tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3466220672741822302024-02-20T15:30:56.788+00:00Xtra-Medium PhilosophyWhat are you, about a medium?
Extra medium.Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-57714676570032306272015-01-04T20:56:00.001+00:002015-01-04T20:58:23.397+00:00The Badger’s DissertationMy dear friends,<br />
<br />
<strong></strong>I have been away too long. I am coming back I promise.<br />
<br />
In the meantime enjoy this little excerpt from one of my favourite books, The once and future king, by TH White. In it the young, soon to be King Arthur is learning about the world through conversation with the animals, an experience afforded to him by his mentor, Merlin. Here we join Arthur as he is learning about the creation myth from the perspective of a badger.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
People often ask, as an idle question, whether the process of
evolution began with the chicken or the egg. Was there an egg out of
which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am
in a position to say that the first thing created was the egg.<br />
<br />
When God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and
the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed
platypus would eventually emerge, He called the embryos before him, and
saw that they were good.<br />
<br />
Perhaps I ought to explain,’ added the badger, lowering his papers
nervously and looking at Wart over the top of them, ‘that all embryos
look very much the same. They are what you are before you are born –
and, whether you are going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a
cameleopard or a man, when you are an embryo you just look like a
peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. I continue as follows:<br />
<br />
The embryos stood in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped
politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down
respectfully, and God addressed them.<br />
He said: “Now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the
same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you want to be.
When you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to
grant you another gift as well. You may alter any parts of yourselves
into anything which you think will be useful to you in later life. For
instance, at the moment you cannot dig. Anybody who would like to turn
his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so.
Or, to put it another way, at present you can only use your mouths for
eating. Anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon,
can change it by asking and be a corkindrill or sabre-toothed tiger.
Now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you
choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.”<br />
<br />
“All the embryos thought the matter over politely, and then, one by
one, they stepped up before the eternal throne. They were allowed two
or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as
flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers,
or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their
hands as oars. We badgers thought very hard and decided to ask for
three boons. We wanted to change our skins for shields, our mouths for
weapons and our arms for garden forks. These boons were granted.
Everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of us in very
queer ones. For instance, one of the desert lizards decided to swap his
whole body for blotting-paper, and one of the toads who lived in the
drouthy antipodes decided simply to be a water-bottle.<br />
<br />
“The asking and granting took up two long days–they were the fifth
and sixth, so far as I remember–and at the very end of the sixth day,
just before it was time to knock off for Sunday, they had got through
all the little embryos except one. This embryo was Man.<br />
<br />
” ‘Well, Our little man,’ said God. ‘You have waited till the last,
and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard
all the time. What can We do for you?’<br />
<br />
” ‘Please God,’ said the embryo, ‘I think that You made me in the
shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves, and that
it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice I will stay as I
am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave me, for other and
doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenceless embryo all my
life, doing my best to make myself a few feeble implements out of the
wood, iron and the other materials which You have seen fit to put
before me. If I want a boat I will try to construct it out of trees,
and if I want to fly, I will put together a chariot to do it for me.
Probably I have been very silly in refusing to take advantage of Your
kind offer, but I have done my very best to think it over carefully,
and now hope that the feeble decision of this small innocent will find
favour with Yourselves.’<br />
<br />
” ‘Well done,’ exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. ‘Here, all
you embryos, come here with your beaks and whatnots to look upon Our
first Man. He is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of
you , and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of
Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and
the Fishes of the Sea. Now let the rest of you get along, and love and
multiply, for it is time to knock off for the week-end. As for you,
Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools.
You will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all the others
will be embryos before your might. Eternally undeveloped, you will
always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrows
and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, but
partly hopeful. Run along then, and do your best. And listen, Man,
before you go . . .’<br />
<br />
” ‘Well?’ asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal.<br />
<br />
” ‘We were only going to say,’ said God shyly, twisting Their hands
together. ‘Well, We were just going to say, God bless you.’ ”<br />
<br />
The Badger’s Dissertation, from Chapter 21 of The once and future king, TH WhiteFilosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-3056422404639295312014-07-30T00:11:00.000+01:002014-07-30T19:43:13.972+01:00Daddy Cool Part 2: This Time It's Personal<br />
<div class="bq_s">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Dear Friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If
your memories hark back far enough you might recall Part 1 of Daddy
Cool, wherein I charted, rather hastily, the history of children and
child rearing. It was an emotionally traumatic piece of research,
spurred initially by a desire to comprehend the vastly differing
opinions on child rearing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In
Part 2 (of 3 (I Hope)) I will be detailing the effects of preparation
for parenthood on myself. I make no apologies if what I write has no
particular reference to you, though I hope at least some of it will. I
can only write from the perspective of a heterosexual male fathering his
own biological offspring, because that is my experience. If you feel
that my portrayal of fatherhood is too narrow, please feel free to
respond and broaden the topic to include your own experience. After all,
it is only through the sharing of experience and discovering
commonality that we learn from one another.</span><br />
<div class="bq_s">
<div class="bq_fq bq_fq_lrg" style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Anyone who tells you fatherhood is the greatest thing that can happen to you, they are understating it. - Mike Myers</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In the beginning there was the fear...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">When
my wife and I decided to try to have children it signalled a change in
our relationship that was only partly foreseen. Despite my medical
background, I knew little about parenting from conception to birth,
beyond the scientific. I naively thought that perhaps that would be
enough. When my wife told me she was pregnant, even though I should have
been expecting it, I was surprised.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">For
the preceeding months I had tried my hardest not to dwell on all the
worries I had regarding just the conception. I found myself, in my
quieter moments, trying to rationalise every possible outcome of our
attempts to conceive. When I was younger I had always told myself it
wouldn't matter to me if I was infertile, because there are so many
options. I had settled on the idea that I would adopt. Simple as that. I
would play the hand I was given and rather than lament it. I would give
a child the home it deserves. How very altruistic of me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This
was, of course, before I was married. Before it was a potential reality
rather than a hypothetical situation. What I had failed to account for
was the feelings of the other person. The potential mother of a child. A
child she would like to have with me. How about how she felt? Would she
be so keen on my altruistic world view? Chances are if there was an
infertility problem, it would be on one side of the partnership alone.
It would be hard to not feel like you are somehow letting the other
person down. That maybe they would be better off being with someone who
can give them the family they desire? These are just some of the
thoughts that ran through my head from time to time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Once
the pregnancy was confirmed though, these thoughts dissipated, as you'd
expect. However I do know that there are many people who have to deal
with these questions in reality. I wish I could be more comforting, but
it seems anything I say would ring hollow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Fatherhood is great because you can ruin someone from scratch. - Jon Stewart</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The
pregnancy from the point of view of a new father to be, brings about
ambivalent feelings. It's amazing to see a woman's body change and
seemingly out of nowhere produce a baby. Up until the first ultrasound
scan at 12 weeks, everything about the pregnancy seemed somewhat
tiresome. (I can literally feel the mothers reading this start to hate
me, but hear me out.) The joy of learning you have the potential for
creation within your capability, is soon tempered with the physical
symptoms of the first trimester. To the partner, all the morning
sickness, aches, pains and sore breasts, are just a protracted illness.
Something that they can do little about, even if they are, as I hope I
was, sympathetic to the sufferer. You can learn about it, try to help
out as much as possible, but no matter how much you may want to, you
cannot travel the same journey as the mother. From the very outset
pregnancy excludes the male from the obvious physical and emotional
strains of growing another human being. Women can know it, men cannot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However,
the 12 week scan, brought into sharp focus the inescapable reality that
was presented before me. In half a years time, I would become a father.
