Old Guys in the Bible – Part 1

March 23, 2008 — xanthippa

If you are likely to be offended by non-traditional looks at the Old Testament’s patriarchs, please, do not read this post. It is not meant to be offensive or insulting, not even a little bit. Yet, it does contain a non-Christian’s look at the unusual longevity of the early biblical patriarchs and a somewhat clumsy – though sincere – attempt to make ‘sense’ of it in today’s terms.

It is really Sister Carlotta‘s fault. She’s the one who got me hooked on this.

In Orson Scott Card‘s ‘Ender’s Game’ series (don’t read them out of order or you’ll spoil it for yourself!!!), she raises the topic of Old Testament patriarchs during a conversation with another character. Together, they discuss why these men might have lived for such a long time. Until she planted the idea in my head, it never occurred to me that there might be a ‘reasonable’ (as in, non-miraculous) explanation of their longevity, and that it could be a puzzle to be solved!

I love puzzles, especially logic puzzles, and this one was most tantalizing. Many Christian websites insist these high ages given for the early patriarchs are symbolic only (as there were kings from that era who claim to have reigned for a comparable time period), and have no historical value. But, what if…?

That was years ago… but being obsessive-compulsive (and a slow thinker), I never quite let go of it. What if the ages recorded in the Bible say exactly what they are meant to say, and we just don’t understand what they mean? Given the zeitgeist of the era, I even had some suspicions… but could never quite make it all fit. Then, as luck would have it, the very spiritual G’Kar handed me the key!

Yes, I know, I have a problem ‘letting go’… but I could not help myself! This is sort of ‘the look’ of the list in the Old Testament (paraphrased):

Adam was 130 years when be ‘begot’ (I take this to mean his son was born, not conceived, or 9 more months would need to be added) Seth. Then he lived for another 800 years and died at the age of 930 years.

Once the ages and years were ‘run’ through my ‘nifty little function’, this would become:

Adam was 23 years old when Seth was born, then lived for another 65 years and died at the age of 88.

The list is sequential – i.e. the son is listed immediately under his father. For brevity, I will use this format:

  • Adam was 130 23 at his son’s birth, lived for 800 65 more years and died at the age of 930 88.

Here, the age given in Genesis is ‘crossed out’ and replaced by my guess. The ages are ’rounded off’, so addition may at times appear off by a bit… Without further ado, here is the list:

From Genesis 5:3 – 32

Name        Age at son’s birth     Lived on for         Died aged

  • Adam            130    23.5             800    64.7           930    88.2
  • Seth               105    21 .5            807    65.2           912    86.7
  • Enos                90    20.3             815    65.9           905    86.2
  • Cainan             70    18.7              840    67.9           910    86.6
  • Mahalaleel     65    18.3              830    67.1            895    85.4
  • Jared             162    26.1             800    64.7           962    90.8
  • Enoch              65    18.3             300    24.2           365    42.5
  • Methuselah   187   28.1              782    63.2           969    91.3
  • Lamech         182    27.7              595    48.1           777    75.8
  • Noah              500   53.4             139     11.2           639    64.6

From Genesis 11:10 – 32

  • Shem             100    21.1           500    40.4            600    61.5
  • Arpaxad        530    55.8          403    32.5             933    88.3
  • Salah                30    15.5           403   32.5             433    48.0
  • Eber               43o    47.8           430    34.8            860    82.6
  • Peleg                30    15.5           209    16.9             239    32.4
  • Reu                230    31.6           207    16.7              437    48.3
  • Serig                30    15.5           200    16.1              230    31.6
  • Nahor            920    87.4           119       9.6            1039    97.0
  • Terah               70    18.7           139      11.2             209    29.9
  • Abram (Abraham)…

Perhaps this has already been done and rejected by people who are scholars in this field. Or, there are better ‘versions’ of this solution, and I’m just not educated enough to know about them.

Yet, I feel strangely happy that I solved ‘the puzzle’ to my satisfaction: even the proverbial Methuselah is brought into the realm of what ‘my brain’ considers ‘reasonable’: he would have fathered La-mech when he was 27 and lived until he was 87 years old. Certainly, this is a remarkably high age for his time period, but not outside ‘potential human experience’.

These answers are not likely to be ‘accurate’, but…

What do you think?

Posted in human nature, language, philosophy, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 12 Comments »

Easter: what’s in the name?

