h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Personally I feel those wishing to further dilute freedom of speech are in danger of running contrary to the Enlightenment values which saw an end to the religious intolerance that was holding civilisation back. It's no accident IMO that some of the more religious societies are also the most repressive and backward.

Whilst some people may abuse the right, surely it's a defining characteristic of Western Society. Just as the majority defend the right for women to dress as they please without seeing a short skirt as an invitation to rape, surely we must defend the right for people to speak their minds however vile or vacuous the contents.

Moves by Muslim countries at the UN to restrict free speech http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/NorthAmerica/At-UN-Muslim-world-questions-Western-freedom-of-speech/Article1-937894.aspx must be opposed.

Yes! How interesting! I like that idea of a morning walk with conversation with strangers. I think I might give it a try.
I am following another retired fellow here, Deke. He has taken up kayaking and his saga is very entertaining!
Getting out and about is a great idea, isn't it!

I can see the lecturer in your postings. Maybe you should give a talk once a month to some history or anthropology club. I am sure they would benefit immensely and I bet you would, too! I would suggest more but you wouldn't want to get all tied up again so you have to be careful, right? Also, I wouldn't want you to not post as much here. It would truely be a loss for me.

Your knowledge and insights are a real treasure, Cass. I would even like to suggest that you consider videotaping and Youtubing some of your "lectures."

Unfortunately swl the Enlightenment was based upon "religious intolerance".. with good reason.

The "powerhouses" of the Enlightenment were Paris and Edinburgh, both of which knew only too well the consequences of religious conflict, and it promoted an intolerance of all established religions. Adam Smith, originally a lecturer on moral philosophy, replaced religious guidance with the laws of economics, and the pursuit of the Wealth of Nations, guided not by any Holy Book or religious teaching but by the movements in markets that moved as if by a divine "Invisible Hand".. Thus neither Gods nor Human Beings had any ultimate importance.

It was in England that there was already some tradition of tolerance dating back to the Middle Ages, the crucial matter being whether that toleration was reciprocal and all were prepared to work for the Commonweal, as under the Religious Settlement under Ellizabeth I and the way that the Anglican Community was restored after 166o.

The French Revolution, inspired by the Enlightenment, tried to scrap religion, murdered priests and monks and looted religious establishments.. Recently I had quite a hard time explaining to Muslim pupils, with and without head-covering, that the recent French persecution of women wearing shawls was not anti-Muslim.. In particular after the anti-Semitism revealed in the Dreyfuss affair France became a secular place and all demonstration of anything connected with religion is banned in all public spaces where every French citizen is just that a citizen before the law like all the rest. French law and the French State sets itself above any God that people might believe in.

Cass

Clare

One of the reasons why I stay on h2g2 is that I have a huge amount of stuff posted on My Space as Guide Entries.. If you are interested in reading more I think there is quite a Library just "lost in Space".

This morning was lovely. On the very first walk I had seen a woman walking her dogs, and we exchanged a few pleasantries. But there was something familiar. Today was the third time, and I asked her whether she did not belong to a named family. She looked at me with some astonshment. I used to teach her two older sisters and buy papers from her father's shop.. As I have posted elsewhere "Life goes on" whether we choose to be part of it or not.

Cass

"Life is based on partnership not strife and conflict."

How different the universe would be if that were so. Sadly, though necessarily, the imperative to survive governs the existence of all living things.

If history teaches us anything, continued existence usually involves a great deal of strife and conflict.

indeed to an extent (and certainly i agree that as of now, conflict and continued existence is the way of the world)
In nature as well the same applies
However since intelligence is vastly more powerful than evolution it should be possible to base life off partnership...just humanity as a whole seems to not be any good at it

swl has pointed out a situation which we must not overlook
and which has been supressed in western media.

To the Hindi/Muslim whirled our holier than thou mantras
about freedom of speech seem as ridiculous as holy cows
are to us as beef-eaters. Just as we cannot understand
or allow that there is a 'justifiable' and holy sanctity
to suicide bombings.

Freedom of speech must seem to them nothing more than
a convenient excuse for abhorrent and foolish behaviour.
And yet we maintain that it must be allowed as an essential
expression of our overall belief system. It is after-all
'writ' into the ancient holy texts of our institutions.