Specifically to the little mass of grey pixels on the sonographer's
screen. A threshold was crossed at that moment and the door behind you
shut and disappeared. Like all nodal points in life, it was both
exciting and terrifying. We two were responsible now. We had decided we
were, before starting out. Now we would have to prove it. But we two did
not have the same role to play. My wife was to be Mother, I was to be
Father.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The
frustrations of the first trimester made way for earnest preparation
and a new found sense of responsibility for the habitat of the new
person, soon to enter into existence. Things that had seemed periphery
to my reality before, now occupied my thoughts. Economic, environmental,
political. All of which centred at my immediate surroundings and
extended outwards. It was now my responsibility to craft a space in the
world fit for a baby. My baby. It is both selfless and selfish. Selfless
on the part of the offspring, selfish in terms of society. I wanted the
best for the child first and foremost, I'd get to helping anyone else
after, if possible.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I
had never experienced such a mixing of feelings. At times I felt uneasy
with how my world view was changing. Yet it seemed almost biological.
As though some dormant genes were suddenly awakened and a physiological
change was happening. My wife's change was obvious, but mine was no less
real. I found myself emotionally brittle in situations that hitherto
had rendered me apathetic, if that even.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">On the one hand, we'll never experience childbirth. On the other hand, we can open all our own jars. - Bruce Willis</span></blockquote>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">It's
hard to express the wonder of watching the woman you are with
transforming into a Mother. The girl you once knew, fulfilling a
potential power so mundane yet utterly astounding. The rational mind
tells you to understand it from a dispassionate perspective, a "Chemical
Reaction" as Bill Hicks once put it. Yet to be privy to it, to be
watching it first hand, fully in the knowledge that this has happened
several billion times over, was almost magical. The plasticity of the
human body will never cease to amaze me, neither will its frailty.</span></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The
date which seemed an age away rapidly approached. The reckoning was
upon us. It will be no surprise to tell you, that for the purposes of
story telling, TV and movies have lied to you. (Aside: If you develop
your reality from what you see on a screen alone, your life will be an
endless series of disappointment and confusion.) Labour is not a fifteen
minute job. I had never really considered it, but it's called Labour
for a reason. It's not called Idleness, Inactivity or Indolence for
similarly appropriate reasons. It was exhausting just being present, I
would not like to even imagine what it is like to actually experience.
If men were truthful with themselves, once witnessing Labour first hand
and considering all the trevails we, as a gender put them through, they
still live longer than us. Women really are the stronger sex. Sorry
fellas. </span></div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="copy-paste-block">
<blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Think about it this way: a woman can
grow a baby inside her body. Then a woman can deliver the baby through her
body. Then, by some miracle, a woman can feed a baby with her body. When you
compare that to a male’s contribution to life, it’s kind of embarrassing,
really. The father is always like, “Hey, I helped, too. For like five seconds.
Doing the one thing I think about twenty-four hours a day." - Jim Gaffigan</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Then,
after all the waiting, the tears, the worry and excitement, there he
was. My son. I learnt in that instant I was to be father to a son. The
images of his first moments in this world will forever be etched in my
mind. I never thought that my soul could bear such an excess of joy. I
thought I had known what love was, but truly I had only seen one facet.
All of a sudden, a new dimension of love was exposed to view and was
almost overwhelming in its immensity. I cannot overemphasise this, but
will stop now before I spill out the countless clichés which I am in
danger of spouting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">An
unexpected tranquillity fell upon the room. This utterly defenceless,
little person, that only an hour ago was merely imaginary, was in my
arms. A small bundle of potential energy. His course in life would be
eternally entwined with my own, yet the world he will know, would be
very different to the one I knew.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I hear babies cry, <br />
I watch them grow, <br />
They'll learn much more, <br />
Than I'll ever know. <br />
And I think to myself, <br />
What a wonderful world. - Louis Armstrong </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In
those twilight moments, it felt as though the fruits of labour had
finally been harvested. Yet I was soon to realise, the truly hard work
had not yet begun.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In the next part of Daddy Cool, I will exploring what it really means to be a Cool Daddy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yours always,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I
know, I know. You don't need to tell me I've been gone too long. I can
feel it. Let's just say, life got in the way. Now life has decided to be
cool, I can resume more regular blogging.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">You can contact the Filosofer on:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Email: xmphilosophy@gmail.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Twitter: @xmphilosophy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Facebook: www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_myers.html">
</a></span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-1269421168215641762014-04-17T22:31:00.003+01:002014-04-17T22:43:32.148+01:00Astrology - Or how the Moon is in Uranus<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As long as you still experience the stars as something "above you", you lack the eye of knowledge - Friedrich Nietzsche </span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">First off I'd like to say that your path to riches/success in love/happiness is not to be predicted by the movement of the stars and planets. It never has been the case. It remains to not be the case. The Moon is definitely not in Uranus.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">However I am not here to ridicule anything. As you may have gathered in my previous posts I am not one to mock, but to learn. Ridicule is dismissive and non-productive. It belies arrogance and ignorance. These are not worthy attributes of keen minds. To dismiss something out of hand, because of cultural influence, is to be closed minded and foolish. Although I must say that just a cursory search on the internet with the term "Astrology" certainly mitigates some of my point.</span><br />
<br />
<div id="r1PostCPBlock" style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; left: -99999px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span class="bqQuoteLink"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arthurccl166777.html" title="view quote">I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.</a></span><br />
<div class="bq-aut">
<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_c_clarke.html" title="view author">Arthur C. Clarke</a></div>
<br />
Read more at <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99" style="color: #003399;">http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99</a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I don't believe in Astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're sceptical. - Arther C. Clarke</span></blockquote>
<div id="r1PostCPBlock" style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; left: -99999px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span class="bqQuoteLink"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arthurccl166777.html" title="view quote">I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.</a></span><br />
<div class="bq-aut">
<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_c_clarke.html" title="view author">Arthur C. Clarke</a></div>
<br />
Read more at <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99" style="color: #003399;">http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99</a></div>
<div id="r1PostCPBlock" style="background-color: white; border: medium none; color: black; left: -99999px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;">
<span class="bqQuoteLink"><a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arthurccl166777.html" title="view quote">I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical.</a></span><br />
<div class="bq-aut">
<a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/arthur_c_clarke.html" title="view author">Arthur C. Clarke</a></div>
<br />
