My son told me I had to read this guy’s essays – they were brilliant!
I have barely ‘scratched the surface’ – but I do agree with him. His ‘news’ feed is also interesting.
Enjoy!
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Kindergarten: why this is bad for kids – and for society
November 18, 2009 — xanthippaThis is not an easy explanation – please, indulge me. I promise to make sense of it at the end.
For a century or so now, many experts have argued about what is more instrumental in determining a person’s fate: their nature (genetic predispositions) or nurture (the environment in which they are raised). Many experts today agree that there is some sort of a mixture of the two. I am not attempting to determine where this balance lies: I am simply making some observation that when very different social expectations are placed on young people, their very sense of ‘self’ – as defined with respect to society, how they belong, and so on, will be very different. And, that these grown ups will have very, very different expectations of their role in society and the role of society in their lives.
Let me use some examples…
Imagine a life in a village. Life is not so easy, and ‘everyone’ has to pitch in to help.
Most childcare is done through family: depending on the birthrate, either through immediate (nuclear) family, or by extended family. In these scenarios, the children would (usually) be in a group of 5-10 kids, either siblings, or siblings and cousins – looked after by their mother or a close female relative. Within this group, there would be kids of varying ages: from infants on up. It would be unusual for this group to have ‘many’ kids of exactly the same age.
Because the kids are of varying ages, there are differing expectations placed on them: the older ones are expected to help/be protective of/mentor the younger ones. This is very important, for several reasons.
It set up a ‘natural pecking order’ – one that was clear, obvious and acceptable: the older kids were higher up the social ladder than the younger ones. The expectations of them were higher – but, this went hand-in-hand with their increased prestige and social status within the group. Yes, the kids were all expected to learn skills – from the adults, as well as from the older kids. Not wanting to be surpassed in skills by the younger ones was an important motivator for learning and perseverance…
But, and this is perhaps most important, there were small, incremental successes. Every time a child held a younger sibling or cousin to calm their crying, every time they would feed the younger ones, or change diapers, or teach them to throw pebbles at the birds eating the harvest, or how to make a whistle from a willow twig – this would be an accomplishment.
These accomplishments will each – taken separately – be very small. But that does not make them unimportant! Together, these accomplishments add up. And
It is precisely through these small accomplishments that the person will self-define: each one builds the child’s self-confidence, confirming their important role in their social group, giving worth to their membership in that group. It gives them a sense of ‘ worthy belonging’.
And let’s not kid ourselves – we all have a need to belong, we all feel better when we know we are needed!
Of course, if one’s skills in a particular field are great, that individual may ‘skip up’ a few rungs in the social order. And, some societies only open specific roles to boys or girls, which may be detrimental to specific individuals. I do not deny that, nor do I claim this system is ‘perfect’. I simply comment on it, observing that in a small social group of children of varying ages, the social hierarchy/order is relatively easy to establish and learn for a young child, and that one’s expectations of ‘how to live and fit in’ are in accepting help/guidance from those ‘higher up’ the hierarchy, and in being protective of and being expected to help those lower down on that ladder. This develops both a sense of worth and reciprocity towards the group, but also of empathy with the other kids who will grow up into one’s peers.
In other words, this child grows up expecting society where reciprocity is the social norm and each individual is expected to be an active participant in the giving and receiving and will have a healthy sense of self-worth and connectedness with their society.
Now, let us consider another child, growing up in a society which is structured very differently….
Parents are expected to work in a structured environment, away from home. From an early age, children go to nursery school/kindergarten.
There, in order to facilitate ‘learning’ at ‘age-appropriate level’, they are grouped by age: each group of 15-50 children of the same age are put together into a ‘class’ and assigned one or more ‘teachers’, possibly with several ‘assistants’ or ‘helpers’. Thus, the adult-to-child ratio may be only slightly higher than in the previous scenario (it may even be the same), but the group itself is homogeneously composed of ‘peers’.
This sets up a very different social dynamic…
They are all peers!
There is no ‘easy’ way to establish a ‘pecking order’.
This, in itself, is rather disturbing to even young kids who generally need to understand where they fit in, socially. Interacting with a large number of ‘peers’, introduced and maintained as equals, is not natural to our psychological development – at least, not at the age of 3-5 years! So, this can be very, very confusing and instead of ‘age’ or ‘achievement’, social order in such a group (and there is always a social hierarchy in every group of humans) is decided by innate ‘dominance’ or ‘aggression’.