March 21, 2008 — xanthippa

This time of year, there are many religious festivals and events. Please, let me take a moment and wish you all ‘Happy Holiday!’

What’s in the name of a holiday, anyway?

Shortly before Christmas, on ‘Convince Me’ – my favorite online debating site – someone started a lively debate about that holiday and whether it ought to be celebrated by non-Christians. One position presented was ‘Of course it’s only about Christ! That’s why it’s called Christmas!’

Yes, I am sure there are many people ‘out there’ who – with a prim-little condescending smile – have said that very thing. Of these people, I would like to ask the following question:

If Christmas is exclusively about Jesus Christ, because his name is right in there, what about Easter?!?!?

I am not, in any way, shape or form, saying this holiday season is – or ought to be – only about the Goddess Eostre (also spelled Eastre, though I have also seen it spelled Eostera and Eastera and about 5 other ways). Everyone knows many other spring fertility festivals, like Luprenalia, are also going on. And, I think the Christians and Jews might also be marking holidays. :0)

All I am curious about is if the ‘logic’ about the name of Christmas also holds about the name of Easter!

If you are not familiar with her by her name, you may have heard of the Goddess Eastre in another way. She is one of the ancient fertility goddesses of spring. Her power begins to awaken on the winter cross-quarter day – the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox – the coldest part of the year…February 2nd. She is said to begin to drive winter away, so the weather turns warmer and paves the way for spring. Her strength is at its fullest during the first full moon following the spring equinox. As winter vanes, Eastre causes the Earth to sprout, green things to grow, nature to re-awaken.

When she shows herself to humans, Eastre is said to take on the form of either a rabbit or a groundhog. Yes, she is the ‘Easter Bunny’ and the groundhog of Groundhog Day!

It is no coincidence that chickens only lay eggs when days are longer than nights. Nowadays, chicken farmers use electric lights to stimulate chickens to lay eggs all year long, but until electric lights made this possible, eggs were simply not available during the winter. They only reappeared each year when days outlasted nights…following the spring equinox…it’s almost as if Eastre brings the eggs with her ascent to power.

I suppose this is another way of saying that the Easter Bunny brings us eggs!

Now all I have to do is figure out how chocolate fits in. Because if I can’t, disposing of all these stores of it is bound to trigger a migrane…

Posted in atheism, debate, human nature, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 8 Comments »

Of Cellphones and Hijabs

March 19, 2008 — xanthippa

OK, these two do not seem too closely related. Perhaps a more accurate title would have been ‘Of Passing Laws Which Ban The Use of Cellphones While Driving And Of Passing Laws That Force The Wearing of Hijabs‘, but, somehow, that seemed a little long…

Every now and then, another spot on Earth passes a law banning the use of cellphones while driving – or flirts with passing such a law. A flurry of debates and discussions follows, weighing the pros and cons of such a law…often mistaking appeals to emotions for objective reasons, confusing symptoms with causes.

Typically, the pro-ban side (or, as I affectionately call them, the ‘bannies’) cites reams of accident statistics (real or imagined) which occurred while the driver was indeed using the cell phone. They usually present one or another variation of the following argument:

1. Talking on a cellphone can be distracting to drivers.

2. Distracted drivers do have more accidents.

Therefore, cellphones cause accidents and laws banning drivers from using them must be passed, in the interest of preventing those horrible car accidents. After all, anything less would be irresponsible!

Q.E.D.

Those opposed to the alarming increase in behaviour-engineering legislation usually put forth some silly nonsense like: “If a car is being driven badly, cops already have the right to ticket the driver, so a law specifically prohibiting cellphones is not only superfluous, it is redundant. Why pass two laws to cover one misdeed? If cops don’t apply one law they have, why give them a second one that does the same thing?”

These little arguments fall on deaf ears of the ‘bannies’. Usually, they counter with more statistics (but not those that show that even after cellphones were banned, the overall accident rates are pretty much unchanged in the long run). And if one begins to worry about the intrusiveness of the law, they invariably point out that drunk-driving is already banned, so why not cell-driving?

