Harry Potter and the ‘Secret Sub-culture’

February 29, 2008 — xanthippa

During a debate, someone raised the topic of ‘Harry Potter’ and how ‘unfinished’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ the last book really was.  One person said that during the series, J. K. Rowling seemed to change the fundamental roles of some of the characters.  It started me thinking…perhaps it may not have started out as such, but, by the end, WHAT was the ‘Harry Potter’ story really about?

Let’s look at it.

We have a young boy, living in an average British suburb, average British house, yet still disenfranchised from all about him.  Without knowing why, he feels different, he does not fit in.  As he grows, he learns he is a part of this very special group of people who live within the British culture, but are different, separate from the mainstream population in so many ways!

This ‘special’ group of people could, at first look, pass for Brits – but were decidedly different.  They believed in different things, behaved differently, dressed differently, yet kept their ‘differentness’ secret from the mainstream.  With their own rules (though their ‘Minister’ did have a ‘quazi-legal’ status with the ‘Muggle’ Prime Minister) and laws, their own separate legal system administered justice among them.

Most of the Brits are not even aware of their separate existence:  and many of the members of this ‘special sub-culture’ live integrated, among regular people.  Yet others live isolated, in whole communities devoted to ‘their kind’ – and it is only in these isolated communities that members of this special ‘sub-culture’ openly practiced their ‘differentness’.

Those who spent their whole lives in these communities often fail to understand even the basic principles or social customs of the greater British society surrounding them.  Not only do they think, act, and dress differently…they can not even be bothered to learn about the rest of the society that surrounded them, even as they consider them as ‘less evolved’ or ‘less special’ than themselves.  They euphemistically refer to ‘regular people’ by the patronizing term ‘muggles’, or by the downright derisive ‘dirty mud people’….

And though they may be self-isolated from the cultural mainstream – having their own beliefs and their own schools where they sent their children – they do keep in close contact with other people of their own kind, who live scattered in secret or isolated communities in other parts of the world….all of them taking care to go unnoticed by their host society.

Hmmm, any thoughts yet?

It gets better.

Within this secretive sub-culture, there was a struggle:  those who were kindly pre-disposed towards the lowly ‘muggles’, those who wanted to ‘get along while being allowed to keep their separate sub-culture’, were battling against a militant group from within.  Led by a mythical, powerful, but hard-to-define and often absent leader, this ‘evil’ sub-sect was downright hostile toward the host culture, killing ‘muggles’ without regard, just to prove their superiority, and murdering any member of their sub-culture who opposed them too loudly….

But that was not all….not only was this sub-sect hostile and militant, it sought to gain total and complete control over the whole of the ‘magical world’ sub-culture.  Nobody knew any longer whom to trust, who was on whose side, who was secretly controlled….and the subtle blackmail and mind-control by the ‘evil side’ could escalate to open intimidation!  The ‘moderates’ kept trying to identify and battle the ‘militants’, only to be infiltrated and betrayed, time after time….

Is this still sounding like the story of a boy who wakes up and realizes he is ‘magical’?

Or does the change of attitudes Ms. Rowling’s book take as the story progresses pass comment on a completely different matter altogether?  A matter we all need to pay attention to, before Voldemort (who, by the way, changes his name from the one he’s born with, when he enters this special ‘sub-culture’) gains complete control over ‘the special community’ and subjugates ‘muggles’ in all the world?

Hmmmm, change a few of the labels, and you might not be looking at a fairy-tale at all!

Posted in human nature, immigrants, philosophy, politics, religion. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 14 Comments »

Holocaust in the UK curriculum

February 26, 2008 — xanthippa

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, but… somebody on the internet is wrong!!!

There is a particularly nasty rumour going about, that the UK has removed the teaching of Holocaust from its curriculum, ‘in order not to offend Muslim students, because they don’t believe in it’.  Please, pass it on:  THAT RUMOUR IS NOT TRUE!!!

Not having had enough time to think through the implications of the rumour itself (I am a very slow thinker), I will not comment on it for now.  Instead, I would like to share with you the questions that occurred to me as I ‘Googled about’ for articles on it.

  1. How can people pass on any ‘tidbit’, but especially one that has such an emotionally charged content, without checking it out???  Form 5 or 6 sources, at least???  Are we (collectively) really that stupid?
  2. How did this rumour even get started?  Now, I do have some suspicions on this one… I lay the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of some journalists (and their appallingly low standards in quality of writing and actually transmitting information) AND those readers who skim, rather read, news articles.  Poor writing and ‘skimming’ instead of reading are a bad combination indeed.
  3. Why would so many people be so ready to believe this rumour?  And though there is an ‘edge’ to this rumour, making it most tantalizing to pass on, the level of hysterics in some of these emails spreading the rumour spoke of genuine worry, so I do think the rumour was believed.

