So we voted yes then?

As I write this, they are still counting the ballots that were cast in yesterday’s EU Fiscal Stability Treaty Pact Thingy Referendum. Already it is obvious that this was a crushing victory for the Yes side. If by crushing one means gaining the support of about 30% of the electorate, inspiring the active disagreement of 20% of the electorate and somehow managing to be part of a campaign that resulted in the refusal of half of the population to even vote.

First thing I’ll say is that I am less unhappy about this being passed than I would have been if it failed. This Treaty will allow us delay the almost inevitable and horror filled adjustments that we will need to enact. Delayed, on the off-chance that something may happen to make that eventual adjustment less dramatic and awful. It will also force our politicians to legislate away some of their freedom to misbehave with our money.

Would this have prevented the economic catastrophe we are experiencing? No, but any law that reduces our political class, in number and power, is to me a good thing. In a post-apocalyptic Ireland, our politicians will be enjoined to be more prudent in their management of the economy e.g. not going crazy with public money in elections years.

Unfortunately there is, as I have said, a possibility that everything will go wrong (or will definitely go wrong if one believes some of the less optimistic economists), thus making this Treaty moot. Then we will be thrust onto our own devices.

That terrifies me, because 50% of the electorate did not vote and Enda Kenny did not debate.

Let’s the take the latter concern first.

Just why did Enda Kenny feel obliged and/or entitled to adopt a quasi-presidential pose? Was he merely disguising his inability to ‘mix-it‘ in the kind of shouty debates that seemed to be favoured by the various campaigners in this referendum battle? Or did he wish to remain above ‘the madding crowd,‘ a Caesar watching the baying plebeian mob? And when did a mere politician get it into their head that they were allowed to keep their gloves clean, just because they had dragged themselves to the summit of their Party?

I’m not complaining. The less power and status our Taoisigh have the better. A Taoiseach, and I mean ‘a’ Taoiseach, not ‘our’ Taoiseach is not chosen by us, but by the 166 member chamber that we elect i.e. the Dáil. Unfortunately it seems that Taoisigh and voter alike, get confused by this and think ‘leadership’ of the country is in the job description. How’s ever I won’t cure that particular mental disease here. Suffice to say I’m pleased I hardly ever saw Enda on my TV. I just hope he expends some resources on figuring out if his apparent media disengagement had an impact on the scarily low turnout.

Because it is the low turnout that concerns me most. Best case scenario is that all the players in the political ferment just have to used to getting by on reduced numbers. Worst case is that it makes it easier for extremist groups to make and keep a foothold in the mainstream. And extremism quickly becomes normal after an election or two. This growing malaise must be addressed, it must be recognised as potentially a big a problem as the economic disaster we are living through.

In retrospect I fear the Yes campaign was not negative and fearful enough. It should have been more stark about the future. It should have said clearly that our only hope for avoiding the full gamut of extreme austerity is that other countries recover sufficiently to fuel our economy and/or other countries feel it necessary to do all that they can to keep us afloat within the Euro.

The alternative is the grasp the extreme left or the extreme right nettle and default now. We may have to do so anyway, but if we chose to, we could do it immediately. The problem here is that the left say tax and the right say cut in order to close our multi-billion euro deficit. These contradictory positions are held by one in five of the electorate and that number will only grow, because even though they contradict each other, a default now, has the effect of putting the very worst behind us as quickly as possible.

The entire premise of the Yes side is that there is an outside chance that the worst will not be as awful as an immediate default would be. Though that cannot be guaranteed. So we face an extended period of economic attrition, matched by a growing internecine conflictual political situation, with the added bonus that things may take a sudden turn for the worst and on top of this, near half the electorate is already disaffected.

Thus this victory is very much a hollow one, but it is not yet a pyrrhic one. And I fear that the only way to avoid this devolving into a disaster is by adopting a new civility in our pubic contestation. For example, people like me will have to retire the term shinner, loony left and mad right. I know this is unlikely to catch on, but unless or until we remove the vitriol from our political space, then all the clamour will be mere fear and anger. And already half the population have given up because of that noise.

