The Safety Harness: Our Rulers Aren't Evil

We're back. Today I want to talk about how it's a mistake to think people execute policies and actions based solely on ideology.

We tend to think - especially when it comes to politics - that people are driven by their ideology. They have an ideology and they then act according to it. However, this is only partly the case, and it's generally not how humans behave.

The Safety Harness

Take a parent with a small child. They're worried that the child may run off and get lost. Or that they may run into the road when a car's coming. Or that they may just run around and cause trouble in general.

If someone comes along and offers this parent a child safety harness, that tethers the toddler to the parent, it's likely they'll accept it and put it to use. They won't think: "Is it ethical to put my child on a lead?" or "Is this decision compatible with my overall political ideology?" They'll just do it. It's largely a practical decision.

They have the practical problem of the child running off. The safety harness solves that problem in practice.

Fast food Decisions

It's similar with eating animals (and I'm not arguing that it's wrong or right to eat animals here, I'm just using this example as it's a good one to use. Likewise I'm not necessarily saying it's right or wrong to put your child on a harness as above. These are just examples to illustrate how people make decisions in actuality).

Anyway ..if someone's walking through town and they feel hungry that hunger - i.e. that need for food - is just a problem that needs solving. If they see a fast food restaurant then that offers a solution to their problem.

Once again, it's just a practical solution to a practical problem. A mental assessment of the ideological merits of the decision usually does not take place.

If they choose an animal product not only is there no ideology involved, but the person probably isn't even thinking about the fact that an animal needs killing. It never enters their head. It's simply "I feel hungry ..this satiates my hunger."

If they are then confronted with the possible moral implications of their food choice they'll then struggle for some comforting narrative that justifies what they've already done. (People rarely just say "I eat animals because I care more about myself than I do the animals". As we like to feel like we're behaving in a good and moral way.)

So it'll usually be a case of: "Well, it's natural to eat animals," or "We need to eat animals, it's unhealthy not to," or, "If we didn't eat animals cows would go extinct," or "These cows have had a good life.."  And so on and so forth. You get the picture.

Again though, the point is not that it's wrong or right to eat animals. This is to illustrate the fact that more often than not people reach for an ideological narrative to justify their behaviour. After the fact.

Humans have practical everyday problems confronting them in their everyday lives. They take practical steps to solve these problems. Ideological philosophising doesn't figure heavily, and when it does it often serves as a fig leaf to morally frame the actions already taken.

We all behave this way to some greater degree or other. We like to believe we operate to some core set of principles, but it's often the case that we believe what is convenient.

Cats

A further and final example to illustrate things is how we treat our pets. It's quite common for people to get their pets spayed and neutered.

If we were in the position of the cat - waking up from anaesthetic one day to find our balls had been surgically removed - we'd no doubt view our owners as incredibly evil. However, cat owners aren't in fact evil (at least I don't think they are). When a pet owner takes their soon-to-be neutered cat to the vets they're not rubbing their hands with glee like some evil supervillain. Relishing the suffering and humiliation they're about to inflict on the poor cat.

They're doing it for purely practical reasons.

They don't want their cat making babies. Ergo they're stopping that from happening.

They've been offered a solution to their problem and they've utilised it.

Again, politics, morals, ideals don't come into it; and if those things do it comes only via the pangs of emotion or guilt that creep up upon the pet owner as they whisk their cat off in its little cage.

Feelings that are quickly satiated by post hoc moral excuses: "Well, we can't afford to look after baby cats - we had to do it." Along with some newly bought goodies for the cat. As if the squeaky toys and pet treats will somehow outweigh the loss of the body parts.

Again though, the pet owners aren't evil. They love the cat. (Not as much as they love themselves). But they do love it, and they believe in their hearts they love it. They'll even cry and be heartbroken when it dies.

Still, that didn't stop them cutting the cat's balls off.

So, do you still think our rulers are EVIL?

When we consider how we exercise power over the animals that feed us, or the pets that we love so dearly, or even our own children it provides a window into the mindset of those who rule us. Be they democratic leaders, technocrats or tyrants.

Like ourselves they face everyday practical problems. Both in their own lives and in their management of society at large.

If they have the practical problem of people committing crime, and putting every citizen on a 'child safety harness' solves this problem, then more likely than not they'll use it.

Likewise if too many little baby people are being born - just like the cats that were having too many little baby kittens - why would they not think to neuter and spay some of the humans? It might sound strange, but why not. As king of the home you did it to your cat to manage your household affairs - and without a second thought. So why wouldn't your masters do it to manage this wider household we call human society.

Sure, you can view all the things we see happening in the world as being driven by ideologies (communism, capitalism, technocracy, religious ideology). Or even as being driven by manifest evil itself.

However, the reality is most things are driven primarily by practicalities - and it's often all incredibly banal and thoughtless. If you fail to understand this you'll never understand the people you perceive to be your enemies.

In reality they're simply people that have needs, desires and problems that need solving.

If you're the neutered cat you may view what's been done to you as evil - and it may very well be evil - but if you think your owners are evil you are wrong and you really don't understand them. They believe they are good and they believe they love you. Even when they're cutting your balls off.