In addition, ‘mentoring’ or any attempt at ‘helping’ from one student to another is actively discouraged by the ‘teachers’ and their assistants as ‘bossiness’, ‘interference’ or even ‘bullying’ – even if it is offered with the best of intentions, in the most positive manner.
Instruction – of every student, in every aspect – is the exclusive domain of the teachers and their assistants, usually at a ‘common time’ and in a ‘common way’. It is simply ‘not the job’ of any child to help another – and such empathy-building activity is discouraged or even punished. Only ‘the teacher’ is permitted to ‘teach’, only ‘the teacher’ or ‘assistants’ are allowed to help!
This creates an environment where each child is a passive recipient of care and instruction. They ‘receive’ – and are punished for any attempt to ‘give’. Their self-worth is derived exclusively from their obedience to the adults in authority and their completion of ‘assignments’. Even the skill level at which the assignment is completed is often not evaluated on the grounds that this would stigmatize the less-competent students and thus discourage ‘learning’: simple obedient completion of the task, even in a sub-standard manner, in complete compliance with authority, is rewarded in todays kindergartens.
What is more – due to fears of accusations of sexual improprieties, teachers and their assistants are now (in Ontario Public School Kindergartens) not permitted to touch the students – even if the child falls down and is bleeding – beyond slapping on of a band-aid. If the child is upset, no hug is permitted to help calm him or her down. It is truly ‘an institutional experience’!
How different an adult will this child grow up to be, from the one in the earlier example?
‘Common Sense’ is often defined as ‘everything we learn before the age of 16’. Similarly, ‘everything we learn before the age of 5’ defines our ‘self-perception’, especially with respect to the society we live in, and our expectations of the ‘proper’ way to relate to it.
Thus, as the child who could expect protection and help from his/her older siblings/friends/family members – but who was equally expected to help and protect the younger ones – grows up, he or she is, on some sub-conscious level, expecting that in order to be good members of society, he/she needs to both take and give. In return for this reciprocity, they feel needed and connected…they know how they ‘fit in’ – even if only on a deep, non-verbalized level.
Similarly, the child who grows up, from an early age, strictly as a passive recipient of instructions and who is expected to be rewarded for obedience, or ‘performing assigned tasks’ rather than actively interacting in a social give-and-take (often being severely punished for trying to establish a socially reciprocal relationship with other kids) has, at a deep, subconscious level an expectation that they have to perform the minimum – and nothing beyond the minimum – designed tasks and that all else will be done for them. This programming is so deep in the sub-conscious, it is not consciously perceived. Rather, these are the ‘natural expectations’ children raised this way have.
At least, most of them do.
Which is why children raised in ‘kindergartens’ do not have the same perception of what constitutes their ‘self-worth’ as children raised in family or extended-family-type settings. It is not that they are somehow bad or lazy: just that from their earliest age, they were taught that reciprocity is punished and doing the minimum effort and passively accepting having all their physical needs taken care of is what society wants them to do. And, being the social creatures we are, we get ‘primed’ this way – and it never even occurs to us that there is something to question….
To the contrary: we see all people who behave in other ways as ‘needing to be punished’. After all, when we tried to be different, to help others, to hug a friend, to be ourselves, to show we can do something better than everyone else around us – we were punished! We were punished for ‘showing off’ or for ‘being bossy’ or for ‘not obeying’ or, just, for ‘not being passive’!
Is is any surprise that we have grown up into a generation which has strong feelings of entitlement – entitlement to be taken care of, to be passive recipients of care – and of great resentment towards anyone who tries to ‘show everyone up’ and succeeds? And that we are not even aware that these are ‘programmed’ values, because they seem so ‘natural and ‘universal’ to us?
Yes, I have not expressed my meaning very eloquently, perhaps not even as accurately as I tried to.
Still, please, think about it….
The negative impact of ‘spanking’
September 28, 2009 — xanthippaPun 100% intended!
OK – this is usually a very heated debate, which has bubbled up to the surface (yet again) because of the release of a new study which claims to prove that people whose mothers reported spanking them grow up to have a lower IQ.
Those who would discredit this study have been quick off the mark: and, I really don’t know if the study is any good or not. That is why I am not linking to it: while I have a lot to say about the topic in general, I do not wish to get ‘boxed in’ and limited to this study.
BUT…
…here are a few thoughts for your consideration which listening to the discussions this topic has raised have popped into my mind.
