We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Will Smith has expressed his view that people are essentially good, they just do bad things as a consequence of following the logical train of thought from faulty premises.
Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’,” said Will. “I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I’m looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.”
And this remark has sent the Jewish Defence League into a hissyfit of rage.
Smith’s comments are ignorant, detestable and offensive. They spit on the memory of every person murdered by the Nazis. His disgusting words stick a knife in the backs of every veteran who fought so valiantly to save the world from those aspirations of Adolf Hitler. Smith’s comments also cast the perpetrators of the Holocaust as misguided fellows rather than the repulsive villains of history they truly were. If people do not understand how idiotic and insensitive it was to make such a comment, it is like a Jew saying that James Earl Ray, the assassin of Rev. Martin Luther King, was basically a good person who did a “bad thing.”
Now that is a very dubious interpretation of Smith’s remarks, to put it mildly. I am not sure I agree with Smith that all people are essentially good, although I do think most people are capable of good. I think that absent a biological defect, we develop towards goodness or evil or, more usually, somewhere in the middle, through the exercise of our free will in accord or in conflict with our genetic predispositions, but all people are capable of both good and evil. Some are more predisposed to good, others to evil (and a disproportionate number of evil people are drawn to politics as a career as it offers such rich possibilities for doing just that), but I do not think we are inexorably forced down either path… and thus find it hard to entirely disagree with Smith.
However the theory that Will Smith is presenting is an entirely reasonable one to argue and using the example of a man not unjustly held to be the very epitome of evil seems a fair and relevant way to express his view of human nature. Without a doubt Smith is in excellent philosophical company on the issue of innate goodness and his position is a deeply Christian one.
When Hitler looked in the mirror, I am sure he did not see an evil man gazing back at him. Of course he did what he thought was ‘right’ within his world view, his meta-context, which was framed by the axioms of a collectivist racist drawing on a long history of collectivist and racist thought. To Hitler ‘right’ was whatever was good for the ‘herrenvolk’ which he perceived as being in perpetual conflict with other racial groups. As a consequence his concept of ‘right’ was always going to be monstrous (i.e. the “twisted, backwards logic” of which Smith speaks).
What Smith seems to be saying is that if someone had the chance to sit Hitler down and ‘unpick’ his ‘twisted, backwards logic’, then perhaps they might have been able to ‘reach’ his deeply buried innate goodness. Although I have serious doubts on that score, it is a far from unsupportable argument and in no way speaks to Hitler’s actual manifested goodness but rather the notion of an innate goodness being intrinsic in us all as a species. If you take that charitable view of humanity then of course Hitler (and Pol Pot, Stalin, Genghis Khan and Caligula) had an innate goodness buried somewhere in the deepest basement of their dark souls.
That the JDL feels that is an intolerable position to take rather than just an incorrect one, makes me deduce they are probably not worth the effort of debating, particularly given their preposterous characterisation of Smith’s remarks. And although as I have said, I do not entirely agree with Smith’s theory of innate goodness, if I was him my response to the JDL would be something along the lines of “Screw you, buddy” whilst proffering the Mighty Forks in their direction.
I do not know a great deal about the JDL but a brief trawl of the internet suggests to me that anyone not following certain ritual forms of abomination when discussing anything whatsoever relating to Hitler, is immediately branded as The Enemy Beyond The Pale. What an excellent way to make yourself look like a complete prat, not to mention wrapping yourself in the same psychological cloth as certain Islamofascist crazies who become unhinged at the sight of irreverent cartoons.
It is half two in the AM as I write this Christmas greeting, warm in my well worn Aran jumper and to a soundtrack of carols playing on a 1990’s left over computer to which I have delegated such things. It struck me some of you might be interested in Christmas elsewhere, so I have selected a small number of photos to try to give you some of the atmosphere of a Northern Ireland Christmas.
The centerpiece to celebrations is City Hall. It has recently been attacked by a giant alien space station.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
The grounds are turned into a Christmas village with shops selling Christmas goods and foods from all over Europe.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Like any village in Ireland…. it has a pub!