~jwf~

Forming partnerships, coalitions, friendships etc- as well as keeping relations vital and alive often raises up points and areas of conflict. That is a sign of vitality from the past into the present. Being able to solve those conflicts and move on in "the best of all possible worlds" is a sign of a vitality with a Future. The alternative is "Final Solutions" that attempt to exterminate that or those who are rejected.

As for jwf's point about Hinduism and Islam, see my previous points about the way that both Hinduism and Islam became moribund and backward looking. As I have written elsewhere the real Islamic Fundamentalism is that which I have seen here where people are trying to find a genuine way ahead for the fundamentals of their faith in a way appropriate to the modern age, which was as much the creation of Islamic Civilization as any other.. (e.g. the impact of Moslem scholars like Averroes who escaped from southern Spain when clerical rule stamped on advanced thinking, and brought an important injection of new thought to 12 century Paris, and first established Paris as a centre of truly advanced learning)

Cass

Cass

Cass

>>and certainly i agree that as of now, conflict and continued existence is the way of the world<<

... and that world has been constructed for us and is called the neo-liberal capitalistic globalised "free" world - a world that dinsintegrates community to generate mass societies (which is no society but a divided and conquered peoples) where the individual socialised into believing they must compete against their neighbour and must consume the trash the slave labour pools across the globe produced under the whip of the big corporations ...

Stone Art

Exactly Darwinian concepts of the "Struggle for the Survival of the Fittest" and a savage reality were implied in certainly the darker side of the Enlightenment and the Age of Gothic Horror.. It really is just a short jump from Malthusianism and the idea of "The Natural Checks" of war, famine and disease- unless checked by Civilization and the impositions laid by its High Priests on the uncivilized majority- hence currently the attitudes of our current "High Priests" of the pos-war financial order (Ed Balls wants to go back to 1945) towards those people who have been corrupted by the easy-living and "Manana" culture of old-established Mediterranean Christianity- Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox- and now must take the grim medicine of Austerity.

Cass

>>... and that world has been constructed for us...
under the whip of the big corporations ... <<

Stone Aart's rant (2 posts above) is likely the most
concise assessment of the whirled situation I've seen
in some time. It may also be the most bitter concentration
of hopelessness I've encountered since listening to beat
poets in dark dank coffee houses of the 60s who had just
become aware of the war in VietNam and were angry that
young men were dying for the rights of the CocaColaCo.

Happily I learned then that there isn't much I can
do about any of it personally except to try and ignore
the irreconcilable differences between corporate policies
and my own desire to just be as happy and lazy as I can
while consuming as little of the slave made trash and as
much of the natural wonders of the whirled as possible.



~jwf~

"and that world has been constructed for us...
under the whip of the big corporations ..."

Including the most terrible corporation of all the State that evolved in Europe as a means of warfare both internationally an internally... David Miliband's speech to the Labour Party was not only a throw back to Disraelian ideas of "One Nation" but also the Labour movement's 1890's espousal of the German Socialist party's ambitions of just what it could do for the greater good of the New German Nation with Bismarckian manipulation of the economy. "Business work with us".. Well as the slogan said "Millions stand behind Hitler"- accompanied by the picture of him taking huge backhanders from great corporations. Perhaps not unlike the great corporations whose willingness to lend money to modern States, and therefore the interest charged, has become THE defining factor in "Western" politics. But have no fear jwf people no longer follow politicians, except those of whom next to nothing can be expected since they have learned to live just by "the scraps from the table". If you want something done ask a busy person.

Cass

I don't see why we should (or must) think of the state as "the most terrible corporation".

Regardless of the origins of the state (and I'd say there are good reasons not to accept the "means of warfare" hypothesis), the modern state and civil society have been vital to human progress. Now it's possible to take a pessimistic Hobbesian view and regard the state as Leviathan or a most positive social contract view of the state, but without the state, we'd be in a mess. "If you like socialism so much, go and live in Russia", outraged of Tunbridge Wells and the Daily Telegraph used to thunder... but we might just as well say that people who don't like the institution of the state should go and live in Somalia.