Read more at <a href="http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99" style="color: #003399;">http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/astrology.html#zxawzpdh4fH4QwCf.99</a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Astrology was the first Science of humanity and therefore the foundation upon which all scientific thinking has been extrapolated from. It sits before physics and far older than mathematics. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If we break the word down into its components,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Astro = Star</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Logos = Words</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Star-Words. And as we explored on a previous post, Words are Thoughts. So it could be said that Astrology = Star-Thoughts. Now that doesn't mean the stars have thoughts (I know I shouldn't have to spell this out) but that it is our thoughts on stars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Imagine, if you will a time before science. A time before philosophy was a concept let alone a subject of discussion. Where nothing was known and everything had be learnt for the first time. Modern humans were not mere brutes in pre-history. They would have had their equivalents of Einstein and Newton, Rembrandt and Raphael, Men and Women who saw the world and wanted to understand it more. But where to begin? What can be studied when nothing had ever been studied before?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The simple answer was, what you can see. There was no numeracy nor literacy. All you had was the ability to observe and make a picture of what it was you saw, throwing in a bit of creativity and imagination. The most easily seen and measured things in the world of ancient humans were the celestial bodies. Seems simple enough, but consider this, to understand what the sun does in the sky requires 1 year of daily observation and recording, at least three times daily, sunrise, noon and sunset. Same as the Moon. Knowing what these bodies do and how the world changes depending on their relative position might give you some valuable insight. E.g. when should one plant the crops and harvest them? When are the rains due? Are we to expect pestilence again? Practical questions given practical answers.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Now throw in the 5 planets known to the ancients (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) and you can see how, very quickly your simple study has taken on a very complicated hue. Then throw in the stars and constellations and their relative positions to each other and you have a subject of near infinite variety and interpretation. </span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right call himself a physician. - Hippocrates </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">As I have said already, the Sun itself requires 1 year of continous observation just to understand what it does in the firmament. How is a single person to observe and record the movements of the cellestial bodies? Of course they can't. A single <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession">Precession of the Equinox</a> takes greater than 2000 years, so the only way the knowledge could be maintained was through the establishment of priesthoods or cults. These groups would often perpetuate the study of a particular celestial body with little to no contact with the other priesthoods.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Through many years of observation and recording, patterns began to emerge, anthropocentric patterns, but patterns nonetheless. When certain events were occurring in the heavens, human events appeared to coincide. A rich and creative mythology was formed which persists to this day. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism">Hermetic Tradition</a> is worthwhile looking into as the saying "As above, so below" is of direct relevance to this understanding of Astrology.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The major cults of the ancient world were the Solar Cult, the Lunar Cult and The Cult of Saturn, but there were many, many more besides. These cults are the progenitors of many of the modern religions today. Their stories and beliefs having been co-opted often for the purposes of recruitment into the early churches.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A striking example of this is the importance of 25th December. Here is a list of the deities purported to have been born on this day in particular (Years are approximate):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Horus 3000 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Osiris 3000 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Attis of Phrygia 1400 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Krishna 1400 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Zoroaster 1000BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Heracles 800 BCE </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Mithra 600 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tammuz 400 BCE </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Dionysus 186 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Jesus Christ 5 BCE</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Possibly all coincidence, but all of their stories share many similarities and themes. Most were born of a virgin, performed miracles, were persecuted and killed on a cross, only to be resurrected 3 days later. How can this be? Well very simply these men were all representative of something. Something very important to the ancient and modern world alike. They were all Sun-Gods. The light of the world, God's only Son (Sonne/Sun). Jesus does not have a monopoly on these terms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">In the northern hemisphere December 21st is the Winter Equinox, the day in which the Sun rises at its most northerly point, (this also happens to be exactly beneath the constellation of Cygnus which contains the asterism known as the Northern Cross). At this point the Sun's relative position does not change for three days, so the Sun "dies" under the sign of the Cross. On sunrise on the 25th December, the Sun moves one degree to the South. The Sun is reborn, promising the days of cold and darkness are numbered and new life is professed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Please understand that I am not questioning the validity of any belief system, I am merely pointing out things that many religious scholars already know. It is well understood that the Bible contains no actual dates of Jesus' birth, but we can infer a lot. Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not Nazareth, because his father Joseph had to return to his place of birth for a census. We know when the Romans conducted their censuses, which were NEVER in winter for obvious practical reasons. So Jesus, the historical figure, could not have been born in winter. The reason December 25th was picked by the early church was a pragmatic one, fuelled by a necessity for mass conversion of ancient civilisations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This is a larger topic than I would like to discuss right now so I will leave it there.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'm a typical Capricorn. I'm hard-working, loyal, sometimes stubborn, and I don't believe in Astrology. - Jonah Peretti</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Just finally I would like to point out that whether or not you accept astrology in any capacity or not, it is a very important part of human history and dismissing it out of hand will only open you to exploitation by those who do understand it. Just look at almost any corporate logo, company name, marketing campaign and you will see Astrological symbols and archetypes. It is all pervasive, whether you like it or not. Understand it's place in the cultural psyche and if you choose to ignore it, then so be it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yours in the stars,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">A little light relief for a return to to blogging. Thank you so much for being patient. I will endeavor to blog with greater frequency in future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">If you would like to contact the Filosofer you can email by clicking <a href="mailto:xmphilosophy@gmail.com">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Otherwise you can get him on his Facebook page <a href="http://www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog">www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Or Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/xmphilosophy">@xmphilosophy</a></span>Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-33425226295995992162014-02-05T23:11:00.000+00:002014-02-05T23:11:18.005+00:00A Prayer for the NHS<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"The National Health Service is the closest thing the English have to a
religion, with those who practise in it regarding themselves as a
priesthood. This made it quite extraordinarily difficult to reform. For a
bunch of laymen, who called themselves the Government, to presume to
tell the priesthood that they must change their ways in any respect
whatever, was clearly intolerable. And faced with a dispute between
their priests and ministers, the public would have no hesitation in
taking the part of the priesthood." - Nigel Lawson</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> We are social creatures. Humans always have been. Our societal institutions are reflections of our cultural sensibilities. Certain institutions are relatively ubiquitous. There may be some nuances between countries but some things are universal. These have no interest me. The mundanity of existence in this vast world we live in are there for all to see and are best left to the analysis of Stand-Up Comedians, whose insights are often of more value than a faculty of teachers and professors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Some institutions however, are entirely unique. Not only are they unique to the human experience now, but they were unique upon implementation and may be unique when the histories of our time are written centuries from now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> The National Health Service in Great Britain is one of these unique institutions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> There is a worrying trend I am noticing in our society. To often the term "social" is being used as derogatory, derisory or as some political punchline. Yet we are social creatures. We are strongest when we look after our weakest. There is no mileage in survival of the fittest when it comes to humans as individuals, but as societies, bound together through shared ideals and concerns, there most certainly is.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Too often are we told that the only way we can succeed is through individual endeavor. While that is true to a degree, the individual cannot survive without the society it is a part of. It's the society more than their parents that nurtures and educates, that protects and nourishes. (Not that I am diminishing the role of parents, but I am making a wider point.)</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">"To ask that the government be run like a business is tantamount to
asking that the government turn a profit. The problem in a nutshell, is
that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable.
