saturday:  performing, live, on stage with Yo-Yo Ma!

Steven Harper was revealed as a performing artist himself.  And a good one – even if he came across as a little shy….  But then again – how many of us would have the guts to get up and perform live, in front of a few thousand people?

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Harper, for showing one can love art – and still be a ‘real’ person, too!

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Diaspora and our ‘bronze-age-brains’

September 23, 2009 — xanthippa

There are two common-use meanings for this term:  diaspora and Diaspora.

The ‘little d’ diaspora refers to any (more-or-less) peaceful migration or immigration or general re-settlement of a socially cohesive group of people with a well-defined social identity into an already populated area, with no intention of integrating into the host society.  The ‘capital D’ diaspora refers to one specific ‘little d’ diaspora:  the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem by the Romans and their resultant scattering around the World.

At this point, I am only focusing on ‘little d’ diaspora.

This ‘diaspora’ is a curious concept:  a group of people who share a common ancestry/language/culture/religion – such as a tribe, or a clan, settle in an area already inhabited by ‘different people’.  Once there, they do not attempt to gain the land by conquest:  they either legally purchase it or, if the population density is low, they simply settle there and eventually claim squatter’s rights. So, there is no war.

The ‘newcomers’ are usually not perceived as hostile, so the people in the ‘host culture’ do not harbour hostility towards them.  Or, at least, not particularly so.  At the beginning.

But, we, humans, have come to be who we are by following a certain path of social evolution.

Each one of us is, first and foremost, an individual.  And, even in the most collectivistic of human societies, there is an acknowledgement (or a lament) that we are, indeed, individuals.

This fact that each of us is an individual does not, in any way, change that we are also very social:  we nurture our young and have long learned that pooling our resources can help us survive and succeed.  We don’t always agree on how much of our resources ought to be pooled, and how this pooling ought to be accomplished – but that is a different matter.

Different human societies have indeed reached different states of balance (or, imbalance) between the ‘individual’ and ‘society’.  This is only to be expected, because humans are such a prolific organism that we thrive – or, at least, survive – in greatly varying regions of the world.  These produce very different pressures (stresses) on the different human groups and their social rules that they govern themselves by.  Thus, very different attitudes, moral codes and social rules had developed.

Many people I have talked to seem to think that there is some sort of a ‘universal’ set of rules of ‘morality’ that all people subscribe to.  I am sorry to disappoint these people:  there is no such thing.  It is only because most cultures which had, historically, interacted with each other had been ones which were also in physical proximity:  thus, both a similar set of environmental pressures and long-term contact (such as trade) between the cultures served to spread ideas, learn of each other’s attitudes – in short, served as a ‘normalizing’ pressure on the development of these cultures.  This then gives an ‘appearance’ of ‘universal’ concepts of ‘right and wrong’.

Thus, this ‘universality’ is no more than an appearance.  What worked for one group of people in one specific time and place became their set of ‘right and wrong’.  Sure, if they learned a rule that seemed to produce better results, they usually found a way of incorporating this new rule into their society.  (Often, this was in the form of a new deity – which is why so many monotheistic cultures seem to freeze in their ‘moral’ development… but THAT is a completely different post!)

Isolated cultures are  prime examples of just how different ‘right and wrong’ is, depending on the pressures on the society.  Most ‘mainland’ cultures prospered if there were more offspring:  the more babies born, the more were likely to survive and become productive members of their clan, the better the clan did.  So, in most of these cultures, homosexuality (actually, most activities which would divert natural sex-drive away from baby-production) was forbidden and became considered ‘immoral’.  I remember my Anthropology prof telling us about an isolated culture on a small South Pacific island, where the overpopulation was the stress which drove the development of the society.  On this island, homosexuality was not only permitted, it was considered to be morally superior to heterosexuality!  As a matter of fact, heterosexual sex was taboo for over 300 days of the year…

The same is true of ‘murder’ – the concept of ‘killing another human being’ as ‘bad’ or ‘immoral’ is actually not all that common… as I have ranted on before.

As any physician will readily confirm, our brains are not any different from those of our bronze-age ancestors.  Sure, when we have better nutrition and vitamins, when we grow up mostly free of diseases, our brains develop into a much fuller potential then they would otherwise.  But not all our ancestors were malnurished or ill….  Our brains are have the very same physical characteristics, the same ‘blueprint’, if you will, that the brains of our bronze-age-ancestors did.

What differentiates us from our ancestors is our culture – our learning and our social attitudes.  In other words, ‘culture’ is what ‘defines us’ as ‘us’.

As opposed to ‘them’.

And this ‘them’ concept is extremely important to the way our ‘bronze-age blueprint-of-a-brain’:  because in our bronze-age past, ‘them’ could never really be trusted!  The simple fact that ‘they’ were not ‘us’, but ‘they’ meant that ‘they’ did not have a vested interest in ‘our’ survival.

That is why so many ‘ kings/chieftains’ would marry a daughter of a king/chieftain with whom they had just reached a peace-treaty:  the ‘father-king’ would have a vested interest in the survival of his grand-children, just as the ‘bride-groom-king’ has a vested interest in the survival of his own children.  This marriage and its ‘blood-bond’ reduces the ‘they’ factor and makes both sides see the other as at least a little bit more part of ‘us’.