It's an obvious point to make, but we can vote out governments. We cannot vote out corporations. Capitalism has the potential to bring great benefits, but it can only do so within a legal and political framework that can guarantee security and the rigorous rule of law. Otherwise we end up with Russian style gangster capitalism. It needs its worst excesses checked, fair competition maintained, and protection for individuals if it is to work in the interests of the many, rather than the few. And who else can maintain this?

I don't know enough about Bismark to see if there's much of a link between One Nation Labour and Bismark, but I don't think there's any need to go that far back or that far abroad. Taming capitalism's worst excessses and harnessing it for the common good is not a new idea - see the various 'third ways' produced between capitalism and socialism.

Quite what the link between any of this and Hitler is, (other than free association), I'm really not sure.

We can vote out governments, but does anything really change? Labour & Conservative aren't really so different nowadays - as evidenced by the LibDem's willingness to spread their cheeks for either. Labour use a Conservative slogan (One Nation) in an attempt to appeal to south of England & the Shires swing voters - it's a meaningless soundbite.

I personally see little material difference between Cameron/Clegg/Miliband - polished politicians who will do anything, say anything and ditch anything to get a whiff of power.

In the US, with the largest per capita prison population,
it has long been 'acceptable' for states to employee the
inmates in producing licence plates.

This manufacturing productivity was later harnessed by the
Federal Government to mass produce garments for the military.
While this undercut (pun intended) traditional garment makers
it was considered an internal government cost-cutting issue
so no one could really complain... much.

But today many US prisons are run by private corporations
who charge the government for their services.

And it has just been announced that this multi-million strong
labour force can now be used to produce products for private
enterprise. Prisons are becoming factories with their labour
being provided by government enforced laws and courts.



Prisoners are paid 23 cents an hour.
Cheaper than any third whirled labour force.

It's like a bad sci-fi scenario.

No wonder there are no new jobs in the free market workplace.


~jwf~

Otto

The terrible thing about the State is that it uniquely has the legal right and power to coerce, intimidate, compel and destroy.

These are the basic reasons for having a State in order to be able to match the "forces of evil" and establish a King's (or Queen's )Peace which allows citizens rights and freedoms against both internal and external threats... And it is because of the magnitude of those threats that people accept to dedicate up to 40% (and more currently) of Gross Domestic Product in order to fund this form of monopoly.

For the State is normally a monopoly, after all corporations that have more than 30% of the market are usually referred to the Monopolies Commission.. And today we are reminded why, in spite of Mr. Milliband's urging of a statist future yesterday. Running a national railway system does involve huge decisions, and while people are glad to tell us about "The Economies of Scale" when things go right, when things go wrong at such a monstruous level you then get just one huge mistake.and the bill to pay..

The Fundamental error in all this is the belief (a) in the superiority of Intellectual Capital over Material Capital: and,(b) as you have said/inferred, the myth of "great leaps forward" that are made possible by organisation of a Statist dimension..

Under Bismarck Germany surged ahead in all of the latest technologies, helped by well-funded State research and the resort to "infant industry" protectionism, the German justification for protecting its own economy from Britain's "Workshop of the World"... But this was not a Free Market..

Bismarck was "The Iron Chancellor" of militarist Prussia who seized on the potential of the new Science and Technology especially in order to produce the world's greatest war machine.. It was so great, as A.J.P. Taylor explained in "War By Time-table", that the machinery and technology swept Europe into the First World War, though nobody (except possibly the French) actually wanted a war. Of course as Germany "chose the weapons" as for a duel, Britain was forced to fight the First World War on a "playing field" where the game was shaped by Science and Technology. And by 1918 great advances had been made in terms of Humankinds ability to destroy, and to deal with destruction.

After 1918 there was a brief attempt to turn back to more Liberal and Human ways of life and living. But the World Chaos of 1932-33 sent people, who were desperate for security, back towards Nationalism and Statism, which produced the Second World War..

Hitler had seized on the useful potential of Science and Technology even more than Germany had before 1914. e.g.Leo Slizard heard from contacts within Germany that German Scientists were successfully repeating the most advanced experiments on the Atom being carried out in France, and he enlisted Enstein's help to persuade Roosevelt to make the huge investment that produced the Atomic Bomb.