The Hundred Days

The Hundred Days refers to the period of time between Napoleon’s return from exile on 20 March 1815, to the re-restoration of Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. It is actually 111 days, but the pithiness of The Hundred Days was always going to outlast the accuracy of 111 days. This article however, is not primarily concerned with Napoleon’s last hurrah. I just required a verbal hook on which to hang this opening salvo of a campaign against my own enervating fear and procrastination. I wish, nay, I long to write a novel. I have the theme, the characters, the plot and even the title, but I continue to lack the bloody gumption to write the damn thing.

I will not bore you with an overly involved psychoanalysis of my prodigious lack of productivity in the noveling stakes, suffice to say I am intimidated by the size of the task and horrified by the dreadful arrogance I must embrace to tell a story with so many words. And my vanity, my ego, lacks the resolve to be as mediocre as I may have to be. On the other side, I feel and fear my mortality. I want to leave one thing behind after I cease to exist. I want to leave a story.

Another reason I am embracing Napoleon’s One Hundred Days, is that he failed miserably, but his Waterloo was a grand failure. Give me failure rather than this inaction. To this end I have devised a scheme by which I may finally produce the substantial body of a novel.

Today is my birthday. The twenty-third of May. My intention is to write approximately 60,000 words. I am going to do this, by writing 600 words a day. I will not enter the twitterverse, blog or even write short stories, unless I have first written that day’s 600 words. That equals 60,000 words in 100 days. I am adding ten days to this, by nominating one day in every eleven, as a light tidy and edit day. That is 110 days. And I am allowing myself one day off. Just in case! 111 days from tomorrow, I will have produced a minimum of 60,000 words. They may be awful, but I will have broken the back of this crippling fear. I will finally be a failed writer and not someone who has failed to write.

I mentioned I will be blogging while I write. I intend doing a great deal of blogging through and about the European Championships. My priority will however remain, the Novel. Please feel free to harass and harangue me if I break my pledge to stay away from twitter until I have done my daily 600. I will also be building in other rewards, as a way of helping me get going.

111 days from 24 May 2012 is 11 September 2012. If I stick to my plan, I hope to begin editing my novel, Blue Eyeshadow, on 12 September 2012. If not, I promise to keep my frustration to myself.

Gone Baby Gone

(SPOILER ALERT don’t read this if you haven’t seen Gone Baby Gone. Instead, go watch Gone Baby Gone)

Gone Baby Gone could have been poorly acted, dreadfully written and awfully directed and it still would’ve messed around with one’s sense of what is right and what is wrong. Fortunately it was an excellent film with a total head wreak of a denouement. I have rarely encountered a parable which so successfully pits one’s head against one’s heart. The Sophie’s Choice of the Social Democratic era if you will.

Should Patrick have looked the other way, letting Amanda grow up well looked after and loved by her kidnapers, or return her to her neglectful mother? Heart said, look away you pedantic prick. The head said, that way anarchy lies. The child is and must be sacrificed, so that all other children are protected from interference. Unfortunately, it also means that children are not necessarily going to be protected from their parents.

The film ends with Patrick having to babysit for Amanda and as the camera pans away, we are left wondering if Patrick will take it upon himself to be Amanda’s father for the next decade or so, or the more likely outcome, will Amanda grow up to be a damaged young woman, being abused by men and neglecting her own children? There is also a sense that they are the only two choices as the viewer cannot escape the thought that if and when the Social Services become involved, Amanda will already be well on her way to failure.

Coming from a country with a much better developed Social Welfare System than America, an Irish person, in fact almost any European for that matter, would think that overly pessimistic. We invest our State with powers and vast amounts of money in order to facilitate our State peering into the lives of children and where necessary, to ameliorate. The unfortunate reality however is that entire families can be in the Care of the State and when the mother falls pregnant again, Social Workers will be waiting in the Maternity Ward, to take the new born immediately into Care. That actually happens and more commonly than one would dare to guess.

