Sunday (22/01): Opeth - Blackwater Park
Monday (23/01): sleepmakeswaves - ...and so we destroyed everything
Tuesday (24/01): Cathedral - Forest Of Equilibrium
Wednesday (25/01): Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet
Thursday (26/01): Argus - Boldly Stride The Doomed
Friday (27/01): Black Tusk - Set The Dial
Saturday (28/01): Tool - Ænima
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
My Country, Right Or Wrong
If Australian culture was really the best possible culture, then there would be no need to try to protect Australian culture - it would just be protecting good culture. Likewise, if Australian values were really good values to hold, then there would be no need to protect Australian values - it would just be protecting good values.
There's a certain irony in jingoistic behaviour, that it enshrines Australian values and reduces it to a form of tribalism. There's an even greater irony when the enforcement of this jingoism is accompanied with lip service to the notion that freedom of expression is part of the values they are protecting. That freedom, it seems, extends to everyone who will say how fucking great Australia really is.
For all the talk of foreigners taking over Australia and trying to enforce their values on us, it's not the forigners who are trying to force their culture onto others - it's the idiots draped in Australian flags complaining about the foreign incursion. The foreigners are the scapegoats for multiculturalism, for the widening of the cultural narrative to recognise that there's more than one way to live.
I challenged someone yesterday about what she meant by foreigners pushing their way of life onto us - the response was that we're not allowed to play Christmas carols in shopping centres or do Christmas in schools, have to sing "baa baa rainbow sheep" instead of "baa baa black sheep", and being called racist for displaying Australian flags. What. The. Fuck?! That's got very little to do with foreigners, it's just listing off gripes about political correctness.
That racist idiots drape themselves in the flag and proudly declare that their narrow view of culture is what we should all aspire to - or find a new residence is part of the reason why there's an association built up between flags and racism. Flag waving has that inevitable pull towards the extreme as it's the extreme that tries to own flag waving. Instead of complaining at foreigners, why not complain at all the idiots who use the flag as part of their racism?
It's not foreigners who are trying to push their way of life onto me, it's entitled Australians who are. They're the ones trying to define being Australian in such narrow terms, and wanting to push their way of life onto others.
If being Australian is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression, as those bigots say they are for, then the foreign incursion is only a problem in so far that it tries to stifle those values. And when foreigners do that, I'll stand alongside all those trying to stop such a travesty. But if those values are really Australian values, then we should rail against the bigots who do no more than pay lip service to them.
Is it that I need to say "my country, right or wrong" or seek foreign citizenship? Is Australian value merely tribalism with a veneer of enlightenment? I hope not, and I really don't think it does come down to that. They wouldn't have to fight so hard for the narrowing of the cultural narrative if the tide was turning away from such small-mindedness.
There's a certain irony in jingoistic behaviour, that it enshrines Australian values and reduces it to a form of tribalism. There's an even greater irony when the enforcement of this jingoism is accompanied with lip service to the notion that freedom of expression is part of the values they are protecting. That freedom, it seems, extends to everyone who will say how fucking great Australia really is.
For all the talk of foreigners taking over Australia and trying to enforce their values on us, it's not the forigners who are trying to force their culture onto others - it's the idiots draped in Australian flags complaining about the foreign incursion. The foreigners are the scapegoats for multiculturalism, for the widening of the cultural narrative to recognise that there's more than one way to live.
I challenged someone yesterday about what she meant by foreigners pushing their way of life onto us - the response was that we're not allowed to play Christmas carols in shopping centres or do Christmas in schools, have to sing "baa baa rainbow sheep" instead of "baa baa black sheep", and being called racist for displaying Australian flags. What. The. Fuck?! That's got very little to do with foreigners, it's just listing off gripes about political correctness.
That racist idiots drape themselves in the flag and proudly declare that their narrow view of culture is what we should all aspire to - or find a new residence is part of the reason why there's an association built up between flags and racism. Flag waving has that inevitable pull towards the extreme as it's the extreme that tries to own flag waving. Instead of complaining at foreigners, why not complain at all the idiots who use the flag as part of their racism?