1. Whose intelligence is being measured, anyway?
The study said that mothers were to self-report the discipline methods they used on their kids over a certain period. Then, years later, the now-grown-up-kids intelligence was measured – and those whose mothers had reported not spanking averaged higher on the IQ scale: is this an indirect IQ test of the mothers?
We know that people who are intelligent often have kids who are intelligent. Could it be that more intelligent mothers do not resort to spanking their kids?
2. HOW could ‘spanking’ affect ‘intelligence’?
‘Intelligence’ is defined many ways by many people: however, the definition I like most defines ‘intelligence’ as ‘an ability to learn’. In my never-humble-opinion, this means that there are three major components to ‘intelligence’:
- The genetic potential: as in, how good the ‘blueprint’ for one’s brain is
- Nutrition/health: the proper building blocks must be provided in the food to ‘build’ the brain to the best potential of the ‘genetic blueprint’ – illness can interfere with this process
- Desire to learn
It is the third one that I think can be affected by spanking.
After all, spanking – corporal punishment in general – tends to discourage ‘asking questions’. And, ‘not asking questions’ – whether out of fear or habit – will necessarily limit one’s intelligence.
So, without passing judgment on this particular study: I find it plausible that spanking a child can, indeed, lead to that person not growing into their full intelligence potential. Not proven – just plausible.
Now, having set this ‘study’ aside, I would like to make a few comments on using corporal punishment to discipline children – in general.
This issue is very emotionally charged for people, for all the obvious reasons! Therefore, any discussion of ‘spanking’ becomes extremely emotional, early on into the debate. So, how do we approach the issue and discuss it, without sinking into the emotional quagmire?
Personally, I think it is best to ‘remove’ the situation from the ‘particular’ to the ‘general’: do we, as a society, approve of corporal punishment? Not just of ‘children’ – but of every citizen/resident. Do we, as a society, approve of using caning or whipping or other forms of corporeal punishment?
For example, should an employer discipline an employee using corporal punishment?
Why?
Or, should nursing-home care-providers use corporal punishments to’ teach’ their elderly patients, who may have diminished mental capacities and might not understand long explanations, to comply with the nursing home’s rules?
Why?
Now, regardless of what your answers were, ask yourself if you think that a country’s laws ‘ought to’ protect every individual equally.
I think they must! Our very civilization is founded on the principle that all people are equal in the eye of the law!
Or, at least,we ought to be…many of our lawmakers have been forgetting this bit lately, giving some groups privileges over others. So far, these privileges do not include the right to inflict corporal punishment…. so why are these already existing laws not enforced when the victims are the most vulnerable members of our society: children?!?!?
As my favourite philosopher wrote, a person’s a person, no matter how small!
P.S. Before anyone raises the ‘hot stove & other immediate dangers’ objection, arguing that it is important to make kids avoid ‘immediate danger’ so it is acceptable to hit them to make them comply with associated rules… That is the worst possible argument EVER!!! ESPECIALLY in situations of potential ‘immediate danger’, it is really, really important that children – from the moment they learn to crawl – are taught to UNDERSTAND what is dangerous, instead of being taught to OBEY rules!
How could replacing the understanding of danger (and, even infants can learn to understand danger!) with a mere arbitrary-sounding rule keep a child ‘safer’? Rules will be broken… so making rules to cover dangerous situations is setting the child up for failure! A dangerous failure, to boot!
Why not just take the easy way out and teach the child to understand the danger? It’ll make them safer – and might just increase their intelligence in the process!
State is Mother, State is Father…
June 17, 2009 — xanthippaMy dog loves the sofa. He also loves blankets.
He absolutely relishes sleeping on the sofa – and this is one dog that has elevated ‘sleeping’ into an art form. Really – I have known many dogs, and owned a few, but I have never met a dog who relishes sleep like this crazy canine does!
Also, he does not like strangers to sit on his the sofa. He’ll watch to see if the person gets up for some reason – even for a moment, sneak in behind them, steal the spot and immediately start pretending that he’s asleep, has been asleep in that spot for a very long time, and why is everyone getting all worked up about this?
He also loves to steal blankets: and has been known to quietly grab a corner and, slowly but steadily, sneak off with the blanket of an unwary person lying down on the sofa, watching TV late at night.
When my son and I came home Monday, he greeted us with great enthusiasm. He slithered off the sofa, stretched slowly and thoroughly, and wandered over to the front hallway to greet us. Honestly – this passes as ‘enthusiastic’ from him: sometimes, he just lifts his head off the sofa’s arm-rest and wags his tail a tiny bit to show he’s noticed you came in.