Perhaps it is commendable that the ‘bannies’ are looking out for us all – by banning all that is, or could potentially be, a source of harm to us. But what is not commendable is their basic mindset of attempting to legislate ‘common sense’, while they themselves fail to display an iota of it. So, I suppose it would be legislating ‘common nonsense’, n’est-ce pas? Having been in a debate with a vociferous ‘bannie’, I was unable to make her comprehend the difference between a chemically impaired judgment and a ‘distraction’…

Yet, that is not the only failure to apply logic in the ‘cellphone debate’. The real fallacy is in completely misunderstanding the nature of ‘distraction’: it is the driver’s responsibility not to become distracted by anything while driving. The cellphone is a symptom, not the cause of a driver’s distraction….only one of the many possible ways of abdicating responsibility to focus on driving. And as history has taught us, banning the symptoms never alleviates the underlying problem, it only masks it.

Which brings me to the hijab part… Please, consider this unfortunately real ‘reasoning’:

1. The sight of a beautiful woman arouses men.

2. An aroused man will want to have sex.

Therefore, the sight of a beautiful woman causes rapes and laws banning display of feminine beauty must be passed, in the interest of protecting women from those horrible rapes. After all, anything less would be irresponsible!

Q.E.D.

Yes, this is real! These are some of the reasons put forth in support of laws that require women to wear a hijab, a burka, or similarly concealing ‘modest dress’. Don’t believe it? The Mufti of Copenhagen Sahid Mehdi said in 2004 that women who do not wear the hijab are ‘asking to be raped‘. Australia’s Mufti in October 2006 was much the same thing, but in much cruder terms – comparing unveiled women to ‘uncovered meat‘….and how could you blame cats who came to eat it? And unless I am much mistaken, an Egyptian Imam said much the same thing in England (though I could not find a very good original article on this…happened too long ago).

But rape is not the only threat to women who do not don the veil: Palestinian broadcasters live under a death threat for wearing makeup and not covering their faces while on camera – I guess it is not so easy to rape a TV image, so the islamofascist ‘bannies’ content themselves with threatening to kill them a firebomb their houses instead.

The ‘reasoning’ in both cases – cellphones and hijabs – is eerily similar.

It may seem a chasm from banning the use of cellphones while driving to forcing the hijab on women, but bigger gulfs have been bridged, one little step at a time….each one facilitated by complacency and happy little ‘bannies’!

Posted in debate, freedoms, human nature, philosophy, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

What Convinces Us: the corollary to ‘How We Argue’

March 14, 2008 — xanthippa

Often, I feel like an outsider looking in on how the rest of the world lives, bewildered by all these ‘unseen rules’ that guide human interactions.  The fact that I am heavily ‘Aspergers’ probably has a lot to do with it:  I compensate for my lack of intuitive understanding by obsessively observing and cataloging behaviour.

Noticing how people argue seemed relatively easy:  the evidence was ‘out there’.  But understanding what convinces people to change their minds….that I have found much tougher.  I can see the arguments ‘out there’, in the open, but the ‘convincing’ process itself is inside a person’s head – hidden from direct observation.  It was easy to see that some arguments were more effective than others, but it always puzzled me how come an argument could convince some people, but not others.  Do not all people undergo similar thought processes?

I’m still not sure I get it.  But, it seems to me that both how much of an ‘investment’, and of what type it is, is of importance. 

A few years ago, something unusual happened: I was wrong.  Yes, it does happen, occasionally….  :0) 

During a get-together, I got into a heated-yet-amicable discussion with someone on an inconsequential topic – and, not having proof for either side on hand, we came to an impasse.  Another person came in, who just could have had the answer, so we asked her.  As she began to speak, it became apparent that the information was not favourable to my position, but the general revelry of the get-together was beginning to drown out her voice.  So, I started to ‘shush’ everyone, so we could hear the rest of what she had to say.

My opponent, sparks of laughter in his eyes, commented that perhaps it was not in my interest to be getting her to speak, as she’ll only prove me wrong!  This puzzled me, and I said so:  I’d rather be proven wrong, than persist in an incorrect position.  It was my opponent’s turn to be puzzled – it seemed this approach, which I took to be the only plausible one, had never occurred to him.

This gave me a big clue:  some people cannot be convinced, because they value winning an argument (and not ‘loosing face’) higher than they value being right.  And if this could be true of an inconsequential thing, among friends – where laughter was the measure of the volume of the argument – how much more true this would be for ‘big things’!