A member of the Dutch Royal family was recently moved to proffer the very controversial opinion that in some instances, contraception should be mandatory. It would be convenient if one could dismiss this Royal as a witless reactionary. Especially if one works in the Social Services in Ireland, as The Netherlands (and Sweden) are always held out as beacons of how things can be, if things are done right. That even the Dutch can fail to protect and raise their children, is just too disheartening.

Then one is forced to think the unthinkable; are our failures thus, that the prevention of children is now more realistic, palatable and even more necessary than the protection of children? Having worked with neglected and viciously damaged children, I know in my heart, I would gleefully sterilise whole swathes of the Irish population. You wouldn’t even have to pay me. Happy to do it.

This Dutch princeling and me are not alone in our enthusiasms. There are groups offering cash money to drug addicts who submit to sterilisation. Certainly controversial, but it is non-coercive. Though critics say that those in the throes of addiction are not in a position to make decisions with such long term implications. The pat answer to that of course is, but they can have kids.

It’s all pretty black and white to me thus far. My heart is content with this course of action. Lets have at it. Then one reads this story, about an unemployed man of eight children, who intends having even more children. Oh dear. We all know poverty is awful and its connection with and to the abuse and neglect of children. But sometimes poverty is just not having any money and needing State support to continue doing well as a parent.

I resent this man for his determined fecundity in the face of his financial dependence. How dare he continue to breed when he must continually access my tax money to maintain his life style choice? Yeah, now we are on really dodgy ground, because my head is saying, none of your business how and what and why he does what he does. In fact, shut your mouth. When did I become a reactionary? And that’s the problem with feelings. They can be downright nasty.

In my head I demand that the relationship between the individual and the State be wholly one way. The State collects taxes, enacts and enforces a minimum of laws, makes sure children are not being abused and pays out Social Welfare. It doesn't get to decide how any children someone has or if they are wealthy enough to have them. And unfortunately it cannot and should not be empowered to decide who are likely to be bad parents, pre-conception.

If charities offer addicts money to be sterilised, I will happily donate. The moment however, the State moves to acquire the power to intervene in the reproductive rights of adults, then we are saying that 166 Michael Healy-Raes should be allowed decide who does and who doesn’t get to have children. How many Amandas must endure neglect before that becomes the greater evil?

Facts on the Ground

“Like many liberal American Jews I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going. It seems obvious from here that the narrow-minded policies of the current government are basically a gradual, long-run form of national suicide – and that’s bad for Jews everywhere, not to mention the world.”

Paul Krugman

There are few topics as divisive as Israel. Almost everyone who entertains opinions on anything, knows for certain what they think about Israel. People can fall out over this tiny, far off nation’s very existence in a way reminiscent of our Nation’s over long attachment to the sides that fought in our Irish Civil War. We appear capable of disagreeing with each other about ideology, politics, religion and sport, but to disagree about Israel, seems to cross a line.

I know I avoid discussions about Israel because as I am broadly supportive of Israel. Being broadly supportive of Israel means (if I chose to be vocal) I would have to argue with those who deny Israel’s right to exist and those who are uncritical in their support of the Jewish State’s response to the Palestinians. I have no interest in speaking to, never mind debating with, such limited absolutists. Who needs individuals of such limited imagination in one’s life?

I must admit to be being a tad mischievous in my use of the above quote from Mister Krugman. In the US, one runs the risk of attracting a great deal of opprobrium if one is critical of Israel. In Ireland, one risks a similar level of hectoring moralising if one does the opposite. The bullying even extends to enforcing a cultural boycott of Israel. No country on Earth seems to more excite the moral indignation of Irish people than Israel. I still don’t understand why Irish people have an almost uniquely intense antipathy towards the Jewish State. Fortunately however, this article isn’t about that particular phenomenon.

No, instead I wish to explore the very obvious philosophical contradictions that must occur in order for me to be supportive of Israel and even more contradictory, my use (if reluctantly) of the term The Jewish State. Anyone who has read my previous posts will know that I hold both religion and nationalism in contempt. I regard these twin irrationalities as by-products of our more primitive ancestors and are an appeal to a perversion of an evolutionary necessity i.e. group identification.