Which brings me back to the ‘diaspora’:  the very point of a diaspora is that the newcomers do not become part of the ‘us’ which surrounds them. By the very definition of the word ‘diaspora’, these newcomers have a fully formed cultural (which includes religious) identity of their own and are not willing to compromise it in any way – especially through mingling of the blood!

In other words, the newcomers – by their choice – do not become ‘us’ to their neighbours/hosts.

This results in both sides being unable to fully trust each other:  blame our ‘bronze-aged brains’!

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Why young kids should not be ‘institutionalized’

June 22, 2009 — xanthippa

Perhaps I am a little bit more obsessive about ‘parenting’ than most people are.  Frankly, I think all kids (but especially MY kids!!!) are too precious for us NOT to be obsessive in learning all that we can about all various facets of ‘raising them’ before we decide to have them.

So, before I went on to have kids, I read up on it.  Obsessively.  Exhaustively – I hope.

Of course, this was a 15-20 years ago….before I became a parent.  So most of it was not ‘online’…and I would be hard pressed to remember all my ‘sources’!  Much less ‘look them up’ and post links to them…  Therefore, what follows cannot be categorized as anything other than my ‘never-humble-opinion’!

Still, this opinion is based on having done my homework…and having read a lot of studies – many of them not really popular with the current ‘educators’ – still, these were bona fide scientific studies, publishes and peer-reviewed and from all various spectra of scholarly schools.  I will do my best to put it into ‘common sense wording’, in order to get the main point across as clearly as possible.

In order to understand what ‘we need’, psychologically speaking, it is a good idea to examine how – historically speaking – children were raised.  It is, after all, the societies which ‘did OK’ that survived – so, considering the circumstances of how they raised their kids may help us understand which ‘circumstances’ are most favourable to raising adults who are most predisposed towards perpetuating the most successful societies.  To re-phrase:  let’s look at what ‘worked’ in the past, and what did not – and why.

The ‘traditional’ way of raising children is in an ‘extended family’ unit.

This is true of every race, on every continent…so, perhaps, we ought to take heed of this lesson.

Very young children are raised in small groups:  the younger the child, the smaller the social group it is exposed to.  This is very important, for various reasons:  but, it is easiest to think of it in terms of ‘attachment’ and ‘social bond’.

The very first bond a child traditionally forms is with its mother.

This is due to in-utero conditioning (when the mother experiences ‘good/pleasurable’ things, from food to sounds and so on – her ‘feeling good’ chemistry is shared by the foetus:  thus, some ‘preferences’ are being programmed into the brain even before one’s birth) as well as nursing/early care.  (We are talking pre-baby-bottle times…nowdays, a father can step in and forge a bond with an infant much earlier than it used to be possible ‘traditionally’.)

As the child grows a little older, immediate members of the nuclear family (plus the maternal grandmother – but that is a different post) begin to forge social bonds with the infant.

These are very important:  from ‘father’ (in addition to ‘mother’) to ‘older siblings’.  The infant is still the youngest, most vulnerable – and thus most protected – member of the family.  It is difficult to explain just how important this last bit is:  it is essential in forming the ‘I am special’ bit of the personality – the bit from which ‘self-confidence’ and natural (not twisted) sense of ‘self-worth’ come.

As the child continues to grow, it is more and more exposed to a social group of ‘siblings and cousins’.  The important thing about this ‘group’ is that there is a significant variation in the ages of the ‘siblings and cousins’ – the older one becomes, the ‘higher they rank’ – but the greater the responsibility for their younger siblings/cousins they have to shoulder!

This is a natural means through which children learn that ‘growing’ brings BOTH privileges/status AND responsibilities.  This process is very positive, good for the ‘psyche’.  Our own history has shown it to be so.

It is also a natural ‘drive’ enhancer:  one wants to ‘catch up’ to the skills of the older children, while working hard not to be ‘passed’ by the growing skills in the younger children… with ‘special allowances’ to individual variations being possible because of the ‘family’ nature of the structure:  the differences are seen as ‘special talents’ – most of the time…

To recap:  there are 3 significant aspects to ‘traditional family’ method of child rearing

  1. The size of the social group the young child is exposed to is closely tied to it’s age:  the younger the child, the smaller the social group – and the ‘clearer’ the ‘social order’ withing that group.  The younger the child, the smaller the group.  Since this ‘group’ was usually left in the care of one adult – plus the ‘older children’ – the size of this group usually did not exceed 10-12 (in the first decade of a child’s life).
  2. The ‘social order’ within this group was, to a great degree, dictated by the age of the individuals in it:  the group was made up of children of VARYING ages – which brought along a structured ‘social order’ of status coupled with age.
  3. Each child was motivated to ‘catch up’ to the older children and ‘not be caught up to/surpassed’ by the younger ones:  exceptional skill was recognized, and did not ‘denigrade’ others…but, this was a strong motivator to want to succeed.  It was a ‘natural’ way of teaching kids that as one gets older, the expectations of them grow:  to earn respect, they must grow to fill these expectations.

This was not ‘forced’: allowances were made for ‘special skills’….if one had shown a special talent in a specific field, their responsibilities would grow in that field and lessen in others.  That is the flexibility inherrent in a small, family-based unit.