Reality TV, pornography, fashion, sports, and gambling are all of
questionable social value, but each is quite profitable and exists in
the private sector. Meanwhile, few would argue that the Army, Navy, Air
Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, police department, fire department,
libraries, parks, and public schools are of no social value, and yet
they could not exist if they were required to be profitable." - John T Harvey</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> The National Health Service in Britain is the only institution I am aware of in the world, that provides the most up to date, expert healthcare, at the point of need, for any citizen who needs it, for free. It is a truly social institution, in its conception at least. It is only 65 years old, yet many still do not fully appreciate how delicate an institution it is and how easily it may be broken for the sake of profit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Make no mistake, healthcare is profitable. Massively so. In most developed countries it consumes more than 10% of GDP. There are many people, throughout the world, who stand to make a great deal of money from the dismantling of the NHS. From pharmaceuticals to the seamstresses that sew the curtains, our healthcare institution is as tantalising to business as a dying wildebeest is to a committee of vultures. But like the wildebeest, the NHS must die before the feasting can start.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Yet a frontal assault on the service would be political suicide, as even the most conservative of middle-class Britons holds the NHS, among the most treasured features of this land. An institution we can be proud of. So something more subtle is being done.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Our socialist healthcare is being de-socialised. And we are being asked to do it. Alongside stories portraying </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the NHS as, at best a bumbling incompetent and at worst, intentionally cruel and heartless, there are "debates." For example the debate re smokers and drinkers, or fat people. Or old people. Should we have to pay for those who choose to smoke? Or drink? Or eat too much? Or have the audacity for being old?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Maybe you agree with some of those. Well what about the children of parents with genetic diseases? Why should we pay for their healthcare when their parents knew they might get the same disease they are afflicted with? Surely they should have to pay for it (healthcare, not the child) themselves. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Well if not them, what about the extreme sports enthusiast that makes an error of judgement and smashes into the ground? Or the motorcyclist that hasn't the good sense to drive a car? Or the owner of the trampoline who lands awkwardly?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> Or maybe the young people who engage in unsafe sexual practices with multiple partners? Why should we pay for them? Or homosexuals who have unprotected sex?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> What about the depressives and the suicidal? They should just get a grip and walk it off anyway, right? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> The point is that everyone engages in some activity that is potentially and perceivably risky to someone else. The system of socialised healthcare can only work if it is free for everybody and devoid of judgement. For any group to deny it to any other is unacceptable and so it should be.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> The alternative is to allow the exact opposite. Allow private business and insurance companies to dictate who gets what and for what price. You may get excellent healthcare, but not everyone will. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> We all get sick. We
all will die. But not all of us will be able to afford it. Not under that system. Are we ready to sell ourselves down the river? Just to feel as though somehow we aren't being inconvenienced to look after those whose choices we don't agree with?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">As I have said before, I work in the NHS. I am an Emergency Department doctor. The people I work with daily, from the cleaners to chief executives, are employed in an institution which transcends our petty nitpicking. It is a reflection of what we as a group of social creatures, want to do when we are at our best. We want to look after you (and ourselves, of course).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">With that in mind I offer you a small prayer for the NHS. I know many reading this are not of a religious persuasion, but it is a secular prayer of thanksgiving, so I don't foresee any dilemma. I'm sure Nigel Lawson didn't mean for this to happen, but who cares what he thinks anyway?</span></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Dear NHS, </i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I know that I do not say this enough to you</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>nor to those who deserve it, but thank you.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Thank you for being there when I am in need.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Thank you for being there when others are in need.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I will try and preserve you always</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>for you are the best of us incarnate.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>May you always strive to improvement</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>and may we have the conviction to support you.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>May your decisions be always wrapped in compassion</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>and may our trust in you never be tested.</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>I offer this as an honest plea,</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>May you look after us forever and ever,</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>In Aneurin Bevan's name, So be it.</i></b></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yours from the priesthood,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">-----</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">To contact the Filosofer you can:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">email: xmphilosophy@gmail.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/xmphilosophy">@xmphilosophy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog">https://www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I'd love to hear what you think</span><br />
Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-20143879991971995322014-01-12T22:24:00.001+00:002014-01-12T22:24:11.757+00:00In search of Bigfoot<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
What am I doing? People claim knowledge of statistics that say at any moment everything will change.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Life is not static. It's relentless. The millions of years of history prior to human consciousness and every moment since has been in a state of perpetual flux. Nothing is permanent. Everything dies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Through observation of the cosmos we have glimpsed at the birth of galaxies, the death of stars. Forces so beyond our capacity for understanding that they almost scoff at our attempts at comprehension. The sequences that occur in the skies are played out through the rise and falls civilisations to the nth degree.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Human existence is so fleeting it makes a mockery of how seriously we take it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
So why do what I do? And by "what I do" I mean; think, discuss and write about all sorts of subjects. I do it, like many others, because I want to know. I hate not knowing. A criticism I have faced many times, even as a child, is I have an answer for everything. Some of you may agree with that I'm sure. However, not surprisingly, I have a more sympathetic interpretation of my perceived Smart Alekary. I don't have the answers, but I can assure you, no matter what the subject, I will have a lot of questions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It has been my good fortune that, despite many attempts, I have yet to succumb to any mainstream world view. I am neither religious nor atheistic and I'm definitely not agnostic, whatever that means. I don't belong to any political parties, nor do I ever want to. I don't even vote (more on that in a future weblog, so hold your grumbles.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
As such I have a deficiency in my cognition of the world. I have no Denial-Reflex. When I hear of a new concept, or version of history, or remarkable discovery, I don't have that little gremlin in my head saying "That's impossible, according to my world view, and therefore must be some deception/hoax/fraud/illusion." It is a burden that I must bear and it is a burden. Some can so easily dismiss an idea before it is even fully formed and get on with their lives as if they were never privy to the paradigm shifting information that is being presented to them. I cannot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Arthur C. Clark once wrote three laws:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">In recent history, the above laws, when applied to scientific advancement, have been proven true in sometimes comical affect.</span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">Radio has no future. Heavier than air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax. <i><b>William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, 1899</b></i></span></span></blockquote>
<div>
<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Why is it that people have such a vehement denial reflex? Why is it one's perception of the world must be set in stone? Why do learned members, of any field make such absolute predictions? </span></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. <i><b>Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology, Toulouse, 1872</b></i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is a comfort in believing that the smart guys and gals who are at the forefront of their fields know what they're talking about.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Everything that can be invented has been invented.<b> <i>Charles H. Duell, Commissioner US Office of Patents, 1899</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yet what if what we think we know is just a fiction? An agreed upon fable that fits the current level of evidence for not yet fully discredited theories?</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom. <i><b>Robert Milikan, Nobel Prizewinner in Physics, 1923</b></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What if the people put in front of us as the last bastions of knowledge, the guardians of truth, are winging it? Not because they are deliberately trying to mislead necessarily, but because they're just making it up.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will. <b><i>Albert Einstein, 1932</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They know more background on the subject than anyone else, they have been appointed "expert" so why shouldn't they give their two-penneth? It's likely to be more correct than anyone else's.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. <b><i>Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics Yale University, 1929. Later that year the Wall Street Crash occurred leading to a decade of the Great Depression.</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But what if they aren't "expert?" What if the comments they make are only there to protect the fragility of their world view? The fragility of their psychology?</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives. <b><i>Admiral</i></b> <b><i>William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project, 1940s</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Imagine that everything you thought you knew, your entire life's work, is being challenged by some upstart. Some young buck, muscling in on your territory. Making wild accusations and predictions, which if true, would consign you and everything you "know" to be true, into obsolescence.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Young man, I am afraid you are wasting your time. If there were any more planets, they would have been found long before this. <b><i>Visiting Astronomer to Clyde Tombaugh, before he discovered Pluto, 1930. (This means you Neil deGrasse Tyson.)