Royal Purple

As promised earlier I'll relay my observations on the Riverside minute's silence. Things were actually fairly good. Pretty much everyone was nice and respectful, and the minute's silence was silent bar the odd mobile phone accidentally going off. It wasn't a packed stadium, so it wasn't especially dramatic, but it was fitting and appropriate.

Afterwards they played 'God Save the King' and plenty sung along. I didn't sing - partly because the people around me weren't singing (I'm most definitely not a ringleader when it comes to singing at football matches), but also partly because it felt like too much. Weirdly the thought of my mam turning on the TV and seeing me singing was what swung it.

On my mam's side of the family they're most definitely republican. I'm often regaled with the story of how my nanna came and dragged my mam away from a school trip after it was found they were going to line the streets for a visiting royal. Likewise I've often heard how my uncle used to write in brackets on his tax returns, "I don't want any of this going to the royal family".

So coming out in support of constitutional monarchy I feel a bit like I did when I voted Conservative for the first time. Like I'm going against tradition. In footballing terms it's like I've decided to suddenly become a Sunderland fan after all these years.

So moderation was the order of the evening.

A few pictures. The first I took this evening on the way home showing Middlesbrough library lit in purple. The second from yesterday showing the museum. The museum looks ominous at the best of times.

Book Burning

I was also thinking today that it's time to stop posting on here daily. I really enjoy doing it, but it's taking up too much time. I really want to start properly storyboarding the part II of my fiction. I'm off work on holiday this week but I've already burned through Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and got very little done. So I need to prioritise my screen time - there's only so much time you can spend eye-balling a laptop screen before your zest goes.

Again, I like posting here, but I'm just being lazy and posting whatever springs to mind most of the time. Plus it's giving me an excuse to put off doing the writing that actually takes some mental effort.

In the few months I've been posting regularly I've covered the new prime minister and the passing of the Queen, so I think I've managed to catch the important things. Though I've always said that the death of the Queen would be the starting pistol for all of Britain's enemies, so maybe things are only just beginning (hopefully that was just overdramatization on my part).

I'll still post intermittently as before, and if freeze-ageddon happens I'll click back into gear. Then again, saying that, it might be better to just crack on with my novel by candlelight if that happens.

I have bought the candles just in case.

Social Fieldwork

I'm off to a football match later today, so it'll be interesting to see what the tributes are like. I'm not sure what to expect. I'm up north so it's not the most royalist part of the country, though these days the north tends to be more cool with being British than the rest of the country. I'll give an appraisal tomorrow, or maybe tonight.

Think I might wear a black hoodie as a mark of respect lol.

Effing and Blinding

I originally made a few notes earlier today before I left the house, to remind me what I intended to write about. I still have the notes here; indeed I still have complete recall of what I was thinking about. However, though it all remains I feel the moment has passed, and as I sit here at nearly 1 am in the morning the news that earlier grabbed my attention seems old and distant. I guess it shows how fast moving the modern news cycle is. Or at least how social media momentarily elevates things above their importance.

What it was that caught my thoughts was the green-haired chick in Scotland getting arrested for holding a sign. The sign read: "F*ck Imperialism / Abolish Monarchy".

Obviously it's wrong to arrest someone for holding a protest banner, that kind of goes without saying. The f-word confuses things a little though. Does it therefore count as obscenity?

For me personally that would make no difference - free speech is free speech, pick your own words. This was actually the specific point I was going to consider here though: the way "swear" words are a weird form of blasphemy.

I've mentioned this before but I always find it very interesting how swear words have this power and status. For instance if we catch our finger or stub our toe we often cry out either a swear word or a religious phrase in anger:

"F*ck!" ; "For Christ's Sake!" ; "Flaming hell's fire!" ; "Sh*t!" ; "Bloody hell!"

Sometimes we even combine a swear word with a religious theme: "F*cking hell!" (That's quite a common one lol.)

It's like religious phrases and swear words both carry this similar weight and force. They're words we scream out in anger or desperation, or use for emphasis.

We even label swear words with religious type language. Swear coming with connotations of swearing an oath and the more American term "curse words" obviously suggesting curse. Like you're casting a spell on someone, or invoking a god. We also have the term profanity suggesting something profane.

I'm not entirely sure why this is, but again I always find it interesting and noteworthy. Why does the word c*nt have so much more force than the word vagina. Is it purely cultural conditioning?

The topic also inspired me to look up the phrase "effing and blinding". I understood that the "effing" related to the f-word, but I always wondered what the "blinding" meant. Apparently it relates to blimey - from "God blind me!" So again we have the swear word with the religious exclamation.

Blank Signs

Finally there was also a related story today about another anti-monarchy protester being questioned over a "blank sign". Back in March there was a story from Russia about a protester being arrested for holding a blank sign. So I thought these stories bookended things quite nicely.

[Given the moment has passed I've still managed to jot down a fair bit.]

I Don't Know.