Also, because the children were of different ages, they could compete constructively with each other…the older children could acknowledge the growth in the younger ones without being threatened and all that….(most of the time, anyways).

The ‘modern’ method of ‘early childhood education’ violates this process in several important ways:

  1. The size of the group  in ‘state-sponsored’ pre-school/kindergarten is much larger than the size of the social group a child would  traditionally be exposed to.
  2. In ‘state-institutionalized care’, the children are ‘sorted by age’. That means that there is – at most – 1 year age-difference between the oldest and the youngest child in the group!  This is justified by the commonality of the ‘age-appropriate developmental stage’ the children share. It is not possible to understate the destructiveness of this ‘grouping’ to the children concerned!!!

OK – let me rant on the second point:  if the implications thereof have not become clear by now!!!  And while they are ‘obvious’ to me, perhaps I ought to explore them in another post….

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Posted in education, human nature, science, society. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Book drive for kids ‘up North’

June 16, 2009 — xanthippa

Imagine living in a world where the nearest library or bookstore is a plane-ride away!

It gives me nightmares, just thinking about it…  (I love books, I collect books, I like to touch books – I like just about everything about them…including acquiring them!)

If you live in or near Ontario, here is a chance to have some books delivered to kids who live in Northern communities so distant, the only way to reach them is to fly!

Ontario’s Lieutenant General (the figurehead which represents ‘The Crown’ in Ontario) is actually doing something useful:  he is putting on a book drive for these Northern kids!

Between now and Sunday, 21st of June 2009 (this is an annual thing – check his website for the drive’s date in future years if this post has become stale), drop new books for readers 14 and under at any OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) station.  If you are in the GTA area, you can also drop them off at the Toronto Police Stations.

They’ll take the books and fly them to Northern communities:  heavy things like books are very expensive to ship there, so most kids cannot afford to get many.  Also I am rather glad that this politician is using his budget towards something useful!

OK – I am sucker for these ‘feel good’ things, people helping people.  (Even if some are politicians!)  And I am a reader – life without books, to me, would be torture!

So, I am already plotting (pun intended) the books I’ll get:  personally, I’ll skip the baby ones and aim towards the higher end of the 14-year-old age bracket….get the mind working, imagination soaring, ideas brewing… FUN!

Posted in education, society. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

From Persia to Iran: a tutorial by CodeSlinger

April 23, 2009 — xanthippa

Iran – and its colourful president Ahmadinejad – are in the news a quite lot these days…

But how many of us really know that much about how Iran became what it is today – a hard-line, fascist theocracy with a decidedly apocalyptic fetish?

While I do know a little bit of their history, my interest in the region kind of waned when they stopped building ziggurats, so I’m a little bit out of touch…  (Aside: soon, I’ll be putting up a video with instructions on how to build a model of a ziggurat, inspired by the Ziggurat of Ur – I’m in the process of preparing kits of it for a class-full of eager grade-5-ers!  Fun!)

In other words, I needed a bit of a tutorial on the more recent (say, 20th century) history of Iran.  CodeSlinger was happy to oblige!

Originally, he posted this as a part (!) of a comment to an earlier post of mine, in which he was answering several of my questions – including What is ‘Cultural Marxism’? (which became a post of its own).

With his permission, here is CodeSlinger’s tutorial on the 20th century events, through which Persia became the Iran of today:

Now that we have all that out of the way , we can see what I mean when I say that the manner in which the Pahlavi Shahs went about modernizing Iran subjected the country to the destructive effects of cultural Marxism.  I’m certainly not saying the Shah of Iran was a Marxist.  I’m pretty sure he was nominally Muslim, though he vigorously pursued the policy of secularization begun by his father, so what they really believed is hard to say.

But I don’t think either of them deliberately set out to harm their country, though the father was clearly the shrewder and more ruthless of the two.  The sense I get from reading about them is that they meant to rule well, if at all possible, but they meant to rule in any case.  The social reforms they introduced were being put into practice everywhere in the modern world at the time, but nowhere had they been in place long enough to allow the tree to be known by its fruit.

The father first appears on the stage of history as Reza Khan, commander of the Persian Cossack Brigade, which he used to seize control of Persia and put and end to the Qajar dynasty in 1923, upon which he became Reza Shah and took the surname Pahlavi.  Being broke, in danger of being swallowed by the Russians, and in danger of being overthrown by the Shiite Imams, Reza Shah implemented a strongly anti-communist police state and gave carte-blanche to the British.

To weaken the Shiites, he mandated European dress for men and supported the so-called Women’s Awakening, which included allowing women to work outside the home and banning the chador (!) in 1931.  Another move calculated to weaken the Imams was finalizing the release of the Jews from the ghettos and repealing restrictions on their entry into the professions.  Anyone in government who seriously opposed him was killed.  In the process, he became one of the richest men in Persia, became loved by the city dwellers but alienated the majority of the population, who were still country folk and devout Muslims, and got into a major confrontation with the Imams.

When he felt strong enough, he turned on the British and broke their stranglehold on the country’s infrastructure.  He cancelled the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s concession, took control of the currency away from the British Imperial Bank, and nationalized the telegraph system.  He encouraged trade with Germany and Italy to further weaken British and Russian influence.  He also changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran, which means Land of the Aryans in Farsi.  Even so, he declared neutrality when World War II broke out, and allowed neither the Axis nor the Allies to operate on Iranian soil.