</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is difficult for seasoned scientists, or anyone else for that matter, to admit being wrong, or misguided, or just plain foolish.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Space Travel is utter bilge. <b><i>Sir Richard van de Riet Woolley, Astronomer Royal, 1956</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Until a time is reached when the facts become irrefutable. Often the world will be a decade, or maybe even a generation older, before what was considered impossible, becomes ubiquitous and mundane.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home. <b><i>Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And even those whose vision has transformed the world have been made to look unambitious in their foresight.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">640K ought to be enough for anybody. <b><i>Bill Gates, 1981</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So... What am I doing? I suppose what I am doing is justifying to myself and to a lesser degree to you, the reasons why I study the topics I refer to as High Strangeness but what most would call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalistics">Anomalistics</a>. Things that are there, but shouldn't be. They shouldn't be there because we have no model to explain why they are, yet there they are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Over the next few months I will, from time to time, take you along with me, on voyages to distant lands and forgotten epochs to discover, rediscover and uncover many mysteries. It will challenge your understanding of both history and science, modern and ancient. It will leave you with many more questions than before the outset, but it is my sincerest wish that it will, in the very least, amuse you. I make no guarantee that what I present to you will be true, whatever your definition of "true" is, but that is not the point. Remember this...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. <b><i>Aristotle</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And why do I do this? Because...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"I'm bored" is a useless thing to say. You live in a great, big, vast world that you've seen none percent of. And Even the inside of your mind is endless. It goes on forever inwardly. Do you understand? Being, the fact that you're alive, is amazing. So you don't get to be bored. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Louis CK</span></i></b></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yours in strangeness and definitely not in boredom,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sorry for the delay in getting this post out. The Christmas period and the time since New Year is a busy one as I'm sure you'll agree. But I'm back now, so you can look forward to weekly-ish updates on the weblog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am also going to host a series of interviews on the site over the coming twelve months. Sporadically at first, but who knows, perhaps in time it will become a regular thing. We shall have to see.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To contact the Filosofer you can:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">email: xmphilosophy@gmail.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/xmphilosophy">@xmphilosophy</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog">https://www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'd love to hear what you think</span>Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-59523766343298609042013-12-24T23:42:00.001+00:002013-12-24T23:42:03.577+00:00Merry X-Mas from X-M Philosophy<p dir=ltr>My dear friends,</p>
<p dir=ltr>Just a quick note to say I hope you and your cherished friends and family have a truly happy Christmas.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Be thankful for the bounty before you and know how lucky you are to have more than you can eat, more booze than you should drink and be in the company of those who mean the most to you.</p>
<p dir=ltr>The feast or festival is important to us as humans, beyond the various allegories we attach to them. It's important because without plenty we cannot appreciate scarcity and vice versa.</p>
<p dir=ltr>So raise a toast to each other and be contented, for the worries of the world will still be there when you're done.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Glad tidings, one and all,</p>
<p dir=ltr>the Filosofer</p>
<p dir=ltr>-----</p>
<p dir=ltr>I'll be back in the New Year with more of my ramblings, but in the mean time I want you all to enjoy feasting!</p>
Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-52936174865123642162013-12-16T22:41:00.001+00:002013-12-16T22:41:19.061+00:00Mind your Language<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for." Ludwig Wittgenstein</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When teaching medical students I use this quote regularly. Seldom has a sentiment been truer to me through my practice in life or in medicine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">During my more contemplative and playful moods I like to occasionally undertake a simple thought experiment. I came across it when reading a book by a modern French philosopher, Roger-Pol Droit. Try it yourself if you would like and you have a spare minute or two. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Take a simple object. It has to be small and light enough to be held comfortably in your hands, e.g. an apple or pencil. Look at it. Speak it's name. Then repeat. Keep repeating it. The word should be that which most naturally relates to you the idea of the object to hand. Do this for at least one minute. Notice how as you keep saying the word, the object and word begin to separate from one another. The word, which is now just a sound becomes almost silly and is never exactly the same. The object remains static, unchanging. Note how the sound you make becomes partitioned from the idea of what the object actually is. Give the object to someone who does not speak a language you know and they will have the same idea of what the object is, but the sounds they use will be indecipherable.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The point of this thought experiment is to demonstrate how language is more than just letters on a page and sounds one makes. It's about the transference of ideas and thoughts. That example was just using a simple, small, everyday object. Something that can be seen, measured and felt. The idea behind what an apple is, for example, is relatively straightforward. Some ideas are not so simple to relate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let's think about how the transference of an idea occurs. An idea comes to mind and an area of the speaker's brain sends a signal to the body. Air is forced through the vocal cords that vibrate producing sound, a series of vibrations travel at a fixed speed towards the listener. The sound reaches the ear of the listener, the vibrations are transferred to their eardrum which move the three tiny bones in the inner ear, amplifying the signal that travels to their brain. The listener's brain then deciphers the signal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That whole process works well for simple objects or concepts. Things which day to day affect everyone. But when an abstract concept is used there is always an element of trust involved and that trust is not always deserved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Say a word like "Love", or "Fear", or "God." I know most people have an idea of what those things are, but they won't be my idea. Not exactly. So for language to work at all for these concepts, one must trust that the person listening has some clue as to what you mean when you say "Love" for example.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What do you feel when you hear the word "Love?" What is your idea of "Fear?" What is "God" to you?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don't know. Nor will I ever truly know. Through years of contemplation and introspection I feel I am closing in on what I think "God" is. I may never get there. But have you taken the same thought journey as I have? Of course not. You've had your own. Just as valid, just as real. Just as all of us have. We experience our lives only through our own perspective, not through anyone else's. Your truth is just that, yours and no one else's. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"God" is just one example. No one but you knows exactly what you mean when you use thousands of other abstract words. You may casually say that you are "Starving", when you're merely hungry, but you probably (I hope) do not really know what "Starving" is. You might say that you're "Terrified" about a job interview or a public speaking engagement. Yet that word might stir different feelings in a Holocaust survivor, or child soldier in the Congo.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's all relative I know. I am not trying to belittle peoples emotions, but it is important to understand that language is not dead and the words you use are actually ideas and thoughts you are trying to express. Words are not just letters or sounds. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A professional needs to know the words they use, because everyone in that profession will expect them to. It is required to make the transference of ideas to be as seamless as possible. Complicated matters will take an age to relate if every other technical word needs defining and agreeing upon before moving on. A doctor may know all the technical words they need for their profession, but should they eavesdrop upon a group of structural engineers discussing the construction of a bridge, they will probably find it difficult, if not impossible to follow the discourse.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's not enough to think you know what you mean when you use a word, you need to actually know it, because sooner or later your ignorance will be found out. Again I am not preaching to anyone from a pedestal. Everyday I have to reference a word or phrase I thought I knew from childhood, learning its meaning and its origins. I do it to learn about my work and about our history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I do this because I think what Wittgenstein said about language is true. Even if I have thoughts and ideas which transcend my limited language, what use is it to be unable to relate it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'd love to hear what you think.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yours in words,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You can contact the Filosofer at: xmphilosophy@gmail.com or twitter @xmphilosophy or on Facebook </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">www.facebook.com/xmphilosophyblog</span>Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-29286292689213536472013-12-08T22:27:00.001+00:002013-12-08T22:36:45.382+00:00Differentness<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It cannot have escaped your attention that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died on the 5th December. There were many subjects that I wished to discuss on this post, but I feel it would be churlish to not at least make mention of this one in honour of Mandela.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
I am sure many of you have read at least one or two articles written about him since his death. I am also certain that many of you have read and shared a plethora of his most famous quotations. I am not being derisory, I have done so as well. So, as respite for you, I will not be talking about Madiba (that's what his friends call him, if you hadn't heard a thousand times already.) Instead I will be discussing on this week's post the reasons for the need of a man like Mandela and the miracle of his leadership.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