Thus I should abhor Israel/The Jewish State. And I do. It is just that the pragmatist in me cannot deny the reality that is our barbarian nature. After Srebrenica, after Rwanda, after Northern Ireland one is forced to entertain the idea that perhaps our species is terminally and inventively vicious. Does anyone then, really think The Holocaust to be unique, to be unrepeatable? I don’t. Like Mister Krugman I accept that the destruction of Israel would be bad for Jews everywhere.

Of course all of this could have been avoided if the Jewish people had been rational enough to jump on the Christianity bandwagon, with Constantine, back in the 4th Century. How’s ever they didn’t, they endured 1500 years of being oppressed by the Christians, culminating in The Shoah and really only ending with The Nakba. So now the only place where Jews know they will always be safe, is in a war-zone. They do enjoy a level of safety in the West, but as a tiny minority, that safety can never be taken for granted.

That safety has come with a huge cost. In establishing a defensible and territorially coherent nation, the Jewish invaders displaced tens of thousands of indigenous people. A displacement that was exacerbated by the 1967 occupation of the West Bank.

If one looks at this map of Israel, even a civilian like me can see why one could argue that the pre ’67 borders were a nightmare to defend. This argument is usually followed by an attempt to delegitimise the right of the Palestinians to self-identity as Palestinians i.e. they are really Jordanians etc. Then the real crazy begins, God gave the land to the Jews. Yet I support the Jewish State?

I support the right of Israel to exist on two grounds. The first is, as I’ve already mentioned, there is no where else for them. The second is much more cynical, they are already there.

The reasons I think Israel is slowly killing itself are nationalism and religion. Palestinian Nationalism does not require Israeli, international or even academic approval. Nationalism, like any intellectual invention, just requires people to identify with it and that’s it. The only way to eliminate a threat from someone else’s nationalism is a genocide so total, that only the European elimination of the native population of North America, can be cited as an example.

Israel may one day commit the heinous crime of attempting to ethnically cleanse the entire West Bank, but this will not end Palestinian Nationalism. It would merely mass it on Israel’s borders. The only other way to eliminate a threat from someone else’s nationalism, is to satisfy it. Again, look at the map, there is some rational justification for being a bit reluctant to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian State that approximates the ’67 borders, but nothing that reasoned and honest and pragmatic negotiators could not overcome.

That brings us the next problem, religion. There are people, powerful and numerous people, living in Israel who appear to genuinely believe God gave them all of the land between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan. How does one negotiate with or even just counter such lunacy? A lunacy with a growing demographic advantage. A lunacy with a moral certainty that gives it power above and beyond reason and democracy. If this fundamentalism is not countered by reasonable Israelis, then misstep after ultimate misstep will continue.

Facts on the Ground, is a powerful weapon. It is enough for me to support the existence of Israel, the British claims to Gibraltar and The Falklands. It is enough for me to support the continued awkward silence over the expulsion of Germans from Sudetenland, the ever awkward accommodation made in Northern Ireland and the continued presence of Europeans and Africans in the Americas.

It is however an expediency which has limits. No one can stop Israel from expanding its Settlements in the West Bank. No one can stop them from attempting to make their invasion irreversible. And no one it seems, can remind the Jewish State that it came into being because of a rather tenuous combination of a historical link, international sympathy, military might and a divided enemy. And it only took about 2000 years for that confluence to occur. I doubt the Palestinians will have to wait quite so long.

Cardinal Brady

It may come as a surprise to some that I have certain sympathy for Cardinal Brady. Knowing the ‘right thing’ to do, is very much like defining pornography, in that one can only be certain what the right thing to do is, after one has done it. Cardinal Brady did as his conscience dictated i.e. he operated according to the rules of his Church. He took notes, while a child was interviewed about his experience of being raped and he trusted his Church to the extent that he felt he had done all that was morally required.

Now there are those who would condemn him for not thinking it necessary to include and/or inform any of the organs of the State, about what he had learned during that interview. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is moral and what is mere law. The Dáil may make law, but it does not make morality. For morality comes from within and Cardinal Brady, or Father Brady as was, had his morality and, indeed his very individuality, formed as a supplicant of Mother Church.