While the first two questions deserve a good hard thinking about, it is the third question that we all need to examine…  

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

Cultural Tolerance – Part 3: HOW we ought to tolerate

February 20, 2008 — xanthippa

Everyone is calling for ‘tolerance’ these days.  But, really deep down, what do we mean?

It seems to me that there are several different types of ‘tolerance’, and they don’t all mean the same thing.  There is a whole spectrum of ‘tolerance’!  Let me highlight the ‘good extreme’ and the ‘bad extreme’, with the understanding that most of the time ‘tolerance’ – as practiced in our society –  falls somewhere in between the two.  I just hope we’ll try to aim towards the ‘good’ end of the spectrum…  

 

 

The ‘GOOD tolerance’ 

I suspect that is what most of us mean when we say ‘tolerance’.  This form is the ‘respectful tolerance’, and it requires that both sides ‘acknowledge the differences’ and then CHOOSE to respect the choices the others make.

 

That is by no means easy.  All sides (this is never as easy as just two or three sides) have to take the time and effort to actually educate themselves on other peoples’ views and beliefs, then consider each others’ positions objectively, then judge ‘the other sides’ to be worthy of respect….and that is not always possible.  For, how can one truly respect a view or belief which may be contrary to one’s core values?

 

The answer, of course, is with an utmost exercise of self-control and intellectual detachment…but remember, this is one of the extremes, an ideal we ought to aspire to live up to.

 

 

The ‘BAD tolerance’ 

This tolerance is not nice tolerance at all.  It is the dismissive kind:  ‘oh, let them do their thing, we could never hope to civilize them’ kind of tolerance…  ‘Oh, why would we want to bring democracy there, these people are just too backward – they could never understand equality.’  ‘Their women don’t know any different, so why give them ideas of what we live like – they’re just too tribal to change.’  You know, this is the ‘they could NEVER be equal to US’ tolerance….which permeates the separatist and racist underbellies of every society.

 

Not only does it dismiss the side ‘to be tolerated’, it treats people as unworthy of the expectations that one has of the members of a civilized society….  It inevitably leads to the alienation and isolation of the ‘tolerated’ side, socially and eventually economically, forcing them to become second class citizens.  It is dispicable!

This position is difficult to eradicate for two major reasons:  one, it is often deeply held, because it makes the person holding such views feel somehow ‘superior’ and way more ‘special’;  it is also often really hard to recognize, because it is so adept at masking itself…as real, proper, respectful tolerance!

What is even worse is that among those who practice this ‘patronizing tolerance’, there are often despicable busybodies who consider their actions to be noble, a showcase of how tolerant we all ‘ought to’ be, wrapping themselves in ‘the cloak of righteousness’.  These busybodies wreak havoc in many ways. 

One of the most destructive is by appointing themselves the ‘guardians’ of those ‘to be tolerated’.  In this role, they look for ways in which the ‘mainstream culture’ differs from the original culture of the unfortunates whom they’ve decided to ‘shield’, and demands exemptions for them.  This may be from sport-team rules and other minor things to cultural practices, or even to exempt them from some actual laws of the land.  Of course, this may please some of the newest arrivals (or those within the immigrant community who wish to control them), but overall, it denies the newly arrived immigrants the right and the very ABILITY to integrate, bullying them into perpetuating the very cultural practices they are trying to escape from by coming here….

Another extremely destructive thing these ‘busybodies’ do is to bully the mainstream culture into tolerating all kind of excesses perpetrated by some people in the ‘target minority’, into tolerating behaviours unacceptable by our laws and our cultural standards.  This, of course, is done in the name of ‘educating us all’ to the ‘sensitivities’ we must be mindful of when we tolerate these excesses and illegal behaviours….

How could this unwelcome and obstructive meddling do anything but breed resentment on all sides?  How could we all be blind to it?  How could we allow ourselves to be duped and bullied by these busybodies?

It would be naïve to think that we can ever fully get rid of the ‘bad tolerance’…it’s part of our human nature.  But, could we not try to minimize it?  Could we not try to aspire to actually respect each other?  Could we not hope to reach higher on the ‘kind of tolerance’ spectrum?

Gosh, I hope I’m not too naïve for hoping we can!