It's not foreigners who are trying to push their way of life onto me, it's entitled Australians who are. They're the ones trying to define being Australian in such narrow terms, and wanting to push their way of life onto others.
If being Australian is about freedom of speech and freedom of expression, as those bigots say they are for, then the foreign incursion is only a problem in so far that it tries to stifle those values. And when foreigners do that, I'll stand alongside all those trying to stop such a travesty. But if those values are really Australian values, then we should rail against the bigots who do no more than pay lip service to them.
Is it that I need to say "my country, right or wrong" or seek foreign citizenship? Is Australian value merely tribalism with a veneer of enlightenment? I hope not, and I really don't think it does come down to that. They wouldn't have to fight so hard for the narrowing of the cultural narrative if the tide was turning away from such small-mindedness.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
So Much For Freedom Of Expression
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-25/rushdie-speech-cancelled-amid-death-threats/3791434
To celebrate this bigotry, here's a Jesus and Mo:
India's Jaipur Literature Festival has cancelled a televised speech by Salman Rushdie minutes before it was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, amid death threats to its organiser and fears of violent protests at the event by Muslim groups.It's amazing how powerful a tool blasphemy can be. If there is a God, his objection to it seems to take the form of fanaticism amongst his followers. It's almost as if it's an excuse from God's followers to not say anything they might not like to hear...
The issue of British-Indian author Rushdie, who cancelled his visit to the festival due to assassination threats, has overshadowed the event, which is the largest literature festival in Asia.
Muslim groups protested against his invitation and other authors accused the government of suppressing free speech.
"There are a large number of people averse to this video link inside this property. They have threatened violence," Ramtap Singh, owner of the hotel in which the festival is held, told the large crowd that had assembled to listen to the author.
"This is necessary to avoid harm to all of you."
A death threat was received against Jaipur Literature Festival director William Dalrymple ahead of Rushdie's speech.
Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses is banned in India, cancelled his planned visit to speak at the festival in person after reported assassination threats against him.
"All of us feel hurt and disgraced. Artists have not been able to prevail," said Sanjoy Roy, the festival's producer, holding back tears.
Political parties are seen as unwilling to lend their support to the author for fear of offending Muslim voters ahead of an important state election in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, next month.
After organisers announced earlier on Tuesday that Rushdie's address would go ahead, leaders of local Muslim groups began to congregate at the main entrance to the festival, vowing to protest if the author was allowed to address the event.
"This is a big defeat. It's a triumph for bigotry," said Tarun Tejpal, editor of Indian news magazine Tehelka.
Five authors have been investigated by police in Jaipur for reading from The Satanic Verses at the festival, and English PEN, a writer's body, issued a statement late on Monday in their support.
"We felt that it was important to show support for Salman, who is often misrepresented... This situation has arisen in India at a time when free speech is under attack," wrote Hari Kunzru, one of the authors involved, in the Guardian newspaper.
To celebrate this bigotry, here's a Jesus and Mo:
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Album Of The Day: Week 3
Sunday (15/01): Cog - The New Normal
Monday (16/01): DOPETHRONE - Dark Foil
Tuesday (17/01): Cynic - Traced In Air
Wednesday (18/01): Paradise Lost - Draconian Times
Thursday (19/01): Tweaker - The Attraction To All Things Uncertain
Friday (20/01): Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear
Saturday (21/01): Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World
Monday (16/01): DOPETHRONE - Dark Foil
Tuesday (17/01): Cynic - Traced In Air
Wednesday (18/01): Paradise Lost - Draconian Times
Thursday (19/01): Tweaker - The Attraction To All Things Uncertain
Friday (20/01): Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear
Saturday (21/01): Nevermore - Dead Heart In A Dead World
Friday, 20 January 2012
The Memetic Fallacy
The fight behind climate change is very political in nature, with liberal-leaning and progressives being the main advocates of trying to fight global warming. The battle over evolution has a very religious component to it, with evolution often being advocated by atheists and creation by theists. Anti-smoking campaigns and rhetoric are nearly exclusively political now. The biggest pushers of science-based medicine are corporations whose only interest is their bottom line.
