Just a bit of idle commentary today. I've just been on Twitter (it's all about Twitter these days isn't it). Anyway, I was struck by just how many people were openly stating that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist front organisation. This is pretty incredible really. Obviously I broadly share this opinion. However, I always expect that I'll be in something of a minority with these type of views.
Not today though it seems.
I don't really have anything more to add at the moment. It just feels worth noting. In fact it feels as if things are coming to the surface. Like everything is out in the open now. Very strange days.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Friday, June 12, 2020
Defending Caligula
They've had to put up boarding around some of the statues in London. They now look like big grey tower blocks. It must feel quite embarrassing for some of the protesters. It's the equivalent of putting child proof locks on something. Hopefully it might make some realise how bratty they're being.
Again, I've said this before. I have sympathy for some of the younger activists. It's very easy to get whipped up into idealism when you're young. It's only natural to be rebellious and politically outraged over perceived injustices. The older people and the ring-leaders though, ..jeez. It's frightening that some of these people are actually in positions of power and influence.
Of course, online the arguments often descend into debates about the historical person in question. "He was a racist!" "...no he wasn't!" However, for me all that is missing the wider point. These statues are part of our heritage regardless of that. They have a cultural, historic, aesthetic, and dare I say it, even a monetary value. They belong to us all. They are our collective property.
In the civilised world we don't just vandalise art. I've just replied to one iconoclast on Twitter by pointing out that just because I disagree with the politics of Caligula doesn't mean I think trashing ancient Roman busts and statues would be a good idea. Thankfully plenty of sensible people are beginning to make this point. The usual one being that the pyramids were said to have been built by slaves and we're not knocking them down.
Hopefully these arguments win out before any more damage is done.
Again, I've said this before. I have sympathy for some of the younger activists. It's very easy to get whipped up into idealism when you're young. It's only natural to be rebellious and politically outraged over perceived injustices. The older people and the ring-leaders though, ..jeez. It's frightening that some of these people are actually in positions of power and influence.
Of course, online the arguments often descend into debates about the historical person in question. "He was a racist!" "...no he wasn't!" However, for me all that is missing the wider point. These statues are part of our heritage regardless of that. They have a cultural, historic, aesthetic, and dare I say it, even a monetary value. They belong to us all. They are our collective property.
In the civilised world we don't just vandalise art. I've just replied to one iconoclast on Twitter by pointing out that just because I disagree with the politics of Caligula doesn't mean I think trashing ancient Roman busts and statues would be a good idea. Thankfully plenty of sensible people are beginning to make this point. The usual one being that the pyramids were said to have been built by slaves and we're not knocking them down.
Hopefully these arguments win out before any more damage is done.
Thursday, June 11, 2020
..narratives
Well, I've been arguing with people on Twitter again. (I'd really hate to add up all the hours I've spent doing this over the course of the year). This time the topic has been the toppling of the statues. Obviously it goes without saying that I'm totally against this. In fact, the protesters are even beginning to target monuments dedicated to Captain Cook, who was born in my home town. So it's getting very personal. I can't help but feel though that while this is all happening I'm taking my eye off the ball in regard the lock down.
At the moment we're seeing the media spin this line that "..if only we'd have shut down earlier we'd have saved so many lives!". Wheeling out Rory Stewart who was pushing quite aggressively for a lock down from the start. Of course, the reality is quite different in my opinion. I would argue that it's the exact opposite, and that the lock down has undoubtedly killed more people. The virus itself being little more than a standard flu variant.
Right now everyone's focused on the rioting and vandalism though, so it's a good opportunity for the mainstream media to nudge the Covid narrative back on track. So I'm a little bit concerned we're seeing the stage being set for round two, or 'wave two' rather, this autumn.