One of the ‘big debates’ that is going on now centers on the veracity of the ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ model.  I was one of the earliest proponents of ‘global warming’ – it sounded reasonable to me.  However, over more than a decade of  reading up on the underlying science, the IPCC reports, and after speaking with some of the scientists (and an economist)who were part of the whole UN shindig about it, I have concluded that it is much more of a political tool for behaviour modification than it is a scientific theory…

Not that long ago, I got into a discussion about ACC with an intelligent, educated young man – and an excellent debater – whose positions fall far left of the centre.  I made an observation that most of the ACC’s proponents were left of centre, and he accused me of politicizing the debate.  Yet, he was logical, and challenged me to convince him that ACC is a load of dingo’s kidneys, without ‘politicizing’ it. 

So, I explained a lot of the ideas that the ACC’s proponents are using, and explained the underlying science behind them…and why this model does not fit the scientific evidence.  I also explained the IPCC’s process in writing the report, and how the methodology was used to exclude science to play significant role in the report.  I even pointed out a few bits where frustrated scientists used wording that acted as ‘red flags’ to other scientists, indicating the unsoundness of the statement.

Nothing seemed to work.  I simply did not know how to convince this man.  Frustrated, I made an offhanded comment about how the whole pseudoscience of ACC was started when Margaret Thatcher commissioned a report that would show ‘fossil fuels should be abandoned in favour of nuclear power’, in order to use it as a weapon with which to end a pesky coal-miners strike….

I was quite floored when he retorted:  “You might have mentioned Thatchers involvment at the start and I would have instantaneously lost all of my credible thought procceses and immediately jumped on your wagon.”

Perhaps it is beyond me to figure out what convinces people…

Posted in Aspergers, debate, human nature, language, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Animal-speak: cats and dogs

March 12, 2008 — xanthippa

One of the most influential books I read in my teens was ‘On Aggression’  by Konrad Lorenz.  I had always been keenly interested in animals – if the pun were not so bad, I’d even say I can’t resist their ‘animal magnetism’. Yet, after reading his book, I began to notice more and more specifics of their communication.

My first ‘profoundly funny observation’ was to notice the ‘communications problems’ that cats and dogs were having. 

When a dog approaches someone in a non-threatening way, he wags his tail from side to side to clearly show friendly intentions.  Cats also wag their tails from side to side – but only as the last warning before they attack! 

I kind of imagined this like two people meeting for the same time, neither speaking English well, and each working from a ‘Monty-Pythonesque dictionary’…. of the ‘Your hovercraft is full of eels’ type…  However, each would have completely different edition, with the phrases in it giving different translations.  Extrapolating to the ‘cat-dog’ situation, I imagine their conversation might go something like this:

Dog says:  “Hello, how do you do?  It is very nice to meet you!”

Cat hears:  “You there!  Yes, I’m talking to you, you mangy scum!  I’ll punch your lights out!”

Naturally, Cat is not going to take this lying down!

Cat answers:  “You son of a bitch!  This is your only warning:  if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll rip you to shreds!”

Dog hears:  “How do you do!  Very pleased to meet you!  Let’s sniff butts!”

Dog is happy, thinking the proper etiquette is being followed.  After all, they ARE getting along swimmingly…  Not only is Cat’s tail wagging faster than ever, Cat even lowered its head closer to the ground!  I’d better accept this ‘universal’ sign of submission and make the first move to butt-sniffing.

Cat, already on edge from being challenged by this rude stranger, now sees Dog make a move towards Cat…..so, defensively, Cat unsheathes the blades which are its claws and smacks the closest bit of Dog, the nose!

Well, you can just imagine how hurt the Dog is by this unprovoked attack!  OK, Dog’s nose may be smarting, but, the really hurt part are Dog’s feelings.  After all, how much more polite could Dog have been?  And Cat was just leading him on!  Answering nicely and politely, suckering him into coming closer by inviting him to butt-sniffing…and the whole time it was just a setup to claw him!  What a slap in the face!

Once bystanders separate the two combatants, they both go away with an uncomplimentary picture of each other.  Cat thinks Dog is a rude brute!  That’ll be the day, when Cat will ever bother with another dog ever again!  And Dog is left thinking that Cat is mean, crafty and treacherous, pretending to be polite only to get close enough to hurt someone.  Cats are just not to be trusted, ever!

Yet, cats and dogs CAN learn to live together, they ARE able to learn each other’s language!   Sort of like the people in the Monty Python sketch:  the people understand that when THIS person says something about one’s parentage, they really think they are asking to buy a pack of matches….