Not that it helped him.  In 1941, the British and the Russians, whom he had so far successfully played off against each other, joined forces and occupied Iran — ostensibly because they needed a route by which the Allies could supply war materiel to the Russians, but recouping losses was definitely part of the agenda.  The first thing the British did was force Reza Shah to abdicate in favour of his son, who, they correctly assumed, would be easier to handle.  So Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of Iran at the age of 22.

In any case, Anglo-Persian Oil Company resumed operations under the new name of Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and carried on until 1951, when Mohammed Mosaddeq got the Iranian parliament to vote him in as Prime Minister after engineering a coalition that nationalized the company.  In response, Anglo-Iranian pulled all of its people out of Iran and the British navy blockaded the Persian Gulf, which cut off oil revenues and turned Iran into a pressure cooker.

Mosaddeq assumed emergency powers, stripped the Shah of money and authority, and broke off diplomatic relations with Britain.  The Shah fled the country.  All kinds of factions emerged and before long, everybody was stabbing everybody else in the back.  Mosaddeq’s manoeuvrings became increasingly desperate and totalitarian, and this gave the British MI6 what they needed to convince the American CIA that Mosaddeq might get in bed with the communists in a last-ditch effort to keep himself in power.  The CIA mounted Operation Ajax in cooperation with MI6.

To make a long story short, the CIA threw a lot of money around, played everyone against everyone and engineered a coupe that deposed Mosaddeq and put the Shah back on the throne in 1953.  All the gory details of Operation Ajax can be found <a href=”http://web.payk.net/politics/cia-docs/” rel=”nofollow”>here</a>, if you’re interested.  In the end, Anglo-Iranian became British Petroleum, took the lead of a consortium of oil companies, and resumed production.  To consolidate his power, the Shah created a new secret police called SAVAK, whose agents were trained by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad (!) and beefed up the Iranian army, which was funded and equipped by the Americans.  Then he proceeded with his White Revolution in 1963, which we have already touched on.

All of this, of course created the perfect set-up for the backlash that dethroned the Shah for the second and last time in 1979 and put Khomeini firmly in control of Iran.  And for all the reputation that SAVAK had for brutality and torture, its replacement, called VEVAK, has a reputation for being a hundred times worse — of course, not much hard information is available outside Iran, since VEVAK operates without government supervision, but instead answers directly to the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — in any case, the stories that are told are perfectly consistent with the methods known to be used by their friends and neighbours, the Taliban.

So, who are the good guys in this story?  I’ll be damned if I can find any.  If I had to pick anybody as the least bad, I guess it would have to be the Shah, but that isn’t saying much.  Not much at all.

However, it’s interesting to note the speculations that the CIA has backed every player in this game since the 1940’s, including Khomeini–!  Why would they do that?  Because it gives them leverage no matter how the balance comes out.  And in the present circumstances, that means leverage to manipulate the level of tension in the region to whatever level they need to set the price of oil where they want it, while justifying whatever level of military presence they deem necessary to keep control of Persian Gulf oil fields out of Russian and Chinese hands.  At the same time, it breeds terrorism, which they can use as a scourge of fear to justify increasingly repressive measures against their own population, back home in America.

As Baron Harkonnen said to Muad D’ib, “there are feints within feints within feints.”

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Who will dominate the emerging cultural hegemony?

March 9, 2009 — xanthippa

Recently, I have been re-reading a book by Eduard Storch called ‘Minehava’: in it, the history teacher/anthropologist turned author explores how and why early European tribal peoples turned from matrilinear societies into patrilinear ones.  Since his books targeted about the same age-group as Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver, the explanations are a ‘little simplified’.  But, the basics are there:  population growth leads to greater population density, more ‘intercultural contact’ leads to increased need for resources, assuring survival of the culture more willing to assert its dominance…

It got me started thinking about just how great a societal uphaval the change must have been.  The adjustment to the expectations of the new social order must have been significant.

Now, we are also going through a bit of ‘societal upheaval’.

Of course, things are more complex now:  the larger a human society is, the more complex ‘running it’ becomes.  And, the ‘societal upheaval’ we are undergoing now is also much more complex.  Yet, deep down we know that it is nothing less than the beginnings of the integration of all humans into one, global culture.

Let’s face it – that is what is happening.  Whether we jump on the bandwagon quickly and work towards an integrated political system (world government) or not, the ease and speed of communication and immigration means that human societies throughout the world are indeed in the early stages of global cultural integration.  (The economic bit had started quite a while ago…)

So, how will this play out?

Will the ‘best’ values and cultural practices ‘win’?

We could have a long and heated debate on what ARE the ‘best’ values and cultural practices – and not come to an agreement. (Actually, a brawl is a more likely outcome…over the internet, a vitrual brawl, but brawl none-the-less!)  Yet, that debate would be mute.  Because THAT is not the deciding factor for selecting the dominant factors in our emerging cultural hegemony…

Throughout human history, we have seen that it is not the ‘wise’ whose opinions are followed – perhaps for a little while, but not in the long run.  Nor is it the ‘numerous’. And, let’s not even raise ‘the voice of reason’:  it only alienates the ‘unreasonable majority’!