So, today’s was an enthusiastic greeting! Then, after he followed me to the kitchen and stopped in front of the fridge, hoping that his beautiful brown eyes would hypnotize me to give him a pepperette, when – suddenly and visibly – a though struck him.
Quite suddenly, he abandoned begging communicating and, with unusual swiftness, he ran to the living room. OK, we knew when we adopted him that he was ‘special’ and, though incredibly good natured, he was no border collie in the brain department – so I thought nothing of it.
Later, when I came into the living room, I noticed that he was not lying down on the sofa, but on a chair. And he was not really lying down in his usual way… instead, he was more ‘splayed’: all four paws spread as far apart as possible, his centre of gravity as low as he could get it. His head was not resting, but just slightly elevated in a high-strung sort of way. And his eyes…
His eyes were priceless! They were ‘big’ – his ‘vigilant look’ (well, as vigilant as he gets) – with lots of ‘white’ showing. And they were flashing, side to side – in a particularly self-pleased way!
Had his behaviour not been so ‘obvious’, I would not have looked around too closely to see what he was doing. But, his very demeanour gave away that he was ‘being tricky’: that he had ‘done’ something naughty and thought he was getting away with it!
It turns out that my son – in a fit of insomnia – brought his blanket down, watched some TV, then forgot his blanket on the chair. The dog knows ‘bed blankets’ are off limits to him: but this blanket was not on a bed, was it? So he lay down on it, spread his body as wide as possible to hide the fact that he was indeed occuppying a ‘bed blenket’ which was currently ‘not a bed blanket’… The dog was very, very pleased with himself!
So, what does this story have to do with my post today?
Yes, it was a bit of a long segway, and this story took me a few days to write up, but…
Monday, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty made an announcement. Some person whose makes his living ‘educating children’ released a report today, saying that ‘children need more educating’!
Why, that is almost as convincing as a ‘Cure-all’ salesman saying this potion in this here bottle will ‘cure all’!!! Better buy a few!!!
And, Mr. McGuinty, he is so concerned about the welfare of children, he’ll have to do what is best for all of the children! (Will somebody please shut up the parents of those pesky Autistic kids? They’re not even photogenic: no photo-ops from that lot!)
As I was saying: Mr. McGuinty, he is so caring, he only wants what is best for the children! And since that report by a guy who gets rich by sticking EVERY child into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ ‘institutions of teaching’, that is exactly what this kind and caring man announced he would do!!!
Aside: make no mistake! Our public schools are ‘institutions of teaching’, NOT ‘institutions of learning’!!! They are centered around the needs and desires of teachers, whose powerful union regularly holds the whole population hostage by refusing to ‘teach’ unless it is ‘on their terms’ – ONLY! Therefore, schedules, methodology, material and just about every aspect of ‘teaching’ you can name is tailored to suit the comfort of teachers. Students, who have no union to represent them, are just pawns to be cycled through the system – a pesky annoyance to be minimized and with which the teachers have to put up with as a minor part of this ‘education system’…
So, what is it that this caring, loving man (who is reportedly married to a teachers’ union activist) proposing to do???
He wants to institutionalize our children for 10.5 hours a day, 5-days per week, 50 weeks per year, from toddlerhood on!!!
Of course, the words he used to make his announcement were not as direct as my statement of it is – but the meaning is identical. His version is all about ‘what is best for the children’! And he has that ‘study’ (by a guy who, among others, will have an increased revenue stream if McGuinty institutes) this to back him up!
Here is the video – I invite you to watch the body language:
Did you notice it?
The way he shifts his eyes, the way he enunciates certain words, the way he uses his whole body to help him spit out some ‘concepts’?
It’s that SAME body language my not-so-bright (but way more lovable than McGuinty) dog used when he was trying to ‘pull one over’!
This sent me ‘looking for’ what it is that is ‘the loophole’ here: what is this man ‘pulling over’ on us?
I’ll rant more on this tomorrow….
What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?
March 31, 2009 — xanthippaOne of the best things about life is that as long as we are breathing, we can continue to learn!
One of the best things about blogging is that the comments I receive are often insightful, well thought out and I can learn from them. Usually, these just point out the ‘holes’ in my education/knowledge base: something I appreciate because it points me in the direction of things I need to learn.
Yet, every now and then, there are comments which are an education in themselves! Below is an excerpt (!) from one such comment: I thought it so important and informative that I wanted to share it with everyone. And, having received permission from the author, here is the answer to my question ‘What is ‘Cultural Marxism’?’:
CodeSlinger says:
Cultural Marxism is not Marxism-Leninism (which we usually just call Communism).