Posted in freedoms, human nature, immigrants, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Cultural Tolerance – Part 2: What we ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ tolerate

February 19, 2008 — xanthippa

In order to have a functioning society, we need to agree on a common set of rules according to which we interact with each other.  (I ranted on a bit about this in my ‘Dogged by Dogma’ post.)  Some of these rules are codified into laws, others govern what we consider to be polite day-to-day behaviour.  Though the rules change from country to country, the basic principle remains the same:  without a common set of rules, there is no ‘society’.

We all, as humans, have the innate right to freedom of speech and thought.  So, let’s start by agreeing to tolerate that.  This means not denying it to anyone, even people we disagree with…or people who hold unpopular views.

From the freedoms of speech and thought flows the freedom of religious belief.  That, too, needs to be respected.  Most ‘western’ cultures are pretty good at protecting this one – usually, it is entrenched in the constitution.  But while we may be free to hold every belief we want, and are free to worship every deity (or absence thereof) we choose to, it is essential that we all understand that only those actions and behaviours that are legal under the laws of the land may actually be performed, whether based on religious conviction or not.

It is essential that we recognize that being tolerant of a belief is not the same as tolerating each and every behaviour that stems from it!

If it were, we would all need to tolerate human sacrifice.  And frankly, if we do tolerate illegal behaviour which stems from religious belief, in a very real sense, we WILL indeed be making a ‘human’ sacrifice! 

Asma Jahangir, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, has on many occasions reported that she has seen over and over situations where minority groups within a society demand special rights onto themselves, in name of religious freedoms – only to use these special rights to then oppress its own internal minority.  This kind of abuse of special rights is more common than we would like to think:  Ezra Levan’t has actually posted photos of Robina Butt, a woman who was assaulted by intruders into her own home after she and two other women complained of the financial improprieties at her own Mosque.  It is horrid!

So, let’s be clear.  We must tolerate each other’s beliefs.  

At the same time, we absolutely must not tolerate illegal behaviour, however motivated.  This is as much for the protection of the greater society as for the protection of the individuals within any specific minority.  If someone chooses to self-limit certain behaviours, good on them (provided they do not impact the society as a whole or diminish the rights of other individuals).  If they choose to self-impose rules which preclude them from enjoying certain privileges (such as people who refuse to have their photograph taken must be prepared to give up privileges for which a photo-i.d. is required – say, a driving license), they MUST be also prepared to give up such privileges.  Forcing them to comply with the conditions would be just as wrong as granting these privileges without compliance.

What is more:  not respecting these rules, granting special privileges to some but not others, will mean that the most basic rule of society is broken.  I may be repeating myself, but…without common rules, there is no ‘society’.  Doing so would breed resentment and hostility among various segments of the population…and how could unequal treatment by law not result in just that? 

We all need to keep this in mind the next time we are tempted to exempt one group or another from the laws which must apply equally to all of our citizens.  

Posted in freedoms, human nature, immigrants, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 7 Comments »

Cultural Tolerance – Part 1: Setting the stage

February 14, 2008 — xanthippa

This is a bit off topic for me – I never planned to write about this.  But, with all the broo-ha-ha stirred up when the Archbishop of Cantebury, Dr. Williams, called for establishing a parallel legal system in Britain, based on Sharia law, my blood started to boil.  I am an immigrant, having come to North America from a non-democratic, non-English speaking country, I have integrated quite successfully.  I volunteer teaching English as a second language.  In the past, I have created ‘stay-at-home’ jobs for immigrant women from more oppressive backgrounds, empowering them and helping them connect with their new society. 

As such, I have had the opportunity to observe this ‘cultural tolerance’ from both sides – as the immigrant and as a member of the cultural mainstream.  And I am absolutely amazed at how basic concepts can become so muddled…to the detriment of both sides. Please, indulge me in this rant on WHAT we should – and perhaps more importantly, what we should NOT – tolerate with respect to immigrants coming to a society from a foreign culture.  This is for the benefit of us, immigrants, as well as us, the host society (I have made the integration successfully, and so feel part of both groups…). 

First and foremost, immigrants come to a new country in order to improve their life and to provide a better future for their children.  Perhaps this is not a universal statement, but I am willing to bet that it comes pretty close.  So, right off the bat, there is something ‘good’ about the new society that we have come to seek. 

When immigrants first arrive, things can be overwhelming:  new language, new surroundings, unknown expectations…because even if you read a lot about your new land, (I memorized the 84 page brochure I got at the Canadian embassy during my interview), things are never quite the same as in the ads.  Some are better, some are worse, some are just different. 