Of course, cats and dogs are not the only ones whose communication can get messed up by crossed signals.  I always like to see if ‘lessons learned’ in one area can be applied in another….  Perhaps next time I’ll write about such a ‘conversation’ between Dog and Rabbit!
 

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

Good neighbours

March 10, 2008 — xanthippa

As I have written in the past, one thing we humans do is form communities.  Yet, as we live in more and more crowded cities, we could easily become overwhelmed by just how many individuals our communities do contain.  David Wong has described this rather well in his rumination called ‘Inside The Monkey Sphere’.

Whether we are overwhelmed, or afraid of being lost in this sea of humanity, people who live in urban centres tend to isolate themselves from many of their neighbours.  The more people thrown together in one place and time, the more we tend to draw inward and isolate ourselves.

Luckily, there is another thing humans tend to do:  even if we don’t know each other, we help each other.  There is nothing like a little adversity to bring the best out in good people!  And it need not be a huge disaster, it could be as simple as a ‘little snowfall’!

Unless you have been isolated, or not interested in North American weather (well, come on, that would be far fetched…a person, speaking English, not interested in weather!?!?!?!), you have probably heard of the little snowfall we’ve had over the weekend.  Here, the sparkling, crystalline gems that are snowflake started to gently drift down from fluffy clouds on Friday afternoon….and by Sunday morning, we had received about 50 cm of them (a bit under 2 feet).  That is depth, not width…

This, in itself, would not be so terribly unusual.  However, it has followed a particularly snowy winter…before this snowstorm, we had already exceeded our usual annual snowfall by almost 50%….  so even though we appreciate its aesthetic beauty, we are all thoroughly sick of this wet annoying stuff!  Yet more shoveling…..

Which is where the ‘good neighbours’ come in:  A few of the ‘guys’ took it upon themselves to help everyone around them out!  2x during the storm, they braved the elements and ‘fought the white dragon’ (their term!), and snow-blowed the laneways of everyone up and down the street, so the snow would not get unmanageably deep.

On Sunday morning, during the calm after the snow, the 5 of them were out with their snow-blowers (and 1 with a shovel), going up and down the street, making it passable for cars to drive down. (Yes, even a neighbour with a Hummer got stuck on the street before they rescued him. It’s not that it was slippery, rather, the snow was so deep, the bottom of the car or truck would rest on the snow, and the wheels would not reach down low enough to get traction….)  Then, they went up and down the street, and cleared everyone’s laneways and walkways!

It may not sound like a lot, but it is!

We ‘had to’ go out Sunday afternoon, because the ‘Super Smash Brothers Brawl’ for the Wii had just been released….and past where our ‘good neighbours’ spread their goodwill, people were helping each other push their vehicles through the deep snow, until they got to the bigger (and thus plowed) roads.

So, to the good neighbours of our street:  Thank you!  You have not just helped shift the pesky snow, you have reminded me how good people can be to each other, just for the sake of being nice.

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The way people believe in God…

March 5, 2008 — xanthippa

Recently, at a social gathering, I came across what just might be the youngest militant anti-theist!

The young man was perhaps 7 years old – but, I’m not so good at guessing age, so he could have been a year or so older or younger.   He was adamant that there was  no way he would ever believe in a God, and that saying there was one was ‘stuuupid’.  When I didn’t challenge him, but asked him to tell me about it, he told me that “the way people believe in God is stupid!”  and he’ll “never never ever believe in any stupid God himself.” 

Seeing he still had an audience, he added “I only believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  But that’s IT!  No God!”

Intriguing….his choice of words was quite telling….he didn’t like ‘the way people believed in God’!  Suspecting there was more here than early rebellion against parental values, I continued to make sympathetic noises, and listed.  I admit, I was curious what made him come to this unusual combination of opinions – because he was clearly convinced that this ‘belief-in-God’ was a bad thing.

It turned out that he was very frustrated indeed.  He had two best friends:  one was Jewish, the other Muslim.  He liked to play with both of them.  But, his Muslim friend had been forbidden to play with his Jewish friend.  As a result, he now always had to choose which friend to play with, and which one to leave behind!  What a ‘mess’ for a kid to deal with…

He felt deeply angered at being ‘stuck’ in this position.  When somebody explained that these two friends were no longer allowed to play together because they ‘believed in God in different ways’, he decided then and there that ‘the way people believe in God is stupid’.

Amen.

Posted in atheism, education, human nature, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »

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 »
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