Marxism-Leninism is a system of political economics, which results from applying the so-called Marxist dialectic, developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in a process called critical analysis, which uses it to deconstruct Western democracy and capitalism, and to rewrite history in terms of economic class struggle (and we all saw how that turned out).
In the 1920’s, Antonio Gramsci and György Lukács adapted the methods of the Marxist dialectic and critical analysis to the cultural sphere and applied it to the task of undermining Western science, philosophy, religion, art, education, and so on. The result is called the quiet revolution, the revolution from within, the revolution that cannot be resisted by force. This is cultural Marxism.
Now, that was quite bad enough, but then along came a group of sociologists and psychologists — chief among whom being Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Jürgen Habermas — and they combined the Marxist dialectic with Freudian psychology to produce an exceptionally corrosive concoction called Critical Theory, which they use to deconstruct Western culture and values, and to rewrite history in terms of sexual and racial power struggles (and we can all see how that is turning out).
Collectively, these guys are called the Frankfurt School, because they originally got together under Horkheimer at the Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforschung), which was domiciled in a little brick building belonging to the University of Frankfurt am Main in the early 1930’s. They all published their work in the Journal for Social Research (Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung), edited by none other than Horkheimer himself.
Then Hitler consolidated his control of Nazi Germany, so, seeing as they were all Jewish, they fled to the USA, more or less as a group, in 1934. In America, they affiliated themselves with Columbia and Princeton Universities. The Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung was renamed Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, and they really got down to business.
Horkheimer’s key idea was that Critical Theory could be used actively, to change society, in contrast to the traditionally passive role of sociology, which had been merely to understand society. These guys were not your typical academics, whose main interest is the pursuit of knowledge. On the contrary, these guys pursued an agenda: they wanted to find out why the Marxist revolution had failed in the West, and they wanted to remedy that situation. To that end, the group’s research addressed what to attack, how to structure the attack, how to deliver the attack, and how to measure the results of the attack.
Thus, for example, Adorno joined up with Paul Lazarsfeld, founder of the Bureau for Applied Social Research at Columbia, and began studying the effect of mass media on the population, and how to measure it. Starting in 1937, they collaborated on the Radio Project (bankrolled by the Rockefeller Foundation) which, among other things, produced the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast so they could measure its effects, and the Little Annie Project, which pioneered methods that quickly evolved into the Nielsen Ratings and the Gallup Polls.
Another example is the concept of intersubjective rationality, developed by Habermas, which replaces the individual process of reaching a conclusion based on the objective criterion that it follows from valid reasoning and known facts, on the one hand, with the social process of establishing a consensus supported by the subjective criterion that the group feels good about it, on the other hand. In today’s schools, those who do the former are maligned for being judgmental and demanding, while those who do the latter are praised for being good team players.
But, rather than go into pages and pages of detail right here and now, I’ll just list the titles of some of the major works of the Frankfurt School. Given the context, this combination of titles will make the hair stand up on the back of your neck:
Authority and the Family, Horkheimer, 1936
Escape from Freedom&, Fromm, 1941
Sex and Character, Fromm, 1943
The Authoritarian Personality, Adorno et al., 1950
Eros and Civilization, Marcuse, 1955
Repressive Tolerance, Marcuse, 1965
Communication and the Evolution of Society, Habermas, 1976
These are just a few of the core works; some are papers, some are books. The total volume of work by these guys, and their followers, is huge. The combined result, as I outlined in my very first post on this blog*, is something like the following:
It includes not only censorship of various kinds, but also the erosion of privacy, the debasement of the schools and the neutralization of the church. It includes the destruction of the family by setting wives against husbands and children against parents. It includes the disarmament of the public, the invalidation of self-defence and the incitement of fear. It includes the promulgation of the culture of victimhood, the promotion of immaturity and the reduction of society to a mob of narcissistic adult children. It includes the dogmatization of the universities. It includes the concentration of wealth, the concentration of ownership of corporations and the concentration of control of the media.
In sum, your description of all this as a descent into a new dark age** is exactly correct. And since you put it in those terms, I highly recommend an article by Michael J. Minnicino, called The New Dark Age: The Frankfurt School and Political Correctness. It speaks your language, and it will make the big picture very much clearer! Another good place to start is The Origins of Political Correctness, which is a transcript of a talk given by Bill Lind at the Accuracy in Academia Conference in 2000.