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
We also have the typical modern mega-mall. It was filled with Saturday afternoon Christmas shoppers as I went in search of an ATM that could take my Chase Visa… and which had not been emptied by voracious shoppers. I finally found one, almost hidden behind Santa’s grotto, where the queue was only about eight shoppers in length.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Unlike this somewhat longer ATM queue.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
A few hours later I was ensconced at the bar in my local listening to friends play a merry jig or three.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
But of course the most important part of Christmas anywhere is the company of old friends to share it with.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
And here is my Belfast Christmas Card to all of our loyal readers. Have a good one and feel free to eat and drink too much and in general overindulge in happiness and joy.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Simon Heffer has written a very sensible (damn, I hate that word) article about why atheists rooted in our culture should have no problem at all enjoying Christmas. I agree whole heartedly with that view but…
We atheists are supposed to feel bad about Christmas. After all, what is it to do with us? All the present-swapping, drinking and over-eating is merely taking advantage of someone else’s festival, isn’t it? I have always had my doubts about that analysis, all the more so since the Archbishop of Canterbury this week refined the Christmas story as “legend“. I start to wonder whether I am any more of an atheist than he is.
Oh Simon, Simon, Simon…really. You are talking about the head of the Church of England…of course he is more of an atheist than you are! Folks like you and I simply decline to believe on the whole beardy-guy-in-the-sky thing and that is good enough for us, no need to bang on any drums about it and generally be a tiresome crypto-fascist prat like Dawkins. Dr. Rowan Williams on the other hand drives more people into our way of thinking every time he opens his yap. Clearly he and Dawkin are batting for the same side no matter how much they pretend to not like each other.
So try to have a Merry Christmas one and all, even you Dr. Williams and Prof. Dawkins.
Rupert Everett is a serviceable actor but he does seem a little confused:
“Hollywood is a place that pretends it’s very liberal but it’s not remotely,” he told The Times. “It’s like Al-Qaeda.” Everett, who is gay, believes that his sexuality has cost him “tons” of leading roles during his career.
Silly man! Because Hollywood is like Al Qaeda, you keep losing out on jobs not because you are a poofter of moderate talent but because you do not have a beard!
Given how Hollywood is famous for stoning adulterers and gays to death, making snuff porn videos of Muslims cutting off the heads of western journalists, forcing women to hide their bodies from view (something Hollywood is particular well known for), prohibiting secular movies (another one of Hollywood’s strong points) and making men wear beards, clearly poor old Rupert is lucky to still be alive.
Alec Muffet, redoubtable trencherman that he is despite his dainty frame, pointed me at this splendiferous expression of the manifest superiority of western civilisation:
Multi-bird roasts, where different types of bird are stuffed inside a larger one, have become the thing to carve this year – and the more birds involved the better. One of the top-sellers is the Waitrose four-bird roast: guinea fowl, duck and turkey breast stuffed inside a goose. Demand has soared 50 per cent this year – even though each roast costs an eyewatering £200 [about $400 USD].
The surge in popularity may have something to do with TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s creation of a ten-bird roast on his show two years ago. He stuffed an 18lb turkey with a goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock – producing a remarkable Russian doll-like dish. But now his effort, inspired by recipes dating from Tudor times, has been dwarfed by a behemoth containing no fewer than 48 birds of 12 different species. This massive roast, the proud creation of Devon farmer Anne Petch, weighs almost four stone (more than most airlines’ baggage allowance), costs £665, and has enough meat to serve 125 people.
Magnificent! However after reading the comments attached to this Daily Mail article decrying the practice, I could see my enthusiasm was not shared by all. The best comment and a real contender for the Samizdata Pig’s Head on a Spike Award for Thigh Slapping Hilarity was:
See, it’s because of madness like this that the terrorists hate us
– Marcus, Northampton, UK
The man is either a sage-like wag of the very highest order or a deranged Imam in need of an extended holiday in a certain part of Cuba… and an honourable mention also goes out for:
These graceful animals were alive and living a short while ago. Go veggie this Cristmas and let more of gods creatures experience what you do …Life
– James Mills, Nottingham
Naturally I felt the need to leave one of my own, as indeed you might:
This year for Christmas we are having one of these wonderful multi-birds and I am very much looking forward to it. However after reading some of the comments here, next year we are going to eat a PETA activist stuffed inside a Greenpeace activist stuffed inside a Animal ‘Rights’ activist stuffed inside Gordon Brown’s voluminous carcass (with a non-‘Fair Trade’ apple stuffed into his mouth).
Merry Christmas and God Deliver Us All… from priggish activists of all stripes.
Yummy! Nom nom nom!
Just a thought for the day:
A world in which all personal success depended on virtue would be insufferable.
It always amazes me the number of businesses who use the Internet without really understanding how it has changed everything in business, not just the bits they find useful. The entire balance of power has been shifting towards information rich customers for years now and one of the things about this shift is that people’s tolerance for a company’s behaviour when things go wrong has also changed dramatically.