..as I'm typing this I can hear my phone going off with Twitter notifications, haha. Better get back to the arguing 😅
At the moment we're seeing the media spin this line that "..if only we'd have shut down earlier we'd have saved so many lives!". Wheeling out Rory Stewart who was pushing quite aggressively for a lock down from the start. Of course, the reality is quite different in my opinion. I would argue that it's the exact opposite, and that the lock down has undoubtedly killed more people. The virus itself being little more than a standard flu variant.
Right now everyone's focused on the rioting and vandalism though, so it's a good opportunity for the mainstream media to nudge the Covid narrative back on track. So I'm a little bit concerned we're seeing the stage being set for round two, or 'wave two' rather, this autumn.
..as I'm typing this I can hear my phone going off with Twitter notifications, haha. Better get back to the arguing 😅
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Sir John Hawkins - Erased by the Mob
It's late, but I'll post tonight. It'll save me posting tomorrow morning I guess. I'm actually a little bit sad. Obviously today we've had yet more protests over statues. The main focus being aimed towards the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. He's survived so far, but still, it's pretty depressing stuff. The main thing that has gotten to me though is that I've just found out that they're renaming Sir John Hawkins Square in Plymouth because of all this.
Now, yes, John Hawkins did trade slaves, but he lived over 400 years ago! We're talking Elizabethan history here. On top of this it's so far back in history that we can't even be entirely sure what that history was. I actually finished reading Hakluyt's Voyages not too long ago, which is a compendium of sailing accounts from this era. It was all a bit sketchy and everything was written in ye olde Englishe. So we're talking very old stuff here. Hawkins, being something of hero, featured fairly heavily. If I recall correctly his main focus was competing with the Spanish.
Occasionally when reading I'd come across accounts of him and others catching a slave or setting fire to a Spanish settlement, and I'd think, "Oh, that's a bit brutal." However, shocking though it was, I understood that I was reading something from a far distant era, when life was very different. In fact, it wasn't at all uncommon for Christians to be captured and sold into slavery back then too. So it was a very different world. Of course, that doesn't excuse horrendous acts, but nevertheless it does require that a bit of context be applied. I'm a vegetarian, so I deem eating meat pretty savage, but I don't go around viewing all meat-eaters as evil people. I understand the context.
Perhaps one day society as a whole will move away from eating meat full stop. Will we pull down statues of anyone who ever ate meat at that point?
I find it quite concerning seeing Elizabethan history being stripped away like this. Again, as with Hakluyt's Voyages above, there's not a great deal of it. In fact, much of the information you'll find on Hawkins' Wikipedia page, which Marxist revisionists are now gleefully waving as evidence, come largely from these few written accounts. So the local ties and folklore attached to places like Plymouth really are important links to this history. It's not just simply a question of changing a street name.
Also, much of this history carries with it an aesthetic quality. So far no one has really mentioned how beautiful some of the statues are for instance. Why would we want to make our country more ugly? Surely people can appreciate the beauty of something even if the subject is flawed in other ways. Or are these people simply incapable of dealing with ambivalence?
(Portrait of Sir John Hawkins,
National Maritime Museum, London)
Now, yes, John Hawkins did trade slaves, but he lived over 400 years ago! We're talking Elizabethan history here. On top of this it's so far back in history that we can't even be entirely sure what that history was. I actually finished reading Hakluyt's Voyages not too long ago, which is a compendium of sailing accounts from this era. It was all a bit sketchy and everything was written in ye olde Englishe. So we're talking very old stuff here. Hawkins, being something of hero, featured fairly heavily. If I recall correctly his main focus was competing with the Spanish.
Occasionally when reading I'd come across accounts of him and others catching a slave or setting fire to a Spanish settlement, and I'd think, "Oh, that's a bit brutal." However, shocking though it was, I understood that I was reading something from a far distant era, when life was very different. In fact, it wasn't at all uncommon for Christians to be captured and sold into slavery back then too. So it was a very different world. Of course, that doesn't excuse horrendous acts, but nevertheless it does require that a bit of context be applied. I'm a vegetarian, so I deem eating meat pretty savage, but I don't go around viewing all meat-eaters as evil people. I understand the context.