That he surrendered his higher faculties, or as we secularists might say, his higher duty to humanity, does not alter the fact that his morality is his morality. How can we who embrace moral relativism, point to this man and say, but some things are always wrong? How can we say that some things are so egregious, that personal codes and individual morals, must concede their primacy in guiding one’s actions and informing one’s decisions?

Who among us is comfortable allowing the State define morality? What type of sad little people would we be, if we began to believe that just because something is against the law, it must be wrong? I regard the State’s prohibition on recreational drugs to be morally indefensible. I regarded the law against homosexuality to be amoral. The ban on contraceptives morally repugnant. The continuing discrimination against same-sex couples vile. And the pay awarded to politicians, by politicians, repugnant.

Cardinal Brady followed his conscience by obeying the rules of his Church. I have no church but I have a mind and it has evolved a conscience. Thus if I knew someone was dealing drugs, I would not feel compelled to inform the agents of the State. Yes, a crime is being committed, but I see nothing being done that is wrong. So I cannot and I will not condemn Cardinal Brady for behaving as if he was above the laws of the State. How can I, when I think myself similarly above laws made by a bunch of strangers up in Dublin?

I won’t condemn him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think him contemptible. No matter what bullshit I think, say or do, I still divide the world between children and people who should always know better.

Ethics: Foreign and Domestic

I criticise the country I live in, on an almost daily basis. It is mired in so much self-inflicted catastrophe and neurosis that I sometimes can’t help feeling contempt for it. It is healthy for me then, to occasionally remember why I still live in Ireland. I live here because I am free. I would be equally free in the UK and just a tiny bit less free in the rest of the EU as I am a citizen of an EU nation. That freedom is easy to take for granted, so it really is healthy to remind myself how privileged I am to be Irish-English-European. I may have no emotional attachment to these three labels, yet I feel giddy every time I get to vote in this country.

It is so easy to forget how rare a thing it is for an individual to be consulted on the affairs of their State. It is a thing almost non-existent in the annals of history and it is a thing still restricted to but a privileged portion of today’s world. I don’t have to worry about the Security Forces kicking down my door at night or the State dealing with me in an extrajudicial manner and there is nothing, but my own incompetence, preventing me from standing for public office. That is a remarkable thing.

Remarkable and rational. There are two ways to look at our species. We are fallen angels, constantly fighting the forces of evil, internal and internal, so one day we may ascend into heaven. The other is to see our species as rising apes, capable of great reason but still subject to our animal nature. As an atheist I obviously see more reality in the second view.

When we look at our closest relations, the other primates, we see that successful leadership and dominance are not the preserve of mere strength alone. Intelligence and the fostering of loyalty through kindness also play a part. We see that reflected in the best of our society. Kindness is built into our species. Why else would we hate beggars? For the vast majority of us, there is a little wrench of emotion as we walk past a beggar, pretending not to see them or muttering a lack of change or bitterly dropping a few cents into their cup. We may eventually learn contempt, but to learn that contempt, we must first unlearn something innate, compassion.

We may also scorn our politicians, but they do some amount of buttering us up to get into the positions of power we put them in. They smile and they promise and they remind us of what kindnesses their father did for your father and we desperately want to believe them because even now, being lied to face to face, seems like something unnatural and even, despite all the evidence, unlikely.

And what do we elect them for? We elect them with only one purpose in mind; that we may leave the security of our little castles, cross our moats and safely navigate the world beyond. I deride the State for many things, but I will never question its importance in denying the biggest among us, the freedom to behave as we imagine the creatures of the jungle behave. An all powerful silver-back maintaing order is no longer practical, so we’ve created a collectivised notion of a silver-back and called it the State. It is a big, mostly dumb and prone to being a very greedy creature, but it only exists and persists because it works for the majority of us. We have institutionalised altruism and reciprocity i.e. we are civilised.