Instead, it is those who are the ‘loudest’ whose voices dictate the course of human history!

Those who are the most stubborn, uncompromising and who are willing to drown-out all competing voices (regardless of how ruthlessly) – THOSE are the voices which always (eventually) come to dominate any dialogue – and it is THEY who eventually succeed in having their own values and practices imposed on the whole of society as the cultural ‘norms’.  Just look around!

Can we do anything to ensure that our voice – the voice of those who espouse freedoms of thought and speech, the voice which respects each individual – can we do anything to make sure that THAT voice is not drowned out?  That it is not silenced forever, destined to be nothing more than a footnote in the histry about ‘extinct cultures’?

I don’t know.

It may be too late.

And even if it were NOT too late, I don’t know if this voice would even stand a chance.  After all, when one’s very principles require one to treat others as equals – only to be treated (according to thier principals) back as an inferior – that tends to limit one’s ability to achieve ‘things’ (like, say, the survival of one’s ideas and ideals).

(I know I am expressing this poorly, sorry – I just don’t know how to say it better!  What I mean is that just like a person who will not use violence, even in self-defense, does not stand a chance of survival against a gang of those intent to do violence to her, so the voice which will not silence others will have little chance to be heard over the noise raised by its opponents who have no such scruples.  And, losing these ‘scruples’ would be to stop being that voice…)

So, what CAN we do?

Very little.

Aside from shouting as loudly as we can, without inhibbiting anyone else’s ability to shout, the only thing we can – and MUST – do is to teach people, especially young people, to question.

To question EVERYTHING.

Yes, it is not much.  And, it can be trying (yes, I AM raising a teenager!).  But teaching people to question everything:  from political correctness to their own views – secular, religious or whatever… from science to cultural practices, from teachers and parents to their friends – that is what will teach them to evaluate for themselves which ideas and ideals are worthy of keeping, and which are not.

And THAT is teaching them to exercise the freedom of thought!

I cannot think of any weapon that would be more powerful.

Which brings me to my last question:  can we arm enough young people with this weapon to make a difference?

I don’t know….  But, I’ll die trying!

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The concept of ‘murder’ is not ‘universal’

January 30, 2009 — xanthippa

In the dawn of civilization, we lived in smaller groups – sometimes little more than extended families of 20-30 people.  The actual number depended on many factors, such as the environment, population density, how developed our societies were and what they depended on for sustenance, and so on.

For thousands of years, these earliest societies hardly ever grew to more 150 people – the Dunbar’s number – and formed our monkeysphere.  In these small communities, we could care about each person as an individual:  we knew them, their family, and we could relate to them on  an individual, personal level.  This group was what we related to as ‘we’ or ‘us’.  Everyone else was ‘them’, an outsider.

This is very important, because these concepts of ‘us’ and ‘them’ were key in the evolution of our concept of morality.

For example, the Yanomamo of the Amazon basin live in relatively isolated ‘traditional villages’.  They have a very specific understanding of the concept of  ‘murder’.  ‘Murder’, in their view, is killing someone or something ‘of the village’.  Killing a person who is ‘not of the village’ is ‘killing, not ‘murder’.  For the Yanomamo, killing a dog or a chicken that lives in the village is just as much ‘murder’ as killing a person who is ‘of the village’.

After all, everyone living ‘in the village’ forms a community which shares social bonds and therefore has an expectation of trust from the other members of the community.  It is killing a being with whom one shares social bonds that defines ‘murder’ for the Yanomamo.  The act of transgressing against the social bonds, the breaking of  trust which was built up through living together in one community, that constitutes ‘murder’.

This little example shows how a concept we consider universal can be thought just as universal, yet interpreted completely differently in other societies.

As we ‘scaled up’ our communities and instituded rules/laws – rather than direct resolution of specific actions – to govern our behaviour, we have moved from the early, Yanomamo-style concept of ‘murder’=’breaking social bonds of trust’ to the more general concept of ‘murder’=’killing a human’.

It is we, ‘The Westerners’, who have a shifted our moral concepts somewhere along our society’s development.  Instead ‘drawing the line’ based on ‘trust’ and ‘social bonds’, we have made them more abstract (emotionally) choice:  we base in to genetic similarity, belonging to the same species.

Yes, it is much more complex than just ‘genetic similarity’…  The strong and undeniable influence of Christian doctrines of ‘soul’ and their separation between ‘human’=’soul’ and ‘non-human’=’no soul’ probably has a lot to do with why our ancestors shifted their definition of ‘murder’ from ‘breaking the expectation of trust’ to ‘killing a member of our species’.  The root cause is not the point here – the fact that it happened is.

We can still see the ‘old morality’ hold true in some of our attitudes:  many of us struggle with the cultural understanding that killing an enemy soldier during war does not constitute ‘murder’, while killing a stranger on the street during peacetime does.  These ‘conflicting attitudes’ have been much remarked upon.  Still, most people who comment on it miss the true significance of this apparent contradiction:  this is a vestige of our original, ‘human’ concept of ‘murder’ – from before we drew an abstract line around ‘human’ and began to consider it to be ‘absolute’.

This is a clear and undeniable demonstration that it is our own cultural morals which have deviated from their original meanings.