It has always been the case that when things go wrong, the single worst thing any company can do is to make a customer feel he is being ignored. In many ways, even a half-arsed press release is (just) better than none at all, but frankly the days when a press release drafted by a PR professional whose job it is to pretend everything is all right are long gone. That approach never worked, only now the fact the PR Emperor has no clothes (and in truth never did) is impossible to hide. Customers are going to tell each other just how much they hate you, if indeed they do, regardless of whether or not you participate in the discussion because companies can no longer frame the terms of the debate. This article is an example of that, in fact.
And so I was amused by a fairly trivial incident: a purchased a copy of the Epic/Microsoft games studio shooter Gears of War for the PC. Cool game. How do I know? Because I have repeatedly played the first two to ten minutes of the game before getting a wargame-g4wlive.exe crash to desktop. And judging from the number of screaming customers on the Epic forums, I am far from alone in experiencing this.
Now the truth is, games these days are bloody complex things and it is rare to get a major game released without some significant kinks, so far be it for me to criticise Epic for releasing a bugged game… it happens and is probably an inevitable fact of life.
Also I have no doubt that Epic has an army of coders working to fix the (many) issues that people have reported and most likely they will solve them all soon. Looking at their forums, both Epic and Microsoft developers posted early comments and that is exactly the correct approach. If people know for sure that someone is on the problem, it is amazing how much slack they will cut a company and in many cases, dealing frankly with the issue and frequently acknowledging there is a problem makes people empathise rather than criticise.
But after the initial surge of developer input, the forum started filling up with often highly irate and typically semi-literate gamers cursing and howling because they had become convinced that as the first attempts to patch the game had not helped a great many people, the companies had just banked their money and written the game off. In truth I think that is highly unlikely at this stage and it is an avoidable self-inflicted wound to have well paid programmers working to fix what may be a difficult problem but because your inept PR department does not make that clear on a daily basis, customers whose game is about as useful as a prismatic beermat are left incandescent with rage at being ignored (as they see it). Crazy corporate behaviour.
Interestingly, posts to the forum filled with F words and imprecations about the marital status of the developer’s mothers when they were born, seem to be generally left on the forum. I posted an invective-free article urging Epic to get themselves a new PR director and the post was taken down, which I must confess I find vastly amusing. So no prize for guessing which department is responsible for the Epic forums then.
There is a huge plume of smoke rising from Stratford, east of the City. Nothing on the news as to the origin of this. Mobile networks are already becoming overloaded.
UPDATE: Spectacular plumes, but terror motive “discounted”. Any jokes about London’s taxes going up in smoke can be made in the comments.
First turn up volume as soundtrack is quite soft…
Are UFOs evidence that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings?
Lincoln Allison, a contributor to the excellent Social Affairs Unit blog has this rather amusing, if at times harsh, list of various people he thinks are not quite the greats they are cracked up to be. Revealing the conservative tilt of that blog, his candidates are:
Princess Diana, Che Guevara, Salman Rushdie, John Lennon, George Best and John Osborne.
Maybe I am getting soft and liberal (in the US sense) in my early middle age, but with the exception of Guevara, I rather like most of the above, or at least I do not get as exercised as some right-of-centre folk do. Diana? Well, she was annoying, or at least the hysteria over her death was, but I was saddened by her death, sorry for her sons and relations and would rather she was still with us.
Lennon? A bit of a nob as a person, maybe, but a brilliant musician – Revolver is one of my favourite albums.
Osborne – no real opinion, although I loved his personification of evil in Get Carter.
Then there is Rushdie: I just cannot agree with Allison; for all that I cannot be bothered to tackle his fiction, I admire his unbending stance on Islamic fanaticism and his no-compromise approach to free speech.
And then there is dear, dead George Best (I met him a few times). Allison makes the rather unusual approach of not actually attacking George Best’s drinking or womanising but attacks his skill as a footballer, claiming that Northern Irish players like Danny Blanchflower were greater as they achieved success with “lesser” teams (I am sure Spurs fans will be galled to hear that their lot was a lesser team in the 1960s than Manchester United. Spurs in fact won a sackload of trophies in that decade). He also says Best could not cope with Italian-style defenders. Well, he did not play against Italy much so how do we know and Best made mincemeat of the likes of top European sides Benfica and Real Madrid. His demolition of the former team at their home ground in 1966 – the year I was born – remains one of the highlights of 20th century football.
…. of what we are up against:
If Labour had suggested the return of Credit Controls can you imagine the wails of protests from the Tories with their cries of ‘You can’t buck the market’ and ‘We want to be free’ and other libertarian bollocks like that.
– a commentator on Guido Fawkes’ blog.
In the lexicon of some people who can be regarded as within the Westminster village, ‘libertarian’ is a pejorative modifier, and, “We want to be free,” is a discreditable sentiment.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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