The question of whether or not climate change, or evolution, or the cancerous effects of smoking, or the efficacy of medicine are scientific questions, yet their propagation in wider culture often has very little to do with their scientific evidence. It's true that greenies and tree-huggers use climate change as a political tool to push their agenda, for example, but what does that say about the scientific validity of climate change? Very little...
Yet I have come across the argument that climate change science is an invention of leftists looking to push their political agenda. Just as I have come across that evolution is an atheist lie to deny God as the Creator, and the anti-vaccination movement is rife with claims about the science of vaccines being a Big Pharma scam. But it was a conversation with a friend about smoking that inspired me to write this post.
The notion of memes, as initially coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, is that ideas propagate in a manner akin to genes, so what survives in the realm of ideas are those that are good at being replicated. Whether or not memes are a good scientific construct is another debate, and for the purposes of this post it doesn't matter whether or not memes are a sound concept.
Likewise when it comes to evolution, the weight of expertise sits firmly on the side that it is true. That there are prominent atheists that are also evolutionary biologists or that atheists promote evolution doesn't mean that it's an idea created to undermine God and promote atheism. It might be a reason to be atheist, but that atheists promote it isn't the reason why the idea has done so well scientifically.
Perhaps like the concept of meme itself, the mistake is leaving something vital by focusing purely on its delivery. In the case of these arguments, the mistake is to leave out the content itself; that explanation of its propagation is taken as being sufficient to explain the content.
It's with good reason that we are wary of the messengers - the reputation that lawyers, advertisers, and especially politicans have received is not entirely undeserved. When there are ulterior motives, it does call into question how objective the messenger is, but is not in and of itself sufficient to dismiss the message itself as being a product of those same ulterior motives.
The question of whether or not climate change, or evolution, or the cancerous effects of smoking, or the efficacy of medicine are scientific questions, yet their propagation in wider culture often has very little to do with their scientific evidence. It's true that greenies and tree-huggers use climate change as a political tool to push their agenda, for example, but what does that say about the scientific validity of climate change? Very little...
Yet I have come across the argument that climate change science is an invention of leftists looking to push their political agenda. Just as I have come across that evolution is an atheist lie to deny God as the Creator, and the anti-vaccination movement is rife with claims about the science of vaccines being a Big Pharma scam. But it was a conversation with a friend about smoking that inspired me to write this post.
The notion of memes, as initially coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, is that ideas propagate in a manner akin to genes, so what survives in the realm of ideas are those that are good at being replicated. Whether or not memes are a good scientific construct is another debate, and for the purposes of this post it doesn't matter whether or not memes are a sound concept.
The memetic fallacy is a fallacy of relevance where one mistakes the reasons for its propagation as the reasons for its validity.That climate change seems to go down a particular ideology is quite far removed from the science of it, which may lead to fabricated or exaggerated claims, but it would be a mistake to not look at where the weight of expertise lies. The propagation method may lead to embellishments or outright falsehoods, but that's not enough to dismiss the original evidence.
Likewise when it comes to evolution, the weight of expertise sits firmly on the side that it is true. That there are prominent atheists that are also evolutionary biologists or that atheists promote evolution doesn't mean that it's an idea created to undermine God and promote atheism. It might be a reason to be atheist, but that atheists promote it isn't the reason why the idea has done so well scientifically.
Perhaps like the concept of meme itself, the mistake is leaving something vital by focusing purely on its delivery. In the case of these arguments, the mistake is to leave out the content itself; that explanation of its propagation is taken as being sufficient to explain the content.
It's with good reason that we are wary of the messengers - the reputation that lawyers, advertisers, and especially politicans have received is not entirely undeserved. When there are ulterior motives, it does call into question how objective the messenger is, but is not in and of itself sufficient to dismiss the message itself as being a product of those same ulterior motives.
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