Woke up bright and early today. On Twitter there's a lot of talk about the Russians being pushed back in Ukraine. You may have noticed I haven't posted very much about the war on here, even though it's obviously of huge importance. The main reason for this is that I simply have no certainty about what is going on there. It's so far away and we're so removed from it that it's difficult to tell where reality begins and fiction ends. So I'm in a permanent state of doubt whenever the topic pops up.

I have several different competing theories in mind as to what's actually going on. Ranging from just accepting the mainstream narrative prima facie to more exotic ideas. I'll be keeping all these views to myself though. Sometimes you just have to accept that you simply don't know for sure what's going on and that your opinions aren't helpful or useful to the situation. I am paying attention though, and it does interest me.

Strange Days..

I posted earlier today elsewhere, basically arguing that we've went awry as a nation when it comes to mourning with the "minute's applause".

That can be found via the link below, I won't rehash things here:

The "Minute's Applause" Is Why We Have No Football

It's been a very strange few days following the Queen's death. I'm not sure what to make of it. In a way I'm fortunate that I don't have strong feelings about the monarchy one way or the other. In younger days I was firmly against the concept, but with age I've arrived at an appreciation of constitutional monarchy, for largely pragmatic reasons. Either way the Queen has been head of state since the day I was born.

As I don't have strong opinions (for a change) I can simply sit back and watch things. It's all very interesting. There's a lot of chitchat and political commentary at the moment, as you'd expect, so the few opinions I do have I'll keep to myself for the time being.

Mona Lisa Lightning

I've had one of those days where I've got a lot of little jobs done. I've did the laundry, fixed a window frame, put down a new rug (I had to hoover the carpet first 😢 ), I've blogged about my fpl team, I topped up the soil for my little orange tree (yes, that's still going strong), I did some shopping.

Yet I still feel somewhat empty, like it's not enough. It's all a bit mundane. When you sort out all the little problems - when you have no problems - then the big questions come rushing in. After yesterday's thunder and lightning I've been wondering what causes it. How do clouds of rain cause mighty lightning strikes? I think I might have figured it out somewhat, but it still seems so mysterious and supernatural - so godly. Like some divine manifestation.

I've also been wondering about fate and destiny. Is there one person you're tied to by fate? A soulmate as they say. It's cringe, but the modern world is more primitive for its disbelief in love. It used to pervade our culture. From medieval troubadours and notions of unrequited love, to fairy tales and black and white movies. The idea that you would go to the ends of the earth for just this one person and no one else.

You'd probably be declared mentally ill today for saying you believe there's one person you're destined to be with. Both left and right have cast all meaning and sense of preordained purpose aside. Reducing everything to biological transactions - just go on Twitter and see all the posts from both sides saying what men want and what women want and yada yada. Even the "based" Christians are reduced to seeing love through the lens of social and psychological logic chains, ala people like Jordan Peterson (who I admire a lot, but it's all too analytical for me).

You can dissect and analyse anything; and then follow things back via a chain of cause and consequence, but ultimately everything always returns to the source. The mystery, the question mark.

If you attach meaning or a sense of purpose to a relationship - "It's my destiny to be with this person !" - the modern mind will rationalise the meaning away.

You only feel this way because you have a biological urge to procreate, and a need to pair-bond to raise the child -- and this in turn can be explained by evolution --- which in turn began in a chemical soup ---- which in turn was the product of exploding stars and swirling gases ----- which themselves were a product of a big bang.

Of course, when we reach this 'big bang' (or any other beginning) we hit the source. Not just a "how?" that we can't answer, but also a "why?".

Why was there a beginning?

Or: Why is anything here to begin with?

Once you acknowledge this mystery you can do something the modern mind never does. Flip it all back round. Perhaps the big bang and the swirling gas and the exploding stars and the chemical soup and the millions of years of evolution and the very hormone filled body you inhabit is all there precisely so you can experience that meaning.

Maybe it all happened for that reason. Perhaps that is the purpose and the "why?". Perhaps love, in the higher, meaningful sense of the word, is the reason (again, I don't want to sound too cringey, but it can't be helped).

Maybe the meaning is the whole point, dumbo.

Of course, we can't know this for certain either. It could all indeed just be a pointless sequence of events that somehow just happened. However, we can't know it isn't meaningful either. Logic can only take us to agnosticism.

The modern mind gets lost in little autistic chains of logic though, missing the bigger beautiful picture. It's like looking at the Mona Lisa and claiming it's just chemical pigments on a canvas. Yes, that is indeed what it is if you physically dissect it. If you want a scientific analysis. If you want to break it down into its material components.

However, if you step back and take a look at the whole you will see beauty and meaning. A beauty and meaning that can't be pinned down by science. That we can't even prove is there, and that will be subjective to the person viewing the painting (you may find it ugly, lacking and overrated - either way you see more than just pigments).

If a painting can be so much more than its pixels or pigments then how much more meaningful can a life or the whole world itself be when you stop dissecting it to its base biological mechanics.

I've wandered somewhat lol, but I think I need to break out of the mundane from time to time on this blog. It seems kinda lame to supress this natural inclination to see god in the lightning. To pretend I don't see meaning in life would make me a liar (however unfashionable seeing it may make me).