Update: The reference list above has been updated to also include the following: Escape from Freedom, Fromm, 1941
Xanthippa’s footnotes:
* ‘first post on this blog’= ‘first comment’… on my post ‘Limiting our freedoms – making sense of the ‘big picture’‘
** reference to my post: ‘Fight the ‘Forces of Darkness’!‘
Who will dominate the emerging cultural hegemony?
March 9, 2009 — xanthippaRecently, 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!
Marijuana-smoking athlete should be stripped of medals
February 5, 2009 — xanthippaOver the last little while, I have been amused at the discussions generated by an admission from an athlete that he smoked cannabis.
This, in a nutshell, is the situation as I see it:
- Michael Phelps, an athlete with 8 Olympic blood medals, is photographed inhaling from a marijuana pipe.
- Following the publication of the photo, he admits to cannabis use.
- This creates negative publicity: from dismay over an again-tainted role model (he faced a drunk-driving charge earlier), to the discussion of ‘recreational use of cannabis’, to calls that he be stripped of his medals.
- The athlete issues an apology.
- Public debate continues – but not only does it not look like the athlete will not be stripped of his medals, it looks like he will be eligible to continue to compete in athletics!
THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!! WRONG DEBATE!!!
While I have some very strong opinions (sic) about the use of illegal drugs – recreational or otherwise – this is not the post where I would like to explore them. I’ll be glad to oblige later.
The ‘legal status’ of cannabis should not be the main focus of public debate about any athlete admitting to smoking cannabis. The debate should be about how to treat an athlete who admits to using a performance-enhancing drug, after the competition is over…
After all, cannabis is a performance-enhancing drug!
There are several active chemicals in cannabis which have medicinal effects. One of the two main ones is Beta-Caryophyllene, an anti-inflammatory which may be very useful in fighting immune system diseases. Yet, I would like to focus here on the other one – cannabidiol, which turns into THC under some conditions and into quinine under others. THC is the ‘active’ ingredient in cannabis, which gives people the ‘high’ associated with its use.
THC, of course, is known to trigger the release of dopamine – the very word from which ‘doping’, as in ‘using performance-enhancing drugs’, comes!
In a very real way, by triggering the release of dopamine, THC affects the endorphins (natural pain-killers) and serotonin levels in the brain, both immediatelly and in the long term. These two effects, in my never-humble-opinion, classify it as a ‘prformance-enhancing-drug’!
Cannabis creates a temporary high – that is true, and that is why it is illegal in many jurisdictions. THC blocs pain-perceptions by causing the brain to produce too much dopamine, which numbs one to pain and causes a euphorea.
Even after the ‘high’ associated with cannabis use is gone, not all of this chemical is metabolized. Some of the THC gets stored in a person’s fatty tissues, where it stays inactive for weeks – perhaps months. When a person is in a situation of great pressure or stress, their body releases adrenalin (and related hormones). This ‘under-stress-hormone coctail’ triggers a chemical reaction which causes the stored-up THC to be released into the body. And, yes, this has the same physical effect on the body as if the person had just toked up!
In other words, cannabis can produce the immediate, ‘short-term’ effect of a ‘dopamine high’ even months after it was used. It’s called a ‘marijuana flash’.
Also, it has been medically demonstrated that people with low serotonin levels feel pain much more easily and much more acutely. (This is especially true of people suffering from depression.) When the serotonin levels are increased, the person’s long-term pain threshold goes up significantly.
Cannabis effectively raises the serotonin levels in that brain. That is why it has consistently been found effective in treating medical conditions involving dopamine-serotonin balance: migraines, melancholia, loss of appetite, nausea, pain – both topical and systemic, insomnia…and is used in treating very serious psychiatric conditions, like dementia and schizophrenia. This very real, long-term effect is why cannabis has been prized since the times of ancient Egypt!
So, let us consider these effects on an athlete who had, in the past, used cannabis.
The athlete now has an overall higher tolerance to pain than is natural – so he can push himself harder during training than his peers. This will necessarily result in achieving an artificially high physical condition, one the athlete could not have attained without the use of cannabis. Even if there were no THC left in his body by the time of the competition, the athlete would still have used performance enhancing drugs to achieve his physical condition, making any competition unfair.
Perhaps even more importantly, if there are still even small amounts of THC in the athlete’s system, the stress of a high-level contest, the ‘competitive juices’ that flood an athlete’s body, will ‘flush them out’. Now, this athlete has a flood of extra dopamines in his blood stream!