And even for a person who did try to learn English before, being immersed in the language for the first few weeks created incredible fatigue and triggered a unique type of headaches.  I was surprised at how my jaw, cheeks and tongue hurt after hours of flexing my speech muscles into positions they were not used to. 

In situations like this, in the first few weeks, it is very helpful if other immigrants, who had arrived years or decades earlier, from the same culture, speaking the same mother tongue, can help one orient themselves.  It is a relief to ‘tune out’ English for half-an-hour and chat with someone without fishing for every phrase, worrying if a mispronounced word would give offense.  (I’m not joking:  I know a guy who just about got beaten up because when his neighbour invited him for dinner, he tried to compliment his wife on the desert….and mispronounced the word ‘cake’.  Until I explained, he had no idea that cake is not pronounced ‘cock’.) 

It is understandable that the immigrants should form loose communities, offering each other support.  It is also very much appreciated when people in the host community show a great deal of leeway to newly arrived immigrants who are trying to learn the language and culture both.   

The key here is:  ‘newly arrived’ and ‘trying to learn’. 

The problem arises when government agencies, seeing the help new immigrants receive from their fellow ex-patriots, think that they are somehow making things easier on the newcomers if they contract these immigrant communities to help the newcomers settle in.  This gives the immigrant association incredible control over the newly arrived people:  and what’s worse, now money is involved. The money attracts precisely the wrong kind of person:  busybodies who did not integrate into the new society well enough to have a busy career, and controlling the newcomers’ integration gives them the status they could never earn on their own merits.  If you don’t see this for the recipe for disaster that it is, I’m not sure what I could write to make it clear. 

These people boost their self by controlling as much as possible in the lives of newcomers.  And since these do not know any better (after all, the government entrusted this person with their care, so even if they did, it would not help them much), they accept the control – and the often distorted picture of the host culture painted to them so the busybody could retain control.  This officially sanctioned isolation leads to nothing less than ghettoization and actually prevents successful integration of newcomers into society. 

To a smaller degree, this can occur in all places, even without government financing it.  Seeking support at the beginning can trap newcomers in a cycle of obligations that are hard to escape, while preventing them from forming ties outside the immigrant community. I have seen it, felt its pull, and struggled against it.  Till today, I have friends among immigrants from my ethnic background, there is nothing wrong in that.  But I am careful to balance my friends and acquaintances among many backgrounds, keeping myself firmly within mainstream culture.  And while I do volunteer to help newcomers learn English, I never reveal my first language and usually request that they not tell me theirs, either. 

After all, we have left our past behind….   

Coming next: 

Part 2 – WHAT we should and should not tolerate                       

Part 3 – HOW we should and should not tolerate

Posted in about, freedoms, human nature, immigrants, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

And we are…..?

February 12, 2008 — xanthippa

“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be preferable to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.”
                                                            – C.S. Lewis 

So, where exactly does that put us?

Posted in freedoms, human nature, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Dogged by Dogma

February 10, 2008 — xanthippa

One thing that we humans do is ‘form communities’.  Extended families, neighbourhoods, professional associations, sports leagues, interest groups, church socials, nations, virtual debating site memberships – these are all communities formed by people through sharing common experiences.  It validates our sense of ourselves to be connected to other individuals and we feel most connected to those who have similar experiences and opinions as we do.  We even define our ‘self’ by the communities to which we belong.

 Each of these communities is unique in space, time and experience.  The ways their people interpret these common experiences affect the ‘facts’ of their ‘reality’:  the general assumptions about the world.  This is reflected in the way they use language, imbuing it with nuances and shades of meaning. 

 For example, the phrase ‘Three Kings’ may evoke a different image  in a Christian Bible study group than it might during a friendly card game.  Over time, some phrases which reflect certain key ‘common experiences’ turn into ‘presumptions’ which become more and more entrenched as they are repeated. 

 On and on, these become ‘unspoken truths’.  All new experiences are seen through this ‘truth’s’ perceptual prism.  And since the brain’s input has been filtered through this prism, the brain processes it that way – and concludes that the ‘truth’ is confirmed as ‘real’.  It is a circular cycle, a self-reinforcing process:  presumed ‘truth’ affects the way we perceive things, and our perceptions confirm this ‘truth’. 

 The ‘truths’ become so ‘common sense’, they are never questioned:  eventually, they become unquestionable.  Not because one would not dare to question them, at least, not at first.  Rather, it simply does not occur to anyone to question them. 

 They have now become dogma.