The persistence of civilisation has paid off in ways beyonds safety. We have invented rights. Again, think about voting rights. Think about democracy and the obligation to cater to minorities. Think about all those politicians and their fake smiley pandering. Really think about it because it is beyond wonderful. Every nation in the Western World is a liberal democracy. It is our gift to the World, a World which we were so recently robbing blind.

Big L Liberals and big C Conservatives may battle for the hearts of our democracies, but we remain liberal democracies in that we all vote, men and women, rich and poor, non-caucasians, non-Christians and even those people who persist in voting for the smaller parties. Everyone is included and we have systems that seek (with varying degrees of competence) to cater to and manage the mishmash of aggregated and conflicting, social and economic and cultural values that make up our multifarious nation-states. So many contradictions contained within all our neat and not so neat borders. All with one thing in common, the perceived right to walk the streets unmolested by the State and other bullies, real and imagined.

We are so free that we protest when members of our police force speak about us behind our backs, or when our politicians smirk at us or when private clubs don’t have rules which reflect our values or when foreign parades don’t include people we want included. Now I’m a liberal, a dyed in the wool, marriage equality supporting, anti-prohibitionism, proud feminist and welfare state loving liberal, but even I can’t take seriously some of those issues. I do however feel a great deal of gratitude for living in a society which is so liberal, that people feel entitled to object to what people say about other people behind their backs.

The alternative is a society where liberal becomes a term of abuse. A society so opposed to progress, that equality can be objected to on principal, rather than someone having to go to the effort of constructing a coherent and viable argument against it. A society of unreason, where the strong are unrestrained and where even our castles are unsafe.

We must then return to the beggar. Those of us who do not suckle at the breast of Ayn Rand, tend to not want beggars intruding upon our streets. We may just not want to see them and are happy with; out of sight out of mind, or we may have a genuine wish to have their plights ameliorated in some fashion, up to and including the transfer of wealth from our pockets into the pockets of a cohort of professionals who will care for the beggars. Criminalising or socialising, both have the same result, we don’t have beggars messing with our emotions or more importantly, we don’t have a visible manifestation of our civilization’s shortcomings showing us its open palm, on our daily work commute.

Short of experiencing poverty oneself, nothing shouts out societal problems, like seeing poverty asking us for help so directly. For the most part, poverty is as hidden as child abuse. Most of us can get by without unduly worrying about the frayed edges of our society, of our civilisation. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing even impractical about that. Poverty is still not prevalent enough to endanger the status quo. And we have enough shame left that the majority of those in poverty stick to living lives of silent despair. Suicides may be up, but again, shame keeps us out of that issue too, we are much more comfortable talking about car safety. Fingers crossed, we will get through this recession before we have to start digging mass graves for the casualties.

The beggars though, they can come into our castles now. We inadvertently invite them in. Our exposure to a multiplicity of media, fed to us through a plethora of different platforms, means we have to work very hard indeed to harden our hearts to the out-stretched hands, from all across our planet. If we would move beyond compassion, if we would learn to be harsh, then let us do so. Let us develop a philosophy of non-compassion. A philosophy that we are comfortable teaching to our children. Let us teach them that we are richer than the all the rest, ah well, aren’t we financially and genetically and politically fortunate.

When we boast of our weakened State and we compare it to, let’s say, the Chinese State, which routinely puts bullets into the heads of criminals, just before harvesting their organs, we need a ready answer for our children’s inquiry as to why we are happy, no, eager, no, coquettishly and obscenely enthused, by the prospect of doing business with China? Why are we playing nice with Russia while they prop up the murderous regime of Assad in Syria? And why do we have diplomatic relations with nations which continue to treat women as cheap brood mares?

We can lie to our children and say that the tenets of Cultural Relativism require us to give equal value to all different societal values, especially if that culture is predominately dark-skinned. Or we tell the truth, that money and jobs and raw materials come from foreign lands and if we wish to get our grubby and increasingly desperate paws on those materials, then we are going to have to accept that we only value human life where and when it is convenient. And anyway our dead ancestors were mean to their equally dead ancestors so we get to keep our eyes fixed firmly on our feet, because we are conveniently embarrassed by what dead people did.