We are, whether we know it or not, at an interesting point in the continued development of our species. We stand at a precipice, a tipping point, a place where see meets saw (or where teeter meets totter.) It is the result of discussions, like the ones we will have regarding the upcoming topic as well as those to come, that will define the world as it is and as we would like it to be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I use the word species above quite deliberately, because we are a species. From the pygmy tribes in South-East Asia, to the behemoths of north America, we are one species, in the strictest sense of the word. All humans can procreate to produce viable (i.e. fertile) offspring. Yet if one examines the historical record of human's interaction with any other group of humans, it is not difficult to see that we have always differentiated between ourselves, usually with a view to annihilation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The history of man, is a history of genocide. The further removed from the history one gets, the more complete the genocides seem to be and more worryingly, how easily these atrocities are reduced to a few words so as to keep the narrative of some conqueror rolling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Entire civilisations came and went. Their stories and knowledge lost in the spilt blood of generations. Made to endure the <a href="http://thecarthaginiansolution.wordpress.com/about/"><span style="color: blue;">Carthaginian Solution</span></a> of tyrants, whose own names are forgotten to all but the most learned of historians.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
There was no nuance to the argument. They are different, whether it be their appearance, language, gods, traditions, laws, clothes etcetera. Therefore we are justified in taking their stuff and doing what we want to them. They are different. We are not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
As we move from ancient to modern times, we see that there has been no further improvement on the argument. Yes we sell it to each other using various subtleties, but the underlying feeling is always the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Our differences, however small, are the justifications for any and all of our interactions from benign to murderous. The differences we see prejudice almost all subsequent interactions. They are used to manipulate and guide us towards unsought paths, leading to outcomes undesired. It is easy and has been done since humans first walked this Earth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It has always been the harder task to convince us of our sames. Those who have come to us whether through divine intervention or just dumb luck, to remind us that we are brothers and sisters, have oft been derided, scorned, ignored or crucified.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The miracle of Mandela was that not that he survived his formative years, but that he then went on to do something almost unprecedented in human history. He made the different see each other as the same. Not equal, that's not going to happen for a long time yet. But the same enough to sit and listen to each other's stories of cruelty, heartbreak and pain. The same enough to reconcile their differences and despite many flaws, try to build a country for all to live in. A country where all voices are heard, before the judgement of sight is imposed upon thought.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
That was his miracle. That is how I will remember him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Yours in thought,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
the Filosofer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A short one this week. Not heavy on the specifics either. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or any other topic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can contact the Filosofer at: xmphilosophy@gmail.com or twitter @xmphilosophy</span></div>
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Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-58805964227587284072013-12-01T13:30:00.001+00:002013-12-08T22:36:25.295+00:00Daddy Cool Part 1<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It has been nearly one year since I became a parent. It has been a rewarding and emotional experience for me and my wife. I'm sure that many of you who have children can relate to that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Ever since I've been a parent though, one thing has struck me as unusual. I don't know why I didn't expect it, perhaps I never really thought about it until I was made to. Why is there still so much disagreement on how to raise children? I was genuinely astonished. Think of any aspect of child rearing and I can find you at least two if not more, conflicting ways to do it. From breast-feeding to schooling and everything in between. It is a source of continued and sometimes quite vicious debate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Surely, I thought, there must be some consensus? Something we must all agree on? I suppose it depends how you define "all." As nation states we have laws governing the minimum standard we expect for our children's treatment, but I don't need to tell you that the "minimum standard" is also highly variable across the globe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
As someone who is very much interested in history, I thought I'd delve there and see if I could make at least some sense of it. Not an easy task, because there is a genuine dearth of information re children in history, when compared to adult men and women. Children genuinely are the silent players in history, rarely mentioned but just as effected by historical events.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I feel it is important at this point to warn you. Some of what I will be presenting in this weblog post is uncomfortable in the very least and downright sickening at it's worst. That is my experience at least and I have a strong stomach and a healthy perspective. I will try and leave out the gratuitousness as much as I can. Yet I feel it is important that we examine our history fully, including the truly perturbing aspects, if we are to understand where we are today and the direction we are heading in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
There is a professor of history in an American University, that each year challenges his students to find him evidence of parenting techniques prior to 1850, that if practiced today, would NOT end in prosecution for the parent. To date not one student has managed this. Quite remarkable when you first hear it, but as soon as anyone picks up a book relating the story of children throughout human history, it becomes evident to see why. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Let's start near the beginning...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Anthropologists that study the very earliest modern humans have been quite forthright about their findings and theories about how children were treated by their palaeolithic and neolithic elders. Infanticide was a common practice. Sometimes the tribe could not sustain another one of their number due to environmental reasons and usually the children were the first to suffer rejection from the collective. The youngest would go first and if necessary the next youngest and so on until the tribe was left with only sexually mature adults. It made sense to them. Children weren't useful and actually reduced overall survival, in times of hardship. It was a brutish, harsh existence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Cannibalism seems to feature quite a lot also in the fossil record. People ate people. Kids are people too and easier to catch from opposing tribes. And it would seem that the vast majority of those eaten would have been children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fast forward to the ancient Mediterranean. It is a matter of historical fact that the civilisations of and around the Mediterranean used children for sexual gratification, some younger than my son is now. Reading the primary sources for this era makes one question the humanity of these people. It's easier to see them as somehow alien and unrelated to us today. It's much more difficult to try and understand their reasoning and psychology. It makes one ask deeply disturbing questions about themselves and humankind in general. It's also easy to forget that the adults that would do these things to children, were once children themselves and almost certainly were treated in a similar fashion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
There was no religion that prohibited such behaviour, no damnation culturally for it. To all at the time, it was normal. So normal in fact that when one reads the primary sources describing these behaviours it's as if they are talking about the weather. The history of General, then later Emperor Tiberius is full of sickeningly graphic accounts of what today would be considered paedophilia of the worst kind, but in the history is related as if he's a mild alcoholic. Or the works of Petronius Arbiter, a friend to Emperor Nero and satirist whose "Satyricon" is a romance featuring young boys.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I'm not picking on the Romans either, because there is plenty of evidence that such practices were widespread, from Carthage to Iona, Assyria and Greece. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what of the the Christian world? Surely the introduction of an increasingly moralistic world view coupled with a fear of eternal damnation if not at least being a pariah, would stem the suffering of children?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Then were there brought unto him little
children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples
rebuked them. But Jesus said, "Suffer little children, and forbid
them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."<br />
Matthew 19:14</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So Christ was for children being included in society and taught that one must be innocent and childlike in the presence of God to understand and be incorporated into the Kingdom of Heaven. That's my interpretation anyway, based on this and several other aspects of Christ's words as recorded in the New Testament. But the realities of Christian Europe in the Dark to Middle Ages, much as some would argue today, were far removed from Christ's message.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
From around 300 - 1300 AD the spread of the Christian message did little to dissuade the practice of infanticide. It did however make vogue the custom of abandonment, often at the steps to a church or monastery. Children became subject to new dogmas and so in addition to the murders and rapes and regular beatings, came religiously inspired violence. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Children were described as "changelings" if they were somehow physically deformed or mentally deficient. Physical and mental disability aside, St. Augustine said some children as "suffer a demon," and are "changelings" if they merely cried too much and needed to have "the devil beaten out of them." Death was not an uncommon occurrence during these of demonic exorcisms</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Babies were swaddled and bound for years. The belief being that children's limbs could potentially become evil-shaped if left loose, or they could tear off their ears, scratch out their eyes, break their limbs or touch their genitals. The infants were often tied to chairs all day, lest they crawl on the floor "like an animal."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Aside from the physical aspect of the children's treatment at the hands of their guardians, is the plethora of psychological tricks and strategies for creating the kind of behaviour deemed necessary for the development of a good person. Stories from eastern Europe to the colonies in the Americas are abound with such practices. Children were sometimes literally scared to death.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
In Europe, when a public execution was to occur, a special area right at the front of the crowd watching, was reserved specifically for children. They were made to stand and watch the condemned as the various charges were read and the appropriate punishment meted out. Once the execution was ended, the children were then beaten, severely. This was not a punishment, but a lesson. That lesson was, "Remember this day."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
This sort behaviour, as well as countless other forms of what can only today be described as torture, persisted as necessary for well over a thousand years. Generation upon generation meeting out the same brutal judgements upon the next.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
From 1500 AD until 1750 AD, children were given a slight reprieve from the physical punishments, but sexual exploitation was still rife. To understand how widespread this was, one must know that even the royal princes and princesses, heirs to the throne, were not exempt from this. The practices that occured are so utterly repellent I don't want to describe them here, but for those who are curious what makes me so squeamish, I will link to various historical source websites at the end.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Around 1750 came the newly formed study of Child Psychology. One of the earliest proponents of this new field was a German writer called J. Sulzer wrote in one of the first books dedicated to child-rearing,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>These first years have, among other things, the advantage