 And some people are happy to live in this way.  They are satisfied to be a member of their community, they are secure in their opinions and experiences, validated by their peers.  No problem there.

 What happens when, as is the nature of some of us, there comes along an individual who questions?  Who does not find anything to be ‘self-evident’?  Who is not able to believe – and more and more people today are daring to admit that they simply lack the ability to believe – and who dares to question the dogma and arrives at different conclusions?  Or even worse, what if this community encounters another community, one whose dogma is at odds with their own? 

 Human reactions have, in this regard, been very consistent.  We usually:
 
1. Silence the individual. 

2. Ridicule/denigrate or destroy the other community’s dogma. 

3. Find self definition and ‘specialness’ in our own community’s dogma. 

I plan to ‘jump around’ in my blog topics a little – having the attention span of a 2-year-old, I get distracted a little.  Yet, over the next little while, I will examine each of these very human reactions and post my musings on them.

Posted in human nature, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

What is ‘Fascism’?

February 6, 2008 — xanthippa

Thank you for indulging me in a purely fun philosophical musing on the nature of thought and existence…which, if I am not mistaken, established a consensus that my own existence is defined by ‘being annoying’ rather than by ‘thinking’ … implied feedback loop, and all – and don’t go saying that it’s an infinite loop…   :0)      

So, please, let me move now to other topics:  less abstract, but hopefully no less thought provoking….  I promise to stay as annoying as ever! 

Children say the ‘darndest’ things…and ask the toughest questions.  Except that I didn’t realize this one would be a ‘tough question’.   

After all, ‘everyone’ knows what ‘fascism’ is, right?  Jackboots and swastikas and Italian right wing dictators – images of WWII appear before our eyes and we know EXACTLY what ‘fascism’ is.  Except…when I got asked this question, I found verbalizing the answer was nowhere as easy as my mental picture made me think it would be. 

Italian fascism (under Mussolini) was a ‘right wing’ dictatorship.  So were the ‘fascist’ dictatorships that plagued South America.  So, many people think that ‘fascism’ is a synonym for a right-wing dictatorship.  Except that it isn’t…  Yes, we also think of Hitler’s Nazi Germany as being a ‘right wing dictatorship’ – except that … it wasn’t.   

Not exactly, anyway.  The word ‘Nazism’ is a short form of ‘national socialism’ – and that is decidedly a ‘left wing’ terminology.  And even a cursory look at the policies instituted in Nazi Germany will demonstrate that Hitler’s dictatorship was ‘left wing’ in practice, as well as in name.  He nationalized many industries, and established more of a ‘nanny state’ than constitute most of today’s western socialist’s wet dreams.  He even said his two idols were Lenin and Stalin…  So, how could Nacism also be ‘fascist’? 

Some reading and thinking shows that the definitions and descriptions vary, based on the time and social climate and political views of the commentator…yet there are always a few features that are common across the definitions/descriptions.  Now, here are my own little observations: 

1.         In its deepest core, fascism is the ‘dictatorship of the majority/privileged minorities’.   

It does not matter if the government is left-wing, right-wing, or whatever.  It invariably ‘clips the wings’ of its citizens, and makes them feel special for it!  How?  By either turning ‘wing-clipping’ into a matter of ‘national identity and pride’, and justifying it in the most reasonably-sounding terms, at first… and the ‘moral majority’ is either ‘impassioned’ or ‘guilted’ into supporting them…and tramples down anyone who does not ‘run with the flock’….  After all, if your wings have been clipped, you can either ‘run with the flock’ or ‘be trampled’ – because soaring high in the skies is no longer an option and the very desire for it will be vilified. 

As such, fascism elevates the rights of groups over the rights of individuals who make up these groups.  This feature is the unmistakable mark of ‘fascism’. 

2.         Fascism often gains control gradually and insidiously. 

Remember, even Hitler was voted into power…  So how can fascism gain control ‘gradually and insidiously’?  By becoming indispensable to the individual, to force its citizens to ‘go along’ with things…  It does this by appealing to a call for unity (be it racial, social, religious or ‘under attack by an outside enemy’) and by forcing the citizens to ‘buy-in’ into government sponsored social programs to such an invasive degree, the citizens will no longer be able to exist independently (either because these services become government monopolies, or because the citizens no longer know HOW to take care of themselves).   

Anybody see the ghost of a ‘nanny state’? 

These are my ever-humble (or is that ‘never-humble’?) opinions….though this ‘sketch’ seems rather ‘rough’, in need of refinement. 

So, please, how would YOU define fascism?

Posted in freedoms, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »
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