There is nothing wrong with that – societies evolve and so do their ideas of morality.  Evolving our morals to keep pace with social evolution is usually a good thing – in my never-humble-opinion.  I am not criticizing that in the least. Yet, I am calling attention to the fact that most of us still have trouble even conceiving of the very idea that OUR understanding of what constitutes morality is not universal!

Hinduism, for example, has a much broader concept of what constitutes ‘murder’ than we, in ‘the West’ do.  While the very idea of ‘soul’ originated in the area of today’s India (and influenced certain mystic Jewish sects, like the Essenes – via whom Christianity acquired the concept of the divine soul), the Hindus do not limit the concept of ‘soul’ to just humans.  Therefore, their idea of ‘murder’ is also different from our ‘Western understanding’.  To pious Hindus, killing any living being constitutes ‘murder’.

And Islam teaches that all Muslims are members of the same greater family (Umma), or tribe: to be a Muslim is to be one of ‘us’ – non-Muslims are ‘they’.  Therefore,  killing a member of the Umma is ‘murder’….but killing someone who is not a Muslims (and therefore not a member of the Umma, not one of ‘us’) is not ‘murder’, it is just ‘killing’.  The ‘Umma’ may have grown beyond a single village, but the concept of ‘being of the Umma’ has not!

Understanding this is essential in order for people form different cultures to communicate effectively.  This is especially important as we are reaching the next stage of ‘scaling up of our communities‘ – this time on the global scale.

When negotiating how we integrate our cultures (because that is what is happening, like it or not), none of us (all sides) must fall into the error of considering our interpretation of deep concepts, of what constitutes ‘morality’, to be somehow ‘universal’.

Doing so would only lead to deep misunderstandings which lead to conflict and suffering.

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Happy Halloween – not ‘black and orange day’!

October 31, 2008 — xanthippa

Today is October 31st – HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It is a most fun day – kids (young and old) plan fun costumes for weeks and decorate their houses.  Yet, the ‘Politically Correcet Creeps’ have started casting their shadow over even this innocent fun.

Schools have started to ‘replace’ Halloween with ‘black and orange day’!

Children are discouraged (or actively forbidden) from wearing costumes, Halloween-related activities are not happening, the spark of joy is being choked out of yet another beautiful tradition.

Why?

Because, we are told, some ‘Wiccans may be offended because it is a religious holiday for them’….

Well, I know many active Wiccans – and every single one of them is offended that Halloweeen should be replaced by ‘black and orange day’!!!  It may be a cross-quarter day – but the fun festivities and celebrations that everyone partakes in according to their taste and likes enriches the holiday experience for everyone, not takes away from it – in the eyes of Wiccans. 

After all, it is not a religious holiday for others, so why should it bother Wiccans how they celebrate it?  They’re happy people are finding time to have a little fun, because Wicca teaches that joy and sharing and finding pleasure in the ‘big and little things’ is a very important part of life!

‘Sanitizing’ all forms of fun  – THAT is offensive!

Deciding FOR the Wiccans that they ‘ought to’ be offended – then censoring everyone else to spare them this offence –THAT is offensive!

Sorry, I just loose it when I see bullies, banning and censoring everyone around them, claiming to do it ‘on behalf of’ someone else….without actually caring what that ‘other one’ thinks, because it really is just a convenient vehicle to drive their own agenda and nothing else…  Ok, so I don’t like bullies in any shape or form…and people who bully others and are not even aware they are doing it (or try to dress the bullying up so that they hope you will not realize you are being bullied) – well, they drive me mad.

So, what about other reasons being used to sour this sweet holiday?

Bad nutrition….  Yeah, pull the other one! 

My kids LOVE ‘getting’ candy on Halloween!  It is fun, exciting and they spend hours with their friends trading this tid-bit for that one….  and, I usually throw 90% of it out during Christmass cleaning…  I honestly don’t know anyone who actually eats ALL the Halloween candy and chips they get! 

Though, I have seen many kids donate sealed ‘semi-nutritious’ snacks to their schools’ ‘forgotten lunch pantry’ – where kids who forget their lunch can get someting to tide them over.  And, since my older son is too old to trick-or-treat, but he does walk his brother through the neighbourhood for safety, my younger son automatically splits his loot between them when they get home!  So, in effect, getting rid of ‘trick-or-treating’ is going to reduce our kid’s ability to be charitable and sharing, from things that are their own.  ‘Wonderful’ lesson…

Oh, but costumes are too expensive for some families.

OK, here is what I paid for my son’s costume:  $1.99 for face paints (Enough for a few kids’ faces), $2.00 for 2m of fabric (bought on sale at a fabric store for $1.00/m).  $0.99 for an elastic waistband.  That’s it.  I already owned some thread, a needle, some scissors….   And, some years in the past, we used ‘outgrown clothes’ for materials to make the costumes out of.  One year, we made a fancy cape by ‘borrowing’ a tablecloth and 2 pillows….once through the wash, all were ‘good as new’! 

Plus, sewing costumes is ‘OK’ for boys, as well as girls!  So, now my boys have acquired a skill… not that they boast of it.  But, they HAVE it!

My first Halloween in Canada (I was too old to ‘trick-or-treat’, but a few of us dressed up to chaperone my friend’s younger brother as he went around.  I was MOST impressed that my friend’s step-mom had also dressed up – and unabashedly had fun!  That was most excellent – it was OK to be silly!