It is this learned cynicism that keeps us sane when we encounter that bloody beggar. The learned cynicism that comes with embracing helplessness. It is a seductive feeling. It allows one to retreat to the cocoon of one’s own intellectual and emotional castle. What can ‘little Ould Ireland’ do against the might of international scum-baggery? What can an individual do against the multitude of tiny evils that cause girls to have their genitals mutilated, homosexuals hanged, dissidents blown up, apostates beheaded and of course that whole thing of explaining to our fat children how malnutrition kills children every single minute of every single day on our planet?

Truth be told, there is nothing I can do to convince this Government and a critical mass of Irish people, that it is a damning indictment of our democratic values to even have diplomatic relations with a nation such as China, never mind the nauseating spectacle of our elected officials rolling over to have their bellies tickled by the Chinese Government, just so they’ll throw us some of their custom. I may despise it, but my mortgage repayments, my responsibilities and my family situation all mean I have not experienced desperation and even if I eventually lose my house, I still will not suffer any emotional damage. How then do I preach solidarity with a Syrian, who’s name I can’t even pronounce, to my neighbour who is facing the loss of everything he/she have worked so hard to accumulate?

The problem with our freedom and with our economic depression is that we are now, more than ever, as a bag of cats. Our population is divided by those who feel robbed by the State and those who feel robbed by the Wealthy and we are also all points in between. We are divided by those of Faith and those of none. We are divided by those who agree with basic human rights, or authentic human rights or that human rights are a nonsense. We are divided into europhiles and europhobes. And we are now either beggars with our hands out for help or beggars with our hands out to help.

No wonder then, that an ordinary nation like Ireland can be so conflicted about its values, that a plurality of nations would be so utterly incapable of finding a consensus. How can we be surprised that the United Nations would find itself tied in knots as it haplessly attempts to address the despotic suppression of dissent in Syria? There is no rational reason for us to think that the UN should be able to intervene usefully in Syria. The UN does not exist independently of the nation states that are its membership. And like every democratic international organisation, the biggest members, with the largest armies and a proven willingness to use said military prowess, cannot be gainsaid.

Small-fry like us? Well we did almost as much to facilitate the United States in its illegal (if one takes the UN seriously) invasion of Iraq as we are now doing to support the legal (again, if one takes the UN seriously) occupation of Afghanistan. I’m one of those few people who once supported both invasions. My mind was not changed by any moral break, but by the sheer incompetence of the occupation of Iraq. The fascinating thing though, was that despite the protests, our Government did not lift a finger to hinder the use of our airports and airspace by the United States and again, despite all the protests, not a single TD lost their seat due to their/our tacit support for that illegal invasion.

We knew then, what we know now; the side of our toast on which we’ll find the butter on. It is on the same side as almost every other small nation. We will vote to condemn or to support or to resolve, but we are not going to act against our economic best interests. I wish it were different, but then, I was for the invasion of Iraq and the majority, were softly softly against. So not only am I trying to convince people who face economic ruin, that they should care about unpronounceables out foreign, but also that they should entertain the option of not only offending possible economic benefactors, but that they should also consider the possibility of actively involving themselves in activities that harm the interest of those big and mobile monied nations.

For example, I want the EU to invade Syria and impose democracy. Further, that the EU guarantees the independence of Syria against all-comers. The list of reasons why that is never, ever, you’re dreaming man, it’s just not going to happen, is about a mile long. And at the very top of that list is the lack of military might and competence within the EU, to impose our power (and thusly our values) beyond our borders. Second on the list, but even more importantly, the citizens of the EU, do not want the EU to, in principal, possess that kind of power, neither do they want to have to pay the huge sums of money required to attain that level of military competence. And they definitely don’t want to, nor even can they imagine, killing and dying for the entity known as the European Union.

So Syria? So the plight of women in Islamic Nations? So that statue of C.J. Haughey in Dingle? So smoking in cars? So the weather? Too much, just too much. So we switch off our brains and then compassion soon follows. We can’t demand that the Chinese and the Russians forego their interests in the Syrian regime and not expect to have to endure economic consequences. Why suffer for people we stopped caring about the moment complexity reared its head? Now a tsunami is OK. We can dig deep for that. It is a simple exchange of money for relief. Helping flood victims is not going to threaten anyone’s livelihood.