In a very real sense, the athlete’s own body released the ‘stored-up dope’!
Unless I am greatly mistaken, competing while ‘doped up’ is against the rules…
Now, back to Mr. Phelps:
Since he has admitted to cannabis use, he had – knowingly or unknowingly – used drugs to enhance his performance. Therefore, it would be unjust to other athletes if he were allowed to compete again.
The only question remains: did he use cannabis BEFORE he won 14 Olympic medals? If the answer is ‘YES’, then he must indeed be stripped of each and every one of them. Even if unintentionally, he was ‘doping’…
It has nothing to do with ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ drugs. It has nothing to do with making ‘good’ or ‘bad’ choices. It has everything to do with fair play!
The concept of ‘murder’ is not ‘universal’
January 30, 2009 — xanthippaIn 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.
Will all Muslims be caught in the backlash against Islamists?
January 28, 2009 — xanthippaThis post can stand on its own, but it is a loose continuation of my rant from yesterday: Actions and reactions
In my never-humble-opinion, we are dealing with several things which overlap and muddle all discussions when we discuss ‘freedom of speech’, Islam and the now inevitable clash between the two. Here is my little breakdown:
1. Islamists – those for whom Islam is not just a religion, but a political movement bent on dominating the world (it is wrong to dismiss the things people say they believe – and want to do, even if it sounds outrageous to our sensibilities).
2. Muslims – these are people for whom Islam is a religion. It includes people for whom it is nothing more than their personal faith and who wish nothing more than to live in a free, democratic society. It also includes all the Islamists.
3. Islamists make claims and demands on behalf of all Muslims, whether all Muslims agree with them or not.
4. Making claims and demands is perfectly OK. I know I make enough of them!
5. Legislators are satisfying and accommodating these claims and demands. This is wrong.
Even if the Islamists DID have a mandate to speak for all Muslims (which they do NOT) it is unwise to grant any demands for special privileges to any group within a democracy, because this sets up official ‘classes of citizenship’. (Do we really want to follow the example of Malaysia, where there is one ministry to deal with the rights of non-Muslim women and then a secretariate to deal with the rights and welfare of only Muslim women, with no agencies permitted to participate in both?)
Also, accommodating the Islamists sets them up as ‘community leaders’ and this special status empowers the individual Islamist leaders. It physically, financially (as government programs for the community are often administered through them) and psychologically gives them the ability to control most of the Muslims in their community. Not only is very unfair to those moderate Muslims who want to enjoy democracy, it also, in a very real way, creates a parallel governance structure which is independent of the national government and free to pursue its own goals (which are often not compatible with the national government’s goals of maintaining terittorial sovereignity, and so on.)
6. By setting Muslims apart from society, and giving them a special, privileged status (real or perceived), a strong resentment against all members of this perceived special group will necessarily happen. That is human nature – people resent being treated (even if this is just a false perception) as second-class citizens, and, if they feel unable to change the governance structure which instituted this inequity, they will turn their resentment against the privileged group. This is dangerous.
I am in no way saying this is right, or should be happening. Rather, I am lamenting that human nature dictates that this is inevitable.
Let us look at what is happening in Europe now. No, let’s not dwell on the players: that is minutia. Let us examine the bigger forces behind the action….
The European Union (EU) has adopted many of the ‘multicultural’ attitudes from the UN. The UN has, over and over, accommodated lobbying from the Organization of Islamic Conference to accord special status to religions in general and to Islam in particular. And, regardless of the fact that the Western society is deeply rooted in the European renaissance – whose very existence began by criticizing religion and removing blasphemy from the criminal code… the EU has re-criminalized blasphemy.
In Holland, Geert Wilders, a sitting MP, is criminally charged. The prosecution charged him with making anti-Muslim statements. Wilders claimed he made true, supportable statements and quoted Muslim leaders. Wilders won, the charges get thrown out of court. The prosecution appealed. The appeals court – which over-rules the lower court in every way – ruled (on the day after President Obama’s inoguration – so the mainstream media focus would be elsewere) that the charges should not have been dropped and that the politician must face prosecution in that lower court because he is, in the appeals court’s opinion, guilty and must be punished.
You don’t have to be an accomplished jurist to understand the situation here. The lower court was told by its boss that this guy must stand trial because he is guilty. So, they have to try him and find him guilty. Even if they do not, the appeals court will over-rule them. Do you think there is even a tiny possibility this can be an impartial trial?