Then, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we had to try to start finding some excuse to justify all the expense "in the name of progress". Some of us are old enough to remember all the great promises for endless and virtually costless energy that would soon be powering automated factories so that all citizens (according to Bertrand Russell) could take up hobbies like basket-weaving. The great question "What should we do with our lives?" was solved. "Do whatever you like. We are in charge now". And as Henry Ford said "You can have any colour you want, as long as it is black."

But Winston Churchill did find the "blessing" of the Atomic Bomb. MAD... As a Minister hoping to do something for the working man under Lloyd George's lead before 1911, he had been really annoyed that building Dreadnoughts and other such parts of the Arms Race meant that there was no money. Then called in to be Chancellor of the Exchequer c1924 he hoped to do something for the working man in post-war depression. But the Treasury told him that 40% of all Government Revenue was needed to try to reduce the National Debt, which had increased hugely between 1914 and 1918.

Back in power in 1951 he realised that "The Few" had shown him the answer. That small band of pilots who had saved Britain and the world in the Battle of Britain. Now technology had given us the jet-powered Delta Bomber and the A Bomb, soon the H Bomb.. Britain did not need a massive military. There would be no more small wars. The next war would be another World War- that was progress. Britain only needed to be equipped to finish off such a war by launching such a massive attack on the enemy that, even if Britain was obliterated, so would the enemy..

And so we lived day to day, not in any peace or security, but with the daily prospect that this might be the last day of Human Life on Earth.. Some of us, I am afraid, cannot forget, or forgive..

I was seventeen when I was delivering my newspaper-round, reading the Headlines,and realising that the whole Bomber fleet was in the sky on "Red Alert" ready to launch the nuclear Holocaust..

One could say that things have changed since, and they have. Science and Technology could not deliver the Planned Economy after c1969, when the first phase of post-war recovery was over, and it was time for a real "Wind of Change" to become a major international factor, with new States that would not "play by old rules".

So no-one believes in threats or promises made by politicians anymore, because States can not deliver on them, because of the way that they are locked into a Statist system. And Science and Technology is now a familiar trip from novelty to the junk-yard, not a long-term Future. "Trust me I am a doctor" has long become a common joke. Feet of clay.

Cass

>>..we lived day to day, not in any peace or security, but with
the daily prospect that this might be the last day of Human Life
on Earth.. Some of us, I am afraid, cannot forget, or forgive.. <<

Indeed.
And the next time someone asks me why I never married
or had any legitimate children I'm gonna blame the Bomb
for making it look like a too cruel thing to do. For in fact
that was the case, but it's hard to explain to younger folk
who didn't live thru the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A563852
(an Edited Guide Entry that contains among other things
my personal account of those events)


~jwf~

JWF

Indeed.. Those of us who did had to think hard about that.. Mrs Cass, as now is, used to teach a ballet class in the institute where she also was a student. In the winter of 1966-7 we collaborated on a ballet that told the story of the development of the Atomic Bomb and that day in Hiroshima..I did the story line and general ideas, she tranlated it into the language of movement. I was not in Dijon when it had its public performance, but I was told that it was well-received: and gratified that the students were prepared to dance the whole thing for me- an audience of one.

It took some time,however, before we felt entitled to bring another life into this world.

But I was just telling someone this morning how 9/11 changed things. The big question had been "What to do when you get a two-minute warning?".. Well in the Twin Towers those about to die phoned their loved ones while they could in order to leave them with Love.

Cass

We had a 20 minute warning over here.

Time enough to get into serious trouble.

We didn't have cell phones but I doubt we could
have afforded to use up 20 minutes of airtime.


~jwf~

Casseroleon, I really don't follow what argument (if any) you're trying to make. Your post seems to veer in a rather haphazard way from point to point, with few clues as to the linkages between the things you say. It seems almost stream of consciousness in places - a bit like trying to watch every fifth minute of an Adam Curtis documentary. It reads at an attempt at grand narrative with no obvious or apparent actual narrative.

A state must have a monopoly on, well, being the state in any given territory, or it wouldn't be the state. So far, so obvious. But in a democracy - however much some of us might not like the choices on offer - control of the state is determined by the people. So while there may only be one state apparatus, in a democracy no-one has monopoly control of it. And of course, there are other states available in other places. Emigration may be more or less practical or possible, but it's a possibility for some in theory.