that one can use force and compulsion. With age children forget everything they
encountrerd in their early childhood. Thus if one can take away children’s
will, they will not remember afterward that they had a will…</i>[sic]<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[it is necessary]<i> to drive out willfullness from the very
beginning by means of scoding and the rod…<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">[it must begin]<i> in the child’s first year.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Versuch von der Erziehung und Unerweising der Kinder </i>(Attempt
at the education and instruction of children)<i> 1748</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was generally the mindset for most of the child psychologist that were adhered to by parents from across Europe. Even today there are high profile proponents of such forms of child-rearing, maybe not so much the physical aspect, but the psychological aspect certainly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Change in attitudes on how to raise children has been exceedingly slow over the past few thousand years. The idea of parental "love" for the child seems to really be an invention of modern times and not in ingrained, hard-wired, immutable and inalienable feeling that I and many others today experience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But before we start judging our ancestors too harshly, we must remember that context is easily lost with hindsight. Not that I'm making excuses, but it is important to keep context in mind whenever history is discussed, especially such a bleak and sinister aspect of it. We must never forget that these people, in the most part, did not consider their behaviour as abhorrent, but actually beneficial.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It should also be considered that, despite the deaths meted out by adults on children, for whatever reason, the greatest killer of children, even today, is disease. Thousands of pathogens, unchecked by antimicrobials and immunisations, took the vast majority of infants and children before they were five years old. The average ages of our ancestors is so low, not because people died at 25, it's because so many died before 5. If you were one of the lucky ones to survive up to your fifth birthday, chances were you'd live a good few decades after that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Imagine the psychological strain that would put on a parent. There are many stories recounting the devastation that disease wrought on individual families. One that always wrenches my soul when I think of it, is the story of a pilgrim family in Maine, late 17th Century, where a husband and wife had thirteen children, not one of which survived beyond adolescence. Imagine having to bury every child. Imagine thirteen pregnancies, thirteen labours, thirteen illnesses, thirteen last rites and thirteen funerals, all for your own children.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
That is just one family, in the history of humanity there are many more whose stories go untold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Is it any wonder that perhaps parents didn't attach too strongly to their children? It is considered today that one of the most soul-destroying events for a parent, is the loss of a child. Imagine if almost every parent you knew had lost one if not multiple children to death and disease. How different would your outlook be then?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It is also worth remembering that all of the terrible things done to children throughout history, still occur to this day. Rape, torture, kidnapping, slavery and murder. We may be much more advanced technologically speaking, but there are those who are still very much mired in the darkest corners of the human psyche.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
So, the fact that there is no concensus on child-rearing is because raising children without fear of death and with genuine parental love, is a relatively new phenomenon in the human experience. And it is still not universal amongst humans, the reasons for which we will discuss in Part 2 of Daddy Cool. It won't be the next blog post I do. I think I'll need a little breather after this one.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I'd love to hear what you think on this and any other subject,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Yours in thought,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
the Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Thank you for making it through that, I commend your sticktoitivness. Here are some links for you, should you wish to look deeper into todays subject matter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.childhistory.org/"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">History of Children</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Children and Youth in History</span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.psychohistory.com/"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Association for Psychohistory - the science of historical motivation</span></a></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Suggested reading:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The History of Childhood by Lloyd deMause (Can be found in HTML format on link 3)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A History of Childhood by Colin Heywood</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Childhood in the Middle Ages by Shulamith Shahar</span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can contact the Filosofer at: xmphilosophy@gmail.com or twitter @xmphilosophy</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-58082997064579577002013-11-22T12:13:00.001+00:002013-12-08T22:36:07.646+00:00Moirai Vicar?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Do you believe in Fate?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It isn't a question that one can answer quickly without seeming zealous. Say yes immediately and you may be considered a fundamentalist, a person whose belief structure is so unshakable they may consider killing themselves and you to prove it. Say no immediately and you may be considered too logical, emotionless, Vulcanoid (or Spock-like). A person so rooted to reason and what they believe is science that until a phenomenon is measured, studied, peer-reviewed and has become part of the middle-school curriculum, it isn't even worth being entertained as even whimsical.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I think that most people fall somewhere along the continuum between these antipodes. Many of you may have heard of, or indeed read to works of a psychologist named Carl Gustav Jung. He first described the term Synchronicity. This essentially translates to a Meaningful Coincidence. Many people today make their whole life's work about this term and it is prevalent in prestigious publications as it is in the most ludicrous of pseudo-science. Synchronicity is what many people think of today when they talk about subjects such as fate or destiny.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Before I show my colours on the subject I'd like to relate a story which I feel informs the debate in many ways.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It's about a man. A man whose story and actions influenced the history of the twentieth century and by extrapolation the world we see around us today, arguably more than any other. Yet I'd wager that the vast majority of the people reading this would not know his name.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
His name was Gavrilo Princip and he killed two people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The story begins in Sarajevo, in a bar. It's around early spring 1914. Fifteen or so young men, no older than 19 or 20, were sitting around a table. Their minds and mouths stirring with nationalistic fervour. These young men, with Princip in their number, were Serbs. They wanted more than anything else in life, to free their brethren, whether sought or unsought, from the tyranny of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and form a Pan-Slavic state. As they sat in this bar, under the influence of a heady concoction of alcohol and patriotism, a co-conspirator walks into the room and places a package from an unknown sender on the table. Inside the package a sole newspaper clipping. On that piece of newspaper was an announcement that Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">, </span>heir presumptive<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"> to the </span>Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were to visit Sarajevo. The article went on to specify the date, time and crucially the parade route the Duke's open-topped car was to take.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The Duke and his wife were well aware that this was a dangerous trip. After all the Duke's uncle, Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, had an assassination attempt on him by the Black Hand, a Serbian Separatist group, on his last visit to the region. Security was on alert. Nonetheless on the 28th of June 1914, Princip and his coterie lined up and waited for their chance. Unfortunately for them, relatively early on in the parade, one of their number ran out from the crowd and threw a bomb (essentially a kind of hand grenade) at the motorcade. The bomb hit the Duke's car and fell underneath the following vehicle before going off. Twenty or so people are seriously injured, the bomber tries to kill himself with an out-of-date cyanide pill after shouting pro-Slavic slogans. The pill fails and he runs into a nearby river to drown himself, but the river is too shallow. He is arrested and dragged off for interrogation. The parade is over. Gendarmes fill the street. The chance to make history for Princip and his friends, has gone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Princip fades away from the scene, despondent and incensed in equal measure. He makes his way to his favourite restaurant for some food and a drink.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Meanwhile the Archduke and His wife are taken to a place of safety and make a complaint to the Mayor. After a remarkably restrained discussion in light of the circumstances, the Duke and his wife, bravely, decided to stay in Sarajevo and visit the injured. This was despite protestations from his bodyguards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
So the party, now bolstered with extra security including some aristocrats, set off for the hospital. Only the driver of the Duke's car is unfamiliar with the roads around Sarajevo. He makes a mistake and turns down the wrong road. After being informed of the error he panics and tries to reverse the car. This was a car in 1914 and at that time cars weren't especially sophisticated, though their occupants usually were. Reversing was not a simple matter and could often cause the cars to stall, which meant a long time trying to restart the engine. That is exactly what happened. The car, its occupants and the entourage are now sat still in the street.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
At this point Gavrilo Princip exits the restaurant he was just reconciling himself in and sees this scene before him.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
He is only five feet, or 1.5 meters away. The occupants and the car were slightly below him on the street. The Archduke was wearing a light blue jacket and hat which was adorned in bright green feathers, his wife Sophie, was all in white, with matching parasol and hat. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
What must Princip have been thinking in that exact moment when he sees this, as he pulled his pistol from his coat pocket?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
He took aim. He fired twice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
At this point I will defer the story to Lieutenant Colonel Count Franz von Harrach, the Duke's bodyguard:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /><span lang="EN-US">"As the car
quickly reversed, a thin stream of blood spurted from His Highness's mouth onto
my right cheek. As I was pulling out my handkerchief to wipe the blood away
from his mouth, the Duchess cried out to him, 'In Heaven's name, what has
happened to you?' At that she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the
car, with her face between his knees.</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US">I had no idea
that she too was hit and thought she had simply fainted with fright. Then I