I had a ball!  But, my family was VERY short of cash then….so I had to borrow some makeup (my friend’s step-mom had fun ‘doing me up) and I used our curtains and drapes to make a ‘fancy ghostly gown’ for an evening, uning clips (no cutting, no sewing, no pin-holes allowed)!  Cost?  $0.00.  Fun?  100%!

Which brings me to the last major objection:  immigrants might be unfamiliar and alienated.

As an immigrant, who was completely unfamiliar with this Halloween custom prior to arriving in Canada, let me put these fears to rest.  THEY ARE NONSENCE!

Halloween was EXCELLENT for me!  By teaching me about it, and helping me get my costume together, I got WAY closer to the people who would eventually grow to be my friends!  It was ‘an opening’ to talk to me – an opportunity to talk about more than just math homework…  My classmates felt good telling me all about Halloween.  Doing this, they were including me – all the while they were proud to show off this most fun holiday – and now I was PART of ‘IT’! 

It was just what was needed for this awkward, shy immigrant kid was to no longer just keep her head burried in a textbook and watch everyone from the sidelines – people MADE me PART of the celebrations!  I had fun!

I truly felt included! 

If anything, NOT celebrating Halloween will REDUCE the oppotunities for newly arrived immigrants to socialize, to make friends, to successfully integrate!  And it will suck another bit of enjoyment out of living…

So, what do I have to say to those who would erode yet another cultural icon?

Quoth Xanthippa:  NEVERMORE!

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Immigrants: escaping the ‘self-imposed ghettos’

June 19, 2008 — xanthippa

Over the last few years, people all over the world have noticed ‘problems with immigrants’.

Failure to integrate leads to demands for the host culture to adapt to the immigrants, rather than the immigrants adapting to the culture and accepting the customs of their adoptive land.  Perpetuation of non-integration leads to immigrant-youth alienation, which, in turn, leads to immigrant-youth radicalization.  This leads to a vicious cycle of conflict between immigrants and their host cultures.

BUT IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!!!

Immigrants come to their new, carefully selected homeland filled with dreams and hopes….  I know I did!!!  Along with these, there are also a few apprehensions, or dowright fears.  The greatest fear which I, as an immigrant, personally faced in coming to a new land is that of ‘the unknown’.

Yes, most of us educate ourselves about our new land before arriving here.  We study the demographics, the political system, the statistics about the population.  Yet, the textbooks can never capture the essence of the landscape, TV-documentaries never reveal the true atmosphere of a place – at best, these are mere glimpses that can help prepare us for the reality which our new homeland will be.

And we want there to be differences! If there were none, there would have been no point to having left our birthplaces!  We come here for the differences!

So, it is not the fact that there are differences that is frightening.  Rather, it is the not knowing the scope of the differences….and how we will be able to understand them and learn to adjust to them.  It is sort of like going through one’s teens all over again – but without the benefits of youth!  That is a very real fear most of us immigrants do face when we first arrive.

It is natural that we should reach out to others, who have gone through this before us.  Especially the members of our original ethnic groups who will have experienced these differences already, and know how to explain them in cultural and linguistic terms that are easiest for us to understand.  It is comforting to the new immigrant to see people who came from similar backgrounds are thriving and happy here, and we try to learn from thier experiences.  And that is good – usually…

As with everything, too much of a good thing becomes poisonous.

So it is with this type of help. 

The first, and perhaps most obvious, danger is that the person(s) doing the explaining of the customs have not successfully integrated themselves, that their understanding of the mainstream culture and how to integrate into it is flawed. 

This does not, in any way, shape or form, imply that there is any malice or ill intent here.  To the contrary.  There are many immigrants who misunderstand or misinterpret much of the cultural mainstream about them, and only partially succeed in integrating.  Perhaps their professional skills and/or their tenacity allow them to succeed economically, but they simply do not have the time, skills or desire to integrate socially.  Perhaps their social obligations to non-integrated members of the community hold them hostage.

It does not mean that they are any less intelligent, or any less ‘cultured’!  Not in the least!  Being able to successfully integrate into another society requires a specific set of skills, and ‘intelligence’ is not a deciding factor in these.  Nor is the ‘previous culture’, the one they are coming from, necessarily an indicator of how successful will be their social integration.  I really do not know what the indicators are, or what the required skills are – though mastering the language does have a lot to do with it.  Simply, I have observed that this phenomenon of ‘partial integration’ cuts across cultures, professions, education levels – even perceived ‘people skills’.

The people who have only partially integrated then naturally cleave towards other immigrants, who are a ‘fresh source’ of contact with their ‘original culture’.  After all, intelligent, sociable people have a need for ‘cultured expression’.  Those for whom the host culture is incomprehensible – or, at least, viewed in a skewed way – will seek out immigrants in order to satisfy this need to sustain the ‘cultured’ part of their soul. 

In turn, they honestly try to be helpful to the newcomers, helping them establish themselves here….mirroring their own un-integrated ways!  And much of what they do is helpful – yet, at what cost…

This is strike one against many new immigrants:  the very help they receive may, indeed, perpetuate misconceptions about the host society and actively prevent the new immigrants from successfully integrating within it.

The second, much less ‘visible’ or ‘correctible’ danger is ‘social indebtedness’.