Perhaps one day society as a whole will move away from eating meat full stop. Will we pull down statues of anyone who ever ate meat at that point?
I find it quite concerning seeing Elizabethan history being stripped away like this. Again, as with Hakluyt's Voyages above, there's not a great deal of it. In fact, much of the information you'll find on Hawkins' Wikipedia page, which Marxist revisionists are now gleefully waving as evidence, come largely from these few written accounts. So the local ties and folklore attached to places like Plymouth really are important links to this history. It's not just simply a question of changing a street name.
Also, much of this history carries with it an aesthetic quality. So far no one has really mentioned how beautiful some of the statues are for instance. Why would we want to make our country more ugly? Surely people can appreciate the beauty of something even if the subject is flawed in other ways. Or are these people simply incapable of dealing with ambivalence?
(My battered copy of
Hakluyt's Voyages)
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Defund The Crazy
Yesterday I spoke of the hysteria in the UK. It's nothing compared to what's going on in America at the moment. The footage of Nancy Pelosi 'taking the knee' was really quite something. I normally don't like to question the sanity of the people I disagree with. I think it's pretty unfair, and a slippery slope. However, this does look quite deluded. It's hard not to see it as some sort of collective mental breakdown.
We've also had the calls to 'defund the police', with Minneapolis City Council already heading down that road. Which again is quite mad. As I type I'm sat listening to Fox's Tucker Carlson who's arguing that it's all a big power play. The Democrats essentially taking a scythe to the broadly Trump-supporting cops in order to replace them with their own leftist enforcers.
Of course the constant talk of 'public safety' is quite reminiscent of the French Revolution.
(Quite crazy o_O)
We've also had the calls to 'defund the police', with Minneapolis City Council already heading down that road. Which again is quite mad. As I type I'm sat listening to Fox's Tucker Carlson who's arguing that it's all a big power play. The Democrats essentially taking a scythe to the broadly Trump-supporting cops in order to replace them with their own leftist enforcers.
Of course the constant talk of 'public safety' is quite reminiscent of the French Revolution.
Monday, June 8, 2020
The Rites and Fervour of the Religious Left
So the mob tarred and feathered a statue yesterday. Throwing it into the river to round it all off. It was like some sort of May Day rite where folks would cast the 'corn-spirit' into the river to cleanse the village of evil and ensure the harvests. It could've came straight out of James Frazer's The Golden Bough.
The mob are dumb, but the people stirring up the mob are quite clever. As taking down the statue of Edward Colston, though an act of lawless vandalism, is something that it's very difficult for law-abiding folk to argue against. What with him being a horrible slave trader an all. So you can effectively be dismissed as a racist if you express even the slightest horror at the hysterical carnage.
I feel slightly sorry for the younger people taking part. It's very easy to be whipped up into a frenzy against what you perceive to be the establishment. We've all been there. It's often only as you get older that you realise that things are much more nuanced. So some of the younger people will no doubt grow to lament what they've taken part in. The media figures and the university departments that are leading this charge I have much less sympathy for though. Either through stupidity or design they're partaking in the destruction of western civilisation. Quite literally.
In civilised countries we don't just tear down statues. However bad the person depicted may be. We have discussion and debate, we go through processes. If we deem that the statue should be removed we don't simply destroy it like barbarians. We perhaps move it to a museum where we can showcase it in a context more fitting to our values. Or even just put it in storage so it at least remains accessible to academics and future generations.
In fact, on a similar topic, a few weeks back I was speaking to a friend about how civilisation had been shut down because of the corona-panic. I was jokingly saying they didn't shut down the renaissance to stop syphilis. We've shut down 2020 and lost a year's worth of art and sporting events. Imagine they'd simply shut down entire years back then. Would you shut down 1507 if it meant losing a Raphael?