That dichotomy does not anger me. I’m an adult and I know how narrow one’s horizons get when the mortgage needs paying, but I am no longer content to remain cynical about our species. I despise feeling powerless and the intellectual dishonesties and illusions required to deal with that powerlessness have begun to lose their efficacy. I blame having too much time to write or perhaps it is the grey in my beard reminding me that soon I will cease to exist, but for whatever reason, for the last few months I have been rediscovering the energy required to care. I have begun to reengage with organisations I was once active in, I am trying to set up a new one and I am contemplating joining others.

I am never going to be able to save a woman from misogyny disguised as religion. I am not going to be able to put anti-tank ordinance into the hands of Syrian rebels. And I am never going to be able to save a child from starvation. I can’t even live in a county free of Haughey statues. What I can do is fall back in love with democracy. All I can do is become again an active participant in this tiny, achingly self-conscious, little democracy. It is an unlikely aspiration, but perhaps one day, I will convince one other citizen that there is such a thing as tainted money and perhaps there are good reasons to sacrifice one’s immediate economic interests for something more discreet. Perhaps to fully appreciate the awesome dimension of democracy one must accept the responsibilities of being the protected beneficiary of democracy. And if those responsibilities do not include the protection and propagation of democracy, then surely we are nothing more than economic units and consumers, with nothing separating us from the lumpen, but time.

It takes the wind out of you when you discover you will never be able to change the world, but wait a decade or two and that desire may return and that idealism, tempered by cynicism is the kind of thing that can sustain one through the unpleasant task of fruitless effort.

Fallacies

I was writing a blog post about an article written by a journalist I particularly dislike and as I was struggling to construct a pithy and blistering assault on her silly argument, I got distracted by the very few pieces of Latin that I know. So I wrote this short blog. I would greatly appreciate correcting comments, if I have erred greatly in any of my definitions or examples.

One of the great things about ‘pop culture’ is that it can provide accessible definitions for terms and/or concepts which may appear arcane to those of us of middling education. Fans of the West Wing love an opportunity to use the Latin term post hoc ergo propter hoc. This is for many, the only Latin we know and more especially, it is the only example of a logical fallacy that we can explain. We now know, despite never having been exposed to debating in school, that ‘after this, because of this’ is a nonsense which people may try to slip into an argument.

There are a few other fallacies though, whose Latin label we do not recognise and think we don’t understand, yet we actually do. An ad hominen attack in an argument, is simply attacking the man, not the ball. Anyone with even a passing interest in sport will fully grasp the significance of that concept. And understand well enough to know that even though it may be fallacious, it will still sometimes work.

Then there is ignoratio elenchi. Fans of South Park will know this one. It is called the Chewbacca Defense. Simply put, one attempts to make definitive conclusions about one’s opponent or the argument itself, based on irrelevancies and absurdities e.g. you like the colour blue. Blues is clearly an inferior colour to Red. Red is my favourite colour, thus your argument that football is better than rugby is clearly wrong. Or, no one has tried playing football on the Moon. Why do you think that is? Obviously because rugby is a better game, thus your contention that I stole your wallet is obviously wrong.

My personal favourite is Godwin’s Law, which comes from reductio ad Hitlerum, which is a variation on reductio ad absurdum. Simply put, this is the tendency for many arguments to quickly degenerate into accusations of ‘that is what Hitler would have done‘ territory pretty quickly. Examples are myriad. You want to lower taxes, that’ll destroy services for the poor, that is what Hitler would have done, you Nazi. Or, you want to raise taxes and make the State even stronger, that is what Hitler would have done, you Nazi.

There is another more mendacious rather than fallacious method for beating an opponent. I don’t now what the Latin term for it is, but it amounts to forcing an opponent to deny something which is patently untrue, but causes damage just simply by having the opponent repeat the charge, even if only to refute it. There is no smoke without fire e.g. I did not have sex with my neighbor’s donkey.