heard His Imperial Highness say, 'Sophie, Sophie, don't die. Stay alive for
the children!'<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-size: small;">At that, I seized the Archduke by the collar of his
uniform, to stop his head dropping forward and asked him if he was in great
pain. He answered me quite distinctly, 'It's nothing!' His face began to twist
somewhat but he went on repeating, six or seven times, ever more faintly as he
gradually lost consciousness, 'It's nothing!' Then, after a short pause, there
was a violent choking sound caused by the bleeding. It was stopped as we
reached the [</span>Governor's<span style="font-size: small;"> Mansion]."</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
It's difficult, for me at least, to read those few lines, spoken by the nearest eyewitness to the deaths that set the world on fire. That is because it brings into sharp focus the terrible reality of the murder of a husband and wife. A father and mother. Whoever they were, in the end they were just two people, dying together through an act of violence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
That murder was the spark that ignited the Great War. That war saw the deaths of 37 million people. It marked the end of Multi-Polar Europe, with the dismantling of the old Empires.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Five years to the day of that murder, 28th June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The Treaty is cited as the originator of the vehement upheaval and radical politics that engulfed central Europe, culminating in rise of Nazi Germany and a Second World War. That war is estimated to be the bloodiest conflict in Human history with a death toll up to 72 million, including the attempted annihilation of Jews, Gypsies and anyone unfortunate enough to be labelled as "defective" by the Nazi hierarchy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
That war also demonstrated the absolute folly of extremist political ideology, whilst simultaneously ushering in an era of Cold War. A war fought by proxy and essentially over an economic model. Yet this war lead to an arms race which threatened, in perception at least, if not in actuality, world wide nuclear extinction. It also lead to a space race, which lead to the Apollo missions and contemporaneously the International Space Station.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The Cold War also lead to the formation of groups such as the Mujahaddin, some of which would later become al-Qaeda, and so the narrative of perpetual violence careers through to the present.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
I find it hard to blame Gavrilo Princip for all of this. Partly because I think that if someone were to use a time-machine and showed the consequences of his actions to him he would not have done it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I also think I don't want to blame Princip, because it is a rather unnerving realisation to apportion such blame to one man. That the action of a single individual could set in motion a sequence of events that literally changed the world. All with the pull of a trigger, nearly one hundred years ago.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Gavrilo Princip died of Skeletal Tuberculosis in 1918. He was 23 years old.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Princip's story is indeed a fateful one. So many factors had to come together to make possible the one event that define his life and that of so many others. He was the spark indeed, it seemed that he was destined to be so. He wasn't the architect of the vast industrial militaries, squaring off against each other. Nor was he responsible for the failing diplomacy of the old Empires. A diplomatic web so intricately designed by Bismark that only he could unravel it without damaging it, but he had already lost his position by this point after falling out with the German Kaiser. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
The war was coming anyway. It just needed an excuse and Princip unwittingly provided it. He was a young man at a time where he felt the only thing left for him and his people was revolution. Freedom from an old world tyranny and the right to self-determinism (pun intended.) He was and still is revered by some as a Serbian hero. Up until 1992 the place where he stood was marked by embossed foot-prints until they were destroyed by war. The spot still has a plaque commemorating his actions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Synchronistically I am reminded whilst writing this of another historical figure whose assassination is probably the most talked about and theorised. John F. Kennedy once said, at speech in the Whitehouse 1962, about Soviet run eastern European countries,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; line-height: 19px;">"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span>
Perhaps if the Crown Heads of Europe were privy to such thought, they would have seen the French Revolution as a harbinger for the coming turmoil to come amongst their occupied lands. But it's all speculative. We are where we are now in history, not where we would like to be. The story of Princip and that portentous day is part of our history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
What would have happened if he didn't do what he did? Well, you'd have to ask the Fates.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I'd love to hear what you think, until next time,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
the Filosofer</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
-----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can contact the Filosofer at: xmphilosophy@gmail.com or twitter @xmphilosophy</span>Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-74410344048666627032013-11-16T23:00:00.001+00:002013-12-08T22:35:43.625+00:00What's up doc?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
You didn't think I'd leave you with nothing to contemplate did you? Here's a quick post to keep you going </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Have a read of this:</span><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24967230" target="_blank">Doctors and nurses may face jail for neglect</a></span></h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For those who don't know, I happen to be a doctor. Not a Doctor of Filosofy (to my eternal shame), a Medical Doctor. Suffice to say that many of my friends and colleagues are doctors and nurses and this news has set my social media news feeds aflame. It seems they are none too happy with the way things are being portrayed in the news media for public consumption. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
I must say I'm okay with doctors and nurses being held accountable for wilfully neglecting patients. I may be high minded but I feel we in the medical profession must act in a certain way. Both doctors and nurses are held to a very high standard and so they should be. And so it is. Both doctors and nurses are accountable for everything they do, not just to their patients and relatives, but to each other and professional bodies which have continually raised their oversight for the sake of clinical excellence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
However, I am as displeased with this news as any one of my fellows. The reason for this displeasure is the origin of this suggested legislation. It's origin, as with all legislation comes from politics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
For a doctor, the most heinous personality trait is dishonesty. It is genuinely intolerable. Anyone can make a mistake. In our profession a mistake can mean morbidity or mortality. Lives can be changed in an instant. This means we should be held to account.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
For a politician, dishonesty is not only tolerated, it seems to be lauded at times. Politicians seem generally immune to accountability. Not if they've done something saucy, oh no, then the sordid details of their affairs and chemical dependence is splashed all over the place. But being held to account for the promises they break, the backs they stab and the expenses they steal out of the pockets of every tax paying citizen of the UK, no, not then. Not to mention the undeclared conflicts of interest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
So now we get to the nub of the issue. Why is this happening? Why are doctors and nurses so upset? Why are the politicians, trying to pass seemingly reasonable legislation having such a backlash from professions used to such accountability already?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br />
Perhaps it is because people in those professions are reaching tipping point. We have spent our lives working for a service we believe in, slowly whittled down, run at overcapacity and mocked for even trying. All the while vultures circle the stricken body of the NHS, waiting to pick off the juiciest, most profitable bits. The only reason the service still runs is because of the very doctors and nurses this legislation targets. These are compassionate people who understand that if the service doesn't run, the people who suffer most are the sick and the dying.</span><br />
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As for the general public, a picture of ineptitude is being painted. Thankfully in the most this portrayal is seen for what it really is, an illusion. Yet slowly public opinion is being steered towards an iceberg called "NHS Not Fit For Purpose." I try to warn those outside the system, if you think it's bad now, doctors making clinical decisions with no fiduciary impulse, just wait until an insurance broker does.</span><br />
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We are at a precipice. If the NHS goes, it's gone forever. Forever. It will never come back. Even if someone wanted to, there is no way it could be restarted, it would just cost too much money. Your National Insurance payments would continue, of course, you're not going to get that back. That money would be immediately earmarked for other projects.</span><br />
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We are incredibly privileged having a NHS. Ask anyone you now from the USA, or Africa or anywhere really (excluding perhaps Scandinavia.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So what can we do about it? Well, I would say let's start with honesty. Let's be honest about our failings as people and as a service. Let's demand honesty from our politicians. And how about a little more honesty from the news media? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Am I asking too much? Perhaps. I'd love to know what you think.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yours in thought,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you would like to contact the Filosofer direct your emails to xmphilosophy@gmail.com</span></h4>
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Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346622067274182230.post-20297765781108703252013-11-16T21:37:00.000+00:002013-11-16T21:37:24.072+00:00Introduction to Xtra-Medium Philosophy<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My dear friends,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I would like to welcome you to my new (and only) blog. Many times people have asked me to write one and I have too quickly dismissed it. As many of you know, I have the propensity to occasionally lament the state of this or that, provide a little insight and then fade to black. Perhaps age and the ever encroaching realisation of a life misspent has prompted this urge to make manifest the myriad of thoughts and ideas re life, the universe and everything into and onto a blog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So why Xtra-Medium Philosophy? Odd title to a weblog I grant you. Doesn't really give much away as to the content and that is how I want it to stay. This endeavor is really about what I think and I think about a lot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here you will find contemplation on various topics, modern and ancient, science and religion, the mundane, high-strangeness as well as everything in between. I am also open to suggestions from you on topics you would like to have Filosofised.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yours in thought,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the Filosofer</span><br />
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If you would like to contact the Filosofer direct your emails to xmphilosophy@gmail.com</h4>
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Filosoferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13876023536481930193noreply@blogger.com0