One of the best human qualities is our reciprocity in kindness.  It is what we need for that most human of things:  building communities. It is one of our best qualities – yet, it is also this very same quality which may shackle immigrants and prevent them from successfully integrating into their host society.

When we receive help from someone – someone who is truly interested in helping us, not one who is trying to somehow get an advantage by doing things for us, but who is genuinely doing things because they want to help us, we feel truly gratefull, and ‘well-inclined’ towards them.  We wish to reciprocate their kindness.  Through this benevolence, this ‘reciprocity of voluntary kindnesses’, communities are built – one relationship at a time. 

In order to successfully itegrate, an immigrant needs to turn to its host society to satisfy her/his cultural needs. 

If this does not happen, there will not be anything but the most superficial integration.  It is therefore ESSENTIAL that these ‘community bonds’ be establilshed with members of the mainstream society – NOT that of the socially un-integrated immigrant community!

Yet, it is exactly within the un-integrated elements of the immigrant community that a newcomer to a society will find help, and it is with these people that the social bonds will begin to be built through ‘reciprocity of kindnesses’.

Before they realize it, many immigrants find themselves living (socially and/or physically) in a self-imposed ghettos, made up of immigrants from their background, who have not integrated into the host society.

As the size of this ‘ghetto’ grows, the need to integrate decreases.  Once the ‘community’ is large enough to satisfy both the economic and social needs of the immigrants, there will be little incentive to interact (much less integrate into) the host society.  Even worse:  any desire or attempt to integrate (outside the immigrant community) will be perceived by the ‘helpful’ elements within this sub-culture as ‘being ungrateful’ for the help received.  After all, this would be a rejection of their version of the host society – and, in effect, the rejection of the benefactors themselves!!!

Nobody wishes to be ungrateful or disrespectful of the very people who have gone out of their way to help her/him.  Eventually, there will be very strong pressure on the new immigrant to reject integration into the host society.

So, how do we escape this self-imposed ghetto?

I don’t know a ‘good’ way of going about this.  I know how I escaped – but I also know ‘my way’ cannot possibly work for everyone…. 

I escaped by ‘being eccentric’.

I’m the first one to admit it – I am eccentric.  And, ‘eccentric’ is one of ‘them irregular words’:

  1. I am ‘original’/’free thinker’
  2. You are ‘eccentric’
  3. he/she/it is ‘certifiably nuts’

I know I hurt people’s feelings along the way – people who were nice people, and tried to help me the best they could.  But, I was ‘equal’ in my treatment of others and rejection of their ‘help’.  Soon, my ‘would-like-to-be-benefactors’ realized that I was indeed grateful to them, in my own way, it’s just that I was a bit weird…. and incredibly pig-headed, headstrong and perhaps even a little bit stubborn! 

So, socially, I was ‘written off’ as a ‘lost cause’….. 

Still, when I became of ‘marrigable age’, there were MANY attempts to find an ‘appropriate match’ for me from within the ‘immigrant community’.  I suspect that male or female, all young immigrants – and children of immigrants – go through this to some degree.  And I also understand that this is really meant in the best possible way. 

But, well, that way, self-ghettoization lies! 

Again, I know I was seen as rude – but in the most polite way I could manage (yes, that is not saying much…), I rejected ALL ‘help’ equally.  I did understand the desire to help me drove these efforts, and thanked my ‘benefactors’ for their efforts, even as I rejected them.  As politely as possible, but firmly and definitely. 

My best help in this came from my parents.  They were supportive of my desire to fully integrate.  Had they had a different set of morals, had they thought my desire to actually exercise the freedoms my adopted homeland afforded me was an attack upon them and their honour, I might not have had the desire or courage to make my integration complete.  And to them go  my eternal thanks for empowering me like this!

In times when so many immigrants live in self-imposed ghettos, it is important for those of us who have succeeded in integrating into our host cultures to share our experiences and insights.  It is imperative that we go out of our way to help all other immigrants – not just those from out specific background – succeed the way we have, so they, too, may enjoy all that our new homeland has to offer us! 

It is just as important that we do identify ourselves as immigrants to ‘the mainstream culture’ – in order to make people see that immigrants CAN successfully integrate!  And, of course, to reassure them that we came here BECAUSE of thier culture and customs, and that we, the immigrants, want them preserved at all costs!!!

Therefore, it is also imperative that we, the well-adjusted immigrants, oppose most vehemently and most vocally the erosion of values in the cultures of our adoptive homelands!!!  We are the ones who MUST LEAD the forces that protect the cultures and customs whose protections we sought when we were the most vulnerable! 

After all, this is the only way we will be able to preserve our host cultures!  We have NOT picked them lightly, we picked them because we liked them. 

Perhaps we each and every immigrant is not completely comfortable with all aspects of the host culture, but the whole is what we came for, and this whole cannot exist without the bits we are not all that comfortable with….so we must protect ALL OF IT!!!! 

All right, I know I am ranting now – but, well, this is something really, really important! 

I do not wish to loose all that my adoptive homeland has to offer – especially its culture!  I came here for the benfits the ‘Western culture’ of individualism has to offer – and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to preserve it for my children to enjoy!!!

Posted in freedoms, human nature, illusions, immigrants, language, opression, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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