In Austria, Sussane Winter, a sitting MP, was actually convicted of ‘insulting Islam’. 24,000 Euros in penalties (I wonder what her court costs were in addition to the fine) and a suspended 3 month prison term. Her statements may have been phrased differently, yet the substance of what she said is in complete agreement with what the leading Muslim scholars are saying.
If re-criminalizing blasphemy is not going to plunge Europe into another era of ‘Dark Ages’, then what I found out while digging about on this definitely will!
The story comes from Belgium (and, yes, it does make on recount the Monty Python skit about the contest for the most insulting thing to call a Belgian…).
There, only a few years ago, some very, very strange stuff was happening indeed.
First, I must declare my political bias here – I deplore separatist parties. Frankly, I think it is wrong for a party to be in Parliament, if its main goal is to break up the state. Yet, if this party’s representatives are elected into parliament, I would never prevent them from representing their electorate. In this case, subverting the will of the electorate would be a greater wrong.
OK
In Belgiun, there is was a separatist party of an ethnic minority. This party was – from what I have read – not too nice. But, what happened to it – that is even more ‘not nice’. It would appear that the Belgian Parliament actually passed some laws whose sole purpose it was to make this minority party illegal.
Scary?
Not as scary as what followed…
The party ‘cleaned up’ – at least, on the outside, changed its name (slightly) and is now growing in popularity.
GROWING IN POPULARITY!
Is this the beginning of the backlash?
And if it is, will ALL Muslims be caught up in it, not just the Islamists??? I certainly hope not!!!
DMCA’s a an instrument of censorship
January 1, 2009 — xanthippaAs 2009 opens, I am encouraged to see that more and more people are waking up to the dangers to the growing trend of censorship of free speech – with the dangers this entails!
It really does not matter who it is that is attempting to impose censorship of free speech: it is the attempt itself that must be opposed, by every freely thinking human being, regardless of their particular world view, philosophy, religion, or whatever else they choose to call their outlook on life!
In Canada, we have seen the insultingly called ‘human rights commissions’ censoring any speech that seems to advance the Christian point of view. Ezra Levant higlighted this when he demonstrated that publishing the very same words which got a Christian pracher, father Boissoin, a lifetime ban (!!!) on conveying his opinions on marriage and homosexuality (he was, among other things, a marriage councellor, so this, in fact, deprived him of his livelihood). Yet, when Mr. Levant – a Jew – published the very same letter that father Boission had written, he was not persecuted….
Thus, Mr. Levant demostrated clearly that it was the speaker’s religious affiliation – not the words he spoke (or published) – which determined his ‘guilt’….
On the other hand, we have the ‘YouTube case’ where several radicalized Christian organizations had abused the Digiatal Millenium Copyright Act in an attempt to censor areligious and anti-rligious voices. It really is chilling! Please, join in the fight to stop DMC abuse to impose censorship on this particular forum or free thought:
All of this is not happening in a ‘vacuum’ or in some sort of ‘isolation’. During this time, the UN has, quietly, decided that it is reasonable to limit freedom of speech in order to suppress ANY SPEECH that would criticize any ‘religion’! This should strike the fear of censorship into every one of our hearts!
The great philosopher Hypatia had said:
“All forms of dogmatic religions are fallatious and should never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final!”
While I agree wholeheartedly with Hypatia’s sentiment, if it would not be too presumptuous of me, I would like to ‘update’ her statement to encompass the relalities of today:
“All forms of dogmatic doctorines (religious or secular) are fallatious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final – and must never be allowed to form a basis for laws and policies!”
Hypatia’s martyrdom marked the end of the classical era and the onset of the ‘Dark Ages’: times where thought was replaced by blind obedience to dogmatic doctorine, learning was replaced by ignorance, respect for knowledge was replaced by book-burning and the destruction of all who entertained ‘opposing thought’.
Are we at similar crossroads now?
Much of what is happening in the world indicates that we just might be.
Yet, the dawn of 2009 is also bringing to us the beginning of the awareness of the danger of being at such a crossroads! And, whether it is ‘Christian thought’ which is being censored – or which is attempting to do the censoring – the ‘dogma-affiliation’ (religious or secular dogma, it really makes little difference) is much less important than the action it takes: censoring free speech and, by extention, free thought! I really do not care who it is that is the censor, or who is being censored.
Those are just the details of the larger precedent: the desire and ability to censor!
This is something we must all stand together to oppose. I just hope enough of us realize this and, setting aside our doctorinal differences, we lend our voices to the battle which would silence us all!
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 