I think a lot of the people pushing these protests and shut downs see themselves as saviours of humanity, but in reality they're just trashing our world.
The mob are dumb, but the people stirring up the mob are quite clever. As taking down the statue of Edward Colston, though an act of lawless vandalism, is something that it's very difficult for law-abiding folk to argue against. What with him being a horrible slave trader an all. So you can effectively be dismissed as a racist if you express even the slightest horror at the hysterical carnage.
(Edward Colston ..thought I better save
this just in case they burn the original)
I feel slightly sorry for the younger people taking part. It's very easy to be whipped up into a frenzy against what you perceive to be the establishment. We've all been there. It's often only as you get older that you realise that things are much more nuanced. So some of the younger people will no doubt grow to lament what they've taken part in. The media figures and the university departments that are leading this charge I have much less sympathy for though. Either through stupidity or design they're partaking in the destruction of western civilisation. Quite literally.
In civilised countries we don't just tear down statues. However bad the person depicted may be. We have discussion and debate, we go through processes. If we deem that the statue should be removed we don't simply destroy it like barbarians. We perhaps move it to a museum where we can showcase it in a context more fitting to our values. Or even just put it in storage so it at least remains accessible to academics and future generations.
In fact, on a similar topic, a few weeks back I was speaking to a friend about how civilisation had been shut down because of the corona-panic. I was jokingly saying they didn't shut down the renaissance to stop syphilis. We've shut down 2020 and lost a year's worth of art and sporting events. Imagine they'd simply shut down entire years back then. Would you shut down 1507 if it meant losing a Raphael?
(Saint Catherine of Alexandria
- Raphael, c. 1507)
I think a lot of the people pushing these protests and shut downs see themselves as saviours of humanity, but in reality they're just trashing our world.
Sunday, June 7, 2020
Facebook Riots III
Well, good mood today. Yesterday I spoke to the woman I'd offended with the Black Lives Matter post. I apologised. All is now good. So that's one thing fixed.
It might be wise if I give people a break on Facebook for a while. I'm probably just shouting into the void half the time anyway. It's frustrating seeing how media-manipulated people still are. Having had three months of this you'd think they'd have learnt to be wary of the media flame, but they keep going back. It's almost like they just copy and paste their opinions from elsewhere, with zero critical thought. Monkey see, monkey do.
I've always believed, I guess in an idealistic sense, that everyone is capable of thinking for themselves. Sure, not everyone is blessed with the same intelligence or ability, but nevertheless I've always had faith that given enough time everyone is capable of getting there in the end. After all, it's not like we're taught to think critically in school. If anything incessant questioning tends to get heavily frowned upon. So I suppose you could therefore say I'm a big believer in nurture over nature in that regard. That it's a case of creating an environment that encourages critical thought.
However, watching the last few months does make me wonder 😅 Perhaps a certain percentage of the population will always just follow the crowd and the loud voices leading it. Whatever the circumstances.
It might be wise if I give people a break on Facebook for a while. I'm probably just shouting into the void half the time anyway. It's frustrating seeing how media-manipulated people still are. Having had three months of this you'd think they'd have learnt to be wary of the media flame, but they keep going back. It's almost like they just copy and paste their opinions from elsewhere, with zero critical thought. Monkey see, monkey do.
I've always believed, I guess in an idealistic sense, that everyone is capable of thinking for themselves. Sure, not everyone is blessed with the same intelligence or ability, but nevertheless I've always had faith that given enough time everyone is capable of getting there in the end. After all, it's not like we're taught to think critically in school. If anything incessant questioning tends to get heavily frowned upon. So I suppose you could therefore say I'm a big believer in nurture over nature in that regard. That it's a case of creating an environment that encourages critical thought.
However, watching the last few months does make me wonder 😅 Perhaps a certain percentage of the population will always just follow the crowd and the loud voices leading it. Whatever the circumstances.
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